can provide a product and have a license agreement like everyone else does. or if you develop your capability at the behest of the government pursuant of a don tract, the government owns that just like they would own anything else. i think thatcdon tract, the government owns that just like they would own anything else. i think thaton tract, the government owns that just like they would own anything else. i think thatcontract, the gover that just like they would own anything else. i think that the more interesting part of that is how do we apply that innovation. that's a question back to partnership. really. it's an issue of how do you bring what you can do to the table. and make that available. and that's an information sharing. we have this capability. does that work four? and in general, i think that it gets harder and harder, especially when you work in a

public/private partnership capacity to adjust true proprietary capability. microsoft handed over microsoft 7, and maybe 8, too. but for 7, to say, here's what we have, and that's a trust issue. so working with the government, the private sector will continue to do what it does. i was at black hat two weeks ago and i met up with a bunch of guys that came up with the next generation, or what they thought, was the next generation enkripgs solution. it starts where the es leaves off. and they are giving away a bmw to anyone who can crack their inkrepgs. but the point is, what we want do is work with the government. he want to give them the solution and work with them to secure what needs to be secured. and we understand that we have

to share a significant amount of our technology to do that. but we're okay with that because the government understands that the flip side of sharing that technology is a trust issue of deserving the proprietary nature of that technology. making sure they aren't damaged in working with the government and make sure the government gets the best value and that industry is fairly kpen stated. by the way, my comment about the best acquisitions in the world. anyone who has had their eyes bleed reading the fonts, raise your hand. at one point or another all of us hand. the reason they are there, and they are effective pieces of legislation, is to allow that part to take our place. they may be painful to sort of get through your head. but we have a really strong basis in the united states for fostering that sort of partnership.

>> so i'm going to say thank you first. because rarely do i hear people use the word innovation in the government. the prevailing ethos is we're not innovative. it's wrong. we are innovative. and have you to be when you look at the pressures that we're understand. in this situation. thank you for acknowledging. i appreciate it. as does all of the folks who work with me as well. one of the most important things that enableets us to be innovative is a willingness to collaborate. i find, and it may be true for others, but i find that best solutions come when you bring together diverse perspective. and then you find the thing that you didn't realize existed in that space. until we try very hard to create

the opportunity for those with conversations about -- when you look at the operating model we use both from a partnership perspective, the national protection plan which talks about how we establish a 20% partnership that can help handle the threat we're facing in the 21st century. it is about recognizing that we don't all have exactly the same value transition but we all have to be in the room together. and we can bring all of our different perspectives together and drive to a different place. i think about the operating model our end cake uses. i think about the operating model we use with state and local governments in helping them handle inoperable communication issues. it is really about that, creating that collaboration space. bringing the engineers together.

bringing the policy people together. bringing the business focus together. and helping work through all of that. >> i want to thank you all for sharing your perspective. you're validating my existence at the food and drug administration. hi, my name is nick thaker. i'm a policy adviser for the center of radiological help. the thing that keeps me up at night, other than my kids, is medical device, cybersecurity, and cybersecurity of the public health sector assets. we're in the process right now at the fda of setting up a collaboration of which all of you have mentioned in your

session discussions. about medical device cybersecurity. and i'm sure you're familiar with it in that -- and we've been approached about this. what i want do is put a shameless plug in for this opportunity for all of you to participate in a public style forum. it will be come out through the federal register and that's about all i can say right few until this comes out. but the question for all of you is with regard to fostering innovation, what are some of the ways that you can perhaps allow a regulator, like such as myself, to foster that innovation. what are some -- what are some tidbits that you could perhaps offer me. i'm in a unique position in that the companies i regulate are even more weary of sharing their technology. because not only are they

worried about my inadvertent sharing it with their competitors, they worry that if they were to share something about a vulnerability to me, i might turn around and say, this is ground for regulatory action. >> clarity. right? that's where it has to start, in what is the outcomes you're trying to achieve and clarity in the conversation. i find that trust is eroded when people don't have sort of a common understanding of what roles and responsibilities each of those partners play. and so when someone switches from one role to another, that just undermines it. so it is one of the places that i think we have to start. >> i would add -- so i spoke on another panel in las vegas and they were talking about the sieper security framework. >> what is the cybersecurity -- >> the framework that came out

