krikorian, the executive director of the center for immigration studies. that's all for the "washington journal" this morning. you can find our earlier segments on our website, c- span.org. look for "washington journal." we go to the american [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> ok. started.ng to get we're waiting on the last panelist, david coleman. we can mock him when he sweeps his cape.his t i am frederick hess. come in court has been adopted by 45 states -- common core has been adopted by 45 states and

the district of columbia. the notion that these reading standards have the opportunity to improve. there has been in the last 12 to 18 months it rising chorus of skepticism, concerns about how these standards will impact instruction. whether the standards are good or bad. the reason is my own personal bias. i think most efforts to alter standards or instruction or assessment turned as much on how they are done as on any grand design sketched on the front end. i could be wrong on that. but that is the bias that i'm

coming from. we want to talk about with joanne weiss, who is in the middle of so many reform conversations, david coleman, from the college board is what are some of the challenges ahead as states seek to make these things deliver on their promise. what are opportunities for researchers, advocacy groups, providers to help solve some of these challenges that loom ahead. that is going to be the conversation. a couple of other quick thoughts. please turn your cell phones to silent. the event is being live tweeted.

you can join the conversation, forcc.g next we have a couple of upcoming events you may want to join us for. january 15, i am giving a bradley lecture. and also in mid march we're having a major research conference titled "common core meets the school agenda." we have with us of five folks in the middle of this stuff. we have dr. eric becoats, superintendent of durham public schools.

he was an administrator in north carolina and was the national alliance of black school educators superintendent of the year. we have elizabeth celania-fagen -- liz fagen, douglas county superintendent of schools. she was superintendent of tucson unified. a beacon of education reform by arne duncan. david coleman, president of the college board. he co-founded student achievement partners. he was recognized as one of 11

education act of this. he was new school change agent of the year. he has set a high bar. always a mistake. john deasy, los angeles unified superintendent of schools, second largest system in the country. he was deputy director of education for the bill and melinda gates foundation. he is remembered as the hard- charging superintendent of the prince george's county schools. we have joanne weiss, chief of duncan. army duncane she ran the race to the top program, getting that off to a widely heralded start.

ceo at the new schools venture fund. let's get this started. lost angeles is wrestling with a number of challenges. there are concerns about the reform. of where does it intersects with school improvement? >> i think it makes life much easier in terms of these pieces. >> we can hear you. >> it is on. it makes life much easier. how to create balanced and appropriate accountability systems. how to shape the work of

instruction. all the things you mentioned in terms of evaluation. especially in the distribution of resources. it doesn't say there are a number of influent dilemmas facing us on this issue. i suspect we will talk about them in a moment. >> go ahead and flag a few. >> how does the system oriented self from previously very top down, very kind of results- driven to where i think the quality of instruction is going

to emerge as the leadership issue in the system as opposed to other leadership issues that we have had. i think orientation to instruction is one thing we need to transition to. technology is also a major dilemma. not just students having a device. that will be a part of assessment. that will not work unless it is an integral part of the discussion. we need to have a conversation about that. we are about to enter a different world. how to help students learn. we're doing that in a collective work with students.

orientation toward assessment and how accountability it will work out. there are implications for professional development in a world where there are thousands of vendors and products that are cropping up. i will make a plea for consumer reports around the quality of these products, there alignment and rigor, particular for students that our language letters and special education. >> eric, on this question of instruction and how teachers are going to succeed. you have been pushing -- your plan is called crossing the

bridge to the common core. could you talk about what this involves? what are some of the early challenges? >> one challenge is the board of education. we have had several board members that were not on board. we proceeded with our training and it was five days of training. this is our first year of implementation. we had to make sure that teachers understood what is common core. we did have some teachers that were helping us to lead some of those efforts. we transitioned into the what. how.is more of a

we have tried to pull teachers along. we have utilize discovery clips to help our teachers understand that these are some tools you can utilize. one challenge has been the time. we have helped teachers to understand that there are resources alf there to help you. some of the standards already existed in the state of north carolina. we try to do some coaching in helping them along. i will say it is a work in progress. we do have consistency across the board. that is the great thing. >> any teacher has been around five years has been through two

ways or three ways. how do you wrestle with this that this is something they should take seriously? >> you have to look at some of the data. we have a four-level system. a significant number of students are not at the high level. what are we going to do differently? you don't always have to be the director. how do you help children facilitate in their learning? the use of technology. we cannot be scared about integrating technology. it should be something that students are doing.

we have utilize teachers that get it. >> i think that is spot on. there have been other issues of improvement and reform. this is anchored into the classroom. teachers are going to lead this one as opposed to other pieces they may have been involved with. >> what is an example? >> accountability of reform. other reforms were direct instruction. whole scripted instruction -- practice has put teachers in

inappropriate center of this work. where it is catching fire is in letting us see the best work inside the classroom and having teachers lead the rest of us in the development of this work. the ability to use the ideography around instruction anchored in the common core has been incredibly powerful. >> liz, the democrats of douglas county are interesting. there is an affluent population that you have and they tend to perform high. in that high achieving district, what are the dynamics?

what you find about parental responsiveness to the clarissa common core? how does common core implementation plan in? >> we have said it will not just going to work on the common core. some teachers are jaded against change. we all agree in douglas county that education needs to reinvent itself. we have a need for our students to be prepared differently and to be the most creative people on the planet when they graduate. we have brought common core into that picture and said how does this fit into the tomorrow that we need?

we are saying, we bring our teachers together and say what should kindergarten look like tomorrow? common core is one thing that we use. we take it to level 2.0. it is aligned with what we believe our students need tomorrow and with what our parents tell us. teachers go out and look at the websites of companies that are hiring. include the concept and the common core. how do online it to what nike says? and so we've taken this as part of a comprehensive plan for reinvention of education and included the common core as part

of that. the next that is how do you assess that? as our teachers bill about the curriculum, we moved to the next sincassessments. then how do you instruct that way? we'll link that to the performance of our teachers which impact their compensation. >> one issue that has cropped up is the question of the recommended and this is on text. you could say a bit more about it. about half of what students read

be informational text. and has school, closer to 70% of what they read. this is across the school curriculum. one concern i've heard voiced by some educators and skeptics is, it is the english teachers on the firing line for whether kids are demonstrating mastery of the keys to the common core. will they feel pressed to squeeze a fiction out of the curriculum to make sure they are covering the information in the requisite texts? >> let me begin with some facts about the role of literature in the common core standards.

a better ideas percolating. there isn't a teacher on this panel, the voice of teachers is strong here. each superintendent talked about connecting to teacher leadership. john was talking about taking lead. there is an exciting thing going on in this country. teachers are making beautiful things and they are becoming consumer reports of quality that you are talking about. it is exciting. a more beautiful account of this question of the viper role of literature in the standards then i can speak.

please read it. it is thoughtful and beautiful. look at an article as a science teacher about the opportunity to bring richard sources to bear. the voice of teachers is the true triumphant voice here. to return to the beltway, let's go to the facts standards. we only assessed reading and mathematics. reading would sometimes narrow. just some stories and fiction. then it would do mathematics. guess what happened to history and the arts?

aat's where they asked for balance were kids read richly. there is knowledge of literature in early grades. those are learned. 50% of time in elementary rrowing - we are unnattori the curriculum. a knowledge of science, history, and the arts. that to me is work worth doing. fiction remains the focus of the language arts classroom. i read every shakespeare play.

2 out of 10 require the treatment of the bard. did not fear for "huckleberry finn" and "the great gatsby." the shift is an entry to high- uality literary fiction. these can be treated in class is well.s as as a triumph of the english language. this is the shift in english language arts and one that teachers are finding it extremely exciting. these standards are not just

english language arts standards. the first day but is in the assessments been designed in the standards. they're not merely language arts assessments. students command of a literary texts. the assessment is for the first time following the demand. there is an organization that demanded that the english language arts teachers but history and social studies teachers were equally accountable for their students' literacy and success. i do and interactive thing. the american federation of teachers.

and david is here and i congratulate them. it was teachers who called for that accountability. >> terrific. >> if one takes the implication of what david sketched out is that teachers will be -- one can imagine value added. how do start to implement common core and thinking about the accountability systems that will be put in place for teachers? >> that is a challenge we are facing right now in our state. this will be the year we are setting the baseline. there is lots of discussions

with teachers impacting their ability to do what they need to do affectively. there is debate about whether you should utilize the test court about whether a teacher is effective. that is one way you measure a teacher effectiveness. we want to make sure our teachers understand the standards. we will continue to adjust the data as we move forward. we're in the design process. >> joanne, what role is the federal government playing in all of this? there's a number of political issues. how are you guys thinking as you watch the common core implementation across the country? >> we look at the impact that no

child left behind was having. it was in sending people to lower the standards for all of the students. we started looking at what we could do about this. our job is to create conditions under which the right incentives are happening. gherer standards, and hire mor bar, accountability that matters and to help us refrain practice in this profession as being driven by house students are doing in classrooms. >> you hear the superintendent talk about challenges, is there a role for the department of ed?

how do think about the next four years? >> i think there are places we can play roles. the action is in classrooms and schools. that is where the breakthroughs and practice will come from. our job is to refrain from a compliance-driven bureaucracy to an organization that is much more focused on outcomes and are we achieving the goals we want to achieve. things like committees of practice that states are trying to do it across districts, schools try to do with professional learning communities. these are really important.

