captioning performed by vitac >> they have. but i -- it's been disappointing. >> okay. mr. tremaine i heard you testify earlier that you have been in contact with miss lerner's department. is there anybody else you've been talking to? >> no, sir. other than the aib after about six -- i want to say 12 13 hours of grilling over two days -- i'm sorry, over three days. >> they were talking to you? >> they were -- they weren't talking, they were grilling. >> what do you mean grilling?

what were they doing in. >> they were investigating me. you know i thought -- i told them, i clearly thought it was a sham. and i expressed that to them on multiple occasions during the investigation. i mean one of the most interesting questions -- the question they wanted asked or answered the most dealt with the fact i identified a vehicle driving -- a government vehicle driving at friday night at 8:30 in the evening after i left the office at 8:30 didn't have any taillights on it at all. i stopped that vehicle and notified the driver there weren't any taillights on before the driver got on a darkened highway. and then the next monday i inquired about what the vehicle was doing out at 8:30, because you know we had had vehicles destroyed by staff and we had had vehicles used to take staff to crack houses and i had a concern about why that vehicle was out.

the oar aib investigation was more concerned -- excuse me was more concerned why i stopped the vehicle and when i expressed that, you know i was born in ohio and i suspect maybe it is a good samaritan all three of the aib members advised me they would never have done anything like that. and i thought that was incredulous. and then they questioned me why i questioned the employee on monday without a union representative. i told them well still number two in the organization at the time, and i felt i had a responsibility to ask what the vehicle was doing out there at 8:30 at night. so that's my -- >> i also -- i'm out of time here, i guess mr. chairman. thank you. >> i wanted to say one thing. i also felt that a lot of times these investigations is more about us, but not necessarily about the facts of what we have complained about. and my experience is very similar to that. >> trying to organize this.

i am -- i'm at a loss for words. first of all, i don't understand your attitude, miss flanz, with all due respect to you. the fact you can sit there and come here with literally no information and you can't answer a question about -- with any specificity is very, very disturbing. what i don't -- so -- i don't understand how any -- the two of you, miss flanz and miss lerner can say there has been progress when we have miss lerner saying she attributed the increase in complaints from people at the va to the fact that people are feeling more comfortable coming forward. at the same time that miss flanz is admitting there has been literally no accountability on the part of the people retaliating against whistle-blowers. can either one of you explain

that conundrum to me? >> i would like very much to try. >> great. >> we are committed to ensuring that supervisors who retaliate against whistle-blowers are held accountable. >> let me stop right there. i have to interrupt you. it seems to me that -- maybe this is my prosecutorial background -- if you want to send a message that people, wrongdoers will be held accountable, you actually have to hold at least one accountable. and if you look at the numbers of complaints, they far outweigh any level of accountability. so please explain that. >> again, i'd like to very much. we have ongoing investigations right now that will provide us with the evidence necessary to hold employees, supervisors accountable. until very recently we have not had the collaboration with osc

we have now that allows us to use the evidence that they have pulled together to give us a jump start so we don't have to start fresh with our investigations. we will, whenever the evidence shows that retaliation has been engaged in we will hold people accountable. >> so let me ask you this, why is it that a determination that a whistle-blower was not giving accurate information is a much easier determination to make than retaliation against a whistle-blower? you answer that question to me. what i'm hearing from the three whistle-blowers here is you guys have no problem saying this whistle-blower was wrong but you have no ability to hold a wrongdoer accountable. explain that. >> i -- with all due respect, that's not really how the process works. we are -- >> no, no no. i have to stop you. i have very limited time. this is a very simple question.

why is it that you are able to come to the conclusion that whistle-blowers have made allegations that were not based in fact and you can do that pretty expeditiously seems to me and you can't do as expeditious an investigation when it comes to holding a retaliator against a whistle-blower accountable? because guess what the numbers support what i'm saying. you can give whatever explanation you want, but i'm telling you right now, the level of disrespect that you're showing to the veterans who, by the way if -- we know allegations are true in terms of treatment, mistreatment of patients, the list the laundry list of stuff we know is going on, everyone knows that it is there, you're telling me that you're spending all this time to try to hold someone accountable. forget about what is happening

about fixing the problem where veterans are not getting the services they need that is another disturbing to me that's almost an after thought to you. so i -- i can't -- i can't hear an explanation that includes some kind of well you know i -- and believe me, i'm a lawyer, so i get the whole there is an ongoing investigation so i can't answer, it is a very convenient way of getting out of answering a question you don't want to answer so i know that and i apologize, my blood is boiling and i -- this is a disgrace. so, please, give me a succinct answer and then i will end on why it is that it is easier for you to come to the determination that whistle-blowers are wrong before you come to the -- in a faster way than you can say retaliators are wrong. number one way we know we're going to stop this is hold one retaliator accountable and i don't mean docking their pay, i mean firing them. go ahead. >> i understand.

it has to do with the burden of proof when we do fire an employee, we are required to show that the preponderance of the evidence supports the action. it really is as simple as that. >> i get the burden thing. that's why you should have more people working on that to do it even faster. because this system is not going to get fixed and you can talk about oh we change the culture here, we this, we set up that, it is so much better. if retaliators aren't being held accountable, that's the bottom line. and i don't see that. thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> thank you, miss rice. dr. rowe, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i guess the way -- the direction i want to go is with dr. head and mr. tremaine. and dr. hooker too. when you make an allegation, obviously you're not a team player right then. so what is it to lead me to believe that you're just not an

incompetent employee, you're just -- you're just out you're a troublemaker, you don't want to work with the team we have all been on the team before, and when you're looking -- what is to make me, because i've seen this happen before where you -- how do i know dr. head is a very good doctor. he just might not be very good, so we move you out of the clinic and put you in a closet or somewhere, and essentially move you out of clinical care, just to get you out of the way. and it is very hard to protect your reputation if you have two or three or four senior people ahead of you who are making those allegations. so how do you protect yourself from that, to follow up on miss rice's statements. how do you do that? how do i know you're not sitting here -- >> well my reputation speaks for itself. and my -- my education clinical expertise and track record speaks for itself.

i've never been -- a lawsuit has never been filed against me. i've never had a -- what is called a level three complaint filed against me until after i testified in congress. >> i'm being facetious, doctor. >> i understand. i understand. but i think the whole world needs to understand this. i am a team player because i have followed the chain of command. every complaint i've made every allegation and malfeasance, the problems with the wait times, the deletion of comps suggesting perhaps medical staff should review the consult for deletion rather than nonmedical expertise, rather than students, should be doing the deletions, it is common though to as i said before, what is the first thing they do? they take the whistle-blower, they isolate them. second, they defame them. third, they push them out. once they have them isolated and defamed, and then they try to go

back and rewrite history, suggesting perhaps it is something they have done to cause the action against them, and they send out surrogates usually nontrained professionals, without the institution, to suggest that perhaps that person is a bad person. not a good doctor. but you know something, my strength comes from my patients actually. and i often tell them, i get much more out of seeing you than i give you. and i do my best. every day of the week to make sure that i give them the best care possible. the mistake i made initially during this process, was allow them to push me out of care. but i'm stronger now only because i've insisted and i fight to see as many veterans as possible. >> i think the problem is, when you stick your head out, it is easier to keep your head down you don't get arrows if you do that. if you stick your head up and

speak out, mr. tremaine, you come into a new shop, you're working and you see some issues you point them out and what happens is you then become the problem. >> yes sir. and with 24 1/2 years of va experience at eight different facilities and never anything less than outstanding rating and nothing including a letter of counseling in the 24 years after arriving in central alabama, it really quickly we discovered and i discovered and then simultaneously dr. mousse, the assistant director, we started kind of comparing notes a little bit and we both realized we were team players and we would have done anything on the team that was going to fix things but i promise you, we're never going to be on the wrong team, we're not going to be on the team that disrespects or harms veterans. i mean, i'm a veteran myself come from a family of veterans. i have my son here who will most likely be an air force veteran. i would rather he go back to

university of colorado in boulder, my alma mater, but if he wants to go serve, i'll support him 100%. but when he gets out you know, i want to make sure he walks into a va any va across this nation, the minute he crosses that threshold, he should be treated with respect and dignity, period, bottom line. shouldn't be a matter of, well, which team are you going to be on. there soenl oneis only one team and that's the right team. we realized there was the wrong team was in place and we tried our best to help that team to re-energize that team, but as it turned out, that team didn't want to be helped that team wanted to protect themselves and attack us. but neither dr. mousse nor i would give up that fight and give up on our veterans. >> thank you. the three of you, for being here and speaking out. i think it will help other people, mr. chairman, around the country to help have the courage to stick their head up instead of keeping their head down and letting things go by that could

potentially harm veterans. i yield back. >> thank you, dr. roe. mr. waltz you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here. the va can't achieve its mission of providing the high eliminate quality of care to our veterans if we have a culture of fear or a culture of where the practitioners aren't able to do what they need to do. and it feels like since i've been here and i know i'm somewhat biased as a cultural studies teacher, this issue of culture is never far from us and we talked about it. it is difficult. we're out in toma a week ago or so on a field hearing on this very issue of overprescription of opiates. and a whistle-blower if you will christopher kirkpatrick, was one of those people who brought that to people's attention. he was backed up by that, but the igs report and christopher is now -- we have another whistle-blower out there whose medical record, a veteran, was looked into, with the very clear example of trying to find a mental health issue to try and discredit them which is so

