body armor requirements and performance specifications to industry? >> yes, maam. i appreciate your question. as we have talked about before, it is a complex issue when we talk about our social protection. we are looking in the army as to what should a'@ @ úi @ @ rbrb rb

be there. in terms of why we are not looking at buying additional product in the future from a are meant perspective, requirements right down the army's approximately 966,000 improved tactical vest and we are reaching the end of that procurement. in terms of our plates, we have procured over 2 million of the place and we have on contract 240,000 of our contingency stock so i believe our soldiers are covered but i do recognize we need to think where are we going to to go in the future when we want to have a new capability and how do we fund for that and currently we are funding everything through cocoa. >> general brogan. >> yes, maam. to communicate the performance specifications industry, we do that through requests for information. can you provide this capability?

requests for quotation which is how much would would your produn capacity the end than when there is an actual decision to buy is there a request for a procurement? telecine proposal how much it would eat, what your production capacity would be, their rates to deliver schedules and things like that. so those are the performance specifications. with respect to purchasing, you are absolutely correct, we have purchased a large amount of this equipment with the operation funding in the supplementals required for that. as general fuller said we now have in our possession the required quantities. however the soft audie armor wears out roughly every three years. it has not met the investment threshold funded through a procurement line. we have funded that through an operations and maintenance line, and as i mentioned we started the conflict with the outer tactical vest based on feedback

from the user in theater. we went to the modular tactical vest which addressed a number of deficiencies and now we have designed in the u.s. government the improved modular tack taylor fest and given that specification to industry to build and to print, so we on the technical data package for that and industry is making it to her specifications. aligned with that is the plague carrier, the smaller fest that doesn't have the extra soft armor. that reduces the weight being carried at the marine in theater. we also on that design. it is interoperable so the improved tactical vest can be moved back and forth between the plague carrier and the imtv. i mentioned to an earlier question, how we communicate generally with industry and that our 61, six to research and development lines are handled by naval research in the naval research laboratory. >> thank you or your testimony.

>> the chair recognizes the gentleman from colorado, mr. culp for five minutes. >> thank you mr. chairman. the preponderance of our casualties in afghanistan, and i believe the preponderance are due to roadside bombs. recently in afghanistan, it's my understanding that the government they are outlawed ammonium nitrate and ammonium nitrate is a primary ingredient in afghanistan for the making of ied's unlike i think in iraq where it was old munitions, more artillery rounds as the primary source for the ied's there. what impact, and i understand north of 90% of the ammonium nitrate and afghanistan is used for the making actually of ied's. what impact does this outlawing or this end of the ammonium

nitrate in afghanistan, if i'm correct in that, have in the reduction of ied capability? >> sir, that is a great question. as a point of clarification ammonium nitrate actually has beneficial uses in afghanistan and every arab country for road preparation and mining to some degree. but, president karzai did at some insistence on our part and ammonium nitrate or go i believe, and i think the command currently assesses that will have an impact, a favorable impact on the availability of this fertilizer to be used as an explosive device. we also have a challenge with potassium chloride which is used to make matches or go it comes out of the facilities in pakistan as well for perfectly legitimate reasons. but it can be converted to

explosive capability. so the short answer to your question is, the enemy has shown us in iraq and is showing us in afghanistan that they are adaptive. were we to take away all the ammonium nitrate, they would ship somewhere else, so while it is a good step in that will have good benefits both in protecting our soldiers and airmen and, it is not going to close out their options are. >> have we seen any effect that can be traced back to this decision at this time in terms of any kind of slow down or reduction in ied making capability? sir, it is a little early. i don't want to misspeak but i think the demand is-- the band has been in place for a little over a month so i think it is a little premature however there are indications from our intelligence sources that it will have an impact. how much so we will have to gauge. >> thank you. in terms of individual force

protection equipment, where are we add in terms of the next generation in helmand? >> the enhanced combat helmet you mentioned started as a joint effort between the united states army and the united states marine corps. they did the first round of research and development testing there was certainly potential in a new composite material that we looked at. we took on the next step of actually putting out their request for proposals to industry and a awarding a number of development contracts for test items. would make up those test items in and tested them they did not reform as we had hoped and anticipated. we provided the results of those tests back to our industry partners so that they could make the modifications to their designs and we would expect to begin to start receiving the next set of test items early

this summer, sir. speak very well. let's see. could somebody go over with me-- i know in the isr area we have been flooded with data and i think the primary problem seems to be it is too much information coming in and the inability to sort it in real-time in order to have an effect on the battlefield. can you tell me what improvements they are are in terms of managing the information coming in from various isr platforms? >> i can speak to two initiatives that were discussed during the course of our work for the alien subcommittee. one is the national security agency is finding innovative ways to find more linguists to help in translating and dealing with the signals intelligence

data that has been collected and again these are initiatives that we are unable to measure how much impact they have. in addition, the air force has announced plans to add 2500 analysts to their court-- board to be able to process and disseminate more of the data coming off of the isr systems, so these are two we mentioned in our report and that were raised to us. people are trying to deal with it. it is the breaking the back end of the cycle with all of this flooding of data. but again, it is too early to tell how effective these efforts are going to be. >> thank you mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you. mr. kissel. >> thank you gentleman and thank you for being here today. i would like to note that while the apparent addition of me being near the end of the line and asking questions i do want to allocate that i have a whole

row allocated to me here so that shows you where i am in the pool. >> the room is a little bit or do we are happy in and raeburn when we get back their. >> you lose track of who is behind you when you get back your. >> i didn't even see you down their. >> thank you mr. chairman. [laughter] i do have a question. it is kind of hard, general fuller i think maybe this question goes to you. this is a question i normally might run through channels and i'm not advocating a particular vendor here. but we had, being so much of our conversation has been about body armor and can we move ahead to a new tech elegy, a new generation, i had a gentleman come to my office a while back that was on the cutting edge of science and using some of the

oldest technology on the other. if he said was true, it would seemingly be a huge step forward in the possibility of reducing weight and increasing the strength of protection to our people. he has been working with the department of defense and seemingly getting more frustrated as he went. i am going to ask my military l.a., captain tim vitter. i would like to have a report that from you well. is this a possibility? is what he is talking about realistic? is isn't a step forward, a giant step forward as he is talking about? i'm not pushing this vendor. i just want some feedback as if it is, then let's pursue it. if it is not i can say i am sorry this is not what we are looking for but there are things that got me somewhat curious about what he is offering. general oates, in the scheme,

and mr. bartlett said it today, bad the proportionate amount of money we spend in fighting ied's in protecting our soldiers pursued the cost of ied's, and also we have to keep doing that. we have got to protect our soldiers but are we catching up or are they getting farther ahead? >> sir, it is a quick question and i actually think iraq might be informative here. if we go back and look at what has transpired in iraq and the funding that has come forward to protect our soldiers but also allow us to understand the networks that are engaging us, begin to attack them directly. understands devices in defeat a great number of them. the trend lines are fairly clear and we can get back to you on the specifics over the years. but an aggregate, take the enemy

more ideas to achieve the same results. those were all positive trend lines to now where iraq doesn't begin to resemble this year as it did the first time i was there in 03 and several more times after that. i do believe that if we look at the investment provided to the services and to jieddo that would directly translate protecting our soldiers and in helping us attack networks over there the results are clear. the difficulty is tying individual dollars to what will will 10 more golfers get you in terms of effects against the ied? that one is very tough. we are going to try to do better to the chairman's question in trying to playback what we believe the reasonable measures of effectiveness are and i think iraq is informative of the great success we have had in this area. >> i don't want to indicate at all that this is a voluntary issue. i am just wondering is all the

technological things we are doing and all the efforts we are making, are they getting farther ahead or are we catching up in terms of protecting our soldiers? i do want to follow up with what congressman hunter said about sharing the technologies and making sure if we have something sitting somewhere because someone has chosen not to use it in that point in time that we are not just ignoring the fact that somebody else might have a need for it because there have been a couple of situations brought to our attention that we followed up on where that happened. we want to make sure all of our assets are being used. and i yield back. thank you mr. chairman. >> the chair thanks announcement. the chernow wreck nice as the gentleman from virginia, mr. wittmann. >> thank you are joining us today. appreciate taking time out of your busy schedule and thank you for serving our nation. general spoehr at last year's general protection hearing i asked general lennox about what the army was doing to upgrade

our small-arms capability. in regards p.m. nine at that point i cited findings of the 2006 center for naval analysis study of our soldiers and marines in afghanistan. and also iraq. who had engaged the enemy with their weapons and combat and in that study 40% of the respondents were dissatisfied with the m. nine postal, with 26 % requesting a larger coble weapon and 20% saying it should be replaced. i note á

we are aware of the study you mentioned and the soldiers feedback on the pistol. in light of their feedback we have done key improvements to the pistol. we have given an improved magazine and general fuller's people are going to put modular handgrips to accommodate a variety of peoples hand sizes for the pistol because we think that is a fair amount of the dissatisfaction with that weapon. we are going to look at the air force requirement document to it than done a lot of work to get to this point. if we believe that requirement meets the army's requirement i think we could proceed with a

program but no decision has been made yet, sir. >> there has been some talk about the caliber of the handgun and at stopping power and people being concerned about the small caliber that they currently have so i am assuming that will be one of the array of issues and looking for a replacement for the m-9? >> yes sir and as you are aware the stopping power is caliber and you have probably heard in recent press reports about something called green ammunition for the m4 carbine. much more stopping power and much more lethality. we think that same technology has applicability to the m-9 pistol so as we get done probably we are fielding green ammo for the carbine we are going to look at importing some of that same technology over the pistol where it may make up for any lethality gaps that they currently have. >> you believe some of the concerns with the him m4 as far as it's range of capabilities will be taken up with this green

ammunition? in other words, are the main objections to the weapon basically it is stopping power or are there other aspects of the m4 that are creating challenges for our men and women in service? >> most of the concerns have to do with its reliability and how many rounds between stoppages. the carbine as it is now is demonstrating performance well beyond its specifications. it was only required to do 600 rounds and it is demonstrating around 3600. we are looking at improving the carbine given the heavier barrel and other improvements. there've been over 60 improvements made to the m4 carbine so we don't get a lot of complaints frankly about the m4 carbine. it is met with fairly widespread success and i would defer to general fuller if you have anything you want to add. >> thank you sir. in light of your question what

do we think about when we talk about our m4 weapons is it is a combination. it is the munition, the optics and training and how it interfaces with the soldier. as general brogan and i work for not hanging things on soldiers we need to twin sure that what we do for body armor for example doesn't adversely impact the soldiers ability to get a good picture on their weapon. in light of what general spoehr was talking about we are looking at improvements to our m4 and we believe we have made a recent one that is going to have impact in the field. we saw that the magazine did not reliably feed the ammunition straight into the receiver and we have now feel filled with a new magazine. it is now part of our rapid fielding initiative and we are giving that capability out there but we also are getting ready to release and an rfp a request for proposal that would give us the ability to give the soldiers a heavier earl so they could have

been increased sustained to fire. the army is asking us to look at giving them back their fully automatic mode in the m4. we are also looking at changing some of the bolton receiver components and we are looking at all these different options. at the same time we we are look being at the m4, we are looking at the carbine come is there something better but we believe the m4 provides a good capability to our soldiers. i think the green ammunition is going to get back the lethality the soldiers were asking about. where did it go? we gave you a much shorter earl and a lot of other technical components, sir. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> again i want to thank all of the panel particularly lieutenant general oates. with your combat experience in iraq, you all bring a lot to this conversation but

