and all of the agencies. the extent that the team was sphere headed in massachusetts, oregon, and ohio. : money is protected. i would do well to take notice of our close collaboration. while this case represents an extraordinary accomplishment to protect citizens, we continue. thank you.

>> thank you, mike. good morning, everyone. my name s&p kevin perkins, i am the assistant directer of the fbi. as you've heard from our partners, today's settlemt is monumental. hopefully, it sends a clear meage that the fbi and our partners will not stand by and let any manufacturer peddle their prescriptions or products for uses beyond their intended federal government-approved purpose. under the provisions of the food, drug and cosmetic act, a company must specify t intended uses of its product in its new drug applications to the fda. and once approved, as you've heard already, the drug may not be marted or promoted for so-called off-label uses, any use not specified in the application which was approved by the fda.

izer and its subsidiary attempted to circumvent directers by using its sales force to aguess ily promote off-label uses. to date we've interviewed physicians and managers o have corroborated these aseriouses. we -- assertions. we wouldn't be where we are if it weren't for the ethics, profesonalism of employees willing to speak out against a corporate giant that was blatantly violating theaw and misleading t public through false marketing claims and providing incentives to health care provirs to induce them to prescribe certain drugs. i also want to thank the har work and dedication of the fbi investigators and analysts that worked this tirelessly leading up to this land mark and civil and criminal resolution in addition to our federal and state law enforcement partners who cooperated in this information. although these types of

investigations are often long and complicated and require many resources to achieve positive results, the fbi will not be deterred from protecting the erican public through continuing to insure that pharmaceutical companies conduct business in a lawful manner. thank you very much. >> thanks very much to everybody. we will take a few questions. >> y've made very clear how pfizer violated the law and violated its agreements with you all. did you additionally find any evidence that pfizer's conduct actually harmed any patients? >> whether or not it harmed patients was not a focus of the investigation, so it wasn't something that was simply part of ournquiry. >> why is pfizer not maing the guilty plea in the criminal matter as opposed to -- [inaudible] is there concern that that would affect pfizer's ability to -- [inaudible] or is it --

>> it may have to do with the particular history of the acquisition of the company. >> sure. the pharmacy is the one that had the mda for the drug. they had struck a marketing arrangement with pfizer before pfizer acquired the pharmacy division. so in many respects and while pfizer's marketing machine was the one that took over and pushed this, in many respects pharmacy division was a logical division for choice. there is, of course, the exclusion issue that comes up, and i'm sure that's what you're addressing. we, in some respectse look at it this way, if we exclude an entity, the entity is done. it has to sell what assets it can to other companies. those assets include assets like the drugs and the employees who marketed them and sold them,nd there is no opportunity i that event for a continuing corporate integrity agreement. as you heard secretary sebelius say, this is a phenomenal agreement, and we think that the

better chase here is to -- choice here is to have a plea that allows us to have a strong, effective corporate integrity agreement with the surviving entity. >> can you explain, i'm just curious, you talk about -- [laughter] you talk about, you identified senior managers. can you explain vhy there are no charges against senior managers you've identified? >> well, there have alrea been two convictions arising out of this, four managers, that's actually already occurred. >> could you talk a little bit more about how you describe this so-called marketing machine, how they interacted with doctors? it looks like they sort of created phony prescriptions in a sense? these standing orders and sham physicians' requests. like they're playing doctor at the same time they're marketing the drugs? >> and i should say while i have

this opportunity, secretary integ yus, unfortunately, had to run out and catch a plane. we have dan levinson who i think will be able to answer a lot of questions. if you want to talk more about -- >> i wouldn't say that they played doctor. i would say that the sales force at pfizer was effective at getting doctors to adopt things that were beneficial to the drug bextra. so i wouldn't say that the reps were playing doctor, i would not. >> is there any oth executives that are, that you guys are talking to about possible criminal charges, or is this information done? >> this brings to close this investigation. we'll comment about when the existence gr not of any other investigations, but at this point this investigation is closed. >> what about he ceo? did he know about this -- >> like i said, this brings this investigation to a close. >> there's been so much

discussion about whether pfizer and its subsidiary should be barred for a certain period of time to send a real message. >> dan, if you want to talk about what the results of this particular plea are. >> thank you. and i'm dan levinson, the inspector general for the department, and first, i'd like to thank the secretary for her tremendous support and her leadership over these last few months as we have successfully conclud what is a more than four-year investigati done by many of our great government partners, but i want to single out our boston regional office, our special agents did just an extraordinary job over the course of more than four years in bringing this case to a successful conclusion. the corporate integrity agreement that is part of the settlement that goes forward five years is an unprecedented, what we call c.i.a. terms of it provisions and its reach and its scope. the secretary outlined some of the broad features of the c.i.a

i want to underscore that for the first time, and we have been doing corporate integrity agreements at the department for a number of yers, this is really reaching into new territory. pfizer will be under obligation to proactively identy potential risks associated with the promotion of individual products and actually implement plans to mitigate risks. so we have both internal and external compliance requirements as well as a very robust plan going forward t avoid this kind of conduct from happening again. >> -- a tool you have yet to employ, but could that be employeed if they violate the c.i.a. you're talking about? >> it could be employed. it's important to understand that this settlement is for the benefit, certainly, o american taxpayers to return significant dollars misspent under the programs. it's also for the protection of

our beneficiaries who count on drug pipelines from a variety of manufacturers including this one. so it is important to understand both cost and benefit as we proceed on putting together a c.i.a., a corporate integrity agreement, that is strong, that will avoid the kind of bad behavior that we have seen in the past, and that serves the benefit of both taxpayers and men beneficiaries. >> -- noncompliance included in the c.i.a though? >> yes. yes, they are. >> what is the range of penalties for nonmpliance? >> well, there will be a range anywhere from fees, from fines to a potential debarmentrom the program. >> could you comment on the $102 million that's going to be paid to the whistle blowers? >> there's $102 million to be paid to whistle blowers. [laughter] it's divided among -- we can

certainly get you more information, and, tony, if you want to talk about the resolution of the tkm cases because that's a fairly broad scope. >> sure. yeah, this was, like many of the health care fraud cases that we do, this began with a ktm action and sort of a follow on. here there are several relaters who will be getting a recovery of the federal share of the settlement, and so, and depending upon there were, i think, 11ktm actions which are immy candidated by today's -- implicated by today's setement in various parts of the country. >> there's been complaint that is the ktm relaters are not hearing from justice months and months past without hearing if you're going to intervene in these mountain of cases against the pharmaceutical cases. there wasn't enough information from ktm lawyers put into this

area of the law for aong time. are you now bringing more resources to these cases? >> well, the majority of health care fraud cases that we do here at the department of justice begin with actions or a result of later actions, and that's a very important provision of the false claims act, and it's a very important resource because health care fraud is a priority and something we'll continue to do. >> [inaudible] >> you know, i don't know the answer to that, but we can get you that. >> were they, mr. loucks? were they all employees? >> we'll try and get that answer to you. >> the fourth settlementgainst pfizer this decade, how are americans supposed to trust this company moving forward? well, i think as the inspector general discussed, we have really a path-breaking corporate integrity agreement which i think is going to be a foundation for insurg that we canave, that we will have

confence in the future, but it's goingo require an enormous amount of monitoring by the government, and i kno the inspector general's office at hhs will be spending a lot of time working with pfizer to make sure that ty comply. and, you know, we wile' continue toely on the tools that we have, the ktm statute as well as other federal statutes. and this question about focus on enforcement, i will say tha from attorney general holder on down health care fraud is a very significant priority, and we are putting very significant resources to insure that we can recover funds in the health care area as well as broader fraud areas wherever we can. >> pfizer wasn't the only pharmaceutical, can you name the others thatre being investigationed? have we're not going to comment onion going investigations -- on ongoing investigations.

the focus has been ontizer and particular individuals within pfizer. as i noted, two have pled guilty, it has not been on doctors. >> this settlement was largely done under the bush administration. explain to me why you guys are having such a high-level announcement? is this again to signify your commitment to this area? >> well, there's no qstion that there is a significant department commitment, but i think it's not surprising that thdepartment and hhs would have, would want to use this opportunity to everyone sides our commitment given, again, the largest such settlement in history. $2.3 billion, i think the most significant prior to that was about 1.4 billion, so this is a very significant day in our efforts. but it is part of a longer effort where we have tried to reinvigorate our efforts. there have been work done by, as we've talked about over the last four years on this case, but this is part of, again, our

broader commitment to it. >> you've all talked about how difficult this case was to build. can you give us just a little bit of an idea of how you built it? obviously, mr. perkins, you said your agents interviewed some of the physicians that went to these promotion meetings. what other things did you do to build this case? what other kind of work did crow do? >> do you want to take that? >> well, just, basic investigative work and piecing it together, tracing funds, looking at the statute. it really didn't differ from any other type of health care fraud investigation that we do other than the size and scope that took place as well as working very closely with the folks at health care hs in investigator -- hhs in investigative teams. we did, we interviewed physicians, health care providers, people who corroborated that the allegations were being made through the ktm filings and gathered the evidence needed, gathered the financial records

we needed, gathered the corporate documents we needed, and it was a slow trudge through the process which so many times these can b but we're willing to continue with that type of resource commitment simply because of the outcomes that we receive and that we aieve here not only in the fines a convictions, but also in phe protection of the american public. >> last question. >> mr. perkins, some of the behavior you all describe inside this case such as paying doctors to appear at training seminars happen all the time. i'll bet it's happening this weekend. the inspector general had sort of laid out, i think, three years ago or four years ago behaviors that they thought might cross the line. are you setting a new standard of behaviorses that you think are crossing lines such as payi doctors to show up at training seminars which, again, is routine? >> i don't think we're setting any type of new standard on that. i defer to the inspector general or the u.s. attorney, but i think what we're doing is we look at each and every one of

these. know when they cro the line, when they don't, and those would be specific individual matters we'd have to deal with. but as far as setng some type of a new standard, no, that's not what's happening. >> and just a followp on that. one reason why this is, obviously, a very significant recovery, the most significant in history, is you have a combination of several things, many things coming together including whether it's the payment of docrs to actually work together to prescribe things off label for a use that wasdentified at the time the application was made for the drugs as something that the fda would not approve and had real safety concerns aut. as i think many of you know, the drug has been off the market since 2005. so thankou, everybody, thanks very much and thanks the entire team many of whom are in the room for just tremendous work. thank you. >> thank you all. >> >> live now to a discussion on efforts to improve emergency

communications since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. we'll hear from former homeland security sretary michael chertoff, on your screen, the harris communications firm is hosting this event, and you're watching it le on c-span2. >> but also to recognize the distance we still have to travel. as the 9/11 commission found in its report on the events of 9/11, one of the significant deficiencies at ground zero particarly in new york was the lack of communications and interoperability among communications for the first responders. in particular, police, firefighters and other emergency personnel couldn't talk to one another. and this has been an issue which has been at the top of the list of things to be done to deal wefective response in the eht years that have passed since september 11th.

i can tell you there has been a significant amount of progress that has occurred. first of all, in e last couple of years we've distributed ove a billion dollars, $1 billion, to states and localitiesor purpos of promoting interoperabl communications. technological advances have been made that now allow different types of radios and different kinds of communication devices to talk to one another through what they call gateways which essentially allow -- they're ke switches, portabl switches that allow you to cross the various kind of frequencies that uld other side not be able to talk to one another. and there have been steps taken build a governance process that would set the procedure and framework for interoperable communications both within a single jurisdiction among different kinds of responders and among jurisdictions that may be in a particular geographic

region. i should say one of the regions wherinteron the about is mt advanced is the washington meopolitanrea. the surrounding counties in washington do have the ability to cmunicate with each other. when we went ahead with the planning for the inauguration in 2009 which was a very, very big event for the region, one of the things we could count on was the ability to have communication among the various counties that were going to be affected. now, part of this is the fact that there's either an identity frequency or a capability to cross frequency in the area. but part of it is not technological, and it has to do with governance which is one of the critical elements in achieving interon the about. -- interoperability. what that means i all of the groups ttave to talk to one another need to hav an agreement on things like what is

the language you use? of course, we all use english, but some people use, for example, ten code, law enforcement tends to use that, some use what people call plain english. even within the various kinds of codes there may be variations so that one law enforcement entity may have a 10-4 which another calls a 10-20. if you don't have an agreement on the language, it is impossible to haventeroperable communications. second thing you need to know is who gets to talk to whom, and that process, who sets the standard, who gets to be in communication with their counterpart, that is also a critical element in getting interoperability. if you don't have that, the techlogy's not going to cure it. a third element is training. it's great to have the equipment, but if you haven't trained the responders in how to use it, how to deploy it, then they're not going to find it of much use in the event itself. just to give you a sense of some

of what has occurred even in the last year or two, in 2007 dhs established an office of emergency communications which was designed at the federal level to be a focal point for emergency communications programs at all levels of government. dhs published the national communications plan in 2008 which was digned to create a national strategy to improve emergency communications. this built on a baseline analysis that dhs had undertaken over the preceding years to see where jurisdictions around the country in all of the states in the major cities were with respect to interoperability because wt you need to understand, where the gaps were in developing a strategy to fill those gaps. during the fall of 2009, the direct rate of science and technology at dhs will conduct the final phase of multiband

radio testing. if it passes the test, that will be a device that enables emergency responders to communicate with partner agencies regardless of radio band. and the coast guard is deploying a cross-band banding switch in ports that will allow partners in theorts that use different frequencies to talk among each other. so all of these kindsf capabilities technologically and in terms of planning are getting out there, and that's all good news. the bad news is we've still got a ways to go. there still are variations in jurisdictions on issues like do you have gateways, do you have governance plans that allow you to talk within the region? what do you do when people come from far away and they have vastly different types of capabiliti, and they come in for an emergency how do we assure they're able to talk across channels? part of that is the ability to

move mobile communications equipment, but part of it is increasingly pushing to standardize language and governance across the entire country, and frankly, with our foreign partners with whom we share borders. training remains a critical element. there are still too many responders who ian if they cguld -- even if they could get the equipment wouldn't understand how to use it. matters are more complicated by the fact that we're in a technological revolution, that increasingly we have different modes of communication, voiceover internet, traditional wireless, traditional radio, and how do you determine which is the right approach to take both on your day-to-day use and your emergency use? and i think tho have not been resolved for all jisdictions. and then there is, of course, in some ways the holy grail of interoperable communications which is the idea of a dedicated portion of the spectrum. and, obviously, the plan was

originally to do that in the 700 megahertz field, at least in some portion of that spectrum. this is important not so much for the baseline voice communication which i think we can do now with gateways and other kinds of technology, but if you really want to have a capability to transmit a broader type of data. in the end where we should be is to have the ability for responders to have a blackberry or an iphone or some comparable device not only the ability to have communication across jurisdictional lines and agencies, but to stream data, even video, so that people can ha a common situation of awareness. and then at the end this all has to be integrated in some kind of a headquarters capability that allows you both to have full access to what's coming aoss the spectrum and also to integrate it and analyze it in a way that is useful for decision

kers. i'm not one who looks at the last eight years and says we haven't made progress. i tnk those who say that are probably unaware of some of the progress we have made. but i will say that it is disappointing that we haven't, for example, reached the decision point on the dedicated spectrum. and that we haven't moved forward on an interoperability and even basic op rabbit in some of the parts of the country. so this is something that will continue to require investment, effort. with every advance in technology, there'll be a corresponding burden put on government to kind of keep up with what's going on. and we all understand with budget tear constraints -- budgetary constraints there will always be a challenge in the approach that says let's scrap everything we currently have and move to something new. that's not going to -- in the real world, thas not going to work for a lot of jurisdictions

that don't have a limitless budget. so we need to particularly fos on solutions that allow us to migrate our current equipment into, and to adapt it into cutting-edge uses whether that's through the use of some kind of enabler that allows you to connect across frequencies or something that can be used to enhance your current equipment, ore even if -- or even if we have a new business model in which companies acquire something to one where you pay for service and basally as the equipment changes over time, you swap out that equipment because you're paying for essentially the use of the product rather than the product itself. so those are all things i think that are worthy of debate and discussion. full disclosure, in my current life i am out advising people on these issues, so i don't want to have anybody claim to be shocked and surprised. but i think what i'm saying here is really what i'm -- i've said

previously over the last four years, and i don't think it should surprise anybody who has kept up with the debate and discussion on the issue of inroperable discussions. >> thank you, sir. dr. vaughan will follow, he's going to discuss the technical aspects of what the future holds, and after that we're going to open it for questions both in the audience and v the web. i ask that you wait for the microphone to arrivend then identify yourself and ask the question. dr. vaughan. >> governance andechnology supported by training are the key elements, and progress has been made, i agree 100 percent, in the last years on both onts. as the -- but there's always the need to recognize that technology has a purpose, and the technology's purpose in this case is to serve the first responders who serve us, who help us. if they can communicate better,

they can be more effective in dealing with whatever the situation is, and great progress, i think, has beenade in both governance and on the technology side. but we have sort of the natural sort of conflicts that come between sortf old systems and new budgets these days. and, you know, betwe digital advances and analog compatibility. and in that case technology does have a role it can play and it has played. the gateways that the secretary mentioned are an important part of it. we also need to think from today's technology and the past technology which was fundamentally so-called narrow band technology for voice, and it'still an important thing to have, all the way to broadband technologies. and the, and when they, and we want to make sure that when we do that, we don't make those two things have a problem with interop rabbit.

so -- interopper about. so one of the advances that has gone alongside is the introduction of ip technology, internet protocol technology, the secretary mentioned voiceover ip which is a perfect example. and i say that for a couple of reasons. one is at the sort of traditional narrow band voice level it's possible not just to make a gateway, but t make an ip gateway. to make a gateway that does what it needs to do in terms of connecting to other networks, but does so in a way that makes it scaleable across an ip network. today in the u.s., you know, we have across the country defined mutual aid channels. these are channels that are given out along with the public safety frequencies when the public safety agency is awarded a license by the fcc.

