U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

92-410 PDF 2004

THE STATUS OF NO CHILD LEFT 

BEHIND IMPLEMENTATION IN 

OHIO

FIELD HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION 

AND THE WORKFORCE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

March 8, 2004 in Columbus, Ohio

Serial No. 108-46

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

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house 

or 

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

(II)

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin, Vice Chairman 

Cass Ballenger, North Carolina 

Peter Hoekstra, Michigan 

Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California 

Michael N. Castle, Delaware 

Sam Johnson, Texas 

James C. Greenwood, Pennsylvania 

Charlie Norwood, Georgia 

Fred Upton, Michigan 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Jim DeMint, South Carolina 

Johnny Isakson, Georgia 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Patrick J. Tiberi, Ohio 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Tom Osborne, Nebraska 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Tom Cole, Oklahoma 

Jon C. Porter, Nevada 

John Kline, Minnesota 

John R. Carter, Texas 

Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado 

Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee 

Phil Gingrey, Georgia 

Max Burns, Georgia 

George Miller, California 

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan 

Major R. Owens, New York 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Carolyn McCarthy, New York 

John F. Tierney, Massachusetts 

Ron Kind, Wisconsin 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

David Wu, Oregon 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Betty McCollum, Minnesota 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Ed Case, Hawaii 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Denise L. Majette, Georgia 

Chris Van Hollen, Maryland 

Tim Ryan, Ohio 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York

Paula Nowakowski, Staff Director 

John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

Hearing held on March 8, 2004 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of Members: 

Boehner, Hon. John A., Chairman, Committee on Education and the 

Workforce ....................................................................................................... 1

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

McCollum, Hon. Betty, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Minnesota .................................................................................................. 4

K-12 Rules/Leave Parts of NCLB Behind, Editorial Submitted for 

the Record .............................................................................................. 50

Ryan, Hon. Tim, a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio ...... 8

Tiberi, Hon. Patrick J., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Ohio ............................................................................................................ 6

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8

Statement of Witnesses: 

Fleeter, Dr. Howard, Levin, Driscoll & Fleeter, Columbus, OH .................. 18

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 23

Rebarber, Ted, President, Accountability Works, Washington, DC ............. 25

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 29

Ross, Dr. Richard A., Superintendent, Reynoldsburg City Schools, 

Reynoldsburg, OH ......................................................................................... 15

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

Tomalis, Ron, Counselor to the Secretary, U.S. Department of Education, 

Washington, DC ............................................................................................ 11

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 14

Additional Material: 

Allen, Gary L., President, Ohio Education Association, Letter Submitted 

for the Record ................................................................................................ 49

K-12 Rules/Leave Parts of NCLB Behind, Editorial Submitted for the 

Record by Rep. McCollum ............................................................................ 50

OEA, NEA Leave Facts Behind in Attacks on Bipartisan Education Reform, Fact Sheet Submitted for the Record ................................................ 48

(1)

THE STATUS OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND 

IMPLEMENTATION IN OHIO 

Monday, March 8, 2004

U.S. House of Representatives 

Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Columbus, Ohio 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., at the State Library of Ohio, Columbus, Ohio., Hon. John A. Boehner (Chairman 

of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Boehner, Tiberi, McCollum, and Ryan. 

Staff Present: Amanda Farris, Professional Staff Member; Maria 

Miller, Coalitions Director for Education Policy; Dave Schnittger, 

Communications Director; and Joshua Holly, Director of Media Affairs. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Quorum being present, the Committee on 

Education and the Workforce will come to order. 

We’re pleased to be here today to have the Committee here and 

have this hearing on No Child Left Behind, the implementation of 

the law. And I’m sure we’ll talk about funding and a host of other 

issues as well. 

I want to welcome my colleagues, Mr. Tiberi, who we’re in his 

district and is a Member of the Committee, and two of my colleagues, Betty McCollum, from the great state of Minnesota, and 

our other colleague from Ohio, Tim Ryan, a new Member of our 

Committee who represents the northeastern part of the district—

part of the state. 

I’d also like to welcome this morning State Representative Arlene 

Setzer, who chairs the House Education Committee here in Ohio; 

Representative Bill Hartnett, who is the ranking member of the 

Ohio Education Committee; and Representative Clyde Evans and 

Representative Bob Gibbs. We also have Senator John Kerry with 

us, Representative John Schlichter, and Representative Kevin 

DeWine. We want to thank them for their interest and thank all 

of you for your interest in coming today. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN A. BOEHNER, CHAIRMAN, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

We’re here today because we all believe that every child in America deserves a quality education. We recognize improving our education system is essential not only to our society, but it’s also very 

important to our nation’s economy and competitiveness. Even as 

important as our society and our nation’s competitiveness is to our 

2

long-term future. It should be the right of every child to have a 

chance at a decent education. I’d like to describe the right to an 

education for all Americans as the new civil right of the 21st century. 

Three years ago, President Bush brought Members of our Committee together to write the No Child Left Behind Act. And we produced a law that was uniquely bipartisan, considering what the 

Congress has become over the last several years. And the real goal 

of No Child Left Behind was to make sure that all children have 

a chance to learn. The debate over whether all children can learn, 

I think, is open. There’s ample evidence from one end of the country to the other that all children can learn, but it’s also clear, unfortunately, that not all children have an opportunity to learn. 

Secondly, when we look at the achievement gap that we have in 

American education between advantaged students and disadvantaged students, it remains wide, even though the Federal Government has spent almost $300 billion to help disadvantaged students 

over the last 35 years. The same kind of achievement gap exists 

between white students and their minority peers. And we know 

that we as a society and we as a country can’t continue successfully 

unless we get serious about closing the achievement gap in American education. And so when we look at No Child Left Behind, 

you’ll see that we have all of the test data broken down in subgroups, looking at white students, minority students, limited 

English proficient students, and special ed. students to make sure 

that these students aren’t getting lost in the school-wide averages, 

that we, in fact, are going to try to make progress with all children 

in America and all of these subgroups. 

There’s been an awful lot of talk about funding No Child Left Behind. And someone who was in the room with the President, Senator Kennedy, Senator Greg and Mr. Miller, my democrat counterpart of my Committee, the commitment that we made in those 

meetings was to have a significant increase in education funding 

for our schools. And there’s never been any discussion in those 

meetings about full funding of No Child Left Behind or any of the 

education programs. 

And if you look back through the history, the 38-year history of 

education spending on the part of the Federal Government, never 

once, not one time in that entire history were ESEA programs fully 

funded. Not once. During the 8 years President Clinton was in office, there was no funding of ESEA programs, and yet there was 

no criticism at all by democrats or republicans in the Congress that 

it wasn’t fully funded. And so the question is, have we met our 

commitment in terms of significant increases in funding for those 

programs contained in Elementary and Secondary Education Act 

or, as we like to call it now, No Child Left Behind. And I think that 

the increases that we see—the year that the bill was signed into 

law, we were spending $8.8 billion for Title I, the largest of these 

programs. Last year we spent $12.3 billion, and this year, according to the President’s budget, we’re hoping to spend $13.3 billion. 

So you can see that we’re well over a 50 percent increase in the 

Federal Government’s commitment to disadvantaged students. 

But it’s not just disadvantaged students. How about those students who have special needs, our IDEA program, where we’re seeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:09 Oct 14, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\DOCS\92410.TXT EDUWK PsN: NNIXON
3

ing a tremendous increase over the last 10 years. As a matter of 

fact, if you go back to 1996, 1997, we have almost a 300 percent 

increase in our commitment to help those special needs students. 

And if you look at just the Ohio numbers by themselves, when the 

bill was signed in 2001, we were spending about $445 million of 

Federal funds here in Ohio for all programs that are in No Child 

Left Behind. When you look at the numbers that are actually appropriated, the Federal Government will spend in this fiscal school 

year $665 million for No Child Left Behind programs, an increase 

of over 35 percent. 

And so I do believe that the Federal Government is keeping its 

commitment to helping our schools with the challenges that all of 

them face. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Boehner follows:]

Statement of Hon. John A. Boehner, Chairman, Committee on Education 

and the Workforce 

Thank you all for being here this morning for this field hearing of the House Committee on Education & the Workforce. Let me first thank Congressman Pat Tiberi 

for hosting us today. Let me also welcome another fellow Buckeye, Rep. Tim Ryan, 

as well as Rep. Betty McCollum from the state of Minnesota. 

We’re here today because we all believe every child in America deserves a quality 

education. We recognize improving our education system is essential not only to our 

society, but to our nation’s economy and competitiveness as well. 

Three years ago, President Bush brought the members of our committee together 

to write the No Child Left Behind Act. We produced a law that was uniquely bipartisan. We all agreed with the need to bring accountability to federal education 

spending. For years, states and school districts—pointing to rising overall student 

test scores—had accepted an ever-increasing amount of federal funding even as they 

hid the fact that certain groups of children were falling behind. States and schools 

were able to highlight ‘‘aggregate’’ data showing most students were making 

progress. But because they were required only to report this data in the aggregate, 

parents and taxpayers could be kept in the dark when some children were actually 

losing ground. 

No Child Left Behind requires student test data to be broken down by group and 

reported to the public. Achievement gaps between disadvantaged students and their 

peers, once hidden from public view, are now public knowledge. The law has shined 

a brilliant spotlight on the most neglected corners of our public education system—

and while we haven’t always liked what we’ve found staring back at us, we’re better 

off as a nation because we’ve admitted it’s there and can now do something about 

it. 

When the President signed NCLB in Hamilton two years ago, we knew the hardest work was still ahead. It’s one thing to pass a major law; implementing it is another. The Clinton administration discovered this the hard way during the 1990s 

when it passed its education reform plan, and ended up issuing dozens of waivers 

to states exempting them from the requirements. We assumed the education establishment would dig in and fight when it discovered President Bush was not willing 

to repeat those mistakes with the implementation of No Child Left Behind. That 

assumption has proved correct. 

It’s disappointing that instead of working with states and local districts to implement this bipartisan law, the National Education Association and others have tried 

to dismantle it. In the two years since NCLB was signed, the President and Congress have proposed numerous bills to give teachers and states additional help in 

achieving NCLB’s objectives. The House has passed legislation to reduce paperwork 

requirements for special education teachers. We’ve passed legislation to boost loan 

forgiveness for qualified teachers who agree to teach in high poverty schools. We’ve 

passed legislation to strengthen early childhood learning so children enter our elementary schools ready to learn. And President and Mrs. Bush have asked us to let 

teachers take a $400 tax deduction when they pay money out of their own pockets 

for classroom expenses such as crayons and books. 

All of these proposals have been offered to build on the 35 percent increase in federal teacher quality funding provided to states and schools under NCLB. But none 

have been enacted. Some of the teachers and school employees I talk to in my disVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:09 Oct 14, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\92410.TXT EDUWK PsN: NNIXON
4

trict have never even heard a word about these proposals from their union representatives. And that’s a shame. 

What we do hear from union representatives is a lot about funding. So let’s talk 

about that for a moment. 

Under NCLB, states have received an increase in federal education funding that 

can only be described as massive. The federal government is providing more than 

$1 billion annually to Ohio to implement No Child Left Behind. This includes $661 

million in fiscal year 2003 for No Child Left Behind itself, and another $373 million 

in fiscal year 2003 for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). These 

numbers represent large increases over what Ohio was receiving before NCLB. 

The charts you see here show these increases on a national scale. Any way you 

slice it, federal spending on education has skyrocketed since No Child Left Behind 

became law. The numbers go nowhere but up. 

Pay particular attention to Title I spending. When you do the math, you find Title 

I received a larger increase during the first two years of the George W. Bush administration than it did under the previous eight years combined under President Clinton. 

The numbers for special education tell a similar story. As Education Daily reported on January 8, 2004: ‘‘If [the President’s 2005 budget] request is approved, 

Title I spending will have increased by about 50 percent and special education 

spending will have increased by about 80 percent on his watch.’’

The truth is, Congress has been increasing spending more quickly than states can 

spend the money. Last year, states collectively returned about $124 million in federal education aid to the federal Treasury because they couldn’t spend it before it 

expired. 

No Child Left Behind isn’t about spending money. It’s about what we do with the 

money we’re already spending. It isn’t about changing funding levels; it’s about 

changing attitudes. It’s about high standards, and recognizing all children can learn. 

It is a great credit to Ohio—in particular, to Governor Taft, Superintendent Susan 

Zelman, and the leaders of the Ohio General Assembly—that instead of bowing to 

those who contend money can solve the problems in our schools, the Buckeye State 

has taken a stand for high standards and accountability for results. The President 

signed the law in Ohio—and two years later, it’s clear the President chose the right 

state for that historic action. 

