be terminated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent to motion to proceed to h.r. 6 4 be adopted and after the motion is adopted the majority leader be recognized to introduce, senator mccain or his designee be offered to offer second-degree amendment, 928, no oo other than budget poifnts order. following morning business on wednesday, november 9, the senate proceed to a consideration -- to the consideration of the motion to proceed to s.j. res. 6, under the previous order. upon the use or yielding back of that time, the senate resume consideration of h.r. 674. further, that 10:00 a.m.

thursday, november 10, senate proceed to the consideration of the motion to proceed to s.j. res. 27 as provided under the previous order. that at noon the senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to s.j. res. 6, there be up to five minutes of debate equally divided and controlled by the leaders or their designees prior to the motion to proceed on s.j. res. 6. following the vote the senate proceed to a motion to proceed to s.j. res. 27, that there be two minutes equally divided between the votes, that either or both motions to proceed are agreed to, then further debate on votes on the joint resolution be deferred until 2:15 p.m. on tuesday, november 15, with all other provisions of the previous orders regarding the joint resolutions remaining in effect. at 2:15 on thursday, november 10, the senate will resume consideration of h.r. 674. there will be up to 15 minutes of 2008 on the bill and amendments with time equally

divided and controlled by between the leaders or their designees, that upon the ice or yielding back of that time the senate proceed to votes on amendments to h.r. 674, mccain, 928 and reed reid for tester, 927. that the mccain and reid for tester be subject to 60 vote threshold, that upon disposition of the amendments, the bill be read a third time, passed, the senate proceed to vote on the bill as if amended. the senate proceed to vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to h.r. 2354, the energy, water, appropriations bill. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. the clerk will report bill. the clerk: calendar 212,the act 674 an act to amend the

internal revenue croat code and so forth and for other purposes. the presiding officer: the clerk will report amendment. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, for mr. tester proposes amendment number 927. mr. reid: i move to proceed to h.r. 2354. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, moves to consider h.r. 2354, an act making appropriations for energy and water development and related agencies for the fiscal year september 30, 2012 and for other purposes. mr. reid: i have a cloture

motion at the desk. the clerk: we the undersigned senators in provisions to the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close the debate to calendar h.r. 2354 an act making appropriations for energy and water development and relateds a agencies for the fiscal year, signed by 17 senators as follows --. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the names not be read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i now withdraw my motion. the presiding officer: the motion is withdrawn. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that we move to a period of morning business with senators allowed to speak therein up to 10 minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask the committee be discharged from further consideration of s. res. 132. the presiding officer: the clerk will report.

the clerk: s. res. 132 honoring and recognizing the zoos and aquariums of the united states. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, no other action or intervening action or debate and that any statements related to this matter be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if given. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent tapped to title number s. 1280 be engrossed, the heading of s. 688 proposed and adopted as such and a statement further explaining this amendment be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business day it adjourn until 9:30 tomorrow morning, wednesday, november november 9, the morning business be deemeddics pierd, the time for the leaders

reserved for use later in the day and the senate be in a period of morning business for 70 minutes, with time equally divided and controlled by the between leaders or their designees with republicans controlling the first 40 minutes and the majority the final 30 minutes. the senate proceed to s.j. res. 6 under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: tomorrow we will debate s.j. res. 6 regarding net neutrality and the 3% withholding repeal act. if there is no further business coming before the senate i ask that we adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the the presiding officer: the

>> extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. [cheers and applause] and let me remind you also that moderation is the pursuit of justice is no virtue. [cheers and applause] >> he lost the 1964 presidential election to lyndon johnson, but goldwater's ideas and candor galvanized the conservative movement. he's featured on the contenders this week live friday at 8 p.m. eastern. >> public schoolteachers testified before the senate education committee today on the no child let behind act. the senate is expected to vote on reauthorizing the bill by the end of the year. in is two and a half hours.

[inaudible conversations] >> come to order. today's round table will focus on moving beyond no child left behind and towards the reauthorization of the needs of the 21st century. the last two years, this committee held 10 hearings on the full range of issues covered under the law. i held numerous meetings and participated in lengthy negotiations with my republican colleagues that resulted in a bill voted out of committee a little over two weeks ago. i believe the committee's bill takes several important steps forward by resetting the national goal of students

obtaining proficiency to graduating from high school prepared for college and a career. secondly by closing the loophole and schools get their share of federal resources. three, insent vising states and districts to develop rigorous evaluations and support systems with the goal of continuous instructional improvement, and fourth, providing a laser-like focus of turning the 5% of schools and the high schools that graduate less than 60% of their students to real changes happen in the schools. today, we'll hear from key stake holders in the debate impacted by the education laws we passed in washington. i'm eager to hear each of their perspectives how we request provide states, districts, and schools with the tools needed to

help all succeed. i think we've provided some tools in the bill, but i'm sure there's others who think more can be done. one thing i know for certain is the current law is not bringing about the significant io provements in student achievement our country needs and the children deserve. we must reauthorize to get out from under the ineffective no child left behind act. i expect our round table participants will discuss things they like about the bill and things they would like to see changed. the goal today is to have an open discussion informing the ongoing debate on the reauthorization, and i thank all participants for being here today. i will now turn to senator enzi, the ranking member, a strong partner on the work of the reauthorization. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you for your willingness to work on this round table. last month's walk up of the education act was a major step

forward in the process that's been stag inapt in four years. i expect there's many more changes to the bill we reported from the health committee in order to gain broader authorization. this is not to say that there was not a lot of work that occurred beforehand to get the bill to markup. we received testimony from over 70 witnesses including the secretary of education, elementary education experts, state and district superintendents, principals and representatives of special populations. there was a website where people from all across the united states could express views and solutions, and each senator heard from constituents here in dc and throughout the states as to the concerns, fixes, and changes needed to improve the no child left behind law. we are holding the round table to get input on the bill, and we

want to know whether we're developing fixes to the problems yieched, and we also want to know what else to do to improve the bill moving forward. i thank the panelists, each of whom come from different backgrounds and can provide a range of observations on current law in the draft bill that was reported out of the health committee last month. today, we'll continue the conversation of identifying problems on the ground with the current legislation and how to create policy providing flexibility for innovative approaches in the states. i'm also interested in hearing the aspects of no child left behind that today's panelists think should be retained moving forward. there's many criticisms of no child left behind, there's positives to point to as well and move the conversation around education in this country towards greater transparency of outcomes inviting parents to get involved in their child's education. i think that's been retained while shifting the emphasis from bad schools back to seeing that no child is left out.

by shining a light on the children rather than just the schools, african-american making sure the data is broadly available to parents, teachers, principals, and taxpayers have all information needed to make decisions about children, not just about schools. that's a profound development, and one i'm committed to retain and build upon moving forward in the reauthorization. while we have to place short comettings, there's states and local agencies addressing short falls within the schools. we remove most of the federal mandates asking states to intervene in the bottom 5% of schools, and those schools with the largest achievement gaps, however, parents and teachers know how the students are doing because of the information reported for every child. we want the resultings to follow the child so subsequent teachers can make a difference. for all other schools, we have

told states they must take the lead by returning responsibility for accountability all be it accountability that expects students to be college and career ready to determine what makes the most sense for their students. although i hear the concerns of many that this bill does not include performance targets and other federally designed annual objectives, having the goals of students entering careers in college without the need for remediation is a goal that requires intensive, step-by-step, agreed-by-grade planning, no a marker whether they are prepared on the day they graduate. states need to design rubrics that get students on this path. they don't need unnecessary micromanagement saying how and when they should reach each progressive milestone, and we learned that no child left behind did not handle this responsibility very well through systems that focused on schools. the bill reported out of committee attempts to remove no

child left behind's oversized federal footprint returning it to the state where it belongs and most effectively implemented. as stated in the markup, i do not support 100% of the bill. i would have supported a smaller federal role and far fewer federal programs. i know that chairman harkin would have supported far greater federally designed accountability. that's the essence of working to get something done, a bill that includes the broader senate, the broader congress, stake holders, and those interested in better instruction and a more prepared work force moving forward to action is taken instead of just wasted debate, but, again, this is another step in that process, and we will be further informed as more voices are involved. with that said, i'll continue to support a lessen federal role in schools, greater transparency to parents through reporting on their child's performance. we have to place more emphasis on seeing each child's getting the education we promised. i was disappointed the markup

moved in the opposite direction within the three goals, so i encourage the colleagues to work together to improve the bill if we plan to move the legislation to the president's desk. i thank you, mr. chairman, for working with me on this hearing and look forward to continuing the policy discussion from last month's markup. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator enzi. i want to introduce the participant, and i know some senators also want to weigh in with their own introductions. i'll go down starting on the right now that i see it. first is rick hess, resident scholar and director of education at the policy policy of research. the executive editor of education next and a researcher associate with the program on education policy and governance at harvard university.

next is john schnur, president of new leaderses for new schools, developed national educational policies on teacher and principle quality, after school programs, district reform charter schools, and preschools. i would now invite senator paul to introduce the next person. >> well, i'm pleased today to have. geisselhardt here from adair county, a gifted teacher, and one of the great successes of the kentucky publish education, and i'm glad we can have this hearing to talk about the bill before it's final to get your input, and to get your understanding and your input as to how we can change and make no child left behind less of 5 federal burden on teachers, principals, and superintend didn'ts, and all ceo educators.

thank you for coming. >> next is tom luna serveing as president-elect as council of chief school officers serving as president beginning in 2012. next is katharine beh neas with easter seals doing incredible work with easter seals, and i can attest to that for all the years. she's responsible for the federal and state policy activities, also a co-chair for citizens with disabilities education task force, and has expertise in both disability education and early childhood education. next i would ask senator alexander for the introduction. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we welcome charles seaton from

memphis. in juvenile detention programs, he decided he wanted to work with children in in memphis, and he works in the 8th grade with exceptional children, special education children, and i understand he's involved as every tennessee teacher and principal is now in the new teacher-principal evaluation process, so we might hear something about that from him. welcome. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, senator. next is senator hagen next. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am proud to have an opportunity to introduce an old friend of mine, a proud north carolina and east carolina university pilot, and one of the best innovators, dr. terry grier. he's served in nine districts across six states, he's experienced the education in all levels as a student, a graduate

of east carolina university and as a teacher, a coach, and a high school principal. i first met him in 2000 when he became the superintendent of my hometown of the county of gillford in north carolina. i represent that county in the state senate at the thyme, and during his eight years in the gillford county, he led the district to cut the dropout rate in half to less than 3%, increase the high school graduation rate from 63% to nearly 80%, receive one of the largest private investment ever from the joseph brian foundation and center of leadership to help train school leaders and establish one of the country's first early college high schools, and as we know today early college institutes across the country are one the most effective way to steer the low income students to a path of success. then he continued his track record in san diego where he

helped reduce the dropout rate by 50% and increase scores on the california standards test to all-time district highs. in 2009, he became superintendent of the houston independent school district, the 7th largest school district in the nation with more than 200,000 students, and then in houston, his initiatives continue to produce results for schools and students, and last month, it was announced the houston independent school district landed 78 schools on the list of the high performing schools, the leader of the urban school districts in the state. i am pleased and honored to welcome my old friend, dr. terry grier to this committee, thank you. >> thank you very much senator hagen. next is amanda danks, and senator, senator could not be

here, but she expresses her appreciation for what you do and for being here today. she teaches special education in obama city schools, teaches at the william s. bear school, a school for students with severe disabilities and medically fragile. in addition to school responsibilities, she serves as a resident adviser for new special education teachers and working for the family of children with autism and supports them in their homes and communities. mr. henderson is the president and ceo of the leadership conference on civil and human rights and heads up the leadership conference education fund, and prior to these roles, he was the washington bureau director of the naacp. finally, i'd like to introduce senator paul for the last witness. >> i'd like to welcome today

elmer thomas from richmond, kentucky, secretary school principals, this year was the kentucky principal of the year, spent time working in his school on focus and finish program identifying struggling seniors and creates opportunities to have career certification and work study programs. we're very happy to have principle elmer thomas with us here today. >> thank you very much, and thank you all were being here for this very important discussion. mr. hess may have to leave early around 11:30. we appreciate your busy skeed yells, and we appreciate you all being here. before we start, let me explain the format of a round table. i'll start the discussion by asking a question of the panelist. that person will answer. if one of the panelists wants to respond to the question as well or to something said, take your

name tent and put it on a tint like that, and then i can call on you. if a committee memberments to ask a question or follow-up or intervention, i ask them to do the same. >> this will not be like a formal hearing, although it is being recorded, so i'll ask different committee members to join in asking questions as well. we'll try to keep the discussion flowing being respectful of one another and hope for a good in-depth conversation regarding the bill. i also ask everyone to refrain from giving speeches. well, if they are a couple minutes long, that's okay, but long speeches. given that we may lose you early, i'll start with mr. schnur.

