I

STATE LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION 

REFORM

HEARING

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND 

THE WORKFORCE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH 1, 2001 

Serial No. 107-3 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education 

and the Workforce
ii

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin GEORGE MILLER, California 

MARGE ROUKEMA, New Jersey DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan 

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina MAJOR R. OWENS, New York 

PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

HOWARD P. “BUCK” McKEON, California PATSY MINK, Hawaii 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SAM JOHNSON, Texas TIM ROEMER, Indiana 

JAMES C. GREENWOOD, Pennsylvania ROBERT C. “BOBBY” SCOTT, Virginia 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan 

CHARLIE W. NORWOOD, JR., Georgia RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas 

BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado CAROLYN McCARTHY, New York 

FRED UPTON, Michigan JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

VAN HILLEARY, Tennessee RON KIND, Wisconsin 

VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

ERNIE FLETCHER, Kentucky DENNIS KUCINICH, Ohio 

JIM DeMINT, South Carolina DAVID WU, Oregon 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois HILDA A. SOLIS, California 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania SUSAN DAVIS, California 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska 

JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas 

Paula Nowakowski, Chief of Staff 

John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director 
iii

Table of Contents 

Table of Contents............................................................................................................. I

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN BOEHNER, COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, DC...................................................................................................... 1

WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN BOEHNER, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF 

REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC – SEE APPENDIX A ........................... 3

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM RIDGE, GOVERNOR, COMMONWEALTH OF 

PENNSYLVANIA.......................................................................................................... 5

WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF HON. TOM RIDGE, GOVERNOR, 

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA – SEE APPENDIX B.......................... 10

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, A UNITED STATES SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE ....................................................................... 10

WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, A UNITED STATES 

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE -- SEE APPENDIX C................ 17

STATEMENT OF NANCY S. GRASMICK, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, 

MARYLAND STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION........................................ 31

WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF NANCY S. GRASMICK, SUPERINTENDENT OF 

SCHOOLS, MARYLAND STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION – SEE 

APPENDIX D............................................................................................................... 33

APPENDIX A -- WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN 

BOEHNER, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC......................................... 45

APPENDIX B -- WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF HON. TOM RIDGE, GOVERNOR, 

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA ............................................................. 51

APPENDIX C -- WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, A 

UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE .................... 57

APPENDIX D -- WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF NANCY S. GRASMICK, 

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, MARYLAND STATE DEPARTMENT OF 

EDUCATION ............................................................................................................... 75

Table of Indexes.................................................................................96
iv
1

HEARING ON STATE LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION 

REFORM

________________________________________

THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2001 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:40 a.m., in Room 2175, Rayburn 

House Office Building, Hon. John A. Boehner [Chairman of the Committee] presiding. 

 Present: Representatives Boehner, Roukema, McKeon, Castle, Greenwood, 

Fletcher, Isakson, Biggert, Platts, Tiberi, Keller, Osborne, Miller, Kildee, Payne, 

Andrews, Roemer, Scott, Woolsey, Rivers, Hinojosa, Tierney, Kind, Sanchez, Ford, Wu, 

McCollum, Solis. 

 Also present: Representative Morealla. 

 Staff present: Becky Campoverde, Deputy Staff Director; Pam Davidson, 

Professional Staff Member; Dan Lara, Press Secretary; Sally Lovejoy, Director of 

Education and Human Resources Policy; Whitney Rhoades, Staff Assistant; Deborah 

Samantar, Committee Clerk/Intern Coordinator; Dave Schnittger, Communications 

Director; Jo-Marie St. Martin, General Counsel; Kent Talbert, Professional Staff 

Member; Holli Traud, Legislative Assistant; Christie Wolfe, Professional Staff Member. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN BOEHNER, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC 

Chairman Boehner. Good morning. A quorum being present, the Committee on 

Education and the Workforce will come to order. 
2

 We are meeting today to hear testimony on the role of state leadership in 

education reform. And under Committee Rule 12(b), opening statements are limited to 

the Chairman and the ranking minority member of the committee. Therefore, if other 

members have statements, they will be included in the record. 

 And with that, I ask unanimous consent for the hearing record to remain open for 

14 days to allow members' statements and other extraneous material referenced during 

the hearing to be submitted in the official record. 

 Without objection, so ordered. 

 Let me extend a warm welcome to all of you, especially to my colleague, Mr. 

Miller, the ranking member, to my colleagues on the Committee and our three witnesses 

today, Governor Tom Ridge from Pennsylvania, Senator Tom Carper from Delaware, and 

Dr. Nancy Grasmick, the Maryland state school superintendent. We appreciate your 

taking time to be with us today. 

 Over the last several weeks, the Committee has held field hearings in Florida and 

Georgia to highlight successful accountability and reading programs in those states. We 

will hold a third field hearing tomorrow in Chicago to spotlight the accountability system 

that has boosted academic progress there. 

 But our hearing today will focus on accountability, flexibility and other measures 

at the state and local level that ensure that a quality education is happening for all of our 

nation's children. 

 The federal government has not kept up with the pace of reform and innovations 

that we are finding in states like Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. And we need to 

follow their lead because they are getting results, and it is my hope that, by learning from 

these examples, we can help make substantive education reform a reality for all children 

in America. 

 Recently, President Bush announced his education reform proposal, a plan that 

provides flexibility but, in exchange, establishes an accountability system that demands 

results, rewards success, and punishes failure. The message is clear: Public schools must 

educate our children and we will hold them accountable for how well they accomplish 

that job, not just for how quickly they spend taxpayers' money. 

 And it's a pleasure to have three distinguished witnesses today before us. 

Governor Ridge has agreed to share his thoughts on how education reform is being 

implemented in Pennsylvania. For most of you who may be relatively new on the 

Committee, Governor Ridge did spend time in the people's House and I had the pleasure 

of serving several terms with him. 

 As governor of Delaware, Senator Carper, also a former House member, who I 

had the pleasure of serving several terms with, signed one of the nation's toughest 

education reform laws that established standards for both educators and students. 

 And under Dr. Grasmick's leadership, Maryland has received national recognition 

for its work in the area of standards assessment and accountability. 
3

 These states have enacted tough accountability standards to improve academic 

achievement and each relies upon annual testing to monitor student performance. In 

addition, both Pennsylvania and Delaware have been approved as Ed-Flex states, 

meaning they have implemented policies of sanctions and rewards to ensure that school 

districts are held strictly accountable for the academic achievement of their students, 

especially disadvantaged students, in exchange for more flexibility in operating federal 

education programs. 

 The federal government can learn from successful initiatives in these states. In 

fact, President Bush's education reform plan would establish a rigorous accountability 

system with annual testing and rewards and sanctions that are tied to the academic 

performance of school districts and states. His plan also incorporates a flexibility 

component, which creates new options for states and school districts that are committed 

to accountability and reform. 

 There is a growing consensus that giving more freedom to states, school districts 

and schools while, at the same time, holding them accountable for improving student 

achievement is the right course of action. We must close the achievement gap for the 

most disadvantaged of our nation's students and make sure that the American dream is 

within the grasp of all of our nation's children, not just a selected few. We must ensure, 

as the president said and is saying, that no child is left behind. 

 And at this time, I would like to yield to my colleague from California, the 

distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. Miller. 

Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for convening this hearing and 

giving us an opportunity to hear from Governor Ridge, Senator Carper and Dr. Grasmick, 

the state superintendent of Maryland's school systems. I think our colleagues should 

welcome their testimony. All of them have demonstrated both educational leadership and 

political leadership to bring about changes in their state systems, both in the 

elementary/secondary systems and in the higher education systems. We welcome that 

and look forward to their testimony. 

 Thank you. 

WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHN 

BOEHNER, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE 

WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

WASHINGTON, DC – SEE APPENDIX A

Chairman Boehner. We have, as I said before, a distinguished panel of witnesses today 

and I want to allow some of our colleagues from their home states to do the introductions. 

And with that, let me recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Greenwood, to 

introduce one of our panelists. 

Mr. Greenwood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
4

 I am pleased to have the opportunity to introduce the Commonwealth of 

Pennsylvania's Governor Tom Ridge, who has been a leader in education reform in 

Pennsylvania and who is a good friend of mine. 

Governor Ridge began his public service as an assistant district attorney in Erie 

County before his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982. He was elected 

as Pennsylvania's 43rd governor in 1994. Governor Ridge was then elected to a second 

term in 1998, and last month he was named Chairman of the Republican Governors 

Association. 

 I am sure the Governor will share with us in greater detail the initiatives he has 

implemented in Pennsylvania to improve our schools. They include the Education 

Empowerment Act, which is designed to help struggling school districts make dramatic 

changes and to enable every school district to seek mandate relief. Legislation which has 

fostered the creation of public charter schools across the commonwealth; the adoption of 

rigorous academic standards; implementation of tougher teacher standards to increase the 

minimum qualifications necessary to enroll in a teacher preparation program and to 

require prospective teachers to major in the disciplines in which they intend to teach. 

Also, adoption of a four-year $100 million Read to Succeed Program, designed to ensure 

that all students learn to read and write by the end of the third grade; and the Link to 

Learn Technology Initiative, designed to improve the technological capabilities of 

schools, both public and nonpublic. 

 In addition, the governor has proposed new initiatives in his fiscal year 2001-2002 

budget proposal, including an education support services program to provide eligible 

families up to $500 to help cover the cost of after-school remedial or educational 

assistance services. Also, businesses that donate money to schools in the state for 

scholarship assistance or other innovative public school programs will be eligible to 

receive a 50 percent education tax credit. 

 Some of Governor Ridge's initiatives are very similar to components of President 

Bush's education proposal. We look forward to hearing from Governor Ridge about the 

impacts his initiatives have had on the education of Pennsylvania students and, I will 

parenthetically add, including my own. My daughters have had to rise to the level of the 

governor's standards. I have watched that effort in their homework, in their class work, 

and I have seen it in the work that students do throughout my district in Bucks and 

Montgomery County and it is working. It is an honor to have the Governor with us this 

morning.

Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Mr. Greenwood. 

 I would like to recognize the gentleman from Delaware, Mr. Castle, to introduce 

our other distinguished guest this morning. 

Mr. Castle. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

 I am also pleased to welcome my former governor and present United States 

Senator, Tom Carper. We are welcoming him back to the United States House of 

Representatives, where he served for a five-term period, to talk about the success we in 

Delaware have achieved in improving our children's education. 
5

 Before he returned to Congress, I mentioned he was governor of our state for two 

terms, and he was chairman of the National Governors Association, where he was 

instrumental in the passage of the Castle-Roemer Bill to expand Ed-Flex waiver authority 

to all 50 states. 

 As a former governor, Senator Carper helped to make Delaware one of the first 

states to implement a comprehensive system of standards, accountability and local 

control. He also made Delaware the first state to wire every classroom to the Internet and 

offered parents the most expansive public school choice program in the entire country. 

Senator Carper was also instrumental in reducing class size in early grades before 

the enactment of the 100,000 Teachers proposal, tying teacher pay to performance, and 

raising math and reading scores across the board in every school district in Delaware. 

 As he has demonstrated, governors can set high performance standards for all 

students and measure student achievement in exchange for some flexibility in the use of 

federal funds. 

 As such, I believe there are real opportunities for members on both sides of the 

aisle to put aside our partisan differences and agree on common policies in education. As 

long as I've known him, Senator Carper has helped to create that consensus, and I am 

pleased that he is joining us today. 

 It is my own firm commitment that we, all of us, Republicans and Democrats 

alike, governors, senators and members of this House need to do everything we can to 

uplift public education in our country. 

 And Tom has been a part of that and we appreciate it. We need to all continue to 

work together to get this job done. 

 I yield back. 

Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Mr. Castle. And with that, Governor Ridge, would you 

like to begin? 

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM RIDGE, GOVERNOR, 

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Governor Ridge. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the invitation to appear before your 

committee, and I thank the ranking member, George Miller, and my friend and colleague, 

Congressman Greenwood, for that nice introduction. I was tempted to ask for my 

colleague's introduction to be included as part of the record. Suffice it to say, I want to 

cover some of that material as well, and I thank you for that wonderful introduction. 

Mr. Chairman, I have prepared remarks. I would ask unanimous consent they be 

included as part of the record and just speak to a couple of the issues contained therein? 
6

Chairman Boehner. That has already been dealt with and they will be made part of the 

record.

Governor Ridge. Good. Thank you. 

