person with activity who i also remember the tv going up i felt pretty bad that i was one of the few. i remember that, but my students come to school with npv players, telephone, something connected to their years, and if you don't force them to let go they won't let go. i forced them to put those things down and in turn left because through this interaction a lot of the social skills, a lot of social skills start to bloom become mature at a much faster rate if you allow them to sit in the corner use it in the corner and just to now to.

the students are physically active. we also include free time we also have free time and engage them in different activities during that time as well so our focus is to keep kids acted as much as we can even during the lesson plan and within our curriculum i encourage my teachers to make students moved. it's difficult to move in just one spot. get up and interact in the community, find things in the community to do even if it is just a short walk around the block to engage in something just to keep a focus on. so my focus is on movement at times. >> to add to something he was talking about encouraging kids to be active and also the chair of the local report we have

local school health council building of the spool health council within the health system, too, and the we encourage all of the teachers especially of the lemon tree schools to have activity breaks and the call them brain breaks and get them going and get them to encourage more efficient learning because the more active the brain is the more they will be able to learn that much faster. we've been encouraging it now with the middle and high school level. estimate of when to touch on something mr. jones was talking about and that was talking about the community involvement in bringing these ideas into the homes because for all of our efforts that we are making in schools we don't want to have them all be reversed.

i'm curious what sorts of efforts you are making so schools can shore up those efforts so they don't go to waste and how were you involving parents, are you getting pushed back some parents and so were not implemented these ideas about nutrition, physical fitness. estimate is it on the? and national wildlife federation has a program called eco schools usa in this international program which promotes healthy schools from the inside out, not just -- it's about what kids are eating and outdoor space and creating gardens where you can actually decide that you learn about the vegetables, you can learn about the vegetables and then put them on their plate and would be part of the curriculum.

it also encourages parents to get involved and to be eco parents and be at the school and participate because i fink that kids when they get really excited about something they can't wait to share it with their parents, they can't wait to share it with their friends and that is a way to kind of bring parents in if it has to be innovative, what did you have for lunch today they can say i had it heats up with portobello mushrooms and we agreed in our garden as a part of science class going outside getting our hands dirty and i think those are the type of things we need more in the schools because that will leap out into the community because parents will have these really excited kids that they want to keep. where did that come from? and you're actually talking to me. you aren't taxed in this across the table which i think is really important. >> when you're talking about the

national wildlife federation program and all of these efforts, how do schools get on board with this? do they come to you? >> they can sign up. it's a voluntary program. there are -- there are three flags you can either focus as a school on the water quality, you can create a recycling program coming and outdoor garden, you can just sign up, eco schools usa. you can find out more. >> nutrition obviously you talked about the last panel talking about people not knowing how to cook things. you have parents on that level the kids leave your kitchen are there other ways they check out? >> first of all i wanted to talk about incorporating the community of their high schools with that we do a lot of

community-based functions because it goes back to the communities and they will talk about nutrition and do a lot of different things. they will go to other schools and work with kids, but up the other end of the spectrum i teach parents that my child care center. i have culinary clauses for the parents because what happens is a lot of times the kids will go home and won't eat the food that parents give to them. the parents come to me and say can you give me the recipe because he won't eat this? so i do parent classis and how you can go home and make a meal for your child if you worked all day and you worked hard and i don't feel like cooking this mcdonald's is an easier answer but it's not. i teach them how they can make healthy deserts and foods.

i have men and women, mothers and fathers come to these cooking her class's and i asked them is there any suggestions for the next cooking class? it's up to here but it's always fun to read a lot of times you don't know how to deal with your kids to have a tendency to want to eat with the fix. yet they are part of that so that is the initiative that i use in my program at children's village. >> i think we all would like to help you in our school or life somewhere. it's a very impressive. what i like it and listening to the panel was the way everybody is trying to do their part. one of the things said that we have done actually in response to mrs. obama's cry to get the detector involved which is

designed to help moms, parents, consumers make the right choices for them is to put a calorie label on the front of the free tannin, bottle and packed. so if you're picking out what your family is going to consume in terms of beverages you can look and it's very clear this has 150 calories per serving and this has ten. so just another step to give parents and consumers information so they can make the choice is right for them and if you're trying to moderate keep something with your calories. >> one of the things that has been difficult is getting the parents involved in the schools, and getting them, the schools in general to get them involved in the physical activity programs sometimes they are working many jobs so they can put food on the table. we have been trying to do some things with even educating them about those that do have

computers at home if they can go on line and look at things like the national pta. they have a website that just has loads of activities and ideas about activities parents can visit their kids and how to get them involved and so in one of our schools when the kids were assessed we have a nutritionist that goes into the homes of the children that need that type of assistance to teach them how to be cooking and with the kids need, so there are some programs out there that are doing wonderful jobs. >> i have a question that is really not super specific in terms of programming. but when we are talking about children and whether it is in schools or outside, especially in the wake of what is news, we often talk about the framework of a child who the city, and

there has been some pushback around framing the question that we particularly around kids because it's almost like we are focusing so much on the size and choosing perhaps issues of shame and body consciousness and i wonder what are your thoughts and how we should be discussing health and childhood obesity with kids and do you think focusing on obesity is probably not the way to go or may be given the reality of the situation is it something to confront head-on? how do you feel we should be talking about these if we are not making it about something that they are i guess self-conscious about? >> they should be working for every child looking at how are you personally. helping them to educate about their bodies should be able to do that what age level and helping them to set their own

personal goal and how to reach those personal goals. if they've got a good program it should be completed. >> they should make it fun. fitness should be fun. we used to play and that was our activity. no one -- i remember the first lady said recently it used to be called play. you wrote your bike and ran around with your friends. i think that focusing on obesity does bring us a lot -- i believe they are putting the dni on report cards, the body mass index on the report card and they are doing that because they say they are trying to do it in a way that will help schools and help kids regulate the health. but at the same time, its -- do we really need that number on there? do the kids need to know that

right now? media as an adult, yes, of course the attention to it, go to your doctor. but i think we need to make the movement fund. we need to tell our kids to put down the device. it's our responsibilities as care givers to turn it on to say to have a green hour we have a green hour where you say you know what, give us old school we are going to turn off the devices, turn off the computers and we are going to go outside or we are just going to sit and have a conversation face-to-face , not device to device. focussing on the fun instead of on the detriment would be the way to deliver the message of health. >> i think it's on the. >> some of the questions -- it's hard in this society with the

information and the media being available to sort of separate the conversation that one of the city, size, fitness, things of that nature. one of the things i think we are overwhelmed with how much fitness information there is on television or even online. but it's always a vision of a perfect person trying to get even more appropriate. and the images in the panel prior to us there was this discussion of expectations and stereotypes and how do we fight those things and just have a conversation on health and wellness. one of the things i deal with all the time when i get on the airplane i realize i need to get to the gym. and i have those moments throughout the day and i think if we force people to come to the realization that, you know,

things in our society are not necessarily working on our behalf it's because there is a mcdonald's on every corner doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do all the time. i mean, there are a number of things that seem the images we give to our young kids are not always positive images and we were to really control what are some of the things we are feeding our kids like curves are not meant to be over curved. [laughter] and so, the health aspect of that it's something that we all deal with. i have my own challenges. as a father would i do is i make sure every day before my kids leave i change into my workout clothes so that when i leave they going to work out and hopefully encourage someone to take up that same type of activity throughout the day.

so it is a holistic view that we have to take culturally. how do we raise our kids in a generation where so much is available as a child wasn't because if you stayed down there was work to do. so we left the house because you didn't want to do that work, whereas there is so much now to keep you glued to the television and keeps you glued to the computer screen or some type of device and so it's just the way we have to look at it and the society has to look at it and change. >> i think that healthy eating is very, very important. you can do the work out. it's important roswell but if you eat afterwards it kind of tells the workout situation. i think that we need to address healthy eating. and like i said i'm in a unique

position because i work with children from 18 months to 12-years-old. they are eating zucchini at an early age. it's okay to eat but eat the healthy things and teach them how to eat healthy so by the time they get to high school and things of that nature the already have a pattern they've been introduced to a lot of things the man ought normally be introduced. because i am such a diverse population and a lot of it is asian, i am introducing them to different foods as well as the rest of the population but by choice and some other foods they wouldn't possibly be exposed to. so for me i just think it starts with healthy eating. then we can address the obesity. i think kids carry around a lot of luggage and baggage and we had gone to that with a bmi. come on. then we talk about that stress earlier. even sometimes i'm overweight that's stressful.

what do why do? i just think that we focus a lot on healthy eating that helps down the road for the obesity we can cut it off at the half. >> i wanted to open it up to audience questions, so if we have any questions there is a microphone going around. >> this is a question i guess for the chef. we do a lot of work at my organization for d.c. ponder solution with schools and meals and the quality of the meals that are served and one of the things we have run into with the other food-service workers is they say well okay i & the meals they are changing the that i have kids asking me questions why are my carriage with might he is or why did you switch this or why we have to have this and said and they don't understand how to answer those questions so i guess i was wondering what suggestions do you have to

educate other food service workers how they can be proud of the food they're putting out and the food they might not have the ability to prepare fresh but still understanding some of the nutrition guidelines and being proud of the vegetables and the changes that are being made. >> i also have to cook for budgetary and children. i have to work for clinton for the children. i have a lot of what they call a lot of different types of food that can be allergic to tomatoes. the question comes why does this look like this or that and have to explain to the children sometimes it's fresh. it's different. it's not frozen. it's more healthy for you. and the flavor, the most important thing is a values a lot of herbs. you have to make them want to eat it. it's okay to ask the questions. how come we are eating black beans instead of red beans and what is the difference between

the flavor. i guess the question back to them and say well, you tell me, what do you taste, what do you think is the difference? that's how i usually deal with those kind of problems. i incorporate with them and let them start. i ask them questions and make them think. i love to do taste tests. taste this and tell me the difference or tell me what i added and try to develop their palates. a lot of times they don't know what it is and i will say that's honey. there's different kinds of honeys. there's honey with lavender. i give them a lot of federation and a lot of times i think they aren't listening. and 84 weeks cycle of food. for each season because i like to deal with seasonal vegetables and i might come back and they would say how come we don't have this? i like that honey and i know it's lavender. the parents would say where do you get lavender honey? i always try to include the children as well as the pigments

and make a full circle and everybody loves to be involved. i would be surprised how much information they want to give back to let you know they know what they are eating. >> another question. >> i think i will work. >> missing from the dialogue brought the school based approaches is educators, teachers, principals, school, wellness. we talk about the correlation between stress and health. a standardized testing as a teacher evaluation systems and so all of these are adding to the challenges of students and teachers and the stress trickles down to the students. that's also in student achievement so i'm wondering how we can elevate this to the

district leaders and state education agencies, the federal u.s. the board of education. how can we elevate this issue of teacher and educator wellness and have important that this? >> i'm a former teacher as well and i would say that it needs to be part of the professional development to read they don't go through development through the summer all the time and it is usually based on the curriculum around what the kids are going to learn. but it doesn't include will miss and how to have a healthy classroom and then what different kinds of activities and all these different things that you can do to encourage productivity without doing natural and kill all day long. so we think that it really needs to be a part of professional development for teachers that wellness and health and movement need to be a part of learning. estimate there is also the center for disease control has

developed what they call a school health index self assessment and planning guide and this has a component of about employee wellness. and that really the school system and plans that assessment , they really get the data that they can show to the central office staff that our teachers aren't doing so well. they really want help and these are the issues they need help in, and our system well, it was already doing a pretty good job but it helped to make it more evident that more needed to be done and that was one of the issues that came from every school that the employee wellness needed addressing more than some of the other issues so that is a huge issue. estimate puts the perspective on how you are addressing that.

