this is a unique state of affairs. ideally we are completely speculating and the federal government. but, of course, this is a sad realization that i am sharing with you. this crisis that began in 2008 nine, 10, instead of helping has come closer together is creating centrifugal forces that is making the political process of unifying even harder. ..

to invest, borrow at negative yield, negative interest rates, that is very different i understand your argument but i understand the fear after government that doesn't want to have debt-to-gdp ratio that exceeds 6%. in our government there is no fiscal room for deficit spending program. however, and this is a big however, europe as a whole eurozone as a whole is typified not only by a mountain of great private and public debt, which we do have, but there is another

mountain hiding behind this, huge mountain of idle savings with nowhere go and it should be our joint project to energize motivate those idle savings to overcome the great fear that keeps them idle and channel them into protective investments. not investments into assets but in real productive capacity. how do we do this? we have european investment bank that could do this. and we have european central bank embarking on quantitative easing. why can't they fund a new major deal for europe that channels investment to the private sectors of the regions within countries that have regions with great deflationary forces running through them with the ecb standing by to jump in into

secondary markets to purchase the eib bonds if yields start going up? you know mention there is no mention of government here. there is no need for government involved. no deaf at this time spending by greece portugal, anybody. it is money borrowed by the taxpayer on banking principles as it has been doing for decades. but the acb is playing a role that simulates the federal government in process of smart quantitative easing. i'm only mentioning this because we need to have an answer to the question okay, you don't have a federation, you don't have the political dynamic that can lead you to one. how can you respond differently from self-defeating austerity? i wanted to give one small example of the kind of out of the box thinking that can get us there but to do this we need to begin trusts one another.

i come back to the original question. we greeks have to earn the trust of our partners but they must also acknowledge the fact that for five years now, particularly problem has been impose upon our nation that has been making banking problems worse. >> let's say i buy your analysis but there is a certain reality here. you owe some money yet you can't afford to pay unless they open the spigots. he says to us, it is up to them. they meet my conditions or i will not let them have any money, not quite how i put it. look what is going on. greek yields are buying in the bond market. no contagion to portugal or spain. he says there won't be smooth sailing if you have to leave the euro. it probably couldn't be done though. are you inexorably walking to point where you have very little leverage left around you

basically have to default? then what happens after that? >> i would willingly eagerly an enthusiastically accept any terms offered to us if they made sense. i would have no problem with a memorandum of understanding if it was founded upon a reform program that attacked the worst things in greece and made reforms necessary in order to enhance efficiency and social justice. if it came from the planet mars if it came from berlin came from brussels, came from portugal slovakia, i don't care with it comes from, would i embrace it. the problem we with these conditions, take or leave it conditions not so much we tried the medicine and it hasn't work.

>> so what happens if you can't come to resolution. >> hang on a second. our government, that is the second question, these days i'm told that liquidity is drying up in greece and it is. but you know what? there is a reason why it is drying up. the reason is that the previous government in its infinite wisdom decide to try to retain power by starting a bank run. saying in no uncertain terms, if we win, the banks will be shut the next day. how irresponsible is that for a sitting government when the opinion polls clearly showing we're going to win to start a bank run in order to survive. at very same time you had voices from within the system, the euro system, system of european central banks warning people if we win there would be liquidity

restrictions. then the moment we won the liquidity restrictions started happening. on the 4th of february the day after i visited london and inspired some enthusiasm in investors mind to the extend that the stock exchange went up 11% next day ecb removed waiver and started imposing stricter and stricter restrictions on the commercial banks capacity to participate in. liquidity is being squeezed, and demand for liquidity due to fears being prop pa gated into the system increased. ing mall i take a elastic band, tied it around your arm very tightly, said, oh, you have a liquidity problem with your blood vessels. you will become gang again news, what will you do about it? i don't think this is the way that our european union and

monetary union was meant to function. our answer to your question is very simple. we will compromise, we will compromise and we will compromise in order to come to a speedy agreement. but we're not going to end up being compromised. this is not what we were elected for. we were elected to put an end draw a line, at the debt deflationary spiral and to the fact that the reform program that was perpetuated in greece, imposed in greece was badly designed and administered by those who to be reformed but refusing to be reformed. if this means that europe is going to stand idle by while a young government is snuffed out i have to say our only rational, pro-european response is to

spend every waking hour, moment, second trying to reach a honorable agreement with our partners. we shall endeavor to come to reforms along the lines that i mentioned on privatization and pensions and, and at the same time make a commitment that is cast in stone, iron, even, you know, penned in our own blood in order to increase capability that we shall never slip again into primary deficit. this is what we're committing to. we're invitings our global partners and european partners to meet us not halfway 1/5 of the way. we expect them to do this. why? because toying with exit, which is something we don't do, we are refusing to discuss it, as i said before, even worrying about it is like being hit by comet in the universe which comets are

attracted to you if you're worried about them. toying with exit and ideas of amputating greece is profoundly uneuropean. anybody who claims they know what the effects after exit is are deluded. >> let me say yanis when the minister was here an hour ago he also ruled out exit and expressed his confidence that a solution will be found. i was quite kind of happy to hear that he said quite strongly. so i think i mean i think everybody, i think is trying to fine a solution. let me ask you the following. in the experience of the imf and of the world bank and of debt issues there is the precedent of saying to a country, to a group of countries bring up your

reform program. we will suspend your debt payments but the final debt agreement will come two or three years later provided that your reform program, i mean there can be changes negotiated during the two, three years, but provided that your program has been carried out? in other words greece would suspend payments with the agreement of the creditors including by the way, imf payments, in exchange of an agreement of reforms but would also commit, this is not restructuring done up front. the real legal restructuring or reprofiling if you like or change of interest rate whatever you call it would come after, let's say two or three

years of a period during which the program is carried out. so to me -- and there is this experience that has been actually successful for a group of low income countries. it has never been used for a middle income country. but i kind of wonder, whether the seeming unbridgeable gap, without, when you make a debt payment, you run out of money. you don't have the time right now to build the whole program. so that way you could find, could you have the time, to build up a program. meantime, your debt burden will be relieved, primary surplus would go down. at the same time the creditor community and the intinternational institutions would not write off any part of your debt in a complete way or agree to any change in interest rate in a final way. >> well, this is such a radical proposal that i didn't even think about it myself.

>> well, our proposals are extremely moderate by comparison. if this is put to me, i would say i would look at this first would this belief, then a few minutes later with glee and satisfaction. we don't need that degree of generosity from our creditors. if we get it we would be very happy. what we need, is, to stay faithful to the spirit of the 209th of february agreement at the -- 20th of february agreement at europe level. would allow greece to be -- much its reform agenda. we would dearly like to get down the work of actually discussing the actual bills that will go through parliament to affect these reforms. we've been pushing for this. instead however we keep hearing there has to be comprehensive review, the kind that never happened last few years. it has to happen within a few

weeks of our government being elected but nevertheless we go along with that. and what i would think would be very -- would be to separate the conditionalities for closing the final review of this current program, on the basis of four or five major reforms that need to be done and can be done in the space over the next few weeks. let's face it, this is the time frame we're facing. do what you're suggesting by end of june, very soon, but nevertheless we're prepared to do this but by end of june come to agreement about long term. that is what we're proposing. key from the beginning to effect the separation there for of the current review from the medium and long term, is, i think essential for avoiding the accident and creating

circumstances for greece's recovery, which by the way let's, say a few things on the optimistic note, if we make this, and i believe we will. and i'm greatly encouraged by what he said in this hall an hour or so ago. if there is a declaration similar to that of mario draghi's of 2012, that the eurozone will do whatever it takes to remain individual and at the same time there is announcement of an agreement between greece and its international and european partners, on a number, especially fiscal matters let's agree on appropriate fiscal numbers that not exorbitant as they are now. p sub is standings investment packages through the european central bank. a way to write off non-performing loans from the banking sector in order to

unclog the clogged circuits. privatization policies and social security and safety rather than five things. debt restructure proposal that doesn't have haircuts and ends up giving more value back to the creditors through gdp around bonds. at the same time we attack, what i call the trilogy of sin in greece which is prosecurement -- procurement, bureaucracy sir the political system with a such a cozy relationship with the oligarchy and the media that play a toxic role in greek society and always have done. at the same time, we have reforms that then percolate down to the level of produce market supermarkets then go down to pharmacists if we need to, but the patients and pharmacists we we attack all of the sources in

