Transcripts For CSPAN3 Officials Testify On State And Local Education Reforms 20170724

The ones who remain in place, would say that the president s mind is focused on the policy issues at hand of which parents just want in infrastructure and a tax code overhaul on the other. Obviously, theres plenty going on to subject more on the president s mind. More going on inside the white house to hold the ceremonial the president had this last week. Louise radnofsky live on this sunday morning. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. Her work is available at wjs. Com. Appreciate you being with us. Now state and local officials testify at a house hearing on tefr Student Succeeds act. They changed the way the federal department of education oversees state boards of education and local School Districts. This is twoandahalf hours. The committee of Education Workforce will come to order. Good morning, and welcome to todays full committee hearing. I want to thank you or panel of witnesses and our Committee Members for joining todays discussion on the implementation of the every Student Succeeds act s. O. As it can be considered a milestone for k12 policy because it was a monumental shift in the role of states and School Districts would have in the future of education. They fought to achieve two specific goals for k12 education. Autonomy and accountability. States and School Districts were given new independence when created a k12 Education Program that works best for their own up students ending a washington knows best approach to education. Additionally, s. O. Specifically prevented the federal government from influencing states adoption of particular standards. It also repealed federal mandates for teacher performance and protected the states right to opt out of federal Education Programs. Part of this is goal for state district and autonomy was to force washington to remain an arms lengths for states and School Districts when it comes to school education. And rest assured this committee will be watching to ensure that washington keeps its distance. While states and School Districts are given more autonomy. And the law maintains provisions in ensuring parents have transparent information about School Performance and states in districts can hold schools accountable for delivering a highquality education to all students. S. O. Also included unprecedents restrictions on the department of educations authority to take back the state and local flexibility guaranteed by the law. S. O. Has stripped away powers of the department of education, such as the ability of the secretary of education to legislate through executive fiat or the ability of the departments bureaucrats to substitute their judgment for states. History made it clear that a topdown approach to k12 education and not serve students, parents, teachers or the states will. Nsa addressed these shortcomings. Given the monumental shift in education policy, representat e representative, its important to know that the law is progressing. We know the law wont take effect into the coming school year and need time to assess the impact on schools and students. However, i look forward to hearing from todays witnesses about the progress states, School Districts and the department of education are making. This committee is keeping a close eye on the implementation process. Last year we held four hearings on the implementation on s. A. This was a change for the k12 education and i do believe the bipartisan law delivers the proper balance of awe tony and accountability to taxpayers while ensuring a limited federal role. This law has the ability to empower state and local leaders to change k12 education for the better and that is why it is of utmost importance to this committee. I look forward to hearing from witnesses and members during todays hearing. With that i yield to Ranking Member scott for his opening remarks. Thank you, madam chair, for convening this mornings hearing on implementation of every Student Succeeds act. I look forward to hearing their testimony. It is regrettable that we are not hearing from the u. S. Department of education, particularly considering media reports of the majoritys intention to critique the implement takes of essa during todays proceedings. I know i, for one, would greatly benefit with the open dialogue on the essa implementation and for other matters. Chairwoman fox, you remember up sent a letter that secretary de vos and other agency hits to discuss the administrations priorities. That request has not been fulfilled so i would like to take the opportunity to ask secretary de vos or the representative from the department who can discuss the Administration Priorities to appear to engage in an open dialogue with this committee. Essa has been the law of the land for 20 months. While it may seem like a long time, the life cycle to the secondary education act that passed over 50 years ago, its really just the beginning. States are only now undergoing the peer review underapproval act against a chaotic regulatory environment. As i said in february and march, but it bears repeating, when congress used the cra to block the regulation between the core requirements, that was unfortunate and countered to the bipartisan agreement in essa. This body didnt go forward with the scra and thats what we have to work with. The lack of regulation, however, means increased subjectivity to determine compliance with the laws requirements that makes oversight actions of this Committee Even important. This increase subjectivity without the clarifying regulations is impairing the departments early feedback on state plans submitted in may during the may submission window. As some planned components were praised by peer reviewers in one states plan, one of the same components were questioning the insufficiency in other. All the while, other violences of essas equity requirements were overlooked by the department completely. Madam chair, im disappointed the media description of the reaction of some of our colleagues and the majority who characterized the education departments state feedback plans as overreach. Theres a difference between overreach and administering the program. We need to remember that essa was not a blank check to states and districts. And while the law acquired much flex flexibility, that flexibility must be include in the law, including the assessments to the achievement gaps and accountability to close the achievement gaps. Congress designed to protect the interest of the underserved students. And the law contained important requirements, requirements republicans and democrats all agreed to when we voted for essa and the requirements must be meaningful. Essa has never been a freeforall. Its the responsibility of the department as articulated by congress to carefully scrutinize the quality of state plans and only approve those that meet the laws requirements. Even without regulations, the law is the law. And the law requires the secretary to review the plans, ask hard questions and, if necessary, disapprove the plans in the interest of the students. And while, as i just mentioned, some of the content and overall inconsistency of the departments feedback may be problematic, none of us should take issue with the department attempting to do its job. Feedback must be more, not less, consistent and more, not less, vigorous. Ultimately, the feedback and submission of plans must result in approval, only on the plans that meet the spirit in the latter of the law. Many state plans leave much to be desired due to am biguity or noncompliance. Its my hope that the department will work with the states with Technical Assistance to improve the overall quality of the state plans, ensure implementation that honors the civil rights focus of the esea. Now, such implementation is only possible with the sport and partnership with the federal government, its not only the role of the department to support and monitor state efforts to come comply with the law, but it is also the law of congress to Fund Programs authorized by essa. Despite promises to implement the law as congress intended, secretary de vos and President Trump proposed the elimination of the essa programs, 21st century learning to support other programs and cut to other programs including the effective cut of nearly 600 million in title 1. Then while the House Majority fiscal year 18 appropriations bill isnt as draconian as the president s request, it fails to eliminate the problem by cutting after School Programs and maintaining an effective cut to title 1 that will be felt at the local level. Elimination of title 2a would result in thousands of layoffs and inhibit local and state efforts to improve teacher, prior professional and School Leader supports. Defunding this program most supportly does not align with the bipartisan intent of the authorizing statute. Lastly, trump cares proposed cuts to medicaid. And for that good would devastate services orp students with disabilities and undermine state and local efforts to educate all students to high standards as required by essa. And the situation would be even worse if the most verecent appe without the plan is enacted. How effective can implementation be without funding . I know too often that the state and local education offices face capacity standards and hope to hear from todays witnesses about the negative impact of underfunding essa programs on implementation. In closing, i remain concerned about many of the actions of secretary de vos and this administration concerning our nations students. For example, the recent rhetoric from the office of civil rights and the offices directive to ignore systemic data when they investigate alleged civil rights violations, lack of Agency Capacity to carry out key components of the department, including the absence of deputy secretaries. The rollback of protections for student borrowers, the rescinding and protections for transgender students, the sledgehammerlike approach to deregulation without transparency of decisionmaking of the department and the decision to cancel the Grant Program to award 12 million to localties to provide Technical Assistance to desegregate the schools. These point to a troubling pattern that undermines the federal governments Important Role to protect and promote civil rights of all students. This pattern must not continue with essa implementation. I say that not out of Wishful Thinking or partisan spend but because of what is within the law enacted and that needs to be enforced. Essa is clear, it is the responsibility of the department to review and give feedback on essas plans, make determinations of approvals or disapprovals based in compliance with the statute and partner, including enforcement activities with states and School Districts to support the laws implementation moving forward. Its the responsibility of states and districts to innovate within the guardrails of essas equity requirements that there may have been a change in administration but the law is the law and the federal role is clear. I hope this committee commits to a robust of implementation moving forward to ensure it is responsibly fulfilled. Thank you, madam chair. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Scott. Pursuant to Committee Rules 7c, all members will be permitted to include written statements to include in the hearing record without objection. The hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements and other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. And now turn to introductions of our distinguished witnesses, miss Jaqueline Nowicki is a director of the k12 u. S. Government accountability office. Dr. Gail pleknik worked for the Unified School District ins. Mr. Phillip lovell is Vice President in Government Relations at the alliance for excellence education. Dr. Carrie wright is the director of of superintendent to mississippi. I now ask the witnesses to raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony youre about to give, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth . Let the record reflect the witnesses answer in the affirmty. Before i recognize each of you to provide your testimony, let me briefly explain our lighting system. We allow five minutes for each witness to provide testimony. When you begin, the light in front of you will turn green. And when one minute is left, the light turns yellow. At the fiveminute mark, the light returns red and you should wrap up your testimony. Members each have five minutes to ask questions. Now we recognize miss nowicki for five minutes. Good morning, chairwoman fox, Ranking Member scott and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss gaos new report on early observations on state accountability systems under essa. As you know, essa requires states to have accountability systems to meet requirements, but grants flexibility design in the systems. We focused our work in our areas of state accountability systems. One, determinening longterm goals. Two, developing Performance Indicators. Three, differentiating schools. And four, identifying and assisting low performers. We did so because stake holder groups identified these as key components of accountability systems under essa and areas in which states are making changes. My remarks today will focus on two key areas, first, ill discuss stake holder views on essas flexibilities to redesign accountable systems. Second, ill discuss next steps for the department of education in implementing essa. In regards to my first point, all Nine National stakeholder groups with whom we spoke saw essas accountability provisions flexible. For example, some of them pressed the availability to Performance Indicators. Most also said that essa strikes a good balance between flexibility and requirements. For example, one stakeholder said that essa the leads the needle well before offering flexibility to Design Systems that meet state needs and requiring states to protect vulnerable populations. The extent to which states are changing their current systems varies. Some states are pleased with the systems they developed under the nclb waivers and are continuing down that path. But for states that see their current systems as lacking in some way or when stakeholder consultation highlighted the need for significant change, we were told that essa provides room for states to consider innovative revisions. Our report provides many examples of how two states, ohio and california, are tailoring their accountability systems of each of the four areas i mentioned. I would like to highlight one example here. To agueddress essas requiremen to differentiate the schools, they have six indicators to assess School Performance. Some of these would measure current performance while others measure growth. And schools would receive a letter grade on each indicator as well as an overall letter grade. Ohio officials felt that this approach would provide detailed information on various elements of their performance system as well as provide an easily understandable high level overview of performance. In california the plan is to use a colorcoded dashboard to differentiate School Performance on each of six indicators. Each indicator will measure current performance as well as growth overtime. Unlike ohio, california does not plan toing aggragate the indicas into an official score. The state officials chose not to aggragate because they feel this can mask individual problem areas and also told us that measures current performance and growth for each indicator provides a more complete picture of performance. With regard to my second point, given current timelines, the department of education remains focused on providing assistance to states in developing their plans and on the review unapproval process for plans. Moving forward, a key next step in essa implementation is for the department to develop a state monitoring protocols, although draft protocols were not available at the time of our review, education officials said that they planned to pilot protocols with eight or nine states in early 2018. The departments goal is to review all states within a three to fouryear cycle. Education officials also told us that they are considering whether there is a need for Additional Guidance for states. During our review, most National Stakeholder groups told us that states could use guidance on the number of issues, such as how to identify and evaluate appropriatebased interventions. In closing, i hope our early observations shine some light on how states are thinking about their accountability systems in the context of essas flex abouts. Essa implementation is still in the early days and much work lies ahead for both states and the department of education before the promise of essa can be fully realized. We look forward to working with you to support your efforts to oversee implementation of this important law. This completes my prepared remarks. