Transcripts For CSPAN Today In Washington 20091230

witness over that witness so they are engaged. the markup phase as well. it means amending things, making marks on the so-called draft bill or mark that's before the committee for consideration. and again, they are active as well. in the hearing stage, markup stage, most of these are open and they will be in the room watching what's going on, not to say there aren't private discussions that precede some of these sessions as well. and third stage is the vote stage. you need a majority physically present in the room to do that, room of the house and senate. one of the jobs might be to make sure the right people are at the right place at the right time because you have to have the votes. we don't want people not attending and not having official quorum to report out the legislation and that is a majority physically present in the room. . allle rules, all the precedents and informal practices are geared to allow a majority to accomplish their policy objectives, to move their agenda. whether or not it is health care, cap and trade, financial overhaul or whatever. because the rules of that body, that is what they are designed for. since it is a more polarized environment, we see more probably in a party line voting than we have in a while. one of the big differences -- maybe i ought to spotlight the differences between it is house and the senate briefly. the house has a rules committee, and what the rules committee does is lay out the conditions for debating legislation. it is the speaker's committee, whether or not it is a democratic or republican speaker. so they determine what issues are going to be raised on the floor of that chamber. the senate has no rules committee. in the house, as jim indicated, every second of debate time is regulated by a rule, practice or precedent. in the senate they are noted for unlimited debate, so-called filibuster. in the house, jermaine amendments only unless the rules committee permits non jermaine amendments. satisfies it to say those are fundamental ones. back to the house. the point is if the majority stays united, and if they are determined, that they will eventually win. they will prevail over the minority obstructionism. it may take some time. it may be very frustrating, but eventually they will win if they are united and cohesive in their endeavor. it is very frustrating if you happen to be a member of the minority party. it was frusting when the democrats were in the minority and the republicans are in charge. so message is no fun being in the minority in the house of representatives. so the job of the minority in part is what? the job of the minority is to oppose. they are the opposition party. one of their techniques is to come up with the message-sending to try to highlight what they stand for, to come up with a dueling agenda that they can take to the body politic in november of 2010. so it is an uphill fight, particularly when they don't have the white house. when bush had the white house, that was the bully pulpit. now it is an uphill struggle, but they do have their successes, no question about it. last year i think, august of 2008, remember gasoline prices are approaching $4. august is the practice additional recess month for the house and the senate, and the the republicans, many of them refused to go home. they stayed in this darkened chamber and invited in people to come on and listen to them, and they got a fair amount of visibility over energy and lambasting the democrats for not addressing this issue, taking the whole month off while we are here working hard. the senate, and if you are following the health care debate at all, you realize it is a much different environment over there, a much different institution. this minority rule thing. the filibuster is but one, but a potent one. that means to stop a talk-a-thon, you need 60 votes. you can be sure that reid, and mcconnell holding his troops together. they call in the vice of everybody they know inside and outside the institution in terms of how you keep 60 or win 60 in order to prevail or shut down the filibuster. of course mcconnell would want to keep 40, 41 being better to stymie the democrats from accomplishing anything. harry reid as majority leader has done a pretty great job of keeping 60-60-60. we will see what happens when they bring the conference report to the floor. but the house-versus-senate idea is this. if you happen to win or lose as the case might be in terms of an advocacy group in the house, hey, you have another chamber over there to sort of revisit, maybe refight the bat nl a different context, and maybe what you lost in the house you're going to be able to gain in the united states senate because they fundamental operate differently. there is a equip i like. the democrat from north dakota says the senate is filled with 100 human brake pads. that is the character of the united states snat. that is why the job of being majority leader is one of the toughest jobs in washington, d.c.. trent lott, who was once majority and minority leader. he once said that job of being majority leader is tougher than breaking president of the united states because the president has all of his advisors and the whole of executive staff to call on for vice, counsel or whatever. the speaker of the house has the rules committee. she or he determines as the case might be, whether or not certain amendments are going to be allowed or not, how much debate is going to go on or not. what have i got? good looks? the power to persuade? no. the right of first recognition? setting the scheduler agenda is basically what it amounts to. he has some other stuff, too, but nonetheless, limited power, limited prerogative in that institution. well, i think i've talked enough. i am going to solicit some questions or ideas. but certainly we have more lobbyists today. in part we have more lobbyists because the federal government is so large. the reach, scope and size is massive, and that has triggered a large number of lobbying groups, probably the principal factor in the creation of more and more lobbying groups in town. i brought along one equip, and i remember reading it. this is out of the "wall street journal," called "in defense of lobbying." he quoted at the end. many presidents, they often don't like lab yists for whatever reason. harry true man, jamie carter, barack obama has not been too friendly at times with lobbying organizations, and likewise, harry true man. he was asked at a press conference this kind of question. i will say it. the reporter ask asked him, mr. president, to go back to lobbyists, will you be against lobbyists who are working for your program? truman sw answered, quote, well, that is a different matter. we probably wouldn't call these people lobbyists. we would probably call them citizens appearing in the public interest. [laughter] >> let me start with the first question. the health care bill will be going to the conference committee, and if we get a cap and trade bill, could you discuss a little bit about conference committees and how advocacy or labying occurs at conference economies. does it, and is it very effective? can you give some examples? >> yeah. how do you -- and the constitution requires, implicit requirement, that all bills must pass both chambers in identical fashion before they go to the white house. this is implicit. how do you get that? the most prominent way you get it is when one chamber passes a bill, sends it to the other, and the other chamber rubber stamps it because it is non-controversial. so 70% of public law follows that rubber stamp route as i characterized it. the second way, and this may be used in the health care measure . what we call the exchange of amendment route or the ping-pong route, where one chamber passes a bill, sends it to the other chamber, and the other chamber decides what they want to do is amend it. so maybe you have a house bill. you send it to the senate, and they add a senate amendment. they could ask for a conference then and there. but what they decide to do is send it back to the house. now the house receives it, they say that senate, they are amending our stuff. now you have a house will with a senate amendment. so what they decide to do, well, we are going to add a house amendment to the senate amendment to the house-passed bill. and they could ask for a conference then, but no. they send it back over. this could get a little complex. sort of a silly example. i will get to the bottom line in a moment. i'm just using thesis for props -- thesis for props. in 1995 when newt came in, he said we don't want to have any more legislation laws commemorating national or kid month, ice cream week, asparagus day or whatever. one of them was, before this, we will see the national dairy go awareness week. they send it to the senate, and the senate says what is into -- so special about dairy goats? it is not dairy goats that is important to the diet of americans. it is beef. that's what we want, beef. there is probably a cattle caucus, and so the cattle gets added. now it is the national dairy goat and cattle week. they don't ask for a conference. they send it back to the house. the house goes, that senate, what are they doing with us? no, it is not beef. americans love chickens. that is what they like. so now we have the chicken amendment. the ag-interest fwrooms get working. now we have the national dairy goat, cattle and chicken i awareness week. now the last one over here, and this is back over to the senate. what happens here? they say wait a minute. it is all wrong here. pork. it is pigs that ought to be honored. so now it becomes the national dairy goat, cattle, chicken and pig week. that is the exchange of amendment route. all i am suggesting is that is the route that might be followed. because before the senate went out, senate republicans blocked the ability of reid to form a conference committee. his goal of course is to get action on health as rapidly as possible when they return in january because they have lots of other items on their agenda, and they know the longer that health stays out there, the greater resistance to it might be. so they need to get it done rapidly. so you good either it done rapidly by creating a conference committee, which i will get to, but you can also do it by this exchange of amendment route. if they block going to conference, and it is way you do that in the senate is, there is sort of a three-part motion that is made, a request if you will. technically it is not a motion. it is a request. usually the majority floor manager will make it. he will say," hey, i move that we disagree to the house amendment to the senate bill, or agree to ours and insist on a with the other bod questionment but the language is we insist on our amendment or disagree. we insist on our amendment, the senate amendment to the house bill. we request a conference and authorize the presiding officer to name the conferees. there are three parts to it. in my example we insist on our amendment, request a conference with the other body and authorize to name the conferees. if someone objects to that, and i haven't had a chance to read the record, but objection was heard. so the choice for the majority leader is to offer a motion. i move to insist on our amendment. filibusterable. if you get 60, rule 22, you need still 30 more hours of debate. then another request. another filibuster. you break that. so it is impossible to get to conference. if that is going to be the strategy of the republicans then hey, the amendment exchange route will probably be used. that can happen rapidly because there is a relatively small number of people that are going to be in the room. they are probably going to be in the offices of speaker pelosi or majority leader reid. it will be hammered out in private. if you go to conference, it is generally a bit more open. the presumption is more openness. most people don't have a chance to see conference committees in action. i commend it to you because c-span sometimes covers conference committees. if you get a chance to observe one or go to one, it is well worth seeing. go to many because they are all different in their character -- characteristics. this is an opportunity for interest folks to be in the room to suggest the bargains or compromises that ought to be made between the two sides. they can work with the chair. the overall chair and the chairs of the respective conference delegations to try to hammer out some kind of accord. because the objective of the conferees are basically three-fold. one is hey, we want to try to uphold the position of our chamber. that's hard to do if your going to meet the second goal. that is to come up with a conference report or a health plan that will pass the house and pass the senate. so it is tough to do. in any event, you have people who monitor all the time what is going on in these negotiations as best they can. even the sket ones. they get a sense of what is going on or who is doing the bargaining, they will be outside in the hallway and sometimes maybe inside the conference room itself. so how this is going to work out is not clear at the moment. it is either going to be the conference route, and they will try to speed it up and get it done as rapidly as possible, because that is going to be filibustered. you have to come up with a conference report that gives advantage to the senate. the house is going to have to give in more to the senate because of the difficulty of holding 60, because that is what they are going to need to break a filibuster on the conference report. anything else, gang? yes, sir? >> is there a special way to hold the number, or do you have like a staff member sit there and count? >> all the bills are going to be published. if you want to look in the congressional record on line, they give you all the bills introduced day by day. if you have a certain number in mind for your idea, then you want to go down and talk to the clerk who is handing it out. they are going to try to be accommodating. make sure your staff person or you as a member are there, johnny-on the spot. by special order, the first 10 numbers in the house are reserved to the majority party. that reflects in part the majority party's agenda. the next could be the republicans, and over in the senate the first numbers are are reserved for the majority and the next five or 10 will be reserved for the republicans as well. but you want to make sure you are the right one. if you really want a number, you have to make sure you get it. you had a question? >> how much of a role does lobbying play in crafting a manager's amendment. >> well, that is a good question. a manager's amendment is something that can happen at different places along the line in terms of the legislative process. that has been in the news of late because senator harry reid, you may recall, took the products of the health, labor and the finance committee and merged them according to his likes and whoever he consulted, and i'm sure he consulted a large number of people. in terms even of the drafting of that bill, the late senator kennedy and max baucus met for a long time to try to craft their product. who was in the room for the manager's amendment, i don't know. i was not there. but you can be sure all the key senators, they have their network of alleys outside. many former staff people, many former members who are lobbyists, and maybe some of them had an opportunity to make suggestions about the manager's amendment. that certainly wouldn't surprise or shock me. in this kind of situation, the leader invites in whom he or she wants as the case might be. so that was that stage. he merged the product. so that became a substitute amendment. then after he got the reaction of that. he had the manager's amendment. everybody with me? so you had the manager's amendment and the substitute and the base bill. that is why you need the three closure votes. sometimes you are on the floor, and you find out i've got problems right here. i am not sure where my support is. so you can come up with your own manager's amendment, negotiating privately with different lawmakers. you thought you had all the votes, and they are all go. so you craft a manager's amendment to accommodate sorority people. it comes into play at different stages in the law making process on the floor. sir? >> because it allows for non germaine amendments 14r a greater opportunity for lobbying? >> yes, slultly. you have to remember, our whole system, as i tried to allude to before is multiple access. the framers designed a plan that allows for lobbyists, or interest groups, or average citizens, joe and jane america. we have the federal system, the checks and balances. all the branches are interwoven and interlocked. certainly in the senate, your point is well taken. harry reid controls the schedule. so he calls up an ag bill, and maybe the banking industry needs an amendment fast to be property up, or at least given visibility and attention and debated. so you can offer