this is pretty concerning and scary to me. this graph shows as kids take more -- as kids take more and more courses in math, what percentage of them are ready to go into credit bearing college math courses which in this case is college algebra. we are seeing is the kids who take more than 4, they are more ready than kids who do not but lookcore, they are more ready than kids who do not but look at the number of courses these kids have to take. it is five years before 3-quarters of our students are ready to go into a college algebra course. 4-1/2 years of math, 25 years ago, when a nation at risk was published, there was an implied promise to our nation's use that

if you took a core curriculum in high school, years of english, three use of english, social studies, you would be ready for post secondary education. ..

>> it continues to amaze us at act every year. this year, we have 30% of the kids who have take epiphany the act who are still not taking the right nuers of courses in high school. that's the first step. the next step is to take the ght kinds of core courses and we'll talk a little bit more about that, but more importantly, those core courses need to be aligned. they need to be aligned with college and career readiness. it's very, very important that we help teachers identify what really matters in their courses for college and career readiness. not all of what they're teaching is necessary for success after high school. these are very hard decisions, but they're very clear ones.

that we need to make sure that alignment is directly lated from what we teach to what they need when they go on to post secondary education for success. our research is also clearly shown we need fewer, clearer, an more rigorous standards. every three to four years, we conduc a fat curriculum survey and what do we hear from teachers? by gosh, i can't teach all of this. i don't have enough time in the year to teach the standards i'm expected to teach. we simply have to focus on the fewer, they need to be clearer and they need to reflect the rigor to make sure the connection between what they're learning in high school and what they'll need in post secondary education and work force transition is made. and finally, we have to think about the next bit of the hard work. we've been focusing on standards. we need to be focused on aligned assessments beings but we absolutely, without a doubt,

have to get to the hard work of alined instruction, aligned professional work, in order to make core courses the most effective they can be at the high school level. so we -- when we looked at this data and we saw the amazing statistics from those kids who were -- doing what they thought they were supposed to, taking the right numbers of courses, trying to take a rigorous core being they're not get ago rigorous core, so we spent the lats several years working at rigor in greater detail, trying to find out what needs to be inside the courses to be effective for kids, for them to be able to leave an al genomics bra 1 and -- algebra1 and 2. we identified 10 schools in nine

states where -- that were producing college ready kids in phenomenal proportions, compared to what we saw nationally. so we kind of back mapped the process. we identified schools that were already being successful with their students. then we tracked what courses those students take. -- took, when they were in high school and we ended up spending time in those classrooms, trying to figure out what are they doing in these classrooms tt's actually having this phenomenal impact on college and career readiness of the students that -- who were taking those courses. so we ended up with 10 schools in 9 states, and by the way, one of the criteria for the selection of those schools is they needed to be serving at least 40% minority students or 50% low income kids, so we were not taking high flyg schools

without regarto the populations that they were serving and we studied 41 classrooms over a two to two and a half year period. what did we find? we found this. phenomenal consistency in these classrooms. they were hall focused on high level, college oriented con at the particular time, the teachers were no doubt effective and well qualified and by the way, they were using flexible pedigogal styles and that's surprising to any of you. time was a variable for those teachers. they we there early morning, they were there late in the evening and they were there on the weekends, to help the students who were fallg hinds. but -- falling behind. but what amazed us even more than that, was there was an incredible consistency among all the geometry teachers we studied, among all the ailing

bra 1 students. and by the way, it wasn't hundreds of standards and it wasn't a thick book that is five inches deep with important things kids ought to know. it was a relative small number of objectives that they he felt were absolutely critical and there was a very high degree of agreement among all those teachers in those classrooms. and what we did, when we started out, we kne what was going to work, because we started out with kids who had already taken t%ose courses and who were college ready, so the linkage between what was happening in high school proved to be, and let those students be, have the knowledge and skillets they needed to be successful in post-secondary education. a couple of years ago, we expanded this study. and we actually identified 400 additional high schools across the country, without regard to

the students they were serving. and when we identified these high schools, we did it on a -- using a couple of criteria. we wanted to make sure that we were finding high schools who were again preparing students at proportions way exceeding what we were seeing nationally, but in only two areas, so we were pinpointing schools that were having a huge sam-added when they were taking an algebra2 course over an algebra1 and we looked for high schools that were having a huge impact on their students who were taking a chemistry course over what the students were achieving just taking biology. and what happened when we identified these 400 schools? they represented a national cross-section of all schools in

this country. they weren't again a biased sample, or a particular special slice of high schools. they represented high schools of all kinds and characters across the united states, and again, what did we find? we followed their graduates, their high school graduates in to college. rates of post secondary enrollment and more importantly, they had significantly higher rates of kids staying in post secondary education. of after access. and when we looked at their benchmark status and how college ready were their students, their college ready students exceeded all act tested high schools by at least 10%. and those who were not ready for any credit bearing high school courses was reduced by nearly the same ount. what does this tell us? rigorous content is being taught

in this country. it is being learned by students, and they are being successful. in post secondary education and career. so we have good models and we need to learn from them. but we also, our research journey took us to another factor, and that was will a rigorous core always, if that's the only answer for success, with students and the answer is, absolutely not. so we looked earlier, we looked earlier in the middle school and said, how can we get more middle school students ready for rigorous core,ecause we don't know whether when kids finish eighth grade, are they going to be ready to handle a rigorous core. to if we improve of the quality and intensity of high school courses, are kids going to be ready for it? well, unfortunately, not yet.

our research that we released last december told us that fewer than 2 in 10 eighth grade students are on target to become college ready, in english, math, social studies, and science. fewer than 2 in 10 of our eighth grade students are ready to profit from a rigorous high school experience. more importantly, the research showed that if we can't -- if we don't get more kids up to a level of having a strong foundation of knowledge and skills by the end nf eighth grade, there's not a whole lot in the high school experience that's going to help them get back on target to be college ready. let's look at this graph. the top line of this graph, we took all kids, we followed a cohort from eighth grade to

12th grade, a cohort in the class of 2005, it was about a quarter of a million kids and by the way, we cross validated this with the class of 2006. we divided toes kids up into three groups. those who were on target to become college and career ready by the end of the 12th grade, where were they in eighth grade? to those kids were already in eighth grade. they were on target. they had reached a foundational level of knowledge and skills. then we looked at a second group. we defined a second group that had just missed that benchmark, in eighth grade by a little bit. one or two points on a 25-point scale and then we grouped those who had missed that benchmark by a significant number, greater than two points and that is the bottom line, so what does that graph tell us? and this is really important. this graph tells us that those kidsho were on target to become college ready in eighth grade, stayed on target by the

10th grade and were on target in fact when they got to the 12th grade on average. the group that just missed that benchmark by a hair, also missed the 10th grade benchmark and also missed the 12th grade benchmark, which means, they never could get back on target on average. and the lower group,hey made a little progress between 8th an 10th grade and then they flattened out. but there's one other sobering part of this story tha i need to share with you. these are kids that we were able to track, monitor, from 8t 8th grade to 12th grade. this group does not contain any dropouts. these are kids who finished high school. so near as we can tell, this may be a best case scenario. so what does all this mean? this research journey that we

have taken from readiness, looking at the relationship with success, what works, what doesn't appear to work, has led us to the initiative we're going to be talking about inest next day and a half. and it allows us to put our research in to practice and here's what we've learned. college readiness and career readiness, not a point in time, we all know that. it starts earlier and it's a process that we simply must intervene early, at least in upper elementary and middle school at the latest. and getting more kids on target to be college and career ready earlier is really, really important. it's also important that our college and career readiness standards be clear for every great. -- everglade and throughout this process -- every grade and throughout this process, and we must simply make the hard decisions and focus on essential knowledge and skillets, not the

bolus of everything that possibly could be taught and may be learned, but what's really important for kids to learn, to be ready for college, and in fact, succeed in college. we must monitor these kids. we've got to intervene earlier than we do and we simply must have an ongoing data monitoring and intervention system so we can help these kids. one of the reasons we have partnered with aci, with america's choice, is is because of the intervention strategies that they have used for years and years and years, and that research has shown works. and it's clear to us, that if we want to achieve our mission as a company, which is to help all kids become college and career ready, when they graduate from high school, and in fact, succeed in college and career after they leave high school, we simply must intervene early, and we must focus on the kids who

are falling off target as soon as they fall off target if we can. we also see the courses must be clear in high school about what's important. absolutely must focus on the essential knowledge and skills the kids really need to have in algebra2 and 1, and english 10. whatever the course is. let's be clear here. this absolutely at a course level must be aligned with college and career readiness and we also need to change our dialogue and our discussion. that the transition into high school is every bit as important as the transition out of high school. and we simply have no choice but get more kids ready for high school than we have been able to do today and be getting porch those eighth grade kids on target is absolutely a key point. so that's led us to rigor and

readiness and the essentials that we have found in our research leading to our partnership with america's choice has led to many of the same characteristics that judy has just discussed, our qualities of high performing countries, an what are some of those. high expectations, college and career readiness,, an aligned coherence system. let's just not talk about standards. we absolutely must talk about standards that are aligned to instruction, that is aligned to assessment, that is supported by a system of professional development and safety nets. for kids, and professional development for teachers and leaders. we simply must also expand access to high quality, core courses in high school, to all kids. not just those that have been

deemed college ready, but those who must become college and career ready fors to meet the competitive challenges ahead of us globally. we have got to educate all kids to these -- to a high level of college and career readiness. and along the way, we've got to evaluate our approximate we've got to inter -- progress, we've got to intervene and intervene with those kids who need safety nets now, not tomorrow and not with somebody else's problems, but today, and that is lieutenant absolutely essential, so in the next day and a half, we'll be talking about how we've taken this research and these principles that judy has focused on internationally and that we have found in our research as being essential for success in our country to prepare more kids to become college and career ready. our research says these are important, our research says it's being done, that it can be done, and that is what we're to

talk about in the next day and a half. so thank you very much. we look forward toalking with you more about the research and these qualities in the next day and a half. thank you. [applause] >> we know we've been very late for ourinal presentation but it's important and we're so pleased that we had secretary duncan and follow that zoom lens t%d to taking a look at what do we know about what works? and we've taken that from the international to the national perspective. this weekend, i was in -- last week rather,ists in minnesota and i had a chance to spend some time with four kids who were getting ready for school. so i bought one of my favorite books for them, "oh, the places you will go" by dr. seuss, and

about what if, what if we do this, that and the other? and i'm saying that, thinking about the what if's for us. just imagine, if, in this period of time, that we need to make the changes as huge as they are, what if we actually follow what we know worked? no question about it, it works. and what if we use all of the data that shows us how to navigate that journey? and what if we put together the opportunities for kids, for all kids to be able to get to the levels that we know that they can, and that we know we can guide them? i think that that's a good segue to the next discussion, but before i do that, i want to make sure that you don't have any burning questions that you'd

like to have addressed by judy and cindy? questions? ok. the reason why i think it's a good segue, is because doug is going to share with us the kinds of things that we need to do to answer the what if's. what if we were able to d the interventions and the supports for kids in middle school, and what do we know about what is causing them to lag behind? folks, i think really, if we work together and really, really focus over this next day and a half, i think that we will be able to go back to our districts and do some work that's even deeper than we had expected last week. doug? >> while he's doing that, let me share a little bit about his

background. doug i from john hopkins and he is its co-director, tell me the name of the program again. i don't have my notes in front of me. >> the center for the social organization of schools. >> well, i hope that hugh had a chance to reads some of his research and perhaps have been in any one of the wonderful presentations he's provided across its country, but i think you're in for awakening if you haven't. doug, thank you. >> it's really a pleasure to be here today, so the goal of today's symposiumúis to introduce you to practical solutions for increasing the college and career readiness of all your students. but of course, the very first step in helping a student become college and career ready is to help keep that student on a path that leads to high school

graduation. in other words, job one, in ensuring everyone is college and career readys to ensure that everyone graduates. without a high school diploma, the door to college and to most careers is completely closed. therefore, the focus of my talk is on what we need to do in the middle grades and the early high school grades to respond to student disengagement, so that we can keep more students on a path that leads to high school graduation and adult success. so i'll be talking a lot about what practical safety net that both judy and the others have talked about, see what that looks like in actual practice. i come to you today, not just as a research scientist, but also the operator of a non-selected poverty stricken parkside neighborhood of baltimore. thus i understand from an

educator's point of view, the practical challenges we face and the funding that we have, are all rest than what we need. -- all less than what we need. i spent the last 30 years of my life studying what schools serving higher poverty students populations can do in the middle grades and the high school grades to help students close their achievement gaps, and to equip and motivate the students to graduate from high school and to prepare for college. i must say that i'm delighted the dropout prevention has finally become a national priority. have you seen this recent research on the dropout crisis reported by america's promise? i think it's staggering. middle grade educators will play

a pivotal role in reaping president obama's goal of graduating all students from high school. students on a dropout path are very hard to rescue because they've struggled in the middle grades, have typically been held back one or more times, and have developed severe attendance and behavior problems. to solve this crisis, dropout prevention must begin in the middle grades when students' problems are less extensive and less severe and with there's still time to solve the problems gradually. working with the philadelphia education fund, bob and i folled several cohorts of philadelphia students from sixth grade all the way through one and one quarter years past the students' scheduled on-time graduation dates. so for instance, we'd take all 13,000 sixth graders in a particular cohort in philadelphia and follow them through and see how they did and one central question was how early in the middle grades could

we see clear signals that a student had fallen off the path to high school graduation and what were those signals? our goal was to find a small set of indicators out of the data that school systems already collect, that were both highly predictive of the student not graduating later and taken together, the indicators identified most of the future non-graduates. we found that sixth graders who failed math horenglish, or who had chronic poor attendance, attendance of 80% or less in the sixth grade, or had poor behavior as signaled by a suspension, whether out of school or in school, or by receiving a poor behavior grade on their final report cards, this was back in the days when philadelphia had behavior grades on the report cards, unsatisfy, satisfactory, or excellent.

