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) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

34–604 PDF 2008

IMPROVING THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT’S

ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM

FIELD HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, 

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION 

COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND LABOR

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD IN SAN RAFAEL, CA, APRIL 27, 2007

Serial No. 110–27

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor

(

Available on the Internet: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/education/index.html 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR 

GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice Chairman 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Virginia 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Carolyn McCarthy, New York 

John F. Tierney, Massachusetts 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

David Wu, Oregon 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York 

Linda T. Sa ́nchez, California 

John P. Sarbanes, Maryland 

Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania 

David Loebsack, Iowa 

Mazie Hirono, Hawaii 

Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania 

John A. Yarmuth, Kentucky 

Phil Hare, Illinois 

Yvette D. Clarke, New York 

Joe Courtney, Connecticut 

Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire 

Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California, 

Ranking Minority Member 

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin 

Peter Hoekstra, Michigan 

Michael N. Castle, Delaware 

Mark E. Souder, Indiana 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

John Kline, Minnesota 

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington 

Kenny Marchant, Texas 

Tom Price, Georgia 

Luis G. Fortun ̃ o, Puerto Rico 

Charles W. Boustany, Jr., Louisiana 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

John R. ‘‘Randy’’ Kuhl, Jr., New York 

Rob Bishop, Utah 

David Davis, Tennessee 

Timothy Walberg, Michigan 

Dean Heller, Nevada

Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director 

Vic Klatt, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD,

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION 

DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan, Chairman

Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Virginia 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Linda T. Sa ́nchez, California 

John P. Sarbanes, Maryland 

Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania 

David Loebsack, Iowa 

Mazie Hirono, Hawaii 

Phil Hare, Illinois 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Michael N. Castle, Delaware, 

Ranking Minority Member 

Peter Hoekstra, Michigan 

Mark E. Souder, Indiana 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Luis G. Fortun ̃ o, Puerto Rico 

Rob Bishop, Utah 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Charles W. Boustany, Jr., Louisiana 

John R. ‘‘Randy’’ Kuhl, Jr., New York 

Dean Heller, Nevada 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

Hearing held on April 27, 2007 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of Members: 

Kildee, Hon. Dale E., Chairman, Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education .............................................................. 1

Woolsey, Hon. Lynn C., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California ................................................................................................... 3

Additional submissions for the record: 

Chappell, Torri, mother and teacher ................................................ 42

Greenwood, Lenard C., teacher, Montgomery High School, Santa 

Rosa, CA .......................................................................................... 43

Phillips, Diane, parent of public school children ............................. 44

Valens, Amy, retired teacher, Lagunitas School District, San Geronimo School .................................................................................. 45

Statement of Witnesses: 

Blake, Melanie, teacher, Sonoma Valley High School ................................... 23

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 25

Gonzalez, Pepe, vice principal, Venetia Valley K–8 School .......................... 20

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 22

Liddell, Sharon E., Ed.D., superintendent, Santa Rosa City Schools .......... 11

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 13

Schott, Elizabeth W., principal, McDowell Elementary School .................... 15

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 17

Tempes, Fred, senior program director, WestEd ........................................... 6

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

(1)

IMPROVING THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND 

ACT’S ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM 

Friday, April 27, 2007

U.S. House of Representatives 

Subcommittee on Early Childhood, 

Elementary and Secondary Education 

Committee on Education and Labor 

Washington, DC

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., in Room 

330, Marin County Board of Supervisors Chambers, 3501 Civic 

Center Drive, San Raphael, California, Hon. Dale E. Kildee [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Kildee, Woolsey. 

Staff Present: Julius Lloyd Horwich, Policy Advisor for the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education. 

Chairman KILDEE. A quorum being present, the hearing of this 

Subcommittee will come to order. 

Pursuant to Committee Rule 12[a] any member may submit an 

opening statement in writing, which will be made part of the permanent record, and I recognize myself for an opening statement. 

First of all, I want to thank the Supervisors of Marin County for 

the use of this beautiful facility. I said to your Congresswoman, 

why do you come to Washington with all this beauty here? But, she 

does it out of duty and responsibility. 

I’m very pleased to welcome the public and our witnesses to this 

hearing of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and 

Secondary Education, Improving the No Child Left Behind Act’s 

Accountability System. 

I’m Congressman Dale Kildee from Flint, Michigan, and I’m the 

Chairman of this Subcommittee. I am especially pleased to be 

joined by my friend and colleague, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey. 

I have enjoyed working with Congresswoman Woolsey for more 

than 14 years. She’s a leading voice in the House on so many 

issues that touch every-day Americans, including education and, of 

course, the war in Iraq. 

I particularly value her input as a member of this Subcommittee 

on the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. 

As Chairman, one of my priorities is to work with my colleagues, 

Democrats and Republicans, and educators in Washington and 

around the country, to improve and reauthorize No Child Left Behind this year. 

2

Our country’s success in the 21st Century economy will be directly tied to our ability to continue to produce a high-quality labor 

force, and that ability is, of course, directly tied to our ability to 

provide every child with a world-class education. 

Since 2002, Congress and the President, however, have under funded No Child Left Behind by $56 billion, and the President’s 

proposed budget for this year, 2008, would under fund the law by 

another $15 billion, for a total of $71 billion. 

California is larger than Michigan, but just in 2006, because of this short-changing, Michigan lost $331 million in Title I funding, 

and you can multiply that many times out here in California, 

which certainly would have helped a great deal here. 

However, I’m hopeful that with the new Congress in Washington 

this year we’ll start to do better. Our budget resolution does increase two areas of funding, education and health. 

But, funding is only part of improving No Child Left Behind. I 

expect the law’s basic structure, standards, testing, disaggregation 

of the various groups, adequate yearly progress, and the effects or 

consequences, some might say penalties, for schools that do not 

make AYP, to remain in place. 

But, I believe that we should have a critical discussion within 

that basic structure to give more flexibility to those people who are 

there on the front line, whether they be School Board members, superintendents, teachers, or parents, to see how we can give some 

flexibility, and that is why we came here. We had a hearing in 

Flint. We are going up to Philadelphia. I’m going tomorrow to Arizona, because I’ve been in Washington for 30 years now as a member of Congress, and the longer I’m there the more I realize that 

that’s not where all the wisdom lies, the wisdom is around the 

country. 

And, we recognize, too, that this law. like every law, was written 

on Capitol Hill and not Mount Sinai, and even Moses went up the 

second time. So, we want to really get your input, and your input 

will make a difference, particularly, on the flexibility on the local 

level, and you can challenge it in any way you want. 

So, these field hearings are very, very important. In my home 

town of Flint, we heard from superintendents, teachers and parents, and today’s panel includes an expert in school reform, a superintendent, two principals, and a teacher, and I look forward now 

to hearing their perspectives on how No Child Left Behind has 

worked, and what we can to make it work better. 

I’m confident that their testimony will play an important role in 

the Committee’s understanding of how the law has impacted not 

only Marin and Sonoma Counties and other parts of California, but 

also places like them all around the country. 

I look forward to working together with Congresswoman Woolsey, with my Ranking Member, Mr. Castle, Chairman Miller, and 

Ranking Member McKeon, both of whom are also from California, 

and all the Members of the Committee on a bipartisan reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. 

In addition to our witnesses, those who would like to submit 

written testimony for the official printed record, and this record 

will be printed, and bound, and kept in the Archives of the United 

States, and used by us before they go into the Archives, may e-mail 

3

it to the Subcommittee Counsel to my left here. And, do that, 

please, by the close of business next week, Friday, May 4th. 

I yield now to Representative Woolsey for her opening remarks. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. And, I, too, want to thank the Board of Supervisors and President of the Board, Steve Kinsey, but, particularly, 

his right arm, Liza Crosse, who made all this possible for us to be 

here today, and look out there, and thank all of you for being here 

on such a beautiful day, being interested in our children and their 

education. 

But, most of all, I want to thank you, Mr. Kildee, for choosing 

the 6th Congressional District to hold the only No Child Left Behind hearing in California. Believe me, I am honored, and I thank 

you so very much, and I thank George Miller, Representative Miller, who is the Chair of the Education and Labor Committee, for 

agreeing with Congressman Kildee that, yes, indeed, this is the 

perfect place to be hearing about what we need to do and consider 

before we fix No Child Left Behind, because today our witnesses 

represent a cross section of the experts in our district. It was very 

hard to come down to five individuals on a hearing about growth 

models. 

We could go on all day talking about what we need to do to fix 

No Child Left Behind, and we all know that. So, that’s why I’m 

going to encourage everybody that’s here that wants to submit 

written testimony into the record, and if you didn’t get that e-mail, 

my office can provide that to you, or you can send your testimony 

through my office, and we will get it to the Committee. 

And, what you are going to do today is help us reshape the No 

Child Left Behind Act, and that’s why I have been looking forward 

to this hearing. It’s your experience, it’s your thoughts on the law, 

it’s your reaction to what’s gone on for the last six years, that will 

make the difference in whether or not we reauthorize No Child Left 

Behind so that we improve upon it, and learn from all of your experience. 

And, I say fix it, I don’t say reauthorize it, or rewrite it, I say 

fix it, take what’s good about it and keep it, and change what isn’t 

working. And we are lucky, now we have experience on No Child 

Left Behind, we can take a second bite of the apple. It’s before us. 

Now, it’s important that we take advantage of this time to make 

the changes. 

We will be working within the framework of the law. We need 

to make adjustments based upon the experience of school districts, 

of students, of teachers, parents, all around the country, and I, for 

one, look forward to working with my colleagues in coming up with 

the best possible fix. 

My fix will be fair, it will be flexible, and fully funded, and that’s 

what I’m going to be measuring all of the changes against. And, as 

we move forward, it’s very important to me that no child is left behind, and one of the best ways is the principle of fundamental fairness. 

The standards movement has challenged everyone to do a better 

job, and to strive, and certainly to understand what kids aren’t getting the best of the best, and which ones are actually able to survive in this structure we have. And, standards send a very important message to students and their families, and that message is 

4

it doesn’t matter what a student’s background is, where a student 

lives, if a student is rich or poor, that student has every right to 

expect an education that will take he or she as far as that student 

can possibly go. 

But, every school isn’t starting from and in the same place. 

Every school district doesn’t have the same challenges. Low-income 

schools, for one, a school with a great number of English learners, 

have very different challenges from a school where a majority of 

the students come from the wealthier families, wealthier educated 

families also. 

Having the same standard for every school, I don’t believe is the 

best option for our students. That’s why I’m looking forward to 

working with the Chairman to develop more flexible criteria, such 

as growth models, that would clearly reward movement in the direction of AYP, even if the bar isn’t cleared in the first year. 

We also need to give schools additional flexibility, and under No 

Child Left Behind we can branch out from the exclusive focus on 

standardized tests, and we know testing is useful, I mean, education and testing go hand in hand, but it can’t be the only evaluation tool. So, by relying too heavily on the single criterion I believe 

we leave the whole child often behind, and we may fail to capture 

the uniqueness of any one school or one school district and, certainly, the individual challenges those schools, and students, and 

districts face. 

I think we need to be fair. We also need to be flexible, and to 

be open to additional measurements on whether a student is progressing, such as the student’s work portfolio, or decreases in 

grade-to-grade retention rates. So, I’m looking forward to working 

with the Committee to develop a law that is more flexible, and a 

law that educates the whole child. 

Finally, we need to review and revive, that’s for sure, funding for 

No Child Left Behind. As the Chairman said, if one includes the 

most recent budget request for Fiscal Year 2008 this President has 

short changed No Child Left Behind to the tune of more than $70 

billion, in fact, California lost $1.3 billion for Title I in 2006 by not 

fully funding No Child Left Behind. 

And, as an aside, when we fully fund No Child Left Behind we 

also have to on the Federal side, we have to fully fund our commitment to IDEA. 

So, when the President puts in place what he considers his number one program, when he first introduced No Child Left Behind, 

and then he doesn’t fund it, I believe he’s slamming the door in the 

face of the very schools, the very districts, and the children who 

need the help the most. 

So, in the upcoming authorization I look forward to working with 

Chairman Kildee and the Committee to ensure that we uphold the 

principles of fairness, flexibility and full funding. 

So, let’s hear from you, and you don’t have to agree with me, you 

don’t have to agree with the Chairman, but know that what you 

have to say is very, very important to us, and I thank you for coming. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much, Congresswoman Woolsey. 

5

One privilege I have is, when I’m in a district I can tell one story 

about the Congressperson from that district. I’d been a Senior 

Member on the Budget Committee, and Representative Woolsey 

came into Congress, and a member of the Budget Committee was 

appointed to the Cabinet, so there was a vacancy, and she was put 

on about halfway through the budget mark-up, and we were working about 3:00 in the morning, and just crunching numbers, 

crunching numbers, and she was assigned then to serve on the 

Budget Committee to take the place of the person that had moved 

over to the Cabinet. 

And, she had come in, probably about 1:00 in the morning, we 

were just crunching numbers and saying, well, we can probably cut 

$100 million here from this program, she listened, finally she said, 

‘‘Well, but how will that affect the people served by this program?’’

She brought us back to reality, that budgeting is, essentially, priorities and values, not just number crunching, and she really actually changed the tone of the rest of the budget mark-up, and I’ll 

always remember that. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman KILDEE. Great moment. 

Without objection, this is part of our housekeeping, all Members 

of this Subcommittee that are not here will have seven calendar 

days to submit additional materials or questions for the hearing 

record. 

I’d like now to introduce the very distinguished panel of witnesses here with us this morning. Dr. Fred Tempes is the Director 

of the WestEd Comprehensive School Assistance Program, where 

he oversees that agency’s school and district reform work, and also 

directs the California Comprehensive Assistance Center. 

WestEd is a non-profit research, development and service agency 

that works with school districts and schools to improve student 

achievement. 

Prior to coming to WestEd Dr. Tempes directed the California 

Department of Education’s School and District Accountability Division, and the Department’s Curriculum Instruction and Assessment Division. 

I will now yield to Congresswoman Woolsey to introduce our 

other witnesses. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Sharon Liddell has been the Superintendent of Santa Rosa 

City Elementary and Secondary Schools since 2003. She has spent 

26 years in education as a teacher and an administrator, as well 

as providing professional development opportunities to teachers 

and administrators. 

Elizabeth Schott has been the principal at McDowell Elementary 

School in Petaluma, California, since 2004. She has served as a 

Principal and teacher in various elementary and middle schools 

around California. Ms. Schott is a doctoral candidate in educational 

leadership at the University of Nevada, Reno. 

Pepe Gonzalez has served as the Vice Principal of Venetia Valley 

Elementary School, formerly called Gallinas Elementary School in 

Marin County since 2005. Before becoming Vice Principal, he 

taught for three years in a bilingual 5th grade classroom. Mr. GonVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:09 Sep 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-27\34604.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
6

zalez is a first generation American who was born and raised in 

Point Reyes Station, California. 

Melanie Blake, Melanie is currently a teacher at Sonoma Valley 

High School. She has been an educator for over 20 years, working 

with diverse student populations from early childhood through college. She holds a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership with 

an emphasis in Assessment. 

Welcome, all of you. 

Chairman KILDEE. Welcome to all our witnesses, and for those 

of you who have not testified before this Subcommittee before, I 

will explain our lighting system and the five-minute rule. 

Everyone, including Members, and we do this in Washington, 

too, is limited to five minutes of presentation or questioning. Your 

green light will be illuminated when you begin to speak. When you 

see the yellow light, it means that you have one minute remaining, 

and when you see the red light it means your time has expired and 

you need to conclude your testimony. Now, we won’t interrupt you 

in the middle of a paragraph or a thought, and there’s no ejection 

seat, but when you see the red light try to wind it down. 

And, please be certain as you testify to turn on and speak into 

the microphone in front of you, and turn it off when you are finished. 

We will now hear from our first witness, Dr. Tempes. 

STATEMENT OF DR. FRED TEMPES, DIRECTOR,

WESTED COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM 

Mr. TEMPES. Thank you, Chairman Kildee, Representative Woolsey, thank you for inviting me to testify today. 

As Mr. Kildee said, I am Fred Tempes, I direct the Comprehensive School Assistance Program at WestEd. Over the past several 

years we’ve worked with over 100 schools and several dozen districts in various program improvements, either under NCLB or 

state-designed sanctions, and we’ve learned some things over the 

years working with these schools, which I can very briefly summarize for you. 