a banking amendment to the ag bill. that is common place in the united states senate. >> how did it do in the house? >> what this does is bolster the majority rule principle  that i mentioned earlier. you can't offer a banking amendment on ag. so it strengthens the agenda role of the speaker, strengthens the committee prerogative. you're on this subject, and that is the subject you're on. we are not going to deal with non-relevant issues. yes, ma'am? >> there are several points of entry for lobbyists in terms of legislative language, and other points that are procedural where lobbyists can enter into the process. in terms of the cap and trade bill, for the sides for and against the bill, where do you see lobbyists going forward? >> well, that is a good question. i wish i had a crystal ball and could answer it directly. it sounds actually like a research assignment. my sense at the moment is it is a matter -- jesus, let's see what we have got in front of us. particularly in the senate. that was a tough vote for a lot of house members and what is going to happen when it goes to the senate, i am not quite sure. that is always an interesting relationship between the house and the senate, because senator boxer, one of the three principals, worked closely with henry wasmman in the house -- waxman on their verse of cap and trade. but they are having much more difficulty in the senate in terms of coming up with a plan. we have graham, kerry and lieberman working together, and they do have roughly a plan. they are in the stage of vetting this with all kinds of people inside and outside the institution to see what can pass. it will be another tough vote. the question is whether or not it is going to be postponed until after the election or whether or not they are going to do it in 2010. again, i don't know. we will find out soon enough. actually your question -- i think i have ducked, bobbed and weaved enough. i'm not sure how it is going to play out. >> one more question. >> all right. yes, sir? >> the question about the manager's amendment, specifically the provision that was put in for nebraska and what happened with mary landrieu, is that more of an individual number because of the need for their 59th and 60th vote, or is that more the work of the lobbyist as the whole manager's amendment? >> there is probably some correspondence, but my sense is it would be more the view of the individual lawmaker. hue wee long from louisiana, probably more famous than his sun russell. hue wee long was famous dhuey was famous for saying every man is a king or a queen. when you need 60 votes, everyone can be a king or queen if you will. the leader has to bear that in mind. there is no margin for error whatsoever. you have to hold that 60. it is an additive process. if you are close and you don't have quite 60, you go into private negotiations and use whatever alleys you can to persuade this individual lawmaker. what do you want? what adjustments can i make in the legislation that will help you vote for this legislation? you want more aid for louisiana? well, bigolly, we are going to work that out. nebraska, you want more aid to help with payments for medicare? we are going to do that. of course it gets other states upset, and that is another issue that has to be resolved. >> walter, thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> up next on c-span, a conversation on education disparities in the u.s. after that, a hearing on advertising on the internet, known as behavioral advertising. layer, remarks from president obama on the attempting airline bombing on christmas day. >> on tomorrow morning's "washington journal," we will talk about the alleged airline bombing plot with fox news correspondent, katherine herridge. and then julie rovner on the debate and what is ahead on thrill. "washington journal" begins even morning at 7:00 eastern with the day's news and your calls. layer on c-span 2, an event from american university on campaign strategy. the former director of strategy for joining campaign will talk about absentee voting. coverage begins at 10:30 eastern. >> next, a look at the u.s. education system and ways to eliminate the so-called achievement gap among low income and minority children. we will hear education officials and civil rights leaders. this two-hour panel was hosted by house education economy member congressman bobbie scott. >> we will come back to order. we have had excellent presentations about the legal bases -- basis for challenging the achievement gap and our civil rights leaders talking about some of the challenges from a civil rights perspective. leaders talking about some of the challenges from a civil rights perspective. and now we're going to have education experts who will speak to us because we know how to eliminate the achievement gap. as i mentioned, bridget coleman from achievable dream in my district has shown how can you do that. and one of the things we also know is we spend significant resources as a result of the consequences of our failing to properly educate our children. this hearing on this education issue is being held in the judiciary committee hearing room not only because there are civil rights being involved but also because of the strong correlation between prime and education. and the fact that if we failed to educate people, we end up spending a lot of money, a lot more money on crime than we should. this is the chart of incarceration rate in the world. all countries lock up between 50 to 100 people per 100,000. russia locks up over 600. and unfortunately, the united states is number one in the world at over 700 per 100,000 population. that's just part of the story. the other part of the story is that in the african-american community, we lock up on average 2200, that is the first purple bar per 100,000. and ten states lock up african-americans at the rate of over -- almost 4,000 per 100,000. now those numbers are particularly egregious because pugh researchers told us that any rate over 500 per 100,000 is, in fact, counterproductive. that you're getting into criminal justice value for locking up more people. in fact, you're injecting more social pathology into a community than you're curing. and if you look at -- those were way over what can be justified by any rational. we also look at the correlation between dropping out and incarceration. this chart shows the difference between 1970 and 2000. in 1970, the purple bars, the high school dropout, green bar is a high school graduate. and this is a chart for african-american males, 26 to 30. you'll notice that in 1970, whether you dropped out or didn't, you could get -- you could probably still get a job if not in the labor force, a handful in jail. but by the year 2000, because we have an information-based high-tech economy, if you want a job, you got to get a high school -- at least a high school diploma. you notice that those who in the first pair in the bottom only 30% of african-american males, 26 to 30, that have dropped out of school can be found on the job a little over a third working. and this study actually shows more in jail than working. the high school dropout is -- puts you on a trajectory towards incarceration. this chart shows the same thing. for males, 26 -- 16 to 24, those with -- it breaks it down, everyone males and black males. those with college degrees are not found in jail. those college students are not in jail. some college not in jail. a few with the high school graduation or high school students are in jail. but the high school dropouts, you'll notice you're off the chart. you're much more likely of unemployment, education pays. the blue chart shows that those with degrees, the more education you, have the less likely you are to be unemployed. and on the yellow bars, the more education you have, obviously, the more money you're going to make. as they say, the more you learn, the more you earn. one of the problems that any incarceration over 500 per 100,000 is counterproductive, and if we reduced the 2200 incarceration rate, average incarceration rate for african-americans to 500, which is the most that you could possibly have and still have any criminal justice benefit per 100,000, you would have 17 fewer people per 100,000 in jail at a cost of about $30,000 a year, almost $50 million in a community of 100,000 with an average african-american incarceration rate. now with approximately 30,000 children, divide that by almost $50 million, you're talking about $1,600 per child per year those communities are spending on counterproductive incarceration. and if you actually target it to the one-third of our most vulnerable children, you are up to almost $5,000 per child per year. in ten states, the incarceration rate is 4,000. you would have about 3500 fewer people incarcerated. that community -- those communities are spending per 100,000 about $100 million a year in counterproductive incarceration. and if you divide that about it 30,000 children they may have in the community, that's about 33, $3400 per child per year. and if you targeted that money to the one-third of the children most in need, you could be spending -- you are spending the equivalent of over $10,000 per ad at risk child per year every year in counterproductive incarceration. not only do we save money by educating our young people in the chiriminal justice system, y program that reduces crime, it will also reduce teen pregnancy and also increase wages so that we'll have more taxpayers and we'll have fewer, less to pay in welfare. i have introduced as mary indicated the youth promise act which will provide funding for communities to come together and develop comprehensive evidence-based plans to address juvenile crime. now obviously improvements in education and including the elimination of the achievement gap would have to be core components of any infective plan. but the plan would have to be comprehensive. including as has already been indicated, prenatal care which can reduce learning disabilities and mental retardation and other problems. make sure you have the early childhood education opportunities. make sure the children can read by the third grade. teachers tell us up to the third grade children learn to read. after the third grade, they read to learn. if they can't read after the third grade, they can't learn after the third grade. and they're on a trajectory to dropping out and all the misery that that entails. also, the after school program and other programs that get young people on the right track and keep them on the right track. we know that those comprehensive programs work every time they put one together. the crime rate plummets. crime rates, we heard one and talking to someone in spas deana, california. they had a comprehensive program reduce dozens of murders per year down to zero for a couple years. they did the same thing in boston. same thing in my district where the murder rate was significantly reduced. 50%, 70%, 90% reduction in murders as a result of the comprehensive plans. pennsylvan that the 100 plans that they funded at the rate of a total of $60 million, in just a couple of years, that $60 million resulted in over $300 million in cost savings as a result of reducing all of the social pathology that we end up paying for. so for that -- if the youth promise act would fund prevention programs like that and, obviously, the comprehensive nature of the programs will mean that education is a significant part of it and other crime prevention activities. we know when we look at these numbers that we're spending the money already. so when we talk about eliminating the achievement gap, we should not be shy about spending some money because in the long run, we would have spent it anyway. we have with us today on the panel roberto rodriguez who serves as the white house domestic policy counsel, as special assistant to president obama for education. he was previously chief education counsel to the united states senator ted kennedy who is the chair of the health education labor and pensions committee and prior to working on capitol hill, he served as senior educational specialist at the national council of laraza. governor bob wise is president of the alliance for excellent education. he is a former governor of west virginia and a former member of congress. under his leadership the alliance works to ensure all students graduate from high school prepared for college careers and to be contributing members of society. dr. la ruth gray is the government relations and legislative liaison for the national alliance of black school educators and is a scholar and residence at new york university. she is former superintendent of schools for avid union free school district in new york. adelia papa is from the national council of laraza which oversees all educational programs. her work focuses on helping academic institutions understand and respond to the needs of underserved children and their teachers. dr. linda darling hammond is professor of education at stanford university, where she has launched the stanford center for opportunity policy and education or scope. the school -- and the school redesign network. she also serves on the board of directors on educating black children, research teaching and policy work focuses on issues of school reform, teacher quality and educational equity. in 2006 she, was named one of the nation's ten most influential people affecting education policy over the last decade. and she recently served as the leader of president barack obama's education policy transition team. bron sorn is director of the cambodian association of greater philadelphia. prior to that, she was field coordinator for the southeast asia resource center successful new american project where she conducted community research assessment and provided direct services and worked on strengthening and building coalitions and cross sectors, encouraging community members to take on advocacy initiatives. dr. carol brunson day is president of the national black child development institute and she is recognized as a leader in the field of early childhood education. lilian sparks serves as the national director of the national indian education association which was founded in 1970 to give american indians, alaskan natives and native hawaiians access to improve in their educational opportunities. in october, president obama nominated her to be commissioner of administration for native americans which is part of the department of health and human services, and she is awaiting senate confirmation. lily eccleson is the vice president of the national education association. she is one of the highest ranking labor leaders in the country and one of the most influential hispanic educators. after teaching for only nine years, she was named utah teacher of the year in 1989, and she used that title as a platform to speak out against the dismal funding of utah schools. sharon lewis is the senior disability policy adviser for the u.s. house of representatives, education and labor committee under the chairmanship of congressman george miller, which she handles issues involving disability policy. she originally came to washington, d.c., from portland, oregon, to work with senator dodd and the help committee -- help subcommittee on children and families. and she served on president obama's transition team for education. amy wilkins is vice president for governor -- government affairs and communication at the education trust. her expertise and advocacy skills comes from her work in the children's defense fund, the democratic national committee, the peace corps and the white house office of media affairs. and our final panelist will be dan cardinelli, the president of communities and schools incorporated. the nation's largest dropout prevention programuition operations in 26 states and the district of columbia. and under his legislation, the organization has developed and appraised -- embraced an evidence-based model of evidence-based model of yuv#h@ @ @ student@@@@@ @ @ @ã actually find out how well our students are doing at the end. look, i am -- i feel very fortunate to be part of this and kind of distinguished panel. so let me just add a few facts to some of those that you've already mentioned. some of them may have been mentioned earlier and also a couple of suggestions. first of all, in terms of the economic gains that could be made by reducing achievement gap, we have to remember that at least 52% of all dropouts are children of color. now when that -- when you realize that that's 1.2 million students total a year, that's somewhere around 600,000 students. at the alliance for excellent education we did an analysis several years ago that showed if we could simply bring the graduation rates for students of color to parody with those of their white counterparts, and, remember, the white graduation rate is not great either. but if we could simply bring it to parody, that would generate another $300 billion a year in salaries into our economy from those new wage earners. working with