People. I have a lot of faith in people. And i know that all of you agree with me. And so many people across generational lines gender lines, party lines so many people have been watching and paying attention and saying we can do better than this. We need to do better than this. Every wound we have can be healed. Every problem can be solved. What it is going to take now is leadership and citizenship. But truly, we have everything we need. We have the potential of the people of the greatest nation on the face of the planet. Help me, support me, talk to your friends, talk to your neighbors. Go to carly former president. Com. Carlyforpresident. Com we can make sure this will be the greatest century for the greatest nation on the face of the planet. Thank you so much. God bless you all. [applause] our roads and the white house coverage continues tomorrow with democratic president ial candidate hillary clinton. Shell be outlining her economic agenda at the new school in new york city. We have it live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Later we take you to wisconsin, where Governor Scott walker is expected to formally declare his candidacy for president in the 2016 race. That happens at 6 15 p. M. Eastern. Live coverage on cspan3. With education policy on the agenda this week in congress next, a look at the new no child left behind to rewrite it. This is 40 minutes. Host the rewrite on the no child left behind law, we want to welcome nina rees, the author of the key legislation. Now president and c. E. O. The National Alliance for public Charter Schools, which is what . Guest we are the National Advocacy arm of the Charter School movement. We do most of our work at the federal level to boost the level of funding. We also do a lot of work at the state level. We have 43 states with Charter School laws. We are active in the seven states that dont have laws but also active in states that have weak laws to make sure we are creating a climate where climate schools can thrive. Laws but also active in states that have weak laws to make sure we are creating a climate where climate schools can thrive. Host we also have the Vice President for the alliance for excellent education. Guest we are a National Organization based in d. C. We use research to develop policy recommendations and translate those into legislative, regulatory recommendations on capitol hill. We focus mainly on secondary schools. Host would have one line if you are a teacher, educator administrator. Lets go back to 2002. Here is when president bush signed into law the no child left behind act. President bush the first way to solve a problem is to diagnose it. This bill says every child can learn. We want to know early before it is too late, whether a child has a problem learning. I understand taking tests are not fun. Too bad. [laughter] president bush we need to know whether children have got the basic education. Host a lot of applause. You were part of the legislation. The last eight years, it has not been reauthorized by congress. A lot of questions to the point of the president s remark about taking a test. That is the most effective way to determine if a child is exceeding or not. Guest absolutely. One of the greatest attributes is the annual testing in reading and math and now in elementary middle school, and Science High School in science. These provisions will stay in place in the house version of the bill passed last week and the Senate Legislation introduced. Despite the angst around testing, what gets measured gets done. To the extent students are taking more and better tests, we have more better information about what it takes to raise achievement and close the achievement gap. Host critics say teachers are teaching for the test, not to teach. Guest i think a number of highquality Public Schools and public Charter Schools and even private schools, those teachers will know that subjects well. Their teaching to the test every day. The challenge before us is better teacher training to make sure teachers understand the content well enough to have it appear you are not teaching to the test and encouraging learning. Guest we need tests that are worth teaching to. Tests under the no child left behind law are largely measuring lowlevel skills. What we need are tests that are now being put in place in most states that measure the skills needed for the 21st century economy. The need for annual data, we need to know how well our kids are doing. So that is why the annual testing is important. It is also important to understand the angst around tests, the degree it comes at the result of too much testing the federal law does not require that much testing. When you were in school, how many did you take in a year . The federal law requires a test in math, english once a year for grades three through eight. Was in high school. And one test in science in elementary, middle school, and high school. We need to differentiate what is required by the fed and what is layered on top at the state and local level. Host lets get to phone calls. Sissy is an educator from baltimore. Your take on this . Caller i am a retired special educator from baltimore city. I want to say the children have already said one test or three tests do not define who we actually are. The children are bombarded by test after test. All they do in the beginning of the year starting in september is teach children how to take a test. The curriculum is way off. Nobody is learning anything. The teachers are under tremendous stress because there are penalties if you do not comply. The bottom line to all of this is the destruction of the Public School system. I want to ask one question. What kind of country do we want to have if we