[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
AMERICA'S COMPETIVENESS THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL REFORM
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
EDUCATION AND LABOR
U.S. House of Representatives
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 12, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-20
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
Available on the Internet:
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon,
Chairman California,
Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Senior Republican Member
Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia Peter Hoekstra, Michigan
Lynn C. Woolsey, California Michael N. Castle, Delaware
Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Mark E. Souder, Indiana
Carolyn McCarthy, New York Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Judy Biggert, Illinois
Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania
David Wu, Oregon Joe Wilson, South Carolina
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey John Kline, Minnesota
Susan A. Davis, California Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Tom Price, Georgia
Timothy H. Bishop, New York Rob Bishop, Utah
Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania Brett Guthrie, Kentucky
David Loebsack, Iowa Bill Cassidy, Louisiana
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Tom McClintock, California
Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania Duncan Hunter, California
Phil Hare, Illinois David P. Roe, Tennessee
Yvette D. Clarke, New York Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania
Joe Courtney, Connecticut
Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire
Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio
Jared Polis, Colorado
Paul Tonko, New York
Pedro R. Pierluisi, Puerto Rico
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
Northern Mariana Islands
Dina Titus, Nevada
[Vacant]
Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director
Sally Stroup, Republican Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 12, 2009..................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Miller, Hon. George, Chairman, Committee on Education and
Labor...................................................... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Petri, Hon. Thomas, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Wisconsin......................................... 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
Statement of Witnesses:
Balfanz, Robert, Everyone Graduates Center, Johns Hopkins
University................................................. 21
Prepared statement of.................................... 23
Castle, Hon. Michael N., Senior Republican Member,
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary
Education.................................................. 13
Prepared statement of.................................... 14
Fattah, Hon. Chaka, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Pennsylvania...................................... 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 8
Gordon, Scott, CEO, Mastery Charter Schools.................. 44
Prepared statement of.................................... 46
Grijalva, Hon. Raul M., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona........................................... 9
Prepared statement of.................................... 11
Kondracke, Marguerite, president and CEO, America's Promise
Alliance................................................... 33
Prepared statement of.................................... 35
Phillips, Dr. Vicki, director, education, Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation........................................... 49
Prepared statement of.................................... 52
Roe, Hon. David P., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Tennessee......................................... 16
Prepared statement of.................................... 17
Wise, Hon. Bob, President, Alliance for Excellent Education,
former Governor, West Virginia............................. 55
Prepared statement of.................................... 57
Wotorson, Michael, executive director, Campaign for High
School Equity.............................................. 26
Prepared statement of.................................... 28
AMERICA'S COMPETIVENESS
THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL REFORM
----------
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Education and Labor
Washington, DC
----------
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 3:00 p.m., in room
2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. George Miller
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Payne, Scott, Tierney,
Holt, Davis, Grijalva, Bishop of New York, Loebsack, Hirono,
Courtney, Shea-Porter, Fudge, Petri, Castle, Bishop of Utah,
and Roe.
Staff Present: Tylease Alli, Hearing Clerk; Catherine
Brown, Education Policy Advisor; Alice Cain, Senior Education
Policy Advisor (K-12); Fran-Victoria Cox, Staff Attorney;
Adrienne Dunbar, Education Policy Advisor; Curtis Ellis,
Legislative Fellow, Education; David Hartzler, Systems
Administrator; Fred Jones, Staff Assistant, Education; Jessica
Kahanek, Press Assistant; Stephanie Moore, General Counsel;
Alex Nock, Deputy Staff Director; Joe Novotny, Chief Clerk;
Rachel Racusen, Communications Director; Melissa Salmanowitz,
Press Secretary; Margaret Young, Staff Assistant, Education;
Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director; Stephanie Arras, Minority
Legislative Assistant; Robert Borden, Minority General Counsel;
Cameron Coursen, Minority Assistant Communications Director;
Kirsten Duncan, Minority Professional Staff Member; Susan Ross,
Minority Director of Education and Human Services Policy; Linda
Stevens, Minority Chief Clerk/Assistant to the General Counsel;
and Sally Stroup, Minority Staff Director.
Chairman Miller. A quorum being present, the committee will
come to order. I want to welcome our first panel, and say good
afternoon to everyone else in attendance.
Today we are here to take a closer look at how improving
graduation rates in our Nation's high schools can help
strengthen our competitiveness and the strength of our economy.
We are also going to take a look at what is working to help
turn around the so-called ``dropout factories'' and their
feeder schools.
Some may think twice about using the word ``crisis'' to
define what is happening in our high schools, but the truth is
we just aren't facing a crisis, the house is on fire.
The new McKinsey report says that the achievement gaps in
this country are the same as having, and I quote, a permanent
national recession.
Today, only 70 percent of students graduate with a regular
high school diploma. Of these students, fewer than half
graduate fully prepared for college level work or success in
the workforce. Nearly one in five U.S. men between the ages of
16 and 24, nearly 19 percent, have dropped out.
About 10 percent of high schools produce close to half of
the students who drop out. In these 2,000 high schools--so-
called ``dropout factories"--about as many students drop out as
graduate.
These dropout factories disproportionately impact minority
students, producing 69 percent of all the African American and
63 percent of the Hispanic students who drop out.
Nationally, only about a little more than 50 percent of
African American students and Hispanic students graduate on
time, compared to 78 percent of the white students. It is a
national tragedy that if you are a minority student in this
country you have a one in three chance of attending a dropout
factory.
We used to be a world leader in high school graduation
rates. Now we have fallen to 18th out of 24 among
industrialized nations. Studies show the longer our students
stay in school the more they fall behind their international
peers.
Last month's NAEP study of long-term trends show that 17-
year-old students' reading and math scores have not improved
since the 1970s. This is astonishing. We cannot afford to
continue this way, not for our students, our economy or our
future competitiveness.
A high school dropout earns an average of $250,000 less
than a high school graduate and about a million dollars less
than a college graduate over their lifetime.
Each class of high school dropouts costs the economy $309
billion in lost wages over those students' lifetime.
In fact, the McKinsey report shows the international
achievement gap poses a greater threat to our economy than the
current downturn. It found that if the United States had closed
the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998, our
2008 GDP would have been 1 to $2 trillion higher. That is about
9 to 16 percent of our GDP.
We should be producing the most qualified and talented
workforce possible. Instead, businesses say high school
graduates are not ready for the workplace and colleges say high
school graduates are not ready for the rigors of college.
It has become increasingly clear that addressing this
dropout crisis is one of the most important things we can do to
turn our economy around for good.
In its current form, No Child Left Behind doesn't do enough
to turn around low performing middle and high schools and
improve our graduation rates, partly because we do not have
common State standards. Each State has used different data and
calculations to determine their graduation rates.
A sampling of dropout factories found that almost 40
percent had made adequate yearly progress under No Child Left
Behind. It is safe to say that if 40 percent of a school's
students are not graduating, that school is not succeeding.
We need to hold schools responsible for their graduation
rates so we can improve student performance. We also need to
discourage schools from pushing out students who are not making
the grade and ask schools to keep their doors open to students
who leave and want to return.
Earlier this year, President Obama called on Congress to
take action. He said the dropout crisis in this country was
bigger than any single person who chooses not to finish high
school. I couldn't agree more. This crisis is a drain on our
economy, it is an embarrassment to our schools, and it has to
change.
The President and Secretary Duncan know that we need to
give schools the means to support and encourage students to
stay in school. We can no longer endorse a system of acceptable
losses.
I hope that today's hearing will be a first good step as we
work with the Obama administration to finally address this
crisis.
Lastly, I would like to thank my committee colleagues for
their outstanding leadership in this issue, including Chairman
Kildee's Fast Track to College Act, Representative Grijalva's
Success in the Middle Act, Representative Hinojosa's Graduation
Promise Act, and Representative Scott's GRADUATES Act.
Clearly, there is great interest in moving forward with
legislation to address this urgent problem.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about what we
can do to dramatically improve the educational opportunities we
are providing to all high school students in this country.
And now I would like to recognize my Republican colleague,
Mr. Petri, for the purposes of making an opening statement.
[The statement of Mr. Miller follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. George Miller, Chairman, Committee on
Education and Labor
Today we're here to take a closer look at how improving graduation
rates in our nation's high schools can help strengthen our
competitiveness.
We're also going to take a look at what is working to help turn
around the so-called ``dropout factories'' and their feeder schools.
Some may think twice about using the word ``crisis'' to define
what's happening in our high schools. But the truth is, we aren't just
facing a crisis--the house is on fire.
The new McKinsey report says the achievement gaps in this country
are the same as having, and I quote ``a permanent national recession.''
Today only 70 percent of students graduate with a regular high
school diploma. Of these students, fewer than half graduate fully
prepared for college-level work or success in the workforce.
Nearly one in five U.S. men between the ages of 16 and 24, nearly
19 percent, have dropped out.
About 10 percent of high schools produce close to half of our
students who drop out. In these 2,000 high schools--so-called ``dropout
factories''--about as many students drop out as graduate.
These dropout factories disproportionately impact minority
students, producing 69 percent of all African-American and 63 percent
of all Hispanic students who drop out.
Nationally, only about 55 percent of African-American students and
52 percent of Hispanic students graduate on time, compared to 78
percent of white students. It is a national tragedy that if you're a
minority student in this country, you have a one-in-three chance of
attending a dropout factory.
We used to be a world leader in high school graduation rates. Now
we've fallen to 18th out of 24 among industrialized nations.
Studies also show the longer our students stay in school, the
longer they fall behind their international peers.
Last month's NAEP study of long term trends showed 17 year old
students' reading and math scores have not improved since 1970's.
This is astonishing.
We cannot afford to continue this way, not for our students, our
economy or our future competitiveness.
A high school dropout earns an average of $260,000 less than a high
school graduate and $1 million less than a college graduate over a
lifetime.
Each class of high school dropouts cost the U.S. economy $309
billion in lost wages over the students' lifetime.
In fact, the McKinsey report shows the international achievement
gap poses a greater economic threat to our country than the current
downturn.
It found that if the U.S. had closed the international achievement
gap between 1983 and 1998, our 2008 GDP would have been between $1 and
$2 trillion higher--that's about 9 to 16 percent of our GDP.
We should be producing the most qualified and talented workforce
possible. Instead businesses say high school graduates are not ready
for the workplace, and colleges say high school graduates are not ready
for the rigors of college.
It's become increasingly clear that addressing this dropout crisis
is one of the most important things we can do to turn our economy
around for good.
In its current form, No Child Left Behind doesn't do enough to turn
around low-performing middle and high schools and improve our
graduation rates, partly because we do not yet have common state
standards.
Each state uses different data and calculations to determine their
graduation rates. A sampling of dropout factories found that almost 40
percent had made Adequate Yearly Progress under NCLB.
It is safe to say that if at least 40 percent of a school's
students aren't graduating--that school is not succeeding.
We need to hold schools responsible for their graduation rates so
they can improve student performance.
We also need to discourage schools from pushing out students who
aren't making the grade and ask schools to keep their doors open to
students who leave and want to return.
Earlier this year, President Obama called on Congress to take
action. He said the dropout crisis in this country is bigger than any
single person who chooses not to finish high school.
I couldn't agree more--this crisis is a drain on our economy, it's
an embarrassment to our schools, and it has to change.
The President and Secretary Duncan know that we need to give
schools the means to support and encourage students to stay in school.
We can no longer endorse a system of acceptable losses.
I hope today's hearing will be a good first step as we work with
the Obama administration to finally address this crisis.
Lastly, I would like to thank many of my committee colleagues for
their outstanding leadership on this issue, including Chairman Kildee's
Fast Track to College Act, Rep. Grijalva's Success in the Middle Act,
Rep. Hinojosa's Graduation Promise Act, and Rep. Scott's GRADUATES Act.
Clearly there is great interest in moving forward with legislation
to address this urgent problem.
I look forward to hearing from witnesses about what we can do to
dramatically improve the educational opportunities we are providing to
all high school students in this country.
______
Mr. Petri. Well, thank you, Chairman Miller, for convening
this hearing today to help us identify the challenges facing
our Nation's high schools.
The focus of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and
its 2001 reauthorization through the No Child Left Behind Act
was on closing the achievement gap faced by disadvantaged
students as they progressed in school. As we will hear today,
our Nation is faced with what this achievement gap means for
high schools. These schools face not only a dropout crisis but
a crisis in preparation for a student's adult life, or rather a
lack of preparation for a student's adult life.
Too often, our students are entering high school unprepared
to succeed in subjects such as reading, math, and science and
leaving unprepared to succeed in college, trade school, or in
the world of work.
High school reform is seeing increased attention in
Congress and among researchers and education experts. Even the
Obama administration has announced its support of the October
2008 Title I regulations that established a uniform graduation
rate for all of our Nation's high schools.
However, the issue of high school reform cannot be examined
in isolation. Any effort to reform our high schools must take
into consideration the preparations students receive in
elementary and in middle school as well. Programs that focus on
reading and programs that allow students to choose schools that
are meeting adequate yearly progress can all be enhanced as we
reform what is taking place in the Nation's high schools.
Today our witnesses will discuss the research that
illustrates these challenges and the reform efforts being
driven by communities, districts, and States to attack these
concerns. Our discussion will provide us with important
information we will use as we move forward to reauthorize the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act during this Congress.
I would like to thank our witnesses for taking the time to
speak to us today, and in particular I would like to thank the
Members of Congress who will testify before us about their
concerns for high school education.
It is an important issue for our students and our workforce
and the Nation's families and communities, and I look forward
to learning more about the challenges remaining and the work to
be done.
And with that, I yield back.
[The statement of Mr. Petri follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Thomas Petri, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Wisconsin
Good afternoon, Chairman Miller, and thank you for yielding.
I am happy that you have convened this hearing today to help us
identify the challenges facing our nation's high schools.
The focus of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and its
2001 reauthorization, through the No Child Left Behind Act, was on
closing the achievement gap faced by disadvantaged students as they
progressed in school.
As we will hear today, our nation is faced with what this
achievement gap means for high schools. These schools face not only a
dropout crisis but a crisis in preparation for a student's adult life.
Or rather, a lack of preparation for a student's adult life.
Too often our students are entering high school unprepared to
succeed in subjects such as reading, math and science and leaving
unprepared to succeed in college, trade school or work.
High school reform is seeing increased attention in Congress and
among researchers and education experts. Even the Obama Administration
has announced its support of the October 2008 Title I regulations that
established a uniform graduation rate for all of our nation's high
schools.
However, the issue of high school reform cannot be examined by
itself. Any effort to reform our high schools must take into
consideration the preparation students receive in elementary and middle
school as well.
Programs that focus on reading, and programs that allow students to
choose schools that are meeting adequate yearly progress, can all be
enhanced as we reform what is taking place in the nation's high
schools.
Today our witnesses will discuss the research that illustrates
these challenges and the reform efforts being driven by communities,
districts, and states to attack these concerns.
Our discussion will provide us with important information that we
will use as we move forward to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act during the 111th Congress.
I would like to thank our witnesses for taking the time to speak to
us today. In particular, I would like to thank the Members of Congress
who will testify before us about their concerns for high school
education.
This is an important issue for our students and our workforce and I
look forward to learning more about the challenges remaining and work
to be done.
Thank you, Chairman Miller. I yield back.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you. I would like to welcome the
first panel of our colleagues who have been deeply involved in
this issue over many years. The first witness will be the
Honorable Chaka Fattah, who is from Pennsylvania, serving his
eighth term in the House of Representatives, representing the
Second Congressional District of that State.
A former member of the Committee on Education and Labor,
Congressman Fattah now sits on the Appropriations Committee.
Congressman Fattah has long been an advocate for education and
was the architect of GEAR UP, the largest pre-college awareness
program in this Nation's history, and has contributed more than
$2 billion to the educational advancement and college readiness
of low-income students. Prior to joining Congress, he served 12
years in the Pennsylvania legislature, 6 years in the House and
6 years in the Senate.
Next we will hear from the Honorable Raul Grijalva, who
represents the Seventh Congressional District in Arizona and is
in his fourth term as a Member of Congress. He serves as
Chairman of the Education and Job Training Task Force of the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Before he was elected to
Congress, Representative Grijalva was a member of the Pima
County Board of Supervisors. He has also served on the Tucson
Unified School District governing board serving as Chairman for
6 years. During his tenure on that board, he worked with the
courts, superintendents, and educators on a desegregation plan
and was the lead board member on implementation of the
integration plan.
The Honorable Mike Castle, former Deputy Attorney General
and State legislator and Lieutenant Governor and two-term
Governor of Delaware. Any job you didn't hold there, Michael?
Congressman Castle is currently serving his ninth term as
Delaware's lone Member of the House. Not lonely, but lone. He
was born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware and is a graduate
of Hamilton College and Georgetown University.
The Honorable Phil Roe represents the First District of
Tennessee and is in his first term. A native of Tennessee,
Representative Roe served 2 years in the United States Army
Medical Corps as a physician. Congressman Roe has run a medical
practice in Johnson City for 31 years, delivering close to
5,000 babies. Congressman Roe served as mayor of Johnson City
from 2007 to 2009.
Welcome to the committee. You know the rules. We will give
you 5 minutes to tell us what you want to tell us and if the
members of the committee have questions, they will be
recognized for that purpose. And we appreciate you taking the
time out of your schedule to join us at this hearing on this
subject that is of importance to you and to us.
Thank you.
Chaka?
STATEMENT OF HON. CHAKA FATTAH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Fattah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and to the ranking
member and to all of the members of this great committee. It is
a pleasure to be back here in my old working space here in this
committee. I had some great days here in the House.
I want to say a couple of things. One is that over the last
couple of weeks I have been in a number of high schools. On
yesterday, I was at West Philadelphia High, which would be well
up on the dropout factory list. But I was there with the EPA
Administrator and we were highlighting one of 111 teams in the
world, an automobile design team, at West Philly High that was
building a hybrid car and they have a car that can go over 100
miles on a gallon of fuel, and they beat Toyota, MIT, and all
comers three times so far, and they are competing now for a $10
million prize.
At Overbrook last week, my alma mater, we had 1,400 middle
school kids for a GEAR UP kickoff. Overbrook would be on a
dropout factory list by any count, but their robotics team
scored number one in the State in the Defense Department's Sea
Perch robotics trial.
I was at Mastery--and you are going to hear from the head
guy at Mastery in a few minutes. They are doing fabulous work.
And just last week I was at the Microsoft School for the
Future, which is in my district. It is a brand-new structure,
been there for a few years, designed by the best thinkers that
Microsoft could put together. It is now being marketed and
shopped in 11 other countries in the world. There is no peer in
terms of a high school anywhere in the world, and it is
educating kids in one of the poorest neighborhoods and tracts
in Philadelphia in the heart of my district and doing an
extraordinary job.
So there is a lot of good one could say about what is
happening out there, but the fact of the matter is that a lot
more needs to be done.
When President Clinton came to Saltsburg and signed GEAR UP
into law 11 years ago, he said that we need to transfer middle-
class aspirations to working class families in terms of going
on to college. We have now seen over 11 years of GEAR UP, 6
million young people, and we have seen all across the country
in a variety of places hundreds of programs, 85-plus percent
graduate from high school, 61, 62 percent go on to college. It
has been an enormous success, and I thank all of my colleagues
who worked with me on that legislation when we passed it.
But more needs to be done. And what I think ought to happen
is embodied in the legislation that I have authored, the
Student Bill of Rights, which calls for a particular effort to
provide a comparable educational opportunity to do what we are
doing in our highest achieving schools in our lowest achieving
schools. Give them a qualified teacher, a classroom size of
some reasonableness, and a textbook printed in their lifetime
and a rigorous curriculum.
We know that it works. It works in a lot of our wealthy
suburban districts, and we know it would work in our poor
districts if we did it. We provide less of what we need to
educate a child in the most challenging communities in our
country, and then we act surprised about the disproportionate
failure that follows from that.
I offered the Communities Committed to College Act, which
would create a long-term trust fund invested in so young people
can know with a certainty that they can go on to college.
Raising the bar and expectations is very important.
So I embody some of my thinkings in the legislation that I
put forward.
When President Obama went to a public school in Denver, he
said we need to expand programs like GEAR UP. Things that work,
take them to scale. We are all invested in making sure that
these young people can achieve and if we wanted to double the
high school graduation rate, we already know that there are
programs that work, that make that happen, and it has happened
across the country and we could take the best practices from
that and go forward.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the committee for
listening. I would be glad to answer any questions.
[The statement of Mr. Fattah follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Chaka Fattah, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Pennsylvania
Chairman Miller, Congressman McKeon and members of the committee, I
would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak before you on
improving our nation's high schools and ensuring every child,
regardless of life circumstances, is receiving the education necessary
to succeed in college, career and life. I am also honored to join my
colleagues Mr. Grijalva and Mr. Castle in offering remarks and to
welcome Scott Gordon, CEO of Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia,
to Washington.
I am excited by the opportunity we now have to improve educational
outcomes and ensure a fair playing field for all students. With the
leadership of this committee, President Obama and Chairman Kennedy, I
am confident that we will begin to close the devastating gaps and
inequities in opportunity that have contributed to under achievement
among our nation's low income students and students of color.
I would like to focus my remarks on those ingredients of better
high schools which have been effective in improving student achievement
and sending students to higher education; effective teachers and a
rigorous, college preparatory curriculum. These critical resources are
available in abundance to our wealthiest families, in both public and
private schools, but available only to a chosen few poor neighborhoods
and communities of color.
Nationally, high-poverty districts start the year with $938 less
state and local revenue per pupil. In a class of 25 students, that
$23,000 difference means teachers with less experience and less
expertise, fewer appropriate instructional materials and less access to
current educational technology. 34 percent of classes in high-poverty
schools are taught by teachers lacking a major or minor in their field
of instruction, almost twice the rate for their higher-income peers. In
high school, this often means teachers whose last academic experience
with math or science was their own high school-level science or math
class.
In addition to less content expertise, teachers in poor schools are
more likely to be pedagogical novices with three years or less
experience. The difference in teacher experience is even greater in
high-minority schools when compared with low-minority schools.
Naturally, these differences in teacher experience and content
mastery lead to wide variations in available curricula. In core
classes, the content of which is a predictor of college success,
students in high-poverty schools are 24 percent more likely than
students in low poverty schools to face an out-of-field teacher. Low
income students are less likely to be in a full college preparatory
track and are more likely to begin post-secondary education unprepared.
These significant academic inequities are creating formidable
barriers for students hoping to attend college. Graduation is delayed--
if not derailed, when students must spend their first year in remedial,
non credit-bearing courses. This problem only serves to enhance the
financial barriers that are keeping otherwise qualified students out of
our higher-education system.
There are solutions to these challenges. Early college
opportunities are helping an increasing number of students prepare for
post-secondary learning and graduate college early or on time.
Significant progress is being made by this committee, President Obama
and Secretary Duncan in ensuring every child has access to an effective
teacher and rigorous instruction.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will guarantee
that states are working to ensure the equitable distribution of their
teacher talent by enforcing previously unenforced reporting and
remediating requirements from the No Child Left Behind Act that
dictates low-income students and students of color not be
disproportionately taught by less-qualified teachers. ARRA also shifts
the way Title I funds are distributed, using the Targeted and Education
Finance Incentive Grant formulas instead of the Basic and Concentration
grant formulas that will direct more resources where they were
originally meant to go, providing assistance to the schools in the most
need.
I am also encouraged by the work of the Education and Labor
Committee in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization
discussion draft, which closed the comparability loophole and required
states to report on the ways in which critical educational resources
were distributed. Building on the foundation for equity in ESEA, I will
be reintroducing the Student Bill of Rights Act this spring which
addresses disparities in educational resources and students'
opportunity to learn.
This work on improving academic instruction will go a long way to
make certain that students are ready to begin college work when they
step on campus. The barriers to higher education are not solely
academic. We have years of research that shows similarly qualified
African American students are less likely than their White peers to
advance to post-secondary education.
The work led by Mr. Hinojosa last year to make college more
affordable addresses a critical piece in college-going. Also, the
recent changes to the Pell Grant program, moving it from the discretion
of the Appropriations Committee to the mandatory side of the budget and
increasing the maximum grant will give more low-income students the
opportunity to earn a degree.
Simply improving instruction and offering financial resources will
not address other pernicious obstacles that students, many of whom
would be the first in their family to attend college, face. Providing
students with the certainty that their own hard work and commitment
will be met by the work and commitment of their community establishes a
college-going culture and builds expectations within the system that
every student should have the opportunity to attend college. I have
introduced the Communities Committed to College Tax Credit Act, H.R.
1579 to support local efforts that provide college scholarships to
local students.
GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate
Programs) has successfully put 6 million students in high-poverty
schools on track for college. Students receive assistance in overcoming
academic, financial and cultural barriers to college. GEAR UP increases
access to college preparatory academic programs (including AP), offers
scholarships to students accepted into college and provides the
critical background knowledge about the financial aid and admissions
processes that is particularly lacking in low-income communities.
GEAR UP is a stunning success. Over 80 percent of GEAR UP students
graduate from high school, while only about half of all low-income
students graduate. This shows that when students and communities set
their sights beyond twelfth grade, and when they are prepared for
college, a high school diploma becomes more assumed and inevitable than
for the population as a whole.
Low-income students who have effective teachers, college
preparatory curricula, financial aid and information about the college
process are currently meeting or exceeding standards set by their
higher income peers. This is our opportunity to invest in equitably and
adequately distributed resources and a college-going culture. Our
students are eager to do their part; the question is whether we, as
policy makers and adults, are ready to rise to meet this challenge.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you very much. And thank you for all
of your involvement in this issue.
Congressman Grijalva.
STATEMENT OF HON. RAUL GRIJALVA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and ranking
member, and all the members of the committee for this
opportunity to discuss with you a very critical issue of high
school graduation and the dropout crisis that the chairman so
aptly called it.
In my role as Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus
Education and Workforce Task Force, I would like to discuss the
issue of high school graduation as it relates to the priorities
of this caucus and to the goals and needs of Latinos and, quite
frankly, all our children.
As our Nation's fastest growing population and one of the
largest groups of children in our public schools, one in five
of children in our public schools are Latino, comprising
somewhere between almost 11 million students enrolled from pre-
Kindergarten to 12th grade, almost 3 million of those students
being high school students. Another percentage is 45 percent of
these students are English language learners, and 80 percent of
the 5 million students enrolled in schools are Spanish
speaking.
And so as you look at all those statistics you also need to
see that these Latino children remain the least likely to
attend preschool, the least likely to graduate from high
school, the least likely to enroll in college, and the least
likely to complete college. Only 15 percent of Latinos are
proficient in reading by the eighth grade, and the dropout
issue that we are talking about is devastating not only to our
community but I believe overall to the Nation.
When only half of the Latino students who enter ninth grade
graduate with a high school diploma, it just points out the
kind of devastation and distress that we feel in the
communities. 600,000 to 700,000 Latino students drop out of
school every year. I know the data, the statistics, they are
daunting and quite frankly distressing. But the task to improve
the education of these children I think are feasible.
And I think Congress must work toward policies that address
the dropout crisis for all students, but for Latinos in the
light of the changing characteristics that I just pointed out
in our schools.
So let me just some very quick recommendations. The first
one is about accountability. And the chairman mentioned State
standards. Let's have a definition and real data about what the
real dropout numbers are in this country, and in this Nation.
And that speaks to the accountability and credibility of the
statistics that we are using.
We need training and support. Congress needs to make a very
strong commitment to increasing support for teacher training,
including English learner teachers and their commitment to
these schools. Commitment to the feeder systems, I believe, as
part of teacher training is essential.
The high school dropout is not a phenomenon that occurs in
high school. It occurs through that feeder system. So as we
look at that percentage of high schools that are dropout
factories and we look at the feeder system that feeds to these
high schools, you realize it is a systemwide problem and not
isolated at the high school level.
Parental involvement is essential. Programs like family
literacy, adult basic education, where families are learning
together, where families can help their children succeed in
school I think are very important.
Targeted intervention. The legislation that was talked
about in the introduction by the chairman are essential as the
Graduation Promise Act will be reintroduced, and it can provide
aid to schools with low graduation rates and target that aid.
Middle school intervention, and I mentioned feeder school
intervention. No plan to address high school dropout crisis
would be effective without an adequate middle school
intervention to aid the most troubled feeder middle schools and
elementary schools and the most troubled high schools.
