“Nationwide, our high school seniors are not where they need to be in math and reading. It is hard to be excited about the small gains some students are making when we know that all students, in every state, in every school, need to be making gains for both their success in life and the future of this country,” said Miller.  “This report makes it very clear that we need real change in our schools, so we can finally see real results on a national level. The case for dramatic education reform is written in the pages of this report. It is simply unacceptable for only a small demographic of students to progress.”

“Reports like these, while limited in fully evaluating how we educate our children, are informative. Because of the NAEP reports we know that our students have only made small gains in math. While I’m encouraged that New Jersey students are doing better in math relative to the national average, neither the state nor national assessment should be satisfactory to anyone,” said Holt. “We still must act aggressively to improve the math and science education that is critical to developing the technically sophisticated workforce that is in increasingly high demand in the 21st century.”

More information on the NAEP report

“With our economic recovery and global competitiveness at stake, our children need a strong education foundation to be able to grow, thrive and succeed. The Race to the Top competition reignited a much-needed conversation in this country about the need for real education reform. The states who won deserve credit for their determination and commitment to our students, teachers and schools.  They have shown a willingness to think beyond traditional school reform. The other states which competed for these funds also showed the value they place on moving education reform forward in our country.

“While I am disappointed that California was not among the winners of Race to the Top, this competition has demonstrated there is a desire to leverage real change in school districts throughout California --  to end the status quo for our students and encourage innovation at the local level. I applaud the leaders and teachers in the districts that developed California’s Race to the Top application. These districts represent the future of our public education system in California and deserve recognition for everything they are doing to transform our schools and ensure our students are able to compete in a global economy.”

For more information about Race to the Top, click here.

###

“Failing schools affect not only students and teachers, but entire communities. Turning around low achieving and persistently failing schools requires critical attention, resources, flexibility and planning for success – and keeping a close eye on the needs of the students and the community. In recent hearings, we’ve heard from expert witnesses and high quality providers with the skills and expertise to help turn around schools.

"However, with increased focus on school reform under this administration, it seems some companies with little or no expertise in education are purporting to be experts in school turnaround to try and take advantage of available federal money. Companies who are hired to help turn around schools as partners should have the best expertise and the best qualifications. I plan to hold a hearing and use the committee’s oversight authority to investigate the process of hiring providers to help turn around schools.”

The Education and Labor Committee has held several hearings looking at best practices for turning around low performing schools.

More information about school turnaround hearings

 “The fact that our American Indian and Alaska Native students have not made any progress since 2005 is alarming and cause for major concern,” said Chairman Miller.  “This report offers further proof that we need to focus significantly more attention on our American Indian and Alaska Native students in the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.”

 “I am extremely disappointed that this NAEP report shows little to no improvement in reading and math achievement among American Indian and Alaska Native students. These results are unacceptable and further underscore the vital need to improve education in these communities. Thankfully, Congress has an important opportunity to address this issue with the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). I look forward to continuing to work with Chairman Miller, my other colleagues on the Education and Labor Committee, as well as Native American leaders and organizations to ensure that this reauthorization includes strong provisions to improve education for our American Indian and Alaska Native students,” said Congressman Kildee.

Research outlined by witnesses shows that successful school turnaround must include flexibility, shared leadership, professional development, capacity building, extended school and learning time, community involvement and beyond.

The hearing was part of a series the committee is holding as it works in a bipartisan, open and transparent way to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). In the hearing, U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chair of the committee, announced that he will include a new plan for school turnaround success as part of the ESEA legislation, focusing on the elements discussed in the hearing.

“Fixing our lowest performing schools requires flexibility, collaboration, and support at every step along the way,” said Miller. “It means proving, planning and preparing for real success in our schools. If the important elements aren’t in place, if communities aren’t on board, if teachers aren’t included, none of this will happen and our nation will suffer the consequences. In this reauthorization, we will focus on the research-based, proven, core elements of successful turnaround identified today by our witnesses. When coupled with a strong use of data and a rigorous planning process, we can help provide local communities the flexibility to succeed.”

Turning around chronically failing schools can have significant impact on local communities, both in improving academic achievement and economically.

“We have created a new model for turning around schools. In three years, eight schools in which our model was applied turned around their reading test scores and school culture. The taxpayers saved $24 million compared to other turnaround models,” said John Simmons, president of Strategic Learning Initiatives. “The reauthorization of ESEA should allow for a strategy like ours that emphasizes the importance of comprehensive school reform strategies that are grounded in rigorous research and shown to work, using existing staff.”