 I truly welcome the opportunity to share with you Pennsylvania's perspective on 

President Bush's 21st century proposal, education proposal, to leave no child behind. I 

would daresay, on behalf of many Republican and Democratic governors, including my 

friend and colleague and former governor, Tom Carper, much of the theory embodied in 

the legislation, we have seen effectively practiced in our respective states. 

 And it is from that sense of taking what the president is trying to do at the national 

level, to focus specifically on some of these initiatives that we have undertaken at the 

state level in Pennsylvania, that I would like to use my testimony. 

 There is not a single day where every single governor, every single congressman 

and senator doesn't worry about what we are going to do to equip our children in the 21st 

century knowledge-based economy. It is pretty clear that all of us embrace the notion 

that education is the ultimate tool of empowerment; that, as we enter the 21st century, we 

have to take a look at how we affect both access and quality to first rate world-class 

education.

 The states have undertaken many of the initiatives contained in the national 

proposal offered by President Bush. Pennsylvania, I am proud to say, is a leader in so 

many of these different areas. 

 But I believe, that there needs to be a shift. I believe that Republicans and 

Democrats will only argue about some of the details. The first thing the country needs to 

do is unite itself that the 21st century knowledge-based economy needs 21st century 

education, which means we have to really reassess how we used to deliver education, 

reassess our priorities. As President Bush's plan suggests, we need to take our focus from 

the system to children and teachers. That is the first shift that we have to make. The plan 

shows us in a very definitive way, as you look at states' experiences, that you can make 

that shift and in making that shift you make a difference. 

 I would like to begin just at the heart of the matter, and that is with testing. We 

changed our standards in Pennsylvania a couple of years ago. We have much more 

aggressive standards, higher standards in math and reading. We're moving on to science. 

But elevating standards without some measure of accountability, of performance 

assessment, means the job would only be half done. 

 Now, in Pennsylvania, the state administers tests and I know the President is 

interested in grades 3 through 8. We administer our test in grades 5 and 8, and we will 

have a Pennsylvania Scholastic Assessment Test in grade 3. So, based on that knowledge 

and based on that approach, I would suggest to you that I believe most governors and I 

embrace the notion of testing from grades 3 to 8. 

 However, please remember that there are centralized systems of public education 

and Texas is one of them and decentralized systems of public education, Pennsylvania is 

one of those. We have 67 counties but we have 501 school districts. We have 3,100 

schools. With the exception of the school district in Philadelphia, those who run public 
7

schools in Pennsylvania are elected by the community. 

 Therefore, we need to preserve, not just for historical reasons, 21st century 

education. That means that we ought to provide more freedom and more flexibility at the 

local level. That's pretty much the Pennsylvania system. 

 And so there are some school districts in Pennsylvania that give the Iowa test or 

the Stanford test in the other grades, fourth, sixth and seventh, which would be covered.

But we will embrace the notion, as President Bush has put forward, of testing as part of 

the accountability system. Teachers and parents should require it. We embrace 

enthusiastically the notion of testing. 

 As many states, including Pennsylvania, have changed their standards, it is taking 

us a little while to change our diagnostic tests. We used to have tests in Pennsylvania 

where they were just quantitative. You get the report card back and you know that your 

son or daughter, your kids, ranked this in relationship to someplace in relationship to the 

other students. They were not diagnostic in nature. They didn't tell the teacher where the 

child needed more help, they didn't tell the parent and they didn't tell the student. 

 Therefore, as we go about changing our system of testing, I would hope that one 

of the things you would consider is that it be phased it in. We are in the process of 

developing a diagnostic test for reading in the third grade and have infused $100 million. 

We have a Read to Succeed program similar to the President's, where we test by the end 

of the third grade the reading levels of our kids and make sure that they are reading at that 

level and when they graduate from that grade. 

 But if we are to be serious about this effort and conform new tests to new 

standards, it takes a little time to phase them in. So please consider that when you are 

considering the legislation. 

 There also needs considered, if we work with the Iowan and Stanford people, that 

they adjust their tests to our new standards and it will take some time. That may very 

well be the course we take. Again, we need a little time. 

 But we embrace that notion of grades 3 to 8. I must say, there will be additional 

expenses involved, ladies and gentlemen. We are prepared to share the cost. We pick up 

part of the tab now but, again, we think it is a national goal. But in the 21st century 

world and the 21st century economy, this 21st century partnership, particularly on testing, 

requires both the federal government, the state government and I think the local school 

districts to absorb some of that cost. So we will be looking to you, not for all the 

expenses for administration however, but we are looking for substantial support from 

you.

 Secondly, the President focused on rewards. I happen to think that's a better way 

to go. We have a system in Pennsylvania where we award school districts down to the 

individual school level. I don not think school districts or schools are to compete against 

one another. They create their own base line by the year's previous performance. 

 If you do a better job with your teachers and a better job with your kids this year 

than you did last year in terms of test scores, in terms of attendance, then you qualify for 

additional money. These kinds of performance goals, based on accountability and 
8

success, I think go a long way to encouraging innovation and rewarding achievement. 

I know part of the program is to get more information to the public so that parents 

have an opportunity to learn and know first hand how their schools are doing, how their 

kids are doing. We've had profiles on our schools since 1996, all 3,100. You can find 

out everything you need to know and probably some things you didn't want to know 

about your school district. 

 Just click on the web site. And I just checked before I came down here, we had 

half a million hits on that web site just in January alone, people checking in on what their 

kids are doing and how their schools are doing. 

 I mentioned before the Read to Succeed Initiative. Again, conforming our tests 

with the initiative, particularly at the third grade level, is of the highest importance with 

Pennsylvania.

 Teachers are, I believe there is unanimous agreement, Republicans and Democrats 

alike, that next to parents, are the most important adults that our kids see as they grow up.

We believe that in Pennsylvania. But as we've raised the standards for achievement and 

academic success for our children, we've also raised the standards for our teachers. 

 Future teachers in Pennsylvania will need to perform a little bit better in high 

school in order to get into a program of teaching. They might as well major in the 

discipline that they are going to teach, because they will be required to have the minimum 

number of credit hours to have achieved a bachelors degree in that content-driven 

curriculum. And, obviously, there is a certification test, and we've elevated the bar on 

that.

 I must tell you, I've talked to a lot of young men and women who want to be 

teachers; they have no problem with that. They believe in their heart of hearts they are 

going into one of the most important professions in the world. They believe in their own 

competencies and they feel good about the fact that the federal government and, I might 

add, the state is not only enhancing requirements to become a teacher but we allow 

school districts or individual schools to reward teacher performance with these 

performance grants. 

 You get the award and if you want to award a teacher or group of teachers for 

having done something innovative to drive better test scores, to improve education, we let 

you do that. Again, we think a system of rewards recognizing achievement is very 

important in a 21st century educational approach. 

 Two other quick thoughts, and then I will defer to my friend and colleague, 

Senator Carper. 

 No matter how hard we try, this goes to the heart of what President Bush is trying 

to do, and many states have wrestled with this challenge. No matter how hard we try, no 

matter how much money we infuse into a particular school or school district, from time to 

time, for whatever reason, and there are a variety of reasons, they don't measure up for 

the kids, they just don't deliver for the children in the schools. 
9

 We have in Pennsylvania an early warning system that says, if a school district 

over a two-year period, after we have tested six grades, isn't meeting a minimal standard, 

the school is in academic distress. We do not point the finger of blame and we do not 

take over the school. We give it more money, we say apply for whatever mandate relief 

you want, we will provide you technical assistance. And we give them literally three 

years to just show us some improvement. 

 Again, that may be unique to Pennsylvania. But, ultimately, 21st century 

education has to be more about parents, teachers and kids in the school district than 

bureaucrats in the state in Harrisburg or anybody in the Department of Education in 

Washington, D.C. Because with 21st century education, that freedom and flexibility will 

give us very positive results, if we can drive it down. 

 So the Education Empowerment Act, unfortunately we have about a dozen school 

districts in that area. But we do give them more money, we give them technical 

assistance, we give them more flexibility. They are your kids, it's your challenge. 

 We want to work with you. We don't want to take over the schools. I do not want 

to be the superintendent of any school district in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

And, frankly, these parents and these teachers know their problems and I believe they 

also know the solutions as well. 

 Finally, ladies and gentlemen, anything you can do to encourage more charter 

schools and in Pennsylvania we have two kinds of charter schools. I would have liked to 

figure out a way to differentiate them, because there's one, I like them both but I prefer, 

again, thinking 21st century, one a little bit more than the other. 

 There is a charter school where you take different kids from different schools and 

put them in a separate school. That's a charter school. But in this budget that hopefully 

that will be passed in Pennsylvania in the next couple of months, we're going to 

encourage school districts to think 21st century, drive that freedom and flexibility down 

to the local school, and we are going to encourage the development of independent public 

schools.

 So your local neighborhood school, so the moms and dads and the teachers and 

everybody in that community say to these public schools, this is your budget. You do not 

operate out of the central office, this is your budget and you run the schools. We'll give 

you the flexibility and if you want mandate relief, we'll give it all to you. But you have to 

embrace that local public school as an independent charter school. Use the same 

collective bargaining agreement with the teachers and the same revenue stream. But you 

control the budget, not the central office. 

 So we think that these and other reforms that we've adopted in Pennsylvania, 

show a path that the new education model proposed by President Bush does work. 

Obviously, they are variations on a theme. The governors borrow from one another every 

single day. 

 But I applaud this committee and I congratulate you on your bipartisan effort to 

rethink in this knowledge-based economy of a 21st century world, how we deliver better 

education to our kids and how we shift the focus from bricks and mortar and system to 
10

the kids, the children, the parents and the teachers. 

 I believe we will be able to get over whatever philosophical differences we have 

and make a real contribution. This is a new opportunity for us to have a different kind of 

partnership. The states want that partnership with you. Pennsylvania looks forward to 

working with you as this legislation moves forward to address the interests of our kids in 

the commonwealth. 

 I thank you very much for the opportunity to testify this morning. 

WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF HON. TOM RIDGE, GOVERNOR, 

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA – SEE APPENDIX B 

Chairman Boehner. Governor, we thank you for your testimony. And before you begin, 

Senator, you both know what those bells mean up there. And in the interest of time, 

especially your time, I would encourage some members who want to go vote now to do 

so and, when you get back, the rest of us will go vote and we will keep this hearing up 

and running, because I know that you both have time pressures. 

 And with that, Senator Carper, you may begin. 

 STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, A UNITED STATES 

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE 

Senator Carper. Mr. Chairman, thank you very, very much. And I want to thank my 

friend Mike Castle, Congressman Castle, for inviting me today and for his wonderful 

introduction. 

 My job was to succeed a real good governor about eight years ago, and I used to 

tell people, I said, my responsibility is not to screw up a good thing, because he had done 

a terrific job. My hope is we took it to the next level, but he got us on the right track in a 

lot of respects. 

 To be here with you, Mr. Chairman, and the Ranking Member, George Miller, 

and some of my old colleagues, and with Tim Roemer over here who, along with 

Congressman Castle, were the champions for the expansion of education flexibility that 

Tom Ridge and I as governors pushed real hard for. 

 T-Bone, I call him T-Bone; I've been calling him that for years, he and I served 

here together, came here together in '82 and served together for 10 years on the Banking 

Committee in this building, sat side by side on a lot of issues and worked real closely 

together as governors. It is a real special privilege to be with him. 

 I'm not a governor anymore. Somebody said to me the other day, you still think 

like a governor. I don't think they were complimentary. It wasn't intended as a 
11

compliment, but I accepted it as one. 

 Though I am not a governor anymore, I am still a father, and as I started to say, 

Mike and I and Senator Joe Biden, we all commute back and forth to Delaware almost 

every night on the train. And before I came down here this morning, I got a couple of 

boys, a fifth and seventh grader, up and breakfasts, lunches packed and took them to 

school. And last night before we went to bed, we did geography homework and we did 

English language arts and vocabulary and finished up the evening, before I put them to 

bed, reading one of the last chapters of the third Harry Potter book, Escape from 

Azkaban.

 And I mentor. I still mentor; we have 10,000 parents and adults mentoring in our 

schools across our state. I mentored as recently as this past Monday, a boy I've been 

working with for four years. So this is not just something I do idly. I am involved as a 

parent, a former governor, and as a mentor as well. 

 The role of the federal government, as I see it, and as the governor has already 

alluded to, is really to level the playing field. To try to make sure that all kids, whatever 

state they come from, and whatever part of our states they come from, they all have a real 

shot at reaching standards and level of knowledge that will enable them to be successful. 

