and i think the main drawback is that there's still a default school, which is the school in the area where you can afford to buy or rent real estate. and provide to all families the kinds of choices that only affluent families currently enjoy through the ability to choose where to live. now, just providing that choice on its own isn't enough. my brookings colleague russ, in collaboration with klein is is here today, have done work documenting how choice actually functions in more than 100 districts around the country. so, it's not just about choice is this great thing. it's going to raise all votes and it's all going to be great. but it matters to you provide accessible and accurate and relevant information to parents to help them make informed choices. do you have a system that's accessible to everyone and not just the people who show up on

tuesday at 10:30. do you cover transportation costs or is it only a choice for parents who can somehow figure out transportation and so on and so forth. the second question of what it looks like. it varies a lot. but i think we have some clear ideas about what it ought to look like, which is going to determine the effect it has on the kids who make the choices. >> you wanted to jump in real quick. when we have black friday we see hundreds of thousands of people standing in line to buy products. if we had black friday every friday, you wouldn't have that many lines in place. that means people wouldn't wait. same with choice. when we give parents choice and we see thousands line up and take advantage it's because they want something different and now, they have an option to do so, but if you made it every day, we don't know this internally, thousands of seats in states that are still unfilled. they're available. people qualify. but they just haven't had it so

there's more work we have to do. just because you make it available, doesn't mean everyone will jump. >> i would point to d.c. real quick. d.c. experiences as we brought up. we've seen that take off, the traditional public schools improved dramatically. do things to try to aattract parents. i wouldn't say to it's not about trying to abolish or dismantle public education. i think it's helping to create a more thriving market for all sorts of schools to be available options. so, that you don't just have this really crappy school that you're assigned to. that all of your options are better because of it. >> great. one question from twitter. another is kind of spread. i think people that are digging into the report itself which is awesome, about the urban really split. something you brought up is that there's a suburban urban split

but it seems to be a lot of rural folks who were not fans of school vouchers, tax credits, education savings accounts, even though we might think of them in a republican constituency that might do that. gerard is nodding, so maybe we'll get him go first. >> this is a really good question and actually, this kind of goes back to the other on what were some surprising findings, we did see in small town and rural areas based on where and how would you describe where you live and there was substantial support. among rural and small town americans. had a significantly higher support for vouchers compared to urban folks and that's another finding that goes against conventional wisdom. and so, but the thing and i didn't pull out rural respondent respondents as much because the sample size is a little smaller than those who were in the urban

pool of respondents, so the margin and just to get to the point made earlier about the sample size of the roughly 250 school parents in the survey, i mean, there's 70 plus years of science that have gone into survey design and constructing these surveys so they can reflect, truly reflect the population you're trying to evaluate and so, we through randomization and what they call random digit dialing and with some waiting after the field work which is an industry standard approach to correcting for demographic discrepancies, we can get an accurate reflection of school parents within a margin of error even with serving 250 folks. >> i think that's the witching hour, so if we could have a round of applause. great to have you. this will be up on youtube

tomorrow, i believe. great having you. >> p the supreme court upheld the health care law last week. tax credits are are available to states that have a health run exchange. politico is hosting a discussion this afternoon on the court's decision and the future of health care in america. we take you to that live now. it's just getting underway. it is it has, the health care system has the opportunity and all of us have the opportunity to look to the future. cvs health is pleased to be partnering with politico to host this discussion and to have that constructive dialogue and what comes next and what the future holds, so thank you again for being here. thanks. >> thank you, mary. thanks to you, thanks to cvs for your partnership. they're great. for those of you in the room and those watching over the life

stream, don't forget to join the conversation. twirt, the hash tag is prohc. as in health care. i have a panel on a tablet that i can take questions off of twitter and without further delay, i'd like to welcome our four panelists to the stage. drew altman is the president and ceo of a henry j. kye cierre foundation. sheila berg is the add junlgt lecturer and i first met her years ago when working for senator dole on the hill and tom mill at the american enterprise institute. i've intrukted them to talk to each other not just me, and to be lively. before we, wer going to talk partly about the court and the politics and we want to partly talk about how to we move ahead. but first, tom, you e-mailed me something last night, said

before we start with our question, is is that the last lawsuit? >> this is the last big lawsuit. i was on the phone friday with a smaller one, but the ones that have, that's a shorter list than i had a couple of days before. i'll admit that. the big exten shl threats that go to the core of whether the law is fundamentally or needs to be reconsented in the near term. that part is over. there are some other things still brewing. on the margins could annoy some people or make a difference. the big lawsuits are over. big lawsuits are ending. that's as long as bill clinton's comment. >> so, we get june back next year. right? >> so, for you is this the end is the king decision a turning point or did we just hit another mole in the game and something else is just going to pop up? >> i think the aca dodged its own particular nightmare, but when you open up politico or god

forbid more to the point, the world is going to feel strangely familiar because the politics of the aca will feel familiar. the implementation challenges will look a lot like the implementation challenges that you have known and loved for recent months, they would remain the lightening rod of partisan division in the country. it will be a focus in the election. there's another big moment in 2017 depending on what happens with the election. it's here to stay, but could change a lot. depending on what happens in the election and something that you know, we focus on a lot at kaiser, don't expect public opinion to change. and i have some news on that. >> we'll come back to that. >> so, that's a quick summary. >> joel you actually at ccio, oh i should learn that, actually implementing and putting up the exchanges. the building blocks. what's different about this moment now? >> well i think back then none

of us would have dreamed that the partisan shift that's been part of the story from the beginning would continue to get deeper and more entrenched each year. i think now, we have a potential for a lull in that and for the next election. it's an interesting question to me whether the end major issue between the parties between now and the next major election, but i could see it stepping into the background now and the folks trying to implement the law, administration's preference would be that it's a little quieter and they can focus on that, on implementing the law and that we really do have the potential until the election that there's a relative quiet compared to the last years. there's been a drama every year until now and unless something goes wrong again and there are many things that can go wrong here including the lawsuit or the issue again, unless something goes wrong, i generally have the feeling that

both parties will find it in their interest to kind of back away and not kind of keep it on the front burner as much, although it will be taurklked about in the election. >> sheila you know how the hill works. you've watched the republicans. is this a pivot point for them or are we just going to hear 52 more votes? >> i think it's certainly a period of time of reflection. i think you've seen in the course out of the last couple of months, a series of conversations occurring among republicans of things that might be done in the case of either king or burwell prevailing. i think there's less drama in the near term. i don't think by any stretch, the conversation is over. i think there's a whole set of issues between the states and federal government to be sorted out as they sort through how best to proceed at this point. i think we are as joel has suggested at a point where it will fall a bit to the backdrop but we've still got

reconciliation to go through. and the things that might be done particularly since the baseline now doesn't have to be adjusted. you have issues in the context of appropriations which have begun to appear in the bill, so i think there will still be conversation, whether there will be another series of votes to repeal, not clear. but i think there's still a great deal yet to come and a great deal yet to be learned. >> tom, the people who have been fighting in court and politically didn't suddenly decide they loved the law just because king went in a way they didn't want it to. is there a change of is is it a historic we'll look back and see june 2015 was the marking point or just -- >> turning point but there are ones before and each one, it's not over we can go on. continue on for some period of time. i think on the legislature

front, the opportunities are narrow. it may encourage more symbolic moves than real moves. we're going to make you feel good while you're doing it. they could be back in business. this pause that goes on where you can't get any action everybody's happy and incremental changes in law. but looking ahead to the presidential election, there will at least be a general sense by the republican side to say we're going to change this. not a lot of details i expect. i'm spending most of my time relearning administrative law because i expect to be involved with the regulatory team. >> so, you have some numbers. you have a poll saying how the country felt. >> i agree basically that it will be a calmer period than the chaos which would have ensued, political chaos, and policy,

too, if the plaintiffs had won. but you're going to see proposals made in the congress which almost certainly won't pass or would be vetoed if they did. which will mostly be about campaigning and they will not be in one place. the republican presidential candidates campaigning on this issue, there's a version of you know, the court failed to save you from obamacare. and that will be about motivating turnover. we've learned in the past and will see again this time that health reform is not a decisive issue. we are releasing another one of