one notion that we could look at is to take the mutual aid channels and put them all on a network. but further, if we go about that the right way and construct it in a network fashion, then we can go beyond that and connect even the broadband networks which fundamentally are ip to our traditional voice-only kinds of communications. it's a important advances that have happened. they've happened really at two different levels in the last few years. one is at the radio level where we are now and, as the secretary mentioned, that dhs is testing multiband radios. and the reason that's important is because not everyone across the aountry uses the same band. and, in fact, federal users are purposely aligned differently than the local public safety users so that they don't step on each other's frequencies. so there's the need for multiband radios, and that is an

important solutn. the other is the ability to connect networks together. the model is actually, has been out there, and you know about it. we all know about it, we just don't think abo it very often, and that's cell phones. if you're old enough, you may remember when there was no roaming. you could only operate in your local area, and that's the way in many times it is todayn land mobile radio. what happened? well, you know, it was two things. it was governance and technology. the cell phone companies signed roaming agreements. they came to an agreement about what language they were going to use and how they were going to work together. and the technology supported that. and so we need to do the same kind of thing. we need a network-level solution that allows us to do that kind of, let's call it roaming, and we need a radio solution to account for the fact that we have to have different frequency bands as are built into your cell phones today in many, many cases. and so we have the multiband

approach combined with the networking approach, and those two things are coming together now really in some ways for the first time. and that's, in many ws, for the voice communications the complete solution that we've waited for quite a long time for. and we' almost there. it needs to be fully tested, it needs to be fully vetted, it needs to be well you would, and if implemented, it needs to be trained in. d then we need to look beyond that, andhe secretary mentioned broadband technologies. and i think he again we have the opportunity becau we're starting anew there in the broadband to look at that holy grail, as he said, as being in one frequency band of one technology and perhaps separate in our minds the solutions like broadband that can be used anywhere from solutions for voice interoperability that are

needed everywhere. and those two things are two different problems to solve. it may be that we can't have broadband everywhere simply because it's too expensive. but it can be used anywhere, and that's important, and we should be able to have a foundation o networking technology tha the brdband sits on and the narrow band sits on, and both of them serve the first respoers. the point is at the end of the day that over the last few years solutions have been created. no, they're not rolle out everhere as the secretary said, but we have the opportunity to solve these problems in a number of different ws. solutions from a number of different companies who come at it from different approaches, but if we drive towards the solution that solves the problem both at the radio level and the different frequency bands and at the network level by ting systems together, we have a solution. a number of, a number of people are looking -- and you'll hear the phrase sometimes a system of

systems. and that's an important, an important notion. that is of tieing perhaps even existing radio resources together, system of systems. but, of course, it leaves open the question, what is the stem that the systems are of? what is the thing on top of that that holdses it l together? i think thawe're beginning to see, get a better, and better picture of what that is, and more and more often the answer is the same answer we have in communications in general, and that is ip technology. and so we look forward to continuing to serve first responders and through them the people they serve, us, with the new solutions that are coming together now. and, again, we have financial challenges, obviously, in the current environment, but as systems churn over time we can provide that interoperability to a greater and greater degree over time. >> okay. i think we#re ready for some question i can, i'm going to start off

with a question that came into the webst from joe around you are the row with government executive. this question's for secretary chertoff. she asks, dhs announced yesterday that senior officials from the u.s. and mexico signed a bilateral telecom agreement to support a new cross-border computer communications network for public safety and law enforcement focusing on strengthening border security. that will allow intimate response through cross-border data and video channels. secretary chertoff, wt kind of impactight this have on borr security and perhaps more importantly, what more challenges might this pile on? what does dhs need t do to insure it's not destructive? >> this is a good thing. it builds on a set of agreements we had entered into with mention copreviously coordinating with

respect to cross-border violence so when there was an incident directed from one country to another we could communicate and had a plan in place in order to allow the country where the ooter or the violent perpetrator was located to respond quickly and tamp down the incident. it's obvious in order to make the promise of that agreement come to fruition you need to have realtime capability of communicating. so i would say that the agreement that was announced yesterday is the culmination of this process of setting up these cboss-borderrotocols. what are the challenges? well, you've got to make sure everybody is tined, and they need t know how to wk the maches. the machines themselves have to work, so the implementation of this so that it's something that is capable of being used up and down across the border, is trained on both sides of the border. language issues, obviously, have to be addressed in terms of spanish and english.

you have to have people who can speak the language on both sides of the border as well as the governance issues we've talked about. who gets to talk to whom, what codes are going to be used and things of that sort. and what dhs needs to do in the implementation process is to make sure that these technological governance and training elements are implemented, and then i think what you're going to see is the ability to really reduce some of the risks that we have seen elevated at the border with the spike in violence over the last couple of years. >> wait for the microphone, please. >> national emergency equipment dealers association. you mentioned at the beginning a billion dollars had been given to state and localommunities. what is it going to cost to do what you're talking about, and how do you deal with this situation that counties, towns and cities in america are out of money and are not spending money on just like fire departments

that are not buying fire trucks and fireear to fight fires much less to do all the i.t. things that you're talking about. >> i think you put your finger on a big challenge, and i think there are two answers to the challenge. one is the is a continuing stream of money for grants, homeland security grants including communications grants which are made available to state and local. so there is money out there. but the key is to spend the money wisely, and that's why some people take the view let's scrap all the communications equipment you have and buy fresh. i think that would be an exorbitant way to deal with the problem. there are a couple of solutions, though, that i think are much more realistic. one is to use existing technology or capabilities to fill in the gaps or to allow bridging using existing technology. in other words, what you want to do is exploit the existing archecture whether it's

wireless, internet or radio. and either bring in equipment that can allow you to bridge over differences in frequency or allow you to work around when there's a failure, total failure of oper about, and you don't pay for all the underlyin elements of the system. the second solution which, again, is something kind of a novel suggestion is whether some communities ought not to move awayrom the model of buy it and hold it until it becomes obsolete toore of a leasing of services model. now, thera are some budget implications about that, you know, if you are onn annual budget, but if you look at it from the standpoint of an ordinary consumer, if you have a technology that is changing rapidly over time and you know you're gng to need to replace things relatively quickly,

aren't y better off paying for the service and letting the service provider do the replacement as opposed to buying the system yourself and then having to replace it over time? it's something similar to the model that, frankly, the telephone companies use with, you know, where you pay relatively little for your handset, and what they're really doing the revenue stream in their business model is based on the continuing service. this is not going to work for everybody, but it is something that i think is a model that ought to be thght about at least as one option, particularly if you're dealing with a difficult budget environment over the last year or two. >> dr. vaughan, do you have anything to add? >> no, i think it's absolutely true that new molds are unnecessary. we can think broadly about the issue both in how is financed and what the solutions are. and it'll have, strangely, a different effect. and that is that such a model

will actually advance the technology more quickly. today what happens for natural reasons, people keep their systems for a very, very long time, and that means their technology doesn't change very much, and so that technology stays the same. so it's, i'm not se which comes first, the money or the chicken, but clearly, if we begin churnin the technology, it's an opportunity to provide more advanced technology to first responders. >> thank you. sir? >> stuart powell with the houston chronicle. we're coming up on eight year cans after the 9/11 attack and sort of public willingness to make the sacrifices that you're talking about has kind of diminished. i just wanted to see how do you maintain the sense of urgency that you're talking about here, the expenditure of money, the deployment of multiband radio that you're talking about? >> i guess say, first of all, it's not even a matter of going back eight years to 9/11 to understand the sentence of

this -- significance of this. right year there's fire fighting in california. in 2007 when we were out for the really devastating wildfires in southern california, it was a sid demonstration of the need to bring in to play a lot of first responders drawn from around the country. and the ability to communicate among those responders was critical in an event just a little over two years ago. likewise, the floods, the hurricanes, everything we experienced in 2007, 2008 which were very tough years on natural disasters underscored that these investments save lives even without the issue of terrorism. so i don't think you're going to have trouble persuading people that the urgency of fixing this problem remains very much real. >> is there any timeline or cost estimate or impmenting the kind of multiband radio system shah you're talking about?

>> well, you know, multiband radios are of a similar cost to ordinary radios. they're perhaps a little bit more just because they are multiband, but they're actually available now. and so there's an opportunity to be begin what the secretary referred to was this kind of migration. you don't have to do everything all at once. you don't have to spend everything all at once. ygu n keep assets. certainly the towers and so forth can be kept, and you can do that over taoism if you have a way to -- time if you have a way to bring from the old to the new. and i think the ip technology today provide that opportunity to make that bridge. >> wyatt cash with government computer news. the evolution of wireless has been dramatic, and radio used to fill an important gap. but today we see so much ip over wireless that it sort of changes a little bit of the landscape of

what is the best platforms for interoperability. i'd be curious on your views of the discussion of governor man, how do municipalities work with th the wireless carriers to make sure they're continuing to support the need for first responde? >> you know, you're absolutely right that wireless technology has advanced a great deal, and you used a great word, said platform. the public safety users have to ta advantage of the commercial platforms even if they may have to reformat the for their own use. there are two challenges when you think about using public communications. one is the challenge that we're all familiar with when there is a problem, a lot of people want to use their cell phones. and so that gets in the way. and so we need a way to fix that, to change that. and the second challenge is that the typical public safety systems are designed to work when nothing especially does, when there is no electricity and

there hasn't been for a long time, and etc., etc. that serves a different need. and so one approach to that is in this 700 megahertz where you have your own system -- but even there you want to make sure that you leverage technology platforms through the commercial platforms. and so borrow that technology and take the best of that for public safety, but make sure that the systems meet the public safety grade need which is a little bit higher than our own needs for our cell phones. >> i would agree with that. i think that, you know, in a nutshell what you want to do is you don't want to rediscover the wheel or reinvent a system or create a parallel system. you wanto leverage off the investments being made to the extent you can. in the private sector on this damage. but you do have to assure two things for the responders to be able to rely on that.

one has to be priority of use, a way to make sure that in an emergency you're not taking a backseat to somebody who's, you know, using it for non-emergency purpose. and the second is resiliency. you have to deal with when the system goes down in whole or in part. if you can build those two capabilities, it's much for cost-effective in the long run, and yout get the benefit of the movements that are driven across the entire private sector as opposed to having to have dedicated improvements only focused on first responders. >> correct. >> jeff lewis, if both panelists coul just comment on how they feel the dedicated spectrum issue will be resolved, and do you both think it will be soon? >> i guess the short answer to my, i don't know d probably not. but i think that it, i think it will do -- we're very, very hopeful. we're beginning to see a

consensus starting to form. it's not all there yet. the big question is, of course, the funding, and that's the greatest challenge. what we have seen is a number of public safety entities have backed a certain kind of technology, and that's a positive thing. a plan to support either a regional system or a nationwide system, and so we can, we have a place to start if we want to start. so i think that we do, have left the issue of funding it, and it may be that it's, again, a technology that worksnywhere but notecessarily everywhere. an where it can be funded we're hopeful that it will be funded, and we begin to see the benefits of broadband technology and public safety, and then once we have that, we can move across the country to the next spot and the next spot. >> not much to add. it is an issue of funding and

will, and it's taken longer than i think people anticipated, and i hope it does not take an action-forcing event to drive a conclusion of this. >> sir? >> paul constable of the united stat mint. if we're able to tie the radio communications and the computer database systems together, in your opinion do you think that legislation's needed in order to insure that agencies do this and are funded for it? >> well, i think typically what happens is you probably do need at a minimum authorization for the agencies to do it if not a mandate. but i also have to say in general it's the funding process that tends to drive this in my experience as well as having the will at the top. i mean, there are, you know, at least at the federal level only a few agencies that deal with first responding issue although more than some people would

think, so that creates an opportunity for the interagency process to drive it from cabinet secretaries down to the organizations proded the money is there. >> i think i'd jt add that there's a strong rationale for that kind of connecting together. we all think as we talk about interoperability, radio interoperability of the problem, we perceive as a problem that there are all different frequency bands and different radios and protocols. and the reason that's a problem is because they're not connected together. if we did connect them together, th the very diversity of that communications would be turned into a positive because we'd have layers of communication. if one failed, we'd have another one. and so, you know, the idea that you mention of bringing together systems is an integrating systs into a unified if not uniform network is a very, very

positive one. >> rob, congressional quarterly. i had a question about the technical revolution that both panelists have addressed and the difficulty for state and local agencies at sort of choosing a model to go with, and i'm wondering if there's room for the federal government to play a more active role in sort of picking solutions or designing models that state and local agencies will know are viable alternatives? >> yeah. there has been an effort through nist at the department of commerce to drive standards with respect to interoperable communications. it's been very, very slow process because i think it's to some degree a consensus-driven process. what the federal government can do is a couple things. they can set standards, and they can actually mandate that grant money be used only to purchase communications equipment that meets the standards.

that drives it. the government's purchasing capabilities create also a market, and then that tends to drive this kind of behavior. so the federal government can play an active role. bear in mind, though, that typically local jurisdictns which fe various, you know, demographic and geographic and physical differences sometimes have very different ideas about how they want to implement. and, you know, what you need in the city of new york with tall buildings is different man what you need in an area like los angeles with a lot of very spread-out residents. so youe got to be respectful of the differences that require application of strategies in different modalities. but i think with that there's a standard setting and a convergence that the federal government could drive that would be helpful. >> standards are certainly very,

very important, but it probably doesn't mean, as the secretary said, that everyone needs to do the same thing. one role that dhs does playven today, it was mentioned earlier, is the testing of different technologies. in this case, multiband radios which they've been doing this ongoing, and that's important. i think what's important is not so much to test itself, but it brings to light the best practices. and so it isn't tt necessarily that should want the government to choose one practice, but at least it woulde a positive thing for them to help local agencies understand what the best practices are. and then to pick the right one for their local needs. >> hi. sarah, center for public tegrity. i'm listening to what you guys are saying in terms of the timeline over the past eight years. we're talking about money going to the state and local level the last two years, some things happening at dhs with oec and so

forth and some solutions that are still happening in the future. i'm curious if you could talk about how the money that's already been spent has gotten us towards these solutions that aren't quite there yet partially in the absence of something like the national emergency communications plan, and then howuch more money do you think we're going to need from the grant programs or other sources to get to a place where we can say, you know, we're there? >> well, i can tell you one thing is, i mean, because arrive seen this with -- i've seen this with my own eyes. the money has been used in many instances to purchase gateways, mobile communications systems, all of which have been deployed in emergencies and have allowed people to talk to one another in a way that would not have been possible. so that's a great example of yielding positive results. and in a more ip direct way, the -- indirect way, the money has also driven some jurisdictions to resolve issues of governance which were also critical in terms of getting

this done. part of the challenge is, and i think we've alluded to this, this is such a dynamic techlogy that once you invest, it doesn't mean you're done because as new capabilities come on you go from narrow band voice to broadband to, you know, data transmission, there's a desire to be able to accommodate that as well, and that's going to require additional money. that's why i can't give you a figure for what a total sum is, but that's why this solution that does not require scrapping what you have stre me as a better solution. now, there does come a point sometimes, you know, there's a true revolution that transforms everything and says, you know, let's get rid of our old desk phones and go to cell phones. but more often than not you don't really need to do that, and the disciplined way to spend the money is to look for the

less dramatic, you know, let's change everything out approach and two for the incremental. let's continue to improve approach. >> at one point i heard an estimate and from what seemed to be a reliable source thato change out everything was 40 or $50 billion, so that's probably not going to happen. the other thing that's important to think about how big the problem is in dollars is just to remember that the systems typically last 10, 15 years. and so, you know, at any one time, you know, 10 percent or less than 10 percent of the stems are being changed over. and so if we can maintain the funding levels at or perhaps above if we want something new to happen, then over time we can operate from inoperable solutions in the past to operable solutions. it is now in people's minds,

they are trying to solve the problem, and when they do get funding, they tento spend it in a way that makes it interoperable. >> all right. we're going to take a question from the webcast e-mail aount. this is from rutrell from government computer news, and he asks, there seems to be a push for more interoperability of radio and network communication between states bordering each other. any significant prototypes or testing of interoperability of raos or networks that can serve as a model nationally for state and loc governmt and federal agencies' intercommunications that you can talk about? in other words, is there an example of a good working model? >> well, many states that come to mind, states like the commonwealth of pennsylvania have been actively working with their neighbors in this regard. a formal case, though, that i can think of even though the system isn't built yet is oregon and washington, the oregon and

washington interoperability network. and what they're doing in the northwest is actually starting from the beginning thinking about the problem at the regional level, and that's a very, very positive development. typically, on a state by state basis, but here's an example where the regional thinking is happening. if, you know, if but believe as certainl i do that the networking is important, then if a little bit of network is build into every system that we build, then we can connect from one state to another or an entire region because we understand that that is a scaleable technology. the challenges are different when you get to those scales, those larger systems. and states, you know, a number of states are working on it. but the notion of a full regional system is really probably first in the northwest. >> secretary, anything to add? okay. back to the flo.

>> rich cooper with security debrief and catalyst partners. gentlemen, i was curious, secretary chertoff, you made a comment earlier about bringing sop of those diverse parties together and, dr. vaughan, you mentioned about the cross-board or cooperation between oregon and washington there. is there a role, though, for dhs or somebody else to play when you have parties that can't come to an agreement between just dictions or -- jurisdictions or between states? is there a role for dhs to play as a mediator or person who maks the final call so that we can insure communications during disters and emergencies? >> you know, rich, mediator, yes. final call, probably not although you can condition grants on a certain level of agreement. you know, it's like many years ago when i was trying a case a judge once said to me, i can't make you do it, but i can make

you wish you had. and i guess dhs can do that with grant money. i will say when we d the benchmarking over the last few yes and we confronted a few jurisdictions with governance issues that they had not resolved, i can think of at least one pair of jurisdictions which i won't name that actually fixed the problem. they were kind of shamed into doing it, and they got it done. so i think there is a role to play, but it's a little bit delicate. >> chris, chris strum with congress daily. i'm sorry, i'm going to go off subject just a little bit. the terror alert system has been in the news lately, and i guess, secretary chertoff, i'm wondering what you think about should be done with the system, should should it be abolished or what's the base way for the federal government to communicate with state and local partners in the

private sector. and secondly, in your experience, did politics eve come into lay in raisinghe aletter level? >> the answer to the second question is, no, never during my tenure in any way, shape, or form. weid it twice. we did it once in the wake of the london bombing, and at the time i explained that was because we weren't sure about the mentions of the plot -- dimensions of the plot, so we raised it for mass transit briefly, and then we did it in 2006 in connection with the plot to bomb airliners coming from the u.k. to north america. i don't think there was ever an issue with it. as has been publicly disclosed, secetary ridge and i did meet with the committee that secretary napolitano has put together on this issue. i would say generally you have

to understand how the system evolved. every operational organization has a way of communicating rapidly with its constituents abt the need to change your alert posture or your readiness. the nil tear has it -- military has it, the coast guard has it. not surprisingly, it was seen as important to do that in homeland security, and there is now a whole series of operational plans that are keyedo wt level you're at. and by going from yellow to orange like we did, for example, in aviation, it allowed us to immediately make sure tha every airport did something diffent once we issued the alert than they had done previously, so there's a real operational significance. ..

