the united kingdom in our special relationship. it's the fifth largest economy in the world. it's the second strongest military in nato. we'll still be able to work with them in nato, but we won't have the british to be the tough-minded pragmatic voice within eu councils, on issues like do you continue sanctions against russia, and so, therefore, and we talked about this in berlin in a public forum on friday morning, the united states is going to have to seek deeper relationship with germany. germany, the dominant country in the european unionwoman aamerica el, that relationship i think is one that we'll have to build further in this administration and in the next. thank you very much. >> thank you, nick, and evelyn, thank you very much, and, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. i'd like to also echo the importance of this report and certainly acknowledge my

predecessor twice removed at nato, a former mentor and great friend to all of us who are privileged to have followed in his footsteps, and i would also like to underscore the work of jeff lightfoot in writing this report. jeff, thank you very much. it's -- your performance was extraordinary. so i think nato, this nato summit sees nato facing four strategic challenges. the first one is obviously -- nick covered it really with regard to russia. the chaos and the disorder emanating from the middle east, a less than certain u.s. leadership and engagement policy which doesn't just start with this administration. it actually started before the administration, and then a -- a european union that is at best

weakened, maybe fatally so. time will tell. the warsaw summit of 2016 is about deterrents, and there are a lot of people talking about deterrents and dialogue, and i think as nick burns correctly pointed out just a few minutes ago in a private lunch that if you want to have effective dialogue, the first thing you need is to have effective deterrents. otherwise there's not much of a conversation. so i think that's extremely important, and i'm pleased to see the shift towards deterrents. the highlight of the summit will be nato's enhanced forward presence in the battalions of the baltic countries and poland and also the use of the bases in romania and bulgaria. the u.s. quadrupling european reassurance costs $3.4 billion is also extremely helpful and

the fact that nato is moving to declare -- the first one that comes to my mind is what nato is going to be used for in the 21st century and the simple paradigm here is if nato was a defensive reactive alliance in the 20th century, in the trentry given the nature of the threats that faced and the speed at which these speeds are coming at us, speaks to me nato must become a more proactive alliance, and by that i don't mean starting wars or triggering wars everywhere. i mean preventing wars. preventing -- preventing

predictable disasters from happening so that we wind up in another afghanistan and another iraq for a decade or more. it's proactivity and an enhanced program involving enhanced programs that the general started years ago and i think we need to duo more than that and on a grander scale. migration is a big problem and it's cause iing incredible tenss politically and it may have had something to duo with brexit as well, obviously, but preventing this uncontrolled movement of millions of people is something that i think a grand alliance of 28 countries should be focused on and should be doing something about and preventing those kinds of colossal movements of people as something that we should worry about, and i think nato's first job is to enhance the

security of self and also to help other like-minded countries in africa and other like-minded countries figure out how to help their own security through government and rule of law so i think this proactivity is a new word in nato, and i'm glad to see this included in the report because i think it speaks well to what nato can and should be in the 21st century. spending i think, nick covered i think very well. if we don't achieve this 2% gdp, shame on us. i mean, this was agreed to in the prague summit of 2002 and it's now 2016, and we still have too many countries falling short of what they agreed to many, many years ago, and then frankly if we don't achieve that, nato's credibility i think is suspect. the u.s. leadership, i want to

just dwell on that for a little bit. it is clear that u.s. leadership i think day in and day out over the history of nato has been essential. it doesn't mean that it's dictatorial. it doesn't mean that we talk down to our allies, but it means that a u.s. president has to be engaged in what nato is about. we cannot simply walk away from a 28-member nation alliance, 27 including us and pretend that it is not useful. it is terribly useful, and the potential for nato and the rest of the century as certainly far ahead as i can see is tremendous, but it has to be used correctly and it won't be unless the sitting u.s. president devotes a fair amount of time to making sure that the secretary-general of nato is

recognized almost at head of state level and is as important an ally as any single country. nato secretary-general walks into the oval office, he brings a voice of 27 sovereign countries. that's important, and how we react to that is also very important, so i would hope that -- that the -- this summit will see a reassertion of u.s. firm commitment of not only supporting the alliance, leading the alliance and making sure that the numbers live up to what they have agreed to duo. finally, the nato eu relationship is always one that has been slightly uncomfortable. we've never really figured out how to -- how those two organizations co-exist. mostly at the political level. this is not a military problem. the militaries know how to solve this problem extremely well. it just remains to see if it's politically acceptable, but we cannot -- we cannot afford to

have two separate militaries and two separate hierarchies of those militaries, and we've proven that in the balkans, and i think it can -- it militarily could be proven again, so i would say especially at this time very important for the united states leadership and nato and eu to come together and figure this out once and for all so i think it's possible. those would be the points that i would make by way of an opening bid. >> that's great, that's great. so i will -- i'll leave out the names, but well before the summit, a very high ranking nato official said to a very high ranking u.s. official deterrents before dialogue and i think it was interesting that there was transatlantic unity on that, at least among these individuals, so we're seeing that now coming to fruition. what i'm going to duo is kind of ask kind of a macro question and then you guys can cherry pick a

little bit from that macro question in the interest of saving time and also getting a few other things out there into the discussion which the audience can pick up upon if they would like. it's clear that really if you had to take all these -- these ten recommendations, the two most important ones are leadership and being proactive, because if you have those two elements you can take care of the other eight. there are a couple other items and, of course, you can't fit everything into one report and you did touch upon some of these lightly even in your comments here, both of you, but there are three other areas where i think we want to think about how we can use leadership and be proactive. one of them has to duo with expansion, so i think if i were to, you know, make a recommendation to the -- to the heads of state going into the new summit, the warsaw summit, i would say make a big deal about the fact that you're expanding, and damon has said this before, you know. insecure institutions don't

expand. they don't allow new members in if they are feeling insecure, so the fact that montenegro is being admitted into nato while, of course, it's a small country and it's not going to contribute phenomenally, i should say, to nato's defense, still, it will contribute to its own defense and it has been contributing all along to nato operations in afghanistan and elsewhere. so i think the question of expansion is important because right now you mention the the dialogue the russians pushing back, ambassador burns. they are pushing back also on nato expansion saying well this is somehow a move against russia, countering russia, when in reality, and both of you know very well because you lived through this, nato expansion was actually aimed at spreading security and stability throughout europe, and as such it's an unfinished piece of business for nato so i think if you would like to comment on that it would be useful because i think we still have four aspirants and potential

aspirants out there and so if you have a message for them. the other element that is touched upon a bit in the report that could be flushed out is the issue of hybrid warfare, unconventional warfare, little green men or demonstratos and that's where the eu comes into play because if you have anything that requires law enforcement and strategic communications, those are areas nato does not have competency in and would really have to work closely with the eu on. i believe at the summit in warsaw they will make a summit about that but i'd be interested whether either of you have any comments on that, on what more we can duo in that area and in particular working with the eu. and then finally, gentlemen, you mentioned being proactive in the middle east and africa, and i think -- and you mentioned the refugees. hanging over all of us here is real the catastrophe that is syria, the cause of the refugee flow. is there something that nato could or should be doing, so those are kind of my three big ideas out there. you can pick and choose as you

like. ambassador, i'll start with you. >> in one minute or less, right? >> yes. >> okay. so i'm not going to try to answer all your questions. some i think are probably better for jim as a military leader to answer. let me just say a couple of things. first, it was really striking to be in europe last week. damon and i went to bruce tolls present this report to the secretary-general of nato and to allow the ambassadors in public and went to berlin to duo the same thing. europeans are -- some of them, are quite reluctant to be true truculent with president putin, so the bumper sticker that's going to emerge at the warsaw summit ten days from now on russia is deterrents and dialogue, and many of the europeans were advising us, you americans need to believe in those two equally. my response was i don't think so. i don't worry about dialogue with the russian federation. secretary of state john kerry, whom i deeply admire, is on the phone constantly with sergei lavrov. there's no absence of discussion

between the u.s. and russia. there's an absence on productive work on the part of the russian federation and one of the things i learned as a diplomat is that you most often can succeed in diplomacy when your position is strong strategically, and so deterrents, moving troops into the baltic states, moving troops -- and by the way these are very modest levels, but to show president putin that we're going to be true to our article v commitment to protect these countries if necessary, that is vital, and if he believes that we are powerful and unafraid to exercise that power, he'll be much more likely to engage in productive dialogue, so my advice to our german friends that we were on the panel with, one a great friend of ours, was they are both important, deterrents and dialogue, but deterrents at this stage, given what putin has just done, is much more important. we need to stand up to putin, and i hope that that will be the message from warsaw.

second, there is's a very aggressive russian propaganda campaign, very well-financed across europe of trying to insinuate that it's the united states that has caused the problems presently in europe, not russia. so i was personally dismayed when the german foreign minister steinmark sailed publicly a week ago saturday that nato exercises in the baltic states were saber rattling. that's exactly what the russians want the european public to believe. unfortunately, angela merkel came out in a press conference on wednesday and said she supported these exercises and -- and she felt that germany should for the first time put together a plan to get to 2% of gdp on german defense spending in the future which was a very welcome message. saber rattling to accuse the nato allies of parole texting their own territory is not sabre

rattling was the invasion of crimea and the invasion of georgia. >> and the nuclear saber rattling. >> and the fact that the russian federation, exactly, evelyn, has withdrawn from the conventional forces in the europe treatment, is not respecting any of the core, the corpus of arms agreements that we negotiated in the '80s, '90s and after 2001 to try to secure europe. russia just walked away from it. the united states has not walked away from any of its commitments. >> and imf. >> which was the great gorbachev and ronald reagan treat of 1987 so i think we have to be clear about what the problem, is and we may have witnessed in germany the opening of the german elections in 2017. my german friends kept telling me, well, steinmeier only said that because of the elections. i said, yeah, but you don't want to play into russian hands so it's very important that we

americans have enough self-confidence to be clear about what we're trying to duo and protect security in europe, our own vital interests there and those of the europeans. last on nato expansion, montenegro will come in, which is a very positive development and positive in tangible terms to them, symbolic terms for the rest of us. we've always been an open alliance of democracies. we've never said this, but underwriting, underlining nato history is a repudiation of yalta. we're not going to trade one country's future over their heads with the russians. we're not going to duo that on georgia. we shouldn't, and we shouldn't duo it on ukraine, and since the end of the cold war i think all of us in every administration, republican and democrat, have believed that every european nation should get to choose, have the right to choose its

future. a lot of us here in this room worked on this together, in the clinton administration, in the george w. bush administration and, evelyn, you did in the obama administration. these countries in central europe wanted to be a part of the eu and part of nato and we were happy to take them in. we filled that security void in central europe and met with the collapse of the warsaw pact. imagine where we would be today had we not extended nato. i think president putin would have his forces right on the side of the river separating estonia and russia and those states would be threatened and it's very important, historically very important decisions by three american presidents, democrat and republican to duo this. >> this is another pato line. if we hadn't expanded putin putin one be putin.

which should hold on to this and strengthen it and that's the opportunity president obama has. >> that's very eloquent. general? >> i completely agree with the last statement with regard to the current russian president. . in 2009 informed our president at a breakfast in moscow that there was an agreement, that nato would never expand and take into its membership any of the former warsaw pact countries and that we violated that agreement. we've been looking for the agreement, but somehow it's kind of hard to find. there was no such agreement but the president of russia believes there was such an agreement. it complicates when you don't look at history the same way.

and on argument, i think -- i think one thing that nato might want to consider is to take a look a little bit at the enlargement and the partnership program because they are all kind of lumped together right now, and i think they are two vastly different things. i think it's for the alliance to determine when a new member is eligible and that is the requirement for membership. in my book new members should bring value to the alikes, not approximate, but value, and we should have common values and i think when nato decides to duo that we should duo that. on the partnership program started years identifying think that there is a potential for normal influence. while people are waiting to become members and that's their poise. the possibility of expanding the partnership program and

mentorship program for that particular aspect is off the page and it ought not to be limited to just european countries but you would supgt that it may be possible to reach out to african states, countries in the far east works want interoperability of nato and common tack tis and training and procedures, to respond, when needed, across the strange in the family of threats to other kinds of missions. i think it's northern to duo that. when you think about the middle east you think about a collection of countries with began arrange wage, common culture and common values and you're wondering if nato could be an interesting example for them to volume as an organization. nato can be helpful in helping

arab states develop their own kind of security treaty organization, so i -- i'm for enlargement. and i'm also for taking a look at the partnership for peace program. on the hybrid question. that's a very interesting question, and it's one that we really haven't addressed very well, and this is where i think nato and the eu could really work together because part of the missing in this type of so-called war mar would be definitely in the eu's wheelhouse, so i think that that's something that we should work on. i think nato, not to be impervious to seiber security threats and also energy security and even economic security, that that be part of the dialogue. one of the responses that i think would be very meaningful

and would certainly send a message to the russian president is the construction of a north-south corridor from the baltics to the adriatic for transportation, telecommunications and energy, and this is not a pie in the sky dream. this is actually ongoing in the dialogue in nato -- i'm sorry, in the eu and in washington, with very favorable support. it involves freeing 13 to 14 different countries and reducing their dependence on russian energy, for example. there should be a long-term consequence to mr. putin's actions in the ukraine and in the crimea which i think were well worth considering and this is kind of a hybrid type response to russian aggression in those two areas, and i think

there's a tremendous impact on russian thinking and in terms of doing it elsewhere. also on syria, i actually believe that -- that a few ago he might have been able to certainly forestall the tremendous migration problems that are now square -- being squarely faced by the europeans, and that's by borrowing a page from operation provide comfort in northern iraq in 1991. had we been more forceful in enforcing the red line, i think that we could have created, along with our nato partners and modern arab states, a humanitarian zone, no-fly zone, whatever you want to call it, as a consequence to president assad's use of chemical weapons on his own people, and i think

you could have had a safe zone for refugees, and i think you could have taken a pretty significant chunk of syria and with the military capability of nato and the airplane states and the united states i think you could have really another stalled the migration problem that we've had. >> you preempted me. is it possible today? >> well, it's a little bit more complicated today of the russian presence. back then there was no russian president but i wouldn't completely dismiss it. >> may i? >> yes. >> it's hard to enjoy nato at a whole so each of the 28 alice would have to agree which is not

going to happen, but if the lynx situation, a war in nain. should that homeless situation worsen and assad now wants to reclaim the entire country and russia and iran supporting him militarily, russia i think violating the assurances it gave the united states and the other person countries about how it were to act that's an economic imperative and it demands that we ask what should we duo? y we don't want to put a big land american army there. we've learned our lesson from iraq but duo we have a humanitarian obligation to help the u.n. create humanitarian corridors and jim focused on this issue, how do you help people that are refugees and starving? there's a syrian jordanian border and a possible place for

a safe zone. i don't think we should give up on that idea. 80 reasons not to duo it but if the 12 million number dix 13 or 14 million we get into a situation like in bosnia in 1985 after srebrenica. you have to act. >> yes. >> yes. >> and have you to challenge the russians to help us, and that ought to be the first call and let's see what they say and see how cynical they are about all those lives being lost in syria. we can't stop talking about it. >> i agree 1 is hundred%. that's been my feeling for a while having worked right in bosnia after the war and studied it and written about it, and, of course, you were both actively engaged in diplomacy at the time so you know what it looked like in '92 and '95 and i think we're exactly there with syria. at some point when you don't know how you're going to resolve the conflict, it's still incumbent upon you to he have'

leave ate the suffering. which did have safe zones. they didn't work in every days. okay, well, i think this has been incredibly informative, dynamic. i don't know whether it's spicy yet but you have a chance to spice it up and make it a little more interesting, so i think there are probably people out there with microphones, and i will maybe call on folks. i'll try to be as democratic so i'll take right here from the fro front. >> hi. >> ready on that side. room. >> jim cunningham, atlantic council. thank you for the recommendation and the recommendations. in order to try to be a little b bit. given the events in the last

couple couple of years in the european union and nato and given the fact that we now have an administration that has only eight months left in office and the british now having decided to withdraw and all the knock-on effects that will have in the european union and nato, they are not separate entities, they are intimately related as all of us who work with nato realize and given the fundamental question duo we actually anymore have shared values and a shared view of what our way of life is? that's certainly underplaying part of the debate in the united states and part of the debate in europe. east and west and north and so the along the alliance. do you think it's purpose poll to restore the alliance. >> thank you. >> jim for those who don't though was our great american diplomat and ambassador to afghanistan and i left this out.

my apologies. my report urgeses the alliance to stay in afghanistan and i know you feel depply about that and when we met with the deputy sect-general stole thenberg he assured us that nato was staying in. i assume it hasn't stopped and the government will duo that. >> jim, i think you put -- where many things, a collective defen defense, a political arm of nato, and we're bound together by shared democratic values, and that's who we are. we don't invite countries in that's not diplomatic. we're concerned about some. populism, nativism, right wing nationalist that's occurred in europe. look at the questions that the people have the enough polish government. i'll just speak for myself.

nativism and in the person of donald trump. >> i'm comfortable for you speaking with me as well. >> here's a candidate for the presidency who questions whether the united states should continue to be in nato, whose threatened the nato allies that if they don't pay up he's going to walk out on it and i think the answer to your question is we need presidential leadership. we've always needed american presidential leadership. we are the outsized country in that alliance. we're up to 75% of the defense spending and reduce that ratio and i think president obama in the wake of the breks it vote for the united states to show our faith in nato and to show our faith in the united kingdom and show our faith in a stronger leadership role in germany.

