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REVIEWING THE PRESIDENT’S FISCAL 

YEAR 2015 BUDGET PROPOSAL FOR 

THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION 

AND THE WORKFORCE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 29, 2014 

Serial No. 113–57 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce 

( 

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

committee.action?chamber=house&committee=education 

or 

Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov 

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(II) 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota, Chairman 

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin 

Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

Tom Price, Georgia 

Kenny Marchant, Texas 

Duncan Hunter, California 

David P. Roe, Tennessee 

Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania 

Tim Walberg, Michigan 

Matt Salmon, Arizona 

Brett Guthrie, Kentucky 

Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee 

Todd Rokita, Indiana 

Larry Bucshon, Indiana 

Trey Gowdy, South Carolina 

Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania 

Joseph J. Heck, Nevada 

Susan W. Brooks, Indiana 

Richard Hudson, North Carolina 

Luke Messer, Indiana 

Bradley Byrne, Alabama 

George Miller, California, 

Senior Democratic Member 

Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Virginia 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Carolyn McCarthy, New York 

John F. Tierney, Massachusetts 

Rush Holt, New Jersey 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York 

David Loebsack, Iowa 

Joe Courtney, Connecticut 

Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio 

Jared Polis, Colorado 

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, 

Northern Mariana Islands 

Frederica S. Wilson, Florida 

Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon 

Mark Pocan, Wisconsin 

Mark Takano, California 

Juliane Sullivan, Staff Director 

Jody Calemine, Minority Staff Director 

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(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on April 29, 2014 .............................................................................. 1 

Statement of Members: 

Kline, Hon. John, Chairman, Committee on Education and the Workforce 1 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3 

Miller, Hon. George, Senior Democratic Member, Committee on Education and the Workforce ............................................................................. 4 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 6 

Statement of Witnesses: 

Duncan, Hon. Arne, Secretary of Education, Washington, DC .................... 7 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 12 

Additional Submissions: 

Scott, Hon. DesJarlais, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Tennessee: .................................................................................................

Letter, dated April 8, 2014 from Kimberly Jones, President, Committee for Education Funding ............................................................... 69 

Questions submitted for the record by: ...........................................................

Barletta, Hon. Lou, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Pennsylvania ...................................................................................... 78 

Brooks, Hon. Susan W., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Indiana ............................................................................................... 79 

Bucshon, Hon. Larry, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Indiana ............................................................................................... 78 

Foxx, Hon. Virginia, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of North Carolina ................................................................................... 75 

Guthrie, Hon. Brett, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Kentucky ............................................................................................ 77 

Heck, Hon. Joseph J., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Nevada ................................................................................................ 78 

Hinojosa, Hon. Rube ́n, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas ................................................................................................... 80 

Holt, Hon. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

New Jersey ............................................................................................. 80 

Chairman Kline ......................................................................................... 73 

Loebsack, Hon. David, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Iowa .................................................................................................... 81 

Messer, Hon. Luke, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Indiana ............................................................................................... 79 

Roe, Hon. David P., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Tennessee ........................................................................................... 76 

Rokita, Hon. Todd, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Indiana ............................................................................................... 77 

Salmon, Hon. Matt, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Arizona ............................................................................................... 77 

Thompson, Hon. Glenn, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Pennsylvania ...................................................................................... 76 

Secretary Duncan’s, response to questions submitted for the record ........... 83 

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(1) 

REVIEWING THE PRESIDENT’S FISCAL YEAR 

2015 BUDGET PROPOSAL FOR THE 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Tuesday, April 29, 2014 

House of Representatives, 

Committee on Education and the Workforce, 

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in Room 

2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Kline [chairman 

of the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Kline, Petri, Foxx, Roe, Thompson, 

Walberg, Salmon, Guthrie, DesJarlais, Rokita, Bucshon, Gowdy, 

Heck, Messer, Byrne, Miller, Scott, Hinojosa, Tierney, Holt, Davis, 

Grijalva, Bishop, Loebsack, Courtney, Fudge, Polis, Sablan, Wilson, 

Bonamici, Pocan, and Takano. 

Staff present: Janelle Belland, Coalitions and Members Services 

Coordinator; Lindsay Fryer, Professional Staff Member; Amy Raaf 

Jones, Director of Education and Human Resources Policy; Nancy 

Locke, Chief Clerk; Brian Melnyk, Professional Staff Member; Daniel Murner, Press Assistant; Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; 

Jenny Prescott, Legislative Assistant; Mandy Schaumburg, Education Deputy Director and Senior Counsel; Emily Slack, Professional Staff Member; Alex Sollberger, Communications Director; 

Alissa Strawcutter, Deputy Clerk; Brad Thomas, Senior Education 

Policy Advisor; Tylease Alli, Minority Clerk/Intern and Fellow Coordinator; Jeremy Ayers, Minority Education Policy Advisor; Kelly 

Broughan, Minority Education Policy Associate; Jody Calemine, 

Minority Staff Director; Jacque Chevalier, Minority Education Policy Advisor; Eamonn Collins, Minority Fellow, Education; Jamie 

Fasteau, Minority Director of Education Policy; Scott Groginsky, 

Minority Education Policy Advisor; Julia Krahe, Minority Communications Director; Brian Levin, Minority Press Secretary; Megan 

O’Reilly, Minority General Counsel; Rich Williams, Minority Education Policy Advisor; and Michael Zola, Minority Deputy Staff Director. 

Chairman KLINE. A quorum being present, committee will come 

to order. Well, good morning. Welcome to our guests. Thank you to 

Secretary Duncan for joining us. Mr. Secretary, we know your time 

is valuable and we appreciate the opportunity to speak with you 

today. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

2 

Each year, the Secretary comes before this committee to discuss 

the administration’s policies and priorities for the Department of 

Education. And each year, he is faced with the undesirable task of 

defending a budget full of new, unproven programs, burdensome 

federal mandates and competitive grants that pressure schools to 

adopt the President’s preferred policies. 

For fiscal year 2015, the budget request for the department 

clocks in at an incredible $82.3 billion. This includes nearly $70 billion in discretionary spending and $13 billion in mandatory funding for pet projects such as the President’s Preschool for All proposal and new teacher preparation initiatives, both of which, I 

might add, are redundant of dozens of existing federal programs. 

Families, school leaders, and taxpayers deserve a better way forward. Rather than continue to throw good money after bad and 

pound new program on top of old, we need an administration to 

work with Congress to advance lasting solutions for the challenges 

facing schools nationwide. 

But instead of supporting our efforts to strengthen K–12 education, the administration has implemented a convoluted temporary waiver scheme which now has waivers to waivers that 

makes the Secretary of Education the sole arbiter of elementary 

and secondary education policy. 

Instead of helping us address problems in postsecondary education through the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, 

the Obama administration continues to push for shortsighted mandates and federal price controls that will limit innovation and levy 

new regulatory burdens on colleges and universities. 

Instead of working with us to ensure the federal government fulfills its basic commitment to students with disabilities by 

prioritizing funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education 

Act, the Obama administration has opted to ramp up spending on 

untested and often duplicative programs. Worse, the President’s 

budget threatens to further reduce IDEA funding for most districts 

by shifting the funds into yet another competitive program. 

Each of these initiatives is undermining progress in the nation’s 

schools and preventing the students from accessing the quality 

education opportunities they need for success. The House Education and the Workforce Committee has advanced a number of 

proposals that will reshape our education system, provide teachers, 

school administrators, and postsecondary education leaders with 

the flexible framework necessary to more effectively serve students. 

For example, last summer, the House approved the Student Success Act, legislation to restore state and local control in K–12 education, empower parents, and reduce federal burdens in the classroom. The Student Success Act is the first bill to reauthorize the 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act that has been considered 

on the floor in either the House or Senate in more than a decade. 

Mr. Secretary, you have repeatedly noted the importance of reauthorizing this law. Clearly, many differences remain. Though prospects may seem unlikely, I believe we all share a sincere desire to 

find enough common ground to craft a solution that puts student 

first. But we need support from the administration, not just more 

waivers. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

3 

In addition to our progress in reforming K–12 education, the 

committee has spent more than a year preparing to reauthorize the 

Higher Education Act. We have held more than a dozen hearings 

to examine a myriad of issues facing postsecondary institutions and 

students and moved legislation to enhance transparency and eliminate federal regulations that will disproportionately harm low-income students and threaten the strength of our higher education 

system. 

As we continue working toward a rewrite of the Higher Education Act, I urge the Secretary to abandon the intrusive policies 

and punitive regulatory proposal outlined in the President’s budget 

and instead work with us to craft legislation that will help meet 

our shared goals of improving transparency, affordability, and access to postsecondary education. 

Before I yield to my distinguished colleague, Mr. Miller, for his 

opening remarks, I want to make one final request to Secretary 

DUNCAN. Mr. Secretary, after each hearing, the committee members on both sides of the aisle submit to your department questions 

for the record. As our time here in the hearing is limited, these 

supplemental questions help us continue our oversight of the department’s programs and policies. 

However, I am troubled by the significant delay in response to 

these questions. Just a few days ago, Mr. Secretary, the committee 

finally received answers to the questions submitted to you at this 

hearing last year. I sincerely hope this will not be the case with 

the questions received following today’s hearing. 

I will now yield to the senior Democrat, Mr. Miller, for his opening remarks. 

[The statement of Chairman Kline follows:] 

Chairman, Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Hearing on ‘‘Reviewing the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Proposal for the 

Department of Education’’ 

April 29, 2014 

Good morning. Welcome to our guests, and thank you to Secretary Duncan for 

joining us. We know your time is valuable, and we appreciate the opportunity to 

speak with you today. 

Each year, the secretary comes before this committee to discuss the administration’s policies and priorities for the Department of Education. And each year, he is 

faced with the undesirable task of defending a bloated budget full of new, unproven 

programs, burdensome federal mandates, and competitive grants that pressure 

schools to adopt the president’s preferred policies. 

For fiscal year 2015, the budget request for the department clocks in at an incredible $82.3 billion. This includes nearly $70 billion in discretionary spending and 13 

billion in mandatory funding for pet projects, such as the president’s Preschool for 

All proposal and new teacher preparation initiatives – both of which, I might add, 

are redundant to dozens of existing federal programs. 

We have discussed time and again the fact that more programs and higher spending have had little measurable impact on students’ academic achievement. Though 

the administration has pumped billions of dollars into the nation’s education system 

since 2009, student achievement remains largely unchanged. 

Families, school leaders, and taxpayers deserve a better way forward. Rather than 

continue to throw good money after bad and pile new program on top of old, we need 

an administration that will work with Congress to advance lasting solutions to the 

challenges facing schools nationwide. 

But instead of supporting our efforts to strengthen K–12 education, the Obama 

administration has implemented a convoluted, temporary waiver scheme that makes 

the secretary of education the sole arbiter of elementary and secondary education 

policy. 

Instead of helping us address problems in postsecondary education through the 

reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the Obama administration continues 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

4 

to push for shortsighted mandates and federal price controls that will limit innovation and levy new regulatory burdens on colleges and universities. 

And instead of working with us to ensure the federal government fulfills its basic 

commitment to students with disabilities by prioritizing funding for the Individuals 

with Disabilities Education Act, the Obama administration has opted to ramp up 

spending on untested and often duplicative programs. Worse, the president’s budget 

threatens to further reduce IDEA funding for most districts by shifting the funds 

into yet another competitive grant program. 

Each of these initiatives is undermining progress in the nation’s schools and preventing students from accessing the quality education opportunities they need for 

success. The House Education and the Workforce Committee has advanced a number of proposals that will reshape our education system and provide teachers, school 

administrators, and postsecondary education leaders with the flexible framework 

necessary to more effectively serve students. 

For example, last summer the House approved the Student Success Act, legislation to restore state and local control in K–12 education, empower parents, and reduce federal burdens in the classroom. The Student Success Act is the first bill to 

reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that has been considered 

in either the House or Senate in more than a decade. 

Mr. Secretary, you have repeatedly noted the importance of reauthorizing this 

law. Clearly, many differences remain. Though prospects may seem unlikely, I believe we all share a sincere desire to find enough common ground to craft a solution 

that puts students first. But we need support from the administration, not more 

waivers that serve as roadblocks to real reform. 

In addition to our progress in reforming K–12 education, the committee has spent 

more than a year preparing to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. We’ve held 

more than a dozen hearings to examine myriad issues facing postsecondary institutions and students, and moved legislation to enhance transparency and eliminate 

federal regulations that will disproportionately harm low-income students and 

threaten the strength of our higher education system. 

As we continue working toward a rewrite of the Higher Education Act, I urge the 

secretary to abandon the intrusive polices and punitive regulatory proposals outlined in the president’s budget and instead work with us to craft legislation that 

will help meet our shared goals of improving transparency, affordability, and access 

to postsecondary education. 

Before I yield to my distinguished colleague, Mr. George Miller, for his opening 

remarks, I want to make one final request to Secretary DUNCAN. After each hearing, 

the committee members on both sides of the aisle submit to your department questions for the record. As our time here in the hearing is limited, these supplemental 

questions help us continue our oversight of the department’s programs and policies. 

However, I am troubled by the significant delay in response to these questions. 

Just a few days ago, the committee finally received answers to the questions submitted to the secretary after this hearing almost one year ago. I sincerely hope this 

will not be the case with the questions you receive following today’s hearing. 

I will now yield to the Senior Democrat, Mr. Miller, for his opening remarks. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for joining us here today to discuss President Obama’s agenda for improving the lives and the 

education of our nation’s students. 

This hearing comes at a time when our parties are putting forth 

two very different visions of our nation’s education system. 

On the one hand, my Republican colleagues have passed a draconian budget that guts resources for students and schools, putting 

sequestration back in place and slashing education even further. 

On the other, President Obama has proposed greater investment 

in our nation’s schools because he recognizes that education leads 

to better jobs and a more competitive workforce. 

Republicans want to be the party of ‘‘NO:’’ NO federal involvement; NO accountability; NO equity protections for disadvantaged 

students. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

5 

President Obama has put forward a budget that supports college 

and career readiness for all students and encourages greater equity. 

These are more than just opposing theories or competitive 

ideologies; how these budget priorities end up playing out will have 

real consequences for our students, teachers, schools and for our 

economy. 

It is a shame that we find ourselves at such odds when we are 

talking about the very future of our nation. 

The recent past had shed some light on the possibilities for our 

future. Over the last 5 years, schools have undertaken a massive 

transformation on a scale that I have never seen before in my lifetime. 

Schools are raising expectations for students so that they graduate prepared for life’s next steps, be they toward college or toward 

a career. 

Schools are ditching bubble tests in favor of new assessments 

that measure critical thinking and other skills necessary to have 

success in the 21st century. 

Schools are experimenting with new ways to measure and encourage achievement, including efforts to improve struggling 

schools. 

Communities are setting children up for life-long success by providing high-quality preschool programs for more kids than ever before. 

We need to support our nation’s educators as they undertake 

these dramatic shifts in education in this country. 

We in the federal government should be helping students and 

schools make these leaps, not cutting them off at the knees. Instead of doubling down on austerity, we should pass a bipartisan 

law to fix No Child Left Behind, not jam partisan bills through the 

House that the President will never sign. 

We should continue to bolster early childhood education so that 

our youngest citizens stop falling through the cracks. 

We should strengthen the workforce by improving college access, 

increasing transparency to help students make smart choices, and 

increasing college competition, not gutting the Pell Grant, the 

backbone of student aid. 

It is time for Congress to get back into the business of partnering 

with states and districts in support of schools. It’s a time to start 

saying ‘‘Yes’’ rather than always saying ‘‘No.’’ 

I am pleased to say that we have taken some small steps to do 

this. The recent passage of the bipartisan charter school bill and 

the education research bill are encouraging signs, as was the funding for preschool development grants that was included in the bipartisan omnibus bill. 

But they are just a down payment on the challenges that lie 

ahead of us in revising the primary laws that impact the nation’s 

education system. 

Given the heavy-handed Ryan budget and the overall Congressional inaction on pressing education matters, I want to recognize 

and commend the actions your department has taken on the equity 

issues. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

6 

I would like to commend you for your vigilance on ensuring the 

districts allocate resources more fairly and improve student access 

to effective teachers. 

I would like to praise the actions of the Office of Civil Rights to 

document and reduce inequitable discipline practices. 

I applaud the administration’s attention to sexual abuse in 

schools at all levels. 

And I am heartened by your work in behalf of students with disabilities to ensure states continue to hold that population to high 

standards. 

And I appreciate your ongoing efforts to ensure that colleges adequately prepare students for gainful employment. 

And I appreciate the ongoing efforts to make high-quality early 

childhood education a reality for all children, not just a privilege 

for the few. 

I also urge you to maintain a laser-like focus on equity in the 

ESEA waiver renewal process. You have the authority in that process to bring the focus back to equity for disadvantaged students. 

And you must hold the line when states and districts seek to dilute 

or camouflage efforts to equitably serve all students. 

Thank you for being here today, Mr. Secretary. 

Thank you for all the work that you do day in and day out on 

behalf of our students and our schools and our communities. 

And I look forward to your testimony. I yield back my time. 

[The statement of Mr. Miller follows:] 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you Secretary Duncan for joining us here today to discuss President 

Obama’s agenda for improving the lives of our nation’s students. 

This hearing comes at a time when our parties are putting forth two very different visions for our nation’s education system. 

On the one hand, my Republican colleagues have passed a draconian budget that 

guts resources for students and schools, putting sequestration back in place and 

slashing education funding even further. 

On the other, President Obama has proposed greater investment in our nation’s 

schools because he recognizes that education leads to better jobs and a more competitive workforce. 