recently that says here's the way to start, if you want to look at security and how to mitigate your risk and manage your cyber risk. and everyone is talking, how do with we get people to adopt it. how do we get the industry to adopt it. i'm not really a big fan of regulatory push. on a variety of levels. but my point that i made at that, was that as a former trial attorney, i watched an organization -- i did product liability, i watched organizations make the choice to say, i can fix my production line. that will cost me $5 million. every year. or i can assume i'm going to pay $750,000 a year in lawsuits. and i'm going to pay the $750,000 a year in lawsuits. so without proper

incentivization. you don't get industry to play the way you want it to play because it is a dollars and cents game. and the incentivization doesn't have to be a stick, it can be a carrot. i would say that one of the first things i would look at if i were in your shoes, or how can i encourage this information sharing and make it a positive experience for them and one, foster the trust. make them aware that no bad thing will happen to their intellectual property, but also make them aware that if you come in under this, no bad thing will happen to you, a safe harbors concept. i know that on the legislative level, safe harbors in general has been something banded about for the last couple of years. it hasn't gotten places for many reasons. but i would say, if you have the freedom of action within your sphere, to create a safe harbor capability, i think you will be

pleasantly surprised by the degrief participation you would get from industry. >> if i could just sort of do a little plug for the cybersecurity framework, more than a year ago the president signed an executive order on cybersecurity for critical infrastructure. i think that's one of the things we've been talking about over the course of the last year. and in that, asked to convene a series of collaboration between industry, government and others, with the output of which designed to be a framework. what does it mean for there to be sieper secure effectively. really powerful set of discussions, if you want to all of, and i think you got a t-shirt, but cybersecurity framework is published earlier or late last year. and dia handful of really meaningful things. if you haven't read it, here is the executive summary.

first thing it says is cybersecurity is an important risk and must be managed in your enterprise risk management activity. so it moved cybersecurity from being an i.t. server room problem in a company to being a board room problem. big steps there. it said, you must understand, as you do this, here is a way you might think about how to incorp right there risk into your mold. and there is a list of -- a way to think about cyber security from identify and protect, protect and respond, and here are a standards and activities that really detail all things cyber secure. including -- [ inaudible ] so that's the framework. and what we've been doing, what we've been doing in the department of homeland security is working with owners and op righters, working with departments and agencies to help

them go through this journey of understanding and adopting the framework. we strongly believe that we can -- that working with these owners and operators that folks will find a way and we have illuminated a part of the confusion that might have existed. it is a very voluntary interaction. we've been very, very confused with the kind of results we've had, ranging from companies who are very secure who can find themselves in the framework who have been doing this all along, to those who aren't really sure where to start. with a focus, an important focus on small business. and one of the small and medium businesses who are in many instances, critical instra truck tour, how do they find themselves in this framework. and move to themselves on their cybersecurity journey to managing risk that level.

and not putting it in the concept of risk conversation, really helps with trust building. it helps with roles and responsibilities. it helps put more clarity about the decisions. because it really enables cybersecurity to be a dinner conversation. getting the cio information they need, giving department and agency leadership the information they need. >> information anizations are, our fourth speaker who was supposed to be here, proily would have had good feedback as well. there is also private sector companies that focus in those areas where you do have that test bed andern environment where you can feel comfortable in try doing i think what you're trying to sell. >> goodene morning. i'm jean with ibm. i wanted to thank you all very

much for your insight this morning. you talked about the growth and mobility in the next three to five years. and with the implementation of the dhs car wash, final mobile applications and dod having their own certification process. how do you see greater collaboration and adoption and sharing evolving in the future. in that area of certifying mobile applications. >> wow, i hadn't thought about that very much. so give me a minute. so the point you're making is that we have to be more collaboration and cross organizational understanding, an engagement. so that there is opportunity and a viability path or mobile apps to come forward. and we have do that. one. things that we also have to do is understand that the landscape and the federal landscape in

particular is not the same from one department or organization to another. and so we have to find a path that enables us to manage both. one of the more successful, i think, is the accreditation path and that's a viable model for that kind of thinking and i think i would encourage that as a method. when i looked up what we've done over the years, we've today build enough momentum between different departments and agencies in order to get to that point. and it feels like we are on the crux of that right now. with the certification work that we can do something of that sort. >> you're talking about fed grant for uninitiated, for clouds in cybersecurity certification. risk when you outsource your data to, amazon, for example. they are talking about this same

