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ESSA IMPLEMENTATION IN STATES AND SCHOOL 

DISTRICTS: PERSPECTIVES FROM EDUCATION 

LEADERS 

HEARING 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, 

LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

ON

EXAMINING EVERY STUDENT SUCCEEDS ACT IMPLEMENTATION IN 

STATES AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS, FOCUSING ON PERSPECTIVES FROM 

EDUCATION LEADERS 

FEBRUARY 23, 2016 

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

( 

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

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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee, Chairman 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

SUSAN COLLINS, Maine 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

MARK KIRK, Illinois 

TIM SCOTT, South Carolina 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

BILL CASSIDY, M.D., Louisiana 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts 

DAVID P. CLEARY, Republican Staff Director 

LINDSEY WARD SEIDMAN, Republican Deputy Staff Director 

EVAN SCHATZ, Minority Staff Director 

JOHN RIGHTER, Minority Deputy Staff Director 

(II) 

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C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS 

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016 

Page 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Alexander, Hon. Lamar, Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 

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

Murray, Hon. Patty, a U.S. Senator from the State of Washington ................... 4 

Baldwin, Hon. Tammy, a U.S. Senator from the State of Wisconsin .................. 6 

Kirk, Hon. Mark, a U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois ................................. 6 

Hatch, Hon. Orrin G., a U.S. Senator from the State of Utah ............................ 7 

Bennet, Hon. Michael F., a U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado ................. 43 

Whitehouse, Hon. Sheldon, a U.S. Senator from the State of Rhode Island ...... 44 

Franken, Hon. Al, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota .......................... 48 

Cassidy, Hon. Bill, a U.S. Senator from the State of Louisiana .......................... 50 

Warren, Hon. Elizabeth, a U.S. Senator from the State of Massachusetts ........ 52 

WITNESSES

Herbert, Hon. Gary R. Herbert, Governor of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT ............. 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 10 

Weingarten, Randi, President, American Federation of Teachers, AFL–CIO, 

Washington, DC ................................................................................................... 13 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 15 

Pringle, Becky, Vice President, National Education Association, Washington, 

DC .......................................................................................................................... 16 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 18 

Evers, Tony, Ph.D., State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Wisconsin 

Department of Public Instruction, Madison, WI ............................................... 19 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 21 

Schuler, David R., Ph.D., Superintendent of Schools, Township High School 

District #214, Arlington Heights, IL .................................................................. 24 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 26 

Haycock, Kati, President, The Education Trust, Washington, DC ...................... 27 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 28 

Pompa, Delia, Senior Fellow of Education Policy, Migration Policy Institute, 

Washington, DC ................................................................................................... 32 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 34 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.: 

National Governors Association, letter ........................................................... 3 

A Framework of Indicators for School Success, American Federation of 

Teachers, AFL-CIO ....................................................................................... 46 

(III) 

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(1) 

ESSA IMPLEMENTATION IN STATES AND 

SCHOOL DISTRICTS: PERSPECTIVES FROM 

EDUCATION LEADERS 

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in room 

SD–430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lamar Alexander, 

chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Alexander, Murray, Burr, Kirk, Scott, Hatch, 

Cassidy, Franken, Bennet, Whitehouse, Baldwin, and Warren. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ALEXANDER

The CHAIRMAN. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, 

Labor, and Pensions will please come to order. 

Senator Murray and I will each have an opening statement, and 

then we’ll introduce our panel of witnesses. We welcome you. After 

our witnesses’ testimony, Senators will have 5 minutes of questions. I’ll ask our witnesses to summarize their testimony in 5 minutes, that’ll leave us more opportunity for discussion. 

In December, the President signed into law the Every Student 

Succeeds Act, a bill to fix No Child Left Behind, which Newsweek 

magazine said was the law that, ‘‘everybody wanted to fix.’’ The 

Wall Street Journal then said that the new law was the, ‘‘largest 

devolution of Federal power to the states in a quarter century.’’ 

There was a consensus that this was a law that everybody wanted fixed, but there was also a consensus about how to fix it, and 

that was this. Keep the 17 federally required State-designed tests 

between grades three and 12 so we can know how our children are 

doing, disaggregate those results and report them to the public, but 

restore back to classroom teachers, local school boards, communities, and States the responsibility for what to do about the results of those tests. 

The Every Student Succeeds Act very clearly changed the way 

the Department of Education does business. It very clearly put 

States, school districts, principals, teachers, and parents back in 

charge. Gone are the Federal Common Core mandate. Gone are 

what I would call Mother-May-I conditional waivers. Gone are the 

highly qualified teacher definitions and requirements. Gone are the 

Federal teacher evaluation mandates, Federal school turnaround 

models, Federal test-based accountability, and adequate yearly 

progress. 

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The Secretary is specifically prohibited from telling States how 

to set academic standards, how to evaluate State tests, how to 

identify and fix low-performing schools, teacher evaluation systems, 

and setting State goals for student achievement and graduation 

rates. But a law that is not properly implemented is not worth the 

paper it’s printed on. 

This year, a major priority of this committee will be to make sure 

that this bill is implemented the way Congress wrote it. This legislation was truly a bipartisan effort, and I think it’s fair to say that 

every single member of this committee made some contribution to 

the final product that was signed by President Obama on December 10. Senator Murray was especially a leader in this bipartisan 

result. 

This is a law that 85 out of 100 U.S. Senators voted in favor of, 

and 19 out of 22 members of this committee voted for it. It passed 

the House, and the President signed it, as I said, in a White House 

ceremony in December. The President called it a Christmas miracle. 

This is the first of six hearings we will hold this year in this committee to make sure that the law is being implemented in the way 

we wrote it. The House of Representatives will do the same thing. 

It looks like we’ll have some support in doing this. 

The law was written and passed with the support and input of 

a host of organizations that do not always work together, that is, 

Governors, chief State school officers, teachers unions, school superintendents, school boards, principals, and PTAs. Many of these 

organizations are represented here today by our witnesses. 

In front of each of the members of our committee is a letter to 

the acting Secretary of Education John King, who will have his 

confirmation hearing on Thursday of this week, a letter from a coalition of most of these organizations to Dr. King. The letter says, 

‘‘Although our organizations do not always agree, we are unified in our belief that the new law is an historic opportunity 

to make a world-class 21st Century education system. And 

we’re dedicated to working together at the national level to facilitate partnership among our members and States and districts to guarantee the success of this new law.’’ It goes on to 

say, ‘‘The new law replaces a top-down accountability and testing regime with an inclusive system based on collaborative 

State and local innovation. For this vision to become a reality, 

we must work together to closely honor congressional intent. 

ESSA is clear. Education decisionmaking now rests with States 

and districts, and the Federal role is to support and inform 

those decisions.’’ 

This letter came from the National Governors Association, the 

School Superintendents Association, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Conference of State Legislators, the National Association of State 

Boards of Education, the National School Board Association, the 

National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National 

Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Teachers 

Association, and it has the support of the Chief State School Officers. 

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3 

I will ask consent to place that letter in the record following my 

comments. 

My objectives in the committee will be the same that are in this 

letter, to work together to ensure a timely, fair transition to the 

new law and promote State and local decisionmaking. In other 

words, make sure that what happens is what Congress said should 

happen. 

This coalition and letter are an excellent first step. An excellent 

second step is the President’s decision to nominate an Education 

Secretary rather than for us to go a whole year without someone 

confirmed and accountable to the Senate and the American people. 

I said to the President at the signing ceremony in December that 

if he would send us a nominee, this Education Committee would 

have a fair hearing and markup and, barring some kind of ethical 

issue, which we don’t expect, work to have that person promptly 

confirmed by the full Senate. The President sent his nomination on 

February 11. We will have our hearing with Dr. King this Thursday. 

Then what are the next steps? I addressed the National Governors Association on Sunday. I thanked them for their lead in 

helping to pass the bill and for being a part of the coalition that 

will seek to make sure that it’s implemented the way Congress 

wrote it. I asked each Governor to form his or her own State coalition and include representatives of the national coalition: chief 

State school officers, teachers, principals, legislators, school districts, school boards, and parents. 

I said to the Governors that I expect this transfer of power from 

Washington to States, cities, and classrooms will unleash a period 

of innovation and excellence. It will remind us that the real path 

to higher standards is through the States, cities, and classrooms, 

and not through Washington, DC. 

My hope is that the coalition will work together to help States 

develop their new title I and title II plans by July 1, 2017, next 

year, so that they can be effective in the 2017–2018 school year. 

And my hope is that possibly all this working together might actually help put education on the front burner and move politics a little bit to the back burner. 

I want to ask those of you who are testifying here today on behalf of the seven organizations to communicate this year with our 

committee about how you believe the Department is responding. 

We’d like to know, not just today, but later this year your thoughts 

and feedback. I look forward to the discussion today. I look forward 

to hearing from our witnesses. 

I ask unanimous consent, as I said, to include the coalition letter 

that I mentioned in my testimony. 

[The above referenced material follows:] 

NATIONAL GOVERNORS ASSOCIATION, 

FEBRUARY 10, 2016. 

JOHN B. KING, JR., Acting Secretary, 

U.S. Department of Education, 

400 Maryland Avenue, 

Washington, DC 20202. 

DEAR ACTING SECRETARY KING: On behalf of States, school districts, educators 

and parents, we write to express our strong, shared commitment to making the 

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Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) a law that puts students first. We invite you 

to work with us to ensure that communities determine the best methods of educating our Nation’s children. 

Although our organizations do not always agree, we are unified in our belief that 

ESSA is a historic opportunity to make a world-class 21st century education system. 

We are dedicated to working together at the national level to facilitate partnership 

among our members in States and districts to guarantee the success of this new 

law. 

ESSA replaces a top-down accountability and testing regime with an inclusive 

system based on collaborative State and local innovation. For this vision to become 

a reality, we must work together to closely honor congressional intent. ESSA is 

clear: Education decisionmaking now rests with States and districts, and the Federal role is to support and inform those decisions. 

In the coming months, our coalition—the State and Local ESSA Implementation 

Network—will: 

• Work together to ensure a timely, fair transition to ESSA; 

• Coordinate ESSA implementation by Governors, State superintendents, school 

boards, State legislators, local superintendents, educators and parents; 

• Promote State, local and school decisionmaking during implementation; and 

• Collaborate with a broader group of education stakeholders to provide guidance 

to the Federal Government on key implementation issues. 

In ESSA, Congress recognizes States and schools as well-suited to provide a highquality education to every child, regardless of their background. We have long 

prioritized lifting up those students who need help the most and our members stand 

ready to continue this work. 

Our organizations look forward to a cooperative, collaborative and productive relationship with you and your staff throughout the implementation process. 

Sincerely, 

Scott D. Pattison, Executive Director/CEO, National Governors Association; William T. Pound, Executive Director, National Conference of State Legislatures; 

Kristen J. Amundson, Executive Director, National Association of State Boards of 

Education; Daniel A. Domenech, Executive Director, AASA: The School Superintendents Association; JoAnn D. Bartoletti, Executive Director, National Association of 

Secondary School Principals; Lily Eskelsen Garcia, President, National Education 

Association; Thomas J. Gentzel, Executive Director, National School Boards Association; Gail Connelly, Executive Director, National Association of Elementary School 

Principals; Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers; Laura 

M. Bay, President, National PTA. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Murray. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURRAY

Senator MURRAY. Thank you very much, Chairman Alexander, 

and I really appreciate all of our witnesses taking the time to be 

here with us today. 

At this time last year, Chairman Alexander and I were just 

starting out on our bipartisan effort to fix No Child Left Behind. 

We both agreed—in fact, everyone in the country agreed—that the 

current law was badly broken. So we did work together, along with 

our colleagues in this committee and our counterparts in the 

House, Chairman Kline and Ranking Member Scott. I am really 

proud that we were able to break through the partisan gridlock in 

Congress and find common ground and pass the Every Student 

Succeeds Act with very strong bipartisan support. 

Throughout our work, I fought hard for my State priorities, 

Washington State priorities, because last year, I heard from so 

many people, including a woman named Lillian who lives in Shoreline, WA. When her son was going to the fourth grade, Lillian got 

a letter in the mail 2 weeks before classes started describing her 

school as failing. 

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Those letters home to parents were a consequence of Washington 

State losing its waiver from the No Child Left Behind’s burdensome requirements. Lillian said it left her and parents worried 

about the type of education her son was getting. Now that our new 

law is on the books, I am committed to making sure that parents 

like Lillian, teachers, schools, and especially our students in my 

home State and across the country get what they need. 

Here’s what our law does. The Every Student Succeeds Act gives 

States more flexibility, but it also includes strong Federal guardrails for States as they design their accountability systems. It preserves the Department’s role to implement and enforce the law’s 

Federal requirements and reduces reliance on high-stakes testing, 

and it makes significant new investments to improve and expand 

access to preschool for our Nation’s youngest learners, to name just 

a few provisions of the law. 

Now and in the coming months, this law will go from legislative 

text to action steps as the Department of Education and States get 

to work to carry it out. While the Department goes through this 

process and as States develop their new systems and policies, I will 

be closely monitoring several issues to make sure our law lives up 

to its intent to provide all students with a high-quality education. 

As I mentioned, Washington State saw firsthand how broken No 

Child Left Behind really was, especially when our State lost its 

waiver. I was glad the Department announced last month that during the transition to the new law in this upcoming school year, 

school districts in Washington State will no longer be required to 

send those failing school letters home to parents like the one Lillian got. And our State will regain funding flexibility to better target effective services to students most in need. That is the first of 

what I hope will be many positive steps to make sure our Nation’s 

primary, elementary, and secondary education law works for Washington State, students, parents, teachers, and communities. 

Earlier this year, the Department received nearly 370 comments 

from groups across the country. Those comments made clear that 

stakeholders need more clarity in the form of regulations and guidance to implement the law effectively. Many stakeholders requested the Department define vague terms and set broad parameters in key areas like assessments, accountability, school supports, 

and interventions, and I hope the Department will provide this 

much needed clarity. 

I also expect the Department to use its full authority under the 

Every Student Succeeds Act to hold schools and States accountable 

for offering a quality education. That means, among other things, 

making sure States have meaningful accountability systems and 

enforcing the State level cap on the use of simplified alternate assessments for students with disabilities. 

I’ll be taking a close look at any guidance or regulations from the 

Department for school interventions and supports which will be 

critical to helping our low-performing schools improve. I also want 

to make sure the Department carries out the law’s provisions that 

will help reduce reliance on redundant and unnecessary testing. 

Finally, I will continue to be very focused on the competitive 

grant program to expand access to high-quality preschool. That 

means the Department of Health and Human Services should work 

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closely with the Department of Education so many students get the 

chance to start kindergarten ready to learn. 

At its heart, the Nation’s primary, elementary, and secondary 

education law is a civil rights law, and it’s up to all of us to uphold 

that legacy and promise for students, including many of the groups 

represented here today from advocacy groups to school officials at 

the State and local level. And I look forward to hearing from each 

of you today on how we can make sure this law provides a good 

education for every child. Thank you again for being here. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Murray. 

I want to welcome our seven witnesses. Each has a distinguished 

resume ́. For those that I will introduce, I’m going to keep it short 

so that we can spend more time visiting with you. 

The first witness is the Governor of Utah, Governor Gary Herbert. He is also the current chair of the National Governors Association, and over the weekend, they met here. They met with President Obama. I met with them as well, as did other Senators, and 

they talked about the State coalitions that they would form to help 

implement the law. 

Our second witness is Ms. Randi Weingarten. She is the president of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.6 

million members nationwide. Washington Life magazine included 

Ms. Weingarten on its 2013 Power 100 List of Influential Leaders. 

Our third witness is Ms. Becky Pringle. She is the vice president 

of the National Education Association, the Nation’s largest labor 

union and professional association for educators with 3 million 

members. Ms. Pringle has 31 years of teaching experience as a 

middle school science teacher. 

Senator Baldwin will introduce our fourth witness. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR BALDWIN

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m pleased to welcome Dr. Tony Evers to the committee. He is currently serving his 

second term as Wisconsin’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction. He began his career in 1976 in the city of Tomah and has 

served students, parents, educators, and citizens for four decades, 

serving as a principal, school district administrator, educational 

service agency administrator, deputy State superintendent, and 

now State superintendent. He also currently serves as president of 

the Council of Chief State School Officers. 

Tony, we’re very pleased to have you here and look forward to 

your testimony. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Baldwin. 

Senator Kirk will introduce our fifth witness. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR KIRK

Senator KIRK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to introduce Dr. David Schuler, who is here from Arlington Heights, IL, 

District 214. When I was a Congressman, I dealt a lot with District 

214. It had an outstanding data analysis effort, the best team in 

the State, I would say. I’m very excited to hear from Dr. Schuler, 

the president of the American Association of School Administrators. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Kirk. 

Last, we will hear from Ms. Delia Pompa, who is Senior Fellow 

for—no, Kati Haycock is next. Excuse me, Kati. 

Ms. Haycock serves as president of the Education Trust in Washington, DC, a national nonprofit advocacy organization working to 

help improve student achievement. 

Kati, welcome. 

Ms. Delia Pompa is Senior Fellow for Education Policy at the Migration Policy Institute. Her research is focused on immigrant students and English learners. 

Senator Hatch, I briefly introduced Governor Herbert before you 

came, and he’ll be our first witness. But if you’d like to make other 

comments about him, you’re certainly welcome to. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR HATCH

Senator HATCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your recognition. 

Seeing all of you here today, I can’t help but be reminded of what 

a truly bipartisan accomplishment this committee has achieved. It’s 

a pleasure to be with you, and I feel especially grateful to be here 

with a true statesman and a dear friend, Governor Gary Herbert 

of Utah. 

As the chair of the National Governors Association, Governor 

Herbert was indispensable in our efforts to advance ESSA. In fact, 

thanks to his advocacy, the National Governors Association fully 

endorsed this critical legislation last fall. This was the organization’s first full endorsement in nearly 20 years. Governors across 

the Nation recognized that the expansive Federal footprint in education created by No Child Left Behind and the subsequent waivers 

from the law severely dampened States’ ability to innovate, improve, and adapt. 

I know Utah has been waiting a long time to say goodbye to 

these top-down policies, and I look forward to working together to 

ensure that implementation of ESSA is consistent with the law the 

President signed. 

Governors have a direct and real investment in the educational 

outcomes of their States. Through education, we can fight intergenerational poverty and jump start economic growth. I commend my 

home State of Utah for its proven record of finding new and targeted ways to improve education outcomes. 

Much of that credit has to go to Governor Herbert. His work in 

education has been truly exemplary. For example, Governor Herbert recently worked with leading aerospace companies in Utah to 

create the Utah Aerospace Pathways Program. This program allows high school students to graduate high school with an aerospace manufacturing certificate which they can use to continue 

their education or find a job. This program has garnered so much 

interest that it has spurred a diesel fuel sister program to rapidly 

address another emerging need in our State of Utah. Programs 

such as these equip graduates with the 21st Century skills they 

need to compete in a global economy. 

ESSA will continue to cultivate this innovation at the State level 

and, in particular, initiatives such as the Evidence Innovation and 

Research Program, and those allowable under the flexible title IV 

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block grant are purposely designed to allow thought leaders to expand upon evidence-based, locally grown initiatives. 

Like many of you, I believe these States should set their own 

standards and judge their schools according to student performance. When the schools fail to meet those standards, States and localities should work with the schools to develop new strategies that 

promote student success. That’s an absolute must. But it should be 

the role of the State and district, not the Federal Government, to 

intervene and determine how to help schools improve. Federal topdown policies, though they may be well intentioned, often overlook 

the unique tools and strategies that States already have to solve 

the problems at hand. 

You are all the ones who are directly involved and responsible for 

carrying out this law, and we look to you for guidance. And, in particular, Governor Herbert has set an example in this country in 

many ways, and Utah has been very, very blessed because of his 

leadership. I’m very happy to introduce him here this morning as 

a personal friend and a very, very wonderful Governor. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Hatch. 

Now I’ll ask the witnesses if you could summarize your comments in about 5 minutes. We have several Senators who would 

like to ask questions. Let’s begin with Governor Herbert and we’ll 

go right down the line. 

Governor Herbert. 

