>> you'll see greater number of concussions, and there's data that every level you go up, the incidents will go up, and you can imagine why because the play is a little faster, athletes are a little stronger. the idea is the younger kids may have longer injuries, more complex injuries, maybe more difficult to get them back as quick so that's adding a different wrinkle to it. >> mr. chairman, one more question. again, you maybe covered this earlier, but when i think of concussions and sports, i think of football, and i may be totally wrong on that. is that the most common and sort of what is the list of the, you know, most risky sports for a concussion. >> i'd say football is at the top of the list.

>> is it way ahead of everybody else? >> first off, it's tough to get good data that compares sport to sport because you have to study it in the same population. there are good study that is have looked at in the high school population, for example, in fairfax county, virginia, there's great work there looking at the different sports, and football had double the incidents of the next highest sport which, i believe, was la crosse, but women's soccer was right there, then men's soccer, wrestling, softball, and ice hockey, that's a little lower than football, 20% lower than that in general. >> thank you. >> thank you. we can start another round. every time the bell rings, what you have to understand is that's telling you precisely there's

nothing happening on the floor. [laughter] it's only when it keeps ringing that we have to go vote. ms. bell, talking about soccer, and -- there's three -- just like tony romo, you were slammed down to the ground. that's part of the deal; right? you slammed the guy down and his head hit the ground, which is often hard. there's so many ways in football to see how a revenges hit, just a mean player who is famous for that and loves it and gets endorsements because of it, commercial endorsements. soccer is extremely brutal,

exhausting on a huge field where there's usually, what, one, two, flee or four goals scored, and that's it, so in thinking about it myself and i've watched a lot of it basically because of that 1980 victory, it's heading the ball, or because i don't think that you're -- you probably are slammed down to the ground or tripped up, a lot of tripping up, deliberate tripping up. does that mean the head hits? i don't know. what are some of the ways if ranked number three by dr. kutcher, what are some of the ways concussions come about in soccer other than heading the ball, and if it's heading the ball, is it heading the ball from any part of your head? >> concussions come about in a

lot of different ways while playing soccer. heading the ball tends to be relatively safe if you use your forehead. the concussions come when you take the ball off the top of your head, most likely from a punt because the ball is at a greater speed or when the ball is shot, and you happen to be in the way. you'll take it on the side of your head. that's how concussions also occur. for me, the most common way of sustaining a concussion was my head to the ground. the type of player i was, i got my legged knocked out, and i hit my head on the ground. when you watch soccer, you watch where the ball's out. you might not even see the player go down and hit their head, and that's why the thoughts are by passed because you're not aware. you follow the ball where it's going. the other risky area is going in confrontations against the goalie. they are either going to get -- i have seen them get heads kicked and players getting kneed

in the head, and there's a lot of different circumstances in which you can get a concussion. >> like in hockey? >> right. >> this has so much work to be done by so many. as a sports fan, you watch college and professional football, and there's almost an instinct to look for the player who plays dirty, and then if he does, you turn your wrath on roger and cadel for not ejecting from the game, referees can push them back 15 yards, they should be ejected from the game. how do you influence? i mean, young men who play

football are in it to win. they don't have long careers. >> right. >> if you're a running back or quarterback, what's your career? >> running back has the shortest. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> so that adds to the desperation to succeed. >> uh-huh. >> how do you get at that stuff? i mean, somebody comes in and gives you a lecture, the athletes are gathered in the lockerroom, there's a discussion on concussions, but i bet half of the people are not listening because they have not had them. >> yeah. it's difficult in football from the defensive side of the game, violence is probably the biggest characteristic you need to be successful in defense. you have to be violent, and that's -- >> and known to be violent, you got to prove it. >> right, right, and that's part of the football game, and so as far as that sport is considered, i feel like it's more of the

understanding about brain injury and understanding of the recovery process opposed to, yeah, you know, they are changing the game, getting rid of head-to-head combat and that aspect, but for is the recovery when it happens because there's always going to be big hits in football. >> and 5 lot -- >> a lot of them are legal, too, but it's not just like the doctors said -- >> other person involved corroborates the second -- >> exactly. it's blows to the body just as well as it's blows to the head as dr. kutcher noted also. , so -- >> oh, you mien -- mean if hit in the chest, that can concuss you? >> absolutely. >> sorry, i missed that. >> any time the brain is moving fast enough, and there's whiplash. >> what will do that? >> what's that? >> what hit does that? >> hit to the body, hit from the side, anything that transmits force to stop your movement. >> so that means tight ends

should be very, very large? >> right. they get hit in the chest and body hard enough, head whips back, and that can do it. >> chairman rockefeller, perfect example of that, last year we heard about jackson's concussion against the falcons and eagles, and i don't know if there was a fine or penalty for the cut, but if you watch that hit in slow motion, and it's available i think on the internet, you see there's no head-to-head contact between the tackling player and deshaun jackson. he was hit in the shoulder, but it snapped his head violently forward and then violently back ward as he's going down, and that's the kind of mechanics that you're talking about, and you have these concussions where you don't have a blow to the head, but the head, itself, is moving through so many different planes of motion so rapidly, that the brain doesn't have time to catch up to itself and sort of gets folded over and compressed. >> i'm over my time once again.

i thank everyone. i have to leave, go to a cube security hear -- cuber security hearing. that's a different threat. [laughter] and senator udall will take over the hearing, but the ranking member -- oh, senator thune. he could have been a tight end. [laughter] >> well, yeah. >> please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> wide receiver. >> there you go. >> i'm up? >> you're up. >> oh, well, i appreciate that very much. thanks for holding the hearing, and i thank the panelists for sharing your thoughts with us, and i kind of want to follow-up on some of the line of questioning that was started earlier, but this is, you know, you're seeing participation at an all-time high in terms of kids, young people across the country participating in sports and an incredible number of sports related injuries among youth, and sometimes there's

head injuries and other injuries as well. when people think of concussions, we think football. there's other sports where we're seeing that, but i'm interested in knowing, you know, we got a lot of younger people participating in football, for example, and i know my -- i've got an 11-year-old nephew with a condition cushion, out -- concussion, out for a month, he hit his head on the ground, but it just seems like we got with young people out there, more and more injuries occurring at an earlier and earlier age, and my question has to do with is that something that we should be concerned about? i mean, are we starting young? are we starting kids too early in sports like football where they are experiencing concussions at higher rates than in the past? what's your perspective on the rise in the number of concussions, and i guess is there -- maybe your thoughts as well about are some of these kids developed enough, capable

enough to take in that kind of shot that they take, the hits that they are taking at that age, and the types of injuries they sustain at an earlier and earlier age. >> take that? >> i'll start. i think concussions -- the issue with concussions being up, sort of the -- we're seeing more of them, the numbers are way up. i think it really has three main causes. the biggest one is awareness. i think that would explain the vast majority of the increased numbers that we see over the past really five to six years. the second one would be sort of, you know, kids being faster and stronger at earlier ages and playing, perhaps more violently, but also sort of our games have changed too. if you look at how football evolved, for example -- i had one of the excoachs, old-time coach lecture me on how people block and tap over the years, and now there's more hitting and

less tackling. the point in football on the defensive side is to stop the ball. you do a better job of bringing somebody to the ground rather than launch a big hit. for those three runs, numbers are up. as far as concussions in the younger ages, i think there's always a sense, for me, that we have to keep track of the dose of hits that the kids are taking, and i think the younger ages, yeah, you want to be more careful, and do we want to postpone when you can hit in hockey? postpone when they wear pads and play tackle football? i think that's a very good idea, but it's for complicated than that because at some point kids have to learn how to hit, how to be hit and avoid big forces. that only comes with practice. it's a complicated question there. >> yeah. i look at the advancements in equipment.

my dad played football in the late 1930 the. he was a senior in high school in 1937. they had leather helmets, 130 pounds, middle line backer, hit a lot of guys, and i know he was knocked cold in one game, and at that time you treated everything with whisky. [laughter] when i played in the 1907s, the hell -- 1970s, the hellments were -- helmets were better, and the equipment has improved a lot, the padding gear athletes can wear. there's great advancements, but the athletes are bigger, stronger, faster, and the contact, the hits that i watch just every sunday watching the nfl, you know, i mean, there's some real -- there's some real contact being made there, and so you wonder if the type of contact that we have is adequate to that, but i guess, and thea #* and that's more to football, but i'm interested in soccer or

rugby, water polo, those who don't traditionally require a tremendous amount of safety gear. is there additional equipment available that could lessen injuries and concussions in those sports? anybody on the panel care to answer that? >> well, i mean, i can address that in general. whatever you can do to reduce the severity of concussions or the frequency or perhaps even eliminate condition -- concussions in one sport would be the same in the other. you talk about the same brain responses, same input forces, the same accelerations, and if you can determine how that can be done from a biomechanical standpoint, by yo physical standpoint, in football, you can probably figure out how too that in other sports. finding those answers lead you to address it in a particular sport and extend those by reference to other sports, if you can get to that point.

>> yeah. anybody else want to add to that? soccer players? no. okay. my time expired, mr. chairman, so thank you. >> thank you, senator thune, and senator -- do you want to -- >> very quickly. >> go ahead. i know you have things. >> very quickly. it seems that probably 99.9% of the injuries suffered are not due to current equipment failure. you guys, you know, when you were hurt, your pads were there, something didn't break, and sustain, so i think you know i don't know in little leagues, but things tested, most of that is working well. i don't really worry so much, and it's solve a difficult problem. i don't worry so much about the big hits that we see, you know, where somebody's actually having

to be helped off the field because we all know something's wrong. i worry more about the, you know, the injury where you tackle somebody, and as you tack m them, you know, he knees you in the, you know, in the face, and smacks you pretty good, and you are able to get up, but, again, we're conditioned or we'll all conditioned to play through injuryings and you go ahead and stay out there, so it really is -- i guess the way i'd like to close is just very briefly, you know, we have a lot of moms and dads and coaches and players that are, you know, watching this. very quickly, i guess, you know, is there any message that you can send out to the parents and things that, you know, how you can be better prepared to deal with this, you know, if it does come up? >> chances are it probably will. >> yeah, from the athlete's standpoint, just increasing their ability to be honest with coaches and parents and athletic

trainers and understanding for themselves when something does not feel right, lightheadedness, dizziness, the symptoms. if the symptoms are known and they feel those, then, you know it needs to be required that they make that known because it can happen on any hit. i had one happen on not severe hits and -- >> i think it's important, not only to address your symptoms when you have them, but even once you've finished having the symptoms is give yourself the little bit of extra time because that can prevent you from maybe not ending your career is just giving yourself a few extra days of leeway to prevent the long term injury. >> i'll add to that. i think the reck -- recognition of the injury is huge, and athletes hide their injuries. i know that. i see that every day, but acute can -- they are not aware of

it. what that means is that falls on the responsibility of everybody else around, you know, their teammates, coaches, parents, whoever to watch after them. when the kid says, i'm fine, i can go. you have to question that a little bit. recognize injuries. i'm starting to see teammates coming to me and saying i don't think he's right. check him out. as steve said, once recognized, you have to report that to the medical staff, to whoever, and have that patient or that athlete removed from participation, and then allow them to recover fully before they get back to play. >> uh-huh. >> it's essentially recognition, reporting, remove, and recovering. >> very good. >> i would say that, you know, i don't see this -- i think -- i would say that i don't see this problem going away with equipment. i think equipment is going to improve this issue, but it's not going to solve this issue, and we really have to address the way sports are played, the

nature, the style of play, the amount of hitting we allow, the amount of contact we allow in the play of the sport, and that what makes a tremendous difference down the road, but i don't see -- even a perfect helmet, there's always acceleration and deacceleration whiplash forces that we can't control. >> mr. oliver? >> i simply echo the panel's comments. there the number of intervenges that need to be enforced and encouraged and depending on the circumstances one may be more important than another, but overall, you can't avoid any of them, and to the extent that you shouldn't just rely on better diagnosis and return to play criteria, you also can't just rely on having good equipment. you have to do all of those things. you have to change the attitudes of the players and patients about reporting symptoms, take that stigma away from -- this needs to be strong or

invincible. one of the things that i have seen, and it's been effective is changing behavior based upon some of the data that's been collected at the collegiate level through the helmet implementation. they identify players who have more hits on the crown of the helmet than other players which shouldn't be happening, and because there's an increased association of concussion there, we see schools, university of south carolina specifically, is identifying those players and encaging in behavioral modification to take that act out of the game. if you start that with youth players, teach the coaches, you don't hit with the top of your head or head at all. helmets protect your head in case you can't avoid it, you change those things and there's significant reductions in the number of severity of concussions and reducing the chance of the catastrophic con

convinces of returning to play too soon or having multiple concussions not properly treated 245 let you heal, so all are important, and you can't treat one as more important than the other. >> thank you, senator boozman. i wanted to return just a little bit to the misleading claims on equipment. i know there's been discussion about equipment, and dr. mckee, talk about anti-concussion mouth guards. have you seen ads like this one for a mouth guard that sold, is sold for use by kids 11 years and under, and you can see the poster here in the background. this mouth guard was purchased last month. the product pack acknowledging states the mouth guard reduces the risk of concussions, and it creates brain safety space.