I would like to thank everyone for attending today. I would especially like to 

thank our distinguished witnesses for their participation. I look forward to your testimony. 

Chairman BOEHNER. So we’re glad that you’re all here. With 

that, let me turn to our friend from Minnesota, Ms. McCollum. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BETTY McCOLLUM, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. It’s a pleasure to join you here today in Ohio, 

Mr. Chairman. It’s very fitting that I be in Ohio. It’s because of the 

educational start I received in Dayton, Ohio as a kindergartner 

that helped me have a good foundation for having success for the 

rest of my public education. That is a success I wanted for my children as a parent and I want for all children in America. 

I’d also like to thank Mr. Tiberi for having such a wonderful district. I plan on coming back again. There’s much to see and do 

here. And Congressman Ryan and I are also very proud to be here 

with Congressman Ted Strickland, who also represents a portion of 

Ohio. 

We have some charts in front of us that show educational funding. One of the first books I received when I started doing debate 

in high school and from my college debate, How to Lie with Statistics. There are things you can do with statistics to make cases both 

ways. I would just caution people as they look into this to ask some 

very serious questions about what is the baseline funding that was 

used and had the funding kept up with inflation in the past. 

5

I believe very strongly in importance of public education. My support for it is unwavering. It’s unwavering for the educators, administrators and school board members and parents across the country 

who commit themselves to educate and improve the future for their 

children. I’m a Member of Congress today, as I said, because of the 

strong public education system that gave me the opportunity to 

achieve my dreams, my hopes. Our nation’s democracy, prosperity 

and success are all built upon a foundation of public schools and 

every American’s right to access a quality education. No one should 

ever tolerate a tax on our public education or public school teachers 

who we trust to educate and nurture our children every day. 

But as Sherman knows, I voted against Leave No Child Behind 

because I believe the law can be improved. Others believe Washington has all the wisdom, the wherewithal and the right to dictate 

to state legislators, school boards and parents what is best for our 

84 million children in America’s public schools. Some believe Federal mandates will improve educational achievement for our children. They believe that Washington knows better than parents, 

teachers, administrators, and elected school board members and 

legislators both here in Columbus or back in Minnesota. But I, 

along with others, have a different opinion. It does not make us obstructionists because we trust parents, teachers and school boards 

to determine what is needed for our children to succeed and 

achieve success in school. Some of us believe the Federal Government’s role is to be a partner, supporting states, school districts 

and parents to achieve educational success based on standards that 

reflect the needs and the realities of our diverse population. Today 

we are likely to hear about, as we have, the billions of dollars the 

Bush administration is showering upon states to meet the public 

laws mandate, that 100 percent of America’s children in public 

schools will achieve adequate yearly progress by 2014. By 2014, 

every public school attended by almost 50 million American children will achieve the goals harsh—will achieve either the goals set 

by the law or the harsh Federal penalties that will be imposed by 

the law. Perfection or penalties is a new education paradigm now 

in America. It is too bad that the Federal Government can break 

its own promises to states, school districts and students without a 

penalty. Everyone knows that Washington does not meet its commitment to fund special education. The Bush administration is, 

and I repeat, is increasing education funding. But it’s failing to 

make adequate yearly progress, having already failed to provide 

the $26 billion to fund Leave No Child Behind that Congress said 

it would in its initial signing. Should we hold state legislators, 

school boards and administrators accountable? Yes, we should. We 

also need to hold the White House and Congress accountable for its 

funding as mandates move forward. 

Last month in Minnesota, my state, a highly respected legislative 

auditor, Jim Nobles, who by the way is totally nonpartisan, put 

forth a grim report. Even as student test scores for math and reading improve significantly in the upcoming years, the report estimates that 80 percent of Minnesota’s elementary schools will fail 

to make adequate yearly progress by 2014, resulting in disastrous 

consequences for the public education system in my state. 

6

A recent report prepared by the Ohio Department of Education 

raises serious questions about the cost of Ohio’s taxpayers in meeting demands in this educational mandate. The report projects an 

enormous cost to Ohio taxpayers. While Washington adds $44 million in funding a year, it appears that Ohio taxpayers by 2010 

could be forced to spend an additional $105 billion in educational 

costs. The report states, quote, the projected additional cost to fully 

implement No Child Left Behind will require expenditures beyond 

the additional Federal dollars committed thus far. 

For political reasons, defending Leave No Child Behind will likely result in both Minnesota and Ohio reports being attacked and 

criticized, but Ohio and Minnesota are not alone in raising these 

concerns. A list of states that are controlled by both democrats and 

republicans are protesting the law: Vermont, Hawaii, West Virginia, Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, New Mexico, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Maine, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, and South Dakota. 

These states have all voiced valid legitimate concerns about this 

law, and they need to be addressed by the Department of Education, but it needs to be addressed in public forums and not behind closed doors with offensive name-calling as we have witnessed 

in recent weeks. 

The point is clear, Leave No Child Behind needs to be fixed, and 

I want to work with the Chairman to fix it. Thank you. 

Chairman BOEHNER. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 

Columbus, Ohio, Mr. Tiberi. 

STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. TIBERI, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to welcome you 

and the Committee Members to Columbus, Ohio. I know the mayor 

encourages you to spend as much money as you can while you’re 

here to help our local economy. 

I am pleased to be here with you this morning, and thank you 

for picking Ohio and Columbus, Ohio, to have this hearing to talk 

about the landmark education reforms in No Child Left Behind and 

their impact on the state of Ohio. 

I’d like to thank the State Library for allowing us to use their 

facilities today. I’d like to welcome all of our witnesses this morning, particularly Dr. Ross, who is the superintendent of the 

Reynoldsburg City Schools, which is within the district that I represent. 

As most of you know, No Child Left Behind, which reauthorized 

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, reflects the four pillars of President Bush’s education reform agenda: accountability 

and testing, flexibility and local control, funding for what works, 

and expanded parental options. 

The legislation requires annual testing of public school students 

in reading and math in grades 3 through 8, report cards for parents on school achievement levels, improved teacher quality requirements that ensure all students are being taught by a highly 

qualified teacher, and public school choice and supplemental service options for children in underachieving schools. 

State flexibility is a key element within NCLB. Individual states 

are given the flexibility to determine a variety of factors, including 

7

the definition of student academic proficiency, the starting point for 

progress measurement, and the amount of progress that must be 

made from year to year. They also have the flexibility to develop 

their own test to determine if existing teachers should be deemed 

highly qualified. 

In August of 2003, the Ohio General Assembly passed legislation 

that laid out exactly how Ohio would utilize this flexibility to meet 

the goals of No Child Left Behind. We have some of those legislators here today who worked pretty hard on that. As part of that 

legislation, the General Assembly required the Ohio Superintendent of Public Instruction to commission a detailed financial 

analysis of the projected costs of compliance with No Child Left Behind. 

While I appreciate all of the hard work that Columbus-based researchers Mr. William Driscoll and Dr. Howard Fleeter put into 

this report, I am concerned about some of the findings. I am particularly troubled by the contention that recent massive increases 

that the Chairman talked about in Federal education funding have 

not been adequate to allow Ohio to reach its goals under No Child 

Left Behind. 

President Bush and Congress have provided historic levels of 

Federal education funding to help states implement No Child Left 

Behind. In fact, Title I funding received a larger combined increase 

during the first 2 years of President Bush’s presidency than it received in the previous 8 years combined under President Clinton. 

The Republican-led Congress has also kept special education funding among the highest education priorities, and as a result, special 

education funding has more than tripled in just 9 years. 

In fact, some of the reports indicate, and some of our colleagues 

have indicated to the Chairman and myself, that the Federal Government has been increasing education spending more quickly than 

some states can spend the money, raising new questions about the 

claims No Child Left Behind may be under funded. A recent analysis by the House Education and the Workforce Committee shows 

that by this summer, states will have received an average increase 

of 42 percent in Federal Title I aid for disadvantaged students 

since enactment of No Child Left Behind. These increases are coming even as many states still have not drawn down the $2 billion 

in Title I funds that were made available to them as far back as 

fiscal year 2000 before No Child Left Behind went into effect three 

and a half years ago. 

As the first person in my family to have graduated from high 

school, I personally know how important education and—a quality 

education is to being successful. As a proud graduate of the Columbus schools, Dr. Ross, I know what it’s like to have experienced the 

education of an urban school and the difference between quality 

education and unquality education. 

I look forward to hearing from the witnesses today on information dealing with No Child Left Behind, how we can reconcile these 

figures with the findings of the Ohio cost study on No Child Left 

Behind. I also hope to hear about how No Child Left Behind is benefiting Ohio’s parents, its teachers and its students. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tiberi follows:]

8

Statement of Hon. Patrick J. Tiberi, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Ohio 

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here this morning to talk about the 

landmark education reforms in No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and their impact on 

the state of Ohio. 

I would like to thank the State Library of Ohio for allowing us to use their facilities today. I would also like to welcome all of our witnesses here this morning. I 

am particularly pleased to welcome Dr. Dick Ross, the Superintendent of the 

Reynoldsburg City Schools. 

As most of you know, NCLB, which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act (ESEA), reflects the four pillars of President Bush’s education reform 

agenda: accountability and testing, flexibility and local control, funding for what 

works, and expanded parental options. 

The legislation requires annual testing of public school students in reading and 

math in grades 3–8, report cards for parents on school achievement levels, improved 

teacher quality requirements that ensure all students are being taught by a highly 

qualified teacher, and public school choice and supplemental service options for children in underachieving schools. 

State flexibility is a key element within NCLB. Individual states are given the 

flexibility to determine a variety of factors, including the definition of student academic proficiency, the starting point for progress measurement, and the amount of 

progress that must be made from year to year. They also have the flexibility to develop their own test to determine if existing teachers should be deemed highly qualified. 

In August 2003, the Ohio General Assembly passed legislation that laid out exactly how Ohio would utilize this flexibility to meet the goals of NCLB. As part of 

that legislation, the General Assembly required the Ohio Superintendent of Public 

Instruction to commission a detailed financial analysis of the projected costs of compliance with NCLB. 

While I appreciate all of the hard work that Columbus-based researchers Mr. William Driscoll and Dr. Howard Fleeter put into this report, I am concerned about 

some of the findings. I am particularly troubled by the contention that recent massive increases in federal education funding have not been adequate to allow Ohio 

to reach the goals of NCLB. 

President Bush and Congress have provided historic levels of federal education 

funding to help states implement NCLB. In fact, Title I funding received a larger 

combined increase during the first two years of President Bush’s presidency than 

it received in the previous eight years combined under President Clinton. The Republican-led Congress has also kept special education funding among the highest 

education priorities, and as a result, special education funding has more than tripled in just nine years. 

In fact, some reports indicate that the federal government has been increasing 

education spending more quickly than states can spend the money, raising new 

questions about the claims that NCLB is ‘‘underfunded.’’ A recent analysis by the 

House Education and the Workforce Committee shows that by this summer, states 

will have received an average increase of 42% in federal Title I aid for disadvantaged students since enactment of No Child Left Behind—and these increases are 

coming even as many states still have not drawn down $2 billion in Title I funds 

that were made available to them as far back as fiscal year 2000, three and a half 

years ago. 

I look forward to hearing more information from all of our witnesses about how 

we can reconcile these figures with the findings of the Ohio cost study on No Child 

Left Behind. I also hope to hear about how NCLB is benefiting Ohio’s parents, 

teachers and students. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Mr. Ryan. 

STATEMENT OF HON. TIM RYAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO 

Mr. RYAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s a pleasure to be in the 

great state of Ohio, and I represent the city of Youngstown and 

part of the city of Akron and everywhere in between. So everyone 

here can thank me for Jim Tressel coming to Columbus later. 

9

The issue today, obviously, is the No Child Left Behind Act, the 

funding and the implementation of this program. 

A couple things I would like to touch upon before I get into my 

formal statement. One is the issue of funding and how funding 

wasn’t an issue for such a long period of time, and no one was really discussing the fact that there wasn’t full funding with the No 

Child Left Behind. This Committee made a commitment, as the 

Chairman said, an appropriate commitment, to say, some would 

say, a civil rights issue, and many of us would agree with that. 

Maybe it is a civil rights issue. But when we passed the Civil 

Rights Act in the 1960’s, you have to pay for poll workers, you have 

to pay for the voting machines, you have to pay to train your workers. There was a cost associated with making sure that every citizen in our country had an opportunity to exercise their franchise. 

