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S. HRG. 111–885 

ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: THE IMPORTANCE OF 

A WORLD-CLASS K–12 EDUCATION FOR OUR 

ECONOMIC SUCCESS 

HEARING 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, 

LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

ON

EXAMINING ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT (ESEA) 

REAUTHORIZATION, FOCUSING ON K–12 EDUCATION FOR ECONOMIC 

SUCCESS 

MARCH 9, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland 

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

DANIEL SMITH, Staff Director 

PAMELA SMITH, Deputy Staff Director 

FRANK MACCHIAROLA, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS 

TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2010 

Page 

Harkin, Hon. Tom, Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 

Pensions, opening statement ............................................................................... 1 

Enzi, Hon. Michael B., a U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming, opening 

statement .............................................................................................................. 3 

Schleicher, Andreas, Head of Indicators and Analysis Division, Education 

Directorate, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 

Paris, France ........................................................................................................ 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7 

Roekel, Dennis Van, President, National Education Association, Washington, 

DC .......................................................................................................................... 15

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 16 

Butt, Charles, Chairman and CEO, H–E–B, San Antonia, TX ........................... 33 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 35 

Castellani, John, President, Business Roundtable, Washington, DC .................. 36 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 37 

Dodd, Hon. Christopher J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Connecticut ......... 46 

Alexander, Hon. Lamar, a U.S. Senator from the State of Tennessee ................ 49 

Murray, Hon. Patty, a U.S. Senator from the State of Washington ................... 51 

Reed, Hon. Jack, a U.S. Senator from the State of Rhode Island ....................... 53 

Sanders, Hon. Bernard, a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont ................... 54 

Merkley, Hon. Jeff, a U.S. Senator from the State of Oregon ............................. 58 

Franken, Hon. Al, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota .......................... 60 

Bennet, Hon. Michael F., a U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado ................. 61 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.: 

Senator Brown .................................................................................................. 67 

Senator Casey ................................................................................................... 68 

Response by Andreas Schleicher to questions of: ..........................................

Senator Mikulski ....................................................................................... 69 

Senator Casey ............................................................................................ 69 

Response by Dennis Van Roekel to questions of Senator Casey .................. 70 

Response to questions of Senator Casey by Charles Butt ............................. 74 

Response by John Castellani to questions of: ................................................

Senator Dodd ............................................................................................. 75 

Senator Casey ............................................................................................ 76 

(III) 

(1) 

ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: THE IMPORTANCE 

OF A WORLD-CLASS K–12 EDUCATION FOR 

OUR ECONOMIC SUCCESS 

TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to the notice, at 3:04 p.m., in Room 

SD–430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Harkin, chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Harkin, Dodd, Murray, Reed, Sanders, 

Merkley, Franken, Bennet, Enzi, and Alexander. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARKIN

The CHAIRMAN. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, 

Labor, and Pensions will come to order. 

I would like to thank all of you for being here today for the first 

in a series of hearings focusing on reauthorizing of the Elementary 

and Secondary Education Act. Again, I apologize for the time 

delays, but we had votes on the floor of the Senate that held us 

up. 

Testimony from educators and experts today and in subsequent 

hearings will guide us as we undertake the process to reshape this 

bill. Now, we have learned a lot since No Child Left Behind was 

passed 9 years ago, and I look forward to working with my colleagues here to protect the goals of the bill while fixing the things 

that are not working. 

I appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with our Ranking 

Member, Senator Enzi, on this issue. His knowledge and commitment on education issues make him a very valuable partner in this 

endeavor. We have a lot of expertise, as a matter of fact, on this 

committee, including one former Secretary of Education on this 

committee. 

Today’s hearing on the economic importance of having a worldclass K–12 education system should remind us of the critical importance of this reauthorization. In the coming weeks, we will hold 

additional hearings to explore specific topics related to ESEA, but 

today I think it is important for all of us to remember what is really at stake as we kick off this process: the competitiveness of our 

children and grandchildren in the global marketplace and the future well-being of our country. 

Well-educated Americans are the single most important factor in 

maintaining our productivity and global leadership, and in preVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:22 Mar 14, 2011 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\DOCS\55474.TXT DENISE
2 

paring our children to contribute to their communities and our Nation at their full potential. It is projected that by 2014, right 

around the corner, 75 percent of new jobs will require some postsecondary education. Many are questioning whether the United 

States is falling behind relative to the progress of other countries. 

Well, U.S.-college completion rates are flat. Twenty years ago, 

the United States was first in the world in post-secondary attainment. Our Nation has now fallen to 12th. 

In recognition of this, President Obama has set an ambitious 

goal for Americans to reclaim the world’s highest rate of college attainment by 2020. And the only way that we can meet the President’s goal is to ensure that our children are leaving high school 

with the tools they need to be successful in college and beyond. 

The changing global economy in the information age is putting 

new demands on the workforce. Businesses are putting a premium 

on workers who can think critically and problem solve, skills that 

are developed and honed during a student’s formative years. Moreover, new technology makes the physical location of workers less 

important, meaning American workers are being forced to compete 

for jobs with workers in other countries more than ever before. 

Despite this challenge, American students are falling behind 

their international counterparts. Recent studies rank American 15- 

year-olds 24th in the world in terms of math achievement. As a 

consequence, since 1975, we have fallen from 3rd to 15th place in 

the world in turning out scientists and engineers, careers that are 

ever more important in today’s economy. 

However, our challenges extend beyond the critical fields of math 

and science. Forty years ago, the United States had one of the best 

levels of high school attainment. Today we rank 19th in the world 

in high school graduation rates. 

Until recently, the education of all students was seen more as a 

civil rights or moral imperative than as an economic issue, and 

quite frankly, that still is an issue. It is a moral imperative, and 

I believe it is also a civil rights imperative, but it is also an economic issue. Recent studies show that the main reason we are falling behind other countries is because of the achievement gap, or 

the difference in academic achievement between minority and disadvantaged students and their White or affluent counterparts. 

At the same time, U.S. demographics are shifting. The Census 

Bureau says that by mid-century over 60 percent of school children 

will be minorities. A study by the Alliance for Excellent Education 

found that if the Nation’s high schools and colleges were to raise 

the graduation rates of Hispanic, African-American, and Native 

American students to the level of their counterparts by 2020, the 

increase in personal income across the Nation would add more 

than $310 billion annually to the U.S. economy. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about these and 

other issues. As we move forward with the ESEA reauthorization 

process and as we immerse ourselves in the details of this complex 

bill, we should keep the big picture in mind. 

And with that, I will turn it over to Senator Enzi for his opening 

statement and then introduce our witnesses. 

3 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR ENZI

Senator ENZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank 

you for starting this series of hearings on the reauthorization of the 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Beginning with a hearing on the importance of world-class K–12 education for our economic success is an appropriate way to initiate our review of the 

issues surrounding reauthorization. It sets the stage as we move 

forward to develop legislation that builds upon what we have 

learned from No Child Left Behind and fixes what is not working. 

I know that there are those who complain about No Child Left 

Behind because it seems to focus on failure rather than success. I 

also know that there are those who applaud it for the positive 

changes it has created in the K–12 education system. At a minimum, it has managed to change the way we look at the achievement of our students, emphasized teacher quality and parental involvement, and required accountability for results. 

One thing I know everyone agrees with, however, is that our 

children deserve to receive the best education our country can provide for them. Yet, too many of our students continue to be illserved by the schools they attend and either fall behind or, worse 

yet, drop out of school. This is not good for their future, nor is it 

good for our country’s future. 

Our economy depends on an educated and skilled workforce to be 

successful in the global market. In the United States, we face two 

major challenges for students entering the workforce. First, a growing number of jobs require more than a high school education. Second, over the past 30 years, one country after another has surpassed us in the proportion of their entering workforce that has at 

least a high school diploma. 

Every day in our country, about 7,000 students drop out of high 

school. Even for those students who do stay in school and earn a 

high school diploma, there is no guarantee that they have learned 

the basics needed to succeed in post-secondary education and the 

workforce. In fact, nearly half of all college students must take remedial courses after graduating from high school before they can 

take college-level course work. This lack of preparation means that 

our college students spend more time and money in tuition just to 

catch up. It is hard for them and it is hard for our country to get 

ahead if we are playing catch-up. 

Each year, more than 1 million students enter college for the 

first time with the hope and expectation of earning a bachelor’s degree. Of those, fewer than 40 percent will actually meet the goal 

within 4 years; barely 60 percent will achieve it in 6 years. Among 

minority students, remedial course participation rates are even 

higher and completion rates are even lower. 

There is no question that some education and training beyond 

high school is a prerequisite for employment in jobs and careers 

that support a middle-class way of life. Lifetime earnings for individuals with a bachelor’s degree are, on average, almost twice as 

much as high school graduates. 

Once first in the world, America now ranks 10th in the proportion of young people with a college degree. Less than 40 percent of 

Americans hold an associate or bachelor’s degree, and substantial 

4 

racial and income gaps persist. The projections are that within a 

decade, 6 out of every 10 Americans must have a degree or recognized credential to succeed in the workforce. This being the case, 

we are facing a major deficit of skilled workers which, in turn, 

threatens our ability to grow economically. We used to have the 

best educated workforce in the world, but that is no longer true. 

That is why I am excited about beginning our work on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA. 

Funds provided through the act assist schools in meeting the needs 

of our most disadvantaged students and providing them with a 

quality education. The skills students learn in the earliest grades 

are the building blocks to their success in high school, college, and 

in the workforce. Our country cannot continue to be competitive in 

the global economy if we do not have an educated workforce. 

I want to welcome and thank all the witnesses who are here 

today, and I look forward to hearing from you. Again, I thank you 

for getting these hearings started. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Enzi. I look forward to getting this reauthorization started and done. 

Well, we have a good group of witnesses to kick off our series of 

hearings. I thank them for being here. I will say that your statements will be made a part of the record in their entirety and ask 

each of you to sum up your testimony in order. We will start first 

on my left, your right. 

First is Andreas Schleicher, who is the Head of the Indicators 

and Analysis Division, Directorate for Education, in the 

Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, the 

OECD. Mr. Schleicher is responsible for developing and analyzing 

systems that allow the OECD to compare the relative achievements 

of students internationally. 

Next, we have Mr. Dennis Van Roekel, the President of the National Education Association. Mr. Van Roekel is a 23-year teaching 

veteran of high school math and a longtime activist and, of course, 

advocate for our children and public education. 

Then we will next hear from Charles Butt, the CEO of H–E–B 

Supermarket based in San Antonio, TX. Mr. Butt’s privately held 

company has 315 stores, $15 billion in sales, employs 70,000 individuals, and donates 5 percent of pretax earnings to public and 

charitable causes. 

Finally, John Castellani will wrap up our testimony. Mr. 

Castellani is President of Business Roundtable, an association of 

chief executive officers of leading U.S. corporations with a combined workforce of nearly 10 million employees and $5 trillion in 

annual revenues. 

Again, thank you all very much for being here, and Mr. 

Schleicher, welcome, and as I said, if you could sum up your testimony in 5 or 7 minutes, we would sure appreciate it. 

STATEMENT OF ANDREAS SCHLEICHER, HEAD OF INDICATORS AND ANALYSIS DIVISION, EDUCATION DIRECTORATE, 

ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT, PARIS, FRANCE 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Thank you very much. 

5 

The OECD are now putting a lot more emphasis on education because we are seeing a growing impact of skills on the economic success of individuals and nations. We are also seeing that the increase in knowledge workers OECD countries has not led to a decrease in the pay, which is what happened to low-skilled workers. 

And finally, the yardstick for educational success is no longer simply improvement by national standards, but the best performing 

systems globally. 

If you look at international systems comparisons, they show you 

what is possible. For example, the International PISA test showed 

Canadian 15-year-olds to be well over a school year ahead of 15- 

year-olds in the United States. They also show socially disadvantaged Canadians to be much less at risk of poor performance than 

is the case in the United States, and even some countries as diverse as the United States come out with a smaller achievement 

gap. There is a lot to be learned. 

International comparisons also give you an idea of the pace of 

progress that can be achieved. People often dismiss the stunning 

successes of countries like Singapore or Korea because they are 

hard to replicate in a western context. But think about Poland. Poland raised the literacy skills of its 15-year-olds by the equivalent 

of almost a school year in less than a decade. Poland also succeeded in cutting the variability of school performance in half over 

that period. 

If the United States would do what Poland has done and achieve 

a similar level of increase in performance, that could translate into 

the longer-term economic value of over $40 trillion in today’s GDP. 

If the United States would close its large achievement gap by ensuring that the quarter of students that, according to our accounts 

now, do very poorly, reach at least the PISA baseline level 2, you 

would talk about $70 trillion in additional national income. 

Let me add that we have very recent evidence showing that 

those who do not reach this baseline level of proficiency actually 

face very serious risks for the transition to work and also for subsequent educational opportunities. The education gap just widens as 

people get older. 

A couple of points worth making about those systems doing well. 

Many of them have developed educational standards to establish 

rigorous, focused, and coherent content across the entire system, 

across all levels. They have often coupled this with actually devolving more responsibility to the front line, encouraging schools to 

take much more responsibility and responsiveness to local needs. 

Of course, the United States has a decentralized system too but, 

while many systems have decentralized the delivery of educational 

service by actually keeping quite tight control of the definition and 

management of outcomes, the United States is quite unique in having decentralized both the delivery of service and the control over 

outcomes. 

Of course, the common core standards currently being developed 

might change all of that and address one of the big issues of widely 

discrepant State standards and also different cut scores, which 

mean that a student’s success depends more than anything on 

where they are located, which is quite different from many other 

countries. 

6 

That is just one side of the coin. The harder part actually is to 

create an environment for standards to translate into better instructions. Many countries have developed quite strong support 

systems that help individual teachers to better identify where the 

weaknesses are, seek to provide them as evidence and advice on 

what best practices are, and finally motivate them to make the necessary changes. That goes actually quite well beyond material incentives. 

Second, while performance data in the United States is often 

used for punitive accountability purposes, other countries tend to 

give greater weight to guide intervention, reveal best practices, and 

identify shared problems in order to encourage teachers in schools 

to develop a more productive environment. They also seek to intervene in the most troubled schools first rather than identifying too 

many schools as needing an improvement, which you consider a 

drawback of the current NCLB system by international standards. 

Another drawback of the current NCLB system is sort of what 

we call the ‘‘single bar’’ problem that leads to a lot of focus on students nearing proficiency while not valuing achievement growth 

through the system, and many countries address that through accountability systems that involve progressive learning targets that 

extends through the entire system, which lay out the steps that 

learners follow as they advance. 

The global trend here actually goes to what we call multilayered, 

coherent assessment systems that extend from classrooms to 

schools or local levels, regional levels, national levels, and international levels that are part of well-aligned instructional services 

and systems and provide information that students, teachers, and 

administrators can actually act on. 

Third and finally, many of the high-performing systems often do 

four things well. First of all, they have means to attract the best 

graduates into the teaching profession, realizing that the quality of 

the system cannot exceed the quality of the teachers. You have 

some countries getting the top 10 percent of graduates becoming 

teachers, and that is not primarily about money and salaries. They 

develop those teachers into effective instructors through, for example, coaching classroom practices or moving teacher training much 

more to the school and to the classroom, and they put in place incentives and differentiated support systems to ensure that every 

child is benefiting from that kind of instruction. And finally, they 

build networks of schools that stimulate and spread in a way you 

can share best practices. 

Let me make one final point. Many of those policy drivers that 

our analysis identify are actually not about money. In fact, spending in the United States is actually quite high by international 

standards in education. It is much more about investing the resources where they can make most of the difference, attracting the 

most talented teachers into the most difficult schools. It is about 

those kinds of things. The bottom line is that economic returns to 

improve learning outcomes—I gave you some numbers—actually 

exceed by far any conceivable cost of improvement. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schleicher follows:] 

7 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANDREAS SCHLEICHER

SUMMARY

A GROWING IMPACT OF EDUCATION FOR ECONOMIC SUCCESS

The relative importance of knowledge and skills for the economic success of individuals and nations is rapidly increasing. In addition, in the global economy, the 

yardstick for educational success is no longer merely improvement by national 

standards, but the best performing education systems internationally. International 

comparisons can drive educational improvement in several ways: 

• By showing what is possible in education, they can help optimize policies but 

also to reflect on alternatives to existing policies. For example, the international 

PISA assessments show Canadian 15-year-olds, on average, to be well over a school 

year ahead of 15-year-olds in the United States. They also show socio-economically 

disadvantaged Canadians much less at risk of poor educational performance than 

is the case in the United States. 

• They can assist with gauging the pace of educational progress and help reviewing the reality of educational delivery at the frontline. For example, Poland raised 

the reading performance of its 15-year-olds by the equivalent of almost a school year 

in less than a decade. It also succeeded in halving performance differences between 

schools. The long-term economic value of a similar improvement in outcomes for the 

United States could be equivalent to over $40 trillion in additional national income. 

If the United States were to catch up with the best performing education system, 

Finland, the U.S. economy could gain $103 trillion. The international and national 

achievement gaps are imposing on the U.S. economy an invisible yet recurring economic loss that is greater than the output shortfall in the current economic crisis. 

• They can help set policy targets in terms of measurable goals achieved by other 

systems and help to identify policy levers and to establish trajectories for reform. 

Education systems in the industrialized world have improved more rapidly than 

the United States. Over the last decade, the United States has fallen from second 

place to 14th in terms of its college graduation rate. While primary-grade school 

children tend to do well by international standards, the latest PISA assessments 

show U.S. students performing below the OECD average. The United States also 

has a comparatively large achievement gap, which signals serious risks for students 

in their initial transition from education to work and of failing to benefit from further education and learning opportunities in their later life. 

EDUCATION STANDARDS

National educational standards have helped many of the top performing education 

systems in important ways to establish rigorous, focused and coherent content at 

all grade levels; reduce overlap in curricula across grades; reduce variation in implemented curricula across classrooms; and facilitate co-ordination of various policy 

drivers ranging from curricula to teacher training. Countries have often coupled the 

establishment of standards with devolving responsibility to the frontline, encouraging responsiveness to local needs. The United States is, of course, a decentralized 

education system too, but while many systems have decentralized decisions concerning the delivery of educational services while keeping tight control over the definition of outcomes, the design of curricula, standards and testing, the United States 

is different in that it has decentralized both inputs and control over outcomes. Moreover, while the United States has devolved responsibilities to local authorities, 

schools themselves have less discretion in decisionmaking than is the case in many 

OECD countries. 

The establishment of ‘‘common core standards’’ in the United States is an important step that could address the current problem of widely discrepant State standards and ‘‘cut’’ scores that have led to non-comparable results and often mean that 

a school’s fate depends more than anything else on what State it is located. Do you 

want to focus this on students’ fates, too? 

ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS IN OTHER COUNTRIES

While performance data in the United States are largely used for punitive accountability purposes, other countries tend to give greater weight to guide intervention, reveal best practices and identify shared problems in order to encourage teachers and schools to develop more supportive and productive learning environments. 

They also seek to intervene in the most troubled schools, rather than identifying too 

many schools as needing improvement—a drawback of the current NCLB system. 

8 

1PISA stands for the OECD Program for International Student Assessment, a test of student 

knowledge and skills that are administered by the OECD on behalf of participating governments 

on a 3-yearly basis in now 70 countries. 2The announcement was made on February 24, 2010, see http://www.number10.gov.uk/ 

Page22580. 

Another major drawback of the current NCLB system, the ‘‘single bar’’ problem 

that leads to undue focus on students nearing proficiency rather than valuing 

achievement growth, is addressed in many countries through assessment and accountability systems that comprise progressive learning targets which delineate 

pathways characterising the steps that learners typically follow as they become 

more proficient and establish the breadth and depth of the learner’s understanding 

of the domain at a particular level of advancement. The global trend here is leading 

towards multi-layered, coherent assessment systems from classrooms to schools to 

regional to national to international levels that: support improvement of learning at 

all levels of the system; are increasingly performance-based; add value for teaching 

and learning by providing information that can be acted on by students, teachers, 

and administrators; and are part of a comprehensive and well-aligned instructional 

learning system that includes syllabi, associated instructional materials, matching 

exams, professional scoring and teacher training. 

AN EFFECTIVE TEACHING FORCE

Third, many high performing systems share a commitment to professionalized 

teaching. To achieve this, they often do four things well: First, they attract the best 

graduates to become teachers, realizing that the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. For example, countries like Finland or Korea 

recruit their teachers from the top 10 percent graduates. Second, they develop these 

teachers into effective instructors, through, for example, coaching classroom practice, moving teacher training to the classroom, developing strong school leaders and 

enabling teachers to share their knowledge and spread innovation. Third, they put 

in place incentives and differentiated support systems to ensure that every child is 

able to benefit from excellent instruction. Fourth, they place emphasis on building 

various ways in which networks of schools stimulate and spread innovation as well 

as collaborate to provide curriculum diversity, extended services and professional 

support and foster strong approaches to leadership that help to reduce betweenschool variation through system-wide networking and to build lateral accountability. 

INTRODUCTION

The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) is placing 

increasing emphasis on education and training, as the relative importance of knowledge and skills for the success of advanced economies is rapidly increasing. In addition, in the global economy, the yardstick for educational success is no longer merely 

improvement by national standards, but the best performing education systems 

internationally. International comparisons have thus become an important tool to 

assess and drive educational change: 

• By showing what is possible in education, they can help to optimise policies but 

also to reflect on more fundamental alternatives to existing policies, which become 

apparent when these are contrasted with policies and practices pursued by other 

countries. For example, the OECD PISA assessments1 show Canadian 15-year-olds, 

on average, to be well over a school year ahead of 15-year-olds in the United States 

in key subjects such as mathematics or science. They also show socio-economically 

disadvantaged Canadians much less at risk of poor educational performance than 

is the case in the United States. • They can help set policy targets in terms of measurable goals achieved by other 

systems and help to identify policy levers and to establish trajectories for reform. 

Just on February 24, for example, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister announced 

the goal to raise student performance in the United Kingdom to Rank 3 on the 

international PISA mathematics assessment and Rank 6 on the PISA science assessment, together with a range of policies to achieve these targets.2

• They can assist with gauging the pace of educational progress and reviewing 

the reality of educational delivery at the frontline. For example, Poland raised the 

performance of its 15-year-olds in PISA reading by the equivalent of almost a school 

year in less than a decade. It also succeeded in halving performance differences between schools. The long-term economic value of a similar improvement in student 

performance for the United States could be equivalent to over $40 trillion in additional national income. 

9 

• Last but not least, they can support the political economy of educational reform, 

which is a major issue in education where any pay-off to reform almost inevitably 

accrues to successive governments if not generations. 

This paper (1) provides an analysis of where the United States stands, compared 

with the principal industrialized countries internationally, (2) quantifies the economic value of improvements in learning outcomes, and (3) identifies some policy 

levers for educational improvement that emerge from international comparisons and 

transcend economic and cultural settings. 

THE UNITED STATES IS LOSING ITS EDUCATIONAL ADVANTAGE

Among the 30 OECD countries with the largest expansion of college education 

over the last decades, most still see rising earnings differentials for college graduates, suggesting that an increase in knowledge workers does not necessarily lead 

to a decrease in their pay as is the case for low-skilled workers (OECD, 2008). The 

other player in the globalization process is technological development, but this too 

depends on education, not just because tomorrow’s knowledge workers and 

innovators require high levels of education, but also because a highly educated 

workforce is a pre-requisite for adopting and absorbing new technologies and increasing productivity. Together, skills and technology have flattened the world such 

that all work that can be digitized, automated and outsourced can now be done by 

the most effective and competitive individuals, enterprises or countries, wherever 

they are. 

No country has been able to capitalize on the opportunities this ‘‘flat world’’ provides more than the United States, which can draw on the most highly educated 

labor force among the principal industrialized nations, at least when measured in 

terms of formal qualifications. However, this advantage is largely a result of the 

‘‘first-mover advantage’’ which the United States gained after Word War II by massively increasing enrollments. That advantage is now eroding quickly as more and 

more countries reach and surpass United States qualification levels. In fact, many 

countries are now close to ensuring that virtually all young adults leave schools 

with at least a high school degree (OECD average 82 percent), which the OECD indicators highlight as the baseline qualification for reasonable earnings and employment prospects. Over time, this will translate into better workforce qualifications in 

these countries. In contrast, the United States (78 percent) stood still on this measure and among OECD countries only New Zealand, Spain, Turkey, and Mexico now 

have lower high school completion rates than the United States. Even when including qualifications such as the GED (Graduate Equivalent Degree) that people can 

acquire later in life to make up for unsuccessful school completion, the United 

States has slipped from rank 1 among OECD countries for adults born in the 1940s 

to rank 11 among those born in the 1970s. Again, that is not because completion 

rates in the United States declined, but because they have risen so much faster in 

many other countries. Two generations ago, South Korea had the economic output 

of Afghanistan today and was at rank 24 in terms of educational output among today’s OECD countries. Today it is the top performer in terms of the proportion of 

successful school leavers, with 96 percent of an age cohort obtaining a high school 

degree. Similar trends are visible in college education, where the United States 

slipped between 1995 and 2005 from rank 2 to rank 14, not because U.S. college 

graduation rates declined, but because they rose so much faster in many OECD 

countries. Graduate output is particularly low in science, where the number of people with a college degree per 100,000 employed 25- to 34-year-olds was 1,081 compared with 1,376 on average across OECD countries and more than 2,000 in Australia, Finland, Korea and Poland (OECD, 2009a). Whether the United States can 

continue to compensate for this, at least in part, through utilizing foreign science 

graduates will depend on the development of labor-markets in other countries. The 

developments will be amplified over the next decades as countries like China or 

India are raising their educational output at an ever-increasing pace. 

QUALITY OF EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES IN THE UNITED STATES

Quantity matters, but quality is even more important. The OECD Program for 

International Student Assessment (PISA) extends the picture that emerges from 

comparing national degrees with the most comprehensive international assessment 

of student knowledge and skills. PISA represents a commitment by 70 countries 

that together make up close to 90 percent of the world economy to monitor the outcomes of education systems in terms of student achievement on a regular basis, 

10 

3PISA seeks to assess not merely whether students can reproduce what they have learned 

in science, mathematics, and reading—which is easy to teach and test—but also how well they 

can extrapolate from what they have learned and apply their knowledge in novel situations. 4The confidence interval extends from the 18th to the 25th rank. 

5To reach Level 2 requires competencies such as identifying key features of a scientific investigation, recalling single scientific concepts and information relating to a situation, and using 

results of a scientific experiment represented in a data table as they support a personal decision. 

In contrast, students not reaching Level 2 often confuse key features of an investigation, apply 

incorrect scientific information, and mix personal beliefs with scientific facts in support of a decision. 6 No such data are available for the United States. 

within an internationally agreed framework, and in innovative ways that reflect 

judgments about the skills that are relevant to adult life.3

On the 2006 PISA science assessment of 15-year-olds, the United States ranked 

21st among the 30 OECD countries 4 (OECD, 2007). Moreover, while the proportion 

of top-performers in the United States was similar to the OECD average, the United 

States had a comparatively large proportion of poor performers: 24.4 percent of U.S.- 

15-year-olds did not reach Level 2, the baseline level of achievement on the PISA 

scale at which students begin to demonstrate the science competencies that will enable them to participate actively in life situations related to science and technology.5

A longitudinal follow-up of 29,000 PISA students in Canada suggests that the absence of foundation skills below the PISA Level 2 signals serious risks for students 

in their initial transition from education to work and of failing to benefit from further education and learning opportunities in their later life. For example, the odds 

of Canadian students who had reached PISA Level 5 in reading at age 15 to achieve 

a successful transition to post-secondary education by age 19 were 16 times higher 

than for those who had not achieved the baseline Level 2, even after adjustments 

for socio-economic differences are made (OECD, 2010a).6 By age 21, the odds were 

even 20 times higher, suggesting that the advantages of success in high school are 

growing further as individuals get older. 