do not have an educated populace . That is the danger of the whole thing. The Public School system should be improved. It cannot be done by testing. It has got to be done by highly qualified teachers, a rigorous curriculum, attention to all childrens needs, particularly these children failing in math, the arts, physical education. All of these things particularly arts and music, are being taken away. Host thank you. I will get a response. Phillip lovell. Guest i think the color is saying we have too much testing. Equally important is a comprehensive approach to education. It needs to be made up of more than tests. The number one factor in how well a kid will perform is how well their teacher is able to teach. That is obviously a critical issue. Hopefully, the new law will help to support that. The reality is in order to improve the nations schools we need a lot of things to happen at the same time. We need to support teachers. Need Higher Quality curriculum. Tests are part of the picture but not the complete picture. Host this is the headline as congress is getting ready to get rid of the no child left behind, changing in the Senate Version two the every child achieves act. The bill would end the need for states to get waivers for no child left behind. It would require states to create their own accountability systems. Provide grants to help states and districts for schools. Maintain standardized testing but end the federal accountability. Provide resources to support teachers and educators and incentivizing the adoption of standards. Basically, getting more to state and local school districts. Guest one point the caller made is the consequences to testing. One area where no child left behind failed perhaps is by being too prescriptive on what would happen if a school is not making adequate yearly progress. You have too many schools that have failed to reach the bars they needed to reach. This notion you will use the test to label a teacher as a poor performing teacher or a school as a poor performing school has had a a greater backlash. Host you wrote this essay saying dont throw the testing out with the bathwater. Guest exactly. As a parent, i value the fact at the end of the year i get a report card that tells me how well my child is doing and how well the teacher taught her the basic skills in math and reading. I think you want to have that as an element. But you dont want it to be the only element that determines the quality of your school and teacher. Guest when no child left behind past, it put a lot of weight in the federal camp around not just the tests but what happens as a result of the tests. If kids do not meet goals for two years in a row, the federal law prescribes a fairly rigid regimen of corrective actions that would take place. From tutoring to Public School choice corrective action restructuring. I think the challenge we now have is the pendulum has swung the other direction of being very loose on what the feds require, to the point of having limited safeguards for low income kids and students of color. The challenge will be whether congress can come up with a middle road approach that provides states and extracts districts the flexibility they need to improve schools while also making sure something happens when schools are low performing. Right now, there are over 1000 high schools where 1 3 the kids to not graduate on time. Something should be done when the schools continue to have this Graduation Rate. The senate bill is up in the air. The house bill is even more up in the air. Host the article by our guest nina rees, saying dont protesting out with the bathwater. If no child left behind is changed, testing should remain. Good morning. Caller amen to the first caller. She said something very poignant and to the point. Charter schools come to fruition only because the majority of the state funding is taken from the trust fund or pocket money of where the money goes for the Public Schools. Unfortunately, the majority of these major tests everybody takes, especially the new part test that costs a lot of money. Local municipalities and states are burdened with paying for that because the federal government has sewed up most of their pockets for money. Host thank you. Guest on the funding for assessment it is important to understand when no child left behind was written and those tests became required, the federal government does pony up cash to cover the costs to the tune of 400 million a year. That is not to say it coveralls covers all of the cost. That is to say this is not an unfunded mandate. Guest on the Charter School question new jersey is one of the melrose most robust Charter School area of the country. We firmly believe Charter Schools are Public Schools and funds should follow students to the school that best meets their needs and demands of the families. I think shifting the cost so we are more focused on were children under are going is important. Charter schools receive only . 