>> during the hiring season we always talk about we recognize that aren't thanksgiving, christmas you have a few teachers beginning to check out because of the highest levels of stress. it's not unusual to shelepin january and the professional development mt because they simply decided it's too much. i think it has to be a national approach. one of the things we have not looked at as no child left behind really it's too narrow a focus, and the holistic peace looking at it from every angle and aspect and giving the opportunity to succeed a lot of that has been taken away and it seems like we're focusing on giving every child a chance but we have taken a lot of opportunities away. it's important to have a healthy child that it's enough sleep who

has an appropriate amount of food to eat that comes to school with another right frame of mind to recognize this is a place of refuge and they will get something out of it. howe was a big class in school. it was huge because everything that i learned about the household that awfully use today i used in middle school kids don't have that opportunity anymore. so what i believe is the focus has to be a national focus on everything not just about longer school hours, but about how to surf and how to help the entire piece, how to get into the communities and provide some resources and so help to the stress that's in the communities so it is a holistic approach. as much as the academic data. i just firmly believe if we serve the whole child the academic peace will take care of

itself and i think we are looking at from another perspective where we've created a bigger dividing those that can and those that cannot. >> any other questions? >> can i ask a question? >> sure. >> i was curious as a parent where you think we are in the broad academic community accepting that as the object of looking at the whole child because i -- we have been through a decade or more of the regular academic standards and i just wonder where we are embracing the point that you just made. >> i think sometimes my personal belief is counterintuitive to i don't think we are headed in the right direction. i think our focus was trying to compete with a global community who has surpassed us and other

areas and the focus is not -- we are in a race to the top but where, what? how do we make sure there were communities are safe and our kids are healthy? what is really important? and this could be -- this to me is a political conversation because what about the work force? how do we have people who can be gainfully employed? right now i believe we are in a position where we stand all or nothing and in net we create stress and you get a lot of major cities there's always a 50% dropout rate. kids are not engaging and they are turned into peters that are unproductive, so even with in this conversation about health and wellness, if you can it's not just about exercise, it is

about holistic person. tvd enough, do we eat the right foods, do we get enough sleep, are we putting appropriate things in our body? anbar week as a society, you know, facilitating that for our kids? and i would say now, no, we are not facilitating that. it's not enough being done to the surface and then in those areas in d.c. we have a few schools that have this holistic approach but a lot is at 4 p.m.. our kids have to survive older than that. there's a lot of issues that was my political scope. segment there are organizations that are focusing on this now and asec which i mentioned earlier has a whole initiative and this is now the tenth year of the initiative that started out slow, it's gaining momentum, and i think it is gaining

momentum and understanding and so i think the more partners they bring on to it and because several organizations i am involved in our partners and that's been my career is focusing on the whole child my life is built above that and so when they accepted that as one of their first statements then a major initiative i was very happy to embrace. there are initiatives out there to help people to understand this, and we just need more people going to the website understanding what's there and then join in to the partnership. >> okay. i have a few more questions but i wanted to see if we had more audience questions. got one right there.

>> my name is angela and i met the department and as a college student they always have paul marchand schools and they have to go to work and maybe after that they have internship or something. they are always on the go. and all we see here they are like spending a lot of time not sleeping and stuff so they had relied on energy drinks and stuff. do you think those energy drinks should be banned? >> that's a good question. >> i would say that energy drinks are not sold in schools, and so when you're talking about k-12 lots sold in the vending machines are on school premises they are not available. as you move into over 21 there's

a lot of personal decision. my day we were taking no doze. it's a different question getting into the adult population. i will tell you a mainstream 16 ounces has two-thirds the amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee from once popular coffee houses we might mention of the same size. i think for the adult market i personally would always argue there can be more choices and people make their decision with full knowledge and should know how much caffeine is in there and what effect it's going to have on them and the college students as adults are choosing whichever they choose i believe they have the right. >> matter what age the brain needs rest and sleep so we think we are doing a good job and we

are doing the distressed like last night i was working and i wanted to get something done before i went to bed and i realized my brain is not functioning well. i've got to sleep. so then i got up and i did what i needed to do before coming up here this morning. the brain needs rest and sleep. >> all energy drinks do is bring your sugar level up and then bring you the worst crash ever. i remember being in college and drinking red bull like it was water and then the crash that gives you is disastrous. worse than the tie year to felt before. i agree, take a break. go for a walk. allow yourself to recharge naturally. but i don't believe in banning things from adults because it is your choice. >> we have time for one more question over here in the back.

>> good afternoon. the question i have is someone mentioned the epa -- did you hear me at all? okay. the question that i have is we talk a lot about parents that often are not in their children's lives but we have collective parents that are really involved with this is a new venue for a lot of people so my question to you is for the parents that want to come together have the ability and means or resources to come together to do something what kind of program can the schools do to help promote health and wellness as a key component of children's lives? regardless of age?

>> the national pta has a lot of ideas on their web site, and i highly recommend going there to look because but then there's other parent group affiliated. if you call the office and just say where can i get other parents and they will put you in this coalition. the the have phenomenal resources out there to help parents of all communities and all kinds, so go there first. >> i would also recommend going to another u.s..org. on our side we have an area called get outside. and on and that is the be out of their program that has a lot of

tips for parents and caregivers on different activities to do with kids in the outdoors and tips on recycling at homeland composting and just getting overall healthy. >> mr. jones i know if you are not representing the national organization, but as a part of the environment focus item stand parental involvement is a huge part of that. what does that look like? >> it would include the wellness program which we hired a fitness coach to actually monitor and manage the program for us and the big part of that initiative is to engage parents so we try to reach out to them often. we do at least one newsletter on monday and part of it is to find out in the community they can

get resources where you can shop for fresh fruits and vegetables and encourage them to be a part of this initiative. my colleagues here there's a number of resources i would source the resources and create an initiative in the schools. it takes a ground route to get those things up and running. in a lot of times again the further you move away from the class hands-on it's easy to and lose the focus so i am all about the holistic view of the kids we have to reach out to sometimes to go back into the communities, go back to those persons that are dealing with kids to find out what are those needs? >> that's actually all the time we have on the panel will like

to think the panelists for the great conversation. and also the audience for your participation and i think next we are going to have closing remarks. >> let's give the panel one last round of applause. [applause] on behalf of the group i just want to thank everyone for coming out today. we've had a wonderful session. we've had incredible panelists and moderator's. i would like to thank cheryl, warren williams and sheree gourdine and of course all of our panelists who have helped to teach us a little bit more about what is going on regarding health in our communities, obesity issues and health disparities. as we wrap up today i went as a thank you to those of you that have come out and appreciate

your attendance today we hope to learn something and hope as you go from here that you are able to speak to your colleagues, your families and communities about some of the topics they were eleased today. before we close i would like to thank again our sponsors we have the american beverage association, and online the office of minority house we encourage you to go to the rich and have coverage broadcast on the route c-span is planned to be airing this sometime this summer and we have a video coverage on this as well as articles the we will continue throughout the year. this is an area of focus that we are free passionate about and very clear on the importance of this issue and how it impacts our community and we hope today

you've learned some things and you will again go out and share these learnings with your communities. thank you for coming and we look forward to seeing you. [applause]

it was clear that when that eighth amendment was ratified the death penalty was not considered to be prohibited. indeed the death penalty existed in all the states and was the only penalty for felony. so, for somebody today to say that somehow the american people had prohibited the states by ratifying the constitution the had prohibited the states from applying the death penalty i don't know where this comes from. the american people never voted for any such thing. >> this discussion on education

at the state level focuses on funding, the impact of the no child left behind lock and waivers for states to apply their own accountability measures. we will hear from the new york state education commissioner and education department official and executives from the center for american progress which hosted the hour and a half event. >> thank you for coming to the center for american progress and i offer you a welcome. i am vice president for education policy at the center and i want to thank you for joining us for what we hope will be a compelling a provocative and informative conversation on the state of state education reform. that's where all the action is. we are pleased to have a distinguished group of panelists to kickstart the conversation. but we also hope that you will join in as we move along this morning. over the past five years, states have launched an unprecedented efforts to reform their education systems.