And that commitment needs to be made here, too. So if this is a 

civil rights issue, we need to fund it. 

Another point I would like to make, as well as we have these discussions in Washington D.C. on a variety of other issues, there’s always this 800-pound elephant that’s sitting in the middle of the 

room that no one wants to talk about. It’s the tax cuts that we 

passed and we want to continue to pass in the next Congress. I 

think we can’t talk about priorities, we can’t talk about full funding 

the education or veterans without addressing what our priorities 

are going to be as a nation. Are they going to be these tax cuts that 

many would say, and I would certainly say, are reckless at this 

point, or are we going to make the proper investments in our education system. I think that’s the issue that really undergirds the 

whole debate that we’re having here today on No Child Left Behind. I do believe we must stay the course on No Child Left Behind. We must embrace it, while understanding that we have room 

for growth. 

The two areas I would like to emphasize that are needed areas 

for growth are funding and implementation of leadership and technical assistance. The need to fully fund the No Child Left Behind 

Act is paramount to its success. Funding is what enables our school 

districts to pay for teacher training and technical assistance and 

professional development, pay for salaries of highly qualified teachers, administrative costs, implementation costs, intervention costs. 

All of this costs money. 

When Congress took on this task—and I commend them for 

doing so, and I commend the Chairman for taking the leadership 

role in this—they also took on a measure with a hefty price tag 

that would be due to the states to help pay for these mandates. 

Congress knew the costs and now the bills are due. What do we 

say to our fellow states? Sorry, but this payment is going to be $7.5 

billion short of what we owe you. 

President Bush’s budget request, coupled with the appropriations 

bill passed by the Republican Congress, show a blatant disregard 

to keeping the commitments to ensure a high quality education 

system in our country. The Republican education spending bill provides only 4.8 percent increase for education, the smallest dollar increase in 5 years and the smallest percentage increase in 8 years. 

Less money at a time when we have higher expectations. What 

does this mean? It means nearly 5 million needy children won’t get 

10

the extra academic help and services that the law promised if the 

President’s budget becomes law. It means over 1 million children 

will find their schoolhouse doors locked to afterschool programs if 

the President’s budget becomes law. It means 54,000 teachers 

won’t be able to participate in professional development programs 

if the President’s budget becomes law. 

What does this mean for Ohio? Which we are going to discuss 

today the study that says the cost of complying with the No Child 

Left Behind will reach 1.447 billion annually, annually in fiscal 

year 2010. I am aware of the many criticisms of this report, but 

I would like to emphasize there may be disagreements with whether this report overstates or understates the price tag of No Child 

Left Behind, but the common agreement is that we can and we 

should do more to put the resources in place to achieve our end 

goal, which is student success. The need for increased funding cannot be underestimated. There were 220 Ohio school districts that 

had issues on the March 2004 ballot, and Ohio voters approved less 

than half, the lowest in the past 10 years. 

I recently heard our Federal reserve chairman, Greenspan, say 

providing rigorous education and ongoing training to all members 

of our society is critical for the economy overall and for individuals 

benefited by its changing nature. He went on to say better education, particularly in elementary, middle and high schools, would 

go a long way toward boosting the wages of low-skilled workers and 

diminishing the inequality that has become more pronounced over 

the last 2 years, basically saying if we want to close this achievement gap we must make these investments in education. 

Chairman Greenspan is 100 percent right. If we do not invest 

more into our education system, we will continue to lose ground as 

a leader in high-skilled, high-wage jobs. The two go hand-in-hand. 

Investment into education is an investment into our economy and 

into the stability of our country. Our children deserve better. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BOEHNER. I want to thank all my colleagues and welcome our witnesses, and let me begin to introduce them. 

Our first witness today will be Ron Tomalis. Mr. Tomalis is a 

counselor to the U.S. Secretary, Department of Education. Additionally, he serves as the chief of staff for the secretary. Mr. 

Tomalis served as acting assistant secretary for elementary and 

secondary education. Welcome him this morning. 

Our second witness will be Dr. Richard Ross. He’s currently the 

superintendent of Reynoldsburg City Schools here in Columbus, 

suburb of Reynoldsburg, where he has served since 1988. Pretty 

long time for a superintendent to stick around. Previously he was 

a superintendent for several other Ohio school districts, including 

Bryant City Schools and Ottawa Schools. Dr. Ross has served as 

an instructor in the Department of Education at Bowling Green 

State University, additionally has received various awards including the Pioneer in Education Award and the A Plus Breaking the 

Mold Award. I want to thank Mr. Tiberi for inviting you here. 

Thank you for being here. 

Then we’re going to hear from Dr. Howard Fleeter. He is a partner at Levin, Driscoll & Fleeter, a research firm that focuses on 

public policy, education finance, and state and local tax budgeting 

11

issues. He’s served at the state and local government level since 

1990. Additionally, Dr. Fleeter worked as an assistant professor at 

the School of Public Policy and Management to Ohio State and he’s 

a four-time recipient of the Ohio School of Public Policy and Management Faculty of the Year Award. 

Then we’re going to hear from Dr. Ted Rebarber. Mr. Rebarber 

is president and founder of Accountability Works, a nonprofit research and consulting work. Its mission is to assist states and districts in implementing high quality accountability systems. Previously he was cofounder and chief executive education officer of 

Advantage Schools, Inc., a charter school management company 

that achieved high grades and test scores for disadvantaged students. He served in various capacities up on Capitol Hill and the 

U.S. Department of Education and the Vanderbilt Institute for 

Public Policy students. We’d like to thank all of you for coming. 

The Committee rules you have 5 minutes to make your opening 

statement. We’re not going to take your head off if you go beyond 

that, but if you get carried away, we’ll probably rein you in a little. 

Mr. Tomalis, why don’t you begin. 

STATEMENT OF RON TOMALIS, COUNSELOR TO THE SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, 

DC 

Mr. TOMALIS. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, 

Members of the Committee. It’s a pleasure for me to be here in 

Ohio this morning. 

Thank you for this opportunity to testify on behalf of the No 

Child Left Behind Act, President Bush’s signature education reform 

legislation that is designed to bring stronger accountability and 

better results to Federal education programs, both across the Nation and here in Ohio. 

A lot of myths have sprung up regarding No Child Left Behind 

over the 2 years since it was signed into law. The current election 

season is giving these myths a new currency. Perhaps the biggest 

myth, and one that has become a significant issue here in Ohio, is 

that President Bush and the Congress have not provided sufficient 

funding to pay for the new law. 

The truth is that when Congress passed No Child Left Behind 

it also provided the largest funding increase in history for the elementary and secondary programs that would be authorized by the 

new law. The 2002 appropriations act provided an increase of $4.6 

billion, or 27 percent, for NCLB programs. That nationwide increase was nearly matched here in Ohio, which received an additional $119 million, or 26 percent, in the first year of NCLB funding alone. 

It is also important, though, to point out that this new funding 

comes on the heels of very rapid growth in education spending over 

the past 10 years. 

Combined Federal, state and local spending on elementary and 

secondary education grew from $280 billion in 1993, ’94, to over 

$500 billion over this past decade. That’s a substantial increase 

over 10 years. To put that in perspective, half a trillion dollars a 

year on K-12 education is 125 billion a year more than is spent on 

defense in our country. That’s the way it should be. Federal fundVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:09 Oct 14, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\92410.TXT EDUWK PsN: NNIXON
12

ing for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has more 

than kept pace with this increase, nearly tripling over the same period. In view of these figures, a reasonable response to charges of 

underfunding education might be, what might we be talking about. 

The specific figures for NCLB tell a similar story nationwide and 

here in Ohio, building on a large first year increase in 2002. Funding for NCLB is up $7 billion, or 40 percent, in just 3 years. We 

have provided $1.1 billion to pay for the additional assessments 

that are required by law, and the new law more than doubled the 

funds available to help low-performing schools by providing nearly 

$500 million. 

Here in Ohio, Congress has appropriated more than $1.9 billion. 

For fiscal year 2004, the $666 million provided to Ohio for NCLB 

programs reflects an increase of $206 million, or 45 percent, over 

the 2001 level. 

Consider just one major new requirement, the new assessments. 

Ohio will receive a total of $47 million in assessment funding before it even has to implement the new tests, which must be in place 

in the ’05-’06 school year. Compare this to the previous ESEA reauthorization, which also required testing when it was reauthorized 

in 1994, but there was not a penny that was appropriated to put 

the assessment into place. 

This doesn’t sound like an unfunded mandate to me. But you 

don’t have to take my word on this issue. There are some fair and 

balanced studies that reach the same conclusion. I would like to 

briefly summarize one study in particular for the Committee, one 

that was provided by education officials from Massachusetts. I respectfully ask the Chairman to place a copy of it in the hearing 

record. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Without objection, it’s ordered. 

Mr. TOMALIS. The authors found that provided funding for No 

Child Left Behind is adequate to pay for the marginal costs of 

meeting the new law requirements at this stage of the implementation. They also found that while funding targeted to school improvement is short of their estimated need, other sources of Federal funds could more than close the gap, if they were directed to 

low-performing schools. 

The authors then looked specifically at the growth in Federal 

education funding. With the permission of the Chairman, I would 

like to read their conclusions into the record. 

‘‘If this spending increase does not fully cover the fiscal gap, it 

would appear to come pretty close, especially when combined with 

state-level spending increases already required under various state 

laws and court decisions. Given that many states have been slow 

to implement the statewide assessment and accountability systems 

required by NCLB, one might even argue that in some instances 

Federal spending growth has overshot the target.’’ 

The ‘‘overshot the target’’ has particular resonance here in Ohio, 

where U.S. Department of Education figures showed that, as of last 

Friday, the state has yet to spend an estimated $322 million in 

Federal education funds appropriated from fiscal years 2000 

through 2002. It is reasonable to ask why some in Ohio are demanding more Federal funds when the state has been unable to 

13

spend a significant portion of the funds that it has already received. 

My testimony suggests that it is long past time to put an end to 

debates about unfunded mandates and return to the business of 

implementing No Child Left Behind. As Secretary Paige pointed 

out recently, critics of No Child Left Behind too often ignore the 

depth of the problem in our schools. I believe that has been true 

to some degree here in Ohio as well. 

I know, for example, many in Ohio are concerned about the No 

Child Left Behind requirement for 100 percent proficiency in reading and math, especially since the state was previously aiming for 

75 percent proficiency. We know the NCLB goal is an ambitious 

one, with only one third of Ohio’s fourth-graders currently scoring 

at the proficient or advanced levels in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and with just two thirds of 

fourth-graders currently at grade level of Ohio’s own reading test. 

If you consider that what we are talking about here is bringing 

all students up to grade level in basic reading and math skills, I 

think it is very hard to make a case for setting our goal anywhere 

below 100 percent. Are Ohio’s schools successful if they have 25 

percent of the graduates, one in four graduates, without the basic 

skills needed for either the workplace or for meaningful participation in our democracy? President Bush doesn’t think so, neither 

does Secretary Paige or the Chairman of this Committee, and I 

have to say I utterly agree with them. 

In conclusion, in my view, the myth of No Child Left Behind as 

an unfunded mandate simply does not stand up to scrutiny. Even 

in an election year. It is a falsehood that diverts attention from the 

admittedly hard work we all face in realizing the promise of No 

Child Left Behind. I hope that by helping to dispel this myth, this 

hearing will refocus our attention where it needs to be: on the students of Ohio in their classroom. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tomalis follows:]

14

Statement of Ron Tomalis, Counselor to the Secretary, U.S. Department of 

Education, Washington, DC


92410.001
15

Chairman BOEHNER. Dr. Ross.

STATEMENT OF RICHARD ROSS, SUPERINTENDENT, 

REYNOLDSBURG CITY SCHOOLS, REYNOLDSBURG, OH 

Dr. ROSS. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Committee Members. 

I’m here today to share with you my support for the No Child 

Left Behind legislation. I’m going to speak as a school superintendent of a suburban district here in Franklin County. 

Your Committee is looking into the costs associated with No 

Child Left Behind. I think this is an important question that needs 

to be answered. I do believe, however, there is a more important 

question, and that is, what will it cost America if we fail to achieve 

the goals of No Child Left Behind? 

In my opinion, being an old social studies teacher, No Child Left 

Behind is the most important piece of educational legislation since 

the passage of the Northwest Ordinance of 1779, which provided 

land for the establishments of schools in the northwest territory 


92410.002
16

here, including Ohio. At that time, Congress set an ambitious goal 

of providing an opportunity for an education of every child; in other 

words, universal access to an education. 

