To follow up on the facilities, do we have a comprehensive list of school buildings...

Does anybody have an idea--maybe, Ms. Baker, you could testify on this because it seems like we could--one of the great accomplishments of this hearing, Mr. Chairman, would be if we could explore with you all, the experts, a streamlined…

there is no reason that the banking community in the District of Columbia... can't establish a new and different way to lend money for the establishment of schools.

Today, I am pleased, Mr. Chairman, that you have agreed to hold this hearing today on charter schools.

We are vigorously pursuing this incubator concept and we want to work with the mayor's office, which has given tremendous leadership.

I just want to say a general thank you for the extraordinary work that each of you has done against great odds.

And a mere $4.5 million or even 6 or 7 million dollars won't do. Sometimes, it is a $20 million price tag, or sometimes more than that?

We need to create venture capital funding.

I mean, you can either pay for it up front, residential in school, or you can pay $50,000 a year for residence in prison.

What we need to be able to do is we don't have the money to get audits.

Thank you all. As I said as you all sat down, I again just congratulate you for your really extraordinary, extraordinary efforts.

During this time, we, as a Nation, take the time to reflect on and celebrate one of the fastest growing innovative forces in education policy, the charter school.

I appreciate those comments and, of course, acknowledge the work that we have done together along with many other members of both the House and the Senate to improve public school choices for residents in the District.

I really do want to thank all of you for what you are doing.

I give support to Thurgood Marshall and SEED, and so does the chairman, and attention and support to Mr. Domenici's school because what you are doing is pretty terrific and it is working and it is showing us the way.

It is just not moving quickly enough for all of us, and so part of this meeting today is to grasp what is working.

Well, I would say the question for the community is, having been shown success which you all are showing against the odds, extraordinary success, how do we as a community reward your success.

How many are on that list? Does anybody know?