i certainly having looked at this over the last couple of months believe we need a stronger germany, stronger politically, stronger militarily. i would say angela merkel is probably the most respected leader of all the great powers right now and so the relationship between the american president and the german chancellor with the british exiting, if that's what happens, the european union becomes central that everything that the united states need to duo in europe, and it does get back to values, and i admire president obama very much and i hope that he can give that ringing speech, declaration at nato of american commitment and if there's any doubts in our country, trump might be in a minority of one talley about nato, then the president can speak to that, and i'm proud to say that hillary clinton is definitely standing up to the nato alliance and everything she's doing as a candidate. >> general, do you want to add to that. >> can i just add the one cafuality to that. it's not only about paying your

way. i mean, you've -- you should duo what you agree duo, i mean, there's no doubt about that, but i think -- i think the -- the american public is no longer willing to -- the only one willing to do the fighting and the dying in these nations. i think nato allies are going to have to step up to the combat roles, not just the combat service support roles and a lot of them duo. >> and even partners, even partners like vast. >> exactly. >> yeah. >> exactly. so we have -- a lot of them duo, but it would be much better if everyone did, and -- and if one of the difficulties of a 28-nation, maybe even 30 in the near future, one of the big -- one of the big challenges is getting everybody to agree to

the same thing, and i think -- i think you're going to have to have a more agile voting capability before some want to duo things and others want to sit it out like we did in libya. i think you're going to have to -- you're going to have that agility because if you insist on unanimity as i pointed out several times it's going to be very difficult, but i duo think that it's fair to say that some of our allies need to not only step up financially but also step up to the troop commitment to duo the hard work. >> okay. >> duo we have a question from this side of the room. maybe we'll start with the gentleman here. and then i promise i'll go to the back and be democrat ic. >> my question is what could nato duo for ukraine in order to help the country become closer to the western alliance and what ukraine should duo in order to

become closer? thank you. >> well, go ahead, ambassador. >> no, over to you. we both wore our nato ties, by the way. >> that's excellent. >> i think one of the big policy questions for us in the united states and for nato is what is the extend of our support for ukraine? ukraine has very sound political support from the nato alliance about what happened to it. the dismemberment of its own country, you know. an exing crimea is crossing the brightest red line in the u.n. charter so i think they felt that political support but they haven't felt the military support. i think we should provide legal assistance to ukraine. i think the ukrainians deserve that, and they have a right to defend their country, but that's a policy question. you know, president obama has answered in the negative on that and so we'll have to continue to debate that in our country. on ukraine and nato we have been partners for a long time. we've had a formal relationship going all the way back to when

jim and i -- to before when jim and i arrived at nato, and in the last decade. you 'crane has a long way to go obviously to be considered for membership in nato because of the territorial divisions, because of the corruption, because of some of the lapses in democracy so we don't call in this report for ukraine to be admitted next month to nato, but i certainly believe what all of our presidents have believed, and that is ukraine has a right to think about a future with nato, to work towards that future. a time line, of course, who knows. it depends on events in ukraine itself but let me just finish by going back to a point that i made earlier. it's very important that we signal to the russian federation that russia has no veto over who joins nato, that even as russia invades countries, georgia and ukraine, that's not going to stop nato countries from working with them and having a relationship which at some point it could or could not turn into membership. a lot will depend on the

ukrainians themselves and whether ukraine can build a fully fledged democracy and let's hope that it request. >> do you want to add anything, general? well, i think the ukrainian government has passed a lot of really good legislation so the question now will be on implementation and i'll leave it at that and i'm feeling bullish this week. >> good. >> okay. back. room. it's hard for me to see but i'll go the furthest back on right with the two fingers up. >> i'm bob bradky, and it's good to see you. nick, i think many of us in this room remember a time when the slogan in this town about nato was out of area or out of business, and i wonder whether looking back we allowed ourselves to be distracted, that it was that kind of thinking that led us to pour major land forces out of germany that would allow us to take on a lot of

small missions that weren't central to nato's purpose, weren't central to article v. i wonder now as we look ahead if we need to be careful about making that mistake, that nato should not be the tool for dealing with migration issues, that we need to be careful about nato's expanding role in the middle east. i wonder if we need to keep our focus on nato as a self-defense organization focused on europe. >> okay. actually i'm noticing that we have only about 15 minutes left so i'm going to maybe bundle up a couple of questions with the consent of my -- my colleagues here. >> margaret warner. >> hi. thank you both for giving us. margaret warner from the pbs newshour. there's been a lot of talk, of course, after the brexit vote that the u.s. is going to lose a vigorous friend in the eu if it goes forward. how do you think that if at all it would affect britain's role

in nato hand in particular how muscular a partner it has been for the u.s., not only militarily, missions but just viewpoint? >> okay, and one more from this side, the gentleman in the front. >> just to follow up on margaret's point. could you envision an organic relationship between nato and the eu such as a joint policy planning council in order to consider threats to european alice that could be dealt with by both institutions since 22 out of 28 members are members of both. >> okay. thank you. let's take those three if that's okay and then we'll go back to this side. room. >> i want to salute bob bradky who is a pivotal figure at the state department for nato enlargement in the last decade. bob asked the first question. bob, i agree with the thrust of your question and what i found

implicit in your question that we're not back to the cold war thankfully but we're back to ath dod line redivision of europe by putin. south and west of the russian felledration, and if our core responsibility in nato is to protect the people and the countries in the alliance, then the prime rip goal has to be effective deterrents against russia and going forward and given what putin has done and us a imply that means we can't duo anything and can't be in every mission around the world. you have to choose. i would say that we made the right decision to go into bosnia in september, october of 1959, and we stopped the war, and then held the peace and didn't lose a single soldier in a combat death and general jalwan was a huge part that have and then we made the right decision to go into kosovo to stop the annihilation of the kosovo albanian army by

milosevic and the serb army and i'm proud of the first two big out-of-nato missions that nato undertook and we were right to put nato out of afghanistan and that's when we deployed and i believe we should stay that. it's a longer subject. marlg rhett, on your question, the big loss if britain is permanently out and even if britain splinters and is equal and is consumed by internal angst, the big loss will be britain's voice in the eu because we tend to share a common strategic outlook with britain, but you're right to focus on nato. britain, i think jim will be a better judge, second strongest aloins in the country in the united states, and the country willing to deploy and willing to fight. jim talked about that. the british certainly have done that in afghanistan and iraq. so we really duo need a strong

britain in nato and given -- we argue everything in nato and we operate by consensus and sometimes you argue for years. britain is a voice of reason and strength and we need that voice in nato. i think going forward and can i just say those questions, bill's question, jim has been i think ringing the village bell on the eu and he's right to. we ought to envision a joint council between nato and the eu. that would bring the united states into institutional linkage with the european union which we desperately need at a time when the british may be withdrawing. >> general? >> let me just add on the core mission question. certainly that's what it is in the 20th century up to the end of the cold war. i'm not sure in a globalized world of rapidly occurring things in non-state actors and the rise of terrorism and entire

countries that could be overtaken by that kind of ideology and that we can afford to have a nato that's sitting and waiting for something to happen within the borders of nato. i just don't think that's in the cards. if the nato is going to be, you know, the main contributor to our collective security, and i think while you can't duo everything, there's certain events that are coming towards us that mandate that we pay attention to them unless we want to have another afghanistan or another iraq and we want to fight somewhere for another ten years so to me proactive consideration is cheaper, it's more effective and it's a big training mission, really, with partners and alice, and you

could prevent any number of countries from being overwhelmed by radical ideologies that will seek to transform their toe sites against us, by the way. we're the collective bad guys here for all of this radical fundamentalism that's going on, and so i think they should be engaged and they should be engaged in a way that's less expensive. >> you're not going to have economic development and rule of law unless you have security and nato is the biggest security administration there is. it should be emulated and copied and add mired and whenever it is we should export it. >> do you want to say anything about britain's role in nato? >> well, i think -- i think britain's role in nato is not a record. i mean, it is -- i think along

with france it's probably the two most powerful militaries there are. i would think their role in europe continues and would i like to see the uk get not below the agreed upon percentage but i think they have a very important role and i think maybe even more so now with the exit poll. and with the you a krein, the brits together with us and the canadians, we're actually the top three -- which is really the number one for of deterrents that we giving on the question of productivity. i'm not advocating, you know, for unwanted military involvement. i'm odd verycating training type measures. to then them defend search set and how to function under civilian leadership and to

engaurnlg the grempt of and you should avoid your conflicts by being there a little bit earlier. >> that's great. you're also speaking for me. now let's take on the aisle there, and i'll duo again three of them. on the aisle, up here and maybe right over there in the middle. >> i'm a retired u.s. abs, and a colleague of nick's, 31 years in the state department. i thought this was fabulous, and it's important that these ambassador and nick to get their word out. my question is for my friend nick. you list ed three of them are violent and then's exercises and

positioning permanent trips. and then you talked about sanctions. well, that guess pushed back on that segment and i wondered whether you and everybody else here should in fact flag that because you talk about the pro-business russian types. you mentioned donald trump, i wouldn't but i'm going to mention it. on three weeks someone asked about brexit and he said what's that, i don't know what it is and i'll get back to you and now he's over there selling hotel rooms in scotland and talking as if this is the end of the world. why don't we push the sanctions bit and point out that his new wizard, mr. montafort who does

business in putin. lawyers down on k street can duo anything without registering. >> that was a very good, spicy question. >> a lot of spice in that question. >> okay. over there. >> good afternoon, the question was region specific. we have a mission and a coordination in the baltic region. what about the black sea? in the black sea you have dispralt militaries, dispralt countries. you have romania, bulgaria, turkey as nato members and georgia and ukraine as potential nato allies and not currently members. what kind of coordinating

structure would you recommend to create and maybe as a recommendation for the nato summit because otherwise it is not clear to me how duo you coordinate the air, sea and ground and space elements of that. and what is the time frame you would be looking at to implement that? thank you very much. >> and i would note on that, general breedlove, i don't know if it was here or elsewhere, but he talked about a need for a black sea security initiative so i think maybe you're hinting towards that. >> a third question. let's take from over here, sorry. this will be i think our last question because we need time to answer. >> i'm with the hudson institute. my question, is you know, with the number of active duty military declining to about 450,000ish and sequestration

really hurting the u.s. budget and with president obama's pivot to asia well under way how can the united states reassure our european allies without becoming overextended in multiple regions around the world and how can we balance our priorities while still deterring russia when they have exercises with up to 100 thought troops sometimes? >> ambassador. i think jim has thought a lot about the black sea and has just been there so i'm going to punt that question to my friend jim jones. thanks for your questions. we duo highlights the sanctions issue in this report. it's one of our major recommendations that we be you have to-minded about maintaining the sanctions on the russian federation. obviously chancellor merkel and president obama and the other leaders made the correct decision when putin went into

crimea not to fight. we don't want a war with the fugs red face, but we needed a response that would be effective and sanctions was the response, and now to see at least three european to see at least three european union leaders imply or state unequivocally that they think that it's time to end the sanctions before putin has met any of the conditions for any of the sanctions would be giving a victory to putin and encouraging him towards further mayhem and territorial aggrandizement in europe. so this is a very important principle. and i'm quite confident the obama administration is going to hold the line on this. and from what i heard in germany last week, chancellor merkel intends to. that's a very good start. but nerve the eu has to agree to pitch the sanctions forward, to continue them. so it's going to be a real battle in europe, as i said, smack in the middle of our presidential transition. in our conversations last week as private citizens, both damon

and i advised some of these europeans don't challenge the united states during a presidential transition. don't challenge our outgoing president or our incoming president do. the right thing and continue the sanctions. on the last question, as a civilian, i certainly don't want to see us cut the defense budget. i think the pivot, the rebalancing to asia is the right idea. and president obama is right to build up american resources in guam and andersen air force base, darwin, australia, in japan and south korea. it was impressive to see two u.s. carriers and their associated ships go through in international waters the south china sea last week. that makes a big statement. but you have to have a healthy defense budget to do that. we're big enough. we're wealthy enough. and we're a global leader. so in rebalancing to asia, there is no contradiction in pivoting back to europe. we hollowed out in a way our military in europe to fight the

afghan and iraq wars. and i very strongly support what ash carter has done to convince congress that he can use $3.4 billion of defense funds to rebuild the american military. in poland, the baltic states and our bases on europe, we need to do more of that if we're going have effective strategic deterrence against putin. >> and put into it the regular budget? >> and not just a one-off deal but put into the regular budget so we have enough money to finance a bigger american military presence in europe, which is very welcome by the europeans, by the way, as you know. >> general? >> one of my favorite says is virtual presence is actual absence. by that i mean if you want to be a super power, you're going to have to be a super power. and you can't just pick and choose where you want to be a super power. so all this discussion about pivoting and rebalancing and all this other stuff is just kind of restating the obvious in my

view. i think most americans really want this country to have the same type of primacy in terms of what goes on in the globe in 2050, as we did in 1950. if that's thecase, then withdrawing from the world or withdrawing from regions will create vacuums. and a vacuums are filled by people who don't have your best interests at heart. you've seen that recently in the middle east with russia. and we've seen it in different other places as well. so, you know, the next administration is going to have to get on board fully with the fact that where is it you want to take this country and where do you want this country to be. and places like the black sea are important. they're important not only militarily and strategically, they're important economically. and one of the things that i've

noticed is that there is a different dialogue when you talk to eastern europeans these days and western europeans. western europeans seem to be much more willing to forgive and find a reason to say, well, they didn't say it or they didn't mean it, maybe we shouldn't do the sanctions. but if we go to eastern europe, you don't get that at all. and having just come back from romania, i was very pleased to discover on my arrival there that 700 u.s. marines were training on romanian bases that we actually got them to modernize back in 2006 when we were in nato together. and same in bulgaria. so if you go to those countries, and you talk about how serious they think the threat is, you get -- you get the same kind of rhetoric that the germans and the british and the french were talking about in 1950.

when there was still -- when there was a cold war. so the united states i think finds itself as a global power. not focused only on an east-west strategy, which has dominated our thinking for, you know, the last 70 years or so. but also having to think about new realities in our own hemisphere, but also the rise of the african continent is a reality that is going to be upon us before you think. and so we have to be engaged as a global power. and we cannot withdraw. it's in our own national interests. it's not because we're magnanimous and we want to do god things all over the world. but it's in our own national interests to be able to do that. it's our inheritance really from the 20th century. but it's a different world. and we have to organize ourselves differently. we have to be moragele.

agile. i talked about the national security council and not too facetiously in the sense that we need a 24-hour national security council you. can't afford to go to sleep in this world. because the next day you go to work and you're dealing with everything that happened during the six or seven hours you caught up on your sleep. so this is a different world. it's a different century. the institutions that were organize nighed for the cold war are having a difficult time reacting with the speed and the in meeting the variety of challenges. they're economic. they're energy. it's climate and it's conventional military, and it's non-nation state actors and the whole bit. so i think we really have to

figure out how we're going do all the things that we want to do and that's going take some reorganization in our government and the way we do things. i've found it much easier to deal with regions than single countries. you can understand the world a lot better if you think regionally. we tend to have a mind-set of dealing with countries from washington individually through soda straws. but i believe with the unified commands that we have which is another inheritance from the 20th century that we could have regional strategies with regional representation by the whole of government and the military forward based in different regions. and i think you can engage much more successfully there. the black seas are a good area for it. it's a serious issue and i hope this summit deals wit. >> thank you very much. you ranged very proactively well

beyond nato and the nato periphery to asia and to regional combatant commands, et cetera. i think this has been a very engaging discussion. the report is proactive. we're trying to keep it spicy. let's go on the road and do more of this. i hope you gentlemen maybe think about doing more tv and op-eds. and i just really want to say also thank you, both of you for your leadership and for your long years of work in the field. obviously, your service. and hopefully we can keep you talking about all of these issues. please join me in a round of applause. >> thank you. [ applause ]

on july 1, 1976, the smithsonian's national air and space museum opened its doors to the public with president gerald ford on hand for the dedication. friday marks the 40th anniversary of the museum and the american history tv's live coverage starts at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. we'll tour the museum and see one-of-a-kind space aviation and artifacts including the spirit of st. louis and the apollo lunar module, plus live events at the front of the museum. learn more as we talk about the

director, jchlt r. jack dailey and valerie neal. the 40th anniversary of the smithsonian national air and space museum, live friday evening, beginning at 6:00 eastern on c-span3's american history tv. coming up on c-span3, education secretary john king on the implementation of the every child succeeds act. after that remarks by u.s. trait representative michael froman. that's followed by veterans affairs secretary robert mcdonald. and later, amy goodman, host and executive producer of "democracy now." now education secretary john king on the implementation of the every student succeeds act, the successor of no child left behind. he testified before the senate health education, labor, and pensions committee. this is an hour and 50 minutes.

>> the senate committee on health, education, labor and pensions will please come to order. we have a vote at 10:30. we might have another one after that. but what i think we can surely get through the opening statements. the secretary's statement. and a i think senator murray and i can get through our questions. what i will do is i'll try to go vote early and then come back. and in the meantime, we'll continue the hearing so all senators will have a chance to use their five minutes and ask their questions. this morning we have a hearing

on oversight of the every student succeeds act. senator murray and i will each have an opening statement. then we'll introduce our witness. the united states secretary of education john king. secretary king, welcome. we're glad that you're here. this is our fourth oversight hearing on the every student succeeds act. secretary king, you and i have had some debate on the meaning of words and the law, some discussion about it. it reminded me of lewis carroll's book "through the looking glass" when humpty-dumpty said "when i use a word, it means just what i choose it to mean, neither more nor less." like humpty-dumpty, we choose our words carefully. and we did when we wrote the law fixing no child left behind. we held 24 hearings between 2007 and 2014. 2015 we had three hearings.

58 amendments. many other amendments. the words we used were debated carefully and deliberately chosen. we meant for the words to mean what they say, nothing more, nothing less. that of course is our job. the constitution settled that a long time ago. an elected congress chooses the words that make the laws. it's the executives' job to implement the law in a way that is consistent with the meaning of those words. let me give you an example of doing that properly. when i had your job 25 years ago in 1992, congress did something i very much disagreed with. it passed legislation adopting a pilot direct loan program. i had argued that the department of education had no business being a bank for millions of students. there were far too many problems, risks, and costs. but congress disagreed, passed the legislation. the president signed it and adopted a pilot direct loan program. after the president signed the bill, i had about as much time

left in my term as you do in yours this year. and it was my job to start implementing the law congress passed with which i disagreed. so i did it. and i faithfully followed the words. and i asked all the universities which whether they like to be a part of the pilot program. and oven time eventually about 25% did. i implemented the law the way congress wrote it. let me give you an example of how i think the secretary of education should not respond when implementing a law congress has written. i'm not going to dwell on it. it's the supposed supplement not supplant regulation. that was rejected by a rule making kept. it's a very simple provision. it simply says federal title 1 dollars are not meant to replace state and low dollars for schools. to give title i money to a school, the district has to show the school is getting the same amount in local and state dollars it would receive without title i money.

one witness testified at the last hearing the law was so plain that there didn't even need to be a regulation. but you've come up with a proposal that forces school districts to show they essentially equalized spending of their state and local dollars among title i and non-title i schools, although the new law in section 1605 explicitly prohibits exactly that. according to the congressional research service, the proposed regulation, quote, appears to go beyond what would be required under a plain language reading of the statute. the proposal is so far out of bounds, these are my words, that aim assuming any regulation, if there even needs to be one will, bear no resemblance to the proposal you have drafted. but let's talk today about the accountability rule that the department proposed on may 31st. this goes to the heart of the law to fix no child left behind. in our studies, we heard more

about testing than any other subject. at first proposed we eliminate the mandated test. the more we got into it, the more we understood it wasn't the federally -- the federally required 17 tests that were the problem, it was having u.s. department of education make all the decisions about what to do about the results of the test, which is what we call the accountability system. the federal government decided that math and reading test results would determine whether schools and teachers were succeeding or failing. and i believe that the reason we got 85 votes in the senate, because so many were tired, and these were teachers, governors, chief state school officers of the united states department of education telling school boards and classroom teachers and states so much what to do with the children in their schools. so i want to make sure that any regulation that your department proposes about accountability is

consistent with the words we chose and the intent of the bill the president signed. you receive comments until august 1. you'll consider those comments. i look forward to working with you, continue the discussions we had this week to ensure that the regulations comport with the law. today i'll focus on two main concerns. i'll mention them just briefly. one is does the proposed accountability rule actually get the federal government back in the business of setting state academic standards? senator roberts asked you about this during your confirmation hearing. under no child left behind, the department in effect mandated that states adopt common core standards. 38 out of 42 had to in order to receive waivers from no child left behind. this new law repealed that effective mandate in at least five different specific

prohibitions, there was nothing unequivocal about it. we also changed the law from requiring a state to demonstrate that they have adopted challenging standards to saying that all the state had to do was to assure the secretary that it has adopted those standards. we chose our words carefully. but your proposal in this regulation says a state must, quote, provide evidence at such time and in such manner specified by the secretary that it has adopted these standards. wouldn't this give you the power to reject the standards by rejecting the evidence? the second area that i want to mention is does the proposed accountability rule get the federal government back in the business of deciding which schools are succeeding or failing? it appears to reinstitute the failed no child left behind formula requiring that math and reading tests be the primary measure for deciding whether schools are succeeding or failing. you've invented out of whole

cloth a sumtive rating system that is nowhere in the law that would essentially require all states to come up with an a through f system for all their schools based primarily on test scores on federally mandated tests in math and reading. the whole point of the law was to return to the states whether to do that or not. i know that new york city and florida did that. but other states might not want to do it that way. senator murray often talks about the law's guard rails. we agree there should be some guardrails in this law in what states must and may not do. but again, we chose our words carefully. they were carefully and vigorously negotiated. and any regulation must stay within those words. in fact, the law so includes some very specific guardrails on the secretary, specific prohibitions. for the last 15 years, the federal government has gradually become in effect a national

school board. congress decided last year to reverse that trend. the president signed the bill that should put an end to it. on august 1 we really come to an end of the era. i call it the end of the mother may i era. an era when governors and chief state school officers had to come to washington to get permission to do a number of things about their schools. those conditional waivers are gone. the following mandates are gone from no child left behind. the standards mandate, the yearly progress mandate, the school turnaround models, the highly qualified teacher requirements, the teacher evaluation mandates, those responsibilities have now been restored to states and local school boards and classroom teachers. our hope is that this new flexibility will unleash a new era of innovation and excellence in student achievement, one that recognizes that the path to

higher standards and better teaching and real accountability is better classroom by classroom, communitily community and state by state and not through washington, d.c. senator murray? >> well, thank you very much, chairman alexander. secretary king, thank you for being here today. i look forward to today's discussion. we are here today almost seven months after the president signed the every student succeed act into law for another update on its implementation. as we talked about before, no child left behind was badly broken. this law fixes it in many critical ways. but a law is only as good as its implementation. so i'm really glad we're having this discussion today. i want to kick this off by focusing on two areas -- accountability and the need for continued collaboration and inclusion as this process continues. and i will have a question on a few others. first, i have talked about since before we passed this law esa is an extension of one of the most important goals of our country ensuring civil rights and equality of opportunity for every child.