Students who did not surpass the most basic performance level on PISA were not 

a random group. The results show that socio-economic disadvantage has a particularly strong impact on student performance in the United States. Indeed, 18 percent 

of the variation in student performance in the United States is explained by students’ socio-economic background—this is significantly more than at the OECD average level and contrasts, for example, with just 8 percent in Canada or 7 percent 

in Japan. This is not simply explained by a socio-economically more heterogeneous 

U.S. student population, but mainly by an above-average impact of socio-economic 

differences on learning outcomes. In other words, the United States is among the 

OECD countries where two students of different socio-economic background show 

the largest difference in learning outcomes. Other countries with similar levels of 

disparities included only France, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, the United 

Kingdom, Belgium and Germany. It would perhaps be tempting to attribute the performance lag of U.S. students to the challenges which socio-economic disparities and 

ongoing immigrant inflows pose to the education system. However, while the integration of students with an immigrant background poses significant challenges in 

many countries, among the countries that took part in the latest PISA assessment 

there are several with a larger immigrant intake than the United States which, nevertheless, scored better. 

THE COST OF THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP

The international achievement gap is imposing on the U.S. economy an invisible 

yet recurring economic loss that is greater than the output shortfall in what has 

been called the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Using economic 

modelling to relate cognitive skills—as measured by PISA and other international 

instruments—to economic growth shows that even small improvements in the skills 

of a nation’s labour force can have very large impacts on the future well-being of 

countries. A recent study carried out by the OECD in collaboration with the Hoover 

Institute at Stanford University suggests that a modest goal of having the United 

States boost its average PISA scores by 25 points over the next 20 years—which is 

less than the most rapidly improving education system in the OECD, Poland, 

achieved between 2000 and 2006 alone—could imply a gain of U.S.D 41 trillion for 

the U.S. economy over the lifetime of the generation born in 2010 (as evaluated at 

the start of reform in terms of real present value of future improvements in GDP). 

Bringing the United States up to the average performance of Finland, the best performing education system in PISA in the OECD area, could result in gains in the 

order of U.S.D 103 trillion. Narrowing the achievement gap by bringing all students 

11 

7For the United States, the corresponding figure is 29 percent, the OECD average is 33. 

to a level of minimal proficiency for the OECD (i.e. reaching a PISA score of 400), 

could imply GDP increases for the United States of U.S.D 72 trillion according to 

historical growth relationships (OECD, 2010b). The predictive power of student performance at school on subsequent successful education and labour-market pathways 

is also demonstrated through longitudinal studies (OECD, 2010a). In either case, 

the evidence shows that it is the quality of learning outcomes, as demonstrated in 

student performance, not the length of schooling or patterns of participation, which 

contribute most to economic outcomes. 

The gains from improved learning outcomes, put in terms of current GDP, far outstrip today’s value of the short-run business-cycle management. This is not to say 

that efforts should not be directed at issues of economic recession, but it is to say 

that the long-run issues should not be neglected. 

SOME LESSONS FROM HIGH ACHIEVING COUNTRIES

Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from PISA is that strong performance, and indeed improvement, is possible. Whether in Asia (e.g., Japan and 

Korea), in Europe (e.g., Finland) or in North America (Canada), many countries display strong overall performance and, equally important, show that poor performance 

in school does not automatically follow from a disadvantaged socio-economic background and that the achievement gap can be significantly narrowed. Furthermore, 

some countries show that success can become a consistent and predictable educational outcome: In Finland, the country with the strongest overall results in PISA, 

the performance variation between schools amounts to only 5 percent of students’ 

overall performance variation, so that parents can rely on high and consistent performance standards in whatever school they choose to enroll their children.7

Performance on international comparisons cannot simply be tied to money, since 

only Luxembourg spends more per primary student than the United States and only 

Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Norway spend more per middle and high school student. The results for the United States reflect rather a range of inefficiencies. That 

point is reinforced by the fact that in international comparisons of primary grade 

school children the United States does relatively well by international standards 

which, given the country’s wealth, is what would be expected. The problem is that 

as they get older, children make less progress each year than children in the best 

performing countries. The issue is therefore not just poor kids in poor neighbourhoods, but about many kids in many neighbourhoods. It is noteworthy that spending 

patterns in many of the world’s successful education systems are markedly different 

from the United States. These countries invest the money where the challenges are 

greatest rather than making resources contingent on the economic context of the 

local communities in which schools are located, and they put in place incentives and 

support systems that attract the most talented school teachers into the most difficult classrooms. They have often reformed inherited, traditional and bureaucratic 

systems of recruiting and training teachers and leaders, of paying and rewarding 

them and of shaping their incentives, both short-term and long-term. They often 

also devote a higher share of spending to classroom education than is the case in 

the United States and, different from the United States, often favor better teachers 

over smaller class sizes (OECD, 2009a). 

Looking beyond financial resources, PISA suggests that schools and countries 

where students work in a climate characterized by high performance expectations 

and the readiness to invest effort, good teacher-student relations, and high teacher 

morale tend to achieve better results. Interestingly, U.S.-15-year-olds usually rate 

themselves comparatively highly in academic performance in PISA, even if they did 

not do well comparatively. In part that may be due to culture, but one interpretation is also that students are being commended for work that would not be acceptable in high performing education systems. Many countries have pursued a shift in 

public and governmental concern away from the mere control over the resources and 

content of education towards a focus on outcomes. This has driven efforts to articulate the expectations that societies have in relation to learning outcomes and to 

translate these expectations into educational goals and standards. Educational 

standards have influenced many of the top performing education systems in various 

ways, helping them to establish rigorous, focused and coherent content at all grade 

levels; reduce overlap in curricula across grades; reduce variation in implemented 

curricula across classrooms; facilitate co-ordination of various policy drivers ranging 

from curricula to teacher training; and reduce inequity in curricula across socio-economic groups. The establishment, by States, of ‘‘common core standards’’ in the 

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12 

based approaches to standard-setting in the field, is an important step in that direction that could address the current problem of widely discrepant State standards 

and cut scores that have led to non-comparable results and that often mean that 

a school’s fate depends more than anything else on what State it is located and, perhaps even more importantly, that students across the United States are left on an 

unequal footing as to how well they are prepared to compete in the U.S. labormarket. 

Coupled with this trend have been efforts in countries to devolve responsibility 

to the frontline, encouraging responsiveness to local needs, and strengthening intelligent accountability (OECD, 2009a). The United States is, of course, a decentralized 

education systems too, but while many systems have decentralized decisions concerning the delivery of educational services while keeping tight control over the definition of outcomes, the design of curricula, standards and testing, the United States 

is different in that it has decentralized both inputs and control over outcomes. Moreover, while the United States has devolved responsibilities to local authorities, 

schools themselves have less discretion in decisionmaking than is the case in many 

OECD countries. In this sense, the question for the United States is not just how 

many charter schools it establishes but how to build the capacity for all schools to 

assume charter-like autonomy, as happens in some of the best performing education 

systems (OECD, 2007). 

What further distinguishes the approaches to professional accountability developed in Finland, the use of pupil performance data and value-added analyses in 

England, or the approaches to school self-evaluation in Denmark, is that these 

strike a different balance between using accountability tools to maintain public confidence in education, on the one hand, and to support remediation in the classroom 

aimed at higher levels of student learning and achievement on the other. These 

countries have gone beyond systems of test-based external accountability towards 

building capacity and confidence for professional accountability in ways that emphasize the importance of formative assessment and the pivotal role of school self-evaluation, the latter often in conjunction with school inspection systems that systematically intervene with a focus on the most troubled schools rather than dispersing efforts through identifying too many schools as needing improvement which one could 

consider another drawback of the current NCLB system. In some systems, strategic 

thinking and planning takes place at every level of the system. Every school discusses what the national standards might mean for them, and decisions are made 

at the level of those most able to implement them in practice. Where school performance is systematically assessed, the primary purpose is often not to support 

contestability of public services or market-mechanisms in the allocation of resources. 

Rather it is to provide instruments to reveal best practices and identify shared problems in order to encourage teachers and schools to develop more supportive and productive learning environments. 

Another major drawback of the current NCLB system, the ‘‘single bar’’ problem 

that leads to undue focus on students nearing proficiency rather than valuing 

achievement growth, is addressed in many countries through assessment and accountability systems that incorporate progressive learning targets which delineate 

pathways characterising the steps that learners typically follow as they become 

more proficient and establish the breadth and depth of the learner’s understanding 

of the domain at a particular level of advancement. One of the earliest approaches 

in this direction, the ‘‘key stages’’ in England, for example, provides a coherent system that allows measuring individual student progress across grades and subjects, 

thus also avoiding the problems associated with the ‘‘multiple measures’’ defining 

annual yearly progress in NCLB that have tended to lead to an undue emphasis 

on reading and mathematics. 

The global trend is leading towards multi-layered, coherent assessment systems 

from classrooms to schools to regional to national to international levels that: 

• support improvement of learning at all levels of the education system; 

• are increasingly performance-based and make students’ thinking visible; 

• add value for teaching and learning by providing information that can be acted 

on by students, teachers, and administrators; 

• and that are part of a comprehensive and well-aligned instructional learning 

system that includes syllabi, associated instructional materials, matching exams, 

professional scoring and teacher training. 

Drawing a clearer line between assessments, on the one hand, and individual 

high-stakes examination systems helps countries to avoid sacrificing validity gains 

for efficiency gains, which tends to be an issue for the United States that is also 

mirrored in, by international standards, an unusually high proportion of multiple 

choice items. 

13 

Second, in most of the countries that performed well in PISA, it is the responsibility of schools and teachers to engage constructively with the diversity of student 

interests, capacities, and socio-economic contexts, without having the option of making students repeat the school year, or transferring them to educational tracks or 

school types with lower performance requirements. To achieve this, education systems seek to establish bridges from prescribed forms of teaching, curriculum and assessment towards an approach predicated on enabling every student to reach their 

potential. Many high performing education systems have developed elaborate support systems that, first of all, help individual teachers to become aware of specific 

weaknesses in their own practices, and that often means not just creating awareness of what they do but changing the underlying mind set. They then seek to provide their teachers with an understanding of specific best practices and, last but not 

least, motivate them to make the necessary changes with instruments that go well 

beyond material incentives. Of course, the United States has some of the most innovative schools and teachers that have tailored curriculum and teaching methods to 

meet the needs of children and young people with great success for many years. 

However, what distinguishes the education systems of, for example, Victoria in Australia, Alberta in Canada, or Finland is the drive to make such practices systemic, 

through the establishment of clear learning pathways through the education system 

and fostering the motivation of students to become independent and lifelong learners. Obviously such ‘‘personalized learning’’ demands both curriculum entitlement 

and choice that delivers a breadth of study and personal relevance. But the personalization in these countries is in terms of flexible learning pathways through the 

education system rather than individualized goals or institutional tracking, which 

have often been shown to lower performance expectations for students and tend to 

provide easy ways out for teachers and schools to defer problems rather than solving 

them. 

Third, many high performing systems share a commitment to professionalized 

teaching, in ways that imply that teachers are on a par with other professions in 

terms of diagnosis, the application of evidence-based practices, and professional 

pride. To achieve this, they often do four things well: First, they attract the best 

graduates to become teachers, realizing that the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. For example, countries like Finland or Korea 

recruit their teachers from the top 10 percent graduates. Second, they develop these 

teachers into effective instructors, through, for example, coaching classroom practice, moving teacher training to the classroom, developing strong school leaders and 

enabling teachers to share their knowledge and spread innovation. Singaporean 

teachers, for example, get 100 hours of fully paid professional development training 

each year. Third, they put in place incentives and differentiated support systems to 

ensure that every child is able to benefit from excellent instruction (McKinsey, 

2007). The image here is of teachers who use data to evaluate the learning needs 

of their students, and are consistently expanding their repertoire of pedagogic strategies to address the diversity in students’ interests and abilities. Such systems also 

often adopt innovative approaches to the deployment of differentiated staffing models. Examples include teacher selection processes as seen in Finland, highly specified professional development programmes as with the National Literacy Strategy 

in England, and teacher promotion based on professional competence as in Canada 

or Sweden. 

These efforts move away from traditional educational models that often still operate like a heavy bureaucratic production chain, where year after year new reform 

ideas are placed on top; where in the middle layers unfinished and incoherent reforms pile up; and where at the bottom, schools and teachers are confronted with 

incoherent regulation and prescription that they cannot make sense of and for which 

they feel no responsibility. High performing education systems tend to create a 

‘‘knowledge rich’’ education system, in which teachers and school principals act as 

partners and have the authority to act, the necessary information to do so, and access to effective support systems to assist them in implementing change. Of course, 

everywhere education is a knowledge industry in the sense that it is concerned with 

the transmission of knowledge, but a recent OECD study on teachers, teaching and 

learning suggests that education is often still quite far from becoming a knowledge 

industry in the sense that its own practices are being transformed by knowledge 

about the efficacy of its own practices (OECD, 2009b). In many other fields, people 

enter their professional lives expecting their practice to be transformed by research, 

but that is still rather rare in education. There is, of course, a large body of research 

about learning but much of it is unrelated to the kind of real-life learning that is 

the focus of formal education. Central prescription of what teachers should do, 

which still dominate today’s schools, may not transform teachers’ practices in the 

14 

way that professional engagement, in the search for evidence of what makes a difference, can. 

External accountability systems are an essential part of all this, but so are lateral 

accountability systems. Among OECD countries, there are countless tests and reforms that have resulted in giving schools more money or taking money away from 

them, developing greater prescription on school standards or less prescription, or 

making classes larger or smaller, often without measurable effects. What distinguishes top-performer Finland is that it places the emphasis on building various 

ways in which networks of schools stimulate and spread innovation as well as collaborate to provide curriculum diversity, extended services and professional support. 

It fosters strong approaches to leadership and a variety of system leadership roles 

that help to reduce between-school variation through system-wide networking and 

to build lateral accountability. It has moved from ‘‘hit and miss’’ policies to establishing universal high standards; from uniformity to embracing diversity; from a 

focus on provision to a focus on outcomes; from managing inputs and a bureaucratic 

approach to education towards devolving responsibilities and enabling outcomes; 

and from talking about equity to delivering equity. It is a system where schools no 

longer receive prefabricated wisdom but take initiatives on the basis of data and 

best practice. 

CONCLUSION

In one way, international educational benchmarks make disappointing reading for 

the United States. But they also indicate a way forward. Results from PISA show 

that strong performance is possible. Whether in Asia (e.g., Japan and Korea), in Europe (e.g., Finland) or in North America (Canada), many countries display strong 

overall performance and, equally important, show that poor performance in school 

does not automatically follow from a disadvantaged socio-economic background, even 

if social background is an important challenge everywhere. Furthermore, some countries show that success can become a consistent and predictable educational outcome, with very little performance variation across schools. Last but not least, Poland demonstrated that it is possible to achieve performance gains equivalent to 

three-quarters of a school year within less than a decade. This paper has identified 

some of the policy levers that are prevalent in high performing education systems. 

The international achievement gap is imposing on the U.S. economy an invisible 

yet recurring economic loss that is greater than the output shortfall in what has 

been called the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Using economic 

modelling to relate student performance—as measured by PISA and other international instruments—to economic growth shows that even small improvements in 

the skills of a nation’s labour force can have very large impacts on future well-being. 

A modest goal of having the United States boost its average PISA scores by 25 

points over the next 20 years—which is less than the most rapidly improving education system in the OECD, Poland, achieved between 2000 and 2006 alone—implies a gain of U.S.D 41 trillion for the U.S. economy over the lifetime of the generation born in 2010 (as evaluated at the start of reform in terms of real present value 

of future improvements in GDP). Bringing the United States up to the average performance of Finland, OECD’s best performing education system in PISA, could result in gains in the order of U.S.D 103 trillion. Closing the achievement gap by 

bringing all students to a level of minimal proficiency for the OECD (i.e., reaching 

a PISA score of 400), could imply GDP increases for the United States of U.S.D 72 

trillion according to historical growth relationships. The predictive power of student 

performance at school on subsequent successful education and labour-market pathways is also demonstrated through longitudinal studies. In both cases, the evidence 

shows that it is the quality of learning outcomes, as demonstrated in student performance, not the length of schooling or patterns of participation, which makes the 

difference. The gains from improved learning outcomes, put in terms of current 

GDP, far outstrip today’s value of the short-run business-cycle management. This 

is not to say that efforts should not be directed at immediate issues of economic recession, but it is to say that the long-run issues should not be neglected. 

Addressing the challenges will become ever-more important as the best education 

systems, not simply improvement by national standards, will increasingly become 

the yardstick to success. Moreover, countries such as the United States will not simply need to match the performance of these countries, but actually do better if their 

citizens want to justify higher wages. 

REFERENCES

OECD (2004). What Makes School Systems Perform. Paris: OECD. 

15 

OECD (2006). Assessing Scientific, Reading and Mathematical Literacy. A Framework for PISA 2006. Paris: OECD. OECD (2007). PISA 2006. Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World. Paris: OECD. 

OECD (2008). Education at a Glance—OECD Indicators 2008. Paris: OECD. 

OECD (2009a). Education at a Glance—OECD Indicators 2009. Paris: OECD. 

OECD (2009b). Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments. Paris: 

OECD. 

OECD (2010a), Pathways to Success. Paris: OECD. 

OECD (2010b), The High Cost of Low Educational Performance. Paris: OECD. 

McKinsey and company (2007). How the world’s school systems come out on top. New 

York: McKinsey. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Schleicher. 

Now we will turn to Mr. Van Roekel, National Education Association. 

STATEMENT OF DENNIS VAN ROEKEL, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL 

EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, and members of the committee. Thank you very much for 

the opportunity to be with you here today. 

As a 23-year high school math teacher, I have the honor to represent 3.2 million people who absolutely believe in the power of 

education to transform lives. The passion and the commitment that 

brought them into the profession is what they bring to classrooms 

from pre-K to graduate every single day despite incredible challenges. 

As you deliberate about the reauthorization of ESEA, I hope you 

spend some time reflecting on a very fundamental or basic question. What do you believe is the purpose of public education for the 

United States for today in the 21st century? 

When I think of my grandchildren, I think about what it is it 

ought to provide them for their life. I want to visualize a circle divided into four quadrants. One of those quadrants I would assume 

would be academics, and when I think about what might be in 

there, I think of a very broad curriculum, 21st century skills, understanding what a student needs to know and be able to do in this 

coming century. It would be rich with arts and science, geography, 

history, health, and PE. As we talk about a global society, we must 

make sure that they have the ability to compete. I know there 

would be foreign language in there. 

Yet, when you look at the current system, the entire quadrant 

for academics has been narrowed to a very small sliver and we look 

at math and reading as if somehow measuring that will determine 

the success of a student, a school, or even a district. 

I would think one of the other quadrants for the purpose of 

American public education has to do with justice and equal opportunity. For someone who grew up in a small rural community in 

Iowa with 1,700 people in my town, I have the opportunity to be 

here today. The system that Government provided gave me the opportunity to my American dream, and so part of that purpose is to 

ensure that every student in America has access to that possibility 

and those opportunities. 

I would hope that another quadrant in that purpose would be to 

take the ideas and the ideals and the responsibility of citizenship 

in a democratic society and move them to the next generation. I 

would hope that part of that purpose would reflect the development 

16 

of the whole child not just the academic as they grow into productive adults who can balance work and family and faith and community but as part of all of that. 

It is so important to reflect on that purpose because until you do 

that, it is very difficult to determine the standards for accountability and assessment of the system. 

In my written testimony, I spoke in detail of the inextricable link 

between investment in education and a strong economy and a competitive Nation. Education is the driver for individual and national 

success. Students in impoverished communities too often do not attend safe schools, do not have safe passage to and from, and do not 

have access to great teachers on a regular and consistent basis. 

Our challenge in reauthorizing ESEA is to ensure those benefits 

reach all students in all communities. 

Three things I would mention in the reauthorization: 

No. 1, codify those things that we know work based on research 

and the people who work there. Children are not experiments. Policies on accountability, assessments, and transforming schools 

should follow research not dogma. Accountability and flexibility are 

not mutually exclusive. We are encouraged by Secretary Duncan’s 

remarks about being tight on goals and loose on means, providing 

flexibility of how to achieve it, and we would encourage Congress 

to make laws that honor that pledge. 

No. 2, the Federal Government should only incentivize initiatives 

in which collaborative plans from beginning to end involve all essential stakeholders. In the last 25 years, one thing we know, as 

we look at places that succeed, there is a common thread that you 

must have collaboration. You must have management, the board, 

the employees and their unions sit down together and say what is 

it that we need to do to transform and make it right for the students in our school. They must then reach out to parents and the 

community. We cannot afford to fail. Our students cannot afford us 

to fail, and the status quo is unacceptable. 

And finally, in the true spirit of the original ESEA from 1965, 

Federal law and regulations are the only way to eliminate vast disparities. There is a corridor of shame in every State. Therefore, as 

a condition of receiving Federal money, all States should be required to submit a plan for remedying those disparities in all the 

key areas that make a great public school, publish them, post them 

on the Web, total transparency, and then allow the citizens to hold 

the State and local governments accountable for implementation of 

that plan. 

The road is a difficult one, but it is worth the effort. I want you 

to know that 3.2 million people stand ready to move on this journey 

and work with our partners to transform public education. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Van Roekel follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DENNIS VAN ROEKEL

SUMMARY

The public education system is critical to democracy. Its purpose is to: 

• maximize the achievement, skills, opportunities and potential of all students by 

promoting their strengths and addressing their needs, and 

17 

• ensure all students are prepared to thrive in a democratic society and diverse 

changing world as knowledgeable, creative and engaged citizens and lifelong learners. 

Our public schools need a wholesale transformation with the resources to match 

our commitment. We cannot leave a generation of students behind by continuing to 

deny them the best education this country has to offer. 

K–12 EDUCATION IN THE U.S. ECONOMY

There is no disagreement that there is an inextricable link between investment 

in education and a strong, competitive nation. Individuals who go further in school 

see higher earnings throughout their lifetime. But, the spill-over effects of a quality 

public education extend beyond individuals. The higher earnings of educated workers generate higher tax payments at the local, State, and Federal levels. Consistent 

productive employment reduces dependence on public income-transfer programs and 

all workers, regardless of education level, earn more when there are more college 

graduates in the labor force. In today’s economy, investing in education will help 

prevent harmful cuts in programs, preserve jobs and reduce unemployment. 

REVITALIZING THE PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM

We must address opportunity gaps to strengthen our economy and build the educated workforce necessary for the 21st century. We should codify those things that 

we know work based upon research and the guidance of those closest to children. 

Children are not experiments. Policies on accountability, assessments, and turning 

around schools should follow research, not dogma. 

REDESIGNING SCHOOLS FOR 21ST CENTURY LEARNING

Educating every student so they can succeed is not enough. We live in a global 

society and our students will have to compete with people from across the world. 

We need a world class education system that will prepare students to become critical thinkers, problem solvers, and globally competent. 

REVAMPING ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS FOR 21ST CENTURY LEARNING

States should have well-designed, transparent accountability systems that authentically assess student learning and the conditions for its success, focus on closing achievement gaps, help to monitor progress, and identify successes and problems. We should not continue the unhealthy focus on standardized tests as the primary evidence of student success. Educator voices are key to any successful transformation. We cannot discount the experience and knowledge of those who work in 

classrooms every day. The Federal Government should only incentivize initiatives 

in which collaborative plans—designed from start to finish by all essential stakeholders—are assured. 

ENSURING SUSTAINABILITY OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

If we are to be true to the spirit of the original ESEA, Federal law and regulations 

are the only way to eliminate vast disparities in educational opportunity. As a condition of receiving Federal money, all States should be required to submit a plan 

for remedying disparities in the key areas that make a great public school. Transforming America’s public schools is a daunting task. It will take the concerted efforts of all stakeholders and the commitment to continue the effort until every student has access to a great public school. 

Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, and members of the committee, thank 

you for the opportunity to speak with you today about the essential role of preparing 

students for success in the 21st Century and how the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act must be redesigned to achieve this goal. I commend the committee 

for convening a hearing on this very important issue. 

As a 23-year veteran classroom math teacher, I have the great honor of being here 

today representing 3.2 million members who all believe in the power of education 

to transform lives. NEA members include teachers and education support professionals, higher education faculty and staff, Department of Defense schools’ educators, students in colleges of teacher education, and retired educators across the 

country. 

Today, I will talk about K–12 education in the U.S. economy. I will also present 

NEA’s views on revitalizing the public education system, redesigning schools and reVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:22 Mar 14, 2011 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\55474.TXT DENISE
18 

vamping accountability systems for 21st century learning, and ensuring sustainability of public education. 

The public education system is critical to democracy. Its purpose is to: 

• maximize the achievement, skills, opportunities and potential of all students by 

promoting their strengths and addressing their needs, and 

• ensure all students are prepared to thrive in a democratic society and diverse 

changing world as knowledgeable, creative, and engaged citizens and lifelong learners. 

However, today, students’ success in school depends in large part on the zip code 

where they live and the educators to whom they are assigned. There are great 

teachers and education support professionals at work every day in this country who 

show up excited to teach students and feed them nutritious meals, help them travel 

safely to and from school, and make sure they attend schools that are safe, clean, 

and in good repair. 

Students who struggle the most in impoverished communities too often don’t attend safe schools with reliable heat and air conditioning; too often do not have safe 

passage to and from school; and far too often do not have access to great teachers 

on a regular and consistent basis. We must address these opportunity gaps if we 

are to strengthen our economy, prepare our students to compete, and build the educated workforce necessary. 

What we have today is an interdependent, rapidly changing world, and our public 

school system must adapt to the needs of the new global economy. Every student 

will need to graduate from high school, pursue post-secondary educational options, 

and focus on a lifetime of learning because many of tomorrow’s jobs have not even 

been conceived of today. 

I think we can all agree that our public schools need a wholesale transformation 

with the resources to match our commitment. We cannot leave a generation of students behind by continuing to deny them the best education this country has to 

offer. Instead of being first in the world in the number of inmates, let’s work to be 

first in the world in the number of high school and college graduates. 

As President John F. Kennedy said in 1961 and it still holds true now: 

‘‘Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. 

Our requirements for world leadership, our hopes for economic growth, and the 

demands of citizenship itself in an era such as this all require the maximum 

development of every young American’s capacity. The human mind is our fundamental resource.’’ 

Simply put, we need a new vision of 21st century learning. My testimony today 

will lay out the inextricable link between investment in education and a strong, 

competitive nation and will discuss how we must approach ESEA reauthorization 

from an economic development framework. 

But I would be remiss if I did not point out that the best laid plans for 21st century learning will not succeed without a true partnership of change between educators, school boards and school districts. Simply put, reform in schools does not 

succeed without true collaboration among all those involved in creating, funding, 

and delivering quality education services to our students. We have to all shoulder 

the responsibility and hard work it will take to be sure schools improve dramatically, particularly for students who need the most. And we cannot continue to shun 

proven school improvement models because they don’t generate as much press coverage as others. 