creating solutions is a huge lever for change. that is all of our jobs to start thinking about those rules. we'll have to step up our game and do things differently. >> one challenge for states is -- common core is intended to impact all children across the state. current funding rules tried to make sure that federal dollars are focused on students of high need. one challenge that has come up is the question of whether they can use title one dollars for implementation of common core

for professional training and assessment. is this something the department is looking at? is that not on the radar? >> supplement not to plant is an important thing to make sure states and localities form the core for funding in this country. making sure the most disadvantaged students are getting extra resources on top of that. a lot of schools are title one schools. toddle one schools can use their funds as they see fed -- title one schools can use their funds as they see fit. there is some flexibility in how

they use state funds. stay is with waivers -- 20% of the title one finds that used to be tied up are completely free up, 20%. this is a huge amount of money coming back to classrooms to provide instruction for the students. >> some attorneys have raised that your point is right. title 1 schools can use that money. all schools in a district need that professional development. there is concern you cannot use totten $1 to do that because it is not something extra -- you one dollars tole $1

do that. >> we all have the same goal -- to have well-trained professionals in the classroom and they need the support and training. >> the most remarkable thing about the common core is that the action is so state-led. what is remarkable -- people wonder if it was state-led or of washington did it. it is inconceivable that washington could have created the common core. democratic and republican governors got together and their chiefs and their unions working

together to say, we will put aside our state differences. we will work together. and i want to answer the criticism. "race to the top was the only reason you did this." mitch daniels adopted the core standards. oops. i want to shed the typical frames we have in our mind. state-led is a painful thing, my friend. that changes some of the economics in profound ways. the possibility of sharing for

free the economics. once you've made something beautiful, it can be shared widely and that sharing is emerging in shocking ways. it is an interesting time. >> as we talk about the teaching and sharing, teacher preparation -- what is the role of the teacher colleges? what do we need from them? >> david, he asked you. [laughter] >> there are a couple of things about teacher knowledge. it is a refrain to say our

teacher need to know the mathematics in order to teach the mathematics. we go down a path of helplessness and learned despair. the great idea of these great math standards -- it is only the addition and subtraction of whole numbers that the measure in k-2. multiplication and division the picture and the mighty art of fractions. the first thing we have to do is take full advantage of the ability to learn on the job.

mathematics used to be a race to cover topics. david began to fight this in massachusetts. the common core is on steroids. >> we talk about teacher training and support. we're planning a lot of emphasis on professional development. or than 9% of study found no impact on teacher effectiveness. is it the common core likely to be a game changer? do we need to pay more attention to the kind of development the districts are using? >> we believe professional

development needs to happen in the schools and the classroom. we have tried to spend more time on professional learning. to make sure our teachers understand what it is we expect them to do. i think teachers learn best from teachers. we have literacy leaders in our district across all subject matters. they have the ability to help other teachers to become better at their craft. we're spending more time on task to make sure teachers really get it. >> i think -- the role of the

academy in all this. this is not a conversation around criticism and that they are not prepared. that doesn't advance the conversation. there is a unique moment for about how this takes place. i think that is what we will see. practice and preparation for teaching to a much more clinical based model inside of schools. to help existing teachers is going to be centered in the classrooms and the school. we are not going to be able to do this alone. i have 36,000 teachers. we need the academy and teacher preparation to partner with us,

next to us. the idea we will send people out for this training is not going to work. it needs to happen yesterday. a bill but for folks to rapidly transformed this work all lined inside of the work of schools and side-by-side is probably up there with good material and technology last week. i am concerned, but i think the ability to beat a strong partner is critical. >> how much confidence do you have teachers are prepared to train teachers to be effective under the common core standards? >> i have the belief that this

is new for everyone. there are individuals of expertise. a great opportunity to build that confidence very quickly if we could do this together. will this be ready for me tomorrow? no. i have confidence we can learn quickly. >> some of the faculty plate a beautiful role in the development of the common core. the relationship is a real breakthrough of the common core. trying to change quality institution by institution is daunting. why don't we look at common core? scaring high-quality courses

that are refined through educators working together. >> i want to separate these for a second. i could not agree with you more that brilliant minds help shape the common core. teaching inside the common core. >> i agree with you. it is the mathematicians as well. >> we have 1300 teacher prep programs across the country. there are a lot of institutions involved here. we have a poor track record of trying to get these preparation programs to overhaul what they do voluntarily. i understand trying to share

practices. are there other ways to help change what is going on? >> that's me pause and celebrate your candor. 90% of professional development spending does not get us very far. what more resources do we need? we have to learn how to be more efficient and take advantage of the few things these standards are asking us to do. you are right. i think that all of us share the instinct that the review of student work, there is data that

seems more productive. teachers learned to do something in the context of a specific course rather than generically teaching in let's say it chemistry, mathematics. people tend to learn through the work they do. it is by teaching that teachers are discussing it. what you are asking is profound. we have not built these delivery systems over 40 or 50 years. that is the next generation of reform. it is going to take candor. teacher colleges are radically fragmented.

it is not productive. does the common core make it more likely that we could convene and encourage excellent -- will the demand for excellence rise if we were together? >> do you think it does? >> i do. the tools we had teachers are it latrell to their own children -- are a the trial to their own children. those materials must improve. that helps publishers and it

helps kids. we can do the same thing. >> this is something that has been frustrating for districts. some more north of 25,000 titles on amazon that promote themselves aligned with common core. how does your team figure out which ones are aligned? >> we take a little different approach. teachers build units starting with the outcome of a course and creating strategies and choosing resources that meet their needs in that unit. we are trying to move away from the big book we have on our desk and we read the different pieces of literature and go

towards the notion that less is meatiest ofoes the needie materials. one parent said they didn't understand why the question was about butterflies. we encourage teachers to think about, is that the only to learn it, or could students have some choice? maybe a menu would yield better results given the recent information we have on student motivation. students have to see this as meaningful to their lives to have the level of engagement that ends up being a sustainable. we are trying to move away from the district-wide adoptions and

try to empower teachers that are working together to purchase the things they feel are most relevant to their students and the way they are going to approach these outcomes. >> this is raising an interesting skill set that is sitting in front of us that we're watching in a lifetime. all of this conversation is emerging in our ability to help facilitate persistence and grit with our students and teachers. we have not focused on that as a skill set. a quick surf across items and you did not get that so you go to remediation. the ability to persist in

complex tasks and ind fewer -- and in fewer deeper texts and problem solving. that is a skill set we need to get our hands around pretty quickly. we could talk about the research about that and about duckworth. it is finding its place dead center. support around that it has been missing at the moment. we are getting support on content but not on those types of skills. >> what would that entail? >> how we coached students and faculty to persist and to

develop the skill set that simple getting it is not going to help you in the common core. there is a notion of persistence in understanding, persistence incomprehension and in moving through what traditionally we saw if you did not get a first time you failed. that is a different notion of skill set. it and we can give the to someone else for remediation and that is not how it worked in a classroom. this area affects the home school relationship and the crossed teaching relationship studentstudent isto relationship. >> one thing that this implies

is an emphasis on skills that we don't necessarily assess right now. i understand you wanted to start doing some assessments that were along the line of common core but it did make sense to try to discontinue some of the other assessments. so districts have to do more assessments then they have historically done. given the concerns about the amount of testing, how does one play this through? how did you work with educators? >> you communicate very well.

one piece i have not heard it is the role of parents in this. i think they play a critical role as well. we have started educating parents. >> what does that entail ? >> it is districtwide. we worked with parents example of things that your children will be exploring and how it will impact your child and things you can do at home to support what we are doing at the school level. we have talked to our chamber of commerce and business community so they understand what we will be doing. we are trying to bring our community along as we make these

changes. we will decrease the number of assessments that we want to provide. but obviously we will be doing the opposite during this interim period. i think a lot of folks are understanding the approach that we're taking. we are trying to move slow in order to move fast later. we are trying to educate our community. >> a lot of these tasks are more in depth and require performance assessments. sometimes well done performance assessments do not feel like testing. one way we're doing more assessments -- some of the things we're asking students to do, they would not -- if you ask

if they were having a task, they would say no. we are measuring their knowledge and skills while they are working on these products or projects. i think the vision of assessment is in transition. we are moving to more rich assessments. >> one of the questions this raises around no child left behind -- as we move to more sophisticated assessments, it is harder to get clear readings if children have mastered basic skills. >> why do you say that? >> there are questions about

whether the reliability of those assessments is as clear cut as multiple choice assessments. there are questions about some teachers have a less rigorous standards. push back if you ligke. nutshell lot behind as a safeguard against some schools turning a blind eye are simply se-sing the bluck on the wor off kids. >> one thing that's important to keep in mind is we are at the cusp of a new way of doing schooling. we're in the micro infancy of this.

we will be learning so much. we will be shocked in five years. there are so many conditions in place that will make innovation happen in this field in a different way going forward then it has for the past 100 years. it starts with the common part of common core. what the technology piece is going to look like. that has to do with teacher preparation as well as the assessment and day-to-day introduction. the goal we have to have for education is to create a continuous improvement system out there. we have to understand how things are working and start adapting as we have better tools and more understanding.