and in order to do that, we need to make sure schools and states are held accountable for providing a quality education to all of their students no matter where they live or how they learn or how much money their parents make. this is critical because we know what happens when we don't have true accountability. inevitably, it's the kids from the low income neighborhoods, kids of color, kids with disabilities, and kids learning english who too often fall through the cracks. we know we can do better as a country. but we also know we're not there yet. secretary king, i appreciate the work you have done here to prioritize the regulations focused on implementing the federal guard rails in the law. and i'm very glad to see strong regulations coming out that makes sure the law operates as it was intended. and truly accomplishes the clear accountability goals we laid out. this is good news for students. i hope it continues. i am concerned about a few provisions in the draft regulations that could derail those efforts. for example, allowing states to

compare the performance of individual subgroups to the average performance of all students in the state. esa was clear the performance of every sing 8 student and every single subgroup of student matters. but allowing states to measure subgroup performance by comparing to the average performance of all students could lower the expectation for students because many students could be underperforming, driving down the average performance level within a state. that's why instead all student subgroups should be expected to meet state standards and academic goals established by the state, regardless of how they compare to other students in the state. i'll have a question on this where we can go into more details. but this is something i'm taking a close look at, as well as other regulations from the department for school interventions and supports. because the intent of the law is clear. it needs to actually help students succeed. and we need strong regulation flowing from that rule if we want this law to do what so many of us hope it will.

one other issue i want to focus on is the continued need for collaboration to encourage and ensure all stake holders are heard throughout the implementation process. this is so important, but it won't happen on its own. it requires the state to use every opportunity as well as breaking down barriers to ensure full participation. i'm pleased the department sent a letter to states last week highlighting the importance of stakeholder engagement. the letter provides helpful projections to states to stakeholder engagement, including holding meetings at varying times during the day providing accommodation and supports to participants and ensuring transparency in the process and timeline for engaging in the planned development process. getting input from teachers, civil rights groups, parents, and many more will be essential in making sure the law works in the coming months and years. and that's something i feel very passionately about.

when we were working to pass this law, i worked hard to bring in voice of students and those who would be instrumental in implementing it. voices from teachers like lionel terry in seattle who's work to get kids excited to come to school was failing under the previous education law. voices like duncan whose son attends highline public schools where many kids in the district struggle with poverty. and voices from high school principals like laurie wineberry from spokane who talked to me about the desperate need for common sense policies for testing in their school. those were important voices when we wrote the law. those are important voices as we implement it. so i'm very glad the department is focused on true collaboration, and that needs to continue. i'm also glad that last week the department in collaboration with hhs provided clarity for how states, school districts, and child welfare agencies can implement the new foster care requirements under esa by

working together to support foster children enhance their educational success. now this administration has a little less than seven months in office, but that's still plenty of time to make progress on this and several other key areas and i'm confident we can. i'm confident because so many people across this country, including many in this room today who speak out for change and empower our nation's students and schools to inspire me to keep fight. i know this is a priority, not just for the members of this committee and the department, but for our entire country. so secretary king, thank you for being here today. i'm looking forward or the this hearing. i'd like to hear more from you on the steps you're taking to implement the law so that it works for all of our students and what all of us can do to make sure that happens. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator murray. secretary king, you're welcome to make a statement. if you could keep it to about five minutes, we would appreciate it. and that would give the large number of senators we have here today a chance to ask questions.

mr. secretary? >> thank you so much. thank you, chairman alexander, ranking member murray, and members of the committee. i appreciate the invitation to come back before the committee and testify today regarding how the department of education is moving forward with the implementation of the every student succeeds act, which the president signed into law december 10th, 2015. i'm grateful that thanks to the leadership of chairman alexander and ranking member murray, as well as the members of this committee, congress acted last year to reauthorize this critical piece of legislation. over the past seven and a half years, thanks to hardworking educators supported by families, our schools and students have made tremendous strides. the high school graduation rate is at a record high. and schools in 49 states are helping students meet college and career ready standards in assessing their progress. more states are also investing more money in helping to ensure children are ready to succeed when they enter kindergarten. increasing their spending on early learning by $1.5 billion over the past three years.

and joet much work remains. far too many students from every background still arrive at college needing remedial classes. and black and hispanic students continue to lag behind their white peers in achievements and graduation rights. in powerful and troubling ways the disparity in opportunity and experience for different groups of students in our schools. just a few statistics. students with disabilities are more than twice as likely as students without disabilities to be suspended. schools with high concentrations of black and latino students are less likely to offer advanced courses such as calk louis and face zisk. these are the very children that the act of 1965 as mostly recently amended by esa was designed to protect and serve. the good news is that esa provides local communities and states with a pathway toward

equity and excellence for all students, as well as tools that will help them get there. using the greater flexibility in esa, states will be able to go beyond test scores in math and english by adding their own indicators of school quality and progress to ensure a vigorous well rounded education for every student. we know strong skills are necessary for success in college careers and life, but they are not sufficient. and importantly, a rigorous, well rounded education helps our children make critical connections between what they're learning in school, their curiosities, their passions and the skills they will need to become the sophisticated thinkers and to solve the most pressing problems facing our communities and our world. this requires all of us working together. states are expected to involve local educators, parents, civil rights groups, business leader, tribal officials and other state officials in choosing other indicators of quality such as decreases in chronic absenteeism or the numbers of students taking advanced classes.

the legislation includes critical protections for our traditionally underserved students such as students of color, students of low-income families, students of disabilities, students learning english, native american students, foster and homeless youth and migrant and seasonal farm worker children. states must take meaningful action to improve schools where groups of students are learning and in high schools that have low graduation rates year after year. the flexibility also allows them to tailor these interventions to schools' specific needs. as with all legislation and policy, the quality and fidelity of their implementation are critical to success. please allow me to update you quickly on our progress toward helping states implement this law fully and faithfully. the first thing we did was listen. to date we've convened over 200 meetings with stakeholders across the country. these have included dozens of meetings with educators and school leaders in rural, urban and suburban communities. well posted a notice seeking public comment on areas in need

of regulation and requested feedback on areas in need of guidance. we received hundreds of comments. in response, we prioritized accountability, including data reporting and state plans, assessments under title i parts a and b and title i's requirement that federal dollars supplement, not supplant state and local funds for education. as you know this past spring we engaged in negotiated rule making. the negotiators were able to reach consensus on assessment, and we'll move forward with publishing these regulations for comment. the negotiator were not not able to reach supplement, not supplant. we'll continue to listen to the feedback. last month we issued our proposed rule making on accountability, state plans and data reporting. it was published in the federal register on may 31st and we'll continue to receive comments through august 1. we look forward to responding to that comment. consistent with the strong civil rights legacy of the law, the

proposed regulations ensure a focus on all students, including historically underserved subgroups of students and accountability decisions. they ensure that meaningful action is taken to improve the lowest performing schools with families, educators and stakeholders playing an important role in the process. they also ensure that educators, students and families have an accurate picture of students' academic performance. we've committed to issue key guidance in several key areas based on the feedback we received. we issued guidance around foster youth. we will soon issue guidance related to homeless youth as well as english learners, and after that on title ii, title iv and early learning. we are guided by the many comments we have received looking for technical assistance and support, and we will continue to take comment from stakeholders on other areas where guidance may be helpful. in conclusion, esa is a bipartisan achievement that row advise the statutory foundation

to close our remaining gaps and address our persistent inequities. i've appreciated hearing many of your thoughts on implementation of the law so far and look forward to hearing from you today. we take your feedback and all feedback we receive very seriously and look forward to continuing to work with you to ensure high quality implementation of this law supported by the department that guarantees a world class education for every child. thank you. i'm happy to take any questions you may have. >> thank you, mr. secretary. we'll begin a round of questions now. mr. secretary, my goal would be that the country feels the same way about this new law at the end of this year as it did attend of last year. i think there was a good deal of literal rejoicing that we had achieved a consensus in a complex area that affected so many millions of americans' families. and brought some stability to

elementary and secondary education policies. so i am hopeful that after the regulations are finally done, that we'll still feel the same way. in that spirit, let me continue the conversation you and i were having. i only have five minutes. so i want to get in two or three questions. when we wrote the law, we envisioned that states would have time to plan for the transition to the law. you've heard and we've heard some states say that your proposed regulation, a account doesn't permit a state to do this. let me ask you if what i'm about to describe would be an appropriate timeline for a state in your view. that states would develop and implement their new accountability systems during the school year that begins in 2017 and 2018. that's next year. that means they'd be collecting data in that year.

then in the following year, 2018-'19, they would be identifying new schools in need of improvement. that would leave the year coming up, 2016-'17 as a transition year during which i would assume that states would continue to work with their already identified schools, although some states might want to move more rapidly. does that schedule -- would your proposed regulation allow that sort of schedule? >> i appreciate that question. our goal is to make sure that as the committee has developed this law that we focused on trying to expand the definition of educational excellence, to add indicators alongside english and math performance and graduation rates, we want states to move as quickly as they can on that. >> right. >> the timeline assumes that '16-'17 would be a transition year and states would continue

intervention in their previously identified schools. the timeline which we're seeking comment indicates that states would implement their new accountability system in '17-'18 and address the needs of schools identified in that accountability system in '17-'18. that said, we've heard feedback from states that some states would like the ability to carry over the schools in which they're intervenes from '16-'17 into '17-'18. that's feedback that we're open to and we'll continue to listen closely to comment. >> just soy understand, what i said was that a state would collect the data and develop its new accountability system in 2017-'18 and then begin to identify the schools in 2018-'19. >> yes. understood. under the current regulations, that would not be. the interventions would begin in '17-'18. but as i said earlier this week

and i'll emphasize this week, we're open to comment on the timeline and open to adjusting that timeline. the key question that states will need to address as they provide comment is in which schools will they provide additional support in '17-'18. would that be the same schools as '16-'17 -- >> let me just so i'll have time for one more question. let me strongly urge you to make clear to schools as quickly as possible that if they choose to, they could implement their new accountability the systems in 2017-'18. and then they could identify new schools under that system in the following year, 2018-'19, if they choose to do that. may i move on to one other question. your pro posed regulation requires that all schools receive a single summative rating based on a state's accountability system. an 8-f rating system might be a good system for some states, but

others has been widely criticized. new york city is moving away from using an a to f system. and the law prohibits the secretary from, quote, prescribing the specific methodology used by states to meaningfully differentiate or identify schools, unquote. i don't see anywhere within the law the word single summative rating. and how do you justify a proposed regulation requiring such a rating in light of the prohibition that was specifically in the law that the president signed in december? >> the key is that parents, educators, communities have clear information about the performance of schools. we do not require in the regulations the use of any rating. >> state summative rating. >> right. states could take a variety of approaches to a single summative rating. they could use a through f if they so chose. they could use a newsroom hair cal index if they so chose, or

they could use a categorical system which is actually required in the statute. states will have to identify schools for comprehensive improvement, comprehensive support. those schools in order to do that, they will need a summative rating to achieve that status. similarly, states will need to have schools that get targeted support that too categorical rating and schools that get no support and that too is a rating. all we require is that they have some methodology by which they can identify those schools and clearly communicate about the performance of their schools with the public. >> well, my time is up. but i'd like you to think about where in the law you get the authority to provide for a single summative rating. senator murray? >> thank you, mr. chairman. before i go to my question -- >> may i, not taking time off

yourself, i thinkly go vote if i may and leave you in charge of the committee and i'll come right back. >> okay. do that. mr. chairman, before i begin my round of questions, i want to echo the concerns that were voiced about the timeline for identifying the schools for improvement. like the chairman, have i heard from state stakeholders that states may not have their new accountability systems in place by the beginning of 2017-'18 school year. and as a result, states would have to identify schools based on old data from systems designed before esa was signed into law. that's deeply concerning to teachers and parents in my state and around the country. i hope as your department works on the final regulation, you'll address that very real issue for our states and our schools. on the questions, i really worked hard to make sure that esa requires schools to receive supports and interventions where any group of students is consistently underperforming. however, i'm very concerned that

the draft rule weakens that requirements by allowing states to compare the performance of subgroups of students to other students who may also be underperforming rather than requiring states to ensure each individual subgroup of students makes sufficient academic progress on their own. in practice, that could mean that a school could have a group of students, say students with disabilities missing their state-set goals for many years and not receiving the support which is so important that they need to improve that is required by esa. so how do you square that proposal in the regulation with the requirements of the law? >> yeah. we think it's very important that states and districts are focused on their schools where subgroups are underperforming. the regulations create really parameters for states to develop their systems for identifying those schools that need targeted support for underperforming subgroups and provides options that states could use a system that relies on goals and

targets. states could use a system that relies on the gap between subgroups and the highest achieving subgroup, for example. but states ultimately would have to identify those schools where they have struggling subgroups, and also would have to identify those schools where the struggling subgroups are struggling at a level that is consistent with the bottom 5% of schools as well. but this is a place, again, where we're open to feedback, and certainly there are contrasting views on what the parameters for state subgroup -- targeted subgroup identification should be, and we're open to feedback on that. >> i want to make sure they get the resources they need. and if we're not i'd fight them, they won't. on another issue, i'm very concerned that my home state of washington is facing a homelessness crisis. we have school districts like everett where the number of homeless students has risen to almost a thousand. mckinny liaisons are struggling

to meet the needs of homeless children and families. and that has been a goal of mine for a very long time to make sure we meet their leads. esa makes a number of changes designed to increase the capacity of liaisons to identify and support homeless children so that they can succeed in school. how is your department planning to make sure that these changes are implemented effectively? >> share your commitment to addressing the needs of homeless students. we've been holding conversations with students who have been homeless with advocacy groups to try to develop our guidance to implement the provisions of the new law regarding homeless students. and we expect to issue that guidance shortly this summer. >> okay. i'll be looking for that. and i wanted to ask you about the preschool, which as you know is a priority for mine. esa includes new policies to encourage our states and districts and schools to use money for preschool programs. i'm very proud that my home state of washington is leading the way when it comes to using

this funding for preschool. bremerton school district uses their title i money to raise the quality of child care so that kids are prepared to learn when they start kindergarten. how is your administration planning to get the word out about these new provisions and help states leverage your esa funding to improve access to high quality early learning? >> we think the commitment to preschool is one of the signature achievements of esa. we are working with health and human service on an mou around inchtation, continued implementation of the preschool developments program and its new tomorrow in esa and we're working on guide chance will focus on best practice and examples of approach just like the one you're describing where states may use their title i dollars or school improvement dollars to focus on expanding access to preschool for students most in need. >> okay. and finally, i'm hearing a lot about teacher shortage in my

state. particularly special education, teachers of english learners, stem teachers. in esa, we rewrote title ii dealing with teachers to improve that. i wanted to ask you, how is the department planning to make sure states in districts know about the new tools in esa, because we are facing this crisis? >> i'm proud to say states are doing i think some good work in this area through the equity plans that were developed under nclb and that are continued under esa. there is an opportunity for states to refine those equity plans. we also are developing guidance on title ii that we expect to issue later this year that will help point states towards their available resources and to some examples of best practice. and as you know, the president has also made additional proposals in the 2017 budget around these kinds of teacher shortage issues, including strengthening teacher loan forgiveness, and the best job in the world initiative, which

would focus on recruiting great teachers to high needs schools. >> okay. very much appreciate that senator enzi? >> thank you, senator murray. i appreciate this hearing, and thank you for being here, mr. secretary. you and i had a phone conversation prior to your help committee confirmation hearing in which you kind of conveyed to me that you didn't intend to follow every student succeeds act as written. so that led me to vote against your confirmation. an example is section 8205 of the bipartisan law states that the secretary must identify the department of education positions that are no longer required due to the elimination of programs and subsequent shift to authority back to the states. that law requires the secretary to not later than one year after such date of enactment reduce the workforce of the department by the number of full-time equivalent employees the department identified. when i asked you if you were on track to reduce the positions of

the number of positions at the department of education within one year, you state you'd were going to move those positions to other areas within the department. i wrote you a letter after that conversation asking you to clarify your answer. i had to wait three and a half months for a response from you to that letter. and i only got it yesterday afternoon. i hope we don't have to have a hearing any time we want to get a late response from you. and i'd like to know if you're on track to reduce the number of positions within the department of education per the statutory requirements that none of us voted against and that was signed into law by president obama. we all agreed to reduce the size of the department of education. it's the law. will you do so? >> to be clear, we will certainly follow the statute. the programs that yes discussed in our call that existed in 2015 were funded through the

appropriations process in 2016. those programs continue, and the employees associated with those programs continue to do that work. as programs are phased out through the appropriations process and the closeout process is completed for those programs, yes, those positions would be eliminated. we talked about the individuals, the incumbents in those positions. and i said i thought it was likely that some of those people would pursue other positions, available positions within the department. but to be clear, if there are prooms that are eliminated, then those staff positions will not be needed. but virtually every program that existed in 2015 was funded through appropriations process for 2016. >> you know, in the senate, there are distinctly different jobs. the appropriators get to set the maximum amount of money that you can do. the authorizers set what you can do. that law is very clear that as it's written. and we worked on this

reauthorization for many years. and i think we finally got to it where it needs to be. we're not rewriting it. and i expect that you won't do it as well. i'd encourage you to answer all congressional inquiries within a timely manner, and actually have the inquiry come from you. i haven't gotten anything from you yet. i've gotten it from some assistants. and i had to wait over three months for a response to that letter i wrote allowing you an opportunity to clarify an answer that troubled me. there are two other letters that were sent by senator alexander and i. and, again, those letters are answered by subordinates. so i appreciate the response from your staff, but when i write to you, i expect to hear from you. and because we're doing a vote, i won't take a lot of time. i've got two more very important questions that i think are a part of the law that i will submit. so i yield the balance of my time.