given your firsthand knowledge of the dangerous of repettive brain trama, are you troubled by this marketing for youth sports equipment? do you think young athletes who already had a concussion could be susceptible to advertising claims for so-called anti-concussion devices? >> well, i -- i believe -- there is no clear evidence that any mouth guard or chin guard reduces either the rate or the severity of concussion. i have great objection to this claim. the only thing i'm aware that mouth guards and chin guards do is reduce oral and facial, dental injuries, but the nave of concussions would not be improved by the use of a mouth guard. >> i know you weren't able to see the one i was holding up, and i think it's been produced down there just in case you see anything else on it you want to comment on. >> i agree on that.

i don't -- >> yeah, please. >> i don't know brain safety space really means. that term -- it's -- that's a little alarming really. >> there's a diagram on it. >> yeah, i see it. >> it shows a space and says "creates brain -- what is the term it uses?" "creates brain safety space". >> again, the idea from the work been down with helmets of football players and seeing at what forces they end up having clinically diagnosed concussions, those concussions occur over a wide range of forces. there's 15g hits that do it and 115g hits 245 don't. if there's a force of 115 and reduce it to 110 or so -- excuse me, get the numbers wrong, because of a mouth guard, you might be reducing the forces a little bit if the hit comes from

this way, but concussions are occurring on a spectrum of forces that that won't address. >> i know ms. bell mentioned head bands in soccer, and i want to ask dr. kutcher, you, about this one. you discussed in the testimony about the potential harm from creating a false sense of security when companies falsely claim that products prevent concussions. this is not just about helmets, and it's not just bust possible. he's another -- here's another example. here's a head band sold to soccer player and other athletes. he's an image saying this can come between you and a head injury. does this type of advertising for protective head band trouble you? is there a danger that a young athlete might put themselves at greater risk of injury if they believe this head band is coming between them and a head injury? >> i do believe there's a

problem there. this type of advertising 1 a little more vague that it just mentions head injury and not concussion, so you could make an argument that perhaps there is a mechanism there to prevent some superficial lacerations and bruising and that thing, but for concussion, there's no data that supports they decrease the risk of concussion. i have seen in my own practice as i testified, athletes who have become more aggressive and injured # themselveses and others because -- injured themselves and others because they had the head band on, get the ball more, involved in head-to-head hits more than they would have without the equipment before. >> go ahead. >> we've seen this both with helmets as well as devices like head bands that a player who sustained a concussion now sees this or the parent sees this as the answer. my kid had a concussion, not getting over it, but if i put this on, everything's fine, and

so you're not only a false sense of security of being producted from the first concussion, but being protected because i just had one, and this is an extra layer. it's incredibly dangerous. >> did either of you as athletes experience any of this that we're talking about here in terms of the head band being protective or -- yeah, ms. bell? >> i wore head gear, not this brand, but similar after my second concussion as a preventative measure, and i did adjust my play whether i had my head gear on or off, an i didn't think about it critically whether it would be actually doing anything for me. if i had it on, i headed the ball aggressively and played differently because i thought i was secure from getting another concussion, and if i didn't have the head gear on, i played much differently. >>. there threet? >> for me, i newsed a variety of football helmets.

i got a new one after concussions, alternate brands, styles, yeah, i tried different things, but the risk is still there. >> that's common by the way that football in general, you get a concussion, go on to the next brand because that's brand's not the right one for you. >> i mean, that's the equipment manager's would say that, well, maybe, you know, try a different style and you'll be better next time, so -- >> yeah. let me return to the redel testimonial claim, the one on no repeated concussions. on a july 23rd 2010 memorandum, the club managers and equipment managers wrote, and this is a quote, "it is important to remember that no helmet can prevent concussionings or reduce the risk of concussion to any specified degree." yet one nfl head athletic

trainer made several product endorsements for the redel revolution football helmet and a news release called "redel news highlights," saying, "we have had some player who is have had ongoing problems with head injury, and we made the switch to the new protective head gear when it came out at its inception, and these players have had no problems since then or no repeated concussions." dr. kutcher, do you expect a youth or high school football team to have no repeated concussions after switching from traditional helmet designs to redel resolution helmets 1234 >> no, i don't. >> pretty straightforward in your opinion. dr. mckee? >> this is beyond my level of expertise. it's not my area.

>> and mr. oliver, i want to ask about the maximum life span of football helmets. i think you talked about that a little bit in relation to senator prior questioning you. the national athletic reconditioning equipment association anowdgessed starting next -- announced starting next year they are no longer reconditioning helmets that are ten years or older. executive director stated he would not want his son wearing a helmet that old. the technical director, told the "new york times," and this is his quote, "would never let his kid wear a helmet more than ten years old." well, ralph conrad's 70-year-old son was unknowingly wearing a 20-year-old football helmet when he suffered a brain injury. ralph wrote to me after some of this came out, how's it possible

our son was issued a helmet three years older than he was? why does the noxy standard not set a maximum life span or number of years before a helmet should no longer be used? >> there are a number of reasons why we don't, and the first reason is you have to -- you have to tell me what the helmet is you're looking at. if it's a 10-year-old helmet never used or used two seasons, should that helmet be replaced because it's reached a birthday of ten years? there's no data suggesting that helmet because it's ten years old is more or less protective than any other hell melts -- helmets of a similar age. the other has to do whether it's a 10 year life because there's been a change in technology. if ten years ago or nine years ago there was a radical change in the technology of helmets such that older helmets don't provide the same measurable level of prex, then it makes

sense to have the life span cut off. we have always relied on the manufacturers to specify if there is a safe life on their helmets. we do that because we buy intent, maintain standards as design neutral. part of the design knew tram process is not impose on a manufacturer and obligation to use a particular material or a particular shape of the shell or particular design to allow innovation and progress in the areas. if a helmet companies makes a helmet and say this helmet is good for 15 years as long as it's regularly reconditioned and recertified, then they must have data to support that, and it's their helmet, their design. what we do know, and we know this from reconditioning testing data that helmets properly cared for, reconditioned, padding replaced when it wears, inspected for cracks, and properly cared for, when they are retested after being used in the field and reconditioned,

those test numbers look very much like they did when the helmet was brand new. no way for us as an association or an organization that sets the standards to say from our tests that a helmet that's now eight years old or ten years old that scores socially the same as it did when it was new should be replaced and force schools, for example, to replace maybe a third or half of their helmets when maybe the helmets don't need to be replaced. the other question that you have to ask yourself is right now there's revolution helmets on the market that are approaching eight years old, and i'm not endorsing any particular helmet, but there's been a great cry, if you will, to move from the older style helmets to newer style helmets. if there's a helmet used today that's 8 years old, a new technology helmet that's been properly cared for, replaced, tested on an annual basis, what is is that happens at 10 years that makes that helmet suddenly

need to be thrown away if it was safe at nine years or safe at eight years? we don't have the data to suggest that. i think the position that the decision they made with regard to ten year helmets was a policy decision they made they were not going to do that for helmets older than ten years. they see some that are 15-20 years old. >> does noxy require they have a clearly visible date of manufacturer and date of last reconditioning label? >> we do. we require both of those things. >> do you know how many high school or younger football players are wearing hell melts that are -- helmets that are 10 years or more in age? >> we don't know specifically. what we know is from the data for helmets coming back in for reconditioning because we get the test data back at the end of each season, and we know out of that sample, and i'm -- this is a ballpark figure -- but approximately 89% to 92% of the

helmets are less than ten years of age. again, it varies year to year, but that's the best we can come up with. >> do those hell melts ten years and older still meet current standards? >> they will if they are been through the proper program and properly reconditioned with the padding replaced they will. if not, they fail and don't make it through the reconditioning process. >> yeah. i'm shifting the issue to supplements here, and i think both of our physicians realize there's a lot of evidence recently on supplements, and this surprised me. there's a company selling supplements with claims that they "protect against concussions" it's called sports brain guard. what's your thoughts on the claim about supplements with concussions? i'll send one of these down to you, but it's a dietary supplement that is called brain

guard. you have any thoughts on that? >> i do. that -- one of the components of brain guard is the dha, one of the dha products -- i mentioned -- much like the other discussions we've had, there's no data that this type of thing will help prevent concussion at all, really, and i just kind of go back to the conversation we had earlier in the hearing about the amount of time and min that's gone into -- time and money that's going into neuroprotective agents for stroke, and we have found nothing for a mechanism we know little about. we now how it works at the molecular level more than the concussion, and yet we don't have any answer there. i don't see data to support the use of this. nor do i expect we'd be able to find any. >> yeah. let me just briefly say just in

closing first of all, thank you to the entire panel. i think your testimony's been very, very helpful, and i think parents and families out there are increasingly wanting to hear more about this, and i think the way you've engaged us today helps them a lot. i think this issue of awareness, i think all of you have talked about raising the awareness level, and we need more education, and we need to start younger, and those are very, very important points, and then the second, which you can see that i'm passionate about is this whole idea about misleading claims when it comes to equipment. it just seems to me that there's so much work that we need to do there to educate people, and people need to realize the old statement that's always used buyer beware. i mean, you need to check out when you have one of these products whether it's

supplements or whether it's a mouth guard or a head band, you really need to look a little deeper than the advertising that's there, so let me thank you again, and the hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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>> senator from kentucky. >> reserving the right to object, i find it a tragedy that we are operating here in the senate by introducing an 868-page be with 48 hours to

read it, approximately a thousand pages worth of amendments to this bill, with virtually no time to read or think about the amendments. i think it's precisely with what's wrong with this body, that we would try to rush things through. i've been here since january, and there's been no hearings on no child left behind. i've had no hearings that involve teachers, no hearings that involve superintendents, no hearings that involve principals. i think this is an affront to the process. as i go around any state and talk to teachers, i have yet to meet one teacher who's in favor of no child left behind. they hate all the stuff we're telling them what to do from washington. they want more local control. i'm one of the old-fashioned conservatives who does believe that schools are and should be under local and state control. there's no provision in the constitution for the federal government to be involved period. this is part of the republican platform for nearly 30 years

that we didn't believe in federal control. we wanted to leave local control. i met with six teachers recently from adair county, special ed teachers. they like what they do, they like teaching kids who have difficulty learning and have to be taught in a different fashion in order to get through to the kids. they showed me a 15-year-old boy with a three-word vocabulary. he's tested in world geography, and the teacher is told she's a bad teacher because the child with a three-word vocabulary did poorly on testing. this is insane, and it needs to be discussed in a rational fashion. we need teachers involved in the process for goodness sakes. principles, superintendents. i have a letter here from the american association of school administrators, the national association of elementary school principles, the national education association, the national school board's association, and the national association of secondary school

principals, and they say we hope that 234 getting this important work of getting policy right, we will not be pushed to the side in a race against the clock. i feel pushed aside. 868-page bill and 48 hours to read it. it is wrong. all i am asking for is a hearing to listen to teachers. should we not listen to the teachers? a hearing to listen to the superintendents. a hearing to listen to the principals. let them read the bill and find out what's in the bill. i'm not going to accept what nancy pelosi says, read about it after the fact. that's the process going on here. when will reread it? after they pass it. who's involved with the legislation? nobody consulted with me. i'm on the committee. that's the same with most of the people on the committee. the letter from this group also says we note that the proposed law is still heavily reliant on

