>> i was really very impressed by your visit to pakistan. i've had the privilege of visiting there, and i've, um, was so impressed by their military. we were there to encourage the pakistani military and the u.s. marines for the earthquake recovery several years ago. the organization was professional, the military itself was very, very positive. in particular i was very pleased there was a young u.s. marine who was of pakistani-american

heritage, had been trained at paris ireland in south carolina, and to -- island in south carolina, ask to see our working together because we can and we should. with that in mind, the foreign assistance programs that we have in pakistan that you've helped initiate, do you believe they're making sufficient progress, and by what metrics are you judging the level of progress? >> well, congressman, first, thank you for traveling there, and i share your very strong endorsement of the positive work that was done between the pakistani military and the united states military in earthquake relief. and it was a real model, and we're very proud of that. um, with respect to the civilian assistance, you know, we actually do think that we are making a difference, but it sometimes gets overwhelmed by all the other activities that go on in our relationship.

we have, we will be sending you the latest status report on what we have done next week, i think. and, you know, we've built roads. we have increased our energy production. we have the world's largest fulbright exchange. i did a town hall meeting in islamabad, and several people both publicly and privately thanked us for the programs that had made a difference in their understanding of how to put together voluntary organizations, how to engage with their government. none of this is easy, and none of it, frankly, is without challenge. but i really believe we have to stay the course on this. >> also i've been very encouraged that with india that pakistan is developing a most-favored nation trade status with india. i've been the co-chairman twice of the india caucus, and i have a deep interest in and,

actually, the biggest beneficiary of a level of stability in pakistan is india. and why do you think this is moving at this time, and what can be done to promote, um, a level of trade and, um, positive contact between india and pakistan? >> well, congressman, i agree with you that the real game changer in the region is not so much our bilateral relationship as the relationship between pakistan and india. um, and the more that there can be progress, the more likely there can be even more progress. so we have in pakistan today a leadership both civilian and military that wants to see progress with india, and we have the same on the indian side. there have been successful visits just in the last several months at the foreign minister level, the commerce minister level.

announcements have been made to try to streamline visas for businesses, do more to accelerate movement across borders. and then the most favored nation status is a really important development. so we encourage it, we try to tell both sides how much it will change their relationship, and, you know, when i was in india last summer, i spoke about a new silk road where goods could go up to kaszikstan. and it would go through pakistan, it would go through afghanistan. i firmly believe greater regional economic integration would revolutionize the economy in pakistan. you know, india's a huge market, and pakistan produces things that india needs. but they don't get into india in any district and cost effective way. -- direct and cost effective way.

so the more we can do that, the better. >> i share your enthusiasm, and, indeed, all of central asia could benefit so much, even into western siberia. so i appreciate your enthusiasm for that, recognition of it, promotion of it and every effort to reduce and eliminate cross-border terrorism which has been such a tragedy for the people of india, and i yield the balance of my time. >> thank you very much, mr. wilson, madam secretary. mr. carnahan is recognized. >> thank you very much. welcome back, madam secretary. i want to try to get at least one comment and a couple questions in here with my allotted time. first, as you know with chris smith, my colleague and co-chair of the bosnian caucus, so i'm taking this opportunity to make an off-topic comment like others have done today. but -- and i represent one of the largest populations of bosnian-americans in the country in the st. louis. but as we all know, reforms are stalled, progress is in

question, and the increasing risks to the region from inaction. um, i guess my comment is, you know, we all agree we need a solution. but first we really need a vehicle that can bring together the bosnian people, their leaders, neighboring countries, the e.u. and, of course, u.s. leadership is essential. so i would hope that we could work with you and the appropriate folks in the department to look for such a vehicle to move that process forward so it doesn't backslide and create what i think could be a big problem. um, back on topic here, as you know i've long supported active u.s. engagement around the world. i believe the obama administration's shift and certainly your leadership to a policy of smart power and responsible participation in international organizations has been in our great interest.

our security interests, our economic interests and our values around the world. the united nations assistance in afghanistan has been essential in developing that country, also engages 80% of the cost with our partners that are helping share that burden. my question is, to insure that they have the ability to take on an even bigger role as the u.s. prepares to draw down its troop presence in the future, and also what effect would the cuts proposed by this committee have on the u.n.'s ability to pursue that important work? >> well, congressman, first, we would be delighted to work with you and congressman smith on bosnia. um, because we share your concerns, and we would love to consult with you. so i'll reach out, and we'll set up a time to do that. on unama, i think their activities in afghanistan are is essential to the safety and

security of our troops, our civilian employees and the success of the transition, and i, as i wrote to the chair earlier this month, i'm deeply concerned that the proposed u.n. reform bill mandates actions which would severely limit u.s. participation in the u.n. and, therefore, gravely harm our interests. put aside anybody else's interests. i'm focused first and foremost on ours. you know, the bill's requirement that the u.s. withhold 50% of its contribution until the u.n. shifts to a voluntary funding scheme for most of its programs would undermine our leadership at a time when we really have to be at the very forefront, and we're being asked now to do more with less anyway. we get a lot for our investment out of unama because, as you say, the bulk of the funding is carried by others, and they are an absolutely critical partner in building afghans' human

capacity, supporting afghan elections. everything we've talked about today we partner closely on a literally hour-by-hour basis with unama. and if we can't depend on unama, we'll have to pay for or invent some other entity because we don't have another partner that has the credibility or the reach that unama has. >> thank you. and finally, just wanted to get your brief comment. you've been a great champion for including minorities and especially women in transition to afghan control. just give us a brief synopsis on what the administration is doing to prepare for the upcoming bond conference and beyond to insure that that happens. >> well, i thank you again, congressman, because you've been a great champion for the women of afghanistan as well. and, you know, we are, um, requiring a lot of emphasis by the united states and our partners on what's happening with women in afghanistan.

i met with a group of women leaders when i was there, um, and we expect there to be a process where women are involved at all levels in the peace and reconciliation effort which they then can speak for themselves and have their own say about their own rights. and so i will give you further information about that, but we've made specific requests to the government of afghanistan that they be included. >> thank you so much. thank you. and before i recognize mr. mack, i would like to tell the members of our committee that per a request from the secretary that mr. berman and i had agreed to, she would be departing after mr. mack's questions because that will bring her to her other duties. mr. mack is recognized, the subcommittee on western hemisphere chair. >> thank you, madam chair. and it's great to see you again, secretary.

clinton. i'm going to switch gears a little bit as well. as you know, i serve as the chair of the western hemisphere subcommittee, and so there's a lot to talk about, um, but i wanted to, to talk a little bit about fast and furious. um, and specifically at what point did the state department learn of operation fast and furious? >> congressman, i don't know the exact time. um, i can tell you that based on our information from the part of the state department that would deal with this kind of issue we have no record of any request for coordination, we have no record of any kind of notice or heads up, and, you know, i -- my recollection is that i learned about it from the press. that's my reck election. >> -- recollection. >> so i think, then, i know the

answer to this question, but i'll ask anyways. did the state department issue the justice department a license or a written waiver in order to allow for the transfer of thousands of weapons across the u.s./mexico border? >> well, congressman, you know, this is the first time i've been asked this, and i can tell you that based on the record of any activity by the bureau that would have been responsible, we see no evidence, but let me do a thorough request to make sure that what i'm telling you reflects everything we know. >> thank you. that would be greatly appreciated. and i wrote a letter to you yesterday -- [laughter] i'm sure you got it and you've read it. [laughter] >> i thought it was for my birthday. >> yeah, yeah. well, happy birthday, happy birthday. [laughter] under the arms export control act of the justice department was required to receive a written waiver from the state department to account for their intent to cause arms to be

exported to drug cartels in mexico. if no such waiver was received, justice department officials have violated the law. and you would agree with that, correct? >> i cannot offer an opinion. >> well, you would agree -- >> i don't know. i mean, this is the first time i'm being asked. >> i'm not asking you if there was such a written, but if they hadn't asked and received by law the justice department would be violating u.s. law? >> i cannot offer you any opinion on that. i don't have the information or any analysis. i can only tell you the facts as we know them in the state department. >> okay. well, i will submit then and say that if law says they have to get a written, if the state department is required to give a written waiver for the cause of arms to be exported to drug cartels in mexico and if they department do that and that didn't happen, then they are are in violation of the law. so the question here is who do

we hold responsible? how -- you know, and i think there's a lot of frustration at least for myself that when we hear the mexico and president calderon complain so much about guns moving south across the border to learn that our government was involved in the delivery of those guns is quite concerning, and i'm sure that you feel the same way. but we are looking for answers as to who knew what, when and why and how this happened. so i look forward to if you would get back to me and the committee on, um, about the waiver and whether or not the state department issued that waiver. um, second, i wanted to -- do you agree with, um, ambassador brownfield that there is an insurgency in mexico that are using terrorist tactics in

mexico? >> well, congressman, um, i have expressed my concern about that in the past. um, we are sensitive to the characteristics that some of these drug traffickers have adopted that certainly resemble terrorist activities. um, and we are also aware of the concern by the mexican government that we, in their view, not mix apples and oranges so to speak, you know? if let's focus on criminality, let's not mix it with something else, so this is an ongoing discussion that we have with our friends in mexico. >> she's going to gavel me down, so -- [laughter] >> she's very tough on this, you know, congressman. >> but you in the past have identified it as an insurgency. >> i have said it has characteristics of an insurgency, but i am very sensitive to the legitimate questions that the mexican government raises about really

whether those characteristics are such that it should be defined as that. >> thank you so much, madam secretary, mr. mack. and, madam secretary, i want you to know that the preparations for this oversight hearing was done by our afghan war vets, two full committee majority staff members, matt and greg mccarthy and our wonderful defense department fellow. [speaking spanish] thank you so much. pleasure having you here, and the committee is now adjourned. >> madam chair, may i thank you for allowing me to sit on the panel. thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] >> this weekend on booktv on c-span2 general william westmoreland led american forces in vietnam from 1964 through 1968. louis sorrily contends his tactics and decisions were the reason we lost. in once upon a car, new york times detroit bureau chief phil vlasic details the unraveling of the auto industry, and msnbc correspondent interviewed over 100 african-americans from cornel west to chuck d in an examination of race, identity, politics and being black in america today. also, it's knoxville weekend on booktv. we'll feature authors and literary sites from around the city. look for the complete schedule online at booktv.org. >> we have more road to the white house coverage coming up tomorrow night here on c-span2. vice president joe biden will speak to the florida democratic party's annual convention in

orlando. also there florida senator bill nelson and florida congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz who also chairs the democratic national committee. the convention is live tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. eastern. we'll have it here for you on c-span2. >> the education committee last week voted to revamp the no child left behind law and reduce the federal government's role overseeing the nation's public schools. here is some of last week's education committee debate on that legislation. senator tom harkin of iowa chaired this hearing for about four-and-a-half hours. [inaudible conversations] >> senate committee on health education, labor and pensions will resume. i thank all the senators for being here and for your helping

to move this legislation along. um, and we're going to go -- i don't know when it will break for dinner, we're going to try to find out what the floor situation is like, and as soon as we have some idea on votes on the floor, we'll try to do our dinner break around the time that we may have a bunch of votes on the floor too. so i think we're making great progress, and i thank everyone, i think we've had good debates and good discussions here. i understand senator murkowski has an amendment on title i. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is going to take us back to highly qualified teachers. >> what number is that? >> i'm sorry. it's, my amendment number 3 to title i f that can be distributed. and as it's being distributed, let me just -- >> number 3. >> amendment number 3. we've got a lot of very small, rural schools in alaska, and i would imagine that in all of the states that we represent we have some areas that are really very

extremely rural. and it kind of takes you back to the days of laura ingals wilder and the classroom where you have multiple classes in, or multiple grades in the same school, teachers that are required to teach a little bit of everything. and with the, with highly qualified teacher we all recognize that there have been some issues as it relates to a teacher who may have had an emphasis in math, um, but now is in in this a position -- in a position where he or she ends up teaching in a school where they need to have somebody be the science teacher for that year or help out in history. we've got situations in alaska where teachers come to us, they come to a very small, rural village, and they're told you

are going to be the teacher that will be teaching history. and the teacher who was hired to come out and teach whether it's math or science, that falls through and all of a sudden you're scrambling. and the ability to get our teachers out into some of these very remote areas, i think, often times is very, very difficult. and then the issue that you have when a teacher is tasked with teaching different core summits. what i would like to do through my amendment is allow for us to utilize the technologies that we have available to us. we do a lot of distance education in alaska not because we necessarily want to, but because we have to. that's where the expertise is. and if we can beam a teacher in the from one of the urban areas that can be that expert, then that works for us. it allows us some flexibility. what my amendment would do would

insert the language from your school accountability improvements act to provide the flexibility from highly qualified teacher requirements for multi-subject teachers in remote rural schools, it would allow the districts that are unable to meet highly qualified requirements by placing teachers in each classroom who are highly qualified in each core subject that they teach, but they can meet the requirements by providing instruction by a highly qualified teacher via distance learning. so you could have that highly qualified teacher who specialized in, let's say, math. and working with the teacher in the classroom in that village who is not highly qualified in math but is highly qualified in another core area. but through the team teaching, basically, with one teacher being on the ground and the other highly qualified teacher being the expert that is able to

be beamed in by the technologies. so what we're doing is still insuring that we've got a level of expertise that our children in all areas would hope for that we want. we're not lowering the bar here, but we are allowing for a level of flexibility in the using our technologies and, essentially, providing for a team teaching using our distance delivery. >> thank the senator from alaska. i went to one of those schools. i went to, let's see, kindergarten, first and second was in one room, third, fourth and fifth was in another room, and sixth, seventh and eighth was in another room and one teacher. >>? you must have come out okay. >> three teachers. i think there's a lot to be said for that kind of teaching because when you're in that classroom and you're in the sixth grade and there's the seventh and eighth graders,

you're always hearing what they're talking about and what they're teaching. anyway, that's just my own thought on that. but, obviously, i think this is a kind of an innovative way of using new technology. to insure that it's kind of a backup. if i understand your -- >> yeah. >> -- message, it's kind of a backup for the teachers that are out there. >> obviously, the preference would be to have that highly qualified teacher in every class room in this every school. >> can't do that. >> but our reality is often times that is not achievable. so rather than shortchange them by giving them somebody who doesn't have that credential, we provide backup, and we do it through distance delivery. >> any other -- senator isakson? >> mr. chairman, this is an outstanding amendment. i'll give you two examples because the congress already funds this exact opportunity in

two cases. number one, our military men deployed overseas in afghanistan and iraq and many other areas are taking college-level content and getting their degrees via distance learning from highly qualified professors on the ground in the united states. that's been a huge breakthrough in our military. and in our foreign service through our ngos of the basic education coalition and others on the ground in africa, we are teaching africans english through distance learning with highly qualified people in the united states and then monitor on the ground in the villages where they're learning it. that's two examples where distance learning is delivering highly qualified content that woars would not be available to an individual. >> i agree. anything else, senator franken? is. >> i was just wondering on the floor maybe i could introduce an amendment to exempt rhode island from this. [laughter] you know, i just don't think that's very funny. >> i didn't you understand thatt

all. >> we have a local version of remote that i think needs to be defended here. >> any other discussion? if not, on the murkowski amendment number 3 all those in favor say aye. >> aye. >> opposed, no. do we want a roll call vote? >> was it accepted by voice? >> you want a roll call vote? clerk will call the roll. >> senator murkowski? >> aye by proximent -- proxy. >> senator bingaman? >> aye by proxy. >> senator murray? >> aye by proxy. >> senator sanders? >> aye by proxy. >> senator casey? >> aye by proxy. >> senator hagan? >> aye by proxy. >> [inaudible]

>> aye. >> senator franken? >> aye. >> senator bennett? >> aye by proxy. >> senator whitehouse? >> aye. >> senator blumenthal? >> aye. >> senator enzi? [inaudible] >> aye. >> senator alexander? >> >> aye. >> senator burns? >> aye. >> senator isakson? is. >> aye. >> senator -- [inaudible] >> aye. >> senator hatch? >> aye by proxy. >> senator mccain? senator roberts? >> aye by proxy. >> senator murkowski? >> aye. >> senator -- [inaudible] >> chairman harkin? >> aye. >> [inaudible] >> wait, would you hold the

vote? senator sanders is not here, and i don't know how to vote his proxy. so would you put him down as a pass. .. >> with the amendment say what amendment this is? >> its title i, amendment three, an amendment for, which i'm

dropping. i split this into two separate amendments because it was a debate a grant program and i'm dropping the grant program, for now anyway. and the grant program is relatively small. i thought it fulfilled, it was in a bipartisan display in hearing last year to help foster children, to help children who are in foster care, but i've been told that this would be too problematic for my friends on the other side so i dropped it. i'm a little disappointed, very disappointed about that but i also don't -- i'm going to offer amendment number one, title i, amendment three, a scaled down version that does not include the grant program. i will be offering the other and containing only the grant program. i hope this committee can support on a bipartisan basis the scaled-down version which is

vitally important for foster youth. we all know the difficulties that children in foster care face. my an amendment addresses educational instability which deprives many foster children of the opportunity to get, obtain a decent education. i think many of us remember the testimony of kayla vandyke before this committee. in fact, i think the chairman said something about her testimony about how it was awesome. she had been in seven foster homes, and children in foster care are frequently move between foster homes. and too often they have to change schools when they move. and their high rate of school mobility has a devastating impact on their education, each time foster youth move they tend to fall further and further behind in school. they end up scoring significantly lower than their

peers. on standardized tests, and dropping out of school at higher rates. changing school not only harms foster youth academically. cayley testified she missed an entire grade, fell through the cracks. she missed a fourth grade entirely. but it also deprives them relationships with old friends and teachers at a time when foster youth need their support the most. nor did your a did your a kid in foster, you go to school and you like it. your foster family, you change foster families in another school district. and what this bill would do is allow those kids to stay in that school that they like, if it benefits them. now? no, who was just remarkable, she had been in 10 different schools. she had no educational stability until the 10th grade. somehow managed to keep her head above water, graduate on time,

and she went on to college. statistics show most foster children can't overcome the hardships that kayla overcame. to address this problem congress passed an act which requires child welfare agencies to work to improve the school stability of foster children. and while this was a positive step forward, child welfare agencies can't go it alone. they need the full cooperation of state and local education agencies. and this amendment requires that state and local education agencies collaborate with child welfare agencies, provide foster children who have moved to new school districts, to provide in the opportunities to stay at their current school, if it's in their best interest. when it's not in their best interest the and imitrex child agencies to collaborate with school districts to enroll the children immediately in the schools. that was part of her testimony,

she. the unbelievable debt. and i talked to a number of foster children after this, in interest, informed me to write this amendment. so it would say that the welfare agencies have to collaborate with school districts to enroll these children immediately in the new school districts, if that's in the best interest, to transfer their school records immediately. this amendment is an important step forward in improving the education of foster youth, and i urge my colleagues to support it. [inaudible conversations] >> so once again, basically, i don't know how many rimer

caliphs testimony but it was quite striking. i met with her with the whole roundtable of foster kids, and the number of schools these kids go to is pretty astounding. and the cast they fall into, and this would allow them to stay in the school that they want to stay in. if it's in their best interest. it also would create a point of contact in the school district to talk to all foster youth. and there aren't, there are only about 200,000 school children in foster care across the country. so this would not be a big burden on the point of contact. so, mr. chairman, i guess do you want to put it up for a vote? do you want to have people ask a question? >> i just want to make clear. this is amendment number three dealing with --

