nclb had not shed light on such an achievement gap. to this, he answered the our co actually disaggregated before it was law. we realized, he said, that when you are as wealthy and have as high a social economic index as we have, children do not have those same opportunities and are in greater danger of not succeeding. so i think it's very fair to say that probably one of the most important changed outlooks of the law has been the disaggregation of data and reporting that, and i think it would be fair to say that had the law not been passed, practices would not have changed. we recognize in a place like this county, it would have been easy to let the performance of our students mask the issues we face. as far as i'm concerned this is the signal strength of the law. now, his statement supports much of what has been alluded to today. nclb drew attention to poor performance of specific subgroups in our schools and held schools accountable for improving their performance. however, some have inferred that the department intends to have a ta

nclb had not shed light on such an achievement gap. to this, he answered the our co actually disaggregated before it was law. we realized, he said, that when you are as wealthy and have as high a social economic index as we have, children do not have those same opportunities and are in greater danger of not succeeding. so i think it's very fair to say that probably one of the most important changed outlooks of the law has been the disaggregation of data and reporting that, and i think it would be fair to say that had the law not been passed, practices would not have changed. we recognize in a place like this county, it would have been easy to let the performance of our students mask the issues we face. as far as i'm concerned this is the signal strength of the law. now, his statement supports much of what has been alluded to today. nclb drew attention to poor performance of specific subgroups in our schools and held schools accountable for improving their performance. however, some have inferred that the department intends to have a ta

over there were ten so-called comprehensive high schools, and they were all failing, if you will, by nclb. and michelle realized she couldn't take them all on at once. i don't know why i'm putting words in your mouth, but you took them on a few at a time, and it was rough sledding. i focused on one, dunbar, which did really well for one year and then ran into some huge problems. and, you know, i came away from this whole thing not really that encouraged about the possibility of turning around failing high schools. i'm not saying it can't be done, but what's your hindsight here? >> it is extraordinarily difficult. there are very, very few examples in this country of what we were trying to do which is taking over a large comprehensive high school as is with the existing students and seeing a massive turn around. i'm very proud to say that one of them that happened in this country was led by my fiance, kevin johnson, in sacramento. that effort, though, took five years. the huge two years what they saw was a change in the culture and the expectations. and last week i took some of my staff bec

last several years, we have had a lot of discussions and you seem to be implementing the changes for nclb. certainly moving multiple mesh sures of achievement. i think it's more important than a high-stakes test and being more flexible when it comes to subgroups. i think that's really important, too. growth models. when i first came to congress, i could not figure out why the original law was comparing one group of students one year to another. it was apples to oranges. didn't make sense to me. growth models are very important. what i want to talk about is the pell grant program and in particular, the year round pell grant program and the proposed cuts you folks are making to that program. in your fy 2012 budget, you propose to cut the pell grant program. this is a significant one. first and foremost, they help people in poverty rise to the middle class and become more productive citizens. last year, already around the country, the first year of operation, 2009-2010, 760,000 students nationwide took advantage of access to financial aid over the summer to graduate faster and come out of co