tell us what you believe are the stengths of the bill that the committee passed or how you think it could be improved. >> thank you so much, chairman harkin, senator enzi and members of the committee. it's an honor to be with you, and you're tackling a difficult problem of the country, and a blending this as a national priority and a state and local liability is a delicate one. there's issues in the bill that play on that. to briefly answer the question, i've been in dozens and dozens of schools around the country looking for leaders, looking to improve urban schools and rural schools, and there's been lessons emerging from those, and to me, take the implications of what i think are a couple of the biggest positive aspects of the bill and others that could be improved. we look at schools and analyze there's schools making dramatic

progress including kids of low income, kids of color, kids with special needs, kids in the society people don't think can achieve. we have examples, and you've seen them. there's dramatic progress, and we have new leaders from schools who are in schools that have incremental progress. there's trends we've seen. in the schools where there's big progress, there's high expectations for what kids can achieve, specific expectations giving kids to be on track for not just doing better, but for success in college and careers. we didn't realize this ten years ago starting the program, but there's a focus in the school on a constant improvement of teaching and feedback to improve the quality of teaching regularly in the school because it's teachers that are the just born, but there's teachers willing to take coaching and pockets of schools are doing that. most are not. third, there's cultures of

intense cultures of high expectations and personal responsibility and efficient use of time for all kids. you can't legislate that from the federal level. that's what you have to drive through effective leadership, the culture that can drive high expectations and practice. there's adequate funding including funding for the teaching profession which is so important, but also discretionary funding, lability of funding turn out to make a difference in making improvementses, and the programs have outsized importance because schools are struggling for the extra money to improve, and then there's leadership. leadership at the local level that's invested in driving outcomes is inhibited when there's a culture of compliance and just checking boxes. that's an issue that's being addressed. what is good and can bism -- be improved briefly is matching the assistance and requirements of career ready standards and

assessments is important, not that that's federally prescribed, but something is something that most schools don't have. the second, the competitive grant programs foe focused on talent in principles and teachers, the pathways program, the prince pam's act in training apple this exchange for performance accountability for their institutions. third is the priorization of low achieving schools. even if you have flexibility, that's a priority. it's important to fix the prescription and detail and regulatory mind set of no child left behind in order to remove the culture of compliance and invest at leadership in the local level. that's good. two issues to close on. two significant concerns bolts the bill that i would pay a lot of attention to if i were in your shoes, and the senate working on improving this bill. there's discussion about evaluation and effectiveness systems. i realize there's those saying

it should be mandated or should not be part of the bill. i think that i would recommend improving on the current by by putting in place a very substantial incentive, not a requirement, but a very substantial incentive, taking 50% of the title ii program that's not effective, to support competitive grants, help states and districts design and use systems and building on the bill, the incentive is there but could be larger, and over the course of 10 yearses, there's enough funding every state can get funds, and there's a way to do it since 4 2% now is used for teacher development. you can get more funds through the approach to support professional development in the current program. right now, it's not working well. put in place state-driven system with a voluntary basis, there's more bang for your buck for the system. the last thing is i think there needs to be more press on the

performance targets and press for improved achievements, and there's various ways to drive that. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. schnur. the successful schools have high expectations, teaching, adequate funding, and leadership. would i understand that under culture of personal responsibility there's a subset of families? we focus on schools, but we know what influences a kids' ability to learn and desire to learn is what happens outside the school, so what role does the family play in that list of yours? >> well -- >> in those successful schools. >> as you know, it's huge. data of a 6-year-old, 4-year-old, and 2-year-old, i walk my kids to public school every day. i know the role parents play, but there are ways to really

engage parents in taking speedometer to drive improvement for kids. most parents wants best, but they don't have the support they need, and there's strategies that can include the parents in this personal responsibility are driven by the leader of the school and teachers enlisted. >> senator alexander? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for coming and thank you senator harkin, enzi, and paul for making this hearing happen. it's useful. let me take what mr. schnur said and go to mr. seaton. he suggested the bill would be improved with a larger incentive for teacher-principal evaluation. mr. seaton, tennessee is currently going through a teacher principal evaluation process. i think every single teacher or almost every single teacher is involved in it, and that's the

result of a program, race to the top, which had an incentive for states who wanted to do teacher and principal evaluation. what is gong on? what's jr. -- why experience there, how teachers and principals responding to it, and what role do you think the federal government ought to have in requiring it and finding it and regulating it? >> good morning, and thank you to the chairman and all of you for having me here. actually, in the standard nationally and hopefully people start paying attention to what we do with regards to evaluation. we know that if you want something, you have to inspect it or evaluate it so we took the lead with race to the top deciding that we're going to put in a good teacher and effective

teacher in front of every young person that we have in the state of tennessee. memphis went a step further, and we started looking at a number of evaluation models, nationally that were being used, and memphis city schools developed or redeveloped a model, and we use it now, and whether there's teaching a student so that administrative personnel also are evaluated, and there's a number of issues that looks at the actual art of teaching and measures those skills that we believe are effective skills to teach, and it also looks at culture or the teaching domain, where you're at, and i think

that we have seen that it's caused us as teachers, me includes, to evaluate how thyme -- i'm doing and put the high yield strategies in front of ourselves. >> you teach special education; is that correct? >> that's correct. no child left behind has done a good job on focusing attention on those areas of special needs children, but i think we see in tennessee that we've created now a culture that is data driven as well as perp kneel driven so -- personnel driven, so we're able to look forward. >> thank you. before i call on the next senator, i think senator bennet, but going to mr. grier who wanted an intervention on this point. >> yes, thank you, senator. >> sure. hit that button.

>> thank you so much. good to see you. in houston, we believe that teacher and principal e wall vaition is just too important to leave to chance. it has to be fixed in this country as being in school leading district after district, and you get there and see student performance is not high, but evaluation ratings on everyone is off the scale. it has to be fixed. we have to have an evaluation system in the country and in our school systems giving our employees a real, honest picture of what they are doing. last year in houston, we implemented two new evaluation systems, our teacher evaluation system contains a weight of 50%, a little less, of student academic performance as well as our principal evaluation

finishing it up this year. we retain 92% of our highest performing teachers in houston, and we replaced 55% of the lowest performing teachers in the district. >> one thing that senator alexander has gotten into my head about is how tough it is to do evaluations, and that we don't really have the metrics, if that's the proper word that i could use. what is a good teacher evaluation system? are there a lot of different things? you said that 50% in houston was based on student performance, and you seem to think that whatever you do in houston is working. is there a template there for the rest of the country? i think i've been reading articles about tennessee, and it's -- they are trying to adopt some kind of evaluation, but it's very difficult. >> it's difficult work, but as we proved in hews p, it's not --

houston, it's not impossible work. when you retain 92% of the best teachers, and you can replace 55% of your lowest performing teachers in a year, it's proof. it's not impossible. we had over 2500 teachers involved with us in developing the evaluation system. this is what we did with our teachers, not to our teachers. >> they were involved? >> they must be. it's critical that they must be. >> if you have it on paper, maybe my staff has it, i don't know, but i want to see the metrics. what's the other 50%? >> it's how teachers teach classroom management deny >> so you do observations students involved? >> students are not. >> do you think that's important because i've often thought that one of the best people to evaluate are a student. >> it's fascinating. we know several things, and teachers know who the good

teachers are, students know, as do parents, particularly parents who understand how the system works and that are reasonably well educated. where we struggle sometimes is in training principals to evaluate teachers and have the skill sets. we require them to go through 35-40 hours of teacher evaluation, documentation, appraisal training. mr. luna had his next. mr. luna? >> thank you, mr. chairman. in response to senator alexanders' question about evaluations and incentives and at some point i hope to be able to have a discussion also about idaho's state chief's view about the lot and the good parts and the other parts, but when it comes to evaluations and incentives, we know that the most important factor once a school -- once a child enters the school -- by far the most

important factor is the quality of the teacher in the classroom. that's more important than the amount of money spent, the curriculum, the technology, and the most important factor is the teacher in the classroomment in my state, we went true -- through the process of a developing an evaluation built upon the charlie danielson framework, and i think many would tell you they are an expert in the observations and evaluations of how teachers perform in the classroom, and then 50% of the evaluation now in idaho has to be based on student achievement focusing on growth, parental input has to be part of the teacher's performance evaluation, and we implemented a statewide pay for performance plan or merit pay as some refer to it where teachers in idaho can now earn up to $8,000 a year in bonuses based on taking on leadership roles or if they teach in a hard to fill position, but also if they teach

in a school with high academic growth, and so the point i would like to make to answer your question, senator alexander, you asked about evaluations and incentives. should the federal government require it, define it, regulate it? we did this without incentive or mandate from the federal government, and if you want to find a balance, i don't see a necessarily a problem with the federal government requiring, but i think it goes too far if the federal government tries to define it or regulate. i think idaho and other states could demonstrate we're ahead of the curve when it comes to robust evaluations and incentives so that we don't leave it to chance as to whether every child has a highly effective teacher every year they are there school. >> thank you. now senator bennett, ms. banks, ms. castlehart, and then senator paul. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you all for

being here. deeply appreciate it. senator alexander and i spent time on the phone with the commissioner from tennessee, hearing from him about the evaluation system there, and he sends regards to you. >> what did he say? [laughter] >> i'll tell you later. [laughter] he said they have the best system in the world. [laughter] since i support both senator's amendments to the bill, i wonder if you can talk about from your perspective because no one around this table i don't think spent more time in as many schools as you probably have. from your perspective, what is the importance of the performance targets, and what should that look like in this bill ideally if we were able to find a path that would allow us to include it? >> well, people in this room have for expertise on the

legislative issues. from a school perspective, from a principal, teacher, kids sitting in schools, i think it's of vital importance, and i don't think they necessarily care where this comes from, but kids across the country need a press that is supported from outside the school for higher performance. there's too many things conspiring to bring lower incomes -- the federal government should not micromanage this, but from a school perspective, all these things conspire to have lower expectations, and the principals need and benefit from the public in a way saying you can do better in specific ways. bigger goals, transparency against progress against bigger goals, and the best leaders, they want to do it, but there's people who are nay sayers, and having the support is important. specifically, i think, you know, my view is shared around, i'm sure, and in this room, but i do think that requiring having performance targets is really important. i think there should be a lot of flexibility for states about how

that's defined in getting big progress for kids to succeed, but it's blending or requiring targets to do that would be helpful, and the transparency is important as anything else. one thing briefly mentioning and some the senators know, we've launches america achieves, and there's a panel of people including secretary riley and former u.s. secretary of the army and others who run the miami dayton community college and others, teachers, great teachers and principals to put recommendations together for what goals and targets should be for early learning and k-12, and post secondary, and good thinking is out there, and that's important, but at the government level, there has to be a drive to ensure transparency with those in my view. >> thank you very much. now, i got ms. dank, senator paul, mr. seaton, senator isakson. can we -- i mean, we can sit

here for the next two hours and discuss performance and evaluations. there's other aspects of the bill to get to, so could we perhaps, and maybe you're going to bring up other things, i don't know, but hopefully we can -- or -- >> perhaps they can quickly mention what they think is good and needs improvement, and then go back to the format so nobody is left out. >> okay. let's go to ms. danks first here. >> good morning. >> do you want to address the performance? >> well, i just wanted to respond to your question about how the rubric was created, and in baltimore city, we recently passed a contract where the teachers are paid for performance, and we went there the process creating a rubric, and that took about a year, and we had old stake holder, administrators, teachers, family members working together through drafts to create a rubric that truly defined what highly effective teaching looked like in the classroom and with the atonmy, and the question about

whether or not the federal government should have a hand in that, i think the atonmy our district had in creating the rubric our our needs was fantastic. i don't think it would transz late to a lot of school systems just because we are an urban area with a different set of population. i do teach at a school for students who are severely disabled and medically fragile, and we are looking to create our own rubric because the rubric the district created was fan fantastic because it was specific explaning every detail, but for our students, they do not apply. having that for us to go through the prosses on our -- process on our own and define it for our population is a great way to ensure we have high by effective teachers in the classrooms. >> very good. >> [inaudible] i was wanting to speak to the teacher evaluation incentive. i just wanted to say that there

already is incentive as far as a national board certification, and in most states, there's incentive pay for that, and it's a great development for teachers, and as far as the evaluation, i think the evaluation needs to be done on the local state level because it is so different in -- for instance, in memphis and rural kentucky, and i think that's one of the great things about your bill is that it puts more emphasis on local and state decision making in all areas, but as far as teacher quality, teachers are -- well, i shouldn't use that term because that's different in this bill, but as far as evaluation, teachers want to be evaluated because teachers want to improve, and that should be the purpose of evaluation is to

improve teaching rather than to find fault with teachers, and things like that. that is the purpose. if we can have this where a rubric and things like that give us the needs that we have as teachers to help us improve, that's what we are looking for, but we want to avoid incentives and things like that that cause competition between teachers, and that's a real concern for us as far as teacher evaluation and incentives because in order for schools to be successful and in order for our students to learn, all teachers and school personnel must work together for the education of the whole child, and we don't want to start -- i think i'm speaking for all teachers in that regard. we don't want to start anything that causes a competition between teachers because we do want to be able to collaborate and work together and be the best that we can be.