.

communications, in the entire federal government. because i understand it's been continuing consistently, jurisdictional challenges. and two, if i got -- if you all could touch about the impact on cell phone use and e-911 call centers, that is, the inability of respondin to emergencies, when folks are calling from their cell phones, and who, touching back to the question to chertoff, who is responsible for giving clarity to that, not just to the public safety community, but to the blic at large? thank you. >> can you identify yourself >> biviose fenton. >> ihink the first question directed to me is a version of the who's in charge question, which always gets a longer answer than you would like to have. i think in terms of the anning of emergency communication structures at the federal level, it is dhs that has the lead role, but i think for example the fcc has a statutory role and

certai authorities -- in certain authorities as it relates to the regulations or the air waves and dhs has to work within that framework. the department of commerce an nis has certain stutory responsibilities with respect to standards and regulation. so there's probably no one single person who has all of the authority. i would venture to say, though, in terms of structuring the emergency architect euroo and of course dod has the military side, which is distinct -- i would say in terms of structuring the emergency architecture o the civilian domain, i'd have to say dhs takes the lead, in military domain, it's obviously the department of defense that takes the lead. >> with regard to technology -- the technology question, you mentioned that cell phones need 911. i'll make it broader than that. it's really, more and more often the would ofust what i advocated earlier, ip

technology, is what causes the problem, that is voice over ip technology, whether it's wireless or wired presents a tremendous problem to the e911 dispatchers. the solution which is you can see theolution, butt isn't here yet, is tied up in a word that you've heard the secretary -- a phrase you've heard the secretary use a couple of times, situational awareness. we actually have other

. that's a -- notwithstanding economic circumstances, that's always an issue. and i think what it suggests is that grant money ought to be used as seed money and as moneyno carrierringno carrierri0

>> coepareson of health care systems around the world. t.r. reid on q and a. >> lessons

>> what we're doing is describing a couple of shots today that we're going to add into the documentary. supreme court week starting october 4th on c-span. >> an event now by the education department. this is about 35 minutes. >> i would like to give some open end remarks to recognize a

lot of people in the audience who had been insumental in supporting the academic excellence. to platform officials, speakers, college, and university deans, presidents, and guests. it's a pleasure to give these opening comments. at this time i was like to ic senior managers to stand and be recognized for their many contributions to hbcus. thank you so much. our academic oreach efforts are collaborative across the entire 16-member agency. the centers for academic excellence program planning started back in november 2003.

at that time i was at trinity university as a scholar and resident. i lt trinity and met with all of the agency heads and skill managers to make sure i would shape the program as they saw fit. and by fall of 2004 we had our first pilot test school for the centers of academic excellence. and that was trinity unirsity here in washington, d.c. i am pleased to note today that we have the first primary investigator of the centers of academic excellence from trinity here with us today. dr. katherine mcguiness, pease stand. i'd like to reporter to -- report to you that we started with one school and added three more in academic year 2009-2010,

we had a total of 20 plus cae institutio across the country. this is due in large measure to the leadership of the directors of national intelligence past and present including director blair whs here today. i couldn't get this job done without the help of a lot of people. i would like to give special thanks right now to ron sanders who's the chief human capital officer of the intelligence community, his companionship, his leadership, and his sponsorship has been invaluable. ron, thank you. [applause] >> i would like to ge special thanks to the national geospace intelligence. you say why them? we use their grant authority, they make sure the schools get

their money. thank you to nga. the historically blank colleges and university's mission is about strengthening the cacity and excellence in education. and that is exactly what the intelligence community programs intend to do with ts outreach programs. the intelligence community, programs embody the spirit of your executive order 13256. especially sections 4 and 7, because those sections of the executive order deal with educational enrichment, study abad, and employment opportunities. university officials, deans, professors, you're the real champions in this equation to built america's talent for the future. your actions and your deeds are

a testament to the hbcus inspiring service to outbreak country. the intelligence community is very purposefully. the 2009 nationalntelligence strategist signed by director blair in august of '09 articulateed six mission objectives and seven enterprise objectives. just to let you know how serious he is, enterprise objectives 2, 5, and 7 are about academic partnerships. and building talt for the intelligence community core mission needs. and this is where i believe hbcus excel in helping america build its intellectual capital. the intelligence and national security business is also about public service at the very highest level. and as you know the intelligence

community people who are here today, they are very serious aboutheir careers. they are so serious, because want you to think about this. and some you might have been teased on occasion. if we tell you what we do, we will have to what -- shoot you. but seriously, together the intelligence community and hbcus make a phenomenal team wh we align our efforts. and as you know there is no i in team. however, let me leave you with three is that i believe we can allage our hats on, influence, intellective talent, and inspiration. yes, hbcus have the power to influence national security by developing competitive talent that the intelligence community can attract, recruit, and hire.

hbcus inspire students to exceed expectations in any endeavor so continue to establish the incredible hbcu world-class brand and legacy. and i'll leave you with this as a final thought:when we were born we entered this world not knowing what we would find. we were not responsible for how we found it. however, ladies and gentlemen, we are responsible for how we leave it. i challenge hbcus to seize every opportunity to thrive. because in my heart, yes, you can. thk you. [applause]

i'm about the intduce the director of national intelligence. dennis blare the public servant at the highest level. he wears many hats. he was confirmed by the senate on the 28th of january 2009. director blair did not waste any time taking charge. because the very next day he walked into his office as head of the intelligence community. now some of you might be wondering what is the intelligence community? well, it was comprised of 16 national level agencies. and just to name a few, it includes the central intelligence agency, cia, dia, the defense intelligence agency welcomes nga, and nsa, often referred to no such agency.

director blair also serves at thedvisor to our president obama and the national security council. he oversees and directs the national intelligence program, and we all know that means money. director blair graduated from the naval academy which has been said already this morning. after 34 years of military service, he retired as a four-star admiral. during his public service career, director blair received many rewards. this is something that he might not want me to share with you, but i'm going to share it anyway. as a skipper during his early military career, director blair was somewhat renowned, i would say even famous in naval circles. i guess you are wonring why. well, this brave and daring gentleman attempting to water ski behind his huge destroyer,

the u.s.s. cochran, it is an attorney to present my big boss, dr. blair. [applause] >> thanks. the rest of the story is i did not succeed in water skiing behind the destroyer. but good afternoon and to all of you it is a pleasure to be here and thank you very much for inviting me and being part of this. and it's also of course a wonderful honor and pleasure to be with charley bolden back again on a podium. he didt tell you the whole story of our times at the naval able. you never build your classmate as you say. he and i were candidates for

this elective office at the naval academy if you are president of your class. as i recall, he won a few and i won a few. but i always fel that a disadvantage at times like this, which i certainly am now. i'm here to pay tribute to the historic black college and university, but we're both also kind of recruits. we want to get good people come into our agencies. we your college and universities to open up those eyes to those possibilities and so on. let's look at this for a minute. nasa, african-american astronaut, intelligence communities, white guy recruits spies. [laughter] >> so. so. i'm going to have to do what we do when we're in a tremendous disadvantage. i'm going to use money a little later in the program.

but i am -- and i do have to mention one other sort of competitive aspect between administrator and my organizations. i was very proud to have learned a few weeks ago in the survey taken around this town is that the intelligence communities, many of which members lonor mentioned, came in pretty well. we turned out to be the fourth best place to work in the federal government. i'm embarrassed to say the nasa was the third best place to work. so just wait until next year, charlie, we're gaining on you.

but national aeronautics and space administration is a fantastic organization that has dgne so much for this country. i'm sure that administrator boldin is going to take it on to new heights. we look forward to that. but i'm speaking for the intelligence community for those of us who try to make sure that when the united states goes out and operates in the world we have a better appreciation of what's going on than anybody else so we can make the decisions and do the right thing for the country. and so in order to be successful and what we're doing, we simply have to be diverse because if we are going to be effective in the number of places that we operate and the things we have to do, we simply have to have a work force that effects -- that understands and reflects the diversity of the world which we have to

understand and pass on. to put it very simple terms, people who look like me don't blend in very well in east africa, and don't understand fferent parts of the world as well as though who have ties to that region, who can understand it better. so for us, the definition and purposes of the diversity are broader than perhaps for many organization. and in addition tohe categories that the eeoc entires us tottract, pirates, women, persons with disabilities, we also need employee with a wide background of national ethni origin in order tour effective with different language, ethnicities, different perspectives, and ideas for us to do our job. and we're a better force for it. now in order to reach that goal we have a number of innovative

programs in recruitment, hiring, career development and training that are all aimed at increasing and building on this development. and over the past five years we have seen steady increasing every year in each category, especially in the higher grade senior positions, our core mission skills and the intelligence cmunity which the analysis, collection, science, and technology. we're not where we want to be in all areas, but we're making steady progress year after year. for example, our african-american population has increased from 10.9 to 11.the. that means our current representation is the percent higher which is the official bench mark that we use but again we're not satisfied with that nor are we in many categories. we just need to make it better not only because it's the right thing to do but it makes us a better agency, better community

to do our jobs. now again you're probabl asking yourlf what possibility could someone like me know about the experience that young african-americans in college today face in today's job market? and i admit that i rely more on experts in my organization like those who are here who have closer perspectives and more experience on this subject that i do. i would like to share a couple of stories that i believe have given me some insight over the years into this subject. and it certainly has made a big impact in my life. but first was related to my growing up moving around with the navy, just about my entire life i was stationed, for instance, many times in hawaii where whites are a majority. there are more asians than caucasians. the first time wasindergarten

through second grade,ni found what it was like to fit in with the locals. believe that bein an minority wa an invaluable experience. and i believe that that helped me understand and appreciate the perspective of minorities. the second time is adult with children of my own, son and a daughter, a wife who had also lived in hawaii as a teen. and it was certainly important for them to understand that perspective. and i think that's made them better people as a result. and then the time that i was living in japan and really diploma understand what it was like to be part of a very small minority in the country that looked different from the way that i looked. in these experiences i was never subjected to the active or passive commission, --

discrimination that you are different from those around you. how do you get ahead and fit in? how do you do the things that all of us have to do? the second event that made a major impact on my life was a role that i was privileged to play in righting some wrongs. as many of you all know, during world war ii, a million african-american served in the forces. not one of them received at that time the nation's highest award for courage and bravery, the metal of honor. finally in 1992, the army commissioned historians to study why wac that so? and the report concluded that there were significant reasons, primarily caused by racist leaders within the army who disapproved the awards, who discouraged and enlisted for

even being submitted to the rewards. that was in addition to the segregation of army units at the time. and the report -- this report in 1992 recommended the reevaluation of the records of several particular soldiers to see what could be done about it. so the army did that. and it was those records which were truly amazing stories of valor and endurance that i have the privilege of looking at when i was serving in the pentagon as a director of the joint staff. it was a bittersweet privilege to be involved in that process. bitter because of the fact that this courage and endurance had not been recognized at the time. but sweet that it was finally happening. because eventually justice was served, although it was 50 years later when president clinton awarded metals of honors to the families of those who had earned

them. there was one of the group who was still living. now that event also set the stage for a similar review of the record of asian americans in world war ii. d i was even more involved with that event when i was out in hawaii for my final tour in the armed forces. and quite simply, those two events, watching how long it had taken, watching the talent and fortitude and valor that had been expended for the country and that had not been recognized or taken advantage of, those made an impression on me and made me realize that never again could the country neglect to recognize the service nf all of those. and that's especially true when comes to recognizing those heros within the ranks, the ones who go above and beyond the call

of duty. we cannot afford to make mistakes like that to ignore or hold back simply because of the color of the skin, whether they were born male or female, whether their parents happened to have been born in another country. the intelligence community is a community that benefits by being as diverse as possible so we can better understand people around the world. it's the right thing to do. it makes us more effective. fortunately, despite of some of the other problems and challenges that we fe today, we can take justifiable pride in the way we mentor our africaamerican employees as well as all of our employees. we're very proud in increasing presentation it's now above 81%. we're prouof the agencies in the intelligence community. they all have chapters of blacks in government, big. and we're proud of our recently

created afillty network which is best practices innovation with ten different employe resource groups including one for african-american employees. these are the sorts of efforts that take care of people after they have been been board for a while. we can't just stop once we hire and recruit. we are have to work all the through careers in our agencies making sure that everybody can fulfill the potential contribution in the organization that he or she can do and is not held back by either seen or unseen bare yours and that really brings us to today. we're also extremely proud of the intelligence community centers under the remarkable leadership of dr. peter's grant, and we're proud that we have three black universities, clark, north state, and tennessee state in nashville. and i'm pleased to publicly announced, and tha is news.

that for this new academic ye we've added eight more schools including three hbcus, florida university, a & m, and miles college in birmingham. [applause] . >> and the polls are not closed. we look forward to having even more partners in the future. so keep coming at us. we'l keep working at it. we're in the restricted by any means to only recruit those in the excellence program who don't happen to be in thi program as well and we want all of you from all of your colleges and universities whether it's a cae college or not to encourage your best graduates to come think about us when they are thinking about where the go in their

professions. but we do always have this extra bond. let me tell you a little bit about the centers for academic excellence program for before i ask the representatives to come forward to accept an award. the cae program in national security studies was established in 2004. it is emphasis was and continues to be building long-term relationships with colleges and universities that meet five key requirements. they need to design, develop, and reshape curricula and discipline that support our mission critical skills, analys. they must develop competency and regional expertise, critical foreign languages, and cultural awareness. they have to develop and hot with other institutions in their area. it should promote awareness about the intelligence mission, about intelligence careers, the value of public service, entrepreneurships and scholarship opportunities.

they need to develop and host high school and to attract talent. and also to promote awareness about our mission. beeve strongly that thate do should be more transparent to the american public. we don't he to shoot you. [laughter] >> even if we can't always share exactlyow we do it, if we told you that, we would. and lastly our partners in the colleges and universities must conduct assessments and attract to ensure what they are doing is good not only for the intelligence community but for the nation. and when schools meet these requirements, they receive grant funding for their colleges and university. and that funding really promote the alignment with the intelligence communities many core missions and skills. because we need criminal justice majors, lawyers, economist, linguists, other language specialist. we need researchers, historians,

transnational threat, cybersecurity specialist. we need engineers who can work on advance satellites on communications equipment, or sensors, or high-speed computers that have facial recognition. we need analyst that can make sense of thelood of data. we need young intelligence officers who understand other cultures and give critical thought to strews, styles, and as well as technological challenges. we need brave souls who can go out and recruit, hire, and develop and form relationships with agents in hostile counies. our program, if we do itight, is a win, win, win for academic and intelligence community and most important for the country. over the past two academic years the three universities that we're recognizing tay has helped the intelligence

community to reach more than 10,000 students even enrolled in the national security programs, perhaps an individual course or who have attended. they develop workshops that reached over 4,000 high school students and their teachers. and they competitively selected over 600 scholars and 84 have made it into entrepreneurships. -- internships. they say the travel flattens the purse, broadens the mind, and lengthens the conversation. but i also agree with all of those assessments, i agree with mark twain, tha most important about it is travel is fatal. so we must considerravel be a key part in more ways than one. and now i'd like to recognize the contributions and to recognize the contributions i'd like to call up to the stage the president's of those historical

blue -- black universities who are members of the academy excellence. i'd like to thank each of you for being our champions on campus. first with a grant of $380,000, north state in virginia. [applause] >> we have plastic on this thing. >> it's kind of difficult there. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> let's move over here where they can see us. great. thank you. >> are you ready? q. very, very quickly. first of all i want to thank any

colleagues at northtate university who do so much for so little who were led by my friend and colleague. there she is. [applause] secondedly, i want to thank the white house for always being behind not only north state university, but all of us. i want to thank the presidents who are here from my big brother who was here, i can't find him, to my good friend dorthy yancey, and most of all, with this particular award, i want to thk this lady. i use her and many people don't know it. i only met her a couple of years allege. she had a dream and a vision. and after meeting her, i realize she was a champion for that vision. and she realized something that

admiral rich snyder told me, a vision without resources is an illusion. she made it happen. she was the champion for this prram. and it's grown even more than she said it would. and the first time i met her i said with her doing it, it's going to happen. thank you from us all. [applause] >> all right. an second with the grant for $1.5 million, clark atlanta university in atlanta. [applaue]

>> good afternoon. i'm not the president of the university, i'm the vice president for research and sponsor. but on behalf of our president, dr. carlton e. brown, i'd like to thank you for the general support of our students. it's meant quite a bit to us. thank you. [applause] >> let's see. and finally with a grant of $2.25 million, university of tennessee in nashville. this is president johnson. >> thank you. go ahead, sir. >> i'm going to thank my quit opportunity to first thanky wife. i lrned that from the previous speaker who's not here.

but also dr. peters you have done an excellent job in terms of getting this program started. i thank you for your support. and i thank you, mr. blair, for all that you have done to ensure we have the intelligence community right at the tip of the sword. and i know what that means. so thank you for all of our presidents and most assuredly our students who are the beneficiaries to this type of support. thank you and have a great day. >> great. i thank you all of you very ch. alsohe colleagues and university that are joining us this year and those who will be joining us in the future. i think this is the right thing to steer and make the opportunities available to some of your most talented students perhaps help them and certainly we hope to show them the both

rewards of working and the intelligence community and what they can do. let me closeith one last point, april 5, 1945, a admiral led his platoon. when gman machine gun and motar fire wounded, he stayed behind to cover of those who can walk in their own. then he personally evacuated those previously wounded. it was almost 52 years later, that mr. baker received t metal of honor he received. no one ever dbt the that lieutenant baker was a true american hero. and it's m goal, and i think we're partners it this request

to recruit more into the sepvice of their country, in this case the u.s. intelligence community and s theyre recognized for their excellence, not decades later, but immediately. [applause] and also i want to raise the profile of our patriots within the intelligence community, those of all races and ethnicity, so they are equally respected as those who wear the uniform. those who make america a better place and a safer place. and it's a younger work force than you think. most of our people joined after september 11, 2001. there's some remarkable portunities for patriotic seice and personal growth. so finally, thanks to all of the historically black colleges and universities all of you who believe them, our partners now,

our partners in the future, for assists us and for allowing us to work with them to embrace the mission, the values of the intelligence community. i guarantee they will not let you down, and we will not let you down. thank you very much. [applause] >> let's give him a hand please. [applause] >> let me say something. please, please. as we close now we're at the end of our program i want to thank everyone at the head table. we have an award for admiral blair. i want to give him this award and let him know that all of the hpcu presidents in here, all of the presidents in the room, please stand so we know who you

are. and remain standing for a second. all of the hpcu presidents and i have something in common with you, and tha is we are charged with the care and management of the intelligence communities. okay? and we also have in common the fact that our intelligence communities are hidden. if you do your job right, yours will remain hidden. and we do our job right, the light will shine on our intelligence communities. the light and the profile will be raised and we'll get more and more support from the goverent and the private sector and be as strong and have as much capacity. for the intelligence communities together for t work that you have done and the work you do, we give you this reward and we thank you for the future we will create together. thank you very much.

goodfternoon, everyone. good afternoon. [applause] >> thank you. enjoy the rest of the conference. [inaudible conversations] the time has yet to be established. but we will have life dodge on c-span.