We know schools improve when educators are respected, treated as professionals, 

and given the tools they need and the opportunity to improve as a team for the benefit of their students. For example, Broad Acres Elementary School in Silver Spring, 

Maryland is a high-poverty, previously low performing school. In April 2001, all 

staff at Broad Acres Elementary School had the option to make a 3-year commitment to the school and its students. This commitment included working the equivalent of 15 extra days paid by a supplement to be used to extend the workday every 

Wednesday until 6 p.m. for planning sessions, study groups, and examining student 

work. Sixty percent of the staff elected to stay. According to the school district’s Web 

site, students met the proficiency standards for adequate yearly progress in math 

and reading for the most recent year available. The student body is 99 percent minority and 88 percent qualify for free and reduced price meals. Furthermore, at 

Broad Acres, 30 percent of the teachers have more than 15 years of experience, 52.7 

percent have 5–15 years, and only 16.4 percent have less than 5 years of experience. 

It appears from those numbers that Broad Acres has successfully retained experienced educators and probably also attracted newer ones who are staying. 

19 

K–12 EDUCATION IN THE U.S. ECONOMY

Every child and young adult has surely heard the following: ‘‘To get ahead in life, 

get an education.’’ This is a belief often repeated among noted economists and education experts, and is borne out by numerous studies. As Paul Krugman, New York 

Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner has said, ‘‘If you had to explain America’s 

economic success with one word, that word would be ‘education’ . . . Education 

made America great; neglect of education can reverse the process.’’ Former Treasury 

Secretary Henry Paulson has also stated, ‘‘The best approach is to give people access 

to first-rate education so they can acquire the skills needed to advance.’’ 

Besides the benefits to individuals, society as a whole also enjoys a financial return on the investment in higher education. In addition to widespread productivity 

increases, the higher earnings of educated workers generate higher tax payments 

at the local, State, and Federal levels. Consistent productive employment reduces 

dependence on public income-transfer programs and all workers, regardless of education level, earn more when there are more college graduates in the labor force. 

(Education Pays, The College Board, 2007.) 

The provision of a quality K–12 public education plays a crucial role in the individual and economy-wide acquisition of ‘‘human capital.’’ The economic payoff to individuals of increased schooling is higher earnings throughout their lifetime—a market-based individual benefit. In addition, a considerable number of benefits from a 

quality K–12 public education—the spillover effects extend beyond individuals. 

Wolfe and Haveman (2002), economists noted for their efforts to put a monetary 

value on some of education’s spillover effects, argue that the value of these 

spillovers for individuals and the economy is significant and that it may be as large 

as education’s market-based individual benefits. For example: 

• Cutting statewide public K–12 expenditure by $1 per $1,000 State’s personal income could: (1) reduce the State’s personal income by about 0.3 percent in the short 

run and 3.2 percent in the long run; (2) reduce the State’s manufacturing investment in the long run by 0.9 percent and manufacturing employment by 0.4 percent. 

Cutting statewide public K–12 education per student by $1 would reduce small business starts by 0.4 percent in the long run. Cutting statewide public K–12 expenditure by 1 percentage point of the State’s personal income would reduce the State’s 

employment by 0.7 percent in the short run and by 1.4 percent in the long run. 

• A reduction in a State’s aggregate home values is likely if a reduction in statewide public school spending yields a decline in standardized public school test 

scores, if in the long run people leave or do not enter the State because of test-score 

declines. A 10 percent reduction in various standardized test scores would yield between a 2 percent and a 10 percent reduction in aggregate home values in the long 

run. 

• Reduction in a State’s aggregate personal income is also likely if a reduction 

in statewide public school spending yields a decline in ‘‘quality’’ of public education 

produced and a long-run decrease in earning potential of the State’s residents. A 

10 percent reduction in school expenditures could yield a 1 to 2 percent decrease 

in post-school annual earnings in the long run. A 10 percent increase in the studentteacher ratio would lead to a 1 to 2 percent decrease in high school graduation rates 

and to a decrease in standardized test scores. 

Investing in education will help prevent harmful cuts in programs, preserve jobs 

and reduce unemployment, thereby strengthening State and local economies. 

• According to the National Governors’ Association, ‘‘Long-term prospects for 

strong economic growth are hampered by the high school dropout crisis . . . Dropouts costs the United States more that $300 billion a year in lost wages and increased public-sector expenses . . . the dropout problem is a substantial drag on the 

Nation’s economic competitiveness.’’ 

• The latest study from the Alliance for Excellent Education, The Economic Benefits from Halving the Dropout Rate makes a powerful connection between easing the 

dropout crisis and strengthening local economies. Over time, for example, budgets 

that provide education and other basic services to economically disadvantaged people can increase their chances for solid jobs and productive lives and thereby reduce 

income inequality. Social spending, including education spending, often has a positive effect on GDP, even after weighing the effects of the taxes used to finance it. 

• A series of careful studies presented at the Teachers College Symposium on 

Educational Equity at Columbia University found that, among other things that a 

high school dropout earns about $260,000 less over a lifetime than a high school 

graduate and pays about $60,000 less in taxes. These same studies also found that 

America loses $192 billion—1.6 percent of our Gross Domestic Product—in combined 

income and tax revenue with each cohort of 18-year-olds who never complete high 

20 

school. In other words, for each year’s high school graduating class, the amount they 

would contribute to this Nation’s economy over their lifetime in terms of their income and the taxes they pay would be larger by $192 billion if all of their sameage peers completed high school as well. The annual loss of Federal and State income taxes associated with the 23 million U.S. high school dropouts (ages 18–67) 

is over $50 billion compared to what they would have paid if they had graduated. 

• A survey for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston showed that an educated, 

qualified workforce was by far the most important consideration of firms when deciding where to locate. 

• And a study for the World Bank showed that public investments in K–12 education yielded an annual return of 14.3 percent in additional revenue and reduced 

expenses, while the long-term return on common stocks was only 6.3 percent a year. 

• Two Harvard economists, Lawrence F. Katz and Claudia Goldin, studied the effect of increases in educational attainment in the U.S. labor force from 1915 to 1999. 

They estimated that those gains directly resulted in at least 23 percent of the overall growth in productivity, or around 10 percent of growth in gross domestic product. 

(What’s the Return on Education, Anna Bernasek, The New York Times, December 

11, 2005). They found education programs have contributed to economic growth 

while also increasing opportunities for individual advancement. Near-universal public education has added significantly to U.S. economic growth, boosted incomes, and 

lowered inequality (Goldin and Katz, 2008). 

It is clear that when faced with the choice of: (1) increasing revenue statewide 

to continue supporting the provision of quality public K–12 education; or (2) cutting 

support statewide to public K–12 education to forestall a tax increase, a State’s 

long-term economic interests are better served by increasing revenue. (NEA Working Paper, K–12 Education in the U.S. Economy: Its impact on Economic Development, Earnings, and Housing Values. Thomas L. Hungerford and Robert W. 

Wassmer, April 2004). Yet, according to NEA’s own research, almost no States are 

currently funding their educational systems adequately and most States are around 

25 percent short of funding their systems at a level adequate. 

These findings take on a particular significance in the current economy. State 

budgets typically lag any national economic recovery by a year or longer and, as a 

result, budget gaps will continue into fiscal year 2011 and beyond. In fact, the aggregate budget gap for fiscal year 2012 is expected to be larger than the 2011 gap, 

largely due to diminishing Federal stimulus funds. For many States, 2011 will mark 

the third consecutive year in which budget balancing actions will be needed to close 

sizable budget gaps. According to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) just 

issued Policies for Increasing Economic Growth and Employment in 2010 and 2011, 

‘‘Many States have experienced a high degree of fiscal stress and are expected 

to have large budget gaps in the next few years. Eighteen States have budget 

gaps larger than 20 percent of general fund expenditures. . . .’’ 

The Federal Government, which, unlike most State governments, is not prohibited 

from running an annual budget deficit, is best suited to help State and local governments maintain educational funding during cyclical downturns. According to CBO, 

‘‘Federal aid that was provided promptly would probably have a significant 

effect on output and employment in 2010 and 2011. Such aid could lead to fewer 

layoffs, more pay raises, more government purchases of goods and services, increases in State safety-net programs, tax cuts, and savings for future use.’’ 

The evidence is clear that investment in education is essential for a strong economy and a well-prepared workforce, and that the Federal Government must step up 

at this critical juncture. This sort of investment in education as a means to stimulating economic growth is not unprecedented. In the last century, both the G.I. bill 

and the National Defense Education Act of 1958, which appropriated $1 billion for 

science education, helped propel economic growth. 

Leaving States to cut education more deeply to balance their budgets without additional Federal aid is short-sighted. Lessening the quality of education a student 

receives today as a result may be irreversible. Long-term productivity growth and 

a higher standard of living are dependent on an educated workforce. Investing in 

education is investing in the future growth of the country. 

Additional funding for public primary and secondary schools, however, will not 

generate greater student achievement unless the funds are used wisely. The remainder of this testimony will focus on how we must retool our education system for the 

21st Century. 

21 

REVITALIZING THE PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM

It is important to recall that 1965 was one of the notable years in the history of 

education in America. That year, as part of his War on Poverty, President Lyndon 

Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to reduce inequity by directing resources to poor and minority children and signed the Higher 

Education Act (HEA) to provide more opportunities and access to post-secondary opportunities for lower- and middle-income families. ‘‘Poverty has many roots,’’ Johnson said, ‘‘but the taproot is ignorance.’’ 

Poverty is still an issue in this country, and unfortunately we still have schools 

that lack resources, committed and effective leadership, and enough great teachers 

and education support professionals to reach every student. Schools in struggling 

communities too often have high dropout rates, and the cycle of poverty continues. 

The Federal Government must be engaged in these issues, offering the only remaining leverage point to hold States accountable for remedying these untenable inequities. Later in this testimony, I will address our recommendation that the Federal Government require States to put together adequacy and equity plans that outline how they will address these inequities. 

NEA also stands ready to help do something about it—we must break this cycle 

of poverty. And we are ready to work with our partners, community by community, 

to revitalize the public school system and redesign schools for the 21st century. 

REDESIGNING SCHOOLS FOR 21ST CENTURY LEARNING

To be clear, however, educating every student so they can succeed in this country 

is not enough today. We live in a global society and our students will have to compete with people from across the world. 

We need a world class education system that will prepare students to become critical thinkers, problem solvers, and globally competent. To prosper, graduates must 

learn languages, understand the world, and be able to compete globally, and we 

must benchmark our educational goals against other nations with strong education 

systems. If we collectively work toward that outcome, it is expected that the United 

States gross domestic product will be more than one-third higher in the next 70 

years. 

To meet the challenges of the 21st century, we must transform the system by demanding sweeping changes that changes the dynamic—significantly higher student 

achievement and significantly higher graduation rates for all groups of students. 

Our vision of what great public schools need and should provide acknowledges 

that the world is changing and public education is changing too. NEA’s Great Public 

Schools (GPS) criteria require not only the continued commitment of all educators, 

but the concerted efforts of policymakers at all levels of government. These criteria 

will prepare all students for the future with 21st century skills; create enthusiasm 

for learning and engaging all students in the classroom; close achievement gaps and 

increase achievement for all students; and ensure that all educators have the resources and tools they need to get the job done. 

The criteria are: 

• Quality programs and services that meet the full range of all children’s 

needs so that they come to school every day ready and able to learn. • High expectations and standards with a rigorous and comprehensive 

curriculum for all students. Curriculum and assessments must focus on higher 

order thinking and performance skills, if students are to meet the high standards 

to which we aspire. Students will be better prepared for the rigors of life and citizenship after school if they have had access to a broad, rigorous, relevant curriculum that prepares them for a variety of post-secondary educational and career 

options. Students’ access to core academic content areas that incorporate 21st century skills as well as fine arts, civics, and career and technical education helps inspire their creativity, helps connect their school work to their outside interests, and 

can help keep them engaged in school. 

We must support innovative public school models of education that inform and accelerate school transformation efforts and prepare students for citizenship, lifelong 

learning, and challenging post-secondary education and careers. The Federal Government can play a critical role in increasing educational research and development 

and providing a clearinghouse for innovative promising practices. • Quality conditions for teaching and lifelong learning. In an effort to obliterate the ‘‘corridors of shame’’ that exist and repair or rebuild crumbling schools, 

we also must focus resources on infrastructure. President Obama’s administration 

and Congress already have taken a giant leap forward in this respect when they 

passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). ARRA included billions of dollars in aid that can be used to help update schools. We are pleased that 

22 

both the House and Senate have passed legislation to extend and strengthen this 

program. 

We also know that if we are to revitalize our public schools, we must address the 

design of public schools. Schools today must work for students in rural, urban, suburban, and exurban areas. In rural areas, for example, broadband access is key to 

ensure students have access to virtual, supplemental material and support that is 

not available in their physical location. By creating this technology gateway, educators can also obtain high-quality professional development to which they might 

otherwise not have access. 

Schools and classrooms designed for 21st century learning also must be designed 

for universal access to ensure the inclusion of the widest spectrum of students. 

Every effort should be made to reduce the barriers to learning so that every student 

reaches his or her potential and dreams. 

• A qualified, caring, diverse, and stable workforce. Investments in teachers’ and leaders’ knowledge and skills are essential to all other reforms, and pay 

off in higher achievement. Strong preparation, mentoring, and professional development, as well as collaborative learning and planning time in schools, are the building blocks of any successful reform. We must ensure students have access to accomplished educators by requiring high standards for entry into the profession and by 

offering incentives to teach in hard-to-staff schools. We recommend creating a prestigious national education institute and provide incentives to States to create worldclass teacher preparation programs that attract the top tier of college graduates nationally. 

Teachers and education support professionals must be respected as professionals 

by ensuring they are part of critical decisions affecting students, schools and themselves. We also need to encourage school leadership to be effective in both operational and instructional leadership. 

• Shared responsibility for appropriate school accountability by stakeholders at all levels. We must obtain the full commitment from all policymakers— 

at the Federal, State, and local levels. We also must involve our communities and 

partners, including governors, State legislators, mayors, county officials, business 

partners, the faith-based community, the civil rights community, and parents and 

families, to name a few. It will take the concerted effort of all of these stakeholders 

working with superintendents, school boards, and educators to ensure that all of our 

schools become the modern, safe, vibrant centers of the community that they can 

become. 

• Parental, family, and community involvement and engagement. Through 

more than 125 initiatives in 21 States, NEA’s Public Engagement Project is demonstrating the essential role of school-family-community partnerships in student 

achievement. Our findings echo those of a 6-year-long study of multiple data sources 

conducted by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University: such 

partnerships contribute to increased student attendance, improved performance on 

standardized tests, higher high school graduation rates, and college-going aspirations. 

• Adequate, equitable, and sustainable funding. Resources must be adequate 

and equalized across schools. We cannot expect schools that lack strong and prepared leaders, well-qualified teachers, and high-quality instructional materials to 

improve by testing alone. We must ensure adequate and equitable funding for 

schools and fully fund critical programs such as title I and IDEA and we must help 

States and districts to identify disparities in educational resources, supports, programs, opportunities, class sizes and personnel (including the distribution of accomplished educators) through required Equity and Adequacy plans. 

NEA is part of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills—a unique public-private 

organization formed in 2002 to create a successful model of learning for this millennium that incorporates 21st century skills into our system of education. The members of this Partnership believe that policymakers today have an opportunity—and 

an obligation—to move forward with a new direction for teaching and learning in 

the 21st century (The Road to 21st Century Learning: A Policymakers Guide to 21st 

Century Skills, Partnership for 21st Century Skills). 

As laid out in the Partnership’s guidebook, The Road to 21st Century Learning: 

A Policymakers Guide to 21st Century Skills http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ 

downloads/P21lPolicylPaper.pdf) we see: 

‘‘. . . a growing sense of urgency that the Nation must act now to ensure that 

future generations of Americans can participate fully in the democratic process 

and the competitive global economy. Education is the foundation of democratic 

institutions, national security, economic growth and prosperity—and Americans 

cannot be complacent about improving the quality of education while competiVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:22 Mar 14, 2011 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\55474.TXT DENISE
23 

tors around the world are focusing on preparing students for the demands of 

this century. Only recently, the National Science Board, a Federal advisory 

panel established by Congress, warned that the United States faces a major 

shortage of scientists because too few Americans are entering technical fields 

and because of the burgeoning ranks of highly competent scientists in other nations. 

‘‘. . . America risks losing its long-standing pre-eminence in science, engineering, technology, medicine, defense, business and even democracy. Without 

many more highly educated, highly skilled young people to carry the torch of 

inquiry, innovation and enterprise into the future, American dominance in these 

and other endeavors may fade. . . . 

‘‘There is broad consensus among educators, policymakers, business leaders 

and the public that schools today must do a better job of preparing young people 

for the challenges and expectations of communities, workplaces and higher education. Moreover, there is broad consensus about the knowledge and skills that 

are essential in the world today—and about the educational model that would 

make schools more relevant to the world again as well. This model emphasizes 

that students today need 21st century skills to guarantee America’s success tomorrow.’’ 

Incremental changes yield incremental results. We must be bolder. A legislative 

tweak here or a regulatory toggle there will not lead to the fundamental and transformative changes in education we all seek. When we address change, we have to 

focus on significant and sustainable improvement in the rates of achievement for 

all students, but especially poor and minority students. 

According to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, integrating 21st century 

skills into K–12 education will empower students to learn and achieve in the core 

academic subjects at much higher levels. These skills, in fact, are the learning results that demonstrate that students are ready for the world. It is no longer enough 

to teach students the 3Rs; we must also teach the 4Cs of creativity, collaboration, 

communication, and critical thinking. 

The Partnership calls on policymakers to imagine: 

• A place where all children master rigorous core academic subjects. • A place where teaching and learning are relevant to life outside of school. • A place where all children understand and use the learning skills—information 

and communication skills, thinking and problem-solving skills, and interpersonal 

and self-directional skills—that lead to high performance in school and in life. • A place where vital new academic content is part of the common core curriculum. • A place where professional development and teaching strategies enable educators to help students gain the knowledge and skills they need. • A place where every student, teacher and administrator has on-demand access 

to 21st century tools and technologies and uses them to work productively. • A place where 21st century tools and context are embedded in core subjects and 

assessments. • A place where all students—including those with learning or physical disabilities and those who are learning English—can show what they know and can do 

with all of the knowledge and skills that are valued in the world. 

The Partnership members know that schools like these would be intellectually 

stimulating environments for students, teachers and administrators alike. Communities, employers, colleges and universities would be proud to welcome graduates of 

21st century schools as the best prepared generation of citizens in American history. 

Reaching this vision is both important and possible—and it rests in the hands of 

policymakers today. It is this vision that Congress should have at the forefront as 

you reauthorize ESEA. 

REVAMPING ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS FOR 21ST CENTURY LEARNING

In order to support public school improvement, States should have well-designed, 

transparent accountability systems that authentically assess both student learning 

and the conditions for its success, focus on closing achievement gaps, help to monitor progress, and identify successes and problems. We should not continue the 

unhealthy focus on standardized tests as the primary evidence of student success. 

Achievement is much more than a test score, but if test scores are still the primary means of assessing student learning, they will continue to get undue weight. 

This is especially problematic because the tests widely in use in the United States, 

since NCLB narrowed the kinds of tests in use, typically focus on lower level skills 

of recall and recognition measured with multiple-choice items that do not adequately represent higher order thinking skills and performance. These are unlike 

24 

the assessments that are used in high-achieving nations that feature essays, problem solutions, and open-ended items and more extensive tasks completed in classrooms as part of the assessment system. Achievement must take into account accomplishments that matter in the world outside of school, such as: Are you prepared 

for college or trade school? Can you form an opinion about something you read and 

justify your opinion? Are you creative? Are you inventive? Can you come up with 

a variety of solutions when you’re faced with a problem? 

The Federal Government should use the ESEA implementation process, along 

with those associated with other Federal programs, as mechanisms to incentivize 

States to devise comprehensive accountability systems that use multiple sources of 

evidence (including rich, meaningful, and authentic assessments, such as developing 

and/or using native language assessments as appropriate for students until they 

gain proficiency in English as determined by a valid and reliable measure). Instead 

of the current NCLB system that has resulted in a significant narrowing of the curriculum, State accountability systems should be designed to support efforts to guarantee every child has access to a rich, comprehensive curriculum. Such systems also 

should: 

• Align with developmentally appropriate student learning standards; • Require the use of multiple, valid, reliable measures of student learning and 

school performance over time and assess higher-order thinking skills and performance skills; • Replace AYP with a system that recognizes schools that make progress toward 

achieving learning goals and correctly identifies struggling schools in order to provide needed support instead of punishment; • Recognize the unique instructional and assessment needs of special populations, 

including students with disabilities and English language learners by designing 

standards and assessments that are accessible for all students; and • Foster high-quality data systems that are both longitudinal and complete and 

that protect student and educator privacy and improve instruction. 

These State systems should evaluate school quality, as well as demonstrate improvements in student learning and closing of achievement, skills, and opportunity 

gaps among various groups of students. NEA has developed a comprehensive diagnostic tool called KEYS to assess school climate and success using a variety of indicators. There are also important and highly informative surveys such as the Teacher 

Working Conditions survey (pioneered by the Center for Teaching Quality) and the 

Gallup student survey that should inform States’ educational approach and accountability system as it relates to school system quality. 

As States design these evaluation systems, the design team must include practicing educators to ensure that the system can yield clear and useful results. The 

results of these evaluations should not be used to punish and sanction schools. Results instead should be used to inform State, local, and classroom efforts to identify 

struggling students and problematic school programs so that States, districts, and 

educators can provide appropriate interventions and supports for improvement. 

When considering individual schools that need significant reform or turn-around 

efforts, I strongly urge you not to be too prescriptive—as we believe the U.S. Department of Education’s regulations in Race to the Top have been—in outlining specific 

methods of transforming schools. For example, we believe that turnaround assistance teams, such as those so successfully employed in North Carolina and Kentucky, serve as a highly effective, proven model of turning around low performing 

schools. We also believe that teacher-led schools have shown remarkable results in 

improving student learning. These two models were not included in the RTTT rules 

as allowable turn-around approaches. Such narrow prescriptions for school overhaul 

are predictive of one thing: diminished opportunity and tools to reach and turn 

around MORE schools. 

ENSURING SUSTAINABILITY OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

Transforming America’s public schools is a daunting task. It will take the concerted efforts of all stakeholders and the commitment to continue the effort until 

every student has access to a great public school. 

At the core of this effort is ensuring the fiscal stability of the educational system 

so that the energy of stakeholders can be spent on how best to serve students. 

As we have said in the past, the Federal Government should require States, as 

part of their application for Federal education funds under ESEA, to develop ‘‘Adequacy and Equity Plans.’’ Through these plans, States will demonstrate where there 

are disparities in educational tools and services, as well as opportunities and resources. The plans will outline steps underway or planned to remedy the disparities. 

The process of developing the plans should bring together stakeholders within the 

25 

* NEA’s Initial Legislative Recommendations for Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—March 26, 2010 may be found at www.nea.org/assets/docs/NEAlESEA 

lProposals.pdf. 

State to devise a plan to meet adequacy and equity goals, and for the first time significant Federal resources could serve as a powerful incentive that spurs action on 

this issue. This effort will help elevate the commitment to all students and build 

a shared understanding of what it will take to support them. 

The design of Federal approval and monitoring should be one that sensibly supports adjustments and flexibility as States pursue their goals and work toward 

eliminating disparities, without ever losing sight of the fact that the richest country 

in the world can provide every student with a quality education. 

CONCLUSION

We know the road to economic stability and prosperity runs through our public 

schools, and we know that every student deserves the best we can offer. It is now 

time to deliver. NEA stands ready to do its part. 

Attached to this testimony are a series of fact sheets on key elements of ESEA 

reauthorization, as well as NEA’s overriding principles for reauthorization. 

Thank you. 

ATTACHMENT * 

NEA’S MESSAGE TO MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ON THE REAUTHORIZATION OF ESEA 

The purpose of public education 

The public education system is critical to democracy and its purpose is to: 

• maximize the achievement, skills, opportunities and potential of all students by 

promoting their strengths and addressing their needs, and • ensure all students are prepared to thrive in a democratic society and diverse 

changing world as knowledgeable, creative and engaged citizens and lifelong learners. To fulfill the purpose of public education, we must: 

1. Promote Innovation in Public Schools 

• Support innovative public school models of education that inform and accelerate 

school transformation efforts and prepare students for citizenship, lifelong learning, 

and challenging post-secondary education and careers. • Increase educational research and development and provide a clearinghouse for 

innovative promising practices. 

2. Provide Students With Multiple Ways to Show What They Have 

Learned 

• Require the use of multiple, valid, reliable measures of student learning and 

school performance over time. • Replace AYP with a system that recognizes schools that make progress toward 

achieving learning goals and correctly identifies struggling schools in order to provide needed support instead of punishment. • Foster high-quality data systems that are both longitudinal and complete and 

that protect student and educator privacy and improve instruction. • Recognize the unique instructional and assessment needs of special populations, 

including students with disabilities and English language learners by designing 

standards and assessments that are accessible for all students. 

3. Elevate the Profession: Great Educators and Leaders for Every Public 

School 

• Respect teachers and education support professionals as professionals by ensuring they are part of critical decisions affecting students, schools and themselves. • Ensure students have access to accomplished educators by ensuring high standards for entry into the profession and by offering incentives to teach in hard-to-staff 

schools. • Encourage school leadership to be effective in both operational and instructional 

leadership. 

• Create a prestigious national education institute and provide incentives to 

States to create world-class teacher preparation programs that attract the top tier 

of college graduates nationally. 

4. Champion Adequate, Equitable, and Sustainable Funding for All Public 

Schools 

26 

• Ensure adequate and equitable funding for schools and fully fund critical programs such as Title I and IDEA. 

• Help States and districts to identify disparities in educational resources, supports, programs, opportunities, class sizes and personnel (including the distribution 

of accomplished educators) through required Equity and Adequacy plans. 

• Provide support and foster research-based turnaround strategies for high priority schools. 

1. PROMOTE INNOVATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

It is clear that if we are to achieve world-class schools for every student within 

the next decade, we will need fresh approaches and ideas that produce dramatic 

leaps in achievement and growth among students, educators and communities. The 

Federal Government must embrace its role as a supporter of local and State initiatives to transform schools, rather than a micro-manager. 

‘‘Institutionalizing’’ innovation is a paradoxical goal, and yet this is the Federal 

Government’s solemn responsibility: it must craft policies that are strict in their 

flexibility, incentivize change as a fixed concept, and establish continuity in the pursuit of continuous transformation. 

How can we promote innovation in schools? 

The Federal Government should increase and sustain funding in programs that 

are designed to foster innovation (such as the Investing in Innovation (i3) program 

funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009). Innovative 

proposals should be developed in collaboration with educators and include a sustainability plan. We believe that research, development and pilot programs in the following areas are particularly useful and necessary: 

• Unique governance models for public schools, including staff-led schools. 

• Wraparound, before- and after-school, summer programs and services. 

• High-quality formative student assessments. 

• Curricular reform that includes 21st century learning skills. 

• Effective and rigorous teacher preparation and induction. 

• Education delivery systems for students in rural or low-income school districts. 

• Incorporation of education technology into classrooms and schools. 

• Educator evaluation systems based on multiple, valid measures of performance 

and used to improve educators’ practice through use of professional development 

systems that are job-embedded, aligned, and research-based. 

• Longitudinal data systems that assist in determining students’ instructional 

and other needs. 

• Alternate structures to the school day and calendar year. 

• Magnet and themed public schools—e.g., science, technology, the arts. 

• Flexible high school pathways integrating preparation for career technical education and higher education. 

In addition to incentivizing pilot activities in the above areas, the Federal Government should sponsor its own research and establish a public clearinghouse for innovation and promising practices. 