>> thank you very much. i think senator enzi made a great suggestion. i want to start with mr. hess and go downright now and finish with senator paul, mr. seaton, and mr. isakson. >> if you want to start now, i'll ask my question later. >> you want to do that? >> sure. >> let's start with mr.hess. we'll go down, and what are the two or three things you like about the bill, what don't you like about the bill if that's the fair enough question. >> sure. appreciate the opportunity to be here, mr. chairman, senator enzi, ranking members. for me, actually, unlike john, i don't have the opportunity to spend as much time kind of on the ground, but i spend time looking at the questions with some perspective. if we look back at a half century of efforts to improve

schooling, some pretty stark lessons stand out that are rarely taken into account. we often spend time talking about whether the federal government should or should not be involved in education. if we go back to the northwest ordnance, land grant act, defense education act, for more than two centuries, we had the federal government involved in some way. for me, the much more useful question here is what is the federal government equipped to do well when it comes to american education? i think the federal government is horribly situated to improve schools or teaching. it is just atrociously situated because schools are complex organizations. what we heard from several of the folks on the ground from mr. luna and mr. grier is how much improving teacher accountability and evaluation depends not on whether you do it, but on how you do it, and the problem is given the design of the american federal system and the complexity of state education agencies and local

education agencies and schools, is no matter how well intend our efforts around trying to spell out improvement models, trying to stipulate preparation for principals to take over turn around schools and efforts to specify, long experienced teachers wind up with more regulation and case law and compliance than we are with fulfillment of the intent of the law, so i would encourage us to be as cautious as possible about trying to spell out interventions or remedies for either schools or teachers. that said, i think there are some particularly useful elements of the law. i think a coherent vision of the federal role recognizes there are public goods of the federal government to my mind is uniquely equipped to provide in an education. one is robust and reliable frank paraphernalia single teacher, both around -- transparency aren't student performance, outlays,

expenditures, and to ensure we have an x-ray on how well kids everywhere of all kinds are doing. second, the federal government, i think, has an explicit charge to provide constitutional protections for vulnerable populations. we do this in idea, title i is an effort to do this. the 5% target spelled out in the committee bill is reasonable. jack well much, when he ran general electric, he used 20 have a mind set they were going to try to fire the worst 10% of employees each year. not that he knew that was the right number, but he thought 10% was a reasonable target. it strikes me that encouraging states to address the worse 5% each year is not unreasonable so long, again, as we keep that focus on encouraging states to address it and not on trying to stipulate models on which to address it. third, there's a useful role in

the things eluded to to provide political cover for state, local, and union leaders trying to get out of the certain systems. often, even when you have superintendents who want to do things differently, they get pulled back by the constituents saying what's in it for us? the voluntary competitive grants is the answer to what's in it for us is we can go out, bring a spotlight, bring home dollars, and it provides us a chance to leapfrog into the 21st century, and fourth, i think there is a crucial federal role coming to basic research. i think senator bennet's forthcoming amendment is useful on the front. what i encourage though is we keep in mind the federal role if we think about darpa for instance, is how do we leverage basic technology innovations and not get the federal government involved in trying to recommend particular models of implementation. i hope that's helpful.

>> very good, very comprehensive. >> as far as in regards to what's positive about it, i think first of all in your statements made that no child left behind was ineffective, and i certainly have to agree with that, and think of this as not the reauthorization of no child left behind, but the reauthorization of esea. as an educator, just the connotation of the term "no child left behind" it really is demoralizing to us at this point because there's so much focus on teaching -- i mean, testing, testing, testing that we have no time to teach, and it really has become that way within this school. working with gifted education, and i run into this all the time because things i want to do with my students, the teachers don't want me to take them out of the

classroom because they are addressing questions and then are tested. i was taking a view of a live open heart surgery, and one of my teachers was taking a -- giving a practice test to practice for the practice test to test for the test. that's the way it goes. these students are testing all year round, and it takes so much time from instruction, and as long as we keep our standards and gap groups set up as they are, i think the gap groups are effective. we want to look at the gaps. we want to be sure that no child is left behind, and that needs to be our concentration, and i was so thrilled when no child left behind passed because i thought hallelujah, now we'll see that every child learning every day, but what you are doing is leaving behind most was students because our students

that have special needs are not being able to be taught the skills that they need to be taught. our fmd classes, teachers really, really genuinely care about the students wanted the students to learn skills they can use in their lives, life skills. they can no longer teach those skills because they have to address the standards. these students will be tested on the standards. gifted students are left behind totally because they are already proficient or distinguished, and so teachers don't feel they can use their time to work with these gifted students so consequently test scores of our gifted students are getting lower and lower, and many of these are the future leaders of the country, and we're not meeting their needs. those students go to school, come home, and have not learned throughout the day. the real concern of mine, and i

work with gifted students, but it's what i hear from the special ed teachers and their concerns they have that they can no longer -- they deeply care about the students or they couldn't be in these jobs, but they cannot address the needs that these students really needs in their classrooms. you know, we have even had an instance with a terminally ill special needs child, and we could not get that even with a doctor's note saying that the testing, just the process of the testing, still the child failed. we still could not get an exemption for that child. there's students with a four-word vocabulary, and one of the phrases used, i don't know -- he says, he can say yes, no, mom, and hell no.

that's all he says. [laughter] that's all he's -- he's in the 6th grade, now, and that's all he's said throughout his schooling. he's supposed to do a portfolio. that's what people say, well, we have alternate portfolios, but how do you do that with that? >> thank you very much. mr. luna. >> mr. chairman, just one point of clarification. i think a concern was raised earlier about the fact incentives could create competitions in the schools and that could be a negative impact, just so you understand in idaho, when it comes to student achievement, we go down to the school level, and so actually fosters collaboration in team work amongst all the teachers in the schools because they work together to help all students hit an academic goal, and if they meet the goal, all the teachers testify the incentives, not just a few teachers in the school. no child left behind reminds me

of the good, the bad, and the ugly because there's a little bit of all of that in the law. i think the good parts is it brought us, you know, this was ten years ago, and we had a standard based education system where now we're accountable for every child, and we had to have a standardized way of measuring student achievement. the bad part was law was it's a one size fits all. in a state like idaho that's a rural state and rural communities within the state, it's difficult to implement the law. the ugly part is we have a system where the federal government set the goal, and then they prescribed to the states what programs and processes we had to use to meet that goal, and if their programs and processes didn't work, we were held accountable, and so, you know, that was the ugly part, and i think that this law, this reauthorization kept the good parts of no child left behind. in fact, i think it's even improved upon going to a growth model because if we're serious about making sure that every child's needs are met, then a

growth model demands a system not only focus on students not at grade level, but those who are above because you're obligated to show academic growth for those also. today, once you hit proficiency, you're tempted not to focus on those who are proficient or higher and focus on those below proficiency. the other thing about the law is it recognizes the leadership the states stepped forward in taking in improving education. states chose to work together to develop a higher standard to hold all students called to the common core. it was not because it was federally mandated. we chose to work together to create the next generation of tests, not because it was mandated, but because it's best for the students, and we developed the next generation of accountability. you have 40 or more states that without any federal mandate or incentive have developed a higher standard for our students, we're developing

higher assessments to measure the students, and we've come up with our own accountability plan that has had quite a bit of influence on the law that's been drafted, and so i think it's a 10th amendment issue; right? it's recognizing the rights that states have and the responsibility that states have, and i'm comfortable with that now more than 10 years ago because states now demonstrated they are more than willing and ready to step up and hold our r -- ourselves and schools to a higher level of accountability. >> very good, thank you. >> thank you. i wanted to just say a couple things from the per speckive of -- perspective of easter seals, and i think our per perspective is students with disabilities in general greatly benefited from the agent because the law requires their academic achievement to be measured and reported, and as a result, more students with dates have been

-- disabilities have been afforded the opportunity to learn and master grade level academic content. that's been huge for our kids. the whole notion of they get a chance to try. one of the things -- there's a number of things we like in the senate bill. the notion of states to adopt college and career ready standards and an assumption of high expectations. we also are very pleased that the bill does not codify the so-called 2% rule, which for us, allowed people to apply very, very low expectations to achievement for students with dates. we're very pleased with the elements that promote universal design for learning throughout the bill, access to multitiered systems in support including positive behavior interventions, and the notion that early learning can begin at birth, and then this bill promotes those things. there's a number of things that we're very concerned about and

look forward to working with you to improve them, and the law -- the bill doesn't change this notion of subgroup size, and as a result, right now, less than -- about 30% of schools have enough students with disabilities to meet the subgroup category, so 70% of schools don't measure or don't have enough kids according to their subgroup size. lots of kids, the progress is not measured and reported. the law requires or it requires 95% of kids to be assessed, and so we understand not every kid will be in school every day, but we know we need that data on subgroup accountability. we really want all kids to have access to the general academic curriculum and be held to high expectations. i spent the last four days with easter seals around the country,

and there's story after story after story of families told what they kid couldn't do, and they came to us, and we were able to help them figure out what they wanted to do, so what i would plead to the committee is don't put barriers that make it hard for kids to have access to the general curriculum. before no child left behind, before the only secondary education act, for kids with disabilities, we heard over and over again what they were taught were the colors. yet another iep, there's goals, my kid's going to learn the colors. next year, the goals are colors. you know, my kid knows the colors. we have to move on. no child left behind, the elementary secondary education gave us a form saying every kid deserves the opportunity to make academic progress, so my plea to you is let's continue on that to

ensure there's not barriers put in place that disallow kids to have access to the general curriculum, access to the supports that they need to learn, and that one of the things we need are teachers who know what they are doing, who are committed to the kids, who will help them learn, and the tools to help them do that. >> thank you very much. mr. seaton. >> thank you again. one of the things, yes, we do need federal involvement. we need your money. in order to say that we need your money, you need to be able to have some involvement in the guidance of where and how that money is spent. i do believe in tennessee that we are moving forward and a culture has been created by no child left behind that looks at the numbers, that looks at data, and we're willing to change and update our strategies on a regular basis. there's three things i want to

talk about. evaluation real quickly. has to happen. in the military they used to say inspect what you expect. evaluations will cause us to look at how we're going to accomplish the things we need to accomplish. leaders. we need leaders. a lot of time people think becoming an administrator in a school system, you teach three to five years, and you can just become a leader. leaders don't happen like that all the time so there needs to be something that's is built to last and good to great, but they look at how to be effective over the course of time, and how major companies have lasted, and then what they did the last -- we need to take those same types of data points, and we have to benchmark what is takes to be a good leader in a school, and we need to look at the top 5% of schools as well as the bottom 5% because those bottom 5% of

schools are the dropout factories, and we have to address that with accountability. i think that no child left behind pointed us in the right direction, but it didn't give us the resources that we necessarily needed to make those changes, so as i look at what you are talking about, we have a program in memphis called cradle to career, and it looks at education from birth to your career, and so the college readiness program that you all have incorporated, i applaud, and i think that we, as educators and as a family of americans, need to get together, and we just need to kind of accept the direction that y'all have given us, and i thank you for this time. >> thank you, mr. seaton. again, what's good and bad about the bill, mr. grier. >> thank you, senator. thank you, senator. first, we want to say thank you for continuing to have an