Today, with the NCLB legislation, I think Congress is giving 

America a new and more ambitious goal than just universal access, 

it’s universal achievement. We’ve been challenged to become accountable for the academic achievement of all of our students. It 

is a guarantee that every child in America will have a mastery of 

basic knowledge and skills that are prerequisites for good employment and good citizenship in this country and state. And I think 

to argue that—and I hear that argument a lot—that it is not a possible goal, it’s an impossible goal, is ludicrous, as I believe we can 

do that. 

What does this mean to our classroom teachers, our school principals, superintendent? I believe we’re finally being required to 

take notice, not only of those children who are failing to learn the 

basic skills and knowledge sets, but we almost must be directing 

our attention toward the most talented students we have to ensure 

on the other end that their learning potential is not limited either. 

We are required to do that, and we are required to make adjustments in our instructional programs, and we must do that. We 

must know what works and what doesn’t work. 

Many educators that I talk with discuss about not having the resources to fill the expectations of No Child Left Behind. It’s my belief that we must therefore look at what we have and pull the 

weeds from our resource garden that exists in our schools. We must 

eliminate innovations and programs that are determined to be unsuccessful. We must marshal our resources in the manner that 

would be most effective in improving our students’ learning. 

I also believe that the financial resources are not the most important ingredient in this task that we have in front of us. The most 

essential prerequisite for success of NCLB is that the student, the 

teacher, the administrator, each and every one of them individually 

believes that it’s possible for them to achieve that. Countless times 

I’ve had expectations when I was teaching, coaching, and as principal and as superintendent, where we have set expectations in 

front of our classroom teachers, principals, students and athletes to 

achieve beyond what normal people or average people would expect 

is possible. You know what? Kids can do that. They can do that. 

These people must believe that they do have the resources from the 

garden. They have to believe that they have the skills and ability 

to reduce these achievement gaps. Especially with our poor and minority students. 

Reynoldsburg—I’m not portraying to be a panacea of anything. 

Just telling you that we’re working hard to accomplish that. We’re 

a diverse, middle-class, suburban community that has the lowest 

expenditure per pupil in Franklin County in fiscal year ’03. It 

would be easy for us to come up with a lot of excuses. Easy. We 

can’t because we don’t have enough resources. We can’t because we 

have a large number of poor students and more moving in. We 

can’t because of the number of minority students. We can’t because 

of the number of our ESL students. I think that is the very point 

that we’re here to talk about. We can be successful, and I think we 

must be successful. We must cease using excuses and commit that 

17

this must occur if this great country is going to provide equal opportunity for all our children. 

Now, the very people on my left and right, my question is, what 

does it really cost to implement NCLB? I think it costs us to work 

even harder. It will cost us more time, more commitment. It costs 

more love to be able to absolutely guarantee that all our children, 

every one of them, meets their full potential. That is what it costs 

us. 

Sometimes, in direct terms, this could be extra tutoring, summer 

school. It could be before-school and after-school programs. It possibly could be differentiated materials, differentiated instructional 

techniques. There are other costs. Will this end up costing us more 

dollars? Perhaps it will. I ask myself and I ask you, what would 

it cost to assure that every child learned in school without this 

law? My answer would be, the cost in money, in effort, in creativity 

and in commitment are exactly the same. 

How can we not want high achievement for all our students? 

How can we not want accountability measures that are consistent 

from school to school, or effective instructional programs that have 

been researched and proven to work with various populations? Yes, 

how can we not want highly qualified teachers? If we really want 

all our students to master basic skills and knowledge, then the 

extra cost of NCLB is zero. 

On the other side of the coin, if we’re OK with only some of our 

children learning the standard, and I want to say this has been the 

history of public schools, then we probably can actually cut costs 

and still call ourselves successful. Seventy-five percent standard for 

excellence in Ohio would be an example of that. 

Simply stated, NCLB is the right thing to do. I’m grateful for the 

President and the Congress for bringing this necessary mandate to 

our national agenda to debate. 

I would like to close by giving special thanks to our State Superintendent Susan Zelman and the Ohio Board of Education for establishing an exemplary set of academic content standards in reading, language arts, math, science, and social studies. I believe these 

standards provide every teacher, parent, child in the state of Ohio 

clear guidance defining minimum performance expectations for 

each and all of us. We no longer can hide behind low standard and, 

worse, no standards. 

The Congress and the Ohio legislature have given me and Ohio 

new goals. It is now up to the school leaders, superintendents, principals, teachers, students to discover and create the pathways that 

will lead each of our students to academic success and achievement. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Ross follows:]

18

Statement of Richard A. Ross, Superintendent, Reynoldsburg City Schools, 

Reynoldsburg, OH

Chairman BOEHNER. Dr. Fleeter.

STATEMENT OF HOWARD FLEETER, PARTNER, LEVIN, 

DRISCOLL & FLEETER, COLUMBUS, OH 

Dr. FLEETER. Thank you, Chairman, Members of the Committee. 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify. I appreciate that you picked 

a location that’s probably closer to where I live than anybody else 

in the room. 


92410.006
19

We’ve got a 60-page report that there’s been many references to. 

I’ve got 5 minutes to discuss the pertinent facts. I pledge to do the 

best I can in that timeframe. 

Let me first say for the record that our objective here, as Congressman Tiberi said, is to do a study for the state Department of 

Education in compliance with a mandate from the Ohio legislature 

to look at the cost of compliance of No Child Left Behind. We did 

that. And we want to stress that what we did was try and figure 

out what the cost of this law would be and what the cost is of Ohio 

meeting all the mandates and complying with it. And we’re not 

making any judgment that says that there’s—we have a disagreement with the goals. In fact, we agree—I agree with what Mr. 

Tomalis and what Dr. Ross said about the goals, and what every 

one else has said, that these are the right goals. That the Federal 

Government is on the track we should have been on for many years 

to close the gap. I think that we can do this and figure out how 

to get that done. Whatever it costs would be money that is well 

worth spending and the best investment I think our country can 

make. 

In terms of a little background about Ohio’s context, accountability didn’t come to Ohio with No Child Left Behind. That Ohio 

has been rated—the last 2 years in education, they’re one of eight 

states to be given A for accountability system. There’s been state 

and local and district report cards issued for the last 5 years here 

that—there have been statewide proficiency tests for over 10 years 

that there’s a good accountability system in place in this state. 

In terms of teacher quality, education, Ohio is one of the top ten 

states in terms of improving teacher quality, and they received a 

B in that area of the report card as well. That’s the good news 

about what Ohio’s been doing. 

Mr. Tomalis referred to some figures before that in terms of the 

nature of scores and Ohio’s percentages of passage rates on the 

proficiency tests. That’s the bad news, that 35 percent of our students in the 4th and 6th grade failed the reading, 44 percent failed 

the math test. That’s a challenge that Ohio faces in terms of complying with the law. 

The focus that we made in our study was figuring out the marginal cost of complying with the law, in terms of what additional 

dollars will it take to go beyond the accountability system that the 

state has had in place. They made the reference that Ohio’s accountability system, if every district received 75 percent of their 

students passing these tests, they would be rated an excellent district in this state. You can make a very compelling argument that 

says that having 25 percent of your kids fail is too low a standard. 

In terms of looking at the right standard saying eliminating the 

achievement and having 100 percent of our kids passing this test, 

that’s the right standard. 

In terms of what we had to cost out, there are four areas of cost. 

One of them is the mandatory testing. There is criteria for highly 

qualified teachers and professionals. There’s increasing the passage 

rates to a standard of 100 percent beyond Ohio’s current standard 

of 75 percent, and then there’s consequences cost. The third one, 

getting the standard up to 100 percent, that’s where the bulk of the 

20

cost is going to be. If you do that, then the consequences cost 

should go away. 

In terms of the focus of our study, looking at the cost of compliance, we made a decision which I think is the right one from what 

the legislature asked us to do is what would it take for Ohio to 

comply with the standard. We’re not going to cost out what the consequence would be of failure because we want to cost out the consequence of success. 

How do we do this? The main focus of our report was looking at 

what it would take to get 100 percent of our students passing Ohio 

statewide proficiency tests. For that, as Dr. Ross said, is a variety 

of different types of interventions that can be done. There are aspects that don’t have to do with interventions that have to do with 

getting everybody on the same page of the playbook. I have 14 

years of experience in working with this state on education funding. We have a list in our report that has nine or ten interventions. 

We didn’t pull that out of thin air. We worked with personnel and 

staff from the Ohio Department of Education. We had focus groups 

within the district. We worked closely with the city of Columbus 

Public Schools. And I thank them for their participation. We drew 

that list that we have as based on those data and also based on 

research and education about what types of programs are effective 

in terms of getting students up to speed and learning. The 3 years 

that we picked that are the 1.5 billion roughly in our cost, 1.4 billion of that is in the area of the interventions that are necessary 

to get students up to 100 percent proficiency. That’s where the bulk 

of my comments will be because that’s where the bulk of the cost 

is. 

The three intervention programs that we costed out, we have a 

series of tables through our report. The key table is table 23. It 

shows that we have summer school, which is consistent with the 

extended school year idea; after-school intervention, consistent with 

the idea of extending the school day before school or after school; 

and intensive in-school intervention. 

Each one of those interventions is based on research for the summer school program. I would direct people to the Johns Hopkins 

Center for Summer Learning. They’ve been doing research for 

many, many years looking at the learning loss that occurs over the 

summer, particularly for lower social economic groups. If you test 

them at the end of the school year and beginning of the next one 

and compare where they’re at, they’re going down, while the other 

groups are going—holding steady or going up. That’s a major problem. The intensive in-school intervention. It’s on the U.S. Department of Education’s own web site they have an Institute for Education Sciences that identifies educational practices supported by 

evidence. They can cite that one-on-one tutoring by qualified teachers for grades 1 to 3 is one of the gold standard intervention approaches, and that that’s something that may be incorporated into 

our report very consistent with that. In fact, we base what Columbus does on the reading recovery model, which is one of the most 

well supported intervention programs in education that I know of. 

Finally, the after-school interventions is based simply on the idea 

of the supplemental services which is one of the consequences 

that’s spelled out by No Child Left Behind. Our logic in including 

21

that is if that was a program which the authors of No Child Left 

Behind felt would be an appropriate consequence for schools and 

districts that are failing, then I think it would be an appropriate 

intervention so you can head that off before they fail. So we have 

a basis for including those three programs. 

We also have a rationale in terms of it’s one thing to include 

them and you’ve got to attach some costs. If you don’t have a good 

rationale for that, you don’t have a good cost estimate. Our rationale for how we costed out the programs is based on two fundamental economic assumptions. The first is the premise of increasing marginal cost. This is the most fundamental assumption in 

microeconomic theory. As you produce increased units of output, 

each unit of output is going to cost a little bit more, require a little 

bit more input. That’s a fundamental pinprick of microeconomics. 

It’s one that no one has disagreed with. I think the table that we 

have that shows the differences in the backgrounds of students as 

we broke them into their performance groups and you can see very 

clear patterns that the students that are highest achieving have 

the lowest percentage of economic disadvantagement, the lowest 

percentage of special education, the lowest percentage of English as 

a second language, and that you can see very clear patterns as you 

go down the performance scale that each one of those challenges 

increases, and for the lowest couple of groups of students we have 

they increase to a dramatic rate. 

So that’s our evidence that the challenge of this, the cost of getting the last student to clear the bar is going to become the highest 

and the cost of getting the student that’s closest right now to clearing the bar is going to be the lowest. 

The second premise that we used when we estimated the cost 

was the idea it’s almost what I called the Fram oil filter for Ohio, 

the pay me now, pay me later. The idea would be that the earlier 

you intervene, the more effective it would be, and the more cost effective it would be as well. That’s the idea behind these one-on-one 

interventions and the reading recovery types of programs. The earlier you start, the more effective you are. 