our polls later today. first of all, people weren't paying attention to the king case at all. did inch up as we got to a decision. 39% of the american people follow the case. doesn't sound like a lot, but if you drag these things it edged up. it was 27% a month ago. more interestingly, 62% of american people supported the court's decision. 32% opposed it. that's very different from what we found in the last big court case the constitutional challenge where the public was absolutely split about a third of republicans by the way. support the court's decision and then we've seen in our monthly tracking polls since 2010 that opinion on law has been locked in a partisan paralysis since the beginning, so i wouldn't expect opinion to move very much and at least in the short-term, it didn't. so as of today, it's 42%

favored, 40% don't like the law oppose the law, so it's inched into favorable territory where it was a couple of months ago, but no big swing as a result of the king decision. >> so, they like the king decision because of an equity issue. they think if you can have subsidies, it should be across all-states all-states. >> this was not a legal judgment. >> by the court. >> that's an interesting question. if you read the opinion there's a lot of policy. >> like insurance 101. like wait. just the public at a very gut level. we just don't get why some people would get help and others wouldn't. don't talk to me about anything else. we just don't get that. >> tom the sort of stuckness of public opinion, you can have like -- >> keep many mind i'm still counting on the 25% i think the

law's been repealed. >> have you asked that recently? >> whether that's moved? it hasn't moved a lot. at this point i swear to you we could ask will the aca solve the climate change problem or take us to mars and we would get a perfect split between republicans and democrats. >> we're already in, congress can't repeal obamacare. 51 votes on reconciliation they can't get rid of it. there's even among conservatives, there's acceptance, they can't. tom, you're talking about regulatory changes and how you do things. >> that's the subtle move down the road. there are all kinds of things you can propose. they're just not going to pass and get a law for the next couple of years and i do think we'll still be at more of a level of generality than a well thought out detailed proposal

coming out of the presidential candidate, say here's where we're going on day one. things can change. >> so is the pressure on congress to still gin some of this up, not in a negative way, but still read about it have to dole with it because there are 2016ers in the senate? >> there are several views on that. i think in the house, you're more than likely to get one with a a rhetorical run. the argument from a minority is to say we've got the tools what the hell let's finish through and get a full vote on it. another move will be in the senate which would be more thoughtful, just tee up a individual mandate not to go for full repeal and transfer full ownership. when you get into that day,

where it's important to have the elements together, it tends to cater to the more symbolic instincts. >> and i think i was going say, i think you point out an interesting question. that is the number of people in the senate. certainly republicans, who are up in the '16 race. there are far more republicans. if question of the optics, reconciliation provides an opportunity. there's certainly the opportunity senator johnson and others have put out proposals. unlikely you would settle on one, but certainly issues that sort of have a -- questions about tax issues, cadillac tax and other issues not likely to be revolved this year, but teeing it up for a '17 conversation in the context of tax reform and a series of other issues. so the 16ers do have a reason to begin to profile some of what they might say.

the chances of anything passing is right. >> or you could do both. we've seen that. they could do a laundry list and big one. >> i have a question for you guys, if there's some room to talk and accomplish something akin to what mcconnell and obama accomplished on trade, it would be around the mandate because the republicans actually traditionally have a strong position against the mandate and there's 11 democratic interests now i think in saying when you add up a little coverage you'll get out of this and how much hassle we take. >> the white house has a sacrifice. >> you think there's a chance they're going to engage like that? >> it's like the medical device

tax. you're going to see up something in the case of the employer mandate where the white house might be able to buy that. the question is do they see it as an attempt to kind of piece male of the part. whether it's the device tax, the cadillac tax. each has a different impact. certainly, they have budgetary impacts that have to be taken into consideration. is there an opportunity? yes. the likelihood of many of those. >> those are all small trays. it doesn't rise to a level that gets people excited. throw in the kitchen sink and there's going to be a lot of stuff in here. maybe. >> the impact for a lot of

people, but it's filled with symbolic importance. it's a potential target. at the moment, just a potential target. who have to have a proposal, but also a health platform that takes them beyond how should i put it, make up a word a quaug meierish politics of the aca of the american people. you see hillary clinton talking about drug prices, high deductibles, talking about meat and potatoes pocketbook issues that really connect with people. so, he'll be a lot of political tension on this issue. i am not sure that congress is really action as well as out in the states.

>> one of their attack lines is the affordable care act is not affordable. the american voert doesn't understand per capita price trends and medicare, they're just seeing more money coming in their pocket. so, if the republicans are saying it's not affordable your costs are going up and it's obamacare's fought, how can hillary talk about affordability without sounding like she's agreeing with the republicans? >> to drew's point, at least currently, her focus is on drugs. and it's really not positioned as an obamacare issue, but rather at a pocketbook issue and separately from the on going conversation in terms of coverage. i think she has some among republicans in terms of certainly some of the introduction of new drugs and the out out of pocket costs. so, she's able to do that i think without getting caught up in the obamacare conversation by highlights a particular issue

that has resonance. >> i think it's an explit is attempt to lay out a different agenda. one of the most striking findings in a recent poll we did, we just asked the american people in a fairly open ended way what their top health priorities were for the congress and president and the it was surprising. absolutely at the top of the list. were high cost drugs for the chronically ill, so it's not surprising to me that's at the top of the lists of some politicians. just these kind of meat and potatoes issues of pricing of medical care transparency and the aca issues which couple us were way down the list. >> one of the things about that poll that struck us, it was republicans, districts and intds, all put in as the top. i can't remember the last time there was a poll in all the years i've been watching polls where everybody agreed on the top issue.

>> it's interesting in this case, matches the substance. the actuaries are most worried about the trend lines on these drugs, so other than what people care about is is not really related to the underlieying issue, but here, it is. if you're worried about hemt pricing from a perspective, you're worried about how they're going to manage the drug costs and it's fascinating to watch big insurers and big pharma go after each other. >> i would also say that the high deductibles issue is the tip of the iceberg about how insurance is changing, more cost sharing, which resognating with people and i think as particularly democratic candidates trying to find that issue, they wouldn't define it as an obamacare issue and affordability of policies and changes, but as a broad issue about how insurance is changing in the marketplace. now, whether they get away with it or not, it's true and

correct. >> you were at cns when the state, the early process when the states were trying to decide whether to have an exchange and how to set it up and all that. the enrollment takes place at the state level. going to be going into 2016. medicaid enrollment was higher than people anticipated. you have affordability issues. political people. the administration has sort of drew and i were talking before, try you like it kind of thing. wait until 2014, that didn't happen. what from an implementation standpoint has to break through because if you don't get people covered, the law is not doing what it was intended to do. >> well, i think it's like a lot of parts. just on longer path than people thought. change is harder than we think.

i think the secretary has it rigts to say let's step back from the statements made six seven years ago now and look at what we think we can accomplish and make it about this year to say get over ten million. >> it was way lower. >> right. way lower and cbo numbers will double that in the next two years. probably won't get there would be my guess and you'll see hhs come out with numbers that are based on real data looking at what's happened over the last couple of years and we will be slower. what political implications that have i think are generally okay for the administration because as long as there's progress, whether it's as fast as people thought it should be or not, i think it's still positive story. at some point, someone may try to make an issue gee there's a lot more on the medicaid side in terms of how this is balancing out. that's true. you're accurate on that point, but i think if we continue to

make coverage gaines and a big dynamic. that's happening is that the states are going to take back or take a back step on the i think functionality, the states are going to take a step forward in terms of their involvement in the insurance market. about 15 years and the one thing that united the most conservatives and the most liberals was we wanted to go over our state insurance markets and we've lost that in the last two years but i think that will come back and you'll have a system where the states are the activity about grinding through and all that. but not state by state. >> it will be more like what nevada and mexico are doing now. where they're controlling certain amount of on the ground

but everything technically because that's the one that ended up working. >> we had federal data so the states pick up after enrollment. >> describe this as you've got a -- which can't be eliminated. you're growing slow. not working well. when the rich go up in 2017, the premiums go through the roof so you've got your group of people that can go there, so nothing's wrong working with the small businesses. you've got something and it's going to be stuck in place. it's not going to take over the rest of the health care system. >> you wonder if you reflecting on what joel has commented, in 17, the states have the opportunity to waive out. the states have the opportunity to restructure what it is they want to do, both in the context of setting up in exchange and also down to the benefit issues.