How do schools and districts improve? No surprises here. Schools 

need to guarantee all students access to a rich, rigorous, and coherent curriculum. They need to provide those students with skilled 

teachers. They need to put in place principals who are leaders and 

district administrators who are leaders, and then they need to hold 

themselves accountable for making sure plans actually get implemented and students actually learn and progress. 

I think NCLB has done a great service in moving this agenda 

forward. They provide a framework, NCLB provides a framework, 

and much of the work that needs to be done now really falls to 

states, districts and schools to do. 

But, we are here today to talk about the accountability system, 

and, Ms. Woolsey, I like your word fix NCLB, I think there’s some 

fixes that we can look at in the accountability system. 

First of all, let me say the accountability system in general has 

been a good thing. It’s caused schools and districts, and parents 

and community members, to focus on student achievement, 

disaggregating student achievement by the various significant subVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:09 Sep 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-27\34604.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
7

populations has caused the achievement of the few to no longer 

mask the achievement of the many, so it’s caused the right focus. 

But, and we get to some of the fixes, to be effective an accountability system must be judged as reasonable by those being held accountable, and, unfortunately, under the NCLB accountability 

plans established by most states we are fast approaching the point 

at which the majority of participants in the system no longer view 

the system as reasonable. Here’s why. 

To be reasonable, a system must set realistic targets that motivate all to strive to achieve them. When participants in the system 

no longer view the system’s goals as attainable, they cease to work 

to attain those goals. 

California provides an excellent example of what the problem is. 

If you look in my testimony, there’s one chart in page four, and it’s 

the stair-step chart that all of my colleagues here are familiar with. 

Many states have taken advantage of the stair-step approach to accountability, giving you three years at one plateau, stepping up to 

the next plateau. We are at the end of the last permitted plateau. 

In California, and the chart I’ve given you is for high school 

English language proficiency, we have set a target of 22.3 percent 

English language proficient for our students in California. This is 

not an unreasonable target. I challenge any superintendent to 

stand up in front of his or her board and say we are not going to 

be able to educate 22 percent of our kids. But, now we are at the 

point where the steps start ratcheting up rapidly, 11 percent next 

year, 11 percent the following year, 11 percent the year after that. 

Over the past three years, the State of California has averaged 

just under three percentage point gains a year. We can do better 

in California. We can do better than three percentage points, but 

we are not going to make 11 percentage points a year over the next 

decade. It’s just not going to happen, the system is no longer reasonable to the majority of the participants. 

Second, a reasonable accountability system must have realistic 

consequences, particularly, at the district level where states are required to apply sanctions on districts, most of the consequences of 

those districts falling into corrective action are just not realistic. 

One is hard pressed to imagine the California State Board of 

Education taking any of the following actions in any but the most 

extreme circumstances. 

One, replace the district staff. Remove individual schools from 

the jurisdiction of the district and arrange for alternative governance. Appoint a trustee in place of the superintendent and school 

board, or abolish the district. As Mr. Kildee pointed out, I worked 

for 20 years in the California Department of Education, that’s not 

going to happen, and even if it did there is no evidence that that 

would make things better. Not realistic consequences. 

So, how can we approve or fix the accountability system? Many, 

especially in California, have argued, and probably will argue here 

today, for a growth model. That’s fine, I think there are good arguments for a growth model. They are also good arguments for a status model like NCLB is today. 

I think the crucial factor, however, is whatever system we envision in the next go around it must be reasonable. Teachers, principals, and district administrators need to be able to go to work in 

8

the morning believing that if they work hard to provide all students a standards-based curriculum they can meet the targets laid 

out for them. I don’t think that’s the case now. 

How can we make these targets more reasonable? Three things 

seem obvious in the current framework. One, revisit the targets for 

special education and English learners, and I’ll talk a bit more 

about English learners in a moment. Increase the time frame for 

reaching the targets, and as both Mr. Kildee and Ms. Woolsey have 

alluded to this morning, increase the funding to districts to do this 

work, via Title I. 

Let me talk about English learners, because this is a crucial 

issue for us in California. 25 percent of our students are English 

learners, another 18 percent come from homes where a language 

other than English is spoken. 

Under NCLB, we require these students after a year to take a 

test in English in California. This test is not designed for English 

learners. It’s not valid, it’s not reliable, that’s why they are English 

learners, they are not ready to take this test. 

The other thing is, when kids exit English learner status, they 

can then exit the group of students that’s being evaluated, so we 

take out the successful students and then hold districts accountable 

for the rest of the students. Keep those students in that testing 

group. 

I can see the red light is on, so I’ll skip over to the time frame 

issue. Districts, after two years in program improvement fall into 

corrective action. Schools, after five years in program improvement 

fall into corrective action. That’s an unrealistic time frame for districts, and I’ll imagine that my colleagues here will probably chime 

in on that. Districts need more time. It takes a long time to turn 

a district ship around, and they are willing to do it, they need some 

external support to do that. I think that you ought to look at supporting external agencies to support schools and districts, and I 

will yield whatever seconds I have remaining. 

[The statement of Dr. Tempes follows:]

Prepared Statement of Fred Tempes, Senior Program Director, WestEd 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. I want to thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony as you begin to deliberate reauthorization of the No 

Child Left Behind Act. My name is Fred Tempes, and I am the Director of the Comprehensive School Assistance Program at WestEd. As you may know, WestEd is a 

nonprofit research, development, and service agency with headquarters in San Francisco and with 14 offices throughout the country. Success for every learner is our 

goal at WestEd, a goal we have been pursuing for over 40 years. 

At WestEd I oversee our work in support of schools and districts identified as 

needing improvement under NCLB or other state-specific criteria. Over the past several years we have been engaged with more than 100 schools and more than two 

dozen districts in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Hawaii as they seek to raise student achievement and close the achievement gap. I should add that I also serve as 

the Director of the California Comprehensive Assistance Center, funded by the U.S. 

Department of Education and charged with helping to build state capacity to implement NCLB. Prior to joining WestEd, I spent more than two decades in the California Department of Education, and my last position there was Director of School 

and District Accountability. Hence, I believe that I have a good perspective on accountability systems as they are envisioned at the state level and dealt with at the 

local level. 

Let me start my remarks by very briefly summarizing for you what we have 

learned about how schools and districts improve. In the standards-based educational 

world envisioned in NCLB, the path to improvement is clearly marked. Schools and 

districts need to: 

9

• Guarantee all students have access to a rigorous and coherent curriculum. 

• Hire and retain skilled teachers to implement the curriculum. 

• Place strong principals and district administrators in leadership positions. 

• Be accountable for making sure improvement plans result in actions and actions 

result in gains in student achievement. 

NCLB has done much to move this reform framework forward, and although 

much remains do be done, many of the tasks ahead are best addressed by states 

and districts operating within the framework established by NCLB. For example, 

in the curriculum arena all states now have academic standards and annual assessments designed to measure student progress in meeting those standards, thus creating the structure for a standards-based curriculum. States and districts now need 

to work on aligning instructional materials and strategies to those standards, using 

formative assessments to monitor progress during the year, and providing appropriate professional development to support curriculum implementation and effective 

instruction. 

The focus of today’s hearing is, however, on the fourth component of the framework for school and district improvement as we see it: a workable system to hold 

adults accountable for giving all students access to a rich and rigorous curriculum 

that leads to improvements in student achievement. 

The accountability system called for in the No Child Left Behind Act is undeniably the most controversial feature of the Act, and with good reason. Supporters of 

the current system rightly point to the fact that NCLB has caused schools and districts to pay attention to whether all students are meeting state standards. And the 

requirement that achievement results be disaggregated by significant subgroups 

means that the high achievement of some groups can no longer mask the low 

achievement of others. 

However, to be effective, an accountability system must be judged as reasonable 

by those being held accountable. Unfortunately, under the NCLB accountability 

plans established by most states, we are fast approaching the point at which the 

majority of participants in the system no longer view the system as reasonable. 

Here’s why. 

First, a reasonable system must set realistic targets that motivate all to strive to 

reach them. When participants in the system no longer view the system’s goals as 

attainable, they cease to put forth the effort to reach them. 

California provides a good example of the problem. Table 1 displays the percent 

proficient targets for high schools in English Language Arts in California. 

TABLE 1.—CALIFORNIA PERCENT PROFICIENT TARGETS

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS: HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL

Like many other states, California has taken advantage of the ‘‘stair step’’ provision in NCLB that allows for a more gradual ramping up of proficiency targets. 

Hence, the proficiency target in English Language Arts for the current school year 

for high schools is that 22.3% of students will be at or above the proficient level. 

That is not an unreasonable target. But those in the system looking beyond the current year will see that for next year the target increases by 11 percentage points 

and 11 points every year thereafter. Over the past three years, the state as a whole 


tempes.eps
10

has averaged just under 3 percentage point gains in English Language Arts per 

year. Although we can do better, almost no one in the system believes these outyear goals are attainable for all schools and districts. 

Second, a reasonable system must have realistic consequences attached to failure. 

Particularly at the district level, where states are required to apply sanctions, most 

of the consequences of falling into Corrective Action identified in NCLB are just not 

realistic. One is hard pressed to see the California State Board of Education taking 

any of the following actions in any but the most extreme cases: Replace the district 

staff, remove individual schools from the jurisdiction of the district and arrange for 

alternative governance, appoint a trustee in place of the superintendent and school 

board, or abolish the district. And beyond the feasibility of these actions, there is 

little empirical or other evidence that they have been or will be effective. 

How, then, can we improve the current accountability system? Many, especially 

in California, have argued for a system that rewards steady growth rather than the 

current model that only acknowledges attainment of proficiency. There are good arguments for either system, but the crucial factor, regardless of the type of system, 

must be reasonableness. Teachers, principals, and district administrators need to be 

able to go to work in the morning believing that if they work hard to provide all 

students a standards-based curriculum, they can meet the targets laid out for them. 

How can we make targets more reasonable? Three things seem obvious: revisit the 

targets for the Special Education and English Learner (see discussion below) subgroups, increase the time frame for reaching the targets, and increase the funding 

available to our most challenged schools and districts via Title I. 

Because one in four students in California is an English Learner and another 18% 

come from homes where a language other than English is spoken, targets for those 

learning English is a crucial topic here. Under NCLB, California has established 

ambitious yet reasonable targets for the rate at which students acquire proficiency 

in English. However, two revisions to the current system or a future system would 

improve reasonableness greatly. First, the requirement that English Learners take 

the same English language tests designed for English speakers in English Language 

Arts and mathematics after one year in our public schools is based on the unreasonable and unvalidated assumption that all students learning English should be academically proficient in English after one year. Testing English Learners on tests developed for native speakers of English should be delayed until those tests can yield 

psychometrically reliable and valid measures of student achievement. 

Second, NCLB does a great service to English Learners by including them as a 

subpopulation in the accountability system. Schools and districts should be held accountable for the academic achievement of these students. However, the current system requires removal of the very students who give evidence of school and district 

success, former English Learners who have met academic and English language proficiency targets, thus depressing the scores of the English Learner subgroup 

unjustifiably. Students initially identified as English Learners should remain a part 

of that subgroup for accountability purposes as long as they are enrolled in the district. 

The question of meaningful consequences for failing to meet achievement targets 

is, of course, inextricably linked to the question of reasonable targets. Assuming realistic targets, the Committee should look at both the time frames in which sanctions are applied and the level of support given schools and districts in the different 

stages of sanctions. 

The question of time frames is particularly salient at the district level. Whereas 

schools are given four years to right their ship after failing to make AYP, school 

districts will find themselves in Corrective Action after failing to make AYP at the 

district level after just two years. Research and most district superintendents will 

tell you making systemic change at the district level takes much more time. The 

short time line for district improvement sometimes leads to taking short-term measures, such as focusing intervention resources on those students closest to making 

AYP, that do not result in long-term benefits to all students in the district. Like 

schools, districts should be given at least four years after failing to meet AYP before 

facing the more drastic, and one hopes—in the future—more constructive, consequences of Corrective Action. 

Finally, our experience is that schools and districts need support in their efforts 

to improve. If they had all the skills, staff, and time they needed to improve, they 

would be doing the things they all know need to be done. But frontline educators 

tell us every day that they can best do their job if they receive support from highly 

qualified, external school improvement experts—both to help them see the areas in 

need of attention more clearly and to provide the ongoing support and coaching necessary to ensure that plans result in actions. 

11

Currently there is no provision in law for such external support services. Regional 

Educational Laboratories, which at one time offered similar support, are now focused on a rather narrow research agenda. The Comprehensive Centers, such as the 

one I direct, did offer technical assistance directly to schools in a former grants 

cycle, but they now provide capacity building support to state departments of education exclusively. 

I do not argue with these shifts in focus, because both further education research 

and state-level support are greatly needed. But the changes have left a deficit of 

federally supported, school and district-focused, external support services. Mr. Kildee was the principal author of legislation supporting the National Diffusion Network in the 1980s and early ’90s. Nothing like this Network currently exits, but 

schools and districts need expert assistance more now than at any time in recent 

history. 

I support the creation of a new, federally funded, regionally based, external support program designed to increase school capacity. (In its paper on ESEA reauthorization, the Knowledge Alliance [formerly NEKIA] called such an effort a ‘‘School 

Improvement Venture Fund for Using Research-Based Knowledge.’’) If such a technical assistance program, however named, were to be established and well-supported in the years ahead, schools and districts would again have a place to turn 

for expert support. 

I thank the Committee for allowing me this time and for consideration of my testimony. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you, Dr. Tempes, and we’ll be asking 

you some questions. 

Mr. TEMPES. Certainly. 

Chairman KILDEE. And, your entire testimony will be included in 

the record. 

Mr. TEMPES. Thank you. 

Chairman KILDEE. Dr. Liddell. 

STATEMENT OF DR. SHARON LIDDELL, SUPERINTENDENT,

SANTA ROSA CITY ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS 

Ms. LIDDELL. Good morning, Chairman Kildee, Congresswoman 

Woolsey, and Members of the Committee. Since my paper is about 

seven to eight minutes, and you have full copies, I will try to go 

over the highlights, but we’ve already brought up some important 

points that I may have to back up on. 

My roles as K-12 educator have covered the spectrum, and it is 

my honor to testify today on behalf of Santa Rosa City School 

Board and our Elementary and High School District. 

As a reference, I want to tell you that we have a community of 

157,000 residents. We have approximately 17,000 students in 29 

schools. Approximately, 4,100 of those students are English learners, primarily, Hispanic, so this topic is very important to us. 

Special education includes 2,100 students, and approximately 

5,000 students receive free and reduced lunches in our district. 

We are an urban district, although we look very much like a suburban district, but we have declining enrollment also, which affects 

our funding very much. 

The era of accountability has been of great benefit to our students. We are making progress. Since 2003, we have now removed 

three schools from program improvement, we have schools who are 

meeting their targets in all subgroups. We have a program improvement high school who has now met their targets for two 

years, but barely missed exiting the program improvement assistance because of participation rates, which is another element that 

we need to talk about. 

12

We have now added a distinguished school to our list, so we feel 

like our schools are making progress. There are four elements I’d 

like to talk with you about, assessment and accountability through 

growth models, in comparison to other states, subgroup impacts 

and funding impacts. 

We’ve talked about AYP, or Adequate Yearly Progress, being 

based on externally-imposed targets. The California Academic Performance Index is a growth model that sets individualized growth 

targets for school-wide growth and for each subgroup. This state 

system sets individual targets for the subgroups that are attainable. 

Once the schools implement the research-based, standards-based 

curriculum programs, schools are accountable in this model for academic improvement, and build a sense of confidence and accomplishment as targets are met. 

As part of a successful growth model, which ultimately meets the 

goals of NCLB, there should be assurance that schools use formative assessments to provide more timely information at both elementary and secondary levels. Transferring that data information 

into direct instruction is of utmost importance to improve the 

teaching and learning. 

Second, assessment and accountability in comparison to other 

states, we have very rigorous standards in California. Benchmarks 

for proficiency, standards in other states are not considered consistent from state to state. Should states continue to be compared 

to one another in the NCLB accountability? It’s important to ensure that states are consistent in standards and in benchmarks for 

proficiency. 

The Academic Performance Index is based on assessments in the 

four core areas in Grades 2-11 on the California Standards Test, 

and on the California High School Exit Exam results for Grades 

10-12. This broader accountability of the API provides a more comprehensive, wide-screen picture as opposed to a data snapshot. 