70 of every one dollar that follows kids to the traditional system. Right now, you are getting more bang for the buck if you send your child to a Charter School because the remaining amount stays in Public Schools. Host the effort is being led by lamar alexander, the chair of the education committee. The senate will continue debate this week on legislation. Here is what he said last week on the senate floor. Lamar alexander this has been a good day. I appreciate the senators coming to the floor. It has been interesting to hear. Some senators have different opinions on some issues, but there is a consensus that runs through this debate. It runs through the democratic side as well as the republican side. We have a consensus about the need to fix no child left behind and a consensus about how to do it. Host legislation did pass in the house. What can we expect in the senate . Guest i think we will see a senate vote that is much more bipartisan. The vote in the house was not just party line. It was razor thin, the bare minimum needed to pass the bill. When the bill was brought up in the house the first time, they had to take it off the floor because they did not have the votes to pass it. On the senate side, they took a bipartisan approach. The bill is not perfect. I think it is far from perfect. But it will get a much larger vote. Host there are differences between the bills. Guest the house bill leaves basically everything up to states. It includes the provision talking about allowing funds some portability. Others refer to it in other terms. The white house is clear they feel it takes money away from poor kids and gives it to more affluence schools. That is one of the major reasons the white house threatened her house bill. The senate bill does not include that provision. When senator alexander tried to include that in the bill, the amendment failed. The senate bill provides a slightly more specific accountability structure. But it is still very much up to states what schools will be identified for improvement and what they will have to do. That will be a major Sticking Point this week. Host based on the closeness of the house vote and the differences between the house and senate bill, will be reauthorized . Guest we hope so. It has been quite some time since we have had the show bipartisanship in the senate. The bill in the Senate PassedCommittee Without opposition. The fact you have senator alexander, a former secretary of education, banding with senator patty murray who has a track matter track record of being able to negotiate deals is a positive momentum behind us. We think it will hopefully pass the senate and go to the president before the end of the year before the next year which is an election year. As you mentioned earlier the law has not been reauthorized in eight years. 42 states have waivers from the u. S. Department of education. They are doing things differently because the requirements were too difficult for them to abide by. Their will continue to be a lot of debate around testing and accountability at a time when we need to have a greater focus on meeting the needs of poor students. I think this congress is poised to pass it. Hopefully, they can come to the table to rectify differences. Host nina rees is the president and c. E. O. Of the National Alliance for Public Schools. Phillip lovell is the Vice President of the alliance for excellent education. Jean is next on the independent line. Caller i want to talk about something i have not heard enough said, that is about achievement in students being the focus of the discussion. I am a former school board member. I saw this widely in my time in educational policymaking and thinking. Students never become the center of the discussion. It is all about the adults. There are 230,000 students in new jersey referred to special education for languagebased learning issues. 80 are dyslexics. If you expand those statistics nationally, you can see a large problem. That his languagebased learning. Dyslexia is for most of those problems. These statistics are just those that fail enough to be labeled into special education. These are students already two years behind or more. There are many more children that struggle and never get referred for special education. This is the basis for the lack of achievement, student dropouts, and failures even post secondary, those that do graduate. Why is none of the discussion about these kids that never learn to read . Our teachers are not trained to educate dyslexic students in college preparation. They are not given professional development. Except now in some states, including new jersey, some laws have been passed to for schools to do this. But why are educators especially the leaders, the department of education personnel, why are they not training teachers to teach kids to read . Host thank you for pushing that issue on the table. And will get a response. We will get a response. Guest reading first goal was to empower and offer funding to states for them to identify reading disabilities early on and come up with prescriptive methods of teaching readings. Of course, the program is no longer around. But i agree that identifying learning disabilities early and coming up with good professional development or other types of School Services can meet the needs of those students as early as possible, it is the best way to adjust address the achievement gap. This can be addressed at a early age, but they have to be detected at the right time. Guest there is federal support for this. It is not as wellknown. There is now there was a program called striving leaders comprehensively literacy program. It was funded for the last five years. It only received about 169. Only six states benefited. In the senate, senator murray has made sure there is an emphasis on reading. It is called the learn act. In the fns genius of our friends in congress, it eliminated the striving leaders funding, the federal governments sole source of funding for literacy. They eliminated it. The pending bills in the house and senate, we hope that changes. An important point on this is we need to identify early entry early, but we also need to remember reading cap in the hat is different from reading catcher in the right. We need to support literacy throughout their time in school. Host from connecticut, when is next gwen is next. Caller i am a parent of color in connecticut. I am listening to the reauthorization. We are talking about highquality