46 states adopted the common core standards. 25 include measures of student learning and teacher evaluations according to the most recent data from the national council on teacher quality. states have lifted caps on charter schools, put time and money into school turnaround and change their capital policy. now 33 states have weavers from the no child left behind act to alter their accountability system as well as designing new teacher and principal evaluation systems and adopting college and a career readiness standards. the states themselves have initiated many of these changes. others were spurred by programs like race for the top. the waiver process itself does not appear to stimulate brand new innovation that has asked states to articulate a coherent vision of education reform and

engage in the changes. at least that is what a new report found. today we are releasing the child left behind weavers' promising ideas from the applications. we examined every state plan for nuggets of innovation and we've identified concerns. we believe it would provide useful information to understand what states are up to and where they're headed. that is why we are gathered here of course to take stock of where the states are and where they are headed. some say momentum for the reform has stalled while others are pushing states and the federal government to do even more to drive change. this morning we would like to take a deep breath and stepped back to ask some important questions like what exactly have we achieved what did it take to get here or have we failed to do or what challenges have we

overcome and then what's next? to set the stage we would like to share findings from our report. plants don't capture everything states are doing the they are excellent snapshots of the current state of play. the associate director of the federal education programs here at cap is the co-author of the report and he's going to share a bit about that now. >> we do know that all of you should have had a hand out if there's a little extra information so if you want to go home tonight and look at that to memorize it you can but we only put the essentials reformation here on the screen. for those of you that are watching remotely we will make sure that information is on the web site. what we seek to accomplish with this report? last winter we were participating in a debate on the

waiver of the institute a debate i think we won in my humble opinion. but something interesting you said to dig into these applications and what is new and innovative we took him up on this challenge. the method we use is pretty simple and straightforward we looked christopher symbol second run application has the plans were approved we look at this information and what we were looking for with changes and new things compared to the current law and state practice and once we found that, there were a lot of things and we broke into common things and from our perspective what were the promising more interesting ideas and what were some ideas that gave us questions or concerns. we looked at every single principal in the waiver package including the principal few people seem to talk a lot on their burden they talk about this to be fair the department didn't ask for explicit information on this. we thought was a lost opportunity and we pointed this out in the first round states are looking for flexibility and

the districts and schools are as well but we know there are some states that stood up and we mentioned those in the report. if we dig into each principle now in your hand out you will see to be clear what did the department asked of the states of readiness? the last couple things, to adopt new standards and assessments. they asked them to adopt new english-language proficiency standards and asked them and this is great and i think the continuation to report on college going and accumulation rates. when we looked across the states there were a couple things that stuck to us the interesting. we saw a handful of states are a couple of states actually the but channel of the teachers to work with english lerner's not just bilingual given the demographic change of the country without a was a promising move. there's a couple states we purpose in the state agency itself integrated college career readiness standards and to that. there's a couple states the would create new early-warning

systems these are the data systems that identify them at risk of dropping out and if you're really sophisticated give states an idea the districts and schools with the can do to help the students and then last week that the couple states the would move to the competency the store standards based report cards that would be much clearer and detailed about what the students are mastering and how well the master that. i don't know about you but when you look at this list we didn't find that would alter the planets. there is nothing that is necessarily groundbreaking although there's a couple things we think are promising more interesting and what we found at least and we welcome your thoughts on this or other folks on the panel to pushback it didn't seem the weavers themselves stimulated brand-new groundbreaking challenges but it was an opportunity for them to articulate a coherent vision as mentioned in for a number of states to push forward a little bit harder on the reform the start already and new reform they would like to engage in and this is true for the other areas

as well including accountability also here there were more things so this is in your hand out what did the department ask of the states and accountability? a couple things. we all remember and see all be asked states to get to 100% efficiency grade level by 2014. so now states can back away from that and create their own ambitious goals but the department did have guidelines are not creating were continuing to have a yearly cool for schools to meet. at the same time the department asked for states to create a new account of the treynor or they could create the framework to rate schools sometimes related to the goals and sometimes a was not and then to use that new system to identify schools that are making progress, the very bottom 5% of schools that are the lowest performing called priority schools and the state's working with the district that intervention parameters we should be clear and as you read

those parameters are far and different than they were in current law and an extra 10% of schools have focused schools with large achievement gap some states have a great deal to do with the think is best in those schools and then states are not off the hook for the rest of the schools a lot of folks have been saying the department is giving up accountability on the rest of the schools. technically that's not true. allstate to demonstrate how they would promote continuous improvement in all title i schools how they would improve student learning and every single school so from your perspective that may not be the same hook as the current law it may be smaller or less sharp but there is a hook and we hope folks will dig into those aspects. what did we find in terms of accountability? a couple things we wanted to mention here today we did want to give note some states continue to set ambitious goals every year so for example friends of the education trust said the cut the gap in haskell is ambitious and basically the states would say where are our

students today in reading and math where is 100% and can we get halfway there in six years? sweep of its valuable or notable in number of states would take that option. one state arizona would continue to get 100% to proficiency by 2020 and the rest fit their own option. some of them are hard to tell how rigorous they were it wasn't clear what their goal was but we welcome your feedback and input on that and an interesting dynamic is at work that folks may not quite realize is that okay states are setting him goals every year for schools to continually improve. however a number of states for three or maybe four would hold their schools accountable or read their schools on a different set of indicators such research, arkansas, delaware and new york are keeping did you meet your goals or did you not. north carolina had an explicit section they said this is how our goals and school grading system alone is a number of

other states that see very little or no linkage and we know those states here. the issue here is held accountable will schools before reaching those goals and how is it to them what they are being held accountable for because for those states that have a separate accountability index rating system there's lots of factors that can be included in that and we have a question how and intelligent it will be for them to know what that is. last i did mention that a lot of states in this corps not increase the accountability for districts there was on common and not required necessarily and a lot of states didn't move forward there. most states would continue to set goals for the district and some sort of action or improvement plan for those low performing districts a couple states would take additional steps. connecticut would achieve a zone districts would be similar to an louisiana. new york would create focusing

distracts for those that had a number of schools with large achievement gap the the desk of the district to engage in systemic reform to support the schools and notably how to backstop the schools outside the districts that still have large achievement caps. very briefly the other parts of accountability and other number of folks have been looking at a separate issue that is a lot of states will continue to want to get her the student subgroups' into some other low performing groups and compare the performance or the state average. we just note that continued application we may want to talk more about that we noted a number of states with lower their insight some of them significantly so that is the threshold under which the schools are not accountable and they would only use the super subgroup if the film underneath that. in terms of low performing schools here's a couple things we want to mention and move on.

the couple states stood out for having comprehensive detailed plans not just for what they would do in the schools but they had three clear medal game and endgame. what i mean by that is the were clear about the progress the expected the schools to make. of the data they would use to measure the progress what steps to put it in the support and accountability of the schools didn't make that progress and what ultimately would have an three, four, five years out of the progress didn't get made. we found a lot of states did not have the comprehensive plans in the middle game and in the game and lest we draw attention in "the new york times" article this morning about how often states would identify the low-performing schools. this is me personally. i assumed states would do this every year and i realize this is not true. states didn't specify how often they would do it so we assumed for the lack of the weaver for two years but some would pushed about every three years or on the case of wisconsin out to four years. in terms of teacher and

principal evaluations, this was in your hand out but to be clear the department asks the states to create or about teacher and principal evaluation systems that principal system is new compared to the in clbn to use that information to have multiple measures student growth being a significant faster to the factor. the states vary widely in what measures they would use what weight the would give to the individual measures including what they would use as the student growth measure how much they would wait that. louisiana was straightforward 50% student learning and other measures delaware has an interesting thing they put numbers they are using - charlie danielson component of student group and they set benchmarks teachers have to make satisfactory student growth and if they don't like that then they can't be rated detective that's their approach making sure it's significant. in terms of technology we thought was interesting and what are not using technology to capture information but to provide 24/7 development to help

teachers track what part of their evaluation has happened and what the results were and last a couple states took the bull by the horns on teacher equity that is ensuring all students have equal access. the department was clear for not leaving this part of the current law. but we found only two states really dug into the effectiveness measures for teachers and would use that to ensure students have equal access or discuss that in the plans and rhode island, god bless them, said no students would go more than two years taught by an ineffective teacher and we can sort of discuss and debate if that is the right word and one of the right amount of time but they did stick their neck out and put time on it. in terms of findings across the application i will go for these briefly there are changes compared even without the waivers but with the weavers they themselves didn't seem to stimulate the changes but they did help them push forward an extra bit.

they're promising ideas and just talked about some ideas without needed more flushing out in detail including increasing learning time on the new york got a thumbs up for describing what they would do with increased learning time and last but not least they are using a variety of sources of funding to do this including not having the brand new funding to do this. in terms of recommendations obviously the states and laboratories of reform it's a new game in terms of figuring out what this means. they should continue to ask for more information in the areas we talked about and states should offer that. we think obviously they can learn from each of the they don't have to reinvent the wheel let indignant york and massachusetts are sharing information on teacher evaluation which is interesting to bid and last but not least this is a new way for that department to relate to states we are asking states to move away from the compliance to performance management the department needs to do that, too and significant staffing capacity to make sure these

things turn into reality. that is enough for now. i'm not sure how we met the challenge but thanks for being here we look forward to the great discretion and turn it back over with. [applause] >> thank you, jeremy, and i should thank the education team that rivalhose waiver requests and there were hundreds of pages i would be lying if i said i read them all but i assure you they read over them and they poured over them and i think it's paid off for folks like you to work with.

we have a great panel of state and national leaders who are going to talk with us this morning about as they said the state education reform. i will briefly introduce them. you have the fall biographies. first is dr. john the new york commissioner of education. jongh first came to the state as deputy commissioner and before that was a leader in the charter school movement. michael to my right is the principle secretary for elementary and secondary education in the u.s. department of education and has worked on capitol hill and alex johnston is an adviser to bloomberg philanthropy and the chair of the policy innovators and education network. we might talk about that in imminent and it's also on the new haven school board.

he's very familiar with what is going on at the state and local level. so, i want to start by saying what is it that really drives the states to make changes on their own? i will start with john and alex. from where you sit what is the right balance of carrots and sticks and what's going to happen when the race to the top goes away or the waivers reform? will they continue to last? i think the money drives for sure. flexibility and care of consequences. race to the top was a huge incentive because the significant amount of money and

it allowed us to accelerate the reform in the regions we already committed to. we wanted to move forward with the implementation of the common core we were interested in working on teacher effectiveness but we knew that extra push and was hopeful with the legislature and the governor and allowed us to raise the cap on charter schools and to get the states to commit significant resources to the data systems which was the hard thing to do in the fiscal environment and allowed us to persuade labor management to come together around teacher evaluation. ..