>> it's foster -- to have a name for this thing? its title i, amendment three. senator enzi? >> mr. chairman, i remember having several different hearings on this and i appreciate senator franken bringing this amendment because it is a vulnerable population of students are very often overlooked. in 2008 we passed some legislation that would attempt to address the issue of providing the transportation and services with social service agencies. and i don't think that's had a chance to really take hold yet. and i'm hesitant to put further restrictions and requirements on states and school districts into a fully understand how that has worked. >> okay, that is a child welfare law.

and the child welfare agencies really haven't done that it was a 2008? all, it was, okay. okay, it can put these requirements on school districts and it certainly takes two to tango. all i can say is, is that these kids who really have a tremendous amount of challenges going from home to home very often, being the products of homes where there's abuse or drug use, or that kind of thing, very often, you know, they find a school and it takes them away from, it breaks the continuity of their education, also takes them way from the friends and teachers they like. i think this will just help them stay in the school.

the 2008 bill is for welfare agencies, but this brings the schools into it. >> the law that was passed in 2008 which was a finance committee bill, the law, my nose done, directs child welfare agencies to collaborate with local education agencies to enable foster children to remain in their current schools after they move to new school when it's in their best interest. >> that's right. >> when it is not in the best interest the long treks child welfare agency to collaborate with ellie a schools to enrolled these children in new schools and transfer their school records. >> right. >> they say, they have to stay in the same school when it's in the best interest to i don't understand what the import of this -- >> in other words, they stay in the same school, meaning the

school they are in when you change parents into another school district. so in other words, let's say you're going to a high school in st. louis park -- >> right. >> you have parents in st. louis park, and suddenly those foster parents, for one reason or another, this happened repeatedly during a foster child's career, as a foster child, they are adopted by children in maplewood or something. and now you've got to go to the maplewood school district. but this bill would say no, you can stay in st. louis park. you can stay in st. louis park, and you can go to school where you want to go to school, and where you've got a coach that you love, or where you have friends that you really like. and it creates continuity. and what we saw from kayla's

testimony, and what i hear from the foster kids is that this is so disruptive in their lives, and so many of these kids that i talk to, it's pretty astounding how many homes they are in throughout their life as kids, throughout their childhood. [inaudible conversations] >> there is no education law that is why i'm bringing to this committee. that is a child welfare agency law. this isn't education law that says exactly what this bill is thing, which is that kids who are, go, change foster families can stay in their school if it's in the best interest. and these are very vulnerable kids and they are kids who tend to drop out at a high rate and want to at decrease dropout. and if you like your school, the

least we can do is keep that continuity. that's what this is about. it's pretty simple, i think. spent the child welfare people that would be involved in a decision whether it's under the education bill or under the welfare one, and that's why since they're involved in anyway, that's what it's under that particular title. if we put it under both titles, do we get into a problem of a conflict of whose jurisdiction it is? who gets to make -- >> no, we lived up to the states to figure it out how to walk child welfare agency and the educational system, school system work together. but it directs them to work together. that's what it is basically saying. so it's connecting the two pieces here. and schools had no requirements to keep their kid in school, in their school if they were to move somewhere else.

[inaudible conversations] >> in other words, schools don't have to do it. they don't have to keep the kid if the kid -- i think it's in the best interest of the school, frankly, to keep a kid that wants to be there. and i think that, you know, because the new school will get a kid who doesn't want to be at their school. >> i would hope that the senator would withdraw this and save it for the floor so we have a chance to review, that's 11 pages which we been talking about the length of the bill already, that has a lot of different changes and definitions and stuff. and this would add a transportation requirement for title i money, i think, but i'm

not sure. >> no, the money would be carved out of -- where's the money -- just tell me. know, the transportation money. [inaudible conversations] >> okay, yeah. >> mr. chairman? >> i'm sorry. it wouldn't come out of title i, but the states, the states and the child education people and the child welfare agency would work out where the money came from for transportation. and this is really to help these kids that are so vulnerable. and there is child welfare money available for transportation. >> i'm just trying to determine what it is that we are really doing here. if all that we're providing for with this amendment is requirement to collaborate

between each state educational agency and the state child welfare agency to develop a plan. i mean, that's what you're laying out here. if it's a requirement of collaboration -- >> that's right. >> that's fine. good, i service support that. we should be doing that anyway. >> the ranking member is correct. there will be some money involved in making sure these kids get the transportation they need from the new home to the old school that they stay in. now, half of this, i mean, the states, we want the states to figure this out. exactly how to do that. and there's child welfare money to do this, and there is, and we can also, it just gives states flexibility is what i'm saying.

it allows them to choose how to allocate responsibility for the transportation costs between the welfare agencies and the school systems. >> i think the transportation side -- the transportation side of it would be important to those of us that come from big states where we don't have a lot of roads. you know, if you've got a child in transfix and they are erected to go to fairbanks or anchorage, all of a sudden you are talking some real transportation costs here. i would assume in that case the best interest of the child -- i'm just trying to determine whether not we are talking about an issue where we're going to have the transportation dollars really be driving this. i don't disagree that you should

have this collaboration going on. i would like to think that it's already in play, but i am concerned about how you work out the aspects of a requirement speed is it gives the states the flexibility to do that. i mean, it asks the states to coordinate between the schools and the child welfare agency. so this is come again, we know somewhere around here i've heard that the states do things better. i can't remember, can't remember why that's been coming from. but this was, would allow the state to figure out how they would do it in alaska or in minnesota or wyoming. and, obviously, i mean, you know, we're not going to make a kid from nome go to anchorage every day and back. i don't think a kid would choose that. >> you might be surprised.

[laughter] >> i think that would be unreasonable. and not necessary in the child's best interest. >> does committee member -- remembered kayla and her testimony? it was quite striking. i don't think anyone who saw that would even hesitate here to say well, this is something that makes a lot of sense. i mean, i think that what you would see is higher graduation rates among foster kids. you would see, you know, they would tend to stay in the system and become more productive citizens. and pay taxes and create, create inventions. they would be the next steve jobs, i can guarantee that.

>> mr. chairman, in answer to a question that's been floating around -- >> i'm sorry? >> i'm trying to answer a question that has been floated around. what it basically does when it's in the best interest of the child that the state education agency in cooperation with department of family and children services which for foster children are, will determine how they'll pay for the transportation to maintain the foster student in the school where they determine it's in their best interest. then further on in the bill it's as if the child goes out of foster care, you think when they reached the age of majority, still in school, then they still have speed or if they go home to their original. >> but they still have to figure out how the transportation is paid for out of one of the two agencies. that's what the bill says. >> for the remainder of the school year only. >> it requires them -- i think what he is trying to do, i've done a lot of work with foster

children, but i think we've got to have some wiggle room on these agencies. and i think you need some language in your like whenever possible the state education agency, or whenever possible the department of family children services. there will be some cases where the transportation because of the reassignment a foster child is going to be there for difficult to meet that requirement. i think you got good intent. i'm not arguing about the intent. our foster kids go through a lot of difficulty keeping them in that same involvement. in and out of that can sometimes be helpful. that's another transportation issue. i just think if you gave him a little wiggle room it would help these agencies deal with the needs of the child as well as the hope -- >> i think the need of the child is there in the language. that's wiggle room. and the state decides how to agencies work together. that's wiggle room. i think all it is is saying look, the child welfare agency now are directed to take this

into account, we are just now completing the two halves of the whole and sang require them to work together so that more of these foster kids can stay in school they want to stay in. that's all this is. >> mr. chairman? in an effort to try to bring some closure to this, i would also suggest to the senator may be some limitations on distance might bring some relief to members. i think this is a duplicate of what's in current statute, but like senator isakson i think the intent is good. senator murkowski raised an issue dealing city to city. we've got some cities in america where, if you move from the southside to the north side, and regardless of who pays for, and i think this is more about shared responsibility for the cost of transportation, that would be the title of this bill,

because now it's the department of child services i would think, based on statute. if you've got to transfer one child from the southern part of atlanta to north atlanta, you're talking about an annual cost that would be by everybody's standard probably prohibitive, even though there may be a determination that that child is better suited at that school. there's got to be a limitation that is established. >> i think if you're talking about commutes like senator murkowski was talking about, i would be considered in the best interest of the child, i think you're picking a pretty, you know, example of southside of a huge metropolitan areas to the north side, but you know, -- >> cannot ask a question? i'm told that, by steph, on this transportation, i don't pretend to understand this issue.

i'm told that title for money of social security can be used for this transportation. [inaudible] >> like? a portion of title iv can be used -- forget i even asked it. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have a question, because i want to understand, understand from the perspective of the district. the first thing that you're trying to solve here is for residency requirement that don't allow foster children to stay in the school because they have now moved to another jurisdiction. >> right. >> and i think that is a very noble thing to be trying to do. and i share that objective. my concern is on the transportation side. and here's why, and i just want to make sure i understand it.

when you close schools, just take that as an example, immediate concern that people have, there's a lot of concern, but one of them is always transportation. and what i have seen district do in the past is they make a commitment to families there will always be transportation from that school to your new school. and at a certain point you end up with empty buses that are running back and forth because people have figured out how to do something else but the commitment has to be made, resources are being spent on buses, not on kids get it's hard to i make the. the chairman yesterday talked before about special ed requirements for transportation as they really affected districts and we are spending a fortune of special ed money that could be used for special ed services, transporting kids. and i'm not taking a position on that one way or another. it's just a factor and i just want to get a center of sort sort of order of magnitude, or

something so that -- it's one thing for you to tell me hey, you can't keep that foster get out of your district, they've been going to school there. it's not their fault they're living someplace else. it's another thing to say you can't spend that money educating a kid, or whatever, but you have to use it for transportation. >> what i would say to you is, i think there are 200,000 foster kids, school aged foster children, school aged foster children in the united states. this is not analogous to a school closing and buses being promised. this is one kid. one kid. one kid's life. and so, it's not going to be advance our buses being, you know, i mean, give you

colorado's number is, 1984 kids in the entire state to our foster kids -- i'm sorry? and, obviously, not all of them would be in a situation, and many of them wouldn't need that big transportation need. >> all i can say, i think i'm very sympathetic, but we had a young woman who testified before the committee, i don't know how many people were at that hearing that we had. kayla. kayla was here. and it was just tremendous testimony. she had changed 17 times in high school. 17 times. and they would transfer her credits, and they lost this and they lost that. i remember just very plainly say i didn't have a normal school, i

couldn't make friends, i wanted to say that i wanted to stay place and in which he me simply so. i wasn't ready go to college because i didn't get the kind of steady course work. i remember kayla very well. very stirring testimony. as a foster child. what happened to her in school. so to the extent that we can foster -- to the extent that we can promote educational stability for foster kids, i'm much in favor of. i had thought that the 2008 law did that, but i'm now in the understanding that the 2008 law only took part of one half of it. >> that's right. >> and that was the family side of it, the location of the family itself. the other side is whether or not the schools were told that they

had to keep this kid, if that was in the kid's best interest. no, right on the? >> that's right. so that's what this is. and yeah, you know, it's going to cost some money sometime for somebody, for a kid to get transportation. but these kids, these are wards of the state. i'm a u.s. senator. i feel responsibility for these kids. and i feel that they, talk to the foster kids, and they, it's not unique that they have to change parents so many times, and a kid, go to a foster house where there is abuse. and they go to a foster house and change many times. and they are in our custody. we have responsibility for them. the state has responsibility for

them. and i feel responsibility. and i want to make sure that they have a chance, these kids have faced very special challenges, very special challenges. i hope they have an opportunity just to stay in the school they like. spent obviously there are a lot of questions on this yet. this is the only a minute we have spent a half hour on, so i would hope it would be withdrawn and we could get some of the things, questions worked out and answers work out instead of just a constant back and forth. >> okay. all right. my feeling is that, the only reason i am agreeing, i would agree to do that if i didn't think it would pass here. and so could i have a show of hands who is for this? [laughter] spent if the sender would like a

vote? >> and i withdraw it and have consent to be offered that we offer it later? [laughter] spent trying to get finished today. >> okay. >> look, we have postponed of the votes. i want to be as meaningful to possible as senators to have their eminence heard and considered. i think we spent a lot of time on this. it's up to the senator himself if you'd like to withdraw this, try to work with us to see what we can do on the floor. at the center wants a vote i'm ready to call for a vote. >> i'm going to call for a vote. spent all those in favor -- >> wait a minute. hold on, hold on, mr. chairman, please. [inaudible conversations] >> my staff, in addition to myself, my staff feels very

strongly about this so i apologize, but we do feel very strongly about this. they are consulting with each other. [laughter] >> all those in favor of the franken and will say i go. >> i go. >> opposed? >> know. >> pretty even. >> pretty close. spent the clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]

[roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] >> say that again? >> thirteen eyes, nine nays. the amendment is agreed. >> mr. chairman?

>> senator. >> let me see put into this quickly. we've had a discussion, well we have spent some time on this before. this is alexander amendment number five. estate tax billy turnaround strategy. it centers will remember, in the harken in see draft, we provide the draft provides six options for states to watch anything in the 5% of schools that are low performing to turn them around. my amendment which was also contained in the legislation offered by senator isakson, senator burr and others and seven. the seventh simply says if the state comes up with a different way to do it, that the state believes it is there to bring in the education -- secretary of education ended the secretary says yes a state may use that seventh option instead of one of

the six. in our previous discussion several senators pointed out to me that my amendment did not require this seventh option to do the same preliminary things that the other 60. i look at that and while i would rather not do that, i would rather leave it to states, my amendment, and i ask consent to modify amendment five by striking lines one through four of the modified amendment. and the effect of the is to say that all seven option including a new one that i proposed would have to do the same preliminary list of things that are fine into harkin-enzi draft. the other points that i would make is that the national education association has made a statement in support of my amendment before it was modified. the nea says the cause of the diversity of schools, students and communities businesses or to provide responsive strategies

and models to those most in need. we know that from research. next, what i have in mind is a situation like ours in tennessee where we have a new governor or we have an outstanding education secretary, kevin huffman, where we have 80 schools that need this kind of turnaround and we have an achievement school district that is a little different than the first six options, and they brought in an outstanding leader from texas. and i'm convinced that they will probably want to come to secretary duncan and say, we have a little better way to do this tailored to tennessee's needs. the only item i've heard against it, well, i for two or three argued against the one recent argued i heard against it that they don't think has merit if that somehow aimed at allowing vouchers. the way i read, this is a title i program. these funds are title i fund. the way i read title i, title i funds are only for public schools.

so unless you take the position that we can spend title i money for private schools, this money can be spent only for public schools. so i would ask my colleagues to accept my modified amendment. i've tried to modify in a way that accepted their suggestions. and i believe it will strengthen the draft by creating another option that recognizes the diversity of schools. >> mr. chairman? >> senator whitehouse. >> mr. chairman, i'd like to thank senator alexander for the enemy and he has made. i was one of the senators who requested that the subject of turnaround elements that pertain to the first six turnaround methods also be retained for the seventh. and i also thank you for clarifying the voucher issue. i agree that this language not

support a voucher program. and i think it's important we make that legislative record clearly and now. and i think the center has just done so that i hope i have hammered it home yet and with the in the senate has proposed i'm pleased to support his amendment. >> thank you. i want to follow this up. i am concerned about the voucher issue, that we had a preliminary, i will say preliminary, probably crs, saying that this could allow for vouchers. i see nothing in there that prohibits it. what if a local state cayman, you know, you don't know the government is or the situation is in the state and say well, as turnaround model for this school is, close the school and provide vouchers. close the school and provide vouchers.

i don't see any prohibition on that. if i'm wrong on that, i'm glad to be enlightened on the. >> mr. chairman, i think that, if we read this amendment that way we would have to take the position that all of title i money could be used for private schools. because my understanding and a lot is title i money is for public schools. this is title i money. >> well, i don't know why crs gave us a preliminary estimate on this. this would allow for a governor to do that. >> mr. chairman, would crs seem to language before the senators amendment of his amendment? they might have been -- >> no. i don't believe that is so. but i don't know -- >> with a new amendment back it's hard to imagine a voucher that would meet the requirements for the turnaround of a school that are now embedded in the

seventh option. i mean, i think it really kind of confirms, that doesn't make any sense of the reading of the bill. of the amendment, i mean. >> if it's title i money, it's for public schools. i think, if i might, so the law says that title i money is to be used for public schools. but we are amending that law here, and we are saying that if the state and the secretary agree upon a model, they can do that. and it seems to me that that would override the present law. only can be used for a public school spent excuse me, i don't

think i could possibly change the underlying lot about where the money can go. if that were true we could go through all of title i programs and say they might possibly be used for private schools and they don't think anyone wants to make that argument. i mean, a lot of people would like to, but i don't think we want to open that door. >> i say to my friend, i think this, i there is nothing else i can see him present legislation or in this bill, this draft bill, that has anything to open that door but for this. and that's the chief concern that i have is that, that barring a prohibition, that they can come up with a plan, aside from actual nine, its nine plans, not six or seven, it's nine. that they can come up with something else, barring language that would definitely prohibit the use of vouchers, it seems to me that this would override the

present law. >> but, senator harkin, states come up, states come up with plans all the time. i mean, i put up here on my desk the tennessee state title i plan. are you suggesting that if tennessee submitted a title i plan that wanted to use some of its money to send children to private schools that that would be within the law? i don't think it is. i don't think you believe it is. so if that plan wouldn't be legal, why wouldn't this plan allow it? >> because this language that i understand, the way i read it, allows the state to come up with a plan, doesn't say what it has to be, it could be anything, as long as the secretary of present. that's it. >> no, that's not so, chairman, because of the land which that senator alexander put back in. it have to provide staff at the school, the school, not whatever

the schools passionate with ongoing professional development consistent with a needs analysis. it would have to conduct regular evaluations for the teachers, the principals at the school that provides the specific feedback that you would have to provide time for collaboration among instructional staff at the school to improve student achievement. all that is backing. i'm not sure that crs saw the version that had that restored spirit let me ask this question. what if the state decided that he turnaround plan and one of the models is school closure, what if they decide to close the school, provide vouchers? none of this hold because they decide to close the school and provide vouchers. >> yeah, it is an option. >> then they could provide vouchers, could they not? >> in your draft you don't have any prohibition on school closure option that the money could be used for private schools.