some of the issues joel raises about the state's, that opens up entirely in '17. now, one wonders in setting up infrastructure, the moment process, whether they will take full advantage of the waiver. notwithstanding the rules say they have to cover the same population, have similar kind of benefits, there are enormous amounts of flexibility that in fact, the states could take back in '17 if they choose to do so under current law. so, again, i think the question of what the states are doing what they've learned in this process, raises a lot of issues about what the states may choose to take back. >> a couple of things on this. the issue of people, not just a political problem. i think it is the biggest implementation challenge facing law. the need to sign up more people and reach more, which is a different group and a tougher youp group to reach. the coverage goal, more

importantly as has been said, to stabilize the exchanges and the premiums on the premium increases are reasonable for people and also tolerable politically and sheila was referring to there's a course of people i join interested in the so-called exception. which is the state health reform and one point i would make about that having been involved in getting federal waivers and giving them and also studying them, is that will also be a political process. a lot of flexibility, so democrats are in charge of the administration, there will be i think withering republican oversight. however, if republicans are in charge of everything we will not have henry waxman sitting over you know, on capitol hill. you will not have democratic oversight and so if they decide, they could still push the state health reform waivers in lots of ways. >> happen though this year. >> no, no, no.

>> that's 2017. >> when people look at, they're going to see mandate, the individual mandate. get rid of your exchange in favor of insurers, you can change the benefit structure and posture and very huge opportunities and what will play there is a lot is is going to edge up which the president will have in 2017. >> we're going to have a loose definition of the three things. same coverage achievements. budget neutral. and seeing consumer protections. those are real -- i think they'll be re-examined. >> not going to be able to roll back the coverage. you say they're minor. today, people have individual insurance in a way they never have. my 20 years of insurance regulation, you couldn't bet on the individual market. i came out of my role in pennsylvania i had to have a job with insurance because i couldn't go to the individual market. today, people don't have to have

a job to have insurance. you're not going to roll that back. >> i think it occurs in the context of the administration on the republican side. tom can correct me if i'm incorrect. i don't think there's a view towards rolling back some of the things we agree on the issue. coverage of you know -- >> there's no question. but to drew's point and you're right. there are issues in your term, but recognize even in a democratic administration, there has been a fair amount of flexibility in some cases with the negotiation of the waivers because of the desire to increase coverage, so then the context of both the medicaid discussions as well as these about exchange structures, this administration setting aside whatever public administration might do were frantic to essentially increase enrollment and i think went farther than you might have imagined in previous administrations, so what would happen depending on whether it was a republican administration or a democratic. i think there's a great desire

to maintain coverage to maintain the population of coverage. there are options about whether it's the individual mandate but the fundamental reforms stay largely in place where some tinkers. the question is, do you create an environment where there's a death spiral because only people came in are essentially people that need the coverage. so, i think that has to be negotiated but i think there will be flexibility regardless of these waivers. on both the medicaid side as well as the employee side. >> flexibility comes and goes depending on how desperate you are. in an environment where there are a lot more tools in this law that the administration has. when they're about to go out of office, they're going to blast out a lot more stuff because they're not please, please, please, come in, establishing a template for maximum authority in the future. >> give an example of something you think thegoing to happen. >> i think much more in terms of

converting what are the innovations, we say this is success. we can implement that. we don't want somebody in the administration playing around with it. there's a lot more clout where if you're not trying to be the nice guy in order to gif give out the grab, i think there's a wide range of discretion for this administration to go further than it has. >> taking place in medicare and some of the payment reforms. it's not just on the private size. put it in place without going through the normal process. that was one of the gifts that the ac provided was a ability to do that. to put it into practice that would have required a demonstration project. the secretary can deem it as a challenge and put it in place.

>> more flexibility to the states. i think that's probably going to continue all the way. if there's a huge federal play at the end of this administration, it's going to provoke a backlash among the states that they're cognizant of and i think the smarter play is to say this law here to stay. coverage and guaranteed accessibility and all that. it's going to be the ground that as much as possible in the states and give the states more flexibility and i think that's the realm in which the law doesn't continue to be a pin yat ta at the federal level. >> why isn't a state in a year or two, save someone from running on medicineaid. we're going to put everybody on the exchange. scott walker move before, ipg we'll see more of. >> you don't just grab medicaid say my --

>> roll back if you're above. >> on that point, i think one area where they may, this is not inside information, but i think there may be more flexibility now in the short-term on the state medicaid waivers, the thorny issue, but the thorny issue at the moment are these work requirements. those to be negotiated out. >> i want to start with one of our reporters. get the mike. remember the it's pro hc for twitter questions. >> sorry to pull a fast one on you guys but i want to ask a

question about the exchange. a year from now, how many states do you think will be enrolling people through their own websites of the states that have state exchanges right now? we have 16 and the district. >> fewer. >> how many fewer? >> single digits. >> yeah. >> 38 today will be using the federal platform in 2016. states are not going to go the other way, so a number like 40, 41, maybe, but again, that's from the beginning. i think there will be a play against the federal government running i.t. if you say ten years from now who's going to deliver better, i.t. can create a consumer experience, i say it's somebody out of the private sector, not the federal government. there's a lot of turmoil in that market to improve it and i think we need to think about i.t.

separate from running exchange. who's running the marketplace. >> some of the exchanges, federal exchange states where the governor is hostile, florida being the key example, they've had phenomenally high 1.6 something like that, enrolled in a state where they're not a state exchange and they don't have support on the ground and some of the state changes that are blue states have not had fantastic despite efforts to do outreach. >> medicaid, you have a much bigger population for the exchange. that's some of the way those things go. >> who's going to pay for this stuff? the states don't want to pay for it. there's not budget money right now for the feds to run their marketplaces as aggressively as they'd like to. no one wants to pay and the question is how much can you add on to the premiums? i'd say the answer to the

financial sustainability is a little unknown. >> biggest plus is the i.t. we've got ibm mainframes now. we're going to have something different five years from now, ten years from now. that's going to be a big part of the law to make it affordable, too. >> and the cost to be born by the states or feds. >> questions in the room. where is -- aif got one from twitter. is there anyone who has their hand up over here? >> there's somebody somebody to your left. >> right. >> will the private vendors will wary because they'll liable for hacking where as it might be insulated from that? >> there are 15 private web brokers who signed up with the federal government gone through the security protocalls that the federal government has, so, so

far, they've been willing to do this sort of thing. whoever can tell me what's going to happen with security generally in our society, i guess you could ramp up quite a bit because we've had real issues with breaches of security all over the place. >> includeing federal government. >> one question from twitter, how does the king dynamic affect labor age. not sure there's, i guess it means labor age. gl the appropriations process. >> right if the republicans want to go after the aca and the report didn't do it they are trying to defund. >> well, they're both the house and senate have included provisions that would stop funding or call from stopping funding for those who essentially implementing the fact for the risk corridors. obviously, they didn't go after the subsidies but didn't go after some of the infrastructure issues and again, moving on both house and senate sides, the outcome of that and whether they actually complete an appropriations bill this year

remains to be seen. or you're the cr. >> it's the instruction kinds of issues. >> the house approach, which did not become law. we passed state exchanges, but ended wup a federal exchange. >> the meaning of state is. >> stop it, tom. >> it's a new world. got a new voecabularyvocabulary. >> you know why i invited him. but there's no money. there was never money to implement the federal exchange. there was like this chunk of money that had to stretch. >> sofa cushion money. >> right. we wrote about the money. four years, there's got to be no more, by the time -- came in all the coins under the coaches were gone and i think labor age is trying to stop some of the

flexibility they have to transfer money. >> yes. >> how on earth did you do it and how are they doing it now? >> in the end of the day we're pretty much going down the road of what we should do with everything. people use it, pay for it. so user fees are used at the federal level, probably going to go up some. that's how it's going to be ultimately paid for, so it's not going to be a federal appropriation, competing with some other federal appripriations. it's going to be through user fees. you look at the exchanges, outside of the technologies, there's not a lot of costs, but some have been in outreach. some in regulating the plans and all that sort of thing, but mostly, the cost is on the i.t. side and obviously, the subsidies. between the next two parties. >> you've been involved in the federal -- for technology, you know how it works. last decade's tong.

