it will will come to order this morning we will be conducting a committee meeting so the members of the committee can have a conversation with the with the secretary and secretary can present his his his views and goals for the for the department and secretary i want to welcome you to the to the committee and thank you for joining us this is your second appearance before this committee last may you came and gave us an overview of president  obama's education agenda from cradle to career you discussed the administration's i'm president a commitment to incentivizing education reforms to the race to the top program you told us about the administration's two thousand and ten budget which proposed groundbreaking initiatives to improve early education college access and completion under your direction the department of education sense has made tremendous progress in these goals the recovery act funded three hundred thousand education jobs supporting teachers librarians and counselors the carrot approach to race to the top is already proving to be a catalyst for change forty states and the district of columbia have applied to come to compete by focusing on data driven reforms that will strengthen the quality of teachers standards assessments and help turn around struggling schools we'll hear more about this from you today and last fall with your help and support the house passed president obama's proposal to originate all new federal student loans through the reliable cost effective direct loan program the congressional budget office estimates that this will save about eighty seven billion dollars over ten years we will use the savings to raise the bar for early learning transform community colleges modernize schools and make historic investments in student aid many colleges are already taking steps to offer direct loans to better protect students from the shaky credit markets we hope that the senate will soon take the decisive action on behalf of millions of families by voting to make college more affordable and invest in students and taxpayers instead of the banks if congress wants to show we're serious about changing washington this bill is a great place to start today you are here to tell us about how you and we can build a stronger economy by providing our students with the knowledge and skills they need to compete globally for the second year in a row president obama's budget reflects the end of a division of education it requests four and a half billion dollars dollar increase over last year for the department of education and two point five billion dollars increase for early education health and human services  signal of his belief that a strong early education is vital to students success down the road it calls for fixing the elementary and secondary education act currently known as no child left behind it sets aside a billion dollars if congress reaches that goal that calls for congress to enact the student in fiscal responsibility act and mr secretary as you've said so many times this committee we need to educate our way to a better economy and i think these proposals help us achieve that goal to many of our students  however too many of our students are not reaching their full academic boateng szell to no fault of their own they're not being taught to the same rigorous standards as as their international peers they also aren't getting a strong foundation in mass science and other innovative fields college presidents tell us that high school graduates aren't ready for college and business leaders and c e o s house they can't find workers who are trained for the jobs of the future it is time to finally do something about the education crisis in this country that impacts our competitiveness and our position as a leader in the them for the rigors of college and good jobs in recent years a seismic shift has been happening in our schools and in our conversation about education there is now willingness to consider ideas just a few years ago that were controversial such as performance pay there is now an understanding that you can give the states and districts the room to innovate without watering down the accountability or standards several weeks ago we announced that we're moving forward with a bipartisan and open and transparent effort to overhaul our nation's education laws we will seek input from all stakeholders who share our serious interest in improving our schools and will look forward to it will look to you throughout this process mr secretary you've already shown a tremendous leadership you've revitalized the department you have established that the status quo is no longer acceptable we will look forward to continuing to working with you to ensure top notch education and that all of the opportunities it promises for every student in the america thank you with that i'd like to now recognize the senior republican on the committee congressman kline for the purpose of an opening statement thank you mr chairman and thank you mr secretary for being with us today i know so we have an extremely limited amount of time with the secretary today so i'm going to limit my remarks others will have a chance to ask questions as we go through the day secretary duncan came to washington bill is a reformer and i believe he has lived up to that reputation in particular his willingness to stand up to the unions and the old ways of doing business has been a refreshing change the policies on which i agree with sec duncan and that gives me hope for a bipartisan approach to education reform for example the secretary understands high performing charter schools are critical in expanding options for parents and students he also understands that we need to reward the best teachers and remove ineffective teachers from the classroom these issues will play a big role in the discussion when it comes time for congress to reauthorize the elementary and secondary education act but there are other issues we'll have to address and which agreement may not be quite so easy members  staff in both the house and senate the meeting with the secretary these last several weeks in preparation for the eventual overhaul of the cia to help guide that process republicans recently released a series of principals reform realty replay those are restoring local control empowering parents letting teachers teach and protecting taxpayers the secretary has talked about how innovation comes from the ground up i agree with that sentiment which is why i am troubled by recent proposals that indicate a more heavy handed federal approach for example the idea that academic standards would have to be federally approved you that their participation in a government sanctioned set of common standards or direct consent by an unnamed federal entity looks to many of us like national standards federal law prohibits involvement of  department of education and school curriculum this is not a question of semantics putting the federal government in charge of what is taught and tested in the classroom would be a radical departure from this country approach to education so mr secretary that's an issue we'll need to discuss the same heavy handed approach can be seen in the recent higher education negotiated rule making particularly when it comes to the proposals for schools especially those in the proprietary sector to demonstrate that their graduates have achieved quote gainful employment my concerns  process are too numerous to detail here but it's certainly an issue we'll need to address in another forum before i conclude i would be remiss if i did not address the department's budget proposal for two thousand and eleven anyone who knows me knows about my about i d e a funding mr secretary you recall the very first time we met or raise this concern and i have to tell you i am deeply deeply disappointed with the idea of funding in this budget i'm confident we'll have a chance to explore that introduction this committee but for the for the public secretary duncan was nominated to be secretary of education by president obama prior to that appointment as secretary of education secretary duncan served as the chief executive officer of the chicago public schools became the longest serving big city education superintend the country as c e o don secretary duncan raised education standards and performance improved teacher and principal quality and increased learning not options secretary duncan has seven and a half years ten united education reformers teachers principals and the business stakeholders behind an aggressive education reform agenda a secretary of education has spearheaded major education reforms including the race the top program and investing in innovation fund i know i'm not alone in saying that he's done a tremendous amount and in just his first year to improve the educational opportunities for children across the country we welcome you mr secretary to the committee and thank you for giving us your time your expertise in this report to the to the education labor committee one moment before you start i would like to recognizes pillars of the chair as chancellor of our california state university system charles regents or reed behind you thank you for being here the secretary here recognizes you know we'll give you five minutes but you're the secretary so if you take a couple of extra minutes we want you to be coherent and finish and impart the information i think is important to the to the members of this committee thank you and welcome thank you mr chairman for the opportunity to speak today and thank you for the extraordinary leadership and commitment you're shown around education as you know i submitted a written testimony outline our twenty eleven budget request which is built around three core areas college and career ready standards developed not by us but by by states at the local level supporting rewarding excellence in the classroom and excellence in educational leadership and carving out a smarter more targeted federal role that gives states and issues as much flexibility as possible while ensuring as much accountability as possible at the same time work with members of this committee and your colleagues in the senate in a bipartisan way to reauthorize the elementary and secondary education act and i'm deeply grateful for your support for your hard work is you continue that process and again i love the sense of bipartisan commitment to a couple  important to me first of all focusing much more on growth and gain how much are students improving each year year to year are we improving graduation rates that's hugely important having high standards not dumbing down things due to political pressure to really making sure the students around the country truly are college and career ready is very important making sure there's that flexibility the local level we can't begin to nor do we want to micromanage one hundred thousand schools from washington the best ideas will always come at the local level and we will continue to support that fourth we have to continue to reward excellence great teachers great principals schools school districts states make a huge difference in students lives under the previous law there are numerous ways to fail but very few rewards for success we want to change that and then finally for those schools