sort of model-dpsh. >> instead of having each department doity own certification, we included it in a joint model that enables all of the models because they are very niek department requirements into the situation and find kpon ground. common ground. >> thanks. i think adding on to that, there is a technical area as well. i alluded to it earlier. the mobile app tends to be -- rhett me rephrase. right now the same as for your big apps. your big development project. so i spend four years developing the best software known to mankind. and it requires you know, a cluster of high end blade service to run. the process that i use to certify that today, is the same as the process that i use to

certify mobile apps brwritten ia week and a half. that's much smaller. that make this thing hum. >> the volume of mobile apps is significantly greater. one of the technical things i look at is how to push the accreditation back on the developer and it becomes almost a question of again methodology. a combination of agile and test-driven development so when you finish developing your app, it is certified by virtue of the environment in which you've developed it being certified. doing that and in innovation in terms of both the development side and how do i accredit things for use within the particular environment, and at the same time, how do i provide a hardware software methodology

or mechanism, do you think, to do that, becomes very interested. and i would encourage -- i would encourage industry in general to look at inowe vietive ways to solve that problem. create a development environment that can be certified and by virtue of that environment certify the things coming out of it. >> i think we have time for one more question. >> hi. a few of you have mentioned how important small and medium sized businesses are in this effort and there's been traditionally a bit of an attitude of, when it comes to cybersecurity, if i outrun someone else and someone else is an easier target that i'm off the hook so we have seen how interconnected everyone is. everyone's favorite story.

how bad guys got to a target, through a vendor. how you bring up the little guys may not have resources, access to information sharing. how do you bring them up to a level so that everyone is safer. >> we -- i'm going to get my time here. but about three and a half months ago, maybe four months ago, we issued an rfi to collect information and sort of a mechanism for us to structure collection of information about the challenges of small and medium businesses have, and hear from them specifically. so we're not inferring what their challenges might be p. and to talk about what that kind of solution might exist in order to enable them to be successful. because it was important for us to sort of have an open and direct dialogue in that space. we got a lot of feedback.

both from small and medium businesses and from i.t. industry partners who are focused on them as a particular customer and constituency. it was a really interesting dialogue. i think the first time in meaningful way both parties in the room together talk about what the realities are. and the process of gleaning through the information back from that. but one of the, i think, one of the most important insights to me was that they have some of the exact same needs as well as some i had not appreciated. if there is not as much, i thought they would be more aware of what some of the cybersecurity threats are. it feels like we talk about target a lot. or there was not as much of a broad awareness as we expect and to really focus on trying to help engage and outreach in a

language that's accessible to them as one of the easy first steps. and then certainly, continuing to encourage the provision of solutions and capabilities that are accessible to them as well. >> i think the good news is the small mediums are much more agile and can do things quickly and can change their policies and procedures much quickly but also leverage larger company, protege programs and access one of the larger requirements, around security would be my suggestion. >> so from the industry perspective, specifically the security industry perspective, let me say first, in my organization we focus primary, again, government contractor constellation structure. but the greater organization as a whole, and especially the

u.s.-based lab organization is very supportive of education, adoption, integration of the framework for small and medium sized businesses. and is uniquely positioned due to its significant footprint in the small and medium-sized business community to promotedcation about the framework. and in fact, that's one of the companies goals and mission. so from a perspective of security, it only helps everyone. i mean, whether it's because that's your business or you have a government y'all view on it. so we push that. i don't want to say push that. but we make our partners aware of that in every chance we get. >> okay. and with that, i want to thank barry, bobby, adam, all of you for coming.