it was a success in that it motivated dramatic policy change at the state level, just in an unprecedented come pressed period of time, and why did it do that? i think that part of it that it inspired exec executive leadership. it's important to remember it was structured in such a way it was the executive branch that had to sign off on the application so initially there was accountability on the part of governors, commissioners and state boards of education, and then particularly important, that accountability shifted to the legislative branch in that the legislature needed to meet governors at least halfway in

many cases in an act on significant legislation, and both of those instances there was an opportunity for those outside the governmental process, advocacy groups in particular, and many members of the network of state advocacy organizations, that created the opportunity for them to frame this around public accountability for digsmaker and honor and distinction to be gained by exercising leadership and also real accountability in a program, and i think that in combination, combined with the money, but i actually think the money was less significant. when you looked at the odds of winning, most folks know they might not succeed in getting resources. >> before you were head of a advocacy group in connecticut,

and so connecticut didn't get race to the top but the momentum kept going. was it started -- did race to the top boost it along? >> absolutely. i think trying twice and failing in a fairly dramatic fashion, created a narrative -- just so happened this was a gubernatorial election year, and that failure, the largest achievement gap in the country, failing twice, and really motivated both the democratic and republican gubernatorial candidates to make that an issue in the campaign, and really to contend with each other who was going to right that wrong, and it turned out to be a very closely fought election and the democratic candidate who prevailed by 6,000 votes made this a signature issue, and i think that -- it's hard to know whether that would happen haven't, but clearly that was a

big motivator. >> i defer to my colleagues in the states, but what i have heard from folks and we heard at the department, is that applying for race to the stop allowed stakeholders to come together and figure out how to best improve outcomes and whether they won or not, they came up with plans that are going to actually or should drive instruction and drive improvement. so, those plans were in place. those were good ideas. let's move forward and continue with them. >> i think very much that. people felt attached. there was a process of working together. sometimes contentious, but it would sort of -- how could you step become from that, after all of these stakeholders had come together to hash it out. it was natural, i think, for many states to continue. >> a similar dynamic in the -- you got the money. but into would argue you have a more consensus environment in

which to operate. were you born in new york? you're used to that. >> i know new yorkers are known for our congeniality, and lack of controversy and conflict. there's an ongoing challenge of maintaining momentum around any reform effort, but i think what's helpful is state level consensus and national consensus around a few key ideas and the notion we ought to have, students graduate from high school and high school graduation needs to mean more for kid today than 20 years ago. that's one that has strong national consensus and that's effective in 45 states and d.c. adopting the common core standards. there's strong national consensus around teacher effectiveness and debate how to measure it exactly, but there's strong consensus that teacher quality, effectiveness of the support the teacher gets from

the principal, drives student achievement, and so those -- there's going to be bumps along the way, but race to the top, continues to the opportunities for the administration standing left, state leaders standing left, advocacy groups saying we have consensus on these issues, now roll up our sleeves and do the work to keep them moving forward. >> another application for the consensus, think "race the top" has been criticized for promoting gimmickry. we should have a competition about the student percentage in teacher growth in teach ear valuation when many educators who engage in the process feel that's really a complicated and requires intensive professional judgment. that it can't be reduced in that way. i think the reason -- one reason that we've got this emergent consensus is for years, folks who were pushing for change on

issues like teacher evaluation, didn't feel like the door was open at all and they kept bumping up against it. once the door got opened, i think those folks who have been pushing so long, wanted to rush through as fast as they possibly could. it turns out -- and there's a lot of literature that policy wind doughs open up for just a narrow time. this door is open now, and i think we now have the opportunity to be more deliberative, in policymaking and implementation, and to the excellent were can some excesses in state law dish think it's fair to say some states passed laws that went beyond what you would want to see in legislation. and i'm sure john, you may have some perspective on what you want to be in the purview of the department and what you want stricts to have control over. so we need to get the balance right. the point is to your point this, door is now open in a way it wasn't before, and you have -- i mean, i dinkly remember --

distinctly remember, in the process in connecticut, one of the representatives of the larger teachers union, basically said, you know, the word effective and teacher should not appear together in statute, and i think we're past that point now. >> if i could address the points. states were moving. they wanted to do bigger and better things, wanted to move turning college and career ready standards and effective teachers and leaders, and they were required to expend so much energy and resources on complying with current law, and you asked about carrots and sticks and the amount of energy that was sucked up by trying to comply with this one size fits all man dade of "no child left behind" was getting in the way, and i defer to my colleagues in the states, but we kept hearing, we want to do more. we want to move forward with college and career. we want to different

accountability system, focus on teacher effectiveness but we have to comply with the law. we need reauthorization, we need a comprehensive bipartisan reauthorization. didn't happen. the president, the secretary said we can't wait anymore. the states can't wait. the local 'sups can't wait. i spoke to them. and they were, let goes down the road and give us the space to do it. >> that brings me to the interesting topic of accountability. i think there's no question that what prompted the waiver process is that deadline of 2014, and the recognition that the very heavy process around school improvement wasn't really getting us the kind of outcomes we need. so, the major accountability

requirement was waived and states were allowed to come up with their own proposals but this caused consider unease by advocates and representatives of those groups of students who historically have not been well-served by public schools, and who have -- i think there's recognition that we had to move understand some way, but there's a real sense of concern about what is going to happen down the road, and i'm interested, michael, you've -- the department's approved quite a variety of accountability systems, and i bet you like my staff has read most of these waiver proposals. what bright spots do you sew in the approach to account ability? are there some that you have kind of a hunch might work out better than others?

>> sure. you know, it really is fascinating. providing some space, right? that's how we look at it it, providing breathing room for states to come up with means of improving outcomes and holding their own schools accountable. one of the more controversial proposals was creating these kind of combined subgroups of the lowest performing group of kids. at it got to be made clear that's in addition to the esea subgroups, so everybody still has to set targets for each of the groups that are required under "no child left behind." they're required to set performance targets, annual measurable objectives, ambitious but achievable. jeremy talked about that earlier. whether it's cutting the gap in half or going out to 2020 or some other similarly ambitious setting of goals. use those goals to drive their continuous improvement in all of their title 1 schools, to use those amos to target

interventions and snort a way that's actually meaningful. a couple -- so providing this spates, right, taking some of this pressure, this pressure from "no child left behind," the one size fits all mandate, we know in many states, 85-90% of the schools right-hand making ayp. there's no way to prioritize your efforts and resources when almost all of your schools are labeled as failures. so, just that space did create -- innovation is in the eye of the beholder, but like kentucky, for example, has put forward a really comprehensive and thoughtful accountability framework in addition to looking at achievement and growth and graduation rates, they're looking at -- setting up this model for k through three. so they're going to be looking at k through three and looking at arts and languages as well and they're building teacher effectiveness into their accountability framework.

new jersey has just -- is focused on using performance data to drive their interventions and supports and to drive continuous improvement. so not only are they looking at growth and achievement and grad rates but looking at remediation rates and college, and college-going rates and tying those back to their schools. south carolina, you know, is actually adding a category, not without controversy in south carolina. they're adding mail and female so looking at additional subgroups of kids. one of the things about the come boundaried subgroup that is really fascinating is in each of these cases they added combined subgroups and in many cases also lowered the end size- -- we asked each state to show us -- they were going to capture more kid in their accountability systems than the were under "no child left behind," and we found

that unbelievable -- and i'm going look at my notes -- rhode island, for example, by adding a combined subgroup, is actually now all but 13 out of its 282 schools will be held accountable under its system. so, english learners, for example, under "no child left behind," 54 schools in the state were accountable for english learners under the current law. with the waivers now it goes to 22 -- 227 schools. >> interesting, john in new york, you kept a lot of the ayp approach what was your thinking as you developed accountability approach for new york? >> well, one of the reasons we decided to keep the ayp approach, particularly was because of the subgroups and not wanting to move away from casting attention and light on schools that were underserving english language learners or students with disabilities or students of color so perhaps it was important to keep the focus

on subgroups, didn't want to lose whether or not schools are making gains towards proficiency for all kids. but i think the other part of our strategy was to say that the accountability isn't just about the accountability system for district schools. it's about the accountability for the adults inside of those schools. and that are -- in the sense of the race to the top, if you point people towards the right set of standards and you hold people individually accountable and give them support when they aren't performing, that's going to it get us to the target, not just sort of shining a light of people and actually getting inside of schools and figuring out how to change instruction to get to the destination. >> interesting. so, i do have a concern about going forward in terms of monitoring what the states do.

they're going to make annual reports. they're going to report the desegregated data by subgroups and performance of students in schools. if they don't report it to you, they have to report it in a publicly available way, on the state web site, and send information to parents and the community. but it's easy to say we're going to move from a compliance approach to a performance management approach. the performance management approach is a much more sophisticated, really higher order skills have to be used in investigating and making judgments about progress, and i worry about capacity at the state and federal level -- we won't even go to capacity at the district level. that's another -- probably the most important issue, but how --

it just seems to me that -- i mean, john, you -- new york may be the largest state education agency -- i'm not sure if that's still true but it was true at one point -- i don't know if the department's elementary and secondary education staff -- how are we going to get this job done and i'll let each of you respond. aren't we going to have to rely on advocacy groups and research groups at the state level to really keep track of what's going on, report on it, shine a bright light? now we have, instead of one approach to ncrb, we have 33 different approaches and by the time we're done, maybe 50. how are we going to make judgments about all of it? >> you know, at the fed level and higher order thinking skills are not part of the bureaucracy is what i got out of that. >> i didn't say that. >> it's hard.

there's no question about that it. but has required -- it's just required us to think differently about how we go about our work. we got -- as cindy noted, some of these requests were three or four hundred pains. how are we going to deal with this? how are we going to do this? how are we going to mapping dnr manage this? because this was not a competition for money, we could provide an unprecedented level of technical assistance and support. so because new york was not competing against connecticut, we could provide new york with a level of technical assistance as necessary or as appropriate as they wanted. and it didn't matter that we had to provide that same kind of technical assistance to connecticut. connecticut's needs were very different, and so they weren't competing. so we had to think about the way we did our work very, very differently. so we created teams to address each of the states. they were too big, the requests

were could complex and comprehensive so we didn't just handle it in the office of secondary education. we brought in folks from the policy shop and conferred with the folks that are doing "race the top" we conferred with our lawyers, our budget folks, our title 3 folks, we have our title 2. teacher quality folks, all of these different program offices that are traditionally siloed. we have no choice but to come together and look at these comprehensive approaches and provide this level of technical assistance and support. we held office hours for states. walk in until 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 at night because some of them were on the west coast, and walking through these requests we could get them to a place where the secretary felt confident we were holing states to a hard hi beau but states felt, this is our plan.

this is what we want to do to improve our education for kids and just made us look at our work differently. we established relationships with these states and we have to continue this moving forward. so, that's my point. if we -- we have kind of already started down that road of doing business differently. we have no choice but to continue to do it that way. >> it's critical when you talk about accountability to say, accountability to whom and for what purpose? and i think it would be -- it would be sort of natural and very easy to think about accountability -- the states are accountable to the federal government, there's accountability between john's department is accountability the u.s. department -- the whole theory of change is a understand itself behind "no child left behind" in the first place was to have much greater transparency, so that you could be accountable to parents and the public as a whole. for what purpose?