>> senator murphy and senator murphy, i believe senator alexander should be back by the time you finish as well. so. >> thank you very much, senator murray. welcome back. secretary king. thank you very much for being so available to us, making frequent visits before the committee. i know how important this is to you. and you know how important it is to us. i want to talk to you about the accountability regulations and in particular, i wanted to ask you two questions. one about the regulations around insize, which for members here that don't know is the terminology we use to determine the size of the subgroups that are counted for accountability purposes. and then i wanted to ask you a second question on how we measure the performance of the subgroups. as many of us have said over and over and over again, esa is fundamentally a civil rights law there is no reason for the u.s. congress to be involved in the business of local education

unless we are in the business of making sure that this is a basket of civil rights protections. and we made very clear in the law that we wanted schools to have specific targeted interventions for what we call subgroups. these are populations of poor students or disabled students or minority students. but we also specifically said in the law that congress wasn't going to dictate, nor was the administration going to dictate how big these subgroups would be. but clearly, there is a number that is in violation of both i would argue the spirit and the letter of the law. if you had a subgroup that was a hundred students large, and anything under a hundred students didn't count as a subgroup, then you wouldn't be in compliance with the law. so rightfully, the regulations while true to the law, not

stating a particular number says that if your number is 30 or higher, you at least got to explain why. and the reason for that is that if every state pegs their number at 30 or higher, then one out of every five disabled student, for instance, in this country won't be subject to any accountability standards. and i guess i wanted to ask you about why you picked this number 30. because i think there is a lot of us that are concerned that that number is too high. that in fact there are 29 states today that have insizes that are under 30, that under this regulation might consider moving that number up. so just talk to me about this issue of why you picked 30. many of us are very concerned that if that becomes the new normal, and any minority student or poor student who is in a school and there is less than 30

of them, that they won't be counted. that leaves a lot of kids outside of the accountability system. just talk to me about that. >> as you indicated, the law preserves the ability for states to set the insize. but we wanted to make sure that there were thoughtful parameters as states think about what end size to use. we use this to provide justification if they're going over 30. well did that based on research evidence there was an ies student that showed for students with disabilities, if you set the end size above 30, you would only get to about 32% of students with disabilities. but if you set it at 30 or lower, you would get to 79% of students with disabilities potentially being identified within subgroups in schools. that's how we came up with 30. the idea was that states would give their explanation in their state plan, and that would be subject to peer review. >> how about the second question

about the accountability regimes. you've allowed for a multitude of factors be built into accountability standards. but i'm concerned that there could be states that use standards that don't necessarily tell the true story of how students are performing. so for instance, in my state, we've got pretty high graduation rates. but we have pretty low proficiency rates in math and reading. so for instance, 58% of african american high school students are proficient in reading yet they have a graduation rate of 80%. so if you use graduation rates, then you're not really seeing the underlying story, in parts because you have things like social promotion that pushes kids out the door. so what are the tools at the department's disposal to make sure that these accountability systems are actually capturing the true performance of students? >> you know, the statute really gives states the responsibility to design their accountability systems, as you know. but also says that the academic indicators need to have substantial weight and much

greater weight than the nonacademic indicators. so we've tried to structure the state planned process so that the peers will evaluate whether or not states have indeed complied with that substantial wait requirement and much greater wait requirement by showing that schools that aren't making much academic progress continue to get the support that they need to improve performance for students that schools that are getting targeted support because of subgroup underperformance actually see meaningful improvement in the academic performance of those subgroups. so again, we have tried to balance both state flexibility with guardrails to make sure that states really are paying attention to the kids who are most at risk. >> i just have these questions to the committee where there are a lot of us that were very involved in the accountability regulations who frankly don't think that they go far enough. to the extent in this city you know you have done something right when both sides aren't happy. i know that there are many that

think the regulations go too far there are many that think they could have gone much farther. and i appreciate you taking concerns from both sides. last thing, mr. chairman, some of the data that i was referring to was in a study called sharing equity in esa, the role of end size and subgroup accountability for excellent education. i ask to enter this into the record. >> it will be, senator murphy. senator burr? >> mr. secretary, i'll be brief because of the vote. why does the federal department of education not trust local schools to solve problems in their own school systems? >> well, we do trust state and local flexibility. at the same time, we know there is a long history in this country of states and districts not -- >> pass legislation that reinforced their local flexibility, you don't buy that? >> we think that local flexibility is important, but we also think the law importantly provides civil rights guardrails that are essential. >> have you ever been to a

school in north carolina? >> i have visited schools in north carolina. >> have you been there since you have been secretary? >> i've not been to a school in north carolina since i have been secretary. no. >> you cite in this rule within the proposed regulation that you're forcing this new accountability regime on 90,000 schools. you point to research done in 2014 by the national bureau of economic research on how nclb accountability systems and school labeled for sanctions improved in areas that led to their identification in the state's accountability system. that research focused on north carolina. and i took interest in this citation because of north carolina. what your rule doesn't mention in citing that research is that the authors of the research explicitly cautioned that giving the limited breadth of the research finding, and i quote, one should not jump to the conclusion that no child left

behind style sanctioned regimes is an effective way to identify schools in need of change, unquote. simple question. why would you continue to head down this destructive path? >> i don't thi >> i think our regulations preserve and advance state and local flexibility within the areas of defining educational excellence and defining the interventions in struggling schools. i agree that one of the problems in no child left behind was an overly prescriptive set of responses to struggles in schools. at the same time, we have to make sure that states and districts pay attention when their students of color or their low income students or english learners or students with disabilities are not performing. >> in your comments back on this rule have, you had people supportive of this pathway that you're headed down? >> the proposed accountability regulations reflect much of the comment that we have received. and i anticipate that we will continue to get comment,

particularly from parents organizations, educator organization, and civil rights organizations who worry that in the about a sense of the civil rights guardrails that the law puts in place -- >> i would ask you to share with the committee that group of lists who have come out and said they're supportive of this pathway. i thank the chair. >> thank you, senator burr. senator warren? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here, secretary king. the department of education recently released its latest civil rights data collection report, a survey of americans' public schools that looks at students' access to resources like advanced classes that prepare them for college. but when i review the data, i'm very concerned by what i see. low income students and students of color are disproportionately attending schools where they simply don't have access to the kinds of classes they need for our most competitive colleges and universities.

i just want to highlight one example out of the report. according to your data, the clear majority of mostly white high schools offer calculus, which a prerequisite for most colleges. only a third of mostly black and latino high schools offer calculus which means kids attending two-thirds of mostly black or latino high schools are at a serious disadvantage in preparing themselves for college. so, secretary king can you explain how the department's implementation of essa and your proposed regulations will help close these critical opportunity gaps for our students? >> yes. certainly our hope is that as states develop their accountability systems they will include indicators like advance course work. you're right about calculus. similar pattern is around

chemistry. states have the option to include that kind of indicator and then to act on it, we hope. we also think it's important states are transparent about equitable access to resource. we also think this goes to the heart of the supplement question to the extent that schools serving high need students can offer these courses it's bound up with a lack of resources and ensuring the federal resources are indeed supplemental is essential to making sure kids have equal access to these opportunities. >> thank you very much. i'm glad your proposed rules give us better data to shine light on these disparities but we need to use that data to make clear to states that short changing students based on where they live or their family incomes is just unacceptable and i hope you'll continue to deliver the message loud and clear as you move forward with the accountability provisions in essa. i want to turn to some other

troubling data recently out of the department. this time it's on the higher education side. new data from the department student loan bank show that despite the availability of many repayment options to help students, we're still facing an avalanche of student loan defaults. when a student defaults the bank hammers them, seizing wage, slamming their credit reports. it seems like life isn't so hard for the servicers who get paid to manage those loans. here's my question, secretary king. the department announced a new competition for these servicing contracts and i know, you are looking to clean up these deals. can you tell me what you're doing to make sure that the next round of negotiations creates some accountability for these companies so they actually help families who are struggling instead of just fattening their own bottom lines >> yeah. so we are developing a new

servicer contract and a new servicer structure that will involve a common platform with multiple servicers providing services through that platform. so borrowers will have a single entry point where they can get and submit information but then servicers will compete on performance. one of the key things that we've done in that servicer contract recompete we built in a set of principles that implement the president's student's bill of rights, student borrowers bill of rights. those principles were developed joiply with the treasury department and cfpb and we think represent what good servicing should look like. so this contract will proceed in several stages. first, identification of the platform provider and then identification of the servicers who will work on that platform. but we intend to ensure servicers do a good job supporting students. >> good. i'm very glad to hear this. let me just put a finer point on

this. what role should the company's political influence here in congress or their connections to officials inside the student loan bank play in the selection process for these servicers? >> none. >> good. thank you. you know, thee years ago the head of the student loan bank testified in this committee that it was basically impossible to hold one of the biggest servicers accountable for breaking the rules because they were more or less too big to fail and this has to stop. past performance matters. if the department grants another massive new contract to a company with a track record of harming students and members of the military, then -- or if the company is facing state ag and federal lawsuit investigations then i think that's a serious problem. i know that you want real reform and that means holding these student loan servicers accountable. i know that those companies have a lot of lobbyists right here on

capitol hill. but the families and students don't and they need you. >> absolutely. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you senator warren. senator isakson. >> thank you. thank you for calling in advance asking me what i was going to ask you. number one, i've been a big believer -- i'm married to a teacher, working with special education for years. have always had a quarrel of 1% cap because i believe the iep ought to be required for every student in american schools to determine the best educational plan both exceedingly good or exceedingly bad. with that said what are you doing to help ensure kids are identified in terms of their education and what are you doing to give us the flexible necessary to see that a kid can be assessed. >> this was one of the topics that was part of the negotiated

rulemaking and consensus was reached on the structure both for the requirements for the 1% cap and also the waiver process for the 1% cap. that consensus reflects the principle that we believe all students with the right supports and accommodations can ultimately succeed except there is an important need to pay attention to the needs of those with severe cognitive disabilities who may be unable to achieve at the same level. and so the negotiators tried to strike the right balance in both defining the cap and defining the requirements for the waiver. >> i want to yield in favor of the child every single time with a disability. we need to make sure they are getting the appropriate assessment. secondly, on what miss warren was asking a minute going aren't all student loans now direct loans from the government? >> there are student loans taken

through private lenders but within the direct loan program, we try to put in place repayment options that we think will help address some of the default problem that we have by allowing folks to cap the percentage of their income that goes to student loan repayment of 10%. >> service agents are agents for the government are they not. >> the servicers do work for us under contract, and unfortunately i think historically those contracts have not built in all the borrower protections they should have and we intend to ensure they do. >> that's our fault not the servicers fault am i correct >> at the end of the day the servicers also have responsibility to not try to read the contract to find loopholes to provide these than adequate service to students. rather than focus on where we've been we're focused on where we're going forward and showing contracts built in the right protections. >> point i want to get to is this. one of the biggest things we need to do in education is teach our kids how to be responsible

in managing their own money. student loans is a good way to do that. the more we to us the on teaching students to borrow what they can repay an repayment is an obligation not a promise. on the 95% threshold, you familiar with what i'm talking about >> yeah. >> we gave a lot of flexibility to systems and i gave a lot of flexibilities to let parents opt their child out of assessment. are you familiar with that >> yes. >> because of opt-out the system may fall below 95% is that correct >> both nclb and students have requirement that states would assess all students and as you know has a specific requirement for state action when participation falls below 95%. >> 95% is a goal and the state has the responsibility if the state doesn't meet that goal they execute a plan to get to that point. >> in our regulations we provide

a set of options for states including a state determined option for how they would address being under the 95% participation. ultimately getting to the, all student participation that's required by the statute. >> are you sure there are options or mandates. >> a set of options including a state determined option. >> because our intention, what secretary alexander said or chairman alexander tried to get us to do and we did a very good job it is setting goals but leaving the administration, the punishment, calculation and goals to achieve those are the mechanisms to achieve those goals to the states not the federal government. >> this is a place where there would be state options and states would describe which option they had chosen in their state plan that would be subject to peer review. >> the point is it's very important we carry out not only the letter of the law but the spirit of the law and the spirit of that law was to leave the determination of the local board of education or state wherever

possible to achieve and meet those goals. thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. secretary, you have no authority in the law to prescribe specific options. that's the job of the congress. and that's something we need to talk about as we go along. none whatsoever. just to be clear. none whatsoever. >> we describe options and then states choose. >> but you do not have the authority to require, to define what options states may choose. the state has the specific authority and flexibility under the law to do that. that's what the no child left behind kept doing. that's what the problem is with this rule. >> so just to be clear one of the options is the state defines exactly what they will do and then that is part of their state plan. so, just to be clear, although we describe options, if the state is determining their approach entirely. >> that's helpful. thank you. thank you for allowing me to clear that you want.

senator franken. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to talk about something that is of particular interest to me and i was very glad we were able to get and which is make being sure foster kids can stay in their school when they change foster parents. we had testimony, i think back in 2010 of a young lady name kayla from minnesota who ended up going to hamlin and had done very well, very impressive young lady. she had missed fourth grade entirely when she changed parents. and these kids, foster kids have 10, 11 parents, foster parents routinely and very often the only constant in their life is their school.

and so what has been going on is that kids who have a favorite subject, a session teacher, an in their school that's constant in their life, friends for goodness sake in school suddenly change foster parents and forced to go to a different school. and everyone agreed finally we got this done, and so basically the way we wrote it is that the school district and the public welfare agencies have to figure out how to pay for transportation. if the kid is moved outside the school district, to get to school -- so in your proposed regulation school districts are ultimately responsible for providing and funding transportation for foster kids to their school of origin.

since it's the comment period on that regulation, i would like to comment, and i rather you go with your guidance because your guidance does not specific who is ultimately responsible. i would like the school and welfare agencies in the state to be working together on this. i want to eliminate any kind of barrier to this happening. this makes such a difference to these kids. and these kids deserve to stay in their schools. so that's my comment. >> appreciate that. we share that commitment around educational stability for foster youth because kids are moving between schools. that's often the reason why kids miss school. do not make academic progress they need. retain in grade and dropout. we say the child welfare agencies and school districts should be working together and we offer examples of best

practice around the country, including best practice around dispute resolution when the child welfare agency and lea have different perspectives. it's true in the regulations we try to offer a path for how those disputes would ultimately be resolved around transportation costs. yes we're taking comment and consider all comment including yours. >> thank you for including my comment. i'm a senator. my goodness. i think all of you should be insulted. okay. >> i want to talk about something else that i worked for to get in this bill. given that one in five youth between the ages of 13 to 18 have or will have a serious mental illness, i firmly believe that mental health is one of our country's most pressing unmet needs. i'm proud of the work we've been able to accomplish on mental health but we have a long way to

go. we include provisions to increase mental health services in schools. that's why i was very disappoin that the spending bill that passed out of the senate committee did not provide adequate funding for student support and academic enrichment grants which includes my mental health provisions and other critical programs that americans really care about. that is really something that parents care about and the schools care about and i'm hopeful that we can increase the funding once this bill comes to the floor. my question is what can the department of education do to support school districts that are trying to expand mental health services at the local level because i've seen this work in school -- in school

districts that do this. i've had roundtables with parents who say it has changed their family, it has changed their kid's life it has changed them. >> we share your disappointment with the proposed funding level for title 4. the president proposed a significant increase. $222 million in addition to title 4 because we would like to see more access to mental health services among other elements that are addressed in title 4. we issued joint guidance earlier this year with health and human services to help guide schools and districts on how to take advantage of the affordable care act, to support school based mental health services. we think there are existing dollars used to support school based mental health services and we offered examples of best practices in the joint efforts. and our supporting efforts to

meet community based health providers to get the mental health services to kids and family. often mental health issues in the family have an impact on the family as well. we share your commitment and would love to see the title 4 funding higher. >> thank you, thank you mr. chairman and i hope my colleagues share this commitment to mental health in schools so that we can maybe get a little bit more funding for that. >> thank you senator franken, senator roberts? >> thank you, mr. chairman, as the distinguished chairman of the committee has said many times, the bill we passed last year to reauthorize essa restores responsibility to states by providing increased flexibility to implement the education programs. the keyword here is local. i'm very proud it includes my language to permanently end the federal government's ability to

use any coercion to force states to adopt common core, that want common core, fine, if they don't, that is the intent. in fact, just to be absolutely clear, here is what my language says, no officer, employee of the federal government including the secretary shall attempt to influence, condition insent vice or coerce state adoption of the common core state standards or any other academic standards to a significant number of states or assessments tied to such standards. here is the problem. a high ranking education leader in kansas pointed out to me, and the point he wants to be anonymous is telling. it is not in our opinion that the new essa law balsed on the current version of proposed regulations is giving states flexibility around developing a

rigorous and accountable model. it appears that once again, he said, we can only build something as long as it meets a strict federal requirement. now that certainly sounds like, to me, at least, that the department of education is not following the spirit and intent of the every student succeeds act. as everyone is aware, essa has countle countless prohibitions saying the government is mandated from coercion supervision that adopt common core state standards. the administration is prohibited from influencing incentivizing or coercing states or school districts to adopt any specific academic standards. now, mr. secretary, i would like specifically like to bring your attention to section 1005 b of the act which states that states

shall provide an assurance, assurance, assurance, that the state has adopted challenging academic content standards. i repeat that. a state shall only provide an assurance that they have adopted academic standards. now, turning to proposed regulations 29916 which addressed the state plan requirements for challenging academic standards and academic assessments, this section would require each state education agency to provide evidence, evidence demonstrating that it is adopting changing academic standards and aligned academic achievement standards. my question, what is the evidence for? who is the judge? where is it going? what federal involvement or requirement has now been reinstated regarding academic standards? this to me is an example of the department of education trying

to influence state academic standards once again and it is also contrary to your commitment to me with respect to the intent as well as the explicit probations during your nomination hearing. in my view there is a big difference between providing an assurance and providing evidence. this proposed regulation evicerates the intent of congress and essa. would you please explain what i think is a blatant violation of prohibitions and the essa statute that says the state need only to provide an assurance that they have adopted academic standards. not evidence. to somebody within the dusty common core halls of the department of education. >> so, let me say this clearly as possible, that standards are

determined by states. the law is clear on that point. we are clear on that point. i've been clear on that point as you said in our prior conversations. the law also requires a process for ensuring that states have an assessment system that has been through peer review and that is fair to students and reliable. as part of that process, states provide evidence to peer reviewers, other states, and experts on assessment who participate in process to ensure that the state has gone through a rigorous and reliable process of matching their standards to the assessments and as part of that process, that peer review process, which is under way -- >> who are the folks again? we're doing a two step here, not a one step. >> this is unrelated to the content of the standard. >> we don't just check the box and say we're assuring you we're doing that with regards to the standards that are probably in writing, so that they can understand what they are, but

you're saying that there is a secondary step that they're going through with a whole bunch of folks who then have to say okay, we're providing evidence. i don't know what that evidence is. i don't know what it means. is this a lot of paperwork, a rigorous test, what is it? >> this is the long standing peer review process required under nclb is still in place under essa. peer review to assure at acceptancement system in the state develops is a valid one and as parth of that process, the peer reviewers. >> who are the peer reviewers. >> other states and experts on assessment. who would participate in the peer review process. >> the big 12 or what -- what are we doing here? >> this would be folks who work in other states and who have worked on assessment systems across states who try to ensure that the assessments are fair and reflect the law consistent with the law so what states are doing is providing evidence of a process by which they have aligned their assessments --

>> but we shed assurance. we didn't say this is two different things and now you have a peer review folks, perhaps they're helpful but again, they could just check the box with assurance as opposed to providing evidence to i don't know how many peer review groups you're talking about but it seems like we have to have further discussion. i appreciate your response. >> look, we're open to feed back on how we can make absolutely clear in the regulations that standards are set by states. that is clearly a shared commitment. >> i think there is a peer review for my distinguished colleague from massachusetts and kansas, perhaps that would not be received with open arms and probably from kansas to massachusetts would be the same thing. i apologize. thank you senator roberts. senator bennet. >> thank you very much for holding this hearing, mr.

secretary it is great to see you again. thank you for your leadership, we in colorado last week, a bunch of folks came together and had an essa summit there. there is a lot of excitement about the possibility of now being out from under no child left behind. we're having conversations about how we used that flexibility at the same time, make sure we have the rigger that is needed and i know you, yourself, were a former principal of a school. i wonder whether you can talk about what the department is doing to ensure that the voices and the knowledge of the people that are working in our schools, our teachers and our principals are being involved in essa implementation around the country. >> that is a priority for us and the priority that we have communicated to states around their process. we have held over 200 meetings around the country with educators, with parents, with community leaders as we've worked to develop regulations and guidance and received over 700 comments from individuals and organizations -- comments from over 700 individuals and organizations. at the state level, we put out a

letter that week to states laying out regulations and i think lots of states are doing a good job on this. we wonder some aren't, some haven't worked with their districts to make sure that teachers and principals for example can get release time, so that they can participate in this process. some states have been slower than others to engage tribal leaders and civil rights organizations. we've been encouraging folks around the council of chief state school officers, put out a guide that they developed with a number of organizations including civil rights organizations and we've made clear on the regulations stake holder engagement throughout the process is required. >> one of the things that is certainly true of the change in the laws that we have devolved the responsibility for implementation back to the states in a fairly significant way. how do you expect overtime we're going to be able to identify those places where they really

are setting a rigorous standard for kids in demanding that standard for kids in places where it is a less rigorous standard and what do you expect the conversation to be like? >> yeah, i think there are a number of protections around that. one one is the peer review process that i was just talking with senator roberts about. the other is the transparency requirements that i think will help us understand where subgroups are not performing and we'll be able to see our states making progress there. one of the things that the department is going to need to be vigilant about is the law provides flexibility for states on how to intervene in schools struggling or schools with low graduation rates or struggling subgroups. we have to make sure those inth conventions actually translate into progress and that states respond when that progress isn't made. >> can you talk about also, it has been said up here that this law is a civil rights law.