 I think all states have plenty of incentive on their own, to raise student 

achievement. Nobody and no government worth its salt doesn’t think it is very 

important. 

 The jobs of the last century, many of those jobs were jobs we have on the 

strengths of our backs. Jobs in the next century, people will get because of the strengths 

of their minds. 

 And while it is important for our states to provide nurturing environments for 

business and for economic growth, good transportation systems, low rates of crime, low 

taxes and access to elected officials, common sense regulation, that sort of thing, 

incentives, we could do all those things in every one of our states. However, if we 

weren't providing our employers with students who could read, who could write, who 

could think, who could do math, who could use technology, our states aren't going to be 

very successful with respect to the economy of the 21st century, at least for long. 

 When Mike Castle was stepping down as governor eight years ago, we had just 

gone through something called the Gap Analysis. And there was an analysis done by the 

business community in concert with our educators in the state that said, this is where we 

need our students to be in terms of their level of achievement in a whole wide range of 

areas. And for too many of them, this is where they are. There was a gap. 

 We set out at the end of 1992 and the beginning of '93, to try to close that gap, to 

make sure that the students who graduated actually had the skills that will enable them to 

be successful at work and in college. 

 Eight years ago when I became governor, I do not know of any state that had 

adopted rigorous academic standards in math, science, English and social studies. Eight 

years ago, I am not aware of any states that were writing on a regular basis, objective 

assessments to measure student progress against their academic standards. They just 
12

didn't have the standards. I am not aware of any state eight years ago that had put in 

place accountability systems for parents, politicians, educators, schools, or kids. 

 Eight years later, fast forward; 49 states have adopted academic standards. Many 

of them are like ours, in math, science, English and social studies. Today, over half the 

states are giving tests every year to measure student progress toward their academic 

standards. Today, over a third of the states have adopted accountability measures to try to 

make sure that we are holding somebody responsible for results and not just the teachers, 

not just the kids, but a whole wide range of us, including politicians and parents. 

 As important as rigorous standards are, as important as meaningful assessments 

that reflect those standards, as important as accountability in demanding results is, the 

real key is to make sure that all kids in our states, all kids, have a real chance of meeting 

the standards that we've set. 

 I have been chairman of the National Governors Association and during that time, 

we made our focus that of raising student achievement. We traveled all over the country 

and had a chance to see what's working to raise student achievement in Ohio and a bunch 

of other places that are represented here today. 

 And we stole ideas. We stole all kinds of good ideas from your states and from 

Tom's state as well, ideas that work. And that's the way we work as governors. 

 Here are some of the things that we put in place in our state that work. We don't 

start when kids walk into kindergarten. Mike Castle knew as governor that kids learn a 

whole lot before they ever walk into kindergarten. In fact, some of the most important 

years are zero to five. And if we wait until kids walk into kindergarten to go to work on 

their education, we've lost maybe the most productive five years of their life. 

 We start in our state before kids are born to reduce teenage pregnancy, a frontal 

assault on teenage pregnancy to drive it down every year, because we believe that two 

parents in a home, particularly moms and dads that are a little bit older, are going to be 

better parents in helping their kids. 

 We believe that healthy kids ought to be born. The healthier the kid, the better 

chance they're going to have to meet their potential. 

 We believe in our state that there are wellness centers in almost all of our high 

schools today. We provide prenatal care up to 200 percent of poverty. We provide 

parenting training, too. 

 When people come home today from a hospital in Delaware with their first child 

or any child that's been born, they bring with them something called a Growing Together 

Portfolio. It is a big packet. It includes books, a five-year calendar. I call it the Cliff's 

Notes of parenting training. 

 And you take it home and put it up on your refrigerator, put it up on your wall.

Every couple of months, turn over a page. First, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth 

month, all the way up to age five. How to stimulate your child's intellect, what to feed 

your child, there's an immunization schedule for your child, helpful phone numbers to 

have for your child, books to read to your child, all kinds of stuff. It has been copied by 
13

many of states. 

We are proud of that. That's one of the good ideas that we have offered to 

everybody else. But literally, within 72 hours of somebody coming home with their first 

child, we've got folks in that home if the parents want them to start parenting training 

right on the spot. 

 They offer a physical for mom, physical for baby and say, where is that Growing 

Together Portfolio, let's get it out and let's get started and start on the parenting training. 

 We require parenting training of everybody on welfare. We now offer parenting 

training in all of our prisons. Seventy-five percent of the folks in prisons are parents; 95 

percent of them are going to come home. They can come home as better parents or better 

criminals; we want to make sure they come home as better parents. 

 We took that Missouri program, Parents as Teachers, took it all over the state, in 

order to train parents in their homes for up to three years. 

 We got rid of our waiting list for child care. Many of state money, a fair amount 

of federal money to provide for child care up to 200 percent of poverty. 

 Lastly, concerning Head Start, we took a lot of federal money not enough, but a 

lot and added it to state money. We now cover every four-year-old who lives in poverty 

in a Head Start program in our state and we are improving the quality. 

Mr. Chairman, my former colleagues, I do not know if you all need to go and 

vote. I just want to cover a little bit on K to 12, and I don't want to put you all in 

jeopardy of missing your vote. Should I hold my thought right here? 

Chairman Boehner. No, you can go ahead. 

Senator Carper. Okay. 

Chairman Boehner. And we expect that some of our colleagues will be back soon 

enough for us to go, we hope. 

Senator Carper. Okay, good. I will just keep right on going. 

 I've covered in the last couple of minutes zero to five, the stuff we do before kids 

walk into kindergarten. Let me just mention some things that are working in Delaware 

and across the country after kids walk into kindergarten. 

 Smaller class size. We cap the class size in grades K to three. You provided 

money at the federal level. We use that. We provide a lot of money at the state level, 

too. But we think that smaller class size, especially in those early years, is helping raise 

student achievement. 

 We provide extra learning time. The state provides it. A third of all of our kids 

now get extra 20 instructional days. We don't tell schools how to use the extra learning 

time. We say, figure out what makes sense for you. 
14

You may want to have a longer school day or week for some of your kids, or even 

a Saturday academy. If you want to bring kids in four weeks or a month early before 

school starts in the fall, if you want to use your extra time money to provide Head Start, 

full-day Head Start, if you want to provide full-day kindergarten, we let them decide how 

to use that extra time money. 

 What we've done in my state and other states is, we don't want to lower the 

standards, we don't want do dumb down the standards; we want to keep the standards 

high and we want to make sure that all kids have a chance to meet those standards. Some 

kids just need more time on task. 

 T-Bone here, he may learn faster than Tom Carper. But I can learn; I just might 

need more time to catch up with him. And we provide that in our state. 

 Technology. Mike Castle mentioned we wired every public school in our state, 

not every public school, every classroom in our state, for access to Internet. We have the 

best ratio of computers to students of any state in America. It's great to have the wiring 

done, it's great to have the computers, but if you don't have teachers that know how to use 

the stuff and you don't have the ability to keep it running, it doesn't do you any good. 

 So we put a whole lot of money in professional development, for teachers, for 

technology and for professional development for teachers for other things as well. 

Governor Ridge mentioned professional development for teachers. Maybe the most 

important professional development we started doing in my state is professional 

development for school leaders, for assistant principals, for the principals, 

superintendents and so forth. You show me a school with great teachers and a lousy 

principal and I'll show you an average school. You show me a school with a great 

principal and I'll show you a school that's getting better; that's just real important. 

 Disruption. We have problems with disruptions in our schools. We have them in 

all the states. We put a disruption prevention program in every single public school. We 

provide alternative schools for disruptive students, chronically disruptive students. Every 

county, we can send kids to schools for chronically disruptive students. 

 This week, 10,000 people will mentor in our schools. I'm one of them. And we've 

got companies that adopt schools, provide mentors on company time. Governments do 

that as well through technology partnerships. 

 The last piece that we do is empowering parents to make choices where their kids 

go to school. We have public school choice; it is statewide. 

 My kids go to public schools we have chosen. In Delaware, over 15 percent of 

the families now exercise public school choice. 

 As Governor Ridge is a big fan of charter schools, so are we in Delaware. I'll talk 

about one of them in just a minute. 

 The results of what we have done, all the stuff, early childhood, zero to five and 

things that we've done in kindergarten to grade 12 are starting to pay off. I used to say 

when I was governor, Governor Ridge, I used to say that things we're doing in education 
15

reform are going to make the next governor real smart. And happily, we didn't have to 

wait quite that long. 

 In 1995 we adopted in Delaware academic standards. Other states were ahead of 

us and some came later. We adopted academic standards in math, science, English and 

social studies, which are the things we expect kids to know in those core subjects. We 

told the schools and the school districts, start aligning your curriculum, start aligning 

your lesson plans with respect to these standards because we because we're going to start 

testing kids with respect to these standards in those subjects. 

 In '93, three years later, we started doing it. The first year's results were pretty 

disappointing in grades 3, 5, 8 and 10. Second year's results, there was some progress, 

particularly in the younger years. The third year, last year, we had across-the-board 

progress, every grade level. Our tests are a hybrid; they not only measure progress, kids' 

progress, against our state standards in reading, writing, math and now science and social 

studies. We also measure us against the rest of the country. We take the Stanford Nine.

It is embedded in our test. Therefore, we get an idea of how we are doing against the rest 

of the country. 

 Every grade level tested, 3, 5, 8 and 10, every county, we made progress against 

the rest of the nation and against our own standards. We are very proud of that. 

 Let me conclude if I may by talking a little bit about ESEA reauthorization. Most 

of the points I talked about, the early childhood stuff, and even a lot of the K to 12, you 

could help us. You can help the states, not by putting us in a gridlock or straightjacket, 

but by giving us more money. 

 I think we generally agree that we need to invest more money in education at the 

state level, at the local level and at the federal level. 

 However, as the money comes from the federal level, just as Governor Ridge said, 

it ought to come with more flexibility. As you provide more money and you provide it 

with greater flexibility, you ought to demand results, accountability for results. 

 I believe we basically agree on these three points. And the fourth point we agree 

on is we ought to empower parents to be able to choose the schools that that their kids go 

to. Now, in our state, we are big time into public school choice, as I said, and big time 

into charter schools. 

 The couple areas that we don't agree on, we don't see entirely eye-to-eye on, and 

that is the issue of vouchers, whether your kid is actually better off when you give him a 

voucher. If you give him a $1,500 voucher in my state, I'll be honest with you, there 

aren't many places where you can spend $1,500 if you're poor and don't have a fair 

amount of money of your own and actually get your kid in a private or parochial school.

It's sort of an empty promise. As for us, we just decided to put our efforts into public 

school choice and charter schools and it's working. 

 Other concerns we have is funding for IDEA. You ask any governor if they 

would like more funding for IDEA, they all tell you, yes. Therefore, we would ask you 

to keep that in mind. 
16

 Another point I would ask you to keep in mind as you go through ESEA 

reauthorization, there is a limited amount of federal money. And if you spread it thin and 

provide it not targeted well particularly to needy kids, schools that have a lot of needy 

kids, it's not going to make much of an impact. 

 Concerning the point that Governor Ridge made on testing, we' are going to start 

testing every year. School year 2001, excuse me, 2002. Part of our education 

accountability, we will test every year. We are going to do it anyway for every grade 

level, just about, except for the very early ones. 

 However, if you are going to require states around the country to test every year 

grades 3 to 8, you have to help them pay for it. You have to help them pay for it 

otherwise; it is not a funded mandate. 

 The last point I want to mention is rewards. T-Bone mentioned rewards and we 

reward our students. We give them $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 scholarships if they meet 

certain results on these tests we give them and it's getting a lot of attention and pumping 

up many kids. 

 We pay teachers more money, starting this year and we will pay more money, 

bonuses, for schools that are actually showing good improvement, even if they start at the 

bottom of the pack. 

 The last thing I would urge you to keep in mind is governors set up, within the 

National Governors Association, a clearinghouse for good ideas. We call it the Center 

for Best Practices. We have a web-based education facet, as well. So anybody around 

the country, teachers, parents, principals, governors, can inquire on that web-based site 

and find out what is working to hire substitute teachers, to reduce absenteeism, to reduce 

disruption, all kinds of stuff. 

 I would urge you to have the Department of Education to focus not just on writing 

rules and regulations but on what is working, to be that clearinghouse at the federal level 

of what is working to raise student achievement. 

 Let me leave you on a happy note. We have 200 public schools in Delaware.

Maybe close to 10 now are charter schools. 

 Every one of those schools takes tests. State tests will be taken later this month. 

We test them on reading, writing and math and have been doing that. Now we are going 

to test them on science and social studies as well. 