Think College Now, a public college-prep elementary school in a low-income area of Oakland, California, employs research-based models to help students succeed and to close the achievement gap. Before the school opened, only eight percent of students were considered proficient or advanced in English Language Arts and only 23 percent in math.

“Our entire community -- from teachers to staff to families to students – is united and working toward the same big goal – to go to college,” said David Silver, Principal and Founder of Think College Now Elementary. “If you ask any one of those people at TCN, why are you are here, the answer would be the same: ‘to go to college.’”

In Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District, school officials used innovative reforms like a dual credit high school and early college high school to reduce dropouts by 75 percent in one school and to transform another school from one of the worst in the state to 11th in the country.

Witnesses noted that while research outlines best practices, ultimately flexibility and a comprehensive approach are paramount to successful school turnaround.

“There are elements in the research and our experience that tell us that efforts to improve poor performance work best when we work intensively with school leaders and teachers from a sense of shared accountability rather than demanding accountability on a narrow range of behaviors,” said Jessica Johnson, Chief Program Officer at Learning Point Associates. “We also know that meaningful change is more often sustained when a more comprehensive approach is taken and community and parents as well as educators are involved in the solution. The flexibility to orchestrate these variables is critical to success.”

View witness testimony

“An investment in teachers is an investment in the future of our students and our country,” said. U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the committee. “Teachers play an absolutely critical role in shaping our next generation of engineers, innovators and entrepreneurs. If we’re serious about closing the achievement gap, ending the high school dropout crisis, and regaining our global competitiveness, then we have to be serious about supporting teachers.”

Studies show teachers are the single most important factor in determining the success of children in school. School leaders are the second most important factor.

“Students will not do well in school if they are not taught by well-prepared and engaged teachers,” said Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers. “At the same time, neither students nor their teachers can succeed unless the teachers are supported by competent administrators who understand not simply the value but also the necessity of collaboration; the environment in which they are asked to learn and teach is safe, appropriately staffed and equipped; and there is shared responsibility—not top-down accountability.”

More than 200,000 students complete a teacher preparation program each year, but little comprehensive data exists on the effectiveness of these programs. Witnesses testified that teacher preparation programs and schools of education need to do a better job to properly train teachers.

“We need to build a system so that all beginning teachers can perform competently from their first day in the classroom, no matter how they enter teaching,” said Dr. Deborah Ball, Dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan. “Right now, teachers are considered ‘qualified’ simply by virtue of graduating from an accredited program or competing a major in the subject they teach. This sidesteps the real issue, for it relies on poor proxies for teaching effectiveness instead of demonstrated capacity to do the actual work that will help student learn. This is perilous for our students.”

Although professional development is a key component of teacher success, the  U.S. lags behind other countries in required teacher professional development. Singapore and Sweden, for example, require teachers to have at least 100 hours of professional development each year. Research shows that in order for professional development to be successful, it must be intensive, ongoing and connected to practice. Just over half of teachers were given time away from regular duties or professional development in the 2003-2004 school year.

Marie Parker-McElroy, an Instructional Coach in the Fairfax County Public Schools testified that “districts – especially those most in need of improvement - can build capacity, and provide time and support to implement effective professional development in all schools. This is the most critical lever available to improve the effectiveness of our teacher workforce, as we continue to seek ways to improve recruitment and preparation.”

In Long Beach Unified School District, where students speak 38 languages and nearly three quarters of students receive free or reduced price lunch, students are achieving at high levels.

Christopher Steinhauser, Superintendent of Schools for the district, explained that these students are succeeding because teachers are supported at every level. “New teachers are not simply left to sink or swim in Long Beach,” said Steinhauser.  “They’re supported by new-teacher coaches, and with ongoing training on how to use data to continually improve instruction throughout the school year.”

As Miller and other witnesses also emphasized at the hearing, supporting teachers has to start with ensuring teachers and leaders still have jobs. By the end of this school year, as many as 300,000 may be laid off because of the budget crises facing districts across the country.

Earlier today, Miller joined Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), union leaders and teachers who have been pink-slipped at a press conference to urge Congress to pass legislation that could help support 250,000 education jobs. Miller and Harkin have both introduced bills that would meet that goal. For more information on Miller’s bill, the Local Jobs for America Act, click here.