i don't think there is any other reason for the federal government to be involved in education other than that. the k-12 level. can you talk about what you're doing, the department is doing to ensure that as we go forward, that spirit is maintained and the commitment to equity, that i think everybody up here shares to one degree or the other is also maintained. >> we try throughout the accountability regulations to preserve the important civil rights guard rails making clear that states need to provide data for all subgroups on not just at the level but each of the accountability indicators that they put in place. states need to have a clear process in place for identifying schools that are -- that have consistently under performing subgroups and have intervention to improve subgroup performance. that there is clear data desegregation under equitabale

access. this work will require continued vig lensilance to make sure we let kids fall through the cracks. >> my time is almost up. i want to get in one last question. there are no more federal models or escalating consequences as they were in no child left behind. that is now left to the states and local districts to figure out, to research and design these -- and i just wonder whether you've thought through that about how people can -- are going to have the research they need to be able to implement targeted school improvement strategies in this new world. >> it is very important that folks do that informed by evidence about what works and certainly in efforts like the education innovation and research fund. the work of ies will work to provide the evidence base. we try in the regulations to talk about how states can, as

they move progressively forward and more intense interventions, if schools aren't making progress, that they need to rely on stronger evidence of effectiveness as they move through those levels of intervention, because we do have some good evidence around interventions that work. we know that in schools with struggling english learningers, professional development working with english lernearn learners, have a duel education base. >> thank you mr. secretary thank you mr. chairman. >> senator colins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, as i listen to the debate at this hearing today, i am reminded of a provision that i wrote that was included in the dodd frank act that was known appearance the collins amendment. i had a long standing battle with federal regulators on the

implementation of that amendment and finally, the banking committee actually held a hearing on what was the intent of the collins amendment. needless to say, i was the lead off witness and i started off by pointing out that i was collins, i am collins, i'm still around, and i know what my intent is, and i would say to you, mr. secretary, hearing the debate today, that senator alexander and senator murray who are the authors of this rewrite of the elementary and secondary education act are still here, they know what their intent is, they were careful in drafting the bill, and that is why there is this frustration that many of us are feeling. i want to talk about the reporting requirements that are

included in your proposed regulations. now, i think all of us can agree that transparency is essential but reporting requirements should not be so onerous that small schools have difficulty in complying unless they are specifically authorized by the every student succeeded act. we want to make sure that the reporting requirements give parents and communities the information about their state accountability systems, but the proposed regulations establish many more reporting requirements than required by the law. they include, among other things, how states calculate and report data on the report cards. additional data for charter school students, and procedures for calculating reporting

district and school expenditures, can you, two questions, can you point to specific authority in essa that you believe allows the department to propose the additional reporting requirements which appear to me to be contrary to the intent of the law and second, how does the department square these additional reporting requirements with the mandate in the law that report cards be concise, understandable, and accessible? >> we believe the reporting requirements in the draft regulations are consistent with the statute. we certainly are open to feed back on the reporting requirements as we are to the entire regulation. we look forward to feed back from stake holders. there are places in the statute where in order to fulfill the requirement of the statute, additional data will be

necessary for states, but again, we're open to feed back on the proposed regulations and if there are places where folks think that there is already, for example, an existing data report that addresses something, we're open to consolidating those, so this is a place where we look forward to stake holder feed back. >> well, to me, it is obvious in the law what is required, so i hope you'll take a look. i want to second the comments made by the chairman about the sumative rating for three rating categories for each school. the act requires that states evaluate their schools on academic and nonacademic factors but it does not require that each school be given a single rating. so here we go. we seem to be going in the

proposed regulations, away from the new, ino aggravative educational approaches in favor of maintaining the status quo and the inflexible requirements of no child left behind that were discouraging to teachers, to parents, to administrators and students alike. how does a sumative rating which essentially reduces the school to a single number or letter grade support the goal of state flexibility which was a fundamental premise of the rewrite of this law? >> yeah, just to be clear, the summative reading in the regulation does not require the use of a letter grade. state could use those but the state could also use cat governor call system consist

catagorical system consistent with the statute. they have to be evaluated for comprehensive support, for targeted support and schools in neither of the categories. . that is consistent with the summative rating approach. to identify the bottom five % of schools that will get the comprehensive support, states will need to have a methodology to identify those schools that will require relative comparison of school performance. exactly what is intended by the summative rating language. so we think that the rating is consistent with the statute. >> i would beg to differ, but my time has expired. >> thank you, senator collins. senator casey? >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, thanks for being here today and for your testimony. we all want to make sure that

we're making the right investments and the right decisions with regard to children, i've often said if kids learn more now, they'll earn more later. it is not just a rhyme, it is literally the truth. we know that. that starts certainly with great teachers at core of that process of learning more so they can earn more later. we want to ask you two basic questions about teachers, just first on the question of professional development, we know that in essa, part of my legislation's so called best act was included to make sure that states and districts, school districts implement evidence based activities to strengthen the teaching profession and keep great teachers in the classroom. could you describe the work that your department is doing to support districts in providing effective professional development and then i have a second question about teachers.

>> yeah, we certainly believe professional development can be key to improving academic outcomes and improving teacher's ability to serve particularly at risk populations of students, english learners. students with disabilities. we plan to issue guidance on title 2 with some examples of best practice around the use of title $2. we also are supporting states as they implement the equity plans around equitable access to effective teaching. many of those ekity plans rely heavily on professional development. we have programs that are part of the education innovation and research or i3 program and as those evaluations come back, we'll have even a broader evidence base around effective professional and development strategies that states and districts will be able to access. >> i appreciate that, because we

can't seek to have great teachers in classrooms if we don't have great professional development. i want to ask you as well, it is an issue that i think senator bennett raised earlier and i want to expand upon a little bit. this question of engagement by stake holders which is always the intent that we have educators, teachers and other education professionals, parents, and community leaders involved, and i know there has been a fairly robust and significant engagement, but i wanted to -- i wanted you to give us a sense of how do you measure that, how do you demonstrate that there has been that kind of engagement. i know you've sent a letter to state leaders highlighting the importance of that kind of engagement. i know and i would applaud what senator murray and representative scott have done with raising this issue but i wanted to get your sense of kind

of where we are with engaging all of those critically important stake holders. >> yeah, there are nouencouragi signs. they issued a guide to stake holder engagement pointing out best practices and they did that in part 234er ship with 30 organizations, civil rights organizations, educator organizations. i think that was an important step and resource for states. as i've talked with state chiefs, i've heard about efforts to do statewide tours to hold public hearings, the effort to reach out to tribal leaders and civil rights organizations, parent groups, particularly parents of groups that have been historically under served, there is a range. one reason we issued the dear colleague letter is because some states they've been slower, some they've had a challenge around teachers and principals in particular getting the time that they need, the release time from the districts to participate in

these activities. we wanted to try to encourage states to be very active in getting their districts to make sure that educators can participate fully. we respecalso set out a require for frequent, consistent engagement of stake holders. we think the success of the law is partly bound up with how effectively states mobilize a diverse cross section of stake holders in this work. >> we appreciate that. we want to hear all of those voices, especially the voices of educators. i'll submit for the record a question on the work on suspensions and expulsions, trying to reduce the use of that -- those practices, so we'll submit that in writing. thanks very much. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator casey, senator milkowski.

>> i wanted to follow up on a question on the measures of progress, the amp assessment. we were compelled to cancel the statewi statewide. we had unexplained and unfixed technical problems that prevented students from able to complete the amp. a lot of frustration as i mentioned to you. you receive allied a letter last week that outlines, that federal law requires assessments to provide valid, reliable data that informs instruction and it has to be of adequate technical quality and consistent with national recognized testing standards. the state department of education requested a waiver from the requirement to assess during the 15-16 school year. the question to you is will you approve the state's waiver?

>> as you know, we've been in close communication with leadership in alaska. i think we're waiting the submission of some materials describing some of what took place as part of their waiver application, we will certainly review those when they come in. >> how much time do you figure you'll need to make this determination? because this is -- i mean, this is obviously very, very important to the state of alaska. >> in the past, in these situations it has been a matter of weeks that we've needed to review the material submitted by the state, including the state's plan to make sure that they have a system in place. >> you've had it for some time now, but you're saying that you're requiring additional information from the state? >> there is information that we can follow up on the details. there is information we're awaiting from the state on the events that occurred and also the plans to ensure that next year, they'll be able to implement assessments consistent with the law. >> and i think we've had the conversation, it is not as if they want to avoid assessment,

but again, when you have -- when you have things totally beyond your control, when kansas basically goes dark, if you will, and you cannot complete the testing, it really is a situation that calls out for review and for waiver, so we would ask you to move on that very quickly. now, you have indicated that you are waiting for some information from the state. i am still waiting for some information from your offices. when you were before the committee in april, you committed to make sure that my office was looped in as the department and the state worked through the assessment vendor. i'm told that we're still waiting for answers to some 13 different questions that we sent to you, so can you commit to me that you will get these questions answered to me by the end of the week here? can you look into that. >> i can look into it. i don't know if some of the answers to your questions are

tied to the materials that we're awaiting but i can follow up on that. >> i appreciate it. and then i would ask you about a proposal. this is the diversity proposal, or diversity priority, excuse me, that you have proposed to add for all of the departments k-12 and post secondary competitive grants. this priority would require all applicants to seek to increase schools racial and socio economic diversity and i understand schools and campuses can satisfy the requirement by investigating the barriers to diversity, changing school assignment policies, creating or expanding school choice or changing how funds are allocated to schools. so i think we all would recognize that increasing diversity in the schools is a worthy goal, i also understand the concerns about outcomes of students that are enrolled in some of the nation's very high,

high poverty schools, but we've got, we've got a different situation in alaska and i hope that you recognize it. we have some very, very isolated regions in the state. these are regions that are bigger than most other states, poverty is high, the population and in most of these is almost entirely alaska native. there is no roads, 80 perls of the -- 80% of the communities in alaska are not accessible by road. often times it is very dangerous to transit in the winter. we know the barriers, we know the barriers very well. many of the schools are barely able to sustain a k-12 school so school choice is not an issue here and allocating funds is not going to change the facts on the ground. it is still a very small school, very isolated geographically islanded, so the proposal, as we look at it, couessentially prev

many rural school districts and campuses from qualifying for any competitive grants from the department and of course, these are just exactly the grants designed to help the schools serve the schools better, so i would ask, if you would look at this proposal and either redraft it so that schools in places like alaska that are so remote and are so unique are either exempt from this proposal or rescinded all together. but i think it is an issue where we can't change the facts on the ground or move the village into a place where it is on a road system. what do i do? >> that is understood. this priority would be one that would not be automatically applied to all grant programs, the inclusion -- >> then wouldn't we be left out of a funding opportunity? >> so as we develop grant

programs, this is one of the considerations that we would have, whether it is feasible for all of the grant applicants to pursue this particular priority. many of our grants, as you know, have priorities around serving rural schools and rural communities. we would certainly take into account issues of geographic isolation as we assemble a grant application. >> okay. i've raised it to you and i would ask for your due consideration, either that alaska be exempt or other states similarly situated or again redrafting, but if you could look at that, i would appreciate that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you senator murkowski. >> thank you secretary king. two topics from me, one, we're working as you know there, was a middle school's element in the essa. we understand you don't propose any regulations in that area. we're working with the middle school groups to try to get a

consolidated view that we can work with you on for guidance, a letter of guidance with respect to the middle school requirements. so that is a preview of coming attractions and i won't hold you to any of that until we've done our homework with the middle school groups. the second issue has to do with the provision of the bill related to innovation schools. as you know, if you are a very, very big fancy foundation with a lot of money and you have an innovation idea, you have a very strong capacity to push that idea into and through the multiple layers education bureaucra bureaucracy. the concern that led to the innovation element in the bill was if you're a school and you want to ino aggravanovate in a way and you don't have a group that adopted you, you want to do

what you think is best for the kids, you look out at multiple layers of forest, you look out first at the layer of forest of the municipal education over sight and then if you can get through that, then there is the second layer of the state education over sight apparatus and how will i be able to get through that and if you can get through both of those there, is the third problem of what do you do with the federal education over siegth apparatus. -- over sight apparatus. my concern is unless there was a path illuminated through the forests, we lost an enormous amount of innovation from journeys that were never begun. at the very get go, they took a look at the multiple layered bureau accuratic forest in front of them and said you know what? not worth our effort. i have no idea how this could possibly turn out in our favor.

so to me, at least, and to the groups that worked with me on this, to be able to move innovation out of just big, like, intellectual centers of foundation and and so forth and have it happen in schools is a really important thing. i wasn't in the conference so i can't vouch for the -- what happened to this in conference, you and i have talked about what i've been told about who was the adversary of the provision in conference, but i would very much like to hear from you now as you look at the innovations schools piece what the intentions how seriously you think you take this, and whether you think there actually is a role for innovation at the school developed level rather than waiting around for big foundations to be the champions. >> i have nothing against the big foundations. i just think they're not the

only one. >> i share your commitment on middle schools, i was a middle school principal, now i'm a middle school parent, i think middle schools have a crucial role to play in students long-term success. i look forward to working together on that. on the innovations schools, i think the way that essa and the regulations work together creates significantly more space for school based innovation and we've been careful to think about that as we've been drafting the innovations. eliminating the one size fits all school intervention approach of no child left behind creates a lot of new space for states and districts to innovate in those schools that need to improve their performance. >> that obviously only applies to schools that have fallen into the pit and need to try to extricate themselves. for a school doing well and wants to do something innovative. unless you can tell me something else, you need a path like the innovation schools pathway.

they have no way of knowing nor do they have the administrative resources to attempt how they would get through that multiple set of bureaucratic obstacles and approvals in front of them. >> the way we've approached the regulations creates quite a bit of space in terms of the federal role. there is no obstacle in the regulations to states creating a similar path through some of the existing state constraints. but certainly happy to continue to talk about ways that we can encourage that. >> the principal of this is that if -- there can be a process of alignment where the municipality, the federal government agrees that it will step out and let innovation happen if the state and the municipality have all done the same thing and if certain requirements have been met at the school level from the get go that show that this is a

community supported stake holder supported, teacher supported, you know, well developed effort. to say that we're not going to stop the state government from doing it is a little bit different from saying we will accept that there should be a path that is lit for schools that want to do this so they can know if they follow this path, can get to a result rather than just, like i said, a lot of the journeys were never begun and who knows what the price was for the children from the journeys never begun. >> i think that is right. this is the spirit behind our teach to lead work where we've worked all over the country to bring together teacher leaders to develop innovative projects. certainly as we think about the guidance we will put out around title 2, we'll highlight the kinds of flexibility at the state and local level that helped the probljects to thrive.

certainly looking forward to ways we can further encourage the local space for innovation it is a shared commitment. >> thank you whitehouse. senator murray, do you have any concluding remarks? >> thank you, mr. chairman, i just want to comment on the so called summative reading. i know there has been discussion about that, under our bill, states are required to develop accountability systems that hold schools accountable using multiple measures to judge school performance. the states are required to do that, because we wanted to make sure that we have better information to help states determine which schools are high performing and which ones need support and to provide that information to parents as well, the bill also requires states to identify their lowest performing five % of schools, high schools with graduation rates, at or below 67% and schools with consistently under performing subgroups so i did want to just

clarify that. i appreciate your response to that. i think we want to make sure this bill works, we want to make sure parents have information, schools have information, and the resources flow in the direction that we need them to go to. i appreciate your response. >> thanks. >> thank you, senator murray. i would like to put in the record a letter from the network for public education. deer senator alexander, when every school succeeds act, our organization gave it qualified support. we would have appreciated the mandated testing. we believe parents, citizens and teachers would have a greater voice in the creation of their state school accountability system. we're deeply disappointed in the proposed regulations put forth by secretary king. it is apparent he is seeking through regulation to maintain federal control of state accountability systems despite the clear intent of the law, we believe he is attempting to

rewrite the law and extend federal over reach in some cases that was under no child left behind. we'll include this in the record with specific items. mr. secretary, i thank you will for coming and listening, i think that if i understood you correctly about the timeline that senator murray mentioned, that i mentioned, that states can expect to have more flexibility in terms of a transition year than a year of implementation and then a year of identifying schools and the regulation would appear to offer and if this is the case, i hope you'll make that clear to states soon. i think if you do that, that will be seen as a welcome demonstration of flexibility and the fact that you're actually listening to the feed back that you're getting in comments on the regulation. would you expect that before long you would make that clear? >> well, again -- >> or is that what you just did? >> i think i have but the key

question that i hope states will comment on is in the schools that they are providing additional support in 17-18, how they will identify those schools. will it be carrying over the schools from 16-17, will that be schools that are newly identified using the existing system? or schools that are identified using the new indicators if they are available. this is a place where we've made clear to state chiefs and to others that we're eager for folks feed back and look forward to responding to that comment in the final regulation. >> and one other, just general thought, and let me use common core as an example as senator roberts is talking. sometimes when i say we repeal the common core mandate, some people said to me, there really wasn't a common core mandate and the answer to that is well, there really was in effect because while you didn't say every state has to adopt common core, you said, the secretary said at the time, in order to get a waiver from the

requirements of no child left behind, you've got to adopt challenging standards that are common to a significant number of states or get your state university system to do it and in effect, about the only way to meet that requirement was to adopt common core and that is what 30 out of the 42 states who got their waivers did. so i would caution you against any attempt in the regulation to do as senator roberts was doing, a two step. you said very clearly, just as the law says, state sets their own academic standards, but if the regulation makes it look like, that you could reject the evidence and by rejecting the evidence, reject the standard, well, then, that goes around the door. do you envision that, that you would say to kansas that you may

set your standard but we don't like the evidence you use to set it so we reject the standard. >> no, what we're trying to do in the regulations is describe the long standing peer review process around states review process around states having high quality assessments that align with their standards. if there's a lack of clarity, we want to emphasize that and we're open to adding language that makes it even more clear. >> i would appreciate that. one place to look might be to look at the word demonstrate as opposed to the word assure. that word was carefully chosen. demonstrate means prove it to us that you did it. those are different words. so i appreciate you response. i think that's a constructive response. i think this has been a good hearing and i appreciate you coming. this is the fourth hearing we've had on the implementation of this act and i'll conclude it the way i started. we want this act to succeed,

we'd like for you to succeed. and we would like for the teachers and the school board members and the parents around the country to have the same feeling about this law at the end of last year that they did at the end of last year, which was one they were placed to see that senator murray and others, as well as the republicans on the committee came to a consensus, resolved our differences, created a period of stability and restored more responsibility to the people closest to the children. and if we could end the year with that same sort of feeling, why you u will have done a really good job, so will the president and so will we and we can step back and let the teachers and the school boards and the states have this new era of invasion. the hearing record will remain open for ten business days. members may submit additional information and questions to our witnesses for the record within that time if they would like. that would be you. thank you for being here today. the committee will stand adjourned.

c-span's washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up thursday morning, michelle egan, a fellow for the wilson center and international service professor at american university will join us to

discuss the diplomatic fallout from britain's vote last week to leave the european union. and the reporter for national journal will be on talking about legislative efforts to repeal and replace the affordable care act, including the republican's alternative bill. and rachel bay will discuss the findings in the report issued by republican on the select committee on benghazi. that committee investigated the september 11th, 2012 attack on the u.s. consulate. we will also talk about the committee democrats dissents report and the responses by the white house and former secretary of state hillary clinton and her presidential campaign. be sure to watch beginning live at 7:00 eastern on thursday morning. join the discussion. the transprask partnership is a trade agreement that was reached last year between the u.s. and 11 other pacific rim nations. thursday u.s. trade

representative michael froman makes the case for the agreement at an event. life at 9:00 a.m. eastern here at c-span3. homeland security secretary jeh johnson testifies at an oversight hearing on thursday. we'll ahere before the committee 0 on his agency's counter terrorism efforts and the recent attack in orlando. life coverage on c-span 2. on july 1st, 1976 the smithsonian's national air and space museum opened its doors to the public. friday marks the 40th anniversary of the museum and american history east coverage starts at 6:00 om. we'll see the spirit of st. louis, plus live events at the

front of the build. learn mer more about the museum as we talk with its director, the museum cure yart and valley neal. the 40th anniversary of the smithsonian air and space museum live friday evening beginning at 6:00 p.m. on c-span3's american history tof. now a discussion on u.s. trade spolcy and the impact of the transpacific partnership agreement. u.s. trade representative michael froman spoke at the bretton woods committee annual meeting, a gathering on stability. this portion of the event is two hours. >> it's a great pleasure to have

ambassador mike froman with us here today. he is one of the key players in the world on international trade and he has a lot of things going, tpp and asia, trying to get approval for that. also ttip in europe and the fact he has an eu negotiator coming here tomorrow to talk with him. not to speak of trying to work on an investment treaty with china. mike has done a great job, as i said, in his present role but he also was in the white house the first obama term working on international economic affairs, advising the president. i had a good chance to work with him both on the fta, the korean free trade agreement as well as negotiations with brazil. and so we're very fortunate that

he's with us here today. so mike, would you please come up and then we'll have some questions yards. afterwards. [ applause ] >> thanks very much, bill. and it's an honor to be here to talk about the importance of u.s. leadership at this distinguished group. i think the title for this previous session of multilateral cooperation in a turbulent world seems to be particularly timely at the moment. in many parts of the global economy, growth is uneven and weak. in china progress on reform seems uncertain. russia and brazil face head winds. and in europe, the lingering effects of the financial crisis and now the vote by the british people to leave the european union, these are turbulent times indeed. one of the greatest concerns that we have is that in the last

couple of years global trade has slowed, rather than driving growth trade is groig at a lower pace than the economy. if full employment is to be achieved in a peaceful world with standards of living. those are not my words. those are the words of henry morgan at the bretton woods conference but they continue to resonate today. here at home we've been growing for the longest uninterrupted period in recorded history and we're doing so at the high end of the spectrum among industrialized economies. over the last six years we've added 14 million new jobs and cut unemployment from 10% to under 5%. plfring output at an all-time high and our sixth consecutive year of net manufacturing job growth, the longest uninterrupted streak since the 1960s, adding 650,000 manufacturing jobs to the u.s.

economy. and wages have finally begun to tick up, 2.5% last year. they seem to be on the same track this year. again, too little, too slowly but at least it's a positive trend. still there's a great deal of anxiety out there. evidence in the current election dynamic in the united states, not the mention much of the developed world. and some of that is certainly rooted in economics. between the changing composition of jobs in the united states, 15 years of wage stagnation and rising income and equality, there's a concern that the system may be working for a few but not the many. that the game is rigged. and that other countries don't follow the same rules we do but instead act unfairly. that the economic recovery of the last six or seven years hasn't found its way to many americans. it's important that we not ignore these concerns. they're real and legitimate and the question is what do we do about them. most economists tell you that

automation has more to do with the changing workforce than globalization but certainly both contribute. the problem is that we don't get to vote on automation. nobody votes on the next generation of computers, nobody votes on when the next generation of of robots should be deployed. nor do we get to vote on globalization. it's a process made possible by shipping, the spread of broad band, the opening of economies that have been closed to the rest of the world and are now integrated. global sly zags is a force that you can't wish away or put the genie back in the bottle. what we get to vote on are trade agreements. they become the vessel on which people poor their anxieties. they become the magnets of concern for a much broader and largely unrelated set of factors. but trade agreements aren't the cause of the problems i've

alluded to. they can be part of the solution to them, along with other sound economic, and domestic policies, such as investment in infrastructure, education and training. trade agreements allow us to shape globalization to our advantage. they're the vehicle which reflect our interests and our values. we start from the fact that the u.s. already has one of the most open economies in the world. in large part because decisions made decades ago and supported by 12 president sets, six of whom happen to be democrats and six of whom happen to be republicans. the average apply tariff is less than 1.5% and we don't use regulations as a disguised barrier for trade. but abroad we see markets that are shaded by tariffs. with the transpacific partnership we remove the barriers, raise standards and as a result increase our export

related jobs which pay 18% more on arch. right now we compete with low wage countries all over the world and the question is what are we going to do about it. tpp will open up some of the largest and fastest growing economies to our agricultural products and service exports. it will for the first time take a comprehensive approach to imposing disciplines on state owned interprices so when they compete against our private firms -- [ no audio ].