i think these assessments have different purposes. did the kid learn from what i just taught? make sure students with disabilities are getting access to the same rigorous standards that the affluent kids in the suburban schools are. there are different tools to enter a different questions. we do not know all the answers to this right now. >> we hope we're doing it right. i think we are. there are some fundamental shifts. we're underestimating the ease with which common core is going to allow this transition.

a much more delicate form of assessment. this transition -- i fall down along the lines that i want to be careful that we move away from being responsible and accountable for the progress of some groups of students. no child left behind has been important in doing that. we will move to fewer pieces of content. you have a leaner, thinner form of assessment that can be done less frequently to accomplish that. it left an introduction to another type of assessments.

the types of skill sets that will come with the use of the common core. worries about that piece of art salvable. there indications that affect school accountability. i want to lay out two of those implications. we to get our hands around the ability for collective responsibility and accountability and individual simultaneously. the newting on evaluation system. we have an agreement with our teachers. it was difficult to hammer out. but it occurred.

there's schoolwide accountability that every teacher shares. schoolwide results are for everybody. this notion of literature is not based in the english class from alone. and second, students are moving very quickly away from a single piece of sole-officeship. it is happening in real time. there are pretty big implications. >> one question is, you're going

to have teachers under your new teacher in violation system. their growth will be a component of this. that will migrate from one system to another. there will be concerns about whether that is a fair measure of teachers. how are you going to make that transition? >> we have got what about this -- thought a lot about this. we will have a framework that is tested. it will be around a collective set of measures and individuals set of measures. i am responsible for what happens in my classroom.

and by very -- having a very balanced assessment of the individual a round of peace. we argued that the lion's share of the majority, that number is less important than making sure that good practices in the classroom. and when it comes to the steps, we already know that the structure is balanced and they are able to handle growth over time on that piece, but added the classroom based and school based at the same time. that is what we attempted to do. we think that the structure of balance around the individual

was thought through in launching it. >> the only thing i would add to that is having been in guilford county and now in durham, we have implemented those systems and what we have found is that there is more by -- in because we are all working toward a common goal -- there is more of a buy in because we all have a common goal. you all have a role in making sure that the child is successful. it did work. >> exactly. i happen to agree 100%. and i think joann's statement about being on the edge of an entirely different world means that we will be very unproductive in this country if we say that the accountability and assessments as soon as we put in five or eight years ago are either good or bad. -- assessment systems are either

good or bad that we put in five years ago probiotic what we are holding on to is the same issue that will be nonproductive as opposed to improvement in migration >> as i listen to our conversation over the last hour, i would worry that if i were a parent or an observer i would say, oh, this is really hard. i want to brief for a moment about beautiful simplicity. that is, if we want to talk about assessment of literacy, which seems a very big, a confusing thing, let me just say this. if a student can read complex and demanding text and write about it clearly, if they can read, i gather and detect evidence, analyze and apply it, they are very often on their way to college. imagine in a master assessment

for the standards, can you give assessments, analyze them and write about them clearly? notice a turn to the fundamentals. what is interesting about the standards is that they are return to fundamentals when anything critical changes. reading dense, critical tests and writing about it clearly works long ago. -- were spared salah ago. -- were arts long ago. let's talk about kids -- to take this example. the reading carefully and writing about it. let's talk about ap readers where the ap community respects one another, but teachers, to check each other's work.

using technology to render that more efficient. that is a technology community of concentration. communities of teachers gatherings to work, treating artists and checkers better good for, not feedback, but overall performance. what i mean is the exams now being developed and will require kids and for the first time every year to analyze source material and write about it clearly. that is work that is doable tomorrow. if kids can do that well, they can do a lot of other things well as well. >> let's take the opportunity to open it up to the audience. i would ask a couple of things. when you speak, please identify yourself by name and affiliation. and as always, please ask a question. [laughter] we will get about 15 seconds in

and if i do not see someone come into my will give someone else a shot. >> can someone talk about money? will this be more costly, this transition? and given the state budget on education cannot -- on education, is that possibly a huge hurdle for this transaction to take place? >> i do not believe in many instances it will be more money. as david mentioned earlier, you have to look at some of the resources they currently have, and in some instances director redirect those resources. obviously, -- you have to redirect those resources. obviously, we are trying to reach a higher standard, so from that perspective, yes. but to say that in and of itself it will cost you more money, i would not say that in total. but obviously, there are some expenses that we will incur.

one of the things that we had to do was to help our teachers understand that some of these resources we already have. instead of utilizing textbooks, we will help utilize other resources for the students. >> the answer is, no, it will not cost more money. if i had the state budget in massachusetts and california. but i do not. per ticket of leave around technology and professional development, -- particularly around technology and professional development, they need to be increased around those. you can do that through thoughtful policy. less prison building and more preschool building prepared -- building. >> i believe you, about $18 million less year. could you talk a little bit about how you made those reallocations? >> that is exactly what we did.

we literally went through our budget line by line. douglas middle class community is the lowest in the district. we receive very little of any federal dollars for unique populations, just because we do not have them in our senses data. the numbers are in other -- in our census data. the numbers are in other places. we were faced with an $18 million budget shortfall. and in addition, our class's had grown too large. our teachers have been on a freeze is. we had this untenable set of circumstances, but we were dedicated to figuring it out. we reduced class size. we cut the $80 million. we reduced costs going forward -- cut the $18 million. we reduced costs going forward. we gave them raises. >> where the money come out of?

>> we had things that are more challenging in our kalla -- in our contracts. we had a severance program, for example, we were paying people about $40,000 per year who were leaving the district. we allocated that line item to the teachers who were going to be an artist and continue to work with our students -- continue to be in our district and continue to work with our students. you have to look at the things you've been doing in the past and at the same time, moving forward, things you have to phase out. we have had in our contracts approaches we had taken two budgets of utilities, which would change. -- we had taken concerning budget of utilities, which would change.

>> i am torn on this subject. i think we understand -- need to understand a very brave thing has happened. educators throughout this country have raised their hands for more demanding education for their kids. source in the coming years will likely drop and many of my colleagues will be called incompetent prepared -- incompetent. and in fact, they are merely telling the truth. no good deed goes unpunished, as we all know. as a community, it is time to rally behind his candor and courage and prepare the public to consider smart investment, to support people who are making great choices and doing their work. it is time for society to reinvest in this work.

at the same time, mediocre and crop the stuff is just as expensive as excellent stuff. we need to demand higher standards in the things that we purchase pipa -- that we purchase. some excellent stuff will be free. can we build our networks and be equally germane about investment and standing behind people and also a tough-minded enough to admit that a lot of what we have invested in so forcefully creates no return for children. there is a kind of dual standard here that is possible. -- a dual candor that is possible. >> by michael with the education writers association. my question is about the

wraparound effort involved in getting students up to speed. we have involved parents in the discussion we have involved state and federal leaders in the discussion on how to improve student achievement. is there an element or it will to a company, and koran with this extended learning -- to a company common core with this extended the learning into the school or a test that suggests improved student competency in this course? -- in a the source? is that on the horizon? >> there will be an absolute need to do that. it comes with her work with students and the traditional notion of the fayyad school they

definitely changing. technology will be moving back very quickly for us. technology is our friend. just a brief word around the waivers and watching the government support during doubt, absolutely, that is going back to the district to do exactly what you just said. that is a partnership opportunity that is very much needed and very much being directed along the lines you have suggested, which is how we think about opportunity for students and that comes from a variety of places. the group will move differently than just a company coming in and doing remediation for 25 minutes after school. >> my question is building on that, but going a little bit

further. it builds on some of the ideas of breaking the system [no audio] a lot of the students who are behind will lead not just extra learning time, but [no audio] how are they thinking about compensation that uses five years or six years, particularly for students who are not -- who are over age and under credit? >> we are definitely looking at competency based construction. especially if you have to repeat the course if you fail at it. we're looking at the key out corms -- outcomes of this course and how we can approach the remediation peace differently. and away from the state being

the answer. we do not believe that it is. the online approach has opened the door pretty wide and brought the public sentiment around to that thinking, that it is all about demonstrating your ability and not about sitting at a desk. moving into the on-line programs, but also the in-person programs also. >> i think you are going to see very quickly the accountability systems about what middle school completion looks like. it is going to shift. i'm very glad to endorse that. a cohort based graduation is, i think, a bit of an enemy to helping students get there. it does not mean that it should be a move away from the

accountability of completion. the second thing is, i think you are going to be hosting a forum in five years about the whole construction of the high-school diploma, but in particular, the course of credit. i think there schools will no longer owned a monopoly on that. students are walking in now with on line courses from stanford and yale and they want to apply this to the transcript. and while you so appropriately focused on the students that are struggling, students are dancing in an amazing ways and there is a unique opportunity to help both. >> the amazing thing for me is i think two years out, and even if congress moves on the operation -- the authorization of sea, or

another round of waivers, which seems more likely, if we talk about the size of these ships and what it looks like an school accountability, does that mean that it is incumbent on the and ministration to talk to states about the direction they are moving? are these directions that are unimaginable under the nclb? >> yes. [laughter] new roundt to get a of assessment. we need to look at them as version 1.0 and not as the final word. the standards are even knew. we will be improving the standards over time. >> and i think is worth saying out loud. i do want to credit mclb and perhaps, on popularly stand for

it and it -- not popularly stand for it and is vigilance for all kids. as sunny as i have about a common koran -- as sunny as i am about the common core, letting schools and do their own thing can be quite hazardous to certain types of kids. and we have to do some real thinking about how to guarantee acceleration. we now have said that as clearly as we are to in the discussion prevent discretion does not mean iraq a vigilance -- a lack of vigilance. gregg's if anything, we can move to a more personalized view where every single child gets -- >> if anything, we can move to a more personalized view where every single job if they need. >> top of continuous improvement is admirable, but they're

concerned about when you establish a set of standards that it tends to be -- the lethargy sets in over time, intentionally or no, and it becomes increasingly difficult to make the kinds of adjustments and improvements that 1.0 demand appeared what do you say to that? >> -- 1.0 demand. what do you say to that? >> these things are slim. that allows for a slimmer platforms current revision is not a fad. there is overwhelming evidence that mathematics critics -- predicts the future of success. the notion that reading in greater complexity critics your success in college, the evidence is overwhelming.

