U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

PRESIDENT\'S COMMISSION ON

EXCELLENCE IN SPECIAL EDUCATION

Tuesday,

February 26, 2002

Versaille Warwick Hotel

5701 Main Street

Houston, Texas

PANEL MEMBERS

TERRY BRANSTAD, CHAIRMAN

ADELA ACOSTA

WILLIAM BERDINE

BETH ANN BRYAN

PAULA BUTTERFIELD

JAY CHAMBERS

ALAN COULTER

FLOYD FLAKE

THOMAS FLEMING

JACK FLETCHER

DOUGLAS GILL

BRYAN HASSEL

DOUGLAS HUNTT

C. TODD JONES

C. REID LYON

ROBERT PASTERNACK

MICHAEL RIVAS

ED SONTAG

CHERIE TAKEMOTO

KATIE WRIGHT

A G E N D A

ITEM PAGE:

Reports on School Visits

Elementary School Visit to 5

Thompson Elementary School

Cherie Takemoto

Middle School Visit to Hamilton Middle School 13

Katie Wright

High School Visit to Furr High School 37

William Berdine

Commissioner Discussion of Views on 56

First Two Panels From Monday Morning

Commissioner Discussion of Views on 73

Last Two Panels From Monday Afternoon

Adjournment 97

P R O C E E D I N G S

MR BRANSTAD: I\'m pleased to convene the

Commission.

At this time we\'ve got 45 minutes on the

schedule to have reports from the school visits this

morning. I thought we would do the grade school first,

and then the middle school, and then the high school.

Each group would have 15 minutes to report on that.

That takes us to about five minutes after 2:00

or two o\'clock. Then we\'ll have a break. Then we\'ll have

a panel discussion after that ‑‑ excuse me. I stand

corrected. We have the panel at 2:00, and then we take a

break at 2:50.

And the schedule has been shortened so that

we\'re to adjourn at 4:10 this afternoon.

So from the first group that went to the grade

school, do we have somebody appointed to report on that?

Cherie, are you ‑‑

MS. TAKEMOTO: I\'m trying to be careful to

speak into the mic.

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. Please do. You have to

get even closer, or pull it closer to you.

MS. TAKEMOTO: Okay. Now it works.

MR BRANSTAD: Now it\'s working.

MS. TAKEMOTO: Adela and Bryan and I went to

Thompson Elementary School. Thompson has 750 kids. Of

those, 16 percent, or 130, are in special education.

According to the principal, families who have

children with disabilities are choosing to go there, and

in Houston there is school choice.

There are about 180 teachers, and of that group

40 are special education teachers.

Ninety percent are African‑American, 8 percent

are Latino, 1 percent is white, and 93 percent are on free

and reduced lunches.

The motto at Thompson is, Where the best

begins. And one thing that you cannot legislate is

attitude. This school has the attitude, you can see that

every child\'s success at that school is a source of great

pride for everyone there. The staff own all the students.

There was a young man who I thought was quite

interesting because he was not a student in special

education. The staff believe that he would be in special

education had they not done the types of support and

encouragement that they did around his behavioral issues.

This man told us about the part of African‑

American men that was not a part of our overrepresentation

presentation yesterday, basically saying that what he has

to look forward to without a role model is death, killing,

prison, lots of poor outcomes.

But having been inspired by Martin Luther King,

he sees that there are other ways out of this. And he

just did a terrific presentation around that.

There is great pride, caring, teamwork, and

they all agreed that the principal leadership was a great

factor in their success.

It\'s great to see that 82 percent of the

students passed the TAAS, the assessment for all students.

But I think what\'s even more impressive is that 50 percent

of previous failures are passing that test.

I was also interested in the per‑pupil

expenditure is only \$4,000 a student as compared to an

average of about \$5,000 a student in Houston Unified

School District. So it\'s not just money that makes a

difference for students.

There was a parent volunteer who spoke to us

who her child is very interesting in that he does not

respond in school. They have a lesson, he does not

respond. The next day he is practicing what he learned

the previous day at home, and the mother shares that with

the teacher.

So there is some feedback to the teacher that,

yes, he\'s getting it, he\'s just getting it a day later.

And she is translating everything that\'s going

on in the school to her husband and other extended family

members so that they can support and celebrate her son.

Some things that were also interesting is that

we asked them what would make special education better.

In the area of assessment, they felt that the

assessments that ‑‑ the requirements that a Fifth Grade

student take the Fifth Grade level assessment does not

work for the teachers, and it\'s terrible for the self‑

esteem of the student.

That we\'re asking students who have been

getting their curriculum at a First or Second Grade level

to take this test, and all they\'re experiencing is

failure.

It also is not great feedback for the teachers,

because they want to see what kind of progress this child

has made, and those tests do not do that. So that\'s one

of the areas.

The other thing, we heard about the high

teacher turnover. That turnover is not happening there.

Of the teachers that were there, eleven years, ten years,

and 30 years. And they thought that the ability for

teachers to be creative supports that.

They felt that at that school special education

teachers are included. We talk about inclusion for

students with disabilities, but there are sometimes the

sense that special education teachers are also a different

group that cannot be included, and that\'s not what they

see happening there.

They are using the open court curriculum, which

is one of the curriculum based on research science. And

I\'ve had some questions about that curriculum, having

spoken to some teachers who say it\'s script based, they

tell you what to say, what to do, how much time to take on

that.

And so my question was, so when this turnover

happened, how did it happen, and did the teachers like it,

was it hard for them? And for some teachers it was hard

to begin to teach in a different way.

What the teachers said, though, is that they

appreciate having something that\'s based on research,

something likely to work. And the way that they have

their periods, it\'s a longer period, so that if they have

things that they want to do to supplement that, terrific,

this is good. But at least they know what they\'re doing

is based on science. So that was a nice thing.

I asked about paperwork, and ideas that they

had. What about paperwork is difficult?

It was interesting to hear that they don\'t have

an automated, they call it ARD. I think it might be sort

of like the IEP meetings or the eligibility meetings. And

so the teachers are hand‑writing 45 pages of paperwork.

One teacher has had three ARD meetings in a single school

year.

And something just as simple as automated

IEPs ‑‑ Adela says that they put theirs just in the

Microsoft Excel ‑‑ would really cut down on time.

And from a parent\'s perspective, if I\'m asking

the teacher to change something on that IEP, and it has to

be written in ink, do you think she\'s going to want to do

it, and do you think we\'re going to have a good

conversation about this collaborative process? It just is

not conducive to that.

They said, Yes. If we could automate this, it

would save us hours and hours and hours of time.

We asked them an open‑ended question about

monitoring, and they said that the monitoring is not

working for them. What they would suggest would be lots

of mini‑monitoring opportunities.

And the principal said something about how

before the resources were reduced they used to have a

supervisor that would come on an ongoing basis and help

folks from a more technical assistance perspective, and

they really liked those opportunities to get that

feedback. They want to know how they\'re doing. They want

to know that they\'re doing well.

So, you know, it was a wonderful opportunity.

I don\'t see how they can be doing all they\'re doing with

such a low per‑pupil expenditure, and I want to know more

about that.

And then, Adela, you had some perspective as a

principal of an elementary school.

MS. ACOSTA: Thank you. And I know we only

have 15 minutes, so I\'ll take two.

They certainly have a lot more resources than

I\'m used to in a school. She has a large staff. Many of

those positions were grant funded that help to address

some of the needs of children.

They were very much on point when it came to

accountability. They said, Yes. We want to be

accountable. We want to know where we are, whether

instruction is being successful is being successful for

our students.

But again, we need more mini‑monitoring visits,

and not so much just to see what we\'re doing, to oversee

it, but also to give us some help in how to make it

better, so that the whole monitoring accountability piece

takes on a different view.

And we asked them about behavior. Sharon spoke

about behavior, and some of our witnesses yesterday, about

behavior and how it impacts the ability to learn to read.

And they said that they do have a discipline

committee and an intervention assistive team that looks at

children who are acting out for whatever reason, and then

they find interventions to help that student before they

get to the special needs part of the school or while they

are in the special needs part of the program.

The last thing that I wrote down was, they said

that they would like this Commission to consider making

the recommendation about assisted technology. They had

several students that we visited today were speaking to us

through ‑‑ and maybe Jack knows more about this, what it\'s

called; it\'s a board.

DR. FLETCHER: Augmentative communication.

MS. ACOSTA: Thank you. And they\'re very

expensive.

And one of the things to the credit of the

Houston District, they said that they were very, very

fortunate that when they needed that, parents did not have

to feel that ‑‑ in our state, for example, they have to go

through Medicare to get that kind of assistance for their

children.

And she said that here that is not the case,

that when a child has that need that Houston comes forward

very rapidly.

But she did want us to consider as part of our

recommendations that we are certainly short‑staffed, which

they spoke about, too. Special education teachers are in

great need, and there are not many people coming to the

table. And of course, that goes along consistent with

what our presenters said yesterday.

And looking at having some kind of training on

a national level for speech therapists, who are also in

great demand and who are not being trained. There are not

enough training facilities.

And so when we look at the professional

development part of our agenda, to look at addressing the

issue of this national crisis of teacher shortage.

Thank you.

MS. TAKEMOTO: One more thing on the subject of

national crises. There has been a lack of sugar at this,

and we were given chocolate, so I\'m passing my chocolate

around.

(General laughter.)

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. Who is going to make the

report for the group that went to the middle school,

Hamilton Middle School?

DR. GILL: I\'d like to nominate the Honorable

Steve Bartlett.

MR BRANSTAD: Group 2, the middle school group?

DR. WRIGHT: I nominate myself.

(General laughter.)

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. We\'re not going to take a

vote, Katie. We\'re just going to turn it over to you.

VOICE: Give that lady the microphone as if she

needs it.

DR. WRIGHT: But I have budgeted my time. So I

won\'t go over time, and I will go from my notes. And then

I will yield to one of my colleagues. Is that okay?

MR BRANSTAD: Great.

DR. WRIGHT: Okay. We were at the Hamilton

Middle School. And this is a school that has an average

daily attendance of like 94.5, a drop‑out rate of just .5.

The student body is 75 percent Hispanic, 15 percent

African‑American, 10 percent caucasian, and 1 percent

Asian. Approximately 82 percent of all the students

receive free or reduced lunches.

I want to go from my notes. We were warmly

welcomed. There were introductions. We were welcomed by

the principal ‑‑ his name is Kenneth Goeddeke ‑‑ and he

introduced some of the staff. We had a lovely breakfast.

The school board president was there, the school

chancellor, special ed staff, and officials.

We met in the library. We were briefed, and of

course we were given all kinds of materials and packets

and all of that. And I have not had a chance to go

through all of this yet, but this is valuable material.

I want to digress and say this. It\'s my

understanding that at least one of our tasks that the

President wants us to accomplish is to find out if the

right kids are in special ed and if they are getting the

right program and getting the right training.

And being a school person, and just being there

for just an hour or so, I believe that the children that

come through Hamilton on that campus are perhaps the right

kids, and that goes from the assessment.

And Steve Bartlett might want to talk about

assessment and the outcomes, because he asked some really

telling questions about that.

But I noticed everything. I noticed the

bathrooms. And I mentioned this to the principal.

Because kids need, just like they need to learn how to

read, they need to have clean bathrooms with the tissue

and stuff. And a lot of the inner city schools don\'t have

that. But this school had it going on even to their

bathroom, even to the Girls Room.

We asked questions about, were they strong in

inclusion? And my note says yes. They said the severe BD

children were self‑contained, and we saw such a classroom.

The teacher was working with these children.

We asked about parental involvement in terms of

IEP.

I know they thought I sounded like a school

inspector, but these are the things that you need to know

and ask about to see if the right kids are in these

programs and if they\'re getting what they\'re supposed to

get.

And so they said that the parents are involved

in the IEP process, and if the parents don\'t come forth

right away, they call the parents. They even make home

visits.

The reading initiative is strong at that

school. It\'s implemented throughout the district.

I asked about training. And they have a task

force here that\'s on staff development, I think, of

teachers. And they said that they had staff development.

And I asked if they had trouble recruiting

teachers, and everybody does. And here in Texas evidently

they have a provisional program where you can get a

provisional certificate. But they said that the teacher

has to finish up his or her training within a year.

We visited a content mastery center where ‑‑

and I\'m saying that a lot of this in that center is basic

skills, and there were LD children in that caseload. And

in this center they teach the social studies and the

science. The teacher explained his methodology and showed

us some of his materials and some of his equipment.

We went into another classroom, it was an LD

classroom. It wasn\'t self‑contained, I don\'t think. They

had computers and all of this.

And this is the only little thing, little,

little negative thing that I noticed. I asked him about

his computers, and he was teaching math. And I noticed

the computers.

But a couple of those computers were old

computers, you know, and he needed some updated computers.

He had a couple of Compaqs, but some of those were the old

Apples and like that. It\'s the only little thing that I

noticed.

The teachers are included ‑‑ and I made a note

of this because as a special educator I remember that

special teachers a lot of times in buildings were not even

notified they were having teachers meetings.

But here they said the teachers are included,

they are on the team, they do team teaching, they have

team meetings.

And we asked about, do they have cross‑

categorical caseloads? The answer is yes.

We asked about their itinerant services for the

low‑incidence kids. The answer here was yes.

We asked about exit programs and ancillary

services. Yes.