i think they might be sticking around for a little bit if you want to come up. but you are all free to enjoy the rest of this lazy day of august. thank you very much. [ applause ] with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on c-span 2, here on c-span 3, he can compliment that coverage by showing you the most relevant congressional hearings and public affairs events. on the week ends, we have television telling stories. including the civil war's 150th anniversary. visiting battle fields and key events. artifacts, touring museums, to discover what artifacts reveal about america's past. best known american history writers. the presidency. looking at our nation's commanders in chief. lectures in history. tough college professors delving

into america's past. and our series, real america. featuring our educational films from the 1930s to the '70s. c-span 3, watch us on hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. >> no, educational secretary arne duncan discusses the common core standards by his department. he spoke last night at jefferson academy middle school in washington, d.c. a little less than an hour and a half. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> my name is christina lee. i'm the assistant principal of jefferson academy, home of the trojans. we would like to give a special

welcome to our audience members. including jefferson academy. u.s. department of education, superintendent, dch chancellor and u.s. secretary of education, arne duncan. in a few moments, miss emily davis, teaching ambassador with the department of education, will moderate a panel discussion on state testing. with the adoption of common core state standard, state testing and teacher evaluation has been at the forefront of teacher and education. we will fully implement the park assessment, we are both anxious and assignment. today's discussion will talk about state testing and evaluation and how at the heart of it all we are educating children in our schools. the state superintendent for the state of colombia. as school officer, he directs statewide policy for early

childhood, k-12 and higher education. during his entour, he implemented accountability and supported educators, helped to improve school education for children with special needs, engage stake holders and develop the district's overall strategy to prepare student for success both in and beyond the classroom. he has extensive experience in school and district operations. now teacher development and in the creation of literacy and character development program that also supports english language learners. he currently is the proud charter school parent himself. please join me in welcoming, superintendent a g

aguirre. >> thank you very much. i want to thank everyone from amazon and boeing and jefferson for being here. you should be proud and excited. of course, thank you, i know she is busy these days and anything we can get from her we can appreciate. i also want to especially thank secretary duncan for being here. secretary has an unwaivering commitment to our teachers, family and administrators across the country. he could be doing this type of event anywhere in the country and he chooses do it here in washington, d.c. we appreciate that. i think that's a testament of the fact that he knows good things are happening here. thank you, mr. secretary, for being here. >> this is an exciting time of the year for all of us. one of my favorite times, i think back to when i was in a school leadership position. i used to live days like today where you walk around the classroom and start walking in and you start to see that transition, transformation of these classrooms that all of you teachers create these engaging,

exciting and motivating learning spaces for our children. that is just wait schools come to life. i think the next few days is when the schools come to life. i'm excited to be with all of you here. and to talk about where we are as a district. and where we are in washington, d.c. i think everyone knows we are going through a tremendous shift in education here in the district of columbia. moving away from a history of poor performance to an era of absolute focus on high-performance. and the results are are bearing that out. we've really been focused on making sure that our students are focused for college, career and life. we have done a lot to get us there. we've also really focused on engaging our families and our communities and jefferson is a great test many and amazon is a great testament to this, that we really bring everyone together on this. we have a pretty robust engaged community. our partners are a community

based organizations, and really, engaging families in a way that really haven't been engaged and probably aren't engaged across the country. things like a dmcommon lottery that allow parents it make the choices. and we continue to invest in that. we also recognize that all of you are, you know, teachers and we know work happens in the classroom. so i know the chancellor are really invested in our teachers and in supporting teachers and in holding teachers and leaders accountable and that's what has led to this great success we've had. and we've adopted the standards. we were part of the few states that -- head of the pack here in adopting state stand art that will help our kids be prepareed. we are leading the nation in the adoption of science standards. and all of these standards require a new thinking about how we instruct and the materials we

bring. but also how we assess our student and there's a lot of work and i'm excited to hear from the panel on where we will be and how we make this transition happen. there is a lot happening in assessment. we have our park assessment coming on line. we have a new -- a health assessment and there's a lot of work to be done inni getting ourselves and community in our assessment. it is tough work and we lie on all of to you do that work and working with our community. but the work is paying off already. we can look at our test scores. they continue to go up. you know, they are validated year after year as they continue to go up an they are validated nationally. i think many of you know d.c. led the nation. led the nation in improvements. and that is the national test taken by kids across the country. we're making a tremendous strides. parents are coming back from the district. we have the highest enrollment in public schools in the district of cloum beea in over 40 years.

that is a testament of the work you do in the classroom and communities knower with on the right track. we also lead the nation in early learning. i'm glad the amazon and boeing folks are here. i know they have a strong pre-k program. there are mayors and states and people across the country, people are trying to figure how the to get kids enrolled in pre-k. and d.c. has been doing it already. over 90% of our 4-year-olds are. and we are leading the nation in that and we are make nothing so close to what we are doing. and think about the little one, who had the opportunities of really strong program from pre-k all the way up. i'm excited for work we have ahead of us. we will come back to you to get your support.