the evidence first. also, please, remember the eraser as well as the pen. if we're going to revise the standards, take away. teachers do not get more time. kids do not get more time. that is the elegance and we have to insist upon. >> my name is coury. i am a parent of four. my question is two-fold and for the practitioners on the panel. what research is being dedicated to and tools provided around teachers being able to learn the common core and reference it in their daily activity? and two, what resources and tools are being provided for those teachers to monitor their performance against those standards individually and collectively with those students on a daily basis? >> in my particular school

district, we have -- like i mentioned earlier, we have embedded the common core in the curriculum that we are developing and then we a line that into a new evaluation instrument, so we are not asking them to teach something new and different, but evaluating them on yesterday's. we have intentionally aligned the curriculum that goes above and beyond even what the common core asks. and from there, we have also paid attention to the professional development peace and the whole notion of drive-by pd does not work. you sit around and then go back your concert and do exactly what you did yesterday. instead, professional development that is presented in a lot of different modes and attends to model the kinds of the classroom and instructional experience that we want our students to have. toy're not only learning how

teach differently and what to teach differently, but experiencing it in their own professional development opportunities. realigning resources to do other things instead. >> would this have been in practical -- in practical prior to the common core? is this something that the common core uniquely does to try to help teachers? >> i do not think common core is the catalyst. we are realigning what we need to do for teachers and students. it makes sense. we are asking them to do something that they were not trained to do. it is unfair to put out this new evaluation instrument that is very rigorous, specific. the state of colorado requires that next fall by 50% of

students in violation be on the new achievement's data and new standards. the only way you -- 50% of students evaluation is required to be on the new achievement get and new standards could be on the way you do that is to realign what you're doing with your teachers. >> almost a complete overhaul of professional development cannot -- a development, and a focus on the students that have the greatest challenges in los angeles. professional development was probably concentrated at the core principles, so that they are -- their entire fundamental obligation has moved from running a school to improving

teaching and learning inside a school. cannot get better unless someone tells me get better or round of peace. and secondly, the work of teterboro amapola, very public -- the work of t-shirt development, very public. -- the work of a teacher development, very public. all the world gets to see it. this notion of a publicness to the growth, that is important. you just cannot get better in private. and it is as free as possible from early judgment so that you create an environment around learn in. >> my name is david sherman from the american federation of teachers. i want to say that the american federation of teachers, as was mentioned, was very involved in the development of the common core, not we as an organization,

but hundreds of teachers around the country. we support it with every fiber of our being. we want to see it work. but we are very nervous. we are mainly norris -- nervous because what we are hearing from all over the country' with few exceptions is that teachers are not being prepared or given the right kind of professional development. they have a few days of the workshop. but teachers, and frankly, parents, are just not being prepared. i do have a question. since there is no teacher voice here, and going to take a moment if you do not mind. just a minute. the fact of the matter is, teachers are very supportive of the common core. teachers all across the country, but they want help to do it the

right way, and they are not getting it. the federal government put in $350 million for assessments. nothing for curriculum. i know you cannot do curriculum. nothing for professional development or anything else. state across the country are talking about what they're doing, but they are not doing much. >> so the question is then? >> the question is, what can we do now to make sure that we get the roll out of the common core on the right track, so we do not see history repeating itself and have failing standards? >> i could not agree with you more. i think that is right on. this is a golden moment for the transformation of both sides on this issue. if you could help us create new structures to allow those things to take place and hold us accountable for providing the professional development, that would be a breakthrough moment.

we are currently trying to do this inside the traditional ossified structures. x dollars for the moment and you pay x price to get it done. both could be a huge lead in that piece. >> just so i understand you, you are suggesting, for instance, contractual restrictions on professional development are getting in the way across trying to provide support? >> we are trying to do this process, but it's completely apples and oranges. it is not the the contract language is good, bad, or indifferent. it is just not working for this. what would be worse is more bad

professional development. you create the opportunity for a very different structure and is just as bad as the first one, that would be very terrible. and very disrespectful. the notion of side by side of the element, of a new vehicle and the content of the vehicle -- and i would argue been a teacher-driven -- would be very helpful. secondly, i think that teachers need to have this conversation with parents. and provide ways to elevate leadership for teachers in that place, that is a huge piece. >> in states like north carolina, we have had challenges with getting teachers -- not all of them, but some of them -- to address participate in professional development because there is the idea that i only work from this time to this time. we have had other teachers who say, i will take this on and i want to understand it and move

it forward. i think the bag is a little mixed, but what we are trying to do is to provide opportunities for teachers to learn this. but i will also say this to you, in an urban districts with low performance course -- low performing schools, we want to say, we have met the challenge, so tell us what to do. those teachers aren't -- those teachers rise to the occasion. but i think my view is a little different than a unionized state where you have a contract. >> all three of the superintendent's talked about thoughtful efforts to make professional development pay off in this case. and it does strike me that you hardly ever talked to superintendent or board members who tell you we are doing lousy professional development. almost everybody claims they feel they are doing it well.

but it is actually the same lousy, in a factual stuff. -- in a factual stuff. i do not know how we get our hands around that. >> one of the things i tell my staff all the time is, rather than us develop the professional development in the central office, ask the teachers what they need and let them develop it. that is what we did for the last two summers couldn't we sent out a call for proposals from teachers and we said -- the last two summers. we sent out a call for proposals from teachers. we made sure that teachers were the ones provided a professional development. >> alice kaine with don teague plus. -- with teach plus. my question is about retention of effective teachers. the reason i ask is that teach

recent months has had conferences by teachers and 43 around the country. we have had about 2000 participate so far and thousands are on weightless. -- are on a weightless. -- wait list. are you thinking about it this way, and what are the budgetary implications? does common core have an unintended consequence of [no audio] >> de organizing teachers on a

large scale has been so darn hard. -- galvanizing teachers on a large scale has been so darn hard. and when you think you are doing well for teachers, but it is not quite enough, this is a hard problem. what are the technologies that are emerging that have promised? i think is exactly what alice talked about. exceptional teachers can now share their work in a way they never could before. if you look expert achievea thecore.org, which is always free, it is for teachers and by teachers pierpont -- and by teachers. if you are engaged and truly

sharing stuff in a systematic and productive way so that your teachers are making stuff on their own, then frankly, they are not just on their own. they are in a much more lively community. there is a great teacher in florida who has figured something out and there is a a a kind of liveliness. i think those teachers who are returning to their work is because the focus is on what works. and they have a chance to have a wider impact. i think there is reason for anxiety. what it forces us to do is to find where the most promising reinvestment in teacher-led, high-quality work. >> we are going to make that the last word. i would like to thank the sequoyah foundation and the bill and melinda gates foundation for making this policy -- possible. i would like to thank my team for making --

putting this together. and i would like to thank the panel for terrific information. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> if you missed any of this conversation on improving education, you can find it charlie of video library attwater c-span.org. ordaz -- video library at c-span.org. and if you're a college student or a parent of one, will take your calls this evening about student loan debt and whether it might be the next bubble that could hurt the economy. we will be joined by mariann wang enda josh mitchell.

-- and josh mitchell. in about two hours, president obama is set to name jack lew as the treasury secretary. at 1:30ve that live p.m. on c-span. meanwhile, vice president biden continues to hold meetings today as part of the task force incurving gun violence. he met with the victims' advocacy groups. this morning, he is meeting with advocates for sportsmen and while life interest were purdum at 1:45 p.m., the vice president will meet with a gun owner groups, including the nra. and at 6:00 p.m. copps -- 6:00 p.m., he will sit down with members of the entertainment industry. arne duncan and kathleen

sebelius, the white house has announced, will stay on for a second term. yesterday, held los police announced her resignation -- hilda solis announced her resignation and you have a pentagon briefing live at 3:00 p.m. eastern. >> if you ask how many people would describe themselves as libertarian, depending on which poll you look at, you might be getting between 10% to 15%. if you give people a battery of questions about different ideological things and then track them to different ideologies, and depending on which poll you are looking at are you get up to maybe 30% of americans calling themselves libertarian. if you ask the following question of whether they are economically conservative, but socially liberal, you get over half of americans saying that is what they are. just because people say these

things does not necessarily mean they believe them. if you ask most americans whether they want smaller government, they say yes. if you say, do you want the government to spend less money, they say yes. it is not clear if they believe in it. but roughly, 30%. libertarians, if they were political, it could be a big group of people who have a shared ideology and could have a lot of influence in politics. but for various reasons, they are not organized. >> author jason brennan on what you might not know about libertarianism. sunday night at 8:00 p.m. on c- span's q&a. next, poll workers who were on the ground during the 2012 elections discuss how volunteers and run voting

precincts with long lines, people showing up at the rahm polling place, and other issues. the event was hosted by the elections commission, which was established in reaction to the 2000 presidential election. this is 90 minutes. >> good morning, everyone. my name is a house miller. i am the director and chief operating officer of the elections commission. i want to thank you for being with us today. i wanted to care panelists. -- to thank our panelists. we're having a discussion on the

