mr. seaton, that there's an inequality of funding for schools based upon their zip code? >> no, sir. >> we should rectify that. >> no, sir, i'm not saying that at all. >> you should be. >> can i read this language just to respond to mr. schnur? it says, if the state chooses to use a student -- use student growth as a measure of academic progress and to determine if students are on track to college and career readiness, a student performing below the on track

mr. seaton, that there's an inequality of funding for schools based upon their zip code? >> no, sir. >> we should rectify that. >> no, sir, i'm not saying that at all. >> you should be.

mr. seaton, i don't think you got my subtlety in this. savage inequalities still exist today. i'm in fairfax county. our schools have the best computers you can imagine. why don't your schools have those? there's inequality in zip codes. we have to figure out how we make sure that kids who happen to be born to -- in bad circumstances have a bad family circumstance, low income, impoverished area, maybe english language learns, maybe have a disability, maybe have a learning disability, how do you keep them progressing too? how do you reach down to that child who has the least and make sure they get the benefit of our education system. that's what we're trying to do. imperfect as it is, that's what we're trying to do. i thank you all very much. it's been a great discussion. the committee will stand adjourned. >> got to go. vote. >> i'm keeping the record open for ten days. >> you the white house this week announced that ten states would be allowed to opt out of the "no child left behind" law. we talked to reporter fawn johnson about why account obama administration made the decis

mr. seaton has ideas, mr. grier has ideas. they all sound good. i'm afraid once we make them universal -- while i would probably vote for mr. grier or mr. luna to be superintendent, i don't want them to be the national superintendent of schools. so it is a big difference. how much is it federal. i think for the most part -- and this is a philosophical point. the farther we get away from the local school, the worse it gets. and the farther we get way from local government to national government, the worse the oversight gets. i don't know that we can judge who a good teacher is. i would have to know more. i would have to sit in her class and i would have to look at that. i would have to maybe judge on how well her studen at i don't know here whether she is a good teacher or not. in columbia, kentucky is different from memphis is different from houston. so my argument for it is to keep in mind that there is a philosophical question here on local versus federal. and i think we're coming together in understanding that maybe federal overbearing or feder

mr. seaton and ms. banks. i deeply appreciate it. senator alexander, i spent some time on the phone with your very excellent commissioner of education in tennessee, hearing from him about the evaluation system there. and he sends his regards to you. >> what did he say? >> i'll tell you later. he said they have the best system in the world. and since i support both of senator schnurr's amendments to the bill, i wonder if you could talk frontal boundary your perspective because no one around this table i don't think has spent more time in as many schools as you probably have. from your perspective, what is the importance of the performance targets? and what should that look like in this bill ideally if we're able to find a path that would allow us to include it? >> well, you people in this room have a lot more expertise on the legislative issues. from a school perspective, from a principal, teacher, kids sitting in schools, i think it is of vital importance. i don't think they don't necessarily care where this kid country need a press

mr. seaton. again, what is good and what is bad about the bill. mr. grier? >> thank you, senator. thank you, senator. first, we want to say thank you for continuing to have an accountability component in there. focusing on the bottom 5% of our schools that are persistently low achieving, schools that have achievement gap, and allowing states some discretion in developing an accountability system in their state i think is all positive. we also would like very much that we no longer have to set aside money for supplemental educational services. in our district, this after-school tutoring program has not yielded any results. we actually have had vendors that would give the students rides to movie theaters in stretch limousines for signing up with them. last year in our district we created our own tutorial program in our turn-around schools. we reconstituted five middle schools and four high schools. and we tutored all sixth and ninth graders in those schools in math every day. one tutor per two children. and at the end of the year, we had twice the academic gains that the harlem chil