not the ninety nine percent of schools but one percent of schools at the bottom how are we going to find it were thanks simply aren't working for children we want to be clear that the status quo can't continue that we have to get better i'm happy to take any questions about a twenty seven budget request  our broader e s e a reauthorization agenda but like i do use my opening remarks today to talk about our teacher quality agenda teachers and principals are the real game changers in education reform the men and women working in schools in classrooms are making a difference in the lives of children every single day we must support them and power them and invest to strengthen elevate the teaching profession great teachers and principals are absolute heroes helping students accomplish dreams that students themselves may have thought unattainable that is why our twenty eleven budget seeks three point nine billion dollars to improve teacher quality this is an increase of three hundred fifty million dollars or ten percent most of that money two point five billion dollars will be distributed by formula as it always has been however we have put states and districts to invest this form of the money more effectively on school based a fashion and development the provide teachers and leaders with a real support they need to succeed on evaluation systems that recognize great teachers and give teachers useful real time feedback on how to improve and on supporting collaborative work so that teachers can work together and improve their their practice we want more money used to get great teachers and to keep them in high needs schools to better development and mentoring as well as incentive pay about nine hundred fifty million dollars in our budget request will go out competitively to support innovative ways of boosting teacher and principal quality fall into this bucket the teacher incentive fund the district's use for pay for performance programs innovative programs developed at the local level that have both management and union support dozens of such programs to operate successfully today in school districts around the country lastly about four hundred million dollars will support high quality preparation programs for teachers and leaders who want to work in high needs schools we want to get the best from all backgrounds into the classroom from mid career professionals to college graduates to military veterans getting and more importantly keeping great teachers in great principals and high need schools is also at the heart of our turnaround program and i want to take a few minutes to walk through that with you as you know school improvement grants are funded through the title one program the dollars are distributed to states by formula and competed out t districts between the recovery act and our last two budgets we have four billion dollars for turning around our nation's most a form in schools this money targets the bottom five percent of schools roughly five thousand schools nationwide including two thousand high schools that by themselves produce about half of our nation's dropouts these schools are struggling academically and the children in the community need better under our regulations just that want to compete for share this four billion dollars in turn around money have four options they can replace the principal but keep the teachers and improve the school to professional development strengthening the instructional program and extended learning time and other strategies decision close the school and hire a new principal who can hire back up to half of those teachers disses could also close a school and reopen on a new governance or they can simply close a school and send children to a better school elsewhere which is most likely to happen in big districts where enrollment is declining turn around programs are currently underway all across the country in charlotte north carolina delaware new york colorado louisiana boston chicago philadelphia los angeles south carolina in cincinnati in many cases they work with existing staff in others a high percentage of staff is a place we encourage both bold approaches and collaboration among unions parents and administrators working on low performing schools is extraordinarily hard work it takes talented committed staff willing to do whatever it takes to help those children be successful you need great leadership affective supports and more time for learning we support all of that these will always be local decisions not federal decisions we can't make these decisions in washington and they must be made at the local level and we encourage adults at the local level to collaborate and work together to do what's best for children as hard as this work is is also critically important and for all the challenges i've never been more optimistic across this country mr chairman with never had more high performing high poverty schools than we do today we know what is possible we have to take to scale what works and make those shining examples not the exception but the norm before we get to questions i want to make a few points about our budget request first of all there's still some confusion about competitive versus formula funding we are actually committed to continuing reform of the funding of programs like title one an idea as well as program serving english language learners homeless children migrant and rural students every state faces educational challenges with the special populations and we would never put those children at risk at the same at the same time every state needs to get better and as raise the top as demonstrated a little bit of competitive funding  barriers to collaboration and reform i also want to make a few points about efficiencies in our budget request we have a lemonade earmarks and cut programs that were duplicative or ineffective saving hundreds of millions of dollars we've also consolidated number of programs to reduce red tape for schools and districts seeking grant funds we want them to spend their time on a paperwork a bureaucracy deal with us but i'm working with the students looking ahead we still have money from the recovery act to distribute including through race the top in the invest in we have approximately eleven billion dollars in special education in title one funding to distribute we have billions more in pell grants and we have several billion dollars left in the state fiscal stabilization fund which will also go out in the months ahead however i'm deeply concerned about state funding shortfalls in the upcoming school year and i'm very hopeful that we can do something to help states verdun education catastrophe that would sacrifice vital education programs we also need the senate to consider the proposal that passed the house to eliminate bank of subsidies and shift to direct lending because our early learning and higher education agenda agenda depends on that there's much more like to talk about the let me stop there and take your question thank you very much mr secretary and between us i don't know if we have a complete answer to that question yet but one i want to commend you for spending a considerable amount of time over the last several months meeting both the republican and democratic leaders in the house and the senate on this issue and then the very positive development in terms of developing bipartisan bill for the reauthorization and i want to thank you for that the other part of this before i get a little maybe a little elaboration on your part on the timeline is that what intrigues me about race to the top and i recognize it's not complete yet and people have made application and you're going to go through through that process and and the innovation fund and i think even even even the  standards is that states and in some cases quite possibly school districts will get them will get to make they get to initiate the reform they get to decide if a governor doesn't believe the common stand aren't good we saw in race to the race the top most most governors made the decision that they wanted to try and compete knowing that not they will not all necessarily be successful but hopefully those that do will show others how it how it can be done and the changes for that but i'm really encouraged by this that i think it's very often we suggest reforms but they're not properly funded so i think that in this case what you've seen is in my own state where there's great resistance to many of the parts by different parts of the education community to raise them they came together and the state legislature i'm not saying what they passed was perfect but they've taken that first big step where two or three four years ago  beginning the questions about timeframe is i think our discussions suggest the we would really like to get this done this session of congress we know that the congress  huge amount of activity in this last session we had the economy that we had to deal with we had a crises and our financial institutions and it took up a lot of people's a lot of people's time i assume that's consistent with all of the groundwork that you laid for these meetings and the meetings that where the joint staff and the by camel staffs have been working together but if you'd like to elaborate on that i think it be helpful to the members of the committee because they may have more detailed questions if they want to ask you that is absolutely go and i think there's so much that we can do to fix the current law i think far too many schools and school districts and teachers have been labeled failures when they're not so let me give an example if if i'm a fifth grade teacher a child comes to me three grade levels behind reading the second grade level in the second grade level and that child these my classroom the fourth grade level and in no child left behind that teacher that school in the district is labeled a failure i would argue not only that teacher not a failure that teachers are remarkable success that that child gain two years of growth for one year's instruction that is remarkable remarkable work we need to emphasize again i mean to emphasize improvement we need to make sure that students are being taught a well rounded curriculum of her throughout the country a real concern about the narrowing of the curriculum and we want to make sure not just our high school students but our elementary students have access to arts and music science social studies reading math a hugely important but we can't focus who simply there we've talked about having high standards around the country it's critically important our students be graduate from high school college and career ready and in so many places due to political pressure not to do what's right for children not to do what's right for that state economy standards have been dummied down and ultimately that's not what our students need need to raise expectations is not what our country needs me to educate our way to a better economy so i think we have a huge opportunity working together working through where we have abs legitimate differences and finding compromises i think we have a chance to dramatically improve stop labeling so many places as failures have high standards for everybody reward success reward excellence but be tough minded where things aren't