little money on that in a fee for service world. and now this same group of wonderful nurses are leading us into the value world. so the same things that they've been doing all the time, working with patients, focusing on quality, working with them on the issues of medication adherence, of self-management support, finding out from them what's important to them. what do they want out of their health care? and helping the rest of the care team then implement those importances and desires has really been, i think, what has made us -- has made us successful and i think is going to take us a long way into the future as well. >> thanks, kelly. >> thanks for inviting me today. a little bit of background. i've been a practicing internist for about 30 years and also the

zrebl director of population health for hackensack university health network. 234 that role i initiated and was assisted by the hospital in developing our aco. we were in the first group in 2012 for the mssp program. we looked at it a little bit differently. our philosophy was we were going to use this as a clinical laboratory. we were jumping in to the value-based reimbursement scheme and so we decided to limit to primary care physicians to mandate patient-centered medical homes for all of our primary care offices that we bore the cost of all of the training for the primary care -- for the patient-centered medical homes. we mandated electronic medical

records and we purchased a relative relatively strong population health electronic health system which emrs fed data into. this was all up front monies that the hospital, surprisingly enough, was willing to invest in this organization. we started with a little over 12,000 mssp patients with a little over 50 physicians and i'm happy to say we saved in excess of $10 million on those 12,000 patients. now, i also agree that this model is not the model for everyone and that there are many

models out there. the end result is what counts and we all want to get to the same point and clearly our paths will all be different. we chose some -- what i guess we consider to be innovative projects, demonstration projects which help fuel our success. number one is we invested heavily into nurse navigators. we embedded them in each of the practices. therefore they were there to see the patients during their visits to develop a relationship with the patients that the physicians may not have had time to develop. to call the physicians on -- the patients on a regular basis, especially the high-risk patients and to intervene when necessary as the first line of defense when one of the patients wasn't sure which medication to take or should they go to the emergency room, et cetera, et cetera. we were able to cut down our readmission rate dramatically. we were able to cut down our

emergency room rate dramatically. the only thing that went up in our database was primary care visits. and, once again, not necessarily perfection, but i think as a clinical study, it was shown to be effective. and once again, the reimbursement and the savings bears out that case. we also initiated some relatively interesting demonstration projects. we identified our congestive heart failure patients who were having problems with frequent readmissions. we did something very simple, we put scales in their house that automatically sent their weights directly to the doctor's electronic medical records. not a very expensive proposition. as soon as it was greater than a one-pound change in each of these patients they got a phone call to find out what had

changed and whether or not they were being non-compliant we they are medication or diet or what changes had occurred. and in patients who routinely would have four or five hospital admissions in a year, we were able to keep them out of the hospital by intervening at that level rather than waiting for the patient to identify that they were in extremis and then the doctor would say "go to the hospital." we also started a demonstration project with electronic tablets for these elderly patients, pre-programmed with their medications as a medication calendar so the tablet would give a ring when the patient was required to take their medication, the patient was required to press the button on the tablet that they took the medication. once again, directly connected to the physician's electronic medical record so we could

monitor compliance when patients were taking multiple medications on basically a daily level. not waiting for claims data to come back from cms. and we also initiated a program where any time any of our patients, the aco attested patients, would arrive at any hospital facility, inpatient, outpatient, emergency room, urgent care, an automatic notification went to the nurse navigator. so they became atheir the patient was entering the system. so if a patient shows up at midnight on sunday at the emergency room, that nurse and the emergency room doctor doesn't have access to the patient's medical history, which is on the emr that doesn't connect to the hospital, the nurse navigator can contact the emergency room, hopefully know

the patient or has access at home to the electronic medical record and sort of navigate that patient through the system or contact the physician to intervene. these were small demonstration projects we did with a few hundred patients that, once they became successful, the hospital network said "let's roll this out entirely." one other thing that we did which was hugely successful was that every aco patient upon discharge from the hospital received all of their medications prior to discharge. we have an outpatient pharmacy as well as an inpatient pharmacy at our hospital. patient was given all the bottles of medication, instructions, told to go home, throw out every pill that they have in their cabinet, start with the new medication, see their doctor in 48 hours. we believe that this had a major effect on limiting readmissions based upon confusions, patients

not filling their new prescriptions, patient not knowing to take the new medicine, the old medicine, and we've rolled that out to our entire hospital, of which is 750 beds, after we've shown the benefit through the aco. so it's sort of the partnership that the aco has with the organization and trying small demonstration projects on a local level and then rolling them out to our patient network in northern new jersey. >> it sounds like that's continuing to move forward. both of you, actually, it sounds like you've had fairly positive experiences with accountable care efforts so far. i'd like that connect that back to some of the comments earlier today in jennifer's opening remarks. as we discussed earlier, the evidence does show some mixed results, especially when it comes to what people might characterize as true care

transformation. and jennifer, i know you've expressed concern about a krsco just being a financial model and not really be the facilitator getting to truly better patient-centered care. there are some organizations, though, that seem to be moving down that road and i think we've got a couple of examples here with us this morning. just to push on your comments a bit more, how can we best support real changes in care delivery? real systematic changes in how patients are part of these potentially beneficial care systems and separate that out from the organizations that may just be putting a toe in or not really getting it yet? >> well, i think it goes back to the four levels i talked about earlier with really partnering with patients and beneficiaries at those four levels. so a couple more examples. we've seen where some acos have

gone and done home visits with their higher-cost patients to understand the barriers that they're experiencing at home, whether that's to fill medications or to get to appointments. i think that's really key. that's really getting at that patient-centered care that patients need and want. i think going back to what we talked about earlier with sort of helping patients understand the benefits of an aco -- and i know this is more complicated in the medicare space, but i think there's a lot of documentation you can send to patients. you know, a welcome pact, a frequently asked questions document. but the acos we think are doing the best job are the ones who assign care coordinators and case managers to have actual conversations with patients about what the aco is, what the benefits are for them, what care will look like for them in this aco. and that's taking it that step further than just sending home a piece of paper. i mean, we all -- we all have too much painer in our lives.

i think we need to have more conversations in health care. i think also it's -- it's all the things that we know patients care about, it's materials written from a health literacy perspective. it's starting discharge planning at admission. it's really connecting patients with the services in their community that they're going to need to rely on once they've left the aco. so those are just some of the examples that we're seeing that acos who are really looking at doing a patient-centered job of this are spearheading. >> now, the evans space is starting to get better on what kind of interventions can be undertaken feasibly. but from your comments and kelly and morey, your comments as well, this sounds like hard work. there are a lot of things that could be changed for the better. you've got limited time and resources and, morey, even though your organization,

hackensack essentially front it had funds necessary to try out the specific reforms and expand the ones that work, that makes a lot of sense as a model but it does suggest that this is going to take some time, there's going to be some failures and bumps in the road along the way. are there steps to either through better evidence sharing or other policy steps that could accelerate that? that could make the work that you're doing or trying to do go more quickly? maybe happen at a faster pace? >> i think that you hit the nail on the head, and that is we once again started with a small group, basically a clinical laboratory. the question is, where's the benefit to jump into the pool rather than just sticking your toe into the pool? hospital organizations, very large physician organizations

are dependent upon the fee for service dollar right now to pay their bills right now. and there needs to be enough of a carrot at the end of the road to make organizations willing to sort of hit that tipping point and say "we're going to jump in whole hog on value-based." now, for example, you know, there are certain sticks that cms is using such as, you know, the decreasing reimbursement or the penalty for not hitting certain quality metrix or hospitals. but the carrot at the end isn't there. and i think we've already had discussions about that, how from a standpoint of the shared savings program there's not enough benefit on the back end to really make a concerted

effort to drive everyone into a value-based system. and i'm not sure how we're going to get to that tipping point, but i'm not sure it's even going to be an aco. it's going to be something, whether it's the bundle payment program that we're doing, the aco program that we're doing, medicare advantage. you know, we talked about that. medicare advantage has a fixed benchmark that you're put -- that you're working against. if you're going to sit there and say "i can either put my patient in medicare advantage or put them in the mssp, where am i going to get more bang for my buck?" i don't know what the answer is but it mostly is going to be medicare advantage today. we're waiting to see what medicare comes out with with the new regulations. and so i think that that idea has to pervade a lot of the decision making here in washington because the idea is great, we've got to move in this

