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

49–499 PDF 2009

AMERICA’S COMPETIVENESS 

THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL REFORM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND LABOR 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 12, 2009 

Serial No. 111–20 

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 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York 

Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania 

David Loebsack, Iowa 

Mazie Hirono, Hawaii 

Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania 

Phil Hare, Illinois 

Yvette D. Clarke, New York 

Joe Courtney, Connecticut 

Carol Shea-Porter, New Hampshire 

Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio 

Jared Polis, Colorado 

Paul Tonko, New York 

Pedro R. Pierluisi, Puerto Rico 

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, 

Northern Mariana Islands 

Dina Titus, Nevada 

[Vacant] 

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

Senior Republican 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 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

John Kline, Minnesota 

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington 

Tom Price, Georgia 

Rob Bishop, Utah 

Brett Guthrie, Kentucky 

Bill Cassidy, Louisiana 

Tom McClintock, California 

Duncan Hunter, California 

David P. Roe, Tennessee 

Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania 

Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director 

Sally Stroup, Republican Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on May 12, 2009 ............................................................................... 1 

Statement of Members: 

Miller, Hon. George, Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor ......... 1 

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

Petri, Hon. Thomas, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Wisconsin ....................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5 

Statement of Witnesses: 

Balfanz, Robert, Everyone Graduates Center, Johns Hopkins University .. 21 

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

Castle, Hon. Michael N., Senior Republican Member, Subcommittee on 

Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education ......................... 13 

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

Fattah, Hon. Chaka, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Pennsylvania ................................................................................................. 7 

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

Gordon, Scott, CEO, Mastery Charter Schools .............................................. 44 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 46 

Grijalva, Hon. Rau ́l M., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Arizona ...................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 11 

Kondracke, Marguerite, president and CEO, America’s Promise Alliance .. 33 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 35 

Phillips, Dr. Vicki, director, education, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation . 49 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 52 

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

Tennessee ...................................................................................................... 16 

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

Wise, Hon. Bob, President, Alliance for Excellent Education, former Governor, West Virginia ..................................................................................... 55 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 57 

Wotorson, Michael, executive director, Campaign for High School Equity . 26 

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

(1) 

AMERICA’S COMPETIVENESS 

THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL REFORM 

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Committee on Education and Labor 

Washington, DC 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 3:00 p.m., in room 2175, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. George Miller [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Miller, Payne, Scott, Tierney, Holt, 

Davis, Grijalva, Bishop of New York, Loebsack, Hirono, Courtney, 

Shea-Porter, Fudge, Petri, Castle, Bishop of Utah, and Roe. 

Staff Present: Tylease Alli, Hearing Clerk; Catherine Brown, 

Education Policy Advisor; Alice Cain, Senior Education Policy Advisor (K-12); Fran-Victoria Cox, Staff Attorney; Adrienne Dunbar, 

Education Policy Advisor; Curtis Ellis, Legislative Fellow, Education; David Hartzler, Systems Administrator; Fred Jones, Staff 

Assistant, Education; Jessica Kahanek, Press Assistant; Stephanie 

Moore, General Counsel; Alex Nock, Deputy Staff Director; Joe 

Novotny, Chief Clerk; Rachel Racusen, Communications Director; 

Melissa Salmanowitz, Press Secretary; Margaret Young, Staff Assistant, Education; Mark Zuckerman, Staff Director; Stephanie 

Arras, Minority Legislative Assistant; Robert Borden, Minority 

General Counsel; Cameron Coursen, Minority Assistant Communications Director; Kirsten Duncan, Minority Professional Staff 

Member; Susan Ross, Minority Director of Education and Human 

Services Policy; Linda Stevens, Minority Chief Clerk/Assistant to 

the General Counsel; and Sally Stroup, Minority Staff Director. 

Chairman MILLER. A quorum being present, the committee will 

come to order. I want to welcome our first panel, and say good 

afternoon to everyone else in attendance. 

Today we are here to take a closer look at how improving graduation rates in our Nation’s high schools can help strengthen our 

competitiveness and the strength of our economy. We are also 

going to take a look at what is working to help turn around the 

so-called ‘‘dropout factories’’ and their feeder schools. 

Some may think twice about using the word ‘‘crisis’’ to define 

what is happening in our high schools, but the truth is we just 

aren’t facing a crisis, the house is on fire. 

The new McKinsey report says that the achievement gaps in this 

country are the same as having, and I quote, a permanent national 

recession. 
2 

Today, only 70 percent of students graduate with a regular high 

school diploma. Of these students, fewer than half graduate fully 

prepared for college level work or success in the workforce. Nearly 

one in five U.S. men between the ages of 16 and 24, nearly 19 percent, have dropped out. 

About 10 percent of high schools produce close to half of the students who drop out. In these 2,000 high schools—so-called ‘‘dropout 

factories′′—about as many students drop out as graduate. 

These dropout factories disproportionately impact minority students, producing 69 percent of all the African American and 63 percent of the Hispanic students who drop out. 

Nationally, only about a little more than 50 percent of African 

American students and Hispanic students graduate on time, compared to 78 percent of the white students. It is a national tragedy 

that if you are a minority student in this country you have a one 

in three chance of attending a dropout factory. 

We used to be a world leader in high school graduation rates. 

Now we have fallen to 18th out of 24 among industrialized nations. 

Studies show the longer our students stay in school the more they 

fall behind their international peers. 

Last month’s NAEP study of long-term trends show that 17-yearold students’ reading and math scores have not improved since the 

1970s. This is astonishing. We cannot afford to continue this way, 

not for our students, our economy or our future competitiveness. 

A high school dropout earns an average of $250,000 less than a 

high school graduate and about a million dollars less than a college 

graduate over their lifetime. 

Each class of high school dropouts costs the economy $309 billion 

in lost wages over those students’ lifetime. 

In fact, the McKinsey report shows the international achievement gap poses a greater threat to our economy than the current 

downturn. It found that if the United States had closed the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998, our 2008 GDP 

would have been 1 to $2 trillion higher. That is about 9 to 16 percent of our GDP. 

We should be producing the most qualified and talented workforce possible. Instead, businesses say high school graduates are 

not ready for the workplace and colleges say high school graduates 

are not ready for the rigors of college. 

It has become increasingly clear that addressing this dropout crisis is one of the most important things we can do to turn our economy around for good. 

In its current form, No Child Left Behind doesn’t do enough to 

turn around low performing middle and high schools and improve 

our graduation rates, partly because we do not have common State 

standards. Each State has used different data and calculations to 

determine their graduation rates. 

A sampling of dropout factories found that almost 40 percent had 

made adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind. It is 

safe to say that if 40 percent of a school’s students are not graduating, that school is not succeeding. 

We need to hold schools responsible for their graduation rates so 

we can improve student performance. We also need to discourage 

schools from pushing out students who are not making the grade 
3 

and ask schools to keep their doors open to students who leave and 

want to return. 

Earlier this year, President Obama called on Congress to take action. He said the dropout crisis in this country was bigger than any 

single person who chooses not to finish high school. I couldn’t agree 

more. This crisis is a drain on our economy, it is an embarrassment 

to our schools, and it has to change. 

The President and Secretary Duncan know that we need to give 

schools the means to support and encourage students to stay in 

school. We can no longer endorse a system of acceptable losses. 

I hope that today’s hearing will be a first good step as we work 

with the Obama administration to finally address this crisis. 

Lastly, I would like to thank my committee colleagues for their 

outstanding leadership in this issue, including Chairman Kildee’s 

Fast Track to College Act, Representative Grijalva’s Success in the 

Middle Act, Representative Hinojosa’s Graduation Promise Act, and 

Representative Scott’s GRADUATES Act. 

Clearly, there is great interest in moving forward with legislation 

to address this urgent problem. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about what we can 

do to dramatically improve the educational opportunities we are 

providing to all high school students in this country. 

And now I would like to recognize my Republican colleague, Mr. 

Petri, for the purposes of making an opening statement. 

[The statement of Mr. Miller follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Hon. George Miller, Chairman, Committee on 

Education and Labor 

Today we’re here to take a closer look at how improving graduation rates in our 

nation’s high schools can help strengthen our competitiveness. 

We’re also going to take a look at what is working to help turn around the socalled ‘‘dropout factories’’ and their feeder schools. 

Some may think twice about using the word ‘‘crisis’’ to define what’s happening 

in our high schools. But the truth is, we aren’t just facing a crisis—the house is 

on fire. 

The new McKinsey report says the achievement gaps in this country are the same 

as having, and I quote ‘‘a permanent national recession.’’ 

Today only 70 percent of students graduate with a regular high school diploma. 

Of these students, fewer than half graduate fully prepared for college-level work or 

success in the workforce. 

Nearly one in five U.S. men between the ages of 16 and 24, nearly 19 percent, 

have dropped out. 

About 10 percent of high schools produce close to half of our students who drop 

out. In these 2,000 high schools—so-called ‘‘dropout factories’’—about as many students drop out as graduate. 

These dropout factories disproportionately impact minority students, producing 69 

percent of all African-American and 63 percent of all Hispanic students who drop 

out. 

Nationally, only about 55 percent of African-American students and 52 percent of 

Hispanic students graduate on time, compared to 78 percent of white students. It 

is a national tragedy that if you’re a minority student in this country, you have a 

one-in-three chance of attending a dropout factory. 

We used to be a world leader in high school graduation rates. Now we’ve fallen 

to 18th out of 24 among industrialized nations. 

Studies also show the longer our students stay in school, the longer they fall behind their international peers. 

Last month’s NAEP study of long term trends showed 17 year old students’ reading and math scores have not improved since 1970’s. 

This is astonishing. 

We cannot afford to continue this way, not for our students, our economy or our 

future competitiveness. 
4 

A high school dropout earns an average of $260,000 less than a high school graduate and $1 million less than a college graduate over a lifetime. 

Each class of high school dropouts cost the U.S. economy $309 billion in lost 

wages over the students’ lifetime. 

In fact, the McKinsey report shows the international achievement gap poses a 

greater economic threat to our country than the current downturn. 

It found that if the U.S. had closed the international achievement gap between 

1983 and 1998, our 2008 GDP would have been between $1 and $2 trillion higher— 

that’s about 9 to 16 percent of our GDP. 

We should be producing the most qualified and talented workforce possible. Instead businesses say high school graduates are not ready for the workplace, and colleges say high school graduates are not ready for the rigors of college. 

It’s become increasingly clear that addressing this dropout crisis is one of the 

most important things we can do to turn our economy around for good. 

In its current form, No Child Left Behind doesn’t do enough to turn around lowperforming middle and high schools and improve our graduation rates, partly because we do not yet have common state standards. 

Each state uses different data and calculations to determine their graduation 

rates. A sampling of dropout factories found that almost 40 percent had made Adequate Yearly Progress under NCLB. 

It is safe to say that if at least 40 percent of a school’s students aren’t graduating—that school is not succeeding. 

We need to hold schools responsible for their graduation rates so they can improve 

student performance. 

We also need to discourage schools from pushing out students who aren’t making 

the grade and ask schools to keep their doors open to students who leave and want 

to return. 

Earlier this year, President Obama called on Congress to take action. He said the 

dropout crisis in this country is bigger than any single person who chooses not to 

finish high school. 

I couldn’t agree more—this crisis is a drain on our economy, it’s an embarrassment to our schools, and it has to change. 

The President and Secretary Duncan know that we need to give schools the 

means to support and encourage students to stay in school. We can no longer endorse a system of acceptable losses. 

I hope today’s hearing will be a good first step as we work with the Obama administration to finally address this crisis. 

Lastly, I would like to thank many of my committee colleagues for their outstanding leadership on this issue, including Chairman Kildee’s Fast Track to College Act, Rep. Grijalva’s Success in the Middle Act, Rep. Hinojosa’s Graduation 

Promise Act, and Rep. Scott’s GRADUATES Act. 

Clearly there is great interest in moving forward with legislation to address this 

urgent problem. 

I look forward to hearing from witnesses about what we can do to dramatically 

improve the educational opportunities we are providing to all high school students 

in this country. 

Mr. PETRI. Well, thank you, Chairman Miller, for convening this 

hearing today to help us identify the challenges facing our Nation’s 

high schools. 

The focus of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and 

its 2001 reauthorization through the No Child Left Behind Act was 

on closing the achievement gap faced by disadvantaged students as 

they progressed in school. As we will hear today, our Nation is 

faced with what this achievement gap means for high schools. 

These schools face not only a dropout crisis but a crisis in preparation for a student’s adult life, or rather a lack of preparation for 

a student’s adult life. 

Too often, our students are entering high school unprepared to 

succeed in subjects such as reading, math, and science and leaving 

unprepared to succeed in college, trade school, or in the world of 

work. 
5 

High school reform is seeing increased attention in Congress and 

among researchers and education experts. Even the Obama administration has announced its support of the October 2008 Title I regulations that established a uniform graduation rate for all of our 

Nation’s high schools. 

However, the issue of high school reform cannot be examined in 

isolation. Any effort to reform our high schools must take into consideration the preparations students receive in elementary and in 

middle school as well. Programs that focus on reading and programs that allow students to choose schools that are meeting adequate yearly progress can all be enhanced as we reform what is 

taking place in the Nation’s high schools. 

Today our witnesses will discuss the research that illustrates 

these challenges and the reform efforts being driven by communities, districts, and States to attack these concerns. Our discussion 

will provide us with important information we will use as we move 

forward to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education 

Act during this Congress. 

I would like to thank our witnesses for taking the time to speak 

to us today, and in particular I would like to thank the Members 

of Congress who will testify before us about their concerns for high 

school education. 

It is an important issue for our students and our workforce and 

the Nation’s families and communities, and I look forward to learning more about the challenges remaining and the work to be done. 

And with that, I yield back. 

[The statement of Mr. Petri follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Thomas Petri, a Representative in Congress 

From the State of Wisconsin 

Good afternoon, Chairman Miller, and thank you for yielding. 

I am happy that you have convened this hearing today to help us identify the 

challenges facing our nation’s high schools. 

The focus of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and its 2001 reauthorization, through the No Child Left Behind Act, was on closing the achievement gap 

faced by disadvantaged students as they progressed in school. 

As we will hear today, our nation is faced with what this achievement gap means 

for high schools. These schools face not only a dropout crisis but a crisis in preparation for a student’s adult life. Or rather, a lack of preparation for a student’s adult 

life. 

Too often our students are entering high school unprepared to succeed in subjects 

such as reading, math and science and leaving unprepared to succeed in college, 

trade school or work. 

High school reform is seeing increased attention in Congress and among researchers and education experts. Even the Obama Administration has announced its support of the October 2008 Title I regulations that established a uniform graduation 

rate for all of our nation’s high schools. 

However, the issue of high school reform cannot be examined by itself. Any effort 

to reform our high schools must take into consideration the preparation students 

receive in elementary and middle school as well. 

Programs that focus on reading, and programs that allow students to choose 

schools that are meeting adequate yearly progress, can all be enhanced as we reform what is taking place in the nation’s high schools. 

Today our witnesses will discuss the research that illustrates these challenges 

and the reform efforts being driven by communities, districts, and states to attack 

these concerns. 

Our discussion will provide us with important information that we will use as we 

move forward to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act during 

the 111th Congress. 
6 

I would like to thank our witnesses for taking the time to speak to us today. In 

particular, I would like to thank the Members of Congress who will testify before 

us about their concerns for high school education. 

This is an important issue for our students and our workforce and I look forward 

to learning more about the challenges remaining and work to be done. 

Thank you, Chairman Miller. I yield back. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. I would like to welcome the first 

panel of our colleagues who have been deeply involved in this issue 

over many years. The first witness will be the Honorable Chaka 

Fattah, who is from Pennsylvania, serving his eighth term in the 

House of Representatives, representing the Second Congressional 

District of that State. 

A former member of the Committee on Education and Labor, 

Congressman Fattah now sits on the Appropriations Committee. 

Congressman Fattah has long been an advocate for education and 

was the architect of GEAR UP, the largest pre-college awareness 

program in this Nation’s history, and has contributed more than $2 

billion to the educational advancement and college readiness of 

low-income students. Prior to joining Congress, he served 12 years 

in the Pennsylvania legislature, 6 years in the House and 6 years 

in the Senate. 

Next we will hear from the Honorable Raul Grijalva, who represents the Seventh Congressional District in Arizona and is in his 

fourth term as a Member of Congress. He serves as Chairman of 

the Education and Job Training Task Force of the Congressional 

Hispanic Caucus. Before he was elected to Congress, Representative Grijalva was a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors. He has also served on the Tucson Unified School District 

governing board serving as Chairman for 6 years. During his tenure on that board, he worked with the courts, superintendents, and 

educators on a desegregation plan and was the lead board member 

on implementation of the integration plan. 

The Honorable Mike Castle, former Deputy Attorney General 

and State legislator and Lieutenant Governor and two-term Governor of Delaware. Any job you didn’t hold there, Michael? 

Congressman Castle is currently serving his ninth term as Delaware’s lone Member of the House. Not lonely, but lone. He was 

born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware and is a graduate of 

Hamilton College and Georgetown University. 

The Honorable Phil Roe represents the First District of Tennessee and is in his first term. A native of Tennessee, Representative Roe served 2 years in the United States Army Medical Corps 

as a physician. Congressman Roe has run a medical practice in 

Johnson City for 31 years, delivering close to 5,000 babies. Congressman Roe served as mayor of Johnson City from 2007 to 2009. 

Welcome to the committee. You know the rules. We will give you 

5 minutes to tell us what you want to tell us and if the members 

of the committee have questions, they will be recognized for that 

purpose. And we appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to join us at this hearing on this subject that is of importance 

to you and to us. 

Thank you. 

Chaka? 
7 

STATEMENT OF HON. CHAKA FATTAH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Mr. FATTAH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and to the ranking member and to all of the members of this great committee. It is a pleasure to be back here in my old working space here in this committee. I had some great days here in the House. 

I want to say a couple of things. One is that over the last couple 

of weeks I have been in a number of high schools. On yesterday, 

I was at West Philadelphia High, which would be well up on the 

dropout factory list. But I was there with the EPA Administrator 

and we were highlighting one of 111 teams in the world, an automobile design team, at West Philly High that was building a hybrid car and they have a car that can go over 100 miles on a gallon 

of fuel, and they beat Toyota, MIT, and all comers three times so 

far, and they are competing now for a $10 million prize. 

At Overbrook last week, my alma mater, we had 1,400 middle 

school kids for a GEAR UP kickoff. Overbrook would be on a dropout factory list by any count, but their robotics team scored number 

one in the State in the Defense Department’s Sea Perch robotics 

trial. 

I was at Mastery—and you are going to hear from the head guy 

at Mastery in a few minutes. They are doing fabulous work. 

And just last week I was at the Microsoft School for the Future, 

which is in my district. It is a brand-new structure, been there for 

a few years, designed by the best thinkers that Microsoft could put 

together. It is now being marketed and shopped in 11 other countries in the world. There is no peer in terms of a high school anywhere in the world, and it is educating kids in one of the poorest 

neighborhoods and tracts in Philadelphia in the heart of my district 

and doing an extraordinary job. 

So there is a lot of good one could say about what is happening 

out there, but the fact of the matter is that a lot more needs to be 

done. 

When President Clinton came to Saltsburg and signed GEAR UP 

into law 11 years ago, he said that we need to transfer middle-class 

aspirations to working class families in terms of going on to college. 

We have now seen over 11 years of GEAR UP, 6 million young people, and we have seen all across the country in a variety of places 

hundreds of programs, 85-plus percent graduate from high school, 

61, 62 percent go on to college. It has been an enormous success, 

and I thank all of my colleagues who worked with me on that legislation when we passed it. 

But more needs to be done. And what I think ought to happen 

is embodied in the legislation that I have authored, the Student 

Bill of Rights, which calls for a particular effort to provide a comparable educational opportunity to do what we are doing in our 

highest achieving schools in our lowest achieving schools. Give 

them a qualified teacher, a classroom size of some reasonableness, 

and a textbook printed in their lifetime and a rigorous curriculum. 

We know that it works. It works in a lot of our wealthy suburban 

districts, and we know it would work in our poor districts if we did 

it. We provide less of what we need to educate a child in the most 

challenging communities in our country, and then we act surprised 

about the disproportionate failure that follows from that. 
8 

I offered the Communities Committed to College Act, which 

would create a long-term trust fund invested in so young people 

can know with a certainty that they can go on to college. Raising 

the bar and expectations is very important. 

So I embody some of my thinkings in the legislation that I put 

forward. 

When President Obama went to a public school in Denver, he 

said we need to expand programs like GEAR UP. Things that 

work, take them to scale. We are all invested in making sure that 

these young people can achieve and if we wanted to double the 

high school graduation rate, we already know that there are programs that work, that make that happen, and it has happened 

across the country and we could take the best practices from that 

and go forward. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the committee for listening. 

I would be glad to answer any questions. 

[The statement of Mr. Fattah follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Chaka Fattah, a Representative in Congress 

From the State of Pennsylvania 

Chairman Miller, Congressman McKeon and members of the committee, I would 

like to thank you for the opportunity to speak before you on improving our nation’s 

high schools and ensuring every child, regardless of life circumstances, is receiving 

the education necessary to succeed in college, career and life. I am also honored to 

join my colleagues Mr. Grijalva and Mr. Castle in offering remarks and to welcome 

Scott Gordon, CEO of Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia, to Washington. 

I am excited by the opportunity we now have to improve educational outcomes 

and ensure a fair playing field for all students. With the leadership of this committee, President Obama and Chairman Kennedy, I am confident that we will begin 

to close the devastating gaps and inequities in opportunity that have contributed 

to under achievement among our nation’s low income students and students of color. 

I would like to focus my remarks on those ingredients of better high schools which 

have been effective in improving student achievement and sending students to higher education; effective teachers and a rigorous, college preparatory curriculum. 

These critical resources are available in abundance to our wealthiest families, in 

both public and private schools, but available only to a chosen few poor neighborhoods and communities of color. 

Nationally, high-poverty districts start the year with $938 less state and local revenue per pupil. In a class of 25 students, that $23,000 difference means teachers 

with less experience and less expertise, fewer appropriate instructional materials 

and less access to current educational technology. 34 percent of classes in high-poverty schools are taught by teachers lacking a major or minor in their field of instruction, almost twice the rate for their higher-income peers. In high school, this often 

means teachers whose last academic experience with math or science was their own 

high school-level science or math class. 

In addition to less content expertise, teachers in poor schools are more likely to 

be pedagogical novices with three years or less experience. The difference in teacher 

experience is even greater in high-minority schools when compared with low-minority schools. 

Naturally, these differences in teacher experience and content mastery lead to 

wide variations in available curricula. In core classes, the content of which is a predictor of college success, students in high-poverty schools are 24 percent more likely 

than students in low poverty schools to face an out-of-field teacher. Low income students are less likely to be in a full college preparatory track and are more likely 

to begin post-secondary education unprepared. 

These significant academic inequities are creating formidable barriers for students 

hoping to attend college. Graduation is delayed—if not derailed, when students 

must spend their first year in remedial, non credit-bearing courses. This problem 

only serves to enhance the financial barriers that are keeping otherwise qualified 

students out of our higher-education system. 

There are solutions to these challenges. Early college opportunities are helping an 

increasing number of students prepare for post-secondary learning and graduate college early or on time. Significant progress is being made by this committee, Presi-
9 

dent Obama and Secretary Duncan in ensuring every child has access to an effective 

teacher and rigorous instruction. 

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will guarantee that states 

are working to ensure the equitable distribution of their teacher talent by enforcing 

previously unenforced reporting and remediating requirements from the No Child 

Left Behind Act that dictates low-income students and students of color not be disproportionately taught by less-qualified teachers. ARRA also shifts the way Title I 

funds are distributed, using the Targeted and Education Finance Incentive Grant 

formulas instead of the Basic and Concentration grant formulas that will direct 

more resources where they were originally meant to go, providing assistance to the 

schools in the most need. 

I am also encouraged by the work of the Education and Labor Committee in the 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization discussion draft, which 

closed the comparability loophole and required states to report on the ways in which 

critical educational resources were distributed. Building on the foundation for equity 

in ESEA, I will be reintroducing the Student Bill of Rights Act this spring which 

addresses disparities in educational resources and students’ opportunity to learn. 

This work on improving academic instruction will go a long way to make certain 

that students are ready to begin college work when they step on campus. The barriers to higher education are not solely academic. We have years of research that 

shows similarly qualified African American students are less likely than their White 

peers to advance to post-secondary education. 

The work led by Mr. Hinojosa last year to make college more affordable addresses 

a critical piece in college-going. Also, the recent changes to the Pell Grant program, 

moving it from the discretion of the Appropriations Committee to the mandatory 

side of the budget and increasing the maximum grant will give more low-income 

students the opportunity to earn a degree. 

Simply improving instruction and offering financial resources will not address 

other pernicious obstacles that students, many of whom would be the first in their 

family to attend college, face. Providing students with the certainty that their own 

hard work and commitment will be met by the work and commitment of their community establishes a college-going culture and builds expectations within the system 

that every student should have the opportunity to attend college. I have introduced 

the Communities Committed to College Tax Credit Act, H.R. 1579 to support local 

efforts that provide college scholarships to local students. 

GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) 

has successfully put 6 million students in high-poverty schools on track for college. 

Students receive assistance in overcoming academic, financial and cultural barriers 

to college. GEAR UP increases access to college preparatory academic programs (including AP), offers scholarships to students accepted into college and provides the 

critical background knowledge about the financial aid and admissions processes that 

is particularly lacking in low-income communities. 

GEAR UP is a stunning success. Over 80 percent of GEAR UP students graduate 

from high school, while only about half of all low-income students graduate. This 

shows that when students and communities set their sights beyond twelfth grade, 

and when they are prepared for college, a high school diploma becomes more assumed and inevitable than for the population as a whole. 

Low-income students who have effective teachers, college preparatory curricula, financial aid and information about the college process are currently meeting or exceeding standards set by their higher income peers. This is our opportunity to invest 

in equitably and adequately distributed resources and a college-going culture. Our 

students are eager to do their part; the question is whether we, as policy makers 

and adults, are ready to rise to meet this challenge. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much. And thank you for all 

of your involvement in this issue. 

Congressman Grijalva. 

STATEMENT OF HON. RAU ́ L GRIJALVA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA 

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and ranking 

member, and all the members of the committee for this opportunity 

to discuss with you a very critical issue of high school graduation 

and the dropout crisis that the chairman so aptly called it. 
10 

In my role as Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus 

Education and Workforce Task Force, I would like to discuss the 

issue of high school graduation as it relates to the priorities of this 

caucus and to the goals and needs of Latinos and, quite frankly, 

all our children. 

As our Nation’s fastest growing population and one of the largest 

groups of children in our public schools, one in five of children in 

our public schools are Latino, comprising somewhere between almost 11 million students enrolled from pre-Kindergarten to 12th 

grade, almost 3 million of those students being high school students. Another percentage is 45 percent of these students are 

English language learners, and 80 percent of the 5 million students 

enrolled in schools are Spanish speaking. 

And so as you look at all those statistics you also need to see that 

these Latino children remain the least likely to attend preschool, 

the least likely to graduate from high school, the least likely to enroll in college, and the least likely to complete college. Only 15 percent of Latinos are proficient in reading by the eighth grade, and 

the dropout issue that we are talking about is devastating not only 

to our community but I believe overall to the Nation. 

When only half of the Latino students who enter ninth grade 

graduate with a high school diploma, it just points out the kind of 

devastation and distress that we feel in the communities. 600,000 

to 700,000 Latino students drop out of school every year. I know 

the data, the statistics, they are daunting and quite frankly distressing. But the task to improve the education of these children 

I think are feasible. 

And I think Congress must work toward policies that address the 

dropout crisis for all students, but for Latinos in the light of the 

changing characteristics that I just pointed out in our schools. 

So let me just some very quick recommendations. The first one 

is about accountability. And the chairman mentioned State standards. Let’s have a definition and real data about what the real 

dropout numbers are in this country, and in this Nation. And that 

speaks to the accountability and credibility of the statistics that we 

are using. 

We need training and support. Congress needs to make a very 

strong commitment to increasing support for teacher training, including English learner teachers and their commitment to these 

schools. Commitment to the feeder systems, I believe, as part of 

teacher training is essential. 

The high school dropout is not a phenomenon that occurs in high 

school. It occurs through that feeder system. So as we look at that 

percentage of high schools that are dropout factories and we look 

at the feeder system that feeds to these high schools, you realize 

it is a systemwide problem and not isolated at the high school 

level. 

Parental involvement is essential. Programs like family literacy, 

adult basic education, where families are learning together, where 

families can help their children succeed in school I think are very 

important. 

Targeted intervention. The legislation that was talked about in 

the introduction by the chairman are essential as the Graduation 
11 

Promise Act will be reintroduced, and it can provide aid to schools 

with low graduation rates and target that aid. 

Middle school intervention, and I mentioned feeder school intervention. No plan to address high school dropout crisis would be effective without an adequate middle school intervention to aid the 

most troubled feeder middle schools and elementary schools and 

the most troubled high schools. 