the idea of testing every child, every year through one single high stake summoned assessment. there's many problems. i would be in favor of getting rid of no child left behind, no teachers are for it. i'd like to see a survey of teachers. i'd like to have the teachers surveyor their population saying who's in favor of no child left behind before we act, have teachers propose amendments to fix it if we're not going to scrap it. i want to hear from superintendents. what do you think of the bill we got on monday? what do you think of the bill, and how can we make it better? we will not have time to hear from them because we struggle to get through the 868 pages and another thousand pages of amendments. this process is rotten from the top to the bottom, and what i ask for is that we have a hearing, invite teachers to washington, invite superintendents, principals to washington and see what they

think of no child left behind before we rush through an 868-page bill that no one has had time to read. this is what's wrong with washington. this is the type of arrogance about the way washington works that is really makes us unpopular in the public's eyes, and i say fix no child left behind, i say repeal it or fix it, but at least give us time to read the bill, and i object to this unanimous consent. >> objection is heard. >> mr. president? >> senator from iowa is recognized. >> mr. president, i'm sorry that the senator of kentucky is objecting to our meeting. i say to my friend from kentucky, the one thing that i believe that both senator enzi and others did to get this bill to where it is was to put aside ideology, to put aside ideology, to do what's best for our kids. i believe the help committee on both sides of the aisle, have

done everything possible to move the bill in a considerate, logical, legislative manner. we started on this last year. i say to my friend from kentucky, we had ten hearings last year, ten good long hearings. we had superintend ends and -- superintendents, teachers, and principals, a broad input from across america into what they wanted in a reauthorization bill. i'm sorry the senator was not here last year, but the senate is a continuing body. does that mean that every two years we have to start all over from scratch every time? we had the hearings last year, and that was cleared again with senator enzi and i, got the hearings out of the road, and then this year focus on putting

the bill together. we had the hearings. i say to my friend, we brought in teachers, principals, and superintend didn'ts -- superintendents from all over america. in january, we started a time honored process where by the chairman and ranking member started working on putting the bill together with our professional staff. that's why we have professional staff. senator alexander was involved in that, others senators were brought in, senator bennet, senator franken, others on the republican side were brought in on this. i say this, the senator from kentucky had every day, since he was sworn in in january to come to me or to go to senator enzi and say i'm on the committee, this is what i'd like in the

bill, and that would have been considered. other senators do that. i see two of them sitting here right now and came and said this is what i want in the bill. well, i sat down with senator enzi, we discussed it, some yes, some no, some modifications, work it out through the process as we went through. now, i don't know if the senator from kentucky ever went to see senator enzi about what he wanted in the bill. i know he didn't come see me. our doors are open. there's no secret that we were meeting about this. we started in january. everybody on our committee, the staffs all knew that, and so that is the legislative process, and when it's all done, we want to put together a bipartisan bill. that's what we did. i see my friend from kentucky it was not filed 48 hours, but a week ago yesterday, tuesday. that bill was filed. it was put online. i put that bill online.

we had a whole week to look at it, and quite frankly what happened? we got a feed back. we put the bill online, got feedback from a lot of people, communities out there, and as a result of that, we made some final changes. that is the legislative process, and so senator enzi and i work together on a manager's amendment to incorporate some of the objections that came in during the week to make the bill even more bipartisan. we filed that manager's amendment on monday morning at ten o'clock, but that was not the whole bill. i put the whole bill online a week ago tuesday. it was just a manager's amendment that was, a fine tuning of it before we went, before we met in mark up. i say that senator from kentucky

had every opportunity to let us know what he wanted in that bill, and i never saw him. i never saw him. he never came to me. i'm on the floor all the time. my door's open. my staff is available. my professional staff is available, and 23 # the senator from kentucky had -- if any the senator from kentucky had something he wanted in the bill and it wasn't included, he has the right to offer amendment. i wanted this committee to operate in an open manner, and in a manner in which we've operated in the past legislatively. senator didn't have something in the bill that he wanted, and he has the right to offer an amendment and to debate it and get a vote on it in our committee. and the senator filed 74 amendments. we had 144 amendments filed under our rules that had to be filed 48 hours before. senator from kentucky offered 74

amendments. well, now the senator from kentucky is objecting to our even meeting to consider his own amendments. please, someone, explain the logic of that to the senator from iowa. he's got the amendments. the process is open. he can offer amendments, get them debated, have them voted on, but the senator from kentucky is objecting us meeting to even consider his amendments. secondly, i heard the senator on the floor today and earlier this morning in committee to start the process of marking up the bill, so he wanted to do away with no child left behind. that's exactly what the bill does. it gets rid of no child left behind, and some of the narrow prescriptions in the bill, and does, in fact, return a lot to

local control. we build a partnership, a partnership with the federal government and state and local governments. a better partnership than what we've had in the past, and that why i think we have a good bipartisan bill. again, senator from kentucky and i have different views. i understand that. that's why we have a senator. that's why we have debates. that's why we have committee meetings and mark ups. if i were writing the bill, i'd write a different bill than the senator from kentucky would write, and his would be completely different than mine. that's why we pete in committees and hammer these things out. you just don't shut the door saying it's my way or no way. i'm the chairman. i'm willing to listen to his amendments, and have him offer them, but how can i hear his amendments, how can we consider the amendments if the senator won't even allow us to meet

under the rules of the senator? i have no logical explanation for that. well, there's a lot more i can say, mr. president, but this is just -- this is just illogical. that's all i can say. it's just illogical. i see the senator from colorado -- i yield to the senator from colorado for any questions he might have. >> mr. president? >> senator from colorado's recognized. >> mr. president, thank you, and i have never done this in the two and a half years that i have been in the senate. i haven't been here a long time, and i spent a lot of time complaining about the way this place works, but i had to come to the floor to implore the senator from kentucky to reconsider his objection, and i do it not because i'm respective on this as united states senator, but i do it because i had the honor of serving as the superintendent of schools in

denver for four years of my life and have dedicated years of my life, but more importantly, seen the dedication of the people that are working in our schools. senator speaks as a tragedy of this process. i'll tell you what the tragedy is. the tragedy is that only 9 of 100 children living in poverty in this country in 2011 can expect to get a college degree. that's a tragedy. the fact that when i became superintendent in the denver public schools on the 10th grade math tests, there were 33 african-american students profirst time on that test and 61 latinos proficient object on the test, a test, mr. president, that if we're honest with ourselves, which we're not, measures junior high school standard of mathematical standard in europe. that's a tragedy. it's a tragedy that there are people working in our schools

right now at 11:15 in colorado doing the best they did to serve our kids, and we think a two-hour meeting is too long. that's a tragedy. i wouldn't have drafted the bill exactly the way it's been drafted. the chairman knows that. he and i even have disagreements about the things in the bill, but timely after two and a half years, there's a bipartisan piece of legislation in front of the committee that's having the benefit of the work of the senators that are there, and we're told that meeting for two hours is too long. the senator has ever right to make his objection under the senate rules, which the president has observed may need some updating, but i think if you ask yourself why is it that we have a 12% approval rating

that's going down, it's because of this kind of thing. i actually look forward to hearing the senator of kentucky amendments. i wanted to know what they were. as the chairman mentioned, there's 146 amendments that have been offered. i have some that i've offered, only three or four. the senator from kentucky had 74 of the 140 amendments in the two hours we met today, we considered three amendments. i think, or bordered on three, we were debating a republican amendment, and i was very interested in what senator isakson had to say when the meeting came to an end. if we're going to do this in two-hour increments, my math, i am proficient in math, thank goodness. my math is it would take 60 days to do this in two-hour increments. you know what? people are fed up with this

place because they don't think the date we're having is about them. they think the debate we're having is about us, and you know what? they're right about that. they're right about that. the teachers all across my state, all across the district that i worked in, want us to lift this burden from them. in my view, the biggest federal overreach ever in domestic policy, and that's what this bill does, not for ideological reasons, but to help respond to the voices of our teachers, respond to the voices of our superintendents and respond to the voices of our parents who are sick and tired of the almost comical, but to them, painful measures of annual yearly progress, the idea that we're going to label all of our schools failing by 2014 because

we have a completely made up accountability system in washington, d.c.. this bill does away with that. it doesn't do it in exactly the way i want to do it left to my own devices, but it does it in a way to get bipartisan support in the united states senate, so -- and i mean this broadly, i'm not saying that in this case -- when people see the political games that are being played here, when they see people that are unwilling to work together, and they are killing themselves to deliver for our kids, i'm not sure there's anything more back handed we could do, so i would beg the senator from kentucky to let us have the hearing, the committee meeting. let us consider his amendments. i had -- in all the rest.

today's conversation was one of the first -- i regret to say this -- one of the first substantive conversations i had in a committee hearing since i've been here, and i thank the chairman and i thank the ranking member for creating a context where that could happen. let's have the conversation. i'd be happy to meet 24 hours a day to talk about this subject with the senator from kentucky. because if you care about the widening gap between rich and poor in this country, you cannot sustain anything remotely approaching our -- a senator: will the senator yield for a question? mr. bennet: i will in one second. anything remotely approaching

our claim to be a land of opportunity when 9 out of 100 children born in poverty can graduate with a college degree, when 91 out of 100 children who are unfortunate enough to be born poor are con straepbd to the march -- constrained to the racymarch -- constrained to the and the margin of our a economy. and i'll stop here, but just to be clear, there are 100 seats in the united statesat senate. abo think about what of the 100 people that were here were pover children living in poverty in the united states. here's how many would have a decree. thatcher, that chairth committes for chairs than this one.t of cd that's it. the rest of this chamber would be occupied at people he didn't have a college degree. >> what the senator yield? mr. e >> i'm asking tosi yield.nator r

>> senator from iowa has the fuller. d >> i recognize the senator wants to do this in an orderly mannern people wanted to be here to speak. i think the senator from colorado made some h good points the senarng to him for a question. it would yield at the senator a from minnesota has a question and obviously the kentucky will have everyenator right.ing >> senator from north carolina.l of how long on before a number f this type can be recognized? >> this senator cannot be relin recognized until the floor is yd relinquished. >> i think that chair and i yield h back.senato from >> senator from minnesota.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for allowing me to ask a question. i just really want to know because they've only been here two plus years, but it seems to me that actually and from my dave -- this is my third that fl this committee has worked in ai pretty functional way. it took a long time. on we started having hearings onas this. it? how long ago was that? about a year and half?m b. mike has started at least ag. year and half ago, maybe a year and three quarters ago. >> and during this whole period, i talked with io. i have asked to see the ranking member and meet with him in his

office to tell him what i wanted to see in this bill. i agree with the senator from kentucky who talked about this one test he undid the and thekit teachers don't get to see thehas results until the kids are outad the door. i think that's terrible and i'm offering them in. i think the ranking member refers to that. m and i have gone all around nicet states as fna committee membertt attacked to teachers about whato they want to see to fix this orh get rid of no child left behind and replace it with something that makes sense. and that's exactly what we're o doing. isn't this a normal order name?r that's my question. i went to senator alexander ande met with him in his office to

explain what i wanted in this and my staff has been meeting nt with every other members -- not every other member staff, but ts every other member staff he seems to be engaged in the sun both sides of the aisle. with your staff, with the committee staff, with staff from senator enzi's office, i keep i hearing whose stats they are talking to about this piece doe' a managers that amendment for this piece that is going to be i mean, i think i have spent more time on this bill than on r any other though in my time herm and nothing has stopped me fromn

being engaged and.in our and i don't think there's t anything there to stop anyone in our committee from going back many, many hearings wed i had.t and i do that often. so my question is, am i wrong be here,n or hasn't this been given away t that's actually as thesef things go, pretty functional foy any man or who want to ben engaged in the process. and i think what it does is it behalf of committee members. be it isn't their responsibility ot the behalf of committee members to be active in the community, i to come to hearingng this? the to be engaged in the process, to

approach the chair, to approach the ranking member. it's not part of our responsibility? >> i say to my friend from minnesota. i think that's right if you want to be engaged in the process of legislation. me and like i said, the senatoril from minnesota has taught me many times about what he wants in sena a the bill is also senators colorado and people republicans i talk to me about what should be inat is the bill, which shout be in the bill. that is the process and i wouldt say to my friend from minnesota a die within chairman twice before, none of this committee,e but at the agricultural committee will receive major7. agricultural bill spear bonus in 2001 and the other was wor in 2g and both times they worked withb theas ranking members, basically the same kind of process. and we got bipartisan bills bush through. they were signed by president bush but times, 2001 in 2007.