charters. We have to think about accountability across the board. Every school, whether charter or traditional or magnet, needs to be high standard. Every school needs to be held accountable for studentcentered planning. Learning. Charters are just part of the solution. Also cools are not created equal, just like charters all schools are not created equal just like charters. I am looking at the language past where states have all this autonomy. I agree local districts need to have autonomy. I do believe states should have autonomy. With the problem becomes what happens with the schools when the schools leadership, and educators are not held accountable for the roles they play. Host a viewer tweeted with this saying it allows for kids access to more affluent schools and watch the achievement gap narrow. Guest Charter Schools are held accountable to the same tests. There are not different standards for Charter Schools. One of the things we have been trying to do with our friends in connecticut and other places is make sure we are raising the bar on Charter Schools by making sure we are closing the poorest performing schools and replicating the successful ones. I agree with the caller. I think giving access to low income families to schools that are more socioeconomically diverse is one way to make sure we are addressing the achievement gap. Guest i want to make sure you know you are well represented in the senate when it comes to accountability for low income kids. Senator chris murphy, when the committee was discussing the law, he offered an amendment and had to withdraw it because he did not have the votes to pass it. Would his amendment would have done is make sure when students of color and low income kids when kids who have been traditionally underserved, when they do not meet state set goals, something happens. It is not rocket science. It is common sense. Hopefully, we will have some policy passed on the senate floor this week to move us in that direction. Host you can join the conversation on twitter. James saying i hated essay questions, but i realize there critical to determine if a child has a grasp of the language. Here is more from the house debate this past week. The democratic congressman from colorado. [video clip] there is not a lot more to say with regards to the positive provisions of the bill. What i want to talk about one of the biggest shortcomings getting accountability right. We can all agree no child left behind did not get accountability right. But the answer is to move forward and make accountability work, not to take a step backwards, which is what this bill does, by having this Guiding Principles defining targets and accountability. Is this bill were to become law states would not be required to set performance targets based on student proficiency or Graduation Rates. The bill does not define low performing schools, nor does it established parameters for intervention when we know a school is not working. One of the most compelling things we can do here in washington is equipped local superintendents with the toolbox they need to help turn around persistently failing schools. This bill fails to do that. Host the debate in the house last week. It narrowly passed and goes to the senate this week. Charlotte is next from florida on the democrats line. Caller im calling, a long time advocate with regard to education and community involvement. So, here in florida, we have 2. 7 million children in our public k12. We have opportunity voucher scholarships, that is what they have been called, for around 61,000 children. So, that kind of gives you low income minority population of about 59 . So we are looking at a 6040 percentage of low income minority children to the public structure. And i keep hearing the word accountability, rather than achievement. And also the word assessment being brought forward. I think that we have parents who understand this. This is a ground swell of parent understanding that is coming forward of not shaming and blaming the game of School Grading of our children. Host you want to respond . Guest well, i dont know what the question was, but the caller is from a state that has had a lot of experience with accountability. When governor bush was the governor of florida, put in place a whole host of reforms focused on reading accountability choice and he put together something a lot of other states have adopted. As a result, the achievement levels because of these accountability levels, the student achievement levels of low income students and minority students in florida has risen over time. The other thing that governor bush put in place, which we are great grateful for, is a Robust Research data system. One of the reasons we like the annual testing provisions of no child left behind is that it empowers states to be able to look at see what works and what doesnt and then make sure resources are allocated to those things that actually work. Guest i think a major point that the caller is making is that we need to do something besides shaming and blaming our schools, and i agree. We need to identify and support. I think within the senate bill, we have made some progress on the support and. End. It is on the identify end where there are some issues. Speaking of florida, when you look at the details of that system and other systems throughout the country, whether or not those systems are truly transparent i think comes into question. A number of kids the proficiency rates are in the 60s. There are 50 high schools in a florida who had as, but a third of the kids are not graduating. So we need to make sure that these systems are truly transparent so we are identifying the right schools. Host gallup has done a recent