host: how significant is the overall comprehensive malpractice insurance that the hospital pays for? guest: that would be an answer that would best come from robin normand. i know it's very significant. it's something that needs to be budgeted into the hospital. certainly any increase in that arena limits what we do and are able to do with other resources in the hospital. everyone in the hospital, our health care business and nurses, we'd much rather see the doctors be spent on patient outcomes and patient care. host: but you also carry the malpractice insurance. guest: absolutely. host: is that an expensive proposition? guest: not as expensive because we are not sued as much. but i do carry over $2 million. host: nurse in columbia, connecticut. her name is judy. you're on with darlene, vice president and director of nursing. .

caller: the pressure is great. they're thinking of it as a job, not as taking care of people. i just wanted to say that you have to work with what is in your heart. my son right now is in a burn unit. those nurses are absolutely awesome.

there are a lot of great new nurses out of there. they are taking care of people. thank you. host: what are you -- what are your duties? caller: the only thing they rn can do it in a nursing home is start and i.v. i cannot run them and hang them and change them, but i cannot start o one. that basically is the only difference of a floor nurse. guest: well, i agree with what she is saying. one is the cost of education. it has increased. another point i would like to focus on that judy brought forward is the fact that we need to meet with our hearts. nursing is a noble profession.

most people are choosing it because they want to make a difference. it requires a demanding intellect, strength of character, up flexibility, and compassion. they lead it with their head and their heart. you need to care about. patients know that difference. people who come to this profession without that realization usually do not stay. we are not here for the money. we are here to make a difference nine times out of 10. she saw some graduates that do not have their head and the heart of wind with patient outcomes. -- they did not have their head and heart aligned. they have a lot to learn

tactically. it is up to us as mentors to bring us to a level of nursing that integrates the higher level of caring for the populations. that is why i believe patients connect with nurses. they do so on a level. we breached some of the gaps of knowledge and with their physicians if it exists. it is a demanding a place. host: my mother is an old nurse. she went to the three-year diploma hospital school in 1903. you went to the diploma school. they are going away. d.c. something missing with the level of technical expertise with hospital in training schools? guest: as we move to a degree

programs, there is not as much time. they do not have as many hours as the old schools of nursing did. that gap is being addressed as we're bringing in new graduates. our average age today -- this is excluding the leadership team -- is 30 years. that has dramatically changed. we have a lot of graduate nurses. we have made accommodations. mentor programs. they are in the form -- nurses are not on their own for a good number of months, depending on the field they are specializing in. we know it is a challenge and an issue. also, it is a utilization of resources. what it costs to bring a nurse up and running is significant.

it is important that those resource chefs are thought about carefully in relationship -- those resource shifts are thought about carefully. whether it is providing time to have them adjust to their level of ability. host: what is the philippine pipeline when it comes to a nursing backs guest: that is in reference to burning nurses in from other countries. the philippines have been one of the focus to fill in the gaps of the nursing shortage. i am sure many of your listeners have heard about it. we are in a little bit of a reprieve with the economy down. we do not have as many nurses who are retiring in relationship

to their retirement plans. therefore ones have changed dramatically. we are having people stay in the field longer. if we look of some of the projections, as far as 2020, when maybe half a million nurses short. as baby boomers leave, and they are becoming those that use the health care system the most. you have this duality of baby boomer impact to what is going to happen in health care. addressing the nursing shortage with nurses coming in from the philippines is not the answer. it is not the answer in taking nurses away from the philippines because it is a global issue. we want to provide the best care we can. there are plenty of qualified

people who should look to a nursing as a qualified profession. i seek good support from government-supported programs for governments -- for scholarships and grants. host: darlene vrotsos, before we take this last call from karen, we want to make sure we thank the virginia hospital center for allowing us to become part of their system and to conduct interviews. everything we have done here is available on our website, at c- span.org. go to c-span.org. it is all available there of the website, including some of the short interviews with doctors we have done. you'll be able to sit everything

there. karen, maersk, please go ahead. caller: good morning and thank you. thank you for your focus on health care providers. i am retired. i put not be if it had not been for an injury. i am an old nurse like your mother. emphasis on "olds. " i graduated with a bachelor of science from the university of missouri. does that qualified me as old, i think. my last of time in nursing, over 40 years, has a perspective of all the changes that have taken place, it for good or ill. i would agree with the director, who was not called a director anymore either.

that is fine with me. i want to address you respectfully. i want to emphasize the business of the parts. i have never known anyone who comes into nursing and stays in nursing that does not have a hard to. i know many times -- that does not have a heart. many times i've wanted to leave. this is who i am. there are some things i agree with and disagree with. nursing education. at the time i was going to school, we had a lengthy program. there was an earlier bsn programs and there were including clinical experience. it was a solid five years. we went to school year round.

the argument about the basic entry level was all print them. we had long -- we're long past that time. host: i apologize. we have run out of time. in your 40 years as a nurse, how has your relationship with doctors changed? caller: i love working with doctors. it was part of the work. i respect them greatly. host: we have run out of time. thank you for calling in. guest: in relationship to producing nurses, we have a significant shortage of nursing faculty. in any given year, but we're turning away almost 50,000 qualified applicants because we lacked the faculty. if you have great experience, i

encourage people to become a faculty member and help us address this gap that is facing nursing. host: darlene vrotsos the chief nursing officer and vice president for virginia hospital center. thank you for being with us. we also want to thank the placebo and the vice president who helped us set all this up. -- we also want to thank the ceo and the vice president who helped us all set up. we will now take you to the aspen institute. they're looking to improve school improvement. presiding will be dr. michael lomax of the united negro college fund. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> it looks like it will be a

couple of minutes until this meeting gets underway. possible changes to the no child left behind act. in the meantime, some items in the news. >> government efforts appeared to be helping the u.s. climate of the worst u.s. recession in decades. it is showing signs of improvement. the data showed manufacturing grew in august for the first time in more than a year. much of the stimulus spending is beginning to trickle through the economy. the government has funneled

about $60 billion in promised tax cuts to households. almost $200 billion has been promised to certain projects. economists say the money out the door is fueling growth above where it would have been without any government action. headline, global economy gains steam. there is evidence the global economy is improving. stocks pulled back tuesday. businesses and households have been regaining confidence. auto sales were the best in over a year. president barack obama called

the manufacturing did approve the steps we've taken to bring our economy back from the brink are working. caller: good morning. i think the packages are helping our economy. in the beginning, there was the depression. a lot of people -- they had opportunities. i feel like the steps the president made were good ones. probably not the best ones. but they have worked. i appreciate that. host: ventura, california. caller: i think the stimulus package may be helping kilobit. i cannot tell much about it.

i wanted to ask a question. it does not pertain to that. senator kennedy possible death plan and all of the -- since senator kennedy paused death and all of the accolades, do have another democratic senator who is in bad health, senator robert byrd. he is the longest ever serving senator. i would think -- the reason i mention it is i am concerned about the czars in this government. senator byrd has been a wise person. he wrote to president a letter and it talks about the danger, the usurpation of the powers of the congress about all of these czars.

i am very concerned about that. i would appreciate it if senator robert byrd, ex coupe cox clan, whatever, i do respect -- ex-ku klux plan,klan, whatever. caller: i took a driving for a trip to florida and took interstate 95 and took construction -- and saw construction in ohio, tennessee, kentucky, georgia, and florida. i think the stimulus plan has put people back to work, because i saw for myself. host: baltimore, maryland. caller: i do not think this administration is getting its

due process. we took advantage of two stimulus packages. we refinanced from a cell % to a -- from a 7% to way for% rate. we took revenge for the cash for clunkers. we get rid of a pig ford and got a nice chevy -- with our rid of a big ford and got a nice chevy. my daughter is in college. we got a cash credit if you volunteer. we have been doing other things. we have lowered our thermostat -- heightened it up for the summer so it does not run much. we use energy-saving bulbs. i am seeing road work being done

in baltimore, throughout maryland. we elected as president for four years. people like to put out a report card. we elected him for four years. i am hoping it will work. i am seeing a great signs. my 401-k took a hit. i lost about 10 grand. host: what do you do for a living? caller: i am an engineer. i work for the city government. my wife works for the state of maryland. she was laid off for nine days because they are taking furloughs here. we are in it for the long haul. host: the caller referenced cash

for clunkers. page this article -- auto sales are up things to clunkers. things to clunkers. and analysts said he seized weekend sales for the rest of 2009. the comet is not expanding enough to support the level of sales. iam. caller: yes, i think this is just propaganda to boost confidence so that people will go out and spend when they should not. we have -- digit unemployment -- double-digit unemployment and we're handing out welfare with cash for clunkers, people who may not be able to afford payments.

i foresee the u.s. to be in an inflationary period at the end of the year that will be the highest ever. host: all right, mount rainier, on the independent line. caller: i'm calling in regarding the stimulus and if it is improving the economy. i want to say that it most definitely is. there are over 1.5 million people currently unemployed. they're still being paid through the estimates. people can question whether or not it may cause inflation -- they're still being paid through the stimulus. but it is securing people's homes, taking care of their families. the stimulus is creating jobs even though some of them for the

infrastructure is going slow. the percentage is probably too low. and should have been geared to around 40% for more infrastructure. >> part of this morning's "washington journal." we're taking you now to a meeting to improve schools. we would hear about possible changes to the no child left behind act. the aspen institute commissioned on no child left behind is holding this hearing. live coverage on c-span. >> welcome to each of you. the commissioners, the aspen institute and the other organizations that have assembled. this is an important national issue. i want to extend thanks to those

who have agreed to come and testify on this great issue of national significance. the great son of our nation, up thurgood marshall, would be great -- would be proud about the work we are embarking on today and the work debt is being engaged on and those who were testifying. several feet from hear, thurgood marshall did a great work that led to the ground breaking brown vs. board of education decision and expanded the umbrella, constitutional umbrella for our children and created the cultural and educational landscape that we're now trying to enrich. here in the law school and working with scholars here at howard university.