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, ms. Nowicki. Dr. Pletnik, you are recognized. Would you turn on your mic microphone, please. Thank you. Chairman fox, Ranking Member scott, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to join you today. I am the superintendent of the School District in arizona and serve as president of aasa, the school soup independent association. I am here today because i believe it is critical to continue to Work Together to make sure the underserved populations in our schools truly benefit from the educational promise that every Student Succeeds act was designed to deliver. I thank you and the committee for convening this as a hearing. The house of representative and the senate are to be applauded for the hard work to craft ee. S. S. A. Moving from the no child left behind to control this in the states and local communities, although e. S. S. A. Is not perfect, the power of the flex bl ability is allowing the focus to bonn the individual student. I have the opportunity to talk with superintendents from across the state of arizona and across the nation about the progress made in e. S. S. A. Implement takes. A Common Thread in the conversations is that e. S. S. A. Created and opportunity for stakeholders to become more involved in goalsetting and establishing planning requirements in e. S. S. A. E. S. S. A. Provides efforts to engage stakeholders when developing a consolidated state plan. In arizona, committees and Advisory Groups were established to provide input at various stages of the planned development. Leading input into the process of building a final consolidated plan. I had the privilege of participating in some of these established subgroups and also attended Public Meetings designed to provide comment on proposed components in the plan. I am not going to tell you that arizona has developed the ideal Education Plan for our state. Theres definitely room for continued improvement as we implement e. S. S. A. , see what works and continue to roll back state policies that lock in nclb error constraints. Stake holders are engaged the conversations around the needs of the educational systems, a discussion important to driving the important improvement necessary in quality to each student. Many states are realizing is the ability to utilize multiple indicators for evaluation of our schools. In arizona, we still rely heavily on annual tests, but the flexibility in e. S. S. A. Started a conversation in other meaningful measures that should be considered. Although not without faults, the revised accountability system in arizona attempts to add indicators of significance. And that is something that we continue to look forward to improving. At the hunts school level, indicators incorporated include career in Technical Education assessments, advanced academic course work indicators and earned career credentials. The states elementary level measures of accountability are far more restrictive but conversations in the state of arizona continues around exploring additional important measures. While we dont have it 100 right in arizona just yet, i cant say the flexibility in e. S. S. A. Around the state accountability systems does encourage conversation among the stakeholders about the accurate indicators of school success. There are challenges with the implementation of e. S. S. A. Law, time was one of the biggest challenges. After the passage of the law, there was discussion related to the interpretation of the law and possible proposed regulations and that debate caused some hesitation. Arizona released its first draft and started the con ssolidative planning process in 2016 and the plan required adjustments before our sub mmission before the 201 deadline. Another complication related to time is that some states, including arizona, had laws in place, better aligned to note no child left behind waivers. There was an impact on the accountability system. Although that is not a federal concern, it does impact how innovative our state plans may be at this point. A great deal of time and effort went into skong writing this piece of legislation and negotiating on the critical components that make e. S. S. A. A good piece of educational legislation. The ultimate success of e. S. S. A. Lies in implementation, yes, but also in federal appropriations. It is Critical Congress match the bipartisan support demonstrated for the policy of the law and appropriate funding support. I respectfully submit that as we continue to Work Together to implement e. S. S. A. And ensure it has the intended impact, that we be cog any zant of the complimentary role of adequate federal investment. The students in our schools are our future leaders, our future workforce and we must invest in our future by investing in public education. In closing, thank you to the committee for the work you have done and continue to do to ensure that the every student succeed act drives the change we all want to see in our schools. Equity in our classrooms regardless of the students background, where they live or the circumstances they live in. Your work has ensured our states and local communities have a voice in what happens in the districts and schools. I know given the opportunity educational leaders across this country will use that voice to deliver on the product of essa. Thank you so much. Thank you, doctor. You are recognized for five minutes. Thank you very much. Chairwoman fox, Ranking Member scott and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the implementation of the every School Succeeds act. Ill phillip lovell. We are a National Nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring that every child graduates from high school, ready for college, career and citizenship. I have four core messages for you today. First, essa is a civil rights law designed to have education in education. Second, it is a permanent role in the u. S. Department of education. Third, the quality of essas state plans is uneven. And fourth, funding cuts threaten the implementation of the law. Let me begin with point one. Essa is fundamentally a civil rights law with many federal law requirements designed to promote Educational Equity and prepare students for secondary education in the workforce. Essa provides flexibility in how they achieve equity and excellence, but essa is not a blank check. Both states and the department of education must implement and enforce all of essas ek weforced requirements, the same list appearing in my written testimony. Second, when congress enacted essa, it preserved the limited but Critical Role of the department of education. While i may not agree with all the findings, the department is appropriately carrying out the oversight role as required under the law. I want to be clear that this isnt about whether we trust states, i work with many state leaders and know they are committed to kids, but one needs to look no further than my colleagues testifying today to know thats a fact. The fact does remain, though, that its the departments job to review the state plans and to ensure they comply with the law that this committee wrote. These plans lay out the states vision and commitment to children, parents and the public. And it will impact students and teachers for the next decade. We have to get this right and the department has a critical and statutorily required role to play. Third, the quality of essas state plans is uneven. There are certainly some strengths but there are missed opportunities in many witnesses, including some proposals that simply violate the law. In particular, many plans fall short of the equity promise of essa. Let me give you a few examples. Essa made a commitment that if the school has a single subgroup consistently underperforming in the africanamerican students or the latino students, the school would be identified for targeted support and those kids would receive help. Essa applies this requirement to each individual subgroup separately because groups of students perform differently. And if you combine them together, you can mess the local performance of a single group. Unfortunately, this is exactly what some states are doing. One state combines the achievement levels of africanamerican, latino and nativeamerican students together although it creates a risk that the schools may not be identified for support when they should be. And it also violates the law. A related but distinct problem is that states are not including historically underserved kids and their school ratings. For example, a school might receive an a despite the fact that africanamerican students or latino students or students with disabilities or lowincome kids, other historically underserved groups may have a low Graduation Rate. You can receive an a even though the africanamerican students have a Graduation Rate of 60 . Another problem for equity in essa plans relates to the identification of the subgroups for support. Several states have proposed identifying subgroups for support if they arent on grade level in math or reading or if they have a low Graduation Rate and this makes sense. Unfortunately, the department has pushed back on this approach. Students shouldnt have to fail on everything before theyre identified for support. In addition, its worth noting that while essas flexibility was intended to unleash creativity and innovation, by and large, this hasnt happened. We hope to see policies that would promote Critical Thinking and problem solving. Sometimes called deeper learning. And although there are a few notable exceptions described in my written testimony, state plans thus far are cautious, not courageous. Finally, i join my colleagues in expressing concerns about funding. Money is not magic. But im concerned ab the impact of funding cuts on essa. Essa provides states with flexibility and responsibility. But madame chair, responsibility without resources will not yield results. By freezing funding for title 1, underfunds title 4, proprosing to eliminate or reduce funding for professional development, literacy, after School Programs on top of proposed cuts to medicaid, they were handcuffing states at the exact moment that we have supposedly given them freedom. This is unfortunate because the nation is on the upswing in education. Graduation rates are at the alltime high including Graduation Rates for those historically underserved. But implementing essas requirements and strengthening our investment in education, we can ensure every child in america succeeds. Thank you and i would be happy to answer any questions. Thank you, mr. Lovell. Dr. Wright, youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Before i start, i want to introduce some people that are key to the implementation of this back in my state. I have my state board chair, ms. Rosemary altman, the vice chair jason dean, and one of my chiefs responsible for legislation and communication here with me today. So thank you. Chairman fox, Ranking Member scott and members of the committee, thank you for the community to testify about mississippis work to implement the every Student Succeeds act or essa, i look forward to sharing my perspective from the state of mississippi and president elect for the board of directors for the council of chief school officers. Essa has given mississippi the opportunity to create a plan specifically designed for the students of our state. At the same time, the law provides guardrails to ensure our work is appropriately targeted toward improving Educational Opportunities and outcomes for all students and all schools. Our plan is called mississippi succeeds. And we are proud that it builds upon our state board strong Strategic Plans to prepare students for college and careers. This Strong Foundation includes rigorous academic standards for all students, aligned assessments to track student achievement and the accountability model that clearly measures the performance of our schools and districts. Our essa plans build upon the significant investments mississippi has made in Early Childhood education, literacy, career and Technical Education, advanced course Work Opportunities for students and professional development for all teachers. All of these initiatives have broad stakeholder support and have resulted in improved Student Outcomes. To design mississippi succeeds, we sought raw input from stakeholders over the 18monday period to craft a plan tailored to the needs of our students. During the 18 months, we conducted a listening tour, which included 15 Public Meetings throughout the state, we hosted targeted meetings with specific stakeholder groups and collected feedback through an online survey. Among our most active participants were at have to cats for the underserved majority africanamerican communities and rural, lowincome areas of the state. Parents of students with disabilities and teachers of english language learners. Mississippi has a small but growing population of English Learners and most of the English Learners who participated in the feedback sessions were the only people in their schools whose work was dedicated to English Learners. Throughout the meetings and online survey, we gathered 7,300 feedback points. We established working groups and established an essa Advisory Committee made up of shakeholders stakeholders provide feedback throughout the entire development of the plan. We intend to keep all our partners engaged in the implementation of the plan through regular meetings with our stakeholders as well as with the essa Advisory Committee. The robust participation of stake holders help mississippi develop a strong plan to meet the requirements of essa. And im excited about the following aspects of our plan, providing effective teachers with the opportunities to not only teach children but to work collaboratively to lead colleagues to improve their practice. Expanding Early Childhood to support Early Childhood educators in a variety of prek settings to implement developmentally appropriate practices in their classrooms. Improving schools by investing in the local teachers and administrators. Supporting communities through p16 councils. Strengthening up parent engagement through schoolbased activities. We appreciate the flex blgt of the essa because we intend to include subgroup performance to identify schools for School Improvement support. This will have the greatest impact on africanamerican students who make up our states largest underperforming subgroup. Were expanding career and Technical Education to provide countous commuter science integration to grades k12 and provide School Students with the opportunity to graduate with a career in technical diploma endorsement of equal value to an academic endorsement. We are putting a strong focus on eliminating the efficiency gap between africanamericans and all students entirely to proficiency rates of the subgroups will increase to 70 by 2025. All of these initiatives are again up dent on federal support for public education. As a chief, i understand the federal resources are limited and states must be effective stewards of tax dollars. Mississippis essa plan is built around the targeted and efficient use of federal funds to maximize the impact on student achievement, especially of our most disadvantaged students. I want to thank you for the flexibility that you have provided through the every Student Succeeds act. And as you can see, our mississippi succeeds will expand the States Education Reform Efforts to provide opportunities and outcomes for all for all students. Mississippis future will be shaped by the students of today, and were deeply committed to ee equipping them to learn, build, create, serve and innovate. We believe in the capacity of our students to achieve, and we believe in the ability of our teachers and schools to guide them to a successful future. Essa is at the heart of our work. Thank you. Thank you, dr. Wright. Thanks again to all of our witnesses. Mr. Wilson, you are recognized for five minutes for questions. Thank you, chairwoman. Virginia fox, for your extraordinary leadership providing for this hearing today. I want to thank each of you for being here today. I especially appreciate your service because im the very happy husband of a dedicated teacher, and i want to keep her happy, too. So thank you for what you are doing. Dr. Wright, South Carolina students benefit from career and Technical