survey on how Many Americans here education and the responsibility or wall of the federal government. It is Available Online at gallup. Com. They prefer local School Boards over federal government by a rate of 56 to 15 . Stevensville, maryland. Good morning. The republican line. Caller good morning. I believe the content of the test is important, not english american history, Critical Thinking science, is being important. Kids arent being taught how to read cursive writing, so one day there will be no one left that can read the original founding document. I think also that there is too much emphasis placed on sex at, homosexuality ed homosexuality, transgender information. This sharing with the children is not necessary, that can be done in the home. And that is where the federal government needs to step out. It leads me to believe that there is some sort of an obsession with making sure that children get the Central Education sexual education. Thank you. Host thank you for the call. Guest the first comment that the caller is making is really important as we were discussing at the top of the hour the need for Higher Quality assessment. A very well reputable recent organization, the rand organization, did an analysis and found that very few of them along the lines of 2 of the reading tests, for example measured higherorder skills. I completely agree that we need to make sure that we have highquality assessments. That assessments are the only thing driving education. And that there are federal resources, as another caller had said earlier, federal resources to help cover the costs of those things. Host lets go to to reset to reset next in new york. Caller good morning. The original intent of the elementary and secondary education act was to equalize Educational Opportunity and achievement. What we understand that, then we need to look at what is going on now. Measuring what we already know about academic performance at have no for a long time, academic performance is directly related to socioeconomic status, combined wealth ratio. Graduation rate is at alltime high. No one is mentioning that. Public schools now, because of the testing, are narrowing their curriculum to the detriment of a wellrounded education that includes Critical Thinking. Not only in math and englishlanguage arts and science, but also in social studies, which seems to be getting short shifted, music, and art that make for a wellrounded education. When we talk about accountability, there are many different ways we can measure how well a child is doing. We do get report cuts. We got report cuts are in i was in school. We know the kids how the kids are doing from the teachers perspective. Other measures could include portfolio work, which shows what a student does over the course of the year. In terms of Charter Schools, it is important to remember that Charter Schools can reject anyone that they like. And when you look at the statistics, the number of special education students and number of englishlanguage learners are significantly below. And when you look at the consumer are excepted, they tend to be of the higher achieving. Host tracy, a number of issues on the table. Guest Charter Schools are Public Schools. I cannot turn students away. If they have more students there are some Charter Schools that are perhaps not accepting students. We need to know which target schools those are so we can have a conversation with them, but they are Public Schools and the had to accept all students. And because they had to cater to the needs of families, most of the family to have attracted over the years have been low income families and minority families. They happen to because and treated primarily in low income communities around the country. Some states actually require that first and foremost, they meet the needs of low income students will be located in those areas. I take issue with the callers assessment of Charter Schools. In terms of the other questions around socioeconomics, i agree and i think one of the best ways to assure that we get the socioeconomic diversity or that it allows students to actually achieve at high standards is to give them a good education. Make sure that they not just graduate from high school, but that they also go to college. This is one area where our highend dv achieving high achieving Charter Schools they are now tracking not only whether students are going to college, but making sure that their students are graduating from college and moving into the workforce. I think ultimately to end the cycle of poverty, education is definitely one of the key components. A lot of Charter Schools have demonstrated that with a good, solid days of education, you can move the students out of poverty. Host nina rees and Phillip Lovell lets get a call from delaware. An educator. Good morning. Good morning, are you with us . Lost the call so lets go to mitchell, from tennessee. Caller hello . Host go ahead, mitchell. Caller however you this morning . Host we are fine, thank you. Caller [indiscernible] when you dont know the lord, how are you going to go ahead and learn how to read and do what the lord says. Prayers were taken out of school, guns and drugs were put in to schools. Children need to learn how to read the lord and follow christ. Host thank you, michel. Guest i want to respond to the previous callers ideas. You are right. The nation has finally hit a Graduation Rate above 80 and that should be celebrated. But we also need to remember that the Graduation Rate is now 81 . That means one out of five kids dont graduate on time. Imagine if one out of five cell phones didnt work. Or if one out of five times people go to starbucks, they are out of coffee. There would be a national