we all appreciate the fact that this is a starting point to the discourse in which our nation has been engaged since, in discourse that has had ebbs and flows and, nonetheless, it is continuing. we see this assemblage as a continuation of that. i just want to thank, on behalf of our president, each of bust to continue with the discourse -- for each of us to continue the discourse. and how we will guarantee the constitution umbrella over them, and guaranteeing equal educational opportunities for all of our children. we here at howard are pleased to have a great school of education and with our team here is sitting here, working with our school of science and math.

we are pleased that you have come into this in barman to discuss this critical question. we have to have great standards for our children that did not separate our children based upon class or ethnicity, or immigrant status or whatever. they are common for all of our babies and that we provide a corporate funding for those standards. they're not specific to states or municipalities or home of origin or family income. most importantly, making sure that there are accountability standards that do not allow it to school or community to underpin a chief. so again, -- but do not allow them to under achieved. welcome to an environment that

will enrich just an empower rest and to ensure the umbrella over our babies is complete, comprehensive, and inclusive. thank you very much. i wish for you every good hearing and a day to day at howard university. [applause] >> good morning. i am did dean of howard university school of education. i am proud to echoed those remarks. thank you for convening here at howard university. this first hearing would occur on these grounds, the place for the intellectual and legal strategy for the brown strategy was drafted.

charles hamilton houston and charles thompson charted a course that continues to require that our nation expand its citizens access to quality education. their legal calculus, these men defined access as the accountability measure. as you engage in these hearings, you are aware that some what happens believed that the court, building issue of the day it is summarized about which students are scoring higher on standardized tests. the real issue before us is which states, which districts and schools are enabling student achievement. some states and schools are enabling student achievement and some are not. there is a consistent pattern of

input variables which have high student outcomes and those that do not. evidence is showing us that the fundamental assumption that achievement-focused education systems is deeply flawed. a recent harvard education study found that test-driven some -- systems do not incentivize and they hurt minority schools, often leaving the school's dramatically worse off. we sit here and knowing that in high poverty schools where 50% are on free or reduced lunch, those students are at 7% likely to encounter a teacher who was not certified or who does not have a minor or major in the field they are teaching. but those other factors that

consistently limit students' opportunity to learn. students' language in schools that are underfunded and have short tendered superintendents and high turnover rates among teachers. despite these well documented input variables, we continue to talk about measuring kids, to see if they are achieving. we're beginning to a conversation about student academic achievement. education -- we published statistics that 84% of african- american students are in states that require high stakes high school exams. 66% of white students are in such states. who is measuring these students access to quality teachers? availability of gifted and ap

schools? we encourage you as you engage your important work to evolve a new model that clarify the relationship between input variables to produce an index of sort. it will likely have high predictive value, providing student achievement. policy makers, parents could use this indexed to understand the opportunity to learn in these schools and districts. it could be used to hold states and districts accountable, up shifting the attention away from measuring kids. it could expand access to quality education opportunities.

a recent report would be instructive. continuing to test malnourished children will not yield much progress. until the inputs are changed, the students -- will continue to find these students come up first. perhaps the most meaningful action you can take is to affirm that more equitable distribution of corporation resources is needed to give students at a fair opportunity to learn. the original intent of the education act, no child left behind's para legislation, was to improve opportunity for poor children. thank you for being here today. we welcome you to howard university. i want to introduce the chair of the commission, dr. michael

lomax. dr. lomax heads the nation's largest and most successful minority higher education assistance organization. through its headquarters and in 24 field offices across the country, they annually provide program funds to the 39 member colleges and universities and their 55,000 students. manages -- they managed scholarship programs at over 900 colleges and universities. over 64 years, they have raised and distributed over $2.5 billion and has a system over 300,000 students in learning undergraduate degrees. uncf received the largest

private gift to american higher education from the bill and melinda gates foundation. it provides outstanding minority students with an opportunity to complete their college education. dr. lomax joint after serving in a series of high-level and political positions. he served seven years as president of dillard university in new orleans. i am pleased to introduce to you dr. michael lomax. >> thank you very much. i also want to thank our host today, our provosts. i want to think the president'

who could not be here this morning. when we called and said we wanted to have this hearing at howard, he was so gracious to provide all of the support needed. it was so appropriate that we are here. this is the ground on which thurgood marshall stood with charles hamilton schuster and dean thompson as they prepared for the landmark brown vs. board of education mitigation. it is appropriate that we come back to ask how we fulfilled that extraordinary promise and that ruling which outlawed separate but equal in the nation that has yet to be able to find a way that all children have equal access to an education that will prepare them for college and for life. i am delighted to be here today

wearing two hats. i am a new member of the aspen institute's commission on no child left behind. i want to say a special. word of thanks to aspen for taking the leadership in addressing this important issue for our nation. the commission was formed in 2006 to take an independent, bipartisan looked at the strengths and weaknesses of neutral behind. it is a law that is a vital part of our nation's commitment to educate all children, including those often forgotten. the commission is cochaired by two former governors. roy barnes of georgia and tommy thompson of wisconsin, a republican. a bipartisan effort in the town

that does not often see that. let me tell you why i wanted to get involved with this important effort. why is uncf in the k-12 reform movement? we're a post secondary organization. we have always worked in its 65 year history to open the doors to higher education for all americans. our focus has been on removing the financial barrier, to raising dollars to ensure that the young men and women who aspire to a college education have the financial resources to attend. today we see another barrier to the dreams pets so many young people have for achieving a college education. that is educational preparation

for college. to many men and women who graduate from high schools are not college-ready. in fact, 30% of all entering freshmen need remedial education. the figure is much higher among students of color. for too long, the students have been invisible in our schools. with their performance masked, these achievement gaps have profound affect on our nation's economy and on these young men and women's lives. a report released by mckinsey and company has shown that the persistence of achievement gaps between disadvantaged and minority students and their peers imposes the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession on our

country. the landmark notre look behind act -- the landmark no child left behind act sustained national dialogue about the quality of the public schools and how to improve achievement for all students and close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority children and their peers. it has transformed the debate. as their result of the data, we are better equipped to make informed decisions about what is working and what needs improvement in our schools. we have been -- it has been an important step forward. our work is far from over. to many parents lacked the clear

meaningful information they need to make good informed decisions about their children's education. too many children are still assigned to schools that are not meeting their needs the. the pace of change in struggling schools is far too slow. the political will to address the obstacles is often lacking. copper i think we should -- i think at this time we should acknowledge the importance of no child left behind as we shine light on critical areas of improvement. we should all stop for a moment and pay homage and respect to senator edward kennedy. we want to take a moment to honor the late senator's

tireless dedication to improving education. he was not only a leader in creating the law we're talking about today, but he spent the last 40 years working to build the foundation of a good education for every student, for every child in this nation. he understood that education and civil rights went hand in hand. we hope our work will carry the same commitment to lasting education reform display by senator kennedy. where do we stand today? since the release of the aspen institute's commission on no child left behind, the initial report, more than two years ago, there have been major strides.

we called for a model national standard. there's now an effort to adopt common standards. states have made great progress in developing data systems that informed reform efforts. stimulus funds will help accelerate the progress. stimulus funding as also driving reform conversations in other key areas addressed by the commission, including teaching -- including increasing teacher effectiveness and improving standards and assessment. the commission recently added new members. we're launching a series of public hearings to develop updated and expanded recommendations for improving no child left behind. it will build on the previous recommendations issued beyond nclb. the direction of our established

work will not change. we will be taking a fresh look at the law in order to update our recommendations to reflect progress made toward their adoption. new guidance, regulation, and pilot initiatives, activity generated by stimulus funding, lessons learned, and other changes to the landscape. with respect to today's hearing, we have chosen to begin a public discussion with an examination of what can be done now to address chronically low performing schools and how. authorized notes child left behind can best advanced and support effective school turnaround an improvement efforts as well as expanding academic options for students

every year, up 1.2 million american students, approximately half of inner-city students do not graduate from high school. the nationwide graduation rate is shockingly low, around 70%. a disproportionately high amount of these dropouts come from so- called dropout factories. 2000 high schools produce more than half of our country's dropouts. among students who do make it to graduation, four in 10 are not ready for college or employment, according to professors and employers. the consequences of not getting this right extend beyond missed opportunities for individual students and have a significant affect on our collective

standard of living. the persistence of the achievement gap imposes the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession. i am delighted today to be joining my fellow commissioners in this critical work. i would now like to introduce my colleagues on the commission who are here with us today. you have full bios in the materials we have passed out. the state superintendent of education in the louisiana. the president of the national association of charter school authorizes. principal of young scholars academy in brooklyn. the chief management official in

the centers for disease control and prevention. dr. jane hathawanaway. vice president for education at the national council. mike johnston, colorado state senator. master educator for the district of columbia public schools. and the director of disability services in the district of columbia. i would also like to acknowledge and express our deep appreciation to gary, the executive director of the aspen institute. i would like to introduce our

witnesses for the hearing in the water that they will speak. each will be given five minutes to summarize their testimony, which will be followed by a discussion. following that, we will have an open opportunity for members of the public to speak, as well. today, the distinguished panel of witnesses, in the order that they will provide their testimony. ronald, state superintendent from baltimore. garth harries, assistant superintendent for performance management in connecticut. mike contompasis, senior field

consultants turnaround strategy group, boston, massachusetts. phyllis lockett from chicago. natalie elder, principal in chattanooga, tennessee. and steve barr, a founder and chairman of green dot's public- school. pelletier from our witnesses. -- let's now hear from our witnesses. >> good morning. i am with the maryland state department of education. but i think it is important dialogue that we need to have as we look forward to the present -- to the future. maryland's turnaround began a

long time ago at the governor's commission in 1989 that established a school intervention program. by 1996, we had identified low performing schools. we had 73 schools statewide and we transition them into the no accountability program. we're now up to 200 19 schools -- we're now up to 219 schools. of all those schools, about half have been in some stage of the school improvement process for five years or more. and number of them have been languishing for more than a decade. close to two decades of our work, we've done some things that represent all the tools on

the table, from replacement of staff and the replacement of curriculum and bringing staff developers been. many of those things did contribute if only incrementally to making improvements. we did have improvements. we had 32 elementary, middle, and high schools and we have been able to turn those schools around. they're working quite well. this year, we believe we have 20 elementary and middle schools and we're looking to pick up some high schools. one week transition into no child left behind, we changed our tests and the identification of these tests. we ended up identify a lot of the same schools. they will continue to be low-

performing schools. we know how to identify them. i am not saying we do not need to do work with assessments. i like to talk a little bit about one thing that is unique. it is fitting dr. lorton should have introduced the proceedings. -- dr. thornton should have introduced the proceedings. it has worked hand in hand with the reform program. it has brought about change pretty dramatically. it pumps $4.5 million into schools. it came with a lot of accountability. as schools would lay out their plans to spend this money, and it was distributed according to the high cost students in the district. this system had to develop a meaningful plan as to how they would develop the problem.