direction but the devil's in the details. >> kelly, anything you'd like that add about how to make more progress faster? >> i don't know i have that the answers. but i can certainly tell you that's the world we're living in right now, having two feet in both worlds is very stressful as an aco. having had success in it i think has helped us leverage at least getting in the room and getting to the meetings and talking with people more about it. but it is very difficult. and the fact that it took us till now when we started in july of 2012 in mssp to get to this point, in the meantime we've had to cut some staff, we've had to level set, we keep talking and we keep pushing forward and i think that's just kind of the culture and the philosophy that we have had, at least in the

quality department for a position setting to always think that, you know, if i'm doing whatever is best for my patient than i'm doing what's best for me and for our system. and so that's just kind of been the consistent message for a decade. and i think that that really makes a big difference and it certainly gives us reason to keep moving forward. but, again, i would say, you know, that this isn't something that you have to wait for to do if you're in a fee for service world, you can start to learn how to do these things and have a positive business case to do that so i'm more focused on that and i'll let other people coming with the answers. >> you definitely seem like a glass half full type person. >> one of the thing i'm not

seeing is cooperation between consumer organization and acos and i think that's because acos are doing a lot of work right now and that makes sense but consumer groups have expertise when it comes to communicating with patients and families and my organization in particular has expertise around performance measurement and redesign from a patient-centered perspective. so i think one of the messages i would share is that we are open to working with acos to figure out some of these problems and to lend a hand where we might be useful. >> and you're starting to get experience in actually working with acos on these issues. do you want to comment on that at all? >> we've worked -- well, one, we've done a lot in the policy arena around patient-centered criteria. then we have a coalition where we comment on anything that comes out of cms. but we've also worked with some of the pioneers and others to help them do two things, one, find beneficiaries to engage in their governing bodies and ensure that those beneficiaries engage effectively. but also we've held some of the

acos bill patient family advisory counsels that they can then collaboratively design care to meet the needs of patients and families. >> very interesting. i'd like to ask for those of you in the audience any questions for the panelists? i'll start up here in the front. >> thank you. very interesting. dave rabinowitz. the whole issue of health care and especially affordable care act has been heavily politicized and i'm wondering if you're feeling any of the influence of these politics on your patients, especially their acceptability of aco or whether they're really even interested. >> from a central iowa perspective i have to really admit that we have not done marketing of the aco to our patients. we just try to provide them good

care and high quality care so we haven't really gotten into that perspective. but i think that for us we haven't really seen pushback from our patients at all. there's always a few patients that don't want their information shared and that type of thing, but really the patients that i talk to, they just -- they are just focused on getting good care and very much appreciate the efforts. in our advisory groups, this is what we hear. and i would love if we could do satisfaction surveys only on those patients that are worked with by our health coaches because it's always just, you know, a great relationship and they really feel -- they feel, i would say, like it's about time that they were taken into the picture. you know, most patients want to

be part of what's going on in their life. and i think it's a big reason why we've had issues with low medication adherence or low-quality outcomes. the patient is really the -- is the missing piece in this. >> kelly, you are living in one of the definitive political battleground states this year. >> yes, yes. >> sounds like that hasn't really had a direct up pact on -- or for all the controversy around affordable care act it hasn't had a direct impact on the steps you're taking and the reforms you're implementing. >> i would say that initially the pushback was more from the physicians and other folks in the health care -- in our organization that, you know, didn't really think this was going to stick, was just a -- another project that kelly was working on and others, not just me, of course. but you know it's really -- it

is now to the point where i think most of the leadership in our health care system really does believe that, you know, this is where things are going and the nice thing is is that being part of a catholic institution, this fits right with our mission and our values. so now finally we can talk the talk in terms of mission and values as well. >> morey, you've got a pretty well-known governor and a pretty -- republican governor in a pretty blue state but new jersey has actually been taking some, i think, fairly bipartisan steps towards accountable care and its medicaid program and the like. what's your experience been with the politics of this? >> well, interestingly enough, i think it's working the other way around in that as the data came out from cms showing the successes of certain acos, the politicians tended to gravitate

towards those organizations to sort of show their interest in the health care debate. and it's given us an opportunity to educate our elected officials to the problems and to what we thought would be some potential solutions. so i think that the publicity is a good thing because it's putting it on the front page as opposed to deals being made in the back door and those of us who are actually the providers of care having to deal with decisions that were made without anybody's input. >> other questions? in the back here? >> thank you so much. this has really been very interesting. i'm jan heinrich, i'm with

cmmi/cms. you all mentioned some very interesting approaches that are focused more on team delivery of care. and my question is how are you paying for it? so we heard about the nurse navigators, coaches, bringing the patient in as part of the team. the prior panel talked about community health workers and is there an effort to really document how we're using our work force differently? but really important, how are you paying for it? >> i'll start with that. basically our hospital network is fronting the cost, as they would for any other new program. now, the question becomes, you know, how do you determine

whether or not there's appropriate profit on the other side of the ledger? i mean, clearly there's benefit. the question becomes, you know, can you show that it's worthwhile in the long term? the problem is that there are very few hospital organizations that run a cost-based health care accounting system. a physician's office, a physician organization can tell you where every dollar is spent because every dollar is valuable. if you walk into pretty much any hospital in the united states and ask them what it costs to perform a gallbladder surgery because you want to pay cash plus 20%, nobody will be able to tell you. they'll tell you what they charge, but they won't be able to tell you the cost. so my argument to the administrators were, "this program is going to be

successful and you have to let us run with it." now, what we did as an offset because, of course, the bean counters didn't just take my word for it, was that we involved our employee health plan and we created a management structure for our employee health plan so there was cost savings on that side as well as the bundle payment program. the bundle payment program which was initiated by the hospital required an infrastructure for management. we actually are participating in more bundles than any other hospital in the country and so therefore i said to them, i'll also do the clinical management of that as well. so the short answer this is being privately funded by our institution. the long answer is i think in the long run there's an awful lot of benefit to the hospital

and even just the pr that they've received from us saving money in the mssp program is money well spent. >> kelly, any thoughts on this topic? >> yeah. kind of the same thing. our hospital has made the initial investment in our aco and we were projected to have losses for a couple years, we were really honest about that. and didn't quite turn out that way. we're having some good success. one of the things we've done in the past is partnered with other people. we've aggressively gone after grants. we just got a grant from cmmi to spread health coaches and disease registries throughout all of rural iowa in our critical access hospitals and rural primary care networks. so, you know, we try a lot to try and find different things like that that then can help us build the case. that coupled with, i think, in our market knowing our competitor who is jumping right

in, was a big reason, of course, to do it, as was talked about earlier today. and then, again, just kind of going back to mission. this is really what our board of directors -- this is how they directed us. they absolutely jumped in with two feet and have supported it ever since. and i think in the long run it will be -- again, it goes back to if you're doing the right thing for patients, you're doing the right thing for yourself. whether that's at an individual physician level or a statewide aco level. >> let me ask if you all feel like the -- i guess the quantitative business case is getting clearer and better for these kinds of reforms. i mean, we hear this a lot around the country, especially organizations that are committed to this goal of better patient experience and better -- more person-focused care and hopefully getting savings at the same time are just going ahead with what they think are the be opportunities to do that and

they're either funding it themselves or if they can get a cmmi grant or a foundation grant they're taking those steps. but that by itself is not really a sustainable long-term business model. and we heard dr. mcwilliams talking earlier about a kind of conceptual approach to think about for specific areas of care, what the implications for net revenues would be of different kinds of payment reform models. that's hard to calculate across the board and not only that, as you pointed out, hospitals and other health care organizations just aren't set up to calculate cost versus new revenues in this way because they haven't been paid this way. but is it getting better? are you finding it easier to make the business case? do you have better data that you're able to bring now compared to several years ago or is it more still in the realm of, well, we've been doing this for a few years now and so far it's turned out okay so let's

just keep doing what we're doing? is it getting more systematic? >> well, i'll tell you, from our perspective it's a multilevel answer. number one is we can't keep doing business the same way we're doing it. that's clear. number two is if we're successful -- and i'm not talking about us, i'm talking about the health care system is successful -- there are going to be less hospitalizations and more than likely less hospitals. and so hospitals are going to have to think about their business and their business model in a different way. so a hospital like mine which was willing to make that investment was basically looking and saying, how are we going to be able to change our business model? is this a direction that's going to make us successful in the future? and i can't speak for administration, but so far they've been very supportive of every effort that we've made. not necessarily just with the