particularly your experience. general oates, the nation's ability to deliver vehicles has been a challenge. the humvee was a great vehicle until the enemy discovered it had vulnerability to explosions from beneath it which resulted in the fielding of the mine resistant vehicles. the striker was a great vehicle but unfortunately since the bar has been raised with the instruction, the striker appears to be more vulnerable to that problem. what steps are you taking to address that, what does this committee need to do to help you and above all what are the lessons that we have learned in the development of the mrap, because although again i always will commend general brogan on the great job he did, but it is just a sad fact that from from the time we made up our minds we were going to buy 18,000, people needlessly died in iraq and

afghanistan. so what steps are we taking four or more survivable striker? what did we learn from the mrap programs so we can fielded quicker than we did and even though general brogan did a phenomenal job building the mrap? >> as you know this is an extremely complex set of independent variables on the vehicle. afghanistan, what we have learned is due to the absence of improved roads, that there is another significant ingredient, the survivability of vehicles and that is the enemy placement of the ied and in some cases the inability to go off road. the striker is a very survivable vehicle at my opinion. i have been in combat with it. in afghanistan, it can go off road and it is very quiet and so can seek to avoid obvious placements of ied so taking that that and dependent variable you

could conclude the striker is more survivable given the mrap is largely confined to the road where the enemy has a very clear attack access. we have studied the process of the mrap at jieddo and looked at the v-shaped in u-shaped holes and we are working with a task force underneath the senior integration group to see what new technologies there may be out there that we have not yet lord and how we might offer some assistance to the mrap task force and what we discover in our own technological reviews. but, to date my major concern is trying to help the forces that are in afghanistan detect these underbody explosions where they are located and seek to defeat them before we drive over them. that is my primary focus right now. the mrap task force is currently looking at the new set of

vehicles and we are in a support role and we offered by us along those. we believe we don't produce the vehicle platform itself so i may have to differ on this issue to my good friend down there who does the mrap business and understands better than i do. >> would anyone like to address what steps are being taken on the striker? it is my understanding one of the manufacturers has come up with a double thee type autumn. the immediate question i would have as general subone explain the drivetrain on the unintended consequence, whether the force in the blast tended to go in the cap because of that. i guess my first question would be with a double thee do you get that same problem with the unintended consequence of shaping the charge? i guess that would yet eat at the apex of where the 2v's come

together. >> industry has come to the army with a proposal for what we call it double thee call. we were concerned about the same thing you were, the apex would channel the energy and then perhaps make things worse. industry believes not. they have done actual blast test. they have done modeling as well. they say because that apex is significantly higher in the floor of the striker, the exponential difference in height from the ied makes a huge difference in survivability. nevertheless, we are going to ask and we have asked osd for permission to build prototypes of this vehicle and as quickly as we get those prototypes we intend to take them up to aberdeen and blow them up and see for real. >> my next question will be going back to our responsibilities do you have the financial resources, all the financial resources you need to expedite this program? >> right now in fiscal year 10, we can initiate this with no

support needed from congress. if we develop something we will come back to this committee. >> general oates, going back to your observation and since you mentioned potassium chloride chloride and ammonium nitrate as being part of the problem, i am curious, i want to make an observation. the center for satellites happens to be in south mississippi. one of the things they pointed out to me was that from space looking at extremely slight differences in temperatures and trees they can tell me you are you which trees in the forest have pine needles in which trees in the forest are stressed for lack of water. they can tell you the 10 most likely places to catch a blue fin tuna every 90 minutes. a number of things that are absolutely remarkable they can tell us from information that comes from space or go could i would imagine ammonium nitrate and potassium chloride--

chloride, i would imagine they have to give off heat. to what extent have you just put out the word to industry, i need someone to help me find a better way to locate the substances when they are in concentrations of 10 pounds or more? >> mr. chairman it is a great question i would like to take that one off-line with you only because we actually have some pretty good technology right now that we believe is going to assist us in detecting these items, but we are actively looking for additional assistance in both change detection on the road and the detection of the actual items. i would be happy to share with you for the record on an emerging tech elegy that we intend to put in either very same. it returns, if we can achieve assistant surveillance on these roads it will increase our

confidence and understanding what is he doing with those roads. to that and this is one of the top priorities for central command is the placement of additional tethered capability to survey all these roads, much as we used in iraq and that is the first charge of items that we have funded and will be moving forward to afghanistan. the technology you are describing would be interested in, and we have openly and directly with vendors indicated we would like to close that gap. >> let me ask you the same question. has this committee and are appropriated counterparts provided for you all the resources, financial resources you need to pursue this xps sir. at present we don't have any issues and i would like i've friend here, based on what you have told me personally, we would return to immediately because we understand the sense of urgency if we need additional resources. i would not hesitate to come asked for them.

>> the lasley and i will open this up to the panel. on almost every visiting theater, when you asked the troops what is it that you want, what can we get you? almost every instance it comes back to, it if you could just make my audio armor lighter. what sort of resources do you have to pursue that and again, does that attitude really addressed in the residence budget request? do you have the resources you need? if a manufacturer were to come to you today with a 10% or 20 cents-- reset reduction in that weight would you have the funds available to see if that product is worth purchasing? >> sir, in light of that question. as general brogan said we really are at the curb. we are looking for new technology to be able to give us that lighter weight and in particular to our hard plates.

if it was found, we would buy it. i don't know how much we would buy but we would be buying it. we don't have it out there right now. >> again general fuller, if it was found do you have the resources available now or would you need an additional line item in the appropriations bills? i guess that is what i would like to know. do you have the authority to pursue that if you saw a product that you liked and thought was worth@ @ @ @ a)áa adóññçlñ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ quorum being

present, the committee will come to order. we meet here to hear from the second of education, arne

duncan, on the blueprint that was made public earlier this week and to discuss that with members of the committee. this was done at the urging of the bipartisan group and the house and the senate that the secretary has been meeting with, and that has been meeting on the reauthorization of the esea, so thank you, mr. secretary, for doing that. and i will recognize myself at the beginning and then recognize congressman klein. today secretary duncan joins us to discuss president obama's newly released blueprint for rewriting the elementary and secondary education act. thank you, mr. secretary, for being with us. two weeks ago, you outlined president obama's vision for providing a world class education for every child in this country. you told us the status quo is

failing our students, you told us a strong education system is key to long-term economic stability, and members of the committee on both sides of the aisle agree. right now even our best students are performing atd lower levels at math than students in 22 countries. a number of students are entering ninth grade unable to read at grade level. it's time to overall improve esea so they meet its promise, providing an equal education for every child in america. these improvements will require dramatic reforms. but if we are successful, i believe we can build a solid economic foundation for future generations. what our students need to succeed isn't a mystery. they need a challenging and rigorous learning environment, they need creative and effective teachers who hold them to high standards and can adjust their teaching standards when needed.

at the local level, they're making significant progress in many of these areas. now at the federal level, we have to match their courage to disrupt the system and push the envelope. i believe that the blueprint that secretary duncan presents us offers a strong roadmap for this kind of systemwide change. eight years ago, i helped write our current version of the esea, the no child left behind act. in many ways the law was transformational. it helps shine a bright light on what's really going on in our schools. it showed a lot of us, lawmakers, education board, parents, students in the community that it allows students to be invisible. the results were difficult for many to swallow. but it showed us the value of accountability for our students. it provoked a conversation about education in this country that has gotten us to where we are

today. my apologies, but i guess this is going to continue. but we know we didn't get everything right. the blueprint we'll hear about today rightfully gives some control back to the states and districts to allow them to determine their own best strategies to turn around their lowest performing schools. it switches the conversation from one about profficiency to one about ensuring our students are ready to graduate from college and a career. we now have an incredible opportunity to help reshape the future of this country. the obama administration has already launched a reform for it direction. in my home state of california, the state legislature removed the firewall that prevented student achievement data from being linked to teacher performance, a move that was a long time coming. in order to qualify for second round race to the top funding, california recently released the list of its 187 recently underperforming schools. california's recent actions and the actions of so many other states have signaled they are ready to help fix schools chronically failing our

students. as we take a close look at the administration's blueprint today, i would like to lay out some of the fundamental goals of what we must address in this rewrite. we need to reset the bar for our students and for the nation. first we need to ensure every child can be taught by a great teacher, especially those who need them the most. teachers are our single most important factor in determining student achievement. but all of the burden cannot fall on their shoulders. yet we have 14% of our new teachers who stop teaching in their first year, more than the third leave teaching after three years. almost 50% leave after five years. that would suggest there's something wrong with the workplace. we can't expect teachers to stay in a system that doesn't treat them with the same level of professionalism as other careers. we can support great teaching in classrooms across this country by providing them with the right tools, like extended planning time, more opportunities for career development and the resources necessary to carry out their task. by making sure that they have data at their fingertips on how the children are learning and

how we can make success an outcome for every child. second, the quality of a child's education should not be determined by their zip code. every school and every state needs to hold their students to rigorous internationally benchmarked standards that prepare them for college or careers. third, there are districts and schools across the country seeing incredible success after years of stagnant results. these schools were given room to innovate. they kept their focus on achieving the highest levels and holding themselves accountable for all students. we must encourage states and districts to innovate and to think differently while maintaining high standards for all. lastly, we have to ensure that we're reaching every student with the right resources in every classroom. secretary duncan you have repeatedly -- you have said repeatedly that our students get one chance at an education. one chance. i think the president's blueprint lays an important markers for where we begin this rewrite. i will help build the kind of -- it will help build the kind of world class system -- school system our economy needs and our

children deserve. secretary duncan, again, thank you for being with us today. thank you for your leadership and your vision. i look forward to your testimony. with that, i'd like to recognize the senior republican on the committee, congressman john kline. >> thank you mr. chairman. i want to thank the secretary for being with us here today. and coming back so soon after your last appearance. i actually very few cabinet secretaries with your appetite for this much punishment. we're here this afternoon to discuss the administration's blueprint for esea, elementary and secondary education act. these 45 pages have been anxiously awaited by many in the education community, the media and, of course, near congress. for the last several weeks we've been meeting at the member and staff levels on a bipartisan basis with our counterparts in the senate and this blueprint is viewed by many as the first attempt by any one of those parties to put pen to paper and offer details on any substantive propositions. i appreciate the way secretary duncan has framed this document

and i hope we'll keep his words in mind today. as the secretary says, this is a blueprint nirkts bill. congress writes the laws, and i'm pleased to say in the case of the elementary and secondary education act, for now we're start with a blank sheet of paper. the blueprint will serve as a jumping off point in many ways, giving us policy directions to consider and finding proposals we like and some we do not like so much. the secretary and i have spoken candidly on several occasions so i know he was not surprised to learn that i have some questions and concerns about the direction of certain policies we'll discuss today. one such concern is the exclusion of public school choice in supplemental education services. most of us know as tutoring, from the required interventions for struggling schools. these tools would become optional but no longer required for some struggling schools. in reality, this means few, if any students, would have access to the immediate lifeline that tutoring and transfers provide. these concerns are precisely why

we are here. i know there are members on both sides of the aisle who hope to better understand the policies outlined in the blueprint and their potential consequences. both intended and unintended. i try to view the no child left behind act through the eyes of my constituents. the teachers, principles, superintendents, school board members who implement its requirements and the parents who experience its consequences directly from that perspective, i have come to the conclusion that the federal government is too involved in the day-to-day operation of our schools. the federal requirements are too >> the federal requirements are too prescriptive in the measures of success are not nuanced enough. as congress prepares to write the next version of the elementary and secondary education act, i hope we do more than simply cast aside the nclb name and expand its requirement. i believe we need to have a meaningful conversation about the appropriate federal in our schools. my fellow republicans and i have developed a set of principles to help guide their reauthorization reform process. briefly, we believe that to

ensure student success in the 21st century we must focus on what's best for students, parents, teachers and communities. poor attendance, empowering parents letting teachers teach, protecting the taxpayers. these principles will guide us as we come to the table to help develop an approach to educational policy that puts students before special interests and recognizes that innovation truly does come from the ground up. i know we're anxious to hear the secretary so i will close by sibley thanking the secretary once again for his approach, whether we agree on every policy or not, the open and bipartisan process has truly been a breath of fresh air. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back the. >> thank you very much. let me take a moment and although secretary duncan needs no introduction to the members of this committee, this is being broadcast so i'd like to introduce secretary duncan. he was appointed to be secretary of education by president barack obama. that's rather obvious.