All the research confirms that in sixth through eighth grade this 

work is essential to ensure success in high school. Studies show 

that sixth grade students who do not attend school regularly, have 

poor conduct scores, who fail math or English have only a 10 percent chance of graduating on time. 

Human resources. The Department of Education is making a 

commitment, a commitment that must be followed through on its 

diversity, on raising its cultural linguistic competence and capacity 

of the professional staff from superintendent to principals to teachers. 

And I want to give an example of something that works, and that 

is jobs. There are three programs in the area I represent, Jobs for 

Arizona Graduates, Jobs First, Jobs and Work. The students in 

those programs that are paid as part of their responsibility have 

a 95 percent graduation rate, and a 50 to 60 percent postsecondary 

experience. 

This is a vital issue for the Nation, a vital issue for the Latino 

community, and I thank the Chairman and the committee for 

prioritizing this issue. 

Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Grijalva follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Rau ́l M. Grijalva, a Representative in Congress 

From the State of Arizona 

Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon and members of the Committee, 

thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about the critical issue of high 

school graduation and the dropout crisis. I welcome the opportunity to address this 

very timely issue, and I am grateful to the Committee for prioritizing this important 

discussion. 

In my role as Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Education and 

Work Force Task Force, I would like to discuss the issue of high school graduation 

as it relates to the priorities of the Caucus and to the goals and needs of Latinos 

and all of our children. 

Latinos are our nation’s fastest growing and largest minority group of children. 

Latino children make up one in five of our public school enrollment, comprising 

more than 10.9 million students enrolled prekindergarten through twelfth grade. 

Latinos represent 17% of all secondary school students, that’s about 2.9 million high 

school students. 

45% of Latino students are English language learners. Almost 80% of the five million ELLs enrolled in schools are Spanish-speaking Latinos. The ELL enrollment in 

our public schools has doubled in fifteen years, and by 2025, it is expected that one 

in four students in U.S. public schools will be an English language learner. 

Latino children remain the least likely to attend pre-school, the least likely to 

graduate from high school, the least likely to enroll in college and the least likely 

to complete college. Only fifteen percent of Latinos are proficient in reading by the 

eighth grade—compared to almost forty percent for non-Hispanic White students. 

The dropout crisis has a devastating impact on the Latino community. Only about 

half of the Latino students who enter the ninth grade will graduate with a high 

school diploma. This is compared to 75% of non-Hispanic White students. Latino 

English language learners are even more at risk of dropping out, and only 41% of 

Latino ELLs graduate high school. Every year, between 600,000 and 700,000 Latino 

students drop out of school. 
12 

The data and statistics are daunting but the tasks to improve Latino education 

are feasible. Congress must work toward policies that address the dropout crisis for 

Latinos in light of the changing characteristics of our schools. 

I would like to recommend to the committee six principles for inclusion: 

Accountability 

We must ensure that states are held accountable for accurate counts of their dropout numbers. Congress must ensure that loopholes for counting dropouts remain 

closed and that the definition for what constitutes graduation is a fair and accurate 

depiction of the state of affairs on the ground. 

Training and Support 

Congress should make a strong commitment to increasing support for teacher 

training, including for ELL teachers. An effective teacher can mean the difference 

of success or failure for a struggling student. 

We should also increase the Federal commitment to schools serving ELLs. We 

must consider a commitment to graduation for all high school students in light of 

the ever increasing number of students who have the added struggle to succeed in 

their core curriculum while gaining English language acquisition. If we want graduation success, we must put resources where they are needed. Enhanced supports 

for schools serving ELLs will go a long way toward that goal. 

Parental Involvement 

Support for dropout prevention should include a commitment to parental involvement in the education of a child, since family support provides a tangible boost to 

success. Along this same line, we should provide increased support to family literacy 

programs, so that families can learn together. Such programs can reinforce the commitment to education and offer better opportunities to parents and children. 

Targeted Intervention 

Congress should act quickly to assist those high schools that are most critically 

in need of intervention to staunch the loss of students to dropping out. Legislation 

like the Graduation Promise Act, soon to be reintroduced, can provide the implements of aid to schools with low-graduation rates and help to roll back the dropout 

crisis. 

Middle Grade Intervention 

No plan to address the high school dropout crisis will be effective without an adequate middle grade intervention to aid the most troubled feeder middle schools and 

elementary schools of the most troubled high schools. Research confirms that success in sixth through eighth grades is imperative to ensure success in high school 

and college. In fact, studies show that sixth-grade students who do not attend school 

regularly, have poor conduct scores, or who fail math or English, have only a 10% 

chance of graduating on time. 

Latinos in Human Resources 

It is imperative that Latinos have a presence in administrative and policy positions to ensure inclusion of Latinos in the decision making process. If we want to 

make schools work for Latino students, we must ensure that Latinos, or those that 

have expertise in working with Latino students, are at the table to implement best 

practices. 

The Department of Education is lacking in diversity, which impacts the overall 

interpretation and understanding of education policy in regards to Latino students. 

The overall education structure is missing Latinos as professors for training teachers, recruiting and retention of teachers in our classrooms, and training, recruiting 

and retention of Superintendents and Principals. We must work on increasing the 

workforce of Latinos in education if we are to improve Latino education. 

These changes are an important element in improving graduation from high 

school. In addressing this dropout crisis, we must be aware of strategies that have 

been proven effective to retain and recover students on the verge of dropping out. 

We must be aware of the changing composition of our student body and address the 

changing needs of our students. These are important elements in a long term strategy for a goal of graduation for all of our students. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. Congressman Castle. 
13 

STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL N. CASTLE, RANKING REPUBLICAN MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, 

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Petri and members of the committee. And first of all, I agree with everything I 

have heard so far from the first two speakers, and I have read most 

of the other testimony and I agree with that too. I just don’t know 

that we can afford everything. But these are all good suggestions 

that we need to do to deal with the important issue of strengthening America’s competitiveness through high school reform, although that translates to individual student achievement, as we all 

know. 

I am a strong supporter of No Child Left Behind, at least conceptually, that we passed in 2001 to address the achievement gap that 

did exist to improve education for all students but particularly for 

poor minority students with their more affluent peers. We have 

had some progress in that area, and we look at scores for elementary and middle school testing and we realize that great strides 

have been made, but not in high schools. It tends to diminish a little bit when we get there. 

The long-term trend for the NAEP Report, the National Assessment for Educational Progress Report, found that 17-year-olds’ test 

scores in math and reading haven’t significantly improved since the 

1970s. 

At a time when students need education and job training—I 

think we have all touched on that—to succeed in the competitive 

global market, three out of every 10 students fail to finish high 

school. Barely one-half of disadvantaged minority students graduate from high school. Compounded by the fact that the median income for dropouts is much lower than high school and college graduates—and you touched on that, Mr. Chairman—but on an 

annualized basis dropouts earn $14,000, high school graduates 

$24,000, and college graduates $48,000. Just that enough, we ought 

to put that on the TV screen after every show every night, I think, 

and let people see it and show how important graduating from high 

school and perhaps college really is. 

As we work to reauthorize No Child Left Behind—and I hope we 

do that in the next few months or year or so—we must work to ensure that students are prepared for college or the workforce when 

they graduate. And graduation rates have concerned me for some 

time, and Mr. Scott, too, I might add. 

Graduating from high school is absolutely significant, and virtually every employer starts with that. And yet a lot of these students that we just discussed cannot show that they have done that. 

But there is a lot of misleading data and contradictory calculations 

with respect to that. Currently ‘‘graduation rate’’ is defined as the 

percentage of students who graduate from secondary school with a 

regular diploma in the standard number of years. And they throw 

that out to the States and then the States can do pretty much 

whatever they want. 

The governors started to look at this a few years ago. A lot of 

us have introduced legislation to look at it. It has been in some of 

the drafts of No Child Left Behind. I don’t think the States should 

have that much latitude in defining and setting their own standard 
14 

number of years, which I have seen vary from 3 to 5 years depending on which State you are looking at and we are getting varying 

results from State to State, which is a problem in dealing with the 

overall issues of our high schools. 

I introduced the Reliable and Accurate Graduation Rate Act last 

year, which would make these all of these statistics comparable 

throughout the country. It is very similar to what the governors 

had done a few years ago, and I think it is important to do this. 

Last October, the U.S. Department of Education released final regulations pertaining to graduation rate accountability that are also 

aligned with the NGA’s recommended graduation rate and some of 

the legislation which we have been talking about, and I think it is 

very, very important that that be adopted in No Child Left Behind. 

All of those regulations provide a uniform and comparable rate 

that attempts to capture the accurate number of high school graduates in our Nation and will hopefully motivate the individual students as well. To me that is the most important thing to do in 

terms of our solving the graduation crisis in our country. 

The other area I would like to touch on here is the area of the 

academic standards and assessments. And I am not one of those 

who is necessarily opposed to a national standard or even national 

assessments, at least for discussion. I think it is a worthwhile discussion. I can understand some opposition to it, but we should be 

talking about these kind of things, I think. 

We need to improve our State academic standards, which I think 

were adopted on the fly and are not high enough, and I think we 

need to improve some of the testing, which is basically the assessments that go into this. 

I believe that we have started to do this in my State. I have seen 

some interesting changes. In fact, the governor’s office was talking 

about that even today as a matter of fact, replacing our testing program with a better system for measuring performance and provide 

schools the necessary flexibility while holding them accountable for 

results. 

At the high school level we are looking at instituting an adaptive 

testing system that will measure student progress throughout high 

school so that students are prepared to graduate, which I think is 

also important. I think the tests now generally do not reflect well 

enough how students are actually doing. 

These are some of the things that we should be doing. There are 

many other programs, a lot of which have been mentioned by other 

speakers today, and we as a committee should focus on this as 

much as we possibly can as soon as we can. 

I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, and with Secretary Duncan and the President in order to achieve this as soon 

as we can. 

[The statement of Mr. Castle follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael N. Castle, Senior Republican Member, 

Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education 

Good morning. Thank you Chairman Miller for holding today’s hearing. As the 

Senior Republican Member of the Subcommittee that oversees K-12 legislation, I 

welcome the opportunity to testify before you today and look forward to hearing 

from my colleagues, as well as the other expert witnesses on this important issue— 

strengthening America’s competitiveness through high school reform. 
15 

As you are aware, No Child Left Behind was passed in 2001 to address the 

achievement gap that exists between poor and minority students and their more affluent peers. Although we are just now beginning to see the results of the Law, 

studies demonstrate that America’s elementary and middle school students are 

making great strides in closing the achievement gap in reading and math. We are 

not, however, seeing similar results at the high school level. 

In fact, results from the most recent long-term trend report on the National Assessment of Education Progress, more commonly known as NAEP, showed that 17- 

year-old test scores in mathematics and reading have not significantly improved 

since the 1970s. Additionally, according to a recent Editorial Projects in Education 

Report, three in ten students fail to finish high school with a diploma, and barely 

half of the historically disadvantaged minority students graduate from high school. 

At a time when students need higher levels of education and workforce training to 

succeed in an increasingly competitive global economy, the number of students leaving high school without a diploma is alarming. 

This is compounded by the fact that the median income for high school dropouts 

is $14,000, much lower than the median income of $24,000 for high school graduates 

and $48,000 for college graduates. Nationally, high school dropouts were also the 

only group of workers who have seen income levels decline over the last 30 years 

(Cities in Crisis 2009: Closing the Achievement Gap; America’s Promise Alliance). 

A hallmark of the No Child Left Behind Act is its promise to provide meaningful 

information to parents and communities about the quality of their children’s schools. 

Yet, for too long, a key indicator of student success—graduation from high school— 

has been masked by misleading data and contradictory calculations. 

As Congress works to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act this year, it is 

clear that we must work at the federal, state, and local levels to ensure students 

are prepared for college or the workforce when they graduate high school. 

Last Congress, I introduced a bill to define a national graduation rate, in order 

to streamline data collection and create an indicator that is comparable throughout 

the United States. In October 2008, the U.S. Department of Education released final 

regulations regarding graduation rate accountability. I believe these regulations are 

aligned with the National Governors Association’s (NGA) recommended graduation 

rate as well as the legislation I offered last year. 

The work of the Department helps to clarify the current definition of graduation 

rate under the No Child Left Behind Act. Under current law a ‘‘graduation rate’’ 

is defined as ‘‘the percentage of students who graduate from secondary school with 

a regular diploma in the standard number of years.’’ States are allowed to define 

and set their own standard number of years and results vary widely from state to 

state. 

The Department’s regulations provide for a uniform and comparable graduation 

rate calculation that attempts to capture the true number of high school graduates 

in our nation. 

Although much work remains, the establishment of a consistent graduation rate 

is a critical first step toward solving the graduation crisis and making certain our 

students are given the tools they need to succeed. 

Second, I am hopeful we in Congress will look at the ways we can support state 

and school district efforts to improve state academic standards. High school is no 

longer about simply moving students from ninth grade to graduation. We must ensure all students are leaving their secondary education with the knowledge and 

skills necessary to reach their goals. 

Finally, I am hopeful Congress will improve those programs under NCLB to ensure that they work and support students at the high school level, such as 21st Century Community Learning Centers which provide students with academic enrichment opportunities during non-school hours and mentoring programs that help foster safe learning environments, and strengthening and applying early childhood and 

elementary reforms that are helping younger children progress to later grades. 

I hope that this Committee and Congress will continue to examine this issue very 

closely. I look forward to working along with my colleagues at the federal level, as 

well as the state and local level to prepare our nation’s students, particularly those 

that will be graduating shortly, to compete in a global economy. The bottom line 

is that our children are the future of this nation and we must implement the laws 

that will shape our future for years to come. 

Thank you for allowing me to testify today. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. Congressman Roe. 
16 

STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID ROE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE 

Mr. ROE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and ranking member and 

other members. I am very pleased to be able to testify about the 

importance of a high school education. 

I was in Nashville this past weekend to see my son get his MBA 

from Vanderbilt. Hallelujah. Our economy is still struggling, but 

after interacting with the graduates you get the sense that things 

are going to turn around. I think the most important reward out 

of investing in education is the hope for a better future for our 

country. 

The first school I attended was a two-room country school with 

no running water or indoor plumbing. But I had two parents who 

encouraged me to continue my education, so education was not 

really an option in my house. I was fortunate enough and worked 

hard enough to graduate from college and medical school. Receiving 

my degrees allowed me to have a great life. So I never ever forget 

to remind students the importance of education. They get tired of 

hearing me harp on it. 

When I speak to them I will ask them, in high school the other 

day I said how would you like to make a quarter of a million dollars in the next year? They all raise their hands up. And I said you 

can do that by just graduating from high school. Study. Think that 

is what you are throwing away. 

When in front of a bunch of college freshmen who are thinking 

about having a party on the weekend, I say you know how you can 

earn a million dollars in the next 4 years? Graduate from college. 

That is all you have to do. 

While there is a short-term cost for these kids, investment long 

term pays off—as we all know in this room—the rest of your life. 

In Tennessee it is particularly important to remind our teenagers 

of the financial impact that education can have on your life. Our 

high school graduation rate 2004-2005 regrettably was only 68 percent, and that was an improvement of 10 percent over the past 5 

years, but still way below the national average. We still have too 

many dropping out, some because of apathy and some because they 

have to pay the bills and put food on the table. Having been a rather stubborn teenager myself, I know that you cannot convince everybody to stay in school. 

So while I am sure that we will want to rightly foster excellence 

in high schools, ensuring that fewer kids drop out, I also want to 

remind the committee not to forget about those people who have 

already dropped out, which is an astonishing number of people. I 

believe we should have adult education programs as effective and 

necessary to complement the dropout problem. And I am absolutely 

convinced that you have to offer adult education programs to encourage young adults who have left the system to return to get 

their degrees. As I said the other day, we have a No Child Left Behind, we should have a No Adult Left Behind also. 

Last week, the Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong 

Learning, and Competitiveness heard testimony from country 

music star Gretchen Wilson about her experience with adult education. Ms. Wilson went back to school and received her GED at 

age 34 for both herself and to set an example for her beautiful 
17 

child, Grace, who was here. Her reasons for going back and her experience in the program speak to the incredible importance that 

these serve in the overall education policy. 

Programs like those offered to Ms. Wilson help us reach out to 

kids and adults who slip through the cracks and offer them an opportunity to move forward not only with their education but their 

careers. Even better, these programs are one of the most effective 

solutions I know of. In Tennessee, 14,600 individuals earn their 

GED in a year at a cost of only $275 per student that made this 

happen. This results in over $234 million in additional taxable income to the State because each individual made $9,000 more a year 

just with that GED. It changed their life. 

By supporting the adult education programs in conjunction with 

improving our high schools, I think we will find that our education 

system has far more successes than we give it credit for and can 

have a much broader reach and impact on the next generation. 

Similarly, I think there has been a decline in career education. 

I would encourage the committee to take a look at the role that the 

Carl D. Perkins Career and Technology Education Program plays 

in reducing the dropout rate. Some students are at high risk of not 

finishing school because they don’t think the school has any relevance for them. They want a job and a paycheck right away. A 

career-focused education can help them achieve this goal and make 

sure they get their high school diploma. 

The programs offered through this act allow kids who may have 

disengaged from regular high school program to remain engaged 

through their focused programs. 

Finally, I would like to note that as a former mayor, I have seen 

firsthand Federal programs work best when the decision-making 

authority is left in local officials’ hands. Typically they are most 

qualified to fix problems that arise in their jurisdiction because 

they know the circumstances surrounding the problems. 

So as the committee examines on how to improve high schools, 

I hope we consider allowing true local flexibility rather than imposing broad Federal mandates on our high schools. I think this topic 

is particularly timely with our present economic situation. Only 

with an educated workforce will we be able to compete in an increasingly global marketplace, and I thank the committee for holding this hearing and allowing me to testify. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

[The statement of Mr. Roe follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Hon. David P. Roe, a Representative in Congress 

From the State of Tennessee 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very pleased to be able to testify about the importance of high school education. I was just down in Nashville this past weekend to 

see my son graduate from Vanderbilt’s MBA school. Our economy is still struggling 

but after interacting with the graduates, you get a sense that things will turn 

around. And that’s the most important reward we get out of investing in education—hope for a better future for our country. 

I grew up in Clarksville, Tennessee and went to school in a one-room schoolhouse 

with no running water, but I had committed parents who encouraged me to continue 

my education. I was fortunate enough and worked just hard enough to graduate 

from college and from medical school. Receiving my degrees has allowed me to live 

a good life, so I never forget to remind our youth about the importance of education. 

When I speak to students, I always ask them, ‘‘Would you like to know how you 

can earn an extra $250,000 in your lifetime?’’ I can see on their faces, they’re think-
18 

ing, ‘‘Well, that sounds pretty good to me.’’ So, I tell them, ‘‘Just graduate from high 

school.’’ I also ask them, ‘‘Would you like to know how you can earn an extra $1 

million?’’ ‘‘Just graduate from college.’’ The fact is, continuing your education dramatically improves your chances at having financial success. While there’s a shortterm cost for some of these kids, the investment pays off in the long-term. 

In Tennessee, it’s particularly important for us to remind our teenagers about the 

financial impact an education can have on your life. Our high school graduation rate 

for the 2004-2005 school year was 68.5 percent, and that’s improved nearly 10 percent over the past five years, but we are still below the national average. We still 

have too many who are dropping out—some because of apathy, some because they 

simply need to help pay the bills and put food on the table. 

Having been a stubborn teenager myself, I know you can’t convince everyone to 

stay in school. So while I’m sure we will rightly focus attention on fostering excellence in our high schools and ensuring that fewer kids drop out, I also want to remind the Committee not to forget about those people who have already dropped out. 

I believe we should look at adult education programs as an effective and necessary 

complement to the drop out problem. I’m absolutely convinced that you have to offer 

adult education programs that encourage young adults who have already left the 

system to return to get their degree. 

Last week, the Subcommittee on Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness heard testimony from country music star Gretchen Wilson about her experience with adult education. Ms. Wilson went back to school to receive her GED 

both for herself and to set an example for her child. Her reasons for going back and 

her experience with the programs speak to the incredible importance they serve in 

our overall education policy. Programs like those offered to Ms. Wilson help us reach 

out to kids and adults who have slipped through the cracks and offer them an opportunity to move forward not only with their education but with their careers. 

Even better, these programs are one of the most cost effective solutions I know 

of. In Tennessee, 14,662 individuals earned their GED, and it only cost $275 per 

student to make this happen. This resulted in over $134 million in additional taxable income to the state because each individual was making over $9,000 per year 

more. 

By supporting the adult education programs in conjunction with improving our 

high schools, I think we’ll find that our education system has far more successes 

than we give it credit for and can have a much broader reach on impacting our next 

generation’s lives. 

Similarly, I think we’ve seen a decline in career education and I would encourage 

the Committee to look at the role that the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical 

Education program plays in reducing the drop out rate. Some students are at high 

risk of not finishing school because they don’t think that school has any relevance 

for them. They want a job and a pay-check right away, and a career-focused education can help them achieve this goal and make sure they get their high school 

diploma. The programs offered through the Perkins Act allow kids who may have 

disengaged from ‘‘regular’’ high school programs to remain engaged through career 

focused programs. 

Finally, I would note that as a former Mayor, I have seen first-hand federal programs work best when decision-making authority is left in local officials’ hands. 

Typically, they are the most qualified to fix problems that arise in their jurisdiction 

because they know the circumstances surrounding problems. 

So as the Committee examines how to improve high schools, I hope we consider 

allowing true local flexibility rather than trying to impose broad federal mandates 

on our high schools. 

I think this topic is particularly timely with our present economic situation. Only 

with an educated workforce will we be able to compete in an increasingly global 

marketplace, and I thank the committee for holding this hearing and allowing me 

to testify. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much, and thank you to all 

of you for taking your time to come and testify. But all of you have 

been involved in this issue for a considerable period of time before 

today’s hearing. And it is our intent to address this problem in this 

session of Congress. We would like to move forward on this in the 

most comprehensive way that we can. 

I think all of you have made very important points about how 

comprehensive that really needs to be. Whether it is adult edu-
19 

cation, whether it is identifying and helping young people become 

aware of the opportunity that college can present to them and they 

can participate so that they can be eligible, that you worked on so 

hard, Chaka, in your community. 

I don’t have any questions, but again I want to thank you. Do 

any members of the committee? Mr. Scott? 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as you 

know, I serve not only on the Education and Labor Committee but 

also on the Judiciary Committee and chair the Crime Subcommittee, and there is a very close correlation between high 

school dropouts and crime. Those that drop out are much less likely 

to get a job, make a lot more—businesses don’t want to move into 

areas where there is a high dropout rate. Much more of those with 

high dropout rates suffer more welfare, and obviously those who 

drop out are much more likely to end up in prison. 

One study showed that African Americans that drop out of high 

school have about a one-third chance of being in jail when they are 

26 to 30 years old. Obviously much higher than those that did not 

drop out. It is so bad that the Children’s Defense Fund calls it the 

cradle-to-prison pipeline. 

We know that if a person graduates they are much less likely to 

be in jail. And when you talk about affordability, the money you 

save in incarceration can more than pay for any dropout prevention 

program that you can afford. It is hard to imagine any effective 

dropout program that does not save more money than it costs. Or 

you can just wait and save the money and spend a lot more locking 

people up. 

Mr. Chairman, when we originally passed No Child Left Behind, 

we insisted that a factor of adequate yearly progress—that one factor be your dropout rate. If you don’t have a dropout rate factor, 

then you have a perverse incentive to let people drop out, even 

push them out. Because they are dropping out from the bottom, the 

more people drop out the higher your average is, and you didn’t 

want people to benefit from high dropout rates. Obviously as you 

pointed out, some of the schools have a 50 percent dropout rate. 

That cannot possibly be considered by any standard adequate, 

when half the students don’t even graduate. 

The bill that you mentioned that I have introduced, the Every 

Student Counts Act, requires an accurate count of who is graduating and who isn’t and requires you to hit a 90 percent graduation rate—not 50, not 50 that we have now, but a 90 percent graduation rate or at least be making progress towards 90 percent at 

a rate of 3 percentage points per year or you are not given credit 

for adequate yearly progress. 

The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Roe, mentioned adult education. If you do not give credit for adult education graduation, you 

are not going to have adult education programs. People are not 

going to pay money for programs that they don’t get any credit for. 

We have to give primary credit to graduating from high school with 

a regular diploma, but you also have to get some credit for those 

adult education programs. 

We cannot tolerate these high dropout rates. We have to do 

something. Otherwise we will continue on the trajectory that we 

are on now, where you have these dropout factories and it is an in-
20 

sult to suggest that any of those dropout factories are making adequate yearly progress. 

I thank our colleagues for their concern on this issue, and I look 

forward to working with them as we do something about this problem. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much. Thank you to all of 

you for taking your time. You are obviously welcome to join the 

committee. 

We will now welcome our second panel. We will get you lined up 

in the right order here. Our second panel will begin with Robert 

Balfanz. Dr. Balfanz is the principal Research Scientist at Johns 

Hopkins University, and his team is currently working on over 100 

high-poverty secondary schools to develop, implement and evaluate 

comprehensive whole school reforms. He is the Co-Director of the 

Everyone Graduates Center, which engages in efforts aimed at ending the Nation’s graduation rate crisis. Dr. Balfanz is also the cooperator of the Baltimore Talent Development High School. 

Michael Wotorson is the Executive Director for the Campaign for 

High School Equity, a partnership of 10 of the Nation’s leading 

civil rights and education organizations focused on high school reform. He has spent his career advocating support for educational 

equity and civil rights and working for more than 15 years as a research advocate and policy analyst. He was at the NAACP and has 

held positions at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, the Fair Employment Council of Greater Washington, 

and the Anti-Defamation League. 

Marguerite Kondracke has been the President and CEO of America’s Promise Alliance, an organization with more than 300 national partners currently focused on addressing the Nation’s high 

school dropout crisis. Before joining the alliance, she served as Special Assistant to Senator Lamar Alexander and Staff Director of 

the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families. 

Scott Gordon is the founder and CEO of Mastery Charter Schools 

in Philadelphia. Mastery opened in 2001 and operates four schools 

serving 1,700 students. Mastery was created to close the achievement gap and ensure that all students graduate from high school 

ready for college. In 2005, Mastery created a unique partnership 

with the School District of Philadelphia to convert the most struggling middle schools in Mastery charter schools. To date test scores 

have increased substantially, and over 85 percent of Mastery’s 

graduates enroll in higher education. Mr. Gordon received the New 

Schools Venture Fund’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award for his 

work. 

Dr. Vicki L. Philips is the Director of Education for the United 

States Program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In this 

capacity, she oversees work to improve early learning to ensure 

U.S. high school students graduate ready for success in college, career and life and improve access to college. Prior to joining the 

foundation Dr. Philips was Superintendent of Portland Public 

Schools in Portland, Oregon and served as Secretary of Education 

and Chief State School Officer for the State of Pennsylvania. She 

has worked previously at the U.S. Department of Education and as 

an adviser of government reforms in England and Australia. She 

began her career as a middle and high school teacher. 
21 

Bob Wise, former Governor Bob Wise, became President of the 

Alliance for Excellent Education in February of 2005. He was Governor of West Virginia from 2001 to 2005. He fought for and signed 

legislation to fund PROMISE Scholarship Program, which has 

helped thousands of West Virginia students remain in the State for 

college. During his administration West Virginia also saw significant increase in the number of students completing high school and 

entering college. 

From 1983 to 2001, Governor Wise served as our colleague in the 

United States House of Representatives, representing the Second 

District of West Virginia, and he also serves on the Board of Trustees of America’s Promise. 

Welcome to the committee. Thank you for all of the work that 

you have done on this subject and all of the contributions that you 

and your organization have made. 

Quickly, again we will give you 5 minutes to tell us what you 

want us to know. When you begin talking the green light will go 

on in front of you. After 4 minutes, the orange light will go on and 

then in 5 minutes the red light will go on, and we will ask you to 

sum up your testimony in a way that is coherent to all of us. That 

is the challenge. 

Dr. Balfanz, we will begin with you, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT BALFANZ, PH.D., RESEARCH 

SCIENTIST, THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 

Mr. BALFANZ. I want to thank the chairman and the ranking 

member and the committee for holding these hearings. They come 

not a moment too soon. Our Nation faces a graduation challenge 

that, if we don’t meet, will simply leave it unprepared to prosper 

in the 21st century. 

The good news is that I come to this issue as both a researcher, 

a school reformer, and a practitioner. And from all of those experiences and knowledges I believe this is not only a challenge we can 

meet—it is a challenge we can meet. And we have to do three 

things. We have to create pathways to college and career readiness 

for all of our students. We have to close the achievement gap. 

But the hard news is that even if we did all that hard work and 

succeeded exceptionally well, we would still have a dropout crisis 

until we confront the cold hard fact that the dropout crisis is driven 

by the dropout factories that Chairman Miller and others have 

mentioned. 

These are the 2,000 high schools and their feeder middle schools 

that reliably produce half the Nation’s dropouts every year and 

two-thirds of the minority dropouts. They are in every State and 

77 percent of congressional districts. But within these locations 

they are concentrations in our most neediest communities. They 

are in the automotive cities of the Midwest, the textile towns of the 

South, the challenged neighborhoods of our largest cities, and in 

the boom-and-bust areas that are being hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis. As such, they are simply the engines of the 

underclass and a collective drag on our national competitiveness. 