>> we'll review the health care debate in congress tonight with highlights from the hearings and analysis by martin vaughn. on friday night, where the issues standard in the senate. comparisons from health care systems around the world where t.r. reid on q and a. >> as the debate over health care continues, c-span's health care hub is a key resoue. online watch and follow the latest events and share your thoughts on your issue with citizen video, including video from any town halls. and there's more at c-span.org/health care. >>

>> now a meeting on efforts t improve schools and white house plans to the economic stimulus funds to school that adopt specific policy recommendation. the institute on no child left behind is the host of this discussion. it's about three hours. >> good morning. >> morni. >> my name is alvin thornton,

i'm the chief academic at howard university. i want to welcome all of you to hord university. i want to eent on behf of our president a welcome to each of you and to the other organizations who have assembled themselves around this most important national issue. i also want to extent thanks on behalf of our president to those who have aeed to come and testify on this great issue of national significance. the great son of our nation would be very proud as led by the aspen institute and the work that's being engaged in and those who are testifying.

just several feet from here marshall did the great work that led to the ground breaking sport of educaon decision and the expanded the umbrella for our children. and created the cultural and educational landscape that we're not trying to enrich. here in our law school charles houston and other working with scholars here created the brown jurisprudence. we all appreciate the fact that this is the starting point at which our nation has been engaged since. the discourse that has flown, but nonetheless, continuing. and we hear how university and our president's see this assemblage as a continuation of that. so i just want to thank on

behalf of our president each of us for being willing to continue the dcourse. er more inclusive abo the americans about what will happen to our children and how we will guarantee the constitutional umbrella over them guaranteeing for all of o children is assured. we here at howard are pleased to have a great school of education with our dean sitting here working with our middle school of science and math and our early learning center. and so we're very pleased that you've come into this environment to discuss this critical question. we do know that we he to have great standard for our children that do not separate our children based upon class or ethnicity, a language backgrnd, immigrant status and common for all of our babies. and that we provide appropriate

funding for those standards. they are not specific to the municipalities or states or home or ogin or family income. d then that most importantedly as president boldin would argue that making sure that the couldability standards that do not allow any school or community to underachieve our chidren. so ain, become to our campus. and become to the environment of howard to ensure that constitutional umbrella is comprehensive. ank you, i wish you a good here today here at howard university.

why -- >> good morning. i'm delighted to echo his remark. thank you for con vining here at howard university. as he mentioned, it was most appropriate that this first hearing about the no child left behind legislation wouldccur on these grounds, the place where the intellectual and legal strategy was crafted, anchored by their deep mal commitment to equality and educational opportunity, charles hamilton houston, and charles thompson, dean of the departmen of education charted a course that continues to require that our nation expand its citizens access to quality education in their legal calculus, these men defined access as the accountability measures.

commissioners as you engage in this hearings, you are well away that there are some who would have us believe that the core issue is summarized in statistics about which students or some groups are scoring high. but the real issue is which stapes and districts are enables student achievement. some states, district, and schools are enabling and some are not. there's a consistent pattern of variables among those districts and schools which have high student outcomes and those that don't. empirical evidence is beginning to show us that the fundamental assumption that achievement focused insentize improvement is deeply flawed. a recent howard education study found that test-driven systems don't incentivize improvement and that indeed they hurt

minority and high poverty schools often lveing these schools worse off. we each sit here knows that in high poverty schools where in 50% or more are on free or reduce lunch, those are 70% more likely that are not certificated across math, science, social studies. and cpounding these effects are th other factors that consistenting limits student opportunity to learn. students langue in school that is are underfunded lack contemporary and have short tenture of superintendent, a revolving door of principals, and high turnover rates among teachers. yet, despite these well defined and documented variables, we continue to talk about measuring kids to see if they achieving. and now we even are beginning a

conversation and evolving more nuance measures of student academic achievement. t long ago we indicated that 84% of african-american students are in statuas require high steaks high school exams. where 66% of white students are in such states. but who's measuring these students access to quality teachers, stable principal leadership, availability of gifted and a.p. classes in their schools. commissioner, we at howard university encourage you as you engage your important work to evolve a new model that clarifies the relationship between input and student outcome data. to produce an equity ind. this would likely have high predictive value, providing data

about the track record which enable student achievement, policymakers, parents welcome practitioners could use this index to understand the robustness of opportunity to learn in their schools and districts. and most important the index could be used to hold states and districts accountable, shifting the attention away from measuring kids to measuring the commitment of practitioners and policymakers to expand access to quality educational opportunity. i believe the work in their recent report would be helpful to in work. continuing to test educationally malnourished chiren will not yield much progress. not surprisingly until the inputs are changed what we will continue to find that these students come up short. perhaps the most meaningful action that you can take as you recommend revisions to no child left behind is to affirm that

more equitable is needed to give students a fair and subantive opportunity to learn. afterall, the original intent of the elementary and secondary education act, no child's left behind parent education was to improve for poor children. thank you for being here today. we welcome you to howard university's campus. my second task this morning is to introduce the chair of the commission, dr. michael lomax. as president and chief executive officer, mr. lomax heads the largest and most successful assistance organization. through its headquarters and fairfax, virginia, and 24 field offices across the country, uncf provides operating and program funds to its 39-member private

black colleges in universities and their 55,000 students. in addition, uncf manages more than 400 scholarships programs that support 8,000 studes at over 900 of the nation's colleges and universities. in the course of 64-year history, it has raised and distribute over 2.5 billion and has assists over 300,000 students in earning undergraduate agrees. in 1990uncf received over $1 billion, the largest private gift to american higher education from the bill and malinda gates foundation which provides outstanding minority student with an opportunity to complete their undergraduate. dr. lomax joined uncf in a serious of high level academic and political positions

immediately before joining uncf, he served sevenearses a president of dillard university this new orleans. i'pleased to introduce dr. michael lomax, president and ceo of the united negro college fund. y, our provosts. i want to think the president' who could note here this morning. when we called and said we wanted to have this hearing at howard, he was so gracious to provide a of the support needed. it was so approiate that we are here. this is thground on which thurgood marshall stood with charles hamilton schuster and dean thompson as theprepared for the landmark brown vs. board

of education mitigation. it is appropriate that we come back to ask how we fulfilled that extraordinary promise and that ruling which outlawe separate but equal in the nation that has yet to be able to find a way that all children have equal access to an education that will prepare them for college and for life. >> i'm delighted to be here today wearing two hats. the president and ceof uncf, and also a new mayor of the aspen instituteommissioned on child left behind. and i want to say a special word of thanks to aspirin, to the aspen institute for taking leadership in addressing this extraordinarily important issue for our nation. the commission was formed in 2006 to take an independent, bipartisan look at the strength

and weaknesses of no child left behind here a lot that is a vital part of our nation's commitment to educating all children, including those often forgotten. the commission is cochaired by two former governors, roy barnes of georgia, a democrat, and tommy thompson of wisconsin, a republican. a bipartisan effort. in a town which doesn't often see that. why is uncf? let me tell you why i wanted to get involved with this important effort. why is uncf involved in the k-12 education reform movement we are a post-secondary organization. uncf has always worked in its 65 u. history to open the doors to higher education for all americans. our focus has been on removing

the financial barrier to raising dollars to provide scholarships to ensure that the young men and women who aspire for college education have the financial resources to attend. today, we see another barrier to the dreams that so many young people have for achieving a college education. and that is educational preparation for college. to many of the young men and women who graduate from our high schools today are not college ready. in dact, 30% of all incoming freshmeneed remedial education. and the figure is much higher ong students of color. for too long, the students have been invisible in our schools. with their performance masked by

school performance averages, these achievement gaps have profound effects on our nation's economy, and obviously on the jean men and women's lives. a 2009 report released by mckinsey and company has shown that the persistence of achievent gaps between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers imposes the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession on our country. the landmark no child left behind act, nclb,nacted in 2002, generated an unprecedented sustained national dialogue about the quality of america's public schools and how to improve achievement for all students and close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority children and their peers the laws focused on data-driven

accotability has transformed education reform debate. as a result of the data made ailable as a result ofo child left behind, we are better equipped to make informed decisions about what is working and what needs improvement in our schools. though nclb has been an important step forward in improving educational performance, our work is far from over. too many parents lack of a clear meaningful information they need make good informed decisions about their children's education. too many children, particularly children of lor, are still assigned to schools that are not meeting their needs. the pace of change in struggling schools is far too slow. and the political will to address the obstacles to reform is often lacking.

and i think we should at this point as we acknowledge the importance of no child left behind, as we celebrate its successes and as we shine light on critical areas of improvement, we should all stop for a moment and pay homage and respect to senator edwd kennedy. we want to take a moment to honor the late senator's tireless dedication to improving education. senator kennedy was not only a lead in creating the law we are talking about today, no child left behind, but he spent the last 40 years working to build the foundaon of a good education for every student, for every child in this nation if he understood the civil rights and education went hand in hand. we hope our work going forward will carry forward the same bipartisan commitment to lasting

education reform displayed by senator kennedy in his work. so where do we stand today? since the release of thaspen institute's ommission on no child left behind initial report bend nclb, fulfilling the promise of our dish to our nations chilen, more than two years ago there have been major strides towards adopting our recommendations. we called them for model national standards, and there is now a statewide effort to adopt common standards. states have made great progress in developing data systems that conform reform efforts. and stimulus funds will help accelerate our progress. stimulus funding is also driving reform conversations and other key areas addressed by the commission. including increasing teacher effectiveness, turning around

low performing schools, and improving standards and assessment. the commission recently adde new members, and today we are launching a series of public hearings, outreach and research, to develop updated and expanded recommendations for improving no chilleft behind. our new round of work will build on the commission's previous recoendation issued and beyond nclb. while the core principles and direction of our established workill not change, we will be taking a fresh look at the wall in order to upde and augment our recommendations to reflect progress made toward their adoption. new guidance, regulation, and pilot initiatives from the u.s. department of education, activity generated by stimulus funding, lessons learned from additional years of nclb implementation, and other changes to the landscape.

with respect to today's hearing, we have chosen to begin our public discussion with an examination of what can be done now to address chronically low performing schools, and how a reauthorized no child left behind can best advance and support effective school turnaround, and improvement efforts as well as expanding academic options available to students. every year, 1.2 meg in american students, approximately half of inner-city minory students, do not graduate from high school on time. the nationwide graduation rate is shockingly low, hovering around 70%. even more shocking, a disproportionately high amount of the dropout come from so-called dropout factories.

2000 high schools that produced more than half of our country's dropouts. among students who do make it to graduation, ford and 10 are ready for college or employment, according to professors and employer the consequences of not getting school improvement rights extend beyond tragic stori and missed opportunities for indivial students. and had a significant effect on our collective standard of living. research has shown that the persistence of the achievement gap and poses the economic equivalent, as i said, of a permanent national recession. so i am delighted today to be joining my fellow commissioners in this critical work. i would now like to introduce my colleagues on the commission who are here with us today. you have full bios about them in the materials that we passed

out. and iyou will just raise your hand when i call your name so we will be quite in order. paul pasternak, state superintendent of state education in louisiana. greg richmond, president and ceo of the national association of charter school authorizers. denita lacroix, principal of young scholars academy for discovery and exploration, brooklyn new york. doctor edward songhai, chief management official, centers for disease control and prevention. doctor jane hannaway, director of the urban institute education holsey center. delia pompa, vice president of education as the fational council. michael johnston, colorado state senator and a senior policy adviser at new leaders for new schools.

tasia providence, master educator fob the district of columbia public schools. and doctor judith humid i think i could direct, director of human civilities, district of columbia. i would also like to acknowledge and express our deep appreciation to gary haugen, the executive director of the aspen institute commission on no child left behind. now i wou also like to introduce our witnesses for today's hearing in the order that they will speak. each witness will be given five minutes to summarize their testimony, which will be followed by an extended period of discussion between witnesses and commissioners. and dollowing that, a little later in the program, we will have an open opportunity for members of the public to speak as well. so today's distinguished panel

of witnesses in the order in which they will provide their testimony. ronald peiffer, maryland, deputy state superintendent, baltimore, marynd. garth harries, assistant superintendent for portfolio and performance management, new haven, connecticut. mike contompasis, i hope i got that right, senior field consultant, mass. insight school turnaround strategy group, boston, massachusetts. phyllis lockett, president and ceo of the renaissance school fund, chicago, illinois. natalie elder, principal, hardy elementary school, chattanooga, tennessee. and steve barr, founder and chairman green dot public schools, los angeles, california. thank you ladies and gentlemen. let's not hear from our

witnesses. >> good morning. my name is ron pifer. i would like to thank the aspen institute for holding these hearings. i think it's a very important dialogue that we need as we look forward to the president and congress having these discussions about where we go ne with no child left behind. maryland turnaround work began actually add a very long time ago on the governor's commission in 1989 that established a school intervention program for mold forming schools. by 1996, we identified twoow performing schools. by 2003, when no child left behind and interplay, we had 73 schools statewide and we transitioned them into no child left behind into a new academy program. by 2008, we are nowp to 219 schools that are low performing

out of 1450 schools statewide. and that represents about 15% of the total schools in our state. of all those schools about half of those have been in some stage of the school improvement process for five years or more. and a number othose have been in low performing and languishing for more than a decade. close to twoecades of our work in thistate, we have been a variety of things that represent all the tools on the table, from the replacement of staf principals, teachers. from the replacement of curricula, to brging staff developers in, bringing in motors wh clipboards to see where things were. many of those things actually did contribute if only incrementally, and others in a large way towards making improvement. we did have some improvements. most recently in 2008, we had 32 elementary middle and high school at exodus process we been able to turn those schools around and they are working

quite well and with good cooperation from the local school systems. this year so far we believe we have 20 elementary and middle schools and i'm looking to pick up some are high schoolshen we had that data in. so when we transition fro into no child left behind we basically changertest, change our identification in the schools as mechanism. by guess what? we ended up identifying a lot of the same schools. beuse low pforming schools by whatever measure are going to continue to be low performing schools. so if any part of this we have gotten downright as you probably ow how to identify them. i'm not saying we don't need you to work with assessments. but i'd like to talk to you a little bit about the one thi that is unique, it's fitting that doctor thorne should have introduced the proceedings today because he headed a commission in the early two thousands that looked at revamping funding for maryland schools. and that has worked hand-in-hand with maryland's reform schools

pretty dramatically. to bring about change. .com $4.5 million in state aid in schools across the state. it hasone well. but it also came with a lot of accountability. this meant that schools would lay out their plans to spend this money andf courset was distributed according to the high cost of students, if you will, that were in t district. but the system has to develop a meaningful plan in terms of how th were going to attack this problem. in each of those plans have to be negotiated with the state after review by between 90 and 100 experts from across the state and in the department. and sometimes they got sometimes those plans were not approved immediate. andt went back and forth. so we have gotten a very good relationship with our local school systems. and those plans now drive change and we believe a lot of the change that is undergirded, it hasn because of what we call the master planning process. in 200 ndt of america really looked at e work and felt that we did have a lot of good

progress. by the way we look at us this, we look at title i dollars that we look at other dollars as well. if we want is a synthetic operate a way to look at that. in 2008, we want unfortunate state that got the approval to use a differentiated accountability system as a pilot. thisystem allows us instead of having schools in one single pathway, to boot it into two different pathways. first identifying at the very lowest performing schools that have ls of iues with multiple subgroups. versushose that have targeted needs, moe frequent those with targeted needs were schools that were fitting for the special education subgroup alone or one of two groups. our pilot allows us to get pretty intensive work with the lowest performing schools and those having comprehensive needs. and to make those priorities. it also allows us to have -- is not a late tasha more of a

focused approach, though schools that had worked because any department or a curricular area. we had a year under our belt we have a lot more to lrn from it but we think it has brought some logic and sense into the single pathway approach we had before. we got a couple of thoughts out of our experience that it may be useful to thinabout at this point. the common core standds and assessments are probably going to dramatically change the landscape for us. cause instead of having state-by-state standards at a level the playing field within the state, what if we had a level playing field across the state and what if we had very high standards on and wt we're focused with just not getting students across a low bar? what if we were able to get students who are making it over that bar and moving higher? what if we're able to keep pressure on schools to do more than just getting over a low bar? so we are excited about the potential, even though they'll take a little while to get there.

question might be as we look at growth models, can implement growth models in a way that is meaningful without taking the pressure off of our lowest performing schools? because some of the growth model ta to give schools before making improvement still will schools the expectation that they are far below the curve whenever they get to the end. it may be 100% efficiency is necessarily the target. we need talk about that. i'm very excited about the fact that principal and teacher effectiveness is now a part of the discussion but it's important, very important to talk about highly qualified teachers, particularly in a state like maryland and imports a lot of its teachers from out of state. and we still ha lot of students being top i teachers who don't reallyave the degree and conten background that you. but it is very important to look at wther these teachers and principal architect of. i think it's going to be important to build those miles in an important way. but in my testimony doctowe did talk a ltle bit about the

context. there are contacts within many of these schools, communities, drug abuse problems, other things that underlie and are related. these related areas need to be addressed as we work on schools and we have built a few strategy to deal with that in maryland. one of the more important things i just ignore you to think about is we really need to think about noting a pipeline for highly effective, hhly qualified principals and teachers. you need to get good people in front of these kids and you need to be able to be assured that they can deliver. and i think that it may be mething that as a nation we need to look at. particularly princips. i think leadership was a missing piece of the law and we have tried to make up for that and much of what we have done in maryland. i rely appreciate the opportunity to be here to represent maryla and add to the dialogue. thank you very much for the opportunity to be here. good morning, commissioners. i am garth harries.

i am truly the assistant superintende in new haven, connecticut, but i come to you today to speak more from my experiences in new york city where i was t chief portfolio officer and chief executive for the office of the new schools between 2003 and just this past july. free things by way of introduction. first, to give you a sense of what we in new york city used as our turnaround strategy, wh we call our new school initiative. between 2003 and 2009, we close over -- we reconstituted over 80 schools. we open over 300 new district schools. we opened over 80 new charter schools. things of note in that. obviously, that's a fairly dramatic scale. that is a function of new york ci in an absolute sense. it is also a dramatic relative scale. 25% of the schools in new york city are ones that we reconstituted in the last five

years. that's particularly true at the high school level where our efforts were concentrated. and it is fairly sure that we have seen dramatic performance improvements from these new schools. the charter schools serve twice the minority, twice the high poverty, the population as the state as a whole and yet scored the same level as the states. they have close the achievement gap in our district schools serve a much higher needs population, and get graduate students at a rate 12 percentage points higher than the district average. most of the schools that we created, particularly the high school, were replacement of large comprehensive sools. average graduation and the schools would replace was 35%. average graduation rate of the new small schools is 76%. not high enough,ut still a dramatic change. so i think they are important lessons for the commission in

the experience of new york, and that is part of what i want to speak to today. the second thi by way of introduction as i think it's important to understand part of the theoretical underpinning that we brought to this work. we are accolades of the idea that the school is the unit that matters. our ambition is not to be create a great school system in new york. it is to create a system of great individual schools. and while that is a theoretic statement, it has i think important practical implications. it has important practical implications for us as a district and could do so as well and the reauthorization of nclb. and as part of what i want to talk to. the third point i would've introduction is to talk about definitions little bit. the term turnaround i think is a fairly broad one. and i would tell you that in the way i think, in my lexicon, our new school strategy s very

much a school turnaround. we were taking buildings, reconstituting the schools, creati new ones with new leaders and new teachers that could more effectively serve the students of those neighborhoods. there is some sense that that is school closure, and that is not school turnaround. and i would urge you to be cautious about the softer definition of schoolchildren appear to the extent that the school is the unit that matters, part of what we need to do in school turnaround situations is figure out how to create more effective school organizations. and one way of doing that is to closure and reopening. there are others, but all of the need to wrestle with the same sets up pragmatic and difficult choices that i want to talk t so i have four points. of counsel that i think the commission should consider on the ways that nclb could help deal with the issues that my

colleague talked about, what to do any turnaround situation, what are the things are beyond the identification of the failure that are important. the first of those is i do think that we as a professimn need to be hardheaded and disciplined about the recognition of failing institutions b again, we close over 80 schools in new york. it would be important to observe many of the schools were closed, we didn't vote for nclb accountability reasons. in fact, we didn't even look that closely at nclb's accountability. we look at our own performance metrics. we look at the progress and by you had that the schools were contributing totudents, which obviously is an important additional aspect of the nclb reauthorization. we lonk at houses were behaving. the choes that students and families where making that are implicit accountability within many of our schools. consistently through my tenure at the new york department of education we close 10 to 15

schools a year. i would urge the commission to try and put a school turnaround in the context of a standard performance management system that any industry would have. think of it as disabled ge 10% rule every year we were focusing on the lowest performing school and decided to take relatively dramatic action. and i think we owe that kind of discipline and focus to our students. the cond thing i would say is at the school level, t are many different kinds of programs that can be successful. people ask me all the time what are the new schools like in new york. and i can take you to the most constructivist of programs and i can take you to the most instruction of programs. i can take a very collaborative leadership schools that i can take you to very command and control sool, all of whom are successful. the key thing our experience was a coherent of the school.