accountability component in there focusing on the bottom 5% of the schools that are persist persistently low achieving and allowing states in discretion and determining responsibility in their state is all positive. we like very much that we no longer have to set aside money for supplemental educational services. in our district, the after school tutoring program has not yielded any results. we actually have had vendors that gave students ride to movie theaters in stretch limousines for signing up with them. last year in our distribute, we created our own program and our turn around schools, and we reconstituted four middle -- five middle schools and four high school, and we tutored all 6th and 9th graders in those schools in math every day. one tutor per two children, and at the end of the year, we had

twice the academic gains that the harlem children achieved last year. we know that good tutoring with the a good curriculum that's organized and can occur during the school day can pay huge dividends based on our own experience with turn around models, we would like to really encourage you to modify is the one that the current legislation limits the schools to reclassify as consistently low achieving to only use the closure and restart models. we believe that repeat classification should only prevent the lea from using the same model they used during that initial classification. we also would like to caution the committee on the additional reporting requirements that we fear may be attached to the presential involvement and to the successful safe of the healthy students initiatives. we worry that a large portion of

funding allocations to the reforms go simply into reporting mandates. we don't need that type of traditional bureaucracy. we just don't. timely, one of the things concerning us in houston, and it concerns a lot of my colleagues, and a lot of the large school distributions is this issue aren't comparability. we would love to work with you later to work through some of this, but the way that you would come in and determine the formula around comparability is problematic. >> which is in the bill? >> which is in the current bill. needs major attention. >> within the current bill that we have, not the current law? >> current bill we have. >> got it. >> yes, sir. it's just a huge issue particularly in a distribute, for example, like houston where in turning around our non-lowest

performing secondary schools, tagged with the label of dropout factories. we raised about $15 million from private sources, linked them to schools, and we added a week to the school year, hired additional tutors, well, that cost more money. to do that, those outside dollars are there, and in the bill's current language, if we had to use the comparability, the formula here, these schools would be penalized for our efforts to raise our own dollars. another issue that bothers me a lot is that it's costing more money to turn the schools around, and i wish more current bill had a set aside in the funds we receive that would be required to be spent on those schools, and people say ewe have

the flexibility to do that. well, yes you do, but you don't have the political will to do that, and that's tough because you're taking money from another school to insert in your lowest performing schools. i don't have the magic number in terms of what the set aside should look like, but we set aside 1% for parental involvement, and that requires us to spend money to engage the parents. these schools that i think is so low performing, that it takes more money. one of the things i'm more concerned about, and what we talked about here, and i don't know how the bill addresses this, but that's the human capital required to address these 5% schools. quality principals, quality teachers in every classroom. easy words to say, but when you get out and start recruiting, our nine turn around schools, we recruited nationally. we offered $20 # ,000

incentives, stretch goals, signing bonuses to get principles into the schools. we didn't have anyone from the highest performing schools lined up, no one, and we recruited 70 principals to hire nine. we hired those nine principals, and after a year, we replaced four of them. it is just hard work. >> yeah. >> this whole issue around turning around these lowest performing schools, the biggest issue that we'll talk about is the issue around human capital. >> thank you very much. ms. danks ?rks >> thank you. what i liked about the bill is each state adopts the career readiness standard and having high expectations for students is very important, and it's going to get the students ready for the 21st century work force or college or whatever they end up doing. something that i think has been

missing for far too long from the standards are life skill standards, standardses that address skills with the students with the most severe disabilities need to master in order to be successful after their high school term is finished, so we focus a lot on the students 245 are typically developing on what they are going to do after high school, but this other population is, i think, left behind by not having the standards so that teachers know what to teach so we can effectively measure progress towards those standards and so we are sure the students are ready for whatever they may be getting into when they are finished with high school. we -- everyone says that we assess too much. i think that we assess ineffectively too much. i agree. we have a a lot of practice tests in order to take the real test. i think that's completely ineffective. if we were able to adopt effective assessments that provided teachers and administrators with the data necessary in order to inform instruction and improve our

instructional strategies to push students 20 higher levels, then we would be able to assess quickly, first first efficiently, and more often that data is collected immediately. i know we've talked about computer based assess ms, -- assessments, and those give us quick results and provide them in a such a way so the teacher can use them the next day to inform instruction and make better strategy decisions. something that was always a struggle with no child left behind that i didn't fully understand how it was addressed 234 this bill was the highly qualified standards. i know when i came through teaching, i had an alternative certification program, and the highly qualified standards was a lot of paperwork. no one came into my room to be sure i was highly effective, but the paperwork was in, and that's all that mattered, so i feel we're missing the target on that. anyone can turn in transscripts,

but not everyone is a highly effective teacher. we talked about teachers and principals, and with that evaluation comes support and guidance, and so i think that is a huge piece missing in the highly qualified standards discussion just because a teacher is highly effective one year with a new population, they may not be. that continued support to help our teachers grow into better instructors will be par mount for our student's success. >> thank you. mr. henderson? >> thank you, chairman harkin, senator enzi, and all distinguished meshes of the committee. i want to thank you for inviting me to this important bipartisan round table discussion on the reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education act. mr. chairman, i have been uncharacteristically quiet this morning, and i would hope that gives me, perhaps, an additional minute to lay out both things

that we like about this bill as well as those that pose a concern, so let me begin. i mean, let me say at the outset that i think all of us seem to agree that no child left behind is in need of significant improvement. i think we would also agree that the global economy has imposed new demands on our nation to improve the quality of public education available both k-12, but also post secondary education, and the fact that our work force is going to be drawn for an increasingly diverse population of individuals both native born and immigrants in our country makes this not just a moral issue, and that is improving education reform which is a moral issue, but it's also a national security issue, and the fact that this committee is taking seriously its responsibilities for a deeper dive in in area is extremely

important. there are things about this bill that indeed represent improvements over current law. i'm going to outline them very briefly, and then i want to talk about other things that pose concern. we are very pleased that the bill requires more equitable funding within districts. i would disagree with mr. grier with respect of the responsibility of the federal government to use its leverage and resources to help encouragement improvement in this area. i think the bill does improve the effort to address the problems of dropout factories, which are those schools that represent a significant part of the schools where individuals dropout annually and for african-americans and latinos and native americans, we often lose as many as 50% of our high school graduating class annually. i think the bill does a great job in providing college and

career ready standards. i really agree with ms. danks that's there's improvement there. i agree with the data collection that the subgroups of boys and girls are not mashed, and that interventions can be targeted more effectively. that's important. we think the stem, is, of course, available to underrepresented groups is an improvement. those are significant improvements, and we were especially pleased with senator franken's effort to provide initiatives for students in foster care. those things make a difference and they are very important. unfortunately, from our standpoint, these improvements are overshadowed by the bills, all be it, perhaps, unintended, but nonetheless historically retreat on the accountability question, and because of this retreat, dozens of civil rights, education, and business

organizations, including the u.s. chamber of commerce, determined we can want support the bill at this time. we issued a statement to that effect which i would request be entered expwoo the record of this -- into -- entered into the record this morning. we have several issues with the bill and i'll outline with the same brevity as i did with the things that we like. we would like that the states are required to take action to improve only a small number of low performing schools, that is the bottom 5% of the schools in most states, and while the bill identifies an additional 5% of schools with achievement gaps and those considered dropout factories, the bill does not require the schools to make any significant academic progress and prescribes no interventions. moreover, it allows each state to decide which achievement gaps merit attention and which do not. in the remaining 95% of the

schools not among the state's very worst performing public schools, large numbers of low achieving students simply slip through the cracks. obviously, that happens today, but that is not the measure we use to determine whether a newly reauthorized elementary and secondary act is responsive, and these will be low income students, students of color, those learning english, and students with disabilities. the bill also does not require states to set targeting for significantly improving high school graduation rates despite the fact, as i noted, that every year about 1.3 million students drop out, and only a little over half of the students of color, including african-american, latino, native american, and southeast asian students graduate on time, and then finally, for english language learners, the bill eliminates

annual measurable objectives, which is a critical accountability element for the title iii program. finally, the bill weakens requirements in the current law requiring that low income students and students of color be taught at a higher rate by inexperienced, unqualified, or out of field teachers. we know that we can't close the achievement gap, and we can't also close the teacher quality gap. now, i've had the experience of many of the teachers and principals who work on the ground every day, but i am a board member, a trustee of the educational testing service. the educational testing service is a non-profit corporation, has launched a series of seminars focusing on ways to close the achievement gap, and then i think highly academic and a deeper dive, they've identified a number of elements that lead

to actually reducing the acheement gap between -- achievement gap between students, but all focus on the key principle of accountability. it is key to advancing the common goals we have about closing the achievement gap and maintaining our country's competitiveness in the global economy, so i think it's fair to say and without hyperbole that the provisions in the bill we focused on with greatest concern really represent the de facto end of a national accountability system as we have come to understand it, and while i believe that this notion of providing flexibility for individual school districts and schools may be important given the context in which it is raised, it is not appropriate to offer flexibility that in effect represents an end to the establishment of national standards that have been the significant, in fact, arguably

the most significant, driver of the improvement of public schools that we've seen over the past decade of no child left behind, so with that in mind, sir, i appreciate the opportunity. .. you. and i appreciate the opportunity. >> i thought that was very thorough, thank you very much. mr. thomas, you've got the hammer. >> thank you, senator. i really appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today and i just want to say as a principal i love my students, i love my job as principal, i love working with our students every day and our teachers every day. in looking at this there are two or three things i would like to mention that i think are positive and things we can certainly work on. certainly i think as everyone is in mind, we're looking out for interest of students and so some good things i think are in the bill, in the recommendation, would be the student growth model. you've heard that quite a bit and i think that's a real positive thing to get rid of the punitive ayp sanctions was very effective and we appreciate that

effort. we are also and it's been a lot of my work has been based on the college and career readiness standards. i think that's a good start there as well. i do think that it's important with the college and career readiness standards that we look at what our states are doing and allow the states to determine what those standards are. and in kentucky we've begun that work and are certainly very appreciative of that opportunity to set the standards as a state. there are some things with the reor authorization that should be looked at and thought about thoroughly before we move forward with anything. once again, locally determine what our college and career readiness standard looks like. in addition, approving some assessments for our students with special needs based on their accommodations set forth in their ieps. i think our local arc, the release committees, can determine what those assessments look like, and in so doing, there's going to have to be a removal of the 1% cap on some of

our alternative assessments for our special needs students. an example of that would be, if you look at madison central high school, we are about 1750 students and if you take 1% of that, for alternative assessment, that would be 17.5, let's round up, 18 students. and at madison central our severe disability students we have three classrooms, ten students each, for a total of 30 students. we're looking at an accountability that doesn't include the entire population that could have an iep that says they should be on an alternative assessment. i would like there to be an alternative assessment, remove the 1% cap and let the committee determine that would be really good. an issue that we find we struggle with at least in my district and my previous district, is the highly qualified part of the reauthorization. whenever we look at the highly qualified, it's very burdensome.