>> mr. chairman, spee-8 it seems it's a murky area. >> mr. chairman? what about -- [inaudible] nothing in this provision authorizes -- [inaudible] i agree with the interpretation that senator alexander has explained, but i mean, if some

modification would accommodate the concern that the chairman has raised. >> mr. chairman, any other discussion? >> i don't know of any exception in the law whatsoever of providing of public funds for vouchers, except in special education. if a state, local education agency cannot provide the services needed by a special needs child, they must pay for the tuition to private institution. i ran the state of georgia's board of education. we have multiple times where we had as many as two or three students were we are paying over $100,000 a year or a voucher to go to school to meet the needs. that is the exception in the law. i just want to point that out. >> senator harkin, i would be glad after this amendment is adopted, and we discussed it on the floor, to enter into a

colloquy with you about what the title i funds can be used in public schools or not. my understanding of the law is they can't. i tried to say that clear here. i believe plain language year does not suggest that any money could go to a private school. the language instead suggests it would be at public schools, and none of us can think of anything other than what isaacson said, that would allow it. so i was hoping to go ahead and vote on it, and recognized these are title i funds and their use for public schools. >> i just wanted to raise one other issue here because my concern is different. i know it's likely to pass the house but i know senator alexander has the best intention of offering this. and as someone who used to do the job, you know, i would've liked to have seen this kind of option in some respect. by want the record to reflect --

i want the record reflect were talking about the bottom 5% of schools in this country. that's what we are talking about. and none of us send our kids to the schools and none of us have grandkids in the schools, and it is hard to imagine what desolation is in the bottom 5% of schools in this country. these models have been significant forcing mechanism on behalf of the children in those schools, when the adults, for whatever reason, i'm not even casting blame, but for whatever reason are not getting done what needs to be done. i remember when we close our first school in denver, our first high school in denver, which we would not have done if these force mechanisms were not in place because i would not have been able to do it. somebody followed me out to the parking lot after one of these meetings. i can tell you, your worst town hall meeting is a million times better than my best school

closing meeting ever was. and they say to me, mr. bennett, what you said, you don't understand, we are running an orphanage year. and i understood her, what she was trying to say, but what i said to her was, it says high school on the outside. and if we're going to accept it's an orphanage we got to take that name down off the side of the building and call it something else. so, my hope, and i'm singing for the record, not for anything else, my hope is that whatever these models are, are at least as robust as the ones that are contained in the legislation. because otherwise, we are going to have the children that are marooned in the 5% of schools, marooned in the schools for the rest of their k-12 education, and for the rest of our lives.

so, i think that's the issue here. >> tram ti know we want to get o vote, but i do think we got a little sidetracked on the vouchers. i think we did, maybe. i think this is the key point. and what's best for the kids, and remember that this is the bottom 5%. and we, you know, i still remember joel klein saying these mechanisms, these turnaround models gave him the ability to do it. on the other hand, and i, too, understand that senator alexander has the best intentions here. and there's the other part of this that 50 laboratories, and maybe some other state will find a better model.

so those are the two sides of it, and i just wouldn't be so quick to go to a vote if anyone wants cash that because that can is the of this really, is not vouchers. it's really, the crux of this is we're talking about the bottom 5% of schools and what's best for those kids. so, this is a tough vote for me, i can tell you that. >> i share that, too. i think we get sidetracked on the voucher issue, although it still kind of a murky kind of area. i still think that states will try to find the least onerous path to take. whatever is the easiest way out, and we want to be rigorous on those bottom 5%. make it very rigorous. we did expand the models. there's nine different models. but they are rigorous and it requires them to do certain

things. i don't know, maybe, i just come human nature being what it is, and i think they're going to try to find the easiest way out, without doing one of those models on this. on the bottom 5% of the schools. and again, we tried to make, keep trying to remind everyone, we try to make a balance year. that we are withdrawing a federal footprint to these 5%, not 95% of the schools do with the states want. only 5% who have federal intervention, those bottom 5%, and we tried to structure it so it would be rigorous. and i just, well, maybe senator franken is right. maybe the states will come up with other models that are equally as rigorous. i don't know, i just don't think so. >> mr. chairman, i'm ready for a vote. i respect both views. you know, when i was governor of

tennessee, there was never ever a time when i thought washington was ahead of me. ever. than ever. i mean, we were the first state to take on the issue of rewarding outstanding teaching. i met with steve jobs in 1981 on computers. so, there may be a state that comes up with a worse program out of 50, or there might be too. but i will bet they'll be in environment we have today almost all the states doing more. and we're not talking much his district year. we are talking about whole states. >> if there's no further discussion, senator merkley?

>> thank you mr. cherry-pick i like to a coming of the sentiments my colleague from minnesota has expressed about the difficulty of this issue your because the success of our children at those least performing schools is so important to the children and to our nation. i had visited one school that had a remarkable turnaround. it developed a model in which, it was basically among the three worst schools in the district of about 25 elementary schools and became one of the best three over about a two-year period. and it was experimenting with a different set of structures working in partnership with the best evidence developed by one of our university on what worked. and it succeeded beyond anyone's expectations. you know if the moment you walk into the school. you knew it when you talk to the

faculty, and when the test scores came out they were incredibly successful. as i took and looked at each of these strategies none of them quite fit for what that school undertook. it seems to me that we need in a situation where not many schools have succeeded in such turnaround, we need the inspired efforts of folks in every corner of this country to try some different approaches, and share the results with the nation. and so, i am uncomfortable, general premise, that we have the patented set of solutions, and it isn't, especially when they have a work terribly well today. they are pieces of this though that way the other direction for me. and very concerned about this issue about vouchers, which rather than strengthening a school undermines it as the most

motivated families move out at least the rest of the kids in worse situation than before. it is my understanding that title i funds cannot be used in that context. it's also my understanding it is not the author's intent, but i would like, that that's not what this is aiming at. but i would like, i think he spoke to this while i was out of the room, i apologize. did you a receipt to it? you did. >> i did. and i said my understanding of the law is that title i funds can only be used in public schools, and this is title i money. >> i understand there is still some legal description which was what i was checking on, because apparently services to children who receive vouchers have been funded with title i funds. but if -- which is to accountable working on that

piece of this puzzle if we go forward with this? it's not your intention to have a title i funds used for vouchers. >> senator merkley, it's not my intention to have any -- i agree that title i funds, under the law, must be used for public schools. and i suggested that if that were still a concern when we got to the floor i would be can't -- lead to engage in a colloquy with senator harkin or others or you to say clearly that was my intention if this provision is still in the bill. >> thank you. with that clarification i'm going to support this but i'm also going to reserve my privilege, if you will, and i want you to be aware of that intention that i may pursue clarification when we have this on the floor to put that in statute as well. but i feel like this is in the right direction, and thank you.

>> further discussion? all those in favor say aye ko? >> can we have a roll call vote? >> the clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]

[roll call] [roll call] [roll call] >> the amendment is adopted. next amendment? >> mr. chairman? thank you, mr. chairman. i have what i hope will be

compared to the simple and straightforward amendment. it is one, three, blumenthal three. very simply it aims to consider in applications for competitive grants and the numbers of, or percent of students who are two or more years over age or under credited for the grade level. the reason for including this statistic in the assessments that have to be done is very simply that it is the best predictor of dropouts. and, therefore, in the competitive grant program is a factor that should be considered. and to ask for voice vote.

>> it is amendment and one-three. >> amendment number three, right? as i understand it, the secondary school reform program requires grant applicants to complete a needs analysis as a part of their application. this amendment real require them to include an analysis. the percentage of students who are two or more years over age or under credited for the grade level. i understand the memo would also

require grantees as a part of the early warning indicator system to analyze academic indicators to determine which students are over age and under estimated. is that the frocks? >> that is great but it would require essentially no new data collection, no cost, only an analysis, both in the presentation of applications to the improving secondary schools grants program, and that needs assessment. ..

i agree that's a major problem, but we are only testing in a great unless they go to the computer adaptive testing won't be available unless they do some kind of unusual thing to get this data. whenever required that kind of data to be collected, so i think with some modifications it could be made so that it's adapted, but it does involve that testing thing that we've been talking about before. >> senator, i respect your point, but if that is essentially a very simple, it is the numbers of credits and the year that the student is presently enrolled, and every student has the data. it's simply a matter of literally taking it from either

the paper or the computer and presenting it as part of the needs assessment. >> so you're saying if a child is in fifth grade and he's doing work in the third grade level they know that? >> the do. if they don't i would say they are not -- >> if they are not up to grade level. i don't know that we know at what grade level they are. that's the point we were making before. >> we may be saying different things, but he essentially over age or under credited means that they are older than the great -- >> it means they've been held back two years. >> exactly come and that should be a matter of record for every student. >> just for clarification, may i? i think you did just clarify it,

but what this says is if -- you should be 10-years-old in fifth grade but if you have a 12-year-old in fifth grade, at the end of the year that's when you're talking about. it's not that they know what grade level they are at in terms of the way we are in assessments. >> that is essentially correct, mr. chairman, except just with one minor correction which is that if the requirement would apply only to high schools, it would not apply to elementary schools, so fifth grade one and apply that to take the point that senator franken has expressed better than i did, if you are 16-years-old and ninth grade, that should be self-evident from the records of the school, and that's the kind of phenomenon that we want to measure, because that

16-year-old is very unlikely to finish school. and we want to know that he essentially and real time before he or she becomes a dropout, and that's the kind of fact that should be included in the application for the funds under the competitive grant. again, i stress that this requirement applies to the applications for competitive grants. not a requirement across-the-board for every school in the united states. >> i and i'm just reminded this is in the competitive grant program, too? >> yes, mr. chairman, in the competitive grants program. >> any further discussion? >> i'm interested in this. don't you think high school is a little too late to identify when they are two grades behind? you know, if they have got into high school and haven't dropped out because they've been held

back two years -- >> of the ranking member wishes to offer his amendment and extend it, i would be happy to support it. i don't mean to be facetious, but we are really trying to frame the amendment so that it applies to the competitive grant program which is the improving secondary schools grant program come improving secondary schools grant program if there were a way to apply it similarly to elementary school that would be a good option. >> so they will get more points if they have more kids that are behind when they are competitive grant? >> they will get more points for considering a relevant measure of whether they are likely to have dropouts, and scores dropouts are already the dropout rate already is part of their needs assessment so they just consider it at an earlier point when it may lead to dropouts.

>> so this might reduce the number of kids that get passed along without actually achieving what they are supposed to because when they get high school account extra points to the competitive grant. >> i'm not sure why you understand the ranking member's question. >> one of the complaints is some kids get passed along because they are a problem or some other reason, and so if they did get passed along they wouldn't give them any extra credit in this particular area so it might encourage them to be little more honest on where the child's grade level really is. >> i hope it will measure, senator, whatever the reasons may be, whether there are more or fewer students who are in effect over age and under credited, over age for the grade where they are. >> thank you.

>> further discussion? if not come all of those in favor of the blumenthal amendment, say aye. opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it, the amendment is adopted. >> mr. chairman? >> senator murkowski. >> i want to follow on the comments from senator blumenthal because he sent a challenge to the ranking member if you have an amendment to deal with a dropout issue at an earlier age, then bring it forward. well i actually have an amendment that would do just that. and i will -- i will briefly discuss this amendment. it's not my intention to ask for a vote on this at this point in time as much as i would like to. my amendment to title i is

amendment number two, and it is an act that i have introduced as a stand-alone bill earlier and it's called the early intervention for a graduate success act shall teach shortfall. it's a 37 page bill that i have introduced. i want to just bring it before the committee at this time. i would have liked to have figured out a way to have incorporated it into the provisions of this bill but was unable to do that. it may be that as this legislation moves through the process i will have the chance to do that and will work with some of you on this issue. as i mentioned earlier, and as some of you have stated, you don't just wake up one day in high school and say i checked out of school. it is a process that begins very early on. it is -- it is a whole series of

factors. we try hard to understand what it is that can intervene, and despite the good counseling and the best efforts of so many coming young people still are dropping out at unfortunately very high rates. alaska has some statistics we are not proud of and we are trying to get on top of it. but one of the things we have we have studied and focused on is the early year we are able to identify some of the risk factors, the earlier we can identify and engage and intervene, the better chance of success these children are going to have because as senator blumenthal mentioned, you know, when you are 16 and you are a freshman and you are 6 feet four

and growing a beard and not feeling like you are fitting into that freshman math class, you are checking out for lots of different reasons. but it didn't just happen then when you were 16. it happens much, much earlier along the way when you are struggling in reading and to get behind and you are embarrassed in clause because you can't do the calculations on the board or you can't read the passage out loud. there are a series of obstacles that present themselves for young kids and a disease had a set of facts really -- sad set of facts. when it developed for the early graduation success in working with educators, administrators,

all of those through all levels of the spectrum is to try to identify some of these risk factors and work in process to allow for earlier intervention. so what this act would do is to add to the esea a way for schools to receive competitive grants to do that. so right now through your measure you allow that exception 1201 it provides for the middle and high school reforms to access these competitive grants. this would allow for the elementary schools to make application for those competitive grants. it would provide for states to help school districts identify those children who may be at higher risk working with the school districts and early learning provider's where available to work together to get the kids on track and to

keep them there and require the plans that are developed to help these kids are actually passed along whether it's going from elementary school to the middle school to high school or if they are moving or foster kids but again so that we are working and assisting these kids every step of the way. this is an area that i think we as a legislative body can do more if we step in earlier, and i would like to work with some of my colleagues how we can advance this. i would like to take a look at this act i have introduced and is it something that we can incorporate in this bill and as we move forward through the process to the floor i would like to do that because i think it is going to be a better

indicator of our kids success in the long run if we can get in there earlier and work with them. >> i would say to the senator bayh feel very strongly about this and if you are right on target, and i look forward to working with you as we go on the floor to see if we can get something that both sides would agree on and we would get to the floor. i just i've said many times we've just got to focus on kids early in life and we are not doing a good enough job of it right now. i would look forward to working with you on that. thank you, senator. senator sanders? >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i also agreed with you and senator murkowski about the need to address problems early on.

i'm offering titles one and ii, amendment number two and title minor amendment 1 and they are both related to the same issue which is the issue of highly qualified teachers. sanders number two? >> sanders number two title i and ii and amendment 1 in title ix. >> pass that out, please. senator sanders. go ahead and explain it. >> thank you mr. chairman. let me begin by mentioning that these amendments have the

support of 82 separate organizations around the country, mr. chairman. including some of the most important civil rights organizations fighting for the rights of low-income students, minority students and students with disabilities, and i would like to enter as part of the record that entire list. but among those organizations, and there are many of them, the naacp, naacp educational fund, the american association of people with disabilities, the national association of state directors of special-education, i think that's a group, mr. chairman, you represent to become the national association of state directors education committee exceptional schoolchildren and easter seals among the many other groups. and my office has been receiving many communications from these groups and from groups all over the country about the issue

related to this amendment. there is no question i think all of us are united in understanding that we want to make sure that all of our kids especially i think in this legislation children of low-income backgrounds, children of minority families, children with special needs get the very best education this country can provide and i think we are united in saying that today we are not doing the kind of job we want which is what this legislation is about and one could argue this is an educational civil rights bill. one of the concerns that we all have on this committee is the unacceptable high rate dropout from kids as i mentioned earlier we are talking about 50% of kids

african-american dropping out of school, we are talking about more than that of latino heritage and we are talking about kids is but the wonderful work done by our chairman of kids with disabilities still not getting the quality education that we would like them to receive. implicit in this bill is that we want to make sure that schools have, the schools that have the greatest needs, schools with low disabilities, that these kids get their fast share of, quote on quote, highly qualified teachers. that's the work we are talking about, highly qualified teachers come in and in this bill what we are calling for is an equitable distribution of those features. in other words what we are saying is when we have highly qualified teachers we don't want all of those teachers being in

the upper middle class neighborhoods educating kids to go to harvard in yield. we also want to make sure that schools that have serious problems where kids are dropping out, kids have a lot of disabilities we want to make sure that those schools get their fair share of equitable distribution of, quote on quote, highly qualified teachers and that certainly one of the main thrusts of with this piece of legislation is about because kids do well when they have good teachers we want a highly qualified teachers to be spread into every area and not just into upper middle class schools. now the question arises what is a highly qualified teacher. i feel we can have disagreements, and i sure we will about what that means and how we can measure that when we

make this amendment there could be no disagreement that when the term highly qualified applies to 98% of teachers it loses its meaning. and let me repeat that. whatever your definition may or may not be about a highly qualified teacher, it doesn't mean anything if 98% of our teachers are regarded as highly qualified. may as well throw that turn away. it doesn't mean anything and that is where we are right now in the bill under the current language we believe that about 98% of teachers are considered highly qualified. let me give you in example of what i'm talking about. i am happy to believe and as i'm sure all of you believe we have got to do everything that we can to attract the best and

brightest people in this country into education. we desperately need gifted and inspired teachers. i personally want to see us raise salaries for teachers, i personally want to see our educators get the respect that they deserve which unfortunately in many respects we don't have today retirement is a college education affordable. i want to see a whole revolution in terms of how we deal with child care in america. that is my personal view. in that i am a strong supporter of programs like teach for america and other efforts to attract young people into education. but let me just briefly explain what the problem with the current language in this bill is and why we should pass these amendments. here's the problem and english. right now you have a young person for a debating from college in june going into education and in september and

that young person finds himself or herself in a sixth grade classroom full of kids reading of the third grade level. graduate in june and in september you are in a classroom where you have a whole lot of problems. maybe you have kids who are reading poorly, doing math poorly, discipline problems, maybe you find yourself just out of college and a school with a whole lot of kids who have disabilities come behavioral problems, etc.. now this is a teacher who graduated college two months before suddenly find themselves in that situation. under the language in this bill, that young teacher is now considered, quote on quote, highly qualified, and i think that most of the people around this table will agree that doesn't make any sense. it doesn't make this person not a good teacher, not an inspired

teacher, it simply does not meet that teacher highly qualified. what my amendments to, my amendment attempts to address this issue and here's how we do it. the first amendment will require that for a teacher to be, quote on quote, highly qualified, he or she has to have completed a state approved teacher preparation program and obtain full state certification. that's not a terribly high standard that is what we think should be done. let me repeat that. to receive a highly qualified status, that teacher has to have completed a state approved teacher preparation program and of attain full state certification. now this does not mean that a person who has not been certified cannot teach, doesn't suggest that. it simply means that the

teacher, that teacher is not highly qualified. if the teacher is not highly qualified, what my second amendment says is that teacher can still teach but must receive mentoring and supervision and support to enable him or her to become a successful teacher that we want to see. there are currently over 400,000 classrooms across the country staffed by teachers who are not highly qualified many of these teachers are teaching in very challenging schools. further, in those very same schools, the turnover rate for teachers is very high. one of the issues we all know is in these troubled schools teachers come in, they are overwhelmed, problems are enormous and they leave after a year or two to find another school where they don't have to face those kinds of. what studies and common sense

suggest is that those teachers who received the training and the mentoring not only become better teachers but are more likely to remain in those difficult schools than others without their background and that is a goal that we want to achieve. we want teachers to be able to steven scully period of time and not stay for a year and leave and have that kind of revolving door. while this amendment has very strong support across the country, and i mentioned 82 organizations supporting it, millions of people, there are some people have honest differences of opinion about it. one argument that all year is the label of highly qualified doesn't matter. it doesn't matter. you have young people who are great teachers, no question about it, people who've been there for 30 years are not great teachers. doesn't matter. well i think it does. common sense suggests that argument doesn't have -- hold

much water coming and i would just in the simplest things if he would have a heart condition, you were going to go to a surgeon, and he would go to a surgeon who has many surgery's successfully done and while another surgeon may be wonderful, who hasn't yet performed his first surgery you would probably go to the experienced surgery who has already achieved a certain level of accomplishment. what i am not doing here by any means, i don't want anybody to believe this, is discouraging young teachers. quite the contrary. we desperately need excited, motivated young teachers to get into the field. we are trying to bring those people went to the profession where we are also trying to give them the training at the support they need to be successful and to be highly qualified and stay in those schools. another argument that i have heard against this concept is that we will put an end to the alternative certification programs. this is simply not true. the teachers to complete

alternative certification programs are considered highly qualified if they complete those programs. however, teachers who are still in the process of completing a program are not yet determined to be highly qualified. they can still teach, but they have to teach under supervision and guidance. why is this issue so very important and why am i offering these amendments? i think we all know the answer. what we do not want to see is the most troubled schools. we are paying attention to the bottom 5%. those are the schools we are focusing on. everybody around this table wants to make sure the teachers we attract to those schools are the best teachers we can find. what we do not want, nobody here wants teachers to be coming into those schools to be overwhelmed, to not have the background, not have the training to be leaving after a year, and that's what these amendments seek to

address. when we say as a converse we want highly qualified teachers to be equitably distributed, to be focused in low-income schools, schools with people of color as well as upper-middle-class schools, this is a way i believe that we achieve that goal, and i would urge the support of this amendment. discussion? >> i respectfully -- >> first of all things you mr. chairman and let me say that senator sanders has identified the central issue that we face as a country when it comes to how we are going to attract the schools and classrooms of this country and how we are going to do it in a way that all kids know that they are going to have an excellent teacher and a compelling class room.

