nto a bad teacher, to properly prepare you for state region exams but we would write essays and practice mindless repetition of facts so that they could be successful on their state exams. i did is because standardized tests measure the wrong things. .. when i taught seniors in the bronx i worked with the highest

performing students to help prepare them for college. we read philosophical tests ranging and wrote revised college level essays. at the same time i worked with the lowest performing students who had yet to pass the state tests of the with them we did mindless test prep. even though i was really good at it getting 100% of those students to pass their exams in my final year doing it i was doing the students no favors. i think about a senior who could hardly write and struggled to read. sure she passed the test but she was still ready, she was not ready for the community college work she encountered that fall. when we focus efforts only helping struggling students jump over a hurd definitely mandated exams the learning an opportunity gap widens. my current school harvest

collegiate is a member of new york performing standard consortium of a group of 48 schools that offer more alternative model. we use more rigorous testing systems than state exams. high-stakes assessments are not on demand test but a college level performance-based assessment. students complete real and authentic discipline fairy work giving them a significant advantage over others once they enter college. the consortium is widely successful with graduation and college success rates far exceeding rates for all new york city public schools. models like the consortium need to be able to exist and expand within any reauthorized esea bill. despite its many well-known flaw, no child left behind did include some morn features that should not be bab doned. disaggragation of student achievement data put a much

needed spotlight on education of american youth is affected by economic and social inequality. i yes, every student must count, especially our students with the greatest need. but we can do this without testing every kid every year. we could use grade span testing for elementary and middle school as we already do in high school. we could even go a step further use representational sampling technique of the nape universally considered to be the gold standard of educational assessment in the united states. i support the position of my union, aft reauthorizing esea congress should remove high-stakes for mandated test, eliminate the number of tests iced for accountability purposes and allow schools to use more successful assessment tools as student performance tests. should balance the government's

role in education with that of local decision making. federal and state governments need to recognize best education decision for students are made by those who possess the fullest and deepest understanding of their need. educators voices need to be loudest making decisions what is tested how students are tested and when students are tested. senators, my students, my colleagues and i are all encouraged and inspired that congress is putting serious thought how to improve the education of all our nation's students. it is time to fix our broken system of testing and accountability. >> thank you very much. this has been an extraordinary variety of views. it is very helpful to us as senators and i thank senator murray and staffs of both for working to have us presented those different points of views. and thank you awe you get an a for sticking to five minutes. i thank you for that. i hope we'll see if senators do as well as our time cops.

i will begin a period of questions. will take the five minutes and senator murray and then after that, senator come lens senator warren, senator roberts, senator bennet will be the first four. and we'll go based on first arrival. we'll conclude the hearing by noon. let me start, dr. west, you seem to be saying this. see if i to the it right. -- got it right. keep the tests. maybe make them more flexible. keep disaggragation of the results. keep the accountability system but let the states greet the accountability system. have i got that about right? >> that's about right. in my view there is a clear federal role to play -- >> let me, keep thinking about your answer. let me go to something else,

just to frame the question. we're talking about questioning and accountability and gets off to educationees and i have to refresh myself every 15 minutes bit even though i've been fooling with it for years. the federal government under no child left behind requires 17 annual standardized tests. >> correct. >> seven tests in math and reading, once in grades three through eight and once in high school. three tests in science. once in grades three through five, once in grades six through nine and once in high school. these are 17 tests must be used by law as primary means of determining yearly academic performance of the state and each district and school in the state but those are not only tests that kids take. that is one spotlight we ought to put on today. you and other members in answer to the question. the excellence in education foundation in florida reported

that in florida, in addition to the 17 federal tests there are between eight and 200 tests administered in schools each year on top of those tests. those are ad men sistered i about the state government and required by local government. in lee county, florida, which is for the miers with that -- fort myers, there were three state and local tests in addition to the 17 tests, when the spotlight put on lee county tests they said oh, maybe there are too many tests they started giving too many tests. when we talk about certainly too many tests i would like to have your thoughts about whether the culprit is the federal 17 tests or whether it's all the state and local tests? or is it because of the high-stakes in the federal 17 tests that is causing the state and local governments to create so many state and local tests? i think the most difficult issue

we have to figure out is this testing and accountability issue. i mean. testing with goals, standard tests, and then, the accountability is really what are the consequences, what is the definition of success on the tests? what is the definition of failure and what are the consequences of failure? and really are the debate is, who decide that? do we decide that here or do states decide that there? and i think i hear you saying washington should keep those 17 tests and disaggragation but states should design the accountability systems? >> that is in fact a accurate summary of my recommendation. as i said, we don't have great data on the amount of testing that is going on tore various purposes everywhere around the nation but the studies you mentioned like the one in the

state of florida do suggest the bulk of testing team is not devoted to the 17 mandated exams. i think a lot of those tests are adopted by schools in an attempt to prepare themselves for the federally mandated annual exams precisely because those exams carry so much weight with respect to how the schools are treated by the accountability system. the accountability system sets up unrealistic expectations with respect to student achievement. those expectations are most challenging for schools that serve students that face a lot of disadvantaged -- >> let me go on to mr. leather and mr. bowes berg in my few remaining minutes. do colorado require a lot of tests in addition to the 1 students or do you and your local school district require a lot of extra tests or as a result of the 17 federal test. >> in new hampshire we just require the basic federal

expectation of the 17 tests plus we have alternative assessments for students with disabilities as well as students with english language learners but that's what we do. >> mr. bowes berg. >> we have adopted certain other states we are urging the state not require the tests beyond annual testing in third through 10th grade in literacy and math and science tests. >> thank you. senator murray. >> mr. henderson, since no child left behind passed back in 2001 we have seen achievement gaps narrow for black and latino students in reading and math and dropout rate for those students have been cut in half. i want you to talk a little bit about what you saw the role and

elementary secondary education acts accountability provisions played in narrowing achievement gaps and improving graduation rates. >> that is very important question, senator murray. thank you for asking that. we have seen the government mandated requirements under. esea and no child left behind that pushed more accountability to address the particular needs of poor students and often students of color students with disabilities. in the absence of those standard we fear that there bill be a roll back of requirements that are otherwise producing the positive results that you have identified. we have seen, for example in the states that were given waivers under the previous law that in many instances those waivers have allowed those state systems to avoid the kind of meaningful accountability that actually drives the kind of change that you have talked about. senator alexander, you mentioned

of course the proliferation of states that, tests at the state and local level and that may well be true but i think the federal requirements that have in place have been so important in producing the kind of high school and career ready graduation rates are really important. when i started school, when brown versus the board of education was first decided. i can assure you that here in washington, d.c. there was a tremendous absence of kind of consistent standard that helped to produce the kind of change that we have seen and that senator murray has cited and in the absence of esea standard i'm convinced that there will be the use of title one fund for students who do not otherwise qualify and a step back from the federal government's commitment to insure the positive results that senator murray cited so it makes a difference. >> mr. henderson, what

improvements would you recommend as we reauthorize to make progress to close that achievement gap. >> certainly i think you have many schools lack the kind of financial equity and commitment to students that either their state constitution requires or that common sense for purposes of producing positive results would require. i cite senator roberts's kansas which now has a supreme court decision of course indicating that the state's funding of its schools is unconstitutional by kansas's own constitutional requirement and the result has been a significant lack of compliance on the part of the state and its ability to educate its students. senator casey i've seen the same then in pennsylvania where the failure of the previous governor to invest in resources to address the problem, the short coming in funding of schools, has been significant. so in my judgment these standard help to drive the kind of investments that states must

make in their educational system to insure that their students do meet the challenges of today and prepare to meet the challenges of tomorrow. but what i would hope is that there would be restrictions on the casual use of title one funding for students who are not eligible for title one and to require that those fund be used precisely for what they were intended and that is to help the poorest of students. >> thank you. mr. leather, you mentioned that your classroom students apparently watching you is very diverse in terms of background and learn styles and performances. how do high-quality assessments help you cater to your students unique needs? >> yeah, in my school we designed a fairly robust assessment system to get us better. we designed tasks accessible to a range of learners but allow a range of performances. this include something like when we study the declaration of independence earlier, i gave

students adapted reading from two historians accessible reading to all students and they had to write a argument about what the declaration of independence really means. that is task even somebody reading on a fourth grade level can say something intelligent about but my students doing better work now than i did a few years into college are able to approach that task in a really sophisticated way but the key thing is how we use that information. we use that to inform what happens in our classroom. we use that how to professionally develop our teachers. we judge how students are doing in similar tasks later in the year. we're trying measuring growth, we're not just happy with some kid making progress. we're looking at all of our students, even ones doing amazingly well insuring we are continuing to push them as well as the students who are struggling. >> thank you very much. mr. chairman. >> senator collins. >> thank you mr. chairman.