2012 elections, with -- and with the group we have gathered, we will be able to accomplish this easily and i want to inform the audience watching that we have an actor -- active twitter account that will be able to respond to questions. #beready2012. we have four panels of some of the representative cross-section of election workers, administrators, and research advocates as well as state and local election officials. in short, here to discuss the 2012 presidential election are observers of elections and those who monitor issues and process the operations associated with the elections administration. we are aware of the challenge put forth by the president in his election night speech addressing the long lines. to what extent and how we identify and correct the origins

of the problem, if in fact, it is a problem. how do we move forward with the real and practical expectations with regard to election day operations? interestingly enough, some may argue that americans wait in line for many things, from the latest technology to the latest from where. -- footwear.test for corporat how long should we wait? the presidential election is different from any other election. the needs are unique. the expectations will be challenged with each election that is conducted. having made those opening remarks, i want to turn it over

to our moderator for the day. he is no stranger to the election administration. he is -- he has continuously provided his expertise for our roundtable discussions. a little bit about merrill. he is the associate -- an active researcher in the administration. he is a 2005 recipient of the secretary of state and ghanian award. together with his colleagues at the center, he has developed one of the best resources for the administration supports. they provide voting systems technical support for the office of secretary of state in the 159 county supervisors in jordan.

professor -- in georgia. prof. kane teaches graduate studies. without further ado, i will turn it over to merle and he will provide you with logistical information as well as opening comments. thank you again i have said this before and will say it again. he does this again without any payment at all. he even pays for his own travel. he is doing this freely out of the kind of his heart. we really appreciate it. >> thank you so much, analysts. is a pleasure to be here. -- thank you so much, alice. it is a pleasure to be here prepared -- to be here. we are here to identify the issues and the opportunities to

improve election is going forward. a couple of approaches to go issues before we begin. the microphones on the table are being managed offstage. there is no need to turn them on. they will adjust the volume. there are two sets of microphones. the one is for transcription service. the taller microphone is the one being used to pick up amplification in the room. when we start this morning, i will ask our first panelist, megyn dillon, to do something i will ask each of you to do, which is to briefly describe your election experience in the cycle. becher the election day experience. it could be advanced voting. it could be post-election audit experience. whatever part of the election you work engaged in and talk about what your expectations were cannot what you observed --

what your expectations were, what you observed, and your experience in the trench as a poll worker or an observer of the polls were working in the call center. those individuals that are closest to the actual voter experience. and then we will move down the table and finish the introductions. and i will engage you in a series of questions. at the very end of our session, which will end at 10:30 a.m., i will ask each of you to summarize your take away so that you can share not only with the colleagues at the table, but with the folks who are joining us via the web cast, and election officials who may look at the transcript of this round table. you can talk about what you think are the significant takeaways. if you were going to be -- to give the election officials in your jurisdiction and in your

state advice for going forward with planning for elections in the next cycle, what would you advise them to do? megyn, we will start with you and work down the chain. every election and every election cycle is unique. if you do a lot of them, as many of you in the room do, there are similarities in every election. but they are all unique. they all have distinct challenges. when you reflect afterward, there are usually a small number of items that distinguished the election experience in some way. sometimes it is in predictable ways and sometimes it is an unpredictable ways. and of course, is the how predictable ways that have the greatest persistence in our memory. for much of the public, there's still an election day. and in this past cycle, november 6 was election day. before election officials, we have a tendency to talk more

about the election cycle and an election as being this four- month event that in some cases, does not even culminate on election day. it is simply the most observable day. but is the day in which our planning is most observable. the orchestration of all the moving pieces that go into an election are under the greatest scrutiny. it is appropriate for us to talk about election day, but it is also appropriate for us to talk about the advance voting phenomena, the post-election audit procedures. on this past election, we had reports of long lines. i think there was one of the most prevalent observations. we also had reports of confusion about advanced voting day, advance voting locations, provisional ballot issues.

what we know in the election administration is that those observations are symptomatic of operational issues. what we want to make sure we do throughout today is not only identify those issues, but more importantly, begin the process of identifying the operational issues so that as we go forward and learn from this experience, we make sure that as we do with every election, that we fold into those experiences -- that we fold those experiences into our planning and training. and there's also the impact of a freak storm on the northeast section of the united states that had a tremendous impact on voter behavior and election preparation and execution in that corridor. actually impacted the entire country because of absentee

ballots implications be related to sandy. we want to talk about that as we talk about contingency planning. election officials are charged with this awesome responsibility of running could be elections. and by good, we need accurate, are visible, accessible -- pocketable -- auditable, accessible elections. those were presented here, poll workers amapola managers, election observers, and as we move through which researchers and advocacy groups, what we want to do is identify the challenges and the things that went well. with that, those are my opening remarks. i would like to start with

maegan and worked on the table. and it was a brief introduction of -- give us a brief introduction of where you worked and what you saw and what you took away from election day. >> my name is megyn dylan, and i observed the polls in arlington county, virginia. my expectations on election day were that all of the voting machines worked smoothly and every voter was able to use them efficiently. my expectation was that, if a voter had a question about how to use a machine or how to make sure that their vote counts, that each poll worker would be able to answer those questions and each voter will be able to cast their vote. what i had seen on election day was exactly what i expected. i did not see any issues with any voter leaving the polling place saying they did not get to cast their votes.

all of the poll workers that i came into contact with new the machine they were working with. each polling place i visited had the one-vote machines, which were the dre's, and this year they gave a different option of having a paper ballots. what i noticed was when there were long lines, some of the voters have the option of using a paper ballots and decided to wait in line so they could use the dre's instead. they have been using them in arlington county for a few years, so i think they are used to those machines. given the option of the paper ballots, they wanted to stick with what they were comfortable with. the wait time was long earlier in the morning, throughout the afternoon. i think where some of the holdup was, that was in a sign of of

the voters. each poll worker had two electronic pull books. if a voter was not registered, or was at the wrong precinct, or maybe had changed addresses and had not notified the election officials, they got held up. there were times when there was -- when there was a line held ups not to use the dre's but to use electronic poll book. i notice later in the day that the lines had gone down a great deal. all in all, are within my expectations from the technical perspective on the machines had been filled. >> thank you. >> my name is mary kaine hi andy -- mary kaine hinsey. i served in the district of columbia working with a number

of precincts. from delivery of the equipment they before to delivering an to the present throughout the day to make sure that things were running smoothly. that is what i did. we made sure that we would see them through their closing and responsible for taking the paperback best to the headquarters. -- the paper backups to the headquarters. with the exception of maybe one of my pre things -- i only had three in the upper northwest washington area -- but for two of them, there were tremendously long lines, two different long lines. first, for check-in. and then for actually receiving their paper ballots.

the majority of the voters in washington, d.c. are more inclined to vote for a paper ballots. and in washington, a number of these precincts had separate pala -- separate ballots for certain areas of the district because of those running for city thecil or the anc's or lower level positions. in those cases, there were two long lines for people to wait in. there was a little frustration for about. -- for that. again, this could be more of a local issue, but the grade of the paper was changed and it often jammed the ballot reader. staffing, i think, was a big issue in that there was no real

position designated for someone to stand over this machine to help voters feel that in. and voters jamming it been held to jam even quicker. -- jamming it in helped to jam it even quicker. i noticed on a number of occasions the jamming of the machine her daughter was a little awkward. -- the jamming of the machine. that was a little awkward. i had to service of equipment. -- a lot of equipment. people would stand in one line and then another. that created a lot of frustration for the voter. the people who were there were well trained and more able to facilitate --

and were able to facilitate their voting, but there was no way to avoid the long lines. i guess, there was also a procedure that was introduced in this election that was introduced for efficiency in accounting for about, but in this case, it was also responsible for holding output -- holding up the lines because there was someone designated as a tallil who had to account for -- as a tallier who had to account for the voter in this district as well as another ballot. a created a hold up for the voters. perhaps, not by much. staffing was compiled -- staffing was a big issue to route.