 We measure our schools by poverty. You probably do in your states as well. We 

use as a way to reduce poverty free and reduced price lunches, the instance of free and 

reduced price lunches. We have some schools in our state where we have almost no free 

and reduced price lunches. One school in the heart of Wilmington, in the projects, the 

toughest part of our city, the toughest part of our state, is a charter school. It is the East 

Side Charter School, grades K thru 3. 

 The kids, who come to that school come from disadvantaged backgrounds, were 

the incidence of poverty last year was 83 percent. It is the highest in our state. 
17

 They come to school early and they stay late, have a longer school year and wear 

uniforms. Their parents are asked to sign sort of a contract of mutual responsibility to 

participate in their children's education, at school and at home. 

 Teachers and the administrators are given great flexibility to innovate and initiate. 

Last spring, it's been about 10 months ago, when the kids in our state took state tests in 

reading, writing and math, there was one school where every child who took the math test 

met or exceed the standards, one school out of 200 and guess what school? It was the 

school with the highest incidence of poverty in Delaware the East Side Charter School. 

 I would urge you, and I have asked Tim Roemer and I have asked Mike Castle to 

consider sponsoring legislation that really fosters public school choice, to empower 

parents to foster public school choice and charter schools, like the East Side Charter 

School, to help them especially in their startup costs, brick and mortar startup costs. And 

I would urge you to look at that and consider joining us in that effort. 

 Judd Gregg is our Republican lead in the Senate and I am the lead on the 

Democratic side. However, the idea of empowering students is a terrific motivator in our 

schools and is pushing that decision-making. As you consider that, I would ask you to 

keep in mind the East Side Charter School. 

 Thanks a lot for being here and for your commitment to the kids across our 

country. Thanks and I'd ask that my printed statement be part of the record, if you will. 

Mr. McKeon. [presiding] No objection. So ordered. 

WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, A UNITED 

STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE -- SEE 

APPENDIX C 

Mr. McKeon. Senator, your time frame? 

Senator Carper. I have about 15 more minutes. 

Mr. McKeon. Great. I think one of the things that the President really is focusing on is 

state control of education. A great example we have is in Delaware and Pennsylvania, a 

small and large state. I am from California, super-large state and L.A. city schools 

probably has more students than Delaware. 

 I remember when I was on a school board, at the state level, when we had our 

association meetings, we would divide small schools, small districts, medium-size 

districts, large districts and L.A was totally by itself. 

 And that is why we really need to have state control, not try to make decisions out 

of Washington that are going to decide what's done in Delaware or Pennsylvania or 

California or Wyoming. Every time I get the opportunity to hear people talk about 

education and I am sorry I didn't hear all of your remarks today, Senator, but I am sure, 

the part I did hear, you talked about some great, positive things happening as did 
18

Governor Ridge. 

 I visit schools every time I am home because it is uplifting to me to go in and see 

good teachers, good principals, and see the children responding. Yet all we hear, it 

seems, in the media are negative stories about how bad things are. So I guess I am 

visiting the wrong places or it is happening somewhere else, because I see good things. 

 I talked years ago to a principal of a high school in L.A. city schools and this was 

about 25 years ago. He said to the effect, the time it takes for an idea from germination 

to implementation throughout L.A. city schools is 20 years. So maybe the things we're 

worrying about now are all fixed and maybe things are doing much better and 20 years 

from now we'll find out. However, we cannot go on that assumption. We have to go on 

the assumption that whenever we find things, we need to make them better. 

Governor Ridge, you talked about you would embrace the grades 3 to 8 testing, but you 

wanted a phase-in time, which makes sense to me. How much time do you think that 

would take to really implement that throughout your state? 

Governor Ridge. I think the need will depend very much on how far along individual 

states are with their own testing protocols. In Pennsylvania, I would tell you that our 

experience with developing new tests based on new standards, it would take a couple 

years. I won't explain the process to you. 

 Therefore, I think as much flexibility as you give the states to respond to where 

they are individually, though I do not know where California is. My sense is that 

California may be testing even more frequently with the state test than Pennsylvania. I 

believe my colleague, Tom Carper, said they test every year. 

 We will be testing grades 3, 5 and 8. We have some local school districts that use 

some other tests. So I would think at a minimum of testing every three years. I would 

hope there would be some kind of flexibility in that regard. 

Mr. McKeon. Senator? 

Senator Carper. About two years ago, when I gave my State of the State message, I 

said, you know, it's strange when we evaluate teachers and administrators, we evaluate 

them when they show up for work, we evaluate them whether they prepare lesson plans 

and how they behave and stuff like that. The most important thing that they do is raise 

student achievement. We do not evaluate them on that, it not a component of their 

evaluation.

 I said that it ought to be. It ought to be the only component, but it certainly ought 

to be a significant component. 

 We had a big fight over that for about 18 months and finally signed into law, so 

that educator accountability is the law of the land. We are not interested in sticking it to 

teachers or administrators. We want to make sure that we help them be better, help them 

to turn out to be terrific, all of them. 

 In order for us to be able to evaluate educators and administrators, what we 

decided to do was figure out are students making progress, objectively measured 
19

academic progress, from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year, 

from the beginning of the school year to the end of the school year. 

 We figured out where they started from and where they end up and to objectively 

measure that progress. To do that, you have to test on an annual basis. 

 We think it is helpful for many reasons. The only fair way to evaluate teachers 

and administrators is to take that approach. We are prepared to implement that in school 

year 2002. It will be about two or three years in the making. 

 With what Governor Ridge said about three years, that is not far off. Before, we 

were doing just testing since '98, grades 3, 5, 8 and 10 with respect to the state's test. We 

are moving toward annual testing that ties in with educator accountability. 

Mr. McKeon. The president has said the states will devise their own tests, implement 

their own tests. Moreover, it sounds like you both say that three years would be enough 

time to phase that in. 

 One of the other things that may be a hang-up here with some of our members is 

talk of using the NAEP test as an audit to evaluate against the state test. 

 How does that sound to you? Do you have a problem with that or how do you see 

that?

Governor Ridge. Well, we would hope that its use would be restricted for comparative 

purposes. Pennsylvania's test will be geared to Pennsylvania's standards. I just do not 

know if you can have a national test that can take into account some degree of flexibility 

or difference, rather, within the standards. 

 We would not object to it as a reference point on a national level, but to remove 

the flexibility from us to develop our own standards, our own tests according to our own 

standards. Interesting, we have a wonderful new Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill. 

However, what many people do not know about Mr. O'Neill is that I asked him to take 

time over an 18-month period to chair the commission that dealt with academic standards 

in Pennsylvania. Nearly half, 40-some percent of the people involved in the process of 

creating the standards, were teachers. We had the business community, teachers and 

community involvement in setting up our standards. 

 We now are in the process of developing those diagnostic tests which I think are 

very critical, and I think it's important that they be diagnostic tests, not just a quantitative 

test to where your child ranks, but as Senator Carper mentioned, do you see 

improvement, do you see progress, do you see regression? 

 If you see improvement, you are rewarded and encourage it. If you see that the 

child has slipped back, then you have to deal with it. Those are the kind of tests needed.

That is why we need the flexibility. 

 I don't mind the NAEP being there and included in the legislation as long as there 

is a point of comparison generally. However, we have other points of comparison with 

the standards that other tests have used and if it is in there, fine. 
20

 As I recall the legislation, I do admit I have not read it completely, but there was a 

strict prohibition or very strong language against national tests in Pennsylvania. We do 

not mind for comparative purposes a standard out there, but we do not want national tests 

because we set our own standards and we are going to set up our won diagnostic means 

of assessing our kids' progress. 

Senator Carper. I would agree with that. 

Mr. McKeon. Thank you very much. Mr. Kildee. 

Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will address this question to both my former 

colleagues.

 One of our efforts here has been to try, in whatever role the Federal Government 

may have, to make sure that we have fully qualified teachers. The state of California, for 

example, has about 37,000 teachers who are not certified. I was down in South Carolina.

I asked one of the statewide officials how many teachers were not certified or were 

teaching outside their field. The answer was, too many and for the most part, they're in 

our poorest school districts. 

 What is Pennsylvania and Delaware doing to address this issue, and what progress 

have you made? 

Senator Carper. First, there are certified teachers and many are good teachers, however, 

there are some certified teachers that are not very good. And there are some people who 

are not certified to be a teacher but they just have a way of connecting with kids and 

make learning interesting and fun. 

 In our state, we try to provide alternative routes to certification for those who may 

be from out of another career, another career field and never thought about being a 

teacher, maybe, when they were in college or growing up but later in their life decided 

this is something I want to do, and they're good at it. 

 One of the things that we do, and I do not know that there is a federal role in that, 

however I believe there is a federal role in something I call teacher ROTC. I am an old 

ROTC guy, Navy ROTC, Ohio State. That is how I went to college, and spent some time 

over in the same part of the world that Governor Ridge did back in the Vietnam War. 

 Anyhow, I like the idea of a program where we say, particularly to people who 

may want to go to school to study to be a teacher in math or science, especially in those 

subject areas, or maybe technology, that if you do that, we'll help pay for your education, 

loan forgiveness. In particular, if you go to an area where there is a real hunger or need 

for those who can teach in those critical areas, we will help pay for your education. 

 So I think there is a real appropriate federal area there, and I call it teacher ROTC. 

I believe that is the kind of a program we might want to put a little more focus on. 

Mr. McKeon. I would agree that not every certified teacher, you know, is great. 

However, if I'm seeking out an attorney, I would like to make sure the attorney was 

admitted to the bar and from there, you can move on. 
21

Governor Ridge? 

Governor Ridge. You also want the surgeon that graduated the top of the class, not at the 

bottom of the class, too, I presume. However, you would never know, I guess. 

 I think most of the states are moving toward content-based certification 

requirements and that is the direction Pennsylvania has gone. 

 Historically, again, I think we have to think about 21st century standards for 21st 

century teachers and classrooms. Historically you could get a job teaching in 

Pennsylvania if you majored in educational history or educational philosophy and those 

are wonderful things to major in. However, if you are teaching math, science, civics, I 

think it is better that your degree be in the subject matter you are going to teach. 

 I believe that the states, who I think are uniquely situated to determine what 

certification standards should be required, should be given that freedom and flexibility. 

As I mention in my statement, future teachers in Pennsylvania will be required to take the 

minimum number of credit hours that they would have been required to take to get a 

bachelors degree in that subject matter. 

 They may major in education philosophy or education history, but if they are 

going to teach biology, they are going to have to have the minimum number of credit 

hours as well. It may end up being close to a dual major. 

 Secondly, we have in Pennsylvania, and I admit that it has not been embraced as 

enthusiastically as I had hoped it would be, but we have alternative certification in 

Pennsylvania. We would say to a school district, if there were someone out there, in that 

community, the retired engineer, the retired public servant, the lawyer, or someone who 

may have a history degree that wants to teach history but does not have the certification, 

you are allowed to hire him or her for a year. If they prove to connect with the kids, they 

prove to be effective teachers, then there will be a certification process and we can bring 

them along. 

 So while certification, I think, is important, as Senator Carper mentioned, just 

from time to time we run into people who just connect with kids. They do not have a 

certificate but we let the school districts assess them on an annual basis. If they work out, 

we can put them into a program to get them certified. We want to create that option. 

 So I think, again, the states are more uniquely qualified to set the certification 

requirements. I believe most are moving toward content-based requirements. 

Mr. Kildee. What are we doing on retention of teachers? I see a phenomenon in 

Michigan where at age 22 or 23, individuals enter teaching and quite a number leave by 

the time they are 30. What can we do to help retain teachers? 

Senator Carper. Sometimes, you are a new teacher, you get in a classroom, it is a tough 

situation and you are thrown to the wolves. And what we have found is helpful in 

reducing the turnover and people becoming discouraged is to give them a mentor teacher, 

somebody who will be their mentor and work with them to help them through the tough 

times. 
22

 Last year we went through a big fight on educator accountability, as I said earlier, 

and now people have to re-certify every five years unless they are nationally board 

certified, and then we let them go 10 years between certifications. 

 One of the things we have done is we have raised pay for new teachers and we 

also begun paying teachers more money for more work. For example, teachers that are 

lead teachers, mentor teachers, we pay them more money. When teachers become 

nationally board certified, we pay them an extra 12 percent per year. 