used. we let amendments be offered. and no one on the committee at n her raise an objection to our meeting during the senatene. session. and we got our jobs done. that's what we've always done it and that is the legislative --ey legislative process has taken my my friend from minnesota. today. what it does is it allows ierese members -- senators who are bil, interested as the senator from minnesota has been so painfully, interested in this education bill to get them time member economy, other members.tg i say to my friend froom to my minnesota, that i'm sure we didn't put in everything the senator wanted in we the bill. w >> absolutely not. off >> but the senator has the right to offer amendments in committee. >> by the way, i don't need to

interact you answered my question, but i really want to thank the w ranking member. we talk on the phone about this. we've talked over dinner about this bill. i want to thank senator her, tho last to come to a stop assembly spent a very, very sensitive i fashion talking exactly about how i saw what was wrong with no child left behind and how we can get it -- essentially get rid of it.ates and solve what it is that everys teacher hates h about it in with superintendent pete about it. and senator alexander and i hadi some disagreements on things, but man, i think we agreed on0%

80% of this.eeme i think i had an 80%nt agreemen. i mean, that is senator enzi's that w role. he has an 80%e rule.nde which is we agree an 80% andshat refocus on the 20%. i have a 64% rule, which is 80% of the time we agree an 80%. and you see senator bennett laughed because he wasmr proficient at math. to him >> i did not the senator from kentucky want me to yield for at question to get involved in colloquy or not but the senator from north carolina. yield for i do not the senator from kentucky wanted me to yield.lado i'd be glad to do that. a >> yes, mr. president, i do have astio question. several senators have said they would abe happy to have means 4 hours a day. went away at the hearing on the bill?dents and finally many teachers, superintendents and principals?g there's been a hearing since the

last election. there's no reason why we can't.u the other question you need to o answer is, twhat do you say to the american association of school administrators? elementary school and the the national school boards n seconda association and the national association of secondary school principals to say, let's don't get pushed aside in this race i not posted to much of what ist going to happen with the bill. w i think no child left behind as many errors and we can take some of them. i am opposed to is the process of giving us an 868 page bill mr yesterday and can't take it or leavehe it. we need more time to read thes bill. we need these organizations who are very interested in education it is their livelihood to come to comment on this bill. that would be in open hearings i process. anything else to me asfrom disingenuous. >> i say to my friend from kentk kentucky -- i say to my friend from kentucky that -- i will say

it again, we put this bill online a week ago tuesday. bl. some of the male you are talkinn about the letters came in after that because they were reading the bill. i think the primary objections had to --se letters had to do with teacher, evaluations and while we were going to do in the bill on teacher evaluation. well, that is what we fixed in the manager's amendment.d that way they down monday tol morning.d t i amhe told -- i haven't seen in but i am told that the national education association for example has withdrawn from thatl letter.online.i s because of theai fix he made and not slaves but the bill online.a i said that earlier.o we put it online. bill. a lot of objections came in. we modified in the manager's amendment to move forward on that bill. that's exactly how we do it. m

and i say to my friend fromwhole kentucky that we've had a whole week. fil again, my friend has fedailed before and then to the bill. the how can you file 74 amendments if you haven't read the bill? i mean, it seems to me if yout e follow a file 74 amendments toad the bill. and then file 74 amendments onde the bill. you can't have it both ways. amd you can't fit into the bill, but he was 74 amendments. logically. so again, i'll just close on this note. the senator from colorado is absolutely right. u we are here talking about process and is up, who's down, all of this kind of stuff.rapplh and these teachers have an beh america that are grappling with

kids not better under this burden of no child m left kind d he is a way peace going to matter how much they progress their kids in one year, they are still feeling. tak and this bill really is that not that. takes that yoke off of them.k everyone of us has certainly got backtrace distant teacher, parentsha administrators conduct is no child left behind is not.t at least six do not is what our bill does. and how are you going to change it and fix it if were not even r allowed me quite so again, i kea hope the senatorin from kentuckg again wouldo allow us to move o forward in this process and allow us to go ahead and have for an enterprise is. i say to my friend, he has another shot at this bill on the floor. so we have the committee and fl. we're going to come to the foreign amendments will be offered on the floor. no that's the legislative process.t

no one person gets to dictate what's in this bill. the not one person.no one person not me, not senator enzi, not senator from kentucky. no one person gets to dictate, boy all work together collaboratively in a bipartisana fashion and move it forward. t mr. president, i do yoga for: >> senator from north carolina is recognized. >> mr. president, i think the ii recognition in situ andes therea colleagues, they're about it blanket statements that have the been made about one's level of participation. i've negotiated the chairman of the committee for nine months on the of our reauthorization of od emergency preparedness and bio defense in this country. know w i know whatha negotiations are. i know compromises. i know what commitment of time it is. i got this bill last friday.

i'll find out where when a mino. which copies online. may staff got this the laste friday. yes, we have read rated.ogethe we have read it. as together eight amendments. ra none of the luminous at senatore brand paul, but he has thaty toe ability, just like he gives the ability to be heard. hav the dictation is to have an opportunity to offer an amendment and to debate them. i hear what you're saying. but based upon the timeframe that you set and you don't get h the privilege of doing that when you've got to deal with the resr minority. h and i know the chair into a deen respect for its been here long could've been something something very easi cly worked h with communications on both sides of the, aisle. for t

and the fact is that i prepare a fort this markup, i was told an there was an agreement. hol and that agreement meant the chairman and ranking member there were going to be no exceptions to it. w they were going to vote for anything that was fascinate they well, would make sure the bill didn'tt change. while that doesn't give one a lot the outcome of amendments is going to be regardless of the merit of the amendment.ngas and when v we started this morng to chairman was gracious toet m. he left me saying i do for about five minutes and appreciative od it. w heeigh made it clear to memberse the time, the only thing i asked them to do was wait on theas the merits of the amendment. and my first amendment was myi't best shot. i'll say right here on the menate floor. amend it was a good amendment. the we went down the line and ita

proved to me there's a deal. frn and you was brought by senatort frank tt ire was a personage stood up and said i disagree with the base text. it was offered by both of you. n but i'll support it. you know, i am in here 17. senator franken said he spent more time on this bill than any other. boy, if that is the case, that of faith that statement about how much time we spend on tsday, legislation. because you could have had more than since last tmauesday according to chairman himself.rp >> the senator yield for apoint. question. >> i will take questions at somw point. i have been waiting patiently for my own time and i will usehi it and then i will love the senator to stand and ask a que question.cism

is criticism that the participation. we or apparently, we are i were senator paul hadn't spent the time to this particular piece os legislation. i've been working on this for years. it' as the chairman knows i'm passionate. when i get's involved fro im t'a from the standpoint of a lack of knowledge. this from a stand point of end. vying to achieve the right endd noearly, we're not going to make this perfect out of committee. . we're going to have another shot on the senate floor. let me remind my colleagues. 55 times in this congress, the t majority has chosen to fill the amendment meaning no majority

member has the opportunity to amend legislation. how can i feel good about a concave mark a process that foug days after i physically can't aid under six e. page bill wheno the caveat that i've given you still have another opportunity to do it on the floor. the maybe, maybe not. i don't think the chairman can t make the assurance to me that we're going to have an open rule on the senate floor that allows unlimited amendment. if you can, i will yield to him for that consent. >> it's about your pay grade.ha, it's about 92. won the reality is civil made by the chairman or the ranking member and it really won't be made because somebody's trying tol. perfect the bill. ago now, i learned a long time ago

screaming -- that doesn't do any good.ller it wakes people in they. people think it must be important. this is about her kids.educion this is about whether k-12 education works. now, there's one take away you d cannot make. no child left behind was well intended legislation to andoorl, implemented poorly, embraced byi very few. got north carolina happened to be a state they received a tremendous amount of flavor. yards without a waiver from average yearly progress because our state had a yardstick is better. and the secretary of education recognized that. it didn't through those waivers change any of the federalwe

intrusion. let me explain what they mean. nded. we've got 90 through educationif programs authorized. not all of them areou funding. if your system determines you can use one of those programs, a you can access that money. if there's not a program for lei what your problem is coming you don't get a shot at the take mo. i suggested to legislation that would take all those programs d infirmities to pots of money give states full flexibility to this bill -- they talk aboutwel, well, it does eliminate the title of 40 pieces -- 40 programs. and it throws them into six new major make education program. still you've got to spend it the way we designed it inay you washington, not the way you interpreted at home.

and for a superintendent, that shouldn't settle real well withs you. flexibility versus prescriptionl one way is federal intrusion par into local education. the other is partnership foravig education success. now, having gone with this nural one-size-fits-all called no child left behind, i think with the natural settingng with the f educatio we really want to fixn, educati, why don't we unless educators,pn superintendents, principals andg then spill.e -- a it wil lhe hundred 60 pages that were going to debate will happen. the chairman knows that appearel minority rules can only last soe long and will be marking thet, spell out that hopefully will come to the floor and will get an opportunity to amend it. inc. in this bill is 20 pagesefe that define reading. th when the claims are made that a

this is not federal intrusion, this is not a one-size-fits-all, this bill spends 20 pages defining for every local school system what reading is. this is insane. i've got a simple challenge for my colleagues. accoun what happened about the pents? accountability of parents? and teachers?ncipals and principles and elected and school board and community todah leaders. healthy communities today have a relatively successful k-12 systa education system. and no cases it's because employers recognize the fact wok that that is potentially their u future workforce and their is educational successes that for community success for survival and for advancement. we're what this

determine what highly gifted is for teachers. will determine what success or failure is. we are going to take the place of of the the parent, the teacha superintendent, the elected officials that the business community.of the ,e're going to take thatey although her. not from the standpoint of the amount of money were still is about a 10% of the overall cost of k-12.rules, but if you don't play by our rules come you don't care programs come you don't get our money. and i daresay there's not one ot us who recognizes the fact that every community has a unique one problem, where one is the school building. the next one is available highlt gifted teachers.ne where one might be the ability to have a second language f taught, and the other might be the passion of teach for america teachers at infiltrate the can'e system. you see, i can't come up no

matter how many pages i write ti c12 education bill that i canst honestly say trumps what i think any community that i represent should come up with on their thy own.co if anything i'd be woefully short of what they could do. to the answer to me if let's get them more in charge.flexibily. let's empower them more. let's give them greater flexibility. financial education. a as a matter of fact, we will take up the matter of amendment t some point. the trekkers come the flexibility in the 868 pages, but it's only triggered if aix school system accepts one of sil things. one of those things is actuallyr federally mandated firing at the principal or x amount of

teachers by the failing school. how in the world could we put ia inderal legislation that you get the full flexibility if you are willing to go out and fired thea principal or 20 teachers ats a school that has been determined by washington to be a failure. this is almost surreal to me in many ways it goes way past werew no chhiild left behind try to gl to, which was creating a measurement tool that could be seen by all and judgment madesn. based upon that, though it wasn't perfect. a now, what my colleague, senator paul has asked for quitere honestly it's very reasonable. take the bill, the one wegot thi consider, not the one that wenti up last tuesday i got've thisagt e-mail, the original esc doesthd

put up on my one week ago. the manager's amendment on monday, the document explaining changes was online yesterday. so everybody's rate. descr the only problem is with senatot paul described, which was theda. right now when up by monday. the explanations for the changes went up yesterday. amements, and i'm sure senator paul came up with 74n a amendments, his sf would've been a little busier than the seven or eight my staff came upfor with. but what senator paul has asked for is very reasonable. take this bill. bill, not a hypothetical bill the bushes have a hearing on it. not a markup, a hearing. whe at whatever speed the chairman can put itring together. bring n are we bringing actual educators, superintendents, meme schoolrs board members.e

and then we bring in a parent.r that would be novel. you know, i can still be deemed in the washington d.c. schools t year ago, remember the first mer teacher parent mentor meeting. i remember the expectations igrs had a parent they really didn't care about a fifth future.engedo if they did, why would this child be so challenged? parent, and what i meant is that walked in and met with the parent -- iant the parent of a fifth-grader who said, congressman, you're my son'sthan i only hope. i wanted to have so much more than i do.gram. i went there because of ank government program. i was there because i think every child ought to theand you opportunity to succeed. and you can't write that in the

you can't describe for every community how you get told haven success. if we could come in no child hae left behind would've been a perfect because everybody believed it would have that big a change. you see, this is about not just changing the system. si's about creating passion. pas passion for success. ulssion for success is not takef the federal government's h.r. department, which is pitiful anl say well, let's export this toth every school system in america. that's note the answer. the answer is for us to get out of the way, for us to empower o thoseffic local officials to mae the changes they need to and fom the judgment to be those community leaders, those parent. we'll have a debate soon on what is highly qualified.