if a student had any one of the four indicators, failing math horenglish, poor attendance or poor behavior, only 29% of the students graduated, even if you followed them through one and a quarter years past their expected graduation date. many people were initially shocked by these findings when we presented them for the first time several years ago. they were shocked that less than three out of every ten sixth graders ever graduated, but upon review of the find the findings. once a sixth grader demonstrates he does not have the knowledge, skill or motivation to pass math or english, unless someone effectively inter convenience, this is unlikely to change. in high poverty neighborhoods, home and community resources, as you know beings are often quite

limited. therefore, unless the school intervenes, with a sixth grader fails, the pattern of failure is likely to continue. similarly, sixth graders do not outgrow attendance problems or behavior problems without additional support from the school. unless the support is provided, the sixth graders are on a path that almost always leads to dropping out. this figure displays some of the data from the initial study in which we followed these 13,000 sixth graders. the green shows how many graduated on time, the small sliver of dark brown indicates how many graduated with one and a quarter extra years. we allowed the extra quarter of a year to take account of students who finished up their graduation requirements during th summer of -- with they were already one year past when you -- when they originally were

going to be on-time graduates. we replicated these findings in five additional districts. this is not something that is true, just to philadelphia, but in every district we studied, the same indicators of chronic attendance, poor behavior, course failures, are what predict early in the middle grades, students who will never graduate without intervention and in every district we've studied, it was possible to identify 50% to 60% of the eventual non-graduates early in the middle grades. knowing the abc's, its early warning indicators of attendance behavior and course failure is an important first step but we need to go beyond indicators to establish an effective early warning system that provokes effective p and timely interventions. to make headway in reducinghe

number of future dropouts, schools and districts need to be able to pay attention to the abc's of dropout prevention. they need to analyze their existing policies and practices. they need to discover that well meaning policies and practices are misguided and are actively pushing sdents off the graduation path. they also ll need to do the hard work of building consensus on picking a few challenging but doable dropout prevention goals and also reaching consensus on the main strateg strategies thae going to be followed in meeting those goals, but most important of all, schools with the help of their districts must create integrated school structures that feature an early warning and intervention system, used by each team of teachers in the school to detect students who are struggling, and are beginning to show early warning

signs and they need to connect those students with the supports they need. of course, such a system is most efctive when it's combined with implementation of effective whole school programs that prevents most students from developing these early warning indicators in the first place. i'm going to spend most of the rest of my time today sharing how one middle school in philadelphia, has worked with everyone to create an early warning in the early intervention system. before i tell you about their early warning system, i want to refer you to the graduation nation tool kit on our web site, that's also on the america's promise web site that contains lots of information on how to go about analyzing how your existing policies and practices might be placing students at dropout risk unnecessarily, and also gives you tips on building

consensus for the needed reforms. grant nation is an inter -- grad nation is an interactive guide book for districts and tools to use as they address their dropout problem. the dropout prevention model that we've been developing at the everyone graduates center is a public health type prevention model, with a strong primary foundation of whole school reform and a data driven, early warning system with tiered interventions, integrated directly into the school's everyday operations. our goal is to help districts and schools integrate many of the things they may already be doing into an effective dropout prevention strategy. at the base of the prevention model, are strong whole school programs which would prevent the majority of the problems in attendance, behavior, and course. these need to be combined with the early warning data driven

system, that identifies students who are not responding to the whole school programs and are even with strong programs in place, are still developing early warning indicators. then once you've identified the students, they first receive moderate intensity supports from the secondary level of interventions. these quick but focused daily shepherding efforts or targeted small group interventions are tried first. the third level of more expensive, more intensive, more clinical type of interventions, are safe for those who still continue to struggle, dven after receiving the secondary level interventions. or there are some students who from the very moment they're identified, it's clear that their problems are so extensive and so severe, that they clearly need the tertiary level of supports from the very beginning. let me just point out that this language of secondary and

tertiary level may sound familiar. it's the same framework used in response to intervention programs, and if positive behavior, interventions and support programs. so there are many parallels so what some of your schools are already doing. but what our model does is to put all it together into a single integrated model, rather than the fragmented approach that's unfortunately too common. so what we have is a prevention model that instead of just really one triangle is a pyramid, because you have the three levels, three tertiary levels, but you have them for behavior, you have them for course value and you have for attendance. you need interventions at all three levels for each of these early warning indicators. here's an overview of how a school might address attendance, behavior and course performance at each of the three levels. level one, the primary level, includes strong whole school

reforms and programs to draw students to come to school every day, to be hard working, positive members of the school community, and to succeed in the course work. effective whole school reform typically focuses on supporting and equipping teachers with the best standards based instructional programs and with curriculum specific job embedded professional development. you have can hear these themes from the earlier talks being repeated here. along with in-classroom coaching that helps the students -- that helps the teachers feel confident and effecacious in their ability to deliver high quality courses and makes both the students and the teachers look forward to coming to work each day. we have also need whole school programs that emphasize and reward attendance and that teach and model good behavior.

a whole school approach also means that there must be a structure to detect and respond to the first signs of poor attendance, behavior, or course performance. at level two, the secondary intervention level, we need structures that address the struggles that students are having, first at a less than one-tenth group level. one example in the core performance category is a feed for systematic extra help in math and reading. in many of your schools, you should have your best math teacher in a math extra help lab. five periods a day. previewing the content that's coming up in the students's regular math class, while at the same time working with the students to backfill some of the knowledge that they missed, that they need some of the prerequisite skills and we

need -- the best reading teacher in the building, running the savvy readers lab five periods a day, so students as one of their electives, who need that extra help for one week or 20 weeks, can come in and really make leaps forward in their literacy skills. another important intervention is to have more systematic targeted assistance for students who are having trouble understanding and completing their assignments. for so many of the students who fail a course, they're just not getting their assignments done or done well, but for many of these students, they don't need really expert help, they just need a little bit of help an encouragement and we'll talk about how we help a school recruit a second team of adults

to provide some of these kinds of supports that don't require a high quality teacher in order to move the student forward. and finally, level three is the school-based social workers, or outside social service providers, that come in to help deal with family issues that are often behind the really severe attendance and behavior problems if they're of the such that they're not responding to the less intensive interventions. of course, it's also where one-on-one tutoring comes in 0 for academic problems that aren't be successfully addressed in a math lab or a reading lab. what we're emphasizing in this model is that the integration of these components together something a key. what we've seen so many schools do is attempt to do little bits and pieces of this, often with multiple external programs that don't fit together coherently

and there's no one working to make them work together. these efforts are fragmented, too many students end up falling through the cracks and often a student has many of the right programs in place, the students who really need the help though aren't the ones who are participating in the programs. the talent development schools program from the everyone graduates center at johns hopkins university is currently working with several middle schools, and several high schools in several cities to implement this three tiered dropout prevention model. our partners in this effort are the pepsico foundation, city year, and communities and schools and the philadelphia education fund. we've come to call the model diplomas now, because it helps schools do now what needs to be done, especially in grades 6 b through 9 so more of the students will earn their diplomas and do time. the very first school to begin implementing this model was

feltonville school of arts an sciences in 2006. over the last three years, feltonville worked with us and the philadelphia education fund to create a teacher friendly early warning system and to develop a new team planning schedule that sets aside one of the team planning periods every he two weeks, from a meeting that's focused on discussing the students who are beginning to owe early warning system and on planning appropriate interventions for those students. so you see the interdisciplinary team, which has been the core of middle grades for a long time, is the core steering committee in a sense for making sure that the interventions are reaping the students who need them. the education fund helped the school find a part-time facilitator to lead these meetings, to take notes at the meetings so the teachers and social workers and others

participating could really focus on the discussion and we helped the school recruit a second team of adults to assist the teachers and staff in pviding timely support to all students. so the -- don't get me wrong. the team of teachers still plays a very key role in providing interventions, but there are certainly kinds of interventions that can really make a big difference to students, that up don't need a teacher to do . >> anyway, so -- and the goal here of course is to make sure that all students make it to school, behave appropriately and succeed in their course work. that fund worked closely with the school districto integrate the key early warning indicators into the district's data system. at the beginning of the school year, each interdisciplinary team of teachers is able to use the district data system to easily generate a report on the

students that they instruct. this slide is one example of such a support -- of such a report, except it replaces students' names with numbers and it shows data for only 12 of the 78 students that is served by this theme. but as you can see, the report indicates how many days each student was absent last year, how many negative behavior comments last year's teachers made concerning each student on the student's report card and what the student's final math and literacy grades were. in addition to these early warning indicators, other useful information is provided, including information on the proficiency levels students demonstrated on last year's statewide assessments. throughout thechool year, the team is able to generate followup reports that summarizes students' most recent attendance grades, behavior, comments and suspensions. to assist the team in providing targeted interventions, we

recruited a team of 15 city year core members to serve at the school. city year is the nation's largest americorps program and a leader in the national service movement. the core members are typically high school graduates or college graduates between the ages of 17 and 24 and they give a year of their -- a year of their lives to help change the world by working in these challenged schools. the core members provide moderate intensity interventions, including attendance monitoring, homework assistance, small group instruction, and help understanding and completing assignments. they also lead a variety of really engaging after-school activities. in addition, the school contracted with communities and schools for two full-time social workers, who coordinate the provision of intensive interventions to students and families. one works mainly with sixth

grade students and their families in an attempt to get the specialized intensive support to those students who need it the most early in the student's middle cchool career. the second social worker is the on-site coordinator. he works across grades six through eight to connect students and families to community and city services, and to integrate those serces effectively. there are about 721 students who attend feltonville's school of arts and sciences. just so you have a sense of the size of the school we're talking about. every two weeks, each team of teachers and the city year helpers assigned to that team meet with the program facilitator and the social services coordinator to review theata repor, and to supplement these data reports, with their own observations concerning student's current course progress and behavior.

the goal of each meeting is to discuss students horshowing an early warning indicator, or a precursor of an early warning sign, such as a student who is refusing to do assignments or has failed the last two quizs in math or english, or has been absent two or more days in the last two weeks. you can see warning signs that start to pop up even between the update of the end of the data reports. during the discussion, they decide which students are in need of intervention, and whether intervention is called for. this slide shows a glimpse of the spreadsheet that the program facilitator maintains for each student on the team that's discussed. you can see that student one began the school year with three of four warning signs. and showed evidence of continued struggle in these areas during the first months of the school year. so the team decided that interventions are needed.