But one thing ‑‑ and I know that Steve Bartlett

wants to mention this because this is his baby, this

particular thing. But this karate program ‑‑ what is it,

Steve, karate program?

MR. BARTLETT: It\'s called, Kick Drugs Out of

America.

DR. WRIGHT: And it talks about in sports,

character development. And this was just so impressive.

And I noticed, too, at this school ‑‑ and they

weren\'t just doing this for us this day. They couldn\'t

have gotten this school together like they had it today

just in a few days. This school is together.

It was quiet. I noticed there were BD kids

there, but the BD kids weren\'t running up and down the

halls fighting and all like they do in some schools, like

they used to do in some of my schools, too, and probably

are still doing it.

But he\'s got a diverse student body, as I said.

The school has counseling and social work services. They

have a full‑time nurse at that school. They have an

intervention assistant team.

And about assessment, I asked about assessment

of the kids, and I asked if they had, well, in Illinois we

call it an annual review, where you look at the kids and

have a staffing, we call it, at least once a year. Of

course, in Illinois you\'ve got to have it every three

years. But often we had an annual review, we had it once

a year.

If the teacher needs a review in less time than

a year, the teacher can get it.

And I just tell you, one of the parents who is

an employee of the district just volunteered his

information, nobody called on him. But he said that he

was very pleased after Steve Bartlett asked about ‑‑ I

think it was Steve, or maybe it was Reverend Flake ‑‑

asked about assessment.

And he said he was very pleased with his kid

being in special and that he was pleased with the

assessment process.

And I wanted to know if it was fair to say that

these people are using a multi‑disciplinary assessment

team approach. And they told me and they told us that

they were.

So I just made a lot of notes. And I\'m very

impressed. And I said this: It\'s a joy to serve on a

Commission where we can get out into the schools and I can

learn something and we can see something. And I just

thoroughly enjoyed this, and I just felt at home.

And that\'s as much as I want to say right now.

And I yield to Steve or to Doug or whoever.

MR BRANSTAD: Thank you, Katie.

MR. BARTLETT: It was good that Katie started

that up, because what Katie was saying is very true, and

that is, we went to a good school. This is what we would

all call a good school.

Because HISD wouldn\'t have picked out a bad

school for us to go to. They have good leadership, they

do seem to have good collaboration.

But now I\'m going to kind of walk through some

of the lessons for Federal law as it kind of relates to

this good school and kind of imagine what it looks like in

a bad school.

This school has good leadership, both in the

classroom, with the special ed personnel, and with the

regular education.

But in addition to these good results, let me

give you a couple of other things.

Only the general education students take the

TAAS test. So when the principal was asked how his

special education students were doing academically, he

said, Fine. When we asked him how the general education

students were doing academically, he said, 84.1 percent.

Okay? Big difference, big difference. Okay?

Texas apparently has some testing that you can

do that are called special testing that is a different

test than for regular ed, because ‑‑ and I quizzed the

principal about it ‑‑ because the special ed students

couldn\'t be expected to take the TAAS test, his words.

And then, when I asked him what these special

education tests looked like and what they measured, he got

really ‑‑ and this is a good principal, remember ‑‑ but he

got really fuzzy, because it wasn\'t important to him. He

was not being measured on that.

So he didn\'t really know. But he knew that

some of his students were taking it and some were taking a

different version, and that\'s kind of all he knew.

Outcome measurements, this was both from the

special ed, the regular ed, the classroom, and the

principal.

This school ‑‑ and this is in the good school

category ‑‑ so far as I could tell, had no overall outcome

measurements for the special ed student body.

They have outcome measurements for each

individual student, and that\'s a good thing, and that\'s

why it\'s working. That\'s what\'s working about it, is

every special ed teacher, the regular ed teacher, they

care about every student and they work through with every

student for an outcome. But the special ed don\'t take

standardized tests.

The inclusion, when we asked, How is the

inclusion, they said, Fine. And then we were trotted

around to a half a dozen different segregated classrooms.

The inclusion apparently is kind of period by

period. So most of the special ed kids get ‑‑ I\'m

sorry ‑‑ some number, but we didn\'t ‑‑ the principal

didn\'t know the number, but he said most of the special ed

gets an inclusion classroom in social sciences, and then

they get pulled out for other things.

So again, the lesson for the Commission is,

there is no testing of a measurement of inclusion, and so,

then, therefore it\'s easy to say, Well, we\'re doing fine

in inclusion.

Grade level: No data on grade level. Exit

from the program, just kind of ‑‑ I might as well have

been asking about Outer Mongolia as to ask about exit from

special education.

We found one classroom, the behavior

modification classroom, in which there were students in

that classroom that had been there for ‑‑ everybody

ready? ‑‑ five years. Now, Commission members, this is a

good school. And they had been there for five years. And

the reason I know that is, someone had just found them.

DR. WRIGHT: But some need to be there for ten

years.

MS. TAKEMOTO: Someone had spent five years in

middle school or someone had spent five years ‑‑

MR. BARTLETT: In the behavior modification

separate pull‑out classroom.

DR. WRIGHT: Yes. But having taught BD kids,

some of them need to stay for ten years.

MR. BARTLETT: Perhaps.

DR. WRIGHT: Some need to stay forever.

MR. BARTLETT: Perhaps. But I would say ‑‑

DR. WRIGHT: You\'re right.

MR. BARTLETT: ‑‑ that that means that we want

to do something different and measure it.

Now, in fact, the reason that they knew this is

because the person who had just discovered this was new on

the job this year.

She was horrified. She had found these five‑

year students. And she was changing the curriculum so

that they would be exiting this year and returning to the

regular classroom with some extra support. So it\'s not

all bad. I mean, you get in one new leader, and they find

something bad.

I guess the point for the Commission is,

there\'s no measurement of exits. There\'s no measurement

of, what is your exit percentage or what is your exit

length of time?

Good collaboration. We also discovered, as I\'m

sure you do in any conversation, there is, of course, a

fear of change.

This parent who is also an employee told us how

happy he was with his assessment of his child, because we

were talking about whether to convert from IQ to something

else.

And basically what he said was, I don\'t know

whether there\'s something else, and I don\'t know about IQ,

but it works for my child, so please don\'t change it,

because it works for me. And that\'s, of course, the fear

of change. So we did encounter that.

We also found this whole concept from the

special ed professionals, sort of a willingness to change,

a new assessment model, a new approach, but also a fear of

the change. But we probably did see more willingness than

one would have expected, because they\'re the ones that

have to make the change happen.

The other big fact that we picked up is that

every special education professional there has to deal

with at least two sets of regulations and be responsible

for both, Federal and state.

And it\'s not that they\'re dramatically

different, it\'s that they can be different in subtle ways,

and you have to end up trying to comply with both, and

that\'s obviously not an outcome that one would design.

So good school, good leadership, good

collaboration. But I couldn\'t tell much outcome

measurement, because they\'re not being asked to measure

the outcomes. They\'re being asked to measure the inputs.

Now, Doug, did I get it about right?

DR. GILL: That was outstanding. I was glad

that I nominated you after that.

I just learned two things that I would want the

Commission to consider.

One is that, when we went to the SBH class or

BD class, there were four students and one little young

lady who was the teacher. And at any point any one of

those kids could have completely decimated her with one

punch. And as the staff told me, that can happen

frequently.

And apparently over the past couple of years

this class has had substitute after substitute. They

hadn\'t been able to find a teacher. She came onboard.

And he said, She is great. She concentrates on education,

teaching, teaching, teaching.

And I said, Well, how do you reward her, then?

What\'s the incentive? And he said, All I can do is give

her \$2,000 a year more, which is about \$50 a week, to

basically put herself on the line like that.

And in my mind, this Commission ought to

consider the fact that, if we\'re going to ask for more

accountability, it should equate to better incentives for

teachers, especially in this environment.

MR BRANSTAD: You mean salary?

DR. GILL: Salary; salary incentives. It\'s

just incredible to me that she has such a high level of

commitment and she is willing to put herself on the line

there with very little incentive, financial incentive, to

do it. And I\'m sure that that\'s not the only reason she

is there.

But, my goodness, when they have to go through

almost two years without a teacher, we\'ve got to be able

to empower these people to hire quality people like her.

Now, the second thing is, I agree that the

computers were really outdated. And in my mind, computers

in special ed not only helps the student to learn now, but

it also enables them to get a job later if they can

develop those kind of computer skills. And the computers

that we saw were really far outdated.

So I don\'t know, Bob, if there\'s a provision

that we can recommend for those two things. But I think

teacher pay for special ed and computer assisted

technology are two very important components that we

learned today.

DR. WRIGHT: I wanted to mention that they did

have, years ago we used to call them paraprofessionals,

but now the professional name is para‑educators. They had

a few, but they need some more. They need a few more.

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. Thank you very much.

MS. BRYAN: Can I make just one quick comment

on this?

MR BRANSTAD: Sure.

MS. BRYAN: Because I don\'t want it to pass

with you guys not knowing this.

Texas is implementing accountability systems

within special education that are much stronger than

they\'ve been. And some of you in the audience may know

the answer to this. But it kicks in either this year or

next year.

When does it kick in, Gene? Because I just

don\'t want to let it pass saying that no one is looking at

the results, because we\'re getting there.

MR. LENZ: In 2003‑2004, when kids that don\'t

take the TAAS take what is called the SDAA, the state

alternate assessment, those scores will count in the

rating of the district.

And kids with disabilities since \'99 have

counted in our state\'s accountability system at the campus

and district level, and they\'ve always counted in the

indicator dealing with drop‑out and attendance before

attendance was dropped.

So kids with disabilities have been in our

state accountability system since its beginning, but not

in the TAAS scores until \'99. And then, in 2003‑2004, the

alternate tests will count.

MR. BARTLETT: Could I ask a question, Mr.

Chairman?

MR BRANSTAD: Go ahead.

MR. BARTLETT: Conceptually what would keep a

state from having LD students from taking the TAAS

scores ‑‑ TAAS test ‑‑ or mildly retarded students or

blind students or other kind of special education?

MR. LENZ: That\'s a great question. Let\'s play

it out a couple of ways here.

What we\'re talking about is, first, we want as

many kids with disabilities in the general curriculum. If

they\'re being taught in the general curriculum, then they

should take the test that measures the teaching and

learning in the general curriculum, which is our TAAS.

There are instances, though, when a child\'s

accommodations or modifications are such in the classroom

that if you used those modifications or accommodations on

the test it would render the test invalid. So they then

need to take a test that you can use some of those

modifications or that is designed to allow them.

Now, our SDAA, or the State‑Developed

Alternative Assessment, is still built on the essential

knowledge and skills. It gives more range.

It goes from K through 8 in the essential

knowledge and skills, which is our state curriculum

framework, and it allows for kids to be tested on the

material based on where they\'re being taught so that we

can get a good match.

That is, they\'re both criterion‑referenced

tests, the TAAS and the SDAA, and so they measure teaching

and learning.

But we do want more kids in the TAAS test. In

fact, we want the majority of kids with disabilities

taking the TAAS and the future TEKS test, Test of

Essential Knowledge and Skills, and then, the next group

in our SDAA, and the smallest percentage of kids with

disabilities in what is called the LDAA, Locally‑

Determined Alternate Assessment.

MR. BARTLETT: So if we want that, should we

measure it?

MR. LENZ: Yes, sir. And we\'re going to be

doing that. In May ‑‑ I had mentioned this in my

testimony or in part of my testimony ‑‑ or I guess it was

in response to one of your questions. We are going to in

May roll out what is called a balance scorecard for

special ed, and we\'re going to have those indicators built

into it.

DR. PASTERNACK: I haven\'t said anything

yesterday, as you know. But the temptation is such that I

have to just respond quickly to Steve\'s important

question, if I may.

The law, the way it\'s written now, Steve and

the rest of the Commissioners, talks about that students

with disabilities have to participate in state and

district mandated tests. It does not talk about students

with disabilities participating in the accountability

system. And the question that you asked I think goes to

the heart of the difference between those two issues.

And I think that one of the things ‑‑ I don\'t

know how we\'re going to proceed as a commission when we

actually talk with each other about the kinds of things

that we\'d like to see happen as a result of the testimony

and the evidence that you\'re all reviewing.

But it seems to me if the intent is really to

get students with disabilities to participate in the

accountability systems, then one of the changes that we

need to make is to send the message that students with

disabilities have to participate in the accountability

system.

And one of the disturbing things that we\'ll

hear I think as we talk more with personnel preparation

programs is that teachers don\'t really seem to understand

that when they ask about the kinds of accommodations that

students are supposed to have access to in order to

participate in assessment that those are the same

accommodations that the students should have been

receiving as instructional accommodations.

And so there just seem to me to be a lot of

issues that came up yesterday that, you know, I really see

this more as an opportunity for the Commissioners to get

emersed in these issues. But the issue you raised I think

is so critically important.

And then, you have the norm‑referenced test

issues that Gene was just talking about where, if you

change the administration of the test, then considering

the student\'s score becomes more difficult vis a vis the

norms that were developed.

And those issues don\'t seem to arise when you

have the criterion‑referenced tests, which are the

standards‑based tests that a lot of states are going to,

like the TAAS as an example.

So I don\'t know if we\'re going to talk ‑‑ I

think we\'re having our accountability meeting in Des

Moines.

But I think that, you know, clearly maybe one

of the changes that the Commission might want us to

consider is looking at changing the statutory language so

that we in fact insist on students with disabilities

having to participate in accountability systems.