Education partnering with Companies Like mi. South carolina has been fortunate with division of Technical Education being promoted under the leadership of the state superintendent also of educati education. In your testimony you include several aspects of your states plans to meet the requirements of the every Student Succeeds act including and you cited the efforts of career and Technical Education. Can you elaborate your promotion of career and Technical Education for the citizens of mississippi . Yes, sir, i will. About 65 of the jobs currently available in our state are requiring middle skills, and so we have formed a committee that is working not only with our state workforce Investment Board but also on the implementation of the workforce investment act. We have four sectors in our state, and what we have done is we have established groups in each of those sectors to work directly with the businesses in those sectors so that we can then come back and design cte plans that will allow our children to go starting in high school, graduate from high school and go immediately into the workforce. Our state needs that immediate piece and thats what we have planned as well. What a meaningful and fulfilling life you help young people achieve, so thank you for what you do. Dr. Pletnick, thank you for your testimony on a very important issue, and that is local elected School Boards. I know that my view is that they work best for our students. I learned this firsthand. My dad was a School Board Member in charleston. I served in the state senate, working with School Boards and found out the extraordinary diversity within a single district that these School Boards have to address and the hard work, but the extraordinary dedication of School Board Members. Your testimony promotes, again, moving from one size fits all. Can you provide more detail on how the every Student Succeeds act will help restore local control of education and allow educators to address the unique needs of individual students . Member wilson, thank you for that question. In our Unified School District we utilize a strategic process. Our Community Gives us that feedback. We work with our Business Partners, we work with our parents to ensure we are meeting the needs of our students in our local community. Our school board is that connection. So they are the elected officials. The essa has allowed us then to work through our state to ensure that the multiple measures that we are utilizing speak to those needs of our students. Certainly our underserved population, but really for all students, making certain that theyre future ready. We too have a very strong career and technical Education Program we because we hear from our local community because and our Business Partners that there are opportunities. We have Luke Air Force base in our backyard. We recently took a tour, and it takes two billion lines of code to run the f35. They have that mission. So we are ensuring that our students have opportunities with coding and other pieces. That is something that is a strong piece in our Strategic Plan as we move forward, and so, again, essa provides us that opportunity to look at multiple indicators and those that would truly serve our underserved population, but all of our students as well. Thank you for, again, looking out for all students. As i served in the state senate, now congress, i represent a district in lexington, number one. The diversity there, you have resort areas, you have very up scale subdivisions, you have normal middle class subdivisions, you have a small town, you have Rural Communities and then you have agricultural communities. Thats in one district. So the local school board is just so important. Ms. Newicki, i want to thank you for your service and your promotion of flexibility. Can you explain how flexibility of the act would provide for a different approach in adopting Performance Indicators . Sorry, sir. Youre asking how the flexibility of the act could assist with Performance Indicators in determining Performance Indicators. Sure. So there were a couple of different examples in our report where states were making different decisions i think around Performance Indicators, the way they designed subgroups, how they were choosing to use summative or overall ratings versus individual ratings on indicators. I think it provides flexibility for states to do whatever they think makes sense for them in their local context, while providing sufficient guardrails to protect vulnerable populations and sub groups. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Wilson. Mr. Courtney, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair woman. Thank you for holding this really important hearing, but i want to join the Ranking Member in saying how i think a lot of us feel frustration about the fact that the secretary of education has not yet appeared before this committee. It has been six months into this administration. Weve had a budget out since may, and looking historically we have always had the secretary of education appear before this committee to take questions from members about issues of the day, and clearly what we are talking about today for all of us listening to our commissioners back home, stakeholders who have been working hard on implementation of essa, there is a lot of confusion out there. We need people from the department, particularly the person who is in charge, where the buck stops, to answer questions about where are we going. The essa was signed into law december 10th, 2015. It was actually a really inspiring tabloid to see president obama signing that law with senator lamar alexander, republican leader in the senate, mr. Rokita from our committee was standing behind the president. Again, there was a lot of hard work that went into it to achieve some of the goals that some of the witnesses have talked here today. But fast forward and it is really not that early in the implementation of the law to where we are today in 2017. Theres a lot of confusion out there about just the mixed messages and signals coming out of the department as states are working hard to try and, again, achieve the goals of this legislation. It has not been helped, by the way, by the fact that the republican majority chain sawed out of the federal law the regulations back in may with the Congressional Review Act, enactment that President Trump signed into law that, again, just completely eliminated, you know, the road map that had been put into place by the department. Again, i had questions about some of those regs, but the fact is now we have a black hole in the federal law in terms of, you know, how essa is structured and designed. When you talk about confusion out there, frankly, the majority added to that confusion by in my opinion justin discrcrimately butchering the regs. My stakeholders worked diligently in terms of coming up with a plan which was submitted. Again, it goss kicked back about a month or so ago. Talking to the folks in that department, they want to work collaboratively, but frankly theres tremendous confusion about which direction theyre supposed to go in. Frankly, again, it is just another reason why the secretary should be here today answering questions to all of us about where she, in fact, intends to take this department. We know when theres confusion in washington, going back to the infamous words of deep throat during the watergate scandal, follow the money, again, mr. Love el, i would like to follow up on your comments. We have seen a budget come out of this administration in terms of their priorities as far as title i, title ii, after school. Again, one of the goals of essa was to move away from the punitive approach of no child left behind and to try to help districts who had been identified as underperforming. I would ask you to comment further about, you know, under cutting these programs in fact removes the resources that essa was bit around in terms of trying to help School Districts that are struggling. Thank you very much. I couldnt agree more. In fact, it is interesting. One of the issues that came up just a few minutes ago, mr. Wilson, you brought up career and Technical Education, and i think it is a huge opportunity within this law. First, let me applaud the committee for its work on the reauthorization of the perkins law. Unfortunately, because of the levels of funding that are being proposed for things like career and Technical Education and the cuts therein, were not able to implement a lot of those a lot of those programs. Right now with states having the ability to design their plans and implement them, the integration of rigorous academics with cte is a major opportunity. Theres language specifically within the law that you wrote within title i that allows states to do this. Not only that, you allow states to use up to 3 of their funding for direct Student Services. One of the uses of the direct Student Services funding that you allowed was the provision of cte that leads to an industryrecognized credential. Very few states are planning to use this 3 said aside for direct Student Services, and why was because they feel like it cuts into their title i budget. So by level funding title i, by cutting elsewhere, title i dollars have to go towards other things. It means that states dont have the ability to really carry out the vision of the law that this committee set. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Courtney. Mr. Wahlberg, youre rec need for five minutes. Thank you, madam chairwoman, and thank you to the panel being here. I would concur with mr. Courtney as well that it would be a great opportunity and time when we have a chance to hear from our secretary of education. I believe my colleagues will be impressed with her as much as im impressed with her abilities, and yet we also hope that theres a stopping of the stone walling and blocking of confirmations that would assist her with people who can be undersecretaries, assistants, et cetera, to help in the process of moving forward with something she has identified, essa she wants to implement, as we intended and fully. I look forward to that as well. Today we have these witnesses here, and ms. Nowicki, thank you for being here. In your testimony you mentioned the department is considering additional area also of guidance that might be needed for states as they implement essa. Has the Department Said what those areas might be and how we will they determine if that Additional Guidance is in fact needed . Yes, sir. The department has said that they are conducting a review of all of their current guidance thats available, and looking for gaps or areas where states might need additional assistance. They have various ways to do that. They mentioned webinars that they hold and meetings that provide a forum for states to share some concerns or some areas where they may need guidance. In our work, stakeholders who are working directly with states developing their plans mentioned a couple of areas as well. If you could highlight some of those. Surely. One is how to select evidencebased strategies and measure their efficacy. In the states it is not unusual throughout government and in the states for there to be a lack of capacity in terms of knowing how to evaluate strategy. So that was one area. A secondary was noting that because essa provided much more funding flexibility than did mclb, helping states understand the broad funding flexibilities that they do have available to them in the law would be useful for states. And those flexibilities are just name a few of those flexibilities. Funding flexibilities to combine funding streams under the law in ways they were not able to do under with local states, et cetera . Yes, federal, state, local funds together. Okay. Ms. Nowicki, this is obviously an initial look at early implementation of essa, but do you believe theres future work a gao could do on this topic as states put the law into practice over the next few years . Absolutely. I think in the shorter run two areas may be important. One, i think it will be important to Pay Attention to how educations monitoring protocols are shaping up. Essa obviously encourages a much more statedriven approach in developing their plans, and we would want to see monitoring protocols reflect that, yet developing them in a way that also holds states accountable for federal requirements may take some doing. Two, i think it will be to look at how states are making the public aware of differences in school and district performance in their states and whether Key Stakeholders find that information useful. We like to say at gao that data is only useful if it is used, and that usefulness is in the eye of the beholder. So if stakeholders and parents are not able to access the information or dont find that it is telling them things that they would like to know, i think it would be important to know that. Okay. I appreciate that. Madam chairwoman, i appreciate the fact as we heard that testimony, we talk more about stakeholders at the local and state level as opposed to federal. Thats a good thing. Dr. Pletnick, thank you for being here. Essa returns significant authority to School Districts to determine how to intervene in and how to improve low performing schools, which is important to consider if were expecting education to reach the masses of our country. What initiatives are in place in your district or a working implement that will do just that . Member wahlberg, we have put in place a number of initiatives. First of all, when we are looking at each of our schools we take a proactive approach rather than reactive approach. So we make sure that the programs that we have in place are providing that high quality education. We use an rti process in which we have tiered intervention. Tier one is that classroom. We need highquality teachers delivering highquality instruction. And then if we do have our struggling students, especially in our underserved populations, we need to evaluate what it is their specific needs are. Again, i believe essa versus no child left behind allows us to focus on that individual student, not just the aggregate. So we provide those interventions, sometimes through interventionists. We have online programs because we really want access 24 7 for our students in order to provide the supports they need. Again, the intensity of those interventions continues to grow as we work with the individual student to fill those needs. The other thing that we are doing across the district is personalized learning. So we are looking at what the students strengths are, certainly their area of challenges, but also their interests because we need to engage our students in their learning. We need them to own their own learning. So we are working on ways to really not only have them own that learning, understand about progress, but also ways that we could use space and place dr. Pletnick, im going to have to ask you to wind up. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I yield back. Mr. Polish, you are recognized. Thank you, chairwoman and Ranking Member, for holding this hearing. When i ran for Congress Several years ago, one reason i ran was to replace our outdated education policy, no child left behind, during my time on the state board in colorado, i saw a lot of the flaws of no child left behind. I was thrilled to work on the every Student Succeeds act in this committee, in the conference committee, a number of bills that i wrote were incorporated into that bill. I was very excited by a step forward that i think everybody felt was better than its predecessor. Im troubled now by some of the comments i have heard from my republican colleagues who seem to be suggesting since we passed the every Student Succeeds act states can somehow do whatever they want. The goal of the every Student Succeeds aktd w succeeds act was to maintain, of course, our civil rights, guardrails and safeguards. In effect to provide the flexibility of states to do what works but not the flexibility to fail and do nothing. No one here voted to let states and School Districts fail when we passed every Student Succeeds act. We shouldnt be surprised the department of education is providing meaningful and positive feedback to the states that helps them develop and implement their essa plans, and that they only approve plans that meet the laws requirements. That was requirements that we as a body, you know, overwhelmingly voted to include in the actual law. Dr. Pletnick, i wanted to thank you for being here today. One of the ironies i see is while the department of education is doing a good job providing feedback to states, at the same time both by the Congressional Republicans theyre slashing funding. Colorado like many other states went through a an extensive stakeholder process to develop title ii as part of our plan. Last week House Republicans moved forward with a budget that eliminates funding for title ii, part a, the real significant funding stream for Teacher Professional Development and classroom size reduction. How can states deal with this uncertainty around the use of funds for teacher and professional development and classroom size reduction that are already included in their plans if the funding goes away . Thank you for that question. That is a problem. When there are funding cuts, that means either the elimination or cutting back on programs, and many of these are critical. I can tell you in the state of arizona for title ii the impact would be about 16. 