despicable on so many levels because the very stigmas we're trying to overcome among mental health and mental parity is being used against the people who are talking about it, so this is a cancer. and i know the attempts to try and i'm grateful we start to bring it to light but in so many of these cases the difficulties to overcome i think miss rice was hitting on this, the preponderance of the evidence. we understand you've got to make a case and can't just accuse people and there are workplace safety and you have collective bargaining agreements and things that make sense. they're there to protect which i'll come back to. thank goodness for dr. hooker and the local 342 for providing some democracy in the workplace where management can't just run rod shod over employees. with that being said, this issue seems to me, i know this runs deeper than all of you at the table, i just looked up in the dictionary the webster's dictionary, looked up whistle-blower. you know what the sinynonyms are,

it says something about our culture that runs deep and this is hard. that's why what you two are doing becomes even more important to ensure us that the integrity is there. i'll hit on where dr. benishek was and i think dr. roe was getting at. i went through the list. i'm grateful it looks like we're getting justice for the whistle-blowers. that's one piece of this. accountability piece you talked about, the thing that troubles me most in the nine cases you listed, i may be wrong because there are summaries, but it appears only charles johnson at the columbia va actually led to changes in how business was done in a hydration practice that was wrong. am i wrong to assume -- because my concern on this is this is threefold. justice for the whistle-blower, accountability for the perpetrator, and improved quality of care to stop that because, really, when you adjudicated these things, all you gave them back what they should have had in first place. you don't get a pat on the back for doing the right thing. that's what it appears like we're asking for. look at us.

we paid them back the money. you fired them incorrectly in the first place. i don't know in it is miss flanz or miss lerner, maybe we're talking to the wrong people for implementation of the changes but are we seeing true change in your mind or are we just going through the motions and paying people back pay they should have never been taking anyway? and by the way it is not the va who settles it is the taxpayer who settles when they do this, just to be clear. >> we are seeing changes, not as quickly and as profoundly as we should. we'll get there. we are seeing changes. the office of the medical inspector in particular, when they go out to investigate a disclosure that comes to us through miss lerner's office, if it is a disclosure having to do with a problem with patient care their recommendations include not just if there is a whistle-blower who is named, not just protection for that individual, but substantive change around whatever the problem is that was disclosed.

and the department has an obligation to provide the information about what it is going to do and provide updates in terms of progress toward the correction of the problem. so absolutely that is -- it is fundamental. that's what the whole process is about. >> just add a couple of things. i mean, i think culture change requires many elements. this is not a problem that just developed overnight. it has been around for a long time. it is not going to get involved overnight. here is things that we see that really mack a difference in changing a culture. number one you have to have a message from the top. leadership has to be very strong. some things we have seen secretary mcdonald do like meeting with whistle-blowers when visiting facilities sends a great message. >> this troubles me, though, if i could interrupt you. was secretary shinseki unethical there? did you ever get an impression he didn't care about this or those that came before him in -- >> i think a lot of the problem under secretary shinseki's term

was that the office of medical inspector was doing nothing when they found a problem. so when there was a disclosure what the office of medical inspector would do is say, yes, on this isolated incident maybe there was a -- but it is not a problem, no harm to patient care. and that's very different now. the office of medical inspector is different. after our report almost a year ago, the office of medical inspector was changed around the person who was heading it left. we are seeing a change as i mentioned in my testimony in the types of investigations that they're doing, including disciplinary action as a -- >> my time is up. when i come back around again i would like to have the other three address that. that is fundamental if this has made a significant difference because that is an important piece. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate you holding this hearing. i wish it were not necessary. i wish we had seen the type of

changes i think we wouldn't be sitting here if we were comfortable with what happened. want to follow up on one thing that was just mentioned that was, i believe, miss lerner mentioned the travel by the secretary and other top va leaders. they visited -- this is a question for miss flanz, she makes reference to the visiting with whistle-blowers. has the secretary -- current secretary visited the l.a. facility where dr. head works? >> yes he has. >> did he meet with dr. head at that time? >> i honestly don't know. dr. head would know. >> okay. mr. head? >> yes, i was prevented from meeting with the secretary. i was told my i.d. badge was -- there was a problem with my badge. i went to human resources -- >> say that again. something wrong with your badge? >> i was told you had to have an updated pif card on your badge that mine had expired, and that i would not be allowed to see the secretary and so i --

>> did that expire when you were before the congressional committee, by any chance? >> there say possibility it could have -- >> i appreciate, doctor. i want to go back -- >> i was instructed to get that taken care of. i went to human resources. they instructed me a block had been placed on my i.d. and they had a problem with the block. and i was called, saying you can meet with the secretary now. dr. norman has said that it is not necessary to have updated pif card. the problem is the secretary had just finished his presentation. >> very troubling. miss flanz any response to that? i mean you're the -- you made the claim that -- this is very public whistle-blower. dr. head put his reputation on the line and i think very courageous move. very public. was he not searched at the -- and say, let's solve this problem? >> i was not consulted.

if i had been, i sure would have wanted to try to intervene. the secretary does make a point to model the behavior he wants to see in all supervisors. i am very sorry that dr. head wasn't able to meet with him. i know that conversation would have been of use to both of them. >> are there any other whistle-blowers? you made the statement that he would like to meet with whistle-blowers. are there any others he skipped that you know of? how many times did he meet with whistle-blowers? >> it is my understanding he seeks them out every time he goes to -- >> except for dr. head's situation, i guess. >> this is the first that i'm hearing that dr. ahead headhead was unable to meet with him. >> i would appreciate when you make statements for the record and we lacked a lot of certainty this is a pretty certain statement that we're work hard on that. i want to confirm if i understood correctly earlier that no va supervisors have been fired for retaliation against whistle-blowers? >> that is not correct. >> so how many have been fired? >> the ones that i know of fall

within the jurisdiction of my office, which only looks at senior managers so i can't speak to the folks below that level. we have been involved in recommending termination for three individuals whose charges included whistle-blower retaliation. >> so they have been terminated? >> yes. >> second question, i'll follow up on the issue of whistle-blower medical records and may we have the names of those terminated? >> not in this public forum, but i would be happy to provide them. >> okay. follow up them on whistle-blower and medical records, miss lerner, you made reference to that later in your written testimony that perhaps supervisors or others have accessed illegally medical records of whistle-blowers in order to discredit them. can you describe that situation? that is just shocking and astonishing that that would actually be occurring in the va.

>> we raised -- sorry -- we raised some of these concerns directly with the va and with the ig. what we're seeing is a pattern of not just accessing medical records, but investigations opened after someone comes forward for things like hipaa violations or privacy act violations relatively minor violations that become the focus of the investigation rather than the underlying disclosure that the whistle-blower came forward with initially. it is problematic from lots of perspectives. one of them is that obviously the underlying disclosure isn't being looked at. it also has a chilling effect on other whistle-blowers. and so we are -- >> the hipaa violation is by the va retaliating against the whistle-blowers as i understand not the -- >> it is both. it is all of those things. they're open -- looking at medical records. >> whistle-blowers being

accessed. that actually has occurred. do you have any idea roughly how many times? >> i don't know the number. i can find out for you. i know we have cases that involve access improper access to the whistle-blowers' medical records. a lot of people who work at the va get their care from the va and so their medical records are there. >> the va has governmental agencyies exempt from hipaa, correct? >> i don't -- >> you're shaking your head. what is the penalty for inappropriately accessing whistle-blower medical records? >> there is a range of penalties. and in each case we have to look to see whether, in fact, the individual who accessed the record had a business reason to do so. i am also deeply troubled by this. we do see it far more often than you would expect. i don't know whether that is because so many of our employees are veterans who receive their care at va facilities. it is a deeply troubling

phenomenon. >> i would say. my idea for penalty for that would be immediate dismissal. i yield back. >> thank you. miss robie you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you to the chairman for the invitation to join you today. many of you know i don't sit on your committee, but i do sit on the appropriations subcommittee. and mr. tremaine is my constituent and i'm grateful to have you here today. two observations quickly and to the ranking member, thank you. one, two huge understatements. first, to say that these people are coming forward shows that there are issues that still need some attention as well as this saying that we hear over and over again that you can't change a culture overnight. well, it has been a year. it has been almost a year since mr. tremaine and i had had our first conversation. so we're kind of tired of hearing you can't change this culture overnight.

it hadn't been overnight. it's been a year. so here we are today. and mr. tremaine, i was traveling up here today and i was thinking about us being this in this room together today and how significant that is. and i just want to thank you for being willing to tell me the truth when no one else was for you and dr. muse, to step forward, to reveal the horrible circumstances in montgomery and tuskegee, just says a lot about who you are and i thanked you many times for this, but i wanted to take this opportunity today publicly mr. chairman, and ranking member to thank mr. tremaine and the other whistle-blowers who are here who i don't know but i appreciate your courage as well. thanks to mr. tremaine we uncovered layers of scandal at the central alabama va. thousands of missing x-rays.