The other piece of good news is that this is something that we 

can do. Two thousand high schools and their middle schools is a 

manageable number. It is within the bounds of human agency. This 
22 

breaks down to only 10 to 70 schools in most States and only 1 to 

3 in most congressional districts. That is a number we can wrap 

ourselves around. That is manageable. 

The second thing is that in the past decade we have made great 

progress in developing tools and models and proof points of success. 

So no one can no longer say this is unsolvable. It is too bad, it is 

horrible, but we can’t do anything. That has been proven wrong. 

Most excitingly, recently we have developed early warning and 

on-track indicator systems which not only can we target the 

schools, but the kids within the schools. The minute they first get 

into trouble and fall off the graduation path, we can mobilize 

around them. 

And finally, in the past 5 years or so this has gone from being 

a school issue to a community campaign. And that is essential for 

the community to be deeply invested in improving the schools and 

improving the graduation rate. Because they bear the cost. And 

until a community is mobilized, we will not have the ability for the 

long haul. That is happening now. 

The final missing piece of this is the Federal role. We need to 

create a Federal-State local community partnership, and with the 

Federal Government playing a critical active and in some places 

leading role. And they need to focus on four things: Accountability. 

Grad rates need to be coequal with test scores in our accountability 

system. Simply put, everybody has got to graduate prepared to do 

something, college and career, they have got to graduate. One of 

those is not good, you have to do both. 

Second, we have to realize that high schools are unique. If you 

need to raise the graduation rate, the ninth grade is when kids fall 

off track. It will take 4 years to have really a big impact. You will 

have incremental improvements, but unless you have that 4 years 

to show big gains, you are not going to show big gains, because you 

have to fix the ninth grade and that takes 4 years to pay off. 

Finally, the Department of Ed regulations are a good place to 

start. And Representative Scott’s Every Student Counts helps codify that and move that forward. 

Second, resources. These high schools and their feeder middle 

schools have the highest concentration of needy students in America. They have the most needy students and the highest number of 

them. Yet only half of these high schools get Title I money. How 

can we say that we are using Federal money to equalize the impacts of poverty? 

And secondly, we have to realize that because of the crazy quilt 

of funding in our system of State and local, that some schools are 

going to need more Federal resources than others to transform. If 

we want a pragmatic goal of fixing as soon as possible, we have to 

realize that some schools will need more resources than others to 

get the job done quickly. 

Capacity building. We have to both invest in getting the schools 

they resources they need, but invest in the folks that can give them 

the know-how and the technical assistance. The Districts, the State 

Departments of education, the external school formal organizations. 

All of these groups that have shown promise need to be strengthened so we can move from pockets of success to systematic improvement. 
23 

And finally, we need to do smart targeting and integrated efforts. 

We need to realize that one of the things that has held us back is 

we have had good ideas and applied them in the wrong places. We 

haven’t been thoughtful about what the specific challenges of this 

school? What are its resources and what are its capacities? What 

are its needs? What are its opportunities? What are its tools? 

When we put that together, what is the reform that makes 

sense? Not this reform works here or this reform works there. So 

let’s be smarter about how we choose or reforms. 

The other piece of good news is that we have lots of good legislation formed by this committee. The Graduation Promise Act, the 

Success in the Middle, Every Student Counts, the Secondary Improvement Fund. We have really good building blocks. 

In closing, I want to leave you with this image. Sitting here in 

this beautiful room on this beautiful day, we basically know which 

students are going to drop out in the next 5 years. We know which 

schools they go to, and with a little bit of digging we can see them 

raising their hands and saying help. And we know how to do something about it. So that creates an obligation to act. 

My argument is that by creating a Federal-State-local community effort, all together we will have the ability to meet that obligation. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Balfanz follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Robert Balfanz, Everyone Graduates Center, Johns 

Hopkins University 

I want the thank Chairman Miller, Vice Chairman Kildee, Representative 

McKeon and the Committee for holding this hearing. It comes not a moment too 

soon. 

The nation faces a high school graduation challenge that if unmet will leave it 

unprepared to succeed in the 21st Century. Not only does the nation, in the words 

of President Obama, need to make dropping out of high school not an option, it 

needs to insure that a high school diploma means something and leaves all students 

prepared for college and/or post-secondary career training. Simply put, the world 

has changed and there is no work for high school dropouts. Nor are there many opportunities that will support a family for students who end their education after 

high school. To fully share in the nation’s prosperity in 21st Century America, all 

students need to graduate from high school prepared for the further education and 

training required for adult success. 

To meet its graduation challenge, the nation must find a solution for its dropout 

factories. These are the 12 percent of the nation’s high schools, about 2,000 in number, that year after year, produce more than half of its dropouts and close to threequarters of its minority dropouts. In these high schools graduation is not the norm 

and is often at best a 50/50 proposition. 

These high schools are found in every state and 77 percent of congressional districts, but are concentrated within them in a sub-set of urban and rural low-wealth 

communities. In these locales, dropout factories are often the predominant or only 

public high school. This puts the entire community at risk of being cut off from a 

modern economy, which is driven by human capital or know-how. These high 

schools are the engine of the under-class and collectively place a significant drag on 

the nation’s competitiveness. They usually exist, moreover, in communities that are 

already struggling, places where industry has left, like the automotive cities of 

Michigan and the textile towns of South Carolina, or the broken neighborhoods of 

Philadelphia and Los Angeles. This is why the dropout crisis has been called a silent epidemic. Yet, there is no way for these cities, towns, and neighborhoods to reinvent themselves without high schools that prepare all their students for post-secondary schooling or training. 

The intense concentration of the nation’s dropout factories, in a limited number 

of locales across the nation, however, is in fact what makes this problem solvable. 

It enables us to focus our efforts in a relatively few schools, where they will have 

maximum effect on the nation’s progress. It is much more likely that we can trans-
24 

form or replace 2,000 low-performing high schools, than 20,000. In most states, the 

number is between 10 and 70. In most congressional districts, outside of the nation’s 

10 largest cities, there are commonly one to three such schools. 

Moreover, in the past decade we have learned much about what it will take to 

transform the nation’s dropout factories, developed evidence-based tools and models, 

and generated ample proof points that it can be done. Ten years ago, if you asked 

people to name some of the nation’s most intractable school districts, New York and 

Chicago, would come to the top of the list. Yet these are the very districts that have 

made notable progress in graduation rates in recent years and have pioneered innovations that are spreading across the nation. At the state level, it has been in what 

were once some of the nation’s poorest states, such as North Carolina, Arkansas, 

Alabama, and Kentucky that the most improvement have been made. This tells us 

that progress occurs when will and know-how are combined with sufficient capacity 

and accountability systems that encourage effort and innovation. 

Also in the past five years, notable advancements have been made in developing 

early warning and on-track indicator systems, enabling us to identify, while there 

is still time to intervene, the students within the nation’s dropout factories and their 

feeder middle schools who will need the most support to graduate. This means we 

can target our efforts to both the most challenged schools and their students most 

in need. Early warning and on-track indicator systems also give us a powerful accountability tool to make sure schools are getting the right intervention to the right 

student at the right time. 

One essential finding of this research is that it is often possible to identify as 

early as sixth grade up to half of the students who, absent effective interventions, 

will not graduate, and up to 80 percent by the ninth grade. This speaks to the need 

to reform both our nation’s high schools with low graduation rates and the middle 

schools where their students come from. 

Finally, both the national importance of the dropout crisis and the realization that 

it can be solved has led a growing number of prominent non-profit organizations 

that collectively have deep reach into the communities most at need to step up and 

make the graduation challenge one of their top priorities. These include United 

Way, Boys and Girls Clubs, Communities in Schools, City Year, and the Chamber 

of Commerce. The America’s Promise Alliance, founded by Colin and Alma Powell, 

is organizing multi-sector efforts uniting business, faith-based efforts, mayors’ and 

governors’ offices, community organizations, and school systems behind evidencebased action plans. Dropout prevention summits are being held in all 50 states and 

55 cities over two years. Meeting the nation’s graduation challenge is no longer seen 

as just a school issue, but a community-wide campaign. 

In short, meeting the nation’s graduation challenge is a big enough issue to matter, but a manageable enough problem to solve. 

The Challenge We Face in Transforming the Nation’s Dropout Factories and Their 

Feeder Middle Grade Schools 

Although we know that to meet the nation’s graduation challenge we must transform the nation’s dropout factories, and recognize that the know-how and tools exist 

to do this, we must also acknowledge that progress in transforming these high 

schools, beyond a few leading districts and states, has been slow. 

A brief examination of why this is so demonstrates the need for a federal role in 

helping communities transform their dropout factories. 

First, high schools with consistently low graduation rates often face extremely 

high degrees of educational challenge. In these high schools, it is typical for the majority of students to enter the ninth grade with math and reading skills two or more 

years below grade level, and/or already beginning to disengage from school as witnessed by worsening attendance rates and increased behavioral problems. In a high 

school of 1,200 to 2,000 students, this can translate into hundreds of students in 

need of extra support, beyond good everyday teaching. 

Second, by and large, these schools do not have either the financial or human resources to meet this degree of educational challenge. The nation’s dropout factories 

almost exclusively educate poor and minority children. Yet despite having among 

the highest concentration and largest number of needy students, close to half of 

these schools receive no federal Title 1 support. Moreover, the crucial ninth grade, 

because it is typically seen as an undesirable teaching assignment, is often staffed 

by the least experienced and skilled teachers. These teachers are not supported by 

strong professional development nor assisted by sufficient numbers of skilled and 

committed adults in support roles. The result is frustration, burn-out, and high levels of transiency, making it difficult for reforms to take hold and build their impact 

over time. 
25 

Third, local, state, and federal accountability systems have not been designed to 

require, guide, and support the transformation of these high schools. By and large, 

high schools have been the orphan of accountability systems. Their unique needs 

have not been fully considered. Because the majority of students who dropout fall 

off the path to graduation in the ninth grade, it will take four years for the full impact of school reform efforts to translate into increased graduation rates. Most accountability systems, however, demand results within one or at most two years. 

This encourages schools to focus on the smaller number of dropouts who fall offtrack in the later grades, rather than implementing the fundamental reforms needed to transform the entire school. At the federal level, moreover, No Child Left Behind heavily weights high school accountability to the results of achievement tests 

given in a single grade. This encourages schools to focus all their efforts on the subset of students who are close to proficient, rather than the larger number of students who entered ninth grade two or more years below grade level. In some cases, 

schools even push these students out before they reach the tested grade. 

Fourth, we have not paid enough attention to developing mechanisms to get the 

right reform and transformation strategies to the right school, with sufficient capacity building and technical assistance to enable effective implementation and to sustain it. Too often good reform strategies have been applied in the wrong places or 

without enough intensity and fidelity to succeed. This, in turn, has led to disappointment with the results, fed the erroneous belief that nothing works, and shifted reform attention elsewhere. 

To meet the nation’s graduation challenge and transform the secondary schools 

that drive the dropout crisis, we need to create a federal-state-local-community partnership dedicated to the task. The federal government needs to play four crucial 

roles. 

First, accountability. Simply put, a high school’s graduation rate and achievement 

levels need to have co-equal weight in federal accountability frameworks. Every students needs to graduate and all students need to earn diplomas signifying that they 

are prepared for post-secondary schooling or career training. It is only when high 

schools understand that both goals need to be achieved that they will not be tempted to trade off one for the other. The graduation rate regulations issued by the Department of Education in 2008 go a long way toward establishing both the accurate 

measurement of graduation rates and raising their importance in federal accountability systems. They need to be fine tuned and codified. The Everyone Graduates 

bill sponsored by Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA) achieves this and should be 

passed. 

Second, resources. The federal government needs to insure that the most challenged secondary schools have the resources they need to succeed. Increased investment in pre-k education, as well as existing Title 1 funding, will see its impact 

muted if students in the most vulnerable communities continue to attend dysfunctional middle and high schools. Adolescence, in communities of concentrated poverty, carries its own set of risk factors that cannot be fully eliminated by more positive early education experiences. Up to one-quarter of the students who fall off the 

graduation path in ninth grade, for example, enter high school with grade level 

skills. 

Ensuring that a secondary school’s resources match its educational challenge will 

involve two steps. First, full and fair Title 1 funding for secondary schools. Second, 

as is envisioned in the Success in the Middle and Graduation Promise Acts, targeted 

funds based on a careful and peer-reviewed analysis of the needs and capacity of 

each dropout factory and its primary feeder middle schools. Some of these schools, 

because of variability in local and state funding and the intensity and size of their 

educational challenges, will need more resources than others. There needs to be a 

mechanism to enable this. 

Third, capacity finding and building. Federal legislation needs to be sensitive to 

the fact, that across the nation the capacity to transform dropout factories and their 

feeder middle schools will rest in different places. In some locales, it will be the 

school district that has the wherewithal to transform these schools. In other locales, 

state departments of education can and will need to play a stronger role. In still 

other areas, external technical assistance from experienced non-profit providers with 

a track record in similar schools will be required. In addition, federal support will 

be required to increase the capacity of school districts, state departments of education, and external school reform organizations and support providers to transform 

low graduation rate high schools and their feeder middle schools at the scale required. This is what will enable us to move beyond pockets of success to systematic 

improvements. 

These capacity building efforts could take several forms. These could be competitive grants to enable partnerships between states or districts and consortia of tech-
26 

nical assistance providers, as envisioned in the Secondary School Innovation Fund 

Act or an expansion of the community investment boards found in the recently 

passed Serve America Act. For the most impacted communities, we may also have 

to look seriously at the idea of federal Graduation Bonds, which would provide the 

upfront capital needed to replace or re-configure large schools of 2,000 or more students that are relics of another era, and provide the intensive and large scale teacher training and support required to prepare all students for success in post-secondary schooling. States would then use the increased tax revenues and lower social 

service costs that would result from dramatically raising the graduation rate in communities where dropping out is the norm to re-pay the bonds. In addition, federal 

R and D efforts may be required to increase the range of solutions for two particularly challenging sub-sets of dropout factories: high schools with 2,000 or more students and high schools with low graduation rates that are the only high school in 

a district (25 percent of the nation’s dropout factories are such). 

Fourth, smart targeting and integrated efforts. Finally and perhaps most importantly, the federal government through both its funding and accountability mechanisms should enable and promote smarter choices in the strategies selected to transform the secondary schools that drive the nation’s dropout crisis. The good news is 

that over the past decade we have learned that there are multiple ways to successfully transform dropout factories and their feeder middle schools. Evidence-based 

whole school reform models have worked, as has replacing failed large schools with 

several smaller new schools. Different governance models, from charters to pairing 

public schools with external operators from school reform organizations and universities, have shown promise is some locales, as have data-based multiple pathways 

to graduation within large and medium-sized school districts. But nothing has 

worked everywhere it has been tried, which tells us that context matters. 

Before a secondary school receives additional funds to support the needed reforms, 

it should be required to work with its school district and, where appropriate and 

needed, external technical assistance providers to develop both needs and capacity 

assessments. These would detail its educational challenge, analyze why prior reform 

efforts have not worked, and identify the capacity it will need. These assessments 

would also show how the school would implement and sustain reforms that are comprehensive, sufficiently robust and intense to meet its educational challenges and 

tailored to the specific needs, opportunities, and circumstances experience by the 

school. The schools’ and districts’ needs and capacity analyses, as well as their 

school improvement plans, should then be subject to real and rigorous peer review, 

with technical assistance being provided to the schools and districts that need more 

support to both select the right strategy for their circumstances and implement it 

well. 

The good news is that good legislation is already or soon to be introduced into 

the 111th Congress. These bills collectively go a long way toward addressing the nation’s graduation challenge and should form the cornerstone of federal efforts to 

transform the secondary schools that produce most of the nation’s dropouts. The 

bills include the Every Student Counts Act—H.R. 1569—introduced by Representative Scott (D-VA), The Graduation Promise Act sponsored by Representative Hinojosa (D-TX), the Success in the Middle Act sponsored by Representative Grijalva (DAZ), and the Secondary School Innovation Fund sponsored by Representative 

Loebsack (D-IA). 

In conclusion, sitting here today, we can identify most of the students in your districts and across the nation, who absent effective interventions, will not graduate 

in the next seven years. We know which schools they attend and, with a little attention and effort, we see the signals they are sending, signals that clearly say ‘‘help.’’ 

We also know how to do something about it. This creates the obligation for us to 

act, to not only make dropping out not an option, but also to provide all these students with a pathway to adult success and full economic and social participation in 

21st Century America. The federal government must play a key role in this effort. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL WOTORSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

CAMPAIGN FOR HIGH SCHOOL EQUITY 

Mr. WOTORSON. Thank you, Chairman Miller, ranking member 

and distinguished committee members. Thank you for inviting me 

to testify today, and I also want to express my thanks to the Mem-
27 

bers of Congress who just testified earlier for their leadership on 

raising critical issues related to high school reform. 

My name is Michael Wotorson, and I serve as the Executive Director for the Campaign for High School Equity, otherwise known 

as CHSE. We are a coalition of 10 civil rights organizations representing communities of color focused on high school education reform. Our partners are united in the conviction that it is every student’s right to receive a high quality high school education that will 

expand opportunities for success in life. 

I just want to spend a little bit of time talking about the education crisis from the perspective of civil rights. To say that the 

state of education in America is a disappointment would be an understatement of vast proportions when we consider some facts. 

Black and Latino 17-year-olds read at the same level as white 13- 

year-olds. Of incoming ninth graders, a third will drop out and another third will graduate lacking college or work-ready skills. African American, Latino, American Indian, and Alaskan Native American high school students have, at best, a six in 10 chance of graduating from school on time with a regular diploma, compared to a 

national rate of 70 percent. And for Asian Americans the situation 

is equally bleak. About 50 percent of Cambodians and Laotians and 

about 60 percent of Hmong age 25 and older have less than a high 

school education. These facts alone illustrate the reality of the crisis and dramatic need for reform. 

I join Secretary Duncan and other education leaders when I say 

that education is the most important American civil rights issue of 

the 21st century. As a consequence of persistent inequity and segregation we have two different school systems in America today. 

Recently I visited Halifax County in North Carolina, where I witnessed firsthand the duality of the American education system. 

First of all, the majority of the residents of Halifax County represent communities of color, and this county has the highest percentage of families living in poverty. Of the more than 23,000 students who dropped out of North Carolina high schools in the 2006- 

2007 school year, students of color, those from low-income families 

were disproportionately represented. 

Halifax County offers a clear picture of the vulgar realities that 

so many children must confront. The fact that children in Halifax 

County are not faced with a challenge, they are quite literally faced 

with an onslaught of challenges, as they try to learn basic skills to 

be successful in life. Lack of rigorous curriculum. Lack of access to 

effective teachers. Low expectations, et cetera. The list goes on. 

The situation in Halifax County is quite frankly emblematic of 

the unfinished legacy of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. While Brown ensured children would have unfettered access 

to public education, it did not ensure equity in public education. 

So clearly American education policy must change and it must 

change now. We at CHSE believe that the Federal Government can 

help the Nation make great strides towards achieving these goals 

by adopting the following policies: 

First, make all students proficient and prepared for college and 

work. Access to equal opportunity can only exist if all students are 

challenged to reach the same high expectations. To that end, we 

believe states should align high school standards, assessments, cur-
28 

riculum and instruction with college and work-ready standards; B, 

we should guarantee that all students have access to rigorous and 

engaging classes in core subjects; and C, States should be required 

to publicly report on access to college preparatory classes and 

course taking patterns by income, race and ethnicity, both among 

and within schools. 

Second, we should hold all high schools accountable for student 

success. As it stands, there are very few mechanisms for making 

sure that high schools are held accountable for the success of all 

students. So a well-designed accountability system would include, 

A, codifying in law the current graduation rate regulations; B, ensuring that every State makes progress on developing longitudinal 

data systems and allow them to measure student progress over 

time; C, publicly reporting disaggregated racial and ethnic data to 

highlight subjects of students; and D, using high quality, valid, and 

accurate assessments for all students. 

Third, we should redesign the American high schools. The Federal Government can encourage, incentivize, and require systems 

at the poorest quality high schools by urging the following policies 

be adopted: 

A, integrated student supports that utilizes both in-school and 

community-based services; B, instructional practices such as culturally competent learning techniques; C, consistent standards and 

practices such as improved identification and assessment systems 

to facilitate English language learners’ integration into the public 

education system; and D, access to computers and other learning 

technologies. 

So clearly there is a lot of work to be done and we must gather 

the collective will to do it. The will should be driven by need as 

well as likely return on our investment. If we can implement these 

policies that will drive reform in high schools, we can make a difference. 

Reform works. One only has to speak to the students from Gaston College Preparatory High School, a charter school in Gaston, 

North Carolina, that serves a high percentage of low income students and is just down the road from Halifax County. Every student in this high school, a high school that boasts 100 percent 

graduation rate, has been accepted to at least two colleges or universities. This should not be the exception in American high 

schools. Frankly, it should be the rule. 

CHSE urges swift passage of an improved ESEA that strengthens the accountability as a core element of reform and includes 

critical supports for high schools. Only then will we graduate every 

high school student prepared for college and the modern workforce. 

Thank you again for the opportunity and privilege to testify before you. The full text of my testimony has been submitted to the 

committee, and I am happy to answer any weighs. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Wotorson follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Michael Wotorson, Executive Director, Campaign 

for High School Equity 

Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon, and distinguished Committee members, thank you for inviting me to testify today. And, thank you to Congressman 

Fattah and Congressman Castle for their testimony and leadership in raising critical issues related to high school reform. 
29 

My name is Michael Wotorson and I am the executive director of the Campaign 

for High School Equity, otherwise known as CHSE. CHSE is a coalition of leading 

civil rights organizations representing communities of color that is focused on high 

school education reform. It was formed to address the unequal American public education system, which does not provide high-quality education to students of color 

and youth from low-income neighborhoods. 

CHSE partners are united in the conviction that it is every student’s right to receive a high-quality high school education that will expand opportunities for success 

in life. 

CHSE partners include the National Urban League, the National Council of La 

Raza, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, the 

Alliance for Excellent Education, the National Indian Education Association and the 

Southeast Asia Resource Action Center. 

Our goal is to raise awareness of solutions to close the achievement gap for students of color and to build public will and support among policymakers, advocates 

and community leaders for policies that will increase high school achievement and 

graduation rates for minority and low-income students. 

The Education Crisis 

To say that the state of education in America is a disappointment would be an 

understatement of vast proportions. 

Let’s consider the facts: 

• In 2003, our students ranked 15th among 29 countries in reading literacy, and 

25th in mathematics. 

• Seven out of 10 8th graders are not proficient in reading, and most will never 

catch up. 

• Black and Latino 17-year-olds read at the same level as white 13-year-olds. 

• Of incoming 9th graders, one-third will drop out, and another third will graduate lacking college and work-readiness skills—only about one-third will be adequately prepared for life after high school. 

• Contrary to the model minority myth, many Asian Americans also face barriers 

in education. About 50 percent of Cambodians and Laotians, and about 60 percent 

of Hmong aged 25 and older who are living in the United States have less than a 

high school education. 

Student achievement overall is low, but some students, the majority of which are 

students of color and low-income students, never get the chance to demonstrate 

their capabilities. Seven thousand American kids drop out of school every day, 

which adds up to 1.2 million dropouts each year. African-American, Latino, American Indian and Alaska Native high school students have at best a six in 10 chance 

of graduating from high school on time with a regular diploma, compared to a national graduation rate of more than 70 percent of all students. Unfortunately, without disaggregated data to account for the 48 Asian American ethnic groups, it is currently impossible to accurately measure student achievement among Asian Americans in our country. 

Research shows that about 2,000 of America’s 17,000 high schools produce approximately half of America’s dropouts. In these schools—commonly called ‘‘dropout 

factories’’—less than 60 percent of ninth graders are enrolled as twelfth graders four 

years later. The nation’s students of color are four times more likely than the nation’s non-minority students to attend one of these low-performing schools, and 

three times less likely to attend a high school with very high graduation rates. In 

fact, dropout factories produce 81 percent of all Native American dropouts, 73 percent of all African American dropouts, and 66 percent of all Latino dropouts. 

The fastest growing segment of the American public school population is comprised of more than 5 million English language learner (ELL) students, primarily 

Spanish-speaking students closely followed by students speaking Vietnamese and 

Hmong. This fast-growing segment of students, with the highest growth rates occurring in grades 7 through 12, is among the lowest performing in the country. In 2007, 

only 4 percent of 8th-grade ELL students could read at or above a proficient level, 

compared to 31 percent of non-ELL students. More than 59 percent of Latino ELL 

students ages 16-19 are high school dropouts. 

The facts alone illustrate the stark reality of the crisis and the dramatic need for 

reform in our high schools. Yet communities of color and low-income neighborhoods 

continue to be torn apart by the tragic consequences of an unequal public education 

system that fails to provide high-quality education to all. 
30 

A Critical Civil Rights Issue 

I echo the likes of Secretary Duncan and other education leaders when I say that 

education is the most important American civil rights issue of the 21st century. As 

a consequence of persistent inequity and segregation, we have two different school 

systems in America. On the one hand, we have a system that emphasizes high academic quality and serves the nation’s privileged students. Yet another system exists 

that emphasizes academic mediocrity and largely serves low-income students and 

students of color. The one consistency in our education system is in our high schools 

that fail to provide students of color and youth from low-income neighborhoods with 

the high-quality education they need to succeed in college and in the modern workplace. 

On a recent visit to Halifax County in North Carolina, I witnessed firsthand the 

duality of the American education system. Before I address the problem facing these 

students, let me give you a snapshot of Halifax County. 

• In a county where the majority of residents represent communities of color (52 

percent of residents are black, 3 percent are Native American, and 1 percent are 

Latino), nearly a quarter (23.9 percent) of Halifax County’s population is below the 

poverty level, giving it the status as the county in North Carolina with the highest 

percentage (19.4 percent) of families living in poverty. 

• In the 2007-2008 school year (the most recent data available), only 25.5 percent 

of children grades 3-8 are at or above grade level in reading, compared to 55.6 percent statewide; and only 39.7 percent are at or above grade level in math, compared 

to 69.9 percent statewide. 

• No schools in the county—zero elementary, middle or high schools—met Adequate Yearly Progress standards under the No Child Left Behind Act. 

• Of the 23,550 students who dropped out of North Carolina high schools in 2006- 

2007, students of color and those from low-income families were disproportionately 

represented. A recent report submitted to the North Carolina joint State Legislative 

Oversight Committee found that the counties with the highest dropout rates were 

also the counties where the per capita income was significantly lower than the state 

average. 

Upon my arrival in North Carolina, I was struck, again, by the vulgar realities 

that so many children face. The children in Halifax county are not faced with a challenge—they are faced with an onslaught of challenges as they try to learn the basic 

skills they will need to be successful in life. 

Nearly one-third of the middle and high school teachers in Halifax have less than 

three years of teaching experience and almost one quarter of the middle school 

teachers left the school district (the state average is 15 percent) in the 2006-2007 

school year. This makes it nearly impossible for the school district to build capacity 

among its teaching force. These children are not only growing up in poverty. They 

are growing up in a school system that expects little of them and they get little in 

return. 

These students lack access to effective teachers and teachers in the county lack 

access to the ongoing support they need to succeed in the classroom. Low achievement expectations are furthered by classroom curriculum that is not nearly as rigorous as it should be to encourage excellence. In communities nationwide with similar demographic and socioeconomic profiles as Halifax, each high school student enrolled in a different high school is learning quite different skills, which, against 

their will, will predetermine the direction of their future. With so many factors 

working against them, it is hard for these children to envision a future; it’s hard 

for them to have dreams much less fulfill them. 

Too many American high schools fail to provide a high-quality education to the 

youth who should become our next generation of business and political leaders, yet 

ensuring that all students graduate from high school well-prepared for the future 

is necessary to the nation’s global competitiveness and economic security. It is our 

moral responsibility to strengthen and improve our schools so that every child has 

the opportunity to meet high expectations and graduate high school prepared for 

work and college, and to fulfill dreams. 

We know that dropouts are more likely than high school graduates to grow up 

in poverty, experience poor health, and be incarcerated. Unless trends in minority 

student achievement and high school graduation are reversed, our high schools will 

be complicit in creating a permanent underclass of individuals who cannot provide 

for themselves and their families, and are prevented from actively participating in 

our democracy. It is, unfortunately, the unfinished legacy of the 1954 Brown v. 

Board of Education decision. While Brown ensured that all children would have unfettered access to public education, it did not ensure equity in public education. 
31 

Policy Solutions That Will Make a Difference 

American education policy must change now. CHSE advocates for policies that 

support making all students proficient and prepared for college and work, holding 

high schools accountable for student success and redesigning the American high 

school. College and work readiness must be a top priority, and we must create an 

environment in which all children can achieve that goal. CHSE believes that the 

federal government can help the nation make great strides towards achieving these 

goals by adopting the following policies. 