prior to his appointment secretary duncan served as chief executive officer of the chicago public schools and became the longest serving big city education superintendent in the country. as chief executive officer secretary duncan raise standards and performance. he improved teacher in principle called and learned options. he united education reformers, teachers, principals and business stakeholders behind an aggressive education reform agenda. as secretary of education has been a major education reforms including the race to the top and investing in innovation fund. i know i'm not alone in saying is a tremendous amount in his first year to improve educational opportunities for children, we welcome you and thank you for joining us. and you proceed in a manner in which our most couple. we will allow you a couple of extra miniature because this is a big subject with a big blueprint and want to make sure you're comfortable in explaining it to the members of the committee. thank you. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman. thank you for your leadership and to all the members that it

is an honor to be here with you today. i want to thank each of you for your hard work and commitment on education. and i believe that education is the one true path out of poverty. it is the great equalizer in our society. and as the president said in his with the address on saturday, there are few issues that speak more directly to the long-term prosperity of our nation than education. education is the one issue that must rise above ideology and above politics. we can all agree that we have to educate our way to a better economy. we currently have an unprecedented opportunity reform our nation's schools so they are preparing all of our students for success at college, and in careers. today chairman miller as you pointed out, the status quo clearly is not good enough. consider just a few statistics. 27 percent of america's young people drop out of high school. that makes 1.2 million teenagers are leaving our schools for the street. that is an economically

unsustainable and morally unacceptable. in a recent international test of math literacy, are 15-year-olds scored 24th out of 29 developed nations. insides are 15 euros ranked 17th out of 29. and just 40 percent of young people are into your or four year college degree. the u.s. now ranks 10th in the world in the rank of college completion for 25 to 34 euros. a generation ago we were first in the world and but we fall behind. the global achievement gap is growing. if we're serious about preparing our nation's young people to compete in a global economy, we must do better. through the american recovery and reinvestment act we have built a foundation for reform. all states are reporting the progress. raising standards, developing and recruiting excellent teachers and leaders, using data to inform instruction, and turning around our lowest

performing schools. in the race to the top fund we've identified 16 files for the first phase. we've invited all of the files to present their plans and will be announcing the winners during the first week in april. the winners will blaze a trail on reforms that will improve student achievement for decades to come. to promote reforms in every state, i'm committed to working with you in 2010 to reauthorize the elementary and secondary education act. it's more than eight years since congress last reauthorized esea to the no child left behind act. that's the longest gap between reauthorization to in the 45 year history of esea. we all recognize nclb had its flaws and the time to fix those problems is now. my staff and i have reached out to listen and learn from people across the country to hear what they think about nclb. nclb. my senior staff i visit every state on a listening and learning to a. we met with parents, teachers, and students themselves. we've encased in literally hundreds of conversations with stakeholders representing all

sections of the education community. all of our conversations we for a consistent message that our schools aren't expected enough of our students. we need to raise our standards so that all student or graduate them to succeed in college and in the workplace. we've also heard that people aren't looking to washington for answers. they don't want us to provide a prescription for success. our goal should be to offer a meaningful definition of success, one that raises the bar and chose teachers and students what they should be striving for. for those lessons we have developed our blueprint for esea reauthorization. we could share that with you, mr. chairman, and i ask that the blueprint be entered into the record of this hearing. in this blueprint you will see everything is organized around our three major goals for reauthorization. first, raising standards. secondly, rewarding excellence in growth, and third, increasing local control of flexibility while maintaining a laser like focus on equity and closing achievement gaps. all of these policy changes will

support our effort to meet the president go by 2020, america once again will lead the world in college completion. in particular the esea will set a goal that by 2020 all students will graduate ready to succeed in college and in the workplace. we will build an accountability system that measures the progress and states, deserts and schools are making to meeting that goal. we have a comprehensive agenda to help us meet that goal. we'll start to ask states to adopt is that truly prepare students for success in standard and careers. governors and chief state school officers of 48 states are doing the tough job of setting the standards in reading and math. the leadership of the local level has been remarkable and the effort is the poor by both major unions and by the business community. in our proposal we call on state to adopt college and career ready standard that either working with other states or by getting their higher education institutions to certify the standards are rigorous enough to

ensure students graduate and ready to succeed in college level classes, or to enter the workplace. bystanders alone aren't enough to we will need a new generation of assessments that measure whether students are on track for success in college and careers. we will support the effort to develop those assessments so we will measure higher ordered skills, provide accurate measures of student progress, and give teachers the information they need to improve student achievement. the standards and assessments are key part of our effort to redefine accountability. under nclb the federal government greatly expanded its role and holding schools accountable. it did several things right, and i've always get nclb credit for its important contributions to education reform. it required all states to be included in the accountability system, including minority students, students with disabilities and english language learners. it required states, districts and schools to report test scores disaggregated by his student subgroups, exposing achievement gaps like never

before. we know the achievement gap is unacceptably large and teachers and school leaders throughout the country are working in mobilizing to address that problem. nclb was right to create a system based on results for students, not just on inputs. but nclb accountability system needs to be fixed now. they are way too many perverse incentives. and allows even encourages states to lower standards. it doesn't measure growth and it doesn't reward excellence. it prescribes the same interventions for schools with very different needs. it encourages a nearby of the curriculum and focuses on test preparation. it labels too many schools with the same failing label, regardless of their challenges. it encourages school to focus their efforts on only that tiny percent of students close to the proficiency bark and neglect the vast majority of up or below that line. we need adults focus on all children, not on any small

handful in a classroom or in a school. we can sustain momentum for reform if we don't have a credible accountability system that addresses these issues. our proposal make significant improvements on accountability. the biggest and most important one is that it was just student academic growth as the most important measure of whether schools, districts and states are making progress. i'm much more interested in growth and gained that absolute test scores, as long as students are on a path toward meeting those standards. under our plan, we will reward schools, districts and states that are making the most progress. at the same time, we will be tough-minded and our lowest performing schools and schools of large achievement gaps that are closing. although the schools have been given flexibility to meet performance targets, working under the state and local accountability system. if we get accountability right will provide the right incentives to increase student achievement. and i'm confident america's students, teachers and

principals will deliver. i would like to focus on the critically important work of teachers and leaders. the teaching and learning that happens in schools every day are what drives american education. we spent a lot time talking about reform, about the proper federal, about the cost of education and the need for more funding, and about competitive versus formula. and all of those are important debates to have. but we can never lose sight of the impact our decisions have in classrooms where teachers are doing the hard work every single day of helping our children learn. every decision must be viewed due to framework of improving instruction for our nations children. our partnership with teachers and parents partnerships with teachers and powers them to do their job well. we believe that there's a lot in our proposal the teachers will like. we know that there's a lot under the current law that teachers don't like. most teachers believe that we have a broken system of accountability. many teachers believe there if i were should support systems are

flawed. we need a system of accountability that is fair. i have never met a teacher yet who was afraid of accountability at all the ask us for a system that measures each child's progress, not this year systems against last years of students. we need better evaluation systems that are on us and useful, and elevates rather than diminishes the teaching profession. all told, we request a record $3.9 billion to strengthen the teaching profession an increase of $350 million. we begin with the understand that teaching is some of the toughest and absolutely the most important work in society, and we're deeply committed to making it a better profession for teachers. to start with, we are encouraging development of high quality teacher preparation programs. today many teachers tell us that

they are under prepared for what they face in the classroom. they have to learn too much on the job. we encourage development of meaningful career ladders and stronger efforts to retain the great teachers we have. we lose far too many of those great young teachers due to a lack of support. from newly hired teachers to tenured teachers, to master teachers, mentors, department heads and principals we need to rebuild education as a profession with real opportunities for growth, that sustained teachers grabbed over a career, not just a couple of years. we want to encourage schools and districts to rethink how teachers can best do their jobs, how they collaborate, how to use their time outside the classroom, and how they shape professional development programs. when i don't have time to collaborate and solve school problems together can they're going to be much more productive and they will get better results for our children. teachers must be at the center of those efforts. we are also investing and principals to great better instructional leaders so that teachers will have the leadership of they need to do better work. historically, i think our department has underinvest in principle leadership and we're looking to change that. good principles as we know recruited great talent, and that principals off down.

as a teacher if i wished systems, our goals is a system that is fair, honest and useful. and built around a definition of teacher effectiveness developed with teachers that includes most of all measures, never just a single tesco. teachers the great principles for support and will also ask for fair evaluation systems for principles that we want to use these systems to support teachers in their instructional practice and to reward great teachers for all they do including advancing student learning. we want to reward them for working in high need schools. if we're sure it's about closing achievement gap, we must close the opportunity gap. our children all too often face. as i mentioned, we will change the accountability system to make it fair. for the first time we will be holding not just schools and teachers accountable for student success, but districts and states as well. this must be a shared responsibility. teachers can teach and principals can't leave where they are not well supported at the local and state level.

we want to stop mislabeling thousands of schools as failures. instead, we want to challenge them to close achievement gaps with targeted strategies designed by teachers and principals together. similarly, everyone should get credit for helping students who are behind catch up. even if they do not yet meet standards. a sixth grade teacher whose students start the year three grade levels behind and students advanced by two grade levels should be applauded, not labeled as a failure. that teacher is not a failure. that teacher is not a good dj. that teacher is a great teacher. she is accelerated student learning and we must learn from her example, not stigmatize or. the same is true for district and states as well. we want to give many more schools and districts the flexibility to improve by focusing much more on the lowest performing schools and those with the largest achievement gaps that are closing. while giving teachers and vegetables and the other schools more flexibility and incentives to succeed. we are also calling for

assessments that measure deployment not test taking skills assessments that can engage in and encourage learning and provide teachers with meaningful quick feedback. and who wants students, teachers and commuters working toward a meaningful log and supportive and giving there. the goal of the k-12 system has to be to prepare students for the next that on their journey. college and a career. the system needs to be focused on that goal. dumbed down standards mean we are relying to children giving them false hope in undermining the high standard teachers have for their students. that must in. we are calling for over $1 billion to fund a complete education, because a whole child is a successful adult. we want schools investing in the arts, history, science, languages and all of the learning experiences that contribute to a well-rounded education. this is critically important. finally, we are seeking $1.8 billion to support students by encouraging community engagement and support and exposure to other adults.