working we had a hearing earlier this week on mr policies bill on charter schools and one of our witnesses was eva moscowitz who runs the success academy in the in the harlem children's zone and she's a tough defender of what she's doing and  said the deal was the this that in her mind when she opened the schools inside of the new york city school system as a public charter that she was trading outcomes for flexibility and her job was to deliver the outcomes and that and it was a systems obligation to provide her some flexibility to design into it and to deploy personnel and parents and community and others in support of those of those kids it sounds a little bit like what you're outlining here in the sense that we've we've talked about about the growth model how it could be shaped how it could be improved and but we want to make sure that those children are on a target to be ready to go to college and to or enter a career when they graduate from high school and that they graduate from high school easier said than done but i think the right concept so that the federal government might back out of some of those some of the business of the districts that we're now pretty deeply involved in and i just absolutely philosophically aligned i think one of the things when the big issues problems challenges with the current law is they've got fundamentally wrong what you manage tight and what you manage loops and seal be was extraordinarily loose on the goals and so again those goals got dummied down to two different goalposts all over the country and that's not good very loose there but very tight very prescriptive on how you get there i want to flip that literally on head i want to be very tight on the goals have a high bar college ready career ready standards again determined by the state by the state that the local net will not  have a high bar but didn't give folks much more flexibility much less prescriptive about how they get their hold them accountable for results as in your example but we can't nor should we be micromanaging one hundred thousand schools i go for that we need to recognize success there are where we're seeing folks knock the ball out of the part you have to you have to year working with very disadvantaged children seen remarkable results we replicate that we need to reward that we decline that is as much as we can and we have a huge opportunity here i think to get those things right that didn't quite we're taking at look into reauthorizing e s e a the work i'm just echoing the chairman miller's comments the fact that we're working together in a bipartisan buy camera way with the white house and with the department starting with a blank piece of paper to see what we can do is absolutely the right process and i applaud that and thank you for it i d e a i'm a secretary i just look at the numbers and you know i expressed my disappointment with the previous administration bush administration as well for not funding this in the budget we have known now for over thirty years that the federal government is supposed to provide for forty percent of the excess funding required looking back over a ten year period in two thousand we were at twelve percent worked our way up to a peak in the two thousand five period of around eighteen percent and this budget shows us at seventeen percent if we would just meet the federal obligation we would help every school in america every school district every administrator every principal every teacher parents all over my district and all of the districts of all us here would like to see that funded and in this budget where we need to reach twenty six point one billion we've got eleven point seven five five billion and in the words of our friend and colleague the member of congress from connecticut ms diallo she says this is budget dust and it is two hundred fifty million dollars it is very very disappointing and miss secretary i heard you just say that there are efficiencies in this budget saving hundreds of millions of dollars if we save hundreds of millions of dollars how could we only get two hundred fifty million dollars f and i'm not even talking about other priorities that have gone in here one point three five billion from the race to the top five hundred million for i three billion is a sitting there for an e s c a contingency seven point point five billion over ten years to expand income based repayment options and so forth there are other priorities in here that seems to me we could have addressed but just in the hundreds of millions of dollars and efficiencies we could only do two hundred fifty million for id how can that be why did that happen now it's more than fair question so i don't think the two hundred fifty million dollars is a budget just i think that's that's real money i understand it is not know when you would like it to be coupled this other thoughts on it as you know we requested twelve billion dollars through the air act to increase funding but half about it's been spent this year we anticipate the other half about six billion dollars still being available for the upcoming school year for two thousand and ten so there's a huge increase there and secondly as you know so much of what we're trying to do through rates of topping out the funding while it's not direct to ideate all those programs as we improve education that's going to significantly improve education for children with disabilities so between the two hundred fifty million dollars increase six billion dollars under the air act and all the other grants that we want to put out to districts and states those are going to touch and improve outcomes for students with disabilities secretary  thank you for the answer we've had this discussion before as well the stimulus money if you go out and talk to the school administrators and school boards and schools across the country they look at that stimulus money it's one time money they can't use it to fix the program they can't use it to go out and hire more teachers that's the reason we need to put certainty in the budget we've got a spike of money that came out of this some of it can't be used to be spent in the ways they wanted i just reiterate to you that i appreciate the answer you know you're defending the president's budget that's your job i just want to tell you how deeply disappointed i am and i think schools across the country there had to be groans from coast to coast when they looked and saw two hundred fifty million dollars and i chairman secretary i enjoyed hearing you read dr seuss to the third graders yesterday good to see that you're still in the trenches in education thank you the president last year we had one point one six billion for the twenty first century learning centers and i know the president's budget puzzles me a bit by proposing to make the twenty first century initiatives include extending learning time and full service community schools that essentially would cut resources for the twenty first century learning centers those centers have been very successful they go beyond just the educational electional but to the social development of the child how do you propose to keep those twenty first century learning centers healthy and productive yeah great question i was am a huge huge fan of afterschool program mean how and this is where i normally get booed by students and i talk a lot about the school day having to be longer in the school week in the school year and i would love our schools to be open twelve thirteen fourteen hours a day particularly disadvantaged communities our students need more than what we're giving them now in those programs we want to continue to support what we've done again this is caused some confusion and controversy but w try to do is to do fewer things but to do them well we've focused our funding and k to twelve in sort of six big buckets around innovation around teachers and leaders as i talk a lot about well about a well rounded education around making sure students are college and c ready folks and diverse learners but the one that's most relevant to you mr congressman is around student supports and that total pot of money which the after school money twenty first century money center is part of it that is up to one point eight billion dollars and there's a two hundred forty five million dollars increase there as a whole series of things we can do to make sure our students are safe and healthy and have a chance to be successful the promise neighborhoods money is in there i will also say that one thing we haven't talked about that the money for after school programming so the total pot there to support students including afterschool programming is up about two hundred forty five million and if we successfully reauthorize there's a chance for significant resources and new resources to come that direction as well students going stay in schools longer hours getting that community supports engaged they are not just children i would argue families as well parents ged e s l family literacy nights the more schools truly become community standards the better our children are going to do in this congress for thirty four years and it's good to have a secretary who does recognize that the best education bill we ever pass our bipartisan education bills and i appreciate your work and let me ask you one thing you were with the leaders of the major national union van a daily basis i was with the head of the n e a yesterday and with the head of the f t tomorrow and their input is hugely important let me just say is and everyone excellence we don't identify the best teachers we don't support those in the middle and we don't weed out those at the very bottom who after great support and mentoring don't get should be teaching and if it doesn't work for any adults is deafening not working for children either and so we have a real opportunity to do this together this has to be done with the input with the support with the collaboration of teachers and teachers unions but where we have meaningful evaluation that helps any of us this in any profession grow and develop and recognizes talent supports that in the middle and some folks if it's not working to buy on being honest about that we have to get there's a country has a huge opportunity here and everybody want to work on this nobody is defending the status quo nobody thank first i'm concerned about a proposal that was discussed during the recent negotiate a rule making session surrounding an attempt by the department to define gainful employment in a way that will force closure of many good programs specifically in the  proprietary schools has a department heard about these concerns and could you detail the analysis the department's done to examine the impact of the proposal to ensure the good schools will not be forced to close down these very important programs as you know we've put out some drafts and have lots of conversation this were by no means a decision making points or three step process is you know this is a draft on this out there in june we'll put out a proposal and get feedback on that and the we'll come back for a final rule making in november lots of time in this i would love to have you know your thoughts your input on what the right thing to do is here we are by no means wedded to any one direction we