first, mr. chairman, and ranking member, senator murray, let me tell you what a pleasure it is to return to this committee after an absence of many years. some people would say that i was here when we crafted no child left behind but remember, i was very young then. [laughter] in 2005 former senator olympia snowe and i in response to a lot of concerns about the law, put together an nclb task force to evaluate the impact of the law in maine and we had parents, teachers educational specialists, superintendents, school boards members, it was really a broad group and the task force identified several unintended consequences of the

law's requirement for annual tests. they included increased test anxiety for students loss of teaching time misinterpretation of the meaning of schools classified as failing when they didn't make adequate process and the scapegoating of certain subgroups like those special education students and english language lerner populations. our task force concluded that states needed greater flexibility and they recommended allowing states to measure student progress over grade spans which has been mentioned by some of our witnesses today and to track student growth over time. as we know the current law measures schools grade by grade

essentially comparing this year's fourth graders with last year's fourth graders. the approach that was recommended by our task force known as grade span testing essentially is looking a the same students and seeing whether they have progressed which intrigues me. the no child left behind law was passed that was the approach used in maine and it allowed maine to track the progress of individual students and gave teachers greater flexibility. my question to each of you, and some of you have touched on this is do you believe that given states the flexibility to choose grade span testing which is used now for science would

help resolve concerns about overtesting that have been expressed, or would the result be that we decrease accountability? if i could just start and go straight across with dr. west. >> so, i actually think it would be very difficult under a grade span testing regime to develop a fair system of accountability because actually with grade span testing it becomes more difficult to look at the progress that individual students make over time. you're looking at their performance at a single point in time at the end point of their time in a given grade configuration, elementary, middle or high school. at that point you are focused on the at which they're performing which i said is heavily driven by influenced by factors outside of this school's control. those types of systems have punishing effect on schools serving low performing students

and serving inaccurate information about the school's effectiveness. >> thank you. mr. leather? >> i would add that we really need consistency. we need to make sure that every student and every parent receives annual information on how their child is performing academically. we do not want to go back to a system where parents really have to guess on the off year how their student is doing. are they meeting academic and other goals and whether their school is working to improve outcops for all students. i would point you to some of the research that shows if, a year of ineffective learning occurs for a student, and there is lots of reasons why that could happen students fall behind and their growth is really impeded in successive years. i think the more we keep track of how students are doing, the better off those students are going to be, the better off their parents are going to be in terms of their expectation.

>> thank you. i echo professor west's comments and i agree with you, senator, on performance and growth. importance of measuring the same students how they grow from year to the next. how did those students do from one year to the next. you do need annual measurements in order to be able to see that growth from one year to the other because to measure someone how they did in fifth grade and not see how they did in 8th grade, there is so much intervenes to make that also worthwhile. i say that is equally important for high achieving kid for low-achieving kids. if you're a parent after kid ahead of grade level, you don't want to mean that kid is standard, it means that kid might have lost a entire year of learning. you want to see how much growth high achieving make. likewise with the low achieving students, those students need to catch up. to say there is not a standard,

how much have they grown, how close have they gotten? are they on trajectory in short period of time to get back on full track to be ready to graduate prepared for postsecondary. we do think annual without annual measurements you simply can't measure growth in a meaningful way. >> mr. chairman i note that i'm over my time. could i have the rest respond for the record, if you want? >> well yes. and i let me give two answers to that. one is, i appreciate your saying that because every senator uses four 1/2 minutes and says what do you all think? we'll be here all afternoon, but been done before right? but, these, we want to know what you think. so yes, please send us your thoughts but i would like to invite other three witnesses. can you give a succinct answer to your thought and supplement later? >> thank you. >> mr. chairman, thank you. i will be very brief. i associate the remarks with the

remarks of my colleagues who have already spoken about the importance of annual assessments as a way of determining progress but i would also mention there are collateral factors that affect performance of students that we haven't talked about. obviously poverty is huge issue for students that come to school under those circumstances. we also have teachers who are misaligned with their ability to are real impart education. we need teachers well-trained to go to schools that most need their services and assistance. there are other factors that obviously affect student performance including school discipline that often runs amok in terms of interest of students. i would like to amplify that. i will submit additional questions and -- comments. >> thank you mr. henderson. miss lee. >> this is assuming the tests are able to purport what they purport to measure and i want to argue that teachers assess every day in multiple ways and these

standardized assessments that you speak of can only measure right or wrong type questions and kind of answers that we want our students to be able to solve are much more complex. so to be able to quantify it i think is difficult. another point is that in new york state at least these tests have changed from year to year. the cut scores have changed from year to year which makes them flawed and invalid. i wanted to put that out there. >> mr. lazar. >> senator collins agree what we need to be focused on is growth and not growth as where this kid is in relation to where fourth graders are supposed to be but the student is compared to where they were. the thing i want us to be careful about is that it's the learning driving the assessment instead of the accountability driving the assessment. i think we do need to assess regularly. like miss lee said we assess our kid every day. i think parent need information about how schools are doing year

to year. i don't think the federal or state government need accountability attached to yearly tests. i think shows should be used to inform practice. if we need federal and state accountability based on some sort of assessment let that be as small and little intrusion to real learning as possible. >> thank you. >> senator warren. >> thank you mr. chairman and i'm looking forward to working with you and ranking member murray on this committee this year. the federal government provide billions of dollars every year to the states to support public education and it is a lot of money. so i think we should start with accountability, the accountability of the states that take this money. if the states are going to get federal tax dollars to improve public education systems, then we need to make sure those dollars are not being wasted but actually being used to improve education. one of the reasons that republicans and democrats came together to pass no child left

behind in the first place because the federal government had gotten really good at shoveling tax dollars out the door but not very good at improving student achievement. there are a lot of problems with no child left behind but according to the most recent national assessment of educational progress over the past 12 years reading and math performance across the country has risen for all groups of students poor children wealthy children urban children rural children minority children they are all doing better. so while we all agree that there need to be changes here we need some basic accountability on the part of the states to make sure that these billions of dollars in tax money are actually buying us better education for our children. so mr. boasberg, you have reviewed the republican draft proposal for reforming no child left behind. are you confident that the republican draft proposal would

insure that the states who take the federal dollars will be held accountable for improving student achievement? >> so, thank you and without speaking to details in the draft that is obviously your prerogative i do agree both as a taxpayer and educator that accountability is important very important. and again accountability not in the blaming or punishment sense but accountability in the sense needing to make change. when schools are failing, and where kids aren't making progress they need to where they aren't graduating there has to be accountability to make change. and that change is very difficult. politically controversial, it's messy. it is sense testify. there is resistance to it but it is essential that change happen to close our achievement gaps and give our kid who have been disadvantaged opportunities they deserve. so i do believe that accountability is very important. our system in denver absolutely

looks at student growth looks at disaggregated data. it looks at graduation rates and mediation rates for college, parent satisfaction multiple measures. people spoke about on this panel spoke about importance of multiple measures i agree with but the a the bottom we need to be accountable when kids aren't learning to make change. >> as i read the republican draft proposal, all a state would have to do to get federal dollars is submit a plan with a bunch of promises with no proof that the promises are ever kept and the department of education would lose any meaningful tools to make sure that the states actually follow through on this. mr. henderson, you worked hard to make sure those children who face the greatest hurdles have real educational opportunities. do you see anything in this proposal that would make sure that the states who take this money actually actually end up helping kid who need it most? >> senator warren, unfortunately

i do not. i think the bill now, this draft, would allow the states to repurpose title one funding to serve otherwise ineligible students and without any measureable accountability to insure that students who are most in need get the support and resources they most deserve. you know interestingly enough your point about taxpayer accountability was just reinforced within the last several days bit george w. bush institute which issued a report under the authorship of margaret spellings, talks about the importance of annual accountability for purposes of insuring that dollars and tax dollars indeed are well-spent. from the standpoint of those concerned about services provided, we think when you allow states to weaken standard, we've seen how states used waivers to in effect create a defacto weakening of standards we are deeply concerned about the interests of every student but the students we most represent will not be adequately

serviced. >> well, i understand the need for flexibility but if the only principle here is that the states can do whatever they want then they should raise their own taxes to pay for it. throwing trillions of federal dollars at states with no accountability for the states, for how they spend taxpayer money is not what we were sent here to do. so thank you. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator warren and i din welcome senator collins to the committee which i should. it is a delight to have her back. she and senator cassidy are only two members of the committee this year. you are not really new as you mentioned. senator roberts. >> thank you mr. chairman. number one i would observe that we have flipped the seating arrangement here as a brand new start. the lights are a little brighter, the heat is a little warmer. you can see what the majority used to enjoy.