What kinds of innovative models of education have proven successful? 

We know that successful, innovative and autonomous models of public school education already exist. Such models invariably include deep and mutually beneficial 

partnerships with government, higher education, parent and community organizations, education unions, and businesses or philanthropic entities. These models also 

have produced new and imaginative ways to develop professional development, deliver student instruction and assessments, and offer time for team curricular planning. 

One promising example is the Math & Science Learning Academy (MLSA), a new, 

union-designed, teacher-led public school within the Denver Public School System. 

Other examples of innovation that feature strong union-administrator-school district 

partnerships include: 

• Say Yes to Education Foundation (Syracuse, NY). 

• Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation (Evansville, IN). 

• Hamilton County Public Schools (Chattanooga, TN). 

• University of Connecticut—CommPACT Schools (Hartford, CT). 

• Milwaukee Partnership Academy (Milwaukee, WI). 

• Seattle Flight School Initiative (Seattle, WA). 

27 

Why should we care about school ‘‘transformation’’ as part of innovation efforts? 

School ‘‘transformation’’ is not a silver bullet. Rather, it entails numerous, coordinated and aggressive changes in policies, programs and behavior within school systems. School transformation must address school organization and structure; leadership and governance; staff recruiting, development and retention; instructional and 

curricular practices; support services and resources; parent and community involvement; overall school infrastructure, culture and climate; and other factors. 

While intervention models that call for the replacement of existing leadership and 

the majority of staff, reorganization as a charter school or school closure are avenues to consider in limited circumstances, in many communities and regions they 

are not feasible options. Moreover, the choice of an intervention ‘‘model’’ alone does 

not equal reform: all of these models must be accompanied by transformation strategies described above if they are to improve and sustain student achievement and 

growth. 

NEA Recommendations to Congress: 

• Support and promote innovative public school models and programs that accelerate school transformation efforts and prepare students for citizenship, lifelong 

learning, and challenging post-secondary education and careers. 

• Encourage innovation developed through partnerships—primarily between educators’ unions, administrators, and school districts—that focus on helping students 

thrive and develop critical 21st century skills. 

• Increase educational research and development to provide a clearinghouse for 

innovative promising practices. 

2. PROVIDE STUDENTS WITH MULTIPLE WAYS TO SHOW WHAT THEY HAVE LEARNED

There is widespread consensus that NCLB placed a necessary focus on the 

achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged student populations. It, 

however, has wreaked havoc on schools by mislabeling successful schools as failing, 

under-serving those schools that are truly struggling, and placing undue emphasis 

on federally mandated standardized student assessments as the accountability yardstick for entire school systems. This has resulted in intense discontent among educators and parents and scant, if any, gains in a narrow range of skills and content 

areas among students. 

The next iteration of ESEA must prize authenticity above all else. That is, it must 

transparently identify and scale up valid measures of student learning in its totality—not just student performance on a test, and not just student growth in a series 

of tests, but all essential components of student learning as demonstrated by reliable and varied sources of evidence, beginning with the professional ‘‘assessment’’ 

of the classroom teacher. These valid measures of student learning must then be 

analyzed as one, but not the only, important facet of overall school effectiveness. 

Accountability systems should be used primarily as part of a continuous improvement system designed to improve instruction rather than to punish schools. Promising instructional methods should be shared among colleagues and scaled up, and 

assessment systems should be used to identify which struggling schools are most in 

need of support, with the goal of delivering that needed support. Most importantly, 

accountability systems must be limited so as not to subsume the character of education itself. We must measure school performance, but we must do so in a way that 

enhances, rather than stifles, the educational process. 

Can States develop authentic assessment systems that use multiple measures of student learning and school performance? 

A complete and balanced authentic student assessment system is one factor essential to education improvement. A complete system should incorporate the concept of 

assessment purposes encompassing assessment of, for, and as learning. This concept 

is espoused by several experts in student assessment, and is used by several highachieving countries such as Singapore, New Zealand, and Canada. 

Research and evidence show that the current test-and-label system under NCLB 

is fundamentally flawed and recommend that States be allowed to develop their own 

accountability systems using student growth models instead of having to demonstrate ‘‘adequate yearly progress’’ by group status or successive group improvement (currently NCLB ‘‘safe harbor’’). Beginning in 2005, the U.S. Department of 

Education approved a pilot program to allow States to use growth models to measure AYP. Twenty-two States and the District of Columbia have since applied to use 

growth models, and 15 States now have approved growth models: Alaska, Arizona, 

Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North 

Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. We recommend that all States 

28 

1 NCLB currently requires schools to attain 100 percent student proficiency in math and literacy by the 2013–2014 school year. Schools must demonstrate AYP by setting and attaining 

increasingly higher target goals. Improvement must occur for every subgroup of students, i.e., 

low socioeconomic status, racial and ethnic groups, students with disabilities and students with 

limited English proficiency. Schools that receive title I funds and consistently fail to make adequate progress are then subject to a series of progressively harsher sanctions that range from 

allowing students to transfer to higher achieving schools and funding private tutoring to reconstitution, dismissal of staff, or even closure. 

be given the option to set attainable performance goals and be given credit for demonstrating growth in student learning. 

In addition, we recommend three important changes to the current accountability 

framework: 

(1) Expand the current student growth models to include other valid indicators of 

student learning. Student growth on standardized assessments is but one out of 

multiple indicators of student learning. Evidence of student growth (as measured by 

accurate and reliable assessments and differentiated by subgroup) must be augmented with other measures, which may include district-level assessments; schoollevel assessments; classroom-level written, oral, performance-based, or portfolio assessments; grades; and written evaluations. All measures must be rigorous and follow common protocols to allow comparisons across classrooms. 

(2) Require States to monitor multiple indicators of school performance beyond student learning. These include graduation rates; post-secondary and career placement 

rates; attendance rates; student mobility or transfer rates; the number and percentage of students participating in rigorous coursework (including honors, AP, IB, dual 

enrollment, early college); and the number and percentage of students participating 

in sciences, STEM, humanities, foreign languages, creative and fine arts, health, 

and physical education programs. This robust system would provide the public with 

a more complete picture of the performance of schools in their community and their 

State, instead of the current system, which holds schools accountable based solely 

on how many students reach an arbitrary cut score on a standardized test in reading, math, and science on a particular day. 

(3) Replace the current ‘‘AYP’’ system1 and corrective framework with a Continuous 

Improvement Plan that features multiple indicators to help States accomplish the following goals: 

• recognize areas of growth in all schools and States as part of a continuous improvement paradigm that all schools can improve; • identify schools and programs that may offer innovative approaches or platforms for other schools; • provide basic feedback to all schools on areas of possible growth or improvement 

(including support in one or more areas if warranted); and • identify which schools are or are at risk of becoming high priority (i.e., either 

‘‘persistently low-achieving’’ or that demonstrate ‘‘significant educational opportunity gaps’’) in order to direct intensive resources and intervention supports to 

them. 

High priority schools (as identified by the State) would be required (and would 

be provided additional resources) to collect and submit additional data related to 

key school climate and success factors, including: leadership and staff experience 

and turnover statistics; class size (student-teacher ratio); number of National Board 

certified teachers; number of certified counselors, nurses and other support staff per 

student; school building and environmental ratings; school bullying violence statistics; descriptions of professional development and instructional improvement strategies, description of access to libraries, science laboratories, quality health care in the 

community, nutritional meals, before- and after-school, and community and family 

engagement activities. The primary purpose of providing such additional data would 

be to direct appropriate resources and interventions to such schools. Such schools 

would have to provide such additional data until they are no longer deemed a high 

priority school. 

Can States and/or districts establish reliable longitudinal data systems that inform 

student learning and instruction in a timely manner? 

The NEA supports State and local efforts to achieve high-quality longitudinal data 

systems that connect early learning to post-secondary (P–16) education systems and 

that provide timely and accurate information to educators about students to improve 

instruction. We support key aspects of high-functioning data systems, provided that 

such data systems sufficiently protect both student and educator privacy. No educational or performance data related to any individual should be made public, nor 

should ratings or levels be made public if there is a significant possibility that indiVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:22 Mar 14, 2011 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\55474.TXT DENISE
29 

2See Department of Labor. 

3See National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. 

viduals could be identified through such publication. All ratings of educators informed by data systems that connect students to individual educators should be developed by and with educators, based on multiple means of evaluating educators, 

and should be aligned with collective bargaining agreements. All data systems must 

be associated with job-embedded professional development and planning time as an 

essential component in order for the data to be used for its intended purpose of improving instruction. 

Can current efforts to revamp standards and assessments actually improve accountability systems? 

The NEA supports the current effort among States to band together in consortia 

to voluntarily adopt a common core of high-quality standards and high-quality assessments aligned to those standards. Standards and assessments must be aligned 

with each other and with curricula, teacher preparation and professional development, and they must address the whole student and foster critical and high-order 

thinking skills and knowledge that will prepare students for a global and interdependent world in the 21st century and beyond. Assessments must include formative and summative components and be designed from the outset to accommodate 

the needs of special populations, including students with disabilities and English 

language learners. 

Can we revise accountability systems to recognize the individual needs of students, 

such as those with disabilities or who are English language learners? 

Recent developments in education have converged to create a critical need for 

valid, reliable, unbiased methods for conducting high-stakes assessments for all students, including those with disabilities and English language learners (ELL). Foremost is the movement toward ensuring accessibility, fairness and accountability for 

all students. In this effort, assessments play a key role in supplying evidence to parents, policymakers, politicians, and taxpayers about the degree to which students 

meet high standards. 

To appropriately assess students with disabilities and ELLs, States should: (1) ensure that appropriate accommodations are available for students who need them, (2) 

use the principles of universal design for learning (UDL) in developing assessments 

for all students to increase accessibility, (3) ensure that valid, alternate assessments 

are available for those students who are unable to participate in regular assessments, (4) ensure that Individualized Education Program (IEP) teams understand 

the impact of alternative assessments on students’ programs and graduation options, and (5) include measures of growth toward grade level targets, such as growth 

models that represent student progress over time. 

NEA Recommendations to Congress: 

• Require the use of multiple, valid measures of student learning and school performance. 

• Use student growth over time—not simply a one-day snapshot of standardized 

test performance—as one component of student learning. 

• Replace AYP with a Continuous Improvement Plan system that recognizes 

schools that achieve growth and correctly identifies struggling schools in order to 

provide meaningful support. 

• Foster high-quality, longitudinal data systems that improve instruction and protect student and educator privacy. 

• Recognize the unique instructional and assessment needs of special populations, 

including students with disabilities and English language learners. 

3. ELEVATE THE PROFESSION: GREAT EDUCATORS AND LEADERS IN EVERY

PUBLIC SCHOOL

A growing body of research confirms what school-based personnel have known for 

years—that the skills and knowledge of teachers and education support professionals (ESPs) are the greatest factor in how well students learn. In turn, the presence of strong and supportive school leaders is one of the most important factors 

for recruiting and retaining accomplished teachers and ESPs. But for too long, we 

have neglected the most important factors in ensuring a strong and healthy pipeline 

of qualified educators. Today, the average person will change jobs between three to 

five times in a lifetime.2 Half of all teachers leave the classroom after 5 years.3

Fewer schools have experienced educators. As an entire generation of educators enVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:22 Mar 14, 2011 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\55474.TXT DENISE
30 

ters retirement, there is an urgent need to address all aspects of working in public 

schools. It is time to elevate the profession. 

The Federal Government must assist States to help seed future generations of 

educators at the earliest stages of undergraduate education and teacher recruitment 

all the way through teacher placement and retention. In particular, it is clear that 

we need a bold new center of excellence to bring prestige to the teaching profession: 

a national education institute to attract top college graduates and second-career professionals from across the country. 

Also, we know that even the best teachers struggle to perform well without the 

presence of an effective instructional leader. Primarily principals and other administrators, school leaders could include other colleagues who serve as mentors and 

coaches. Federal policies, therefore, must foster well-prepared and effective administrators as well as leadership skills within school professionals of different ranks and 

positions. And it is time that we recognize and support education support professionals, without whom no school would be able to succeed. 

Finally, we must ensure that great educators exist in every school, whether highor low-achieving. The Federal Government must develop policies and provide funding that enables struggling schools and districts to offer incentives and conditions 

that will attract and retain the best educators in the Nation. 

Why should we focus on each stage of the pathway from undergraduate education 

all the way to retention of veteran educators? 

Research shows that, in order to infuse the educational system with great educators, each segment of the educator pipeline is important, including undergraduate 

education, recruitment of top graduates, graduate preparation, rigorous standards 

for entry into the profession, induction and placement, certification and licensure, 

mentoring, professional development, advancement and retention. Ultimately, we 

must develop systemic ways to recruit legions of top undergraduate students and 

professionals leaving other professions, to prepare them effectively, and to nurture 

and safeguard their path to and longevity within the classroom. 

Can we foster excellence while establishing attainable standards within the teaching 

profession? 

Teachers need to receive more than high-quality preparation within schools of 

education. The bulk of their learning comes from their experience in the classroom. 

We need policies that foster continuous learning in the form of high-quality, job-embedded professional development, mentoring programs, common planning and reflection time, and timely and continuous feedback from peers and school leadership. 

Funds should be provided so that more teachers receive the opportunity to earn 

certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; Boardcertified teachers should be deemed highly qualified for accountability purposes. 

Federal policy also should recognize that some teachers must teach multiple subjects because of their geography or student population. This may include rural, special education, or elementary and middle school teachers. Therefore, teacher quality 

standards, while rigorous, also must provide accommodations for teachers in special 

circumstances and give them reasonable, common sense opportunities to improve or 

increase their skills and breadth of certification. 

What can we do to improve school leadership? 

Similar to other educators, we must ensure that school principals and other administrators receive adequate preparation, mentoring and continuous professional 

development and support to improve their craft. They must receive timely and useful feedback from school staff as well as other administrators and be evaluated fairly and comprehensively. And they must have the resources and the staff necessary 

to manage a successful school. 

We must also advance policies that advance the leadership skills of teachers and 

education support professionals. All staff benefit from opportunities to both exhibit 

and receive leadership and mentoring within their specific profession or job category. 

Why do we need a national education institute as well as State and local reform 

within teacher and principal preparation programs? 

Elevating the profession means ensuring that the most talented individuals in the 

Nation have access to world-class education preparation programs. The establishment of a National Education Institute (NEI), a highly competitive public academy 

for the Nation’s most promising K–12 teacher candidates in diverse academic disciplines, would allow the Federal Government to attract and retain top undergraduate scholars as well as second-career professionals and prepare them as leaders of school reform within school systems around the Nation. NEI would provide 

31 

an intensive 1-year path (free tuition, room and board in exchange for 7-year commitment to service in select public schools) to full licensure, school placement, induction and lifetime professional development and mentoring opportunities from NEI 

faculty/graduates/master teachers, and annual meetings with other NEA alumni. 

NEI also would partner with existing teacher preparation programs to establish 

a highly competitive ‘‘National Scholars’’ program in select universities and to foster 

regional and local excellence in teacher preparation, licensure and induction. 

NEI would also sponsor a principal or leadership development program for top 

candidates who have served as teachers for at least 3 years and wish to enter an 

intensive program to become a principal or school leader in a priority school. 

Can we do more to recognize and support education support professionals? 

Education support professionals (ESPs) comprise a critical part of the education 

team. They include school secretaries, custodians, bus drivers, teacher aides, food 

service personnel, paraprofessional laboratory technicians, telephone operators, 

medical records personnel, bookkeepers, accountants, mail room clerks, computer 

programmers, library and reference assistants, audio-visual technicians, and others. 

Schools cannot function without high-functioning ESPs. The Federal Government 

should create incentives and provide funds to recruit certified and qualified ESPs, 

and ensure they are included in job growth and professional development opportunities. 

Can we recruit and create incentives for high-quality educators to work in hard-tostaff schools? 

The NEA supports financial and other incentives to encourage top educators to 

work in hard-to-staff schools. Such incentives are most effective when they are voluntary, locally agreed upon, and include non-financial incentives such as the availability of continuous professional development, mentoring, paraprofessional assistance, effective school leadership, sufficient resources, planning time, class size reduction, and other factors that improve job quality and effectiveness. Inexperienced 

or new teachers should not automatically be placed in hard-to-staff schools until 

they have attained sufficient preparation and classroom experience. 

NEA Recommendations to Congress: 

• Focus on intensive efforts in the areas of undergraduate preparation and educator recruitment, preparation, certification and licensure, induction, professional development, mentoring, tenure, advancement and retention. • Foster continuous learning and rigorous yet attainable standards within the 

teaching profession. • Prioritize school leadership at all levels and positions within schools. • Create a prestigious national education institute and provide incentives to 

States to create world-class teacher preparation programs that attract the top tier 

of college graduates nationally. • Recognize and support the contributions and achievement of education support 

professionals. • Offer financial and non-financial incentives to teachers who teach in hard-tostaff schools. 

4. CHAMPION ADEQUATE, EQUITABLE, AND SUSTAINABLE FUNDING FOR ALL

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

States and local school districts play a critical role in providing adequate and equitable resources to all of their schools. Likewise, the Federal Government must 

play an active supporting role to ensure that a student does not miss out on key 

opportunities by virtue of their zip code. Programs like Title I and IDEA must be 

fully funded because they are critical in providing necessary and sustained funds 

to schools serving disadvantaged students and special populations. States must be 

required to develop ‘‘adequacy and equity’’ plans that would measure and address 

disparities in educational resources, opportunities, programs and quality among 

communities and districts. Additionally, the Federal Government should reserve a 

portion of its funds to provide intensive support to struggling schools and provide 

research, assistance and guidance to foster sustainability of high-quality education 

programs, even in times of economic hardship. 

What is the Federal role in ensuring adequacy and equity in schools? 

The original goal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was to provide 

educational opportunities to poor and disadvantaged students. That goal should endure in the future. While the bulk of educational funding comes from State and local 

coffers, the Federal Government must increase, concentrate and sustain formula 

funding in schools whose students lack the same opportunities and resources as 

32 

other schools. In addition, it can provide competitive funding to encourage States 

to bridge gaps in educational, skills and opportunities among schools. 

Finally, it can develop policies that encourage States to play a more active role 

in monitoring and addressing (through ‘‘Adequacy and Equity Plans’’) specific success factors and disparities in schools that are persistently low-achieving or that 

have significant educational opportunity gaps. By requiring States to detail plans 

for helping close these fiscal and resource gaps in their Adequacy and Equity Plans, 

the U.S. Department of Education and the public can begin to provide critical support for State and local efforts to provide adequate and equitable funding for all 

schools. 

Can we reserve our most intensive focus and resources for our high priority schools? 

The Title I School Improvement Grants (SIG) Program should be revamped to require use of only research-based models of school reform to help meet the needs of 

more high priority schools—those at risk of becoming persistently low-achieving or 

that have significant educational opportunity gaps. The SIG program should be 

modified to allow State and local educational agencies clearer and immediate access 

to use local, State or regional turnaround teams, to provide for intensive team 

teaching and collaborative instructional strategies rather than firing half of the 

staff, and to require parental/caregiver and community engagement rather than 

closing a school or turning it over to a charter management organization. 

NEA Recommendations to Congress: 

• Ensure adequate and equitable funding for schools, and sustain and fully fund 

critical programs such as Title I and IDEA. 

• Help States and districts to identify disparities in educational resources, supports, programs, opportunities, class sizes and personnel through Equity and Adequacy plans. 

• Provide support and foster research-based turnaround strategies for high priority schools. 

PRINCIPLES FOR THE REAUTHORIZATION OF THE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY

EDUCATION ACT (ESEA) 2010 

The reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) must focus on 

policies that would help transform public schools into high-quality learning centers 

by recognizing the shared responsibility among local, State, and Federal Governments. Given the law’s complexity, each proposed change must be carefully considered to fully understand its effect on our Nation’s schools and students. Therefore, 

the National Education Association encourages Congress to listen to the voices of 

educators in developing legislative proposals and offers these principles for ESEA 

reauthorization: 

• The Federal Government should serve as a partner to support State efforts to transform public schools. 

• The 21st century requires a partnership among all levels of government— 

Federal, State and local—to make up for the historic inequitable distribution 

of tools and resources to our Nation’s students. 

• We should support effective models of innovation (such as community schools, 

career academies, well-designed and accountable charter schools, magnet 

schools, inclusion of 21st century skills, and educational technology), and create a more innovative educational experience to prepare students for challenging post-secondary experiences and the world of work. 

• The Federal Government plays a critical role in ensuring that all children—especially the most disadvantaged—have access to an education that 

will prepare them to succeed in the 21st century. The Federal Government 

should focus on high-quality early childhood education, parental/family involvement 

and mentoring programs, as well as quality healthcare for children to help overcome 

issues of poverty that may impede student progress. It should support community 

school initiatives in an effort to address these issues comprehensively; must invest 

in proven programs such as knowledge-rich curricula and intensive interventions; 

and must provide resources to improve teaching and learning conditions through 

smaller classes and school repair and modernization. 

• A revamped accountability system must correctly identify schools in 

need of assistance and provide a system of effective interventions to help 

them succeed. The schools most in need of improvement deserve targeted, effective, research-based interventions designed to address their specific needs. States 

and school districts should be given significant flexibility through a transparent 

process to meet agreed-upon outcomes, using innovative data systems and a variety 

33 

of growth models based on movement towards proficiency. School quality and student learning must be based on multiple valid and appropriate measures and indicators. • The Federal Government should respect the profession of teachers and 

education support professionals by providing supports and resources to 

help students succeed. Hard-to-staff schools, especially those with high concentrations of disadvantaged students or those that have consistently struggled to meet 

student achievement targets, need significant supports and resources, including additional targeted funding to attract and retain quality educators; induction programs with intensive mentoring components; and professional development for educational support professionals. • The Federal Government should require States to detail how they will 

remedy inequities in educational tools, opportunities and resources. Funding should be targeted to schools with the highest concentrations of poverty. To 

build on the historic investment through the American Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act, the Federal Government should guarantee funding for critical Federal programs, such as Title I of ESEA and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. • State and local collective bargaining for school employees must be respected. • Targeted programs that support students and schools with unique 

needs—such as English Language Acquisition, Impact Aid, rural schools 

and Indian education—should be maintained and expanded. 

• The Federal Government should serve as a research clearinghouse, 

making available to educators a wealth of knowledge about how best to 

teach students and help schools improve practices. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Van Roekel. I was remiss in not 

mentioning that you came from the Ice Cream Capital of the 

World. 

[Laughter.] 

For those of you who do not know, that is Le Mars, IA. 

Mr. Butt, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF CHARLES BUTT, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, H–E–B, 

SAN ANTONIO, TX 

Mr. BUTT. Good afternoon, Senator. It is truly an honor to address this distinguished committee. 

Our business had its beginning in 1905 when my grandmother 

established a little grocery store to keep her family afloat, and we 

are still going in Texas today. 

Recently, a major manufacturer, which opened a plant in Texas, 

had 100,000 job openings. Less than 5 percent of the applicants 

made it through the selection process. This illustrates our national 

dilemma. 

A McKinsey & Company study, which has been mentioned here, 

showed an education gap with the top countries such as Korea and 

Finland of $3 billion to $5 billion per day. I repeat the number because it is an astonishingly big number. In McKinsey’s opinion, the 

existing gap in achievement imposed the equivalent of a permanent 

national recession. 

Now, their methodology is based on the supposition that in the 

15 years after the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, we had lifted student achievement to what they consider achievable performance. 

They then asked what was the economic impact in the 10 following 

years between 1998 and 2008 of not having raised achievement levels. In addition to the massive gap with global leaders in education, 

they identified three internal gaps. The racial gap between whites 

and African-Americans and Latinos. They estimate that at 2 to 4 

percent of GDP. From students with families below $25,000 in 

household income to those with higher incomes, estimated at 3 to 

34 

5 percent of GDP. And for States that are below the national average, if they were brought up to the average, again 3 to 5 percent 

of GDP. 

Now, these are big numbers and hypothetical ones, but they do 

strike a responsive chord in me. A very small town, a very poor 

town on the Texas/Mexican border, Hidalgo, Texas, through great 

leadership has sent students to top national schools year after 

year. 

An urban, highly diverse, 50 percent economically disadvantaged 

district in the Houston area with over 100,000 students and 98 language and dialect traditions is tied for first place in graduation 

rates in the United States among the 100 largest districts. Success 

in large urban public school settings is clearly possible. 

Let us say the McKinsey numbers are overstated and the economic gap is less than they say, which I personally doubt. It is still 

devastatingly unaffordable for our Nation. Even if you divide it in 

half, it is unaffordable. 

In the success stories I mentioned, leadership is the key. In one 

case, it is a long-serving mayor who is dedicated to a great school. 

In the other, it is a smart, energized superintendent who uses data 

well, innovates extensively, and is not daunted by challenges. 

Now, if you have sat in a high school class recently, you will be 

impressed with the fact in a low-income school, particularly, but 

not exclusively, that schools are inheriting an over-entertained, distracted student. This is the product of the shallow learning culture 

that we have all created. This calls, in my view, for a more powerful role on the part of the teacher than he or she has ever played 

before, what I call a leadership teacher. Perhaps it is unfortunate 

that the schools are required to play this social role, but in my view 

it is important to our success. 

School boards often micro-manage but they miss their macro responsibility of choosing a superintendent and supporting her or 

him. In their defense, our system has produced too few superintendents who drive results. Our debate frequently misses where 

the vital choices are made—school boards and choices of superintendents who impact the principals and ultimately teachers. The 

appropriate role of Federal, State, and municipal government and 

funding are, of course, crucial issues. Technology and full-day, 

quality pre-K are big missings. Title I funds are vital. 

The diversity of views from education writers is wide, from charters to blow up the system, test more, test less. A key point is that 

we have success models now but are not replicating them. If you 

can find a way to stimulate the rapid development of resultsoriented superintendents and principals, it will be impactful because they are the ones who fight to find and keep great teachers, 

which is where it counts. 

Underlying it all, Senator, is America’s will to win. Your leadership and stimulation of our national thought process about education and its vital role can be transformative. It is crucial that we 

see education as an investment and not a cost. 

Thank you for your service to the Nation. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Butt follows:] 

35 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHARLES BUTT

SUMMARY

All industries are brutally competitive today, especially during this recession, and 

most companies, like ours, have multiple productivity, process and efficiency efforts 

underway. Workplace-ready high school graduates are crucial to driving these programs forward. Firms are pushing for more college-bound people in math, science 

and technology. 

Companies need both and it’s vital for the Nation that we produce both. 

A 2009 McKinsey & Company study showed that our education gap with top per- forming nations costs the United States $3 to $5 billion per day in GDP. 

Today the existing gaps in educational achievement impose the equivalent of a 

permanent national recession, as demonstrated by McKinsey’s study of the Economic Costs of the Achievement Gap. 

If by 1998, 15 years after the publication of A Nation at Risk, we had improved 

African-American and Latino performance to that of white students, U.S. GDP 

would be $310 to $525 billion larger annually. 

If we had lifted the performance of students with family incomes of less than $25,000 to the same level of students with families earning more than $25,000, our 

2008 GDP would have been $400–670 billion larger. And for individuals, avoidable 

shortfalls in academic achievement impose heavy and often tragic consequences via 

lower earnings, poor health, and higher rates of incarceration. 

Only 20–25 percent of new jobs in Texas require a 4-year college education. Nevertheless, much of the impetus continues to be focused on the vital national goal 

of preparing high schoolers for college. 

Developing globally competitive workplace skills calls increasingly for ‘‘teaching as 

leadership’’ rather than solely communicating subject content. Great teaching can 

open young minds to a wider, challenging world. 