want to make sure students aren't being abused or taken advantage of but we don't want to be heavy handed over the heavy handed here so whatever thoughts you have placements important to us you know graduation rates are important to us default rates are important to us and how we you want the free market play you also at the end of the free market you want to make sure bad bad actors aren't taking advantage of the folks who are really working to try and improve their lives i'm a big believer in competition and i think the free market play here bad  actors lose business so the very end of the spectrum i think we need to hold folks accountable but we don't want to put in place something that has an authentic lot of consequences so if you have top tier ideas in this we are more than open and again we have lots of time here to work this thing through i  appreciate that and i will be contacting you about those concerns you know one of the i know of no child left behind has some detractors and has some some champions no bill is is perfect but i thought one of the good things that came out of no child left behind was see supplemental education services now the administration has provided numerous waivers to states and school districts and  one of the concerns i have is that the administration's position that c s is is restrictive to some by granting these waivers to some of the schools and that  that it causes some low income and some people that the benefit greatly from that program that they can't use the services and can't make them available so i'm wondering why is a department doing this through waiver and circumventing the congress why don't we wait and addresses during the reauthorize a and process let me just be very very clear i'm not at all in resources in the best way to help students improve and again should we be from washington saying you have to do this are we saying here's a pot of money if this is the right way to do it go and do if you have a better idea will hold you accountable for results you do it you may remember a couple years ago when i was on the other side of the law i've education like heck because they were fusing to let me tutor tens of thousands of poor children who are behind low grade level and the point is trying to tell me that i was allowed to tutor and fortunately we had data that showed that we were doing it in about a third of the cost of the privateers and that our results we had objective quantifiable data that showed we were we were getting better outcomes for students then about two thirds of the providers out my numbers are going to exact the majority providers we're doing a better job out there of the i'm for accountability around it and for results and where districts have title one money whatever money they have at this is the right you'll good actors should get business nonprofits for profits districts bad actors should not get business and let you know i want to power local education figure out what the right thing to do for their children i don't ask your question based on be very clear what i'm thinking about this issue is this i know that that's where you are because we've had discussions about this before and i've heard you talk about your your d n a and how this is so important to you my concern is that there may be others in the department that don't have quite those same concerns and and i know that there's at the local level conflict between the unions wanting to keep keep the s e s out and or make sure that they get the money that their teachers are the ones that are there doing all that work so i just appreciate you maybe looking into that and seeing that some aren't being deprived of that i will and let me just so hold me accountable on that let's go to the conversation point and let me really clear i don't think this is the unions  the providers let me tell you what happened what was the irony in this is chicago we checked all this the overwhelming majority of folks hired by the provider of the private providers were actually union teachers sure they hired him and paid them what we were paying them the difference was we weren't taking any overhead we weren't making a profit the private are making a profit some were doing a good job some weren't doing a good job but every dollar that went to the to their bottom line with another child in a desk the long waiting lists didn't have an much good to see you and i wish you continued success the we talk about the president's goal to lead with college graduation by the year two thousand twenty and i'm wondering you know how we're looking at programs like trio in gear up in support of the goals are these programs the ban embrace then your budget i didn't get a chance to go through supportive trio and you're up a couple things there's been some some rumors are numbers out this some how those numbers decrease let me give you our numbers here the numbers actually we're not between two young gear up in two thousand about six thousand one hundred students went up fell from seven hundred thirty eight thousand roughly to seven hundred forty seven thousand so that this is significant increases there we want to continue to support students going on to college and graduating we have this part of the you guys have passed appreciate leadership is for the senate two point five billion dollars in a college access to completion fund and there's a chance there for these programs to continue to grow and expand and so again we want to find ways to provide support for to kill for disadvantaged students to not just successfully graduate from high school and not just go to college but graduate at the back end and where programs are doing a great job with that we want to continue to support great well in the same vein and maybe we're reading your budget incorrectly but i think you propose the elimination of funding for the leap program and of course as you know many states are certainly struggling and i just wonder if that's true and why at this point would  everyone's cost conscious but why would you move in that direction at this time what we're looking to do is again bucket programs in these larger buckets and actually we increase funding every single bucket that we did so around college incredibly college and students three three hundred fifty four million dollars increase there so we're trying to put more money behind programs that are working but consolidate them in some places compete them out so programs can demonstrate success more resources there were things aren't working want to move them elsewhere thanks to the the and i agree with you in the leave no child behind when you call the school a failing school there was supposed to be a component that it would show wonder have you looked then being able to urge the educators to to do those plans that are supposed to be for each failing kids it's  great question and the thing that's most troubled me with this when i talk about this dumbing down of standards is a lot of students that have worked hard and did been told by districts and states that they're on track to be successful and what i honestly think congressman is that we've lied to those children that in many places the standards have been so reduced they will students that are hitting the state standard this proficiency level because the bar so low they are barely able to graduate from high school and they are totally inadequately prepared to be successful in college we have to stop we stop lying to people and so we have back map that the eighth grade in the fifth grade and third grade so that my son or daughter your son or daughter knows what their strengths and weaknesses are are they on track are they not in where they're on track right where they're behind the child the parents after school the teacher needs to work together behind that and on that we have not had those honest conversations and by doing that by getting to the individual child and student level we have a chance i think to get much better results over the long haul great just quickly before my time expires as there is  i've seen a lot of attention of course to charter schools and i know that's one of the big moves in this administration however i've seen last the interest it appears in failing public schools and really concentrating on it now to charters you know you're going to get the parents who have the initiative you know and charter schools have one siblings and at the other automatically gets in it the failing schools just become more chronically bad and i just think that they're not going away and i believe that as much attention has to be put into i'd like to see some of those charter school people take the failing public schools that everybody is still at and make that successful charter school can be successful no question about an action suit million residents i want to give you a proposal has a plan where they want to take failing schools work with the teachers union and keep the kids right there at a are and make them successful rather than cherry pick and send them to the new charter schools that we see going up all around us it's a great great point and to be clear i'm a fan of good charters not a fan of all charter some charters a great some charge a part of problem i've been very very clear in the charter community around that we are putting four billion dollars behind turning around the nation's lowest performing schools we all have to get together behind this we all have to say where we have fifty sixty seven percent of students dropping out they have no chance of chasing the american dream there are no good jobs out there all of us have to get in the business of turning around these schools districts universities state charter organizations unions all of us have to step up to the plate there just you know there's a tiny handful of charta groups who are actually doing this green dots in los angeles took over charter school took over school kept all the kids i think in the first year attendance were not for the students about twelve percent which means doing going to school about a month more in mass to chart and philadelphia took over school the second most violent school there violence basically disappeared they went in two years from seven percent of students seventh grade math f f s in sea levels to about fifty four percent have to step up and to me it's a manageable number every year we should be taking this kind of man of reform schools and doing something differently as a country as a nation if we do that these students in very very tough communities can perform exponentially better it's hard work it is tough this is the hardest work out argue in america today folks often think too it's a it's urban issue we talk about two thousand dropout factories about half an urban area about twenty percent are suburban about thirty percent of rural this is a national challenge so we all have to think about this and the answer is have to be the local level can be very very different situation by situation case by case but we have to do something we can't just to your point we can't sustain a sideline and continuously these things happen  country not just in dollar of it all over the country too and i've watched the charter movement optically in my state and some of our best schools now are charter