but, basically i observed at that the minority is to your right which is a little bit confusing. and we sir, are to your left which is seldom but at any rate i just thought i would make that observation. i would like to concentrate on the teachers lee and steven -- how do you pronounce your last name? >> lazar. that's what i figured. thank you on behalf of teachers some years ago way before senator collins, i was a teacher for three years. i worried about standard deviation and principal who insisted we be doing that. we had meaningful dialogue and i was free from that effort. i have no idea how i could have done what you are doing right now with teaching x-number about months the way you want to teach and seeing results and then one month being quote, a dumb

teacher and it was gia who pointed out the mindless test preparation. thank you for your viewpoint. mr. chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on testing and accountability. i'm pleased we're looking this issue and i want to let everybody know on the witnesses and thank you all for coming, this is working draft. this isn't set in stone and so that's why we have you here. it isn't republican view or democrat view it is a bipartisan view and it is a working draft. i think that should be emphasized. i'll concerned about recent administration efforts to sidestep congress or congressional intent. there are a lot of things attached to waivers to states. waivers are not a waiver. they're only granted to states that agree to implement preferred education process. now kansas has created a statewide commission and by the way our governor and our state

legislature will handle that issue with the courts. they have before. i'm sure they will do it again. that i think was brought up by mr. henderson. but at any rate we created a statewide commission to develop and implement teacher and principal evaluations. it has been a comprehensive state approach to design a robust evaluation system but the department of education, i believe, is going beyond the statute in issuing conditioned waivers to force state adoption of policies. back in august of last year kansas agreed that the department of education's prescriptive requirements. they were informed their esea flexibility request would be fully improved and no longer be labeled high-risk status. i think that is pattern wave seen nationwide and it is clear to me that the administration has tried to coerce states to emly meant something called common core. i introduced the local level act to ex-police is it arely the federal government's role and involvement in that. my legislation would strictly

forbid the federal government intervening in state's educational assessments and mandates waivers, or grants or any form of manipulation. i appreciate the chairman's every child ready for college career draft. it is going in the right direction i believe reducing federal food print but still providing accountability. i look forward to continue to work with the chairman to hopefully include my language in the final draft. i just don't think washington has any business dictating to states and school districts what is best are to the students that they serve. and my main objective for reyou intoing and improving sea is making common sense changes to simplify the law to make it more flexible for states without sacrificing accountability. the question he have basically, does continued reliance on annual testing strike right balance or what is most effective pared back version of accountability that insures education for all as well as fiscal stewardship. i've done exactly what the

chairman said i would do, talk for four minutes and now 42 seconds but i would like to ask gjia and steven to address that question. stephen or jia, you go first. >> sure. i definitely see the role of assessments, you know at a larger level. but, reviewing that at the state level i do feel that the federal rule in addressing senator warren's concerns, is to insure that states are using tax dollars appropriately for public education. it hasn't happened in our state. our state has not been held accountable to those federal tax dollars but what i do feel there need to be balance a communication. if you were to ask me what my vision is it is to create a longside educators, alongside

administrators, a system of communication that involves much more comprehensive assessments and ways of communicating information beside a single metric that can be very flawed. so i i just wanted to put that out. >> mr. chairman can i ask stephen to summarize in 20 seconds or something like that? >> i will try to do less. we need better and more diverse assessments used primarily to help schools and teachers adopt and plan. we need to remove high-stakes from those assessments. we need to limit accountability through the use of grade span or representational sampling. >> i appreciate that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> lazar gets award for succinctness today. senator bennet will be next and then senator scott is he is lear. senator franken. we'll go to senator bennet and

see who is here after that. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i hope that wasn't as reluctant as it sounded. i read last week and others in the committee i'm sure did as well for the first time in the country's history a majority of our public schoolchildren in this country are poor enough that they qualify for free and reduced lunch. that is a shameful situation that we find ourselves in and when no child left behind was passed, we couldn't say that. the majority of our children weren't that poor. they are today. and in my view, that's why this discussion is so important because attempt at no child left behind was create a system of accountability that disaggregated data and showed us how kid were performing by income and also their ethnicity and its demonstrate ad huge achievement gap that exists in this country.

all of us have different policy issues that we focus on but in my mind, if you want to cure this problem of poverty in our country the way to do that is by making sure people can read when they're in the first grade. that is the most important thing that we can do. and senator collins made an excellent point i thought earlier which was no child left behind really asked and answered the wrong question, which is how did this year's fourth graders do compared to last year's fourth graders. not only did it ask the wrong question, but irrelevant question, if you're a fourth grader becoming a fifth grader but yet there was high-stakes accountability tied to that that meant states and local school districts and schools were responding to the wrong question by attempting to make changes which in the end didn't do much for our kid. the field has moved well beyond that. the people out in our communities and across the country have moved well beyond

that. we're now asking and answering relevant questions. not irrelevant questions. part of that is because of waivers we've been able to get. i wonder superintendent boasberg whether you could describe for the committee how you used student growth measures to drive change in the school district? how is it informed the district's policies with respect to choice and and i think we would benefit from understanding that because this is bigger than just what's happening in a single classroom someplace? i guess also, if you could hit the important distinction between growth and status for the committee. >> so, thank you and i think that is the fundamental question is, the former law just used to look a the percentage of kids that are proficient or grade level. as professor west mentioned that is more likely to predict where it could start than how much they're learning in school so where we have moved is looking at growth, which is how much progress did a student make from

one year to the next? that is equally important for high achieving students as it is for low-achieving students. when you measure status. david: ie, are they proefficient or grade level are you ignoring kids well above or well below, you want to see their growth you want to see how much they're learning. that is why the annual nature of assessments are so important. so we, we do look first and foremost for growth because for example, we used to have schools where the students were relatively high status but their growth was low and they coasted. they said look, x-percent of our kids are grade level we're doing great, congratulate us. but kids were not doing well. they were going into the kid doing well but they were stagnating or slowing down. when we begin to measure growth and disaing a gait growth based on race, ethnicity, students with disabilities that shows

real light how kid were doing of the important thing is not just shine the light but to say what we would do differently. that is accountability. what will we change to see more growth. i also think the growth data is essential for parents as well. parents again want to see how much their student is going to grow. parents of course the first thing they should do is look at schools and visit schools visit classrooms to see if they have the kind of teaching in the classroom that miss lee and mr. lazar have the wonderful teaching around critical thinking. it is important for parents to see the growth. so we're very transparent about that and that's published. and particularly when you're in a district with where parents do have choice, where you have charter schools and district-run schools it is extraordinarily important that the community and parents get information about how much kid are growing because again if you have a system that says x-percent of kid are proficient, you set up a set ofi%

essentially moral hazard, a disincent testify to take kid who are lower performing because somehow that hose you have x-percent that are not at standard but when you look at growth you equally then have that obligation and incentives to serve awe decades and serve all kid well. therefore, particularly in era of choice and accountability for example at charters, we have to make decisions which charters to authorize, which charters to close, we welcomed high performing charters. we closed more low-performing charters in denver than the rest of state has combined and that really helped us to encourage our growth as a district is again really to focus on the growth that schools are making from year to year and make sure that parents are have that information about their kids and their schools. >> i'm out of tame. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much. senator burr. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you all for being here

sharing your knowledge and suggestions with us. i've got to admit that senator warren stimulated something in my mind because i agree with her, federal tax money should be held accountable. if we said to a state, okay, we're not going to take your tax money for education we're going to let you keep it and you figure out you fund education, first question i thought of was, how many states would take us up on that? federal government gets out of my way? i get to decide how it's done? and really the important question that came to my mind was, how would they do it differently than they do it today if in fact we got out of the way but we didn't penalize them financially? we put the burden on them. so i throw that out to you, just as a thought to go through. here's my question and extremely simple and i will start with this end with dr. west and i will end with mr. lazar and it

is a more simplified question than what senator collins asked. my kid are now adults, never tested well. it is probably genetic. but they didn't test well. so my question is this. is it more important that we know what students know or is it more important that we know students are learning? dr. west? >> so it is much more important if we're trying to this think about the performance of the school system to focus on what students are learning because that's what schools have more of an impact on. what students know at a given point in time will be heavily influenced by genetics as you mentioned perhaps, but by the family environment they grew up on, a whole host of factors outside of the school's control. when we're thinking about accountability, it should be for student learning. >> mr. leather?

