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THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

ACT REAUTHORIZATION BLUEPRINT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

EDUCATION AND LABOR

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH 17, 2010

Serial No. 111–52

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 

Judy Chu, California 

John Kline, Minnesota, 

Senior Republican Member 

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin 

Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California 

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 

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 

Barrett Karr, Minority Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

Hearing held on March 17, 2010 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of Members: 

Kline, Hon. John, Senior Republican Member, Committee on Education 

and Labor ...................................................................................................... 5

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

Miller, Hon. George, Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor ......... 2

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4

Questions submitted for the record ......................................................... 45

Scott, Hon. Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Virginia, policy brief: ‘‘Schools Without Diversity: Education 

Management Organizations, Charter Schools, and the Demographic 

Stratification of the American School System,’’ Internet address to ........ 31

Statement of Witnesses: 

Duncan, Hon. Arne, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education ................... 8

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

Responses to questions for the record ..................................................... 52

(1)

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S

ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION 

ACT REAUTHORIZATION BLUEPRINT 

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

U.S. House of Representatives 

Committee on Education and Labor 

Washington, DC

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:45 p.m., in room 2175, 

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

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Miller, Kildee, Payne, Andrews, Scott, 

Woolsey, Hinojosa, McCarthy, Tierney, Holt, Davis, Grijalva, 

Bishop of New York, Loebsack, Hirono, Altmire, Hare, Clarke, 

Courtney, Shea-Porter, Polis, Tonko, Pierluisi, Sablan, Titus, Chu, 

Kline, Petri, McKeon, Hoekstra, Castle, Souder, Ehlers, Biggert, 

Platts, McMorris Rodgers, Bishop of Utah, Guthrie, Cassidy, Roe, 

and Thompson. 

Staff Present: Tylease Alli, Hearing Clerk; Andra Belknap, Press 

Assistant; Calla Brown, Staff Assistant, Education; Jamie Fasteau, 

Senior Education Policy Advisor; Denise Forte, Director of Education Policy; Ruth Friedman, Senior Education Policy Advisor, 

David Hartzler, Systems Administrator; Fred Jones, Junior Legislative Associate, Education; Sharon Lewis, Senior Disability Policy 

Advisor; Sadie Marshall, Chief Clerk; Bryce McKibbon, Staff Assistant; Charmaine Mercer, Senior Education Policy Advisor; Alex 

Nock, Deputy Staff Director; Lillian Pace, Policy Advisor, Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education; Helen Pajcic, Education Policy Associate; Kristina Peterson, 

Legislative Fellow, Education; Rachel Racusen, Communications 

Director; Julie Radocchia, Senior Education Policy Advisor; Meredith Regine, Junior Legislative Associate; Alexandria Ruiz, Administrative Assistant to Director of Education Policy; Melissa 

Salmanowitz, Press Secretary; Mark Zuckerman; Staff Director; 

Stephanie Arras, Minority Legislative Assistant; James Bergeron, 

Minority Deputy Director of Education and Human Services Policy; 

Kirk Boyle, Minority General Counsel; Allison Dembeck, Minority 

Professional Staff; Amy Raaf Jones, Minority Higher Education 

Counsel and Senior Advisor; Barrett Karr, Minority Staff Director; 

Alexa Marrero, Minority Communications Director; Susan Ross, 

Minority Director of Education and Human Services Policy; Mandy 

Schaumburg, Minority Education Policy Counsel; and Linda Stevens, Minority Chief Clerk/Assistant to the General Counsel. 

2

Chairman MILLER. A quorum being present, the committee will 

come to order. 

The committee meets today to hear from Secretary of Education 

Arne Duncan on the blueprint that was made public earlier this 

week and to discuss that with members of the committee. This was 

done at the urging of the bipartisan group in the House and the 

Senate that the Secretary has been meeting with and that has 

been meeting on the reauthorization of the ESEA. So thank you, 

Mr. Secretary, for doing that. 

I will recognize myself at the beginning, and then recognize Congressman Kline. 

Today, Secretary Duncan joins us to discuss President Obama’s 

newly released blueprint for rewriting the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, as I said, for 

being with us. 