manipulated medical records, as mr. tremaine referenced the va employee who took a recovering veteran to a crack house and only took a year and a half even though the administration knew that this had happened, it took a year and a half for that individual to be fired. this is the culture we're talking about and here, a year later, we have taken a step backwards, when an ap article that we saw last -- at the end of last week showed that montgomery and tuskegee, the two hospitals that mr. tremaine worked at, were number one and number two for the worst in the country. there is the new scam now, mr. chairman, and ranking member, it is schedule the appointment within the time frame required, but we'll cancel it 30 minutes before the appointment and reschedule it so that on the books, once again, it looks like the va is doing what they're supposed to do, and, by the way if they come in, i learned this just last weekend you probably know this, if a mental health

patient comes in and asks to be seen as a walk-in, they only get reimbursed for half their travel expenses than they otherwise would have as an appointment holder which was only canceled 30 minutes prior to their arrival. this is the kind of stuff we're hearing directly from veterans and i have to tell you, nothing has improved. we have taken steps backwards. and so mr. tremaine thank you for being here. to that point, i want to ask you, i asked nicely for a year and all apologies to those who raised me, but i'm a little over being nice at this point, how often, mr. tremaine, in the last six months, did a professional staff member from the secretary of the va's office here in washington sit in your regularly scheduled staff meetings? zero? zero. so senator shelby from alabama and myself sent a letter when

all of this nsk was reinformation was revealed that we wanted washington va to come down and directly oversee what was happening at central alabama va. over the last six months has there been any presence from the national va in central alabama? direct link to the secretary's office, here in washington, to oversee what is happening at -- in the last six months? okay. so in your view, has the secretary and other top leadership here in washington shown a direct sustained interest in investment in correcting the problems at cavis? [ inaudible ] >> so would you say that washington followed through with its promise to directly oversee the overhaul at cavis or was the work staffed out to mr. sepage and mr. jackson mr. sepage was the seven director and mr. jack on is the acting director after

mr. talton was removed. >> yes he was placed there by mr. sepage. he was a deputy network director. when mr. talton was fired, robin jackson came in as the director and, again i think i pointed out he was woefully -- >> i'm a visitor here so i have to be real careful not to violate your rules of five minutes. but if i can point out one other thing, miss flanz was in the room with me and the deputy secretary when i asked mr. sepage to be included in the same investigation that mr. tremaine and dr. muse were subject to intense interrogation because mr. sepage was the boss of the first senior administrate administrator that was fired for mismanagement and misconduct under the law that this congress passed last august. mr. sepage quietly retired one week ago. thank you for letting me be here, mr. chairman. and thank you to mr. tremaine

and dr. head and dr. hooker. i just can't tell you how much i appreciate your courage and your willingness to help us help get this right. >> thank you representative. i think that you know, your passion speaks for itself. i think when i mentioned about being on the right team, i mean there is no question that, you know, our representative has been an advocate for veterans that we haven't seen the likes of. so thank you so much for that, ma'am. >> miss custer. >> thank you very much. a brief follow-up along the lines of representative rice. and i want to ask miss lerner, this is sort of procedural but i think it will get at an important point. you talked about the office of medical inspector now doing a more proactive or interactive follow-up to the recommendations. and you mentioned including disciplinary action and that seems to be what is hanging in

the room over this hearing, our disappointment that it sounds as though it is a more rigorous investigation of the whistle-blowers than of those that have been standing behind retaliation. and, to me, and i think this is what representative rice is getting at, if you want to actually change culture, you've got to change the view, not just it is a first step that will take care of whistle-blowers and treat them fairly, but that something will actually happen to those that retaliated against. and i'm an attorney as well i understand the burden of proof and all of that, but can you follow up with this role, maybe we're not -- we don't have the right witness here in terms of the office of medical inspector, what types of disciplinary action and can we ask for any data that may be available as the -- disciplinary action that has actually been taken? >> sure.

i think -- i think there are two different processes here. the office of medical inspector investigates once we get a disclosure that we refer for investigation. so that process is separate and one of the things we look at when we decide whether the office of medical inspectors investigation report is adequate, before we report to the president to the congress, is had they taken appropriate corrective action, where they found a problem has someone been disciplined, has relief been provided and that's not -- what they do isretaliation investigations. where we're seeing the problem is with the ig and with the regional council. the problem is that when an -- when someone comes forward with a disclosure then an investigation is often opened up into their own behavior. so about 80% of the time people come to us with a disclosure. they experience retaliation. we can protect them from retaliation if they come forward, but the office of medical inspector is looking at

the underlying disclosure. >> so who -- then there is a procedure that is missing, because my colleague mr. walz talked about you need to deal with protecting the whistle-blower, deal with making the long-term changes to the -- for the health and well-being of the veterans, but i want to get at the crux of the matter. who is investigating the retaliatory action and what is the disciplinary procedure for that person. do you follow me? the forest through the trees here. >> when someone makes a disclosure and experience retaliation, they have a number of options. they can go to the accountability review, they can go to the ig, they can come to osc, they can come to congress. if they experience retaliation, we can open up an investigation where we can use our expedited review process to get relief quickly for them. and we have been able to get

relief quickly for at least -- >> you're still talking about relief to protect them. i want to follow -- keep going on the track. what is the procedure for disciplinary proceeding to set the example? look, that's half of what criminal justice system is all about. it is part of what an employee justice system is about, to set the example, here we're modeling the behavior of this collaborative approach. over here, we don't want this to happen sending somebody to an office with a hole in the floor, sending somebody else to an office with no windows. you know, these are things that are not tolerable and we're going to demonstrate that to all of the other employees in this by saying that person was let go. they didn't uphold a standard of cooperative, collaborative spirit that we hold dear in our

workplace. >> disciplinary action is really key to accountability. there is no question about it. in terms of changing a culture you have to hold people accountable. it deters future violations as well. we -- our primary focus is on making the whistle-blower hole and putting the whistle-blower back. we have 130 employees for our agency and have to priorityize where we put our efforts. what we do do is where we identify a case, where we think disciplinary action is appropriate, where someone has been retaliated against we work with the office of accountability review we work with the va general counsel and try to get the agency to take disciplinary action. and we have several cases in the pipeline now, in fact, that will involve disciplinary action. we are trying to pivot and focus more and more on disciplinary action as an agency. our first priority is getting people back to work. when someone is fired we want them back to work. when someone is moved to the

basement, we want to get them back. we have been successful in doing that. >> my time is up. but i think i just want to make the point that the sooner you can get to the disciplinary action for the retaliatory behavior, the shorter the list of cases you're going to be piling through for years on end of examples such as these. you need to set an example. thank you and i apologize for going over. >> dr. benishek, you're recognized for five minutes. >> dr. head you still don't have an office basically because you were put in this bad office? >> it is shameful. it is kind of -- >> is that true? you still basically -- >> i have that office that they would like -- >> why hasn't he gotten a regular office back? >> i don't know. but i will find out. >> i think that's a pretty good question to ask because obviously he's here in good faith. i would like to get an answer to

that question. and dr. head, is the guy -- your supervisor, that's the same supervisor you had all the way along for the whole ordeal? >> no. on paper it is dr. norman g. the chief of staff at long beach. really it is dr. dean norman who has been responsible for -- >> that's the same person that's been there right along? >> yes. >> miss flanz apparently va employees often confidentially provide patient information necessary to substantiate allegations of care to this subcommittee. this is not a hipaa violations. why are your employees sometimes accused of violations for this activity? >> i think it is a function of cane fusion onof confusion on the part of supervisors. not all supervisors are aware of the right of employees to

provide that information to this committee and to other oversight bodies. >> miss lerner, what changes have occurred in the office of special counsel since the last year's hearing. is there anything that substantially changed in the office? >> we have many more cases to investigate in the last year. we have been able to do a little bit of hiring. we have been able to hire someone to work full time on va cases and the expedited review system and hire additional staff to work the cases. our process works. we have been getting relief for whistle-blowers, getting them back to work getting them stays of adverse personnel actions you know. people, i think, feel more comfortable and know about us so we're getting more cases. >> all right. thank you. >> dr. hooker, i want to give you a chance to speak for a minute. tell me what your response is today to the testimony of miss

flanz and miss lerner. >> well, i can tell you by illustrating we had a whistle-blower who reported a practice of giving medication to help people who have addiction problems. and you're really technically not supposed to continue giving that medication if someone has an abnormal urine drug screen. so repetitive positive urine drug screens should be a cause for not giving that medication anymore. we had a clinical nurse specialist who reported that practice going on and rather than investigate, they investigated that nurse. he has been sitting in a clinical clerical position even though he's a clinical nurse specialist, he essentially is doing no functions. he's in a windowless office, reporting to clerks, who need you know something moved or carried around when he has a masters degree and is going for his ph.d. and he is on active

duty, just this past weekend in the reserves. they have now proposed on friday -- he did contact the office of special counsel back in august when he was first detailed, and they did propose discipline against him this friday proposed suspension on something that occurred in 2013 and a couple of other things that they allege occurred in 2014. >> let me interrupt you a minute. i heard of this before from the other members, other physicians saying they get a peer review gig against you, something they can put against you without referencing the thing that you brought up. is that your experience as well? >> yes, my personal experience when i have been in the limelight for reporting things, i only had one time when i was called to a peer review committee and i worked for the va over 26 years. and this particular instance