And in our cost estimate, the $1.4 billion that we came up with, 

that if you look at how that’s structured, that the cost for kindergarten and first grade is the highest, the cost for second and third 

grade goes down from that, and the cost in the out years after that 

of what we call sort of maintenance, once you get kids on track—

it’s not an inoculation. You still need to be doing work, but that’s 

going to be a declining rate. That that 1.4 billion you have is an 

annual cost. That’s the cost—if you look at it in two ways, it would 

be either the cost of taking the student right now who’s in kindergarten and serving all those students who need the interventions 

over the course of their 13 years that they’re going to be in school, 

or you could alternately think of that as the cost once this is up 

and running, you’ll have interventions for kids at all different 

grade levels at any different times. You’ll have some kids in kindergarten getting interventions, second, third, fourth, eight. So that 

cost is a cumulative cost for either serving the group of students 

throughout the duration of their time in school or it would be the 

cross-section of students at all the grades in any given year. I’ve 

seen some people take the number and divided it by the 130,000 

22

students that we say need intervention and they get a figure that’s 

almost $11,000, and that’s an inappropriate way to think of it like 

that. The cost estimate applies to more than just the group of kids 

in K through third grade. 

Finally, in terms of—there’s more detail about how we did the 

estimate. The last thing would be the cost that we attach once we 

define the programs and how they work, and they’re consistent 

with those ideas of increasing marginal costs and the earlier intervention being more effective than the later intervention. We then 

had to attach some cost estimates. We tried to be very conservative 

in how we attached those costs. One person commenting on our report said he thought we so severely underestimated the cost of 

what a teacher would be, that they thought that it made our estimate invalid. If it’s invalid, it would be on the low side, not on the 

high side. 

Lastly, I guess what I’d like to say, there’s been discussion about 

the increases in Federal money, and I want to clarify that we’re not 

disputing that there have been increases in Federal money. We see 

those. And that the two points I would like to make in that regard 

would be, first, that these percentage increases that Mr. Boehner 

talked about and Mr. Tomalis talked about, they’re on a fairly low 

base. Historically, Federal funding has fluctuated between five and 

7 percent of total education resources in the state of Ohio. So we 

made significant increases in what’s the smallest component of the 

funding. We’re not saying that we don’t appreciate those increases. 

We’re not saying that those increases aren’t going to make a difference. I think there’s a mathematical issue that the bar has been 

raised appropriately so by the Federal Government. I think now 

we’re going to need to get to a point where five or 7 percent of the 

share of education that may have worked when our standard was 

75 percent, that’s not going to work when our standard is really 

100 percent. 

The last point I would like to make about that. There have been 

some suggestions that we shouldn’t be looking at the increases, 

what we ought to be talking about is the whole pot of money that’s 

there. And that’s a view that we disagree with. Our premise is that 

the money that has been there in the past has been part of the system which has gotten us to the point where we have 35 percent of 

our kids not passing reading and 34 percent not passing math. 

We’re taking the premise that the money that’s in the system has 

gotten us to where we are. And there have been allegations that 

we haven’t taken into account any efficiency. We did do that on our 

report. There’s a whole report—I’m just about done. I appreciate 

your indulgence. I’m talking as fast as I can. That we did make assumptions that there are ways to reach that money. I think that 

we’re at the point where if someone can demonstrate that beyond 

where we are right now, if that were to lower the cost, I think if 

anybody can convince me the cost is going to be lower, I’m in favor 

to that because it’s going to suggest to me that we’re closer to getting in compliance with this law. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Fleeter follows:]

23

Statement of Howard Fleeter, Levin, Driscoll & Fleeter, Columbus, OH


92410.003
24


92410.004
25

Chairman BOEHNER. Mr. Rebarber. 

STATEMENT OF THEODOR REBARBER, PRESIDENT, 

ACCOUNTABILITY WORKS, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. REBARBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, for this opportunity to address you on this vital topic of national significance. 

The reform challenge set out in the No Child Left Behind is not 

going to be easy to attain. It’s going to be a challenge. But it’s the 

right goal at this time. I think there’s consensus among everybody 

on this panel that it is the right goal. Given that, the concentration 

and concern that many of you and all of us occurred among states 

and at the local level raised questions. But in my mind it’s understandable that when we make that level of change in the goals, 

when we’re saying for the first time that we’re going to educate all 

of our students as opposed to just some of our students, that there 

will be some change and there will be an impact. 

The other major change in No Child Left Behind we had before 

is the imposition of some significant accountability for lack of success. Accountability, in our view, contains three components: One 

is clear goals that are measurable; second is a way of assessing 

progress and measuring whether we’ve attained those goals; and, 

third, which we really have not had historically, is interventions, 


92410.005
26

sanctions in the cases where we don’t have success. Those interventions should be carefully designed so that they help students. They 

can’t just punish students. But at the same time, there have to be 

some interventions in those cases where we have persistent failure 

and lack of success educating all our children. We haven’t had that 

before in many cases. Certainly not in the No Child or Improving 

America’s Schools Act, until No Child created some significant 

interventions in the form of public school choice, supplemental 

services and some other kinds of interventions that are based on 

even more persistent failure. So it’s understandable that people are 

concerned, that people are somewhat fearful of the impact of what 

this is going to mean. And it’s understandable that funding, which 

is a legitimate question, is on the table. We think there ought to 

be careful analysis. We think that this is a legitimate issue to debate. 

To the credit of the Ohio state superintendent Susan Zelman, in 

addition to the main study that Driscoll & Fleeter conducted, they 

had ten nationally recognized groups or individuals review that 

study. And it’s interesting to see the discrepancies between the reviewers. As Dr. Zelman pointed out, several of the reviewers felt 

that the study was underestimating cost, several reviewers felt 

that it was right about the cost, and several reviewers felt that it 

was overestimating the cost. So trying to come up with a rigorous 

analysis of the cost is also a difficult challenge. 

Now, given that, our organization was one of those that reviewed 

the initial Ohio study. We’ve also reviewed cost analysis of No 

Child Left Behind in other states, these kinds of analysis states 

have been conducting for some time. We find a couple of consistent 

flaws in many of these studies. And I regret to stay in the Ohio 

study. One of them is the assumption—and there is an assumption 

in the Ohio report that significant improvements cannot be attained through efficiencies and reallocation of resources. I could 

find the quote saying that. There was an assumption that some improvements could continue just based on trends. The major improvements as a result of reallocation of resources, restructuring 

the current system is assumed to not be possible. There’s very little 

evidence—there’s no research provided to support that. We think 

there’s a wealth of evidence on the other side suggesting that we 

can show significant improvements in what we’re doing today and 

what we’re spending today. We’re not against increasing education 

funding. We know that the Federal Government has increased education funding, as have states and communities. The bulk of the increases over the last 10 years has come from states and local communities even though the Federal Government has also increased 

its share. We expect those increases to continue. We’ve done our 

own analysis in addition to reviewing the Ohio study and we projected just historical increases in education funding going forward 

for the life of No Child Left Behind both Federal, state and local. 

We found that for the specific requirements of No Child Left Behind the additional testing, the Ohio qualified teacher requirements, the initial data base tasks that need to be done, that the 

increases in Federal funding are sufficient to pay for those specific 

requirements. On the other hand, what some of the other studies 

have done, including the Ohio study, is say that now because the 

27

Federal Government has worked with states to set these goals for 

general achievement, educate all students to minimal levels in 

reading and math, that now the bulk of the responsibility for funding education, particularly any new funding, now falls to the Federal Government. One could question the legitimacy of changing 

that historical role of the Federal Government from a support to 

a main funding of education. But even putting that aside, when we 

look at the studies, we find very little in the way of actual evidence 

to suggest that more funding for general education is truly necessary beyond the regular increases that have occurred and will 

continue to occur beyond inflation. The evidence is just not provided. It’s usually assertions. For example, not to pick on the Ohio 

study, but I’m afraid that’s the example here that we’ve been talking about, but anyway, the Ohio study, for example, the references 

to research to the Hopkins Center, to the Federal Department of 

Education’s listing of programs, that wasn’t present in the actual 

study, but even if that had been, there was no analysis between 

different kinds of interventions to determine which ones are the 

most cost effective. If we’re going to be prudent with taxpayer’s dollars, we would expect that a rigorous and compelling case for new 

funding would do several things. First of all, it would look at how 

are we spending money today. Is there evidence that that money 

could be reallocated, reformed and we could get substantially better 

achievement. And then if it demonstrated that the evidence suggests that we cannot, then it would look at what are the different 

types of interventions that we could add, which ones are the most 

cost effective and get you the best results for the most kids, the 

most limited amount of dollars. That wasn’t done. And it hasn’t 

been done in any of these studies. So these are significant problems. 

Now, in our study, after we looked at the specific mandates, we 

looked at a general achievement group. And I just want to give you 

a limited number of examples of evidence we found that we could 

be improving academic achievement by reallocating our current 

dollars. There are many examples. First, our country is subsidizing 

preservice education for teachers through all grades. States are 

funding that. There’s grants to support the student portion of those 

fees, et cetera. There’s public dollars being spent. The research indicates, and I can give you a particular citation, find that the effectiveness of teachers with elementary certification, a critical foundation that all students need, their effectiveness is no greater in raising student achievement today than teachers, other teachers who 

are on emergency certification and who have not completed all the 

subsidized education courses and so forth. That is not to say we 

don’t have many very talented, dedicated hard working elementary 

teachers. But the certification and training they receive is of limited value. 

If you ask most teachers when they walk into the classroom after 

coming out of your average preservice elementary program, do you 

feel you’re well prepared for that first day in the classroom, for 

that first year, very few teachers support the idea that they were. 

In fact, there have been many studies to show that they think they 

have not. 

28

To give you a specific reason why, and I’ll be wrapping this up, 

the American Federation of Teachers has cited the difference between the reading research on what works on training, on materials, on all kinds of other things that we’re currently spending 

quite a bit of money on today and what actually will work. 

In closing, the challenge of our teachers, our principals, someone 

who’s worked at many levels in the system, that is a very substantial challenge, working very hard, the hardest thing I’ve had to do 

is actually step in and be a principal for a limited period of time 

in an inner-city functional school with difficult behavior, with low 

morale, it’s tough work. But also someone who attended an innercity school myself, who came into this country not speaking a word 

of English and with many classmates in that school who did not 

have the educational opportunities I was lucky enough to have, I 

think it’s just unacceptable that we not succeed. It’s unacceptable 

that we decide that huge amounts of funding are not necessary. 

And then when those funding, that unrealistic funding is not provided, that it’s defensible that we’ve not succeeded with all children. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rebarber follows:]

29

Statement of Ted Rebarber, President, Accountability Works, Washington, 

DC


92410.007
30


92410.008
31


92410.009
32

Chairman BOEHNER. We thank all the witnesses for your testimony today. And let me agree with part of Mr. Rebarber’s opening 

statement that none of us ever thought this was going to be easy. 

Nowhere in our 200-year history have we ever attempted to educate all of our children. We made a lot of nice, happy talk about 

it, but we’ve never attempted to do it. And we knew when we 

passed this act that we were challenging the status quo in a way 

in education that had never occurred before. And we know that our 

teachers, our schools, by and large, are doing a very good job. 

And I have to say it’s difficult from where I sit as a public policymaker to ask that more be done. But as I’m fond of saying, it’s not 

that poor minority child’s fault that they may have lost the lucky 

lottery in terms of who their parents were or what neighborhood 

they grew up in or what school they may have been assigned to. 

Every child in America deserves to have a chance at a good education. My colleagues have heard me talk about my eleven brothers 

and sisters, and the fact that if it weren’t for my parents, you 

know, all of us may not have gotten a decent education. But for 

those children who may not have parents around, may not have 

parents engaged—we know that if they are, there’s a pretty good 

chance that the kids will do well, but it’s not that child’s fault if 

their parents aren’t engaged. We, as a society, have to figure out 

how do we help that child get an education. 

Now, when I say this is hard, we know it’s hard because in 1994 

Congress passed most of what is being blamed on No Child Left 

Behind. We required all states to have standards in their subjects. 

We required all states to develop assessments. And we failed. We 


92410.010
33

failed miserably. Why? Because most states decided they just 

weren’t going to do it. And in January of 2001, when the Bush administration took office, exactly 11 states were in compliance with 

the 1994 act. Why? Because all of them got waivers. Because it was 

too hard. We don’t do it this way. And I bring this up—one, we 

know it’s hard. Two, you need to understand the ground we’ve been 

covering over the last decade that got us to where we got to. And 

today all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, are 

all in compliance with the law. 

And I guess I want to begin with Dr. Fleeter. I want to get to 

the essence of the issue. I can take issue—I have taken issue with 

some of the assumptions used in your report. But there’s one big 

issue here that we keep circling around and not really getting down 

to the basis of it. But Ohio, apparently by law, regulation, statute 

or something, decided that proficiency of 75 percent of Ohio’s 

school-age children was the goal. Is that by statute? Is that by regulation. 