 Starting this year, this is the fourth year of our test, flowing out of the fourth year 

of our state tests, for schools that are making good progress, even if they start at the 

bottom but they are making good progress, they can earn bonuses and everybody in that 

school will get that bonus. It is kind of like the World Series. You know, you win the 

World Series and declare the bonus for your team. It is sort of a similar approach. Those 

are some things that we are doing to try to attract and retain good teachers. 

 The other thing we do is we make it very clear, whether it is teachers of the year; 

we make a big deal about the teachers that are outstanding in our state. As governor, 

every June, as soon as school was out, I would host a luncheon in the governor's house, 

for all the teachers of the year from every school district. We would just have a good 

two-hour discussion in the governor's mansion to talk about what is working in their 

states and their schools and their school districts. 

Mr. Kildee. Governor Ridge? 

Governor Ridge. Because we have the 501 school districts, how they reward; pardon 

me? 

Senator Carper. That would be a big lunch. 

Governor Ridge. A very big lunch.

It really depends, more often than not, on the local school district. As far as the 

aggregate, our teachers probably rank in terms of pay fourth or fifth highest in the 

country. With our performance program, we do allow school districts and schools to use 

those dollars to reward successful teachers. We try to provide as much flexibility in these 

programs to recognize the teacher. 

 In Pennsylvania, we have nearly 150 public and private colleges and universities 

and we graduate some of the best teachers in the country. We do not have a shortage of 

teachers in Pennsylvania; we have a shortage of opportunities. 

 We also have tenure that says, within a school district; once you have been there 

for three years you have tenure within that system. We export teachers. We try to keep, 

and they are all very good, but we export many good teachers around the rest of the 

country.

Mr. Kildee. Thank you very much. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Mr. Kildee. 
23

Senator, I know that you have a time commitment and this is your chance, if you 

need to go. 

Senator Carper. Thanks, sir. I want to hang in just for a few more minutes, but thank 

you.

Chairman Boehner. Okay. With that, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 

Delaware, Mr. Castle. 

Mr. Castle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

 The subcommittee that I chair is Education Reform, and I have taken the 

President's ``No Child Left Behind,'' that 28-page document, and we are trying to turn it 

into a piece of legislation. Had the Bible never been written it is sort of like being 

handed an outline of the bible and saying, could you write the Bible. It has become a 

very difficult work of art. 

 There are three areas, and I may not be able to get to them all, but I would like to 

get, and you touched on them when I was away for a little bit voting. In particular, 

Governor Ridge was talking about one of them when I came in, that are of concern is 

testing, vouchers, and the whole subject of block grants and flexibility. 

 I would like to turn to testing first. I am going to generalize and if you disagree 

with my generalization correct me. I believe in the President's proposal as he essentially 

is talking about testing of all students, grades 3 through 8, based on standards adopted by 

the states. Tests which are administered by the states and are obtained however the states 

wish, and then using the NAEP testing which, of course, is the only federal testing, as a 

sampling unit amongst individuals from the various states but not tested as individuals; 

tested as a compilation of the states to see how you're doing compared to the other states. 

 I always thought when I was a governor that that was a good deal. I know when 

we didn't do well in Delaware on NAEP tests, I would sit there and say, what's going on, 

let's do something about it. I never felt that these were national tests or national standards 

being imposed or whatever. 

 However, that is one of the problems we are having in the drafting, is the politics.

I would welcome your comments about that approach to testing and your view of it. This 

is really a question for both of you. 

Governor Ridge. First, I think again if it is used as just an evaluative tool to confirm the 

quality of your state assessments that is fine. We know they are conducted from time to 

time in Pennsylvania. To my knowledge, they have never conducted enough tests within 

Pennsylvania to be scientifically reflective. We think the pool has never been large 

enough in Pennsylvania. 

 We can look at it is a point of reference and if it is going to be used for that 

purpose, that is fine. If it were going to be used for justification or rationale that 

somehow we ought to be subjected to national testing, we would vigorously oppose that 

notion. It is not bad to have a couple points. We compare each other's standards and 

assessment tools every day, the governors do that, as you did, I' am sure. 
24

 So including in the legislation to confirm or use, as a barometer comparative tests 

is fine. However, to use it to try to dictate a national approach, we would vigorously 

oppose.

Senator Carper. I believe we talked a little bit about this issue, maybe when you were 

out voting. I again agree with what Governor Ridge has said. 

 There is not a lot of enthusiasm in our state and school districts for taking the 

NAEP and one of the reasons why is they don't get a lot of feedback out of it. It is just 

not a whole lot of value to them. 

 There, the question you ask, with respect to testing, if I could just make two 

related points. One of them, not every state has the same standards. That is not bad. If 

you look at the math standards for different states, they are similar. Because there is only 

one, I like to say there is only one Pythagorean theorem; math standards are similar. We 

have different standards somewhat on social studies, for example, maybe a little bit on 

reading and science as well. 

 For states, and for using the NAEP as kind of an audit, for states that want to have 

low standards and then test to those lower standards and then maybe look good with 

respect to the low standards, in the short run, you may come out ahead. However, in the 

end you will not, because the word will get out that your standards are no good and that 

you are testing off a lower standard. The people are smart in states that are running the 

states and in the schools in the school districts, and employers. They want to have smart 

kids coming out of those schools. You do not get smarter kids by having dumb-down 

standards. 

Mr. Castle. Thank you. I tend to agree with both your answers. 

 Let me turn to vouchers and preface this by saying that I am a Republican who 

has not necessarily favored vouchers. But the President's program, if we look at it 

carefully, is a program in which you take schools, by some standards that have failed. 

And then we have an obligation, the Federal Government as well as local and state, to 

help that school get up to whatever it has to be, to be a successful school. It goes through 

one year of that, a second year of that and then a third year of that. After the third year, if 

the school is still deemed to be in failure, bankruptcy, whatever you want to call it, at that 

point, the so-called aspect of vouchers would kick in, meaning the kids could choose to 

go to another public school, a charter school, or could actually use the money in a 

voucher situation. 

 I believe Texas did this and they had a big group of schools the first year, they 

had a smaller group of schools the second year. The third year, they ended up with one 

school.

 What you have are kids who are in lower income circumstances almost every 

time, who have tremendous educational needs, perhaps greater than kids in the higher 

income circumstances, going to schools which are not producing the results that we 

would like. We are saying we are going to help rescue those kids. 

 I am going to tell you, as somebody who has never been a great fan of vouchers 

that starts to get my attention. All of a sudden, we are helping the kids and not just paying 
25

for a wealthier child to go to a private school or whatever it may be. 

 I think we need to understand this. It may apply to very few schools in the entire 

country. Yet, many people are still saying, the President's plan has vouchers, we cannot 

support it. To me, that is vouchers real light, is what we are dealing with here. 

 I would be interested in your comments on it. 

Senator Carper. As I said earlier, with respect to four things I think most of us will 

agree. One, some extra federal investment, more dollars, two, the idea of providing that 

money more flexibly, three, if we are going to provide more money, if you are going to 

provide more money, you are going to provide it more flexibly, you ought to demand 

more results. Lastly, four, I think we will generally agree that parents ought to have 

greater choices for the schools that their kids attend. 

 And the point that you raise, Mr. Congressman, is the one where we kind of fall 

apart. There are ways around this and there are some good compromises, and I ask you 

to keep this in mind. Encourage people to do what we have done in our state and to 

exercise public school choice. 

 In our state, if you are in a school district and you want to go to a different school 

outside of your feeder pattern in your school district, kids can go and the transportation 

costs are borne by a combination of state and local funds. 

 If you want to go your kid to go to a school district outside of your school district, 

parents have an obligation to get their child inside the receiving school district, on a bus 

route, and then the receiving school district takes over. 

 However, you have to make sure that there is really a chance for kids to go to the 

school that you choose in your district or outside of your district. 

 The other thing is charter schools. We are both big believers in charter schools.

We are seeing good results. They are not all perfect; some of them fail. But one of the 

problems charter schools have, they don't get help on their start-up costs, for the most 

part, not in Delaware. They do not get any help on brick and mortar money, they can not 

issue tax-exempt bonds, they don't get any loan guarantee from the Federal Government. 

 The legislation that Judd Gregg and I have introduced in the Senate, that we are 

encouraging my congressman and my friend over here from Indiana to introduce in the 

House is one that says charter schools can issue what amounts to tax-exempt bonds to get 

their brick and mortar started. The Federal Government would provide some loan 

guarantees. We would provide a matching grant program to encourage states to provide 

some start-up money as well for charter schools. 

 I met with a bunch of charter school people from throughout our state during our 

recess last week and time after time after time they said, you know, when we get the kids, 

we get our school, we get started and everything, we are fine. However, what is killing 

us is paying 25, 30, and 35 percent of our costs for a place to work. 

 With respect to vouchers, just let me say this. We have 50 states, the laboratories 

of democracy, and we ought to let them be laboratories. The idea of trying on a limited 
26

basis, a limited voucher demonstration project while we do public school choice and 

charter schools and see what works to raise student achievement. I do not see any harm 

in that. 

 My problem with vouchers is this, in our state if you give somebody a voucher for 

$1,500, it is just hard to find a school for them to go to if they are poor and that is the 

only money they have to work with, to get a good education. You just cannot get it. It is 

kind of an empty promise. That is my concern with vouchers. 

 I am not convinced vouchers help public schools succeed. I am convinced that 

the competition and the market forces that come out of public school choice and charter 

schools help public schools succeed and get better. What is the old adage about 

competition? It is like cod liver oil: First it makes you sick, then it makes you better. 

Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Mr. Castle. 

Governor Ridge. Can I just respond very briefly, Mr. Chairman? I'm sorry about that, 

but particularly on the point of vouchers, first of all you should know, Congressman, that 

I am a strong proponent of giving the parents of children the opportunity to take their tax 

dollars wherever they want to go. I should also note to my friends on both sides of the 

aisle that I am 0 for 2. I have tried it in my legislature a couple of times but I think 

sometime in the 21st century, hopefully we will get to the notion that these parents, their 

tax dollars, their kids, why not at some point in time recognize that it ought to be their 

choice.

 Clearly, were not there yet, as a country. We are certainly not there as a state. I 

have not been successful in promoting this. However, I do like the notion that to begin 

the discussion around a plan that suggests to the parents whose children are in schools 

that aren't delivering a quality education, that once the school has been identified as 

failing to meet minimum academic standards and providing that education, it is given 

three years to improve the quality of education. Therefore, the kids have been in it, they 

are not getting good education; they have three more years to improve the quality of 

education. There has to be some point when America says and when we all say to that 

child and to that parent, here is the money and go find something that you think best fits 

the needs of your child. 

 I think the best way to at least test that proposal, because there is a narrowing 

down, that has happened in some states. There is a huge pool of schools that are not 

doing very satisfactory work and just are not delivering. We are not pointing the finger 

of culpability at anybody. We are just saying, you are not meeting these standards. Then 

you work with the school districts and the numbers reduce, and in the following year, the 

number reduces. 

 But to say to keep a child in a school because you want to protect the system 

rather than the child after a prolonged period of time doesn't seem to be the right thing to 

do. Therefore, I think you end up with a very limited and narrow opportunity. 

 Let me say to my friend, with regard to the dollar amount and vouchers, a couple 

years ago I was in a community in Pennsylvania, Chester, Pennsylvania. It is a very poor 

community, the school district struggles. There are a many minorities in the community.

I spent a little time with a mom who was working two part-time jobs to send her kids at 
27

that time to private schools. I do not know where they were, but they are her kids, her 

choice, none of my business where she sends them. 

 At the time, we were talking about $1,000 or $1,500 a person. And she said to me 

she would hope that at some point in time, elected officials, regardless of their party 

affiliation, would understand that to her, $2,000 or $3,000 was a lot of money. And that 

when she was working at slightly above minimum wage, $2,000 to $3,000 after-tax 

dollars would help her keep these kids in the schools that she wanted for them. 

 So the notion that it is never quite enough for the voucher, that I think we have to 

also leave up to the parents. If $1,000 or $1,500 or $2,000 in addition to what the parents 

are willing to sacrifice will make a difference, again, I think you drive that freedom and 

that flexibility down to the moms and dads, their tax dollars, their children, their choice. 

 We are never going to get that nationally, at least in the near future. However, I 

think that the President's proposal gives us on opportunity, frankly, to see if it works. 

Chairman Boehner. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. Andrews. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome our two colleagues and thank them 

for their testimony this morning. 

 Before I ask my question, I did want to add one other misgiving a lot of us have 

about vouchers, in addition to Senator Carper's concern about the amount of the voucher. 