there was no peer in the room or on a telephone to be my peer. there was a dietitian in the room, and there were you know a few other, like you know occupational therapists in addition to a smattering of physicians. but there was no true peer for me to address my concern to. that was number one. number two is that the -- >> the peer review process is flawed at your facility, it sounds like. >> yes. for -- in certain circumstances, very flawed, because people they want to, you know in a sense harass, i had had another clear who had no true peer in the room when they went before the peer review committee and people on the inner circle who are the team players, who don't get peer reviews. >> thank you, doctor. thank you, mr. chairman. >> miss flanz i would just like

to go back to -- the conversation we were having where you were talking about the burden of proof for retaliators. what is the burden of proof you apply when you're looking into allegations made by whistle-blowers? >> in any case it depends on the tribunal that might hear an action. >> it is you. >> i'm not a tribunal. >> i mean -- say it is you making a recommendation to a -- >> if a case -- >> the d.a.'s office or who, the u.s. attorney? who are the possible -- >> in most cases employee discipline is going to be subject to a a peel to the merit system protection board. the merit system protection board in almost all cases applies a preponderance of the evidence standard. >> is that true for retaliators and whistle-blowers? >> if an action is going to be taken against an employee that is subject to appeal, if it is a suspension demotion, removal, most actions now -- there are

differences if we're talking about title 38 doctors and nurses who have their own disciplinary process, but if we're talking about a government employee under title five, if the allegation is that that person did something wrong, and should be disciplined and the appeal goes to mspb, in most cases, the preponderance of the evidence standard would apply. >> and in terms of any disciplinary action, that is meant to be taken against a retaliator, or a whistle-blower, they both have built in protections in the law whether by union representation or whom ever, no, there is none. >> not for pure title 38. that's a little glitch in the system pertaining to section 7422 of 38. the secretary of veteran affairs controls our clinical practice, our clinical competence.

what the secretary says goes and that's delegated to a chief of staff locally who can be very very, very retaliatory to physicians who do not play according to the party line or who are not team players. >> that's interesting. mr. chairman, i would obviously maybe that's something that we should as a committee look into trying to fix. so in my prior life as a prosecutor, there was a saying that is true not just in the world of criminal justice, but unfortunately i see it here in the world of the va and specifically whistle-blowers, and that term is snitches get stitches. and while mr. head and -- dr. head drrks, dr. hooker and mr. tremaine don't have the actual physical stitchers they are bearing the figurative ones. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you miss rice. mr. huelskamp five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

i'm still trying to figure out parts of the testimony, but i am looking at a document from november 2014, rebuilding trust from the va secretary. at that time you did note that there were over 100 investigations currently being undertaken. do you have a rough figure what those numbers are today? >> i believe he was speaking to the ig's ongoing investigations into alleged misuse of scheduling and wait list systems. the ig was at its most active point active at 98 sites. they have completed their work at several of them. let me make sure i have the right data here. they have completed their work at 43 of those sites. they have substantiated some scheduling impropriety at 14 of the 43. they found no particular

impropriety at 29 and their investigations are ongoing at the balance. >> see, that's 100 from november still haven't got to the second half of those my number is correct in. >> the ig has not yet delivered to the department its reports in the others, yes. >> so five months later from this report to the public by the secretary and half of these -- these serious investigations have yet to be completed or started or we don't know the status of those? >> you really have to ask the ig. >> okay. this comes from secretary. and i represent -- you're representing the department. can you ask them for me? this is -- this is from the secretary, this is working diligently to cooperate with investigations by the inspector general, the justice department and office of special counsel. this is all of those together. and so do you know roughly a comparable figure today, more or less or -- but if i understand correctly, though, half of these have yet to be completed or start the investigation.

>> i believe the ig started them all and probably even finished quite a few, but not yet delivered their reports. >> okay. this would be presumably where three individuals have been fired out of 100 investigations. is that what we're looking at here? >> the question that you posed before about individuals to which i gave you the answer, three had to do with whistle-blower retaliation. the ig is looking at something different. and so that would be a different number. >> okay. what is that number then? >> i'm here today to talk about whistle-blower retaliation and i apologize i don't have the number of actions taken as a result of the ig's findings. >> okay. one thing i'll ask about your testimony and you're before the subcommittee last month, i'm just curious, you put together this testimony who do you visit with above you to clear this testimony? do you visit with the secretary himself and the deputy secretary and they clear this testimony

before the committee? >> there is a process that includes our leadership yes. >> so they approve everything in your testimony? >> the front office approves all testimony, yes. >> so nobody in >> so nobody in the the front office knew mr. head did not have the opportunity to visit with the secretary. even though reading this, i would suggest you assume that he -- you're suggesting everyone was talked to. somebody looked at this and let you say that a visit might have been made. am i understanding that correct? >> my testimony is that the secretary makes a point of meeting with whistleblowers as he travels throughout the system. my testimony didn't specifically speak to any meeting with dr. head. >> what about the other two individuals who are testifying? >> when the secretary veteran affairs came to our facility, he did not meet with any whistleblowers, per se. we asked for a private meeting with him because we had sent a letter in november about a number of people under investigation that we felt were inappropriate administrative

investigation boards that appeared to be a sham investigation board. he had a strict schedule. we were allowed to go with another union for 15 minutes together jointly. i was unable to go because i had patient care duties, so my colleagues in the union went. >> dr. tremaine. >> the secretary didn't visit our facilities. the deputy secretary did, but he did not meet with any of us. >> i'm just about out of time. if i might ask of miss flanz. of the 15 corrective actions that were identified from the office of special council, i would like to know how many of those actually have visits with senior v.a. officials? >> i don't know. >> would you please find out and report to the committee? >> yes. >> i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you. mr. walsh, you're now recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, and i'm going to venture out on a limb. i bet you get a call from the

secretary now. miss flanz might back me on that, i would bet. it goes to something bigger for me. i would argue and go back to the issues with sk tear shinseki and others, and i think many times they're let down by others around them. it takes us back to the core issue of delegation and authority. and in an organization that big, this has to happen. so how are we going to change it? how are we going to make it better? i would bet everybody in this room at one time another has gone gone through some form of professional training. whether it's on a friday afternoon or a retreat or something like that. i bet in our professional careers, you can count and tell the ones that were highly effective and those that were forgettable. this is an important issue. have any of the three of you, dr. head, dr. hooker and dr. tremaine, have any of you received osc whistleblower certification training? >> no, i have not. >> i have not. >> no. >> don't you wish those three

would have got it? >> can i speak to that? >> sure. >> i think what the 2302 certification training is, it's not a specific training. there are five steps that agencies have to take to become certified. one of them is -- i mean a lot of it is a training component. but it means putting posters at facilities. providing information to employees about retaliation and their rights. providing information to current employees. >> is there any confusion on that? >> i'm sorry. >> is there confusion on that in the v.a., that if someone tells you about a practice, isn't it widely known that you don't move them from their office without due process or anything? and again, yes, facetiously, but i'm fit to be tired here. do you believe this is going to work? >> you know, i think the problem is that it has to filter down to the regions. i think the message is good coming out of headquarterses but the folk who is are actually implementing it need more training.

>> dr. head, is this going to work? >> i think the current practices need a big change. >> so there's a step in the right direction. i always think about this. training folks is on technique and content. development focuses on people. in these positions, i would argue, and this is what always pains me is lo the vast majority in the hears are very different to me. there's a bunch of employees out there giving and sacrificing and doing great service, and their morale is hurting wen we do this. the problem is it tends to be folks in the management chain that do that. my question to the three of you is what would be the most effective thing that we can do? i don't want to belittle the training part of it. i should go on record and be clear. it's good to get a refresher course on what's legal and all of that. so i'm going all of that. it seems to be a central focus on what we're going to do to this change that. i would ask the three of you, what should we be doing more of?