Two weeks ago, you outlined President’s Obama vision for providing a world-class education to every child in this country. You 

told us that the status quo is failing our students, you told us that 

a strong education system is key to our long-term economic stability, and members of this committee on both sides of the aisle 

agree. 

Right now, even our best students are performing at lower levels 

in math than students in 22 other countries. Nearly 80 percent of 

U.S. Students are entering the ninth grade unable to read at grade 

level. This has to change. It is time to overhaul and improve ESEA 

so that the law finally lives up to its promise, to provide an equal 

and excellent education for every child in America. 

These improvements will require dramatic reforms to regain our 

role as a world leader in education. But if we are successful, I believe we can build a solid economic foundation for future generations. 

What our students need to succeed isn’t a mystery. They need a 

challenging and rigorous learning environment tied to college and 

career-ready standards. They need creative and effective teachers 

who hold them to high standards and who can adjust their teaching strategies when needed. 

Innovative reformers across the country at the local level are 

making significant progress in many of these areas. Now at the 

Federal level, we have to match their courage to disrupt the system 

and push the envelope. 

I believe that the blueprint that Secretary Duncan presents us 

offers a strong roadmap for this kind of systemwide change. Eight 

years ago I helped write our current version of the ESEA, the No 

Child Left Behind Act, and in many ways the law was transformational. It helped shine a bright light on what was really going 

on in our schools. 

It told all of us, lawmakers, educators, school boards and the 

community, that it was no longer acceptable for any student to be 

invisible. It showed us how all students and schools were faring, 

not just the richest district or the highest achieving students. The 

results were difficult for many to swallow, but it showed us the 

value of accountability for our students. It provoked a conversation 

about education in this country that has gotten us to where we are 

today. 

3

But we know we didn’t get everything right. The blueprint we 

will hear about today rightfully gives some control back to the 

States and districts to allow them to determine their own best 

strategies to turn around their lowest performing schools, and it 

switches the conversation from one about proficiency to one about 

ensuring that our students graduate ready for college and a career. 

We now have an incredible opportunity to help reshape the future of this country. The Obama administration has already 

launched game-changing reforms for our schools. Many States are 

taking unprecedented steps in the right direction. 

In my home State of California, the State legislature removed 

the firewall that prevented student achievement data from being 

linked to teacher performance, a move that was a long time coming. And in order to qualify for a second round of Race to the Top 

funding, California recently released the list of its 187 persistently 

unperforming schools. California’s recent actions and the actions of 

so many other States have signaled they are ready to help fix 

schools that are chronically failing our students. 

As we take a close look at the administration’s blueprint today, 

I would like to lay out some of the fundamental goals of what we 

must address in this rewrite. We need to reset the bar for our students and for the Nation. 

First, we need to ensure that every child can be taught by a 

great teacher, especially those who need them the most. Teachers 

are our single most important factor in determining student 

achievement, but all of the burden cannot fall on their shoulders. 

Yet we have 14 percent of our new teachers who stopped teaching 

in their first year, more than a third leave teaching after 3 years, 

almost 50 percent leave after 5 years. That would suggest there is 

something wrong with their workplace. We can’t expect teachers to 

stay in a system that doesn’t treat them with the same level of professionalism as other careers. We can support great teaching in 

classrooms across this country by providing them with the right 

tools, like extended planning time, more opportunities for career 

development, and the resources necessary to carry out their tasks, 

and by making sure that they have data at their fingertips on how 

the children are learning and how we can make success an outcome 

for every child. 

Second, the quality of a child’s education should not be determined by their ZIP Code. Every school in every State needs to hold 

their students to rigorous internationally benchmarked standards 

that prepare them for college or a career. 

Third, there are districts and schools across the country seeing 

incredible success after years of stagnant results. These schools 

were given room to innovate. They kept their focus on achieving 

the highest levels and holding themselves accountable for all students. We must encourage States and districts to innovate and to 

think differently while maintaining high standards for all. 

Lastly, we have to ensure that we are reaching every student 

with the right resources in every classroom. Secretary Duncan, you 

have said repeatedly that our students get one chance at an education. One chance. I think the President’s blueprint lays important 

markers for where we begin this rewrite. It will help build the kind 

4

of world-class school system our economy needs and our children 

deserve. 