And that is about the consequences of the private school voucher decision for the children 

who remain in the failing school. Now, why they remain there is a question of some 

dispute. But I am not really interested in why they remain there; I am interested in the 

reality that they do remain there. 

 And even if you accept the rather dubious proposition that $1,500 is enough to 

make a substantial contribution toward a private school voucher for a child who leaves 

the school_which, in New Jersey, is far insufficient, far insufficient_there is the reality 

that many children will still be there in the failing school. 

 And if the premise of this idea is that it is going to lift up failing schools, I don't 

understand how it does this. Because, what it in fact will do is let what I think is the root 

cause of the failing school, which is a school administration that is either not sufficiently 

committed to make the school succeed or not sufficiently empowered to make the schools 

succeed, it is going to keep failing, anyway. 

 So one of the grave concerns that we have is about the children_and I think it will 

be the vast majority of the children_who would remain in one of these so-called failing 

schools, after a few people have trickled out with their $1,500 voucher in their hand. 

 I want to ask a question, though. Dr. Grasmick in her testimony, which we are 

going to hear shortly, talks about the vital importance of learning that takes place 

between birth and age six, and points out that in Maryland a very recent study is going to 

show that 40 percent of Maryland's kindergartners come to school unready to learn. I 

assume the number is considerably higher in many other states, probably in mine. 
28

 What do you, Governor Ridge and Senator Carper, think that we ought to do in 

this elementary and secondary bill to provide greater opportunities for quality prekindergarten education for parents around the country? 

Senator Carper. That is a good question. You have already done one important thing in 

the last Congress, when you passed the expansion of education flexibility, to give states 

the ability to use funds from disparate federal sources to, among other things, provide for 

full-day kindergarten for some of the kids and provide for pre-K training for more kids, 

especially kids from a tough background. 

 I grant you, the Federal Government does not provide enough money for Head 

Start, either. They do not fully fund Head Start, and even for four-year-olds, they 

certainly do not fund it for three-year-olds. And when you see those five-year-old kids 

walking to kindergarten and they are sitting next to a kid who can read, who knows their 

ABC's, who knows their numbers, knows their colors and you don't, that happens too 

often. However, it does not have to happen. 

 If we were providing throughout the country better quality child care, eliminate 

the waiting lists and cover more people, if we were covering all the kids eligible for Head 

Start, I think it would make a huge difference. The President is right; Head Start can be 

babysitting. It has to focus on things that actually lead to improved academic 

performance. That is so important. 

 The other thing I would say that is helpful, it is tough to get people who want to 

teach at the pre-K level. We do not pay them very well. We give them our little babies, 

our little kids, but we don't value them very much with what we pay them, and sometimes 

we need to put our money where our mouth is. We are trying to do that in Delaware with 

some state money. However, when you raise the minimum wage, you actually will help 

provide incentive for people to work there or stay working there. It probably sounds 

strange, but it is actually the case. 

 These are some things that come to mind however, we should not waste the first 

six years of a kid's life, and we do not have to. In the states where we are addressing in a 

serious way and Mike Castle started in our state when he was governor, they will pay 

huge dividends. Unfortunately, as politicians, we are not real good doing things that 

don't pay off for like 10, 12, 15 years. Businesspeople aren't that good, either. 

 However, as it turns out, investment in those first five years will pay off hugely in 

10 or 15 years. 

Governor Ridge. During the course of this year's budget within Pennsylvania, we looked 

at the amount of dollars we are spending on education, childcare and the like before 

kindergarten. Because of the generosity of the Federal Government and the commitment 

of the state, we are well over $2 billion in infancy to preschool. Ed-Flex helps a great 

deal. Continued support of Head Start helps a great deal. 

 One of the things we have done in Pennsylvania is a program called Cyber Start.

Because of welfare reform and our ability to use TANIF money, we have dramatically 

increased the amount of money that we have going to childcare in Pennsylvania. As a 

result, we now have over 4,000 registered day-care centers. With Cyber Start, we are 

working with both the public sector and we have a lot of money involved in it in the 
29

private sector. It is my hope that before I leave as governor in two years that all 4,000 of 

these day-care centers will be hooked up to the Internet. 

 We are developing software for use and instruction material for the folks in the 

day-care centers, so the kids can learned about the alphabet and learned some 

rudimentary fundamental reading skills, some basic math skills. So I think again, as you 

look at the individual states, you have given us some flexibility with the federal dollars.

As you reform welfare, a lot of those dollars have found their way into supporting these 

kind of initiatives that help prepare kids for kindergarten. 

 Therefore, we thank you. The governors cannot thank you enough for the 

flexibility. We do not mind being held accountable if you give us the flexibility. I think 

there are plenty of instances in Delaware and Pennsylvania that we can show that 

flexibility has made a difference. We are not taking the crayons out of the kids' hands; 

we do not want the screen to replace the teacher. You do not want to replace the naps, 

the social interaction. 

 However, we think we can go a long way to helping these kids, most of who are 

coming out of some difficult circumstances. They do not have a computer at home. 

However, I have seen them. Children will take as much time as adults are willing and 

children will learn as much as adults are willing to teach them early on. We just have to 

get new teaching tools and your flexibility is helping us do that in Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Andrews. Thank you. 

Senator Carper. Could I just add a real quick P.S. here and then I have to go. I 

mentioned in my testimony, you may have been out of the room. I talked about parenting 

training. In our state and in a bunch of states now, when people come home with a new 

baby, they bring home a packet of information. We call it the Cliff Notes of parenting 

training, five-year calendar, really a how-to. 

Mr. Andrews. Could you send me a copy of that? 

Senator Carper. I would love to. 

 We offer parents as teachers in every part of our state. I don't know if anybody 

knows about this program, I don't think anybody here is from Missouri, but the idea is to 

send a trained parenting person into a home for three years every month. They are 

available by phone in between visits and they work with the parents and with the kids. It 

is a huge help. 

 You cannot forget how important the parents are in all of this. I do not know that 

the Federal Government needs to be in the business of designing and offering parenting 

training. However, I will tell you this, if this idea of a clearinghouse, sharing 

information, what is working, that works, that works. To the extent that the Federal 

Government is out there saying this works and here are some good models, this could be 

helpful. 

 I see Congresswoman Connie Morella is in the room. Mr. Chairman, let me say a 

point of personal privilege. When my wife and I were married, we went on our 

honeymoon almost 16 years ago. We met Connie Morella and her husband on our 
30

honeymoon in Jamaica and she has been a great friend ever since. 

Mrs. Morella. I was elected that year. 

Senator Carper. That is right. 

Chairman Boehner. Let me apologize to the members who have not had an opportunity 

to ask a question. Our two witnesses have been very generous with their time, but they 

have to leave at this point. 

 I want to thank you, Governor Ridge, and you, Senator Carper, for sharing your 

experiences with us. I am sorry that I did not have a chance to ask several questions, but 

I know where to find you. 

 Thank you again. You are excused. 

 [Recess.] 

Chairman Boehner. The Committee will be in order. The Chair recognizes the gentle 

lady from Maryland for the purposes of introducing our next guest. 

Mrs. Morella. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this extraordinary courtesy 

offered to me, since I am not on this committee. However, when I knew that you had 

invited the superintendent of schools from Maryland, a woman I know very well, I asked 

the opportunity to say a few words about her. Again, I thank you for that courtesy and I 

thank the Committee. 

 You know, I find Nancy Grasmick is not only a Renaissance woman, but I am 

absolutely in awe of her credentials. She is well known in education throughout the 

nation. Let me tell you, she started her career as a teacher of deaf children in Baltimore 

city. Then she served as a classroom teacher, a resource teacher, a principal, a 

supervisor, an assistant superintendent, associate superintendent with the Baltimore 

County Public Schools. With the state of Maryland, she served as Secretary of Juvenile 

Services and as Special Secretary for Children, Youth and Families, two cabinet posts at 

the same time. This is extraordinary, probably extraordinary in the nation. Of course, 

you give it to a woman and you know it is going to be done. 

 Throughout her career, she has worked ardently to make sure that agencies 

provide high-quality services for children and their families. I will not go into all of the 

awards and recognitions that she has received repeatedly, all very well deserved. She is a 

very modest woman who is very committed to education of all of our children. 

 I just want to point out that I was curious about the fact she was a teacher of deaf 

children, but then I noted that she received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, her 

MS degree at Galudet University, and a BS degree from Towson and has had many, 

many honorary doctorates. 

 It is a pleasure for me to introduce to this committee somebody who is well 

known in educational circles and is somebody that we can be very proud of. As 

Shakespeare said, those about her from her shall learn the perfect ways of honor. Nancy 
31

Grasmick. 

 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Boehner. Connie, thank you. Dr. Grasmick, we welcome you to the 

Committee, and you may begin. 

 STATEMENT OF NANCY S. GRASMICK, SUPERINTENDENT OF 

SCHOOLS, MARYLAND STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Dr. Grasmick. I am delighted to be here with you and to speak about the standards, 

accountability and assessment in the state of Maryland. I would like to say with a sense 

of pride that this system in Maryland has endured for 10 years. It is the longest standing, 

with Kentucky, and the most comprehensive in the nation. Moreover, in the recent report 

of Education Week, Quality Counts, Maryland received a perfect A for its standards, 

accountability and assessment system; the highest market in the entire nation. 

 I believe there is something important to be said about a system enduring for 10 

years in a state. It talks about sustainability, it talks about bridging various governors and 

members of the general assembly, and it is the framework of the educational organization 

within the state of Maryland, which has enabled this system to develop, to flourish and to 

be sustained through those 10 years. 

 I would like to speak today for a few moments about why federal funding is 

critical to the continued support of a very excellent accountability system, which includes 

a testing program that has set very high standards, which is aligned with contents 

standards, for the test alone does not ensure quality instruction. A reporting system that 

communicates key performance measures to parents, to the public and to educators, 

sanctions for failing schools that are significant, and I will speak to those, rewards for 

schools that are improving. I believe the only state in the nation to look at international

benchmarking of our assessments by way of administering them in Taiwan, a premiere 

educational system in this world. 

 We administer our performance assessments at grades 3, 5 and 8, and 

standardized testing at grades two, four and six. We have at this time, being field tested, 

rigorous high school assessments for grades 9 through 12, which will be linked to a 

Maryland high school diploma. Again, unique in this nation, we have developed a work 

sampling system for young children, which did yield about 40 percent of the children 

entering school ready to learn in Maryland. A work sampling system that is extremely 

precise and enables us to do an assessment of our kindergarten and first grade children to 

be able to make those kinds of judgments. 

 We have very few children in the state of Maryland who are exempted from 

assessment, and that is not true in many other states in this nation. We do not exempt 

children who are limited English proficient or those with disability without extraordinary 

documentation. Even the children who have learning disabilities or any kind of special 

needs take an alternative assessment. 
32

 Maryland publicly reports all of the results from our state assessments as well as 

the attendance in each school and supporting demographic data. We do a disaggregation 

of every result by race, by ethnicity, and by gender. Moreover, just this week, we 

reported and compiled a report that I do not think would be available in many states in 

this nation, and that is a millennium report on the achievement of minority students in 

every school and every system in the state of Maryland. 

 Therefore, those who wish to access the information that we have been Maryland, 

which is considerable, may do that through a website. Since January, we have had more 

than 2 million hits on that website in the state of Maryland. 

 I think our success is beyond testing, because the testing assessments inform 

quality instruction that provides information about adjustments that need to be made. I 

believe that it targets our lowest performing schools and enables us at the state level to 

categorize those schools in a way that requires approval of a principal for those schools, 

credentials of the individuals who will lead those schools; a school improvement plan 

that is highly substantive, setting benchmarks for incremental improvement in those 

schools; and using research-based programs in each of those low performing schools. 

 Now, what happens if those schools do not improve? What happens is what 

happened this year in Baltimore City. We identified three schools that had been on that 

list for four years and we said, there is no accountability unless there is a bottom line to it. 

It is based on a belief system that no child should have to attend a failing school by 

accident of where that child lives. 

 We carved those schools out of the governance structure of the local school 

system and it was mandated that they be operated by a third party provider. Those 

schools are flourishing in this new governance structure and with new leadership and a 

new design program within those schools. 

 It is an exciting thing to see a school which had a population of 600 children and 

had parent participation maximum of 50 parents, and now has the participation of more 

than 700 adults, parents, those who are engaged in education in the community. We have 

energized them. It was not necessary to give a voucher. We restructured those schools 

within the entire Maryland system. 