the have to review between 9100 experts. sometimes those plans were not approved. it went back and forth. we have a good relationship with the local school system. we believe a lot of the change has under girded because of this master planning process. in 2008, we looked at the work and felt there was a lot of good progress. we looked at those dollars. we want the system to have a comprehensive way to look at them. we were one of the fortunate states that had approval to use a different accountability system as a pilot. instead of having schools in one single pathway, to move them into two different pathways.

we identify schools that have lots of issues with multiple subgroups' versus those who have more targeted needs. this is with the special education suburb alone. it allows us to get pretty intensive to work with the low was performing schools and those that have comprehensive needs and to make those priorities. it is not on light touch but more of it focused approach with those who have worked in a department or curriculum. we have a year under our belts. it brought some logic and sense to the single path. approach. we got a couple of thoughts. we thought it would be useful to think about. the course standards and assessments will probably change

the landscape for us. instead of having state-by-state standards, what if we had a level playing field across the state's backs what if our focus was to get students across a low board? what if we get students over that bar and moving higher? we are excited about the potential. it will take a while to get there. the question might be, as we look at growth models, can we implement growth models in a way that is meaningful? some of the growth model data still would give schools the expectation they will end up far below the curb when they get to the end. maybe 100% efficiency is not the target. the principal and teacher

effectiveness is not part of the discussion. it is important to talk about highly qualified teachers, particularly in a state of maryland that imports a lot of some teachers from out of state. it is very important about whether these teachers and principals are defective. it will be important to build those models in important ways. we did talk about the context. there are contacts with many of these schools, communities, drug abuse problems. these related areas need to be addressed. we have some strategy to deal with that. i implore you to think about that we need to think about building a pipeline for highly effective principals and teachers. you need to get good people in

front of these kids and to be assured that they can deliver. particularly principles. leadership was a missing piece and we have tried to make up for that in maryland. i appreciate the opportunity to be here to represent maryland. thank you very much. >> good morning, commissioners. i am garth harries. i come to you today to speak more from my experiences in new york city where i was the chief executive for the office of new schools between 2003 and just this past july. to give you a sense of what we in new york city used as our strategy, our new school initiative, we closed -- we

reconstituted over 80 schools. we opened over 300 new district schools. we opened over 80 new charter schools. things of note -- that is a fairly dramatic scale. it is a function of new york city in an absolute sense. 25% of the schools in new york city are once we have reconstituted in the last five years. that is particularly true at the high school level. it is fairly clear we have seen dramatic performance improvements from these new schools. the charter schools serve twice the minority as the state as a whole, yet score as the same level as the states. they have closed the achievement gaps.

they -- graduate students to call% then the district average. most of the schools that we create more replacements of large schools. average graduation was up 35%. the average graduation rates of the new schools is 76%. not high enough, but still a dramatic change. there are important lessons for the commission in the experience of new york. the second thing, it is important to understand part of the theoretical underpinning that we brought to this work. the school is the unit that matters. our ambition is not to create a great school system in new york. it is to create a great system of great individual schools.

it has important practical implications. it could do so in the reauthorization of nclb and that is part of what i want to talk to. i want to talk about definitions a little bit. the term "turnaround" is a fairly broad one. i would tell you that in the way i think, our new school strategy was very much a turnaround. we were taking buildings, creating new ones with new leaders and new teachers back to more effectively serve those students. there is some sense that it is school closure and it is not a turnaround. i would urge you to be cautious of the definition of

"turnaround." part of what we need to do is to figure out how to create more effective school organizations. one way of doing that is through closing and reopening. there are the same sets of difficult choices that i want to talk to. i have four points of council i think the commission should consider in ways steps nclb could help deal with issues. one of the things beyond the identification of the failure are important. the first of those -- i think we need to be hard-headed and disciplined about the recognition of failing institutions. we closed over 80 schools in new york. it would be important to observe -- we did not close them for

nclb accountability reasons. we looked at our own performance metrics. we look at the progress that these schools were contributing to students. it is an important aspect. we looked at how schools were behaving. and through my tenure we closed 10 to 15 schools a year. . .

>> there are exceptions and the exceptions are on a national scale. the so-called high poverty, high performing schools that on a daily basis beat the odds. there characterized by the falling -- clearly defined authority to act based on what is best for children, flexibility, control over operating conditions, though to include all aspects of the operation of the schools. hiring, staffing, budget. second, illicit focus on hiring and staff development. 3, highly capable school leadership teams. force, additional time in the

school day or across the school year. -- force, additional time in the school year -- in the school day across the school year. 6, an integrated research based program with related social emotional services. we feel those are characteristics that should be incorporated in all schools in all school districts. developing a scale of strategy to address the needs requires districts and states to develop the political will to act and the commitment to mandate fundamental change. we then offer five recommendations -- first, recognize the nature of change required, incremental change does not get us where we want to be. the goal of public policy on failing school intervention must

be to spur fundamental, dramatic change that addresses the dysfunctions of the status quo, produces significant improvement within two to three years, and raise the school to grow into a high-performance organization. second, we recognized turnaround as a discipline. the development of specialized turnaround capacity within schools and districts and among and external partner of organizations. the discipline requires specialized experience and training, resources and support. not everyone is capable of doing the type of work needed to the degree we feel it is needed across states and across districts. three, change the operating conditions. turnaround requires a protected space that often creates a

flexible environment in which the schools in the protected space are able to function. we are talking about the zones or schools where clusters of individual schools that have been deemed to be the most in need of rejuvenation, if you will, that they be placed in some sort of protective zone and giving -- given the authority to make mission directive decisions. federal policy should provide incentives both positive and sanction-oriented that catalyze such policy and encourage union district state bargaining on behalf of these specialized zones where applicable. we firmly believe that in order to scale this at the state and district level, clear about what

might be called the underbrush that inhibits schools, school districts, and states from moving forward. we also recommend these protected zones have lead partners as change managers. in other words, build the capacity to have a partnership with this zone that is freed from some of the inhibitions that might exist either at the state or district level. currently, there are whole series of well meaning providers, all of whom act pretty much independently, which there is little or no accountability for their actions. we feel these lead partners, if they are indeed providing, should have the flexibility in changing the conditions but should also have the ability to

be held accountable for student achievement. finally, the fifth recommendation is clustering for support. we think we ought to build a system that has three to five schools in these protective zones. these should be based on whatever may be the need of the system. the could be on student characteristics, patterns, or by regions. thank you for the opportunity to testify and i am happy to answer any questions. >> good morning. i am the president and ceo of the [inaudible] school fund in chicago. thank you for the opportunity to speak about one of the most important issues in our country, chronically failing schools. we are fortunate in chicago to have the vision of the mayor and

our education secretary and the business community who came together for thousands of children in efforts to launch a 100 new schools in tiny communities. when we started the renaissance 2010 initiative, there was an analysis that identified 27 communities where 75% of the schools performed below state standards. that meant a child living in one of these neighborhoods was most likely relegated to a poor- performing option unless they were lucky enough to get into a selective in roman school. at the same time, there were some -- a selective school. they had hired attendants, higher graduation rate, and higher college acceptance rate. many of these schools were charter schools that have the flexibility and freedom to structure their education

program in the best interest of kids. they also had cultures of high expectations, challenging curriculum, data-driven [unintelligible] freedom to set their own budget and were held accountable to perform or they closed. it was a framework not easily achievable in our traditional system. the turner model challenges to think about a new framework based on choice and competition or independent operators to manage schools, replace schools that were not performing and put competitive pressure on the remaining neighborhood schools to improve. the mayor and arnold duncan launched the initiative as the committee to support the startup of 100 new schools in the most challenging areas. the renaissance fund was launched and serves as a catalyst to create new schools in chicago possible need

communities. -- chicago's piny communities. -- chicago's height need communities. we identified models that work, we are not trying to reinvent the wheel. we partner with the chicago public school district and the selected -- selection and authorization of new school models. we facilitate partnerships with corporations and institutions to create new schools. we invest up to $500,000 in schools for start up and we also have to pass programs to develop a pipeline of entrepreneurs, support the growth of strong schools their business planning and technical assistance and educate parents about options and advocate for their choice. our goal is to provide resources

and expertise to build capacity to take the successful models to scale. we have a very extensive competitive request for proposals each year connected with the chicago public school district. we bring in national experts and assembled panels to about it -- to evaluate each applicant and inform which schools are approved by the board of education. schools have to prove they have strong education program, proven curriculum, innovation, distinctiveness, leaders with a strong track record of performance, a sustainable and financial operation of plant and consistent governance and five- year contract and growth potential. we only support the strongest proposals we think can best deliver for children. this effort has open the doors to innovation and has empowered leaders from all sectors to create innovative and education options we never thought imaginable.