the ability of the adults in the school to identify a set of priorities that they wer pursuing and makehe thousands of individual decisions that adults make consistent with those priorities. in the context -- we have at least one printable on the panel. that isn't the responsibility of the leaders in the building. out as policy makers, both at the district level and the federal level we need to think about ys we can underscore and support tha coherence. i would take you that that federal funding streams don't always support planning in the way that you would want it in order to produce clear and. i would take you that the variation in different funding streams from the states ajd the feds can make it very difficult for schooleaders to make coherent decisions. they need to respond to many masters in terms of requirements on different funding streams. and i think that is an imptant ing to focus on on the coherence of individual schools.

the second thing i would emphasize for you is ensuring that we create a context in an environment that supports planning and quality execution. this is not just a school decision. we worked very hard on an elaborate process that enabled schools to start planning in advance of closure decisions. we worked ver hard on a professional development process that supported new leaders and planning teams as ey develop their schools. creating that context, just create the new school or just creating the smaller school is not sufficient. we needo be sure that the schools are equipped to create the coherence that i talked abou a few specific points in that. the timing of accountability judgment becomes incredibly important in this. if we could make a earlier accountability judgment, we would have more time in which to

make plans for how we were going to reconstitute schools. title i school improvement resources, our new schools and new york are not eitled for title i. as a de facto element of a page of the school code. the last that they quickly, i think the question of phase-in is incredibly important to consider. we need to be thoughtful about creating the opportunity for schools to plan. i think that dialogue needs to be very pragmatic. i would also, the final point, urge the commission to ensure that districts creatsystem conditions that support school turnaround. one of the things you will notice the difference in the number of schools we closed to those we open. we were creating smaller schools because we were not accepting of the dropout factories that dr. lomax referred to earlier. we wanted smaller situations that had a more diverse student population, that a good leader

as opposed by rockstar leader, could be successful in. thank you very much for the opportunity. >> goo morning. my name is mi contompasis. i am the senior field consultant for mass insight, an organization in boston that has been focusing on turnaround. i have been doing this for about eight to 10 months. previously i spent 42 years into boston public schools. and i too am appreciative of the opportunity to share with you some thoughts around how do we take what is a national emergency d begin to think not only at the school level, but primarily as well at the state and district level. turning around chronically underperforming schools present a ries of challenges that require new solutions, with

increased and enhanced capacity, to develop and implement those solutions. at mass insight feel that the u.s. department of education is on the right track with the recommendations in the race to the top initiative, and the school improvement draft guidelines. we feel that they should be supported. previous attpt to help low performing schools have been partial or incremental, so-called light touch approach is often disconnected lacking alignment, and often adding confusion to the individual school house. there are exceptions, and those exceptions are on a national scale. the so-called high poverty, high performing schools that on a daily basis beat the odds that are characterized by the following. clearly defined authority to act based on what's best for

children. flexibily, control over operating conditions, tinclude all aspects of the operation of the schools, hiring, staffing, budget, to relentless focus on high quality hiring and staffing government. three, highly capable distribud school leadership teams. 4, additional time for the school day or across the school year. 5, performance-based expectations for all of the stakeholders. and six, and intrated research-based pgrams with related social emotional services. we feel that those are characteristics that should be incorporated in all schools and all school districts. developing a scale othe strategy to address the needs

requires, we feel, districts and states to develop the political will to act and the commitment to mandate fundamental change. we've been offered five recommendation one, recognize the nature of change required, incremental change does not get us to where we want to be. the goal of public policy on failing school iervention must be to spur fundamental change that addresses the dysfunction of the status quo, produces significant improvement within two to three years, and readies the school to go into a high-performance organization. two, we recommend -- we recoize can run as a discipline. federal policy should support the development and navigation of specialized turnaround capacity within schools and

districts, andmong externa partner or organizations. a discipline requires specialid experience and training, resources and support. not everyone is capable of doing type of work that is needed to the degree that we feel is needed across the state and across districts. three, change the operating conditions. rnaround requires protected space that often creates a flexible environment in which the schools and that protected space are able to function. we are talking about zones or schools where clusters of individual schools that have been deemed to be the most in need of rejuvnation, if you

will, that ty be placed in some sort of protected zone and given the authority to make mission directed decisions. federal policy should provide incentives, both positive and sanction oriented, that catalyze such policy and encourage union, district state bargaining on behalf othese specialized zones, where applicable. we firmly believe that we've got to in order to scale this to both state and district level clear out what might be called the underbrush that inhibits schools, school districts and states from moving forward. we also recommend that these protected zones have lead partners as change managers. in other words, build the capacity to have a partnership with this zone, that is freed from some of the innovations that might exist either at the state or district level.

currtly, there are whole series of well meaning providers, all of whom act pretty much independently for which there is little or no accountability for their actions. we feel that these lead partners, if they are indeed provided, should have the flexibilities that we have talked about in changing the conditions, but should also have the ability to be held accountable for student achievement. and then finally, the fifth recommendation is clustering for support. we think we ought to build a system that has three to five schools in one of these protected zones. the schools should be based o whater may be the need of a system. they could be on student characteristics, feeder patterns, or by regions. again, i thank you for the opportunity to testify, and i'm

happy t answer any questions. >> good morning. my name is phyllis lockett. i am the president a ceo of the renaissance school in chicago. i thank you for the opportunity to speak about one of the most important issues attacking our country, chronically failing schools. we are fortunate in chicago to have the vision of mayor richard and our u.s. education secretary secretary, arne duncan, and the business community who came together to change the status quo for thousas of children in effort to launch 100 new schools in high need communities. when we started the renaissance 2010 initiative, the renaiance school conducted an annuls is that identified 27 communities or 75% of the schools perform below state standards.

that met a child living in one these neighborhoods was most likely relegated to a poor perfming option unless thex re lucky enough to get into a selective enrollment school. at the same time, however, there were som schools serving t same population by getting diffent results. they broke the traditional paradigm with a stronger performance, better attendance, higher graduation rate, and strong college acceptance rates. many of the schools were charter schools that had t flexibility and the freedom to structure their education program and the best interest of kids. they offered coulters of high expectation, challenging curriculums, data-driven and assessment, control over the human capital decision, control over their school day, for you to set their own budget, and most important they were held accountable to perform or they closed. a framework not easily achievable in our traditional system. the charter model actually challenged us to think about a w frame of an education based on choice and competition for

independent cooperatives could manage schools, replaced schools that were not performing, and put competitor pressure on the remaining neighborhood schools to improve. the mayor and arne duncan launched renaissance 2010 initiative and asks the chicago business community to support the start about 120 new schools and these multi-challenged areas. the renaissance schools fund was launched and currently sves as a catalyst to create new schools in chicago's high need communities. we operate on a venture philanthropy model, and we have raised $50 million helped open 63 new public schools as of next week. our self-help identified and support the repetition of high-performing national and local school model. we identified models that work with. we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. we partner with the chicago blic school district in the selection d authorization of neschool models. we filitate partnerships with

corporations, universities, and institutions to create new schools. we invest up to $500,000 per sahool for startup. and we also have capacity building programs to develop a pipeline of new entrepreneurs, support the growth of strong schools through business planning and technical assistce, and to educate parents about their options and to advocate for their choice. our goal is to provide resources and expertise to help model schools build capacity and take their successful models to scale. we have a very extensive competitive request for proposal here that is conducted with the chicago public school district. and we bring in tional experts and assemble an investment panel to evaluate each school out of based on strict critea to inform which schools are ultimately approved by the bod of education. schools have to prove that they have a strong education program, it that they have put renovation

and distinctiveness, school leaders that have a strong track record of perfoance, that they have is a and financial opational plan. and consistent governance and a five year performance contract, and that they have growth potential. we only support the strongest proposals that we think can best deliver for children. this effort has opened the door to innovationnd has empowered leaders from all sectors to creannovative and education options that we never thought imaginable. resources from the technology industry, law firms, consulting firms, banks, universities, community organizations have come together with educators to create new school models. examples include the illinois institute of technology, math and science education department worked with the charter school and motorola to create a math and scienc school. in its first year, the school that students perform 76% met or

exceeded state standards. another example is university of illinois medical campus, abbott labs and the noble network charter school they have a health sciences school i get up opportunities to take a location in the uic's medicine and dentistry,ublic health, nursing, pharmacy, and applied health sciences. we also partnered with thank a salute, a management fir that works with the noble network to create its first elementary mol that is opening this fall in chicago. early results of the renaissance effort suggest that we are on track. we know that the schools that are performing better than the neighborhood counterpart. our students will get core instruction than the average district school. we have strong parent demand. and we know from the chart of background that students, the new schools opened five or more years are performing 17% better

than the district average. what we've would suggest is that this panel and courage our deral government to support new school options, to put pressure on states and school districts to close schools that are not performing. that they will provide incentives to create public-private partnerships like ours where the intellectual capital of the business industry and universities can be transferred to our students. and we also recommend that they fund parent, a parent organization to help parents exercise their choice. that is probably the biggest challenge we have is that not enough parents, albeit, the great account of the str is no child left behind provided, that parents still understand that there children are failing in school. so we applaud your efforts and we hope to partner with you as we move forward to ensure that all of our children have a high quality educati. than you.

>> good morning. my name is natalie elder. i have a printable hardy elementary school a year round schooln chattanooga, tennessee. this morning i will focus on the successes, challenges, status of turnaround, and improvement efforts at hardy elementary school. the model of hardy elementary school is excellent, not average. this model is indicate of my philosophy as a principle of a southern urban elementary school in a predominantly working-class and poor student body. the majority of my students are african-american, with the remaining minority composed of asian and caucasian pupils. the majority of my students confront the challenges of being advantage and in most cases lack the means out of school support for the pursuit of intellectual tivities.

they also face the challenge of not having receptive or expressive language skills. % of the kindergartners interschool with some notable academic deficiencies. given this context, the hardy elementary experiences characterized as one that presents a number of challenges, as a result of school equality in american lif while it is the responsibilities of schools to provide an education, it becomes extremely difficult when your student body lacks an adequate educational support system anthe mediate family and the community. while the challenges may seem formidable, i have developed a philosophy that have been successfully applied. and show results and these children overall academic achievements. my career in education has

banded 27 years. i have been a teacher, assistant principal and principal primarilyn the elementary school setting. i became principal at hardy elementary school in the summer of 2001. it was a challenge. after reviewing the data ofhe school, i felt discouraged, fearful, and even apprehensive my ability to move a school to the academic success it needed. hardy elementary school is identified by the state of tennessee as the lowest performing school, not only in the district, but in the entire state. their reading and writing scores lter at 15%, while the math scores were flatlining around 10%. the mentality or the state of mind of the teachers was one of defeat and lack motivationo e challenges of academic success for students. the norm for the teacrs was a daily public reminder that they

were low performers. either by the media or upper administrative management. the students were accustomed to working in an environment of chaos. that was not conducive for learning. it began as a dysfunctional learning community. however, unaware it was on the verge of a cosmetic change. we were in a state of urgency, and eryone was held accountable. with the support of my assistant principal, karen hollis, we realized we had to reconstitute the staff for high quality teachers to we were in search of highly effective teachers whose pedagogy consisted of thinking outside of the box, which was the catalyst for academic

improvement. we have to develop a schoolwide code of acceptable behavior and i'd transition was in and outside of the classroom. the mindset of how we view ourselves, students, parents, and the community wasivotal in reaching o goal, excellent not average. this disruptive behavior in the classrm was tolerated. students understood that their classmates, based on the constitution, were entitled to a free education, and the staff were no longer allowed them to infringe upon the students rights to achieve a highly quality education. if those dudes were violating students rights, we immedtely removed them from the classroom, and place them in an intensive environment called in school

suspension. for retooling their behavior. continually focusing on their classroom work. it was imperative to invest in effective teaching to make sure that teacherwere knowledgeable of the content, sadly in their deliverance, and maintain a disposition of professionalism and respect for the people they were serving. despite being confronted with a plethora of challenges, it was clearly understood that we were all sail coursing. we dided to y a as professional learning community, we develop a clear vision. we viewed data constantly. we built strong leadership teams and invested in professional development that was purposeful and focused. we incorporated a two-hour block that consied of the five components o reading, that

teaches model this year new comprehensive skills utilizing e seven keys of comprehension, reading strategies,nd working with word strategies. the data illusated patterns and trends of the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced in reading and math. it also reviewed losses or gains based on adequate yearly progress. the teachers administered quality -- quarterly, i'm sorry, administered quarterly formative assessments and teachers used these results to regroup and recruit students based on student needs. hardy elementary stance on education is sti excellent, not average. resulted in a 212-degree attitude towards changing how we look at ourselves today.

i am looking forward to an opportunity to express what we think we should be and where we need to go. i am open to any questions for the panel. thank you for allowing me to be here this morning. >> good morning. my name is steve barr and i am under of dream not public schools, a charter management organization based in los angeles. dgets are arriving aour 10 year anniversary. we operate 19 small preparatory high schools in the high sierra of los angeles, defined by most overcrowded and highest dropout rates. it was quite a south bronx in new york. we go into are wre there is 50, 60, and 70% dropout rate and we take the same ks with a little bit less dollars and retain and graduate 80 to 90% of the scattergun of those 23rd

434 and colleges. just scratching the surface of our work. we think charters at the best are what in our district could become. and this friday, we sort orientation for the second year of the elaine locke high school in watts, a turnaround school. starting our second you. it is not lost on me, that the building next door to hear that howard is named after doctor law, a graduate of howard university and father of the harlem renaissance. so it is apropos we e here. itelock high school? why wmul a charter group going take over a hole it in is very or when the biggest dropout factories in the country. is about locke high hool, locke high school opened five years after the watts riots, just celebrated its 40th anniversary, the yeawe liberated it. in those four years, at was a school that was supposedo bringope after tt was riots.

if you lk at statistics and the hard cold facts, approximately 60000 people attended locke high school in those 40 years. and this is what is at stake. so 60000 people, if you can imagine them all coming together in one place. let's say my beloved dodger stadium is filled with those 60000 people. and you got on the pa system and usages by the general statistics that are available, yo said please leave a stain if you didn't graduate from locke high scol. 40000 people would have believed that stadium sunday at a stadium with 20000 people were there was once a 60. if you got on the pa system and you said please leave a stain if you didn't get accepted to a four year university. off at approximately 8000 people would have to be a stating. night at 8000 people. why is that important? you're making a million dollars more over the lifetime. tonight at 8000.

small-group. if you got on the pa system and said that paisley dodger stadium if he didn't graduate from a four year university, approximately 2100, 2200 people would be left in that stadium. it is a tiny section weathers wants 60000 people. and if you got on the pa system and use it how many of you came back to watts community to teach, how many of you came back to start a charter school or be politically active, how many came back to start a business avoid people? none of them. the problem with that is dozens of locke high school in los angeles. the problem is there are thousands of locke high schools nationally. what government act, what gang intervention program, what can reverse that infrastructural damage? nothing. we can't fix our economy and move forward and do we fix it. this is no longer some problem that belongs to somebody else. it affects everything that goes on a city like los angeles and washington, d.c., and cities that are rresentative we've

got to turn th workaround. so we started, and i am proud to say the first year the courageous leadership at the school and courageous teachers, one thing that we drew the line in the sand is we don't want adults and five kids that don't believe all of them can win. so we retooled t plaintiff we didn't fire teachers and allocators and blame teachers. we said to them if you believe that all kids can learn and can be college ready, we up. and 43 out of the 120 did. we rehired staff. we broke the school into small schools that we broken down to a place where every kid from every bill would get to know every child and they would find that uniqueness in that child and they would lift the bar high and given the individual personalized education they deserve. in the first year, for a school the average freshman cl@ss was well-funded, and the sophomore class was somewhere around 500 that means 700 washout of the watts community surrounded by 17 to 25 and if you talk to the

wors gang, recruiters, and the country, we held over 80% of those kids this year. so that means 600 kids came back to that school tt had been thrown out or opportunity to transfer out of that school. and so what happened this year is simple things. . . we saw a little bi of that today. i am part othe charter school tried and we think everything we do is perfect. there is the union tried, people >> there's those who think the parents of the problem tribe. that's the academic tribe. those that think that testing is

the problem. if you could gather those tribes and understand that 70% of the problem. if you don't agree that small school is valuable, if you don't believe that all kids can learn, if you don't believe that tax dollars belg at the school sight and into the cssroom, if you don't believe that teachers should have some say. they should also be held accountae. and parents are our greatest asset. during the presidential campaign la >> during the presidential complain last year our first lady, she said every neighborhood in this country has the one school. the parents all know about that one school. the school that you wait overnight to be in t line. it's the one you use somebody elses address to be a part of. sometimes they are regar public, sometimes they are

charter schools, sometimes they are ivate schools. why d't all schools look like that one school. that really shold be the work of this. when we get back into more in the q and a. but it starts with having a line drawn in the sand that failure is no longer acceptable. we look high school but it shouldn't be deflected by a charr group. we need leadership to do this. we have 90 school districts in the state of california that are unacceptably failing. but nobod does anything about it. we need that line drawn. we know what works and w need to scale it up fast. i'm honored to be here with very smart people and look forward to the conversation. >> well, i want to thank all of our witnesses. let's give them a hand for their testimony. [applause] >> now we're going to transition now into the question and answer period.