to create a dynamic where there was enough political will to change a school when it showed up as leaving many, many kids behind, and i think one of the reasons we have got ton where we are today is that the premise didn't play out as fully as people hoped it would. and i do think to your point earlier, sip di, that there is a very important role for entities outside that closed loop of accountability between different levels of federal, state and local government. one of the most beneficial things that came from "no child left behind" was this tremendous trove of data that all kinds of people could use. whether it's grade schools.net or colorado succeeds, putting report cards up on the web, the traffic on independent advocacy groups' web site with school performance dat and and school

report cards far exceeds the traffic the state department of education's web site. and why? because the advocacy groups are trying to present the data in a way that is really useful and actionable for parents and the public. and so i do think in this waiver process, we're going to really need to be mindful about making sure that the data that outside groups have relied on in the past does not go away, and like wise, for states that may hold out -- there may be one or two states that decide not apply for a waiver mitchell guess is the federal government is not going to go terribly effective in driving change within those states. to the extent those states are really going to be held to account, it's going 0 be because state-based groups and others in those states say, this is unacceptable, just not okay for us to just step away and kind of put our heads in the sand. >> that's probably true for -- i

mean, the two largest states have not applied but they have strong reform advocates within them. and then is yours the third largest state? so between the way your agency is approaching reform and accountability with districts. >> a couple things. one is we know we have a capacity challenge. even though the department is fairly large, it's because we have legacy of k through 12 and higher education and adult education, job placement for disabled adults. i could go on. so we had that major responsibility and the portion of the department that is dedicated to k-12 is fairly small so we have to be smart about how we leverage our limited resources. one thing we're doing is trying to work with other states on implementation of the common core because we think schools

that are implementing the common core effectively are schools where achievement is going improve so we worked with massachusetts and rhode island on curriculum materials against the common core. we're working with states on assessment and we're working on how we use technology better so we launched a web site just to provide professional development material for schools on the common core and dat at-driven instruction, how to do evaluation and that has got an lot of traffic because it's immediately useful material for teach experts programs. and schools see their performance isn't where they want it to be, how do they get better? where do they go to get better? we're thinking about how we use technology, we have a network of regional teams that we created through our race to the top

funding, jobs for professional development for teachers, for principals itch think our challenge in this environments, how do we match high accountability and high support. the other piece i want to raise about states and federal capacity, in addition to people power, there's also courage capacity question. will people on the end hold the line on tough decisions. and i'll give you an example in new york, the school improvement program. so we had ten districts with school imfront grants. as part of that all of the districts chose to use the transformation model which means they committed to doing principle and teacher evaluations. and it relies on the districts to bargain the details. so by december of last year, our district, our ten districts, still hadn't completed

bargaining around evaluations, and the question was, were we going to let them keep the money? and we decided, no. so, we suspended all ten of our school improvement grants. it created a lot of controversy in the state. but people made a set of promises and one of the superintendents -- i recall being on a phone with a superintendent who says, you mean, just because we didn't do what was in the grant you're going to take the money away? actually, yes, i do mean that. i'm sorry that's surprising. and so we took the money away, and then the squint months nine out of the ten districts negotiated evaluation agreements with the bargaining units and took it seriously. as one district, one large district in new york city is still struggling to work it out. they will eventually get there. and the governor has now said that -- and got the legislature to agree in next year's state budget if districts don't have their evaluation agreements in

place by january they'll lose their state aid increase for the year. so issue it's that kind of cart, that kind of line-drawing that we need to be willing to do if we're serious about accountability. i think we have used race the to the top. we're glowing to take your money if you don't do these things. >> had a tough conversation with you. >> they did and that was helpful. that's the key. the advocacy groups, the state leaders have to lock arms and say, not only are we committed to these reforms, we are committed to execution and are willing to make hard choices to get there. >> the hard choices. one of the challenges with "no child left behind" is that the federal government has never really wanted to take title one money away from states and districts and schools precisely because it's targets at the students who we all agree are most in need.

and so that enforcement mechanism has been, i think in many ways an empty threat, and it's different when you say, you have applied for a grant and we're going to take it back, but there are lot ofs of states that never won race to the top money who are still accountable for waiver plans and, i wonder if the federal government is going to be able too do what john just described, with the core federal funding. because that hasn't happened in the past. >> i think you're asking -- >> there's no doubt that in my personal opinion right there, that's a teacher and leader evaluation pieces is possibly the most difficult aspect of the waiver plans, and i got to tell you it's been very, very difficult for many states to kind of meet our requirements. but you know what? this is about flexibility, and

as long as they're moving forward to develop guidelines that use multiple measures, and students' growth is a significant factor and they're going to work with their districts to develop those teacher and lead ear valuations, and then pilot those evaluations so that they're ready to be implemented by 2014-15, you know what? there's so much flexibility within those -- within that framework, that states say, we can't do this. we're not going to be able to do this. and, yeah, they can. it just takes some courage and some kind of flexibility within. as long as you adhere to your principles, there is this space, and it's going to be hard. but where we ended up and this gets to the point i think both of you are making -- going to be a shared responsibility. no way we're going to soley be able to ensure 100% compliance

with what the states have said they're going to do. we're going to do our best. we're going to do our best to provide technical assistance and support ongoing so that we don't come to a place in two years or three years where states are just woefully out of compliance, right? but we can head that off at the pass so that gets to your original question, cindy, is we can monitor and what tool does we have? we have tools and technical assistance and we can change the way we do business to mitigate that end of -- end game where we have to make decisions that are very difficult to make. ...

around the issue of accountability. >> we will turn to one more topic. what is the state role in individual school improvement? >> we've seen some states set up special school districts or achievement zones, louisiana, michigan, tennessee and i think connecticut is going to be establishing one. do these have promised?

and you haven't set one up. what do you see in the state's role in school who turnaround? all of you can talk about that. >> two things that we have a tradition of in new york is the department of to be providing professional development resources and tools as well as diagnostic resources and tools to help the district figure out how to improve, and we ought to be the place to come and that is direct and shines a light on the underperformance. the element of teacher and principal accountability the evaluation will can be used by the district when they need to when the personnel are ineffective. the piece that is missing and we actually have a bill when the legislature to achieve that is we don't have a level of accountability of the district level particularly with respect to district governing and some

of it is clear they are struggling to manage the district effectively and in some cases the mindset about their job house board members isn't focused on the achievement it is focused on other things, family. we have a bill in the legislature that we hope will get taken up next year but would allow us to remove the board and the district that is chronically underperforming because our view in some of the district is at the government's level where the superintendent and school leaders are not able to move the system for word so we do feel like we are missing that tool in the toolkit and we actually hope that over time the u.s. will create incentives either financially or flexibility why is to push the states to hold the district's more accountable

because it think the district leadership is a place there are not a lot of levels of accountability. >> we definitely saw some innovation from flexibility about holding the district's accountable. massachusetts, for example, and i hope i get this right, you know, is holding its district accountable for the performance of its lowest performing school in the district. so they will all actually be held accountable before that. that is a pretty big deal. john in new york right there, they are creating their effort on closing achievement gap said the district level. so there are a number of states that are being innovative and how they are working with the district. a lot our local control states and a lot of the energy and ownership is invested in the district. other states, however, are looking at a regional service agency or regional centers to

provide the supports and resources. >> when it comes to the turnaround we need to engage this not as a programmatic challenge but as a structural and system at challenge. one thing that i think is concerning, understandable but concerning, is with the push with race to this topic for the states to engage districts around turnaround we have seen a lot of providers prop up who will come as consultants to the district's and implement almost like a turnaround program in a school. i think we know a lot about what works in high performing high poverty schools and it's not the case that there's a sort of a magic programmatic formula. what i think we really need to attend to is getting the lessons we could learn particularly from a high performing charter schools but there are examples of traditional public schools that have done this incredibly

motivated hard-working and talented people working inside a structure that reinforces the behavior and interaction between students and teachers in a way that is transformative and until we create those conditions, turnaround asquint be something we wish would happen but it's not actually going to happen, and so i think there's a balance between the new school creation and turnaround and politically it's a lot easier to wish that it would come true than it is to say we actually need to create 10,000 new schools in this country or whenever we think the number might be. so again, an important way for the federal government and states to engage districts is to encourage the district to think of themselves in a portfolio fashion that they have responsibility for every student but they're open to having a variety of school providers running schools in different ways inside the same district, and to me i think that will allow for a turnaround but will

also allow in some cases to start over which is often what is needed. >> that's a great point, and another thing we have seen out of the weavers the states are doing across-the-board but increasingly so as the locals districts with high performing districts sharing best practice and there's a sense of partnership across the district so they can learn from each other and we are also trying to facilitate that the state level certainly as well through the school improvement grants but that is a really exciting new opportunity for the folks to really hone their improvement and partnering and sharing those practices is absolutely a great new opportunity. >> the race to the top brand we have the commissioner schools offered under the waiver to compete for the grant that would allow them to capture the best practice and partner with the

local home and schools to show the best practice. to alex's earlier point the sad irony of no child left behind a slow accountability. the kids are accountable because they are the burden of not having the education that they are entitled to but in fact they were before know the child left behind started coming after no child left behind and still local funding today and the adults in the building continue to go back today just as they did before no child left behind and the local superintendent may be the same the local board goes about its work. in a funny way of the we talk about no child left behind in terms of the strong accountability strong transparency but not a lot of accountability for the adults and to me that is why the teacher and principal evaluation component efforts like the

achievement district seemed so forth that change the adults and have responsibility those are important. that is real accountability. >> i have the last question i would like each of you to comment on and then we will open for the audience. looking back over the past two years would you think of the biggest challenge going forward with reform? hold that in your mind. then if we were to hold this event for five years, what topics will we be talking about then either that we cover today were haven't covered today? sue challenges and where we are going to be in five years. >> i think challenge is what i talked about in school turnaround in school closure and creation because politically is

so hard yet i would argue the evidence is strong and we need to be much bolder in that arena so why do think we will be talking about that five years from now. i think we won't be talking about a teacher evaluation in anything like this mi years from now that we are now. i hope we are going to be talking about more about teacher preparation and professional development and recruitment because evaluation is a management tool. focus as a policymaking matter in a high performing organizations that almost in verdict. >> we will be reflecting on this fast and closing the achievement get sand and pretend collagen career readiness we try to work with it every day in new york one of our biggest challenges is

meeting to confront the myth that schools don't matter. i'm still shocked by the extent to which people are still prepared to argue that well, kids are low-income, the kids' parents are. whatever the rationale. i know it feels sometimes in the reform circles like that is the victory but i also think that is the continual conversation that schools can actually make a difference and the adults that manage the schools are responsible for contributing and putting them on the right trajectory. that culture shift and efficacious shift remains the central challenge. more practically i think executing while on the initiatives the challenge we have had going forward and we will determine whether or not we are reflecting when we get to five years from now are we able to do a good job not just

adopting the common core standards with the implementation of the classroom or be able to turn for evaluation and the identification system to the tools for professional development and management is for us. >> time with them but i think the capacity to implement i do think these plans are innovative so it may not be no offense, jeremy, but the fact that new york and john in their common career ready standards as the core of their entire reform strategy and a comprehensive way is actually different. it's actually a really meaningful. the capacity to implement these plans i think is a good challenge today the will was

difficult would it be around school terminal or teacher evaluation but i also agree with both of these guys got in five years i'm absolutely hopeful that the particular evaluation space that evaluations are simply told. we just put up a teacher incentive from the competition for 2012, and that is exactly what it's about, using evaluations to informed decision making is a the local level that's going to drive improvements in teaching and learning and how was aligned with your vision of instructional improvement and power you going to use these evaluation tools to make the kind of decisions so you can get the teachers where they are needed the most lurid need more mass teachers or if you need more professional development or how do you recruit and that's really where we are trying to go. so i think we are going to be there in five years.