schools others have had to give up their charter as charter schools because they've sort of basically failed my question to you  your research arm or is anybody in the department trying to claw late the information about what these business programs are that work in a motel not regulating them or anything like that but just trying to find out what works in the charter schools what works and so these business  programs that are offered as a matter of understanding and knowledge so that others could borrow from that in our regular school system we are trying to do it in to me again it's not just so there are again very high performing charter schools and there are mediocre charter schools and the schools should be closed and say all along that that spectrum and the same is true for traditional schools and i've argued our country we just need more good schools of every form and fashion but particular good schools and communities have been historically underserved so we're trying to track that where i'm spending lots of time just you know is looking at high performing high poverty schools and so we have lots of schools that are seventy eighty ninety percent poverty students living below the poverty line where you know eighty nine percent is a graduate we're really beating the odds in some of those might be charter some of those are traditional public schools so i think there are huge examples again that's one of my frustrations historically is for all these challenges with never had more examples of help with it never had more examples to understand not because of one reckless child one reckless teacher but year after year the schools are beating the odds and so we have to to your point we have to learn from them so we do have folks looking at those schools what's happening there what are the  strategies how how do we replicate that success and elementary is middle schools high schools we have across the country people doing extraordinary work every single day we have not come out with been scared to talk about success when scared to talk about excellence i don't understand that i think just so much we can learn across the board from these high performing schools and what they do is they put the line in the myth that poor children can't learn and the children disadvantaged communities can't be successful and i think we have to be very very open and have a tough conversation maybe lead to some sort of national standards from the states not from the from the federal government they can tune in again to address mr klein's concerns if these are national standards of these are federal standards a thing dies this should always be given to local level we should not be touching that we should not be touching the curriculum i couldn't agree more on the fact of the matter is this is being led by forty eight governors and forty eight state school chief and it's interesting you guys who follow this know three years ago this is probably a third rail you can talk about this but you had that leadership the state level you have the heads of both unions absolute support of pushing very hard in this direction you know the business community has been begging this for this for years you have great non profits like how is born achieve who are behind this so it's an idea whose time has really come and met two two weekends ago with governor from around the country who came in the n c a a and to see their level of enthusiasm again bipartisan republican democrat across the country say this is the right thing we're going to keep working hard together i can't tell you how encouraging that is to your point once you have and they're still getting  seen kentucky kentucky has been the first state to adopt which is great in other states are now following suit once you have a higher bar then you need to have better assessments more comprehensive assessment behind that our concern was that states have the courage to do the right thing in terms of standards but because under such huge financial pressure would not be able to get better assessments behind the high standards so we took three hundred fifty million dollars from race the top card that aside and we're going to put that out on a competitive basis to groups of states that want to work to create a better cessna so i won't be our assessments they won't be federal assessments that the assessments driven at the local level and so we're trying to remove the financial impediment to getting there and so there's going to take some time and some transition i got to work through but over the next couple years if we could look every child in the country in the eye and say that we have their real college ready career ready standards for you and we have much more thoughtful much more comprehensive assessment behind that that's a huge breakthrough that's  i've heard i've heard you talk before about the teacher colleges of education and the fact they perhaps need to do more in terms of both preparation and with their attracting and that kind of thing i'd be interested your comments of how we could improve teacher quality so schools of education we have hundreds and hundreds of schools education again you have a zone you have asked and you have everything in between i will tell you as i chatted to thirty seven states last year and talked to hundreds and hundreds of teachers great teachers struggling teachers new teachers all teachers veteran teachers you name it the consistent theme i heard from teachers again urban rural suburban cost of thing was two complaints two issues they had with their own schools of education on preparation one is they felt that joey didn't have enough hands on training but they were in classrooms with real children not too much around philosophy and the history of education not enough about how do i manage this classroom with children secondly there's been this outpouring of innovation over the past five ten years in terms of real time data that's helping teachers improve their instruction on daily basis differentiate instruction teachers jobs have never been harder than they are today you have a huge range of students abilities coming into your classroom and how with twenty eight thirty thirty four students how do you teach that wide range of differentiated structure is all this great data now that helps you understand each child where they are what's working what's not almost none of that data driven instruction training is going on the schools of it and he's a great teachers who learned this but of all they're on the job in their question why didn't i get that at the front and so those two things more hands on practical work in classrooms and secondly much more data driven instruction training are the two major issues that again i  look a little bit over the horizon over the next six eight years we could have as many as a million teachers retire we have a baby boomer generation that's this going now and so our ability to attract and retain great talent over the next five six eight years is going to shape public education is country for the next thirty years it's a generational shift whether it's through alternative certification whether through traditional schools of education we just need to find out how we get the hardest working most committed teachers into education and then what specifically in the under served communities let me give you one example so i'm going to go along here this is a i keep citing this example in louisiana they are tracking the data from hundreds of thousands of students back to tens of thousand teachers and from those teachers back to those teachers schools of education or the alternate certification path where they came from and so in the louisiana they can tell you which schools of education are producing the teachers that are producing the students that are learning the most and what you're having have in schools of education change their curriculum based upon the results of their alumni children this is not about god yet this is about continuous improvement and we have one state don't you have other states in that direction but louisiana doesn't have some patent on some amazing technology that the world can't share that simply had the courage to say that teachers matter tremendously and we want to stand which teachers are working well and schools of education say hey this is a chance for us to get better this is an idea i think again why do we have one out of fifty what are we missing here is a country thank you sector in this transition but mr chairman we have a before the gavel roll because if we do i think i'd be cutting head and some other education for trying to find ways to achieve value added and quality for students and i look forward to working with you on that i think that will be guided by the principles of having a functioning free market work where one exists so people can vote with their feet and choose the best course for themselves and where quality is measured rather than some raw or inaccurate proxy for quality i look forward to being able to do that i want to ask you a question about k twelve education and thank you for your contributions there what changes do you think we should consider in the supplemental services area my observation about no child left behind is that we've not really fully exploited the opportunities to improve learning for children and quality of schools by getting the most bang for our buck in supplemental services what kinds of innovations would you like to see is consider there i think the biggest thing over time is that said repeatedly that we have to continue to extend our time i think our sixty six hours a day five days a week nine months out of the year isn't enough for our children and children in india and china who are students are competing we were just going to school longer i think our students are as smart as talented as committed as ambitious anyone else in the world i want to level the playing field my concern is that we're putting too much on a competitive disadvantage  think about schools as community standards that mr keelty talked about how we think about doing great tutoring after school weekends summers for students again particular disadvantaged students i think we have to be much more thoughtful in doing that what i think ultimately is going to look at those providers districts nonprofits for profits whatever who are demonstrating ability to accelerate the rate of growth and you have phenomenal players who are doing a great job and we should get to know they have a chance of working more children you have other players that frankly harder we have to work faster at a time when resources are really constrained how do you get there you've got to work smarter that is i'm looking for we know given your track record you'll accomplish that i want to ask you about a vexing problem that is schools and educators and children which is the proper proper calculation of a y p for students with disabilities children who are classified under the i d e a there's no one in this committee on either side that ever wants to deprive a child with a learning disability issue of the absolute opportunity to achieve his or her x absolute maximum potential we never want to define limitations or failure for these children and then have that become a self