our teachers struggle -- we struggle to hire special needs teachers and as we are all very well aware, the -- some of the best teachers don't come through a natural path through certification and so we would like some alternative ways and not really put the burden on the highly qualified mandate about the testing. to be highly qualified we want to get highly qualified teachers for all of our students, and special needs is one area we struggle in. we want to have high standards and put the best teachers in place there. but to do so, requires a very burdensome testing process. we would like to advocate for some local decisions there on what that highly qualified status looks like. and then lastly, just simply as a principal, i was very fortunate a month ago to come to capitol hill and to petition on behalf of principals across the united states, but certainly as the met life nassp principal of

the year from kentucky i have to talk about the four school turnaround models we have that includes getting rid of the principal in each one of those models if they have been in their position for more than two years. and, obviously, you know, i think there are certainly principals out there who are poor principals who need to be removed, but certainly if we just put one assessment or if we put one measure on those principals and remove them, then it's going to be quite difficult to keep some of our best principals. a really good example would be in our home state and in one of our counties principal has been there just a little bit over two years and he is in the bottom 5%, his school is. we want to turn that school around. and he seems to be doing a really good job, and if you look at their college and career readiness standards, they're doing very well, but based on the sanctions listed by the 5%, he's got to lose his job. so, as a result, i cannot support the four school

turnaround models and i would like to ask for a fair analysis first to determine whether the existing principal is making gains and use some alternative measures to make those gains. thank you. >> thank you very much, mr. thomas. let's see. senator paul a. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the chairman and ranking member for having this hearing. i continue to learn more about the issue every time i hear more about not only no child left behind but various ideas. i think it's a recommendation for the hearing that we have a packed crowd. we've had standing room only the whole time. i think it is good. i, for one, see problems as a physician, you try to diagnose the problem, you try to fix it. and we should continue to look at that as a problem solving orientation for this. i do think that there is a large philosophical sort of debate and battle that is part of this. i hear ideas from people who are

probably republican, democrat, liberal, conservative on this panel and a lot of them are good ideas. to my mind it's not whether it's a good idea, but where it gets instituted that does make a difference. mr. grier has ideas, mr. seton has ideas, they all sound good but once we make them universal, i would probably vote for mr. grier to be superintendent or mr. luna to be superintendent of their school i don't want them to be the national superintendent of schools. it is a difference. how much is it federal? i think the most part, this is a philosophical point, the farther we get away from the local school the worse it gets. the farther we get away from local government to national government, the worse the oversight gets. i don't know that we can judge who a good teacher is. i think miss geisselhardt is a good teacher but i would have to know more, sit in her class and look at that. i would have to judge on how well her students are doing. it's complicated. i don't think i can ever know whether she's a good teacher or not. columbia, kentucky, is different than memphis, different than

houston. so my argument for is to keep in mind that there is a philosophical question here on local versus federal and i think we're coming together in understanding that maybe federal overbearing or federal overreach in education hasn't been good. and that it some times makes people a number. people talk about special needs and special education kids. to put a number on them makes them some sort of percentage as a mistake. i don't know how i can tell whether 17 or 30 is right for the school district in richmond, kentucky. i think we shouldn't have numbers in our bill that say, you know, i think we all are concerned. i don't think mr. thomas is not concerned about special needs. he's concerned about being judged unfairly or his school is. i think we've gone a long way in the right -- a long way towards fixing some of these problems with ayp, with the yearly progress, but i still am concerned that we still have the testing mandates, which will

have people practicing to do tests to do tests. i don't think we've fixed that. i think that is still a problem that should be and could be fixed and i'm glad we're having this hearing because we still will try on judging schools but we've determined the way we've been y ebodg schools wasn very the wrttom 5% we we've been judging schools. the problem i have with that is 5% tayf my kid goes to public high school from either forbes magazine or "newsweek" of beingo the best schools but it's also s told that failing by no child

left behind, 37 states want out sone of the best schools but it's being told it's failing from no child left behind. 37 states want out. that makes me think the law is not very good and we need more dramatic changes than what we're addressing. i guess my question is, is how are we going to determine if our model is not working for determining which is a good school now, is it a good thing to keep the 5% judged that way or do we need to reassess how we do the bottom 5%. and i would like to start out with mr. thomas and see if he'll make a comment on that, but then i would be more than welcome to hear other folks on this as well. >> thank you, nor paul. i just think it's very difficult when you use one measure to determine what your school is going to be successful as. under the old law, certainly madison central high school has never met ayp and, therefore, we have struggled historically to meet that standard and, of course, the standard as it rose became quite frustrating.

however, whenever we look at our new model, madison central high school is in the top third of college and career readiness. so whenever you're using just one kind of goal to determine what's meeting that standard, it's quite frustrating because it becomes one target is successful, another target is not. it's kind of like what you're mentioning about your local school, is that according to one standard, they're a very good performing school, but according to another standard they're not meeting that. that's the issue that i struggle with there as well. is that we use -- we need to use multiple forms of assessment if we're going to do that, not overtesting, i'm not advocating for that, but let's look at the school wholistly and see what we're doing. >> i'm sorry. everybody. okay. might as well just continue down the line. i assume all of the ones up to respond to what senator paul said. >> absolutely. >> mr. hendricks. >> since we are there, let's just go this way. >> thank you, sir. let me respond, senator paul, if

i might to your opening observation that this discussion we're having today involves primarily a philosophical difference about whether the states are the best laboratories for establishing significant reforms for education. and whether the federal government may, in fact, have a role to play. i don't think anyone is advocating the nationalization of public education. the supreme court as you know has already addressed that issue in san antonio versus rodriguez, 1974 case, which has acknowledged that public education is not a fundamental right under the constitution. with that same supreme court sought to examine early efforts to implement a state's rights philosophy with regard to public education and found it deeply wanting and offensive to the constitution because the results of the effort did not provide

simply just an equality of educational opportunity, but significant investment in those communities that had the least amount of political power or influence, or were tainted by racial bias which was evident in a number of the states that spoke most loudly in favor of states rights in public education. the decision in brown versus the board of education established, established a federal interest which no child left behind essentially sought to vindicate by ensuring that the use of federal dollars could be an incentive to improve the quality of public education available to students. that principle hasn't changed. it has been a bipartisan consensus that included people like senator alexander who as secretary of education sought to implement similar efforts and george w. bush who, in fact, signed no child left behind into law. this is not about a

philosophical conversation about how best to educate students. it's about the practical effects of the failure to recognize the constitutional interests that every student has, to a quality public education which was not being adequately served by state law. and so under the circumstances, i don't think this bill represents an extension of that principle. i think it represents a fair representation of where the principle stood. i've expressed my concerns about the accountability system because i think under the guys of reform, the provision in the bill go too far to negate the legitimate federal interest that we recognize exists. so rather than weakening their federal interest given the history of bias and discrimination under the state system, if anything, we should be look to reinforce it in a more significant and positive way. so i don't see this as a fif sofcle debate at all. i see it as a practical debate

effecting real life students and the consequences of a failure to educate them properly. >> mr. grier. >> thank you, senator harken. as i understand the bill as it's written today, the bill doesn't just address the 5% of the lowest performing schools or the schools that have the largest achievement gap. it also gives states the option of identifying additional low performing schools in their states. and i think that states are to be commended. whether or not we get into a debate about whether or not some states are different than the other, i happen to believe that states ought to have some flexibility in that arena. as i also believe local school districts should. when our state told us last year we had four low performing high schools, that they labeled dropout factories, quite frankly we had three or four other high schools that had -- we had some input, we may have decided,

perhaps, needed more attention than two of the ones on the list. they were identified by one narrow definer, and so how you -- how you intertwine all that local flexibility and the state flexibility, i think is important. it's often more difficult to do than it is -- than to say we ought to do it. >> now, i'm going to -- skip over one, two, three. i know that both mr. hess and mr. snor have to leave. it's 11:30. i will go to those two and come back to the three. mr. snor and mr. hess. >> i you just got word i was able to move my meeting back as i have longer to get back to new york. >> then i'll get to you later. okay. mr. hess. >> yeah. remarkable powers. move meetings from anywhere. thank you. i would like to say a couple words about senator paul's question. and then really just a couple other points i would like to share with the committee.

one, is i think senator paul's precisely right. one of the design flaws in no child left behind was that one of its great strengths plaz henderson indicated it took a national x-ray of where students were. it told us how students were performing in a give point in time. the problem with that and the way it was used is an x-ray doesn't tell you the cause. knowing that students of this demographic profile and this community are at this level of achievement in reading or math or science does not tell us whether that is due to the schools' performance, whether it is due to their home environment or whether it is due to their prior years of schooling. one of the problems with that x-ray that no child left behind took, was we tried to then use it as the basis for identifying whether schools were performing adequately or not. i think that was a profound design flaw. many of us pointed this out close to a decade ago and it is very healthy to see the senate wrestling with this today.

the superior alternative to try to identify the 5%, again recognizing there's going to be murkiness whether it's the exact 5%, is to focus on how well those students are faring in the course of that academic year. we want to look at how much those students are learning and things that we deem essential in the course of an academic year. that is the right essential starting point for whether schools are doing their job well, again because i think it is an imprecise science, because i think no matter how well intended federal interventions may be, they are unfortunately likely to do more harm than good. i think it is not useful to try to prescribe models but i do think as picking up ten cents on the dollar for state and district outlays it is appropriate for the federal government to insist that states be identifying and coming up with strategies to address these. a couple other points i would like to make real quick since i unfortunately am required to leave. one, i think we've heard a number of what i would regard as terrific suggestions and

practices about how to educate children in schools and districts. i think the mistake is to imagine that when they are good ideas well, need to try to then promote them and encourage them from washington. it's not that -- there is one question which the senator pointed -- senator paul pointed out, the fill sofffill soffic question, when mr. grier is trying to drive school improvement in houston what he is doing is working with a teacher unit headed by houston federation of teachers, he is working with a district over which he oversees control, working with a board, working with employees who report to him. that is profoundly different from what the senate or house are attempting to do in writing legislation. all esea can do is empower the u.s. department of education to issue regulations attached to funding which then must be funneled through state education agencies, then picked up by school district superintendents and at the end of the day, what we wind up with are rules, regs,

case law which create enormous and often unanticipated compliance burdens. just one very i think evocative illustration, is robert bob did a couple years as a detroit financial manager. one of the crazy ideas he tried to promote was the idea they ought to be moving title i dollars out of substitute teacher funds and field trips, into early childhood literacy. the state education agency told him he was not permitted to, that this was in violation of federal guidelines around title i. the u.s. department of education said that was incorrect, that he was actually consistent with the appropriate interpretation of the law, but that's what happens when we try to write laws from washington and wind up at books on the state and district, we wind up creating enormous and unexpected hurdles for people trying to solve these problems in schools and districts. just two other really quick points. one, let me say that when it comes to school turnarounds, teacher evaluation, i have

enormous respect for what mr. sner is talking about, mr. luna, mr. grier, but decades of experience in education and out of education tell us it's not whether you do it, it's how well you do it. there are three decades of research, for instance, on turnarounds, total quality management, corporate reengineering, in the best case scenarios these work 30% of the time. to imagine that we can identify some models that we will then require folks to use, and imagine that is going to increase the likelihood they would succeed, i think, is just to -- just to allow our aspirations to exceed what we can actually competently and usefully do. to give one concrete example of i think particularly on the teacher evaluation front, what i am concerned about, you may have read or heard about new school models, hybrid schools, like rocketship academies, or the school one in new york city, one of the important things to note

is these school models become very nearly illegal under much of what we're talking about in terms of state-of-the-art teacher evaluations. these schools do not have a teacher of record in the conventional fashion. to try to track students to a teacher and hold that teacher accountability in a hybrid model or on-line model or the school of one model, simply doesn't work. if you require teachers are going to be evaluated in this fashion you need to provide substantial waivers and loopholes or make sure that we are not regulating a fashion that locks us into the 19th century schoolhouse. thank you so much. i was honored to be here today. >> thank you very much. very good. >> i had three more. i had neas, luna, geisselhardt and sner. if you can give me a couple minutes. i want to get to senator isaacson and senator franken. just a couple minutes, please. >> i'll be brief. i wanted to just review quickly with the committee who our

students with disabilities. i think there is a great deal of confusion about who is a student with a disability, who's getting special education services. 85% of students in special education have a disability that does not prohibit -- that does not bar them from doing grade level work. so if we look at who the categories are, 42, almost 43% of kids in special education have a specific learning disability. almost 20% have a speech or language delay. 11% have something called other health impaired. for the kids who could probably be appropriately in an alternate assessment on alternate academic achievement standards, the 1% kids, if we added up all the kids in the category mental retardation, all the kids in the category of autism, all the kids in the category of traumatic brain injury and all the kids in the category of multiple

disabilities, we have far -- we're still close -- not all those kids are going to be incapable of learning grade level work, but a lot of those kids are being directed to an inappropriate assessment for them simply because of the nature of their disability category. i have been in too many iep meetings and agree with my colleagues here on the panel who say the test is driving too many things. i've been in iep meetings in virginia for kids who can do grade level work in certain subjects who have been told they can't access the general curriculum because the test dictates what curriculum they have. we can't put more kids into this track where they can't have access to the general curriculum and they can't learn what all their other kids are being exposed to. i think that's just a really important point that we understand who are these kids in

a very, very small number of them are kids who cannot do grade level work. the second thing is i think it's absolutely essential that teachers have the skill and knowledge to do the job they've been asked to do. and that third, that testing has to inform instruction. i don't know why we're testing if we're not doing something that's going to turn around and benefit kids. i think the issues and concerns we have with the bill and we need to make sure that we're not putting more kids in an inappropriate assessment which is directing -- tracking them out of the general education curriculum. i want to add one quick thing about accountability. as you know the bill -- your bill limits accountability to the bottom performing 5% schools. and with the other 95% of the schools, one of the things that we're very concerned about is we still have the desegregated data reporting requirement which is really good but where there are achievement gaps we think there should be some trigger that something has to happen. i keep calling it subsection do