All the research confirms that in sixth through eighth
grade this work is essential to ensure success in high school.
Studies show that sixth grade students who do not attend school
regularly, have poor conduct scores, who fail math or English
have only a 10 percent chance of graduating on time.
Human resources. The Department of Education is making a
commitment, a commitment that must be followed through on its
diversity, on raising its cultural linguistic competence and
capacity of the professional staff from superintendent to
principals to teachers.
And I want to give an example of something that works, and
that is jobs. There are three programs in the area I represent,
Jobs for Arizona Graduates, Jobs First, Jobs and Work. The
students in those programs that are paid as part of their
responsibility have a 95 percent graduation rate, and a 50 to
60 percent postsecondary experience.
This is a vital issue for the Nation, a vital issue for the
Latino community, and I thank the Chairman and the committee
for prioritizing this issue.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Grijalva follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Raul M. Grijalva, a Representative in
Congress From the State of Arizona
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon and members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about
the critical issue of high school graduation and the dropout crisis. I
welcome the opportunity to address this very timely issue, and I am
grateful to the Committee for prioritizing this important discussion.
In my role as Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus
Education and Work Force Task Force, I would like to discuss the issue
of high school graduation as it relates to the priorities of the Caucus
and to the goals and needs of Latinos and all of our children.
Latinos are our nation's fastest growing and largest minority group
of children. Latino children make up one in five of our public school
enrollment, comprising more than 10.9 million students enrolled
prekindergarten through twelfth grade. Latinos represent 17% of all
secondary school students, that's about 2.9 million high school
students.
45% of Latino students are English language learners. Almost 80% of
the five million ELLs enrolled in schools are Spanish-speaking Latinos.
The ELL enrollment in our public schools has doubled in fifteen years,
and by 2025, it is expected that one in four students in U.S. public
schools will be an English language learner.
Latino children remain the least likely to attend pre-school, the
least likely to graduate from high school, the least likely to enroll
in college and the least likely to complete college. Only fifteen
percent of Latinos are proficient in reading by the eighth grade--
compared to almost forty percent for non-Hispanic White students.
The dropout crisis has a devastating impact on the Latino
community. Only about half of the Latino students who enter the ninth
grade will graduate with a high school diploma. This is compared to 75%
of non-Hispanic White students. Latino English language learners are
even more at risk of dropping out, and only 41% of Latino ELLs graduate
high school. Every year, between 600,000 and 700,000 Latino students
drop out of school.
The data and statistics are daunting but the tasks to improve
Latino education are feasible. Congress must work toward policies that
address the dropout crisis for Latinos in light of the changing
characteristics of our schools.
I would like to recommend to the committee six principles for
inclusion:
Accountability
We must ensure that states are held accountable for accurate counts
of their dropout numbers. Congress must ensure that loopholes for
counting dropouts remain closed and that the definition for what
constitutes graduation is a fair and accurate depiction of the state of
affairs on the ground.
Training and Support
Congress should make a strong commitment to increasing support for
teacher training, including for ELL teachers. An effective teacher can
mean the difference of success or failure for a struggling student.
We should also increase the Federal commitment to schools serving
ELLs. We must consider a commitment to graduation for all high school
students in light of the ever increasing number of students who have
the added struggle to succeed in their core curriculum while gaining
English language acquisition. If we want graduation success, we must
put resources where they are needed. Enhanced supports for schools
serving ELLs will go a long way toward that goal.
Parental Involvement
Support for dropout prevention should include a commitment to
parental involvement in the education of a child, since family support
provides a tangible boost to success. Along this same line, we should
provide increased support to family literacy programs, so that families
can learn together. Such programs can reinforce the commitment to
education and offer better opportunities to parents and children.
Targeted Intervention
Congress should act quickly to assist those high schools that are
most critically in need of intervention to staunch the loss of students
to dropping out. Legislation like the Graduation Promise Act, soon to
be reintroduced, can provide the implements of aid to schools with low-
graduation rates and help to roll back the dropout crisis.
Middle Grade Intervention
No plan to address the high school dropout crisis will be effective
without an adequate middle grade intervention to aid the most troubled
feeder middle schools and elementary schools of the most troubled high
schools. Research confirms that success in sixth through eighth grades
is imperative to ensure success in high school and college. In fact,
studies show that sixth-grade students who do not attend school
regularly, have poor conduct scores, or who fail math or English, have
only a 10% chance of graduating on time.
Latinos in Human Resources
It is imperative that Latinos have a presence in administrative and
policy positions to ensure inclusion of Latinos in the decision making
process. If we want to make schools work for Latino students, we must
ensure that Latinos, or those that have expertise in working with
Latino students, are at the table to implement best practices.
The Department of Education is lacking in diversity, which impacts
the overall interpretation and understanding of education policy in
regards to Latino students. The overall education structure is missing
Latinos as professors for training teachers, recruiting and retention
of teachers in our classrooms, and training, recruiting and retention
of Superintendents and Principals. We must work on increasing the
workforce of Latinos in education if we are to improve Latino
education.
These changes are an important element in improving graduation from
high school. In addressing this dropout crisis, we must be aware of
strategies that have been proven effective to retain and recover
students on the verge of dropping out. We must be aware of the changing
composition of our student body and address the changing needs of our
students. These are important elements in a long term strategy for a
goal of graduation for all of our students.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you. Congressman Castle.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL N. CASTLE, RANKING REPUBLICAN MEMBER,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY
EDUCATION
Mr. Castle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Petri and
members of the committee. And first of all, I agree with
everything I have heard so far from the first two speakers, and
I have read most of the other testimony and I agree with that
too. I just don't know that we can afford everything. But these
are all good suggestions that we need to do to deal with the
important issue of strengthening America's competitiveness
through high school reform, although that translates to
individual student achievement, as we all know.
I am a strong supporter of No Child Left Behind, at least
conceptually, that we passed in 2001 to address the achievement
gap that did exist to improve education for all students but
particularly for poor minority students with their more
affluent peers. We have had some progress in that area, and we
look at scores for elementary and middle school testing and we
realize that great strides have been made, but not in high
schools. It tends to diminish a little bit when we get there.
The long-term trend for the NAEP Report, the National
Assessment for Educational Progress Report, found that 17-year-
olds' test scores in math and reading haven't significantly
improved since the 1970s.
At a time when students need education and job training--I
think we have all touched on that--to succeed in the
competitive global market, three out of every 10 students fail
to finish high school. Barely one-half of disadvantaged
minority students graduate from high school. Compounded by the
fact that the median income for dropouts is much lower than
high school and college graduates--and you touched on that, Mr.
Chairman--but on an annualized basis dropouts earn $14,000,
high school graduates $24,000, and college graduates $48,000.
Just that enough, we ought to put that on the TV screen after
every show every night, I think, and let people see it and show
how important graduating from high school and perhaps college
really is.
As we work to reauthorize No Child Left Behind--and I hope
we do that in the next few months or year or so--we must work
to ensure that students are prepared for college or the
workforce when they graduate. And graduation rates have
concerned me for some time, and Mr. Scott, too, I might add.
Graduating from high school is absolutely significant, and
virtually every employer starts with that. And yet a lot of
these students that we just discussed cannot show that they
have done that. But there is a lot of misleading data and
contradictory calculations with respect to that. Currently
``graduation rate'' is defined as the percentage of students
who graduate from secondary school with a regular diploma in
the standard number of years. And they throw that out to the
States and then the States can do pretty much whatever they
want.
The governors started to look at this a few years ago. A
lot of us have introduced legislation to look at it. It has
been in some of the drafts of No Child Left Behind. I don't
think the States should have that much latitude in defining and
setting their own standard number of years, which I have seen
vary from 3 to 5 years depending on which State you are looking
at and we are getting varying results from State to State,
which is a problem in dealing with the overall issues of our
high schools.
I introduced the Reliable and Accurate Graduation Rate Act
last year, which would make these all of these statistics
comparable throughout the country. It is very similar to what
the governors had done a few years ago, and I think it is
important to do this. Last October, the U.S. Department of
Education released final regulations pertaining to graduation
rate accountability that are also aligned with the NGA's
recommended graduation rate and some of the legislation which
we have been talking about, and I think it is very, very
important that that be adopted in No Child Left Behind.
All of those regulations provide a uniform and comparable
rate that attempts to capture the accurate number of high
school graduates in our Nation and will hopefully motivate the
individual students as well. To me that is the most important
thing to do in terms of our solving the graduation crisis in
our country.
The other area I would like to touch on here is the area of
the academic standards and assessments. And I am not one of
those who is necessarily opposed to a national standard or even
national assessments, at least for discussion. I think it is a
worthwhile discussion. I can understand some opposition to it,
but we should be talking about these kind of things, I think.
We need to improve our State academic standards, which I
think were adopted on the fly and are not high enough, and I
think we need to improve some of the testing, which is
basically the assessments that go into this.
I believe that we have started to do this in my State. I
have seen some interesting changes. In fact, the governor's
office was talking about that even today as a matter of fact,
replacing our testing program with a better system for
measuring performance and provide schools the necessary
flexibility while holding them accountable for results.
At the high school level we are looking at instituting an
adaptive testing system that will measure student progress
throughout high school so that students are prepared to
graduate, which I think is also important. I think the tests
now generally do not reflect well enough how students are
actually doing.
These are some of the things that we should be doing. There
are many other programs, a lot of which have been mentioned by
other speakers today, and we as a committee should focus on
this as much as we possibly can as soon as we can.
I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, and with
Secretary Duncan and the President in order to achieve this as
soon as we can.
[The statement of Mr. Castle follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael N. Castle, Senior Republican Member,
Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education
Good morning. Thank you Chairman Miller for holding today's
hearing. As the Senior Republican Member of the Subcommittee that
oversees K-12 legislation, I welcome the opportunity to testify before
you today and look forward to hearing from my colleagues, as well as
the other expert witnesses on this important issue--strengthening
America's competitiveness through high school reform.
As you are aware, No Child Left Behind was passed in 2001 to
address the achievement gap that exists between poor and minority
students and their more affluent peers. Although we are just now
beginning to see the results of the Law, studies demonstrate that
America's elementary and middle school students are making great
strides in closing the achievement gap in reading and math. We are not,
however, seeing similar results at the high school level.
In fact, results from the most recent long-term trend report on the
National Assessment of Education Progress, more commonly known as NAEP,
showed that 17-year-old test scores in mathematics and reading have not
significantly improved since the 1970s. Additionally, according to a
recent Editorial Projects in Education Report, three in ten students
fail to finish high school with a diploma, and barely half of the
historically disadvantaged minority students graduate from high school.
At a time when students need higher levels of education and workforce
training to succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy, the
number of students leaving high school without a diploma is alarming.
This is compounded by the fact that the median income for high
school dropouts is $14,000, much lower than the median income of
$24,000 for high school graduates and $48,000 for college graduates.
Nationally, high school dropouts were also the only group of workers
who have seen income levels decline over the last 30 years (Cities in
Crisis 2009: Closing the Achievement Gap; America's Promise Alliance).
A hallmark of the No Child Left Behind Act is its promise to
provide meaningful information to parents and communities about the
quality of their children's schools. Yet, for too long, a key indicator
of student success--graduation from high school--has been masked by
misleading data and contradictory calculations.
As Congress works to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act this
year, it is clear that we must work at the federal, state, and local
levels to ensure students are prepared for college or the workforce
when they graduate high school.
Last Congress, I introduced a bill to define a national graduation
rate, in order to streamline data collection and create an indicator
that is comparable throughout the United States. In October 2008, the
U.S. Department of Education released final regulations regarding
graduation rate accountability. I believe these regulations are aligned
with the National Governors Association's (NGA) recommended graduation
rate as well as the legislation I offered last year.
The work of the Department helps to clarify the current definition
of graduation rate under the No Child Left Behind Act. Under current
law a ``graduation rate'' is defined as ``the percentage of students
who graduate from secondary school with a regular diploma in the
standard number of years.'' States are allowed to define and set their
own standard number of years and results vary widely from state to
state.
The Department's regulations provide for a uniform and comparable
graduation rate calculation that attempts to capture the true number of
high school graduates in our nation.
Although much work remains, the establishment of a consistent
graduation rate is a critical first step toward solving the graduation
crisis and making certain our students are given the tools they need to
succeed.
Second, I am hopeful we in Congress will look at the ways we can
support state and school district efforts to improve state academic
standards. High school is no longer about simply moving students from
ninth grade to graduation. We must ensure all students are leaving
their secondary education with the knowledge and skills necessary to
reach their goals.
Finally, I am hopeful Congress will improve those programs under
NCLB to ensure that they work and support students at the high school
level, such as 21st Century Community Learning Centers which provide
students with academic enrichment opportunities during non-school hours
and mentoring programs that help foster safe learning environments, and
strengthening and applying early childhood and elementary reforms that
are helping younger children progress to later grades.
I hope that this Committee and Congress will continue to examine
this issue very closely. I look forward to working along with my
colleagues at the federal level, as well as the state and local level
to prepare our nation's students, particularly those that will be
graduating shortly, to compete in a global economy. The bottom line is
that our children are the future of this nation and we must implement
the laws that will shape our future for years to come.
Thank you for allowing me to testify today.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you. Congressman Roe.
STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID ROE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM
THE STATE OF TENNESSEE
Mr. Roe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and ranking member and
other members. I am very pleased to be able to testify about
the importance of a high school education.
I was in Nashville this past weekend to see my son get his
MBA from Vanderbilt. Hallelujah. Our economy is still
struggling, but after interacting with the graduates you get
the sense that things are going to turn around. I think the
most important reward out of investing in education is the hope
for a better future for our country.
The first school I attended was a two-room country school
with no running water or indoor plumbing. But I had two parents
who encouraged me to continue my education, so education was
not really an option in my house. I was fortunate enough and
worked hard enough to graduate from college and medical school.
Receiving my degrees allowed me to have a great life. So I
never ever forget to remind students the importance of
education. They get tired of hearing me harp on it.
When I speak to them I will ask them, in high school the
other day I said how would you like to make a quarter of a
million dollars in the next year? They all raise their hands
up. And I said you can do that by just graduating from high
school. Study. Think that is what you are throwing away.
When in front of a bunch of college freshmen who are
thinking about having a party on the weekend, I say you know
how you can earn a million dollars in the next 4 years?
Graduate from college. That is all you have to do.
While there is a short-term cost for these kids, investment
long term pays off--as we all know in this room--the rest of
your life.
In Tennessee it is particularly important to remind our
teenagers of the financial impact that education can have on
your life. Our high school graduation rate 2004-2005
regrettably was only 68 percent, and that was an improvement of
10 percent over the past 5 years, but still way below the
national average. We still have too many dropping out, some
because of apathy and some because they have to pay the bills
and put food on the table. Having been a rather stubborn
teenager myself, I know that you cannot convince everybody to
stay in school.
So while I am sure that we will want to rightly foster
excellence in high schools, ensuring that fewer kids drop out,
I also want to remind the committee not to forget about those
people who have already dropped out, which is an astonishing
number of people. I believe we should have adult education
programs as effective and necessary to complement the dropout
problem. And I am absolutely convinced that you have to offer
adult education programs to encourage young adults who have
left the system to return to get their degrees. As I said the
other day, we have a No Child Left Behind, we should have a No
Adult Left Behind also.
Last week, the Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong
Learning, and Competitiveness heard testimony from country
music star Gretchen Wilson about her experience with adult
education. Ms. Wilson went back to school and received her GED
at age 34 for both herself and to set an example for her
beautiful child, Grace, who was here. Her reasons for going
back and her experience in the program speak to the incredible
importance that these serve in the overall education policy.
Programs like those offered to Ms. Wilson help us reach out
to kids and adults who slip through the cracks and offer them
an opportunity to move forward not only with their education
but their careers. Even better, these programs are one of the
most effective solutions I know of. In Tennessee, 14,600
individuals earn their GED in a year at a cost of only $275 per
student that made this happen. This results in over $234
million in additional taxable income to the State because each
individual made $9,000 more a year just with that GED. It
changed their life.
By supporting the adult education programs in conjunction
with improving our high schools, I think we will find that our
education system has far more successes than we give it credit
for and can have a much broader reach and impact on the next
generation.
Similarly, I think there has been a decline in career
education. I would encourage the committee to take a look at
the role that the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technology
Education Program plays in reducing the dropout rate. Some
students are at high risk of not finishing school because they
don't think the school has any relevance for them. They want a
job and a paycheck right away. A career-focused education can
help them achieve this goal and make sure they get their high
school diploma.
The programs offered through this act allow kids who may
have disengaged from regular high school program to remain
engaged through their focused programs.
Finally, I would like to note that as a former mayor, I
have seen firsthand Federal programs work best when the
decision-making authority is left in local officials' hands.
Typically they are most qualified to fix problems that arise in
their jurisdiction because they know the circumstances
surrounding the problems.
So as the committee examines on how to improve high
schools, I hope we consider allowing true local flexibility
rather than imposing broad Federal mandates on our high
schools. I think this topic is particularly timely with our
present economic situation. Only with an educated workforce
will we be able to compete in an increasingly global
marketplace, and I thank the committee for holding this hearing
and allowing me to testify.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
[The statement of Mr. Roe follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. David P. Roe, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Tennessee
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very pleased to be able to testify
about the importance of high school education. I was just down in
Nashville this past weekend to see my son graduate from Vanderbilt's
MBA school. Our economy is still struggling but after interacting with
the graduates, you get a sense that things will turn around. And that's
the most important reward we get out of investing in education--hope
for a better future for our country.
I grew up in Clarksville, Tennessee and went to school in a one-
room schoolhouse with no running water, but I had committed parents who
encouraged me to continue my education. I was fortunate enough and
worked just hard enough to graduate from college and from medical
school. Receiving my degrees has allowed me to live a good life, so I
never forget to remind our youth about the importance of education.
When I speak to students, I always ask them, ``Would you like to
know how you can earn an extra $250,000 in your lifetime?'' I can see
on their faces, they're thinking, ``Well, that sounds pretty good to
me.'' So, I tell them, ``Just graduate from high school.'' I also ask
them, ``Would you like to know how you can earn an extra $1 million?''
``Just graduate from college.'' The fact is, continuing your education
dramatically improves your chances at having financial success. While
there's a short-term cost for some of these kids, the investment pays
off in the long-term.
In Tennessee, it's particularly important for us to remind our
teenagers about the financial impact an education can have on your
life. Our high school graduation rate for the 2004-2005 school year was
68.5 percent, and that's improved nearly 10 percent over the past five
years, but we are still below the national average. We still have too
many who are dropping out--some because of apathy, some because they
simply need to help pay the bills and put food on the table.
Having been a stubborn teenager myself, I know you can't convince
everyone to stay in school. So while I'm sure we will rightly focus
attention on fostering excellence in our high schools and ensuring that
fewer kids drop out, I also want to remind the Committee not to forget
about those people who have already dropped out. I believe we should
look at adult education programs as an effective and necessary
complement to the drop out problem. I'm absolutely convinced that you
have to offer adult education programs that encourage young adults who
have already left the system to return to get their degree.
Last week, the Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning,
and Competitiveness heard testimony from country music star Gretchen
Wilson about her experience with adult education. Ms. Wilson went back
to school to receive her GED both for herself and to set an example for
her child. Her reasons for going back and her experience with the
programs speak to the incredible importance they serve in our overall
education policy. Programs like those offered to Ms. Wilson help us
reach out to kids and adults who have slipped through the cracks and
offer them an opportunity to move forward not only with their education
but with their careers.
Even better, these programs are one of the most cost effective
solutions I know of. In Tennessee, 14,662 individuals earned their GED,
and it only cost $275 per student to make this happen. This resulted in
over $134 million in additional taxable income to the state because
each individual was making over $9,000 per year more.
By supporting the adult education programs in conjunction with
improving our high schools, I think we'll find that our education
system has far more successes than we give it credit for and can have a
much broader reach on impacting our next generation's lives.
Similarly, I think we've seen a decline in career education and I
would encourage the Committee to look at the role that the Carl D.
Perkins Career and Technical Education program plays in reducing the
drop out rate. Some students are at high risk of not finishing school
because they don't think that school has any relevance for them. They
want a job and a pay-check right away, and a career-focused education
can help them achieve this goal and make sure they get their high
school diploma. The programs offered through the Perkins Act allow kids
who may have disengaged from ``regular'' high school programs to remain
engaged through career focused programs.
Finally, I would note that as a former Mayor, I have seen first-
hand federal programs work best when decision-making authority is left
in local officials' hands. Typically, they are the most qualified to
fix problems that arise in their jurisdiction because they know the
circumstances surrounding problems.
So as the Committee examines how to improve high schools, I hope we
consider allowing true local flexibility rather than trying to impose
broad federal mandates on our high schools.
I think this topic is particularly timely with our present economic
situation. Only with an educated workforce will we be able to compete
in an increasingly global marketplace, and I thank the committee for
holding this hearing and allowing me to testify.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you very much, and thank you to all
of you for taking your time to come and testify. But all of you
have been involved in this issue for a considerable period of
time before today's hearing. And it is our intent to address
this problem in this session of Congress. We would like to move
forward on this in the most comprehensive way that we can.
I think all of you have made very important points about
how comprehensive that really needs to be. Whether it is adult
education, whether it is identifying and helping young people
become aware of the opportunity that college can present to
them and they can participate so that they can be eligible,
that you worked on so hard, Chaka, in your community.
I don't have any questions, but again I want to thank you.
Do any members of the committee? Mr. Scott?
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as you
know, I serve not only on the Education and Labor Committee but
also on the Judiciary Committee and chair the Crime
Subcommittee, and there is a very close correlation between
high school dropouts and crime. Those that drop out are much
less likely to get a job, make a lot more--businesses don't
want to move into areas where there is a high dropout rate.
Much more of those with high dropout rates suffer more welfare,
and obviously those who drop out are much more likely to end up
in prison.
One study showed that African Americans that drop out of
high school have about a one-third chance of being in jail when
they are 26 to 30 years old. Obviously much higher than those
that did not drop out. It is so bad that the Children's Defense
Fund calls it the cradle-to-prison pipeline.
We know that if a person graduates they are much less
likely to be in jail. And when you talk about affordability,
the money you save in incarceration can more than pay for any
dropout prevention program that you can afford. It is hard to
imagine any effective dropout program that does not save more
money than it costs. Or you can just wait and save the money
and spend a lot more locking people up.
Mr. Chairman, when we originally passed No Child Left
Behind, we insisted that a factor of adequate yearly progress--
that one factor be your dropout rate. If you don't have a
dropout rate factor, then you have a perverse incentive to let
people drop out, even push them out. Because they are dropping
out from the bottom, the more people drop out the higher your
average is, and you didn't want people to benefit from high
dropout rates. Obviously as you pointed out, some of the
schools have a 50 percent dropout rate. That cannot possibly be
considered by any standard adequate, when half the students
don't even graduate.
The bill that you mentioned that I have introduced, the
Every Student Counts Act, requires an accurate count of who is
graduating and who isn't and requires you to hit a 90 percent
graduation rate--not 50, not 50 that we have now, but a 90
percent graduation rate or at least be making progress towards
90 percent at a rate of 3 percentage points per year or you are
not given credit for adequate yearly progress.
The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Roe, mentioned adult
education. If you do not give credit for adult education
graduation, you are not going to have adult education programs.
People are not going to pay money for programs that they don't
get any credit for. We have to give primary credit to
graduating from high school with a regular diploma, but you
also have to get some credit for those adult education
programs.
We cannot tolerate these high dropout rates. We have to do
something. Otherwise we will continue on the trajectory that we
are on now, where you have these dropout factories and it is an
insult to suggest that any of those dropout factories are
making adequate yearly progress.
I thank our colleagues for their concern on this issue, and
I look forward to working with them as we do something about
this problem. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Thank you very much. Thank you to all of
you for taking your time. You are obviously welcome to join the
committee.
We will now welcome our second panel. We will get you lined
up in the right order here. Our second panel will begin with
Robert Balfanz. Dr. Balfanz is the principal Research Scientist
at Johns Hopkins University, and his team is currently working
on over 100 high-poverty secondary schools to develop,
implement and evaluate comprehensive whole school reforms. He
is the Co-Director of the Everyone Graduates Center, which
engages in efforts aimed at ending the Nation's graduation rate
crisis. Dr. Balfanz is also the co-operator of the Baltimore
Talent Development High School.
Michael Wotorson is the Executive Director for the Campaign
for High School Equity, a partnership of 10 of the Nation's
leading civil rights and education organizations focused on
high school reform. He has spent his career advocating support
for educational equity and civil rights and working for more
than 15 years as a research advocate and policy analyst. He was
at the NAACP and has held positions at the Leadership
Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, the Fair Employment
Council of Greater Washington, and the Anti-Defamation League.
Marguerite Kondracke has been the President and CEO of
America's Promise Alliance, an organization with more than 300
national partners currently focused on addressing the Nation's
high school dropout crisis. Before joining the alliance, she
served as Special Assistant to Senator Lamar Alexander and
Staff Director of the Senate Subcommittee on Children and
Families.
Scott Gordon is the founder and CEO of Mastery Charter
Schools in Philadelphia. Mastery opened in 2001 and operates
four schools serving 1,700 students. Mastery was created to
close the achievement gap and ensure that all students graduate
from high school ready for college. In 2005, Mastery created a
unique partnership with the School District of Philadelphia to
convert the most struggling middle schools in Mastery charter
schools. To date test scores have increased substantially, and
over 85 percent of Mastery's graduates enroll in higher
education. Mr. Gordon received the New Schools Venture Fund's
Entrepreneur of the Year Award for his work.
Dr. Vicki L. Philips is the Director of Education for the
United States Program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In this capacity, she oversees work to improve early learning
to ensure U.S. high school students graduate ready for success
in college, career and life and improve access to college.
Prior to joining the foundation Dr. Philips was Superintendent
of Portland Public Schools in Portland, Oregon and served as
Secretary of Education and Chief State School Officer for the
State of Pennsylvania. She has worked previously at the U.S.
Department of Education and as an adviser of government reforms
in England and Australia. She began her career as a middle and
high school teacher.
Bob Wise, former Governor Bob Wise, became President of the
Alliance for Excellent Education in February of 2005. He was
Governor of West Virginia from 2001 to 2005. He fought for and
signed legislation to fund PROMISE Scholarship Program, which
has helped thousands of West Virginia students remain in the
State for college. During his administration West Virginia also
saw significant increase in the number of students completing
high school and entering college.
From 1983 to 2001, Governor Wise served as our colleague in
the United States House of Representatives, representing the
Second District of West Virginia, and he also serves on the
Board of Trustees of America's Promise.
Welcome to the committee. Thank you for all of the work
that you have done on this subject and all of the contributions
that you and your organization have made.
Quickly, again we will give you 5 minutes to tell us what
you want us to know. When you begin talking the green light
will go on in front of you. After 4 minutes, the orange light
will go on and then in 5 minutes the red light will go on, and
we will ask you to sum up your testimony in a way that is
coherent to all of us. That is the challenge.
Dr. Balfanz, we will begin with you, welcome.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT BALFANZ, PH.D., RESEARCH SCIENTIST, THE
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Mr. Balfanz. I want to thank the chairman and the ranking
member and the committee for holding these hearings. They come
not a moment too soon. Our Nation faces a graduation challenge
that, if we don't meet, will simply leave it unprepared to
prosper in the 21st century.
The good news is that I come to this issue as both a
researcher, a school reformer, and a practitioner. And from all
of those experiences and knowledges I believe this is not only
a challenge we can meet--it is a challenge we can meet. And we
have to do three things. We have to create pathways to college
and career readiness for all of our students. We have to close
the achievement gap.
But the hard news is that even if we did all that hard work
and succeeded exceptionally well, we would still have a dropout
crisis until we confront the cold hard fact that the dropout
crisis is driven by the dropout factories that Chairman Miller
and others have mentioned.
These are the 2,000 high schools and their feeder middle
schools that reliably produce half the Nation's dropouts every
year and two-thirds of the minority dropouts. They are in every
State and 77 percent of congressional districts. But within
these locations they are concentrations in our most neediest
communities. They are in the automotive cities of the Midwest,
the textile towns of the South, the challenged neighborhoods of
our largest cities, and in the boom-and-bust areas that are
being hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis. As such, they are
simply the engines of the underclass and a collective drag on
our national competitiveness.