and as chairman, i get to ask the first question. each member of the commission who serves on school improvement subcommittee will be given a maximum of ten minutes. we dent have -- don't have to take the full ten minutes. and others on the other subcommittee will be given six minutes. i will begin the questioning and i will yield to commissioner richmond and tn i will just ask him that -- to yield to the commissioner sitting next to m. and we do have a time keeper. we don't have a hook. but jerry is prett tough. we're going to ask each of the commissioners to be brief. and we would ask of the witnesses to be suck sink in their responses. following that we will open the floor for i believe it is 20

minutes. i'm going to ask questions as a former college english deeper for 20 years i was in the classroom teaching among other things freshman excel significance. i will tell you where i taught, very good schools, too many of my freshman came unable to write in the way that i thought they needed to be able to write to be ccessful in college. and i believe that the reason that too many of those young men and women who came tooorehow's and spellman with the high school diploma but not the college-ready skills because our public school ration the kind of preparation, challenging rigorous academics, because they

operated onhe philosophy not college for all but college for some. and college for some meant for only some kids of color. and so i want to ask you dr. peiffer what is the state of maryland doing today? this is about no child lef behind,t's about the elementary and secondary education act. but we don't want to be a nation of high school graduates. we want to be a nation of college graduates who under the presence and by the number one nation in the world for producing costs. what are we doing in maryland to ensure thathe kids who get a diploma are college ready. >> we have a variety of things. some of it is under the rubric of no child left behind. each student has to ps or

complete the score across four different tests to graduate. one is 10th grade english. 10th grade english sounds a little below, and it is. but that's a good standard to get started. and what's happening this year we found that our dropout rate ade by grade has been lower than any of the proceeding classes because kids are getting individual attention as they try to raise the bar for those studentso they will graduate. i think we are going to have for the class of 2009 the better level of proficiency. but coupled with that, maryland currently has ranked numr one in the terms of the access to advance placement test and having students pass advance placement test in the country. this is very important feature because for thhigh school landscape, the advance placement course really is si - we also

had among t highest increases in participation in the african-american and hispanic students in the country. that is anything but equitable, but i think we are doing a better job tn many of the other states in the country. >> thank you. demandg rigorous academic has to be for all students. if we don't set that standard for all students, we're going to continue to have the same results. i'm like to ask principal elder a question, clearly rigorous academic and i'm spoke to no child left behind and stands is important. but, you know, to be successful in college, we need students who come with the self-discipline, the internal values that have

been in them to prepare them to go to class, to use their time wisely, to perform without always having an exam as the source of that performance. a lot of that is learned in school. and lot of it has to be taught inchool. we're now seeing schools that are like your schl which are increasingly prescriptive which are setting standards of conduct andehavior. which reinforce academic performance and preparation for life including for college. how does n child left behind reinforce that or does it? how can public policy make sure that what's happening at your elementary school is happening in middle school and high schools all across the country. >> first, i think we must cognize that college begins in kindergarten.

and if we take that approach, and everyo has to change their mindset on how to view that. we have to hold children accountable. you have to involve them in the business of educating them by allowing them to take ownership with what they are doing in the classroom, they should be allowed to go so they can an idea of where they are and where they need to move to. but it has to resonate throughout middle school, high school, and hopefully to the higher levels. involve their parents. they have to take accountability to the actions of their children within the school. i'm always first to say to parents, your job is to discipline, our job is to educate. but we can do it as a team, but we have to do it effectily. somemes you have to reach them to understand the only path way out of poverty is through education. we want to give them in a place

where they are productive citizens, we have to change the mindset and have everyone view their responsibility to educating students which also includes the child. the teachers have to be engaged, the parents have to be engaged, they have to be there for the a lot of steak holders. and it can't be limited to just the teacher. it has to involve everyone. >> you know, it's a follow up on that question i'd like to address you, mr. lockett. because i think if we're going to have high academic standards and we're going to have the schools doing what they need to do to ensure that students are college ready, parents have got to be engaged. an i've been distresse frankly, as i've watched the school reform movement across the country that too often whose missing are the parents of the kids that we're talking about. you know, if we were every day,

if they were sending their children to a school which was starving them physically, which was not giving them the food that they need to be full human beings, we'd have people marching in the street. there'd be an uprising. but the fact that we're starving them academically in many of these schools, that these schools and students are not getting the academic preparation that they need, goes unquestioned. how do we engag parents? we need to turn her mic on. >> that is absolutely correct. you know, wt i find is that the core issue is that the parents just don't know. when i am working in the expects in chicago, every parent wants their child to get a great education. i think the problem is we have a huge sparse happening within the country where states are

lowering their standards to meet requirements, and parents have a false sense that their child is performing better than what they are actually doing. and illinois is amongst the worse wher a child in the 8th grade only has to score 38% to get a meet or need. this is a core part of no child left behind that has to continue. but it has to be anslate and be promoted so parents understand. translate it to a, b, c, d. if my kid is in an f or d school, that's a problem. we have to do more to communicate to participates so they understand what kinds of schools their kids are in, and also expose them not options or choices that they have ability to them. >> well, thank you very much. i want to express my appreciation to the itnesses

again. >> thank you dr. lomax. i'd like to -- i have a couple of short questions. . this i the first day or first week of school for many kids kindergarten through 12t grade and college. and i think it's important to recognize the reality is we do have good schools in the cotry. and thousands of hard-working dedicad teachers and educators who are really a resource for us to keep in mind as we think about our straties that we need to engage in and improve. and to recognize that fact and to be appreciative of their hard work. i think the reality is that no child left behind has had some great successes and some great flaws. and we're here as a commission to learn from that experience and figure out how to make it stronger and better and particularly on the school

turn-around strategies. d i was instruct by the findings two years ago of the millions of children that were eligible to participate in the school choice aspectsf no child left behind 38,000 took advantage out of millions. i support the school choice. but that's a failed policy in my opinion. with thatow level of participation,ore recently the center on education policy concluded that none of the five federal restructuring options could be proven to be any better than any of the other ones. and i'd suggest we broaden this a little bit to think about the other 66 programs that are in the no child left behind act. we never talk about 66 separate programs and funding streams that directly affect what goes on a schools systems and schools an to ask whether those are helpi educators succeed or

not. so a question which the same question maybe i'll ask of mr. harries,s. elder, and mr. barr to answer. whether you work in a school system or a school, are there specific things about no child left behind that you've qeen be effective that we need to make sure that we recommend continue? are there specic things that we should recommend go away? and part three more broadly, are there other new ideas about how we should organize the strategies, think outside of the box, other ways that the federal government should use its incentives and disincentives at would help you be more successful creating better outcomes for kids. mr. harryies? >> sure. thank you, greg.

i think it's an astute questio to what i spoke to earlier. i agree with what mr. barr said earlier. there is a convergence of tribes around a common set of issues of what makes a good school and what some of the components of that are, leadership, parent involvement, focus, size. a set of this that create strong school organizations. and i wld say that most of nclb is not set up with that frame in mind. instead policymaking, funding streams, tend to be associated with differential programs. different curriculums, different pieces of an academic program. this is not the same thing as what is the coherent program the school is looking to deliver in its sum. and so i think, you know, as i said earlier, nclb has done a good job on identification.

i would say in school turn-around i had felt it to be a nonfactor. i referred to come of that. depending on whether you've decing to preserve the school code or not, something as simple as that. the timing is not always aligned with the decisions that ucators need to make about how they are going to spend their next professional years. the -- i would say that i've been in jurisdictions where districts aren't even to the point of recognize school failure. districts don't think they have the authority to close schools or reconstitute schools. and so i think the -- i would suggest the commission try to find ways in nclb to shift the frame to one that is school focused and allowed for that

convergence on how to encourage quality school constitutions. >> related to your question, i am pleased that with no child left behind there's accountability. because i think everyone should be heldabilitiable for what they do. it's important that the person that stands before children are well equipped to do the job that is necessary to move them to higher level of education. one thing i would like to see is a growth mod the, a unit that is progressive formative approach where yo look at the schools where they are. not where you think they should be, and start them at a point where they are not ready, but start them where they are. and utilize that data. by midpoint of the school year

do another formative assessment to see how well have they moved? are you seeing a half a year of growth yet? and by the end of the school year looking at have they maintained or gained a years worth of growth? because we have to be cognizant of the fact that some students come in at ground zero. when you have students entering schools, for instance, like mine where kindergarten have no idea of a letter is different from a number and no one has taught them that. where students come in and they are not sure what their names are. all they know it could be man, man, or boo, boo all they know i letters creates names for them. there's at love -- a lot of things that must be taken intoability.

we cannot assume that every school is in the same place. i think that's a flaw to say that it is. i think we need to look at where they are and the child and allow them to grow. but give support. that support has to be investment and teaching quality providing for special development that purposeful, that is focusedn the needs of the school. making sure that the teachers that standing before the class is fly equipped to go innd do the job effectively. but provide support. because if we -- we can't have a situation where we are looking at no child left behind as the -- i say the nieman marcus model but we are utilizing dollar general sport. we have to be honest there are areas that we must mandate and sign so we are reaching the goals of what the purpose is

for. and it is to identify kids that are struggling, yes. but to hold everyone accountable, yes. but provide support and not just label them and isolate them and marginalize the ability to do the job well. >> one of the things tt seems to come up that i'd like to point out most is test scores and testing. i think the way we look at it is test scores is about data. are we on the right track? ultimately we report to and answer to the parents. and we have to get a look at the parents and say that tell, yeah, we're on the right track. our quarterly assessments in yourth grade math class you see and track the success. we have 17 schools going the rit way. if there's one that we flag that's not, we don't use that data scapegoat a teacher. we use that data look at we're

not giving enough coaching, maybe there needs to be a teacher. maybe there's somethin unique about that 9th grade class. we need to do an analysis. ultimately to b accountable and you want matilyhe parents, we have to be able to look at them and not tell them left anecdotes and feel-good stories. if you're a private school parent, they may not lead on testing, but there's accountability. and we have to have that same mindset i public education, and not get defensive about testing, but perfect it and use it as data. a 9th grade family that comes into the our schools, they don't get another chance at 9th grade math. we have to to be accountable.

how do we use data to improve our schools? because we have to fo up and stop fine lining. >> i am proud to be here as a school that opened in new rk city. i know one of my keys has been autonomy. i'd like to ask you how do you envision bringing more autonomy to public schools? >> i think one of the roles that nclb can provide is to ensure that there are options that allow for existing school districts to develop a portfolio if you will of options.

that increase the level of flexibility in autonomy in those schools. they could be anything from charters to indistrict pilots or whatever you want to call them. i think that part of the strategy that i thinks necessary that we've got to at the same time we're talking out turning around or improving individual schools we also have to raise that discussion to what are we doing about the school districts. it makes no sense to take a school, turn it around, and put it back into a dysfunctional school district. without looking at what's causing that dysfunctionalty. it makes no sense t do the kinds of things that we're talking about here when states still deliver funding in a categorical nature. without thinking through that maybe a much more flexible

process,lock grants or that kind of option would work. i think that the conversation around turn around requires us to think seriously about whether a model that has been in use to deliver educational services for 40 years or so or even longer is indeed an adequate model to address the concerns that you've heard the witnesses here talk about today, the concerns of trying to deal with the students that republic currently attending some of these schools. if you don't have, for example, a school district that thinking seriously about early childhood, if you don't have a state that funds it and mandates that it be funded and doesn'tide under the excuse that, you know, we don't have to have mandatory

kindergarten. i would argue that with the students that we're addressing today, that if you don't have something like that or even earlier, mandatory k1, for example, we in boston have implemented play to learn groups which take 2 and 3 year old and mandate that they attend school twice a week. they must have a parent with them. we have build built in a social services component that provides for the welfare of not only the student but also the family. the idea of not having that kind of system in place will lead a number of our students to be il prepareed to enter kindergarten 2. we have to address that and use sort of the bully pulpit to suggest that these things are necessary. i think dr. lomax you raised the question of rigor.

a.p. is but one example. there are others. but what a.p. forces a district to do is to look seemlessly all the y down. you can't take calculus bc if you can't completed algebra one in the 8th grade. if a system isn't go doing that, and it isn't providing the level of access that's needed, it's a failed system. so i gss when we talk about awe autonomies, what we are looking for is maybe theorrect term is convergence of tribes. the multiple interest, people of goodwill who have to come together and think differently about what it is they need to do. what's wrong with the charter school being in the district? it makes no sense to me in this day and age to suggest that this shouldn't be as many different

options available as long as they are functioning. there is none accountable right now for the statistics that we're i think presented earlier in the conversation. and unless we develop that mechanism by which accountability to our uses of our system is inherent, and that we use the accountability it more or less drive the discussion around what wopks, we're not gng to get there. i think in a long-winded way, the more autonomy and flexibility that wre able to give schools within a district, the better off we are. >> ms. elders, i he a question for you as well. what kind of support did you ceive from your school or district as you turned your school around. what were some of your obstacle obstacles?

>> i was fortunate to be involved with an inctive program that was through been wood foundation which gave us the resources necessary to help us turn the school around, allowing us to he the opportunity have people come in and work with the staff providing purposeful, professional development to help our teachers to understand who the studes were and how they need to work with them. i was actually, we were faced with so many challenges. so say the least, because we're talking about dealing with a community who doesn't value education or they do value education but don't know how to assist their own children. there was the hard part. changing the mindset of how we

view the citizens we're serving d making sure that the tehers that were in school had a disposition about what the true responsibilities were as far as him moving on those students on the challenges that were difficult because you're working with students who were coming in ma different levels. one of the things that i continually stressing about, we have two prek classes in our school. unfortunately we have six kindergarten classes which means we are not meeting the needs of all the students in the community. so we're looking at 65% or more students that walk into the classroom that are not prepared. and of the 40 students that we are allowed to work with, what's sadden is all 40 of them do not stay as hardy elementary. we may get 10 out of the 40 that

actually stay. for reasons basically because of the stigma that's bee placed on our school, it's the low-performing school and environment. 's economically disadvantaged, and it just goes on and on. and when you are trying to change the mindset, it becomes difficult. so changing how people view us, changing providing a more rigorous curriculum, but not having to necessary meaning of reaching every single child that walks through the door. you have over 105 kids and you actually worked with 40, but you only get 10 if you are lucky. by 5th grad thead part, they e not still therey 5th grade. and it's a lot of misconceptions about that. i'm glad that those things are changing. and i wish he could change a little faster.

but they are changing. people are looking at us differently now. they now we are in an institution trying to educate students, and our parents finally still really get in it. this is a first year in a long time we've had a paren teacher organization where parents are asking questions. we unfortunately this year, we have a target in math. which was very disheartening for me and the staff but the good thing about is it we didn't just throw our arms up. we took a proactive approach. we have estabshed a math program f our parents. i don't know how to do the math, i can't help my child. i don't understand this math nip. we're talking about students in 3rd and 4rd grade. so we have provided a program which will start september

14th. every monday working with parents to help them know how to work with those students at home. that is the first time that i've been faced with a parent of 17 years old bringing in a 4 year old who has no clue how to help her child because she's trying to help herself. there's a lot of challenges yes, there they challenges me can't reach? we can reach challenges. we make no excuses in our children. there are no excuses for educating our children. and there are no excus. i've always said to the staff if we don't do something then we're gointo continue to have an economic unbanced society. and we will pay one way or another. so why don't we will protive now to help move our students so they can take over when it's our

time to sit down. >> thank you. >> i have a wonderful panel here. many of you talked significa examples of public/private partnerships of others that are helping turns around schools. i want to talk about entity that none of you mention. which is schools for education. i'm interested in if you can give examples significant producve corporation in schools of education and you're turn around effort. than the question with the follow up, what do we need to do to have schools of education be mor accountable for the teachers that are representing our

nation's schools? thank you opinion >> i have a number of projects on the research end in terms of looking at what's happening in schools. so we've had help from university of maryland in that respect. t we've also gone to brown university and had been working with one of their centers over the last two years and helping us ting to reconfigure the way we operation so we can work with schools more effectively. that's been very pductive project. as of this year, we're going to have a much better way. i think it's untapped area. that in maryland, it's a little bit different than some of the states in terms of trying to assure there's assignment with some of the criculum and methods of the school level. we import probably 60% of our

teachers. so even if we got every one of our schoo of education in the state to have teachers can on -- have the colleges on the mark and aligned with what we are doing, we still have an awful lot of work we have to do otherwise. some ofhat work ends up being done through the graduate school. i think there's a lot, a lot of work we have to do in looking at some alternative routes to get teachers into the classroom that are effective. we're planning particularly in the city. one the partnerships that we do have in baltimore city remitted to the teachers american program is graduate program is john hopkins. that's been very good at being able to assure at the end that you have a masters degree in teachers and be able to apply at. and that's been a goo incentive and a good magnet for people to go to baltimore.

>> i would add on the question of accountability. i do think that figure out ways so that we're tracking graates of education programs, what they are contributing to student learning becomes an important piece. i would say that in an era where we are trying to move away from time and input measures o activity in public schools, i would say someone engrossed in a certificate -- certification, what classes, how long, what certifications do you have? i think that's a extremely important. i would also commend to the commission the various teacher residency programshat have developed. honest -- hots boston has one, i think some of the more

progressive schools of education have decided that in fact like in medicine the best training to be a teacher maybe to be a teacher. students are earning their credits through work in schools with some additional classroom support as opposed to a single internship to close out a s of classroom expenses. >> i would add that couple of examples if i may since you asked for examples. in boston the universities that are in the city and we're fortunate that we have so many, have come together and really have focused some or not on some of their resources in working with some of our unperforming schools. an individual university will adopt one or two of three schools at most. the adults are tha are still

kind of mushy, i would suggest. because you are dealing with a learning curve on both sides of the equation. one of those universies, northeastern h or will have a program where it's taking the students who have received a high schoolloma but may not have yet had the necessary skills it move on to higher education that northeastern is establishing a program where the students will go there for a grade 13 if you will or grade 14 similar kinds of situations occur nationally with good junior colleges if you will. those students will enchance their schools, the idea is that they will be able aft a year and most to be able to move on

to northeastern or any other schools. i mentioned the teacher residency programs. i think we aught to try to fund those. i would argue we aught to do it with principals as well. in my testimony and the written comments that i have left you, i've talked about the fact that turn around is not something you just add to your portfolio. mo of us who has been in this business did not get training in how to turn around public school districts. whether there's a skill set or not, i'll leave that to others. but i would suggest to you that with the concerns that sort of reach principals level on a day-to-day basis, the ability to really turn around something regards i think is special skill. either getting the universities it recogni that, the principal

development i would also echo. the medical model works. you put these folks in with a mentor principal or teacher, not only does it create a career ladder kind of option for the individual who serve as mentor, but it gives these individual who are looking to become either teachers or principals the opportunity to work with a skilled practipioner and finally since we are raising the i of what do you need to do on a systemwide basis, i think we need to look at the profession as a wle. this profession is unique in the sense that you spend 30 to 40 years in it, and then you may reap the benefits of what you've accomplied if you will. most of the rest of the world doesn't function that way anymore. some of our graduates

obviously, the ones here or anyone else will be lucky if they have by the time they are 30 or 35 probably have changed professions two or three or four times. what i getting up to is that in order to attract the best and the brightest there is not necessarily the need to have them stay 30 years. i'd like to have someone for 10 years or 5 years. and i think the way we compensate people also needs to be addressed. and so existing pension plans need to be on the table, possibly. the whole range of how we then provide compensation to individuals who nay not be interested in sticking around for 25 or 3 years probably should be on the table as well. >> i would comment just to take

you back from my colague, it's a very, very difficult skillset from what we see. starting new schools than running existi schools. there really does need to be a track. i don't see the education enlarged in our work outsi of the program that the kee log of business at northwest university launched in conjunction with the graduate program at northwestern totart the training education leaders that we call education entrepreneurs. and we do need to recognize it is a very different type of approach and skillset that's needed in order to turn around schools. >> i do agree with what the other panelists have said. one thing that i like that we are doing, we do have a

leadership program, a leadership fellow program to help existing people that are within the education setting. weave a program for the new teacrs coming in. a new teacher networking program to help them become better at their craft. so there is a lot of things that need to be in place, i agree with the panel when they said that there shouldn't b seat time, it should be engage time. i truly believe that. because it's so unfair to place a brand new student in the building when ty never hav the opportunity to be exposed before they had their first assignment. i think we need to look at that and make sure we a aligning them with all of the facts of coming into the education proid viewing them with professional development about the communities.