>> yeah. it's a conundrum i think to try to separate whether whether we need to know what a student knows versus whether they're learning. i don't see how you could go one way or the other. i think you need to know both. you need to know in the end is a student ready to make use of knowledge -- >> mr. leather, do you only reward a student for what they know or do you reward a student if they're learning? i mean i go back to no child left behind and it hadn't rolled out exactly like i envisioned when i worked closely with the bush administration. average yearly progress that's not necessarily what you know. that is whether you're learning. >> right. >> now i think this got hijacked somewhere to where everything is about what they know. that's what the annual test is. mr. boasberg. >> i think again those two are

pretty linked. we epfa is zood how much students grow every year, and how much they're learning. at the same time that is to a standard, right? it is very important that our kid graduate from high school ready for college or for career. that is a standard and it's a clear and artic youable standard and important to do everything to help our students and have accountability and transparency. are we graduating kid where they're prepared to succeed in college and today's knowledge-intensive economy. >> mr. henderson. >> it is a important philosophical question. it assumes that students basically begin on an even playing field. part of the concern i have about the way which the question is framed is that students who are poor, students with color students with disability students not proficient in english, are often not given resources that they need and only through these assessments

are we able to demonstrate that the stayed failed to meet either its own constitutional obligation under state constitutional law or whether they have failed to make the kind of progress that would allow them to continue doing what they're doing, without interventions of the kind that the law now would require. i mean part of the problem we have when the states are given the kind of deference and kind of latitude that you have you sea a weakening of standard, you see a failure to invest in communities most in need, you see a reinforcement of existing inequalities how schools are funded and there is no way to reach those programs because the state has no incentive to necessarily correct the problem other than to say yes, the business community and the state wants to have a stronger graduating school but leaders of the state are not held accountable by the failure to meet those standard unless the federal government steps in.

i think the history how the waivers have been used and how states have squirmed out of their responsibility reinforces that point. >> ms. lee? >> thank you. i want to start by saying yes i know many students who are brilliant and are poor test-takers and go on to become brilliant people and go on to do amazing things of the tests alone does not define their value nor their contributions to society. so i want to emphasize the fact that these tests again, they narrowly measure, they are narrow measures. i can test my students on basic schedules and tell you, quantify that information such as multiplication facts, spelling things like that but when it comes to the kind of knowledge we're talking about, that is not easily quantifiable because it is limitless. there has to be a better way to assess students to share information that goes beyond the realm of standardized

assessments. >> mr. lazar. >> yeah. my job is students learning but for my students i care what they know and can do. so i think schools should be accountable for students learning, but i think students need to be held accountable for what they know and can do, which is exactly the model we used in consortium. students at the end of high school need to demonstrate mastery on four different performance tasks. we could do a lot better job of helping students prepare for those in truly learning if we got rid of this notion that a kid who enters in ninth grade needs to be done four years later. of. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator burr. senator franken and then senator sighs act son. >> i wang -- isaac send. want to thank the chairman and

group of witnesses and where they're getting. from senator bennet's question hid on proficiency and growth. it's a great topic. a teacher who bring as kid from a third grade level to fifth grade proficiency is a here. under the proficiency goals they're a goat. they would focus on kid just above proficiency and just below proficiency to get the percentage above proficiency and kid up on the top would be ignored and mr. lazar you hit on this, and kid at bottom would be ignored. that is why growth is so important. to me to do growth you have to measure every year. i also think you should do it in real time, all the assessments in real time. that's why i like computer a adaptive tests so the teacher can use ruts to inform their

instruction. the question and the nub i think we're getting to, is what kind of assessments you're making. because the assessments that measure these fine, little discrete skills, that's what you're going to teach to. that informs or create as curriculum that is focusing on the wrong thing. so if we can create assessments that are measuring what ms. lee and mr. lazar want to measure, then we have the answer to your question. so when i'm saying is when i go to talk to employers in minnesota, they want people that can do critical thinking. they want people that can work in teams. we have to hold schools accountable, but we also have to make sure that they're accountable for making citizens that and people who can think

critically and really learn. and that's what everybody on this panel wants. so, mr. boasberg, i just want you to run with it, anyone else run with what i just said. >> great, thank you, senator. and i think you put it very, very well about how important it is to care for about growth for all kids and not just kid on a cusp of a particular line. >> the thing i like about the law was called no child left behind. that is the thing i like the most about it. >> and i would also, i think one of the things we're very much looking forward to is a new generation of assessments which will be introduced this spring, is a much more sophisticated set of assessment. it is much more around complex thinking problem-solving. it is not about rote memorization. if you're teaching rote memorization, your kids are not going to do well. it is about the kinds of skills

our kids care about for your universities and our economy. i think sometimes we try to create this one vessel once a year assessment to hold everything. it can't. i think you want a good assessment to measure progress and literacy and math and challenge we're seeing in assessments that will be introduced this year, and at the same time to welcome multiple measures the performance-based assessments that mr. lazar and mr. leather talked about. to judge as miss lee, said, no one assessment will be able to judge everything. so i think it is absolutely this isn't either/or. to have common statewide measures sophisticated measures of student progress in literacy and math is essential. so you can see how kid are doing from district to district. you can see where the best schools in the state working with english language learners. if you have completely different measurement from school to school, district to district you can't capture best practice,

you can't truly understand where the most progress is being made but again i think those should be short. like to keep them no more than four hours a year but then welcome other more performance based assessments and all of that should be part and parcel what a teacher looks at, what a school leader looks at, what a school district looks at and potentially if the state can get to that level what a state looks at as well. >> can anybody else want to weigh in? mr. lazar, on your kind of performance criteria don't you agree if you hold schools accountable you have to have something you objective look at but can you design a computer a adaptive test say whether you're filling in circles, can you design something that create gets more at the kind of thing you want to measure? sorry. >> you can.

it makes more time and it is more expensive. i have looked on a lot of assessment development in city level and i did some work on doing prototype tasks for smarter balance. it's a lot of hard work. it take as lost time and a lot of expertise to design those. i think if we were going to identify a role for the federal government in education it's put fund and put resources behind test development and assessment development. do a change of them and make them available to schools to choose. because the type of work we do in my school, we have a group of wonderful teachers who are committed to doing it. we've arranged the time in our program to be able to do that in large part through the pros initiative in new york city but what we do actually isn't something that all schools can start doing tomorrow. so if these assessments were out there and schools could choose ones that fit their curricular needs we're in good shape.

>> thank you. >> thank you mr. lazar. senator isakson. >> thank you mr. chairman and thanks to ranking member murray for having what i think is a very important hearing. i listened to michael bennet talk a minute ago. i happen to be one of two remaining members of congress that wrote no child left behind. everyone else has gone on to bigger and better things. we would tell you the following. when the commerce committee finished meeting and ted kennedy and i boring miller fred upton, john miller went to the basement of capitol signed the commerce committee report. we said almost in unison because if this works we'll be in trouble in six years because it will be impossible for schools to maintain a-wy because it will be harder and harder to do. if we had done reauthorization seven years ago, a lot of problems wouldn't be going on because we would have corrected that. that is number one. number two, this is not defensive speech i'm making here but for educational purposes. assessment was very important.

disagragation was more important and focusing on individual student was most important. no child left behind did that. no child flew under the radar screen. everybody got in a disaggregated group by race or ethnicity or language or speech or disability whatever. we always amalgamated everybody and averaged them out. iowa test of basic skills said we're doing x. that wasn't anything good for little johnny who couldn't read. i hate that reference but i have to use it. we need little johnny involved as well too. so i have a question for miss lee or probably a little bit of a statement, i didn't get to hear your testimony and i apologize but in the last attempt which i commend the chairman doing what he did we almost got there on reauthorization and fell apart, i fought very hard to allow for alternative assessment for special need children. to take a standard test for disaggregated group and make a special need student take it when you have psycho evaluations you have physical disabilities,

you have cognitive disabilitieses connective disabilities it is impossible to have a one-size-fits-all assessment and i always felt the teacher was best and teacher and parent and independednt ep were best to decide what kind of assessment the child should have. i would like for your comment on that. >> i completely agree. aspects education teacher -- >> everybody make note of this answer now. >> actually came started teaching the first year of nclb. so i have seen seen first-hand started teaching in what was called the high school for students who were at risk special education district in new york city. and what i found was that you're right, no assessment fits all including all students and what i would have to do in my assessments is diversify, right? what i know about my students i assess them again, sit alongside, latin root, get to know them and who they are and their abilities, set very high

standards, work with the parents, and the team. it is not just me. it was related service providers. you have experts and specialists coming in and we worked together as a team to develop assessments to determine students where they were and where we wanted and to set goals for them. so that work has continued and i feel as though again, to echo steve lazar, that states or federal government does have a role in insuring that this is made possible at the states. >> one thing i learned i will get to you in just one second. one thing i learned as state board chairman in georgia if your testing is not aligned with your curriculum you will never get good data. >> right. >> we had a big problem with nclb to align a test we required with a curriculum that was national would blow up in our face because nobody wanted to, a colorado set of curriculum to apply to georgia student anymore

than colorado didn't want a georgia student to do it. we did a random sample nape, to assess integrity, whatever assessment they were using. one of the things federal government can do to help schools out to give them excuse we're making them do it but make sure curriculum and alignment of testing and whatever testing model you use are in line. when you do that you find out what students are learning. . .