Optimum national comparisons and accountability will result 

from consistent standards, benchmarks, and use of those formative 

assessments to determine trends in education and to help train our 

work force. 

Area three, subgroup impacts, again, English learners, special 

education students, economically disadvantaged students. These 

students count in several different groups toward our scores. Students who belong to more than one group are counted in each subgroup, which results in statistical over-representation of the student. One method of adjusting this would be to count the student 

toward each group as an equal fraction, totaling one student. 

Flexibility in assessing identified English learners during the 

first three years after school entry is an important aspect. It requires specific achievement for students for up to three years. We 

know now it doesn’t take seven years for English learners to become proficient, but we do need some time to prepare them. 

Funding impacts are very, very important. Finances at the local 

level are stretched, using creative legal funding combinations to 

fund these formative assessments and to follow student progress 

rather than waiting for the final API and AYP at the end of the 

year. 

13

The ability to establish these structures and to continue them 

long enough to make a difference create huge impacts on districts 

and schools. Unfunded or low-funded mandates including special 

education must be addressed for school districts to be successful at 

the NCLB endeavor, incorporating new areas of targeted accountability and flexibility, while acknowledging progress, all offer the 

promise of an accountability system that will fairly and accurately 

reflect the performance of students and schools. Most importantly, 

they offer the promise of improved academic performance to meet 

the global demands facing our students. 

Thank you for this opportunity to present our recommendations. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to request permission to enter information that I have here into the record. It is information that relates to progress that can be made through certain structures, and 

other recommendations. 

Chairman KILDEE. Without objection, it will be included in the 

record. 

Ms. LIDDELL. Thank you. 

[The statement of Dr. Liddell follows:]

Prepared Statement of Sharon E. Liddell, Ed.D., Superintendent,

Santa Rosa City Schools 

Good morning, Chairman Kildee, Congresswoman Woolsey, and Members of the 

Subcommittee. My name is Dr. Sharon Liddell, Superintendent of Santa Rosa City 

Schools in Santa Rosa, California. My roles as a K-12 educator have covered the 

spectrum over the past 27 years. It is my honor to testify today on behalf of Santa 

Rosa City School Board and our elementary and high school districts. My testimony 

will address the topic, ‘‘Improving the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act’s Accountability System.’’

As a reference for my testimony, let me briefly describe our district. Santa Rosa 

is a community of 157,000 residents. Santa Rosa City Schools (SRCS), the largest 

school district north of San Francisco, serves approximately 17,000 students in 

grades kindergarten through twelve. Approximately 4,100 students are English Language Learners, primarily Hispanic. Special Education includes 2,100 students in 

various groups. About 5,000 students receive free and reduced lunches. We are an 

urban district with declining enrollment. 

The era of accountability has been of great benefit to students in Santa Rosa City 

Schools. As a result, we know more than ever before about the academic progress 

of each and every student. It has caused us to develop professional learning communities, examine student data, use data to make instructional decisions, institute specialized programs, and to develop pyramids of interventions for struggling students. 

However, there are some areas which could be improved in NCLB. 

Assessment and Accountability through Growth Models 

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is currently based on meeting a certain set of externally imposed targets. As it is currently designed, this accountability does not 

recognize schools or subgroups for incremental growth from one year to the next. 

The California Academic Performance Index (API) is a growth model that sets individualized growth targets for school-wide growth and for each subgroup. The state 

API system sets individual targets for each subgroup that are attainable once 

schools implement research-based, standards-based curriculum programs. Schools 

are accountable for academic improvement and build a sense of confidence and accomplishment as targets are met. 

As a part of a successful growth model which ultimately meets the goals of NCLB, 

there should be assurance that states, districts, and schools use 6-8 week, formative 

assessment systems in order to provide better, more timely information about student learning at both elementary and secondary levels. Transferring the data information into direct instruction is of utmost importance. Therefore, require that the 

assessments provide useful diagnostic information to improve teaching and learning. 

Assessment and Accountability in Comparisons to Other States 

California established rigorous grade-level standards in all the content areas and 

endeavored to refine these standards since their inception in 1999. The criterionVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:09 Sep 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-27\34604.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
14

based assessment system, known as the California Standards Tests (CST) was written to assess these standards annually for all students in grades 2-11. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) gave each state the authority to set its 

own standards. In order to maintain high standards, California chose to use the 

fourth-highest band of five as ‘‘proficient’’ to measure student growth in relation to 

standards, considered some of the most rigorous in the United States. Benchmarks 

for proficiency are not considered consistent from state to state. Should states continue to be compared to one another in NCLB accountability, it is important to ensure that states are consistent in standards and in benchmarks for proficiency. 

Adequately Yearly Progress (AYP) results are based upon English Language Arts 

(ELA) CST and Mathematics CST results of students in grades 2-8 and the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) results for grade 10. The ELA and mathematics performances of ninth and eleventh grades are not a consideration of the accountability system. The Academic Performance Index (API) on the other hand is 

based on assessments in the four core areas in grades 2-11 on the CST and on 

CAHSEE results for grades 10-12. The broader accountability stroke of the API provides a comprehensive, widescreen picture as opposed to a data snapshot. 

Optimum national comparisons in accountability will result from consistent standards, benchmarks, and the use of formative assessment systems to provide ongoing, 

timely information about student learning at both elementary and secondary levels. 

Data collected can be used as diagnostic information and improved direct instruction 

practices for all learners, as well as to determine trends in education. Refined 

achievement targets can be further developed based on rates of success actually 

achieved by the most effective public schools. 

Assessment and Subgroup Impacts 

Students may be identified in one or more subgroups, such as English Learner, 

Special Education, and economically disadvantaged. Students who belong to more 

than one are counted in each sub-group which results in statistical over-representation of the student. One method of adjusting this would be to count that student 

toward each group as an equal fraction totaling one student. 

English Learners come to school districts with quite varied backgrounds, i.e. elementary and secondary students with little or no English skills; some with limited 

academic background in their home language; some with parents who do not speak 

English or have academic skills in their home language; some with backgrounds rich 

in academic skills and multiple languages. Flexibility in assessing identified English 

Learners during the first three years after school entry, while requiring specific 

achievement for students for up to three years, will allow students to make academic gains toward meeting state standards and English speaking skills in preparation for sustainable performance in determining AYP. Alternate, U. S. Department 

of Education- approved assessments, seeking specific gains may be used during that 

three-year period to gauge English proficiency and content knowledge. 

Special Education students represent specific impacts involving individual education programs (IEPs), accommodations, and modifications, which may include conflicts with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Flexibility in use 

of approved alternative assessments, such as out-of-level assessments, would allow 

schools to meet the requirements of both IDEA and NCLB. 

Students who qualify as economically disadvantaged students may or may not be 

part of the English Learner and/or the Special Education subgroups. However, background elements may cause students to resemble one or both subgroups. Low academic vocabulary, minimal pre-school experiences, low-frequency of reading experiences, all require intensive direct instruction, interventions, more time on task, specialized materials reinforcing the need for teacher and administrator training, fullyfunded mandates, and thorough understanding of how data transfers into instructional practice. 

Assessment and Funding Impacts 

Finances at the local level are stretched as far as possible using creative, legal, 

funding combinations to fund needed formative assessments to follow student 

progress throughout the year rather than waiting for final API and AYP assessments at the end. This process enables strategic, direct instruction to occur as soon 

as a need is identified. Regular programming, staffing, interventions, tutoring, technology, after-school programs, additional sections, longer school days, teacher and 

administrator training all must be funded. The ability to establish these structures 

and the ability to continue them long enough to make a difference create huge impacts on district and school budgets. 

Unfunded or low-funded mandates must be addressed for school districts to be 

successful at the NCLB endeavor. Raise levels of Title I and NCLB funding to cover 

15

the costs that states and districts incur to carry out NCLB requirements, without 

reducing expenditures for other educational programs. As state and national data 

is reported, research and development of increasingly more effective accountability 

systems should be given a high funding priority. 

Incorporating new areas of targeted accountability and flexibility, while acknowledging progress, all offer the promise of an accountability system that will fairly and 

accurately reflect the performance of students, schools, and school districts. Most 

importantly, they offer the promise of improved academic performance to meet the 

global demands facing our students. 

Thank you for the opportunity to present our recommendations. 

Chairman KILDEE. Ms. Schott. 

STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH SCHOTT, PRINCIPAL,

McDOWELL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 

Ms. SCHOTT. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Kildee and 

Congresswoman Woolsey for giving me the opportunity to testify 

today about the accountability system of the No Child Left Behind 

Act, and how it might be improved in its reauthorization. 

As a third-year principal of McDowell Elementary School in 

Petaluma I hope to provide you with a representative view of 

NCLB’s effect on schools like ours. 

McDowell Elementary School is home to 340 students in kindergarten through 6th grade. Roughly, 71 percent of our students are 

English learners, and 73 percent receive free or reduced price 

meals. 

Before McDowell entered program improvement year two in the 

fall of 2005, I regret to say that the soft bigotry of low expectations 

was our way of thinking. Being labeled PI Year 2 was the kick in 

the shins our school needed to begin serious work on changing our 

practices in curriculum and instruction. Our staff realized that continuing to do things the same way, only harder, was not making 

our students successful. 

Upon being shown proof that schools with even more challenging 

populations than ours were bringing more than twice the number 

of students to proficiency than we were, our teachers said, if they 

can do it, so can we. So, we initiated a reform of our reading program in November, 2005, that mimics Reading First as closely as 

our site funding allows, since our district doesn’t qualify for Reading First. 

Year two also mandated that we provide funding for supplemental educational services, a sanction that deserves serious reconsideration by the Committee. In our area, where public transportation is an issue, and personal cars and home computers are few, 

we have one SES provider within walking distance of the school. 

Their level of service is disappointing, but they are the only game 

in town. Their tutors are not trained in Reading First methodology, 

and so one would have to question their effectiveness at 

supplementing classroom instruction for our most impacted learners. 

Furthermore, the required 20 percent set aside from sites Title 1 budgets for SES has a negative impact school-wide. The $80,000 

that we will have spent on SES before exiting PI could have been 

used to provide our school with a reading coach for a year, one of 

the most effective pieces of the Reading First model that we have 

not yet found a way to fund. 

16

Despite our initial efforts in ’05-’06, we did not make AYP for 

certain subgroups in last spring’s testing, and so we are in year 

three of program improvement. Our regional consultant allowed us 

to continue with the reforms we designed last year, but it will take 

three years before the fruits of our labor show up in the test results 

of this year’s kindergarten class. Time, as you can see, is not on 

our side. 

If we fail to make AYP again, the district will have the right to 

replace all or most staff. In the case of Petaluma, a wholesale replacement of staff at our site would result in students being instructed by teachers who are actually less well trained than those 

already in place, due to our extensive Reading First-like professional development. 

Such an intervention by the district would ultimately be detrimental to our students, jeopardizing future gains in student 

achievement and dismantling a staff that now believes that kids 

can do it. 

An alternative would be an accountability structure that gives 

credit for the progress and changes being made at a school, with 

benchmarks that demand a set amount of growth each year, like 

California’s API. Such a model would be a far-more motivational 

and statistically reasonable model than the 100 percent proficiency 

target by 2014. This mathematically unattainable goal has undermined the credibility of NCLB’s accountability system from the 

start. 

I agree that drawing a line in the sand is an effective way to 

begin a reform process. The first iteration of NCLB certainly has 

served its purpose of getting people’s attention and mandating that 

they attend to the foremost goal of schooling, student learning. The 

required growth targets and time line need to be restructured, but 

not abandoned. Educators are only human after all, and we will 

back slide into old practices that are bad for students if the bottoms of our feet aren’t kept a bit warm. 

One of the first parent letters I wrote as the new Principal of 

McDowell School in September, 2004, was the School Choice Letter. 

I found it deeply embarrassing to have to tell people that their 

child’s school was inadequate, and that they had the right to go 

find a better education across the freeway. 

However, my personal shame was irrelevant in comparison to the 

far more somber story the scores told. We were failing to educate 

our students. 

I feel we have now effectively begun to sustain progress, but 

there looms an impending sense of doom at my school about not 

being able to turn the ship fast enough and travel far enough to 

outrun the final sanctions of PI 4 and 5. A more progressive, 

psychometrically reasonable growth-based model of accountability 

in the reauthorization of NCLB would go a long way toward guaranteeing that reform efforts at McDowell and schools like ours are 

sustained and energized long enough to sweep up all of our students into a wave of success. 

Thank you. 

[The statement of Ms. Schott follows:]

17

Prepared Statement of Elizabeth W. Schott, Principal,

McDowell Elementary School 

Thank you Chairman Kildee, Representative Woolsey, and Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to testify today about the Accountability System of 

the No Child Left Behind Act and how it might be improved in its reauthorization. 

As a third year principal of McDowell Elementary School in Petaluma, California, 

about 30 miles north of here, I hope to provide you with a representative view of 

the No Child Left Behind Act’s effect on schools like ours. 

McDowell Elementary School is home to 340 students; roughly 71% of our students are English Learners and 73% of our students receive free or reduced price 

meals. These percentages exceed the district’s and county’s levels by a minimum of 

35-40%. A small number of schools in our county are in a demographically comparable situation, and one other elementary school in the Petaluma City School District has a similar profile to McDowell’s. Most of these schools that are not in 

Petaluma, however, benefit from being in districts that qualify for Reading First 

funding, which is helping them make a real difference in their students’ achievement. Petaluma City Schools does not qualify for a Reading First Grant due to its 

relatively isolated pockets of high risk students. McDowell and schools like ours, 

therefore, fall between the cracks in terms of being able to access resources available to more homogeneous districts. 

Before McDowell entered Program Improvement Year II in the fall of 2005, I regret to say that the mindset of attributing our poor results to the test, and to the 

learner, and to the changing families, and to the fact that we have children just 12% 

of their time between Kindergarten and 12th grade, still had a stranglehold on the 

staff at McDowell. Sadly, I include myself in that category. What has been described 

as the ‘‘soft bigotry of low expectations’’ was our way of thinking, although I would 

characterize it more as a perpetuation of the ‘‘self-esteem before anything else’’ 

thinking of the 90s. We had a bunch of kids in our school who couldn’t read proficiently, but they didn’t necessarily feel bad about it, and that was what was important. There was also a measure of thinking ‘‘this too shall pass’’, whereby teachers 

felt they could just wait out NCLB, and continue doing what they’d always done 

which ‘‘the test’’ just wasn’t capable of measuring the success of. 

Being labeled Program Improvement Year II was the slap in the face our school 

needed to begin serious work on changing our practices in curriculum and instruction. Our staff realized that continuing to do things the same way—only harder—

was not making our students successful by a measure that, while still not embraced 

by all, clearly wasn’t going anywhere. It was then, and still is, my philosophy that 

we cannot wait for people’s minds to change when something as critical as student 

success is at stake. We must change behavior first and the subsequent increased 

successes will cause minds to follow. 

Foreseeing that Year III of Program Improvement was going to bring mandated 

changes in curriculum and instruction should we continue not to meet our targets, 

our staff decided to take control of the process of making those changes. Upon being 

shown proof that schools with even more challenging populations than ours were 

bringing more than twice the number of students to proficiency that we were, our 

teachers said, ‘‘If they can do it, so can we.’’ So we initiated a reform of our reading 

program in November of 2005 that mimics Reading First as closely as our site funding (with district contributions) allows. With the help of a consultant who donated 

much of her time in that first year, we received training in research-based methods 

for delivering the adopted series, established an assessment calendar that tracked 

student progress at minimum three times per year, and began regrouping for reading instruction so as to better target instruction. 

We did not, however, make our AYP targets for certain subgroups in last Spring’s 

testing, and so we are in Program Improvement Year III. When we met early this 

year with our external consultant from the county as required, we outlined the 

changes we made last year, and showed her the progress we were seeing on our assessments. We have been allowed to continue with the reforms as designed last 

year. This year’s Kindergarten class will be the first to have received the direct, explicit instruction in the fundamentals of reading as outlined in the National Reading 

Panel’s 2000 publication Teaching Children to Read, for an entire school year. Since 

second graders will no longer be tested after this year, it will be three years before 

the fruits of our labor will show up in this Kindergarten class’s test results. In the 

meantime, we hold on to the fact that schools receiving Title I High Achieving 

Schools awards in our state who are in Reading First districts are predominantly 

in their third, fourth or fifth year of Reading First. We know that we must stay the 

course in order to realize lasting gains for our students. 