i think that getting there is going to be beyond with this committee can do. has to be our states and school districts that do it. but getting there is going to require to abandon the model that as we said yesterday was born in the labour market to discriminate against women, and relied on the discrimination to subsidize the public-school system. thank goodness we don't live in the labour market any more. but the result of where we are today with the traditional approach to the teachers training to the way we pay teachers to how we inspire teachers come try to retain teachers is among other things striding 50% of the people out of the profession and the first five years. in part part of the reason the senator mentioned which is they are not well supported when they go into the classroom. they don't have mentors that are by and large successful and there are a lot of other reasons i want to the committee's time.

a lot of time in this country the school reform committee is spent on the question of firing bad teachers. people talk about that coming and i spent almost no time talking about that. i will stipulate to that. but the crisis that we face is not that. the crisis we face is in attracting people to the classroom to do the hardest work that we ask anybody to do and that is not a politician talking. it's true. there is nothing harder than teaching a high poverty classroom in rural america or urban america. and the idea that we people the way the people, the working conditions over which they are is a disgrace. but i strongly object to this amendment. and the reason for it is that by teachers and now throughout the state i hear this but certainly when i was in denver later this, tell me they are completely unprepared when they finish their degrees and they come into the classroom for the work in

the classroom, and the most exciting models that i see across the country are the teacher residency models like the one that we've created in denver where a young person or a middle-aged person or an older person who has an interest in teaching is the last to mentor a teacher, not to prop up the teacher who needs help in their classroom, but a mentor who can teach them the craft of teaching and give them real life experience that is also delivered by classroom experience so they can study with the need to go. that is the direction that we are headed in, and i don't want us sending the signal that says that's the wrong direction and be there is at least as far as i am concerned no evidence that the highly qualified designation has been much other than the administrative work around that school districts have faced and

i see that the senator wants to go but i will say that if this amendment were to pass, the federal government with a fellows will basically dismantled the certification program whether possible for local districts and schools to how your the teachers do want to hire which thousands of school districts currently opt to do because the seas of quality. states like mine have improved innovative high-quality alternative certification programs like teach for america predicate on the contact the program participants of record have been ruled so they are highly qualified while they are enrolled in the program in the middle age before the finish but it's why they are enrolled and dave krieg to alternatives in the second licenses where the federal government were to shift the definition of highly qualified teachers and exclude these teachers with entirely dismantled effort at the state and local level. the amendment would help teach for america and the project in any of alternative bills on the idea a program participant

program participant is a teacher of record while participating the alternative program. since 1985 over 5,000 of color of the teachers have been alternatively certified to read just this year within teach for america alone over 250 teachers serve over 15,000 teachers in the denver area. this is a critical path dealing with the fact that among other things have of the roughly 4 million teachers that we have is a nation over a million are going to retire during this decade. other discussion? >> let me just respond. i think -- and maybe senator bennett might want to sit on later to discuss because i think there's a misunderstanding. this certainly does not kill teach for america or is it its intent to revive a strong supporter of teach for america.

you're first point about attracting young people into a classroom and having them mentored is exactly what we are talking about and if that took place, that would constitute being a highly qualified teachers. but i don't want to see is in difficult schools experienced teachers simply been placed into a school and not having that mentoring, not receiving the extra training that he or she might need. so in no way is it the intention or is it to the effect of this legislation in teach for america which i strongly -- i think that your other point, senator, and correct me if i'm wrong, you are raising the issue of the significance of the term highly qualified. fair enough. i'm not going to argue that there's going to be somebody walking and out of college

degree teacher comes somebody with 20 years of experience. of course, that's true. but i would say to the chairman, if the goal here is to make sure that in our most difficult schools we have the best teachers that we possibly can, they're has got to be a criterion pity we can't simply say don't use the word highly qualified if it doesn't mean anything. but what you're seeing is it doesn't mean anything. and i think that's wrong. there's got to be some criteria or else what will happen - year is the lowest income schools, the most difficult schools will end up with of the least experienced in the least qualified teachers. >> mr. chairman that fear is reality what you just said you are right and it's one of the fundamental changes that we have to make to have our schools succeed, fundamental, and it's going to be really hard to do

because there are a lot of folks that want to keep doing it the way that they've already done it. i mean, on and having seen it and having worked on at i am much less interested in -- i will be totally honest, and the certification in the degree and with the inputs for that i am in longevity or not because you're right, both ways. yet the more experienced teachers that are not very effective and the inexperienced teachers that are. you have senior teachers that some of the most effective and some of them that aren't. and i think all of the data supports what i just said. what i'm interested in is how effective the teachers are. our teachers and schools driving academic growth for kids measured not in a thoughtless way but in a thoughtful way, and that's what one of the reasons i'm also going to oppose the amendment on the parental notification because what i want to know is not the things that

are in here. what i want to know about my kids' teachers are are my kids achieving in their classroom come in and that's not relevant to that. >> i think senator benet and i have the same goals. >> we do. >> and i feel we need to talk about it because i think that there may be misunderstandings on what i mean. but i'd think that you are walking -- i have to tell you, you know, given my view i don't sit up at night worrying about credentials and all that stuff. but you are walking down a slippery slope when you are saying it doesn't matter what kind of training. maybe we should, you know, i am all for somebody who is an engineer getting into a classroom and getting kids excited about that. i also about flexibility to get your walking down a slippery slope which i think will end up hurting low-income kids, those are the schools least it doesn't matter what your qualifications

are it doesn't matter what your training is. all you need is inspiration. i don't think the record will show and i think that you will agree with me that we have -- you just said it one of the great problems we have is a lot of these new teachers are leaving the schools. turnover rate is horrendously high and i just think that those teachers walking and need some background preparation for what is difficult as you pointed out challenges that the face. the need mentoring. that is what we are trying to do here. >> mr. chairman i know you need to move on. i would, no matter how all of this terms of, would welcome the chance that the visit with you and some of the programs that i have in mind, not teach for america but the president's programs, talking about might think we do have to say, i know we do, have the same objective here and i'm not saying that training doesn't matter. i'm not saying that credentials don't matter. i'm not saying any of that.

i'm saying that the training we are providing as a country is almost entirely ineffective in terms of what art teachers need. we are just not doing it in a way that this material to their support in the classroom. i know it's hard to hear that sometimes and those are the voices of my teachers. it seems like so much of what you're talking about and what i've met with teachers come superintendents and school board members and their feedback has been we need to make sure we have highly effective teachers and try to take the message back to d.c. to the effectiveness matters labeling somebody that's highly qualified isn't necessarily the same as highly effective. we want highly effective and in that context a lot of support

for mentoring programs and strategies that break down the silo's support teachers and help make them successful and so forth and so i support you all bringing your perspectives together in helping us figure out how do we get highly effective teachers into the places where we absolutely need them with the most challenged states. >> mr. chairman? i'm sorry. >> i think again most of us are coming from the same direction and the misunderstanding. so what i would like to do if it is okay, mr. chairman, if it's okay with you, what i would like to do is withdraw the amendment now. i would like to talk to some of my colleagues in the next couple of hours and then i will reintroduce and asked for a vote later on. is that something that we can do?

>> the senator can withdraw his amendment. for the prohibition on that. >> i looks at the time limit the second time around but we are coming from a pretty much the same direction. the senator has in front of us to amendments and the one amendment has to do with the redefining the highly qualified teachers everyone has to be distribution more definition of title ix. someone has a definition and one is distribution. does the senator want to withdraw both of those? >> yes, for the moment. >> the center to withdraw his amendment. >> thank you very much.

>> senator murkowski to it >> not to title i. are we still title i? >> we are ready to move off of title i are we not? anybody have any amendments to title one? >> i have request from senator mccain he can't be here to do his amendment so he hopes he can have that opportunity out on the floor and for what amendments would want to do on the floor so i would want to make that announcement absolutely. >> if there's no amendments to title one. any amendments to title to? senator bingaman. >> i have an amendment to respect this is an amendment senator blumenthal and senator murray are cosponsoring.

it represents the reauthorization of the existing esea education technology program entitled enhancing education for technology. we first included this program and the elementary and secondary education act of 1994. it has been twice approved by this committee with bipartisan support in the prior congress and the co-sponsor ship of the reauthorization that i am here trying to propose that we have to the bill. the program has been until recently well funded the congress appropriated 700 million in fiscal year 04 and 650 million as part of the recovery act unfortunately funding for this program is a victim of budget cuts in the

fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution. in my view now it is not the time to retreat from support of education technology i listen to my colleagues here and i agree with what has been said. i think senator bennett made the point that i think as he phrased it we have a completely obsolete system of education. one of the solutions to that problem is to ensure that new technologies are integrated into our educational system in an effective way personalized learning programs, digital textbooks, blended learning environments where you incorporate both digital and face-to-face instruction all of these our technology base efforts that the promise for the

students and improving the public education system. i think many experts and most of looked at this what conclude and have concluded that technology is the most cost-effective way of implementing and evaluating and scaling up high-quality learning resources. the efficient use of instructional funds for use the scarce resources for other uses such as expanding the school day and providing rubber and services for students or even reducing the deficit. as a sector education is behind the current and adopting technology to improve the performance and efficiency and cost effectiveness schools need to be helped in their effort to catch up with his arrest society with students this amendment will help schools to do that in

three ways. first it would reauthorize the current formula grant program which provides significant flexibility for state and local school districts to design technology programs and appropriate support that meet state and local needs. second, if appropriations fall below 300 million in any given year coming and i know that in this bill we are not even specifying the authorization levels obviously we can't specify appropriation levels on this bill, but if actual appropriations fall below 300 million in a given year, the program would distribute funds competitively in order to encourage states or consortium states to address policy barriers to digital learning such requirements the textbooks be printed on paper or course credits be calculated using student seat time instead of subject matter competency. and finally, the amendment we

authorizing existing elementary and secondary education act language which is section 2411 of the current law that ensures that students are able to access technology in their schools but are protected from any inappropriate or of obscene content. so those provisions are incorporated into the amendment i am offering. the bill enjoys broad support in the educational field and private industry. the national education association supports the bill. the american association of school administrators supports the amendment and the private sector apple computer, adobe systems strongly support this. it is the sole existing program dedicated to improving education through technology that we have here the federal level, and i believe that it needs to be part of this reauthorization bill.

so i urge my colleagues to support the amendment. >> mr. chairman? one of the things we did is try to come by in the programs and put the flexibility in coming and that have to do a lot with the rural districts. in wyoming we wind up with a whole bunch of programs that have to be done with very little money coming into the requirements go with it that use of all the money so it never gets around to what was intended to do so the stamp programs into one program to get enough flexibility that people be able to do the program and i see on this one the minimum formula amounts to $300,000. i'm not sure what kind of a science technology engineering and math program you can have for $3,000, and so i prefer to have the larger categories more flexible opportunity rather than

specifying these out into smaller parts again. that's why we did the combining. >> mr. chairman, i agree with the general concept of combining many of the existing programs coming and i know that the bill, the underlying bill that senator harkin and senator enzi have developed does a lot of that. i do think that there are some areas of that if we don't specify the continuation of a program it is likely that will not be continued, and that funding will not be provided by the federal government for these purposes, and i think this is one area in in the assisting schools to obtain and properly used new technology i think that's one area that the federal government has made a significant contribution and i would very much like to see us

continue with that. i think that would go a way unless we adopt the amendment that i am offering today. >> mr. chairman? >> senator murkowski. >> to keep the conversation going. by the time that it takes us to get this bill to the floor, the technologies that our kids are using have changed and they are moving on to the next thing. as we talk about those dropout factors and things that cause our kids to kind of check out of education, we need to remember that we've got to be delivering education to them in a that captivates them and challenges them, that reminds them of the relevancy and their world

nowadays is just so focused on technology. so, i hear the concern of the ranking member, and i will tell you as one from a very rural state that we have got small school districts that many don't have grant writers on staff. i look at this whole inclusion of all of these programs into one big pot of money and know that i'm going to be competing with michael benet's kids in denver school systems where they've got some pretty topnotch grant writers and i'm wondering how my schools are going to be able to step up and access these funds so i kind of like the idea that the technology components might be something that is a separate then you if you will. if you need to be correct in our schools when it comes to the technology that we are utilizing

right now and if there's any area we are behind and if it's not that we are not spending enough time making sure our teachers are current with the technology. the kids will be ahead of them and we don't get full value out of the technologies that are before us. without getting as much consideration as i would like to your amendment, senator bingaman to i have to tell you we need to be focused and we need to be ahead of ourselves when it comes to the technology sidewheel so my inclination at this point is to be supportive there's no further discussion the vote occurs on the bingaman amendment. all in favor, 67. a post from nay. ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it.

the amendment is adopted. any amendments to title ii? >> mr. chairman? >> senator franken? >> any on this side over there? >> i just have title i. >> go ahead. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is franken title ii, amendment 1. this is school principal recruitment and training amendment i would like to explain this is a amendment senator bennett and i are putting forth. i've said many times in this committee that the job despite the examples of successful models and then find ways to replicate that success. one of the most common features of successful schools and low-income and minority communities is the presence of

an effective school principal. research shows school leadership is second only to teacher quality and its impact on student learning to read and very often the school leadership has a huge impact on the teacher quality in terms of attracting and retaining and giving professional development to get teachers and a bad principle was the opposite. yet in spite of the importance of school leadership, the federal government is not permitted adequate attention and resources to improving the quality of the principles and and i need schools. this amendment would change that. it would create a better grant program that would create a type one enough effective principles for the high need schools by finding high-quality programs to recruit and train principles to take on the shore lunches of leading the schools having seen

the extraordinary impact of the effective school principals and minnesota, i believe that improving the principal quality is essential. the turning around high need schools and we've been talking about about how the schools today. one principle who made an incredible impression on me was andrew collins, the former principal of détente's plus elementary school in st. paul. dayton's bluff is diverse and poor nearly all the students are eligible for free and reduced price plunge. one-third are english language learners. used to be one of the worst performing schools in minnesota, only 6% of the third graders, only 4% of the fifth graders were proficient in reading and math, but under principal collins, proficiency on the state math test increased 49 percentage points over three years until it was eight points above the state average.

african-american students to school performed more than 20 points, percentage points above the african-american students statewide on both math and reading tests. now the success of the school to principal collins and his staff unfortunately he is the exception to the rule. many districts report shortages of principals who are willing and able to lead schools at a particularly in need of strong guiding hand and not performing at adequately we hold principles accountable. what doesn't make sense is to place under the prepared principles and schools to face these great challenges and then be surprised when the schools experience hi principal turnover rates and continued to struggle with students. so, my amendment, our amendment

would support programs and recruit talented candidates and provide them with the intensive training the need to lead time need schools, and including someone who has been a principal before to get mentored by a principal who has turned around the school. this is -- it makes amazing amounts and i would like to thank senator benet for his collaboration on this important amendment kick. i believe this is towards our goal of closing the achievement gap and urged colleagues to support it. >> senator bennett? >> thank you mr. chairman. senator franken's amendment provides amendments from to pieces of legislation. it is school principal record net and training act which i co-sponsored in the leave act, which i introduced, and i won't describe it any more than a you

did. the data may show that the second most important thing is a great principle but you can't have a great school without a great principle, and what we have done in this country is sale to treen folks to leave the especially in the turnaround situations. we haven't had the funds available to do it, and senator sanders and i am the last discussion we were talking about the high turnover rate of teachers particularly in the high poverty schools. a huge amount of them relates to the principal leadership. if you've got a great principle, and they are making sure that everybody is pulling together in the right direction and moving kids for word, the turnover rates are actually quite low. if you are in a place where you don't see that kind of leadership they are incredibly high. and this gives -- this the answer is a very important question here and the secretary or the center alexander has

raised this before. it's one thing for us to say you need to turn around the bottom 5% of schools in this country. but if we don't have the capacity to actually do it, if people haven't been trained to actually do it if they haven't seen the models about how to do it all we will do is create more grief and this amendment is an attempt to make sure that there is states and local students have to do a lot of this work on their own but this at least allows them access to some incremental funding in the competitive grant act what i would argue is one of the single highest leverage points for schools on the principle. now the office of the principle because of their in their office there in the wrong place. the principal walking the classrooms and in schools supporting their teachers. >> a thank senator franken for his leadership and urge all of us to support this. >> mr. chairman?

>> senator enzi. >> i wish we could sell a goal early on if you were going to edit program particularly a grant program you have to eliminate a grant program. >> we eliminated program basically from the manager skill tariffs demint i didn't get to finish my statement. >> sorry. >> you rebuild one until we were born down -- for now. i assume we will do that on this too but one is to reduce the number of programs we have to be we are not doing effectively all of the things that we were doing, and i do remember people complaining when we started this process that still at 860 pages. we have added 200 pages to it today, and the programs, new grants, new authorization, and it's going to be harder and harder to solve the whole package if we keep adding things to it that all our new so is there a way that we can the eliminate something to get to do

something else? there have got to be ineffective things we are doing that we thought we had eliminated a few of those, but most of those just got combined into a new program rather than actually eliminating ... >> senator franken? >> let me say what i was going

to say, as i was so rudely interrupting the ranking member. [laughter] my and amendments -- current law, by eliminating school leadership program, or it does eliminate, it replaces school leadership program. and replaces it with a more targeted program that senator bennet and i believe is much wiser use of limited taxpayer dollars. because continued funding for grantees would be based on their effectiveness. and so we have eliminate the school leadership program come and replace it with another. so i'm doing exactly, that's what i thought after i so rudely interrupted you, you were going, i interrupted you before you're about to pay a compliment. i was wrong.