aco, but in population health as a whole. changing the way that we provide care. quick example. i requested a computer program for appropriateness documentation for radiology procedures in hospital. as we all know, anybody on the outside that's not a medicare patient needs to get an authorization for a significantly expensive diagnostic test. the result is doctors admit patients to the hospital and do every diagnostic test they can possibly think of while they here in the hospital regardless of diagnosis. we just purchased a program which sits on our emr that basically blocks orders of anything that's not indicated based upon the americanradiolog. now, this is not something that's going to be an upfront win for the hospital but clearly

they see it as a long-term gain to them and i see it as a benefit because it's going to change physician practice patterns and therefore is going to bring doctors more in line with population health thinking. >> thanks, we have time for one more question back here. we want everybody online to get their benefit as well. >> i'm theresa o'keefe, ceo of my body count. we've created a consumer health score so i'm very interested. kelly, i thought you said you work with employer populations. because a lot of what i'm hearing in my orientation is employer population is things that seem to be working are already happening in the employer-sponsored health care and so i'm interested in the differences and i have already kind of played some out in my head. but are you also considering incentives for your populations? or have you got to thinking that

far? >> yeah, actually. our hospital system is -- was really our first test case to kind of prove this point. and so we've worked rally closely with them. and there are patient incentives that have been built in to work with health coaches on life-style changes, to work on self-management support, and, you know, those types of things. and we've elevened from it. you know, it hasn't been perfect. the first year all you had to do was have three sessions with the coach and you got the benefit. and that was a -- an hr designed thing and we were able to come in and say it's an ongoing relationship and so they've kind of spread it south that, you know, you get the incentive but you maintain that relationship with your medical home. and so, you know, i think there's lots of opportunities that way and i think there were -- you're right, there's

already a lot of things that are working and i think adding care management kind of as an overlay to that is probably what has led to the success that we've had. we've decreased hospitalizations. we've decreased ancillary usage, all those things, with health care workers who traditionally are high utilizers. so, you know, i think it's a combination and, again, just another idea of partnering with people, what are other people doing? leveraging that and working together and having that same consistent similar message. it's really led to lots of employer groups within central iowa coming to us and seeing what we can do with them. >> jennifer, with employers concerned about the cost of health care and the quality of the coverage that their employees are getting as well as with the health of their employees, i expect you all have seen some examples where

employers can't work to support the same models of more effective patient person family engagement and care. >> yeah. so we also co-chair the consumer purchaser alliance at the national partnership. and i think what i thought was interesting with what you said, kelly, is that there was an initial up take, but then without sort of creating that relationship, it wasn't going to work and i think that's our concern as a consumer organization is we don't want to just give people gift cards and say "okay, great, everything's taken care of." that's a quick fix, it will not be sustained over time. we want to change the way clinicians and patients partner together to get the result wes all want in health care. so it's really about that relationship and understanding what it is patients need and want and working collaboratively with them to design it. >> great. thanks. and i think this point about no quick fixes as illustrated by the goal of some fundamental changes in how patients work with their health care providers

in achieving care transformation is a good point to end this panel on in illustrating that this is hard work but clearly some opportunities to make progress and improving care, lowering costs and especially by thinking outside of the trags traditi -- traditional approaches to health care. i'd like to give you a round of applause for the great presentations on this panel. thank you very much. [ applause ] later today, arizona senator and navy veteran john mccain will recount the lives of soldiers who served in conflict ranging from the revolutionary war to the wars in iraq and afghanistan. he'll talk about his new book "13 soldiers, a personal history of americans at war." he'll be talking about the book today at the national press club. we'll have live coverage at 6:30 eastern on c-span 2.

>> c-span veterans day coverage continues tonight with selections from this year's white house medal of honor ceremonies followed at 8:00 by the traditional wreath-laying ceremony. then just after 9:00 the annual uso gala. also discussion on veterans' mental health issues as well as other selections from the white house medal of honor ceremonies. >> a panel of education experts says one problem with the common core education initiative is the lack of updated material for educators. the american enterprise institute in washington, d.c. hosted a discussion on the pros and cons of the program. this is about an hour and a half. good afternoon, everybody.

welcome to the american enterprise institute, we're happy to have you. as we talk about, you know, sort of a back water issue no one's really talking about, hasn't really gripped the public consciousness -- no, today we are here to talk about the common core, an issue that has an incredible amount of salience in the news media and in politics and we have three outstanding panelists to discuss. to introduce them to you kathleen gwartz who is a veteran education reporter, an assistant editor for "education week." she co-authors the blog curriculum matters. and if you want to get up to speed on the common core and particularly how the common core has been playing out in classrooms across the country, catherine and eric's reporting has been really some of the best and we're really lucky to have her today to share her thoughts. next to her, of course, often imitated never duplicated that

would be rick hess, director of education policy here at aei. he's the co-editor of common core meets education reform, what it all means for policy, politics, and the future of schooling. he actually participated in the intelligence scared debate on the topic, embraced the common core and took the negative position and he has a new piece leading the fall issue of "national affairs" entitled "how the common core went wrong." and next to him we have chris minick who's the executive director of the council of chief state school officers which is a nationwide non-partisan membership organization of state superintendents of education. in 2009 he was the strategic initiative director of standards, assessment, and accountability where he led the development and adoption of the common core in 45 states and the district of columbia. so an august panel. and we are going to forgo the usual sort of speech making and talking points that begin these confabs often and we're going to

jump right into the issues. so i would like to actually start with a sort of laying of the land and i think catherine you might be the best to sort of give us an overview. so we're hearing all across the country that schools and districts are implementing the common core. what does that mean? what are school districts doing this year differently that they weren't doing last year? >> i wish there was a youtube form answer for the whole country but things being what they are -- >> it would make all things easier. >> things being what they are, there aren't. i feel like really districts and schools are all over the place. you have some that really haven't done a whole lot, are still getting a sense of what it is they're supposed to do that's different and you have at the other edge some districts that are really plunging in on the leading edge and making a lot of really, really deep change. as you know, i spent eight months hanging around the district of columbia schools watching what they were doing and really on message top-to-bottom thorough going

changes. so it varies. i mean, you have a lot of leading edge projects that are coming from grass-rootsy levels like i think nevada has been highlighted for efforts to do pd that came from teachers. okay, so our state isn't really helping us much, what are we going to do? we're going to create these resources ourselves. it's really all over the place and the studies show, in fact, just a recent one on the center for education -- excuse me, cep report last week just showed that a full third of districts are really behind on some of the big pieces that are going to make this work. of course, that means two thirds are putting things into practice. but there's a lot of holes. it's kind of swiss cheesy. >> absolutely. that's great. i want to add for those of you following along at home on the live stream or those of you joining us on c-span, the conversation is also taking place on twitter with the ash tag "what now cc?" after we talk for a little bit up hoar i'm going to kick it

into the audience so feel free to tweet those questions to me any time throughout our conversation, either to me at mq underscore mcshane o or #whatnowcc. so chris, a lot of the preparation taking place, that catherine is talking about is to get in line for these new tests that are being rolled out. so the two big consortia at my last count, using the great map that catherine and andrea at education week have compiled, by my count sback, one of the two large consortia, has 17 states participating. the park, the other large consortium has nine states plus the district of columbia. 17 states are doing their own thing and seven are rated as undecided. so my question to you is sort of how do you read this landscape? this fragmenting testing and where do you see this going? >> thanks. and thanks for inviting me to be here and catherine your coverage

has been great on this topic and other obviously -- you're in the details of this. you know, if we had said in 2010 that we would have 26 states participating and working together on assessments, no one would have predicted that. we had 50 states each writing their own tests. so i think 26 is real progress. grant there had's been states that have stepped away and there are a number of reasons why. first off, the federal involvement in this has just been not help informal every scenario that we've been following. so you see the -- any sort of pushback around testing has usually been rooted in the fact that the federal government was involved in funding the consortia and also put incentives for folks to adopt the common core standards. so i think in the end we will see a group of states -- i mean, most of these states have already decided to give the test this year so i don't see a lot