>> i think your definition, when you use the wester's definition of a whistleblower, that in itself is really derogatory. and you know, i don't think that in itself i think just kills a lot of people. when they think whistleblower, they think negative. you have to embrace the whistleblower and acknowledge that. and acknowledge that there are problems, and you have to resolve those problems. i think again, just the acknowledgment and the openness, the transparency is kritd cli important. >> why not wanting to be better? why not wanting to hear that? you can take that with a grain of salt. each one of us in our personal lives, when you get positive feedback especially those you trust, why that resistance to

hearing the truth. >> i don't know. i think you hit the nail on the head when you said there's many v.a. employees. the majority of the v.a. employees, 99.9% are going to work every day and love taking care of veterans and doing the right thing. you have the small minority that feel that they can utilize taxpayer money to do whatever they want and retaliate and call -- >> do you think ms. rice is right, that there just needs to be teeth in this thing that folks need to know this isn't going to be tolerated? i don't want to step on anybody's due process rights, but you hear the frustration that nobody is ever held accountable. it's not a juvenile desire to see punishment for the sake of punishment. it's about making sure good people are served. >> for professionals, we don't have due process rights in the traditional sense. so 7422 prevents us from having that due process right. in the community i would be held

to the standards o of my peers. in the v.a. the secretary tells me what i do and how i do it. so i can't argue in a sense the way i could with colleagues. i don't have the collegial oversight. i have clerks, in a sense telling me how to practice medicine. if i call the special counsel and report -- >> that's a big problem. >> i did come across evidence that another veteran employee reported two years before i discovered it through a termination of another employee who brought up some issues. she was put in another windowless office in the basement. she had two masters degrees and a counselling degree. but where i'm going with this is when i reported to the ig -- the employees went to the office of special counsel. i went to the inspector general. the report basically goes back to the v.a. i did call the osc on all the

nine people i currently have sitting home getting paid at a high professional salary levels for not doing their job when they haven't -- they don't even know why they are home. i have an ophthalmologist who was just threatened. so when we do report to these outside agencies, they turn it over to the v.a. for investigation. i'm not a farmer, but i would have trouble asking the fox how many hens are left in the coop when the feathers are sticking out of the fox's mouth. >> most of it boggles my mind, but the thing that keeps coming back to me is this is how deep this is, what's the deal with this office thing and moving people to the basement? it just boggles my mind. that's an intimidation, that's your definition of violence in the workplace. >> it's unacceptable. >> i went over my time. i don't know if the chairman wants to follow up. >> one quick final point. there has to be accountability. move me to a storage bin makes

many me feel bad. but they are trying to send the message not only to me, they are trying to send the message to everyone saying look at dr. head. he bent to testify before congress. they said they're going to protect him. but you know something, on my v.a., no, they listen to me. congress can't do a thing about it. they are trying to intimidate all the other potential -- i like to label whistle blowers as patriots. we should name them in the v. a. system as patriots. they are trying to suppress their willingness to try to make a better life for these veterans. it's just shameful. >> thigh dr. head. let me say that the retaliation isn't limited to employees of the v. a. but also to patients of the v. a. who step forward. in colorado we had a case last year where a patient gave a statement to an investigative

reporter and the reporter then called the v.a. and talked to the public affairs individual for that particular vsn, and the public affairs individual said that you really don't want to talk to this person. he's a patient undergoing psychiatric care. i sent a letter to the secretary of the veterans affairs. have never gotten a response to this date. our thanks to the witnesses. you are now excused. today we have had a chance to hear about problems that exist within the department of veterans affairs with regard to whistleblower retaliation. from the testimony provided and questions asked today, i am dismayed at the failure of the department to adequately protect conscientious employees who seek to improve services provided to our veterans. as such this hearing was necessary to accomplish a number of items to, number one, allow v.a. to highlight what efforts

it's made to improve whistleblower protection practices and processes. two, address where improvements either have not been made or where insufficient attempts give way to continued retaliation, experience by whistleblowers, and three, assess next steps to be taken both by v.a. and by this committee to ensure that those employees who seek to correct problems within the department are adequately protected. i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to extend the remarks and include extraneous material. without objection, so ordered. i would like to once again thank all of our witnesses and audience members for joining us at today's hearing. with that, this hearing is adjourned.

that hearing took place monday. we'll go live to capitol hill to hear from education secretary arne duncan. he is testifying to die before the senate appropriations subcommittee on labor, health and human services and education, talking about the

president's 2016 education budget request. republican senator roy blunt of missouri is the chair of the committee. washington democrat patty murray ranking member. this is live coverage on c-span3, expected to start in just a moment.

the appropriations subcommittee on labor, health and human services and education will come to order. glad to have secretary duncan with us today. mr. secretary, thank you for being here and thank you for the conversations we've had prior to this hearing today. we look forward to working with you. one of the long-term commitments to the national government even before it was the government under the constitution was to do things that encouraged education. i think the land ordinance -- the northwest ordinance of 1785 set aside a section in all that developed territory to be shoeld to be used for public schools. that's how long the federal government or the national government has thought there was a role here. i'd also point out that they had

no real interest in running those local schools whenever they set that aside. i'm certainly always more receptive to those things we do that encourage local school districts to try things rather than to tell them that they have to be things that apply all over the country. i guess one of my biggest concerns with the budget that's submitted is it appears to be well beyond the money that the law would currently allow us to spend on these issues, and i hope we can work together to find the common ground of prioritizing even in the early stages of marking up the budget, the kinds of things where you believe and we agree would have the most impact on making eld case work better for families and students. i was encouraged that the budget emphasizes funding for core education programs like title i

and i.d.e.a. something we long ago told educators hey had to participate in and provide support that the government has already provided. i was glad to see you looking in that direction. i'm concerned that we over reach into too many education issues, as you and i have talked about. state capitols in many cases are a long way from where education has to meet the students' needs let alone the national capital. we need to be looking at that. i also want to talk later about the idea of a proposed framework for a federal college rating system. i think it's hard to come up with a truly unbiased rating or ranking system. frankly, i haven't yet been persuaded there's a reason for that. we have such diversity in higher education and diverse ways of both delivering a product and

measuring whether that product has impacted the people that are served by that institution in a way that really advances them. this is going to be an area that i'm going to be concerned about as you know. hopefully we can work together to meet the goals of this committee which is to achieve the right funding levels and the right policy, help you achieve the right policy levels for the department. glad you're here today and i'm also glad to recognize senator murray as she joins us as the ranking member of this committee. >> thank you very much mr. chairman. this is a very timely hearing of the department of education's budget. i serve as the ranking member on the senate health education labor and pensions committee. senator alexander is here the chair of that. it compromises a strong step in

the right direction to fix the badly broken no child left behind law. it will give states and districts flexibility while also maintaining federal guard rails to ensure all our students have access to a quality education and we will continue to work on this bill today and senator alexander i'm assuming will be able to move it out. congratulations to you on that. i look forward to working with all of my colleagues to improve our bipartisan compromise and actually get this bill signed into law. i want to thank you, mr. secretary, for all your leadership and for your staff's assistance to get the bill as far along as it is. i look forward to continuing to improve the bill with your help. for the work on this committee, we need to make sure we make the right investments to improve education and evenings panned opportunities for all americans. i believe the only way to create sustainable economic growth is from the middle out, not from the top down. education is an important investment to ensure our government works for all of our

families, not just the wealth thinkest few so more people get the opportunity to learn and work hard an succeed. not only that, a quality education system is essential to our nation's economic competitiveness. the investments we make today will help ensure america's workforce in the years ahead will be able to create and take on the jobs of the 21st century. of course, last month the senate debated and passed a budget resolution. unfortunately i believe that budget proposal and the one that passed the house fails to support investments that we do need in education. by contrast the president's budget proposal would invest in students educators, schools and communities to make sure every american has access to high quality education from the cradle through their career. in 2013 i was very proud to work with democrats and republicans to break through the gridlock and dysfunction here to reach an agreement that rolled back those automatic cuts for fiscal years

2014 and 2015. that deal as we all know, prevented another government shutdown. it moves us away from the constant crises, and it restored critical investments in education and research and defense jobs and a lot more. it really helped get our economy moving again. so we need to work on ways to build on that agreement lift the caps and restore those critical investments for the coming year and beyond. the president's budget would do that. it would roll back cuts to both defense and non-defense discretionary spending. democrats and republicans both agree sequestration is terrible policy. we worked together to address this before, and i hope we can work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle in both chambers to come to a compromise, avoid another crisis and ensure we are investing in our communities. the department of education's budget proposal starts with our youngest learners. i'm a former preschool teacher. i've seen firsthand the kind of

transformation that early learning can inspire in a child. i believe that we should be investing more in children not less. the president's budget would increase funding for the preschool development grants program. right now this program is helping 18 states expand high quality, early learning programs for low and middle income children and families. the need to expand high quality early learning programs doesn't just exist in 18 states. in fact 36 states actually applied last year including my home state of washington. this budget proposal would continue this program and enable my state and others to earn grants to expanderly learning. in our country we believe all students should have access to a quality public education regardless of where they're from or how they learn or how much money their parents make. congress established title i so students from all backgrounds get the support they need to

success. today, across the country inequality in our education system persists. some schools simply don't offer the same opportunities as others. mr. secretary, i was very pleased to see that the department's budget proposal proposes an increase in title ui funding. those resource also help close gaps in education and achievement so all students have access to high quality education that puts them on the path to graduate from high school and college and be career ready. mr. secretary i want to raise a concern on impact aid in your budget. that's what gives our students and schools and military and tribal community federal support and stablt. impact aid is critical for communities in washington state and across the country. your budget would eliminate $67 million for the federal property program within impact aid. i made clear that i oppose those cuts just as a bipartisan

majority of my colleagues do. also, mr. sake tear as you know, our country will need a highly skilled workforce to take on the jobs of the 21st century. in congress, we should be working to make congress more affordable, to relieve the crushing burden of student death and give americans the chance to further their education, training and skills. i am pleased your proposal will help make college more affordable by increasing investments in the pell grant program. in addition, last year congress came together to pass the workforce innovation and opportunity act with strong bipartisan support. in that bill we strengthen the connections between adult education and workforce systems. i'm pleased that your budget proposes resources to support integrating those systems so more workers can connect with available job positions. in our country as i said, we believe all students should have access to a quality public education. so thank you, secretary, duncan, for being here today, to share the department's vision for