[laughter] and a compliment was, we need, instead of just adding programs, we need to eliminate some, too. so this eliminates school leadership program, replaces it with something that is more effective. i would urge -- that's right. i gave myself a thank you. thank you. senator sanders, thank you for pointing that out. >> senator isakson. >> mr. chairman, i agree that leadership at school level and administration level, probably the most important effort, element of all. but i have to ask this question in response to what you said about money. on page 16, line eight, grant funds provided under this section shall be used to supplement not supplant any of the federal, state, or local

funds, otherwise of able to carry out activities subscribe here in. you are requiring it to add, you're not taking away. i may be miss reading it -- >> well, the school leadership program was eliminated already in the managers bill. so, this was an anticipation of that. >> what do you anticipate the cost of this to be? >> well, it's up to the appropriators, really. this will be up to the appropriators. >> this is such -- >> yeah. it is a such sums amendment. thank you for helping me, for the clarification on that. >> one last. senator bennet? >> to the ranking member. the ranking member's comment

generally. i think, this is not what the ranking member would say but it just occurs to me that we do, we do not do a good job in this country of accounting for the education dollars that are spent, and aligning the education dollars with the stated policies that we have. discuss off-line well because we know we have to turn around 5% of our schools and we know we don't have the capacity in the system to do it. title ii more broadly doesn't particularly a line well with activity. and i would argue the money is often not terribly well spent. so i just want to volunteer that i would be delighted to work with ranking member, or anybody else on that, because it is a central problem. frankly, the legacy legislation accented been passed by the congress. >> i did want to get involved in this.

anyone who says title ii funds are not used wisely i would agree with. i've often call title ii the holiday in support and sustainability fund. seems like it's always used for some weekend gathering someplace. they go to these holiday and indigo to things and have all these little meetings and have lunches and then they go home. believe me, i'm not a big fan of how title ii money has been spent in the past spent on that point, the language you got on it, same page 16, section j. on the report to congress, it puts in requirement that after five years the secretaries are to report on effectiveness of the money use and if it -- i would suggest, and i want to be supportive of this legislation and get to the floor and i want to help. if we don't have some provisions in their requiring the secretary to report to us now, on just

what you acknowledge, programs that haven't worked come you could probably fund whatever this cost with money sweeping funding for something else. that would be very helpful. >> i would be delighted to work with you on that, and with the department on that. one of the other components of this legislation, which i also would like to see much more of what we do here is the idea that people, the grantees also have to show that they've actually, that there's a result, that there's high quality to what they're producing. whether its teachers or whether its principles. we've never done it. we have never asked. and that we ought to make the funding, you know, a lot of is contingent on people being able to show what they're doing actually works. >> the gentleman in from colorado and i have a joint letter, 44 of us now in terms of thinking big on our deficit reduction and debt reduction and

all of that. we got to think about language we can put in this legislation, instead of pushing off five years in terms of seeing if the system works, let's ask, require the secretary to look back. that's going to make a whole lot more sense in getting a final bill passed through the united states senate and house. if we are just on without looking for accountability, it defeats the meetings. >> thank you very much. i will try to work with both you to make that happen. >> mr. chairman, another point on this is one the grant awards selected by the secretary at least under bingaman had a requirement for small state minimum in his where they got some dollars instead of having to complete for the big states that have grant writers and that sort of thing. a lot of them don't even apply because they know they're not going to get it and they don't

have the expertise or the time to do it. so when you're doing your grant awards that are selected that way, we are talking about a small number of school districts. >> good point. >> i'm told by staff that at least one of the grants has to go through serving rural schools. you know, i've held grant writing seminars in rural minnesota for this very purpose. and i think it is something we heard senator murkowski talk about this, that we can't allow districts that have trained grant writers and are able to pay for that getting all the grants. >> if there's no more discussion, vote occurs on the franken amendment.

title ii, all in favor say aye. opposed, no. the ayes had a. the amendment is agreed to. anymore? yes, senator alexander. >> mr. chairman, would be -- first, on alexander a minute number four, has as its purpose the one pure year earlier i brought this big stack of paper appear on the table that all states have to send in, and senator bennet and i have talked about this and what i would like to do is just call attention to this amendment. and then withdraw it and then work with senator bennet

especially, but with chairmen and ranking member, and secretary duncan to see if we can end of this process, simplify the title i plan to review process that states are required to send them. this is nobody's fault really but just in the nature of things, over time things build up, and if we can go to their in a sensible way, make it simpler and easier and clearer, more common sense for states to do things the things the report, people pay more attention to and they won't waste their time. so that's something that senator bennet and i have talked about, and i look forward to working with him on that, if that correctly states his -- >> it does. >> and then i would like to offer, mr mr. chairman, alexandr amendment number six on public school choice. this is an existing program that requires local education agencies to provide students and lowest performing -- well, today

if you're a failing school, to use the vernacular, school districts have to provide parents with the opportunity to put a child in a different school, one they think is better. this amendment, what secretary duncan has said if we don't succeed in what we're trying to do here than 80% of the schools under the current law are going to be identified as failing. which means we have an unworkable law at the moment. this would say that that same provision about public school choice would apply to the bottom 5% of schools that we've been talking about today. so it's not a new program but it is a slimmed, it is a program that will affect 5000 schools instead of tens of thousands of schools. it's only public schools, since it's a title i program. and i ask for support.

>> as i understand this amendment, it would require districts to provide students in the bottom 5% of schools with the offer to transfer to a better public school, prioritizes this option to the lowest achieving students of low income families in the worst schools, and requires that students must be treated the same as any other student and be allowed to stay in the school they transfer to into the graduate. >> correct. >> i think that about students who are attending the lowest performing schools to transfer to better public school that's not in the bottom 5% makes sense, as long as it doesn't require the district to set aside funding for this purpose. this does not include such a requirement. so i understand, some may not want to wait for their child's school to turn around under our strategies and so providing them with this option to go to another school i think is a positive step. again, i would say that probably

in many rural districts this doesn't really work that well, but any other urban districts i think it would be meaningful. i would support the amendment. any other further discussion? >> vote. >> the question occurs on the amendment offered by the senator, senator alexander. all in favor say aye go. opposed, no. the ayes have it. the amendment is adopted. we had had to on this side, and so i would recognize senator burr for his amendment. >> i call on birth amendment number one under title ii. what i will try to do is be

extremely brief and answer what was just debated when we were debating senator franken's amendment, and that was we've got too many programs. we need to purge the system of programs. i would suggest to my colleagues that very few other programs that are available, elementary and secondary education, legislation, the we know whether they work or not? they certainly have plans, but we don't know because we don't ask for the data to prove the success. so what this amendment does is it streamlines about 50 authorized and appropriated programs under the elementary and secondary education act into to flexible foundational block grants. rather than washington and the federal government determining the funding priorities for states and local school

districts your this amendment puts locals in charge by allowing them the flexibility to fund locally determined programs and initiatives that meet that buried and unique needs of the individual states and school districts. states and local school districts, not washington, d.c., are the best makers of education decisions. unfortunately, in the last few decades the federal government, believe me, knew best, has exploded in a number of small categorically education programs in k-12. almost every year, yet another program. has been created in pursuit of the newest educational raise, and with each of these new programs, state and local school districts have lost all flexibility in federal funding sources that allow them and not the latest fad to determine how best to allocate the precious

federal resources to meet the unique and specific needs of individual students in the states and districts. so in essence what do we do? we create to flexible spending pipes. let me say up front. this is title ii. it is not title i. we do not touch title i money. but we take all the rest of the title ii programs and we dump them into to block grants. one is a safe and healthy students lock record of is the fun for improvement of teaching and learning. we give the full flexibility from one pot to the other. we also give full flexibility in both pots to title i. if in colorado the determination is made that title i needs more money and funding title i is more important to the success of the bottom 5%, then they could pull money from the fund for improvement of teaching and learning, they can pull money

from the safe and healthy student block program, to increase the dollars into title i. if, in fact, improvements in teaching and learning are not that districts problem, and they need more money and the safe and healthy student block grant area, they've got the ability to flow money over to it. basically what we're doing is we're not prescribing to them. the only way you get this federal money is used you do this federal program. now, i recognize the fact that there may be some afterschool programs that are currently funded that are now thrown into a pot, and they can be with every other need that that school district might have. this is not inconsistent what i said for the last day and a half. i believe those local school systems know best. but their needs are to overcome

the educational challenges. now, it's predetermined that record the federal accountability. that's what this bill is about. but here is a real opportunity underneath that to say we are going to give local school systems the flexibility of determining what programs best fit the needs of those students in those schools. so i would encourage my colleagues to support this amendment, and i will yield the floor. >> let me make sure i've got this straight, senator byrd. this amendment would consolidate programs of both title ii and title iv? >> that's correct. >> and put it into to block grant? >> that's correct. >> take the safe and healthy student promise neighborhoods,

current information resource center, and consolidate, put those all into one block grant? >> that's correct. >> and then it would eliminate the teacher pathways, pathways to college, later seized him? >> it doesn't eliminate any options. >> well, i mean it puts them -- it doesn't lead them as fashionable, and when eliminate to put all into a block grant. >> that's right. gives flexible at the local school systems to determine how best to use the money to meet the educational needs of that particular at risk school. >> well, again, i realized speedy's i realize this is a big leap, mr. chairman. we aren't giving up control and turning it over to local

systems. we are a financial partner but not the architect of their pathway to success. >> it just seems to me that we have spent a lot of time putting this bill together. i don't even mean just this year, i mean in the past also, both the house and the senate. and that i think we make decisions. someone your site, someone our side, some jointly together, about what we feel to be important pathways of funding, to put emphasis on some of those. we've had a lot of support for promise neighborhoods. a lot of support for the. that's just mentioning one of them. the s.t.e.m. program, is another one. and i think that we have a responsibility on the federal

level to at least give guidance and direction, and to say what we feel, we represent people, too. it's not just people in the local state level that represent people. we represent people and we go out and have meetings, talk to parents and teachers, administrators. and out of that reagan ideas on what kind of directions we want to take in funding for education. we don't all agree on the same thing but i think out of this sort of melting pot, we kind of get, the ideas of where we want our federal dollars to go and for what things. and it changes over time because somethings are not important than they were in the past. we consolidated. we went from 82 programs to 40. i think we just added one of them, i understand. >> more than one. >> one or two maybe today.

but again, there's just a lot of priorities that senators have and congressmen have, and that we were gone. i just think that we, this is my own feeling, i don't fulfill my responsibility to my constituents if i don't represent what they want in terms of guiding and directing some of this money. you know, within the context of votes obviously, i may want some things that my constituents they want but i may not get because i don't have the votes for it. but nontheless, i think out of this we all tend to have those programs that we like and that we want to support that we feel meet national goals, national requirements. so that's why speedy's mr. chairman, let me just say.

i'm a pretty good though countersigned of the outcome of this vote so i can cut the debate short because we've had some debates today that are way too lengthy. but there's no carrier motive. you know exactly what it is. if you believe that those local school districts care about the success of the kids and will use that money for any of the programs that they think older kids up, if i would decide they want to put all of it into a neighbor program that is available, then that's fine. but i hate to see north carolina held to you either implement this or you don't get the money when they could take the money and put it in an approved program that actually benefits the kids in that education system. so with the exception of hurt feelings of the authorship of these programs, i'm suggesting let's get exactly what many

said, i think senator bennet said it best. let's remember, this is about the kids. it's not about us. it's not about the programs we offer. it's about how it affects the education of those children. and if you do, then i think this amendment should be passed. and i was asked to call for the vote. >> mr. chairman, before you call for the vote i want to second mr. burris amendment here and ask for you to take a look at that. you know, we come up with all kinds of ideas of great projects. we allocate money in very specific packets to it, and yeah, they will do it and yes, it will make you feel good, but it isn't always what needs to be done in that locale. one of the things i really recognized when i was made is that all the people live at the local level.

they don't live at the national level, but the national level is always handy down great ideas that they are to try and opt to do. and it's okay to hand down the ideas but i don't think it's okay to make them do all of the ideas. sometimes it the consolidate and do a few of them they can do them really well. but if they have to do all of them they will probably do quite a few of them poorly. some of them are done poorly because they didn't want to do them at all but they got the money so they might as well use it. that's not a good use of money either. in times when we don't have a lot of money, i think it could be very helpful to do this kind of consolidation, flexibility, and use of the money. i think we would get better use out of their money, and then somebody specific things that we put in there, which i've talked to some senators, past centers at the programs named after them who are very protective of the particular things that's named

after them until the point out what it has evolved to. and they tell me that that's never what they anticipated it to be. but the money still has to be spent for what it has evolved to, not what they thought it would be. this gives a way for districts to really figure out what will make a difference and to make the difference. spin it is no further discussion, the vote occurs on the burner a minute. all in favor say aye. opposed, no. the no's appear to have it. the no's have it. amendment has not adopted. now, if senator sanders is ready, we are ready to vote on that amendment. >> just one minute. this amendment is an important amendment. it is supported by virtually every civil rights organization in the country, organizations

representing people with disabilities. the reason is that these organizations are a properly fearful of the fact that unless there are certain standards, low-income schools, the most troubled schools in this country will have a lot of unqualified teachers there, turnover rate will be very high, students will not get the education, everybody on this committee wants to see them get. so that's about what it is about. so i would appreciate support. >> i would like to ask the senator, which amendment are we? >> this is title i, amendment sanders 2, and title ix, amendment sanders 1. and we are offering -- >> weight. >> title i, sanders 2 first on pitcher support. two separate amendments. >> we had a great deal of

discussion on this earlier. i do know if we need to have any more discussion. all those in favor of this speed is what asked for a roll call vote on this if i could, please. >> was there a modification, mr. chairman? coaches ask a question of the author? >> yes. >> under your legislation, would the graduates from teac teach fr america qualified as highly gifted? >> if they had mentoring, if they pass a certification test yes. and if they had mentoring they wouldn't. spent but not all teachers who -- >> if they simply went into a school, no, they wouldn't. they wouldn't qualify as highly qualified. >> thank you. >> senator sanders has requested roll call vote. the clerk will call the roll. this is on sanders amendment number two, the title i. and 2.

[roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]

[roll call] [roll call] >> the amendment is not agree to. now we will vote on sanders amendment number one to title ix. did you wish -- do you feel it has been explained enough? okay. roll call vote on sanders amendment one to title ix.

[roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]

[roll call] >> mr. chairman, i wish to be recorded as voting no. >> the amendment is not adopted. senator burr? >> mr. chairman, i would call a amendment to mac under title ii. burr amendment number two. again i will try to be brief on this. today, we have heard a lot about

equity. and the need for equity under test at the same time a lot of people around this table purport to support equity and this reauthorization of elementary and secondary education. they have signed onto a bill that is often anything but equitable in the distribution of federal funds. one of these and equities is most evident in this bill title ii formula, which continues to hold harmless provisions that distributes funds on the basis of population numbers that are over a decade old. and the allocation of funds under title ii, each state first receives an amount equal to its fy 2001 grant under two programs. the eisenhower professional development program, and the class size reduction program. only after each state is awarded

what it received in fy 2001 did the remaining funds go out based upon current population numbers. these programs and their allocation formulas continue to substantially influence the distribution of title ii fund. as the 2001 appropriations for state grants under these programs, consists of approximately 85% of the 2001 appropriations for state grants under title ii. now, rather than fix this inequity this reauthorization compounds the misallocation of title ii funds by letting the old home harmless stand, thereby continue to send a majority of the funds out based on where kids live more than a decade ago rather than where they live today.

continuing to send 85% of the title ii dollars out based upon the old population numbers that are more than a decade old is only not only fair to north carolina, it's not fair to any state that has had growth in their population. north carolina has seen over the last 10 years 18.5% growth in arizona, 24.6%, colorado 619%, georgia 18.3, nevada 35.1, new mexico 32.2, utah 23.8, washington 14.1. these are all states represent within this committee that are getting cheated because we don't want title ii money to actually follow the students. i would suggest this is a long overdue amendment to change the funding formula so that simply

the dollars follow the kids. i would urge my colleagues to support it. >> formula changes are always tough. and this is a formula change that affects every state in the country. and these, i would just hope this would be the kind of thing i think needs to be debated on the floor, so that we can have all the states represented. some states would lose a great deal, some would gain a great deal. i'm not saying that we shouldn't revisit the formula itself, but i think strike the right now would not be the appropriate thing to do. i hope that we would, we would address this on the floor so that all states would have a

chance to be represented. senator hagan. >> mr. chairman, i just complement senator burr on this amendment, and i guess my question is, why wasn't it updated from a formula standpoint based on the fact that i would presume it was in place 10 years ago to follow the student. why not, doing his laundry to time, why didn't we update it? centerburg, i don't know if you have any answer. senator harkin? >> i think i would be the wrong one to tell you why the update is not in this current reauthorization of elementary and secondary education. >> i would assume that we must update every 10 years. spent the last time was in 2001. we haven't had this reauthorization since 2001. why is it not in the base bill? >> i'm sorry, that's my question. since it was done in 2001 and we

have the nuisances and all, where speed is i someone would try to change it on the floor and i believe that's the proper place, not the base bill. >> the reason, mr. chairman, the reason i offered the amendment in committee is that i believe it's the committee's responsibility to present a product to the floor that reflects what the committee understands equity to be. i don't believe that it's the committee's role to send a bill that is not equitable to the floor and say, try to change it here. and again, when the formula that is going into the reauthorization as 85% of the funds being distributed based upon 2001 numbers, something is really wrong.