>> one of the concerns we have is that you see frequently that students are misclassified as having emotional disturbance disabilities or being intellectually disabled, and those labels frequently apply to students of color. and they are then taken out of mainstream curriculum, given -- incontribute with the requirement of -- inconsistent with the requirement of the law -- access to less rigorous forms of accomplishment, and the results have been disastrous for many of hose communities. i think there is a real concern certainly among students with -- representing persons with disabilities that they not be taken out needlessly from mainstream curricula offerings. and that doesn't have anything to do with the kind of assessment that states might develop. i completely agree with mr. lazar, there should be a more sophisticated form of assessment to complement and provide the kinds of insights that these wonderful teachers have asked for. but that is not inconsistent

with the requirement of an annual assessment that is used to really get diagnostic diagnostic assessments of how communities are doing that might otherwise be left behind unless you have a uniform standard in application. >> my time's up but thank you both for the response and, mr. chairman, thank you for holding this harding. >> thank you senator isakson. we have senator baldwin, senator casey, senator whitehouse, senator murphy, and unless some random republican wanders into the room -- [laughter] and there should be time for all of you to have a full five minutes, and then we'll be close to the noon, the noon hour when we want to conclude the harding. senator baldwin. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i am very grateful to you and the ranking member for getting us off to a great start with a bipartisan dialogue on how we can best address the shortcomings of the no child left behind law. and i'm hopeful that we can find a thoughtful path forward to

fixing this law for all students parents teachers, administrators policymakers. we need, we need this information also -- great panel thank you to the witnesses. a well designed standardized it'ses is one important tool among many that can help all of the stakeholders i just listed understand how well individual students are doing as well as how our nation's schools are serving all of our nation's children. and as such, we should know if the tests given -- those required by federal law as well as those that are required by state and local districts -- are of high quality and aligned to state standards. we should also have an idea of how much classroom time is spent on preparing for and taking the standardized tests as to

positived to instruction. -- as opposed to instruction. in preparation to this debate, i introduced the smart act along the with representative suzanne bonamici in the house of representatives and senator murray and others here in the senate. the smart act is designed to update a specific federal grant president obama already goes to -- grant program that already goes to development and implementation. it will allow states in districts to audit their assessment systems and reduce unnecessary and duplicative state and local it'ses with the design of freeing up more time for teaching and learning. i think this legislation presents a common sense approach to to help reduce unnecessary testing which is why it has widespread support from our nation's largest teachers union and other education are e -- reform groups.

i'd like to turn to our panelists for their perspectives as well. particularly i'd like to ask both dr. west and mr. boasberg because you've referenced the importance of these sort of audits understanding what's truly happening across the country. can you talk about the importance of states and districts auditing their assessment systems and how such audits could take place at the state and local level? why don't i start with you, dr. west and then go to mr. boasberg. >> i have not are are viewed -- >> just in general. >> in general i think it's absolutely critical that state and local officials have a good idea the role testing is playing is and the quality of those tests as they try to understand how districts are try aring to improve student learning. >> did you testify that that was sort of lacking at this point?

>> absolutely. we have very few system mat you can sources of evidence on this and there's often a lot of confusion at the school level i've found in my own experience, there are a lot of us from trawtions among teachers about a lack of alignment between a given interim assessment program that is administered to students over the course of the year to see how they're going, a lack of alignment between those assessments and the schedule of the curriculum essentially the district scope and sequence that they're required to teach. and if those aren't lined up, then you're getting useless information out of the interim assessment. so there are huge potential gains from getting a better handle on this. i think it makes sense to encourage states and districts to do it. i would be cautious about the federal government trying to, say, direct states and districts to test less. as i say, we don't know the optimal amount. my understanding of what's going on in new hampshire is that as they move to a more common

c-based model, they may be testing more often using higher quality assessments over the course of the year. that might look bad in some audit can or the premise is we're testing too much so i would be cautious about that type of heavy-handed approach. >> mr. boasberg? >> thank you. and -- [inaudible] i do think it's important that states and districts be very transparent about what is required. and we in our state have a committee that is doing just that, and that committee is making a series of recommendations to the legislature to reduce some of the state-minnesota kateed -- mandated testing that has nothing to do with no child left behind. we as a district also published exactly what we do and what we don't do. i do think there is also a balance that of exactly what the federal government says in terms of how much reporting, exactly how things are reported, i think as mr. lazar and ms. lee said, our teachers assess our kids in some way every day. that could be a little quiz that could be a check for

understanding, that could be an exit ticket daily weekly, and boy, there's nothing that i would dread more than our teachers in some compliance exercise having to classify and record every single thing that could be somehow classified as an assessment or it's of student progress and -- or test of student progress or student learning. >> thank you, senator baldwin. senator casey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the panel for being here today for your testimony especially giving us firsthand information and experience from the trenches where a lot of you work. i wanted to -- i'll focus on a particular question for mr. henderson, but i wanted to commend him and others who have talked about the broader context. this is a hearing about no child left behind elementary and secondary education but at its core because of what undergirds

that those policies and those strategies, it's also a child about child poverty, it's also a hearing about other major challenges facing children. some of the numbers, just by way of a background some of the numbers on childhood poverty are really bone chilling. there's a report from about a year ago and i'm sure they'll update it this january or soon from the oecd, the organization for economic cooperation and development, and they rank, you know the top 20 countries on a whole range of areas. one of them is on child poverty. so we're, of the top 20 in the world, we are fifth from the worst. our child poverty rate, this is a 2010 number. it'll be yun dated. -- updated. >> 21.2% of children in the united states of america live in poverty. we are just a little better than spain and italy, and we're not

too far off from mexico and turkey, by way of example. if you update it, the great organization that tracks data on children annie casey foundation says that childhood poverty number in 2012 was even high her, goes to 23%. so it puts us ahead of chile. by that ranking we're fourth from the worst, not fifth. so when you look at the data and you look at some of the data on progress that's been made -- and some of it can be attributable to federal policy -- but when you step back and look at all these issues, what we have not done for our kids is really a national, and i would say bipartisan failure. after world war ii we had the g.i. bill, that was a good idea. we did a lot of things that were smart at that time. but we also had for europe a marshall plan. but we've never, ever had

anything even approaching a marshall plan for our kids. so that's the predicate and i think that is kind of the background. but i want to be much more focused, mr. henderson, on the question of children with disabilities. you mentioned the concern you have about kind of treating them differently as it relates to some of the assessment that we undertake. one data here one piece of data, and i just want to have you in in the remaining time walk through your reasons is that we've got about suggestion million students in the country with disabilities, educated in public schools, most of whom spend their day learning alongside other students. according to the national center for education statistics 90%, 90% of students with disabilities do not have intellectual or cognitive disabilities that would limit them. so you're talking about 10% of

children with disabilities are in the much more severe category. mr. henderson, what's your basic concern about where we are now where we could be if the draft that's on the table now were to be enacted? >> senator casey, thank you for your question, and thank you for putting your question in the broader context of the totality of circumstances that students in poverty, students with various disabilities will face in states that are making policy choices about where to make investments. so let me say, as senator bennet said investments in early childhood education pay big dividends, but states often don't require that. you also recognize that while there may be a cap on insuring that only the students with the most severe cognitive disabilities are classified as such schools now will use various methods to allow more students to be classified as

having disabilities for purposes of avoiding a kind of rigorous adherence to standards that we would like. there are about 6.4 million kids with disabilities in the country, and what we have found, i mean obviously, those living in poverty would have a huge problem. but what we have found from the draft that we have seen -- and by the way, i'm drawing this from a council on parent attorneys and advocates representing persons with disabilities and from organizations representing persons with disabilities within the lineup conference. the leadership conference. and they have really stressed the importance of trying to adhere to to standards. because what they have seen is that students with disabilities are often classified as proficient. not having met the, you know because they have somehow met the alternative achievement of standard and have somehow been exempted from the more rigorous mainstream standard that would be required under existing law.

that for us is a huge problem. and when you add to the fact that states now because of budgets are choosing not to invest in public education in the same way, quite frankly sir, that's what happened in pennsylvania over the last several years, creating huge problems. particularly for kids with disabilities. so our view is that states will choose to really make cuts where the voices of the advocacy community are perhaps the weakest. and, you know, unfortunately that sometimes applies to our students with disabilities. they are often in poverty themselves, and they lack the kind of strong advocacy network aside from the organizations that i've identified here, that can really represent their enter. and one last point -- >> we're over time. >> i'm sorry. new america foundation looked at 16 states that -- >> we're running short but why -- >> we'll get --

>> go ahead mr.-- i'm sorry. >> thank you, i appreciate it. 4400 schools that had been previously established for purposes of intervention were largely ignored. under those states once the waivers have been given. and so that is the reality of what we face. >> thank you sir. >> thank you very much. >> thank you mr. henderson and senator casey. senator whitehouse. >> thank you, chairman. my experience with the education universe is that there are really two worlds in it. one is a world of contractors and consultants and academics and experts and plenty of officials at the federal, state and local level and the other is a world of principals and classroom teachers who are actually providing education to students. and what i'm hearing from my

principals and teachers' world is that the footprint of that first world has become way too big in their lives to the point where it's inhibiting their ability to actually do the jobs they're entrusted to do. so i understand that there are lots of concerns, and i share those concerns about making sure that the benefit of education is spread evenly across the children of this country and the people who don't have a voice don't also lose out on their choice to join the ranks of economic success where they will have more of a voice. but i don't -- i went through the park tests a week ago for mathematics and for something that they call english language arts. off to a pretty bad start if that's what you have to call it. and i i wasn't all that impressed with those questions

and with those tests. i didn't see tests -- questions that couldn't have been integrated into regular tests that were given by regular teachers in the ordinary course of teaching and assessing their students. to me it's pretty clear that these tests are designed to test the school and not the student. when it first started up in rhode island, the timing of the reporting of the results that the contractor assumed was such that the teacher in the coming year wouldn't even have the information. so clearly the next year's teacher was not the focus of this effort. the scheduling and the preparation for this is important because kids are not stupid, and they know the difference between a test that's going to affect their grade and a test that's not going to affect their grade. so the school has to go through huge heroic efforts to try and get them interested and prepared for a test they know they're not going to be personally graded on or responsible for the outcome