state farm, we've just released an analysis of the 50 largest cities, the payrolls that could be gained if we could cut the dropout rate in half in most of these cities. children of color comprise at least half of the student body, if not more. and so that number alone if you simply cut the dropout rate in half in our 50 largest metropolitan areas would be $4.5 billion for each graduating class. so now you make that not class of 2010 and now class of 2011 and so on. if you've heard already today about the so-called drop-out fact reed, these are the 2,000 high schools in -- less than 2,000 high schools in the nation that have graduation rates of less than 60%. think about that. 100 ninth graders will start and four years later, 60 or less will walk across the commencement stage. we -- they are 12% of all high school -- less than 12% of all high schools in the country. they comprise two-thirds of all dropouts of color. not all -- not the dropouts in those high schools are of color. they comprise two-thirds of all dropouts of color. and so you can see that simply targeting those high schools and the feeder schools to them, and the graduation promise act does this as well as the congressman's legislation, success in the middle act, that simply those two pieces of legislation alone, estimated to cost somewhere between $4 billion to $5 billion a year, would significantly reduce the achievement gap. it's like a surgical precision strike. along those lines, the significance of that is that reducing targeting those schools also meets the administration's goal. president obama's goal, secretary duncan's, of targeting the lowest percentage of schools for turnaround. and so the graduation promise act and the success in the middle act. the -- i think it also ought to be pointed out, another analysis that the alliance did, and this is old data really. it's about three years old is if we could only reduce the male dropout rate -- male dropout rate by 5%, that would result in $8 billion of cost savings, crime related cost savings. so some more statistics. this is why it's not only a moral imperative but an economic imperative. we strongly recommend the -- we strongly urge the congress to consider and particularly with 2010 coming up, to recognize the -- this concept. and mr. chairman, you just pointed it out in so well in your data. the best economic stimulus package is a diploma. if we can achieve that, we spent $3 billion to stimulate the economy last year on cars for clunkers. $3 billion if we can turn around and graduate two-thirds of our students of color. what we will do is unleash an economic engine that is far greater than whatever benefits came from that sole initiative. what we will do instead, and these will be productive students that are making a contribution year after year after year. so the graduation promise act, the success in the middle act, your legislation, mr. chairman on the -- besides that, which you've already mentioned on the every student counts act. and then a number of the initiatives that would improve our data systems, target the newest funding for turning around the lowest performing schools and supporting innovation and research in our secondary school systems. relatively low investment, and with incredibly high return. thank you very much. >> thank you. thank you governor. dr. gray. >> i would also -- is this on? i would also like to thank you for allowing me to be part of this panel. this is a large panel, so i'm going to be as quick as i can and go to two or three points. the national alliance of black school educators, we want to answer this question. what type of legislation do we need to pass to shape a country in which all children receive a quality education, et cetera. there's already legislation there. let me go directly to it. we have perhaps two titles that are significant. title 6 and title 1. if there were no title 1, the federal government probably could not unleash all of the rules, recommendations, et cetera, it does because that's the engine that drives all of that. title 1 funding. and it is our view that title 1 funding has not been significantly targeted to the poorest districts with the poorest children in the poorest schools. and for us, that's the answer. are we concerned about all of the other things that have been talked about? are we concerned about the fact that the federal government has not met its promise on a 40% on idea? are we concerned about the fact that teacher quality, all of those things. but it gets down to, what does it cost, how do we pay for it and where's the money? the money is already there. it just needs to be redirected. the answer really is in poverty. and we don't use that. we talk about low income kids, children of color. but the answer -- the elephant in the room is really poverty, in our judgment. and this cuts across color, by the way. it's appalachia. it's kentucky. it's the highlands across the south where that is predominantly white but that's where we have serious abject rural poverty. we have models for this. we did a nice job somewhere between the passing of the great society and moving on toward the '80s. and it was in the '80s that we ran into comp ra bility problems. i'll tick off four or five things we think congress can do with title 1 funding and the new reauthorization because there are so many people to talk. let me just go quickly to those. and tell you that the -- we believe the title 1 basic, you know, part "a" monies should be targeted directly as i said earlier to the poorest districts, the poorest schools of the poorest children. and we believe strongly that the strict language should look at the way that we handle both comparablity because it's gone out of the window. the fed is paying no attention to it. the state is paying no attention to it. that's what the first two or three of maybe the first seven or eight or nine years prior to the -- i guess it would be about 1978 -- well it was 1980 when we moved from 75% school wides. the language that in the title 1 of the esea, the so-called comparablity provision was supposed to promote equality of education, but, indeed, it does not because, as i said earlier, there's been very little attention paid to it. so we would like that looked at. while the federal government distributes its title one based on poverty now, it's the formula that needs addressing. we think that county -- counting by percentage of counties presents problems. we would rather see district level. they collect that data, so they have it. we probably believe that, like a couple of the other titles that while money should go to the states for administration, since it's the state's responsibility, that title 1 dollars should flow directly to districts and that we move away from flowing them directly to the state and then the state's formula kicks in. gordon lou has said something in the iowa law review. although the ambitious proposals about national standards, school vouchers, growth models for growth will garner headlines, it is not -- it will not necessarily that the esea act of 1965, the original precursor of nclb had much humble origins. it really did. it was that the federal government would use title 1 and title 6 as a civil rights act to see what role the feds might play about systemic education of children and they used terms like disadvantaged then but it was really about poverty. and so that we think that we kind of misused the title 1 funding to answer all types of problems. some of the stimulus money was driven that way. we would like -- we believe that it has to be reanalyzed in this new reauthorization and that it will cause some political capital because it's not easy to take money away from states. we understand that. or to take money away from school districts. some of us had a fit, what are you talking about? 30,000 and under is probably the average size of school districts in this country. i have stats here, all of that, but i think there are too many people to talk, so that's -- i'll stop. >> thank you very much. miss pompa? >> thank you. thank you. you know, i've been in education a very long time, and i've been in a school. i've been at the state education agency and i've been here in washington. and for all those years, there's been an achievement gap. we see the achievement gap very clearly, and we've become so used to it when we see it in those bar graphs. we see the hard numbers and we just expect when we see an analysis of any type of assessment to see an achievement gap. but, you know, those of you who visit in schools like i do find it much more dramatic when you visit a school and those bar graphs become real and you see kids and compare what kids are reading in the fifth grade in a low income neighborhood to what kids in an upper income neighborhood are reading. you see the kinds of courses kids in high poverty school are taking and you compare that to the courses your nieces or nephews or your children are taking. then those bar graphs and those numbers really do come alive. so there's no question that there's an achievement gap. there's no question that we need to close it, and there's also no question that we can close it. you know, for centuries, afri n african-americans -- centuries, afric african-americans have endured the achievement gap. for at least a century, hispanic americans have endured the achievement gap. and we're at a point where we have the technology to close it. we have the knowledge to close it. and the question is, do we have the will to close it? i think the answer is yes. i think we see examples all over the country where ordinary teachers are doing what some would call extraordinary, and that is achieving children -- achieving and closing the gap for children of color. graduating children of color who do as well as any other child in this country. so we can do it. but we need to figure out how we begin to make that system attic. i shouldn't say need to figure it out. we know how to do it. as we prepare for esea reauthorization this time around, we have many lessons we've learned. we have much information about what has worked, how it's worked, and we know how we can expand what is good about esea. you know, one of the things i tell folks is that as a person of color, i feel like every time i start to figure out the game, someone changes the rules. and i would hope that we don't change the rules for schools or kids this time. the rules are good rules. what we need to figure out is how we implement them fairly and how we implement them in a way where their effect is sustained. and that would mean that we would have valid assessments that would measure how well schools are preparing our children in a robust accountability system. it would mean we have information that parents could understand to play their role in the accountability system. and that we would have teachers with the knowledge and skills that it takes to teach children no matter where they live, no matter what language they speak and no matter how much the parents earn. so those are the things we can do and that we must do. but too many kids are still waiting for this to happen. so just to give you some specifics of what nclr supports, i would point you to a couple of publications that we brought earlier that are outside for you to look at. one is our position on assessment. another is a good example on what we have seen over the last five years is a series of attempting to weaken the accountability system for english languages learners by saying important thing. you shouldn't put this in front of them. it is so traumatic for them. they can't pass this test. do you feel that way when you put a math test in front of a child who speaks english who has never been taught math? test tell us what we need to do. we don't need to turn them into instruments of torture for children. if we weaken accountability systems for english language learners, we will have opened the doors and begun to change the rules all over again. so we support for english language learners keeping accountability requirements and enforcing them. we support providing appropriate assessments for english language learners and funding them to levels that all schools have access to them. he to a level that all schools have access to them. and including teachers of english language learners as a priority group in looking at funding. we would also encourage pilot programs for the small but significant number of english language learners who come into our u.s. schools without an appropriate education. so do we support only tests? no in the short period of time, i'm going to try and tell you the other things we think we need. we need course rigor. we need to look at that. we need to look at graduation rates and more and more we need to look at college completion for our kids. can we do this? we believe the technology is at a point where we can do this. we are moving toward a point in time where we have common standards that hold high, high achievement levels for all kids. we're moving to a point in time where states are improving their data systems such that they can follow their children xroos high schools, across schools, into college and across social systems. and then we also need new models of accountability and we see those popping up all over the country. in closing, i would say we have nowhere to go but up, and i think we have the directions for that. thank you. >> thank you. dr. darliene hammond. >> thank you very much. i am here representing the national council on educating black children. and let me see if this little gadget will work because i have a power point. maybe yes. maybe no. there we go. our president claude mayberry is here and also available for follow-up, and we have a paper available because i'm going to zip through this very, very quickly and you can see more about our recommendations there. the council was set up by congressman augusta hawkins and was rooted in the work of ron edmonds whose research made it clear we can whenever and wherever we choose successfully teach children about whose schooling is of interest to us. and we start from that starting point. the ncebc works across the country to create community action plans, much like those in the youth promise act, and has identified a set of central issues that i'll return to which include the lack of access to high quality preschool, underresourced schools, poor quality instruction by underprepared teachers and inadequate education of parents and their involvement in children's schools. it starts from a perspective that educational inequality in the united states requires a systemic response that marginal fragmented programs will not be enough. neither will a focus on test scores alone. that we need a federal policy that will recognize and take a much more systemic approach to building quality and addressing inequality than it has to date. and we're going to really try to step back and look at it from that perspective. the achievement gap is not only between and among children in this country. it's between this country and other countries around the world. this happens -- this represents the achievement on piza international science tests and the socio economic status, the extent to come which is influences that. those in the bottom left quadrant where the united states lands have achievement that is below the average and inequitable. so we are falling behind other nations in many, many ways. we are, right now, 35th out of the top 40 countries in math on international assessments, 29th in science. we are falling behind in graduation rates. we're in the bottom half of industrialized countries and graduation rates. many of these nations have graduation rates above 90%. we're stuck at 70% and falling. we're also falling behind in college going. we used to be first in the world in college going. we're now 17th and dropping about two slots per year. and that's even, of course, worse for african-american and latino children. only about 38% of young people in the united states go to college and finish with a degree. that's only about 17% for african-american students. only 11% for latino students. by comparison, most european nations are sending 50% of their kids to college. countries like korea and singapore are at above 60%. going on and finishing college. so what are they doing? that we're not doing? number one, children are well supported. they come to school with housing, health care, early childhood education. number, two they fund schools centrally and equally. they do not see any benefit in spending and underresourcing the schools that high need children attend. they build a very strong educator workforce where all teachers and leaders are well prepared and equally distributed so that everything else they do can have a chance of working because the educators know how to work with the rest of the curriculum and reforms. and, finally, they have a teaching and learning system focused on the kinds of outcomes that we are hoping for here. so we lead the world in poverty among industrialized