The other piece of good news is that this is something that
we can do. Two thousand high schools and their middle schools
is a manageable number. It is within the bounds of human
agency. This breaks down to only 10 to 70 schools in most
States and only 1 to 3 in most congressional districts. That is
a number we can wrap ourselves around. That is manageable.
The second thing is that in the past decade we have made
great progress in developing tools and models and proof points
of success. So no one can no longer say this is unsolvable. It
is too bad, it is horrible, but we can't do anything. That has
been proven wrong.
Most excitingly, recently we have developed early warning
and on-track indicator systems which not only can we target the
schools, but the kids within the schools. The minute they first
get into trouble and fall off the graduation path, we can
mobilize around them.
And finally, in the past 5 years or so this has gone from
being a school issue to a community campaign. And that is
essential for the community to be deeply invested in improving
the schools and improving the graduation rate. Because they
bear the cost. And until a community is mobilized, we will not
have the ability for the long haul. That is happening now.
The final missing piece of this is the Federal role. We
need to create a Federal-State local community partnership, and
with the Federal Government playing a critical active and in
some places leading role. And they need to focus on four
things: Accountability. Grad rates need to be coequal with test
scores in our accountability system. Simply put, everybody has
got to graduate prepared to do something, college and career,
they have got to graduate. One of those is not good, you have
to do both.
Second, we have to realize that high schools are unique. If
you need to raise the graduation rate, the ninth grade is when
kids fall off track. It will take 4 years to have really a big
impact. You will have incremental improvements, but unless you
have that 4 years to show big gains, you are not going to show
big gains, because you have to fix the ninth grade and that
takes 4 years to pay off.
Finally, the Department of Ed regulations are a good place
to start. And Representative Scott's Every Student Counts helps
codify that and move that forward.
Second, resources. These high schools and their feeder
middle schools have the highest concentration of needy students
in America. They have the most needy students and the highest
number of them. Yet only half of these high schools get Title I
money. How can we say that we are using Federal money to
equalize the impacts of poverty?
And secondly, we have to realize that because of the crazy
quilt of funding in our system of State and local, that some
schools are going to need more Federal resources than others to
transform. If we want a pragmatic goal of fixing as soon as
possible, we have to realize that some schools will need more
resources than others to get the job done quickly.
Capacity building. We have to both invest in getting the
schools they resources they need, but invest in the folks that
can give them the know-how and the technical assistance. The
Districts, the State Departments of education, the external
school formal organizations. All of these groups that have
shown promise need to be strengthened so we can move from
pockets of success to systematic improvement.
And finally, we need to do smart targeting and integrated
efforts. We need to realize that one of the things that has
held us back is we have had good ideas and applied them in the
wrong places. We haven't been thoughtful about what the
specific challenges of this school? What are its resources and
what are its capacities? What are its needs? What are its
opportunities? What are its tools?
When we put that together, what is the reform that makes
sense? Not this reform works here or this reform works there.
So let's be smarter about how we choose or reforms.
The other piece of good news is that we have lots of good
legislation formed by this committee. The Graduation Promise
Act, the Success in the Middle, Every Student Counts, the
Secondary Improvement Fund. We have really good building
blocks.
In closing, I want to leave you with this image. Sitting
here in this beautiful room on this beautiful day, we basically
know which students are going to drop out in the next 5 years.
We know which schools they go to, and with a little bit of
digging we can see them raising their hands and saying help.
And we know how to do something about it. So that creates an
obligation to act.
My argument is that by creating a Federal-State-local
community effort, all together we will have the ability to meet
that obligation. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Balfanz follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert Balfanz, Everyone Graduates Center, Johns
Hopkins University
I want the thank Chairman Miller, Vice Chairman Kildee,
Representative McKeon and the Committee for holding this hearing. It
comes not a moment too soon.
The nation faces a high school graduation challenge that if unmet
will leave it unprepared to succeed in the 21st Century. Not only does
the nation, in the words of President Obama, need to make dropping out
of high school not an option, it needs to insure that a high school
diploma means something and leaves all students prepared for college
and/or post-secondary career training. Simply put, the world has
changed and there is no work for high school dropouts. Nor are there
many opportunities that will support a family for students who end
their education after high school. To fully share in the nation's
prosperity in 21st Century America, all students need to graduate from
high school prepared for the further education and training required
for adult success.
To meet its graduation challenge, the nation must find a solution
for its dropout factories. These are the 12 percent of the nation's
high schools, about 2,000 in number, that year after year, produce more
than half of its dropouts and close to three-quarters of its minority
dropouts. In these high schools graduation is not the norm and is often
at best a 50/50 proposition.
These high schools are found in every state and 77 percent of
congressional districts, but are concentrated within them in a sub-set
of urban and rural low-wealth communities. In these locales, dropout
factories are often the predominant or only public high school. This
puts the entire community at risk of being cut off from a modern
economy, which is driven by human capital or know-how. These high
schools are the engine of the under-class and collectively place a
significant drag on the nation's competitiveness. They usually exist,
moreover, in communities that are already struggling, places where
industry has left, like the automotive cities of Michigan and the
textile towns of South Carolina, or the broken neighborhoods of
Philadelphia and Los Angeles. This is why the dropout crisis has been
called a silent epidemic. Yet, there is no way for these cities, towns,
and neighborhoods to re-invent themselves without high schools that
prepare all their students for post-secondary schooling or training.
The intense concentration of the nation's dropout factories, in a
limited number of locales across the nation, however, is in fact what
makes this problem solvable. It enables us to focus our efforts in a
relatively few schools, where they will have maximum effect on the
nation's progress. It is much more likely that we can transform or
replace 2,000 low-performing high schools, than 20,000. In most states,
the number is between 10 and 70. In most congressional districts,
outside of the nation's 10 largest cities, there are commonly one to
three such schools.
Moreover, in the past decade we have learned much about what it
will take to transform the nation's dropout factories, developed
evidence-based tools and models, and generated ample proof points that
it can be done. Ten years ago, if you asked people to name some of the
nation's most intractable school districts, New York and Chicago, would
come to the top of the list. Yet these are the very districts that have
made notable progress in graduation rates in recent years and have
pioneered innovations that are spreading across the nation. At the
state level, it has been in what were once some of the nation's poorest
states, such as North Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, and Kentucky that
the most improvement have been made. This tells us that progress occurs
when will and know-how are combined with sufficient capacity and
accountability systems that encourage effort and innovation.
Also in the past five years, notable advancements have been made in
developing early warning and on-track indicator systems, enabling us to
identify, while there is still time to intervene, the students within
the nation's dropout factories and their feeder middle schools who will
need the most support to graduate. This means we can target our efforts
to both the most challenged schools and their students most in need.
Early warning and on-track indicator systems also give us a powerful
accountability tool to make sure schools are getting the right
intervention to the right student at the right time.
One essential finding of this research is that it is often possible
to identify as early as sixth grade up to half of the students who,
absent effective interventions, will not graduate, and up to 80 percent
by the ninth grade. This speaks to the need to reform both our nation's
high schools with low graduation rates and the middle schools where
their students come from.
Finally, both the national importance of the dropout crisis and the
realization that it can be solved has led a growing number of prominent
non-profit organizations that collectively have deep reach into the
communities most at need to step up and make the graduation challenge
one of their top priorities. These include United Way, Boys and Girls
Clubs, Communities in Schools, City Year, and the Chamber of Commerce.
The America's Promise Alliance, founded by Colin and Alma Powell, is
organizing multi-sector efforts uniting business, faith-based efforts,
mayors' and governors' offices, community organizations, and school
systems behind evidence-based action plans. Dropout prevention summits
are being held in all 50 states and 55 cities over two years. Meeting
the nation's graduation challenge is no longer seen as just a school
issue, but a community-wide campaign.
In short, meeting the nation's graduation challenge is a big enough
issue to matter, but a manageable enough problem to solve.
The Challenge We Face in Transforming the Nation's Dropout Factories
and Their Feeder Middle Grade Schools
Although we know that to meet the nation's graduation challenge we
must transform the nation's dropout factories, and recognize that the
know-how and tools exist to do this, we must also acknowledge that
progress in transforming these high schools, beyond a few leading
districts and states, has been slow.
A brief examination of why this is so demonstrates the need for a
federal role in helping communities transform their dropout factories.
First, high schools with consistently low graduation rates often
face extremely high degrees of educational challenge. In these high
schools, it is typical for the majority of students to enter the ninth
grade with math and reading skills two or more years below grade level,
and/or already beginning to disengage from school as witnessed by
worsening attendance rates and increased behavioral problems. In a high
school of 1,200 to 2,000 students, this can translate into hundreds of
students in need of extra support, beyond good everyday teaching.
Second, by and large, these schools do not have either the
financial or human resources to meet this degree of educational
challenge. The nation's dropout factories almost exclusively educate
poor and minority children. Yet despite having among the highest
concentration and largest number of needy students, close to half of
these schools receive no federal Title 1 support. Moreover, the crucial
ninth grade, because it is typically seen as an undesirable teaching
assignment, is often staffed by the least experienced and skilled
teachers. These teachers are not supported by strong professional
development nor assisted by sufficient numbers of skilled and committed
adults in support roles. The result is frustration, burn-out, and high
levels of transiency, making it difficult for reforms to take hold and
build their impact over time.
Third, local, state, and federal accountability systems have not
been designed to require, guide, and support the transformation of
these high schools. By and large, high schools have been the orphan of
accountability systems. Their unique needs have not been fully
considered. Because the majority of students who dropout fall off the
path to graduation in the ninth grade, it will take four years for the
full impact of school reform efforts to translate into increased
graduation rates. Most accountability systems, however, demand results
within one or at most two years.
This encourages schools to focus on the smaller number of dropouts
who fall off-track in the later grades, rather than implementing the
fundamental reforms needed to transform the entire school. At the
federal level, moreover, No Child Left Behind heavily weights high
school accountability to the results of achievement tests given in a
single grade. This encourages schools to focus all their efforts on the
sub-set of students who are close to proficient, rather than the larger
number of students who entered ninth grade two or more years below
grade level. In some cases, schools even push these students out before
they reach the tested grade.
Fourth, we have not paid enough attention to developing mechanisms
to get the right reform and transformation strategies to the right
school, with sufficient capacity building and technical assistance to
enable effective implementation and to sustain it. Too often good
reform strategies have been applied in the wrong places or without
enough intensity and fidelity to succeed. This, in turn, has led to
disappointment with the results, fed the erroneous belief that nothing
works, and shifted reform attention elsewhere.
To meet the nation's graduation challenge and transform the
secondary schools that drive the dropout crisis, we need to create a
federal-state-local-community partnership dedicated to the task. The
federal government needs to play four crucial roles.
First, accountability. Simply put, a high school's graduation rate
and achievement levels need to have co-equal weight in federal
accountability frameworks. Every students needs to graduate and all
students need to earn diplomas signifying that they are prepared for
post-secondary schooling or career training. It is only when high
schools understand that both goals need to be achieved that they will
not be tempted to trade off one for the other. The graduation rate
regulations issued by the Department of Education in 2008 go a long way
toward establishing both the accurate measurement of graduation rates
and raising their importance in federal accountability systems. They
need to be fine tuned and codified. The Everyone Graduates bill
sponsored by Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA) achieves this and should
be passed.
Second, resources. The federal government needs to insure that the
most challenged secondary schools have the resources they need to
succeed. Increased investment in pre-k education, as well as existing
Title 1 funding, will see its impact muted if students in the most
vulnerable communities continue to attend dysfunctional middle and high
schools. Adolescence, in communities of concentrated poverty, carries
its own set of risk factors that cannot be fully eliminated by more
positive early education experiences. Up to one-quarter of the students
who fall off the graduation path in ninth grade, for example, enter
high school with grade level skills.
Ensuring that a secondary school's resources match its educational
challenge will involve two steps. First, full and fair Title 1 funding
for secondary schools. Second, as is envisioned in the Success in the
Middle and Graduation Promise Acts, targeted funds based on a careful
and peer-reviewed analysis of the needs and capacity of each dropout
factory and its primary feeder middle schools. Some of these schools,
because of variability in local and state funding and the intensity and
size of their educational challenges, will need more resources than
others. There needs to be a mechanism to enable this.
Third, capacity finding and building. Federal legislation needs to
be sensitive to the fact, that across the nation the capacity to
transform dropout factories and their feeder middle schools will rest
in different places. In some locales, it will be the school district
that has the wherewithal to transform these schools. In other locales,
state departments of education can and will need to play a stronger
role. In still other areas, external technical assistance from
experienced non-profit providers with a track record in similar schools
will be required. In addition, federal support will be required to
increase the capacity of school districts, state departments of
education, and external school reform organizations and support
providers to transform low graduation rate high schools and their
feeder middle schools at the scale required. This is what will enable
us to move beyond pockets of success to systematic improvements.
These capacity building efforts could take several forms. These
could be competitive grants to enable partnerships between states or
districts and consortia of technical assistance providers, as
envisioned in the Secondary School Innovation Fund Act or an expansion
of the community investment boards found in the recently passed Serve
America Act. For the most impacted communities, we may also have to
look seriously at the idea of federal Graduation Bonds, which would
provide the upfront capital needed to replace or re-configure large
schools of 2,000 or more students that are relics of another era, and
provide the intensive and large scale teacher training and support
required to prepare all students for success in post-secondary
schooling. States would then use the increased tax revenues and lower
social service costs that would result from dramatically raising the
graduation rate in communities where dropping out is the norm to re-pay
the bonds. In addition, federal R and D efforts may be required to
increase the range of solutions for two particularly challenging sub-
sets of dropout factories: high schools with 2,000 or more students and
high schools with low graduation rates that are the only high school in
a district (25 percent of the nation's dropout factories are such).
Fourth, smart targeting and integrated efforts. Finally and perhaps
most importantly, the federal government through both its funding and
accountability mechanisms should enable and promote smarter choices in
the strategies selected to transform the secondary schools that drive
the nation's dropout crisis. The good news is that over the past decade
we have learned that there are multiple ways to successfully transform
dropout factories and their feeder middle schools. Evidence-based whole
school reform models have worked, as has replacing failed large schools
with several smaller new schools. Different governance models, from
charters to pairing public schools with external operators from school
reform organizations and universities, have shown promise is some
locales, as have data-based multiple pathways to graduation within
large and medium-sized school districts. But nothing has worked
everywhere it has been tried, which tells us that context matters.
Before a secondary school receives additional funds to support the
needed reforms, it should be required to work with its school district
and, where appropriate and needed, external technical assistance
providers to develop both needs and capacity assessments. These would
detail its educational challenge, analyze why prior reform efforts have
not worked, and identify the capacity it will need. These assessments
would also show how the school would implement and sustain reforms that
are comprehensive, sufficiently robust and intense to meet its
educational challenges and tailored to the specific needs,
opportunities, and circumstances experience by the school. The schools'
and districts' needs and capacity analyses, as well as their school
improvement plans, should then be subject to real and rigorous peer
review, with technical assistance being provided to the schools and
districts that need more support to both select the right strategy for
their circumstances and implement it well.
The good news is that good legislation is already or soon to be
introduced into the 111th Congress. These bills collectively go a long
way toward addressing the nation's graduation challenge and should form
the cornerstone of federal efforts to transform the secondary schools
that produce most of the nation's dropouts. The bills include the Every
Student Counts Act--H.R. 1569--introduced by Representative Scott (D-
VA), The Graduation Promise Act sponsored by Representative Hinojosa
(D-TX), the Success in the Middle Act sponsored by Representative
Grijalva (D-AZ), and the Secondary School Innovation Fund sponsored by
Representative Loebsack (D-IA).
In conclusion, sitting here today, we can identify most of the
students in your districts and across the nation, who absent effective
interventions, will not graduate in the next seven years. We know which
schools they attend and, with a little attention and effort, we see the
signals they are sending, signals that clearly say ``help.'' We also
know how to do something about it. This creates the obligation for us
to act, to not only make dropping out not an option, but also to
provide all these students with a pathway to adult success and full
economic and social participation in 21st Century America. The federal
government must play a key role in this effort.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL WOTORSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CAMPAIGN FOR
HIGH SCHOOL EQUITY
Mr. Wotorson. Thank you, Chairman Miller, ranking member
and distinguished committee members. Thank you for inviting me
to testify today, and I also want to express my thanks to the
Members of Congress who just testified earlier for their
leadership on raising critical issues related to high school
reform.
My name is Michael Wotorson, and I serve as the Executive
Director for the Campaign for High School Equity, otherwise
known as CHSE. We are a coalition of 10 civil rights
organizations representing communities of color focused on high
school education reform. Our partners are united in the
conviction that it is every student's right to receive a high
quality high school education that will expand opportunities
for success in life.
I just want to spend a little bit of time talking about the
education crisis from the perspective of civil rights. To say
that the state of education in America is a disappointment
would be an understatement of vast proportions when we consider
some facts. Black and Latino 17-year-olds read at the same
level as white 13-year-olds. Of incoming ninth graders, a third
will drop out and another third will graduate lacking college
or work-ready skills. African American, Latino, American
Indian, and Alaskan Native American high school students have,
at best, a six in 10 chance of graduating from school on time
with a regular diploma, compared to a national rate of 70
percent. And for Asian Americans the situation is equally
bleak. About 50 percent of Cambodians and Laotians and about 60
percent of Hmong age 25 and older have less than a high school
education. These facts alone illustrate the reality of the
crisis and dramatic need for reform.
I join Secretary Duncan and other education leaders when I
say that education is the most important American civil rights
issue of the 21st century. As a consequence of persistent
inequity and segregation we have two different school systems
in America today.
Recently I visited Halifax County in North Carolina, where
I witnessed firsthand the duality of the American education
system. First of all, the majority of the residents of Halifax
County represent communities of color, and this county has the
highest percentage of families living in poverty. Of the more
than 23,000 students who dropped out of North Carolina high
schools in the 2006-2007 school year, students of color, those
from low-income families were disproportionately represented.
Halifax County offers a clear picture of the vulgar
realities that so many children must confront. The fact that
children in Halifax County are not faced with a challenge, they
are quite literally faced with an onslaught of challenges, as
they try to learn basic skills to be successful in life. Lack
of rigorous curriculum. Lack of access to effective teachers.
Low expectations, et cetera. The list goes on.
The situation in Halifax County is quite frankly emblematic
of the unfinished legacy of the 1954 Brown v. Board of
Education decision. While Brown ensured children would have
unfettered access to public education, it did not ensure equity
in public education.
So clearly American education policy must change and it
must change now. We at CHSE believe that the Federal Government
can help the Nation make great strides towards achieving these
goals by adopting the following policies:
First, make all students proficient and prepared for
college and work. Access to equal opportunity can only exist if
all students are challenged to reach the same high
expectations. To that end, we believe states should align high
school standards, assessments, curriculum and instruction with
college and work-ready standards; B, we should guarantee that
all students have access to rigorous and engaging classes in
core subjects; and C, States should be required to publicly
report on access to college preparatory classes and course
taking patterns by income, race and ethnicity, both among and
within schools.
Second, we should hold all high schools accountable for
student success. As it stands, there are very few mechanisms
for making sure that high schools are held accountable for the
success of all students. So a well-designed accountability
system would include, A, codifying in law the current
graduation rate regulations; B, ensuring that every State makes
progress on developing longitudinal data systems and allow them
to measure student progress over time; C, publicly reporting
disaggregated racial and ethnic data to highlight subjects of
students; and D, using high quality, valid, and accurate
assessments for all students.
Third, we should redesign the American high schools. The
Federal Government can encourage, incentivize, and require
systems at the poorest quality high schools by urging the
following policies be adopted:
A, integrated student supports that utilizes both in-school
and community-based services; B, instructional practices such
as culturally competent learning techniques; C, consistent
standards and practices such as improved identification and
assessment systems to facilitate English language learners'
integration into the public education system; and D, access to
computers and other learning technologies.
So clearly there is a lot of work to be done and we must
gather the collective will to do it. The will should be driven
by need as well as likely return on our investment. If we can
implement these policies that will drive reform in high
schools, we can make a difference.
Reform works. One only has to speak to the students from
Gaston College Preparatory High School, a charter school in
Gaston, North Carolina, that serves a high percentage of low
income students and is just down the road from Halifax County.
Every student in this high school, a high school that boasts
100 percent graduation rate, has been accepted to at least two
colleges or universities. This should not be the exception in
American high schools. Frankly, it should be the rule.
CHSE urges swift passage of an improved ESEA that
strengthens the accountability as a core element of reform and
includes critical supports for high schools. Only then will we
graduate every high school student prepared for college and the
modern workforce.
Thank you again for the opportunity and privilege to
testify before you. The full text of my testimony has been
submitted to the committee, and I am happy to answer any
weighs. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Wotorson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael Wotorson, Executive Director, Campaign
for High School Equity
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon, and distinguished Committee
members, thank you for inviting me to testify today. And, thank you to
Congressman Fattah and Congressman Castle for their testimony and
leadership in raising critical issues related to high school reform.
My name is Michael Wotorson and I am the executive director of the
Campaign for High School Equity, otherwise known as CHSE. CHSE is a
coalition of leading civil rights organizations representing
communities of color that is focused on high school education reform.
It was formed to address the unequal American public education system,
which does not provide high-quality education to students of color and
youth from low-income neighborhoods.
CHSE partners are united in the conviction that it is every
student's right to receive a high-quality high school education that
will expand opportunities for success in life.
CHSE partners include the National Urban League, the National
Council of La Raza, the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education
Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the
League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Association of
Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, the Alliance
for Excellent Education, the National Indian Education Association and
the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center.
Our goal is to raise awareness of solutions to close the
achievement gap for students of color and to build public will and
support among policymakers, advocates and community leaders for
policies that will increase high school achievement and graduation
rates for minority and low-income students.
The Education Crisis
To say that the state of education in America is a disappointment
would be an understatement of vast proportions.
Let's consider the facts:
In 2003, our students ranked 15th among 29 countries in
reading literacy, and 25th in mathematics.
Seven out of 10 8th graders are not proficient in reading,
and most will never catch up.
Black and Latino 17-year-olds read at the same level as
white 13-year-olds.
Of incoming 9th graders, one-third will drop out, and
another third will graduate lacking college and work-readiness skills--
only about one-third will be adequately prepared for life after high
school.
Contrary to the model minority myth, many Asian Americans
also face barriers in education. About 50 percent of Cambodians and
Laotians, and about 60 percent of Hmong aged 25 and older who are
living in the United States have less than a high school education.
Student achievement overall is low, but some students, the majority
of which are students of color and low-income students, never get the
chance to demonstrate their capabilities. Seven thousand American kids
drop out of school every day, which adds up to 1.2 million dropouts
each year. African-American, Latino, American Indian and Alaska Native
high school students have at best a six in 10 chance of graduating from
high school on time with a regular diploma, compared to a national
graduation rate of more than 70 percent of all students. Unfortunately,
without disaggregated data to account for the 48 Asian American ethnic
groups, it is currently impossible to accurately measure student
achievement among Asian Americans in our country.
Research shows that about 2,000 of America's 17,000 high schools
produce approximately half of America's dropouts. In these schools--
commonly called ``dropout factories''--less than 60 percent of ninth
graders are enrolled as twelfth graders four years later. The nation's
students of color are four times more likely than the nation's non-
minority students to attend one of these low-performing schools, and
three times less likely to attend a high school with very high
graduation rates. In fact, dropout factories produce 81 percent of all
Native American dropouts, 73 percent of all African American dropouts,
and 66 percent of all Latino dropouts.
The fastest growing segment of the American public school
population is comprised of more than 5 million English language learner
(ELL) students, primarily Spanish-speaking students closely followed by
students speaking Vietnamese and Hmong. This fast-growing segment of
students, with the highest growth rates occurring in grades 7 through
12, is among the lowest performing in the country. In 2007, only 4
percent of 8th-grade ELL students could read at or above a proficient
level, compared to 31 percent of non-ELL students. More than 59 percent
of Latino ELL students ages 16-19 are high school dropouts.
The facts alone illustrate the stark reality of the crisis and the
dramatic need for reform in our high schools. Yet communities of color
and low-income neighborhoods continue to be torn apart by the tragic
consequences of an unequal public education system that fails to
provide high-quality education to all.
A Critical Civil Rights Issue
I echo the likes of Secretary Duncan and other education leaders
when I say that education is the most important American civil rights
issue of the 21st century. As a consequence of persistent inequity and
segregation, we have two different school systems in America. On the
one hand, we have a system that emphasizes high academic quality and
serves the nation's privileged students. Yet another system exists that
emphasizes academic mediocrity and largely serves low-income students
and students of color. The one consistency in our education system is
in our high schools that fail to provide students of color and youth
from low-income neighborhoods with the high-quality education they need
to succeed in college and in the modern workplace.
On a recent visit to Halifax County in North Carolina, I witnessed
firsthand the duality of the American education system. Before I
address the problem facing these students, let me give you a snapshot
of Halifax County.
In a county where the majority of residents represent
communities of color (52 percent of residents are black, 3 percent are
Native American, and 1 percent are Latino), nearly a quarter (23.9
percent) of Halifax County's population is below the poverty level,
giving it the status as the county in North Carolina with the highest
percentage (19.4 percent) of families living in poverty.
In the 2007-2008 school year (the most recent data
available), only 25.5 percent of children grades 3-8 are at or above
grade level in reading, compared to 55.6 percent statewide; and only
39.7 percent are at or above grade level in math, compared to 69.9
percent statewide.
No schools in the county--zero elementary, middle or high
schools--met Adequate Yearly Progress standards under the No Child Left
Behind Act.
Of the 23,550 students who dropped out of North Carolina
high schools in 2006-2007, students of color and those from low-income
families were disproportionately represented. A recent report submitted
to the North Carolina joint State Legislative Oversight Committee found
that the counties with the highest dropout rates were also the counties
where the per capita income was significantly lower than the state
average.
Upon my arrival in North Carolina, I was struck, again, by the
vulgar realities that so many children face. The children in Halifax
county are not faced with a challenge--they are faced with an onslaught
of challenges as they try to learn the basic skills they will need to
be successful in life.
Nearly one-third of the middle and high school teachers in Halifax
have less than three years of teaching experience and almost one
quarter of the middle school teachers left the school district (the
state average is 15 percent) in the 2006-2007 school year. This makes
it nearly impossible for the school district to build capacity among
its teaching force. These children are not only growing up in poverty.
They are growing up in a school system that expects little of them and
they get little in return.
These students lack access to effective teachers and teachers in
the county lack access to the ongoing support they need to succeed in
the classroom. Low achievement expectations are furthered by classroom
curriculum that is not nearly as rigorous as it should be to encourage
excellence. In communities nationwide with similar demographic and
socioeconomic profiles as Halifax, each high school student enrolled in
a different high school is learning quite different skills, which,
against their will, will predetermine the direction of their future.
With so many factors working against them, it is hard for these
children to envision a future; it's hard for them to have dreams much
less fulfill them.
Too many American high schools fail to provide a high-quality
education to the youth who should become our next generation of
business and political leaders, yet ensuring that all students graduate
from high school well-prepared for the future is necessary to the
nation's global competitiveness and economic security. It is our moral
responsibility to strengthen and improve our schools so that every
child has the opportunity to meet high expectations and graduate high
school prepared for work and college, and to fulfill dreams.
We know that dropouts are more likely than high school graduates to
grow up in poverty, experience poor health, and be incarcerated. Unless
trends in minority student achievement and high school graduation are
reversed, our high schools will be complicit in creating a permanent
underclass of individuals who cannot provide for themselves and their
families, and are prevented from actively participating in our
democracy. It is, unfortunately, the unfinished legacy of the 1954
Brown v. Board of Education decision. While Brown ensured that all
children would have unfettered access to public education, it did not
ensure equity in public education.
Policy Solutions That Will Make a Difference
American education policy must change now. CHSE advocates for
policies that support making all students proficient and prepared for
college and work, holding high schools accountable for student success
and redesigning the American high school. College and work readiness
must be a top priority, and we must create an environment in which all
children can achieve that goal. CHSE believes that the federal
government can help the nation make great strides towards achieving
these goals by adopting the following policies.
Make All Students Proficient and Prepared for College and Work
Access to equal opportunity can only exist if all students are
challenged to reach the same high expectations.