fulfilling prophecy by the same token we want to be cognizant of their evaluation of our schools so that we're not holding schools to unrealistic standards a number of schools in my state in my district are not achieving a y p because of that one indicator because of the special ed indicator what would you like us to consider with respect to striking that proper balance between student achievement and fair evaluation really powerful questions and as we think about reauthorization again bipartisan support has been phenomenal and in a sense momentum you can make a pretty good case that the toughest issues you have to grapple with is how you feel evaluate student disability and how you feel evaluate english language learners and spending tons of time talking to national experts to try and get this right i'll tell you the two extremes needed which works one is which you don't hold these students or teachers accountable for their progress and there's a time in which these students were swept under the rug and people thought well you if you will you were learning english you had just bill you couldn't learn you know we had disastrous and we don't want to do that well you want to do that the flip side is when a student again he'll al or special ed is take an assessment which i can't comprehend you don't want that either so how do you hold folks accountable with an assessment that makes sense that's the that's the middle path i think that the common sense logical path have a high bar for students  make sure that they have a real chance to out to demonstrate their skills and knowledge in that assessment i have two people on my team who i'm relying heavily on their counts on this alexa pas and he is working on these ideas side she's the former state school chief in kansas extraordinarily thoughts on this issue phenomenal credibility and her counsel listen to very very closely on the e l l side the woman who's in charge of my k to twelve agendas down the melendez and it's and she's a former student and she was told along the way that college probably wasn't for her and she's live this this is personal and she went on to do ok and get a doctorate and was award winning superintendent susanna you in california and so these are people who this is a passion and we want to get this right i think there's a common sense middle ground we want as close to that as we can and again want to work with both bank sides and with community leaders on these issues to to fix what's broken but again maintain a high bar that's  this isn't a real struggle for some of us on the one hand i agree with many of the things your you're proposing to do whether it's such a performance measurement accountability forms of school based management public school  choice a lot of the things you say and how to measure and the other hand as a conservative i don't believe these are not part of a federal school board and the real question here is is this the position that the federal government should be taking similar disconnect on in indiana right now our big talk is the budgets tight the the governor has cut back we see schools laying off teachers we see them closing down schools and we come out here and we're hearing how we're going to spend more money we're going to spend money on this and spend money on that when our deficits are far bigger than the state deficits and there's an increasing disconnect between washington and the grassroots they're glad for the money which leads me now into some substantive points here that you've paid tremendous lip service  and i believe it's sincere to local leadership and that education should come from the local but two phenomena of our current here one is that there's a desperation for funds and therefore the race to the top is having a disproportionate steering of local even if it's the right thing to do than it's ever been done before in indiana we don't know if we're going to get the funds yet the bulk of the school districts are racing to implement hoping they can get a few dollars out of the federal government so the lip service saying this is local really isn't true right now they're redoing at the federal in the danger here is not your specifics the danger is that many of us don't believe that you can not have manipulation of curriculum that you can ever have long term not whatever the latest fad is for professional development that when we get into who favorite programs going to be done the more it gets consolidated the less diversity there will be and that whatever the latest fad will be looking ten to twenty years from now the federal government will have usurped that power somebody who doesn't agree with your approach or mortared which is more an american federation teachers approach than any approach historically over the last twenty five years look at miami chicago place that had a hefty they were more flexible in these type of things in if we go back to the old approach right now it's consolidated we won't continue to innovate and we won't do the things that's of a philosophical question then point i just wanted to raise to you because it's a dilemma that's a true dilemma right now because in effect  a consolidation of approach even though you're giving flexibility to reach some of those goals another part of that is that states that are actually implementing things in last night the two largest districts in in  my biggest county second largest district in the state fort wayne announced they're closing one of the historic high schools elmhurst that all teachers will be up for review they've moved the principals from a number of the schools that they felt needed to be moved they're implementing the programs now the second largest district the most diverse district in the state of indiana announced they're going to have to cut teachers probably close model schools and do this in when you do do your funding i think it's important that if because you earlier many states are resource challenge and they're struggling with it that those states that are taking the hard actions not even knowing whether they're going to get a dime from you are punished in the process if actually they're implementing the programs because let me say this now from your standpoint if the states that have implemented the programs don't have adequate resources the research is going to show they didn't work partly because they didn't have the resources and some of as you go through this decision process if you look at the school systems that are really doing it are committed and are actually doing it before the money there you're most likely chances to see that something works and i hope you will take that in consideration in the process because look for wayne i'm not going to pretend like the superintendent is a big supporter of mine or the teachers unions or big supporter of mine but they're doing some very innovative things and they should be looked at very closely because they're making really tough decisions now a quick information request on the student loan program you have in your budget on july first that they'll be the flip some of us question whether that flip will occur in a good way many of the universities don't want to do that so could you provide me with the documentation that outlines past present future actions to make sure that no students will go out without loans if that is not passed you know the words that you have presumed something and are forcing people if it's not the law and then lastly a quick question on in the bill family therapists are not currently allowed in the mental health area whether it's military service providers people services or school counseling this would just be allowed to use not additional money but i think it's important when we deal with mental health and i know if you support that a lot there  on to the answers direct landing we're not presuming anything we just want to be prepared and we think again this is a chance to stop subsidies to banks as much as eighty seven billion dollars and dramatically increase pell grants and perkins loans t tax credits for hardworking american families who still in destiny want to go to college and they feel they can afford it but also enabled us to invest about ten billion dollars no childhood education which we could make a pretty compelling case is the best investment we could make all this about going back to t axpayers we simply want to be prepared on our side due to the private market collapsing over the past two three years before we got here it's gone from about one thousand universities participants participating directly lending to over twenty three hundred so it's more than doubled again before we did anything just because you know folks need us and so we think this is the right thing to do is a huge opportunity here genetically increase patient best and again simply by stopping subsidizing banks come out the middle man the private sector will have one hundred percent of the loan servicing business we don't think we should be in that business we don't think any good at it we think the private sector is absolute place to play that's a huge and growing market good actors will get more business bad actors get less business but if we can make college dramatically more accessible and affordable for millions and millions of americans going forward we think that that's the right thing to do on and it's interesting on race the top what we're trying to say is that a few things are important having high having high standards matter being chance to turn around data matters great teachers and principals matter and being tough minded in schools on working have honest conversations matter what we've tried to do to sort of alleviate or to just i mean concerns is what we want to do is whether it's race  a school improvement grants or invest in innovation funds a teacher sent a funds all we want to do is put money behind those places that have the courage to your point in the capacity to live a better results as for students and that's going to take many many different forms of fashion's we're not going to come up with a playbook we don't have a playbook but where folks are raising the bar for all students in close achievement gap we want to take those innovations to scale and so we're just a good showing great work with a thousand students let's take that to two thousand if a state is working with  half their kids and away one thing we see every child let's get there so what we want to do is use our and we've been absolutely blessed to have this opportunity to use these resources to put it behind districts with the courage the capacity in the commitment to get better results for students so it's not our ideas it's simply investing in that local work to take to scale to your point districts are never to have been on a more financial duress and so my worry is that they have a good idea they can't move it we want to put the resources behind it to do that and where  they over time where they continue to demonstrate ability to close achievement gap to raise the bar will keep funding plan if they feel that those things stop happening will take their money go someplace else and so that's just the understand sort of where we want to go i will say many many dishes on race the top many states again everyone desperately wants money