more eroding of the 26 we have right now and i think rick's on to actually one big thing that we have to figure out and the states need to decide if they're going to stick together on what the cut scores look like. and i think both consortias are really committed to doing so but as states peel off and think about what their own assessment might look like, how are we going to make sure they don't black slide on the expectations? because really whether you call it common core or something else, we know we need higher standards for kids in this country. so how do we do that is really a question i'd like -- i think that is a what's next question for us is how do we make sure that the assessments are of a level that are actually different than what we were doing before. >> so, rick, i'd love to hear your response on this, your read of the situation, states choosing to peel off and go their own way. is that a positive development for the long-term health of the common core? is it a risk for the long-term health of the common core? how do you see that affecting it? >> sure, i think it's a great

question and first let me join chris in saying that i think catherine's work on this has been invaluable. one of the reasons i think we are where we are is because the common core felt like a surprise to huge numbers of americans as of 2013. i remember catherine called me -- it was probably late 2009 or early 2010 during the rollout of the standards and i had just blogged about like four jobs in the education space and catherine was like "you really don't care about this, do you?" and i was like "i don't know what any of this means yet." and i think most americans really had very little idea what common core meant until they started to hear relatively vitriolic characterizations one way or the other. so i want to -- i think that's kind of how we got here. and i think catherine and ed week have done a remarkable job but obviously they're speaking not to the american public writ large, more to folks in education. a couple thins, one, i agree

wholeheartedly with chris that i'm for higher standards. i don't know anybody who's against higher standards. i think a big part of the question is how comfort we should be that the common core standards are higher. for me, as i've written, i don't have a problem with the common core standards. i'm unpersuaded that they're higher and better, especially in practice. and i am concerned that through the stuff that goes along with common core, like the affinity for close reading, i'm not sure even some of the advocates understand this as well as they think they do. or what it means in practice. so i personally would like to have some time to see how it shakes out before i know that this is a train we're all jumping on. for that reason, i think a number of states edging away from the common core is probably a good thing. personally i think to chris's point, if the federal government had never waded into this back

in 2009 i think 15 states, a dozen states, maybe 20, but about 15 states probably would have gone ahead and done the common core on their own. i think they would have figured out a way to do aa common assessment like had been done in new england for several years. we would have seen a truly and genuinely statewide effort which if it was working well other states would have wanted in. unfortunately i think that's not what we're looking at. and obviously it's both -- it's washington, so it's kind of fun to spend a lot of time arguing about how we got here, and i'm happy to do that. but also some of what we're talking about today is what are the strategies for moving forward constructively given kind of that there is we happen to be sitting in 2014. >> absolutely. so what's interesting, chris you and rick agree on this idea that the federal government overreached. that's caused a lot of problems. do you see an appetite on behalf

of common core supporters to push back more vigorously against the federal government? -to-take a more sort of proactive stance of saying, y'all need to stay out of this, we want to handle this ourselves? >> i think it's pretty clear that most of us -- i mean, i can't say all of us who support the standards but most of us believe that sort of declaring our independence, making sure that it is and remains to be state led is something that's critical. so figuring out how as state chiefs and as governors we step into this space, i think the harder part is, though, we just don't have -- it's a fund-raising issue on the anti side and there's no fund-raising on the provide. now, granted there are resources on the provide, but the anti-folks have have passion and money and it's going to be a hard road to change the branding of common core if we were going

to go down that path. so i think the bigger thing is figuring out how do we land this so that educators who believe in these standards -- and i disagree with rick. i just think the shifts in the common core are based in research and they also are based in what teachers tell us they want to do with their kids and have already begun doing with their kids. so i think this sort of, you know, i can grant you there was no -- in 2010 there was there wasn't the attention there is now in 2014, but i don't think -- you still look at -- despite all the negative attention ma that common core has received, teachers poll in the positive on common core. so there's something about the standards that are really worth holding on to. so that's the piece i think rick and i disagree on but we're happy to keep talking about it. i think the bigger thing is how do we land this thing in five years so that teachers are able to teach these higher standards and we have kids actually graduating from high school at a higher rate. you look at the earlier results

out of kentucky. we are making progress with kids. we can debate all we want in washington about whether or not this is a good thing. more kids are ready to go to college. more kids are ready to go on to do what they want to do next in their lives. this is important. so that's the stuff i don't want to lose. i can lose all the other stuff, i don't want to lose kids' success through process. >> one thing i'd be interested in doing, we talk about the common core in somewhat vague terms of general ideas. take a couple minutes and drill down to the sticking points and understand what's happening first. so the first issue that i think actually united people left and political right was data privacy. so maybe catherine. is this something in your time in schools and districts talking to parents and teachers and others, how big of a concern was it for those folks on the ground level or is this a larger or political conversation taking place? >> i'm not the best person to ask about that because we've had

other reporters focusing on it more than i have in all honesty. but it's a concern. i'll flip that another way, though, and wander from the data privacy question for a second because that goes right to what i was hoping to get a chance to say. this whole debate >> and you hear the noise it's kwooit where i've gone. this is not the stuff people are talking about. how do i figure out what that means? can i possibly reorganize my school in my district? do i have enough time to do this? is my district reorganizing in such a way -- that's the kind of stuff i've been hearing about. so it's like when i come up out of the waterer and i comet back to the office and i hear blah, blah, blah, that isn't what i've heard in schools. clearly, they're aware of the pressure. and the cep report shows the sup superintendent surveyed in

districts, there's a much higher rate. >> there's an interesting dynamic here. when you talk to educators, you generally don't hear a lot of grumbling about this. what you generally hear is people trying to figure out how to make this stuff work. and when it comes to something like federal grant retirements or when it comes to questions about i.d.e.a., oftentimes, what we do is we create unhelpful frameworks. and then they spend time trying to comply.

so i totally buy that educators are out there. certainly, for me, and i think this is kind of a good faith difference is, look, when i look at common corps standards, qua standards, they're fine. there are a bunch of phrases. they're not that different to be honest frrks what a lot of states have on paper at a time. but there's also a lot of stuff that goes along with the common corps. some common corps advocates talk about how it's smuggling content because there's a 57 word little appendage there that my good friends are very enthused about. folks who link the common corps celebrate the close reading. close reading isn't anywhere necessary in the reading standards. but it is something that teachers are encouraged to do 70% informational text by the time kids are in high school.

not an english class, which means you're supposed to be doing a lot of reading of epa manuals or such. and i'm personally unpersuaded that reading epa manuals is a better chemistry instruction than doing labs. i'm not opposed to these things, but i'm not sure how this is going to shake out. how do we let states like kentucky, how do we let the dozen, where you actually have sdeep commitment to doing this, and doing it well, let them try. and let others of us kind of stand on the sidelines and see whether this actually works out as advertising. >> is there a way to do that? >> yeah, there's nothing that is forcing us, as you know. we're going state-by-state right now. there's nothing that's forcing the state to stay in the common corps. there are insentives.

>> i think that's a false distingsz. we want kids to be reading more complex texts, a higher level of understanding by the time they leave high school. these goals are good ones. i also know there hasn't been a process like this. i think we've written a better set of standards than any state had. so i think we disagree about that.

one very attractive feature of the common corps with the idea of a nationwide markt place for instructional materials, ralter than just having the little alabama textbook market, has this flourishing marktsd place aris arisen? how are folks finding these materials? >> that's easy. it's been sort of awful. everything that we hear with few exceptions, would suggest that the publishing world hasn't done a very stellar job of making deep changes. be those physical materials or digital materials. there are some things that are

promts rg, but it's few and far between. i think they are being created. but that's one of the most universal and consistent skplant complaints that have been researched and that we are reporting is that the stuff is junk. it's really not that much different than it was before the common corps. >> and there's this whole question about alignment. so there's a stronger incentive officer folks to take the same product that they've always had. it's the same common corps alignment. so are there efforts that are at work, chris, to try and do something about that? to try and help state's districts schools sort through all of the options that are out there?

e think we have to start from that point and move forward. catherine's reporting has been very consistent on this. when i go into schools, teachers are saying where's the stuff to teach these different standards? so you can't say that stand arts aren't that much different and then also say we need way different materials to teach these standards. >> and i any this takes us in a good direction. at some point in the near future, the rubber is going to hit the road. and the tasks that are aligned

to the standards will be administered to students and consequences will be attached to them. i mean, one of the simple truths for me is that, you know, if my employer tells me that they want to do more to hold me acountable for my performance, that's reasonable. if they tell me they want to change my job and start bringing consequences to bear, that makes me feel like somebody's painting a tar get ochb my back.