>> technology is a game changer and anybody who thinks that we're going to have the same technology running these exchanges ten years from now as we have today, i think is is not look inging at where technology is moving. on the i.t. side no, i think that's why the question over here, again what we should have done from the beginning here the fight in congress was not about who runs the i.t. it's about who's regulating the insurers, that, those things that are the policy issues that people care about are in health reform, those are going to allow states do those things already. those responsibilities are going

to stay in the states as the bulk of the states and the i.t. who runs that, probably we should have hired google to do all of it for us. gl a couple of 12-year-olds. >> there are enormous administrative complexities. but there's no question that this added to that burden in terms of the state insurance commissioners. many of whom have said they don't have the resources or the capacity to do the kinds of things that need to be done. network adequacy. have you ever gone beyond what was required in terms of review. i think the states have come into real issues in terms of being able to finance. the question is to how much can you shift to the premium and not simply put the premium out of

reach and of course, you then tr have the feds looking at the premiums and saying no more than ten and looking at those and saying too high. i think the states are at risk of not being able to sustain them, but all the basic infrastructure in place. >> an example. rate review is one of many more complex tasks. t 45 states have gotten certified to run rate reviews. the florida insurance departments has one of the best reviews of the country. they were tied their hands for two years. the legislature said no we want our rate review guys to actually operate and they do operate in the insurance regulars basely eating the cost to do that sort of thing through the way they get funded. so that's not a big charge.

>> i know who you are. >> phil with kaiser health news. the future of the success of the ac aca, how much does it depend on texas, florida, georgia? florida, republicans were willing to shut down the government instead of expanding medicaid. any sign that now that we're past king burwell -- >> expansion of medicaid? i think it's a state by state battle. tennessee's a good example. we know that governor haslem would like to expand, but reluctant to do so. depend on the -- make up of the legislature and you've got some states where legislature out out for a big chunk of time. so, again, i think it will

depend on the politics of the state. you've got a will the of governors up for re-election who are worried about positioning themselves you can't assume single answers for all the red states. i think it will be a state by state battle. >> but the state legislatures in many of those cases, are more important than the governor. >> look at the governors who tend to be drifrven, the governors in many of those states are in favor of moving forward. legislatures aren't. so, the real question is -- ideology the answer to that president. one last question. anyone in the audience. paul.

>> i'm wondering what your thoughts are on how the coming consolidation of the health insnurin insurers are going to affect some of the top imp menations as we discussed it. >> the fact that all the insurers are trying to buy each other right now. >> look, in you want to control people, it's better to have to control fewer of them. the real question is who's going to be captured and who's going to be the capturer. this is going on with the insurers. i don't think all the deals will get through for antitrust reasons. you've got doctors being bought up. the whole idea is you get a big enough box, you can say everything's a success. i think that's a serious problem because you can't break through into the health space and it's getting harder. >> any other thoughts about the

consolidation? >> we're seeing it on both sides. and so, how this works out, really is very different market around the country. what i'm concerned about is is what it means for people. and there isn't enough attention to that. >> so, what, if you have two or three big insurers, doesn't that increase their ability to negotiate prices for providers. >> it does. >> i don't really care if i'm in the bay area. if there are two or three that are capable of really competing with each other. in my home state of pennsylvania, upmc and high mark there's plenty of competition just between the two of them. as they compete, aetna, united, actually sneaks swoo thatinto that market. you don't need huge number, but

you don't want to get to a point where in a local market, a single hospital or a single carrier dominates and we don't really have that in most of our up the panelists, if i were to bring you back here next july 1, what would be the big health care story? tom? no more lawsuits. >> it's not working any better than it was yesterday. that would be the big story. in fact, sprung a few more leaks. >> sheila. >> i think drugs. i think drugs will continue to be an issue. and i think a lot of the pressure on what to do about high cost drugs will be with us. i don't disagree with tom that this -- the issues that have arisen may be the same, but in july of next year we'll all be focused on november. >> paul? >> it's working a lot better than we thought a year ago. and the people are trying to make trouble whether they're on kom side or my side going to have a harder -- >> you're making enough trouble for yourself. >> -- having trouble breaking through because people are going

this is okay and we don't need anybody fighting anymore about this stuff in an ideological way. i think it's moving in that direction. >> and last -- >> the aca will be a focus as the election builds steam. the aca won't be the big health story. i think the big health story will be that costs will be starting to rise more sharply again. >> okay. time to wrap up. thank you all for being here, for sharing your insights for everybody in the room, for everybody in the live stream. and finally thank you to cvs health for their partnership on what's going to be a very compelling yearlong series. we hope you're all here again at our next event.

when congress is in session, c span 3 brings you more of the best access to congress with live coverage of hearings news conferences and key public affairs events. and every weekend it's american history tv traveling to historic sites, discussions with authors and historians. and eyewitness accounts of events that define the nation. c-span3, coverage of congress and american history tv. the white house has lifted the 40-year-old ban on photos during public tours. a number of restrictions remain though including no video cameras including action cam

corders, cameras with detachable lens, camera sticks flash photography and live streaming is also prohibited. first lady michelle obama made that announcement on instagram. she says visitors are able to take photos and teep those memories for a lifetime. during the video announcement she ripped a no photos allowed notice in half. president obama's going on the road today to talk about ways to improve the affordable care act in the wake of the supreme court's decision last week upholding a key provision. he's in tennessee this afternoon, one of about 20 states that have rejected federal dollars to expand the federal, state medicaid health care program for the poor. c-span will have coverage just outside an elementary school outside nashville. and while congress is on break this week, we're showing you events from american history tv normally seen on weekends. tonight, visits to historic

sites in key west florida, tulsa, oklahoma, st. augustine florida and topeka kansas. join us for the c-span cities tour beginning tonight at 8:00 eastern. here are just a few of our featured programs for the three-day holiday weekend on the c-span networks. on c-span friday night at 8:00 eastern, radio personalities and executives at the annual talkers magazine conference in new york. saturday night at 8:00 an interview with "new york times" chairman and publisher and executive editor on the future of the times. and sunday night at 9:30 eastern members of the church committee former vice president walter mondale and former senator gary hart on ground breaking efforts to reform the intelligence community. on book tv on c-span2 friday night at 10:00 eastern, author martin ford on how the increasing use of artificial intelligence could make good

jobs obsolete. saturday night at 10:00 on afterwards, university history professor carol berkin on why the bill of rights was created and the debates it spurred. and sunday live at noon on in depth join our three-hour conversation with best selling author and government accountability institute president peter schweizer. he's written over a dozen books. and on american history tv on c-span3 friday evening at 6:30 the 70th anniversary of the united nations with keynote speakers california governor jerry brown house minority leader nancy pelosi and u.n. secretary general ban ki-moon. saturday night at 8:00 hear a brooklyn college classroom lecture on the revolutionary war and how individual personalities, supplies and timing often influenced the outcomes of major battles. and sunday afternoon at 4:00 on real america a look back at a 1960 film featuring actor and

performer joe brown about a nationwide search for old circus wagons and the circus world museum's efforts to restore them in time for a july 4th parade in milwaukee. get our complete schedule at cspan.org. a look now at barriers minorities face in going to college. the u.s. commission on civil rights hosted this discussion with various education representatives. in this 90-minute discussion a look at national figures on access to education and minority gaps. >> calling this briefing back into order. this is day two of the civil rights commission briefing on the effect of college access, persistence and completion rates and the socioeconomic mobility

of minorities. i'm marty castro chair of the u.s. commission on civil rights. today is may 29th. we called this briefing to order at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. present with me today here in the headquarters of the civil rights commission is our vice chair, patricia timmons goodson and commissioners. commissioner david cladney will be joining us by phone. as i said today's briefing continues yesterday's panel, which we held for a bulk of the day talking about these issues of persistence and completion and the impact it may have on minorities mobility. today's session is going to feature 17 distinguished speakers. all of them are going to provide us with a diverse array of viewpoints on this topic. we've divided speakers into four panels today. the first panel will consistent of the federal government official discussing pertinent programs. panel two is going to consistent of the university system heads. we're going to share their experience and perspectives.