achieving that goal. overall, the president's budget proposes several important investments that will hemp prepare all students for the challenges of the coming century. they will help sustain long-term and broad-based economic growth from the middle out so families more families have the chance to get ahead not just those at the top. i'm very hopeful that democrats and republicans can work together to make investments we need to make to make sure every american gets the chance to learn. thank you. mr. chairman you the floor. >> mr. secretary thank you again for being here as you start your seventh year. into your seventh year of secretary of education. we look forward and appreciate your dedication to this cause and the work you've done. i might say, before we start, i think we have a vote scheduled at 11:00, but i think it's only one vote. my goal would be just to continue the hearing if that's okay with you and we'll try to go over at different times and

cast that one vote and take advantage both of our time and your time in the best possible way. mr. secretary, glad you're here and look forward to your testimony. >> thank you so much mr. chairman ranking member murray and members of the subcommittee. i'm pleased to talk to you today about how we can continue important progress and expand educational opportunity for every child in america. than tox the hard work of america's teachers, principals families communities and very importantly the students themselves, for the first time ever four out of five students are completing high school on time. high school graduation rates are record highs. dropout rates are historic lows. we've seen reductions in dropout rates from minority students. college enrollment for african-american and hispanic students is up by more than a million since 2008. more students than ever are graduating from college. getting to this point has required huge and difficult challenges in our schools. but these changes haven't been easy, but they are working.

to build upon our momentum it's imperative to give schools and educators the support resources and funding they need. this is not the time to turn back the clock on progress that our schools our children and ultimately our nation is making. at the end of 2013 as you talked about, policymakers under senator murray's and representative ryan's bipartisan leadership came together to partially reverse sequestration and pay for higher levels of discretionary funding with long-term reforms. this agreement while limited, allowed us to invest in critical areas, from strengthening our military to research in our schools. in 2014 congress was able to restore some sequestration cuts to title i which serves our poor children and ida which serves children with special needs. the 2016 budget builds on this progress by paying for it with a balanced mix of common sense spending cuts and closing tax loopholes. the president's budget proposes additional deficit reduction and

would reduce debt as a share of our economy. the president has made it clear he will not accept a budget that locks in sequestration which would bring both defense and non-defense funding to their lowest levels in a decade. the reality today is that states and districts and families and students need more smarter resources to prepare all students both for their future and for their now. to that end our budget reflects four main priorities. first, ensuring that all young people have a chance to learn and succeed. our request includes a $1 billion increase for title i to help close resource and equity gaps. second, as senator murray talked passionately about, we want to help states expand high quality preschool. our budget includes $75 billion to work with states to make it available to all low and moderate income 4-year-olds. it includes $750 million to

include preschool development grants where there's so much demand as we see across the nation. third, supporting educators including by investing $2.3 billion to improve teacher and principal effectiveness. finally, improving post secondary access affordability to outcomes, most notably through america's college promise which would make two years of community college free. that's been led by senator alexander's state of tennessee. we commit to supporting and spreading local innovations, not coming from me or anyone else in washington, but local. we received more than 2800 applications for this program. unfortunately we only had resources to fund about 140 of these fantastic local ideas. our aim is to focus on using and developing evidence to maximize results both for students and taxpayers through first in the world, we're aiming to

historically black colleges and universities will support their critical contributions to this work. we also here had an overwhelming resummons to the computation, 460 applicants and we were able to fund only 24. educators and schools need support to advance their progress. this isn't about spending money for its own sake. it's about making prudent investments to ensure excellence and equity for every student. quickly, before i close, i want to thank senator alexander and senator murray for their good faith priority work for fixing no child left behind. long overdue. i can't ask you to work any harder. a long way to go as you said, senator murray. appreciate your combined leadership and hope, not for us, but our nation's kids so we can get this to a good spot. i'll stop there and take any questions you may have. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. secretary. i'm ask questions and we can

have another round of questions. i'm sure i'll have more than one series of questions. on the higher education ranking system or the rating system it's been a year and a half that the department has been talking about coming up with criteria. that criteria still looks like to me it's not very specific even talking about how many intangible things there are in higher education. i'm wondering why after looking at this as long as you have and the criteria being as nebulous as it has, why are we still talking about this? and what's the purpose of having this ratings system? >> first of all, i appreciate your past leadership as university president. we've come at this from day one with a real sense of humility. there's a lot we know we can't

do. we can't convert ways in which higher education inspiring value, passion and high democracy. we come at this with real humility. we think there are basic and key areas where there has been, frankly, a huge lack of transparency, an opaqueness, very difficult for families to figure this stuff out, better understanding access and affordability and completion of degrees, and whether people can get jobs at the back end. this is a huge decision people make, whether they're first generation college-goers. i can't tell you how many young people i've met with where this process is overwhelming, and being able to get better education out to the nation's young people and their families about graduation rates. what's a grant? what's a loan? what do outcomes look like? we want to make it easier. it's interesting to me we have 7,000 institutions of higher education, huge diversity public, private, two-year, four-year, all kinds.

it should be a very efficient marketplace. it's not. it's a very difficult one for young people to penetrate. we look forward to working with you. i hear your skepticism and appreciate it. i'm happy to come back with you and your staff and talk it through. we want to do of everything we can to get good information out to young people and their families and help them make better, more informed choices. >> i would say, mr. secretary, i think one of the reasons that the federal government has been able to be involved in higher education in a pretty significant way financially since world war ii with growing and different and multiplicity of ways to help students get there, but we still have the best higher education system in the world. it's the one place where the federal government has been willing to make a financial commitment and not try to run the system. all these schools are accredited. if you qualify for the financial assistance, then you choose among accredited programs, and that's created a great diversity

of options for people to look at that to meet different student needs at different levels. people like me who are the first person in their family to graduate from college often have a different set of aspirational goals and a sense of what college might mean to them as opposed to somebody who is a fourth generation harvard student who probably has not only a different set of goals but likely to make a whole lot more money. eight hours at a community college that allows you to get a better job than you otherwise would have had, is that a plus or minus in the system, whether you graduate or not. i think with all the challenges out there, this is one -- i can't find very many people in higher education -- i'm going to concede there might be one, but i haven't found one yet, who thinks this really adds to the situation stem rather than adds to the confusion in the system that might be there already.

while i'm there, let me also, on the other side, the sort of gainful employment side which seems to be particularly focused at the for-profit side of higher education, where are you head tld in terms of what you'd consider a gainful employment allocation between what someone was making and the student loan they were trying to pay off? how would you measure that? >> just to be very, very clear, this is not just focused on the for-profit sector. there are fantastic actors in the for profit sector but very bad actors in the for-profit sector. we had to take action earlier this week and the institution will have a chance to reply. the findings we're putting forward are pretty stunning, pretty egregious. the waste of taxpayers' money which i think none of us can support or feel good about, and leaving young people in a worse position than when they started. all we want to do is make sure

young people are getting real skills that lead to real jobs and lead them to a better financial situation. when young people are taking on massive debt who are already struggling, who are already often in a disadvantaged position and end up in a worse position because of this i think we do them a great disservice and do taxpayers a great disservice. where there are good actors providing real skills and providing a ladder to the middle class, we want them to grow, serve, prosper and serve more young people. where you have actors taking advantage of a massive influx of taxpayer resources and leaving people in a worse position than they started, that's not something you or i or any of us should feel good about supporting. >> i'll go to senator murray here. i may come back later and ask where you came up with this 8% of total earnings as a ceiling for what would be the right ratio to look at. we can come back to that later.

senator murray? >> mr. chairman thank you very much. mr. secretary, last week the national research council released a report and recommendations for how to apply the science of development and early learning to building the workforce needed for high quality programs serving young children. the rereport noted recommendations would require significant resources. in the past few years congress has provided your department with funding since fy 11 for race to the top, early learning and challenge grants and preschool development grants. washington state has used it to invest in its workforce. how is your department working with the department of health and human services to administer these grants and address workforce issues outlined in that report. >> we were happy to report with that report, make a lot of sense to someone like you who know it is field intimately. all the applicants, all 36 applicants for the grants

describe in their grant applications their efforts to provide comparable salaries and strengthen the workforce, so we know how critically important this is. we fully support those findings, move them in a right direction. we think candidly we were ahead of the study and encouraging these things. states totally get it. the real challenge senator murray, that you've talked about and i feel so passionate about, we simply don't have the resources to get behind people who know what the right thing is, they just don't have the dollars to do that. there's so much unmet need wasting lists of thousands of children in virtually every state i visit. this has become a total bipartisan issue in the world. we have more republican governors than democrats investing today. i think that's a good thing. we have to get past the dysfunction in washington and look at what's happening. new mexico nevada, the new governor of texas, his most important thing was getting more