these tests are different. there is a new baseline. we have to talk about what that means and what that means for the communication we have with our parents. there's a lot of work to be done. and we are excited to partner with you in all of this. i think on the agenda says i'm supposed to introduce your chancellor here. i would like to take the opportunity to discussion my personal and professional admiration and deep respect for the chancellor. talk about all of the things going on in d.c., they couldn't have happened without the leadership of our chancellor. and i'm not just talking about since she has been chancellor, but before. i never pass up the opportunity to be at an event with her and hear the passion and excitement she shares with us about education. so chancellor henderson, thank you. [ applause ] >> i've known soup independent

aguirre since i started. i'm proud to not just call him a colleague but also call limbhim friend. this is a very difficult job. when you can do this difficult job with like-minded folks who are not just professionally like-minded but also personally committed in the same way that you are, it makes this work. so much easier to do. so i want to thank my friends, jesus, for his commitment to the students and families of the district of columbia public schools. and i'm happy to be here at jefferson academy. go trojans. [ applause ] i'm also very happy to have our amma don boeing family here with us. and i think the combination of ammadon boeing brings jefferson some swag that it might not always -- it might have been here lying dormant, but i think

you bring out southwest swag in brand new ways. congratulations on that. of course, it is always an honor to have duncan at schools. it is my favorite time of the year as well. the motivation, excitement, anticipation, it's palpable everywhere we go. and i have been out all week meeting with lot of different people and as i go into the school year, i've been reflecting a lot on conversationes with parents, conversations with teachers. conversationes with principles. and they've called me to think about what we have accomplished. but also, the work that we still need to do. i'm incredibly proud of the successes of d.c. public schools. people can say all kind of things about us. but nobody can knock the fact that we are a school district that is succeeding in improvement. and that's who we want to be. we've made incredible

improvements district wide on the d.c. test. 13 point gains in reading and 23 point gains in math since 2007. i'm excited about thap the scores show we're the fastest improving urban school district of all of the districts that take the test. and i'm super proud of that. i'm proud of us as a state also being fastest growing. at the same time, i'm clear that test scores are not the only thing that we measure success. in fact, many of you have heard me say, it's as important to me to develop our student's talents as it is to develop their test scores. and so, as a parent, i care about my kids' test scores but i also care about so many other things. in fact, we don't just measure success by test scores. we look at graduation rates. we look at student satisfaction rates. because we want our young people to be happy in our skpools. we lock at changes in

enrollment. we believe that increase in enrollment means that parents have increasing confidence in the district. i'm pleased to say that we're not track to see about 2,000 more kids in the district this school year than last. which continues a trend that started in 2010 where we stopped reading people and then in 2012 and then in 2013 we see increases which is great. and increasingly we are focussing more and more on measure ourg success by examining a long-term prospect for our student. where they go to college and what kind of job tle get. that will tell us whether or not we are preparing our student for the life-changing outcome that this world class education should provide. make no mistakes about it, we're not softening our approach to accountability just because i say test scores are not the only thing that are important. we're just holding ourselves

accountable for more than one measure. and so, this is one of the reasons why i asked a group of folks at central office and teachers and parent to come together in an assessment task force. we have heard parents be concerned about how much testing we're doing or how testing has changed what's happening in classrooms. again, as a parent of a rising third grader, i want to know that we're testing enough to get the information that we need, but not too much. i know as a district leader, districts pile thing on top of thing on top of thing and never take thanks off. so having the opportunity to look every once in a while at what we're doing is critically important. so i have started the task force because i want our assess emt system to be strong, i want it to be rational for teachers and informative for parents. they are starting work, continuing work and i look forward to the results they are

going produce for us. this changes to let us to decide this year that we wouldn't make personnel decisions for the 2014-15 school year. based on the results of the new exam. we know that we need to allow our students and educators some time to manage the complex transition that is going to happen as we move from the cast to the park. and we just felt like it was the right thing to do to say for this year we won't attach to the park exam. we will get our baseline and then move forward from there. we know that a major assessment change like this will have transition costs, right? bumps and humps and delays and what not. so we want to use this year to smooth that out because we think that's what makes the most sense for our schools. and i'm telling you this because