 I applaud the President for proposing that all states develop comprehensive 

systems and standards and accountability. I have a document which you have not 

received, although you have received copies of my written testimony, that aligns every 

aspect of the President's plan with the initiatives occurring in Maryland, and I am 

delighted that there is so much alignment with Maryland. 

[Refer to Appendix D for the above-mentioned document] 

 I do say that, as we look at establishing high-quality assessment programs, that 

this is an extremely expensive process. I would strongly recommend that you think in 

terms of either regional or national consortia to work together so that each one of our 

states is not duplicating effort, but rather there is efficient effort around high-quality 

assessments which we are subjecting our children. 
33

 I believe that we could support and wish to participate in such an effort. It would 

be very cost effective for the federal dollars you are giving us. The only grade where we 

do not have assessments in the state of Maryland is grade 7 and we intend to develop that 

assessment in conjunction with the President's plan, show that pass. 

 We also encourage you not to lose focus on the use of federal dollars for our most 

disadvantaged children. Those dollars on to be directed to assisting those children 

through after school programs, summer programs, tutoring, mentoring, parent outreach 

and training. 

 We were one of the early waiver states, federal waiver states, and we have used 

that waiver effectively, we believe, in the state of Maryland. We have also tried to 

eliminate this notion of parallel and fragmented programs from Title I to limited English 

proficiency, education for homeless children, safe and drug free schools. We insist that 

every system in the state of Maryland have an integrated plan, as opposed to having 

parallel programs, which often do not create any kind of critical mass for positive change. 

We are pleased about the technology, literacy challenge funds and funds from that E-rate, 

and we now have a ratio of 6:1 in terms of our technology with our goal being 5:1. 

 I would like to say that it is imperative that we think in terms of pre-K to 26. We 

are the consumers of the teacher preparation programs that are done in this nation, and 

often there is a “disconnect” between those teacher preparation programs and those we 

receive and must retrain in the pre-K to 12 arena. 

 I believe Maryland has taken a very strong step forward by formalizing that 

structure, by insisting upon a teacher education redesign, and by a certification process 

which we handle, which will place an institution of preparation on probation, as I did just 

two weeks ago, because they have not fully implemented those kinds of redesign 

programs. 

WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF NANCY S. GRASMICK, 

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, MARYLAND STATE 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION – SEE APPENDIX D 

Chairman Boehner. Dr. Grasmick, if I could interrupt you, we are being rather generous 

with the clock today but I have to go in a few minutes to go testify at another committee 

for our committee budget. Therefore, I am going to have to run. 

 Before I do that, if there were two lessons that you have learned over the last five 

years, having been involved in the high standards and assessments in Maryland, what two 

lessons would you like to share with us that you have learned that would help us as we 

plod through this minefield? 

Ms. Grasmick. That there are no silver bullets in terms of developing high-quality 

assessment, that this is a tedious and substantive process and that it must be linked to 

quality instruction and building capacity in terms of teachers and principals. Because, 

otherwise, we can have all of the standards in the world, but we will have to concede 

ultimately that we cannot reach them without that kind of linkage. 
34

Chairman Boehner. The Chair would appoint and ask the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. 

Isakson, to take the Chair and recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Kildee, for 

any questions that he might have. 

Mr. Kildee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Grasmick, it is good to have you back before this committee. 

Ms. Grasmick. It is good to be here. 

Mr. Kildee. You have been very helpful to us in the past. 

 Please tell us how class size reduction has helped or affected Maryland public 

schools? Flint, Michigan, about 12 years ago started such a program in the city of Flint, 

Michigan, and the results there have been very, very effective. We have some 

longitudinal studies that show that. They reduceed the class size to 18 from kindergarten 

through third grade. 

 We have had class size reduction for a few years with federal funding. How has 

that worked in your state? 

Ms. Grasmick. It has worked very well and it has worked in tandem with state initiatives 

on class size reduction and we are very hopeful that it will continue, because it has placed 

a great deal of emphasis on early literacy, reading skills particularly. 

We tested our students in third grade and we have a very important initiative in 

Maryland called ``Reading by 9.” We were concerned about the rapidity of progress in 

reading for our young children. Therefore, the class size initiative has made a difference 

in terms of a particular emphasis on those fundamental skills for our youngest children. 

Mr. Kildee. You know, we have always believed, and maybe it is a mantra, that 

kindergarten through third grade, give or take a little time there, kindergarten through 

third grade, a child learns to read. And after that, pretty well, they read to learn. And if 

they have not done that well in kindergarten through third grade, they are going to have 

difficulty throughout the rest of their school career. 

 Would you emphasize the class size reduction in those early grades? 

Ms. Grasmick. Absolutely. That is where we have emphasized it, and we are struck by 

some of the research that says if a child is not skill level appropriate in first grade, that 

child has a one in eight chance of catching up. We see reading particularly as 

fundamental to all subsequent academic success. 

Mr. Kildee. I think that is so essential, that is almost an essential. I think that when the 

Federal Government wants to be a helpful partner in education in this country, that is one 

area where we can be a helpful partner. And it is really not interfering with school 

philosophy. It is really giving you a chance to do something significant in those early 

grades.
35

 Some need it more than others. Some disadvantaged students need it more than 

others. Those who come from poor neighborhoods very often needed more than others 

because there is not that tradition of help within the family. With my wife and I both 

being teachers, we had our children reading before they went to school. But there are so 

many children who come to kindergarten without any reading ability at all. If we really 

reduce the class size, that is one way the Federal Government can be very, very helpful. 

 Let me ask one other question. I was very edified by your statement that you had 

very few limited English proficient and disabled children exempted from state 

assessment. How did you succeed in maximizing inclusion in your state assessments? 

Ms. Grasmick. Well, we have a philosophy of inclusion for our special needs students 

and we have a very strong program, given our proximity to Washington, D.C., and the 

number of children that we have an our Washington suburb school systems who are 

speakers of other languages, a very strong program of support for those children early on. 

 We do offer accommodations in our testing program, which is perfectly 

appropriate. We feel very strongly that if a child is moving toward receiving a Maryland 

high school diploma, that child participates in the assessment program. Moreover, for 

children with special needs who are not moving toward a Maryland high school diploma 

but rather a certificate program, then that is reflected on the child's IEP. So that we 

know, that child is exempt and parents as well as school personnel and other 

professionals agree. 

 So we have looked that other states, and this is often a concern to us, that you are 

not comparing apples to apples. Because if children with special needs are exempted in 

other states, whereas we do not do that exemption_as a matter of fact, we track every 

exemption and if we see an acceleration of exemptions in a particular jurisdiction, we do 

a full investigation of that, we feel so strongly about the inclusion opportunity. 

Mr. Kildee. I wish some other states would look at what you are doing. We think what 

you are doing is very commendable. Thank you for your continuing help to this 

committee. 

Ms. Grasmick. You are very welcome. 

Mr. Isakson. [presiding] I recognize the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Osborne. 

Mr. Osborne. One thing that has occurred to me is that oftentimes one of the major 

deterrents to learning is what goes on outside of the school. Having been in education for 

a long time, I am sure you have seen what I would call some deterioration of the culture 

and less parental supervision, less parental involvement. 

 I just would appreciate your comments on anything that you feel has been 

effective in counteracting this. I know you have talked about early learning and some of 

those issues. Have you looked at all at mentoring programs, anything of that nature that 

you feel might be of benefit? 

Ms. Grasmick. We have a number of initiatives to address the concerns that you have 

spoken to, which are legitimate and real. We have a very strong outreach program from 

our schools to parents, including home visitation in many communities to engage parents. 
36

We have the establishment of one of your colleagues, who has been so helpful to us in the 

Judy Hoyer Centers, Congressman Hoyer is memorializing. We have memorialized his 

wife, who is a very strong early childhood person in Maryland. 

 And we reach out to parents, particularly parents of disadvantaged children, to 

bring those parents into a setting where not only are they learning parenting skills and the 

importance of their involvement, but are also developing workforce skills that can move 

them toward more independence. 

 I have created for my own self an advisory group that represents the entire state of 

Maryland, of parents who are committed to helping, using sort of a trainer of trainers 

model, to helping parents throughout the state of Maryland become engaged in education. 

We have Parents as the First Teachers Programs in the state of Maryland. We have taken 

the program the HIPE Program, which you may have heard about, which has originally 

came from Israel. It has been implemented in the state of Maryland. We actually trained 

parents to be those first teachers. 

 We have joined forces with our public libraries in our communities throughout the 

state of Maryland to engage in parent education programs as well as parent reading 

programs, to teach parents how they can read to their children effectively. So we are 

trying to use the resources beyond the schools to create those linkages with families, to 

mobilize them in terms of their children's education. 

 However, I will tell you, it is the outreach efforts from the school itself as the hub 

of that community which becomes so powerful. The school I spoke to you about where 

we actually carved it out from the governance structure of the city school system and are 

using a third party provider, the involvement of parents 600, to 700 parents in a 

community which is 100 percent poverty, based on free and reduced meals, is 

remarkable. It can be done. 

Mr. Isakson. The Chair recognizes Mr. Roemer from Indiana. 

Mr. Roemer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You look mighty good in that chair there. 

Mr. Isakson. You look mighty good down there, too. There are only three of us left.

However, she looks better than all three of us. 

Mr. Roemer. That's right, that's right. 

Dr. Grasmick, thank you for your time and thank you for your excellent testimony. 

 We have a bill that we have introduced as a group of new Democrats that agrees 

with President Bush's proposal on about 80 percent of what he has outlined. We believe 

that there should be some consolidation. We believe that there should be more flexibility 

for our local schools to make decisions and decide where to spend money. We believe 

that there should be higher standards and more results. 

 I am not going to ask you about where we agree. I want to concentrate on the 

spirited debate that we will have in this committee on two areas that we will disagree on 

with the President. One will be_and you have talked a little bit about this, but I want to 
37

find your opinion on this_one will be on, how do we address failing schools? The 

President has proposed that if a school is failing, that you are ultimately given a $1500 

voucher to extend to the child and the parents, to then walk away from that school. 

 Now, the $1500 for a school of 500 kids, and let's be very generous and say 50 

kids walk away from that public school taking $75,000 with them, that's one problem. 

But the more compelling problem to me, I might be open to vouchers, but the more 

compelling problem to me is there are 450 kids left in that school and they have the same 

doom and disaster ahead of them because we are not addressing fixing the school; we are 

encouraging flight from the school and money to be drained from the school. The slogan, 

``Leave no child behind,'' well, we are leaving an entire school behind. 

 We have proposed public school choice, expanding more opportunities for the 

parent to pick any school within the public school system, to expand charter schools as 

Senator Carper has talked about, to try to make sure the startup costs are not difficult for 

charter schools, to look at options of magnet schools and other kinds of alternative 

schools, and to fix the schools that are broken with remediation, with probation, with 

firing people that are not doing the job. We cannot tolerate failing schools. 

 What is your opinion on vouchers? Do you support them or do you oppose them? 

Ms. Grasmick. I do not support them and I will not be redundant in articulating the 

things you have already articulated. I do not support them because of the fact that I 

believe children will still attend a failing school and, therefore, I believe we have to fix 

the failing school. Although I support charters and public charters and public school 

choice, I still believe that we have the responsibility to fix the failing school, which is 

precisely the action we have taken with the three schools I mentioned. 

Mr. Roemer. In Baltimore? 

Ms. Grasmick. In Baltimore. 

Mr. Roemer. Let me ask you another question on tests. The President has proposed that 

we test and that we mandate that we test from the national level to our states. I have 

always been concerned about unfunded mandates as a conservative Democrat, whether it 

be to our businesses, whether it be to our schools. We are testing in Indiana at grades 3, 

6, 8 and 10, the I-Step test. 

 The President will propose that we in Indiana now have to test in every single 

grade and the money to implement, to devise the test, to remediate the test is not included 

in this bill. 

 Now, I may be open to some more testing. I think we need high standards. But 

what do you do with children, five of the 25 in the third grade that fail the test, if you do 

not provide the money in the bill to remediate these children with tutoring programs, with 

after school programs, with summer school programs? They then fall back into the 

previous grade and we have a bigger problem in the third grade with 30 kids in that class 

rather than 25. 
38

 What do we do to really try to improve this bill that the President has proposed, 

on the idea of testing, the kinds of tests, and what you do with the tests then to remediate? 

Ms. Grasmick. Well, I would hope that the bill would reflect the imperative for highquality tests. A test is not a test is not a test. Therefore, I think, for testing to be effective 

in this country and influence public policy and intervention for children, it needs to be a 

high-quality test. That is number one. 