resources from the technology industry, law firms, consulting firms, banks, universities, community organizations, have come together with educators to create new school models. examples include the illinois institute of technology, math and science education departments that work with the charter schools and motorola to create a math and science school. in its first year, the students performed 76% [unintelligible] state standards. the university of illinois medical campus, and denovo networks charter schools. we also partnered with a strategy management firm that worked with them to create the first elementary models opening this fall in chicago.

early results of the renaissance efforts suggest we are on track. the schools are performing better than the neighborhood counterparts. students will get 6.2 years of court instruction than the average district school. we have strong parent demand and we know from this charter background that students -- schools that stay open five or more years are performing 17% better than the district average. what we would suggest is that this panel encourage the federal government to support new school options, put pressure on states and school districts to close schools that are not performing, that they will provide incentives to create private-public partnerships with the intellectual capital, business, and industry can be transferred to our students. we also recommend they fund

parent organizations to help them exercise their choice. that is the biggest challenge we have -- not enough parents, the parents still don't understand their children are in family schools. we applaud your efforts and we hope to partner with you as we move forward to ensure all of our children have a high-quality education. thank you. >> good morning. i am the principal at an elementary school in chattanooga, tennessee. i will focus on the challenges, status of turnaround, and improvement efforts at party elementary school. the motto of party elementary school is "excellence, not average per " this is significant -- this is part of

my philosophy in a predominantly working-class and poor student body. the majority of my students are african-american, with the remaining minority composed of asian and caucasian peoples. the majority of my students confront the challenges of being disadvantaged and are lacking the means to acquire adequate out of school support for the pursuit of intellectual activities. they also face the challenge of not having expressive language skills. 75% of the kindergartners get to school with some notable academic deficiencies. given this context, the party elementary spirit is characterized as one that has a number of challenges as a result of inequality in american life. while it is the responsibility

of schools to provide an education, it becomes extremely difficult when your student body lacks an adequate educational support system and the immediate family and community. while the challenges may seem formidable, i have developed a philosophy and a set of pedagogy said have been successfully applies -- successfully applied. my career in education has spanned 27 years. i have been a teacher, assistant principal, and principal primarily in the elementary school setting. i've was a principal at hearty elementary since 2001. it was a challenge. after reviewing the data of the school, i felt discouraged, fearful, and apprehensive in my abilities. to move a school to the academic success it needed.

party elementary school was identified by the state of tennessee as the lowest performance school, not only in the district, but the entire state. the reading and writing scores faltered at 15% while math scores were flat lining around 10%. the mentality and state of mind of the teachers was one of the feet and lacked motivation to the challenges of academic success for students. -- one of the feet and lacked motivation to challenges of academic success for students. students were accustomed to working -- working in an environment of chaos those not conducive to learning. it began as a dysfunctional learning community, however aware it was on the verge of cosmetic change. we were in a state of emergency

and everyone was held accountable. with the support of my assistant principal, we realized we had to reconstitute the staff and [unintelligible] for high-quality teachers. we were in search of high- quality teachers whose pedagogue the include banking outside of the box, the category for academic improvement. we had to develop a schoolwide code of behavior and transitions in and outside the classrooms. the mind-set of how we view ourselves, students, parents, and the community was pivotal in reaching our goal of excellence, not average. disruptive behavior in the classroom was not tolerated.

students understood that their classmates, based on the constitution, were entitled to a free education and the staff would no longer allow them to infringe upon the students' rights to achieve a highly quality education. if those students work violating students' rights, we and the elite remove them from the classroom and place them in an intensive environment called in- school suspension for retooling their behavior. we continuously focused on the classroom work. it was imperative to invest in effective teaching to ensure teachers were knowledgeable of their content, savvy in their deliverance, and maintain a disposition of professionalism and respect for the people they were serving. despite being confronted with a plethora of challenges, it was

clearly understood that we would sale or sink. we decided to sail. we developed a clear vision, review data constantly, built start -- built strong leadership teams and invested in professional development that was purposeful and focused. we inc. [unintelligible] that consisted of the five [unintelligible] of reading. reading strategies and working with words strategies. the desegregation of data illustrated patterns and trends of the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced in reading or math. it also reviewed the losses or

gains based on adequate yearly progress. the teachers administered quarterly formative assistance and teachers used these results to group and regroup students based on their needs. hearty elementary stands on education and is still excellent, not average. it resulted in a 212 degree attitude toward changing how we look at ourselves today. i am looking forward to an opportunity to express what we think we should be and where we need to go. i am open to any questions of the panel. thank you for allowing me to be here this morning. >> good morning. i am the founder of green dot public-school, based in los

angeles. we have just arrived at our 10- year anniversary. we operate 19 small preparatory high schools in los angeles, with the highest crowding and dropout rate. we also have one school in the bronx. we have one -- we going to areas where there are 50%-7% drop out rates. -- 50%-70% drop out rates. we're just scratching the surface of our work. we think charters are what each school district could become. this friday, we start orientation for the second year of the high-school in watts, a turnaround school. it is not lost on me that the building next door to hear is named after a graduate of howard university and the father of the

heart -- father of the harlem renaissance. it is apropos we are here. why would a charter group go and take over one of the biggest drop out factories in the country? a little bit about that high- school -- it opened five years after the watts riots. it just celebrated its 40th year anniversary. we enacted no child left behind with the majority of the teachers. a school the was supposed to bring hope after those riots, if you look at the statistics and facts, approximately 60,000 people attended a high-school in those 40 years. this is what is at stake with our work -- 60,000 people, if you can imagine them all coming together in one place, let's say dodgers stadium was filled with 60,000 people. if you got on the p a system and said despite general statistics available, you said leave the stadium if you did not graduate

from high school. 40,000 people would have to leave. now you have a stadium with 20,000 people where there was once 60,000. if you got on the p a system and said please leave the stadium if he did not get accepted to a four-year university. you would then have 8000 people. why is four year university important? you make a million dollars more over a lifetime and have the qualifications to come back and teach. now you have 8000 and and if you got on the p a system and said leave the stadium if he did not graduate from a four-year university. approximately 2200 people would be left in the stadium. a tiny section of the stadium where there was once 60,000 people. if you said how many people came back to the watts community to teach? how many came back to be politically active? how many came back and started a business to employ the people in the community grew up in?

none of them. the problem with that is there are dozens of high-school like that in los angeles. there are thousands of high schools like that nationally. what a government act, what gang intervention program, box store moving into that community can reverse that in the structure damage? nothing. this is the longer a problem that belongs to someone else. this affects everyone -- everything that goes on in a city like los angeles, washington d.c., and the cities represented here. we have to turn this work around. we started and i am proud to say with the courageous leadership and courageous teachers, we drew the line in the sand, we don't want adults in front of them who did not believe all children can learn. we did not fire teachers complain that teachers and blame them. we said if you believe all kids can learn and the college ready, react. 43 of the 120 dead.

-- 43 of the 120 did. every adult and get to know every child and find the uniqueness in that child and left the bar high and give them the personalize education they deserve. in the first year where a school that the average freshman class was 1200 and the sophomore class was 500, that means 700 kids washout of the watts community surrounded by 70% -- 17 or 25 of the worst gang recruiters in the country, we held over 80% of those kids this year. 600 kids came back to that school that had been thrown out or offer to be transferred out of the school. we learned a simple lesson street kids are starved for structure, adults who believe in them. they're starved for a vision, adults to explain why they are

learning something and that is having a huge impact. the other thing we have learned and i hope it is the baseline of the work of this commission is that we have to gather the tribes. every conversation about education divides into people's tribes. we saw a little bit of that today. i am part of the charter school tried and we think everything we do is perfect. there is the union tried, people work a school district tried, those who think parents are the problem tried, the academic tried, those who think testing is the problem, he had to gather all those tribes and understand 70% is all problems we agree on. if you don't think it's a small school is soluble or kids don't fall to the cracks, if you do believe all kids can learn more tax dollars will long in the schools to pay teachers the most, if you don't believe teachers should have some say of what goes on in front of them but to also be held accountable

, and that parents are the greatest assets, then you should do something else. that should be the vision of this. during the presidential campaign last year, our first lady, as are give a speech on c-span late one night -- she said every neighborhood in the country has one school. everybody knows about that one school. it is a school which you use and the office address to be a part of. sometimes their regular public schools, sometimes their charter schools, sometimes their private schools. everyone knows about that one school. the question we should ask is why don't all schools look like that one school? we will get into a more, but it starts with having a line drawn in the sand that failure is no longer acceptable. we took the high-school, but failure should not be deflected by an upstart charter group. we need leadership to do this.

we have 90 school districts in the state of california that under the child left behind are unacceptably failing, but nobody does anything about it. we need to draw the line and scaling up fast. i am honored to be here was very smart people and i look forward to the conversation. >> i want to thank all our witnesses. let's give them a hand for their testimony. [applause] we're going to transition now into the question and answer session. s chairman, i get to ask the first question. -- as chairman, i get to ask the first question. each member of the commission who served on the school improvement subcommittee will be given a maximum of 10 minutes, but we don't have to take the full 10 minutes. other commissioners who are on other subcommittees will be given a maximum of six minutes. i will begin the questioning and i will yield to commissioner

richmond. i will ask them to yield to the commissioner sitting next to him. we do have a timekeeper, we don't have a hook. we're going to ask each of the commissioners to be brief in their questioning and we ask the witness is to be seen in their responses. following that, we will open the floor for 20 minutes of opportunities for public comment and questions. we have some more to do. i'm going to ask questions as a former college english teacher. i was in the classroom teaching freshman composition for 20 years. at morehouse, a good school, too many by freshmen came unable to write in the way i thought they

needed to be able to write to be successful in college. i believe the reason that too many of those young men and women who came to more house with a high-school diploma but not college ready skills is because our public schools ration the kinds of academic preparation that they should have gotten, challenging rigorous academic, because they operated on the philosophy of not college for all, the college for some. college for some meant only for some kids of color. so i want to ask what is the state of maryland doing today? this is about no child left behind, it is about the elementary and secondary education act, but we do not want to be a nation of high- school graduates.