and the last two panels will give viewpoints from various scholars. before we proceed with the housekeeping of how we're going to run these panels and in due time to the speakers we want to give our commissioner an opportunity to share a few words. it was her concept paper and her efforts that resulted in today's and yesterday's briefing. commissioner actenberg. >> thank you mr. chairman. i appreciate the courtesy. the promise of today's exploration and yesterday's as well is as follows. access to and attainment of the back bacelaureate degree in today's national economy. attainment has significant measurable lifelong benefits for workers, for their families,

their communities the national economy and our international competitiveness. it is a social political and economic good. and yet there are racial dis despairties, gaps in attainment of the baccalaureate degree on the basis of race that need to be examined and are being examined by this commission. there are various federal funding streams that are provided to post secondary institutions for the benefit of the education of low income people, and particular racial minorities and yet sometimes the operation of those programs end up having a different effect

than was perhaps intended. in particular many of the campus-based aid programs at least seem to contribute to the racial disparities that they were designed to address positively end up addressing them at least in some negative ways, or at least the evidence appears to be the case. and that's part of what we are exploring as united states civil rights commission. on the other hand, there are many successful programs that federal dollars also support that help address the gaps in achievement including such programs as gear up and trio and other campus-specific programs which chancellors and presidents will be testifying to the

efficacy of. perhaps additional investment in those programs might be an important way to address some of the racial disparities that are obvious by virtue of examining the statistics. as a nation we are underperforming in terms of achieving the baccalaureate degree for the jobs currently available, that will be available for the workforce in the next ten years and in the ten years after that. so we're underperforming in the aggregate right now, and we're underperforming with regard to particular demographic groups, including certain racial minorities. it is possible, at least it's my contention that it might be possible through the redeployment of federal

investment. even utilizing the resources currently deployed, let alone seeking the deployment of additional resources. but even if we were not to do that, but to encourage the congress to consider redeploying existing resources, and deploying them more strategically for the benefit of low-income students in particular, and the racial groups that are lagging behind, it could indeed be the case that we could begin to address the persistent racial gaps. i believe that could be possible. and it will be the job of the commission to determine whether or not those theorys hold water. this is a pressing issue of our time, and i am delighted that my colleagues on this commission have seem fit to allow the

commission to address this important issue. so i thank you for the courtesy, mr. chairman. >> thank you. i also want to thank the commission staff for putting together the briefing today and yesterday. it's not often we've we have a two-day briefing. it takes a lot of additional effort on the part of our staff to coordinate this. and as i mentioned yesterday in preparing for the hearing in the course of yesterday's testimony, what we're doing here really hits close to home for a lot of us on this panel, and many of those who testified yesterday in terms of many of us being first generation college students. many of us being the first in the family to graduate from high school, such as myself. i'm the product of head start. i'm the product of affirmative action and higher education. these are not just constitutional theory or political hay for me. these are the programs that resulted in me sitting here as the first latino chairman as on the commission of civil rights.

there are many points in my educational trajectory as in the trajectory of the students that have been highlighted by the testimony that i could have fallen between the cracks or been pushed between the cracks. despite that i was a honor role student in the high school, my high school guidance counselor who was not a person of color encouraged me not to apply to college, that i shouldn't go. that i should go work in the steel mills where the folks from our largely community of color worked. and i insisted ongoing to college. she didn't help me fill out the applications. i did it myself. my parents didn't know what fafsa was or any of that, but through leaps and faiths we managed to get here. i wonder how many of my fellow high school students listened to that, counselor. i've shared the stories with others here in washington and elsewhere, groups of large

latino community members, and that's a common experience for many of us. and it's shared by other communities of color. in fact one of our panelist yesterday who is on the executive board of haku, same thing happened to him in his high school experience. these issues effect real lives. these impact the future of individuals and communities in the country. so we thank you for being here and for all the efforts putting in on this issue. our panelists today as the panelists yesterday will each have seven minutes to present to us based on prior written submissions, and there's a system of warning lights here. just like a traffic light. green, go. yellow, that means getting ready to stop. you'll have two minutes when you see that. and red, of course, stop. we will then as commissioners ask you questions. there will be a chance to elaborate on things you were in mid sentence on.

but we really want as much information as possible. we want to let folks know the record of this briefing will be open for the next 30 days. so any of you as panelists and anyone watching today or listening has the opportunity to present your own comments so we can review those and take those into account as we prepare our report to the president and congress. so you can submit those to us here at the u.s. commission on civil rights by either mailing them to the commission office of federal civil rights evaluation, 1331 pennsylvania avenue. that's 1331 pennsylvania avenue northwest suite 1150, washington 20425 or via e-mail at public comments@usccr.gov. publiccomments@usccr.gov. with that out of the way, i would like to introduce and then swear our panelists in.

so the first panelist is professor suarez. the second panelist is dr. peggy carr from the u.s. department of education. the third panelist is james t. minor with the department of u.s. education. will you raise your right hand and ask you swear or affirm the information you're about to provide is true and accurate to the best of your belief. is that correct? great, thank you. professor flores, please proceed. >> thank you, commissioners, for the opportunity to speak on the civil rights implications of college access and completion for underrepresented minority students in the united states. i will draw in evidence based examples from the most rigorous studies on these topics over the last two decades, including work my colleagues and i have conducted in texas where we utilized national as well as kindergarten through 20 student level administrative data base. that's k through 20. strong data is critical to civil rights as well as the solutions we construct to improve educational equity in the u.s.

for students. i argue college completion is a function of more than the secondary experience. and other factors such as financial aid opportunity and academic preparation also play a role in predicting the odds of college success. in our work we find nearly 61% of the racial gap in college completion can be explained by pre-college characteristics. that's before a student enters college. comprised of the individual, high school context and preparation. another 35% of the gap in racial college is explained by post secondary characteristics. every stage of schooling that does not give all students an equal opportunity to prepare for college has civil rights implications. therefore, being given equal opportunity to prepare for and succeed in post secondary study is the education civil rights battle of our time. moreover, as stated by the commissioner, the consequences of not being appropriately prepared to succeed in college are costly. not only to individuals deprived of the opportunity. but to local and state economies

and ultimately the nation. i'm going to focus on five key areas related to college completion of underrepresented minority and low income students, and they include demographic changes in our school, continued segregation levels academic preparation and the factors that predict the college completion gap and end with the role -- some discussion on the role of data and unction understanding where the odds of college completion are most challenged. it's not on, actually. the majority of all u.s. births we cannot neglect we are in an era of undemographiced change but also in our public schools. the majority of all u.s. births and the majority of k-12 public school students are now non-white. the cost of failing to prepare this population to earn a post secondary credential has become a matter of state and economic

welfare. five states have majority-minority populations. and at least four states have majority-minority populations among children under the age of five. latinos are now the the largest minority group in the nation's two and four-year colleges. let me be clear on what this trend does and does not represent. demographic growth means there's more latino students, not that we have been more successful in enrolling the eligible latinos. the real question is whether programs and policies have been more effective or if demographic growth is masking the underperformance of our nation's schools. our work in texas finds latino high school graduates are more likely to enter the workforce than they are to begin at a community college. this is regardless of academic preparation. next point, poverty remains a character particular as

associated with race among students at four-year colleges. in our analyses we find 48% of hispanic students and 31% are economically disadvantaged in four-year institutions as compared to 5% of four-year institutions. racial segregation has harmful effects on outcomes. racial segregation in elementary schools is a key factor in the achievement gap as measured by differences in test scores. ou research further suggestions negative effects on college completion itself. students have different rates of participation in high school college preparation college courses by race and ethnic background, associated with the odds of college completion. let me be clear here. academic preparation remains the most important factor if predicting the odds of college access as well as college completion. however, students of all racial groups do not receive the same preparation, particularly in math, the gateway course, or

trigonometry. that rate is 70% for white students. 61% for hispanic students and 47% for black students. similar gaps remain for dual enrollment programs. college costs perceived or real and financial aid continue to matter as gate keepers to enrollment and completion and they also may matter by race and income. more than 30 years of research indicates financial aid in the form of grants and tuition, discounts and scholarships positively affects enrollment. nonetheless, it remains a contested issue across the states and individual institutions in the form of preferences to fund students less likely to exhibit need. we've seen a trend in an increase in merit aid and