View witness testimony

View a clip of Chairman Miller at a press conference urging support for teacher jobs

***
Good afternoon.

Today Secretary Duncan joins us to discuss the Obama’s administration’s newly released blueprint for rewriting the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for meeting with us again.

Two weeks ago, you outlined President Obama’s vision for providing a world class education to every child in this country.  

You told us that the status quo is failing our students.

You told us that a strong education system is key to our long-term economic stability.

Members of this committee, on both sides of the aisle, agree.

Right now, even our best students are performing at a lower level in math than students in 22 other countries.

Nearly 80 percent of U.S. students are entering the ninth grade unable to read at grade level.

This has to change.

It’s time to overhaul and improve ESEA so that the law finally lives up to its promise: to provide an equal and excellent education for every child in America.

These improvements will require dramatic reforms to regain our role as a world leader in education.

But if we are successful, I believe we can build a solid economic foundation for our future generations.

What our students need to succeed isn’t a mystery.

They need a challenging and rigorous learning environment tied to college and career ready standards.

They need creative, effective teachers who hold them to high standards – and can adjust their teaching strategies when needed.

Innovative reformers across the country, at the local level, are making significant progress in these areas.

Now, at the federal level, we have to match their courage to disrupt the system and push the envelope.

I believe that the blueprint Secretary Duncan presents to us offers a strong roadmap for this kind of system-wide change.

Eight years ago, I helped write our current version of ESEA, the No Child Left Behind Act.

In many ways, the law was transformational.

It finally helped shine a bright light on what was really going on in our schools.

It told all of us – lawmakers, educators, parents, school boards – that it was no longer acceptable for any student to be invisible.

It showed us how all students and schools were faring, not just the richest districts or the highest-achieving students.
The results were difficult for many to swallow.

But it showed us the value of accountability for our students.

It provoked a conversation about education in this country that has gotten us where we are today.

But we know we didn’t get everything right.

The blueprint we’ll hear about today rightfully gives some control back to the states and districts to allow them to determine their own best strategies to turn around their lowest performing schools.

And it switches the conversation from one about proficiency to one about ensuring our students graduate ready for college and career.

We now have an incredible opportunity to help reshape the future of this country.

The Obama administration has already launched game-changing reforms for our schools.

Many states are taking unprecedented steps in the right direction.

In my home state of California, the state legislature removed the firewall that prevented student achievement data from being linked to teacher performance – a move that was a long time coming.

And in order to qualify for the second round of Race to the Top funding, California recently released its list of 187 persistently underperforming schools.

But California’s recent actions, and the actions of so many other states, have signaled they are ready to help fix the schools that are chronically failing our students.

As we take a close look at the administration’s blueprint today, I’d like to lay out some fundamental goals for what we must address in this rewrite.

We need to reset the bar for our students and the nation.

First, we need to ensure that every child can be taught by a great teacher, especially those who need them the most.

Teachers are the single most important factor in determining student achievement.

But 14 percent of new teachers stop teaching after their first year. More than a third leave teaching after three years. Almost 50 percent leave within five years.

We can’t expect teachers to stay in a system that doesn’t treat them with the same level of professionalism as other careers.

We can support great teaching in classrooms across this country by providing them with the right tools, like extended planning time, and more opportunities for career development.  

And by making sure that they have the data at their fingertips on how children are learning so we can understand how to better educate every child.  

Second, the quality of a child’s education should not be determined by their zip code. Every school, in every state needs to hold their students to rigorous, internationally benchmarked standards that prepares them for college and careers.

Third, there are districts and schools across the country seeing incredible success after years of stagnant results.

These schools were given the room to innovate. They’ve kept their focus on achieving at the highest levels and holding themselves accountable for all students.   

We must encourage states and districts to innovate, to think outside the box while maintaining high standards for all.

Lastly, we have to ensure we’re reaching every student with the right resources in every classroom.

Secretary Duncan, you have said repeatedly that our students get one chance at an education.

One chance.

I think the President’s blueprint lays the important markers as we begin this rewrite.

It will help build the kind of world class school system our economy needs and our children deserve,

Secretary Duncan, thank you again for being here.

Thank you for your leadership and your vision.

I look forward to hearing your testimony.