what we wound up with were federal political timelines and the rate at which they ought to be transitioning.

there are so much states that are enthusiastic about common corps that seem to be doing it well and they've got the education directors on board. yonds why we try to force this march from washington. i think, for me, a real simple place to start is by recognize ing recognize political timelines. >> so, chris, one response to this has been through waiver processes and it's this sort of

push back, the consequences or that the timelines in which states have to start using these tests. are you expecting to see more of that in the future? how do we do this? >> we are here to talk about the common corps and it's very tough to talk about these issues. i think it needs to be in the hands of the states. i do think that we've seen real exitment from the states about stepping into this. we hear the most from the states

that are having the hardest time with this. there are a lot of states that are moving forward in a positive way about how we're helping teachers get better. that's the bigger thing. i really don't care that much about the evaluation stied of this. i was hoping that they eat get better in that spot. >> catherine, your experience in schools and in districts, as the sort of landscape changes undernooet teachers, how do they see -- i guess one question, do they see the goal post being movered on them? do they feel like they're part of the process? are they seeing this transition in new common corps tasks?

they only had so much time to do something. they didn't feel they had enough time to do it. very, very little support.

very little strategy or understanding for how to deal with kids that have the greatest need. who have the greatest way to go. >> a story caught my eye because the headline was in first common corps year, louisiana public schools grades improved sliegtly. now, a lot of the narrative around the common courts when we increase these standards, we somehow expect to see larger and larger number of students fail to make the new definition of proficiency. i think this is where secretary duncan kind of got in trouble talking about what the implications might be.

in the sort of time lymes that you're talking about, it seems a perfectly reasonable response would be if we can't bump back the time of the test, we just make the test easier. i think the first way is to make sure that as states are thinking about setting a common performance standard across the

consorti consortium, that's a really important piece. that their kids right-hand turn able to achieve the same level as the others in that group. i don't see a problem with that part. it's the individual state that is are giving their own assessmenteds in the standards that i think we're going to have to continue to work with. i see a different attitude about the new assessmenteds than i did five years ago.

kentucky shouldn't take a delay. they're doing fine. herb is pretty much working together. there are other states that probably need another year. they problem lie need these other tests to roll out for a year. so this should not be a single conversation. i wonder about sort of changing this. it seems like states like kentucky have really sort of led the night, which had to be tough plitically in a lot of places, to tow the line for these high standards. when these sort of lagger ds states don't live up to their standards, in a way, are you sort of cutting the knees out from the folks that have been making the tough decisions to actually tow the line.

frederick he said wait a minute, all of these national things are making it harder for them to keep doing what they were doing. so absolutely, by trying to drag everybody along on the common core train, instead of letting the 15 states are 20 states that one at u.s., what has happened is you have those guys in first class and then you have another two dozen states getting tracked long coach and they are kicking and screaming and the noise is effective and it's honestly making us more controversial than the states that want to do it. let's also be clear that part of the problem is that by making it something that everybody should do instead of a true coalition of states that are excited about it, you have wound up with all kinds of design complications and one of the reasons that we supposedly needed this common core was

because we had all of the gameplaying in the no child left behind. were states would take tests and nobody was getting good accurate readings on how the kids were doing. well, that is fine. the solution to that is what you really want is a test that folks can't finagle. there is testing windows, for instance. it's a recommends to state something like a 60 day testing window. this is because they regard different times and so if you're going to test folks at a 5% coming from flexibility. and there's also a long and proud tradition when it comes to testing of school districts pushing back this to the testing window because that means at their kids get a lot of extra days of instruction and their so the way you would combat this is make a condition of joining us testing consortium, but you don't get this with the testing

window that they are going to look at the master schedules and work with them and this is one that you're going to test. that wasn't part of because are trying to get as many as part of what you would want is an agreement to we will judge whether kids are passing or not and you only get to be part of this if you actually agree to that was never part of that and the goal was to get as many guys as possible. part of the problem with treating common core is something that we want everyone to do rather than as an activity that would be led by states that we are passionate

we have one wound up optimizing the way that the test generate the results. personally i fairly despond on us and i 00:31:39 unidentified speaker strongly suspect that in more it 70 or 80% of states, it will feel in 2018 exactly like it filled in before. >> i just think i can't contain myself. okay, so first off -- i myself. okay, so first off -- i could chris minnich not disagree more about the testing window thing. i can give you a better example of something. but i think that -- i think that the states started different times and are trying to test on technology and i think that this is the only decision that they can make is to give people a lot of time to take these tests. of course people are going to push it as far along as they can with the testing window and i don't think about is a problem, i think that we can work it out. i would add that i think that the bigger question is whether or not states will stick together on this in terms of at the end of the day giving these tests, getting these results, are we going to show is a country, we're going to have a more fair benchmark across the country with 26 states work together on these tests.

i think that's a real positive. and in the end the common core was never built for 50 states. and so we never encouraged the 50 states. so other states coming along kicking and screaming, i don't know of any that really want that they can't get their legislature to pass out. and we had 45 states to start with and we have to states back out and we have 43 still. what is the deal maximally states kicking and screaming, there's only two left. so i don't understand. >> one thing, it seems that you're highlighting a catch-22 here that in order to maximize -- if you want more people to because of you and some things you have to lower the requirements of what it takes to get in. but the whole point of being in it is that you hold each other accountable to keep high expectations for this. so i'm wondering how you would respond to that. so if you need people to be in these to hold themselves accountable and you

worry about backslapping outsider back, how do you navigate back? >> that is the question that i would rather debate. how are we going to put systems in place to make sure that when we get to this that states are still in this game. and that is what i want to hit on. one of the structures that can put in place, what are the policies that we can act as a group and not federal, but states working together, to make sure that in the long run consortiums are successful. quite frankly getting a better test for kids is what is going to push a across the goal line. because we have, you know, were asking what is going to be different in 2018. if the test are not different than will have a problem. >> okay, so the challenge is, all right, what are some constructive alternatives on what to do? i would love to

>> you know, one, for instance, would be i would like to see the consortium lay out a set of negotiable commitments. they are going to agree in concert that they will look at start dates and they will tighten the windows for specific states, find 60 day window for the reasons. but then within a given staten state, it should be much tighter. under have to play by those rules. they should have a mandatory scoring schedule. so the cut scores should be mandatory. it should not be something that you can be a member of the con southerly sha and still opt out of. we don't know yet how the results are. i personally suspect is there are going to be some issues with that.

i would like to see some states require. so for me, for instance, i think the point is that i want to see if you're going to be part of a consortium to ensure sbe integr testing, some states would say hey, that's not quite for us. for me, that's a good result. >> so catherine, i would like to hear your response of that. so the more stringent things have to be part of that. how does that trickle down to the school? to the teacher? >> i'm not sure i have a scleer answer for that. i do think that it's situational. and i think that's going to feel different district to district. it does occur to me that ef everyone though that might not feel like a mandate from washington, in a current envieme environme

environment, what would that feel like? when chris talked about the common core and how true it is that there could be a rush of stakes that really want to get out but they can't. there are things like waiver cash that they have. there are things like race to the top money and they made certain greemts. we have e we've already seen what the u.s. department did because the stajd ards weren't up to snuff. clearly, the environment is still heavy with that. i don't know what requirements within a consortium would to. wurn of the questions about the test scores is what are you going to do with them? but then there's the question of what you attach to them? is that going to be your high school exit score? and are you going to peg high school exit to the career and

college readiness mark? that's a whole different thing than saying we're going to pick a different score and it's going to be kind of down here and that's what we'll base exit exams on. and the political effect of that. those things would be completely different. they all have a lot more hanging in the air than the testing window. sorry. >> no, i think it's fair. but i think part of the challenge here is that if we have spent all of this time and passion the lags several years and over the next several years doing this abds what we wind up with that public officials right-hand turn going to fudge the results that's pretty much where we were from 2001 and 2009.

it seems to me for any of this to have been worth all of the effort and to deliver on the promise, that what we want is i actually -- my answer on all of the things that you've raised is i don't want the feds touching any of that. i want the states to make decisions on what they see fit. it seems to me, i want an idea that these results are going to feel much more like the s.a.t. or the a.p. than they feel like the old state assessments. >> it seems almost what's being called for is some sort of governing body that is not the federal government. so if someone is goichk to do things, are there efforts to

create that? is there work of something to be done to create a body like that? >> yeah, so, no t that i know of. but i agree with rik. i think that making sure that the states that are in these two groups really want to be in these two groups is really an essential part of this. i don't see any way that we come out on the other side with states just sort of giving the tests, okay with it, and not really committed to sticking together as a group. so i would agree with that. i think that's an issue that we're going to have to resolve. you know, writing another set of standards for the country would be very difficult at this point, right? there would be a lot of controversy and i don't think we would -- we would be able to get through that process, especially from washington, d.c. so i do think the states need to own these processes in their states.