nations. we spend less than on the schools that those children attend. the blue bars here are the districts in california serving predominantly white students. the red bars are the district serving predominantly students of color. inequality is later on that the cross state intrastate and interdistrict levels. most of that then leads to the teaching gap that geoff robinson talked about where five times more teachers are unqualified in schools that serve minority students than in other schools. but policy can reduce this achievement gap. so let me just point out that the policies in the 1960s and '70s cut the achievement gap in half and sharply increased educational achievement. had we stayed with the policies that were in place, where we were in 1988, we would have closed the racial achievement gap by the year 2000. in 1981, almost all of those policies were turned around. and undone. college going rates were once equal. and so we have to look back at those broad policies that actually helped us make substantial progress in the past. we've also have some states that also have made huge investments in systemic investments. i wopt point out new jersey. they've cut the achievement gap in half. the average latino or black student in new jersey outscores the average student in california now, and they are among the top states in the nation in every category of achievement, even though half of the students are students of color. and what they did was what i think shapes an overall approach. they finally gave parody funding to the high minority/low wealth districts and spent as much money on them as the high districts. they used a whole school reform model based on jim comer's school development program which engages parents and supports child development. they created teacher education focused on urban teaching, and they focused on high quality professional development. we need a set of high leverage federal policies to close the achievement gap in america. and i won't have time to go into all of these, but i just want to paint a broad picture for us because ultimately, as marianne wright edleman said, we just can't deal with individual initiatives that come and go in small programs. we need big policy. we need to be sure there's high quality preschool education available for every child. the returns to that are very, very high in terms of school success. we need requirements for states to make progress on resource equity under esea as well as the federal government. we need to get a high quality teacher and leadership workforce in every single school. you could do that for about $2 billion among the hundreds of billions that are being spent and solve much of the problem that occurs. and then we need to support good learning environments in the schools that we're worried about that engage parents. i'm not going to say anything about preschool, but i want to say one other thing about this equity issue. la ruth already talked about the need to strengthen and enforce the comerablity provisions. we also need to create incentives for state equalization. by tying progress on resource equity to the receipt of federal funds. we're asking states to make progress on achievement. they need to make progress on these huge inequalities. the fatadad student bill of rights speaks to that. we need to have states develop opportunity indicators alongside reports of achievement. we need to show whether students have adequately qualified teachers, the curriculum that is needed to address the standards, the materials, books, computers and resources to learn to standards. and we need to require that when schools are identified as failing, states have to meet opportunity to learn standards for those schools because right now, we show that they are failing and we do not require that the resources are put in place for them to be able to improve. and then we have to look at how students are treated and access curriculum opportunities when we look at schools. teacher quality matters greatly and can account for more than the effects of race in parent education combined. and now we have a federal policy that encourages a race to the bottom in terms of teacher quality. we're encouraging and left over from the bush administration, the proliferation of low course work, alternative certification programs that reduce the training teachers get and reduce the student teaching they are likely to get and the mathematical study here shows that, in fact, students lost achievement between fall and spring when they had teachers with that kind of training. whereas when they had teachers with greater training, they gained in achievement. and a set prove posals that would strengthen teaching across the country and in high-need communities that are doable for which we have good evidence base. we need to invest in leadership development because you cannot turn around a school without good loaders. we're the only school among industrialed nations that has no major federal policy for investing in the quality of teachers and leaders in our country. and then we need a set of community investments in high-need schools, and i simply want to point out that community school models that have been very successful that offer both high quality instruction and wrap around services are part of that initiative. and we cannot forget the need to involve parents in meaningful ways, including providing time for them to work in and meet with teachers at the school, which employers could be incentivized to do and which teachers can be provided time to do. i'll leave those with the words of martin luther king. there comes a time when one must take a position that's neither safe, politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it's right. we'll have to remember this if we're going to make any progress on this agenda. >> thank you very much. thank you. that gives us an outline of what we need to do. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, everyone. as you all hear in the discussion throughout the day, key words are equity, accountability, responsibility, lack of resource. all these issues that affect our education system have been the issue of meeting the achievement gap. and i can't emphasize enough about the equity. whether all students have access to quality education and the support they need to reach the fullest potential, it is about social justice. so it is our responsibility to make sure that we all have the responsibility to make sure our children get the quality of education that they need so that they can become productive and responsible adult. and as we hear throughout the day, the investment on education will pay off. so those are the keyword. one issue that i wanted to bring up today is racism and violence in the school that are really affecting the education system. living in philadelphia, we have lived for the past 22 years when i land in the u.s. recently last week, there's a huge racial motivated violence in the school district of philadelphia. that create so much controversy that create so much controversy that@@@@@@"@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ d say is that i feel that they fail to protect the student. therefore, they don't feel secure and safe to go back to school and, therefore, they can't get education they need. the place that they are supposed to feel welcome and secure and get the support they need to succeed in their life. so that's one of the reasons that maybe the issue of not achieving the gap. and i agree with ms. pampa about provide equal access to every student, especially the english learn learner. cambodian and other southeast asian among the lowest college achievement, lowest rate. although asian consider the minority model, but if you look at the subgroup, the southeast asian whose majority are the survivor of the vietnam war who have been affected, southeast asia, most of us came as refugee and survived the genocide for the cambodian population. survived the genocide. we are the majority of the educated people were killed. those who survived who came to the u.s. who have limited education, who have limited -- skill, who live in a poverty area where a lot of already high crime rate and all this issues already manifest already. so for these to really reach their full potential is to get the full support they need. not just in the community but also in the school. so, again, it's all about equity, responsibility and accountability. and i just want to give -- i heard this already of so many recommendation, but i only wanted to bring up again one more is that to ensure that all these kids have equal access to education -- quality education, is that each school district make effort to acknowledge and address the need of the worst student and parent regardless of their ethnicity, language background, recruit more bilingual staff at different level, not just the staff that work at the low paid and low skill staff just to make diversity, but the real skilled staff who can work with a diverse student. provide ongoing professional training and adequate resources to provide bilingual staff and every staff involved to provide adequate support to student, parent and at the same time, hold them accountable. provide adequate safety, security to all student and when there is an incident, student and parent are treated equally and ensured they receive proper support and follow-up. and one of the issue that we came across so many years in the school district in philadelphia is that the incident report are not properly filed and/or missing or depending on who is affected by the violence, the report may be under report or not report and some of the victim were just sent home or sent out without really proper report or further investigation. so that's one of the issue. also, to continue to work with different -- across the sector, regardless of emgs system, the government and the community based organization. for us, we wanted to reach out to different group -- different level. so that we can help our community succeed, not just educationally but socially and also economically so that they can really help themselves become self-sufficient. so that is our goal. again, just to close, if you are thinking about investing in education, it will pay off. it is about prevention, intervention, rather than treatment when it's already -- it's a big issue when it is cheaper to spend on education rather than put people in prison. so that's my last thought and thank you so much. >> thank you very much. our next panel cyst dr. carol brunson day. >> thank you, representative scott. nice to be here. i appreciate the invitation. dr. darling-hammond mentioned, and essentially described early education for all children as a major factor in working to eliminate the achievement gap. it actually is a way to prevent the dramatic consequences that we see at the end of twelfth grade. in fact, at least half of the black/white achievement gap at exists at the end of 12th grade can be attributed to a gap that already existed at the beginning of the first grade. so when we look -- when we think about early childhood education, it is a preventative measure in terms of children's achievement. and we can create programs with the right kind of policy that encourages high -- investments in early education and care experiences. and when we do that we can ensure that all children, regardless of economic status, of ability status, of race or ethnicity enter school equally ready to learn. there's a great deal of evidence supporting this and it comes from a variety of domains. hard science has made a contribution to our understanding early brain development. we've heard a lot about that recently. the critical importance of children's very early experiences. economists have also helped us understand the cost benefits of investing early. we know that the estimated return is about 7-1, but we know that there are some long-term studies that show particularly at children living in poverty, something that dr. gray mentioned. the benefit cost ratios can be as high as 17-1 with most of these benefits accruing to the general public within education but also outside of education and the domains of criminal justice and in the economic and the job market. from educators, we have a great deal as well of evidence. studies have shown one after another that early education has vast benefits. we're beginning to see professional groups -- police officers, business leaders and just recently retired military officers supporting early -- investments in early education. with the military arguing that or supporting a campaign that promotes early education as a means of supporting our future national security. we know that the greatest returns on these investments come for children from families with low incomes. and, therefore, children who are often the farthest behind in school accrue the greatest benefits from these investments in early education. we have seen systems within states work. all states are really taking a look at their investment in early education but some have taken really some leadership in demonstrating models that promote early education and comprehensive ways. linda mentioned new jersey as a state as one of the states. pennsylvania is one. washington state, as well as kansas. we also applaud the policies of the obama administration which are paying for close attention to early education and manifesting their policy initiatives through programs like the early learning challenge grants and the race of the top programs. but we really can do more. we must have policy to focus on access and affordability for all families. we need policies that focus on quality programs. it's not enough to simply offer early education programs. they must be high quality, and there's a lot of data demonstrating and pointing to the elements that constitute high quality one of those mejsed systems of professional development that will strengthen the early childhood work force. we are talking about systems that not only help professionals learn to apply the knowledge but we need to make substantial investments in systems of recruiting, compensating and retaining the high quality workforce for young children and families. we also need policies that support families with infants and toddlers. parental leave policies have an impact on how children have access to high quality environments in their earliest years. effective home visiting and policies that promote supportive and rich environments in the home as well as the classroom. we need policy that allows a mixed delivery system and that helps simplify the complexities of the early childhood funding streams, and there are many. and finally, we need -- we must think about how we are protecting these investments in the early years by aligning early childhood programs with public school programs and providing continuity of experiences for young children from birth really through the end of third grade. if we can get a solid impact have a solid impact on children's learning trajectories, they have much better chance of being successful later in life. in conclusion, the national black child development institute believes that all children are born learners. and we would like to think that every child has genius potential at birth. and, thus, it is a birth right to have that genius be allowed to unfold. so when we see what we see, the consequences in our school systems of children under achieving, losing ground and failing, more and more with each subsequent year they atend, what we are witnessing, we think, is neglect and failure on our part to provide them with the opportunities and support to make their innate genius manifest. the most fundamental approach to correcting this is to start early. >> thank you very much. we are looking for lilian sparks, executive director of the national indication education association. however, she could not get out of jury duty and so she her stead, carrie venegas, the house school policy director for the national indian education policy association. >> thank you very much for having us here and lilian sparks does apologize, but she's doing her civic duty. one thing i would just like to open with on behalf of native communities is to, first of all, say thank you for the opportunity to speak for native communities here and also to thank everyone sitting on this panel who we consider a native communities to be all of our relatives because all kids are our kids in our communities, and we have an skwl responsibility for ensuring every child has a good education, a good future and is healthy. and with that being said, iing one of the most important points from a native community standpoint is that our students experience some of the highest rates of poverty, suicide, incarceration, learning challenges and the lowest of graduation rates. the most recent numbers place native students at 50% or less for graduating on an annual basis. and this is actually an improvement from the last five years. we also have the lowest college going rates, 13%, compared to a national average of around 24.4%. native communities are unique in the fact they're one of the only communities in the united states that the federal government has a unique trust responsibility for that's guaranteed in the u.s. constitution. meaning that the education and welfare for native students is a federal responsibility. and involves nation to nation treaties and trust relationships. so this is a very unique kind of picture. however, most people don't recognize or understand native students in schools, and this is one of the problems. i'd like to recognize my colleague to the right because i think this happens to many@@@@@ p outside of the communities. as noted by our low graduation rates, it's sometimes hard to find highly qualified candidates or simply the educational avenues don't exist in rural areas in alaska, montana, new mexico, northern california. and there are challenges to making sure that native teachers exist. when we talk about effective teachers, we also have to raise the issue of what is an effective teacher? but what is an effective teacher of a native student or a southeast asian student or an african-american student? are there unique things that can be addressed? and we think that there are. for us, and i give full credit to several of the tribal schools running their own programs. it's a 200% education. that academic achievement and closing the academic gap does not just begin and end in academics. it's a wholistic approach. 