no question i can't tell you how many conversations i've heard of folks in all candor saying to me yes we love the money what is happening the conversations with had in the movement we've had regardless whether we get the money or not we moved light years from whatever would happen for and when we get the money not want to keep moving to sort of unlock what needed to happen in some of these ideas conversations the amount of silos in education are staggering and just getting folks to the table and talking has been hugely beneficial and we're going have a very high bar in terms of how we fund frankly a lot more losers than winners will come back with a second round we're proposing another one point three five billion dollars in next year's budget by eleven to come back with third round so we're going to keep coming back but the movement you see the states before spend it's a dime i would say you haven't seen that kind of movement in decades and that in itself is a huge huge about the structure we only have you we have a memorial service at eleven o'clock we agree that you would leave then mr scott is next but i just act which included a provision for modeling and simulation programs than the last appropriations bill we funded the program it requires the department to appoint a board develop a curriculum and  fund existing programs and new programs that can you tell me what the status is on the administration can you tell me that now or in writing later would you rather do it in writing absolutely i'll get back to an entertainer we also passed in the house the campus safety act which would provide funding for center for campus safety to prevent and respond to acts of violence on college campuses and pass the house in the last congress had passed the house again in this congress and it's been sitting over in the senate can we get some help from the administration to see if we can't pry it out of the senate so that when acts of violence so we can prevent acts of violence and respond appropriately i'll check it out for you the budget committee you responded to the situation of the trio programs there is some concern that the trio programs budget and the fiscal year budgets do not correspond in this some concern the one hundred eighty seven programs that were found in the reconciliation bill two years ago may lose their funding before if we don't do something this year i think it's administered the department's feeling that if we deal with the next year they'll be no how the budget and policies will reduce the achievement gap particularly with dropouts yes while race the top has gotten all the press and attention so far what folks haven't focused enough on and as the school improvement grants and three point five billion dollars going to school improvement grants rights the top is supposed to help all schools in the state or as many as a state apply for school improvement grants are focused just on those bottom five percent of schools across the country and so we are putting a huge amount of money by formula out to every single state and so they're on precedented resources and so what we're saying is where things aren't getting better and where we have jobs are rates of fifty sixty seventy percent we have to do something dramatically different and we're putting our money where our mouth is in putting a huge you know tens of millions of dollars in some states hundreds of millions of dollars out there dependent stateside to see us break through here for all the huge challenges we face again we have never i don't think we've ever had more high performing high poverty schools so we know what's possible and so we want to learn from them we want to replicate those successes and we want to put a lot of money out there i think if we're serious about closing the achievement gap we need more time for students and great teachers great principals matter tremendously we got to close the opportunity gap thank you and you visit and we thank you for visiting one of those success stories and i know what an achievable dream was one of many schools that has just blown me away and am i correct of achievement gap there is basically nonexistent is that that's right that's an accurate statement and what the what the poverty rate of that community i think just about everybody is on free and reduced lunch there's some dropout factories that are the there's some good and some bad i heard a statistic that eighty percent of the charter schools are either the same or worse than the other than the comparable schools that's not right and there are lots of studies out there often with competing numbers i'm not familiar with that number i would tell you one one study that was because there's some legitimate concerns that some charters may be the parents of more involved a high functioning so some selection bias there's one interesting study that  i looked at the came out of stanford that tracked many charters have long waiting lists and some students get in and many don't get in so it's sort of a little bit more of a apples to apples comparison and they looked at the research and looked at students who are all around the way list some who got in and some who didn't so trying to remove that selection bias and that study this is just schools in new york city as one example again is a big country out there but that example showed that students who actually got into the charters from the waiting perform better than those who did not but i think you know charters are very uneven around the country i think you need a high bar to in terms of who you are allowed to open a charter school this cannot be let a thousand flowers bloom once you pick once you have that high bond that someone you have to hold them accountable for results and you have to give them the autonomy to get their facts to the bid so those three things high bar to entry true accountability real autonomy we see bills those parameters in place of structures in place you see better schools where you don't have those things in place i think charters just perpetuate what's already out there reauthorization this year i think it would be good that we all work together so appreciate that in really offer my services to do that and some ideas i've been meeting with superintendents of them meet with teachers and they have a lot of good ideas practitioners and so w bring that together only the higher ed direct loan and sale program is question i have a lot but the money as i was really looking at the bill when it was before so it's been a little while but they did seven billion dollars has been spent a good part of that money and my understand is that the federal government borrows that i cheaper right there for the direct loan program can borrow money in a few bright but still instances at the same rate and i would be more inclined to have supported that if we had made it a reduced interest for people to borrow to spend it didn't lose money to the pell program which make college more affordable because i can tell you the biggest fear for most people that the moderate income to higher income in my district there are a lot of help for b of the lower income is just affordability of college  d that that is the main thing on their concern and then but just as specific and mr scott had it just a little bit is a big concern i think there are people moving into the direct program now that anecdotally that say we're just worried about what's going to happen in july and i spent all of august and i didn't get a lot of publicity because we were other things happen in august but the cash for clunker program which i voted for so i had tried to work through in the answers with people saying i can't nobody will take my phone call what i will say again is that what folks don't understand is over the prior two three years we've gone from a thousand universities participating to twenty three hundred universities participate more than doubled our interactions i don't think you've heard  collapse and so far that's been handled i think impeccably well so that but everybody's going to move into the program over the next few months of the bill passes through the senate so that mean that you're going to your bottom is going to many people already half my point many people already have is not going to be a huge request to fund i d e a this is across the board for all of us yes ma'am mr secretary charter schools have been a successful experiment it was intended to identify new methods  learning and teaching and with the idea when charter schools when we first started this when i first got elected eighteen years ago the idea was to integrate these successes and learn from what worked and didn't work into the public school system the idea was not mr secretary to result in the third rail of education to compete with public education  as usual leaving the kids most disadvantaged in the districts most disadvantaged in i need to the public school system so my question to you is as we  a are are we going to be committed to ensuring that there is the additional support funds support necessary to incorporate the best learning practices in masses and and systems that are available for every child and those that are actually being left behind because mr secretary some districts some students are considerably more in need of support when they enter the  classroom they aren't fed well they're they they're scared they don't have parental stability they need supplemental services i always say this kind of goes the nobody quite knows what i'm talking about but you can't work smarter you can't put together a system or a product if the individual parts are flawed and i worry that we are going to take slob parts and insist that even the best pictures are going to meet our standards and i think if children are scared they can't learn if children are hungry they can't learn if children can't see the blackboard they can't learn and so those foundational things glasses clothes food safety we absolutely have to address those openly and honestly when i manage to cause a public schools we fed tens of thousands of children breakfast lunch and dinner every day we built a program we sent a couple thousand children home with food friday afternoons because we were so worried about them not even over the weekends we gave out tens of thousands of eyeglasses free every single year because you have to do those things before you can talk about algebra and biology so i couldn't agree with you more that those foundational essential we have to do and some folks say schools shouldn't be doing these things i don't see how we educate without without doing those things my mother always said you know you can't teach someone when they're in their stomachs grumbling you know you have to feed child and so these things are in conflict we're working very very hard with secretary bill act i think he's providing vision visionary leadership there he wants to increase the nutrition and the nutrition content of those meals he wants to make sure snacks that are available are are healthy the first lady's anti obesity program is interesting in many communities you have this dual issue of obesity and hunger it's fascinating and so how do you adjust both sides of that same coin and so we're committed to doing those things and want to