So I\'m sorry, Mr. Chairman. I just ‑‑

MR BRANSTAD: All right. Ed Sontag, did you

also have a question or comment?

MR. SONTAG: Maybe an observation. Trying to

find incentives for individuals and students with

disabilities to participate in testing and their parents

if real tough.

One of the concepts that several people have

been looking at most recently is to try to find a cap, in

other words, that 96 percent of all the students in the

school district would have to take the test, 3 percent

could be waived.

But there would be an incentive in the cap,

then, for the district to even try to test the remaining 3

percent if possible.

Under existing systems now you have districts,

states across the country where 30 percent of the students

don\'t take the test, 5 percent don\'t take the test.

So what do you have right now when you compare?

Even on the NAPE you\'ve got apples and oranges on those

kinds of issues.

So I think there needs to be some kind clever

solution in the area of a cap to try to look at this.

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. We\'ll go ‑‑

DR. WRIGHT: I would like to give some

information from this booklet. We just received these, so

we have not had a chance to read everything that\'s in the

booklet. But I do want us to give credit where credit

appears to be. And I don\'t know. And I\'m just seeing

this in the booklet, because we just got this.

They\'re telling us in the booklet that special

education students taking the TAAS have made gains in

several areas.

The scores of special education students who

were administered the TAAS test reflect an increase of 4

percent from Sixth Grade to Seventh Grade, with 54 percent

passing in 2000 to 58 percent of the same population

passing in 2001.

A significant increase of 20 percent occurred

from Seventh Grade to Eighth Grade, with 50 percent

passing in 2000 to 70 percent passing in 2001.

And then they went on to say that Seventh

Graders made 4 percent gains in reading and Eighth Graders

made some gains.

They have given us some stats here. Naturally,

I don\'t know the validity of these stats. But they made

an effort to give us the stats. And we have not had a

chance to go through all of this. But some good stats are

here, and I wanted you to know that.

MR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much.

We\'ll now go on to the group that went to the

high school, to Furr High School. And Bill Berdine is

going to report for the group that went to the high

school.

DR. BERDINE: Thank you, Terry.

On behalf of the Gold Team, comprised of Jay

Chambers, Tom Fleming, Dave Gordon, Mike Rivas, Todd

Jones, and Governor Branstad and myself, we had the

pleasure of going to Furr High School, which is on the

east side of Houston.

And I can\'t say what the other two teams can

say in terms of starting out, that we saw a good school.

I can\'t say that we saw a bad school. All I can say is we

saw a pretty typical low‑income high school for about two

hours. But at best we have a snapshot, and at that it\'s

probably a Polaroid. And those of you who do photography

know how clear a Polaroid picture can be.

We spent two‑thirds of our time, inadvertently,

I think ‑‑ I don\'t think it was necessarily planned ‑‑ but

we spent about two‑thirds of our time almost in a panel

kind of presentation where their special ed staff made a

presentation.

And as they got into that, our panel members

started to respond and ask questions, and we ended up

spending about an hour‑and‑a‑half in discussion with their

people.

We did learn some interesting things about the

school. It corroborated some of the things we\'ve heard in

the past day about situations in the schools.

We have a situation here where a principal was

brought back out of retirement after almost seven years of

retirement, the district superintendent retiree brought

back to take over a school.

The reasons for her coming back were not made

particularly clear, but it was my impression it was

because there were some problems and she was seen as a

leader in the community.

It\'s a school of a little over 1,100 students,

1,120, I think, something like that. And under the

leadership of this new principal, Dr. Simmons, Bertie

Simmons, the school\'s population has been divided into six

houses.

They break the kids down into a smaller size,

roughly 300 or so to a house. Each house is staffed by

teachers.

Five of the tracts ‑‑ or actually, they

referred to them as tracks at times. They were previously

referred to as tracks, now they\'re houses.

There are 195 students who are identified for

special education programs in this school out of 1,120.

Of those 195 students 150 are in a full inclusion program;

that\'s 77 percent of the students. And they\'re

distributed across five of the houses within that high

school.

They have 20 students who receive resource or

pull‑out services. They have a behavior service center

with ten students. This is essentially a modified pull‑

out kind of endeavor there.

They\'re in their houses until they need to be

taken out of their houses, and then they\'re taken to this

portable off to the side of the school where they could

spend as much time as is deemed necessary.

They have a Life Skills population of 19

students. This is the low‑incidence population in the

school, 19 students, two units, two teachers and three

aids.

They have a multiple‑impaired unit, six

students ‑‑ it\'s self‑contained ‑‑ one teacher, two aids;

one vocational adjustment program; and one employment

specialist.

The interesting thing that happened in our ‑‑

they had a program prepared for us, and I think we took

them off their stride in terms of, where did they see IDEA

having an impact on their school?

And immediately got into a protracted

discussion about the role of the IEP and the ARD, as it\'s

called in Texas, I believe, what some of the problems were

within that due process aspect of getting kids receiving

full services.

And I think it was Chairman Branstad who asked,

Is there a best scenario or worst case scenario? And the

Director of Special Education for Houston Independent

Schools brought up the fact that they had recently had an

eleven‑day ARD, which probably ought to go on record, Bob,

with your 13‑page IEP, or your 23‑page IEP. An eleven‑day

ARD.

And that launched us into a variety of

discussions around, why did that occur, what happened?

And essentially what happened ‑‑ and I\'ve been working in

high schools for the last three years pretty extensively

in a major city ‑‑ well, in Kentucky it\'s the only city,

Louisville; the rest of it is just large towns.

(General laughter.)

DR. BERDINE: And I\'m from one of the large

towns. But Louisville is truly a big city. And I\'ve

worked in five of their high schools. And I\'m fairly

familiar with what happens when you start to pick and

scrape with teachers or special ed administrators at that

level of Director of Special Ed and Supervisor or

Coordinator.

And the frustration just started to bubble

right out. It was really clear that what you have here is

a group of mid‑level educators who are just frustrated

with the whole system.

The due process system from their point of view

is just bogged down to the point where they cannot perform

their functions in an adequate way; it was taking their

teachers off of instruction; you know, just a whole array

of problems.

We discussed some of the issues with regard to

mediation and also the use of mediators in ARDs.

That was an interesting juxtaposition to our

panel presentation yesterday, because the position that

was presented in this high school was that was working

against children in schools, not for children in schools.

That they felt the mediators, the advocates,

were not productive for children, which I think some of

us, because of the recency of our panel presentation,

found that a little bit interesting.

As a teacher trainer, we did spend about 30

minutes in two classrooms, the behavior management

classroom and the low‑incidence life skills.

And then, again, you have to be very careful

when you walk into a school like this and situations like

this.

You\'re not seeing ‑‑ this is not news to

anybody. You\'re not seeing a typical school day, it\'s

not. You don\'t bring nine people into a building or eight

people into a building and have children behave the way

they ordinarily behave, or teachers.

But I saw no evidence in the low‑incidence

rooms of that were in of instruction. I saw no evidence

in our discussions of the accountability that Steve was

raising.

They know where their graduates of their

regular general education curriculum ‑‑ they know how many

go to college. They do not know, could not give us any

idea of where the graduates of their special education

program went after leaving the school.

It was clear that there was not a transition

model or program in place for children with low‑incidence

disabilities into the community. Not that they don\'t have

some services, some vocational preparation, but there was

not evidence presented or described to us that would

indicate that there was any kind of a model that was in

place and that was working.

I open it up to others in the group. I mean, I

don\'t want to seem to be overly harsh. I\'ve just spent a

lot of time in high schools, and this is not a high school

that I would put on my visitation list to a panel like

this.

MR BRANSTAD: Jay Chambers.

DR. CHAMBERS: I would agree with everything

that Bill has just said.

On a positive note, however, I also would say

that I met and talked with a group of caring, very

positive individuals. We stood in a classroom with a

teacher who was just, whose heart was very close to the

children that she was serving and talked about much beyond

just their strict educational needs.

We met a couple of students. Frankly, I was

almost kind of drawn to tears with one of them whom I just

felt ‑‑ the child was in the ROTC program ‑‑ to me what a

fine young man. I felt privileged to have met him and

talked to him for a few minutes.

I\'m not exactly sure what ‑‑ he had reading

problems, I guess, is about the way he described it. So

it was a delight to meet that young man.

But I do feel the same way that Bill did. And

I kind of asked him. I said, I know they\'re not exactly

doing typical things when we walk into a school like that.

I would have loved to have been able to kind of roam

around and see more of what really would have gone on in a

school day, which we didn\'t get to see.

The other thing that was notably absent, and

I\'d be curious from other folks in the other programs, is

we really ‑‑ even though they talked about general

education, I didn\'t see much evidence of connection with

general education.

Now, maybe it wasn\'t just because of the way

the trip was designed. There may not have been any

inclination to do that. But basically we had a room full

of special educators talking to us with no representation

that I could see, other than the principal, of general

education.

I guess the other general impression I have ‑‑

and this is less about special ed, more kind of an

observation looking at this high school and a number of

other high schools I have visited over the past ten years,

including the high school my own children went to ‑‑

they\'re pretty dismal, dull places.

I mean, I don\'t see ‑‑ I remember going into my

own wife\'s classrooms many years ago, and I saw a room

that was exciting, pictures, I mean, things that would

draw children to them and make them interesting things,

make your classroom an interesting place to be.

And I just don\'t see that in many of the high

schools. And maybe it\'s just not possible. I don\'t know.

I mean, I kind of don\'t live in the real world in the work

that I do on a daily basis. I need to get out more, I

think, and see these kinds of things. But I do find it

frustrating that the schools can\'t be a place that makes

you feel good about going to.

And this high school was perfectly clean; I

felt very welcomed into it by all the people who came to

see us; I felt good about what they were there for. But

at the same time, the school itself just didn\'t excite me

as a place to be. Anyway, I\'ll leave it at that.

MR BRANSTAD: Thomas Fleming.

DR. FLEMING: Yes. The other thing that caught

my attention in the one classroom that we went into was

the number of children for this ratio of teacher to

children.

And I roughly counted somewhere between 40 and

45 kids in this one classroom, with the teacher giving

instructions from the board.

And I was trying to pick up, what was the

lesson from the day and could not really do that, because

I was looking back between the children to see if they

were listening to her.

And you could see there were children with

their back to her, and they were kind of doing a number of

other things that didn\'t seem how the teacher and the

children were connecting for that short period that we

observed. So I don\'t know exactly what was happening

there.

Again, we had these wonderful representatives

taking us around, not only ROTC young men, but young

women.

And I asked them as they were taking us about

some of their future plans, and kind of shared with them a

little bit what the military had accomplished in my own

life, even allowing me to get enough money together

through the GI Bill to start on my college work to

encourage them.

I was struck by walking down the hall and

seeing police presence on the first floor, because that

always kind of begs the question of, why are the police in

this building at this time?

And so I tried to ask one of them, and at that

point I didn\'t get a response of an answer, but just

pointed to where there\'s actually a police station,

there\'s an actual office.

So the police presence is at the school

probably all the time. And that just kind of sends red

flags up to me of, why would you actually have to have the

police right on the school grounds?

To me, in my own experience, that\'s always made

for an uneasy kind of relationship between adults and kids

unless there is really that necessary item there, there\'s

maybe some danger you have to have them there.

So I never did get an answer on why you would

have to have police presence in a high school of 1,100

kids.

DR. BERDINE: You don\'t bring an armed person

into a school building unless there is some prior history

of need, you just don\'t. The man was carrying a semi‑

automatic weapon.

DR. FLEMING: Right.

DR. BERDINE: And that doesn\'t belong in a

school unless there\'s a need.

DR. FLEMING: Did any of you get any ‑‑ because

I tried to ask just a student. I meant to ask an adult

there, and I just didn\'t get a chance to do that.

DR. BERDINE: We have to be careful, though,

about being a little bit overdramatic about ‑‑ we\'re

coming across a little bit too negative, I think, on this

school, because I think it\'s a targeted school.

I don\'t want ‑‑ I\'ve spent a lot of time in

high schools, and after spending most of my career in

elementary and middle. So high school for me about four

years ago became a major revelation. They are a different

environment than anything else in the schools.

And I think, you know, what the Independent

School District is trying to do here is change something

that maybe has a long history we\'re not even familiar

with.

But there\'s definitely ‑‑ I\'d say I\'d have to

characterize this as a school in transition.

MR. BARTLETT: At best.

DR. BERDINE: Well, I mean, I could take you to

some high schools in Kentucky that would make this school

look like a charm school.

MR BRANSTAD: David ‑‑

DR. CHAMBERS: I could take you to some in San

Francisco, as well.

MR BRANSTAD: David Gordon. And then, I think

Todd has got a couple of comments, too.

MR. GORDON: I think for me this school

underscored the overall set of difficulties in reforming a

high school, because you had to sort of back into the

story of their history, where this principal is brought in

seemingly in times of strife.

And they were told to launch an inclusion

program. So they passed among the districts in the area,

and they found a program which they basically pinned their

hopes on, which was a support program for the kids

included in the regular academic program. And it was a

room with three teachers to which the kids could go for

assistance almost at any time.

And those teachers we saw ‑‑ there were two of

them there ‑‑ they seemed very, very caring and

supportive.