Dr. FLEETER. I think it’s by both. It came from—there’s a series 

of recommendations by the state Board of Education in terms of 

implementing the accountability system, as far as once the assessments were in place, what are the correct standards. 

Chairman BOEHNER. So in your report, as I heard you say, 1.4 

billion of the $1.5 billion cost eventually would be attributed to 

moving the goal from 75 percent proficiency of Ohio’s school-age 

children to 100 percent. 

Dr. FLEETER. Yes, that’s correct. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Now, how many of us think that we ought 

to throw 25 percent of our kids overboard. 

Dr. FLEETER. I’m hoping none. 

Chairman BOEHNER. It won’t be my kids. It won’t be anybody’s 

kids in here. There will be some poor child somewhere in the state 

who is just never going to get an education. They’re going to move 

from one grade to the next whether they’ve learned anything or 

not. They’ll get a diploma from high school whether they learned 

anything or not. And we’re going to do what we’ve been doing for 

the last 30, 40 years. I guess if you want to call that a mandate, 

I’m for it. 

I have referred to my good friend Ms. McCollum in her opening 

statement. She sounded like me. She sounded like this rock conservative Republican giving the speech in the Education Committee 

about 10 years ago, about Federal control of education, mandates. 

Trust me. I’m dead serious. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. My mother is a Republican, so— 

Chairman BOEHNER. I have to tell you, I was one who voted to 

get rid of the Federal Department of Education, divide it to the 

states and get it out of the way. I have to tell you all, I’m a happy 

convert to where we are. Because without Federal intervention, 

Ohio may have stepped up to the plate because it had an accountability system, but there are a lot of other states that would never 

have stepped up to the—stepped up to help the kids in their state. 

And after spending $300 billion over 37 years, it’s time, I think, 

from the Federal Government, that we expect some results for the 

money that we continue to invest. 

34

Now, Mr. Ross—Dr. Ross, based on my conversations with educators from one end of the country to the other, I can imagine that 

you’re not the—you’re not the poster child for superintendents. You 

probably are. You might be the black sheep in the family. What do 

you hear from your fellow colleagues in the education business 

about No Child Left Behind? What do you think the real issue is, 

I guess is what I’m boiling this down to. 

Dr. ROSS. I hear a lot of things from my colleagues across the 

state. No, I don’t represent the superintendents of this state.I 

speak only for myself. I think I go back to my comments. I think 

that there’s a belief structure among our superintendents, teachers 

and principals that they really can’t get this done. There’s not 

enough belief in themselves that they have the skills and ability to 

do that. I think that’s why that’s so important, because I think, as 

we set these expectations and you talk about the cost differential 

and the 75 percent in Ohio, I happen to believe just by raising the 

expectation for kids with the new content standards in Ohio, that 

the performance is going to go up if we get the kids, teachers, principals, superintendents to believe that. It’s a believability issue 

that they do have the skills and ability to do that. I believe strongly in our teachers and principals being able to accomplish that with 

our parents and students. I’m amazed when teachers have low expectations for the children and maybe the children themselves. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Ms. McCollum. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you. 

Dr. Ross, I listened to the local news this morning. Did you have 

a shortage in your school district of aides available to help in administering—those who had second language, in administering the 

tests that started this week. 

Dr. ROSS. We have 57 different languages spoken in our school 

district. I do believe we have them covered to the extent that 

they’re IEPs. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. For the tests being taken today, you have 

enough interpreters. 

Dr. ROSS. That is correct. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Tomalis, you talk about the 4.6 billion that’s 

being spent in education. That’s for this year. 

Mr. TOMALIS. The increase. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Yeah. 

Mr. TOMALIS. Yeah. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. And we’re spending $4 billion a month in Iraq. 

You were making the comment we were spending as much on education as we are in defense. 

Mr. TOMALIS. No, I wasn’t. I was saying— 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I thought you might want to clear that up for 

the record. 

Mr. TOMALIS. What I said is that we spend in this nation in K12 education approximately $501 billion a year, which is 125 billion 

a year more than we spend on defense. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Well, you might want to check with Secretary 

Rumsfeld on that. 

When you talk about bringing all students up to grade level, we 

had a hearing last week in Washington in which I kept hearing 

how flexible this law was. It was so flexible. There weren’t going 

35

to be any problems with it. We didn’t need to waive anything. It’s 

my understanding from the discussion that took place that the department is now looking at how it assesses those individual students that have extreme special needs. 

Mr. TOMALIS. We promulgated new regulations back in December 

that addressed this issue. Those children I saw actually on the 

news this morning that there was a report that educators in Ohio 

are upset that children with the most severely cognitive disabilities 

are going to have to be tested at grade level. That’s not the fact. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. It’s not the fact now that it’s been changed by 

the rule. 

Mr. TOMALIS. It wasn’t the fact with the passage of the law as 

well. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. There were a lot of people who didn’t read it 

that way. English as a second language. I have the expectation 

that the child with English as a second language, 1 year there’s an 

intervention in the test and the next year we’re fine. 

Mr. TOMALIS. What the law allows, ma’am, is that the English 

as a second language child can be tested in their native tongue for 

up to 3 years on a group basis. For 3 years it can. On an individual 

basis for two additional years. So that’s 5 years that a child could 

be tested in its native tongue. 

What the department with the secretary announced within the 

past month is a way of treating these children when they first 

come in, those who are in the school district for less than a year. 

One of the safeguards about No Child Left Behind— 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. The reason why I’m asking you to bring this up 

is this is precisely what a lot of us were talking about when the 

law was implemented. I have my transcript from the amendment 

that I offered in which I was trying to eliminate for those states 

like Minnesota that had spent millions and millions of dollars just 

recently implementing tests, identifying the needs for the students 

and targeting those needs that we not have enough layer of tests 

which are unfunded. 

And I’ll go with my state auditor’s numbers, because as far as 

I know, the Federal Government has not released its report with 

the total cost of implementing the No Child Left Behind. We knew 

that there were going to be challenges as this law went forward. 

And there are challenges as the law is going forward. I don’t think 

the Department of Education, in my opinion, has been very supportive of those of us, whether we’re parents, teachers, administrators, elected officials at the state and local level, bringing those to 

your attention. Somehow or another we are being made to feel by 

comments directed toward teachers just recently that somehow we 

are against all children being educated. So I’m glad to hear your 

tone. I appreciate what you’re saying. But I do have some concerns. 

I’m just going to put this out and whoever wants to respond can. 

One of the most important issues as determining how successful a 

child’s going to be in education are their parents. The Chairman 

just mentioned that. Whether you’re poor, whether you’re rich, the 

way your parent is involved in your life makes a difference. So if 

we have a child that’s not succeeding, as the Chairman points out, 

it’s going to be up to the school somehow to all of a sudden develop 

all that nurturing for that child while they’re in the classroom. And 

36

do we honestly talk about the cost of providing summer school, 

after-school enrichment, one-on-one tutoring, and target the money 

toward the child and measure how the child’s performing, increasing their ability to learn and to meet grade standard. Or are we 

going to do what we’re doing right now, which the Chairman talks 

about doing, which is not talking and lumping everyone in a group. 

So how important is it for our country to really invest in the total 

education of that child’s social capital, education, parents having 

ability to raise their education level, health care, permanent housing? How important is that? And the superintendent’s smiling because you deal with these issues all the time. How important is 

that? And do we need to address that as well as the other issues 

we’re talking about in the President’s law No Child Left Behind, 

if we’re not really going to leave them behind at all. 

Dr. ROSS. Again, let me speak just for Reynoldsburg and Dick 

Ross. We’ve been focusing on student improvement in 

Reynoldsburg for quite a few years. It was four or 5 years ago 

when we were doing our staffing awards in our school district in 

allocating resources and where they would be most important to go, 

the building principal who advocated she wanted a social worker 

more than a classroom teacher because she wanted to deal with 

some of those issues you talked about. Subsequently to that we’ve 

had principals under the system that we do have social workers 

now in each of our buildings for that purpose. 

Part of it is an engagement process for parents also. So I think 

sometimes in the past, as educators, they’ll send them to us and 

we’ll take care of it. We have to engage parents. We have to set 

up expectations for our parents also about what we need to accomplish. That’s why the communication standards and economic indications for our children need to happen at an early age and communication has to occur with the parents. We feel that the movement with some of the help from the social workers identifying 

problem areas and trying to eliminate those have been beneficial 

for us as part of our individual unit. It’s one of the things we can 

do. 

Mr. TOMALIS. A couple months ago I had the very high honor and 

privilege of traveling to St. Louis to an elementary school. That 

school about four or 5 years ago wasn’t doing too good. It’s in a 

very poor neighborhood, overwhelming majority of children are African-American or Hispanic. Overwhelmingly they are poverty children, disadvantaged children on free and reduced lunches. They 

had a grade level in the elementary school with about 15 percent 

of their children were on grade level. 

Within 4 years, that school had 80 percent of its children at 

grade level. They didn’t build a new building. They didn’t get a new 

grant. They didn’t increase per pupil expenditures out the wazoo. 

They did one thing: They changed the principal. They changed the 

principal. They brought in a principal whose mantra, she told me—

very short, petite woman with a lot of energy—was that all children could learn, she believed. And that psyche, that mentality permeated down throughout her faculty. 

Now, the children were more difficult to teach. No doubt. Because of the circumstances and their environment that they came 

from. So they instituted certain things. They reached out to the 

37

community a little bit more. They got the parents more engaged. 

Which is what the Title I funds and other funding is there to help 

do as well. But it was the leadership that played the most important role. It wasn’t the amount of money they were spending. It 

was that woman who changed the lives of all the children in that 

school. 

Mr. REBARBER. I think the challenge that the congressman just 

pointed out is real, that there are special challenges with some students because of the background. And our educational system unfortunately has not on the whole been designed to succeed with 

those students that have those difficult background. But there are 

things the educational system can do to succeed with the great majority of those students despite those challenges. I’ll just give you 

a few examples. 

The point, the belief that all children can learn is important. 

Then we have to get to what are specific things we can do differently to improve these kids. I’ll give you a couple examples. 

One, the reading example I gave before. Using a wide range of 

reading methods, not just those that are consistently supported by 

research, means that you’re more dependent on parents sitting 

there with the children, helping them at home with reading, all of 

those kinds of things that parents can do and many do do, including many minority parents. Many parents don’t have the time, 

their life is less stable, add some of the challenges that you pointed 

out. So using effective methods that are designed to work without 

the support or with only a limited amount of support at home is 

only part of it. 

Just another example. Many of these kids require special instruction which doesn’t have to be done just for these kids. It can be 

done in the context of school. On how to behave in school, how to—

on all kinds of things. Their life at home is not often sufficiently 

stable, time for homework. The kind of homework that’s often designed in schools requires parents to spend hours helping their kids 

do their homework assignments. It’s not true in the best schools. 

It’s not true by the best teachers. There’s a whole range of practices in our school systems today that are designed to leave a very 

substantial responsibility for the parents. Unfortunately, the situation we have today in our society does not permit that anymore. 

So the schools have to change the practices to take responsibility 

for educating all kinds regardless of background. And based on my 

experience, what I’ve seen, I’m confident that there are ways it can 

be. It’s not easy. But there are changes that can be made. 

Dr. FLEETER. We all would like to respond to your question. It 

is a good question. It’s important. I would like to point out in our 

study that there’s a category under our intervention what we call 

academic coordination that I think would be most consistent with 

what you articulated in terms of working to make sure everybody 

is on the same page of the playbook and they understand that. I 

think there would be some tradeoffs. I think our costs for those 

services were $100 billion. 

There could be some tradeoffs there if you’re doing other things 

that are beyond that. If you’re doing something that’s changing the 

initial conditions that are truly when the kids are at school, then 

it’s going to—it’s an extension of that same argument. You can do 

38

more things earlier. You can do more things outside the classroom. 

It’s going to mean what you do inside the school building is going 

to be less. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I couldn’t do this. You were— 

Chairman BOEHNER. In the rest room. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Yeah. But I wanted to submit to the Committee 

a letter here from the Ohio Education Association. And a copy of 

the editorial from one of my local papers in Minnesota which reinforces that we want to amend it, not end it, the Leave No Child 

Behind. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Without objection, the documents will be 

made part of the record. 

The Chair recognizes Mr. Tiberi. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just to expand upon something you said earlier. One of the 

things that I think No Child Left Behind has done is raise the debate in education about what kids can and can’t do. And having 

said it earlier, I’ll say it again, living in a family where English 

wasn’t the first language growing up and going into an elementary 

school at grade 6 where my mom didn’t speak very good English 

because she had only been here for 7 years, and my dad immigrated as well, thank God for them that I’m here today because 

they pounded into me the importance of a quality education. I was 

lucky to not only have good parents; I had great teachers. 