of. and then kids have scheduling problems they can't all get them in at once. many schools in rhode island simply don't have the electronic bandwidth for a class to take the test at once. is so it's not one test it's three tests and you can't teach the other kids while the kids are in the test. we have got to solve this problem. and it is an efficiency problem, it is a problem of simply being smart, about gathering information. but i'm really concerned about this and i'm -- at this point i'd invite conversation with my creeings as we go -- colleagues as we go forward. the superstructure of education supervision i'm not sure passes the test of being worth all the expense and all the trouble. and it's very discouraging to teachers in rhode island who have talked to me. they hear about, you know, the race to the top money that comes into the state, and the state gets a big grant and everybody does a press conference and it's like the rain falling over

the desert where the rain comes pouring out of the clouds. but by the time you're actually at the desert floor not a rain drop falls. t all been absorb -- it's all been absorbed in between. i've never had a teacher say to me boy, race to the top gave me just what i need in terms of books or a whiteboard or something i can use to teach the kids. so i think we've got to be very careful about distinguishing the importance of the purpose of some of this oversight and not allow the importance of that purpose to allow the oversight to be conducted in such an inefficient, wasteful, clumsy way that the people who we really trust with our students' education, the people that are in the classroom with them, are looking back at us and saying stop help, i can't deal with this. you are inhibiting my ability to teach. and i think that damage in the classroom falls just as hard on the communities that are having difficulty getting their fair share of education as it does

anywhere else. i think we really need to grapple with that in 24, in this committee. and i have basically used all my time with that set of remarks. but that was less in the manner of a question than in the manner of an invitation to my colleagues to continue this discussion and to let you know what i think is important as we go forward. you have two seconds -- no, you don't can. one, zero gone. [laughter] >> well, but thank you senator whitehouse. an invitation accepted. i mean, i think we need to have lots of discussions about this. not all these discussions, i'm discovering as i talk fall down in predictable ways. that was very helpful. thank you. now, our wrap-up hitter, senator murphy. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you very much for convening a really well balanced and thoughtful hearing. i got the chance to read almost all of your testimony though i wasn't here in person.

i came to congress as a vocal opponent and critic of no child left behind for a lot of reasons that senator whitehouse enunciated but, you know, also because i come from a family of educators, and my mother was a wonderful elementary schoolteacher and then a english as a second language teacher. and she walked away from teaching frankly before she thought she was going to in part because she ended up spending a lot more time on bureaucracy and a lot less time on teaching. and that's not what she went into it for. but one of the first meetings i had when i got here as a freshman member of congress was with the children's defense fund. and they came in because they had heard that i had been a real active critic of no child left behind. and they wanted to just present the case for me as to what was happening in other parts of the country. maybe not connecticut prior to no child left behind want to children with disabilities -- with respect to children with

disabilities to explain to me that there were places where because of largely cost pressures on local school districts to provide a full complement of educational services for kids with disabilities that many of them were spending part of their week with the janitor in technical education and were being largely ignored. and that well they had critiques of the law as i did. their point was that it's important for us not to abandon the gains that we've made with respect to children with learning disabilities who had maybe in some places not been getting a fair shot before. so i wanted to just build on the questions that, a question that senator casey raised and maybe i'll direct it to my friend, dr. west. full disclosure, we were college classmates, and i'm please ared that he's here today. senator casey referenced the some data suggesting the

enormity of students with disabilities who are in special education programs who do have the ability to take these tests. and yet the fear is that if you move to alternative assessments and give school districts the ability to move broad swaths of children with learning disabilities out from under the test you lose the pressure to provide the appropriate education, but you also as you, i think caution more generally in your comments lose the ability for parents of children with disabilities to really figure out where their children are going to succeed and where they aren't. even if you preserve annual statewide testing to give broad measurements for schools for parents,be the if you exempted all children who had big learning disabilities those parents aren't helped by the overall assessments of the school. so i'd love to hear what the data shows about what happens

when we require that the majority of children -- except for those with severe cognitive disabilities -- take the test and what that might mean for accountability moving forward. >> yeah. so as senator casey mentioned, the vast majority of students with disabilities do not have intellectual disabilities. they should be able to reach the same standards with appropriate modifications to the assessments that they're given. the second point i would make is that there has to be some form of a cap on the number of students who are allowed to take those alternative assessments. i'm not sure that the 1% cap that was in the no child left behind legislation is exactly the right number. i'm not an expert in the education of students with disabilities but one thing we know from accountability policies and how our schools respond to them more generally is that some schools will find a way to game the system. and so they might reclassify students as being eligible for special education if that

exempts them from accountable pool of students in order to avoid being sanctioned. and so there needs to be some mechanism in a accountability policy to account for that dynamic. one of the concerns -- there also needs to be if there's a cap, some degree of flexibility to allow for natural variation in the share of students in a given school or given district that might actually be appropriately excluded from the standard assessment. and so i think those policies have been a bit more rigid than they actually should be, but there needs to be some mechanism, and i'm not the one to tell you the details of how to do it. >> thank you, dr. west. i'd commend to the committee a study which suggests on average you're talking about half a percentage of kids who don't have the ability to take those tests. but i think you're right, there are going to be variations, and i look forward to working with the chairman and the ranking member on this issue moving forward. thank you, mr. chairman.

>> thank you, senator murphy. i'll ask senator murray if she has any closing remarks. >> i would just say that there's tremendous interest on our side of the aisle in fixing the no child left behind law to really make sure that in this one we really do make sure that every child, no matter who they are, where they live, how much money they have, have the more than dream of good education, and that is the equalizer that i think is so to important for -- is so important for our country and will allow all of our young people to be able to grow up and have a job and support all of us and be competitive in a global marketplace. so it's a huge huge goal, but i think this is there is tremendous interest here. we want to work on a bipartisan basis to move forward on this bill, and i really want to thank everybody who participated today. >> thank you. this is a good beginning. i've learned a lot from the witnesses. i like the exceptional variety we had of points of view and i thank the staff for their work on coming up with that. i think senators, you could see

the large number of senators who came today and who had thoughtful comments, and for those who came and couldn't get in the hearing room we'll do our best to have a larger hearing room for our next hearing which will be next tuesday at 10 a.m., and it'll be about fixing no child left behind supporting teachers and school leaders. so we look forward to that. i'd like to invite the witnesses if you've if there's something today that you wanted to say that you didn't get to say, we'd like to hear it. so if you could let us hear it especially if you could do it within the next ten days, that would be very, that would be very helpful. we would welcome it. and to the senators, i would say if you have additional questions, please ask them. for example, senator baldwin raised the question of how do we put the spotlight on whether it's the states and local governments who are coming up with all these extra tests and

senator bennet asked the same question. well, senator murray and i have written to state and local school districts trying to identify the number of tests. but if you have an idea about that on senator baldwin's effort, we would appreciate it. i would, i'm going to send you a question and ask the question whether do high stakes discourage multiple assessments? i would ask that question. and then i would like to invite mr. lazar to follow up his suggestion that one area where we might provide more funding is in developing better assessments. well, the dangers is that whenever the federal government does that, it likes to put its sticky fingers on exactly what to do and who must do them. so your comments on that would be -- >> mr. chair? >> yes. >> i'm interested in taking advantage of that opportunity and particularly because none of the witnesses had a chance to comment on what i said. could you let me know by what time you would like our

additional questions in so that our folks have -- what's my deadline? >> well what's convenient for you? [laughter] >> end of the week. >> okay, that'd be great. and we'll work with you. i think the sooner we get the questions out, the sooner we'll get good answers answers back. and we'll see how this goes. i'll work with senator murray. it may be that we have round table discussions rather than hearings, you know, at some point where we can sit around and actually have conversations and not be limited to fiver minutes of questions. -- five minutes of questions. so there are different ways to go about this. so if you could let us know within a week or sooner, sheldon, we'll go to work on that. [inaudible conversations] this friday. usually we say at the end of close of business this friday. that's what we usually say, i'm told. [laughter] i'm just learning. so if you can do it by the close of business friday that'd be helpful. the hearing record will be open

for ten days. we thank you for being here today. any other, any other outbursts or comment? anyone wants to make? [laughter] thank you to the witnesses. thank you very much for coming. the hearing's adjourned. [inaudible conversations] >> and we are live now on capitol hill this morning where the senate armed services committee is gathering to continue its series of hearings on u.s. national security threats. testifying before the committee today will be two former commanders of u.s. central command and a former army vice chief of staff. tomorrow service chiefs will discuss the impact of sequestration on national