STATEMENT OF HON. GARY R. HERBERT, GOVERNOR OF 

UTAH, SALT LAKE CITY, UT 

Governor HERBERT. Thank you, and thank you, Senator Hatch, 

for those kind words. It’s an honor to be with you here. 

Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray, members of the 

committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today on behalf of 

the National Governors Association and the people of Utah. 

Replacing No Child Left Behind was the Governors’ top priority 

in 2015. Thank you for listening and returning education decisions 

back to the States. Now, through its implementation, States must 

make the promise of the Every Student Succeeds Act a reality. As 

chair of the NGA and on behalf of Governors, let me assure you 

that we are up to the task. 

Let me begin with several key points. The Governors’ formal endorsement of ESSA, our first of any Federal legislation in 20 years, 

is a testament to how closely Congress adhered to the Governors’ 

plan to replace No Child Left Behind and is a model for a process 

of what Federal lawmaking should be, a floor but not a ceiling. 

Governors view ESSA as an opportunity for States to set high 

but realistic expectations for schools while allowing local control to 

determine how to meet those expectations. Governors also believe 

that collaboration is essential and plan to facilitate partnership 

among education stakeholders at the national, State, and local levels. ESSA’s success will ultimately be determined by how well we 

implement the law working together. 

Over the last 4 days, Governors have been here in Washington 

discussing how to use this as an opportunity to truly innovate. As 

the laboratories of democracy, States intend to fully utilize the 

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flexibility given under the current law. ESSA recognizes the Governors’ role at the helm of State education systems by guaranteeing 

their involvement in development of the State plan and throughout 

the ongoing administration of the law. As States now assume more 

responsibility and authority over their education systems, Governors will use their role to elevate the importance of this law to 

address our most pressing education needs. 

ESSA takes Federal education policy from a siloed, one-dimensional system to one that recognizes what States knew long ago, 

that a high-quality education begins at early childhood and continues into the workforce. It acknowledges the growing bipartisan 

awareness of early childhood education in State capitals across the 

country by weaving early childhood education throughout the law. 

As Congress and the administration moves forward with ESSA 

implementation, I encourage you to look to the States to understand the breakthroughs that are possible with a collaborative 

State-Federal partnership. In Utah, we have proven that business 

and education can work together to help fill critical talent demands. Senator Hatch has mentioned Utah’s Aerospace Pathways 

Program. Spearheaded by companies like Boeing, it is a stackable 

credential model that is addressing the State’s unique workforce 

needs. 

Governors also view education as a critical tool to lift up students 

out of poverty and place them on a path to economic success. States 

and Governors will continue to prioritize a high-quality education 

for all students. But we will best accomplish this through State solutions. 

In Utah, addressing intergenerational poverty is a cornerstone of 

our agenda. To improve the academic performance of students from 

low-income families, we are increasing enrollment in full day kindergarten, and we’re making sure that low-income schools employ 

high-quality teachers. We’re also working to dramatically increase 

graduation rates for low-income students, like our work with Roy 

High School in northern Utah to increase their graduation rates 

from 77 percent to 84 percent while also cutting the school’s chronic absenteeism in half. 

Utah believes that too many brilliant young minds are too often 

lost in poverty. Those young minds represent human capital, capital that, if we tap into it, will empower their families to succeed, 

enable them to escape poverty, and, in turn, allow our economy to 

flourish like never before. ESSA is a tool for States to support important efforts like these. 

ESSA implementation will be the Governors’ top Federal priority 

in the coming months. We plan to engage early and often to ensure 

the Federal Government adheres closely to the following principles. 

One, as the leader of each State’s education system, Governors 

should be consulted for substantive input throughout the implementation process. Two, gentle guidance should be the primary tool 

the Federal Government uses to help with State implementation efforts. Three, any regulations should reflect congressional intent and 

be promulgated only for sections of the law where States and 

school districts agree that additional context is necessary. And, 

fourth, the Federal Government should allow a flexible timeline for 

State and local implementation. 

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1 NGA-National Conference of State Legislatures Plan to Reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Web. 12 Feb. 2016. <http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/ 

pdf/2015/ESEAGovernorsAndStateLegislaturesPlan.pdf>. 2 150 Cong. Rec. 11451 (2004). 

Ultimately, ESSA is built on the potential of State solutions and 

local control. We look forward to focusing those solutions on preparing students for the high-skill careers of the 21st Century and 

a productive life. 

On behalf of the Nation’s Governors, Mr. Chairman, thank you 

for the opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Governor Herbert follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GARY R. HERBERT

Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray and members of the Senate 

Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, thank you for inviting me to 

testify today on behalf of the National Governors Association (NGA) and the people 

of Utah. 

Governors made replacing an unworkable Federal education law our top priority 

in 2015. Congress listened and returned education decisionmaking back to the 

States. Now, through implementation, States must make the promise of the Every 

Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) a reality. 

As Chair of NGA and on behalf of Governors, let me assure you that we are up 

to the task. 

Let me begin with several key points: 

• Governors’ endorsement of ESSA, our first of any Federal legislation in 20 

years, is a testament to how closely Congress adhered to long-standing NGA priorities and the Governors’ plan to reauthorize ESEA.1

• ESSA is a model for what every Federal law should be: a floor, not a ceiling. 

It proves that bipartisan, bicameral creativity and compromise can still produce 

pragmatic solutions that equip States, schools, and teachers to improve the lives of 

students who need help the most. 

• Governors view ESSA as an opportunity for States to set high—but realistic— 

expectations for schools while allowing them to determine how to meet those expectations. 

• Governors believe that collaboration is essential and plan to facilitate partnerships among education stakeholders at the national, State and local levels to guarantee the success of this new law. 

• Over the last 4 days, Governors have been here in Washington discussing how 

we will truly innovate under ESSA. As the laboratories of democracy, States intend 

to fully utilize the flexibility to innovate under this new law. 

THE ROAD TO ESSA

Long before the Nation at Risk report first revealed shortcomings in our Nation’s 

education system, Governors understood that a thriving State economy and successful lives for citizens could only be realized by elevating the quality of schools in 

every community. The Federal Government’s response that report built on the leadership of education Governors and, together, they turned a time of education challenges into a time for results. 

In 1989, at an historic summit in Charlottesville, Governors and the President of 

the United States, for the first time, proclaimed education an issue of national concern. They agreed that it was States who must take the lead to improve education, 

while the Federal Government’s role was to support and inform their efforts. One 

Governor, quoting Winston Churchill, called the summit ‘‘the beginning of a new beginning.’’ 2

Twenty-six years later, after many lessons learned, ESSA again represents a ‘‘new 

beginning.’’ The new law embodies the spirit of that summit by recognizing that improving student performance should be paramount, but collaborative State and local 

solutions should guide that improvement, not the Federal Government. 

GOVERNORS SUPPORTING COLLABORATION

Since the beginning of 2016, 40 Governors have given State of the State addresses 

and all have spoken about the importance of a high-quality education. In fact, Governors’ reference their bold plans for the future of education more than 450 times 

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3 2016 Governors’ State of the State Addresses Information. Web. 12 Feb. 2016. <http:// 

www.nga.org/cms/home/special/col2-content/2016-state-of-the-state-dates.html>. 4Fiscal Survey of States, Spring 2015. National Association of State Budget Officers. Web. 12 

Feb. 2016. <http://www.nasbo.org/publications-data/fiscal-survey-states/fiscal-survey-statesspring-2015>. 5 Heller, Dean. Heller-Manchin Amendment to Every Child Achieves Act Passes Senate. Web. 

12 Feb. 2016.<http://www.heller.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=865cbe76-2227– 

4b3e-bc46–0afe5f0cab63>. 6 ‘‘Every Student Succeeds.’’ Letter to John King. 10 Feb. 2016. Web. <http://www.ncsl.org/ 

documents/statefed/ESSAlImplementationNetwork.pdf>. 7State Pre-K Funding for 2015–16 Fiscal Year: National trends in State preschool funding. 

Education Commission of the States. Web. 12 Feb. 2016. <http://www.ecs.org/ec-content/ 

uploads/01252016lPrek-KlFundinglreport-4.pdf>. 8 Ibid. 

in those addresses—more than any other policy area by a wide margin.3 Expenditures for K–12 education account for one-third of State budgets and Governors continue to prioritize increasing that percentage in 2016 by proposing new initiatives 

from teacher salary increases to resources to boost computer science education.4

ESSA recognizes Governors’ role at the helm of State education systems by guaranteeing their involvement in development of the State plan and throughout the ongoing administration of the law.5 As States now assume more responsibility and authority over their education systems, Governors will use their role to elevate the importance of ESSA to address our most pressing education needs. 

Strong collaboration at the State level is in the best interest of students, parents 

and educators in every State and we look forward to ensuring their voices are heard 

from the beginning. ESSA’s success will ultimately be determined by how well we 

implement the law together. The State and Local ESSA Implementation Network 6

will not only allow Governors to partner with teachers, principals, parents and State 

legislators to guarantee smooth implementation at the Federal level, but it will lay 

a foundation for similar coalitions to emerge in each State. 

STRENGTHENING THE EDUCATION PIPELINE

ESSA’s new emphasis on collaboration and gubernatorial involvement allows for 

unprecedented alignment and coordination across the education pipeline. Governors 

are connecting K–12 education with early childhood education, postsecondary education and the workforce training system to meet the current and future needs of 

their State’s economy. 

ESSA evolves Federal education policy from a siloed, one-dimensional system to 

one that recognizes what States knew long ago—a high-quality education begins at 

early childhood and continues into the workforce. 

The growing recognition of early childhood education’s importance is happening 

in communities and State capitols across the country, and with policymakers on 

both sides of the aisle. Last year was the fourth consecutive year that State early 

childhood education programs have expanded.7 This year, Governors and State legislatures in 45 States will invest nearly $7 billion State dollars in preschool programs.8

ESSA acknowledges this work by establishing the Preschool Development Grants 

program in law, allowing States the flexibility to use these funds for targeted student populations and programs designed to meet community-specific needs, such as 

Utah’s work with children caught in intergenerational poverty. Governors are now 

able to leverage: title I dollars for student’s transition from preschool and kindergarten to elementary school, Title II dollars to prepare and develop early childhood 

leaders and educators, and title III dollars to begin addressing the English proficiency for dual language learners in preschool. 

ESSA also fosters alignment with the workforce development system by making 

certain that State accountability systems take into account Governors’ workforce development plans required under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act 

(WIOA). School districts are now able to utilize ESSA funds for classes leading to 

industry-recognized credentials and career counseling. These new flexibilities will 

help Governors take education and workforce coordination to the next level. 

In Utah, we have proven that business and education can work together to help 

fill critical talent demands. The Utah Aerospace Pathways, spearheaded by Boeing 

and other aerospace companies in Utah, partners K–12 with vocational schools and 

Salt Lake Community College to create a true ‘‘stackable credential’’ model that is 

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9 Aerospace Program to Give Utah High-Schoolers Path into Industry. U.S. News and World 

Report. Web. 12 Feb. 2016. <http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2015/09/ 

15/aerospace-program-to-give-utah-high-schoolers-path-into-industry?page=2>. 10School Districts. United States Census Bureau. Web. 12 Feb. 2016. <https:// 

www.census.gov/did/www/schooldistricts/>. 

addressing short-term industry workforce needs. The program has been so successful that even U.S. News and World Report took notice.9

HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR STATES, STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS

This year, as Chair of NGA, I am highlighting Governors’ innovative solutions to 

today’s most pressing problems. As Congress and the Administration moves forward 

with ESSA implementation, I encourage you to look to the States to understand the 

breakthroughs possible through a collaborative state-Federal partnership. 

Testing 

In Virginia, Governor McAuliffe assembled a diverse coalition of school board 

members, teachers and parents that re-designed how assessments results are used, 

introduced new innovative forms of assessment and eliminated 5 unnecessary statewide exams. Governor McAuliffe’s experience and a dozen other similar efforts 

across the country can guide the U.S. Department of Education’s implementation of 

ESSA’s innovative testing pilot, expanded forms of assessment and flexibility to reduce high school testing. 

Educator Quality 

In Tennessee, Governor Haslam listened to educators and worked with them to 

adjust their statewide educator evaluation system’s reliance on math and English 

exams and to allow districts to determine how to use evaluation results to support 

teacher development. As the Federal Government gets out of the teacher evaluation 

business, Tennessee’s collaboration can inform States and the Federal Government 

as they determine how to move forward with teacher evaluations. 

School Improvement 

Governors recognize that a low-performing school threatens the future well-being 

of their citizens and the stability of State economies. Accordingly, they are taking 

ownership of the process to guide those schools back to excellence. Under No Child 

Left Behind, States could only choose from four strategies to improve schools in 

more than 14,000 school districts across the country.10 Under ESSA, States are now 

in the driver’s seat working with districts to determine evidence-based models that 

will produce results in the Nation’s lowest-performing schools. 

The Federal Government could look to Connecticut Governor Malloy’s statewide 

network to engage schools in an intensive turnaround process guided by teachers 

and parents. A school’s success under this system is not an afterthought; it is celebrated as an event that will change the lives and futures of children in their community. 

Improving Graduation Rates 

Utah is leading efforts to dramatically increase graduation rates. Two years ago, 

our legislature helped northern Utah’s Roy High School take a new approach to improving the school’s persistently low graduation rates. District leaders made Roy 

High’s graduation rate an outcome of student success at all of the elementary and 

middle schools sending students to the high school. Student performance throughout 

these schools was disaggregated and the results were discussed with parents, educators and the local community. 

The outcomes of this innovative program are impressive. Roy High’s graduation 

rates increased from 77 percent to 84 percent, chronic absenteeism was cut in half 

from 29 percent to 14 percent and enrollment and completion rates in Advanced 

Placement/dual enrollment courses jumped by 19–24 percent. 

The success of this project underscores the effectiveness of a model in which 

struggling students and their families are provided additional support—as opposed 

to the No Child Left Behind model consisting of varying degrees of punitive consequences. It also reinforces the fact that when resources are provided at the local 

level, communities are capable of finding solutions. 

State-Led Accountability 

Governors view education as a critical tool to lift up students out of poverty and 

place them on a path to successful lives. The top-down accountability and testing 

regime of NCLB and a commitment to assisting those students that need help the 

most are not a package deal. States and Governors will continue to prioritize a highHELPN-003 with DISTILLER

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11 Utah’s Plan for a Stronger Future: Five-and Ten-Year Plan to Address Intergenerational 

Poverty. Utah Intergenerational Welfare Reform Commission. Web. 12 Feb. 2016. <https:// 

jobs.utah.gov/edo/intergenerational/igp5—10yearplan.pdf>. 

quality education for all students—but we will accomplish this through State solutions. 

In Utah, addressing intergenerational poverty is a cornerstone of our agenda. It 

is clear that this problem cannot be solved at the Federal level, and even at the 

State level we’ve learned that we must work closely with counties, cities, school districts and schools to build coordinated health, education, workforce and human services strategies that work for their unique populations. 

To improve the academic performance of students from these low-income families, 

we’re increasing enrollment in full-day kindergarten, we’re making sure that lowincome schools employ high-quality teachers and we’re implementing programs to 

increase the graduation rate for all low-income students.11

Utah believes in the potential of the many brilliant young minds often lost in poverty. Those young minds represent human capital. Capital that, if we tap into it, 

will empower their families to succeed, equip them to escape poverty and, in turn, 

allow our economy to flourish like never before. 

ESSA is a tool for States to support efforts like these; not to back down from 

them. 

CONCLUSION AND NEXT STEPS

ESSA implementation will be Governors’ top Federal priority in the coming 

months and years. We plan to engage early and often to ensure the U.S. Department of Education adheres closely to the following principles: 

• As the leader of each State’s education system and the official responsible for 

creating lifelong learning from early childhood into the workforce, Governors should 

be consulted for substantive input throughout the ESSA implementation process; 

• Guidance should be the primary tool the Federal Government uses to inform 

State efforts to implement ESSA; 

• Regulations should reflect congressional intent and be promulgated only for sections of ESSA where States, districts and the Federal Government agree additional 

context is necessary; 

Federal agencies should recognize ESSA’s alignment of Federal K–12 policy with 

State early childhood, postsecondary and workforce policies by enabling State collaboration across these areas; and 

• Recognizing each State’s readiness to implement ESSA varies, the Federal Government should allow a flexible timeline to allow for early implementation or provide additional time for States to make necessary changes to State policy and improvements to State infrastructure. 

Furthermore, Governors will apply the lessons of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) implementation to our work on ESSA. With only guidance 

and without a regulation, Governors moved quickly and collaboratively to leverage 

WIOA’s flexibility to develop State plans that envision a new, State-designed workforce system. Governors will work to implement ESSA with that same purpose. 

Ultimately, ESSA is built on the potential of State solutions and we look forward 

to focusing those solutions on empowering educators and parents to prepare students for the high-skill careers of the 21st century and a successful life. 

On behalf of the Nation’s Governors, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I 

would be happy to answer questions at the appropriate time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Governor Herbert. 

Ms. Weingarten. 

STATEMENT OF RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN 

FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, AFL–CIO, WASHINGTON, DC 

Ms. WEINGARTEN. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senators, and 

I particularly want to thank Senators Alexander and Murray and 

this whole committee for actually doing something that no one 

thought that Washington could do in terms of this reset. I really 

thank you. 

My name is Randi Weingarten. I’m the head of the AFT. But I 

want to speak today as a classroom teacher, because what my 

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members are saying—and we’ve had many, many of them on the 

phone about this process. We had over 172,000 of them on the 

phone a few days after the bill was signed. That gives you a sense 

of how interested they are in this. They asked the following question: ‘‘What will be different? We want things to be different.’’ 

They are fighting for the public schools their students deserve. 

They want to give the kids the opportunities that Governor Herbert 

just talked about, and they want to have the latitude, the conditions, the tools, and the respect they need for their jobs. They appreciate the reset. 

Let me make two or three more comments before I stop. The 

most important thing that States can do is to actually focus on 

these new accountability systems, accountability systems that are 

aligned with what kids need to know and be able to do, that help 

teachers help kids get there, and a system that actually, then, 

measures that progress or enables that progress. That’s what the 

reset was, to go from a top-down test and punish system to one 

that will unleash that kind of creativity but also make sure that 

people are really focused on the kids that need education most. 

That’s No. 1. 

Several of us have actually thought about what these systems 

should look like, and we are not proposing a top-down system, but 

to have States and enable States and locals to actually really start 

dreaming and thinking about this in terms of academic outcomes, 

opportunity to learn, and engagement and support. 

The second piece is that our members, my members—and I’m 

sure this is true with Becky’s members as well—they want to do 

this work. Our whole executive council had a meeting last week 

where we spent hours talking about the things that they need help 

from their national union to do, what are the supports, what are 

the strategies to turn schools around, to make sure that there are 

real pathways for career tech-ed, to make sure that kids actually 

have those early learning opportunities to address poverty and persistent poverty, and have a reset in terms of evaluation, not from 

the Federal level, but from State and local levels, and they really 

want to do this. 

So the thing I would ask is that we have to have the time to do 

this right. We have gone through many, many reforms where there 

is a rush to publish and a rush to create and no attention paid to 

the implementation. So my members are asking—when they say, 

‘‘What will it look like? How will it be different?’’—they want to see 

that the current system is put on hold for a little while so that we 

can actually have this new unleashing of creativity, this new accountability system, these new systems where they can actually engage kids. Put the current testing system on hold—not the tests 

and not data, but a moratorium on the high-stakes system that you 

have just reset. 

The last thing I would say is that we need to actually make sure 

States do their jobs and not have the Federal Government do so 

much regulation that this now becomes a repeat of the debate we 

just had. Let us do the work that Senator Alexander just talked 

about, us together, showing together that we actually really care 

about kids, and we can actually unleash that creativity and create 

the stability that children need. 

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And, finally, finally, I’ve been working in education for a long 

time. We must seize the opportunity to get this reset right. This 

is the opportunity to redefine student learning in the robust way 

that any parent or educator would value and to offer the interventions that put struggling schools on the path to success, to have 

interventions that Kati and I would agree together would work to 

turn around schools. 