States must align high school standards, assessments,
curriculum and instruction with college- and work-ready standards.
Teaching and testing should be based on what will lead to success in
the future;
We should guarantee that all students have access to
rigorous and engaging classes in core subjects. Coursework should
impart the knowledge and skills needed to excel in postsecondary
education and career, and assessments should measure student learning
against these criteria;
States should be required to publicly report on access to
college preparatory classes and course-taking patterns by income, race
and ethnicity, both among and within schools; and
Federal education policy that promotes culturally based
teaching, a practice wherein teachers align instruction to the cultural
practices and experiences of their students, is critical to helping all
students succeed.
Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
If the purpose of high school is to prepare students for college
and work, then high schools should be held accountable for meeting this
expectation for all students equally. As it stands, there are few
mechanisms for making sure that high schools accomplish this mission. A
well-designed accountability system should help communities ensure that
their schools are serving their children well.
There is a significant need to hold schools accountable for getting
students successfully to graduation by including meaningful graduation
rates in federal school accountability standards.
The appallingly low rate at which American high schools graduate
minority students could be reversed by increasing the accountability of
states and school districts to adhere to standards that promote
positive outcomes, including graduation and college. A strong system of
accountability would include:
Codifying in law the current graduation rate regulations
to make a significant difference in holding high schools accountable
for the success of all students, particularly students of color and
youth from low-income neighborhoods, and as a critical factor in
determining the quality of a high school and effective use of
resources;
Ensuring that every state continues to make progress on
developing longitudinal data systems that will allow them to measure
student progress over time. Improved data systems will not only improve
the fairness and accuracy of accountability systems, including ensuring
increased accountability for groups that are often marginalized, such
as Native Americans and Southeast Asians, but will also allow schools
to target services such as professional development where they are
needed most;
Publicly reporting disaggregated racial and ethnic data to
highlight subgroups of students;
Investing in technical assistance and evidence-based
school improvement tools;
Using high-quality, valid and accurate assessments for all
students; and
Disseminating high school data and other information
through media and other information channels that reach communities of
color.
I would like to underscore that a critical element of any
accountability system is to ensure that states and districts have
quality data systems capable of collecting disaggregated data, that
they publicly report disaggregated racial and ethnic data that include
subgroups of students, and that all data is used to inform educational
decision making. Making decisions without the benefit of fully
disaggregated data ignores the unique needs of students of color and
ill prepares school administrators to allocate resources based on the
needs of students and teachers. While many states disaggregate data,
inconsistencies in collection and reporting standards leave entire
groups of students out of the equation. For example, without fully
disaggregated data, the needs of whole segments of the Asian American
and Pacific Islander population are neglected. As a result, entire
groups of these young people end up falling through the cracks.
Redesign the American High School
Implementing a variety of quality high school models shown to
support different learning styles, cultures and student situations is
critical to achieving success for all students. The federal government
can encourage, incentivize and require systems that support high-
quality high schools by urging the following policies be adopted.
Integrated student supports that utilize both in-school
and community-based services can enhance the rate of success for
minority and low-income students;
Instructional practices such as culturally competent
learning techniques should be designed to meet the needs of diverse
learners. More students thrive in the classroom when culture is
integrated into their coursework, creating an environment where all
students can excel, regardless of race or socioeconomic status. Data
reveal that learning in an environment that incorporates native
language, culture and traditions increases student mastery of and
achievement in science and math;
Legally and educationally valid criteria to appropriately
inform decisions regarding student eligibility for services in special
educational, services for English language learners, college
preparatory curricula and gifted and talented programs;
Consistent standards and practices such as improved
identification and assessment systems to facilitate English language
learners integration into the public education system; and
Access to computers and other learning technologies that
can be used to complement in-class instruction.
Provide Students with Excellent Leaders and Teachers They Need to
Succeed
Secondary schools designated as needing improvement tend to have
fewer school resources and poorer working conditions; they also
disproportionately serve students of color and are located in areas of
concentrated poverty. Schools with these challenges require especially
strong leaders. And, it is often difficult to recruit high-quality
teachers to low-performing schools.
The federal government can support programs that establish
incentives to recruit, train, support and retain effective leaders and
teachers in high-poverty high schools.
Invest Communities in Student Success and Provide Equitable Learning
Conditions for All Students
Creating high-performing high schools that can give all students
the support they need to succeed is no small task, and it requires
changing the school as well as an investment from the community.
Community-based organizations (CBOs) play a critical role in providing
much-needed wrap-around services, particularly for students of color.
The federal government should support the creation and expansion of
multilingual parent centers, CBO-based afterschool and summer programs,
business-school partnerships and other community-based support services
needed to help students stay in school and graduate.
Moreover, high schools in the poorest communities deserve an
equitable share of resources. In addition to adequate targeting of
federal funds, we must ensure that the neediest schools have access to
effective teachers, the best research and practice and services to meet
the needs of all students, particularly English language learners.
Urgent Call to Act Now
Clearly, there is much to do, and we must gather the collective
will to do it. The will should be driven by need as well as a likely
return on our investments. If we can implement these policies that will
drive reform of high schools, we can make a difference. Reforms work.
One only has to speak with students from the Gaston College Preparatory
high school, a Knowledge is Power Program charter school in Gaston,
North Carolina, that also serves a high percentage of low-income
students, just down the road from Halifax County. As a result of
innovative and effective approaches to high school education, every
senior in this high school, which boasts a 100 percent graduation rate,
has been accepted to at least two colleges or universities. This should
not be an exception in American high schools. Frankly, it should be the
rule.
The pending reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) is a critical opportunity to institutionalize the
reforms we all know are so important. Congress can ensure better
support for high schools and ensure strong accountability for improving
results for high school students, particularly for students of color
and those from low-income families.
Waiting any longer to reauthorize ESEA amounts to shutting the door
on thousands of American high school students and their dreams of a
successful future. And as important, the high cost of dropping out is
borne not only by the individual but by all Americans, who pay an
economic and social price when students leave high school without a
diploma. CHSE urges swift passage of an improved ESEA that strengthens
accountability as a core element of reform and includes critical
support for high schools. Only then will we graduate every high school
student prepared for college and the modern workforce.
Thank you, again, for the opportunity and privilege to testify
before you today. I would be happy to answer any questions you may
have.
______
Chairman Miller. Ms. Kondracke.
STATEMENT OF MARGUERITE KONDRACKE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AMERICA'S PROMISE
Ms. Kondracke. Chairman Miller, ranking member, and members
of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify and
thank you for holding this important hearing on what I believe
is one of the most pressing issues of our Nation.
America's Promise Alliance was founded by General Colin
Powell and is chaired today by his wife Alma. Our alliance,
with over 300 national partners, is dedicated to ending the
Nation's dropout crisis. As General Powell says, this is not a
crisis, it is a catastrophe. When half of our young people of
color and a third of all others are not graduating on time,
this truly is a nation at risk.
And many of those who do finish high school are not
prepared for college or the 21st century workplace. Employers
tell us they cannot find qualified or even literate employees.
Colleges tell us too many entering students need remedial work.
The military tells us they cannot find enough qualified
recruits. Even dropout students tell us that they were not
challenged and saw no relevance to the world today.
I applaud the President when he said a long-term,
sustainable economic recovery is only possible if we strengthen
our education system and invest in our children.
For a young person dropping out, it is a million dollar
mistake. For our country, cutting in half the dropout rate
would contribute over 45 billion to our economy.
Mr. Chairman, the best stimulus package is a diploma. Our
children and their education deserve to be our highest
priority. They are the only future we have.
But there is hope. We do know what to do, and we know where
we should focus our resources. We can start by focusing on
those 2,000 dropout factory high schools and their communities.
There are two influences in a student's life that impacts
achievement: What happens inside the classroom and what happens
outside. Both must be addressed if we are to raise graduation
rates and close the achievement gap.
Our report, Cities in Crisis, found that there was a 20
percent difference in graduation rates when you compared urban
to suburban districts. We must address these inequities to give
giving to the promise of America for all of our young people.
In this great democracy, the opportunity to succeed must not be
an accident of birth.
It is what happens outside the classroom that often gets
overlooked, Mr. Chairman. I believe this is where the real
difference can be made.
Too many of our young children are going into the classroom
without the basic supports in their lives that we all take for
granted. Not appreciating the role that these supports place in
our child's life is why I believe so many education reform
efforts have not achieved the gains we have expected. The
Educational Testing Service recently outlined 16 factors that
drive student achievement.
Over half happen outside the classroom. A child can't learn
if he is hungry, has health problems, maybe has no caring adult
in his life, doesn't feel safe in his neighborhood, has nowhere
to go for the kind of after-school enrichment programs and
tutoring that we would arrange for our own children.
Inside the classroom we know we must have more rigor and
relevance. We need stronger, internationally benchmarked
standards. We have fallen behind almost every country in the
developed world. I commend the committee for recently holding a
hearing on this, and I support the administration's efforts to
make rigorous standards a priority.
Secretary Arne Duncan has ably outlined what he believes is
needed for schools, starting with clear standards defining
world-class excellence, teacher quality, better data, and
effective ways to track students and measure success.
But also important is what is happening outside the
classroom. To solve the dropout crisis we need an integrated
solution. Research proves that if a young person has four of
five core resources, he or she will be successful in life. We
call these the five promises.
An effective education that gives our young people
marketable skills is one of those promises. But our children
also need caring adults, safe places, a healthy start, and
opportunities to serve, which builds their confidence and self-
worth.
Having at least four of these five promises closes the
achievement gap across race and income. Having at least four of
the five means a young person is twice as likely to do well in
school and stay out of trouble.
These are at the heart of our dropout prevention campaign.
We are holding summits in all 50 States and in 55 cities with
the highest dropout rate. Every summit is producing an action
plan.
Mr. Chairman, there is a role for Congress, as well.
Locally, these initiatives are spreading across the country,
but because of the depth of the crisis there must be a larger
role for the Federal Government. Mr. Chairman, we do not have
time for incremental change. Congress and the administration
can play an important role in bringing solutions to scale.
The Graduation Promise Act is must-pass legislation.
Complementing it is the Secondary School Innovation Fund from
Congressman Loebsack and the Every Student Counts Act from
Congressman Scott; again, Congressman Loebsack, the WE CARE
Act; and Leader Hoyer, the Full-Service Community Schools Act.
These are great bills.
Additionally, I urge Congress to fund the High School
Graduation Initiative proposed by the President and Secretary
Duncan. The administration is requesting a $1 billion increase,
and 40 percent of these school improvement grants will go to
the dropout factory schools.
In conclusion, we should not tolerate living in a country
where three out of 10 students do not graduate on time. We
should not tolerate living in a country where on-time
graduation for minority students is a 50-50 proposition.
We have solutions on the ground, legislative proposals that
will bring them to scale. Congress can go a long way to solve
this problem and fortify our economy. We know what to do, we
are ready to help, and this can be done. Our future depends on
it.
[The statement of Ms. Kondracke follows:]
Prepared Statement of Marguerite Kondracke, President and CEO,
America's Promise Alliance
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon, members of the Committee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify on the most pressing issue
facing our nation. I am Marguerite Kondracke, President and CEO of
America's Promise Alliance. Founded by General Colin Powell, we and our
300 partners are committed to bringing an end to the dropout crisis.
Magnitude of the Problem
General Powell characterizes the dropout crisis as a national
catastrophe. A new report commissioned by America's Promise Alliance
found that only about half (53 percent) of all young people in the
nation's 50 largest cities graduate on time.
If altruistic reasons do not compel you, economic ones should.
McKinsey and Company found that the educational challenges we face
impose ``the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.''
I agree with the President and Secretary Duncan when they say that
a long-term, sustainable economic recovery is only possible if we
strengthen our education system.
Contributors to the Crisis
There are two influences in a student's life that impact
achievement: what happens inside the school building, and what happens
outside of it. Both must be addressed if we are to successfully raise
graduation rates.
First, we need stronger, internationally benchmarked standards.
Students deserve standards and curricula that will help them succeed in
college and careers and compete in the global economy. We are making
progress in this regard. I commend the Committee for holding a hearing
on the topic of common national standards just a few weeks ago, and
support the administration's efforts to make rigorous standards a
priority.
Integrated supports are also crucial. ``There are a set of
foundational things we need to do to meet * * * students' social and
emotional needs * * * the more we work together * * * the more we
create an environment where the students can maximize their academic
potential.''
These are not my words; they are the words of our Secretary of
Education, Arne Duncan.
The Educational Testing Service (ETS) recently outlined 16 factors
that correlate with student achievement--over half of these factors are
present in a child's life beyond the classroom. Such factors include
forced mobility, environmental hazards, hunger and nutrition, health
care, and the summer learning gap, which puts students so far behind by
the ninth grade that the prospect of on-time graduation is dim.
If schools just had to deal with one, or maybe two of these issues,
they could probably handle it. The problem is that these and many other
factors accumulate and are concentrated in our schools with the least
capacity to address them.
The Solution: A Comprehensive Approach
The dropout crisis calls for a comprehensive solution. Research
demonstrates that young people need five core resources to be
successful in life. We refer to them as the ``five promises''--caring
adults, safe places, a healthy start, effective education, and
opportunities to serve. These promises provide a simple but powerful
framework for a robust national strategy to end the dropout crisis, and
are at the heart of the Dropout Prevention Campaign launched by the
America's Promise Alliance last year.
The campaign began with high-level summits, one in all 50 states
and 55 cities with the largest dropout rates. Within 60 days of each
summit, states and communities develop action plans that include a
cross section of stakeholders--educators, the business community,
nonprofit organizations, and students.
Locally, initiatives are spreading across the country that combine
academic and community-based supports to strengthen student
achievement. Rather than describe these efforts in detail, I will
discuss the potential role of the federal government in bringing them
to scale.
The Graduation Promise Act is ``must-pass'' legislation.
The federal government should not have a heavy hand in high school
reform. Introduced by Representative Ruben Hinojosa in the 110th
Congress, this legislation is comprehensive, data driven, and strikes
the right balance between federal support and local control.
Complementing this proposal are the Secondary School
Innovation Fund Act (H.R. 2239) introduced by Representative Dave
Loebsack, and the Every Student Counts Act introduced by Representative
Bobby Scott (H.R. 1569). These proposals would support research and
accountability so that we can use taxpayer dollars in the most
effective ways.
Additionally, I urge Congress to fund the High School
Graduation Initiative proposed by the President as well as his proposed
increase for School Improvement Grants in order to turn around the
nation's lowest performing high schools.
Broadly speaking, the administration has outlined five pillars for
education reform: early childhood; world-class college- and career-
ready standards and assessments, teacher effectiveness, innovation/
excellence with a focus on low-performing schools, and higher
education. To these five items, I suggest adding a sixth: Schools as
Centers of Community. We must address both what happens inside the
classroom and outside of it in order to strengthen graduation rates and
prepare our students for college. As a potential first step, I
encourage Congress to fund the President's proposal for ``Promise
Neighborhoods'' to address the effects of poverty and improve
educational achievements and life outcomes for our children.
Conclusion
We do not have to live in a country where three out of 10 students
do not graduate on time, and where on-time graduation for minority
students is a 50-50 proposition. We have solutions on the ground, and
legislative proposals that will bring them to scale. By passing these
proposals, we will solve this problem, fortify our economy, and provide
our students with the opportunity to experience the promise of America.
Full Testimony
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon, members of the Committee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify on the most pressing issue
facing our nation: the high school dropout crisis. My remarks will
cover several key issues: First, I will discuss the compelling
magnitude of the high school dropout crisis. I will then provide an
overview of the factors in our schools and in the lives of our students
that contribute to the crisis. Finally, I will conclude with a
discussion of ways this issue can be addressed and recommendations for
the federal role in strengthening graduation rates.
The Dropout Crisis: America's New Silent Epidemic
America's low graduation rate is our most pressing issue as a
nation and the culmination of years of failure. Everyone with a stake
in the future of our children and the nation--schools, parents,
businesses, community and faith based organizations--have a role to
play in the resolution of this crisis. We all must work together in new
and unprecedented ways in support of our children.
In addition to its significant social implications, the potential
economic impact of the dropout crisis shows why this issue is our most
critical national challenge. A recent report by McKinsey and Company,
The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools,
concluded that the persistent achievement gaps facing our country
impose ``the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.''
\1\ When President Obama and Secretary Duncan say that a long-term,
sustainable economic recovery is only possible if we strengthen our
education system, they are precisely correct.
The dropout crisis may not be as visible or swift as other
important issues problems facing this Congress and our new
administration, but its implications are just as severe and lasting.
The dropout crisis, persisting without acknowledgment or resolution,
has emerged as America's ``silent epidemic.'' The current recession is
in the headlines every day, and has demanded action both because of its
severity and the public attention it has received. Whether or not you
voted for the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, the Troubled Asset
Relief Program, or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, one
cannot disagree with this simple point: action is being taken to
address the economic crisis.
With the dropout crisis, we have a different story. Although we are
working diligently to raise public awareness of this issue, it has yet
to permeate the national agenda. This makes it easier for our actions
to be slow, inadequate, or even worse, nonexistent. States and school
districts are rising to the challenge, and they need the federal
government to be a strong partner in their struggle to provide our
nation with an educated population, a strong economy, and a stable
society. Strengthening our graduation rate will take historic focus,
unprecedented collaboration, and significant resources. The required
investments in our young people are the most cost-effective investments
we can make. We must understand that our future is at stake, and we
must resolve that failure is not an option.
Magnitude of the Dropout Crisis
General Colin Powell, founding chairman of America's Promise
Alliance, characterizes the dropout crisis as a ``national
catastrophe.'' The issue is both broad and deep, creating new economic
and national security problems as many potential skilled workers and
military recruits are found to be ill prepared and unsuitable for those
professions.
Between 25 to 30 percent of high school students do not graduate on
time. For young people of color, on-time graduation is a 50-50
proposition, the flip of a coin. A new report commissioned by America's
Promise Alliance and developed by the Editorial Projects in Education
Research Center finds that only about half (53 percent) of all young
people in the nation's 50 largest cities graduate on time. Despite some
progress made by several of these cities between 1995 and 2005, the
average graduation rate of the 50 largest cities is well below the
national average of 71%, and an 18 percentage point urban-suburban gap
remains.\2\
Ten Year Trends: 1995 to 2005
While the nation's 50 largest school districts educate one out of
eight high school students; they produce one quarter of the nation's
students who do not graduate on time.\3\ Fortunately, 31 of the
nation's 50 largest cities have increased their graduation rates
between 1995 and 2005, ranging from a modest 0.7 percentage point gain
in Jacksonville, Florida, to a 23 percentage point gain in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.\4\ On the other side of the coin, 19 cities
have experienced a decrease in their graduation rate, ranging from a
decline of 0.3 percentage points in Louisville, Kentucky to a 23
percentage point drop in Las Vegas, Nevada.\5\ On average, the nation's
50 largest cities had an increase of four percentage points over this
ten-year window.\6\
Of course, many factors contribute to these figures, and the devil
is truly in the details. For example, some of the largest gains come
from cities with very low graduation rates to start with. Ten of the
fifty principal school districts began with a graduation rate of less
than 39 percent in 2005 making significant, mostly double-digit
improvements over this ten year period.\7\
Further, although improvements extend across most of the 50
nation's largest cities, only three of the primary school districts
within these 50 cities (Mesa, Arizona; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and
Tucson, Arizona) meet or exceed the national average. In fact, three of
the principal school districts within the 50 largest cities have
graduation rates below 40 percent (Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan;
and Indianapolis, Indiana).
Urban-Suburban Gap
A significant graduation rate gap exists between urban and suburban
school districts: 18 percentage points separate the metropolitan areas
of the 50 largest cities from their suburban counterparts.\8\ Fifty-
nine percent of high school students in urban school districts graduate
on time from high school versus 77 percent of their suburban
counterparts. The urban-suburban gap is most prominent in the Northeast
and Midwest, with Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, and Milwaukee
experiencing the largest differentials. In some cases, on-time
graduation is half as likely for urban students as for suburban
students.\9\
But there is good news: although the urban-suburban gap is large,
it is on the decline. Between 1995 and 2005, 14 of the 41 metropolitan
regions analyzed by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center
saw decreases in the urban-suburban gap, though on average, the gap
closed by less than a quarter percentage point per year. Many of the
declines (for example, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, El
Paso, and New York) resulted from increases in graduation rates among
urban school districts; however, some resulted from decreases in
graduation rates on the part of suburban school districts.
Economic Impact
The economic significance of the nation's low graduation rate
cannot be overstated, and the message of McKinsey and Company's recent
study bears repeating: the persistent achievement gaps facing our
country impose ``the economic equivalent of a permanent national
recession.'' \10\
On the macro level, McKinsey estimated the economic impact in 2008
if the United States had closed the achievement gap fifteen years after
A Nation at Risk's 1983 release across four permutations: the
difference between the U.S. and foreign countries, low income and upper
income students, white and minority students, and America's high and
low performing states. Their findings amount to nothing less than a
multibillion dollar lost opportunity:
Closing the international achievement gap would have
produced a 9 to 16 percent gain in GDP ($1.3 trillion to $2.3
trillion);
Closing the racial achievement gap would have produced a 2
to 4 percent gain in GDP ($310 billion to $525 billion);
Closing the income achievement gap would have produced a 3
to 5 percent gain in GDP ($400 billion to $670 billion); and
Closing the achievement gap between high and low
performing states would have produced a 3 to 5 percent gain in GDP
($425 billion to $700 billion).\11\
On the micro level, high school graduation is a determining factor
of a student's future income. High school dropouts are less likely to
be steadily employed and earn less income when they are employed
compared with those who graduate from high school. Only one-third (37
percent) of high school dropouts nationwide are steadily employed and
are more than twice as likely to live in poverty.\12\
Between 1975 and 2006, income for the workforce as a whole grew,
with larger income gains accruing for those with additional education.
High school graduates gained 6 percent, those with some college
education gained 10 percent, those with a Bachelor's degree gained 23
percent, and those with a graduate degree gained 31 percent. Earnings
only dropped over this time period for one group: those without a high
school diploma had a 10 percent decline in earnings.
High school dropouts account for 13 percent of the adult
population, but earn less than six percent of all dollars earned in the
U.S. In the 50 largest cities, the median income for high school
dropouts is $14,000, lower than the median income of $24,000 for high
school graduates and $48,000 for college graduates. The Editorial
Projects in Education Research Center estimates that earning a high
school diploma would increase one's annual income by an average of 71
percent, or $10,000.\13\
Contributors to the Crisis
There are two major influences in students' lives that impact their
scholastic achievement: what happens inside the school building and
what happens outside of it. A number of factors contribute to the high
school dropout crisis, ranging from the quality of standards and rigor
in our high schools to the issues impacting students before they ever
step foot into the classroom. I will highlight several of these issues,
as they all must be addressed in order to strengthen student
achievement.
Standards and Expectations for Graduation
In 1983, A Nation at Risk recommended that schools, colleges, and
universities adopt more rigorous, measurable standards for academic
performance and higher expectations for student conduct. This call for
increased rigor has been carried forth by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Obama Administration.
We need stronger, internationally-benchmarked standards, so that
students, teachers, parents, and administrators understand the purpose
and effectiveness of the educational system in which they are part. I
was glad to see that Congress and the Administration made rigorous
standards a priority in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and
I commend the Committee for holding a hearing on the topic of common
national standards just a few weeks ago. We should all be encouraged by
the work of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief
State School Officers in their efforts with 41 states to begin
developing voluntary common standards.
Today, few disagree with the need to raise expectations of student
performance. We must offer our students challenging curricula and
standards that are internationally benchmarked and aligned with the
expectations of college and the workforce. The American Diploma Project
(ADP) reports that 23 states have aligned their high school standards
with the expectations of postsecondary education, and that 21 other
states and the District of Columbia are in the process of moving
towards such alignment. Additionally, 20 states and the District of
Columbia require a college- and work-ready curriculum for graduation
with eight others planning to do so. Ten states include college-
readiness tests as part of their statewide assessment system, and 23
others are moving in this direction.\14\
Complex Challenges in the Lives of Students
We must address the quality of the educational experience for our
students. Equally important, though not duly recognized, is the
importance of a student's living and learning environment in affecting
how he or she performs in the classroom. According to Secretary of
Education Arne Duncan, ``There are a set of foundational things we need
to do to meet students' social and emotional needs. The more we open
our school buildings to the community the more we work together, not
just with our children but the families, the more we create an
environment where the students can maximize their academic potential.''
\15\
For our students to be successful, we must ensure that our schools
are adequately funded, our students are taught by high quality
teachers, students have the opportunity to achieve rigorous standards,
and schools are held accountable for student success. However, schools
cannot shoulder the responsibility of educating our children and youth
on their own. Every year, our students spend about 1,150 waking hours
in school, and nearly five times that number (4,700 waking hours) in
their families and communities.\16\ Today's teachers have to act as
mothers, fathers, social workers, and sometimes even police officers,
in addition to the central task of educating our students.
In its recent report, Parsing the Achievement Gap II, the
Educational Testing Service (ETS) outlined 16 factors that correlate
with student achievement; over half of these factors are present in a
child's life before or beyond the classroom, including forced mobility,
hunger and nutrition, and summer achievement gain and loss.\17\ Another
study from the School of Education at the University of Colorado and
the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University outlined
six ``out of school'' factors that limit what schools, on their own,
can achieve for our students, including inadequate medical, dental, and
vision care, family relations and family stress, and neighborhood
characteristics.\18\ For example:
Forced Mobility: One out of six 3rd graders has changed
schools three or more times since first grade. These students are one
and-a-half times more likely to perform below grade level in reading,
nearly twice as likely to perform below grade level in math, and two-
and-a half times more likely to repeat a grade than their more stable
peers.\19\ With the recession and foreclosure crisis, the issue of
student mobility is on the rise. Last year, a group of 330 school
districts enrolled 31,000 homeless children throughout the entire
school year. In just the first three months of this school year, that
same group of school districts identified 41,000 homeless students, an
increase of 10,000 homeless students by Thanksgiving.\20\
Hunger and Nutrition: One out of six children lives in a
``food insecure'' household, and minority households are 2.5 times as
likely as white households to be food insecure.\21\ While a number of
studies have linked improving student nutrition with measurable gains
in test scores,\22\ Secretary Duncan states the simple fact clearly and
to the point: ``If children are hungry, they can't learn.'' \23\
Health: An analysis of health problems and their impact on
education published by Princeton University and the Brookings
Institution in The Future of Children estimates that differences in
health problems and maternal health and behaviors may account for a
quarter of the racial gap in school readiness.\24\ A simple example of
the gap in access to health services lies in the critical role played
by adequate vision in the learning process. Seeing the chalkboard,
being able to read the words in books, and other vision-related
activities are prerequisites for learning. However, 50 percent or more
poor minority and low-income children have vision problems that
interfere with their academic work; and poor children have severe
vision impairment at twice the normal rate.\25\ Again, in the words of
our Secretary of Education: ``If a child can't see the blackboard, they
can't learn.'' \26\
Summer Achievement Gap: Research from Johns Hopkins
University found that lack of summer learning opportunities explains
about two-thirds of the 9th grade achievement gap between high and low
income students. Therefore, low income youth are much less likely to
graduate from high school or attend college.\27\ Here's how the summer
learning gap works: The achievement gap is present once students enter
school in the first grade. The gap narrows slightly during the school
year, but then grows each successive summer. By the time a student
reaches the 9th grade, they are often so far behind that the prospect
of on-time graduation is dim.
If schools had to confront only one or two of these environmental
factors, the challenge could be addressed with relative ease. However,
educators must address the confluence of many of these factors at the
same time, which are disproportionately concentrated in the nation's
poorest schools. Less than 4 percent of white students attend schools
where 70-100 percent of the students are poor. However, 40 percent of
black and Latino students attend such high poverty schools. The average
white student attends schools with 0-30 percent poor students; the same
can be said for only one out of six black students and one out of five
Latino students.\28\ We must ``super-resource'' these schools with the
best teachers and comprehensive supports to address the academic and
non-academic needs of these future leaders.
It is important that we have a thorough understanding of the
prevalence and importance of the larger environmental factors in a
student's life that influence their academic success. Unless we address
these foundational issues, not even the best teachers with the highest
quality curriculum will be able to ensure that every student graduates
ready for college.