Republicans want to be the party of ‘‘NO:’’ NO federal involvement; NO accountability; NO equity protections for disadvantaged students. 

President Obama has put forward a budget that supports college and career readiness for all students and encourages greater equity. 

These are more than just opposing theories, or competing ideologies: how these 

budget priorities end up playing out will have real consequences for our students, 

teachers, and schools. 

It is a shame that we find ourselves at such odds, when we’re talking about the 

very future of our nation. 

The recent past has shed some light on the possibilities for our future. Over the 

last five years, schools have undertaken massive transformations, at a scale that I 

have never seen before in my lifetime. 

* Schools are raising expectations for students so that they graduate prepared for 

life’s next steps, be they toward college or toward a career. 

* Schools are ditching bubble tests in favor of new assessments that measure critical thinking and other skills necessary to success in the 21st century. 

* Schools are experimenting with new ways to measure and encourage achievement, including efforts to improve struggling schools. 

* Communities are setting children up for life-long success by providing high-quality preschool programs for more kids than ever before. 

We need to support our nation’s educators as they undertake these paradigmatic 

shifts. 

We in the federal government should be helping students and schools make these 

leaps, not cutting them off at the knees. Instead of doubling down on austerity: 

* We should pass a bipartisan law to fix No Child Left Behind, not jam partisan 

bills through the House that the president will never sign. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

7 

* We should continue to bolster early childhood education so that our youngest 

citizens stop falling through the cracks. 

* We should strengthen the workforce by improving college access, increasing 

transparency to help students make smart choices, and increasing college completion, not gutting the Pell Grant, the backbone of student aid. 

It’s time for Congress to get back into the business of partnering with states and 

districts to support our schools. 

It’s a time to start saying ‘‘Yes’’ rather than always saying ‘‘No.’’ I’m pleased to 

say that we have taken some small steps to do this. 

The recent passage of a bipartisan charter school bill and an education research 

bill are encouraging signs, as was the funding for preschool development grants that 

was included in the bipartisan omnibus bill. 

But they are just a down payment on the challenges that lie ahead of us in revising the primary laws that impact our nation’s education system. 

Given the heavy-handed Ryan budget and overall congressional inaction on pressing education matters, I want to recognize and commend the actions your department has taken on equity issues. 

* I’d like to commend your vigilance on ensuring districts allocate resources more 

fairly and improve students’ access to effective teachers. 

* I’d like to praise the actions of the Office of Civil Rights to document and reduce 

inequitable discipline practices. 

* I applaud the administration’s attention to sexual abuse in schools at all levels. 

* I am heartened by your work on behalf of students with disabilities to ensure 

states continue to hold that population to high standards. 

* I appreciate your ongoing efforts to ensure that colleges adequately prepare students for gainful employment. 

* And I appreciate the ongoing efforts to make high-quality early childhood education a reality for all children, not just the privilege of a few. 

I also urge you to maintain a laser-like focus on equity in the ESEA waiver renewal process. You have the authority in that process to bring the focus back to equity for disadvantaged students. You must hold the line when states or districts 

seek to dilute efforts to equitably serve all students. 

Thank you for being here today, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for all the work you 

do, day in and day out. 

I look forward to your testimony. 

Chairman KLINE. Gentleman yields back. Pursuant to committee 

rule 7(c), all committee members will be permitted to submit written statements to be included in the permanent hearing record. 

And without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 

days to allow statements, questions for the record and other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to be submitted in 

the official hearing record. 

Mr. Secretary, welcome back. You are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ARNE DUNCAN, SECRETARY OF 

EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Just quickly, Mr. Chairman, in response to 

your last question. We were too slow in getting back the answers 

to those questions. I apologize for that. 

I give you my word it won’t happen again. 

To Chairman Kline, to Ranking Member Miller and to all the 

members, the story of American education today is a good news/bad 

news story. First, let me begin by thanking you for your work on 

the 2014 budget which increased our investment in education over 

the previous year. 

This investment is essential for the good news side of the story, 

which is that our students are making substantial progress in 

graduating from high school and going on to enroll in college, be 

that at a 2-year university or 4-year college, trade, technical, vocaCEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

8 

tional training. Our nation’s on-time high school graduation rate 

reached a record high in 2012: 80 percent. 

And if you guys look at the newspapers today, there are number 

of headlines that were extraordinarily positive about the hard work 

that is going on. And I want to thank our students, our teachers, 

families, community members, administrators for all the hard work 

in seeing those high school graduation rates hit a record high. 

In addition to that, college enrollment is up as well, with Latino 

and African-American students leading the way in a country where 

the school system is going to become, as soon as this fall, majorityminority. That is a hugely important step in the right direction. 

The bad news, the flip side of that, is that we still have unacceptable opportunity gaps in America. It will be very difficult to close 

those gaps when federal discretionary funding for education, excluding Pell Grants, remains below the 2010 level. 

Our international competitors are not making the mistake of 

disinvesting in education. And their students are making more 

progress than America’s students, endangering our country’s competitiveness and prosperity. 

As everyone here knows, in a knowledge-based global economy, 

the need to close these opportunity gaps and strengthen our competitiveness is one of the most urgent challenges facing our nation. 

To continue to fall behind would hurt our country economically for 

generations to come. 

So I appeal to you today to continue America’s longstanding bipartisan commitment to investing in education. Dating back to our 

nation’s founding, the federal government has provided incentives 

to state and local governments to invest in education and expand 

educational opportunity. 

Before the states ratified the Constitution, the continental Congress required townships to reserve money for the construction of 

schools and granted federal lands to states to create and support 

public schools. During the Civil War, President Lincoln signed the 

Morrill Act, incentivizing the creation of our nation’s land-grant 

colleges, which today educate more than 4 million students. 

Just 2 weeks after D–Day, President Roosevelt signed the G.I. 

bill, providing access to education to returning service members 

and veterans. And after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, President Eisenhower and Congress together passed the National Defense Education Act to bolster mathematics and science education. 

Despite these key investments and the educational progress we 

have made as a nation, large opportunity gaps remain at a time 

when education is more important than ever to accelerate economic 

progress, increasing upper mobility and reducing social inequality. 

President Obama’s budget would increase investment in education 

to boost that progress and close those insidious opportunity gaps. 

Sadly, those opportunity gaps start with our youngest learners 

and early learning. If we could look at the first slide, please. America is 25th in the world—25th in the enrollment of 4-year-olds in 

preschool. Four in 10 public school systems in the United States 

don’t even offer preschool, setting the stage for a huge gap in school 

readiness that not only President Obama but most of our nation’s 

governors find unacceptable. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

9 

In the real world, outside of Washington and away from the dysfunction of Congress, this has become an absolutely bipartisan 

issue. In fact, last year, 30 governors, and more Republican governors than Democratic, 17 Republican governors and 13 Democratic governors increased funding for preschool in their state 

budgets. 

In tough economic times, these leaders chose to use scarce taxpayer dollars to expand access to high-quality early learning opportunities. Budgets, not words, not empty rhetoric, reflect our true 

values. 

And these 30 governors walked the walk. Just one quick example, Governor Schneider in Michigan committed to putting 65 million more dollars into the state program to ensure children in need 

of preschool have access to it. 

He said that he was going to make Michigan, and I quote—‘‘a nowait state for early childhood education.’’ And we need to help 

every state be able to make that same claim. And that is why the 

President’s request for $500 million for Preschool Development 

Grants and $75 billion in mandatory funding for the Preschool for 

All program are so essential to our nation’s future. 

They would support state-led efforts to provide access to highquality preschool through a mixed delivery system, both public and 

private, for all 4-year-olds from low and moderate-income families. 

And a diverse, highly unusual coalition has come together and is 

working together to support these efforts. 

States attorneys, sheriffs and police associations support highquality early learning because it reduces crime when kids grow up. 

They are tired of locking people up. Military leaders, admirals and 

generals across the nation support it as well because three-fourths 

of young adults today are not able to serve in the military because 

they have dropped out of high school, can’t pass the entrance exam, 

are physically unfit for service, or have a criminal record. 

High-quality early learning, as we know, reduces all of these 

problems. Our military has always been our strongest defense. 

America’s education system must be our strongest offense. 

Hundreds of hard-headed business leaders, CEOs, chairmen of 

the board, are big advocates because they know high-quality early 

learning produces a better workforce and has a high ROI, or return 

on investment. In fact, Nobel Prize-winning economist, James 

Heckman, found a return of $7 to every $1 of public investment in 

high-quality preschool programs. 

How many other uses of scarce taxpayer dollars returned that 

kind of investment to America’s people? Unfortunately, opportunity 

gaps in early learning continue all the way through high school as 

new data from our civil rights data collection program shows. And 

let’s go to the next slide. 

Students of color, students of disabilities and English language 

learners don’t get the same opportunity as their white and AsianAmerican peers to take the basic math and science courses necessary that figure so importantly in preparing for college and career. Often, this lack of access means students can’t take the required classes they need to apply to 4-year colleges or it means 

they go to college but must then burn through Pell Grants and financial aid taking noncredit-bearing remedial classes. 

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10 

Nationwide, black and Hispanic students are close to 40 percent 

of high school students but just over a quarter of students taking 

AP classes and 20 percent of those enrolled in calculus classes. 

This dumbing down of expectations is devastating to students, to 

their families, to communities, and ultimately, to our nation. 

And if we can go to this final slide, it highlights opportunity gaps 

and access to high-speed broadband in our schools. Most schools 

today have nowhere near the bandwidth speed they need to support current applications and instruction. 

Two-thirds of our teachers wish they had more technology in 

their classrooms. As folks here know, technology both empowers 

teachers in very important ways and engages students in their own 

learning and helps teachers to individualize instruction. 

Simply put, once again, other nations take these responsibilities, 

these opportunities much more seriously than we do. In South 

Korea, a very high-performing nation educationally, 100 percent of 

their schools have access to high-speed internet. 

Here in the United States, it is only about 20 percent—20 percent versus 100 percent. So our students, our teachers and our 

schools often lack the bandwidth to take advantage of new technologies and tools that could accelerate efforts to close achievement 

gaps and assure that all students graduate from high school both 

college and career ready. 

How is that fair to our children or how is it fair to our hardworking teachers? Making progress on closing these opportunity 

gaps is the ribbon, the theme, that runs throughout President 

Obama’s 2015 education budget request. 

It is the overarching goal of the preschool development grants 

and the Preschool for All proposal. It is behind our request for both 

a $300 million Race to the Top Equity and Opportunity Fund to 

help states and districts develop road maps to ensure all students 

can reach their potential; and also, our $200 million 

ConnectEDucators initiative to provide teachers with the expertise 

they need to use technology to teach students to high standards 

and to help them individualize and customize instruction. 

By contrast, the House Republican budget would widen, would 

increase opportunity gaps. OMB estimates that the Ryan budget 

would cut funding for education by 15 percent in 2016, or by about 

$10 billion. If that 15 percent cut were applied this year, Title I 

for our nation’s poorest children would be cut by $2.2 billion. IDEA 

grants, special needs students, special education, those grants to 

states would be cut by $1.7 billion. 

And Mr. Chairman, with the Recovery Act, which you voted 

against, that increased IDEA funding by $12 billion. The Ryan 

budget, which would cut funding, you voted for. 

And so again, it is one thing to talk about it. But I wanted to 

just make sure that folks are paying attention not to our words, not 

to our rhetoric, but to the reality of our votes and to budgets. Those 

cuts to our students, most disadvantaged children, poor children, 

children with special needs, that is exactly the wrong direction to 

go for our children and for our nation’s future. 

We can and we must do better together. The American dream 

has always been about opportunity. Today, our nation is failing to 

live up to that core American ideal for all of its citizens; we must 

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11 

do more now to level the playing field and make a great public education available to every child. 

That is who I think we are. As former Florida governor Jeb Bush 

says, the sad truth is that equality of opportunity doesn’t exist in 

many of our schools. That failure is the great moral and economic 

issue of our time. 

And it is hurting all of America. So let’s get back to working together, to close opportunity gaps that we all agree are deeply at 

odds with the American promise of equal opportunity. And I appreciate the bipartisan work of the committee to pass a charter school 

bill. 

Bipartisan education bills coming from Congress have frankly 

been few and far between in recent years, to no one’s benefit. I 

hope that you can start taking that work to scale again and creating bipartisan support for a fiscal year 2015 budget that will take 

important steps to provide our nation’s students and teachers with 

the support they need. 

And Mr. Chairman, just quickly, before I close, I would like to 

say a quick word about my good friend, Congressman Miller. I 

think this might be the last committee which I will be testifying 

that you are at. 

And I can’t say I love testifying in these situations, but I have 

loved working with you over the past 6 years. I talked to a retired 

member of Congress over the weekend, and he said that of the entire Congress, he thinks you are the smartest member in terms of 

education issues. 

[Applause.] 

And I think that is a very accurate sentiment. But I have to say 

what I have been more impressed with than your intelligence is 

your courage. And you have been willing to challenge the status 

quo. 

You have been willing to take unpopular positions. You have 

been willing to take on party orthodoxy in the base in a really profound way. And if we had more legislators, more members of Congress who had that level of courage, I think our nation would be 

a better place. 

So thank you so much for your service and leadership. Thank 

you. 

[The statement of Secretary Duncan follows:] 

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Chairman KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. We will talk about 

budgets for just a minute. You mentioned the so-called Ryan budget and the President’s budget. There are some very significant differences there, of course. 

The President’s budget, as you know, never balances, continues 

to add to our nation’s debt and to the burdens of our children forever, whereas the Ryan budget balances within 10 years. And just 

to note, the Ryan budget in itself doesn’t cut a dime from special 

ed. 

It allows prioritization. And I would hope that we would start to 

prioritize, Republicans and Democrats, administration and Congress, the spending for special ed. 

You remember very well, Mr. Secretary—I am sure if you don’t, 

I do, very well, your first appearance here when I was sitting back 

over there and asked you about special education funding. And you 

pointed out the spike that you just did again which was in the 

stimulus bill. 

We had a discussion at that time about how a 1-year spike is 

really not very useful to IDEA and the special education because 

it doesn’t allow schools to program, to hire more teachers and to 

get an ongoing program. One-year spike is only a 1-year spike. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Just to be clear, it wasn’t a 1-year spike. 

That is over a couple of years. That was an additional $12 billion— 

Chairman KLINE. It was a spike, Mr. Secretary. Reclaiming my 

time. It was a spike. And whether you call it a 1-year spike or a 

2-year spike, it was a spike. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Will the gentleman yield— 

Chairman KLINE. I will not. Just hang on just a minute. So what 

we have been asking for, what I have been asking for, is a commitment to increase funding for special education. It is a shortcoming 

that Republicans and Democrats have had in administration and 

in Congress. 

And we need to work together to increase that funding. When I 

travel to schools, not only in my district in Minnesota and around 

the country, the thing they want most from the federal government 

is for it to start to step up and meet its commitment towards that 

40 percent of increased funding, which was supposed to be provided. We have never gotten over 18 percent. 

So I guess my question, then, Mr. Secretary, you have got over 

a dozen new programs in this President’s budget. But you don’t 

have any increase of funding that is available for special education. 

Secretary DUNCAN. So again, I just want to be very clear and correct the record. Our budget has a $100 million increase for special 

education. As I said early, the Recovery Act increased funding by 

$12 billion, by far the largest increase in special ed funding ever 

in our nation’s history. 

And you voted against that. 

Chairman KLINE. I absolutely voted against that, because it set 

us on this path where we are running up huge deficits and debts 

that keep piling on, and because that spike in spending doesn’t address the needs for our special ed kids, for our children across the 

spectrum. Whether you are special needs or not special needs, we 

need steady funding for special ed. 

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24 

And that is what we ought to be working towards. And what I am asking—the $100 million so-called increase, you put a set-aside 

so actual funds available to fund the program go down. 

Secretary DUNCAN. No, that is not accurate. That is not true. But 

again, just to be clear, we are both repeating ourselves, the $12 billion increase that you voted against, a Ryan budget that would 

lead to a couple of billion-dollar decrease— 

Chairman KLINE. Okay, we are repeating ourselves. So let’s stop. 

The Ryan budget will not decrease special ed funding. It allows 

prioritization where that we can increase that spending if we so 

choose. 

All right, so apparently, you are not going to increase that spending year-over-year. 

Secretary DUNCAN. No, to be clear, our budget asks for a $100 

million increase in special ed funding. 

Chairman KLINE. Thank you. So you are not going to increase 

year-over-year usable special ed funding. Let’s move to waivers real 

quickly. In the last 2 weeks, you rescinded Washington’s waiver because of provisions in the state’s teacher evaluation law that are 

inconsistent with the waiver requirements, and granted a waiver 

to Illinois despite the fact the provisions in the state’s teacher evaluation law are inconsistent with the waiver requirements. 

In Washington, you have, in effect, overruled the will of Washington citizens as enacted by their elected representatives to uphold a requirement that cannot be found anywhere in federal law. 

On the other hand, in Illinois and other states, you have shown a 

willingness to bend your waiver requirements to fit state needs. 

How do you find consistency? How do states expect to find consistency under those circumstances? 

Secretary DUNCAN. No, it is very simple. So Washington made a 

series of commitments in writing a year or 2 ago. And in any goodfaith agreement, both parties need to live up to their commitments. 

And Washington, despite the governor’s best efforts, despite the 

state lieutenants’ best efforts, Washington couldn’t live up to their 

commitments. And so, when, in an agreement, folks can’t do that, 

the agreement has to end. 

So the door is always open. We welcome them to come back at 

anytime they want. But both parties have to work in good faith. 

Chairman KLINE. Mr. Miller? 