>> the principles of open market share responsibility and shared benefits. and the rules based system put in place then allowed japan and the countries throughout europe to rebuild themselves after the war, allowed developing countries like south korea and brazil, and it helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. adds successful as it's been with we kpt take that system for granted. we cannot be complacent about it or expect it to endure if we turn inward because there are alternatives being promoted. alternatives that are more statist in nature. our perspective, it's very important that we maintain and strengthen the rules based system where all countries are expected to play by the same set of rules. and if they don't, where there's fair and equitable distribution

in disputes. it's key to ensuring that the global economy is working for our workers, farmers, wanchers and businesses. and it's critically important that we're not just sitting on the sidelines but shaping the global economy in a way that reflects our interests and values. if the united states were to turn inward, the result would be devastati devastating. protectionism didn't work. raising tariffs on our trading partners would leave those country to respond in kind and block our exports. that is a trade war and no one wins a trade war. turning to protectionism would not increase employment, it would reduce it. it wouldn't boost economic growth. and we know this from experience. in 1930 congress passed and

president herbert hoover signed the tariff act which essentially walled out the united states from imports. the thinking was that would lead to a resurgence of manufacture egg and employment in the united states. we had the great depression. the high tariffs worsened the great depression, and led to the rise of nationalism in europe. the economics stakes of isolationism are clear but so are the strategic stakes. we jekting the tpp would undermined the leadership. our allies around the world couldn't help be question if we have the wherewithal to make good. if you're not prepared to deal when it comes to cars and services and agriculture, can we depend on you when it comes to security and military arrangements. the good news is that as i meet

with members of congress, they're benefitting. the costs of delay are high. we see our market share and priority products eroded by other countries. the peterson institute estimated that a one-year delay of putting tpp in place would impose a $194 billion dollars cost. that equates to a $700 tax on every american household. if we don't get it done soon the other countries aren't going to sit around and wait for us. as new zealand's president put it, these economies are not going to sit still. beijing will step in to fill the void. not surprisingly, it doesn't raise labor and environmental standards, doesn't impose disciplines. it doesn't require to free flow of data across the borders and it doesn't strengthen

intellectual property rights protections. i always ask opponents of tpp a simple question, do they think we're better off living in a world where those are the rules of the road. the choice isn't between tpp and the status quo. it's between tpp and what's likely to evolve in the absence of tpp and that cannot be in the interest of american workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses thar than moving ahead with tpp. pierre, the minister who represented france at bretten wood said to govern is to choose. today we can write the rules of the road for 40% of the global economy or leave that job to others who values and interests don't necessarily align with ours. we can mo forward or walk away and be remembered as the generation that inflicted a crippling wound. china is executing on its

strategy, the one belt one road initiative, the asia infrastructure and other regional initiatives. we are one vote away from cementing our leadership in the asia pacific region or seating that role to others. it's that simple. and that doesn't strike me as being a difficult choice. before i stop i would like to say a few words about the aftermath of the vote in the eu. our relationship with the uk will remain special and the relationship with the eu will remain strong and denduring, we're eval wauatinevaluating. we've made a lot of progress on the agreement during the last eight months and our goal remains to continue working with e ux to have a high standard agreement this year. to do so we're going to have a creative pragmatic approach to

resolving the outside issues, not ideology. the europeans have a lot on their plate, the brexit vote, the migrant crisis and other difficult issues and we sympathize with them and hope that they can summon the needed focus and political will to get this done. indeed, there's more at stake now than ever before given the questions being raised about the nature and future of the european union. can the eu deliver for its people. can it take the bold actions necessary to promote the kinds of growth in jobs clearly being demanded across europe and create the future opportunities its young people in particular need to thrive. will the eu be able to play a leadership role in defending the open rules based system raising the standards for the global economy. it's very much in the interest of the united states that we have the strongest possible europe as a partner, capable of working together with us to pursue our shared interests and

values. that's true in the economic arena and equally true across a range of strategic matters. turbulence is often unavoidable. the question is how to manage it. there's a great deal of stake in this answer to that question. over the years there's been no more important voice for the responsible management of turbulence than the brettonwood committee and i look forward to working with you through this important period. thanks very much. [ applause ] >> thank you, mike, for making, as always, a very positive case for the transpacific partnership as well

. i have a few questions for you before i turn it over to the audience. is there's confusion to some of the statements that president obama made when he was obviously trying to help prime minister cameron to get the main option adopted by the british people and she talked about being at the -- uk being at the end of the line with the discussions with the ex-u. he was very positive on the special relationship with the eu. do you see it as a possibility that you could be negotiating with both the eu as well as the uk at the same time or does one need to come before the other or this is something that has to be worked out based on what happens over the coming weeks and months? >> i think you probably answered the question yourself. our focus is on negotiating these platform agreements, tpp and ttip. both are open to parties able

and willing to meet the standards. that's where our focus is. obviously there's a lot to be worked out between the uk and the eu in the coming weeks and month to determine how they're going to interact with their respective trading partners. >> i think moving on to asia and the transpacific partnership, so many progress has been made by you and your equivalents in asia over the last years, months. one of the problems that a lot of people see -- i was in a meeting recently with some of the chief trade people both under president clinton and president bush. and when they see the statements of the major candidates, hillary clinton, who at one point i sat next to her when she made a comment a few years ago that this was sort of the golden, let's say, possibility for a trade agreement tpp. but she has come out against it.

bernie sanders very much and obviously donald trump. and so how do you see that affecting the congressional vote? it's one thing for candidates to say something, you know, when they're running for office for an election, presidential election. it's another the impact that they will have on congress going forward when this vote takes place. >> look. i think i'm spending a lot of time time up on capitol hill meeting individually with members of congress and group of members of congress. the good news is that fundamentally members of congress are focused on what's the impact of the agreement, what's the impact of not approving the agreement on the constituents and key stakeholders. as we walk through, there's a very good reception on their behalf for what they see there. it goes to the issue of timing

as well. one example. australia has a free trade agreement already with japan. so australia beef experts to japan face a lower tariff than we do. as a result, our market share is declining in japan. the longer we wait to approve tpp, the wider that differential will be, the more we'll lose market share. already we're losing $125 million of exports each year that will only grow in time. members of congress from rural areas, who has beef producers in their district, hear it, understand that, hear it most importantly from their cattlemen, it tends to focus their attention on how they're going to get it done and when. multiply that by dozens or sectors and countries. we're building the support there, we're answering questions, we're working with congressional leadership. i think at the end of the day

they're confident the votes will be there. but we've got to get it done this year. >> final question i have and then we ale turn it other to the audien audience. as you know, there's a lot of support for an investment treaty with china. how do you see that fitting in this possibility and you were just in china and i know you were talking with the chinese about this with the whole tpp effort? >> it's on a parallel track. we'ved a negotiations in the last three years in earnest as we've negotiated on a negative list basis and protecting investments at all stage in the process. those negotiations are continuing. i was in china recently as you said and had conversations with the leadership there then. the chinese have been here since and have given us a new version of their negative list which we're evaluating.

the key thing is it's got to be a high standard agreement. and that means it has to effectively open up china's economy and move it from a world in which everything is prohibited or regulated unless it's explicitly improved to one in which everything is approved and les explicitly regulated. i think we're always going to have to deal with issues that have come up in the particular environment that china presents for investment, issues that our investors have had there over the years. we're going to mike sure we have to deal with that as well in the agreement. >> do you think they're going to wait around to see what happens with tpp before they get serious in doing anything in. >> i think all indications is that they're taking the process seriously. they're putting a lot of effort into it and i think they would like to try to get it done. >> what i would like to do is

right there, is to go to the audience. because i think i'd like to get a lot of participation here before mike has to leave. so can we have a microphone over there right up front here first? right there. >> robeif the purpose of the tr agreements is to stimulate our exports more than imports, will you expect to see the ratio of our exports rise versus the imports that come to your nation if these are passed? >> since i'm in the halls of the imf filled with much better economists than i could ever aspire to be, i would simply say that most economists tell you there are a lot of factors that go into trade balances and current account balances and putting relative growth rates. it's hard to inpoint in particular.

impact of a trade agreement on a particular balance. what i would say since our average applied tariff is 1.4%, just to give you a few examples, we face 70% tariffs on autos, 55% on machinery, 38.5% on pork, sometimes 100% on certain agricultural products, all of which need to be eliminated or greatly reduced. we could expect to see more exports. and we're going to be lowering our barriers very little. others are going to lower their barriers in a significant way and at the same time raising standards. >> the lady in the back right there right by the microphone. >> thank you very much. and i have two quick questions. one is in the light of the bretton woods conversation, these pleural lateral agreements

seem to be in contradiction to the whole philosophy the wto organization, whereas, you know, by avoiding or not use the wto forum. the second question is the concern about the state dispute resolution mechanism in which a corporation issues to a state if somehow their expected profits aren't gained. could you speak to those two topics? >> first the multilateralism, we continue to believe that multilateral trade level vie dags is the highest and best trade levelization. but they've reached a deadlock. and that's why bamly in two and a half years ago and in nairobi in december the wto moved forward with a multilateral trade facilitation agreement.

in nairobi, an agreement on agriculture. but also a recognition that there was no longer a consensus that the doha should continue as is and that we could focus on creative ways of dealing with outstanding issues but also new issues, whether it's ec commerc. when you've got two thirds of the global economy beginning to get their head oornd a certain set of rules, you know, work the difficult issues domestically that allow them to open the markets, it gives momentum to the process. we would like to see the rules

multilateralized. that is the goal. right now is the most open frank honest discussion going on at the wto in 15 years with ministers and our ambassadors in geneva are asking what is it that we can get done multilaterally, with the goal that other countries would be able to join over time. and when the circumstances are right you can ultimately multilateralize it. on investor state dispute management, interesting tpp over the years -- got to give the one-minute background. there are 33 agreements that have state disputes. u.s. is party to 51 of them. since 2000 we've been working in all of our subsequent agreement to reform the isps process by raising standards, tightening them up, adding a whole series of procedural safeguards and

then closing loopholes where we found them. one of those issues is when you mentioned in tpp, it makes clear the fact that you cannot sue on the basis of disappointed expectations in regard to profits. in itself that alone is not a basis for a suit. that's when two dozen reforms in the agreement that help make sure that ifcs is being used the way it was intended to be used for, which is when the government comes in but is not being used in ways it was not intended for. >> yes, back there. yes. >> thank you. mr. ambassador, in the run up to the recent u.s. china strategic and economic dialogue, there were a lot of press reports of the several issues that would be on the table. one of those included the ongoing solar panel dispute and

resulting poly silicone tariffs from china. however in the fact sheets that came out, there's emphasis on steel and some of the other issues. but i saw no mention of the solar issue. i was just wondering if you could give us a status report on where that stands. thank you. >> we did discuss it while i was there. we've continued to discuss the issue. it's a long standing outstanding dispute. it's something we would like to try to find a way of settling and our discussions will continue. and i'll see him in shanghai in a couple of weeks. >> a question over here in the back and then we'll take the one in the front. >> hi. ken biddler. this week president obama is

going for the summit. canada has not taken a position on the tpp. it's the only of 12 countries to have not stated whether it intends to ratify or not. do you think it would be helpful for canada to join with mexico and the united states to make a strong statement about the tpp? would that help with the ratification process here in the united states and secondly, do you think that's likely? >> well tpp was negotiated under the previous administration in canada. and when the trudeau administration came in, they made clear that he wanted to go through a robust consultation process around the country, different sectors and different parts of the country to make sure they had the input of a wide range of stakeholders before moving forward with tpp. and that's the process they're undergoing. we respect that decision. we respect that process. and i don't think it has significant impacts here in the

yees on congress's consideration of tpp. >> okay. right here. >> i'm looking at this from a different perspective. my name is martin apple. i'm a scientist from a representationing a large number of scientists. when we look at these kinds of things, we would say at some point if you've got a whole bunch of people who agree on something and who doesn't and you were to make a decision that the whole bunch of people who agree could go ahead and do something and the one who doesn't would have a choice of either joining at the stage they are or pulling out and see if they can negotiate a better deal by themselves. would that be a feasible option? >> are you referring to the wto? >> tpp. >> and canada? >> no. ours. the agriculture. >> i see. so tpp the intent is for all 12 country to join together. we have procedures that are negotiated for that. if at the end of the day not

all -- and all of the tpp countries are in the process of going through their respective domestic approval processes. some are further along in terms of ratifying it. all of them are engaged in the process now. if all 12 countries are not ready to approve it, there are provisions for a subset of the countries, six countries representing 85% of the gdp represented by the tpp country to go ahead and bring it into force. that effectively means that u.s. and japan need to be part of the group that brings it into force but we don't have to wait for all of the countries. some of them are going more slowly. >> good morning. i'm paul appleguard. come back to china and you mentioned in your opening remarks the challenges that it faces. i think actually the first

speaker this morning didn't accept the changes as inevitable. when i look at what's going on, the tightening of the domestic and what's going on in the south china sea, those look like changes in tone and they don't look like positive changes in tone. have you seen the same kind of thing happening in your negotiation with chinese around trade or not or have those continued pretty much the way they were prior, in the last couple of years. >> i think we see a set of mixed data points. on the positive side, as bill is asking, i think they're quite sirius about bilateral investment treaty process. i think there's a lot of senior level attention being paid to it to bring different parts of their government and committee in to try and chart a path forward there and they seem to generally want to use it as a way of helping to drive reform

in parts of their economy. whether or not we get to that necessary high standards remains to be seen but i do think they're serious about putting effort into that process. at the same time you go back and look at the statements coming out a few years ago, very forward leaning about reform. you look at the statements about soe reforms a few years ago and it's been less certain the degree to which those have been followed up on and implemented. the record is rather mixed and that affects the trade negotiations as well. >> hello, am bbassadoambassador. continuing on the subject of china, i was out there at the same time as you, involved in some of the track two discussions and i once conducted the political part of the

political and economic dialogue. to me, at least in the securities sphere, and probably economic, it seems going forward -- in the next decades. i'm not talking about just tomorrow. that the more we can work with china to accomplish global objectives the more likely we're to be successful. an the converse of that proposition is that if we're in serious disagreement of particular questions, then it's going to be hard to get things done on a global scale. i'm thinking of the wonderful exam. of the climate agreement that we reached bilaterally and then accomplished in paris. do you believe in adopting an inclusive approach to china in thinking about the future of the global economic system? and then how do the things that you've been working on in the

past few years, if you agree with that proposition, advance us towards that goal >> that's a very good question. the answer is yes and i think as the second largest economy in the world and by some measure the first largest trading economy in the world, china has a significant national interest in the health and strength of the global trading system. and we need them to take on responsibilities commence rate with their role in the global economy. that was one of the driving forces between the g-20. certainly one of the driving forces of our efforts within the wto and other trade negotiation to engage with china and urge them to play a leadership role in some of these areas. take the information technology agreement negotiation. it was stuck for a long time. we reached a bilateral deal with

china. it took perhaps longer than it should have to reach the deal. but once that was done, we were able to bring the other parties along and reach an agreement. we're trying to do the same thing now in terms of engagement with the chinese on the environment disagreement. we have countries representing 90% of the goods market ready to move ahead with an agreement to eliminate tariffs on a whole bunch of goods, good for the economy and the environment. no country would benefit more than china as a country that desperately needs the disburgs to deal with its environmental challenges. we're urging china to come to the table and be an active party to lead the negotiation to conclusion. so the last one, wto, we're always encouraging them. and they played an important role at niairobi along with a handful of other country to help

guide that process. fund given the political realities of the election, if the tpp could be all of nothing in the lame duck session, are you going to wait for them rather than try to get politicians to commit themselves before the election? >> we're working day in and day out. with the leadership, the committees, individual member to lay the foundation. obviously it's a challenging political agreement. trade agreements are always hard, they're always close.

and if this environment is of course presents its own unique challenges. we're working on the hill with individual members and feel very good about those conversations, that the necessary support will be there whenever the leadership determines that the appropriate window is open. >> let's give mike a big hand for the work he's doing. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, ambassador. thank you bill. two straight shooters, refreshing. happen my now that we're moving into our segment of the program on global challenges and solutions which features folks who are real movers and shakers in the world of sustainable

development. we're happy to have helene gayle, eric postel and craig steffensen. the segment is moderated by scott mayor ris who has been a committee member since he left his days at treasury and now a senior fellow at the center for global development. also director of the rethinking u.s. development policy initiative that seek to broaden the u.s.'s approach to development. and he works on the remgs between the ifis and the united states. with that, scott, i'll leave it to you.