greece would be great if it weren't so tragic these things we can agree upon in one afternoon. the announcement of such an agreement will unleash such a wave of optimism about greece. remember asset prices in greece are on the floor. suddenly greece will be a great field for bargain hunting. there is going to be such a a relief amongst greek investors amongst foreign investors. and we have excellent human capital and various potentially growth in the space at that we can do the one thing we have not been able to do, create export led model that would be buoyed by the initial enthusiasm and will be fueled immediately after that by a never of ending sequence of great reforms. this is what we're striving for. it would be such a great shame

if this agreement is not included in the next few days, or weeks. thank you. >> we have to leave the room at 4:00. okay. let's see. but what i'll do, if it is okay with yanis and david take a few together. lady up front. please identify yourself. >> thank you very much. i am greek citizen. i would like to thank mr. varoufakis for the political analysis. would i like to request address this question to policymakers because you are member after government who is starting in january. a coalition of populist party and sereza, we know from our families, from our friends in greece, day after day greeks are waiting an action from this

government related to development. so i would like to ask you do you have any proposal any development measure that this government took since january 2015? thank you very much. >> we'll go for gentleman there in the middle. >> thanks very much. assistant professor at johns hopkins next door. i have actually a question for you as a politician. i think many of us actually agree with your economic analysis. d.c. is probably most favorable audience you're going to get. as a politician are you worried that being right is not going to be enough? because the political economy is that realty you're one against 18. in the eurozone. how are the 18 other eurozone countries going to sell

concessions they're going to make to your government if they meet you 1/5 of the way? the thank you. >> third gentleman all the way to the back there yes, you're right there. >> i'm basil scarlet. observer of greek economy over last 30 years off and on. i wanted to make a suggestion regarding ones that you might find sensible dealing with the state-own enterprises and the suggestion is, before you sell off the family jewels that you consider making them more productive by eliminating pat troh imagine jobs which have gone on for 30 years or longer and specifically, that you fire non-performing employees who have very high salaries compared to the private sector in greece, in contrast to many other countries. but they have extreme job security. on top you give jobs to youth of greece which have 60%

unemployment. and then to attract foreign investment, you consider eliminating the restrictions on mass dismissals. >> i think we take three. you answer this and a few more? okay. then you have the, the lady at the back there next to the camera, who still has her hand up. i'm trying to keep gender balance also. >> thank you so much. from bloomberg tv africa. we know that a lot of economists are basing on the fact that greece will leave the eurozone. that is at least what we're hering. what do you assure that greece doesn't leave the eurozone? madam lagarde said imf rules state you can not have any delay in payments. we heard from the german finance minister he give you advice you stick to the reforms. how do you plan to ensure you will not be compromised but

instead assure that you are going to compromise as much as you possibly can without putting the greek economy in danger? thank you. >> make one more. i mean subject to my imf friends in the room, there have been cases of arrangements conditional on future performance so, you know, it is not an undone thing that some payments are either refinanced or delayed. >> thank you very much. with sgcs. my question is follow-up to what all the colleagues said before. and, it goes to th essence of negotiations that are taking place. it seems to me, and you know, reading papers, trying to talk to some of the actors involved, that the piece that is missing is not so much the flexibility and trying to find a slightly different compromise on how to achieve the goals that you want

to achieve but,. the lack of specificity. basically how i understand it, your eurozone partners and institutions involved, are showing some kind of flexibility but, since there has been a breakdown in trust what they would like to see is not so much generic goals formulated but more specific actions taken the beginning of actions taken help restore the trust that has been broken probably over the past few years, not due to your actions necessarily but due to all the things that have happened since 2010. how do you respond to that criticism? thank you. >> yanis your turn. >> yes. right, your question. policies. what are we suggesting?

a shuns. -- actions. i did allude to some before. each one of these topic was take up another whole lecture but the, example again concerns privatization, okay? so our policy of developing public assets in conjunction with privateers where we have minimum investment standards in the ports when it comes to the airways, right? that is a very clear policy saying we are going to go into partnership with the private sector. we will allow them to manage it. we will even give them a majority share holding. but they will have to insure minimum investment, inmum labor standards. minimum environmental standards. that is policy.

i could, i don't have the time but i could give you a lot of different examples of this. i could talk to you about our ideas regarding the tax system. so for instance, in greece we have the peculiar privilege of being a country with extremely high tax rates and extremely low tack states. how do we intend to tackle this problem if there are ways of doing it. we're in the process again you have to realize our sovereignty is severely second quarter couple described by the negotiation. in almost everything that we are introducing as ideas, we're being told that it has to go through a filter of negotiating process. that is slowing us down. we have much caner than it seems to legislate and put these actions, put these policies in practice. on the question of, i will come to your question because it's, it is related on the question of lack of specificity.

well, let me answer it just directly. our original suggestions to our partners was that we sit down, specify, three four, five bills, that need to be introduced and particular reforms. indeed we said to them, to build trust, this is the only way we know how to do it. agree on three measures that need to be taken. you pass judgement on us, depending on us. we didn't get anywhere. everything has to be discussed. my fear when you discuss everything, you're not discussing about much. so, let me share another source of frustration with you. we entered into these negotiations. we constantly asked for you know narrowing down the focus

specificity that you're referring to. we present proposals. 10-page, 20-page, 100 page particular proposals which are not discussed. instead we have comprehensive review which is effectively an avalanche of questions and questionnaires about this, that, other. quantifying this. this is not same thing as talking about specific policies, okay? international press becomes full of reports that we have no proposals. in a situation where we reveal our proposals this is considered to be unilateral action that is breaching faith. please consider that. on the questions of, you asked me the standard questions, what is it better, to be right or to actually succeed? i don't know of any way in which i can argue something that i believe is wrong. consider this to be my personal

failure as a politician. in that case, i'm very happy for you to say that i'm not a good politician. but i would rather tell you what i think should be done. instead of using subterfuge. you see the previous five years, are full of greek politicians who signed on the dotted line and they played little strategic games and made commitments they never intended to uphold. didn't work very well. maybe the truth will work. not that i have the monopoly of the truth but i tell you what i truly believe in. this is not a game for me personally speaking. let me also, because you also asked a question, how will you convince the a-team that are standing in front of you? i don't believe it is as simple as that. appearances are deceptive. there is a great deal of the common ground between us and the

18. there is something else happening here. there is equalibrium of consensus, which definitely is not found on genuine unity of conviction that the that everybody is on the right track and our suggestions are wrong. as adam smith once said, when you address the beg a the brewer and butcher do not speak to them on the your needs speak to them on the base serves their interests. we'll always try to couch the argument what is in terms the common interest for europe. we're not generally in this for the greeks. we're in this for maximizing the benefits to the other europeans. it is only strategy i'm willing to pursue. let me finish? >> no, no, go ahead. there was one more question? >> there was a question about

state enterprises. >> oh, yeah. >> and, jobs that are secure, highly-paid and effectively patronage. >> hire younger workers. >> this is obviously a final bush shun and it is one that i share. firstly, before i get to it, let me say that we have many fewer state enterprises than we did some years ago since you have been an observer okay? so privatization is not process that is growing to begin now. it already happened to a very large extent. very few state enterprises exist. all right? telecommunication, for instance, gone. port authority partly gone. we are in the process of considering, there is a tender that is happening for the remaining. we will be very happy to see the

development of the railway system in conjunction with private partners and management teams that come from outside. but you're quite right. not so much for state enterprises but for the whole of the greek bureaucracy, and the greek public sector. now it is quite clear that we need in order to do what you say a system of effective evaluation. under the previous government troika was a travesty. i know from first-hand, on some of these occasions people that were fired were most productive and younger ones that were kept were better connected ones. we know this from universities, don't we? system evaluations can be a double-edged sword. what they do, they create a system of evaluation but also a system of power. sometimes when their own people use it, in order to prop pa bate their own power the -- propagate their own power and we