something, where if there is an achievement gap, we do something more than report it. that schools need to look at why that gap is there and take some action to address it. i'm not going to sit here and tell you what that should be. schools know what that should be. but they need to do something. so those are my two points. >> thank you. again, just a couple minutes. i want to get senator [ inaudible ] he's been waiting a long time to say something. >> thank you, senator. i just want to comment that under the current no child left behind law, we are on track for 100% of our schools to be held to federal sanctions. under the new law, it's 5%. so i think it finds the proper balance and i think it's also important to understand that states have the responsibility under the new law, states would have the responsibility to intervene for all schools, it's just the federal government is

only pro descriptive on 5%. i think that finds the balance, senator paul, think those of us who consider ourselves conservative are looking for is what is the proper role of the federal government here. the u.s. constitution is silent when it comes to education so the tenth amendment says it's left to the states. my constitution at the state level is very specific. that i have a responsibility to provide a uniform, thorough system of common public schools. so, i think there are some who on this panel who think if the federal government does not mandate something, the states will not do it. i think our actions speak otherwise. ten years ago, we had a law that required -- before no child left behind, we had federal laws that required standards and assessments for all students, but 39 states opted out of it. today, we have states that are on their own without any mandate from the federal government have adopted a standard that is comparable to any academic standard in the world. and we've a -- we're moving towards assessments that will be

less intrusive and more informative and we have put forth a plan for an accountability system that is even a higher level of accountability than the current no child left behind requires. so i don't think that it's an accurate portrayal of the attitudes of states today to move forward with a bill that is based on the premise sis if the federal government doesn't mandate it states will not do that. i think states have demonstrated they're more than willing and on their own have adopted a higher standard and a higher level of accountability. >> thank you. miss geisselhardt quickly. >> in listening to miss neas i think kentucky may be ahead of the ball game as far as trying to close these achievement gaps. when we see these gaps that does mean something needs to be done and that's the problem, actually. we're working very hard at closing these gaps and i also agree with her that the esa and no child left behind have helped tremendously the majority of the

special ed students as she was saying. many of those students are able to work at grade level. but the ones i was referring to were those that are not capable, no matter what we do with those students, no matter what interventions we use, they are not -- they are identified because they are not capable of working at grade level. and they should be assessed according to their ieps rather than according to -- >> fall into that 1% category. >> that depends on your numbers. in your district. and we've never had the number in our district to fall into that 1%. so we -- you know, they go in with our regular accountability and while i do have this mike i want to emphasize what mr. hess said as far as funding, that is so very important. i don't think that more funding is the answer by any means to education. the answer is to get funding

channeled in the right direction. there is an awful lot of waste in education funding and there just needs to be more flexibility. and as far as the use of funds. >> very good. >> i'm going to go to senator isaacson. >> three quick points on testing, turnarounds and the urgency of passing the bill. first of all on testing senator paul, there is a point that i think in this country there are schools and system that have become too focused on tests as the one indicator. we haven't seen a good organization drive progress without a set of measurable goals that are driving progress every day. we've gone too far in the direction of one test. this bill includes some important components as i understand it to go beyond testing, but to look at things not only high school completion rates but college enrollment rates and percentage of kids going to college without remediation and that's a healthy move to focus on goals and outcomes but not just tests. on turnarounds, i must say, i think the -- i do think that

it's from my perspective, the capacity to turn around low income schools is limited in this country. i don't believe just from a practical perspective in the next few years we have the capacity to turn around more than fairly low percentage of the most low achieving schools. while agree with many of mr. lenderson's comments on accountability i don't think we should overreach on the federal government trying to do too many schools directly because we don't have the capacity to do it. my concern on the achievement gap schools, i think i was a public school kid, my kids are going to public schools, a lot of schools serving many kids well but not kids in great need and kids of color. those schools aren't going to improve for the kids in greatest need if there's not some press to improve that. i think that's an area for focus. third, and lastly, i would just say on the urgency of this bill overall, you know, we -- this is a race against technology, it's a race against the economy. you know, one piece of data that strikes me is in 1973, there were only a quarter of jobs in the united states that required

some post secondary education. a quarter. in a few years, two-thirds of the jobs in the united states require some post secondary education. this is a change of seismic and rapid proportions by historical standards. we were once first in the world and college completion rates, high school completion rates. we have slipped to 15th. not because we have gotten worse, we have stayed the same while other countries are moving ahead. and technology is demanding more. i don't think we have the luxury of sitting around. i think the leadership you're providing here to move this is important. i think kids and educators and teachers are not looking for a prescription from washington, but they're looking for leadership from washington and i salute your efforts to provide that here. >> senator isaacson, thank you for your patience. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for the courtesy. i want to thank all of the guests that have been here to testify today. as i always do, when educators are present, i learn something. and you've all had a great input today into the conversation. i know ms. nays and mr. thomas

have expressed themselves already on the issue of special assessment or special education kids. i would like to ask ms. danks and mr. seedan who are in the classroom every day, and i think you're the lead special needs teacher, is that not correct, ms. danks? one of the things i have been an advocate of, and as the chairman knows in this committee, is some flexibility in the assessment of special needs children. in particular, propose that rather than having a limited, narrow waiver for cognitive disability, instead we allow the iep to determine the assessment vehicle each year that the special education child is subject to. because that's the one time you have the parent, the teacher and the school present making the decision for that child in terms of how you're going to measure the progress of that child in that next year. and i'd like to have ms. danks and mr. seedan just comment on that. >> i agree with you. i think the iep process is creating on getting everyone together and focusing on that one student. i think when we come to assessing based on state or national standards or whatever we're talking about, we really

forget that individualized part of the individualized educational plan. and i know at my school, we're constantly battling between the state standards that are far beyond our students' cognitive abilities at this point in time and their iep, which actually does address the skills they need in order to function after they're done with the public school system. and unfortunately, a lot of times those two documents aren't working together. and so we're wasting -- we're using a lot of our time to figure out that balancing game. as far as assessing students with special needs, i think it's essential. whether -- i think an alternative assessment is great. i know in maryland, we had the typical assessment that most students took, and then we also have an alternative assessment. for a while, we also had a mod tied assessment for those students that fell outside of that 1%. but still were not able to complete grade level work. and they are doing away with that, and i'm not sure of the policies with that. but as far as assessing students

with special needs, i think that our students have enough obstacles, and for us to be another one saying that they can't do, i think that's such a disservice to them. so i think we need to continue holding our high standards, and provide an effective assessment. and i think that can be determined at various levels, like you had mentioned, with the iep process. we can do that during -- we can assess students based on the iep, and we may be serving them better. at our school, we actually went through a process where we created an assessment. we got a waiver from our district assessments, and we created an assessment to look at our students' continuous progress, and that's the exact phrase that we use. and it took us about a year to create this assessment, where we're continually looking at student progress as it relates to that student's capabilities. so we're not holding them to some standard that someone else told us to. we're actually looking at what the student is able to do throughout the school year, based on what they have been able to do. and what we hope we're able to push them to do in the future. >> before i get to mr. seedan,

would you please, if you get a chance, allow the committee to have the maryland alternatives that you're using in terms of measuring progress for those special ed kids? i would love to see what you have developed. >> sure. and, again, that's just at our school level. >> i understand. >> i think autonomy was fantastic because we were able to go through a process that taught our entire school staff that taught so much about our students and staff needs. and coming away from that process, we have a much greater appreciation for how difficult it is to create an assessment, and so we applaud people for doing that. but i can certainly share that with you. >> thank you very much. mr. seedan? >> i do agree also that the iep is a great place to start with using it as a driver for assessment. one of the things that's happening in tennessee now is we have guidelines that are set for alternative assessments. and what i found in my classroom is i try to make sure i do a thorough evaluation of the records. and try to find anything that

will allow me to use alternative assessments if that individual needs it. if they don't, i continue to use the tennessee standards that we have. a little more work for me, but i outline those things that i believe are necessary at the time. so i stay in compliance nationally to make sure that i'm meeting the special ed requirements, but i also -- so you're looking at an iep inside of an iep. you have a set of standards that says that regulatory standards that we have to have that are grade-level functions. but then i have another set that are functions that are necessary for that young person to be successful enough to want to go to the next level, and then move forward. >> i thank you both. i don't have time to go to another subject, except to say, mr. loon or dr. loon or whichever it is, idaho is doing a great, i didn't know novate active thing by engaging parents more in the education of children.

i know in your pay for performance, the parents actually have some say in that merit-based system and i commend what you all are doing very much. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i'd like to ask -- i know you put yourself right away to involve yourself in that last discussion with mr. seatton and ms. danks. >> thank you, senator harkin. what my two colleagues on the panel have described is exactly what is appropriate and available under current law. under the individuals with disabilities with education act, an essential decision that each child's iep team needs to make and the iep team includes the child's parents, of which assessment is appropriate to that child. does the child take an alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards, does the child take the regular assessment with or without accommodation or modification? that is something that's currently required under i. i.d.e.a. for those kids on alternate achievement standards, you have

to design something that's appropriate to that child. those kids are on a unique place where they are not on grade level. i oftentimes call them act of god kids. short of an act of god, these kids are never going to be on grade level. it doesn't matter how much their mother loved them, what they had for breakfast, how many books were in their home. these kids are not going to be on grade level. they need a different measure. but they need to make progress. someone needs to be making sure that this year they learned more than they learned last year. and whatever it is to that child is what we need to have continue. so there's nothing in the law that says for those -- that what -- my concern is, when you put kids who don't belong in that category of kids with the most significant cognitive disabiliti disabilities. when kids are outside of that and are put in that and otherwise -- >> i think there's some confusion here, if i might interrupt. there's a 1% rule that says

that schools can automatically -- i guess, if that's the right word, automatically. take up to 1% of kids who are in ieps? >> what the law says is that up to 1% of kids, all kids, which roughly translates to about 10% of kids with disabilities, can have their progress measured on an alternate achievement standard. an alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards. what the current regulation allows is that states can count those 10% kids in the 1% as proficient. there's nothing that says states can't give more tests -- can't assess more kids. but they can't count them as proficient outside of that 1%. and that's what we're seeing in a number of states where they're giving more than 1% of the kids are taking this alternate achievement standard. and that's where our concern is. we think that too many kids are

being inappropriately placed in that 1%. but we absolutely believe that there are kids who are appropriate to that 1%. >> do you disagree with that, ms. darvenks? >> i don't disagree, but i know something i have seen in a lot of iep students who attend a comprehensive school, so that other percentage that we have been talking about, not the students with the most severe disabilities. and a lot of times when the parents come to the meetings, they say, i don't want my kid to be taking that test. so we'll just opt out of that. because this testing and assessing has just gotten so out of control. and the parents see that it's out of control, and they don't want their child participating in it. and i know we -- sometimes there is a lot of pressure from the parents to exclude the student from that general assessment, just because of the stigma attached with that. so i agree with that that's an issue. i'm not sure if 1% is the magic number. we're talking about states' rights versus the federal government. i'm not sure if 1% is the correct number. i'm not sure there is a correct number. but i do know that that's

definitely something to be considered. and i also think, on top of that, just to go back to the original question, life -- i think a huge component we're missing with this 1% are the life skill standards. so that, you know, we could use the iep, which are those academic standards and some life skill standards. but there are no state -- there's not a requirement that states have those life skill standards and some states do and some states don't. but seeing that as -- i think that's a huge disservice to these students. and we're not preparing them for what happens for most of them when they're 21 years old and they exit the publicel school system. we're not doing a good job of getting them ready. >> senator harken, if i could just add, i think this whole notion of life skills is so important, but -- and i don't know the answer. but it may be an i.d.e.a. oish u and what's appropriate to that child and not necessarily an esea issue. so i just wanted to raise that. >> mr. seatton? >> yes, for tennessee, we have

built in a way to catch some of that 1%. young people that have a certain iq score, we use that as a baseline. if they are average-functioning, close to, they are not allowed to be placed in that alternative assessment bracket. so one of the things that, you know, people who want to opt out are not able to do that just based on the fact that they are young people or you believe that this will be better for your scores. >> i'm sorry, can i just add one thing? i think -- i think the problem we're falling into too, there is either an alternative or whatever everyone else does. and children fall in a lot of spots between those two extremes. so i'm not sure exactly how it's worded in the law, but the idea of continuous progress can mean a student takes an assessment and they score 30% in this month, and is then they score 35% the next month. and that's continuous progress. and for some of our students no don't fall in that 1% but also

are not performing above or at grade level, that's a way for that student to show they're making that continuous progress. and for the school to demonstrate that they are providing the instruction that enables that continuous progress. >> senator franken. >> that's kind of a good jumping-off point for my -- my -- where i want comments from. and it's about computer adaptive testing. and to what extent does this -- and certainly in terms of special ed kids and measuring growth. i want to -- i've been struck by some -- mr. loona talked about growth model. and i know mr. loona is concerned with gifted kids, and i know that from teachers i've talked to in minnesota, the way the testing has been done in no child left behind is what percentage of kids exceed a

certain arbitrary benchmark of proficien proficiency. and so you can take those gifted kids, and you know that kid is going to beat proficiency no matter what you do to that kid, so they ignore the kid. and i think ms. gezelhart talked about that, as well. and ms. danks, you talked about computer adaptive testing. and i want to follow up with you on -- or you to follow up on that, if you like. mr. thomas, you talked about a growth model, and why a growth model is so important. and mr. haspet, before he left, was talking about just how kids are progressing during the your. and you can do that with a

computer-adaptive test because you can take it multiple times a year. we have been doing, giving the test at the end of april and the results come back, and they're autopsies. and mr. shenire, you talked about the importance of beyond one test and the thing with the computer-adaptive test, you can take it multiple times over the year, and you can measure growth. so i just kind of would like anyone or -- who wants to talk about what -- do they see any down side to the computer-adaptive tests. and we've made -- one thing we have done is made it voluntary. i mean, it's one of the federalism issues that we've responded to, is -- i think -- i think every state should have computer-adaptive tests, but i deliberately said this is something you can do. you may do. you're allowed to do.