So I challenge district and State and Federal officials and all of 

us to empower and support teachers, to stoke students’ curiosity, 

and help them pursue their dreams. And we stand ready to partner 

at every level with all who share this goal and to share the goal 

of bringing back joy to learning and to teaching. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Weingarten follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANDI WEINGARTEN

Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray. On behalf of the 1.6 million 

members of the American Federation of Teachers, I appreciate the opportunity to 

testify on the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act. The AFT represents teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel across the country. 

Our members fight for the public schools their students deserve, that can help give 

them the opportunities they need, and for educators who teach them to have the 

latitude, conditions, tools and respect to do their jobs. ESSA gives us the opportunity for the reset needed to move from a test-and-sanction environment to one of 

support and improvement. 

Before going any further, I want to thank Senators Alexander and Murray for 

their tremendous work. In a time of increased partisanship and gridlock, your leadership made all the difference. By working with and listening to educators, parents, 

school administrators and other stakeholders, you have made it possible for States 

to move away from high-stakes testing and punitive sanctions that have left students alternately stressed or bored, frustrated parents, and deprofessionalized and 

demoralized teachers. 

You have made it possible for States to create new accountability systems that 

focus on the meaningful learning that will prepare children for the complex world 

they are entering. You have made it possible to support educators as they meet the 

needs of the whole child, and have maintained the original intent of the Elementary 

and Secondary Education Act to address significant poverty and its effects. But 

States will need time to get it done and get it right. 

Though ESSA is not perfect, the AFT supported its passage, as it will help level 

the playing field for those students most in need to have opportunities to be prepared for life, college and career. ESSA turns the page on the broken policies of No 

Child Left Behind, NCLB waivers and Race to the Top. It has the potential to ensure every public school is a place where parents want to send their kids, where 

students are engaged, where educators want to teach, where the curriculum is rich, 

where there is joy in teaching and learning, and where, ultimately, all children are 

successful. 

While States create new, more effective teaching and learning systems, they 

should hold off on continuing to use the current, flawed high-stakes testing regime. 

As States develop the timelines and strategies for the interim period between passage of the new law and its full implementation—which is over 18 months—the AFT 

renews its call for a moratorium on the consequences of high-stakes testing. A reset 

means a reset. 

Many States have already begun this, and we urge others to follow suit. For example, New York has adopted a 4-year break on consequences of State tests for students and teachers. The Utah Legislature has introduced a bill to put a pause on 

how test scores are used. A lawsuit in New Mexico challenges the State’s unreliable 

and unfair teacher evaluation system. And just last week, Tennessee announced 

that student test scores would not be used in teacher evaluations. 

School districts and States now need to dive deeply into the new work—which includes building accountability systems that provide a framework for school and student success. Our public schools should be places where children are met where they 

are and have multiple pathways to realize their potential. They should offer an engaging curriculum that focuses on teaching and learning, not testing, and that includes art, music, the sciences, physical education and project-based learning. 

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Accountability systems should measure and reflect this broader vision of learning 

by using a framework of indicators for school success centered on academic outcomes, opportunity to learn, and engagement and support. For example, the AFT 

recommends academic outcomes measured by assessments, progress toward graduation, and career- and college-readiness. Opportunity-to-learn indicators should include curriculum access and participation, sufficient resources, and measures of 

school climate. Engagement and support indicators should look not only at students, 

but at teacher and parent/community involvement. This is hard work, and State 

leaders will need the input of educators and parents, informed by best practices 

found throughout the world. 

REGULATORY PROCESS

To provide the best opportunity for success, the AFT has urged the U.S. Department of Education to stick to the letter of the law that garnered such broad bipartisan support and limit guidance and regulation to only those issues that need clarification to make the law functional in practice. This is a new era of flexibility. Decisionmaking should be left to the States and the educators, parents and community 

members—the true stakeholders. 

As I wrote in a letter to Acting Secretary King in January regarding opting out 

and test participation requirements, States are now working out how they will move 

to new accountability systems, and they need flexibility and support, not threats of 

losing funding. There is no doubt that teachers will not like everything States do, 

but the intent of this law is clear. Hopefully, most States have learned from the failures of NCLB and will give educators the latitude and resources to deeply engage 

students and to focus on the whole child. 

The AFT is working with a coalition of States, school districts, educators and parents united by our strong, shared commitment to making ESSA work for students. 

Although all these stakeholders do not always agree, we are unified in our belief 

that ESSA is a historic opportunity. It is critical that this work has a direct impact 

in the classroom where teachers teach and students learn. We are dedicated to 

working together at the national level to facilitate our members’ efforts to guarantee 

the success of this new law. 

WE ALL HAVE TO STEP UP TO MAKE THE NEW LAW WORK

Together, we must seize the opportunity to get this reset right. This is the opportunity to redefine student learning in the robust way that any parent or educator 

would value, and to offer interventions that will put struggling schools on the path 

to success. I challenge district, State and Federal officials, and all of us, to empower 

and support teachers to stoke students’ curiosity and help them pursue their 

dreams. We stand ready to partner at every level with all who share the goal of 

bringing back the joy of teaching and learning. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Weingarten. 

Ms. Pringle. 

STATEMENT OF BECKY PRINGLE, VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL 

EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, DC 

Ms. PRINGLE. Good morning, Senators, and thank you, Chairman 

Alexander and Senator Murray, not only for your leadership in the 

passage of the ESSA, but your obvious commitment to the implementation of this law. We know that the implementation will determine whether the aspirational goals of this law will actually 

make a difference for students. 

My name is Becky Pringle, and as you stated, I have spent over 

30 years teaching middle school students science. In that experience, dealing with my babies with attitude, I gained a love not only 

of teaching but of advocacy for making sure that they had everything they needed to be successful. 

I have this amazing, a bit surreal, opportunity to represent 3 

million teachers and education support professionals around this 

country. And I will tell you that as we actually began to believe 

that No Child Left Behind would become a thing of the past, we 

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talked with thousands and thousands of members across the country. 

What they told us is they wanted three things. They wanted to 

ensure that their students had the access and opportunity to make 

sure that every one of them had the chance for success. They wanted us to guarantee that educators’ expertise—the professionals who 

actually work with the students in the classroom not only had a 

voice, but they were part of the decisionmaking. The third thing 

they wanted was to reduce the volume and the high-stakes use and 

overuse and overspending on standardized tests so that they could 

actually have the time to teach and their students had the time to 

learn. 

The new law has the potential to actually deliver on all three of 

these things, so we could not be more excited. It paves the way for 

the opportunity to become a real part of what gets counted now. 

This is a historic development for this country and for education. 

The law also gives significant responsibilities now to States and to 

local districts, and with those decisions comes great responsibility, 

and we are working very closely to make sure that everyone steps 

up to that responsibility. 

This shift offers the U.S. Department of Education the opportunity to focus on what it should do best, which is the enforcement 

authority to ensure that students actually have equitable access 

and resources so that they can have a robust and well rounded 

education and so that they have the supports that they must have 

to fulfill their greatest potential, to become constructive members 

of their communities, to become productive participants in our 

economy, and to become engaged citizens of the United States and 

the world. 

The kind of monumental transition that we’re talking about will 

require deep collaboration, and we could not be more excited about 

the conversations that have started with the coalition of folks sitting at this table. And you asked, Senator Alexander, that the Governors go back and form these coalitions back in their States. 

None of us can fall victim to the allure of shortcuts. That’s what 

we’re so excited about, that there is actually time built into this 

law for collaboration. It’s only through this authentic commitment 

of all stakeholders to engage in this law together will we be successful for our students. The time to do this right is built into 

ESSA, and we urge the Department of Education to set a good example by not rushing its part of this very, very important process 

for the sake of expediency. 

The implementation process will simultaneously be developing at 

all levels, the national, State, and local, and ultimately in schools 

across this country as policies are updated. We urge that the Department ensure that this regulatory process is designed to include 

the best thinking, the ideas, and the concepts of educators and 

other stakeholders around the country. 

We must see more listening, not less, and we at the NEA are 

taking the lead on that. We have brought members and leaders, 

teachers and ESP from around the country several times into DC 

to have conversations about what they’re thinking, what they’re 

planning, what their ideas are to make sure that the implementation of this law does what we need for our students. 

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Since January, NEA has joined with our State and local affiliates 

to create a cadre of educators on ESSA implementation. During 

this last holiday, we brought in over 60 leaders to provide us with 

their ideas, their best ideas, on what this new accountability system can look like. And when we talk about an opportunity dashboard, what kind of indicators are in that dashboard? We need to 

talk about that together, and we need to learn from each other, and 

that’s what we intend on doing. 

As educators, we know how lucky we are to have this privilege 

and this honor of stepping up, to leading what we’re calling a 

transformation of our public education, because that’s what’s needed now. We need to be building toward the future of our students, 

not looking back at the past. We are ready to chart new pathways 

for our students’ success. We are excited to lead and to help in this 

new beginning, and we are ready. 

On behalf of the 3 million members of the NEA and as a teacher 

of so many years, I thank you for the collaboration that you demonstrated in passing this law, and we look forward to continued 

work with you to make it right for our students. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Pringle follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BECKY PRINGLE

Thank you Chairman Alexander, Senator Murray and members of the committee. 

My name is Becky Pringle and I am a middle school science teacher from Pennsylvania with over 31 years of teaching experience. I also have the honor and the 

pleasure of serving as vice-president to the more than 3 million teachers and education support professionals who make up the National Education Association. 

There is no one more excited than our educators for the opportunity that the Every 

Student Succeeds Act provides for our students in the classroom; especially those 

students who are most in need. 

In the months leading up to the enactment of ESSA, we heard loud and clear from 

our members what they wanted to see in a new law that would: 

• Ensure students’ access to opportunity that really matters in the accountability 

system; • Guarantee educators’ expertise is included in decisionmaking; and • Reduce the volume and over-reliance on standardized testing. 

The new law has the potential to deliver on all three, and paves the way for opportunity to become a real part of ‘‘what gets counted’’ now, an historic development 

for our education system. The law also returns significant responsibility to States 

and schools districts to ensure decisionmaking is in the hands of people who know 

the students’ names. This shift offers the U.S. Department of Education the opportunity to focus on its enforcement authority to ensure students have equitable access to a robust and well-rounded education and to the supports they need to fulfill 

their full potential as constructive members of their communities, productive participants in the economy, and engaged citizens of the United States and the world. 

This kind of monumental transition will require deep collaboration among multiple stakeholders, some of whom are not used to working together, and making sure 

more voices are at decisionmaking tables. None of us can afford to fall victim to the 

allure of shortcuts. It is only through the authentic commitment of all stakeholders 

to engage in the deep listening, professional respect and collective effort that this 

new law will be successful for students. The time to do this right is built into ESSA 

and we urge the U.S. Department of Education to set a good example by not rushing 

its part of the process for the sake of expediency. 

The implementation process will be simultaneously developing at the national 

level, at the State level, at the district level, and ultimately in schools across this 

country as policies are updated. We have urged the Department to ensure the regulatory process is designed to include the best thinking, ideas, and concepts from educators and other stakeholders from across the country. 

We must see more listening, not less. 

And we’re practicing what we preach! The National Education Association has 

embarked on its own listening tour because we want to hear from teachers, education support professionals, specialized instructional support professionals, librarHELPN-003 with DISTILLER

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ians, and higher education faculty and staff about how to make sure we engage our 

practitioners in taking advantage of this opportunity to get this right for our students. The Every Student Succeeds Act restores student learning to the center of 

everything educators do, and we intend on preparing our members to lead this 

transformation. 

Since January, NEA has joined with our State affiliates to create a cadre of educators to act as our ESSA implementation team. During the last holiday weekend, 

we brought over 60 State and local leaders to Washington, DC to provide our educators the time and space to discuss what is happening in their States and districts, 

what they are hearing, what they are planning, and to identify the tools and resources they need to ensure a successful implementation of ESSA at the school 

level. 

We saw the spark in the eyes of classroom teachers and paraeducators who got 

excited at the prospect of allowing more flexibility in the classroom to bring out students’ joy of learning. We talked about the historic moment we have to work with 

districts and States to ensure all students, no matter their zip code, have access to 

the resources, services and supports that they need. 

As educators, we know we are lucky because we have the privilege of inspiring 

our students’ curiosity, imagination, and desire to learn, and the opportunity to provide them with the caring, committed, and qualified educators they deserve. We 

know we cannot do this alone. It will take educators and parents, superintendents 

and school boards, State chiefs and State boards, State legislators and Governors 

all putting aside our differences and working together with the best interests of students in mind. We need to follow the example that all of you set for us in finding 

a way to collaborate to create a law that recognizes our collective responsibility to 

promote opportunity, equity and excellence for every one of our students. 

We are ready to chart new pathways for student success and we are excited about 

the opportunity to help lead the change ahead of us. 

On behalf of our members and our students, thank you for providing us with this 

incredible opportunity. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Pringle. 

Dr. Evers. 

STATEMENT OF TONY EVERS, Ph.D., STATE SUPERINTENDENT 

OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF 

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, MADISON, WI 

Mr. EVERS. Thank you so much, Chairman Alexander, Ranking 

Member Murray, and members of the committee, for allowing me 

to testify today. 

As Senator Baldwin mentioned, in addition to being Wisconsin’s 

State Superintendent of Public Instruction, I’m also president of 

the Council of Chief State School Officers. As president, I’m working to help CCSSO promote equity for all kids. Successful implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act is fundamental to my 

equity platform. This body is well aware of CCSSO’s strong support 

of ESSA. Now that the bill has become law, we remain committed 

to ensuring its successful implementation. 

I’ve spent my entire career as an educator. I’ve learned many 

things along the way, but, most importantly, when it comes to policy implementation, a strong State-local partnership is critical. The 

role of Federal Government should be to ensure accountability for 

student achievement and also, more importantly, to provide States 

and local districts the resources necessary to innovate, create equity, and improve outcomes. 

In Wisconsin, we’re referring to this transition as moving from 

NCLB-prescribed to ESSA-informed. To leverage the flexibility 

available, Wisconsin is beginning with stakeholder engagement. 

Wisconsin has many existing collaborations. We will expand our 

outreach by bringing together many education groups and others 

who have a major stake in our success, such as business leaders, 

HELPN-003 with DISTILLER

20 

civil rights groups, parents, tribal representatives, legislators and, 

of course, the Governor, and others to help design the strategy that 

will improve education for all kids. 

We will also expand our outreach this spring with statewide listening sessions, a virtual discussion, and online feedback for all the 

stakeholders in crafting our State’s plan. To that end, we hope the 

Department of Education is able to finalize any implementation 

regulations this fall so we have a clear understanding of their expectations. 

Of equal importance, we’ll use this ESSA outreach effort to create permanent avenues for multiple stakeholders not only to weigh 

in on ESSA, but other issues that are important to Wisconsin and 

Wisconsin’s schools and teachers. Thus, ESSA will make Wisconsin’s education system stronger. 

We cannot forget that the original ESEA represents a seminal 

piece of the civil rights activity in the early 1960s. The chief State 

school officers are committed to this legacy. We share a common 

goal to make sure every child graduates college- and career-ready. 

Frankly, in Wisconsin, we’ve got a lot of work to do. We have one 

of the largest achievement gaps among the States between students of color and their peers. We plan to use the flexibility of the 

new law to infuse the work of my Promoting Excellence for All initiatives into the improvement work of our most struggling schools. 

Under ESSA, we will no longer need to impose a one-size-fits-all 

solution upon our most underperforming schools. Instead, we’ll 

work collaboratively with local districts to find State and local solutions to local problems. 

Wisconsin is at the forefront of developing an accountability system that’s reflective of the needs of our various stakeholders. Wisconsin has been praised for having one of the most transparent report cards by the education commission of the State. However, we 

look forward to using the new flexibility ESSA will provide us to 

create even a more useful report card system which could include 

other information regarding college- and career-readiness, new equity measures, and other metrics. 

A final word about accountability. All State chiefs are united in 

maintaining a strong accountability system that will clearly identify the achievement of all students and, in particular, subgroup 

performance. New ESSA flexibility will not change our determined 

effort to focus on equity. 

In Wisconsin, like other States, we welcome the partnership with 

the Federal Government to oversee the progress we are making. 

The success we envision under this new law will only be possible 

if we do not face new regulations from Washington. In recent 

months, since the law has passed, the Department of Education 

has demonstrated a great partnership with the States, providing 

helpful guidance on key issues. I applaud those positive efforts. 

Going forward, the Department of Education’s role in providing 

States with guidelines and guardrails on the new law remains important. I and my fellow chiefs are open to guidance that clarifies 

various expectations for States under the new law. However, how 

we achieve these expectations is a State and local responsibility. 

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21 

So I thank you for allowing me to testify, and thank you for your 

role in passing this new law. States are ready, willing, and able to 

lead. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Evers follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TONY EVERS, PH.D. 

SUMMARY

In addition to being State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Wisconsin, I 

currently serve as the President of the Board of the Council of Chief State School 

Officers (CCSSO). As President, I am working to help CCSSO promote equitable 

educational opportunities for all students in the country, regardless of State or Zip 

code. Successful implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is fundamental to States being able to achieve this objective. 

This body is well aware of CCSSO’s strong support of the ESSA. Now that the 

bill has become law, we remain committed to leading in implementing this new law 

with fidelity to ensure it lives up to its promise of every child succeeding—no matter 

their background or where they attend school. We look forward to continued coordination with all partners working to help States transition to the new law. The 

Every Student Succeeds Act reflects a bipartisan acknowledgment that States and 

local educators are in the best position to determine how to raise academic achievement. 

In Wisconsin, we are referring to this transition as moving from NCLB-prescribed 

to ESSA-informed. The Federal law now informs our work, but does not dictate how 

we go about it. We expect the Department of Education to maintain the flexibility 

of this latter focus, as the law intends, and avoid undue prescription. I, like my colleagues across the Nation, am eager to use the flexibility inherent in the law to 

build upon strategies we know work and create congruence with State goals. 

The original ESEA represents a seminal piece of civil rights legislation. The chief 

State school officers are committed to this legacy and as President of CCSSO I have 

made it clear that equity will be our priority. This is not just a focus in Wisconsin, 

but equity is a priority across our entire organization—for every State education 

chief, no matter their demographics or the challenges within the State. We have a 

common goal to make sure every child succeeds and to provide the supports necessary to accomplish this goal. I look forward to working with my colleagues to close 

achievement and opportunity gaps that have persisted for far too long in our States 

today. 

The progress we envision that Wisconsin can make under this new law will only 

be possible if we do not face new regulations that turn what was a good education 

law into a set of top-down mandates from Washington. In the recent months since 

the law passed, the Department of Education has demonstrated a good partnership 

with States, providing helpful guidance on key issues such as how States can transition away from Highly Qualified Teacher regulations. I applaud these positive steps 

from the Department of Education and appreciate their efforts to clarify congressional intent and leave these necessary decisions up to States and local communities. 

Thank you Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray, and members of the 

committee for the opportunity to testify today. 

In addition to being State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Wisconsin, I 

currently serve as the President of the Board of the Council of Chief State School 

Officers (CCSSO). As President, I am working to help CCSSO promote equitable 

educational opportunities for all students in the country, regardless of State or Zip 

code. Successful implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is fundamental to States being able to achieve this objective. 

This body is well aware of CCSSO’s strong support of the ESSA. State chiefs have 

been active over the past year in setting clear priorities for the reauthorization of 

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and voicing our support as legislation 

moved through Congress. 

Now that the bill has become law, we remain committed to leading in implementing this new law with fidelity to ensure it lives up to its promise of every child 

succeeding—no matter their background or where they attend school. As an organization and as individual State chiefs, we have continued to voice support for this 

law and the responsible implementation of this law, including the proper Federal 

HELPN-003 with DISTILLER

22 

role, through public statements, official public comment, and now through these 

hearings on implementation in the House and Senate. 

We look forward to continued coordination with all partners working to help 

States transition to the new law. 

I have spent my career as an educator, working for over 30 years in education. 

I have been a teacher, principal, administrator, and deputy State superintendent, 

before being elected Wisconsin State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2009 

and reelected in 2013. In that time, it has become clear to me that, while there is 

a limited role for the Federal Government, primary decisionmaking authority regarding public education is best left to States and local districts. The role of the 

Federal Government should be to ensure accountability for student achievement, 

while providing States and local districts the resources and support to innovate and 

pursue effective strategies for their students. 