100% rigorous academics combined with 100% rigorous ability to be a healthy successful person in your own community and to understand what it means to be a part of who you are. in relation to this, we also believe that it's very important for rural and urban differences to be recognized. a lot of times there are educational reform models that take into consideration urban models. places where the differences and challenges may be similar, but may be incredibly important in the distinctions that they have. for example, on the navajo reservation in the four corners region of new mexico, a student can travel 2 1/2 to 3 hours one way each day in order to attend school. when you double that each day and then you times it times five and then you times it times the amount of days that student goes to school, you understand some of the challenges to even running enrichment programs or to getting your homework done. when the roads are impassable in areas like montana during the winter, students often are unable to attend school at all. we also believe that early childhood education to echo a lot of my colleagues on this panel is incredibly important. a child needs to start with a foundation of learning and reading, not only in the language that will allow them to access curriculum but also in their own language that gives them a sense of grounding and a firm commitment to their own communities. a piece that's been missing in indian education since the beginning of treaty rights. we also feel that it's very important that research be directed towards the communities that we seek to serve, whether they're native communities, southeast asian or latino communities. for example, reading first in early reading first is a program widely endorsed and used in public school systems. however, none of the data sets have taken into consideration native students. however, all of the bie schools were required to use this program. the question remains, how do you decide if these are effective programs and effective allocations of dollars without that kind of important research and data? i'd like to say that for us, one of the biggest pieces is the effective collaboration and working together of federal agencies and public school systems. 90% of native students are in public schools. however, native students move among three school systems. tribal, bureau of indian education, administered by the department of interior and public schools understand state, local and department of education -- u.s. department of education. this means that it is of primary importance that all agencies and federal entities, local and state, work hard to collaborate on these issues in meeting the needs of native students. and of all students. without collaboration, without a shared vision and without a shared commitment to high quality curriculum, assessment and effective teachers, it becomes virtually impossible for systems to work together to make sure that our students are remaining healthy, successful and able to achieve the life that we all dream that they would have. thank you. >> thank you. ms. eccleson. >> good afternoon. okay. i am so honored to be here. thank you so much. i have so much to say to you and they've given up 5 to 7 minutes to be profound. luckily i'm a little hyperactive. i'm going to talk really fast. i'm not a researcher. i'm not a statistician. i am an excellent professional, highly qualified, obviously humble, sixth grade teacher from the great state of utah where people still think diversity means you found a presbyterian. and i have taught in the suburbs of salt lake city and i've taught homeless children who live at the homeless shelter. we are a state of great diversity as is every state in this country. and what i have to say to you comes from the perspective of a practitioner. i am honored that the folks that put this together thought that the voice of a teacher was important. i will tell you for myself and for my colleagues, we are confused. we are depressed. we are discouraged. and we've never been so hopeful that things will get better, that things will improve. they have to. they can't get worse. well -- maybe. but we are going to make things better because of conversations like this. where people who love children, who love the entire community's children are coming together to say closing those achievement gaps is important. what's an achievement gap? what are we measuring? what is the proper measurement to find out if we're going in the right direction? i will tell you for myself ihave stop, stop, stopped calling a test score gap an achievement gap. if you are limiting achievement to the difference in a standardized commercial test score, you have limited what you are expecting from me as a teacher when you focus on a narrow multiple choice test score to design something as mind blowingly complex as the achievement of a human-type child, you narrow what it means to teach. and you narrow what it means to learn. i was on a talk radio show in florida, and the reporter said you know, don't you think you are a little hypocritical that as a teacher you are against tests? so i spoke very slowly so he would understand and told him i am a teacher. we invented tests. i gave my sixth graders lots and lots of stefts. essay tests and spelling tests. you got a point if you put the comma in the right place and you got a point if you gave me a good answer. but you got two points if you gave me a good question. we'd have our science fair and the kids would do all their experiments and you got point if your experiment worked. you got extra points if your experiment didn't work and you could tell me why it didn't work. you want kids to be thinkers and problem-solvers and always being creative. for all my kids, the gifted, the talented, the kids with disabilities, and sometimes that was all the same kid. it was a gifted and talented english language learner with a disability. all of my kids fully participated as part of a team. i designed my curriculum to make sure all kids had multiple ways of showing me they got it, of showing me that they could be successful and we would design and we would execute our class projects that had real world impact. i told that reporter that i think about what kind of teacher i've been, but what kind of teacher would i be if i limited the experiences i wanted my kids to have so that i could maximize the time i spent drilling and drilling on a standardized test. what kind of teacher would i be if i limited myself to only what was in a scripted textbook so that it was aligned to the scripted standardized test, and i stopped letting my students teach me what they needed me to teach them. and what kind of teacher would i be if i focused on the bubble kids. you know, the bubble kids? i have a friend who e-mailed me from utah and she said i want to stop teaching. she is an excellent teacher. she's the best i know. and she said i just came out of a faculty meeting where the principal explained that we were going to make adequate yearly progress by any means necessary. and so we were to ignore the top academic achievers. they're going to pass the test and we're going to ignore the lowest academic achievers. they're not going to make it, and you're going to focus on the kid on the bubble who just barely made it last year or who just barely didn't make it. and you are going to drill and drill barely didn't make it. and you are going to drill and drill and drill them. this principal was telling her be a bad teacher. what kind of teacher would i be if i didn't take the time to design my instruction so that i challenged the most advanced students and found multiple ways for the most disadvantaged students to learn something important. i would very likely be the kind of teacher whose test scores would go through the roof. but i would no longer be a good teacher. there are sinister ways to close a test score gap. i want to talk about real achievement. the best thing to come out of no child left is disaggregation of data. now i want that data to be measuring something meaningful. to me achievement means they are growing, advancing in a dozen different ways to meeting their life's goals, meeting something to their teacher. when you hold me accountable to a test score you have doomed my students to the most mediocre yardstick you have devised. this is what we should do, to take the notes. you should set the goal of a school system, preschool to 12th grade to be responsible for making sure every single blessed child is prepared for higher education. every one of our kids is going to be more successful if they have higher education. community college, barber college, harvard, whatever it is to meet their goals. so make me work hard enough for what comes after high school. don't even let it enter my mind that not 100% of my kids will graduate. let's do what we do based on the best research. i'm not a resempler but i use it. the best research says the most disadvantaged kids need a good quality early childhood education teacher. so high school teachers should care there is a good preschool teacher in their system, because whether or not those kids can count to 100 will affect that high school math teacher's ability to do his or her job. research shows that class size matters, especially dramatically in those early grades. so if you want to do something like universal design for learning where every child is constantly assessed with good measurements on whether or not they are advancing in the proper way, you are able to personally design instruction for your students. measure what counts towards higher education. why can't the gaps be showing up, participating, articulating their career goals, understanding the plans to get them to their career goals, so they are prepared and qualified for every step of the continuum towards their career goals. there should be a high course pass rate. there should be a high graduation rate. there should be a high rate of higher education applications and acceptance before they graduate. you can measure all of those things. there should be a high satisfaction rate among parents and students themselves that their school was high quality and it was relevant to their lives. never before has a generation been so well prepared for the previous century. we're not doing it right. we're in the 21st century and the skills we need our kids to know are not easily measured on a commercial standardized test, design, analysis, creation, problem solving, leadership, teamwork. those are the things i want us to move towards. those are the policies that will make a difference for my students. thank you. >> thank you. thank you. sharon lewis. >> thank you. i appreciate your comments, lilly, and a critical component from here is our conversation about what happens with teachers and ultimately what that means for students. early on in the panel presentations today, nancy jones mentioned the story of judy human. for those of that you don't know judy, judy has been a pioneer in terms of students with disabilities. when you look at what her life has become and what education looked like for her several decades ago versus what it looks like for students now, i think there's some very interesting lessons. recently i was asked to take a look at an iep of a young african-american student who is in the public schools. and i was shocked by what i was provided. i was provided by a couple of pages that talked about very @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these two kids were where they went to school. where we've done a lot for students with disabilities, many of the achievement gaps we've talked about affect groups of kids who have multiple labels and often, as lilly talked about, we're talking about the same group of kids who wear all these labels simultaneously. on the first panel there was conversation about data. when we talked about idea data, we see the same kinds of trends. this is one of the places instead of looking at assessment data, we have tremendous amount of data around kids eligible under idea, yet achievement gap continues to grow. dropout dropped from 249% to 31%. increase in diplomas 63 to 64%. increase in certificates of completion from 7% to 13%. however, african-american students saw their drop out go from 50% to 32%, only saw diplomas from 34 to 42% and certificates of completion rise from 15% to 24%. latino students much the same story. dropout rate from 51% to 32%, certificates of completion 32 to 21. we need a conversation whether or not access to certificate of completion and having access to education for 0 to 21 years depending on what state you're in and what that means for you is a meaningful outcome for students as opposed to access to a diploma and the ability to access post secondary education. i think it's a conversation we don't talk enough about. as we move forward what are the things that make the difference, access to effective instruction. we know this. we know something nclb has done for students with disabilities despite 30 careers of trying in other ways, access to the general education curriculum for many students who had not been able to access it previously. we need to keep moving forward and ensure policies don't affect students with disabilities disproportionately in terms of having disin accessing general education curricula. not parallel curricula, the same curricula. we need conversations on how we address the challenges of disproportion ality. we still don't have our arms around the problems in terms of disproportionality related to students with disability. lastly i think one of the things we need to have conversations about are knocking down these sill os. i think that while we did -- congress did a phenomenal job of trying to align esea and ida in the last two reauthorizations of those laws we continue to have sill os between the two systems and two sets of expectations for stun. it's a conversation we need to continue to have as we move towards reauthorization. at the end of the day we're talking about all kids. many of these kids are one in the same. thank you. >> thank you. amy, welcome. can you hear me? >> one of the nice things going towards the end, people have said a lot of what i might have said. also, you guys have been sitting for more than an hour listening and that's just bad pedagoguey. if we are supposed to be educators, we should recognize we should get you to the q&a part as quickly as possible. i just want to make a couple of points. first, thanks for having me today. the second thing is i am so grateful to you for raising the point about higher ed. i was getting very distressed sitting here listening to a conversation about what it takes to get doids a high school diploma. a high school diploma is not what our kids need anymore. we're having a conversationing we should have had 50 years ago. the number of jobs with a high school education is dwindling. the jobs growing are the jobs that require education beyond high school. what we have to do is close the achievement gap not just in high school graduation, in college but in college conclusion. the way we do that is by ensuring kids have strong preparation all the way up. from pre-k on. i want to talk just for second about the power of education to do that. we have seen and you all know planning a pretty mediocre white people who achieved great success because of great schools. that's because education is terribly powerful. what we've done in this country, which is outrageous. we organized upside down. we take the kids that need the most and give them the