Make All Students Proficient and Prepared for College and Work 

Access to equal opportunity can only exist if all students are challenged to reach 

the same high expectations. • States must align high school standards, assessments, curriculum and instruction with college- and work-ready standards. Teaching and testing should be based 

on what will lead to success in the future; • We should guarantee that all students have access to rigorous and engaging 

classes in core subjects. Coursework should impart the knowledge and skills needed 

to excel in postsecondary education and career, and assessments should measure 

student learning against these criteria; • States should be required to publicly report on access to college preparatory 

classes and course-taking patterns by income, race and ethnicity, both among and 

within schools; and 

• Federal education policy that promotes culturally based teaching, a practice 

wherein teachers align instruction to the cultural practices and experiences of their 

students, is critical to helping all students succeed. 

Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success 

If the purpose of high school is to prepare students for college and work, then high 

schools should be held accountable for meeting this expectation for all students 

equally. As it stands, there are few mechanisms for making sure that high schools 

accomplish this mission. A well-designed accountability system should help communities ensure that their schools are serving their children well. 

There is a significant need to hold schools accountable for getting students successfully to graduation by including meaningful graduation rates in federal school 

accountability standards. 

The appallingly low rate at which American high schools graduate minority students could be reversed by increasing the accountability of states and school districts to adhere to standards that promote positive outcomes, including graduation 

and college. A strong system of accountability would include: 

• Codifying in law the current graduation rate regulations to make a significant 

difference in holding high schools accountable for the success of all students, particularly students of color and youth from low-income neighborhoods, and as a critical factor in determining the quality of a high school and effective use of resources; 

• Ensuring that every state continues to make progress on developing longitudinal data systems that will allow them to measure student progress over time. Improved data systems will not only improve the fairness and accuracy of accountability systems, including ensuring increased accountability for groups that are 

often marginalized, such as Native Americans and Southeast Asians, but will also 

allow schools to target services such as professional development where they are 

needed most; 

• Publicly reporting disaggregated racial and ethnic data to highlight subgroups 

of students; 

• Investing in technical assistance and evidence-based school improvement tools; 

• Using high-quality, valid and accurate assessments for all students; and 

• Disseminating high school data and other information through media and other 

information channels that reach communities of color. 

I would like to underscore that a critical element of any accountability system is 

to ensure that states and districts have quality data systems capable of collecting 

disaggregated data, that they publicly report disaggregated racial and ethnic data 

that include subgroups of students, and that all data is used to inform educational 

decision making. Making decisions without the benefit of fully disaggregated data 

ignores the unique needs of students of color and ill prepares school administrators 

to allocate resources based on the needs of students and teachers. While many 

states disaggregate data, inconsistencies in collection and reporting standards leave 

entire groups of students out of the equation. For example, without fully 

disaggregated data, the needs of whole segments of the Asian American and Pacific 

Islander population are neglected. As a result, entire groups of these young people 

end up falling through the cracks. 
32 

Redesign the American High School 

Implementing a variety of quality high school models shown to support different 

learning styles, cultures and student situations is critical to achieving success for 

all students. The federal government can encourage, incentivize and require systems 

that support high-quality high schools by urging the following policies be adopted. 

• Integrated student supports that utilize both in-school and community-based 

services can enhance the rate of success for minority and low-income students; 

• Instructional practices such as culturally competent learning techniques should 

be designed to meet the needs of diverse learners. More students thrive in the classroom when culture is integrated into their coursework, creating an environment 

where all students can excel, regardless of race or socioeconomic status. Data reveal 

that learning in an environment that incorporates native language, culture and traditions increases student mastery of and achievement in science and math; 

• Legally and educationally valid criteria to appropriately inform decisions regarding student eligibility for services in special educational, services for English 

language learners, college preparatory curricula and gifted and talented programs; 

• Consistent standards and practices such as improved identification and assessment systems to facilitate English language learners integration into the public education system; and 

• Access to computers and other learning technologies that can be used to complement in-class instruction. 

Provide Students with Excellent Leaders and Teachers They Need to Succeed 

Secondary schools designated as needing improvement tend to have fewer school 

resources and poorer working conditions; they also disproportionately serve students 

of color and are located in areas of concentrated poverty. Schools with these challenges require especially strong leaders. And, it is often difficult to recruit highquality teachers to low-performing schools. 

The federal government can support programs that establish incentives to recruit, 

train, support and retain effective leaders and teachers in high-poverty high schools. 

Invest Communities in Student Success and Provide Equitable Learning Conditions 

for All Students 

Creating high-performing high schools that can give all students the support they 

need to succeed is no small task, and it requires changing the school as well as an 

investment from the community. Community-based organizations (CBOs) play a 

critical role in providing much-needed wrap-around services, particularly for students of color. The federal government should support the creation and expansion 

of multilingual parent centers, CBO-based afterschool and summer programs, business-school partnerships and other community-based support services needed to 

help students stay in school and graduate. 

Moreover, high schools in the poorest communities deserve an equitable share of 

resources. In addition to adequate targeting of federal funds, we must ensure that 

the neediest schools have access to effective teachers, the best research and practice 

and services to meet the needs of all students, particularly English language learners. 

Urgent Call to Act Now 

Clearly, there is much to do, and we must gather the collective will to do it. The 

will should be driven by need as well as a likely return on our investments. If we 

can implement these policies that will drive reform of high schools, we can make 

a difference. Reforms work. One only has to speak with students from the Gaston 

College Preparatory high school, a Knowledge is Power Program charter school in 

Gaston, North Carolina, that also serves a high percentage of low-income students, 

just down the road from Halifax County. As a result of innovative and effective approaches to high school education, every senior in this high school, which boasts a 

100 percent graduation rate, has been accepted to at least two colleges or universities. This should not be an exception in American high schools. Frankly, it should 

be the rule. 

The pending reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 

(ESEA) is a critical opportunity to institutionalize the reforms we all know are so 

important. Congress can ensure better support for high schools and ensure strong 

accountability for improving results for high school students, particularly for students of color and those from low-income families. 

Waiting any longer to reauthorize ESEA amounts to shutting the door on thousands of American high school students and their dreams of a successful future. And 

as important, the high cost of dropping out is borne not only by the individual but 

by all Americans, who pay an economic and social price when students leave high 
33 

school without a diploma. CHSE urges swift passage of an improved ESEA that 

strengthens accountability as a core element of reform and includes critical support 

for high schools. Only then will we graduate every high school student prepared for 

college and the modern workforce. 

Thank you, again, for the opportunity and privilege to testify before you today. 

I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Chairman MILLER. Ms. Kondracke. 

STATEMENT OF MARGUERITE KONDRACKE, PRESIDENT AND 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AMERICA’S PROMISE 

Ms. KONDRACKE. Chairman Miller, ranking member, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify and 

thank you for holding this important hearing on what I believe is 

one of the most pressing issues of our Nation. 

America’s Promise Alliance was founded by General Colin Powell 

and is chaired today by his wife Alma. Our alliance, with over 300 

national partners, is dedicated to ending the Nation’s dropout crisis. As General Powell says, this is not a crisis, it is a catastrophe. 

When half of our young people of color and a third of all others are 

not graduating on time, this truly is a nation at risk. 

And many of those who do finish high school are not prepared 

for college or the 21st century workplace. Employers tell us they 

cannot find qualified or even literate employees. Colleges tell us too 

many entering students need remedial work. The military tells us 

they cannot find enough qualified recruits. Even dropout students 

tell us that they were not challenged and saw no relevance to the 

world today. 

I applaud the President when he said a long-term, sustainable 

economic recovery is only possible if we strengthen our education 

system and invest in our children. 

For a young person dropping out, it is a million dollar mistake. 

For our country, cutting in half the dropout rate would contribute 

over 45 billion to our economy. 

Mr. Chairman, the best stimulus package is a diploma. Our children and their education deserve to be our highest priority. They 

are the only future we have. 

But there is hope. We do know what to do, and we know where 

we should focus our resources. We can start by focusing on those 

2,000 dropout factory high schools and their communities. 

There are two influences in a student’s life that impacts achievement: What happens inside the classroom and what happens outside. Both must be addressed if we are to raise graduation rates 

and close the achievement gap. 

Our report, Cities in Crisis, found that there was a 20 percent 

difference in graduation rates when you compared urban to suburban districts. We must address these inequities to give giving to 

the promise of America for all of our young people. In this great 

democracy, the opportunity to succeed must not be an accident of 

birth. 

It is what happens outside the classroom that often gets overlooked, Mr. Chairman. I believe this is where the real difference 

can be made. 

Too many of our young children are going into the classroom 

without the basic supports in their lives that we all take for grant-
34 

ed. Not appreciating the role that these supports place in our 

child’s life is why I believe so many education reform efforts have 

not achieved the gains we have expected. The Educational Testing 

Service recently outlined 16 factors that drive student achievement. 

Over half happen outside the classroom. A child can’t learn if he 

is hungry, has health problems, maybe has no caring adult in his 

life, doesn’t feel safe in his neighborhood, has nowhere to go for the 

kind of after-school enrichment programs and tutoring that we 

would arrange for our own children. 

Inside the classroom we know we must have more rigor and relevance. We need stronger, internationally benchmarked standards. 

We have fallen behind almost every country in the developed 

world. I commend the committee for recently holding a hearing on 

this, and I support the administration’s efforts to make rigorous 

standards a priority. 

Secretary Arne Duncan has ably outlined what he believes is 

needed for schools, starting with clear standards defining worldclass excellence, teacher quality, better data, and effective ways to 

track students and measure success. 

But also important is what is happening outside the classroom. 

To solve the dropout crisis we need an integrated solution. Research proves that if a young person has four of five core resources, 

he or she will be successful in life. We call these the five promises. 

An effective education that gives our young people marketable 

skills is one of those promises. But our children also need caring 

adults, safe places, a healthy start, and opportunities to serve, 

which builds their confidence and self-worth. 

Having at least four of these five promises closes the achievement gap across race and income. Having at least four of the five 

means a young person is twice as likely to do well in school and 

stay out of trouble. 

These are at the heart of our dropout prevention campaign. We 

are holding summits in all 50 States and in 55 cities with the highest dropout rate. Every summit is producing an action plan. 

Mr. Chairman, there is a role for Congress, as well. Locally, 

these initiatives are spreading across the country, but because of 

the depth of the crisis there must be a larger role for the Federal 

Government. Mr. Chairman, we do not have time for incremental 

change. Congress and the administration can play an important 

role in bringing solutions to scale. 

The Graduation Promise Act is must-pass legislation. Complementing it is the Secondary School Innovation Fund from Congressman Loebsack and the Every Student Counts Act from Congressman Scott; again, Congressman Loebsack, the WE CARE Act; 

and Leader Hoyer, the Full-Service Community Schools Act. These 

are great bills. 

Additionally, I urge Congress to fund the High School Graduation Initiative proposed by the President and Secretary Duncan. 

The administration is requesting a $1 billion increase, and 40 percent of these school improvement grants will go to the dropout factory schools. 

In conclusion, we should not tolerate living in a country where 

three out of 10 students do not graduate on time. We should not 
35 

tolerate living in a country where on-time graduation for minority 

students is a 50-50 proposition. 

We have solutions on the ground, legislative proposals that will 

bring them to scale. Congress can go a long way to solve this problem and fortify our economy. We know what to do, we are ready 

to help, and this can be done. Our future depends on it. 

[The statement of Ms. Kondracke follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Marguerite Kondracke, President and CEO, 

America’s Promise Alliance 

Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon, members of the Committee, thank 

you for the opportunity to testify on the most pressing issue facing our nation. I am 

Marguerite Kondracke, President and CEO of America’s Promise Alliance. Founded 

by General Colin Powell, we and our 300 partners are committed to bringing an end 

to the dropout crisis. 

Magnitude of the Problem 

General Powell characterizes the dropout crisis as a national catastrophe. A new 

report commissioned by America’s Promise Alliance found that only about half (53 

percent) of all young people in the nation’s 50 largest cities graduate on time. 

If altruistic reasons do not compel you, economic ones should. McKinsey and Company found that the educational challenges we face impose ‘‘the economic equivalent 

of a permanent national recession.’’ 

I agree with the President and Secretary Duncan when they say that a long-term, 

sustainable economic recovery is only possible if we strengthen our education system. 

Contributors to the Crisis 

There are two influences in a student’s life that impact achievement: what happens inside the school building, and what happens outside of it. Both must be addressed if we are to successfully raise graduation rates. 

First, we need stronger, internationally benchmarked standards. Students deserve 

standards and curricula that will help them succeed in college and careers and compete in the global economy. We are making progress in this regard. I commend the 

Committee for holding a hearing on the topic of common national standards just a 

few weeks ago, and support the administration’s efforts to make rigorous standards 

a priority. 

Integrated supports are also crucial. ‘‘There are a set of foundational things we 

need to do to meet * * * students’ social and emotional needs * * * the more we 

work together * * * the more we create an environment where the students can 

maximize their academic potential.’’ 

These are not my words; they are the words of our Secretary of Education, Arne 

Duncan. 

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) recently outlined 16 factors that correlate 

with student achievement—over half of these factors are present in a child’s life beyond the classroom. Such factors include forced mobility, environmental hazards, 

hunger and nutrition, health care, and the summer learning gap, which puts students so far behind by the ninth grade that the prospect of on-time graduation is 

dim. 

If schools just had to deal with one, or maybe two of these issues, they could probably handle it. The problem is that these and many other factors accumulate and 

are concentrated in our schools with the least capacity to address them. 

The Solution: A Comprehensive Approach 

The dropout crisis calls for a comprehensive solution. Research demonstrates that 

young people need five core resources to be successful in life. We refer to them as 

the ‘‘five promises’’—caring adults, safe places, a healthy start, effective education, 

and opportunities to serve. These promises provide a simple but powerful framework 

for a robust national strategy to end the dropout crisis, and are at the heart of the 

Dropout Prevention Campaign launched by the America’s Promise Alliance last 

year. 

The campaign began with high-level summits, one in all 50 states and 55 cities 

with the largest dropout rates. Within 60 days of each summit, states and communities develop action plans that include a cross section of stakeholders—educators, 

the business community, nonprofit organizations, and students. 
36 

Locally, initiatives are spreading across the country that combine academic and 

community-based supports to strengthen student achievement. Rather than describe 

these efforts in detail, I will discuss the potential role of the federal government in 

bringing them to scale. • The Graduation Promise Act is ‘‘must-pass’’ legislation. The federal government 

should not have a heavy hand in high school reform. Introduced by Representative 

Ruben Hinojosa in the 110th Congress, this legislation is comprehensive, data driven, and strikes the right balance between federal support and local control. • Complementing this proposal are the Secondary School Innovation Fund Act 

(H.R. 2239) introduced by Representative Dave Loebsack, and the Every Student 

Counts Act introduced by Representative Bobby Scott (H.R. 1569). These proposals 

would support research and accountability so that we can use taxpayer dollars in 

the most effective ways. • Additionally, I urge Congress to fund the High School Graduation Initiative proposed by the President as well as his proposed increase for School Improvement 

Grants in order to turn around the nation’s lowest performing high schools. 

Broadly speaking, the administration has outlined five pillars for education reform: early childhood; world-class college- and career-ready standards and assessments, teacher effectiveness, innovation/excellence with a focus on low-performing 

schools, and higher education. To these five items, I suggest adding a sixth: Schools 

as Centers of Community. We must address both what happens inside the classroom 

and outside of it in order to strengthen graduation rates and prepare our students 

for college. As a potential first step, I encourage Congress to fund the President’s 

proposal for ‘‘Promise Neighborhoods’’ to address the effects of poverty and improve 

educational achievements and life outcomes for our children. 

Conclusion 

We do not have to live in a country where three out of 10 students do not graduate on time, and where on-time graduation for minority students is a 50-50 proposition. We have solutions on the ground, and legislative proposals that will bring 

them to scale. By passing these proposals, we will solve this problem, fortify our 

economy, and provide our students with the opportunity to experience the promise 

of America. 

Full Testimony 

Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon, members of the Committee, thank 

you for the opportunity to testify on the most pressing issue facing our nation: the 

high school dropout crisis. My remarks will cover several key issues: First, I will 

discuss the compelling magnitude of the high school dropout crisis. I will then provide an overview of the factors in our schools and in the lives of our students that 

contribute to the crisis. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion of ways this issue 

can be addressed and recommendations for the federal role in strengthening graduation rates. 

The Dropout Crisis: America’s New Silent Epidemic 

America’s low graduation rate is our most pressing issue as a nation and the culmination of years of failure. Everyone with a stake in the future of our children and 

the nation—schools, parents, businesses, community and faith based organizations—have a role to play in the resolution of this crisis. We all must work together 

in new and unprecedented ways in support of our children. 

In addition to its significant social implications, the potential economic impact of 

the dropout crisis shows why this issue is our most critical national challenge. A 

recent report by McKinsey and Company, The Economic Impact of the Achievement 

Gap in America’s Schools, concluded that the persistent achievement gaps facing our 

country impose ‘‘the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.’’ 1 When 

President Obama and Secretary Duncan say that a long-term, sustainable economic 

recovery is only possible if we strengthen our education system, they are precisely 

correct. 

The dropout crisis may not be as visible or swift as other important issues problems facing this Congress and our new administration, but its implications are just 

as severe and lasting. The dropout crisis, persisting without acknowledgment or resolution, has emerged as America’s ‘‘silent epidemic.’’ The current recession is in the 

headlines every day, and has demanded action both because of its severity and the 

public attention it has received. Whether or not you voted for the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or the American Recovery 

and Reinvestment Act, one cannot disagree with this simple point: action is being 

taken to address the economic crisis. 

With the dropout crisis, we have a different story. Although we are working diligently to raise public awareness of this issue, it has yet to permeate the national 
37 

agenda. This makes it easier for our actions to be slow, inadequate, or even worse, 

nonexistent. States and school districts are rising to the challenge, and they need 

the federal government to be a strong partner in their struggle to provide our nation 

with an educated population, a strong economy, and a stable society. Strengthening 

our graduation rate will take historic focus, unprecedented collaboration, and significant resources. The required investments in our young people are the most costeffective investments we can make. We must understand that our future is at stake, 

and we must resolve that failure is not an option. 

Magnitude of the Dropout Crisis 

General Colin Powell, founding chairman of America’s Promise Alliance, characterizes the dropout crisis as a ‘‘national catastrophe.’’ The issue is both broad and 

deep, creating new economic and national security problems as many potential 

skilled workers and military recruits are found to be ill prepared and unsuitable for 

those professions. 

Between 25 to 30 percent of high school students do not graduate on time. For 

young people of color, on-time graduation is a 50-50 proposition, the flip of a coin. 

A new report commissioned by America’s Promise Alliance and developed by the 

Editorial Projects in Education Research Center finds that only about half (53 percent) of all young people in the nation’s 50 largest cities graduate on time. Despite 

some progress made by several of these cities between 1995 and 2005, the average 

graduation rate of the 50 largest cities is well below the national average of 71%, 

and an 18 percentage point urban-suburban gap remains.2

Ten Year Trends: 1995 to 2005 

While the nation’s 50 largest school districts educate one out of eight high school 

students; they produce one quarter of the nation’s students who do not graduate on 

time.3 Fortunately, 31 of the nation’s 50 largest cities have increased their graduation rates between 1995 and 2005, ranging from a modest 0.7 percentage point gain 

in Jacksonville, Florida, to a 23 percentage point gain in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.4 On the other side of the coin, 19 cities have experienced a decrease in their 

graduation rate, ranging from a decline of 0.3 percentage points in Louisville, Kentucky to a 23 percentage point drop in Las Vegas, Nevada.5 On average, the nation’s 

50 largest cities had an increase of four percentage points over this ten-year window.6

Of course, many factors contribute to these figures, and the devil is truly in the 

details. For example, some of the largest gains come from cities with very low graduation rates to start with. Ten of the fifty principal school districts began with a 

graduation rate of less than 39 percent in 2005 making significant, mostly doubledigit improvements over this ten year period.7

Further, although improvements extend across most of the 50 nation’s largest cities, only three of the primary school districts within these 50 cities (Mesa, Arizona; 

Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Tucson, Arizona) meet or exceed the national average. 

In fact, three of the principal school districts within the 50 largest cities have graduation rates below 40 percent (Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Indianapolis, 

Indiana). 

Urban-Suburban Gap 

A significant graduation rate gap exists between urban and suburban school districts: 18 percentage points separate the metropolitan areas of the 50 largest cities 

from their suburban counterparts.8 Fifty-nine percent of high school students in 

urban school districts graduate on time from high school versus 77 percent of their 

suburban counterparts. The urban-suburban gap is most prominent in the Northeast and Midwest, with Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, and Milwaukee experiencing the largest differentials. In some cases, on-time graduation is half as likely 

for urban students as for suburban students.9

But there is good news: although the urban-suburban gap is large, it is on the 

decline. Between 1995 and 2005, 14 of the 41 metropolitan regions analyzed by the 

Editorial Projects in Education Research Center saw decreases in the urban-suburban gap, though on average, the gap closed by less than a quarter percentage point 

per year. Many of the declines (for example, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, El Paso, and New York) resulted from increases in graduation rates among 

urban school districts; however, some resulted from decreases in graduation rates 

on the part of suburban school districts. 

Economic Impact 

The economic significance of the nation’s low graduation rate cannot be overstated, and the message of McKinsey and Company’s recent study bears repeating: 
38 

the persistent achievement gaps facing our country impose ‘‘the economic equivalent 

of a permanent national recession.’’ 10

On the macro level, McKinsey estimated the economic impact in 2008 if the 

United States had closed the achievement gap fifteen years after A Nation at Risk’s 

1983 release across four permutations: the difference between the U.S. and foreign 

countries, low income and upper income students, white and minority students, and 

America’s high and low performing states. Their findings amount to nothing less 

than a multibillion dollar lost opportunity: 

• Closing the international achievement gap would have produced a 9 to 16 percent gain in GDP ($1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion); 

• Closing the racial achievement gap would have produced a 2 to 4 percent gain 

in GDP ($310 billion to $525 billion); 

• Closing the income achievement gap would have produced a 3 to 5 percent gain 

in GDP ($400 billion to $670 billion); and 

• Closing the achievement gap between high and low performing states would 

have produced a 3 to 5 percent gain in GDP ($425 billion to $700 billion).11

On the micro level, high school graduation is a determining factor of a student’s 

future income. High school dropouts are less likely to be steadily employed and earn 

less income when they are employed compared with those who graduate from high 

school. Only one-third (37 percent) of high school dropouts nationwide are steadily 

employed and are more than twice as likely to live in poverty.12

Between 1975 and 2006, income for the workforce as a whole grew, with larger 

income gains accruing for those with additional education. High school graduates 

gained 6 percent, those with some college education gained 10 percent, those with 

a Bachelor’s degree gained 23 percent, and those with a graduate degree gained 31 

percent. Earnings only dropped over this time period for one group: those without 

a high school diploma had a 10 percent decline in earnings. 

High school dropouts account for 13 percent of the adult population, but earn less 

than six percent of all dollars earned in the U.S. In the 50 largest cities, the median 

income for high school dropouts is $14,000, lower than the median income of 

$24,000 for high school graduates and $48,000 for college graduates. The Editorial 

Projects in Education Research Center estimates that earning a high school diploma 

would increase one’s annual income by an average of 71 percent, or $10,000.13

Contributors to the Crisis 

There are two major influences in students’ lives that impact their scholastic 

achievement: what happens inside the school building and what happens outside of 

it. A number of factors contribute to the high school dropout crisis, ranging from 

the quality of standards and rigor in our high schools to the issues impacting students before they ever step foot into the classroom. I will highlight several of these 

issues, as they all must be addressed in order to strengthen student achievement. 

Standards and Expectations for Graduation 

In 1983, A Nation at Risk recommended that schools, colleges, and universities 

adopt more rigorous, measurable standards for academic performance and higher 

expectations for student conduct. This call for increased rigor has been carried forth 

by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the 

Obama Administration. We need stronger, internationally-benchmarked standards, 

so that students, teachers, parents, and administrators understand the purpose and 

effectiveness of the educational system in which they are part. I was glad to see that 

Congress and the Administration made rigorous standards a priority in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and I commend the Committee for holding a 

hearing on the topic of common national standards just a few weeks ago. We should 

all be encouraged by the work of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers in their efforts with 41 states to begin developing 

voluntary common standards. 

Today, few disagree with the need to raise expectations of student performance. 

We must offer our students challenging curricula and standards that are internationally benchmarked and aligned with the expectations of college and the workforce. The American Diploma Project (ADP) reports that 23 states have aligned their 

high school standards with the expectations of postsecondary education, and that 21 

other states and the District of Columbia are in the process of moving towards such 

alignment. Additionally, 20 states and the District of Columbia require a collegeand work-ready curriculum for graduation with eight others planning to do so. Ten 

states include college-readiness tests as part of their statewide assessment system, 

and 23 others are moving in this direction.14
39 

Complex Challenges in the Lives of Students 

We must address the quality of the educational experience for our students. 

Equally important, though not duly recognized, is the importance of a student’s living and learning environment in affecting how he or she performs in the classroom. 

According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, ‘‘There are a set of foundational 

things we need to do to meet students’ social and emotional needs. The more we 

open our school buildings to the community the more we work together, not just 

with our children but the families, the more we create an environment where the 

students can maximize their academic potential.’’ 15

For our students to be successful, we must ensure that our schools are adequately 

funded, our students are taught by high quality teachers, students have the opportunity to achieve rigorous standards, and schools are held accountable for student 

success. However, schools cannot shoulder the responsibility of educating our children and youth on their own. Every year, our students spend about 1,150 waking 

hours in school, and nearly five times that number (4,700 waking hours) in their 

families and communities.16 Today’s teachers have to act as mothers, fathers, social 

workers, and sometimes even police officers, in addition to the central task of educating our students. 

In its recent report, Parsing the Achievement Gap II, the Educational Testing 

Service (ETS) outlined 16 factors that correlate with student achievement; over half 

of these factors are present in a child’s life before or beyond the classroom, including 

forced mobility, hunger and nutrition, and summer achievement gain and loss.17 Another study from the School of Education at the University of Colorado and the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University outlined six ‘‘out of school’’ 

factors that limit what schools, on their own, can achieve for our students, including 

inadequate medical, dental, and vision care, family relations and family stress, and 

neighborhood characteristics.18 For example: • Forced Mobility: One out of six 3rd graders has changed schools three or more 

times since first grade. These students are one and-a-half times more likely to perform below grade level in reading, nearly twice as likely to perform below grade 

level in math, and two-and-a half times more likely to repeat a grade than their 

more stable peers.19 With the recession and foreclosure crisis, the issue of student 

mobility is on the rise. Last year, a group of 330 school districts enrolled 31,000 

homeless children throughout the entire school year. In just the first three months 

of this school year, that same group of school districts identified 41,000 homeless 

students, an increase of 10,000 homeless students by Thanksgiving.20

• Hunger and Nutrition: One out of six children lives in a ‘‘food insecure’’ household, and minority households are 2.5 times as likely as white households to be food 

insecure.21 While a number of studies have linked improving student nutrition with 

measurable gains in test scores,22 Secretary Duncan states the simple fact clearly 

and to the point: ‘‘If children are hungry, they can’t learn.’’ 23

• Health: An analysis of health problems and their impact on education published 

by Princeton University and the Brookings Institution in The Future of Children estimates that differences in health problems and maternal health and behaviors may 

account for a quarter of the racial gap in school readiness.24 A simple example of 

the gap in access to health services lies in the critical role played by adequate vision 

in the learning process. Seeing the chalkboard, being able to read the words in 

books, and other vision-related activities are prerequisites for learning. However, 50 

percent or more poor minority and low-income children have vision problems that 

interfere with their academic work; and poor children have severe vision impairment at twice the normal rate.25 Again, in the words of our Secretary of Education: 

‘‘If a child can’t see the blackboard, they can’t learn.’’ 26

• Summer Achievement Gap: Research from Johns Hopkins University found that 

lack of summer learning opportunities explains about two-thirds of the 9th grade 

achievement gap between high and low income students. Therefore, low income 

youth are much less likely to graduate from high school or attend college.27 Here’s 

how the summer learning gap works: The achievement gap is present once students 

enter school in the first grade. The gap narrows slightly during the school year, but 

then grows each successive summer. By the time a student reaches the 9th grade, 

they are often so far behind that the prospect of on-time graduation is dim. 

If schools had to confront only one or two of these environmental factors, the challenge could be addressed with relative ease. However, educators must address the 

confluence of many of these factors at the same time, which are disproportionately 

concentrated in the nation’s poorest schools. Less than 4 percent of white students 

attend schools where 70-100 percent of the students are poor. However, 40 percent 

of black and Latino students attend such high poverty schools. The average white 

student attends schools with 0-30 percent poor students; the same can be said for 

only one out of six black students and one out of five Latino students.28 We must 
40 

‘‘super-resource’’ these schools with the best teachers and comprehensive supports 

to address the academic and non-academic needs of these future leaders. 

It is important that we have a thorough understanding of the prevalence and importance of the larger environmental factors in a student’s life that influence their 

academic success. Unless we address these foundational issues, not even the best 

teachers with the highest quality curriculum will be able to ensure that every student graduates ready for college. 