This is a systemic challenge that can only be solved through
innovative thinking and unprecedented partnerships. We must openly
acknowledge and comprehensively address the role played by race,
poverty and the host of related non-school factors in student
achievement. Demographics are certainly not destiny, but we ignore them
at the peril of our students and their achievement.
The Youth Voice
The youth voice is often overlooked and not included in the
national dialogue on dropout prevention. In order to determine
effective solutions to the crisis, their voices must be heard.
America's Promise Alliance, along with Gallup and the American
Association of School Administrators, recently launched the Gallup
Student Poll, a groundbreaking survey of students in grades 5--12.
Gallup will conduct the poll twice annually, in March and October, and
the findings will be part of the largest-ever survey of American
children. The poll will help school systems and communities benchmark
progress and determine solutions to the dropout crisis.
In March 2009, the Gallup Student Poll surveyed more than 70,000
students located in 18 states and the District of Columbia, and more
than 330 schools and 58 school districts participated. The results were
verified by polling a nationally representative sample. The poll
measured three key metrics--hope, engagement and well-being--that
research has shown have a meaningful impact on educational outcomes and
more importantly, can be improved through deliberate action by
educators, school administrators, community leaders and others.
Questions focused on:
Hope: the ideas and energy students have for the future;
Engagement: the level of student involvement in and
enthusiasm for school; and
Well-being: how students think about and experience their
lives.
Findings from the poll include:
Half of those surveyed (50 percent) reported answers
indicating they are not hopeful, with one-third (33 percent) indicating
that they are stuck, while 17 percent feel discouraged.
Nearly two in three students in grades 5--12 surveyed (63
percent) are thriving; more than one-third are struggling or suffering.
Struggling and suffering students evaluate life in negative terms,
struggle to meet daily demands in life and lack some of the resources
needed to succeed.
Eight in 10 (80 percent) said they smiled or laughed at
school yesterday, while seven in 10 (70 percent) said they learned or
did something interesting at school. Just half (52 percent) said they
were treated with respect all day.
The findings from this and future Gallup Student Polls will
highlight causes of the dropout crisis from the perspective of students
themselves. The youth voice is a critical part of the ongoing dialogue
on dropout prevention and the results can help communities across the
country develop initiatives that dramatically change outcomes for our
young people.
The Solution: A Comprehensive Approach
The dropout crisis calls for a holistic solution, driven by
national leadership and local action. Research demonstrates that young
people need five core resources to be successful in life. We refer to
them as the ``five promises:'' caring adults, safe places, a healthy
state, effective education, and opportunities to serve. These promises
provide a simple but powerful framework for a robust national strategy
to end the dropout crisis, and they are at the heart of the Dropout
Prevention Campaign launched by America's Promise Alliance in April
2008.
America's Promise Alliance Dropout Prevention Campaign
The campaign begins with high-level summits in all 50 states and
the 55 cities with the largest dropout rates in order to raise the
visibility of America's ``silent epidemic.'' Within 60 days of each
summit, states and communities are required to develop action plans
that include a cross section of stakeholders: educators, the business
community, nonprofit organizations, and students. Communities receive
technical assistance from the Alliance, utilizing Grad Nation, a
comprehensive resource described in more detail below. A concentrated
effort will take place in twelve communities leveraging the collective
resources of the Alliance's strongest partners.
To date, 36 high-level summits have been held in cities
nationwide--bringing together more than 14,000 mayors and governors,
business owners, child advocates, school administrators, students, and
parents to develop workable solutions and action plans. An additional
50 are planned before the end of the year and all 105 will be completed
by April 2010. The presenting sponsor for the Dropout Prevention
Campaign is the State Farm Insurance Company, and other major sponsors
include AT&T, The Boeing Company, Ford Motor Company Fund, ING
Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The J. Willard and Alice
S. Marriott Foundation, The Wal-Mart Foundation, Simon Foundation for
Education, Chevron, Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Casey Family
Programs, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New
York, Bank of America, The Annenberg Foundation and Capital One.
Already, cities and states that held summits last year have started
implementing changes based on the discussions and early results are
promising. One of the most significant success stories hails from
Detroit, the first district to host a summit. The city set a ten-year
goal to graduate 80% of its youth from the 35 high schools with
significant dropout rates. To support this effort, the local United Way
announced the creation of The Greater Detroit Venture Fund, a $10-
million fund to assist these schools and improve ACT scores so students
are better prepared to apply for college. Since this summit, the city
has shuttered, reconstituted, or clustered together eleven of those 35
schools as part of a comprehensive turnaround process The effectiveness
of the summits is also seen in Louisville, Kentucky, which set a 10-
year goal to cut dropout rates in half, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, where as a
result of their summit, an innovative career exploration program has
been implemented
Schools as Centers of Community
Across the country, schools and communities are partnering to meet
the comprehensive needs facing students and increase their achievement
in the classroom. I will highlight two such initiatives that
demonstrate measurable results and should be brought to scale:
While Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public
Schools (CPS), Secretary Duncan supported 150 ``community schools''
that offered a range of community-based services to students including
health care and after school programs, creating the nation's largest
district-led ``community school'' effort. An evaluation of this
initiative found that nearly half of the students in ``community
schools'' had increased math and reading grades, and that between 2001
and 2006, ``community schools'' had greater gains in math and reading
than ``regular'' CPS schools.\29\ Secretary Duncan recently said, ``The
money that I spent on this to open our schools longer in Chicago was
arguably the best money I spent because it was so highly leveraged.''
\30\ CPS invested in both instructional improvements and support
services, leveraging resources from the community into schools, and
producing measurable results. This strategy should be expanded
throughout the country.
Communities In Schools (CIS) is the nation's largest
dropout prevention organization, serving 1.2 million students in 27
states. CIS partners with schools and school districts to provide at-
risk students with the five core resources: caring adults, safe places
during non-school hours, access to health services, marketable skills,
and opportunities to give back to peers and the community. A national
evaluation found that CIS schools have lower dropout rates and higher
graduation rates than comparison schools.\31\ Additionally, the
graduation rate increase of CIS Performance Learning Centers, offering
targeted academic and support services in small settings, was three-
and-a-half times greater than that of comparison schools.\32\
Grad Nation
Grad Nation is a first-of-its-kind research-based toolkit for
communities seeking to reduce their dropout rate and better support
young people through high school graduation and beyond. With more than
one million students dropping out of high school each year, Grad Nation
is specifically designed to offer solutions and tools for every size
community and presents a compelling case for all sectors of society to
get involved. The guidebook is part of the Alliance's Dropout
Prevention Campaign, which launched in April 2008, and is sponsoring
105 Dropout Prevention Summits in all 50 states through 2010.
Commissioned by the Alliance and authored by Robert Balfanz, Ph.D.
and Joanna Honig Fox from the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns
Hopkins University and John M. Bridgeland and Mary McNaught of Civic
Enterprises, Grad Nation brings together--in one place--the nation's
best evidence-based practices for keeping young people in school. It
includes information on everything from making the case to the
community on the need to act to establishing ``early warning'' systems,
implementing effective school transformation strategies, and building
proven ``multiple pathways'' to graduation, as well as wrapping the
most appropriate services around students so they can surmount the
challenges they face.
Grad Nation gives communities a comprehensive set of tools
necessary to rally collective support to end the dropout crisis,
understand and communicate the dimensions of the dropout challenge in a
particular, develop effective action strategies to improve graduation
rates, prepare youth for advanced learning after high school, and build
strong, lasting partnerships that involve all sectors of a community.
Federal Policy Recommendations
The federal government has the opportunity and the responsibility
to be a strong partner with states and communities in addressing the
dropout crisis. Federal education policy currently does little to
support the nation's high schools, and that must change. I recommend
the following:
Schools as Centers of Community: The administration has
outlined five pillars for education reform: expanding access to early
childhood; world-class college- and career-ready standards and
assessments, teacher effectiveness, innovation/excellence with a focus
on low-performing schools, and increasing the number of people pursuing
higher education. To these five items, I suggest adding a sixth:
Schools as Centers of Community. We must address both what happens
inside the classroom and outside of it in order to strengthen
graduation rates and prepare our students for college. By making
schools the centers of our communities, we can leverage the resources
of a wide range of stakeholders in supporting the success of our
students. This must be a priority for the reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). As a potential first
step, I encourage Congress to fund the President's proposal for
``Promise Neighborhoods'' to address the effects of poverty and improve
educational achievements and life outcomes for our children.
Turnaround Low Performing High Schools: Important
legislation was introduced in the previous Congress that would create
an appropriate federal role in the improvement of the nation's high
schools. The Graduation Promise Act (H.R. 2928/110th Congress),
introduced by Representative Ruben Hinojosa, authorizes $2.5 billion
annually in order to target resources toward those high schools
producing substantial numbers of high school dropouts. This legislation
is comprehensive, data-driven, and strikes the right balance between
federal support and local control.
Promote Innovation: Every high school is different, and
although they face similar challenges, there is no ``one size fits
all'' solution to the dropout crisis. Congress should pass the
Secondary School Innovation Fund Act (H.R. 2239), introduced by
Representative David Loebsack, in order to support and evaluate
innovative approaches to turning around the nation's lowest performing
high schools. We must learn more about the most effective strategies,
and bring them to scale.
High School Accountability: As we provide additional
resources to turnaround low performing high schools, we must hold them
accountable for results. The Every Student Counts Act (H.R. 1569)
codifies into law and strengthens much of the policy that the
Department of Education has recently implemented through regulation
regarding graduation rates, including a common definition of the
graduation rate and reasonable requirements for growth in order for
schools to make adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind.
Comprehensive Student Supports: Several bills have been
introduced that support the vision of ``schools as centers of
community.'' The WE CARE Act (H.R. 3762/110th Congress), introduced in
the previous Congress by Representative David Loebsack, inserts the
notion of schools as centers of community throughout Title I, Part A of
ESEA. The centerpiece of the proposal is an incentive fund to support
``community involvement policies'' at the local level that would
support partnerships among school districts and community organizations
to leverage local resources in order to meet students' non-academic
needs and prepare them for success in the classroom.
The Full Service Community Schools Act (H.R. 2323/110th Congress)
was introduced by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and would fund
partnerships between schools and community organizations to provide
student support services in schools. The Department of Education
received a $5 million appropriation for this purpose and last year
received 400 applications but was only able to fund 10 proposals.
The Keeping Parents and Communities Engaged Act (S.1302/110th
Congress) was introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy and would provide
grants to school districts for parent and community engagement
coordinators, for community based organizations to leverage services
into schools, and for partnerships among mayors, school districts, and
community organizations to renovate schools so they can be more
effectively used as centers of community.
FY 2010 Appropriations: I urge Congress to fund the High
School Graduation Initiative proposed by the President, as well as his
proposed increase for School Improvement Grants, to turn around the
nation's lowest performing high schools.
Conclusion
We do not have to live in a country where three out of 10 students
do not graduate on time, and where on-time graduation for minority
students is a 50-50 proposition. What I hope you take away from this
testimony are four key points:
You are right to focus on the high school dropout crisis;
it is our most pressing national challenge and we don't have time for
incremental progress.
The crisis results from a combination of factors in
schools and in the lives of our students; we must address both in order
to increase graduation rates.
We have solutions on the ground, and legislative proposals
that will bring them to scale.
By passing these proposals, we will solve this problem,
fortify our economy, and provide our students with the opportunity to
experience the promise of America.
endnotes
\1\ McKinsey and Company (2009). The Economic Impact of the
Achievement Gap in America's Schools. Retrieved May 6, 2009 from http:/
/www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/socialsector/achievement--gap--
report.pdf.
\2\ Christopher Swanson (2009). Cities in Crisis 2009: Closing the
Graduation Gap: Educational and Economic Conditions in America's
Largest Cities. Bethesda, Maryland: Editorial Projects in Education
Research Center.
\3\ The principal school districts of America's 50 largest cities
collectively educate 1.7 million public high school students and
produce 279,000 of the 1.2 million high school students who do not
graduate on time (Ibid., p. 13).
\4\ Swanson, 2009.
\5\ Ibid.
\6\ Ibid.
\7\ Ibid.
\8\ Ibid.
\9\ Ibid.
\10\ McKinsey and Company (2009).
\11\ Swanson, 2009.
\12\ Ibid.
\13\ Ibid.
\14\ American Diploma Project Network, Closing the Expectations
Gap. Washington, DC: Achieve, Inc., 2009. Retrieved May 6, 2009 from
http://www.achieve.org/closingtheexpectationsgap2009.
\15\ Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, Interview with
Charlie Rose, available at http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/
10140
\16\ David Berliner (2009). Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School
Factors and School Success. Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public
Interest Center and Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved May 6,
2009 from http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential.
\17\ Paul Barton and Richard Coley (2009). Parsing the Achievement
Gap II. Princeton, New Jersey: Educational Testing Service. Note: This
report uses the term ``frequent school changes.'' I use the term
``forced mobility'' because it more accurately describes the living
circumstances of our most at-risk students that, in turn, causes
reductions in school performance. For additional information, see
Duffield and Lovell (endnote 20).
\18\ Berliner, 2009.
\19\ General Accounting Office. (1994). Elementary school children:
Many change schools frequently, harming their education (GAO/HEHS-94-
45). Washington, DC: Author.
\20\ For additional information, see Barbara Duffield and Phillip
Lovell (2008). The Economic Crisis Hits Home: The Unfolding Increase in
Child and Youth Homelessness. Washington, DC: National Association for
the Education of Homeless Children and Youth and First Focus.
\21\ Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (2008).
America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being,
2008. Washington, DC: Author, Table ECON3A. Retrieved May 6, 2008 from
www.childstats.gov.
\22\ Barton and Coley, 2009.
\23\ Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, Interview with
Charlie Rose, available at http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/
10140
\24\ Janet Currie (2005). Health Disparities and Gaps in School
Readiness. Future of Children, vol. 15, no. 1, 117-138. Retrieved May
6, 2009 from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/future--of--children/v015/
15.1currie.pdf.
\25\ Richard Rothstein (2004). Class and Schools: Using Social,
Economic, And Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement
Gap. Washington, DC and New York: Economic Policy Institute and
Teachers College Press.
\26\ Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, Interview with
Charlie Rose, available at http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/
10140
\27\ Karl Alexander, et al., ``Lasting Consequences of the summer
learning gap.'' American Sociological Review, v72, April 2007.
Retrieved May, 6, 2008 from http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-
file/April07ASRFeature.pdf.
\28\ Berlin, 2009.
\29\ Samuel Whalen (2007). Three Years Into Chicago's Community
Schools Initiative: Progress, Challenges, and Emerging Lessons.
Chicago: College of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago.
\30\ Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, Interview with
Charlie Rose, available at http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/
10140
\31\ Communities In Schools (2008). Communities In Schools and the
Model of Integrated Student Services: A Proven Solution to America's
Dropout Epidemic. Alexandria, VA: Author. Retrieved May 6, 2009 at
http://www.cisnet.org/about/NationalEvaluation/Normal.asp?Segment=5.0.
The evaluation found: ``For every 1,000 high school students, 36 more
students at high implementing CIS schools remain in school'' (p.5).
\32\ The Performance Learning Center: Communities In Schools Small
Schools Model Promoting Graduation and College Readiness. Presentation
for the Alliance for Excellent Education on April 22, 2009. In author's
possession.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Mr. Gordon?
STATEMENT OF SCOTT GORDON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, MASTERY
CHARTER SCHOOLS
Mr. Gordon. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the
committee, thank you for inviting me here. My name is Scott
Gordon. I am the CEO of Mastery Charter Schools in
Philadelphia.
Mastery operates four schools, serving 1,700 students in
grades 7 through 12. Three of those schools were turnarounds of
failing school district middle schools. As a turnaround,
Mastery enrolled the existing students and continued operating
the school as a neighborhood school.
So, in many ways, these turnaround schools are perfectly
controlled experiments for school reform: the same students,
the same neighborhood, the same buildings. The only variable
that changed were the adults.
So why is this important for us today? To answer that
question, I want to put the problem we face in secondary
education in context. Take a moment and examine how the current
system is serving the children in my hometown of Philadelphia.
Every year, approximately 20,000 first-graders will enter
Philadelphia public schools. In a globally competitive,
knowledge-based economy, most of us would agree that, 12 years
later, we want to see those 20,000 first-graders enter college
and graduate. So how are we doing?
Philadelphia's dropout rate is 47 percent. So 9,400 of
those 20,000 students will never even make it to their high
school graduation. Of the 10,600 students who remain, two-
thirds will not be able to score ``proficient'' on the
Pennsylvania State Standardized Assessment. This assessment is
a basic competency test, essentially the minimum a high school
student should know, and it is statistically correlated to
college graduation.
That leaves just 3,500 students with a shot at graduating
college, 3,500 students of 20,000 who began, a failure rate of
82 percent.
It gets worse. The national college persistence rate for
African Americans is just 40 percent. So it is likely that less
than half of the students who graduated from high school will
actually persist and obtain a college degree.
An absolute catastrophe, year after year. As educators, our
job is to educate young people as citizens who are productive
participants in our economy. We are not even close. Our house
truly is on fire.
We do not need to tolerate this failure. In Mastery's three
turnaround schools, average scores on the Pennsylvania
assessment increased 35 points per grade in every subject,
violence decreased 85 percent, student turnover decreased by a
third.
And these were Philadelphia's most difficult schools. To
give you a snapshot, the Shoemaker Middle School, which we
turned around in 2006, was the city's second most violent
school. That means two police officers for just over 300 13-,
14-, and 15-year-old kids, yet those police officers were
unable to prevent eight adults from being assaulted.
At the Pickett Middle School, which we converted just last
year, 7 percent of seventh-graders were proficient in reading
and 9 percent were proficient in math.
Yet, at the Shoemaker School, it took Mastery just 2 years
to close the achievement gap between the low-income, minority
students we serve and their statewide peers. At the Pickett
School, Mastery increased test scores over 40 points in just 1
year.
It can be done. And I am here to represent a proof point
that we can turn around failing urban schools. It can be done,
it can be done quickly, and it can be done at scale.
How? First, we need urgency and accountability. Set the bar
high. Without high standards in No Child Left Behind, there
will be no pressure for change. You will hear critics say that
standardized tests do not appropriately assess a child's
learning or preparedness for college, that it will result in
teaching to the test. Why don't we hear the same outcry about
AP tests or SAT tests or ACT tests? As knowledge jobs move
across the globe to places that have a highly educated
workforce, I don't imagine our peers in Beijing or Seoul or
Warsaw suggesting that the test is the problem.
According to the OECD, our Nation has slipped to 18th in
reading and 28th in math in international rankings. It is not
because we are teaching to the test; it is because our students
can't pass the test. We need more accountability, not less.
Second, we need to ruthlessly focus on outcomes. Grow what
works, and eliminate what doesn't. We exercise this common
sense in every aspect of our society except education. In
education, there are ongoing conversations about process and
means. At high school levels, conferences are filled with
lively debates about making curriculum more relevant, about
making it more project-based, about learning communities, about
whether the charter school growth is good or bad. Don't listen.
Instead, as policymakers, I urge you to focus on outcomes and
accountability only, not the means. The house is on fire.
Reward those who produce results now.
In education, we have the notion that schools operate
differently from the rest of the economy; schools are not like
the private sector because kids are not like widgets. Fair
enough. But adults are still adults. And the commonsense
management practices that drive successful organizations, be
they hospitals, software companies, or schools, are still the
same: High-performing organizations set clear goals. They hold
management and employees accountable for results. They hire
high-quality talent. They promote the best. They supervise
staff and monitor their performance.
In contrast, at public schools, pay and promotion is based
on seniority or educational degrees and certification that have
no proven relationship with student outcomes. Teachers are
observed twice a year for 45 minutes. Imagine running an
organization where you do not set goals for your staff, you do
not supervise them, you do not reward good performance nor
react to low performance. An 82 percent failure rate would not
be a surprise.
You can accelerate change by rewarding what works and
penalizing what doesn't. Encourage failing schools to be
closed, and turn them around. In Philadelphia, under the
leadership of our new superintendent, Arlene Ackerman, we are
going to close 35 schools over the next 4 years. Turnaround
managers, such as Mastery, as well as internal district
turnaround teams, will be contracted to manage these schools.
Managers who do not produce results will lose their contracts:
Simple.
Support bold initiatives like this. By creating an
accountability system, we can leverage what works and create
pressure for real systemic change. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Gordon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Scott Gordon, CEO, Mastery Charter Schools
Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank
you for inviting me to be here.
My name is Scott Gordon and I am the CEO of Mastery Charter Schools
in Philadelphia. Mastery operates four schools serving 1,700 students
in grades 7-12. Three of those schools were turnarounds of failing
School District middle schools. The turnarounds were initiated at the
request of the School District of Philadelphia, under then
Superintendent Paul Vallas. The structure of the turnarounds required
that Mastery continue operating as a neighborhood schools and enroll
all of the students currently attending. So, in many ways these
turnaround schools are perfect controlled experiments on school reform.
The same students, the same neighborhood, the same building--the only
variable that changed was the adults.
So why is this important?
To answer that question, I want to put the problem we face in
secondary education in context. Let's take a moment and examine how
well the current system is achieving its goals in my hometown,
Philadelphia.
Every year approximately 20,000 first graders enter Philadelphia's
public schools. In a globally competitive, knowledge-based economy,
most of us would agree that 12 years later, we need the overwhelming
majority of those 20,000 first graders to enroll and graduate from
college. So, let's look at how well we are doing * * * With a drop-out
rate of 47%, 9,400 of those students will never even make it to their
high school graduation. Of the 10,600 students who remain, two-thirds
will not be able to score proficient on the Pennsylvania State
Assessment. This assessment is a basic competency test--the minimum a
high school student should know--and is statistically correlated with
college success. Essentially that means that two-thirds of students who
receive a high school diploma will not have the skills required for
post-secondary education. That leaves just 3,500 students with a shot
at graduating college. 3,500 students of the 20,000 who began--a
failure rate of 82%. And unfortunately the national college persistence
rate for African Americans is just 40%--so it is likely that less than
half of the students who start as college freshman will actually
graduate with a degree. 20,000 students go into the system, less than
3,000 students come out of the system ready to compete in today's
economy. An absolute catastrophe. Year after year. Our house is on
fire. As educators, our job is to prepare young people as citizens who
are productive participants in our economy. We are not even close. We
are failing generations of youth in urban schools across our nation.
We do not need to tolerate this failure. In Mastery's three
turnaround schools, average scores on the Pa. assessment test increased
35 percentage points per grade in every subject. Violence decreased
85%. Student turnover dropped by a third. And these schools were
Philadelphia's most difficult. Let me give you a snapshot. Shoemaker
Middle School, which we turned around in 2006, was the city's 2nd most
violent school. There were 2 police officers for 300 13, 14 and 15 year
olds. Yet those officers were not able to prevent 8 adults from being
assaulted. At the Pickett middle school, which we turned-around in
2007, just 7% of 7th graders scored proficient in reading and 9% in
math. Yet, at Shoemaker it took Mastery just two years to close the
achievement gap between our low-income, minority students and their
state-wide peers--in fact our students are now closing the gap with the
highest performing suburban schools. The school recently won the EPIC
award for value added academic achievement. At the Pickett school,
Mastery increased test scores over 40 percentage points in just one
year.
It Can Be Done. I am here today to represent a proof point that we
can turnaround failing urban schools. It can be done and it can be done
quickly at scale. There are no excuses.
How?
First, we need urgency and accountability. Set the bar high.
College readiness must be the bar for nearly all of our youth. Without
high standards in NCLB, there will be no pressure to change our
schools. You will hear critics say that standardized tests do not
appropriately assess a child's learning or preparedness for college--
that they result in ``teaching to the test''. Why don't we hear the
same outcry against AP tests? Or the SAT or ACT? As knowledge jobs move
across the globe to the places that have a highly educated workforce, I
don't imagine our peers in Beijing, or Soul, or Warsaw, suggesting that
the test is the problem. According to the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development our nation has slipped to 18th in reading
and 28th in Math in international rankings of education. It is not
because we are teaching to the test. It is because our students can't
pass the test. We need more accountability, not less. Do not water-down
NCLB requirements.
Second, we need to ruthlessly focus on outcomes. Grow what works
and eliminate what doesn't. We exercise this type of common sense in
every area of our society--except education. In education, there is an
ongoing conversation about process and means. At the high school level,
conferences are filled with lively debates about making the curriculum
more ``relevant'' and ``project-based'' and about creating ``learning
communities''. Endless debates continue over the growth of charter
schools. Don't listen. Instead, as policy makers I urge you to focus on
outcomes and accountability and not the means. The house is on fire.
Reward whoever produces results now.
In education, we have the notion that schools operate differently
than the rest of the economy--schools are not like traditional
businesses because ``kids are not widgets''. They are not. But adults
are still adults--and the common sense management practices that drive
successful organizations--be they hospitals, software companies, or
schools--are the same. High performing organizations set clear goals.
They hold management and employees accountable for results. They
measure progress continually and adjust to meet changing conditions.
They hire the highest quality talent, and promote the best. They
supervise staff, monitoring and supporting their performance. They
promote the high performers and exit non-performers--basic functions of
management. In contrast, at most public schools, pay is based on
seniority or educational degrees that have no proven relationship with
student outcomes. Folks are promoted based on their certifications, not
performance. Teachers are observed for 45 minutes twice a year. As a
field we don't attract the best and brightest. We don't fire the worst.
We quibble over whether we should extend teachers' contract to an 8
hour day. We have an 82% failure rate--I can assure you it will take an
8 hour day to put out this fire. Imagine running an organization where
you do not set goals for your staff, where you do not supervise them,
and you do not reward good performance or respond to low performance.
By setting the bar high and by demanding accountability, you will
force education to change. You can accelerate that change by rewarding
what works and penalizing what doesn't. Encourage failing schools to be
closed and turn them around. In Philadelphia, under the leadership of
our new Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, we are going to close up to 35
schools over the next four years. Turnaround managers such as Mastery,
as well as internal District turnaround teams, will be contracted to
turnaround these schools. Those who succeed will have the opportunity
to manage additional schools. Those who don't produce results, will
lose their contract. Simple. Support bold initiatives like this. By
creating an accountability system, we can leverage what works to put
pressure for systems change.
Thank you for your time.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Dr. Phillips?
STATEMENT OF VICKI L. PHILLIPS, ED.D., DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION
FOR THE U.S. PROGRAM, BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION
Ms. Phillips. Chairman Miller, members of the committee,
thank you so much for continuing to confront some of the most
important challenges of American education and for the
privilege of being here.
The crisis in American high schools is brutally simple: Too
few students are making strong academic gains during the high
school years. For too many students, academic performance
remains flat or even declines in high school. And this is
especially true among the populations that are of special
concern to our Foundation. The result is that too few of our
high school graduates are prepared for the rigors of college or
the demands of competitive jobs.
You heard several people in this hearing refer to the NAEP
scores that have remained essentially flat for 17-year-olds
since the 1970s. Darv Winnick, chairman of NAGBE, the board
that overseas NAEP, said it best: ``If you asked me what is the
single most perplexing problem since I have gotten involved in
education, that is it. The data is not only flat, but it is
flat while kids are taking more math.'' We need to face the
fact that too many students are frozen in high school; they are
not graduating ready for the demands of college, work, and
life.
At the Foundation, we have learned about this crisis from
research, as well as from our own work over the last 9 years.
Our early investments focused on small schools, and we found
some success in improving graduation rates. But much more
rarely did we see the significant gains in academic performance
or increases in college readiness.
Our next-generation strategy to radically increase the
number of low-income students who graduate from high school
college- and work-ready has three parts based on the evidence
we have gathered: the primacy of effective teaching; the
importance of a common core of standards that are fewer,
clearer, and higher; and the pursuit of innovative approaches
that would lead to breakthrough performance. I want to comment
briefly on all three.
Effective teachers play the single most important role in
accelerating student achievement. No other factor within our
power to change has this great an impact. We can't fix this
just by recruiting teachers with stronger credentials. After
numerous studies, we can say with confidence that master's
degrees in education, high SAT scores, high scores on
certification exams, and other credentials do not predict
effective teaching very well.
The Foundation has made a centerpiece of its strategy
increasing the number of effective teachers teaching low-income
children. We are investing heavily in developing measures to
determine reliably which teachers are effective and which are
not. We are also researching the most promising ways of making
the teachers that we have be their most effective in the
classroom.