Now, what you also had to back into was, when

you unpacked their system, it was a tracking system of six

tracks, and it was sort of accommodating the difficulties

of high school reform.

One track was a humanities program with 150

kids, they said all of whom went to a four‑year college.

Then, there was a regular track, not a academy

or a magnet program, because there were teachers there who

were not comfortable working with any kind of change, so

they were kind of left to keep doing what they had been

doing.

And then, there were the several tracks of

special ed students who were not included.

And the difficulty I had is, you didn\'t get a

sense of what was the ethos of the place relative to

special ed, the regular program, and all of the

connections. It felt very piecemeal, and, again, not

because everybody wasn\'t working as hard as they could.

And they were very caring people. It just seemed somewhat

directionless.

MR BRANSTAD: Todd.

MR. JONES: I just want to mention a couple of

reactions from the school. One is to reaffirm the comment

that Steve had made earlier about, what are they targeting

on?

I asked a couple of specific questions even as

we got to later periods, and it was remarkable how much

focus there was on students who did not have disabilities

and quantitative evaluations of that.

For example, I now know that their drop‑out

rate so far this year has been .6 percent; last year it

was 1.1 percent. Those are pretty precise numbers.

We know the percentage of children who go to

college is on average about 15 percent, a percentage they

track. We know what the performance on the TAAS was for

those that are taking it.

Questions we asked, however, that were a little

more difficult, such as, What\'s your average number of ARD

meetings a year? How many staff are in your ARD meetings?

And my favorite was just, Where do your students go for

employment who are in your Life Skills program? How many

of them are employed?

And the answer was really discouraging. They

said, Well, not many. And then I said, Do you have a

system that tracks that? And the answer was, No. We

don\'t know. We cannot tell you.

And yet the number of children going to college

they knew. The number of children getting jobs they don\'t

track for children with severe disabilities.

DR. HASSEL: How many kids were in the class?

MR. JONES: Nineteen.

DR. HASSEL: So they couldn\'t even give you a

number based on 19 kids?

MR. JONES: That\'s right. And you have to

assume matriculation is somewhere in the three, four, five

range per year. And when we asked ‑‑ and the principal,

who I\'ll mention with the second item, she said, Really,

hey, that is something actually we need to be tracking and

turning to our staff and saying, That\'s important.

The second thing I\'ll mention, which is to

buttress ‑‑ I don\'t remember whose observation it was.

I asked Secretary Paige at lunch about the

school, and he did mention that this is a school that had

been having a lot of problems.

They brought in what was viewed as an

exceptional woman ‑‑ she seemed very exceptional on

meeting her ‑‑ took a woman who had retired from being a

regional superintendent here in Houston to make change

happen there. And clearly what we had seen was

dramatically different than what had been there before.

MS. ACOSTA: Mr. Chairman, may I? I just

wanted to make one comment.

MR BRANSTAD: Yes.

MS. ACOSTA: From someone who has been on all

three levels of this process, I\'ve been in elementary,

middle school, and high school.

And just the point of view that ‑‑ and someone

mentioned on our visit today that special education

services are much better served at the elementary school,

and as they go on through the middle school, they become

challenged, regardless of the environment.

I have been to many high schools. I was in one

for a while. And it seems to me that that\'s where the

challenge is.

And I guess for this Commission our challenge

is to look at disparity in services to special education

students at the high school level. I would suggest that

from, you know, the report of the last group.

MR. BARTLETT: Mr. Chairman.

MR BRANSTAD: Yes. Steve, go ahead.

MR. BARTLETT: There\'s one additional piece of

information that\'s very useful based on what Todd said.

Texas only started this outcome measurement for

general education a little over ten years ago. So think

of what Todd was saying and the descriptions you heard of

the principal\'s being able to tell you precisely what

their TAAS scores, precisely what their drop‑out, all the

precise outcome measurements.

Ten years ago very few principals in Texas

could have told you any more about their general education

students than what they were able to tell us today about

the special ed, and that\'s because ten years ago Texas

didn\'t measure that. Now they\'re measured.

And the names of the schools and their results

are published in the newspaper annually ranked by test

scores. Okay?

So the principals and the educators have this

amazing incentive to increase the outcome performance.

So it seems to me that our lesson is, now if we

can convert that human motivation from general ed, where

it\'s worked phenomenally well, over to special ed, that\'s

our task.

But ten years ago none of this existed in Texas

on the general ed, either. It just wasn\'t there. And now

you see the outcome.

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. I want to thank everyone

that has reported. I think the meetings to the schools

were very much an eye‑opening experience and gave us I

guess a better understanding of what\'s really happening in

the schools themselves.

The next thing on the agenda is for the

Commissioners to discuss the views on the reports of the

first two panels from Monday. And we\'re running a little

behind, so we\'re going to try to limit that to maybe about

15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes per ‑‑

So we\'d back and open it for discussion on the

first two panels that we heard yesterday morning.

I guess I would just start by saying that I

thought the researchers that we heard from yesterday did

an outstanding job. I really felt maybe the highlight of

yesterday was those panel discussions we had in the

morning. And we would open it to your comments.

But I thought there were some pretty

significant ideas that came out of those panel

discussions.

And I guess one of them that may be one of the

most controversial is the one I guess that kind of

originated in my state the idea of not using the IQ tests.

And I don\'t know if that\'s where we should start or

whatever.

But I understand that some of you asked

questions of some of the practitioners about that today

and got some mixed reviews.

Anybody like to pick up on that or anything

else from the panel discussion? Maybe we should focus on

the first one from yesterday.

Yes. Steve.

MR. BARTLETT: Well, first of all, I think in

terms of being able to convert from the current IQ

disparity test to other kinds of testing is a good thing.

It seems to me that if our report says it quite

that directly, we will be kind of missing our mission.

But I think that\'s one of the outcomes.

It seems to me that what we ought to end up

learning from that is that the model to convert to is

the ‑‑

To contrast, set up the straw man of the wait‑

to‑fail model, and say, That\'s what we\'re against. And

then convert that to a model that is the test and assess

everyone and then provide services ‑‑ and I don\'t know

what the word is ‑‑ provide services to those that are

somehow below expectations or grade levels.

And it\'s only after you provide that

supplemental instruction, then you begin to measure those

students for special ed.

Right now you start with an assessment as to

whether they\'re special ed or not, and then provide the

services.

So I think if we can reverse that model, that\'s

going to get us to the IQ disparity test, or at least many

states will.

I don\'t know that the Federal Government should

mandate either model for how to discover who is special ed

other than to do an assessment and services first.

MR BRANSTAD: So you\'re suggesting the test and

assess ‑‑

MR. BARTLETT: Is the way to back into ‑‑

MR BRANSTAD: ‑‑ is the way to get ‑‑

MR. BARTLETT: Yes. If we just sort of go out

and attack IQ, we\'d have a big argument over IQ. But if

we attack wait‑to‑fail, everybody is against that. And

you get to the same place.

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. Jack Fletcher.

DR. FLETCHER: Steve, I think you misjudged the

sentiment about the use of IQ tests. What we heard was

actually a great deal of convergence around the lack of

value of that particular approach.

And I\'m also aware that many of the advocacy

groups are also very concerned about this particular model

and the emphasis on IQ tests.

One dimension that we did not hear yesterday,

but is one that I\'m very familiar with, are those kids who

were assessed under the learning disability rubric who did

not qualify for special education. Those kids are

commonly sources of due process hearings.

I\'ve got one on my computer that somebody

emailed me where the dad wrote that he had spent \$30,000

to get his kid qualified for special education, had a

hearing officer decide in his favor and say that the

school needed to place the child in special education.

But he didn\'t really think it was worth the

\$30,000 because the school couldn\'t tell him what program

they were going to do.

So I mean, that\'s a perfect example of where

the focus is on eligibility, who is eligible, where there

is not even a requirement for the school to specify

methodology.

At a statutory level they do not have to

specify the methods that they are going to use to teach

this particular child to read.

And it just reflects this focus and this

obsession that we have with who is eligible as opposed to,

how can we help this kid?

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. Alan.

DR. COULTER: I appreciate, I think,

Commissioner Bartlett\'s concern about, you know,

controversy.

I think that one of the things ‑‑ and you heard

me say it yesterday ‑‑ one of the things that was

comforting from yesterday morning\'s discussion was that

there are some things for which we now do have very clear

answers.

And I think the Commission needs to take an

extraordinarily assertive stand as it relates to when

science has spoken.

And when there is a convergence that things are

working, we need to support that. When there is

convergence that there are things that are wasting

resources, misleading people, taking us off track, we need

to take a stand against that and to say that that

shouldn\'t happen.

What is ironic is that we have a situation

where the Federal regulations have in fact required people

to use IQ tests except in extraordinary circumstances,

Iowa being one, Louisiana being another, where they have

not used IQ tests since 1979 and have been able to get

along quite well without it.

However, the regulations are something that I

think professionals in some instances have used to hide

behind.

And so in the instance, especially yesterday

morning, I mean, I was absolutely amazed that you could

get a group of experts, who typically would love to talk

about a topic forever and ever and never give you a yes or

no answer, and we got an answer yesterday. I think we

need to support these people.

The other thing is that ‑‑ I think Jack is the

one that always talks to me the most about this ‑‑ we need

to be very careful about the difference between anecdote

and facts. And yesterday we got a lot of facts.

You will have people that will come here and

tell you how wonderful an IQ test is on the basis of one

story. They will have absolutely no scientific evidence

to support it.

I think, once again, this is a place where we

have to speak extremely strongly, and that is, where

evidence suggests that something works, do it. Where

evidence suggests that something is wasting time, taking

away resources, stop doing it. I think that\'s something

we\'ve got to do.

MR BRANSTAD: Thank you. Douglas Gill.

DR. GILL: Thanks. I\'m just going to give you

some of my reactions to what we heard yesterday and sort

of my ruminations in the evening about some of those same

kinds of issues, I suppose. And maybe my perspective is

somewhat different.

I certainly am in conceptual agreement with the

notion of an instructionally intervention based model as

opposed to an eligibility determination type model.

And I guess what I\'m not clear on at this point

in time is what would be the procedural bridge to sort of

get us there. I think I can buy the concept, but it\'s not

clear to me exactly how we might proceed.

And I think that clearly we can beef up and do

a lot more in the prereferral process of special education

as opposed to the, you\'re in basic ed one day and you\'re

in special ed the next, never to return from that

hinterland or whatever.

So I think maybe we ought to focus some of our

efforts on prereferral, and maybe we ought to talk about

research based prereferrals as a step in the special ed

eligibility process as opposed to no other way to get

there.

The other thing that I think is maybe we\'ve

inadvertently, moving from a system of eligibility driven

as opposed to instructionally driven, created some

incentives to in fact put kids in special education by

only allowing districts and states to claim assessment

dollars for special education upon eligibility

determination.

And maybe we ought to think about using some of

the assessment money in special education not as a

condition of eligibility, but as a condition of

intervention and providing services to lots of different

kids.

The other thing that I\'ve thought about is this

paperwork morass that we seem to find ourselves in. And I

sure wouldn\'t want to create yet another system of

paperwork morass by trading one system that we know

doesn\'t work very well for a system that we\'re not sure is

going to work any better.

So I guess one of the suggestions that I might

have for reauthorization in this regard is at least

somebody consider the notion of the development of Federal

forms as opposed to each of the states and locales,

buildings, districts, et cetera developing their own set

of forms, because I think what happens is we get a

cumulative effect of the paperwork over time.

Because, you know, I\'ve talked to a lot of

different teachers in my state. I\'ve probably done input

sessions.

And they say, You know, one thing that would be

nice is for somebody to clarify exactly what the

requirements in an IEP procedure, et cetera are so that we

know so that when kids transfer from one district to the

other we\'ve got consistent information and so when kids

transfer from one state to another we\'ve got consistent

information.

And there\'s some commonality of stuff so that

the IEP is in fact an instruction document as opposed to

being a management tool or a way to try and avoid

litigation.

And I think the other notion that\'s come to my

mind as a basis of our discussion yesterday is individual

family service plans, which is kind of the way we deliver

services through Part C, might be a better way to try and

deliver services as opposed to an IEP, or an

individualized education program.

So we can begin to sort out this payor of last

resort language, which I think is different in Part C than

it is in Part B.

And maybe what we\'ve done as part of the IDEA

business over the last 35 years is started to trip over

ourselves a little bit.

And I think if we\'re going to do something that

is in fact going to change the way in which people view

the system, which is going to change the way in which

people react to the system, we need to give them I think

some good examples of how to do that and sort of change

the paradigm of special ed as opposed to just some sort of

cosmetic change that might reduce from four to three the

number of times in which you hand out procedural

safeguards.

That doesn\'t appear to me to be a substantive

change. And I think this Commission ought to be about

substantive, meaningful change that is going to impact in

a positive way the instruction of all kids, including kids

with disabilities.

MR BRANSTAD: Doug Huntt.

DR. HUNTT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I agree with Alan that science spoke loud and

clear yesterday. We did get a no response to the IQ test,

but we didn\'t get a yes response to a viable alternative

to it.

And I think timing is everything in this case.

And although science did speak, I didn\'t hear a lot from

parents of kids with disabilities.

And my concern is, you do away with the IQ

test, how do parents wrap their arms around what\'s

required for their kids to be admitted into special ed?

You know, where is the viable alternative? I

asked it over and over again yesterday, and nobody could

give me a response, a specific model that we know through

science and any other means that works.