and it's very prescriptive as a highly qualified teacher needs to be. in my definition, highlyhey didn qualified as at pharmacist decided that they didn't want to they paid to teach chemistry in high school. but under the federal standardse today, the person can't do itteo because they don't have a certificate to do it. we will codify back into law ane 868 pages of knowledge talentedw folks around the country could walk intoho a classroom and note only have the educational foundation to be able to teach b her t students, but the passionk want to be fair and safe in ther way that wasn't tied out of the textbook, but was learned through their occupation ismay t gone. it will be gone and even though the pharmacist may not want to compound drugs anymore come if their choices that are off somet

retirement, though be retired. because we've cut out something they could contribute back intot i didn't mean to go this long, et but i will be honest in my patients to get the opportunity to speak, i heard some i outlandish comment, summed up tuite honestly i could take vera personally. to suggest that any member had sufficient time to review this legislation, the only person whm could make that comment would be the one who got the bill befores i did and i think i'm entitled to have it the same time every e other member of the committee can'tha say, to have an agreemet it says were not going to take amendments.ies and you cannot win, but we won't take them. black oudies and gentlemen, i think ww that's a black eye on the entire institution if we adopt a polico likese that. but i see it up close and

personal on friday. i'd love to take the chairman at his word that will have an opportunity on bill, the floor e this bill, but i can't go based upon how the floor has run up to this time and believes they wile be one opportunity for me to offer an got amendment. so i've got to roll my dice on the markup processing committee. and i've got to do it in a way e that accommodates every member and he needse more time i've got to be there to defend his time. that's inconvenient for people., it's going to be inconvenient. but the truth is our children's name you. our children's future is way too important to russia bill. our children's future is way more important than the deal between the ranking member and o

chairman asked you how to make this easy out of our committee so we can fix it on the floor. i've been here 17 years.ress. perfection is not possible in. congress, but perfection should be our goal every day. why you when you look at what we've debated and why, you understand why less than 15% of the american people think highly of us. i think what we are getting ready to do will have a significant impact on how that number is reduced, not how it i. increased. i think my colleagues forthey cd patience. g they certainly don't have to

request time for me. i willladly allo t yield back and gladly allow them whatever their intended by to take. >> senator from colorado is recognized. >> i would like to see the senator from north carolina before he leaves the floor that i am well aware of his wel long-standing commitment toong-n education issues in kids in this issue. i have no doubt of that and i hp hope you didn't take anything i said to suggest that. and i actually think the two ofs us share a lot of agreement onmy what we ought to be doing. my issue is simply with about is the senator from kentucky has every right to do it.ommittee my issue is that like you and wt other members of the committee,r i want to engage in a discussion of debate on the bill and i want to consider your amendment inana his amend his enough for my owng

is congress was supposed to reauthorize this bill in 2007.ae it's four years later becausewn the firearm inability to get anything done that every single print olds keep having to put ud with what is the crudest accountability system i could te imagine. se only thing cruder than the g accountability system was a in response the big school districts like the one i used tw work into that accountability as people try to comply with b well-intentioned but incredibly poorly thought through laws ande regulations from washington d.co and i don't want them to have to endure one more year of this meaningless accountability,

where we are comparing this tel year's fourth graders to lastdi. year's fourth graders in tellint ourselves that actually makes a difference. there's a lot of good work being done in their statesaround righg who are on standards, so we quit norms when it comes to a done kr there's a lot of great work being done in colorado and other states that have come along to creating a growth model so we ms can attract now week, the moms and dads and teachers and this principals can actually attractd others group of fifth graders did to how to they did as the s raidersit and compare them to similar situated kids all across ed tstate in the country.world r that makes all the sense ino tht world compared to what we currently have. t but i sat there in absolute mean despair, wondering why this town was so mean to her teachers into her kids.

isn't it a fair minimum you could reauthorize the legislation when you're supposed to in 2007? and now we find ourselves here. i thought the senator from north carolina was very eloquent thisi morning in today on the floor as well. and ith appreciate the points tt he made. ide my objection is the idea that the right way to approach reauthorize the no child lefto behind, the right way to bu approach trying to fix the situation is create procedural barriers that don't allow us to. have a substantive discussion wh about it.north i agree completely with what th. senator from north carolina said a minute ago. there is a reason we have 9015%l approval rating, but he told% approval rating.gether i think if we could come together in a bipartisan way, reauthorize this bill, gaberhe does anyway p., do some of the important things in these one o

legislation, at the senator will look at one of my amendmentind, because one of my amendment says the pharmacist in g mind. if only we could get to a and bill.eft do kentucky has left the floor.impr i hope my only objective to wit imploreo him to withdraw thatul objection come in knowing its right to do it. but i can't into why you would t do it if he wanted to change the track. of the work for the federal c level.he so i'd think the senator from north carolina, senator from minnesota and i will yield the floor. the next senator from minnesota is recognized. >> mr. president, i also respec. my good friend from north carolina and i want to thank you for your vote in maine in it. wt and i think you are going to aike some of my other amendments, too.om

i just want to take issue with one thing you said in a think he set it in a moment where if you- thought about what you said, you probably might reconsider it.aid and you said that i have spent more time probably on this bill than any other. and i spent a lot of time in the affordable aircraft. pattic. he satisfies that more time on a this bill than any other, that's y. pathetic. it's a pathetic commentary on a sad commentary. because we just got this bill the other day. i the fact of the matter is that k think the senator would acknowledge us, the work on anye piece of legislation doesn't start when the bill ised v introduced. the it starts -- my work on this bill started very soon after i arrived in the senate.

it started with the bill that i co-authored with orrin hatch ane that is going to bent antrain p amendment. it's an amendment to recruit and train principals for high need e schools because we've had schools that i have seen turned around by principals. a schoo the principals can create the those of the school. there's so much to do with thecs lack of the teachers in transforming the school. and this hood create a program where we would recruit. keep a watch of the principles and high need schools that havea been mentored by a principal who successfully turned around the

high need school. that started immediately upon me getting here the senate. back i have been going back to myof state and traveling around the state of minnesota minnesota, to teachers and superintendents anh principals. the senator from north carolinas talk about the need to have teah superintended and principals and teachers here. we had hearing. we had 10 hearings.aid i believe there is the other side that please stop the hearings at that point.odels, wi he talked about the transformation models, which i too have problemswh with. what to do at this school that still? what we do now with the schools

in the bottom 5%? but if the senator from south carolina was there, a superintended, joel kline,n -- superintendent of schools in or chancellors of schools in new york spoke exactly to theand ai, transportation models. and again come what works in new york certainly does help her in pine city, minnesota or parts ob you plenty of teachers available and plenty of principals so i think you need more a flexibility and transformation - models than in this bill than joel kline suggests and maybe that's in from the managers pell-mell. but joe kline is a superintended and he spoke to the

transportation models and he said the transformation model ay gave him the ability to fix schools are failing. schools that were dropped off ae ve. at the very thing we've been asked for here, let's had testimony from super pendants. eyepiece transformation models in real? we've had w these hearings. pd i would suggest to the senator from kentucky was just came in, my outfit for printout transcripts of all the hearingsa we have. and you can read the teachers and principals and superintendents have said. we really and i have to say that

the work that you do on these bills doesn't start when the bill hits the dust. y in my case, it started two yearu before. i and you know, i don't think the senator actually met -- >> what the senator yield for one second? >> yes. >> at the senator interpreted that my comments to be personally him, targeted him, ti do apologize. "i spent the senator said and i wrote it down, i spent more time on this bill than any other bill under.a my criticism about the statement was that the senator got the bill when i did, then there's not a whole lot of time betweend

friday when i got the bill and wednesday when it was marked tor i don't question for a minute that the senator from minnesota or his staff is meant a tremendous amount of hours onuld education. but in defense of senator paul e and what he hasn sought, there has not been a hearing on this legislation. there's some things in the 868 page bill that our committee has not had a hearing on that he ask would be great to have the opportunity to have someone who. is an educational professionals. allhe absence of the ability to do that come to you, i come senator from kentucky i'll have to rely on what committee stafft tells us the nod is not always the most accurate regardless of which side of the editors he senator cannot or nation.d so i appreciate what the senator from minnesota has had.seen some

i think education should bee passionate debate and we've seet some passion here this afternoon. and i would hope the senatorkin from venice to was just a senator harkin, maybe there's ae pathway we i can gethis amendments in the time it takesi to make this up with someti senator brand paul and others wh have raised because i hope the senator from minnesota would agree with me. there is not an urgency to do we this this week. and if we could when we come back from the end of october have a hearing, i think we could have a pathway to markup and completion. having said that, it probably will be a product that i couldn't support. i will aggressively tried toould tend and i would be anxious and hopeful than i would have the to opportunity again on the floor to try to affect itsffect contey

but if the senator will be an advocate for that, i think in there's a pathway that doesn'ton in any way, shape or form delaye our ability in this institution to conference with the house to present the president a bill. i would be more prconcerned witn whether reproduced the rightsend product. and i think we can achieve that better. i thank the gentleman for yielding to me. >> i believe that in the markup we will have the discussion and healthy discussion of every part of this bill. end of every amendment.ith and i think the senator from north carolina will be so thrilled withen the amendment tt at the end of the day he's going to not just cast an aye vote on the bill, but an enthusiastic one.

i accept your apology. i don't think he said exactly what you said you said.hat you so what you said was if the goig senator spent -- and it's not worth going into. the point is that you work on a bill.ork o doesn't t it doesn't hurt when you get thn bill -- my piece of legislation is written. most of the work comes before. e and i just want everyone to understand who's listening.entid this bill has been a two-man dispassion of mine. you've mentioned passion for success. i want the growth model. we have senator bennett, who was that are very successful. a

when i did my principal bill, i went to a school in st. paul das minnesota, which has been a field school and was turned around by a successful print th. pool. i'm not principals -- so i had a roundtable they are. in this is very early in my tenure here. and one of the principles citede you know, the no child lefthem autopsies. t and what he meant was the tape and at the end of the year.don't you take them in late april and you don't get the results until the kids are out of school. and then the results are mnesot, aggregated. in minnesota, i have some in thn teachers -- we have some theme minnesota that the teachers have a superintended and principals

agree on, something caught the end vhs.hat mean? they are computer adaptive test. r.at does that mean? yea in minnesota, very often they ght take you three times a year. they are computer test the teachers get results right awayb theec principal called the no child left behind test autopsiet because the kids are out of insc school. you the teacher can't use it to inform t instruction. the if you do a computer test, you r get itm right away the teacher d can use a test to inform their instruction. that is what enmost parents that we were doing your thing the first place and president bushn? first suggested this whole thing. secondly, theret adapted. what does that mean? questns that means that the kids get the question right, the questions wrg, the get harder. if they start getting questions from come and make it easier. it's much more diagnostic.righ ,

and you can see exactly where a child is.ests right now the no child left behind test forbid these assessments from going out atne grade level. said s arnie duncan, the secretary ofpu education said something reallyf profound. he said that aro sixth-grade teacher takes a kid from a grade third-grade level of reading to a fifth-grade level is a success. it's a great teacher. but under no child left behind, the way it is now, that teacherf is a failure. that makes no sense whatsoever.s we have to measure growth. to that's what the senator from colorado was talking about. we need to measure growth. and that's no mystery. soo

i gols around schools and iclou, remember being at a school ineao st. cloud, minnesota. a i was introduced by the principle to the teacher who went teacher of the year, a math teacher.er and i met the math teacher at math teacher said growth. this is not a mystery. and we've had here in some have said we know this. we need to be measuring how much kids grow. and that will help kids that ars from poor schools because they l are starting on the lower leveln as the school is good and they are increasing their growth, they'll be rewarded. my daughter graduated from junio college. i'm looking at the pages now for juniors in high school. my daughter immediately out of

school in the bronx. 97% free and reduced price lunches. third-grade teacher. she had to take her kids --. that's the first year they do no child left behind testing. she would take her kids from here to here to this arbitrary level of proficiency in order t, be considered a success, were 15 miles to the north a teacher to westchester takes her kids in handy here. that doesn't make any sense. in minnesota, i learned from myd teachers that i talk to that there's something called the race to the memo. what's that? well, no child left behind the way it works now is that theref is an arbitrary bar of o proficiency that a teacher is ad judged on.ifferent what percentage of their kids in these different subgroups meetc.