Good afternoon Mr. Chairman, it’s a great honor to address you and this distinguished committee. 

Our business had its beginning in 1905 when my grandmother opened a small 

grocery to keep her family afloat. Since the 1930’s, we’ve given 5 percent of our pretax income to public and charitable causes and consider ourselves close to the communities we serve. We now employ 75,000 and are the largest private employer in 

Texas. 

Recently a major manufacturer opening a large new Texas plant had 100,000 applicants. Less than 5 percent made it through the entire selection process for these 

new manufacturing jobs. This illustrates the dilemma of a society less than wellprepared for this century. 

A 2009 McKinsey & Company study showed that our education gap with top performing nations costs the United States $3 to $5 billion per day in GDP. 

In McKinsey’s opinion the existing gaps in educational achievement impose the 

equivalent of a permanent national recession. 

The McKinsey methodology is based on the supposition that in the 15 years after 

the 1983 report A Nation at Risk we had lifted student achievement to what they 

consider ‘‘achievable performance.’’ What then, they asked, was the economic impact 

in the 10 following years, between 1998 and 2008, of not having raised achievement 

levels? 

In addition to the $3 to $5 billion daily gap (accumulating annually to 9 to 16 

percent of GDP) with nations that are global education leaders, they identified three 

major internal gaps in our own country. 

• The racial achievement gap between Whites and African-Americans and Latinos 

is estimated to have been 2 to 4 percent of GDP—$300 to $500 billion annually. 

• The achievement gap between students from families with income under 

$25,000 and those with higher incomes is estimated to have been 3 to 5 percent of 

GDP or $400 to $600 billion. 

• If States performing under the national average had reached the average we 

would have gained 3 to 5 percent in GDP— again in the range of $500 billion based 

on McKinsey’s model. 

Obviously, these are big numbers and hypothetical ones but they strike a responsive chord with me. 

Nevertheless, a small, very poor town on the Texas/Mexico border, Hidalgo, TX, 

through great leadership, has sent students to top national schools year after year. 

An urban, highly diverse, 50 percent economically disadvantaged district in the 

Houston area with over 100,000 students and 98 language and dialect traditions is 

36 

tied for first place in graduation rates in the United States among the 100 largest 

districts. Truly inspiring! Success in large urban public school settings is clearly possible! 

Senators, these things jump out at me. 

Let’s say the McKinsey numbers are overstated and the economic gap is less than 

they say, which I seriously doubt— it’s still devastatingly unaffordable. 

In the success stories I mentioned, leadership is the key. In one case a long serving, dedicated Mayor, in the other a smart, energized superintendent who uses data 

well, innovates extensively, and isn’t daunted by challenges. 

School boards often micromanage but miss their macro responsibility of choosing 

a superintendent and supporting her or him. In their defense our system has produced too few superintendents who drive results. 

Our debate is too often missing where the vital choices are made: school boards 

and choices of superintendents who impact principals and ultimately teachers. 

The appropriate role of Federal and State Governments and funding are, of 

course, key issues. Technology and full-day, quality pre-k are big missings. Title I 

funds are vital. 

The diversity of views from education writers is wide—from charters to ‘‘blow up 

the system,’’ test more, test less. We have success models now but we aren’t replicating them. 

In the business world leadership is key. Many business ideas don’t apply to education but I believe this one does. 

If you can find a way to stimulate the rapid development of results-oriented superintendent and principal leadership it will be impactful because they are the ones 

who fight to find and keep great teachers—which is where it counts. 

Underlying it all is America’s will to win—your leadership and stimulation of the 

national thought process about education’s vital role can be transformative. 

As a nation, it’s crucial we see education as an investment, not a cost. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Butt. 

Now we will turn to Mr. Castellani. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN CASTELLANI, PRESIDENT, BUSINESS 

ROUNDTABLE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Enzi, members of the committee. I very much welcome the opportunity to appear before you today to address this vitally important task of reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 

I am appearing on behalf of the Business Coalition for Student 

Achievement. BCSA is a business-based education reform coalition 

jointly led by my organization, the Business Roundtable, and the 

U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The coalition is chaired by Accenture’s 

CEO, Bill Green; State Farm CEO Ed Rust; and the former CEO 

of Intel, Craig Barrett. Our members include business leaders that 

represent every sector of the U.S. economy, all of whom believe 

that improving America’s K–12 education system is necessary to 

provide a strong foundation for both U.S. competitiveness and for 

individuals in the country to succeed in today’s rapidly changing 

world. 

The Business Coalition includes grassroots involvement from 

local and State chambers, roundtables, and business groups in 

rural, suburban and urban communities across the country. 

The recent deep recession and the currently painfully high rates 

of U.S. unemployment have cast longstanding U.S. weakness in 

education into sharp relief. Lagging U.S.-education attainment has 

real-world consequences for individuals and for the economy as a 

whole. Workers with less education suffer the highest rates of unemployment and an under-educated workforce reduces economic 

growth. 

37 

The current U.S. unemployment rate announced last week is 9.7 

percent, which we know all too well. For Americans who do not 

have a high school diploma, it is 15.6 percent compared to 5 percent for college graduates, an almost 11 point differential. In the 

world that our companies and our members face every year, which 

has been cited by other panelists, where the gap between what we 

are able to achieve here in the United States and what our competitors are able to achieve around the world—it is a gap that is 

not standing still. It is not static. The world is not standing still. 

Despite the recession that is global in scope, the worldwide knowledge-based economy continues to advance and more and more of today’s jobs require an even higher level of skill and education, not 

just the high-tech and professional jobs but all jobs. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the fastest-growing 

occupations are those that require higher levels of education and 

greater technical competence. 

We all have a stake in the success of the American public schools 

and the students, and that is why our coalition used reauthorizing 

ESEA as a top priority for Congress. Today we are releasing our 

principles for reauthorization, and they are included in my written 

testimony. 

The No Child Left Behind Act focused attention on the need to 

close the achievement gap and help all students reach the highest 

grade level proficiency in reading and math. Now we believe is the 

time to ramp up evidence-based reforms and innovations to close 

the two achievement gaps. We need to close the gap in education 

performance between poor and minority students and their more 

advantaged peers in the United States. We also need to close the 

gap between U.S. students and their international peers. 

The bottom line is that U.S. students should graduate from high 

school ready for post-secondary education and training without the 

need for remediation by post-secondary educators, employers, or 

the military. 

Education reform is in our view an economic security issue, a national security issue, and a vital social and moral issue. We believe 

it is not the time to point fingers and play a blame game because 

we believe we all can and must do better. 

On behalf of the Business Coalition for Student Achievement, I 

urge you and your colleagues to move ahead with a bipartisan approach to reauthorization of ESEA. I would point out that we come 

to this—and I certainly come to this—not as an education expert 

but as employers who understand the importance of strong and 

successful public schools. 

We look forward to working with you and the members of the 

committee to enact reform that does right by our students and prepares America’s future workforce for the jobs of tomorrow. Thank 

you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Castellani follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN CASTELLANI

SUMMARY

Mr. Chairman, Senator Enzi, members of the committee, my name is John 

Castellani and I serve as President of Business Roundtable, an association of chief 

executive officers of leading U.S. companies. I welcome the opportunity to address 

38 

the vitally important task of reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) on behalf of the Business Coalition for Student Achievement. 

BCSA is a business-based education reform coalition jointly led by Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Business Coalition includes grassroots involvement from local and State chambers, roundtables and business groups 

in rural, suburban and urban communities across the country. 

The recent deep recession and current painfully high rates of U.S. unemployment 

have cast longstanding U.S. weaknesses in education into sharp relief. Lagging U.S. 

education attainment has real-world consequences for individuals and for the economy as a whole. 

Workers with less education suffer the highest rates of unemployment and an 

undereducated workforce reduces economic growth. The current U.S. unemployment 

rate announced last week is 9.7 percent, but for Americans who don’t have a high 

school diploma it is 15.6 percent compared to 5.0 percent for college graduates—a 

10 point differential. According to a McKinsey analysis, if America had closed the 

international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 and raised its education performance to the level of nations such as Finland and Korea, U.S. economic output 

would have been between $1.3 trillion and $2.3 trillion higher in 2008, an increase 

equal to 9 to 16 percent of GDP. 

More and more of today’s jobs require ever-higher levels of skill and education— 

not only high-tech and professional jobs, but all jobs. The Bureau of Labor statistics 

reports that the fastest growing occupations are those that require higher levels of 

education and greater technical competence. 

That is why the Business Coalition for Student Achievement views reauthorizing 

ESEA as top priority for Congress. Today we are releasing Principles for Reauthorization—they are included in my written testimony. Now is the time to ramp up evidence-based reforms and innovations that close two achievement gaps. We need to 

close the gap in education performance between poor and minority students and 

their more advantaged peers in the U.S. We also need to close the gap between U.S. 

students and their international peers. 

The bottom line: U.S. students should graduate from high school ready for postsecondary education and training without need for remediation by post-secondary 

educators, employers or the military. Education reform is an economic security 

issue, a national security issue and a vital social and moral issue. This is not the 

time to point fingers and play the blame game. We all can and must do better. On 

behalf of the Business Coalition for Student Achievement, I urge you and your colleagues to move ahead with a bipartisan approach to ESEA reauthorization. 

Mr. Chairman, Senator Enzi, members of the committee. Good morning. My name 

is John Castellani and I serve as President of the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with more than $5 trillion 

in annual revenues and more than 12 million employees. Business Roundtable member companies comprise nearly a third of the total value of the U.S. stock markets 

and pay more than 60 percent of all corporate income taxes paid to the Federal Government. 

I welcome the opportunity to appear before you today to address the vitally important task of reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act on behalf 

of the Business Coalition for Student Achievement (BCSA), a business-based education reform coalition jointly led by Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber 

of Commerce. The coalition is chaired by William (Bill) D. Green, Chairman & CEO 

of Accenture, Edward B. Rust Jr., Chairman & CEO of State Farm, and Craig Barrett, former Chairman & CEO of Intel. 

BCSA’s members include businesses of every size and grassroots business organizations, including local and State chambers of commerce and business roundtables. 

The small, medium and large businesses that comprise the coalition represent every 

sector of the U.S. economy in rural, suburban and urban communities. They have 

joined the coalition because they believe that improving America’s K–12 education 

system is necessary to provide a strong foundation for both U.S. competitiveness 

and for individuals to succeed in today’s rapidly changing world. 

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that you are holding this hearing today because 

BCSA believes that reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act— 

or ESEA—should be a top priority for Congress. The No Child Left Behind Act, as 

the most recent iteration of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 

helped focus attention on the need to close the achievement gap and help all students throughout the Nation reach at least grade-level proficiency in reading and 

mathematics. It put a spotlight on the need to improve results for special needs students and English Language Learners. 

39 

We believe that now is the time to build on No Child Left Behind and ramp up 

evidence-based reforms and innovations that close two achievement gaps. We need 

to close the gap in education performance between poor and minority students and 

their more advantaged peers in the United States as well as the achievement gap 

between U.S. students and their international peers. 

The recent deep recession, the current painfully high rates of U.S. unemployment 

and underemployment, and the reordering of the world’s economy in the wake of 

a global financial crisis have cast longstanding U.S. weaknesses in education into 

sharp relief. America’s low high school graduation and college completion rates represent systemic failure that leaves our children inadequately prepared in an increasingly competitive world. 

According to the U.S. Department of Education, only 19 percent of American 

ninth graders graduate from high school and then enter and graduate from college 

on time. Only 28 percent of American students pursuing associates degrees complete 

them in 3 years and only 56 percent of American college students complete a bachelor’s degree within 6 years. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States, which once enjoyed the world’s 

highest rate of high school completion—a status it lost 40 years ago—ranks 18th 

out of 24 developed nations in terms of high school graduation rates. Similarly, as 

recently as 1995, America was tied for first place in terms of college graduation 

rates but now ranks 14th. Worse, the United States is now the only developed nation with a younger generation that has a lower level of high school or equivalent 

education than the older generations. 

Lagging U.S. educational attainment has real-world consequences for individuals 

and for the economy as a whole. Workers with less education suffer the highest 

rates of unemployment. According to the most recent data released last week, the 

current U.S. unemployment rate is 9.7 percent, but unemployment among Americans with less than a high school diploma is 15.6 percent while unemployment 

among college graduates is 5.0 percent. The difference is staggering—and we know 

those workers with less education will be the last hired as the economy recovers. 

McKinsey and Company has modeled the impact of low educational attainment 

on national economic performance. According to their analysis, if America had closed 

the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 and raised its performance to the level of nations such as Finland and Korea, U.S. economic output would 

have been between $1.3 trillion and $2.3 trillion higher in 2008, an increase equal 

to 9 to 16 percent of GDP. 

Two months ago, the Alliance for Excellent Education released a study of the economic impact of reducing the dropout rate by half in 45 major metropolitan areas. 

The impact on personal earnings, consumer spending and local and regional job creation is undeniable. I would expect to see similar results in rural communities. 

The world is not standing still. Despite a recession that was global in scope, the 

worldwide knowledge-based economy continues to advance. More and more of today’s jobs require ever-higher levels of skill and education—not only high-tech and 

professional jobs, but all jobs. In December, Business Roundtable released the findings and recommendations from The Springboard Project—an independent commission it convened—to ensure that American workers thrive after the economy rebounds. As part of the project we conducted a survey of employers in July of last 

year which revealed that employers perceive a large and growing gap between the 

educational and technical skills requirement of the positions they need to fill and 

the preparedness of U.S. workers to fill them. Their perception is, in fact, reality. 

The Bureau of Labor statistics reports that the fastest growing occupations are 

those that require higher levels of education and greater technical competence. 

The situation is clear. Jobs increasingly require higher levels of educational attainment and technical proficiency and Americans are increasingly less qualified to 

fill them. It is this growing mismatch that motivates business leaders like Bill 

Green, Craig Barrett and Ed Rust to become so personally involved in education reform. They, together with many other U.S. business leaders, have rolled up their 

sleeves and joined BCSA’s effort to advocate for an ESEA reauthorization that does 

a better job for America’s children. 

In many respects, the education reform landscape is very different since the No 

Child Left Behind Act was signed into law 8 years ago. Consider these four noteworthy developments: 

• The Common Core State Standards Initiative, led by the National Governors 

Association and Council of Chief State School Officers, is finalizing a draft of K– 

12 standards in math and English/Language Arts. This voluntary effort by States 

to develop a common set of internationally-benchmarked, college- and career-ready 

standards that all students, in every grade, in every State and community across 

40 

the United States should meet in two core subjects, with science coming next, is 

truly remarkable. 

• Better transparency and public reporting of student achievement data have put 

a spotlight on high school graduation rates, and particularly on the approximately 

2,000 high schools (about 12 percent of American high schools) that produce more 

than half of all U.S.-high school dropouts. 

• Likewise, it is no longer acceptable to obscure achievement gaps by reporting 

a school’s average student achievement without disaggregating the data on performance results for all groups of students. States and school districts have deployed new 

data systems to measure and track student, teacher and school performance. 

• The stimulus bill included $100 billion in Federal support for new and existing 

K–12 education programs at the State, school district and individual school levels. 

Since the Administration established performance-based requirements to obtain 

competitively awarded ‘‘Race to the Top’’ and ‘‘Investing in Innovation’’ Federal education grants, we have seen how competitive grants can provide incentives to change 

long-standing education policies. 

Taking account of this changed landscape, and the need to get more than incremental improvement BCSA has developed principles for effective, results-oriented 

education reform in the context of ESEA reauthorization. We are releasing the following principles today: 

Expect Internationally Benchmarked Standards and Assessments to Reflect Readiness for College, Workplace and International Competition.—The 

standards and assessment provisions in a reauthorized ESEA must: 

• Incorporate challenging State-developed common internationally benchmarked 

standards and aligned assessments tied to college and workplace readiness. 

• Continue annual assessments of student achievement in math and reading, 

while working to establish annual assessments of student achievement in science. 

• Invest in R&D to develop a next generation of assessments to measure progress 

in other subjects and skills needed for college and workplace readiness. 

• Base annual progress measurements on rigorous measures of year-to-year 

growth in academic achievement tied to specific goals, including goals for specific 

subgroups of students. 

• Provide for the fair and comprehensive participation of special needs and 

English language learning students with particular focus on ‘‘at-risk’’ students and 

schools. 

Hold All Schools Accountable While Putting a Laser-like Focus on Ending 

‘‘Dropout Factories.’’—Schools must continue to be accountable for getting all students (and subgroups) proficient in at least science, mathematics and reading. In 

addition, special attention must be placed on the less-than-3 percent of high schools 

that produce half of America’s dropouts. Specifically, this must include: 

• Maintaining the current law’s consequences for schools that are chronically 

under-performing and ensuring that States and districts undertake proven interventions to put an end to ‘‘business as usual’’ at chronically low-performing schools. 

• Increasing support for the School Improvement Grants program, while simplifying current Federal guidance to target resources and support to those schools in 

most dire need of reform. 

• Supporting initiatives to develop new personnel and governance policies in lowperforming schools. 

• Targeting distribution of effective educators to high-needs schools through updated incentive programs. 

Measure and Reward Teacher and Administrator Success.—High-performing schools need highly effective teachers and administrators, and the best way 

to do that is to: 

• Change the current law’s definition of ‘‘highly qualified teachers’’ to the definition of ‘‘highly effective teachers’’ used in the Race to the Top Fund. 

• Redesign and strengthen ineffective professional development programs to make 

them more ‘‘teacher-driven’’ using research proven strategies that boost student 

achievement. 

• Improve the use of data systems to measure teacher effectiveness and design 

compensation systems based on pay for performance models, not just seniority and 

additional training. 

• Implement policies and practices to fairly and efficiently remove ineffective educators. 

• Continue to focus on policies that promote equal distribution of highly effective 

teachers. Align teacher preparation at the post-secondary level with expectations for 

41 

teacher effectiveness and common, internationally benchmarked, college- and careerready standards. 

• Invest in high quality alternative certification initiatives and programs that 

bring talented individuals, including majors in STEM fields and second career 

teachers, into the teaching pool. 

• Expand the Teacher Incentive Fund with a priority on STEM. 

Foster a ‘‘Client-Centered Approach’’ by Districts and Schools.—Good organizations, whether public or private, know that without an intensive focus on its clients, long term success is impossible. ESEA should require the following ‘‘client-centered’’ provisions: 

• Easy to understand report cards that include data on the performance of each 

student group and that do not rely on the use of statistical gimmicks and sleightsof-hand to sugar-coat results and undermine accountability measures. 

• High quality Supplemental Educational Services (SES) programs that require 

districts to provide students and parents with timely and easily understood information on their options to choose either free tutoring or the ability to move to higher 

performing public schools. 

• Increased support for parent involvement programs. 

• Additional involvement of community and business groups in school improvement, transformation, and turnaround activities. 

Leverage Data Systems to Inform Instruction, Improvement, and Interventions.—The use of data to inform and improve student learning has been one 

of the most important developments in education reform over the past decade. 

ESEA reauthorization should build upon these efforts, including recent efforts supported by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and develop fully 

functioning statewide data systems that: 

• Enable teachers to access user-friendly data to help support instruction. 

• Offer timely, accurate collection, analysis and use of high quality longitudinal 

data that align to district systems to inform decisionmaking and improve teacher 

effectiveness and student achievement. 

• Provide educator training on the use of data to differentiate instruction for students, especially for those who are not yet proficient and those who are more advanced. 

• Integrate existing data systems so that teachers and parents get a comprehensive and secure profile that includes information necessary to customize instruction. 

• Provide leadership with the full range of information they need to allocate resources or to develop, enhance or close programs. 

Invest in School Improvement and Encourage Technology and Other Innovations to Improve Student Achievement.—Improving schools in the 21st 

century is not a static process, it requires constant innovation and research focused 

on what works. ESEA must include support for high-quality research and proven 

reform initiatives by: 

• Using the competitive approach in the Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation funds to support the next generation of partners (non-profit and for-profit) to 

assist with school reform efforts. 

• Supporting R&D to improve school, educator, and student performance as well 

as reforms that revamp unproductive school governance, compensation regimes, and 

building use. 

• Supporting expansion of high-quality charter schools and virtual schools and 

holding them accountable for improved academic achievement with the same expectation that we have for public schools. 

• Supporting academic-focused extended learning time initiatives (including after 

school and summer programs) for at-risk students. 

• Reforming secondary schools and holding them accountable for increasing the 

graduation rate (using the common definition adopted by the Nation’s governors), 

and graduating students who are ready for college and work. 

• Offering opportunities for students to enroll in advanced coursework (such as 

Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate), early-college high schools, or 

dual enrollment programs that prepare students for college and careers. 

• Engaging students by demonstrating that standards based curriculum has real 

world applications in acquisition of knowledge and increased opportunities for career exploration and exposure. 

• Utilizing advanced communications technologies to improve delivery and increase effectiveness for students and teachers with optimization of online learning 

tools and multi-platform devices and systems. 

42 

• Encourage parent engagement by using technology to provide information about 

their child’s achievement and how to best support remediation or determine the 

need for increased support where appropriate. 

Establish a Dedicated Strategy and Funding Stream to Improve STEM 

Education.—For students to graduate from high school with the foundation, knowledge, and skills they need in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics 

(STEM), ESEA should: 

• Support a targeted ‘‘innovation fund,’’ which focuses funds towards taking proven STEM programs to scale while encouraging the development and research of new 

strategies to increase student achievement in STEM subject areas. 

• Support collaborations (schools, districts, States, communities and businesses 

along with other partners) to develop high-quality online and in-person professional 

development for STEM teachers. 

• Continue development and support of student curricula, inquiry-based learning, 

project-based learning and hands-on activities in addition to other proven strategies 

to improve student achievement in STEM. 

As you can see from these principles Mr. Chairman, BCSA has gone to some 

length to develop comprehensive recommendations for ESEA reauthorization. We 

believe this is one of the most important issues you will address this year. We 

strongly endorse ESEA reauthorization. Education undergirds everything we do, as 

individuals and as a society. We cannot make sustained progress on creating stable, 

long-term employment, on boosting economic growth or in solving our greatest national challenges, such as responding to terrorism or addressing climate change and 

the need for energy security without addressing the underlying weakness of our 

educational system. Absent serious, effective, results-oriented reform, America’s 

underperforming educational system will continue to fail many of America’s youth 

and hold back the U.S. economy. Education reform is an economic security issue, 

a national security issue and a vital social and moral issue. This is not the time 

to point fingers and play the blame game. We all can and must do better. 

Mr. Chairman, I applaud you for holding this hearing today. On behalf of the 

Business Coalition for Student Achievement, I urge you to move ahead with a bipartisan approach for ESEA reauthorization. We come to this not as education experts 

but as employers and taxpayers who understand the importance of strong and successful public schools. Companies and local, State and national business organizations are committed to ensuring U.S. high school graduates are prepared for postsecondary education, careers and participation in our democracy. We look forward 

to working with you and the members of this committee to enact reform with bipartisan support that does right by our students and prepares America’s future workforce for the jobs of tomorrow. 

Thank you again Mr. Chairman, Senator Enzi and members of the committee. I 

appreciate this opportunity to express Business Roundtable’s views on this important legislation. I welcome your questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Castellani. Thank you 

all for your excellent testimony and for being here. 

We will start a 5-minute round of questions. 

Mr. Schleicher, you pointed out that in some of the OECD countries—I do not know how many, but they tend to track the top 10 

percent of their graduating classes to be teachers. I assume you are 

talking about the top 10 percent—is that out of college or out of 

high school? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. College. 

The CHAIRMAN. Out of college. Now, I do not know how they do 

that because, Mr. Van Roekel, you talked about the fact that it is 

teachers who are going to impact our students and we want to 

have the best teachers. I do not understand how you do that. How 

do they attract the top 10 percent when in this country, if you are 

in the top 10 percent, you go out and make a lot of money. How 

do they do that? You said it was not just payment. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. You have countries where it is payment. If you 

look to Korea, Korea pays its teachers about twice GDP per capita, 

twice as much as the United States in relative terms. 

43 

Finland, the country that has the most attractive teaching profession, does not pay teachers very well but creates a set of incentives and a working environment that is very attractive for knowledge workers, a working environment that offers lots of opportunities for professional development, has well-defined career paths. It 

is not sort of a single job, but you can move up, and it is very open 

outward and inward mobility. The field of work is very, very attractive for people who are knowledge workers despite average pay. 

They are not that well paid, but they get 9 to 10 applicants for 

each post now. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Van Roekel, how do we attract the top 10 

percent into teaching? 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. I think there are two things that we should be 

looking at. No. 1, we will have to deal with the issue of compensation because in our economy here in the States, we are competing 

with other occupations that require a college degree, and we simply 

are not competitive. A friend of mine who is an attorney—we both 

started the same year. As an associate, he started at $11,000. I 

started at $6,100. I asked him just about 6 months ago, what does 

an associate make in your law firm now in Phoenix, and he said 

about $125,000. We cannot get teachers at $35,000 starting. It is 

four times as much. That is one thing. 

The second thing is that within the teaching profession, we have 

many first-generation college graduates. Many of my colleagues— 

we were the first in our family to have the honor and privilege of 

going to college. The top achieving one-third of students who are 

in the poor category have the same probability of going to college 

as the lowest one-third in academic ability for those who have resources. I think there is a great potential in reaching out to those 

very high achieving who have commitments to their community, 

they are first-generation, and would love to have an opportunity to 

go to college, and I believe that is a great source of future teachers. 

The CHAIRMAN. In all my years dealing with education and being 

involved in different experiments and trials and things like that, 

the one thing that has always come through—every time I talk to 

teachers—I am talking about elementary school teachers, not so 

much high school—especially those that are just starting out—they 

have just been there 1 year, 2 years. We have a big drop-off. They 

are there 1 or 2 years and then they leave. The biggest single factor that has come through to me time and time and time again is 

the size of the classroom. It is how many students they have to 

teach. I cannot tell you how many times I have talked to teachers 

who have in elementary school, first, second, third, fourth grades, 

10 or 12 kids and it is wonderful. You talk to others that have 25 

and they are just inundated. They just give up. 

We had a goal one time. This Congress stated the goal of reducing elementary classes down to, in the early grades, less than 15, 

if I am not mistaken. I could be corrected on that, but something 

like that. Do you find that as a factor, Mr. Van Roekel? 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. Absolutely. One of the longstanding research 

projects came out of Tennessee, and at the beginning of that, all 

teachers and all students were selected for this research were all 

totally done by random. The only variable was the size of the class 

in K through 3, and they tried to keep it below 20. They have done 

44 

over a 25-year follow-up with all of these students, by every measure, high school graduation, college-attending, graduation from college. By every one of those measures, they do better. Class size 

makes a huge difference, especially in those lower grades. 

I can tell you right now, as you go across the country with the 

economic situation the way it is, and with States facing their biggest challenge in 2010–2011, because the State stabilization funds 

that were the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will not be 

there—layoffs are starting to come through. There are schools now 

with class sizes up to 40. 

I always said that I can teach just about any size group, but how 

I teach and what I am able to do varies immensely. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Schleicher, you did not address this. What 

are the class sizes in OECD countries? I am talking about in the 

early years, first, second, third, fourth, fifth grades. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Actually the United States has below average 

class sizes. The United States would be a country that has relatively small class sizes. If you look at some of the best performing 

systems, they actually trade in better salaries, better working conditions, more professional development against larger classes. If 

you look, for example, at some of the best performing systems like 

Finland, like Korea, they do actually have larger classes than the 

United States and they use that money to actually buy other things 

like more attractive environments for teachers, more individual 

personalized learning opportunities. 