My concern is, you do away with that before you

get to a viable model, and we cause a great deal of

disruption.

And I would hope that we remember that we\'re

talking about real‑life people here out there. And

hopefully before we make a final decision on that we can

hear from some parent groups related to that topic as

well.

MR BRANSTAD: Bill Berdine.

DR. BERDINE: I want to speak in support of Dr.

Coulter\'s position. I think that the panel owes it to our

speakers when they speak as clearly and as succinctly to

the point of whether or not IQ added anything the

instructional environment, and the answer was no, I think

that ‑‑

And you know, I don\'t think it was that

difficult for them to make that response. That\'s

something that most of us have known for a long time, in

Louisiana for a number years, Iowa for a number of years.

I think the critical question is whether or not

we were presented with an alternative, Doug.

And while it was not specifically addressed as

an alternative, I think that Dr. Vaughn did present us

with a model that could be readily translated into an

alternative process for individuals with learning

differences to enter into a public school environment that

supported them in a positive way.

Whether or not that was fleshed out or not as

an operational model, I don\'t think it was. I don\'t think

that was her purpose.

But it\'s time to move on from IQ, folks. We\'ve

got to get past that. That is not the critical issue here

in front of this panel. I mean, let\'s get rid of that

thing. I mean, that\'s painful. We can\'t do it in one

fell swoop. I don\'t know if legally we could even do it

in that manner.

But we could do it in a transition, a phasing

manner in which we could educate not only the

professionals, but laypersons with regard to why we\'re

doing that.

But we need to speak with a clear voice. And I

think that when our experts that we invite in here give us

that advice ‑‑ and they didn\'t equivocate ‑‑ unless we can

bring somebody else in here to counter that, I think we

should move on.

And you know, if we could take a voice vote

now, would we have a majority voting against the use of IQ

in instruction?

I\'m not suggesting we would do that at this

point in time, but I would guess we would have a fairly

clear statement.

MR BRANSTAD: Cherie Takemoto.

MS. TAKEMOTO: I think that the IQ test has

kept many kids who could be successful with additional

assistance out of success. And I support anything that is

going to get those ‑‑ those kids are just as important as

kids with disabilities. But that\'s also part of my

troubling here.

To be diagnosed with a disability ‑‑ this is

the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. To be

diagnosed with a disability, especially when there is no

congenital or debilitating condition, is a big deal. It\'s

a big deal.

And I could support the level of interventions

that we would have to do before we would say, Yes. You

have a disability, but I would not ‑‑ and using IDEA money

to provide those services.

But it is a big deal to be diagnosed with a

disability. And what we would be doing is opening up

those gates.

So you know, I agree with what Dr. Vaughn said,

that you need to provide the supports that every child

needs to be successful.

I believe that we know a lot about special

education, we know a lot about kids with disabilities, we

know a lot about keeping kids from coming into the system.

And that it would be a role for this Commission

to do something about IQ, but being very careful about

saying, Okay, if you\'re a poor performer, now you have a

disability.

So I think that that\'s just something that we

have to keep in mind.

MR BRANSTAD: Ed Sontag.

MR. SONTAG: I apologize for not being here

yesterday, but I would like to comment on some of the

things that I\'ve heard here this afternoon.

In my experience ‑‑ no empirical data here ‑‑

what we have in terms of the assessment process is an

incredible waste of money most of the time. It reinforces

a failure model for students with disabilities.

MR. JONES: Sorry, Ed. We were having

microphone problems.

MR. SONTAG: Essentially what I was saying that

the large amount of money that goes into assessment

produces a failure model. It makes us bypass prevention.

It does not get us into prevention.

There are parts of IDEA right now that have

kind of been sleepers in there. IDEA 97 provides some

wonderful vehicles for team planning at the building level

in which IDEA dollars could possibly be used more for

prevention than failure.

And I think that\'s a vehicle that we need to

look at, maybe make it stronger. Right now I think there

is some discussion that states can opt out of that; local

districts might need the permission of a state to opt in.

But the IQ test is such a small issue here.

What\'s real important is that this field fundamentally

must move to a prevention model and get out of the failure

model.

I\'ve been in so many IEP meetings. Very few of

those meetings and all of the diagnostics lead to a

classroom teacher getting any help on how to teach Johnny.

If we don\'t move away from that, we\'re going to

be back here in ten years and in 20 years talking about

how to tinker with special education.

MR BRANSTAD: Jack Fletcher.

DR. FLETCHER: Well, I just want to respond to

Commissioner Huntt\'s comments about viable models and just

point out that we did hear a viable model from Sharon

Vaughn. That model has been implemented in entire states

and districts across the country with really quite a bit

of success.

But there\'s also a very simple approach to an

alternative model, as well, and that is that if we simply

drop IQ. Nobody is proposing to drop achievement testing,

for example.

And it\'s very easy to talk about somebody

having a learning disability, which is what we\'re talking

about, when they underachieve. We apply the exclusionary

criteria and so on. That is a viable model.

The problem with that model ‑‑ and this is what

I tried to get Dr. Francis to talk about ‑‑ is that we do

something with assessments of these kinds in special

education that we wouldn\'t do anyplace else ‑‑ we don\'t do

it, for example, in high‑stakes testing ‑‑ and that is

that we give the child a single test using procedures that

have known errors of measurement where the underlying

attributes are dimensional.

Those are inherently unreliable. The first

time I test a kid, those scores are in the 20th

percentile; the next time I test him it\'s going to be the

28th percentile; the next time I test him it\'s going to be

the 17th percentile. I do not even know how many times I

have to test the child to identify their true score.

And to give you an example, in Texas on the

state exit exam, you\'re allowed to take it nine times.

Now, why are you allowed to take it nine times? Because

you have to fail it nine times to know that even on a

highly reliable instrument your true score is below the

cut point.

That\'s what we\'re doing. We\'re using a model

that is not viable, that is invalid, that focuses on

eligibility in an invalid way. And we need alternatives

to simply giving kids tests and then a life sentence in

special education based on one assessment.

One of the exclusionary criteria is opportunity

to learn. And we should not be placing children in

special education under the learning disabilities rubric

until we\'ve demonstrated that they have not responded to

some type of evidence‑based intervention, that they\'ve had

adequate opportunity.

And adequate opportunity varies considerably

across individual children. Some children need much more

intense intervention before they demonstrate that they

actually have a disability.

MR BRANSTAD: Katie Wright.

DR. WRIGHT: I agree with Jack. And I think

that this panel ought to attack ferociously this idea of

this using the IQ as a tool.

And this goes back to the California cases, a

case back in the 1970s when minority kids ‑‑ I think they

were Hispanic kids ‑‑ were placed in special education

simply on their IQ scores.

So I think that this panel really should go on

record as negating that and attack this ferociously.

The other thing that I wanted to say, last year

President Bush invited 100 or so black leaders to the

White House to be briefed by Secretary Paige and others on

the domestic programs.

And Secretary Paige ‑‑ and I asked Secretary

Paige, you know, what we could do to keep so many children

from being in special ed. I don\'t know how I put it like

that. And he said, You know, this Administration is going

to really work on reading.

And I think that this panel ought to go on

record as really supporting the reading part of this.

Dr. Vaughn gave some really good ideas

yesterday. I don\'t have them all.

But I think that we really need to support the

reading program, because if more kids could read, maybe ‑‑

and Dr. Paige said this, too ‑‑ maybe we would have fewer

kids who would have to go into special.

So my two points are, attack ferociously the

idea of putting kids in special just on IQ; and then,

encourage, happily and very much so, the reading portion.

MR BRANSTAD: David Gordon.

MR. GORDON: Yes. I, too, was persuaded by the

level of agreement on the fate of IQ tests. I think

that\'s pretty extraordinary to get that many people

together.

But from my experience I feel that we have to

attack the notion of, what is it that the regular program

should be doing before we start assessing children and

steering them toward special ed?

I think in our system we have a Director of

Special Ed in Washington, we have directors in the states,

I think they talk to directors in the school districts.

And I\'m not sure that we have spoken to the

leadership of school districts in the way of a Susan

Vaughn and say, There are protocols you must install, be

it in general education, be it in Title I ‑‑ Title I is a

huge source of funding to do exactly what she was talking

about ‑‑ and to be specific about what we would like to

see done as a precursor to any referrals to special ed.

Heaven knows we are as prescriptive as can be

with all of the procedures, and we say almost nothing

about the instructional protocols that we think will make

a difference.

Now, I\'m not exactly sure how you get that into

the law. But I think unless we change the behavior in

regular ed, Title I, and the general program, we\'re not

going to see the preventative approaches prevail.

MR BRANSTAD: Yes. Bryan.

DR. HASSEL: Following up on David\'s comments,

this is a kind of crucial issue for the Commission to

think through.

Even if we could come to agreement about an

alternative model in what we\'ve just been discussing,

which involves, say universal assessment, early

intervention, supplemental services, that kind of thing,

what sort of Federal policy would you enact to encourage

that?

And one approach, which I think you were

outlining perhaps, is a regulatory approach which says,

We\'re going to now require that of school districts that

are taking funding from the Federal Government under these

different programs.

And we\'re going to spell out in detail what

kinds of assessments you must do, what kinds of

interventions you must follow up with, and that sort of

thing, which is, exactly as you said, exactly what we do

currently under programs.

But I think we need to try to think of other

approaches that are less regulatory but which may obtain

the same result, which involve providing incentives,

strong incentives for performance that are tied to funding

that effectively encourage districts to take on those kind

of practices in a much more powerful way than they\'re

encouraged to do so now.

The information is out there now, and yet few

districts seem to be following those procedures. So the

incentives aren\'t powerful enough. How can they be

designed so that more districts in fact adopt these

practices? That seems like the challenge. And I don\'t

know the answer. But that\'s a design issue we need to

tackle.

MR BRANSTAD: Incentive versus regulation is

what you\'re posing, or some combination thereof?

DR. HASSEL: Yes.

VOICE: Or regulations with incentives.

MR BRANSTAD: Cherie, and then Steve.

MS. TAKEMOTO: I think one of them was a

question that I asked yesterday.

We\'re about to have infused into the country a

large amount of money through ESEA. And could there be

possibilities through regulatory ‑‑ I don\'t know if the

regulations have gone out to how schools are going to

access that money, nor has the appropriation necessarily

have been made.

But could we use this new ‑‑ I hate to ask

schools to do anything else and not pay for it. But

here\'s some money that\'s coming down.

And Todd, we have some capacity through anti‑

discrimination to make sure that children have access to

the benefit of that program?

MR. JONES: Right.

MR BRANSTAD: Steve.

MR. BARTLETT: Here is something that it seemed

to me all the speakers were sort of leading us to

yesterday, but nobody actually closed it. So let me

suggest it in response to, what would the model look like?

There are a lot of failed Federal law models

that we\'re all familiar with. There\'s the Categorical

Grant; there\'s the Block Grants with no controls; there\'s

the regulatory model where we tell with some precision

what tests to use and what to measure and how to do that.

But there is a model that has been successful

in other reforms, and it\'s a model in which we acknowledge

that we have ‑‑ there is a current model out there that

there\'s a lot of dissatisfaction, but there\'s also a

certain comfort level with, with IDEA today.

And so we say to the states, That\'s the model

you\'ve got unless you would offer to the Federal

Government a change that would be based on outcome

measurements, that we\'ve talked a lot about; based on

early intervention, early intervention as an entry into

it, based on ‑‑

In the outcome measurements we could actually

even cite the kind of outcome measurements that we insist

on, graduation, test scores, such as that.

Based on civil rights, and maybe even you keep

the civil rights at the Federal level, but based on that

strong commitment to civil rights; and based on what

outcomes we want to achieve.

And then we say to the states, Texas, New York,

Louisiana, come up with a model that works, that

accomplishes these goals in your state, propose it to the

Federal Government, and that then gives you your model in

place of the Federal model.

VOICE: So it\'s like a waiver like we do

with ‑‑

MR. BARTLETT: Like Welfare Reform. Yes.

VOICE: Like Welfare Reform?

MR. BARTLETT: Yes. It\'s a system that catches

the innovative juices of the states, because we\'ve heard

today that it\'s the states that are coming up with the new

ideas.

So far we\'re also hearing they\'re not

translating them down to the schoolhouse door, because the

schoolhouse door also has the 814 mandates to deal with,

and you get at best a duplicative system.

And I think that it couldn\'t be just a strictly

free hand. It would have to say that we insist on civil

rights and strengthening civil rights, we insist on

outcome measurements, that it has to be based on outcome

measurements. But then have the states propose, and then

the Feds or negotiate or reject.

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. Jay is next, Jay Chambers.

DR. CHAMBERS: I\'d just like to follow up on

what Bryan was saying, that I think we need to design the

funding systems that create the incentives to accomplish

what we want to.

When Tom and I have gone into states and talked

to them about special education funding, the first

question we ask is, What do you want your program to look

like? Not, What do you want your funding system formula

to look like? We say, What do you want to accomplish?

What are your goals and objectives for this program?

And then, once you have an understanding of

what those goals and objectives are for the program, you

can then design a funding system to create incentives to

implement that program.

And I guess I think one of the things that we

can do is to connect what our goals and objectives are as

a commission to the design of the funding system.

That might mean increasing the amount of

funding or the proportion of special education funding

that comes from the Federal Government.