but, you know, the 17 and smartsmar smarter balance are going to have to figure out how they update their standards together as well. so that brings us to an elephant in the room that we need to talk about, which is politics. so the politics of the common core. so, rick, you push lished just this morning in the washington post, an interesting study about just how much or little people are actually talking about the common corps. i was wondering if you could share that and talk about its implications for the broader conversation. >> sure. turns out when you look at the kabd dats and what they've formally said on the web site,

om three of the 35 democrats running for governor mention the common corps. frankly, what's interesting is about half the republicans running for ugs senate mention the common corps. but you can't do very much about the common corps for u.s. senate which makes it suggest that there's more, you know, noise than light going on there. i think the bottom line is one reason this has been so politicized about is that we have gotten wrapped up in politics and things have looked very good to the reform community in 2009 when president obama was polling 65, 70% looked less good to the reform community when president obama is much less popular. and i think, you know, that is true of several elements that got wrapped up in particularly

race to the top. i'm not opposed to the common corps. i just want to see how this just shakes out. as opposed to folks who are confident, i think one of the opportunities is how do you separate this from washington politics. where it's an issue that governors can address in a much more problem-solving, state-center fashion. senator lamar alexander has offered language in a stay chut that created the u.s. department of ed. there's no child left behind. it says the federal government wont touch curricula, won't touch instruction. so there's this whole question about well, is it touching st i

standards? senator alexander said let's just close the door. let's say the federal government is not going to take anything. and i think one of the real opportunities that chris eluded to is for folks who really embrace the common corps and embrace it as a state-led initiative just for them to jump on that train. to say look, this is the kooind kind of language that everyone can agree on. let's make it clear that whoever is president in 2016, this is not something that's going to open the door to make decisions. frankly, this gets usback to the question of how much of a role, if any, the government should have in assessments. that opens a big door to no child left behind and whether or not they're blaifing appropriately. my personal preference is not to have the u.s. government telling states.

>> i would love to hear your thoughts. do you see it the same way? see it differently? >> i haven't read the washington post piece, but i will. it sounds interesting. i would just say my experience mirrors what rick just said. there's a lot of fervor in the media and with a few people in every state about the common corps. but when we actually start talking to people that right-hand turn actively involved in politics, there's a -- i guess, a lower level of understanding what the common corps is. the poll e that i've seen more than half the people don't understand. there's a real opportunity for us to just start explaining. as rick said, sort of ind p independence from the federal push on this would be really helpful for us. grant it, there is a popular federal role in education and it

should be one to make sure states aren't doing bad things to kids in terms of equal opportunity and things like that. but i think in this case, i think rick's right. that we need to make sure it's clear that the states are the ones that made the dgsecisions raise their standards and we've got to keep owning them. >> before i turn it over to the all yentudienc audience, and, again, those of you at home, feel free. i want to ask two lightning round questions to all members ovt panels. i'll ask each of you to weigh in. the first question is what do you see as the biggest threat to the common corps effort moving forward. so we'll start with chris and then move down. rick? >> no, i'm kidding. so the biggest threat? i actually think the transition this year will be the test. the big challenge. making sure that we're able to

honestly tell kids how we're doing against these standards and move that through the process. >> can i have the second answer? >> what kat rin identified as the materials gap i think is the big challenge. >> shoot. >> i think over exuberant add voe cats. i think the more folks like chris are out front addressing legitimate con sirns, i think the better its prospects. i think that is just a recipe for people losing faith. >> katcatherine? >> quality and results of test. >> you took lightning round quite literally on that one. thank you. i appreciate it. you must write about education. you spend time in classrooms. so then what questions, also, what does success look like? or maybe the question would be phrased something like what does winning look like?

so if catherine were to write a story ten years from now, education week does these great retrospe retrospektives of looking back on no child left behind. in order for her to include the senten sentence, the common corps has been a success, what are the types of things that need to have that happen 1234 in this way, i need to go in the reverse. so, catherine, for you to write that article, what are the types of things that you would need to have seen. >> gosh, i would have to stay ten years in order to do that. i guess it seecms to me fro the states and educators -- noet states in the political sense, but educators in states and districts, seems to me they would have to have some sort of evidence that kids were really doing better and, in particular, i'll throw this in just because of the kind of thing that i'm

interested in, that the kids who are the farthest behind have actually made the most progress and are closer to going where they need to go. opportunity gaps close and achievemented by some standard of measurements, whatever that is, is better. college success rates. in other words, remediation and other measures freshman year, that it has actually made an impact on kids success in higher education. i think that often what gets forgotten in this debate is the original intent of this was college readiness. college and career readiness, let's not talk about the career part. if there's no impact, no buy-in and there's not an impact on college readiness, what was that about? >> rick, your shot. >> yeah, two things. one, i think the out comes that catherine just eluded to in terms of employer satfatsz fact, in terms of kids performance, post-secondary.

i think the second one is kind of contingent on resolving some of these questions about what does it mean to teach the common corps well. i get lots of e-mails from folks, including teachers, who are frustrated about what feels like to them picture-driven mathd. so we see some of the really outrageous stuff online. there's other folks who say that's crazy. that's not at all what the common corps is trying to push. this stuff has to be resoft ved and has to be resolved in a way that's not about faddism and goofiness. and, frankly, i'm not sure which way is going to get sorted out. for catherine to write that story, it's got to get sorted out in ways that don't encourage bad instruction. >> i agree with rick. especially on the mathematics side, we have some work to do to have teachers talk about mathematics.

i think we've moved in the decemb discussion where kids need access. i think we've had a measure of success on that. and and i think that's largely from a legacy that came before me. in terms of what we're looking towards, i think some of the things catherine may have mentioned. remediation rates and yump universities and colleges. kids are paying n ining for clat they should have had in high school. i think we're going to have more kids graduating with meaningful credentials, so whether or not they can have a certificate to go into a post-secondary training program and go right into a university or community college. those are, in terms of data points, the two we're looking for. >> and one, just to tack on to the end of the lightning round

there, chris, because you've been such a good sport, do you worry that some of the advocates have been setting up the common court by setting such a high bar? i mean, just one, from rick's piece, secretary duncan, which we've been going after all day, but mielgght as whole just pile here. the common corps may prove to be the single greatest thing to happen to public education in america since brown versus board of education. in some way, are you worried that -- you could do great things. you could taurk about what catherine could conceivably be achieved. but are you worried about that gap? >> i can only advocate the way i advocate. there's a lot in this room that i know of. we all have our own styles. my sense is that this is a big deal. and we shouldn't -- we shouldn't under-emphasize the fact that we're asking more of the kids across the country this year. we are giving new assessment.

secretary duncan has done a pretty good job. his push to look at standards, look at assess. s, those are all okay pushes. i think when we looked at insentives that's where we ended up in a challenge. am i concerned about the way we're doing this? rick and others can look at that. i think the biggest thing, as state chiefs, we care about kids getting to standards. we're willing to have whatever discussions it takes to actually realize these standards. otherwise, they're just words. >> great. >> i think we're going to turn it o every to the audience now. i've already been getting some questions on twitter, which is outstanding. if you'll remember the hash tag is whatnowcc. and i am mq underscore mcshane. we'll start with a twitter score and then move to the audience. two things. one, for those of you that are

tweeting, i'm going to try to combine a lot of your tweets. i'm going to see a lot of them in the same area. number two, for those of you joining us, if you haven't been to an aei education event before, we generally have two rules for questioners. the first one is that we ask that you identify yourself. we'll have folks with microphones that will come to help you. and number two is that you actually ask a question. we're trying to go light on soliloquy and light on questions. i would like to get to as many of them as possible to if you could think that nice question, think tweets, 140 characters, get it out there. so before we go to the room, the first question that i've seen sort of different variations of, a lot of people have been sort of asking about the effect of the common corps on non-tested subjects.