 We in Maryland, as I indicated, have a very strong testing program. The only 

grade where we are not testing is grade 7 so, for us, this will not be a great leap. I do 

believe the subsequent conversation has to be around capacity and intervention. This is a 

document called ``Every Child Achieving,'' and this is about that kind of intervention. 

Once we have looked at the results of that testing and know which children are not 

achieving, what are we going to do about it? This gives us a very strong framework in 

the state of Maryland to provide for that intervention. 

 However, I think even with intervention, there is a subsequent point, which I hope 

will be considered, and that is the capacity of the educators to deliver that kind of highquality intervention program, both principals and teachers. 

Mr. Roemer. Thank you. 

Mr. Isakson. In light of my distinguish friend's questions with regard to the two most 

appropriate and probably debatable issues on this bill, I would like to take the other side 

for a second and get your response. I must admit, I admire greatly what you have done in 

Maryland and agree with Ms. Morella and her comments. I followed it from my position 

back in Georgia before I came here. 

Ms. Grasmick. Thank you. 

Mr. Isakson. First, let me ask you this question. We worry about the kids that might 

remain in a failing school if a child's parents parent or parents was given $1500 and that 

child went to another public school or to a private school. Is it not true that today in 

America, in failing schools, which each state has some, those kids are already stuck? 

Ms. Grasmick. I think it is true. I think there is a remedy and, to me, the better remedy 

is the one of totally restructuring that school. When I said we restructured those schools 

with a third party provider, there was no obligation to hire the people who were there. It 

was an entirely different program implemented, et cetera. Those schools are totally 

restructured, not a small increment of change, but a total change. 

 I feel excited about that, because the children who attend there live in those 

communities, and it is more than the movement of the children. I believe that schools, 

particularly elementary schools, are hubs of their community. 

Mr. Isakson. I appreciate your answer and agree. You answered two questions; you 

answered the first one, which I want to go back to and just reaffirm. That is, today in 

America, it is true that there are kids stuck in failing schools and there are no options. 
39

 Then your second answer was, because of that fact, you believe that states should 

do things like what the state of Maryland has done. 

Ms. Grasmick. I do. 

Mr. Isakson. Okay. Now to my second question, just to foster my thought process as 

well as Mr. Roemer's, Mr. Kildee's and others. Would you agree that the discussions 

fostered since the President introduced during the campaign his concept of choice after 

the third year, that there are many systems now looking at doing things they were not 

doing before his bringing that out? 

Ms. Grasmick. I think it has been a very stimulating discussion and I think it has placed 

a spotlight on the fact that it is intolerable to think that children remain in failing schools, 

and it should be an imperative that things have to be done. I think the only question is 

what should be done. We have a point of view in Maryland that is working for us, that 

says we have done something, we did it before this discussion and we believe it is the 

right way to go. Was it controversial? Was it painful? Absolutely. Nevertheless, we are 

encouraged by the progress that is being made. 

Mr. Isakson. One last question maybe with a follow-up. Dr. Grasmick, in the state of 

Maryland, as the superintendent, do you know how many Maryland children go to a 

private school paid for in total by the state of Maryland due to their disability? 

Ms. Grasmick. We have several categories of those, so I want to be accurate. 

Mr. Isakson. I would never hold you to the number. 

Ms. Grasmick. Well, we have 12 percent of our student population identified as special 

needs and, for the most part, most of those students are attending the public schools. We 

do have a small number, and actually it has dwindled in the last few years because of the 

strength of the programs we developed in the public schools, that go to either day or 

residential nonpublic schools. We only have a handful of children in Maryland go 

outside of the state of Maryland any longer. 

 So in terms of those who are in the state of Maryland in a nonpublic or residential 

or day school, we are probably talking about may be $50 million a year for that 

population. Those tuitions are extremely high, as you know. 

Mr. Isakson. I thank you for that answer because I am going to kind of close with a 

comment. You have been extremely helpful and Mr. Roemer's questions were very 

insightful in terms of the real heart of this issue. 

 The federal government determined when it passed IDEA and subsequently the 

courts upheld that if a child is school-age eligible, and in Georgia that is 7 to 17; I don't 

know what it is in Maryland. 

Ms. Grasmick. Twenty-one. 

Mr. Isakson. The child that is identified with disabilities and qualifies, and the school 

system cannot meet their needs, then the state has to send them to a school that does, 

even if it is private. It is true that in the state of Georgia, when I left the Board of 
40

Education, we were paying over $100,000 a year for three children and there were others 

where we were paying a significant amount. They were a handful but, in fact, we had the 

obligation to pay that voucher, if you will, because we could not provide for their need. 

 Now, I am not making a direct analogy but I am saying this, you hit the nail on 

the head. Georgia and Maryland have, dramatically reduced the number of children they 

are sending to private schools over the last 15 years, particularly since the court decision 

that said you had to do it, and they raised the services to students in the public schools. 

 I would submit that the President's motivation and what has compelled me to be 

supportive of his motivation, and having watched educators is that when there is a 

consequence, and there has always been a consequence to failure for the kids; they drop 

out, they are left behind. There has never truly been a consequence on reading and math 

in early yearning learning years to the schools. The fear, or the standard and I like to say 

standard or expectation; that a child is going to have an option if that school is failing, 

and should have the intended consequence of not establishing a broad range of vouchers.

Not 50 in a school at 75,000 but rather what has happened in Texas, which is less schools 

that are failing so the vouchers never exist. 

 I just wanted to say we have a history of a federally mandated program that 

actually mandated a voucher if a school system did not meet the standard and that it has 

in fact reduced in its number because schools raised their standards. It is not very 

analogous because IDEA and those type disabilities are far different from reading or 

math. I understand that. 

 However, in principle, the results I think are the same as what the President 

intended, and that is to make America's public schools better and make them the best 

choice for the parents. 

 With that said, I did not want to make a speech but that is the other side of that 

coin.

Mr. Payne, you left. Would you like to ask a question? 

Mr. Payne. Yes. 

Mr. Isakson. Let me introduce the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Payne. 

Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. Just in regard to the three failing schools in 

Baltimore, how long has the Edison project been at those schools? 

Ms. Grasmick. Actually, we made this decision January a year ago and they are now 

operating beginning in August under the Edison program. 

Mr. Payne. In the state of Maryland, do you have an equaled funding of schools 

throughout the state, or is it like in New Jersey, where school districts of course are only 

responsible for their individual municipalities and therefore the level of funding, up until 

a recent Abbott decision_but do you have equalized funding or has that been in Maryland 

before? 
41

Ms. Grasmick. We have a wealth-based system of state contribution, so in one 

jurisdiction may be 20 percent of the per pupil expenditure and in another jurisdiction it 

may be 80 percent. However, there is a disparity in terms of the per pupil expenditure 

that probably in the entire state, we only have 24 school systems. That would probably 

be about $1500, $1600 of disparity per pupil expenditure. 

Mr. Payne. That is interesting that you only have 24 school districts. 

Ms. Grasmick. That is correct. They do not have taxing authority. 

Mr. Payne. How is the base of the revenue_ 

Ms. Grasmick. It is property tax, primarily. However, there is a piggyback tax at the 

local jurisdictional level, which contributes to the determination of the wealth base of the 

individual jurisdiction. Then the state contribution is calibrated against the wealth of the 

individual jurisdiction. So Montgomery County probably receives about 25 percent of its 

funding from the state, whereas Baltimore City receives about 80. 

Mr. Payne. What is the overall population of Maryland, may be about 5 million people, 

do you think, something like that? 

Ms. Grasmick. Yes. 

Mr. Payne. Because I am just in my head trying to see what is wrong with New Jersey. I 

mean, there are a lot of things wrong with New Jersey. We used to dislike some of the 

jokes that went around about New Jersey. New Jersey is a wonderful place, and we 

invite you all to come to New Jersey to visit. 

Ms. Grasmick. We like New Jersey. 

Mr. Payne. However, we have 567 school districts in New Jersey. Every municipality 

has their own school district. They have their own police chief, they have their own fire 

chief. I mean, it is absolutely unbelievable. They have 567 building codes, as a matter of 

fact, at one time. If a builder wants to come into this municipality, you have to be, you 

know, three feet from the house, in the other it might be two feet, one place might say 

you've got to have a backyard. And so it was just nightmarish. I think they have worked 

at trying to standardize that. 

 But with our 567 school districts, at one time when Jonathan Kozol wrote the 

book Children in Trouble, a Natural Scandal, there was actually a 100 percent difference 

in some school districts. Camden was at about 4,000 per student, Princeton was at about 

8,000, 9,000 per student. It is based on the wealth of that particular town. 

 And so, I hear a lot about no child being left behind, testing kids on every grade.

Until they are 10:1 and your state has done into some degree, therefore the disparity is 

not nearly as great as it was in New Jersey, as I indicated, a hundred percent 

difference_until there is some way to equalize school districts, and I can see why there is 

less than a variance because you have less and it is easier to_and also the mechanisms, 

we now have a court decision, the Bonner decision, that is Cahill versus someone, when 

Governor Cahill was in as our governor 30 years ago, the case went in. It finally has 
42

been concluded. 

 In our Constitution, it says that every child_it is probably the only Constitution in 

the country that says that every child in the state is entitled to a thorough and sufficient 

education. And so that is what the court case was on. This child said he did not get a 

thorough and efficient education. So now we have what we call the 30 Abbott districts 

that will get additional funds. Finally, a school modernization program where the Abbott 

districts will get a substantially higher amount of money, although it was supposed to be 

only for the 30 Abbott districts. But the state legislators felt that they've got to give some 

money to their own place. So every school district in New Jersey now will get some of 

this modernization money, even though some don't need it and don't know what to do 

with it. 

 But we all want to see public education work. I just do not support the voucher 

concept. I certainly don't support children not being taught either. So we have got to 

figure out some way, and being a product of the public school system, I think that that is 

what has made America different than all the other countries in the world because we 

have had a strong public education system. We have to get back to it being uniformly 

strong for all children. 

 But I certainly feel that the best way to destroy the public school system is to 

simply give vouchers that will simply be taken by those who are more mobile and more 

committed to seeing that their child gets an education, and every parent should be that 

way. But everyone doesn't do everything that every person is supposed to do. And I 

don't think therefore the child should be left behind because they have a bad parent. 

 So I really don't have a question, but I just wanted to_certainly I am impressed by 

what has happened with this Edison school. I know that throughout the country there has 

been sort of checkered_the jury is still out on the Edison system. 

 I know in some places that tried it, it worked; in some places it didn't work. But I 

am happy to hear that at least after the first year_and that is another thing. The initial 

bump. We find that in Texas, when they had standardized testing, they taught to the test, 

there was an initial bump up. But then after time passed, it was almost a one-shot 

quantum leap, which then was not sustained. And it also pushed the dropout rate up in 

Texas because of this exit test and so forth. 

 So it is a complicated system. I certainly don't have the answer, but I really 

appreciate your testimony. 

 If you have any comment, I would be glad to hear it. 

Ms. Grasmick. Yes, I do. I worry about the same things as you. I would like to say; we 

did not just randomly select Edison. We go through a very rigorous procurement process. 

We have set the strictest benchmarks for performance of the student, including the 

percentage of teachers, which must be certified. So the standards we have set for them 

are rigorous and we can terminate the contract for what we called convenience, our 

convenience, if we do not feel they are measuring up to what should be done to improve 

those schools. 
43

 I really present this today as another model. I don't think this particular action, 

this particular way, has been done anywhere else in the country. And I wanted to 

integrate this into your thinking, because it makes the statement that failing schools are 

unacceptable and children should not have to attend them by accident of where they live. 

And yet, within the general education structure of a state, with the will and the rigor, that 

you can make some very dramatic steps to improve those schools. 

Mr. Isakson. I would like to thank Dr. Grasmick for her valuable testimony and her 

valuable time. I would like to thank the members for their participation today. If there is 

no further business to come before the committee, the committee stands adjourned. 

 [Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
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Table of Indexes 

Chairman Boehner, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34 

Governor Ridge, 4, 5, 6, 14, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 26, 28 

Mr. Andrews, 27, 29 

Mr. Castle, 4, 23, 24 

Mr. Greenwood, 3 

Mr. Isakson, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 43 

Mr. Kildee, 20, 21, 22, 34, 35 

Mr. McKeon, 17, 18, 19, 20 

Mr. Miller, 3 

Mr. Osborne, 35 

Mr. Payne, 40, 41 

Mr. Roemer, 36, 37, 38 

Mrs. Morella, 30 

Ms. Grasmick, 31, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 

Senator Carper, 5, 10, 13, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30