to encourage better attendance, the team decided that the city year core member assigned to that student's home room would do a brief daily check-in with a student that involves greeting the students by name, welcoming her to school, or calling the student at home first period if the student is a no show. and encouraging that student still to come in, helping the student problem solve if there's some obstacles for getting to school that day. in addition to give the student a few reason for coming to school each day, the city superintendent was also assigned to go over the after-school opportunities available at the school and to personally invite the student to start attending one or more of these after-school activities. to support better behavior, the team mom neat the students for behavior education plan. after obtaining permission from the parents, the team set two or

three behavior goals forhe student the student carries a little scorecard with him from period to period, and concern points from meeting those behavior goals. the city intern is it the one who assigns the score for the period, because that intern is the home room buddy, follows that home room through the day and if the student earns enough points, let's say initially, there may be 80% of the possible points, why the student is able to select an after-school snack from the snack cabinet, it's a way of getting concrete pat on the back for having met the behavior goals for the day. of course, the student takes the scorecard home so that the family can also help the student celebrate if an appropriate way as the student keeps meeting the behavior goals. finally for this student, who has three of the four indicators here at the beginning of the year, the team asks the literacy

specialist to investigate the causes of the students's struggles in literacy. the team is a little puzzled, because there's a students who is reading at the fifth grade level, a sixth grade student in this particular case and on the state test at the end of the year, scored at the basic level proficiency on the reading test and so why the student is not paying attention in the literacy class, not doing well on the assessments in literacy class and so on beings even though it looks like they have a foundation of some basic skills, they often, you know, need to assign somebody to do some investigating to figure out what might be the appropriate intervention, because some -- sending a student to a savvy reader's lab, when it's not really a skilled deficit and it's more of a motivation hall deficit going on in the student's life is going to be counterproductive. the pilot work completed in

philadelphia shows that an early warning system with tiered interventions makes an immediate difference if reducing the number of middle school students who can continue to display chronic absenteeism, misbehavior or course failures and we're going to look at some data tables here in a hope, but let me -- moment, but let me first make clear the performance categories. students at feltonville were classified as off path, sliding off path or on path based on these definitions on this slide, so you are red or off path if attendance if your attendance was less than hate 0% of the days that you were there. you were off path in behavior if you got three or more negative behavior comments on your report card and you were off path in math or in literacy if you

received report card grade of f. you can see the yellow shows students who aren't quite off path, that can't be considered on path either, so a report card grade of d and 80% or fine 0% and green of course is the goal of the intervention system is to move students from red to yellow to green. this is an example of the bubble charts, that the philadelphia education fund has been creating to help feltonville summarize its progress in helping off path students. this particular chart follows the students who are identified as off path at the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year, because they received a feeling grade in math on their final report card in june 2008. these are the students of course that the team first arranged additional supports for in

mathematics fnl. 34 of the school's 271 students had this earning warning indicator in june 2008. as you can see, in the second column, by the end of the first marking period, over 65% of the students had improved, including 12 students who are now completely on track. this school is a school that has trimesters, so though only have three grading periods. of a the second marking -- after the second marking period, 70% of the original off path students had improved, with only seven of the original students still receiving f's in math. while this particular slide focuses on just one of the early warning indicators and covers just two-thirds of the school year, the next chart covers all four early warning indicators in the whole school year.

so each row in this chart is -- focuses on a particular one of the four early warning indicars. the size of the red circles in theirst column represents how many students had that early warning indicator at the start of the school year. based upon the prior year's data. as you go across a row, the three pie charts show how many of these students were still off path, or were sliding off path, or had reached on path in december and march and at the end of the school year in june. so in the first row, at the beginning of the school year, 44 students were flagged as attending school less tan 80% of the time -- than 80% of the time. as you can see the interventions and supports that the school offered, helped a majority of these students into the green or

yellow category during each marking period. of the 44 students who were off path, in june 2008, only 21 were off path during the last marking period, which ended on june 23. this is a 52% reduction in the number of stunts who were off path in this indicator. as you can see, there were 242 students who had an off path indicator in behavior at the start of the school year. by the end of the school year, only 133 of these students were still off path. this is a 45% reduction in the number of these students. there were 35 students at feltonville who were classified as off path based on their math grades. only 60% of these students were still off path in june 2009 and 83% reduction. and finally, there were 25 students off path in literacy

based on their june 2008 literacy grades, only five of these students were still off path at the end of the school year and 80% reduction. what this slide doesn't show is some students who were on path at the beginning of the school year, slipped off path during the course of the year. these were mainly students who had a rough landing in sixth, seventh or eighth grade, en though they had not displayed early warning signs at the end of fifth, sixth or seventh grade. of course, the team discussed these students and arranged interventions for them as well, especially starting in december, after the first report cards came out. unfortunately, i don't have a chart like this for that. i haven't seen the data summary for these students, but robert, my colleague, tells me he that the data show that the school watts also quite successful in helping these students move from

red in december or march, to yellow or green by the time the school year end on june 23r june 23rd. and if you want to contact me, i'm thinking about a month, -- in about a months, we'll have the more comprehensive set of end of year report tables available. but from what i hear, the data looks very -- that they were equally successful for those students who are identified in december and march. now, of course, what the school is less he successful in, there's a lot of mobility in the school, a lot of students arriving from puerto rico and so on, even late in the school year, for students that arrived even after march, you're less successful in mobilizing and doing sething to bring them back on path quite that fast and of course, those students will be at the top of the rater's

careen in the fall, -- screen in the fall, arranging appropriate interventions from day one and the new school year, if they're still there. in some, the folks at feltonville as you might imagine are quite pleased with the progress they've made so far in helping students back on to the graduation path but they see that even more progress is needed. as you might imagine, the teachers are especially interested in doing some whole school reforms focused on eventing problem behavior. for example, in march, if you look at the march report card data, they had 300 students who received three or more negative comments on the report cards. the school would like to prevent such high levels of miss behavior in the future by adopting a schoolwide positive behavior support program next year that features a few positively stated rules and expectations that are taught schoolwide.

provides reinforcements to students for following the expectations, provides consistent minor consequences for infractions, and the school's ranking professional development and technical assistance to help them launch such a program next year. my conclusion is that we can significantly increase graduation rates in our nation, by responding whenever students display chronic absenteeism poor behavior or course failure. to be effective, our responses must be built upon a strong primary foundation of whole school reform, that includes an early warning systems, and is accompanied by a variety of tiered interventions. these interventions must begin by sixth grade, when the warning signs first appear, because modest interventions then prevent the need for more intensive and costly interventions later. we are now seeing scores of

schools nationally who he embraced this task. these schools are beginning to demonstrate the dropout prevention isoable. to does require schools to make changes and to use their resources wisely, and with creativity, and to recruit volunteers and public service organizations to help them accomplish this task. most of all, dropout prevention is an inherantly rewarding task that yields immediate and future payoffs, both to our schools and to our societies. do we have time for a couple questions? >> yes, a couple questions. [inaudible] >> hi. given the importance of assigning more times to task and getting out of the box of having

a standard time period happen changing standards as we heard was beneficial earlier in the seminar, than why is it such a small sliver of studentsho graduate when they're given that extra year? on page 4. >> right. that's a good question, that i'm not sure that i have the answer to. but i suspect that what's happening is that for many of the students who are sticking with school and trying and so on, they're still so way behind. if you follow what happens to students when there's no interventions in the middle grades, as they start showing the early warning indicators, the good news is that as a sixth grader, the typical sixth grader has only one of the early warning indicators, but it's unusual for them to have problem behavior and attendance problem

and failing math and failing english, but if you don't intervene then, by eighth grade, by ninth grade, most of these same students have all the indicators or three of the four indicators and -- so they get further and further behind and so they -- what it boils down to is they just get discourage disi think, so many of the students even with the extra time, what they learn is that the extra time is not going to be enough to meet hall the requirements for them. perhaps because the interventions didn't start soon enough for them. i'm hoping that you wi see much different charts in the future now that -- i'm pleased that so many districts have woken up to the fact of the importance of data systems, and early warning systems and looking at indicators and doing something about them. if you start doing interventions in the middle grades, i think you're going to have much better outcomes, having a struggle in

sixth grade isn't going to be nearly as pdictive in the future as it is currently. forequestion? or a comment? >> discussion topic. >> ok. please join me in thanking doug macivers. thanks. :

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> have conservatives failed to gevoters to the polls over immigration and other such issues? that is the question center for american progress tries to answer at noon today. c-span will have live coverage of the discussion over what is called cultural war issues. afghanistan's election commission says president hamid karzai and top challenger abdallah abdallah have 40% of the nationwide vote for president, 10% of ballots in. certified results won't be made public until mid or late september. this afternoon, the brookin

institution hosted discussion of the elections. c-span will have live coverage at 3:00 eastern. congress continues its summer break this weekend members are continuing town hall meetings. this evening, live coverage as virginia democrat james moran talks constituents in the washington d.c. suburb of preston joined by former democratic national committee chairman howard dean at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> go inside the supreme court to see the public places and those rarely seen spaces, hear directly from the justices as they provide their insight about the court and the building. the supreme court, home to america's highest court. for the first sunday of october on c-span. >> nasa will try again to launch the shuttle discovery on a mission to the international space station, after midnight tonight. late-night thunderstorms caused last night's scheduled liftoff to be delayed. the space shuttle will carry 7

astronauts as well as thousands of pounds of space station supplies. a look at space exploration including a psible human landing on mars over the next 45 minutes. nasa scientists explain some of nasa's projects in the works. it was part of recent mars society seminar in washington d.c.. >> the best way to introduce our next speaker without running through the very long list of accolades and accomplishments is to tell little anecdote, but teaching ment. i am a lawyer for nasa and some people wonder what lawyers do at nasa. one of the more interesting aspects of the praice is to give preventive advice in advance on whether or notur civil servants can accept awards and prizess for about organizations. many years ago now, i was introduced to john, had to do an analysis on whether or not he could receive a parcular award

from a particular institution. we look at particular standards in place, with the awards are given pursuant to written standards so there is no appearance of impropriety, pretty straightforward analysis. what chang are affects from time to time. we look regulations, government books. one of the examples listed in the ethics regulation, applicable governmentwide, i pointed out to john, at the time, the u.s. department of agriculture scientists could accept the nobel prize if offered. i thought after meeting -- after reading john's book, it is not out of the realm of possibility that someday we might do this for you and being the humble man that he is he explained to me those sorts of things take a long time, the nobel committee waits to see the impact of discoveries to see if they are legitimate. after stephen hawking called the results from the kobe spacecraft the greatest scientific results of the century, if not of all

time, it does give one pause, thinking perhaps this might actually happen. one day in 2006 i came into the office, my colleagues are jumping up and down and running down the hallway. john and his colleague, george smoot at berkeley, had won the nobel prize for work on the cosmic microwave background, one of a series of nobel prizes on that subject. we would like to think there more to come. it was a nice experience being in stockholm, sweden, in december. it is not really tour season. my friend and colleague, ed and i, were walng down the street, we walked into local people from stockholm, found out we were americans, say what brings you to stockholm at this time of year? be seriously looked at them and said the nobel prize. and interesting experience for that. without further ado, let me bring up my colleague and

distinguished scientists, no prize winner john mather. [applause] >> thank you for that lovely introduction. i remember seeing my construction every year saying it is all right to win the nobel prize, that is very nice but not going to happen. anyway, it did happen. it will take a few seconds to set up this computer connection here but it usually works. i am going to concentrate, you may have heard that i was going to talk about the cosmic back -- cosmic microwave background. i will thought you would want to think more about planets, life and a search for planets around other stars as well as the new telescope that we are working on, the james webb space telescope.

okay, the computer is coming alive. thisakes a moment to the sequence of events here. something appearing on the screen, i hope. something is happening. ta-d ta-dum! we have to make re the system is setup correctly first. is that good? that is not so good. we can get better pictures,

right? let's try that. okay, i think maybe we are ready to go now. there we go. okay. i want to talk about how we learn about our own history and about how we might learn more about it with telescopes. i will start off with some basic stories that i have been hearing about the earth. these are not my own work, obviously. i work on thcosmic microwave background for a long time, and mario has explained about the universe to you. let me concentrate on something closer to home and for me was much more surprising. i grew up knowing about the big bang theory, it was already part

of the lore when i was a college kid, the cosmic microwave background radiation was discovered while i was a college kid. everybody thought it was the right story. when we confirm the big bang story was correct, that wasn't a big surprise to me, nevertheless it turned out to be important to the world. what is more surprising to me is the possibility of learning as much as we do think we know about the earth, solar history and how much we may be able to learn about how the earth came to exist. if i wil move on to my next start, i will tell you about what people think they know about the earth. we have an astonishingly precise, measured date for the beginning of the solar system, the age of the earliest bits of sand and such that we can fin orbiting the sun. we pick them up from rocks on the moon or we pick them up from little bits of comets that we bring home or try to find them on the earth.