decrease in need-based aid. location of college is important, especially for minority students. in terms of where black students are increasingly going to college that is the community college. where as before we saw trends of black students surpassing latino students attending four-year colleges, they're now more likely to attend two-year colleges. for latinos, no other institution represents their attendance in the hispanic serving institution, yet we have only minimal evaluation evidence on how well the hsis are doing. yet, that is the place where latinos are more likely to go to college. there's substantial white completion gaps. the racial college completion gap, at least in texas, between white and hispanic student is 14 points. between white and black students is 21 points. what drives this gap differs for the group. for the hispanic white group the

two key factors that drive the the achievement gap is attending a high minority high school and/or economic disadvantage. for black students, while attending a high minority high school explains a large portion of the gap, the most critical factor remains academic preparation. commissioners, improving the civil rights outcome of all students requires a collection of strong evidence through the form of reliable individual level data sources to produce the most successful and sustainable interventions students deserve. dismantling efforts for the collection of such data is likely to lead to under researched and ineffective policy decisions with implications not only for disadvantaged students but also all students in the nation. we cannot afford to formulate responsible education policy without strong data systems and research designs. finally, i'll end with the demographic changes highlighted

here bring to light -- immigrant and english language learners. understanding the educational civil rights implications for these students are particularly critical for large districts in the southwest and increasingly the southeast. where schools have seen an influx of students with no teachers prepared to teach these populations. thank you for the opportunity to offer this testimony. i'm happy to answer questions. >> thank you. mr. minor, do you want to go next? >> good morning. >> good morning. >> i would like to begin with a brief description of what we do at the national education of statistics or nces. i say this because i think it has implications for your work here on the commission, and for the work of all who is concerned with civil rights issues.

the first federal department of education was established in 1867, and i quote, for the purpose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall show the condition of education in several states and territories, unquote. congress has legislated several mandates for nces. one that might be a particular interest to you, we are to conduct objective statistical activities to collect data that are impartial, clear and complete. in addition, congress has required us to play a critical role in partnering within other agencies and department in the federal government to strengthen and to improve data quality and access. of particular note is our role in gathering the data from my brother's keeper. also more recently, we are now administering the data collection for the office of civil rights within the

department of education. many of the demographics that you see here are interrelated. poverty. educational. attainment and other factors are linked to system inadequacy, as you well know. it's important to note that unless i otherwise state, however, that the outcomes and measures that i'm going to talk about briefly today do not account or control for interrelated factors. data from a number of ncs reports, surveys and assessments support the conceptual model that is shown here. in this presentation i will explore key checkpoints along the pathway of post secondary attainment. they include access enrollment statistics and completion. so let's start with achievement gaps as one of the first access indicators here. achievement gaps for minorities

and low students start early and their persist. >> dr. carr, your microphone just went off. >> thank you. let's begin with a look at the key trends in academic achievement gaps. here we're looking at achievement gap between white and black students. historically black, hispanic and american indian and alaskan native students have lower assessment scores in reading and mathematic than white and asian peers. there are two pieces of good news in the data seen here. these data depicts performance over time for black and white students, eighth grade students and you see the performance is improving for both groups. and the distance between the performance is also known as the

gap narrowing. that is good news. while the sharp displays, the black white gap, this is also true for whites and hispanics, and less true but also true of native americans and whites, and there has been a truly significant increase for asian students. i'm going to skip this next graph in the interest of time. now we're looking at curriculum levels related to mathematic achievements. within each group students earn higher scores as the national assessment of educational process than garage watds completing lower curricula. so a rigorous curriculum includes four years of english, three years of foreign language, three years of social studies, four years of mathematics and three years of science, including biology, chemistry and physics.

however the completion of a rigorous curriculum did not eliminate racial ethnic gaps in performance, as you can see here. the average scores for black and hispanic students were lower than the average score for white and asian students. this was not due to race or many other confounding factors, such as the disproportionate representation of ses or social economic status among the minority students and the rigor, the true rigor of the courses they are taking, not just the title of the courses. this slide depicts gap in advanced science course taking by the level of density within a school. the term advance science courses refers to courses beyond introductory, biology, chemistry and physics, as well as api and ib science courses. density refers to the percentage of minority students within a school. the gaps you see here are larger

for schools with higher density. as you can see here, there are differences in education and the percent of 12th grade students at or above proficient in reading. proficient refers to solid mastery over challenging subject matter on average for 12th graders in mathematics. 26% of the students in this country are at or above proficient. 7% for blacks and 12% for hispanics. here you can see that the rates are different for students that are being placed in juvenile or residential facilities. this is particularly true of males and particularly true of minority males. in general, disparities exist in enrollment and persistence, and

persistence patterns are particularly complex. and this next slide here, you're seeing that trends in college enrollment have increased for all races and ethnicities, and this is particularly true of hispanic students. persistence is important. as you can' here, there are a number of factors that relate to persistence. for example, whether the student has taken credits, courses, and not gone back and they're not going to get credit for them, incurring additional costs and so forth. and finally, attainment patterns resemble some of the patterns already discussed. we'll show this last slide here. overall, lower percentage minority and low sec students obtain a bachelor's or higher. however, even among higher ses students differences in attainment among various racial

ethnic groups. so in sum, progress has been made across the metrics that i have discussed here today, but clearly there are many challenges here. we need to improve our measures. for example, the eligibility of free and reduced price lunch has long been use as a proxy for family income, but there had been new provisions and allocations of eligibility, and that has put a bit of a wrinkle in the use of free and reduced price lunches, a proxy for student ses status. digital data collection is also a challenge and an opportunity. i will stop there. if there are additional questions, i would be happy to answer them. >> very interesting stats. we'll definitely be delving into that. mr. minor? >> good morning, mr. chairman and members of the commission. i want to thank you for the

invitation to speak this morning. i'm happy to be here on behalf of the u.s. department of education's office, post secondary education, which administers higher education programs, designed to promote innovation and improvement in post secondary education, expand access and opportunity to students from low-income families, and increase college completion, which as you know, has significant consequences for our nation. under the authorization of the higher education act of 1965, as amended, the office of post secondary education awards more than 4,000 new and continuation awards each year, totalling over $2 billion annually. presently the higher education program office has approximately $7.5 billion obligated in grants, intended to improve college access and to strengthen the capacity of institutions to serve students more effectively. no other institution or agency in the private or nonprofit

sector comes close to making that kind of investment in college access, or institutional capacity building annually. the the office administers enumerative executive grants designed to support minority serving institutions, including hispanic serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities, native american serving non tribal institutions, alaskan native, asian american, and native american and pacific islander serving institutions as well as historically black graduate institutions. these programs support improvement in educational quality, management, fiscal stability, and are intended to strengthen institutions that serve large numbers of minority students, while maintaining low per student expenditures. these programs represent a mix of competitive and formula based grants and are funded by

congress through an annual appropriations bill. 2015. more than $775 million was appropriated for institutional development programs. minorities serve institutions that these programs support have traditionally been underfunded and rely on these programs for activities such as faculty development, student services, construction of facilities, purpose of education materials and endowment building. as of 2012, minorities serving institutions enroll 3.6 million undergraduates each year. 20% of all undergraduates, hispanic serving institutions enroll 50% of latino students despite only being 4% of all colleges. more than 50% of students at minority serving institutions receive pell grants. that's compared to 31% of all students and nearly half of all students at minority serving institutions are first

generation college students, versus 35% of those at majority institutions. community colleges have a particularly important role to play in providing educational and degree opportunities for minority students. approximately half of all hispanic students enrolled in post secondary education attend two-year institutions. as do a third of african-american students. affordability and open enrollment policies are often cited as key reasons why a community college is likely to be more appealing to students for low-income backgrounds or those who may be less prepared academically for higher education. the office of post secondary education also administers federal trio programs that serve low-income first generation students at various points in the educational pipeline for middle school, all the way through graduate school. you may be familiar with some of these programs, such as talent search, upward bound, student support services, educational opportunity centers.