dollars for education. you were most unhappy that we couldn't fund washington. one of my toughest calls is with the governor of mississippi who desperately wanted resources. as much need there is across the states, we know how bad the need is in mississippi. we simply didn't have the dollars to fund it. i would love for folks to come together, look at the bit bipartisan agreement in states across the nation and figure out how to get children off these waiting lists and get them into kindergarten, not have them start school a year to 16 months behind. that serves nobody well. >> it is worrisome for our competitive global workforce in the future because other countries are investing -- >> my number won't be exact. we look at other israelized nations in terms of providing access, united states ranksed like 26th or 29th. it is no badge of honor. a vast majority of these industrialized countries understand how important this is

and provide greater access. we're trying to lead the world in everything in college graduation rates, high school graduation rates. we should think about leading the world in access to high quality early learning. we know all the brain science the research, the return on investment. the fact that so many countries have invested significantly more in providing greater access than we have, we should be ashamed of ourselves. we should be ashamed of ourselves and we should want to do better for our kids and our nation's economic competitiveness, as you said. >> thank you. mr. secretary as you know achievement gaps between low income students and all students continue to exist. it's about 11% in both reading and math. the title i grants to local education agencies was created to help eliminate those gaps. your budget proposal would increase funding for the program by about a billion dollars, fully replacing the cuts imposed by sequestration and recent budget battles. can you talk about what's been the impact of the reductions to

title i funding that have been made since 2010? >> two things that both happened at the same timetion. neither is good. one is the reduction of very real row sources for poor children. and two, we have more children eligible. so greater need less resources. i'm convinced as are you, as i assume everyone on the committee is, the best way for us to end cycles of poverty and move children and families out of poverty is to give them a great education, a world class education. if we do that they have a world of opportunity to enter the middle class. if we exacerbate or perpetuate those gaps, we are part of the problem. we need those resources, whether it's access to better after school programs access to a.p. classes, access to best teachers, whatever it may be our poorest children not just need this, they deserve this. when we have less resources to

help more children who are poor, and if our goal is to reduce income inequality and increase social mobility, the best way we can do that -- in fact i would say by far the best way we can do that is by providing a high quality ed kigs to every child. you mentioned achievement gaps. our achievement gaps are insidious. i'm very pleased on the high school graduation rates we're closing the gaps. that's huge. we have a long way to go. instead of talking about achievement gaps, i prefer to talk about opportunity gaps. far too many poor children who live in disadvantaged communities, don't have the opportunities that their wealthier counterparts do. the children of the wealthy often get more the children of the poor often get less. that is unfair that is un-american. this is a step to try to rectify that problem. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator. >> thank you. welcome to our committee hearing. we want to thank you for your hard work and your efforts to help make sure that our federal

response to needs in education around the country are met. at that same time, though, recognize, too, we have very limited availability of funds and programs that will solve all the problems in elementary and secondary education. for example, the states and local governments have the primary responsibility of funding and hiring of teachers and all the rest that goes into making our nation a nation of opportunity for good education. i think working out a division of responsibility for what programs are best handled by the local office holders and people who are responsible for operating our schools and colleges. that we not encroach too much on the incentives that we have that are created at the local level to benefit special needs.

title i of the higher education act, elementary and secondary education act comes to mind where teachers are recruited. you have money there that goes to local governments to help edge courage people to go into education and help upgrade the quality of our students. what is your assessment during your time as secretary about the importance of our funding programs of that kind? >> insofar as, senator, i want to publicly apologize to you and to your state as i did to senator murray privately, that was one of the hardest series of calls i had was with your governor who knows how far behind so many children in your state start desperately wanted our resources. we couldn't fund down the slate far enough. we simply ran out of money. as a nation, we have a long way to go. by virtue every measure mississippi sadly is near the bottom. there's no place arguably with

greater need than your state. i want you to know how badly i felt about that and feel about that and hope going forward we can do more to help. where we have resources to help close again not just achievement gaps, what i call opportunity gaps that is critically important. and when we see high school graduation rates at all-time highs, when we see black and latino high school dropout rates cut by about half 45% respectively. when you see every group of children graduating at higher rates, black children, students with disabilities, poor children, that's fantastic progress. i'm thankful for the hard work that teachers, parents and students are doing around the nation. the issue for me is how do we get better faster? our dropout rate is still too high, graduation rate is not high enough. we need these resources to give young people a chance to be successful in life. >> if we find a way to add money

for these programs that are proven to be beneficial you wouldn't recommend to the president that he veto the bill, would you? >> if we can find more resources to support what's working, that's very very important. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> if i can quickly add, not to go on too long, we need to invest in title i, i.d.e.a. we need to also invest in innovation. there's so much great local work going on where people are starting to get extraordinary results for young people, whether it's in rural tennessee or ap latch yeah or ohio. what we don't do is take to scale what's working. we should invest in the core programs, but we also need to invest in innovation and helping great educators scale what's working in their communities. i think it's a very important role and it doesn't happen at the state and local level. we've had so many more

applications, dlarps available, we can do better together there. >> thank you senator cochran. senator mikulski. >> mr. chairman thank you. first of all, mr. secretary, thank you for your service. the fact that your tenure has been long in the obama administration shows that you really have a real commitment to education and over the span of your tenure see what works and what doesn't. we want to thank you for your advocacy and your steadfastness. i want to associate my remarks with the senator from washington senator murray. in order to meet our needs we have to focus on lifting the caps. there's no two ways about it. i know there are colleagues who want to lift the defense caps. i don't argue that in this committee or even on the floor. but i think we've got to look at raising the caps in the domestic programs and they're intertwined. let me tell you how i see it. one county two people, three

programs. one county, anne arundel county in maryland, the home of the state capital, home of the united states naval academy, the home of ft. meade the national security agency and other intel agencies. three programs impact aid, i.d.e.a., the javits gifted and tam leapted. two people they have names like rosa and jack. rosa was a child who was stigmatized and bullied in school because she has down syndrome and the word retarded had become a bullying invitation. working on a bipartisan basis with senator ramsey, we passed rosa's law. he had the same challenges in his own state to remove the stigma. rosa is in this county. then there's jack, one of the 1%. not the 1% that makes zillions of dollars but the 1% who is a genius. jack is a genius.

in high school he has invested a test for panning attic cancer. if you talk to his mother a nurse. she had to for raj to find the programs to help jack. then he goes on to win the intel scholarship and invent this stunning stunning stunning discovery. so what is it? we talked then to the republican county executive. he didn't even know about impact aid. then i tell him -- he's a compassionate host because the army of ft. meade so loves the educational program and idea, and it's underfunded. then the javits program, they laugh about it because it's so small, so skimpy, so sparse. my point is while we look at innovation and aren't we cool and we're doing brave new yirds and we're going to scale up and follow the hoop dreams, i'm worried about these bread and butter programs. i associate myself with impact

aid. one, if we're going to support the troops let's support where the troops live. we're proud of those troops. we love them there. quite frankly, they're good for our economy. we sure are proud of them. i.d.e.a. is continually underfunded. that's a bread and butter program in every state. that takes me to the javits program, the program for the gifted and talented. i have kept that program alive. tell me what your plans are? we know what we can do on impact aid. i think there's a commitment for i.d.e.a., but do you even know what i'm talking about? that's not an argument question. it's not meant to be argumentative. but that's my point. these children are a national resource. i'm not talking about the 1% genius. i'm talking in our schools and there's a presumption that only rich kids are smart. you and i don't believe that. where are we on the javits

program and what is the department of education's commitment on that? what have you identified, if any, the need for that, and why did you cut it? from ten million -- any program to be picked on, took it from $10 million to $9 million for the whole country. we can use that just on the del marva peninsula. >> first, i want to thank you for your service. my service pales in comparison to what you've done in terms of longevity and impact. thank you for everything you've done. it's been a joy working with you. i want to say that publicly. on all these things, again, i hate that so hauch, because of the dysfunction in washington we have to make these choices between, whether it's the bread and butter programs you talk about or doing more innovative stuff or doing more preschool. we should be doing all of the above and hold ourselves accountable for results. if we're not getting results, we

should scale back. in all these things, it shouldn't be either/or. too often with things like sequester caps, that's the position we're put in. whether it's javits gifted and talented, whether it's i.d.e.a., title i, we should be supporting and building upon. we should be doing more early childhood. >> tell me what you're doing for the gifted and talented? >> the javits program itself is one of the smaller programs that did get eliminated. we had almost $8 million in it. the priority has been for larger programs, the billion dollars in impact aid or the $12 billion in i.d.e.a. some of the smaller programs over time have been cut back. >> i know they've been cut back. you told me what i already know. tell me what you do to help these children in the department of education and what is the identification of need or do you even know? >> i think the approach is to take all children and look at

them, provide the support for the general programs look at things that are innovative, but they're not always -- congress has made decisions in the past. these weren't necessary lit things proposed by the administration. but 53 programs have been eliminated since 2010. they tend to be smaller programs. when you go through the process like esea reauthorization, you can confirm that's the kind of program that should be continued and continue to put money in programs. >> do you know what you do at the department of education to think about these kids do you think about them? >> we think about every child in every program. >> i'm asking about this population. every child is special. we understand that. >> we do the best we can to provide a world class education to every single child. >> do you have a focus in any department to implement this and think about the talent pool we have to identify them and help the teachers know how to best develop them? >> to be clear students that are gifted and talented, we

don't identify. that's done at the local level. >> proves my point. >> thank you senator mick cull skichlt we have the opportunity here to have both the ranking member and the chairman of the full committee and the chairman and the ranking member of the authorizing committee. that gives us a lot of strength on this committee. senator alexander is the chairman of that committee and an important member of this one. >> thank you, senator blunt. mr. secretary, welcome. thank you for your nice comments on senator murray and our work on fixing no child left behind. i think senator murray must have been a good preschool teacher because in preschool you learn to work well together. she understands that, whether it's working on the budget or working on no child left behind which is a tough nut to crack, she's been good to work with, and we've made a lot of progress.