>> thank you. let's turn it over to the audience. if there are any members of the media who have questions, we will start with you. please, tell us who you are coming your affiliation. >> david from the building with american and commissioner to continue the conversation that you just spoke about in your last comments. a decade ago i studied all 140 elementary schools in the 29 school districts of every county new york which for the rest of the audience is the buffalo area and i found that at the district level among the 29 districts the expenditures range from 7,635 in akron central to 11,416 and lackawanna city, about a 50%

differential. the correlation between the expenditures per pupil and outcomes in the state and minister fourth grade reading science and math scores was zero. at the school by school level the data was available school by school the people teacher ratios in class size range from 10.4 people in buffaloes public school 72 to 20.8 in west elementary in other words 100% differential. what was the correlation between the class size and out comes? zero. bye contrast the percentage of low-income children school by school accounted for the variation of scores 77% of the variations in fourth grade and

87% of the variation in the fourth grade english scores as a matter of fact if you had time to just told me the percentage of low-income showed that the school would have predicted the state in which scores plus or minus six points is less than 1% on a scale with 95% accuracy. these are not revolutionary findings by me. we know the relationship of the socioeconomic status to outcomes since james komen's report in 1966 and there's 45 years of educational research that is constantly reaffirmed not only the relationship between a child socioeconomic status and the status of the chaz classmates and out comes but shows consistently low-income children

learn better when they're surrounded by economic classrooms and you have that report in this remote year ago by heather schwartz in the very determined analysis. my question is why do you, sir, and your fellow educators continue to inform the fundamental role of economic segregation and potential the economic integration would play in the issue of the performing for american schoolchildren? >> i might take a crack. >> let me start with this. i would challenge just to me there's two possibilities. the reason that kids who are poor in a particular scorers are doing poorly is about the kids or is it about how the adults organize themselves. it is not about the kids

fundamentally but the kids are just as capable. if that is true then it's how we our adults organize ourselves. the decisions we make as the adults, not the decisions the kids are making. the premise of your question troubles me somewhat. that said, i am intrigued by the notion of trying to organize a school system and attendance and ways of enhanced socio-economic integration spoke about that quite frequently even just today on the paper i am quoted in many papers talking about new york city and my concerns about enrollment practices the result in very high concentration in particular buildings without adequate support. i'm concerned about that, but we also know that all around the country have latino kids had 70, 80, 90% kids in poverty and have

outstanding academic results but do not accept the contention that the concentration of students of poverty and building ensure the outcomes will be poor. we know that there are schools that are a proven that schools can have high concentrations of poverty if they do have the right things they've incredibly talented teachers. the have the assessments informing their teaching and working to engage families effectively. there are things we can do to make schools were keefer with high concentrations of poverty but i'm open to the conversations. i think it's related to a governance question to dividing you see the trap in illinois. some of the states in my district where some of the states that have county systems

like maryland and virginia. but we achieve high year degrees of tax based diversification can get systemic benefits from that and i certainly am open to that and have entered into a conversation in the state. but i fundamentally believe that every kid shows up with a potential to achieve collagen career readiness and the question is what are we, the adults, going to do to organize ourselves and ensure they get to the destination. [applause] >> i think the assertion that schools are powerful and the assertion of poverty is a real factor that impacts students are not mutually exclusive, and i think it's unfortunate in some ways the we've got into a place in the country right now that seems to be the debate because in reality i think educators and high performing high poverty schools have been much more nuanced sense of what is going

on in the lives of their children outside of the school. but the critical difference is they are not sort of waiting for everything outside of the school to be fixed before they engage to do everything they possibly can as an educator. when that happens you see tremendous results. said to me this is a question of being able to hold these ideas and to ask if educators to feel comfortable as a country asking of educators that they work in schools that are truly powerful and that gets back to the systemic issues we don't organize many schools to allow the interventions in the high poverty schools. we absolutely have to change the way we are doing business in our schools because we can't expect educators to change their behavior if we don't change the system and the structure in which they are indebted.

>> i don't have much to say but i want to get other people. >> race to the top process. >> zero under those crises. estimate by the swing to make a comment related to that. i think socio-economic integration of schools is a positive value and more schools that do that the better we would be as a society not just because of education outcomes but because of a whole lot of other outcomes about how we relate to each other and our communities and as i can provide incentives for the schools to do that but it is my eve to think that it's one strategy to improve a variety of outcomes but it cannot affect kids because the

segregation in the country that has gotten worse in many ways and may never get connected in certain communities. i started my career working on school segregation and decided i couldn't wait for schools to be desegregated and is much more interested in working on the quality of education in every school and i think we have to keep that as something we strive for and provide incentives and would be helpful to have an incentive like you just said that cannot be only the mission for achieving improvement. other questions. >> middle of the room. >> i'm sorry i have a sinus infections i'm kind of groggy. not usually, but today. roberta stanley with the

national school boards association. my question is directed to the chancellor. the new york state has a wonderful system of regional and education service agencies which a lot of other states try to emulate and are kind of jealous of to date have not utilized them or what are your plans to do so? >> so, things for the question. one of the key elements of the plan is to rely on the proceeds for our professional development teams that are supporting implementation of the common corps teacher and principal instruction. the way we organize the application was committed that there would be teams, professional development experts derwood support each set of schools and their based in the regional service providers. that's been very powerful because i think that is directly they've been a great provider to

schools, special-education services an opportunity to play a much larger role regionally and comment approaches to the professional development curriculum and thinking about teacher and principal evaluation together. so that has been very powerful. and we hope that we overtime as a response to economic challenges to state basis can reach more services. >> i'm the policy in turn at the foundation and i was a teacher in new york city for six years in a high poverty school. i think there's a lot of talk about accountability and that is the big buzz word in all of this and accountability for teachers and principals which is heartening because i've been left out of the discussion, schools and districts.

anybody that spent time in a classroom has had a kid ask does this count or are you reading this? do the weavers have any proposals for the substantive or tangible accountability for the students themselves? or are they still a fatal flaw where the teachers are being measured by something that the if no control over how it informs on that day on the exam. is their accountability for students in these or visit still passing up the line? >> i would argue accountability frameworks that are looking at how a student gross, how schools are choosing closing achievement gap in particular have students access and perform on exams or have access to industry certifications that are built into some of these accountability systems, college going rates, college mediation

rates. i think those all absolutely do count. that is what matters. >> the one thing i would add we have a long tradition of high school exams that are part of our graduation requirements as well as part of the students transit's they will use on the plan for post secondary opportunities, and for our high school measures those regional exams are playing a central role in putting the ship that remains in the weaver towards focusing on a college and career ready level of performance on those assessments rather than just a passing threshold's said the accountability system will now focus on the level of performance on the region exams that correlates to rahman success and first-year college credit bearing courses which is a shift for the state's because our threshold for the accountability system was significantly lower in the level of performance necessary for

success in college. >> the section to and accountability for students and educators. i think there are a number of states like new york that have graduation requirements that told students accountable and likewise we are now seeing their early learners the interventions and the policies that brought social promotion from say feared to fourth grade rather in florida, colorado, made a step in the direction, but the whole premise behind the policies was and that the student is simply less high and dry but that by holding students to that performance standard, educators are in fact accountable for helping them get their, and in fact i think the state commissioner of the time in massachusetts when the employment of their high school gratulation requirement he said something to the effect we decided that publicly it was easier told students accountable than adults and once we help students accountable than the

adults had to step forward and do with the needed to do to make sure the students were successful. spec the adults in the classroom but there are kids with disabilities or english learners, kids that are held to higher expectations to better. islamic a couple people in the back. and then we will come up front. >> i'm virginia from capitol news here in d.c. and i was struck by the enthusiasm for rhode island's plan to keep children from having teachers rated ineffective two years in a row. here in d.c. for example there are so many neighborhoods where the scores are so low and those are tied to the teacher effectiveness rating it seems to me kimmage would get the teachers every two years and i'm wondering how this plan can

possibly keep schools like that from having just greater instability in neighborhoods where the kids already face instability in their homes and neighborhoods and this is going to add to the situation teachers wanted the chance to get acclimated to the school because of the scores they are rated ineffective. >> remember you are moving to a system of student growth, so if they are starting below grade level and behind like the rn several of the schools you are looking at whether the teacher is able to show growth in the student outcomes may be not up to the grade level but making progress that way so i don't think it necessarily ensures turnover. >> rye went come too i would emphasize in their plan the other 24 schools to develop student learning objectives. they are using multiple

measures, they're using growth in a meaningful way and that is the decision the state made but they are also looking at a variety of multiple measures, classroom observation and student loan and objectives and a set of means that will provide written permission to this teachers and leaders in the schools to make the necessary improvements that are appropriate. stannic thanks for taking the question. yesterday at an event at the institute former secretary margaret spellings set her assessment of the era labor applications led her to conclude that they would lead to -- they would halt the growth of the charter schools and other trace options. i'm wondering if you think that is a fair assessment. >> new deal with them across new

york. i can't speak for the rest of the states but new york that is certainly not the case. we maintain the choice component even in our waiver. but really what is driven in the access to additional charter has been the raising of the cash that has been a part of how we want to race to the top. the biggest challenge to the growth of the high performing charter is a capacity challenge. we actually are being very selective about which charters will give and we only give them to organizations that can demonstrate the capacity to perform at a high level with the largest providers in the schools that kept achievement first many of them are stretched with the number of schools they're trying to figure out the capacity to grow to the challenges last at least in new york stitchery challenging and more with a regulatory challenge is more the