Mr. MILLER. I yield to Mr. Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Miller. I was trying to 

get your attention, Mr. Chairman, because I think history is a good 

thing for us to remember once in a while. You weren’t here. 

And I don’t think the Secretary was here either, but there was 

a time when the Republicans had 10 points that they were running 

on. They have got 10 points to save America, whatever the slogan 

was, one of which was to increase the spending for IDEA. 

When we got into Congress that year after that election and the 

Speaker of the House now was the chairman of this committee, 

long time from Wisconsin, I offered an amendment to the bill that 

would fully fund IDEA. Not a single member of your party voted 

for it. 

Not one. And everybody on this side did. So there is a degree of 

seriousness about who wants to do something, who wants to talk 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

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about it. If you have—if people in the Ryan budget thought it was 

so good to prioritize it, they would have specified it, not just left 

it out there so they can say, we are going to cut a zillion dollars, 

just not going to tell you where. 

So I hope we get real on this subject at some point. Thank you. 

Mr. MILLER. I thank the gentleman. I would also point out that 

at that time, there were 345 signatures on a letter to the administration calling for full funding of special ed. And we couldn’t get a 

vote in the subcommittee. 

There is always a reason. And when you talk about prioritizing, 

we had amendment after amendment on the Republican side to cut 

special ed, to provide money for another program. So they were always playing the shortages in education, one against the other. 

But the question always was if they increase special ed, you had 

to salvage another program to do that, rather than to grow the pot. 

The record isn’t great on special ed, other than all of the rhetoric 

from elected officials about how much they support it. 

But when the vote comes, they are never there. That is the 

record on special ed. So thank you for adding money at the administration level. We will see where the Congress falls through with 

that at the budget level. 

And by the way, you should know there is about $380 billion in 

tax cuts coming out of the ways and means committee which aren’t 

paid for—simply aren’t paid for. Or they are going to add in the 

base. 

They have a gimmick. They are going to add in the base but just 

not paid for. So if you need those tax cuts among the wealthiest, 

large enterprises in the country, yet you don’t have to pay for 

them, but if you need money for special ed, you have to pay for 

that. 

So we will sort that out over time, I guess. 

Mr. Secretary, I want to touch on an issue that you have touched 

on in your opening statement that is very important to me, and 

your response on the question of dealing with the—with now, the 

renewal of the waivers. And that is the issue of equity. 

I had the honor of participating the 50th anniversary of the Civil 

Rights Act at the LBJ Center in Austin, Texas, 2 weeks ago. And 

you know, President Johnson made a dramatic commitment to equity with that—with the Civil Rights Act. 

And he made the commitment to equity that the—and his recognition that equity was not just the absence of oppression but it 

was the existence of opportunity. And that is really what—when 

we look at Title I, when we look at the historic federal role, it is 

really about ensuring that there is an opportunity there for all students in our public school systems, no matter what their zip code, 

no matter what their neighborhood, that they have that opportunity. 

And as we go through the renewals of the waivers, my concern 

is that we are starting to see people trying to mask and combine 

groups to disguise once again so that parents and community leaders and others don’t know how individual students are doing in 

that school and whether or not they, in fact, have the opportunity 

to take full advantage of that education. And I just wonder if you 

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26 

might play out a little bit how you can look at that renewal process— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Sure. 

Mr. MILLER.—with respect to equity. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Well, first, obviously, everything we are trying to do in terms of budget requests is trying to increase equity, 

so raise the top equity opportunity, the access—the focus on technology. Obviously, the early childhood play, I think, is the best investment we, as a country, can make. 

But actually, I think a great waiver, a great partnership has actually been with Chairman Kline’s home state of Minnesota. Minnesota is a pretty interesting state that historically had very high 

achievement but had some of the largest achievement gaps in the 

nation. 

So overall very strong, but huge disparities in outcomes. Thanks 

to some real courage in leadership, from the governor and state 

commissioner. They have put those issues front and center. 

They have given districts targets for cutting achievement gaps in 

half. They are being absolutely transparent and putting all of this 

data out and still a long way to go. 

But they are making some very real and significant progress. So 

it is those kinds of examples of people being honest, being truthful, 

being out there, being transparent, we want to support that and 

folks who are trying to mask things or hide things, please hold us 

accountable for challenging that. 

But there are some other great examples. But I think Minnesota 

is right there at the top of the list of folks who are taking these 

very real challenges seriously and in a very honest and straightforward way. 

Mr. MILLER. Well, you mentioned the second one, and the Congress gave you the funding for early childhood. And I think how 

those grants play out with that in mind, because again, we know 

what the denial of that opportunity in early childhood learning opportunities will mean to a child as they enter the rest of their educational experience. And I think again, we have to look at the equity in those grants. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, and again, just seeing the type of coalition, bipartisan governors, CEOs, military leaders, faith-based community, states’ attorneys, to see so many folks coming behind this 

early childhood play, I just hope and wish and plead that members 

of Congress can look at what is going on in the real world and all 

of their home states and come together to increase access. The average child coming from a disadvantaged community starts kindergarten at 5 years old a year to 14 months behind. 

And frankly, we don’t always do a great job of catching them up. 

We have to stop playing catch-up. We have to get our babies off to 

a better start. 

Chairman KLINE. Thank you. 

Mr. Petri? 

Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. I have got a little 

statement that I am going to read. And I appreciate your reaction, 

if any, to it. 

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27 

I am concerned about the state of our federal student loan system. Currently, about 15 percent of borrowers who will default 

within 3 years and many more over the life of their loan. A portion 

of these defaults come from excessive borrowing, partly driven by 

the high cost of education today. And these are serious problems 

that need to be addressed by this committee. 

Many other defaults are more easily avoided, and in this regard, 

we must consider how we structure the repayment process for student loans. Sue Dynarski and the economists at the University of 

Michigan pointed out in a recent paper, the vast majority of students do not borrow large amounts of money. Yet many of these 

students are still defaulting at high rates. 

In fact, the average loan in default is about $14,000. She argues 

that for these students, ‘‘We do not have a debt crisis but rather 

a repayment crisis. The current system turns reasonable levels of 

debt into crippling payment burdens that can prevent young workers from attaining fiscal independence and stability,’’ end quote. 

She advocates for a simple streamlined system, where payment 

amounts are linked to a borrower’s income, automatically protecting them during periods when their income is lower. 

So you know we have options like this now in the federal system, 

income contingent repayment, and income-based repayment. President Obama has added to the mix with his pay-as-you-earn proposal that reduces the amount borrowers have to pay and provides 

forgiveness after 20 years. 

But I am very concerned that the direction the administration 

has chosen to go with this idea. Anyone who has used our federal 

loan system knows that it is a bureaucratic nightmare. So finding 

these income-driven options, let alone using them, deters most borrowers. 

At the same time, by providing generous forgiveness, pay-as-youearn option is likely contributing to significant over-borrowing, particularly among graduate students. 

As Jordan Weissmann wrote in The Atlantic last year, quote— 

‘‘We have a student debt system that leaves the most vulnerable, 

least sophisticated borrowers to fend for themselves and we are 

seeing the unfortunate results in our default rates. Meanwhile, the 

high-debt levels among borrowers and income-based repayments 

suggest that many of them are probably former graduate students 

who are generally better equipped to navigate the federal government’s byzantine repayment system,’’ end quote. 

I know you proposed changes in your budget to scale back some 

of the forgiveness options. 

However, I am not sure if these changes go far enough. In a recent report, Beth Akers and Matt Chingos of Brookings advocate 

for doing away with the forgiveness portion of these programs to 

protect taxpayers and to reward prudent borrowing. 

I have advocated through my ExCEL Act legislation for streamlining the federal loan system by linking payments to income for 

all borrowers in a way that is simple and intuitive. At the same 

time, this bill eliminates the forgiveness provisions of the current 

program while still offering strong protections to borrowers with 

low post-graduate earnings. 

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28 

The current program is sadly flipped on its head. The bureaucracy prevents most students from taking advantage of protections 

they need while the forgiveness rewards those with the largest 

debts. 

We need the opposite—a streamlined system that protects all 

borrowers from default, while being fair, budgetarily sustainable, 

and rewarding prudent borrowing. I am really just hoping that you 

might comment on any of these observations. 

Secretary DUNCAN. There is a lot there. So I can’t say I can comment on every issue. I would say quickly— 

Mr. PETRI. Very quickly— 

Secretary DUNCAN. I think we all share your concern with high 

levels of debt and high default rates. And we all need to work together to reduce those. 

So a couple of quick things, and love to have a further conversation with you and your staff on your proposal, don’t know all the 

details there. We are trying to do a lot to increase transparency, 

just getting young people and their families basic information, 

what is a grant, what is a loan. 

This process can be overwhelming to people and trying to help 

them understand that. We also know there are some fantastic forprofit universities. They are doing a great job. 

We know others that are taking advantage of disadvantaged 

folks. And for-profit colleges represent about 13 percent of the total 

higher ed population but 46 percent of loan defaults. 

So clearly, there is an imbalance there where people end up in 

a worse position where they started. And we need to look at that 

seriously. The President has challenged us to look and think about 

a college rating system, where we are looking at access, we are 

looking at affordability, we are looking at completion rates, trying 

to, you know, get some sense of value there. 

And again, just getting more information out to people will be 

very important. The IBR, income-based repayment, pay as you 

earn, happy to talk about that more but giving incentives for people to go into the public sector to take on critically important work 

that we need them to do in classrooms, in legal aid clinics, in medical clinics. We feel good about that. 

We think that is a good thing. And then finally, just clearly, a 

hugely important federal role, but this is about shared responsibility. So states have to increase their investment to higher education. 

Many states cut during the tough economic time. And when 

states cut their funding, universities jack up their tuition. But, 

also, our universities have to do a better job of containing costs and 

using technology in very different ways and focusing not just on access but around completion as well. 

So we have an important role to play. Again, this should be a 

topic that we should work in a very bipartisan way on. But we also 

have to challenge other players to come to the table and work with 

us to do the right thing. 

Chairman KLINE. Mr. Holt? 

Mr. HOLT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

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29 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. A few comments before I get to questions. First of all, I noticed it was said earlier that your commitment, Mr. Secretary, to Preschool for All is a pet project. 

I don’t think this is a frivolous pet project. And that should not 

go unanswered. And as for waivers, I know you are attacked often 

for waivers. 

If the leadership of this committee and this House would actually 

get to work and get the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 

up to date and working, there would be less need for waivers, I am 

sure. I want to commend you for the funding for the state longitudinal data systems. 

That is critically important for understanding students’ progress. 

And finally, I wanted to make a comment and invite you to respond, if you want to. It is not actually a question. 

I want to call attention to the TEACH Grants, as one of the authors of the TEACH Grants and someone who is very interested in 

the 34,000 students who are taking advantage of those grants to 

go into math and science and other important subjects as teachers, 

I think, this needs to be enhanced. That is barely—well, it is not 

sufficient. 

A couple of questions. Recent—or last year, in fact, the deputy 

assistant secretary for international programs, the office of international and foreign languages, stepped down, has not been replaced, I think has not even been named—the replacement has not 

been named. Given that one of your objectives is increasing global 

competency, and you can define that or I could, I suppose, how— 

what are you going to do to address the continuing lack of support 

for language learning, global competency in K through 12, problems in higher education with anemic funding for Title VI and the 

Department of State’s Fulbright-Hays. A second question I would 

like to bring up and then I will turn it over to you, has to do with 

your comments about Nobel economist James Heckman’s findings 

that the highest return on investment is in the first 3 years of education. 

I am a co-sponsor, as are many of us here, of Representative Miller’s Stronger Start for America’s Children. Disparities in child outcomes are evident at 9 months. They are large by 24 months. 

You know, I understand that early Head Start is administered 

by the Department of Health and Human Services. But can you 

provide a picture of how under the President’s proposal and George 

Miller’s Stronger Start for America’s Children’s Act and HHS and 

DOE, Department of Education, would work with the states to expand early learning opportunities? 

In particular, is the 15 percent infant-toddler set aside sufficient? 

And if there is time, I have other questions, but thank you. 

Secretary DUNCAN. I think I have four or five. I will try and go 

through them really quick. As everyone here knows, the waiver 

plan was always plan b. Plan A was always bipartisan reauthorization of the ESEA. 

I just want to keep coming back to that bipartisan theme. I am 

not interested in Democrat-only bills. I am not interested in Republican bills. That is not how the world works. 

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30 

I am very interested in your charter bill, because that seems to 

have significant bipartisan support. There is a kernel of something 

there that I think is really worthy of attention. 

So we continue to ready, willing, able, today, tomorrow, next 

week, to work in a bipartisan way to fix the law. That is first. Second, TEACH Grants are very important. We want to make sure 

they are going to individuals, but also to institutions that are truly 

preparing future teachers for the rigor of that very important, very 

complex job so you know some teacher prep institutions, schools, do 

a pretty good job. 

Many, frankly, don’t. And far too many young teachers feel they 

are unprepared to enter the classroom. That is not good enough, 

and we want to challenge that status quo. 

In terms of international competitiveness, foreign languages, we 

want to do more there. Happy to talk with you about it. Met with 

my counterpart from Japan yesterday, talked about trying to significantly increase the number of exchange students going both 

ways. And I am just a big fan, obviously—multiple benefits that 

you understand so well. 

And finally, just to be clear, we have worked in absolute partnership with HHS from day 1. All of this work on the early childhood 

space has to be a seamless continuum of opportunity from birth 

through age 5, entering kindergarten, early home visiting, 

strengthening families, early Head Start, Head Start, going to preK. 

HHS team has been fantastic partners, met with them actually 

again yesterday. And so we are linked at the hip. They are not 

being redundant, not being duplicative, but trying to make sure 

that young people have opportunities to enter kindergarten not a 

year to a year-and-a-half behind. 

Mr. HOLT. Well, since you didn’t really answer the specific questions I had on those programs, I hope you will provide that in writing as soon as possible, please. But— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Happy to do that. 

Mr. HOLT.—thank you very much. 

Chairman KLINE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Ms. Foxx? 

Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Duncan, for being here. I remain concerned 

about current state authorization regulation and draft regulations 

coming out of the negotiated rulemaking session. 

It is one thing to say states must authorize institutions that operate within their states. It is an entirely another thing to dictate 

precisely how those states are to do it. And then, if you don’t agree 

with it, punish the students for attending the institutions within 

the state. 

Aren’t you using the federal regulatory process to push states 

into regulating institutions according to a federal idea rather than 

what may work for students in the institutions within the state? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I am happy to continue that conversation 

with you further. Again, we just want to make sure that young people are being well-served. 

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31 

Ms. FOXX. I would also reiterate what the Chairman said at the 

beginning. We would like some answers to some of the questions 

that we send you in a more timely fashion. 

So I look forward to getting more information— 

Secretary DUNCAN. I commit to you on that. And I apologize for 

that. 

Ms. FOXX. Last year, the President announced the development 

of a new college rating system that would compare colleges with 

similar missions, and will be based on access, affordability, and 

outcomes. I appreciate you have taken steps to gain some feedback 

from the community on this proposal. 

I speak to a lot of students and families about their college 

search and actually spent some time during the Easter break visiting campuses with my grandson, who is a junior in high school 

this year. And so I am seeing this from a very personal level. 

So in my experience, every family looks at different options. Why 

do you assume the federal government can rank colleges and thereby, presume to know what is best for millions of students and their 

families as they research their postsecondary options? 

Secretary DUNCAN. No, I don’t—we don’t presume to know anything. It is—I think you know that we have gone into this with a 

great sense of humility and really trying to listen and talk to folks, 

have had multiple forums with folks around the nation. 

But it is interesting, your state is not dissimilar to very, you 

know, probably every other state. You have institutions of higher 

education that have like a 95 percent graduation rate. 

You have others that have a 12 percent graduation rate so 95 

percent to 12 percent. And we, at the federal level, thanks to your 

support, we put out about $150 billion in grants and loans to institutions of higher education each year. 

And that $150 billion is all based upon inputs. None of it is 

based upon outcomes. And again, I think this is an area that 

should be a huge interest to our Republican friends of trying to 

have some accountability there and our graduation rates going up 

or down. 

Are people taking their mission seriously, not just on the access 

side but on the completion side? That is a massive taxpayer investment each year. And we want to make sure that taxpayer investment is being used wisely. 

Ms. FOXX. We had, many, many hearings on the Higher Education Act as well as all the legislation that we have put forth in 

this committee. And one of the things that we hear over and over 

and over again is that the department collects mounds and mounds 

of data. 

But from that, we get very little— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. 

Ms. FOXX.—information. So rather than the department setting 

up rating systems—there are lots of ratings systems out there done 

by the private sector—why don’t you just make information public? 

Why don’t you revise the way you collect data and then, make that 

available to the public? 

We like transparency. We don’t think we are getting a lot of 

transparency from the department. So why not just put out useful 

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32 

information and let the public make the decision about how to rate 

the institutions? 

Secretary DUNCAN. So we have done a tremendous amount to increase transparency. I would agree with you, we have to continue 

to do that. I think as you are going through with your grandson, 

this could be an overwhelming process, and for families who are 

first-generation college goers or new to the country, navigating all 

of this—what is a grant, what is a loan, not what is the 1-year cost, 

what is the 4-year cost, what are graduation rates, what are the 

chances to get a good job at the back end? 

There is a huge amount of information we should have out there. 

So we are going to do everything we can to increase transparency. 

And please partner with us and please challenge us to do a better 

job there. 

At the end of the day, though, we think of that $150 billion annual investment over time, we would like to see more of that 

money going to places that are serious about graduation rates, that 

are serious about reducing their own costs, that are serious about 

making sure young people actually prepare to go into the world of 

work and get a good job, and away from those places that don’t 

take college completion seriously, that just see—you know, that see 

a free paycheck coming from the government every single year. So 

we think taking that next step is important as well, in addition to 

transparency. 