18

Time, however, is not on our side. We could have, and should have, taken the radical steps of last year at least two years sooner. But now we are up against it, probably making most of our AYP targets this year, thereby halting the decline into 

Year IV of Program Improvement. But we may fail to meet the 2008 target increase, 

and the district would have the right to: • Reopen the school as a charter • Replace all or most staff including the principal • Contract with an outside entity to manage the school • Recommend State takeover • Undertake any other major restructuring 

It is the second of these options that is the most disturbing, and one of the areas 

where the accountability structure of No Child Left Behind may have room for improvement. 

In the case of Petaluma, which I doubt is unique in California or the country, 

McDowell is the only school that has undertaken the training and instructional reform described earlier in this testimony. We are implementing research-based reading strategies that are known to be effective with students like ours, and we are 

seeing progress. No other school in the district has done anything like this. And, 

as Garden Grove Superintendent Laura Schwalm says, now ‘‘* * * our teachers believe the kids can do it.’’ If there were to be a wholesale replacement of staff and 

administration at our site, students would be being instructed by teachers who were 

actually less qualified, and less well trained, than those already in place. Additionally, the teachers at McDowell want to make this reform work for our students. 

They are deeply committed to turning the tide at our school, while other teachers 

throughout the district have no interest in teaching our students. Such an intervention by the district would be disastrous for our students. 

An accountability structure that takes into account the progress and changes 

being made at a school, with benchmarks that demand a set amount of growth each 

year, more like the Title III accountability model, would be far more motivational 

and statistically reasonable than the current absolutist scheme. The ‘‘100% proficiency’’ goal has undermined the credibility of NCLB’s accountability system from 

the start. Starting from where you are and establishing growth targets that are 

psychometrically attainable and that end at a rational proficiency threshold is worth 

the committee’s careful consideration. 

This factoring in of the time it takes to accomplish any major reform needs also 

to be applied to a school’s English Learner population. The current accountability 

model in NCLB doesn’t seem to take into account the research on the time it takes 

to learn a second language, particularly the academic vocabulary of that language. 

Schools with English Learner subgroups are being held to a double whammy of a 

standard due to the neighborhoods they serve. I’m not a lobbyist for Title III, but 

again, their level of accountability—the district—effectively neutralizes the location 

factor of a school and holds the district accountable for making sure all students 

in the district are learning. Best practices research tells us that reform at the school 

level is only partially effective, and that true change happens when there is articulation of curriculum, instruction, professional development and resource allocation 

originating at the district level. 

District level accountability for Special Education programs housed at individual 

schools would also be a more fair way to assess the effectiveness of such classes. 

We have a Special Day class at my school, which currently houses Kindergarten 

through second grade students. This year, I don’t expect Students with Disabilities 

to even constitute a significant subgroup at my school. Last year, however, there 

was another Special Day Class at my site, one with third through sixth graders in 

it. Up until last year, districts were allowed to report site-based programs as ‘‘district programs,’’ aggregating accountability at the district level. Last year, however, 

the reporting rules changed, and individual sites were held accountable for their 

Day Class results, even if many of the students were not from one’s own attendance 

area. This, and the school choice provision starting in Year I of Program Improvement, caused our district to move our intermediate Special Day Class to another site 

this year, one not in Program Improvement. This was a loss for our site in all ways 

not related to NCLB’s accountability system. We lost valued staff and students who 

were part of our family. Children who had always walked to school were now having 

to ride a bus across town to a school their parents had no idea even how to get to. 

I understand that an extreme throwing down of the gauntlet is an effective way 

to begin a reform process. The first iteration of No Child Left Behind certainly has 

served its purpose of getting people’s attention and mandating that they attend to 

the foremost goal of schooling—student learning. The variability in how states have 

operationalized ‘‘proficiency’’, however, needs to be addressed. It simply isn’t fair for 

some states to call grade level proficiency 85% correct, and others to call it someVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:09 Sep 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-27\34604.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
19

thing less. Additionally, the required growth targets and timeline needs to be restructured—but not abandoned! People are only human after all, and we will backslide into old practices that are bad for students if the bottoms of our feet aren’t 

kept a bit warm. 

Furthermore, while I am not an expert on the issues surrounding students with 

disabilities, there seems to be something mean about the current law’s dismissal of 

many such students’ learning challenges in its assumption that they can attain proficiency at the same rate and level as typically learning students. I try to imagine 

what that must feel like to students and parents, and it seems unempathic at best. 

Yes, all students must show progress, but in the case of students with disabilities, 

this progress is outlined in and guaranteed by the IEP process. 

This is but one example of where NCLB and IDEA clash to the detriment of students and schools. The other is in the arena of the modifications to the testing protocol written into students’ IEPs. If those modifications are used during testing, the 

student isn’t counted in one’s participation rate, and is automatically given a performance rating of ‘‘Far Below Basic.’’ Allowing NCLB to supersede IDEA is confusing to families and punitive to schools. 

Another area that deserves serious reconsideration is Supplemental Educational 

Services. In our area, where several of the families have one car at the most, and 

parents aren’t proficient English speakers, and home computers are the exception, 

we have one SES provider within walking distance of the school. Their level of service is disappointing, but they are the only game in town. Their tutors are not 

trained in Reading First methodology, and so one would have to question their effectiveness at supplementing classroom instruction for our struggling learners. The 

level of sophistication (and language) needed to access the online providers is beyond most parents, and my concern about our local provider is the same regarding 

the expertise of those on the other end of the modem. 

The funding we receive as a schoolwide program of Title I is clearly circumscribed 

and monitored by the state, as well it should be. But SES doesn’t seem to be so 

scrupulously tracked. The set aside for this consequence of being in Program Improvement costs our school’s Title I budget approximately $20,000 per year. At minimum, we will have to commit these dollars to an ineffective intervention for another two years. In total, that will represent nearly $80,000 that could have been 

used to provide our school with a Reading Coach, the one piece of the Reading First 

model we have not yet found a way to fund. 

In conclusion, I would like to talk about what motivates me as a principal to get 

out of Program Improvement, and to stop being affected by the consequence end of 

the NCLB accountability system. One of the first parent letters I wrote as the new 

principal of McDowell School in September of 2004 was the school choice letter. I 

found it deeply embarrassing to have to tell people that their child’s school was inadequate, and that they had the right to go find a better education across the freeway. Paradoxically, since that time, our enrollment has increased steadily, with this 

year finding us the fastest growing school in the district. In certain populations, federal accountability measures aren’t what matter most about their child’s school. Apparently having a bilingual school secretary, many bilingual classified and certificated staff members, a free after school Boys & Girls club program (thanks to Prop 

49), and being within walking distance of home all mitigate our poor showing on 

state testing. 

Nevertheless, beyond my personal shame at having to facilitate transfers and see 

our name in the newspaper as an underperforming school, the scores told a far more 

somber story: we were failing to educate our students. I feel we have now effectively 

stopped the hemorrhaging and are working diligently to sustain our progress. I find 

silver linings constantly to keep teachers motivated—pointing out that we moved 

from a Similar Schools ranking of one last year to two this year, for instance. There 

does loom, however, an impending sense of doom at my school about not being able 

to turn the ship fast enough, and travel far enough, to outrun the final sanctions 

of Program Improvement Years IV and V. A more progressive, psychometrically reasonable, growth-based model of accountability in the reauthorization of No Child 

Left Behind would go a long way toward guaranteeing that McDowell’s reform efforts are sustained and energized long enough to sweep up all of our students into 

a wave of success. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Gonzalez. 

20

STATEMENT OF PEPE GONZALEZ, VICE PRINCIPAL,

VENETIA VALLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you, Chairman Kildee and Congresswoman Woolsey, for the opportunity to speak here today. I was fortunate enough to get to walk here this morning from my school, 

which I’ll be speaking specifically to, a few blocks down the road. 

Venetia Valley is a K-8 school that embodies a very diverse student population. We have enrollment of about 609 students, ranging from three areas here in San Rafael, Santa Venetia neighborhood, Los Ranchitos, and the canal areas, are all very close to the 

civic center. 

Students come to us with a variety of skills and come from very 

diverse homes. The demographic breakdown of our students is 60 

percent Hispanic, 4 percent Asian, 6 percent African American, 2 

percent Filipino and 27 percent White. We are very, very diverse, 

and representative of the State of California. 

Of these students, 44 percent of them are English language 

learners, and 21 percent of these students have been reclassified as 

fully English proficient. 

Our average parent education level is a 2.6, a 1 meaning that the 

parents had not finished high school, and a 5 with having some 

post graduate education. So, we have a very changing, trending 

change in population that we’ve had to face. 

Over these past five years, the following demographic trends 

have emerged—the percentage of Hispanic students has increased 

from 38 to 60 percent. The percentage of students who qualify for 

free or reduced lunches also increased from 33 to 52 percent. 7 percent of our students have moved outside the City of San Rafael to 

other more affordable neighborhoods, a number that has doubled in 

the past five years. 

Along with these demographic trends, we have been tracking student progress. In the past two years, our API has increased by 54 

points overall, currently placing us at 6 in the overall school ranking. 

The past two years we have met our adequate yearly progress 

goals, as 42 percent of our students are at or above the proficient 

level in English Language Arts, and 53 percent of our students are 

proficient or above in level of mathematics. 

Venetia Valley is the only school in Marin County to run a dual 

merge bi-literacy program, and only one of hundreds in the entire 

country. The program was being funded by Federal Title 7 money 

that was overriding the state proposition. Our parents were asked 

to sign a waiver in order to be taught bilingually in both English 

and Spanish, and they currently have to continue to do that. 

Our program is offered to two of the four classes, kindergarten 

to 3rd grades, we have roughly about 40 students per grade level 

K-3, and about 28 students in the 4th and 5th grades that continue 

into the program. Our school is K-8, however, in the middle school 

grades we go to a middle school model, where Spanish is offered 

as an elective and not as part of the curriculum. 

In our K-5 model, literacy in all language arts are taught strictly 

in English. Thematic kits in science, social studies and the arts are 

done in Spanish, as mathematics is the only constant curriculum 

that’s taught every other day in Spanish and English. 

21

Our teachers come from very, very diverse backgrounds. Some 

have Latin American Native Spanish speaking languages, and others are non-native that have acquired Spanish as their second language. 

As our demographics have changed, it has become more difficult 

to have a balance of native and non-native Spanish speakers in our 

classrooms. 

Some of the things that we’ve been able to do here, and had to 

adjust to in the past for No Child Left Behind is, we have to meet 

these expectations for our district adopted a mandated reading program in 2002. Teachers were trained and expected to meet these 

district pacing guides for every class in the district, and every 

grade level, was on specific pacing guides. We had to hire a district 

literacy coach and a site literacy coach, which monitors and trains 

teachers and guides them through the new program. 

Routine assessments are now done quarterly. We have—comprehension scores to meet these individual needs. It’s become more 

work, but we have the resources available to do that, which has 

been a great success for us. 

After school programs have become an extremely important part 

of our system. We have community partnerships that allow us and 

help us fund these programs to give these students that need it 

that extra support. Our after school program has two components, 

a literacy and mathematics enrichment program, as well as a 

homework support part. 

Computer programs were implemented and are part of the program to give struggling readers support outside of the structured 

classroom. 

The after school program has a strict entrance policy, beginning 

with the teacher nomination, for we only allow students that are 

truly far below basic or in the basic range to enter. They have to 

get a permission slip, and then there’s a signing of a contract, for 

if a student fails to attend the program for three days there is a 

waiting list that we activate quickly, and there’s a high turnaround 

rate in that program. 

The program coordinator works very closely with administrators 

and other teachers to continually meet the teachers’ needs and the 

children’s needs. 

Venetia Valley offers an after school program to all its students, 

kindergarten through 8th grade. 

We continue to strive to increase the level of parent involvement, 

which is something that we’ve really, really pushed in the past few 

years. We have a great partnership with parent service projects 

here locally in Marin, and the increase—we are trying to increase 

the number of Latino parents to attend meetings, extra curricular 

activities, and all around general participation in our classrooms. 

Parent universities are held monthly to teach parents how to better serve their student’s needs. Classes range from how to help 

children on homework to how to read the report card. Parents gain 

an understanding of how to be better parents, and just an overall 

sense of the education system. 

The increase of parent knowledge is something to ultimately benefit the children and what they gain from the school. 

Thank you very much for this opportunity. 

22

[The statement of Mr. Gonzalez follows:]

Prepared Statement of Pepe Gonzalez, Vice Principal,

Venetia Valley K-8 School 

Thank you, Chairman Kildee, Congresswoman Woolsey, and Members of the Subcommittee for this opportunity to testify. I am Pepe Gonzalez, Vice Principal of 

Venetia Valley Elementary School in San Rafael. 

I. School Background 

Venetia Valley, a K-8 School, embodies a diverse population with an enrollment 

of 609 students. Students attending Venetia Valley School come from three major 

communities within San Rafael: Los Ranchitos, Santa Venetia which are areas that 

are in the northeast corner of the city near the Marin County Civic Center. Students come with a variety of skills and from very diverse homes. The demographic 

break down of our 609 students is as follows: 60% Hispanic, 4% Asian, 6% African 

American and 2% Filipino and 27% white. Of these students 44% are English Language Learners and 21% of the students have been Reclassified as Fully English 

Proficient. Our average parent education level is 2.6 (1 meaning that parents had 

not finished high school, 5 having a post graduate education) 

Over the past 5 years, the following demographic trends have emerged: the percentage of Hispanic students has increased from 38% to 60% and the percentage of 

students who qualify for free and reduced lunch has increased from 33% to 52%. 

Seven percent of our students have moved outside the city of San Rafael, a number 

that has doubled in the past five years. Along with these demographic trends, we 

have been tracking student progress. In the past 2 years our API has increased by 

54 points overall, currently placing us at a 6 in overall school ranking. The past two 

years we have met our Yearly Adequate Progress Goals as 42% of or students are 

at or above the proficient level in English Language Arts while 53% of our students 

are at or above the proficient level in Math. 

Venetia Valley is the only school in Marin County to run a dual immersion 

billiteracy program, and only one of hundreds in the country. The program was 

being funded by Federal Title VII money that over rides the state mandated proposition. Parents are required to sign a waiver allowing their children to be taught 

in both English and Spanish. Our Biliteracy program is offered to two out of the 

four K-3 classes, roughly 40 students per grade level. In the fourth and fifth grades 

the program condenses down to one class of roughly 28 students. 

Literacy and all Language Arts are taught strictly in English. Thematic units in 

Science, Social Studies or the Arts are done in Spanish as Mathematics is taught 

every other day in Spanish. Our teachers vary, coming both from various Latin 

American countries having Spanish as their native tongue while some have acquired 

Spanish as their second language. As our demographics have changed it has become 

more difficult to balance the number of native Spanish speakers with non-native 

Spanish speakers in the biliteracy program. 

II. Best Practices 

Venetia Valley has had to adjust and modify teaching practices in order to continually meet NCLB growth expectations. The District adopted a mandated reading 

program starting in the 2002-2003 school year. Teachers were trained and expected 

to meet district pacing guides to be consistent for all grade levels throughout the 

district. School sites created literacy coach positions that mentored teachers and 

guided them through the new program adoption. Routine assessments became implemented to obtain quarterly lexile and literacy scores to better meet individual 

students’ needs. 

After school programs were created with community partnerships to give students 

who are not proficient or advanced extra support. The after school program has two 

components, literacy and mathematics enrichment and homework support. Computer programs were implemented and are part of the program to give struggling 

readers support outside of the structured classroom environment. The after school 

program has a strict entrance policy, beginning with teacher nomination, parent 

permission and the signing of a contract. If a student fails to attend the program 

more than three days students from the waiting list will be activated. The program 

coordinator works very closely with the administrators and teachers to continually 

meet the children’s’ needs. Venetia Valley offers after school programs for Kindergarten through eighth grade students. 

Venetia Valley is striving to increase the level of parent involvement and general 

school knowledge. Through a partnership with Parent Service Project our goal is to 

increase the number of Latino parents who attend meetings, extracurricular activiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:09 Sep 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-27\34604.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
23

ties and over all participation in the classroom. Parent universities are held monthly to teach parents how to better serve their students needs. Classes range from how 

to help children with homework to reading report cards. Parents gain an understanding how to be better parents. The increase of parent knowledge ultimately benefits the children and what they gain from school. 