while these programs do not explicitly target minority students, many participants in the programs underrepresented groups. based on data from 2012 and 2013, the percentage of participants who were african-american ranged anywhere from 29% of student support services to 38% in student upward bound services. for the same reporting year, the percentage of participants who were hispanic ranged from 12% to 30%. in the post baccalaureate program. and in addition to serving minority students, many trio programs are hosted at minority serving students, including historically black colleges and universities, predominantly black serving institutions and in tribal agencies. congress has appropriated close to $850 million for trio programs in 2015. also in the office of post secondary education portfolio is

gaining early awareness and readiness for undergraduate programs. also known as gear up which provides funding to states and partnerships to serve cohorts of students at high poverty middle schools and high schools. gear projects provide services such as tutoring, fostering family involvement and raising awareness of college admission and financial aid services. like trio, gear up is not specifically targeted to minority students but serves many as a result of focus on low-income students. in 2015, congress appropriated nearly $322 million for gear up. the department believes these programs are critical for improving and increasing the number of americans who not only enter college but also complete. as recent as 1990, as you may

have heard america was number one in the world in terms of the proportion of citizen who is had a college degree of post secondary credential. we're now 11th. the president has been clear about the goal to once again lead the world in having the highest proportion of citizens with a post secondary degree or credential. which means we need to produce 10 million additional degrees over and beyond the expected projections. this will require three and a half million more high school graduates and 6.3 million adult learners to become college graduates. if the nation will make significant progress, two things are clear. first we must create new and innovative teaching and learning opportunities that provide diverse pathways for earning post secondary credential. we must pay particular attention to the students who struggle most to earn a college degree.

college completion rates will bear particular relevance for minority students. i want to conclude by mentioning the department's programs are paying very close attention to the types of interventions that particular grantees are proposing to use and whether the interventions are actually successful. and increased emphasis on evidence has resulted in more rigorous standards for applicants seeking to obtain federal funds as well as the the evaluations produced once the program has been implemented. we believe the requirements will enhance the success and provide important information that can be used. in closing, i want to thank you for allowing me to speak today in scheduling this briefing on a critically important topic. thank you. >> thank you, dr. minor. would you like to open the questioning, commissioner? >> thank you, mr. chairman.

this is for professor flores and dr. minor. professor flores, you said that precollege characteristics, levels of poverty, segregation, course selection, cost of education, location, of the college campus, all of these factors weigh extremely heavily on whether we can predict access, success and completion. did i understand that? is that a fair -- >> yes. >> and yet we also see large -- we also see success happening

through campus based programs and as a result of federal investment in such programs as delineated by dr. minor, namely trio and gear up, just to name two. i mean, there are many others. how do you explain those two variables? >> yes, that's a very good question. i'm glad you asked that. it basically depends on where you start measuring. and so the work in terms of where we begin our analyses is in high school. and so when we talk about campus based programs, we're talking about already students enrolled in college. the students that made it that already show some form of success and so we track the

students back to high school and early as possible. that's where you see the disconnects in the findings. it's not to say campus based programs can't be successful, but we're talking about students who have already enrolled in college and my research covers the students that don't make it. >> i see. that's an important clarification. >> yes, it is. >> has enhanced my understanding of what the statistics tell us. dr. minor, you mentioned the critical nature of these programs that your office measures. could you talk a little bit about the measurement that suggests to you these programs are operating as intended, and you also mentioned that they were underfunded. what does that mean?

>> well, as the office that administers the majority of grant programs provided to higher education institutions i have not met a constituent yet who -- >> doesn't believe it. >> right. right. but we know some of that is measured against need. what program directors and institutional leaders often report to us are not only the numbers of students that they're serving but the number that they're able to serve because of resources. so we know there's a tremendous need across the country. and given the size and scope of the investment that the department is making, there are hundreds of thousands of students who are not being served due to shortage of resources. >> you mentioned $302 million for gear up. that's an awfully modest amount, one would think, as compared to

the numbers of students who might benefit from such a program. is that your testimony? >> yeah, i think that's an argument that could be made. between trio and gear-up alone, we're serving approximately 1.3 million students across the country. and again if you balance that against the number of students who need to be serve, certainly an argument can be made in those programs. >> and these are students who are already, in the case of the trio programs, already admitted to universities. is that correct? >> some of them. the range of programs start to serve students as early as middle school, and they serve students through their time at colleges and universities, and even in graduate and post baccalaureate programs. >> but these are students who

have indicated through performance that they have some academic merit that would suggest they're college material, no? >> well, the requirement is not based on academic merit. it's based on household income primarily. and so know, it is not true. with the programs are intended to do is to increase the number of percentage of low-income student,s students who would be the first in their family to attend college, to actually encourage them and to provide resources to them that would increase the likelihood they would transition from k-12 to post secondary institutions. >> could i ask one more question, mr. chairman? >> sure. >> does your office also administer or have information regarding scog? >> yes. yes. we do.

but i will be careful to tie that program to the performance of the ones that we discussed here this morning. >> why? >> why is that? >> because it's a congressionally mandated formula? or some kind of formula? >> in part. but the performance of the programs are primarily determined by annual reports that are submitted by the program directors. and so it is true, but they are distinct funds and they are distinct programs. >> understood. but we heard testimony yesterday from a number of experts that the -- and we'll hear today later, a kind of comparison, and i'm wondering what you think about this. it was stated that this grant is

designed to address the low-income populations in the colleges and the universities, right? i mean, that's what it's -- that's what it's appropriated for, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and we heard a statistic yesterday that $10 million of the grants are appropriated to all of the ivy league universities collectively, and that collectively those universities enroll 60,000 students, and i'm not clear the the number of pell eligible students within that, but 60,000 students. i was told as well, however, that the california state university system, which enrolls 400,000 students receives $11

million, as compared to $10 million for 60,000. $11 million for 400,000. and the situation where almost half of those 400,000 students are pel eligible meaning that they're some level of low income student. and i'm wondering how could that be? >> let me just make one distinction that will be helpful. there are two primary domains of grants that the department makes. one is a formula based grant. which means they're eligible to receive that grant or award. the other category is discretionary or competitive. >> sure. >> meaning that applicants submit a proposal that is scored primarily by peer reviewers.

so the department doesn't decide who the winner or loser in those competitions are. so we have a review process that scores and rates the applications. and there's no way for the department to dictate what the the composition of award winners will be for those competitions. >> so they are -- >> both are competitive. >> right, and this is pursuant to formula. and who sets the formula? >> well the formula is established in statute and regulation. neither is something the department gets to arbitrarily change or an act of congress that changes a statute. >> so the rule making is done pursuant to a regulatory regime adopted by the congress, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> thanks very much. >> mr. flores, you mentioned the number of latino students in your college is going up.

that's due primarily to demographics, that our population is growing so fast and quickly that by the very nature you'll see more latinos in the pipeline, but it's not attributable to any programs getting them in the pipeline. it's just the population is bubbling up, so it's going to reflect this those statistics. is that right? >> yes, and so my main point is not to reach toward the conclusion of success without understanding that it may just be demography and not successful programming and policies. and while those statistics are very important, because demography is very important, it's also public policy 101. don't make conclusions based on demography. >> one of our speakers was making the point that more hispanics are going to college now than whites.

>> he did say he was not an official demographer. >> is he a doctor? >> i don't remember. i don't think so. dr. carr. in your statistics, you show among the various minority groups the asian population continues to do better in most of those, if not all of those areas of measurement. commissioner narasaki yesterday very eloquently distinguished between various subgroups of asians, and we had testimony as well from the south asian community, which is substantially underserved and underrepresented. but as commissioner narasaki said yesterday there are other communities such as the indian community and chinese community who have come here with higher educational credentials, and so their children have been able to proceed in a more successful route for the most part.

does yur data take account of the subgroups of asian american or latinos for that matter? >> well, the data i presented today does not differentiate between asians, the traditional reference to chinese, japanese, versus pacific islanders. but in recent years, we have started to bifurcate the data that way, and i should say pointedly the gaps between those groups is just as wide as the gaps between whites and black students or whites and asian -- between whites and native americans, excuse me. so we have only just begun to differentiate the types of origins of the asian-americans. but it is important and the department has been put on notice that this is something that the community wants to see. and as we begin to release data in years to come.

we do not have data as differentiated for hispanic-americans, however, it is more difficult to assess that data. many of the data we're getting from schools and school districts. they don't all collect the same way. certainly the asian pacific data is one that we are working very hard to have data in the future to differentiate their results. >> so the school districts are differentiating between and among asian subgroups but not hispanic? >> yeah. >> why is that? >> they do. but they don't all report to us that way. they don't all report the origin, and we don't collect the data in such a refined way. >> but now you're planning to begin to collect the data. >> yes. >> is there some way that -- you know, yesterday we were talking about leveraging federal dollars for state investment in education.

since i'm sure the school districts are receiving some form of federal aid, that you can request if not mandate that they provide you with that data, broken down by subgroup? >> well, i don't want to say they're refusing to give it to us. it's a manner of putting the procedures for data collection in place such that when one state gives us an indication and a definition for origin of a student, it is the same as another state. so i think it's a matter of getting our definitions and procedures in place. i don't think it's a funding issue. >> and whose responsibility is that? >> it's a collective responsibility. of working partnerships with the states, and with the surveys and mandated surveys in addition to the ones that are not mandated. at the u.s. department of education. >> is there a plan to do that or is it just it would sort of be nice to do that?