>> well, thank you randy. let me start with format. we're going to be having a conversation here, not formal remarks from the podium. i want to briefly introduce what is an intel lent panel. i'm pleased and looking forward to hearing their insights on the broad topic of global development. i'm going to try my best to do a few minutes of framing the issues before i turn to them for some questions and then turn to you all for some questions. so let me start to my left. eric postel, associate administrator for the united states agency for international development confirmed by the u.s. senate in 2011.

and prior to his service as a senior official in this administration, really a distinguished career in the private sector and really doing development finance from the private side in a way that really speak to how i think a.i.d. is changing its approach cost as development policy. dr. helene gayle, newly coe of mckinsey social initiative. looking guard to hearing about that. and comes from mckinsey, a leading humanitarian organization, before that leadership positions at the cdc, bill and linda gates foundation.

and finally craig steffensen who has the challenging task of representing the asian development bank here in washington. both the united states and canada but you know from where i sit with the u.s. focus, a lot on his plate in the engagement with the u.s. government, particularly at a time -- we'll talk more about this. but at a time when the development bank and the asian development bank in particular of change, of a shifting landscape of new actors. and craig is really central in the u.s. engagement in all of that. prior to that position really an impressive career at the bank, including leading engagements in areas challenging themselves as afghanistan and recently the

banks engagement with myanmar, really an interesting case. so those are impressive speakers and really impressive both not only if in their own backgrounds but the diversity they represent in this development enterprise. i hope we can explore more of that. let me just try to, in two minutes, try to lay out what i see as big issues in the development landscape and hope to get your reaction as a first question on this set of issues. and i do want the say, because this is bretton woods, that it's important and perhaps this sounds a little defensive but we're saying the imf, not the world bank this morning. but it's important to recognize that development was a core mandate at bretton woods. and it's been a consistent

element over seven decades now. so you know, entirely fitting that we're here talking about the development agenda among other issues today. let me start by trying to create a little bit of a laundry list. and i've organized these issues in three areas. from a policy perspective, we've had really a landmark set of new commitments in the last few years, well, specifically last year with the sustainable development goals and the major commitments reflected there. in the same year you have major commitments around climate. and very much an understanding in the international community that these issues are linked and have to be approached jointly. at the same time, you had a commitment, as i've alluded to launch a new multilateral

development bank. and while it is regional in nature it has a global membership and that is very meaningful, members from latin america, europe, africa. notably not a member in the form of the united states. we see new risks and new challenges in the development landscape. very visibly the refugee crisis associated with syria. we've had pandemic threats in the last few years that have caused us to think hard about policy responses and impact on development. we certainly see economic head wind, we've had a lot of that conversation this morning, even what it means for developing countries, whether low-income countries or emerging market. there are threats going forward. and associated, whether you want to interpret brexit from that

side of things, what it will do for the developing world, for remittances that are a hugely important part of development finance for many of these countries. but also reflect in brexit a question about political retreat from globalization at a time when developing countries are perhaps benefitting more than ever from integration. and then finally not to be entirely negative, you know, really looking at new opportunities represented in the global landscape today when it comes to development progress. and here i think well known to the development community, but the nature of finance today where you have really tremendous sources of private finance flowing to the developing world and really within the developing

world, including on the public side. you know, the size of domestic resource mobilization today come paired to what it has been historically. all of these things point to real progress but also raise questions about what the law of foreign assistance is going forward. remarkable success in poverty reduction. what we've heard as sort of a, you know, what continued to be an anchor for institutions like the world bank. also the reality that we have made tremendous progress and what does that look like going forward. and finally thinking about the role f adaptiadap adapting but also to look at are they adapting.

our own development agency has been very actively reforms itself in recent years. we're seeing anytime the mmb community both at the world bank across the street, in institutions like the asian development bank, the creation of new institutions and then finally i think outside of this official sector really seeing very interesting new models that speak to exploit the capital, the expertise, resources, other private sector. but they do so under a not for profit mod. i think we're hear more about that as well. that's my two minutes or so on a tour of the global landscape. let me turn with the basic question for our panelists. you can either approach independent as an optimist, a pessimist or maybe a problem solver. but what do you see as the sthau

is too much overlooked or most con kwenl going forward when it comes to global development today. what should we be thinking about as major opportunity, major challenge. let me start with you, eric and we'll go down the row. >> thanks, scott. good morning, everyone. as he said, there's a lot of, there's a lot of change going on around the world and a lot of opportunity. and some people think about the ftg as as a file on the mtgs and sometimes they are. but it's not business as usual. as you said yourself, there are new things, new challenges and obviously climate change, that's one of them. but one that's a challenge involves what we call drg,

democracy rights of governance. you see closing spaces in countries where they're shutting down, you're seeing restrictions of freedom and openness. and that sounds sort of in the weeds but we've seen where these things can lead to conflict. and the conflict then leads to big big problems that even hit the macro scene with the migration as one of the most traumatic examples. don't need to talk about the implications of that given the last few days. drg is one of the drivers of these problems and an area that is very difficult for anybody to challenge or solve but nonetheless extremely important for everybody to work on together. >> yeah. and thanks for that kind of framing of all of the issues. you know, i think first and

foremost what the ftgs have done for the global community i think is tremendous but it does give us a framework. and as you said, it's more than just an add-on to the development goals. it's a new pair dooim. and even the way they were created, was a different dialogue. first and foremost continuing to say that's our framework and our guidance over our blue prints, what we think about as we tackle the challenges of the world going forward. and i guess to your point of being optimist/pessimist, i go back and ford. i think there's an incredible amount to be optimist about. we've decreased poverty, disease rates are going down, education rates are going up, et cetera,

is incredibly hopeful. but there are some things, embedded and then some are not clearly called out. the issue of income and equality, now more poor people live in middle income properties. but t i think that is going to continue to define our world for the foreseeable future. and if we don't think about that we're going to continue to have the consequences that we're feeling in terms of the conflict that arises. i think the other one, and you touched on it, is the whole issue of migration and migratory populations. this is only going to get bigger, more complicated and i think we haven't thought enough about the solutions to the reality. we all want -- we all wish migration, refugee crisis et cetera would go away and that we could solve them.

the reality is we're going to have a larger portion of our population who will not be in their home country. we're going to have to think about jobs, education, what does that mean to really think about adapting the way we do business for people who are displaced from their home countries. the only other one i would just say that i think is both a reason for optimism but also one for caution and that's the issue of gender equity. that's called out in the ftgs. i think it is one of the most hopeful opportunities that we have for making a difference in the world. if we just do the things that it takes to make sure that we have gender equity in our world across the board, whether it's workplace, whether it's in policies, leadership positions, what have you, we could dramatically change the outcomes. so you know, i think that that's

incredibly optimistic. in a very simple solution we could have a huge impact. the difficult part is that we know that we have been talking about how to we change the sta value of girls and women around our world and we know we are still having a difficult time doing that. so a lot of optimism around it. on the other hand, we still have a ways to go. >> thanks, scott. the list of development priorities that the multilateral development banks, adb included is long. for example, the way we see the world today, there's a need to create jobs for the increasing number of young people. the development community, the banks included, are going to have to focus on helping out with job creation and improved workplace conditions by

supporting education and skills development for youth, particularly young women and to help promote core labor standards. on top of this, there's a need, as was always stated, to enhance gender equity under our development projects and in the communities we serve, the private sector suzuki s an area that requires strengthening on our part, on everyone's part, especially to develop new and innovative financing in support of the activities we found and to come up with new technologies for doing so. adb -- i'll limit my remarks near adb. we need to come up with -- with ways to improve our project implementation and dispersement so we can deliver projects and outcomes faster. i think particularly with the rise of the asian infrastructure and investment bank and the new development bank it's a more competitive market than it used to be and i know how much adb's

president, my former boss, is -- just how much emphasis he puts on project delivery in time frames that are -- one responsible but two sort of respond to the political imperatives of doing things quickly. along the same line i think the banks need to come up with an improved pooipline project. in asia there's a shortage of bankable projects and development which directly affect the mdbs ability to address other development needs. the limited flow of bankable projects represents a major obstacle to public/private partnerships which everyone is promoting now days, particularly in infrastructure development. this is an urgent need that is to come up with a pipeline of bankable projects. i could go on. there's the whole issue of aging

populations and demographic change, the needs for improved pension and poverty, professref the zika virus, global pandemics, work -- trying to deal with all of them at the same time is not easy but i think that -- i think we're doing the best we can and i think we've got a pretty good history of responding to these challenges in a way that make sen sense. >> so i want to stick with the sdgs for a minute and eric a question to you. you know, i sit at the center of global development, a bunch of development experts, far more expert, frankly, than i see myself on these issues but they bring a critical eye to this exercise from a number of

standpoints but one thing that's striking about it as a listen to them and read myself is this is a complex agenda and if you compare it to the millennium development goals which in a way more reflected a traditional approach and thinking about development and particularly the role of foreign assistance. so you think about usaid's role, the role of the u.s. government more broadly, much of the mdgs were about how do we allocate our funds directly to support maternal health, et cetera. the sdgs are casting a wider and more complicated net. so i wonder if you could tell us a little bit about whether you want to hook it directly to the sdgs, but how is the -- how is usaid as an institution thinking about itself these days that is different from a very traditional role of foreign assistant provider from your

leadership perspective for five years now. how do you think about meeting a set of goals. it's about your partnerships and relationships. could you elaborate on that a little bit [. >> i'll say a couple things. i would say the sdgs were not an action-forcing event for us in terms of the changes that we've been going through because our changes have predated the sdgs but the sdgs reflect several different things and the most succinct way i could describe it is that basically we're the minority partner now in the development exercise and i would argue though some might disagree that actually all the official

development agencies are the minority partner and this -- you can see this just in the numbers, in the flow of funds, in the fact that ngos and others are providing just as much money or more. gates foundation is, what, about -- greater than the french official development if i remember the ranking. you have private sector investment in countries that 30 years ago when i went to business school they never would have dreamed of thinking about and now they all are. you have remittances and other things so the fundamental driver, i think, for a lot of thinks was the fact that we're the minority partner, which leads you to a really different mind-set. it's partly about partnerships. it's partly about innovation. you know, back when usaid was formed and, you know, there were very few courses on development around this country, now the

course at berkeley that has the highest single attendance is the development course. 900 kids a semester taking that course. and you have kids in high school and college setting up their own ngos and traveling around the world and now days everyone from many top business schools all spend time in developing countries. so -- and you have huge amounts of innovation. the development breakthroughs are not necessarily coming out of development agency or their partners. we did our grand challenge on ebola to deal with the fact that that suit that everyone uses was so hot in west africa the resulting design that will enable people to work longer staying in the suit included a baltimore dress seamstress, a new york city fashion designer and dupont. i mean, that is an amazing

collection of people and that's now going into production for use in these hot climates. so every -- when you start thinking through the implications, also, obviously, vis-a-vis our relationship with the private sector is hugely transformed when you think of yourself more as a -- the minority partner in the exercise. so that's part of all the changes. to me on the sdg side, you know, there is a lot of traditional development in there. goals or new jersey or health, all of those are in sectors where the mdbs have been working for decades. but there's a wider number and then the final few sdgs talk heavily in the idea of partnership and good governance and things like that so you have

that expansion. so they -- in some ways i think it will be business as usual and in other ways it will profoundly not be business as usual. >> so helene, you emphasized the issue of migration and doing the challenge of displace some in the category of not business as usual, let me ask you a little bit more about that. so it does seem -- you've had this very visible tragic situation playing out in our newspapers and there's always a silver lining of something like that as it brings more attention to an issue that didn't occur overnight and, in fact, displacement has been with us in many parts of the world for a long time and i think with more attention being paid now we're starting to understand better nature of displacement, that it's not strictly or simply a

short-term crisis, that it's long term in nature for many populations and countries hosting them. so i wonder if -- you know, you've been a leader in the humanitarian sector. you have a new venture that has more of a development focus to it. can you speak to that nexus of thinking about issues that on the one hand are humanitarian crises but really have longer term development implications and how we should be thinking differently about our approaches, whether it is specifically displaced populations or other types of disruption from conflicts crisis. >> thanks. eric kind of touched on it in some of his earlier comments but i think those of us who are working in this space between humanitarian and development realize that more and more that needs to be thought of as a continuum and it used to be an

organization like cair, that used to be primarily humanitarian in crisis is now as focused on its development mandate that grew out of the fact that when you think of the populations we work with, whether it's cair or some of the work we're doing now, those same populations are also very likely to have crisis situation from time to time. and so the development -- if you're committed to a community then you need to be committed to them whether it is in a crisis stage or it's in the long-term stage. it's also important to realize that if we could put more into preparedness and prevention that a lot of those crises will have a lesser impact. so as an example, when i was at cair and we were working on issues related to food

insecurity, particularly during crises we were able to show that food security from a development standpoint were the same countries who rebounded more rapidly when there was food -- immediate food crisis from drought, famine or human conflict. so we know that, we know if we look at the work in climate change and looking at helping populations adapt to the impact of climate change, if you can shift people's livelihoods so that they're more suited to intermittent climate occurrences like drought or flooding that you can in fact make those populations more sustainable. we have one that people often remember this little vignette we

were working in bangladesh, for instance, where cyclones have become much more frequent as a result of climate change and we work with populations to shift their income generation, income generating work and one simple one was taking people who use chickens as their economic engine, growing chickens, selling egg, et cetera, and shifted to ducks because chickens will drown but ducks float. so a simple thing like moving from chickens to duck where there were frequent cyclones and flooding meant you had people whose hole income streams weren't wiped out every time there was this sort of crisis situation so i think those simple ways of learning how to adapt will mean when crises do

occur people are much more likely to withstand them. and, again, that's where the continuum between development and humanitarian response is so important to keep in mind. >> i guess sometimes innovation is recognizing what mother nature has already done for us. >> exactly. >> maybe if i can stick with you, could you tell us more about this new venture and what it represents in terms of a new model and approach to thinking about particularly the nonprofit role in development? >> so mckinzie, tsyey ckinsy do social impact work for clients but looking at a philanthropic way. how could they use their assets to make broader kripgss to society and perhaps have greater focused impact. and with the real sense that today's solutions are no longer

primarily going to be in one sector or the other. just as you talked about, the development agencies now becoming a minority partner we recognize development funding is different. who the actors are are very different and a firm that is firmly rooted with very strong ties to the private sector, very strong ties to public sector and also the not-for-profit sector could bring together solutions that were perhaps different than the traditional solutions where we had those kind of stove pipe approaches to solving problems. and so the mckinsey social initiatives is how you bring these trisector collaboratives together to develop different kinds of solutions to problems. you mentioned the issue of youth and youth unemployment. one of the first programs we launched is a program on youth

employment. it's now in five different countries, the u.s., mexico, spain, india and kenya and really looking at the reality that there are so many young people who want to be employed but don't have the skills. a lot of employers who say that they can't find enough skilled entry-level workers, matching those together, giving young people the skills but also working on the employer side so we've reached out the the private sector so we have employers working with civil society organizations that do training for young people and working with the public sector that often sets some of the policies around where the areas are that are most important for their locality for young people and jobs and we've launched this program, we now have trained and placed over 10,000 young people and we expect to be to 30,000 and hopefully 100,000 over the

next couple of years, finding high return on investment, employers are now willing to actually pay for those programs and really bri bringing together these sectors we're at least putting a dent in one of the big global problems of youth employment, a problem we know is going to continue to increase. >> i know you have a fan in eric in this program. >> well usaid is a funder of the program so we're pleased to have the partnership of usaid. >> basically, they use the skill set of mckinsey in those relationships to understand what is the situation and they basically scoured the planet for where are models where this could new york a very cost-effective way at scale and in my view usaid's historical approach to doing this stuff has had many successes but the cost

per student was too high and it wasn't replicable and it wasn't leading in all cases to this direct connection to jobs so i feel like this is a huge effort at scale that if it succeeds we will want to take all those learnings and imbue that into everything that we're doing and that's why we're supporting this and following it closely. >> and just one other thing, sorry, i'll let you go on but, you know, i think the role of technology has also been huge in the ability to replicate and scale and we haven't talked about the role technology can play in development but i think it's -- back to being optimistic, it's one of the things that makes me very optimistic when we see the technology advancements that are helping leapfrog development and it has helped to scale this

program very rapidly. >> go ahead, greg. i'm going to you next but on a different topic. >> i was going to say one thing that the sdgs make clear is that the finance requirements are huge and no one organization is going to meet them and it's imperative therefore that we cooperate with one another, i think that the initiatives and -- that helene and eric have just described are really exciting. i've got on the know them in the past few years since returning to washington but i hate to use a surfing analogy but we've seen a lot of w.a.v.e.aves in my liv come and go but this is a good wave coming up and i'm pushing adb hard to ride it. i think we're still looking at it and asking ourself what is are we getting into here? because it's a sea change we're talking about in terms of the way that we could work and

partners with whom we work and in the end whether ideas when it comes to meeting some of the development challenges that we're up against are as important, more important than the financing we're making available. >> so craig let me stick with your institution and more broadly the multilateral development bank, i think it's hard particularly in the midst of the brexit discussions, it's hard to remember back and think about how much of this sort of existential hand wringing was occurring around the creation of this new multilateral development bank well over a year ago and the events that played out particularly here in washington and the u.s. reaction to the asian infrastructure investment bank but there really was a sense of almost crisis occurring, particularly in the

united states in its approach to the mdbs. i think a lot of that has comed down. i think we're now moving forward with the more prosaic issues in beijing but nonetheless i think it's use to feel think about the aib through a development lens because we certainly -- during that period of drama, plenty of discussion around what it meant for the u.s. strategically, diplomatical diplomatically, those kinds of issues but if we bring it back to what these institutions do, the adb, the aib, the west bank he -- world bank as development actors can you talk a little bit more particularly in the asian context about why the aib matters, what it was responding to, infrastructure is in the name, i think by all accounts

for the next five to ten years it will be an structure development bank. what is that agenda all about? why does the aib matter? how is adb itself adapting to try to respond more effectively to what we would call the infrastructure imperative for development? >> sure. in a 2009 report, adb estimated the infrastructure needs of asia and the pacific totalled about $8.3 trillion. 8 trillion for domestic, 300 billion for regional infrastructure. to sustain the current levels of growth and development that we're seeing. that works out to about $750 billion a year and if you look at what adb is providing to the region, it's a drop in the

bucket compared to what's required. if you look at what is provided by for development internationally, regionally, locally by multilaterals, bilaterals, the civil society, by governments, by private investors globally it's still addressing about 16% of asia's infrastructure needs. that's just to give you some idea of the amount of resources that are required to address what we see across the region today, pollution, water pollution, air pollution, traffic, mass transit needs, hospitals, schools, and, you know, i could just run down the list. so adb and the west bank and usaid and others, we're simply

not providing the resources that -- and neither are governments or private investors to give what's required to make much of a dent. i think adb has gone so far as to call it an infrastructure crisis. aib is a welcome. their subscribed capital is $100 billion. their paid in capital over five years will be about $20 billion. adb's paid in capital is $7 billion so that is what is used to borrow on international markets, we leverage that assistance to provide support for our member countries. so aib is going to make a dent in terms of what's going on out there and i think adb's hope is that we'll work closely with them in these formative stages. we signed an mou for a roadway project in pakistan last week,

we'll be co-financing it with aib and difd and there are possibilities for more projects coming up this year. and at least initially i think we'll be co-financing a lot of projects together using adbs rules and regulations, safeguards, what have you and adb will assume major responsibility for implementing these projects. but at the same time, aib will be developing the capacity to identify and implement these projects on their own. at that stage i think tables may well turn. unless adb get ascapal increase, i think it's likely that aibs financial wherewithal will exceed that of adb early on. but the concerns of last year about aib and what it meant for the region, i mean, adb provides

$17 billion of our own funds and $10 billion more per year in financial assistance to the region. $27 billion total. i think there was -- and 80% of that amount is for infrastructure. and by that i mean transport, energy, irrigation, those sorts of investments. and so the asian infrastructure investment bank looked in many ways something like adb is doing but i can say having been in these meetings, especially since jin li tun, aib's president, my former boss, he was vice president for five years, the aim of both institutions is to work closely together in parallel on things if not actual co-mingling of finances.

and i think aib has every intention of living up to the safeguards which we all think are so important and i think they'll be a good partner in development assistance moving forward. >> so everything you say -- i want to pause. i wanted to do this earlier and i forgot to use the prerogative of the moderator to do a little advertising for my organization because the center for global development used the opportunity of all the attention at the time of the creation to stand up its own high level panel and the future of the multilateral development banks, that group has been working over the course of the past year and will be issuing a report with recommendations very soon in the months ahead so i encourage you to look for that ch. we've brought together very good group of actors.