need to do this very carefully and we're working on it. finally would like to do the for the eurozone we'll compromise, compromise compromise without being compromised. that is what we're going to do. >> david, you have the last two questions? very quick the questions. >> one over there. and then the gentleman here. over here,. >> very quickly. >> short. >> i work in local government and we are looking at models that you have collective impact where rising tide can raise all boats but it is compromise using collective impact, cross 2nd tore collaboration between non-profits, private sector and public sector, we're having good success with that here in fairfax county, virginia, just outside of washington d.c. there is interesting progress in social impact bonds. >> here. >> how confident that there will

be able to reach an agreement with institutions that everyone will hope that the agreement will be approved by parliament? >> if we reach and agreement it will be approved by parliament. okay. regarding your question i'm familiar with social impact bonds and they're a very good idea. first we need to conclude this negotiation so we can get down to work. >> okay, we do have to close. i'm very, very grateful, to all of you. please stay so the minister can be escorted outside first. that is the rules. many thanks to all of you. yanis, many thanks. i want to predict there will be an agreement. [applause]

flee coming up on c-span two, president obama holding a joint news conference with the prime minister of italy. coverage starts 11:50 a.m. eastern. this weekend full of live event coverage on c-span networks. politics on c-span, "l.a. times" festival of books on booktv, historians discuss the end of the civil war on american history tv. c-span, saturday morning beginning 10:00 eastern live all-day coverage of the republican party i officers in the nation leadership summit. speakers include texas governor ted cruz, wisconsin governor scott walker, ohio governor john

kasich and kentucky senator rand paul. booktv is live at university of southern california for "the los angeles times" festival of books. panels on journalism and publishing and author call-in programs throughout the day. some authors you her from best-selling biographer, scott berg, tavis smiley and radio talk show host hugh hewitt. "l.a. times" festival of books historian richard reeves. authors take your phone calls throughout the day. on c-span3 saturday morning at 8:45 eastern for an all-day event on end of the civil war. speakers include, harold holzer. caroline janney, james mack fear son. 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. eastern, 150th anniversary of president lincoln's assassination, with ceremony at lincoln's cottage re-creations of ford's theater and tour of

the peterson house where the president died. our complete schedule is at c-span.org. education secretary arne duncan testified on his department's 2016 budget and discussed the impact of sequestration on the classroom with members of a senate appropriations subcommittee. this is an hour and who minutes. -- 40 minutes. >> appropriation of subcommittee on education and services will come to order. glad to have certainly secretary duncan with us today. and mr. secretary, thank you for being here and thank you for the conversations we've had prior to this hearing today. we look forward to working with

you. one of the long-term commitments to the national government, even before it was the government under the constitution was to do things to encourage education. i think the land ordinance of 1785, set aside a section in all developed territory to be sold to be used for public schools. that is how long the federal government or the national government has thought there was a role here. i would also point out that they had no real interest in running those local schools. they set that aside. i'm certainly always more receptive to those things that we do that encourage local school districts to try things rather than to tell them that they have to be things that apply all over the country. i guess one of my biggest concerns with the budget that is submitted is it appears to be well beyond the money that the law would currently allow us to spend on these issues and i hope we can work together to find the

common ground of prioritizing even in the early stages of marking up the budget, the kinds of things where you believe and we agree would have the most impact on making education work better for families and students. i was encouraged that the budget emphasizes funding for core education programs like title one and idea. things that we long ago told local districts they had to participate in. generally promise ad significantly high every level of support that the federal government's already provided. so i was glad to see you looking in that direction. i'm concerned that we overreach on into too many education issues as you and i have talked about. state capitals in many cases are a long way from where education really has too meet the students needs let alone the national

capital and we need to be looking at that. also want to talk later about the idea of a proposed framework for a federal college ratings system. i think it's hard to come up with a truly unbiased rating or ranking system. frankly i haven't yet been persuaded there is a reason for that. we have such diversity in higher education and diverse ways of both delivering a product and measuring that whether that product has impacted the people that are served by that institution, in a way that really advances them. so i think this is going to be an area that i'm going to be concerned about. as you know. but hopefully we can work together to meet the goals of this committee which is to achieve the right funding levels and right policy, help you achieve the right policy levels for the department. so grad you're here today.

i'm glad to recognize senator murray as she joins us, the ranking member of this committee >> thank you very much mr. chairman. you know this is a very timely hearing of the department of education's budget. i also serve as the ranking member on the senate health, education, labor and pensions committee. senator alexander is here as well, the chair of that and as you know we began this week marking up a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the elementary and secondary education act. compromise is step in the right direction to fix badly broken no child left behind law. it will give states and districts flexibility while also maintaining federal guardrails to insure all our students have access to quality education. we will continue to work on this bill today. and senator alexander i'm assuming we'll be able to move it out. so congratulations to you on that. i look forward to working with all of my colleagues to improve our bipartisan compromise. actually get this bill signed into law.

i want to thank you mr. secretary, for all your leadership and for your staff assistance to the got bill as far along as it is. i look forward to continuing to improve the bill with your help. for our work on this committee we'll need to make sure we make right investments to improve education and expand opportunities for all americans. i believe the only with to create sustainable, economic growth is from the middle out, not from the top down. and education is an important investment to insure our government works for all of our families, not just the wealthiest few. so more people get the opportunity to learn and to work hard and succeed. not only that, a quality education system is also essential to our nation's economic competitiveness. investments we make today, will help insure that america's workforce in the years ahead will be able to take, to create and take on jobs of the 21st century. of course, last month the senate debated and passed a budget resolution. unfortunately i believe that budget proposal and one that

passed the house fails to support investments that we do need in education by contrast the president's budget proposal would invest in students, educators, schools and communities to make sure that every american has access to high quality education from the cradle through their career. in 2013 i was very proud to work with democrats and republicans to break through the gridlock an dysfunction here to reach an agreement that rolled back those all i can cuts for fiscal years, 2014 and deal prevent ad another government shutdown. moved us away from constant crises. restored critical invests in education and research and defense jobs and a lot more. it really helped get our economy moving again. so we need to work on ways to build on that agreement lift the caps and restore critical invests for the coming year and beyond. the president's budget would do that. it would roll back cuts to

defense and non-defense discretionary spending. democrats and republicans both agree sequestration is terrible policy. we worked together to address this before. i hope we can work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle in both chambers to come to a compromise avoid another crisis, to insure we are investing in our communities. the department of education's budget proposal starts with our youngest learners. i'm a former preschool teacher. i have seen first-hand the kind of transformation that early learning can inspire in a child. i believe that we should be investing more in children, not less. the president's budget would increase funding for the preschool development grants program. right now this program is helping 18 states expand high quality, early learning programs for low and middle income children and families. but the need to expand high quality early learning programs doesn't just exist in 18 of our states. in fact, 36 states, actually applied last year, including my

home state of washington. this budget proposal would continue this program and enable my state and others to earn grants to expand early learning. in our country we believe that all students should have access to a quality public education regardless where they're from or how they learn or how much money their parents make. congress established title i in the nation's education bill to provide federal resources for students from all background get resources they need. but today across the country inequality in our education system persists. some schools simply don't offer the same opportunities as others. mr. secretary, i was very pleased to see that the department's budget proposal, proposes increase in title one finding. those resources will help close gaps in education and achievement so all of our students have access to high quality education to put them on

a path to college and be career ready. i want to raise concern on impact aid in your proposed budget. impact aid give our students and schools and military tribal communities federal support and stability. as you know impact aid is critical for communities in washington state and across the country. your budget would eliminate $67 million for the federal property program within impact aid. now, i have made very clear i oppose those cuts, just as bipartisan majority of my colleagues do. also mr. secretary, as you know our country will need a highly skilled workforce to take on jobs of the 21st century. in congress we should be working to make college more affordable, to reduce the crushing burden of student debt and give americans the chance to further their education and training and skills. so i am pleased that you're proposal will help make college more affordable by increasing investments in the pell grant program. in addition, last year congress came together to pass the workforce innovation and

opportunity act with strong bipartisan support. in that bill we strengthened the connections between adult education and workforce systems. i'm pleased that your budget proposes resources to support integrating those systems so more workers can connect with available job positions. in our country as i said we believe all students should have access to a quality public education. thank you, secretary duncan, for being here today, to share the department's vision for achieving that goal. overall the president's budget proposal proposes several important investments that will help prepare all students for challenges of the coming century. they will help sustain long-term and broad base economic growth from the middle out so that families, more families have the chance to get ahead not just those at the top. i'm very hopeful that democrats and republicans can work together to make investments we need to make to make sure every american gets the chance to learn. thank you, mr. chairman.

