and roger thompson is the vice provost for enrollment management at the university of oregon. the system has more than 24,000 students, 20,000 of which are undergraduates. mr. montoya, if as the college board maintains, s.a.t. measures the skills needed for college success. what do some of the lowest scores in 40 years lead you to conclude? >> well, what we are to conclude is that students need to take more rigorous courses. in high school. we have to have higher expectations of our students. what we know is this. that of those students who complete a core curriculum, four years of english, at least three years of mathematics, at least three years of science and at least three years of social science, comparedded to those who students who did not complete a core curriculum, those students completing a core curriculum scored 144 points higher on the s.a.t. >> suarez: what do we know about the predictive value of the test itself? you have a threshold for college readiness. if you go into an institution of higher learning without reaching that threshold, are you automatically goi

. >> suarez: roger thompson, are you seeing those low scores in your applicant pool and your entering classes? >> well, we're certainly seeing more students take the s.a. i think that's one of the things that we need to think about when we consider how scores are changing over time. if you look at the test scores, we've got far more students participating than we did 20 years ago. that creates sort of a two sides to the same coin. with more students participating, naturally we're going to have more students who are not college bound taking the s.a.t. in one sense that drives the score a little bit lower. on the other hand, we are seeing some challenges particularly in math and science. you cited the chges that we've gun see in the verbal and reading. all of that leads me to be concerned as an administrator about the preparation that's happening in our k-12 school systems around the country. >> suarez: what kind of feedback are you getting from your instructors who teach freshmen? are they not as prepared as they ought to be? >> well, i think we're fortunate at the university of oregon

thompson and so many others. finally, alec, meet alice. that's right, alec now has some competition. inspired by professor joel rogers democracy, alice is a transparent, non-corporate, out-in-the-open, web-based library of model laws on a range of public interest issues. alice doesn't have corporate or billionaire backers. the work is done by volunteers -- so in the constant struggle for democracy is still david versus goliath, but as you'll remember from that ancient story, the giant doesn't always win. ♪ ♪ ♪ the presidential debates are upon us and many people are describing them as mitt romney's last best chance to establish himself as a serious contender worthy of the white house. it's happened before. john kennedy, ronald reagan, george w. bush, all bounced higher in the polls after credible debate performances and went on to win the white house. whatever the outcome, most agree it's the debates that will give us our best opportunity to evaluate these candidates, sort out their positions and separate truth from fiction. not a moment too soon. according to a new survey from the annenberg public policy center at t

chairman rogers and his staff for their assistance on the billism urge members to vote in support and reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from mississippi. mr. thompson: i rise in support of h.r. 6028, the no hassle flying act of 2012, and yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. thompson: mr. speaker, while i support the legislation we are considering today i'm concerned that on this, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of september 11, we're not considering a bipartisan package of legislation. on this day 11 years ago, our couldn'ty ry was attacked and came together like never before to face the challenges of rebuilding and restructuring our security systems. with the creation of the 9/11 commission, the transportation security administration, and ultimately the department of homeland security, we demonstrated that homeland security is an american issue, not a partisan one. why, then, i must ask are we not considering a bipartisan package of legislative proposals that have previously received the unanimous support of the committee on homeland security. why is this bill, which never rece