we want to be at nation of college graduates. we want to be the number one nation in the world for producing college -- what we do in maryland to make sure the kid to get a diploma are college- ready? >> we have a variety of things. some of it is under the rubric of notre was behind. we have a graduation test that affected the class of 2009 this year. each student has to pass or complete the combined score across four different test to graduate. one is 10th grade english. 10 the great english sounds low and it is, but that's a good standard to get started. -- 10th grade english sounds low and it is. grade by grade, for the current graduating class has been lower than any of the proceeding class's because kids are getting individual attention as they try to raise the bar for students so they will graduate.

for the class of 2009, the global have a better level of proficiency. coupled with that, maryland currently has -- is ranked no. 1 in terms of access to the advanced placement tests and having students pass advanced placement tests in the country. this is a very important feature because for the high-school landscape, the advanced placement course is the metric you want to make sure students are working toward and it represents the first year of the freshman high-school experience. we have among the highest increases of participation in the african-american students and hispanic students in the country. that said, we have a long way to go. it is anything but equitable, but we're still doing a better job than many of the other cities in the country. >> thank you. demanding, rigorous, academic, has to be for all students. if we don't set the standard

for all students, we will continue to have the same results. i would like to ask principal elder a question. but what was clearly principal and academic, and as far as the child left behind, standards are important. but to be successful in college, we need students to come with a self discipline, the internal values that have been inculcated in them that prepare them to get in the morning to go to class, use our time wisely, perform without always having an exam as the source of that performance. a lot of that it's learned in school and a lot of that has to be taught in school. we're now seeing schools like yours which are increasingly prescriptive, which are setting

standards of conduct and behavior which reinforce academic performance and preparation for life, including college. how does no child behind reinforced that or does it? how can public policy make sure that what is happening at your elementary school is happening in middle school and high- school across the country? >> first, i think we must recognize college begins in kindergarten. if we take that approach, and everyone has to change their mind set on how to do that. you have to hold the children accountable and involve them in the business of educating them by allowing them to take ownership of what they're doing with them classroom, which means you should have one-on-one conference with them and they should be allowed to set goals so they have an idea of where they are and where they need to move to. it has to resonate throughout middle school, high-school, and

hopefully to the higher education level. you have to involve parents. they have to take accountability for the actions of their children with in the schools. i am always first to say to parents, your job is to discipline. our job is to educate. we can do it as a team, but we have to do it effectively. sometimes you have to retool them to understand the only pathway out of poverty is through education. if you want to get them in the place where they are productive citizens, you have to change the mindset of how everyone views their responsibility to educating students, which also includes the child. teachers have to be engaged, parents have to be engaged, it has to be all stakeholders and cannot be limited to just a teacher. it has to involve everyone. >> as a follow-up to that question, i would like to say if

you're going to set these high academic standards and have the schools doing what they need to do to ensure since our college ready, parents have to be engaged. i have been distressed, frankly, as i have watched school reform movements across the country that too often, who is missing are the parents of the kid we're talking about. if we were every day -- if they were every day sending their children to a school which was starving them physically, which was not giving them the food they need to be full human beings, we would have people marching in the streets. there would be an uprising. but the fact we are starving them academically in many of these schools, the students are not getting the academic preparation they need for a full and healthy life, those on

question. how do we a gauge parents? -- how do we engage parents? >> that is absolutely correct. what i find is the core issue is the parents just don't know. when i'm working in the communities in chicago, every parent wants their child to get a great education. i think the problem is we have a huge force happening in this country where states are loring standards to meet requirements -- states are low wearing their standards to meet requirements. they have a sense their child is performing better than they actually are doing. illinois is the worst. a child in the eighth grade only has to score at the 38 percentile to get a meet or beat score. to reinforce this is a core part of no child behind has to continue -- has to translate and be promoted for parents to understand this. translated to a grade level.

give them an a, b, c, d, or f rating. people understand if my kid is that and f board the school, it is a problem. we have to do more separatist than what kinds of schools their kids are in. and expose them to the options of choices they have available. >> thank you. i want to express my appreciation and yield to mr. richardson. >> i have a couple of short questions that i want to preface with an observation being here at howard university, this is the first day or week of school for many kids, kindergarten through 12th grade, college, and i think it's important to recognize the reality is we do have good schools in the country and thousands of hard-

working, dedicated teachers and educators who are a research -- to our resources rest to keep in mind as we think about strategies we need to engage in and improved. to recognize that fact and be appreciative of their hard work. the reality is note child left behind has had some great successes and some great flaws. we are here to learn from that experience and make it stronger and better. particularly on the school turnaround strategies. i was struck by the commission's findings to years ago that of the millions of children's eligible to participate in the school choice aspects of no child left behind, 38,000 took advantage out of millions. i support school choice, but that is a failed policy in my view. with that level of participation, more recently,

the center on education policy concluded that of the five federal or structuring options could be proven to be better than any of the others. i suggest we broadness to think about the other 66 programs in the know child left behind program we haven't talked about. 66 separate programs that direct -- directly affect what is going on in school systems and ask whether they are helping educators succeed or not. a new -- the same question that i will ask a several of the panel members -- whether you work in the school system or a school, are there specific things about no child of behind that you had seen be effective over the past few years that we need to make sure we recommend to continue? are there specific things that we should recommend go away?

more broadly, are there other new ideas about how we should organize the strategies? think outside the box -- other ways the federal government should use incentives and disincentives that would help to be more successful in creating better outcomes for kids? >> thank you. i think that's an astute question. some of what i spoke to earlier -- i agree with what was said earlier. there is a convergence of tribe is round, and set of issues of what makes a good school. and what some of the components of that our -- leadership, parent involvement, focus, size, a set of things that create strong school organizations. i would posit that most of nclb

is not set up with that frame in mind. instead, making funding streams tend to be associated with differential programs. different acts, different curriculum's, different pieces of an academic program which is not the same thing as what is the coherent program the school is looking to deliver in its some. as i said earlier, nclb has done a good job on a dedication. in school turnaround, i felt that has been a non factor. i referred to that in my testimony. funding streams don't flow to fiscal turnaround situations depended on whether you have decided to preserve the school code or not -- something as simple as that. the timing was not always aligned with decisions educators need to make about how they are going to spend their next professional years.

i have been in jurisdictions where districts don't think they have the authority to close schools or reconstitute schools absent a mandate to do so under nclb. i would suggest to the commission trying to find ways in nclb to shift the frame from one as program-focused to one at a school-focused and allows for convergence that i believe is occurring around what makes a quality school institution and how to encourage quality school institutions. >> in response to your questions, i think everyone should be held accountable for what they do. it is important that the person who stands before children are

well-equipped to do the job necessary to move them to higher level of education. one thing i would like to see is a growth model utilizing a progressive, formative approach where you look at the schools where they are. not where you think they should be to start them at a point where they are not ready, but start them where they are. utilize the data and by midpoint of the school year, do another form of assessment to see how well they have moved. are you seeing a half years growth? by the end of the school year, looking at whether they have maintained or gained growth. we have to be cognizant of the fact that some students come in at ground zero. when you have students entering

schools like mine where and gardeners have no idea of a letter being different from a number and no one has taught them that, where students come in and they're not sure what their names are, all they know is they could be boo boo and letters make words and create names for them and that there are a lot of things that must be taken into account. we have to make sure every school is in the same place. we need to look at where they are and start them off and then grow from where they are, but give support. that support has to be an investment in teacher quality, providing professional development that is purposeful and focused on the needs of the school. making sure the teacher that stands before the class is fully equipped to go in and do the job

effectively and provide support because we cannot have a situation where we are looking at no child left behind as the neiman-marcus model, we are utilizing dollar general support. [laughter] we have to be honest that there are areas we have to mandate and fund. so we are reaching the goals of what it is for and identify those that are struggling yes, hold everyone accountable yes, provide support so they can reach those zones and not just label them and isolate them and marginalize them so they are unable to do their job well. >> one of the issues that seems to come up is testing.

the way we look at it differently is the test score is about data. are we on the right track? ultimately we report to an answer to parents. we have to look the parents and say to them, yes we are on the right track. our quarterly assessments in the ninth grade math class we see a track of success with your students. we have 17 schools going the right way. there is one we have flag that is not. we don't use that data to scapegoating teacher, we use that data to look at that illicitly to see we are not giving enough coaching, maybe there is something unique about that particular class. we need to do an analysis because of the malay, to be accountable to our stakeholders, and ultimately that is the parents, we have to look at them and not fill them with anecdotes and feel-good stories. we have to be accountable. if you are an affluent parents and you are lucky enough to be

able to send your kid to the tiny private school, they may not lead on testing, but there is accountability. we have to have the same mindset in public education and not the defense about testing, but perfect it, use it, so that ninth great families coming into one of our schools -- they don't get another chance. they get one chance and we have to be accountable and take that seriously. if we need to look at this not as a got a testing drill, teaching to the test, the argument that goes back and forth, how to use data to improve the schools because we have to go. >> good morning. i want to start off by saying how proud i am to sit here as a commissioner before you. as the principle of a new school that opened last september in new york city, i know one of the keys to my first year success has been autonomy.