Secretary Duncan, again, thank you for being with us today. 

Thank you for your leadership and your vision. I look forward to 

your testimony. 

With that, I would like to recognize the senior Republican on the 

committee, Congressman John Kline. 

[The statement of Mr. Miller follows:]

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

Education and Labor 

Good afternoon. 

Today Secretary Duncan joins us to discuss the Obama’s administration’s newly 

released blueprint for rewriting the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for meeting with us again. 

Two weeks ago, you outlined President Obama’s vision for providing a world class 

education to every child in this country. 

You told us that the status quo is failing our students. 

You told us that a strong education system is key to our long-term economic stability. 

Members of this committee, on both sides of the aisle, agree. 

Right now, even our best students are performing at a lower level in math than 

students in 22 other countries. 

Nearly 80 percent of U.S. students are entering the ninth grade unable to read 

at grade level. 

This has to change. 

It’s time to overhaul and improve ESEA so that the law finally lives up to its 

promise: to provide an equal and excellent education for every child in America. 

These improvements will require dramatic reforms to regain our role as a world 

leader in education. 

But if we are successful, I believe we can build a solid economic foundation for 

our future generations. 

What our students need to succeed isn’t a mystery. 

They need a challenging and rigorous learning environment tied to college and career ready standards. 

They need creative, effective teachers who hold them to high standards—and can 

adjust their teaching strategies when needed. 

Innovative reformers across the country, at the local level, are making significant 

progress in these areas. 

Now, at the federal level, we have to match their courage to disrupt the system 

and push the envelope. 

I believe that the blueprint Secretary Duncan presents to us offers a strong roadmap for this kind of system-wide change. 

Eight years ago, I helped write our current version of ESEA, the No Child Left 

Behind Act. 

In many ways, the law was transformational. 

It finally helped shine a bright light on what was really going on in our schools. 

It told all of us—lawmakers, educators, parents, school boards—that it was no 

longer acceptable for any student to be invisible. 

It showed us how all students and schools were faring, not just the richest districts or the highest-achieving students. 

The results were difficult for many to swallow. 

But it showed us the value of accountability for our students. 

It provoked a conversation about education in this country that has gotten us 

where we are today. 

But we know we didn’t get everything right. 

The blueprint we’ll hear about today rightfully gives some control back to the 

states and districts to allow them to determine their own best strategies to turn 

around their lowest performing schools. 

And it switches the conversation from one about proficiency to one about ensuring 

our students graduate ready for college and career. 

We now have an incredible opportunity to help reshape the future of this country. 

The Obama administration has already launched game-changing reforms for our 

schools. 

Many states are taking unprecedented steps in the right direction. 

5

In my home state of California, the state legislature removed the firewall that 

prevented student achievement data from being linked to teacher performance—a 

move that was a long time coming. 

And in order to qualify for the second round of Race to the Top funding, California 

recently released its list of 187 persistently underperforming schools. 

But California’s recent actions, and the actions of so many other states, have signaled they are ready to help fix the schools that are chronically failing our students. 

As we take a close look at the administration’s blueprint today, I’d like to lay out 

some fundamental goals for what we must address in this rewrite. 

We need to reset the bar for our students and the nation. 

First, we need to ensure that every child can be taught by a great teacher, especially those who need them the most. 

Teachers are the single most important factor in determining student achievement. 

But 14 percent of new teachers stop teaching after their first year. More than a 

third leave teaching after three years. Almost 50 percent leave within five years. 

We can’t expect teachers to stay in a system that doesn’t treat them with the 

same level of professionalism as other careers. 

We can support great teaching in classrooms across this country by providing 

them with the right tools, like extended planning time, and more opportunities for 

career development. 

And by making sure that they have the data at their fingertips on how children 

are learning so we can understand how to better educate every child. 

Second, the quality of a child’s education should not be determined by their 

zipcode. Every school, in every state needs to hold their students to rigorous, internationally benchmarked standards that prepares them for college and careers. 

Third, there are districts and schools across the country seeing incredible success 

after years of stagnant results. 

These schools were given the room to innovate. They’ve kept their focus on achieving at the highest levels and holding themselves accountable for all students. 