Because right now, or at least as of \'99‑2000,

it provided a very low percentage, below 10 percent. I

know it has increased substantially since then, but it

provides substantially below 10 percent of the total

expenditure on special education.

So one thing might be thinking about how we tie

funding increases together.

The other is how those funds are distributed

and utilized by the states and what impact we might have,

not just ‑‑ because the Federal money, no matter how big

it is, is not going to cover the majority of the costs ‑‑

but in what ways we can tie the distribution of the

Federal money to the way states themselves design their

own funding systems.

There are a huge variety of funding formulas

and programs out there in the 50 states, everything from

full cost reimbursement to percentage equalizing to

weighted pupils to Census‑based programs.

And if we have a feeling that one or the other

of those kinds of programs is going to create the kind of

special ed and general ed program that we think ought to

be going on out in the schools, then we as a Commission

need to recommend something that is going to impact the

way states distribute funding.

MR BRANSTAD: Jack Fletcher.

DR. FLETCHER: The recently passed Elementary

and Secondary Education Act has a Part B, which is called

the Reading First Plan.

And as part of the Reading First Plan, states

have to essentially propose and file a reading improvement

plan.

This plan has to include provisions for the

universal screening and assessment of reading skills in

all children in Kindergarten through Grade 3. It has to

have a plan for improving the reading skills of children

who are identified as being at risk on the basis of these

reading skill assessments.

It\'s \$1 billion. One of the more interesting

provisions is that states can keep 20 percent. It\'s

unusual in that SEAs are actually allowed to keep a

substantial amount of money to implement a statewide

professional development program.

And so states could have a substantial amount

of money to do professional development of both general

education and special education teachers in the area of

reading.

So I think that part of it, the part of it that

involves prevention and early intervention and things of

that sort, is on the table now. And we have several

states that have good models for this, Texas, Florida\'s

model is coming along. I mean, it\'s happening.

I think we need to make sure we look at what we

recommend for special education so it ties upon these

provisions.

MR BRANSTAD: That\'s a great suggestion. It

needs to dovetail in with what was already passed.

Doug Huntt, I think, is next.

DR. HUNTT: I just wanted to respond to Steve\'s

comment.

I want you to know that I\'m not wed to the idea

of IQ testing. My concern mostly was, what are we going

to tell them to do if we get rid of it?

And I think the model that Steve just mentioned

is something that I\'m sure we can all agree on.

And I realize that I\'m the minority, Bill.

You\'ve already taken a consensus. And I\'m a little late

in coming along.

But Steve, you just put a line between the two

dots for me, and that\'s something I would be very

comfortable with.

And I\'m also assuming that once it goes back to

the states they\'ll get input from disability advocates and

everyone else. So I think that\'s a good model.

MR BRANSTAD: Alan Coulter.

DR. COULTER: You know, I am ‑‑ this is our

second meeting, and second day of the second meeting, so I

think I\'m starting to kind of learn a little bit more

about how well we\'re going to work.

And as I understand it, we have approximately

seven meetings left, I guess two of which are going to be

full Commission meetings.

And one of the things that strikes me is that I

think as we have listened to people talk to us, it has

provoked questions, some of which we have asked at the

time that people were in fact testifying. In other

instances, people I think have come up with questions

afterwards.

And part of the discussion that we\'re having

today is to raise questions that we don\'t think we\'ve had

fully answered for ourself.

I think it would be helpful as we have these

discussions if we could capture some of these questions so

that we can ensure that as we meet together, either in

between meetings or during the time we meet, we can get

those questions addressed.

And where we can get I think good answers, then

we\'ll all feel much more comfortable about the kind of

consensus that we will reach.

So I\'m not advocating today ‑‑ and I don\'t

think the agenda was set up for that ‑‑ that we would

actually start to make decisions today about things that

we would recommend.

I do want to point out I think an ironic

situation that we may find ourselves in. With regard to

this matter of the IQ test, the current regulations

prohibit the use of any test for which it has not been

properly validated.

And I think what we found ourselves in ‑‑ and

this I think ought to make Ms. Lee very uncomfortable,

because she is new on the job at OCEP, and she sat

yesterday and listened to testimony with a real I think

unbelievable weight of evidence that says that OCEP\'s

definition of learning disabilities in the regs is now not

valid for the purposes for which it has been proposed.

And so it may be not so much an issue that we

need to deal with, although I would love for us to deal

with some things that do have relatively clear‑cut

answers.

But I think what we heard yesterday was, even

within the existing regs what we have been doing is not

scientifically valid.

So we may need to address it, but it may be

that it needs to be addressed even before we make any

kinds of decisions.

I just would like to suggest that we do start

to capture some of these questions that people feel

haven\'t been adequately answered to date so that we can

begin to bring more people in if we to in order to make

certain that all of us are comfortable, Doug included, you

know, in the kinds of recommendations that we make.

MR BRANSTAD: Todd has asked to respond to

Alan\'s comments.

MR. JONES: Well, no. Actually, I wasn\'t going

to respond to Alan.

I just wanted to represent to you a procedural

planning piece as Executive Director of the Commission.

When originally proposed at the first meeting

about structuring the task forces, the concept was ‑‑ and

this is to provide more flexibility to you ‑‑ that you

wouldn\'t have to take positions at your second meeting or

even necessarily your third about what you want to accept

or decline, because then we have to get into wordsmithing

across this table, which is frankly a waste of your time.

The concept being that the task forces as they

work start developing a base of the report that they can

internally then put together, then that is shared with the

broader Commission, then that is shared with the outside

public. Then you can debate it in a public forum with the

knowledge of what the public has also said about the

proposal.

That avoids putting you in the position of

having to hash through things here that other implications

need to be considered.

To use as an example, if you\'re getting to how

you\'re dealing with performance‑based systems for children

with learning disabilities and other high‑incidence

disabilities, it opens the question of what is done with

low‑incidence disabilities.

And the message that sends out is that ‑‑ I

would just offer the message that would go out to some

communities is that the Commission is only concerned about

high‑incidence disabilities, which of course in nonsense.

But that\'s how things can start to be portrayed in the

media.

So I want to offer that to you. I know some

folks were thinking about, This is where the Commission

should go. I would just offer my suggestion that you not

contemplate necessarily taking ‑‑ everything you have said

is in the record, and it will go back into how you design

the report as it\'s designed.

But to help you, I would suggest not taking any

formal votes today if that\'s the case.

MR BRANSTAD: Katie.

DR. WRIGHT: Yes. And I agree, because my

understanding today ‑‑ and I came prepared to do this ‑‑

to discuss my views and what I thought about the

presentations that were made.

MR BRANSTAD: Right.

DR. WRIGHT: And so we had a presentation

talking about the IQ situation; we had a presentation on

the reading. So those are the things ‑‑ but I did not

come prepared today to make any recommendation as to what

model and all of that. I did not come prepared to do

that. So I\'m glad that you have come up with the order of

the day.

MR BRANSTAD: Right. Well, first of all let me

just say I think the discussions and I think significant

progress has been made in getting a better understanding.

And I think the discussions here have been very helpful.

But it is not our intention to take any votes

or to take positions on any of these issues today.

I think the process that Todd has laid out is

the right process. It\'s a very deliberative, open process

that\'s going to give an opportunity not only for these

discussions and for input from experts, but also for

hearing from parents and educators and others in the field

as we go through this process.

So hopefully that will avoid some of the

misunderstandings that otherwise could arise.

Unless there are other comments, we will take a

break at this time. We\'ll start up again at 20 after.

Thank you very much.

(Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

MR BRANSTAD: Yes. Cherie Takemoto.

MS. TAKEMOTO: Thank you, Governor.

I have a little bit of a question about how big

this elephant is going to be. And I think that as we

decide how big this report is going to be, we may have to

let go of some things that are not the big things.

I think it\'s a great idea, Dr. Pasternack and

Ms. Lee, that we have an opportunity to get computerized

IEPs available to folks who are hand‑writing the stuff,

but those are some of the little ideas.

And I\'m wondering, in order for us to attack

the big things that I think we need to do, I\'m wondering

if we can set up a process for figuring out what it is

that we\'re going to focus on and what it is that are just

good ideas.

Other examples are, people are sending me

information about administrators who are lying on forms or

individual cases.

And I\'m wondering, how do we narrow the scope

so that we can actually get accomplished what it is that

we need to accomplish here?

MR BRANSTAD: Todd, why don\'t I defer to you on

responding to this?

(General laughter.)

VOICE: Good side‑stepping.

MR BRANSTAD: I didn\'t serve that long for

nothing. So ‑‑

(General laughter.)

MR. JONES: Let me expand a little on the

concept that went with the task force concept that was

agreed to at the first meeting.

The principle behind the task force concept was

that there would be an evolution of big ideas under a

half‑dozen significant tents that the Commission members

could develop.

So we have, to use an example, the finance

tent. And the Finance Task Force will have a hearing in

Los Angeles, it will bring in testimony. And that will be

followed by a series of task force meetings over the phone

where the concepts that they want to see in the report are

discussed.

And each of the task forces can limit

themselves to whatever big or small ideas they want to

address.

Then that will be offered up to the whole of

the Commission. Again, it\'s still a private internal

draft at this point. And the Commission members can then

offer their suggestions or changes in the draft.

And when there is a general consensus about

offering up this particular draft, it will be released for

public consumption and broad public dissemination. There

is no agreement at that point. It\'s just a draft that

goes out for offer.

Then, that is what is debated and considered at

the Washington, D.C. hearing in May, and after receipt of

public comment and views of it.

It\'s at that point where the Commission can

then go back and say, We want the following changes, or it

can agree to drafts or ask for revisions. That\'s why we

have a fifth meeting on the calendar if you desire it in

June. That will allow you to get to the form of the

report you want. How specific or general it gets is up to

you.

I will offer ‑‑ and Cherie and I briefly

discussed this a moment ago. But one thing I hadn\'t

talked about was some general direction we had received

from the White House about the form of the report.

The one generalism that the White House has

asked for the report is that it be consumable. And that

would be of a size and in a form that parents and teachers

and superintendents and policy makers everywhere can read

and understand what\'s being recommended.

And then, you can have an appendix of whatever

depth and complexity that\'s available.

And to make it something that is informative

and, again, responds to the President\'s nine charges.

That\'s the shape of the report as requested from the White

House, that it can be understood and that it\'s certainly

not a lengthy volume as a report, but more along the lines

of, say what A Nation at Risk was, which, for those of you

that haven\'t seen it, it\'s only about this big.

MR BRANSTAD: How big?

MR. JONES: Well, for those on tape, about I

think six by eight or nine. It\'s kind of a strange shaped

report. And it could be readily distributed and read.

As an idea we have been kicking around to

staff, we thought it might be appropriate to have a CD Rom

in the back of it which has copies of all the statements

and the transcripts and so on. But those are format

ideas.

But the source of it is that the main document

is something that generates big ideas and it is something

that can be readily consumed by anyone who wants to read

it. And then, they want it distributed as widely as

possible.

MR BRANSTAD: Does anybody else have any

comments on that?

(No response.)

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. We\'ve got about a little

over a half‑hour, I think, here to complete our work and

still have time for people to change clothes and be able

to get to the rodeo this evening.

So we\'re going to now open it for discussion on

the panels that we heard from yesterday afternoon. So at

this point we would I guess open it for anybody that would

like to make comments on the panels that we heard from

yesterday afternoon.

Yes.

MS. TAKEMOTO: I notice that in one of the

papers, Jim\'s paper was based on some work that Dr.

Coulter was a part of, and the other expert I think on

accountability I think is Dr. Hassel. And so I\'m

wondering if we can get some expert opinion from those

members of our Commission.

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. Bryan Hassel, I\'ll give

you the opportunity. That\'s a nice lead‑in and build‑up.

DR. HASSEL: Actually, what I wanted to say is

actually not a matter of expert opinion.

What I wanted to say is how striking it was to

me over these past two days the level of agreement that we

heard from all kinds of different people with different

perspectives about the type of monitoring and

accountability system that they think makes sense, this

sort of focused monitoring approach where outcomes are at

the forefront and problems are focused on rather than this

generic cyclical approach.

We heard that from academic types, we heard it

from state level people, we heard it from an advocate, a

rights advocate. And we heard it today. At least in my

visit, we heard it from teachers and we heard it from the

principal, we heard it from the district level people in

Houston.

A pretty strong convergence of ideas out there.

And I think that makes our job easier in some ways, but

not completely easy.

MR BRANSTAD: Yes. Alan Coulter.

DR. COULTER: Well, taking from what

Commissioner Bartlett was explaining earlier today, you

know, what gets measured gets done.

And when you ask a principal, you know, to

comment on the performance of their school, and they

cannot comment quantitatively and specifically on children

with disabilities, we know that children with disabilities

are not on the agenda for that school.

And I think Commissioner Bartlett has given us

an excellent practical test to let us know when we are

getting what we think kids with disabilities and their

families deserve in schools, and that is, when you can

walk into a school and the principal can be as articulate

about the performance and the outcomes of kids with

disabilities as they are about kids without disabilities.

So really I learned something this afternoon.

I thought that was very clever.

Also, like Bryan, I was struck yesterday with

the level of consensus. I think there is a great deal of

misinformation out there that advocates don\'t want this or

families want that, et cetera. I thought that we heard a

considerable amount of consensus yesterday afternoon.