i think we want to be part of a smarter conversation about assessments going forward. i think in fact we have to be part of a smarter conversation nationally about assessment. a conversation guided by thought and reason and not by rhetoric and heat. which is what i see a lot happening across the air waves. and so i'm also telling you this because secretary dunk can who m lucky enough to introduce, has been a great thought partner for us and helping us think through how our assessments are strong and rational and informative. ladies and gentlemen, please help me in welcoming secretary of education, arne duncan. >> good morning. i'll be brief. looking forward to having a great conversation with our teachers in a moment. want to just make a couple of

quick point. first of all, just a huge thank you. not just to teachers and educators here, but around the country. we are feeling a huge sense of urgency. start take a minute to reflect about the nation, d.c., and this school in particular. across the nation, high school graduation rates are at all-time highs, 80%. drop-out rate, at all time low. the past decade, drop-out rate is cut in have from about 28% to 14%. that's hundreds of thousands of kids graduating from high school. none of this is where we want it to be, where it should be. nate scores all time highs. but that's very real progress and that doesn't happen without committed principals, teachers and coming into young peoples' lives and helping them be successful. all of us want to get better, get better faster. i have said repeatedly, spending

a moment in our nation's history, for the first time ever i predict our schools. will be majority minority. seeing these graduation rates climb and seeing rates drop, that's not just the right thing for the black community or spanish community, our nation needs that talent. our nation needs those entrepreneurs, job creators. hour nation does not need people on the side lines without skills to compete. without the ability to take a good job and keep that high wage high school job in the community so selective effort is extraordinary. i'm so proud of the progress. d.c., i'm always looking at, growth and gain. by every measure, d.c. is the fastest improving school district. please give yourself a huge round of applause. [ applause ] that does not come without plood

blood, sweat and tears and long, long hours. everyone is trying to get better. you are getting better faster than any other district. and to think it would have been possible to say this 5, 10 bb 15 years ago, people would have laughed at you. it would have been impossible. the transformation that you see here has indication to not just for the children of this city, but around the nation. and finally for this school. part of d.c. part of things getting better. to see the rapid progress the past couple of years. and schools like this, same building as for as i know. same neighborhood. same families. same poverty and other things but you guys are getting very different results. what you are proving is that where children start, where they come from does not define where they end up. with this school and districts around the country, challenge that status quo in real and profound ways and demonstrate that children not born with

silver spoons in their mouth, can still rise academically. there is pretty remarkable progress. please give yourself another round of applause. [ applause ] a quick point i'll make and then i will come back more on this as we go forward later. but to come back to a point i made in june, a parent, and parent with kids in public schools, i think we are all very concerned about the issue of overtesting p. we all believe in assessments and having make sense but where there are multiple assessments, layered on, some schools in district, not because of bad intent but lack of strategy or thinking. stuff added over the years and adding stuff and not great at stopping stuff. we need to have common sense look at that and i'm challenging districts and schools to think about it.

in chicago public schools, when i took over, we took the state test, the the istat and the iowa test. i don't know why in chicago we were taking the iowa state test, so we stopped taking it. this has to make sense. it's got to fit together. again as parents, yes we want to know where our children are. we don't want them spending all of their time taking tests or on test prep. we ask people to look at that hard and we will come back and talk about that later. to come to the news of today and why i want to bring folks together. this is a time of tremendous change and challenge in education. people folks moving forwards higher standard. that's an absolute game-changer. i'm so thankful for the brevity.

many states in response to no child left behind actually dummied down standard. they reduced standard it make politicians look good. and it was one of the most insidious things that happened. and it hurt children. hurt education. hurt our country. and there a s a deafening silence. no one challenged that status quo. it just happened. now to see so many people having the courage to raise standards, raise the bar, is fantastic. easier said than done. easier part is to adopt them. hard part is to implement them. big country. 50 different states and some state have been in this three four years. some are just coming. over the long haul, having a higher bar. making shower our students are college ready. i worry about the high school drop pou drop-out. current rate, we will lose about 500,000 children across the