III. Measures of Success 

Though our demographics have changed over the years we have met our expected 

API goals. Being a K-8 school makes us very unique and allows us to see our kids 

grow throughout their elementary experience. We are able to foster a high level of 

community as families often have multiple children in our school ranging in various 

age levels. Parents respect the security of our school and its programs. 

Venetia Valley prides itself in being diverse while still maintaining high academic 

expectations. We team with several community organizations that bring in outside 

programs to better round our students education. Art, drama, physical education 

and music programs balance out the academics. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Gonzalez. 

Ms. Blake. 

STATEMENT OF MELANIE BLAKE, TEACHER,

SONOMA VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL 

Ms. BLAKE. Thank you, Chairman Kildee, Congresswoman Woolsey. I am pleased to have been invited today to testify on improving 

the No Child Left Behind Act’s accountability system. 

I am Melanie Blake, and I am a teacher at Sonoma Valley High 

School. I come here today on behalf of the 340,000 members of the 

California Teachers Association, to share my experience and observations as a teacher, which reflect what is happening with many 

of my colleagues as well. 

Sonoma Valley High, and all of our neighborhood schools, are an 

integral part of a small world community in Sonoma County. If you 

walk through our town you would see the last mission built in California, small shops situated on a quaint plaza, nestled in rolling 

hills, and surrounded by vineyards. 

What you would not guess if you visited our community is that 

we are also a school district which has been designated for program 

improvement, a failing district under the No Child Left Behind Act. 

Two of our elementary schools and both of our middle schools are 

designated as program improvement. Sonoma Valley High was a PI 

school just one year ago, although we were able to exit program improvement status this year. So, I feel qualified to speak to you 

today about what NCLB means to the field experts, the teachers, 

principal, and staff who work with students every day. 

First, I want to assure you that I, along with my teaching colleagues recognize that accountability is a necessary component of 

our school systems, and it is fitting that this is the focus of this 

hearing today. NCLB has been a driving force for schools to take 

a deep look at our students, and focus on students by subgroup. 

We recognize that there is an achievement gap, especially for 

students with disabilities, English language learners, and economically disadvantaged students. We embrace the opportunity to work 

to close that achievement gap, and we consider that our task and 

our responsibility as educators. 

Unfortunately, accountability under NCLB has been reduced to 

a matter of test scores and little else. I’ve seen the consequences 

of an unfair testing system on English language learners. In our 

24

schools, we have students from other countries who arrive every 

year with their families to work in the vineyards and in our tourist 

industry. In a sense, these students have twice as much to learn. 

They must master core academics and English. 

Our EL students need time to acquire academic proficiency in 

English, requiring an absolute performance measure does not recognize these students’ ongoing achievements. It punishes the students and the schools for, in essence, not learning fast enough. I’ve 

seen the discouraged students and, unfortunately, it happens at all 

grade levels. 

The current assessment model also inadvertently penalizes our 

students in other ways. In Sonoma, we have an active and generous community, supplementing our core curriculum with arts 

programs, community involvement opportunities, career preparation, and more. But, children with low test scores cannot access 

this rigorous and enriching curriculum, because they are tethered 

with additional language and math classes. This punishes students 

who are deemed low performing by this one single measure. They 

are the ones most in need of these job skills and relevant curriculum to keep them connected to schools. So, the very students 

we seek to support are the ones who are disenfranchised by this 

one-test-fits-all model of assessment. 

I know my students would be better served with a multiple 

measures type of assessment, that recognizes their ongoing improvement. Our state’s accountability measure, the Academics Performance Index, or API, is designed as an improvement model that 

sets targets for students and subgroups of students to meet 

achievement goals and move them closer to proficiency. 

At the same time, California’s system recognizes the advances 

made by students in schools, and it contains provisions for intervention for schools that repeatedly fail to make these targets. 

I urge you, on behalf of students, parents, CTA, to allow states 

the flexibility to decide the type of accountability model that best 

fits their particular needs. The achievement gap can continue to be 

a focus with this model through analysis of subgroup data. 

I know, as do many practitioners, through the current research 

and our own daily experiences, that NCLB is not narrowing the 

achievement gap. I know accountability further disadvantages the 

English learners when the system depends on an over reliance on 

sanctions other than support. We have many, many examples of 

that in our valley. 

Teachers welcome accountability when it means that students 

can feel welcomed into our schools knowing they have a chance to 

succeed and are not destined to fail. 

The reauthorization of NCLB gives Congress the opportunity to 

build an educational accountability system that encourages students and teachers to reach their highest potential. 

I hope you will work with us, the field experts, to build an accurate and fair accountability system for our students. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much. 

[The statement of Ms. Blake follows:]

25

Prepared Statement of Melanie Blake, Teacher, Sonoma Valley High School 

Chairman Kildee and distinguished members of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education, I am pleased to have been invited 

today to testify on ‘‘Improving the No Child Left Behind Act’s Accountability System’’. My name is Melanie Blake and I am a teacher at Sonoma Valley High School, 

located about 30 miles north of where we sit today. I have been a public school 

teacher for over twenty years. I hold a master’s degree in educational leadership 

with an emphasis in assessment. I have several teaching credentials and have 

worked with students of all ages, from elementary school through college. I have 

taught developmentally challenged students, high achieving students, native speakers and English Language Learners. I currently teach seniors English, civics and 

economics. I come here today on behalf of the 340,000 members of the California 

Teachers Association, all of whom have been affected by the No Child Left Behind 

Act. 

Sonoma Valley High School is a wonderful place to work, with a group of dedicated teachers, supportive administrators, and involved parents. We are part of a 

district that also includes 5 elementary schools and 2 middle schools that feed into 

our high school, as well as two alternative education schools and two K-8 charter 

schools. Our schools are an integral part of a larger community that is a rural/suburban mix in the southeast corner of Sonoma County. If you walked through our 

community, you would see the last mission built in California, small shops and a 

traditional movie house all situated on a quaint plaza, complete with playgrounds 

and picnic area, nestled in the rolling hills and surrounded by vineyards. What 

many people would not guess if they visited our community is that we are also a 

school district which has been identified for Program Improvement—in other words, 

a failing district under the No Child Left Behind Act. Two of our elementary schools 

and both of our middle schools are designated as Program Improvement Schools and 

my own school, Sonoma Valley High School, was a PI school just one year ago. The 

high school was able to exit Program Improvement status this year, but as the level 

of expected proficiency sharply increases over the next few years, we may become 

labeled a failing school again. So I feel qualified to speak to you today about what 

NCLB means to the ‘‘field experts’’ in our educational system, the teachers, principals, paraprofessionals and support staff who practice our craft in schools—with 

students—every day of the year. 

First, it is essential that we all recognize that accountability is a necessary component of our school systems, both statewide and nationally, and it is fitting that you 

make that the focus of your hearing today. NCLB has been a driving force for all 

schools to take a deep look at our students, and in particular, to focus on students 

by subgroup. We recognize that there is an achievement gap, especially for students 

with disabilities, English learners, and economically disadvantaged students. And I, 

along with my teaching colleagues, embrace the opportunity to work to close that 

achievement gap. That is why California instituted the Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA) in 1999, well before the reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2001. Unfortunately, accountability under 

NCLB has been reduced to a matter of test scores and little else. 

Currently, a one-time high stakes test often determines whether a school is considered to be making Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) and is succeeding under NCLB, 

or whether it is a school in need of improvement and therefore faces sanctions. This 

snapshot approach is an unfair and misleading measure of student achievement and 

fails to discriminate between schools that are truly in need of intensive and sustained intervention and those that may have missed the expected proficiency level 

by just a small amount. 

This one shot assessment model is especially problematic for our English Language Learners and the schools and teachers that serve them. Students arrive every 

year from other countries. This is especially true in communities like ours, which 

has a large population of agricultural workers who work in the vineyards. These 

students must learn two curriculums: core academics and English. They need time 

to acquire academic proficiency in English. Requiring an absolute performance 

measure does not recognize these students’ achievement. It punishes the students 

and the schools for, in essence, not learning fast enough. This discourages learners 

and robs them of access to the same curriculum as their peers. 

The current assessment model also fails to reward and recognize schools that offer 

students a rich and rigorous curriculum, that build students’ higher order thinking 

skills and dispositions of inquiry so valuable to future employers, and that offer opportunities to engage students in community service. Each of those avenues supports the learning and development of children and youth and all are being decimated by the over-emphasis on test preparation and test scores. 

26

Moreover, our current measure of AYP does not even recognize the growth in student achievement as measured by test scores that IS occurring every day in schools. 

Many students are moving from far below basic to below basic, or below basic to 

basic levels of proficiency. Yet only those students who achieve a level of proficiency 

or above are recognized as making progress. California’s Education Coalition, of 

which CTA is a member along with the PTA, the California Schools Boards Association, the Association of California School Administrators and many others, are 

united in advocating that academic growth among all segments of the school population should be acknowledged as making progress. 

Our state’s accountability measure, the Academic Performance Index (API), is designed as an improvement model that sets targets for all students, and all subgroups of students, to meet achievement goals that move them closer to proficiency. 

At the same time, California’s system recognizes the advances made by students 

and schools and contains provisions for intervention for schools that repeatedly fail 

to make those targets. CTA urges Congress to allow states to decide the type of accountability model that best fits their needs and context, while maintaining the requirement in federal law that such systems analyze student achievement data by 

subgroup, so that the achievement gap remains a focus of attention. 

We know, through the current research and through our own daily experiences 

in schools, that NCLB is not narrowing the achievement gap. We know that the current accountability system further disadvantages minority and poor students with 

its over-reliance on sanctions rather than support and assistance to schools and students that need it. We know that unless schools are funded at a level that makes 

proven reforms such as class size reduction and sustained teacher collaboration time 

feasible, the achievement gap will continue. 

Teachers welcome accountability when it means that students can feel welcomed 

into schools, knowing that they have a chance to succeed there, not that they are 

destined to fail. The reauthorization of NCLB gives Congress the opportunity to 

build an educational accountability system that encourages students and teachers 

to reach their highest potential; I hope that you have the courage and wisdom to 

do so. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. 

Chairman KILDEE. Before we begin the questions, Lynn and I 

would like to remind you that there is coffee in the corner, so if 

you want to replenish, audience or the witnesses, please do, we are 

somewhat informal here. 

But, I really appreciate very much your testimony. I’d like to ask 

you a question, and we’ll see how long it will take to respond, and 

Lynn, you might yield to me a bit, and I’ll yield to you a bit when 

it’s time. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Fine, yes. 

Chairman KILDEE. We talk about AYP, Adequate Yearly 

Progress, and growth models. Is that and/or, can we have a combination, or is there some blend of the two? Let’s just start down 

here, if you have any comment, start with Dr. Tempes. 

Mr. TEMPES. Yes, I think the notion of a growth model and the 

notion of a status model, where you have to jump over the bar, 

might be blended, and I think my colleagues here have all talked 

about API as a good model for doing that. 

My point is reasonableness. You can have a growth model that 

has unreasonable expectations as well. So, I think that the flexibility that we are asking for in California doesn’t preclude other 

states from saying we want to use a status model, and I think the 

Department of Education is moving in that direction, but the opportunity that was presented to us we thought to have a growth 

model was kind of pulled out from under us with some technicalities. 

So, I think you can have either/or, really, but you ought to allow 

either/or. 

27

Chairman KILDEE. Dr. Liddell? 

Ms. LIDDELL. I do think that there is room for both. I think that 

the growth model does give us the feeling of accomplishment and 

being able to meet targets and to meet student needs. 

Having a target, like the AYP, is useful, and my suggestion 

would be that we have a team of statistical analysts take as look 

at how that could be blended, or how the specific question and data 

that we want to focus on, to know whether our children are moving 

toward success and proficiency, and whether or not we are closing 

the achievement gap. That takes more than just one person’s perspective, it takes a lot of people sitting around the table analyzing 

the system. 

Chairman KILDEE. Ms. Schott? 

Ms. SCHOTT. Follow the status, is that what you are saying? I 

think the problem with that model is that if you set a bar you say, 

okay, we’d like 67 percent of our kids at proficient, and we’ll be 

happy with that. I don’t know how you go tell the 33 percent’s parents that we’ve decided that they aren’t the ones we need to bring 

to proficiency. 

So, I think the growth model is possibly the humane model, and 

you could just call it Adequate Yearly Progress, it’s a name, you 

just change that to that’s what your Adequate Yearly Progress is, 

is your 5 percent between—there is a target in California, the 800 

on the API is the target, and you are expected to make 5 percent 

of the difference between where you are now and 800 every year. 

I guess that is a blend then, isn’t it? There’s a blend already in 

place. 

Chairman KILDEE. Mr. Gonzalez? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I also agree that we need to have goals and targets that we need to attain. However, Dr. Tempes spoke to the reasonableness of these goals, specifically, with the ELL population, 

English language learning population, special ed and the lower income students. And, whatever that model is, we just have to be 

very, very careful when we set standards and goals for these students, and that’s, in my opinion, the demographic change that has 

really affected us. 

So, I think the model is necessary. 

Chairman KILDEE. Ms. Blake? 

Ms. BLAKE. Thank you. 

In Sonoma Valley, we have a school that’s now in year five program improvement. They have 68 percent low socioeconomic students and rising, 62 percent EL learners and rising, 

What we need is an accountability model that allows for accountability for student growth in those areas. Special education children, I’ve worked with them every day for ten years, and ELL students, they are not necessarily in our current model by AYP by 

2013, we are not going to have 100 percent of those students making proficiency every year in the test, because we have new children coming into the system every year, especially in California, 

where we have non-English speaking students arriving all year, 

every year. 

And so, a model that recognizes student growth in achievement, 

as they move toward proficiency, is a model that’s going to allow 

us to make those goals, and help students to really be successful. 

28

Chairman KILDEE. Generally, a growth model is based upon the 

individual, how that individual is growing. So, you need a data system to follow the individual. 

AYP, generally, is the 3rd grade at X school this year, and the 

3rd grade, who are different people, the following year, and it did 

not meet the Adequate Yearly Progress. Is there some way we can 

fuse the two where we are determining that that 3rd grade is making progress, and at the same time the individual is making 

progress? 

Yes. 

Ms. LIDDELL. In our district, we have—we started with the Reading First model in 2003, and we did the same thing some of my 

colleagues did in placing it even in schools that didn’t qualify for 

it. We were able to fund it into those schools with the coaches and 

the training for all the administrators and teachers. 

And then, we’ve replicated that for students that are under-performing students in the secondary level. That model works very 

well, but the key piece to it is that data points are selected, such 

as reading fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, and data is collected on that on a regular basis, and put into what we call OAR 

system, Online Assessment Reporting system. 

The teachers can push a button as soon as the information is in 

and get a report back on an individual student, on their class, on 

the school, on the district. We are able to monitor students as they 

move along all through the year, and that’s what gets us finally to 

the NCLB goal. We have to know all along the way if we are reaching those students. 

So, you are exactly right, we do need to know how we can address student needs individually or we can’t move them. We have 

reduced the achievement gap in our special education group, and 

in our English language learner groups by about 35 points, and 

this is the method that we’ve used. It’s very important to address 

the individual student. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you. 

Ms. Woolsey. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Well, we hear about API working, but my concern with API 

versus No Child Left Behind, believe me, I don’t think No Child 

Left Behind and AYP is the total answer, but API stops working 

for me when students that are English learners, come from economically disadvantaged families, have a year’s growth in a year, 

but never catch up. 

So, I think the major thing that’s wrong with No Child Left Behind, and measuring AYP, is where is the support for the school 

and the districts and the students that need more help every year 

to catch up. 

Now, and then I want to make a side thing. I believe, and I want 

you to respond on this, that special ed kids that are cognitively unable to catch up forever, I believe that, and tell me if I’m wrong, 

that their IEP——

Ms. LIDDELL. IEPs. 

Ms. WOOLSEY [continuing]. IEPs measure annual yearly growth, 

and that we should make sure that happens, that each one of these 

29

kids then annually grows as best they can, and all the way through 

their schooling. 

And so, how do we make sure that we don’t leave the kids, 

English learners and—not just measuring, of course we should 

keep those kids, the English learners, in the mix forever so that we 

can show. 

I want all of you to answer, if you will. 

Mr. TEMPES. Right, let me just briefly, because there’s a word 

you need to keep in mind. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Okay. 