spin while we're waiting for the chair i just want to thank you for your amendment, and also to say on the last amendment where you may have gone farther than i would like to go directionally, i'm interested to talk more about the kind of consolidation that you have been talking about. >> i'm sorry. again, formula fights always bad. yes, you might say should be based on population. well, maybe yes and maybe no. the population is one determine it, but i would say that maybe people who live in wyoming where we don't have a lot of

population but a lot of distances, or alaska or even in my state of iowa where we've lost population, we have again the population, we've actually kind of stayed steady, lost in proportion to the rest of the country. but that doesn't mean that the need isn't still there. there, for the kind of money that they been getting in the past. it depends upon those individual circumstances in those states. so i don't know that just basing it on population alone. i mean, the statement increase population but it may be a fairly wealthy state. they may do really well. may be a state like iowa were haven't increased in population maybe we aren't so wealthy. so there's other factors i think to be taken. i know it's on population and -- >> it is written so that it addresses population and poverty. and also might add that we have

held harmless a small state provision. so we've tried to take into account the difficulties is my present to small states. we've tried to write a formula that is not only focus on population, but on poverty, which is at the root of title i. and i think as long as you incorporated those two things, to distribute the money based upon where the students at risk are is, in fact, the appropriate thing. it's not a risky thing. >> well, i still think that there are other bases other than just population. you have a hold harmless of the one half of 1%. one half of 1% of the total, but i don't know, is that sufficient or not? i don't know if that sufficient

or not. senator merkley. >> thank you mr. cherry-picked isn't the one half of 1% a minimum amount for states? let's take a state with a very small population. they would receive many, many times the number of dollars per school at, say more partner states would. is there really come senator norton letter was talking about fairness. it have to be a school district in a very small state, you get a lot more -- under exactly the same conditions. so also talking fairness, how do you make that there? >> is the gentleman suggesting a second amendment to my? >> no, not at all. i wanted to be up to square those two things to get in the same paragraph. >> i would entertain you, secretary and is to knock it out and yes, we would then go to population and poverty. but i think there are some extra recognizing the fact that small

states might not have the resources and that the continuation of federal obligations or federal commitment helps them to overcome that. but given that we're at a point of reauthorization we don't do this frequently. this is a real opportunity to get this right, and i think i have come as close to what i think tried to accommodate everybody's needs, other than i don't want to lose something even though i don't have the kids to substantiate how much money i'm getting spit could i ask my good colleague, is there a chart available on how this affects all the states? >> i can certainly make it available to you. >> that would be terrific, thank you. >> no further discussion -- i'm sorry. >> i have the list. oregon does well. but i don't see many big decreases any of them, but i do think it is appropriate for us,

since this is, there's a new census out, that would follow the nuisances and put it in the base bill. it can still be amended in different ways and that's what happens with a formula. they will be people to figure out to raise their area a little bit and we'll put in amendments, but i think this is a much more difficult thing to give fairness on the floor than some of the other things. so i would hope we would adopt this. >> all those in favor for a minute say aye. opposed, no. well, the ayes and appeared to have it. >> mr. chairman? could i just take 30 seconds to inform the chair and ranking member? >> i'm sorry, i'm going to call for a roll call vote. sorry. on the burr amendment number

two, call the roll, please. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]

[roll call] [roll call] >> the amendment is adopted. >> mr. chairman? >> that's the way it goes. [laughter] >> if i could be recognized for one minute spent i just bought my little state to be held harmless. [laughter] >> senator burr. >> senator bingaman and i have worked on formula changed to title i. we hope to have it done before this market. we are not there. but i want all members to know

that the same disparities exist in title i formula come as a doing title ii. case in point, dollars in title i range from a low of 12 under $30 per poor child to a high of $3576 per poor child. when you add in the additional stimulus money that was targeted towards title i in 2009, the range grew from a low of 2125 per poor child in one state, to $6444 per poor child in and of the state. though not at the bottom of the list, north carolina is in the bottom 10 states in the amount of title i funding. it receives per poor children actually five the states represented on this committee, utah, iowa, north carolina, tennessee and arizona make up the bottom 10.

i hope to work it out with senator bingaman by the time this bill receives any floor activity that we would have an amendment to reform funding formula for title i can i thank the chair. >> mr. chairman? >> e4 -- i just make a statement? before we turn over to the next i want to give a brief update on the progress. my staff and senate into staff have been serving all of your stats and appears that we have approximately 30 amendments remaining down from the original 144. i believe it's possible to complete work on this bill tonight i did before we begin stack votes on the floor or if we return to the committee room once those votes are complete, that would mean we do not have to reconvene tomorrow. senators would be free to return to their state or of the trial. i would ask santa to work with us, remain flexible as we work to complete our committee work

this evening. senator murkowski. >> i would just like to comment to my dear friend from north carolina. i understand his amendment to adjust for population change. as he work with senator bingaman we would like to be included with the states allow their own or even gave modestly. but there are certain issues around held harmless but if we could be included in the discussion, because it's not always census data and growth. there's poverty levels, certainly hold harmless levels and sell. i would like to consult with my state, work with you. we understand there's been demographic shifts, and we need to acknowledge that, down we have other dynamics. we would like to be included to see how we could be constructi constructive. >> i certainly will entertain your participation on anything. mr. chairman, i wonder if it

might be right to make a unanimous consent request. i would make unanimous consent for request that we limit debate on any additional amendments to five minutes in total and have the vote. i think we could expedite the process of moving through 30 if all the members would accommodate that unanimous consent request. >> senator has made a unanimous consent request. >> i'm over here. [laughter] i've -- in the interest of time you'll all be happy to do that. but it is six minutes. so if you will give me six, and then told everybody else to five that would be great. [laughter] >> let's do the unanimous consent request and i'll make sure the chairman's clock does not start until one minute has gone by, how about that? >> i ask unanimous consent for additional minute if i'm not done. perhaps that will work out.

>> i don't know. obviously, i speeded i won't object. just give him five minutes. >> .org i will ask both the first test to keep time altair to keep it down to five minutes. sometimes it might be six or seven minutes or something like that. i will try my best. >> i will try my best. >> i will try my best to keep it down. >> is there a bell we could ring at five minutes? >> senator blumenthal, you are next. >> thank you. i assume that the senate from north carolina didn't make a suggestion knowing that i would be offering the next amendment. i'm offering blumenthal, moguls, casey a minute supported by my colleagues senator mikulski and casey and i ask immense consent that senator kirk be added as a cosponsor. i believe he wishes to be added

as a cosponsor. mr. chairman, -- all, for more to say. spent this man is very, very important in directing the department of education's institute for education sciences to continue research and development activities directed and related the gifted and talented students, particularly those who have been underrepresented as gifted and talented. the chairmen and ranking member well know as we all do that the bill before us has a great many references to english language learners and individuals who have disabilities. and those populations deserve and need the kind of attention that they receive in this bill. but there's also another group, the gifted and talented, that are highly likely to drop out or

receive less than the attention they need and deserve. and his population has unique needs just as individuals with disabilities and english language learners do. and the bill before us, i would respectfully suggest should be amended so that grants and research activities through the ids benefit these gifted and talented students by providing the tools and training that our teachers need, and by providing other kinds of technology driven advances to the benefit of those students. this amendment provides this direction, which in the past to appropriation bills, have been included, and very simply they should just continue spinning i would say to my friend, that

this program is listed in the programs of natural significance in each of our bills with an allowable activity. it's one of those that we agreed would be in the base bill but not separated out that would be an allowed use of the funds in that program. >> it would be allowed, mr. chairman, in that program, but he deserves the additional incentive that this amendment would provide and the direction from the ids which is an entirely different program. in the program of national significance is department of education, specifically the secretary of education, this one is to the ids. and, therefore, it is a different methodology of selection, but apart from that point, it really deserves the

kind of attention to did and how did students deserve that kind of attention through this program, mr. chairman. >> senator mikulski? >> first of all i would like to support the blumenthal a minute. and i have some in my own state of johns hopkins run something called the senate which talented youth. when i asked them to come in what other federal programs that help gifted and talented youth, quite frankly they are a left a population. there is the javits program. it is enormously modest and it is a stereotype that is a bias against the gifted and talented. there's a bias that believes that smart kids are rich kids, that smart kids don't come from barry jokes. that they don't come from neighborhoods like mine where they filmed the film the wire. somehow another we've gotten away from believing that the intelligence and talent is

randomly distributed through our population. and that many teachers are better prepared serving children who are underachieving than children with enormous potential. and what we're asking for a thing, and we have senator grassley who is also taken an interest in this, the chairman has been very good at including some the things called the talent act. what i say to my college, we need to do more for these kids, and our teachers need to know more how to help these kids alone. many of the kids who drop out are not because they are intellectually limited, but because they are smart and they are well beyond this cool, and often well beyond their teachers who know how to tell really smart kids. so i support the blumenthal initiative. >> we have gone over are five minutes. all those in favor of the blumenthal and them will say i ago. opposed, no.

okay, the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. okay, now go to senator roberts. >> you mr. chairman. and thank you all for your indulgence. i would like to know that i have letters of support on this amendment from the nba and the american association of school districts. my intent -- >> which amendment? >> i'm sorry. the amendment is roberts titled the amendment number the amendment number one. >> if you agree, i don't know what the hell it means. spent the senator is recognized. thank you.

>> i would also like to ask unanimous consent to add senators paul and hatch as cosponsors. is that without objection? >> without objection, of course. >> thank you. unfortunately, i was telling my colleagues i'm concerned about the administration's effort to implement the race to the top, rtp is the acronym which has been put forth i think you quickly without sufficient review. our tt created in the 2000 stimulus package a competitive grant program that provides federal money to states that enact plans to improve suits performed by making progress on standards and assessments. turning around low performing schools boosting teacher quality, and adopting common standards for curriculum. however, we have yet to see whether rtt actually promotes increased student achievement. given the current focus to use resource proven practices it seems premature to fully implement a still experimental

policy, priority. especially when grantees already receiving awards have been granted more than 2000, two dozen timeline extensions. according to a june 2011 gao report on rtt officials in 20 states that were interviewed reported that apply for rtt required a significant amount of time and effort. in fact, one state official estimated that her state spent at least 1000 hours in preparation for their rtt application. in addition, nine out of 12 states receiving funding reported they see a variety of challenges include hiring qualified staff, complex state contractor requirements, and lengthy documentation reviews. as a result of the challenges states have been slow to draw down their rtt grant funds. as of june 3 of this year, states have drawn down about

96 million, or only 12% of funds of the year, year one total. that's the one total of rtt grant funds, totaling almost 800 million. 969 out of 800 million? we are not ready. while educators understand the rules of competition and education, codification of rtt put small and rural school districts at a distinct disadvantage. it is not a willingness to compete, but the capacity to compete under rtt that makes this federal policy priority of competition so unpalatable. ..

in addition i do not believe the federal government should be mandating a one-size-fits-all education reform agenda by proposing a financial reward system in order to force states to make changes deemed worthwhile by the administration. my good friend, dr. jerry weiss, a person of the chairman knows and who the ranking member enzi knows and senator alexander knows, he is the former superintendent of the montgomery county schools. recently he said in a "new york times" article, and major failing of our tt teacher evaluation system is that it is being imposed from above rather than being developed by the teachers and ministers who will use it. people don't tear down what they help build. the original intent of the esea in title i was to help level the

playing field for disadvantaged students especially those in poverty. one federal education dollars are extremely limited, state budgets are in dire straits. why would we want to take valuable research, buyable resources and funding away from states that choose to either not apply for our tt or do not follow reform directives from washington. now mr. chairman, i understand how this is going to come out. i think this will be a partyline vote or perhaps not. there may be at least some negative votes that would agree with my position, so i would like to withdraw the amendment and i hope if and when we get to the floor, that i would like to offer it at that time, so i ask unanimous consent that i may withdraw the amendment. speech the senator is within his right to withdraw the amendment. >> i appreciate that and would only add that with that withdrawal we will not exceed

900 pages in this bill. [laughter] >> i would like to say, i just want to say to my friend from kansas that i sympathize with him and a year ago we change. we did put in this bill in the base bill a priority for low income poverty areas and rural areas so that is in the bill for this race to the top. so hopefully we can change that a little bit. we are going to, senator bennett. >> thank you mr. chairman. i wanted to be recognized to call up bennett title ii amendment, the great teachers and principals amendment that i have worked on with senator alexander. as we discussed earlier and i'm not going to repeat the ground that senators and i -- fraud except to say the teachers all over my state, teachers all over the district have often told me that they weren't adequately prepared to do the hard work that we are asking them to do and that is why we created the

teacher residency program which is one of a number of residency programs in the country. and it was a very very difficult process. things and education are as important as teacher development in in the high need schools. the great teachers and principals amendment will support the creation and expansion of high-quality teacher and principal training programs to prepare teachers and leaders to serve students in high need areas. this is a voluntary program. states can choose to participate or not. and so can any teacher or principal preparation program including institutes of higher education, certification programs and alike. these programs will be designated teacher and principal teacher academies. the act will improve teacher principal training in three key ways improving the selectivity by raising additional requirements requiring hands-on clinical training to prepare teachers and principals like we do with doctors.

candidates only graduate once they prove they can improve student academic achievement. participating states will agree to remove burdensome regulations on these programs. this supports the efforts the department recently announced for reduce regulations and focus on outputs rather than inputs in the place emphasis on quality. states would be required to shut down and academies who fail to produce consistently great teachers and leaders. one in 80 organizations have signed on to the great act including teach for america the center for american progress and the university mission school of -- black alliance for educational reliance and i would encourage our colleagues to support the amendment. >> i agree. >> again it is a voluntary program. i would emphasize the results of the program support. i commend senator bennett and alexander for their work on this issue and i urge they adopt the amendment. all in favor say aye. oppose, no. the ayes appear to have it.

it. the ayes have it. the amendment is adopted. now senator paul. >> this amendment is title ix, amendment 21 and i would ask unanimous consent to change the wording slightly and i believe this will be passed around the new wording. it would change the exempt special education teachers who are qualified in special ed and are otherwise exempted from the definition of highly qualified teacher. this is what we have talked about earlier, that the definition of highly quality side -- qualified teachers difficult to assess and a special ed teacher and i think they are being punished for progress on kids taking standardized tests who have special needs and i think it is difficult to assess teachers in that fashion. does everybody have a copy of it? >> all i have here is --

okay, thank you. line six, strike line six and all that follows. >> this one is not worth passing out because that doesn't have the new language on it. do we have one that has the new language? >> is this -- do i have the new language? >> that is not the new language. that one that was just passed out is not the correct one. does someone have the correct one? >> is this the new language? >> did we make copies of this? go ahead and explain. we will get our heads into it. >> we talk about the highly

qualified teachers. i think a special ed teachers are getting a raw deal and are not being assessed in an accurate fashion because i think it is difficult to assess a special ed teacher given the difficulty of assessing the testing of special ed children, so this would exempt the special ed teachers from a hike -- highly qualified teacher definition. and it says, it is basically one sentence. special education teachers who are qualified in special education or otherwise exempted from the definition of highly qualified teacher. >> that would be in the core subjects that they teach? it would be exempted? >> correct. >> yeah.

[inaudible conversations] >> so just as a clarification, if they are qualified in the area to be a special education teacher, then they are considered qualified to teach the kids whatever subject they need to teach them? >> correct. >> okay. excuse me. senator paul, if i understand it, under -- that special education teachers are required to do two things. they have to be trained in special education practice and then they have to have, have to be knowledgeable in the content areas. that is the highly qualified deal, right? so are you saying that all you want is to have them be qualified in the practice of special education? wouldn't you want them also to

be able to note the content area that they are teaching? >> yeah. i guess my understanding is they are being judged under the highly qualified teacher definition. they are being judged on scores of their kids are making on standardized assessments and this would exempt them from being judged in that fashion. >> mr. chairman? my understanding is that -- >> senator burr and then senator murray. >> for highly qualified, the individual would have to be qualified in a certain subject matter and i think what senator paul is doing is simply saying that you have got quality teachers who have passed the certification to be special needs, but there is no -- we are really going overboard in saying for every subject matter that you might be responsible to teach that student to be highly

qualified you are going to have to go get certified for each subject matter. they little bit different than what you just said which i think is what the goal is, well rounded from the standpoint of the knowledge of the subjects and they are in charge with the don't require them to get the certification requirement for that particular subject. is that accurate? >> senator merkley. >> thank you mr. chair. senator paul just for clarification, is this what we are working on? do we have an amendment? >> yeah we have an amendment. we have been trying to work our way through the bill. >> i see from your team that copies are coming. >> i was just told by my professional staff that on the content area they only have to be knowledgeable, highly qualified in one area.

one area, not all the subjects they teach but in one major area they have to be qualified. >> did you have an observation on this senator isakson? i didn't want to enter up to. >> led to just read here for highly qualified teacher certification, a special education teacher would have to meet these four things. have a bachelors degree, hold a teaching license and/or certification in the state, be separately certified as a special education teacher and demonstrate competency in each of three reading, math and science subjects either bypassing the rigorous academic subject test in each of the three subjects or having college or graduate degree in each of those three subject matters.

that is the special education teacher requirements, if they are to be certified as a highly qualified teacher. >> that's right. >> i think what senator rand is attempting to do is to say if they have a special education teacher certification, then we don't need to hold them to the highly qualified teacher requirements of proficiency and/or degrees in three different subject matters. >> that is in idea. >> no child left behind. is in the highly qualified definition of no child left behind. >> mr. chairman? mr. chairman? let me address what this is trying to address. in a state like mine in georgia, georgia -- in a state like mine in georgia and having traveled to your beautiful state of iowa i know the same is true in would

be chu and most of the stage represented here today. highly qualified teachers by this definition in special ed can be tantamount to almost impossible in rural areas of the country. what this attempt to do is ensure that we have a certified highly qualified special ed teacher in every last-gram that we don't limit them but we allow them to have alternative certifications in the prescriptive certification in here so a school system can make a judgment on their qualification and science math and reading beyond just a degree or a certificate granted by a university or an institution. this is one of the biggest challenge is to rural schools. i don't know the senator bid that has had any experience with this or not. this has been one of the biggest problems with the requirement of highly qualified in no child left behind in this would be a great addition in terms of continuing a major emphasis on special needs children and special needs education but

given local boards of education the flexibility for alternative certification a little broader than the narrow certification this calls for. >> my concern is always, are we having less requirement for teachers who teach special ed kids than we have for teachers who teach non-special ed kids? and if there is a letter of a requirement that somehow they don't have to be as knowledgeable, they don't have to be a certified as teachers as non-disabled. i would be opposed to that. >> mr. chairman, would you hear me out on this? they have to be qualified as a special ed teacher. now wait a minute. i want you to hear me out because i want to address your specific question. in math, in science or in reading, any teacher in a school that doesn't teach ida, that teacher has got to be qualified and certified in those subjects

that they teach those subjects the subject as their loan subject. there many cases where a special ed teacher not only is teaching special education to those students but is teaching specific coursework in science reading and mathematics. to require they be recertified or otherwise certificated is tantamount to impossible to find enough teachers to meet that highly qualified definition so you are not diminishing the qualification of the teacher as a special education teacher. you are allowing alternative certification in terms of -- >> again, i want to point out that special ed teachers are not teaching special education. they are teaching content. they are teaching content, not some special ed so therefore you want them, at least, at the minimum, to be as qualified in

those subjects as the non-disabled kids are getting taught. quite frankly i would think they would even have to go a little higher because sometimes it is harder to teach kids who are intellectually challenged for example or who have disabilities, cognitive disabilities. but they are teaching content and they need to know that content. >> mr. chairman i don't think you would intentionally sell special education teacher short, but you should recognize that teacher that is certified in special ed is one of the most highly qualified teachers to deal with special needs of anybody and to say that, to me, the highly qualified definition further in this country would mean it's not available they have to be all of these criteria, you are making it very difficult to get highly qualified special ed teachers in the classroom with a student so that is my only point and i think that is what the gentleman is trying to do. i think if you check it out you would find this to be correct. i still want to thank the

distinguished former superintendent that i have been to colorado. colorado has relatively remote people and i maybe wrong about your stay but i imagine it is quite challenging in your state. >> it is very challenging. it is challenging both in rural in urban areas. it is the reason why we pay our special ed teachers more than some other teachers in our district because they are harder to find. that is the beginnings of the differentiated pay we are talking about, so i won't challenge at all the notion that we are not supportive of our special ed dictators. the question i have come and i don't want to prolong the debate, but what i heard the senator say was he had heard from special ed teachers that comment i forget the verb to use, don't remember, but they were being held responsible or punished i think is what you said, for the low scores of

their students. i wonder what that means, because in most places there is not a tie in terms of achievement and certainly certification, which was the discussion we were having earlier. so i would like to hear more about what that is. i have not heard frankly much and i would be happy to learn about it, hear about here about it, much about the certification durden for special ed versus the certification burden for other highly qualified teachers although i have heard about it from you know, the whole cabinet. so, i am a little leery of a solution but i want to understand the problem better. >> i think senator isakson and senator burr describes a problem and the solution better than i did to tell you the truth. >> special ed teachers are wonderful teachers. i have supported special ed for all of my adult life, but there

are two complements to special education. there is the ability to teach, the ability to teach kids who are special needs kids. that requires training, a lot of training and almost in some ways requires a calling. god bless them, they are so wonderful. then it requires the knowledge base to be able to teach these kids these subject matter and i think we are getting confused about the two of them. and they are both necessary and to say one is not necessary, all you need to do is to know how to teach kids that are special needs, leaves out the necessity for them to know what to teach, how and what. so i, i just, i have to strongly oppose this.