We must encourage states and districts to innovate, to think outside the box while 

maintaining high standards for all. 

Lastly, we have to ensure we’re reaching every student with the right resources 

in every classroom. 

Secretary Duncan, you have said repeatedly that our students get one chance at 

an education. 

One chance. 

I think the President’s blueprint lays the important markers as we begin this rewrite. 

It will help build the kind of world class school system our economy needs and 

our children deserve, 

Secretary Duncan, thank you again for being here. 

Thank you for your leadership and your vision. 

I look forward to hearing your testimony. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I especially want to thank the Secretary for being with us today 

and coming back so soon after your last appearance. Actually, very 

few Cabinet secretaries have your appetite for this much punishment. 

We are here this afternoon to discuss the administration’s blueprint for ESEA, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 

These 45 pages have been anxiously awaited by many in the education community, the media, and, of course, here in Congress. 

For the last several weeks, we have been meeting at the Member 

and staff levels on a bipartisan basis with our counterparts in the 

Senate, and this blueprint is viewed by many as the first attempt 

by any one of those parties to put pen to paper and offer details 

on any substantive propositions. I appreciate the way Secretary 

Duncan has framed this document, and I hope we will keep his 

words in mind today. 

As the Secretary says, this is a blueprint, not a bill. Congress 

writes the laws, and I am pleased to say in the case of the ElemenVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:53 Jan 04, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\111TH\FC\111-52\55303.TXT HBUD PsN: DICK
6

tary and Secondary Education Act, for now we are starting with a 

blank sheet of paper. Of course, we know the blueprint will serve 

as a jumping-off point in many ways, giving us policy direction also 

to consider, and finding proposals we like and some we do not like 

so much. 

The Secretary and I have spoken candidly on several occasions, 

so I know he was not surprised to learn that I have some questions 

and concerns about the direction of certain policies we will discuss 

today. 

One such concern is the exclusion of public school choice in supplemental education services—most of us know as tutoring—from 

the required interventions for struggling schools. These tools would 

become optional but no longer required for some struggling schools. 

In reality, this means few if any students would have access to 

the immediate lifeline that tutoring and transfers provide. These 

concerns are precisely why we are here. I know there are Members 

on both sides of the aisle who hope to better understand the policies outlined in the blueprint and their potential consequences, 

both intended and unintended. 

I try to view the No Child Left Behind Act through the eyes of 

my constituents, the teachers, principals, superintendents and 

school board members who implement its requirements, and the 

parents who experience its consequences directly. From that perspective, I have come to the conclusion that the Federal Government is too involved in the day-to-day operation of our schools, the 

Federal requirements are too prescriptive, and the measures of success are not nuanced enough. 

As Congress prepares to write the next version of the Elementary 

and Secondary Education Act, I hope we do more than simply cast 

aside the NCLB name and expand its requirements. I believe we 

need to have a meaningful conversation about the appropriate Federal role in our schools. 

My fellow Republicans and I have developed a set of principles 

to help guide that reauthorization reform process. Briefly, we believe that to ensure student success in the 21st century, we must 

focus on what is best for students, parents, teachers, and communities. 

Four tenets that guide us are restoring local control, empowering 

parents, letting teachers teach, and protecting the taxpayers. These 

principles will guide us as we come to the table to help develop an 

approach to education policy that puts students before special interests and recognizes that innovation truly does come from the 

ground up. 

I know we are all anxious to hear from the Secretary, so I will 

close by simply thanking the Secretary once again for his approach. 

Whether we agree on every policy or not, the open and bipartisan 

process has truly been a breath of fresh air. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The statement of Mr. Kline follows:]

Prepared Statement of Hon. John Kline, Senior Republican Member, 

Committee on Education and Labor 

I thank the gentleman for yielding and I especially want to thank the Secretary 

for coming back before the committee so soon after your last appearance. There are 

very few cabinet secretaries with your appetite for punishment. 

7

We’re here this morning to discuss the Administration’s blueprint for ESEA. 

These 45 pages were anxiously awaited by many in the education community, the 

media, and of course here in Congress. 