This is a systemic challenge that can only be solved through innovative thinking 

and unprecedented partnerships. We must openly acknowledge and comprehensively 

address the role played by race, poverty and the host of related non-school factors 

in student achievement. Demographics are certainly not destiny, but we ignore them 

at the peril of our students and their achievement. 

The Youth Voice 

The youth voice is often overlooked and not included in the national dialogue on 

dropout prevention. In order to determine effective solutions to the crisis, their 

voices must be heard. America’s Promise Alliance, along with Gallup and the American Association of School Administrators, recently launched the Gallup Student 

Poll, a groundbreaking survey of students in grades 5—12. Gallup will conduct the 

poll twice annually, in March and October, and the findings will be part of the largest-ever survey of American children. The poll will help school systems and communities benchmark progress and determine solutions to the dropout crisis. 

In March 2009, the Gallup Student Poll surveyed more than 70,000 students located in 18 states and the District of Columbia, and more than 330 schools and 58 

school districts participated. The results were verified by polling a nationally representative sample. The poll measured three key metrics—hope, engagement and 

well-being—that research has shown have a meaningful impact on educational outcomes and more importantly, can be improved through deliberate action by educators, school administrators, community leaders and others. Questions focused on: • Hope: the ideas and energy students have for the future; • Engagement: the level of student involvement in and enthusiasm for school; and • Well-being: how students think about and experience their lives. 

Findings from the poll include: 

• Half of those surveyed (50 percent) reported answers indicating they are not 

hopeful, with one-third (33 percent) indicating that they are stuck, while 17 percent 

feel discouraged. • Nearly two in three students in grades 5—12 surveyed (63 percent) are thriving; more than one-third are struggling or suffering. Struggling and suffering students evaluate life in negative terms, struggle to meet daily demands in life and 

lack some of the resources needed to succeed. • Eight in 10 (80 percent) said they smiled or laughed at school yesterday, while 

seven in 10 (70 percent) said they learned or did something interesting at school. 

Just half (52 percent) said they were treated with respect all day. 

The findings from this and future Gallup Student Polls will highlight causes of 

the dropout crisis from the perspective of students themselves. The youth voice is 

a critical part of the ongoing dialogue on dropout prevention and the results can 

help communities across the country develop initiatives that dramatically change 

outcomes for our young people. 

The Solution: A Comprehensive Approach 

The dropout crisis calls for a holistic solution, driven by national leadership and 

local action. Research demonstrates that young people need five core resources to 

be successful in life. We refer to them as the ‘‘five promises:’’ caring adults, safe 

places, a healthy state, effective education, and opportunities to serve. These promises provide a simple but powerful framework for a robust national strategy to end 

the dropout crisis, and they are at the heart of the Dropout Prevention Campaign 

launched by America’s Promise Alliance in April 2008. 

America’s Promise Alliance Dropout Prevention Campaign 

The campaign begins with high-level summits in all 50 states and the 55 cities 

with the largest dropout rates in order to raise the visibility of America’s ‘‘silent epidemic.’’ Within 60 days of each summit, states and communities are required to develop action plans that include a cross section of stakeholders: educators, the business community, nonprofit organizations, and students. Communities receive technical assistance from the Alliance, utilizing Grad Nation, a comprehensive resource 

described in more detail below. A concentrated effort will take place in twelve communities leveraging the collective resources of the Alliance’s strongest partners. 

To date, 36 high-level summits have been held in cities nationwide—bringing together more than 14,000 mayors and governors, business owners, child advocates, 
41 

school administrators, students, and parents to develop workable solutions and action plans. An additional 50 are planned before the end of the year and all 105 will 

be completed by April 2010. The presenting sponsor for the Dropout Prevention 

Campaign is the State Farm Insurance Company, and other major sponsors include 

AT&T, The Boeing Company, Ford Motor Company Fund, ING Foundation, Bill & 

Melinda Gates Foundation, The J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation, The 

Wal-Mart Foundation, Simon Foundation for Education, Chevron, Peter G. Peterson 

Foundation, Casey Family Programs, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Carnegie 

Corporation of New York, Bank of America, The Annenberg Foundation and Capital 

One. 

Already, cities and states that held summits last year have started implementing 

changes based on the discussions and early results are promising. One of the most 

significant success stories hails from Detroit, the first district to host a summit. The 

city set a ten-year goal to graduate 80% of its youth from the 35 high schools with 

significant dropout rates. To support this effort, the local United Way announced 

the creation of The Greater Detroit Venture Fund, a $10-million fund to assist these 

schools and improve ACT scores so students are better prepared to apply for college. 

Since this summit, the city has shuttered, reconstituted, or clustered together eleven 

of those 35 schools as part of a comprehensive turnaround process The effectiveness 

of the summits is also seen in Louisville, Kentucky, which set a 10-year goal to cut 

dropout rates in half, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, where as a result of their summit, an 

innovative career exploration program has been implemented 

Schools as Centers of Community 

Across the country, schools and communities are partnering to meet the comprehensive needs facing students and increase their achievement in the classroom. 

I will highlight two such initiatives that demonstrate measurable results and should 

be brought to scale: 

• While Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Secretary 

Duncan supported 150 ‘‘community schools’’ that offered a range of communitybased services to students including health care and after school programs, creating 

the nation’s largest district-led ‘‘community school’’ effort. An evaluation of this initiative found that nearly half of the students in ‘‘community schools’’ had increased 

math and reading grades, and that between 2001 and 2006, ‘‘community schools’’ 

had greater gains in math and reading than ‘‘regular’’ CPS schools.29 Secretary 

Duncan recently said, ‘‘The money that I spent on this to open our schools longer 

in Chicago was arguably the best money I spent because it was so highly leveraged.’’ 30 CPS invested in both instructional improvements and support services, 

leveraging resources from the community into schools, and producing measurable 

results. This strategy should be expanded throughout the country. 

• Communities In Schools (CIS) is the nation’s largest dropout prevention organization, serving 1.2 million students in 27 states. CIS partners with schools and 

school districts to provide at-risk students with the five core resources: caring 

adults, safe places during non-school hours, access to health services, marketable 

skills, and opportunities to give back to peers and the community. A national evaluation found that CIS schools have lower dropout rates and higher graduation rates 

than comparison schools.31 Additionally, the graduation rate increase of CIS Performance Learning Centers, offering targeted academic and support services in 

small settings, was three-and-a-half times greater than that of comparison schools.32

Grad Nation 

Grad Nation is a first-of-its-kind research-based toolkit for communities seeking 

to reduce their dropout rate and better support young people through high school 

graduation and beyond. With more than one million students dropping out of high 

school each year, Grad Nation is specifically designed to offer solutions and tools 

for every size community and presents a compelling case for all sectors of society 

to get involved. The guidebook is part of the Alliance’s Dropout Prevention Campaign, which launched in April 2008, and is sponsoring 105 Dropout Prevention 

Summits in all 50 states through 2010. 

Commissioned by the Alliance and authored by Robert Balfanz, Ph.D. and Joanna 

Honig Fox from the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University and 

John M. Bridgeland and Mary McNaught of Civic Enterprises, Grad Nation brings 

together—in one place—the nation’s best evidence-based practices for keeping young 

people in school. It includes information on everything from making the case to the 

community on the need to act to establishing ‘‘early warning’’ systems, implementing effective school transformation strategies, and building proven ‘‘multiple 

pathways’’ to graduation, as well as wrapping the most appropriate services around 

students so they can surmount the challenges they face. 
42 

Grad Nation gives communities a comprehensive set of tools necessary to rally collective support to end the dropout crisis, understand and communicate the dimensions of the dropout challenge in a particular, develop effective action strategies to 

improve graduation rates, prepare youth for advanced learning after high school, 

and build strong, lasting partnerships that involve all sectors of a community. 

Federal Policy Recommendations 

The federal government has the opportunity and the responsibility to be a strong 

partner with states and communities in addressing the dropout crisis. Federal education policy currently does little to support the nation’s high schools, and that must 

change. I recommend the following: 

• Schools as Centers of Community: The administration has outlined five pillars 

for education reform: expanding access to early childhood; world-class college- and 

career-ready standards and assessments, teacher effectiveness, innovation/excellence 

with a focus on low-performing schools, and increasing the number of people pursuing higher education. To these five items, I suggest adding a sixth: Schools as 

Centers of Community. We must address both what happens inside the classroom 

and outside of it in order to strengthen graduation rates and prepare our students 

for college. By making schools the centers of our communities, we can leverage the 

resources of a wide range of stakeholders in supporting the success of our students. 

This must be a priority for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act (ESEA). As a potential first step, I encourage Congress to fund the 

President’s proposal for ‘‘Promise Neighborhoods’’ to address the effects of poverty 

and improve educational achievements and life outcomes for our children. 

• Turnaround Low Performing High Schools: Important legislation was introduced in the previous Congress that would create an appropriate federal role in the 

improvement of the nation’s high schools. The Graduation Promise Act (H.R. 2928/ 

110th Congress), introduced by Representative Ruben Hinojosa, authorizes $2.5 billion annually in order to target resources toward those high schools producing substantial numbers of high school dropouts. This legislation is comprehensive, datadriven, and strikes the right balance between federal support and local control. 

• Promote Innovation: Every high school is different, and although they face similar challenges, there is no ‘‘one size fits all’’ solution to the dropout crisis. Congress 

should pass the Secondary School Innovation Fund Act (H.R. 2239), introduced by 

Representative David Loebsack, in order to support and evaluate innovative approaches to turning around the nation’s lowest performing high schools. We must 

learn more about the most effective strategies, and bring them to scale. 

• High School Accountability: As we provide additional resources to turnaround 

low performing high schools, we must hold them accountable for results. The Every 

Student Counts Act (H.R. 1569) codifies into law and strengthens much of the policy 

that the Department of Education has recently implemented through regulation regarding graduation rates, including a common definition of the graduation rate and 

reasonable requirements for growth in order for schools to make adequate yearly 

progress under No Child Left Behind. 

• Comprehensive Student Supports: Several bills have been introduced that support the vision of ‘‘schools as centers of community.’’ The WE CARE Act (H.R. 3762/ 

110th Congress), introduced in the previous Congress by Representative David 

Loebsack, inserts the notion of schools as centers of community throughout Title I, 

Part A of ESEA. The centerpiece of the proposal is an incentive fund to support 

‘‘community involvement policies’’ at the local level that would support partnerships 

among school districts and community organizations to leverage local resources in 

order to meet students’ non-academic needs and prepare them for success in the 

classroom. 

The Full Service Community Schools Act (H.R. 2323/110th Congress) was introduced by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and would fund partnerships between 

schools and community organizations to provide student support services in schools. 

The Department of Education received a $5 million appropriation for this purpose 

and last year received 400 applications but was only able to fund 10 proposals. 

The Keeping Parents and Communities Engaged Act (S.1302/110th Congress) was 

introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy and would provide grants to school districts 

for parent and community engagement coordinators, for community based organizations to leverage services into schools, and for partnerships among mayors, school 

districts, and community organizations to renovate schools so they can be more effectively used as centers of community. 

• FY 2010 Appropriations: I urge Congress to fund the High School Graduation 

Initiative proposed by the President, as well as his proposed increase for School Improvement Grants, to turn around the nation’s lowest performing high schools. 
43 

Conclusion 

We do not have to live in a country where three out of 10 students do not graduate on time, and where on-time graduation for minority students is a 50-50 proposition. What I hope you take away from this testimony are four key points: • You are right to focus on the high school dropout crisis; it is our most pressing 

national challenge and we don’t have time for incremental progress. • The crisis results from a combination of factors in schools and in the lives of 

our students; we must address both in order to increase graduation rates. • We have solutions on the ground, and legislative proposals that will bring them 

to scale. • By passing these proposals, we will solve this problem, fortify our economy, and 

provide our students with the opportunity to experience the promise of America. 

ENDNOTES

1McKinsey and Company (2009). The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s 

Schools. Retrieved May 6, 2009 from http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/socialsector/ 

achievement—gap—report.pdf. 2 Christopher Swanson (2009). Cities in Crisis 2009: Closing the Graduation Gap: Educational 

and Economic Conditions in America’s Largest Cities. Bethesda, Maryland: Editorial Projects in 

Education Research Center. 3The principal school districts of America’s 50 largest cities collectively educate 1.7 million 

public high school students and produce 279,000 of the 1.2 million high school students who do 

not graduate on time (Ibid., p. 13). 4Swanson, 2009. 

5 Ibid. 

6 Ibid. 

7 Ibid. 

8 Ibid. 

9 Ibid. 

10McKinsey and Company (2009). 11Swanson, 2009. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 American Diploma Project Network, Closing the Expectations Gap. Washington, DC: 

Achieve, Inc., 2009. Retrieved May 6, 2009 from http://www.achieve.org/ 

closingtheexpectationsgap2009. 15 Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, Interview with Charlie Rose, available at 

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10140 16David Berliner (2009). Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success. 

Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center and Education Policy Research 

Unit. Retrieved May 6, 2009 from http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential. 17Paul Barton and Richard Coley (2009). Parsing the Achievement Gap II. Princeton, New 

Jersey: Educational Testing Service. Note: This report uses the term ‘‘frequent school changes.’’ 

I use the term ‘‘forced mobility’’ because it more accurately describes the living circumstances 

of our most at-risk students that, in turn, causes reductions in school performance. For additional information, see Duffield and Lovell (endnote 20). 18 Berliner, 2009. 19General Accounting Office. (1994). Elementary school children: Many change schools frequently, harming their education (GAO/HEHS-94-45). Washington, DC: Author. 20For additional information, see Barbara Duffield and Phillip Lovell (2008). The Economic 

Crisis Hits Home: The Unfolding Increase in Child and Youth Homelessness. Washington, DC: 

National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth and First Focus. 21 Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (2008). America’s Children in Brief: Key 

National Indicators of Well-Being, 2008. Washington, DC: Author, Table ECON3A. Retrieved 

May 6, 2008 from www.childstats.gov. 22 Barton and Coley, 2009. 23 Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, Interview with Charlie Rose, available at 

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10140 24 Janet Currie (2005). Health Disparities and Gaps in School Readiness. Future of Children, 

vol. 15, no. 1, 117-138. Retrieved May 6, 2009 from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/future—of— 

children/v015/15.1currie.pdf. 25 Richard Rothstein (2004). Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, And Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap. Washington, DC and New York: Economic Policy Institute and Teachers College Press. 26 Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, Interview with Charlie Rose, available at 

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10140 27Karl Alexander, et al., ‘‘Lasting Consequences of the summer learning gap.’’ American Sociological Review, v72, April 2007. Retrieved May, 6, 2008 from http://www.asanet.org/galleries/ 

default-file/April07ASRFeature.pdf. 28 Berlin, 2009. 29Samuel Whalen (2007). Three Years Into Chicago’s Community Schools Initiative: Progress, 

Challenges, and Emerging Lessons. Chicago: College of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago. 30 Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, Interview with Charlie Rose, available at 

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10140 
44 

31 Communities In Schools (2008). Communities In Schools and the Model of Integrated Student Services: A Proven Solution to America’s Dropout Epidemic. Alexandria, VA: Author. Retrieved May 6, 2009 at http://www.cisnet.org/about/NationalEvaluation/Normal.asp?Segment=5.0. The evaluation found: ‘‘For every 1,000 high school students, 36 more students at high implementing CIS schools remain in school’’ (p.5). 32The Performance Learning Center: Communities In Schools Small Schools Model Promoting 

Graduation and College Readiness. Presentation for the Alliance for Excellent Education on 

April 22, 2009. In author’s possession. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Mr. Gordon? 

STATEMENT OF SCOTT GORDON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

MASTERY CHARTER SCHOOLS 

Mr. GORDON. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here. My name is Scott Gordon. 

I am the CEO of Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia. 

Mastery operates four schools, serving 1,700 students in grades 

7 through 12. Three of those schools were turnarounds of failing 

school district middle schools. As a turnaround, Mastery enrolled 

the existing students and continued operating the school as a 

neighborhood school. 

So, in many ways, these turnaround schools are perfectly controlled experiments for school reform: the same students, the same 

neighborhood, the same buildings. The only variable that changed 

were the adults. 

So why is this important for us today? To answer that question, 

I want to put the problem we face in secondary education in context. Take a moment and examine how the current system is serving the children in my hometown of Philadelphia. 

Every year, approximately 20,000 first-graders will enter Philadelphia public schools. In a globally competitive, knowledge-based 

economy, most of us would agree that, 12 years later, we want to 

see those 20,000 first-graders enter college and graduate. So how 

are we doing? 

Philadelphia’s dropout rate is 47 percent. So 9,400 of those 

20,000 students will never even make it to their high school graduation. Of the 10,600 students who remain, two-thirds will not be 

able to score ‘‘proficient’’ on the Pennsylvania State Standardized 

Assessment. This assessment is a basic competency test, essentially 

the minimum a high school student should know, and it is statistically correlated to college graduation. 

That leaves just 3,500 students with a shot at graduating college, 

3,500 students of 20,000 who began, a failure rate of 82 percent. 

It gets worse. The national college persistence rate for African 

Americans is just 40 percent. So it is likely that less than half of 

the students who graduated from high school will actually persist 

and obtain a college degree. 

An absolute catastrophe, year after year. As educators, our job is 

to educate young people as citizens who are productive participants 

in our economy. We are not even close. Our house truly is on fire. 

We do not need to tolerate this failure. In Mastery’s three turnaround schools, average scores on the Pennsylvania assessment increased 35 points per grade in every subject, violence decreased 85 

percent, student turnover decreased by a third. 
45 

And these were Philadelphia’s most difficult schools. To give you 

a snapshot, the Shoemaker Middle School, which we turned around 

in 2006, was the city’s second most violent school. That means two 

police officers for just over 300 13-, 14-, and 15-year-old kids, yet 

those police officers were unable to prevent eight adults from being 

assaulted. 

At the Pickett Middle School, which we converted just last year, 

7 percent of seventh-graders were proficient in reading and 9 percent were proficient in math. 

Yet, at the Shoemaker School, it took Mastery just 2 years to 

close the achievement gap between the low-income, minority students we serve and their statewide peers. At the Pickett School, 

Mastery increased test scores over 40 points in just 1 year. 

It can be done. And I am here to represent a proof point that we 

can turn around failing urban schools. It can be done, it can be 

done quickly, and it can be done at scale. 

How? First, we need urgency and accountability. Set the bar 

high. Without high standards in No Child Left Behind, there will 

be no pressure for change. You will hear critics say that standardized tests do not appropriately assess a child’s learning or preparedness for college, that it will result in teaching to the test. 

Why don’t we hear the same outcry about AP tests or SAT tests 

or ACT tests? As knowledge jobs move across the globe to places 

that have a highly educated workforce, I don’t imagine our peers 

in Beijing or Seoul or Warsaw suggesting that the test is the problem. 

According to the OECD, our Nation has slipped to 18th in reading and 28th in math in international rankings. It is not because 

we are teaching to the test; it is because our students can’t pass 

the test. We need more accountability, not less. 

Second, we need to ruthlessly focus on outcomes. Grow what 

works, and eliminate what doesn’t. We exercise this common sense 

in every aspect of our society except education. In education, there 

are ongoing conversations about process and means. At high school 

levels, conferences are filled with lively debates about making curriculum more relevant, about making it more project-based, about 

learning communities, about whether the charter school growth is 

good or bad. Don’t listen. Instead, as policymakers, I urge you to 

focus on outcomes and accountability only, not the means. The 

house is on fire. Reward those who produce results now. 

In education, we have the notion that schools operate differently 

from the rest of the economy; schools are not like the private sector 

because kids are not like widgets. Fair enough. But adults are still 

adults. And the commonsense management practices that drive 

successful organizations, be they hospitals, software companies, or 

schools, are still the same: High-performing organizations set clear 

goals. They hold management and employees accountable for results. They hire high-quality talent. They promote the best. They 

supervise staff and monitor their performance. 

In contrast, at public schools, pay and promotion is based on seniority or educational degrees and certification that have no proven 

relationship with student outcomes. Teachers are observed twice a 

year for 45 minutes. Imagine running an organization where you 

do not set goals for your staff, you do not supervise them, you do 
46 

not reward good performance nor react to low performance. An 82 

percent failure rate would not be a surprise. 

You can accelerate change by rewarding what works and penalizing what doesn’t. Encourage failing schools to be closed, and turn 

them around. In Philadelphia, under the leadership of our new superintendent, Arlene Ackerman, we are going to close 35 schools 

over the next 4 years. Turnaround managers, such as Mastery, as 

well as internal district turnaround teams, will be contracted to 

manage these schools. Managers who do not produce results will 

lose their contracts: Simple. 

Support bold initiatives like this. By creating an accountability 

system, we can leverage what works and create pressure for real 

systemic change. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Gordon follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Scott Gordon, CEO, Mastery Charter Schools 

Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to be here. 

My name is Scott Gordon and I am the CEO of Mastery Charter Schools in Philadelphia. Mastery operates four schools serving 1,700 students in grades 7-12. Three 

of those schools were turnarounds of failing School District middle schools. The 

turnarounds were initiated at the request of the School District of Philadelphia, 

under then Superintendent Paul Vallas. The structure of the turnarounds required 

that Mastery continue operating as a neighborhood schools and enroll all of the students currently attending. So, in many ways these turnaround schools are perfect 

controlled experiments on school reform. The same students, the same neighborhood, the same building—the only variable that changed was the adults. 

So why is this important? 

To answer that question, I want to put the problem we face in secondary education in context. Let’s take a moment and examine how well the current system 

is achieving its goals in my hometown, Philadelphia. 

Every year approximately 20,000 first graders enter Philadelphia’s public schools. 

In a globally competitive, knowledge-based economy, most of us would agree that 

12 years later, we need the overwhelming majority of those 20,000 first graders to 

enroll and graduate from college. So, let’s look at how well we are doing * * * With 

a drop-out rate of 47%, 9,400 of those students will never even make it to their high 

school graduation. Of the 10,600 students who remain, two-thirds will not be able 

to score proficient on the Pennsylvania State Assessment. This assessment is a basic 

competency test—the minimum a high school student should know—and is statistically correlated with college success. Essentially that means that two-thirds of students who receive a high school diploma will not have the skills required for postsecondary education. That leaves just 3,500 students with a shot at graduating college. 3,500 students of the 20,000 who began—a failure rate of 82%. And unfortunately the national college persistence rate for African Americans is just 40%—so 

it is likely that less than half of the students who start as college freshman will 

actually graduate with a degree. 20,000 students go into the system, less than 3,000 

students come out of the system ready to compete in today’s economy. An absolute 

catastrophe. Year after year. Our house is on fire. As educators, our job is to prepare young people as citizens who are productive participants in our economy. We 

are not even close. We are failing generations of youth in urban schools across our 

nation. 

We do not need to tolerate this failure. In Mastery’s three turnaround schools, average scores on the Pa. assessment test increased 35 percentage points per grade 

in every subject. Violence decreased 85%. Student turnover dropped by a third. And 

these schools were Philadelphia’s most difficult. Let me give you a snapshot. Shoemaker Middle School, which we turned around in 2006, was the city’s 2nd most violent school. There were 2 police officers for 300 13, 14 and 15 year olds. Yet those 

officers were not able to prevent 8 adults from being assaulted. At the Pickett middle school, which we turned-around in 2007, just 7% of 7th graders scored proficient 

in reading and 9% in math. Yet, at Shoemaker it took Mastery just two years to 

close the achievement gap between our low-income, minority students and their 

state-wide peers—in fact our students are now closing the gap with the highest performing suburban schools. The school recently won the EPIC award for value added 
47 

academic achievement. At the Pickett school, Mastery increased test scores over 40 

percentage points in just one year. 

It Can Be Done. I am here today to represent a proof point that we can turnaround failing urban schools. It can be done and it can be done quickly at scale. 

There are no excuses. 

How? 

First, we need urgency and accountability. Set the bar high. College readiness 

must be the bar for nearly all of our youth. Without high standards in NCLB, there 

will be no pressure to change our schools. You will hear critics say that standardized tests do not appropriately assess a child’s learning or preparedness for college— 

that they result in ‘‘teaching to the test’’. Why don’t we hear the same outcry 

against AP tests? Or the SAT or ACT? As knowledge jobs move across the globe to 

the places that have a highly educated workforce, I don’t imagine our peers in Bei-
48 

jing, or Soul, or Warsaw, suggesting that the test is the problem. According to the 

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development our nation has slipped to 

18th in reading and 28th in Math in international rankings of education. It is not 

because we are teaching to the test. It is because our students can’t pass the test. 

We need more accountability, not less. Do not water-down NCLB requirements. 

Second, we need to ruthlessly focus on outcomes. Grow what works and eliminate 

what doesn’t. We exercise this type of common sense in every area of our society— 

except education. In education, there is an ongoing conversation about process and 

means. At the high school level, conferences are filled with lively debates about 

making the curriculum more ‘‘relevant’’ and ‘‘project-based’’ and about creating 

‘‘learning communities’’. Endless debates continue over the growth of charter 

schools. Don’t listen. Instead, as policy makers I urge you to focus on outcomes and 

accountability and not the means. The house is on fire. Reward whoever produces 

results now. 

In education, we have the notion that schools operate differently than the rest of 

the economy—schools are not like traditional businesses because ‘‘kids are not widgets’’. They are not. But adults are still adults—and the common sense management 

practices that drive successful organizations—be they hospitals, software companies, 

or schools—are the same. High performing organizations set clear goals. They hold 

management and employees accountable for results. They measure progress continually and adjust to meet changing conditions. They hire the highest quality talent, 

and promote the best. They supervise staff, monitoring and supporting their performance. They promote the high performers and exit non-performers—basic functions of management. In contrast, at most public schools, pay is based on seniority 

or educational degrees that have no proven relationship with student outcomes. 

Folks are promoted based on their certifications, not performance. Teachers are observed for 45 minutes twice a year. As a field we don’t attract the best and brightest. We don’t fire the worst. We quibble over whether we should extend teachers’ 

contract to an 8 hour day. We have an 82% failure rate—I can assure you it will 

take an 8 hour day to put out this fire. Imagine running an organization where you 

do not set goals for your staff, where you do not supervise them, and you do not 

reward good performance or respond to low performance. 

By setting the bar high and by demanding accountability, you will force education 

to change. You can accelerate that change by rewarding what works and penalizing 

what doesn’t. Encourage failing schools to be closed and turn them around. In Philadelphia, under the leadership of our new Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, we are 

going to close up to 35 schools over the next four years. Turnaround managers such 

as Mastery, as well as internal District turnaround teams, will be contracted to 

turnaround these schools. Those who succeed will have the opportunity to manage 

additional schools. Those who don’t produce results, will lose their contract. Simple. 

Support bold initiatives like this. By creating an accountability system, we can leverage what works to put pressure for systems change. 

Thank you for your time. 
49 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Dr. Phillips? 

STATEMENT OF VICKI L. PHILLIPS, ED.D., DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION FOR THE U.S. PROGRAM, BILL AND MELINDA GATES 

FOUNDATION 

Ms. PHILLIPS. Chairman Miller, members of the committee, 

thank you so much for continuing to confront some of the most im-
50 

portant challenges of American education and for the privilege of 

being here. 

The crisis in American high schools is brutally simple: Too few 

students are making strong academic gains during the high school 

years. For too many students, academic performance remains flat 

or even declines in high school. And this is especially true among 

the populations that are of special concern to our Foundation. The 

result is that too few of our high school graduates are prepared for 

the rigors of college or the demands of competitive jobs. 

You heard several people in this hearing refer to the NAEP 

scores that have remained essentially flat for 17-year-olds since the 

1970s. Darv Winnick, chairman of NAGBE, the board that overseas 

NAEP, said it best: ‘‘If you asked me what is the single most perplexing problem since I have gotten involved in education, that is 

it. The data is not only flat, but it is flat while kids are taking 

more math.’’ We need to face the fact that too many students are 

frozen in high school; they are not graduating ready for the demands of college, work, and life. 

At the Foundation, we have learned about this crisis from research, as well as from our own work over the last 9 years. Our 

early investments focused on small schools, and we found some 

success in improving graduation rates. But much more rarely did 

we see the significant gains in academic performance or increases 

in college readiness. 

Our next-generation strategy to radically increase the number of 

low-income students who graduate from high school college- and 

work-ready has three parts based on the evidence we have gathered: the primacy of effective teaching; the importance of a common 

core of standards that are fewer, clearer, and higher; and the pursuit of innovative approaches that would lead to breakthrough performance. I want to comment briefly on all three. 

Effective teachers play the single most important role in accelerating student achievement. No other factor within our power to 

change has this great an impact. We can’t fix this just by recruiting 

teachers with stronger credentials. After numerous studies, we can 

say with confidence that master’s degrees in education, high SAT 

scores, high scores on certification exams, and other credentials do 

not predict effective teaching very well. 

The Foundation has made a centerpiece of its strategy increasing 

the number of effective teachers teaching low-income children. We 

are investing heavily in developing measures to determine reliably 

which teachers are effective and which are not. We are also researching the most promising ways of making the teachers that we 

have be their most effective in the classroom. 