anyway, we have this astonishinglprecise date, 4.56 billion years ago this all gets started. apparently the early formation of the solar system was quite quick, only a few million years to establish the sun and the basic collection of planets that we still have. in a rather remarkable thing, it this has been worked out by people studying the solar system, the big question for many decades, why is the moon so different from the other moons in the solar syst? how did we get it? the current theory that seems most popul is something about the size of mars hit the earth. that tells me if you want to know about mars, you should study the moon also. the collision was rather spectacular, the story goes that everything was melted down from the surface to the bottom, huge amounts of material came flying back out into space, wobbling around this object, combined

earth and moon and from that debris, rock was formed again, turned into the moon. i don't know whether the theory tells us it was formed from vapor or form from chunks of rock that came out of the earth, there's a huge amount to be learned from studying the moon so i concur with m's point that it is a fascinating place to go, we want to learn more about the early history of the solar system. it seems to be that all the likely elements like carbon and hydrogen which we are rather fond of here because they support our life, might have dispersed back into space because everything was so hot. if that is true, the early earth was rocky and hot and there were no chemicals of life andy. that might mean we had to have additional bombardment from rocks from heaven that would bring us water and carbon. it was in the theory for longtime that the oil we have underground was the result of

direct deposit from space project will. i think that is not very popular these days but it is a competing theory at one time. after that, the early earth was probably a little bi coo because the sun was not as bright as it is now. that might have been an interesting time as well. quite recently, the people who study orbital mechanics, the motion of the planets around the sun, have been doing simulations, rather, result in the simulation is that jupiter and saturn have switched their orbits twice. along time ago, that was very controversial andather annoying character who claimed the world had been colliding all the time. the specifics were probably pretty disastrously wrong, but now the we are getting into the details, the general idea that the solar system has not always been stable and has not always been like it is seems to be becoming quite clear. you migh remember generations ago people were very upset

because isaac newton gave us a clockwork universe that look like everything was set up and going in regular progression forever, nowadays, even without the benefit of quantum mechanics, we can calculate where the particles will go and it is very chaotic. quite a remarkable history of the earth. mario pointed out that life on earth formed shortly after this bombardment because we do have some signs of that. here, i have a few things to say about the earth itself. my colleagues tell us obviously the things that made volcanoes on mars, huge amounts of chemicals into the atmosphere, they did so here on earth, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, various poisonous compoundcame out, the conditions for life on the surface were variable. the continents moved around quite a lot. the names of the early ones here on the chart, we have some

evidence of these from the way the earth is magnetize and rock strata can be pieced together to say this was next to that while ago. this amazing series of things that has been happening, when i was in grade school, a grade school history teacher said how the continents of the americas fits together with africana and asia--and africa and europe, we can see this, we don't know why scientists can't see it. this was in the 1915s before the idea of continental drift had been recognized as scientifically valid. nevertheless my grade school history teacher could see it and it was obvious to the kids. we kept wondering where all the scientists were on this. we have some lovely surprises right here on earth, things that are right in front of our eyes, not notice for long time. a little bit else about our history, our dimension the continents have been moving, we

had huge numbers of ice ages, volcanic activity, there is even a possibility that just before the great outburst of life, the precambrian explosion, there was a period of time when life may have been frozen solid. the idea is all the oceans were solid ice from the polls to the equator. it is kind of dramatic to think about the possibility that our earth has gone through this series of events. i don't know how to interpret this, whether this is a known fact or just something we are thinking about and working on at the moment, but when you get closer to the current timend think about how did human beings get here, it seems our particular ancestral population was down to 600 individuals living somewre in africa, possibly on the south coast, right about the time of what is called the glacial period, 50,000 years ago.

we are very closely related, we have 600 ancestors' altogether. that is pretty remarkable. jumping ahead, hundred years ago, galileo pointed his to lose the that is, we're celebrating the international year of astronomy's this year. what will happen in the future? here's another surprise from the geologists. is possible that all this wonderful life we have is going to put all the carbon dioxide that is in the air into rock and it will all go into the rock over the next few hundred million years. this is not the immediate. there will not be enough greenhouse gas to kp the earth warm at all and it will get too cold. we had better get going with our space travel. not to say is easy or window how but we do have a certain time pressure. after that, the son is getting warmer. dirksen senate office buildiit .

we will be opening inside the surface of a bright, red star, it will definitely too hot. if we are going to travel the we had better figure out. some people think the future of space travel is we're going to build silicon life with transistors or the future equivalent ended will go traveling through the universe. we don't know. anyway, why are people so offended about all of this? when i was a kid i said how did we get here? he was a geneticist's so he could tell me about evolution and chromosomes and genes. i want to give you an example, if you want to know how you got your personally you can learn something more than you might have. i just sent my hundred dollars to the national geographic and they told me this is where my chromosome went. i think it is a very cool project and i want to put in a

little plug for that. not that this is astronomy but this is part of why we are so interested in astronomy, that we get to learn our own history. when you ask why does the public want to do what they want to do, we have a deep compulsion to know how we got here and where we are going. you can learn more th you thought. i want to illustrate a few key events of the history of the universe. i'm supposed to show you a movie of a gamma ray bursts. this is the object blowing up that mario described, this is a star in the process of some kind of disastrous collapse, from a jet of material coming towards us at close to the speed of light. what we think is happening this relativistic, extraordinary collision happening, releasing material pointed at us. the reason we can see these things at the edge of the universe is was a while they're

aimed at us. the most distant object discovered as a red shift of 8.2. their 9.2 times as long as they were when they were made and this was when the universe was 600 or seven hundred million years old. we have already been able to see that far back in time. in matters to us in another way because objects like this probably created the chemical elements that ridge and released into space to produce the first possibilities of life in the early universe. mario has also shown you a little bitbout the galaxies, we have our own simulated movie here of two galaxies colliding, a freeze frame that looks like that real picture in the upper middle. galaxies do collide. mario might not have mentioned to you that we are expecting our

nearest neighbor galaxy, the andromeda nebula, to come get us, the andromeda nebula may collide with the milky way in about five billion years, which is just about the time that it is getting too hot to live on earth. we had better get going on space travel. a few years ago the andromeda strain was a very popular story, and we fought bacteria coming at us,ot just bacteria. now we would like to know how did we get here? we have a lot of pictures saying how we think stars and galaxies, stars and planets may have formed. we have animations of this process that takes a few tens of thousands of years for a start to form, it takes a few millions of years for a disk of material to form into planets and it takes tens or hundreds of millions of years for the basic orbits to get set up and the

rocks to get cleared out, so life forms can exist on the planet. mario also showed you this picture, that eagle nebula where stars have just been born and are burning away their homes. want to show you something, a different view of the same place, the same place as seen with infrared light. the point to show is infrared gives you a quite different view. there are stars on this picture taken from the ground with a very large telescope in chile that you could not see in the previous piures. you could not see them because the dust grains in those clouds are too of hate for visible light. infrared light will go around the dust grains without as much impediment. you can see inside the clouds, you can see stars in this pictures that were not there. pretty important reason for studying infrared light is to be able to see inside the clouds were stars have been born.

very important message about looking into are still a birthplaces. tlet's talk about exo planets. a planet will pull back and forth on a star, we see the change of velocitof that star. with great care the people working this method have been able to measure the velocity of a star to one meter per second variation. this is astonishing to an instrument builder. this is getting close to fundamental limits but it is enough that some planets that are not a lot bigger than earth

are possible to see if you get cc them close t their parents' cars -- parent stars. that is one of the most abundant populations of st@rs we have found. we have 59 planets that going front of their parents stars. i will show you some sketches of how we work on that. mario elained that a little bit to you. another method called microlensi. if you look in the right direction, towards the middle of the galaxy, there are so many stars in your line of sight that one willross in front of another. when this happens, the one in the middle can bend the light of the more distant star to magnify the image of the distance star, what we see is that the distance are will, over the course of a year or so, get brighter and fainter. now it turns out, if you're very lucky and there is a planet around this little star, it will make its own little blip on the

curve. this has been done for seven different star systems. one of them happens to have two planets. it is a very complementary techniques. this has been done from the ground, even better in space, maybe we will do that one of these days. we are beginning to learn. most recently we have been beginning to make direct images. mario showed at least one picture of those. finally, timing. we have a few planets that have been discovered orbiting pulsars, which is not where you would hope to go living because pulsars are very nasty source of immensely intense radiation. but it seems when a star system completes its life and turns into a neutron stars and pulsars, once in awhile planets are formed farther from the debris or they are still there leftover from the forehand. we are able to do this most amazing thing. this year have recently

launched the kepler mission, an observatory built specifically to discover plets around other stars, it was pointed at the cygnus' region of our galaxy where it has the possibility of seeing the most possible stars at one time. they will be monitoring 100,000 stars continuously for several years. the purpose of this is to see some of them blink. calculation says they should discover a handful of planets like earth around stars like the sun if they are at all numerous at all. thousands of easier targets are likely to be found as well. we will see what they see, but the expectation is this will be the first measurement of how abundant like planets like hers are around stars like the sun. it will take a while.

if you see one blinked, you n't know what happened. you have to wait another year. for the alignment to occur. you have to watch this many times, be very confident. i think over the next few years, we hope to hear from them, that there are many places like home. how much like home, that remains to be figured out, we need more measurements. we have an illustration coming here about how the planet can obscure light from a star, and you see the graph suggesting that the star will get a little fainter as the planet goes in front of it. mario should use something equivalent to this. in the right hand picture we have a similar story except when the planet goes bhind the star something may also happen. if the planet is bright enough, you will also notice that the total light of the system is diminished when the star blocks the light of the planet. this has been done already with the spitzer space telescope

which is been operation for quite a few years now. this only works when the star is pretty faint and the planet is pretty bright but nevertheless it has been done, it does work. more of these detections are likely to happen. what can you learn from these kinds of things? as mario pointed out, the light from the star will go to the atmosphere on the planet on which your telescop that will enable you to study the characteristics of the constituents of that planetary atmosphere. once in awhile there is a possibility within a sensitivity, you could even detect the effect of a moon around the planet if you can do this. if you are very lucky, maybe will be able t tell if the planet has water in its atmosphere, depending on temperature and many other things. inhe very long term, we have many hopes for this technique. the first technique that has been eective to learn the

details about the atmospheres of planets. so we have this illustration of another way of going at things, quite often a system like the sun, with its planetary system and interplanetary dust, will be visible from a distance because of the dust. here is a close by star in the southern sky, we side with the hubble telescope, mario should be the picture, there's a ring of dust or betting that star. even a long time ago it was recognized this ng of dust is not where it is supposed to be. why would it be in a ring and why is it that it is not orbiting -- why is the ring not centered on the start? we figured a planet had to be there. sure enough, a few years later, it was figured out that there is a planet iide the ring of dust, and presumably the one that is responsible for making the does have that particular

orbit. since then we have got more pictures taken from the ground. if you make a very good, still on the ground and you can correct for the fluctuations of the atmosphere, you can take pictures of stars from the ground and hope to see planets. the one in the upper right was the one in the upper right was done with that jim and i and k ke telescopes. that was left over from the optics, the best we can do, that is what the star looked like with our imperfect i suspect optics. what weoing to do next? europa is a place in our own solar system, we heard mars is a wonderful place to look for life, but not the only wet

place. besides earth and mars there are four wet places known in this will asst in. this is one of them, it was discovered by galileo. nymedganymedeis similar. europa has this amazing structure that looks like ice floes with muddy water between the cracks. we recognize for a long time since this picture which was taken by the galileo mission that this is a wonderful place to go studying and thinking about how water works in the solar system and see if that material has any signs of organic chemistry in it. it is pretty hard to drill through this ice to get some real water underneath. people have drawn pictures of nuclear reactors pumping their way through. it will be kind of hard to learn really if there are -- if there is pond scum under the surface but it could be. ..

well, okay, how can the surface be shifting? well, it's floating on something well, the calculation says okay the surface of titan is made of ice and it's floating on liquid water underneath. we have four places in the solar system besides mars that are wet. why? that's another question but they're wet. so what else can we learn about our own solar system? well, we now have eight planets in the solar syste but actually there are hundreds and hundreds of things out there in the distant part of the solar system to study.

so pluto got demoted because he was about to be outclassed and here we have a drawing that says -- this is what the known ones look like outside the -- way out into the outer solar system. it has one that's bigger than pluto. the one that's marked eris there has a curve around it and so does makamaka and they are marked that way because they have the possibility of having a temporary atmosphe when they get close enough to the sun. so you see some of them also have their own little satellites with them. it's a very remarkable study that can be done -- these are presumed to be remnants of the early solar system so ife want to know why the earth is the way it is, this is a good place to go looking. find those rocks and see what they're made of and learn what you can about their orbits and if they did come toward the earth to bring us some water and some carbon.