“President Obama has outlined a bold vision for reform that puts our efforts to rewrite our education laws on strong footing. Congress now has an incredible opportunity to help reshape the future of this country by overhauling No Child Left Behind and finally ensuring a world-class education for every single child in this country. This blueprint lays the right markers to help us reset the bar for our students and the nation.”

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will appear before the committee to discuss the President’s blueprint. It is the third in a series of hearings the committee is holding as it works to reauthorize the ESEA.

More information on the ESEA Blueprint for Reform

“Under the leadership of President Obama and Secretary Duncan, the U.S. Department of Education has made tremendous strides to build a stronger economy by providing our students with the knowledge and skills they need to compete globally,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the chairman of the committee. “If we’re serious about reaching President Obama’s goal of producing the most college graduates in the world by 2020, we will need to make sure that our students are prepared for college – and that they can afford to go once they get there.”

“We have made extraordinary progress in meeting the needs of our schools and communities in the midst of financial crisis and recession, making long-needed reforms in our Federal postsecondary student aid programs, and reawakening the spirit of innovation in our education system from early learning through college,” Duncan said. “The next step to cement and build on this progress is to complete a fundamental restructuring of ESEA.”

As Duncan explained today, over the past year the administration focused on making sure that education was not another casualty of the economic crisis. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included $100 billion in funding to help stave off layoffs of teachers and other school staff. To date, the Department of Education has awarded more than $69 billion of that funding, supporting 400,000 jobs overall -- including 300,000 jobs for principals, teachers, librarians and counselors.  

ARRA also created a $4.35 billion competitive grant program called Race to the Top, which incentivized states to make reforms in four key areas: strengthening the quality of teachers, assessments, standards and helping turn around struggling schools. To date 40 states and the District of Columbia have made changes to apply for these grants.

In his statement, Duncan said the President’s 2011 budget seeks to build on that progress by meeting several goals: “supporting reform of struggling schools, improvements in the quality of teaching and learning, implementation of comprehensive statewide data systems, and simplifying student aid.”

Duncan told lawmakers that the budget not only lays out core goals for rewriting ESEA, but also seeks to further change how education funding is awarded – so that investments are used to leverage effective reforms.

“We also propose to increase the role of competition in awarding ESEA funds to support a greater emphasis on programs that are achieving successful results,” Duncan continued.

Last month, bipartisan lawmakers on the committee announced plans to work together to overhaul ESEA. The committee has already begun to hold hearings and has asked stakeholders for their suggestions for how to improve the law.

Duncan also renewed his call for Congress to enact the historic Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, legislation authored by Miller and passed by the House in September. The legislation would save $87 billion over 10 years by eliminating subsidies to banks in the federal student loan programs and would reinvest those savings directly in students, families and taxpayers.

The bill reflects the administration’s goals of investing in students from “cradle-to-career.”It invests $8 billion over eight years to transform early learning programs that would help our earliest learners arrive at kindergarten ready to succeed. It creates a more competitive community college system by investing $10 billion to help these colleges prepare students for local jobs in growing fields. And it makes unprecedented investments to make college more affordable and accessible for students, including a $40 billion increase in funding for Pell Grants over 10 years and simplifying the federal student aid application.

The president’s FY 2011 budget also calls on Congress to help make student loans more manageable for borrowers to repay by strengthening an Income-Based Repayment program enacted by Congress in 2007.

“Just as essential to preparing students for college is ensuring that students and families have the financial support they need to pay for college,” Duncan said. “No one should go broke because of student loan debt.”

For more on the committee’s efforts to rewrite ESEA, click here.

For more on the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, click here.

Dennis Van Roekel, the president of the National Education Association, the largest teacher’s union in the country, testified that his union would take steps to help address barriers in collective bargaining agreement that can make it hard to get the best teachers in high-need schools. He said the NEA will encourage local affiliates to waive language in collective bargaining agreements that prevent this goal.

“The NEA commits to address barriers in collective bargaining agreements by requesting that every local NEA affiliate enter into a compact or memorandum of understanding (MOU) with its local school district to waive any contract language that prohibits staffing high-needs schools with great teachers,” he testified. “These compacts should also add commitments that would enhance this goal. Similarly, NEA would promote compacts or MOUs for its non-collective bargaining local affiliates that have high-needs schools in their districts.”

Miller thanked Van Roekel, calling the testimony “a very important signal from NEA that represents a significant departure from their historical position.”