As you know from your recent hearing, there is a lot of
discussion about national standards these days. And those
national or core standards are key to our strategy, as well.
But the real question is not whether standards will be local or
State or national, but whether they will be focused enough on
what the evidence shows is most central to student success.
Everybody knows that standards is not enough; there is also a
need for assessment--not just assessment for accountability,
which is important, but also assessment for teaching and
learning, which is what teachers need in the classroom but
which has not had nearly the same level of investment.
Beyond standards and assessment, we will support the
building of a spine of excellent materials to support excellent
classroom work, built on technology that allows easy access and
sharing of students and teachers alike.
The hard part of the standards process will be making the
radical leap from the vast numbers of standards States have
today to a focused core that can really accelerate performance.
Everyone can posture about whose standards are higher. What
takes real courage is making the tough choices about the fewer
things that demand students' and teachers' attention and that
lead students to be college-ready.
The other benefit of common standards and the last piece in
our strategy is that they will foster innovation across
classrooms, districts, and States. With a common focused core,
we can broadly share innovations that most accelerate
performance in specific areas and skill sets.
The evidence is clear that the combination of high schools
as currently constructed and the current tools in our hands are
simply not sufficient. We cannot make a leap in performance
without a leap in innovation that much more directly and
productively engages students and accelerates their learning.
As a Foundation, we will continue to fund school models
that break the mold and achieve results and next-generation
models that support teaching and learning that really
accelerate, dramatically, performance.
For all three elements of this strategy, we will need data
systems and assessments that tell us clearly which students and
which classrooms are making gains. Today, despite hundreds of
millions invested in data systems and assessments, we do not
have the crucial information we need: which teachers are
already effective, which are not, which teachers are becoming
more effective, which teachers are teaching which kids. This
progress will only be possible if we have common data standards
to drive sharing of information and reduce costs.
I want to end with just three quick messages that I am most
concerned to convey to this committee. We must shift our focus
from credentials to demonstrated effectiveness in the
classroom, from teacher quality as measured on paper to teacher
effectiveness as measured by student outcomes.
The common core of standards must be based on evidence as
to what is truly and demonstrably necessary for college work,
not political or ideological turf battles. The standards must
be focused enough to make mastery possible for more kids and to
support teachers in developing their craft in teaching their
subject.
Finally, support the innovations that can demonstrate
performance leaps. Be even bolder in models that break the
traditions of seat time and credits. And keep your eye, as Mr.
Gordon said, keep all of our eyes, on the academic growth of
students.
When I was the State Secretary of Education in
Pennsylvania, we chose to call our high school reform agenda
Project 720. Given that there are roughly 180 days in a school
year and 4 years of high school, you have only 720 days to
prepare students for the demands of college work and life.
Those days and years are far too short and far too precious to
continue to waste.
Thank you for giving this issue your attention.
[The statement of Ms. Phillips follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Vicki Phillips, Director, Education, Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon, Members of the Committee,
thank you for allowing me to speak to you today about the crisis in
American High Schools. It is a privilege to join this group of friends
and partners you have convened to inform your work on this issue.
Educators across the country are grateful to this Committee and its
members for their past work, and present commitment, to addressing the
most important challenges of American education.
The Problem
The crisis in American high schools is brutally simple: too few
students are making strong academic gains during the high school years.
Indeed, for too many students, academic performance remains flat or
even declines in high school--and this is especially the case among
those student populations which are of special concern to our
Foundation. The result is that too few of our high school graduates are
prepared for the rigors of college or the demands of competitive jobs.
The flatline of high school performance is well-documented by NAEP
as well as other indicators (see attached Figures 1 and 2 for the NAEP
trends in reading and math). Flat scores in math and reading for older
students have persisted since the early 1970s--despite the fact that in
math for example, the proportion of 13-year-olds taking algebra has
more than doubled from 1986 to 2008. Darv Winnick, Chairman of NAGBE,
which over sees NAEP said it best:
If you ask me, What is the single most perplexing problem since
I've gotten involved in education, that's it * * * The data is not only
flat, but it is flat while the kids are taking more math.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Older Students Less Successful on Math NAEP. Education Week,
April 28, 2009
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We need to face the fact that too many students in high school are
frozen; they are not making nearly the academic progress they need to
make to be ready for the demands of college, work and life.
What We Have Learned and Implications for Strategy
We have learned about this crisis from the research as well as from
our own work over the past 9 years. Our early investments focused on
small schools--and we found some success in improving graduation rates,
but much more rarely did we see significant gains in academic
performance or increased college readiness.
We realized that students needed to make a breakthrough in
performance. The structural and design changes in schools we focused on
in our earlier work simply did not yield those gains. So we reviewed
the evidence in an effort to determine what would contribute most. We
took a close look at the schools that were most successful. We took at
critical eye to our track record. But we also looked outside of our
work to what worked elsewhere as well as what the research says.
Our strategy to radically increase the number of low income
students who graduate college and work ready--who actually learn in
high school--has three parts based on the evidence we gathered: the
primacy of effective teaching; the importance of a common core of
standards that are fewer, clearer and higher; and the pursuit of
innovative approaches that would lead to breakthrough performance.
I will address each of these components briefly.
1. Teacher effectiveness and empowerment
A. Effective teachers play the single most important role in
accelerating student achievement. The data here are overwhelming. A
body of research spanning 30 years has demonstrated that the
differences between top quartile and bottom quartile teachers account
for vast differences in student growth, as much as a quarter of the
achievement gap per year.
No other factor within our power has this great an impact on
student achievement. Different teachers within schools make twice the
difference that different schools make. An effective teacher is far
more important than smaller class size; even in the earliest grades (k-
2), where the effects of class size are strongest, it is five times
more important to have an effective teacher than a small classroom. Our
considered position is that we cannot narrow the gap or substantially
raise performance for all without dramatically increasing the
percentage of effective teachers.
B. We can't fix this just by recruiting teachers with stronger
credentials. After numerous studies, we can say with confidence that
master's degrees in education in no way predict which teachers will be
effective in the classroom. Likewise high SAT scores, high scores on
certification exams, and other impressive credentials fail to predict
effective teaching very well. Because we don't know how to predict who
will be effective in the classroom and who won't, credentials are a
very blunt instrument and will not take us very far.
As a result of those findings, the Foundation has made a
centerpiece of its strategy increasing the number of effective teachers
teaching low income children. We are investing heavily in developing
measures to determine reliably which teachers are effective and which
are not.
We are also researching the most promising ways of making the
teachers we have more effective. It is essential that we develop and
distribute proven mechanisms to improve the effectiveness of teachers.
Through several in-depth district partnerships, we will work on
realigning policies and practices to better measure and increase the
numbers of effective teachers. We will announce those partnerships
later this year.
2. Supporting standards that are fewer, clearer and higher, and
meaningfully assessing them
As you know from your recent hearing, there is a lot of discussion
about national standards these days. But the real question is not
whether standards will be local or state or national, but whether they
will be focused enough on what the evidence shows is most essential.
Once again the evidence is clear. In both math and English language
arts, the standards process is asking students and teachers to
undertake too much that is not central to success. In mathematics, it
has long been known that high performing countries focus their
curriculum far more than we do in this country.
My own commitment to standards that are fewer, clearer, and higher
comes partially from my work closer to home. When I was Secretary of
Education in Pennsylvania, we drove the development of anchor standards
which for the first time gave teachers and students a much more vivid
view of the core that really mattered for achievement.
In English Language Arts, students are overwhelmed with complex
requirements, when what they really must do in order to be successful
is to read complex texts of all types--in history and science, not just
English. Without a strong reading core, students cannot gain knowledge
through reading and must be spoon-fed by simplistic presentations that
don't mirror the demands of college and good jobs.
Likewise, without mastery of essentials in mathematics they are
limited throughout their work in math, science, and even social
science, and they get passed along to the next math course without a
secure footing in the last one. We at the foundation are excited that
state governors and chief state school officers have embarked on a
process to define a core set of common standards in Reading, Writing
and Math.
Now we all have to ensure that the core that emerges is truly based
on what students need to be college and work ready. The core needs to
be demanding enough so that students have the mastery to apply these
core skills to diverse courses and tasks. For the past two years, we
have funded the collection of specific evidence as to what are the core
skills most essential for college and work success, and we aim to
ensure that evidence plays a strong role in producing standards that
are truly fewer, clearer, and higher.
Everybody knows that standards are not enough. There is also a need
for assessment--not just assessment for accountability, which is
important, but also assessment for teaching and learning, which is what
teachers need in the classroom but which has not had nearly the same
level of investment.
Beyond standards and assessment, we will support the building of a
spine of excellent materials to support excellent classroom work, built
on technology that allows easy access and sharing by students and
teachers alike
The hard part of this standards process will be making the radical
leap from the vast numbers of standards states have today to a focused
core that can accelerate performance. Dedicating ourselves to the fewer
standards of what students really need for college and career readiness
will require courage. Everyone can posture about whose standards are
higher--what takes courage is making the tough choices about the fewer
things that demand students and teachers attention.
3. Support for breakthrough innovations and school models that
dramatically accelerate performance
The other benefit of common standards--provided they are focused--
is that they will foster innovation across classrooms, districts and
states for the first time. With a common focused core we will share
innovations that most accelerate performance in specific skills and
skill areas.
The evidence is clear that the combination of high schools as
currently constructed and the tools in our hands will not be sufficient
to meet our goal of 80% of low income students ready for college by
2025. We cannot make a leap in performance without a leap in innovation
that much more directly and productively engages students in
accelerating their learning.
We are going to continue to fund school models that break the mold
and achieve results, and next generation models of teaching and
learning. The measure for the success of any innovation will be true
acceleration of performance--as measured by student achievement.
Over the next few years, we will be particularly focused on driving
innovations that accelerate academic performance in 9th grade. 9th
grade, a transitional year, is particularly critical--students'
achievement in 9th grade is remarkably predictive of their later
performance. If students fall behind in this crucial year, it is very
hard to catch up. The good news is that if students in 9th grade make
sufficient academic progress they are often on their way to success. I
saw how important 9th grade performance was to my students in Portland,
and from my seat at the foundation can see it is a national issue. Of
course, we need kids to accelerate earlier, especially in middle school
as well.
Data systems and assessments that make progress in high school
classrooms visible are essential
For all three elements of the strategy, we are going to need data
systems and assessments that tell us clearly which students in which
classrooms are making gains. Today, despite hundreds of millions
invested in data systems and assessments, we do not have the most
crucial information we need: which teachers already are effective,
which teachers are not, and which teachers are becoming more effective.
Among many other things, this requires linkages between students and
teachers, which today are often incomplete; we do not know which
teachers are teaching which kids. Recently there has been increased
focus on the importance of data and measurement systems at the federal,
state and local levels. The Foundation is preparing a data strategy to
improve demand and use, and advance an architecture of common data
standards that would enable states and districts to implement these
systems in a cost-effective way. We would be happy to brief the
Committee on this strategy as it evolves.
Conclusions and Recommendations
That is an outline of the Foundation's strategy to accelerate
academic performance in high school. I would like to end with the
messages I am most concerned to convey in these remarks to your
Committee:
1. We must shift our focus from credentials to demonstrated
effectiveness in the classroom: from teacher quality as measured on
paper, to teacher effectiveness as measured by student outcomes.
2. The common core of standards must be based on evidence as to
what is truly and demonstrably necessary for college and work, not
political or ideological turf battles. The standards must be focused
enough to make mastery possible for more kids and to support teachers
in developing their craft in teaching their subject.
3. Support the innovations that can demonstrate performance leaps.
Be even bolder in models that break the traditions of seat time and
credits and keep our eye on academic growth of students.
We cannot succeed if high school is a stopping point. But we all
know it doesn't have to be. When Socrates taught, through his famous
conversations, he preferred to talk to young people, most of them
adolescents who would have been in high school. He knew that if you
spark a young person's mind during the critical period in which they
are becoming an adult, you can change forever how they will develop as
students and citizens.
When I was in the State Secretary of Education in PA, we chose to
call our high school reform agenda Project 720. Given there are roughly
180 instructional days in each school year, in four years of high
school you have only 720 days to prepare students for the demands of
college, work, and life. Those days and years are far too short and far
too precious to waste.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Governor Wise?
STATEMENT OF BOB WISE, PRESIDENT, ALLIANCE FOR EXCELLENT
EDUCATION; FORMER GOVERNOR OF WEST VIRGINIA
Mr. Wise. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of the
committee. It is good to be back in front of you.
You have called this hearing at just a critical time, and
it is titled exactly right, ``America's Competitiveness Through
High School Reform.''
As I was coming up here today, I was listening to the
radio. The market was dropping somewhat. By 5 o'clock, who
knows whether it will be down, it will be down a few points.
But before we go home from this hearing today, the human
capital market will have dropped 7,000; 7,000 kids will have
dropped out of high school before we go home. And they will
drop out each and every school day of the year. That is about
1.2 million, is the human capital cost.
And so, my colleagues at this panel have spoken eloquently
and well and have made the case--and taken a lot of my
testimony--about the moral impact of dropouts. So I am going to
talk some about the economic impact, as well. Because 60
percent of current jobs today--today--require education beyond
high school, postsecondary education. The nation, our Nation's
economic competitiveness is inextricably linked to how well we
educate our citizens. And in an information-age economy,
education is the main currency.
Now, this committee has been the leader--and I want to
thank you--you have been the leader in putting high school and
high school issues and dropouts on the national agenda,
starting several years ago.
The most recent scream for help for high schools came last
week with the release of the National Assessment of Educational
Progress, or NAEP, long-term trends. Despite education
performance gains by 9- and 13-year-olds, essentially no
progress has been made since 1971 by 17-year-olds. If this flat
trend line were an electrocardiogram, the emergency room doctor
would be applying the defibrillator. And perhaps that is what
the education stimulus package is about.
The state of our high schools, as has been noted already,
is reflected in international comparisons. Our 15-year-olds are
25th in math, 21st in science, 15th in reading literacy, 24th
in problem solving, supposedly our strong suit. And that is
compared with the 30 other industrialized nations that we
compete with.
The reason we have declined in these comparisons isn't
because we are educating worse, it is because other nations are
now educating much better. And make no mistake, how we fare in
international education comparisons will soon correspond
directly to how we fare in international economic comparisons.
Now, there are two groups affected when someone drops out:
first, the individual, himself or herself; and then the rest of
society. We know that, according to the Department of Labor, in
the coming years, 90 percent of new high-growth, high-wage jobs
require some postsecondary education. Sixty percent of current
jobs, as I mentioned, already do.
Before I left office in 2004, I visited many of the
industries, traditional industries in West Virginia that I had
worked with since I graduated from high school in 1966. I
didn't need a high school diploma to get a good-paying job in
coal mines, the steel mills, or the chemical plants. Today I
couldn't get in any one of those without postsecondary
education.
So, currently, this Congress is grappling with massive
economic problems. And, quite frankly, they seem intractable,
the enormous costs. But I have to point out, the enormous costs
of restructuring the financial institutions, the banks, the
auto industry, even AIG, total all of those up, it is still
less than the combined cost of 5 years of dropouts in this
country.
And as my colleagues here on this panel have pointed out,
and as many members on this committee have pointed out, in this
case, this economic problem of dropouts, we know what to do. It
is whether or not we have the will.
The first thing I would suggest is reauthorizing ESEA. High
schools aren't in the ESEA. And until ESEA is reauthorized,
they won't be. Only 10 percent of Title I dollars end up in
high schools. The carrot and the stick is gone. Secretary
Spellings pointed out in a recent op-ed high schools really
weren't a part of the current NCLB.
We also believe we have to get accountability right. That
means the State-led efforts to develop common standards so now
there is an overarching set of standards that the States have
agreed to, internationally benchmarked. Now everybody is on
equal footing as to what it is our kids are supposed to learn.
And, incidentally, and Congressman Scott has introduced this
and Congressman Castle has spoken to it, the need for true
graduation rate accountability, so that all kids' graduation is
measured the same way.
To address the needs of middle and high schools, we believe
that, as I say, in the ESEA reauthorization, high common
standards, the Every Student Counts Act. To drive high school
improvement, supporting Congressman Hinojosa's Graduation
Promise Act. Targeting the lowest-performing high schools, Bob
Balfanz's dropout factories, where there are plans at the
school and district level to turn them around.
The Alliance also supports the Secondary School Innovation
Fund introduced by Congressman Loebsack in part of the existing
stimulus package. NAEP scores show literacy is so critical. And
so, that is so important that Congressman Yarmuth's, Polis's,
and Platts's bill to bring comprehensive literacy to secondary
students, and, of course, middle schools in Congressman
Grijalva's bill. And dare I forget, and I can't forget,
Congressman Holt's bill on metrics. We have to have good data
so we know what we are doing.
And so, all of this is to say we know and you know what to
do. This committee has the opportunity to truly make a
difference in what has been as intractable or even moreso a
problem than many of the others that you face. But this year,
this time, we could actually do something. And this time,
instead of losing another decade, as the NAEP trend lines say,
we could make sure that no generation is left behind.
Thank you very much.
[The statement of Mr. Wise follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Bob Wise, President, Alliance for Excellent
Education, Former Governor, West Virginia
Thank you Chairman Miller and Ranking Member McKeon and the other
members of the full committee for asking me to testify today. As you
all well know, our nation is facing a severe economic crisis--one our
nation has not seen for upwards of seventy-five years. As a former
member and governor, I understand how heavily the state of our nation's
economy weighs on each of you. I applaud you for holding this hearing
and believe you have the title exactly right--America's Competitiveness
through High School Reform. With 60 percent of current jobs requiring
education beyond high school, the nation's economic competitiveness is
inextricably linked to how we educate our citizens. In an Information
Age economy, education is the main currency.
Given the state of high schools in the United States, it is
imperative that we focus attention on the six million students most at
risk of dropping out if we want long-term economic stability.
Addressing the crisis in high schools is a civil rights and economic
imperative.
For the last several years, I have traveled the country trying to
inform people about the urgent need for secondary school reform. From
the testimony that others have given here today, I think it should be
clear why the need is urgent and why I have been traveling the country
sounding the alarm. Equally important is knowing that we know what to
do--we just have to do it.
High School Crisis
The most recent scream for help for high schools came last week
with the release of the federal National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) long-term trends. Despite education performance gains
by nine- and thirteen-year-olds, essentially no progress has been made
since 1971 by seventeen-year-olds. If this flat trend line were an EKG,
the emergency room doctor would be applying the defibrillator. The
nation's high schools are not meeting the needs of individuals or our
economy. One third of all students do not graduate from high school.
Only half of those that do, graduate prepared for college and the
workforce. The numbers are far more staggering for the poor and
minority students. Only roughly half of minority students graduate
while high school students from the wealthiest families are about seven
times as likely to complete high school as their classmates from the
poorest. By 2050, half of our population will be comprised of minority
populations. From a civil rights or economic perspective, we can't
afford to ignore the education needs of the fastest-growing populations
in this country.
Part of the challenge we face is that our high schools were set up
for a different time. When I graduated from high school, you could earn
a decent wage to support your family working in the mines in West
Virginia. When I was governor, I visited one of the mines and found
almost all miners had at least an associate's degree. When asked why,
the miner owner replied, ``I am not letting anyone work a mile
underground with a half million dollar piece of technical equipment who
doesn't at least have a postsecondary education.''
The state of our high schools is reflected in international
comparisons. Currently the United States ranks twenty-fifth in math,
twenty-first in science, fifteenth in reading literacy, and twenty-
fourth in problem solving when compared with thirty other
industrialized nations on the Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA) assessment. For high school graduation rates, the
United State ranks eighteenth. Sadly, the United States' rank has been
declining in these comparisons, not rising. The reason we have declined
in these comparisons isn't because our education system has gotten
worse; it's because we haven't kept up with the quality of education
being provided in other nations. How we fare in international education
comparisons will soon correspond directly to how we fare in
international economic comparisons. President Obama recently laid out
the goal of returning the United States to number one in the world in
college graduation rates. Given the inextricable links between
preparedness and college success, that goal will not be reached without
significant changes to our high school system.
Economic Costs
There are two main ways that the economic impact of our dropout
problem presents itself: as a cost to individuals and as a cost to
society.
What are the individual costs of this problem?
Individuals who fail to earn a high school diploma are at a great
disadvantage when it comes to finding good-paying jobs. The U.S.
Department of Labor estimates that in the coming years 90 percent of
new high-growth, high-wage jobs will require some postsecondary
education. Individuals without a high school diploma will earn
significantly less than their better educated peers if they do find a
job: high school dropouts earn, on average, $10,000 a year less than
high school graduates. Over a lifetime, the difference between the
earnings of a high school dropout and a college graduate is more than
$1 million.
What are the societal costs of this problem?
If the students in the Class of 2008 who dropped out had stayed in
school and graduated, the nation would have benefited from an
additional $319 billion in wages, taxes, and productivity over the
course of their lifetimes. Individuals with less education are
generally less healthy and die sooner than those with more education.
Individuals with less education are also more likely to become parents
at very young ages, become incarcerated, or need social welfare
assistance. All of these consequences are both tragic for individuals
and families, and costly for governments and taxpayers.
According to a report recently released by the McKinsey
Corporation, if black and Latino student performance had caught up with
those of white students by 1998, GDP in 2008 would have been between
$310 billion and $525 billion higher, which is roughly 2 to 4 percent
of GDP.
Currently this Congress is grappling with massive economic
problems. But the enormous cost of bailing out the banks, financial
institutions, the auto industry, and AIG is still less than the
economic cost of just five years of dropouts in the United States. Yet
we also know that just cutting the number of dropouts in half would
begin yielding $45 billion annually in new federal taxes revenues or
cost savings. That is why I believe that the ultimate economic stimulus
package is a diploma.
Current Federal Policy
So how did we get here? As I stated earlier, the education provided
in high schools has not kept pace with the changing needs in the United
States. That is in part due to the fact that federal policy has failed
to address the needs of high schools.
The main federal education law, Elementary and Secondary Education
Act (ESEA), now known as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, was
mainly written with elementary schools in mind. Title I, which is the
primary federal instrument for supplementing local education funding,
is the policy lever for the improvement and accountability provisions
of the law. However, very little Title I funding reaches high school
students--only 10 percent of students benefitting from Title I funds
are high school students despite high schools enrolling 31 percent of
all students and 23 percent of all low-income students.
What's more, adequate yearly progress (AYP) has been an ineffective
tool to drive accountability and improvement at the high school level.
Unlike elementary and middle school students, high school students are
tested only once in four years. Most often that testing occurs in the
tenth grade and does not measure what students need to graduate;
instead the testing measures ninth grade proficiency.
Until recently, graduation rates--despite being a clear measure of
the success of a high school--were not appropriately or adequately used
as part of AYP. When NCLB was being written, there was an awareness and
fear that the testing accountability provisions would create a perverse
incentive to ``push out'' low test scorers absent accountability for
graduating students. NCLB included language that required graduation
rates to be an accountability measure in AYP. Given the weak and
meaningless implementation of those provisions, the ``push out'' has
indeed occurred and was most recently documented in a study from Rice
University and University of Texas, Austin. In fact, an analysis done
by Dr. Robert Balfanz found that 40 percent of dropout factories make
AYP, therefore preventing some of the nation's lowest-performing
schools from entering the accountability and improvement system.
Why was implementation weak? Graduation rates were inaccurately and
inconsistently calculated across states. The Department of Education
approved numerous, inaccurate calculations that underestimated the
problem. Independent analysis has shown that the difference between
state and independent analysis was as little as eleven points and as
much as thirty points. There was no meaningful requirement to increase
graduation rates over time. States were allowed to propose very weak
graduation goals--as low as 50 percent and only three states proposed
graduating 100 percent of its students. Most states were approved to
make as little as 0.1% growth annually to make AYP. There was no
requirement to disaggregate graduation rates by student subgroups for
determining AYP. Thankfully, the Department of Education recognized the
need to make a correction on this issue and released new regulations
strengthening graduation rate accountability last year. I will further
discuss this issue later, but I want to thank Congressmen Scott and
Hinojosa for their leadership on this issue and Chairman Miller and
Ranking Member McKeon for their leadership as well.
NCLB's prescriptions for schools that fail to make AYP for multiple
consecutive years are not effective at the high school level. Seventy-
five percent of school districts only have one high school rendering
school choice meaningless. And less than 5 percent of high school
students participate in supplemental education services.
In fact, even the laws original drafters feel that the high school
provisions need to be strengthened. Earlier this week, in response to
the release of the latest NAEP results, Margaret Spellings said, ``It's
not an accident that we're seeing the most improvement where NCLB has
focused most vigorously. The law focuses on math and reading in grades
three through eight--it's not about high schools.''
Lastly, there is little federal investment in our nation's high
schools and we are getting what we pay for. As of now, the federal
funding in education targets the bookends of the education system--
concentrating on grades pre-K--6 and higher education. The ``missing
middle'' is our nation's secondary schools, which receive little to no
funding from the federal level. Funding for grades pre-K--6 totals
nearly $18 billion. Funding for postsecondary education totals nearly
$22 billion and that is without taking into account student loans or
other tax incentives. However, funding for grades 7--12 is only about
$6 billion.
Federal Policy Solutions
Luckily, we know what to do and we look forward to working with the
committee to ensure a reauthorization of ESEA includes measures to
drive high school reform.
Dr. Balfanz spoke very eloquently about which schools are low-
performing and who attends them. One of the results of his research--
that over half of the country's dropouts come from less than 2,000 high
schools (or about 10 percent of all high schools)--strikes a chord for
me, since it shows that the dropout problem is not unsolvable. If we
could improve only those 2,000 lowest-performing schools, we would be
making significant progress towards the goal of every child a graduate.
I am going to speak specifically about each of the policy solutions
to this crisis, but I want to thank the many members of this committee
who are leading the federal effort to reform our nation's high schools.
To drive high school reform, we must first get accountability right
so that we know where the problems are and how to drive resources and
supports to those schools. Under current law, the federal approach is
to leave it up to the states to determine academic standards and, up
until recently, to determine graduation rate calculations and
accountability measures. Then, once a school has entered the school
improvement system, federal policy drives a very prescriptive, ``one-
size-fits all'', or timeline-based approach to improvement.
Common Standards
The Alliance for Excellent Education believes this approach is
backwards and that we need to flip the federal role. We believe that
high, common standards that are tied to college- and work-readiness and
are internationally benchmarked, and consistent graduation rate
calculations with meaningful growth targets and goals should drive
accountability. This system of accountability should be followed by a
system of differentiated school improvement that targets reforms to the
needs of the schools, not a timeline of how long a school has been
``failing.''
I want to applaud the committee for holding a hearing a few weeks
ago on establishing common standards. We exist in a global economy.
Fifty different state standards does not cut it anymore. Students are
no longer just competing within their hometown or state for jobs.
Students from Montgomery, Alabama are competing with students in
Mumbai, India for jobs and we need education standards that reflect
that reality.
Graduation Rates
As I stated earlier, also critical to accountability are graduation
rates. In the last Congress, Representative Scott, with support from
Congressman Hinojosa and many members of the Congressional Black Caucus
and Congressional Hispanic Caucus introduced the Every Student Counts
Act (ESCA). The principals of this act were reflected in the Department
of Education's regulation finalized last year. These principals include
establishing a common calculation, requiring meaningful graduation
goals and growth targets, utilizing the rate as an equal part of AYP,
and maintaining a strong four-year graduation rate while recognizing
some students take longer to graduate. In March, Congressman Scott
reintroduced ESCA to codify the regulation and provide further detail
where the regulation provides state flexibility on areas such as
specific goals and growth targets. The Alliance believes that the
regulation must be maintained and strengthened through inclusion of
ESCA into a reauthorization of ESEA.
School Improvement
To create a system of high school improvement that would solve many
of the issues that high schools currently face under NCLB's Title I
provisions, Congressman Hinojosa introduced the Graduation Promise Act
(GPA). GPA creates a system of differentiated school improvement that
targets reform efforts to student and school needs not to a timeline
approach as is under current law. States and districts would be
provided flexibility to create systems of improvement and specific
school improvement plans based on rich data. Such systems would focus
on building the capacity of secondary schools to reduce dropout rates
and increase student achievement, and would target resources to help
the lowest-performing high schools implement evidence-based
interventions. Importantly, GPA is authorized at $2.5 billion to
address the current federal funding deficits faced by high schools.