Mr. TEMPES. And, that word is nuanced. What we have now is 

an accountability system that is kind of a sledge hammer approach, 

all kids will hit this goal by this year. 

Special education, the accountability measures for special education, students receiving special education, needs to be nuanced. 

Some kids should be held accountable for meeting those standards 

in the same time period as everybody else. Some kids should have 

an alternate assessment system, and be held accountable for those 

measures. 

You go down to Mr. Gonzalez’s school, children who are learning 

English should be held accountable for learning English at a proper 

rate. Those students should not be held in the same time period 

for hitting the academic measures until they are ready to be tested. 

So, you need to nuance the approach to recognize these kids are 

different, that’s why they are called, the services are called special 

education, that’s why we have English learners. We have schools 

that also need a nuanced approach. We have schools that are designed not to keep students all year long, and they are being held 

accountable as if the students were there all year long. The goal 

for them still is to get them back into the regular school. 

So, a more nuanced approach to the accountability I think would 

meet some of the concerns you are talking about. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. But, that nuance will get them there eventually. 

Mr. TEMPES. Correct. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. I mean, there’s an end. 

Mr. TEMPES. Well, that’s the hard part. 

Ms. WOOLSEY [continuing]. 12th grade you are out. 

Mr. TEMPES. That’s the hard part, is people say, well, you are not 

going to hold yourself accountable for English learners or special 

education students, I think that everybody here would reject that. 

We want to be held accountable for all students appropriately. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. So, Mr. Gonzalez, and then you too, Dr. Liddell, 

tell me what other support systems are needed to make that possible, besides punishing your schools and sending your kids away. 

Ms. LIDDELL. Very often, these IEPs that you mentioned are in 

conflict with IDEA, and so there does need to be a nuance in that, 

maybe flexible assessments for students at certain levels. 

We do have a systems approach that works, where you do similar 

replication of a model, like we talked about, and there are some 

specialized programs out there that address the language abilities 

of students, no matter whether it’s English language learners, or 

special education learners, or low socioeconomic learners, because 

their characteristics actually resemble each other. They have low 

vocabulary. Their fluency is not good. They may not have reading 

30

background from their home, all kinds of characteristics that are 

very, very similar. 

There are models out there now that we know of that work very 

well in a two to three year period, to bring all of those students 

up into a proficient model of use of English, whether it’s reading, 

writing, and that type of thing, and those kinds of models need to 

be shown to all of the schools that need to have that, and use a 

systems approach to make this happen for the students, and watch 

them with the OARs data. 

Ms. SCHOTT. I think that Reading First has been fairly successful 

for schools that have been with it for four or five years. We are seeing in California that the Title 1 high achieving schools that are 

receiving the awards from the State Department are coming from 

districts that have been with Reading First for four or five years, 

primarily, large groups of them. 

what would help my school would be being able to getting a 

Reading First grant, but because it’s a district level of eligibility, 

and I’m——

Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, tell me why McDowell isn’t eligible? I didn’t 

understand that. 

Ms. SCHOTT. Okay. Reading First grants are given to districts, 

and districts have to have 40 percent of their 3rd graders not performing at proficiency. And so, in a variable district like ours, 

Petaluma will probably, in this lifetime events, they’ll be never 

qualified, as a district, we’ll never qualify for a Reading First 

grant. 

And so——

Ms. WOOLSEY. So, your school is punished because the district as 

a whole is successful. 

Ms. SCHOTT. Yes, it’s a neighborhood kind of thing. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. You spoke of the IEP, and we pass students, if 

a student has an IEP, and is in special education, they are passed 

on to the following grade based on their individual education plan 

goals that they have met. 

So, their grade level goals are different than their IEP goals, and 

they will pass on to the next grade level if they’ve met those goals. 

So, though a student may not be passing classes at the same 

level as a regular education student, if their goals are met they are 

passed on, and that’s where we see the discrepancy or the nuances 

in the law. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. So then, are you, is that held against your AYP 

score? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. If a student is supposed to go from 7th to 8th 

grade, does not have the grades to go, if you basing them strictly 

on grades, and they are not going to pass 7th grade, but they’ve 

met their IEP goals, they are now 8th graders, and they have to 

take the 8th grade test, though they have not met the district and 

the state standards. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. And, that’s different from a student who comes in 

not knowing English, and needs to have the catch up to get there, 

or a student that didn’t have books in their house, and they are 

finally gobbling it up, but it takes time. 

31

Mr. GONZALEZ. And, one other component to that is, if a new student arrives to us in 3rd grade, with no previous education, well, 

they are in 3rd grade so they are asked to take the 3rd or the 4th 

grade test, though they haven’t had the previous education of 

kinder, 1st and 2nd. 

Ms. SCHOTT. Did you want to say something? 

Ms. BLAKE. Yes. 

Ms. SCHOTT. Go ahead. 

Ms. BLAKE. What teachers are seeing when it comes to testing 

is that over the last six years or we’ve started to see what we are 

calling a culture of testing. And, teachers need to have the flexibility to really be able to look at the data, see where students are 

currently functioning, and move them forward, and so it’s very discouraging for a school like Sonoma Valley High, where we are put 

into program improvement, not based on student accomplishments, 

but because one subgroup of students failed to meet the 95 percent 

threshold for attendance. 

And, in a district where you have migrant ed children, and you 

have children moving in and out of the district, it’s very frustrating 

and discouraging to have your school labeled as a failing school for 

some very small sort of obscure component that really did not have 

a lot to do with student performance. 

So, two things, the idea of formative assessment that gives the 

students and the teachers in the classroom some power over student progress, so we can say to that student, yes, you may not have 

reached this level, but you went from basic to proficient, or you 

went from below basic to basic, and that matters, because right 

now unless a student reaches proficiency each year they are tested 

that other growth doesn’t seem to matter. 

And so, that’s why the formative mixed in with these ultimate 

goals is important to teachers. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have more questions when you are through. 

Chairman KILDEE. I’ll take some, and then it’s your district, so 

you can. 

Let me ask this. You know, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, 

set high standards for a child, and from rigorous tests. Other 

states, I won’t name them, I’ll get in trouble with some of my colleagues, but you probably know who they are, have standards that 

are rather low, and, therefore, it’s easier to show good results on 

testing. 

Yet, Congress felt very cautious about trying to move into national standards and national testing, because, we believe that education is a local function, it’s a state responsibility, and it’s a Federal concern, and it’s a Federal concern for two reasons. We live in 

a mobile society. A person educated in Mississippi may wind up in 

California, and vice versa. And we are competing in a global economy. Education gives us the cutting edge in that. 

But, it’s a local function, state responsibility and a Federal concern, so we were very, more than reluctant, and chose not to have 

national standards and national tests. 

Could we, however, and we do it somewhat, could we expand 

somewhat, at least some statistical sampling, and take the NAEP 

test and do some sampling of states, maybe not individual students 

32

of states, and see how their standards and testing are measuring 

up to, say, the NAEP. 

I’d like to have all of you comment on that, if you could. 

Mr. TEMPES. Yes, that’s interesting, I have that down on my list 

of accountability topics to raise today, because we hold schools accountable, we hold districts accountable, we ought to hold states accountable at some level as well. And, I think the way that you’ve 

just outlined, Chairman, Kildee, of comparing California’s AYP 

achievement with the NAEP achievement, and granted there will 

be a gap that can be attributed to difference in standards, but you 

know that in some cases that gap is too wide to be attributed just 

to standards, it’s a lower standard. 

And, I think you ought to consider holding states accountable for 

reasonable standards. I don’t know what the consequence, but 

NCLB is based on standards and consequences. So, I would endorse 

that notion of using NAEP to measure the rigor of state accountability systems. If it’s too far, too much discrepancy, then there 

ought to be some consequence. 

Chairman KILDEE. Doctor? 

Ms. LIDDELL. I would agree with my colleague. I believe that 

there does need to be consistency in standards and consistency in 

benchmarks, in order for us to all be compared, and NAEP would 

be a good way to do it, or some other format in which the standards are examined. They don’t have to be exactly the same, but so 

that the rigor is measured, and it is an accountability program that 

is consistent across the country, for what we want students to 

know. 

Chairman KILDEE. Okay. Ms. Schott? 

Ms. SCHOTT. I don’t have anything to comment. 

Ms. BLAKE. Mr. Gonzalez? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I would agree, the national system as well. However, states like California, Arizona, Texas, New York, that have 

high language learning populations would have to be addressed 

just like each school site would be, and as well with teaching 

standards for teachers and the credentialing issues. I know that 

we’ve had teachers come from different states, and they have 

through the hoops in each state. So, I think that would be a great 

thing to have nationalized as well. 

Chairman KILDEE. Ms. Blake? 

Ms. BLAKE. In the Chronicle yesterday a couple of studies were 

released, one talking about how in Marin County the 1999 Teacher 

of the Year left the teaching profession because there were too 

many obstacles, too many pressures, too much work in the weekends, too much work in the summer. We cannot continue to have 

this schizophrenic approach to testing and assessment of children 

in our classroom. We need an accountability system that allows 

teachers to look at their students and expect reasonable growth 

and reasonable expectations toward an ultimate goal of proficiency. 

If we want to have a state standard for proficiency, or a national 

standard for proficiency, that’s okay, but teachers need to know 

that the accountability system in the classroom is going to be supporting student learning, supporting a rich and rigorous curriculum, and it’s going to do it in a way that allows us to measure 

real growth and real learning for those students. 

33

Otherwise, it’s just another target that doesn’t mean much to the 

children in the classroom. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much. 

Let me ask this question and I’ll yield to Congresswoman Woolsey. 

Right now if you miss AYP by that much, or by a country mile, 

in the third year you get school choice as the effect, right, and then 

the fourth year you get supplemental education services. 

Could we write the bill where if you just barely miss AYP there’s 

some effect, but if you miss it by a country mile there’s a deeper 

effect? 

Do you want to go down the line again? 

Mr. TEMPES. I hate to use the word nuance again, but I will, and 

when—it’s a good system with the kind of caveats that we’ve all 

laid out here today, for identifying schools in need of improvement. 

But each school is individual, and you can take a look at schools 

that have the same, even a country mile off the mark, and one 

school is going in the right direction and another school is not 

doing anything. 

The system needs to be nuanced enough to say, okay, neither of 

you are meeting AYP, you can continue on the course you are going 

on, you we need to intervene in. And, this really can only be done 

at the local level. I think you need to empower state departments 

of education and districts to do that kind of work. 

Chairman KILDEE. It does introduce a certain subjective element, 

right? 

Mr. TEMPES. Without a doubt, and I mean I think that is better 

than to try to dictate from Washington one of these things will 

happen. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you very much. 

Yes, Doctor. 

Ms. LIDDELL. We have an example of that in our school district. 

We have a high school, and I will say to you that this high school 

just received a six-year WASK recommendation, so it is considered 

an excellent high school. However, it has missed the AYP the last 

couple of years, and the reason is because of the participation rate. 

Just barely, it wasn’t even very much, just a small percentage 

point. 

And, if we had the flexibility it would encourage those families, 

and parents, and teachers, and staff members, to know that they 

were working toward an attainable goal. They are in the 5th year 

of the sanctions now. It is getting pretty rough over there, and the 

morale goes down. After you’ve been in something that long, it gets 

really tough to keep people motivated and moving. 

And, that’s part of the picture that we have to do, as well as the 

funding. 

Ms. SCHOTT. I don’t know why this came to my mind, but how 

would you decide how close was close enough? And where would 

that be decided? Would it just be participation rate? I mean, maybe 

it’s sort of the danger of this status type accountability system, if 

there is a bar. If there isn’t a bar, then, you know, or if the bar 

moves, you know, I’d want to know who is making that decision. 

34

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you. I think you raise a valid question, 

because I don’t know what the answer is either, and I’m glad to 

get this variety of ideas. 

Dr. Gonzalez, do you have any comments? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. The same thing was where we made our growth 

and met our goals in all areas except our special education, I think 

it was four years ago, and it was the same thing. We made everything, except we almost made it there, so where do you draw that 

almost, not enough, or how big that country mile is? 

Chairman KILDEE. Okay, Ms. Blake. 

Ms. BLAKE. In addressing your comment about a school that just 

misses the mark, and then a school that is consistently and deeply 

in trouble, I do believe that we absolutely need to make that distinction, and for schools that are truly struggling we need to provide support, not punishment, and not sanctions. Those schools are 

struggling many times because they are in high poverty areas, or 

they are dealing with a lot of special circumstances with students 

who have very special and specific learning needs. 

So, we need to provide a system that can discriminate between 

a school that just barely missed it because of a participation rate 

and a school that is deeply embroiled in very serious learning 

struggles with their students. 

The thing that needs to always be remembered is that the focus 

must stay on the student, and the student learning, and what support can we give to these schools, and these teachers, and the administrators, and the parents who are struggling to build a rich 

learning community, because right now we have teachers leaving 

the profession because we feel like our hands are tied. 

We spend years and years getting degrees, and getting the expertise, and then we get into our classrooms ready to work, ready to 

roll up our sleeves and work, only to find out our hands have been 

tied by unrealistic goals. 

We need to make these measurements attainable and achievable 

for our students over time, and that doesn’t mean to say that they 

are never going to have an ultimate bar, but if the bar is up here, 

and my student can’t speak English, or they come to me without 

prior education, or they come with special learning needs, we need 

to be able to establish a pattern of performance objectives that will 

allow the child to reach that goal and know they are not predestined to failure. 

Chairman KILDEE. I appreciate the fact that we got somewhat 

varying and concurring responses to that from the richness of your 

own experiences. That’s very helpful to me. 

And now, I yield such time as she may consume to the 

Gentlelady from California. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. I could just go on and on about this. This is so 

exciting, you’ve been wonderful. I just so appreciate you. 

Well, nuance and flexibility, it all goes together, and for Ms. 

Schott’s question, how do you decide, well, first of all, look where 

we are. We are in Marin and Sonoma Counties. What if we were 

in East LA? I mean, I can say that, nobody—we don’t have anybody 

up here that would defend that. I mean, there are parts of this 

country, even in our own state, that are in so much trouble, and 

I still don’t think they are in trouble because it’s their own fault. 

35

I believe it’s because they need way more help than McDowell and 

Venetia needed, McDowell or McKinley in Petaluma. 

When we first got started with this, and I was arguing with 

Chairman Miller about No Child Left Behind, and my district, 

Marin and Sonoma Counties, some of the best scores in the country, I was absolutely sure we didn’t have a big gap. 

And so, I called Dr. Wong in Sonoma, the Superintendent of 

Schools, and Mary Jane Burke here in Marin, and asked the direct 

question. My staff called them. Can the Congresswoman say, leave 

these schools that are doing so well alone, these school districts, because they are doing fine. And, both of them said, after they knew 

I wasn’t going to put it all over the paper and get them in trouble, 

because that wasn’t the intention, I just needed to know what I 

could argue from, they said, no, Congresswoman, even in our wonderful districts we have gaps, and, indeed, we have to do something 

about it. 

So, when we talk about nuance and flexibility, it will be clear if 

we allow ourselves this flexibility, which schools and which systems 

are actually investing in bridging that gap. I don’t think there will 

be anything subtle about that, and it will be clear which ones can’t 

without just extreme help, not punishment. I think that we should 

be a long way from punishing schools that are working so hard to 

meet these challenges. 

So, I have a couple of places I’d like to talk and ask you about. 

One is, Mr. Gonzalez, in your testimony you talked about what I 

call educating the whole student. So, talk about, if you will, how 

the system we’ve set up, if you see it, any of you, starting with you, 

Mr. Gonzalez, interfering with art, music, and geography, and 

civics, and history, I mean, when we get through with this we’ve 

got to have whole people out in our society. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And, we’ve had to emphasize so much on literacy, 

mathematics, and with the help of the literacy coaches and the 

state, or the district-mandated program, we put 8:30-10:30 every 

morning is sacred reading time, 11:00-12:00 is writing time, after 

lunch from 1:00-2:00 is math time, and then we have that last hour 

of the day which we are having to contract out YMCA for PE, 

local—for music and art and drama, but the teachers themselves 

are so focused on the literacy and the math that the science, social 

studies are taking a back seat. And, like you said, it’s very important that we educate and have these well-rounded students, but 

our teachers are so overwhelmed with so much that’s being asked 

of them that we are asking outside agencies for help. 

And, we are very fortunate that we have those resources here. 