As some of the audience knows, many teachers that I know were 

concerned about the proficiency tests. I ran against the father of a 

proficiency test when I came to Congress. But I understood a little 

bit about why that happened. I wasn’t in the legislature when the 

proficiency test was passed. 

What I did see when I was going to school in Columbus—and I 

graduated, Mr. Chairman, in a middle class to lower income school, 

about 40, 45 percent African-American, most remaining white—

were that there were kids, both black and white, that were socially 

promoted, that, quite honestly, couldn’t read and write. I was fortunate enough to have parents and some quality teachers who 

pounded into me the importance of getting ahead. And I sensed 

some of that in visiting Reynoldsburg. 

Dr. Ross, knowing teachers and knowing principals in your 

school and having been in your school—you touched on earlier the 

expectation that every child has the ability to learn. How, post No 

Child Left Behind—we’re 2 years into it. How is the debate—and 

I would argue the debate has actually made public schools better 

in Ohio, and my sense is that more children are learning. How do 

you see it affecting the attitude in the Reynoldsburg City Schools. 

Dr. ROSS. I think in Reynoldsburg and across the country, 

state—it’s raging there also. But I think one—if I had a suggestion 

for the Committee on an adjustment of No Child Left Behind, because I think it’s the most important component, and a lot of credit 

goes to the people sitting in the audience, and some of Bill Sanders 

work, I think that the issue should be instead of looking at comparisons at growth from year to year, grade level to grade level, 

maybe do that, but in addition target individual students. Seems 

to me to be what I’m talking about. I think what we have to have 

is a classroom teacher, a principal that knows Johnny is going to 

39

grow a year, and if they don’t grow a year they’re going to be intervening quickly. I think the debate’s going in Reynoldsburg, but I 

think the issue is that teachers want kids to succeed. You think 

that if we can give them the resources and the leadership at the 

building level to achieve that, once they experience success, it’s 

contagious. We can do this. I think some of that’s happened in our 

district. I think we have some history to show that. 

Chairman BOEHNER. If the gentleman would yield. 

Mr. TIBERI. I will yield to the Chairman. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Clearly allows that type of measurement for 

adequate yearly progress. It’s just that most assessment systems, 

as they’ve been set up, find it difficult to track those students to 

do that measurement. But I know that there’s discussion here in 

Ohio and in other states moving to an assessment system similar 

to that, which I do think would be a more accurate reflection of 

how well the school’s doing and how well the students are doing. 

Dr. ROSS. Mr. Chairman, if I could just comment on that. I think 

that it is—it needs to be personal between the teacher, the principal, and the child. This is my child in my classroom and I’m going 

to make sure that he or she learns this and gets back to grade 

level. When it’s made that personal—if it’s more nebulous, it’s hidden within grade level, I think it’s harder for them to do that. I 

think the teacher will respond. 

Mr. REBARBER. I want to enforce the idea that we should look at 

the gains for individual students and value that. At the same time, 

I think it’s important to note that, first, the No Child Left Behind 

law moves us in that direction in that many states do not have 

grade-by-grade testing which is necessary to do that. Many states 

know it’s not required in the law. The bill is subsequently beyond 

what’s in the law and planned to add that kind of value added or 

other kinds of assessment as their capacity is put in place. I think 

No Child is moving us forward in some ways on that. I think the 

only caution I would have on that kind of system is that under that 

system the common way to judge success is one child made 1 year’s 

worth of progress. And the reality is, for all too many children, 

they are far behind where they need to be. We cannot give up. We 

cannot say because you are 2 years behind, you will always stay 

2 years behind. There is plenty of evidence quite apart from oneon-one tutoring that there are cost-effective ways to accelerate 

those students to get them on grade level. If we do it in that direction, I think the targets have to be ambitious enough that we catch 

up most of these kids. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you. 

Dr. Fleeter, you mentioned pointing out costs on the Driscoll & 

Fleeter eleven report. Inside joke. Let me point a couple out and 

get your responses to them. 

Your model that you use is based on a study with respect to special education, the concept that it would cost more depending on 

the child’s need. Let me challenge that a little bit in terms of how 

you can determine what the cost is. On the surface it sounds completely right. I spent a day in one of my school systems talking to 

special education teachers and administrators and going into the 

classroom and hearing from them about the massive differences between different types of children. 

40

I’ll give you two examples. One child was on a ventilator, laying 

flat on his back, and will for the rest of his life. Another child was 

a special education child, and they had just found that one of the 

problems that she had was going to be corrected because it was a 

vision problem. And so the cost estimate for the one child wasn’t 

going to go on as long as at least they thought, while the other one 

will continue to go on. Obviously, you have everything in between. 

How does your cost model associate true cost. 

Dr. FLEETER. The only way that you can deal with issues like 

that—what you’re saying, every kid is different. And so the way we 

approached that in our report was we looked at the—we got all the 

data on individual performance in grade four and grade six on 

reading and math from the Ohio Department of Education, on a 

student-by-student basis, without any identifiers so that we’re not 

violating any privacy concerns, because we have all the data with 

the characteristics of these children and their performance. And we 

broke—the first thing you do is separate the kids who passed into 

a different pot and the kids who failed. We looked at the kids who 

did not pass the test and broke them into core tiles. You could 

break them into decimals or however finally you want to grade it. 

You could separate them into performance groups. We did it based 

on core tiles. The table that I referred to was the one that showed 

if you look at the characteristics of those students by their performance, you see the very clear pattern that—I think for the core tile 

one, that was the lowest. From the group of failing students, about 

90 percent of those kids had—they were either economically disadvantaged or special education or limited English proficient or 

combination of those. And if you look at the highest performing 

group of students, it was the students who passed at the advanced 

level, there were 20 percent of those kids who had any number fit 

into those categories. From that you learn a couple things. One, 

just because you’re in one of those categories doesn’t mean you 

can’t succeed and doesn’t mean you can’t succeed at a high level. 

The second thing you learn is that, again, it’s the marginal cost 

issue, that it’s going to cost. As you go further away from the passing score, you’re dealing with kids that have more and more issues. 

The only way we can do that is on some kind of average basis. We 

didn’t make any attempt to say here’s what you need for economic 

disadvantagement or what you need for special ed. But we put our 

cost model together in a way that the cost of the intervention programs would apply to all the kids in those core tiles. 

Mr. TIBERI. But why not consider every dollar was spent prior to 

No Child Left Behind, every Federal dollar. 

Dr. FLEETER. Because that would be intermingling the total cost 

issue with the marginal cost issue. I think the point there would 

be it’s—if you’re—you look at the dollars then being spent right 

now, and our view of this is that those dollars, Federal, state or 

local, that they’re contributing to the level of performance that we 

could look at in 2003. And so if you have that level of performance, 

then we need to go and raise that level of performance. 

Our presumption there, and I think Mr. Rebarber pointed out, 

that we clearly need additional work to say what is this money 

being spent on, are there ways that money right now could be 

spent more productively and you can do better. We made some asVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:09 Oct 14, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\92410.TXT EDUWK PsN: NNIXON
41

sumptions to assume that our core tiles students closest to passing, 

those kids ought to be able to get up to speed without additional 

resources. As you go further away, we made assumptions that 

you’re going to need to do more for the kids. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Mr. Rebarber, quickly. We’re going to go to 

Mr. Rebarber. 

Mr. REBARBER. I’ll try to be brief. On this issue of the last quarter, the quarter that’s not mentioned apparently in the current 

Ohio statute and regulations, the previous state law, one of the assumptions in the Ohio—initial Ohio study that we questioned is 

the notion that the great majority of these students need tutoring, 

tutoring including the reading recovery model, when you have oneon-one or very small one-, two-, three-person student groups, you’re 

going to get an improvement effectiveness almost regardless of 

whether it’s reading recovery, whatever it is, almost regardless of 

the dollars that are provided. 

One of the considerations that I hope this Committee and all 

educators consider, it’s not just what’s effective, what’s cost effective. There’s always a limited pool of dollars, whatever that amount 

is. 

The one-on-one tutoring is for the great majority of that 25 percent. The evidence is that it’s probably the least cost effective of a 

lot of other approaches. Instead of a quarter of our kids, the percent that probably need that, if we had effective practices, teachers 

knowledgeable about their content, et cetera, it’s probably closer to 

one or 2 percent of all students. There are many groups that have 

reviewed the evidence on what are effective remediation approaches. Ideally, we’d like to have one tutor or teacher for all children. But the reality is the money isn’t there. So even for that bottom quarter, there are highly effective approaches that are not that 

small and that expensive. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Mr. Ryan. 

Mr. RYAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have one comment 

quickly on what Mr. Tiberi said about the student with the vision 

problem. I think that is something that we’ve overlooked as well. 

I think it speaks to the fact that education is one component, but 

also making sure these young students have adequate health care 

coverage. And having millions of kids without health care is another issue that would help us achieve the standards that we have 

here. 

First, Mr. Rebarber, I know there’s a conflict here—I don’t know 

if anyone else noticed—between you and Dr. Fleeter. One of the 

questions—one of the issues that Dr. Fleeter brought up was the 

premise—the economic premise that trying to increase the number 

of outputs would cost money and therefore increasing the number 

of inputs. With that premise, do you start there as well. 

Mr. REBARBER. I think you cannot just make assumptions based 

on a broad premise of that kind. I think you have to actually look 

at the real evidence on what it costs to educate kids. I don’t think 

the—in theory, it sounds fine, but if it applies to one or 2 percent 

rather than 25 percent, you get different results. That principle 

sounds fine in principle, but the application is very questionable, 

in my judgment. 

42

Mr. RYAN. So you’re saying that we have a 75 percent level; we 

want to get to 100. You’re saying that it will not cost any more per 

student to educate that bottom 25 percent than it would cost to 

educate the other 75 percent. 

Mr. REBARBER. Actually, what we’re saying is that some of the 

additional expenditures that are funded through No Child Left Behind, the increases beyond previous expenditures, are going to get 

us improved student achievement if they’re spent well. We identified some fairly expensive uses of those funds. It’s well known that 

there is a shortage of math and science teachers at the high school 

level, special ed. in some areas. We identified the costs included in 

our assumptions, even though many states aren’t going down this 

path, of completely eliminating the differential compared to the private sector because we know that’s a particular challenge. There 

are some additional expenses, and they funded those specific expenses. 

As far as others beyond those new moneys, we just think the 

most prudent thing to do is to look at what is the most we can accomplish by restructuring and reallocating current expenditures 

and then see where that gets us. The life of this bill is not through 

2014. There’s going to be a normal period of review of this legislation like there has been of every other ESEA legislation. We think 

at this point in time there are many things that states have not 

yet put in place, not just the schools, but state policy as well to 

support the schools. And we should see where those get us and 

then if additional money is additional. 

Mr. RYAN. So your opinion in your analysis is that it does cost 

more money to educate those kids, but the increase in revenues 

from the Federal Government is enough at this point to satisfy that 

increase? I’m just trying to clarify. 

Mr. REBARBER. I’m trying to be very specific. Our position is that 

there is substantial improvements, major improvements, not incremental improvements, that can be accomplished with the new 

funding and with restructuring and reallocating current dollars. 

They might be spending more in some years and less in others. Our 

recommendation is that, with those projected increases, we should 

see how far we can get with the problem reforms and review 

whether we need more money on that. 

Mr. TOMALIS. May I address that for a second? My back-of-theenvelope estimate, which basically says I did it while I came on the 

plane, is that we spend on average, I believe, about 10 to 15 billion 

dollars a year on professional development. That’s probably very 

conservative numbers. It’s probably much more than that. The 

question is, will we do better by spending 15 to 20 rather than 10 

to 15, or do we look at what we’re getting for the 10 to 15 billion. 

I think that’s one of the issues that I have with the Ohio study, 

is when you talk about marginal cost, you’re under the assumption 

that that 10 to 15 billion expenditure is perfect. And I take issue 

with that, that we aren’t looking back at what we’re doing to make 

sure that we’re doing it right. 

The other thing that I think that’s often lost in those analyses 

is that you see around the country is nonfinancial decisions that 

are made and the impact that they have on the education of a 

child. I agree that the teacher is the most important actor—outside 

43

the parent, the teacher is the most important actor in this endeavor of education. The farther away you get from that blackboard, the 

less of an impact that you have. Those of us at the Federal level, 

I take—I smile a little bit when I hear about this is a one size fits 

all and how this is not a one size fits all. It could not be a one size 

fits all piece of legislation when you have 15,000 different school 

districts in this nation and how that impacts at the local level. 