teachers cannot do it alone. they need parents, community leaders, social service agencies and other supportive adults in the school helping to reinforce a culture of learning and respect. a parent is always a child's first teacher in will always be the most important teacher. i also want to say that bse a week we authorization provides us with the opportunity to promote early learning programs from birth through third grade. we need to ensure that children attend high quality early learn programs. to sustained achievement. at the federal level, we get a cushy alignment of standards and assessments across early learn programs and schools. we can coordinate professional defilement efforts. we can engage families and their children's learning. it's time to learn from success of high quality programs. as the president has pointed out, that pipeline will never work properly unless the road to college begins at birth. thank you for the opportunity to discuss our comprehensive reform of esea. this will be one of the most dramatic changes in the laws

history. we will fund a military the federal role in education. we want to move from being a compliance wanted to being an engine of innovation. the urgency of these reforms has never been greater. our children and our future are at risk. so let's together to the difficult but necessary things our schools demand and our children deserve. we know that schools can transform the lives of children. we have literally thousands of examples of schools and serving high poverty populations that are accelerate student to student achievement. we need to reward him and hold them up as examples for others to follow. i thank you for all that you have done and all you will do to make education america's highest priority and greatest legacy. we need to work together to continue that legacy and to deliver world-class education for every child. thank you so much. >> thank you very much for your testimony. under previous agreement, the chair and ranking member will be recognized for 10 minutes a piece. mr. secretary, the blueprint

that you have released an you're discussing with us today has received a lot of next attention from media and stakeholders. i like to take a moment to refocus that conversation as congressman kline said, on the needs of the students. and especially in my case of poor students, poor children and those suffering from in schools with wide achievement gaps. i've been at this for some 30 years, and we can't afford to lose yet another generation of students, and we can't wait to eradicate poverty before we take the action we need on behalf of our nations children are 10 years ago, with a tragically begin the process is shining the the light on the achievement of all children. no matter what schools they were in, no matter what their social economic status was. 's and it was about the idea

that they were all entitled to world-class educational opportunity. and i would like to make sure that we don't lose that focus, and i agree with your criticisms of, i think you raise important issues about no child left behind. but i just whatever might elaborate a little bit on the proposals and your proposals really great a system that addresses the needs of students, particularly those who are most disadvantaged and find themselves locked into schools that, as my stage is published, more or less year after year and to provide the opportunity for those kids to take advantage of. smack thank you. i put schools into three broad categories. there's a set of schools, take the top 10 percent of schools that are world-class. westerns are learning grow achievement grabs her strength and we should hold ago schools up as examples that we should be giving them more flexibility, learning from the. and there is a set of schools

that may not be world-class yet but they are improving every single year and we need to continue to support their development and their growth. what i've argued is as a coach we need to take the bottom 5 percent of schools, not the 95% but the bottom 5%. and even just take one of those 5% each year over the next five years and let's do something dramatically different. the status quo is not working. we have not seen the kind of progress we need. we have far too many examples of success and high poverty committee. for anyone to say that poverty is destiny. it is not. we have schools routinely being the odds and rest of the networking for children whether there are 50, 60, 70% dropout rates. despite our best intentions, despite our hard work we are perpetuating poverty and we're perpetuating social for the. so what we're saying is we need to come in, let's move was a real sense of urgency and let give those children a better chance in education and let's do it now.

>> i assume i correct in understanding that for those students in large mixing districts like i represent, though students who may be in a relatively good school but they are not doing terribly well themselves, we are not going to lose them in this new arrangement, they do not need to be in one of the worst performing schools before they get attention or they continue to be tracked in terms of whether they're growing toward the goal of being college or career ready? >> that's exactly right. we're trying to do something that adobe cabin enough in the previous law. if you take a high-performance goble would there are huge achievement gaps come and again the big thing for me is progress for those achievement gaps aren't shrinking. we want to make sure that the students who are being underserved have an opportunity to do better. >> thank you. i think one of the more interesting clinical events in the last year has been the impact of race to the top on the educational political system. if you will. because of the race to the top i think some of us reside in states where he we never thought that conversation would take

place. we never thought there would be agreement between the executive and the legislature. we never thought there would be agreement between teacher organizations and the board of education, and/or within the legislation itself. and yet i see as i mentioned in my opening statement, those actions have been taken. not exactly as i would do it. i think there's more to be done, in my own sake, but it's a dramatic change of attitude. i hope it's a change of attitude it's a dramatic change in terms of the guidance is that the system will operate now under the use of data and other elements of the race to the top. the question is we now transfer in a model that you're laying out a new blueprint, can we transfer that kind of atmospherics, if you will, to bring about that kind of cooperation, those kinds of conversations among the various

parts of the education system? because i think when we look at models of success, we know that it's more than just another to your plan does light on that school or that system. it's really the preparatory work that's gone in to get buy-in, to get people to participate to take responsibility across the systems. i think a lot of that has begun at one level of the educational system with a state. i think now we need to see whether or not we can use the blueprint and the wall that will be offering here to encourage that an extent that. >> we've been amazed at the amount of progress around the country due to race to the top. was so interesting is what i hear repeatedly is that although there's a lot of money there is not about the money. what has happened is there's been a level of conversations. there's been a level of collaboration. there's folks moving outside their comfort zones and movement and the relationship that should've been having to the a

long time, that's and usually encouraging. folksy as they would love to get their money but whether or not they do, they're moving forward for reform. they're behaving in different ways. so whether this kind of them, whether innovation fund, whether other areas will have discretion and resources, we're going to continue to reward those states in just six and nonprofits and universities and schools that are doing two things, raising the bar for all students in closing the achievement gap. and we see that movement we want to put unprecedented resources where folks are more recalcitrant. we will use to invest in other places that but the openness to reform has been unbelievably encouraging. >> i look forward to working with you on that because i think that's key to the success here. let me raise another issue, and that is the focusing of the attention on what you call the 5 percent of the schools that are persistently and chronically failing. i think they're failing not just

systems, the the teachers are failing, the whole community, if you will. but again, i want to make sure that we don't substitute a model for critically thinking about how you develop success in that particular school or those schools within the system, and in those communities. and in the blueprint, you layout for different models of transformation model, the turnaround model, the restart model, and the school closure model. my concern would be, i think in california we tried almost all of those their and i'd like to have some data presented on where we've seen the successes with those various models. because we have had some but not all of them have happened. and i would also like to make sure, sort of falling on my previous question, that when we consider these models, they've got to be more than just lines

on the paper, if you will. i think, i visit some you're very successful schools in chicago. and i think what you saw there was a development of an attitude and expectations and partnerships from parents, the community, the teachers, the school boards and the individual boards, about the success that they wanted. and they took a lot of time bringing people around to the point. some people left. some principles left. some teachers left, back and forth. but then they develop a community they thought that since saying that. and in some schools that has been sustained for almost 10 years. my concern is having witnessed a number of dramatic actions when we get one or two years and then we're back again trying something else more dramatic. that we provide the means, the tools, the resources for these districts that are making these choices for schools that have to make these choices, to really plan out and develop that change

and expectations and attitudes and competencies that will make that a success so we don't sort of have continued will over of these efforts and we can bring some stability and ongoing sustainable success. so in this discussion, following which you put forth in the blueprint, i'm very interested in looking at one of the outcomes of these models, where is it will going to look for successes, where is it school districts would go to see how this has been done? some of these have been legend in their efforts to try to turn around, you know, even large systems but who you're sort of focusing on individual schools within systems that buy-in of has to be extorted. and i think we have to encourage that buy-in and want to sign off with this, one of the remarkable things when i visited rosco academy, was the community

participation on an hourly and daily and weekend basis about the importance of that school and the success of those, of those kids. so i just -- that doesn't -- feel free to respond, but i just worry that we are not just putting outlined and description of what you would do and not really -- and we don't substitute that for critically thinking about how -- what those models will be successful and evidence of their success in the past spirit is a great point, and this only works if everybody steps up. no one gets a pass. students, teachers, parents, principals and community, everybody has to work together. and we see that success we do have that community buy-in. so everybody has to work together but these are hard conversations that they are tough. i think we have to have them. we have to stop letting these issues under the rug. but when folks come together and plan for the long haul and sustain that effort, we will and we have seen remarkable results.

we also, while race to the top has gotten this sort of press, publicity, that's $4 billion. we are putting $3.5 billion in grants. so we're trying to but a huge amount of money out there. more time in the summer, we need some of the building blocks a we are trying to put huge amount of resources out there for states and districts, parents, teachers and students working together to say we have to do something better and we want to make them more than halfway. >> congressman clay? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you again, mr. secretary for being here. it has been a pleasure working with you as we move forward towards reauthorizing this essential legislation. before i get into the blueprint, i want to mention the race mention the race to the topic and. that the chairman has been talking about some. and express a couple of concerns i have about the transparency. and you and i have had this discussion before, but i want to see if i can try that here a bit. we've got a peer review process

that is going on, and we don't know still who the peer reviewers are. and they're involved in allocating pretty big piles of money. so it is pretty hard for us, the american people, to have confidence in the system if we don't know who the peer reviews are. so i'm a little troubled about why we can't know who those are. and then secondly, i'm a little bit concerned about the timing here. we had states put in the request for this money. some states put it in what sort of high expectations, like minnesota, and didn't make the final cut. we don't know why. i and stand at some time coming up, there's going to be some comments and information coming forward. my question is, why do we have it now? i know you know, mr. secretary, i've got a governor from governor schwarzenegger and i think a governors saying you've got to tell us what we can do right.

because we are busy, the states, trying to compete again for the next drawn to of this money. so you know, there's literally over $4 billion here in state, and you end industries are asking for another $1.35 billion just for race to the top. and it seems to me we really have somewhat unanswered questions. and so my question to you is, why can't we know who those people are? and why can't the states know what they did well and what they didn't do well so they can address those things? >> great questions. and what's been paramount in our minds from day one was the integrity of this process. and due to the size of these grants unprecedented, we worried about outside influence on potential peer reviewers. and there's huge temptation for bad things to happen, and we want to do everything to prevent that from happening. so as is the competition is done, all of that will be put out. all the interviews were doing up

with 16 files are being videotaped and all that will be transparent. what we said at the start of the competition was the day it was fish we would put out every states, it's. will come back so everyone will get that. we said again before the competition started they will get that at the end of competition that if we put it out now, states still in the competition could gain answers in the interviews due to those responses. and so when the competition is done, everybody will get all the remarks, all the reviews and the we an equal amount of time between that and when the second applications do as the was at the start of the competition. very, very fair but maintain expect if i could interrupt, i'm sorry. so you're going to start again with a whole new set of peer review teams after this first drawn to come are a we not to know who these people are until next september? >> no, no, no. that davis is done you will know who they are. >> i'm sorry, defined a done. >> when this competition is completed, we will put out the taste of the interviews.