nation from schools to our streets this year. think about that. 500,000 young people. what chance in life do they have? we made progress. graduation at an all-time high. a graduate at many two and four-year public universities, 30 to 40% are taking remedial classes. these are our graduates who are going ton higher education. but guess what, they're not truly ready. they are not ready. they are burning through pell grants and financial aid and have lower completion rates and more time to completion. to have a student truly college and career ready, as difficult as that might feel, that's a huge deal. what is also happening this year, unprecedented, about 40 states going through the next generation of of assessment. a huge step in the right direction. states are working together. looking at critical thinking skills. looking a the writing stills. things our young people need. that transitions, from old

assessments, to new assessments to cause anxiety and trepidation. what d.c. has done is make a decision this school year and pull that test score out of feature eval for this year. we want to open it up in other states. two new assessments this year. and again, big country, we don't everyone to dictate or micro manage. some states don't want or feel they need that time. we respect that as well. many want to take that pressure off teachers. teachers work extraordinarily hard this year. unprecedented amounts change and just not worrying about that is not roryingworrying about that year. we are open for business and conversation. we are open for business and if there are other things folks want to talk about, that's our job to try an partner, hold a high bar. hold a high bar for states and districts and provide the flexibility. we absolutely want to do that.

what we want do this year, this is not the year to back off of accountability. this is not a year to back off of focus on results. an year for us as adults to back off of making a difference in our students' lives. i want to say very, very clearly to the fantastic educators here. i know i'm preaching to the choir. don't let anyone ever diminish the importance you are doing everyday and the impact you could have on children's lives. i don't care what the children come from. i don't care what they have or don't have, great teachers, great principles, great schools make a huge, huge difference in children's lives. other folks will tell you the things you can't do and how poverty is destiny. i think all of you come to work every single day because you fundamentally reject that motion. we know a lot of hard work and when we do it, he can can translate opportunity for kids. this one is personal for me. just to take one quick second and talk about why i'm so committed to this and why i come to work every single day.

i grew up in a tutoring program. very tough community. about a mile and half from where we grew up, a middle class community, but a different world on 46 th street. community of tremendous gang violence, drugs, poverty. we were challenged there, growing up. everyone was teaching and being taught at the same time. young man who taught me my group as a teenager was a man named kari holly. he was not a typical. never met his father. mother wasn't much in his life. raised by his grandmother. could have been caught up on the streets. on this program. did an amazing job of teaching us and putting up with us. i'm sure not fun these days. he is now an ibm fellow. one of the top researchers in the nation. his father worries so much about his family safety, he didn't sleep all night, staying up to guard the family's house.

as i got holder, me and my sister came back to help and build bonn my mother's work. a "i had a graem" program. holly was raise bid two parents, which is atypical for families. sadly both her parent became crack addicted. she was taken in by a neighbor on the same floor. tragically that neighbor died from cancer. she was taken in by a mentor in our o pro gram. now holly is making a difference in lives and giving back. these young people con just contribute, but lead and do remarkable things. do not diminish the importance and ability to transform the lives of children.

folks say, we don't think enough about the impact of poverty. we think about poverty everyday. we think about teachers but we need more than that. we open up our buildings 12, 14 hours a day. we feed kids not one, but two meals a day. we sent kids home with back packs full of food. sent them home with food on fridays because we worried about them not eating over the weekend. you can reduce drop-out rates and make sure more young people go on to college and are fully prepared. everyone thinks those two things are conflicts and you must think this is part of problem as not part of the solution. >> this is pretty simple. i think coming at this again, parents and educators, we need timely information, good information, useful information. we need information that

students and parent and teachers can all act upon. if you're getting data month answers months late, if you're kweting data you don't understand, if you don't understand how much students are improving this year. i'm much more interested in how much people are improving. where did they start in algebra, where did they end? where did they start in fifth grade writing. before where did they end? we can hold ourselves accountable for showing improvement. i want it look at how the average child is doing. i want to look at how the gifted child is doing. are we resting on the laurels of that child? is that child getting better or is that an excuse to have lower expectations and not have a status quo. you look at that bubble around

this number, which i think is a problem. are they getting better each year or not? and what direction are they going? the final thing i'll say, two final things. first of all, is that no teacher, no school, no district should ever be define d by a sixth test score. i don't think anyone is actually dhoog but i want to be clear in saying we know there is so much that a test score can't measure. we know test scores don't define a teacher or student or school. grit and perseverance and tenacity and creativity and imagination, all those things trying to help instill in your children. talking about pursuing dreams. that is all hugely important. so any evaluation of a student, school or district has to look at multiple measures.