so where are these orbits. these the vertical inclination of the orbits they are not zero inclined. these things have been clipped out of the plain and some are bigger than pluto. i'm sorry, pluto, you are a dwarf but that's okay. you have many friends. now, i want to take a few minutes to talk aut the new telescope we're working on the james webb space telescope because it will help work on this question of how did the planets get here and how did we get here? i mentioned earlier we want to study infared for a number of different reasons, one that i told you about the infared light will pass through around the dust grains that obscure our view of the stars that have been just been formed. another one is that, of course, infared is the place to look for the early universe but i thought

well, we'll concentrate on planets today. another one infared comes from things at room temperature. things like us. if you want to study either-like planets let's stud the wavelengths at which they emit. so here we are friends of ours allowing their pictures to be used. but at any rate, so infared tell us different things. so what's the new telescope look like? this is the james weww space telescope. it does not look like any telescope we've ever flown. what you see is a solar energy concentrator behind a shield. so it's a galaxy energy concentrator. so ight comes from the lower right in this picture, boxes of that mirror and is focused on the secondary mirror which is at the end of the blue triangular tower and then bounces back into the instrument package there. this is all going to be operated

at the la grange l2 which is not as far as mars. it's a million miles away. i'll show you where it goes. the grayish thing you see there is an umbrella. it has five layers and i'll show you how it unfolds. this telescope looks like this partly because it's bigger than the rocket. so this is the first time we're trying to put up a giant deployable telescope into space and make it function the way that it should as a proper telescope. it's a partnership doing this project. nasa is leading the partnership but we have big contributions from europe and canada including that europe is supplying the commercial watch vehicle on 5 to carry the payload out there. so i'm not going to be able to tell you the whole story about what we want to do with this but i'll show you where the telescope goes. here's the diagram of the la grange points. many of you have heard about l4 and l5 because they're stable

places in the orbit and the other land they're pretty far away. one is astronomical unit from here. we actually like this little l2 point, which is overhead at midnight for us and is a million miles away so it's about four times as far as away as the moon and it's an unstable orbit point. we have to keep nudging the spacecraft to stay there but that doesn't take much of a nudge to do it. so here's how big is the telescope? this model is made of steel. this is not the real one. but here it is on the lawn over at goddard space flight center and this is about one-tenth of the worldwide engineering team and science team that's working on this mission. it's a very large collaboration to do this. people might say that it takes a village to build a telescope. [laughter] >> so i'll show you how it's supposed to unfold. i mentioned that this is much larger than the rocket can be. so on the other hand eventually maybe we'll get bigger rockets so here is how it unfolds.

this is about a 10,000 times faster than it really goes. first we unfolded the solar panels and the telemtry dish and we're about to unfold the sun shield. now, in real life the sun and the earth will be bow this observatory so that the telescope that you see there will be protected completely from the heat of the sun and it will be able to cool itself down by radiation to outer space down to about 40 kelvin. so this is what it takes to do an infared telescope in space that's far more powerful than the hubble. we did look by the way to see if it was possible to put this telescope close to earth and we could never find a way to do it. the earth is too warm. so here you see now there are five layers of that sun shield. that's what it takes to protect it well. it has a sun protection factor of about a million for your sunblock. so there's the telescope more or

less set up. it will be adjusted after lauh to be the right shape. we did learn from hubble how to adjust a mirror. and we figured out the math. so theathematics we had to invent for the hubble are exactly the same that we're using to do the fine adjustment for this telescope so that that collection of 18 hexagons will function as one giant parabolic mirror. you might say well, that's kind of hard to do. how can you imagine doing that? you know, this is a tremendous challenge for a mechanical teams. so how are we going to make sure it works. clearly we're going to rehearse a lot. we're going t do a lot of testing. the companyhat's building this which is northup grummond and they work for other government agencies and they cannot tell you what they do but they tell us this is definitely not the most complicated thing they've ever put up. so people are watching you. it's good. [laughter]

>> i'll just illustrate one thing we're going to do, this is the optical test we're going to do. the apollo astronauts rehearsed their trip to the moon using this vacuum tank in houston and we find that it's just the right size and shape for our test. we're going to wield in the telescope on the track there and we're going to put the instrumentation up at the top. it turns out the center of curvature of the mirror is right near the instrumentation at the top so it's just the right size and shape. this will soon become the world's largest helium-cooled tank. we have to make the whole inside of that apparatus come down to near 20 kelvins so that we ca te the telescope at its erating temperature of about 40. so this will be a pretty amazing project. and it will be launched according to plan as mentioned in 2014. now, i'd like to wrap up with a fewpeculations about what might come next so we can think

about those planets around other stars. here is a sketch of an idea called new worlds observer. this is a way of seeing planets around other stars. it's quite different from the ways that we've tried before. you would say, well, can't we just point a telescope at the star and look for the planet next to it? and the answer is, well, yes, you can try but there's an awful lot of glare in your telescope. the earth as seen from a great distance is 10 billion times fainter than the sun. d that's an awful lot of contrast so you have -- if you're going to see the earth next to the sun at a great distance you have to get rid of almost all of that sunlight and where are you going to put it? so here's an idea. this is called an occulter and the idea is to put u this thing that looks like a pointy sunflower but quite large, about 50,000 kilometers away from the telescope. well, 50,000 kilometers --

that's a small amount in this business of space. so if you can do this, then you can cast a shadow of the star on the telescope. and the shadow would be big enough to put the telescope in but nevertheless the planet that you're hunting for will be off to the side a little bit so you should be able to look around the edge of this star shield and see the planet earth or earth-like planet out there so this is an idea. now, we studied it quite a lot over the last few years and my colleagues say that they could build it. so will we build it? that's a whole other subject. is is not easy. because this shield that's up there that has to be something ke 50 meters across, so we have not built something that large with the kind of precision that's required so we'd have to learn how to do that. but on the other hand, it's easier at least in principle -- i shouldn't say that. it might be easier than building a perfect telescope and getting rid of the star light with optical methods.

and i want to illustrate another way that we have to go at finding planets around other stars. this is called the terrestrial planet finder with an infaredometer. this is a difficult project to do. this one has four telescopes in a row all collecting light from the star at infared wavelengths and sending them over to the little combiner device. it's a fifth observatory flying in formation with these others so this one also difficult but, i guess, what i'd likeo point out here is if you could build this one, there's a possibility you could see the signs of life on the atmosphere of another planet this way. the little graph there shows you what the infared spectrum of such an earth-like planet would be from a distance. therare three compounds noted, there's water, ozone and carbon dioxide and that's because that's what earth looks like. the ozone is there because we have plants. and our job here on the earth is

to make carbon dioxide for them. anyway, from a distance, we can make an observation that would tell us if a planet is le earth because it's alive like earth. it wouldn't tell you that there are people over there but it would tell you that there are plants over there. would another life system make oxygen? well, it might. if it didn't, you wouldn't know. the early earth could have been alive without producing this much oxygen but maybe not. i would like to wrap up but i have a movie similar to the one mario showed you. this is the aries moon rocket blasting off carrying something that an astronomer might like to have and we'll show you how it might carry something way out to the la grange point with a telescope to look for whatever you might want to look for. a telescope carried in the moon rocket would not have to be folded up the same way.

you could have a nice big circular piece of glass. the moon rocket is capable of carrying about 60 tons, 60 metric tons out to the la grange point, roughly ten times the -- well, james webb telescope will be 6,0 kilograms so about 6 tons so roughly ten times the mass can be carried out to the la grange point and it enables youo design quite different kinds of telescopes for looking for distant life or any other thing you might want to know about about the early universe. here we are making our tri out past the moon to the la grange point and then i will close with some places you can get re information and think about this all.

>> so this telescope looks a lot more like the telescope you might be expecting. it looks a lot like the hubble, only bigger. so it could happen. and so we're certainly counting on the nation to continue with the heavy lift vehicles that it would take to do this. astronomers definitely would know what to do. you can get more information, if you want to pursue details about the telescope -- we sent in lots of white papers to the dick caltle survey if you go to google survey you'll find this website and you can read vast amounts of information about astronomy. you can also look for books including the very first light which is a book that i did. it tells the story of the cobe satellite and it has a new chapter about the nobel prize.

i thank you and we have a few minutes for questions if you'd like. [applause] >> we have time for two questions. we have a mic here. >> you talked about jupiter and saturn changing positions. >> yeah. >> what was the mechanism that caused that? have you heard any -- what the reason was? >> the orbits of a system are not necessarily stable. in fact, the more that we know will gravitating systems the more unusual it seems to be that a set of orbits like our solar system has would be stable. if you start them off a few millimeters different from where you think they started, the result wl become completely different. so this is just the mutual gravitational interaction of the planets with each other. and with tiny little bodies that happen to be left over as well. so as i said, newton gave us this clockwork universe and it's not clockwork. it's chaotic.

>> i wanted to know what you thought of the possibility of using the far side of the moon as an observatory, like a radio observatory? >> ah, okay, the far side of the moon as a radio observatory is one of the leading possibilities for what scientists would want to do for astronomy on the moon. the retrorefle rreflec rreflec tell us the dark ener. the on the far side of the moon is a gleam in our eye. we have precursors to that that are being built on the ground and in places like australia to se what's out there. when we get to the end what you can do on the ground i think people will say you know what? we need to go to the far side of the moon for the next st. so it's pretty hard 'cause we can get pretty far on the ground, but eventually we need to go there to do the next step. >> it's quite a leap from life

to intelligence. but there are optical telescopes now searching for laser signals so i just wantedo add that for the sake of completeness. >> yeah, sure. it's definitely worth looking. though, the odds of success are small but it's definitely worth looking. >> thank you. >> okay. thank you all. [applause]

>> as the debate over healthcare continues, c-span's healthcare hub is a key resource. go online, follow the latest tweets, video ads and links. watch the latest events including town hall meetings and share your thoughts on the issue with your own citizen video. including video from any town halls you've gone to and there's more at c-span.o/healthcare. >> nasa wil make another attempt to launch the shuttle after midnight tonigh the space agency had hoped to launch discovery early today but thunderstorms in florida

prevented the liftoff. an international convention to further the human exploration of mars was recently held in washington, d.c. one of the speakers was lewis friedman, cofounder of the planetary society. he gives his insight of this 40-minute session hosted by the mars society. >> dr. lou friedman executive director of the planetary society. you may have heard of it. another space advocacy group. lou was one of the cofounders of the planetary society many years back which he founded with bruce murray and the legendary carl sagan. lou had an amazing career working on the abco space system division on both civilian and military space programs. he's worked at jpl back -- what was it in the '70s and he also served as an awi congressional fellow for a year on capitol hill. he's also authored book called

"star sailing" and despite being an avid yankees fan, i'm very happy to have dr. lou friedman with us today. thank you very much. [appuse] >> is this on? >> yeah. >> this is kind of a new computer. i haven't done this one before. that's not quite true. okay. look at that. it works. well, i'm, first of all, very honored to be part participating this morning in this all-star cast, jim garvin and john mather. it's an honor to be on the program at the same time as them. and especially since i have to make a little transition from the fine science that we've

heard about, it's very interesting to trying to look into the some of the policy implications so that we can get more of this. i'm going to report on a roadmap that the planetary society developed over the past ye. it's called the roadmap to space. and the title that we gave it is "beyond the moon" and you'll see why in a minute. it's obviously and i heard all the discussions yesterday this is a great time, this is an important time to be considering these questions because in a sense the future of the space program hangs in the balance in a way that at least from m perspective, it hasn't since the end of apollo. at that time there was a decisi made not basically to continue space exploration. in some senses we're in a danger that -- a decision like that could be made again. on the other hand, there's a great expectation that, no,

there's a great commitment to exploration and human exploration and robotic exploration. and so this is a time when these decisions are being made and the things that are being decided today will probably last as long as the negative decisions that were made after apollo in talking about decisions that will have impacts for 30 or 40 years. the roadmap process that we developed here began about a year ago. this is the title of the document. we released it in november of this year. november of last year, i'm sorry. we've updated it a bit based on another workshop we've held. and presented it to the augustine committee a few weeks ago. and, of course, i've presented it as well to the policymakers in the space business in washington and congress and any administration, the transition team, et cetera.

the team that led the roadmap is listed there, but a lot of other input went into it. this is the team that really wrote the roadmap. our chief recommendations are listed on this slide and it really comes in to a couple of major ones. one is to establish global space exploration partnership. the international aspects are very important. the whole basis, the whole rationale for human space flight is based on international, global and geopolitical considerations. one of the key results of one of the input workshops that we had into this process was to engage the human space flight community and astronauts in particular wh many of them had heard other rationale for human space flight really to get back to the geopolitical and international and national policy considerations.