will put out who the peer review is our. and we will put out all comments for all states. publicly. >> i'm sorry. i guess i'm just not communicating well here. competition done is sometimes -- so now back to the question. we're going to have this competition done in april, the first part of it and at that point you're going to chose who the peer reviewers are? >> yes, sir. spent are they going to be the same for the next where are will you start to get. >> some a comeback, some may not. they signed up, they signed up for the first rented that was all signed up for. >> that does help me to understand that. i do think however it would be very helpful because the states are getting ready to compete again, to know what they didn't do well and the longer the drugs out the harder it is for them. >> let me be clear quick and consistent from the start. will put all that out as soon as this first round is done and the time between that and the time of the second round is done it will be the same amount of time

as they had in the first go-round. >> okay, thank you. let me move now to the blueprint and i know you've talked about this a lot over time. and that is being tied on goal but luzon means. it looks to me though and i understand this is a blueprint not ago, not legislative language. we will go to work on that here shortly, but when you talk about focus on the bottom 5% as a way to limit the involvement of the federal government and most schools, i think i understand it, but as i rea read the bluep, it looks to me like this federal, we will call it heavy handedness intervention, could apply to entire districts and even states. on page 10, it reads quote both challenged district and states will face additional restriction on the use of esea funds and may

be required to work with an outside organization to improve student academic achievement, both challenged districts and states. state is in the bottle 5%? i guess i'm kind understand how that would work. >> sure. schools of operate as ireland's. every school is impacted by their district and by the states that some and possibly summon you to ways, some are hurt by the states and districts. what we want to do, congressman, and all of the stuff is reward excellence and challenge what things are not working. so we think that only there are thousands of high performing schools in this country, we think there are hundreds of high high-performing districts that routinely are shown remarkable student achievement, although with children who come from very, very tough situations that we want to shine a spotlight on those districts that we want to give them more flexibility, more resources, learn from the. the same is true for states. this has got to be a shared responsibility. on the flipside of it if you

have 15,000 school districts, take the bottom 5 percent of school districts where things aren't working for the vast majority of students in that school district that i think we need to look at what's going on there and so we can do better spent on trying to understand that it looks to me like you are directing this at an entire state and seems to me that the state might be looking for the most flexibility to make corrections, not the least. i want to move onto something else, and i just want to mention it for a second. i have talked to you about this mention times. i mentioned again. i'm and good as the question because i think 90 percent of my colleagues here are dying to talk to you about this same issue and i want to give them the opportunity to do that. but when we got these core standards that are being developed by states, there are an awful lot of questions about how that's going to work and what the federal and enforcement who is going to be. i know, for example, that my state of minnesota said wait a minute, i've got a problem the standard that because they're not as i as in math as what we

have and what we like to have. and so if we step outside that and go to our own, it may affect how you, how the department, awards funds. so i'm asking you not to address that right now, but i just want to express a concern and assure you that as we thought before that certainly in my conference at least there is a lot of concerns about that, as who's going to educate and what is the will going to be of your department did and i were your back, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, i remain very concerned about the administration's charter school proposal. primarily because of the fiscal effects it could have on traditional public schools. i'm concerned that disadvantaged districts, like flint, michigan, where i live will be stretched too thin if more students move to charter school programs and take their entire state

allocation with them. what type it supports would you propose to help those districts if we transition to a system that supports significant charter school expansion? the charter schools are really able to market their schools in a way that the public school systems cannot. and very often, might expect has been that the more sophisticated parents are the one who opt for the charter schools. how would you help those schools where the students are left behind in the traditional public school system? >> yes or. i've said repeatedly that i'm not a fan of charter schools. i'm a fan of good charter school. and we have some charter schools in this country that are stored i high-performing, often very, very poor community. with some charter schools that are just mediocre, and we have sometimes goal is that need to close. and i spoke to the nationals association of charter schools,

i said exactly those things. will want to do is we need more screwed schools in this country so we need more good traditional school. we need more good magnet schools. we need more good montessori schools. and good charter schools are piece of that solution. i think every school has a chance to market itself and to tell a story. parents are very smart, very sophisticated they will not be live a some fancy marketing mature. every parent is looking for a great opposition for their child. so when families have good options, that's fantastic. where parents don't have good options, want to great some new options for them of every form and fashion. so a district like flint, whether it is strengthening existing schools can what is through charleston were wide open to the. charter schools are public schools. they our tax dollars but they are accountable to us. and we think they shouldn't receive any advantage. we don't think it should be any disparity in the funding they

receive either the. i just want to play it straight spent and we certainly want both good charter schools if we are to have them and good traditional public schools. but the fact of the matter is that parents who are more sophisticated, and maybe have a better level of education than others, are the ones that, in fact, do tend to choose the charter schools. what do we do, even though the charter school is a good school, what do we do when the other school down the street is receiving less dollars because those dollars are going to the charter school? the state, entire state fund goes to the charter schools. >> so as a part of our proposed budget as you know, the president is asking for historic increases in funding. to those children, to those teachers. and so i can go through line by

line for teachers and leaders, $3.86 billion, 10% increase. or well-rounded education, $1 billion, 10% increase. student support than one for $8 billion, 16% increase. right down the line. so the overwhelming majority of our resources and hopefully new resources, if our budget is approved, will go to traditional schools. there's been conversation, around whether charters are getting high-performing kids and more engage families. obviously, want to make sure that it's a level playing field. i will point you to a study that was done, in the new york public school system, the charter schools, that look at their long waiting lists and therefore charter schools. so look at students who got into the charters and they look at kids who applied but didn't get. so there was no selection bias. everyone was applying. and what they found in that study was that the children who didn't get and did better than children who went into the

traditional schools. so they try to account for that making sure it was apples against apples. so we need more good schools and we support every school to be successful. and good charter schools, not bad was, not mediocre school but good charter schools. >> you talk about teacher evaluation, and how do we ensure that any teacher evaluation system is, first of all, developed in collaboration with the teachers, and i really accurately measured, teacher performance? for example, i can't live for the most part, 90% latin. and my latin students all got a's or b's. and occasionally i would grab an american history class. and no matter how hard i try, and i know history as well as i did latin, though students were getting seized for the most part. so the teacher doesn't have much

choice over what type of student they receive. and my latin class, they were top students. how do we make sure they are all these things are measured? spirit is a great point. and i will tell you, you know, one of chairman talks about we need bold action, we need to get dramatically better. one of the things was fundamentally broken large in our country, our teacher evaluation systems. and i went to the convention in san diego and spoke to 5500 delegates and talked about teacher evaluation being broken and everyone applauded. i went to another convention, 2500 members and everyone applauded when i talk about broken teacher if i wasn't system. this is one area where we need to get dramatically better. there is no perfect system out there. but what i know doesn't work is what we are doing now. good teachers don't get recognized today. teachers in the middle to get the support they need and teachers at the bottom who have to support and mentoring and shouldn't be teaching, they don't get moved out i do.

so if the system today don't work for any adults, i promise you they're not working for the children either that's what we have to do, it has to be collaborative to your point, it can only be done with unions and teachers and management working together, but we need to get a hold of a level of sophistication to really reward excellence and support those teachers that are trying to get better. systems now don't work for any of the adults that everyone is above average. i wish we lived in a a world like will be gone. ago is a. we need to be much more thoughtful and. i can't promise you we will have a perfect system tomorrow. in fact, i will tell you we won't. it needs to be done at the local level not by us at washington. we need to encourage folks to do the and will put a lot of money on the table to incident, incentivizes district there was to take this on be much more thoughtful. >> mr. hooks to. >> mr. secretary, courtesy and glad to see you. has the department done any estimate on what the cost was to

state and local school districts to implement no child left behind over the last eight years to? i don't know of that. >> i would think that would be valuable information. i would say what i'm concerned about. i read your blueprint for reform, and it's relatively interesting. and then you go through here, and on page seven it says, a new approach. you get to page 13 and it says a new approach. a couple more times through the document it talks about a new approach. and it's like every go again. we've got no child left behind in 2001, as the new approach to education in america. and now for eight years we have with solid local school districts and states to implement no child left behind. and would be like no child left

behind or not, you know, after eight years we may be have filtered down at with ashley got all the procedures in place, and the mechanisms in place for no child left behind. now we have a new installation in and it's a new approach. and i can tell you what my local schools are already telling me, it's kind of like we just got done with one system, and most of them didn't like it. one bad system that has been tremendous, a tremendous amount of cost and bureaucracy into the process. and now we've got quoted quote you geniuses in washington coming up with the next new approach for us. we've got it responsibly to educate kids everyday, never going to have to figure out the new approach. and they're saying i wonder what this new approach is going to cost us. and i find it almost incomprehensible that we, have been moving for for ages on no

child left behind and you can tell me what it has cost. can you tell me what this new approach is going to cost in terms of mandates to state and local schools? and while this administration fully fund the mandates that is going to put on states and schools? >> that may be very, very clear. this blueprint, the idea didn't come from geniuses and watching to pick these ideas came from teachers and parents and principals and students around this country. the previous law was too punitive. it was too prescriptive and lowered the bar for children and it narrowed the curriculum. and what we want to do is we want to raise the bar, we want to have meaningful standards. want to reward excellence. want to increase local flexibly and we want students to of well-rounded curriculum. and this is the right thing to do for children. it's the right thing to do for adults. there are too many perverse incentives. the cost -- >> i'm so. that when you went through no child left behind, we

went through and i highlighted every time it said the state or local school district shall, must or will. do you expect that this new authorization will be full of school districts shall, the state will, the state must, or will there be a tremendous amount of flexibility? because of these ideas, you're right, i'm glad they came from grassroots. so did no child left behind, but what no child left behind did is they went to the ideas they came up from the grassroots level and they said we're going to accept some and we're going to leave some others on the wayside. and that we will tell local school districts that they shall or what they must. i can tell you, and you know this, that the needs of detroit are very, very different than the needs of lansing which are very different than the needs of baldwin, michigan. and will there be a tremendous amount of flexibility? or will this be full of the mandates?

and if there are mandates, will this administration fully fund them? >> one of my forecourt principles i talked about was more local flexibly as. so we are committed to that. what i think i'll communities, flint, detroit, you name it, all children should have high expectations. the opposite of that happened under no child left behind. great teachers, great principles, great schools, great school district need to be rewarded. there was none of that under no child left behind. 50 ways to fail, no ways to succeed. and we want to fix that. every child deserves a well-rounded curriculum. everywhere i went i heard about and narrowing of the curriculum. so i think ask we want to maintain local fox ability, but there is a couple of core principles that every child in this country needs and deserves and we're trying to stay true to that. >> the maintain local flexibly i will take most school districts and you know this if you been talking to them don't believe that there is a lot of local flexibility left. and i think for us to restore it

you're going have to make a massive change in the approach. i hope that's what we see when we get to legislative language and we look forward to working with you to restore local flexibility instead of federal mandates spent i appreciate that. i want to ensure you are not some washington bureaucratic i worked on the other side of the law for seven and half years and i know very well what work and what doesn't work spent it's amazing what washington does to people. especially when they get to an agency. thank you very much. [laughter] >> thank you, mr. chairman. i really commend you for trying to really come up with a comprehensive way that we can really improve our educational system, as all are aware we are losing the battle worldwide. that means we are losing our edge, you know, competitively. and so i commend you for trying to make this education ship of

state to work. you know, i just wonder, as we talk about the worst performing public schools, those are the ones that i continually, and i think we've had some conversations about charter schools and all, we know they can to get more motivated parents and those parents should not be penalized because they are motivated. however, kids can't pick their parents. and, therefore, they are the victims in a lot of instances, you know, parents that are not motivated. they languish, they are behind. so what -- and we're concerned about the bottom, working from the bottom. i think that is a great idea, what do you any ideas of how we can incentivize teachers to be at the bottom schools? i know we can re-create schools,