i yield the floor. >> thank you, mr. secretary as you start your seventh year as secretary of education. i look forward appreciate your dedication to this cause and work you've done. i might say before we start i think we have a vote scheduled at 11 but i think it is only one vote. my goal would be just to continue the hearing, senator murray, if that is okay with you. we'll try to go over in a different times and cast that one vote. and, take advantage both of our time and your time in the best possible way. mr. secretary, glad you're here. look forward to your many it. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman ranking member murray and members of the subcommittee. i'm pleased to talk to you today about how we can continue important progress, expand educational opportunity for every child in america. thanks to the hard work of america's teachers, principals families communities, very importantly the students themselves for first time ever, four out of five students are completing high school on time. high school graduation rates are

record high. dropout rates are at historic lows. we've seen very significant drops in, reductions in dropout rates for minority students. college enrollment for african-american and hispanic students is up by more than a million since 2008. and more students than ever are graduating from college. getting to this point has required huge and difficult challenges in our schools. but these changes haven't been easy but they are working. to build upon our current momentum is it is imperative to give schools educators, support, resources funding they need. this is not the time to turn back the clock on progress that our schools, our children and ultimately our nation is making. at the end of 2013 as you talked about, policymakers under senator murray's and representative ryan's bipartisan leadership came together to partially reverse sequestration. pay for higher levels of discretionary funding with long-term reforms. this agreement while limited allowed us to invest in critical

areas from strengthening our military to research in our schools. in 2014, congress was able to restore some sequestration cuts to title one which serves our poor children and ida which serves children with special needs. president's 2016 budget builds on progress, reversing sequestration, paying for it with balanced mix of spending cuts and closing tax loopholes. the president's's budget proposes additional deficit reduction and would reduce debt as a share of our economy. the president made it clear he will not accept a budget that locks in sequestration, which would bring both defense and non-defense funding to their lowest levels in a decade. the reality today is states, districts and families and students need more, smarter resources to prepare all student both for their future and for their now. to that end, our budget reflects four main priorities. first, insuring that all young people have a chance to learn

and succeed. our request includes one billion dollar increase for title one to help close resource and equity gaps. second as senator murray talks passionately about we want states to expand high quality preschool. our budget includes $75 billion in mandatory funding to work with states to make voluntary preschool for all low and moderate income 4-year-olds. includes $750 million to expand preschool development grants where we see so much demand across the nation. third, supporting educators including investing $2.3 billion to improve teacher and principal effectiveness. finally improving postsecondary access most notably through america's college promise two years of community college free for responsible students. that idea is led by senator alexander's state of tennessee. across the areas we commit to supporting and spreading local innovations. not innovations coming from me or anyone else in washington.

local innovations, those invested in innovation program. we received more than 2hundred applications for this program -- 2800. unfortunately we only had resources to sport 140 fantastic local ideas. we're focused developing evidence to maximize results both for students and for taxpayers. through first in the world we're aiming to promote student success at scale. a set aside for minorities serving institutions at historically black colleges and universities will support their critical contributions to this work. we also here had an overwhelming response to the competition. 460 applicants. we were able to fund only 24. educators and schools need support to advance their progress. this isn't about spending money for its own sake. about making prudent investments to insure excellent and equity for every student. quickly before i close, i want to thank senator alexander and senator murray for their good faith, bipartisan work to fix

the broken no child left behind. it is long overdue. we're moving to real work. you guys i can't ask you to work any harder smarter or more colab a i have it. senator murray, we appreciate your combined leadership. hopefully not for us but for our nation's kids. thank you so much. i will stop there, happy to take any questions you might have. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. secretary. i will ask a couple of questions. we can have another round of questions if members here have that i'm sure i will have more than one series of questions. on the higher education ranking system or ratings system, it has been a year-and-a-half now where i think the department's been talking about coming up with criteria. that criteria still looks like to me that it's not very specific. even, talking about how many intangible things there are in higher education.

i'm wondering why after looking at this long as you have and criteria still being nebulous as it has why are we still talking about this and what's the future or what's the purpose of having this ratings system? >> first of all i appreciate your past leadership as university leadership as senator alexander you have real knowledge of this. day one with a real sense ever humility. there is lot we know we can't do. we can't begin to capture all the ways that higher education infers value from creating passion to creating healthy democracy. we come at this with real humility but we think there are some basic and key areas where there has been frankly a huge lack of transparency. it has been opaqueness. very, very difficult for families to figure this stuff out. better understanding access and affordability an completion of degrees. whether folks can get a decent job at the back end. we think this, is huge decision young people make, whether they're first generation college

goers, whether they have two college educated parent. i can't tell you how many young people i met with where the process is overwhelming. getting better information out to the nation's young people and their families about, you know graduation rates. what's a grant? what's a loan? what do outcomes look like? we want to make it easier. it is interesting to me, we have 7,000 institutions of education public private all kinds. it should be a efficient marketplace. it is not. it is difficult for young people to penetrate. we will work with you. i hear your skepticism. happy to come back and talk it through. we want to get good information out to families to make better and more informed choice. >> i would say, mr. secretary, i would say one of the reasons that the federal government's been able to be involved in higher education in a pretty significant way financially since world war ii, with growing

an different an multiplicity of ways to help students get there but we still have the best higher education system in the world it is one place where the federal government has been willing to make a financial commitment and not try to run the system. all these schools are accredited. if and if you qualify for the financial assistance, then you choose among accredited programs. and that's created a great diversity of options for people to look at, that do meet different student needs at different levels. people like me, who were the first person in their family to graduate from college often have a different set of aspirational goals and sense of what college might mean to them as opposed to somebody who is a fourth generation harvard student who probably has, not only different set of goals but likely to make a whole lot more money. and, you know eight hours at community college that allows

you to get a better job than you otherwise would have had, is that a plus or minus in the system? whether you graduated or not? i think with all the challenges out there that this is one i can't find very many people in higher education, i might find one who thinks this adds to the confusion in the system that might be there already. and while i'm there, let me also, on the other side sort of gainful employment side which seems to be particularly focused at the for-profit side of higher education, where are you headed there in terms of what you would consider gainful employment allocation between what somebody was making and the student loan they were trying to pay off and how would you measure that? >> just to be very, very clear that this is not just focused on the for-profit sector.

there are fantastic actors in the for-profit sector but there are some very bad actors in the for-profit sector. we had to take some action earlier this week. but the institution will have a chance to reply but findings we're putting forward are pretty stunning, pretty egregious. the waste of taxpayers money which i think none of us support, none of us can feel good about. leaving young people in a worse position than when they started. all we want to do is make sure young people are getting real skills that lead to real jobs and lead them to a better financial situation. when young people taking on massive debt, who are struggling often in disadvantaged position, ending up in a worse position because of this, i think we do them a great disservice, i think we do taxpayers a great disservice. where there are good actors, providing real skills and providing a ladder to the middle class, we want them to grow, prosper, to serve more young people. where you have actors taking advantage of a massive influx of

taxpayer resources leaving people in a worse position when they started that is not something you or i or any of us should feel good about supporting. >> i may come back. i will go ahead and grow to senator murray here. i may come back later an ask where you came up with this 8% of total earnings as a ceiling for what be the the right ratio to look at. we can come back to that later. senator murray? >> thank you very much, mr. secretary. last week the national research council released a report and recommendations how to apply the science of development and early learning to building the workforce needed for high quality programs serving young children. the report noted that its recommendations will require significant resources. in the past few years congress provided your department with funding since fy-11 for race to the top early learning challenge grants and preschool development

grants. washington state, my home state, used race to the top funding to invest in its workforce. how is your department working with the department of health and human services to administer these grants and address workforce issues outlined in that report? >> we were happy to help participate in the report, the findings a make a lot of logical, intuitive sense to those like you who know the field intimately. all those we couldn't fund, all 36 applicants for our grants described in their grant applications their efforts to provide comparable salaries to strengthen the workforce. we know how critically important this is. we fully support those findings. candidly we were ahead of study encouraging these things and states totally get it. the real challenge senator murray, that you talked about, i feel so passionately we simply don't have resources to get behind people who know what the right thing to do is, they just don't have the dollars to do that. there is so much unmet need, waiting lists of thousands and

thousands of children in virtually every state i visit. this has become a total bipartisan issue in the real world. we have more republican governors, than democratic investing today. that is really good thing. we have to get past the dysfunction in washington to look what is happening out there. new mexico nevada, new governor of texas said most important item was getting resources for early childhood education. alabama, georgia, one most heartbreaking calls, you are very unhappy we couldn't fund washington. one of my toughest calls was with the governor of mississippi. who desperately wanted resources. . .