>> another way of saying it mr. chairman if you don't mind is, i will say i am for lifting burdens on teachers by the way just as a general matter. but i don't know a special ed teacher who if they had the task of teaching mathematics for example would be comfortable doing that without being trained in teaching mathematics. they would reject that. they would say i cannot. you are asking me to do something i cannot do. the same with literacy, the same as science. no responsible teacher would say, please let me teach those subjects that i have not been trained to teach. so, i am sensitive about the burden issue but i wonder if we are attacking it in the wrong place? >> mr. chairman? i am also told by my professional staff that since this requirement has been adopted in 1997, 98, that one of the reasons that we have seen

test scores go up for kids with special needs is because teachers, of special education teachers now know better the content. i am told that -- i don't don't know that myself. >> i just have two points of confusion. one is -- i can see where a special ed teacher would need to if they are teaching math, have that background in math. and, but, this definition that senator burr read seem to suggest that a special ed teacher in math would also have to have been trained in teaching reading? i just am wondering if that is the case and -- because i don't think -- i agree that a special ed teacher who teachers math should have training in math, and in special ed.

but i don't think they should need to have training in something they are not teaching, and then the other thing that i still don't understand is this notion that they are punished for their scores and where that comes from. i don't know what that is. that isn't my understanding. >> i had nothing to do with that statement. >> no, no you didn't. >> senator paul's amendment, i just want to be clear on one thing. there is no reduction in the requirement that they be trained in special education. the problem that has come about in trying to meet the highly qualified definition is finding teachers that are also certificated as prescriptive and the other subject they teach and there are special needs teachers in special ed teachers that end up going into and find education in some cases because of the needs of the student. they teach all the core

curriculum in terms of math, science, reading and civics or whatever it might be. those are very difficult to define. we are not trying to lower the standard of a special education teacher. >> i understand. i'm on your side on this because what i was saying is to have all those disciplines, that is like a very very high bar. >> if the senator would yield. many of our elementary schoolteachers teach all of those courses in elementary schools. you have one classroom, one teacher who teaches a lot of those courses. >> absolutely and if they are teaching all of this things i would think they would require that, but if they are not teaching all of those things, are their special ed teachers that only teach reading? are there to special ed teachers that only teach math? >> can i try to address i think what oath of you have just said and maybe the disconnect.

that elementary schoolteacher does not have to, as i understand it, does not have to be certified for all the different subject matters to be classified as highly qualified teacher. in the case of a special education teacher, not only would they need to be -- meet the requirements of special education to be highly qualified, they would have to be tested and/or degreed in every subject matter that might come up as a teacher in that classroom with a special needs child. >> and that is a higher bar than the regular elementary school? >> much higher in that is why think senator isakson said in many areas around the country, especially in rural areas, you can't find somebody with a number of degrees and therefore

you have got a teacher that bite be in the classroom but not highly qualified high-definition. but highly qualified from the standpoint that their knowledge and more importantly they are highly qualified from the standpoint of the special education degree. >> i am told also that elementary schoolteachers do not need subject certification. that is only true in secondary schools, not in primary schools. the last thing i would just say is that reading, science and math, there are three, these are tests that they take after they get their degree. i don't think it is onerous at all for special ed teachers to be required to pass a test in reading, science and math. most agents have required that.

>> senator merkley. >> thank you mr. chair. i am just trying to nail down the distinction we are talking about between an elementary schoolteacher and a special ed teacher because under the definition of highly qualified 778, it does say that an elementary schoolteacher must have passed a rigorous state test in reading, writing, mathematics and other areas of basic elementary curriculum, so it lays out, and it says they are teaching a single subject, then they don't have to. and it sounds like, sounds like the same structure that we are discussing for the special education teacher and i am not sure we have nailed down the difference other than the special education teacher needs to have special training in how to teach as a special education teacher. am i missing something here?

>> alright, is there any more discussion? a vote occurs on the amendment by senator paul. all those in favor say aye. opposed, no. the nose appear to have it. a recorded vote is requested. the clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]

[roll call] [roll call] [roll call] >> to vote is 10 ayes, 12 nays. >> the amendment is not agree to. who do we have left? any amendments on the democratic side? senator casey. senator casey. >> mr. chairman thank you very much. am offering -- let me get the

right amendment number here. this is casey california amendment number one. and the title of the amendment is the well-rounded education amendment, and the thrust of this amendment is to speak to a basic problem we have now with no child left behind, the focus and sometimes the focus to the exclusion of a lot of subject matter is the focus only on reading and math, and as appropriate as it is to focus on those subjects to bring scores up, unfortunately it has led to a real diminution in the time that students are spending on virtually anything else. ..

>> they do a lot better not only in school, but certainly i think over time and in life. let me give you an example of that. the college board reported that in 2010 students who took a full year of art and music scored 91 points higher on the s.a.t. than students who took only a half a year or less. i know the impact that this has had, that the failure to have these subjects available has had

on a state like pennsylvania. there was a recent statement made by an elected official in pennsylvania who was talking about a particular school district, and he said that a, and i'm quoting, this is a, this quotation refers to the chester upland school district. and i'm quoting from a news report. the chester upland school district is without music or art on the high school level. as a matter of fact, there is only one music teacher in the entire school district, unquote. so says an elected official who represents that school district in the general assembly of the statehouse of representatives. so i think it's badly needed whether you talk to educators or parents or whether you talk to, um, people as passionate about this as david mccullough, the great historian has talked about what this has done to our country when you have children

being educated in a very narrow teach-to-the test kind of regiment. so i would ask a yes vote on this amendment. >> as i understand the amendment, it takes five programs that were basically eliminated in the base bill and puts it into one program. is that correct? arts and education, civics, teaching, american history, economic education, foreign language assistance program. and one of the things that i've always disliked about no child left behind is that it's crowded out the arts and music and pe, and this would help to at least broaden that out, getting rid of no child left behind. >> mr. chairman? >> yes, sir. >> just recognition very briefly. >> yes, sir. >> i'd say to the author of the amendment and to the chairman, had you adopted my amendment with two pots of money and full flexibility, all these were

covered as well as if a school wanted to do pe or whatever. the funds were there, the flexibility was there to have accomplished all this, and we wouldn't have to create a new program or wish that we had created a new program because schools would have had the flexibility to do what they wanted. >> mr. chairman? >> yes, sir. >> i don't think there's anything in this that can't be done under title i if schools choose to do that, and it sets up a new program, and it looks like it allocates or wishes for $500 million to be used for this. so this is 17 more pages and another bunch of money. [laughter] >> well, one of the, one of the basic reasons to put forth this amendment is we've been hearing about the defects of no child left behind for all these years. ask one of them, a glaring defect and a really corrosive problem, is that you have

children being educated in a very narrow, limited way, and it's not just bad for the long term, it's actually bad for their test scores. it's making it more difficult for them to achieve, to be successful as they could be. and i think children should have as broad an education as possible. no child left behind short circuited that. >> all those in favor of the casey amendment will signify by saying aye. >> aye. >> opposed, no. >> no. >> the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the ayes have it. >> mr. chairman? >> senator burr? >> i'd call up burr amendment number 1 under title v. number 1, title v. >> i'll be extremely quick on

this, mr. chairman. >> okay. >> one of the most recognized barriers to the growth of charter schools is the access to private capital to insure quality facilities. the credit enhancement for charter schools facilities program is an important program for addressing the capital and funding gap as well as for strengthening the public/private partnership between charter schools and organizations that provide such capital resources. in very simple terms, this amendment does the following: it would add a waiver provision to the credit enhancement for charter schools facilities program that would allow the secretary of education to waive the extremely restrictive definition of high performing charter school. without some flexibility to this definition, there is very, there's a very high likelihood that credit will be unfairly limited to worthy charter

schools that need the credit. i've heard from cdfis that are concerned that the effect of the definition in the requirement will make it nearly impossible to use the credit enhancement program to make loans to almost any of the charters with which they presently work. this amendment carries over the same waiver language that's in the basic charter school program. mr. chairman, i would encourage my colleagues to support this amendment. it simply provides a pathway for those charter schools, and that pathway goes right to the secretary of the department of education. [background sounds] >> a question.

in the bill we targeted federal dollars to high performing charter schools, but -- and defined those terms they receive 85% of the total appropriations and provides charter schools with funds to support the creation, expansion and replication. we targeted -- [inaudible] to remain 15% to such high performing schools. [inaudible conversations] >> mr. chairman, let me suggest to my colleagues there are a number of reasons for us to do this. the reality is that most states do not define high performing

schools which would put the onus on the lender to make that determination. another problem is finding demographically similar schools as a comparison which can be nearly impossible given the very natures of the schools and especially in charter schools. and these are all criteria that is absolutely essential for the usage of the charter school or the credit enhancement for charter schools program. if a charter school doesn't merit participation, um, then i could just about assure my colleagues that the secretary of the department of education is never going to provide the waiver to allow them to access it. if our focus is on outcome and

we're less concerned with where it came from or how it came from, then making sure the capital is available to all that want to try to provide that high quality education to our nation's kids, this is an important provision to have in. >> again, this is not an area which i claim any expertise whatsoever. but i'm told that -- here's my view on charter schools. there are good charter schools, and there are mediocre charter schools, and there are some bad charter schools. we know that. as i understand it, the language that we had in there under high performing charter schools was to target the scarce federal dollars that we have to those charter schools that are doing better than their contemporary schools in the state. so you want money to go to those

schools that are high performing, that are doing better. why would you want to put scarce federal dollars into a charter school that isn't doing any better than any of the other schools in terms of their performance? >> well, mr. chairman, let me say that in the main charter school program, not the credit enhancement for charter schools facilities program, but in the main charter schools program which is specifically designated for charter schools for expansion purposes, this exact wafer exists. -- waiver exists. >> this waiver exists in -- >> in the base text, in the main charter school program this waiver provision exists. i'm just taking what's in the base target school program and extending that to the credit enhancement for charter schools program.

[inaudible conversations] >> we're trying to find the base language over here, so if anybody has it, that would really help us a lot. what is it? [inaudible conversations] >> this is a, this is a live problem in the world because you've got, you know, the access to real estate is tough, the access to credit is tough, and i've seen both sides of it. we put a bunch of charter schools into our other schools -- >> i'm told that the waiver that's in the bill now in existing law applies to programs, that your amendment, the burr amendment, would expand that to facilities. i'm understanding that the

reason it's in for programs is, obviously, to get them to do better programs. but if they're not doing anything better, why should we then give them more money if they're not doing better than the schools that they're contemporary with. at least that's my understanding of it. >> well, let me state two of the problems that i said at the beginning. one, um, demographically-similar is a difficult determination to make in the charter school population. if we had as many charter schools as we had public schools, i couldn't make that claim. but demographically similar is going to be extremely tough in rural north carolina or in rural america from the same point of charter schools. secondly, this is ultimately the secretary of education that determines whether a waiver is warranted. and with as much emphasis as we have put into this bill about

federal determination, i would think that everybody would be comfortable with any exception, any provision, any waiver that the secretary of education could surely look at that and determine whether the merits existed to allow such a wafer to a -- such a waiver to a program. >> further discussion? all those in favor of the burr amendment number 1 to title v cigny my by saying aye. >> aye. >> opposed, no. >> no. the clerk will call the roll. [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call]

[roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] [roll call] >> vote is 10 ayes, 12 nays. >> and i have 12 nays. the amendment is not agreed to. next we'll turn to senator hagan and after senator hagan, senator murkowski.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. i have, um, i have, i should have two amendments, one i'd like to speak about, and then i think we need to withdraw it, and i'll quickly go to the next one. or i can just do one at a time. >> well, i'd appreciate if you have an amendment, please, offer the amendment. >> i have one that's really focused on financial literacy. i think it's critically important in this day and aging that we as a country focus on teaching our students about financial literacy. i keep telling everybody that this is not rocket science, we just don't teach it. and if you look at what's happened over the last two years with the subprime mortgage crisis, if our students can be learning algebra and calculus, i don't understand why we don't teach the basic concepts that people need to understand in today's world, and that is how to understand debt, how to understand that debt works for you from an investment, but not

for your, you know, your everyday expenses that so many people are putting on credit cards and then having these unbelievable problems. and i also look at the mortgage crisis that we're in. if we could help young people today understand what a basic mortgage is, then i think it would pay huge dividends as we go forward. and i think the key to improving the financial literacy of all americans is being sure that our students are exposed to this at all the appropriate stages of their education. to a formal financial literacy education. i served for a number of years in the state senate in north carolina, and i was able to have a bill drafted -- bill put into law that required that this be taught in high school in the civics and economics class. and right now there are several states that do, i think there's three states in the nation that require this to be taught and about 18 that have some sort of

program within their school system. and this is not a mandate at all. and i also want to say that senators murray and senators merkley have been added as co-sponsors. but i think it's very important that we have an avenue where states can apply on a competitive grant basis, where they can request help with curriculum with grades 6-12 that would then allow them to receive funding to help with putting this forward in our classrooms. i think it would make a huge difference in the outcome of our general population. and i understand that this might be premature at this time now to vote on it, and so i just wanted to reiterate how concerned i am in our country right now with the lack of education to our students that i think is probably one of the most

important things that we should be doing in our school systems today. and that is offering financial literacy to our students. and also being sure that the teachers who teach this course have an avenue where they can get the training and the expertise so that we do have the qualified teachers to teach it. every time when i'm out talking about this issue invariably people come up to me and say, i wish i had had that class while i was in school. and there's great curriculum out there right now. many of it on online-based courses where students take at their own, um, level, and, you know, time frame. and it is truly, i think, could make a difference in our country today. >> i say to my friend from north carolina, i know how strongly she feels about this, i share that. we do need to start teaching our kids financial literacy. i will point out that that is one of -- we just adopted the casey amendment, and that is one of the, um, acceptable programs

that states can use when in the well rounded education and title iv, so we just adopted that, and one of them is financial literacy. so it's sort of encompassed within that amendment that we adopted of senator casey's just a little while ago. senator murphy. >> thank you, mr. chair. yeah, i just want to echo everything that senator hagan said. this is something that should bring everybody together across the spectrum. so off when we're -- so often when we're talking about predatory arrangements, i hear folks say, well, it should be buyer beware. people should understand. but how do you understand if you've never been taught the principles of interest or layaway or a whole series of issues related to management of credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards, house savings accounts, work, what is a

retirement account, so on and so forth. i mean, all these, these things are essential to families promoting and building their own strong financial foundation within a very complicated world. i think it's important to remember how much more complicated that world has become. when i got out of graduate school and went to work for the defense department, i applied for a mastercard. i was turned down because i did not have two years of work experience. and i was a presidential fellow. that's what the world was like when i came out of school. now i get credit card applications for my daughter and my son on an almost daily basis. i think my dog would qualify for a credit card. and the complexity of the financial arrangements has become extraordinarily greater. the difference between your home loan bank down on the corner that creates a simple interest rate and has a straightforward loan product and can explain it to you in three minutes, and there's no predatory aspect at all to very complicated

arrangements that require folks who are in the business to be able to lay it out which also creates an opportunity for misunderstanding. our children need to be able to understand this complicated world. and so i would love for us to adopt this right now. i'll defer to my colleague, but i think this is so important to the success of our families. this is family values. >> one other thing, mr. chairman. and that is in our military right now we have a number of people that are losing their military clearance because they have gotten into financial trouble. and we see that's a big issue in our military. and once again if we don't teach these concepts, um, the real world is out there on a predatory basis that's really doing a lot of harm. and i think we could prevent so much of that by actually having courses like this in our schools today. but, mr. chairman, i will withdraw this amendment, and i

will be sure to put it forward on the floor. >> i appreciate that very much. the amendment is withdrawn. senator murkowski. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i, let's see, this is title vii, amendment number 1. >> amendment 1 on title vii. >> and this is an amendment that relates to the alaska native educational equity program, a program that has been in place for well over a decade now. i had attempted to work with you and the ranking member in including, um, some clarification language within the manager's amendment, and i appreciate the efforts that you made although there was some changes that were made that, um, have caused me to ask to offer up this particular amendment. what it does is strikes and replaces the, um, the language

within the manager's amendment. um, and in doing so this is just a more efficient way to, to handle what we felt were the necessary corrections for this program. there's two changes here. one specific change that was made to my language within the manager's amendment was the addition of a requirement from an annual report on the outcomes. certainly, we all need to have accountability with federal dollars, no problem with that. the problem we've got specifically is with this native educational equity the grantees are already required to annually report on the outcomes, um, through the, through the gepra, the government performance and results act. we've got good, solid reports. the alaska native educational equity program, i think, is clearly doing well. it's demonstrating it is vitally necessary. the grantees are doing great work. second problem that we've got with this new requirement for an

annual report is that it requires the grantee to report on specific areas of academic achievement, graduation rate, college enrollment of the alaska natives that the grantees serve. this clearly sounds good, um, but you have to realize that some of the allowable activities within the program itself, within the alaska date of educational equity program are targeted to younger children, children that are aged birth to 5. some are targeted towards the parents for parenting education. some assist alaska natives to become successful teachers. so there's some criteria within it that just don't fit within the given confines of the program. so i would ask that the language that we had offered up as part of that manager's amendment would be incorporated fully so that we don't have concerns with this additional reporting that may or may not be necessary given the type of program that

we have in front of us. >> let me see if i understand. the amendment basically recognizes the critical role the tribal leaders can play in the education and development of native students -- >> correct. >> it authorizes the use of funds to support the preservation, reclamation and restoration of native languages -- >> correct. >> it elevates the focus on native language and culture to support teaching and learning. um, i don't know, what's this about earmarks? what? [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> oh. while he's looking through that, could i ask, um, why are you removing the base bill's reporting requirements on the

local education agencies? >> what, what this amendment would do would be to make sure that the reporting requirements are still there. under, under the government performance and results act, they're still required to report annually. they do that. we don't remove that. so we're saying that that is still in place, that reporting requirement is still there, so the additional, the addition of a requirement for an annual report from the grantees on their outcomes would then be in addition to what is currently already requiredment. >> is there other, any further discussion on the murkowski amendment? all in favor of the murkowski amendment say aye. aye. opposed, nay? the ayes appear to have it, the amendment is adopted. next, we turn to senator murray.