9 million in professional development. Thats supporting more than 34,000 educators. Class size reduction would be impacted, and that would impact about 137 positions that we have. Statewide, the impact of the total title ii elimination would be about 32. 5 million. So it would have a devastating impact in those areas. Given that those Education Plans included the use of that money for teacher training and classroom reduction, does that mean that it will send in effect states back to the drawing bore for their title ii and teacher training plans . I think that would be correct because our budgets are very tight. Again, when we have elimination of funding that means you have to go back and look at your programs and, quite frankly, all of the programs that we have in our own district i can say are essential, including those we provide professional development. For mr. Love will,ll, one ar where we may product in the every Student Succeeds act is Early Learning, the studies show investment in Early Childhood education. We authorized a new preschool development Grant Program. The law hopefully will facilitate better collaboration between Early Learning and k12. Can you talk about how states so far have taken advantage of new opportunities to support Early Learning under essa and what lessons we can learn from some of the states that submitted theyre Early Learning components to their plan . Thank you, mr. Polish. Really the answer to that question goes back to your first question, which is plans that might be in place or ideas we might have will be severely undercut if theres no resources to fund them. So you have cuts that are being proposed both by the administration, by the house committee. You have cuts being pondered for medicaid. You put all of that together and it is hard for states to really envision something, a robust and necessary and costly, like a robust Early Childhood program. Yeah. And i think that clarify what youre saying, when our committee writes the authorizing legislation, the every Student Succeeds act, it is only as good as the funding that actually funds those programs we authorize. Dr. Wright, can you share more about what mississippi is doing in Early Learning . Absolutely. Thank you for that. We passed a law establishing Early Learning collaboratives that was the first time we went into that for a. We also were looking and monitoring the results of that. We with our kindergarten assessment, we realized twothirds of our children entering kind gaergarten were n prepared, so we knew there was a knee for prek. We are reaching out to the public and private prek to provide professional development. We do it with anyone that touches three or fouryearolds in our state. We believe it is a lever that will make a difference in the state of mississippi, so we have loot of interest in that and a lot of infrastructure we are putting toward that. I think the gentle lady, and in brief closing i will inquire of the chair if we have invited or plan to invite secretary devos for an oversight hearing to our committee as well. I will yield back with that inquiry. The gentleman yields back. We do plan to invite her. Mr. Guthrie, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chairman, for yielding. I appreciate the time. This question is based on the testimony from dr. Wright, but, dr. Pletnick, i would like you to answer it as well, but it is based on dr. Wrights testimony. Educational commissioner in the kentucky education, hosted town halls across the state, accepting public comment. When it was all said and done, the department received and input of 6,000 kentuckians on the matter. Based on the feedback you received in your town halls, what were the biggest changes stakeholders wanted to see reflected in your state plan . They wanted to see more communication between schools and districts. They also were interested in not necessarily defining teacher effectiveness by years of experience and licensure, but by linking it more to Student Outcomes, and that we heard loud and cleared. They viewed an effective teacher as one who produced positive outcomes in children. Those are two key pieces, if you will. There were several, but those are two we take to heart. We are already in the process of designing resources we have continued to push out to our districts and our schools to help them better engage with parents at the local level. Also, we have were revising our whole teacher Evaluation System to really look at it as more of a professional growth system, and driving that around linking it to our Student Outcomes, which is what we are hearing from our constituents. Dr. Pletnick, did you have similar experiences . We did. There was a great deal of discussion around those multiple indicators and really redefining ready, what future ready means. So there was discussion about the career and college index. There was discussion about what are those other significant and meaningful indicators that would keep us transparent, help our parents, our community understand the accountability system and what Student Success looks like. Okay. What kind of examples of indicators did you so in the end, as i mentioned earlier, we do have college and career indicators. We do also have indicators around other National Assessments that are utilized as kind of opening or gate keepers into higher education. We do have advanced course work as well. So there are there really is a very long list of indicators that are now considered as part of our accountability. How are you to once this is all implemented and moving forward planning like additional town halls to continue to seek feedback for continuous improvements or what kind of methods are you going to have stakeholder feedback, continue what youre doing . I would hope at our state level with the state department, and theres no reason to believe it wont be the case, that we will continue to look at whats in place, analyze the data were collecting and see how we can refine and improve moving forward. Thats exactly what mississippi is planning on doing. We want to stay engaged with our stakeholders. Theyve invested a lot of time and energy in this. I also have a very large essa Advisory Council i intend to keep on board with a very Diverse Group of folks. We have to make sure we are meeting the needs of our constituents, and those are two strong ways we can do that. Thank you very much. I have one for ms. Nowicki. I have heard concerns from the Kentucky Department of education that the department has provided that your department here, the federal department, has provided inconsistent feedback to states and submitted plans early when compared one to another. Is this something the jao has found to be true and if so what is the department doing to provide consistent guidance . Yes, sir. So gao, as you know, does not have a statutory or other role in reviewing state plans. At the time that we did our work there were only a couple of plans that had been submitted in draft for feedback. So we did not have any information from the department about feedback on the plans at the time we did our work. Do you have okay. So you did your study before you would have been able to see whether it was inconsistent feedback. Yes. One plan gets one, one plan gets another. Thats something we hopefully will be able to look into as we move forward. If i may. Yes. I can provide thoughts on this. I think there were definitely areas where feedback was inconsistent. I think part has to do with the fact without the regulations there are fewer specific rules around some of the vague areas in the law. So one area of our and a question came up earlier around areas that the department could provide future guidance is. I think one area as dr. Pletnick was describing, the various indicators that can be select, this is an area where the law gives states flexibility and even provides example also of the indicators states can use. A number of states are interested in prioritizing college and career readiness, so theyre including things like access and performance in advanced placement, international baccalaureate, dual enrollment, early college. Feedback to one state was somewhat negative about the states approach to this, and were fearful that feedback like that without Additional Guidance as to how those things can be included in the accountability system could put the freeze on state innovation and doing what we all want states to be doing. After all, the law specifically says the states can include access and performance on advanced course work, and then when a state tried to do it they got a little pushback from the department. I think thats an area where you have some additional mr. Lovell. That was helpful. My time has expired. Thank you for those comments. Yes, sir. Ms. Bonadichi, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, chairwoman, for holding this important hearing about the every Student Succeeds act. I want to join my colleagues who expressed their opinion and i agree it would be helpful to hear from the secretary and department as were talking about implementation. I worked on education issues in my home state of oregon at the local level and then in the state legislature, and it quickly became clear that the real work needed to be done at the federal level. So at the top of my legislative agenda list when i joined congress was rewriting no child left behind. I was thrilled to serve on the committee when we worked on every Student Succeeds act and on the conference committee, and be there at the bill signing. It was a great day and it was looking forward to implementation. Needless to say i was disappointed earlier in the year when the majority, instead of talking about which regulations were problematic and which they could support, instead got rid of all of them through the Congressional Review Act and blocked important regulations related statewide accountability systems, consolidated plan and data reporting. And then at the same time the new administration left without their implementing regulations attempted to rush through revised guidance for peer reviewers, then there was a modified template for state plans, a new explanatory documents, and all of this was taking place less than a month before the initial deadline for submitting the plans and after many states were well on their way to completing their plans. So i dont think we should be surprised that there has been uncertainty and confusion. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised. In fact, without the essa regulations, now theres a conversation about which nclb regulations are still in effect and what do we do about those. So what we really need is for the department to play a reliable role in enforcing compliance with the statutory requirements in the law and clearing up areas of ambiguity and helping states take advantage of the flexibility that such an important part of the law. I know in my home stay of oregon i had conversations as they were working on their plan about the lack of certainty, and they they appreciate the flexibility but dont want to go down a path and then months later be told that, you cant go down that path. So, mr. Lovell, in the departments feedback letter to my state of oregon the department noted that oregons plan proposed to include in the students with disabilities subgroup students who previously had been identified as students with disabilities but exited that status recently. The departments at oregon cannot use that flexibility, even though it was permitted in the accountability that was finalized when they were writing their plans. Can you describe other instances where states lost flexibility because of congresss action to block important implementing regulations . Sure. One area where we lost flexibility my apologies. So one area where we lost flexibility is in the ability of states to provide credit to their schools where kids are performing above proficiency. So we would like to be able to prioritize higher thinking skills, and one way to do that is by providing credit for students that are performing above proficiency. The law very specifically says that kids should be that the academic achievement indicator needs to measure proficiency. So it is questionable as to whether you can actually provide credit for students that are performing above proficient. As a result you have some states one in particular i can think of, where theyre not measuring proficiency at all, which is also not consistent with the law. Right. So i totally agree with you. The removal of the regulation on top of a new template less than 30 days before the applications were due did cause a decent amount of confusion, and i think that had the regulation been in place we wouldnt see some of the inconsistencies were seeing. Thank you. I also want to follow up. We heard a lot about the importance of Stakeholder Engagement, which was a critical component of the every Student Succeeds act. It does not include explicit questions about Stakeholder Engagement as well as other important requirement also of essa including provisions related to homeless and foster youth. I know you have reviewed the state plans. How has the departments decision to exclude those statutory requirements effected the development of state plans and based on your views are states meeting requirements of the every Student Succeeds act . Thank you very much for that question. You know, if it is not written, dont know whether it is happening or not. So i agree that especially around some of our most vulnerable kids, our homeless students and our kids in foster care, not having specific questions for those students means we dont know what is going to be happening. That said, just because it is not in the template doesnt mean those requirements dont exist. Right. It is very important that we still carry out and oversee the implementation of those provisions, even if the questions are not asked in the template. Thank you. More need for certainty. Madam chairwoman, as i yield back i want to take a moment to acknowledge my senior legislative assistant, adrienne anderson, who has worked with me for several years on this committee on the every Student Succeeds act especially. He is leaving at the end of the month to go to law school, and i want to thank him. Thank you, mr. Bonavicci. Mr. Boletta, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you. Doctor, thank you for your testimony and for being here today. There are studies showing that poor attendance can impact academic achievement, ultimately leading to lower reading and math scores. We know that chronic absenteeism negatively affects students success and this has lead some states to propose absenteeism as an additional accountability measure in their essa plans. We also know theres evidence that quality after school and summ summ Summer Learning programs are effective in increasing at all grade levels. I have seen this in my district, the shine program. Shine focuses on projectbased learning with an emphasis on a stem curriculum. It gets kids excited about learning again. It is proven to work. 92 of shine students had exceptionally good or satisfactory school attendance. 