work hard to do that  also have a great great again whether it's traditional schools magnet schools give to schools charter schools out here we have great schools public all these public schools in these communities that face these huge challenges one of the and so we want to learn from those examples that despite pover sing challenges at home children still achieving remarkable levels and so you know we don't need to fix those issues we don't ever say the poor children can't learn we know we need to get there i'll tell you one the models that's been most impressive to me is what geoffrey canada has done the harlem children's zone where he's created great schools but around the schools he's created entire community behind his children in charleston in harlem have basically close the achievement gap with children the wealthiest suburbs that's fascinating and we want to put two hundred two hundred  ten million dollars behind what we're calling the promise neighborhoods and trying to replicate that success a billion type communities in neighborhoods around the country and we only want to go to disadvantaged communities where the biggest need is so i want to let you know that philosophically i couldn't agree more we're committed to getting there and we want do everything we can to remove every impediment to giving children a chance to be successful end of the chair to go to to mr thomas and then back to miss mccarthy and then we'll  issue it came up regarding four universities in pennsylvania penn state pitt temple and lincoln and i have to tell you i was very impressed i think i heard back from you within forty eight or seventy two hours of your responsiveness and i also really get a sense from listening your testimony you as a former school board member for many years at home that i think we share the same passion for on leashing the end evasion of local education at the local level and walking coming from that i just want to voluntarily moved to that i guess i would argue and i'm within that is one of my universities i have i represent seven in my rural district one of those penn state penn state is direct lending it works well there are a model for it i would have to say though that that's the only university the direct lending works for in my congressional district i have six that that struggle and largely it's a quantum me of size of penn state's got a wonderful university it's a very large it's got a lot lots of infrastructure and it works well for the other six and i've met with them on a regular basis over the past number of months that are really struggling to to do this so my mike i am concerned about the transition of the remaining four thousand institutions into the direct loan because i really think we've we've cherry picked voluntarily those who are best adapted prepared to to go to to direct a loan they went voluntarily because they were ready for it so all the departments been hosting  all around the country most folks are transitioning literally in a matter of weeks we're seen every i'm getting reports every couple of weeks we're getting sixty seventy eighty universities making this transition so i don't know all the details of what that what those issues are those those particular covering an awful lot of subjects and i will get a follow up on them i know this is only the beginning of a discussion as we go forward safe schools healthy students i think is important i also want to make sure that we look at the good public schools that are working on the how we bring that down to the those under served financial literacy for young people for the future is going to be extremely important parental engagement charter schools i think we have talked a lot about it that will be a discussion that will go forward not send all my questions off to you what i did want to talk about is the gainful employment you have talked about jer's right now on the recovery act we were able to save a lot of teaching jobs but we also know a lot of them are going to be aging out soon is the same as nursing in many fields in the health care and so when we talk about great gainful employment i'm glad because i will work with myself the number of other members on this side so the on the other side to come to some sort of agreement and i also like to see that you did recommend a temp ascent income when someone starts working to pay back their debt i think that's going to be extremely important but we're looking at jobs that are not out there now and believe me no one here in the committee wants to support any kind of schools that are actually failing their students or not doing well by the students but we have to make sure that during this particular time that those that are graduating and doing very well their jobs that they going into sometimes are actually lower paying than they were three years ago the other problem is trying to find a job so i think we need to work on that how we get through this rough period so the students that are getting their education hopefully this is just a small stop gap and that you know we're going to see down the road more jobs opportunities out there one of the most important things that we haven't talked about today after she bring up this part of this high red bill is this income based repayment and what we want to do with lost so much great talent folks who want to go into education had a hartford had a passion but because they had sixty eight hundred thousand loans they could afford to do it and so one things we're thinking about is if we can reduce loan repayments to ten percent of income and then after ten years of public service i would have a huge bias towards teaching but all public services could be come out law school and work in a legal clinic or come out of medical school and work in a medical clinic in a low income community that after ten years of service all those loans would be were reduced so we can dramatically reduce loan repayments and in a race them after ten years i think we can get that next generation of extraordinarily talented folks to come into education reporting very very hard here and i agree with you on that the other thing is too that with the shortage of nursing and teacher in the future you know we need to look in other ways on how we are getting nurses out there right now we have plenty of nursing schools we don't have enough professors to be able to teach those that want to come into the field we are also seeing in some of the non traditional universities and career schools they're actually in my opinion doing really really well in nursing school especially for you know when someone graduates from a new university pays that forty fifty thousand dollars then goes take this state boards and don't pass the first time in the second time somewhere they've lost that education and yet we're seeing this course coming from these nontraditional nursing schools graduating at a higher rate and passing the school board the state nursing test first time around new york state we treat all schools the same they have to be under the same regulations we treat our career colleges for those nontraditional students and i think that we need to certainly keep an eye on that because there are a lot a lot of people that want to go back to school but don't fit in to the regular university or you know nine to five go to school you can't do that the other piece again is higher ed under so much here that's why we're you know we're so passion pre show your external leadership on this we want to put ten billion dollars behind community colleges and we think community colleges where the eighteen year olds are thirty year olds or fifty eight year olds going back to retrain and retool a tough economy green jobs health care jobs tech jobs we think community colleges have been this like underutilized gem along the education continuum so we want to put  huge huge resources behind them i've brought in as my under secretary martha cantor who is a phenomenal community college presidents in california that was a never had a community college president or someone i spirits in that position before we did that very intentionally because we think community college is so important to us to our agenda and it's families get back on their feet we think community college will play a huge role there and we want to see them grow and prosper and so the big big play there and we want to be part of the solution and i think and i agree with goes back thank you mr secretary thank you to all the members for your attendance in the secretary for answering the all of the questions of the members i know there are members mr paralyse has indicated he would like to submit questions to you in writing if you would get a quick turnaround on those on those questions and i don't run away from the shit out of if you want to let me say i guess one of the nice things about longevity here is you have some institutional memory and there's a lot of discussion about whether people in the race the top are doing this for the money or or or their hearts really in it or what have you in the clinton administration we had something we were talking about ed flex and so he asked governors to said that they would defer additional money they would create a flexible accountable system represent a large state i'm from texas only one governor made any changes with respect to accountability and i was governor bush and the rest of governors took the money they just didn't do anything for so i think you might have it right here that you know the idea that you're going to change your law so you align data systems so you align teacher performance system so you align these these various parts that are already in the law they've just been ignored for almost even before the bush administration much of what's in the child left behind was there before it just didn't happen so i think you're right the energy that's been created the conversations that have been created by i also think you're right and let's make sure that people meet these these  sort of like you know in poker you want to have jacks or better to open if you don't don't play but because there's not that much money around and so i think there's there's some wisdom it's different you know we drop a lot of money off the people who just do what they do in tomorrow what they did yesterday and so i think there's a there's some there are some wisdom and this and i think it has created energy in many many parts of the education community that now see this as really changing the workplace modernizing it giving them say empowering them in the school sites within their districts and working in a collaborative fashion many of the reasons why we know teachers leave us it's not just salary it's isolation it's a lack of contact with their peers it's lack of professional development as a whole list of things that they cite on these exit interviews so i'm encouraged by what you what you have done and i thank you for being candid with the members of the committee and with that all members will have fourteen days to submit additional materials and questions for the hearing record the secretary has agreed to if you have questions you want to submit immediately and writing they will respond to those from members of the of the committee and with that the committee stan