The Every Student Succeeds Act reflects a bipartisan acknowledgment that States 

and local educators are in the best position to determine how to raise academic 

achievement. We have seen some positive early signs from the U.S. Department of 

Education as it supports States’ transitions into the new law, and we encourage 

them to maintain this focus throughout the regulatory and guidance process. 

State and local leaders are committed to achieving results for all of their students, 

but under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) overly prescriptive Federal mandates on 

the overall design of statewide accountability systems left States and local districts 

without the ability to tailor school improvement strategies to the unique needs of 

schools and students. Now, with the stability and flexibility promised by ESSA, we 

stand ready to develop programs more suited to the unique needs of our schools and 

students, and let me assure you that we are committed to using additional flexibility 

under the new law to improve educational outcomes for all students. 

In Wisconsin, we are referring to this transition as moving from NCLB-prescribed 

to ESSA-informed. The Federal law now informs our work, but does not dictate how 

we go about it. We expect the Department of Education to maintain the flexibility 

of this latter focus, as the law intends, and avoid undue prescription. 

Our efforts in Wisconsin are first and foremost to ensure people understand the 

tenets of the new law and the flexibility available to us. This effort begins with 

stakeholder engagement—with bringing together educators, parents, students, business leaders, civil rights groups, tribal representatives, advocates, higher education, 

legislators, our Governor and others to determine the best approaches for educating 

all children. 

Our engagement strategy starts with our existing formal collaborations, such as 

our existing Title I Committee of Practitioners and the school districts who are the 

focus of our State title I educator equity plan, and expands upon it this spring with 

statewide listening sessions, a virtual discussion, and online feedback for all of the 

stakeholders we hope to engage. We want to use these listening sessions as an opportunity to hear multiple perspectives of what is working in the State, what needs 

to be changed, and how people envision flexibility in practice. This will give us an 

opportunity to lay out an initial direction for the State plan we will need to submit 

under the new law. 

We are hoping that the Department of Education is able to finalize any implementing regulations this fall so we have a more complete picture of the law as it 

will be administered. It is our hope to then take those details, along with our initial 

plans back out to our broad stakeholder coalition for another round of feedback and 

discussion. It is critical to us that we have broad agreement as to how we will implement this law in Wisconsin. 

Now that ESSA is in place, I, like many of my colleagues across the Nation, am 

eager to use the flexibility inherent in the law to buildupon strategies we know 

work and create congruence with State goals. The ability to focus on State goals in 

the context of the larger Federal law is extremely important. We don’t want to be 

working on disparate efforts that arbitrarily spread our resources and provide mixed 

messages concerning the work we need to do to ensure every child graduates 

college- and career-ready. That is our goal in Wisconsin and our agenda. 

We have worked in Wisconsin to set a definition of college- and career-ready and 

establish targets for closing gaps and increasing graduation rates with work focusing on four main questions. 

1. What and how should kids learn? 

2. How do we know if kids have learned? 

3. How do we ensure kids have highly effective teachers and schools? 

4. How should we pay for education in public schools? 

I know other States have also set educational goals and agendas and I am sure 

I speak for those chiefs as well when I say that the ability to focus in on what our 

HELPN-003 with DISTILLER

23 

State feels is important to address is critical in our efforts to support and improve 

educational outcomes for all students. 

Now that States have the authority to establish goals and design accountability 

systems, Wisconsin is eager to take the lead in generating stakeholder feedback 

about how we can continue to improve these systems so that they reflect best practices and ensure that all students, including low-income students, minority students, and those with disabilities, have access to a high-quality education. 

The original ESEA represents a seminal piece of civil rights legislation. The chief 

State school officers are committed to this legacy and as President of CCSSO I have 

made it clear that equity will be our priority. This is not just a focus in Wisconsin, 

but equity is a priority across our entire organization—for every State education 

chief, no matter their demographics or the challenges within the State. We have a 

common goal to make sure every child succeeds and to provide the supports necessary to accomplish this goal. I look forward to working with my colleagues to close 

achievement and opportunity gaps that have persisted for far too long in our States 

today. 

In Wisconsin, we have a lot of work to do. We have one of the largest achievement 

gaps in the country between students of color and their peers. I will be convening 

a standing group of people, including those in the civil rights community, to regularly consult with and provide updates to in regards to this law and other issues 

facing our schools. Openness and communication is key to ensuring that a focus on 

equity stays in the forefront. 

I also plan to use the flexibility of the new law to bring the work of my Achievement Gap Task Force into Wisconsin’s work to implement ESSA. That group helped 

identify practices in schools and districts, using our State data, which demonstrated 

success closing achievement gaps. We then synthesized that information into learning modules for educators and interested members of the public to utilize. We plan 

to continue that work through a statewide Longitudinal Data Systems Grant and 

partner with our flagship public university, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to 

pinpoint the needs of educators and provide them with research-based practices. 

Again, the flexibility in ESSA is allowing us to explore improvement strategies focused on closing the achievement gap that would have otherwise been a separate 

discussion as they were not part of the Department of Education’s model. 

Additionally, Wisconsin was at the foreground of developing a local accountability 

system that is reflective of the needs of our various partners. Our State report cards 

were designed with the and guidance of the chairs of our legislative education committees, the Governor, and the many organizations that support our public and private schools. The result of that work has been praised as one of the Nation’s best 

report card formats for parents and community members by the Education Commission of the States. We look forward to using the new flexibility ESSA provides to 

update our report cards to include information regarding college- and career-readiness, along with other metrics our partners have identified as being important for 

their constituencies. 

The progress we envision that Wisconsin can make under this new law will only 

be possible if we do not face new regulations that turn what was a good education 

law into a set of top-down mandates from Washington. In the recent months since 

the law passed, the Department of Education has demonstrated a good partnership 

with States, providing helpful guidance on key issues such as how States can transition away from Highly Qualified Teacher regulations. I applaud these positive steps 

from the Department of Education and appreciate their efforts to clarify congressional intent and leave these necessary decisions up to States and local communities. 

Going forward, as States and local districts implement this law, it is clear the Department of Education has a critical role to play in providing States with guidelines 

and guardrails on the new law. I and my fellow State chiefs are open to regulations 

that clarify the expectations for States under the new law, not how to achieve those 

expectations. For example, as Wisconsin outlined in the written comments we submitted to the Department of Education on January 21, these areas include how 

States will determine which students take alternative assessments, whether Congress intended for high schools identified under Section 1111(c) because of low graduation rates need to be title I schools, and critical implementation dates and deadlines. However, regulation and guidance should be limited to providing clarity on 

otherwise ambiguous or confusing issues, not implementing additional, prescriptive 

requirements that limit flexibility for States and local districts, and that fly in the 

face of clear congressional intent. 

In addition, a major issue that has been raised is how the Federal Government 

can be certain that, with the increased authority and flexibility provided to States, 

it is possible to ensure that States and local districts are focusing on improving outHELPN-003 with DISTILLER

24 

comes for all students and subgroups of students. In States like Wisconsin, we welcome oversight of the progress we are making, but it is important that States and 

local districts have the flexibility to identify how we achieve the goals we have set 

for students: the measures we include in our accountability system, the weight we 

give these measure, and how we design interventions that reflect the realities facing 

unique student populations across the State. After all, we all recognize that the onesize-fits-all approach from No Child Left Behind was not getting us to where we 

needed to be. 

Again, thank you for allowing me to testify, and thank you for passing this new 

law. States are ready, willing, and able to lead. We need the Department of Education to trust us, and let us develop the accountability systems that our children 

need and deserve. Federal regulations should focus on providing States the guidance 

and support they need to develop systems that meet the goals of the new law, while 

ensuring that policies governing implementation reflect the greater flexibility embodied in the statute. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Evers. 

Dr. Schuler. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID R. SCHULER, Ph.D., SUPERINTENDENT 

OF SCHOOLS, TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT #214, ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL 

Mr. SCHULER. Thank you, and I’d like to extend my deep appreciation to Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray, and the 

entire committee for your tireless work to complete the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It is my 

belief that the language of ESSA is an exceptional piece of legislation, and I applaud Congress’ overwhelmingly bipartisan support 

for ESSA. 

This new law holds States and school districts accountable while 

still allowing significant flexibility. Tight on goals and loose on 

means is a well-researched philosophy that correlates positively to 

student achievement. Past conversations regarding innovation and 

inspiration always started and usually stopped with the construct 

of: Will this comply with our State waiver or NCLB? 

Now, with those constraints lifted and ESSA the law of the land, 

States and districts can focus once again on truly meeting the 

needs of every student who walks through our schoolhouse doors 

on a daily basis, and for that, I am truly thankful to this committee. 

Two weeks ago at the National Conference on Education, AASA, 

the School Superintendents Association launched a new researchbased, multi-metric initiative to redefine what it means to be 

college- and career-ready. That would have never happened under 

the waiver process or NCLB. Now, we have the ability to acknowledge that we all learn in different ways, our students learn in different ways, and they should be able to demonstrate readiness in 

different ways. Under ESSA, you have given us permission to 

dream and lead and transform public education in this country, 

and we will do just that. 

States now have an opportunity to examine schools on a more holistic level with the inclusion of a nonacademic factor. This represents a dramatic shift from the NCLB focus on snapshot testing 

to a more nuanced, well-rounded system to assess school quality. 

Rather than solely focusing on compliance and reporting to our 

State and the Department, which at times felt like all we were 

doing, we will now be able to direct and target our energies and 

HELPN-003 with DISTILLER

25 

resources where they can have the most impact, on our students 

and schools with the most needs. 

I would caution the Department to use restraint when issuing 

regulations and guidance, to ensure those regulations meet the letter, spirit, and intent of the law. In fact, I would urge the Department to consider creating a working group or task force of practitioners from diverse settings to review potential regulations and 

provide insight into the real implications and consequences of regulations before they are released. 

I would further urge the Department to find out what data is already being collected at the State level and please do not duplicate 

efforts. It is incredibly frustrating as a school district superintendent to have the State request a certain data set and then the 

Department request a very similar but not identical data set. 

That’s extra work for our staff and provides murky and confusing 

data for the public. 

And I would implore the Department not to request data submission over the summer. Many of the rural schools in our country do 

not have the 12-month staff to comply with requests that come in 

during the summer and require compliance prior to the start of the 

following school year. 

Instead of focusing on collecting data to hammer and judge districts, imagine if the Department could be a repository for what is 

working in our Nation’s schools in regards to career pathways, coding, closing the achievement gap, grade level readiness, a digital 

curricular transformation, resource efficiencies, and other issues 

facing U.S. schools. It would be so awesome if the Department 

could be the go-to place where schools and districts could find best 

practices from across the country. 

I’d like to call up one area where I think ESSA is a pure work 

of genius. In allowing high schools to use a college admissions test 

in lieu of the high school State assessment, as long as that college 

admissions test is approved by the State, it is my belief that you 

will change lives. Taking a college admissions test can change the 

trajectory of a student’s dreams and aspirations. 

We have many students who don’t think college is an option until 

they receive the results of that college admissions test. You are 

putting a realistic dream of postsecondary education in front of students who may have thought that graduation was the end point. 

That is truly changing lives one child at a time. 

I know that there have been concerns raised regarding schools, 

districts, and States lowering standards and expectations. I just 

don’t believe that will happen. We have been examining student 

group data for years, and the vast majority of school districts have 

used data to improve instruction. That will continue. 

With Congress being the face of the implementation of ESSA, 

you have the oversight to ensure that ESSA is implemented in a 

manner consistent with the language, spirit, and intent of the legislation. America’s teachers and school district leaders will not let 

you down. I applaud the committee’s work on ESSA, and I am confident that America’s public education system will be better as a 

result of the Every Student Succeeds Act being the law of the land. 

Thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning to share 

these thoughts. 

HELPN-003 with DISTILLER

26 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schuler follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID R. SCHULER, PH.D. 

Thank you. I would like to extend my deep appreciation to Chairman Alexander, 

Ranking Member Murray, and the entire Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 

and Pensions for your tireless work to complete the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It is my belief that the language of the Every 

Student Succeeds Act is an exceptional piece of legislation and I applaud Congress’ 

overwhelmingly bi-partisan support for ESSA. 

This new law holds States and school districts accountable, while still allowing 

significant flexibility. ‘‘Tight on goals and loose on means’’ is a well-researched philosophy that correlates positively to student achievement. Past conversations regarding innovation and inspiration always started, and usually stopped, with the 

construct of ‘‘Will this comply with our State Waiver or NCLB?’’ Now, with those 

constraints lifted and ESSA the law of the land, States and districts can focus once 

again on truly meeting the needs of every student who walks through our schoolhouse doors on a daily basis and for that, I am truly thankful to the committee. 

Two weeks ago at the National Conference on Education, AASA, The School Superintendents Association launched a new research-based, multi-metric initiative to 

redefine what it means to be college- and career-ready. That would have never happened under the waiver process or NCLB. Now, we have the ability to acknowledge 

that we all learn in different ways, our students learn in different ways, and they 

should be able to demonstrate readiness in different ways. Under ESSA, you have 

given us permission to dream and lead and transform public education in this country and we will do just that. 

States now have an opportunity to examine schools on a more holistic level with 

the inclusion of a non-academic factor. This represents a dramatic shift from the 

NCLB focus on snapshot testing to a more nuanced, well-rounded system to assess 

school quality. Rather than solely focusing on compliance and reporting to our State 

and the Department of Education, which at times felt like all we were doing, we 

will now be able to direct and target our energies and resources where they can 

have the most impact . . . on our students and schools with the most needs. 

I would caution the Department of Education to use restraint when issuing regulations and guidance, to ensure those regulations meet the letter, spirit, and intent 

of the law. In fact, I would urge the Department to consider creating a working 

group or task force of practitioners from diverse settings to review potential regulations and provide insight into the real implications and consequences of regulations 

before they are released. 

I would further urge the Department to find out what data is already being collected at the State level and not duplicate efforts. It is incredibly frustrating as a 

school district superintendent to have the State request a certain data set and then 

the Department request a very similar, but not identical data set. That is extra 

work for our staff and provides murky and confusing data for the public . . . and I 

would implore the Department not to request data submission over the summer. 

Many of the rural schools in our country don’t have the 12-month staff to comply 

with requests that come in during the summer and require compliance prior to the 

start of the following school year. 

Instead of focusing on collecting data to hammer and judge districts, imagine if 

the Department could be a repository for what is working in our Nation’s schools 

in regards to career pathways, coding, closing the achievement gap, grade level 

readiness, a digital curricular transformation, resource efficiencies, and other issues 

facing U.S. schools. Wouldn’t that be awesome? The Department being the ‘‘go-to’’ 

place schools and Districts could find best practices from across the country. 

I would like to call out one area where I think ESSA is a pure work of genius. 

In allowing high schools to use a college admissions test in lieu of the high school 

State assessment, as long as the college admissions test is approved by the State, 

it is my belief that you will change lives. Taking a college admissions test can 

change the trajectory of a student’s dreams and aspirations. We have many students 

who don’t think college is an option until they receive the results of their college 

admissions test. You are putting a realistic dream of post-secondary education in 

front of students who may have thought that graduation was the end point. That 

is truly changing lives . . . one public school child at a time. 

I know that there have been concerns raised regarding schools, districts, and 

States lowering standards and expectations and I just don’t believe that will happen. We have been examining student group data for years, and the vast majority 

of school districts have used data to improve instruction. That will continue. With 

Congress being the face of the implementation of ESSA, you will have the oversight 

HELPN-003 with DISTILLER

27 

to ensure that ESSA is implemented in a manner consistent with the language, 

spirit, and intent of the legislation. 

America’s teachers and school district leaders will not let you down. I applaud the 

committee’s work on ESSA and am confident that America’s public education system 

will be better as a result of the Every Student Succeeds Act being the law of the 

land. Thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts with you this morning 

and I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Schuler. 

Ms. Haycock. 

STATEMENT OF KATI HAYCOCK, PRESIDENT, THE EDUCATION 

TRUST, WASHINGTON, DC 

Ms. HAYCOCK. Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Murray, 

thank you for the opportunity to testify here this morning. 

Let me begin, though, as we always do at the Ed Trust, with the 

data, because while I understand that it is useful for some to characterize the past 15 years as simply an exercise in unrealistic goals 

and test and punish that harm children, we actually can’t have an 

honest conversation here this morning without acknowledging that 

the data tell a very different story. 

In the years since we had annual testing, full reporting, and serious accountability for results for all groups of kids, on the longest 

standing national examination of student learning, results for African American and Latino students improved faster than at any 

time since the 1980s. High school completion rates have also risen, 

with especially large gains for students of color and for students 

with disabilities. 

I am not arguing that tests and regulations produce those improvements. The hard work of educators does that. But what good 

policy does is it creates a sense of urgency about addressing problems that otherwise languish for decades. And now, frankly, is not 

the time to lose that sense of urgency, for despite the gains that 

I just talked about, too many students still lack the high-quality 

schooling that they need to thrive. 

It is those children, the disabled third-grader with extraordinary 

potential but who doesn’t get the help that he needs to read fluently because his results don’t count; the high achieving African 

American seventh grader who still, even today, is half as likely as 

similarly qualified peers to be put in eighth grade algebra, effectively ruling her out of a STEM career; and the eleventh grade 

Latino who could, in fact, be fully college-ready if her school would 

actually offer the demanding English courses that are offered in 

the schools across town. These and millions more like them are today’s fierce urgency of now, and as Dr. King reminded us, those 

young people cannot afford the luxury of a cooling off period or the 

tranquilizing drug of gradualism. 

Thankfully, the new law that you crafted contains really important levers that can be used to speed up the progress instead of to 

slow it down: statewide standards and accountability that are 

aligned with the demands of college and careers; statewide accountability systems that expect more progress from the groups of kids 

that have been behind and that also expect action when any group 

of kids is struggling; and richer public reporting on both outcomes 

and opportunities for all groups, including for the first time perHELPN-003 with DISTILLER

28 

pupil funding. Thank you, Senator Alexander, for your leadership 

on that. 

Certainly, how we do all this must be responsive to local context 

and must build on the insights of both educators and parents in 

the low-income communities and communities of color with the 

most at stake here. But recognizing the need for State and local decisionmaking does not, as some have suggested, mean that the only 

real role for the Department of Education is to cut checks, because 

in the celebration of a return to State and local control that surrounds the new law, one thing has been forgotten, and that is that 

the State and local track record of serving the interests of vulnerable children is not a good one. 

If we had time, I would share some examples of State and local 

leaders that are focusing on moving the needle for vulnerable children. One is sitting to my right. Another is sitting up there on the 

dais. But, frankly, there are far, far more examples of States and 

localities that are dragging their feet, that have let inequities fester 

for decades, and that are working harder, frankly, to circumvent 

the expectations in Federal law than to live up to them. 

From the 1990s, when Congress and ISA asked States to adopt 

accountability systems that expected progress for all students, especially English learners and poor students—and most States responded by not even reporting those data, much less making them 

matter—to the NCLB years, when States gamed the definition of 

high school dropout and some defined progress as not falling backward very far, to the last few years when the Department’s waivers 

gave States the opportunity to not make group performance matter 

and virtually every State took up that opportunity, effectively giving A’s and B’s in State accountability systems to schools, even 

when their African American students were declining. 

This track record is why civil rights, disability, and business 

groups worked so hard and supported the guardrails that you put 

into the law and why we will continue to work together in States 

in implementation, even if we’re not, Senator, on your list of coalition members. But it is also why the U.S. Department of Education 

cannot just recede into the background and must do its job with respect to guidance, regulation, and, where necessary, enforcement. 

Yes, ESSA presents an enormous opportunity for developing policies in a vastly more inclusive way. But we know from long experience that without the guardrails that you put in the law, the needs 

of the less powerful will just get less attention. That terrible tendency is why Congress has always needed and continues to need 

today a strong partner in the Department of Education. 

Thank you so much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Haycock follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KATI HAYCOCK

SUMMARY

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) contains a number of important levers 

that education leaders, parents, members of the civil rights and business communities, and advocates can use to advance education equity, including: 

• Consistent, state-adopted standards for all students that are aligned with the 

demands of postsecondary education and work; 

• Statewide annual assessment aligned with statewide standards; 

HELPN-003 with DISTILLER

29 

• Clear requirements that statewide accountability systems must expect more 

progress for the groups of students who have been behind, base school ratings on 

the progress of all groups of students, and expect action when any group of students 

is consistently underperforming; • An expectation that States and districts report on and address inequities in the 

rates at which low-income students and students of color are assigned to ineffective, 

out-of-field, or inexperienced teachers; • Continued targeting of Federal funding to the highest poverty schools and districts; and • Richer public reporting on academic outcomes and opportunities to learn for all 

groups of students, including, for the first time, school-level, per-pupil spending and 

access to rigorous coursework. 