>> mr. chairman, thank you very much. i know you've had a very long day, and i just want to talk about one amendment. i will not offer it, um, you've been here all day long, but i just want to say quickly on early child education which is so critical to many of our students, um, we make a number of strong steps within the legislation that is in front of us, and i appreciate all of the hard work. but as a former preschoolteacher, i know how important this is. i had an amendment that i was going to offer that i will, hopefully, do on the floor to create a new title in the sea. i will not describe it tonight, i will hopefully be able to offer it on the floor, but i do think we all understand that if our kids at an early age don't get what they need, a lot of the money we spend later on is because of that, and i'm hopeful we can, um, look at that amendment when we get to the floor. at this time i do have one other amendment i want to offer. this is my second amendment to

title i, and i do have a modification to that amendment that the clerk is passing out that i've worked out with the senator from alaska and would ask the staff to hand that out. and as they do -- >> it's amendment number 2 to title i, right? >> correct. and what this amendment actually does is help our states and our districts use open, interoperable standards for student data and assessment files. um, the legislation makes sure that states in districts can have their student data and assessment items available in industry-recognized formats that are secure and that protect student privacy. this may look like a real technical issue, but what it does is allow three very important changes that our parents and our schools are asking for. the burden of moving student records between schools or from schools to college will be greatly reduced by this amendment. teachers and parents will be able to use technology to create a customized learning experience

for kids, and schools will be safeguarded against losing their data when they change or upgrade technology systems. um, mr. chairman, currently when a student moves from one school to another, their records have to be printed, they have to be sent in an e-mail and then manually retyped by the new school. this, as you can all imagine, takes months, and all the time students are delayed from getting what services they need or the correct classes they need to be into. but if districts adopt open, interoperable data standards, student records could be moved instabilitily, officially and securely from school to school or to college when they graduate. so what adopting common standards actually does is it makes it cheaper and easier for schools to use technologies including systems that customize the learning experience for each child since they won't have to custom build for each school and can be reused and repurposed from other districts or states. and finally, let me just say by

having interoperable standards for assessment and student data, districts and states will then be safeguarded against rapidly evolving technology, and they would no longer have to worry about losing their data when they change vendors or upgrade their devices. so i think this is really a smart, common sense approach. doesn't specify the standard, doesn't specify how it's going to be implemented, leaves that up to the states. but, mr. chairman, this will save money, it will encourage innovation, and it will increase the engagement with parents and families, and most importantly, assure an easy way to make sure that our students move, who move from school to school, state to state, many of our military students who go back and forth get their records accurately and quickly. >> mr. chairman? >> senator enzi. >> is there a recognized, industry-recognized technology that's used by all of the states? because this would, you know, in order to follow a student, it

has to go between states as well as within the state. i know of several states that have the data currently, they just have it year by year. they don't follow the child with it, i don't think, because that gets into some privacy, some privacy situations. and do they, who owns the data. but is there an industry-recognized process for having this data follow the student to another state? >> this doesn't set the standard. there are a number of standards that can be used, and there are industry-recognize standards already in place, so what my amendment does is promote the ones that withstand rigorous testing for security and price, so that's what the amendment is focused on doing. >> i think i'd agree with that if it was in the state. but once you start moving between states, then all the

states have to have the same industry-recognized, interoperable -- >> yeah. states can already send information back and forth. what this does is makes sure they can do it electronically rather than having to send it by, you know, send it by e-mail and then retype into up into thr systems which is often what happens today. >> i think they can send some data, not all data, and this would require standardization. suspect that some wording -- isn't that some wording in the bill? >> it doesn't change what they can send, it just allows this format. >> mr. chairman? >> there's a department of defense program that started several years ago, i forget what it's called. but it was, it came up because kids were moving, you know, from base to base to base around, and they didn't know -- kids in hawaii were moving to washington state or someplace, and they

didn't know really what curricula they had and how that would coincide with the classes they were going to be in another state. so a system was developed, and it's been adopted, and the military has used it. and i think other school cans have used it now so that if a kid is going from one school in one state to another school in another state they electronically transfer the courses, the type of instruction this student has had, their standing and stuff so that when that kid goes to that next school, the teacher knows basically what that student has been taught in another state. the military's used this for several years. >> you are correct. but that's not an electronic system. -- >> yes, it is. >> no, it's a paper system -- >> no, it's electronic. i swear it's electronic. it's all electronic. >> you may be able to e-mail, but the standard, the interoperable standards don't allow that to happen. [inaudible conversations]

>> yeah, right, yeah. [inaudible conversations] >> oh, this is a private program, i guess, that they buy into or something like that. >> mr. chairman, may i ask a quick question? >> yes, sir. >> senator murray, does this language mean that these tests in all 15,000 school districts will be made public each year? >> no. it does not. it just allows the standard in place so that they can transfer them electronically. [inaudible conversations] >> it says they are securely available. available to whom? [inaudible conversations] i mean, if they're public, that means you have to buy new tests each year, and that would be extremely -- >> it's not public. we're just simply talking about an interoperable standard within the technology system that allows these records to move

from state to state, district to district so that they don't, so that everybody works together here. >> but the words "securely available,". >> everything that's in place is still in place. it doesn't require information to be given to anybody, it's just how you pass it from school to school, state to state. under what kind of system. >> i wonder if you'd be willing to withdraw it and let us work on it between now and the floor and make sure we know what the costs are and what the words "securely available" might mean. >> i'm sorry, senator, i could not hear what you said. >> i'm wondering if you might be willing to withdraw the amendment and let us understand clearly what the costs might be and what the words "securely available" might mean so it could be adopted on the floor. >> um, i'm happy to work with your staff on that. i think you will be satisfied by what we're able to do. it's not an additional cost, and the information goes from state to state, and -- but it does

allow it to be done which it's not today. >> senator withdrawing the amendment? >> yes. >> we'll work on it. i appreciate it. i -- we're about to have a vote very shortly. i understand there are no more votes on the republican side. i would ask those on this side if you feel strongly about it, i understand that, and you're certainly in your rights to offer an amendment, but i would hope that we would, perhaps, shorten the debate period on those amendments. i'd appreciate it. senator hagan? >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is an amendment, um, that affects sort of the global schools network. a number of years ago north carolina worked with the department of state to develop the global schools network, and it really helps prepare students in the global economy that we have going forward right now. and it's been extremely successful. and right now we have 14 school districts that participate and

another six are signed up for next year. currently, we have 200 visiting teachers participating in this program and about 5,000 students are being taught by these visiting teachers. i want to, first, say that there's no federal money allocated in this. and the reason for this is to help clarify that each state can set the standards for these visiting teachers. it's almost comparable to the exchange teachers that are in our university system. and it, without this amendment clarifying this, it's unclear whether any state could actually have a visiting teacher exchange program. so i would ask support for this amendment from a clarification standpoint, and senator burr has shared with my office that he is in support of this amendment. >> i think this provides a lot of flexibility for foreign language teacher from another country to come even to wyoming.

>> okay. >> and so i would hope everybody would support this. since our side has foregone a number of their amendments, i certainly hope that your side will forego a number of the amendments, and while we have a quorum that we can vote and before we disappear which we really will disappear, that we can get to a final vote. >> well, i'd just ask -- thank you, sir. i'd ask for a vote. >> further discussion on this amendment? seeing none, all those in favor say aye. >> aye. >> opposed? >> thank you. >> appears to pass, it has passed other amendment on that side? yes. >> this will be my first amendment offered, so i don't feel too badly about taking a moment of the committee's time. um, and i will be withdrawing it, and i will be very brief, and then i will move on to a second amendment which i believe is fairly widely supported. the first amendment has to do with the improving literacy through school libraries program

which has been in this act but was stripped out in this particular piece of legislation. as many of you know, senator murray has been a champion of this for a long time, and my senior senator, jack reed, in his time on this committee put an enormous amount of work into this program and is very proud of it. and we think it is very unfortunate that it has fallen out, and all i can say at this point is we're going to work very hard between now and the vote on the floor to restore that program. the, and that was whitehouse amendment number 1. the one that i would like considered is whitehouse number 3. this is an amendment that carries no fiscal impact whatsoever. um, i have one change that i would like to make to it which is on page 1, line 5, to strike the words "state, educational, agencies and." this asheers a balance for

states like mine that have community-based after school programs, that they will be treated equally by the department of education with extended day school-based programs. those of us who have community-based after school programs, and providence has one of the best in the world. i mean, it is really a phenomenal program. it, in fact, is so good that it's starting to work its way back into the classroom to support the teaching that is taking place in the classroom and exposes kids to offices, it expose kids to museums, it exposes kids to the ocean, to all sorts of things. it really is a superb, superb program. and the concern was that there was a fairly strong drift coming out of the department of education that they were going to get rid of community-based after school programs in return for handing over the sign block to the school it for the extended day. this has no cost, it creates no

penalty those who are in extended-day programs. it simply assures balance by the department of education in treating community-based after school programs and school-based extended-day programs. i thank chairman harkin for supporting this compromise amendment and for his considerable work pulling together the compromise on the 21st century community learning centers program. and if there are questions, i'm happy to address them. and if not, i hope we can pass it. i think this should be noncontroversial. it is purely defensive on behalf of those who have community after school programs. [inaudible conversations] >> we're going to finish before that. we'll finish before that. i'm sorry. >> and i'll take a voice vote. >> we were conferring on how we were going to wrap this up, so i'm sure we didn't hear much of your debate. >> it was eloquent and convincing.

[laughter] >> we have a vote. we'll have a vote on the whitehouse amendment. all in favor say aye. >> aye. >> opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it, the ayes have it. amendment is agreed to. we're going to take a break, but before we do that, we have a special recognition. take that down and clear the aisles, clear the aisles. >> oh, hell. ♪ happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. ♪ happy birthday -- [laughter] ♪ happy birthday to you >> all right. [applause] >> 39! >> whoever did this goes to the head of the class. [laughter] here's to final passage. >> 39. >> thank you all very much. [applause] >> when we come back, we'll eat the cake.

there's one vote? we have one vote on a nomination and possibly some votes thereafter. senator enzi and i will assess on the floor whether there's time to return between the votes or whether we can reconvene once all the votes are completed. >> tom, we should reconvene -- >> pardon? let's just see what happens. we have one vote, let's see what the distance is between this vote and the next one and sort of kind of eyeball us and see -- if there's going to be a big space of an hour, we can come back and finish. if not, then we'll vote on the floor and come back. so we're recessed until we come back. >> y'all come back, now. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> coming up tonight on the c-span networks, starting at 8 p.m. on c-span, secretary of state hillary clinton testifies on future u.s. strategies in afghanistan and pakistan. on c-span2 bp gulf oil spill compensation fund administrator kenneth feinberg. and one hour earlier at 7 p.m. eastern on c-span3, homeland security secretary janet napolitano on u.s. immigration policy and enforcement. that's tonight starting at 7 p.m. on the c-span networks. >> although this headline proved false, dewey's defeat by harry truman was iconic, and he continued to impact political history. this week on "the contenders,"

follow the career of thomas e. dewey, a dominant force in new york state politics as three-time governor and influencing national politics in the elections of dwight eisenhower and richard nixon. "the contenders" live from the roosevelt hotel in new york city, friday at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> middle and high school students, it's time to get those cameras rolling for this year's c-span student cam video competition. make a 5-8 minute video on this year's theme, "the constitution and you," and get it to c-span by the deadline of january 20th. and you could win the grand prize of $5,000. for complete details go to studentcam.org. >> today in the house members voted to repeal a 3% withholding from federal contractors created to insure contractors pay their taxes. that measure passed 405-16. making up for the income lost, the chamber approved a new

income calculations for the 2010 health care law. the bills are being combined to be sent to the senate. next, the debate on the repealing of the contractors tax. this is 30 minutes. >> mr. speaker, i come to the m floor today thisr. support, strg support of h.r. 674 to repeal the onerous, job-killing 3%t of withholding law. while this legislation has 269 cosponsors acknowledge the leaders on the bill -- ways and means health committee chairman, wally herger, and our democrat ways and means colleague, congressman earl blumenauer. in addition to these advocates, we have 25 members of the ways and means committee supporting this legislation, a clear signal of the strong bipartisan support for repeal of this 3% withholding rule. . this provision like many efforts to increase federal revenue and tax compliance is lined with paperwork, complexity, and cost,

all of the things that hinder rather than help promote a climate for job creation. by considering and passing this bipartisan bill, we will unlock new opportunities for hiring. job creators have told us just that and that's why this legislation has the support of a diverse coalition of more than 170 groups, including the government withholding relief coalition. like those job creators, others recognize the need for repeal. including president obama. in the statement of administration policy in support of h.r. 674, the administration noted that, and i quote, the effect of the repeal of the withholding requirement would be to avoid a decrease in cash flow to these contractors which would allow them to retain these funds and use them to create jobs and pay suppliers, end quote. mr. speaker, i couldn't agree more. supporting the repeal of the 3% withholding law is a demonstration that washington can work together with a strong

bipartisan vote we can reduce the uncertainty facing america's job creators and we can free up valuable resource businesses -- resources businesses can use for hiring. i ask my colleagues to vote yes on h.r. 674 and urge the senate to swiftly take up and pass this and, mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to have the from california control the remain or of our time. >> without objection. gentleman from michigan. >> i yield such time as i shall consume. is recognized. c >> i rise in support of this bill. it should have happened earlier. i think most of us, if not all of us, agree that this provision should beovis repealed. it is not narrowly targeted, and it would, indeed, impose senate andit costly burdens on federal, state and local governments.

i think we should all remind ourselves it was passed some years ago, and it was, i think, misguided when it was enacted in 2006 when we in the minority here did not control the congress. indeed, the ways and meansco committee when we were in the majority repealed the provision in 2009 and the congress,9 an ultimately, delayed its effective date. i do want to comment on the title of this bill that refersot to job creation. and it should be noted that this is really not going to addressyo the need for creation of jobs in our country. we've been here now nine months. there is still no effort by the majority here in the house toty

bring up any meaningful job legislation. and when the president brings up proposals to create jobs, they're thwarted by the majority here and by the republicans in the senate. so let's support this bill but not pretend that it will create jobs. and in this respect i refer to a recent statement by mark zandi, the chief economist for moody's analytics who said this aboutanl this bill: i don't think it's meaningful in terms of jobs, it's more trying the clean up something that needs cleaning up, end of quote. and, indeed, this needs to be cleaned up, and therefore, we need to pass it. let me also comment and we'll talk about this later on the second bill, the pay-for. i went before the rules

committee to ask that there beat consideration of a differentn pay-if. be pay-for. what we'll be considering later, and i just want everybody to understand the facts and each can judge on his own or her own how they'll vote, that thew th impact of the pay-for came through the ways and means committee. maturity could cause up to 500,000 individuals to lose health care coverage. i offered an amendment in the rules committee that would have offset the cost of a business tax provision by closing a loophole on the business side that's improperly enjoyed by oil and gas industry giants. and, unfortunately, my amendment was ruled out of order. we'll talk about that later. abo we're now on this bill. i urge its support. let's not pretend it's a job job

creation bill, let's get busy here on bills that will, indeed, help to promote jobs in the private sector of the united states of america as our president has proposed and he has pleaded that there be consideration by the house and the senate only to be responded to with deaf ears. i reserve the balance of my time. >> gentleman's time is reserved gentleman from california. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume.eake i rise in strong support of h.r. 674, the 3% withholding repeal and job creation act. the american people haveican repeatedly called on congress to work together in a bipartisan way to encourage job creation. that's exactly what we're doing here today. to h.r. 674 repeals a tax that

requires government agencies ats all levels, federal, state and local, to withhold 3% of all payments for goods and services beginning at the end of next year.xt this tax will affect everyone from manufacturers to road builders to physicians who treat seniors on medicare. many of these businesses operate on margins of less than 3% meaning that this provision hart their cash flow and effectively force them to give the federal government a no-interest loanment even though it doesn't into effect for another year,ef the 3% withholding tax is holding back job creation right now. coming from a small business background, i can attest thattts businesses look several years ahead when they're deciding how to invest.

this week the contractors of america released a survey finding that nearly half of all construction firms will be forced to hire fewer workers if 3% withholding tax takes effect. as one agc member put it, quote, the way the economy is now we are very lucky to make 3% profit. 3 this could put us out of business along with our 300-plus employees, closed quote. now is the time to eliminate the barriers that are standing in the way of jobs for american workers.s h.r. 674 has the support of businesses, state and local governments and 269 bipartisan co-sponsors in the house of representatives as well as the obama administration.ama mr. speaker, i ask unanimous concept to enter into the record a letter from the government

withholding relief coalition signed by more than 150 15 businesses, health care, education and local government groups supporting passage of this legislation. >> without objection, so ordered.mpor >> and with that i reserve the balance of my time. >> gentleman's time is reserved. gentleman from michigan.time >> i yield, now, as much time aa he shall consume to mr. blumenauer who is a lead sponsor of this bill.pons >> gentleman from oregon is recognized. >> thank you. i appreciate your courtesy, mr. levin, as i appreciate the opportunity to work with my friend, mr. herger, on moving this bill forward. it was only a couple months ago that we were having a presshis conference in the triangle with a bipartisan group of members o congress, representatives from some of the coalition members that my friend, mr. herger, referenced to be able to focus on the need to repeal this legislation.

um, mr. speaker, i think it ismr important to mark this criticalo step today.ep it will pass on the floor of the house in a strong bipartisanong vote reaffirming the bipartisan cooperation that got us to this point. i think that this is an example of what potentially we could do because a number of the members of the coalition that mr. herger referenced and that he's entering into h the record are likewise people who have a vision about how congress and the federal government could help rebuild and renew america. the contractors, the engineers, the architects that we have heard from would also like us to step up in a bipartisan manner to deal with that. the references to people who are with dealing with health care. we are facing, we still face sort of a health care crisis in this country. we may be able to deal with much of it with the health care reform bill.

but many of the provisions that are embedded in law now had their core as bipartisan idea.es and i hope the same bipartisan spirit could help us accelerate bipartisan reforms so that the american public benefits in thel health arena as well. you're going to hear a little spirited exchange on the floorhh of the house about how we pay for this legislation. because it has a cbo score that's attached to it that suggests that this will raiseha revenue. well, i have two observations that i think are, that areth important to note dealing withmr the pay-for. first and foremost, the sad fact is that this bill actually would cost more to implement than it would ever raise for the federad government. but we have a quirk in our scoring rules where they credit

revenue, they don't deal with the cost of compliance. and this complicated piece of legislation, were it ever enacted, would require the department of defense, thede general services administration, up and down the federal government there would be mechanisms to try and impose on it. it wouldn't just cost contractors, hospitals, state and local government. it would actually cost thest federal government far more than we would collect, i think one estimate was for the department of defense it would be $17 billion. whichwhich would dwarf what woue collected. and we need, mr. speaker, as we move forward to do a better job of thinking about this, the scoring rules. it's not cbo's fault, but that's how we play the game. and i find it troubling. it also, i think, speaks to volumes about