uproar. The fact that one out of kids is not graduating is not getting the attention that it deserves. There are 1235 high schools across the country that a third of kids dont graduate on time. That is crazy. There is no way to be able to sustain americas leadership and Global Economy if we are not able to graduate our kids. So hopefully the house and senate bills will have a stronger emphasis on the low Graduation Rates. Host and the low Graduation Rate is primarily where . Guest it is across the country, but concentrated in a handful of states. Vermont, new hampshire, for example. Other states have more. New york, california, arizona. So they are spread across the but interestingly, this is a solvable problem. These high schools only represent 6 of the nations high schools. Right now, the house and the senate bills, they just leave it open to chance. Whether or not the schools are going to receive the attention that they need in the community. Senator warren offered an amendment that would ensure the schools are identified and included the accountability system. That they are provided support. We hope that some policy like this is included in the senate bill. Host nick is joining us from tennessee. Good morning. Caller ok. Can you hear me . Host we sure can. Caller look, i work in a facility where we give out samples of food just to demonstrate. When my father immigrated to this country your germs can take your as far as yesterday, i asked a little boy what he likes about school. He said, sports, math, and he gets a free lunch. Get the federal government out of our lives. Let us educate our children. Hillary clinton said it takes a village to raise a child. What she really means is parents and relatives are too stupid and incompetent to raise their children. They keep pushing and pushing. We didnt even have to government. We did find didnt have kindergarten. We have a 10th amendment to the constitution. We are on the road to tyranny and part of it is for the federal government to control our children more and more. Host thank you for the call. We get the essence of your comment. That really goes to the core debate we saw in the house. Guest there are different point of view on this issue when, in 1965, lyndon b. Johnson put into place the education act, his goal was to close the achievement gap. Over time, one of the things we noticed that as they put more and more money into the program and by trusting states and localities, student achievement wasnt necessarily going up. I would say most communities, it is probably fine to trust their localities. But in some communities, because the electorate is not active, the individuals making decisions about schools are not necessarily invested in the highperformance of the school. I think it is extremely important for the federal government to have a strong role in addressing these issues and empowering, quite frankly, families to exercise options and have some sort of voice and a discussion because otherwise you are ignoring the voice of the students and you wont necessarily know the impact of your reforms until the student has dropped out of school and it is too late. Host and this from our viewer, saying, get back to the basics. Is it about passing students were educating . College is not for everyone. Guest i believe that every student should have the opportunity to go to college. Whether or not the child and their family decides to go to college is up to them. But the decision whether or not they should go in should not be the cousin and i prepared. That is why some states have adopted standards that will prepare students for college and careers. And that is the goal of the house and senate bill, to make sure kids are ready for post secondary education and the workforce. Enter what is the appropriate federal world, i think that is roe, i think that is the role i think that is the thing we have to get right. No child left behind went to far. It was too prescriptive and required very sanctions. Unless we have some safeguards provisions that lbj had in mind and has really been the basis of the act, it will not be filled. This law is a civil rights law. It needs to have civil rights protections in it. Right now, the house bill and the senate bill will fall short in this regard. There will likely be an amendment on the floor this week to help to restore some of the provisions, the accountability provisions, to make sure if groups of students are falling off track, that something is done about it. That is it. That is with the federal law needs to say. It doesnt need to say, here is what you need to do. But it needs to make sure that the parents deserve to be the guarantee that if their children and not performing, if the children are consistently falling off track, that something is going to be done about that they deserve it. Host fillable level is with the alliance for excellence in education. Nina rees is the president and ceo of the National Alliance for public target schools. How religious organizations plan to respond to the Supreme Court ruling on samesex marriage. Looking at progressive politics and campaign 2016, including the you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. Washington journal, live on cspan. Announcer tonight, q a with Kristen Soltis anderson. That is followed by prime ministers questions. Later, a town hall meeting with Carly Fiorina in new hampshire. Brian this week, our guest is conservative writer Kristen Soltis anderson, author of the selfie vote where millennials are leading america and how republicans can keep up. Brian Kristen Soltis anderson and your book, why did you tell us there have been one billion downloads on something called candy crashed back . Kristen folks