capacity challenge and the talent to continue to grow. >> of the statutory framework is not what it should be. both in terms of funding and continued obstacles to growth and getting back to the idea around the structural change and creating districts that have a portfolio approach. there is an important place for high performing charters in the district level strategy around managing performance and ensuring that all kids learn and i am not aware of specific things that states have done in the way for applications that steadily from that. but i think that we have a real continue to push in that direction. politically it is challenging and we need to keep moving in that direction. islamic i think to the contrary that in fact we have seen in a couple of instances where states

can -- where there are high performing charters they have the opportunity for greater flexibility with in this package. we know that in many states charters are autonomous in the policies and procedures are different and we are recognizing that and supporting that for high performing charters as long as the meet our requirements they don't have to do with the state says they have to do. in fact in some states that prohibited by law to be in utah for example in utah has an ax sample. so there's a great opportunity to still hold charters accountable to the high standard and still give them the flexibility >> one listened tuzee sestak about dillinger was put in. it is a myth that it accomplished anything. before i came to the center i did a study of the provision and

at its high point is 82% of the kids that were eligible to choose to leave their low performing school and go to another actually to make the transfer. why? not because there was an interest in the families. there were not other high performance goals, they were not high performing schools available for them to transfer into and mainly because of space sometimes because they were surrounded by the low performing schools and there was no requirement for the interdistrict choice you will not have much opportunity to lead this country has in many places, not all, divided coming from their school district line, which around more affluent

communities and around poor communities as probably the best cases is new jersey. you have countywide school systems, there's more opportunity for perhaps for the choice to work but where you have lots of small districts where you isolate people live a wealth of the communities if you can't choose to go to those schools, and you don't have much opportunity. so the notion as the charness provision accomplished much which as i said is a myth. we will take one last question. right here. >> thank you. americans for the arts. thank you for reading of the weavers. the question is secretary duncan and the secretaries before him have identified as one of the most major and intended consequences of no child left behind being the nearing of the

curriculum so because the proficiency targets have shifted from a federal a yp4 mechanism not a state based do you think the unintended consequences for narrowing the curriculum because of its connection to the testing do think that improves the solution for addressing those consequences and do you think the state based advocacy group can address it more clearly as well now in their states'? >> that is without a doubt a prayer for the secretary. we have achieved and it is up to the advocates and the field is by taking some of the pressure of the tenet nature of the child left behind off of the system that it creates opportunities,

and we see in some of the states they are being a little but a bold and different. and i mentioned it is actually building the arts into the account of the free market as an inspector. states are looking at different subjects. they are looking at, you know, kawlija readiness factors. different sets of factors that we do absolutely believe and hope will change the focus from narrowing the curriculum to broadening the curriculum. ultimately, it -- this is a shared responsibility and it is absolutely have to you all and the advocacy community to make sure that that does in fact happened to the estimate and that the parents and the students of the curriculum and a system where there is trees and flexibility and transparency schools that provide that have an opportunity to attract while still being accountable for student achievement, and i think

that is really what we are all after here. part of what we need to do i think is correct the pedagogical mistake people make which is thinking that by narrowing of the curriculum to have you will improve your performance looking at what was written about the role of cultural literacy through reading achievements that this no information about the world to tackle the time or the evidence on the influence of arts and music and language arts and mathematics as well. what we know is actually the social studies will lead. if you look back and going back to the higher performing work in schools high performing schools serving low-income kids many of them have ticketed time the of strong enrichment programs. those i think are things that have gotten lost partly because of accountability but i don't

think fixing the accountability system alone will change that because we always planned to focus more on matt but college is always going to ask is this student loan reading or writing math skills to do college level work? this question of how we get to the kawlija ready student is something where we have to change people's hearts and minds >> i want to thank the panel for talking to us about state reform and for all of you being interested in it. [applause] >> thank you very much.

>> a conference on of the city in the african-american community and the panelists discuss cultural and environmental factors that contribute to the problem and the second panel looks at policies schools can about to address the problem. the conference was hosted in washington by the online magazine the root.

>> thank you for participating and attending this health disparities panel. for the next hour we will discuss solutions for eliminating the health issues caused by obesity and what effect it has on our community and our distinct experts are sheree crute come and award winning writer and editor who covers a broad range of health topics and specialize in consumer multi-cultural health the veterans are a contributor to the route she was astounding health editor she had literally written a book on health disparities in the media. next we have eleanor. she has been president and ceo of the black women's health center debt, 2007 as president and has been committed to advance in the core values of

social justice and reversing health and equities engaging black women becoming advocates in the fight against hiv and breast cancer and advancing black women's well-being by promoting we've productive justice and contraceptive access and encouraging healthy sexual behavior. finally we have dr. michelle gourdine, as yet gourdine and associates that creates policy solutions and improves the health of the underserved communities. she is the author of reclaiming our whole for the guide to african-american well as a graduate of the johns hopkins school of medicine dr. gourdine is an assistant professor of the university of maryland school of medicine and seniors receive faculty at the johns hopkins school of public health and is also the former secretary to the cause secretary. thank you all so much for joining the panel. we really appreciate it. [applause] >> first and foremost all of you cover a wide range of health

issues in the work you do. can you explain a bit about how you are addressing the obesity epidemic in your work? the one to start? >> it is my pleasure. hartwick to congratulate the group for bringing this to the attention of so many. this is certainly an issue that we have dealt with in our almost 30 years in existence making sure that we are the voice for black women of color and dealing with the experiences that black women have yet to being overweight and obesity is a powerful cultural heritage so what we try to do this to the stories and be the voice at the kitchen table, everybody's kitchen table from congress and the administration policy makers

and others so that we can move this issue beyond the individual woman to take into consideration the social health determinants but also the environmental industries. so one, we are the voice and we hear and share the stories and you'd be surprised of the stories we get from black women who can't get care who are refused care and certainly can't get quality care. after we have worked hard on the affirmative care act making sure there were provisions that to the preventive measures that you now find on the affordable c.a.r.e. indy 500 a that will provide either no cost or low-cost -- no cost in 2014 but no cost now and certainly no pay

for many of the essential service benefits. we also deal with obesity through our self-help sister circles and i will pause there because i know other people do much more but one of the things we understand this week is not me to in itself you have to deal with some of the social psychological barriers that exist as was the environmental and we deal with some of the environmental systems change such as working to get doctors to be more sensitive and we talked out that in our briefing so we have to sister circles so women can share their pain and shame and trauma of either being refused care by some physicians

or not getting the kind of care by some physicians and ashamed of being black and female. as the number one in all of the things i've done in my career on the doctor and some initially my job was to diagnose and treat the outcomes if you will of carrying extra weight of high blood pressure, diabetes and saturday and was unfortunate is i'm a pediatrician so i was treating those conditions and my patient is in fact more and more we begin to see children with adults medical problems a disease we used to call when i was in medical school onset diabetes we no longer call like that because we are seeing it in children and so i got to the point i was frankly tired of trying to catch up what was happening in the after effects

of obesity and related conditions and really wanted to do something to be liable to help people live healthier lives and not get sick in the first place and have to come to the doctor in the first is to be treated. so my goal in writing within an hour halt the guide african-american wallace and the policy work that i do is to fold. one, provide education we talked about this morning about the need for all of us to understand what it means to live healthier but it goes beyond the education because you also have to have what i call the resources you need to be healthy. you have to have access to the healthy food and the lead the for your children to go outside and get adequate exercise. you have to be able to have health insurance say you can see the doctor in the event you need to see a doctor. sometimes we do have to do that but we also need to understand

some of the underlying issues like stress, stress is a huge, huge issue in our society and we don't talk enough about that and i sure we will get more into that as we go through the panel but understanding those issues then translating what is going on on the ground in the communities into language and in to policy options and solutions that the policymakers and elected officials can understand and develop into policies that transform our communities and our society's rather than and fireman's that sickened so that is what i try to do every day. is that i would say my approach is a little bit different as a communicator and as someone that works for the media i guess my personal mission in the recent years has become to try to find a way to communicate about all of the health care disparities that affect african-americans, but in particular african-american women who've written about most in the career

in a way that is fair and balanced, respectful, and isn't stigmatized as for perpetuating stereotypes that are on helpful in a struggle to try to address the health problems we face. i have attempted through both, i've attempted through my own work but also talked with much larger groups of reporters through organizations like the association of health care journalists to try to help them understand ways to cover the unique issues that both dr. gourdine and eleanor touch on just now which is many of the people they're right about our health issues in the national magazines and the news don't know less, don't know those issues come don't know our community or in our culture so they often create things that are not constructive, positive, inspiring and may even add to the stress that he mentioned

that to the self-esteem issues that have been mentioned in also limited access to resources so i make an effort to make sure the work i do and the work that may be younger people like come into contact with doesn't make those mistakes. >> i know you touched on a a little that. that leads to the question is our health care providers are adequately trained to help them fight these diseases and as a result of obesity? >> no. it's an isolated footage, but no and i can't say that because i am a doctor and i know how we are trained. doctors are essentially trained to diagnose and treat disease which basically means for most

people when you encounter a doctor you are already sick. we are not necessarily trained on how to keep people well. that's something i had to learn along the way of my career and it's something that i think our medical schools are evolving and attempting to teach that but we have a long way to go so that is one issue teaching people have to be well, dealing with the individual issues that impact in individual behavior getting a particular amount of exercise requires a level of motivation and desire on the part of the individual in order to do that and that isn't something you can give somebody but it's certainly something you can facilitate and that's not something we've learned how to coach people through so if there were something i could say is lacking and needs to be nurtured in terms of training of our health care professionals it is teaching people, coaching

people. the root of the word doctor in latin as teacher. we are supposed to teach and we haven't been doing a good job of that so that is an important aspect of what we do is to begin to teach and to coach not to be paternalistic where we are looking sort of almost now what the patient saying you should do this and you should do that with the then i heard colleagues of mine say these patients are those patients, sort of very stereotypical ways they would do what i tell them to do. who are you to tell anybody to do anything? the other important issue but talked about in my book is we don't have a good understanding of the cultural and environmental factors that play into individuals making decisions about their health and

owls sheree was saying, individuals who don't know us or our culture and not be able to relate in such a way that would encourage people to want to eat better or understand how people eat. i remember when i've is practicing piece and one of the nutritionists who wasn't a black was giving a simple diet plan to one of the patience and i took a look at it and i chuckled because the mother took it and just kind of threw it in a bag but i knew she wasn't going to pay attention to it again. i said i wouldn't follow this either. when i grew up in mississippi right or wrong or indifferent when i add green beans they were cooked in meat. they were. so, we used the wrong kind of meat. we used hemlocks which we know now are not healthy to be about an understanding of that culture from which i came and perhaps what the patient came might have

allowed the nutritionist to providing more culturally appropriate of your option for that individual. we need to be a will to understand the culture with in which people live in the influence how people live then we can be effective in helping people live better. [applause] >> so michaud was coming at this from the doctors perspective and i would assume, eleanor, you sort of knew about this from the patient perspective. islamic from a consumer perspective which is important and i do appreciate doctors. i love doctor's yet i also recognize their limitations and that's what we have to do because doctors are not doing so well of themselves particularly black women doctors. so we shouldn't depend on them always to guide us but we should enter into a partnership that

has to be a partnership and the of in addition to doctors not being good health care givers, and i have friends who are not good health care givers and who are overweight and obese, they also need to be good learners because they many of them have forgotten where they came from and many of them internalize stereotypical images and this isn't anecdotal. i'm telling you what the black woman seized. 160,000 people on the database of the women's health imperative. we have a story and if we don't have them right and they tell us whenever we have gatherings. but in addition to that i think the one thing i'm hoping the

affordable care act coming and you can see i'm a big proponent of it because i think this is our one chance if we can never figure out what it does, what it has come in and what will mean for our community and our population that this is the one opportunity the we will be used to shift the dialogue from disparities to equities because of his obesity, obesity counseling, diabetes screening, even for kids and that is the good news it is mental health counseling and all of the preventive health service screenings for gestational diabetes to release obesity to the diseases with late if you know what i mean with cancer.