The CHAIRMAN. Do these countries allow every child into those 

classes? Kids with disabilities, kids with learning disabilities are 

all in these classes too just like in America? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. There are different philosophies in countries. 

There are some countries where they are in special classes in 

schools, some in which they are integrated. If you look at the Nordic countries in Europe, you have a much higher degree of personalized learning opportunities. You have large classes in general, 

but then you have 30 percent of instruction time that is devoted 

outside formal classrooms, not just for students with disabilities, 

but also for students with special talents. It is just engaging with 

diversity in a different way. 

Our research actually does not support that smaller classes are 

the most effective investment to raise learning outcomes. That is 

not something that international comparisons would support. You 

can spend your money only once, and you have to make choices between better salaries, more learning time, smaller classes. Smaller 

class size is not often the most effective choice. That is what our 

comparisons would tell you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I will have to take a look at that data. I 

went over my time. 

Senator Enzi. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate the testimony of all of you, particularly your complete testimony. There are a lot of good ideas in there. 

Mr. Butt, the McKinsey report highlighted NAEP scores in both 

Texas and California, and Texas outscored California on all fronts, 

but also spends about $900 less per student. In your opinion, what 

45 

changes could be made today in educational systems that would 

cost little but have a big impact on closing the achievement gap? 

Mr. BUTT. I do not think I can answer that for you, Senator, but 

I will try to respond by letter. 

I would like to say one thing about teaching. There are two 

issues in the pay issue. One is the starting pay and one is the pay 

to which teachers can look forward, and you have to address both 

to be competitive in the marketplace for bright leadership people 

which I think are needed today. 

And second, KIPP, which is so touted for its success, pays a few 

thousand dollars more but the teachers are crazy about their principal. They really follow him or her. We have principals today, unfortunately, that when they get a bright, new teacher, it is actually 

a problem for them because they have to manage that new energy 

in the classroom and it is disruptive for them. That is why I feel 

leadership at the superintendent and principal level is so critical. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you. 

Mr. Castellani, your testimony highlights the recommendations 

of the Business Coalition for Student Achievement, BCSA, for the 

reauthorization. Can you talk a little bit more about what BCSA 

means by a client-centered approach? Does this translate into more 

involvement by business in the schools or something else? 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Yes, I can. The good organizations, whether 

public or private, know that without kind of an intense focus on 

their clients, long-term success is impossible. What we have recommended is first, easy-to-understand report cards that include 

data on performance of each student group and that do not rely on 

the use of statistical gimmicks and sleights of hand to sugar-coat 

the results and undermine accountability measures. 

Second, SES, Supplement Education Service, programs that require districts to provide students and parents with timely and easily understood information about their options to choose either free 

tutoring or the ability to move to higher performing public schools. 

Third, increased support for parent involvement programs which 

we believe are very, very important. 

And fourth, additional involvement of community and business 

groups in school improvement, in transformation, and in turnaround activities, get the communities more involved. 

Senator ENZI. You also mentioned specifically recruiting retirees 

as teachers and promoting teaching as a second career. Can you 

elaborate on that idea? 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Yes. There are many, we believe, skilled retired 

business people, retired from all sectors, who have degrees in 

science, who have degrees in mathematics, who have degrees in 

English and history, who are living longer, are much more active 

longer, and looking for ways to give back to the community. We 

think that the school systems should look at being more flexible in 

teacher certification requirements and that post-secondary education particularly be expanded so people in those circumstances 

who can bring both their history and knowledge and their passion 

into the school room and into the schools have a pathway to do 

that, whether it is a post-retiree from the private sector or from the 

military sector. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you. 

46 

Mr. Schleicher, in your comparison of countries, I am wondering 

how similar the systems are to one another. For example, compulsory education in some countries goes to fourth grade, in some 

countries it goes to sixth grade. We do a lot of our statistics clear 

through high school, even though the compulsory education requirements often do not go that far. When you are doing those comparisons, is that taken into consideration? I know that it motivates 

kids a little bit if they know they can be left out at fourth grade, 

but it is a disservice too and we do not recognize that. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. To get around this, we actually compare age 

groups. We take an age group across countries and compare that. 

For example, our PISA comparisons look at 15-year-olds. Enrollment is universal across OECD countries except for Turkey and 

Mexico. So we do have a comparable basis. 

In fact, if you are very precise about it, in most OECD countries 

enrollment at age 15 is higher than in the United States. The 

United States takes a slight advantage out of those comparisons. 

But those differences are very small. 

Taking an age group gets you around the problem of having different educational structures across countries. 

Senator ENZI. It is also my understanding that your report indicates that relatively small improvements in the skills of a nation’s 

labor force can have large impacts on the country’s future wellbeing. Can you elaborate on those findings and explain what this 

means specifically to education and workforce policy in the United 

States? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Yes. If you take the example of Poland, over 

the last 6 years, Poland raised its achievement by 29 points on our 

PISA scale, which is three-quarters of a school year. It is a relatively modest level of improvement. If you would translate that in 

the U.S. context, you raise everybody’s performance by this rather 

modest amount over the next 20 years, being very generous with 

reform time implementation, you are talking about $40 trillion in 

additional economic income over the lifetime of people born today. 

You can really see how small improvement in the skills over time 

translates into better workforce qualifications, which then have a 

very significant impact on the economic outcomes in terms of the 

historical gross relationship. That is something that surprised us 

as well, but these results come out quite consistent. 

What is important in this context is that the relationship between educational success and economic success tends to become 

tighter and tighter over time. That is, the benefits for those who 

are well-educated continue to rise. The penalties in terms of labor 

market and earning outcomes for those who do not succeed in 

school actually have become quite a bit larger as well across OECD 

countries. That is a quite clear picture. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you. I will certainly be paying more attention to your report and to the work of others on the panel. I thank 

you and I have exceeded my time as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Dodd. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR DODD

Senator DODD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Just great testimony, really fascinating to hear from all of you. 

47 

First, we have got some wonderful people on this committee, Mr. 

Chairman. Obviously, Lamar Alexander, former Secretary of Education of the country, and Michael Bennet, our newest member of 

the committee, was the superintendent of schools in Denver, CO, 

and having talked to them, they have some wonderful and thoughtful ideas about education as well. We have got some rich talent 

here on the committee that can contribute to this debate. 

A couple of things. If somebody said to me I am going to give you 

the power, Senator, to do one thing and one thing only on education, what would you do, the one thing I would do, would be to 

increase parental participation in education. If parents could be 

more involved, I cannot think of anything that would have a more 

salutary effect than if you could engage the parents in their children’s education. We do that with Head Start. We have a requirement that programs encourage parents to be involved. Yet, by the 

first grade in this country, parental participation in the average 

family drops significantly and continues to decline to almost zero 

over time. 

Let me begin with you, Mr. Castellani, because I think the business community—George David, who is a good friend of mine—and 

you know him well from United Technologies—did some remarkable things in higher education. I appreciate your comments today 

about the changes we would like to see occur in terms of the improvement of K–12. 

To what extent can the business community help the people who 

work for the business community? I cannot think of a better contribution that business can make than to be supportive of the parents that are employed by the major corporations of this country 

and others to have the time and the ability to be able to engage 

with their children. 

I authored the Family Medical Leave Act years ago, and it was 

a controversial bill. We have talked about improvements to it over 

the years. In fact, Patty Murray I think made some suggestions 

along these lines. Where there is an illness of a child—people do 

not want to debate that and clearly, their parents ought to be 

there. To what extent do we provide any kind of time for parents 

to be with their children, for instance, at an athletic contest or to 

be there at a parent-teacher conference at school? 

What ideas do you bring to the table on how the business community—if you agree with me, that the parental gap that exists in 

terms of being involved in their children’s education, what can the 

business community do about that? 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Well, as I said in my response to Senator Enzi’s 

question, this is one of the things that we think, among a lot of others, that should be examined and could help improve the quality 

of education. So you are absolutely spot on. 

One of the problems we have in the workplace is the mismatch 

in time demands, which are very considerable on any family, but 

also the structure of the timing, the work day, compared to how it 

is structured with the school day. The school day and a work day 

do not match. The school probably has less ability to be flexible but 

needs to be flexible in terms of its timeframe to engage the parents, 

and clearly in the workplace as employers, we have to be flexible. 

48 

What you are seeing more and more in the workplace, at least 

within the private sector, is a greater reliance on flexible time, on 

telecommuting, on changing the rules. For example, in some organizations, we had very rigid rules about what were sick leave days, 

what were vacation days, what were personal days. And we are 

seeing some very innovative companies just say here is the amount 

of time you have off. Wherever you want to take it, you take it. You 

do not have to tell us what the reason is. 

It is providing more opportunity to use technology to be able to 

work remotely. It is providing more flexibility within the working 

hours. It cannot work across all. You cannot say to an emergency 

room physician, you can leave in the middle of this procedure and 

go off and watch a soccer game, but it is using technology and providing more flexibility. 

Senator DODD. I would be very interested if you could ask your 

members at the Business Roundtable to submit to you and then to 

us what some of the ideas individual companies are doing to expand parental involvement so we might promote some of these 

ideas. 

Mr. CASTELLANI. We would be delighted. 

Senator DODD. Now, if I was given a second chance to do something else in education, it would be with principals. I want to commend Mr. Butt for your comments about the superintendents and 

principals, but particularly principals, it seems to me. Again, we 

have wonderful teachers who get elevated to be principals. The 

skill sets to be a teacher and to be a principal are very different 

in my view. It does not mean the leadership is not important in the 

classroom, but leadership in the school is as well. I do not think 

we do enough to really train and to promote the notion of identifying people who are good school principals. 

Are there some things that you are familiar with that might help 

us do a better job? 

Mr. BUTT. I think the schools of education have a role to play 

here, Senator. I do not have a definitive comment on what that is, 

but I think there is something there. 

Senator DODD. Well, if you have any ideas, let us know. I think 

that is a gap that we do not address well. 

Mr. BUTT. Well, this is maybe an anathema to the educational 

community, but some of the best superintendents have an M.B.A. 

It is really an enormous management job, and it is really quite different from teaching, as you point out. Some people go into it from 

academia and do great, but others do not. 

Senator DODD. I will come back to that at some point. 

Last, you said something to Senator Harkin, Mr. Schleicher, that 

I am curious about. I thought I heard you say just grades 1 

through 3, the class size—I think it surprised a lot of us here when 

you indicated the class size was less relevant in other grades in 

your experience. Did I hear you say just in grades 1 through 3, 

does class size have the greatest impact, or through the entire K– 

12 comparable age group? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. In fact, I was talking about the entire education system. I mean, class size is important, everything else 

being constant. There is no question about that. But when you 

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49 

vest your money, our analysis suggested investing resources in reducing class is often less effective than investing it in other parts 

of the entire system. That is, I think, the tradeoff to be made. 

On your point on instructional leadership, I mean, that is what 

our research supports as well. It is a very important variable determining success and many countries actually do have a separate career path for school principals, in fact, even separate institutions 

to educate those people. 

Senator DODD. What about the parent thing? Do you do anything 

on the parent side of this thing? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. It is harder to measure, harder to quantify. 

You do have some countries that are very successful in this. If you 

look to Japan, the most powerful organization in Japan, in terms 

of influence on the reality in the classroom is the parent-teacher 

organization, and they sit in every school. They have a real role to 

play. They are not just sort of at the football match, but they are 

really involved in the life of schools and have a major influence. It 

is just one example where a country has drawn on that resource 

in a very systematic way. 

Senator DODD. Thanks. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Alexander. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR ALEXANDER

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Castellani, in 2005 a bipartisan group of Members of Congress asked the National Academies to recommend to us steps that 

would help increase American competitiveness. They gave us 20. 

We spent a couple of years and passed most of them. One was to 

increase support for advanced placement programs. That was already going on here. Senator Harkin has long pushed that. So has 

Senator Hutchison. 

In the current budget, President Obama suggests eliminating 

funding for this program and consolidating it into a larger, competitive program for school districts to choose which programs to 

fund. As a former Governor, I am sympathetic to that kind of 

thing. 

What would your advice be about whether to target advanced 

placement programs or whether to turn over to States and local 

districts that amount of money and let them choose how to spend 

it? 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Well, one of the things that the Academies 

pointed out and were dealing with—you asked the question, as you 

know very well—was a very substantial gap in the production of 

STEM-capable students and the needs that we have for science, 

technology, engineering, and mathematics capable students within 

business. 

The answer is you really need both quite frankly. We very much 

need a very intense focus which comes on some dedicated funding 

at the Federal and quite frankly the State and local level. Because 

of all of the hierarchy of what we need in terms of output from our 

education system, the highest need right now are those people who 

have those kinds of skills, those people who have analytical skills. 

So it really is a matter of doing both, quite frankly. 

50 

Senator ALEXANDER. Mr. Van Roekel, 26 years ago when I was 

a Governor, in a fit of naivete, I helped our State become the first 

State to pay teachers more for teaching well. We created a master 

teacher program, raised taxes to fund it, paid teachers a lot more, 

and 10,000 teachers went up a career ladder. It would be an underestimate to say that in doing so, I had a street brawl with the National Education Association, not so much with the American Federation of Teachers. Al Shanker said, ‘‘Well, if we have master 

plumbers, we can have master teachers.’’ It was hard to do because 

the teachers unions were against it. The colleges of education said 

you could not tell a good teacher from a bad teacher, and that left 

us politicians with a very difficult job. Ten thousand teachers went 

up that career ladder. 

I had a pleasant experience a couple of years ago, even though 

after I left the Governor’s office, it was eliminated primarily with 

the affiliate of the NEA urging it. Five representatives of the Tennessee Education Association came to see me and thanked me for 

it. They were all master teachers. They said it was a good idea. 

A lot has happened over that period of time. Both the NEA and 

the FT worked with Governor Hunt of North Carolina and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to try to find a 

way to encourage outstanding teaching. Many local school districts 

have done that. Senator Bennet did it in Colorado, what Senator 

Corker did when he was mayor of Chattanooga, making agreements with local NEA affiliates to try to find fair ways to reward 

outstanding teaching. 

The Teacher Incentive Fund, which is a part of the Elementary 

and Secondary Education Act, has had a number of success stories 

in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, and North Carolina where 

local school districts working with teachers unions have found fair 

ways to reward outstanding school leadership and outstanding 

teaching. I agree with Senator Dodd. Parents are first, but if parents are first, teachers and school leaders are second. 

My question is, have we not got to find a way to pay good teachers and good school principals more for teaching well and to find 

fair ways to reward that? Is the Teacher Incentive Fund, which 

really allows local school districts to figure out how to do it in each 

case, is a good way to do it? Do you support that, or do you have 

another suggestion for how we should go about it from here? Or do 

you still think, as the NEA did 30 years ago, that it is just wrong 

to pay some teachers more than others based on the quality of the 

teacher? 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. You mentioned that much has happened in 

those 25 years. The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards—I was talking to Jim Kelly one day, and he talked about over 

20 years they had spent about $200 million developing good assessments so that they could assess the practice of teaching from early 

childhood to high school. I think that was money well spent. 

I believe very much in the profession, and there have been many 

attempts to change how we pay teachers over time. We have supported many of those. We support paying teachers who achieve National Board certification. We differentiate pay on a lot of different 

ways. The only one I would say that we really have opposed, especially recently, is when they want to pay a teacher based on a sinVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:22 Mar 14, 2011 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\55474.TXT DENISE
51 

gle high-stakes test score. I think it is important to develop those. 

It is something that must be done at the local level in cooperation. 

You mentioned a career ladder. In my own experience in Arizona, 

we started one in 1985. It was discontinued this year due to finances and the lawsuit. From the time it started, it was far more 

expensive, and they had 14 districts and then allowed 20, but never 

more than 20. In this past year, one of the districts sued and said 

we want to be in this too. They lost in court. They said you are 

right. If you are going to provide it for some, you must provide it 

for all, and the legislature said, yes, it is a good idea but it costs 

$175 million and we are not funding it. So they eliminated it from 

the 20 that had it and for the future. 

The issue of compensation, as mentioned before, when I was talking with Senator Harkin is very important. We have got to be able 

to compete. I think developing good compensation systems is very 

important. It just comes down to really three steps to me. No. 1, 

you have to define what you are going to pay for. Is it skills, knowledge, responsibility? In many of those career development plans, 

they define those in the area of skills and knowledge. 

Senator ALEXANDER. My time is up. 

Teachers Incentive Fund. Are you for it or against it? 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. We support what is done at the local level by 

our local affiliates. The answer is—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. Is that a yes or a no? 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. Yes. It is a yes. We support what our locals 

do at the local level. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Excuse me for interrupting. I saw my time 

was up. 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. That is all right. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Murray. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURRAY

Senator MURRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this very 

important hearing as we begin our Elementary and Secondary 

Education discussions. I really want to thank all of our distinguished witnesses today for your testimony. I am personally glad 

to see we have teachers and business and the global perspective 

represented here today. 

Career and college readiness has long been a focus and a passion 

of mine, and I think the voices we have here really are an essential 

part of making sure that our students are truly prepared for the 

next steps to make sure our economy is strong and they have the 

skills they need. I think that that link between education and the 

workforce is more important now than ever before as we face a crisis in how many students are actually prepared, once they get 

through school, to get those jobs that we need them to have in their 

own communities. 

For the past two Congresses, I have introduced legislation called 

the Promoting Innovations to 21st Century Careers Act, which is 

focused on building better connections between the education, business, and workforce communities. By creating these partnerships, 

we can provide better student access and really do the right thing 

for our economy as well because the goal of the bill really is career 

52 

and college readiness. I am fortunate my bill has been supported 

by a lot of diverse groups, teachers, Chambers of Commerce, workforce development representatives. When I was developing this bill, 

I went out in my community and held roundtables to bring together K–12, higher education, workforce, and economic development stakeholders. 

One of the things I heard when I was developing this bill was 

that there is a lot of barriers to collaboration between all these different entities. I think that we have got to have people talk together in their own communities to make sure that what the kids 

are learning in school actually helps them be successful when they 

get out. 

One of the things I hear from employers all the time, and actually universities and economic folks too, is that reading and math 

are important skills for kids to have, but it is not enough, that we 

need students who are able to communicate and do critical thinking and problem solving and not just learn the core basics, but 

those skills as well. 

My question to all of you today is what do you think students 

need to be able to know today for our education system to be considered world-class and for our students to have the skills they 

need to be able to succeed? What do they need to know? I will open 

it up to any of you. 

Mr. BUTT. I think one of the conflicts, Senator, is trying to do 

workforce-ready and college-ready. A lot of the establishment has 

pushed college-ready, which would be favorable to you and all of 

us, during recent years. Workforce-ready in my opinion has gotten 

somewhat lost in the backwash, and it is challenging to do both in 

the same school. That is clear. It requires a very specialized curriculum and great leadership. I think that that is an issue on 

which you may want to focus because the two groups are often at 

odds with each other. 

Now, we testified last year, along with about 10 major national 

companies, for more workforce-ready people. That is the reason 

that this company I quoted did not get enough people to fill their 

jobs. Both are badly needed. Clearly, we want more college graduates and community college graduates. In Texas, only about 25 

percent of the new jobs, maybe 20 percent, require a college education. 

Senator MURRAY. They do require some kind of skill training is 

my guess. 

Mr. BUTT. They do. They require a good high school education, 

but they do not necessarily require college. 

Senator MURRAY. What kind of skills do they need? 

Mr. BUTT. Well, they need math. They need grammar and they 

need interpersonal relationships. 

Senator MURRAY. Math, grammar, interpersonal relationships. 

Anybody else? Mr. Schleicher? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Thank you, yes. In fact, if you look at skill utilization, which is often a good indicator for the demand for skills, 

you see that actually there has been a quite rapid decline in routine cognitive skills. Things that are easy to teach, things that are 

easy to test are actually less important now than they were in the 

past. The rises in demand are, first of all, in what we call non-rouVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:22 Mar 14, 2011 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\55474.TXT DENISE
53 

tine analytic skills, the capacity not to reproduce what you have 

learned, but to extrapolate from that and apply your knowledge in 

a novel context. We also see sort of interpersonal skills, having a 

rise in importance. 

At the OECD, we use a framework that categorizes this in sort 

of ways of thinking, problem solving, creativity, and decisionmaking, and so on; ways of working, collaboration, communication; 

tools for working. That is about ICT and instruments like this. 

Then there is sort of living in the world in a heterogenous world, 

civic competence and global citizenship and so on. Those are four 

categories which we actually do not put in contrast to math and 

science and reading and so on, but we look at the intersection. 

When you look at mathematics, knowing the formulas is less important today, but understanding how mathematics—— 

Senator MURRAY. Because you can look it up on Google. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Yes. But understanding how mathematics 

is—— 

Senator MURRAY. You have to know how to get there. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Yes. 

Senator MURRAY. You need to know how to communicate it. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Well, there is a global trend toward broadening 

the concept of school subjects in many countries now. 

Senator MURRAY. Mr. Van Roekel. 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. Senator, I would say that you really incorporated that into your question. There is a need, I believe, for a 

solid curriculum that is broad, and I mentioned some of those in 

my opening from foreign language, history, civics education. All of 

that is important. It should be done in the context of 21st century 

skills. Creativity is something that is very much needed. Collaboration, which requires the interpersonal skills. Communication skills 

are getting more important and it seems almost a contradiction in 

this age of technology that communication is more important, but 

it is. And then the critical thinking. 

Using these new skills and all of these subject matters I think 

is what we have to prepare students for. Young students on a 

YouTube I saw the other day mentioned that in times of old, information was very expensive. Only a few had it. It was very valuable. Now it is for everyone. What are the skills you need in order 

to separate the wheat from the chaff, as we used to say, and figure 

out what is needed in a certain situation? 

Senator MURRAY. My time is up. I would just say, Mr. Chairman, 

that one of the things we try to do in my legislation—I hope we 

can look at it—is try and bring local people together from business 

and workforce and schools to make sure that they are actually 

learning those skills that they need to go into those jobs. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Senator Reed. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR REED

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony. 

Mr. Schleicher, just I think a technical question. As you do your 

country comparisons, do you control for income disparities and racial disparities? 

54 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Yes. Actually we do not know how to control for 

racial disparities because they are hard to measure in a global context, but we look at socioeconomic background like parental education, parental income, and factors like this. You can basically 

look at this and you can look at the impact those have on outcomes 

and can you control for them. That is actually done in many of our 

comparisons. 

Senator REED. Do you not—and I know it is probably very difficult—look at the distribution of income in a country? I would suspect if an average pay of a teacher is X in a country but the highest 

pay is only one and a half times that where in some countries it 

is 100 times that, that is a different context. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. You mean in terms of the wage distribution for 

teachers? 

Senator REED. Yes. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Yes. That is much harder to do. Actually the 

way we look at this is we look at salaries of people with similar 

qualifications. For example, teachers usually have a masters degree 

qualification, so you can compare with salaries of a person with a 

masters qualification. 

Senator REED. Frankly, thank you for your insights. They have 

been very valuable, and it is a very difficult area to make these 

and as a whole sort of subject area of culture. I think you have 

given us some extraordinarily good insights, and I thank you for 

that. 

Mr. Van Roekel, you have talked about collaboration in your testimony, but also I think you emphasized research-based approaches 

to reform. Could you identify what you consider are some of the 

more promising research-based approaches to reform? 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. Well, what I reference that is—for example, 

there is a real debate right now about charter schools. Should we 

remove the cap? Should we have more? I think it is the wrong 

question. What does research say about whether they are doing 

better or worse? Instead say, what is it in the practice of those 

schools that changes that? 

One of the comments earlier was that in these schools that are 

highly successful, they have networks where they share the practice. That to me is where the collaboration really works. It is taking 

knowledge—if, for example, in my math class, I get better results 

than others who are teaching the same class, what we ought to do 

is to share that practice and figure out why. As we look at other 

countries around the world, they spend—far more of a teacher’s 

time at school is done in collaboration about determining the best 

practice and the way of presenting lessons instead of always being 

isolated with students by themselves. The value of collaboration is 

over all aspects of education. 

I am such a believer in the profession that it is my practice. It 

is not a test score. It is what I do diagnosing what a student needs. 

How am I able to adjust my instruction to meet their needs? 

If I could wave my magic wand and do just one thing, as Senator 

Dodd said, I would have the adults in every building in America 

connected with the parents and community members, spend 1 week 

together before every school year, and say, based on where our stuVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:22 Mar 14, 2011 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\55474.TXT DENISE
55 

dents are, what they need, what are we willing to do together to 

ensure that it changes? I believe you would transform education. 

Senator REED. Thank you. 

Mr. Butt, first, let me commend you for your public service. You 

have a pretty big job running your grocery chain, but you have 

spent many years in Texas, as I see from your resume, trying as 

a citizen to move education forward. One of the comments that impressed me was the notion that a lot of this is leadership style. A 

lot of this is having command of the school and command of the 

classroom, and those things are not necessarily taught in education 

schools or measured in terms of the performance. I wonder if you 

could comment on how we can do a better job of teaching those 

skills and measuring those skills. 

Mr. BUTT. Well, it is multifactorial, obviously. I think State commissioners of education should be advocates for education and they 

should be intimately involved in the big districts and as many as 

possible in their State. In Texas, we have 1,030 school districts. 

They cannot be involved in all of them, but the commissioners 

should know the superintendents of all the big and middle-size districts and have an opinion about how they are doing, find a way 

to express that to board members, and play a constructive role in 

raising the standard. 

I think schools of education have focused mostly on teaching. 

They have some programs on superintendents and principals. I 

think more of that is needed. I think if our university systems— 

higher education and public education have become pretty separated in this country, and higher education does not take much responsibility for pre-K–12. North Carolina, I think, has a K–16 system, but few States do. I think that would be an opportunity. 

Senator REED. Thank you, sir. And thank you, John, for your testimony. 

Mr. Chairman, my time is up. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Sanders. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR SANDERS

Senator SANDERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me thank all of the panelists for their excellent testimony. 

Let me start off with Mr. Schleicher. Mr. Schleicher, in this country, to go to a good college costs maybe $50,000 a year at a time 

when many working families do not make $50,000. How much does 

it cost to go to college in Germany? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Actually, that is an easy country. Nothing. 

Senator SANDERS. Ah, nothing. I see. Nothing, zero. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. You do have wide variability. The United 

States is a class in itself with very high levels of tuition. Japan 

would come second, and then sort of the European countries in the 

middle. 

Senator SANDERS. And Scandinavia is nothing or very, very little. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Scandinavia actually pays you to go to university. You get a subsidy—— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. SCHLEICHER [continuing]. For your living costs. 

Let me just add one point. Actually we calculate the public investment and look at the public returns, and actually governments 

56 

get more in tax receipts, even in those countries, than they actually 

spend on that. 

Senator SANDERS. Well, that gets back to the point that Mr. Butt 

made a moment ago as to whether or not we consider education a 

cost or an investment. Presumably those countries, far removed 

philosophically from where we have been, actually believe that if 

you have a well-educated workforce, you do better. Everything that 

all four of you have said have indicated that. But we do not do 

that. 

In terms of child care, one of the issues, Mr. Chairman, we have 

not talked about either. We are talking about kids mysteriously at 

the age of 5 or 6 going into school. What happens in their previous 

5 years? In this country, one of the untold stories that we absolutely do not focus on enough is the disaster in child care. My 

guess is you got millions of kids today right now sitting in front 

of a television set with an untrained child care worker, and that 

is the first 5 years of their lives. If I were in Finland right now 

or in Denmark and I had a baby, what child care is available to 

me? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Coverage in some OECD countries go up to 90 

percent in terms of sustained early childhood education and child 

care. 