I’ll give you one example. Prior to my job in the Federal Government, I was in the superintendent of Philadelphia’s office one time. 

Philadelphia is not known to be a star as far as academic achievement was concerned. We had a conversation about staffing and getting quality teachers in the classroom. A decision that was made 

in Philadelphia between the school board of Philadelphia and the 

Philadelphia teachers union, and it’s very common in many urban 

districts, says, in essence, that as teachers become more and more 

senior, they get to choose the schools at which they teach in. That 

in and of itself is a decision collectively made at the local level between those two entities. 

What does that do? Human nature is such that as I become more 

of a senior teacher, I tend to go to areas that are less difficult for 

me, my environment is much less difficult for me, except the 

blessed soles that stick it out in those tough schools. But what happens is that those children who are the most in need of the most 

experienced teachers in those circumstances get the green teachers 

and the rookie teachers. Now, that wasn’t figured into the Ohio 

study about some of these decisions that are made at the local level 

that do not impact a dollar at all. But what would happen if you 

had an agreement in place that said the need that is the greatest, 

our most experienced teachers will go. What would that do about 

changing the educational foundation? These are some of the conversations as we continue. I talked before, 10 years from now we’ll 

probably be spending a trillion dollars a year on K-12 education. 

As we go forward, we have to look at more than financial issues. 

Mr. RYAN. I understand your point, but at the same time, you 

can take a situation like that and say you’re going to have to pay 

that senior teacher more to go back into a more difficult— 

Mr. TOMALIS. The teacher would have earned the same under the 

contract whether they’re at the more difficult school or easier 

school. 

Mr. RYAN. I don’t think you can say that, though. I don’t think, 

sitting here, we can say that if we change that particular aspect 

of the system that you’re talking about—and yes, it may save us 

more, but it may cost us more money to do that. 

Mr. TOMALIS. I agree. I think No Child Left Behind represents 

certain circumstances where you do give more pay to teachers in 

higher demand areas. You give merit pay or differential pay. Unfortunately—and this is another problem I have, is that they don’t 

look at that solution as a viable solution. 

Dr. FLEETER. I just want to say I agree with the point that Mr. 

Tomalis made about distribution of the teachers. I want to point 

out that we’ve done—for the last 2 years, we’ve done a study for 

the Ohio Department of Education and the State Board of Education that looked at the teacher conditions of teacher supply and 

demand. One of the things that we found is that the turnover and 

44

attrition rate in teachers is different across different types of districts. It’s most pronounced in the urban and rural poor districts. 

There’s—part of the aspect of what Mr. Tomalis said is that you 

have fewer experienced teachers in the places where you need them 

most. So I think that—I agree completely that there are ways to 

realign that, but I don’t think it would be costly to do that because 

we need to come up with a way to get the teachers staying in 

places that we need them. So within the district there is an allocation issue that occurs, but there’s another allocation issue that’s occurring across different districts. 

Mr. RYAN. If we can get to 100 percent without spending a dime 

more, we’re all for it. I think we’re all realistic in the fact that we 

say we have to make these investments. 

Dr. Fleeter, one of the criticisms for your report, which I thank 

you for doing, just because being the first guy to stick your head 

out of the fox hole is a dangerous proposition to begin with. 

Dr. FLEETER. More dangerous than I thought. 

Mr. RYAN. I appreciate your courage. One of the criticisms was 

the fact that in your analysis you did not—I guess cheap is not a 

good word, but find the most efficient way to intervene, the most 

cost-effective intervention. And your critics say that you didn’t look 

at all the different options. Can you explain to us, one, is why you 

didn’t do that, and two, is do you feel that the techniques like the 

one-on-one tutoring are in a normal range that other means of 

intervention would cost about the same. 

Dr. FLEETER. Two different questions there. I think the first one, 

in terms of the cost effectiveness, that’s partly related to the issue 

of can we do more with the dollars that we have right now. I agree 

that one of the things we need to do is get a much better understanding of what’s going on currently and are there things that can 

be changed and we don’t know that at this point. From what we 

did in terms of putting together our cost model—we say this a 

number of times in our paper, that our model with the interventions is a model to determine the cost and determine at the statewide level and we based it on consultation with the Ohio Department of Education and practitioners. Just to give an example in 

Columbus that they do—we come in and ask a district like Columbus which is a larger district, which has lots of issues in terms of 

student achievement, what is it that you’re doing, what is it that 

you’re doing that’s working. They’re doing a variety of these programs. They’ve got after-school tutoring. They’ve got the one-on-one 

intervention. They’ve got the summer school option. They do evaluations of every one of these studies so they can document and understand what’s working. I was impressed to see the knowledge 

and understanding of the practices that it has. The problem is that 

they don’t have the funding in order to do this for all the kids that 

need it. 

Just to give you an example. We live in Columbus. My two kids 

go to a Columbus public school. In their reading recovery one-onone intervention, they can do four kids in each grade. It works. But 

their need would be to do much more than that as well. I think, 

again, if someone can document to me that what we have here is 

that we’ve put more cost into something that’s less cost effective in 

something else, I would welcome to see that documentation. I’m not 

45

convinced to the extent that Mr. Rebarber is that we have that yet. 

If we’ve done something to overestimate it, then we’re in better 

shape than I think. The main idea—we came up with a reasonable 

cost model that has those range of options. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Rarely will you ever see a congressional 

hearing where the Chairman’s being as lenient as I have been 

today with all of my colleagues and our witnesses. Are there any 

follow-up questions. 

Mr. TIBERI. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence. Just to 

continue along the line of what Representative Ryan talked about. 

I appreciate the Chairman’s willingness to give me a little leeway 

here. On this cost issue on the analysis, let me just pull one thing 

out of the report, following up on his questioning. You make the 

assumption under professional development that every instance of 

professional development a teacher’s going to have to improve him 

or herself is going to cause the cost to the local school district of 

a qualified substitute. Why make that assumption? Why can’t a 

teacher if it’s permitted under the bargaining agreement or negotiate with the school allow the teacher to do professional development on an in-service day or weekend or after school? Why make 

the assumption it’s going to be during school hours. 

Dr. FLEETER. That’s a good question. I think part of that—when 

I focus grouped with the treasurers, that one was one of the issues 

that they articulated. One of the—obvious to me to say why can’t 

you do some stuff over the summer when you have teachers who 

have time on their hands to do that, and they pointed out an 

issue—there’s a timing issue of when the funds need to be allocated 

and when they can be spent. As far as when you can do this, there 

are in-service days that are in the system right now, and I think 

what you’re talking about is sort of we look at that as an opportunity cost issue. If you’re going to add in-service days, it’s going 

to be at the expense of saying, OK, there’s going to be less classroom time than there is right now. We look at that and I say that’s 

a wash to do it that way. You’re going to have five in-service days. 

The kids aren’t there. That’s five less days they’re in the classroom 

getting education. We can do this on the weekend. That would be 

the one area we can do that. 

Mr. TIBERI. You would agree that there’s a cost associated with 

your assumption that may not be there. 

Dr. FLEETER. It would be to the extent that there could be some 

ways you could add some of that. I will note one criticism on the 

professional development that we underestimated the amount that 

you needed by half. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Mr. Ryan. Anything. 

Mr. RYAN. One or two quick ones. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Oh, I heard that quick ones. All right. 

Mr. RYAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do appreciate it, but I 

think this is a great discussion that we’re having here. 

One comment that I’d like to make, Mr. Tomalis talked about the 

principal in St. Louis got her students to 80 percent. I would argue 

that and be in full support. And we all know the value of great 

teachers and great principals to get a school to a certain level. 

46

What I think we can’t forget is she got them to 80 percent. We 

need to get them to 100 percent. 

Mr. TOMALIS. She’s not quitting. 

Mr. RYAN. I’m sure she’s not quitting. I think she would probably 

say as well at some point, to get from 80 to 100, she’s going to need 

more resources to do that. 

One question that I heard a lot about this $6 billion and unspent 

education funds. And for those of us who are new to this Committee, can you explain to us—because I know states have 27 

months in which to spend the money, and I’m hearing a lot of different angles to this. Is that money—is that $6 billion already committed to programs we have in place now? Because the spin that—

I’m understanding that that’s new money, but my understanding is 

it’s already committed money. 

Mr. TOMALIS. Annually the Congress appropriates dollars in its 

various programs to the states, not just education but across the 

board, and saying to those states here’s your pot of money this year 

to spend. When states have an obligation—I mean states in the generic sense, not the department or any one entity. When they have 

an obligation against that, they draw the money down against that 

obligation. They take the money. Usually it comes in the form of 

salaries. Most Title I moneys are in the form of salaries or expenses. They don’t draw it down until they have that obligation. 

What the $6 billion says is that there are no obligations against 

that dollar at that time. So Congress appropriated the money in 

years past and they haven’t had an obligation up against that 

money at that time. That’s what it simply means. This year we appropriated—or you appropriated an additional 12, 13 billion dollars, and so then they’re going to draw down that money. Once 

they’re done drawing down that money—that money goes back to 

the year 2000 that’s been sitting in the Federal treasury waiting 

to be drawn down. 

Mr. RYAN. Can that money be drawn down for the new mandates 

that have been imposed. 

Mr. TOMALIS. It’s part of Title I. It goes to pay for the implementation of ESEA and other programs. There’s also IDEA money that 

is sitting there waiting to be drawn down as well. 

Chairman BOEHNER. And Title I funds and funds for—the fund 

that was created to help schools in need of improvement, that 

money has been sitting there as well. 

Mr. TOMALIS. And it’s not to say that the money isn’t necessary. 

The money is necessary. The question is, how quickly do they need 

to get the money. You’re now going to go back and you’re debating 

another 12, 13 billion dollars. What we’ve seen, interestingly, when 

we raised this issue as the amount of money that’s in the Federal 

treasury, the acceleration of the draw-down has been tremendous. 

That you’ve seen when it wasn’t part of the public discussion this 

money was sitting there. When it became part of the public discussion, draw-down has accelerated quite a bit. 

Mr. RYAN. Help me out here. So that money in—did you say 

2000, 2002. 

Mr. TOMALIS. Between 2000—I believe it’s 2000, 2001. I’ll verify 

that. Through last year. It’s not current year money. We have the 

additional 12 or so this year to spend as well. 

47

Mr. RYAN. One final question to Dr. Ross. I feel like I left you 

out. You didn’t seem too disappointed. Some of the findings that 

were talked about today, especially by Mr. Rebarber, that additional Federal funding is not needed to improve student achievement. I know you talked a lot about attitude and focus within the 

school district. In your own experience with your own school district, do you have enough money. 

Dr. ROSS. One of the things I spoke about in my comments was 

I think superintendents, boards of education need to look at the resources they have available to them and we need to be measuring 

the activities that we’re using and spending those funds on. I think 

that would be the first thing we do before we should be asking for 

more additional money. I think we can effectively use our resources 

more effectively than we have in the past if we base it on analysis. 

But that all happening, I think you make the decision, if we’re effectively using our resources, yes. But I don’t think we’ve done the 

first yet. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Let me thank my colleagues for coming 

today and thank our witnesses for their excellent testimony. I 

think we shed quite a bit of light on No Child Left Behind. 

I think there’s one point that I’d like to make. And that is that 

I don’t know if we know how to educate all of our children. We 

don’t know how we’re going to accomplish this goal. I think it’s 

rather difficult to describe or try to ascribe a number to how much 

it’s going to cost. But I’ve often said the most important thing 

about No Child Left Behind is that it’s going to cause a debate in 

every community in America. That debate has been underway. It 

is underway. And it’s a debate that our citizens need to have about 

whether we’re going to educate all of our kids, how are we going 

to do it, and how much is it going to cost. This is an important conversation as we get a foothold into the 21st century that will have 

a tremendous impact on the society of tomorrow. So thank you all 

for coming. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

[Additional material submitted for the record follows:]

48

OEA, NEA, Leave Facts Behind in Attacks on Bipartisan Education Reform, 

Fact Sheet Submitted for the Record


92410.011
49

Letter from Gary L. Allen, President, Ohio Education Association, 

Submitted for the Record


92410.012
50

K-12 Rules/Leave Parts of NCLB Behind, Editorial Submitted for the 

Record by Rep. Betty McCollum

Æ


92410.013