Ms. FOXX. Thank you. 

Chairman KLINE. Mr. Grijalva? 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today. I appreciate 

very much, Mr. Secretary, the reminding all of us that the issues 

that we are dealing with in education is indeed a civil rights issue. 

It is an equity issue. 

It is an opportunity issue. It is an economic issue. And with that 

backdrop, let me ask two questions with regard to equal access and 

opportunity. How will the President’s new proposal on early childhood affect existing state and local early childhood programs such 

as pre-K or child care programs, and in particular, Head Start, 

which is under the Ryan budget, taking a crippling, destructive 

$750 million hit. 

How is this initiative overlay with those? 

Secretary DUNCAN. So our goal is very simple on the early childhood space. We simply want to remove children from waiting lists 

at the state level. 

And as I travel state to state to state, despite the, you know, 30 

governors who are investing, which we feel very good about, you 

see 6,000, 8,000, 13,000, 15,000 kids routinely on waiting lists. So 

our goal would be to keep kids going to existing programs. 

But for those hard-working children and families who are trying 

to do something better for the kids before they start kindergarten, 

giving them that chance in a very concrete way, that is what this 

money would go for. And I want to be clear, you can’t do this on 

the cheap. 

You are paying for teachers. You are paying for classrooms. You 

are paying for materials that don’t exist today. So anyone who says 

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33 

they are for early childhood education but not willing to invest 

more money, they are not walking the walk. 

They are not living their values. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. And elementary and secondary education, the 

2013 GAO report outlined the failure of far too many charter 

schools to report critical data, particularly with regard to students 

with disabilities, English language learners, and poor kids in general. In the current budget climate, Title I is at pre-sequestration 

levels, is below pre-sequestration levels in this budget. What assurances can you tell us about that the $248 million proposed for charter schools will go to institutions that provide equal 

access to— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. 

Mr. GRIJALVA.—distinct population, English learners, students 

with disabilities, poor kids, compared to what traditional public 

schools are being required to do at this point? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Happy to follow up on the details of your 

question. But simply put, we only want our money to go to replicating high-performing charter schools. There is often a debate 

charter versus traditional. 

I just think it is the wrong debate. It is a false debate. We just 

need more high-performance schools, traditional charter, whatever 

they might be. 

High-performing schools are a part of the solution, low-performing schools are a part of the problem. So we want to be expand, to be very clear, those charters that are getting great results 

but are working with, to your point, their proportional share of 

poor children, English language learners, special needs kids, homeless kids. so many charters are set up. That is their mission, was 

to serve kids that have not had all the advantages and haven’t had 

great opportunities traditionally, and again, hold us accountable to 

make sure we are doing that correctly. 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Appreciate that. And just, we talked about the 

Ryan budget is about prioritization. So if it goes to IDEA, that is 

a priority, that this Congress would—by definition, the Ryan budget means that severe cuts will be in other areas on top of the cuts 

that are already part of the Ryan budget. If indeed, prioritization 

for IDEA, and meeting our mandated 40 percent is part of the 

issue, that will require extra resources. 

And we shouldn’t be afraid to talk about extra resources as opposed to robbing Peter to pay Paul in this particular instance. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KLINE. Gentleman yields back. 

Dr. Roe? 

Mr. ROE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I know that our Chairman is one of the most supportive people of the disabilities—ever 

since I have known him, the 5–1/2 years I have been here, he has 

been incredibly supportive. 

Mr. Secretary, I think probably the biggest challenge we have in 

education in the country is to narrow the achievement gap. And I 

had spent a lot of time since you were here last, I have read a 

number of books and research. 

And one of them I have read and everybody in this room should 

read, ‘‘I Got Schooled’’ and I know you have met with the author 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

34 

of this book. And we find out that the achievement gap, our 

schools, really, in a lot of places, are doing a fantastic job. 

In many places, they are doing a very poor job. And so we don’t 

have to reinvent the wheel. We know what to do and what works 

and what doesn’t work. And we know we need effective teachers. 

We know we need leadership in the classroom. We know we need 

data to find out if what we are doing is actually working. We need 

probably smaller schools. 

That is a bigger one, because that is a very expensive thing and 

then more time in the schools. So we start—I want to start with 

just your—early education. 

If you look at a child that is—lives in a poverty area, they hear 

30 million less words by the time they get to kindergarten than a 

child in a higher income does—30 million less words. The problem 

with it is if we go through pre-k and don’t continue these other 

metrics I have talked about, you lose all of that. 

Vanderbilt just published a study, not a year ago, that showed 

that very thing, that those gains are lost by the end of the first 

grade, I think it is. One of the things I would ask you to do is to 

certainly look at HHS, the Head Start program, which works in 

some places and doesn’t work in other places. Find out what works 

there. 

And if you are thinking about increasing this and certainly governors around the state are, combine those programs instead of 

here committing to another gigantic program. Let’s look at what we 

have got, the money—because our resources, as the Chairman 

pointed out, are limited. 

Definitely, we would want to do that. And just so that everyone 

in this room understands and how well some schools are doing, if 

you take schools that have 10 percent or less poverty, and that is 

75 percent or more free and reduced lunch. 

We have the highest PISA scores in the world. So it is pockets 

that we have to go to and focus on. And are we doing that? Or are 

we just taking a gigantic shotgun and shooting at the whole country? 

Secretary DUNCAN. No, I think you have really studied this issue. 

And I appreciate your sincere commitment to thinking it through. 

So I agree with many of the points you made. 

Just to challenge you on two. We absolutely have to look at Head 

Start and look at everything. But to be clear, we can’t get to where 

we need to go simply with existing dollars. 

And we want to go from about 1.1 million children with access 

to prekindergarten to 2.2 million. So simple reallocation doesn’t 

help you to do that. Second, just to challenge a little bit the assumption that all of these gains disappear, what Dr. Heckman 

talks about—again, it would be great to have him come and testify 

and you can ask him lots of questions. 

He came to this with a great deal of skepticism, frankly. What 

he saw is not over a year, but over three, four, now going on five 

decades’ massive return on investment— 

Mr. ROE. No, I agree with that, Mr. Secretary. One of the things 

that also is lost, it is not in your budget here, is in the summertime—I don’t know whether any summer programs or not but lowCEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

35 

income children lose almost 3 months, 2.8 months of gains in reading during the summer. 

Your children, my children, they don’t. We are going to have 

them at the library. We are going to have them doing all kinds of 

things. So that is fairly simple thing that would negate those 

losses. 

And if you lose 2.8 months in 3 or 4 years, you are a year behind 

no matter how good you do. 

Secretary DUNCAN. No, so again, couldn’t agree more. Not a lot 

in our budget Title I resources for poor kids can absolutely be used 

in that way. More schools are thinking about year round. 

Maybe of the successful charter schools are just working longer 

hours. So we love that kind of innovation. And one place we don’t 

need another study is around summer reading loss. 

Mr. ROE. Yes. 

Secretary DUNCAN. You hit the nail on the head. And we just 

need to stop—we need to end that cycle. 

Mr. ROE. I agree. Well, let me go quickly to this, because my 

time is limited. One thing that affects my district specifically is the 

Impact Aid payment for federal poverty programs. You eliminate 

that. And what that does— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Sorry, I can’t hear you. Say again. 

Mr. ROE. I am sorry, it is the Impact Aid payments for federal 

property programs, in other words, in lieu of taxes. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. I have a county that has 55 percent or 60 percent of 

that county is owned by the federal government. I grew up in a 

county where Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was and took the best 

farmland and best agriculture land we had. 

Those schools are hit severely with this. One of my schools, it is $188,000. That is not a lot of money for here. But it is a small, 

rural county. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. 

Mr. ROE. We have to—you cannot do that. This puts them at a 

great disadvantage in rural America. There are 250-something 

school systems that this affects. 

Secretary DUNCAN. So don’t know the details of that specific situation, but happy to follow up with you and find out— 

Mr. ROE. Okay, and one other thing I want to ask you that—can 

you tell us what the graduation rate is for Pell Grants? And I want 

to finish by saying our state—I want to brag on Tennessee—our 

governor just produced a program, was passed by the legislature, 

to provide free community college and technical college for everyone in our state. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. 

Chairman KLINE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Courtney? 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, the last time we spoke was one of the few brief 

shining moments of the 113th Congress where one of the 88 bills 

that has been enacted was about to be signed by the President last 

August. I was with Mr. Kline for the legislation that protected the 

Stafford loan program from going to 6.8 percent. 

And as you know, it is at 3.8 percent for this academic year. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

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Secretary DUNCAN. That was a shining moment of bipartisan 

work. 

Mr. COURTNEY. It was. And the President at the time—and there 

was a lot of head-nodding going on, was saying that our work is 

not finished. And that is why, when I look at the Ryan budget, in 

terms of its impact on higher ed programs, I mean, it just takes 

your breath away—$260 billion in cuts to Pell, $145 billion, $41 billion on Stafford, which I will talk about in a second, wipes out the 

income-based repayment program, and incredibly gets rid of the 

American opportunity tax credit, which allows middle-class families 

to get a tax credit to pay for college. 

About 11 million families lost $1,100 under the Ryan budget. I 

always thought Republicans were for cutting taxes. But you know, 

nothing seems to surprise me, I guess, in terms of the way their 

priorities play out. 

But on the Stafford program, which, again, everybody was kind 

of patting themselves on the back for the fact that we protected the 

rate increase from going into effect—effective last July 1, what 

their measure does is it eliminates the in-school interest protection, 

which is there for subsidized Stafford loan students. 

That is about seven million students who, again, don’t have interest accumulate while they are actually in college. The estimate 

from the CBO is that it adds about 3,000 to the interest level of 

students at time of graduation, who use Stafford. 

So the $1 trillion price tag of student loan debt, which is, you 

know, stifling our economy, hindering people’s advancement, they 

just added another 41 billion. And this is a program which, by the 

way, doesn’t cost the taxpayers money. 

Stafford is an interest-bearing program that the federal government actually nets out with a positive cash flow according to CBO. 

So they basically raised revenue through this measure of in-school 

interests by eliminating that protection for students. 

And again, I think the record has to be crystal clear here. They 

are taking us backwards in terms of the issue of higher education 

affordability. Now, your budget came out with a number of proposals, which again, addressed the other side of this, which I hear 

about all the time at home, which is, you know, when are we going 

to do something about rising tuition costs? 

Well, again, eliminating this help for students doesn’t do a thing 

as far as that is concerned. But again, your proposal is to try and 

change incentives to colleges so that affordability is going to be one 

of the criteria that they have to demonstrate. 

And I was wondering if you could talk about that a little bit this 

morning. 

Secretary DUNCAN. I just think again there is a lot of room for 

honest debate and disagreement, discussion. I just—right now, we 

are 12th in the world in college graduation rates. One generation 

ago, we were first. 

It is not that we have dropped. We have stagnated. We have flatlined, and 11 countries have passed us by. In a flat economy, flat 

world, where jobs going toward where the most educated workers 

are, I think we can all agree that being 12th in the world is not 

a badge of honor. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

37 

It is not something we can be proud of. It is not acceptable. And 

we have to figure out how we go from 12th in the world to first 

as fast as we can. And anything that reduces access to college, that 

makes it harder to go, more expensive, takes us in the wrong direction. 

So we have to get better faster. We have high school graduation 

rates going up, which is huge. We have to make sure those high 

school graduates are truly college and career ready. 

And there is some very significant work going on around the 

country there. But that has to translate to higher college completion rates. 

So let’s find ways to work together to get there, but reducing access, reducing affordability, making it more expensive rather than 

less. I just think we are hurting our country. 

We are cutting off our noses to spite our face. And jobs are going 

to go to countries that take this responsibility and this opportunity 

more seriously than us. 

And if we want to keep high-wage, high-skilled jobs here, if we 

want to build the middle class, the only way to do that is to increase access to some form of higher education. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Great. And I think the rating system, which 

again, is to help families and students make smart choices and not 

end up into that default bucket that Mr. Petri had talked about, 

I think, is a definitely a good path. 

And for the record, Mr. Chairman, I just want you to know that 

the president of the University of Connecticut, the Hungry 

Huskies, has embraced the administration’s plan and is willing to 

go along with the rating system that the Department of Education— 

Chairman KLINE. I thank the gentleman for not talking about 

basketball. 

Mr. COURTNEY. I yield back. 

Chairman KLINE. Mr. Walberg? 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you for being here, Mr. Secretary. I would concur with 

what my colleague from Tennessee indicated about the ideas 

brought about in ‘‘I Got Schooled.’’ All of those ideas, as I read, 

from an individual, certainly doesn’t come from my perspective on 

a lot of issues, but on education, made sense. 

And all of that went more to the power of the local district, the 

power of the local administrator, especially the building principal, 

being able to do a mentoring process, developing great teachers, 

and promoting great teachers, and even suggesting to teachers who 

have certainly plenty of well meaning, aspirations, yet aren’t going 

to make it in the world that we have right now to bring kids 

through the education process. And that certainly says to me the 

top-down central planning that goes on from Washington, from 

Congress, from the Department of Education, yourself, and the responsibilities you have, may not be the best direction. 

And if we want to give, as you indicated already, about my governor, making some significant statements and attempts and 

strides at growing education in our state, dealing with early education, having a no-wait plan in place, a K–20 process, all sorts of 

good ideas that are being developed at the local and state levels, 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

38 

where they actually know what is happening in the schools, or at 

least have the ability to do that. We ought to be encouraging it. 

Mr. Secretary, the Chairman already asked you about what appears to be the inconsistent application of waiver. You indicated 

the waiver isn’t your first plan. It is getting ESEA passed. But 

nonetheless, that is where we are at right now. 

I understand that Michigan is one of those states whose waiver 

has been flagged as potentially problematic largely for the same 

issue Washington faced. Michigan has enacted a teacher evaluation 

law that gives school districts more flexibility and incorporating 

student achievement into the evaluation than you would prefer, as 

I understand that. 

So are you planning to rescind Michigan’s waiver? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I don’t know the details of that situation. 

That hasn’t come to me. I have great working relationship with 

both of your governor and with your state superintendent. So 

happy to continue to talk, but not one I have been focused on recently. 

And let me just—your first statement, I think you presumed that 

we somehow disagree. I want to be clear there may be more common ground than you realize. 

Part of the reason I have been so angry about No Child Left Behind is it was very, very loose on goals; so 50 different goalposts, 

50 different standards, but very tight, very prescriptive from Washington in terms of how to meet those goals. Now, I remember when 

I was running the Chicago public schools, I had to beg our Department of Education to allow me to try and tutor about 20,000 of my 

kids after school who Washington was telling me I couldn’t do it. 

It was absolutely crazy. We won that argument. So what we are 

trying to do, hopefully in a bipartisan way, in terms of reauthorization at some point, I think the right tradeoff is to be tight on goals, 

have a high bar, make sure all of our students—Michigan, Mississippi, Massachusetts, it doesn’t matter—are actually graduating, 

and graduating college and career-ready, not having to take remedial classes, will be much looser, but less prescriptive and let 

locals— 

Mr. WALBERG. On how you make it—how you make it happen, 

correct? 

Secretary DUNCAN. What is that? 

Mr. WALBERG. On how you make it happen. 

Secretary DUNCAN. On how you make it happen. So tight on 

goals, loose on means, that is where I think No Child Left Behind 

got fundamentally wrong, and in any kind of reauthorization, those 

are the values that we think would be absolutely essential. 

Mr. WALBERG. And I certainly think that is the direction that our 

Chairman and this committee would like to go, in making sure that 

we provide the opportunity for those local school districts and our 

states to meet high goals, yes, but to have a great deal of latitude. 

Yesterday, I was, met with a class in the largest land space area 

of a school system in the state of Michigan. 

It is a rural school system, a lot of land space, smaller in size 

of students. A week before, I met with the largest school system in 

Michigan. And that wasn’t Detroit. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

39 

That was Saline school system, doing a great job, but a large 

population that have to deal with there. And so we have a great 

amount of variety. And for a top-down management system to work 

in this nation, move us back to a setting where we are number one 

in college graduations as opposed to number 12 and the like, is 

something we ought to be moving toward. 

Let me ask one final question here. You have listened to higher 

ed institutions give you some feedback on the rating system that 

is being proposed. What have you heard? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Heard lots of things. And I will be very clear. 

This is very difficult intellectually. This is complex. I am very 

aware that some of the disincentives, the preferred incentives, 

there were in No Child Left Behind. 

Last thing we want to do is replicate those in the higher ed 

space. So you want to make sure that universities that are working 

with a more challenging population aren’t compared to Harvard or 

Yale or Stanford or whatever. That makes a lot of sense. 

You want to make sure you are maximizing choice and transparency. You want to make sure that young people who want to go 

into teaching, orgoing to the Peace Corps, or work in a nonprofit. 

Somehow, if you are looking at earnings at the back end not creating incentives that take individuals or hurt universities for encouraging folks to do public service, you know, to do good. 

So those are the types of feedback that we have heard. And there 

is trepidation on any kind of change. There is also some significant 

support out there. But we are taking this very, very seriously, and 

again going into it with a real sense of humility. Last thing— 

Chairman KLINE. Gentleman’s time has expired. 

I am sorry, Mr. Secretary. 

Ms. Fudge? 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. Certainly, I do 

want to say before I ask my question, with all due respect to our 

Chairman, the Ryan budget is not fiscally or morally sound. It fails 

the test of even a budget. 

If you can’t determine where your revenue is really coming from 

in any reasonable, real way, or where your cuts are coming from, 

it is not a budget. 