-- throughout the process. in one of my present, there was no stopping clerk for the provisional balance. this was the same precinct that was also an early voting site. that in itself created a lot of confusion in that people who had voted early voting in the past through a primary or some other election had in mind that is where they vote. in that case, they could not vote, but they did not want to go ahead and go to another precinct. they had to be directed to our special about court. -- special ballot clerk. and the person assigned to do that had an accident at the last minute and that position was not filled until later, about 3:00 p.m. someone who had done it in the

past had to do that. they were very constrained with bodies that could intervene. but again, people who were there were trained and able to fill in. you just needed more bodies to help troubleshoot the lines and the confusion. in this case, in this same precinct, there was also one occasion where the paper ballots leader was jamba -- ballot reader was jammed and we could not reload it. we had to call for technical assistance. we had to rely on of hillary -- auxiliaries systems for people to vote.

it looked disorganized. this is all very situational and very localized. i'm not sure what broader issues can be drawn from about. the technical people were there and responsive and were able to fix our jams on a timely basis. it was just unfortunate that it happened both at once. staffing equipment was a big issue on our case. -- staffing and equipment were the big issues on our case. and we started behind the curve that morning because the voting books, which are paper books, there is only one purple used by -- one per poll used by the

special about clerks. -- ballot clerks. those were inaccurate. the names of early voters were supposed to be excluded from that, and that was not the case. it was realized before the voting started. and the area represented -- representatives presented the captains, the names of people that needed to be excluded. and that was done, but in some cases, there were hundreds of names of people that needed to be excluded. in addition to greeting voters that needed to vote first thing as the polls opened, we were busily croslin of names. -- crossing off names. there was some confusion there. all in all, i think that is why

they have us to do this work and try to ensure that the election process goes on as well as possible. we did it. it was just a lot of work behind the scenes to make it happen. >> thank you. >> thank you. it is important to note that the folks we have here this morning, it is a great sample, but the small sample size of the precincts engaged in the election in november. it is sometimes challenging to generalize, as mary points out, but there are common themes. some of the things you touched on, which is not only poll workers training, but also loader training -- education and outreach.

those are prominent themes. issues of contingency planning our common themes. i do not want anyone to be discouraged because you think your experiences so unique. there are a lot of generalized themes in the country and throughout the precincts here. clyde? >> thank you for allowing me to be here, and i think it is a good opportunity to give some viewpoints and observed some things that happened on election day. how high serve as a chief judge in prince george's county -- hi serve as a chief judge in prince george's county. i served as the chief judge for the early voting as well as on voting day. i also had the privilege of training election judges and chief justice -- judges. i've done this for about four years now.

one of the things that caught me off guard, especially during the early voting was the amount of individuals that came through with disabilities. in the state of maryland, our policy is that we do not really treat those with disabilities any differently, so we had a lot of people that come through, and we had to deal with that. unfortunately, there are people here in line that i think we should not do anything special for those with disabilities, so we had to deal with that, but we try to bring them in, because our lines were as much as four hours waiting. we try to treat those individuals compassionately, even though some people did not think we should do that.

we had long lines, and with it being cold, that was a problem. we had good training, and i know as a trader at myself, based on my experience, that the chief judge was emphasizing things that i had experienced. i think that was good, as i had both experiences and so forth. i think our board elections were very responsive to the needs that we head. i do not think anyone anticipated that we would have quite as long of lines as we head, so when they found out the lines were long, they sent out extra workers. i applaud the board of election for doing that. i'll wait other responses as we

go along. >> ok. clyde emphasize something that i think we will hear about during the discussion -- the long-line phenomena. for the election officials, there is a variety of reactions. it is an affirmation of the process. people are willing to engage. but, queue management, there is clearly a science and an to it. in retailing, there is a phenomenon of people queuing up to pay for products at checkout registers, and over the years, retail managers have noticed when there are more than six individuals in the line, people begin to lay down merchandise and walked out of the store.

they have a different incentive, obviously, for management there, but i do wonder at how good we are in queue management in election, and often you see on balanced cues, where at the check-in table, they are long, but short at the testing table, and long out the building. as we talk today, one of the things the eac is doing is taking notes about predominant issues to see if we can identify existing best practices that we might be able to identify out of these jurisdictions or share. so, thank you loretta? >> good morning. i have been working with the voting process in washington, d.c., for several years now.

i was a former coal worker, precinct technician, -- poll workers, precinct technician, i was not part of the early voting, even though i was part of the instructions, and right now i am also one of the instructors at the poll workers recruitment training division. this is the first time here, thank you so much, mr. miller for inviting me, i think -- i will talk to you later -- i look forward to sharing my observations. i want to take my opening statement on another slant, starting with what i call the good news. the good news in washington, d.c., is all of our present will put -- opened on time. our voters were welcomed the enthusiastically when the doors opened, and some had been in line since 6:00 a.m. at our

training material was excellent. we developed a standard operating procedure that gives the workers a step-by-step job -- guide on how to do their job, so if they had to go on a break, someone would just follow. in addition, we had a poll workers advisory group that came into our agency. we had a mock precinct that actually tested documents, and made recommendations. also, something else that we added which i felt was good news, was as part of staffing, and making sure your present had a strong seven -- staff, there was a final exam administered. he should have seen the faces when we told people and that they had to get 90% accuracy.

that did not help. plus, we need a hands-on demonstration of skills -- they had to show they could do the job. if they could not demonstrate the skills, they were not recommended to be hired. i think our staffing was good in most of our precinct. there was timor, and has an area representative -- there was timor, and an area representative, i saw people working hard, captains who had no breaks because they allowed their workers to get a break because of strong staff and strong leaders. our machines worked up and running. i will put a little town in chief. we only had one e-poll booth. i thought we should have more. other staff members were completely operational.

it is the escalation -- the problem escalation policy. starting here, how do you go up to get a problem solved? we had a roving technician. we had warehouse workers to supply for the needs that we had. our officials were ready, on the phone, in the drop ave at to help us out. we had media representatives. we had a hot line, where calls could be diverted to what needed to solve the problem. inter-agency cooperation was excellent. this is good news. we will get to the other part later. i understand that it takes a in whole city to put on the election, and i was only able to see the metropolitan police department. i will lift them up. they were one phone call away,

sometimes even a hand waved away. we happen to have one of sepsis and, but more importantly, they would -- upset citizen, and more and portly they would escort our paperwork. -- more importantly, they would escort our paperwork. we had those that were reminded about guidelines, and did well. we were so good in washington, seeing it being -- washington, d.c., that we had several organizations observe our procedures. lastly, ladies and gentlemen, our borders. most of our over 225,000 election-day voters were

patient, and support of. it was long, busy and exhilarating. quickly, one part of what i saw -- one of the things that i saw, we talked about the long lines, but i have long lines against long waits. a long line that is moving is fine. the problem came in the wait, and a couple of things contributed. one of them was the check-in process. it needs to be challenged. we have offered brakes. the only -- offer breaks. the only problem is that you have 20 people in this line, two in this one, and the captain would have to go out and called webers less name begins with such and such. that did not work well with

people passing you if you had been in line for two hours. the long balance, they were so long before on two sides. no understand it has been years since washington, d.c., as head a ballot on two sides. we have to train the workers had to remind voters to use both sides. this has nine races. it is a paper ballot, though when you translate this into the touch-screen machine, required several screens where the voter had to push next, next, and next. when we sit touch-screen, you get the impression of your smartphone or tablet. that is not the case with the machines.

they actually have to press to make it respond. you have people trying to do that tablet, it is not working, and they become frustrated. they have paid after page, which made the line much longer. of course, the resolution is never as sharp. the ballot was difficult to read, very long on both sides, and the front side, especially on the touch side was very small, especially for the proposal. another thing, our voters were not ready. bless their hearts. our voters were not ready even though we mailed a voter guide to every household. many did not know the candidates, so you would see them reading and studying the

candidate, and when they looked on the back, many had no idea what the proposed amendments were. it was good that they were reading, but it took a lot of time to to do that -- do that. the last, the overwhelming number of special ballots. provisional ballots -- we have in a district voters that could vote out-of-precinct, and some vote wherever it is convenient. there are new students, and dino the population in washington, d.c., is -- and you know the population in washington, d.c., is growing at a rapid rate. i want to give you two examples. in 2008, precinct number two at

four special ballots. that same precinct, precinct number two, in 2012, had 429 special ballots. precinct number 6, in 2008, had 50 special ballots. in 2012, the very same piece and had 495 special ballots -- precinct had for -- had 495 special ballots. in 2012 we had over 34,000 special ballots. this is a special belt on the bill. i know many are in -- bel air envelope. i know many of you are familiar. you almost have to have a mini- interview. the voter fills all this side. then, you give it to the special ballot part. they fill out part of it, find out why you are taking a special

ballot in the first place, and then if they have to have identification, you have to write that down. then, you have to sign it, and the special ballot clark gets up and goes to the ballot court because all of our ballots are in one place for accountability reasons, and that is times 34,000. they have to vote, and when you look them up, we only had one e- poll book. i think i will stop there. [laughter] >> i appreciate two things in your introductory comments. first, i think everybody recognizes that many of the things that happened in the election went very well.

the second things you introduced is the notion, and it has been touched on in an indirect way by some of the other speakers, challenges of skill and ability. often we will test concepts, -- scale ability. oftentimes we will test concepts, and pilot on a small scale, and assume scalability on an infinite range. provisional ballot is not the elevated -- validated, and did not lead to the implications of moving from a handful to thousands and thousands, and the implication for post-election clean-up of those events. >> good morning. i have the opportunity and an observer this test -- to be an

observer this test in november cut -- past november, and have the opportunity to go to rover training the saturday prior to the election, spent monday watching the processing of the absentee ballots, and having the opportunity to set up a polling place on a very isolated american indian reservation in the county. arizona -- arizona does not allow observers, unless they are political observers with paper work in polling places on election day. the only people allowed our poll workers, county workers, the voters, and observers with documents. i was allowed to go for set up in the morning, and in the evening to watch and take down the polling place and to go to the regional collection center, and to spend time at the county

office all day. what i spent election day billing was watching the processing of absentee ballots, sitting in on the call-centers, and one for poll workers and the rovers. most things went very -- it was the second largest county i have had the opportunity to witness an election in and i continue to be amazed. i worked at the state, watching all of the counties in pennsylvania, and that was the largest operation that had seemed up until that point, and seeing some of these really large -- had seen up until that point, and seen some of these really large counties run election is almost like watching it from a state-level for me. one of the big problems on election day in maricopa has to do with the provisional ballot.