people have been asking about arts, ride the top now about phys-ed, about a lot of issue that is we want schools to do. in your experience in schools, have you a, seen any evidence of a narrowing of psychiatrcurricu these or any evidence of fear of narrowing curriculum by focusing on what the common corps does, you might focus out. >> so i'll just annoy you by saying neither? i mean, what i've seen is there's a genuine attempt in a lot of places, not every place, i think a lot of places don't quiet get this. but there's a general urineuineo implement across a common corps. and there's a huge misunderstanding in a lot of places about what that means. i've routinely heard them referred to as social study standards. they're literacy standards specific to social disciplines.

developing literacy skills specific to the sciences. how do you deal with scientific material. how do you make sense of that? same thing in social studies. they're having to involve science teachers and social study teachers in doing that. i've seen really deep work going on in kentucky a few years ago. those folks didn't seem concerned about narrowing. everybody in the building was having to get involved to figure out how to teach literacy in their subt. >> rick, you have expressed some concerns about this. i'd love to hear your take? >> yeah, again, i think it just comes back to common corps feels to me very much like a pig in a poke. and i like to see things before i buy them.

schools have been under an enormous pressure to focus under no child left behind. i don't think common corps changes that dramatically one way or the other. i think common corps, hypothetical hypothetically, certainly creates the opportunity for this kind of collaboration among teachers which is going to actually deliver on the promise that is going to help, you know, help make sure that instruction is row boast. but frankly, for instance, the boston public schools is tinkering with the organization on social studies to assume social studies in history under english language arts. and that's, you know, for me, that's an indicator of something that i worry about. i'm a ohigh school social studis teacher. i think it's easy for those reading informational texts that, sure, we're going to carry the stuff into other courses that may or may not lead to good

or interesting instruction. and i've yet to see anything convince me that it's going to lead to good, rich and interesting discussion more often than not. >> i mean, i don't have much of that other than we have to guard against what rick just said, and that would be with any set of standards, whether it's the common corps or something else. whatever standard states have, it's been happening in the past narrowing. and i think my experience mirrors catherines in that teachers have told me that this has given them more space rather than less. but, you know, i'm sure there are places where this is not working exactly the way we want it to. every state has science standards, too. so if teachers, if we're not teaching to the state standards in those areas, as well, that's a problem. so i hope we are. and at least as advocates for the common corps, we should be advocating for those things, as well. >> let's take one from the audience. the jentle man in the red tag,

please identify yourself and then ask a question. there's a mic mind you. >> i guess the question is ma mainly -- or at least i'd like to start it with a neutral stand point. and i'm going to give an example of what i mean. but the question is are you finding that teachers are find ing that they everyon understan what it is standards are asking them to do. or are they finding that it's a bunch of educational, bureaucratic gibberish or gobblety gook. the reason that i ask this is i will give one example -- >> are you going to talk about this -- we've seen a lot of these math questions. >> no, no, no. i'm going to quote just one thing from an introductory part specifically from the kpoen

core. this is what it is telling teachers -- math teachers -- that they need to get across to their kids. it says stubt stue students soue should have two abilities. the ability to contextualize and represent it symbolically and manipulate the symbols as if they have a life of their own without attending to their ref rensz. the second is the ability to contextualize during the manipulation process in order to probe into the reference for the symbols involved. so the question is, what does that mean? and are teachers able to translate that into practice? >> exactly. so to me, that's gibberish. >> catherine, how have teachers been wrestling with translating the teachers in practice. >> it's the same annoying

answer. it depends on where you go. honestly, we've got a lot of teachers in the country. there's a lot of variation in how long they've been trained, how good their district is with explaining these things and giving them support. i guess it really depends on where you go. i have spent time in places that are doing a great job. really getting stuff together. i mean, aft knows well the story of what's going on in cleveland where, i mean, i've hung out with those folks and they've talked about using empty school building for the entire day, wrestling with the standards from the earliest grade on up. translating to units and lessons. teachers do that. you know? it didn't seem like they were really baffled, but they need support to do that. and in other places, they're completely cut loose. so, you know, they do need help understanding. and i'm sure that in every place, there are some teempers that are a little confused and some teachers that feel like

they're ready to go and everywhere in kmeen e between. >> did you have a response to that? >> yes. so i think one of the hardest things we've wrestled with is how do we make sure that the standards actually represent what mathematics is so math mathematicians read. so that was a balance we tried to strike in writing the standards. if you go to most state standards, many of those types of things were no e in those state standards. i think we can get better at making these standards more easy to read, easy to understand. i can also -- i don't have the standards with me, but i don't have the standards that are very straight forward language, also. i think the balance we were

trying to strike is something that's complicated enough for mathematicians who are trying to teach this in high school in addition to parents and kids. >> absolutely. i'll take another one from twitter. there seem to be some people confused about what a pick and a poke is. but that's what wikipedia is for. i saw some questions earlier that i'll try to put all together here about technology. and about these new tests that are designed to be taken on computers and the capacity within schools to actually do this. so i would assume people are talking about bandwidth, hardware, software in order to meet this in its time frame. so, catherine, we can start with you if you're interested in your sort of experience in how schools are trying to get up to speed with this? have they had enough time? is it more time? is it money? what is necessary to administer the test? >> as you can imagine, it depends. [ laughter ] >> but there is the reality that

there have been tremendous investments in this stuff. whether it's sufficient, that remains to be seen. >> found, frankly, to my surprise, that there were fewer tech technological glitches than i would have guessed. given all the anxiety, i thought that it would be sort of a more dramatic problem. and it wasn't. they were small glitches. that said, it's pretty well established in the surveys that i've seen that districts have a long way to go, a lot of them, to be ready, especially with bandwidth sort of issues.

less on hardware. i guess that's more of a problem that i know. >> how do you respond to that? does that make you nervous? >> yeah, any time -- education is filled with opt mists mplt those of us left and, there was all of the hurly burly left back and forth among those of us who don't have real jobs. and then educators were, like, yeah, this is going to work out. so i'm always a little he has tant on this anticipatory surveys on teachers and anybody else. i think one of the big tech challenges is one reason that folks are going to be able to get a lot of kids assessed is because they are using a medley of devices. we don't know a lot about comparability of devices. when you talk to educators, you hear a lot of different stories. kids who have never done drop and click, kids who are using different devices for the first time.

i, again, i'm kind of, you know, this has not been a problem with the educational progress because they roll up with their computers and they tape everything down and there's a pencil everywhere. the thing is pretty tightly orchestrated. again, this gets to the question of how much confidence we should all have. again, not because i'm questioning anybody's intentions, not because i think people are, you know, doing anything amiss. but because i do worry that this is an engineering project where maybe we've paid more attention on getting it done than necessarily on the piece of how it gets done. >> so you say educators are opt mists. and i think that's right. and ill think d.c. is full of pessimists. so the -- so i think rick is onto some points that we need to be -- we need to be attending to as we go forward. the comparability across the vices.

i was in oregon in 2000 when we began to shifting to online to the online assessment director there. it took us five years to -- '01-'06 to get every kid online in the state of arkansoregon. i think some states will have it easier than others. i aalso think this one year transition is goirng to be really hard. so i think we'll see some glitches in the first year or two. but i do think they will be livable and i think we will be giving assessments online. i think that's just going to happen in this country. >> i think we can take one from the crowd here. right here. if you'd be so kind and wait for the microphone to show up. please, i've yourself and ask a question. >> hi, carla from the center of education reform.