and sometimes people don't quite know who we mean. way on to the give a couple of quick examples. different states are doing different things. but what are some people doing, and they are doing very, very creative stuff. in the state of delaware and teacher evaluations looking at preparation around lesson plans, intersurveys from student and descriptions of strategies and instruct student with diverse needs. that's delaware. nevada, very different set of ideas. they look at family engagement. perfection an profession yl family growth. professional obligation. in hawaii, they look at student feedback surveys. professional growth in activity and communicate for families. so many schools are starting to do with family engagement. these are a couple values. not right, not wrong, where people are struggling. thinking in very creative ways and we think that is the right

way to go. in everything we do. anyone who thinks can you evaluate any school, person, district by numbers, by the problem but i don't see that happening, quite frankly. and people are looking in a creative way. and we can all learn from each other. i want to conclude a little bit where kia ended, is that we all have to come that in not what someone else can do better different, not critique the problem of coming in with a real sense of humility, with a sense of self reflection, self criticism and critique and what can we do to be part of the solution ourselves. yes we want to challenge other people do that, we have to look in the mirror first. we have leadership here in d.c. huge progress. also huge sense of urgency. i feel a deep sense of hugh milt in every year the district is doing different things biassed upon listening. based upon learning.

as that child has hundreds and hundreds of teachers, we take those conversations very seriously. this is based upon conversations of eight, nine, ten months. so what can all of us do collectively to help lead america where we need to go? what can we do to not point fingers but to look in the mirror and adjust and be part of the solution and make sure our children have the clans to be successful. teachers are supportive in the way they need to be. our schools have the clans to transform students lost lives. thank you all for your hard work. thank you for the results.' los. thank you all for your hard work. thank you for the results.lost . thank you all for your hard work. thank you for the results.ost l. thank you all for your hard work. thank you for the results.st li. thank you all for your hard work. thank you for the results.t liv. thank you all for your hard work. thank you for the results. live. thank you all for your hard work. thank you for the results. you are working with urgency, humility and self reflection, which we all need to have. d.c. is very influence sew ensh

influential. if we all listen more and talk less, i think we will get to the right place much faster together. thank you for your hard work. i look forward to your questions and now to the panel. [ applause ] >> good afternoon. my name is emily davis. i'm a middle school spanish teacher from st. augustine, florida. i like that. i heard you talking about the swag. they are liking with middle school. i'm like yes. this is my tribe. these are my people. so from one middle school educator to many of you in the audience, i commend you. i know the work you do day in and day out in middle school arena. thank you for being here. i'm excited to have this conversation today with our panelists. i'm going to hop right into it and introduce our panelists and let them wave so you know who they are. starting with rochelle collins. 7th grade humanity teacher here at jefferson acad pli.

natalie gordon, principal here at jefferson. we have a stem special education teacher from manhattan, new york. megan dunn, first grade teacher and coach at tugman elementary in d.c. and again, i'm so excited to be here. way want to have a very open, honest and candne candid dialog. these topics impact our teaching everyday. i want to start the conversation with meagan. i apologize, she lost her voice. it is already the beginning of theier and she's just so excited that she lost her voice a bit. so we will do our best to make sure you can hear her clearly. you heard the secretary acknowledge there is a great deal of progress played. i will turn a little for you. also change is hard and there are changes coming from the field in terms of testing and evaluation. what are you seeing teachers being excited about?

what are you also seeing them have concerns or worry about as we make the transition to new standard and new assessments? >> thank you for your patience with my voice. i just started coaching so that is where my own peers in my own classroom. i know that hesitation and excitement about the assessment -- about the standard. i for one am very excited about the standard. i have seen, even in the couple of years i've been in my classroom, my student have a much deep are understanding of the concept i'm teaching and they are growing faster and deeper, as we said before, as a result of teaching the standard. we go a lot deeper with be a lot less proud, which allows them as they go through the grade levels, to pick up where the last teacher left off, instead of teaching everything from the last year. a challenge is there's this

building the walls, mentality. the demonstrate the highest understanding, is to teach it, right? if we feel we do not have a good understanding of the standard or what the test is supposed to test, how are we expected to translate that to student. i think the anxiety and challenge around that is real and something we are all working very hard at.