The challenge now is to translate the potential of ESSA into improved State and 

local policies and practices, and, ultimately, improved outcomes for all students. 

Doing this means that systems developed under ESSA must be responsive to unique 

State and local contexts and build on the insights of local stakeholders—especially 

the low-income communities and communities of color with the most at stake. And 

if these systems are to help generate real improvements, they must build on insights from successful educators, too. 

But let me be clear: Recognizing and honoring the need for State and local decisionmaking does not, as some have suggested, mean that from now on, the U.S. Department of Education should do nothing more than cut checks. Under ESSA, the 

Department has an important role to play through enforcement, regulation, and 

guidance, especially when it comes to ensuring that States and localities are taking 

seriously their responsibility to all of their children. 

Because in all the celebration of ‘‘a return to State and local control ’’ surrounding 

this law, let’s not forget that the State and local track record of serving the interests 

of vulnerable students is not a good one. In too many places, State and local leaders 

have let well-documented inequities in access to opportunities to learn—from rigorous coursework to education funding to strong, well-supported educators—fester. 

And they’ve too-often made decisions aimed at getting around, rather than living up 

to, the expectations set by Congress. 

This track record is why ESSA includes the levers I described above, many of 

which we at Ed Trust fought for alongside partners in the business, civil rights, and 

disability communities. It’s why we’ll continue to work alongside our partners to inform State and local implementation. And it’s why the U.S. Department of Education cannot recede into the background and must continue its historic focus on 

looking out for the children who are likely to come last in State improvement efforts. 

Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray, and members of the Senate 

HELP Committee, thank you for the opportunity to share my perspective on implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). This perspective is informed 

by The Education Trust’s long history of working alongside educators, advocates, 

and policymakers to close gaps in opportunity and achievement separating low-income students and students of color from their peers. 

Allow me to begin as we always do at Ed Trust, with the data. It’s become popular 

to characterize the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era as lost years for our Nation’s 

students—years in which ‘‘unrealistic goals’’ and ‘‘test and punish’’ systems shackled 

educators’ hands and yielded nothing but rote instruction and shallow learning. But 

the data suggest a different story altogether: Since we’ve had Federal requirements 

for annual testing, full public reporting, and serious accountability for the results 

of every group of children, achievement among black, Latino, and low-income students has improved. 

On the longest standing national measure, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Long-Term Trends, results for black and Latino students 

improved faster than at any time since the 1980s. Instead of the gap-widening we 

saw during much of the 1990s, we have seen gap-narrowing since that time. 

On the main NAEP exam, the percentage of low-income fourth-graders at the 

Below Basic level in math was reduced by more than half between 2000 and 2015, 

while the percentage performing at the Proficient or Advanced levels tripled. There 

was similar improvement among students of color. Among black fourth-graders, for 

example, the percentage at the Below Basic level in math declined from 65 percent 

to 35 percent; among Latinos, the Below Basic numbers declined from 59 percent 

to 27 percent. 

High school completion rates are also up, especially for black and Latino students. 

In 2003, only an estimated 59 percent of black students and 66 percent of Latino 

HELPN-003 with DISTILLER

30 

students graduated on time. In 2014, 73 percent of black students and 76 percent 

of Latino students graduated in 4 years. Among students with learning disabilities, 

a group of students that many continue to write off as being unable to learn, the 

percentage earning a regular high school diploma rose from 57 percent in 2002 to 

68 percent in 2011. 

Let’s be clear that laws and regulations themselves don’t close gaps and raise 

achievement. Only the hard work of educators, students, and parents can do that. 

But smart policy has proved to be an important source of urgency to attend to the 

needs—and potential—of low-income students, students of color, English learners, 

and students with disabilities. The NCLB expectation that a school could not be considered successful unless it was successfully improving achievement for all groups 

of students sparked action in schools and districts that had long been content to 

coast by on overall averages. 

Now to be sure, whether we’re talking about reading and math achievement or 

graduation rates, the gains we’ve seen as a nation are nowhere near enough. 

• When the chances that a young black man will be imprisoned by age 34 drop 

from 68 percent to 21 percent with high school completion—and fall to 7 percent 

with a college degree—we cannot stop until we ensure that every young person 

graduates ready for postsecondary education. • When elementary reading is one of the most important predictors of high school 

life opportunities, yet almost half of our black, Latino, and Native children are still 

reading below the basic level, we cannot stop until we equip every child with the 

reading skills they need. • When African American high school students are less than half as likely to 

reach college-readiness benchmarks as white students, and gaps between Latino 

and white students persist, we cannot stop until we eliminate the deep inequities 

within our education system that perpetuate—and even enlarge—these gaps, and 

provide every single child in America with the education they need to climb the 

rungs of opportunity in this country. 

What does all this mean for ESSA implementation? In short, we need to pick up 

the pace of improvement—not back off. 

Thankfully, the new law crafted by this committee along with your House counterparts contains a number of important levers that education leaders, parents, 

members of the civil rights and business communities, and advocates can use to advance education equity, including: 

• Consistent, State-adopted standards for all students that are aligned with the 

demands of postsecondary education and work; • Statewide annual assessment aligned with statewide standards; • Clear requirements that statewide accountability systems must expect more 

progress for the groups of students who have been behind, base school ratings on 

the progress of all groups of students, and expect action when any group of students 

is consistently underperforming; 

• An expectation that States and districts report on and address inequities in the 

rates at which low-income students and students of color are assigned to ineffective, 

out-of-field, or inexperienced teachers; 

• Continued targeting of Federal funding to the highest poverty schools and districts; and 

• Richer public reporting on academic outcomes and opportunities to learn for all 

groups of students, including, for the first time, school-level, per-pupil spending and 

access to rigorous coursework. 

Taken together, these levers represent key building blocks of an equity-focused 

school system—one that sets high expectations for all students, provides resources 

necessary for meeting those expectations, measures and reports progress toward 

them, and ensures action when any school, or any group of students, falls off track. 

We thank members of this committee for including them. 

The challenge now is to translate the potential of ESSA into improved State and 

local policies and practices, and, ultimately, improved outcomes for all students. 

Doing this means that systems developed under ESSA must be responsive to unique 

State and local contexts and build on the insights of local stakeholders—especially 

the low-income communities and communities of color with the most at stake. 

If these systems are to help generate real improvements, they must build on insights from successful educators, too. While improvement goals must be ambitious, 

they must also feel achievable. We all know that compliance with expectations is 

one thing, broad ownership of those expectations is quite another. This difference 

was painfully clear during the NCLB era. 

But let me be clear: Recognizing and honoring the need for State and local decisionmaking does not, as some have suggested, mean that from now on, the U.S. DeHELPN-003 with DISTILLER

31 

partment of Education should do nothing more than cut checks. Under ESSA, the 

Department has an important role to play through enforcement, regulation, and 

guidance, especially when it comes to ensuring that States and localities are taking 

seriously their responsibility to all of their children. 

Because in all the celebration of ‘‘a return to State and local control’’ surrounding 

this law, let’s not forget that the State and local track record of serving the interests 

of vulnerable students is not a good one. If we had time, I would share with you 

some examples of State and local leaders who are really moving the needle for their 

low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, and English learners. But even today, when such students represent the majority of our young people, 

there are many, many more examples of States and localities dragging their feet 

and bucking their responsibilities to these children. 

In too many places, State and local leaders have let well-documented inequities 

in access to opportunities to learn—from rigorous coursework to education funding 

to strong, well-supported educators—fester. 

They’ve made decisions aimed at getting around, rather than living up to, the expectations set by Congress. 

• Under the Improving America’s Schools Act, the 1994 reauthorization of ESEA, 

States were required to hold schools accountable for the ‘‘continuous and substantial 

improvement’’ of all students, particularly economically disadvantaged and limited 

English proficient students. Yet only a handful of States actually included subgroup 

performance in their accountability system. And the majority didn’t even report performance by group. 

• Under NCLB, States were required to set goals for the percentage of English 

learners making progress toward English proficiency. Nine States expected fewer 

than half of their ELs to make progress toward English proficiency. 

• Also under NCLB, States were required to hold high schools accountable for 

graduation rates. Not only did States game the definition of graduation rates, but 

they also set exceedingly low expectations for improvement. Over half of States set 

their improvement target at any progress over the past year, meaning that an increase from 50 percent to 50.1 percent was acceptable. Two States and the District 

of Columbia actually defined improvement as not losing ground. And as low as these 

expectations were, States applied them only to students overall, not individual 

groups of students despite the fact that graduation rates were lowest among lowincome students, students of color, English learners, and students with disabilities. 

Unfortunately, this reluctance to expect much of schools vis-a`-vis their low-income 

children and children of color didn’t end when States got more flexibility under 

NCLB waivers. When given the opportunity to do so, most States chose to create 

school ratings systems that outright ignore the performance of individual student 

groups. Rather than holding schools accountable for serving each student group, 

many created ‘‘supergroups’’ that treat students with vastly different needs—such 

as students with disabilities and English learners—the same. 

This track record is why ESSA includes the levers I described above, many of 

which we at Ed Trust fought for alongside partners in the business, civil rights, and 

disability communities. It’s why we’ll continue to work alongside our partners to inform State and local implementation. And it’s why the U.S. Department of Education cannot recede into the background and must continue its historic focus on 

looking out for the children who are likely to come last in State improvement efforts. 

Smart Federal involvement can and should establish guardrails for State and 

local action, assure that the equity goals of Federal education law are honored, and 

ensure responsible stewardship of the $15 billion investment in title I that Federal 

lawmakers make every year. 

We’ve seen the Federal government play this role in previous iterations of this 

law. Going back to the graduation-rate example under NCLB, when States’ efforts 

to hide, rather than own, their dropout problems became clear, the Bush administration used regulation to enshrine a more accurate graduation-rate definition and 

ensure that States held schools accountable for making substantial progress in raising graduation rates for all groups of students. 

What would State and local decisionmaking balanced with appropriate Federal 

oversight look like in ESSA implementation? Let me give just a few examples, taken 

from Ed Trust’s comprehensive public comments on ESSA implementation submitted to the U.S. Department of Education. 

• When it comes to assessment, having a consistent measure of student achievement is critical for equity, allowing parents to compare results between districts, 

educators to benchmark progress on standards, and State leaders to build fair, 

statewide accountability systems. 

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States and districts interested in taking advantage of the option for districts to 

use nationally recognized high school assessments that are different than the statewide high school assessment will need to put in place safeguards to ensure that 

these assessments are rigorous and truly comparable to statewide tests. 

The Department should require States or districts proposing to take advantage of 

this option to provide evidence that the nationally recognized assessment is aligned 

to State standards and to submit comparability studies and scoring crosswalks to 

demonstrate how the new assessment will yield comparable, high-quality data. • Goals are the cornerstone of meaningful accountability—they must be challenging but feel attainable. And if we are going to close the achievement gaps that 

have hobbled our Nation for too long, they must expect more progress for the groups 

of students who are starting further behind. This will be especially important—and 

challenging—given States’ transition to new, more rigorous assessments. 

The Department should ask States to clearly explain their goal-setting methodology and clarify the evidence States will need to provide to demonstrate that the 

goals reflect both ambition and gap-closing. As one example, States could show how 

their goals are benchmarked against top-performing schools for students overall, 

and the top-improving schools either for students overall or for student groups, 

whichever is faster. • If we’re truly going to move the needle on achievement for all, we need progress 

from students in all kinds of schools, not just the very lowest performing ones, as 

has been the focus under NCLB waivers. 

States will need to establish a rigorous definition of ‘‘consistently underperforming’’ for student groups. When any group is consistently underperforming, that 

must be clear in the school’s rating, and it must prompt action to better serve those 

students. 

The Department should require States to align their definition of consistently 

underperforming with the statewide goals for each group and clarify that the definition must include not just the lowest performing schools for groups of students, but 

also those that are consistently not making progress for one or more groups. 

In these examples and the other places where the Department can and should 

regulate, the goal is always to ensure a deliberate focus on equity—on improving 

achievement for all kids, but especially those whose potential is now being squandered. 

ESSA presents an opportunity for developing policies and practices in a truly inclusive way—in a way that responds to the different needs of States and localities, 

but that never loses sight of the ultimate goal of equity for all students. As the hard 

work of implementation begins, we urge States and districts to be thoughtful about 

their new systems. We urge State and district policymakers to involve the community—from civil rights to business to parents to educators—in a meaningful way, 

from start to finish. 

But we know from long experience that, without the levers you provided in the 

law, the needs of the less powerful will get less attention. That terrible tendency 

is why Congress has always needed—and continues to need today—a watchful eye 

in the Department of Education to prevent States from skirting their responsibilities 

to all children, especially the most vulnerable. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Haycock. 

Ms. Pompa. 

STATEMENT OF DELIA POMPA, SENIOR FELLOW OF EDUCATION POLICY, MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Ms. POMPA. Thank you, Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member 

Murray, and members of the committee, for providing me the opportunity to present testimony this morning. 

My name is Delia Pompa. I am a Senior Fellow for Education 

Policy at the Migration Policy Institute, or MPI, an independent, 

nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in Washington, DC, that analyzes U.S. and international migration trends and policies. MPI examines and analyzes the changing demographics of the U.S. preK–12 student population and major challenges policymakers and 

educators face as they seek to respond to the needs of diverse immigrant and English language learner children. 

HELPN-003 with DISTILLER

33 

My own work in public school improvement has been shaped by 

many years of experience leading local, State, and Federal education agencies and national and international organizations. I 

have deep respect for the bipartisan process led by Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray that resulted in the Every 

Student Succeeds Act that promises to ensure equity while fostering innovation and excellence. 

The primary responsibility for making that promise a reality lies 

squarely on the shoulders of States and districts. But they can’t do 

it alone. It is critical that the regulatory process ensures that 

States and districts keep equity, particularly accountability for the 

progress of all students, at the core of their work and ensures that 

States and districts engage a wide range of stakeholders in developing and implementing their new accountability and school improvement plans. 

While we think there need to be regulations to clarify the law to 

increase the chances of successful implementation, we also know 

that regulations alone are not enough. We all have to help States 

and districts succeed. Already at MPI, we have begun the process 

of supporting implementation. 

Along with community stakeholders, educators, and other national groups, MPI is implementing a strategy in two parts. First, 

we have analyzed the law to understand new provisions so that we 

can develop examples for States to consider as they implement particular provisions of the law. The second stage of our work relies 

on partnerships with a variety of stakeholders in States. We will 

work with large State coalitions of community groups to increase 

awareness of the new law and, most importantly, awareness of 

their right and responsibility to participate in shaping State policy. 

English learners are a growing part of the public school population. Today, one in four students in U.S. schools is a child of an 

immigrant, and one in 10 is an English learner. ESSA includes important policies recognizing the needs and diversity of English 

learners in an effort to close the ongoing achievement gap between 

them and other students. However, States will need the law clarified, in many cases through regulation, and they will need ongoing 

guidance and support in how to achieve improved results, including 

for English learners. 

For example, ESSA requires States to have a standardized process for classifying students as English learners as well as a standardized process for how English learners exit special services. 

States will need guidelines for the parameters of their definition, 

however. This will be a policy challenge for all States, particularly 

for those States that do not currently have standardized statewide 

processes. 

The law also now permits States to include in the English learner subgroup EL students up to 4 years after they have exited special language services. However, by including former English learners, overall scores for the subgroup will rise and may mask the performance of current English learners. The Department should address this issue through the regulatory process. The Federal role 

in education has been critical to safeguarding the civil and educational rights of English learners, and it is important to ensure 

HELPN-003 with DISTILLER

34 

that gains under Federal law are not lost in State and local accountability plans. 

We are pleased that parent and family engagement are provided 

for in this law. Our experience in the past has most often been that 

in most States this engagement has been perfunctory and superficial. Regulations articulating specific examples of meaningful parent, family, and community engagement in policy development 

should further the cause of all students. 

As MPI moves forward helping States and districts implement 

ESSA, we share a commitment to smart regulation and guidance 

that allows for innovation and for local situations but that also provides States with parameters built on the framework of equity set 

out in the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act. MPI 

looks forward to working with you, with the Department of Education, and with the breadth of stakeholders who believe in the 

promise of our school system. 

Thank you for this opportunity to share our experience and our 

aspirations for all children. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Pompa follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DELIA POMPA

SUMMARY

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) promises to ensure equity while fostering 

innovation and excellence. The primary responsibility for making that promise a reality rests squarely on the shoulders of States and districts—but they can’t do it 

alone. It is critical that the regulatory process ensure that States and districts keep 

equity, particularly accountability for the progress of all students, at the core of 

their work and to ensure that they engage a wide range of stakeholders in developing and implementing their new accountability and school improvement plans. 

It is important to recognize the advancement that ESSA stands to make with respect to English learners (ELs) in K–12. ELs are a growing part of the public school 

population; today one in four students in U.S. schools is the child of an immigrant, 

and 1 in 10 is an English learner. ESSA includes important policies recognizing the 

needs and diversity of ELs in an effort to close the ongoing achievement gap between them and other students. It: 

• Ushers in uniformity with regard to classification of students as ELs 

and including English proficiency outcomes in States. ESSA requires States 

to have a standardized process for classifying students as English learners as well 

as a standardized statewide process for how ELs exit special services (or how they 

are reclassified). Regulations are needed to ensure equity. 

• Requires the inclusion of English proficiency outcomes in States’ accountability systems. Yet States will need guidance regarding what ‘‘making 

progress’’ in developing English proficiency means. This provision is an important 

example of where more clarification and technical assistance are required from the 

Department of Education. Clarity on how to measure progress in English proficiency 

versus measuring English proficiency itself should be embedded in regulations. 

• Includes provisions for parent and family engagement. This engagement 

has often been perfunctory in most States. Regulations articulating specific examples of meaningful parent, family and community engagement in policy development 

could further the cause of equity for ELs and all children. 

These new, important EL policies will not be effective if the overall accountability 

systems that States develop are not strong enough to ensure that schools are held 

accountable for the success of all children. The size and distribution of the EL population continues to grow, and a large and ever expanding number of States and districts will be affected by changes for ELs in ESSA. Consequently, provisions regarding EL students should be as clear as possible to the educators and communities 

implementing them. Given ESSA’s overall thrust of reducing Federal authority in 

education, ensuring that EL needs are met will be complicated by the fact that education agencies in 50 States and DC will be interpreting the new mandates and perhaps implementing them differently. 

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If ESSA is to succeed, States will need more support in implementing the law, 

and will need the law clarified in many cases through regulation. They will also 

need ongoing guidance and support in how to achieve improved results, including 

for ELs. We need the Department of Education to provide clarity through regulation 

that the clock cannot be turned back on progress for all kids. 

Thank you Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray and members of the 

committee for providing me the opportunity to present testimony. My name is Delia 

Pompa; I am a Senior Fellow for Education Policy at the Migration Policy Institute 

(MPI), an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, DC that 

analyzes United States and international migration trends and policies. Within 

MPI, the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy (NCIIP) does significant 

work in the education arena, examining and analyzing the changing demographics 

of the U.S. PreK–12 student population and major challenges facing local, State and 

Federal policymakers and program managers as they seek to respond to the needs 

of diverse immigrant and English Learner (EL) children. 

My work in public school improvement has been shaped by many years of experience leading local, State and Federal agencies and national and international organizations. I began my career as a kindergarten teacher in San Antonio and went 

on to serve as a district administrator in Houston and as Assistant Commissioner 

of the Texas Education Agency. I was formerly the Director of Education, Adolescent 

Pregnancy Prevention and Youth Development for the Children’s Defense Fund and 

Director of the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs at the 

U.S. Department of Education. Immediately prior to my work at MPI, I was Senior 

Vice President for Programs at the National Council of La Raza. 