Mr. Secretary, I just want to talk to you a bit about Pell Grants. 

We know that right now, Pell Grants are aiding more than nine 

million low-income Americans in this country. 

And in the President’s budget, there is a provision that would 

provide Pell Grant eligibility to students who are co-enrolled in 

adult and post-secondary education as part of a career path. I am 

working with some of my colleagues across the aisle on a bipartisan bill which would expand eligibility for the Pell Grant program 

to early college and dually enrolled high school students. 

What are your thoughts on that? 

Secretary DUNCAN. First of all, I just want to appreciate your 

leadership in so many issues that you and I have worked together 

on. And you—I think you are passionate on these education issues 

in extraordinarily thoughtful ways; want to thank you for your 

leadership. 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

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Secretary DUNCAN. So we haven’t talked enough about this 

today. But all this dual enrollment, whether it is taking A.P. classes, whether it is actually taking college classes on universities, 2- 

year, 4-year, those are huge, huge programs. I am a big, big fan. 

And to be very clear, this is not just for the high fliers. I actually 

think these are good dropout prevention programs. 

Ms. FUDGE. Yes. 

Secretary DUNCAN. And students that might be on the margin, 

start to take those classes and think maybe I can belong in a college. Maybe I can be successful. 

I went to an amazing early college that is actually located on a 

college campus in El Paso, Texas, all low-income students, virtually 

all immigrants, a ninth-grade biology class. These ninth graders 

were getting college credit for that class. 

Think about what that does in terms of not just academically, 

but psychologically how empowering that is. So how we create 

more opportunities, I am very interested in Pell Grant being an interesting, you know, possibility there. 

We would love to play and talk about some experimental sites. 

But if we had more students—let me just be clear—high school diploma, for me, is a starting point, not an ending point. 

If every high school student was graduating either with college 

credits in their back pocket or industry certification, then I would 

feel much better about where they are going to be able to—what 

they are going to be able to do long-term. So would love to partner 

with you to think this through. 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, because what happens 

now is that those high schools that we are so excited about that 

have these programs are bearing the cost of this program, or these 

kids are. And it really is, I think, unfair if we are going to promote 

them, to not assist them so— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. 

Ms. FUDGE.—we will continue to talk about it. 

Secretary DUNCAN. In some places—I don’t know who is here 

from Iowa, but Iowa has about like 25 percent of their high school 

students taking college-level classes. They have worked out at the 

state level some pretty interesting partnerships where the K to 12 

is not bearing all the costs. 

Ms. FUDGE. Right. Thank you. Secondly, I have heard you mentioned all of our students a number of times today in your testimony. And I am greatly concerned with the rising number of competitive grant programs coming out of the Department of Education. 

How do you plan on ensuring equal funding and opportunity for 

all students and not just the limited number of students in school 

districts that have the infrastructure in place to write good grants? 

Secretary DUNCAN. So again, just to be clear, there is not a rising 

number—the percent of our budget, roughly 88, 89 percent of our 

budget is formula-based and 10, 11, 12 percent of our budget is 

competitive funding. So that has been pretty consistent. 

So there hasn’t been a big swing there. And— 

Ms. FUDGE. But it is a swing since you came in, where there are 

more competitive grants now than there were prior to this administration. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

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Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, and we feel proud about that. But that 

is a long— 

Ms. FUDGE. Now, that is the point I am making. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Just year-to-year budget has been about the 

same percent. Two quick answers, and again further conversations, 

one is we have tried to make sure that as we do these type of competitions that we have a very diverse slate. And there are lots of 

concerns that rural communities somehow couldn’t compete. 

And we have—I think we have improved, frankly, and rural communities are absolutely getting their fair share. And so we are 

looking not for the fancy PowerPoint for people that have a real 

sincere commitment. 

And we could go sort of grant program by grant program, and 

show you who the recipients have been. And we think it has been 

pretty representative. And we always go where the greatest need 

is. 

So we are not going to high fliers. We are going to the most disadvantaged communities, promise neighborhoods, you know, other 

things like that. The other thing that is so important is that when 

we have done these types of things, we have seen very significant 

changes in behavior. 

So it is not just those receiving the money that benefit. But we 

are seeing other districts start to move in more profound ways. So, 

promise neighborhood is a prime example. 

There are dozens and dozens of great applicants I wish we could 

fund, but we just don’t have the dollars available. But many of 

those communities have come together, have a blueprint now, have 

a vision, and are working together with or without our money. 

Now, I wish we could fund them. But there have been lots of residual benefits from putting these kinds of programs in place. 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman KLINE. Thank the gentlelady. 

Mr. Guthrie? 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Thank you. I just want to point out, the budget review and today, I know was just said that the Ryan budget is not 

moral and fiscal, but I would just overall comment on the budget 

we are reviewing today. It does raise taxes. 

It does close loopholes. And still adds trillions of dollars for the 

debt to our—the very kids we are talking about today will be paying this back for generations. So I just want to—you know, as we 

are going to just be honest about it. 

The waivers and I actually—you read through the bill, you do 

have broad discretion on waivers. And the application of that—and 

I was hoping when I first got on this committee, we would reauthorize and change No Child Left Behind, because that was a wellintentioned bill that has a lot of issues that need to be fixed. 

You know, one or two ways, comment or let’s let the Congressional leadership do it. Well, we have passed a bill to the Senate. 

And I wouldn’t expect the Senate to pass our bill. 

They can. But that is the process for them to send the bill back 

and let’s conference on it. We are doing it on the Workforce Investment Act, which a vote went out of here. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

42 

I think it got—I think it was a partisan vote. And we are hopefully close to having a final bill through the Senate. So it is not impossible to do. Just has to have the will to do it. So it comes—so 

our leadership has taken a stance on fixing No Child Left Behind. 

Secretary DUNCAN. It is not impossible. I just think it is not the 

most strategic or the most successful way of doing it. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. To do a bill—let the Senate amend our bill in conference? 

Secretary DUNCAN. No, no, to do it in a partisan way. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. No, it is not. But I am saying that the bill is in 

the Senate, that has happened. And it has happened with the 

Workforce Investment Act. The other way you do it is the President 

grab the attention of the country, which George Bush did. 

And now, we are all pointing out the flaws of the bill, but was 

able to do a bipartisan—it was a very bipartisan bill that passed. 

And the thing with the waivers, I think, and is my issue with it, 

because I think there is some broad discretion there, I sure agree 

with everyone. 

But I think there is broad discretion. You can argue is that—it 

just takes the pressure off the Senate to fix anything. And if there 

is an issue that is before us, and we need to fix it, we know, and 

you can waive, and the Senate can say, well, we don’t like this bill. 

But we are getting what we want by waivers, then why would 

they ever come to the table to negotiate? And that is the problem 

I have with the waiver system. 

Secretary DUNCAN. So again, I just fundamentally disagree with 

that. You should absolutely be feeling the pressure every single 

day, because I am feeling the pressure every single day. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Well, this— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Waivers are a poor, second choice to fixing it. 

And for us to do nothing would have been educationally and morally irresponsible. You look at what states have done in the waiver 

process, moving away from a focus on a single test score, looking 

at high school graduation rates, looking at reducing dropout rates, 

looking at college-going rates, looking at college-going, not needing 

remedial classes. 

Many states have brought in hundreds of thousands of kids who 

were invisible under No Child Left Behind. This gets a little technical, because—and sizes were so high, they were not part of any 

accountability system. 

And states are stepping up and saying, we want to better serve 

poor children and homeless children— 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Well, I am not disagreeing with what they are 

doing. I am saying that the pressure on the Senate to act seems 

to not be there for whatever reason it seems to not be there. 

Secretary DUNCAN. I fundamentally and absolutely disagree with 

that. You should feel huge pressure— 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Well, we did. And when there is a bill sitting in 

the Senate so they can act on— 

Secretary DUNCAN. This bill is continually 6 years overdue for reauthorization. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. But there is a bill in the Senate. 

Secretary DUNCAN. So let’s—okay, let’s not all point fingers. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Oh no, I am just saying, that is— 

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43 

Secretary DUNCAN. Hold me accountable, I am happy to help in 

any way that would be constructive to moving forward in a bipartisan way. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. And I am willing to do so as well. The one question 

I do have on the blueprint for career and technical education— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes? 

Mr. GUTHRIE. I have had some of my—Carl Perkins is from Kentucky. So it is a really used program there. The concern going from 

a state formula to a state competitive grant, and you are trying to 

focus on consortia between secondary and post-secondary, which I 

absolutely agree with, because you know, getting out of secondary 

with just these skills and not going to post-secondary is not the 

best way to—so you are trying to incentivize that, which is absolutely right. But the concern that my—some of my more rural and 

smaller—if it is in my town of Bowling Green, Kentucky, it is easy 

for our schools and Western Kentucky to have a consortia. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. We have a swath of land. Geographically, they are 

just not covered by some of our higher ed institutions. And there 

is some concern so I will just answer the concern of rural smaller 

schools that may not be able to form a consortia, or not be closer 

or—how will they be able to prosper under this situation? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, so happy to work it through, and all we 

are trying to do is getting cut through silos that have— 

Mr. GUTHRIE. I agree with that. 

Secretary DUNCAN.—high schools talking to community colleges, 

to have both talking to the private sector and just making sure we 

are preparing students for real jobs that exist, not the jobs of 30 

years ago. So anything we can do better in that blueprint, you will 

get 2 years out of date now. 

So we are happy to update. So give us your best thoughts— 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Yes, there is—that if it goes in a competitive nature, it is going to go to more cities and bigger cities, and programs. And they are concerned about that. 

Secretary DUNCAN. So just to be very clear on that one, what we 

have done in other things, we have done in absolute priority or separate slate. And again, we can go through sort of, you know, our 

i3 stuff, other things we have done where we have had very significant rural population. 

So that part then being left to decide, I am less worried about 

that. But the consortia idea is one I would like to continue to think 

through. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. And I agree with that. That is just a way to get 

there. We need to work—I look forward to working with you on 

that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman KLINE. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Polis. 

Mr. POLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for joining us today to discuss the Department of Education’s priorities. I want to thank you under your 

leadership, we truly are witnessing the transformational power of 

an innovative and disruptive federal role in our schools. 

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44 

Your signature program Race to the Top for which I introduced 

the standalone bill earlier this year, has spurred and continues to 

spur a wave of policy changes that help states raise the bar for students and teachers, promotes innovation and accountability for 

school districts, for school leaders, and for educators. Thanks to 

Race to the Top, states and school districts, including my own 

home state of Colorado have built systems to evaluate and support 

teachers and principals, invest in our youngest learners by expanding high-quality preschool, and turning around our nation’s persistently failing schools. 

Your administration has shown strength and courage despite this 

body’s inability to act to reauthorize a long overdue and antiquated 

No Child Left Behind law. Many of your budget requests will bring 

us closer, but only a full reauthorization of NCLB will truly move 

the needle. 

I was also encouraged to hear your complimentary words about 

this committee’s work on the charter school reauthorization. We 

hope that we will have the opportunity to pass that bill on the floor 

of the house. It truly is a bipartisan approach that improves the 

quality of the limited federal resources that are available to go to 

charter school start-ups. 

And I hope that you convey your support for these efforts to the 

Senate. We believe this bill is a realistic way to focus on what we 

agree on rather than what we disagree on. And I look forward to 

working with you and the administration to move forward on the 

full overhaul of NCLB or whatever, if we can find to agree on. 

A few months ago, I led a bipartisan letter with 25 of my colleagues in support of the administration’s ConnectED initiative, 

which you mentioned in your remarks, which aims to connect 99 

percent of schools with broadband in 5 years. How will the administration’s ConnectEDucators initiative give teachers the tools and 

resources to take advantage of the bandwidth? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Okay, just quickly, it is fascinating—fascinating to me that education always moves so slow. So technology 

has changed how all of you guys do business. 

It has changed how you guys interact socially. It has led to democratic revolutions around the globe. And technology has changed 

education like 2 percent. It is on the margins. 

And when I look at what other countries are doing for their children, I worry for our kids. When I see South Korea being at 100 

percent access and our schools at 20 percent high-speed broadband; 

our kids are at a competitive disadvantage. 

I don’t understand that. So what we are looking to do is to dramatically increase access to high-speed broadband, which I think 

can drive both equity and whether it is inner city communities or 

rural or remote communities, or native American reservations, having access to AP classes and foreign language, we think is really 

important. And it can drive excellence. 

Students can move much faster, move ahead. So we just think 

there is a huge play here. We need to increase schools’ capacity 

there. But then we have to train teachers as well so the budget request there, $200 million, is to give teachers the skills they need 

to customize learning, to individualize it. 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

45 

Teachers can support each other not in their buildings but across 

the country and across the globe in new ways. And so we think this 

can have a transformative impact over time. 

We want to make sure teachers have the skills to be fully 

equipped to take advantage. 

Mr. POLIS. I also want to follow up on one of my colleague, Ms. 

Fudge’s questions. She talked about the grant base programs. In 

addition to allowing the administration to have the highest and 

best possible impact on student learning with limited resources by 

directing them through grants, including many of your signature 

initiatives, Race to the Top, Investing in Education, SEED, expansive replication for charter schools, how do these grants help raise 

the bar across the country for policy changes and develop a base 

of best practices that everybody could benefit from? 

Secretary DUNCAN. So it has been interesting that in—for all the, 

you know, noise or whatever, every single time we do a grant competition, we have way more great, great applicants than we have 

dollars available. So clearly, there is an unmet need there. 

And at the end of the day, while the money is significant, it is 

really not about the money. It is really about unleashing innovation. And we have played at the state level. 

We have played at the district level. We have played at the community level with promised neighborhoods. So you are trying to impact all of them. As I said before, you have seen a level of courage. 

You have seen a level of creativity. You have seen a level of collaboration and innovation that simply didn’t exist before those opportunities were created. 

So I just want to, you know, thank you, again, for your courage, 

your leadership. You have lived this work in a way that many of 

your colleagues frankly haven’t. 

I think you understand both our strengths. But I think you share 

our sense of urgency of how far as a nation how far we have to go. 

We have to get better faster. 

We have to do it in a time of scarce resources. And more of the 

same, more of just the incremental change, isn’t going to get us 

where we need to go. 

Mr. POLIS. Thank you for your time. And in my home state of 

Colorado, while we didn’t win the first or second run of Race to the 

Top, we are winners because of the policy changes, including educator evaluation and high standards that, in part, were in response 

to Race to the Top. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman KLINE. Gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Gowdy? 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I want to congratulate you on your MVP award, 

NBA celebrity all-star game. I thought your assisted turnover ratio 

could have been a little bit better but— 

Secretary DUNCAN. I will work on that one. 

Mr. GOWDY.—you were in the arena and the rest of us were not. 

And when I listen to criticism of our colleague, Paul Ryan, I can’t 

help but think, Mr. Secretary, his budget, his budget passed. 

The President’s budget, which by the way, none of my colleagues 

on the other side of the aisle, had the courage to introduce, it had 

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to be done by a Republican, got zero votes last year and two votes 

this year. So when we want to talk about moral courage and we 

want to bang on Paul Ryan while he is not here, keep in mind, 

your boss’s budget got a whopping two votes in the last two times 

it was offered. 

So let me ask you this. Do you think government can engage in 

intentional racial discrimination to further a compelling governmental interest? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I am not quite sure I understand the question. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, this letter that you wrote with respect to 

school discipline talks about important state goals. I want to ratchet it up from an important state goal to a compelling state goal. 

Can government intentionally discriminate, de jure discrimination 

to further a compelling governmental interest? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Again, I don’t know the details your question. 

What guidance are you referring to? 

Mr. GOWDY. The letter with respect to discipline from education 

and DOJ. 

Secretary DUNCAN. So happy to talk about that. So I won’t answer your question directly. I don’t know the details. But I was— 

you learn something new everyday in this job and it is part of the 

reason I love it. 

But I was stunned when the civil rights data collection process 

data came out, that as a nation, we were suspending pre-school 

students and expelling them from school. I had no idea. 

It was mind-boggling to me that we would be kicking 3 and 4- 

year-olds out of school and not serving them. And when we— 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, let me stop you right there because in a former 

life, I was a prosecutor and it sounds great to say not serving them. 

You also have kids in preschool and first grade who are following 

the rules, which leads to the question of are you serving them by 

putting them in an environment that is not conducive with learning because of disruption. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, so— 

Mr. GOWDY. And the question then becomes is Washington better 

able to make that decision or the local school boards? But your letter with—I say your letter—you didn’t write it but you and the attorney general had a press conference on it. 

And what I am trying to get at is I don’t know how you would 

have voted on the affirmative action case last week in Michigan. 

But there was a dissent that was lauded by some of my friends on 

the other side of the aisle where government can engage in intentional—not de facto—intentional racial discrimination to further a 

compelling governmental interest. 

My question is because you used the phrase ‘‘important governmental interest,’’ which school safety and discipline would be, but 

yet you are not looking at intentional discrimination. You are focused on de facto discrimination if they just have a disparate impact— 

Secretary DUNCAN. So you are a prosecutor, I am not. 

Mr. GOWDY. I am a former prosecutor. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Former prosecutor. Just to go back to the 

data around the preschool stuff, which I am familiar with, what we 

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found was that black students represented 18 percent of preschool 

enrollment but 48 percent of the students suspended more than 

once. So 18 percent of enrollment, almost half the kids suspended 

more than once. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right, well, Mr. Secretary, I am telling you— 

Secretary DUNCAN.—and let me finish. Let me finish. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right, you— 

Secretary DUNCAN. And in many places, you saw children doing 

similar behaviors, similar— 

Mr. GOWDY. That is what I want to get at because that is—first 

statistic means nothing to me because 95 percent of the people I 

prosecuted for child pornography were white. So that is a disparate 

racial impact. 