very least we have to offer as a nation. then we turn around and we blame their families, we blame their communities. we say these kids can't learn, families are disorganized, communities are violent. we, who could change their schools, turn around their schools much more easily than we could turn around their communities look at their families instead of them looking at us. i think when you think about what the federal government can do, we need humility about the federal role. as i was walking in, the previous panel was talk about the limit of the investment. the federal government has to be very clear about what it expects on that $0.08 on the dollar. it has to not come with piecemeal initiatives as well intentioned as they are. it has to uses those $0.08 on the dollar to leverage big change for kids that need it the most. big systemic change that says we're going to turn the system on its head again and ensure those who need it the most get it. not with little programs but with big systemic changes. that starts with funding. we know most of the funding comes from state and local government. we also know state and local governments aren't fair with their money. the kids who need the most get the least. as a condition of receipt of federal funds, the federal government should demand school districts give poor kids at least their fair share of local funds and that states give poor kids at least their fair share of funds. as a condition of receipt of federal funds, the federal government should be cheer and unequivocal that the expectation of schools is to raise achievement overall and close the achievement gap. the assessments we might have might not be the best assessments. what i tell people, i could have a timex, a rolex, but the timex will tell me i'm late for the meeting. we know our kids are late. the current assessments we have do a good enough job to know we have a huge problem and we need to begin to solve them. so the federal government should expect big progress and know it doesn't measure everything, they need to be successful beyond high school. just because they don't measure everything doesn't mean the things they do measure does not matter. we expect them to raise the standards and close the gaps. when i was walking in, congressman scott was saying, and he was so right, that a big problem with nclb, enormous problem with nclb, what it did was identify schools in trouble and pretty much said fix it yourself. that is wrong. that is just wrong. what nclb did not do was put pressure on the school districts. the school districts are the appropriate first responders to schools. when we've looked at the data, what we've seen is struggling schools tend to cluster. there are school districts that can't or won't improve their schools and pay the attention that's needed to pay to struggling schools. in this next iteration of esea, we have to figure out a way not just to hold schools accountable but school districts accountable for supports for those schools. finally and most importantly i'm going to echo what everybody else on this panel has said and what common sense tells us. the most important thing we can does ensure every child, most particularly low income kids and kids of color get their fair share of strong teachers. we know from research teaching matters more than anything else. matters more than class size. a strong teacher will get you where you need to go. we give those kids the least opportunity to have them. low income and kids of color are twice as likely as other kids to be taught by teachers without the qualifications to teach. if we can do nothing else in this reauthorization putting the federal government on the side of those kids to ensure they have access to most important educational resource of all, we'll have made a great stride for the countrien general and these kids in particular. thank you. >> thank you. thank you. mr. cardinali. >> i'm hoping the power point comes up. you've teed up a great conversation. the one thing i want folks to walk out the door with my remarks, you've had terrific recommendation. it's not surprising you've heard these strategies by highly qualified teachers with incredible ability to be with kids under siege. you've heard lots of funding and the way schools run and leadership. we often hear in a passing remark, wrap around services or school as the center of the community but we don't often to dive into what that means. i'd like you today to understand we believe there's actually a pretty -- good gap in a global. our challenges as we show up for school, we always say taking full advantage of other investments. what do we mean by integrated school services? there's a technical definition. the notion is you place an individual in the school whose job it is to partner with the teachers and principals and parents and assess the needs from a whole school perspective and build an intervention strategy that uses community resources strategically to mitigate early warning indicators and keep them on task, in attendance and target them with sustained interventions. so every child that walks through that door every day, that cool system, that school building is set up to say does this child have everything h to. it's easier to fix schools than communities. this is a great example of what we're talking about. so the question is does it work. so five years ago community schools offered its monologue of integrated student services to say does it, in fact, make a difference in kids' lives. we used icf international, department of education, clearing house as the standard and launched a five-year longitudinal evaluation. at the end of the day in the last year of it, we can say three concrete things right now. one, when integrated student services are provided, we have a particular model, i'll talk to you later on, you can lower dropout rates and improve graduation rates with a real diploma in four years. secondly when you're faithful to this model of in grated service division, you can improve math and reading. finally, this is an incredible important point. you can take two match comparison scores, and one getting the same sets of services. one that has integrated services statistically outperforms the one that doesn't. it simply not enough to blanket resources at schools. it is an intentional alignment with the overall school improvement strategy that is critical. similarly, we recognize the importance of teacher quality. we surveyed and asked questions, does integrated service provision make a difference in the quality of your ability to do your job and your assessment of the readiness of your student to come to school. 90% said integrated student services are important in helping me effective in helping my students learn. how does this relate to the student achievement gap. cis helps 1.2, 1.4 million people. majority are kids of color and free reduced price lunch. we see that student achievement is available to them by providing integrated student service provision. we see it as a critical component, not a silver bullet. and i would never want to say teacher quality is not important. it's critically important, equitable distribution of funding. those are all critical. without integrated services provision we see those other strategies as hampered. in terms of policy recommendations, three recommendations. first integrated student services division become a critical component of education reform strategies, particularly for turning around low performing schools, school and redesign. finally as strategies for helping close the achievement gap. then there would be three, actually four key pieces of legislation we would very much encourage folks to support because they include integrated student provision as critical components. first keeping parents and communities engaged. a call to rodriguez who was critical to helping support this and congressman scott has been a cosinor on this. so as i said at the beginning, the only thing i would like for you to know, along with these other sets of policy recommendations, an area that is often not recognized. there is a science and evidence behind integrated student services provision. cis, communities in schools is just a model. marion said something important. programs don't make good policy. when you can point to scaled examples of a strategy, translated, you have a good combination. they are great examples across the country how they work closing the achievement gap and improving student achievement. thanks. >> thank you. you've heard a lot, special assistant to the president for education, roberto rodriguez. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it's a real pleasure to join you. i appreciate the invitation. it's also a great honor to join wonderful friends, colleagues and leaders in this work on the panel. i will try to be brief. i think the audience has heard a great deal of good recommendations in terms of how we can advance this charge of closing the achievement gap. first the question of whether that's still our imperative. it must be our imperative nationally to narrow and eventually close the achievement gap. it must be our economic imperative given the new demands of a new workforce in this new century and the fact that high quality education today is no longer just a predictor of future success. it really is a prerequisite. we're in an era that demands we prepare young folks for workforce in the future. it's a moral imperative and continues to be a moral imperative of our test of a strong democracy, our ability to deliver equity, fairness, and ton to all our citizens. really hinges on our ability to provide a high-quality public education for all of our young people certainly it must be our work moving forward. let me venture to ideas and thoughts, familiar, ones you've heard heard the administration talk about before, we've touched on here. before getting into that piece, the work around closing the achievement gap i think really must start early, must begin at birth where learning begins and return to dr. day's comments on the importance of a high-quality early childhood education to our children's future success. we have 11 million children spending sometime out of home, child care, state funded pre-k or another early settings. regardless of where they spend time the quality of that setting matters greatly. the quality of that relationship the child spends in the relationship that child forges with adults is really what drives better outcomes. and we know that high-quality early childhood education, high-quality learning environments really pay off not only economically as you heard the data also students learning and advancement later in school. the reduced need for special education. increased in gaugement, academic achievement all attributed to high-quality early plerng 0 to 5. really think we need to begin the work there and launch a race to the top in early learning to challenge our states, challenge our communities to do better in terms of the scope of services they provide our young people before they reach kindergarten, to do better in terms of the standards as well as outcomes and results we're looking for for our youngest children 0 to 5 and do better around access, particularly for disadvantaged children. we've done that work through the launch of the challenge fund across our administration and interagency effort across department of education and health and human services to challenge states to join in a federal partnership around advancing opportunity for our youngest kids 0 to 5. and certainly in k to 12 education, we really should begin this real quick with standards, which are the foundational element around reform across the country where we know we need to do better and we need to ensure we have higher, clearer, more relevant and more meaningful standards for learning for all our students that really shape curricula, shape the experience students have in our schools. and we know really we have a lot of work to do there. we've had a race to the bottom in terms of the quality of standards across the country. the most recent work out of the national center for education statistics really quantitifies this gap we see between our highest performing states around what's expected of our children in terms of what they should know and do. lowest performing states we have gaps that amount to 60, 70 points in 4th grade reading, 8th grade math in terms of expectations. that has to change. we also need a more meaningful assessment program that's aligned to those standards. so much of our ability to move forward on reform hinges on high-quality assessments that are real measures of success and real measures of progress and growth of our young people. that must come with the standards of work as well. second we need to focus on teachers. you've heard a great deal of great recommendations across the panel on this work and here in particular we need to focus on equity as well as effectiveness. we need to level distribution and make sure that our young people that need our most talented teachers most have access to them. we also need to do more around teacher effectiveness and acknowledging that teaching is a critical profession and improvement of teaching, the ongoing learning of our teachers is something we must at the federal level and state level support. so that means new mechanisms to improve the knowledge and skills of our existing teaching workforce, new mechanisms to them them differentiate, no mechanisms that lend to coupes so when the door closes, a teacher isn't left alone and without any support in terms of improving achievement for their students. the third point i'd like to make is on using data to drive and improve instruction. here we've taken a strong look at the existing state of data systems across the country. data is not always the most exciting part of education reform, but it's also critically important to our ability to move forward. providing feedback and ability to improve instruction and make important decisions about responding to students' learning and their needs but also important decisions to inform decision making at the local level and state level around how we're supporting this work of closing the achievement gap. and then finally the fourth point on really intervening and improving achievement in our struggling schools. amy put it well. we have 13,000 schools that have been identified under no child's left behind's rubric needing improvement. our work does not end with labeling, identifying a school. it begins with that identification of the need to address the problem, then we need real coherent strategy and an all hands on deck approach to approve achievement in those schools. that's more meaningful school improvement plans, doing more to transform teaching and learning in those schools, doubling down on our investment in terms of resources and support for educators in those schools and also looking at new and effective strategies to improve student learning, looking how we use time and reorganize time in those schools, so students have more time on task, more time for enrichment activities, applied learning, learning outside of the classroom, so the teachers have more time to collaborate and strategize around how to best meet those students needs. certainly we need to address the dropout challenge. you've heard a number of good comments on that as well. we will not be competitive moving into the future when we're losing nearly half of our students of color before they reach graduation in four years. and we have only two-third of our students that are walking across that gymnasium stage and reaching their diploma in four years. that certainly needs to change. then moving into college, we really are focused on doing more not only to open the doors of access to higher education but also to focus on the challenge of persistence and completion. and the president has challenged us all by the end of the next decade to again lead the world in the proportion of college graduates that requires a real change in how we do business at the federal level in terms of supporting college completion, providing more meaningful advising, more meaningful individualized support for our students even into higher education and ensuring our systems are structured to really track individual student progress throughout higher education and help get us all to the goal of ensuring our completing competitive education for all of our young people. so with that thank you. look forward to any q&a. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. please give our panelists a round of applause. this is just great information. [ applause ] do we have any questions? do we have any questions of our panelists? yes, sir. >> whenever there is a hurricane or brush fire or disaster, the president has the opportunity to declare an disaster area and pump money into the repairs. why is it not possible to declare an education disaster? >> the question, when i had the privilege of serving in the congress, i actually sat on the committee of fema, that oversaw fema, disaster relief, you're absolutely right. what we have here, perhaps the tragedy has been this has not been the kind of disaster that has swept in a dramatic way one night and knocked over and wiped thousands of people out of their homes. this has been more like a disease that has crept along and steadily consumed large numbers. but the reality is that it has both morally, equitably and economically and i might add from a national security standpoint every aspect of a disaster like you mentioned. i have been encouraged, the president in his initiative, the first time in a major stimulus package going all the way back to the depression, the first time i've ever seen the amount of effort and intensity put into the education, $100 billion out of almost $800 billion stimulus package. it actually exceeds what goes into some of the traditional means. so to me obama administration and congress, in an education economy education is the main currency and must be treated in a massive way. points out his predecessor secretary had $17 million of discretionary money. secretary duncan has 10 billion. the key is to make sure it's in line with what's been talked about on this panel that's used strategically and effectively. other questions? yes, sir. >> want to say how grateful we are for your leadership and the outstanding panel. congressman working with you steadily to advance this issue, of course to continue to be concerned about this. one of the issues we had asked, whether or not violence as we see it play out on our streets may have anything to do with veeence played out on the television screens and the radio stations and video game cartridges and video game screens. we want to find out whether your panel may agree we need to perhaps study this issue as well as the issue of the lack of males in our household that may have been an unintended consequence of the reforms. wonder whether or not there might be ways in which we can create intervention in that respect that addresses the issues of confidence in the home without the removal of men from the households. i understand that's particularly an issue with native americans. but if your panelists could address those points, we appreciate it. again, chairman scott, we appreciate your leadership. >> thank you. >> who wants to go first? >> i'm not sure that the -- let me back up on your question a little bit. there's no that the cultural carriers in the united states have profound affects on the communities. let me spin ahead on your question and show where we see beacons of hope. one of the most community resources are the faith-based communities where you have extraordinarily storm ethics about community values transmitted across families and they spilled over to communities. you see mentoring programs, folks helping each other out when a fire definite states a family. in there lies an important element to me, there are institutions across the united states which can be vehicles for weaving communities together. so instead of looking for the symptoms of the problems, i think an asset approach with kids is a terrific opportunity. we have a program in community schools in austin, not far from your congresswoman's district called the xy zone where we intentionally use successful young men of color as peer mentors. they partner with the school system to bring on other young men of color and it's a great gang prevention strategy. instead of video games and violence in the community, which seems to be distracting, there are enormous centers of opportunity to build off of. it seems a less distracting way to really drive sets of models and transformation forward. that's how we would approach that, i think. just kind of off the top of my head. >> i'd just like to mention two things around that. obviously you've raised the point about addressing directly the levels of violence kids are exposed to and that's appropriate that we need to deal with it at the source and in the ways in the media and so on. within the school there is a lot 1 can do. i co-founded a school in california which has had the dubious distinction of being the murder capital of the united states for several years running in the 1990s. and we put in place in the school and others we've worked with social and emotional learning programs where kids and teachers and parents all learn the same strategies for how to manage conflict, how to work together, how to interact and putting that across the school and creating a very -- not only a safer environment in the school bah safer environment in the home and some strategies that can spread in the community. there's evidence from a number of studies from social emotional learning programs that you get both strong increases in student achievement and changes in the levels of violence and vandalism in schools when you can do schoolwide interventions like that that basically start from the point of view that we're going to teach everyone how to work with strategies for managing their attention, their interactions and so on rather than going into a punitive zero tolerance approach, which is ending up pushing more kids out of school into the streets, into the arms of the gangs and then into another cycle of violence. i think we have to think about that carefully. there is a bill that's been introduced in the house by the congressman to support those kinds of programs and that's a small piece of the puzzle. >> we have worked with different school also who have adopt successful programs to reduce violence in the school. one of the programs, it's a pilot program in philadelphia. the high school was one of the school that considered a dangerous school a few years ago. the good thing is that the principal and assistant principal reach out to different community organizations and community leader and also parent and student themselves. so to give the voice to the students for them to speak up about what's happening and for them to create, to have a dialogue among themselves. what are the issues, what can they do, what other adults do to help support them and really addressing those issues. sometimes not having the opportunity to discuss about differences and understanding of different culture background and languages, students tend to pick on each other. so the understand of the difference is, where they are coming from, different values students have, now they formed a welcoming squad, meet regularly, discuss about the issue with the support of our community organization in the school and school administrator and parent and student themselves. they work together to kind of address the issue and promote peace within the school. so that's just one example that i think we can take into consideration. >> i think your question suggested if there's violence going on in the school, it's going to be hard to get much going on. that's why education on youth violence is important. we're fortunate to work together to get the bill out of judiciary committee, now is considered to be in the education and labor committee. we're optimistic about the youth progress act. it's co-sponsors more than half the house. if we can get it, keep it progressing along, i'm sure we can get it out of the house, but the senate is a totally different question. but i think the youth violence is an area that we focused on with a comprehensive approach. we're looking forward to making a great deal of difference on that. yes, ma'am. >> i wanted to thank you also for recognizing native american communities do struggle with this issue. it is a large one. i'd also like to point out for anyone interested, "the new york times" ran an article today about the rise of gangs on reservation, particularly pine ridge reservation, which is actually in some ways has a higher homicide rate than most urban cities but most people don't recognize that for us i'd like to echo what's been said by my colleagues. strength comes from communities. values that held our communities together for centuries are the things that also help prevent violence and help give hope. but education is a critical piece to any of this. without those access points on a reservation with 63% unemployment your options are extremely limited even when you try to walk a good and healthy path. it takes a variety and combination of programs of the community finding your way as the identity of who you are. i'd like to acknowledge there are really incredible models, national indian leadership project that operates out of new mexico has done incredible work for the past 30 years starting in middle school with students teaching them good decision making skills, empowering them in experiencial education. as they move through high school and college they have a core foundation of knowing what it looks like to be a healthy person and what it looks like to be academically successful and they are trained as they go through this program to become peers that support each other. so if their families are not necessarily able to give them the support that they need, they know they belong to a larger community, that grandmother's and grandfather's may not be the people you're by logically related to but they are the people that care about you in any of the communities you walk through. i do see a lot of points of hope. we do need to recognize violence is an issue but something that can't be solved by one approach or one resemple. thank you. >> thank you. and i want to again thank our panel is for the great presentation. this panel and other panels. give another round of applause. [ applause ] >> i also want to thank my staff for putting together this great panel that i didn't do any of the work. peter, david, elana, and a couple of others who put a lot of work into this. i think it was well worth the effort. we know from the first panel there's a legal basis for challenging the achievement gap. we talked about a private right of action but certainly the federal government can take action on dealing with the achievement gap from a legal perspective. we heard from civil rights leaders that say there's civil rights implications in allowing achievement gap to persist. we heard from this panel, we know a lot of things we can do that are cost effective in achieving . . . >> thank you. the ranking member. it's now my honor to recognize the gentle person from california. thank you for calling today's joint hearing. i applaud your joint leadership. i'd also like to thank our panalists here with us. today, we are here to discuss our practices. >> as brad band access continues to expand. more and more americans rely on the internet for many things. americans need to trust that their personal information will be properly protected. privacy policies and foreclosures should be clear and transparent. instead of inappropriate collection and misuse of their information. >> consumers must also the scope of the information being collected. what it is being used for and the length of time it is being retained. the more information consumers have, the better. we need to make sure americans are comfortable. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan. >> think thank my friend. we'll see what the attendance is after lunch when we return for these votes. >> that information is personal and shouldn't be shared unless that individual allows and knows that it is going to be shared. it needs to be protected. it is nobody's business. you don't expect somebody to follow you in your car and expect some competitor. this is a great hearing, i look forward to it and i yield back the balance of my time. i'm going to thank you the ranking member. i want to remind the ranking member that those of us who sit in the stands also serve. thank you very much. >> now recognizing the gentleman from kentucky for 5:00. >> thaveping thank you. we appreciate all these wids being here today it is important that we focus on protecting privacy. we will be hearing about privacy policies and the data retention that we do. i yield back the balance of my time. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from ohio, mr. pits >> thank you mr. chairman. i'll schmidt it for the record. i believe consumer privacy rights must be regarded. the consumers and the ability to be successful. with that i'll schmidt the rest for the record and neeled back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from georgia for 2:00 for the purposes of opening statements. >> i want to thank you for the advertising on line. to make sure that we ensure the on line privacy of the insurers. it is important that we focus on three components. it's important to distinguish what it is we are going to be regulating. currently, most interest base advertising occurs through web browser cookies enabling advertisers to just mies ads on a series of preferences. however, as we have seen particularly over the last decade, technology moves very quickly. there by allowing for industry growth while at the same time safe guarding an individual's private information. we would also have to determine whom we would be regulating. whether it be the internet service provider or web based companies that we have here today. it will be important as we move forward that we diligently take the time to give us different perspective on important issues that will continue to be crucial to the further development to on line activity. our focus must be the consumer's overall protection. i look forward to hearing from the panel and i yield back the balance of my time. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana for the purposes of opening statements. >> thank you. i want to thank you and the ranking members these advances and benefits can expose consumers to certain risk. the technology industry is one of the most advanced and competitive industries in our country. one thing that the industry has pointed out, some would say that the government's failure to regulate this industry is one of the reasons it has grown. there have been bad actors in the industry that we must address. i hope we would proceed with caution when stepping in or drafting administration. i hope the focus would be how to protect consumers in this administration. i hope today's hearing does not focus on how the government could improve the industry. we should focus on the consumer they should be consistent across the industry and not be greater for one technology or the earth. everyone involved in on line advertising should all be subject to the same questionments. congress should not try to pick winners and loosers. they care about what information is collected and what it is used for. they want to know what is going on and if so, they should be able to opt out if they so choose. i look forward to the hearing and comments from the panalists today. making sure the protection and what changes they plan on making moving forward. it's important that these committees understand the committees as well as all these practices. i yield back. >> as i indicated earlier, there's a vote occurring on the house floor. it's a series of votes. we will recess the committee until the completion of those votes and we will reconvene in 15 minutes after thozz votes. the committee now stands in rehe is says -- in recess. >> the committee will reconvene. thank each and everyone of you for your patient yens. i would also apologize for the time that you have been forced to spend here. this has been an abnormal day i might add it's been a record breaking down. we've had at least 54 consecutive votes one after another. this never happened before that we know. it's not something we are proud of but, it has been that kind of a day. we will proceed with introducing our witnesses. mr. jeffery is the executive director for the center of digital -- let me start over. mr. edward w. selton, professor , next to him, from yahoo and next to her from google. the chief privacy officer at facebook. and mr. charles crohan and scotty cleveland swearing in all these witnesses. do you sol umly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? >> let the record reflect that all the witnesses answered in the affirmative. >> thank you for the opportunity to testify today. my name is edward felton, i'm a professor of human affairs. i'd like to explain some of the technology behind behavior am advertising. if i could have the display, please of the power point. >> what i'd like to describe is a scenario involving behavioral advertising. thank you. in the beginning of this scenario, i go to a weather sight and look up thursday's forecast for washington. it sends me a page with the forecast information. it sends my computer a command telling it how to find the ad. following these instructions, my web browser connects to an add service. along with this request, information is sent to the ad service about me. the add service remembers the ad which is then inserted into the page. the service sends a long a cookie. my computer contact the ad service to get the ad. it says that i'm interested in base bal and jazz. it recognizes that the cookie is the