For the last several weeks we’ve been meeting at the member and staff levels on 

a bipartisan basis with our counterparts in the Senate, and this blueprint is viewed 

by many as the first attempt by any one of those parties to put pen to paper and 

offer details on substantive reform options. 

I appreciate the way Secretary Duncan has framed this document, and I hope 

we’ll keep his words in mind today. As the Secretary says, this is a blueprint—not 

a bill. 

Congress writes the laws, and I’m pleased to say that in the case of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, for now, we’re starting with a blank sheet of 

paper. 

Of course, we know the blueprint will serve as a jumping off point in many 

ways—giving us policy directions to consider, and finding proposals that we like and 

some we do not like as much. 

The Secretary and I have spoken candidly on several occasions, so I know he was 

not surprised to learn that I have some questions and concerns about the direction 

of certain policies we’ll discuss today. One such concern is the exclusion of public 

school choice and Supplemental Educational Services—what most of us know as tutoring—from the required interventions for struggling schools. 

These tools would become optional—but no longer required—for some struggling 

schools. In reality, this means few if any students would have access to the immediate lifeline that tutoring and transfers provide. 

These concerns are precisely why we are here. I know there are members on both 

sides of the aisle who hope to better understand the policies outlined in the blueprint and their potential consequences—both intended and unintended. 

I try to view the No Child Left Behind Act through the eyes of my constituents—

the teachers, principals, superintendents, and school board members who implement 

its requirements and the parents who experience its consequences directly. From 

that perspective, I have come to the conclusion that the federal government is too 

involved in the day-to-day operation of our schools. The federal requirements are too 

prescriptive, and the measures of success are not nuanced enough. 

As Congress prepares to write the next version of the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act, I hope we do more than simply cast aside the NCLB name and expand its requirements. I believe we need to have a meaningful conversation about 

the appropriate federal role in our schools. 

My fellow Republicans and I have developed a set of principles to help guide that 

reauthorization and reform process. Briefly, we believe that to ensure student success in the 21st century, we must focus on what’s best for students, parents, teachers, and communities. 

The four tenets that guide us are: 

• Restoring local control; 

• Empowering parents; 

• Letting teachers teach; and 

• Protecting taxpayers. 

These principles will guide us as we come to the table to help develop an approach 

to education policy that puts students before special interests and recognizes that 

innovation truly does come from the ground up. 

I know we are all anxious to hear from the Secretary, so I will close by simply 

thanking the Secretary once again for his approach. Whether we agree on every policy or not, the open and bipartisan process has truly been a breath of fresh air. 

I yield back. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you very much. 

Let me take a moment. Although Secretary Duncan needs no introduction to this committee, this is being broadcast, so I would 

like to introduce Secretary Duncan. 

He was appointed to be Secretary of Education by President 

Barack Obama. That is rather obvious. Prior to his appointment, 

Secretary Duncan served as Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago 

Public Schools and became the longest-serving big-city education 

superintendent in the country. 

8

As the Chief Executive Officer, Secretary Duncan raised education standards and performance, he improved teacher and principal quality and increased learning options. During his 71⁄2-year 

tenure, he united education reformers, teachers, principals and 

business stakeholders behind an aggressive education reform agenda. 

As Secretary of Education, he has spearheaded major education 

reforms, including The Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation 

Fund. I know I am not alone in saying that he has done a tremendous amount in his first year to improve educational opportunities 

for children across this country. 

We welcome you and thank you for joining us. You proceed in the 

manner in which you are most comfortable. We are going to allot 

you a couple of extra minutes here because this is a big subject 

with a big blueprint, and we want to make sure you are comfortable explaining it to the members of the committee. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ARNE DUNCAN, SECRETARY, U.S. 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Secretary DUNCAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, Representative Kline, and to all the members of the committee, it is 

a true honor to be here with you today. I want to thank each of 

you for your hard work and commitment on education. 

I believe that education is the one true path out of poverty. It 

is the great equalizer in our society, and as the President said in 

his weekly address on Saturday, there are few issues that speak 

more directly to the long-term prosperity of our Nation than education. Education is the one issue that must rise above ideology 

and above politics. We can all agree that we have to educate our 

way to a better economy. 