But I never stopped to think, well, gosh, I wonder if we ought 

to reconsider our prosecution on child pornography. But you use 

several examples in this letter. One of which was a Hispanic student fighting with a non-Hispanic student. 

One got a 2-day suspension, one got a 3-day. Who was the primary aggressor? Who started the fight? And would that matter? 

Would you give less time to the person who started the fight? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Of course, it would matter. But at the end of 

the day, so you—I take that first statement which you sort of 

blew—blow through—I take it very seriously, the fact that 18 percent of children are receiving virtually half of the out-of-school suspensions. And these children are 3 and 4 years old. 

I want to be very clear. That is deeply, deeply troubling to me. 

And I am going to go to your other point. 

Mr. GOWDY. Troubling from the standpoint that they are engaging in conduct that would warrant being disciplined or troubling 

from the standpoint that they are being kicked out of school? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Troubling that they are being, 3 and 4-yearolds, are being kicked out of school. Where there is disruptive behavior, you need to deal with it. 

You need to deal with it aggressively. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, Mr. Secretary, how do you deal with it? And 

who is best able to deal with it? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Let me explain. So I worked in very challenging communities all my life. I worked with kids coming with 

huge challenges. And the easy thing to do would be to kick them 

out of a program I ran and put them back on the streets. 

And what we found was ways to work with them, to work with 

their families, to get to the root of issues. If I had a child who is 

acting up in my after-school program and they witnessed horrific 

domestic violence last night at home, makes you think differently 

about how you handle that child. 

That is the kind of thoughtfulness that has been missing and 

that we want to put that in place. I have been to high schools that 

have had huge discipline problems. 

And the adults have actually stepped back and created peer juries and challenged students to own the behavior and to own the 

expectations. 

Mr. GOWDY. I get that. 

Chairman KLINE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Ms. Bonamici? 

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Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today. I am pleased to 

see that the President’s budget invests in education and begins to 

address some of the gaps and opportunities for American students. 

And this is, as we have discussed, in stark contrast to the Ryan 

budget with its cuts. 

I am particularly concerned about Pell Grants and IDEA as I 

have been visiting schools in the 25 school districts in my Congressional district, I hear repeated concerns about the Title I and IDEA 

funding. Before I ask a question, I just wanted to make a couple 

of remarks in response to some of the things we have discussed regarding the achievement gap. 

I want to point out the importance of the 21st century community learning funding and the importance of extended learning opportunities. Some of these programs I visited have shown a tremendous opportunity to help, especially kids at risk. 

And with regard to the student debt that was discussed earlier, 

Portland Community College in Oregon is doing some great work 

on financial literacy, getting financial plans in effect with the student before the academic term. And they have been able to cut the 

number of accounts assessed with late fees by 70 percent and reduce the number of accounts sent to collection by more than half 

just with that increase in financial literacy. 

So there is some great working being done out there. 

So Mr. Secretary, my first question is about the President’s request for the 170 million for a new STEM innovation initiative that 

would use competitive grants to recruit educators and get more 

students ready for STEM careers. And in the budget, it says scientists and engineers are innovators. 

And we must ensure that our nation’s capacity to innovate and 

compete is never limited by a shortage of talent in STEM fields. 

And I couldn’t agree with you more about innovation and its importance. 

I have had a lot of conversations with a lot of the tech communities in my district and also with companies like Boeing, Intel, 

Lockheed Martin, about the importance of developing a workforce 

capable of thinking creatively and driving innovation. So as the cochair of the Congressional STEAM caucus, it talks about the importance of integrating arts and design into STEM curriculum to 

help students educate both halves of their brain and ultimately 

produce innovation, can you talk about whether the competitive 

awards under the STEM innovation initiative will be available to 

schools and educators that are pioneering the STEAM model, the 

Hillsborough School District in Oregon, for example, which integrates arts education into STEM. 

Secretary DUNCAN. First of all, thank you so much for your leadership. STEM, STEAM, I am for it all. We need to, again, all these 

false battles, false dichotomies—we need to bring this together. 

And if you want to improve math results, try a little music, you 

know— 

Ms. BONAMICI. Exactly. 

Secretary DUNCAN.—yes, so you know all this stuff. So what we 

want to do is we think there are far too many children who have 

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great aptitude and interest in the STEM fields and just don’t have 

access to great teachers and great courses. And we lose that. 

And we know so many of the jobs of the future, again, the highwage, high skilled jobs, hugely disproportionate number are going 

to require some passion and expertise and love of the STEM areas. 

So we are trying to do a couple of things. 

We want to create a STEM master teacher core where great 

STEM teachers can make some more money and mentor those 

younger teachers so we don’t lose them. We want to make sure we 

have great STEM teachers, not just for AP, calculus and physics, 

but in third, and fourth and fifth grade, when so many children 

start to turn off because— 

Ms. BONAMICI. Right, Mr. Secretary, I appreciate the value of the 

program. My question is will that funding be available to STEAM 

schools as well. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Again, I don’t see a conflict between STEAM 

and STEM. So— 

Ms. BONAMICI. Terrific. 

Secretary DUNCAN. I would look at it. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Great. 

Secretary DUNCAN. But at the top of my head— 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. 

Secretary DUNCAN. I have no reason to think they would not be 

able to apply— 

Ms. BONAMICI. And—on a related note, I am concerned about the 

consolidation of the arts and education program into the wellrounded education program, especially since the budget proposal 

requests only 25 million for the consolidated program, which would 

supports arts, health education, foreign languages, civics, government, history, geography, environmental education, economics and 

financial literacy—all important. Now, this request is actually less 

than last year’s request and represents the amount that arts in 

education had received independently. 

So I am very concerned, as we are looking for ways to make sure 

we are educating the whole child about that change. So are there 

other programs in the budget that could support students’ creativity? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Just one quick. With the first, just to be 

clear, what we are trying to do and all this stuff is hard, is not 

have lots of one-out small programs and sort of be able to better 

manage it. So that is the goal there. 

But just one quick example, we have put a huge emphasis on 

turning around chronically underperforming schools. And part of 

the reason high school graduation rates are going up, because dropout rates are going down. And we are trying to challenge the status 

quo in pretty significant ways, one of the strategies is still early 

but it looks very promising is we have had a series of schools that 

have been turned around using the arts-based curriculum. 

So we are putting additional resources from a separate pot from 

the school turnaround money behind that. And there are eight 

schools around the nation. I have visited a couple of them. 

It is pretty amazing to see and so that is another place where 

significant resources are going to enhance an arts curriculum in 

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disadvantaged communities that is showing some pretty significant 

results. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. I see my time has expired. 

I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KLINE. I thank the gentlelady. 

Mr. Salmon? 

Mr. SALMON. Thank you. 

Secretary Duncan, as you know, the Department of Education recently proposed a cut to financial aid to career-oriented programs 

whose graduates have high debt-to-income ratios. The court spoke 

on this and blocked the measure in 2012. 

We recently convened a field hearing in Arizona where this issue 

came up. I asked the question of two of our public universities, 

President Michael Crow of ASU and the president of the University 

of Arizona. 

The president of NAU was not there but one of their representatives was. I asked the question, if this rule were proposed for forprofit universities, would you support the same rule for not for 

profit universities, and public universities, every one of them said 

yes. 

They said all three said that if such a rule comes out, that all 

should be held to the same standard. Secretary Duncan, when you 

released the gainful employment regulation, you said protecting 

students is at the core of the rule. 

And if that is truly the case, have you examined how nonprofit 

programs like expensive law degrees or culinary arts degrees fare 

if the proposal is applied to everyone? If the bill was introduced to 

apply such a regulation to all of higher education, would you support it? 

Why or why not? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Well, just to be clear, we are trying to get 

this part right now and happy to have that further conversation as 

you come out to speak at Arizona State’s graduation a couple of 

weeks and looking forward to that. President Crow is a remarkable, remarkable leader and— 

Mr. SALMON. He is the best. 

Secretary DUNCAN.—yes, he—pretty amazing what he has done 

there. And honestly, many of the values, not just on the gainful 

stuff but many of the values around the college rating system are 

values that I have learned from him and others. 

So let us try and get this part right first. But your basic point 

about greater accountability, that is what the college rating system 

is about. It is about trying to make sure again that $150 billion in 

grants and loans of taxpayer money is being used more wisely than 

it is today. 

Mr. SALMON. So it should be applied across the board and you 

would support legislation to apply it equally to all higher education? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Well, again, we are doing two different 

things. I just want to be clear. We are working on the gainful regs. 

And we are also trying to develop a college rating system. 

Mr. SALMON. Right. But what I am saying specifically is on the 

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51 

dents that go to public universities, why are they any less important? Shouldn’t we put forth legislation— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, the question, again, we are not there 

yet. And we are just trying to get these two complicated pieces 

right first. 

Mr. SALMON. No, I understand that. But wouldn’t you agree 

that—that all these students are equally important? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Every student is important, yes, sir. 

Mr. SALMON. Absolutely. Well, we may be introducing legislation 

along the lines to make sure that public universities would be 

under the same provisions you are proposing on the gainful employment. I think that all students ought to be equally protected. 

Thank you. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Happy to have that conversation. 

Chairman KLINE. Gentleman yields back. 

Mr. Hinojosa? 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Duncan, thank you for joining us this morning to share 

President Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget for the U.S. Department 

of Education. I applaud you for continuing to support increased investments in education for all. 

As you know, federal higher education like Europe and HEP/ 

CAMP and TRIO as well as Hispanic-serving institutions and 

HBCUs and MSIs, which are vitally important to educating students of color and preparing them for college. Since fiscal year 

2011, however, funding levels for these programs have decreased 

due largely to sequestration. 

I am concerned those cuts have never been fully restored. 

Mr. Secretary, why are you recommending that Congress invest 

in a host of new higher education programs instead of increasing 

the funding levels for those that I enumerated? Those programs are 

working for disadvantaged students. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, so obviously, we are big, big supporters 

of TRIO and GEARUP and I want to personally thank you for all 

your leadership in education. And you have worked as hard on 

these issues as anybody. 

And that means a lot to me personally. So— 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Thank you. 

Secretary DUNCAN.—while we have to continue to increase access, I have to say the President and I have become extraordinarily 

concerned about the affordability of college. And it is one thing to 

get students ready if they can’t afford to go where we have this 

mounting debt. 

We worry about what that means to young people and ultimately, to the country. 

So we are strategically making a choice to try and invest more 

not just on the access side in preparing students but in making 

sure they can afford to get through college and not have prohibitive 

costs, prevent them once they have gone through strong programs 

from completing their dreams. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. I want to work with you on that. By 2018, twothirds of the nation’s jobs will require at least some postsecondary 

education, is what I have heard you say. Fortunately, the nation 

is making progress. 

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For example, the graduation rate among Latino students has increased more than 10 percentage points since the year 2006. However, our progress is uneven. 

And we must do more to improve high school graduation rates 

and prepare those students for college and careers. Mr. Secretary, 

I and several other colleagues here will soon be introducing the 

Cap and Gown Act to help strengthen America’s high schools and 

support President Obama’s high school redesign efforts. 

Can you tell us more about the President’s vision for high school 

redesign program? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Sure. We simply want to make sure that high 

schools are engaging students and are relevant. And I worry that 

many students drop out of high school, not because it is too hard 

but because it is too easy. 

They are bored. And they don’t know why they are coming to 

school every single day. And as everyone here knows, the economy 

has changed. If you drop out of high school today, you are basically 

condemned to poverty and social failure. 

And that wasn’t true 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. So the stakes 

have gotten much higher. So we talk about high school redesign. 

I will tell you about one high school that I went to a couple of 

months ago and the President is going to go give the commencement there; it was Worcester Tech in Worcester, Massachusetts. 

A couple of years ago, it was a failing school, huge issues, huge 

dropout rates. They now have done many, many things to engage 

students in their own learning. So they have a full-fledged veterinary clinic, where young people are taking care of animals. 

They have an auto body shop. They have a culinary program. 

They have a fully functioning credit union, where students are 

working there and getting paid to do that. And basically, the school 

has become this amazing community asset. 

And not surprisingly, dropout rates that were a huge issue have 

almost disappeared. And graduation rates have soared. We want to 

see more high schools thinking about how they link what students 

are learning during the school day to the real world. 

Those students at Worcester Tech and other similar schools— 

they know why they are coming to school every day. They are excited. They know the relevance. We want more schools to learn 

from those examples. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. The Republican or the Ryan budget cuts Pell 

Grants by 145 billion by eliminating all mandatory money and reducing funding to the nondefense discretionary funding. The experts believe that this would potentially cut millions of such students from the programs, leaving them to borrow more in loans, or 

they may just drop out of college. 

How would this cut impact our ability to reach President 

Obama’s goal to lead the world in college attainment by 2020? And 

how would these cuts impact students of color? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Anything that reduces access to higher education hurts young people, hurts families, hurts communities, and 

hurts our country. Our goal together, bipartisan, should be to lead 

the world in college graduation rates again as soon as we can. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Lastly, we have worked together to expand the 

Pell Grant program and make student loans more affordable. But 

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college costs continue to increase as the states disinvest in higher 

education. 

How is the Department of Education creating incentives for colleges to control costs? 

Chairman KLINE. Gentleman’s time has expired. We will take 

that for the record. 

Mr. Rokita? 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for joining us again, several questions 

to go through with you. In my role as a subcommittee chairman 

here, I visited some tribal communities recently. 

And a lot of the jurisdiction there belongs of course to the Department of the Interior. But in terms of school structures and 

some other things, I think there are some small pieces that you, 

in fact, have. 

One concern that I saw was that one tribe, in particular, was 

afraid, quite literally to invest in new school buildings and even T1 

lines, you talk about technology and accessibility for fear that the 

government would then come back and say, oh, I see you got that 

done however you got it done, bonding or whatever. And therefore, 

we don’t need to do it. 

And of course, promises have been made under the—a very long 

time and promises need to be kept. Can you quickly comment on 

that and would you join me in an effort to either write your boss 

or write the Department of Interior to help solve this? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Absolutely. And I am going to be very, very 

clear that as we talk about inequities and disparities, no one has 

been more poorly served than our native children. Any measure of 

gaps—achievement gaps, opportunity gaps, the worst of the worst 

in terms of outcomes are in the native communities. So— 

Mr. ROKITA. I appreciate it. Could you help me solve this— 

Secretary DUNCAN.—let me—so I will help on that one to be 

clear, while the Department of Interior has much of this, I want 

you to know I have put one of my top deputies there full-time to 

try and help them figure out a better way to educate children. So 

we are not— 

Mr. ROKITA. Thank you. 

Secretary DUNCAN.—we are all working on this together. 

Mr. ROKITA. Thank you for that. That is not the same guy that 

is supposed to be responding to our letters, is it? 

Secretary DUNCAN. No comment. 

Mr. ROKITA. I used to run five agencies as well. I am just—if I 

have time, I will get back to that. 

Secretary DUNCAN. That was on me. That was on me. That is my 

fault. 

Mr. ROKITA. No, no, and you know what, that is a strong mark 

of character, quite frankly. I want to say that for the record. I was 

in a meeting earlier this morning where an apology could have 

been made and an apology wasn’t given. 

And I think goes to character, I think goes to leadership and I 

appreciate you saying that. More specifically, I like work with you 

to make sure that you say the responses will be more timely. 

I would like to know what that is, what you are going to do to 

correct it, whatever situation you clearly have going on inside your 

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office so that we can have on both sides, a reasonable expectation 

about what reasonable response means. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Well, I will do very quickly just come back to 

the Chairman and give him a time frame and he will not be shy 

about holding me accountable to stick to the time. 

Mr. ROKITA. Okay, thank you. Moving onto Washington state, 

noting that no one from that state is represented here on this committee and, again, in my role as a subcommittee chairman, I will— 

and the Chairman talked a little bit about this as well—I am concerned about the waiver being revoked. I get it. 

I understand accountability. You and I agree on that. However, 

if evaluations of these teachers were performed, what would the 

specific measurable outcome be? What should we expect as federal 

policymakers from this? 

Secretary DUNCAN. And again, we are trying to leave tremendous 

discretion. Every other state so far has figured this out. 

So there is no one way to do this. And we are trying to provide 

maximum flexibility. At the end of the day, what I believe and 

what I think you believe is that the goal of teaching is not to teach. 

The goal of teaching is to have children learn. And a piece—not 

the whole thing—but a piece of teacher evaluation should be based 

upon student learning. That is the simple request. 

That is the commitment that Washington state gave. And unfortunately, to date, they haven’t fulfilled that. Again, they can come 

back tomorrow and fulfill that. 

But all we are saying is that we think teaching is hugely important. 

Mr. ROKITA. Yes, of course. 

Secretary DUNCAN. We think great teachers make a huge difference in students’ lives. 

Mr. ROKITA. And having been there like you have been there and 

talking to parents and teachers and community leaders, surely, 

they care. Surely, they understand the frustration and issues. 

And I agree that schools must exist for the students. They don’t 

exist for the adults. And I think what you are trying to do serves 

that purpose. 

Would you also, though, acknowledge that no person, no staffer, 

no bureaucrat in your department knows the children of Washington state better than the parents and teachers and taxpayers of 

Washington state? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Of course. This is a big country. A hundred 

thousand schools, 15,000 school districts. 

Mr. ROKITA. So on gainful employment, you believe that the public education system should be subject to that same rule? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Well, again, I want to be clear. We are working on gainful employment regs. We are also working on a college 

rating system. And those are the two pieces of work that we are 

engaged on now. 