Children in schools with the highest poverty rates or largest minority populations are assigned to novice teachers almost twice as often as children in low-poverty schools or schools without many minority students. Studies also show there is more out-of-field teaching and inequality in math than in other subjects. In high-poverty and high-minority middle schools – the very time when math fundamentals like Algebra are often taught – about 70 percent of math classes are taught by a teacher who does not have a college major or minor in math or a math-related field.  

“We cannot expect students to reach high levels of subject understanding if the instructor him/herself lacks that very understanding,” said U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA). “Too often high-poverty schools are staffed by teachers who attended the least selective and rigorous post-secondary institutions, who achieved the lowest scores on certification exams and who failed to major or minor in the subject they are assigned to teach.”  A child of color in Chicago is 23 times more likely than other children to have a teacher who failed their basic skills exam, according to Fattah.  

Inequitable distribution of teacher talent hurts the economy, as well as widens the achievement gap. An April 2009 study by McKinsey and Company found the achievement gap “imposes on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.”

“Nothing is more important to closing longstanding achievement gaps than getting more of our most effective teachers teaching our most vulnerable students,” said Dr. Linda Murray, Acting Executive Director at Education Trust-West. “Doing this right will require replacing outmoded methods of teacher evaluation with evaluation systems that draw on longitudinal data that link teachers and the growth of the students they teach.”

Under No Child Left Behind, states are required to have plans to ensure that effective teachers are distributed equally but it was rarely enforced under the Bush administration. The Obama administration has already taken important steps to enforce teacher equity provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Specifically, in order to be eligible for emergency state fiscal stabilization funds or to apply for the Race to the Top fund, states and districts must provide an assurance that that they will take steps to address disparities in teacher equity, in addition to other assurances.

Teachers in schools with high numbers of poor and minority are also paid less than teachers in wealthier schools, according to research by Dr. Marguerite Roza, Research Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Washington.

In almost every school district across the nation, schools that need funding the most get fewer resources.  

“If we care about the success of our students, we have to start caring about the success of their teachers,” said Layla Avila, Vice President of the Teaching Fellows Program at The New Teacher Project. “And that means acknowledging the real differences between teachers in their effectiveness, and taking action to ensure that all children get the same kinds of teachers…”

This is the first in a series of hearings the Committee will hold looking at how to ensure all children have access to effective teachers.

To view witness testimony, click here.

“It’s clear that technology and innovation in the classroom not only helps make lessons come alive for students, but can help them gain the skills needed to compete in a global marketplace,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the chairman of the committee. “Technology allows teachers to better understand the needs of their students on a real time basis, which in turn can make a dramatic difference in the way teachers teach and students learn.”

Witnesses told the panel that investments in technology in the classroom can help give students a 21st century skill set to prepare them for 21st century jobs, an investment President Obama’s has strongly endorsed.

“President Obama understands that in order to renew American competitiveness, we need to harness the power and potential of technology and innovation to revamp our educational system,” said Aneesh Chopra, chief technology officer at the White House. “We will need a greater proportion of our population with college degrees, an increased pipeline of students excelling in STEM fields, and breakthrough strategies to uncover the hidden talent we know resides throughout our country.”

Millions of students already have technology as a key part of their daily activities, including social networking, mobile and handheld devices and the internet. But their schools don’t reflect how digitally savvy many of these students already are. Witnesses agreed that classrooms need to adapt to the ways students are already engaging with digital media.

“Today’s technologically-savvy students enter the classroom possessing a wide range of skills that are different than those of their parents and teachers,” said Scott Kinney, Discovery Education’s vice president of Media and Technology, Outreach, and Professional Development. “I believe the educational community should utilize the digital tools at our disposal to present instructional content in a way that piques students’ interest and engages them in the meaningful construction of knowledge.  In my opinion, this is where the future of learning lies.”

Lisa Shot, a middle school science teacher from Montgomery County, Maryland told the panel how the interactive technology in her classrooms allows her more opportunities to address different learning styles of students, increase student engagement, and improve student achievement.

She also described how technology can help students to stay connected to the classroom from home, because she is able to put her assignments, as well as class notes and lessons, online.



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In Bryan, Texas, a technology enhancement program has helped dramatically change the education outcomes for the thousands of the school district’s students. At the Stephen F. Austin Middle School, for example, academic achievement scores in reading and math have steadily increased since implementing a technology-rich learning environment which includes providing students with laptops.