i would like to ask how you envision bringing more autonomy to public schools? >> i think one of the roles nclb can provide is to ensure that there are options that allow for existing school districts to develop a portfolio of options. that increase the flexibility and autonomy for the schools. it could be anything from charters to in-district pilots, or whatever you want to call them. part of the strategy i think is necessary is that we have to at the same time we talk about turning around or improving individual schools, we have to

raise the discussion to what are we doing about the school districts? it makes no sense to take a school, turnaround, and put it into a dysfunctional school district without looking at what is causing that this functionality. it makes no sense to do the things we're talking about here when states still deliver funding in a categorical nature. without thinking through may be much more flexible process, block grants, or that kind of option might work. i think the conversation around turnaround requires us to think seriously about whether a model that has been in use to deliver educational services for 40 years or even longer is indeed an adequate model to address the concerns you have heard the witnesses here talk about today.

concerns of trying to deal with students that are currently attending some of these schools. if you do not have a school district that is thinking seriously about early childhood, if you do not have a state that funds it and mandates that it be funded, it doesn't hide under the excuse that we don't have to have mandatory kindergarten, i would argue that with the students we are addressing today, if you do not have something like that or even earlier, mandatory k-one, for example. in boston, we have integrated play to learn groups which take two and three year-old and mandate they attend school twice a week. it must have a parent with them. we have built in a social

services component that provides for the welfare of not only the student, but the family. the idea of not having that kind of system in place will lead a number of our students to be ill-prepared to enter kindergarten. we have to address that and i think we have got to use the bully pulpit to suggest these things are necessary. dr. lomax raise the question of record. -- question of rigor. what a p forces a district to do is look all laid down to the elementary level. you cannot take calculus of the of not completed algebra one in the eighth grade. if a system is not doing that and not providing the level of access needed, it is a failed system. when we talk about autonomy,

what we are looking for is maybe the correct term is a convergence of tribes and the multiple interests, people of goodwill who have to come together and think differently about what it is they need to do. what is wrong with a charter school being part of a district? it makes no sense to me in this day and age to suggest there should not be as many different options available as long as they are functioning. there is no one accountable right now for the statistics that were -- that were presented earlier in the conversation. unless we develop that mechanism by which accountability to the users of our system is inherent and we use the accountability to more or less drive the

discussion around what works, we are not going to get there. in a long-winded way, the more autonomy and flexibility you are able to give the schools within a district, the better off we are. >> i have a question for ms. elders. what kind of support did you receive from your state or district as you turn your school around and what were some of your options? >> i was fortunate to be involved with an incentive program through a foundation which gave us the resources necessary to help us turn the school around. it allowed us the opportunity to have actual people come in and work with the staff providing purposeful, professional development and help our teachers understand who the

students were and how they need to work with them. that was a plus for us. we were facing so many challenges to say the least. you are talking about dealing with a community who does not value education, or they do value education, but don't know how to assist their own children. .

>> we have two classes in our school, but we have six kindergarten classes which means we are not meeting the needs of all the students in the community. we are looking at 65% or more students that are walking to the classrooms and are not prepared. the fact that all of them do not stay at hardy elementary school. we may get 10 that actually stay basically because of the stigma placed on our schools when they were low performing schools. it is economically- disadvantaged. when you are trying to change the mindset of that, it becomes difficult. changing how people view us, providing a more rigorous

curriculum but not having the necessary means of reaching every child that walks through the door, you have over 105 kids and you only get 10 if you are lucky. by fifth grade they are not still there by fifth grade. it is a lot of misconceptions about that. i am glad that those things are changing. people are looking at us differently now. they know that we are trying to educate students. parents are really getting it. this is the first year in a long time we have had a parent teacher organization where parents are asking questions. unfortunately this year we have a target in math which was very disheartening for me and the

staff, but the good thing about it is we did not just throw our hands up and say oh, well. we took a proactive approach. we established an math challenge program for our parents because our parents were honest to say to us i cannot help my child. i don't know how to do the math. we are talking about students in the third, fourth and fifth grade. we have provided which will start september 14, at every monday working with parents to help them to know how to work with their students at home. that is a big challenge. this is the first year i have been faced with a parent who is 17-years old bringing in a four- year old who has no clue how to help her child because she is still trying to help herself. there are a lot of challenges.

are there challenges we cannot reach? we make no excuses in our building. there are no excuses for educating children because i have always said to the staff if we don't do something then we will continue to have an economically unbalanced society. why don't we be proactive now to help students so they can take over when it is our time to sit down? >> thank you. >> i have a few questions for all of the members of the panel here. many of you talked about and gave examples of public-private partnerships of others that are helping in turning around schools, but i want to talk

about an entity that none of you mentioned, which is special education. i n interested if you could give examples of significant productive -- i am interested if you could give examples of your turnaround effort. what do we need to do to have school education be more accountable for the teachers they are representing to our nation's schools? thank you. >> we have had in maryland and number of projects on the research and in terms of looking at what is happening in schools. -- projects on the research end. we have had help from the university of maryland but we have also gone to brown university and have been working with one of their centers over the last two years, helping us

try to reconfigure the way we operate the department so we can work with schools more effectively. that has been a productive project, and we will have a much better way to support principles. it is an untapped area. in maryland it is different than some other states in terms of trying to ensure there is alignment with the curriculum and methods at the school level. we import probably 60% of our teachers, so even if everyone of our schools had teachers treat -- had teachers be on the mark, we still have a lot of work to do. some of that work will end up being done through the graduate schools and not through undergraduate work. there is a lot of work we need to do and looking at alternative routes to get teachers into the

classroom. we are working at this in baltimore city. one of the partnerships we have in baltimore is related to the teach for america program and a graduate program at johns hopkins. that is good at insuring that you have a master's degree in teaching and be able to apply that. that has been a good incentive for people to train people for baltimore. >> i would add on the question of accountability. i think figuring out ways so that we are tracking hal graduates of different education programs, -- tracking how graduates of different education programs are contributing. in an era where we are trying to move away from input measures of activity in public schools, i am

somewhat engrossed in a certification discussion at the moment. that is not the conversation at the education schools. it is what classes do you take and what certifications do you get? i would also commend to the commission the various teacher residency programs that developed. boston has won, at the charter school networks are in the process of developing them. some places have decided that like in medicine, the best training to be a teacher may be to be a teacher. students are earning their credits for working in schools with some additional classroom support, as opposed to a single internship. >> i would add a couple of examples, since you asked for examples.

in boston, the university's in the city, and we are fortunate to have so many, have come together and focused some of their resources in working with some of our underperforming schools. an individual university may adopt a couple of schools, and the results on that are still kind of mushy, because you are really dealing with a learning curve on both sides of the equation. one of those universities, at northeastern, -- northeastern will have a program where it is taking students who received a high-school diploma but may not yet have had the necessary skills to move on to higher

education. northeastern is establishing a program where students will go there for great 13 or grade 14, similar situations occur in good junior colleges. those students will enhance their skills. the idea is they will be able after one year to move on to either of northeastern or any other schools. i mentioned the teacher residency programs. i think we ought to try to fund those nationally. we ought to do it with principles as well. in my testimony and comments that i left you, i talked about the fact that turnaround is not something you add to your portfolio. most of us did not get training in how to turn around public

school districts. whether there is a skill set or not, i will leave that to others, but i would suggest that with the concerns that reached principles level on a day to day basis, the ability to turn around something requires a special skill. either getting universities to recognized that, the principal development i would also ago -- i would also echo. the medical model works. put these folks in with a mentor teacher and not only does it create a career ladder option for individuals who serve as mentors, but it gives these individuals looking to become teachers or principals the opportunity to work with a skilled practitioner. finally, since we are raising

the issue of what do you need to do on a system-wide basis, i think we need to look at the profession as a whole. this profession is unique in the sense that you spent 30-40 years in its and then you may reap the benefits of what you have accomplished. most of the rest of the world does not function that way anymore. some of our graduates, the ones here or anywhere else, will be lucky -- they will probably have changed professions a few times. what i am getting to is that in order to attract the best and the brightest there is not the need to have them stay 30 years. i would like to have someone for 10 years or five years. the way we compensate people

also needs to be addressed. existing pension plans need to be on the table. a whole range of how we provide compensation to individuals who may not be interested in at sticking around for 25 years -- interested in sticking around for 25 years. >> i would echo those comments. it is a very different skills that from what we see in starting new schools than running existing schools. i don't see education engaged at large in our work outside of the program that the kellogg graduate school of business launched in conjunction with the graduate program of education at northwestern to start training education

leaders to help augment those skills. something like that needs to be expanded. we do need to recognize it is a very different type of approach that is needed in order to turn around schools. >> i have to agree with what the other panelists have said. one thing that i like that we are doing is we have a leadership program to help our existing people that are within the education settings. we have a program for new teachers coming in to help them become better at their craft. there are a lot of things that need to be in place. i agree with the panel when i said there should not be [unintelligible] i truly believe that, because it

is so unfair to place a new student in a building where they have never had the opportunity to be exposed to that environment before they had their first assignment. we need to look at that and make sure we are aligning them with all these facets of coming into the educational and setting. i had an interviewer last week to i never worked with these type of children. i asked him what type of children was he speaking about because children are children. i don't think she understood what she had actually said. i think it is all about changing the mindset of how we view our responsibilities and what we do as a community. >> i just got the hook. >> if i had nothing good to say

i should now say it. i have recommendations i will probably get to in the next question. >> thank you. i want to offer a series of questions or comments, and then a series of questions for you to comment on regarding district or state capacity to do the turnaround thing. a fecomments. over the last several years we have had school improvement grants for the purpose of dealing with the schools that are troubled. these grants go to states and ultimately go to districts. we have seen it fairly little progress, at least in louisiana we have seen little progress. i would be interested if you know of great progress, because

i am looking for where is the capacity for either the district or the state to do these turnarounds? i also want to talk about expectations. what is our expectation for the success of a turnaround? how quickly, what level, will it always succeed? let me make a few more comments. when we adopted the accountability system in louisiana in 1996 and began our testing protocol, we saw an increase in the improvement, but then we saw it fairly quickly and flatten out. 25% of our schools would always meet targets, 25% would not and 50% would go up and down. what we realized was there was

no capacity to make the change to do the work. as we talk about school improvement many years ago, i think what i have concluded is we don't have the capacity in the districts or states to do this work. we pushed for reconstitution and said you must take people out and move them around. reconstitution has not worked very well, so now we are pushing hard for this turnaround proposition. i believe in it, but i do believe in it is a high-risk proposition. it is not going to work in every case. even business turnarounds do not work in every case. why should we expect them to work in every case here? i do have questions of the principal in the building.