I have deep respect for the bipartisan process led by Chairman Alexander and 

Ranking Member Murray that resulted in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), 

which promises to ensure equity while fostering innovation and excellence. The primary responsibility for making that promise a reality rests squarely on the shoulders of States and districts, which have been given greater authority under ESSA 

to interpret the new mandates. But they can’t do it alone. It is critical that the regulatory process ensure that States and districts keep equity, particularly accountability for the progress of all students, at the core of their work and ensure that 

States and districts engage a wide range of stakeholders in developing and implementing their new accountability and school improvement plans. 

In addition, it is important to recognize the great advancement that ESSA could 

make with respect to English learners in K–12 classrooms. ESSA includes important 

policies that recognize the needs and diversity of ELs in an effort to close the ongoing achievement gap between them and other students. The bill also crucially improves accountability for how ELs are achieving—an expansion of the last reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). ESSA responds to 

the reality that ELs are a large and growing part of the U.S. public school population. Given ESSA’s overall thrust of reducing Federal authority in education, however, ensuring that EL needs are met will be complicated by the fact that education 

agencies in 50 States and the District of Columbia will be interpreting the new 

mandates and perhaps implementing them differently. 

Today one in four students in U.S. schools is the child of an immigrant; 1 in 10 

is an English learner. Improvements in accountability and instruction provisions in 

ESSA will raise outcomes not just for these children, but also overall student 

achievement in the growing number of States and districts where they are a significant portion of the school population. In 2014 the Department of Education reported 

that nearly 5 million students in the U.S. K–12 system—or roughly 10 percent— 

were ELs. But their relative concentration ranges widely by State and district: fully 

23 percent of California’s students in 2014 were English learners, as were 40 percent of students in the Denver Public Schools. Consequently, provisions regarding 

EL students should be as clear as possible to the educators and communities who 

will implement them. As indicated in the charts below, the size and distribution of 

the EL population continues to grow. The numbers and their location are a clear 

indication of how many States and districts will be affected by changes for ELs in 

ESSA. 

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Map 1. States with the Highest English Learner Student Density, 

SY 2012–13 

Source: Migration Policy Institute (MPI) calculations based on data obtained 

through the U.S. Department of Education, ‘‘ED Data Express Tool,’’ accessed February 23, 2015. Data on total student enrollment derive from the Common Core of 

Data (CCD). Data on enrollment of EL students by State derive from the ‘‘Consolidated State Performance Report’’ (CSPR). 

Table 1. Top 15 States with Highest English Learner Student Enrollment in Public Schools, 

SY 2012–13 

State EL Enrollment Total K–12 

enrollment 

Percent ELs 

among K–12 

students 

United States ................................................................................................. 4,851,527 49,474,030 9.8 

California ....................................................................................................... 1,521,772 6,213,194 24.5 

Texas .............................................................................................................. 773,732 5,077,507 15.2 

Florida ............................................................................................................ 277,802 2,692,143 10.3 

New York ........................................................................................................ 237,499 2,708,851 8.8 

Illinois ............................................................................................................ 190,172 2,055,502 9.3 

Colorado ......................................................................................................... 114,415 863,121 13.3 

Washington .................................................................................................... 107,307 1,051,694 10.2 

North Carolina ................................................................................................ 102,311 1,506,080 6.8 

Virginia ........................................................................................................... 99,897 1,263,660 7.9 

Georgia ........................................................................................................... 94,034 1,703,332 5.5 

Arizona ........................................................................................................... 91,382 1,087,697 8.4 

Michigan ........................................................................................................ 80,958 1,513,153 5.4 

Nevada ........................................................................................................... 77,559 445,017 17.4 

Massachusetts ............................................................................................... 71,066 954,507 7.4 

Minnesota ....................................................................................................... 70,436 845,291 8.3 

Notes: National EL enrollment totals do not include outlying territories such as Guam, American Samoa, the Marshall Islands or Puerto Rico. The share of ELs among K–12 students was calculated by dividing EL enrollment by total K–12 enrollment for all States and the Na- tion. 

Source: MPI calculations are based on data obtained through the U.S. Department of Education, ‘‘ED Data Express Tool,’’ http:// 

eddataexpress.ed.gov/index.cfm. Data on total student enrollment derive from the Common Core of Data (CCD). Data on enrollment of 

EL students by State derive from the Consolidated State Performance Reports (CSPR). 

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37 

Table 2. Top 25 School Districts by EL Enrollment, 

SY 2011–12 

District/Agency Name State EL enrollment Total K–12 enrollment 

Percent ELs 

among K–12 

students 

Los Angeles Unified .......................................................... CA 152,592 659,639 23.1 

New York City* ................................................................. NY 142,572 968,143 14.7 

Clark County ..................................................................... NV 68,577 313,398 21.9 

Dade County ..................................................................... FL 66,497 350,239 19.0 

Dallas Independent ........................................................... TX 56,650 157,575 36.0 

Houston Independent ........................................................ TX 54,333 203,066 26.8 

City of Chicago ................................................................. IL 53,786 403,004 13.3 

Fairfax County ................................................................... VA 36,551 177,606 20.6 

San Diego Unified ............................................................. CA 36,453 131,044 27.8 

Santa Ana Unified ............................................................ CA 32,170 57,250 56.2 

Orange County .................................................................. FL 28,311 180,000 15.7 

District 1 County of Denver .............................................. CO 25,417 80,890 31.4 

Hawaii Department of Education ..................................... HI 24,750 182,706 13.5 

Broward County ................................................................ FL 24,143 258,478 9.3 

Hillsborough County .......................................................... FL 22,474 197,041 11.4 

Fort Worth Independent .................................................... TX 21,913 83,109 26.4 

Austin Independent ........................................................... TX 21,751 86,528 25.1 

Long Beach Unified .......................................................... CA 20,746 83,691 24.8 

Garden Grove Unified ....................................................... CA 20,743 47,999 43.2 

Montgomery County .......................................................... MD 20,580 146,459 14.1 

Gwinnett County ............................................................... GA 18,968 162,370 11.7 

Palm Beach County .......................................................... FL 18,698 176,901 10.6 

Fresno Unified ................................................................... CA 17,536 74,235 23.6 

San Bernardino City Unified ............................................. CA 17,488 54,379 32.2 

San Francisco Unified ...................................................... CA 17,083 56,310 30.3 

Notes: Data are based on district or agency reports. ‘‘New York City’’ includes 32 districts across the city’s five boroughs. The share of ELs among K–12 students was calculated by dividing EL enrollment by total K–12 enrollment for all districts or agencies. 

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), ‘‘Local Education Agency 

(School District) Universe Survey,’’ 2011–12 v. 1a; ‘‘State Nonfiscal Public Elementary/Secondary Education Survey,’’ 2011–12 v. 1a, http:// 

nces.ed.gov/ccd/elsi/default.aspx. 

In order to get the results we all hope for—for every student to graduate high 

school prepared for college or career—we have to do more to support States in implementing the law. States will need the law clarified in many cases through regulation and they will need ongoing guidance and support in how to achieve improved 

results, including for ELs. My organization, MPI, has specific recommendations on 

how Federal regulations could help guide States and districts onto a path for success, and we stand ready to help States develop successful plans that meet their 

individual States contexts. 

ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ALL STUDENTS

The focus of my remarks is on the need for effective implementation of provisions 

relating to ELs. But the bottom line is that the new, important EL policies I mentioned will not be effective if the overall accountability systems that States develop 

are not strong enough to ensure that schools are held accountable for the success 

of all children. The Department of Education should provide clarity through regulation that the clock cannot be turned back on progress for all kids. This country cannot go back to a time when the performance of subgroups of students was masked 

by high-performing students. It is my organization’s hope that the regulations will 

be strong in this area. 

ENTRY AND EXIT CRITERIA FOR ENGLISH LEARNERS

It is encouraging that ESSA is ushering in uniformity with regard to classification 

of students as ELs, and including English proficiency outcomes in States. ESSA requires States to have a standardized process for classifying students as English 

learners as well as a standardized statewide process for how ELs exit special services (or how they are reclassified). Up until now, many States have had a hodgepodge of EL entry-and-exit criteria across districts within a State, resulting in inconsistent assessment of needs and provision of services for students. Under ESSA, 

the entry and exit of ELs from services will be consistent at least within States, 

thus allowing educators to better serve students with high rates of mobility and 

making the definition of an English learner consistent across the State. However, 

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States will need guidelines for the parameters of their definition; they will need support for how to develop criteria for entry and exit. Given the complexity of new assessments, they will also need regulations for the inclusion of English proficiency 

in overall accountability as it relates to entry and exit. This will be a policy challenge for all States, particularly for those that do not currently have a standardized 

statewide process. 

ENGLISH PROFICIENCY AS AN INDICATOR

This provision is an important example of where additional clarification and technical assistance are required from the Department of Education. Regulations that 

define parameters for how English proficiency will figure into a State’s academic indicators should take into account the size of the English learner population in a particular State, growth in proficiency levels in the EL population and EL grade level 

distribution. Certainly clarity on how to measure progress in English proficiency 

versus measuring English proficiency itself should be embedded in these regulations. Fortunately, there is a body of research from which to define these parameters and examples from States on how to operationalize this knowledge. The Department should define parameters for ensuring that English proficiency outcomes 

are included in a manner that reflects analysis of existing data and best practice. 

Doing so is key to fulfilling the law’s intent to include the full spectrum of English 

learners’ performance in accountability. 

PROGRESS ON ENGLISH PROFICIENCY

The newly required inclusion of English proficiency outcomes in States’ accountability systems is also encouraging. Yet States will need guidance regarding what 

‘‘making progress’’ in developing English proficiency means. Requirements elsewhere in the law require reporting on EL students who have not reached proficiency 

within 5 years of their enrollment. Does that requirement signal that English proficiency should be reached within that timeframe and what increments should that 

reflect? How should grade level and level of English at entry be taken into account? 

The answers to these questions present a policy challenge to States without strong 

regulation from the Department of Education. 

ENGLISH LEARNER SUBGROUP

The law now permits States to include in the EL subgroup former English Learner students up to 4 years after they have exited special language services. Including 

former English learners in the EL subgroup allows States and districts to present 

a more robust picture of how well their English learner students are progressing 

after meeting exit criteria. However by including former English learners, overall 

scores for the subgroup will rise and may mask the performance of current English 

learners. The Department should address this issue through the regulatory process, 

requiring States to carefully disaggregate and monitor achievement for current 

English learners and to address any downward trends in performance as soon as 

they are noted. 

PARENT, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

The Federal role in education has been critical to safeguarding the civil and educational rights of English learners, and it is important to ensure that gains under 

Federal law are not lost in State and local accountability plans. This will mean an 

increased need for broader and deeper dissemination of what research has yielded 

about this group of learners. It will also mean consultation with all stakeholders 

who count on this law to support an equitable and excellent education for all 

English learners. 

Parent and family engagement are provided for in this law. Our experience has 

most often been that in most States this engagement has been perfunctory and superficial. Regulations articulating specific examples of meaningful parent, family 

and community engagement in policy development should further the cause of equity for English learners and all children. 

MPI IMPLEMENTATION EFFORTS

While we think that there need to be regulations to clarify the law to increase 

the chances of successful implementation, we also know that regulations alone 

aren’t enough—we all have to help States and districts succeed. Already at MPI, we 

have begun the process of supporting implementation of ESSA in a manner that engages diverse stakeholders along with educators. We began this effort by publishing 

a summary of English learner provisions in ESSA through a variety of networks. 

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MPI is also working in coalition with other groups to address ESSA implementation. 

Along with community stakeholders, educators and other national groups, MPI is 

implementing a strategy in two parts. First, we have analyzed the law to understand new provisions. That process will continue through development of guidance 

and regulation, culminating in providing examples for States to consider as they implement particular provisions of the law. In response to great interest and some uncertainty about some provisions, we have scheduled presentations to State directors 

and school board members. We will continue our work assessing the size, distribution and characteristics of the EL population, as well as key subpopulations including long-term ELs and those with disabilities. 

The second stage of our work relies on partnerships with a variety of stakeholders 

in States. We will work with large coalitions of immigrant community groups to increase awareness of the new law and awareness of their right and responsibility to 

participate in shaping State policy. Leveraging MPI’s expertise, strong dissemination capacities and ability to attract and work with a variety of stakeholders, we 

will be uniquely well-positioned to the development of policies for ELs that yield improved outcomes and support for their champions to ensure that responsive policies 

are adopted. Immigrant and community groups have a natural interest in education. 

Education has long been viewed as the most critical element of integration into U.S. 

economic and civic life by immigrants. 

As MPI moves forward helping States and districts implement ESSA, we share 

a commitment to smart regulation and guidance that allows for innovation and for 

local situations, but that also provides States with parameters built on the framework of equity set out in the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 

MPI looks forward to working with you, with the Department of Education and with 

the breadth of stakeholders who believe in the promise of our school system. Thank 

you for this opportunity to share our experience and our aspirations for all children. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Pompa, and thanks to all of you. 

It’s been an excellent and diverse set of recommendations. Now, 

we’ll begin a round of 5-minute questions. 

Governor Herbert, let’s start with you. Over the weekend, the 

National Governors Association announced not only its national coalition to help with the implementation of the law but State-byState coalitions. How will that work? 

Governor HERBERT. It’s based on the common sense idea that together we can get things done and separately we have some challenges. With laws that are put together by State or Federal law, 

it’s too often that we get put in siloes and don’t work together. 

I know we have a culture in Utah of collaboration and cooperation. In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recognized us as the 

No. 1 enterprising State and said the reason for that was our ability to cooperate and collaborate in Utah better than any place 

they’ve seen in America. That’s the spirit we need to bring together 

to bring these coalitions together and make sure that we realize 

the promise of ESSA by making sure that all stakeholders are 

working together and pulling together. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Governor Herbert. 

Ms. Weingarten and Ms. Pringle, let me ask you both a question. 

Each of you as well as other witnesses talked about time. What we 

have before us is a rare opportunity in Federal education policy. 

We have a law that we would all agree is hard to do, hard to pass, 

and that means every State will need to submit a new plan within 

the next year or so for its title I and title II moneys. 

And the likelihood that, given the difficulty of passing the law, 

plus, I think, the general feeling that the law is well written and 

good policy—that, plus the fact that these plans don’t have to be 

amended unless there are major changes in them later, we actually 

may be headed toward a period where we have real stability in 

Federal education policy, leaving States and classroom teachers 

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and chief State school officers and others a chance not to worry so 

much about changes every 6 months in Washington. 

One of the major changes has to do with teacher evaluation. You 

know from my background that I think, since I don’t know how to 

pass a better parents law, that finding a way to fairly reward outstanding teaching is the holy grail of public school education. In 

Tennessee, we got involved with that early. But I did not believe 

when I got to Washington that we should tell everybody how to do 

it and make them do it from here. 

So we’re going from a situation where Race to the Top and the 

conditional waivers had very prescribed mandates—not just to 

have teacher evaluation, but how to do it—to a situation where the 

Secretary is actually prohibited from doing that. Now, what’s going 

to happen with the objective of teacher evaluation? What are the 

teachers unions going to do about the importance of finding fair 

ways to reward outstanding teaching? And how do you see the U.S. 

Department of Education’s role? How has its role changed insofar 

as how States will go about that? 

Ms. WEINGARTEN. We’ve actually given that a great deal of 

thought, so thank you for the question. I don’t mean this to be in 

any way other than how I hope people take it. I’m a pretty simple 

kind of gal. I think about teacher evaluation, as do my leaders and 

members, in a very simple kind of way, which is: Do I or does a 

cohort of educators have the tools and conditions to do their job? 

And then the second two questions: Have you done your job? 

Have you taught the things that you have been asked to teach or 

that you believe is important to teach on a day-to-day basis, a 

week-to-week basis? And then the third question is: Have kids 

learned it? And if kids have not, then the question is why. 

I say it that way because we need to get back to something that’s 

very accessible to both teachers and to parents in terms of what is 

within the teacher’s scope of responsibility and has she done that, 

and have you done that, and have we done that on a school level 

and on a district level. That’s what the opportunity here is to reset. 

We often talk about moving from—— 

The CHAIRMAN. My time is about up. I want to give Ms. Pringle 

an opportunity. If you have anything—— 

Ms. WEINGARTEN [continuing]. It’s moving from test and punish 

to support and improve, and I think that there’s an opportunity to 

do that now throughout the country. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Pringle. 

Ms. PRINGLE. Part of the beauty of this law is the requirement 

that we collaborate and that we not only listen to the voice of 

teachers but we include them in decisionmaking. Teacher evaluation could not be a better example. 

One of the challenges that we had with all of the mandates that 

you just described, Senator, is that the teacher evaluation systems 

were based—the premise of them—they were rooted in the test and 

punish. It was about getting rid of bad teachers or even rewarding 

good teachers instead of actually being rooted in students and student learning and student improvement. That’s a completely different paradigm to approach it. 

When we talk about teacher evaluation, of course, we want to 

talk about indicators of teacher practice. We want to talk about 

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how we have an evaluation system that informs our teachers so 

they can improve their professional practice. 

We also need to talk about indicators of teacher contribution and 

growth, not only to their students, but to the profession and to the 

school community, et cetera. And, of course, we need to talk about 

indicators and contributions to student learning and student 

growth. But we’ve got to root it in the idea that evaluation is about 

improving professional practice so that all students can learn. 

That’s a very, very different paradigm. 

I will tell you—and I know the AFT has done this as well—that 

we put together an accountability and evaluation task force that 

came up with recommendations on exactly how to do that and take 

a look at teacher evaluation from the perspective of the entire continuum, from pre-service all the way to what we hope will be advanced certification for all teachers. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Pringle. 

Senator Murray. 

Senator MURRAY. Thank you. 

Ms. Haycock, you mentioned in your testimony that in the past 

14 years under No Child Left Behind we have seen the achievement gap narrow in both academic achievement and in high school 

graduation rates. Now, under the Every Student Succeeds Act, 

we’re going to see a lot of the responsibilities of Federal Government under No Child Left Behind shift to our States. 

In your many years of experience working at the State and Federal level, what could be some of the unintended consequences of 

this shift without corresponding implementation of the strong Federal guardrails? 

Ms. HAYCOCK. Thank you, Senator. I think it’s clear from lots of 

experience that if we don’t clearly enforce the guardrails that are 

in the law, you do one of two things. For leaders that are really 

trying to focus on equity, you take away the leverage that they 

need to do their work effectively. For leaders that are a little more 

recalcitrant, which, unfortunately, too many are, you take away all 

the pressure to do the right thing by kids. 

Fortunately, you put important guardrails in the law around a 

variety of things, but most specifically around accountability. And 

the best way to make sure that those guardrails actually provide 

the leverage that strong leaders need is to make sure of two things: 

one, that there is enforcement, that there’s not just a wink and a 

nod in the Department of Education that said, ‘‘Well, Congress 

didn’t really mean that,’’ because I think you did; and, second, for 

those of us on the ground to actually do the advocacy work, to actually participate meaningfully in developing coalitions and being at 

the table, and that’s what we intend to do. 

Senator MURRAY. Dr. Evers, in sending so much new power to 

the States, I believe it’s really critically important that a diverse 

group of stakeholders provide input and inform how States implement the law. I was glad to hear that you’re planning to engage 

stakeholders, including civil rights leaders and parents, in the implementation process. 

I wanted to ask you specifically what steps will your organization 

take to engage these groups across all of our States, and how will 

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you ensure that a wide range of stakeholders have meaningful 

input into the implementation of the law? 

Mr. EVERS. Thank you so much for addressing that question. 

Something very important to me and important to our folks in Wisconsin, in particular, is that we need to have a broad group. Clearly, our teachers are really an important part of that. But, also I 

have to be frank with you. In my role as State superintendent, the 

opportunities to reach out to people that haven’t been at the 

table—ESSA has really given us an opportunity to do that. 

We’re already beginning that outreach process. We should have 

a group of folks together in the very near future, probably by 

spring or mid spring. So we feel that that’s a step in the right direction, and it’s also going to be giving us a chance to permanently 

engage people on a whole variety of issues that, frankly, have nothing to do with ESSA but are important to our State. 

The question you raised about other States is an outstanding 

question. But it’s my observation that other States have good 

stakeholder involvement. Our organization meets regularly where 

we can share good practices, and this is one that we can share, and 

I feel confident that most States have that piece in place going forward. 