“Technology has been a key factor in our efforts to ensure that students are academically successful,” said Jennifer Bergland, chief technology officer for the Bryan Independent School District. “Classrooms are transformed when students are engaged in a meaningful learning environment, their learning is personalized to their needs and interests, and their school day is extended by providing all students with access to resources to support their scholastic objectives and interests.”
 
Abel Alejandro Real, a sophomore at East Carolina University, described how technology helped motivate him to continue school and pursue a career in pediatric nursing.

“Since Greene County schools provided change with the one-to-one program, school life is very different than the traditional high school my brothers dropped out of,” said Real. “Students work collaboratively in groups, they are challenged by projects and thoughtful questions and the best part is everyone participates and pays attention. In addition to the laptops, students use digital cameras, video cameras, and interactive white boards. Students are being prepared for college and 21st century careers.”

“Outstanding charter schools are proving that low-income and minority kids can achieve at the highest levels, graduate from college and thrive as adults,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chair of the committee. “The challenge ahead will be to take the lessons learned in these schools and bring them to scale, so every child can have the same opportunity to succeed”

President Obama and Secretary Duncan are strong advocates for charter schools. In March, President Obama encouraged states to reform charter laws to lift caps while increasing the rigor of selection and promoting greater accountability.

“Improving our education system by expanding high-quality public charter schools is one of this Administration’s highest priorities,” said Jim H. Shelton, III, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education. “States must remove arbitrary caps that have limited the replication and expansion of some of our nation’s highest-performing charter schools and charter school networks.”

41 states and territories have enacted charter school laws. There are over 4600 schools today, serving 1.4 million students. Over 60 percent of the students served by charter schools are minority and over 50 percent are eligible for free and reduced lunch.

Witnesses also emphasized that being a charter school does not necessarily ensure that a school will be successful.

High performing charter schools with commitments to a rigorous curriculum with high standards, accountability, and autonomy, are able to turn around student achievement very quickly and effectively, and are often able to close the achievement gap, witnesses explained.

Dr. John King, the Managing Director with Uncommon Schools, a non-profit charter management organization, discussed the incredible successes of Roxbury Preparatory Charter School in Boston, a charter school he co-founded. Roxbury Prep has been the highest performing urban middle school in Massachusetts for five years and has closed the racial achievement gap on state exams.  Roxbury Prep and other schools in the Uncommon Schools network have similar percentages of African American, Latino, and students living in poverty than other schools in their districts.  The success of this school and others is “replicable and scalable when school leaders are given autonomy with respect to budget, staffing, curriculum and instruction, and school culture and held strictly accountable for their results,” he testified.



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“Charter schools offered a way to stimulate innovation within public education by giving educators greater autonomy in exchange for greater accountability,” said Barbara O'Brien, Lt. Governor of Colorado. “Charter schools create opportunities and open doors for kids who would otherwise be left behind. They do it by using the best of the American spirit -- entrepreneurship, innovation, and hard work. They are an asset, not a threat, to our public education system.”

Steve Barr, founder and chairman of Green Dot Public Schools -- where 80 percent of students graduate and 80 of graduates are accepted to four year colleges -- discussed the dual role of the charter schools he founded. They serve both to help provide excellent education opportunities for the students at the schools, but also to provide research and development opportunities to the district, to show what is working:

“The result of the R&D of Green Dot is clear-cut across the board—and that’s that African American kids and Latino kids can learn when they’re in a system of schools that are small, are college and work ready, the dollars get in the classroom, there’s support for our product, we’re accountable to parents and we ask parents to be involved. In that vision, we think it not only serves our ultimate stakeholders—which are the students—but also teachers.”

Barr also discussed the unique partnership Green Dot schools has formed with the teachers union.  Green Dot teachers are unionized. The union contract has “just-cause” protections instead of tenure.

“There’s ultimate accountability; job stability is not just based on seniority but also on performance,” Barr said.  “[Green Dot asks] teachers to be more involved in decision-making and [it pays] more. Our Green Dot/UFT School in New York has total alignment between the mayor, the chancellor, and the president of the teachers union.”

Duncan said that transforming the nation’s education system was fundamental to building a lasting economic recovery.

“Our agenda from early childhood through 12th grade is focused on helping states do the right thing. And that’s appropriate because states are responsible for establishing systems of education through the 12th grade,” said Duncan. “It’s our role to make it a national priority to reform schools and help states and districts do that.”  Duncan singled out the dropout crisis as a problem and urged immediate action. Last week, the Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on this topic.