the united states ranked 26th the 29th. it is no badge of honor and a vast majority of countries understand how important a system that they provided greater access. we are trying to lead the world in graduation rate. we should think about high quality early learning. we know all the brain science, research, return on investment and the fact that so many countries have invested significantly more access than we have we should be a standard ourselves. we should want to do better for kids than for our nation.

>> thank you. you know achievement gaps between our low-income students in all students continue to exist. 11% in reading and math. the title i grants to local education agencies was created to help eliminate those gaps. your budget proposal would increase funding by about a billion dollars, imposed by sequestration of recent budget titles. can you talk about the impact of the reduction to title i funding that has been made since 2010? >> there are two things that happen at the same time. the resources for poor children and we have an increase of children who are eligible for resources. greater need, less resources. i am convinced as are you and everyone on this committee that the best way to move families

out of poverty is give them great education. they have a world of opportunity if we exacerbate or perpetuate those gaps we are part of the problem. we need those resources whether his access to better afterschool programs whatever it may be our children not just need this. they deserve this. the best resources to help more children who are poor and if our goal was to reduce income inequality and social mobility the best way by far the best ways by providing high-quality education to every child. you mentioned achievement gaps. i'm very pleased the high school graduation rate is closing the gaps. we have a long way to go. i prefer to talk about opportunity gaps. far too many children, poor

children live in disadvantaged communities do not have the opportunities the wealthy counterparts do. the children of the wealthy get more appeared children of the poor often get less. that is unfair un-american. this is a step to rectify the problem. >> thank you very much. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chairman. welcome to our committee hearing. we want to thank you for your hard work and efforts to help make sure that our federal response to needs in education around the country are met. at the same time we have very limited availability of funds that would solve all the problems in elementary and secondary education for example, which states the local government must have primary responsibility of funding, hiring of teachers and what

goes into the nation of opportunity for good education. working out of the provision of responsibility for programs that are best handled as officeholders and people who are responsible for creating our schools and colleges that we not encroach too much on the incentives that are created at the local level to benefit special name. title i of our education, secondary education act comes to mind where teachers are recruited. you've got money there that goes to local governments to encourage people to go into education and their students. what is your assessment during time as secretary about the importance of our funding

programs? >> first i want to publicly apologize to you in your state as i did to senator murray privately. that was one of the hardest series of calls i had with your governor who knows how far behind the children in your state are they desperately wanted resources and we simply couldn't run down. we simply ran out of money. as a nation with a long way to go by virtually every measure near the bottom. there is no place in greater need than your stay. i want you to know how badly i felt about that and feel about that and i hope going forward we can do more. where we have resources to help close not just achievement gaps but opportunity gaps is critically important. when we see a high school graduation rates at an all-time high, we see black, latino, high school dropout rates cut by about half or 45% respectively.

when you see every group of children graduate from high school at a higher rate. black children, latino children students with disabilities poor children. that is fantastic progress. i'm thankful for the hard work that teachers and educators, parents and students are doing around the nation. the issue is how we do it faster. the dropout rate is still too high. graduation rate is not high enough. we need resources to have a chance to be successful in life. >> whether we find a way to add programs that have proven to be so beneficial, you would recommend to veto the bill would you? >> we can find our resources and that's very important. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> not to go on too long, we need to invest in those programs like title i. we also need to invest in innovation and there is so much great local work going on where

people are starting to get outside extraordinary results for young people who historically struggle in tennessee appalachia, ohio were graduation rates are higher than the safety of open government education is take a scale that is working. we should invest in poor programs but also innovation and how great local educators feel that is making a difference in their community. there is amazing work going on. i think it is very appropriate federal role and doesn't happen in the state and local bible. so many more application dollars available here. >> thank you senator cochran. chairman mikulski. >> thank you mr. chairman. first of all mr. secretary thank you for your service to your the fact that your ten-year long shows that you have

education and you right now i'm end of right now and then the attendant to see what works and what doesn't. we thank you for your advocacy and steadfastness. i want to associate my remarks with the senator from washington, senator murray. we have of his own testing cat. there's no two ways about it. to list the different facts and i don't argue with this committee or even on the floor. i think we have to look everything no-caps in the domestic programs. they are intertwined. let me tell you how i see it. one county, to people, three programs. one county, the home of the state capital, home of the united states naval academy of child the ford need another intel agent is. three programs from impact aid idea, the javits gifted and talented. two people have names like rosett and jack. rizzo was a child who was stigmatized in school because she had down syndrome and the

word had become a bullying invitation. working on a bipartisan basis for senator and passphrases. you have to remove the fear is that county. and then there is jack in dropout, not the 1% but jack is a genius and high school he has invented a test for pancreatic other. if you talk to his mother a nurse she had to forage to find programs to help jack he goes on to win the intel fellowship in invented stunning, stunning stunning discovery. so what is it? you talk into the republican county executives. he didn't even know about impact

aid. then i tell him he's a compassionate post because the army at fort meade is so loved the educational program ideas underfunded. then the javits program. so skimpy, so spartan. so my point is while they look at are we cool and new ideas. i'm worried about these bread-and-butter programs. i associate myself with impact aid. let's support. we love them there. it's good for our economy. the idea is continually underfunded. that is a bread-and-butter program in every state that takes me to the javits program. the program for the gifted and talented. i have kept that program alive.

tell me what your plans are. we know we can do on impact aid. i think there is a commitment or idea. do you even know what i'm talking about? it is not meant to be argumentative. that is my point. these children are national resource. not talking about the 1% genius. i'm talking in our school and there is a presumption that only rich kids are smart. you and i don't believe that. at the javits program what is the department of education's commitment on that and what have you identified any they need for that and why did you cut it? if any program is to be picked on from tell million to 9 million for the whole country, we can use that in just the sylmar row peninsula. >> alternate over to our budget

director to watch that through. thank you for your service and my service fails in comparison to what you've done for the longevity and impact, so thank you for everything you've done. it's a joy working with you. on all of these things again i hate that so often because of the dysfunction in washington we have to make choices between whether it's a bread-and-butter programs to talk about for doing more innovative staffer doing more preschool. we should be doing all of the above and hold ourselves accountable for results. we should scale back or all of these things shouldn't be either or. we shouldn't be forced to end with exec sequester cap, whether it is the gifted and talented, ita title i, all of these things should be supporting and building upon. >> tell me what you are doing for the gifted and talented. >> the javits program itself is one of the smaller programs to

get eliminated. it had almost $8 million in it. the priority has been for larger programs that the billion dollars in impact aid or $12 billion in ita. the smaller over time have been cut back. >> you told me what i argue no. tommy what you do to help these children the department of education and what is the identification of need for d.o.e. doesn't know? >> the approaches take the children, provide support for the general programs and things that are innovative, but there's not always congress made decisions in the past that these were proposed by the administration. 53 programs eliminated since 2010. they tend to be smaller programs. when you go through the process, you can affirm that is the program that should be continuing to put money into appropriations. >> you know what he do at the department of education to help

these kids? do you even think about them? >> we think that every child. >> i don't want to hear you say you think about every child. we all think about every child. every child is special. i understand. >> we do the best we can to provide a world-class education. >> to be focused to implement this and think about the talent pool we have to identify them and help the teachers know how to best develop them. >> to be clear we don't identify. that is done at the local level. >> this proves my point. >> thank you senator mikulski. we have the opportunity of the ranking member and chairman of the full committee and the ranking member in the chairman of the authorizing committee said that gives us a lot of strength on this committee and senator alexander is the chairman of that committee and an important member of this one.