Frankly, I think some of the conversation here is around why 

States should be trusted. I understand that issue, and all I can say 

is NCLB had lots of issues related to it. But the best thing about 

it is for the first time ever, we took a look at subgroups, groups 

of young people that were failing and were covered up by the folks 

that were not failing or were not struggling. That was an embarrassment for all States. 

I can’t imagine in my wildest dreams that any State that has engaged NCLB on this issue would suddenly back away from that. 

That seems illogical to me. I feel confident that States can be trusted on this. I can assure you that it is in our State. It’s an important piece going forward. 

Senator MURRAY. I just have a few seconds left. Ms. Weingarten 

or Ms. Pringle, whoever grabs it first, how are we going to make 

sure that teachers’ voices are heard during the implementation 

process? Are your organizations moving forward on that? 

Ms. PRINGLE. Yes, absolutely. As I said in my testimony, we’re 

bringing in leaders from all over the country. One of the things 

that we are doing differently is we’re listening as well, and we are 

creating the space and preparing for what I’ll call the psychological 

preparation of our teachers to move forward and to lead. I think 

we’ve all been suffering from Stockholm syndrome. I really do. I 

think this is an opportunity that we’re going to take, that we are 

taking, and we’re stepping up. 

We are building cadres of people, but we’re also building training 

for them in instructional practice and policy. We’re pulling together 

groups of teacher leaders so that they can be prepared to take that 

leadership and to go beyond having their voice to actually creating 

solutions that work for our students. 

Senator MURRAY. Very good. I’m out of time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thanks, Senator Murray. 

Senator Bennet. 

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STATEMENT OF SENATOR BENNET

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

you and the Ranking Member, Senator Murray, for your leadership 

on this bill. You really have led a historic discussion about what 

the role of the Federal Government ought to be with respect to education, the role of State and local governments ought to be with respect to education, and I believe you’ve come out in the right place. 

For many years, in discussions around how to reform our education system, we’ve used a command and control approach, and 

we’ve set off—and that flexibility is something that has to be 

earned. Demonstrate results and we will give you flexibility. 

My view is that we ought to be doing exactly the opposite of that. 

We should be assuming flexibility, and where results are not delivered, we begin to take that flexibility away. We begin to impose 

interventions that are necessary, because let’s be honest. Notwithstanding everything that we’ve done over the last 15 years, if 

you’re a poor child living in America, you really don’t have a shot 

at a good education. You don’t. And the results are terrible for too 

many of our children living in poverty. 

Too many of them don’t have access to high-quality or any early 

childhood education. Too many of them, the vast majority of them, 

I would contend, live in communities where the K–12 schools are 

schools that not a single person on this panel would ever send their 

kids. 

And because college has gotten so expensive—for a variety of reasons—but because it’s gotten so expensive that for people living in 

the bottom quartile of income earners, it costs them 85 percent of 

their net income, whereas for people in the top quartile, it’s only 

15 percent of their net income, it is not an overstatement to say 

that for too many of our children living in poverty, our system of 

education is actually reinforcing the income inequality we have 

rather than liberating people from it. 

I would trade everything, all the other policies we talk about, all 

the other government—what we do in our tax code, everything, if 

I knew that every poor kid in America had a shot at great early 

childhood education, had a shot at a K–12 school that I’d be proud 

to send my kids to—and I say that as the parent of three daughters 

that are in the Denver public schools—and had a shot to go to the 

best college they got into without bankrupting their family and 

without shackling themselves to a lifetime of having to pay debt. 

So we’ve made a decision here after this debate to change the 

roles of these governmental institutions. But that doesn’t mean 

that we’ve solved the problem. Ms. Pringle said in her testimony 

that this is a moment about building the future of our students, not 

looking back at the past. I say amen to that, because what we 

know is the traditional approach to educating children living in 

poverty will not work for our children living in poverty. 

So my question for the panel—and I’m sorry to go on for so long, 

but we know it won’t work. We know it won’t work. So my question 

for the members of the panel is: As we move away from this compliance-driven approach, how do we assure that we take advantage 

of opportunities for change and innovation? How do we use this 

flexibility for the benefit of our children so that 15 years from now, 

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we’re not sitting here saying we’ve dropped from first to 16th in 

college graduates, and now we’re at 32nd? How do we say we’ve reclaimed the lead, and we know that, finally, America is living up 

to its promise to be the land of opportunity because we have seen 

kids, no matter what their circumstances are, have the right to a 

high-quality education? 

This is a civil rights law. It’s the only reason for us to be in this 

business in the Federal Government. So, Governor, maybe we’ll 

just start with you and work our way down the panel and see if 

anybody would like to respond. 

Governor HERBERT. As you’ve waxed eloquently there, I can tell 

it’s a complex issue, and, certainly, we need to have the desire and 

the goal to improve people’s lives. I believe States are solving problems better at that State level and improving people’s lives better 

than a one-size-fits-all approach that too often stymies our ability 

with Federal law. 

I’m better qualified to talk about Utah than all the other States, 

but I do recognize lifting people out of poverty is a key issue. I’m 

proud to say that in Utah, the child poverty rate is 13.3 percent 

where the national average is 27 percent. Our overall poverty rate 

in Utah is 10 percent. The national average is 15 percent. We’re 

a third lower. 

We’re making a significant effort to make sure that everybody 

has an opportunity for a good education. We’ve equalized funding 

so that no matter whether you’re in the rural poverty areas of Utah 

or the urban better economic standing areas, you have the same 

opportunity to have an equal education. That really is the key to 

sustained economic growth—is education. We recognize that. 

I do find it puzzling that somehow we think that the Federal 

Government has got more concern about our students in our State 

than the local States and the teachers and the families and the 

parents. I don’t think that’s true. I think it is a team effort. We’ve 

got to work together in a collaborative fashion and see what we can 

do to have the goal to be No. 1, and let’s work together to achieve 

that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Bennet asked all of you the question, 

but he’s run out of time. So you could respond in writing, or we 

might have time for a second round of questions. 

That’s a great question. But I want to make sure the other Senators have a chance to ask their questions. 

Senator Whitehouse. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR WHITEHOUSE

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Chairman. 

Ms. Weingarten, you, I think, asked the question of the day, 

which is what do we want to see from all of this effort. Certainly, 

what I want to see is curriculum expanded. It contracted because 

of the testing requirements, and the most impoverished schools 

ended up with the most impoverished curriculums, and we lost a 

lot of kids because the thing that they were passionate about 

wasn’t on the curriculum any longer. That would be one. 

The second would be some serious middle school accountability. 

Those were the forgotten years, and this bill for the first time puts 

some focus there. And, finally, I’d like to see some real innovation 

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take place. I know the innovation schools effort has run afoul of opponents who worked during the quiet of the reconciliation process 

between the House and the Senate bills to minimize that. But I 

think and I hope that we can, through the public process, try to 

reinvigorate that. 

There are two areas where innovation is key. One is where you 

have a failing school. And to me, a failing school is like a school 

on fire. You don’t run the firefighting through a bureaucracy in 

Washington. You do what you need to do to get that school right, 

and you learn through our laboratories of democracy. 

And, second, you’ve got to be able to start innovation schools in 

our public school system. No school can now see a real capacity to 

do that if they have to get through the bureaucracy of their local 

school department and at the same time have to get through the 

bureaucracy of their State school department and at the same time 

have to get through the bureaucracy of the Federal education department. 

The idea that one little school can line those three things up has 

basically meant that the whole enterprise has been dead in the cradle, and I would really like to see that revived. So those are the 

three things that I think I’m looking for most in this. 

Ms. Weingarten, let me ask you—one of the ways we opened up 

curriculum was to take the pressure off some of the testing. One 

of the ways we took the pressure off the testing was to require that 

there be a dashboard of alternative measures. We live in a world 

of data. There’s tons of data out there. 

What do you think are the best data points that can be used in 

the existing data stream that’s out there to provide a good dashboard for whether an individual school is performing well or not 

without having to burden it with this insane testing regime we 

were under? 

Ms. WEINGARTEN. I’d be happy to share what I held up, because 

the point in this piece of paper is to actually help school teachers 

and parents and people in communities take the words that a lot 

of us use and translate it into real life. There are a lot of these 

data points on this piece of paper, Senator Whitehouse, and I’d be 

happy to share it with you. 

[The information referenced above follows:] 

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Ms. WEINGARTEN. I’ll give you one example. Take the issue of 

chronic absenteeism, and this goes to Senator Bennet’s question, 

too. When you see persistent poverty, you may also see chronic absenteeism. That’s a data point that now can be used in the new accountability guardrails, but wasn’t used before. That raises a lot of 

issues in terms of what can we do for kids who are chronically absent. 

First, we have to get them in school. But if we don’t have that 

chronic absenteeism as a data point, then how are we going to get 

the services to get them back in school? It also goes to how are we 

going to get the social-emotional services that will help kids be 

ready to learn? So that’s one example. 

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Another example is the issues around resilience and engagement. 

I’m a big believer in career tech-ed, project-based instruction, because of the engagement. If we can get kids into schools and want 

to be in schools and want to be in either art or music or a project, 

that’s half the battle. And then resilience is also important and trying to figure out data points around resilience, because all of us fall 

down. How do we help kids get up? 

So we’re looking at strategies that can be replicated, because the 

bottom line is that what has happened in schooling in the last 20 

years—there’s been some incredibly good examples. But we don’t 

know how to sustain, and we don’t know how to replicate. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. In my last 10 seconds, I’ll jump in and ask 

Dr. Schuler—if you have specific examples of unnecessary, redundant, uncoordinated information that’s being sought, please let us 

know. I think the Department of Education needs to take a clear 

message from this bill that they need to align what they’re doing 

much, much better with what’s happening locally and become less 

of a stifling effect and more of an invigorating one. I think that’s 

a bipartisan sentiment here. Let us know examples, and we will be 

your advocates. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator Cassidy has suggested we go on to Senator Baldwin and 

then he’ll go after that. 

Senator Baldwin. 

Senator BALDWIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

One thing that we know that No Child Left Behind got wrong 

was its one-size-fits-all intervention scheme. It prescribed federally 

determined interventions for all schools that didn’t move the needle 

for children who are struggling. 

I was proud as a part of our committee and floor process to support a new focus on resource equity in ESSA. Specifically, under 

the new law, school districts will need to work with both comprehensive improvement and target support schools in order to 

more equitably allocate funding, outstanding teachers, and other 

very, very important resources. 

I want to direct this question to Becky Pringle and Randi 

Weingarten. I want to ask you, from your perspective, how urgent 

is the issue of resource equity, and what, in your mind, can be done 

to see that these provisions are implemented effectively over the 

months to come? 

Ms. PRINGLE. Senator Baldwin, thank you for that question. We 

talked a lot about the opportunity dashboard as ESSA was being 

reauthorized, and we identified resource equity issues from having 

a counselor to help shepherd a student through the application to 

college and financial aid to having access to AP courses, to science 

and math, to arts and music. And we talk a lot about that resource 

equity. 

But, the reality is when you visit schools—and I just came from 

Patterson, NJ, where we did a walk-in there to talk about the 

schools our students deserve. And I had an escort, a little fifth 

grader, who took me around the school, and he’s very proud. But 

he told us as we were walking—he said, ‘‘You know, I don’t go to 

the bathroom anymore, because it’s too filthy, and I don’t feel safe 

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rooms to go to, we’re talking about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 

here, I mean, basic things. 

As I go to schools and visit schools where they have a bank of 

computers sitting in the back because they’re 10 years old, that’s 

a resource equity issue, and that’s what we are so hopeful about 

with ESSA, that we’ve created this dashboard to actually hold 

schools accountable for addressing those real issues for real kids. 

So the resource equity issue is absolutely essential. And when we 

talk about serious accountability, that must be a part of everything 

we do for our kids. 

And one more thing to Senator Bennet’s question. We talk a lot 

about poverty and the impact on our schools. I need and want the 

Senators to think about racial justice in education. Far too many 

of the kids that don’t have bathrooms they can go to look like me. 

We need to address that issue. We need to take it head-on, and we 

need to redouble a commitment to addressing the fact that too 

many of our kids who look like me go to schools that don’t have 

a physics teacher or a computer. We need to address that. 

Ms. WEINGARTEN. I want to build on what Becky said. At the end 

of the day, the districts around Detroit would not have the mold 

and the black mold and a technology school that doesn’t have the 

Internet, and the suburban districts would never have that, and 

that’s part of what resource equity is. That’s part of what LBJ 

thought about when he first pushed the ESEA in the first place. 

So we need to make it real. 

But I want to go to the next step of the hierarchy of needs, to 

something that I think Kati and others were getting at before, 

which is the most important thing we can do, I think, in terms of 

the intervention strategies and using resource equity is how do we 

turn around schools that are struggling. How do we get great 

teachers to go and to stay? That’s part of resource equity, too. 

Take teacher residencies, which tend to be some of the best 

things we can do right now. How do we get the money to actually 

have teacher residencies and for teachers to actually stay in schools 

of need? That’s part of what resource equity is. 

Senator BALDWIN. I note that I’ve come to the end of my time. 

I had a second question that I’ll submit for the record unless we 

get a second rotation. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Baldwin. 

Senator Cassidy has deferred to Senator Franken. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR FRANKEN

Senator FRANKEN. I thank my friend from Louisiana. 

I visited a number of schools in Minnesota that have done a really good job partnering with community-based mental health providers to expand students’ access to mental health services. And 

after these visits and after talking with experts about mental 

health needs of students, I introduced my Mental Health in Schools 

Act, and I’m pleased that we incorporated many of its provisions 

into ESSA. 

My provisions will allow schools to work with community-based 

organizations and mental health providers to get students mental 

health screening, treatment, and referral services. This is my question to anybody and everybody. As States begin to develop their 

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49 

plans to comply with the new law, can you talk about any strategies you’ve developed to help States expand mental health services 

for students, for kids? 

Anybody? 

Mr. EVERS. Thank you, Senator, for that question. Mental health 

is a huge issue in our State and across the Nation, mental health 

of young folks. And, luckily, at the State level, we’ve just passed 

a law to make it easier for mental health professionals to actually 

go to schools and provide services there. 

The question you raise, though, is really, I think, directed exactly 

to where ESSA is, and that’s identifying schools and kids that are 

struggling and providing local solutions for that. It kind of gets at 

the whole community schools opportunity, where we start to address mental health issues with people onsite, where we’re able to 

provide dental health issues onsite, where we bring in community 

activists who really help the school connect with the community. 

I think mental health is a major reason for the community 

schools movement, and I believe as we work with our schools that 

are struggling, those sorts of services will be at the crux of it, because, yes, we want people to do well on tests, but, frankly, the 

issues that struggling kids have are probably not in that arena. It’s 

in the arena of their health and making sure that they’re socially 

and emotionally competent, and community schools can make that 

happen. 

Senator FRANKEN. I know that in the schools I visited, when you 

had the mental health provider in the school, it made a huge difference, and, actually, in some of the schools I went to, I heard that 

kids would high-five their therapist in the hall. It reduces stigma 

and it helps the teachers. 

Let me move on to the way we do testing. I think what we did 

was we understood that the high-stakes, mandated testing, onesize-fits-all, didn’t work. I like annual testing because I think you 

get to measure growth. But we did not mandate growth in this as 

a measurement. I think proficiency is a very bad—I thought we 

discovered that was not—that didn’t work, and it was a lot because 

teachers would focus on the kids just above and just below proficiency to get their numbers up. How are we going to approach 

testing, not having redundant testing? 

I’m going to go to Dr. Evers again, because you’re the State guy. 

How are you going to reduce unnecessary testing, but also approach this central issue? 

Mr. EVERS. First of all, in the State of Wisconsin, growth is part 

of our accountability system, and it’s in State law, and we will continue to emphasize growth as you mentioned. 

Senator FRANKEN. Is that something you did during the waivers? 

Mr. EVERS. No, we’ve done that all along. 

Senator FRANKEN. Oh, OK. 

Mr. EVERS. Right from the get-go. But the issue about testing— 

I’m a supporter of annual standardized tests. I think they have 

value. But we have gotten to a place—and I know I can’t get 

through this in 18 seconds—but a place where we’ve—— 

Senator FRANKEN. I just have to get done by my time. You can 

take—— 

[Laughter.] 

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Mr. EVERS. OK. Well, let me—— 

Senator FRANKEN. You can try the chairman’s patience all you 

like. 

Mr. EVERS. We oversold what standardized testing is. Quite simply, what it is is it provides a snapshot of 1 day at a computer or 

working on a test, and it provides information to parents and 

teachers for that point in time. It gives the State and the Federal 

Government information about growth. 

But, to me, a lot of the standardized testing preparation should 

never be done. What is going to be measured on a standardized 

test is what teachers do every single day in the classroom. And the 

idea of prepping for standardized testing is a huge issue, and we 

can move away from that if we start to understand the limited use 

of standardized tests. But it also has gain, and I appreciate our 

friends from the teaching profession on this. But we need to look 

at other tests that are done locally and provide guidance and 

thought around that. 

I have to believe that there is some over-testing in that area. I’m 

not bailing out on our end of it, the State end. But we need to take 

a good look at that. At the end of the day, the issue likely is more 

about how those tests results are used rather than the amount of 

testing. 

For the State of Wisconsin, it’s three—about the maximum of 3 

hours per year on standardized tests for any grade level that’s 

being tested. I think that’s reasonable. But the ongoing, day-to-day 

testing in our schools just needs to be looked at. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you. 

I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman, for giving the witness permission to try 

your patience. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s all right, Senator Franken. Thank you for the 

good questions. 

Senator Cassidy. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR CASSIDY

Senator CASSIDY. Franken said he had to go before me because 

he had a time constraint, but then he’s begging people to stay 

longer. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CASSIDY. Let me first direct this question to Dr. Schuler 

and Dr. Evers and Governor Herbert, just because you all are the 

ones who actually would implement such policies. One thing I’m 

concerned about—about 20 percent of our children, statistically, 

have dyslexia. But very few places actually screen for dyslexia. Do 

any of the three entities which you are in charge of screen children 

for dyslexia? 

Mr. EVERS. We do not in the State of Wisconsin. Certainly, dyslexia is an issue that is of great importance to many parents, as 

you mentioned, 20 percent, but there’s no State requirements on 

that. But I can tell you that within our local school districts, there 

is screening of that happening. It just doesn’t happen as a mandate 

from the State level. 

Senator CASSIDY. I think I saw by head nods that neither the 

Governor nor you, sir, do so. 

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Governor HERBERT. Actually, we have nurses in the schools and 

they test—now, whether it’s specifically for dyslexia, I can’t comment on that. I don’t have the information. But I know that we do 

have a significant health responsibility for our young people coming 

into the school, that they’re tested, and we have nurses in the 

schools. 

Senator CASSIDY. So one of my concerns is dyslexia. There’s a 

good peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Pediatrics that it’s detectable at grade one, and if not remediated, it will continue to go. 

So now we’re going to have standardized testing, but it doesn’t respect that—if you’re not—and I can promise you most are not—a 

few are—screening for dyslexia, we have program failure. 

Ma’am, you spoke of the civil rights aspect of education. Only one 

of five children of color actually read at grade level. So one of my 

concerns—and if you look at prisoners, 48 percent of them are 

dyslexic. With all this context, I’ll now get to kind of my queries. 

My concern is that if we have special curriculum that works for 

children with dyslexia, and we’re not screening, and, therefore, 

they’re not receiving that curriculum, then we basically have program failure for 20 percent of the children, which disproportionately affects those impoverished, whether they are of color or not. 

Whatever the standardized testing, unless we allow you to carve 

out some sort of way to address that, we have program failure. 

For those with authority in this decisionmaking process, is that 

logic good, or is that logic faulty? 

Mr. EVERS. Again, I think that’s a good comment. I don’t think 

the argument is faulty. My hope is that we spent a lot of professional development time in our State, especially for early educators, on the issue of dyslexia. 

Senator CASSIDY. I accept that. But if there’s a 20 percent prevalence, and unless you can tell me, ‘‘No, we have 20 percent of our 

children or maybe 15 percent of our children, even 10 percent of 

our children in that sort of science-based curriculum,’’ then I’ll 

think that whatever—no offence, because I suspect you’re pretty 

avant-garde—that whatever you’ve done for your early education, 

in reality, it’s inadequate, again, unless you’re telling me that at 

least 10 percent of your children are under specialized curriculum. 