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Duncan discussed the historic $100 billion education investment included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

“Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we have laid the groundwork for reform on the K-12 level and made an early down payment on expanding access to early childhood education and increasing student aid for college students.”

The ARRA includes a $39.6 billion state fiscal stabilization fund for states to use to backfill budget cuts, stave off teacher layoffs and upgrade, modernize and repair school facilities. In order to be eligible to receive the funds, states must meet four assurances that they are making progress on reforms: ensuring excellent teachers are placed in their neediest classrooms, improving the quality of assessments, developing data systems to give timely information on what’s happening in the nation’s schools and fixing their lowest-performing schools.

The law also creates a $5 billion fund for competitive grants for a “Race to the Top Fund” that will allow the Secretary to reward and encourage innovation “around the four pillars of reform outlined in the stabilization fund.”

Duncan also outlined President Obama’s FY 2010 education budget priorities, which include investing in early childhood education, literacy and expanding support for teachers.  

In addition, Duncan highlighted President Obama’s commitment to making college more affordable and accessible for American families. The President’s FY 2010 budget includes a proposal to increase the Pell Grant scholarship for students by almost $100 billion over ten years, at no additional cost to taxpayers. His plan would be paid for by making the federal government the sole originator of all new federal student loans beginning in the 2010 school year, a move that would make student loans more reliable, efficient and cost-effective for students, families and taxpayers.

“President Obama has set a goal that, by 2020, the United States once again will have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. That’s an achievable goal but, to do that, we have to make college affordable. As federal policymakers, we need to improve preparation for college and expand college access and completion by increasing financial aid so that students of all income levels can pay for college without taking on a mountain of debt.”

On Thursday, the committee will hear more from the Department of Education at a hearing to examine proposals for increasing student aid through reforming the student loan programs. Lenders and colleges and universities, and an economist will also testify.

“The crisis we’re seeing in our nation’s high schools is real, it’s urgent, and it must be fixed,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chair of the committee. “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 and regain our competitive footing for good. We have a moral and economic obligation to ensure that, at a minimum, every student in this country can graduate high school prepared to succeed in college or the workforce. Our intent is to address this problem in this Congress in the most comprehensive way possible.”
Nationwide, 7,000 students drop out every day and only about 70 percent of students graduate from high school with a regular high school diploma. Two thousand high schools in the U.S. produce more than half of all dropouts and a recent study suggests that in the 50 largest cities, only 53 percent of students graduate on time.  Research shows that poor and minority children attend these so-called “dropout factories” – the 2,000 schools that produce more than 50 percent of our nation’s dropouts – at significantly higher rates.

Studies also highlight the financial impact of the nation’s dropout rates. A recent report by the McKinsey Corporation showed that if minority student performance had reached white students by 1998, the GDP in 2009 would have been between $310 billion and $525 billion higher – or approximately 2 to 4 percent of GDP. The report also says the achievement gaps in this country are the same as having “a permanent national recession.

“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,” said Bob Wise, president, Alliance for Excellent Education and the former Governor of West Virginia. “That is why I believe that the ultimate economic stimulus package is a diploma.”

Cutting the dropout rate in half would yield $45 billion annually in new federal tax revenues or cost savings, according to a recent report by Columbia University’s Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education at Teachers College.



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The U.S. Department of Labor estimates 90 percent of new high-growth, high-wage jobs will require some level of postsecondary education.

Cutting the dropout rate in half would yield $45 billion annually in new federal tax revenues or cost savings, according to a recent report by Columbia University’s Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education at Teachers College.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates 90 percent of new high-growth, high-wage jobs will require some level of postsecondary education.

“Simply put, the world has changed and there is no work for high school dropouts,” said Dr. Robert Balfanz, Ph. D, a research scientist at the Johns Hopkins University. “To meet its graduation challenge, the nation must find a solution for its dropout factories.”

Balfanz recent research findings show “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.”

Witnesses also presented data which shows African-America, Latino, American Indian and Alaska Native high school students have a far lower chance of graduating on time with a regular diploma.

“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,” said Michael Wotorson, executive director of the Campaign for High School Equity. “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.”

Witnesses all agreed that a common core of rigorous internationally benchmarked standards will help ensure all students graduate career and college ready.