so back to this question, everything you've described suggests that when you boil it down the aib is about bringing more capital to what everyone agrees is a pressing development need, and you know and to the degrees that we either worry or hope for a different kind of model from the chinese, maybe we won't see it here. they have a particular need in the near term to co-finance with adb, with world bank as a matter of basic capacity and they've committed themselves to a set of rules and standards that look a lot like mdbs. so i wonder, and this is a question for all three of you. if we think about emerging powers in development sovereigns, country powers, the chinese in particular, are they representing a different model

for development? you know, we've put a lot into this new institution and i think as time goes on we think it looks like the adb, there's not that much different here but beyond that one institution, how should we think about whether it's the chinese approach to development in the developing world outside of its own borders, does it cause us sitting here in washington to think differently about our own approaches institutionally as development actors, et cetera, or can we simply welcome the additional amount of capital that is flowing as a result of emerging markets themselves becoming wealther. >> any one of you. >> i don't want to start each

one. >> well, you're sitting in a development agency but i guess i would say i think overall it's a good thing, more money for development is a good thing. that said, you know, i think the more we're able to strengthen countries' capacity to really be at the core of making sure they are the leaders in how development funds are spent, i think it's less a matter of whether or not what china is doing is changing u.s. official development funds or not but more are we all strengthening the country's ability to influence how resources are used? and i think until that happens, you know, there will still be kind of the chaos that exists. i also think we -- as we've said throughout more and more different kinds of actors are in there. i think the role of the private

sector, i think the role of things like remittances. so you know there's so many different flows now that i don't think we can think about it as simplistically as we did before but at the core of it i think the more countries are strengthened to be able to really be in the lead the better all of this will be. >> it's the bretton woods annual meeting. i'll be remiss not to say that policies and institutions matter. and i think when it comes to infrastructure needs, finance is one thing but one only has to look at the experiences of japan and korea and taiwan and hong kong, singapore to see that they had their policies and institutions right and frankly didn't require a whole lot of support from us to achieve the level of success they've

realized today and if more countries across the region were to work on their legal and regulatory environments, their foreign investment codes, their judicial systems so that there's accountability and transparency and predictability to what's going on then they probably wouldn't be having some of the problems they're having today with foreign investors coming in and the fact that, you know, some public/private partnerships are not getting off the ground as quickly as they might. so that's the way i'd answer the question. finance is one thing. bankable projects is a whole different story. >> and i'd say that we are constantly looking at our model to figure out -- we're always on the lookout for good ideas and it doesn't matter where they come from, it's not restricted to china. it can come from some startup in silicon valley or some local

community in remote uganda or anywhere else. so we are constantly looking because the situation keeps changing and, you know, we have big, big goals to try to reach so we need every good idea from wherever it comes and i would simply say also that that's true for everyone including the chinese. we have a strategic dialogue, development dialogue with the chinese. my boss gail smith, the head of usaid was in beijing in the last month meeting with senior officials there, talking about con treat projects and talking about also general development architecture type issues and they immediate clear and described the ways in which they're evolving. it's very early days for them, they don't have 50 year's worth of experience, they don't have staff who have worked in it for that long or the numbers of staff and so it's going to be a

constant evolution whether with regards to the intersection of our work with china's but also our work with everybody else's. >> so let me ask one last question before i turn to the audience and frankly more plit political in nature and i want to note that eric you have a particular responsibility as an administration official here but frankly i think all of us on the stage are probably u.s. voters and taxpayers so we do have to think about this issue of how the electorate is feeling these days when it comes to questions of globalization but particularly the role that our enterprise plays, of development. what is the receptivity in this area? nobody is going to campaign on this issue, of course. but elections will have

consequences when it comes to pursuing the kinds of agendas that we want to pursue and specifically i guess the question is this, i would argue that when it comes to political support and on a bipartisan basis when we talked about foreign assistance historically, to the degree it could be characterized as a charitable function, that, you know, we are doing direct poverty alleviation, we are helping with disease rad situation, there's always been a core of support there in our electorate. it's becoming more of a challenge as we broaden the scope of activities and if you look at the sdgs, which is a universal exercise, there's a lot on the list that the average taxpayer would say "i would like some of that for myself." do you see a challenge and how

are we making the case for our taxpayers? i wonder if any of you have thoughts on are we seeing a rising tension? is this something that maybe development remains under the radar and it's something we have to confront? >> so, you know, it's a constant discussion that has gone on for decades with american taxpayers and there are some helps and flows to it as you suggest one pillar of the work of our agency has incredible support from around the united states because americans are very generous at times of humanitarian crisis and there's widespread support. if anything, criticism of can't you go faster to help solve this humanitarian crisis or that.

i think increasingly there is -- one thing has made it easier in terms of the discussion about the development parts of the enterprise because i think my personal opinion, you know, you could go back to the cold war days and reasonable people might justifiably say you know we don't really care about country x. it's not geo politically important to us, they are trapped in a terrible cycle of bad governance and terrible development indicators. it's in the middle of nowhere, it doesn't matter to us, it's not a priority because we do want to do these things domestically that you mentioned so basically let's ignore it. as long as they vote with us in the u.n. when it's soviet union and the united states. i don't think as many americans

have that same view these days. because they've seen what happens if you don't have a good global health systems architecture and someone comes down with ebola in remote west africa and 24 hours later they here in a dallas hospital, so i think more and more people are -- you know, the globalization discussion which has many, many facets but in the area of development, as i go around the united states, more and more people when you get into a discussion they realize there's basically no spot left on the planet where you can just let it fester. and if you're having the discussion about national security and terrorism it's the same thing. we can't have these places that are just where things fester so i think from that point of view, new dialogues are possible and new understandings and you see a

loot of bipartisan collaboration, i mean amidst everything else going on it would be completely understandable if the fog logue wasn't on people's radar screens but actually on a bipartisan basis congress passed a bill about power africa, there is one getting very close to passage involving feed the future and there are at least two others with people working across the aisle on bill which is the president has or probably will sign and that shows that people do see that we need to have development as one of those three ds that the bush administration described, development, defense, i want issy -- diplomacy and we have 150 generals working who passionately feel that way. the conversation is never simple

especially when you have such misinformation. the annual kaiser poll where they ask americans how much do you think you're spending on foreign assistance out of your tax dollar and the average respond is 20% when the reality that everything including consular affairs and all that is under 1%. we have to keep having the dialogue, but there are new ways to have the dialogue these days than in the past. >> that's great, that's encouraging to hear that. helene? >> yeah, again, this is one where i'm probably kind of bipolar. i'm sometimes optimistic and sometimes very pessimistic about it. adding to your kaiser poll data, not only do people think that we're spending 20%, 25% on foreign aid, whatever "foreign aid" is which i think people don't really understand what that means and we're spending less than 1%, if you ask them what we should be spending they'll say 10%.

i would love to have 10% to spend on development aid. my optimism is in seeing some of the things you talked about. a lot of the work that i've done over the years in global health, for instance, as you said people will give to global health, people believe it's wrong for people to die from malaria, from hiv, malnutrition, et cetera. that's very tangible, it's very concrete. if you ask people ant funding governance initiatives, you get into a different sort of dialogue. but, again when i was at care we used to have everyday our lobby to -- every year our lobby day where we had volunteers and there would be people from across the united states, usually 45 to 50 states represented, anywhere from 500

to one year 2,000 people who came, paid their own way just so that they could come and be able to be a voice for these issues on capitol hill and you know to see this crowd of people who represent a broad swath of america, learning about these issues and feeling like they really want to make a difference in helping our elected officials understand why these issues matter to everyday people. you know, so i can come out of that hugely optimistic, on the other hand, you know there's a large swath of the public who feel very, very differently and that's come out in this election period in very strong and very disturbing ways that in fact everybody doesn't understand our obligation, our commitment to the rest of the world and why it matters even for their own individual lives and i think we've got to do a better job of

being able to paint the connections and help people to understand why it duds matter and why it isn't just charity but i think as you said, once you get beyond some of these very tangible things like education, health, et cetera, you have a much harder job and talk about governance and people think you're out planning coups in different countries. they don't get the more intangible or underlying cause issues that we deal with in development. >> i'm going to pause there because i've neglected the audience too long so let me go, we have time for a handful of questions, i think. . this young woman here, we'll start with her. >> my name is homja i'm a ph.d. student at george mason university. my question goes to mr.

steffanson. you talked about being an addition to the developments but we're seeing practices in parallel which is the chinese policy banks, especially export and import bank of china is actively funding infrastructure projects pall over the world and i don't know about the numbers but it might have surpassed many of the multilateral banks. so how do you see this practice is affecting the ecosystem of global development. what kind of impact does it have? thank you? >> why don't we pick up two more questions and maybe we'll have time for another round right here in front. just wait a second for the mic. >> i'm from george mason university and formerly of adb. i have a question for craig. you mentioned a shortage of bankable projects so what is the

adb's concept of a bankable project as compared to the aiib? is there a difference in how they view risk? and if you can't directly address that i'm wondering if you can be more explicit about what the criteria is of the adb for determining whether a project is bankable. >> so why don't you answer those questions and then we'll go to another round of questions. >> sure. i think you're referring to a recent article in the "financial times" that said that china xm and china development bank combined provide more resources for development and trade than the multilateral development banks as we know them combined

and i guess you want to know what i think of their role and whether or not it's a good thing? >>. [ inaudible question ] >> because how these developing countries when they pursue infrastructure, how do they approach these different entities? >> i think -- here i'm really reading between the lines, this is nothing my management nor aib has ever said. but i think my former boss, he has a pretty broad experience in world bank and adb and i think he was concerned about what china was doing in the name of development given what we were all reading in the papers a few years ago. he was concerned about it because me thought china could do a better job and i think aib is funneling resources that

would otherwise be made available by development by china through a multilateral development bank to ensure that these same investments are guided by the same safeguards related to the environment and procurement and resettlement and gender and community participation. the aspects of project development that the multilateral development banks believe are important. sacrosanct. and for china to develop the capacity to process projects the same way. even to exceed what we're doing, i think that's his hope and i think he also wanted to get things done fast er i know he wanted to get things done faster than what we're currently doing, we take about two to three years to get a project to our board

for consideration and another six or seven years to implement it and i think there are concerns around the world that that's not fast enough so he'll be at least for the foreseeable future working in tandem with adb and the world bank and other ifis, using our procurement rules and regulations and our implementation requirements and monitoring arrangements and aiib will develop the capacity to do what anyone's guess. they can improve upon what we set in place and maybe exceed what we're doing but to get into the marketplace some level of competiti competition if you will. our resources are needed, sure

but i think the borrowers are going to start judging us according to our ability to get things done in ways that are responsible and efficient. so i think the role of aib in response to your question has been positive to the environment and the infrastructure rell phenomenon that part of the world because it's introduced a new dynamic to what's being provided by. >> and the question of bankable projects? >> i thought i addressed that. it goes beyond economic ratesover return and doing things by the book but i think bankable refers to investment codes that are bankable. to bankruptcy and other forms of investor protection. laws that people can rely upon, access to arbitration in the courts in ways that risk

management committees in corporations and others that are thinking about investing in a place are okay with. everyone remembers the experience of '97 and more recently in 2008 when a lot of investors got burned and it's hard for them to carry the same projects to their boards today that they could then without lots of assurances and i think everyone has to up their game when it comes to the software-related issues to these projects before they're going to get approved. >> let's try to get -- we have time for another round so let's try to get three or four, start here and move over here, so right up front. >> thank you for your presentation, i'm courtney vaughan.

my question probably will expand on the two that were asked earlier in the context of risk. is there any concern for the type of infrastructure investment that china is making cross border in countries that are probably vulnerable? especially when one looks at critical infrastructure which normally countries like the united states do not allow foreign government to invest in, since it's not necessarily the chinese private sector that's investing in these infrastructures. that's one question. and the second question is on the bankable business plan. from the u.s. and a number of projects -- i'm an investment banker economist, wall street, world bank, i've looked at projects that come out of african countries and i know usaid is there and you have brought in transaction advisors in recent years to help now it seems to me that there needs to

be some education on the u.s. side as to what u.s. private sector companies look for, what incentivized them, that sort of thing? because we're looking at greenfield projects in most cases and often times even in the united states there's certain incentives of a government would actually provide to investors here, right? that one can consider cross border so other than the typical cross-border risk that one has to look at among other things, i think there's a ladge of education as to what u.s. investors are looking for and now taxation drives invest norse the u.s. >> i'm going to try very quickly. we'll go to whitney and two more here and i'll ask the panelists to make their responses and concluding remarks. >> >> it may be the case that we

have an interesting moment to reflect on setting up multilateral institutions because we have the aiib, we have the new development bank and the green climate fund. aiab, the initial concern was not enough focus on safeguards, the green climate funds seems to take the view that they have their own safeguards but they only work through implementing agencies and the world bank and asian development banks aren't good enough or have to be down twice or something which is going to lead to inefficiencies but that's a u.n. organization, it's not weighted voting and a paralyzed board and so forth. but what lessons can we learn from these three start-up institutions as we think about the development process? >> and very quickly i'll ask both of you short questions right here. >> >> helene, i'm going to put

you on the spot, i apologize, you're doing great work through mckinsey but i'm reading reports that mckinsey has been facilitating illicit or gray money outside from developing and developed countries into tax havens. is there conversation within mckinsey on consistency across its work in support of development? >> last question right here. >> i'll try not to ask a zinger like that. bob burke, world economy of art and science. what i'm concerned about is that our field of international development has has its fundamental rationale the elimination of the worst forms of poverty and now the bank says that those under the poverty line are less than 10% and

declining. so i'm wondering whether you see the need to bolster the rationale for development more towards the -- in the spirit of the sdgs of mutual interest of creating growth for our own markets and whether there's more to what's going on in your work that is of domestic benefit as you mentioned in the employment creation that could lead to a broader justification. >> one minute each to answer what you like, ignore what you like. we'll go down the row. >> so quickly on two of them. on power africa, the whole concept of the transaction advisors, which is something i introduced as the five or six of us put this together was based on my citibank experience where i felt like we had people who

get up every morning and go to sleep every night thinking about how do they get the deals done. that's a concept that applies when you're the minority partner, and of course the countries in some cases don't have the standards or the processes or laws or whatever it might be in some cases that facilitate the flow of private capital and that's part of what private sector was telling us they needed. yes, they want some risk mitigation and capital mitigate risk yes they want investment but they want the engagement of u.s. ambassadors and u.s. senior u.s. people as well as these people on the ground to work with the governments to make the changes necessary so some modest portion of that huge wall of capital that's sitting out there at negative interest rates but is looking for a return.

so agree and that's part of what the transaction advisors and different agency involved from the u.s. government side are about. then i would say to bop's question, i don't think the u.s. government has a policy per se about the point you raised. my personal opinion is that all the development agencies and banks aside from the humanitarian function ought to be working ourselves out of a job. so we ought to make progress on these extreme poverty sdg things and then at that point let the countries do it for themselves. that's why drm is so important and let us go out of business as we've done in dozens of countries already, graduation. >> on the question you raised about mckinsey, first, mckinsey's social initiative is an ngo, not directly part of mckinsey so i may not have all of the information about it but

i think you're talking about this investment group that is also somewhat a separate part from mckinsey itself. i think the article that came out in the "financial times" didn't have all of the facts and i think made more of a link than is actually there but i honestly can't answer all of the information. i would be happy to provide you with names if you want to get more information about some of it, i think they feel very comfortable that is business is being transacted in a fair, transparent way sand not abusing developing country money in any way. so -- and just also on your question. i agree that we should be thinking about putting ourselves out of business. when i was at care we had the opportunity to see several countries that graduated, if you will, and became self-sufficient

and that should be our job. i also think more and more companies that we worked with, particularly multinational companies, global companies that we're seeing that their future revenues were going to come from emerging markets really started thinking in different ways about their responsibilities to the countries in which they were hoping to have future markets and it was also a way of being able to talk about how american jobs were being created because as they were actually doing things that made a difference to develop those communities, they were actually building their businesses so i think we can make the case for how continuing to invest in development goals will continue to also enable, businesses, american businesses, to grow as they move more and more into emerging markets. >> last word, craig. >> i'm not going to get in the way of lunch here but three

quick points. i've spent 33 years in development and i know how much our assistance is appreciated in the field. it still is and from my part i -- you know, have -- can't wait to get out of bed in the morning everyday to keep working on this area. one. two, since coming back to washington a few years ago i'm amazed with the debate that takes place in this town when it comes to development on a daily basis. there are more seminars and round tables and things like this providing constant feedback to policymakers and planners a to what's needed. i think we're good at making course corrections and adjustments so we remain relevant. third this is a related point, i'd just like to acknowledge the efforts of scott and the center for development in supporting a

proposal by adb last year to merge our concessional and ordinary capital resource which is allows us to boost our support for development by 50% beginning next year. we're talking 50% more loans and 70% more grants. there's a fair amount of financial engineering involved but it was cost-free to our donors. with things like that that are still possible to be done i just think that we're making it easy for donors to support us and i hope there isn't a whole lot of questioning anywhere about our ability to do what's necessary to help out, thanks. >> okay, on that note, please join me in thanking our panel. [ applause ] >> thank you all very much and thank you, panel, for a wonderful discussion.

on a topic that left us with a lot of optimism. and three quick points before we leave. thank you to all of you for staying and offering your respect and being contentious with your good questions. you're wonderfully patient and i want to say thanks again to our sponsors, soros fund management this year as well as imf partners and obviously our secretariat staff out there who really put this program together. and finally, we do have a reception if you're willing to stay and talk a little bit more. thank you very much. [ applause ] [ indistinct conversation ]

[ indistinct conversation ] 6- the transpacific partnership is a trade agreement that was reached last year between the u.s. and 11 other pacific rim nations. thursday, u.s. trade representative michael froman makes the case for the agreement at an event hosted by the kato institute. that's live at 9:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span 3. this weekend on c-span cities tour, along with our comcast cable partners, we'll explore the history and literary life of provo, utah. we'll visit moon's rare books. reid moon, the store's proprietor, who's been collecting rare books from all over the world for the past 30 years, showcases many of his great finds, including brigham young's copy of the book of mormon as well as an original

copy of thomas paine's "common sense." >> thomas paine went to robert bell, wanted to have this printed and he wanted the proceeds to buy the soldiers mittens. well after it went through three printings they had a falling out and so thomas paine allowed anybody to print it, he lowered the price and said anybody can print it and that's one reason the book is so well known. >> and jay spencer fleuman talks about anti-mormonism through their current struggles of a religious minority. >> latter-day saints fit awkwardly in that. they are a religious minority who over time have youred in disproportionately visible ways in the debates about religion. and on american history tv, take a tour of the brig lam young university museum of paleontology and see the dinosaur fossils collected by

dr. james a. jenson. the curator talks about how dr. gener jenson changed the way fossils are displayed? >> when you can hide the armature and steel supports the animal looks more alive in the sense that you get the feeling these are bones but it brings life to these bones. >> and jay spencer fleuman, professor of history tells how after mormon pioneers settled salt lake city, they set up sloo satellite communities 357bd 3 mormon families established the settlement of provo in 1849. watch the cities tour to provo utah on c-span's book tv and sunday afternoon on american history tv on c-span. 3. the cities tour working with cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country.

>> hurz,thursday, a hearing on national flood insurance program. roy wright testifies before the senate small business and entrepreneurship committee. live coverage at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> thursday, national transportation safety board chairman christopher hart discusses safety issue and the development of self-driving cars, you can see his remarks at the national press club at 1:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. the hard-fought 2016 primary season is over with historic conventions to follow this summer. >> colorado. >> florida. texas. >> ohio. . watch c-span as the delegates consider the nomination of the first woman ever to head a major political party and the first

non-politician in several decades. watch live on c-span, listen on the c-span radio app or get video on demand at cspan.org. off front-row seat to every minute of both conventions on c-span beginning on monday, july 18. now veterans affairs secretary robert mcdonald on veterans health care, v.a. didn't claims processing and agency modernization efforts. the v.a. secretary took part in a one-hour discussion hosted by the brookings institution. >> all right, good afternoon, everyone. my name is elaine kamark, i'm the director for the center of

effective -- you know, something or other. center for effective government management here at brookings and also a senior fellow. it is my great privilege today to open this session on can the department of veterans affairs be modernized with the secretary of veterans affairs, robert mcdonald. so let me introduce the secretary and then i'm going to introduce norm eisen, one of my colleagues here. the secretary will speak and norm will come up and join him here, moderate some questions he's getting from twitter and other places and also take your questions and we will have a hard stop at 3:00. secretary mcdonald is a west point graduate. graduated in the top 2% of his class in 1975 and he served as brigade adjutant for the corps

of cadets and was recognized by the royal society for the encouragement of arts, manufacturing, and commerce as the most distinguished graduate in academics leadership and physical education. so that's quite something. he served with the 82n't air born division, completed jungle, arctic and warfare training and earned the ranger tab, the expert infantry badge and senior parachutist wings. leaving him tear service, captain mcdonald was awarded the meritorious service medal. he then spent most of his career at procter & gamble where he ended up as chairman, president and chief executive officer. under his leadership procter & gamble significantly recalibr e recalibrated its product portfolio, expanding its manufacturing footprint, adding nearly one billion people to its global customer base and grew

the firm's organic sales by an average of 3% a year. and in two years ago, just about two years ago, president obama selected robert mcdonald to be the secretary of veterans affairs.