and that's what's happened a lot with the charter schools. they will get to do in failing schools and therefore they can to perform. like i said, the chronically poor and those who have, you know, parents are not as motivated. they tend to stay at that same school. i'm concerned about that school where they state. what are some of the things, is there any way you can have teacher pay incentives or have some way to have a smaller schools? i mean, excuse me, smaller class sizes. could you have additional teachers aides to work with these youngsters that have a whole host of problems when they get home? they don't have didn't come they stay up late, they come to school tired. where the health components, visiting nurse in the school. are there any of these kind of creative things that will try to

make these failing students who are failing because of their environment and is going to be difficult to get the sailing community's whole because that's going to take a hold infrastructure, et cetera, et cetera. how much can you envision being at the worst school, to try to turn it around? >> and again, i just keep going back, we're spending $4 billion in race to the top for the entire country. we want to spend $3.5 billion on just 5 percent of the schools. so we want to make a massive investment. and i want the ideas to come from local community, but all the things you talk about them more time for teachers to collaborate and work together together, in involving the community, reducing class size, more time for students, longer days, longer weeks, longer years, all of those things will be possible and will be looking for good ideas from the community. i would encourage him we have hundreds of the schools around the country. i will take one that sticks out in my mind is congressman scott woodward school in his

community, not a charter school, traditional public school, was a present, under poverty there? 100% poverty. they basically close the achievement gap. doesn't have to be companies and, yes? yes. there are now hundreds a hundred of schools like that around the country. so this is possible. it is doable and we have to have the courage to do those tough things. and we want to but i'm president resources behind those efforts. >> since we have so we can the want to speak, i appreciate it. we have a school that is the same, but the thing about it, it is in the heart of inner-city but it's been a high-performing school for the last 30 or 40 years. i'm trying to catch a school that's been at the bottom for 30 or 40 and see if we can make it like harriet tubman. is a real public school. spirit want to testify before this morning, and spent a lot

time trying to catch her. we need to start catching success. i think there's lots of success out there that we have not been catching but i want to learn from those successes. so that's what i am so optimistic, despite the challenges, despite the sense of urgency, we've had never had more top communities, this is happening. we have to take these pockets and taken to do. but again, the answers are going to come from washington bureaucrats. it will come from great educators at the local level. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm so taking this question from what you stated and what i taught you about before and used it before, and that is the issue of standards and assessment. and i understand that the governors are putting together standards and things will hopefully bubble up from that, and somehow will allow that to come the standards setting which i think is good. so the question in my mind that some states play games with standards and assessments.

in terms of making their standings look better than perhaps they are. so my question is on the assessments, and let me also tie into your teacher evaluation issue. made it does, maybe a dozen. what are the plans for assessments? is also going to come from the states? or is it going to be done as it is today, the states can select from various testing standards out there and i kind of thing? but what of the plans for that as far as this legislation is considered? >> if i could, congressman, take one's second on mr. kline to question. to be very vehicle understand. yes, as a consortium of 48 states working together, both unions in supporting it, this is committed, this is a third rail. a couple of years ago you couldn't talk about this issue. everybody's coming together think this is the right thing for children. i can give you quotes from republican governors, i can give you quotes from the head of the u.s. chamber of congress, everybody sing this is the time to come. if states want to opt out of

that for whatever reason, that's fine with us, too. and what we want is to make sure there our high standard that is not we just want the local university minnesota, university of tennessee, whatever it is to certify that a civil take when you classes. so you can work as part of that collaborative. so far that are is huge momentum there. or if states choose to go it alone, have it certified by the local institution of higher education. and we'll be fine with that. so this is driven at the local level. this is a federal initiative. this is a national initiative, it dies. the leadership has to come from the local level. want to get higher standards which is where we're going to huge progress, you need better assessment. we were concerned to to the financial stress the states and digits are under now, very very, very tough budget times, toughest in decades, that folks would get to the better standards but would be left with a same less than optimal assessment. so as part of the race to the

top we got a $350 million we'll put that out to states. we're going to put that out two sets a state that want to work together to combat with much better assessment, must more comprehensive. not just and, of course, and of year, but real-time data so they can know what their strengths and weaknesses are. so we think there's a huge opportunity here to get to that next generation and want to but our resources behind it. but the idea is it will come at the local level. >> talk to me about the teacher assessment situation and evaluation of the teachers. and we all know that there are potentialpotential union problems here of that is most unions have gotten mandates that you cannot fire a teacher after a couple of years, you know, and they're given permanent jobs and senate which i making evaluation more difficult. also there's a lot of resistance, frankly, to the ability to judge, teachers are doing a severe job and should be on a different pay scale.

these have been opposed by a lot of different states and teachers unions et cetera. i sort for to talk about about how do you, how do we treat, how we going to do with that? i realize you're trying to rally everyone around to it but it's got to be difficult to do, i think that i think things are changed and i think the public, and made everybody here doesn't know how much things have changed. so just for one example, randi weingarten life expect four, gave a speech aired a couple of months ago, two months ago. she talked about how much better teacher evaluations have to get. she talked about rewarding excellence that she talked about not protecting bad teachers. broken. everybody cheered. no one is happy with this. no one is saying the status quo is good enough. so the process is so important. chairman miller's point, this can't be done top-down, got to be done with teachers, not to teachers. but no one is saying teacher

evaluation works. there are a small number of districts doing innovative things, management, union working together, everybody on the same page. but, again, those are just isolated situations. so some folks are breaking through, but there is a willingness now that maybe there wasn't, you know, five or five or eight or ten years ago. doesn't mean we're there yet. a lot of hard work ahead of us. but am i optimistic we can get there? absolutely. >> yeah, i still worry -- about the give up of teacher tenure >> i still worry about the giveth of teacher tenure after a certain period of time and an evaluation on the basis they can evaluate me unfairly. my time is. so i will yield back how mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you mr. secretary. you mention the achievement gap several times. it seems to me that if you have a chronic situation where african-americans in the community you can attempt good education and a boss is getting it to good education that you have essentially violated the civil rights minority community

in violation of brown v. board of education region of the students at the unordered rates of an equal opportunity education. do you see this as a civil rights violation? tonight i see education as a civil rights issue of our generation, when the chronic achievement gaps that are changing, we actually have to challenge the status quo. we have to make sure, you know, some schools have 49 ap classes and some schools have none. some children have access to dual enrollment classes in some have none and we just have to make sure that all children have a chance to get a high-quality education. >> no one in the gaps isn't dropout rates and a previous discussion you acknowledge the school has a 50% dropout rate should not be given a son or no credit for ap because those who remained in school did okay while half of them dropped out. >> eyepatch about perverse incentives. you just nailed one of them.

>> we thought we had dealt with that when we passed the bill way back when it started because we required, worked together and required a provision that dealt with dropouts, c. would not have the perverse incentive. unfortunately, we gave everybody the opportunity to make up their own numbers in which they did there's no standardized count, no standardized school. you can make up what she wants in an essentially has no basis at all. where you can achieve a 50% dropout rate. are you working to standardize the ability to accurately count and to set a goal that people are supposed to achieve? >> which obviously not like a growth from evaluations but we have to look at outcomes and outcomes of graduation rates. if you're the best test scores in the world to 50% of students are dropping out, you're not changing students lives. we have to look at those rates.

i'm not interested in just for your rates, but five-year rates. i think some of the perverse incentives were students fell behind, that wasn't always a push to bring them back into the fold. at the end of the day it doesn't matter what do graduate in four years, or four five years. most importantly it's not just about steaks. we want to find the schools that are really driving up graduation rates and reward them learn from what they're doing. >> one of the problems we had with no child left behind to in the beginning is we do the tests, but after you got the results, that was the end of the discussion. we didn't do anything. the old palmers adage that we freakily repeat if they don't fatten the pig waiting the pig. we would take the test, but then the school would be no better equipped to do anything about it than they were before they got the results. what are we actually doing when we find, as we go to empower the schools to do a better job? >> so what we want to do more than ever before is what these

resources we want to invest was working. so they're going to show us their closing gaps. were going to put a lot more resources behind that and take it to the skill and when high-performing score why can't i go to to to, to three, 25. we want to challenge the status quo very, very hard, but with increased local flexibility we think there's going to be a real flourishing of innovation. many more good things happening and what to report that success. >> to towhee of a research capability to capture all this information and get it in a form for best practices and translate that into replicable strategies? >> went to work very with my yes, which is a separate entity, but there's so many examples of excellence that we have not learned from. we want to get much better at that. race to the top come out i'm sure we'll make some mistakes as well. we'll learn from it in real-time. having real research on working hard in real-time is very important for us.

>> one of our challenges is figuring out what a highly qualified teachers. will agree you can't read off a resume and that's how we've done it traditionally. you agree to resume and some can teach and some can't. what are we doing to ascertain whether or not a teacher is actually affect to, not just one with the paper qualifications? >> well, we want to move from highly qualified based on paper credentials to highly effective based on students lives. you can afford agrees from the universities, but fewer students are learning are not a great teacher and yet none of those fancy degrees will make an extraordinary difference in suit lives. so moving from paper credentials to effectiveness is exactly where what ago. >> thank you dared mr. chairman, i want to enter into the record another study i think the last time we talked about the problems we're having in charter schools and segregation. another study has come out, which leads to the same

conclusion. i'd like that entered into the record. >> without objection. >> thank you come a mr. chairman. i too basic questions. one i believe is fairly simple, but i'm confused why we don't do it. under i.e. da with individual education plans for special needs plans to do. why isn't that plan a growth model? why isn't that i ett their adjusted to meet the annual growth goal for the growth goal adjusted to meet the iep? we have not seemed to mesh the two programs. >> would then growth great models for lots of students including those with special needs, so i think you're onto something what to look at very close. >> because we're playing a lot of money to develop this will annual plan that doesn't seem to be matched with the measurement of the school. i think i would be a major breakthrough in a lot of schools. >> and is a great point.

we watch a master like student to get like students and so students with similar disabilities are getting wildly different outcomes. we want to understand why that is and why they are progressing and figure out how we challenge that. >> good because that's part of my next question because india and is doing that. this question sounds a little bit like chairman miller's question and it's always dangerous, that in the lower 5% schools, i watched for many years as a staffer and a member and working on this that we tried many of your four different things. we tried magnet schools, changing the names of schools, firing the principles, changing the teachers in your list of forcing is relatively prescriptive that in the sense of two of them have replaced principles. one has had firing at the school, close a school to others. now, you're putting additional funds than i-india said that

you're going to try to measure like students to lake students, but one of the challenges here is why would anyone ever choose to teach in one of the schools they think there's a 50% chance they will be fired. why would a principal go there? how are we assured the same schools that haven't been chronic are going to be measured fairly and get the improvements? >> those are great, great questions and to be clear we have a principal who is recently rife there, they're not fired. they can actually stay. i will say there are no high-performing schools out there with great principle. principle seven or 20 or so nothing has moved. i think honestly do need to make changes there. i will tell you this is a very important point that around the country you have heroic teachers and principals who desperately want to go to the tub is doing the tunic a difference. in fact, that's why many people go into education. with the haven't had is the opportunity to make a difference. we have a critical mass of folks coming together in creating the right set of opportunities, great leadership, wartime to

collaborate, more time for students, we'll master student teaching out. >> i agree with that wholeheartedly and with several schools inside for a way where people actually moved to those schools and your point about the 50 ways to fail and then succeed is an excellent point because in measuring student to student performance may help or similar schools may help. but the bottom line is some of those were they really put their effort in coming to get marginal change even working weekends and so on. and those highly motivated teachers didn't move to those schools thinking 50% of them could be fired within a certain number of years if they do everything they can, spend the extra hours. we obviously had english learners mixed in with all sorts of economic changes of insight schools. sometimes the cds great performing schools, we see that there's been a student mix has changed. they're all of a sudden getting a neighborhood change. it isn't just that it was suddenly some miraculous -- they

used some language program and they turned around. it does require the committed principals and teachers. i agree with that. >> into chairman miller's point, it requires the whole community. i will tell you it's difficult. i've been to school after school in this country in a relatively short amount of time. i was at one school that had the second-most violent incidents in its city. two years later, there's basically no violence. nothing going on. there are schools where the first year, maybe test scores don't skyrocket, but their schools in which student attendance increases 12%. 12% minus the like a lot, but 12% out of 180 day school year is another month of school the students are choosing to come to school. so there's all kind of indicators we can look at where educators are helping out. we need to again community by community find those folks, creepy environment and give them the time to learn.