I know that in some districts and some school sites those resources 

aren’t there, so that’s something that, yes, we do struggle with, and 

we have to go outside of our school for help. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. And, Mr. Tempes, maybe you could talk about this 

on the same question, could we bring, as one of our measurements 

besides testing, that, indeed, these different schools are doing a 

good job on these other programs? 

Mr. TEMPES. Without a doubt. I mean, it’s clear that NCLB inadvertently has resulted in a narrowing of the curriculum in ways 

that Pepe just described. 

36

I’ll give you a good example. In California, we do a physical fitness test, I guess it’s the 5th and 7th grade every other year, those 

are standards, you know, and they are actually very practical real 

standards. We’ve got an epidemic, everybody knows about obesity 

and everything, we’ve got standards, nobody pays any attention to 

them. Nobody is held accountable for making any progress on 

those, not to mention music, art. 

We’ll see a jump now in science education, because science is 

being folded in, but, you know, the system has that consequence. 

And, the people that I talk to, my friends in education, are particularly worried about civics education. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Yes. 

Mr. TEMPES. Who is going to be voting, who is going to be making these decisions? Pretty scary. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Yes. Before you, forgive me, I didn’t say anything 

about PE, you know, for shame. 

Mr. TEMPES. We have these measures in place now, we just need 

to use them. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Right, that’s right. 

Ms. LIDDELL. Those are very good points, and we have, both the 

secondary and elementary levels, we have the same critical elements going on that my colleagues have, where there’s just not 

enough time in the day, or in the school year, to get everything in. 

So, we do the best we can and be creative about our time. We 

bring in people for after school programs to try to boost our students in different areas, and we have certain music programs that 

occur after school outside the school day. 

All of those take money. Within the school day, if we have a high 

school student who comes to us in, let’s say, the 10th grade, and 

does not speak English, and has not had very much schooling in 

the past, we have ten years of education to impart on that person, 

and he’s supposed to take the California high school exit exam 

right then, which is part of the AYP. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, and can I interrupt? 

Ms. LIDDELL. Certainly. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. He’s also supposed to want to stay in school. 

Ms. LIDDELL. Right. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. And, he feels humiliated. 

Ms. LIDDELL. Exactly right, and so, what we’ve learned to do now 

is to offer support programs, two periods of English and writing, 

and two periods of math and all of those kinds of things, but then 

you lose the time for the other elements in schooling. 

Without more funding, without money to be able to add back in 

either time, or creative ways of doing things, our hands are tied. 

Ms. SCHOTT. You alluded to the too-short day, it’s a problem. 

When the California framework, the framework for English language arts was being released, recommends two and a half hours 

a day of language arts for students in 1st through 3rd grades, we 

run out of time around, I don’t know, noon, there just isn’t enough. 

So, at McDowell we have taken the stance that reading research 

over the last 15 years tells us as kids leave 1st grade not reading 

at grade level they have a one in eight chance of ever reading at 

grade level. We’ve got to get those kids reading. 

37

If we get kids reading and proficient in math by the time they 

go to their junior high or middle school experience, well, first of all, 

we are going to have some really happy teachers in our district at 

the 6th and 7th grade levels, and they are going to be able to take 

on the enrichment, and they won’t be having to do the double periods of language! 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Except for the new kids. 

Ms. SCHOTT. Well, except for newbies, yes, you fold them in, but 

the kids who have been here forever, if we can get them into grade 

level reading, then the intermediate and secondary schools can 

take it from there and do the science, and the social studies, and 

all that fun stuff. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Melanie? 

Ms. BLAKE. Thank you. I completely agree with my colleagues 

here at the table and the comments they’ve made about not enough 

time to teach, insufficient resources interfering with academics, two 

math periods and two English periods. All of that we are seeing 

happening in our classrooms. 

I’d also like to point out one other critical thing that teachers are 

noticing in their classrooms, and that is, that with the culture of 

testing we are so busy teaching students what to think that we are 

losing the critical thinking that allows students to teach themselves, that allows students to teach each other, and that allows 

them to learn how to think for themselves. 

We want to have educated citizens, and if we wait until high 

school to try to fold in geography, and civics, and economics, and 

critical thinking skills, and to become good citizens, and what it 

means to be a good citizen, we’ve waited too long, and that’s the 

problem with front loading so much of just testing and these kind 

of academics. We need to be able to work on the whole child early 

on. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. So, the Chairman has generously allowed me to 

ask another kind of question. 

I want to talk about the impact of the testing and the labels that 

come along with it, the school labeled in improvement, and the idea 

of if a school is in improvement that students can immediately 

transfer to another school. 

I shouldn’t tell you what my thoughts are, but I really believe 

that that’s backwards. I think we should have as much help for 

that school as possible for much longer than one year, and then, 

but you tell me, is it positive to leave the school and go to another 

school? 

First of all, in Petaluma, where do they go? 

So, respond to that, about, having the option, you go now, you 

go where? 

Ms. SCHOTT. We’ve had fewer than five children leave our school 

in the three years that we’ve had to offer choice. They go, in the 

first year they went to McKinley, because McKinley wasn’t in program improvement, and it’s walkable. I mean——

Ms. WOOLSEY. Guess what? It is now. 

Ms. SCHOTT. Oh, I know. So, now they are offered Valley Vista, 

but I’ll give you an example. I took students from our school over 

to the School Board meeting, 6th graders, which is across town, 

past Valley Vista, and as we were driving into Petaluma one of the 

38

students said to me, is this Santa Rosa? I mean, we were five minutes from my school. 

And so, for us to tell parents who walk to our school currently, 

well, we are not—you know, we aren’t doing a very good job so you 

can take your child over to Valley Vista, they don’t even know 

where Valley Vista is, so they wouldn’t send their kindergartner 

there. 

So, we’ve had about five students leave. We are the fastest growing school in our district, and so what it tells me is that NCLB 

sanctions are less important than a place where parents like having their kids go to school. 

That doesn’t let us off the hook, we still need to be educating our 

kids, even if they aren’t holding that as their highest standard. 

Mr. TEMPES. I would agree. I don’t think there’s—the people who 

are going to move their children to another school for academic reasons did this long before the school was designated as program improvement. And, I think it sends the wrong message that you are 

bad, and now we are going to take anybody who is interested 

enough to move their kids out of there, and that will only make the 

things more difficult. 

It’s system improvement, not system undermining, that we ought 

to be interested in. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. The tone that you set the parents is, our school 

is not good enough, take your kid to where they are providing a 

better education, whereas, it’s the opposite. I mean, those teachers 

are probably working just as hard, if not harder, than any other 

school district or school that isn’t program improvement. 

So, the one that you are sending to these parents is just really, 

really negative in general. 

Ms. LIDDELL. Go ahead, I’ll go last. 

Ms. BLAKE. In Sonoma Valley, what we have seen is, for example, with El Verano Elementary School, they are now in fifth year 

of program improvement, and the parents, and the staff, and the 

children, have rallied around that school, and the community has 

rallied around that school, and it’s a terrible notion to even think 

that that really powerful learning isn’t going on in this elementary 

school. The children are making academic progress. It doesn’t always show up in the AYP in the way they would like it to, but we 

can see those scores coming up every year for the students that 

come in and stay year after year. 

And so, actually, we’ve kind of seen a funny reverse effect, where 

people have rallied around these schools and said, you aren’t going 

to label us as a failing school. We know we aren’t failing. We know 

our children are getting a good education. 

And so, hopefully, we can build that kind of community to say, 

we don’t have to live with that label. We don’t have to be defined 

by this one test, this one year. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. And, where would those kids go anyway? They 

would have to be bussed somewhere from El Verano. 

Ms. BLAKE. That’s correct, most of the other elementary schools 

are already impacted, and certainly there’s another school up the 

road, that’s Flowery, they are now also in program improvement, 

year one, and people are actually busing their children or driving 

their children into Flowery because they turned it into a dual imVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:09 Sep 09, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\110TH\ECESE\110-27\34604.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK
39

mersion school. And so, they are looking for creative ways to keep 

people connected to their schools and the learning. 

Ms. LIDDELL. There have been so many good ideas, I hardly have 

anything to add, but I do think that when we send out the letters 

at the beginning of the year, it is heartbreaking for those schools 

to have to send that out, for the principals and the teachers. It is 

demoralizing for them to have to do that, and we do have very few 

students who actually transfer. We offer a few schools for them to 

transfer to, but we do not have a lot of takers. 

Some of our schools who were labeled program improvement actually are some of the finest schools in our district, and they have 

shown the great growth that each year for the last five years that 

is really wonderful and powerful for people to see. And, we let the 

community know that. 

So, it is useful in that way, but it is not useful as a tool at the 

beginning of the year to send out to the community. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Well, I thank you. 

I just want to say a couple words before, the President—the 

President, don’t we wish, before the Chairman summarizes. 

But, when we first started this, I live in Petaluma, it became 

very clear to me I was playing a major role in education, and 

maybe I didn’t know all that much about it, and it had been a long 

time, because my kids are in their 40s, and my grandchildren 

hadn’t quite started school yet, because my oldest grandson is in 

the 1st grade now. 

So, I asked to volunteer for a morning a week for a semester at 

McKinley School in Petaluma. I thought I’d pick the school closest 

to my house that actually had a diverse population. 

And, when they nicely agreed, thinking I was doing something 

to get PR and press and all that, and when they realized, indeed, 

that wasn’t why I was doing this it became, it was really nice. 

I was only an hour on Monday, every Monday of the semester, 

and then I had to get on an airplane and go to D.C. I went to a 

different classroom for one hour each week, and I’m telling you, 

and I participated, I was a volunteer, I wasn’t the Congresswoman 

standing around watching, I volunteered. These were the smartest 

kids, these were the greatest teachers, that was the most darling 

school I’ve ever been—I’ve ever seen, I mean, I go to them, but they 

give me the best of the best when I go. 

One hour, and I have more energy than 95 percent of the people 

on earth, and everybody here can tell you that, and my staff, I was 

exhausted. The work that goes, and the energy, well, the last week 

I was there McKinley got their label of not measuring up, and I’m 

telling you, these teachers, the principal, they had tears in their 

eyes, and it was by just a barely percentage point. And, it was very 

clear to me then that you cannot have one standard and start labeling schools that are working with some of the hardest challenges we have. 

So, I thank you for bringing this to us. We have another bite at 

the apple. We will be working together, and we will take everything you’ve said today into account. 

So, thank you very much. 

Chairman KILDEE. Thank you, and I follow through on some of 

your very good questions there. 

40

Right now, we have at the end of the second year school choice, 

that’s the effect, right, and at the end of the third year supplemental educational services. Now, this is maybe just—would it help 

at all, it’s not a major change, if we flipped those two. 

Ms. LIDDELL. It would be good to look at all that chart, and think 

it through again, and think through how the sanctions fold together, and how they can be supported, because they need—it 

takes at least five years to make the difference that needs to be 

made in a school. 

Chairman KILDEE. Anyone else? 

Ms. SCHOTT. I would only support anything having to do with 

supplemental educational services if that was a program that was 

revisited from the bottom up. 

As I mentioned in my testimony, there’s one provider within 

walking distance of my site. Online providers, I don’t—I’ve been 

given information that we are supposed to check Interpol clearance 

on online providers, not just—because you can’t get fingerprints, 

and they may not be in our country. 

So, SES is a Medusa, it needs to be—well, and, the people who 

are providing the tutoring to our most impacted students are not 

as well trained as the people in their classrooms. 

I just think that can’t be effective. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, will you yield just a minute on 

that? That’s one of the fixes that I’ve drafted, is that the SES programs have to live up to the same standards as the teachers and 

the districts. I mean, and how do we measure them? And, we don’t. 

Ms. SCHOTT. And, they cost a lot of money. 

Mr. TEMPES. If I could just chime in with Mr. Kildee’s question. 

You can do that if you want, it won’t make any difference. Neither 

of these programs are big players in ed reform, and I agree with 

Liz Schott, you just ought to reexamine them and look for, the big 

word out of Washington is scientifically-based research. So, ask for 

the scientifically-based research on how those two are affecting students, student achievement. 

Ms. LIDDELL. We had one provider on our list, and this is a true 

story, who was an acknowledged provider, came in to our reading 

office and asked for information on how to do it, because they 

didn’t know how to do it, and didn’t have the materials. We had 

the same thing. 

This is really incredible, because that is, if you don’t have the 

child or the older student, whoever is receiving the service, receiving the same type of service that they are getting in the school, it’s 

not going to do them any good. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Or better. 

Ms. LIDDELL. Or better, exactly. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Yes. 

Ms. BLAKE. I would like a chance to respond also to that question. 

In our school district, going back to El Verano, we had staff that 

encouraged parents to take advantage of that opportunity to seek 

outside assistance, and shortly later parents were coming back 

with complaints to the school district asking who monitors these 

people anyway, and how did they get licensed to provide this kind 

of follow-up support. 

41

And so, even with that opportunity people overwhelmingly came 

back to the school for that additional report, which brings me to 

the need for funding for these kind of support systems in our own 

schools. We are the experts, we are trained to provide that, that’s 

why we are called teachers. And, we need the opportunity to be 

able to provide that, but in order to do that we need multiple measures, and we need a fully-funded system that allows us to really 

intervene with research-based methodologies that we know will 

make a difference with our students. 

Ms. LIDDELL. And, that don’t stop after one year. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Well I should go there. 

Chairman KILDEE. You never left there, you know. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Here we go again. 

Chairman KILDEE. It was interesting, the term failing school 

doesn’t appear in the law, and no matter how many times you say 

that, it does occur, though, doesn’t it? You get that all the time, in 

Michigan, in Virginia, the term failing school has become part of 

the lexicon, even though it nowhere appears in the law. So, it’s one 

of the things that is a reality that you have to face, probably more 

than just a public relations thing, too. 

People say, well, that’s just a public relations talk to editorial 

writers, and, you know, they’ll understand, but the word failing 

school has come into the lexicon, and we really want to make this 

a better bill. 

As I said, we’ll probably keep the same basic structure, but that 

chart, you told us to look at our own chart, right, of the effects, consequences, penalties, whatever we want to call them, right, that 

certainly, you know, wasn’t written—was written in Washington, 

D.C., right? We’ve learned a lot today. 

California has so much to offer us, as you’ve been told so many 

times, in so many areas of your life you are like a country out here. 

Your economy is bigger than so many other countries. And, your 

educational system is, you know, one that’s, it’s a great educational 

system. 

Every educational system has problems, but we’ve learned some 

things today, and people who really love education, and love kids, 

and we want to go back and see what we can do to help you carry 

out your job. 

Ms. Blake, you mentioned, maybe I’m paraphrasing a bit, when 

I taught I taught at a school for ten years, I loved it, but creativity 

was a very important thing. And, very often when you are, you 

know, arranging, as you mentioned, Mr. Gonzalez, arranging your 

hours to make sure they get this, and this, that you really don’t 

have much time for the creativity and some of the things that really are important for a person’s growth. 

As I say, we’ll probably keep the same basic structure, but each 

one of those elements in that structure can have much more flexibility. And, as you mentioned, Dr. Gonzalez, that chart certainly 

was not written at Mt. Sinai, right? 

Ms. LIDDELL. It needs to be looked at, you might want to consider having a group of educators work with the Committee on 

that, to look at it and give some input into what could be, and what 

flexibility means at the school site. 

42

Chairman KILDEE. And, if you could do that, some have done 

that. Minnesota has got educators together, and they’ve sent in a 

list of some specific changes. Another group gave us something, 

and if you could, I mean, the five of you could sit down here probably, and come up with some idea on—because those consequences, 

effects, penalties, whatever we want to call them, we generally try 

to use the neutral term effects, right, of not reaching AYP, but 

again, you could help us on that. 

And, I really appreciate, this has been an excellent panel, people 

who really are right there in the front line, and I very much appreciate it, and at this point I want to remind those who did not testify formally as witnesses that you may submit your testimony, and 

we will make sure it’s printed in the written record, and you can 

submit that by a week, by May 4th, week from today, and you can 

get, I think Mr. Horwich has cards right here with his e-mail address on that, and we’ll be happy to do that. 

Again, I’m glad that, Lynn, you asked us to come out here, and 

all members, this is for the record here, have seven calendar days 

to submit additional remarks, and any member who wishes to submit follow-up questions, we may have some follow-up questions for 

the panel, should coordinate with the Majority staff within the requisite time. 