One of my concerns about this legislation is that we don’t allow 

this. And by the way, it disproportionately affects children in poverty. 

Let me ask this. If you have a specialized school, which is, say, 

a dyslexic school—my wife is involved with one, full disclosure—I’m 

sitting here thinking, well, you have a school which is specialized 

in the management of this issue, but you can pick another for 

which there’s a science-based curriculum. You really are discriminating against them because you’re concentrating those at greatest 

risk for not performing well. 

I say that, again, because as I read the law, this kind of comes 

out to me. Does that logic seem good? 

Mr. EVERS. Is your question about a specialized school for kids 

with dyslexia? 

Senator CASSIDY. Right. You’re concentrating those who are most 

likely to fail. But by the way, if all you did is take those children 

who culturally have been less exposed to reading—say, children 

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52 

who grow up in an urban poor environment or a rural poor environment—and you have a school for them, you’ve got program failure there, because the amount of words they are exposed to growing up is far less than, say, one of your children. And it’s been 

shown that the fewer words you’re exposed to, the less skilled you 

are in language arts. 

Again, my concern is that we almost are selecting how we aggregate children for failure in these language arts tests. As I’m thinking through this—you all are experts. Do you dispute that characterization, or is that a fair characterization? 

Governor Herbert. Let me try—I’m certainly no expert in this 

issue at all. But I know as a Governor our needs for education is 

to make sure that every student does succeed. I expect there’s a 

number of learning disabilities of which dyslexia is just one. It’s 

one you’re highlighting, and it’s one that we ought to probably pay 

rapt attention to. 

But we have autism. We have people with disabilities in many 

different ways, some mental health issues that would make it difficult for our children to concentrate and to study. So all those 

young people should be addressed and see what we can do to put 

them on a pathway to success. 

I actually think our local school districts, with the help of our 

State school boards and the leadership of our superintendents and 

principals, can find ways to address those unique circumstances. 

They may be a concentration in one area and not in another area. 

Again, one-size-fits-all is not the solution, but I think a realization 

of the challenge that’s there with learning disabilities ought to be 

addressed, starting at that local level, with the help of parents and 

guardians that can help bring that to the attention of those who 

are going to be teaching in the schools. 

Senator CASSIDY. Governor, we’re over time. I totally agree with 

you. As I yield back, I will add that I totally agree with you, and 

that’s one of the things I’m concerned about. The law capping at 

1 percent the number of children who can take a test particular for 

their disability, I, frankly, think is a flaw in the law. So we would 

like—but I don’t think the law is going to give that local school 

board that which you just said they should have. 

Governor HERBERT. I don’t know why it would stop us from doing 

it, frankly. I don’t know why we cannot evaluate our own students 

at that local level in the States and say, we have issues here with 

autism. We have special training for our teachers and for schools 

to help with autistic children. I don’t know why we can’t do that 

with dyslexia. 

Senator CASSIDY. The law doesn’t allow that. So I yield. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Cassidy. 

If others have responses to that, we’d welcome your comments in 

writing or later. 

Senator Warren. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARREN

Senator WARREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The new education law gives States a lot more flexibility in determining how to educate our kids while it also establishes a Federal baseline to ensure that the States actually use Federal dollars 

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to support teachers and students who most need those resources. 

I think that one of the most important safeguards in this new law 

is a bipartisan provision that Senator Gardner and I wrote that requires the States to report better data about how their kids are 

doing. 

For the first time, we have a provision that will give parents, 

teachers, and researchers across the country the ability to document performance of specific groups of students and the interaction 

of various factors, like race, gender, disability. And with better 

data, I hope this means we can figure out what’s working and we 

can figure out what’s not working. 

Dr. Evers, in your testimony, you discussed your task force’s 

work to close the achievement gaps in Wisconsin. Can you talk just 

briefly about why having good data is important for work like this? 

Mr. EVERS. Absolutely, it’s important for work like this. Our Promoting Excellence for All task force—I’m task force adverse, so 

having a task force was quite an extraordinary thing for me. But 

we did it right. We brought in teachers and principals, and nobody 

from 30,000 feet were allowed in the room. It came up with some 

great ideas. 

But you’re right. The idea—and I thank you for the efforts 

around cross-tabulation of data. In fact, we were just working on 

it the other day in our State, talking about kids of color and crosstabulation with students with disabilities. The trend line was not 

good, to be honest with you. We have cross-tabulation information 

on our public portal. What we don’t have is military kids and foster 

kids. We have great relationships with our State military kids association, and we will absolutely get that. 

But there are students that are many times forgotten, and in our 

State, it’s primarily not regular Army. It’s primarily National 

Guard, and so people think what’s the big deal there. Well, if 

you’ve got mom or dad going away for 9 months and then coming 

home for a week or two and then be redeployed someplace else for 

another 9 months, that causes extreme pressure on those kids. 

So having those kids part of our accountability system and requiring the ability for anyone to cross-tabulate that information 

really, as you said, is going to give us much more worthwhile data, 

and it’s not difficult to do. It’s not a requirement that people are 

going to say, ‘‘Oh, my God. How are we going to do this?’’ It’s already there. So I thank you for that. 

Senator WARREN. Good. Thank you very much. States and local 

communities can’t address persistent achievement gaps if they 

don’t have good data about what’s gone wrong. If we want better 

outcomes, we need better data to figure out where we’re failing to 

reach our students and where we’re succeeding, and then make the 

changes so that all of our students have better opportunities. 

We need good data, but we also need accountability around this. 

The Federal Government provides billions of dollars every year to 

the States, and for our investment to be meaningful, that money 

must be used to improve education. And that’s why we fought to 

ensure that Federal education dollars come with clear expectations 

for how the States will use that money. The new education law specifically directs the Department of Education to issue rules and 

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regulations to clarify expectations for States that receive billions of 

dollars in aid. 

Ms. Pompa, what is the Department of Education’s role in ensuring that the safeguards in this law are actually enforced? 

Ms. POMPA. May I preface that by saying that 34 years ago, as 

a very young director in a school district, I testified before this 

committee. And as I reviewed that testimony, one paragraph 

jumped out at me, because I could use it again today. It talked 

about and cautioned against pitting local control against equity. 

Senator WARREN. Yes. 

Ms. POMPA. Your question really ties back to that, and that’s the 

struggle, that we have a great belief in innovation and what school 

districts can do, but we also have a long history of needing protection for special groups of kids and how they are treated within our 

school system. The Federal Government has played that role for 

those groups of children since the beginning of ESEA, and it’s important that they have the ability to continue playing that role. 

I’ll give you one example that jumps out for English language 

learners this year. The committee in its wisdom passed this great 

provision in the law that requires States to include English proficiency in the accountability system. 

The issue, though, is that States vary from having 25 percent of 

their population being English learners to maybe half of a percent 

in another State. States clearly need guidelines as to what those 

guardrails and parameters are, and that’s the role the Department 

of Education can play, not to dictate, but to provide those guardrails, to provide examples, and to provide guidance to States. 

Senator WARREN. Thank you very much, Ms. Pompa. Democrats 

in Congress along with the President fought hard to ensure that 

the new law includes real accountability, and the Department of 

Education has clear authority to issue rules and regulations to 

strengthen, not weaken, that accountability. Congress entrusted 

this responsibility to the Department to make sure that when the 

States receive billions of taxpayer dollars to improve education for 

our most vulnerable kids that those States actually use that money 

for our most vulnerable kids, and we’ll be watching to make sure 

that that happens. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Warren. 

Senator Murray, do you have any closing comments? 

Senator MURRAY. I just really want to thank you for holding this 

hearing and thank all of our witnesses again for taking the time 

to be with us today. I was really proud last year that Democrats 

and Republicans did work together to break through the partisan 

gridlock here and succeed in passing this legislation, and we did it 

through collaboration. 

Senator Alexander, you’ve mentioned several times that we need 

to continue that collaboration as this law is implemented, and I totally agree. I believe we need a wide range of stakeholders, including advocacy organizations that give voice to students, like our civil 

rights groups, that should have a voice at the table, which will be 

very key in making sure that the Every Student Succeeds Act 

works for students and parents and teachers and communities and 

all of our kids. 

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I think it’s been mentioned several times that this is a civil 

rights law, and I think it is important to all of us to uphold the 

legacy of that and promise for our students, including all of the 

groups represented here today. I encourage all of us to stay involved and to make sure this works as intended. 

Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Murray, and I agree with 

you. You’ll notice a diversity of views at this hearing, and we try 

to have bipartisan hearings. That means we agree on who the witnesses are. That wasn’t regularly done before, but I think that’s 

part of why we were able to succeed, because this is—as I said 

often during this debate, this is like going to the University of Tennessee football game with 102,000 people in the stands and every 

one of them has played football, and they know which play to call 

next, and they usually do. And everyone has an opinion on education, so you can imagine the difficulty of reauthorizing Elementary and Secondary Education. 

I have two questions, and then we’ll conclude. 

Mr. Evers, I believe Wisconsin adopted the Common Core academic standards in 2010. Is that right? 

Mr. EVERS. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. These are my words, but the combination of Race 

to the Top and the conditional waivers encouraged many States to 

adopt Common Core and, some say, in effect, mandated it. 

The new law has a different definition for academic standards. 

It said you have to have challenging academic standards that are 

aligned with entrance requirements for credit-bearing course work 

in your system of public higher education in your State. But then 

it strictly prohibits the Secretary and peer reviewers from reviewing the content of those standards. The Secretary can’t require a 

State to add or delete standards or to interfere with them. There 

is an explicit prohibition on any Federal approval or certification 

of standards, and it says no officer or employee of the Federal Government can mandate, control, direct, or incentivize a grant to encourage the adoption of the Common Core standards. 

Does that mean to you, as you look at the law, that if you want 

to have the Common Core standards that you can, that if you don’t 

want to have them that you don’t have to, that if you want 80 percent of them that you can, that if you want 20 percent of them that 

you can? Do you believe that it’s Wisconsin’s decision what its challenging academic standards are as long as they are aligned with 

your public higher education system entrance requirements? 

Mr. EVERS. Yes, absolutely, I agree with that concept that districts now are free to modify, change, whatever. Our State has 

adopted the Common Core. But I have to tell you in State law, that 

decision is made locally. So our districts have come behind the 

Common Core standards, and we’re implementing them with good 

fidelity, and I think that’ll make a difference in the lives of kids. 

We never felt there was pressure from DC to do it. We felt it was 

the right thing to do. 

The CHAIRMAN. My last question really is about schedule. I mentioned earlier that the opportunity we have, in addition to this collaboration that we see here—and we’ll be seeing State by State in 

general agreement that the new law seems to be pretty good policy, 

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maybe very good policy. We have a chance for a reset, which was 

the word Ms. Weingarten used. 

Both you and Ms. Pringle said you need time to do that right, 

and I agree with that, particularly because the law is so hard to 

change that this law—and because it’s good—is likely to be the law 

for a while. And because every State will have to submit new plans 

to get its title I and title II money—and those are likely to be the 

plans for a while, unless a State decides to make major changes— 

we’re likely to have a period of stability in Federal elementary and 

secondary education policy. 

How much time is enough time to get it right is the question. Dr. 

King will be in here Thursday for his confirmation hearing, and I’ll 

be asking him this question. One of you said that the regulations 

should be done by this fall. Was that Dr. Schuler or Dr. Evers? I 

think that’s the schedule the Department is on. 

If the regulations are done by the fall, the State can perhaps get 

its plans in by next spring or summer. Is that practical? And, if so, 

would it apply to year 2017 or 2018? Is that a realistic schedule? 

What would you like for me to say to Dr. King about that? To any 

of you, is that too fast, or is that about right? What is a realistic 

schedule to get it right and to allow this collaboration to produce 

a result that will produce the stability that I think all of us would 

like to see? 

Mr. EVERS. I’ll just quickly say that you are right about stability. 

I think that’s really important. Yes, I believe the July, June, 2017 

is adequate time to put together a good plan. But we have to take 

it seriously, and in our State, we already have had hearings on 

this, and we believe that by bringing together a wide variety of 

people this spring, we will be able to pull this off by the timeline. 

I don’t think there’s any problem with that. 

But I think it goes beyond getting that plan in. I think it’s also— 

others talked about the need to reset the mindset and so on and 

so forth. I think that’s great. But that’s going to be part and parcel 

of our conversation going forward, even after the plan is submitted. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Weingarten and Ms. Pringle, what do you 

think? 

Ms. WEINGARTEN. There’s an 18 month process that’s already defined in the law. But my point is that every State will do an initial 

new accountability system. But if we actually want to get to the 

goals of helping all kids reach their God-given potential and doing 

it in a way that’s not been done before, then there’s a lot of opportunity in this law to focus on ELLs, to focus on schools that are 

struggling, to focus on how we build capacity, how we think about 

multiple pathways of learning. 

What my concern is is that the States will tinker with what they 

have right now and then put those plans in place, as opposed to 

doing the process of really redefining what constitutes real student 

learning and how to get there. 

The CHAIRMAN. But it is true that most States, almost every 

State, have over the last 10 or 15 years been working on new challenging standards, have been deciding which tests to use to the extent they were free to do that, and even new accountability systems. So it’s not as if they were starting from scratch. 

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Ms. WEINGARTEN. But what I’m starting to see in State after 

State is—take New York, for example. They’re actually thinking 

about how to look at their standards through the lens of what individual children need and to refocus it. 

There’s a real appetite for a reset in terms of what constitutes 

the learning that kids need to know and be able to do in the 21st 

Century to, yes, be college- and career-ready, but be ready for life 

and to be ready for productive citizenship. 

The CHAIRMAN. So you’re saying even if you’ve got a new accountability system, don’t just slap it in the box, but take advantage of this unusual opportunity to rethink everything. 

Ms. WEINGARTEN. Absolutely. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Pringle. 

Ms. PRINGLE. Senator Alexander, that’s a hard question to answer for this reason. As Randi said, we do have the timeline, the 

18 month timeline, in place. And I will say that as the grandparent 

of a child who only has 1 year in kindergarten, there is a sense of 

urgency for our students, especially our students of greatest need. 

But I’m going to invoke Jim Collins, I think it is, that we have 

to go slow to go fast, and we have to think—it’s when we try to 

answer questions with a one-size-fits-all. That’s when we get into 

trouble, and we do have that in the law. 

But, I visited Governor Herbert’s State, and they are so much 

further along in terms of the collaboration that he and our local affiliate president have led on that I would say they’ll be more ready. 

I just came back from Oregon, and they are collaborating with the 

State department and with the Governor on assessments and how 

they can redo their accountability system. They are more ready. 

There are States that are way behind that because they have not 

come together. They’ve not had those tough conversations yet. So 

they’re not as ready. And even though we have that timeline in 

place, if the Federal Government doesn’t allow those who are further behind, the flexibility to take the time to get it right, then 

they will tinker around the edges, and they’ll overlay on what’s already there, and that will do nothing to change anything for our 

kids. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Let me ask Dr. Schuler, Ms. Haycock, and Ms. Pompa if they 

have any comment, and then I’ll let Governor Herbert have the last 

word. 

Mr. SCHULER. Senator Alexander, I think one of the things that’s 

most critical is not necessarily the timeline itself but how we are 

ensuring that every regulation is being viewed in the context of a 

rural school, a suburban school, an urban setting, different transient levels of students coming in and out, and the different student demographics. I think we felt so forced into this one size will 

work everywhere that the question I would ask is how are we going 

to ensure that the regulations are viewed through the lens of the 

different schools and school districts in our country. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Haycock. 

Ms. HAYCOCK. Yes, Mr. Chairman. My experience in education 

suggests that things take as long as you give them, and if we give 

them more time, they will take that long, even when they don’t 

need to. I really do think we need to think about this in two ways. 

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First, the initial time that States have, which is roughly 18 

months, is, in fact, adequate time to do the consulting, to learn 

from the high performers, the fast gainers, that we need to do, to 

involve the range of stakeholders who need to be a part, and to get 

going on a new system. 

That said, I don’t think those initial decisions have to necessarily 

not be evolved over time. I think one of the things we’ve learned 

in the best accountability systems, especially the work we see at 

the district level, is that as people learn more about what indicators are helpful in working on improvement, those can be added 

later on. All that would take, as you’ve pointed out, is coming back 

to the Department and showing the data and moving forward. It’s 

not an elaborate process, and so I don’t think we need to get it perfect the first time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Pompa. 

Ms. POMPA. My colleagues here today have all talked about the 

importance of coalitions, and as we look at that 18 month period, 

one of the steps that States have to take is to start now engaging 

people in those coalitions, because it is going to be a very different 

process if we do it right this time. We also have a large research 

base that we hadn’t had before to look at many of the processes 

that are called for in the law. I would hope that the States in their 

18 months will start early, look at the research, and include everybody in a meaningful way. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Governor Herbert. 

Governor HERBERT. Mr. Chairman, thank you again. I think on 

behalf of all the panel, we thank you for convening us together to 

talk about this very important milestone in education for this Nation. And the devolution of power back to the States, with accountability, I think is a very positive thing. 

I think what Ms. Pringle said is accurate. I’m not a one-size-fitsall guy, and we have unique strengths and weaknesses in all of the 

States. So where Utah is, maybe Texas is not, or vice versa. I certainly believe that we ought to get it right rather than get it quick. 

But I also think we need to get it right and be timely. I think we 

sometimes make the work to expand to the time allotted, and I 

think that’s a concern, that we’ll take too much time. 

But one of the principles that I mentioned in my testimony from 

the National Governors Association, speaking on behalf of the 

States and our local educators and stakeholders, is we need to have 

some flexibility. We won’t all do it the same way in the same timeframe. But we can all do it, and it really is a matter of bringing 

the stakeholders together. 

We have a leg up. We’ve been working together for a number of 

years in trying to bring all stakeholders together, to make sure 

that our elected State school board, who directs the standards for 

Utah, and our local elected school boards, who direct the curriculum for Utah, are in concert with principals, teachers, and superintendents. We can as a team get it right. 

At the end of the day, we need to remember we’re all on the 

same team. We sometimes forget that. These siloes, Federal versus 

State, State versus local—we’re all on the same team, trying to proHELPN-003 with DISTILLER

59 

vide an educational environment that lifts and elevates all of our 

students, so they have not only educational achievement but the 

ability to live and participate in the American dream, to be able to 

have economic prosperity. 

This really is the heart and soul of the American dream here, 

and I thank you for leading it out with this ESSA, or ESSA, as we 

may start calling it. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Governor, and thanks to each one of 

you. In our year of hearings and discussions, often Senators would 

come up with a very good idea about education, and sometimes I 

would say, ‘‘Well, there are 50 States. There are 50 million children 

and 3.5 million teachers and 100,000 public schools. So let’s think 

twice about whether we impose that good idea on every single one 

of them.’’ 

I think all of us want to create an environment in which every 

child can succeed. I hope that we’re on that track. Many people 

said that the passage of this legislation, which was difficult, was 

really a textbook example of how to resolve a lot of different points 

of view and still come to a result moving in a good direction. I 

think this implementation is starting out that way. I don’t remember anything quite like this in my experience in education, which 

goes back a good ways. 

So this committee will be holding probably another five hearings 

this year, two more like this, with those of you who are out working in coalitions in States and in classrooms and advocating, doing 

different things; three with the U.S. Department of Education so 

we can know what they’re doing and see if the law is being implemented the way we wrote the bill. And we hope we get to the end 

of the year and we’ve got a textbook example of implementation as 

well as legislation. 

There’s a lot of talk about dysfunction in Washington. We think 

this is an example of Washington working very well to create an 

environment in which parents, Governors, teachers, advocates, and 

others who care about children can help them succeed. And we’re 

going to make sure that that happens if we possibly can. 

The hearing record will remain open for 10 days. Members may 

submit additional information for the record within that time if 

they would like. I would specifically invite each of you to let us 

know any time if you have ideas, suggestions, or concerns about 

implementation. That’s why we want this relationship. Thank you 

for being here. 

Our next hearing of this committee will occur Thursday at 2 p.m. 

on the nomination of Dr. John King to serve as Secretary of Education. We’ll be asking him many of the same questions that we 

asked you. 

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The committee will stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:11 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

Æ 

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