this would have been perfectly affordable when you see students when you're to annex going to school in month four, something is going on. when you see violence disappear, something's happening. >> this happened in new orleans after katrina world to students failed no child left behind even those 100% party. heart of the question and i were they to see the sustainability. >> the gentleman's time has expired. if the intention of the chair to return, but the chair with like two recognized ms. woolsey and mr. taylor if they have their track shoes on. i'm sorry, i'll go to woolsey, ms. biggert and will be back after those votes. >> any mac, very. thank you, mr. secretary, it's wonderful to see you. no child left behind sounds very similar. different words, absolutely different group presenting it to

us and no child left behind turned out to be punitive and set of helpful. i hate mr. hoekstra. >> is looking at a way to bring us together and away we never imagined. >> i really worry that we've got a new team in town, we've got a new white house, a new secretary, so now we've got to do a new something, but it won't be that different. so i will know it's different if we actually invest in the kids that need the help the most. so what i want to know is, is there an amount in the budget that will be targeted to ensure the students are ready to learn when they enter the classroom because to bring those failing kids, the sick kids, the hungry kids, the worry child is going to be costly. are we going to make an

investment or are we going to expect the teacher to bridge that gap? pulled that teacher accountable for something that impossible because you cannot build a workable product if the parts are broke in. so mr. secretary, my question is, how much -- or are we willing to spend more money on those kids been on my grandchildren who are well-adjusted, well fed happy kids going to school ready to learn? >> that's a great question. very, country cleared. if a child is scared either in school are going to and from school, but chad can't learn. if a child can't see the black word, that child can't learn. there's a series of physical and emotional psychological supports that we have to put in place. we have six large buckets of funding. one is student support.

$1.8 billion or $245 million increase, 60% increase. this is to expand afterschool programs, extended day, extended year. this is to create neighborhoods that are saving events that are safe. this is a huge investment, $200 million to replicate the harlem children's zone to create not just schools but entire communities around schools to make sure students have a chance to be successful. so we want to put unprecedented resources behind the effort to give students a chance to think about algebra, to think about reality and going to college. if you're not hitting those emotional and physical needs first, we're kidding ourselves. and so guess, to answer question question were going to put a huge amount of resources, not thereatest thing to giveehind them a chance to be successful academically. >> okay, thank you. >> gentlewomen yield back her time. ms. biggert.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. it's so great to see you back so soon, mr. secretary. on page 16, you've got a teacher and leader innovation fund and i'm not sure how that all said and tiered as this mean that the blueprint requires a statewide definition of effective teachers and principals that space didn't quite a large part on student academic growth and i know that we both agree that the student achievement measure must be approved, but is this an assessment competition designed to have a few states develop new model assessment? and does that mean other states, until this happens, that they'll still be under the old test? >> we think this can provide parameters, but we think this can only be done at the local level, the local, you know, school levels, teachers,

management working together at the local level. and again, i think nothing important had great teachers and great principles. we have $3.86 billion in a proposed budgets. that's $350 million increase. and so, we want to work with those states and districts who want to do something better. one thing i want to say, mr. chairman, we spent a lot of money and evaluation systems on professional development, billions of dollars a year with very, very little to show for. we want to work with those places want to challenge the status quo to get dramatically better. this is the place were a bit long, long way to go. >> but in the meantime, while the teacher effectiveness determination he made using the existing standardized test for those that aren't in this? >> well, we'll be moving towards the next generation of assessment. you can use existing assessment, so those are very strong if you don't have to just look at the test results, in every state will look at different categories of students, students below basic about ford fans so

you can look at the movement of students in those categories. these systems are not pure fact. at the end of the day, we want to get to a better system as quickly as we can. in the interim, there ways to measure progress and growth to >> just another quick question, when does your department planned to announce the new data on a number of homeless students in the united states? i've really always been concerned about the homeless students and i've heard that it may now be over 1 million. >> i don't know the data. i will get you back. one change were making historically title i dollars could not be used for transportation of homeless students in recruiting flexibility in our plan and a proposed plan for homeless children without transportation. >> one thing i'm concerned about and really have to do is hide because they are working to change the homeless definition and it really does depend on what the education department

says is the number of homeless and i would really be helpful if you have that number. >> i will check that date and get back to you. >> thank you, and i yield back.

>> the radio and television correspondents association held its annual dinner gala last night in washington. vice president joe biden spoke at the dinner and comedian joe wong was this years entertainer. this is an hour ten minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, the 66th annual radio and television correspondent dinner

chair, linda j. scott of the pbs news hour. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the vice president of the united states, joe biden. ♪ ♪

♪ the mac happy st. patrick's day to you all. these bc did. it is my pleasure to welcome all of you to the 66th annual radio tv correspondents dinner here tonight at the walter e. washington convention center. we are thrilled to be here tonight for the second year in a new venue to showcase his dynamic growth of washington d.c. as a producer by trade, i would like to pay tribute, not to the people you see on the air every day, but to those who make it

possible for those to get on the air every day. [applause] the behind the scenes folks, please take a look. [applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> no one works as hard as the crew guy. he has to make a decision a minute whether people get to sit back and make a decision at the big picture. >> i think the biggest misconception is we don't care. bowties are always on the scene, they're always in the situation. they see what's going on. ♪ ♪ >> to every associate producer, producer, production assistant, writer, cameraperson, audio technician, technical support,

assignment editor and in turn, please stand all of you and accept a well-deserved applause for the work you do every day. [applause] >> h. amend his thank you two j. mcmichael is at our head table, cnn, for putting together the video and to ask. editor joann s-sierra. ♪ >> hey, guys. for once it's nice to hear what sun the mind of the folks behind the lens. i appreciate the work you do which involves following me about incessantly and waiting for me to screw up.

and while the radio and television correspondents in journalism, i'm sorry i couldn't be there tonight. the truth is i'm both disappointed and grateful that our st. patrick's day reception was scheduled at the same time as this dinner. disappointed because i couldn't be with all of you, grateful because the white house wouldn't have had him asking us to handle this crowd. the truth is, we face big and difficult challenges in our country and every day you provide the sights and sounds that tell important stories, inform the american people. these are challenges we in the white house are working to solve every day. just this morning, rob and i were talking about the importance of health care and i said to him, please put on a towel. [laughter] have fun tonight, guys and i'll see you soon. [applause] >> one of the long-standing traditions of our association is to toast our special guest.

so please stand and join me in the executive committee in that tradition. to the vice president, joe biden, to the members of the 111th congress, we are very honored to have you all with us here tonight, salute. now it gives me great pleasure pleasure -- to introduce the head table and all began for my far left, you're right, you guys can sit down. [laughter] out over marist kornacki, director of the house radio tv gallery. [applause] leeann colwell, assistant radio. joe bond, tonight's

entertainment. brendan daly, communications director to the speaker of the house. [applause] jeffrey ballou, english-language channel. [applause] elizabeth alexander, press secretary to the vice president. [applause] andrea seabrook tom and national public radio. [applause] senator orrin hatch, republican utah area [applause] are our tca awards coordinator, jill jackson at cbs news. [applause] jura next chair of the radio tv association, when demand, peter slen at c-span. [applause] now for my far right, your last

comment mike mostert on, director of senate radio tv gallery. jim manley, senior communications director and adviser to senate majority leader, harry reid. chad for a program, fox news channel. [applause] senator lamar alexander, republican of tennessee. [applause] chairman of this dinner in 2012 and everybody's favorite cameraman, it j. mcmichael's. [cheers and applause] chair of the house rules committee, straight from health care debate central, louise slaughter from new york. [applause] dave mcconnell, debut tpl news r. tca executive committee and outgoing treasurer, linda kenyon of crn news.

[applause] and of course, you know mr. vice president. [applause] you can clap. our association is fortunate to have the house and senate radio tv gallery staff. they help us do our job every day on behalf of the r. tca, i want to extend a special thank you. these folks are the heart and soul of making the daily coverage on capitol hill possible. on the house side, were mirus kornacki, a life, gil davis, ken otis, helen debarge and anthony kelleher. on the senate side, director mike mostert on, michael lawrence, aaron gagnon, chris boyd and arlen salazar.

[applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, rtca awards court nader, jill jackson at cbs news. [cheers and applause] good evening. we now take a moment to celebrate our colleagues with the john baran award in the david bloom award. the baran award recognizing outstanding coverage of public policy and politics on capitol hill. this year's judges for the john baran award were not laugh out by the news connection, and a pin for c-span. here to present the baran award is bill plante of cbs news. [cheers and applause] >> thank you very much.

hi, ladies and gentlemen. good evening. this award, which i'm so proud to be able to present a number of years in a row honors a woman who all of you would love if only she were still here. joan sure seemed started out as a researcher. she climbed to the post of executive producer of face the nation. she has the kind of standards that they say don't exist anymore. but the winners of this tonight have proved positive that such standards do still exist in our business. joan was stuffed and smart. she was someone who enjoyed the world, life and politics, particularly politics. she was the kind of person whom you would want to be sitting with at your table tonight. so it's my great honor now to

announce this year's winners of the joan sure and stand around toward. national public radio's, theodore and andrea the drive. [applause] npr's multimedia six part entry about the extraordinary intersection of money in politics and congress of health care debate, impressed the judges for propelling its medium into a new realm of explanatory journalism. and it all started with a picture that they touch at health care markup. take a look. >> we had no idea how big a splash a simple photo could make your e-mails, tweaks, and, that npr.org. >> people in washington and around the country said they've never seen anything like it

before. a panoramic shot of the lobby is watching the first congressional committee to write a health care. >> we ask you to help us identify the lobbyist here it's a little trick of modern reporting called crowd sourcing in the tips started coming immediately. we've now identified 16 people in the photo, lobbyists with big interest in how the health reform debate turns out. but just as interesting as the photo itself was people's reaction to it. >> i now present to you, andrea seabrook and peter overby of npr news. [applause] >> thank you very much. peter and i are thrilled. >> and were not going to trade sentences.