or exceed the bar ofmartest proficiency. well you know what? the the smartest kids in the pass class -- that kid is going to pass no matter what. there's nothing you can do tot? that kid that won't make thateah kid escape of ourer proficiency. so guess what?the teacher ignores that kid. kid at the bottom, the most it, challenged kid, well, no way that kid is going to make it, ss let's ignore that kid. and race to the middle.re the kid is right below themdrile write about proficiency. those are the kids that are drilled and killed as they callt it in minnesota. we know what is wrong with no child left behind. we've been f ordi ascussing it. for a year and a half in hearings, we have been talking about it.nking

i've been talking to the ranking member. he mentioned today his computer adaptive test.kup. in the hearing or in america, these things aren't mysteries. members are welcome to come to the hearing and some didn't come. t but the work on a billhe doesn't start the day table. the work of the senator -- if a nator, senator is a hard-working day. senator is every day has gone back to your state, finding out what teachers and principals ana superintendentsri need. and it's going to the hearing. and it's talking to the other members. to the ranking member into your

staff and your staff is gettings information from other staffersf and not just the committee staff, but from other staffers. i just don't want to leave thise but the people and oppressionab. that we work with the bill hits the table.. so, mr. chairman -- i mean, mr. president, i yield the floor and i will suggest the absence of a quorum. >> the senate debate focused on the process considering the no child left behind education program.

>> because i am a businessman of

which i am very proud and from really connected with a large company,.areas that the oppositions and attempted to speak to me as an opponent of liberalism. but i was a liberal before many of those men heard the word and i thought for the reforms of the alternately and theodore roosevelt and woodrow wilson before another roosevelt.date and distorted the word liberal. ..

spain l., three women members of the marine corps who served in iraq and afghanistan on the role of women in the military. this 35 minute event is hosted by the organization women in defense and the national defense industrial association. >> we are going to go ahead and get started. i have the distinct pleasure this afternoon to introduce one of my favorites. i'm not supposed to say i have a favorite but i are to did and now we are being film so it is on record. i'm just going to go with that. one of my very favorites, and i met these women in san diego for a conference we did out there. it was just so striking and it

reminded me of why i fly coast-to-coast sometimes several times a week to do women in defense and it reminded me of why we are doing what we are doing. i'm honored to share with you today from the marine corps. i already mentioned my oldest son is in the marine corps so i have that passion as well. first i would like to introduce -- it is going to be different change of. lieutenant colonel julie nethercot and i'm going to give her the honor to introduce to you some of her marines. lieutenant julie nethercot was commissioned in may of 1993 following her graduation from the university with a bachelors degree in science and biology, natural science and chemistry. point graduation from the basic school of communications officer school in 1994, lieutenant colonel nethercot reported to duty at air station cherry.. 1995 to 1997 she served with bravo company marine squadron

28. since that time, as much as i wanted to read her entire biography, i promised her i would not do that. since that time, just to highlight some of them she served operation iraqi freedom one, operation enduring freedom. she served on staff at fifth feet -- fifth fleet navy command in bahrain and edition served service battalion commander at ninth communication battalion that camp reynolds in and it was there were hurt battalion was deployed to help in province afghanistan. lieutenant colonel nethercot todd -- the bronze star. she is the recipient of the 2010 major meghan mcclelland award. ladies and gentlemen, my german this honor, lieutenant julie nethercot. [applause]

>> thank you tricia. as always it is an honor for us to be here so first and foremost on behalf of the three marines ec appear thank you very fighting us to join you today international conference. is. is great to be here. at the opportunity to meet many of you over lunch and see some of our friends we met in san diego and a great opportunity to learn more about your decision about which each of you do so again thank you very having us here today. mr. shih said you forget how much time has passed since you were a lieutenant so you hear your bioread and then you are like oh my goodness. where is the time gone? as you said, just finish my vatanka man to wear this spring. for those who may not know that telling in my case is 1200 marines and sailors that i was honored and blessed to lead. it was truly up to this point the greatest honor of my life to lead those marines. spent a year of having combat with them in afghanistan and

again some memories that i will forever cherish. some amazing amazing and americans. i come to you today with a recent perspective but more importantly today brought to amazing marines. these two marines have served the same allegation team members with some of you read in the news i'm sure and you heard the luncheon speaker speak about it and you will get to hear from them and their perspective so we have captain sherwood on my left ear and sergeant bryant and they will both get up in a second until you and tell you some of their great stories. captain sherwood served as a team leader early on in helmand province so she is going to really talk about those early days. she is a graduate of wells college from the great state of connecticut. anyone here from connecticut? you are on your own. one. we have the photographer. he is from connecticut also. we are off to a running start. than we have sergeant bryant who was a member of my battalion and

set team throughout 2010 also in helmand province. she is from the great state of virginia from danville. anyone else from virginia or she on her own as well? okay, so you have some friends that you are a bit better off. what would like to do over the next 45 minutes as i'm going to get an overview of women's roles in afghanistan from the perspective of the marines that you have in front of you here today. as you know afghanistan is different. every province has a different story. our stories are mainly from helmand province. i will lead off and turn it often turn it over to each of them. we hope the illustrations we will share with you today will -- your own experiences. we embrace the teams of adaptation creativity and flexibility when we are in afghanistan and from my understanding had a brief on the budget earlier today so maybe that will come into play in the years to come. we never know so with that we will start the slideshow. you are going to see a slideshow

running in the background of the rest of the presentation but let me start off by saying we have come a long way from some of the photos you see on the screen. those women were trailblazers to where we are today. they set the stage by their professionalism, tenacity sheer perturbation to take on something new and made it different. we wouldn't be here if it was not for them. they were successful in times of transformation and as the years progress we have seen many changes in the role of women in the armed services. as many of you know we have women flying jets helicopters women driving trucks in hazardous conditions in afghanistan working with working doc team members explosive team members through dozens of other skill sets on the battlefield but in addition to the changes with the services the services themselves that had of had to adapt to a transforming battlefield. gone are the days of the clearly delineated frontline. now we deal with distributed operations that come to counterinsurgencies where the clients are fuzzy and vague where the small forward our

parting basis of the best way to influence the security of the local village. this requires us to be flexible and action to be successful. the old linear paradigm falls by the wayside when you are engaging in a gendering population with dealing with the connecticut me. i would like to highlight three groups of women in afghanistan. there is a combat support marines, women who are in key leadership in afghanistan or were in key leadership in afghanistan and lastly the female engagement teams here on my left. as as many of the now typical assignments for women marines include all the combat support missions which is communications military police etc., dozens of specialties. i can say first-hand their performance in afghanistan has been superb, absolutely superb and as one former commander of a logistics unit commented on the women at his unit he said quote these marines perform exceptionally well and operated outside of the wire under many

difficult circumstances. women served as governors and drivers throughout our combat. bottom line i did not distinguish between male and female and lower subject to the same potential threats. my military played a key support syllogistic community is one example of a changing environment for women in the service. the next area that illustrates the change women's roles in afghanistan is that of key leadership positions. the fact i'm standing before you today as a former commander in combat goes to illustrate how far we have come. however the key leader who illustrated the change happens to be my former boss, now brigadier general laurie reynolds. some of you may know her. she was the commanding officer per unit known as mass headquarters group. she had five battalions to include a company of iranian soldiers. pretty amazing. she was not only responsible for the large province but also had battled space so she had an area that she was responsible for

securing and maintaining and protecting which was a first for the marine corps. we have never had that happen before. so it was, we were lucky. it was colonel reynolds every pitch this idea for full-time team enchiladas to go forth. we will move on to the dean delegation teams. the concept of female engagement team is maybe now is not new to the marine corps. a job on our origins from iraqi freedom gelinas program. the program was to search -- in a culturally sensitive manner in iraq and that is how it got its start so we take what we learn from map and tried to make it a little bit better for afghanistan. for afghanistan for operations within the provinces. we are blessed to have kept a sure way to share those early experiences and since his groundbreaking early missions the program has expanded to offer greater emphasis on long-term engagement with a

population. in the summer of 2009 and after reading the abstractions from people like captain sherwood, we made a proposal to form the first full-time set. the concepts hinged on three trends we are seeing from the abstractions from afghanistan. we believe the teams need to be totally dedicated to a mission to better understand the population in developed the villages. they had to be forwarded plight and the villages need to see that same person every time they came through. that it couldn't be a different person every time because that culture so focused on relationships and it takes time. it takes a lot of time. secondly they needed to train beforehand. firmly believed they could it could not be a pickup -- bid to train for months in advance in afghanistan. lastly the teams needed to understand as much pashto's possible and be familiar with their culture. their success depend on their

ability to interact with that population. they had to be a will to stand on their own in six months later 40 marines from camp elton deployed as a first full-time team of which sergeant bryant was one of them. gauge was trained extensively to be a set full time. the team consisted of two or more military members sometimes a pashto interpreter free had one and then sometimes a medic which ended up paying dividends as you can imagine having that capability with you in addition to having a set team so these marines are screened or strong leadership strong physical fitness ability to engage in active and penalty because they were going to be on the edge of the empire in their own. they need to be up to handle themselves fairly confidently. their training considered everything from the culture to language to combat field patrolling and put a lot of time in making sure they would be successful out there in the battlefield. when we departed afghanistan this team the said teams were in 11 districts serving in 85

villages throughout helmand province and operated from 30 outposts. with that we will roll the video. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]

there were a few women there and there were so excited to see us. they didn't have an interpreter anything but from the little pashto we knew we were there for an obernauer and the next thing we knew we solve women trying to take over the walls of the other compound and they were climbing the walls. we were having a blast trying on the different outfits they have. they taught us how to dance. they put makeup all over us with dots on our foreheads and we ended up having a lot of fun. >> i would like to take you to disneyland. >> the biggest obstacle is pretty much trying to get the -- to talk to the females. they have strong beliefs and their culture which makes it hard for us, especially with the

fact that female linguists are very hard to come by, and it is very slim as female linguists for each team so most of the males here won't allow us to talk to their females. that has been the toughest challenge so far. >> i definitely do think that is something really useful here for all the companies out here. just getting our faces out there. when they see the men, not necessarily that they are here to fight the wind they see the females they know we are not we are not here to hurt anybody. we are like the third sex almost to them. we can talk the children, then in the women wear the male marines only talk to the men and the children.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ we get care packages. it's amazing. i hope you enjoy the video, but we often get asked why are you so successful in afghanistan? one is their ability to disseminate information to women without violating the culture norms so that has been very helpful for us.

but also to understand the feds have engaged everybody. that is i think something that gets underestimated from time to time. they talk to the men, women and the children. they identify those local concerns and build those relationships and they greatly enable units ability to pass information, which is great. you heard mention in the movie that they are almost seen as a third gender, which we saw often. with all the reserved for men and all the access allowed to amend which was a dynamic. you have now opened up the aperture that you can effect on the battlefield when he you do things like that. it was more powerful than we could have imagined. you can engage the other half of that population which is key because you are not going to win if you don't gauge the other half of the population. so a very important aspect. besides that they started looking at ways to help women reestablish that community and get that village back on its feet and coming up with ideas.