97 of students indicated they were excited about stem, and the number of students who said they would like to study math or science in college increased by 14 . The numbers speak for themselves. When students are excited about learning, they show up for class and feel personally invested in their education, setting themselves also up for success down the road. Can you speak to how state essa plans may be encouraging School Districts to leverage title i and title iv funds to provide after school and Summer Learning opportunities to their students, and how can districts partner with communitybased organizations to address problems like chronic absenteeism . Thank you for that question. In fact, in arizona that was one of the indicators that we wanted to include because we do see some of those same results that you have. I can speak to my own district, but also neighboring districts. With our underserved populations especially having those after School Opportunities serve many perp of purposes, but certainly engage students in their learning. We too have opportunities to have coding, to have stem, those really Critical Skills that students enjoy being a part of. What we have also what we have also seen is through those programs we have increased parent involvement, because they are able to engage with their students in those activities. So, truly, by using our funding, title i, title iv, those types of programs we believe are having a positive impact academically on our underserved populations. Thank you. Yield back the balance of my time, madam chair. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Tocano, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair. Ms. Pletnick, first of all, congratulations on being named president elect of the assa. Thank you. Given the fact you must be familiar with that organizations position on the essa regulations rolled back under the cra in february, i was hoping you would be able to explain the reversal of aasas position when the final regulations of accountability were released your organization endorsed them, recognizing that your three Major Concerns were addressed. Then in february when they were upward discussion and roll back, your organization supported the cra. What changed between november and february and why this dramatic turnaround . Again, as an organization we truly support what is in the best interests of all of our schools. Certainly when the regulations i had an opportunity, in fact, to testify in front of a Senate Committee about those regulations. Again, although there were some changes that were made in terms of those, we did not feel that, indeed, as a package there werent some issues or concerns with those. So i think aasas position was about making certain that we have the most flexibility and autonomy as we move forward in order to implement essa in terms of the spirit of the law. But, ms. Pletni ck, i still dont understand the change. What explains this reversal of position . You supported the regulations when they were first promulgated, and then suddenly your organization turns around and does a reversal, they support the Congressional Review Act overturning those regulations. I mean in my mind the regulations allowed for the implementation of essa. What is i mean i dont have a sense of you explained really gave an adequate explanation. I apologize for not being clear. Again, i am speaking in broader terms, in terms of when you look at is there one specific one or two specifics you can name . I would be allowed to provide that opportunity for the record going back to okay. In order to provide that. Thats fine. Well hear those specifics. Between both the president s Budget Proposal and the fy18 house labor bill, more than two billion dollars in funding for title iia of esea, the largest funding stream directly supporting teachers and School Leaders in 90 of School Districts will be completely eliminated. Completely eliminated. In your role as superintendent and now being president elect of assa, how would the elimination of title ii funding affect your ability to support teachers . I would share the most Critical Resources we have in our schools are human resources, and thats especially to our teachers who touch our students every day. Not having that funding in order to spoerupport the professional development that would allow them to continue we have the strategies in our underserved populations as well, also monies are used in our districts to reduce class size. So, again, an increase in class size would be an issue if title ii was eliminated. Certainly what we would find is that it would be very difficult for schools to continue programs like peer mentoring, other things that title ii provides under for us to do without that funding. So is it fair to say that your organization would strongly support the restoration of that funding . Yes. Thank you. I yield back, madam chair. Thank you, mr. Tocano. Mr. Allen, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, chair woman fox, and thank you for being here with us today. You know, essa was a significant bipartisan achievement that we initiated to empower state and local education decisionmaking while attempting to restrain some of the authority of the secretary of education, particularly at the local level. Since the law has been enacted my state of georgia has been diligently working with over 140 stakeholders to create a state plan. Of course, we call this the bottom up approach rather than the federal topdown approach. Georgia has gone to Great Lengths to maximize the flexibility provided by essa to support its vision of offering a wholisting educati wholisting wholisting holistic vision in our state. Of course i look forward to working with the department in its interpretation of essa, does not exceed the intent and limits of the law. Our goal is to achieve every child succeeds. Dr. Wright, have you been encountering some of the same problems that georgia has as far as, you know, bringing stakeholders together and then submitting the plan to the federal department of education and getting pushback . We have not yet submitted our plan. Were going to be submitting in september. But we have had absolutely no problem gathering stakeholders. Theres a lot of people out there that want to have their choice heard around what they consider most important for our children. So thats been a very exciting and invigorating process, actually meeting across the state with our stakeholders. We have experienced that in georgia as well, which, like you said, is a very good thing. Mrs. Pletnick, what has your experience been as far as working with the department of education, the federal department of education . In terms of the federal department trying to get a plan approved, where are you in that process . So arizona has submitted their plan, so it would be for that submission date of september 2017. We have not yet received feedback on the plan. You have not, okay. Do you see as far as what youre trying to implement, is there any lack of interpretation of exactly what you think the law we passed says versus what youre trying to accomplish . I think the arizona plan reflect the essa law, and so we feel confident in our ability then to have that approved and move forward on the implementation. Okay. Ms. Wright, dr. Wright, do you i mean do you feel like what youre trying to do reflect the law that we passed in every respect . Absolutely. We have had no difficulty whatsoever with working within the guardrails that are provided, and with as much input as weve as i said, we had over 7,000 pieces of feedback. I meet with the superintendents on a monthly basis, my Advisory Committee, the teachers Advisory Committee, the principals Advisory Committee, we are working with them to get input. But when we came back to get the implementation of the plan, we have had no difficulty with abiding by the guardrail. It is great to hear because it is exciting to see the efforts put forth by the states to make sure that every Student Succeeds. I want to thank you and congratulate you on what you are doing. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Allen. Ms. Davis, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair, and thank you for being with us today. One of the things i have been thinking about sitting here that hasnt been addressed so much is just the capacity right now of the department of education to work with states, to work with districts in looking at all of these plans. You know, so i really inquired about the number of vacancies. When you look at that, i mean 12 out of 15 nominees have not even been put forward. Over 70 of senior staff is vacant. Speaking about which ones those are, the Deputy Deputy secretary, theres been no nominee, secretary for civil rights. We have an acting person who has been quite under fire as you probably know. Theres no nominee for the assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education. No nominee for the assistant secretary for planning, evaluation and policy development. No nomination for the assistant secretary of special education and rehabilitative services. No nominee for assistant secretary for career, technical and adult ed indication. We have talked about that in the capacity of districts. As the gao representative here, how does that capacity affect the ability of states to move forward . Yes, maam. I think to the degree that there is no Political Leadership in place in any federal agency, i think that does, you know, certainly play a role in the ability of the very talented and dedicated Civil Servants in any federal agency. I can see where were respectfully trying not to get out in front of where an Administration May wish to go. I think so, because, as you said, theyre dedicated, but when youre in limbo, when you are waiting for leadership and direction, thats a difficult thing to do. I dont know mr. Lovell, do you want to comment on that as well . How much of a problem is it . Maybe it is not a problem. Sure. No, i think that it is definitely a problem. When you combine lack of capacity with lack of clarity as a result of the rescission of the regulation, it really puts a lot of pressure on the career staff to go through these hundreds and hundreds of pages of material. It is complex, it is dense. I think that there are certainly areas that warrant clarification such as when the states submit the plan, and the question in the template requires the state to define the term consistently underperforming students. When a state responds by saying we will identify lowperforming students, what does it mean . Without the regulation in place you dont have a whole lot of guidance to determine what that means or what it doesnt mean, if it is law or not. So the departments feedback basically now is serving as that guidance, and states have to are looking at that really closely to see, well, what rules do i have to follow. Sure, yeah. I think you mentioned earlier that when it comes to some of those regulations, looking at whether career and tech, you mentioned that. We also talked earlier about the consistency about higher level thinking skills and where that where that is placed as well. In addition to that issue, of course we have the budget issues that had been discussed. Im wondering what the impact of deeper cuts to education will have on the ability of states to really serve our most vulnerable students. One of those areas we have included a requirement in essa for 95 of all students in each subgroup to participate in an annual assessment to ensure low performing students are not encouraged to be absent on ses day. One particular example. If we are aggregating data, that will be a very important effort that moves forward for all students. How are states implementing this policy and how is the department of education going to oversee that situation that they have . Two issues. One on funding and one on the 95 participation requirement. Let me address those both. On funding i want to go back to a comment raised previously when it was asked how states are able to leverage title i and title iv dollars for after School Programs. Specifically with title iv, it is hard to leverage something that doesnt exist. Title iv it is so woefully under funded. Last year 400 million was provided, less than a third of the authorized amount. Being able to use the dollars for things like after School Programs is a real problem. The 95 Participation Rate is also a real problem. One place where the department has not been inconsistent is in consistently not mentioning the 95 test participation requirement. There are a number of states that either simply say, we are not going to abield de by this of the law or have too little very little explanation as to how theyre going to, and mum has been the word on the 95 test participation requirement. Any other comments that you all would like to make to those questions . I know we dont have any time left hardly. I think, you know, this is it is really an important hearing, and i think when we look back years from now it will be how did it go, how was it implemented, i think what you have provided today, all of you, has been helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you, ms. Davis. Mr. Mitchell, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair. Upon passage of essa the wall street journal noted and it is a quote it represented the largest evolution of federal control to the state in a quarter of a century. Unfortunately, the Previous Administration apparently did not endorse that bipartisan deal. In fact, the previous chair and the chair in the senate submitted a letter to the secretary, pages of concerns and objections to the proposed regulations that, frankly, were largely ignored. The minority here wishes to relitigate the discussion regarding the cra and the elimination of the rules that were put forth by the Previous Administration. I think there are some areas of concerns. The 95 that you reference, however the final rule referenced only four options and required an implemented plan to address those. Thats are series of things the department did that overreached the intent of this congress or the Previous Congress and this committee. I wasnt here at the time, but frankly voted in favor of the cra. I am offend by the fact that Something Else put forward by the house and senate that the administration decided they didnt meet their expectations so they would do as they want. Thats not the way the government works. Rather than spend quality time, frankly, whining about the cra, we ought to get on and talk about the effectively addressing the needs of students in education. Question for dr. Wright if we could, please. Could you describe some of your means by which you have attained the equality of Stakeholder Engagement . We scheduled meetings around the state and we scheduled them at two different times. We scheduled a total of 15 initially, but that does not count all of the other specific stakeholder groups we met with. These were regional meetings. We scheduled our first one typically in the afternoon somewhere around 3 00 so that those people that were available could be there, but we scheduled the second one in the same area typically starting at 6 00 or 6 30 so we could ensure our parents that were working would have an opportunity to get there after they got off work. So we made sure we tried to cover all areas of the state. And also in reaching out, our essa Advisory Group is one that has a Diverse Group of individuals on it. We met with them on a regular basis. As ive mentioned to you before, i have a superintendents Advisory Committee i meet with on a monthly basis. I meet with my teachers every other month. It gave us an opportunity to hear from a lot of people. Thank you. Dr. Pletnick, the most important stakeholder, we call them stakeholders here, are our parents. What did you do to make sure we got effective parental engagement in this process . They were heard . In arizona there were a number of committees and sub groups that were established and they would have representatives from all stakeholder groups. Certainly our parents are important, our Business Partners are important. All of those people were represented on various committees. In addition we did have a survey, and anyone could provide feedback, for instance, on our measures of success, those indicators we were including. There were also, again, meetings that were held across the state, a number of meetings, where people could come and engage, ask questions, get clarification and provide feedback. What percentage of your parents responded to the survey approximately . I honestly do not have those numbers with me, but i know it was open and there was good participation in it. I do not have. Im sure it is open. I wasnt questioning that. My concern is we do everything we can to maximize the engagement much parents in how this is structured, engage them in the educational process so they have every reason thats critical. I would ask ms. Nowicki if we could make sure i know you have nothing to do with the operation, but Going Forward in terms of the effectiveness, that we look at the effectiveness of engaging not only stakeholder groups, teachers and those types of things, but parents in the process prospectively and after it is under way, can we ensure it is going to happen . We would be happy to work with the committee on any request they wish to submit, to have enough stakeholder and parent involvement, absolutely. Madam chairman, i would ask we consider that Going Forward to discuss the effectiveness that so we look at the effectiveness of parental engagement. Thank you, mr. Mitchell. Last question, if i could, would be about the last stage of essa is identify and assist School Districts that are low performers. Michigan has some legendary low performing School Districts unfortunately. A variety of things were done to try to address that. My question for you would be also, m also would be is there a process of addressing this, whether the france are effective in addressing low performing School Districts . Yes, sir. I think when we have an opportunity to see the monitoring protocols that the department eventually developed, that is one of the things we would be interested in looking at how theyre approaching that. I would be curious if on the other two educational witnesses, dr. Pletnick and dr. Wright, if we get any feedback in terms much how youre going to monitor that. It seems to be a plaguing problems in some states, clearly it is in michigan. We need to talk about not only how we are assessing, but how were getting improvements or if were spinning our wheels and students are being lost. Actually, it is one of the goals in our Strategic Plan that all schools in our district will be rated c or higher. Our focus to do that, we have an a through f system, was to identifying the lowest performing schools. We will use subgroup data to do that. We have a protocol in place we required all of our low performing schools to come in for a personal interview, which includes their board members, their principals, et cetera, and then go through the protocol with them about what were going to be monitoring and how frequently. The bottom line for me as a state superintendent are Student Outcomes improving, and thats where were coming from. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Mitchell. Dr. Pletnick, if you could respond to mr. Mitchell in writing, i would appreciate it. Sir, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair. Dr. Pletnick, welcome. Im glad you are here. I want to talk i have some questions about some mitigating factors in terms of how the state plan is approved, what is approved, and the implementation of essa in arizona in the public School Districts. Mitigating plans points being, you know, arizona along with mississippi are the are in the five lowest states in terms of expenditures to the Public Schools. Arizona, 3,300 under the national average. So that lack of state support in terms of public instruction is a constant in arizona. It has been litigated and it has been referendumed, it continues to happen at the state level. But now let me ask, so thats a constant. And you couple that with the cuts that are being proposed in the education budget, and thats an additional layer of lack of support of Public Schools in arizona and across the country. But then you have also the threat of public funds going to private school vouchers, for profits, Charter Schools. Theyre very real now given President Trump and secretary devoss singular focus on that concept. Under the repeal regulation, Charter Schools are going to be held accountable to authorized reporting. Now without that regulation thats been repealed they will be even less accountable because of that. The proliferation of forprofit Charter Schools in arizona, Charter Schools in general, dont you think that that regulatory requirement will result in improving the transparency of of the States Charter sector, doctor . So what i would say is i truly do believe in accountable. So i do believe if any School System receives federal or state funding they should be held to the same accountability as every other. Because i think that is about transparency. And, you know, i also mentioned the Affordable Care act. 26 million to the state of arizona for medicaid to work with children of disabilities. Thats 26 billion that the repeal scenario is what were talking about now, then that would be, again, another layer of nonsupport that would not be there, particularly for disabled kids. During the discussion, im assuming a discussion of a National Voucher tax credit proposal, probably using the tax reform vehicle probably that is modeled after state programs that we have in arizona. Do you feel that arizona Voucher Program is indeed helping students, and would you recommend as a National Policy that we model a National Policy after arizonas Voucher Program . I am here at the invitation of chairperson fox to speak on asset implementation. So im not as prepared for this hearing to speak to that. Certainly, i could provide Additional Information regarding it. But there is certainly an impact when we have expansion of those programs, and we know that at the state level. And if its public money being diverted to those programs as a consequence, its less of another layer of nonsupport of Public Schools in arizona there is an impact. So we have those mitigating factors. Where is the state plan at this point . Waiting for review . Whats the story on that . Yes, it was submitted and i believe in may, which would make it for that deadline in september for review. And youve heard the complaints im sure of many parents, stakeholders, educational groups relative to the fact that the access and the lack of real dialogue in terms of what that plan was going to be that i think was essentially at the governors office, that there was some opposition and discomfort with the way the plan was put together, correct . So, again, i think there are components in the plan as i have shared. I do not think it is a perfect plan. So i believe there needs to be continued dialogue as we look at what we need to do to continue to drive improvement especially for our underserved populations in arizona. Thank you very much for that. I appreciate that. Without resources asking Public School systems to meet any benchmark, and we see an eroding support at the state level, at the National Level and at all levels for our Public Schools, i think youre putting not only the School System in a bad place, youre putting parents in a bad place, and youre jeopardizing a lot of children. And with that i yield back. Thank you, mr. Grijalva. Youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chairwoman. Dr. Wright, you mentioned your experience in expanding. And i know theres been some discussion about this. I apologize if its a duplicate question, but its a top priority of this committee and a top priority of mine as well. Pennsylvania is working on developing their own state plan, response to e. S. S. A. And just wondered what ideas you may have for pennsylvania and other states to integrate career and Technical Education into those plans. Well, thats one thing that weve been very proud of, is working with our businesses around the state. We serve on the states workforce Investment Board. And i think having a seat at the table has a very powerful reality for us. We then separated the state into the local workforce boards and have been working directly with them. They have been very receptive to our work. Were intending to create as i said earlier those c. T. E. Plans in high school, but were also looking to see how early we can start some of these plans in middle school. Because i think our children, we realize not everybody wants to go to college, but everyone deserves the right to have a wonderful job as soon as they walk across our stage. So our job is to ensure all of our children are career and college ready. Were also redoing our diploma options, to be honest with you. Weve got one thats going to have a c. T. E. Endorsement, and thats going to be a nationally recognized endorsement. The children will be able to go right to work, if they so choose. The children that are in our classrooms are the ones were going to be depending on. So weve got to ensure theyve got the Academic Skills to do that, but they also have to the career and Technical Skills to do that as well. You mentioned the National Endorsement. Yeah, were looking at the National Endorsement certifications they can have. Weve got a large number of different manufacturing companies. Toyota has a big presence, nissan, stupidity space center has a big presence. So weve got a huge medical area as well as well as smaller businesses looking for people to come to their employment. As i said earlier 65 of Jobs Available are children that are going to need middle school so that would be part of their diploma as well . Yes, sir. Interesting idea. Next question both for dr. Wright and dr. Pletnick. Yesterday i had the honor of welcoming chairwoman fox to my district. And we had a roundtable discussion with education leaders across the district and industry stakeholders as well. And a topic came up that ive heard a lot about in my state senate, in my state and chair and education committee. Im just curious what your states are doing in regards to standardized testing . Superintendents who were there and who ive heard from the past few years kind of felt there was sort of an undo or too much emphasis, i guess, on having all students achieve a certain standard as opposed to today i think we have technology or education available to provide more individualized learning to meet a student exactly where they are and help all students achieve to their full potential. So im guess im curious how both your states are responding to that. Well, in mississippi we have established and adopted a set of very rigorous standards. Prek through grade 12. And i think we owe it to our parents and our community to be very transparent. They depend on us chaev day to ensure theyre children are getting what they deserve. So i feel very strongly youve got to have a strong set of standards in place that are going to enable children to be successful when they leave us. So thats the approach we have, and thats the approach were sticking to. Dr. Pletnick, could you respond . So in arizona we do have whats called the arizona merit. That is align to our standards. Our standards, too, are very rigorous. As a superintendant, i also believe there are many other skills and dispositions we have to ensure students have before they leave us if they are to be future ready. I think about the fact i really didnt have to think about coding when i was in elementary, yet that is a skill that is a future ready skill. When we talk about the four cs, communication and Critical Thinking, all of those things. So i think there have to be multiple measures, and thats what weve worked towards in arizona. So one test can give us some feedback, but we need multiple indicators to get the true picture of Student Success and school success. Thank you. Mr. Smucker. Ms. Rochester, youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chairwoman and Ranking Member scott and also our panel. I was really delighted to hear our chairwoman invited secretary devos to our committee. Is probably one of the things ive heard first from delawareans. Whether it is the champions in civil rights that i talked to, those people who are interested in lifting people out of poverty to the corporations in my state, which we have many, and all of the small businesses. This is probably one of the top issues. And so my question, i first want to start with ms. Pletnick. You stated in your testimony that, quote, consistency and how e. S. S. A. Is interpreted and regulated is critical. Uncertainty created by shifting interpretations of the essa law continues to be a concern. Given theres currently no regulatory scheme for the e. S. S. A. Interpretation, what position do you think this puts states in developing and implementing their plans . So i believe whether were talking at the federal level, talking at the state level, again, its important to have that consistent feedback. Because then in turn we can move on with the implementation of e. S. S. A. And make certain we are directing all our efforts to that implementation and checking our outcomes. So its critical moving forward we make certain exactly what those targets are so we can get to work and get the work done. So my concern is really about consistency across the board at all levels. I want to follow that up. And, mr. Lovell, if you could also join in. What impact would the lack of regulation have on underserved populations . That is a monumentally important question. The concern is that the lack of the regulation would result in too few children being identified and then receiving the support they need to succeed. We want to make sure that states when theyre proposing to identify students for Additional Support that while we want to use all the indicators to support them, we want to make sure kids dont have to fail on everything before theyre actually identified. I think thats a major concern considering a few states have been very clear they want to look at are kids performing on grade level. If theyre not, lets do something about that. The department has pushed back on that a little bit and thats very unfortunate because, frankly, if students are not performing at grade level or not graduating, i dont need to know much else to know something needs to happen. I need to know a lot more to know what to do about it but not a lot more to know theres a problem. Again, the question round, the regulations. The role the regulations provide a lot of clarification. There was a comment earlier about the 95 requirement and whether the and the regulation being overly proscriptive, four options were presented. One of those options in the regulation around the 95 was essentially states choose your own adventure. Come up with your own option. To say there was only four options is not actually entirely the case. As a result, we have states when it comes to how are they going to implement the very important provision of the law, either not being clear about it or not doing it at all. You know, i really want to touch a little bit on both regulation and, also, on, um, capacity. We were talking about undersecretaries and the positions not being filled. I had the opportunity in delaware to serve as deputy secretary of health and social services and, while i was also secretary of labor and secretaries do have an Important Role. They are external, visionary and all of that but a lot of the detail gets done at that undersecretary level. A lot of the administrative things, theres so much importance, also, to that, that level and so my concern about filling positions is i share miss davis concern, also, about regulations, i guess, having come from state government, i believe theres a place for regulations. Can we overregulate things . Yes. But there is a real place and i think what were hearing from all of your testimony across the board is consistency, clarity, that helps people to be able to do their jobs better. It helps us to be able to get better outcomes. So i have no more questions. Im just going to yield the balance of my time. Thank you very much. Mr. Grossman you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you. I guess ill ask a question either dr. Pletnick or dr. Wright. Best able to answer it. Could you first give a general overview . We wanted to get a round and past the act around this topdown approach to how you run your schools. Do you feel weve succeeded in that . Are you happy with that or would you like further things done along those lines . Well start with dr. Pletnick. As i shared earlier, i think there are still some things, even at our state level, that were legislation that was tied more closely to the no child left behind era than to what currently is in place with essa law. I think theres still room for improvement and we need to work on that. Teacher evaluation is an example of that, some other pieces. So, yes, essa has provided us with some of that autonomy and flexibility but at the state level i think we still have some things well need to do. Okay. Are you satisfied with what you have from washington though . Yes. Again i will tell you that we have submitted our plan, we have not gotten any feedback on that plan at this point. Same question for you, dr. Wright. I think the states role at least in mississippi, setting the longterm goals per subgroup area so that we know what we want for our children ten years out. But i think its really the local districts that and the local schools that need to be developing their own respective plans on how they meet the needs of their individual children. I wouldnt presume to know ive got 144 districts all the needs of that