so does anyone have any feelings about that? thoughts? >> i'd like to take a quick stab at it. i think you're spot-on in what you're proposing. i think the infrastructure across the country is sorely lacking for schools to be able to do this on a large-scale basis. because you just can't march kids into one computer lab in a school in groups of 25, and think you're going to be able to do this. i've worked innel school districts where we had computers in every classroom, and it was wonderful. teachers could do quick assessments and get information back on really a daily basis. every two weeks or whenever you wanted them to. but i work in a school district now where we don't have that type -- >> you have a computer lab? >> we have a computer lab in most of our schools. but very few of our schools have a computer in every classroom. >> right. but you can -- you don't have to all -- and not everybody at the school has to take this the same

day. >> no. if we're just talking about special ed students, that may be different. but i think this technique you're talking about applies to all students. it makes it just much more difficult in a 3,000-student high school. >> yeah, but what i'm saying is that i don't think the -- all the -- all grades have to take it the same day. third grade can take it one day or one classroom in third grade can take it one day, and one classroom -- as long as you have a computer lab. which i think schools probably should have. >> with all due respect, i was just saying to you, from living it every day, one computer lab in the school would not support the kind of testing model you're talking about. just won't do it. >> okay. in minnesota, they seem to be able -- i've talked to schools where they've had one computer lab and they've been able to do this. but maybe they're smaller schools or something. i don't know. >> senator, in -- mr. chairman

and senator, in idaho, we've done computer testing since no child left behind started. we never did the paper and pencil. we could see the writing on the wall. and we have done computer tests all of the time. in fact, the first test that we rolled out was an adaptive test, and it showed growth. but it did not then pass muster under no child left behind. so we had to take a step backwards. the law that is being considered today is going to allow us to go back to the kind of test we were actually doing eight or nine years ago, where we could actually measure growth without a floor or a ceiling so that we could actually see where a student is -- they're performing. i think what you're talking about, senator, is right now we have assessments of learning, we give them at the end of the school year. those are great for accountability systems and they help inform instruction somewhat for the next year. but what we need are assessments of learning -- or same sorry,

assessments for learning, or assessments that are less intrusive, and they happen during the regular classroom period. i've gone into classrooms before where the -- the -- it's a very high level of engagement, where children are engaged and there's a lot of learning going on. and all of a sudden the teacher says, okay, it's time for the quiz, everybody close your books, and it's like somebody sucks the oxygen out of the room. the technology is available to capture assessment data during a regular lesson plan while it's being delivered. it means a heavy dose of technology in every classroom. it's not going to get done with just one or two computer labs per school. in our state, we have chosen to make heavy investments in technology, not with race to the top dollars, not by raising taxes, not by spending more money on education. but by -- we're willing to spend the money we already have differently. and so i won't go into the details of our technology improvements, but they're very

expansive. and every one of our classrooms will have the technology available to do the kind of assessments that you've -- you're talking about, without relying on rotating kids through a computer lab. >> my only reaction to that -- i've seen tests or seen classrooms where you can immediately -- where they do exactly what you're talking about, and that's -- and that's fabulous. what i -- advocating on computer adaptive tests, one of the aspects of it is exactly what you're talking about, which is that the test results, if they can be done as the year is going by, they're allowing -- they're for learning. because the teachers can see what's going on. and use the results for -- for instruction. and i think, ms. danks, if -- is probably going to speak to the special ed fact, which is that if you're measuring -- if you're allowed to go outside of grade

level, you're able to measure growth. and that makes the problem we were talking about before -- it actually -- i think addresses it to some extent, anyway. which is that if you're at least measuring growth, kids who are below grade level and you -- you can still see that they're learning. >> exactly. >> i think you make a great point. and that applies to all students, not just students with special needs. seeing that continuous growth is going to be much more rich data that the teacher is going to be able to use than that one time in march or april, where -- where the school has probably completely stressed out the child to get ready for this assessment. you know, the parents know about it, the city knows, everybody knows about it. and then those results don't come back until june. and like you said, it's like an autopsy. and then the -- that information is not always useful. and a lot of times, it's given too late.

well, here's this skill we taught in september that this student never mastered, which i would have known that in september. so i think that testing has become such an event, and it comes with so much pressure. and i think, like you were saying, it doesn't need to be everybody does it on the same day. it could be two or three kids coming in. ask some of these kids know how to use a computer better than anybody i know. so as far as that being a barrier, even for students with special needs, i don't think that's an issue. our school does work with a partnership board, and we've been able -- they have helped us tremendously in raising a great deal of funds. we have several computers in every classroom, a per meethian board in every classroom and i would encourage schools struggling to gain that technology, reach out to your community partners, businesses getting rid of computers, because then you can implement this in your schools. >> you had a response on this. >> quick comment. senator franken, i think you're absolutely right to focus on computer based adaptive assessments. i think in the future, that's going to be universal in

education. i think it's a good example of something in which you're showing judiciousness. there have been lots of bills in both parties where say it's required. i think it's good to support. the one thing i would say about the goals, changing the transparency and the goal requirements and accountability to enable growth and improvement is crucial to help all kids, lowest-achieving, highest-achieving. one thing i think, at a minimum the state setting goals for kids to get some absolute level of performance, high school graduation i think is important. otherwise we'll make slight improvements but not -- >> i think we're talking about mandating a certain rate of growth so by the end of 12th grade, they're ready for college which is what the goal is, anyway. >> i think that's the right direction. >> i'm not sure how that -- that's -- i'm not sure how that language is in the bill in terms of mandating that every year

there will be a year of growth. >> and mr. saturdeatton, you pur card up. and then i'm going to go to senator merkley. >> yes, sir, i teach in the orange mound community, the second largest african-american community in the nation, only behind harlem. and one of the things when you start looking at technology, we need and we are raising money through our district. but we need the support of the national government in order to fully use technology throughout our system. i believe that the rapid assessments that we can get through those computer-based tests will be fabulous for us to use it as an ongoing tool. but i think that we still need to think how long will it take to get that type of technology in every school. and i think that one of the

things that was mentioned, the common core standards, is -- and this is where i believe we need some national leadership, in having those common core standards as a base for our national assessment. since wee looking at being competitive globally, we need to know where we all are from california to the bottoms of mississippi. >> are you saying, mr. saturdea that there is an inequality of funding for schools, based upon their zip code? >> no, sir. >> we should rectify that. >> no, sir, i'm not saying that at all. >> you should be. >> can i read this language, just to respond, because now i have it in front of me. it says, if the state chooses to use a student -- use student growth as a measure of academic progress and to determine students are on track to college and career readiness, a student performing below the on-track

level of performance for the student's grade level under subsection blah, blah, blah, on the academic assessment, blah, blah, blah, is attaining a rate of academic growth in the subject that indicates that the student will be on track to college and career readiness in not more than a specified number of years. and two, a student who is performing at or above the on-track level of performance for the student's grade level on the academic assessment for the subject is continuing to make academic growth. so for -- for states that choose a growth model, we are addressing, i think, what you raised. i think. are you satisfied? >> i think that's good. my view is that having that federally prescribed but state -- some big goals about increasing percentage of kids reaching medium big goals is important, but i know that's a

longer conversation. but i think that's a great step in the right direction. >> thank you. >> roll call vote. >> we have a roll call vote that just started. senator murphy has been very patient. i'm going to go to him as a roll call. i know it's going to be 12:15 and we're probably not going to come back after. mr. merkley. >> thank you, mr. chair, and thank you to all of you for bringing your expertise here to the capitol. i'll follow up on the computerized adaptive testing. oregon was an early adopter of this, and folks can't imagine any other way of doing it. if schools out there are still using paper tests, and the results come back months later, that is crazy. if you're trying to have teachers be able to utilize the results in order to understand how their students are progressing. and the cost of the technology has come down so much that i certainly would encourage folks to explore it. i wanted to note a different -- another issue, which is we're

replacing the current requirements for adequate yearly progress for college and career ready standards. and the goal of developing statewide accountability systems in order to receive federal funding by 2014 and 2015. states vary in terms of the progress that they have made, and will be making to develop this new accountability system based on college and career ready. and so i thought, superintendent luna, perhaps from idaho's perspective and other people are welcome to chime in, could give us a sense of how the state is progressing in developing and adopting these new assessments, or the process that's anticipated and the expected time line and kind of insights about the challenge that will occur in terms of this transition. >> mr. chairman and senator,

idaho, along with oregon and a number of other states -- i believe there's almost 30 are part of the smarter balance consortium that is working to develop the adaptive computerized assessments that we're talking about. i believe that they will begin piloting them in two years, and then be -- and then after the pilot begin to administer them. at the same time, those assessments are going into place we're also going through the process of adopting the common core. and so we have to go through the process of aligning our curriculum to the higher standard and now an assessment that measures to this higher standard. and all of that is, as i said, in place to be piloted, i believe, in 2014. and then the year after it becomes part of the accountability. it's the measure that we use in our states as part of our accountability system. >> so do you anticipate that the ayp will continue to be used between now and then -- if it's

piloted in 2014, do we anticipate wide adoption the following year or two years later? >> mr. chairman and senator, i think that's going to be up to the plan that the state puts together. i know that if it's a state -- i believe that it's -- if it's a state that's pursuing a waiver, that there's actually one year where everything kind of stays the same. and that is the transition year. and i believe that that is 2013. and then there's the transition. but i think it has to do -- it depends on the plan that the state puts together. >> of do we have time for any other feedback on this question? thank you. >> do you have feedback? >> i wanted to address what senator -- >> i'm sorry. i wanted to address what senator franken said in regard to formative assessment. i think there is a lot of emphasis on formative assessment now. and it is being used. and used for instruction. but as far as the tests that we would use at -- for data

collection, and comparing students. we're comparing growth, which is what we hope to be able to do in the future, is compare growth, we would have to have -- as i said, we would still have to have a testing window, where testing is done within a particular time frame in order to use it for comparisons. >> mr. chairman, i had one more quick comment. and it was in response to senator paul's early concern, where he said that currently we have basically everyone that's frustrated with the current law, but now we're going to just take what we're frustrated with, but only apply it to 5% of our schools. under the new law, the 5% are not going to be held to the same frustrating parts of no child left behind today. we will use a growth model, which we cannot use under the current no child left behind. it will be a growth model that we'll use to measure how those

schools are improving. and then i think the most important part is now under the new law, there's flexibility. we receive federal funds right now where it's very prescriptive, where the school may need to focus on a specific area, but the funding forces us to spend it elsewhere. now because of the flexibility in the law, we can take the federal dollars, and we can combine them and focus on the area where we know that low 5% school needs assistance. so it is a different approach, and i think it will be a far more successful approach. >> yeah, i'll entertain a couple more. but when the second bell rings, we've got to go. mr. sheery had something and then mr. greer and then mr. henderson. that's it. go ahead. >> senator merkley, i think your question is a really important one. and i think there is a risk. as i said, there are many good elements to this bill. i think i have some reservations, significant ones, about the incentives i mentioned before, and teacher evaluation and around the press for accountability and transparency.