they were able to do security missions by conducting those searches of women and compounds are at a checkpoint. they can also enter those traditionally women's rooms in a household which is important because if you are the bad guys where would you like to store stuff? in the one place a marine would not carmel a look unless they are a woman, the kitchen where the babies are. so the feds were able to go to these places and eliminate that as an option which is very important. so they did find weapons and they did find money stashes and sergeant bryant can talk about that if she would like. she is correct great stories on that. another area re-realized is their ability to de-escalate a situation you heard that mission up there. we often quote and afghan elder said it best, when we see your men we know they are here to fight and when we see the women we know you are here to help. that little phrase was more

important than we realize and we saw it time and again. it is one thing for someone at my level to convey the success of these marines and the impact we have had on the lives of the impact -- of the people. ladies and gentlemen it is my pleasure to present captain sherwood. [applause] >> thank you watch for the opportunity to speak today. i cannot even sell you how much it means to the in front of women of your caliber who have long been in the game of women in defense. we are at the assumption that it was in the true spirit of diversity or perhaps the program was getting too long and we need someone with a come tentatively short biography. i'm happy to be that woman. [laughter] in all seriousness i am here to speak to you today about a program that i got to be a part of in 2009. ended up eating a bit of a roll changer for women in the marine corps and the marine corps utilizing its female -- i made

the joke earlier, if you are ever confused about the extent you might be affecting some sort of render change, if cnn and fox knows the "associated press" are behind you sell a chance that you are. in early 2000 night i deployed to afghanistan with my unit. i was the communications officer for a marine wing support squadron and that is essentially for a gas station for the airway. vital job to the initial entry of the marine corps and afghanistan but not something i'd originally thought was going to throw me on to put patrol with the 1st battalion. in that capacity my squadron had asked me to be the intelligence officer, noticing i had those inherent qualities. [laughter] when i arrived in the country it was a special purpose which was holding ground for them rink or

so larger marine expeditionary brigade could get on that. the units there had a lot of infrastructure that basin things we would be taking over, but i didn't really get that foresight for what would openly become my mission. until i did turn over with the s. to intelligence officer, really dynamic fellow by the name of captain cotton sure. he had been a "wall street journal" reporter prior to coming to them rink or so we had this great frame of reference for how to address problems in a way that maybe less wet behind the ears didn't automatically have. at any rate he had been on deck when a situation arose in which a local lemon to the helmand province situation had been badly beaten by her husband and hair ripped from her scalp. feeling i suppose in desperate circumstances she escaped to a remote outpost of.

she proceeded to default a lot of significant intelligence to the marines but at the same time those brains as you can imagine, they were being told to not interact with the female population and now there is a hysterical woman at their gate giving them intelligence. they helped her wines and they went on a patrol to bring her back to her village to prevent any sort of antagonistic relationship for building at the local population. in the meantime he doesn't know what to do because he can't be sure she was appropriately asking questions. my officer candidate school captain sherwood, was a watch officer for that same unit and he said joe can i teach you

tactical questioning and can we go out and try and locate this woman again and that is exactly what they did. not yet really having a grander plan to trying to address a very real scenario. fast-forward when i else really did our turnover he said to me, the key, we found a great success for me take her out on these patrols and she can talk to women and get their finger on the pulse of what is happening with this half of the community. not only other problems coming up specific to women they are in the community in our area of operations and they can tell us what is going on. i just think it would be great if you took my abstractions and when the med finally gets on deck make sure this is a program they pursue. which is what i did, but being a second lieutenant was a good idea. no matter how much paperwork you have behind it i'm sure the gt thought i was crazy when i propose this to them but they graciously took captain cotton sure's notes and proceeded from

there. fast-forward about a month forward at that we had second l.a. are lar in the southern area, completely surrounded the castle with taliban inside. the taliban put on burkas and clearly walked out of the compound because the second alley or did not have the search capability which we sort of realized was relevant in iraq. how quickly can we form? what came to be known as the female engagement teams that we were formed in country. they pulled 40 marines from across the expeditionary brigade or conducted training and shot out on foot the trolls. the rest is sort of history except that in our own after actions we realized a couple of things. i was still looking occasions officer from mike squadron so i was doing that is my day job in pushing out for these operations here and there is my platoon could allow that to happen. so it was decided we were going

to make this a full-time thing in the program has really grown from there. i will say, and they know i joked about the microscope. someone has to be first and it is probably not a message i need to tell anyone in this room but speaking with some of you at lunch, you are pointing out being first must have been a real bummer and a lot of pressure. it is really not and i will offer sort of as an epilogue to my own career marine special operations command has picked up this idea. i got the message yesterday that they are looking for female engagement team. so i go to my operations officer and i'm trying to tell and there is a outage at one of our their bases bases into indications that but that is neither here nor there. and by the way served you know mrsa is starting a female engagement team? he smiles at me and says, let's give it here. i need you here for year and anyway you probably don't want to meet first.

so i will offer to you, i do. [laughter] i am sure it is not a message that and if you need to hear but i am very happy to have been there when i was. it was a lot of that being the right person at the right time and an excellent opportunity to opportunity to turn it over to marines as capable as sergeant bryant and her team so thank you very much for having me. [applause] >> good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. i'm sergeant bryant, and like these that i'm from the great state of virginia. as my true southern self i will probably ramble him because i don't like to write speeches. i like to talk, but as lieutenant colonel nethercot and sherwood said i was part of three and i got involved with this harebrained idea that they so we are crazy bat first in

captain sherwood paving the way for us. we deployed in march of 2010. when i first got into afghanistan, i was with third battalion seventh marines, and we were originally and memories province which is by the iranian border. when we first got over there, the area i was and was like the perfect environment for a female engagement team. a lot of very low-key where we were, and i met an actual female teacher where i was. i thought this was the anomaly in afghanistan because you never heard of girls schools go we were in this area and they told us about her but never had really seen her. they were like, we know she is here but we don't know where. so we go out on patrols in the cs and we were probably may be the second females to go out on patrols have been there in the area after. so they see us out and wants the little kids, like you will learn to little kids are like the telephone game out there because

as soon as they see the words gavels -- scatters like welfare. within five minutes once a kid kids view kid see you everyone knows you are there. the female teacher comes out. she speaks perfect english. and she had over i want to say 60 children in the school. what it happen was are our civil affairs people that were out there built a school that these girls were attending so i sat down with her and she was so very old and outspoken and i'm just sitting there like in all of this woman. most of the time you see them, they are never outside of their compounds. as they previously stated, you have to go through this males to engage their women, because most of these women in their entire lifetime on that for the their compound walls unless it is to go to a family member's home. but the men do while the market runs. i had a funny conversation with a woman saying i go to walmart back home. she kind of looked at me like,

okay. but, i am talking to this schoolteacher and what happened was her husband was killed by the taliban, and she wanted her children to get an education. she was very adamant about this, and she would literally, when she heard people talk about security in the area she would get up in their face. i was just awestruck of this woman. she ended up being a very key role in us identifying security in the area pointing out taliban and the area because she wanted to make sure that her girls were going to get an education she wanted the taliban to stay away from her girl school. the area was a very secure area. we got to pass out lots of -- so lots of children love.t. y. p. b. babies. this area was perfect for mad caps to engage the children. the women, there are several compounds and like lieutenant

colonel nethercot said we had to learn pashto. i could carry on it basic conversation amp pashto because we didn't know if we would have interpreters. i was asked if i was asked in a couple of times. they were like him are you from here. no, not playing dress-up. in this area like i said the district was amazing for that. but i spent three and a half months there with the third battalion seventh marines and then we got the call up that we were going to push closer to the pakistani border and an area known as saying in afghanistan. it was a completely different ballgame. i didn't see any women, very few children in the area. it was a very kinetic area, but the company commander i worked for i had worked with him before and he saw us as a huge force multiplier that maybe we could

get out there and they would see us in a different light than his guys going out there that are his guys are the ones kicking down the doors and doing a clearing operations. maybe we can get out there and they will see us in a different light. so i will never forget my first patrol. i walk out and i'm kind of like not really sure yet, getting a feel for the area and honestly i'm standing around like, just following the leader like the patrol leader. they got a call on the radio. hey send bryant over here so i walk up and they are like carrying on a group over here. i'm kind of like, what you want me to do? dare already having their own conversation. i see this guy kind of creeping over the wall peeking at us down the road and i'm like whatever. i scream as loud as i can. everybody stops and looks at me like, what is wrong with you? he won't come over here and talk

to assad is the only way you both ghettos over here to say hi just like we do back home. i'm yelling at the sky and he's like looking behind him like, who me? he comes up and he does not want to talk to me. i am just like being my little annoying self and i am like oh. i am like that little annoying kid lugging him. i'm talking to him and i did have an interpreter in the area. he is sitting there and he starts laughing. i'm like, what are you laughing at? he goes they don't believe you are a girl. they think you are boy. [laughter] and i am really offended by this. i'm like, really? i am trying to show them my hair, my opponent all. i know i look like a boy. saying that today, i say that to the valet and they say thank you are. i guess that doesn't change when i come home and my monkey suit. we are out here talking to this

guy and i was like, what you do for living? i'm a farmer. what do you grow? i grow corn and watermelon. my family grows tobacco in virginia. cigarettes, you know? he is like oh. but watermelon, let me tell you about watermelon in afghanistan. you will never eat watermelon the same here in america as in afghanistan. i tell him and he laughs at me like i'm in that case. then he goes off and everything winds down and we are about to rotate back to the days. i am walking back across and my turf is like hey weight. you see this guy running across the field with these two watermelons chasing after me. he heard me tell this guy this and he heard me say listen he want to bring the watermelon but he also wanted to come and talk to me later on, because i was the first female to have. in this area. they had never seen a woman before and he felt more

comfortable if he could talk to me than the guys. he wanted to talk to me about what was going on in the area that none of her guys do about. that being that this said this guy ended up getting us a lot of information and good intelligence on what was going on in the area and end up saving a lot of marines lives. in other instances that happen such as this we had some guys that would come to me and even point out where ieds were. i don't know if many of you have heard of it but we had the most double amputees and such in afghanistan and it is still the most dangerous area of operations. for me to of had that capability to have brought that to my battle owner, i still feel good powder to this day because my unit is back there right now. they are excited to utilize their -- because we had such success last year in the exact same area so i know that i help my brothers out there. i know that captain sherwood did

the same and my fellow marines i served with so i'm proud i did that. my know we will answer a lot of questions for you guys are thank you again for letting me be here today. i can't wait to talk to you guys later on. [applause] >> tricia, i realized our schedules are a little bit in flux. 10 for q&a? we will field whatever we can, and i think there is a microphone floating around. i think we can hear you in this room. [inaudible] which you speak more about what the future is? i think there's a huge potential on what the military can do with these programs. have you seen this in discussion

in the future? >> your question is has it been brought up? >> the air force is just has just picked up on it and where are we outside of afghanistan and iraq? >> i can only tell you, when we left the british were running a similar program so it started to take on a little bit of an international field as well. and we had more requests in afghanistan than we had teams to fill them. want to caught on in people realize the ability that the team brought to the battle owners, these marines have illustrated in their stories, it really took off. outside of this, he heard captain sherwood talk about mrsa. i think some other places are trying to figure out how to use that. we have some music for you. standby.

nevermind. it's all part of the plan, folks, in case you were wondering. we didn't have a band so we brought it on cd. in answer to your question i think other places are looking to do it. i would love to speak to you after this as well. i'm at the national war college as a student, responsible for myself. he can definitely catch us afterwards and we will give you great points of contact to help out with perhaps your research. >> maam, i actually worked with the 40 commando. they actually use one of our teams down there to start to get a feel for how it would be used and i know they made contact with our command before we were leaving as they were starting up the program before we left afghanistan off of hours. >> great.