As you know from your recent hearing, there is a lot of discussion about national standards these days. And those national or 

core standards are key to our strategy, as well. But the real question is not whether standards will be local or State or national, but 

whether they will be focused enough on what the evidence shows 

is most central to student success. Everybody knows that standards 

is not enough; there is also a need for assessment—not just assessment for accountability, which is important, but also assessment 

for teaching and learning, which is what teachers need in the classroom but which has not had nearly the same level of investment. 
51 

Beyond standards and assessment, we will support the building 

of a spine of excellent materials to support excellent classroom 

work, built on technology that allows easy access and sharing of 

students and teachers alike. 

The hard part of the standards process will be making the radical leap from the vast numbers of standards States have today to 

a focused core that can really accelerate performance. Everyone can 

posture about whose standards are higher. What takes real courage 

is making the tough choices about the fewer things that demand 

students’ and teachers’ attention and that lead students to be college-ready. 

The other benefit of common standards and the last piece in our 

strategy is that they will foster innovation across classrooms, districts, and States. With a common focused core, we can broadly 

share innovations that most accelerate performance in specific 

areas and skill sets. 

The evidence is clear that the combination of high schools as currently constructed and the current tools in our hands are simply 

not sufficient. We cannot make a leap in performance without a 

leap in innovation that much more directly and productively engages students and accelerates their learning. 

As a Foundation, we will continue to fund school models that 

break the mold and achieve results and next-generation models 

that support teaching and learning that really accelerate, dramatically, performance. 

For all three elements of this strategy, we will need data systems 

and assessments that tell us clearly which students and which 

classrooms are making gains. Today, despite hundreds of millions 

invested in data systems and assessments, we do not have the crucial information we need: which teachers are already effective, 

which are not, which teachers are becoming more effective, which 

teachers are teaching which kids. This progress will only be possible if we have common data standards to drive sharing of information and reduce costs. 

I want to end with just three quick messages that I am most concerned to convey to this committee. We must shift our focus from 

credentials to demonstrated effectiveness in the classroom, from 

teacher quality as measured on paper to teacher effectiveness as 

measured by student outcomes. 

The common core of standards must be based on evidence as to 

what is truly and demonstrably necessary for college work, not political or ideological turf battles. The standards must be focused 

enough to make mastery possible for more kids and to support 

teachers in developing their craft in teaching their subject. 

Finally, support the innovations that can demonstrate performance leaps. Be even bolder in models that break the traditions of 

seat time and credits. And keep your eye, as Mr. Gordon said, keep 

all of our eyes, on the academic growth of students. 

When I was the State Secretary of Education in Pennsylvania, 

we chose to call our high school reform agenda Project 720. Given 

that there are roughly 180 days in a school year and 4 years of 

high school, you have only 720 days to prepare students for the demands of college work and life. Those days and years are far too 

short and far too precious to continue to waste. 
52 

1Older Students Less Successful on Math NAEP. Education Week, April 28, 2009 

Thank you for giving this issue your attention. 

[The statement of Ms. Phillips follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Dr. Vicki Phillips, Director, Education, Bill & 

Melinda Gates Foundation 

Chairman Miller, Ranking Member McKeon, Members of the Committee, thank 

you for allowing me to speak to you today about the crisis in American High 

Schools. It is a privilege to join this group of friends and partners you have convened to inform your work on this issue. Educators across the country are grateful 

to this Committee and its members for their past work, and present commitment, 

to addressing the most important challenges of American education. 

The Problem 

The crisis in American high schools is brutally simple: too few students are making strong academic gains during the high school years. Indeed, for too many students, academic performance remains flat or even declines in high school—and this 

is especially the case among those student populations which are of special concern 

to our Foundation. The result is that too few of our high school graduates are prepared for the rigors of college or the demands of competitive jobs. 

The flatline of high school performance is well-documented by NAEP as well as 

other indicators (see attached Figures 1 and 2 for the NAEP trends in reading and 

math). Flat scores in math and reading for older students have persisted since the 

early 1970s—despite the fact that in math for example, the proportion of 13-yearolds taking algebra has more than doubled from 1986 to 2008. Darv Winnick, Chairman of NAGBE, which over sees NAEP said it best: 

If you ask me, What is the single most perplexing problem since I’ve gotten involved in education, that’s it * * * The data is not only flat, but it is flat while the 

kids are taking more math.1

We need to face the fact that too many students in high school are frozen; they 

are not making nearly the academic progress they need to make to be ready for the 

demands of college, work and life. 

What We Have Learned and Implications for Strategy 

We have learned about this crisis from the research as well as from our own work 

over the past 9 years. Our early investments focused on small schools—and we 

found some success in improving graduation rates, but much more rarely did we see 

significant gains in academic performance or increased college readiness. 

We realized that students needed to make a breakthrough in performance. The 

structural and design changes in schools we focused on in our earlier work simply 

did not yield those gains. So we reviewed the evidence in an effort to determine 

what would contribute most. We took a close look at the schools that were most successful. We took at critical eye to our track record. But we also looked outside of 

our work to what worked elsewhere as well as what the research says. 

Our strategy to radically increase the number of low income students who graduate college and work ready—who actually learn in high school—has three parts 

based on the evidence we gathered: the primacy of effective teaching; the importance of a common core of standards that are fewer, clearer and higher; and the 

pursuit of innovative approaches that would lead to breakthrough performance. 

I will address each of these components briefly. 

1. Teacher effectiveness and empowerment 

A. Effective teachers play the single most important role in accelerating student 

achievement. The data here are overwhelming. A body of research spanning 30 

years has demonstrated that the differences between top quartile and bottom quartile teachers account for vast differences in student growth, as much as a quarter 

of the achievement gap per year. 

No other factor within our power has this great an impact on student achievement. Different teachers within schools make twice the difference that different 

schools make. An effective teacher is far more important than smaller class size; 

even in the earliest grades (k-2), where the effects of class size are strongest, it is 

five times more important to have an effective teacher than a small classroom. Our 

considered position is that we cannot narrow the gap or substantially raise performance for all without dramatically increasing the percentage of effective teachers. 

B. We can’t fix this just by recruiting teachers with stronger credentials. After numerous studies, we can say with confidence that master’s degrees in education in 
53 

no way predict which teachers will be effective in the classroom. Likewise high SAT 

scores, high scores on certification exams, and other impressive credentials fail to 

predict effective teaching very well. Because we don’t know how to predict who will 

be effective in the classroom and who won’t, credentials are a very blunt instrument 

and will not take us very far. 

As a result of those findings, the Foundation has made a centerpiece of its strategy increasing the number of effective teachers teaching low income children. We 

are investing heavily in developing measures to determine reliably which teachers 

are effective and which are not. 

We are also researching the most promising ways of making the teachers we have 

more effective. It is essential that we develop and distribute proven mechanisms to 

improve the effectiveness of teachers. Through several in-depth district partnerships, we will work on realigning policies and practices to better measure and increase the numbers of effective teachers. We will announce those partnerships later 

this year. 

2. Supporting standards that are fewer, clearer and higher, and meaningfully assessing them 

As you know from your recent hearing, there is a lot of discussion about national 

standards these days. But the real question is not whether standards will be local 

or state or national, but whether they will be focused enough on what the evidence 

shows is most essential. 

Once again the evidence is clear. In both math and English language arts, the 

standards process is asking students and teachers to undertake too much that is 

not central to success. In mathematics, it has long been known that high performing 

countries focus their curriculum far more than we do in this country. 

My own commitment to standards that are fewer, clearer, and higher comes partially from my work closer to home. When I was Secretary of Education in Pennsylvania, we drove the development of anchor standards which for the first time gave 

teachers and students a much more vivid view of the core that really mattered for 

achievement. 

In English Language Arts, students are overwhelmed with complex requirements, 

when what they really must do in order to be successful is to read complex texts 

of all types—in history and science, not just English. Without a strong reading core, 

students cannot gain knowledge through reading and must be spoon-fed by simplistic presentations that don’t mirror the demands of college and good jobs. 

Likewise, without mastery of essentials in mathematics they are limited throughout their work in math, science, and even social science, and they get passed along 

to the next math course without a secure footing in the last one. We at the foundation are excited that state governors and chief state school officers have embarked 

on a process to define a core set of common standards in Reading, Writing and 

Math. 

Now we all have to ensure that the core that emerges is truly based on what students need to be college and work ready. The core needs to be demanding enough 

so that students have the mastery to apply these core skills to diverse courses and 

tasks. For the past two years, we have funded the collection of specific evidence as 

to what are the core skills most essential for college and work success, and we aim 

to ensure that evidence plays a strong role in producing standards that are truly 

fewer, clearer, and higher. 

Everybody knows that standards are not enough. There is also a need for assessment—not just assessment for accountability, which is important, but also assessment for teaching and learning, which is what teachers need in the classroom but 

which has not had nearly the same level of investment. 

Beyond standards and assessment, we will support the building of a spine of excellent materials to support excellent classroom work, built on technology that allows easy access and sharing by students and teachers alike 

The hard part of this standards process will be making the radical leap from the 

vast numbers of standards states have today to a focused core that can accelerate 

performance. Dedicating ourselves to the fewer standards of what students really 

need for college and career readiness will require courage. Everyone can posture 

about whose standards are higher—what takes courage is making the tough choices 

about the fewer things that demand students and teachers attention. 

3. Support for breakthrough innovations and school models that dramatically accelerate performance 

The other benefit of common standards—provided they are focused—is that they 

will foster innovation across classrooms, districts and states for the first time. With 
54 

a common focused core we will share innovations that most accelerate performance 

in specific skills and skill areas. 

The evidence is clear that the combination of high schools as currently constructed and the tools in our hands will not be sufficient to meet our goal of 80% 

of low income students ready for college by 2025. We cannot make a leap in performance without a leap in innovation that much more directly and productively engages students in accelerating their learning. 

We are going to continue to fund school models that break the mold and achieve 

results, and next generation models of teaching and learning. The measure for the 

success of any innovation will be true acceleration of performance—as measured by 

student achievement. 

Over the next few years, we will be particularly focused on driving innovations 

that accelerate academic performance in 9th grade. 9th grade, a transitional year, 

is particularly critical—students’ achievement in 9th grade is remarkably predictive 

of their later performance. If students fall behind in this crucial year, it is very hard 

to catch up. The good news is that if students in 9th grade make sufficient academic 

progress they are often on their way to success. I saw how important 9th grade performance was to my students in Portland, and from my seat at the foundation can 

see it is a national issue. Of course, we need kids to accelerate earlier, especially 

in middle school as well. 

Data systems and assessments that make progress in high school classrooms visible 

are essential 

For all three elements of the strategy, we are going to need data systems and assessments that tell us clearly which students in which classrooms are making gains. 

Today, despite hundreds of millions invested in data systems and assessments, we 

do not have the most crucial information we need: which teachers already are effective, which teachers are not, and which teachers are becoming more effective. 

Among many other things, this requires linkages between students and teachers, 

which today are often incomplete; we do not know which teachers are teaching 

which kids. Recently there has been increased focus on the importance of data and 

measurement systems at the federal, state and local levels. The Foundation is preparing a data strategy to improve demand and use, and advance an architecture of 

common data standards that would enable states and districts to implement these 

systems in a cost-effective way. We would be happy to brief the Committee on this 

strategy as it evolves. 

Conclusions and Recommendations 

That is an outline of the Foundation’s strategy to accelerate academic performance in high school. I would like to end with the messages I am most concerned 

to convey in these remarks to your Committee: 

1. We must shift our focus from credentials to demonstrated effectiveness in the 

classroom: from teacher quality as measured on paper, to teacher effectiveness as 

measured by student outcomes. 

2. The common core of standards must be based on evidence as to what is truly 

and demonstrably necessary for college and work, not political or ideological turf 

battles. The standards must be focused enough to make mastery possible for more 

kids and to support teachers in developing their craft in teaching their subject. 

3. Support the innovations that can demonstrate performance leaps. Be even bolder in models that break the traditions of seat time and credits and keep our eye 

on academic growth of students. 

We cannot succeed if high school is a stopping point. But we all know it doesn’t 

have to be. When Socrates taught, through his famous conversations, he preferred 

to talk to young people, most of them adolescents who would have been in high 

school. He knew that if you spark a young person’s mind during the critical period 

in which they are becoming an adult, you can change forever how they will develop 

as students and citizens. 

When I was in the State Secretary of Education in PA, we chose to call our high 

school reform agenda Project 720. Given there are roughly 180 instructional days 

in each school year, in four years of high school you have only 720 days to prepare 

students for the demands of college, work, and life. Those days and years are far 

too short and far too precious to waste. 
55 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Governor Wise? 

STATEMENT OF BOB WISE, PRESIDENT, ALLIANCE FOR EXCELLENT EDUCATION; FORMER GOVERNOR OF WEST VIRGINIA 

Mr. WISE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of the 

committee. It is good to be back in front of you. 

You have called this hearing at just a critical time, and it is titled exactly right, ‘‘America’s Competitiveness Through High 

School Reform.’’ 

As I was coming up here today, I was listening to the radio. The 

market was dropping somewhat. By 5 o’clock, who knows whether 

it will be down, it will be down a few points. But before we go home 

from this hearing today, the human capital market will have 
56 

dropped 7,000; 7,000 kids will have dropped out of high school before we go home. And they will drop out each and every school day 

of the year. That is about 1.2 million, is the human capital cost. 

And so, my colleagues at this panel have spoken eloquently and 

well and have made the case—and taken a lot of my testimony— 

about the moral impact of dropouts. So I am going to talk some 

about the economic impact, as well. Because 60 percent of current 

jobs today—today—require education beyond high school, postsecondary education. The nation, our Nation’s economic competitiveness is inextricably linked to how well we educate our citizens. And 

in an information-age economy, education is the main currency. 

Now, this committee has been the leader—and I want to thank 

you—you have been the leader in putting high school and high 

school issues and dropouts on the national agenda, starting several 

years ago. 

The most recent scream for help for high schools came last week 

with the release of the National Assessment of Educational 

Progress, or NAEP, long-term trends. Despite education performance gains by 9- and 13-year-olds, essentially no progress has been 

made since 1971 by 17-year-olds. If this flat trend line were an 

electrocardiogram, the emergency room doctor would be applying 

the defibrillator. And perhaps that is what the education stimulus 

package is about. 

The state of our high schools, as has been noted already, is reflected in international comparisons. Our 15-year-olds are 25th in 

math, 21st in science, 15th in reading literacy, 24th in problem 

solving, supposedly our strong suit. And that is compared with the 

30 other industrialized nations that we compete with. 

The reason we have declined in these comparisons isn’t because 

we are educating worse, it is because other nations are now educating much better. And make no mistake, how we fare in international education comparisons will soon correspond directly to 

how we fare in international economic comparisons. 

Now, there are two groups affected when someone drops out: 

first, the individual, himself or herself; and then the rest of society. 

We know that, according to the Department of Labor, in the coming years, 90 percent of new high-growth, high-wage jobs require 

some postsecondary education. Sixty percent of current jobs, as I 

mentioned, already do. 

Before I left office in 2004, I visited many of the industries, traditional industries in West Virginia that I had worked with since I 

graduated from high school in 1966. I didn’t need a high school diploma to get a good-paying job in coal mines, the steel mills, or the 

chemical plants. Today I couldn’t get in any one of those without 

postsecondary education. 

So, currently, this Congress is grappling with massive economic 

problems. And, quite frankly, they seem intractable, the enormous 

costs. But I have to point out, the enormous costs of restructuring 

the financial institutions, the banks, the auto industry, even AIG, 

total all of those up, it is still less than the combined cost of 5 years 

of dropouts in this country. 

And as my colleagues here on this panel have pointed out, and 

as many members on this committee have pointed out, in this case, 
57 

this economic problem of dropouts, we know what to do. It is 

whether or not we have the will. 

The first thing I would suggest is reauthorizing ESEA. High 

schools aren’t in the ESEA. And until ESEA is reauthorized, they 

won’t be. Only 10 percent of Title I dollars end up in high schools. 

The carrot and the stick is gone. Secretary Spellings pointed out 

in a recent op-ed high schools really weren’t a part of the current 

NCLB. 

We also believe we have to get accountability right. That means 

the State-led efforts to develop common standards so now there is 

an overarching set of standards that the States have agreed to, 

internationally benchmarked. Now everybody is on equal footing as 

to what it is our kids are supposed to learn. And, incidentally, and 

Congressman Scott has introduced this and Congressman Castle 

has spoken to it, the need for true graduation rate accountability, 

so that all kids’ graduation is measured the same way. 

To address the needs of middle and high schools, we believe that, 

as I say, in the ESEA reauthorization, high common standards, the 

Every Student Counts Act. To drive high school improvement, supporting Congressman Hinojosa’s Graduation Promise Act. Targeting the lowest-performing high schools, Bob Balfanz’s dropout 

factories, where there are plans at the school and district level to 

turn them around. 

The Alliance also supports the Secondary School Innovation 

Fund introduced by Congressman Loebsack in part of the existing 

stimulus package. NAEP scores show literacy is so critical. And so, 

that is so important that Congressman Yarmuth’s, Polis’s, and 

Platts’s bill to bring comprehensive literacy to secondary students, 

and, of course, middle schools in Congressman Grijalva’s bill. And 

dare I forget, and I can’t forget, Congressman Holt’s bill on metrics. 

We have to have good data so we know what we are doing. 

And so, all of this is to say we know and you know what to do. 

This committee has the opportunity to truly make a difference in 

what has been as intractable or even moreso a problem than many 

of the others that you face. But this year, this time, we could actually do something. And this time, instead of losing another decade, 

as the NAEP trend lines say, we could make sure that no generation is left behind. 

Thank you very much. 

[The statement of Mr. Wise follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Bob Wise, President, Alliance for Excellent 

Education, Former Governor, West Virginia 

Thank you Chairman Miller and Ranking Member McKeon and the other members of the full committee for asking me to testify today. As you all well know, our 

nation is facing a severe economic crisis—one our nation has not seen for upwards 

of seventy-five years. As a former member and governor, I understand how heavily 

the state of our nation’s economy weighs on each of you. I applaud you for holding 

this hearing and believe you have the title exactly right—America’s Competitiveness 

through High School Reform. With 60 percent of current jobs requiring education 

beyond high school, the nation’s economic competitiveness is inextricably linked to 

how we educate our citizens. In an Information Age economy, education is the main 

currency. 

Given the state of high schools in the United States, it is imperative that we focus 

attention on the six million students most at risk of dropping out if we want longterm economic stability. Addressing the crisis in high schools is a civil rights and 

economic imperative. 
58 

For the last several years, I have traveled the country trying to inform people 

about the urgent need for secondary school reform. From the testimony that others 

have given here today, I think it should be clear why the need is urgent and why 

I have been traveling the country sounding the alarm. Equally important is knowing 

that we know what to do—we just have to do it. 

High School Crisis 

The most recent scream for help for high schools came last week with the release 

of the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) long-term 

trends. Despite education performance gains by nine- and thirteen-year-olds, essentially no progress has been made since 1971 by seventeen-year-olds. If this flat 

trend line were an EKG, the emergency room doctor would be applying the 

defibrillator. The nation’s high schools are not meeting the needs of individuals or 

our economy. One third of all students do not graduate from high school. Only half 

of those that do, graduate prepared for college and the workforce. The numbers are 

far more staggering for the poor and minority students. Only roughly half of minority students graduate while high school students from the wealthiest families are 

about seven times as likely to complete high school as their classmates from the 

poorest. By 2050, half of our population will be comprised of minority populations. 

From a civil rights or economic perspective, we can’t afford to ignore the education 

needs of the fastest-growing populations in this country. 

Part of the challenge we face is that our high schools were set up for a different 

time. When I graduated from high school, you could earn a decent wage to support 

your family working in the mines in West Virginia. When I was governor, I visited 

one of the mines and found almost all miners had at least an associate’s degree. 

When asked why, the miner owner replied, ‘‘I am not letting anyone work a mile 

underground with a half million dollar piece of technical equipment who doesn’t at 

least have a postsecondary education.’’ 

The state of our high schools is reflected in international comparisons. Currently 

the United States ranks twenty-fifth in math, twenty-first in science, fifteenth in 

reading literacy, and twenty-fourth in problem solving when compared with thirty 

other industrialized nations on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) assessment. For high school graduation rates, the United State ranks 

eighteenth. Sadly, the United States’ rank has been declining in these comparisons, 

not rising. The reason we have declined in these comparisons isn’t because our education system has gotten worse; it’s because we haven’t kept up with the quality 

of education being provided in other nations. How we fare in international education 

comparisons will soon correspond directly to how we fare in international economic 

comparisons. President Obama recently laid out the goal of returning the United 

States to number one in the world in college graduation rates. Given the inextricable links between preparedness and college success, that goal will not be 

reached without significant changes to our high school system. 

Economic Costs 

There are two main ways that the economic impact of our dropout problem presents itself: as a cost to individuals and as a cost to society. 

What are the individual costs of this problem? 

Individuals who fail to earn a high school diploma are at a great disadvantage 

when it comes to finding good-paying jobs. The U.S. Department of Labor estimates 

that in the coming years 90 percent of new high-growth, high-wage jobs will require 

some postsecondary education. Individuals without a high school diploma will earn 

significantly less than their better educated peers if they do find a job: high school 

dropouts earn, on average, $10,000 a year less than high school graduates. Over a 

lifetime, the difference between the earnings of a high school dropout and a college 

graduate is more than $1 million. 

What are the societal costs of this problem? 

If the students in the Class of 2008 who dropped out had stayed in school and 

graduated, the nation would have benefited from an additional $319 billion in 

wages, taxes, and productivity over the course of their lifetimes. Individuals with 

less education are generally less healthy and die sooner than those with more education. Individuals with less education are also more likely to become parents at 

very young ages, become incarcerated, or need social welfare assistance. All of these 

consequences are both tragic for individuals and families, and costly for governments and taxpayers. 

According to a report recently released by the McKinsey Corporation, if black and 

Latino student performance had caught up with those of white students by 1998, 

GDP in 2008 would have been between $310 billion and $525 billion higher, which 

is roughly 2 to 4 percent of GDP. 
59 

Currently this Congress is grappling with massive economic problems. But the 

enormous cost of bailing out the banks, financial institutions, the auto industry, and 

AIG is still less than the economic cost of just five years of dropouts in the United 

States. Yet we also know that just cutting the number of dropouts in half would 

begin yielding $45 billion annually in new federal taxes revenues or cost savings. 

That is why I believe that the ultimate economic stimulus package is a diploma. 

Current Federal Policy 

So how did we get here? As I stated earlier, the education provided in high schools 

has not kept pace with the changing needs in the United States. That is in part 

due to the fact that federal policy has failed to address the needs of high schools. 

The main federal education law, Elementary and Secondary Education Act 

(ESEA), now known as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, was mainly written 

with elementary schools in mind. Title I, which is the primary federal instrument 

for supplementing local education funding, is the policy lever for the improvement 

and accountability provisions of the law. However, very little Title I funding reaches 

high school students—only 10 percent of students benefitting from Title I funds are 

high school students despite high schools enrolling 31 percent of all students and 

23 percent of all low-income students. 

What’s more, adequate yearly progress (AYP) has been an ineffective tool to drive 

accountability and improvement at the high school level. Unlike elementary and 

middle school students, high school students are tested only once in four years. Most 

often that testing occurs in the tenth grade and does not measure what students 

need to graduate; instead the testing measures ninth grade proficiency. 

Until recently, graduation rates—despite being a clear measure of the success of 

a high school—were not appropriately or adequately used as part of AYP. When 

NCLB was being written, there was an awareness and fear that the testing accountability provisions would create a perverse incentive to ‘‘push out’’ low test scorers 

absent accountability for graduating students. NCLB included language that required graduation rates to be an accountability measure in AYP. Given the weak 

and meaningless implementation of those provisions, the ‘‘push out’’ has indeed occurred and was most recently documented in a study from Rice University and University of Texas, Austin. In fact, an analysis done by Dr. Robert Balfanz found that 

40 percent of dropout factories make AYP, therefore preventing some of the nation’s 

lowest-performing schools from entering the accountability and improvement system. 

Why was implementation weak? Graduation rates were inaccurately and inconsistently calculated across states. The Department of Education approved numerous, 

inaccurate calculations that underestimated the problem. Independent analysis has 

shown that the difference between state and independent analysis was as little as 

eleven points and as much as thirty points. There was no meaningful requirement 

to increase graduation rates over time. States were allowed to propose very weak 

graduation goals—as low as 50 percent and only three states proposed graduating 

100 percent of its students. Most states were approved to make as little as 0.1% 

growth annually to make AYP. There was no requirement to disaggregate graduation rates by student subgroups for determining AYP. Thankfully, the Department 

of Education recognized the need to make a correction on this issue and released 

new regulations strengthening graduation rate accountability last year. I will further discuss this issue later, but I want to thank Congressmen Scott and Hinojosa 

for their leadership on this issue and Chairman Miller and Ranking Member 

McKeon for their leadership as well. 

NCLB’s prescriptions for schools that fail to make AYP for multiple consecutive 

years are not effective at the high school level. Seventy-five percent of school districts only have one high school rendering school choice meaningless. And less than 

5 percent of high school students participate in supplemental education services. 

In fact, even the laws original drafters feel that the high school provisions need 

to be strengthened. Earlier this week, in response to the release of the latest NAEP 

results, Margaret Spellings said, ‘‘It’s not an accident that we’re seeing the most improvement where NCLB has focused most vigorously. The law focuses on math and 

reading in grades three through eight—it’s not about high schools.’’ 

Lastly, there is little federal investment in our nation’s high schools and we are 

getting what we pay for. As of now, the federal funding in education targets the 

bookends of the education system—concentrating on grades pre-K—6 and higher 

education. The ‘‘missing middle’’ is our nation’s secondary schools, which receive little to no funding from the federal level. Funding for grades pre-K—6 totals nearly 

$18 billion. Funding for postsecondary education totals nearly $22 billion and that 

is without taking into account student loans or other tax incentives. However, funding for grades 7—12 is only about $6 billion. 
60 

Federal Policy Solutions 

Luckily, we know what to do and we look forward to working with the committee 

to ensure a reauthorization of ESEA includes measures to drive high school reform. 

Dr. Balfanz spoke very eloquently about which schools are low-performing and 

who attends them. One of the results of his research—that over half of the country’s 

dropouts come from less than 2,000 high schools (or about 10 percent of all high 

schools)—strikes a chord for me, since it shows that the dropout problem is not 

unsolvable. If we could improve only those 2,000 lowest-performing schools, we 

would be making significant progress towards the goal of every child a graduate. 

I am going to speak specifically about each of the policy solutions to this crisis, 

but I want to thank the many members of this committee who are leading the federal effort to reform our nation’s high schools. 

To drive high school reform, we must first get accountability right so that we 

know where the problems are and how to drive resources and supports to those 

schools. Under current law, the federal approach is to leave it up to the states to 

determine academic standards and, up until recently, to determine graduation rate 

calculations and accountability measures. Then, once a school has entered the school 

improvement system, federal policy drives a very prescriptive, ‘‘one-size-fits all’’, or 

timeline-based approach to improvement. 

Common Standards 

The Alliance for Excellent Education believes this approach is backwards and that 

we need to flip the federal role. We believe that high, common standards that are 

tied to college- and work-readiness and are internationally benchmarked, and consistent graduation rate calculations with meaningful growth targets and goals 

should drive accountability. This system of accountability should be followed by a 

system of differentiated school improvement that targets reforms to the needs of the 

schools, not a timeline of how long a school has been ‘‘failing.’’ 

I want to applaud the committee for holding a hearing a few weeks ago on establishing common standards. We exist in a global economy. Fifty different state standards does not cut it anymore. Students are no longer just competing within their 

hometown or state for jobs. Students from Montgomery, Alabama are competing 

with students in Mumbai, India for jobs and we need education standards that reflect that reality. 

Graduation Rates 

As I stated earlier, also critical to accountability are graduation rates. In the last 

Congress, Representative Scott, with support from Congressman Hinojosa and many 

members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus introduced the Every Student Counts Act (ESCA). The principals of this act were reflected in the Department of Education’s regulation finalized last year. These principals include establishing a common calculation, requiring meaningful graduation 

goals and growth targets, utilizing the rate as an equal part of AYP, and maintain-
61 

ing a strong four-year graduation rate while recognizing some students take longer 

to graduate. In March, Congressman Scott reintroduced ESCA to codify the regulation and provide further detail where the regulation provides state flexibility on 

areas such as specific goals and growth targets. The Alliance believes that the regulation must be maintained and strengthened through inclusion of ESCA into a reauthorization of ESEA. 

School Improvement 

To create a system of high school improvement that would solve many of the 

issues that high schools currently face under NCLB’s Title I provisions, Congressman Hinojosa introduced the Graduation Promise Act (GPA). GPA creates a system 

of differentiated school improvement that targets reform efforts to student and 

school needs not to a timeline approach as is under current law. States and districts 

would be provided flexibility to create systems of improvement and specific school 

improvement plans based on rich data. Such systems would focus on building the 

capacity of secondary schools to reduce dropout rates and increase student achievement, and would target resources to help the lowest-performing high schools implement evidence-based interventions. Importantly, GPA is authorized at $2.5 billion 

to address the current federal funding deficits faced by high schools. 