what does the district do for you? is the district capable of helping you turn these schools around? what is the state's role and what reliance do you place on the district to doodad -- to do that? and what is really going to happen when we say we are going to turn these schools around, and what should we expect from that proposition? i will go with you, steve. >> i could churn about lack of leadership of the superintendent who does not take over any schools or the capacity of school districts to turn things around, but all of these questions come from leadership. i live in a city that has two

nba basketball teams. i have been a laker fan since i can remember what a basketball was. they have always had great ownership, great leadership, they get the best coach, they have a culture that when they have downtimes they recover quickly. when they take first year center and they don't match them up with anybody who is in the office, they get the best one ever to mentor him. players want to do the toughest jobs, like a ninth grade teacher should never be a first-year teacher. the culture of that team should be of want to guard the toughest position. there are lessons there. i also live in a city that has the clippers. they have been bad as long as

the lakers have been good. do i blame the nba players association for that or do i start at the top? we know what it takes to turn around schools. we know what it takes to run good, small schools. there is management that is relevant to this work. that is a trend nationally except for education, where our product is teachers but they don't have a say. they don't make any decisions. there are enough examples out there. everything else moved into the 21st century but we have perfected the perfection of the school districts for a 19th century. it has to start with leadership. our president saying we will leave the world in college graduations in 10 years is a huge thing to say. could he back it up with money?

we are all dissatisfied across parties and class about our public school systems. now we have to kick into what is needed. i live in a city where there are 100,000 employees in the school district. 40,000 of them are teachers. out of the 60,000, there are great principles and bus drivers come up but you don't need 60% of your work force to be non-teachers. what did you do with this patronage jobs that dominates school districts across the country? you have to move them and do it humanely, but you have to push money and resources down to the school sites with some strong non-negotiable s. we know what works, the excuse of no capacity is just an excuse.

>> when you look at the term leadership, it is the capacity and will of a leader to move people to the same common goal. the leader must be the master teacher. to be that is key. they have to have the capacity to bring everybody in, teachers, and have a discourse and look at the deficiencies in the building, come up with a plan, monitor the plan and make sure the discourse is one that is not intimidating, is key. i am lucky that we do have our administrators within the building. dave walker and monetary. we talk about these are the things -- they walk through and

monitor. they don't just sit back and do nothing. i am glad i am in a district that takes that seriously, because if they are not in the building and looking at what is working and what is not , we first must make sure they know what to look for. that is why the leader has to be a master teacher to understand everything. it is a collaborative effort working together, making decisions in the best interests of that particular school. because the interests of each school is different. i like the fact that we do have our central office that comes in as teams, they do walk throughs, we debrief and we talk about what is working and what is not.

we talk about how we can change those things, but it has to be a collaborative effort between the two parties. >> anyone else? mike? >> i would echo the issue of around capacity. i think you need to develop capacity. if you have a district that is not assessing what its return on investment is with programs it is implementing , i would argue that they have no idea what the value is of those programs. turnaround is not something that will not come with some sort of cost. the race to the top money or the stimulus money will not be there forever. i think that we need to take a

look at what are the practices that are in place in a school district? and what can we better do to push money to the school site? that is not an easy thing to do because there are inherent roadblocks everywhere you may turn, but we have to take a look at those. when i made my comments earlier, i talked about having political will to make the necessary decisions that have timmie made to address this problem. -- decisions that have to be made to address this. these school districts still mirror waht they lm theyirror -- mirror what they looked like 20 years ago. i would argue that there could

be too many school districts. i would raise the issue of whether the school committee is as relevant as it may have been. i realize those are local options, but i think you have to think seriously about what currently in place has not worked. we don't know whether you can get districts to do the kinds of things that are necessary. you have to change the culture of the district. >> do you think it is less an issue of capacity and more so political will? >> i do. >> i would add the leadership question and to some extent on the political leadership question. by think there are deep questions about role outside of schools. there is a refrain on this panel which needs to figure out how to support schools. i would argue that in new york

we developed some pretty good process seize for supporting schools as they were developing. -- some pretty good processes for supporting schools. i spend most of my time fighting off other district offices and states who wanted to muck up the works of what principles were trying to execute. it is incumbent on us as we think about capacity to be thoughtful about what is the right role of district? what is the right way to empower schools? what is the role of the state? every educator loves to do the school does it and walked through and provide counsel. that cannot be the role for every person in the hierarchy. you ask a question about expectations. one of the goals we set for ourselves is a goal of 90%

success for new schools defined as performance above average. from the outset, we were setting a goal that recognized a failure rate and we were going to not be successful. i would argue that unless we are bold enough to except those failures there is no way we will get success with the majority of the turnaround situations. >> i will be a little bit too glib if i can. we think we have mechanisms in place to maximize capacity we do have. we don't have enough people. we have a lot of pressure on the local school system by way of the master planning, so that means we are setting these targets and stepping back and letting these school systems do the work. in some cases, we have eight schools in the school district

and they don't have a capacity. we have other places that have 200 schools and have a committed school board and highly-skilled leadership at the central office level and a very good principles. some of them have a lot of autonomy and some of them have a lot of top down approach. in some cases it is working well because the district has taken the title $1 and done some good things. the fact -- taken the title i dollars and done some good things. we are working at the state to try to build a way to support those principles, because the pressure point is the principal. we are probably the only department of education that has a division strictly focus on the principle leadership.

we have to start on that and it is something that needs to be a real focus in the new reiteration of no child left behind. >> i will have one question for one of our presenters. that is for you, dr. peiffer. you noted that maryland school finance reform had a role in your improvement. while a number of states are involved in this litigation, that very few have gotten to that magic place where it is equitable and running well. couple that with the fact that the government only provides about 9%. i wonder if you believe there are state school finance characteristics that the federal government should require as they invest their money into states for school improvement?

>> i could say this. at one point we had 20 or 30 funding streams that went out to schools. the problem was that money was distributed per capita, but students are not always in one suburb. we found schools that were overflowing with money that did not need it. we find that having the state to dictate that it must be spent by teachers or aides is not effective. i talked to one principal who said we needed to buy a bus and i did not have my kids in the immediate vicinity of the school feeling safe enough to come to school. we bought a bus and pick them up. attendance has gone up and scores have gone up. in a normal funding stream that would not be allowed. there is a lot of logic in terms

of being able to step back and allow latitude for people to make some decisions, but the accountability is they are accountable for the bottom line here for the performance of students. sometimes people have good ideas that don't make sense in certain situations. having those ideas that it is important. i am not sure how that translates into -- having those ideas vetted is important. >> good afternoon. i would like to say how impressed i am with the meaningful experience in this room, so i will be brief. my question is for everyone. if you could quickly let us know if you were to write a prescription for all the low- performing schools to adopt a strategy or something they could do to turn around, what would it be?

even though i know it is never just one thing, but what would you say? >> can i start? thank you. i would say you should have a set of core strategies, such as reviewing data, setting clear goals, investing in teacher quality and providing professional development that is purposeful and focused. >> quickly, this is what your school is, so in our schools we believe all kids can learn, all kids are important and all the adults have to believe in that. everything else is subservient to that. >> i would say you have to have a very strong assessment strategy that is a link to the curriculum, that is linked to

professional development. -- that is linked to curriculum. if we mediation is needed, if it is the way the teacher delivers the material, or if there are problems in the curriculum, or dynamic changes happening to address those. the best schools are the ones that are really driving student achievement. >> i would suggest we put them into a protected space, and they give them a flexibility we have all talked about earlier. we do away with the multiple [unintelligible] and create a partner that has a responsibility for delivering whatever assistance those schools need. >> single-minded focus on the mission, priorities, systems that exist within the school and a relentless focus on fighting off all attempts to distract

from that focus, wherever they are coming from. >> i would endorse things from my colleagues they have said, but i would also add that if you could only do one or two things, it would be to focus on getting strong and well-supported leaders in each schools, and make sure teachers have all the tools to be able to do their work. if you could not do anything else you have to start with that. >> thank you. i am actually on the teacher committee, said that means i only get six minutes. -- so that means i only get six minutes. i want to ask a question about teachers. we have been talking about new schools, charter schools. we are talking about what

appears to be an exceptionally- run school. i have not heard as much as i would like that up how human resource management strategy are integrated with the turnaround efforts. we all know that the variation among teachers is a huge, 3 to 1 ratio. i am interested in the -- in hell possible measures of teacher of effectivenessin of how possible -- in how possible measures of teacher and effectiveness are used. let me point some specific questions. dr. peiffer, you talked about how they qualified teachers. you made reference to a teacher and effectiveness. highly qualified may be important but does not explain a

lot in terms of teacher effectiveness. mr. harris, the new schools in new york are quite exciting. i could not help but wonder who are the teachers and where did they come from? were they existing teachers that were there? where did the teachers come from? do you keep them? do you have control? i found steve barr's observation that 40% of the teachers in the high school returned. i think well, that is a lot and i think 60% don't want to be there, so if you could talk about that selection you seem to be tapping into. if we could start with dr. peiffer and mr. harris. >> i would agree highly qualified teachers are not