>> thank you senator blunt. thank you for your nice comments about senator murray and our nice work on fixing no child left behind. i think senator murray's must've been a good preschool teacher because in preschool you learn to work well together and she understands that whether it's working on the budget are working on no child left behind which is a tough nut to crack. she has been good to work with and we've made a lot of progress. let me throw the complement that. sometimes the president doesn't get much credit for working with congress. i want to thank you you president obama for the way you've created an environment where we have a better chance to succeed on no child left behind. we have strong opinions on this. everybody does. you then construct it and helpful. i thank you for that. i'd like to talk about higher education. i will ask a single question and let you make any of there. not long ago senator mikulski

senator byrd and i ask a question at the university of maryland to look at higher education and give us a report about how we can amplify the federal rules and regulations. they gave us 59 specific recommendations. it is not a sermon. it is specific things we can do. you and i have talked about it a number of times. they put them in order. they even told us what 10 more. senator mikulski and i m. bennett and burr will put those in legislation and put them in our reauthorizing of the higher education act. 12 of the 59 were things the department by itself could fix. three of the top 10 were things the department by itself could fix. now these are young secretary duncan and president obama by

themselves did. secretary alexander, president bush, this goes all the way back to 1965. what they found was for example vanderbilt university hired the boston consulting group to tell how much it costs vanderbilt. it's not a hospital. how much federal regulations caused vanderbilt to operate one year and it was $150 million. that is $11000 on every student's tuition, 11% of all of their money. that is a double commission said a jungle of red tape. national academy of science has said an administrator's time on investigation is 23% administrative time. billions of more dollars than with money. but as other departments of the government. this is a widely recognized problem we have billy ball contributed to including us in congress, those in government.

here's my question. an example. for example when students withdraw from college on a portion of their title for a fun test of a return to the federal government. regulatory text for figuring out what that is over 200 paragraphs from a 200 pages in a handbook on the status one of the number one objections to have. that could be easily fixed. with financial responsibility standards as a requirement for statement for private nonprofit and for-profit colleges that causes them to go get expensive letters of credit report. these requirements don't cause -- don't follow accepted accounting principles. another one when the facts the application for federal grant or loan is applied, there is the verification process, very timed his domain. senator ben and i recommend

attending this 108 page questions to two. president obama in his budget has endorsed the idea that he found 30 or 40 questions. you and i together might find more. if we move which would require legislation, the data to the junior year in high school and that his senior year, these are all common sense not ideological issues. my question is would you be willing to sit down with chancellor kirwan, chancellors that those in listen to them in their recommendations about what you the department could do to implement the death of the 59 the department by itself could do and what should be willing to work with senator mikulski and bennett emperor and me to implement this simplification of what the report called the general red tape? >> absolutely. our staff has looked at close. we've not met with them so if

you want to help us out to be fantastic. whatever we can do here to move red tape and stop wasting time, stop wasting dollars we should do that. a couple of our staff about their recommendations recommendations to move pretty quickly on so we are starting internally to get behind this. the bigger picture if we get to a big spot on aga reauthorization will be like a walk in the park on relative terms. there's a lot of fertile ground going forward. >> senator murray and i are ready for a walk in the park after no child left behind. we look forward to that. thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you secretary. i want to talk about college education and making it more affordable and specifically finishing on time for full-time undergraduates. the university of hawaii has worked very hard with their p. 20 initiative to try to enable

kids to finish. it is not just the annual cost of college, but it is how quickly as a practical matter is they're able to finish. some of that has to do with account live in their freshman year. some of the past that the availability of the courses they need. we tend to focus on the interest rates and the congress and we tend to focus on the pell grant of old and sometimes the retail price. none of that matters a bit 655 or six years to finish. >> we've seen a huge amount of innovation coming out of hawaii but they say we've invested early on. folks that thought was a huge mistake. my own concerns or trepidation there. it has been amazing to see on the k-12 side and early childhood as well as the higher inside what your state is doing. i want to thank folks for their courage in doing things different to a new presence in

profound ways a much better result than anyplace as an improving faster. we love what we are seeing there. whatever we can do to increase speed, reduced the time that's the whole point is looking at competency-based. there is so much good work going on around the nation where we can scale it is working. we think that's a hugely important role to play and whether it's first-time full-time or whether it's the 29-year-old single mom with two children trying to go back to school to climb the economic ladder, whatever we can do to get more people into college but more importantly the degree at the backend had to get a better paying job would have to do that. but as the programs we think are so critically important. so much greater demand. would like to invest in many warrants editions of higher

education and we are taking very seriously their role to not just enroll students to graduate as quickly as possible. >> i appreciate your work in the area coming down on bad actors in the online degree granting institutions. i am wondering whether we can come at some of those challenges from the accreditations died because as the chairman of the subcommittee mentioned, they get their accreditation and then we move on and try and clean up after it is all done. i am wondering whether you have the authority to come after these bad actors with miniscule graduation rates, awful outcomes on every level. i guess i am wondering why they are credited in the first place he had >> i think that is a fair question. in so many situations the accreditation process we look at close to to challenge folks and raise the bar. happy to continue the conversation offline with you and your staff.

we look at that piece. >> thank you. in hawaii we are doing some pretty innovative work among native hawaiian educators and students and families that play a critical role advance in the media and education. unfortunately mainstream english-based standard assessment in teacher training requirements often undermined efforts in native communities to use their language is cooling and am wondering what you can do to better support access and fair assessment of education through the medium of native languages. >> am sure you know we recently granted a waiver requested the department of education to pilot the administration of new assessment native languages at what happens there has relevancy in has relevancy instate denomination. we. we appreciate the leadership in complements there.

please challenge us, hold us accountable for being a good partner and we will see what develops there. we are very interested in supporting the work. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. secretary, thank you for the call yesterday. what specific programs as the department fund for dyslexia? >> i don't think we have a specific program for dyslexia. children with dyslexia have special needs obviously in the idea but they were significant resources. >> can i interrupt. dyslexia is 80% of learning disabilities. maybe at least 50, maybe more of those who cannot read. this is all epidemiological data peer-reviewed. so it strikes me as it is 20% of the kids who have a problem 80% of those learning disabilities

20% of the general population, why in the heck don't you have a special program? >> fair question. that is something for congress to think about. >> you are suggesting congress should give a special emphasis. >> i'm saying congress should look at this and many children with special needs we are trying to add more resources with a significant portion to help children with dyslexia. >> jiminy sense of the quality programs currently in schools addressing the needs of dyslexia? >> he would be buried and mixed. some schools in some communities and districts do an extraordinary job here. >> granted there's always going going to be a spectrum. but do we have a sense of where the meanness? not to mean, the median. >> i was a much better than 10 or 15 years ago. >> that's a low bar man. >> that may be true.