Mr. ROKITA. But Purdue and IU should be subject to both those, 

just like ITT and— 

Secretary DUNCAN. I don’t know all the details there so let me 

come back to you on that one. 

Mr. ROKITA. Okay. By when? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I will talk to the Chairman about it. 

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Mr. ROKITA. Well, I am asking the question. The Chairman is 

not. By when? Can you give me an answer, how you feel about 

this? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I will work relatively as quickly as I can. 

Mr. ROKITA. What does that mean? 

Chairman KLINE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. Takano? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Thanks for saving me. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, Secretary Duncan, I would like to thank you and the 

administration for proposing a budget that makes real investments 

in our education system from pre-k to post-secondary education. I 

can’t tell you how disheartening it is to see the Ryan budget with 

all its cuts to education pass the House. 

And I would note that it didn’t pass by a huge margin. The clock 

was kept open. And it barely passed. I think it was like 219 votes, 

from what I recall. I am pleased to see that this budget includes 

an investment in high school redesign through a competitive grant 

program. 

I was excited to hear the President mention it in his State of the 

Union address. However, the contours and details are kind of mystifying to me. Can you tell us what are some of the key elements 

of a successful grant proposal, what they would be? 

And what are you really looking to do with high school redesign? 

Secretary DUNCAN. So we talked about it a little bit earlier. But 

what we want to make sure is that we continue—we are thrilled 

high school graduation rates hit an all-time high. We announced 

yesterday, 80 percent graduation rates. But I worry a lot about 

that 20 percent that don’t graduate and what their lives are going 

to be like once they get on the streets. 

And we know there is not anything out there for them. So what 

we want to do is to make sure that high schools continue to be very 

relevant for young people, that they understand what the jobs are 

in their communities, why they are going to school, what that leads 

to. 

We want to make sure they are rigorous, more access to highlevel classes and dual enrollment opportunities and industry certification. And we want to make sure that high schools are building 

relationships with young people who might be struggling and might 

have a real challenge at home or at school in the community. 

And so high schools that are serious about making sure a hundred percent of their students graduate and graduate college and 

career-ready, we need more schools that look like that. That is 

what these resources are for. 

Mr. TAKANO. So do you—so early college and concurrent enrollment programs are part of the redesign? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, absolutely. We talked earlier. I don’t 

know if you were here, but I am a huge fan of dual enrollment and 

early college programs, just nothing but upside there. 

I would like to do a lot more of that so these resources can be 

used there. We did recently with the Department of Labor a $100 

million dollars, high school redesign through youth career connect. 

That is a possible use of funds, and finding ways to expand opportunity there. I think we should all be working hard on that. 

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Mr. TAKANO. You know, as a teacher before I came to Congress 

and as a community college trustee, I have been involved with 

some of these concurrent enrollment programs. I have visited Barton, the college high school in lower Manhattan, have had actually 

students come to my classrooms in Texas and California who told 

me about their experience with some of these early college programs. 

Do you see early college also being applied to career and technical education? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Oh, it absolutely is. It absolutely is. Again, 

many places doing that well. But I think our collective challenge 

is always how do we take to scale what works. 

And again, you have lived this in a way that many folks haven’t. 

So we think we have done some pretty good work to increase these 

opportunities, but I know there are many more children out there 

who could benefit, than have the opportunity today. So we would 

love to work with you to figure out how we expand these best practices. 

Mr. TAKANO. Do you believe that the concurrent enrollment and 

the early college and the middle college strategies could have an 

impact on lowering the cost of education of middle-class families? 

Well, higher education, I am talking about. 

Secretary DUNCAN. To be clear, we now have some high schools 

where high school students are graduating with an associate’s degree. So by definition, they are reducing 50 percent of their higher 

ed costs. 

So it absolutely reduces costs, which is very important. What I 

said earlier is I am as excited about the fact not just the cost savings, cost reductions to families. But I think this is a really important dropout prevention strategy, I think creates these opportunities for kids who haven’t had it is a really big deal. 

Mr. TAKANO. As you know, a lot of these strategies require a 

counterintuitive approach, which is actually we have got to reduce 

class sizes at the secondary level in order to enable the seminarstyle teaching that some of the pedagogy requires. I was interested 

in your conversation with Congresswoman Fudge about somehow, 

Pell Grants got mixed into that conversation. 

And you and I had a conversation about the justification of the 

federal role in some of the early college models since we are actually offering college-level instruction. So could you elaborate on 

that some more? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Well, I think she asked the question, if I am 

recalling it correctly, of whether we should be looking at Pell 

Grants as a potential use of funds to help expand access to early 

college opportunities. And that is the kind of creative thinking that 

I think we should all be engaged in. 

So if we want to take to scale something that we know is good, 

we should leave no stone unturned in thinking about doing that 

and would love to have that conversation. Actually, we have staff 

working pretty hard on these issues as we speak. 

Mr. TAKANO. What is your— 

Chairman KLINE. Gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. TAKANO. Oh— 

Chairman KLINE. Mr. Thompson? 

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Mr. TAKANO. Thank you. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Duncan, good to see you. I think the last time we 

talked, we were breaking bread and talking about how to best 

serve the needs of this nation’s youngest learners. I always appreciate those opportunities for conversations and love it when we can 

see eye to eye. 

Wanted to—you know, the department’s budget request focuses 

heavily on equipping the need to fill the jobs in the 21st century 

economy. And I think that is very appropriate. 

However, you do not propose any additional resources for the 

Perkins funding. Last month, over 91 members of the House 

through the advocacy of the bipartisan Career and Technical Education Caucus requested the Appropriations Committee return career and technical education programming to pre-sequester levels. 

And we talk a lot about the unemployed, the underemployed and 

the—and probably not enough but some about the dwindling workforce participation, which is I think incredibly important to the 

strategic success on the future of this country. Now, the solutions 

to address some of those problems is CTE programming through 

the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. 

Now, there are not too many social ills, I believe, that can’t be 

addressed, or a good family sustaining wage job. Career and technical education programming enables individuals to have the skills 

necessary to be truly career and college ready. Now, I have concerns with the department’s proposal to move $100 million from 

CTE state grants for a new, competitive innovation fund. 

And it is just—my two—my first two questions kind of go together. You know, why does the department continue to prioritize 

spending on untested and often duplicative education initiatives 

when we have a tried and true solution in Perkins? 

And why move money, funding away from a full commitment to 

fund the program? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Well, first, appreciate your sincere interest 

and commitment on the early childhood space and appreciate you 

taking the time to have that conversation and also really appreciate your interest in the CTE funding. And that is a hugely important way. Again, we talked about 4-year, 2-year technical, vocational training, just some form of education beyond high school has 

to be the goal. 

So I am a huge fan of this. We have the blueprint out for reauthorization. Happy to get any feedback you have on that. That is 

a year or 2 old now. 

But what we are simply trying to do is make sure that those programs are training students for the jobs of tomorrow and not of 20 

or 30 years ago. So quite candidly, again, I go to, you know, hundreds and hundreds of schools. 

I see some CTE programs that are cutting-edge and world-class. 

I see others that are a little bit outdated. And so what we are trying to do, not to invest in unproven programs, we want to take to 

scale what is working and to make sure that these scarce resources 

are being used wisely, being used well to prepare students for the 

jobs and for the skills they need going forward. 

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Quite candidly, that is not always the case with Perkins funding. 

In many cases it is. In some places, it is not being used as thoughtfully as we would like. And so we are just trying to challenge that 

status quo. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Well, I share Mr. Guthrie’s concerns with this— 

significant concerns. Moving money away from a program what 

really is consistently proven and I think it puts at a disadvantage, 

what is 32,000 school districts that are rural in this country, that, 

you know, approximately 30 percent of all schools fall in that category and many of them obviously don’t have their resources to be 

at— 

Secretary DUNCAN. So— 

Mr. THOMPSON.—as competitive. 

Secretary DUNCAN. So let me just check it, then get, hold us accountable, what we have done in other competitions again is 

whether it is a competitive priority or separate slate. We have 

made absolutely certain that rural schools and communities are 

well-represented. 

I think we have gotten better over time in doing that. We can 

show you what we have done in other competitions. But I think we 

can address that specific concern pretty well. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Well, the shifting of $100 million dollars, I think 

is just a significant concern, moving that away from Perkins. It is 

not—just— 

Secretary DUNCAN.—it is not moving away from Perkins, to try 

to make sure that those dollars are really needed— 

Mr. THOMPSON. We are moving away from— 

Secretary DUNCAN.—to great programs. 

Mr. THOMPSON.—away from formula money. So it has some occurrences. Just real quickly, following from Dr. Roe, do we know 

what the graduation rate is for all Pell Grant recipients? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Sorry, I couldn’t hear you. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Do we know the graduation rate of individuals 

who utilize the Pell Grant program? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I don’t know that and actually have struggled 

to get that data. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Okay. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KLINE. Gentleman yields back. 

Mr. Pocan? 

Mr. POCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your commitment and the 

President’s commitment, not just in good words but in, actually resources in the budget to hopefully have good deeds when it comes 

to education. I am trying to hit three different areas if I can. 

I have about 75,000 higher education students in my district, a 

very large number. One of the issues that has come up is student 

debt, and not necessarily from the perspective Representative Petri 

brought up but the fact that we are at $1.2 trillion, second only to 

home mortgages. A decade ago, we were less than a quarter of 

that. 

Now, one of the things that doesn’t get attention is the ability 

to refinance student loans. You know, we can refinance our homes, 

our cars. Definitely, that will reduce the cost of their debt and free 

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up income for purchases and cause ripple effects throughout the 

economy. 

Rutgers has put out a study showing 40 percent of the graduates 

with college loans delayed in making major purchases such as cars 

because of college debt, 25 percent put off continuing their education or moved in with their parents. So I have been working on 

a bill with Representative Bishop to introduce the House companion to Senator Gillibrand’s bill to allow you to refinance at a 

lower rate. 

I was just wondering if the department has looked into any research regarding that and the ability to put more money into the 

economy and what your thoughts are on that. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Again, just really appreciate your leadership. 

You know, my mantra is that should be an issue in a bipartisan 

way we should be working on together when you have that much 

debt out there. Young people trying to buy a home, buy a car, start 

a family, start a business—it is a huge impediment. 

It is a huge challenge. And so thinking this through together, 

thinking through in a bipartisan way, I know Senator Durbin is 

also interested in this stuff. We have staff who are experts in this, 

happy to sit down anytime, sort of walk through what makes sense 

and what doesn’t. 

But the status quo needs to be challenged. And we need to do 

that together. 

Mr. POCAN. And you are open to a conversation about refinancing 

of debt? 

Secretary DUNCAN. More than open to any conversations that increase access to college and increase affordability. 

Mr. POCAN. Great. If I can shift to K to 12, I am from Wisconsin 

and I served 14 years in our legislature. In 2013, Governor Walker 

proposed increasing taxpayer funding to private and religious 

voucher schools by 9 percent and increased many times larger in 

percentage terms than he did to our public school system. 

And in the past, I know some people on the other side of the aisle 

supported that here in the District of Columbia. We recently had 

a study, the NEKC Foundation report that determined that children of color face enormous barriers to educational achievement in 

Wisconsin. 

We ranked dead last in disparity between white children and 

their non-white peers, and encouraging policies which only help a 

very few children at the expense of others will only exacerbate the 

achievement rates for at-risk students, many of whom are minorities. I was just wondering, if the department has looked at all into 

research about how vouchers could further cause divides between 

the achievement gap with students of color? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, well, your state is not too dissimilar to 

where Minnesota was with sort of relatively high-performing in aggregate, but the— disaggregate the data, devastating inequities 

there. And so I just appreciate your the candid conversation, how 

do we improve access for all? 

So I fundamentally think our role in government should be to 

prepare, to create great schools for the vast majority of students, 

the 90 percent who always have and always will attend public 

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schools. And if the private sector wants to do some scholarships, do 

whatever, they absolutely have the right to do that. 

But we need to—what worries me on the vouchers, I think, so 

often we, you know, think we are saving three kids and then leave 

500 to drown. And I can’t sleep well at night knowing that. 

If you look at the data from Milwaukee just had a voucher program for a while, that data is mixed at best. That might be being 

generous. So anyway, so I think our collective focus should be in 

making every single public school in this country a great public 

school so that we serve the overwhelming majority of children in 

this country better than we are today. 

Mr. POCAN. And I just want to add, we just had listening sessions just last week in my district. And this issue specifically came 

up. I visited a number of schools in Milwaukee. 

They are not in my district but it was in the legislature. South 

Division High School has a 50 percent high school graduation rate 

and a big problem is when these kids come in from taxpayer-funded voucher schools, they don’t have records. 

They don’t have anything. We are really at a loss. And you know, 

I think it is my third area. But I will just put it in writing. 

Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. 

Chairman KLINE. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. Messer? 

Mr. MESSER. Thank you. 

It is great to have you here, Mr. Secretary. We agree on many 

topics, disagree on some. But I admire your work, admire your 

courage. Just to—I didn’t intend to talk about this, but just given 

the last comments, I think we all want to just be very clear. 

We want to make sure that every kid in America has a great opportunity. We can’t let any kids drown. And while we are working 

to improve the challenges we do have within our public school system, we need to be mindful of who we are leaving behind along the 

way. 

I think you agree with me on that. And there are a set of options 

to do that. Frankly, to me, I believe vouchers ought to be one of 

them. But I think more than that, I think, let’s leave it—I think 

we are all trying to make sure everybody has a chance to succeed. 

I want to congratulate you on the graduation rate improvement. 

As you may recall, I was an author of legislation in Indiana that 

worked on that issue. 

We are excited in Indiana to see our graduation rate go from the 

70 percent range up to almost 90 percent, so exceeding a little bit 

the national performance now. I think we have talked about this 

before. Just would call to your attention for the record again, I 

think one of the most important reforms we put forward was 

changing our dropout age from 16 to 18. 

I am not sure that a federal mandate is the appropriate way to 

handle that but at least encouraging states to look at that as an 

option. But it is not a silver bullet, but particularly for kids that 

are trying to meet minimum expectations when those expectations 

include going to school until you are 18, we found in Indiana, it has 

made a big difference. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Now, I appreciate the leadership. And obviously, the nation only moves if states move and to see Indiana 

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going absolutely in the right direction is a huge credit to you and 

others. The other thing you guys have done that I have been very 

interested in, that former Governor Mitch Daniels did, was we 

talked a lot about early college enrollment, if you know if young 

people graduate from high school in 3 years, he basically took that 

fourth year, that senior year of high school money and put that all 

to a college scholarship. 

I thought that was an unbelievably creative, innovative idea. 

Mr. MESSER. Yes. 

Secretary DUNCAN. And where we could incentivize more students graduating early from high school and then go to college with 

I don’t know what—you know, $8,000, $10,000, $12,000 in scholarship money, no additional cost to the taxpayer. That was some 

great thinking. 

So that kind of program we should be looking at in other places. 

Mr. MESSER. Well, it is great for the state. It is great for the individual family. And as you know, many kids struggle in school because they are bored. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Right. 

Mr. MESSER. Because they are not being challenged. They don’t 

see what is relevant. And so it is out there to— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Do you have date how that is—I don’t know 

how that has gone. 

Mr. MESSER.—they are successful. We can share the date with 

you. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Okay, yes. 

Mr. MESSER. So we will work on getting that to you. The one 

issue I wanted to raise with that bill was I think one of the most 

important national reforms we have brought forward was the way 

we calculate dropout rates. And as you know, you are well familiar 

with this. 

You know, we used to, as a country, only used to count you as 

a dropout if you showed up in your senior year. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. 

Mr. MESSER. When we got more accurate data, frankly, we had 

a national call to improve. I think at least in Indiana it has maybe 

been the most important reform of all. I think it has contributed 

to the national effort. 

But I think there is some information—I mean, there is a lesson 

in that for some of this dialogue we have had about Pell Grants 

and Perkins grants. I think it would serve us well in that policy 

area if we had the reporting of those graduation rates. Would you 

agree with that? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, no, I absolutely and again, not hiding 

things, not masking things, talking about the truth. And sometimes, it is a brutal truth, quite frankly. It is so important. 

Children don’t drop out in the 12th grade. Very few do. They just 

drop out in eighth and ninth, in tenth grade. So I am a big believer 

in not just in transparency and honestly, the back end, but we have 

more and more schools and districts looking at what I call freshmen on track rates. And all the data shows a freshman on track— 

they are much more likely to graduate. 

If freshmen aren’t on track, it is pretty tough to catch up. So 

early indicators, not just backend stuff, but early warning systems, 

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and then not just warning systems but interventions with those 

children, I think will help to drive this to a 90 percent national 

goal which is where we need to get to as quick as we can. 

Mr. MESSER. And I think we have talked about this. But a quick 

plugin for my bill 1949, which is the Improving Post-Secondary 

Education Data for Students Act— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. 

Mr. MESSER.—it is basically designed to task the Department of 

Education to help lead an effort to determine what are the things 

that should be reported and what shouldn’t. I have only got a little 

bit of time left so I do want to raise an issue regarding the impact 

of the Affordable Care Act on schools. 

And we have talked about that before. Many school systems 

across the country and I won’t list them given my time, are seeing 

this impact. The employer mandate has been delayed. 

But has the department looked at what the impact of the Affordable Care Act is on cash-strapped schools? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, I don’t know all the details there. If you 

could share those school systems with us, happy to reach out to superintendents, have our staff do that directly and figure out what 

we can do to be helpful. 

Mr. MESSER. And you have done that with me before. I will send 

you the letter and we would ask for a timely response on that topic. 

Thank you. 

Secretary DUNCAN. We will work on the timely response. 