second, was to establish a program architecture that leads human kind into the solar system beyond earth orbit. third, develop a national capability for interplanetary transportation and life support. this is often overlooked in some of the steps that are being taken right now but to really move out into longer duration missions and both from a point of view of the capability of the transportation and capability of life support for interplanetary travel. pace of the human missions to the moon based on the need and the context of other international partners. and i'll come back to this recommendation in a moment. it basically says, don't make the moon an end goal but make the moon a means by which you are both engaging international cooperation and also leading outward into the solar system

for exploration, which, of course, would lead to the destination of mars and establish the robotic space and earth science activities and make sure that they are part of any exploration plan. one of the very unfortunate things in the last few years was to set up -- almost for a while it looked like a war between science and exploration which is ridiculous because they were members of the same family and totally integrated but it was a euphemism for the old robotic versus manned space exploration debate and what you realize is that in the public mind, exploration is a process that involves both humans and robots and for the public mind, this is a seamless interface. how did we reach our recommendations? well, we held a workshop of experts in human and robotic space programs back in sanford in february of 2008. that was a driving factor that

t up this process. and then we held a series of town hall meetings in the united states, in europe. we did surveys on the web. we recently held an updated workshop on mars exploration, rationale and priorities back at caltech in may of 2009 and now we're undertaking that in an activity which you can s in the other room there called the petition for taking the road to mars in which we're gathering signatures to basically say that this long-range program is really a program that's on a the resultf the roadmap is pretty easily summarized. it says that tre are three lines of activities, which you see he.ni one which is leading humans into the solar system and building up both space station capabilities. one of the mysteries to me is why the space station even to this day, after all the years of missions to it, has a lifetime

capability of six months for any that is -- for any of the humans who go up there and any of the crew up there. their longest duration is six months, one month less than the minimum type of mission that you uld need to go to mars. there needs to be a correlation of space station activities that result in the building up the capability for life support for crew training that would be for human missions to the planets. and for building the launch vehicle. i was very glad to hear dr. mathers comment about the heavy lift launch vehicle. that capability is needed if we're going to get exploration beyond orbit for any view that you have of anything. and to have a heavy-lift capability and then the whole question of anyovy lunar activis really comes down to one that is if-needed. nasa has said -- iscñ heard the question to jim garvin this

morning and i thought his answer was very good. nasa has said they need to practice and get their confidence back at the moon se decas in order to build the systems that will operate on mars i'm not one to question that. they're the ones who are going to have to play the game but i'm certainly one to question whether or not the approach they've taken is really that one or whether it's one that is -- has a moon goal in and of itself. the lunar activities that need to be conducted need to be focused on moving outward into the solar syem. at the same time, we need te those interplanetary steps. one of the things that struck me about the gemini program -- how many people -- i can't see through the lights so don't bother putting up your hands but a lot of people i mention the gemini program to and they say, what was that? you know, everybody remembers

mercury that was first and apollo, of course, was the great achievement but it was this program in between and it really engaged every mission on it. i watched a documentary on it. every mission and engaged the public. it was a accomplishing a first of some kind. it was a step to the moon at that time that people understood. the road to mars is very long. let's don't kid ourselves about that. it's an enormous accomplishment. if you think it's a long time taking ten years or longer now to get back to the moon as they propose, it will be longer to get to mars. we need to keep not just the public engaged but the international community eaged moving outward with accomplishments, unreanable milestones. i would say every two to four years. by going deeper and further into interplanetary space and making

steps along the way always seeming to go further and longer. and that can be done by, of course, first going beyond the moon, hence, the title of the report, going out to l1 points, l2 points these are used scientifically but also as interim steps to build up human long duration flight capability. moving out to a nearer =/objec. there's even suggestions that there are one or two or maybe a few near-earth objects that you could meet with a modest -- with the aries orion lift capability. and you would want to go to the heavy lift capability for more interesting near-earth objects and maybe, of course -- again, building up your interplanetary transportation pability. at the same time deferring all

the costs, all the infrastructure, all the detour that a lunar landing would require. and that's theay you can afford to build up this interplanetary flight capability getting out and, of course, think how engaging that would be for the public? think of the first astronauts to go beyond the moon setting a distance record? think of the first astronauts going on an asteroid and conducting operations there. sure, there would be a stunt aspect of jumping off an asteroid or going into orbit around it but these would be all-important practices and an important activities as we're building up our capability to go and really send humans into the solar system. and the third element of this -- it has to be emphasized and it hasn't been is the robotic aspect of it. what we're doing on mars is in the public mind leading toward humans going to mars. the great laboratories are putting down on the surface, the international teams, the united states and europe have now

decided that the big mars landers have to be conducted internationally. neither one has enough money or focus in their science program alone to justify the size of missions of even mars science lab or xo mars or let alone in the future a mars sample return which will require the capabilities of many nations to participate. not just u.s. and europe. i remind everybody how many nations have conducted automatic sample return from a planetary surface? one. that was the soviet union. it hn't been done since. one nation is now trying it and that's japan. and we don't know if they will have succeeded or not. they've actually gotten down to the surface of an asteroid and picked -- they've hoped they picked up a sample but we won't know it's a great dra or a great story to see what happens

next year to see if that spacecraft does gets back, if it lands successfully and if they open it up to find a sample it will be fantastic, but even if they don't, it will underscore how big a step that is and how remarkable that mission has been conducted. and how necessary it is as we build up our capability. to do it at mars, and i believe the russians and the japanese will be relevant in the planning as well as u.s. and europe. by the way, the russians are also hoping to launch this year or at least if not this year but 2011 a fobo return mission doing an automated sample return to the world and, of course, if they succeed, at experience will be very relevant. so the road to mars, why does it lead to mars? why is mars the goal that is so engaging? well, first of all, it brings together the science and public interest. the search for life and human destinbeyond earth focuses on

mars. it is the only accessible place we can reach that has atmosphere and water. whether or not we find life on mars, the result is profoundly important. if we do find life on mars, it's a boost to the whole idea of life on the solar system. we found it in a close neighbor of the solar him is, if we don't, here's a planet that's very earth-like and so many ways and if we don't find it it's profoundly important. an extremely important mars program has been conducted now for several years, ever since mars pathfinder there have been -- but as the budget difficulties get greater and greater and as the whole science exploration combination needs to be pulled together, that program continuati program is in jeopar and there are forces going on in the planetary

decadle study that needs to be pulled together to make sure mars exploration is not just seen as one of various things that nasa does. it is that but it is much more it's the whole exploration rationale, the search for life, past, present and future that drives so much public interest in the space program. in addition to science and public interest together, it's humans and robots together and i've talked already a little bit about this. mars sample return is a consensus science imperative. it's also the precursor for humans to go to mars. one of our recommendations is now to use the aries 5 equivalent for mars sample return to bring the programs together and to finally enable this mission which when i was at jpl i led a mars sample study so i've been part o mars sample return studies since the

mid-'70s and every time they go forward into the national academy and into high level nasa review, they get shot down because of cost and because of the political competing priorities. if we're ever gohng to get this mission, it's going to takmore than just a science divisn advancing it. it's going to have to be an activity that involves international cooperation and the human robotic sides of the program together. for the public, this program is really one program, science and exploration can't be separated and these have to be brought together. mars and earth together. this is another important theme that we need keep very much in mind. there's many priorities for observing earth from space. understanding the earth as a planet, understanding global climate change on earth and how these processes work on other

planets. this is a subject which is certainly intellectually no one can challenge it. much of what we -- much of our awareness about global climate change has come from our observations of planets. and, of course, much of it has been graphically demonstrated as we've observed earth from space. the crucial observations of earth from space as well as the theoretical work on -- that comes from planetary modeling has to be played. of course, the pictures show on the left the artic on earth and on the right it's a mars express picture showing the bottom of a crater with highs -- ice. robotic program a human program that can serve global geopolitical interests and inspire the world. this is a point that many of the leaders now in the space community have come to

recognize. that one of the great values of human exploration has been inspiring and bringin nations together to do that, it will help even in the strategic decisions we need to make about observing earth and many other aspects of domestic and national policies that require international cooperation. so in summary, the human exploration serves the geopolitical interests and should focus beyond the moon. international space station should be used as a stepping stone, as a way of bringing up the long duration human flight capability. near-earth objects are a potential first interplanetary destination, lunar missions should be only undertaken when required and affordable and only with partners. it's not an end goal for the united states itself. and the lunar landing that is now in the program shoulbe delayed until that international partnership is ready and until

we really develop the interplanetary transportation steps. the search for life drives us and focuses on mars. human and robotic programs should be focused together as a seamless program and perhaps using the aries 5 or it's equivalent on a mars sampling return using the cultural imperatives of mars explanation should enhance cooperation serves a broader interest and brings a greater public constituency to the program and all along everything we do must be seeno maintain the goal of international human exploration of mars. i'm glad to say that this morning i read this in the "new york times." so this is an update that i inserted in this morning and it's pretty exciting. at least according to the "new york times" report from the augustine committee meeting yesterday down in florida it says there are about adopting this roadmap.

thathey are definitely suggesting that the obama administration may want to skip the part about lunar landing -- about the landing -- delaying the lunar landing and that moving out into the solar system and deeper into space quickly while keeping within a limited budget. this was the essence of our recommendation and, of course, it's premature to say this will be their conclusion or what the administration and congress will do with it but it's definite that this is getting a serious kind of consideration. so i wrote the mars petition. i think it does -- we do need to keep this mars focus. i don't have to preach to th crowd about it. but the idea that we are going someplace has to be in the public mind. if you just say you're building up capability to get better at it in the future and figure out where to go, that's not inspiring. and also it begs the question,

it's not like there's a lot of candidate planets out there that we can reach that have any possibility of relevance of human life in the future. mars is the goal. we need -- this is a peition to president obama saying to keep that focus on the long-range goal to mars and if you want to sign this petition, it's in the other room. and if you don't, why are you here? [laughter] >> so with that, i'll close and maybe get us back on schedule and take questions and discussion if you'd like. [applause] >> i can't see to recognize people but i do see someone at the microphone. >> just a couple of things. i was confused as to why you're so is an sanguine that we send

people out to the emptiness of the space. i thought you were the planet society not the empty nhing society. [laughter] >> and secondly i wanted tknow why you thought it was a good idea to introduce another level of mission and even program risk by roping in for political reasons foreign partners when we look at the history of what happed to the space station by making a russian participation mission critical and all the delays and problems that that caused. >> well, thank you for provoking me. [laughter] >> so let me do the usual thing of taking the second question first 'cause that's the one you remember right away. yeah, the history of international partipation on the space station is of exactly the opposite of what you said. it got built. it wouldn't have gotten built without that russian participation. and we wouldn't be going to it without that russian participation so thank goodness we had it. fqrthermore, it was proposed in 1983 as an initiative as a

national initiative and nothing happened with it for eight years. the only way it got approved and it finally got hardware built up there is when we -- it served a geopolitical interest to the administration, not one of space. it would be nice if -- we never had an administration that's really that interested in spe. and it's never going to be that kind of national priority but as soon as it became a geopolitical to engage the russian aerospace industry it became important to advance the space station and get it built and so the exact opposite of what you suggest is that t international partnership was crucial to getting it built. the littl blips in delays along the way of russian contractors not delivering on time is mirrored all the time in any country that builds complex space systems and i'm sure is going to be mirrored in the national aries and the orion

systems that are being right now. you have to focus on the accomplishment of the international space station. all you have to do is look at what'soing on up there. it's absolutely remarkable to look at that great project and to see european modules up there, russian modules up there, canadian arms, japanese modules and the american modules in such a complex system and it serves, i think, a lesson that will take us forward. so that's one reason. the second reason is the political o which comes back to again the point of getting the national leaders to want to do a mission to mars. they're not going to be motivated by the same scientific questions that motivate the scientific community. they're going to be motivated as to how this serves national and international interest. and again, that will be greater if we can do it as a global partnership. the other question you had was the -- how i can be sanguine of

th augustine recommendation. we don't what they are yet. but there are those who say we can just do mars in one leap. nasa is not one of those that say it. secondly, even if they did say it, it would take a very long time. and so the question of engaging the public is crucial. the engaging of the political system and of actually making technical steps along the way is crucial. so we can choose to make those technical steps in uninteresting ways or we can make them with astronauts making greater and greater accomplishments, international crews making greater and greater accomplishments by actually setting distance records and length -- time of flight records much the way it happened in the airplanes, much the way it happened in the gemini program as i was talking earlier. to make these kinds of accomplishments and do interesting things along the way

of both scientific and technical benefit. that's the justification. i think there's probably somebody at that microphone. >> yes. i had a question -- i saw in your presentation a couple of places where you said immensely popular mars exploration program. a couple of other comments that sounded like you had some data from the public. could you talk a little bit about what the planetary society does to gather that data, to research that data, to find out actually what people think? >> well, it's a mix of things. one, of course, is our own programs and to the degree of support we get in our membership from them and the support the activities have. we've been conducting a number of surveys, but for the really scientific surveys and aspect, you go to some of the larger polls and i know in this meeting already the rect cbs news poll has been cited on that. but i think steppingack from that business, because we all know surveys have a limited

value, they're very much influenced by temporal activities and what's in the news. they're always somewhat -- can be easily slanted or lead to paicular things. much more important has been the sustained interest in mars exploration ever since -- well, since the whole space program. and this continues with spirit and opportunity and odyssey and mars reconnaissance orbiter and the united states and xo mars in europe and my goodness, the chinese are sending an orbiter to mars hopefully this year on the mission. well, china has a lot of priorities and mars clearly is not of any strategic or national importance other than the fact that it has the popular interest. that this goal sustains itself.