Innovation
In order to continue to improve education in the long term, we need
federal investment in discovering what innovative programs and models
being introduced at the local and state levels can turn low-performing
high schools into high-performing high schools. The Secondary School
Innovation Fund Act seeks to do just that by capitalizing on a unique
American strength: the locally designed and driven innovation that has
made our economy the largest in the world. The Secondary School
Innovation Fund was reintroduced last week by Congressman Loebsack.
Just as small businesses need venture capital to reach their full
potential, local educational innovators need resources to invest in
innovative practice, determine its impact, and replicate best
practices. This legislation would support research and development of
successful school models and program that are both replicable and
systemic. Authorized at $500 million, the Secondary School Innovation
Fund Act would give educational innovators--who are doing important
work across the country--the opportunity to evaluate and expand upon
their strategies for increasing student achievement and graduation
rates.
Literacy
As seen in the recent NAEP scores, students in our nation's middle
and high schools are not achieving adequate literacy rates. Yet we know
how critical literacy is to high school turnaround and academic success
at the high school level and beyond. To support literacy in all grades,
(including the upper grades), help students who are below grade level
in reading and are, therefore, significantly more likely to drop out of
high school, and to teach students the higher-order literacy skills
that they need to read complex texts, Congressmen Yarmouth, Polis, and
Platts will be leading the effort on a comprehensive literacy bill to
address the reading and writing needs of students from before
Kindergarten through high school.
Middle Schools
While this hearing is focused specifically on high schools, it is
critical to discuss the needs of middle school students. We know that
the high school students who are unprepared to succeed in high school
come from somewhere. To ensure that students are no longer entering
ninth grade off track for graduation, Congressman Grijalva, in the last
Congress, introduced the Success in the Middle Act. The Success in the
Middle Act would authorize $1 billion a year in grants to states to
improve low-performing middle grades. The bill would fund critical
activities such as developing early-warning data systems to identify
students who are most at risk of dropping out and intervene to help
them succeed. Interventions could include extended learning time and
personal graduation plans that enable all students to stay on the path
to graduation.
Data Systems
Finally but possibly most importantly, we believe that the federal
government must invest in quality data systems and use of data. In the
last Congress, Congressman Holt introduced the METRICS Act, which are
grants to states for the development and implementation of statewide
longitudinal data systems. The stimulus bill also contained substantial
funding and requirements around development and use of data systems and
we applaud the efforts of the Secretary of Education to advance policy
based on quality data.
Schools of Excellence
Luckily, we know that we can succeed in providing a high quality,
college- and work-ready education for the exact students we are trying
to serve. There are examples of schools doing just that all over the
country. Schools such as:
Animo Inglewood Charter High School in Inglewood, California. Animo
primarily serves low-income, minority students and over 60 percent of
the graduating students attend a four-year college. They provide
intensive summer programs for incoming freshmen to help them catch up
academically. Teachers make home visits to build relationships with
students' families.
The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technological Center in
Providence, Rhode Island. The Met is a charter school run by the Big
Picture Company that prepares students for college by offering strong
support in and out of the classrooms, provides opportunities to travel
and intern with local companies and organizations, and encourages
parents to get involved in their children's educations.
Stanley E. Foster Construction Tech High School in San Diego,
California. Construction Tech is a charter school serving a high number
of low-income, minority students. Students at Construction Tech
participate in curriculum that integrates classroom and real world
training in architecture, construction, and engineering. The school
partners with local businesses to offer internships and to evaluate
classroom projects.
Manhattan Hunter Science High School in New York City, New York.
Hunter Science is an early college high school with high enrollment of
low-income, minority students in partnership with Hunter College within
the City University of New York (CUNY) school system. At the time of
high school graduation, students have the option to continue their
studies at Hunter; their first full year of tuition is covered and all
college credits earned while in high school apply towards their college
degree.
Conclusion
Thank you for holding this hearing at such a critical time for our
nation. Thank you Chairman Miller and Ranking Member McKeon for holding
this hearing, and I want to thank all of the members of the committee
for their support of these issues. We look forward to working with all
of you to advance high school reform in an ESEA reauthorization. I
would like to thank you for your support in the last Congress and we
hope that we will have your continued support as you move forward with
reauthorization. Thank you.
______
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Thank you very much to all of you for your testimony and
your expertise.
Dr. Balfanz and Mr. Gordon and Dr. Phillips, so now we have
identified 2,000 schools here, and the urge is to rush on in
and close them and open them. But we have done that before.
There is no shortage of school districts that have closed poor-
performing schools, or for other reasons even, and then
reopened them and sort of ended up in the same place 2 or 3
years later.
So I guess what I am interested in is in your histories of
being involved here. You have each suggested we know what to
do, and I would like to hear what you think that plan is.
Because, you know, when we passed No Child Left Behind,
everybody was aghast at the sanctions, except they had all been
using those sanctions all over the country for many years. They
had fired principals, they had fired teachers, they hired
people, put in new teams, closed schools, opened schools,
consolidated schools, back and forth. The results just never
changed.
So we have been through that sort of--the theory is, I
guess, that this is going to be smarter, this is going to be
our surge on the high schools. So how do we scope this out? And
one of the questions is, is this really about additional
resources? Is this about a better organization of those
resources? Or is it both?
And so I don't use all your time in my talking, well, let's
leave it there for a minute.
Mr. Balfanz. Sure. It is both a better allocation and in
some places----
Chairman Miller. The three of you are sharing what time I
have left, you know.
Mr. Balfanz. Okay.
It is both a better allocation and better use of resources.
And what I was saying is that each of those things we
mentioned--charter schools, firing and rehiring, comprehensive
whole school reform, creating small schools--have all worked in
some places and not others. So what we really need to do is
just take that step back and analyze that school. What are its
needs? What are its capacities? How many kids come in 2 or more
years below grade level? How many kids come in with weak
attendance? Do the planned reforms actually address that
educational challenge? Because too often we propose a reform
that doesn't meet the educational challenge, and therefore it
doesn't work.
So I think we take a half-step back and require schools to
do a really intense analysis of why they are not succeeding,
what their challenges are, and then make the case for why that
particular reform will work in that circumstance, and then
resource it to succeed.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Gordon, did you get that opportunity
when Philadelphia asked you to take over?
Mr. Gordon. I am not sure we have done this before,
because, certainly, in Philadelphia's case----
Chairman Miller. We have gone through these motions before.
What most people equate with the reform, we have gone through a
lot of them before.
Mr. Gordon. We have gone through reform, but the complete
turnaround, at least in Philadelphia, Green Dot in California,
some schools in Chicago, it was the staff and management that
changed. So while certainly analyzing the problem and coming up
with new programs is part of the solution, fundamentally it is
a people and management problem. And I would suggest that if we
create rewards, you create high standards, you reward if you
hit those standards and, if not, you lose the contract or the
management team loses, you will get results over time.
I have seen lots of programs, wonderful programs being
executed by poor management teams and not qualified staff, and
they fail; and mediocre programs being implemented by great
teams and great management, and eventually they succeed. I
think you set the bar and you will incent the right folks to
get there.
Chairman Miller. Dr. Phillips?
Ms. Phillips. I would echo that we believe that one of the
single most important things we can do is ensure that a student
has an effective teacher every single year of their high school
career. Unfortunately, right now we make that determination on
certification, with limited evidence about whether that is the
real thing that helps you understand whether the person is an
effective teacher and whether they are making gains in the
classroom on a daily basis.
That, coupled with common standards from which you can
build out good curriculum and instructional tools and good
assessments, along with the kind of data to really let us know
what works and doesn't work.
We would also say that innovation does play a factor here,
that the fact that we have not gotten dramatic gains, only
marginal gains, over the last few decades should tell us that
we have to do something fairly dramatically different, in
combination with those elements.
Chairman Miller. When I spend time with what I call
educational entrepreneurs who have had success that mirrors the
kinds of success that you have had at Pickett and elsewhere,
Mr. Gordon, what they really talk about is the ability to
assemble a team and develop a mission and people sort of
heading all in the same direction with the same purpose and, in
many instances, with the same enthusiasm and sense of urgency
about this.
And what they have run into, in many instances, they have
stepped outside of the existing systems and constraints on
assembling that team. They are not taking people--I remember
going through up at Harlem's Children School how many people
were interviewed to work in that school, thousands of people,
you know, literally, before you found the team that you wanted
to run that school.
Because you were making a bet--at that time, the woman that
was running it was making a serious bet about her career and
about what she thought she could deliver in her organization.
And the people who were funding that organization were making a
bet on her. So, I mean, there was a lot of risk-taking and
entrepreneurial work being done in this direction.
Mr. Gordon. I think you are right on the money. It is about
people; it is about teams. It is not about certifications. You
will not have innovation coming out of schools of education.
They are part of the problem; they are not part of the
solution.
I think you create, again, what is the bar? And then
quality folks will eventually assemble teams and figure it out
and remove the barriers that prevent them from doing those
things. Within the school district, it is zero-basing the staff
so they can assemble the right teachers. Charter schools have
the ability to draw talent from outside the school district.
But I think it is, in some senses, relatively simple, a
clear mission, a clear way of conducting the school. And there
are many ways to operate a successful school, but it is the
right people and the right leadership.
Chairman Miller. I am sort of enamored with the idea that a
lot of entrepreneurs who have been successful in other walks of
life, in their own businesses, have been drawn to many of these
organizations, have, in fact, invested their own personal
money.
And you see the risk-taking where they bet that they can
take this same population of kids that we are so deeply
concerned about in this country--and we know the risks that we
are running if they are not successful--and they are betting
that they can be successful with that identical population that
we lament in most contexts, that, you know, the schools just
aren't performing, all the things we wring our hands about, and
they are making that bet in that direction.
Thank you.
Mr. Bishop?
Mr. Bishop of Utah. In fairness, Mr. Chairman----
Chairman Miller. Oh, Mr. Castle was here before you.
Mr. Bishop of Utah. Mr. Castle is senior to me, as well.
Can I yield to him and then come back?
Chairman Miller. You guys are going on that seniority
stuff?
Mr. Bishop of Utah. Hell, somebody has to.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Castle?
Mr. Castle. Well, I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you,
Mr. Bishop. I am honored to go early.
Let me ask a question. I am going to start with Governor
Wise and just go across the board, if you are willing to try to
answer this.
We have heard a lot of very good suggestions here today.
And, you know, if we compiled them all, they may number in the
dozens or whatever. But one of my concerns is, what can we do
as a Congress in order to make improvements in schools? We have
talked about, for example, graduation rates. We have talked
about higher standards. Obviously, funding is an issue. We have
talked about some particular programs and effective teachers
and a whole variety of things.
My question is to each of you, could you--and the reason I
want to start with Governor Wise is he is familiar with things
around here--but could you pinpoint what you think is the most
significant issue that we should be looking at, either broadly
or narrowly, from our point of view?
We can't do some of the things that you have talked about.
We can't change neighborhoods per se or whatever it may be. But
there may be things either in the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act/No Child Left Behind or some of these other
issues we have talked about that we should be doing that you
would rate as the high priority.
We don't have a lot of time for each person, but I would
just be interested to see if you could highlight whatever you
think we could be doing, say, in this next year, during this
congressional session, that would actually be able to be
carried down to the local level and hopefully improve
education.
Governor Wise?
I am only looking for one suggestion. I am not looking
for----
Mr. Wise. One suggestion to set the climate.
As you know better than anyone, having been a governor,
every State is on its fiscal back right now, and it is pretty
hard to be doing restructuring and the kind of innovation that
is so critical at a time when you are simply trying to keep
school buses running.
But the Federal Government--the stimulus package can be a
start, but the Federal Government can help set a direction and
a climate. And by looking at the OECD models, which tend to be
successful, where you have high common standards and then a lot
of flexibility at the local level to do the innovation
necessary, with the Federal Government being a partner. And
when I say a partner, I don't mean large sums of money, but I
am talking about that which will drive systemic reform and
permanent change.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Dr. Phillips?
Ms. Phillips. I would say you could support the State-led
common academic standards and the data systems work that would
allow us to understand better across this country what works
and what doesn't.
And then you have the opportunity to incent, I think,
innovation, better assessments, a number of the entrepreneurial
things that are happening across the country.
Mr. Castle. Thank you.
Mr. Gordon?
Mr. Gordon. I would certainly agree with the standards. I
would say for corrective action to schools, providing
incentives for school districts to turn around the schools, to
zero-base staff, and to create incentives or penalties based
upon a timeline of 2 to 3 years.
Ms. Kondracke. Make the schools more of the hub of the
community, where schools become places that parents go, parents
get engaged, services can be found. There is no shortage of
services and organizations, but they are all in silos and they
are scattered. We need to bring the community support,
especially in these low-income neighborhoods, to the schools,
where the children are, where the families are, pull them in,
make the schools the hubs of the communities.
Mr. Wotorson. I would say make accountability an absolute
centerpiece of anything, any education reform effort that you
push through.
Keep in mind, however, that part of the reason why we are
where we are is because students are not facing one or two or
three problems; we are facing, really, a comprehensive problem.
So, at the end of the day, we are going to need a comprehensive
solution that addresses lack of effective teachers, lack of a
well-defined curriculum, the whole range of things.
But if I were to pinpoint one thing, I would say strong
accountability must be a centerpiece.
Mr. Balfanz. And I would say invest in capacity-building of
the organizations, States, and districts that have actually
shown they can turn these schools around already, so they can
then turn around more schools.
Chairman Miller. You are talking about the existing, those
that have been successful.
Mr. Balfanz. Yes.
Chairman Miller. Excuse me. Would with the gentleman yield?
Mr. Castle. Certainly. I have already yielded.
Well, I appreciate all that. I think your suggestions are
excellent, holistically and otherwise. I think we have a lot of
work ahead of us. I think you have been an excellent panel. I
would hope that you will stay with us as we try to address
these issues and try to make changes.
Some of what you said, some of what we have to do is very
challenging to existing bureaucracies out there. It is not
going to be easy to do. But if we don't it, we are never going
to get the uplifting that we want. So I thank you for your
suggestions today.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Scott?
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Phillips, you mentioned talked about effective
teachers. Cambridge College reports excellent results with mid-
career teachers in professional development. They take the
courses, then they go back and do better.
Is it your understanding that teachers can, by professional
development, improve their effectiveness?
Ms. Phillips. If it is a very focused professional
development. And a lot of it, if it is school-embedded and on-
the-job. You mean as teachers enter schools or districts?
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
One of the things that--as I indicated in my opening
remarks, I serve on the Crime Subcommittee, Chair of the Crime
Subcommittee, and one of the things that happens with dropouts
is they are very likely to end up in jail. And in some of
these, you can identify a school where half the kids are going
to be dropping out. And if you just do the back-of-the-envelope
arithmetic, 100 kids dropping out are going to end up costing
you about $5 million in incarceration.
Now, Mr. Wotorson, if you had an adequate budget--how
adequate a budget would you need to get the results that you
are getting, where virtually everybody is graduating?
Mr. Wotorson. I do recall, Mr. Congressman, I believe a
couple of years ago or so there was a piece of legislation
introduced that proposed somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5
billion of turnaround, specifically geared towards turning
around low-performing schools or those dropout factories.
But I think part of where you are going is, essentially, if
we don't arrest this problem, we only succeed in expanding the
school-to-prison pipeline. And the Campaign for High School
Equity actually had an issue forum on that issue a few months
ago. And we actually were pleased to have someone from your
staff join us at that discussion and share some of her
knowledge.
Mr. Scott. Well, about how much--what kind of budget would
you be talking about to virtually guarantee that everybody is
graduating, as opposed to a 50 percent dropout rate?
Mr. Wotorson. I don't know that we could guarantee that
everyone is graduating. What I do know is that hitherto we have
not tried any of these things in a comprehensive fashion. I do
know that hitherto we have not simply said we are going to put
our resources where our mouth is, we are going to, you know,
put the time and effort towards addressing the problem. I know
that we haven't done that.
Mr. Scott. Well, like I said, if you got a 50 percent
dropout rate, 100 children, 50 percent drop out, that is 100,
that is going to cost you about $5 million in prison expenses
in, at least, many identifiable States. If you spent half of
that on the program, you could probably eliminate--it is hard
to imagine you are not saving more money than you are spending.
Ms. Kondracke, you indicated a process by which you are--a
holistic approach, where you bring the community together. I
have introduced the Youth Promise Act, which is very similar,
to reduce youth violence, where you bring in law enforcement,
education, foster care, the probation department, churches,
after-school programs, anybody that has anything to do with
children in trouble, bring them together and come up with a
plan.
Is there any question in your mind--you have done this for
school dropouts--is there any question in your mind that if you
have a good dropout prevention program that it would also
reduce crime and reduce teen pregnancy and reduce drug abuse?
Ms. Kondracke. There is no question that a good dropout
prevention program will do all of those things. If a young
person is engaged productively, believes in their future, they
are going to avoid risky behavior. And so, therefore, you are
saving social costs.
And to your point, I would say one of the reasons, Mr.
Chairman, that some of our other earlier reform efforts have
not gotten the results we would like is we have ignored some of
these social issues. And this, the community supports based at
the school, easy for the family to access, that has got to be
part of the solution for these most vulnerable students in
those neighborhoods.
So I commend you for the act you have introduced.
Mr. Scott. Now, most of the programs that we have seen by
research have shown that they can save more money than they
cost. What kind of budget do we need to start the process of
cost savings?
Ms. Kondracke. You know, I think you could easily envision
taking the 2,000 dropout factory high schools and the feeder
middle schools, and if you had something that would catalyze
the community to come together--you don't have to invent the
programs at the community level; they are already there. You
just have to pull them together.
So, take $100,000 per school, just to pick a number, to
create a catalytic effect to pull these services together, you
could actually have a real impact pretty quickly.
Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman, I would point out that in some of
those dropout factories the prison costs that we are generating
would be in the millions. And Ms. Kondracke just talked about
$100,000 to solve that problem. So, obviously, we are doing
something wrong.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Bishop?
Excuse me, Mr. Wise, did you want to----
Mr. Wise. I just wanted to offer a couple quick statistics.
A recent economic study, I believe that was cited earlier,
cut the dropout rate in half, would add $45 billion in
increased Federal tax revenues or cost savings. We estimate
that you could do that for about $5 billion a year. That is
$2.5 billion with the Graduation Promise Act, plus the literacy
programs.
And to your crime question, Congressman, a study that we
did showed that simply if you increase the high school
graduation rate of males alone 5 percent, it would add about $8
billion in both new wages and reduced crime costs.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Miller. Thank you.
Mr. Bishop?
Mr. Bishop of Utah. Thank you. I think I have seniority on
my side now.
I appreciate the testimony that has been given. In fact,
you have generated in my mind so many questions, I am not going
to get it in my time allotted. So let me try to go through as
many as I possibly can quickly with you.
Let me start with Dr. Phillips, if I could. Let's assume--
and I don't assume; you cannot do that--you can identify an
effective teacher. How do you attract and hold that teacher
once he or she is identified?
Ms. Phillips. We believe that we really have to look at the
whole spectrum of things, from how many people we get to enter,
to how we help them meet performance milestones. But once you
get them there, they have to be compensated appropriately. And
it can't wait until they are 10, 12, 13 years into their
career. We need to make it a viable profession earlier on.
Mr. Bishop of Utah. Talking money and time?
Ms. Phillips. Money and time.
Mr. Bishop of Utah. Can I just ask you, just
philosophically, for whom are we trying to reform these
schools? Who needs to be satisfied? Is it the State, the school
officials, parents, a college? Who is the person that is going
to say, ``Okay, you have arrived''?
Ms. Phillips. Oh, I think--well, first of all, we have to
do this for students, but we need some kind of objective way of
saying, what is it that it really takes for students----
Mr. Bishop of Utah. Good. But I want to know, who is the
one that is going to make that decision? Who has to be
satisfied?
Ms. Phillips. Who is going to make the decision in the end?
Mr. Bishop of Utah. State, school, parents, administrators?
Ms. Phillips. I think, in the end, you know, parents and
students have to be satisfied. But, certainly, school districts
and States have to have some objective measure by which they
can determine, and some objective standards by which they can
determine, whether kids are actually graduating high school
ready for college without remediation and able to enter the
workforce.
Mr. Bishop of Utah. I have more questions for you. Let me
come back.
Ms. Phillips. So there are multiple consumers in this.
Mr. Bishop of Utah. Mr. Gordon, if I could, you talked
about rewarding those who produce results. That is the phrase
that you used. Can you give me some specific details on how you
do that?
Mr. Gordon. Well, I would say, in a turnaround context or
in a charter school context, you can reward by enabling those
organizations to operate additional schools. You can create
financial incentives so they have the wherewithal to operate
additional schools.
Mr. Bishop of Utah. For the ones who are actually operating
the school, though, what is the reward mechanism?
Mr. Gordon. The opportunity to do more. I don't know if
this is where you are leading, but the financial incentive to
the organization, I think the incentive to be able to do more
is sufficient. Let me just stop there.
Mr. Bishop of Utah. You gave me--you started going down
with accountability and governance. Can you give me three top
keys for success in very specific details? I mean, all of you
have talked about accountability, you have talked about
governance. I want something down in the weeds more than that,
if you would, please.
Mr. Gordon. I would say, when we hire a principal, I want
them to be able to hire fantastic staff. We need to have
benchmark assessments, assessments meaning that we every 6
weeks know where students are. We need information to be able
to track that data so that we can respond competently to that
data.
Mr. Bishop of Utah. That is legitimate. Thank you.
Ms. Kondracke, if I could ask you a couple of questions,
you talk about the parents' role as one of the factors that is
in here. Could you just explain very briefly, because I don't
have a lot of time here, how you envision the parents' role and
how you envision the Federal Government's relation to building
that parent role?
Ms. Kondracke. Well, I think that is always the conundrum,
how do we get parents to care more and be more involved. And I
think, very practically, we have to make it easier.
In Spanish Harlem, there is a school that was inside a
housing project. It was the worst-performing school, the scene
of violence, it was a mess. And Joel Klein turned that school
around by turning it into a community center. Parents went
there on Saturday to have cooking classes and a green grocer
experience. Students did service projects through City Year
there.
So if parents have a reason to go to school, and if we can
make it easier for them by having time for parent-teacher
conferences that makes sense for their working lives, we have
got to make it easier for these struggling, stressed parents to
be involved.
Mr. Bishop of Utah. I appreciate that. And I am not trying
to cut you off, but I realize my time is running down here very
quickly.
Could I just ask once again, Dr. Phillips--you know, you
were in charge of a system within a State. How would you get
teachers like me, who know I can outlive you and your programs,
to become excited about what you are attempting to do?
And I was noticing one thing--Mr. Wotorson, there were some
questions I really had for you. I am sorry I am not going to
get even close to them.
There were a couple of you that talked about--you don't
even have to answer this. I just ran out of time. You talked
about the 720 number. I am amazed that no one is actually
talking about the amount of time that we put into public
education or the organization of the day, what the kid has to
go through, as part of the equation that needs to be part of
this question as well. I was surprised at that.
And, Mr. Chairman, I realize we will allow these
questions--if I ever get organized enough to write them down, I
will send them to you. And I will be looking for it, because I
did enjoy the presentations. Thank you.
Ms. Kondracke. We all want to answer.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Tierney is next, Mr. Loebsack, Ms.
Fudge, Mr. Courtney, Mr. Bishop, and Ms. Hirono.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank for having the
hearing.
And thank the witnesses for their testimony, as well.
So, Ms. Kondracke, you talk about outside influences, half
of the 16 factors that make for a successful student being
outside the classroom.
And, Mr. Gordon, you talk about, forget all that, just give
me a good staff and a couple of bucks and I am ready to roll, I
am going to make this work.
Can you two work out the conflict in that for me?
Ms. Kondracke. You know, it is both ends. It is inside the
classroom and outside the classroom. We have to have an
integrated approach.
I believe just as strongly in great teaching and high
standards and accountability and measurement. And I also
believe there are lots of at-risk kids that cannot learn
because they bring too many deficits into the classroom.
Mr. Tierney. Well, maybe Mr. Gordon is the one that doesn't
agree with that.
You just want--I think your words were, give me good staff,
you know, and people, and I will take care of the rest. People
and management was the problem, you said. Give me qualified
staff, and we are all set.
None of those factors that Ms. Kondracke talks about----
Mr. Gordon. Good staff and good management can address
those problems.
Mr. Tierney. How?
Mr. Gordon. Good staff and good management--our staff and
management goes out into the community, finds community-based
mental health organizations, contracts with them.
It is not that we ignore the outside problems, but the
accountability--what I would encourage this committee to focus
on is the outcome. We are accountable for results. Therefore, I
am going to do the right thing if I need to hit that outcome.
If you legislate what programs I need to follow, everyoneis
going to follow them and you will get nothing at all. It is the
outcome and accountability.
Mr. Tierney. All right.
Then, Dr. Phillips, let me turn to you. You cite that there
is an issue or problem, at least, with the credentialing that
we now have, that they are not indicative of who is a good
teacher and who is not.
Do you have ideas into what we are going to do that would
allow us to select teachers based on some past experience that
they have had or some credentialing? Otherwise, I suspect we
are going to be doing this case by case for the rest of our
lives. Bring a person in, watch their experience, see how they
do, dump them if they are no good, keep them if they are not.
It is going to take a long time to get all the good teachers we
need up to scale.
So, as opposed to the current credentialing system, what do
you recommend?
Ms. Phillips. We are actually investing considerable amount
of money in the next few years on research to make that
determination, to say, what does it take, in addition to
student achievement, to give a fair view of what is an
effective teacher? And can we come to some consensus about
that?
So we realize that that is a huge problem, that teachers
have a legitimate issue, and it is not just a single look at
their performance over a year but that student outcomes need to
be the core. What other things, when added to that, will give
us a better predictor? And then how do you entice people into
the profession, help them hit those performance milestones,
reward them when they do, and keep them in front of the kids
who need them the most?
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Governor Wise, nice to see you.
Mr. Wise. Nice to see you, sir.
Mr. Tierney. Governor, look, we have a lot of really
tremendous educators out there today in our public school
system. And I think probably everybody will acknowledge that. I
hope they would acknowledge that.
So how do we go about making these changes and motivating
people and challenging them and give them the kind of job
security that I think they are afraid of? They are afraid of
going back to the old days where politics makes it, the school
committee decides, you get a four-to-three vote, this person
doesn't have the job and somebody else does.
How do we get to the point where all of the people are
talking about being not so risk-averse, taking challenges,
moving in that direction on that, with allowing people to still
understand that this is a job that, if they do a good job, they
are going to be able stay on and not be out at somebody's
arbitrary whim?
Mr. Wise. And particularly at a time when we are going to
see probably half of our teachers eligible to retire in the
next 5 to 7 years. So we are going to have to really accelerate
that pipeline.
I think it is giving them the opportunity to teach in a
place that is exciting, where they know that they are going to
be rewarded, and not just monetarily but rewarded and given the
flexibility to do what they need to do, that there will be
standards set. And there are outcomes, yes, but there will be a
lot of flexibility in how to get there. They will be working as
a team approach.
And also, it may well be, Congressman, that this economy is
going to encourage some people to think, you know, I can be as
creative and earn an income in teaching. And so we need to make
sure that the doors are open to them, not only through the
traditional means of teacher preparation, but also looking at
some alternative means as well.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Dr. Balfanz, what would you tell our teaching colleges and
universities they have to do with their students to work into a
program that really makes this all work?
Mr. Balfanz. Well, they have to prepare teachers for the
actual conditions they are going to face, which is, in our most
challenged schools, it is not 10 to 15 percent of kids that
need extra help, it is 50, 60, 70 percent. So they have to
build within them skills to not just teach one good excellent
lesson, but to be able to teach kids with multiple different
levels of preparation to succeed.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back.
Chairman Miller. Mr. Loebsack?
Mr. Loebsack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this very
informative hearing. I really do appreciate this very much.
And the witnesses have all been wonderful, learned a lot
from you today. I appreciate that. And thanks for the shout-out
for some of my legislation, too, for those of you who did. I do
appreciate that very much.
If I could start with Ms. Kondracke, I just want to mention
one example of a school that was a community center before
massive flooding hit on June 13th of last year, Taylor
Elementary School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Ms. Kondracke. Absolutely.