 “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,” said Marguerite Kondracke, President and CEO of America’s Promise Alliance. “We have solutions on the ground, and legislative proposals that will bring them to scale.”

Other witnesses called for reforms that to make schools and teachers more accountable to their students.

Scott Gordon, the CEO of Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia, where 47 percent of the city’s public school first graders graduate from high school, discussed strategies that help his school turn around high dropout rates and low performance.  The average scores for Mastery students increased 35 points per grade in every subject and violence decreased by 85 percent. The schools’ turnover rates dropped a third. 

He urged teachers to take more responsibility for the outcomes of their students, and urged administrators and state officials to reward teachers accordingly.

“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,” said Gordon. “The same students, the same neighborhood, the same building – the only variable that changed was the adults.”

“With standards varying vastly from state to state, a high school diploma no longer guarantees that students are proficient enough to succeed in college or a career or to compete with their international peers,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chair of the committee. “It’s become increasingly clear that a rigorous, common core of standards is essential to help teachers teach and students learn. It’s critical to our goal of building world class schools that prepare all Americans to compete in 21st century jobs and our global economy.”

“We know that rigorous academic standards are necessary to prepare today’s students to succeed in tomorrow’s competitive world. And we also know that the federal government is ill-equipped – and ill-suited – to make decisions about what and how our children should learn,” said U.S. Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA), the panel’s top Republican. “Today’s hearing was a clarion call for state and local leadership in the area of high standards, and common benchmarks, to improve student academic achievement. We know what needs to be done, and I’m pleased to see that states are stepping up to the challenge.”


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Over the past 40 years, America has fallen from first in the world to 18th in the number of students graduating from high school and our share of the world’s college graduates has dropped from 30 percent to 15 percent. On the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) test, the U.S. ranks near the bottom of all industrialized countries in math, science and problem solving.

Witnesses testified the current system encourages states to lower their standards instead of raising them. As a result, a lack of comparability is undermining both students and America’s competitiveness abroad.

“Common state academic standards will strengthen U.S. competitiveness and individual success,” said Greg Jones, the chair of the California Business for Excellence in Education. “If standards are watered down, or individual states refuse to join the common state standards effort, we will not succeed in creating the globally competitive workforce of tomorrow.”

In Mississippi, for example, 89 percent of students are reading at or above proficiency on state assessments, while only 18 percent are proficient based on the National Association Educational Progress (NAEP).

Witnesses also urged the federal government not to interfere with state-led efforts to develop common standards, but rather to encourage such efforts through incentives and better support. They argued that the leadership must continue to come from states.

“States must lead this effort for the good of our young people and for the good of our country,” said Dr. Ken James, Commissioner of Education in Arkansas and the president of the Council of Chief State School Officers. “Rather, the purpose of the common state standards initiative is to raise the bar for all states by drawing on the best research and evidence from leading states and experts regarding, among other things, college-and work-readiness, rigorous knowledge and skills, and international benchmarking.”

Witnesses pointed to a “Race to the Top Fund” included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which allows the Secretary of Education to reward states that are using innovative approaches to raise student achievement, as a good starting point. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said he is considering using the $5 billion fund to help develop higher standards, among other things.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said many of the challenges teachers face in the classroom could be addressed by a common core of standards.

“Developing a new system of standards at first blush seems like a daunting task but it must be done,” Weingarten said. “The ‘Race to the Top’ program presents an historic opportunity to move toward common state standard by providing funds to get the job done. It would be the best possible use of that funding and could and should guide all future reform efforts.”

David Levn, co-founder of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), a charter school program whose students are performing at a much higher level than their peers, emphasized the need for standards that are grounded in research and proven effectiveness.

“We need to be careful not to replicate the vast and vague standards we see in too many states.” Levin said. “The standards should be identified based on proven evidence of what is necessary for students to know and do in order to succeed in college and in work.”

Rigorous, common standards will only be effective if they’re part of a larger, systemic approach to significantly improve the nation’s schools.

“We know that standards are critical, but aren’t sufficient on their own. Only a systemic approach will get us where we need to be,” said Governor James B. Hunt, chairman of the James. B. Hunt Institute for Educational leadership and Policy Foundation Board and the former governor of North Carolina.” Standards need to be supported by an integrated system, including curriculum, assessment, instruction, teacher preparation and professional development.”

For more information and to view witness testimony, click here.