a lot of people that had requested early or absentee ballots did not cast their ballot because there was a news report saying they would not all be counted, so instead of casting their early absentee ballot, they showed up at a polling place and demanded a provisional ballot. when i spoke to election officials in maricopa, they were excited and optimistic that they would have fewer provisionals, because in past elections they had gotten them under 100,000. this year, i think the number was around 120,000. i will have to double check. that is the last that i heard, so a significant increase in provisional ballots. there was quite a bit of misinformation flying around from political parties, putting fliers in people's doors, saying

go to this polling place, and they would have the wrong neighborhood. lines were long because people were going to the wrong polling place because their house had been fired, and they had to -- flyers, and they had to go. he did not happen everywhere, but enough that we got a lot of calls about it. one of the issues that i found it interesting, we heard about lines but there were some strange things happening because we were getting calls from rovers saying there is a really long line at this place, but nobody is complaining about it, and it was not a complaint on the boulder hot line, or the media hype. these places -- voter hot line, or the media hot line at it was confusing to figure out which

ones were actually long lines, and it comes to that point of long lines against long waits. there was a handful of places where a disabled voter would show up in the mid-afternoon, early-evening, and the touch- screen machine was not set up. i sat in on the rover-training, and the county election officials went over that point again, again and again in the training, that at the opening of polls, use all the machines provided. i know they covered it in the training, and it was only a handful of polling places that had the problem, but it is something the county is aware of. it is still sometimes happening that people are not setting up

the machine because they feel they do not get that many of those voters. so, those are the biggest issues. things, and generally, were very, very smooth i continue to be amazed -- and i continue to be amazed at all of the election officials that i have gotten to witness, and especially the really large scale operations being able to run without real major issues. is really amazing. >> jess brings up a point i hope we can touch on with the panelists that deals with the importance of training, and challenges of training and that very often, because of limited time, limited budgets, which have the tendency to train poll workers and individuals engaged

in elections on how to do the correct things in a narrow win constrained way that often assumes a very uncomplicated deployment environment. what we often fail to do is provide training that assist individuals in recognizing when systems are out of control, because often what you will see is an incorrect procedure routinely implemented over and over again, and the individual has not had the training to recognize the process is out of control. so, issues like training rovers, those are the very individuals that have to be able to recognize when a process is out of control, but often their training mirrors that perfect deployment environment that we often construct. hopefully we touch on that. the other thing, please make

sure, we are talking about maricopa county. for the rest of the world, that is phoenix. make sure you help our guests and those falling on the web understand where you're spot is in the united states. stephen, we will go to you. >> good morning. my name is stephen gramm, and served as an area representative in the district of columbia. i have been doing that for the past five elections. i was promoted from a special ballots courts -- clerk on the same day i started working the elections, so i've been doing that ever since. i oversee six precepts in northwest washington, d.c.. -- precincts in northwest, washington, d.c..

but we have a couple of paper jams, but everyone knows their jobs, and it goes both. the problems i do see, mostly from the elementary-to-high school, people complain why we do not have the elections when days are in wen jiabao on days when the kids are not in school -- on days when the kids are not in school, and i hear this over and over again. when i walked into the precinct, kids are all over the place. one principle is upset because he wants the voters to pass through a metal-detector. voters feel they should not have to on election day go through a metal detector, but i understand what he is saying -- he wants to protect the kids in the school. so, he set it up in a sense where he is personally standing there, watching the boulders

coming into gold, and at times i am -- voters coming in to vote, and at times i am standing there with him, trying to figure out how to fix this, or maybe the kids could be off on election day. so, until that happens, the kids are still in school paladin they are running by, stomping all over the -- school, they are running by, stomping all over the voters seat, so to speak, and a lot of people are upset. if the voters themselves are having problems with touch- screen machines that are sitting in the corner that nobody is using. they want to know why people are able to come from other precincts and vote in their precinct when we have a few

machines that are not being used. i can understand. you might have machines that are not used for an hour or two, but people are still standing in the long lines and they want to know what is wrong with the machines over there? why can we not use these machines. they are set up for people outside of those wards. maybe what we can do is put one or two extra machines in a precinct. also, with the technology we have today, people are taking their cell phone, although it is posted, and no cell phone inside the precinct, by inducing people taking pictures of the machine -- but i have seen people taking pictures of the machine.

people first state "why can i not use my phone? why can i not take a picture of my ballot?" then you have a big argument, so you let them go ahead and do what they need to do. as far as a breakdown in machines, like i said, maybe a couple of paper jams. either i am there to fix it, the rover is there to fix it, or the captain's know exactly what they're supposed to do. there have been a few instances where i had to train a couple of people myself, right then and there when we did have a paper jam. start from the beginning, open, close, pull paper, what ever. so, everyone is there to train

and help, to make sure that everything goes smoothly. other than that, might precincts are fine. >> thank you. stephen raises a couple of points that i think our excellent conversation-starters for the election officials that will be on the panel later today, and also for the boy is -- those joining us on the web cast. the first is the future of schools? polling places. there is already a national trend away from them by. certainly, they have been great locations because we know they are accessible, there is parking, but power is on -- all the things that make for good

precincts', but we know that nationally school and administrators have expressed concerns about non- students on their campuses, and take away it is to continue to have open dialogue with all precinct building managers, particularly the schools, and see if things are changing in that environment. the second thing you pointed out, the practice of having multiple precincts in a vote center, which requires splitting lines, which aggravates your check-in process, the use of electronic poll books, etc. -- that is really another question for administrators, but for those voters that does not understand the revocable decision to implement the election in that format was made months, if not years prior, and

if you are in my state, if you are under the supervision of the doj for changes in polling places, your ability to make those changes is diminished. you raised reach -- two issues that we could touch on. opportunity toe day in richmond, virginia, and it was interesting for me because i did not have expectations. i did not know what to expect. my goal was to learn what the state does in virginia. i have lived there for several years now, so it was going to be the first time that i would see operations at that level, so i feel i had a great experience in terms of seeing the coordination between the state of virginia,

and almost no winks that they would go to to try to figure out -- the lengths that they would go to to try to figure out when the complaints were coming in, the best way to address them, and working with local officials to handle it. one of the key things that the state level is you have to rely on local election officials to be able to handle a lot of these problems. they are the ones that are there, and they have the manpower because sitting in richmond, you can not send somebody to fairfax county up in northern virginia very easily, so it was interesting to see how the state would take calls. if they had a phone bank. they had a policy shop working to answer questions voters and election officials would have at the local level, and the opportunity for campaigns to

provide people at the state offices. s are gettingmpaign' complaints, and relaying them, you have the secretary of the board of elections, and all of the staff sitting there trying to figure out exactly which precincts -- exactly where the problem was. there was a call that came in later in the evening about curbside voting at a specific precinct, and it was confusing for the state to try to figure out what was going on because the poll worker at the precinct was saying that the precinct was located on one street, whereas the precinct was listed in every documentation as the cross street because the address was on the other street. that took a few minutes to figure of precisely what was

happening, and part of the issue, if i remember correctly, turned out to be the boater in question was on the wrong side of the building -- voter in question was on the wrong side of the building. makes a difference, and try to figure of what the problem is allows you to solve it without trying to blame anybody or anything like that. as i heard repeatedly, the goal was to get as many people who were registered and wanting to go vote that day to be able to go and vote. there were reports coming in of long lines in some places, for instance richmond itself, and the questions walking through, where is the line? is it at check-income beyond -- check in, beyond check-in?

sometimes there were complaints, and they were not hearing anything from the local level, and it turns added had not even been brought to the attention of a local official, and it was great because the state could talk to the local officials and say these other reports. in need to send somebody to check them out, and call us back to let us know what has happened, what you did, and that way we can monitor the situation throughout the day. i thought that kind of interaction was a really great way of trying to handle things because local election officials, like you said before, they are the ones they're seeing what is happening, providing them the opportunity to fix the situation, and that helps things move smoother as loretta mentioned, the long lines -- smoother. as loretta mentioned, the long lines against long waits, that

would be confusing. there is a line in, for instance, arlington county, where i live, i would have friends that would text me or call and say the line was one- hour -- was one hour long, and that was not bad compared to what you would hear on the media or other places there was some confusion, and this goes back to -- to d.c., in virginia, people were spending more time looking at the ballots, because there were constitutional amendments, and in arlington we had four run for random is on raising bonds or taxes, or whatever it was to raise money for a project. so, i think there were people that were not expecting the ballot to have as much information as they are rigidly

anticipated. so, i think -- they originally anticipated. so, when you were hearing about the lines, some of that led to that, and that is why it was important to find out if it was a check-in a share, up for a booth issue. even if it was the bulls, is it because the machine was down, -- bruce, is it because the machine was down, or because individuals were taking longer time? it is easy to say throw another machine out there, but some do not have the luxury to throw in another machine or two because this happens to the election when people are spending more h at one of thet campaign officials asked about that, and it was neat for by him

to learn that you cannot just throw in a machine, or ones you sent in your poll workers, as you have nobody else and you have to work within the constraints that you have. that was one of the things that was neat about virginia because they were trying to work with local election officials within what they already had because, like i said, things do a rise on election day, and it is kind of a big matter of prioritizing what is a necessity right now, and what is something you would like to do. is it a long line, or a long wait? i thought that was really neat. i want to give kudos to -- hurricane sandy was mentioned, and a lot of workers in virginia had gone further up the east coast to help out in jurisdictions -- be if

firefighters, police officers, or line workers, to see them working in conjunction with local election officials and state troopers, really pushed to get absentee ballots back from the people that were up there and the count of hurricane sandy. it was hard-warming to see the state troopers focused on that, to the extent that a couple of them said they were disappointed they were assigned to the state house as opposed to trying to help with making sure ballots were coming in in time to be counted. so, i do not really know what else, but i learned a lot, and it was great to see the interaction between the local and state levels. >> thank you. two issues were raised that i would like to put on our agenda for further discussion today.