Senator SANDERS. Are the child care workers trained? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Pardon? 

Senator SANDERS. Are they well-trained? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. In some countries—I mean, it is easier to measure the pay. In some countries, they get paid and have an education like a primary school teacher. In other countries, it is more 

a child care job. 

Senator SANDERS. In this country, people leave child care to get 

a job at McDonald’s to see a raise in pay. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Let me just sort of put—— 

Senator SANDERS. I do not mean to interrupt you because I have 

other questions as well. 

My point is, I think if you are going to talk about education, 

there are millions of kids who are 10 years old who understand 

they aren’t ever going to go to college because they cannot afford 

it. There are other kids who, by the time they walk into the first 

grade, are already so far behind they are never going to catch up. 

The point to be made, in comparing—I know some of my Republican friends put down Europe, Europe, Europe. But I think they 

have something. They have taught us something, that investing in 

kids—what about the crime rate? What about the percentage of 

young people who end up in jail compared to the United States? Do 

you have any statistics on that? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. They exist, but I do not have them. 

Senator SANDERS. Well, it is far higher in this country. So we put 

them in jail rather than investing in child care and an education. 

I want to ask Mr. Butt a question because, again, it talks to a 

broader issue. You used the term ‘‘shallow learning culture.’’ Now, 

I am going to ask you what you mean by that. Back home in Burlington, VT, I got 50 channels on my TV and I turn them on, go 

through the 50 channels. There isn’t nothing much to watch. Do 

you think we really are serious about—do we respect education in 

57 

this country? How do you move forward in a serious way if we do 

not respect education? Maybe you want to comment on that. 

Mr. BUTT. Well, if I had the answer to that, Senator, I would 

have certainly shared it with you. I think it is the challenge of all 

affluent nations. You know, we get a little too big for our britches 

and think that we do not have to keep doing what we used to do. 

I wish I had the answer to that. Maybe this recession will make 

us more aware of the necessity of going back to our roots with a 

hardworking attitude toward learning. 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you. 

Mr. Castellani, do you think we should emulate Europe and put 

a great deal of money into child care and early childhood education? In some countries, I think in France it is—I mean, God did 

not create public schools at the age of 5. Now you have 70–80 percent of women who are working and kids are forced to go to child 

care. Do you think we should do what Europe does and fund child 

care the way we do public education? 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Senator, I think the broader question is how do 

we achieve the kinds of things that make students ready for learning, that have students that are ready for learning, indeed, get a 

very strong education, and have those who get the right education 

to be able to get—— 

Senator SANDERS. No, but that was not my question. 

Mr. CASTELLANI. My answer is it has to be, as all of our things 

are here, uniquely American. 

Senator SANDERS. Well, but uniquely American is failing. We do 

not want to be the only country where our educational standards 

can not compete with the rest of the world. 

My question was a simple one. Is child care important in your 

opinion? 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Child care is important. 

Senator SANDERS. Do you think an average working family can 

afford child care at 300 bucks a week? 

Mr. CASTELLANI. No. I think it is very difficult. 

Senator SANDERS. All right. Do you think that we should consider early childhood education as they do in many other countries 

as part of the overall public policy, that we should invest in that? 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Early childhood education? 

Senator SANDERS. Yes. Child care as well. 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Yes. 

Child care as well? That is difficult. 

Senator SANDERS. Why? 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Again, it is a question of what is affordable and 

what is appropriate. 

Senator SANDERS. All right, but many of these other countries 

have said that was a good investment. Do you think so? 

Mr. CASTELLANI. How would you pay for it? 

Senator SANDERS. By raising taxes on wealthy individuals. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Fair enough. 

Senator SANDERS. Fair enough. All right, good. Note that for the 

record, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Merkley. 

58 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MERKLEY

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 

I appreciated your testimony here today. I was one of those children who was the first in their family to go to college, and I can 

tell you that I had that opportunity because I had good public 

schools in a working class community. I always felt pretty good 

about the chance to go to a major university and be able to compete 

with folks from much more elite backgrounds. I want to see that 

type of opportunity exist for every child in America. It is a real 

privilege to be here for this discussion of No Child Left Behind. 

I can tell you that in the course of running for the Senate, I 

talked to parents, school administrators, teachers, school boards, 

and I heard a consistent set of problems with No Child Left Behind. 

The first was that the testing was mostly designed to compare 

apples to oranges, that is, one class of third graders with another 

class of third graders, rather than tracking an individual student 

through the process so that teachers would have the type of information able to best help them assist a student, identify where they 

are struggling and advance them. 

Second, the curriculum would be narrowed to those items that 

were being tested, which was not necessarily in the student’s best 

interest, but that was driven by the test results. 

And third, there was a pressure to teach to the bubble, and by 

that, I mean, children fall into three groups: those who easily exceed the standards, those who might exceed the standards with a 

lot of coaching, and those who are far away. Teachers were focusing on the bubble boys and girls that they might be able to get over 

that boundary but perhaps neglecting the educational advancement 

of those who already could meet that test or who they felt were too 

far away from meeting the test. 

And then finally, the system under No Child Left Behind was penalizing schools that needed help rather than helping schools that 

needed help. 

I would just like to ask whoever would like to jump in to address 

their perspectives on whether those concerns are legitimate as we 

launch this discussion of how to improve upon our system. 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. Let me take a crack at that very quickly. In 

the last 8 years, I have been in schools all across this country, and 

I have never been in one that they did not bring up No Child Left 

Behind and the things they say are exactly the four you say, that 

the testing is overemphasized and the apples-to-oranges, the timing 

of giving the results make it not informative in terms of informing 

practice. Narrowing the curriculum was a big deal. Teaching to the 

golden band or the bubble—— 

Senator MERKLEY. What did you call that? The golden? 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. Yes. One principal called it the golden band. 

Senator MERKLEY. The golden band. 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. At the beginning of the year faculty meeting, 

he said this year we know these kids are already there, and there 

is a group down here who will never make it. We are going to take 

this golden band, those that we think we can push over that proficiency line, and that is going to be the focus of all of us for all 

59 

year long. And they hate that. They believe it violates what their 

professional responsibilities are to the students. 

I totally agree with all four of your points. 

Senator MERKLEY. Other folks? Mr. Schleicher? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Yes. In fact, I cannot comment on the gravity 

of the issues that you outlined, but I think these are all issues that 

can be quite easily addressed. There are many countries that have 

actually successfully addressed them. 

If you look at the single bar problem, that you only value sort 

of people nearing proficiency, many countries have systems that 

look at learning progressions, that look at sort of key stages, how 

you move through the system. You look to England and Nordic 

countries in Europe, lots of examples on this. They choose a different balance between formative and salutive assessments like 

you have school-based assessment plus sort of high-stakes assessment and that balance creates a different set of incentives for 

teachers to use and actually understand what those results mean. 

That also addresses part of the issue of teaching to the test. I 

mean, my impression is that the United States often sacrifices validity gains for efficiency gains in the testing process, and that I 

think is something that is—— 

Senator MERKLEY. Expand on that just a little bit. Validity 

versus efficiency. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Basically I mean measuring things that you 

can measure cheaply through multiple choice tests rather than 

measuring things that are really what matters, what counts. 

Those things can be addressed. I do think we have many good 

examples of very sort of intelligent accountability systems that actually measure progress comprehensively and that also measure 

the fields of study quite broadly, not necessarily sort of high-stakes 

accountability tests. Countries usually use multiple instruments 

within a coherent framework of national standards or regional or 

State standards. 

Senator MERKLEY. Mr. Chair, amazingly my time has disappeared, but could the other folks answer this question, if they 

would like to? Do we have time for them to do that? Please be very 

brief, if you would like to answer, because I have colleagues who 

want to— 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Sure. Very briefly, we supported No Child Left 

Behind, and we do agree it can be improved. It should reflect the 

experience that we have had with it, that there are some issues. 

The underlying concept is something that we still believe is vitally 

important if we are going to be successful, and that is that we have 

to set high standards for our education system and the outcomes 

of our education system and we have to test the performance 

against those standards appropriately. 

Mr. BUTT. We have to set high standards, but we have to have 

the resources to let the students reach the high standards. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you all very, very much. I may follow 

up or have my team follow up with you all to expand on how we 

tackle those issues. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Franken. 

60 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR FRANKEN

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 

hearing, the first of, I hope, many on this reauthorization. 

Mr. Butt, thank you for talking about principals and talking 

about superintendents and talking about leaders and leadership 

teachers. You talked about new grade teachers that come in and 

are crazy about their principal maybe in a charter school, but then 

you have a new grade teacher come in in some schools and a notso-great principal looks at the teacher as a threat. 

I believe in leaders, and I believe that principals lead the school 

and they should not just be custodians or administrators of a building. 

I have introduced a bill called the School Principals Recruitment 

and Training Act. What this does is it gives competitive grants to 

school districts and schools to find principals who want to work in 

high-needs areas. That is what Mr. Schleicher was talking about 

is what they do in these OECD countries, is they focus on these 

high-needs schools and mentor. 

I know Senator Dodd asked you for some ideas. One idea that 

we have talked to a lot of principals about is to have a mentoring 

system where for a year you recruit a principal who wants to be 

a principal. Maybe the teacher comes from somewhere else and is 

mentored for a year and there is follow-up. 

This is not a question. I am just plugging my bill. OK? 

[Laughter.] 

Enough of that. 

I want to get into testing. I talked to some principals a few 

weeks ago, and one of the principals called the current No Child 

Left Behind testing where you give the test in April and you get 

it in June right as the kids are leaving—he called these tests—he 

said they have a name for them—‘‘autopsies,’’ which I think is pretty significant. 

Mr. Schleicher, this is a question. You are talking about 

progress. There is a test in Minnesota that all the teachers love 

and all the superintendents love, a computer test. You cannot use 

it because in No Child Left Behind because not every kid gets the 

same test because it gets harder if you answer right and it gets 

easier when you answer wrong. You get the results instantly, and 

they can give it three times a year. And you can measure each kid’s 

progress. Is this the kind of thing they are doing in the countries 

that are more successful than we are? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Yes. There are many electronic testing systems 

that provide real and immediate feedback to a student’s teachers 

and schools. In some other countries, they may not use electronic 

testing, but they have more school-based assessment. Basically 

within a framework of national standards, schools devise complementary international tests, their own instruments, and have, 

therefore, instruments where they know the results very quickly. 

They are not high-stakes accountability tests, but basically tests for 

the school to figure out what its relative strengths and weaknesses 

are. So it is not all electronic. It is often just also school-based. 

Senator FRANKEN. Mr. Castellani, you said your group was in 

favor of No Child Left Behind. Does it make sense to you to maybe 

61 

have three tests a year where you can use it diagnostically? I think 

that is what every parent in the country thought when they heard 

No Child Left Behind. I think they went, great, my kid is going to 

be tested. My teacher is going to look at the results. It will be diagnostic. My teacher will be able to teach my kid by the results. This 

is great. Instead, they get tested at the end of the year and all the 

data is aggregated to see if the school is failing or not. 

We had a school up in Cass County, MN that was named one of 

the top 100 high schools in America by U.S. News and World Report. Two weeks later, they failed the annual yearly progress. This 

is ridiculous the way this is working. 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Senator, one of the principals or two—actually 

several of the principals that I have included in our written testimony get right to this point. We have to have timely, accurate 

analysis of the testing data. We have to have accurate and timely 

tests in and of themselves that are relevant. We have to have better data systems so that teachers can use it not only collectively 

but for individual students and how they can change their approach to teaching that class. Absolutely, improving that data, improving the value of the data and the timeliness of the data— 

Senator FRANKEN. One thing I think everyone agrees we need to 

be looking at in this new reauthorization is how we do this testing. 

I would advocate for testing that can be done several times a year 

and that teachers be measured on the kids’ progress. From 1 year 

to the next, you do not know—the population changes. So you really cannot measure anything by that year-end test about progress. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Senator Bennet. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR BENNET

Senator BENNET. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

allowing me to be part of this conversation. I cannot tell you how 

much I look forward to working with you on this. 

When I was superintendent of schools in Denver, I spent a lot 

of time wondering why everybody in Washington was so mean to 

our teachers and to our kids. What I have discovered actually is 

that they are not mean, at least when it comes to education, that 

everybody here is well-intentioned, and that there is a universal 

agreement that we really do want our kids to achieve. So that is 

good. 

We also know a lot of what works. All of you have touched on 

things that work here and work in other places as well, and I have 

seen it. 

I know that the children in America’s cities have the intellectual 

capacity to do the work we are asking them to do because I have 

spent a lot of time with them. 

Here is the question, but I am not going to let you answer yet. 

The question is what do you think are the biggest impediments to 

preventing these successes from scaling across our school districts 

and schools? 

Let me just say first when I became superintendent of schools, 

on the 10th grade math test that we administer, there were 33 

African-American students proficient on that test and 61 Latino 

62 

students proficient on that test. Fewer than four classrooms of kids 

proficient on a test, that if we are honest with ourselves, measures 

a junior high school standard of mathematics in Europe in a district of 75,000 children and in a city of 550,000 children. 

A fourth grader today, as we are sitting here today, in a lowincome neighborhood, low-income ZIP code is already 2 or 3 years 

behind her peers. She has a 1 in 2 chance of graduating from high 

school and a 1 in 10 chance of graduating from college. 

I do not think anybody in the Senate would accept those odds for 

any of our kids or grandkids. In fact, probably we would resign our 

seats and run home to make sure that was not what the outcome 

was going to be. 

In view of all that, my question to you is, what is getting in our 

way to scaling the successes that we know we have in the United 

States of America? We will start with you. Go ahead. 

Mr. CASTELLANI. Senator, it is a very difficult question and I 

have to say I feel a little like Ebenezar Scrooge. You are the one 

I fear the most, the last. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BENNET. They put me here for a reason. 

Mr. CASTELLANI. No, no. I am the son of two teachers, one of 

whom went to the dark side to become a school administrator like 

you. My 94-year-old father who still calls me up and says, ‘‘what 

do you in the business world know about teaching and running a 

teaching system?’’ 

We have had long discussions about it and we have thought 

about it a long time. 

Senator BENNET. All I can say, Mr. Castellani, I spent about half 

my career in the business world and then half doing this other 

stuff, and it probably means I do not know much about any of it. 

Mr. CASTELLANI. That is all right. I am sure it is to the contrary. 

One of the things that strikes me that is very difficult is the contrast between how the rush to implement the best practices, the 

most innovative practices, the most successful practices is a basic— 

in an operating circumstance in the business world and it is not 

in a lot of other worlds, including education because in the business world, you do not have those kind of impediments. They tend 

to be just resource-limited or time-limited because in order to be 

competitive, you have to adopt them. 

I think the difference is because the reward structure is very, 

very different, and that is, if you adopt very rapidly the best practices in the business context and the economic context, the presumption is you will be rewarded because you will get more customers, you will have higher margins, you will be more profitable, 

which will result in more return for your shareholders. We do not 

have a way to translate that within the education system, and I 

think that in part is why people are not rushing to do what we do 

in this other sector regularly. 

Senator BENNET. Mr. Van Roekel? Oh, I am sorry, Mr. Butt. I 

will just go right down the table here, as long as the chairman will 

let us. 

Mr. BUTT. Thank you, Senator. 

Three reasons. One, general apathy, which is due to the culture 

that I mentioned. You had a big crowd for the Academy Awards 

63 

Sunday night. A teacher event, education event draws a big yawn, 

not sexy, and we are nationally over-confident. So that is one. 

The second is that the establishment has moved away from the 

public schools either through multiple districts, which achieve de 

facto segregation, or having their kids in private schools. In Texas, 

we have 5 million kids, nearly 10 percent of the national student 

group, of which, 4.6 million of those are in public school. The other 

400,000, which include much of the affluent and voters and the 

people that influence the politicians, are in private schools. We 

have lost the leadership of the establishment—whatever it is 

worth, good or bad, and that is a matter of debate—to the public 

schools. 

And third, parents lose interest after their kids graduate from 

school. Parents and grandparents are not interested in the schools 

anymore. They are opposed to raising taxes, but they really do not 

care about the schools. 

Those would be my three reasons that it is difficult to penetrate 

and get change to elect good people to school boards and to elect 

State legislators and leaders that really care about education. 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. Senator, I would say, No. 1, it is turnover especially in our high-needs schools, the turnover of staff and of principals and superintendents. It is impossible to have an integrated, 

well thought-out plan that continues on for a long enough time to 

really impact it. 

Senator BENNET. By the way, I completely agree with your idea 

about having people come early for a week or two, parents and 

teachers. 

Mr. VAN ROEKEL. A second thing is that too often a new culture 

or environment is created and it is personality-driven, and when 

that personality leaves, so does the whole plan and a new one 

comes in. It is impossible as a faculty member—it is a new reading 

program, it is a new math program, it is a new discipline program, 

it is new this, and we never just sit down and put it in place. 

The third thing I will say is that we tend to focus on activities 

that we think will change the system, instead of going at a systemic approach and really looking at coming up with that common 

purpose of what we are trying to achieve. I think that is where 

business has an advantage over us. They know what it is they are 

trying to achieve in their enterprise, and we do not talk enough 

about that. What happens is somebody says, ‘‘oh, look, this school 

is doing well, and they have uniforms. Let us put uniforms in this 

school.’’ They have no idea why they have uniforms—the discussion 

is about what it is they were trying to achieve. 

That is why I talk so much about collaboration. One of the things 

that happens in successful places—Syracuse, New York where Say 

Yes Foundation came in and they are changing the whole district. 

They do memorandums of understanding so that the management, 

the school board, and union all sign onto that, so when one of the 

big three players changes, they cannot suddenly go off in a new direction. There may be better ideas, but you have to come back and 

say, together, ‘‘let us decide if there is a better place.’’ 

Those are my three best impediments. 

Senator BENNET. Mr. Chairman, one final thought. I would just 

stitch together what Mr. Van Roekel just said with what Mr. 

64 

Castellani just said, and you can put this in the ‘‘whatever it is 

worth’’ category. But, I do think there is enormous reform fatigue 

that goes on in these school districts, and part of it is because we 

have not applied the approach of continuous improvement that you 

would think of in the business world. I think it is very important 

for us to keep that in mind because I think there is a lot that our 

school districts could gain from a continuous improvement approach in our teachers and our kids. 

Mr. Butt, I would just say I completely agree with your observation, and I think that we as a country are going to rue the day unless we think about the children that are living in poverty in the 

United States, no matter who we are, as our own children. This is 

the next generation of Americans, and we are not going to be able 

to compete in the 21st century if we do not address these issues. 

The path to doing that runs right through the urban school districts of the United States. 

Thank you for being here today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me go over. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Senator Franken. 

Senator FRANKEN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for indulging me. 

One short question since you are here, Mr. Schleicher. I read 

your written testimony and thank you for it. I just want to know 

if you saw any correlation because a lot of the OECD countries— 

I guess they all have universal health care. Many of the high-needs 

schools that we have are under-performing, and we have a lot of 

the dropouts coming from there. Kids do not have health insurance. 

Is there any correlation that you saw—maybe this was not part of 

your study at all—between having health insurance as a kid and 

doing well in school? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Since, as you say, health care is universal in 

most of the countries—actually I think in virtually all of the countries—you cannot see any correlation basically. You can only study 

correlations when there is variability. 

Senator FRANKEN. OK. You did not study all those countries 

versus us, but they are all improving and we are not. 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. Not all countries are improving. There is quite 

some variability in performance. 

Senator FRANKEN. OK. But we are falling in regard to the rest 

of the OECD countries. That is fair to say, right? 

Mr. SCHLEICHER. What you can say is that social background, socioeconomic difference in the United States make more of and have 

a stronger impact on learning outcomes than is the case in—— 

Senator FRANKEN. My contention would be that a kid with an ear 

infection who does not have insurance is less likely to get it treated 

and more likely to miss school. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Franken. 

I thank our panel. I could sit here for another hour and go over 

a lot of things with you. I think we had a good discussion here to 

kick off our series of hearings. 

I sent down for this book. It is called The Unfinished Agenda: A 

New Vision for Child Development and Education. I remember this 

very well. This came out in 1990. I had just been elected to the 

65 

Senate in 1985. I was not on this committee at the time. I came 

on a little bit later. President Reagan had been re-elected that 

same year in 1984. 

Around 1986 President Reagan wanted to find out—he said we 

have all these studies on education. He said we need a study on 

education on an economic basis. What do we need to do in education today so that we will have a solid future economically for 

America? I do not remember all his words, but in his own way, the 

President said something like, ‘‘I do not want a bunch of those 

pointy-headed guys doing this either. I want solid, strong business 

people that will tell us what we need to do.’’ 

The Committee on Economic Development formed this subcommittee on education. The chair of it was James Renier, chairman of Honeywell at the time. This has got all the members. These 

are all CEOs and chairmen of some of your largest corporations 

and companies, Ciba-Geigy, First Commerce, Aetna, the Freeman 

Company, Texas Instruments, Smuckers, Arco Chemical. You get 

the idea. And Jim Renier became the chairman. 

I never met this man, but in 1990 I was chairman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations on Education, the one I chair now, 

aside from this committee. One day this person wanted to come see 

me by the name of James Renier from Honeywell. Well, I figured, 

Minnesota is next door, what the heck, I will see him. He wanted 

to see me about education. He came into my office and reminded 

me of what had been going on. 

This committee had been set up in the 1980s. They had done all 

these studies and interviews and panels, and they really took their 

work very seriously. He handed the executive summary to me, and 

on the outside it had one paragraph. ‘‘We must understand that 

education begins at birth and the preparation for education begins 

before birth.’’ That is in this book. 

I can read it to you. 

‘‘The report urges the Nation to develop a comprehensive 

and coordinated strategy of human investment, one that redefines education as a process that begins at birth and encompasses all aspects of children’s early development, including 

their physical, social, emotional, and cognitive growth.’’ 

Well, here are all these hard-headed business people. What did 

they say? Get to those kids early. Get to them early. That is what 

this whole book is. 

So, I sent for it again; they found it in my file in Des Moines, 

and now I am going to keep it close by. 

I would like to bring this up about health care. In 1991, I said 

that the problem with health care is we are patching, fixing, and 

mending. We are putting all of the money into sick care, not into 

health care. If we really want to control costs, do prevention and 

wellness. Get at it early. Now, a lot of private companies have done 

that. Talk to Pitney Bowes. Talk to Safeway. Talk to companies 

that have actually done that, and they will tell you they save a lot 

of money. 

The same, I submit to all of you, is true in education. We have 

got to get to these kids early. 

What did you say, Mr. Butt? You said something that just really 

caught my ear—by the way, I thought your testimony was just 

66 

great and so were your responses. Our kids coming to school—they 

are over-entertained. And what was the rest of that? 

Mr. BUTT. Distracted. 

The CHAIRMAN. And distracted. That is right. We have to get to 

these kids earlier than we are now. By the time they come, they 

are already way behind. Somehow we have just got to focus more 

on that. I do not have the answer. I just know where the problem 

lies. The problem lies with kids before they actually get to school. 

Now, I suppose some of it has to do with social structures and 

things like that, but if we do not crack that nut, we are just going 

to continue to patch and fix and mend, and we are never going to 

get out of the hole that we are in. 

I submit this to you and I would ask for your thoughts on this 

later. Perhaps we need to re-define elementary and secondary education. Does elementary education really begin when kids enter 

kindergarten, or should we expand the thought of what elementary 

education really involves? I invite your thoughts on that in any regard, in any way you want to transmit them. 

This has been great. This has just been a wonderful kickoff to 

a whole series of hearings that we are going to have on this. I invite you later on, as we go through our hearings, if anything comes 

up that you want to get in, get it to our committee and to us. I 

could not have asked for a better beginning of the process. Thank 

you all very much. 

[Additional material follows.] 

67 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR BROWN

Thank you, Chairman Harkin and Senator Enzi for kicking off 

the HELP Committee’s consideration of the reauthorization of the 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act with a focus on a fundamental truth—a world class education for our students is directly 

linked to a world class economy for our Nation. 

I would also like to thank the witnesses for joining us today. 

Your statements clearly illustrate that standing still in education 

means losing ground in the 21st century economy. 

Last month, the HELP committee held a hearing on the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act. We heard testimony 

that between 2008 and 2018, nearly two-thirds of all job openings 

would require at least some post-secondary education and that 

there was a growing mismatch between the skills of our workers 

and the demands of the workplace. 

Our long-term jobs strategy must address education. 

We know that there are persistent gaps in educational outcomes 

for students based on family income, race, language, and special 

needs. Ohio is no exception. National Assessment for Education 

Progress results show little progress in narrowing the gaps in 

math, science, and reading achievement over the last 10 years. 

We must do better. 

The No Child Left Behind Act helped shine a light on the 

achievement gaps. Reauthorization gives us the opportunity to 

move beyond just identifying long-standing gaps in opportunity and 

achievement and move towards a smart, strategic system for closing the gaps and improving achievement across the board. 

As we look to renew the law, I hope we strengthen it in several 

key areas, including: 

• Moving from merely collecting and reporting data to using today’s sophisticated tools to harness the power of information for 

improving teacher practice and personalizing learning for students; 

• Building school-community partnerships to deliver the full 

range of supports that students and families need to be successful; 

and 

• Making the connection to college and careers real for all students. 

In Ohio, we have seen progress in all of these areas, but there 

is more work to be done. Ohio has made great strides in moving 

to a fully integrated data system that will enable us to analyze how 

students progress through elementary and secondary school to college and into the workforce. 

Local philanthropies and community leaders such as STRIVE in 

Cincinnati and the Cleveland Scholarship Programs have demonstrated the power of collaboration in improving outcomes for 

young people. 

Just this past January, President Obama—the first sitting president to visit Lorain County since President Truman—saw firsthand how we can connect students to college and careers. He visited Early College High School Students at Lorain County Community College’s Fab Lab. 

68 

After the visit, one of the students, Paula Jones, blogged, 

‘‘The FabLab is a creative and hands-on-learning experience. 

It is a great resource for geometry class because we can get accurate and precise measure of angles and shapes by using the 

laser cutter and the other utensils in the lab. There are many 

Fab Labs throughout the world, and I am glad to have had the 

opportunity to share this experience with not only my peers, 

but the President.’’ 

Education is more than the sum of test scores or a collection of 

data points. Students must be able to apply their knowledge and 

skills in the real world. The students at the Fab Lab have already 

learned that lesson. 

We know what success looks like. We just need to build the capacity in our communities to deliver it for all students. Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is our opportunity to support success. 

Thank you. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR CASEY

Good afternoon. First, I’d like to thank Chairman Harkin and 

Ranking Member Enzi for holding the first in a series of hearings 

which will provide an opportunity to hear testimony, examine data 

and evidence, and debate ideas for education reform. I think it is 

entirely appropriate to begin with a focus on the importance of education to the long-term economic health of the United States, and 

I appreciate you providing us with this framework. 

As we move forward to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, there are a few areas I believe we must address if we are to use education as the great equalizer of opportunity and a tool to enhance U.S. competitiveness in the global 

economy. First, we must expand and improve early childhood education. As President Obama has recognized in his Fiscal Year 2011 

Budget Proposal, the early years of a child’s life, from birth 

through age 5, are crucial for learning. By emphasizing early education through measures such as the Prepare All Kids Act which 

I have introduced, we will ensure that our children are ready to 

learn and increase their chances for success in grades K–12. Second, we must, as Mr. Van Roekel states in his testimony, revitalize 

the public education system and ensure its sustainability. Standards and assessments that will ensure accountability are critical 

and we must have a full and healthy debate on how best to measure student achievement and growth. Third, just as we must ensure that every child has access to quality education in the earliest 

years of his or her life, we must graduate every student from high 

school. The wealth, productivity, and growth that are lost as a result of the Nation’s dropout crisis are devastating. An educated, 

skilled workforce is crucial to attracting employers and jobs to the 

United States. 