>> no, we are cognizant of the need to differentiate amongst the origins of the students. and we have started as i indicated most notably with the asian americans. so we're on the pathway, yes. >> thank you. commission yaki? >> thank you. we've been talking about an achievement gap, there's a financial gap that impedes that as well and then there's the completion gap in terms of being once you're in there being able to finish and how all that goes toward debt burden income earning and in the cases of some the ability to escape a life of the low ses factors, what have you. one of the questions i want to ask for all of you, if you have it, is it appears to me that in

in looking at the issues of access to begin with. that community colleges play a very important role in providing a couple of things. one, if we can achieve, as some states are doing, and as president obama has wanted, to have free community college, we're closing the financial access gap there, but secondly within the community college system itself, you can provide the kinds of instruction that can get someone up to the speed where they can then transfer to the four-year institution for completion. do we have any data on community colleges and their role, and their success rate in terms of minority students, getting them in, and being able to matriculate them into a four-year institution, and whether or not that has an impact on their able to complete the baccalaureate degree. do we have data on that?

>> there is data both at the national and state level. i would argue that some of them have the best data to real le track the pathway in clear detail. a number of studies across different states, ohio, texas, and a few others actually found that starting at a community college reduces your rate of ba completion. so knowing that, then how do we work around it or with it? there has been an explosion of research on community colleges. teachers out of columbia has done a great deal of work as well. in terms of minorities, because of -- and low-income students, that is the first place of entry. regardless of academic preparation, so it's an opportunity and also a challenge, if the institution is not operating or performing as it should, it has -- it could have the the effect of basically working against the preparation that students come with.

at the same time, students who don't have proper preparation, this is a good place to begin to at least earn some form of credential. but there is work out there. i would be happy to refer you to more. i would say that the state data bases have the level of detail and also you can get more information on the partnership, florida has great articulation agreements and other state are working toward that but one of the trends we see in texas is where students can graduate with an associates degree in high school and that has been a really interesting development in how we think about post secondary education. you don't have to finish high school before you begin. and so that is again another area where states -- some states have better data than others to really look at the community college as the boundaries are now blended between high school and community college. >> dr. minor. >> thank you. i do think that we have very

good data. i just think we're not very enthusiastic about what it tells us about how first generation low income students are performing in community colleges. although they are very accessible to students and relatively affordable if not free in some states, virtually free we still have very serious challenges getting the students to complete the associates degree or to earn enough credits to transfer into a four year college or university. years ago there was talk about having a cooling out function and we do have enough data to suggest that in some cases it does lower the likelihood that the studentsern the bachelors degrees. but there are two things or a few factors that i think play into why we are experiencing these kind of outcomes for students. in any state system, community

clems tend -- colleges tend to be under resources institutes. the majority of the faculty are adjunct and contract faculty and students pursuing the associates are also living their life unlike a lot of students who are tending four year institutions which in some cases impedes the ability to persist. and then i do think in some states with good articulation agreements we still have students articulating enough credits over semesters that allow them to transfer and california is a good example and also a challenging example that for a long time had the most universal access and the strongest articulation agreements but 75 of latino students and 75% of african-american students who begin don't transfer or don't earn the associates degree after

six years and that is just very problematic. >> it is interesting to me because the search for these kind of answers, i think that commission achtenberg was sort of talking about the fact that you have all of these things in play education as a wholesticin defer, trying to make up for deficiency happening k-12 and how do you do that -- do you do that at the community college level or supplemental services at the college level, part of -- part of what you are telling me is that many community colleges aren't the secondary life boat they could be or should be or maybe they should be but tler not resources correctly and staffed creckly, they are not -- correctly and they are not programmed in the right way and they become the generic catch-all for different things

that may or may not really lead to the baccalaureate degree. part of me wishes now we have a second half day to get the college folks in here to talk about this because that seems to be -- a lot of people throwing that out there. well if they can't get into cal, if they can't get into michigan state, if they can't get into wherever they can go to community clench and-- college and transfer. if that reality isn't there we need to know about that. there is one thing that i want to -- commission achtenberg was trying to nudge you and i appreciate the fact you may not be able to talk about but when you look at programs like trio and saog which are creators of congressional creation, ow job here is to be the watch dog and our job here is to bark as loudly as we can on an issue or

we think that maybe something needs to be changed. when you look at a team or look at completion rates within colleges, and across the board does it say to you, or to any of you, that maybe trio or special supplemental student services others shouldn't be a grant but almost a formula based on how many low income minority students you have in your institution and shouldn't be a question of whether you have a good grant writer and to the ability -- and someone has the time to do that and when the cal state system has so many latinos in their system or african-americans or whatever, that we need the ability to say this should not be a discretionary, but a mandatory

program because we have a national challenge, a national goal to ensure that once you are there, you make it out, because we heard testimony yesterday about what happens to people who don't make it out and the debt that it causes to them and how it creates a legacy of debt for the next generation and it impedes their ability to move on and there are things that we can do. so are these things where we should be rethinking the issue of grant and thinking more along the lines of a pell or something as an entitlement to institutions -- it is almost a reward for their ability to enroll minority and disadvantaged students but just a practical reality that we're going to help make more productive people if we give them the resources to stay and succeed. >> let me just answer quickly and carefully if i may. >> i understand. >> it is an interesting question but i think we have to consider

it carefully. there are provisions in the regulations that spell out who should be served by many of these program. and i'm very clear about those regulations and they are clear that their designed to serve first generation and low income students. there is no question about that. and your question is about where those grants ought to live and what kind of institutions -- actually not even that. and yesterday i asked this as well. is do we need -- it is great and it is certainly -- it is creation and we understood that first generation individuals are people who deserve extra attention, but the fact of the matter is that over the past 25 30, 40 years since the advent of the civil rights act, things have changed. we have created a legacy of poverty -- we created a legacy

of poverty and injustice in certain communities in this country for all testing they are first generation and their generation never got the chance to get the promises of that -- that government and others have made on the war on poverty and others and so do we need to change that and say trio should not just be a grant a -- reward restricted to this category but we should look at disadvantaged students generally in a trio type program for all of those students? >> again i think it's a theoretical question, a philosophical question. i think in the -- >> it is a legislative and a fiscal question. >> all of those things combined and i think one of the opportunities congress will take up the reauthorization of the higher education act and it is one of the questions that i think is worth pursuing and i

think what is baked in or the bigger question there is how effective are the questions that we are currently investing in. could we leverage the funds differently or focus them differently in a way that would be more effective and ultimately sort of improve in the social mobility of the students that we think were intended to help. i think that is one of several questions that we could take up. but we should do it carefully because there are no clear answers. and the final thing i would say about that is any provisions that spell out how federal grant awards would be made has to be careful not to offend the constitution and applicable laws which would make it very difficult and some some cases to focus on specific pop police stations as recipients of federal funds. >> sure. >> commission -- i'm sorry, vice chair, you are followed by commissioners. >> i'm sorry i thought miss --

wanted to say something. >> well i'm not necessarily going to tell the federal government what should they do but i will say you brought up the point of successful grant writers, i do think we do have a problem of a capacity at some institutions and capital in terms of being able to leverage the best grants and designs and so forth and so i think mabin vesting in institutional capacity to have stronger grant opportunities and more successful grant opportunities would be one way to think about where to spend additional funds and i do think even if we were going to redistributor -- between programming, i still think we need form of accountability that the money is being spent right and i think to dr. miner's point about not