i have a interviewing actually last week s i've never worked with these type of cldren. and i asked her what type of children was she speaking in terms of because children are children. and i @on't think she understood what she had actually said. i think this is all about changing our mindset of how we view what our responsibility are and what we do as a community. >> briefly, i just got the hook. >> well, then i guess if i have nothing good to say, i shouldn't say it. i have recommendations in the next question. >> how's that for short? >> thank you, dr. sontag. i want to offer a series of questions or comments first and then a series of questions for you to comment on regarding district or state capacity to do the turn around thing.

now a few comments. over the last several years we've had school improvement grants for the purpose of dealing with schl that is are troubled. and these grants go to states, and ultimately go to districts. and we've seen fairly little progress, at least in louisiana, we've seen fairly little progress. and i would be interested if you know of great progress on this. because i'm really looking for where is the capacity for either the district or the state to do these turn arounds? and i also want to talk about expectations. what is our expectation for the success for of turn around? how quickly, what level, will it always succeed? let me make a few more

comments. when we adopted an accountability system in louisiana in 1996 and began our testing protocol, we saw a bump. we saw an increase, we saw an improvement. but then we saw it quickly flatten out 25% of our schools would always meet their growth targets. 25% would not, they could stay flat, and 50% would go up and down. what we realized was there was really no capacity to really make the change, the fundamental changing in the school builded toot the work. so as we talk about school improvement many years ago, i thin what i've concluded is we don't have the capacity in districts or in state to do this work. we pushor reconstitution. and we said you must take people out and bhange them up and move them around. reconstitution really hn't

worked very well. so now we're really pushing hard for this turn around proposition. and i believe in it. but i do believe it's a high-risk proposition. it's not going to work in every case. even business turn arounds do not work in every case. why shoul we expect them to work in every case here? but i do have questions about of the principal and the building, you know, what does a district do for you of the charter school director? is the district really capable of helping you turn these schools around. what is the states hold and what reliance do you place on the district to do thatnd i have all these questions about the district and the state. what is really going to happen when we say we're going to turn these schools around. what should we reallyxpect from that proposition? i'll go with you, steve, since

you are lt. >> well, i would turn about the lack of leadership deste the fact that he has the authority to. or the capacity of school districts it turn arounds thing. but i think all of these questions i think come from leadership and everyone likes to throw that word around. i live in a city that has two nba basketball teams. you know, one i have been a laker fan since i can rember what a basketball was. they have always had great ownership, great leadership at th top, they get the best general manager and best coach. they have a culture, when they ve dn times they recover quickly. there's some lessons there. they take a basketball player like a trevor auris somewhere,

and they don't just match bynum for just anybody. it should be culture of that team should be wean the toughest position. i want a guard toughest challeng i want to team an a.p class. there's lessons there. i've also lived in the school with clippers. they've been bad for as long as the lakers have been good. who do i blame? do i start at the top? now the capacity issues, we know what it takes to turn around schools. we know what it takes to run good small schools. there's management theories out there that are relevant to this work and decision madelosest to the client. this is a trend nationally exceptor education where our product is teachers but they

don't have a saying. they don't make any decisions. there are practices out there, there are enoughxamples out there. evything else has moved into the 21th century. but we are perfected and obsessed with the school district. it has to start with leadership. i know that gets thrn around all the time. our president say look we're going to lead the wopld in college graduation is a huge thing to say, and he backed it up with some money. i think we are all dissatisfied across parties and class about our public school systems. now we have to kicknto what is needed. and it's hard. i live in a city where there are 100,000 pros in our school district. 40,000 of them are teachers. out of the 60, of course you need great principals, bus drivers, people who make sur the bills are paid. but you don't need 60% of their work force.

th's hard decisions tt have to be made politically. what do you do that dominate school districts? you have to move them and do it humanely. yo have to pus money and resources down to the schoo sites with some strong nonnegotiables. we know what works. so the excuse of no capacity is just that, an excuse. >> when you look at the terms leadership, it is the capacity and wheel of a leadership to move men and women to the same coon goal. the leader must be the teacher. to be that is key. they have to have the capacity to thing everybody in teachers and sit down and have a discourse of looking at the deficiejcies and the weakens in

the buildin cep with a listen, monitor the plan, and make sure that the discourse is one that is ot intimidating or threatening. that to me a key. i'm lucky that we do have a administrative art within the building. they come in, they do walk throughs, they monitor. we talk about these are the things that we're seeing. we discuss what shod we be doing at this point? they don't just sit back and do nothing. i'm glad that i'm in a district at takes that very seriously. because if they are not in the building and walking through and looking at what's working and what's not working, first we have to make sure what's the look alike? that's why the leader has to b a teacher to understand the work and the manifesof the institution. so it's a collaborative effort

working together and making decisions that are in the best interest of that particular scho. because the interest of the other schools are different. i like the fact that we do have a central office. they come in as teams. they do walk throughs. we debelief, we dialogue about what we see that is work welcome what is not working, and we talk about how we can change and challenge those things. but it has to be a collaborative intellect between the two parties. >> anyone else? >> i would echo the issue around capacity. i think you need to develop capacity. you know, if you have a district that isn't assessing what it's return on investment is with the

programs that it's currently yes, ma'aming, i would argue that they have no idea what the value is of those individual progms. turn around is not something that won't come with some sort of cost. and you know the nclb money or race to the top is not going to behere forever. and i do think that we need to take a look at one the practices that are in place in a school district or at the state level if the school fits. and what can we do t push money to the school sight? that's not an easy thing to do. because there are inherent roadblocks everywhere you may turn. but i think we've got to take a look at those and ain when i made any comments earlier, i

talked about having political will to make the necessary tough decisions that have to be made if indeed we're going to address this problem. this is no doubt in any one's mind that these school districts still mirror what indeed they looked like 25 or 30 years ago by and large. i mean i would raise the where of whether there are too many school districts across the country. i would raise the issue of whether the role of the school committee has such is as relevant as it may have been. now i realize those are local option questions. but i think that you've got to think seriously about what currently in place hasn't work. we don't know whether indeed you can get districted to do the kinds of things that are necessary. you have to change cultu of the district. >> so you think it's less an

issue of capacity and more an issue of political will? >> yup. i do. >> garth? >> i would add and check on the leadship question to some extent on the political leadership question. i would also -- i thi there's a deep question about role outside of schools. i think there's a refrain on the panel about how school is doing the work. i would argue that in new yor our constitution efforts we developed good processes for supporting school as they were developing supporting themn their own division. you can talk about that later. but i will tell you in the supporting schools, i've spent most of my time fighting off other district offices and the state who wanted to get in and muck up the works of what principals like ms. lacroy are planning and trying to execute. as we thinabout the capacity

outside of schools, wt is the right role of district? what is the right role of the state? you know, every educator i've talked to loves to the go to the school visit and walk through and provide counsel on what they see in the different classrooms. than can't be the role for every person of any layer. one of the goals we set for ourself, a goal of 90% success for our new schools to find performance above average. it's important. we were from the outset to some extent setting the goals that recognized the failure rate. and that we were going to not be successful. and i would argue that unless we are bold enough to accept those kinds of failures, there's no way we will get to success with a majority of the turn-around situations we're trying to pursue. >> in respect for your schedule, i'll be a little bit glib.

from the state point of view, we think we have some mechanisms in place to try to maximize the capacity. we don't have enough people to do everything we need to do. we have a lot of pressure on the local school systems by the way of the nclb targets. that means that we're basically setting these targets and stepping back in many cases for the school systems to let them do the work. now in some cases we've got eight schools in the school strict. and they have to capacity. the other places that have 200 schools and they have a committed school board and a very committed highly skilled leadership at the central office level with the ceo of superintendent who is very good principals and very well committed. of top down approach. in some cases it is working well because the district has taken the title $1 and done some good

things. the fact -- taken the title i @@@@@@xa) >> with an eye to the hook in a schedule i will ve one question f one of our presenters. and that for you, dr. peiffer. you noted that maryland school finance reforms had a significant role in your school improvement. while a number of states are involved in state finance,

school finance litigation, very few have gotten to that magic place where it's equitable and running well. couple that with the fact that the federal government only provides about 9%, you can argue that. i wonder if there are state school finance characteristics that the federal government should require as they invest their money in state for school improvement. >> i think i can say this. at one point we had the 20 or 30 funding streams that went out to students, went out to schools, school districts. the problem, thatoney was attributed to capita based on students. but students are not always in one sudden appeared very multiple subgroups. we found schools that were overflowing with money that didn need it. and we find that having the state to dictate in the must be

spent to teachers or age or whatever else is an effective and in some cases i talked to a principal who said we need to buy a bus. i didn't have my kids in the immediate dissent at a schl feeling comfortable and safe in their school. we bought a bus and go round pick them up in the morning. the attendant has gone a. scores have gone a. normally, in a normal funding stream, that would not be allowed. so i think that there is a lot of logic in terms of being able to step back and allow some latitude for people at the district level to make some decisions. but again the accountability if they are accountable for the bottom line in terms of performance of their students, and something that actually make sense sometimes people, good ideas don't make sense in certain situations. i think it is very impornt. i am not quite sure how that translates out into a federal mandate. that's a rl complex issue.

>> good afternoon, everyone. i just like to say how impressed i am with the meaningful expeence in his room. and so i will be brief, and my question is for eryone. if you could just quickly i guess let us knoif you would write a prescription for all the low performing schools to adopt a strategy or something they could do to turn around, what would it be? al quickly. even though i know it's never just one thing, but what wou you say? >> can i sta? thank you. i would say you should have a set of core strategies, su as reviewing data constantly, setting cle goals, investing in teacher quality, and tt is purposeful and focused.

>> so quickly, i mean, this is what your school is. so in our schools, we believe all kids can learn. all kids are important, it all the adult in front of them have to believe in that. and everything else will serve into that. >> i would say that you have to have a very strong interim assessment strategy that is linked to the curriculum, that is like a professional development. and that there is consistent triangulation made to determine if it's in remediation for a particular student, if it's the way the teacher i delivering the material or if there are problems in the cuiculum, and there is a dynamics change is happening to address those on an ongoing basis. to schools that are doing that, the best in chicago are the ones that are really, really driving achievement. >> i would suggest they put them into a protected cell or space

and that they give them the flexibility that we have all talked about here earlier, and that we do away with the multiple partners, create a partner that has responsibility for delivering whatever assistance that protected space in the individual schools and i needs. >> similar to others, single-minded focus on the mission, priorities, systems that exist in the school, within the school, and a discipline and relentless focus on fighting off all attempts to distract from that focus, wherever the are coming. >> i would endorse the things from my colleagues that they have said, but i would also add that if you can only do one or two things, ihink would be really focus on getting extremely strong and well supported leaders in each one of those schools. and number two, make sure at those teachers have all the tools and all the preparation of able to do their work. and if you couldn't do anything else, then you have to start with that. >> thank you.

>> thank you. i'm actually on a teacher committee so that means i'll get six minutes, i don't attend that. i will try, so people will be seeing me again. i want to ask a question about teachers. we've been talking about new schools, we've bn talking about charter schools, we've been talking about turnaround schools and in talking with what appears to be an exceptionally run traditional school. and i haven't heard as much as i would like about how human resource management strategy are integrated with these turnaround efforts. i mean, we all know that the variation among teachs and effectiveness is actually huge. it's three to one ratio. it is something we can't ignore. i am particularly interested in how possible measures of teacher

effectivens are being used or can be used, or should be used in these turnaround efforts. let me point to some specific question, to some specific people. dr. peiffer, he talked about highly qualified teachermainly in your comment. you make some passing reference to teacher effectiveness, hily qualifd may be important but doest explain a lot in terms of teacher effectiveness. mr. harrs, the new schools in new york are quite exciting. i couldn't help but wonder who were the teachers, where did ey come from, where these existing teachers that were there. similarly, fors. lockett. where did the teachers come from? did you select them? do you keep them? do you have control? i found steve barr's observations that 40% of the teachers in locke high school

returned. think about it one way and i think wow, that is a lot. and i think about another way and i think g., 60% don't want to be there andhey were there before. bit about that self-selection that you seem to be tapping into so if we could start with dr. peiffer and then go to mr. harries and then the ms. lockett and in mr. barr. thank you. >> i would agree to holli qualified teache aren't necessarily highly effective. i seem to very highly qualified people not doing a particular od job, but when wlook at all the statistics right now, our concentration of teachers who do not have adequate training are showing up in very large numbers. and our urban districts, schools that are very low performing. and we've made a lot of headway on that over the last six, seven years. but it's a start. a secondary issue in terms of being able to help teachers to be effective, we are really trying to help local school systems understand they were not

in a position to measure it right now. i don't think we have all the tools to measure that and i'm ping longitudinal data systems willelp us do that in the next couple of years. but i think it's something we need to attend to, the professional developer of the teachers in maryland because i cahire them. they wl all come from a state university. i needed to understand our cricket and we need to a lot as a profession development. we foc very hard on trying to have professional development standards for all the systems and they understand that when they build their plans, do they come back to the teachers frequently and he provides ongoing support to gethere. >> are explained in new york is similar to mr. barrs, and that in many situationsome teachers came back from existing schools, something or other places, someone who teachers. i think the whole core idea was to theeachers were attracted to be in the new school institutions. anattracted to the idea and i think it is compelling, that the

teacher experience is not locking the door into their own classroom but as a collective collaboration of adult focused on achievement. and i think unfortunately, yes, all far too many tehers in the system are not excited about that idea. but part of what we need to do is create school systems that expect that, schools that expect that, and school systems that expect that. i would underscore, i would commend to you and to the commission the new teacher project report on would affect their quality of national union signed onto it and defined that teacher evaluations are a joke on all sides. and not focused on the questions of performance attitude, and improvemen in studt achievement. >> just llow-up for both be just real quick because i know we're running out of topic is there anything federal policy can do to promote greater teacher effectiveness? measured teacher effectiveness, or should do, could do or should do.

>> i think that in race to the top, there is a chunk of money there that will be put into the common standards. if the common standards are with common assessment and those comment assessments are accompanied with benchmarking exams that are high quality and benchmarked to the somewhat of assessments we will have some outstanding tools i believe to be up to measure tcher progress, teacher effectiveness as we go thugh the year. i think under the circumstances it is body because it is benchmarking as if their use, benchmarking tools are a veritable quality of this point. >> i mean, i would say the question will be towards more value add or progress-based metrics, which is common across other streams of nclb. is also important teacher evaluation. they me complaints that are not necessarily same. if we're comparing an absolute performance, that's just not a

fair expression of what the professional obligation is. it's not to perpetuate the success levels of the parent give us. is instead to advance the achievement levels of student. >> would you recommend something like this in new legislation, new federal legislation? or just local? >> and old ear to the extent that nclb sets the bar on absolute performance levels, it is a question of federal legislation. i think both on the question of standards that my colleague from merely revert to but also what are you measurg end of standards. is an incredible important federal point and i think in creating that for districts and schools will hav a follow effect for valuation of teachers as well. >> ms. lockett? >> about 40% of the teacher that are coming into our schools are new teachers. and many of them are coming from alternative certification program, like teach for america. in particular. i say of the $28 million that we

have disbursed to schools so far, most of the majority of that is going into human capital. our schools are getting about 20 to 30% more td to pick many of them are starting an advanced six to eight weeks in advance of school open professional development. and to that is a huge priority in terms of how the schools are structured. but the flexibility component is critical. they are working longer hours, and part of that extra time is to bribe the pd support that they need to be more effective. >> i think as a lesson as all get excited about this turnaround, you know, when we met with the teachers at lock, i told them most of them want to come back because it's not like we have a bus, air-conditioned bus sitting outside of watch with teachers waiting to take your job. there is a teacher shoage. i don't think there is a teacher shortage, i think it is a work problem. if i'm a teacher now this would be a place i would want to be because you online leadership

with the mayor an there is a mission. so at least i'm going into something and i don't feel like it is a suckers bet. were a lot of school district aren't just a drifter to recommendation i would make is we have a huge deficit, human capital and the best and brightest are not coming. and even terrific effort like teach for america to turn away candidates because they don't have enough funding. the oneuggestion i made, transition team, was i would, i used to be an americorps person but i would give americorps or something like americorps, i could give it to wendy kopp, and randy white garden. go find is a quarter million teachers ifive years and give us apprenticeship jobs for pis. for much is not enough time to time, that's great. but for those teachers into your program. not just in the worst school. put them in some of the best school so they learn from the best he could. give him a year of training. and then unleash them to schl districts that are reforming themselves. put a minimum wage of 70 grams per teacher for five years in

at district, just like a hundred thousand police issue back i the clinic ministers. you have five years to sustain that. it would create a huge tour of a player teachers and you would reward school district that are moving forwa appropriately but also you're trying to make it away. youre adding on. we shouldn't be turning away thousands of teachers from spellman and morehouse and yale that want to be going to teacher of arica program when we have teacher shortage. >> did you have something tt you want to add? i could see you sort of move. well, jut very quickly. i think issue around turnaround also requires as has been mentioned the conditions that fos are working unrneath to be addssed. but also in order for the schools to be successful, you've got to deal with the issues that may impact on the ability to keep these folks in the same space for a period of time. so that they can make a difference. i mean, the constant turnover

that may occur, for whatever the reason. if it is a cyclical budget kind of arrangement and you are a system or a district that is operating strictly on stretching yorty, you are going to lose the very people you're trying to maintain in that organization. is a very difficult issue but it needs to be addressed. >> after you took over? >> and i did. and basically you have to look at sustainability. i truly bieve teachers for a major role. most teachers want to work in a building where they feel supported. and i think that's one of the problems the other problem, some of them are not equipped when they come. they don't understand the process of how to operate in a classroom, making sure everything that they are utilizing in the classroom is at their fingertips. sometimes they just don'tet it. and it's hd, but you have to

honestly look at providing collaborativopportunities for them. but the leadership person plays a major role. most teachers that i have met over a period of time, especially this year, lking for quality for a reang teacher, because i am looking for one. the question i always go to is i want to be here because i heard that you will support me, that you won't just throw me out. because some, i hate to say this, but you have leaders who unfortunately they pay no atntion to our teachers liberties right nor their prerty rights. they have a set of standards but they are not actually going and doing the work, working side-by-side,roviding, coaching skills for those teachers to make them want to be

there. it's hard to go into environments where there is a high, udents are not. it's hard because teachers have to feel supported. and sometimes we put the wrong leaders in place who don't understand the need for supporting teachers to maintain them and sustain them there. and that's what you have a lot of teaer turnaround because they don't feel that. >> thank you. and i apologize to the chair. i think i may have exceeded my minutes. >> commissioner, i was asked to ask a question. for those of you don't know, jdy is a longtime advocate for children with disabilities. she was interested in how we are doing educating students with disabilities.