and i think there is a risk without more steps being taken that you won't in this bill drive the crucial transparency needed to look at performance ncrohe whole .. to provide flexibility, i think your question that we may not give the public the transparency in how well states and schools have been doing in educating kids at all levels, achievement gap schools. and i think that flexibility is good. but i think there is some imp t important improvements that need to be made, otherwise there can be a real down fall in law. but i hope that can be addressed in this legislative process. >> i want to come back quickly to this issue about compa comparabili comparability. and this is really a serious issue, and i might suggest that the committee consider a detailed impact analysis from the general accountability office, or the congressional research services on the impact that these changes before you move forward. the last thing i wanted to say is, most of the really good charter networks in this country that are doing a great job are

spending between $1,000 and $2,000 more per student in those low-performing schools and getting good results. this is in addition to the title 1 money. and i want to come back again. i'm really concerned that if we don't look at some type of set-aside to provide some additional title 1 funding for these low-performing schools, that we just aren't going to be willing to make the tough political changes that we need to make in giving them the amount of funding they need to do this work. >> i thought they were ringing a bell. my staff just reminded me, we have a 4% set-aside in this bill, just precisely for what you're saying. there is a 4% set-aside. >> for those bottom 5% schools? >> yes. >> okay. thank you. >> mr. henter son. >> thank you, mr. chairman. because this discus conceding t

left behind is imperfect and in need of reform. i don't think anyone disputes that. i think there are some who would argue, however, that the current draft bill represents an -- shall we say overreach on the part of the federal government. by using its federal dollars of investment to try to guide state accountability. i got that. the truth is, however, that esea really establishes a flaw, not a ceiling, on accountability. and that states are obviously free to exceed and create new standards that, in fact, hold all students accountable. my only point is this. look, i celebrate the fact that over the last 50 years, the country has changed significantly for the better and become a more perfect union. but i also recognize that americans obvious are ahistoric, and fail to take into account the specific elements that led to the change that we support today. had had the federal government not chosen to intervene in states activities in this area, we would not have had the

improvement the we have seen. and those who seem to argue that states, when left free of their own devices, can achieve the kind of goals that we all seek, need only look at the record that has been established over the past to recognize that the states themselves are not perfect, and that they have, in turn, improved their academic involvement, because of the federal government. not in spite of it. so i think in that sense, this does -- the discussion of government's role, a disservice to the extent that we fail to recognize the contributions that the federal government has made in improving the quality of education for all. >> well, thank you very much. thank you all very much. i thought this was a great two hours. i guess as chair, i get to have the last word, i guess. let me just sum it up this way. the whole issue of elementary and secondary education is a complex issue. but we can't just throw up our hands and say because it's complex, and there's all these moving parts, that we can't do anything and we walk away from

it. what i've heard here is that there is a role to be played by the federal government, the state government and local government. we just kind of figure out what those roles are. and they may vary from time to time, depending upon circumstances. i will state that this bill that we have will not solve every problem in elementary and secondary education. mr. luna said that when he talked about -- about no child left behind, he said there's the good, the bad and the ugly. what we have tried to do is get rid of the bad and ugly and keep the good and try to expand on it somewhat. so, yes, we have retreated in some areas, advanced in others. now, every bill that passes a committee or a congress, i can poke a hole in it. you know, no bill has everything everybody wants. i understand that. this bill is not mr. enzi's

bill, and it ain't mine either. but it is ours. and in that way, we make those kind of agreements. i think the central question is, is it better than the present bill? does it advance the causes of finding the proper balances between federal, state and local? and does it warrant general support? across a wide spectrum? knowing full well that everyone here has something that probably they would like to change in that bill, including mr. enzi and me. but the question is, is does it advance the cause? of what we're trying to do and finding those proper roles and troig to provide a better structure and framework for every child in america to get a really good education. so we have really good, effective teachers, good leaders in schools, that we have comp e comparabili comparability, that we have -- that we even out these -- mr.

seatton, i don't think you got my subtly in that. jonathan coziel wrote about this a long time ago, about savage inequalities. i'm out in fairfax county. our schools have the best computers that you can imagine. why don't your schools have those? well, there's a little bit of inquality in zip codes. so we have to figure out how we make sure that kids who happen to be born to -- in bad circumstances, have a bad family circumstance, low income, impoverished area, maybe english language learners, maybe have a disability, how do you keep them progressing too? how do you reach down, that child who has the least and make sure they get the benefit of our education system? that's what we're trying to do. imperfect as it is, that's what we're trying to do. so i thank you all very much. it's been a great discussion. the committee will stand adjourned. thank you. >> got to go vote.

i'm keeping the record open for ten days. [applause] [cheering] >> thank you. thank you very much. thank you. [applause] thank you. thank you, everybody. please come have a seat. it is great to be in yeadon and the filly area. i was told not to mention football at all.

[laughter and booing] so i'm not going to see anything about football while i'm here because i know this is a sensitive subject. [laughter] this is why i have secret service along. [laughter] now i want to start by acknowledging some of the folks with me here today. first of all i want to thank one of our finest public servants in this country and she was a great friend and somebody that cares passionately about the health and welfare of our kids and families. kathleen sebelius, our secretary of health and human services. i want to acknowledge the mayor of the agents, jones but there is in the house.

two of my favorite members of congress shot a foot tall and bob brady. [applause] , and one of my favorite former members of congress, who i think is going to be doing big things here in pennsylvania is here as well, i guess i can't call your congressman -- that's all right? congressman murphy. [applause] i had the chance to say hello to mayor nutter when we landed in philly. he couldn't be here this morning. i guess there's a few things going on here today. [laughter] but i wished him well. he's a great partner of ours and i also want to see thank you to dr. o'shea and all of the stuff and the teachers who are here. the largest doing a great job. [applause]

i had the chance to visit one of the classrooms here and i have to say it got me choked up because you need to remember patrick has got small kids and they are just so huggable at this age. [laughter] and now they are still huggable but they are five, nine and obviously you have a lot to handle when you are here and the teachers, the staff who are here, they wouldn't be doing this for the money. they are doing it out of love of children. all of you do it because you know that when it comes to learning and growing, this is an absolutely critical period in a child's life. we know that three and 4-year-olds who go to high quality preschools, including

our best head start programs are less likely to repeat a grade, less likely to need special-education. they are more likely to graduate from high school than the peers who did not get these services. and so this makes early education one of our best investments in america's future. [applause] one of the best. [applause] right out of the gate it helps prepare kids for a competition that has never been a competition for good middle class well paying jobs, and we are competing now with countries like china and south caribbean and europe, all of which are serious about educating their children. so the time when a company is able to live anywhere they want in the world and a lot of times will make the decision based on where they can find the most highly skilled work force, it is

absolutely imperative that we make sure that the united states is a place where we have got the best ranked and best educated young people. that is a priority. [applause] ..

>> developing higher standards, the best practices for teaching, and for learning, and now, unfortunately, in congress right now, it's a different story. the republicans in washington have been trying to gut our investments in education. earlier this year, nearly every republican in the house voted for a budget that would have cut hundreds of thousands of children from head start. they try to cut pell grants for college students, and they just voted against a jobs bill that would have put 400,000 teachers back in the classroom. their argument was that we don't have the money, and what i've said is we can make these investments in our children without adding to the deficit simply by asking people who make more than a million dollars a year to pay a little more in taxes. now, right now, but starting

2342013, -- in 2013. it's the right thing to do for our kids and our country, but so far, they've said no. it's not just on issues that cost money. so far, congress failed to move on fixes no child left behind, despite the fact we showed # them bipartisan reforms that are working in states now, reforms that were praised not just by democrats, but also by republicans, so after trying for months to work with congress on education, we decided to take matters into our own hands. our future is at stake. our children deserve action, and we can't wait for congress any longer. we can't wait to ensure the schools give every child the chance to compete with young people from around, and so in september, i announced if states exceed the high standards set by no child left behind, they have the flexibility to build on the reforms already made.

we can't wait to help young people get to college. we announced changes to lower student loan pams by hundreds of dollars a month for about 1.6 million americans. [applause] we can't wait to give more of our youngest children the same basic opportunities we want all children to have, that we want for our children, and that's why today i'm announcing a new rule that will improve the quality of head start programs around the country. [applause] now i firmly believe that head start is an outstanding program and a critical investment. the children who have the chance to go to the best head start programs have an experience that can literally change their lives for years to come. we're making today's

announcement because we believe that every child this head start deserves that same chance. now, under the old rules governing head start, there just wasn't enough accountability. if a program wasn't providing kids with quality services, there was no incentive to improve. under the new rules, programs are going to be regularly evaluated against a set of clear high standards. if a program meets these standards, and we believe the majority of head start programs will, then their grants will be renewed, but if a program isn't giving children the support they need to be ready for school, if classrooms are unsafe, if finances are not in order, if kids are not learning what they need to learn, then other organizations will be able to compete for that grant. we're not just going to put money into programs that don't work. we will take money and put them into programs that do.

it's -- if a group's going to do a better job for the community, then they need to have supports. [applause] if a group would do a better job serving the kids in our communities, then they are going to have that chance. now, this is the first time in history that head start programs will be truly held accountable for performance in the classroom, and we know that raising the bar is not always an easy thing to do, but it's the right thing to do. children in head start deserve the best services we have to offer, and we know head start programs can meet this challenge, so because of this rule and the other executive actions that we have taken to improve the education system, more children will have the chance to study hard, do well in school, graduate on time, go to college without crushing debt, more americans will be scientists and innovators, engineers, and entrepreneurs,

more businesses will be able to find skilled workers. of course, there's no substitute for congress doing its job, and i have to say these two congressmen are doing their job. [applause] but -- [applause] but they need help. congress still needs to fix no child left behind. congress still needs to put teachers back in the classroom where they belong. [applause] congress needs to act, but if they continue to stand for dysfunction and delaying, then i'm going to move ahead without them. [cheers and applause] i have told -- [applause] i have told my administration i want you to keep on looking for actions that we can take without

congress, steps that can save consumers' money, make government more efficient and responsive, help heal the economy, improve our education system, improve our health care system; we want to work with congress, but we're not going to wait, and i think this is the right thing to do not just as a president, but i think this is the right thing to do as a parent. i know there's things i cannot guarantee my kids, but i can make sure, i can do my best to make certain they get a chance to succeed or fail on their own merits like i did. i can do everything in my power to ensure that their children grow up in a country where anything is possible as long as you're willing to work for it. that's what my mom and my grandparents wanted for me. it's what i want for my children. it's the promise that every generation has made to those who came after. we can't be the first generation

of americans to break that promise, 10 we've got to prove that we are tougher than the times we live in, and that we're bigger than the politics of the moment. we have to meet the challenges today by preparing our children for the challenges of tomorrow. that's what's being done at this wonderful facility. we want to duplicate these all across the country. we're proud of what you're doing. you have a president who's got your back. thank you very much, everybody. god bless you. god bless the united states of america. [cheers and applause] ♪ [applause] ♪ ♪

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>> if you got 26 weeks of unemployment, then the next time you go back and apply, you only get 13 weeks, and then after you get your 13 weeks, it's seven and a half weeks. it's a diminishing benefit because that makes you work harder to get out there and try to find a job. [applause] >> this is one of the places where i think we probably do approach it differently. i would say from day one if you don't sign up for a training program offered by a business trying to hire people, you don't

get any money, and so i would connect the unemployeded to the jobs. we have millions of jobs we can't fill in the country right now because we have an older work force that is not trained for the new kinds of jobs. we pay the older work force to do nothing for 99 weeks trying to find the money to train people for the new jobs that we can't fill, and i say from day one that you ought to get trained, and your goal should be to get trained as fast as possible to get a full-time job to move back into the track, and then you don't worry how many weeks they are on it because they have to do something every single day in order to get a penny. >> if you missed the herman cain and newt gingrich lincoln style debate this week, watch online at the c-span video library, one of thousands videos of every c-span show aired since 1987. all archived all searchable.

it's washington your way. >> our >> it's military week here on the washington journal. yesterday, we began our series with the marines talking be lieutenant general richard mills, and tomorrow live from arlington national cemetery to learn about the reform efforts, thursday, learning about a coast guard official, and then friday, focusing on demographics of who received in the nation's armed forces. today is the role and mission of the u.s. air force. we welcome general james michael holmes here, you have a big title. what do you do? >> guest: good morning, greta. i focus on