so i trust my superintendents and teachers. You are satisfied with Student Success. Yes, i am, very much so. A little while ago you kind of were talking very positively about kind of more preschool. Have you ever ready anything indicating preschool is not necessarily much of a benefit . No. Quite to the contrary. Preschool, theres too Much Research out there now for us not to be paying attention to our 3yearolds and 4yearolds. Quite honestly, were going to start to be looking to how can we help children, you know, birth through age 3. I think thats a thing we have pushed across our district, the amount of Research Conducted recently and longterm effects even in mississippi we can verify, Research Done by Mississippi State on mississippi children. Okay. Youve never ready anything to the contrary to that, never read anything . A long time ago but not within the past i would say five years, not to my knowledge. Okay. Next question, one of the metrics thats supposed to show a Quality School well, ill go to this one. What is an underserved population mr. Lovell, just use that as a phrase but could anybody describe what you consider an underserved population . Well, the law stipulates states are supposed to decide data for accountability and reporting purposes for major ethnic and groups for learners, low income groups so those are the categories but generally speaking speaking of underserved populations were referring to. Underserved mean lack of money . Does it just mean poor outcomes . It often refers really to both when you look at the schools that predominantly serve those populations of students. Sometimes in wisconsin, some of the most underperforming districts have the most money, and thats why i wondered what you meant by underserved. Well, so, i think that we would present data that would suggest otherwise. Nationwide or . Oh, sure, across the country. Okay. Okay. Final question. Sometimes one metric used to measure a quality School District is Graduation Rates. I know Graduation Rates are overall up. On the other hand, a lot of times you hear from employers today people who teach in secondary education that they feel the kids arent doing as well or prepared as they used to be. Could you comment, say, on miss nowecky, on the contradiction there. Is it possible or lowering the standards on what it takes to graduate or helping Graduation Rates be up by employers and people in secondary education sometimes feel the kids graduating arent doing as well . Gao has not done any recent work around Graduation Rates so i cant comment from that perspective. I know that the department of educations i. D. Has done some work looking at Graduation Rates statistics and what they mean and dont mean in particular states. Our organization has looked at this and actually will be releasing a report in the next few weeks because that contradiction definitely exists in states in their essa plans have the opportunity to address this including items in their accountability system prioritizing not only a diploma but you get a diploma that really represents you know something. To your question really around Early Childhood. While i havent seen that shows it is ineffective or not necessary, i have Read Research that shows Early Childhood on its own is insufficient, in other words, you cant Early Childhood is not an inoculation, you have to continually invest in kids in their development. I would hope dr. Wright would google that and have no problem finding other things. Dr. Adams, youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, chairwoman fox for convening this hearing and thank you to those of you testifying today. I want to reemphasize one of the main points that mr. Lovell mentioned in his testimony that essa is at heart a civil rights law. Federal government has an Important Role to play ensuring equity in education for our children and while states have wide discretion and flexibility to determine how success is measured the federal government sets the standard for success. It is especially true in historically underprivileged groups. Mr. Lovell, states have the discretion to create and define the metric used for consistent underperformance. In your analysis of state essa plans, how are states defining consistently underperforming and do you think this equity guardrail in the law is being executed as intended to ensure schools struggling to meet the needs of the students are identified and supported to improve . Thanks very much for your question. I think this is one of the most important provisions in the law. If were not identifying kids continually under performing, then what are we here for . If were not supporting them, we are certainly not doing our jobs. A number of states have proposed ways to do this that ensure that if you are as a student not performing at grade level in math or reading or if a low Graduation Rate those children are identified and something will happen as a result of it. They will receive some sort of support. Unfortunately a number of states are also putting together sort of indexes including a whole bunch of different factors to determine whether a kid is performing or not. And what were concerned about is that if you are performing well in one area, that might mask if you are performing less well in another area. And so, when you combine all these things together, you come up with not a whole lot thats actually usable. We want to be sure that states have the flexibility to, as it is proposed in mississippi, to look at performing grade level, math, reading, if youre not, then you should be able to receive target and support. You dont have to you need to look at each indicator in the system but dont have to fail all of them to in order to receive support. Thank you. Dr. Wright, you mentioned in your testimony mississippi is including subgroup performance identifying schools for support and improvement. I know only in draft form but how is mississippi planning to measure subgroup performance and get that into the schools rating . We have the data we collect on our statewide assessments that we have just redone grades through 3 and once again in high school. Those data will be disaggregated by subgroups and monitored not only at the state but district level and school level. We will be able to track that data over time to determine whether or not those subgroups are children are continuing to underperform or are making progress. Okay. Thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you. Mr. Garrett, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair. A wiser man than me said probably 35 years ig an, the most frightening words in the english language are, im from the government and im here to help. I might amend that to be, im from the federal government and im here to help. The local education rose, reverse coro lation in the performance of United States students versus students across the globe and candidly from a state where we ranked between fourth and sixth in educational outcomes on a regular basis i wonder why we are competing against 49 other states as opposed to a world of other nations. Because thats the Playing Field upon which our children will ultimately compete. Its often said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Ive seen people attack those serving in these roles based on what program they supported or didnt. Its all horse feathers. What we need to focus on as opposed to intentions, outcomes, results, what happens and ill tell you speaking with frustration back six, seven years ago as i served in the state legislature where we identified failing schools and leave students in these without option for parents who lacked the socioeconomic and financial wherewithal to vote with their feet, we doom those children to inferior outcomes and opportunity. If i can i believe in nature or nurture, i will tell you nurture every single time. And the color of a Young Persons skin or the job of their parents isnt a precursor to their success as much as what theyre exposed to. But we ran into institutional monopoly all the time trying to create escape hatches for students in places like the five, whopping five, schools we had the courage to identify failing in virginia that will find a way out. Young people who have just as much fundamental entitlement to single birthright of americanship, that is, opportunity as every other kid. Im sick of watching kids fail based on their zip code. But jefferson said wisely, ill paraphrase, the government closest to home is most effective, accountable and governs best. My colleague from oregon stated she thinks the solution is at the federal level. Then in the same paragraph lamented that essa prevent the prevented oregon from particular standard it is she might felt would best affect outcomes of students in oregon. Doctor, do smart people work with you . I have very intelligent people. And they are professional and trained people . Yes, they are. And they care about the children and district you serve . They do. You are the superintendent, correct . I am. How many students does your district have . About 25,000. Can you name one or two of those kids with special needs trying to overcome challenges yourself . I could but im not asking you to but you could. Nobody in this room could, right . You could and you care and have smart people, and we dont have a monopoly on good ideas. You want, what, whats best outcomes for the students you serve, is that correct . Absolutely. Okay. You are familiar with the United States student ranks versus their global peers relating to academic performance in math and science. Are you familiar with Historical Data . Not specifically. Are you familiar how we did in 1950, 1960, 1970, versus 1990, 2000, 2010, versus global peers . Are you talking about surveys of outcome occasionally. I would submit with a minute nine seconds as we spent more we go down against the competition. Im not arguing against spending more. Let me be clear. We need to spend money on education. But i got an idea that folks in a county in arizona and the state of mississippi know better whats needed. Dr. Wright, we talked about cte. Is it good in cte to align the training we give students with the needs of the job providers in the communities . Absolutely. Okay. And who knows better the needs of the job providers in tupelo or biloxi, the people there or in jackson, or the people in washington, d. C. . The people in tupelo and biloxi. Correct. Thank you. Im a little biased here. So i guess what im driving at here is that this is great. I think essa is a step in the right direction, doesnt have like anything from washington has warts and dpimples. But you are good smart people who give a damn, pardon me, about the children in your communities and we let loose 50 laboratories and finding out what works. Our role since we co opted so much at the federal level to shift the power to the states and localities would you all agree to do whats best and others fall on the plans that succeed . Thank you. Thats rhetorical. Im out of time. The gentlemans time has expired. I was only 12 seconds over, madam chair, thats a new record. Mr. Desaulnier, youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair, for having this hearing. Mr. Lovell im always taken when i look at the achievement gap by a comment i heard by stanford researcher linda darling some years ago. Well not that long ago, a few years ago, if we just continued to do what we knew was the right things to invest in 30 years ago for the past 30 years we wouldnt have an achievement gap. When we look at the difficulties people in mississippi or in concord, california where im from and achievement gap, could you talk a little bit about where accountability comes that, yes, we want local jurisdictions to decide but on the other hand theres a benefit to this research that applies across all 50 counties and the federal government affording that to local communities to be informed on whats happening around the country and why its important for consistency that there is some accountability there. Thank you very much for the question. Actually, i think that chairwoman fox said it very well at the beginning of this hearing saying that essa provides a balance between accountability and autonomy. The reality is that Everyone Needs to have a role in this and there is a federal role to be played, essa is a civil rights law and what essa does, provide a broad framework for the accountability and ensures those kids who have the least have a shot of success. So it also needs to be well understood that we have seen improvements in educational outcomes over the last decade. Graduation rate as an example. Back in 2000, 2001, if you were to draw a line between the Graduation Rate in 2000, 2007 08, basically you have a straight line. But then in 2008, something happened. The u. S. Department of education under president george w. Bush issued a regulation around Graduation Rate accountability because apples were not compared to apples across states. Comparing graduation recalculation one state was using one calculation, another was using another. After the federal government issued the regulation in 2008, we saw something pretty remarkable happen. Graduation rates started increasing. As a result, since 2000, 2. 8 million more kids have graduated. Thats a big deal, a big deal for them and a big deal for the nations economy considering that, by 2020, twothirds of jobs are going to require at least some Postsecondary Education and High School Diploma is the first step to getting there. The second part of my questions are, coming from the bay area and appreciate the fact we had robust field hearings that the chairwoman and Ranking Member were part of and i was lucky enough to be part of those but particularly, as you will remember, madam chair, the last part of that field hearing at stanford university, the harvard of the west coast, i might add for the Ranking Member, i get this all the time in the bay area is from tech people, we have our challenges on housing and transportation but the thing that comes up all the time from employers, we need to provide a workforce for Global Economy thats changing at warp speed. So, accountability is a big part of my business sector. Again, a lot of these companies will move, i dont want them to move from the bay area but they are. But one thing that determines is things like housing costs but also the education system. While its important i think and very much support local control and what, dr. Wright, you had said, there are things in this economy require i think the federal government and the Business Community to inform us at a local level this is what were looking for and this is what we have to invest in. Let any of you respond to that. I think the urgency to that is really the predominant thing to me is how do we maintain our preimminence, our innovation in this country . And ill say specifically for northern california, the answer to that is not just investing in education but doing it smartly and doing it in a way thats informed, given how quickly the workforce is changing and demands on that workforce. Mr. Lovell, if you can start any of the other. Id be happy to. You know, the essa effort that when theres lowperforming schools or lowperforming students, something has to happen. It doesnt proscribe what happens. And theres the balance. The federal government ensures that we are taking care of our lowperforming kids and leaves it to states and districts and to schools and to my colleagues on my right and my left as to how do that best. The federal government cant do that. Buff what the federal government can do ensure were all playing by the same rules. And i also say that we see a lot of really effective innovation taking place at the local level and a take on california in a positive way in this regard, cte has come up on a number of occasions and in california in the learning initiative there is a lot of really great work going on to integrate rigorous academics with cte. Theres an important federal role to play. This committee has played that role by reauthorizing the career and technological education act. So theres a role for everyone to play. But i appreciate you raising this need to really acknowledge that the federal role here is important. It doesnt displace the local role but its two different roles. One is to ensure that our lowperforming kids are being supported when they need it and then the state and local role is to actually implement that. Thank you, mr. Lovell. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you, mr. Desaulnier. Mr. Scott, youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair. Did the gao conduct a compliance review on planned components or policy decisions made by states like ohio or california . Did the gao make any value judgments concerning the planned development or did you just make an observation of those plans . Just an observation of those plans, sir. We did not make a compliance judgment. Thank you. And we heard complaints from some representatives of civil Rights Groups that flexibility could result in an abuse of equity compliance. Your plan didnt comment on equity as i understand it. Did you contact representatives of parents, state level advocates, advocates of children with disabilities or civil Rights Groups . Generally not for this work, sir. We were primarily engaged with National Stakeholder groups who were working with states. Thank you. Mr. Lovell, the whole point of esea and essa and to eliminate subgroup providing Educational Opportunities. Youve kind of gone around this but can you show how subgroups so far have addressed equity . How states have addressed equity . Yeah, with with accountability . Thank you for the question. So, um, theres a spectrum, right. Youve got some states that, as i said, are looking at are students performing at grade level and, if they arent lets do something about it. You have some states that will be looking at a whole bunch of different indicators and, as i said, i fear that in doing that what well be doing is providing the chance for low achievement to be masked by higher achievement so if you say actually the conversation taking place earlier around Graduation Rates, you can have a high Graduation Rate. Meaning kids are actually getting a diploma but may not be reading or doing math at grade level. If you combine those two things together you are not getting the right read on what is happening in the school. Another thing i fear is happening with regard to the role of subgroups in these plans is that when states have report cards, a school gets an a, b, c, d, f, they are not adequately incorporating the performance of each group within their within their grades. So you can have a high letter grade but can have low performance for historically underserved kids. And if you have a subgroup thats not doing well in the School System, what support do members of those subgroups get in schools that are otherwise doing well . Well, its really up to the states, the districts and the schools to determine that. The law stipulates they are to receive evidencebased intervention but the schools, districts and states will determine what those interventions are. Well, how is that a credible plan . Who decides whether there is a credible strategy to address achievement gaps . Well, thats a great question. The template that should be distributed by the department of education and the questions around School Improvement, there really arent a lot of questions. And so whats really going to be happening is fairly unclear. Hmm. Why is the 95 testing rule important . For a few reasons. One, we had to have accurate data and, two, we want to make sure that lowperforming kids are not intentionally or unintentionally encouraged to not be present on test day. And what happens if you dont get 95 tested, what happens to the data . The data becomes unreliable. Dr. Wright, you indicated that your credentials nationally recognized, whats wrong with credentials not nationally recognized . There may be some cte i assume you are referring to the cte program. I think some of our local businesses, those cte programs are going to be developed specifically for them so they may not be an national credential. Having the cte endorsement on the diploma is a students option so they can either go for the traditional diploma or for a cte endorsement on their diploma. That is their option but the local businesses may not have a National Certification but they will have a certification that will allow them to assume a job in the local business. Whats the value of the National Certification . They cap go anywhere in the United States. I think thats the power of having National Certification, children and families are mobile and allow them to look around the nation and see were where their certification can earn them the most money or where they want to move to. The National Academy foundation, students that participate in the academy, again the navtrack certification are graduating from high school with their diploma and get that certification and 13 companies have big Companies Like at t, cisco, jpmorgan chase, give those students preferential hirihire ing treatment when theyre done with Postsecondary Education. There are ways to really incentivize this and make sure when kids are graduating they graduate with something that will help them down the road. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you very much, mr. Scott. Its now my turn to ask questions of the panel. Dr. Wright, you talk about mississippi how Mississippi State plan is related to the state boards Strategy Plan in mississippi. And we hope that essa allows you the flexibility to integrate the plan youre developing under essa with the work the state is already doing. Do you and your department, state board and other stakeholders around the state see that integration as possible and desirable or is it your essa work something thats happening separate from the other reform work going on in the state . Thats a great question. We look at it very much as integrated. We feel very strongly our state Strategic Plan is a strong one and looked at essa as a way to strengthen that plan and refine that plan and give us the opportunity to add other components we may not have had in that. But thats been our message right from the very beginning. Dr. Pletnick, could you respond to that same question in terms of whats happening in arizona . As a matter of fact, there was an effort again to establish goals at our state level and i had the privilege of serving on a longterm Goal Committee that established the goals as part of essa and we were certain to align those goals to make certain what the state developed was also reflected in the state plan when the agency submitted those. Great. Thank you. Dr. Wright, weve heard criticisms which continue throughout the process for what became essa. States cant be trusted to hold schools accountable and intervene in lowperforming schools. And certainly mr. Garrett touched on this in his comment. You talked about School Improvement being an important element in the plan that mississippi is developing. Obviously, this is something that states and districts must do and should do. But, essa largely puts the actual strategies back in your hands. Could you tell us more about how your state and School Districts are thinking about improving lowperforming schools under essa . Absolutely. As i mentioned earlier, that is our goal six of our plan ensuring or district and schools are rated c or higher. I feel very strongly Everybody Needs to be held accountable. And that starts with me, my team. And i think we owe it to our parents to ensure we are looking out for all children across the state regardless of zip code, as someone mentioned earlier. We are putting together protocols for our lowperforming schools to follow and, as i mentioned earlier, weve even got a totally different process were using about having them coming in and justify even their spending to ensure they have evidencebased interventions they are spending their money on and not just interventions that do not have any evidence of working. And so that is going to be something were doing on an ongoing basis. I feel very strongly the children of our state deserve nothing less than the best and we have to ensure as a state we are monitoring that very closely. Because our children not only our children depend on it, but our parents depend on it, and they have to trust us to make sure that happens. Thank you. Another question, dr. Wright. Dr. Pletnic has talked about how she applauds the planning approach in arizona even though she doesnt agree with everything in the plan. And youve talked about the stakeholders youve engaged with and how your state plan reflects the view of these stakeholders and by the way its an impressive process that you talked about. Im sure that not every stakeholder, though, agrees with everything thats in the draft plan so far. So, how have you engaged with critics to at least ensure everyone has the opportunity to be heard . I think its really important that everybodys voice is heard. Im a big believer in advocacy and i think anybody in front of you advocating are advocating for a reason. And weve been very forthright about what we can and cannot do. We went through a series of three different assessments and three different years and that kind of drove my teachers and superintendents a little crazy. So, i said were going to hold tight on an accountability system at least for three straight years under the same assessment so they did not feel i was continuing to change the target. When weve got stakeholders coming in saying we would love a Climate Survey embedded into our accountability system, i said if you can just press pause, were putting a task force together at the end of the third year to take a look at our entire accountability system and say are there any unintended consequences or things we can add . Weve acknowledged what they want but try to provide a reason why we either can or cannot include that in our plan. Great. Thank you very much for that. I want to thank all of our witnesses for taking time to testify before the committee today and even though most of our members have left, i really appreciate members on both sides coming and asking good questions, sometimes pontificating by participating in whats going on, as everybody has indicated, we have an important subject here. I would now like to recognize Ranking Member scott for his closing remarks. Thank you, madam chair. We have heard the necessity to get the department of education before us to respond some of the concerns about inconsistencies in terms of responding to the state plans and other priorities by the department particularly in terms of funding our priorities. Weve heard the necessity having many of the programs within essa actually funded because if were asking them to get the job done, weve identified Technical Assistance to teachers, afterSchool Programs, other things that can be very helpful and if we dont fund them it just complicates their life. The elementary and secondary education act passed in 1965 was designed as a civil rights law to guarantee equal Educational Opportunities. Weve gone through many iterations, the last, of course, essa. It has two major requirements, one is a requirement that lolts assess and ascertain whether or not there are achievement gaps and where they find them having a meaningful strategy to eliminate those. Dr. Wright has indicated what a meaningful strategy might look like. I think it is significant it wasnt just one program in reaction. Its a longterm strategy that starts with Early Childhood education and following the students and ascertain whether or not the strategy is working and making sure you are actually addressing the achievement gap. Theres flexibility how to assess and strategy to eliminate the achievement gaps but no flexibility on the requirement the assessment be done and that the accountability doing something about it is credible. And if a state fails to adequately explain how they are going to assess for achievement gaps or fails to outline a credible strategy to address those achievement gaps, its the responsibility of the department of education to intervene. Madam chair, we have letters from several organizations id like to submit for the record, theyre letters from advocacy organizations and stakeholders about their engagements in essa approval so far. Letters from the advocacy institute, council of parent attorneys and advocates, naacp Legal Defense and Education Fund and national down syndrome congress. Without objection. I yield back. Thank you very much, mr. Scott. I have found this to be very, very interesting hearing today and i think that a lot of what it boils down to is a subject we deal with a lot in this committee and i talk about a fair amount and that is the role of the federal government in education. I think it was very important that both dr. Wright, dr. Pletnick brought up the fact that essa is not your entire Educational Program in your state. I think that many times people tend to think that what the federal government is providing in terms of funding or what we are providing in terms of law is it. That thats all youre doing. And, um, i think weve done a disservice, in many cases, to the American People in many things that the federal government has done to make it appear as though the federal government is the savior. We have a big program and all of a sudden everybody thinks its the answer. I think my own experiences as a member of a board of education tell me a lot about what mr. Garrett was talking about. My experiences since then in visiting schools all over the country, we have a lot of wonderful teachers. Principals. Superintendents. Custodians. Who want to provide a great educational experience for the students in their schools. And i think, in many cases, the federal government has a very limited role in that. And that for us to always look to the federal government to solve every problem that exists out there is a mistake. And we have to understand the limitations, i think, that we have. I think essa was a big step forward in giving the flexibility that the locals and the states need to be able to provide that education. My colleague said what we should be about is providing equal Educational Opportunities. And i certainly believe that. I believe that education is the answer to so many things so many challenges facing people in this country, from getting out of poverty, to finding meaningful work, to having a successful life. So, i want those opportunities. But i think too many times what we say to the American People is that we can have equality in outcome. And having taught for 15 years, i know that just isnt going to happen. I was shocked when i taught i said to my students, everybody in here can make an a, and i really meant that and i gave unlimited opportunities to students to do that. But i had a bellshaped curve every semester. And i was truly shocked by that because i didnt believe i thought everybody would take every opportunity to make the best grade that he or she could make and it didnt happen. So i believe in equal Educational Opportunities, but i dont think were gonna have equal results. And i think we have to temper what we do, but we have to trust people at the local level. And i appreciate very much those people who are out there every day teaching, committing themselves to helping students. And for those of you who are administrators, bless you for what you do, particularly bless you if you listen to your teachers, you listen to your parents, and you listen to the stakeholders. The other thing that we hear a lot about and im really glad mr. Desaulnier brought this up, because its true again on both sides of the aisle, in most cases, we think of education as preparation for the workforce. We dont have many people who can go through an educational system and then not do anything to provide for themselves. And were all hearing about this. And so, i think emphasis on what were doing out there, whether people end at the secondary level and dont go on for any other formal education, theyre going to get education, whether its a formal process is really important. But, i think were moving in the right direction with essa and im, again, particularly glad to hear our two administrative people talk about how this is one piece of the answer, not all of it, because i think we have to understand the proper role of the federal government. So, thank you all very much. There being no further business, the committee stands adjourned. Today, the naacp is holding its annual convention in baltimore and right now well take you live to hear remarks from former attorney general eric holder on issues of Congressional Redistricting and race. Mr. Holder served as president obamas attorney general from 2009 to 2015. This is live coverage on cspan 3. Were live in baltimore for the naacps annual convention where in just a few minutes, former attorney general eric holder will speak about Congressional Redistricting and race. So until that time, a look at the future of the American Workforce from the National Governors Association Annual meeting. Good morning. Im sorry we are starting this a little bit late. We just had a liv