after this definitely, catch us up and we will give you rate points of contact for them and i think so, is so, is starting to investigated as well. another question? >> very proud to share the uniform with such brave wonderful women such as use of thanks for all you have done and staying adaptive to to a combat arena which takes innovation and adaptability etc. etc. so thank you very much. [applause] has the army picked up on this process as well and to what extent have you done some training with them and some modeling? >> yes, maam. the army has a permanent team under special operations command and they're calling it a cst but they draw heavily from after actions and i believe polled

some personnel for parts of their training. i think they are now in their second or third iteration of sending females are complete robust package of training within the special warfare community. >> can i get a picture with these young ladies because my husband is a former marine and this woman that impressed the heck out of me. >> thank you, maam. appreciate it. she has got them might. you win, you have the mic. >> i wanted to echo the admirals comments. i'm a former u.s. army officer and i'm so impressed and thank you for your service and what you are doing today. my question goes to, what kind of impact do you envision there being an impact in bringing women to the table for her leadership and the transitional democracies and the type of changes that need to occur? did you see or have any role in

bringing women to the table for decision make in these villages whether it was at the local level or broader across the country? >> i will refer to these two. i think they have personal experiences and some of you are familiar with the national action plan. there's no pt going on right now regarding how to bring women more into the national security arena through faces of conflict so we will talk about that as well. i will turn it over to starter bryant. >> i know for myself, i know we have another marine here and add it but when you first go, even inside the marine corps being a woman and going to the infantry battalions they are thrown off at first as well so i first they were a little like, are you lost? as the deployment went on it was like, i honestly was telling them where i wanted to go, what we needed to be doing and it was

to the point where i was able to make decisions and they trusted my judgment because of so much of what it happened previously and the success we have had. that was just for the marine corps side of it. as far as the villages wind, a lot of the elders would sit down with me and talk to me about what was going on and we would try to make a plan with the company commander who owned the battle, what we could do to help the issues in the area. so i felt honored, on the marine corps side in the villages side with the village elder because i know how big of deal it is but it is like that are gender role comes into play. i wasn't seen as a woman in their eyes, but i'm not seen as a regular mail guy either. it was that weird third interval. >> and the experience? now? okay.

[inaudible] you have children coming and hanging on their legs and smiling. i was curious about your reception with children of the village. with a receptive? were they more receptive to u.s. women as they may have been with some of the male marines and your philosophical question, do you think we are making a difference in being there for that generation of children and were they fear for what was that like? >> alright you two. >> the children were very receptive to us. i don't know by but can say authoritatively that more to us as women than the men, but a lot of times because we are trying to make this in roads with the women and children were going to be around and i think it meant a lot to the women that we were holding their babies and finding medical care for their children and talking about hopes for their education things like that

so a lot of times in the process of building those relationships with the women there was a lot of interaction with the children as well. i like to think and particularly for the girls, that seeing us in that capacity might have been meaningful. i think at the very least they understood clearly that we meant them no ill will and we were there to improve their communities. i hope that is a message they take with them as they become leaders and grow into leadership roles. >> i know for myself, there is an incident with an ied that happen, an explosion, and there was a little girl who was injured really badly an explosion. as far as a brain injury. she ended up having to be medevaced and they brought her back. when she was brought back they needed someone to stay with her. because it was a girl we had an army of fst team and they asked me to stay with her. i did everything -- i say that the whole night with her and it was her and her dad recovered

dad had to be with her the whole time because he was her elder. i wash his hair and took as much care of this child is sheikh -- as i could. i like to think i made a difference in his eyes of us being in that area. and may be before that he might have had ill will towards us but i like to think after that, maybe his mind may have changed because we had a communication barrier. we didn't have an interpreter at the time so was like you are going back to kindergarten basics like hand signals trying to commit a kate letting them know i'm not going to hurt her. i just want to wash her hair. he actually came back a couple of months later. i was out on a mission at the time, but he told somebody at the time that he had a book. he kept telling me about a book. he brings a book that for me and it is like a posh to do english book he brought back for me. and so i like to think we made a difference in a lot of instances like this. everywhere we went to matter where we were the children were

so excited to see you. i swear my 5-year-old son has a twin in afghanistan. i pictures of him and i brought them home to show my mom. you look so much like jackson. every time we went to this village, his dad was the commander. he would tell the little boy, go to your mom. pretend they would see as they were all excited. his mom is here. >> alright, one more? >> i know you would rather be back in the country doing what you do so well but is there any thought in sending a team like you to our local schools? i can't possibly imagine better role models for american girls and boys then you three. [applause]

>> we will be around for a little bit. if you had a question that we didn't get to or you would like to ask it off-line we will be around for a couple of hours throughout the rest of your symposium. trish is on her way up again -- >> thank you so much. >> thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you were having us today and thank us for listening in. i'm sure we will continue in the years to come. thank you again for having us today.

>> it is to me very obvious that with all the priorities we have until further notice every decision the national government makes, every close call which will be made in favor of economic growth, every tie in favor of growth of the private sector. >> worked as an adviser in the reagan white house. omb director and george w. bush is a administration and governor of indiana. and implemented spending cuts that produced a billion-dollar budget surplus. sunday night, mitch daniels on his new book, the economy and his decision to not run for president in 2012. at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. >> middle and high school students it's time to get those cameras rolling for the sheer c-span studentcam video competition. make a five to eight minute video on this year's theme, the constitution and you, and get it

to c-span by the deadline of january 20 and you could win the grand prize of $5000. for complete details go to studentcam.org. >> now hearing on detecting and training -- the senate transportation committee heard from the panel that included former soccer and football players testifying on the effect of brain injuries. this is a little more than two hours. >> does anybody want to make opening statements besides me? this hearing will come to order. is going to be an absolutely wonderful hearing. there are actually 14 senators in front of you. you just can't see all of them. it is something we are we are working on with nasa. we do, invisible at proper moments. i am very proud that you are

here and i'm very proud of our two senators over here. this one although you would never know by looking at him, was afoot low player -- was i guess i should say. there you go. i'm going to make an opening statement and i wish each of them -- wheels will try to keep it brief because we want plenty of time for you to talk and for us to question. i'm so grateful for all of you being here. it is a massive subject. the story which i may tell about my son reveals the parents can't always be as effective as they would like to be. i haven't decided whether to do that or not, whether it is an invasion of his privacy but you can advice me when you give your testimony. anyway every afternoon at the end of the school day, millions of our children had to the playing fields, gymnasiums or hockey rink to participate in team sports. i should've said soccer fields too. playing sports doesn't just make her get stronger and healthier.

it also teaches them important values. they learned about hard work and leadership and about living with pain, and going through it, about working together for a common goal. the camaraderie that comes out of sports units is wonderful to see. it is real and it lasts forever. most of our young athletes will not end up playing sports at the collegiate or professional level but we hope they will carry the positive lessons they have learned on the playing fields throughout life in a while. are hearing today is about to head injuries, the tens of thousands of athletes sustain every year while playing the sports they love. many of us are reluctant to talk about the risks involved in playing sports because we know what a positive support -- role that sports plays in our community. on the other hand the last thing we can do here is not talk about it. this problem of concussions in gear and all the rest of it.

america has to have this conversation and there will be many hearings on it i know. in fact more of our children should be playing sports. too many kids are spending your afternoons in front of computer or television screens instead of on the sports field and that is everybody involved in health care. i'm going to give you a couple of figures. according to latest data compiled by the center for disease control, only 17% of american high school students get in our of daily physical activity. which is our current health guidelines. they say that, that you need that to stay healthy. only 17%, one third of our children now overweight or a piece which makes it more likely they will suffer from chronic health complications that will play them for their rest of their lives which will talk about today could do to some. the risks involved in playing

sports are also very real and by now we have all heard about the national football league player struggling with serious mental and physical health problems. because they sustained repeated mild traumatic brain injuries, which is what concussions are called i guess medically, during their playing years. it is very very sad. i've seen a number of these players, people that i had worshiped growing up in wheelchairs. who was the guy that played? he was a cornerback for the raiders. the greatest interceptor of all time. it doesn't matter, doesn't matter but it was awful. i was at an event with him and he was seated in a wheelchair and he couldn't even pull his head up. i leaned down and whispered in

his ear. i think i kissed him too. i'm not sure but having seen from this to that and who knows, especially this was eight years ago. nobody was talking about it. we now understand however this is not an injury only nfl players can suffer. according to research conducted at the nationwide children's hospital in columbus ohio, more than 70,000 high school football players sustained concussions every single year. is not just a football problem. one of our witnesses, alexis bell will talk about concussions she suffered playing in high school and college. according to nationwide children's hospital more than 10,000 hot high school girls soccer players sustained concussions each year. so, what we are going to do is we are we are going to hear from ms. bell an air of other

witnesses today who i should name. dr. jeffrey kutcher. you are not in my opening script. assistant professor department of virology at the university of michigan director of michigan narrow sports and dr. ann mckee, professor of neurology and pathology at boston university and director of arrow path allah g. core, alzheimer's disease center. and mr. mike oliver who is executive director of the national operating committee on standards for athletic equipment. we welcome all of you, and i will just close right there and ask if the chairman of the subcommittee would wish to say something because he has been just terrific on the subject and also the ranking member. go ahead.

>> thank you mr. chairman again for holding this very important hearing this afternoon. as a former player it is certainly something i'm interested in but also there are so many moms and dads and coaches and players all across the country that are also very interested and probably should be marches did and what -- and what they realize and that is a great thing about having this hearing is to try and get that information out and really discuss a potential very serious problem. not a potential very serious problem, very serious problem period. sports place of vital role in the development of young men and women, help social relationships while keeping them physically active and healthy and having fun. according to the national high school sports related injury surveillance study, participation in high school sports is almost doubled in the last 30 years. this is fantastic news and i think it is important for us to

highlight the benefits of playing sports. out for participation in athletics does carry with it significant risk of injury. just last week there was the news of the tragic death of a 16-year-old high school football player who died after sustaining a head injury. is important that everyone, coaches, parents, physicians and the athletes themselves, understand those risks and be able to identify injuries when they occur. concussions especially of the potential for severe injury and multiple concussions can cause significant repercussions later in life as we will hear about today. especially with many recent media reports of high-profile incidents in the nfl. we often associate with all of concussions. as i'm a well aware and as was mentioned concussions are a risk of playing football. players in many sports run the risk of sustaining concussions as we will hear from ms. bell and her story about playing

soccer. is impaired for coaches and parents involved in all sports to be aware of the dangers associated with concussions and know how to recognize the signs and symptoms and what to do if a player suffers a concussion. i look forward to hearing from dr. kutcher and dr. mckee about their research and further the knowledge we have about concussions but many questions remain as to the causes and effects of concussions. i'm very interested in hearing from the experts on what is known and where we can go from here. as we will also discuss there's a wide variety of athletic equipment on the market that claim to use concussion reducing or concussion preventing technologies. parents want to keep their children protected but navigating the many products and claims in the marketplace, especially on line, can be overwhelming. it can be easy to read something that offers the best maximum security protection and assume that their child will be safe from injury.

that is simply not true. some products may offer better protection than others and we need to explore what rhesus sources exist to help parents and coaches know what level of safety of product will actually provide. i also do not know how the average parent can be confident the equipment they purchased generally offers a greater safety benefit or if its advertisement contains misleading or deceptive claims. i hope our witnesses today will be able to help me answer this question. along with knowing the safety benefits and limitations of sports equipment, parents and coaches need to educate themselves on what to look for in the event than an athlete has a potential concussion. there are a number of different materials available for this purpose. perhaps the most well-known education effort is the heads up initiative by the cdc in partnership with dozens of professional organizations and

individuals come individual associations like usa football have their own education campaigns for coaches to teach proper execution and plays in tackles so athletes are in as little dangers possible. her for education campaigns must be effective in order to affect change. i'm interested to learn this fair us there is data that shows whether these efforts are reaching a wide enough audience and promoting awareness sufficiently. mr. chairman i know today's hearing will draw attention to this important safety issue. parents coaches and athletes must have the resources available to them to understand the severity of concussions and how to react when one occurs. as i said earlier the benefits for participating in sports or many and i hope the potential for injury does not prevent anyone from playing. mr. chairman again i thank you for calling this very important hearing and look forward to hearing from our witnesses. i ask unanimous consent that a