>> we should say we hope you all have the kind of opportunity that we have had to learn with the most collaborative and thoughtful newsroom that i believe is here in washington. i hope you get the chance to stand back and think carefully about how you report your stories as we have. and we should tip our hats to a few people. most especially, brian duffy, added historian. >> into the online folks who took the photos and produced the website. you did amazing job. obviously, we couldn't have done because we don't do that kind of thing. >> and we definitely need to say that donna van, david wellman, julie buckner who knows more about health care than anyone else in washington, including the people writing the bill. >> and those who got behind the project and let us do it.

so pusher newsrooms to let you do what we do. thank you are a match. >> thank you on the guys. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> the rtca committee would also like to welcome john baran's father, joel shore and stand. thank you for coming each year. [applause] our next award is the aid of blue award. the blue award is given for courage and enterprise in feature or investigative reporting that is dangerous or daring. this year's judges were libby casey of alaska public radio, jerry bob linder of ap radio, john thacker of television and

robert seliger of pbs. here to present this award are david bloom's daughters, ava and nicole. [applause] [applause] >> our sister christine couldn't be here tonight because she has mandatory counselor in her high school lacrosse team. so tonight i get to. [laughter] almost seven years ago, my sisters and i found out that her father had while covering war in iraq. at the age of three comments hard for me to understand that he would never come home and i was left with very few memories of my dad.

one memory i do have is watching him on tv every morning and learning how to kiss the screen when he came on. whenever i saw him on the news, i just saw him, not where he was or what he was doing. now i realize what dangerous places he was and in that he is risking his life to spread news to the world. [applause] >> the winner of the david bloom award shows bravery on the job and we are honored tonight to present this year's award to reset the site of abc news world america. commack [applause] >> they said they took a different look at things really

stand for women to our remote northeastern afghanistan that pose a challenge on a daily basis. it's also the simple act of giving life. ♪ far away in the kennedy, saudia has delivered her baby. the baby is dead. [speaking in native tongue] >> is her second child to die with the same defect. outside, saudia's mother gives the bad news to the father. [speaking in native tongue] >> the mood in the delivery room room -- so many women died hitting birth, surviving the triumph of the odds. thank you so much for saving my

life saudia says. i will have a child again. my life is more important. [applause] >> hello, it's really wonderful to be here at the awards dinner of the radio and television correspondent -- quite striking actually. in my work i don't usually get sent to places for 24 hours of electricity and all this running water. [laughter] and it's especially terrific because of these two young girls, ava and nicole. sadly, christine couldn't be

here. [applause] did your mother melanie,? issue here? where is melanie? hello, melanie. [applause] and how we wish david bloom is also with us. [applause] like i'm sure almost everyone in this room, i saw david lim reporting from iraq in 2003. i saw that loom mobile and i thought, man, who's a journalist of any real skills. and then when i heard i was nominated for this award, i read more about david bloom and i thought, if david bloom was alive today, alive with all that energy and drive and passion for

telling stories, he'd probably be going in and out as afghanistan now. and all of us in this room who also go to afghanistan would have been writing into david bloom and would recast his charming david bloom way. but then i thought well, canadian made, if i saw david bloom in afghanistan to say, he would've what not to say hey buddy. you know, david bloom is an avid hockey player. too bad about the men's final in the olympics. but you know, david, we really, really wanted to win. david bloom reminds us all of the journalists who died covering the story, the people who died fighting in those wars

and the people who died just living in country at war. david come as you know, died of pulmonary embolism, a very treatable disease. and one whit to marchant in northeastern afghanistan, we wanted to go to the furthest corner of the country, where there is the highest ever recorded race of maternal mortality. women dying giving birth. our security advisers said grades, there's no security problems there, even a telethon when they ruled afghanistan. what's it like at a place where electricity roads running water. after a week with four flat tires in the car broke down. the house we stayed in burn down from a gas canister. read a minor earthquake and were

stranded there for days. and that's where you see the stoicism of afghanistan. the people who live their day in and day out. these are the kind of stories we all tell and were very honored at bbc world news america and this is the figure in a row that you have honored us at these awards. i think maybe the judges got confused at my canadian accent. they thought it might be working for abc or something. or they saw my name and saw that i was from louisiana. bbc world america, as you well know, is the new kid on the block. but sometimes you put bbc world news and america together, sounds like really important sort of thing. but one place in your street and were very happy to be made part of her broadcasting.

i want to thank the executive producer of bbc america. [applause] i want to thank melanie marks who went to see newsnight brilliant cameraman, my colleague who went with us as well and our driver who we wouldn't survive without him and i want to thank all of you for honoring us today. thank you very much. [applause] >> congratulations again to our winners and thank you again to our judges for going through dozens of outstanding entries. we really are lucky to work where we are with such wonderful people on capitol hill. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you, jill. it is now my distinct honor and pleasure to introduce to you the vice president of the united states, joe biden. [applause] [applause] >> thank you all very much. thank you so much. it's an honor to be here with you tonight. i just got back from five days in the middle east. i love to travel, but it's great to be back in a place where a boom in housing construction is actually a good game. [laughter]

you know, trying to negotiate a lasting peace between the palestinian and israelis is tough, but it was a hell of a nice break from health care. [laughter] i understand liz cheney is in the house. i'm glad to see she's here. i called her when her dad was in the hospital. now she's questioning if tom grady is a real future patriot. [laughter] what the hell, it's worth h.r. guys. by the way, happy st. patrick's day to all of you. [cheers and applause] you know, the truth is i can't believe i'm hearing you guys tonight. here i am, the first irish catholic vice president in the history of the united states of america. iraq obama, the first african-american in the history of the united states of america.

each hosting a st. patrick's day dinner. [laughter] go figure. he is with my place, i'm with is. look, the more i thought about it, i know why he wanted to be with all those irish-americans and with keisha. iraq really believes that saint patrick was the one responsible for driving lobbyist. but y'all know saint patrick was credited with banishing snakes from ireland. and you guys know the truth sometimes. [laughter] there were never any snakes in ireland. saint patrick just made that up, which was the first time it really explains why he's the patron saint of fox news.

[laughter] [cheers and applause] look, -- [laughter] it's not all a loss. tonight i'm here with a group of distinguished irish-americans. ken salazar, debbie wasserman schultz, walter sharansky and, what the hell, you even have irish entertainment, a great irish artist, joe wong. [laughter] joe, these guys just don't get it. look, i apologize for bringing this up, but i know you're all aware of the fact that this dinner is viewed as the last procedures of the two dinners. this in the white house correspondents dinner. i understand and of course in the minds of all of you here, you know this dinner is just as

worthwhile. i know a lot of you find it hard to understand why you get second billing. well, welcome to my world. [laughter] [applause] you know, i had a choice between speaking to this dinner at the white house correspondents dinner. everyone was surprised i picked this dinner. foreign to me, this was a no-brainer. newspapers, radio and television , at least you guys have an audience still. [laughter] come on, that was good. that was better than that. [applause] and i tell you what, leon, what a bunch of stiffs. look, for the last 35 years i've attended a lot of dinners as the united states senator, but the really good news to me tonight as i don't have to get on the

10:00 train and go home to bloomington. i actually now have a house in washington d.c. for the first time. and that was a pretty big deal. i voted for public housing and i had no idea it was going to be this good. [laughter] but now that i live in washington, i finally realized how big the city really is. kind of essay language of its own. for example, deep background mean to be courted in game change. [laughter] senior white house official means rham. [laughter] and reconciliation means war. only in washington. but actually, by the way, you lot didn't believe the president said he rather be with you, did you? come on, joe aren't that slow. [laughter]

look, it is good to be with you. i have to admit i admire the skills required to be an anchor, a commentator, a talking head. i think he has a pretty tough job. but occasionally i am surprised by your lack of self-awareness. for example, when morris is quick to point out every time i put my foot in my mouth, at least it's my foot. [laughter] and by the way, rham was only pointing of fingers. [laughter] look, in fairness i know you're going to get back at my defendant republicans. but i think your her little tough on the republicans for constantly repeating the health

care bill is 222 pages long, well put yourself in their spot. just ask sarah, that's a hell of a lot to write in the palm of your hand. [laughter] i don't blame them. by the way, i know this is all supposed to be -- you know, i do have to defend our administration a little bit here, especially the recovery act which i've been put in charge of. republicans keep saying it hasn't created a single job. well, tell that to senator scott brown. [laughter] by the way, speaking of scott, kind of ironic, the man who poses with his pants down, cut us with rpm files. i don't know how this works. we were a little slow scott

figure not so good you were. but we kind of zeroed in now. you know, instead of pictures with the laws and words, normally i'd rather go with the words. [laughter] but in my best tonight, i sum up a journey barack and i have had since being elected eared about the best would be to share some of my photos with you and to let you know, just into the job. at our convention, president obama dressed by stadium of roaring supporters. but he's not the only one who addressed a stadium. [laughter] and by the way, sasha and leah weren't the only ones to get a dog when they moved to washington. i got one too. his name is chance. you can see who the democratic. he's biting the hands.

[laughter] look, i've got to level with you. one of the first things the president did was joe, we have to have some ground rules here. on rules relating a relationship in how you function at your job. so the next slide is one of our first days in the white house. the president is explaining to me exactly how far down i have to bow when i entered the oval office. [laughter] that's not the only ground rule. [laughter] i don't know who the hell is doing these, but they're about two seconds ahead. [laughter] a real simple proposition , people beating the primary, walk for peace is behind. the other role maybe the most important one, stay on message, something i'm really good at.

and as you can see, he takes it very seriously. [laughter] another rule is that i've got to pay attention to the captain even when larry summers is in there. you know how hard that is. so this is how i figured out how to fake it. and by the way, it comes in handy not just in cabinet meetings. [laughter] you know, i also made one more commitment. thursdays are my day to work in michelle's garden. [laughter] will look folks, it's not all about work. as i told you, the job does have some perks. like when tiger woods came to see me and give me some tips. [laughter] hey guys, they were golf tips. by the way, republicans think that everything is rolling their way these days and so do you. they think a supreme court decision of citizens united

opens up a cash bonanza. but folks, i figured out a way to make work for us. we've got the bully pulpit, pla. mmh lu, we've got this down to a science. [laughter] look, holy god. [laughter] i have no idea how that got there. [laughter] look-- take that off while you? [laughter] look, i do want to leave the station tonight without addressing to electoral decisions that got an awful lot of media coverage the past several months and all of you asked me about. the massachusetts senator great and the delaware senate race.

and i want to give you my responsibility. people wonder why have embraced scott brown so warmly. and scott is here tonight. look, i want to wish them well. this guy has a tough job filling the shoes of the sexiest man in the senate. well, that didn't work at all. [laughter] i think it's me scott, not you. look, with regard to go, people speculated why he decided not to run for the senate. why the hell would you? he loves the life he has right now. [laughter] i've got to get a new prompter appear. joe, you'd be real in trouble if you had the stuff i had. in closing, let me against a happy st. patrick's day to you well. as my grandfather would say, made those who love us love us and those who don't, make god

turn their ankles so we know they're coming either linen. [laughter] and let me thank you for one more thing. [applause] four for filling a role our founding fathers didn't and hope you would. as president giberson said, our liberty cannot be guarded but by freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger alluding. i agree with him. notwithstanding the fact that the only media outlet this town has ever given me a fair shake as amtrak magazine. [laughter] ladies and gentlemen, thanks for having me. i bless you and god bless our troops. [applause] [applause]