Innovation 

In order to continue to improve education in the long term, we need federal investment in discovering what innovative programs and models being introduced at 

the local and state levels can turn low-performing high schools into high-performing 

high schools. The Secondary School Innovation Fund Act seeks to do just that by 

capitalizing on a unique American strength: the locally designed and driven innovation that has made our economy the largest in the world. The Secondary School Innovation Fund was reintroduced last week by Congressman Loebsack. 

Just as small businesses need venture capital to reach their full potential, local 

educational innovators need resources to invest in innovative practice, determine its 

impact, and replicate best practices. This legislation would support research and development of successful school models and program that are both replicable and systemic. Authorized at $500 million, the Secondary School Innovation Fund Act would 

give educational innovators—who are doing important work across the country—the 

opportunity to evaluate and expand upon their strategies for increasing student 

achievement and graduation rates. 

Literacy 

As seen in the recent NAEP scores, students in our nation’s middle and high 

schools are not achieving adequate literacy rates. Yet we know how critical literacy 

is to high school turnaround and academic success at the high school level and beyond. To support literacy in all grades, (including the upper grades), help students 

who are below grade level in reading and are, therefore, significantly more likely 

to drop out of high school, and to teach students the higher-order literacy skills that 

they need to read complex texts, Congressmen Yarmouth, Polis, and Platts will be 

leading the effort on a comprehensive literacy bill to address the reading and writing needs of students from before Kindergarten through high school. 

Middle Schools 

While this hearing is focused specifically on high schools, it is critical to discuss 

the needs of middle school students. We know that the high school students who 

are unprepared to succeed in high school come from somewhere. To ensure that students are no longer entering ninth grade off track for graduation, Congressman Grijalva, in the last Congress, introduced the Success in the Middle Act. The Success 

in the Middle Act would authorize $1 billion a year in grants to states to improve 

low-performing middle grades. The bill would fund critical activities such as developing early-warning data systems to identify students who are most at risk of dropping out and intervene to help them succeed. Interventions could include extended 

learning time and personal graduation plans that enable all students to stay on the 

path to graduation. 

Data Systems 

Finally but possibly most importantly, we believe that the federal government 

must invest in quality data systems and use of data. In the last Congress, Congressman Holt introduced the METRICS Act, which are grants to states for the development and implementation of statewide longitudinal data systems. The stimulus bill 

also contained substantial funding and requirements around development and use 

of data systems and we applaud the efforts of the Secretary of Education to advance 

policy based on quality data. 
62 

Schools of Excellence 

Luckily, we know that we can succeed in providing a high quality, college- and 

work-ready education for the exact students we are trying to serve. There are examples of schools doing just that all over the country. Schools such as: 

Animo Inglewood Charter High School in Inglewood, California. Animo primarily 

serves low-income, minority students and over 60 percent of the graduating students 

attend a four-year college. They provide intensive summer programs for incoming 

freshmen to help them catch up academically. Teachers make home visits to build 

relationships with students’ families. 

The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technological Center in Providence, Rhode 

Island. The Met is a charter school run by the Big Picture Company that prepares 

students for college by offering strong support in and out of the classrooms, provides 

opportunities to travel and intern with local companies and organizations, and encourages parents to get involved in their children’s educations. 

Stanley E. Foster Construction Tech High School in San Diego, California. Construction Tech is a charter school serving a high number of low-income, minority 

students. Students at Construction Tech participate in curriculum that integrates 

classroom and real world training in architecture, construction, and engineering. 

The school partners with local businesses to offer internships and to evaluate classroom projects. 

Manhattan Hunter Science High School in New York City, New York. Hunter 

Science is an early college high school with high enrollment of low-income, minority 

students in partnership with Hunter College within the City University of New 

York (CUNY) school system. At the time of high school graduation, students have 

the option to continue their studies at Hunter; their first full year of tuition is covered and all college credits earned while in high school apply towards their college 

degree. 

Conclusion 

Thank you for holding this hearing at such a critical time for our nation. Thank 

you Chairman Miller and Ranking Member McKeon for holding this hearing, and 

I want to thank all of the members of the committee for their support of these 

issues. We look forward to working with all of you to advance high school reform 

in an ESEA reauthorization. I would like to thank you for your support in the last 

Congress and we hope that we will have your continued support as you move forward with reauthorization. Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Thank you very much to all of you for your testimony and your 

expertise. 

Dr. Balfanz and Mr. Gordon and Dr. Phillips, so now we have 

identified 2,000 schools here, and the urge is to rush on in and 

close them and open them. But we have done that before. There is 

no shortage of school districts that have closed poor-performing 

schools, or for other reasons even, and then reopened them and 

sort of ended up in the same place 2 or 3 years later. 

So I guess what I am interested in is in your histories of being 

involved here. You have each suggested we know what to do, and 

I would like to hear what you think that plan is. Because, you 

know, when we passed No Child Left Behind, everybody was 

aghast at the sanctions, except they had all been using those sanctions all over the country for many years. They had fired principals, they had fired teachers, they hired people, put in new 

teams, closed schools, opened schools, consolidated schools, back 

and forth. The results just never changed. 

So we have been through that sort of—the theory is, I guess, that 

this is going to be smarter, this is going to be our surge on the high 

schools. So how do we scope this out? And one of the questions is, 

is this really about additional resources? Is this about a better organization of those resources? Or is it both? 
63 

And so I don’t use all your time in my talking, well, let’s leave 

it there for a minute. 

Mr. BALFANZ. Sure. It is both a better allocation and in some 

places—— 

Chairman MILLER. The three of you are sharing what time I 

have left, you know. 

Mr. BALFANZ. Okay. 

It is both a better allocation and better use of resources. 

And what I was saying is that each of those things we mentioned—charter schools, firing and rehiring, comprehensive whole 

school reform, creating small schools—have all worked in some 

places and not others. So what we really need to do is just take 

that step back and analyze that school. What are its needs? What 

are its capacities? How many kids come in 2 or more years below 

grade level? How many kids come in with weak attendance? Do the 

planned reforms actually address that educational challenge? Because too often we propose a reform that doesn’t meet the educational challenge, and therefore it doesn’t work. 

So I think we take a half-step back and require schools to do a 

really intense analysis of why they are not succeeding, what their 

challenges are, and then make the case for why that particular reform will work in that circumstance, and then resource it to succeed. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Gordon, did you get that opportunity 

when Philadelphia asked you to take over? 

Mr. GORDON. I am not sure we have done this before, because, 

certainly, in Philadelphia’s case—— 

Chairman MILLER. We have gone through these motions before. 

What most people equate with the reform, we have gone through 

a lot of them before. 

Mr. GORDON. We have gone through reform, but the complete 

turnaround, at least in Philadelphia, Green Dot in California, some 

schools in Chicago, it was the staff and management that changed. 

So while certainly analyzing the problem and coming up with new 

programs is part of the solution, fundamentally it is a people and 

management problem. And I would suggest that if we create rewards, you create high standards, you reward if you hit those 

standards and, if not, you lose the contract or the management 

team loses, you will get results over time. 

I have seen lots of programs, wonderful programs being executed 

by poor management teams and not qualified staff, and they fail; 

and mediocre programs being implemented by great teams and 

great management, and eventually they succeed. I think you set 

the bar and you will incent the right folks to get there. 

Chairman MILLER. Dr. Phillips? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. I would echo that we believe that one of the single 

most important things we can do is ensure that a student has an 

effective teacher every single year of their high school career. Unfortunately, right now we make that determination on certification, 

with limited evidence about whether that is the real thing that 

helps you understand whether the person is an effective teacher 

and whether they are making gains in the classroom on a daily 

basis. 
64 

That, coupled with common standards from which you can build 

out good curriculum and instructional tools and good assessments, 

along with the kind of data to really let us know what works and 

doesn’t work. 

We would also say that innovation does play a factor here, that 

the fact that we have not gotten dramatic gains, only marginal 

gains, over the last few decades should tell us that we have to do 

something fairly dramatically different, in combination with those 

elements. 

Chairman MILLER. When I spend time with what I call educational entrepreneurs who have had success that mirrors the 

kinds of success that you have had at Pickett and elsewhere, Mr. 

Gordon, what they really talk about is the ability to assemble a 

team and develop a mission and people sort of heading all in the 

same direction with the same purpose and, in many instances, with 

the same enthusiasm and sense of urgency about this. 

And what they have run into, in many instances, they have 

stepped outside of the existing systems and constraints on assembling that team. They are not taking people—I remember going 

through up at Harlem’s Children School how many people were 

interviewed to work in that school, thousands of people, you know, 

literally, before you found the team that you wanted to run that 

school. 

Because you were making a bet—at that time, the woman that 

was running it was making a serious bet about her career and 

about what she thought she could deliver in her organization. And 

the people who were funding that organization were making a bet 

on her. So, I mean, there was a lot of risk-taking and entrepreneurial work being done in this direction. 

Mr. GORDON. I think you are right on the money. It is about people; it is about teams. It is not about certifications. You will not 

have innovation coming out of schools of education. They are part 

of the problem; they are not part of the solution. 

I think you create, again, what is the bar? And then quality folks 

will eventually assemble teams and figure it out and remove the 

barriers that prevent them from doing those things. Within the 

school district, it is zero-basing the staff so they can assemble the 

right teachers. Charter schools have the ability to draw talent from 

outside the school district. 

But I think it is, in some senses, relatively simple, a clear mission, a clear way of conducting the school. And there are many 

ways to operate a successful school, but it is the right people and 

the right leadership. 

Chairman MILLER. I am sort of enamored with the idea that a 

lot of entrepreneurs who have been successful in other walks of 

life, in their own businesses, have been drawn to many of these organizations, have, in fact, invested their own personal money. 

And you see the risk-taking where they bet that they can take 

this same population of kids that we are so deeply concerned about 

in this country—and we know the risks that we are running if they 

are not successful—and they are betting that they can be successful with that identical population that we lament in most contexts, 

that, you know, the schools just aren’t performing, all the things 
65 

we wring our hands about, and they are making that bet in that 

direction. 

Thank you. 

Mr. Bishop? 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. In fairness, Mr. Chairman—— 

Chairman MILLER. Oh, Mr. Castle was here before you. 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. Mr. Castle is senior to me, as well. Can 

I yield to him and then come back? 

Chairman MILLER. You guys are going on that seniority stuff? 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. Hell, somebody has to. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Castle? 

Mr. CASTLE. Well, I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you, Mr. 

Bishop. I am honored to go early. 

Let me ask a question. I am going to start with Governor Wise 

and just go across the board, if you are willing to try to answer 

this. 

We have heard a lot of very good suggestions here today. And, 

you know, if we compiled them all, they may number in the dozens 

or whatever. But one of my concerns is, what can we do as a Congress in order to make improvements in schools? We have talked 

about, for example, graduation rates. We have talked about higher 

standards. Obviously, funding is an issue. We have talked about 

some particular programs and effective teachers and a whole variety of things. 

My question is to each of you, could you—and the reason I want 

to start with Governor Wise is he is familiar with things around 

here—but could you pinpoint what you think is the most significant 

issue that we should be looking at, either broadly or narrowly, from 

our point of view? 

We can’t do some of the things that you have talked about. We 

can’t change neighborhoods per se or whatever it may be. But there 

may be things either in the Elementary and Secondary Education 

Act/No Child Left Behind or some of these other issues we have 

talked about that we should be doing that you would rate as the 

high priority. 

We don’t have a lot of time for each person, but I would just be 

interested to see if you could highlight whatever you think we 

could be doing, say, in this next year, during this congressional session, that would actually be able to be carried down to the local 

level and hopefully improve education. 

Governor Wise? 

I am only looking for one suggestion. I am not looking for—— 

Mr. WISE. One suggestion to set the climate. 

As you know better than anyone, having been a governor, every 

State is on its fiscal back right now, and it is pretty hard to be 

doing restructuring and the kind of innovation that is so critical at 

a time when you are simply trying to keep school buses running. 

But the Federal Government—the stimulus package can be a 

start, but the Federal Government can help set a direction and a 

climate. And by looking at the OECD models, which tend to be successful, where you have high common standards and then a lot of 

flexibility at the local level to do the innovation necessary, with the 

Federal Government being a partner. And when I say a partner, 
66 

I don’t mean large sums of money, but I am talking about that 

which will drive systemic reform and permanent change. 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you. 

Dr. Phillips? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. I would say you could support the State-led common academic standards and the data systems work that would 

allow us to understand better across this country what works and 

what doesn’t. 

And then you have the opportunity to incent, I think, innovation, 

better assessments, a number of the entrepreneurial things that 

are happening across the country. 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you. 

Mr. Gordon? 

Mr. GORDON. I would certainly agree with the standards. I would 

say for corrective action to schools, providing incentives for school 

districts to turn around the schools, to zero-base staff, and to create 

incentives or penalties based upon a timeline of 2 to 3 years. 

Ms. KONDRACKE. Make the schools more of the hub of the community, where schools become places that parents go, parents get 

engaged, services can be found. There is no shortage of services 

and organizations, but they are all in silos and they are scattered. 

We need to bring the community support, especially in these lowincome neighborhoods, to the schools, where the children are, 

where the families are, pull them in, make the schools the hubs of 

the communities. 

Mr. WOTORSON. I would say make accountability an absolute centerpiece of anything, any education reform effort that you push 

through. 

Keep in mind, however, that part of the reason why we are 

where we are is because students are not facing one or two or three 

problems; we are facing, really, a comprehensive problem. So, at 

the end of the day, we are going to need a comprehensive solution 

that addresses lack of effective teachers, lack of a well-defined curriculum, the whole range of things. 

But if I were to pinpoint one thing, I would say strong accountability must be a centerpiece. 

Mr. BALFANZ. And I would say invest in capacity-building of the 

organizations, States, and districts that have actually shown they 

can turn these schools around already, so they can then turn 

around more schools. 

Chairman MILLER. You are talking about the existing, those that 

have been successful. 

Mr. BALFANZ. Yes. 

Chairman MILLER. Excuse me. Would with the gentleman yield? 

Mr. CASTLE. Certainly. I have already yielded. 

Well, I appreciate all that. I think your suggestions are excellent, 

holistically and otherwise. I think we have a lot of work ahead of 

us. I think you have been an excellent panel. I would hope that you 

will stay with us as we try to address these issues and try to make 

changes. 

Some of what you said, some of what we have to do is very challenging to existing bureaucracies out there. It is not going to be 

easy to do. But if we don’t it, we are never going to get the uplifting that we want. So I thank you for your suggestions today. 
67 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Scott? 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Phillips, you mentioned talked about effective teachers. Cambridge College reports excellent results with mid-career teachers in 

professional development. They take the courses, then they go back 

and do better. 

Is it your understanding that teachers can, by professional development, improve their effectiveness? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. If it is a very focused professional development. 

And a lot of it, if it is school-embedded and on-the-job. You mean 

as teachers enter schools or districts? 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

One of the things that—as I indicated in my opening remarks, 

I serve on the Crime Subcommittee, Chair of the Crime Subcommittee, and one of the things that happens with dropouts is 

they are very likely to end up in jail. And in some of these, you 

can identify a school where half the kids are going to be dropping 

out. And if you just do the back-of-the-envelope arithmetic, 100 

kids dropping out are going to end up costing you about $5 million 

in incarceration. 

Now, Mr. Wotorson, if you had an adequate budget—how adequate a budget would you need to get the results that you are getting, where virtually everybody is graduating? 

Mr. WOTORSON. I do recall, Mr. Congressman, I believe a couple 

of years ago or so there was a piece of legislation introduced that 

proposed somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion of turnaround, specifically geared towards turning around low-performing 

schools or those dropout factories. 

But I think part of where you are going is, essentially, if we don’t 

arrest this problem, we only succeed in expanding the school-toprison pipeline. And the Campaign for High School Equity actually 

had an issue forum on that issue a few months ago. And we actually were pleased to have someone from your staff join us at that 

discussion and share some of her knowledge. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, about how much—what kind of budget would 

you be talking about to virtually guarantee that everybody is graduating, as opposed to a 50 percent dropout rate? 

Mr. WOTORSON. I don’t know that we could guarantee that everyone is graduating. What I do know is that hitherto we have not 

tried any of these things in a comprehensive fashion. I do know 

that hitherto we have not simply said we are going to put our resources where our mouth is, we are going to, you know, put the 

time and effort towards addressing the problem. I know that we 

haven’t done that. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, like I said, if you got a 50 percent dropout rate, 

100 children, 50 percent drop out, that is 100, that is going to cost 

you about $5 million in prison expenses in, at least, many identifiable States. If you spent half of that on the program, you could 

probably eliminate—it is hard to imagine you are not saving more 

money than you are spending. 

Ms. Kondracke, you indicated a process by which you are—a holistic approach, where you bring the community together. I have introduced the Youth Promise Act, which is very similar, to reduce 

youth violence, where you bring in law enforcement, education, fos-
68 

ter care, the probation department, churches, after-school programs, anybody that has anything to do with children in trouble, 

bring them together and come up with a plan. 

Is there any question in your mind—you have done this for 

school dropouts—is there any question in your mind that if you 

have a good dropout prevention program that it would also reduce 

crime and reduce teen pregnancy and reduce drug abuse? 

Ms. KONDRACKE. There is no question that a good dropout prevention program will do all of those things. If a young person is engaged productively, believes in their future, they are going to avoid 

risky behavior. And so, therefore, you are saving social costs. 

And to your point, I would say one of the reasons, Mr. Chairman, 

that some of our other earlier reform efforts have not gotten the 

results we would like is we have ignored some of these social 

issues. And this, the community supports based at the school, easy 

for the family to access, that has got to be part of the solution for 

these most vulnerable students in those neighborhoods. 

So I commend you for the act you have introduced. 

Mr. SCOTT. Now, most of the programs that we have seen by research have shown that they can save more money than they cost. 

What kind of budget do we need to start the process of cost savings? 

Ms. KONDRACKE. You know, I think you could easily envision 

taking the 2,000 dropout factory high schools and the feeder middle 

schools, and if you had something that would catalyze the community to come together—you don’t have to invent the programs at 

the community level; they are already there. You just have to pull 

them together. 

So, take $100,000 per school, just to pick a number, to create a 

catalytic effect to pull these services together, you could actually 

have a real impact pretty quickly. 

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I would point out that in some of 

those dropout factories the prison costs that we are generating 

would be in the millions. And Ms. Kondracke just talked about 

$100,000 to solve that problem. So, obviously, we are doing something wrong. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Bishop? 

Excuse me, Mr. Wise, did you want to—— 

Mr. WISE. I just wanted to offer a couple quick statistics. 

A recent economic study, I believe that was cited earlier, cut the 

dropout rate in half, would add $45 billion in increased Federal tax 

revenues or cost savings. We estimate that you could do that for 

about $5 billion a year. That is $2.5 billion with the Graduation 

Promise Act, plus the literacy programs. 

And to your crime question, Congressman, a study that we did 

showed that simply if you increase the high school graduation rate 

of males alone 5 percent, it would add about $8 billion in both new 

wages and reduced crime costs. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Mr. Bishop? 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. Thank you. I think I have seniority on my 

side now. 
69 

I appreciate the testimony that has been given. In fact, you have 

generated in my mind so many questions, I am not going to get it 

in my time allotted. So let me try to go through as many as I possibly can quickly with you. 

Let me start with Dr. Phillips, if I could. Let’s assume—and I 

don’t assume; you cannot do that—you can identify an effective 

teacher. How do you attract and hold that teacher once he or she 

is identified? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. We believe that we really have to look at the whole 

spectrum of things, from how many people we get to enter, to how 

we help them meet performance milestones. But once you get them 

there, they have to be compensated appropriately. And it can’t wait 

until they are 10, 12, 13 years into their career. We need to make 

it a viable profession earlier on. 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. Talking money and time? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. Money and time. 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. Can I just ask you, just philosophically, for 

whom are we trying to reform these schools? Who needs to be satisfied? Is it the State, the school officials, parents, a college? Who is 

the person that is going to say, ‘‘Okay, you have arrived’’? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. Oh, I think—well, first of all, we have to do this 

for students, but we need some kind of objective way of saying, 

what is it that it really takes for students—— 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. Good. But I want to know, who is the one 

that is going to make that decision? Who has to be satisfied? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. Who is going to make the decision in the end? 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. State, school, parents, administrators? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. I think, in the end, you know, parents and students have to be satisfied. But, certainly, school districts and 

States have to have some objective measure by which they can determine, and some objective standards by which they can determine, whether kids are actually graduating high school ready for 

college without remediation and able to enter the workforce. 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. I have more questions for you. Let me 

come back. 

Ms. PHILLIPS. So there are multiple consumers in this. 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. Mr. Gordon, if I could, you talked about 

rewarding those who produce results. That is the phrase that you 

used. Can you give me some specific details on how you do that? 

Mr. GORDON. Well, I would say, in a turnaround context or in a 

charter school context, you can reward by enabling those organizations to operate additional schools. You can create financial incentives so they have the wherewithal to operate additional schools. 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. For the ones who are actually operating 

the school, though, what is the reward mechanism? 

Mr. GORDON. The opportunity to do more. I don’t know if this is 

where you are leading, but the financial incentive to the organization, I think the incentive to be able to do more is sufficient. Let 

me just stop there. 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. You gave me—you started going down with 

accountability and governance. Can you give me three top keys for 

success in very specific details? I mean, all of you have talked 

about accountability, you have talked about governance. I want 

something down in the weeds more than that, if you would, please. 
70 

Mr. GORDON. I would say, when we hire a principal, I want them 

to be able to hire fantastic staff. We need to have benchmark assessments, assessments meaning that we every 6 weeks know 

where students are. We need information to be able to track that 

data so that we can respond competently to that data. 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. That is legitimate. Thank you. 

Ms. Kondracke, if I could ask you a couple of questions, you talk 

about the parents’ role as one of the factors that is in here. Could 

you just explain very briefly, because I don’t have a lot of time 

here, how you envision the parents’ role and how you envision the 

Federal Government’s relation to building that parent role? 

Ms. KONDRACKE. Well, I think that is always the conundrum, 

how do we get parents to care more and be more involved. And I 

think, very practically, we have to make it easier. 

In Spanish Harlem, there is a school that was inside a housing 

project. It was the worst-performing school, the scene of violence, 

it was a mess. And Joel Klein turned that school around by turning 

it into a community center. Parents went there on Saturday to 

have cooking classes and a green grocer experience. Students did 

service projects through City Year there. 

So if parents have a reason to go to school, and if we can make 

it easier for them by having time for parent-teacher conferences 

that makes sense for their working lives, we have got to make it 

easier for these struggling, stressed parents to be involved. 

Mr. BISHOP OF UTAH. I appreciate that. And I am not trying to 

cut you off, but I realize my time is running down here very quickly. 

Could I just ask once again, Dr. Phillips—you know, you were in 

charge of a system within a State. How would you get teachers like 

me, who know I can outlive you and your programs, to become excited about what you are attempting to do? 

And I was noticing one thing—Mr. Wotorson, there were some 

questions I really had for you. I am sorry I am not going to get 

even close to them. 

There were a couple of you that talked about—you don’t even 

have to answer this. I just ran out of time. You talked about the 

720 number. I am amazed that no one is actually talking about the 

amount of time that we put into public education or the organization of the day, what the kid has to go through, as part of the equation that needs to be part of this question as well. I was surprised 

at that. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I realize we will allow these questions—if I 

ever get organized enough to write them down, I will send them 

to you. And I will be looking for it, because I did enjoy the presentations. Thank you. 

Ms. KONDRACKE. We all want to answer. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Tierney is next, Mr. Loebsack, Ms. 

Fudge, Mr. Courtney, Mr. Bishop, and Ms. Hirono. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank for having the 

hearing. 

And thank the witnesses for their testimony, as well. 

So, Ms. Kondracke, you talk about outside influences, half of the 

16 factors that make for a successful student being outside the 

classroom. 
71 

And, Mr. Gordon, you talk about, forget all that, just give me a 

good staff and a couple of bucks and I am ready to roll, I am going 

to make this work. 

Can you two work out the conflict in that for me? 

Ms. KONDRACKE. You know, it is both ends. It is inside the classroom and outside the classroom. We have to have an integrated approach. 

I believe just as strongly in great teaching and high standards 

and accountability and measurement. And I also believe there are 

lots of at-risk kids that cannot learn because they bring too many 

deficits into the classroom. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, maybe Mr. Gordon is the one that doesn’t 

agree with that. 

You just want—I think your words were, give me good staff, you 

know, and people, and I will take care of the rest. People and management was the problem, you said. Give me qualified staff, and we 

are all set. 

None of those factors that Ms. Kondracke talks about—— 

Mr. GORDON. Good staff and good management can address those 

problems. 

Mr. TIERNEY. How? 

Mr. GORDON. Good staff and good management—our staff and 

management goes out into the community, finds community-based 

mental health organizations, contracts with them. 

It is not that we ignore the outside problems, but the accountability—what I would encourage this committee to focus on is the 

outcome. We are accountable for results. Therefore, I am going to 

do the right thing if I need to hit that outcome. If you legislate 

what programs I need to follow, everyoneis going to follow them 

and you will get nothing at all. It is the outcome and accountability. 

Mr. TIERNEY. All right. 

Then, Dr. Phillips, let me turn to you. You cite that there is an 

issue or problem, at least, with the credentialing that we now have, 

that they are not indicative of who is a good teacher and who is 

not. 

Do you have ideas into what we are going to do that would allow 

us to select teachers based on some past experience that they have 

had or some credentialing? Otherwise, I suspect we are going to be 

doing this case by case for the rest of our lives. Bring a person in, 

watch their experience, see how they do, dump them if they are no 

good, keep them if they are not. It is going to take a long time to 

get all the good teachers we need up to scale. 

So, as opposed to the current credentialing system, what do you 

recommend? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. We are actually investing considerable amount of 

money in the next few years on research to make that determination, to say, what does it take, in addition to student achievement, 

to give a fair view of what is an effective teacher? And can we come 

to some consensus about that? 

So we realize that that is a huge problem, that teachers have a 

legitimate issue, and it is not just a single look at their performance over a year but that student outcomes need to be the core. 

What other things, when added to that, will give us a better pre-
72 

dictor? And then how do you entice people into the profession, help 

them hit those performance milestones, reward them when they do, 

and keep them in front of the kids who need them the most? 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

Governor Wise, nice to see you. 

Mr. WISE. Nice to see you, sir. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Governor, look, we have a lot of really tremendous 

educators out there today in our public school system. And I think 

probably everybody will acknowledge that. I hope they would acknowledge that. 

So how do we go about making these changes and motivating 

people and challenging them and give them the kind of job security 

that I think they are afraid of? They are afraid of going back to 

the old days where politics makes it, the school committee decides, 

you get a four-to-three vote, this person doesn’t have the job and 

somebody else does. 

How do we get to the point where all of the people are talking 

about being not so risk-averse, taking challenges, moving in that 

direction on that, with allowing people to still understand that this 

is a job that, if they do a good job, they are going to be able stay 

on and not be out at somebody’s arbitrary whim? 

Mr. WISE. And particularly at a time when we are going to see 

probably half of our teachers eligible to retire in the next 5 to 7 

years. So we are going to have to really accelerate that pipeline. 

I think it is giving them the opportunity to teach in a place that 

is exciting, where they know that they are going to be rewarded, 

and not just monetarily but rewarded and given the flexibility to 

do what they need to do, that there will be standards set. And 

there are outcomes, yes, but there will be a lot of flexibility in how 

to get there. They will be working as a team approach. 

And also, it may well be, Congressman, that this economy is 

going to encourage some people to think, you know, I can be as creative and earn an income in teaching. And so we need to make sure 

that the doors are open to them, not only through the traditional 

means of teacher preparation, but also looking at some alternative 

means as well. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

Dr. Balfanz, what would you tell our teaching colleges and universities they have to do with their students to work into a program that really makes this all work? 

Mr. BALFANZ. Well, they have to prepare teachers for the actual 

conditions they are going to face, which is, in our most challenged 

schools, it is not 10 to 15 percent of kids that need extra help, it 

is 50, 60, 70 percent. So they have to build within them skills to 

not just teach one good excellent lesson, but to be able to teach kids 

with multiple different levels of preparation to succeed. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Loebsack? 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this very 

informative hearing. I really do appreciate this very much. 

And the witnesses have all been wonderful, learned a lot from 

you today. I appreciate that. And thanks for the shout-out for some 
73 

of my legislation, too, for those of you who did. I do appreciate that 

very much. 

If I could start with Ms. Kondracke, I just want to mention one 

example of a school that was a community center before massive 

flooding hit on June 13th of last year, Taylor Elementary School in 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 

Ms. KONDRACKE. Absolutely. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. It was a wonderful—and in a low-income area of 

Cedar Rapids. There were a lot of different offices there; there was 

a WIC office, for example. And it was really wonderful. It is going 

to come back, it is going to reopen in the fall. There are going to 

be fewer students, maybe significantly fewer students, but it is 

going to come back. 