And, without objection, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Additional statements entered into the record by Ms. Woolsey 

follow:]

Prepared Statement of Torri Chappell, Mother and Teacher 

Why No Child Left Behind Needs to be ‘‘Left Behind’’ and replaced with another 

plan that: • focuses on LEARNING instead of TESTING, • encourages teacher REFLECTION instead of BLIND COMPLIANCE, • promotes professional COOPERATION instead of COMPETITION, 

• results in INSPIRATION instead of PUNISHMENT AND FEAR. 

I am encouraged that people are beginning to examine NCLB and engage in conversations about its future. I believe that it needs to be discarded and replaced by 

a plan that is created by reflective educators who are actively involved in teaching 

and inspiring young learners instead of publishers, politicians and researchers who 

do not have actual experience with children and how children learn in a REAL situations, not situations created for testing or research purposes. The well-being of the 

children needs to be at the forefront. The focus needs to be on learning NOT testing. 

NCLB offers a culturally biased, narrowly defined view of success which relies 

solely on test scores to define success and only offers punitive measures to change 

situations that don’t ‘‘measure up’’. The focus on public display of API and AYP creates destructive competition in communities and legitimizes the unsound belief that 

a test score can accurately measure a child’s understanding or learning, a teacher’s 

competence, a principal’s ability to lead and the overall success of a school If the 

ADULTS in business and government were subjected to an annual test to measure 

if they were meeting standards and to determine their success, there would be an 

outcry of unfairness. Knowing this, how can anyone think that this is a sound approach with CHILDREN, children as young as 7 years old who still believe in Santa 

Clause and the Easter Bunny. 

Standardized tests measure low level thinking. It is time we came up with a way 

to encourage and value higher level thinking. By focusing on ‘standards based testing’ to educate our children we are actually LOWERING our standards of what kind 

of thinking we value and hope the next generation is capable of. 

‘‘Weighing the pig doesn’t make it grow.’’ * * * ‘‘Testing the child, does not make 

him learn.’’ These high stakes tests do not inform the teachers or parents of what 

children do or do not understand. They are not allowed to see the tests after they 

have been scored. There is no way of knowing if the child missed a question because 

of careless error, language or lack of content understanding. The scores are not 

helpful in improving individuals’ growth and learning. 

43

Inspiring, excellent teachers are being driven out of the profession of teaching because NCLB does not respect teachers or children. This is affecting the fabric of our 

society and must be changed. 

We need to develop an assessment system that: 

• Informs teaching by determining understanding of ideas/concept not just the 

memorization of facts or the ability to find somebody else’s ‘right’ answer. • Includes useful feedback and a way to incorporate that feedback into future 

learning/teaching. 

• Uses multiple measures. 

• Uses examples of authentic student work not just fill in the bubble tests. 

• Respects different kinds of learners/multiple intelligences. 

• Is culturally unbiased. 

• Encourages student self assessment. 

• Measures on a scale of naive to sophisticated NOT right and wrong. 

I hope that our Congress will have the good sense to respect children and teachers 

enough to get rid of NCLB and put in place a different system that will be focused 

more on learning on growth than fear and punishment. The future of our country 

depends on it. 

‘‘Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that 

counts cannot necessarily be counted.’’ Albert Einstein 

Prepared Statement of Lenard C. Greenwood, Teacher, Montgomery High 

School, Santa Rosa, CA 

To the Honorable Representative Dale Kildee: I would like to thank you Chairman 

Kildee, Congresswoman Woolsey and Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to be present at the Field Hearing and voice my Testimony on this crucial 

issue that affects us all. It was a genuine pleasure to attend and talk with you Sir. 

Although this misnamed ‘‘No Child Left Behind’’ law has so many obvious problems that require serious attention before contemplating reauthorization, I will attempt to direct this testimony towards my personal teaching experiences. I have 

witnessed the methodic and irrational dismantling of Public Education since 

‘‘NCLB’’ was forced into our school system. 

As we spoke of, following the hearing, I have had the pleasure of teaching 

English, Theatre Arts, Creative Writing and now full time Photography at Montgomery High School for the past 20 years. Throughout the years, it has always been 

an increasingly difficult struggle to secure enough funding to offer most of these 

courses. 

• At present, my district gives me $150.00 a year to run five classes of Photography with over 165 students year round. Each of my other Fine Arts colleagues 

receives the same small funds for a full five-class load. Unbelievable-YES! But true. 

• The Arts in California are under attack. 61% of all our schools here in California do not have one full time Arts instructor. 

• 40 % of our schools lack any Music program. WHY? FUNDS! 

The Arts, creativity, is the one beautiful essence of the human heart, soul and 

mind which sings to the world, ‘‘I’M ALIVE’’. As Art teachers, we open the minds 

of our students to allow creativity to grow, to be nourished, to be expressed upon 

a world stage that grows more and more violent and impoverished. The human soul 

does not grow by being drowned in Academics with no chance for the spirit to create 

and blossom. 

In fact, it is The Arts, in all its form, with its magnetic draw to create that brings 

so many students to school. It is The Arts that open ones mind to the possibilities 

in the adventures of Math, Science, English and History. It is the blend of Arts and 

Academics that builds and molds the whole student. And, without The Arts, we are 

doomed to higher drop-out rates, falling test scores and a future of mindless adults 

who must only pacify themselves with their latest video games or television show. 

Today’s high-tech society has altered the Parent/Family engagement of yesterday 

and made it more challenging for students to stay focused with learning. But creativity doesn’t have to disappear while technology takes its place. I believe it is of 

the utmost importance that we reinvest in Vocation Arts and Programs which open 

doors to our students to Sustainable Living Education and Real Life Courses that 

are meaningful. Students want and need to learn Real Life Skills that they can use 

in every day life. As we attempt to heal the Earth from decades of human abuse, 

our students need courses in Elementary and Secondary Education which address 

the impending issues they will be facing as adults entering into their inherited generation: 

• Global Climate Change 

44

• Alternative Energy and Production • Organic Gardening and Agriculture • Safe Food Production and Health • Mass Transit and Pollution • Sustainable Living and Green Building • Fair World Trade and Labor • Cross-Cultural Arts and Communication 

• Global Collaboration for Peaceful Commerce 

• Personal Money Management and Finance 

These positive and essential education programs should be fully funded and mandatory in the Public School System along with The Arts. We must start thinking 

progressively and realistically with highest urgency toward Stewardship of our 

Planet Earth. We must not wait until students are of college age. We must open 

our student’s minds to think critically and creatively. 

We became teachers to help students learn, not to test them into the ground. 

Teaching to the test will not motivate teachers to come into the field or students 

to want to come to and stay in school. Students do not gain the essential skills they 

need in this ever-changing world by taking endless tests only for a Federal or Corporate scorecard. We must test and assess their progress by many different means, 

not by the current ‘‘one size fits all’’ method. Each school, each student, in every 

community is unique. Individual schools need more control and flexibility in what 

works best for their student population. 

If we measure student learning by the overly simplistic ‘‘setting the bar at a certain level’’, then we miss all those special students who can run, throw, swim, hit 

and perform at even higher levels of assessment. 

Therefore, I ask The Committee to listen to the teachers in the trenches, hear the 

hollow sounds of creativity draining from the young minds of today, and reevaluate 

the essential changes needed to properly execute the $71 billion under funded 

‘‘NCLB’’. Or better yet, go back to the ESEA drawing board with all the data the 

Committee has gathered around America, and fully implement and fund The Arts 

and Essential Real Life courses in our public schools. Priorities in our Country need 

restoration. 

For years now from the students I hear the desire to learn more, to know what 

is important in this world they are inheriting. I see them losing their natural inventiveness, ingenuity and imagination; the void of creativity lost as apathy takes over. 

They crave to gain knowledge and discover their own skills that will shape their 

lives in a positive way. I see my fellow teachers frustrated, morally drained by the 

continuing attacks upon their unique abilities that they long to utilize, while their 

salary is whittled away and Health Insurance Premiums skyrocket and become an 

unfeasible financial burden. Dedicated teachers once honored and distinguished for 

their unique abilities and patience are being methodically reduced to automatons. 

Many are leaving their cherished profession largely due to ‘‘NCLB’’ and the Corporate undermining of our Public Education System. 

I ask The Committee to give consideration to establishing a committee whose sole 

purpose is to Protect and Support The Arts in Public Schools. 

Every child should have the opportunity to create, to build self-esteem and selfexpression through The Arts. Since the drastic changes from the ESEA to the so 

called ‘‘NCLB’’ law, we have all lost this hugely valuable aspect of humanity in our 

Public Schools. We owe it to our youth to open every door possible to their creativity. We can only do this by fully funding The Arts Programs across America. 

And we can only be successful with implementing any aspect of any Federal Education Mandate by fully funding those laws. 

Prepared Statement of Diane Phillips, Parent of Public School Children 

Dear Chairman Kildee and Congresswoman Woolsey: My name is Diane Phillips. 

I am a parent of two children in the California public school system. I am writing 

to you to register my concern about the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation 

in response to the recent House Subcommittee session on education Friday April 27, 

2007 at the Marin County Civic Center. 

It is my opinion that the effects of NCLB on our public schools have so far been 

catastrophic. Our schools are now severely limited by NCLB’s current punishment 

and reward approach to achievement and accountability. High-stakes tests overshadow all teaching and learning, turning our schools into joyless institutions. 

Certainly there are poorly performing public schools, as well as poorly performing 

teachers, but these are problems to be dealt with on a case by case basis, not by 

a blanket law that blames educators and students. 

45

While all children can learn, not everyone learns in the same fashion, or within 

a set time frame. Please consider the dramatic variances in school readiness, grade 

level skills and socio-economic status among children. None of these factors figure 

into the logic of NCLB. How is this law helping the hundreds of thousands of children who go to bed hungry, who lack healthcare and who do not come to school 

ready to learn? 

The NCLB legislation removes teachers, students, parents and local communities 

from active involvement in what will be learned and how to measure growth and 

development. Unlike authoritarian countries, democracies believe in the capacity of 

ordinary individuals to direct the affairs of their communities, especially their 

schools. Democracy requires its members to participate in the political, social, cultural and economic institutions affecting their development. 

It is my belief that there are so many inherent problems with NCLB that it must 

be eliminated, not re-authorized. What is needed instead is a legislation calling for 

greater local involvement in policy-making and implementation. Recognizing that 

there is no single approach that fits every learning context, I encourage local choice 

in deciding curriculums. While I respect the determination behind the prescription 

for universal success, it is not realistically achievable. 

It is my hope that there will be further investigation of this legislation before 

Congress casts another vote. 

Thank you for your time and concern. 

Prepared Statement of Amy Valens, Retired Teacher, Lagunitas School 

District, San Geronimo School 

Dear Chairman Kildee and Congresswoman Woolsey: The testimony that we 

heard today was indicative of the amount of work we need to do to become a welleducated society. We have not even begun to define what we mean by well educated. 

We focus on two comparatively ‘‘easy’’ parts of the puzzle: English language literacy 

and mathematics. Because high stakes tests to assess levels of language literacy and 

math skills must by their nature look at these skills simplistically, teachers find 

themselves forced to address these subjects without the context of who they are 

teaching and why one would want to have these skills. We heard several speakers 

explain that in meeting these demands they must ignore or relegate to the fringes, 

other equally important areas of literacy, such as social studies, science, the arts, 

civics, social and emotional literacy, and even physical education. I wonder what the 

content of their lessons look like! 

I recently attended the 2nd Cesar Chavez Education Conference at Fresno State 

University. Teachers using Reading First (lauded by several of your witnesses) 

talked about the terrific constraints placed upon them by this program, which expects a teacher to rigidly follow a script for success. What kind of success are we 

settling for? I hope you will seek testimony from Dr. Elaine Garan of Fresno State 

University about that! We may have schools that are meeting the goals of NCLB, 

that are in at least as much trouble as the ones that are not. If they are really 

spending, as at least two witnesses indicated, most of their day on memorization 

skills related to reading and math without time for higher-level thinking, experiential learning, socialization, and creativity, the students who succeed are being prepared for low-level jobs indeed. They are being given little chance of developing their 

imaginations: thinking capacities that we crucially need as a society. I was particularly dismayed by Principal Schott’s remark that creativity could wait until fifth or 

sixth grade. I hope she is overstating her case, but I fear she is not. What a dreary 

world she wants to offer her young charges! What will the drop-out rate look like 

if this fashion, that I wince to call ‘‘teaching’’, is continued? 

On a more positive note, I was impressed by the questions that each of you asked 

the panel. The areas you have identified are the crucial areas to address. On top 

of my personal experience, having taught since 1968 in a variety of settings from 

inner city schools in Dayton, Ohio to an alternative public school in semi rural California (I estimate that I have personally interacted at some depth with about 1,500 

students), I have spent the last two years reading and listening extensively to the 

testimony of a wide range of educators. The key is that we all want children to succeed. The question is how do we measure success? No matter how tempting it is 

to look for a panacea, there is not one way to educate all children. So why do we 

think there is just one way to measure them? 

It is not hard to find methods beyond standardized tests that will give accurate, 

less costly, more beneficial assessments of the ability of a school to provide a good 

education to its pupils. The science behind these other methods is at least as legitimate, being based on research in many domains that informs the best practices 

46

taught in our schools of education. That there will be a degree of subjectivity in 

these other methods goes without saying. Standardized tests are also not without 

subjectivity, and David Foster, of the Noyce Foundation, offers compelling evidence 

that rising test scores correlate highly with learning how to take the particular test, 

not necessarily a generalized improvement. 

We could use criteria developed by a panel of preeminent educators as the most 

valuable part of assessing our schools. Using these criteria, local evaluations could 

be carried out by qualified members of the community a school serves, in tandem 

with educators who do not have a stake in the individual schools they are observing. 

The results could be shared collegially, with follow through having the intent to improve, not punish. Testing, when applicable, could be specific to concerns expressed 

at the local level. Teachers would participate in setting goals for their specific students, and be able to access information obtained for their future teaching. To fund 

this, take away the huge amount going to high stakes testing, and put it into these 

human resources. 

Barring changes of this magnitude, parents have every right to question the validity of one-size-fits-all high stakes testing, and opt their children out of those tests. 

Parents such as those in the school I just retired from, who have made a strong 

philosophical decision about how they want their children taught, refused in great 

numbers to have their children tested before NCLB entered the picture. These, and 

others like them, are not people being led down a path by administrators wanting 

to hide local conditions. They are conscientiously raising their children. If punishment were not part of NCLB’s structure, no one would need to question the motives 

of such parents, who prefer to see their children’s teachers teaching, instead of 

proctoring. 

The bluntness of Annual Yearly Progress as a deciding factor was touched on by 

most of the witnesses. It becomes close to ludicrous in some situations. In small 

schools, such as mine, where there may be only 11 students of a particular grade 

level, one student’s bad day, or another student’s brilliant one will alter the picture 

entirely. This is equally true of API scores, whose publishing in the papers seems 

to serve the real estate community more than any other group. 

I doubt that I have said anything that you have not heard before. But hopefully 

it helps to hear one more voice for truly raising all our children to become fruitful 

and creative members of society. 

Thank you for your patience and your concern. I have included a list of experts 

whose testimony I hope you will seek before you decide how to ‘‘fix’’ NCLB. 

Please consider:

DR. ELAINE GARAN, Fresno State University. 

DR. DAVID FOSTER, Noyce Foundation. 

DR. STEVE HART, Fresno State University. 

DR. GLEN DEVOOGD, Fresno State University. 

DR. MARK PHILLIPS, San Francisco State College. 

DR. PAUL CROWLEY, Sonoma State College. 

DR. MARYANN NICKEL, Sonoma State College. 

DR. PHILLIP KOVACS, University of Alabama, Huntsville. 

MS. SUSAN OHANIAN, writer and educator. 

DR. PETER FARRUGGIO, University of Texas Pan American. 

MS. SUSAN HARMAN, CalCARE. 

MR. ROG LUCIDO, Educators and Parents Against Testing. 

DR. GERALD BRACEY, George Mason University and University of Arizona. 

DR. KEN GOODMAN, University of Arizona. 

MS. YETTA GOODMAN, University of Arizona. 

DR. RICHARD ALLINGTON, University of Tennesse. 

DR. MONTY NEILL, FairTest. 

DR. DAVID BERLINER, University of Arizona. 

MR. RICHARD ROTHSTEIN, Economic Policy Institute, and Harvard. 

[Whereupon, the hearing was adjourned at 11:16 a.m.]

Æ