and what if anything we could do with no child left behind to improve the performance stents with disabilities in the schools, and given the interest of time i will take volunteers. >> for the last six month i was in new york i was actually the senior chordata for special education and made a series of recommendations about how the district should approach it differently i would argue that special education is, to the exnt we have talked about, focusing on learning as opposed to focusing on input, i would argue that special education is largely characterized by an input model that what federal law, and not nclb, the soviet iad and others, what it requires in the set of services that are layered on top and apart from the students more educational experiences. i am happy to forward that set of recommendations to you if you would li. but the core ideas were around

establishing meaniful academic and behavioral intermediateerm goals. and giving educators the flexibility to try and design different ways to achieve that. so as opposed to creating a right ound a particular set of services. create a management mechanisms to ensure school district are actually looking at the kid and figuring out how do they move them forward. >> thank you very much. and as a parent of a child with down's syndrome i appreciate the question, and appreciate the answer. and i think the fact that we don't have as much to say on that subject suggest that perhaps we might want to focus a little bit more because there are aremendous number of youngsters out there who have special needs, and we need to address their educational goals as well. >> well, we are at the final part, and i see people doing up so i think we will hear some

public comments. so let me just set some rules first. i want to mind everyone in the audience and those who are watching on c-span that the commission will take public comments via our website, including formal testimony. and also will take comments via our facebook page. i don't know whether we will get twitters, but we will take facebook. and you can communicate with us throughout the process. and we have a limited amount of time, and so i'm going to be a tough timekeers, about 10 minutes left. s if you identify yourself if you are on first. >> that you. my name is gary ratner. i am executive director of citizens for effective schools, d i would like to comment particularly an observation of garth harries, which i thought was especially important. he said that with respect to a turning schools around at the

nclb reallneeds to shift the frame of the law to helping schos make the cnges needed to dramatically improve their own performance. and in that regard, there are several strategies that i wod urge the commission to consider as it considers what the frame of this law should be. we know that fundamentally for kids to learn it's going to be a function of what happens in the classroom, and what happens at home. in order to improve what happened in the classroom, there are some known strategies. one of them that's been mentioned here the story, peer collaboration among teachers and also principles. second, mentoring for teachers and for printable. and thd mentioned already career ladders. therneeds to be career ladders built in so that you have the staff capacity in the schools to

provide support. with respect to the family got home we also know some things that isery hard for families to support kids learning at home if they don't have adult literacy. that needs to be built in the nc in terms of specific programs. parenting skills, similarly the kind of things the president talks about. there needs to be programs that are supported by the federal government that enable the parent to do what we know they've want to be. and third, for kids who don't have parent at home, even if th were supported, there nds to be some sort of program, you could think of it as an intensive big brother big sister kind of program, that would pride adult mentors for the kids to give them the kind of role model and support that they need. so basically my urging to the committee would be think deeply, they probably, the sanctions based approach with testing has not worked. it is okay to invite schools that are not doing well but we

now need in this round w need to move on to having the federal government identify these things that there is a convergence on. what are those things? help the school to make those changes, and indeed, put it into the law for those schools that need the turnaround that you st make these kinds of changes in order to continue to get federal money >> thank you. >> my name is jerome. i am an associate professor of mathematics at the university of maryland. you should know that the college math professors across the country are quite distressed that student are arriving in college knowing considerably less arithmetic and algebra one than they did a deade ago. and to answer dr. lomax's question, about what is happening in maryland, before no

child left behind, only 44% of maryland's african-american students when arriving at a maryland college were math ready. mass ready-made point arithmetic and algebra one. said, it has dropped from 44% down to 36%. the cause of this change is a maryland no child left behind grades and math exam so known as maryland, i call it, pretend algebr exam, because things like to ask plus three x. equals five x., that is too hard for maryland now child left behind grade 10 math exam. my suggested solution is that no child left behind require that for the grade 10 math exam, both maryland and other states, they

go to like the university of maryland's math department, which has a placement test, copy out the arithmetic questions and algebra one questions, and use that for the no child left behind mandated grades and math exam. this is what is needed in order to realize high school algebra with college algebra. across the country over the past decade, high school algebra has been underlined with college algebra. >> professor, thank you. i didn't want to hear from a few of your other colleagues, speak as well. >> i have a ort one which is also directed towards -- >> i think we need to share the crophone with others. thank you very much. >> i am barbara cambridge each one of the witnesses this week spoke to the importance of professional development for teachers.

our 50000 members agree with that. when we do surveys of our members, we find that they call for embedded professional development during their school day that enables them to focus on the particular students in a particular community in which they are working. and i noticed that when principal elders spoke about what she called purposeful and focused professional developer, she noted that her school had had to use funding from an outside foundation to get the kind of professional development that was important to her teachers. i would ask you to consider as it is reauthorized, continued and in fact deepened emphasis on professional development for teachers who are committed to the kind of improvement that we have been lking about. >> thank you. >> grantedhat i am mark ames with the national association of secondary school priable. would represent about 30000 ddle level and high school

principals nationwide and internationally. i heard a lot of really great things today. i heard support for principles, support for school leadership ould be a focus of the reauthorization, esea. is a real good things of course and additional support for teachers, teacher collaboration, addressing the outside, influences on student achievement, outside of school. i guess one of the things that i wanted to bring up, and some people have addressed in this committee, and outside elsewhere, is the idea of turning around schools that, well, we have low performing schools, they have is dropout crisis definite need to be addressed. and so let's go to a school and remove the principle and let's turn it around. because it's a new school and need special circumstances to operate, we know we need to do dratic radical change.

that's what is not tearing around the edges of course. we need a special circumstances, additional autonomy. ani would just submit to you that if the principles that were in the school originally had that same level nfutonomy, they wou probably be able to succeed. it's not that the principles don't want to succeed. is that they are so many countervailing forces that they are unable to or they don't have the professnal development. to have en provided the tools for training to do the turnaround strategies. so what is not need is to remove the principle, you know, 's an light like we have these buses are principles that are just waiting around. there is a shortage of printable. a lot of printable are going to retire in the coming years. d so we need to not diourage people from entering the principle ship by threatening to re them, but providing them with the support that will enable them to do the job if you want to do. thank you.

. . a those assessments look-alike. i keep hearing on the selection around dispositions and how you assess teachers abilies and believeshat all kids can learn.

they can fit with the school context. i want to raise tho two issues. >> i am the director of the centerou are in that howard and i welcome all of you here. i am also a three term pta president in prince george's county. my concern is that students are beg taught to >> when you start talking about broad base learning and teachers who teach by tradition they are not in a position to do that because they are teaching by the test to evaluate the school. and i also believe that there are some things i've often pondered on and that our children phonics should be put back into the school. johnnie should read when we learned by that, even when mother couldn't read. that's a consideration from th mother and pta president. >> hi, i'm paul. i reay had a question.

it's one i have strong views on. but i'll are you. which has to do with the frame that i've heard a lot here and elsewhere about increased accountability and increased automy and authority and the implicatns ofhat. and whether for those of you who say that, what it means inerms of the role of any standard of practice. or requirement -- policy requiremts for what schools needo do. one reading that wehould pretty much minimize or get rid of them altogether and give autonomy and expect results. do you believe that or if not, what kinds of standards of practice, what kinds of requirements are helpful and in what ways should they be used in

relationship to outcome measures? and i my that question has implications, for example, from the question about distric and state capacity in terms of what they do. whether or not we do or don't have in place as a focus so standards and expectations for what the schools need to do that we're trying to help them with. thanks. >> we're going to accept that as a rhetorical. >> no, it's not. >> well, i'm not sure we're going to be able to answert today. i'm sorry. since you did say you had strong view. we welcome your sharing with us either through our -- back to the fact of giving us your point of view on the questions that you ask. thank you. >> i'm angie i'm with the foundation forxcellence. i'm the caboose, thank you for

sticking around and letting me share remarks. i think the kidseed to come first. their academic achievement needs to come first. i would like for you guys if you get a chance, government bush is hosting the summit october 8th and 9th. i have some fliers. we're gointo be talking about the components, what to do with teachers, accountability, data, charter schools. i think the floridaxample might be helpful to you. the current regime has a past failed system. you may agree or may not, which schools are failing, wch may not need to be reconstituted. florida is the only state in the grade shall, a-f. new york city provides a very clear line of where the public schools are doi in the state. florida provided considerable

resources. at one time they also have avoucher program. that allows students to select a better programming school. we thinkhat's a critical component. if the child is in the failing school, why make them stay there? we need to get them a choice. they only get 4th grade that year. if they fail they have to stay again. it's not fair to those students. florida focuses on the bottom 25% as a component of their school grade. no childeft behind focuses on ethnic gups and gender. and sometimes the kids are left behind because of the insights. if you focus on the bottom 25%, they are on the performer. we would like the commission to consider that. with regard to the effective teacher is to look at the student achievement data of the students that are coming through their classrooms. thank you very much.

>> thank you. this come colludes our public comment. i'd like to access that another commissioner has joined us, mike johnson who is the california state senator and sign your policy advisor at new leaders for new schools. commissioner, thank you f joining us. ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the program. let me just make a few concluding remarks. the institute commission on no child left behind will continue this series of public hearings around the country over the next few months to hear your testimony from the researchers, policymakers, and otherso gather information for our fort coming report with updated recommendations for improving the law. the topics will include teacher and principal effectiveness, accountability, data, and standards for improving our nation's high school. you will receive information on the dates and locations of these events in the coming weeks.

we look forward to continuing to work with leaders all or the nation to advance effective education reform to assure that all of our children, regardless of race, income, zip code, have access to a first-rate education that can prepare for them responsible citizeship, higher education, and rarding work. thank you all for being with us today. this concludes our hearing. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> lessons in leadership

>> part of supreme court week. here's some of what you'll see. >> mr. chief justice, and may it plea the court. the government concedes that the destruction of documents in anticipation of a proceeding was not crime in the fall of 2001. >> something different is going on here. and wt goes on in the capitol building or the white house. and you need to appreciate how important it is to our system of government. >> this is the highest court in the land. and the framers created it after studying the great law givers in historynd taking a look at what they thought worldwide was important for their judicial

branch to do. >> i put in as much blood, sweat, and tears, on the little cases as i do on the big ones. you don't sit here to make the law and decide what to win. we decide who win under the law that the people have adopted. >> you wilbe surprised by the high level of colleague quality. >> if the four out of nine of us want to hear the cases, we will decide i >> the job is to decid we decide. >> why is that we have an elegant, astonishing beautiful, imposing, impressive structure? it's to remind us that we have an important function. and to remind the public of the importance and centrality of the law. >> i think the danger is sometimes you can come into a building like this and think it's all about you, or that you

are important. and that is something that i don't think works well with this job. >> supreme court week starting october 4th on c-span. >> and now a forum on consumer genetic testing. providing such medical test from purchaser instead of through their health care providers. they will focus on testing regulation. >> we are gathered around the topicf social responsibility for the rulatory frame work, different models of oversight, and our first speaker or speakers, excuse me. andrea and timothy will address the existing oversight mechanisms for genetic testing,

both in the united states and in the united kingdom. i don't know who's going first. but we'll share the time, i assume. >> well, good morning. can everybodyea me well now? yes. i would like to thank the board of the oversight committee to inviting me here today to talk about the genetic testing in this country. i am going to be covering today and walk you through some of the findings that we had in the

health and society as we loveo ca ourselves. in 2007 the health and human services charged our committee to actually investigate specific questions related to the adequate si and transparency of oversight of genetic testing in this country. afd so the committee gathered a group of 33 different members and experts in the fie a dropped in the report of the testing in this countryhat was actually released to the public in november 2007nd we were able to man of public comment that was incorporated into the report. but after that finized by the committee and released to the secretary inpril 2007.

part of the charge to our committee, or questions to our committee, they requested that we have a comprehensive map of the genetic testing in this country. and in order to do that, we got help from the group. and it would actually help us out significaly to develop this oversight map. it reall comes hooking at oversight in this country, it became apparently that there were five major components. all of them were interrelated. that's how you see the five here with the research a development in different areas, fda, cliaw and bract guidelines. and as you can see the wild lines coming back and fd from all the different areas. sos an extremely complex map of

the testing oversight that we had simplified significant by those boxes. and we'll be walking you throu each of the boxes. i hope you remember all of the relations between coming back and forth in the different areas. so to start to look at t oversight of the genetic testing we need to start with when do we start developing this test? this is the area for research and develment? so in the area o research and development something or nonpopular organization of the research that identify the need and the gerations that can be used for application of the particular diseases. and i think the identification of the kind of genes moved from the basic research to the second round of the research that allow us to gain more information into the numbers of the profusion of

theenetic violation from prognosis maybe. so this basic research while wanting to develop the design test that can be used for preclinical development. at thi point, i want to see that these predevelopment of a test has taken out and either moved to laboratory test and this has become an accra anymore now by professionals that are trained in is parthcula area. this is become available. the other route could be through the review and a number of different diagnosis manufacturers gone through to have the fda review of their product. there were a number of different gaps identified through the process of developing these maps.

and as you can see, the gap here with a little dot of it here. i'm going to only high height somef those that are relative to the discussion today. the gap that we found in the development of a test is that the lack of control for the reference material that is availae to the research and th clinical counity that can be used to valate these practices and for later practices down the road. the second that we found is a lot of people in the test can be offered and need a review. we will go to some of the further residential areas that will come some of the standard measures for the laboratory tests. with regards to the particular

map that we go through the fda review of these tests, we talked about already different kds of review of the fda, either the manufacturer that developed products, or when they are getting rdy to be move into new blocks or move into consumers that can start looking for research purposes. theres diagnostic manufacturer to have 30 days to listen to fda know that they are intending to do these. a little part of the registration on this. in addition the otherart that we show earlier that -- let me see if i can go back in here, so this will be the development of the test that are going t go through the fda review. and there's a registration first and then you can have a application and the review of

the idm, ima, this is a type of test that have developed from the fda and a couple of these laboratories for the particular draft. and there's the issue of the diagnosis for the therapeutic can go when we do combine applications rather than the diagnosis. so once we got to the fda, all of the -- after registration, the fda did an assessment of the risk of that parcular test. and there's usuallyome categories of practice of risk, plus one, plus two, or plus three. plus one is considered very low risk. and a number of dferent tests that have low risk will only have to go through the fda registration for further review

and cld actually be offered to the laboratory and manufacturing practices. the other type of testing which is plus two or plus three actually have to go through the approval. and there are different routes for this different application for clearance. and they can be in two or ree. is it 5.6 or the pma process and the entire test. this is when the need for the test will go for a different type of review. and sometimes there are reasons for some of these review. when the manufacturer comes for the application through the fda for approval of cleance, if there's a device already in the market that has been approval cleared by the fda and the new device has comparable

characteristics to the device or comparable device in the market, then it goes for the review and approval and clearance and back to the laboratory services. the other road isree market available for the class three which are higher risks for new technology, for exale, they will go through the premarket approval where there's not only premarket review of the application, but alro the preapproval of the activities and so forth. there's a number that actually does not mean necessarily that the vacatns. and there's a little bit of high risk those spots can actually be -- some of it c classified to

receive what is cled a 5k. this is where it actually lows the race into the even donors know a comparable diagnostic test that doesn't pose much risk. they can be going. we vice president found genetic tests that are going through this and are clearly available for the laboratory. as we go through some of the parts of the fda for the clearance and approval. this isn't betweej clearance and approval i very significant. if i think clearance will be clear to accredited device. the process is called clear and the approval is called approval because it's the fl review of what the testing is going to be used for. so with regards to the

laboratori that are offering the clinical tests, clinical tests in this countries are regulated by severalegular lathelation called the clinical laboratory. so as we go through these, laboratories have to mee a set of standards, rorous standards, to be able to meet the standards. therapy personal standards, their specific quality education for personal net from the laboratory to supervisors that need to be left to be able to qualify that person on standards. the quality assurance, quality control, and the validity of the assessment for the testament needs to be met. so the laboratory that wants to start offering the test of services needs to have a clear certificate mean that they comply with the regulations. so the clear laboratory, the

laborato that will send the application to be inspected or reviewed by cms which is the center for medicare services or other approval associates. one of those is very commonly used for like a laboratory on the pathology that actually will allow you after you have gotten the register that you want to get the certificate that's common to the inspection to be able to determine that you have meet those requirements and you cleared service. -- certification. this is not a one-time deal. it goes back into a circle. they have biannual inspection and annual examinations. every year we have an inspection from the outside and internal. during the review of the

validation for all of the tests that he to be offered within the last two years or sce the last inspection. so as you can see here, we go ba here. our laboratory -- our committee has found some gaps in the different areas of the oversight. one of the laboratories that committee was very concerned was about laboratory testing that is actually offer to use without the first time without independent review unless thereto biannual inspection and then they review that particular ta when the inspector comes. the otherhing important is that the current regulation required e.t. none of those are analyzed for genetic testing. a place for alternative assessments which is quality assurance profits. so there is not -- there is a

number of different proficiency testing. but fda has to approve the providers. there's a number of different sts. and nobody has shown what is the benefit of not of these alternative efforts in a systemic way. there are two tests in washington and new york state. the reason they have is that their program for oversight of the laboratory testing needs or exceeds the clear regulation. so they will apply to cms, it will receive the batter. the only difference between the exempt state and the nonexempt test that the critical laborato evaluation program from new york. the pgram was an analis --

analytical test before it's used for review. we still have the test of the laboratory. as we continue to move forward, there are oth terms of regulations from several relations. there are state regulations, there's actually professional organizations, centers, organizations that provide different kinds of guidelines that all these laboratories will look at to be and bring into the labotory. so as the different tesng goes into the offering of the different indivuals either the application of the laboratory cost of the laboratory, independent of the laboratory andhe extra consumer testing, then we -- there is a valid form that there is nonregulatory specific for the laboratory that we have to follow such as ada, to keep our regular laces, and of that sort.

as we continue to use the testing, there's a marke surveillance only for the fda tests and clinical review. these have become very important. the u.s. -- services top force and the evidence for genetic application and practice and prevention are government agencies that actually take the independent groups. part of the group that actually do independent reviews of the clinical utility of a number of different tests. that actually has been used for outcomes research, also can be ed by professionals, for example, or even the ten groups to provide how to use the tests.

these can be used by third party payers to pay for the test. if this has become a regulator. if you don't get paid for the test, we cannot offer the test. that's one thing that we bring to the patients. this here provides the research andevelopment. we can finish with this ersight committee testing. as you can see the test evolved over the years, and it is extremely complicated and interrelated. all of the side of the genetic testing. i'll sw you t first slide at the end of the slide. so you can see the work of our committee that has been extensive in trying to get the handle of the current state that's testend point out some of the things that the committee is concerned about. you can find the report on t map on the particular web site. and you can