I want to thank each of the witnesses today for their thoughtful 

testimony. Your insight and observations are fascinating and 

should inform our deliberations throughout the reauthorization 

process. Perhaps most importantly, your testimony makes it clear 

that we must think of education not only as a moral imperative, 

69 

1 Attachment D4.xls may be found at www.oecd.org/edu/eag2009. 2The material referenced may be found at www.pisa.oecd.org. 

but as an investment in our country’s future, without which we will 

continue to fall behind other nations in educating our children. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to working 

with you and my colleagues on the HELP Committee on this important legislation. 

RESPONSE BY ANDREAS SCHLEICHER TO QUESTIONS OF SENATOR MIKULSKI

AND SENATOR CASEY

QUESTION OF SENATOR MIKULSKI

Question 1. I’d like to direct a question to Andreas Schleicher, who is doing some 

pretty fascinating work in looking at how we’re doing relative to other countries. 

But, first, I’d like to thank Senator Tom Harkin for his leadership on this committee. We’ve been working together on these issues for a long time and I’m glad 

that education is one of the first things he’ll have to put his unique signature on. 

Mr. Schleicher, through your research, I’m sure you’ve found that other industrialized countries are able to outperform their American peers at least partly due to 

the fact that they’re in school longer. Their school days are longer, or their school 

years are longer, or both. Researchers at Johns Hopkins have been studying the detrimental effects of having such a large lag between school years for children, and 

they’ve found that the degree to which knowledge is lost during the summer months 

is more pronounced in youngsters from low-income backgrounds. The idea of extended learning time, or using things like after school activities, academic enrichment during the summer months, etc., is being piloted in pockets throughout the 

country, including my home State of Maryland. Could you please speak to the difference investing in extended learning time has played in other countries and also, 

what existing practices in the United States show promise for scalability? 

Answer 1. Learning outcomes are a function of the quantity and quality of educational provision. The OECD provides comparative measures on the quantity of 

educational provision but not on the quality of instruction, other than what is measured indirectly through student learning outcomes in PISA. 

It is problematic to compare the incidence and intensity of extended learning time 

through the summer months between the United States and other countries, because most other countries have significantly shorter summer breaks than the 

United States does. Among the 30 OECD countries, only France provides fewer 

weeks of instruction per year than the United States (see the attachment D4.xls, 1

although the comparatively low number of instructional weeks and days in the 

United States needs to be seen in the context of comparatively long school days). 

The attached tables Tabl2.xls 2 provides comparative data on different types of opportunities to learn for students at age 15 and the attached table Tablch3.xls 2

breaks these data down by socio-economic groups. 

QUESTION OF SENATOR CASEY

Question 1. What are the three most important specific recommendations you 

would make to this committee for reforming education through the reauthorization 

of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act? 

Of all the ideas and recommendations for education reform, where do you believe 

there is consensus among education professionals, policymakers, academics, business leaders, and other stakeholders? 

Answer 1. I will focus on those issues which internationally comparative analysis 

suggests can be addressed successfully in complex stakeholder environments. 

First, judging from the experience of other countries, the consistent implementation of the ‘‘common core standards’’ in the United States could be an influential 

measure to address the current problem of widely discrepant State standards and 

‘‘cut’’ scores that have led to non-comparable results and often mean that a school’s 

fate depends more than anything else on what State it is located. Another policy 

goal could be a different balance between using accountability tools to maintain public confidence in education, on the one hand, and to support remediation in the 

classroom aimed at higher levels of student learning and achievement, on the other. 

While the emphasis of NCLB has been on test-based external accountability, many 

high performing education systems make greater efforts to build capacity and confidence for professional accountability in ways that emphasize the importance of 

70 

formative assessment and the role of school self-evaluation, the latter often in conjunction with school inspection systems that systematically intervene with a focus 

on the most troubled schools rather than dispersing efforts through identifying too 

many schools as needing improvement, which one could consider another drawback 

of the current NCLB system. Where school performance is systematically assessed 

in high performing countries, the primary purpose is often not to support 

contestability of public services or market-mechanisms in the allocation of resources. 

Rather it is to provide instruments to reveal best practices and identify shared problems in order to encourage teachers and schools to develop more supportive and productive learning environments. 

Second, I consider the ‘‘single bar’’ problem a major drawback of the current 

NCLB system, as it leads to undue focus on students nearing proficiency rather 

than valuing achievement growth. In many countries, this problem is addressed 

through assessment and accountability systems that incorporate progressive learning targets which delineate pathways characterising the steps that learners typically follow as they become more proficient and establish the breadth and depth of 

the learner’s understanding of the domain at a particular level of advancement. One 

of the earliest approaches in this direction, the ‘‘key stages’’ in England, for example, provides a coherent system that allows measuring individual student progress 

across grades and subjects, thus also avoiding the problems associated with the 

‘‘multiple measures’’ defining annual yearly progress in NCLB that have tended to 

lead to an undue emphasis on reading and mathematics. The global trend here is 

leading towards multi-layered, coherent assessment systems from classrooms to 

schools to regional to national to international levels that: support improvement of 

learning at all levels of the education system; are increasingly performance-based 

and make students’ thinking visible; add value for teaching and learning by providing information that can be acted on by students, teachers, and administrators; 

and that are part of a comprehensive and well-aligned instructional learning system 

that includes syllabi, associated instructional materials, matching exams, professional scoring and teacher training. 

Third, drawing a clearer line between assessments, on the one hand, and individual high-stakes examination systems could avoid sacrificing validity gains for efficiency gains, which tends to be an issue for the United States that is also mirrored 

in, by international standards, an unusually high proportion of multiple choice 

items in the assessment systems. 

RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS OF SENATOR CASEY BY DENNIS VAN ROEKEL

Question 1. What are the three most important specific recommendations you 

would make to this committee for reforming education through the reauthorization 

of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act? 

Answer 1. (1) Make a decisive and immediate break from NCLB by articulating a broad purpose for the Act that encompasses the ‘‘whole student’’ 

and by creating a new accountability system that helps, rather than impedes, school communities in their efforts to address the whole student. 

As we stated in our recent submission to the HELP Committee hearing on Meeting the Needs of the Whole Child, NCLB shifted the emphasis of public education 

from developing well-rounded individuals to testing low-level, basic skills in reading 

and math. The real impact of NCLB was in direct contradiction to its purported 

goals: it labeled our schools as failures based on crude measures yet did little or 

nothing to help us understand why or provide help to improve. It diminished the 

educational experience for millions of students by narrowing the curriculum and focusing the definition of success on two narrow, one-size-fits-all tests that were given 

on one day during the school year. Most significantly, NCLB failed to raise the 

knowledge and skills of a generation of students—in fact, it left far too many behind, in violation of its own name. 

Therefore, immediate and dramatic change is needed to undo NCLB’s harmful effects—to refocus our education system on developing a well-educated citizenry 

equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century. 

NEA is calling on Congress to pass a new bill—the Great Public Schools for All 

Act of 2010 or ‘‘GPSA’’—that would reauthorize and amend ESEA in important and 

dramatic ways, beginning with a new ESEA purpose statement: 

‘‘The public education system is critical to democracy and its purpose, as reflected in this Act, is to maximize the achievement, skills, opportunities, and 

potential of all students by building upon their strengths and addressing their 

needs, and to ensure that all students are prepared to thrive in a democratic 

society and diverse, changing world as knowledgeable, creative, and engaged 

citizens and lifelong learners.’’ 

71 

GPSA would require schools to meet the needs of the whole child by addressing 

multiple dimensions, including students’ physical, social and emotional health and 

well-being, and ensuring that students are actively engaged in a wide variety of experiences and settings within—and outside—the classroom. Under GPSA, school 

curricula would address the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to master 

not only core academic subjects but also career and technical skills for the 21st century; effective and engaged community and civic participation; and physical and 

emotional health, well-being and self-actualization. 

Let us be clear: Congress must help school communities best meet the needs of the 

‘‘whole child’’ by implementing a new foundation for the public education system’s 

accountability system that rests on an authentic, reliable and valid system of assessments. The new accountability system must eliminate AYP and replace it with a 

new system designed to foster progress in student learning, close gaps in learning 

among students, and improve high school graduation rates. The new system must 

recognize and reward ‘‘exemplary’’ schools and individuals who are performing well 

above average, and it must allow the majority of schools that are ‘‘on target’’ to 

carry on without significantly increased Federal requirements. This is not to suggest 

that the majority of schools should not continue to find ways to improve, but rather 

to specify that Federal requirements that are prescriptive or punitive are not an appropriate way to foster that improvement. The new system must also correctly identify and foster improvements in ‘‘priority’’ schools (addressed further below). 

As for student testing, we must improve assessment systems as well as restore 

assessments to their proper role in the accountability system, which is to improve 

instruction and enhance student learning. Assessment systems should be aligned 

with high-quality standards, curriculum and professional development and cover 

much broader curricular areas (as articulated above) as well as more complex sets 

of knowledge, skills and dispositions within those curricular areas. They should 

comprise multiple components and offer multiple ways to demonstrate knowledge 

beyond a single, standardized test. Assessments should be developed and designed 

according to principles that allow their use with students of diverse abilities and 

diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Finally, while State or local agencies 

may choose to administer their own assessments more frequently—and likely will 

do so in order to help improve instruction in a timely manner—standardized tests 

mandated by the Federal Government should not occur more than once in each of 

three grade spans (e.g., 4–6, 7–9, 10–12) during a student’s K–12 career. 

Schools and educators must have the time, ability and resources to complement 

assessment systems by establishing other systems critical to ‘‘whole child’’ development, such as: 

• curricular and extracurricular expansion and development; 

• parent, family and community engagement and partnerships; 

• high-quality teacher and principal induction and professional development systems; 

• systems that support qualified specialized instructional support personnel (i.e., 

school psychologists, school counselors, speech language pathologists, audiologists, 

school social workers, school nurses, occupational and physical therapists, music/art/ 

dance therapists and adaptive physical education teachers and others involved in 

providing assessment, diagnosis, counseling, educational, therapeutic, and other necessary corrective or supportive services) who provide critical services to students; 

• systems that support qualified education support staff to assist instruction, provide supplemental or wrap around services or activities, provide nutritional meals 

and safe transport to students, and maintain schools as vibrant centers for student 

learning; 

• positive behavior support systems, a school-wide approach to improving safety 

and school behavior for all students; 

• student health, nutrition, sports, mentoring and counseling to foster physical 

and emotional health and safety; and 

• construction and modernization to ensure that schools and classrooms are technologically equipped and serve as comfortable and inviting spaces and facilities that 

meet diverse curricular and extracurricular needs. 

Finally, to avoid overlapping and conflicting accountability systems, upon reauthorizing ESEA Congress must immediately replace NCLB accountability labels and 

requirements with a new, strengthened accountability system as outlined in GPSA. 

To address the obvious need for a transition to this new system, GPSA should specify what limited, NCLB-era standardized assessments must be administered pending 

the implementation of new assessment systems under Race to the Top and other 

assessment reform efforts. Furthermore, we strongly believe NCLB-era assessment 

results should no longer be used for Federal accountability purposes after ESEA is 

72 

reauthorized. The cessation of the NCLB accountability timeline—and the all-toooften inaccurate school labels—is critical to allow States to begin developing more 

complete accountability systems comprising multiple measures of student learning. 

States will also use this time to pilot and ramp up new assessment instruments 

under the new accountability system so that they may be used as soon as possible. 

(2) Ensure equity, adequacy and sustainability in education funding and 

resources, including intensive assistance and supports to struggling 

schools to close gaps in student learning, opportunities, and college and career readiness. 

Congress should restore the original intent of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to eliminate disparities in educational opportunities between advantaged 

and disadvantaged students. It should do this in two ways: 

• Adequate, equitable and sustainable funding. First, Congress should establish 

that the role of the Federal Government is to: (1) investigate and research to what 

extent and how education funding policies and practices and other external influences and events at the Federal, State and local levels lead to disparities and fluctuations in educational opportunities, quality and performance among students, and 

(2) close, to the extent possible, disparities and eliminate fluctuations in educational 

opportunities, quality and performance among students through direct Federal funding and assistance and through policies designed to encourage adequate, equitable 

and sustainable education funding and assistance at the State and local levels. (See 

our legislative specifications in GPSA regarding ‘‘equity and adequacy plans’’ which 

should be required under a reauthorized ESEA). 

The current education jobs crisis has illuminated a dangerous and unacceptable 

ebb and tide in the continuity and stability of public education nationwide; such 

fluctuations also hinder education reform efforts. Just as safeguards against harmful fluctuations in financial institutions have been developed over time, so too 

should the education system—the engine of the U.S. economy—be stabilized through 

equitable, adequate and sustainable funding. 

NCLB did a poor job at providing and encouraging sufficient and stabilized education funding for all schools. Even with ARRA, NCLB programs were never funded 

at their authorized levels and in the last 8 years the per-pupil funding and resource 

gaps between LEAs have not narrowed or closed. The NEA proposes that Congress 

remedy these problems in its legislation reauthorizing ESEA by closely monitoring 

disparities between authorized and appropriated funding levels and requiring State 

plans to include improvements in adequate, equitable and sustainable funding and 

resources as a top priority. 

For ESEA reauthorization, Congress should prioritize increases in equitably distributed funding channels such as title I and the main portion of the ARRA State 

Fiscal Stabilization Fund. These programs enable districts to plan efficiently and 

provide adequate, equitable and sustainable funding to schools. While we support 

the need for innovation and improvement in education, we do not believe that increasing overall funding of ESEA programs primarily through competitive programs 

such as Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation, and the Teacher Incentive Fund— 

particularly in a time of State fiscal crisis—is a sound approach for improving education opportunities, services, and outcomes for students or for achieving equity, 

adequacy and sustainability of those opportunities in all 50 States. 

Priority schools. Second, Congress should, through ESEA, address struggling or 

‘‘priority schools’’ by requiring States to adopt plans that call for comprehensive internal and external review teams to study the operations and systems of priority 

schools and, based on the review, pursue a school transformation approach that emphasizes collaboration, capacity-building and aggressive improvements—not the 

rigid implementation of prescriptive intervention ‘‘models,’’ as currently proposed by 

the Obama administration. Examples of successful transformation models may be 

found in the Denver Public Schools (Denver, CO), Hamilton County Public Schools 

(Hamilton County, TN) and Putnam City West High School (Oklahoma City, OK). 

For more information about successful transformation approaches, see www.nea priorityschools.org. (3) Address teacher and principal recruitment, retention and effectiveness thoughtfully and comprehensively. 

Research shows that infusing the educational system with great educators requires attention be paid to each segment of the educator pipeline—from promoting 

education as a career to rigorous standards for entry into the profession. It also includes induction and placement, certification and licensure, mentoring, professional 

development, advancement, and retaining accomplished educators. Ultimately, we 

must develop systems to recruit legions of top undergraduate students and professionals leaving other professions, to prepare them effectively, and to nurture and 

safeguard their path to careers in education. 

73 

According to some estimates, a third of our Nation’s public school teachers will 

have retired over the next several years. To compound the problem, a third of new 

teachers leave the profession within 3 years, and some districts replace half of their 

new staff every 5 years. (See www.nctaf.org.) We are also losing hundreds of thousands of teachers and other education employees to layoffs due to the ongoing fiscal 

crisis. (See NEA’s synopsis of layoffs in 50 States at http://www.nea.org/assets/ 

docs/StatelBudgetslandlEducationl50lstatelchartl2010.pdf.) In short, this 

country needs bold ideas for how to attract and retain talented new teachers to address the looming national teaching shortage. 

NEA has proposed that Congress establish a National Education Institute (NEI), 

a highly competitive public academy for the Nation’s most promising K–12 teacher 

candidates in diverse academic disciplines, which would allow the Federal Government to attract top undergraduates as well as second-career professionals and prepare them as leaders of school reform around the Nation. NEI would provide an intensive 1-year path (free tuition, room, and board in exchange for a 7-year commitment to service in select public schools) to full licensure, school placement, induction, along with lifetime professional development and mentoring opportunities from 

NEI faculty/graduates/master teachers. NEI also would partner with existing teacher preparation programs to establish a highly competitive ‘‘National Scholars’’ program in select universities that would foster regional and local excellence in teacher 

preparation, licensure and induction. Additionally, NEI would sponsor a principal 

or leadership development program for top candidates who have served as teachers 

for at least 3 years and wish to enter an intensive program to become a principal 

or school leader in a hard-to-staff school. 

Teacher effectiveness begins, but does not end, at the recruitment and preparation 

stages. We need policies that foster continuous learning in the form of high-quality, 

job-embedded professional development, mentoring programs, common planning and 

reflection time, and timely and continuous feedback from peers and school leadership. Congress should increase funding in title II to allow more teachers to become 

certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards or similar programs. 

Teacher and principal evaluation systems must be reformed to become more useful avenues for improving professional practice. The recent release of the Administration’s Blueprint compels us to raise with you our grave concerns about the Blueprint’s call for a State-defined system to rate the effectiveness of teachers which 

must be based in significant part on student academic growth. First, it is not appropriate for Federal policy or law to mandate the terms of an individual teacher’s employment. We do not, from the Federal level, prescribe to Governors or mayors how 

to evaluate other public employees. The Federal Government does not hire or fire 

public employees; therefore, instruments that impact these decisions should not be 

mandated from the Federal level. 

Second, mandating the use of standardized test scores for the assessment of 

teacher performance is neither psychometrically valid, nor does it accurately capture 

the myriad elements of instructional practice. This is not because we do not believe 

that assessments are potentially useful instruments, or that teachers are critically 

responsible for improving student learning. As an educators’ association, we do 

know the impact that we have on our students. We also know that assessments— 

especially if they are improved to test broader and deeper skills and to include multiple components and stages—can serve as useful diagnostic and instructional tools 

for both teachers and students to help improve instruction and learning. 

Third, the Blueprint fails to address several other implementation problems. For 

example, how would a teacher effectiveness definition which is based substantially 

on ‘‘student academic growth’’ impact art teachers or music teachers or other instructional personnel who teach subjects not easily assessed by traditional methods? 

How would the system take into account the fact that children learn cumulatively— 

meaning that they learn skills from all of their educators—so how can we accurately 

identify which educator should be ‘‘credited’’ with specific levels of student growth? 

In sum, we object to the Blueprint’s mandated linkage between student assessments and teachers for evaluative purposes for two reasons: (1) because research 

does not bear out that measuring teacher performance through his or her student’s 

standardized test score growth is accurate or reliable, to make such a link would 

have a devastating impact not only on teacher instruction and practice but on teacher recruitment, retention and morale nationwide; and (2) using standardized tests 

in this manner would perpetuate and exacerbate the effects of NCLB because they 

would increase the unwarranted premium and emphasis placed on such tests— 

which has been perhaps the most frequent criticism of NCLB voiced by our members—and divert attention and resources away from developing the ‘‘whole child’’ 

through offering a more complete curriculum as well as other activities and services. 

74 

Instead, a reauthorized ESEA should foster high-quality teacher and principal evaluation systems that are locally and collaboratively agreed upon built upon sound 

principles of professional practice—i.e., the essential knowledge, skills and dispositions a quality teacher or principal should possess. (See the document entitled ‘‘Ensuring Every Child a Quality Teacher’’ in our HELP submission on Teachers and 

Leaders for more information on professional practice principles.) 

Furthermore, we will never cease to point out that learning is a process influenced by many people and factors in a child’s life. As noted conservative education 

historian Diane Ravitch recently noted, ‘‘It would be good if our Nation’s education 

leaders recognized that teachers are not solely responsible for student test scores. 

Other influences matter, including the students’ effort, the family’s encouragement, 

the effects of popular culture, and the influence of poverty.’’ (http://www.huffing 

tonpost.com/diane-ravitch/first-lets-fire-all-the-tlbl483074.html) We will continue 

to highlight the reams of studies and evidence that supports this conclusion and 

urge—as we have throughout our association’s 150-year history—that Federal, 

State, and local policies must acknowledge that the entire education system as well 

as communities, parents, and policymakers have a shared responsibility to address 

the multitude of factors that impact learning. 

Teaching and learning conditions must be addressed as a key component of increasing teacher recruitment and retention as well as teacher effectiveness. Congress must take additional steps in reauthorizing ESEA through school construction 

and modernization funding, title II funding and other ‘‘whole child’’ reforms (see 

above) to ensure that teachers and paraprofessionals receive sufficient resources, 

manageable class sizes and the support of other professionals to address student 

health, safety, well-being, nutrition and parent and family engagement. 

Finally, we must ensure that school principals and other administrators—as well 

as teachers and education support professionals—receive adequate preparation, 

mentoring, and continuous professional development and support to improve their 

craft. They must receive timely and useful feedback from school staff as well as 

other administrators and be evaluated fairly and comprehensively. And they must 

have the resources and the staff necessary to create and maintain a successful 

school. 

Question 2. Of all the ideas and recommendations for education reform, where do 

you believe there is consensus among education professionals, policymakers, academics, business leaders, and other stakeholders? 

Answer 2. There is broad consensus that we need to identify and learn from exemplary schools that are successful at sustaining high levels of student learning, graduating high rates of students, and closing gaps between student subpopulations. 

There is also widespread agreement that we must rally together as a community 

and provide intensive support to address our ‘‘priority’’ or lowest-achieving schools. 

While the ideas on how to showcase exemplary schools or help priority schools may 

differ, we agree that NCLB has done little to benefit either end of the school performance spectrum. Therefore, we ask Congress to reauthorize ESEA by devoting 

substantial attention to supporting and recognizing achievement and progress in 

both exemplary and priority schools. 

We also agree that none of the improvements needed to create world-class centers 

for learning is possible without great educators and education support professionals 

who staff our public schools. That’s why NEA is calling on Congress to stanch the 

current tide of layoffs and to establish policies through ESEA reauthorization that 

will stabilize education funding and resources and attract and retain millions of 

new, talented educators and education support professionals to serve the next generation of American students. 

RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS OF SENATOR CASEY BY CHARLES BUTT

Question 1. What are the three most important specific recommendations you 

would make to this committee for reforming education through the reauthorization 

of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act? 

Answer 1. (1) If funds were available, full day Pre-K for all low-income and 

ESL children with a teacher certified in early childhood, and an aide, in a class 

size of no more than 22. All studies of the efficacy of Pre-K are based on these 

criteria. 

(2) Encourage the entry of leadership individuals into superintendent 

and principal roles and, importantly, include continued developmental assistance 

throughout their careers. 

(3) Enhance curriculum design to provide courses that are relevant and rigorous 

for students who choose not to go to college or at least not pursue a 4-year college 

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degree. This should not involve tracking but should provide true choice for each student. In recent years the focus has been on students that plan to go to college and 

this effort should be enhanced not diminished. At the same time we need to 

combat the drop-out rate by having available more relevant courses for other 

students. Both can be done well if curriculum planning and school leadership are effective. 

Question 2. Of all the ideas and recommendations for education reform, where do 

you believe there is consensus among education professionals, policymakers, academics, business leaders, and other stakeholders? 

Answer 2. Virtually everyone agrees that superior ‘‘leadership teaching’’ is the underlying requirement to move American education ahead. This includes: 

• Longer term career-pay opportunities that are competitive with business 

and finance. Starting pay has improved in some States but few have pay for longer 

service teachers of outstanding ability that is competitive with other professionals. 

• Currently the bottom third of SAT scoring college applicants choose teaching as 

a career. In the top achieving nations globally only the top 5–20 percent of all college graduates are admitted to teaching. If we aren’t able to attract our strongest young people into the field all other efforts will be only modestly effective 

at best. 

• Although there are many ineffective teachers not serving students well, by 

whom they are replaced is the crucial question. Rewarding a few master 

teachers with very high pay is still untested as a concept but even if it proves successful the starting pay and long-term career pay for a broad spectrum of teachers 

will be key to changing the profession. Even this will be of limited value unless the 

screening and admission procedures are raised significantly and adhered to 

in a highly disciplined way. 

• Schools should be allowed to replace ineffective teachers. 

RESPONSE BY JOHN CASTELLANI TO QUESTIONS OF SENATOR DODD

AND SENATOR CASEY

QUESTION OF SENATOR DODD

Question 1. Mr. Castellani, as I have said on numerous occasions, parental involvement is vital to a child’s success in school. The Family and Medical Leave Act, 

which I authored, allows parents to care for their newborn or adopted children or 

when their children are sick. However, we still need to allow parents the time they 

need to be involved with their children’s schooling. I think business has a role to 

play in encouraging and increasing parental involvement. How can businesses help 

promote parental involvement for children of all ages? What do businesses in your 

coalition currently do to increase employee flexibility to allow for more parental involvement in schools? What are some innovative ideas that your members have on 

how to promote this in the future? 

Answer 1. Companies are using innovative strategies to encourage and support 

parental involvement in education. For example: 

• Prudential holds a series of 2-hour seminars for employees called ‘‘Prudential 

CARES About Education,’’ that focuses on empowering employees to engage with 

and become informed consumers of public education. The seminar is streamed to 

Prudential employees who cannot attend at the company’s headquarters in Newark, 

NJ. The most recent forum addressed what parents can do to help their children 

succeed in a global economy. 

• State Farm provides a yearly paid Education Support (ES) day to volunteer in 

a local school. This provides a way for all employees—not just parents—to get involved in their schools. 

• Procter & Gamble’s flexible work options have resulted in employees reporting 

that their morale has increased and they appreciate the opportunity to attend parent activities at their children’s schools. 

• Over 200 companies in Maryland link to the Maryland Business Roundtable for 

Education’s PARENTS COUNT Web site that provides information to their employees who are parents on how they can help their children succeed in school. 

• Recent research on workplace flexibility initiatives for hourly workers sponsored 

by Corporate Voices for Working Families found they are as successful as those designed for professional staff. In fact, businesses that offer hourly employees flexible 

work options find that they enhance recruitment, retention, engagement, cost control, productivity and financial performance. While companies’ use of workplace 

flexibility is not exclusively to provide time for parental involvement in schools, case 

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studies demonstrate that employees feel comfortable using the flexibility for this 

purpose. 

QUESTIONS OF SENATOR CASEY

Question 1. What are the three most important specific recommendations you 

would make to this committee for reforming education through the reauthorization 

of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act? 

Answer 1. The Principles for Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act, developed by the Business Coalition for Student Achievement and 

included in my testimony, provide a set of recommendations that work together to 

reform education and improve student achievement. This is not a menu where you 

can select just three items. However, there are three basic elements that are absolutely essential: continue the focus on disaggregated data with accountability for all 

groups of students; incent States to raise their content and performance standards 

to college and career ready levels instead of lowering them to create a false impression of success; and shift from ‘‘highly qualified’’ to ‘‘highly effective’’ teachers to attract, retain and compensate top-notch teachers. 

Question 2. Of all the ideas and recommendations for education reform, where do 

you believe there is consensus among education professionals, policymakers, academics, business leaders, and other stakeholders? 

Answer 2. If our goal is consensus on education reform among all stakeholders, 

it is likely that reauthorization would turn back the clock rather than make any 

of the significant reforms needed to improve student achievement. Given that caveat, I believe there is consensus on the need for more emphasis on high schools, 

the need to remove the unintended consequence of States lowering their definitions 

of proficiency, and the need to measure student growth over time instead of the current comparison of the current year’s students to the prior year’s students at that 

grade level. 

[Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

Æ