same as before so it knows i'm the same person that looked up the information earlier. the service sends back an ad. this time it's an ad for washington nationals tickets. notice the ad service is connecting the dots between something i did on the weather sight and social network site. the cookie allows the ad service to link the ad together sending back an ad for jazz cds it knows i like jas. at this point, it knows enough to remember me. it buys access to a third party commercial database this gets my credit card and insurance history finally, i go to a news site that uses the same ad service. my computer uses the ad. it knows i'm interested in i low cost trip. in this edition, i was reading about cancer treatment. in this scenario, the ad got information in three ways. first, contact providers know what i was doing in the past. the service connected the dots. third, accessing third party commercial basis. all of this end up in my profile containing sensitive information which could be resold or reused for these purposes. now ad services are not the only parties to service profiles. due to their relationships that can pass along information about their users and link together possibilities across the websites. all of this is possible, which is not to say responsibly ad services do all of it or most of it. what is clear is that technology itself cannot be used for information. >> would you plies bring your discussion to a close. thank you, i was just wrapping up. >> you are recognized. >> chairman i appreciate the opportunities that will appear before you. >> my name is ann post. i joined yahoo and became one of the most dedicated privacy leaders. yahoo was founded to help people find information useful to them. what began as a directory of a popular websites quickly grew providing a wide range of useful products and services. the internet has changed a great deal. the same is true for add tigse. consumers are more likely toñi click on advertising that speaks to them and their interest. yahooçó delivers ads or has recently browsed car reviews. customized advertising helps save time andñr industry. as you know our business also depends almost entirely on the users. our approach to privacy coupled with transparency and meaningful protection that limits how much information personal identifiers are maybe contained. let's start with transparency, providing easy navigation, giving prominence to the opt out page. giving users multiple privacy touch points. we have an opt out that a plies to on and off internet party websites. we want them to have a choice. we didn't want users to have to redo the opt outs again and again. the final aspect is user only 90 days vastly increased providing transparency and feeningful choice. much attention has been paid to the question of whether an opt out or opt in approach to user controlled area of advertising is best. the eaps is both. enabling providers to queep pace with customer demand and expectations as well >> now the chair recognizes mrs. wong. >> on line advertising is critically moving. >> benefiting consumers and advertising alike. on the other hand recognizing needs while respecting privacy. >> using information about the web page users and add cats. leading us to realize we need to solve three issues which transparency and choice. first, who served the ad? what information has been collected? finally, how can consumers be given more control. right in the ad as you can see in ads by google. we believe it is important. right at the point of interaction. >> on this page, what information is being reflected this tool allows us to see what is set in the cookie. google has associated hybrid cars, movies and real estate. before google introduced the ads manager, most interests were not of interest. can you delete any one of them or a few or as many as you want. if you want to delete movie rentals and sales and i've done just that. you can ad any interest you like. google does not use sensitive categories. there's nothing in here about sexual orientation, religion or health status. you can opt outñr at any time with one collect. after you opt out, you won't receive interest based ads from us.  still see ads but they may not be as relevant. opt out cookies have traditionally not been persistent. ourñi engineers remember the to not previously available. after you opt out, click the down load instructions and safe the settings even when you clear your cookies. thank you for your time. >> we welcome mr. kelly. you are recognized for 5:00. >> thank you very much. we agree with you that protecting privacy is protected to the consumer brother. facebook now serves 2 0,000 users worldwide most in the united states.ñrñi facebook privacy settings gives users control allowing them to view the friends they accept and information they chouse and if they desire the world at large.çó the federal trade commission is recognizing important conditions between the use of non-personally identifiable information not shared or sold on third parties. facebook understands that few of us want to be her mits not sharing information with anyone though not e wants to share everything with e.ñi if someone is searching about new friends, all they would see is the limited information that those users have decided to make available. they have extensive and precise controls to see who sees what as well as tools that are a choice to make a limited set of information available. everyday use of the site educates users over the site that they have and user feedback informs everything that we do. fashion book is transimportant about users that we use as an advertising based business. using facebook.com or the ad sites. the sharing ofñi identifiable form. users should share the information they serve with advertisers. face book does it. ad targeting that shares or sells personal information is materially different from targeting that only gives advertisers the ability to present ads. if you were to navigate to the social networking site in face buke, we would not be sharing with the ard provider that he likes jazz or that he was edward felton. in facebook, people know what they are uploading. the privacy policy and users inform them about how advertising works we thank you for the opportunity to present the opportunity before this committee. >> thank you. the chair now recognizes mr. chester forñi 5:00. i want to thank theñi chairs fo their interest in privacy and holding this hearing and to support their efforts to help americans get a fair digital deal. that's when they deserve. we lead the children's on line privacy act. we now need to do for teens and adults. imagine a world. the chair spoke about it, others spoke about it. imagine a world where every move you are being watched. whatever content you read, what you buy, how much you are willing to spend, where you go, what you like and what you don't like. all of that being scompiled. they cull it digital fingerprints or digital dna. it is constantly correcting and refining all of this information and making assumptions about you without any account ability to you as a consumer let alone as the citizen. that is the on line advertising system today as we know it. it's different from traditional advertising as you yourself described. it's able to track you minute by minute. minute by second. your information is being sold in on line ad auctions in mili seconds. it's an incredible system we have created. nowen meshed in everything we do on line. doing email and searches, playing games. there's a digital data collection arms raise going on as they build this system. i wantçó to make it clear for m second point. our call for privacy isn't about the role of on line advertising. it's the under pitting of our foundation, really our new way of life in the digital age. it's not about any particular company or sets of companies powerful in the on line advertising services that are not understanding and controlable by consumers. i think to me it's very clear if you look at the issue of sensitive data, which i'm hoping you are going to work on and in particular, financial data. people had no idea when they were taking out a mortgage or loan, what they were doing. as a result, they, i thinkçó we have had to face the consequences. that's why us with the financial system yet consumers get to ensure that data is being used. they have a chance to change it if it is incorrect. consumer groups are calling on you to enact legislation as soon as possible to bring fair legislation up. self regulation has failed.ñr americans should have the right to look up prescription drugs without having to give their data up, there's a ambulance. i hope you will help to restore it. it's a win, win possibility here. thank you. >> now the chair recognizes mr. coran for 5:00. >> thank you members of the subcommittee, i'd like to thank you on behalf of the ad share industry. the nai is a coalition of other advertising and on line marketing dedicated to on line business practices. originally founded five years ago. . >> this preserves a default experience in which would sites provide users with more rapid than less relevant advertising. they have multiple uses. either by using opt-outs or their own easily accessible web browser tools. any significant changes to this model like requiring and opt-in to improve an advertising relevance could provide profound or risk. as they navigate, consumers could be inundated with recurring opt-in proms. consumer rejection of this approach -- approach could upset the revenue model sets of -- supports many models to it. it is vital to the continued model of web services that the right balance is struck between economic, factors involved. we consider these online privacy issues. think you. >> thank-you to the gentleman. the chair recognizes mr. cleland for 5 minutes. >> thank you. as a leading internet expert and consultant, i obviously have internet clients. they include wireless cable and broadbent companies in the communications sector and microsoft in the technology sector. i want to emphasize my personal views and not those of my clients. i want to talk about the internet problem and the internet solution. the internet privacy problem means that the sister and brother as the upset denver before the internet, it was inefficient, it was costly and it was difficult to collect private information. it is hyper-efficient and easy to invade privacy. we have añr default, progress keepers, losers weepers policy. most americans incorrectly assumed that the privacy they enjoyed it often in the past is the privacy they have on line. that is not true. all the technology to make a- trends out there, and social networking, cloud computing, internet mobility, all of them will dramatically increase -- increase privacy risk of line. there is a significant faction in the technology community that views privacy negatively which is antithetical to the behavioral advertising and the web 2.0 model. the underground currency of the injured re -- internet is data. it is valuable. in the absence of a system where consumers can answer -- assert ownership and control of their private provision, privacy can be taken away from them for free and profited from with no obligation to compensation due to the affected consumer. we now have a technology-driven swiss cheese privacy from work. this may be the worst of all possible worlds. simply, the haphazard fringe we have gives a user no meaningful informed choice to either protect themselves or benefit themselves in the marketplace arena of their private information. what is the solution? you have a consumer-oriented approach. it is technology and competition neutral. it is consumers' private information that is being taken and exploited. out their consent. consumers are most at risk for having their information misused or stolen. would appear logical for our privacy for more to be organized around a consumer? clearly, businesses should be free to fairly represent and engage consumers in the fair market transaction for the private information. this is where consumers could effectively understand and negotiate the risk and reward involved with sharing private information. moreover, since the consumer is the only one that knows which information about their personal situation or they're abused or intentions or interests, should not be the consumer that is empowered to make those decisions? if congress decides that it will legislate in this area, i think one thing is obvious -- you should have a consumer framework that would be superior to the current technology- driven from corporate it would emphasize protecting people, not technologies. it would empower consumers with the freedom to choose to protect or to exploit their privacy. it would prevent competitive court trod by creating a level playing field. it would allow you to stay current with the constant changing innovation. lastly, you will be able to accommodate both sides, the people who care to protect your privacy but also those who care less and would like to exploit the private information. in closing, i think we can do better than the current finders keepers, losers weepers privacy policy that is the de facto policy of the united states. thank you, mr. chairman and ranking member for the opportunity to testify. >> the chair thanks the gentleman. we will engage the witnesses in a series of questions and the chair recognizes itself for five minutes for the purposes of questioning the witness. if you discussed meaningful choice for consumers. this is a principle that everyone agrees is a good one. it appears that the only choice for customers using yahoo! is to opt out of receiving interest- based advertising. it seems that they cannot opt out of the yahoo! collection of information and tracking. can you clarify exactly what the consumer choice is with the opt out choice of yahoo!? does your company continue to collect data on browsing habits? does the opt out stop the display advertising? does it stop the collection of data? does your firm offer consumers anyway to opt out of tracking and data collection? >> our popped out -- this is an opt out of use of data. there are a number of reasons why we collect data. primarily, that relates to the display of advertising. advertisers pay us to show advertisements and we have to know if those advertisements were delivered and sean berry we collect information and reported back to the advertisers who are paying for those advertisements. another reason why has to do with how we operate our website. if we were to stop collecting data when a user copps al qaeda there are a number of users we suspect would opt out and engage in behavior on the side that may not be legitimate behavior that may this is easy to fund. we think that matters a great deal. the other thing i will mention is that what we offer on the back end is an anonymous usage of that data within 90 days. if users have a concern about data being collected, address that on the back end what is notable about that is that our policy does not just apply to search log records or a specific type of log file. all of our systems inform our advertising capabilities. >> so a consumer cannot opt out of data collection at all? >> no, there are other tools of the browser level that would address that. our systems do not work that way. >> can you enter the same question for me? >> let me describe our approach to privacy and data collection. google always tries to minimize the amount of data we collected that user. almost all of our services to not require a user to provide any parcel informational corporate when you go to google search, you don't have to register, just type in your search. if you are not cited or registered, that means the only thing we get back is a standard log london records -- log line that records. it identifies an ip address and the other is a copy. neither -- cookie. neither of those things are tied to an individual. to be clear, we do provide an opt out. i demonstrated in our demonstration. for the use of that

Related Keywords

Vietnam ,Republic Of ,Montana ,United States ,Louisiana ,Alaska ,California ,New Mexico ,Russia ,Washington ,District Of Columbia ,West Virginia ,Cambodia ,Iowa ,Switzerland ,Singapore ,New York ,Stanford ,American University ,Philadelphia ,Pennsylvania ,Capitol Hill ,Utah ,Kentucky ,Florida ,Stanford University ,Boston ,Massachusetts ,Georgia ,Pampa ,Oregon ,Michigan ,London ,City Of ,United Kingdom ,Denver ,Colorado ,Salt Lake City ,New Jersey ,Nebraska ,New York University ,Kansas ,Ohio ,North Dakota ,Hawaii ,Americans ,Alaskan ,Hawaiians ,Swiss ,Cambodian ,American ,Augusta Hawkins ,Martin Luther King ,Sean Berry ,Copps Al Qaeda ,Bobbie Scott ,Mary Landrieu ,Gordon Lou ,Ron Edmonds ,Max Baucus ,George Miller ,Julie Rovner ,Jamie Carter ,Carrie Venegas ,Marianne Wright ,Trent Lott ,Claude Mayberry ,Harry Reid ,Roberto Rodriguez ,Sun Russell ,Edward Felton ,Barack Obama ,Amy Wilkins ,Bridget Coleman ,Judy ,Geoff Robinson ,Nancy Jones ,Jane America ,Scotty Cleveland ,Carol Brunson ,Ted Kennedy ,