so i -- i think the spate of continuing mars missions, the public interest, which is has continued to engage, the number of books on this subject, the movies on the subject, what we see here is -- i would say that's data and may not be as quantitative as you'd like but i think it does hold up as demonstration of public intere. >> thanks. >> dr. friedman, i'm also a member on the planetary society. i want to compliment you for advocating what we've been advocating for many years. we're not going to get out of lower fourth orbit without a heavy lift booster. in the last 45 years the u.s. has proven nobody can make a better heavy lift than we can en we put our mind to it. also the biggest cost of getting out of lower earth orbit i developing a new heavy lift booster why don't we go around with our big international partners with hat in hand, pitch

in, help with the development costs so we can make this more politically acceptable to the american people and then have a wonderful vehicle rea for many applications? >> well, i think -- i mean, all i can say is igree. and the question of whether or not international partners would agree or whether or not they want to pay for the costs of a launch vehicle or whether there's other ways to separate it or it has to be worked out and what needs to change, and you picked up qui correctly, the way the vision for space exploration which was brought to the international partners is this is what we' going to do and we're -- and here's the head of the graph and we have a list of things that we're gng to do and here's a list of what you need to do. it needs to be started a little earlier. it needs to be brought in right at the very beginning and see where -- and plan together and that's a bigger jo but it's

one we have time because we've got a good start on it right now to do. and whether international partners want to play a role in launch vehicles clearly, europe in our n5 is relevant as we see and even the fact that it's going to launch the james webb telescope. russia is relevant. i think russ could do the job if they only would but it's certainly one that i would wait for them to do but they certainly would be relevant in that regard. dr. friedman, i was wondering if you're aware of the use of the space station by franklin diaz to put his plasma rocket on that? and is that sometng you would endorse as part of the using the iss as a test bed for advanced propulsi that might be able to take us to mars. and secondly did the roadmap community look at using private space facilities such as the bigalow inflatable habitat,

using that as a long duration test bed for, you know, long duration astronaut as part of your roadmap? >> well, certainly the answer about that i absolutely would endorse it. i think it's great and i've been down there and seen it. franklin and i kept in a lot of good touch about it. some of his ambitions -- his ambitions is just tremendous, and i think he's right on to the way that mars exploration will be conducted in the future. i'm really glad to see this space station demonstration and activity. i hope it hapns because it really will be very valuable in the step forward if that works or even if it doesn't, they're going to have to -- excuse me, build on that after that. as far as the use of bigalow and private space station for helping in this regard, ion't know the answer to that. i just have to say i don't know enough about it. and i'd be anxious to learn

more. i don't know what the augustine committee itself is thinking about it. but i do think that quite apart from that, the international space station is a resource and it's a resource that we're either going to use for something useful or it's going to be squandered and so, therefore, my focus has been on the use of that. >> hi, this question might have been more appropriate for jim garvin and i didn't get a chance to ask him. >> and jim gives a much more engaging answer but i'll try. go ahead. >> we saw the movie last night about the rovers and how, you know, the life span is indefinite and how much they've accomplished. there's been a lot of talk about the problems with the msl and how that's going. have they considered, you know, instead of spending all this money developing a new probe, to answer questions at one site, spending an equivalent amount of money and sending out a bunch of rovers that we knowow to build

to a bunch of different sites and answer a lot of questions? >> i know that a lot of scientists and many of those working and engineers who are working on the mars exploration rover tm feel exactly that. why didn't we just build more of them and go to different places? part of the answer is bound up in the philosophy of developing more and more technology that can take us upo the point of leading to mars sample return and building more vehicles and always building -- improving on what we did in the past by taking bigger steps in the future. but there's a very good argument for why not build instead of two mars rovers, the spirit and opportunity, why not build half a dozen of them and let themo to different spots on mars and gain a lot of experiences and scientific understanding. as a scientist i think that answer holds up very well although there are, of course, evolving instruments and as jim

pointed out i'm sure he would defend the mars science a great package that's going to -- and xo mars is in the same category and astrobiology lander from an astrobiology focus that could not be be done by spirit and opportunity. there arecientific reasons to advantage and, of course, there are technical ones as i say advancing the technolog for the future. >> i just hope when we send people we learn enough that we send them to the right spot. >> and i hope when we do mars samp return, th we don't start thinking that one of our key recommendations didn't come out so graphically here -- it's nottist a mission. mars sample return is not a mission. mars sample return is a program. there will be several steps in it. it may be split up in mars mission opportunities. it wl have to go to several sites to do landings and it will have to be the precursor for humans to test out that engineering system. there's going to be several of them. hopefully, these are all be

occurring in the 2020s so that we can have it directly connect to the human mission planning earlier ther than later. >> thank you. >> hi. i just want to- i've actually written a few things about this -- for this convention. i think the planetary society is probably in my memory goes back as far as the mars society. over the last 10 years we've been usinghe same approach and strategy for communicating to the people out there. i just want to hear your opinion -- isn't it about time we change the approach and we update and modernize the approach of how we communicate and get the message out to the people? in other words, making it -- making a message to people that

space exploration has everything to do with day-to-day living and improving the economy of countries including this one, the global economy because in some way we are actually missing the point. i mean, the whole space industry will kick start a complete new global stimulus in this society and the economies of the world and everything and that's one point. the other point is actually doing a lot more work towards promoting venues and activities that engage younger people out there in the shopping centers, out there in the schools and universities. and finay, thirdly, engaging

more with the private sector and enterprise, private enterprise, who are already in their own way, in their own path, and i think running parallel to our venues here. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. i think they are -- they are valuable. i want to say that we can't look at any one thing. i mean, i remember in school, why did columbus come to america? why did th pilgrims land here? it's still debated and that's history and there are many reasons. some say it was religious. some say it wasso&eeing debt. others say it was political. others say it was adventure. and all of these things did factor into it. conditions came together. the right time and the right set of technical conditions that allowed exploration to go on years ago came together to make great things happen, whether it

be the examples i cited or other great voyages of exploration. that's going to be true about mars exploration. it's not going to be a reason. it's not going to be oh, we're doing mars exploration for education or a we're doing mars exploration search forife or inspire the public. it's eoing to be a lot of conditions that have to come together so wt you said is quite correct. but it doesn't negate any of the other things that have to go on in communicating and various people's interest will drive it and some of the things will be very social and cultural like the search for life and understanding life in the universe and some will be very political like the geopolitical needs to engage in high engineering activities and so i think -- i just caution not to try to get focused on this is the reason or this is the thing we have to do. the same goes for the multimedia way we have to approach the question.

and the second comment i have to that is, for those who see the planetary society facebook page, you'll see i wrote a comment on this. we c't denigrate what we're doing now in the government program. nasa has made great accomplishments. these explorations that you heard about this morning with the explorations of ce and hubble space telescope and the mars exploration. fantastic results that engage the public. this is how mars exploration and how exploration will be carried out. so we can't say, oh, the government has got it wrong. we really need to turn to private sector. sure there's a role for public sector. and great innovations comes from it. mars society tries to innovate in that regard. so does the planetary society to conduct the solar sail system. sending life into interplanetary

space in a purposeful way, yes, there's lots of role for the private sector to be innovative and creative bute need to do that in a way which says not rejecting the fact we need to build the nasa and intergovernmental and international teams that carry it out. so i'll -- in closing, i want to make one final comment is we are all together in this planetary society. thus, enjoy the status as a large public interest group trying to build up a popular constituency for space exploration. mars society and us are like one. we are with the other organizations in space movement. our common interest in this activity is something we need to build on. the real effort is not within our community, the real life has

to be without our community outside of the -- to the external world politically and popularly and i'm glad we're working together on it. thank you. ..

>> had conservatives feel to good voters to poll? that's the question

>> how is c-span funded? >> private donations. >> taxpayers? >> grants and stuff like that. >> you know, public television. >> donations. >> i don't know where the money comes from. >> federally. >> from donors. >> how is c-span funded? america's cable companies created c-span as a public service. a private business initiative. no government mandate. no government money. >> the obama administration is proposing increased oversight of edit rating agencies that determine the creditworthiness of companies issuing stocks and bonds. the senate banking committee is looking into suggested regulations. this hearing is about an hour d a half. >> thank you, gentlemen. let me introduce the panel, and then begin to recognize our witnesses are our first witness

is stephen joynt. is the president and ceo of fitch ratings, as was the ceo of group inc. the parent company of fitch ratings and pitch training. our next witness is mr. james gellert. is the president and ceo of rapid ratings. our next witness is professor john coffee, a professor of law at columbia university law school. he testified before this committee on numerous occasions and has been a valuable source of counsel in many different situations. thank you, ofessor conficker car next witness is ocker northlight. dr. white is a professor of economics at new york university school of business. as was deputy chair of the economics department. he has served on the senior staff of the presidents council of economic advisers and as a director of economic policy officer. finally, our last witness is

mr. mark froeba. is the principal at pf2 securities evaluations. ye sir. as senr vice president with moody's derivative group and is vice president and senior credit officer at moody's. thank you very much. mr. joynt. your testimony please. >> could you turn the microphone on, please? and lean in. >> thank you, senator reed. members of the committee think of it opportune to appear at the hearing today. i would like to spend a few minutes am writing my prepared statement. while overall macroeconomic coitions remain difficult, it seems the period most intense markets stressed as fast. this is due both to a variety of government initiatives, here and abro, and at restoring market stability as well as actions taken by companies and individuals to shorep their balance sheets and reduce risk. having said that, important sects in the fixed income market remained effectively closed in certain classes of just commercial mortgage-backed securities are have greater

understand on their asses. during this time the focus of has been into letting a broad range of initiatives that enhance the reliability and transparency of our opinions and related analytics. more specifically, our primary focus is on vigorously reviewing our analytical approaches and changing ratings to reflect the current risk profile of the securities that we rate. in many cases, that continues to generate significant numbers of downgrades and structured securities, but also affects other sectors such as banks and insurance. we are releasing our updated ratings and research transparently and publicly, and recommendetting directly with the market the latest information and alysis that we have a. in parallel, we've been introducing the rates of new lcn procedures and updating existing ones to reflect the evolving regulatory frameworks witn which credit rating agencies operate globally. in each of these areas, we have been a transparent as possible, probably engaging in all markets

and specimens and putting policymakers and regular megabit happy to expand on these topics as we proceed. that's a today's focus, today's hearing is going on where do we go forw@rd from here. senator reed has introduced the bill which we are happy to speak to, the house has held a hearing in may. the sec i think at important considered important rules at the roundtable discussion in april. the treasury proposal that we will sak about and also outside th u.s., we have been in discussions with the eu and the recently enacted registration and oversight system as well that applies to rating agencies. as this committee considers these topics would like to offer our perspective on just several important issues. let me reiterate that we are committed to engafing on all of these matters in a thoughtful and balanced, constructive, and non-self-serving manner. at the same time, some perception of proposal continu to certainly that could use claudication. transparencies of the the

recoveringheme and we a being committed as being transferred with everything we do. all of the rationale, and assumptions, and related methodologies and a good portion of our research are freely available to the market in real time. we do not believe that everyone should aee with all our opinions, but we are committed to ensuring the market has the opportunity to discuss them. some market participants have noted that limits on the amount of information that is disclosed to t market by issuers and underwriters has made our market overreliant on rating agencies, particularly for analysis and evaluation of structured securities. the argument follows that the market would benefit if additional information on structured security were made more broadly and readily available to all investors, thereby enabling them to have access to the same information as mandated rating agencies in developing their own inking and research. pitch or support the concept of greater disclure of such information could also believe the responsibility for disclosing thatnformation