It wasn\'t always quite as cut and dried,

although my good friend, Commissioner Doug Huntt did ask

them a yes/no question, and, by gosh, they stepped up to

the plate. So I also was heartened by that.

I think it speaks to the issue of big ideas,

which Cherie raised earlier. And I think the other thing

that I\'m thinking about is, in our discussions I think we

need to constantly ask ourselves, Is this going to be one

of our big ideas or is this simply devolving into a

trivial piece that\'s not going to matter that much?

I think yesterday afternoon\'s discussion is

probably one of the biggest ideas we have to deal with,

and that is, how do we hold schools and programs

accountable in this law for what the intent of Congress

was when it was passed or when it will be passed again?

And so I was quite heartened.

I also frankly enjoyed listening to a State

Director of Special Education provide us not with

anecdotes and stories about, you know, individual things,

but actual data, and to say, I know where many of my

problems are because I have the data, and to be able to

show us.

And I know that you heard him say several

times, Alan wanted me to show my maps. Well, the reason I

wanted him to show you those maps is, when he says, I know

where my problems are, he could show you exactly where in

his state those problems are. So it wasn\'t just a matter

of quantifying. He could actually locate those places.

So I was heartened by what was said yesterday.

I think that we will learn a great deal more at

the task force meeting in Des Moines. And one of the

things that I think I\'m privileged about is that the task

force I think raised good questions under Commissioner

Bartlett\'s leadership that need to be answered in Des

Moines.

And I feel confident we will leave Des Moines

with a set of ideas and recommendations that we can, using

the process that Todd described, bring those back to the

Commission at large, et cetera, and put that out there.

I think as far as the accountability piece,

we\'re off to a great start.

MR BRANSTAD: Adela Acosta.

MS. ACOSTA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I, too, was very heartened yesterday by the

wealth of information and its clarity. And I think that

speaks to Todd\'s point about the directive from the White

House. We don\'t want to make this another white elephant

that sits in someone\'s shelf and collects dust and no one

pays attention.

And that\'s probably the very energizing piece

of our work, that it\'s viable, that it\'s flexible, that it

has life, and that we can make it happen that way by our

collective efforts.

I was also impressed by the presentations

because they all supported each other in a very scientific

and very articulate way.

I did want to say, however, that as our work

continues ‑‑ and this is just our first meeting. But as

our work continues, I hope that when I look at statistics

from New York ‑‑ I am a product of New York public

schools ‑‑ and I dare say, 25 years later the statistics

haven\'t changed, that Hispanics and African‑Americans are

still failing. They are falling out of the system.

When I asked Larry, he said that he thought it

had something to do with language, with English as a

second language. He wasn\'t that clear and that articulate

when I asked him that question.

And for me, if I\'m going to be any use to this

Commission, I would hope it would be to be that voice from

the schoolhouse and the stakeholders who are African‑

American, who are Hispanic, who are Native American who

are failing.

And somehow our recommendations have to be able

to look at that and articulate a message or a plan of

action that can be taken at the schoolhouse level so that

these particular children are not laid to waste because of

ethnicity, race, or language.

MR BRANSTAD: Doug Gill next, and then David

Gordon, then Doug Huntt, then you, Katie.

DR. GILL: Thank you, Chairman.

And I think everyone recognizes that we have a

pretty unique opportunity here to change the face as well

as change the value associated with the provision of

special education.

And I think two of the issues that we dealt

with yesterday is the notion of instructional intervention

versus eligibility determination, and, second of all,

compliance versus trust.

And I think what I heard loud and clear

yesterday and what I\'ve heard from many of the other folks

that I\'ve talked to, that this core of conflict in special

education is really an expression of trust, the extent to

which people trust the obligation.

And maybe the traditional way in which we have

done compliance monitoring is not the best way to

establish that trust.

Perhaps by focusing on outcomes and delivering

on the promise of special ed as opposed to delivering on

the process of special ed is a much more positive way for

us to go.

So I think a restoration of that trust is kind

of one of the filters by which we should consider any

recommendation that comes before this committee.

MR BRANSTAD: David Gordon.

MR. GORDON: Yes. Just two or three

suggestions.

I concur that I thought the accountability

discussion produced an awful lot of consensus.

And it seems to me if our report is going to be

kind of thinned down, that subsequent, through the

legislation or whatever, several things need to happen.

Number one, I think somebody needs to go to

work on aligning the state accountability systems with one

another and also with Title I, which now has a requirement

that we disaggregate test scores for students with

disabilities. It hasn\'t heretofore done that.

Then, assuming you can use some of the

accountability data as a trigger for focused monitoring,

or not a trigger as the case may be, I think somebody

needs to go to work and comb through all of the state to

local, Federal to state, state to local accountability

procedures and see what pruning can be done, see if

reasonable people can come to agree that this is

duplicative, this or that doesn\'t add value.

And then, thirdly, with the parent to

school/parent to school district due process, to really

take a look at the model, which is now adversarial, and

see if there are ways to make it more interest based,

where the goal is to come to a solution, not fight to a

draw so that you can then get to a procedural due process

hearing.

And I think each of those three things will

take a lot of work. It\'s not something this group can do,

but it\'s certainly something this group could put on the

agenda to be done relatively quickly.

MR BRANSTAD: Douglas Huntt.

DR. HUNTT: Mr. Chairman, I didn\'t know that

the staff was considering putting our comments on CD Rom,

so feel free to attribute my comments to Bob Pasternack.

(General laughter.)

DR. HUNTT: You wouldn\'t mind, would you, Bob?

DR. PASTERNACK: No, no, no.

DR. HUNTT: Okay. I wanted to say I really

enjoyed the Director of the State of New York yesterday

and really applaud them on their vision of special ed,

that people with disabilities should live independently,

have full inclusion, have self‑determination. And I hope

that\'s a vision that\'s guiding us, as well.

But specifically I wanted to remark about their

14th indicator, which is that kids with disabilities

should achieve the same type of graduation rate,

employment, or access to post‑secondary education as kids

without disabilities.

And I can\'t think of any other reason why IDEA

should be there or why special ed should be there if

that\'s not our goal. And I hope we\'ll consider that in

our statement.

I know we\'re not allowed to make

recommendations today. But just for a forewarn, Todd, I\'d

really like to see that as our overall goal for special

ed.

MR BRANSTAD: Katie Wright.

DR. WRIGHT: I, too, enjoyed the presentations,

and I agree with so much that was said. And I think I

agree because what was said, this goes to the heart of my

own value system, to the heart of my training, to the

heart of my experience. And so I can agree with most of

it.

I wanted to mention one thing. And this may

seem like a little thing, but it\'s very important to me,

one of the recommendations. Do you say his name

Gloeckler?

MR BRANSTAD: Gloeckler. The O is silent, I

think.

DR. WRIGHT: The O is silent? He issued a

caveat to us, and I think we need to pay attention to

that. Because sometimes we as professionals and

professors and parents and what‑not get so wordy, and we

want to make up big, long models and big, long things.

He said to us, and I agree, new requirements

and approaches cannot be piled on top of existing ones;

they must be in place of some of the existing requirements

and approaches. And that\'s a caveat. And I think we need

to be really careful of that. Don\'t just pile on

something, but to put in this in place of some of the

existing requirements and approaches.

And that\'s all I have to say right now.

MR BRANSTAD: That\'s a very good point.

Bob Pasternack.

DR. PASTERNACK: I think that there\'s a lot to

talk about between the connection between the work of the

Commission and the work that we\'re trying to do on

reauthorizing the IDEA.

I just want to remind the Commissioners that

the National Council on Disability issued a report a

couple of years ago where they found that no state was in

compliance with the IDEA.

And one of the things I would like to submit to

you all is that it may be impossible to comply with the

IDEA in its current form. And even if a state was in full

compliance with the IDEA, it might not still guarantee

improved results and outcomes for students with

disabilities.

I think when Larry was up here yesterday and he

was chiding me on the 75 pages of a report that he

received from the Office of Special Education Programs,

you know, as a former State Director I can tell you that,

as a recipient of that sort of document, it sort of

epitomizes the fact that the process has been OCEP\'s

greatest product.

And I think that we really have kind of been

mired in a mind‑set where compliance and regulation and

paperwork are somehow related to improving results and

outcomes for kids with disabilities.

So I just would encourage us all to think

differently about some of these issues than we have in the

past.

As an example, I think Ed made a really

powerful point earlier when he was talking about the

possibility that we have to focus on preventing kids from

developing the kinds of conditions which get them

identified as having a disability which lead to their

placement in special education, which in many instances

might not produce the kinds of results that I think

parents are desiring for their kids.

They want the best for their kids; we want the

best for their kids.

And I would just challenge us to kind of

examine some of the things that we have been doing that

really haven\'t worked as well as maybe we hoped that they

were going to work.

A little bit more, but just on the preventative

issue. You know, maybe it\'s time for us to allow states

to be able to use some of the IDEA meeting to prevent kids

from getting placed in special education.

Because the reality is, if we know, for

example, state data from Mississippi, where only 12

percent of the kids with disabilities who get into special

education actually graduate with a diploma in that state,

we should really be questioning, are we trying to change

the life and improve the quality of life for kids with

disabilities if they\'re mired in a system where only 12

percent of them graduate from that system?

And Jack will tell you more eloquently than I

could possibly do, or if Reid were here, that we\'ve

learned a lot more about how to prevent kids from

developing reading disabilities than we have learned how

to successfully intervene once kids have developed a

reading disability.

So I think if we have an opportunity to kind of

link some of the fine work that\'s been done in the area of

prevention with the use of some of the IDEA funds, if we

find ourselves with an opportunity to reduce the

regulatory complexity that currently exists, if we are

bold enough to propose that perhaps we shouldn\'t require

people to send boxes of documentation which are ostensibly

submitted to establish their eligibility for IDEA funds

when we would never find that a state was ineligible to

receive those IDEA funds ‑‑

I just think that some of the things that we

are doing are basically a waste of people\'s time.

And it gets back to the issue of assessment.

Why should we have a system which focuses more on

diagnosis for classification than diagnosis for

instructional purposes?

Because the teachers in your states and in your

communities where you live and the families that you\'re

going to talk to are going to tell you that they want to

have teachers who are going to teach their kids and worry

less about the label that\'s put on that kid.

And to show you how crazy the system is that we

currently have, in one section we tell people that they

can report data on kids noncategorically, and then we

require every state to send us a report on the categories

that those kids are placed in every year.

So what I would just hope is that, as we talk

honestly about how we can move forward and how we can

develop a report that everybody will pay attention to and

that will be small enough, the challenge for us is to

focus on some of these key issues and on having the

courage to propose some suggestions and some strategies to

address some of the issues that we\'ve heard around the

table.

So I couldn\'t let the opportunity go by with

Larry giving me a hard time yesterday, because I think

that the opportunity that we have to redesign our

monitoring system is something that we have to take

advantage of.

Ed will share with you some data that he has

requested from us that we shouldn\'t be proud of how OCEP

has not done the kind of timely reporting back to states

on the monitoring data, because the reality is some of the

monitoring has focused on the wrong issues.

It\'s focused, again, on process and on

compliance and on regulation and not on outcome and

results, which is the direction that I\'m hearing everybody

would like us to move in.

So I just wanted to mention a couple of those

things, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for letting me do that.

MR BRANSTAD: Thank you very much.

Paula Butterfield.

DR. BUTTERFIELD: I think after that I should

say Amen.

(General laughter.)

DR. BUTTERFIELD: I don\'t want to be redundant,

but I agree with much of what you said there.

And I think one of the things that Dr. Vaughn

said yesterday that was really powerful was that people

don\'t do the wrong thing on purpose.

And I think that we have a great task ahead of

us based on what the research is showing us, what we now

know about brain research, all of the things that we know

now that we didn\'t know when many of the people who are in

the field were going through school.

And I know, you know, part of my task is

working with professional development. But I do think

that that\'s a critical piece.

There is a great deal that we\'re going to need

to do in looking at teacher preparation preservice at the

university level as well as the people that we already

have in the field and giving them the skills.

I think that one of the things that, again, Dr.

Vaughn was saying was that many of the teachers are

saying, We don\'t know how to do this.

And I\'m finding out myself in the work I\'m

doing right now that it\'s not that teachers don\'t want to,

it\'s that they don\'t know how.

Many of them do not know how to teach reading.

And so what happens is, for the right reason they want to

get a child special help, so they refer them to special

education when in fact that may not be what the need is.

And so I\'m very concerned about prevention and

how we can better instruct regular ed teachers as well as

special ed teachers in the kind of strategies that will

help children be successful.

I think the other concept that I felt was

important is having exit criteria.

If they\'re never thought about as you\'re

entering into this, then there is no goal, you know, we\'re

not moving toward something. And I think that that\'s an

important piece that we haven\'t really had before.

You know, it\'s sad when we hear that someone

spent \$30,000 to get their child into special ed, and then

there wasn\'t a particular program in place.

One of the things I thought was good today in

our little goody bag we got at Hamilton Middle School was

something from the district that was recommended

strategies for teachers.

And I haven\'t had a chance to really look at

that. I think it was called, \"Two Thumbs Up.\" And I feel

that kind of thing ‑‑ we\'re going to need to have this

kind of information available to teachers in school

districts.

And then, the final thing is that we operate in

silos. We have ESEA, we have IDEA, we have all of these

different things, and that so much of the time we don\'t

have ‑‑ Mr. Gill is going like this ‑‑ we don\'t have that

interface.