all related directly and indirectly related to obesity. doctors don't do a good job at relating and making it sure that we understand that instant relationship. so that's why i am pleased to work with a lot of the medical profession groups sweetened help them understand some of the cultural dynamics as was some of the gender specific issues with maintaining a certain lifestyle and putting healthy weight management. >> as mentioned earlier today on the earlier panel. the big story is the battle around it and not so much what is in it and to sort of mention that once we find out what's in it we can use at.

but what our -- you mentioned a few of them that were the things in the affordable care act that could help combat obesity. is that there is a significant prevention and obesity fund which i couldn't find the numbers on my lap carry i believe it is in the range of $74 million that targeted specifically to obesity and fitness and michelle obama's initiatives there was also a significant prevention fund that if larger than that that is a component looking at the coverage i've seen what it doesn't talk about is how the grassroots organization and i know there were many grass-roots organization people here in the room i've talked to some of them today it doesn't really talk -- the media coverage hasn't talked about how you can get to that money out can be brought to the

lincoln african-american women and other communities said it can be good to good use but it's there. any of you that have some legislative departments and connections and local government i would say get on the phone because it is a big part of money in a very complex part of money but it's there and it's there to be had. >> let me speak to that. this is so very important because in many ways, the organizations will not be a to get to the money. it's 16 million for obesity and hypertension. and we decided as a national organization not to go forward because guess what the american heart association and all of the other big blaze are going for it and i know i miss talking to one community organization whose husband was in care of one of the forms and she said i can't

agree i may not be able to agree to partner with you the 51 organizations are going for that. so we are competing with the big boys. that 16 million from obesity and hypertension specifically. then there is a 74 million prevention fund which includes obesity as it relates to heart disease and diabetes. ..

>> depending on their reach. most of them. that is the only way community-based organizations can get the money. the good news, if we get the grand as a national organization comment

academic and research institutions qualify. every grand we compete with john hopkins. they get it. we don't. that is the politics. i will be calling all of you when we don't get it. [laughter] if only white organizations get the grants, they cannot help the women wear the black organizations. we are on tv. we will raise hell. [laughter] >> we talked earlier about how cultural differences affect coverage of black health in the media.

as the health writer, how do think black obesity is covered? >> i am here today because i am not happy with it. now the famous piece in "the new york times" the piece by alice randall how black women or were happy to be fact to please our men and to be large to honor our large grandmother. i realize it is the bully pulpit and significant an interesting choice to put the peace out there. another piece followed in

three weeks from england with the study that said adolescent black girls could not benefit from exercise is in the fight of obesity. it was critical questions are mentioning fed data on diet and exercise worse of reported. or they based analysis on race which is no genetic basis. or the other benefits they might have gotten. these two along with one on childhood sexual abuse being higher in black women and obesity but they also forgot to mention that is also white women. abc, nbc, "l.a.

times", "huffington post", "u.s. news and world report" of reported. also what came out the same week, a descriptive study of african american women successful of weight-loss made mr. lifestyle changes done at baylor college and also released in june mentioned the last paragraph of a single sentence in the "huffington post." no independent coverage only on small blocks. -- blogs. how can we change this conversation? but in my opinion this is not the way the story should

be told. >> you raise critical issues. talk about the article of the black girls not benefiting from exercise raised my blood pressure tremendously. the punchline, we have to learn to be critical thinkers. be careful where you get your information. question the motives. having said that to, my husband and brought this home and abroad it home to me. the headline black girls to not benefit as much as the white girls. what? i went to my eight computer

to bolt the research paper. there were so many issues that were inaccurate i don't know where to begin. they point to stereotypes to intervene to covert or overt bias with the health care system first information or the data is secondary dated not even collected for the purpose of the study but they analyzed it and came to conclusions. and it was sold reported data of the physical activity.

they'll look at black pearls and white girls who got the same level of physical activity but found black girls were more obese. except for three days was sold reported. how accurate would your dated the? i don't remember what i had for breakfast this morning. [laughter] the benefit of the exercise was limited to weight-loss. it helps or blood pressure, blood sugar common mental health, lowers bad cholesterol and it goes on and on. in my supposed to figure out the ones?

race is not genetic. am i supposed to pick out the ones that i think of our black. don't exercise? what to am i supposed to do with that? the implication of the genetic inferiority irritates me. race is a social. please understand if you look back to the days of jim crow scientist may came proclamation of the proclivity some internalize

that. the paper tens to feed upon that. and the conclusion tense to support that thought. what we pay attention to a help everyone is as constant -- conscientious to provide information that is accurate. people will walk away and that will cause harm. [applause] >> they should be solution

oriented how to move forward a identifying the problem. do have many examples of those who have found a way to break through the barriers? on. >> guess there is a national movement you are fighting obesity one lady is sitting in the second row her organization is 10,000 strong? that brain is black women together to make a

commitment over 10 weeks. also said division to ask women to go into their community and my favorite part sens young fellows into the world to discover fitness vacations. of young african-american girl is hiking in alaska and then she comes back to talk about that experience. [applause] mayor is another organization called black women to work out. it has its own web site with 16,000 members of women who shares success stories, pictures, a diet stories, her facebook page

has 268,000 fans. and has been in business three years. the mission is for black women to commit to not being part of the obesity epidemic and the other is black curls walk those who meet of to do exercise experience. she was a 22 and high-school and now a size 12. she meets when been were uncomfortable and their motivation is to get black women together publicly to

support each other to be strong and move to a positive cold. >> one month ago he asked the full crum the database what is good about our organization? twenty years ago i was 300 pounds i am now 160.

that is an example of the things going on all over the country. one from the boston of health institute over 1,000 women meet and give support. it is about supporting each other and lifestyle changes. i and encourage the incredible website to feature you some members know you're out there to do that. to center the discussion

where i stayed it ought to be. talk about citizen's initiative, to be involved and help the communities making sure that you have to go to the table to demand figures restore and policy makers have the bike path and so people can feel safe and comfortable in order to be fed with a healthy lifestyle. and to recruit -- reduce secondary smoking and most

of all with all the clubs joaquin and running groups, so you can figure out to transform the community that is safe then take on the food industry we're not fact because you want to be corporations decide that. >> if i was 82 roof with a magic want would be for us to slow down. the obesity epidemic in our

community is not limited although concentrated to any socio-economic class. it transcends all of that. one thing that complicates that to, we are running 24/7. that creates an environment of a chronic club will of stress. i cannot emphasize how damaging that it is to us that contributes to the city. not only in a community with violence and concerned with safety but in the

white-collar job with a blackberry or in a community where you have to drive round-trip in traffic and you are stock. and you have road rage. multiple obligations. children. church. civic obligations. elderly parents. it contributes to chronic stress. i told my kids around midnight you hear the national anthem played and then the tv would go off. [laughter] have they were amazed. really? [laughter] of but now it does not. is 24/7.

it did creating problems and african-american women are the most impacted group. and in general, we tend there is the persona of the rest s on our chest. we tend to be caretakers to ever by a better self. however redo that where we allowed to say it is okay to take a timeout to for ourselves and allow us to begin to realize at has a

significant role to play you have to do that. but also to nurture ourselves that we can slowdown. stealth care is not selfish the atmosphere that is implicitly told that. if you are a boss in a job

to not tax an e-mail at takeoff in the morning that is my wish and. >> we can open two questions in the audience now. >> can use speak to ensure and reimbursement as the providers incentivize properly? >> ynez employee to we talk

about how doctors are paid in to be very simplistic you are paid for err procedures as a specialist or you are paid for volume. you only can see the doctor f-15 minutes. it is the flaw you don't get reimbursed for providing the ongoing counseling that is needed with those lifestyle changes in reno from changes one of the most effective ways to keep it off is multiple opportunities of counseling to walk through the process not the doctor

saying lose weight and comeback in six months. but to provide that counseling you have to meet people where they are but what they know what they're capable of doing is getting in 10 minutes per day. it does not support or reward the ability to do that we need to do that from a policy standpoint. >>

>> i wanted to take the opportunity to tip my hat. thank you for talking about the conspiracy. and those that create the sacred circle. obesity has a lot to do with the feelings that you don't have. thank you for being vigilant. thank you for being bad revolutionary. we need more physicians like

hugo at transition into teaching. thank you very much. thank you very much. thank you very much. [laughter] >> working with children with physical and sexual abuse i'd like to hear about obesity and know that people self medicate. with food and black women. is the research anecdotal? >> the black women health steady are behind the current research on childhood it is on the

website. >> very generally, you are right. we do know the link between the two that is not surprising is the major issue that causes people to deal with the pain in ways that might not be healthy. reno there are many different causes that they choose to self medicate to their emotional evening. people eat food.

another issue is cultural. men may grow up you don't put to your business in the street with those conversations that need to be had in short, absolutely that is a major issue we have barely scratched the surface. >> i am interested to see how we could fuel businesses? but we will not take $10 for the yoga class. how do we view the business world looking at the

difference from the the supply and chicken wings or the health care centers and how you do with your money. >> i could repeat myself. we're just beginning to do that. it will not easy to change behavior. it is deeply rooted in our hair or lack there of means something to us. [laughter] the media plays into ourselves. the notion of beauty and color. i