should rest with issuers and underwriters. it is their transactions and they should be disclosing all the pertinent information all investors. a related benefit of additional issue of disosure is that adses the issue of rating shopping. greater disclosure would enable them to issue structures if they so choose to provide a marked with a greater variety of opinions and an important check on inflation. discussion of additional information is questioned about you without accuracy and reliability the information that goes to the question of due diligence. we have taken rating agencies, a number of steps to increase our assessment of the quality of the information that we are provided with and we have adopted policies that we will not rate issues if we deem the quality of the information to be insufficient the burden of due diligence in our opinion though belongs with issuers and underwriters. congress should mandate that the sec enact rules that require issus and underwriters to

perform such diligence and make public their findings and enforce the rules that they enact. in terms of regulation, more broadly, fitch support oversight and registration of credit rating agencies that believes the market will benefit from global rules for credit rating agencies that foster transparency, disclosuref ratings and methodologies, we believe that oversight requirements should be applied consistently and equally to all nrsro. one thing in the discussion of additional regulation is the desire to post more accountability on rating agencies. while ultimately the market imposes a category four or ratings, for the reliability performance of our readings and our research. the market does not have confidence in us, the vue of fitch franchise will be diminished or what we understand and agree with the notion that we suld be accountable for we do, we disagree with the idea of the imposition that greater liility will achieve that. some of the discussion of liability is based on

mispercptions, rating agencies today like accountants and officers and directors of security analyst, may be held liable for securities fraud to the extent rating agencies intentionally or recklessly make material statements or omissions beyond the standard of existing securities law that applies to all fundamentally, we struggle with the notion of what it is we should be held liable, or specifically the credit ratings and opinion about future events. and the likelihood of an issuer that he might be to his credit obligations posing a specific liability standard for failing to accurately predict the future strikes us as an unwise approach. congress should also consider some practical consequences. expanded competition might be intended from smaller agencies, but that may be addressed. all ratings may be motivated to just try to provide the lowest securities ratings just to mitigate liability which doesn't encourage accuracy.

i passed my time. >> thank you, very much. let me also say that all of your statements will be part of the record again if you would like to summarize them that is perfectly fine. and the statements of the members will be made part of the record. >> thank you. senator, thank you for inviting us to join you today. rapid ratings is a subscriber paid firm, or otherwise known as an investor paid for be utize proprietary software-based system to break the financial health of thousands of public and private companies, and financial stitutions quarterly. would use only financial statements, no market input, no analysts. we have no contact with the ratings process with issuers, with bankers, or with advisers. our ratings are outperformed the kurdish and the issuer paid rating agencies in innumerable cases, such as enron, gm, delphi, the entire u.s. home building industry, and others. currently we are not an nrsro. we have not applied for a nrsro

status and we do not have any plans to do so. there are too many mixed messages coming from the sec, treasury and congress for me to recommend to our shareholders that the designation is in their best interest. the treasury's proposal the requirement that all ratings firms must register is an unwelcome development. for the industry, not to mention element of the credit regime agcy act of 2006. we do believe that reform is necessary and must happen with a sense of urgency. but we caution that it's not done properly, this reform may have counterproductive and unintended consequences. we also believe the competition in this industry and a level playing fid of the competition and new players is he such a a global disclosure of information is in an. rules that do not disproportionately penalize small ayers are needed. an environment where the new, innovate and the old can have their behavior modified is needed. all should be primary goals of legislation. the sec has been wrestling with

new rules and rule a minute and has made some headway, in areas. we do not agree with all of the elements the sec initiatives. the commission has taken some positive steps to stop the more egregious behavior of the issuer paid agency. argues on the the new treasury proposal are notuite as balanced. together the sec and treasury initiatives are positively addressing rating shopping, conflict and the disclosure, transmission issues and release fording with the nrsro from revelations. for our complete comment on the stomach and, i would like to refer you to our sub mission. on the current side the proposal despite its positives, threatens to erect more hurdles to competion in thisndustry. further solidifying the entrenched position held by s&p, moody's, and fitch. a few items. methodology disclosure. rules in the treury proposal on transparency of rin methodology could come dangerously close to meeting

rating firms would have no intellectual property protection. ratings is closure requiring subscriber-based rating agencies to disclose their history of ratings and ratings actions can undermine the subscriber-based business model which is predicated on selling current and past writings to investors. treasury proposal covs all types of rating agencies, and for 100% of their ratings. requiring nrsro registration required registration of all countries issuing ratings is perhaps the most counter productive and initiative o all. not only does forcing registration run counter to the 06 act, it could create a flood of new nrsro captured by the sweeping dragnet. investors will not have the inclination to look at all of these firms and will tend to remain with the providers they know best. the big three. further, registration would impose all of the increased erect and indirect costs on firms that would otherwise choose not to be an nrsro. this would force him out of

business, it will create disincentives for new entrants, it will stifle potential innovation and positive competition. so the treasury proposal would require firms to register. subject into high compliance costs. put at risk some firm's intellectual property. all in all, regular torrid protection for s&p, moody's and fitch, anything but a level playing field in the big the bigger agencies have lobbied heavily to promo the notion that one size fits all regulation is fair because all business models carry conflicts of interest and that there's is no worse than any others. can goblets occur in other business models? sure. theoretically. have conflicts in sscriber paid models contributed to any financial disasters? no. the red herring, this red herring cannot drive new legislation. the problem is not the potential behavior of the subscriber paid rating agencies, rather it is the misbehaviors of the issuer paid rating agencies that have already occurred. effective legislation and regulatory framework must focus

on reforming the issuer paid model, that the models most negative features providing oversight of the nrsro that prevent the self interested behavior that contributed to the current financial crisis and crting an even playing field for competition. the latter has two major components. fostering or at least not inhibiting new players. methodologies and innovation, and a global disclosure of data used by issuer paid agencies. for true reform to have a fighting chance, these things must be protected by the legislative framework for the ratings industry. we must be critically aware of how the unintended consequences of poorly regulations can leave us with a broken system that has proven it is not so deserving of protection. innovation and responsible alternative to a status quo have been hallmarks of the american financial system. these should be fostered by those. 90. >> thank you very much. i just take the opportunity that your comment about registration of all rating agencies as the

treasury proposal, it is not my proposal. just to clarify it. >> fair enough. >> the privilege of the chair. well exercised. >> imr, chairman reed, and development as of the committee, to be back before this committee. but i was very embarrassed position to begin by commending and congratulating the chairman. because what we are looking at in the treasury bill is 95% what was in the rebuilt. the rebuilt introduced in april was substantial cotructive well-crafted but i think it does just about everything that you can do through administrative regulation to deal with this problem. the problem is there are dimensions to this area that are beyond simply administrative regulation. and tt is what the treasury bill, and in particularly leaves out. that's because there is a shortfall, because not all the provisions in the reed bill are

in the treasury bill, and because there needs to be a consideration of some issues beyond administrative regulation. i would have to say there is a shortfall in the treasury regulation, and i would have to predict that we will see a persistence of the status quo, dysfunctional and perverse as it is, it will give all we do is what is in the treasury bill. in this regard, i think there are two distinctive critical features about credit rating agencies which distinguish them from all of the other gatekeepers in the financial markets that need to be focused on. one, credit rating agencies do not perform due diligence. accounts are being tested to go out and count the beans their credit rating agencies give ratings based on hypothetical assumed facts, unless you're getting hypothetical ratings. i think that has to be corrected. secondly, the credit rating agencies today do not face any meaningful risk of liability. because, as i look at the

future, even though i wish to encourage the user face system, i think the issuer bas model will persist and predominate. it will main a built-in conflict of interest. and when you have a built-in conflict of interest, the other professions have found that the only thing that keeps the professional honest is the threat of litigation. the accounts have learned, painfully, how to steer a course between acquiescence to the client and maiaining high integrity and litigation is one of the forces maintains that equilibrium. therefore,ased on that diagnosis, what do i think we should do? i think the first thing we had to focus on is how to encourage third party due diligence. the treasury bill does this largely adopting many of your provisions. the problem is it does this by required disclosure when you decide to use a third party due dilince firm, and it requires certification by that firm to the sec. and that raises the cost of

using a third party due diligence firm, and i think there will be many underwriters, at least if we get back to a bull market at some point in the future, that will simply opt not to use the third party due diligence firm. they did this in the past. these due diligence firms were widaly employed in the 1990s and is the market grew public, they drop their use because they kept learning disquieting fact that he didn't want to learn about. so you can put in disclosure that says we are not using a third party due diligence firm, and hope that more favorable market you can get away with his. i think you probably would be able to get away with this. how then should we deal with encouraging third party due diligence? i would do just that we look here at a different level of regulation. no one has been talking much about regulating the users of this information, and the users now are closely regulated by rules that i think are overbroad and ill-conceived. let me give you one example. rule to a seven of the sec under thinvestment company act tells

money market funds that they cannot buy securities and lastly are eligible securities and to be eligible securities have to have a reckless as rating from a nrsro agency. we can deregulate much of that but many of the users information do want to rely on nrsro already. i made it very clear to the sec. what i think we should say is that to the extent you choose to rely on and nrsro rating, it has to be a rating that is based upon third party due diligence that verified the essential facts. that when we have at least somethg that is not a user. is not a hypothetical redding. and that way because this will already exist. i'm not proposing new rules. i am proposing making the exiting rule meaningful by making it based on third party due diligence. there are other rules thatre in my statement. the point in doing this is by focusing on the user, we are not

regulating the rating agency and that allowss to sidestep some arguable constitutional problems about whether we are overly regulating commercial speech. i don't think we are, but we are doing it at all if irregular to user and so you only get the right to do this if you use one of these techniques, you have good due diligence. now, let me move on to this issue of liability. asic the business pays entrant based model, and 10 seconds i was at my proposal is not to open the floodgates, it is really your proposal. i think we struck a very sensible compromise because it doesn't really increase the likelihood of litigated outcomes. it sibley says your proposal in your bill enabled me to provision is as if credit rating agencies, they can be found to have acted recklessly if they give an opinion, a rating, without conducting some due diligence or receiving due diligence from a third party expert. this does not subject them to

liability. it just tells them there is one easy safe strategy for avoiding liability, and that is to made sure that the underwriter pays for it and gives you a third party due diligence report that covers the critical facts in your model. this will not produce a rational litigation nor will it produce behavior that avoids litigation, and thus this is another technique to get the critical core of due diligence act into the ratings process. thank you. i apologize for overstepping my time. >> that you, professor coffee. professor white? >> thank you, mr. chairman. members of the committee. my name is lawrence white. i professor of economics at the nyu school of business. during 1986 to 1989, i was boardmember on federal home loan bank board. thank you for the opportunity to testify today on this important topic. i have appended to the statement for the committee a longer statement that i delivered at the security and exchange commission roundtable on the credit rating agencies on

april 15, 2009, which i would like to have incorporated for the record. into the statement that i'm presented a. the three large us-based credit rating agencies, moody's, standard & poor's, and fitch, and they are in the middle years of this decade. clearly played a simple role in the financial debacle of the past two years. given us context and history, it is understandable that there would be strong political sentiment as expressed in the proposal by the obama administration and disclosed by others for more extensive regulation of the credit rating agencies in hopes of forestalling future such debacles. the advocates of such regulation want figuratively torab the rating agencies by the lapels, shake them, and shout do a better job. this urge for greater regulation is understandable, but it is

misguided as potentially quite harmful. a heightened regulation of the rating agencies is likely to discourage entry, rejected by an specified set of structures and procedures, and discourage innovation in new ways of gathering and processing information. new technology, new methodologies, new mods, including new business models some of which have been talked about earlier this morning. and it may not even achieve the goal of inducing better rating from the agencies. it may well be a fools air. ironically, it will also likely create new protective barrier around the income and rating agencies. there is a better route. that route starts with the recognition that the centrality of the three major but agencies from the bond information process was mandated by more than 70 years. it goes back to the 1930s, of

prudential financial regulation of banks and other financial institutions in essence, regulatory reliance on ratings. in essence, an outsourcing for delegating of safety judgments to these third party credit rating agencies. for example, the prohibition on banks as determined by the rating agencies ratings. in you, these third party judgments about the credit worthiness bonds with the force of law here this problem was compounded when the sec created the category of nationally recognized, and rso, in 1975, and in the sec subsequently became a very good industry in the rating agency. as the year in 2000, there were only three nrsro. movies, standard & poor's, and tranninety and should thus come as no surprise that