exactly affected. when we look at all the statistics, our concentration of teachers without adequate training are showing up in large numbers in urban districts, and schools that are very low- performing. we have made a lot of headway on that, but it is a start. the issue of being able to help teachers be effective, we are trying to help local school systems -- we are not in a position of measuring this. i am hoping to launch data systems that will help us do that in the next couple of years, but it is something we need to attend to the professional the element of teachers because i can hire the region i need them to understand our curriculum. -- i need them to understand our curriculum. we focus hard on trying to have

standards for all the system, and they understand that they come back to these teachers and they -- they provide an ongoing support. >> our experience in new york is similar. some teachers came back from existing schools and some were new teachers. the idea is that those teachers were attracted to be in the new school institutions and it is compelling that the teacher experience is not locking the door into their own classroom, but is a collaboration of adults focus on achievement. unfortunately, all far too many teachers are not excited about that idea. part of what we need to do is create systems that expect that and school systems that expect that. i would commend to you the new teacher projects report on the a

fact about the quality of the evaluations. many say teacher evaluations are a joke and not focused on the questions of performance, attitude and performance of students. >> just to follow up real quick, is there anything policy can do to promote greater teacher effectiveness? measured teacher and effectiveness, or is there something we could do? >> in the race to the top, there is a bunch of money that will be put into the common standards. if the -- if the comment assessments are accompanied with benchmarking exams that are high quality, we will have some outstanding tools to measure a t-shirt progress and teacher effectiveness, -- to measure teacher progress.

those tools are not of the right quality at this point. >> the question towards moving more progress-based metrics and is also important in the teacher evaluations. -- it is also important in a teacher evaluations. they say that the kids they are serving are not necessarily the same. we have that in new haven. comparing an absolute performance is not a fair expression of what the obligation is. it is to advance the achievement levels of students. >> would you recommend something like this in that new legislation or is this local? >> to the extent that we set a bar on absolute performance levels, it is a question on federal legislation. what are you measuring in those

standards is an incredibly important point. i think creating that four schools will have a follow up a fact for the annihilation of -- follow up effect for the evaluation of teachers. >> 40% of our teachers are new, and many of them come from alternative certification programs like teach for america. of the $28 million we have disbursed so far, the majority is going into capital. our schools are getting about 20% more pd time. many of them starting -- many of them are starting six weeks in advance to the professional development. that is a huge priority in terms of how these tools are structured. they are working longer hours and part of that is to provide support that they need to be

more effective. >> it is a lesson as we get excited in this turnaround, when we met with the teachers i told them i want them to come back because it is not like we have an air-conditioned bus sitting outside waiting to take your job. there is a teacher shortage. i think there is actually a work condition problem. if i was a teacher now his would be the place i would want to be because you have allied leadership with mayor fenty, so at least i am going into something where i don't feel like it is a sucker's bet. the recommendation of would make is we have a huge deficit in human capital, and even terrific efforts like teach for america have to turn away candidates without enough funding. the one suggestion i made is i would give americorps and tell

them to find as a quarter million teachers in five years. four months is not enough time to train, but put those teachers in a year program and put them in the best schools so they learn from the best teachers. then unleash them into school districts that are performing. put a minimum wage of $70,000 per teacher for five years and you have five years to sustain that. you would create a big core of teachers and reward school districts moving forward appropriately, but also a training them a giveaway. we should not be turning away thousands of teachers from spellman and more house who want to go to these programs when we have a teacher shortage. -- teachers from spellman and

morehouse. >> the issue around turnaround also require steps conditions folks working a underneath be addressed, but also in order for these schools to be successful you have to deal with the issues that may impact on the ability to keep these folks in the same space for a certain amount of time so they can make a difference. the constant turnover that may occur, if it is a cyclical budget arrangement where you are a district operating strictly on seniority, you will lose the people you are trying to maintain in that organization. it is a difficult issue but it needs to be addressed. >> i am curious if he saw a different flow of teachers after you took over? >> i did. you have to look at

sustainability. i believe it plays a major role. most teachers want to work in a building where they feel supported. i think that is one of the problems. and some of them are not equipped when they come. they don't understand the process of how to operate in a classroom, making sure everything they are utilizing is at their fingertips. sometimes they just don't get its. -- sometimes they just don't get it. you have to look at providing collaborative opportunities for them, but the leadership person plays a major role. most teachers i have met, especially this year, looking for a quality fourth grade reading teacher, the question i always go to is i want to be

here because i heard that you will support me, you will not just throw me out, because i hate to say this, but you have leaders who unfortunately pay no attention to a teacher's liberty or property rights. they have a set of standards but they are not doing the work and working side to side providing coaching skills for those teachers to make them want to be there. it is hard to go into an environment, whether it is affluent area or not. it is hard because teachers have to feel supported. sometimes we put the wrong leaders in place who don't understand the need to support teachers and sustain them there. that is why you have a lot of

turnaround come up because they don't feel that. >> thank you, and i apologize, i think i may have exceeded my minutes. [inaudible] ] >> -- >> [inaudible] >> for those of you don't know, she is a longtime advocate of students with disabilities. she was interested in how we're doing educating students with disabilities. what if anything we could do with their child left behind to perform -- to improve the performance of students with disabilities. i will take volunteers. >> for the last six months in new york i was the senior coordinator for students with disabilities. i made recommendations for improving it.

to the extent we talked about focusing on learning as opposed to input, i would argue special education is characterized by an input model, that what federal law, what it requires is a set of services that are layered on top of a student's score educational experiences. i am happy to forward that set of recommendations to you, but the core ideas were around establishing meaningful academic intermediate-term coalsack and giving educators the flexibility to design given ways to achieve that. as opposed to creating a right around a particular set of services, create mechanisms to ensure school districts are looking at the kid and figuring out how to move them forward. >> thank you very much.

as a parent of a child with down syndrome, i appreciate the question and the answer. i think the fact that we don't have as much to say on that subject suggests we might want to focus more cannot because there are many students to have a special needs. we need to address their education as well. >> we are at the final part and i see people queuing up and we will hear public comments. i want to remind everyone in the audience and those watching on c-span that the commission will take public comments via our web site, including a formal testimony. and also will take comments via our facebook page. i don't know if we will get twitter but we will take facebook. you can communicate with us throughout the process.

we have a limited amount of time, so i will be a tough timekeeper. if you will identify yourself, you are on first. >> my name is gary and i am the executive director of citizens for effective schools. i would like to comment on an observation by garth harries, which i thought was especially important. he said that with respect to turning schools around, that the nclb needs to shift the frame of the law to help the schools make the changes needed to dramatically improve their own performance. in that regard, there are several strategies that i would urge the commission to consider as it considers what the frame of this law should be.

we know that for kids to learn it will be a function of what happens in the classroom and what happens at home. in order to improve what happens in the classroom there are some known strategies. one of them is peer collaboration among teachers and principals. second, now entering for teachers and principals. third, -- second, mentoring, and third is career ladders. we also know some things, it is hard for families to support kids learning at home if they don't have adult literacy. that needs to be built into the nclb in terms of specific programs. parenting skills also, there needs to be programs that are supported by the government that enable parents to do what we know they want to do. for kids who don't have parents at home, there needs to be some

sort of program, something like a big program -- a big brother program that would provide adult mentors for the kids to give them the role models and support that they need. basically, my urging to the committee would be think deeply and the sanction-based approach has not worked effectively, although testing is ok. but we now need to move on to having the federal government identified these things that there is a convergence on. help schools make those changes and put it into the law for schools the need to turn around -- for schools that need to turn around. >> thank you. >> my name is jerome.

i am an associate professor at the university of maryland. you should know that the college math professors are quite distressed that students are arriving in college knowing less arithmetic and algebra than a new one decade ago. to answer dr. lomax's question about what is happening in maryland, before no child left behind only 44% of maryland's african american students were arriving at a maryland college who work math-ready. that means knowing arithmetic and algebra one. sense, it has dropped down to 36%si%nc -- since, it has dropped down to 36%.

things like -- basic algebra is too hard for grade 10 math exams. my suggested solution is that no child left behind require that for the grade 10 math exam, that they go to, like the university of maryland's math department, copy of the questions and use that for the no child left behind grade 10 math exam. this is what is needed in order to realize high-school algebra with college algebra. over the past decade, high school algebra has been

underlined with college algebra. >> thank you. we would like to hear from a few of your other colleagues as well. >> i have a short one also directed. >> i think we may need to share the microphone with others. thank you very much. >> i am from the national council of teachers with english. each one of the witnesses spoke to the importance of professional development for teachers. our members agree with that. when we do surveys we find that they call for embedded professional development during their school day that enables them to focus on the particular students in the community in which they are working. i noticed that when the principal spoke about purposeful development, she noted her school had to use funding from an outside foundation to get the kind of

professional development that was important to her teachers. i would ask you to consider as we are reauthorize, continued and deepen the emphasis on professional development for teachers who are committed to the kinds of improvements we're talking about. >> thank you. >> good afternoon. i am with the national association of secondary school principals. we represent 30,000 principles nationwide. i heard a lot of great things today. i heard support for principals and school leadership should be a focus of the reauthorization. additional support for teachers and teacher collaboration, addressing outside influences on student achievement. one of the things i wanted to bring up, and some have

addressed it, is the idea of turning around schools that while there are a low-performing schools but definitely needs to be addressed, so let's go to a school and remove the principal and turn it around. because it is a new school and needs special circumstances to operate, we need to do radical change. so we need to have special circumstances, additional autonomy. if the principles that were in the school originally had that same level of autonomy, they would probably be able to succeed. it is not that they don't want to succeed, there are so many forces that they are unable to or don't have the professional development, they n