And I think, you know, yesterday we heard from

our one attorney that kept going like this. And that\'s

the thing that we often lack. You know, we have one group

here, one here, one here. You\'ve got the regular ed

teacher and you\'ve got the special ed teacher.

And we need to make sure that ‑‑ well, we\'ve

got ESEA reauthorized ‑‑ but now as we do IDEA that we

have some means of assuring that there is a better

interface between special ed and regular ed.

MR BRANSTAD: Thank you, Paula.

Steve Bartlett.

MR. BARTLETT: Following up on what several

people have talked about, both Bob and Alan, and I think

Todd originally, and that is, focus on the big issues.

I want to ‑‑ not for purposes of discussion

today, but for thinking ahead for the task force meetings

and the next meeting of the Commission, there are three

big issues it seems to me that we really haven\'t discussed

and haven\'t had witnesses on but at some point we ought to

be prepared to grapple with.

One is, what should the funding for IDEA be

based on? We\'ve sort of gone into this with the

assumption that what the funding is now, which is a

certain kind of funding, but basically per capita is the

way that was ordained in the Ten Commandments. And most

Federal programs aren\'t that way and they don\'t work very

well that way.

It also requires an inordinate amount of effort

by the entire system to get their \$1,400. So there are

other types of funding formulas that could be devised.

Second is ‑‑ and this is going to be the

accountability systems panel in Des Moines to take the

first crack at it ‑‑ and that is, what should the

corrective measures for underperforming schools look like?

What should the list of them be ‑‑ Jim Comstock gave us

his version of the list yesterday ‑‑ and resulting in,

what\'s kind of the final big punitive sanction?

And then, the second half to that is, who

should enforce that?

And then, third, is there a way to strengthen

the civil rights of parents with regard to their children?

Is there a way to strengthen what is today a system that

it\'s all the parents have? And we all know the bad old

days when parents didn\'t even have that.

But is there a way, rather than to just kind of

accept what we have now or face a debate about what we are

trying to take away, instead is there a way to strengthen

it to give parents more, better, clearer, and faster

rights to a free and appropriate education, which is the

goal, after all?

So it seemed to me that as we look to the next

session those are the three big issues that are still left

undiscussed.

MR BRANSTAD: Bryan Hassel.

DR. WRIGHT: I wanted to ask about ‑‑

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. Katie, can you speak right

in ‑‑ we\'ll let you ‑‑ will you yield on this ‑‑

DR. WRIGHT: I\'ll be quick, because I don\'t

want to jump anybody\'s time.

But I heard Steve mention the funding. Isn\'t

one of these task forces on finance?

MR BRANSTAD: I think so.

DR. WRIGHT: Is it?

MR BRANSTAD: Yes. Los Angeles is going to ‑‑

MR. JONES: Yes. It\'s in Los Angeles. And

while the staff have not circulated the draft that was

developed by the task force, the task force does have a

panel discussing a funding formula and alternative means.

DR. WRIGHT: Yes. Because I agree with Steve

about the funding. Thank you.

MR BRANSTAD: Bryan.

DR. HASSEL: I think maybe continuing Steve\'s

idea of listing big issues, first, to amplify on one of

Steve\'s big issues, the civil rights question:

I think it\'s important to remember that the

kind of system that Larry Gloeckler put on the wall the

other day, which measures outcomes and does a great job of

that and does a fine job of improving overall performance

over time by focusing everyone on these key indicators, is

not a system that\'s designed to protect individuals.

That\'s not what it does. It\'s not designed to do that,

and it doesn\'t do that.

And the current system, with due process and so

on, is designed to protect individuals.

And so that needs to be kind of something that

we consider and think through when thinking about changing

accountability systems.

The kind of system that Larry put on the wall

is a move from procedure‑based monitoring to outcome‑based

monitoring. But this other dimension is individual versus

kind of aggregate or group. And I think we need to keep

both of those dimensions in mind as we think about ‑‑

So any kind of consideration we can give to

that individual side and alternative ways to do that, it

seems like something that we haven\'t really delved into.

And a big issue I would add to Steve\'s list is

actually a point that I think Steve made at the outset of

this discussion, which is, we haven\'t heard a lot about

how in a large aggregate sense to assess outcomes for

students that are not going to succeed in the regular

state assessments.

We\'ve heard testimony that says, Let\'s have

more kids take the state assessments, more kids could

achieve on those, we need to push the limit on that and

push more towards that kind of model. But we all know

that\'s not going to be a good indicator of how much

progress some students are making.

And so what are outcome measures that would

make sense for other students, and how can that be put

into an accountability system? Because if it\'s not, then

those students are not going to be paid attention to in

any kind of outcomes‑based accountability system.

What gets measured gets done. If that\'s not

measured and aggregated into a performance accountability

system, it won\'t get done well.

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. David Gordon, and then

Jay, and then we\'re going to ‑‑ okay. Jay, we\'ll give you

the final word here today.

MR. SONTAG: You called on me earlier.

MR. JONES: Oh. I\'m sorry.

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. We\'ll accommodate. We\'ll

go to Ed first and then to Jay. Okay?

MR. SONTAG: Part of my legacy is that for a

couple of years I ran the Office of Special Education.

And we have two people in the room today who

have a golden opportunity for taking over the leadership

of that organization.

And I think we\'re going to miss a significant

opportunity if we don\'t look at the function of that

office in this process.

As Bob indicated, I did look at the monitoring

data over the past ‑‑ I picked a five‑year period. And it

sounds like Larry Gloeckler beat me to the punch a little

bit yesterday.

But when you take a year‑and‑a‑half, 22 months

as it happened in Wisconsin, where were actively trying to

get the report from the state monitoring system, it lost

any impact to change behavior, because what out of that

was mush.

I think we need to look at how we select field

readers in OCEP. Are we picking the best people with

scientific and research backgrounds or are we picking the

same people over and over and over again?

If we don\'t have a strong OCEP, we\'re not going

to have a strong law. And I think part of what we need to

do here is to look at OCEP.

The data is not all that great. Part of that

is my responsibility way back, so I\'m not accusing other

people.

But I think there\'s a need for us to look

inside the organization that administers this law. And I

think if we keep focusing just on state and local issues,

which seems to be the predominant emphasis, I think we\'re

going to miss the boat.

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. Thank you.

MR. JONES: Could I ‑‑

MR BRANSTAD: Go ahead.

MR. JONES: And you may not be aware of it,

other Commission members may not, because I mainly

discussed it with Doug.

Doug had mentioned a desire to address

transition issues, which is not squarely within any of the

six task forces that were developed.

What Ed is describing is, as well, not under

squarely any of the six task forces that were developed.

There is nothing barring a task force from also

doing ad hoc task force development on that. And if you

all are so inclined, any group can be put together to

address any issue you desire.

So Ed, that may be a way to address that, is to

have a group of Commission members tasked with looking at

OCEP as part of it. Would that be ‑‑ I just want to put

that out there as one of the things that\'s on the table.

MR. SONTAG: I\'m not sure how we address it.

MR BRANSTAD: Jay.

DR. CHAMBERS: Steve\'s third item, big issue,

was, if I read this correctly, Is there a way to

strengthen the civil rights of parents?

And I guess I\'d either like to put out as a

corollary or amend or something that question something

like the following: Is there a way to reduce the

incidence of adversary between parents and educators and

increase the collaboration between parents and educators?

What can we do create that kind of feeling?

DR. HUNTT: Mr. Chairman, I know I haven\'t been

recognized, but I\'d hate ‑‑

MR BRANSTAD: Go ahead, Doug.

DR. HUNTT: ‑‑ I\'d hate to pass up the

opportunity Todd just laid on the table, which is an ad

hoc committee on school‑to‑work transition.

How would we facilitate that, Todd? Because

I\'d really like to see it happen. I think it\'s an

extremely important issue.

MR. JONES: Much like the approval of the six

original task forces, it merely requires a motion, a

second, and approval to approve that kind of structural

change to the Commission.

DR. HUNTT: Then, Mr. Chairman, I\'d like to

make that motion that we adopt an ad hoc procedure

specifically ‑‑

MS. ACOSTA: Second.

MR BRANSTAD: Okay. Doug has moved that we

establish an ad hoc procedure for the school‑to‑work ‑‑

DR. HUNTT: Yes, sir. Transition.

MR BRANSTAD: ‑‑ and Adela has seconded that

motion. Is there discussion?

(No response.)

MR BRANSTAD: All in favor?

(A chorus of Ayes.)

MR BRANSTAD: Opposed?

(No response.)

MR BRANSTAD: Okay.

DR. HUNTT: Thank you. Sorry to interrupt.

MR BRANSTAD: No problem.

MR. JONES: To facilitate that, it might be

appropriate for those who would like to participate to

simply indicate to me, or more appropriately, I will

delegate to Troy. Let Troy know who is going to be doing

that.

MR BRANSTAD: Bill, and Jack has his hand up,

too. These will be the last ones, because I want to try

to get it cut off so we can get to the rodeo.

Okay. Bill.

DR. BERDINE: In regard to Ed Sontag\'s comments

about OCEP, in my capacity as President of the Higher

Education Consortium for Special Education, about three

days ago I submitted a list of statements that were

directly related to the reform of OCEP.

So I would speak positively, Ed, towards your

motion ‑‑ or your suggestion ‑‑ not a motion, but your

suggestion.

We also don\'t know how to enact any change in

OCEP because it is such a large labyrinth of functions and

services and programs. And I\'m not prepared to suggest

that we have another ad hoc committee on this panel.

But coming from the person that that suggestion

came from, it\'s something that I don\'t think this

Commission should ignore. It\'s something that we probably

ought to discuss at some other time.

But there is I think a pervasive interest in

changing what we now know as OCEP, and I think you would

find a lot of support around the country towards doing

that.

How to do it in a systematic way, I\'m not

prepared at this time to make any suggestions. But I

would support that we at least look at it.

MR BRANSTAD: Jack Fletcher.

DR. FLETCHER: Just real quickly. It seems to

me like looking at OCEP is pretty important, and I don\'t

know why we don\'t go ahead and move in that direction.

So I would like to move that we appoint a

subcommittee to look at the operation of OCEP.

MR BRANSTAD: Is there a second to that motion?

DR. COULTER: I second it.

MR BRANSTAD: There is a motion by Jack

seconded by Alan.

MR. JONES: I would suggest someone ‑‑ I am

assuming Doug was planning to lead, in fact, he had said

to me he would lead that task force.

We would also need someone to lead this task

force.

VOICE: Led by Ed Sontag.

MR. SONTAG: I\'m ex‑officio.

VOICE: Oh. That\'s right.

MR BRANSTAD: Bryan.

DR. HASSEL: Well, I just wanted to raise one

concern, which is just that one approach on this would be

to try to make sure every task force addresses what

implications their ideas have for the role of OCEP.

Only because I think it\'s hard to think about

the role of OCEP in the abstract, divorced from thinking

about, what\'s a accountability system look like, what\'s a

new finance system look like?

So that would be an alternate approach. I

don\'t know if you think that would meet the need, but that

would be one way to approach it.

MR BRANSTAD: Bill has volunteered to start it.

DR. BERDINE: Yes. I\'ll go ahead, and I\'ll

start out on doing that. Not that I have an abundance of

time left, but it\'s such a need and it\'s coming from a

person we all have such respect for, I think we do need to

move on this. And so I\'ll chair that initial attempt.

Those of you who want to join in that, just let

Todd know or me know, and we\'ll figure out how we\'re going

to go from there.

MR BRANSTAD: We still haven\'t voted on it yet.

All in favor of that motion signify by saying, Aye.

(A chorus of Ayes.)

MR BRANSTAD: Opposed?

(No response.)

MR BRANSTAD: It is approved.

Okay. We\'ve got a few announcements. Please

listen to Todd on the announcements, and then we\'ll

adjourn.

MR. JONES: Four brief announcements:

One, if you do not have a rodeo agenda, we only

have a handful, so please let me know. There are eight of

them.

Second, tickets will be handed out in the

lobby. And as it says on the agenda, you must wear your

credentials.

Third, this isn\'t a joke, you must be

downstairs before 5:00. The busses will leave. And if

folks aren\'t down there to receive their tickets and hop

on the bus, it will leave at 5:10 and you will not get to

go to the rodeo.

In addition to that, I assure you it\'s so

detailed, because this agenda looks like the President\'s

agenda, it rounds to numbers like 5:32 p.m. we\'re

scheduled to do something.

So lastly, be early for tomorrow\'s meeting. We

need to start promptly at 8:00 so that we can go exactly

an hour. The General Counsel\'s Office has been very

clear, to have public comment you must have the same

opportunity for everyone at meetings, and we need to start

promptly at 8:00 so the public can comment.

MR BRANSTAD: See you all. We\'re adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the hearing was

adjourned, to reconvene the following day, Wednesday,

February 27, 2002, at 8:00 a.m.)

C E R T I F I C A T E

MEETING OF: President\'s Commission on Excellence

in Special Education

LOCATION: Houston, Texas

DATE: February 26, 2002

I do hereby certify that the foregoing pages,

numbers 330 through 444, inclusive, are the true,

accurate, and complete transcript prepared from the verbal

recording made by electronic recording by Sue J. Brindley

before the U.S. Department of Education.

03/11/2002

Pamela A. Smith

(Transcriber) (Date)