rick, i think you asked the most important question. that's the how it gets done. i think, you know, the common core debate has been a big distraction from the largest el fant in the room, is that our schools may not be equipped to do this stuff because the structure of the governance isn't really there. so shouldn't with be focused on fixing the governance so that teachers do have the flexibility to figure out how they run their classroom? >> sure. rick, i think that's probably to you. >> so it's a great question. so i think there's two answers. one answer is that this is actually, i think, this is something which i think is partly a thermometer on how it feels about the common corps. that for my friends who are very enthusiastic about the potential of the common core. they say yeah, we care about

gover nansgov gover governance. but i think that leads to the second issue, which is that there is a disconnect, offer times, between those of us, e . especially who hang out inside the beltway and talk about institutions and systems and how systems are run. folks out there that catherine is talking to, who think that's all a bunch of noise, who think that's all really about what happens between a tech e teacher and student and their curriculum. i think part of what has made the common corps debate as unproductive as i think it's been, is a lot of it is talking past each other. i'm somebody, obviously, who, as you know, thinks a lot about governance issues. i think these matter a ton. but i think it's easy to then be agnostic. and i think it's easy for classrooms to say hey, we're doing the real work, can you guys tonedown the noise? >> for me, the reason common

core matter so much, i think the way this is playing out speaks very dreirectly to both what happens instructionally, which i don't have any business talking about, and it plays out for the kinds of dgszs leaders make for how they prioritize schools. and i think we have been so heated initially, earn thuz yiss were, i think, so dismissive of questions and concerns that it really spurred a backlash. and i think now the backlash is so focused on motives and on out liars that we're not actually having a productive conversation. and partly, what i'm really hoping we can kind of move on going forward is an honest discussion about when does common corps get in the way -- when disdoes it impede, when does it facilitate the ability of schools and how do we think this stuff through without

questioning each others' motives or intelligence. >> great. good to see everyone coming together on that one. i'll take another one from twitter that everyone they enter, i see a smile over there, so i might go to you first, that teachers who are entering -- there seems to be two nuts to crack. one is to get the teachers that are currently in the teaching force up to speed, with the professional development that they need, the resources that they need, which we spent some time talking about. but there's this other question talking about getting the teacher preparation programs aligned with the common core to prepare the teachers that are necessary to teach it. again, in what you saw, i'll alaw your smile -- feel free to tell the tale, katherine. >> i don't have a tale to tell as much as other reporters, with whom i checked before getting here, and the world hasn't changed in an overnight revolution. but i wanted to check with them to be sure. in general, teacher prep

programs, once, it does vary, there are places looking at the common core and incorporating that into prep programs. but there's a real philosophical divide there. right? there are teacher prep programs that feel like this is not their job to prep teachers for a given set of standards. it's theory and, you know, not so much -- so there are places that just don't feel that's what they do. there's just nothing happening there. so there's been a response more on the teacher prep programs doing nothing or not much than anything at all. on the pd side, that's a whole different ball of wax. that varies, too. there's good deep teacher preparation for -- i mean, in-source teachers, but there's a lot that's shallow and isn't embedded in their jobs at all and it's drive-by and kind of stinks. >> i want you to respond also as

well, from the place of common core advocates, university professors have a great deal of autonomy, universities themselves do. so it's sort of about more cajoling them or convincing them that they want to get involved in the process. there doesn't seem to be a lever that advocates can pull to get these people onboard. what are these efforts to get the preparation programs onboard? >> the first thing is, school districts, i think, need to be much more active with the prep programs in their areas. sort of establishing that we are teaching the common core in our school districts so the candidates that we -- that we're expecting from you can teach these standards is an essential piece. i would say whether or not we have the common core or not, we've got to fix teacher prep. there are -- there are good programs out there that need to be scaled. and then there are probably far too many programs out there preparing teachers for our schools. so i think a separate lens of

this -- we could spend an hour and a half of talking about teacher preparation. that is an issue we need to work together on solving. from my perspective right now, we need to highlight the colleges and xhufrts that are doing great things with teachers. we can see a big difference. i know some of the programs that are doing great work with teachers. so it's not like we don't know how to do this. it's that every university isn't preparing it equally. >> so do you see the common core effort sort of accelerating these efforts to reform teacher preparation? is it bringing this broader political fight into this other fight taking place? how do you see those two interacting with one another? >> you know, i wrote a piece about a decade ago now on principal preparation. something like the more things change the more they stay the same, kind of deal. every five or ten years, you will be told that any critique of teacher preparation, or leadership preparation is invalid, because they've

reinvented themselves. then you actually go and look at what they're teaching, and you spend time with faculty. no, it feels very much like it felt in 1995, but they will insist that it's very different. i think it's a matter of perspective. these guys think it's different, and they can give you chapter and verse. and i think if you're chris and sitting down with them, you're like, yeah, nothing really feels like it's changed. mike, as you mentioned, universities are enormously buffered from this. the way the teacher prep programs are going to be active about changing anything, is if the people taking the graduates insist on what they need. as long as we take high school math teachers who are poorly trained, so long as we take folks who don't actually know how to do things particularly well, it is hard to actually generate the leverage internally, to fundamentally change what they do. i think, again, this is just -- if you think about the common core, chris said a few moments ago, that, look, if they're just

words on paper, they don't matter. which is exactly right. my preferred way to think about the common core is i think about the mission statement, on the wall at mcdonald's. or any fast-food restaurant. they all say pretty much the same thing. they want to get you delicious food, prompt service, they want to be courteous. that may or may not have any relation at all to your experience in that fast-food establishment. what actually matters is how the employees are, you know, do their work, how they're held accountable, how that organization is managed. and frankly, you know, it feels like beginning from here to there for the common core advocates, that getting it adopted was an enormous political accomplishment, but it really started them on the 26-mile marathon. i think they're only a couple miles down the road. this is why i know it frustrates a lot of my friends who think the common core is the potential for different kids, i want to see these guys get to what it feels like the five or ten mile

mark before i'm actually confident this is good or bad. they say, wait a minute, we're at the 18-mile mark. tests are rolling out next spring. we're pretty much there. i think they have vastly oversold how far along the road school systems really are. >> we'll take another one from the crowd. the gentleman here in the center. tara, if you would be so kind. >> public private action. you raised the issue before. but i think it needs a deeper discussion. what are the measures? if we're really going to do it? and don't we have to be more creative in what we think about what those measures are? and are they only quantitative? >> do you want to start with that, chris? >> yeah. so i think for us, the problem we were responding to when we decided to write these standards was, too many kids were going to college, and having to pay for classes that they should have had in high school. it's that simple to me. right? they weren't writing at a level

where they could enter their freshman year. so first, i'm sure there are other measures we should be thinking about, but such a basic one for me is kids leaving high school ready to do what's next, whether it be college, or go into a career training program, or whatever else they want to do, and be good members of society. so i can't get past the fact that if we don't hit that number, i think that one is sort of essential for the movement, is that we have to see more kids being successful. and quite frankly, i could not be more excited to see the numbers out of kentucky, because we are seeing that success, even in just the first three years. so i agree with rick that we've got a long way to go. we've got a long way to go. i think we're probably closer to 2 than 18. but maybe somewhere in the middle. but this is still an open question of whether or not we can deliver kids out of high school ready to go. and if the standards aren't doing that in some way, i don't think any of the other measures

really matter to me. >> this sort of ties into the conversation we were having earlier about fears about narrowing. what gets measured is what gets taught, and fears that floors will become ceilings and others. rick, i would like to hear your response to this of, do you have a worry even though the standards seem to say you want to bring in outside content matter, that there might be strategies developed to max mime reading and math scores? >> i don't think it's fundamentally different for much of the nclb era. i think it's the same recommendations that i think many of us have long encouraged states. let's make sure we're looking at how many students are mastering world languages. let's make sure we're looking at a completion of ib, or passing ap exams. yeah. i mean, but for me, i don't think it's fair to kind of blame this particularly on the common

core. i think that's of a piece with the same challenge we've had since '01. >> kevin, please? >> there is a new opportunity, though. it seems to me that when we're talking about what's measured, you're talking about how it's measured, what's the assessment tool, as well as what actually is being measured. the underlying stuff. so, i mean, we mentioned this before. but we need to keep in mind that only 27 states are using parking smarter balance tests. the others, well, we'll see. a lot of those still have the common core standards. but how well those tests measure, what's in a standard, is anybody's guess at the moment because we don't really know. the flip side is, you can independently analyze how well you think smarter balance really get at what's in the standards. we're not talking about, are we now getting a chance to measure social studies or science differently. we're still talking about math. are they going to get it more deeper nuanced kind of stuff

which is what the big sell was or are they not. we'll wait and see. we don't know the answer to that yet. >> sure. i'll take another one from twitter. and katherine, i'll probably kick it back to you. you sort of referenced this earlier, about a measure of success is how well the common core helps some of our most vulnerable students. students from what we might call special populations, students with special needs, english language learners and others. when you were out in these classes and schools, how did you see them interacting with the common core? >> i didn't hang out with teachers of special populations than those who were trying to serve all their kids. we're talking about a very wide spectrum. not so much on the ell side. i haven't seen as much of that. what i saw was teachers trying to do their very best. and feeling that one of the places that they needed the most support weren't getting it is teaching special populations. the survey data that we've