Mr. MESSER. I yield back. Thanks. 

Chairman KLINE. Gentleman yields back. We will all be looking 

for the timely response. 

Mr. Tierney? 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for joining us today. I want to just 

amplify comments made by Mr. Courtney with respect to what the 

Ryan budget would do to some of the higher education funds on 

that. 

I think, two points, most appalling are that on Pell Grants, it would eliminate some $90 billion of the mandatory funding that we 

have already paid for going forward and then when you talk about 

student loan repayment benefits, it would eliminate $9 billion 

again, which we have already paid for. So glad to see that the 

President’s budget didn’t take that tack and moved in a different 

direction. 

Also want to reiterate Mr. Pocan, Mr. Bishop’s idea of trying to 

find some way to refinance high-interest loans at a lower interest 

and an extra point on that, students are out with private loans. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, yes, yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. It would be interesting, we wouldn’t need legislation. But the administration might contemplate going to some of 

our Wall Street financial institutions that people see as having at 

least helped create some of the problems that we had in the late 

2000s on that and convincing them that maybe a good idea is to 

form some sort of a pool into which people could refinance and put 

another $16 billion back into our economy. 

So I am at—but let me ask you about maintenance of effort. In 

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sion that states would no longer be able to retreat and take federal 

money and use that instead. They have to maintain their effort and 

their commitment to it. 

What does your budget do with respect to continuing that? And 

what are the teeth involved in making sure that they do? 

Secretary DUNCAN. No, we are absolutely committed and continue to be. And it is interesting, I have talked to a number of college presidents in states that have seen significant cuts and have 

seen states cut right to the MOU point and not beyond. 

And so it has been a—it is not enough but it has been a critically 

important backstop to a number of college presidents that are trying to do the right thing. So again, push us if you have ideas on 

how to do it better. 

Happy to hear them. But we have tried to be clear and unequivocal. And as bad as things have been, frankly, would have been a 

heck of a lot worse had we not had those MOUs in place. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, King Alexander who is now the president at 

LSU was very instrumental in putting that—helping us get the 

ideas for that and showed—I think his research showed that it had 

been effective. I think what we need to help with some ideas and 

what are we going to do, the enforcement provision that we put in 

was weak. It got watered down in the conference committee on 

that. 

But we need to find a way to make schools know that we are serious about it, and states know we are serious about it on that. 

Secretary DUNCAN. He is an extraordinary college president. 

Again, we listen very closely when he speaks. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes, good guy. Let me ask you to expand a little 

bit on the upper ed program,—upper ed research program— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, yes, yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY.—for technology on that because I think it is a good 

idea. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. 

Mr. TIERNEY. It has worked in energy and it has worked in the 

defense area and maybe you can share with us the direction you 

are taking on that. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, and I really appreciate the question. 

And it is just fascinating. I don’t have all the details right here. 

But basically, what they have done in the defense side is they have 

done things in terms of training young people who didn’t come from 

a great background on some very technical skills and in a short 

amount of time, a matter of, you know, 3, 4 months, 16 weeks of 

training have those young people outperforming folks who are 

much more traditionally trained and had been on the job for a long 

time. 

And if we are trying to challenge unemployment rates, if we are 

trying to help the young people be successful, can we try and take 

those kinds of innovations to scale using technology and give people 

real time, real skills? Ask them what they did. They said their goal 

was interesting, it was not to train to the middle, which is what 

many programs do. 

Their goal was to train to the best of the best. And that became 

the new standard, the new norm. And so if we could give more 

young people those kinds of opportunities and start to scale that 

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kind of technical training using technology, I think it would be extraordinary. 

So we want to start to learn some of the lessons on the defense 

side and move them into the education arena. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Lastly, just a general point on this. 

You have a long list of ideas, of things that we could do to improve 

school performance. And I think they ought to be providing strong 

leadership, ensuring teachers are effective, and able to prove, and 

so on down the line. 

I think that is one of the problems we have is scaling up those 

ideas that we find that do work. When we get into the charter 

school realm, I think one of the constant irritations of everybody, 

those that are supporters of the charter schools, those that are 

skeptical is we don’t seem to be using it really as a tool— 

Mr. TIERNEY.—to find out things we could do better than scaling 

it up. What measures do you contemplate would move that ball forward? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Well, again, just so—I talk about all the time 

about the wrong fights in education, whether it is Republican or 

Democrat. The other one is, you know, charters versus traditional. 

And it just shouldn’t matter. To be clear, it is not just the charters that have something to teach. Great traditional schools have 

something tremendous that charters could learn from. 

So just cutting through that noise, cutting through that conflict, 

trying to just think about when is right for kids, which is sharing 

the best practices, there are some places, and I can give you some 

information, but they are really starting to break through and 

think about this as a system of schools, not as warring parties and 

warring factions. And it has got to go in both directions. 

And we want to do everything we can to facilitate that and move 

forward. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I think that is a plan. Well, glad to hear you say 

you want to facilitate that. But I don’t see it happening and that 

sort of allows us to keep squandering around in that argument 

about one or the other. 

Secretary DUNCAN. It is just when adults fight, kids lose. It is 

as simple as that. 

Mr. TIERNEY. All right, thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KLINE. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mrs. Davis? 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Great to see you. And 

appreciate your patience through the hearing this morning and 

really, your commitment, I think, to making sure that this robust 

education system that we must have for this country is for the 21st 

century. 

It is for the new work environment that young people are finding 

themselves in and that is our whole focus. And I think that is why 

we are concerned that the Ryan budget, because it doesn’t seem to 

respect the need to invest in this country and to grow the economy 

in that way, really cuts off the opportunities, the very opportunities 

that businesses are asking us, that they want education to do, to 

be able to bring these young people into the system. 

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And so, you know, one of the concerns that has been expressed 

is Perkins. I think you identified that you want to be focusing on 

new areas, certainly in terms of the Center for International Business Education and Research, that is one area, what we call 

cyber—a different way of— 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. 

Mrs. DAVIS.—saying cyber, that the Ryan budget is cutting that 

particular budget in Title VI by about 43 percent. So, I mean, what 

businesses are telling us is exactly the kind of investment that programs like this do. 

This may not be the only one, but it does that. What within the 

area that we are talking about right now, how do you see that we 

are really going to strengthen and grow those kind of programs? 

Because they are focusing on foreign language, their focus on the 

ability of young people to work in an international setting that is 

so critical today. 

Secretary DUNCAN. So not just the—across the board. Again, we 

have to think about this cradle to career. Do we want more children to have access to high-quality early learning or less? 

Do we want more children to have access to rigorous high school 

coursework that prepares them for college or less? Do we want 

more young people to have access to college and to be able to afford? Or do you want to see college going rates decrease, diminish? 

And again, I think we have to, as a country, commit to having 

the best educated workforce in the world. So we have to stop cutting off our nose to spite our face and think about this cradle to 

career, and to be clear and get them such a champion here, no one 

is proposing just investing the status quo, investing in business as 

usual. 

We are always pushing innovation. We are always pushing challenging the status quo, going to the next level. It has to be about 

high quality. And so at every level, whether you are talking specifically or whether it is Pell Grants or whether it is access to pre-k, 

what are we trying to do here and how are we going to get there 

and how are we going to strengthen families and ultimately 

strengthen our country’s economy? 

Mrs. DAVIS. Well, I think that having—you know, really looking 

at the total package and that is what I think you are trying to do 

and what we would like to do and I think, unfortunately, we 

haven’t necessarily seen that because when we have some cuts in 

major areas, which deal primarily with investment, that is not 

going to happen. 

I wanted to just quickly go back to the sort of social and emotional learning, that the discussion earlier hit on. And there has 

been certainly considerable research that kind of opportunity for 

young people to interact in a safe environment, which is the big 

priority that I know that you have, that the President has, what 

are we doing in that area as well to promote that idea? 

Because it is not to say that kids just need what sometimes are 

considered soft skills. I mean, these are the critical skills. And they 

bring success for all of our children in school. How can we talk 

about that in a way that really makes sense to everybody and certainly to the country as a whole? 

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Secretary DUNCAN. So I really appreciate the question. We are 

actually looking to put some new resources, $10 to 15 million behind an effort to really understand this in a profound way. And I 

hate soft skills. I hate—We need new names. 

Help me get a new name; not cognitive, executive functioning, 

those names sort of ring, but grit, resilience, tenacity, perseverance—it is fascinating. We look at Dr. Heckman’s longitudinal 

work on the benefits of high-quality early childhood learning, obviously, some of those benefits are academic. 

He would argue or has told me that half to more than half of the 

benefit he thinks are to learning those skills that some children are 

lucky enough to learn in, you know, in church or around the dining 

room table. But too many of our kids don’t have those opportunities. 

So how we start to think of these as important as reading and 

math and social studies and science and if our children have all the 

academic skills but no ability to persevere through adversity, to 

work through tough situations, we are not helping them. 

So it is an area— 

Mrs. DAVIS. Yes. 

Secretary DUNCAN.—where I am personally fascinated, spent a 

lot of time trying to work on this in a, you know, a previous life. 

John Easton who runs our Institute of Education Sciences—he has 

a thing about devoting the rest of this life to this work, wants to 

put some money behind it. 

So we want to better understand it and better understand how 

to teach it in a systemic way throughout a child’s— 

Mrs. DAVIS. And do you see this does not take away from a parent’s responsibility and their desire to teach these skills also to 

their children? 

Secretary DUNCAN. This is all about strengthening families, and 

again, where you have high-quality programs, you are doing it for 

children in conjunction with their parents. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Right. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Chairman KLINE. Gentlelady’s time has expired. 

I am going to recognize Mr. Scott for 5 minutes for his question. 

And then I will recognize him for a few further minutes for closing 

comments. 

Mr. Secretary, we are getting close. 

Mr. Scott, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your perseverance. Could you 

just say a brief word about what the Ryan budget would do to early 

childhood education and the future of our next generation? 

Secretary DUNCAN. So again—relative—we showed it earlier— 

relative to other nations, today, we are about 25th in providing access to early learning opportunities. And that is not a badge of 

honor. 

And we want to do everything we can to increase that, the average child coming from a poor, from a disadvantaged community 

starts kindergarten a year to 14 months behind. And we have a 

budget that has 15 percent cuts. 

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That will mean not more children obviously, but less children 

having access. And when we send children to kindergarten underprepared, that is not that child’s fault. 

But we often don’t catch them up. And we think about long-term 

dropout rates, incarceration rates, I wonder how many of those 

young people we could have saved by giving them access to highquality early learning opportunities. I mean, clearly, it has to be 

a continuum, a seamless continuum from birth through age 5. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. And a lot has been said about school discipline. And one suggestion is more school resource officers. A lot 

of people have suggested that their major contribution is actually 

promoting the school-to-prison pipeline because they end up arresting the children rather than protecting the children. 

What is the evidence that you have seen, say, about school resource officers? 

Secretary DUNCAN. So we think whether it is school resource officers or more counselors or more social workers or better-trained 

school resource officers, that is the key. And we are doing everything we can to fight the school-to-prison pipeline. 

As you know, we have been explicit in putting out the data 

around that. I think some school resource officers do a fantastic 

job. And others are frankly part of the problem. 

And so making sure that when we are trying to create a safe environment and a safe climate and a safe culture, which we are all 

trying to do, that we are not—the first instinct is not to call 911 

when there is a challenge. 

Mr. SCOTT. Do you have studies that followed this? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I will have to check on that and get back to 

you. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. On student loans, how much money does 

the government make on student loans a year? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Well, I think there are all kinds of projections 

in what folks think we may or may not make. And if you look at 

the GAO study, the title of the study basically says it is impossible 

to predict this. 

Just to be clear, we have no interest in making money on student 

loans. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, one estimate was about—to-around $10 billion 

a year. Does that sound about right? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I don’t know. There are lots of different estimates out there. Again, Congress controls those rates. Congress 

worked together to prevent rates from doubling. And if Congress is 

interested in taking this up, we would be happy to have that conversation. 

Mr. SCOTT. Do you know how much it would cost to get the interest rate down close to zero? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I don’t know. 

Mr. SCOTT. Have you studied the effect of the summer Pell Grant 

that was eliminated, the elimination of the summer Pell Grant a 

couple of years ago? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I don’t know the details there. Obviously, we worked really hard to see a $40 billion increase in Pell Grants, 

without going back to taxpayers for a nickel. And we have gone 

from about 6 million Pell recipients to almost 9 million. 

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It is about a 50 percent increase. That is one of the things that 

I am most proud of. We weren’t able to keep the summer Pell, 

which was disappointing. But the big picture, the fact that we are 

serving almost three million more young people, as you know, 

many first-generation college goers feel very, very good about that. 

Mr. SCOTT. So no one has looked at the effect of the elimination 

of the summer Pell Grant? Because a lot of people were going to 

school right through—now, just kind of skip the summer and it 

kind of lengthens out the time they are out of work. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, no, I am sure folks are doing some analysis there. 

Mr. SCOTT. One problem we had in our area a couple of years 

ago was on upward-bound competition where we had five—the area 

of the state had five upward-bound programs, all performing adequately. When the dust settled on the competition, none of them 

got refunded. 

And none of the children in the area had access to an upwardbound program. In these competitions, do you do anything to make 

sure that at least in each area, somebody gets funded so that the 

children in that area are served? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, it—we try and make sure we have geographic diversity. Obviously, given the limited amount of funds, I 

wish we could ensure that across the nation, we were funding in 

every community. But the reality is, frankly, far, far from that. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I— 

Chairman KLINE. Okay, the gentleman yields back his questioning time. He is now recognized for his closing comments. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I thank the Secretary for his perseverance and for his very 

enthusiastic support of our next generation. We need to make sure 

we have the appropriate investments in education. 

We are falling behind, as the Secretary has mentioned, in a lot 

of measures where we were leading, we are way back in the pack. 

Our competitive advantage in a global economy is a well-educated 

workforce. And if we lose that, we are not going to be able to compete on wages. 

We are not going to be able to compete on anything else. That 

is our main focus of competition. And we have a lot of work to do 

to restore ourselves to number one in the world. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record a letter from 

the Committee for Education Funding, which points out a lot of 

problems with the Ryan budget, particularly pointing out that it is 

billions below even the post-sequester caps established by the Bipartisan Budget Act and cuts a lot of important programs. 

[The information follows:] 

[Additional Submissions by Mr. Scott follows:] 

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Chairman KLINE. Without objection. 

Mr. SCOTT. Yield back. 

Chairman KLINE. Gentleman yields back. The Chair will yield 

himself some time here for closing remarks. I want to thank the 

Secretary for being with us. 

Mr. Secretary, I think it is safe to say that we all—you and I and 

everybody on the panel shares a goal to see that our kids and not 

kids—I mean, in higher education now, the nontraditional student 

is the tradition. That is, older students. 

We want them all to learn and to prosper and have the chance 

to achieve their goals. We have some differences in how we go 

about doing that. We are comparing budgets here today, a lot of 

discussion about the Ryan budget and what it does and doesn’t do 

and the President’s budget. 

And frankly, Mr. Secretary, if you have a budget like you are defending part of, that never, ever balances, adds to the debt every 

year forever, well, you can fund some programs and some new programs. But the real world that you have been talking about says, 

probably we shouldn’t do that forever. 

And forever, we should have a budget that eventually balances. 

And we need to set some priorities. On special ed, we had some 

back and forth about who—is it Republicans, is it Democrats. Who 

is funding special ed? And as I said in my comments, I am disappointed in both parties—in the administrations in both parties 

and the Congress in both parties. 

But I will say that when Republicans held the majority here from 

1995 to 2007, we took special ed funding, which is supposed to be, 

as you know, 40 percent of the excess required, we took it from the 

single digits it had been at for a couple of decades, from 8 percent 

to 18 percent. It is now back down to 16 percent. And with your $100 million of competitive grants to special ed, 

that is in the words of one of my colleagues a few years ago, kind 

of budget dust, because to get it just to the 18 percent, which was 

the high point, that it would take about $1.5 billion. And so, I reiterate my request, I am going to work on it here. 

I am going to talk to my colleagues. I am going to talk to appropriators. I am going to talk to everybody I can about increasing 

that funding, because no matter how popular a new program might 

be, or even an old program, I haven’t talked to a superintendent, 

a principal, teachers, or parents who won’t say that the most important thing that the federal government can do is to start to 

meet that commitment. 

So we are going to continue to work on that. A lot of discussion 

about pre-k, preschool education, you have got in your budget a 

pretty big program. As you know, the federal government already 

spends close to $13 billion a year on pre-k programs. 

And over $8 billion of that is on the Head Start. Seems to me 

we need to look at that program with gusto to make sure that it 

is doing what it is supposed to be doing. A lot of things—a lot of 

things going. I appreciate your comments about the charter school 

bill. 

We feel pretty good about that. I wish we hadn’t had to pull it 

out of the ESEA reauthorization. But I just think there are too 

many kids who are being denied an opportunity to achieve success. 

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And parents, I think the charter school bill is important—is very, 

very bipartisan, and I hope that we can count on you to help us 

move that through. It will pass next week. 

It will pass on the floor of the House—huge, huge number. We 

would like the Senate to take it up and see if we can’t address the 

needs of those kids and those families. 

So thank you very much for your patience. We went a little bit 

longer than I know you would like and that some of us would like. 

We appreciate you staying and hanging in here. 

Even though you tempted me with holding another hearing so 

you could have a hearing with Mr. Miller, that may not happen. 

So again, thank you very much for being here today. 

There being no further business before the committee, we are adjourned. 

[Questions submitted for the record and their responses follow:] 

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[Secretary Duncan’s response to questions submitted for the 

record follows:] 

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[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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