if -- is there more that can be done? absolutely. do not or can be done to improve screening and intervention for those of dyslexia? you become a currently there is no single office looking not at senator mikulski speaks about 1% and i'm speaking about 20%. i'm speaking about 20% that will not succeed unless we do something. i just have a sense that this has been on may have been, may not, but there has not been a sort of supervision. not like the for-profit colleges for example. in others a problem, you go when i look at it. >> i think our office is doing really good work there. it is a fair critique. do we have enough resources put behind children whether this special needs or extraordinarily

gifted is a very fair critique that we are not investing enough in native population and for us to invest more we clearly need your help and support. >> that said i would argue it is more than investment because i think there was a lack of awareness. i read about rti and others that we should screen differently. they both say there must be a general faculty understanding of what dyslexia is otherwise the judges to the fourth grading cannot read that that point intervention is less profitable. so is there any sense that there is a general faculty understanding and more than a small fraction of schools? >> these are complicated issues and really important issues. we have about 1400 schools of education. if you want a general or universal faculty understanding, once they enter the classroom i would argue it is late in the

game. so i think to really get to the root of that beyond this question would be what our schools of during the no-space? >> on the other hand if we say those currently in school become aware of the issue and speak about 30 years from now before we replace those currently active no longer would be. i say that as in all my gosh we need that a takeover. we need all cohorts engage. that also answers that question because i do since most educators are not aware of this have not received training dollars to be made aware of it. if it takes a general faculty engagement, it is like we have made the enemy. the >> es and we invest in professional development. we would like to invest more and i argued publicly in many places the money we put behind, not future teachers is often well spent often poorly spent and

not spent on things teachers are really looking for. >> commerce against him need for 30% of the population we would give specific direction that it shouldn't be an amorphous pile of money spend it as you wish, but we have a specific national need to address much like conquering hiv are going to the moon. i don't know your thoughts on that. >> there are many children with special needs, many children's facing real challenges and permits not about taking this population in that population, it's about every single one. >> i understand that. but it seems more likely you would focus -- >> many colleagues are looking for us to be less direct. i want to be clear about that. >> i yield back your thank you. >> thank you mr. chairman. mr. secretary, thank you for your leadership in putting forth a budget that supports

investment in the early continuing from early childhood to career. i want to start by focusing on one station to continue on and that his high school ball at knowledge in every state had the education continuum is vitally important. your fiscal fixing budget calls for $125 million investment in high school to ensure these schools can redesign to meet student needs. i am concerned too many high schools are failing to get students to graduation. even those who do graduate may not be armed with the skills they need to enter a post secondary education training or the workforce. for example workforce. for example in my state of wisconsin, there are 13 high schools that fail to graduate a third of their students. earlier this year i introduced

the next-generation high schools act to allow high schools to redefine and innovate to better meet student needs and increase rigor and coursework particularly in the workforce critical area a science technology, engineering and mathematics, the stem fields and career and technical education. mr. secretary, can you speak to the need to focus on and invest in our high schools specifically and the necessity to have a dedicated program like the bill i describe the next generation of high school like that protects human and prevents dropout. >> i went back for your leadership. when you have high schools in the nation you said two thirds of students do not graduate. we have to take that on.

we have to challenge the status quo. we have to do some things different. i've visited many high schools that a couple years ago were dropouts and it turned around and transformed. none of them are perfect yet. this is an ongoing process. we say remarkable changes. and that was a young man here last week from miami to totally change the culture now. same children same families of the same socioeconomic challenges the same neighborhood. i was directly. we need to look at that very very significantly. we put resources behind school improvement grants and see many schools turn around. clearly we have a ways to go into state the obvious and young people drop out of high school today, there are no good jobs, none in the legal economy for that. we can't stand on the sidelines.

your leadership is so important. many young people drop out of high school and not because it is too hard but it is too easy and they are bored. the more we redesign high school and help young people understand what the tie us to the real world and real jobs and they're excited about school, you see them go down pretty precipitously. we see this in many high schools around the nation. while i'm so proud high school graduation rates are at an all-time high dropping rate is down. it is still unacceptably high. it is untenable for us to stand on the sidelines to see that continue to happen. we should look carefully at the schools and was not in the community. we have to do some letter. we have to be more relevant to the real world and make the absolute right thing.

>> i would definitely take you up on continuing to work together to advance these proposals and see them reflected across the country. i had just a couple of minutes left -- a couple of seconds left but i know we are not going to get into this fully, but i wanted to hear a little bit more about the community college program. i actually offered an amendment during a budget resolution markup to put this into action. right now and perhaps in follow up to the hearings, i want to hear more about the departments they should for america's college promise how will ultimately save student than taxpayer dollars and how you envision the proposal supporting the vital contribution tech go colleges and tribal colleges.

>> i will be very quick if that's okay with my answer. do not go ahead and do it. the 11:00 vote has now been eliminated. >> you want me to wait? the >> just in case senator baldwin has to leave. >> i'm just a huge fan as is the president in our nation's community college. i've been to dozens of the most inspiring visits. 18 euros, 38 euros, 58 euros retraining and root killing. they are people all over the world to learn and get better. i.t. jobs advanced manufacturing, health care, this is pat the route to the ability to the middle class and the jobs of tomorrow, not the jobs of yesterday. the idea of making community college is free and giving young people the chance to get the skills they need to be productive citizens we think

makes all the sense in the world. this is the president's ideas. this is at scale and very early the outpouring of interest test on them. this is absolutely an investment, not an expense. colleges would be a university doing amazing job so whatever we can do to strengthen community colleges and provide more access and what too many people don't understand face-offs involve relatively speaking they are cheaper today, just the cost of childcare for transportation or gas or buying books can stop somebody from taking that step. we want to eliminate those financial barriers and give hard-working folks a chance to get the skills they need to climb the economic ladder. >> senator langford. >> senator duncan, thank you.

you and i spoke before about the waiver in the issue of no child left behind in importance to replace no child left behind because my state of oklahoma has dealt with this extensively with your department, but every state has had to deal with the process. i appreciate your operation in a complete replacement of days you don't have to deal with the battles back and forth. i appreciate the comment about fafsa. for a new junior or senior in high school who gets the form, first question is why they ask obvious questions, what does it matter why is the federal government collected this amount of information? any work that can be done to simplify the form is extremely important for multiple reasons. if we discourage people from engaging in the process of the short length of the form we will make a great disservice. i would encourage that.

i want to spend a little more time on what senator bob was talking about. i want to dig into that a little bit as well. in your budget is very detail of the cause to develop implement and sustain college rating programs including some sort of estimate from the legal costs obviously challenge tremendously. is there an estimate in your budget somewhere that i'm missing of the cost of developing the ratings program? >> from a back up quickly. we reduced about a third of the question early on the administration. we feel really proud about that. we have average completion time is down to about a half an hour. >> completion time versus gathering forms required is a different thing because there's a lot of evidence to pull that together. that's a different issue.

>> we've got work to do. to your point to state the obvious, completing the form unlocks $150 billion a year if you don't feel the form upcoming year a lot out and said that cannot be a barrier. it still is a barrier and impediment. again just to repeat we are still developing this. >> is that something in the budget currently? >> it's not a huge section. this is not a high cost item. this is us thinking it through. i'm much less worried about it then you are and i talked to the concerns or whatever. this would be a modest effort to get more information and more transparency. >> is there a spot famous as were the statutory authority comes based on previous budget statements in this committee saying we are both way to allocate funds and to help

repair ratings or is this the previous 1979 document in the purview of the department of education to do it. >> i think the appropriate role of federal government should be around transparent to end this is a massive player on transparency. >> which has traditionally been a state responsibility. >> this is not overseen. as you know, people are just picking colleges. if we can get more information i can't tell you how many conversations i've had where they just don't have that information. >> i understand that. >> you are the. >> i am. i'm very aware of that. i would ask you submit to the committee and a budget work that has been done to build towards the dollars and they've set aside to start researching and

repairing the rating system. you spent some time going for it. we estimate you have is to guess that the cost would help us in decision making process today is to start allocating funds. i worship subjects as well. a replacement for no child left behind which i completely encourage and participate in the process, one area that has come out that no child left behind its children in homeless families has to be mainstream in the schools. if they are segregated, but are not eligible for any federal funding of the school. school a positive tomorrow's in oklahoma that targets helping homeless kids that have a difficult time teaching in mainstream schools, public roles because of spotty attendance and everything else have no access. is that something we can work together to resolve that we have an ability for homeless children to have a specific population to schools targeted with reaching

them are excluded. >> that's a great question. i'm not familiar with the school in your state. there's a school in san diego that i'm more aware has done remarkable work and i finish you never want to stigmatize kid never want to separate them. but are there challenges some schools do a great job helping to me. i would love to have a further conversation. >> there is a tremendous asset to be noble to help students because there are unique environment. if i can ask one more question for the record as well. the loan servicing issue have there been changes on now for 25% now of low servicers would be not-for-profit and is capped at that amount. i'm interested in why the 25% number was cut for not-for-profit. why not have the open competition? i'm out of time on that but if i could get that submitted, that would be helpful. my hope that it doesn't is that

dozens have been not-for-profit up for failure by capping the amount for the multiple companies. >> very quickly going forward in september we are looking at performance in reallocations. >> thank you. >> are you all clear on the question he asked about money being done on this rating system? you are going to submit the information in response to that question? money spent, many anticipate spending. >> this is just part of what folks are doing. there's no big. >> i just assume you are thinking through it and also have to look at what is the core cause i miss because they got to plan on funding. if that's a funding issue dealing with higher ed we need to know. >> senator cap ago. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, mr. secretary.