So I really appreciate your focus, obviously, on the community 

aspect. And if you want to, I would like you to elaborate a little 

bit more. You weren’t able to go perhaps as far as you would like 

in response to Mr. Bishop’s question. 

Ms. KONDRACKE. Thank you very much, Congressman. 

I am aware of that school in Cedar Rapids, and it is a fantastic 

example of what can happen when a community rallies around a 

school, turns the school into a community, cares about the outcomes for kids, cares about quality teaching, but also cares about 

each other’s lives. It is about that simple. 

And there are 14 million kids who need after-school care in this 

country today. What are they doing when they are not in school? 

Somebody mentioned the school calendar, I think it was Congressman Bishop, that we are out of school all summer because that is 

left over from the agricultural model. What are they doing with 

that time? Our school day is too short, our school year is too short 

to catch up with the rest of the world. So what are we doing with 

out-of-school time? 

We need enrichment programs in the after-school hours. Kids 

need chances to serve and find the resilience that comes with giving back. There are 9 million kids who don’t have health care. Congress has taken steps to reauthorize CHIP and to expand that coverage. This is the kind of thing we have to pay attention to. 

And one last thing is truancy. You have asked what we can do. 

The data systems that we have all referenced here should include 

attendance. It is so fundamental. Nobody is following up on attendance and truancy. And what kids tell us is that that tells them nobody cares if they are in school or not. So, caring adults—this is 

part of the community supports we were talking about—and following up, very simply, on attendance. That is the best early-warning indicator of a dropout. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you. 

Mr. Wise, Congressman Wise, Governor Wise, didn’t have a 

chance to serve with you here, obviously, in this body, but thank 

you for being here today. 

I guess I am very fortunate as a Member of Congress in that 

there is no dropout factory in my particular district. We do have 

nine of them in Iowa, I saw from the data that were provided. But 

I want to thank you, too, for mentioning my Secondary School Innovation Fund. 
74 

I have gotten around my district a lot in the 2-plus years that 

I have been in Congress, and there are a lot of good things happening in Iowa, as I am sure is the case around the country, in 

terms of trying to come up with innovative programs that folks 

around the country can model, I would guess, or replicate, if you 

will. 

Can you elaborate a little bit on that particular aspect of your 

testimony? 

Mr. WISE. Certainly. Because your bill and, actually, Congressman Holt’s as well, as you know, portions of it are included in the 

stimulus package, but we want to make it permanent. 

For instance, what is happening in a number of examples, 

whether it is what Mr. Gordon is talking about, or if we are looking 

at something such as a High-Tech High or we looking at another 

high school in San Diego that has very successful initiatives, what 

is it that works for 500 students here or 50,000 across 10 school 

districts and can be replicated? 

And that is a very appropriate role for the Federal Government, 

particularly at this point, to be able to help States replicate what 

works. No State has, I think I can say safely, I know in my State, 

no State has the ability to do the kind of research, to do the kind 

of analysis of what is taking place in other areas. It is anecdotal. 

The Federal Government does have that ability. And so, the combination of not only providing the research capability, the dissemination of that research, but also the ability to replicate innovative 

approaches, that is what is so critical. 

What we want to do with your legislation is take what clearly 

was established in the stimulus package and make it a permanent 

fixture. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you very much. And I just might comment, my idea is not, obviously, to have an overly intrusive role on 

the part of the Federal Government. It is really to provide seed 

money, in some ways, and to leverage local funds as well. 

Mr. WISE. Yes. 

Mr. LOEBSACK. So thank you very much, and I will yield back the 

balance of my time. Thanks to all of you. 

Mr. SCOTT [presiding]. Thank you. 

The gentlelady from Ohio, Ms. Fudge? 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank all of you for being here. I do just have a couple of 

questions. 

I would like to first ask Mr. Wotorson, what would a redesigned 

American high school look like? 

Mr. WOTORSON. I would go back to my theme of approaching this 

in a comprehensive fashion. First of all, a redesigned high school 

would take into account a lot of the things that you have heard all 

the witnesses talk about today. 

You know, I also go back to my experience just a couple of weeks 

ago visiting with kids at a school in Gaston, North Carolina. The 

discussion was just held about the school day. Well, here was a 

school where kids arrive at 8 o’clock in the morning and they don’t 

leave until 8, 9 o’clock at night. The instruction period actually 

ends at 5:00. Why do these students stay so long? Well, they stay 

so long because they are absolutely and utterly turned on about 
75 

learning, they love the staff, they love the teachers, they feel cared 

for and listened to. That is a fundamental change, I think, that 

should be brought to scale in a lot of schools. 

And that is not to say that teachers, by and large, don’t do this, 

but it is a recognition of the fact that teachers face an enormous 

amount of pressures. You heard Mrs. Kondracke talk about some 

of the deficits that kids bring to the classroom that teachers have 

to contend with. In a school where teachers feel supported, where 

they are appropriately rewarded, where they are allowed to be fairly flexible and all those sorts of things, what you see happening is 

a translation of an atmosphere where the kids are performing better, the teachers are happy to be there, the administrators are 

happy to be there, and overall you have a much more engaging 

learning environment. 

That is a fundamental change or a redesign of the American high 

school. And there are lots of different ways to do it. 

Ms. FUDGE. So could you tell me one? 

Mr. WOTORSON. Oh, well, all of the above. 

Ms. FUDGE. No, how would you do it? I mean, I understand, but 

how would you go about doing it? 

Mr. WOTORSON. So one thing would be the way we pay teachers; 

increase the way we pay teachers. 

Another would be around the way we recruit teachers and bringing them into the classroom. As you well know, in many situations, 

in many cases, when we bring new teachers into the classroom, we 

fail to provide them the kind of professional development that they 

need, and so many new teachers cycle out after a year, 2 years, 3 

years. 

Ms. FUDGE. Okay. So does that mean—and anyone can answer 

this question. I have heard that a number of times today. How do 

we change the process in our colleges and universities? I mean, you 

know, I know we need to have better teachers. How do we do it? 

We talk about how the certification process doesn’t work. How do 

we do it? 

Anybody can answer it. 

Mr. WISE. I will defer to the specialists. 

Ms. PHILLIPS. So, part of it is that we have to start looking at 

teacher effectiveness against student outcomes, as opposed to 

whether they just meet the paper credential, because we know 

that, no matter how teachers enter the system, whether they come 

through an alternative education program and come in mid-career 

or whether they come through traditional certification, that there 

is a distinct difference between teachers in schools. And having 

that effective teacher has more of an impact, year on year, than almost anything else we can do. And lots of the other pieces are critically important, but that is one that is prime. 

So, one thing we have to do is start to get away from the sort 

of paper credentialing and look more at: Who is really producing 

student outcomes? And can we help those who continue to do so 

and keep them in the system? Can we help those who aren’t get 

better over time? Can we make the tough decisions? 

Ms. FUDGE. Well, I mean, can something work as simple as just 

having a master teacher or someone with new teachers over a period of time that prepares them to get better and better? 
76 

It is my understanding, Mr. Chairman, that from 1 to 5 years, 

that is the time in which most teachers really—you determine 

whether they are going to be good teachers or not. 

How do we work with those persons? Because what you are talking about now is after the fact, after they have come out of school, 

they have gotten into an institution or into one of the schools. And 

so, then what do we do with them, at that point? 

Anyone can answer it. 

Mr. GORDON. I would say certainly one thing that could be done 

is create a value-added system. In Pennsylvania, we are beginning 

to create a system where we can track whether a school and then 

individual teacher adds value. And I would say that would be the 

path that you could follow to certify a teacher. 

Schools of education are not adding value. All right? Teachers 

that come through schools of education are no more effective than 

teachers we hire without that credential. So I would say your instincts that it can be done internally by schools or school districts 

more through an apprentice model, I think, is right. 

Ms. PHILLIPS. So, I think there are a variety of ways and a variety of models out there. The key is that, as long as our policies are 

all based around credentialing, we are going to get what we have 

continued to get. 

As we change those policies and make them more about student 

outcomes and whether, in fact, we are accelerating student learning and we let that drive the way that we prepare, the way that 

we reward, the way that we keep, the way that we compensate, the 

way that we performance-manage teachers, then we will get the 

change that we are looking for. 

But just continuing to have our policies not reflect what we really know about research now is going to get us more of the same, 

not something different. 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired. I 

yield back. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

The gentlelady from Hawaii, Ms. Hirono? 

Ms. HIRONO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank the panel. It is a very interesting discussion. 

The students who go to these dropout factories are attending elementary schools and middle schools where, I think, that it is also 

characterized by low test scores and generally from communities 

where there are a preponderance of low-income and minority students. 

So my question has to do with, when do we start the turnaround? When do we start arresting the problem when you are in 

a community where the elementary school, the secondary schools, 

the high school, they are all exhibiting these problems? 

Mr. BALFANZ. I think there are actually two key points. One is, 

obviously, early education, getting kids prepared to succeed when 

they are first experiencing schools. 

The other thing we have to remember is that there is a developmental progression people go through. When you become an adolescent, you make an independent decision to be engaged in school 

again. And so you can have a good early experience, and if we don’t 

pay attention to your adolescence and create an environment that 
77 

is good for you then, some of that investment will walk out the 

door. 

So I think it is both the early years but then also the secondary 

years. And we need interventions at both those points to keep you, 

sort of, on track to success. If we do either one, we are going to 

lose a bunch of kids. 

Ms. HIRONO. So there is a whole continuum that we have to pay 

attention to. And it is not as though we can just go and direct all 

our resources to these dropout factory high schools and hope to 

turn things around. 

Ms. PHILLIPS. No, but we have actually made more progress at 

the elementary level in this country and much limited progress and 

flat-line progress for high school students over time. And there are 

critical things that we know. So when kids hit middle school and 

they are 2 or more years behind, having ways to accelerate their 

learning there becomes more important. It also turns out that the 

ninth grade is a very important year and a very important predictor of whether students can continue to be successful. 

So there are places to intervene along the way. And we believe 

breakthrough innovations, some of which already exist, around how 

do you accelerate students’ learning as they hit those upper grade 

levels much more rapidly? Because it is true that high schools still 

are the most, sort of, inequitable level of our education system. 

Ms. HIRONO. I think those are really important distinctions to 

make, that there are critical points of the students’ development 

where intervention can really make a difference. 

Ms. Kondracke, I note that you said that you had hosted highlevel summits in 50 States, so that includes Hawaii. 

Ms. KONDRACKE. Yes, absolutely. 

Ms. HIRONO. So what was your experience? Would you tell us 

what schools or what communities you had these meetings in in 

Hawaii? I am curious. 

Ms. KONDRACKE. You know, I don’t think we have held our summit yet in Hawaii. But it is coming up. 

Ms. HIRONO. A-ha. You will have to come and let me know. 

Ms. KONDRACKE. It is being scheduled. 

So we have a summit in every State capital and in the 55 cities 

that are contributing the most to the dropout crisis. 

And there is a way to go about this. We sort of have a formula 

and a cookbook that we give the community. We encourage it to be 

owned by the community. But we ask for the business leaders to 

be involved, the civic leaders to be involved, parents, students 

themselves. 

Mississippi was our first State summit, and we had over 1,500 

people there. And then they are asked to produce an action plan. 

So it is more than just one more summit; it really is about action. 

And we have pulled together as much as we know, and most of 

the people at this table have contributed to what we give them in 

the way of a workbook. We give them a workbook of best practices 

and just these indicators we have talked about—early preschool 

readiness, middle school performance and attendance and scores, 

ninth grade transition. 

And one interesting fact that contributes to this problem is 35 

States allow students to drop out at age 16. Now, that is something 
78 

that we can raise as a policy issue, and State by State we can tackle that. So part of it is raising awareness that these are contributing factors. 

Each of these summits so far has been incredibly successful. And 

the people feel that they are part of a national movement, and that 

is the exciting part. 

Ms. HIRONO. So when are you coming to Hawaii? 

Ms. KONDRACKE. I will find out and let you know. 

Ms. HIRONO. All right. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. KONDRACKE. Thank you. 

Ms. HIRONO. I yield back. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

Ms. Kondracke, you mentioned the ninth grade. What about the 

third grade as an indicator? 

Ms. KONDRACKE. Yes, third grade or fourth grade reading scores, 

wherever that is measured, is another important indicator. I would 

add to Dr. Balfanz’s, too, early childhood readiness, school readiness can be best measured by the time they get to the third grade. 

Did they hold on? And are they reading at grade level? And that 

is a huge predictor. In fact, that is a predictor for prison beds, if 

you will. 

And then, middle school, we have talked about the transition to 

ninth grade is fundamental. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you very much. 

The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Holt? 

Mr. HOLT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I thank all the witnesses today. This is really very useful. 

A number of you have spoken about the need for better data, the 

misleading data that currently exists. Mrs. Kondracke talked about 

including attendance data. I would like to explore this idea of how 

we can actually use the data. 

Let’s go beyond just asking whether we can collect data, recognizing that we are not even doing that well yet. But I would like 

to not just get a retrospective diagnosis to see how much damage 

has been done over the past 4 years or even over the past year, but 

see if we can really get diagnostic information that can be used to 

make adjustments in each school, in each class, for each student. 

Not just an autopsy of what killed the student’s academic 

growth, but something that will allow a school district, a principal, 

a teacher to know which students in which classrooms are making 

gains or not making gains, not just in general but on specific concepts and with specific standard skills. 

I know this is possible because some schools in New Jersey are 

actually doing it. My question for you is, is it asking too much that 

this be done everywhere? 

Ms. KONDRACKE. We absolutely must have—— 

Mr. HOLT. And I would like as brief a comment from as many 

of you as we can get. 

Ms. KONDRACKE. I will make one quick comment. 

We absolutely must have real-time data. And technology allows 

that, and so that is fundamental. 

We just worked with Gallup to produce a student poll, giving the 

students’ point of view, in real time, that day. And we can meas-
79 

ure, to the student and to the school level, where the kids are engaged, where they are doing well, and where they feel hopeful. 

And the sad part is, half the kids in this country do not feel 

hopeful. This was a 70,000-student sample. That is real-time data. 

So if you learn that half the kids in your school don’t feel hopeful, 

you can begin to work on some solutions that get them re-engaged 

and believing in their own future. 

Mr. HOLT. Thank you. 

And let me say to Governor Wise, since he referred to the METRIC Act that Representative McCarthy and I had in the last Congress, because it didn’t pass we thought we would make it even 

more difficult by making it more comprehensive. And we will introduce a more comprehensive version of it in this Congress. 

Mr. WISE. Which is critical, because you are going to be—whether it is the teacher in the classroom making day-to-day decisions 

with hopefully good real-time data all the way to the decisions that 

you are going to make here in this committee room that will involve billions of dollars and millions of lives, you have to have good 

data. If we are going to have an outcome-based, standards-based, 

and empirically based system of education, we can’t do it without 

good data systems at every level. 

Mr. HOLT. Thank you. Thank you very much, Governor Wise. 

If there is time—— 

Mr. BALFANZ. Yeah, I think that the other thing—— 

Mr. HOLT. Dr. Wotorson actually had some things to say earlier 

in his testimony. 

Please. 

Mr. BALFANZ. Okay. 

I think, quickly, the thing that makes it go from a few schools 

to a lot of schools is recognizing that teachers are going to have 

been to be trained to use the data and given time to do the data 

analysis. So that is going to have to factor into our redesign of the 

school day. 

We can’t ask them, ‘‘Well, just in your free time, look at the data 

and figure it out.’’ We are going to have give them training structure and ability to use the data effectively, as well as just putting 

it in their hands, but then giving them the ability to actually act 

upon it and figure it out. 

Mr. WOTORSON. I was just going to offer really quickly, in response to your question about whether or not we are asking too 

much of authorities, I absolutely think we are not. We don’t have 

the luxury, quite frankly, to continue to allow the vast majority of 

our kids to no longer be successful and to drop out of school. 

And so, given the fact that historically we have tried a number 

of things in other areas in our country and in our economy, we 

have spent an incredible amount of money on wars, on any number 

of things, but the most critical thing that sits before us right now 

is the future of this country as it relates to what is going to happen 

to these young kids. And so it is about time that we devote the resources, we make the hard choices, commit the energy to roll up 

our sleeves and do the hard work. 

Mr. HOLT. Do any of you know of any school systems that have 

implemented data systems that have, you know, found the teachers 
80 

and the school systems that would actually know how to use the 

good data systems and applied it to student learning? 

Mr. GORDON. Absolutely. Certainly, that is why, every 6 weeks, 

Mastery closes down and the grown-ups get together and review 

the data and plan for the next 6 weeks. Uncommon Schools, which 

operates schools in Newark, in New Jersey, does the same. We 

learned a lot from them. There is, I think, a lot of work being done. 

But, again, I would re-emphasize that none of this work would 

have occurred had not the outcome been clear that we are accountable for. Because if I am accountable for that outcome, of course 

I am going to try to collect data; of course I am going to try it make 

sure that data is useful; of course I am going to train my staff to 

respond to the data. Unless that goal is set at the end of the road, 

everything else is not going to follow. 

Ms. PHILLIPS. There are a number of places, and we can share 

them with you. The problem is that part of what prevents us from 

being able to scale what really works in this country and to share 

practice is that it happens in individual places and everybody is 

having to reinvent their whole system. Not that systems can’t be 

different, but as long as they don’t share common standards and 

are able to talk to each other, then we continue to get these isolated pockets rather than teachers being able to lift up and share 

their practice. 

I was in a school last week where teachers came together on an 

ongoing basis to share real-time data and talk about student performance. It happens in classroom after classroom, but we aren’t 

able to lift it up and share it across this country. And that is a sad 

thing. 

Mr. HOLT. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

The gentlelady from California, Ms. Davis? 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much. 

To the panel, I appreciate your being here and also citing San 

Diego as having some programs that do work. They are, just as you 

described, though, pockets. And that is what is difficult. 

You haven’t spoken too much about the training of principals and 

the role that they play. Clearly, leadership, we know, is a big factor 

here. How do you see that, then, as scaling up? I mean, is it the 

kind of academies that make a difference? Are they just wonderfully gifted people who just really know how to put these teams together? There are barriers to putting teams together; we know 

that. 

So where does the leadership of the key individual there play? 

And how do you see that in terms of what we as Congress can do? 

Any of you, all of you. 

Mr. WISE. I think you have just touched on what is one of the 

fastest emerging discussions about the role of leadership. Quality 

teachers need good leaders, and it makes it much easier for a quality teacher to be a quality teacher. 

And so, one role that Congress could be looking at—I mean, 

there are examples of efforts to prepare principals. But one area 

that Congress could be looking at is, A, what is the best research? 

Second is the academy concept. It may be that we are going to 

be needing to look at so-called West Point-type approaches for 
81 

school leadership. I also know that other organizations are also 

looking to see how they can assist in this. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Excuse me. Can I ask you, Governor—and I will let 

you continue—but we do have some, certainly. Harvard has an exceptional school. Have we gone back to see, what are those outcomes? I mean, the principals trained under those programs, are 

they somehow able to do what other principals cannot do? Or do 

they face the same barriers in creating the highly enthusiastic 

teams that come together? 

Mr. WISE. Let me turn to Dr. Balfanz or Dr. Phillips, if they 

want to jump in on this one. 

Mr. BALFANZ. The one thing I think is important to keep in 

mind, especially when we are trying to turn around sort of large 

middle and high schools—like, California has many large middle 

and high schools, and those schools have easily 150 teachers in 

them. And we make a mistake when we think that one lone principal can ride in there with the best training in the world and 

transform 150 adults. 

So I think we also have to think about training leadership teams 

together, the principal and his leadership team, his assistant principals, his counselors, and actually put some of the money in our 

school transformation things to give them the time to be trained together and even have a residency in a successful similar school. 

There is no better training than real training on the ground, not 

theoretical but be in a building that has the challenges that you 

are going to have, that is working, and spend time therewith your 

leadership team so you can all have a common vision and a common experience. And then when you go to your school, you are already working together with common understanding. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I mean, there is a medical model that we know does 

work in training exceptional people licensed. The national board 

certification, for example, tends to look at that. I know you have 

suggested that, well, certification doesn’t exactly matter. Reflective 

teaching probably matters a great deal, but that doesn’t have to 

necessarily be a national board-certified teacher. 

We are all searching, I think, for how to do this. And, again, getting back to the Congress, when we are looking at accelerated 

learning, if we had better ninth-grade transition teams that actually really thought through that period for those students who are 

entering who are truly, you know, two, three, four grades below 

level, do we bring those folks to a central place to learn from someone? 

Ms. KONDRACKE. I think the genius of the American education 

system is there is local innovation. And we have seen that in our 

college system. We have the greatest postsecondary system in the 

world, but we have failed to introduce that kind of innovation, creativity, flexibility, measurement, accountability. We have somehow 

failed to introduce that or expect that of our secondary schools. 

And so, Congress can incentivize by offering innovation grants, 

opportunity grants. They can motivate. Dollars count, and we are 

cash-strapped for our education system. And so I would just be 

sure that the moneys that you decide to allocate reward outcomes, 

and then that you use your power to set some national standards. 
82 

So you can set a framework and you can incentivize more excellence and more creativity by offering resources. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time is up. 

Mr. GORDON. If I could just give a snapshot, at least in terms of 

the schools that we operate, the leadership training that is done by 

the traditional schools of education does not add value at all. And 

I think your instincts of looking at the medical model and apprenticeship model is certainly a lot more helpful, in our experience. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Payne? 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. 

I guess I have a question that we know that the better-trained 

teachers certainly generally perform better. And I just wonder if 

anyone—and you may have mentioned it in your testimony, and, 

as you know, I came late, or I will tell you I came late if you didn’t 

know it anyway. 

But the question is, how do any of you have any suggestions on 

how we can try to attract real quality teachers to the poorer 

schools and in the difficult parts? I mean, human nature and even 

the educational system, you know, after you get tenure and you can 

move up, you know, you have an opportunity to move to a school 

where the higher performers—generally speaking, I guess. That is 

the way it used to be when I taught. 

Is there any way that we can try to keep—or do you have suggestions how we can keep the top teachers in the toughest schools? It 

kind of is counter-human-nature, I guess. 

Mr. WOTORSON. If I may, one of the perhaps easiest and perhaps 

most obvious would be to really incent those teachers going into 

those particularly needy areas, incenting their going in terms of 

paying, in terms of innovative things like assistance with home 

purchasing. Any range of things that have been tried but on a relatively small scale that are really critically important that we scale 

up and start doing now. 

Mr. BALFANZ. I think the other thing to consider, though, is that 

that can get them in the door, but to keep them you have to fix 

the school. What drives teachers out of these schools is not so much 

the pay and the hours, it is the craziness. ‘‘The school doesn’t work; 

my efforts are in vain.’’ 

So I think there is both a strategy to get them in, but to keep 

them we have to realize we have to transform the school. If the 

school works, the teachers will stay. They have the passion, they 

are feeling successful. They will want to be there. What drives 

them out is when they feel the school is crazy. 

Ms. PHILLIPS. It is one of those very difficult and complex problems for which we don’t have a magic bullet or a ready answer, but 

it is around things that people have said. 

It is not only the compensation, which is an issue and the fact 

that you need to incent teachers to do that; it is also about some 

of the other conversations. Do they have a good school leader that 

they can rely on? Do they have access to their colleagues? Do they 

have access to the kind of materials and things they believe they 

need when they walk in the classroom every day? 

But all of those things are within our power to change. 
83 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. 

Also, in our schools, we find that there are, you know, absenteeism. And I don’t know if the, you know, the level of the school have 

increased absenteeism. 

But what do we do about the substitute question? I mean, the 

school is going to get substitutes. Is there any suggestion on how 

that system could be improved so that there is real education going 

on if there is a substitute for that day or week or if a teacher gets 

sick and is going to be out for a long period of time? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. As a superintendent, I had to try a variety of 

things, because—and the first district where I was a superintendent, I had high substitute rates often and a difficulty in recruiting teachers in. So, over time, I had to try all the things we 

have talked about today in order to create an environment in the 

district where teachers wanted to be, and wanted to be on an ongoing basis. 

But then I had to do a number of creative things, like create a 

more permanent pool of substitutes and train those and assign 

those out to buildings, so that when a teacher was absent there 

was a familiar face that was familiar with the school in an ongoing 

way. 

So there are a number of solutions, a variety of sort of creative 

and innovative solutions that people use. Part of the key, then, is 

giving schools and school operators and school principals and stuff 

flexibility to use those. 

Mr. PAYNE. And how important do you think class size is? Would 

anybody like to touch that? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. There is no doubt that, you know, there are certain 

points at which class size becomes untenable. But the problem we 

have in the country is that there is very limited evidence about the 

impact of class size except in some of the early years. And, in fact, 

there is some growing evidence that having an effective teacher is 

far more powerful than reducing class size not by one or two students, but actually by several students. 

And so, I think as we think about how we are allocating dollars 

in this country and we think about things from master’s degrees 

to class size, we should take a really hard look at what the evidence says and decide if that is the most effective way to allocate 

our dollars, or when, in fact, it is the most effective way to allocate 

our dollars, and clearly bears a really hard look. 

Mr. BALFANZ. And to answer that, one of the best uses of the 

stimulus dollars, to really at the secondary level do the studies to 

figure out what is the best way to use extended time and what is 

the best way strategically to use class-size reduction. 

Mr. PAYNE. Since my time has expired, one last question before 

it totally expires, just about the—we are having this new surge in 

the movement for charter schools. I mean, charter schools are here, 

and some of them are very good, and et cetera and et cetera. But 

it seems like there is a new national movement, especially on the 

East Coast, to almost make it all charters. 

If everyone could just give me a quick answer on the question of, 

are public schools, the way they are performing, are they still relevant today? Or is this charter avalanche that is coming down, 
84 

which is certainly well-orchestrated and well-funded, is that going 

to be the wave of the future? 

And if we could just go right down. 

Mr. BALFANZ. Sure. I think they are an important tool in the tool 

basket, and in certain places they have been very successful. But 

when we look at the data nationally, we see just as many dropout 

factory charter schools as we see other high schools. So just charter 

schools alone doesn’t solve the problem. 

Mr. PAYNE. Yes? 

Mr. WOTORSON. I would largely agree with Dr. Balfanz. We 

should look at charters, particularly those that have been successful and that are successful and give us good models, we should look 

at those for implementing things in the regular public schools. 

But we shouldn’t look at charters as the panacea to the problem. 

We ought to commit ourselves to fixing our public schools and 

learning where we can. 

Ms. KONDRACKE. Building on that, the lessons to be learned from 

great charter schools—and there are uneven successes, but there 

are some great charter schools—the lessons to be learned is—I 

think the genius behind charter schools is the innovation that is allowed, the autonomy, the management, the opportunity to make 

decisions and be the master of the destiny of your school and your 

environment, and to drive results and feel pride and build a team 

and feel pride. And if we can take that kind of a lesson and that 

kind of a genius breakthrough and infuse that into the public 

school system, we could have something. 

Mr. GORDON. I think we should be encouraging schools that work 

to grow in scale, be they charter or district. And I wouldn’t place 

a value on one or the other. I think the value of having a system 

like that is that you create an accountability-based system that 

serves taxpayers and serves students. 

So I would avoid the question of charter versus district and focus 

on: Are we expanding schools that work and are we eliminating 

schools that don’t? 

Ms. PHILLIPS. Yeah, the key issue is schools that work. We funded charters as a Foundation for a period of time, as well as districts and States. And we will continue to try to put high-quality 

choices in front of students, high-quality public school choices. 

I think the key is, if you look at schools that work across this 

country, whether they are in districts or whether they are independent charters, they all carry a set of ingredients that we have 

talked about today, from being really clear about their standards 

and curriculum, to having good data systems, to enticing really effective teachers and leaders. 

And when we talk to innovative school district leaders, when we 

talk to charter leaders, when we talk to anybody who is really getting outcomes for kids, they will say those are the things we need, 

and we need the flexibility to carry them out, as well as we need 

to continue to push the edges of innovation. 

Mr. WISE. The key, to me, isn’t whether or not you call it charter 

or public; it is what are the elements in it. And just as Dr. Phillips 

said, every time we look at a school that is beating all of the odds, 

we see the same elements, whatever it is called. 
85 

And another couple of those elements: personalization, there is a 

direct personal relationship for students in that school; and engagement. Those students are engaged; it is not ‘‘drill and kill.’’ 

So it is the elements that are important. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, thank you very much. 

And I want to thank our witnesses for their testimony. You 

know, this is really a case of pay me now or pay me later. We have 

heard that you can predict from the third grade which direction, 

which trajectory the children are on. 

And you really have to wonder what kind of people would look 

at a child in the third grade that can’t read, knowing that that 

problem will put them on a trajectory towards prisons, and start 

building prisons rather than come up with some literacy programs 

to get them back on another trajectory. That other trajectory is not 

only more civilized, but it is also less expensive. And that is essentially what we have been doing. And the testimony we have heard 

today outlines the fact that we could do a lot better. 

So I want to thank all of our witnesses. 

And, without objection, members will have 14 days to submit additional materials or questions for the hearing record. 

And, without objection, the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:24 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

Æ