the first is the challenges of expanding capacity in real time in the elections. not only is it an issue of finding qualified and trained individuals, but the security procedures that surround elections often preclude the redeployment of equipment just for that reason. so, it is often poorly understood how inflexible jurisdictions are in terms of expanding capacity on short notice in the elections. the second has to do with the effervescent nature of problems in the election, where you have the events happening that are only observed by the voters, and then must be interpreted by the poll workers, which is further synthesized into a problem escalation, and by the time it gets to the rover or the state office, the ability to actually understand what happened in a

meaningful way, to take positive action, it is diminished. part of that has to do with the privacy of the ballot, and another part has to do with the design of the system that we use that do not make it easy for people to report problems back up. you have individuals trying to explain what they saw, or described the display on the optical scanner, so those two issues, i think really, in part defined the challenge of election officials of monitoring real-time problems and a dressing them -- the effervescent nature of the problems themselves, and then the inability to expand capacity on short notice. thank you. alicia? >> my name is a leash and alexander, and i am the election -- felicia alexander, and i am

the election and director i did make it a point to get to our early voting sites -- director. i needed a point to get to our early-voting sites. one thing that i found interesting and did not anticipate is a voters began forming lines as early as three hours before the polls opened. at one particular early-voting site in prince george's county, what i could say is i personally went up and down the line is encouraging people to be supported, and they were very energetic, motivated to stay in the line. we did a major advertisement, encouraging people to vote early, so i thought that the actual early-voting

participation was wonderful. now, what i can say is that we do know that in many early- voting sites there were the lines in terms of a white, and again, long lines against long -- a, -- terms o await wait, along lines against long waits, we know there were waits as long as four hours, and we try to add a voting units where we could, pulled books, and human resources. in two particular polling places, we did that and we noticed that the lines were may be reduced by a half hour, 45 minutes. so, why are we not reducing the

lines if we are adding additional voting equipment and human resources? in actually yet assessing the issue, -- actually assessing the issue, i made the determination that in two of our early-voting sites -- two of them are yet libraries. relatively speaking, they are small. we know that when you have lines wrapped around the building three and four times the actual library, and going through the hallways, people are lined up to get to this community in room, there was a bottleneck, and it was very difficult for election judges to perform any line management functions.

so, having said that, one of the things that we know in prince george's county, maryland, that for presidential elections, libraries are not suitable because of the space limitations. parking is not adequate, and we have in addition to our two early-voting sites, they are in gyms, a very large basketball gyms, and we both did the same number of people, but in less time. i it should be that soothe the space because there is more space to both people -- i attributed that to the space, because there is more time to order people around in an

orderly fashion, and that stuck out to me. in prince george's county, maryland, the election overall went very well, and i was very pleased that the voters were not discouraged at all. now, the one thing that we do not know is how many people opted not to vote early because of the long lines, but fortunately they still had election day, and based on the turnout among many people took advantage of that opportunity -- turned out, many people took advantage of that opportunity. another thing that is an issue in prince george's county is the number of provisional ballots. several colleagues mentioned that. as we were going through processing the provisional balance we noticed -- and we know in prince george's county, many of the voters and/or

residents are very transient, and for whatever reason to not update their address, and as a result when they go to the polls, that is not their actual polling place and they have to vote provisionally. with the advent of early-voting -- early voting, for lack of a better term, we noticed that more and more people seem to purposely be going to any polling place, and we expect that that would continue to expand as we move forward in future elections. so, those are two major points up. i've wanted to bring it >> i think she raises two important points.

the first is that the unintended consequences of changes in election procedures -- we almost always get what we think we are going to get, but there is almost always something else that follows on, and one is the behavior of voters, in an expectation, particularly in a and era of e-government, why should my records not be available wherever i choose to go? the second thing is in military operations, if you want to improve the chow halls, get the generals to be there. it makes the food better. how many of us vote on election day? how many of us experience that line, and the answer is most of us vote absentee because of our responsibilities. one of the things i have tried to do is go in advance to go in,

stand in line, and i have learned -- advanced voting, stand in line, and i have learned a lot. that might be something as a professional goal for each of us. experienced the line and the weight. >> i have almost 10 months experience in this process. i'm pretty new with it. i helped out in the april primary and the may special election. for the november election i worked as a trainer and reluctantly as an area representative. that took me out of my ivory tower of training and let me see what really happens in the wild. one of the things that i observed is that i thought we would have a never ending supply of voters, and they were much

more orderly than expected. the precincts that i visited, they were very orderly. another thing that i observed was that even though we did, in d.c., a very good job of predicting the volume of voters for the day, there were a couple of issues with the scalablity that we did not anticipate. you could vote in any precinct with certain consequences. one of my precincts' is in an office building, and a lot of people just came downstairs, bloated and went back to work because it was so convenient -- voted, and went back to work because it was so convenient. another factor is a steel sector, where we have several

near american university, george washington, howard, and we have seen-day registration, and almost all of our students decided to wait until that day to come down and register and vote. one precinct across from howard university went from 56 special ballots in 2008, to 330 this year. we had a total of 23% increase in special ballots. i was told that people in d.c. tend to vote paper because they trust paper more, but i think there is a changing demographic where people want to use the touch-screen. in one precinct, there was

nobody at the paper bruce, if there was a line for the touch- screen unfortunately, we do not have the touch-screen there for the masses. is there for the convenience of those that might have a disability, or those that might be blind because of the audio component. they have long waits there. another thing that was hard to predict -- we have something called kerbside voting, mostly for people that are disabled or elderly, they can drive up and voting assistant clerks will take information, give them a ballot, take it back out to them, and they vote and bring it back in. there is an increase in curbside

voting. the issue with that is that it takes a long time. you have to go out, get their information, come back in, get a ballot, then bring it back in. that took a long time as well. i'm doing some of the post- election analysis now, and in that capacity i got to read a lot of the captain's notes, and while i'm sure you have some election workers that do not show up or are not effected, because of the volume of voters in this town, i think that at a greater impact. as the still ahead is greater impact this time than it would begin by 2008 or 2010 -- than it would be in 2008 or 2010.

my overall experience is that it was a great day overall. it was very hectic. it was a long day, but overall, a great experience. >> ok. thank you. i am keeping an eye on the clock, and we have some hard deadlines, so i do need to end this bright at 10:30. i want to ask you now, and i will start with you, after every election, election officials do some kind of post mortem. if we go through lessons learned, what worked well, where our failures were, where our lumber abilities were, and in some cases, is in vulnerability

-- vulnerability was, and in some cases, where we dodged a bullet. one of the things this group uniquely brings to the round table discussion is that of the poll workers in the trench, observing the behavior of voters, the manifestation of the training, of the planning. what i would like you to do it is summarize what advice you would give to your election official in the case of the poll workers, in the case of a county election officials, would you would give to your colleagues or the state, and what advice you would give to the voters going forward. we are not looking for a broad list from you, because we think that if we could identify just one or two really relevant high- priority things, that gives us

guidance going forward on developing a research agenda and best practices. please, everybody keep your comment to about one minute. >> the quick things -- i already alluded to this, noticing the impact of the two things we added since 2008, the out-of- precinct building, and the same-day registration. they are great things to have, but the impact the process greatly. somebody mentioned the queue earlier, and i think we need more training in terms of dealing with that. some precincts are very orderly, and some of the smaller ones look visually chaotic, so just training captains to deal with that queue.

>> pocket. >> if i were to give -- ok. >> if i were to give two pieces of advice to my colleagues, when i would say is that in elections, one size does not fit all, and we need to understand each jurisdiction has its unique challenges in terms of politics, and demographics, and what works in one county might not working in another. in addition to that, i would like to say -- i would like for us to focus more on training, and maybe look at thinking outside of the box, and instead of conducting training, maybe three, four months before the election, maybe have a continuous stream of training every year for those that might be interested. i think that might resolve a lot

of the issues. >> thank you. >> one of the things that i briefly want to touch on is that this year in virginia the numbers for provisional ballots was actually lower than it was in the past, so whatever they did with regards to training poll workers and educating voters, that was definitely a step in the right direction. there are things that probably could be improved for voter education. meghan touched on the preferences of voters, but i think sometimes they do not realize that both machines will record your ballot. they are there because they are meant to be used. also, the other thing with voters, but sometimes issues are reported, but they are not reported, but they are not things