we hope this is a come compelling conversation on reform, and we are excited to have a distinguished group of panel is to kick start the conversation, but we hope you join in as we move along this morning. over the past five years, states have lunched unprecedented efforts to reform their education system. 46 states adopted the common core standards. twenty-five include measures of student learning and teacher evaluations according to the most recent data from the national council on teacher quality. states lifted caps on charter schools, put time and money on school turn around and changed the capital policies. now 33 states have waivers from the no child left behind act to alter the systems as well as designing teacher and principal evaluation systems and career readiness standard. states, themselves, initiated many of the changes. others were spurred by federal program like race to the top. the waiver process itself does not appear to have stimulated new innovations, b
tell you this is the top worry they have. it is the one thing that congress has not passed. he has been working at this four year and a half or so, bringing all these committee chairs and bringing all these issues worked out, trying to get a bill that could pass. they are at the end of the opportunity to do something this year in the senate, so this is why they are doing it. you wrote about rival factions working on the bill. who are they? the main group that sponsors the bill on the floor, they are senator joe lieberman, senator rockefeller from west virginia, senator collins from maine, and senator feinstein from california. they are committee chairs or in the case of senator collins the top republican on the homeland security and governmental affairs committee. they have got the white house endorsement, the backing of senator reid. they have an interest in seeing some standard put in place on the industry. the second group is an number of top senate gop members, john m