i want to follow up on a question the chair was talking about him again full employment regulation. you mentioned the purpose of the gainful employment rule in terms of weeding out bad act or is understanding that occurs and that is a lofty goal. you mention it wasn't just for the for-profit. i want clarification on that. are you saying this goes to the public institution or liberal arts, community colleges are they subject to the metrics they have to report these and how do they compare the for-profit doing it the right way? >> are quickly the rule does apply to certificate of non-degree programs at public and private nonprofit is too should. >> so taken up further in a public institution if you get a four year degree in social work and you have a not that that is

obviously an entry-level job because it is so important comes in rather low on the scale. if you are not getting that? >> no, it doesn't matter whether folks go to high-income jobs are low income jobs. we just want that to be managed in a better spot. in some places that have been and some places the opposite happens. to be clear, the vast majority of are getting 88 89 sometimes more of the revenues from uni, taxpayers. this is a massive public subsidies. if it leading to better outcomes, that's an honest conversation to have. when it leads to worse outcomes you can't support that. if you look at the findings this year -- this week and began a chance to reply we are wrong. but what we found was standing and deeply, deeply disturbing.

i want folks on both sides of the aisle tv eyes wide open on this and to state taxpayers that they may disadvantage both the neighbors position is not what any of us get up every single day to do. >> i agree. i don't think i'm getting up everyday to do that either. i will switch over to another question. on student loans, this is something that really bothers me. i've run into numerous students parents and people and institutions the financial aid office to try to get the metrics of what it costs out whatever institution it is. but a $16000. the student eligible can load up to $25,000. you look at him and you might want a car vacation and all these things separate from educational costs. in the end, you hear about the

large amounts of student loans. what can we do about that? who can we empower to make sure we get more reasonable decisions? that is a troubling statistic. >> it is an issue. would be happy to follow up offline. one thing we are trying to do is empower universities to provide. >> we worked on the house on a transparent the issue. i think that would help. i just see the funds are astronomical. when you look at the actual cost -- >> is a piece of the puzzle. there are the ones that play. looking where student debt is higher than we'd like it to be and we need to think about the pieces that contribute to the debt. >> another question that is different than not is on early

childhood. i am a believer. our state of west virginia has pre-k but it's not mandatory for children to attend. i think it has been pretty decent attendant. numerous times to your testimony, if i had the resources we could do this. they have the resources we could do that. i started sitting there. i've been a supporter even notepad troubled issues. i am concerned as we move more into pre-k with head start here having its issues and other issues of an established government programs, political and otherwise, how are we going to make sure the resources are actually used efficiently directed at the students in the family and we are not going to end up fighting for the resource. >> we were a cosponsor with hhs

secretary sebelius pryor so all of my worries we have to think about is zero to five. early home visiting another things. head start was focused on 3-year-old and pre-k more than the 4-year-olds. they're ways to work this together so we are making sure there is a continuum of opportunities. they might cut head start. they've got facilities in different areas, not necessarily in school. i want to make sure we are maximizing. >> to be very clear but we would love to do is have this developed at the local level. whether it schools for head start facilities for nonprofit or ymca many different places. they should be developed at the local level. for me, the problem we are trying to solve for many

children of families who want the opportunities to not have them today because they don't have to be wealthy. >> that has been 0% of the discussion. we worked and can't bear. we have jointly administered with them. we don't do things perfectly but we afraid a model in extraordinarily good partnership that didn't happen before. take that off your worry list. >> i'm just going to file one other comment that it's got to be on the list of concerns moving forward because the way education is changing in every aspect. particularly higher red online competition for online. it has been interesting for me to see the way it grows keeping an eye on account of and other issues that are challenged for the richer.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary duncan, thank you for being here and for your service. i continue to hear concerns about the department's prioritization of competitive grant funding for programs. as i am sure you are aware, new hampshire is a small state, if we look at all of the states of the country, we have a good school system. we have averaged relative high income levels. on the other hand we have pockets in rural areas where we had real poverty, real challenges with their schools. so can you talk about how we can ensure safe like new hampshire that may not rank so well on this scale for tentative grand kids still get help for programs

we need help on particularly some of the support for reading elementary schools, the chapter one program, others where we have real challenges because the formula we have often benefited from are not as robust as they used to be in terms of funding. >> it is important for the committee to know the facts. 92% of our resources are formula based. the overwhelming majority, 92 cents of every dollar we asked for 80% of the competitive side. we are facing competition competition or conflict at all. it's absolutely complementary. virtually every place where we stand competitive work those schools, investing in the fund we have seen significant participation.

one quick example, your state has done amazing work thinking about assessments in a very different way. we are partnering very closely and again and maybe a small state, but there's real asset and strength to that. what you guys have done might be impossible in the larger state. there's huge asset constraints. please hold a serbian accountable. the work your state is doing i think it's very important not just for the children and educators in new hampshire. if it goes well very significant national implication. we feel good about our ability to work with big states, small states, understand the concerns. i think we managed it pretty well. >> well, i certainly appreciate your nice words about the assessments in new hampshire. it is the place for the status done a good job. >> frankly we have not seen any

other plays and they are far far ahead of other folks. other people can learn from you. there is real potential that i and our team find pretty exciting. >> i was pleased to see that you have spoken out about first another great program that started in new hampshire with the robotics competition. they are having their national finals this weekend at lewis. hopefully we will see new hampshire file -- do well. i appreciate all students don't learn with a teacher standing in front of the classroom lecturing them. the opportunity for hands-on education is very important and one of the things that other programs like first do for students. so what is the department thinking about in terms of how to really ensure every school can have a first-team or a

similar team where students can do hands-on work with mentors come again into the subjects in a way that sometimes they are not able to do in the classroom? in the first of all, i'm a huge fan of dean cain. are the folks who haven't seen it they fill stadiums for students to an extraordinarily exciting work and all of the sharing and all of the noise and excitement that you see is much more important and valuable. >> sort of einstein makes michael jordan. >> those who haven't been to watch, go soak it in. we don't have any direct funding there. would it be great if every high school had a robotics team. it could be amazing. i'm a big fan. we don't have a direct funding stream. they can go behind it. it is low cost. this is not a big-ticket item of the benefits for students i

think are amazing. whatever we can do to support india's strong cheerleader advocate, i'm not going to speak and, but it is amazing to see the impact. >> it is. as we are looking at the fda we hope there is language that will support programs notches first but other programs like that better hands on. i know the ranking member are looking at those issues as they look at the fda. >> is more students had an opportunity, that would be an often thing. >> mr. chairman, one final comment. i know senator lankford asked about the service or loan organizations and mr. secretary u. sad you would be looking not be competing contracts in september and the numbers the volumes you will allocate. i would just urge you to look at the day job many of those

service organizations are doing. we have one in new hampshire that does great work. i would rather support them as a not-for-profit and support the for-profit organizations that are doing that kind of work. >> i appreciate that. we have to show amateur x. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you on a senator. a few more questions. maybe more than a couple of them i will go to senator murray and chairman cochran them back to senator shaheen if she has any more to us. >> mr. secretary come u.s. for level funding in impact aid in a budget that basically asks for 6% increases in total. i think we had a vote on this during the budget voting and overwhelmingly at the congress suggested the goal of the impact aid programs and other programs where we have replaced the money

that would be there if this was a privately owned property should be to get the money to a level near as possible an approximate 30 private taxpayer would pay. it does seem to me that level funding if everything else was level funding i wouldn't be complaining about this by the way. the priority here doesn't seem very high. then you take the payments, which is 67 million. a million of that goes to missouri schools and you put that in your own maintenance program. >> on the first half i'm happy to have that conversation. >> 12 buildings that these facilities that the money would go to? >> there's still 12 buildings and we like the local school districts to take these over, but some of the schools haven't had the proper maintenance, so we used