security, and then thursday the series of hearings continue with henry kissinger, george shultz and madeleine albright testifying. they'll talk about global challenges and the u.s. national security strategy. and we will show you as much of this hearing as possible as the senate will be gaveling in this morning at is 11 eastern. by the way, the full hearing will be available later in our programming and online at c-span.org. this is live from capitol hill on c-span2. >> the senate armed services committee meets today for its second hearing in a series on global challenges and u.s. national security. chairman mckeon was invited to join the american delegation to the funeral of of the king of saudi arabia, and i know he

regrets not being able to join is all of us today. i request unanimous consent that chairman mckeon's opening statement be entered into the record. >> without objection. >> thank you, without objection. i am pleased to welcome general jim mattis, general jack keane and admiral william fallon. i welcome each of you today and i thank you for your willingness to testify before us. even more so i thank you on behalf of this committee and the american people for your decades of brave and honorable service to our country. it is because of leaders like you and the men and women you commanded and you continue to serve in uniform that american enjoy unprecedented freedom, security and prosperitiment each of you commanded at all levels and ultimately served in positions that required not only a deep knowledge of tactical operational and strategic levels of military operations, but also

an understanding of national security decision making at the highest levels. it is that experience at the nexus of military options and strategic national security making that is particularly relevant to our hearing today. the threats to the united states and our allies confronted that we are confronting are growing both in complexity and severity. in ukraine we have witnessed blatant russian aggression that that forced the add -- that has forced the administration to undertake a belated assessment of the nature of the putin regime and question long-held assumptions regarding the security situation in europe. in iraq and syria isis has established a safe haven and training ground in the heart of the middle east that it is using to destabilize the region and threaten the corps national security interests of the -- the

core national security interests of the united states and our allies. meanwhile, the regime in tehran seeks to use negotiations to achieve sanctions relief while avoid aring a permanent and -- while avoiding a permanent and verifiable end to its nuclear weapons program. simultaneously, iran continues to oppress its own people threaten key allies like israel and support terrorist groups like hezbollah. across the middle east and into north africa emboldened al-qaeda affiliates plot attacks against the united states and our allies. al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula uses the horrible security situation in yemen a country the president cited as recently as september as a counterterrorism success story, to plot and carry out terrorist attacks around the world. in the asia-pacific china is using historic economic growth to build military power that is

too often using to bully its neighbors and test international laws that are essential to the united states and our partners' international security and prosperity in the free waters in that region. while each of these threats and challenges are unique, with each of them there is a consistent and concerning gap between the strategies our national security interests require and the strategies that this administration is pursuing. likewise with defense sequestration set to return next year and the threats to our country growing there is also an increasing gap between the military capabilities we have and the military capabilities that we will need to address these threats. the key question for panel and for all of us remains, what is the best path forward to address these national security challenges? few in our country have as much

national security wisdom and real world experience as the members of this panel. between the three of you, you have more than 115 years of military experience, much of it at the most senior levels of our military. we look forward to hearing your best advice on how the federal government can fulfill its most important responsibility to the american people, and that is protecting the security of the united states of america. thank you very much and i would like to turn it over to senator reed. >> thank you very much, senator ayotte. let me join you in welcoming our witnesses, extraordinary individuals who have served the nation with great distinction and great courage never broke faith with the men and women they led which is the highest tribute that anyone can make to a soldier, sailor or marine. thank you very much, gentlemen. let me also thank senator mccain for examining the u.s.

global strategy. finish these discussions will help us inform our consideration of the administration's budget request which will be coming to us in a the few days. last week two of the most prominent u.s. strategic thinkers, general brent scowcroft and dr. zbigneiw brzezinski discussed unilateral negotiation on to iran's nuclear program, giving it sufficient time to reach a conclusion. they urged this body not to press forward with additional sanctions. this matter is being discussed at this very moment in the banking committee and indeed i have to leave here and go there because i'm a senior member of that committee also. and my colleagues will be taking up the slack, particularly senator king. i want to thank him. i will return, i hope, to ask questions of the panelists. much of last week's discussion

revolved around the administration's strategy in iraq and syria for confronting the regional and global terror threat posed by the so-called islamic state of iraq in the levant or isil. they stressed that efforts to take on isil require a comprehensive approach which includes both political and military elements. we also received testimony last week from the department of defense on the administration's program to train and equip the vetted opposition in syria. this is just one aspect of administration's approach that the isil threat in iraq and syria which is built upon an international coalition including regional arab and muslim states using economic tools to go of after isil's financing and a sustained campaign of airstrikes against isil leadership and facilities. this morning's hearing provides an opportunity in particular to examine the military aspects of our strategy of addressing the isil threat. all three of you have been thoughtful and outspocken in

your recommendations -- outspoken in your recommendations to that strategy, some aspects of which are reflected in the aspects the administration has taken to date. as of january the coalition effort has flown 15,000 sorties over iraq and syria. president obama has authorized the deployment of over 3000 military personnel to iraq to advise and assist iraq and kurdish security forces. at the administration's request the fiscal year 2015 national defense authorization act included $5.6 billion in overseas contingency operations funding nor -- for do to d actions in iraq and syria. also in that system general sew draft t and dr. brzezinski emphasized the need to work with and through partners so that the united states does in their words, end up owning the problem

itself. so i hope that our witnesses can bring their perspectives on this very challenging issue of strategy as senator ayotte said in both syria iraq and in the region. and, again i think it's appropriate to focus on not only just military aspects, but the political and tip lomatic initiatives -- diplomatic initiatives as well as economic initiatives. i want to again thank the witnesses. i particularly want to thank admiral fallon who made a tremendous effort to rearrange his schedule to join us, thank you for your efforts. and with that madam chairwoman, thank you. >> thank you so much, senator reed. i would like to s.t.a.r.t. with -- start with general mattis. general mattis served 42 years in the marine corps. we're very glad that you're here today, thank you so much for being here. general mattis. >> thank you, madam chairwoman ranking member reed, distinguished senators of the

committee. i have submitted a statement and request to be accepted for the record. >> yes. >> during my active duty years i testified many times before this committee and gained the highest regard for the manner in which you carried out your duties through good times and bad. i remain grateful for the support you provided our military. i commend the committee for holding these hearings. as former secretary of state george shultz has commented the world is awash in change. the international order so painstakingly put together by the greatest generation coming home from mankind's bloodiest conflict that international order is under increasing stress. it was created with elements we take for granted today. the united nations, nato the marshall plan, bretton woods and more. the constructed order reflected the wisdom of those world war ii veterans who recognized no nation lived as an island and we needed new ways to deal with

challenges that for better or worse, impacted all nations. like it or not today we are part of this larger world, and we must carry out our part. we cannot wait for problems to arrive here, or it will be too late. the international order built on the state system is not self-sustaining. it demands tending by an america that leads wisely, standing unapologetically for the freedoms each of us in this room have enjoyed. the hearing today addresses the need for america to adapt to changing suckers the -- circumstances, to come out now from our reactive crouch and take a firm, strategic stance in defense of our values. while we recognize that we owe future generations the same freedoms that we enjoy, the challenge lies in how to carry out that responsibility. to do so, america needs a refreshed national strategy. the congress can play a key role in crafting a coherent strategy with bipartisan support. doing so requires us to look

beyond the events that are currently consuming the executive branch. there's an urgent need to stop reacting to each immediate vexing issue in isolation. such response often creates unanticipated second order effects and even more problems for us. the senate armed services committee is uniquely placed in our system of government to guide, oversee and insure that we act strategically and morally using america's ability to inspire as well as its ability to intimidate to insure freedom for future generations. i suggest best way to get to the essence of these issues and to help crafting america's response to a rapidly changing security environment is simply to ask the right questions. if i were in your shoes these are some of the questions i would ask. what are the key threats to our vital enters? the intelligence community should delineate and provide

these threats if more your consideration. by rigorously defining the problems we face, you will enable a more intelligent and focused use of the resources allocated for national defense. is our intelligence community fit for its expanding purpose? today, ladies and gentlemen, we have less military shock absorber in our smaller military, so less ability to take surprise in surprise and fewer forward-deployed forces overseas to act as sentinels. accordingly, we need more early warning. working with the intel community, you should question if we are adequately funding the intel agencies to reduce the chance of our defenses being caught flat footed. we know that the foreseeable future is not foreseeable. incorporating the broadest issues into your assessments you should consider what we must do if the national debt is assessed to be the biggest national security threat we face. as president eisenhower noted the foundation of military strength is our economic

strength. in a few short years however we will be paying interest on our debt, and it will be a bigger bill than what we pay today for defense much of that interest money is destined to leave america for overseas. if we refuse to pay down our deficit, what is the impact on national security for future generations who will inherit this irresponsible debt and the taxes to service it? no nation in history has maintained its military power if it failed to keep its fiscal house in order. how do you urgently halt the damage caused by sequestration? no foe in the field can wreak such havoc on our security that mindless sequestration is achieving today. ..

we need a new security architecture for the mideast elk on sound policy one that permits us to take our own side in this fight. crafting such a policy starts with asking a fundamental question, and then the following questions. the fundamental question i believe is political islam in our best interest? if not, what is our policy to authoritatively support the countervailing forces?