let me throw the compliment back. sometimes the president doesn't get much credit for working well with congress. i want to thank you and president obama for your public comments and the ply vat way you've worked with us in creating an environment where we have a better chance to succeed on no child left behind. we have strong opinions on this. everybody does. you've been very constructive and very helpful. so has the president. i thank you for that. i'd like to talk about higher education. i'll ask a single question and let you make an answer. not long ago senator mikulski i, senator burr senator bennett asked a distinguished group of higher education headed by the chancellor of the university of maryland and vanderbilt university to look at higher education and give us a report about how we could simplify federal rules and regulations. they reported -- they gave us 59 specific recommendationses, very good report. it's not a sermon. specific things we can do. you and i have talked about it a number of times. they put them in order, even

told us what the top ten were. senator mikulski and i and bennett and burr are going to take as many of those as we can, put those in legislation and try to make that part of the reauthorizing of the higher education act. here is where i'm getting. 12 of 59 were things the department by itself could fix. three of the top ten were things that the department by itself could fix. now, these aren't things that secretary duncan and president obama by themselves did. secretary alexander and president bush did some of them. this is going all the way back to 1965. what they found was for example, vanderbilt university hired the boston consulting group to tell it how much it cost vanderbilt the non-hospital part of vanderbilt, how much federal regulationless cost vanderbilt to operate in one year and it was $150 million. that's $11,000 on every student's tuition 11% of all their money. that's what the whole commission said.

it's just a jungle of red tape. national academy of sciences has said that an administrator's time on investigations is 42% administrative time. that's billions of more dollars of wasted money. most of that is not department of education. that's other departments in the government. this is a widely recognized problem we have that we've all cricketed to including us in congress, those of us who have been in government. here is my question -- an example. for example when students withdraw from college, a portion of their title iv funds have to be returned to the government. regulatory techs are figuring out what that is, over 2 o 0 pages in happened book. that's one of the number one objections they have. that could be easily fixed. with financial responsibility standards, there's a requirement for audited financial statements, for private non-profit and for-profit

colleges, it causes them to get expensive letters of credit according to this report. these requirements by the department don't cause -- accepted accounting principles. another one is that when the fafsa, the application for federal grant or loan which is 108 questions is applied, there's a verification process. very time consuming. senator bennett and i recommended cutting these 108-page questions to two. president obama and his budget has endorsed this idea and said he found 30 or 40 questions you and i working together might find some more. and if we simplify this form, and we move, which would require legislation, the data to the junior year in high school instead of the senior year these are all very common sense nonid ideological issues. would you be willing to sit down with senator ker and listen to

them and their recommendations about what you and the department could do to implement the dozen of the 59 that the department by itself can do and would you be willing to work with senator and me and bennett and burr and senator murry to try to implement this simplification of what the report called the jungle of red tape. whatever we can do here to remove red tape, to stop wasting time, to stop waisting dollars, we should do that. there a couple already that we think we can move quickly on. we're starting to get behind this. so bigger picture, if we can get to a good spot on esch, it will be like a walk in the park in relative the ermerms. there's a lot of ground here going forward. >> senator murray and i are

ready for a walk in the park after no child left behind. no seriously, we look forward to that. thank you very much. >> thank you. i want to talk about college education, making it more affordable, and i want to talk specifically about finishing on time for full-time undergraduates. i know the university of hawaii has worked very hard with their initiative and with the department to try to enable kids to finish. it's not just the annual cost of is college, but it's how quickly, as a practical matters kids are able to finish. some of that has to do with the counseling they get in their freshmen year. some of that has to do with the availability availability. we tend to focus on the pell grant level. sometimes we talk about the retail price. none of that matters if it takes

you five or six years to finish. >> first of all, we've seen a huge amount of innovation and great work out of hawaii. you should be so proud. that's a state we invested early on. a lot of folks thought that was a huge mistake in our part. my own concerns or trepidations there. and it's been amazing to see the side and early childhood side. what your state is doing want i want to thank the folks for their courage and challenging the orthodox to doing things differently and you guys getting much better results than in places and improving faster that many states. we love what we're doing there. whatever we can do to increase speed, the degree, reduce the time, that's the whole poin of the first in the world competition. looking at better support as you said. there's so much good work going on around the nation where we can invest, as i said before, where we can scale what is working. we think that's a huge role to play. whether it's first time, full time, or whether it's a

29-year-old single mom with two children trying to go back to school to climb the economic ladder. whatever we can do to get more people into college, but more importantly get them the degree at the back end and get them in a position to, you know, to get a better paying job. we have to do that. that's why programs like first in the world, we think are so critically important. and again, there was so much greater demand than dollars available. we would like to invest in many more institutions of higher education, who are taking very seriously their role not just to enroll students, but to help them graduate and graduate as swiftly as possible. >> i appreciate your work in the area of coming down on the bad actors among the online degree granting institutions. but i'm wondering whether we can come at those challenges from the accreditation side. is they get their accreditation, and then we move on and try to clean up after it's all done.

i'm wondering whether you have the authority on the statute to come after the bad actors with minuscule graduation rates, awful outcomes on pretty much every level. i guess i'm wondering why they're accredited in the first place. >> i think that's a fair question. we are looking at very, very closely to see what we can do to challenge folks and to raise the bar. so happy to continue the conversation off line with you and your staff. but we have a team just looking at that piece of the higher rated puzzle. very, very telling. >> and in hawaii we're doing pretty innovative work with students of families who have played a really critical role in but mainstream english based standards and assessments and teacher based training requirements undermine efforts of native communities to use their languages in schooling. and i'm wondering what you can

do at the department to better support access to and fair assessment of education through the medium of native languages. >> so, im sure you know we recently granted a waiver request to the hawaii department of education to pilot the development and administration of new assessments in native languages. and again, what's happening there has real vennsy in many other states around the nation. so really appreciate the leadership and thoughtfulness there. please challenge us, hold us accountable for being a good partner. we'll see what develops there. what develops there has implications in many other places. so we're very interested and supportive. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you for the call yesterday. as i mentioned my interest is dyslexia. what specific programs does the department fund for dyslexia? >> i don't think we have a specific program for dyslexia.

children with dyslexia have special needs. obviously that falls into the ida bucket, where we have pretty significant resources. >> can i interrupt? so dyslexia is 80% learning disabilities and maybe at least 50, maybe more of nose who cannot read. this is all data, peer reviewed, et cetera. so if it's 20% of the kids who have a problem 80% of those are learning disabilities, 20% of the general population, why in the heck don't you have a special program for dyslexia? >> fair question. again, that's something for congress to think about. >> you're suggesting congress should give a special emphasis? >> i'm not suggesting. congress can look at this, and many children with special needs. and we are trying to add more resources and a significant portion of the the resources go to help children with dyslexia. >> do you have any sense of the quality of the programs currently in schools addressing the needs of dyslexics?

>> i think it would be very mixed. i think there's some schools communities and districts who do an extraordinary job here. >> now granted there's always a spectrum spectrum. but do we have a sense of where the median is? >> yeah. i would say much better than 10 or 15 years ago. >> that's a low bar, man. >> that may be true. but is it what we can and should be doing? absolutely. >> so what would you -- in your dream of dreams, what would be done to actually improve the screening and intervention for those with dyslexia? if you tell me that currently there's no single office looking at it. there's no -- senator mikulski speaks about 1%. i'm speaking about 20%. i'm speaking about the 20% that will not succeed, quite likely unless we do something. now i just have a sense that

this has been on kind of it may happen it may not. not like you're doing for the for-property colleges. here i have a sense it's more along, it happens. maybe it does. >> i think our office that looks at this is doing really good work there. again, it's a fair critique. do we have enough resources put behind there. i think it's a fair critique that we're not investing enough in either population. and for us to invest more, we clearly need your help and support. i would argue it's more than investment. i do think that there's a lack of awareness. i've read about rti and others that think we should screen differently. and those that both criticize and praise rti must be a general faculty understanding of what dyslexia is, or otherwise a child gets to the fourth grade and cannot read, and at that

point, intervention is less profitable. so is there any sense that there is a general faculty understanding in more than a small fraction of schools? >> so, these are complicated issues and don't want to blow through them. we have about 1400 schools of education. so if you wanted to have a general or universal faculty understanding, once they entered a classroom, i would argue that's late in the game. that general understanding should happen well before that. # and so i think to get to the root of that, the honest question would be what are are the schools of education doing in this space? >> i got that. of course, on the other hand. if we say wait until those who are currently in school become aware of the issue then we're really speaking about 30 years from now before we replace all those currently affective and no longer would be, so i say that as a kind of, oh my gosh. we need a cohort to be