Mr. Loebsack. It was a wonderful--and in a low-income area
of Cedar Rapids. There were a lot of different offices there;
there was a WIC office, for example. And it was really
wonderful. It is going to come back, it is going to reopen in
the fall. There are going to be fewer students, maybe
significantly fewer students, but it is going to come back.
So I really appreciate your focus, obviously, on the
community aspect. And if you want to, I would like you to
elaborate a little bit more. You weren't able to go perhaps as
far as you would like in response to Mr. Bishop's question.
Ms. Kondracke. Thank you very much, Congressman.
I am aware of that school in Cedar Rapids, and it is a
fantastic example of what can happen when a community rallies
around a school, turns the school into a community, cares about
the outcomes for kids, cares about quality teaching, but also
cares about each other's lives. It is about that simple.
And there are 14 million kids who need after-school care in
this country today. What are they doing when they are not in
school? Somebody mentioned the school calendar, I think it was
Congressman Bishop, that we are out of school all summer
because that is left over from the agricultural model. What are
they doing with that time? Our school day is too short, our
school year is too short to catch up with the rest of the
world. So what are we doing with out-of-school time?
We need enrichment programs in the after-school hours. Kids
need chances to serve and find the resilience that comes with
giving back. There are 9 million kids who don't have health
care. Congress has taken steps to reauthorize CHIP and to
expand that coverage. This is the kind of thing we have to pay
attention to.
And one last thing is truancy. You have asked what we can
do. The data systems that we have all referenced here should
include attendance. It is so fundamental. Nobody is following
up on attendance and truancy. And what kids tell us is that
that tells them nobody cares if they are in school or not. So,
caring adults--this is part of the community supports we were
talking about--and following up, very simply, on attendance.
That is the best early-warning indicator of a dropout.
Mr. Loebsack. Thank you.
Mr. Wise, Congressman Wise, Governor Wise, didn't have a
chance to serve with you here, obviously, in this body, but
thank you for being here today.
I guess I am very fortunate as a Member of Congress in that
there is no dropout factory in my particular district. We do
have nine of them in Iowa, I saw from the data that were
provided. But I want to thank you, too, for mentioning my
Secondary School Innovation Fund.
I have gotten around my district a lot in the 2-plus years
that I have been in Congress, and there are a lot of good
things happening in Iowa, as I am sure is the case around the
country, in terms of trying to come up with innovative programs
that folks around the country can model, I would guess, or
replicate, if you will.
Can you elaborate a little bit on that particular aspect of
your testimony?
Mr. Wise. Certainly. Because your bill and, actually,
Congressman Holt's as well, as you know, portions of it are
included in the stimulus package, but we want to make it
permanent.
For instance, what is happening in a number of examples,
whether it is what Mr. Gordon is talking about, or if we are
looking at something such as a High-Tech High or we looking at
another high school in San Diego that has very successful
initiatives, what is it that works for 500 students here or
50,000 across 10 school districts and can be replicated?
And that is a very appropriate role for the Federal
Government, particularly at this point, to be able to help
States replicate what works. No State has, I think I can say
safely, I know in my State, no State has the ability to do the
kind of research, to do the kind of analysis of what is taking
place in other areas. It is anecdotal. The Federal Government
does have that ability. And so, the combination of not only
providing the research capability, the dissemination of that
research, but also the ability to replicate innovative
approaches, that is what is so critical.
What we want to do with your legislation is take what
clearly was established in the stimulus package and make it a
permanent fixture.
Mr. Loebsack. Thank you very much. And I just might
comment, my idea is not, obviously, to have an overly intrusive
role on the part of the Federal Government. It is really to
provide seed money, in some ways, and to leverage local funds
as well.
Mr. Wise. Yes.
Mr. Loebsack. So thank you very much, and I will yield back
the balance of my time. Thanks to all of you.
Mr. Scott [presiding]. Thank you.
The gentlelady from Ohio, Ms. Fudge?
Ms. Fudge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank all of you for being here. I do just have a
couple of questions.
I would like to first ask Mr. Wotorson, what would a
redesigned American high school look like?
Mr. Wotorson. I would go back to my theme of approaching
this in a comprehensive fashion. First of all, a redesigned
high school would take into account a lot of the things that
you have heard all the witnesses talk about today.
You know, I also go back to my experience just a couple of
weeks ago visiting with kids at a school in Gaston, North
Carolina. The discussion was just held about the school day.
Well, here was a school where kids arrive at 8 o'clock in the
morning and they don't leave until 8, 9 o'clock at night. The
instruction period actually ends at 5:00. Why do these students
stay so long? Well, they stay so long because they are
absolutely and utterly turned on about learning, they love the
staff, they love the teachers, they feel cared for and listened
to. That is a fundamental change, I think, that should be
brought to scale in a lot of schools.
And that is not to say that teachers, by and large, don't
do this, but it is a recognition of the fact that teachers face
an enormous amount of pressures. You heard Mrs. Kondracke talk
about some of the deficits that kids bring to the classroom
that teachers have to contend with. In a school where teachers
feel supported, where they are appropriately rewarded, where
they are allowed to be fairly flexible and all those sorts of
things, what you see happening is a translation of an
atmosphere where the kids are performing better, the teachers
are happy to be there, the administrators are happy to be
there, and overall you have a much more engaging learning
environment.
That is a fundamental change or a redesign of the American
high school. And there are lots of different ways to do it.
Ms. Fudge. So could you tell me one?
Mr. Wotorson. Oh, well, all of the above.
Ms. Fudge. No, how would you do it? I mean, I understand,
but how would you go about doing it?
Mr. Wotorson. So one thing would be the way we pay
teachers; increase the way we pay teachers.
Another would be around the way we recruit teachers and
bringing them into the classroom. As you well know, in many
situations, in many cases, when we bring new teachers into the
classroom, we fail to provide them the kind of professional
development that they need, and so many new teachers cycle out
after a year, 2 years, 3 years.
Ms. Fudge. Okay. So does that mean--and anyone can answer
this question. I have heard that a number of times today. How
do we change the process in our colleges and universities? I
mean, you know, I know we need to have better teachers. How do
we do it? We talk about how the certification process doesn't
work. How do we do it?
Anybody can answer it.
Mr. Wise. I will defer to the specialists.
Ms. Phillips. So, part of it is that we have to start
looking at teacher effectiveness against student outcomes, as
opposed to whether they just meet the paper credential, because
we know that, no matter how teachers enter the system, whether
they come through an alternative education program and come in
mid-career or whether they come through traditional
certification, that there is a distinct difference between
teachers in schools. And having that effective teacher has more
of an impact, year on year, than almost anything else we can
do. And lots of the other pieces are critically important, but
that is one that is prime.
So, one thing we have to do is start to get away from the
sort of paper credentialing and look more at: Who is really
producing student outcomes? And can we help those who continue
to do so and keep them in the system? Can we help those who
aren't get better over time? Can we make the tough decisions?
Ms. Fudge. Well, I mean, can something work as simple as
just having a master teacher or someone with new teachers over
a period of time that prepares them to get better and better?
It is my understanding, Mr. Chairman, that from 1 to 5
years, that is the time in which most teachers really--you
determine whether they are going to be good teachers or not.
How do we work with those persons? Because what you are
talking about now is after the fact, after they have come out
of school, they have gotten into an institution or into one of
the schools. And so, then what do we do with them, at that
point?
Anyone can answer it.
Mr. Gordon. I would say certainly one thing that could be
done is create a value-added system. In Pennsylvania, we are
beginning to create a system where we can track whether a
school and then individual teacher adds value. And I would say
that would be the path that you could follow to certify a
teacher.
Schools of education are not adding value. All right?
Teachers that come through schools of education are no more
effective than teachers we hire without that credential. So I
would say your instincts that it can be done internally by
schools or school districts more through an apprentice model, I
think, is right.
Ms. Phillips. So, I think there are a variety of ways and a
variety of models out there. The key is that, as long as our
policies are all based around credentialing, we are going to
get what we have continued to get.
As we change those policies and make them more about
student outcomes and whether, in fact, we are accelerating
student learning and we let that drive the way that we prepare,
the way that we reward, the way that we keep, the way that we
compensate, the way that we performance-manage teachers, then
we will get the change that we are looking for.
But just continuing to have our policies not reflect what
we really know about research now is going to get us more of
the same, not something different.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired. I
yield back.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
The gentlelady from Hawaii, Ms. Hirono?
Ms. Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank the panel. It is a very interesting discussion.
The students who go to these dropout factories are
attending elementary schools and middle schools where, I think,
that it is also characterized by low test scores and generally
from communities where there are a preponderance of low-income
and minority students.
So my question has to do with, when do we start the
turnaround? When do we start arresting the problem when you are
in a community where the elementary school, the secondary
schools, the high school, they are all exhibiting these
problems?
Mr. Balfanz. I think there are actually two key points. One
is, obviously, early education, getting kids prepared to
succeed when they are first experiencing schools.
The other thing we have to remember is that there is a
developmental progression people go through. When you become an
adolescent, you make an independent decision to be engaged in
school again. And so you can have a good early experience, and
if we don't pay attention to your adolescence and create an
environment that is good for you then, some of that investment
will walk out the door.
So I think it is both the early years but then also the
secondary years. And we need interventions at both those points
to keep you, sort of, on track to success. If we do either one,
we are going to lose a bunch of kids.
Ms. Hirono. So there is a whole continuum that we have to
pay attention to. And it is not as though we can just go and
direct all our resources to these dropout factory high schools
and hope to turn things around.
Ms. Phillips. No, but we have actually made more progress
at the elementary level in this country and much limited
progress and flat-line progress for high school students over
time. And there are critical things that we know. So when kids
hit middle school and they are 2 or more years behind, having
ways to accelerate their learning there becomes more important.
It also turns out that the ninth grade is a very important year
and a very important predictor of whether students can continue
to be successful.
So there are places to intervene along the way. And we
believe breakthrough innovations, some of which already exist,
around how do you accelerate students' learning as they hit
those upper grade levels much more rapidly? Because it is true
that high schools still are the most, sort of, inequitable
level of our education system.
Ms. Hirono. I think those are really important distinctions
to make, that there are critical points of the students'
development where intervention can really make a difference.
Ms. Kondracke, I note that you said that you had hosted
high-level summits in 50 States, so that includes Hawaii.
Ms. Kondracke. Yes, absolutely.
Ms. Hirono. So what was your experience? Would you tell us
what schools or what communities you had these meetings in in
Hawaii? I am curious.
Ms. Kondracke. You know, I don't think we have held our
summit yet in Hawaii. But it is coming up.
Ms. Hirono. A-ha. You will have to come and let me know.
Ms. Kondracke. It is being scheduled.
So we have a summit in every State capital and in the 55
cities that are contributing the most to the dropout crisis.
And there is a way to go about this. We sort of have a
formula and a cookbook that we give the community. We encourage
it to be owned by the community. But we ask for the business
leaders to be involved, the civic leaders to be involved,
parents, students themselves.
Mississippi was our first State summit, and we had over
1,500 people there. And then they are asked to produce an
action plan. So it is more than just one more summit; it really
is about action.
And we have pulled together as much as we know, and most of
the people at this table have contributed to what we give them
in the way of a workbook. We give them a workbook of best
practices and just these indicators we have talked about--early
preschool readiness, middle school performance and attendance
and scores, ninth grade transition.
And one interesting fact that contributes to this problem
is 35 States allow students to drop out at age 16. Now, that is
something that we can raise as a policy issue, and State by
State we can tackle that. So part of it is raising awareness
that these are contributing factors.
Each of these summits so far has been incredibly
successful. And the people feel that they are part of a
national movement, and that is the exciting part.
Ms. Hirono. So when are you coming to Hawaii?
Ms. Kondracke. I will find out and let you know.
Ms. Hirono. All right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Kondracke. Thank you.
Ms. Hirono. I yield back.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
Ms. Kondracke, you mentioned the ninth grade. What about
the third grade as an indicator?
Ms. Kondracke. Yes, third grade or fourth grade reading
scores, wherever that is measured, is another important
indicator. I would add to Dr. Balfanz's, too, early childhood
readiness, school readiness can be best measured by the time
they get to the third grade. Did they hold on? And are they
reading at grade level? And that is a huge predictor. In fact,
that is a predictor for prison beds, if you will.
And then, middle school, we have talked about the
transition to ninth grade is fundamental.
Mr. Scott. Thank you very much.
The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Holt?
Mr. Holt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I thank all the witnesses today. This is really very
useful.
A number of you have spoken about the need for better data,
the misleading data that currently exists. Mrs. Kondracke
talked about including attendance data. I would like to explore
this idea of how we can actually use the data.
Let's go beyond just asking whether we can collect data,
recognizing that we are not even doing that well yet. But I
would like to not just get a retrospective diagnosis to see how
much damage has been done over the past 4 years or even over
the past year, but see if we can really get diagnostic
information that can be used to make adjustments in each
school, in each class, for each student.
Not just an autopsy of what killed the student's academic
growth, but something that will allow a school district, a
principal, a teacher to know which students in which classrooms
are making gains or not making gains, not just in general but
on specific concepts and with specific standard skills.
I know this is possible because some schools in New Jersey
are actually doing it. My question for you is, is it asking too
much that this be done everywhere?
Ms. Kondracke. We absolutely must have----
Mr. Holt. And I would like as brief a comment from as many
of you as we can get.
Ms. Kondracke. I will make one quick comment.
We absolutely must have real-time data. And technology
allows that, and so that is fundamental.
We just worked with Gallup to produce a student poll,
giving the students' point of view, in real time, that day. And
we can measure, to the student and to the school level, where
the kids are engaged, where they are doing well, and where they
feel hopeful.
And the sad part is, half the kids in this country do not
feel hopeful. This was a 70,000-student sample. That is real-
time data. So if you learn that half the kids in your school
don't feel hopeful, you can begin to work on some solutions
that get them re-engaged and believing in their own future.
Mr. Holt. Thank you.
And let me say to Governor Wise, since he referred to the
METRIC Act that Representative McCarthy and I had in the last
Congress, because it didn't pass we thought we would make it
even more difficult by making it more comprehensive. And we
will introduce a more comprehensive version of it in this
Congress.
Mr. Wise. Which is critical, because you are going to be--
whether it is the teacher in the classroom making day-to-day
decisions with hopefully good real-time data all the way to the
decisions that you are going to make here in this committee
room that will involve billions of dollars and millions of
lives, you have to have good data. If we are going to have an
outcome-based, standards-based, and empirically based system of
education, we can't do it without good data systems at every
level.
Mr. Holt. Thank you. Thank you very much, Governor Wise.
If there is time----
Mr. Balfanz. Yeah, I think that the other thing----
Mr. Holt. Dr. Wotorson actually had some things to say
earlier in his testimony.
Please.
Mr. Balfanz. Okay.
I think, quickly, the thing that makes it go from a few
schools to a lot of schools is recognizing that teachers are
going to have been to be trained to use the data and given time
to do the data analysis. So that is going to have to factor
into our redesign of the school day.
We can't ask them, ``Well, just in your free time, look at
the data and figure it out.'' We are going to have give them
training structure and ability to use the data effectively, as
well as just putting it in their hands, but then giving them
the ability to actually act upon it and figure it out.
Mr. Wotorson. I was just going to offer really quickly, in
response to your question about whether or not we are asking
too much of authorities, I absolutely think we are not. We
don't have the luxury, quite frankly, to continue to allow the
vast majority of our kids to no longer be successful and to
drop out of school.
And so, given the fact that historically we have tried a
number of things in other areas in our country and in our
economy, we have spent an incredible amount of money on wars,
on any number of things, but the most critical thing that sits
before us right now is the future of this country as it relates
to what is going to happen to these young kids. And so it is
about time that we devote the resources, we make the hard
choices, commit the energy to roll up our sleeves and do the
hard work.
Mr. Holt. Do any of you know of any school systems that
have implemented data systems that have, you know, found the
teachers and the school systems that would actually know how to
use the good data systems and applied it to student learning?
Mr. Gordon. Absolutely. Certainly, that is why, every 6
weeks, Mastery closes down and the grown-ups get together and
review the data and plan for the next 6 weeks. Uncommon
Schools, which operates schools in Newark, in New Jersey, does
the same. We learned a lot from them. There is, I think, a lot
of work being done.
But, again, I would re-emphasize that none of this work
would have occurred had not the outcome been clear that we are
accountable for. Because if I am accountable for that outcome,
of course I am going to try to collect data; of course I am
going to try it make sure that data is useful; of course I am
going to train my staff to respond to the data. Unless that
goal is set at the end of the road, everything else is not
going to follow.
Ms. Phillips. There are a number of places, and we can
share them with you. The problem is that part of what prevents
us from being able to scale what really works in this country
and to share practice is that it happens in individual places
and everybody is having to reinvent their whole system. Not
that systems can't be different, but as long as they don't
share common standards and are able to talk to each other, then
we continue to get these isolated pockets rather than teachers
being able to lift up and share their practice.
I was in a school last week where teachers came together on
an ongoing basis to share real-time data and talk about student
performance. It happens in classroom after classroom, but we
aren't able to lift it up and share it across this country. And
that is a sad thing.
Mr. Holt. Thank you very much.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
The gentlelady from California, Ms. Davis?
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much.
To the panel, I appreciate your being here and also citing
San Diego as having some programs that do work. They are, just
as you described, though, pockets. And that is what is
difficult.
You haven't spoken too much about the training of
principals and the role that they play. Clearly, leadership, we
know, is a big factor here. How do you see that, then, as
scaling up? I mean, is it the kind of academies that make a
difference? Are they just wonderfully gifted people who just
really know how to put these teams together? There are barriers
to putting teams together; we know that.
So where does the leadership of the key individual there
play? And how do you see that in terms of what we as Congress
can do?
Any of you, all of you.
Mr. Wise. I think you have just touched on what is one of
the fastest emerging discussions about the role of leadership.
Quality teachers need good leaders, and it makes it much easier
for a quality teacher to be a quality teacher.
And so, one role that Congress could be looking at--I mean,
there are examples of efforts to prepare principals. But one
area that Congress could be looking at is, A, what is the best
research?
Second is the academy concept. It may be that we are going
to be needing to look at so-called West Point-type approaches
for school leadership. I also know that other organizations are
also looking to see how they can assist in this.
Mrs. Davis. Excuse me. Can I ask you, Governor--and I will
let you continue--but we do have some, certainly. Harvard has
an exceptional school. Have we gone back to see, what are those
outcomes? I mean, the principals trained under those programs,
are they somehow able to do what other principals cannot do? Or
do they face the same barriers in creating the highly
enthusiastic teams that come together?
Mr. Wise. Let me turn to Dr. Balfanz or Dr. Phillips, if
they want to jump in on this one.
Mr. Balfanz. The one thing I think is important to keep in
mind, especially when we are trying to turn around sort of
large middle and high schools--like, California has many large
middle and high schools, and those schools have easily 150
teachers in them. And we make a mistake when we think that one
lone principal can ride in there with the best training in the
world and transform 150 adults.
So I think we also have to think about training leadership
teams together, the principal and his leadership team, his
assistant principals, his counselors, and actually put some of
the money in our school transformation things to give them the
time to be trained together and even have a residency in a
successful similar school.
There is no better training than real training on the
ground, not theoretical but be in a building that has the
challenges that you are going to have, that is working, and
spend time therewith your leadership team so you can all have a
common vision and a common experience. And then when you go to
your school, you are already working together with common
understanding.
Mrs. Davis. I mean, there is a medical model that we know
does work in training exceptional people licensed. The national
board certification, for example, tends to look at that. I know
you have suggested that, well, certification doesn't exactly
matter. Reflective teaching probably matters a great deal, but
that doesn't have to necessarily be a national board-certified
teacher.
We are all searching, I think, for how to do this. And,
again, getting back to the Congress, when we are looking at
accelerated learning, if we had better ninth-grade transition
teams that actually really thought through that period for
those students who are entering who are truly, you know, two,
three, four grades below level, do we bring those folks to a
central place to learn from someone?
Ms. Kondracke. I think the genius of the American education
system is there is local innovation. And we have seen that in
our college system. We have the greatest postsecondary system
in the world, but we have failed to introduce that kind of
innovation, creativity, flexibility, measurement,
accountability. We have somehow failed to introduce that or
expect that of our secondary schools.
And so, Congress can incentivize by offering innovation
grants, opportunity grants. They can motivate. Dollars count,
and we are cash-strapped for our education system. And so I
would just be sure that the moneys that you decide to allocate
reward outcomes, and then that you use your power to set some
national standards. So you can set a framework and you can
incentivize more excellence and more creativity by offering
resources.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time is up.
Mr. Gordon. If I could just give a snapshot, at least in
terms of the schools that we operate, the leadership training
that is done by the traditional schools of education does not
add value at all. And I think your instincts of looking at the
medical model and apprenticeship model is certainly a lot more
helpful, in our experience.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Payne?
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much.
I guess I have a question that we know that the better-
trained teachers certainly generally perform better. And I just
wonder if anyone--and you may have mentioned it in your
testimony, and, as you know, I came late, or I will tell you I
came late if you didn't know it anyway.
But the question is, how do any of you have any suggestions
on how we can try to attract real quality teachers to the
poorer schools and in the difficult parts? I mean, human nature
and even the educational system, you know, after you get tenure
and you can move up, you know, you have an opportunity to move
to a school where the higher performers--generally speaking, I
guess. That is the way it used to be when I taught.
Is there any way that we can try to keep--or do you have
suggestions how we can keep the top teachers in the toughest
schools? It kind of is counter-human-nature, I guess.
Mr. Wotorson. If I may, one of the perhaps easiest and
perhaps most obvious would be to really incent those teachers
going into those particularly needy areas, incenting their
going in terms of paying, in terms of innovative things like
assistance with home purchasing. Any range of things that have
been tried but on a relatively small scale that are really
critically important that we scale up and start doing now.
Mr. Balfanz. I think the other thing to consider, though,
is that that can get them in the door, but to keep them you
have to fix the school. What drives teachers out of these
schools is not so much the pay and the hours, it is the
craziness. ``The school doesn't work; my efforts are in vain.''
So I think there is both a strategy to get them in, but to
keep them we have to realize we have to transform the school.
If the school works, the teachers will stay. They have the
passion, they are feeling successful. They will want to be
there. What drives them out is when they feel the school is
crazy.
Ms. Phillips. It is one of those very difficult and complex
problems for which we don't have a magic bullet or a ready
answer, but it is around things that people have said.
It is not only the compensation, which is an issue and the
fact that you need to incent teachers to do that; it is also
about some of the other conversations. Do they have a good
school leader that they can rely on? Do they have access to
their colleagues? Do they have access to the kind of materials
and things they believe they need when they walk in the
classroom every day?
But all of those things are within our power to change.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much.
Also, in our schools, we find that there are, you know,
absenteeism. And I don't know if the, you know, the level of
the school have increased absenteeism.
But what do we do about the substitute question? I mean,
the school is going to get substitutes. Is there any suggestion
on how that system could be improved so that there is real
education going on if there is a substitute for that day or
week or if a teacher gets sick and is going to be out for a
long period of time?
Ms. Phillips. As a superintendent, I had to try a variety
of things, because--and the first district where I was a
superintendent, I had high substitute rates often and a
difficulty in recruiting teachers in. So, over time, I had to
try all the things we have talked about today in order to
create an environment in the district where teachers wanted to
be, and wanted to be on an ongoing basis.
But then I had to do a number of creative things, like
create a more permanent pool of substitutes and train those and
assign those out to buildings, so that when a teacher was
absent there was a familiar face that was familiar with the
school in an ongoing way.
So there are a number of solutions, a variety of sort of
creative and innovative solutions that people use. Part of the
key, then, is giving schools and school operators and school
principals and stuff flexibility to use those.
Mr. Payne. And how important do you think class size is?
Would anybody like to touch that?
Ms. Phillips. There is no doubt that, you know, there are
certain points at which class size becomes untenable. But the
problem we have in the country is that there is very limited
evidence about the impact of class size except in some of the
early years. And, in fact, there is some growing evidence that
having an effective teacher is far more powerful than reducing
class size not by one or two students, but actually by several
students.
And so, I think as we think about how we are allocating
dollars in this country and we think about things from master's
degrees to class size, we should take a really hard look at
what the evidence says and decide if that is the most effective
way to allocate our dollars, or when, in fact, it is the most
effective way to allocate our dollars, and clearly bears a
really hard look.
Mr. Balfanz. And to answer that, one of the best uses of
the stimulus dollars, to really at the secondary level do the
studies to figure out what is the best way to use extended time
and what is the best way strategically to use class-size
reduction.
Mr. Payne. Since my time has expired, one last question
before it totally expires, just about the--we are having this
new surge in the movement for charter schools. I mean, charter
schools are here, and some of them are very good, and et cetera
and et cetera. But it seems like there is a new national
movement, especially on the East Coast, to almost make it all
charters.
If everyone could just give me a quick answer on the
question of, are public schools, the way they are performing,
are they still relevant today? Or is this charter avalanche
that is coming down, which is certainly well-orchestrated and
well-funded, is that going to be the wave of the future?
And if we could just go right down.
Mr. Balfanz. Sure. I think they are an important tool in
the tool basket, and in certain places they have been very
successful. But when we look at the data nationally, we see
just as many dropout factory charter schools as we see other
high schools. So just charter schools alone doesn't solve the
problem.
Mr. Payne. Yes?
Mr. Wotorson. I would largely agree with Dr. Balfanz. We
should look at charters, particularly those that have been
successful and that are successful and give us good models, we
should look at those for implementing things in the regular
public schools.
But we shouldn't look at charters as the panacea to the
problem. We ought to commit ourselves to fixing our public
schools and learning where we can.
Ms. Kondracke. Building on that, the lessons to be learned
from great charter schools--and there are uneven successes, but
there are some great charter schools--the lessons to be learned
is--I think the genius behind charter schools is the innovation
that is allowed, the autonomy, the management, the opportunity
to make decisions and be the master of the destiny of your
school and your environment, and to drive results and feel
pride and build a team and feel pride. And if we can take that
kind of a lesson and that kind of a genius breakthrough and
infuse that into the public school system, we could have
something.
Mr. Gordon. I think we should be encouraging schools that
work to grow in scale, be they charter or district. And I
wouldn't place a value on one or the other. I think the value
of having a system like that is that you create an
accountability-based system that serves taxpayers and serves
students.
So I would avoid the question of charter versus district
and focus on: Are we expanding schools that work and are we
eliminating schools that don't?
Ms. Phillips. Yeah, the key issue is schools that work. We
funded charters as a Foundation for a period of time, as well
as districts and States. And we will continue to try to put
high-quality choices in front of students, high-quality public
school choices.
I think the key is, if you look at schools that work across
this country, whether they are in districts or whether they are
independent charters, they all carry a set of ingredients that
we have talked about today, from being really clear about their
standards and curriculum, to having good data systems, to
enticing really effective teachers and leaders.
And when we talk to innovative school district leaders,
when we talk to charter leaders, when we talk to anybody who is
really getting outcomes for kids, they will say those are the
things we need, and we need the flexibility to carry them out,
as well as we need to continue to push the edges of innovation.
Mr. Wise. The key, to me, isn't whether or not you call it
charter or public; it is what are the elements in it. And just
as Dr. Phillips said, every time we look at a school that is
beating all of the odds, we see the same elements, whatever it
is called.
And another couple of those elements: personalization,
there is a direct personal relationship for students in that
school; and engagement. Those students are engaged; it is not
``drill and kill.''
So it is the elements that are important.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Scott. Well, thank you very much.
And I want to thank our witnesses for their testimony. You
know, this is really a case of pay me now or pay me later. We
have heard that you can predict from the third grade which
direction, which trajectory the children are on.
And you really have to wonder what kind of people would
look at a child in the third grade that can't read, knowing
that that problem will put them on a trajectory towards
prisons, and start building prisons rather than come up with
some literacy programs to get them back on another trajectory.
That other trajectory is not only more civilized, but it is
also less expensive. And that is essentially what we have been
doing. And the testimony we have heard today outlines the fact
that we could do a lot better.
So I want to thank all of our witnesses.
And, without objection, members will have 14 days to submit
additional materials or questions for the hearing record.
And, without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:24 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]