of violent jihad is care is cannot be permitted to take refuge behind false religious garb and leave us unwilling to define this threat, the clarity it deserves. we have many potential allies around the world and in the middle east who will rally to us but we have not been clear about where we stand in define or deal with the growing wireless jihadists terrorist threat. iran is a special case that must be dealt with as a threat to regional stability, nuclear and otherwise. i believe you should question the value of congress adding new sanctions while negotiations are ongoing by having them ready should the negotiations for preventing their nuclear weapons capability and implementing stringent monitoring breakdown. further question now if we have the right policies in place when iran creates more mischief in lebanon, iraq, bahrain yemen, saudi arabia and elsewhere in the region.

recognizing the regional counterweight to egypt, saudi arabia, the united arab emirates and the rest of the gulf cooperation council can reinforce us if they understand our policy. in afghanistan we need to consider if we're asking for the same outcome there as we saw last summer in iraq should we pull out all our troops on the administration's proposed timeline. echoing the same military advice given on the same issue about iraq when we pulled the troops out. the gains achieved in the great cause against the enemy in afghanistan are reversible. we should recognize we may not want this fight but the barbarity of an enemy that kills women and children and has refused to break with al-qaeda needs to be fought. more broadly, as u.s. military team developed a fight across the spectrum of combat knowing that enemies always will move against our perceived weakness, our forces must be capable of

missions of nuclear deterrence, counterinsurgency and everything in between, now including the pervasive cyber domain. while surprise is always a factor, this committee can ensure that we have the fewest big regrets with the next surprise occurs. while we don't want or need a military that is at the same time dominant and irrelevant, you must sort this out and deny funding for basis or capabilities in the longer needed. the nuclear stockpile must be tended to and fundamental questions must be asked and answered. we must clearly establish the role of our nuclear weapons do they serve solely to deter nuclear war? if so we should say so and the resulting clarity will help determine the number we need. i think you could ask is the time to reduce the triad of dyad, removing the land-based missiles. this would also reduce the false alarm danger. could we've reenergized the armed control effort by only counting warheads vice

launchers? was the russian test violating the inf treaty simply a blunder on their part or a change in policy? what is our appropriate response. the reduced size of military drives the need to ask different questions. our military is uniquely capable and the in the of the world but are we resourcing it to ensure we have the highest quality troops, the best equipment and the toughest training. with a smaller military comes the need for troops kept at the top of their game. when we next put them in harm's way must be the enemy's longest day and worst day curator readiness for the smaller force must be closely scrutinized to ensure we are not merely hollowing out the military. while sequestration is the nearest threat to this national treasure that is the u.s. military sustaining it as the worldsworld's best when it's smaller will need your critical oversight. are the navy and our expeditionary forces receiving

the support they need in a world where america's naval role is more pronounced because we have fewer forces posted overseas? with the cutbacks of the army and air force in fewer forces around the world military aspects of our strategy will inevitably become more naval in character. this will provide a decision time for political leaders considering employment of additional forms of military power. you are resourcing of our naval and expeditionary forces will need to take this evolved into account. today, i question if our shipbuilding budget is sufficient especially in light of the situation in the south china sea. while our efforts in the pacific the positive relations with china are well and good these airports must be paralleled by a policy to build the counterbalance if china continues to upstanders bolding role in the south china sea and elsewhere. that counterbalance must deny china's veto power over

territorial security and economic conditions in the pacific, build and support our diplomatic efforts maintain stability and economic prosperity so critical to our economy. in light of the worldwide challenges to the international order we are nonetheless shrinking our military. we have to than ask a readjusting our strategy and taking into account a reduced role for the shrunken military. strategy connects in ways and means with less military available, we must reduce our appetite for using it. prioritization is needed if we are to remain capable those critical mission or which we have a military, to fight on short notice and defend the country. we have to ask does our strategy and associated melcher planning as senator reid pointed out take into account our nation's increased need for allies? the need for stronger alliances comes more sharply into focus as we shrink the military.

no nation can on its own to all that is necessary for its own security. further, history reminds us that country with allies generally defeat those without allies. as churchill intimated however, the only thing harder than fighting with allies is fighting without them. this committee should track closely and increased military capability to work with allies. panetta amounts being for most but not our only focus. in reference to nato and the light of the russian violations of international borders, we must ask if the nato allies efforts have adjusted to the unfortunate endangered mode the russian leadership have slipped into. with regard to tightening the bond between our smaller military and those of the military's we may need at our side in future fights, the convoluted foreign military sales system needs your challenge. hopefully it can be put in order before we drive more potential partners to equip themselves with foreign equipment, a move that makes it harder to achieve

needed interoperability with our allies and undercuts america's industrial base. currently the system fails to reach such potential. as we attempt to restore stability to the state system and international order, critical question will be is america good for its word. when we made clear a position to get our word about something our friends and even our enemies must recognize that we are good for it otherwise dangerous miscalculations can occur. when the decision is made to employ our forces in combat by the commander-in-chief, the committee should still ask should the military be employed with the proper authority? for example, on the political objectives clearly defined and achievable? murky or quixotic political in state can condemn us into entry wars we don't know how to end. notifying beginning in advance of our withdrawal dates are reassuring the enemy that we will not use certain capabilities like our ground forces should should we avoid.

such announcement do not take the place of mature, well defined in states nor do they contribute to ending wars as rapidly as possible on favorable terms. you should ask is the theater of war itself sufficient for effective prosecution? we've witnessed safe havens prolonged war. if the defined theater is insufficient, the plan itself needs to be challenged. ask is the authority for detaining prisoners of war appropriate for the enemy and type war we are fighting. we've observed the perplexing lack of detainee policy that has resulted in the return of released prisoners to the battlefield. we should not engage in another fight without resolving this issue up front, treating hostile forces in fact as hostile. you have to also ask, are americans diplomatic, economic and other assets aligned to the war in? we have experienced a the military alone trying to achieve tasks outside its expertise.

and we take the series decision to fight we must bring to bear all our nation's resources and you should question of the diplomatic and development efforts will be employed to build momentum for victory and our nation strategy demands that comprehensive approach. finally, the culture of our military and its rules are designed to bring about appleton success in the most best and garment on earth. no matter how laudable and turns for progressive countries instinct, this committee needs to consider carefully any proposed changes to military rules, traditions and standards to bring noncombat emphasis to combat units. there is a great difference between military service and dangerous circumstances, and serving in a combat unit whose role is to search out, kill the enemy at close quarters. this committee has a responsibility for imposing reason over impulse when proposed changes to reduce the combat capability of our forces

at the point of contact with the enemy. ultimately we need the foresight of this committee acting in its that no and oversight role to draw us out of our reactive stance that we have fallen into and chart a strategic way ahead. our national security strategy need your bipartisan direction. in some cases human need to change our processes for developing integrated national strategy, because mixing capable people with good ideas and bad processes results in the bad processes defeating good people's ideas nine times out of 10. this is an urgent matter because in an interconnected age when opportunistic adversaries can work in tandem our country needs to regain its strategic voting. we need to bring the clarity to our efforts reform in the the confidence of the american people and the support of the central allies. this committee i believe template in a central strategic role in this regard.

thank you, madam chairman. >> thank you, general mattis. next of like to introduce general keane. general keane is a vietnam combat veteran, former vice chief of staff of the army one of the architects of the successful surge in iraq and current chairman of the institute for the study of war. general keane. >> madam chairman, senator ayotte, ranking minority senator reed, members of this just in which committee. thank you for inviting to testify on such a critical issue as america's global security challenges. it's always a privilege to be with this committee 15 plus years and association for me, his reputation that tackling tough issues has always been appreciated. i am honored to be here with general jim mattis and animal fox violent, both highly respected military the leaders. i don't know what the criteria for panel selection was but we have something in common. we're all getting older and we're four stars retired.

but the thing that we also have in common, we are very erect we are very straightforward and we sure as hell aren't opinionated. so unusual cynics is somebody who is nuanced circumspect et cetera. you're not going to get that from three of us today. we don't always agree but you are going to know what we are thinking. please accept my written testimony for the record and i'll briefly outlined those are marked it up with an extra in there because congratulations to the members of joint this committee. has some background information in the that you may feel helpful to come and appreciate senator mccain giving us a little extra time this went on such a complex subject. the united states is confronting emerging security challenges on a scale not seen since the rise of the soviet union, the superpower status following world war ii. with radical islam morphing into the global jihad iran's sinking

regional hegemony and revisionist powers, russia and china, capable of employing varying degrees of sophistication, disruptive methods of war that will severely test the united states military's traditional methods of projecting a sustaining power abroad. given u.s. defense budget projections, united states will have to confront these challenges without its long-standing decided advantage in the scale of resources, it is able to devote to the competition. indeed, the budget control act or sequestration, is not only irresponsible in the face of these emerging challenges it is downright reckless. let me briefly outlined the major security challenges and what we can do about them. radical islam as much as nazism and communism both political movements, ideologically driven with a major security challenges of the 20th century radical islam is the major sector challenge of our generation. radical islam as i'm definin