We currently have an unprecedented opportunity to reform our 

Nation’s schools so they are preparing all of our students for success in college and in careers. Today, Chairman Miller, as you 

pointed out, the status quo clearly is not good enough. 

Consider just a few statistics: 27 percent of America’s young people drop out of high school. That means 1.2 million teenagers are 

leaving our schools for the streets. That is economically 

unsustainable and morally unacceptable. 

In a recent international test of math literacy, our 15-year-olds 

scored 24th out of 29 developed nations. In science, our 15-yearolds ranked 17th out of 29 nations. And just 40 percent of young 

people earn a 2-year or 4 year college degree. The U.S. now ranks 

tenth in the world in the rank of college completion for 25- to 34-

year-olds. A generation ago, we were first in the world. But we 

have fallen behind. The global achievement gap is growing. If we 

are serious about preparing our Nation’s young people to compete 

in a global economy, we must do better. 

Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, we have 

built a foundation for reform. All States are pointing to the 

progress they are making in four areas of reform: raising standards; developing and recruiting excellent teachers and leaders; 

using data to inform instruction; and turning around our lowest 

performing schools. 

9

In The Race to the Top Fund, we have identified 16 finalists for 

the first phase. We have invited all the finalists to present about 

their plans, and we will be announcing the winners during the first 

week in April. The winners will blaze the trail on reforms that will 

improve student achievement for decades to come. 

To promote reforms in every State, I am committed to working 

with you in 2010 to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act. It has been more than 8 years since Congress last 

authorized ESEA through the No Child Left Behind Act. That is 

the longest gap between reauthorizations in the 45-year history of 

ESEA. 

We all recognize that NCLB had its flaws, and the time to fix 

those problems is now. My staff and I have reached out to listen 

and learn from people across the country and to hear what they 

think about NCLB. My senior staff and I visited every State on our 

listening and learning tour. We met with parents, teachers, and 

students themselves. We have engaged in literally hundreds of conversations with stakeholders representing all sections of the education community. 

In all of our conversations, we have heard a consistent message 

that our schools aren’t expecting enough of our students. We need 

to raise our standards so that all students who are graduating are 

prepared to succeed in college and the workplace. 

We have also heard that people aren’t looking to Washington for 

answers. They don’t want us to provide a prescription for success. 

Our role should be to offer a meaningful definition of success, one 

that raises the bar and shows teachers and students what they 

should be striving for. 

With those lessons in our mind, we have developed our blueprint 

for ESEA reauthorization. We have shared that with you, Mr. 

Chairman, and I ask that the blueprint be entered into the record 

of this hearing. 

In this blueprint, you will see that everything is organized 

around our three major goals for reauthorization: first, raising 

standards; secondly, rewarding excellence in growth; and third, increasing local control and flexibility while maintaining a laser-like 

focus on equity and closing achievement gaps. 

All of these policy changes will support our effort to meet the 

President’s goal that by 2020 America once again will lead the 

world in college completion. 

In particular, the ESEA will set a goal that by 2020 all students 

will graduate ready to succeed in college and in the workplace. We 

will build an accountability system that measures the progress that 

States, districts and schools are making towards meeting that goal. 

We have a comprehensive agenda to help us meet that goal. It 

starts with asking States to adopt standards that truly prepare 

students for success in college and careers. Governors and chief 

State school officers of 48 States are doing the tough job of setting 

these standards in reading and in math. The leadership at the local 

level has been remarkable, and the effort is supported by both 

major unions and by the business community. 

In our proposal we call on States to adopt college and careerready standards, either working with other States or by getting 

their higher education institutions to certify the the standards are 

10

rigorous enough to ensure students graduate ready to succeed in 

college-level classes or to enter the workplace. 

But standards alone aren’t enough. We will need a new generation of assessments that measure whether students are on track for 

success in college and careers. We will support the effort to develop 

those assessments so they will measure a higher order of skills, 

provide accurate measures of student progress, and give teachers 

the information they need to improve student achievement. These 

standards and assessments are key parts of our effort to redefine 

accountability. 

Under NCLB, the Federal Government greatly expanded its role 

in holding schools accountable. It did several things right, and I 

will always give NCLB credit for its important contributions to 

education reform. 

It required all States to be included in the accountability system, 

including minority students, students with disabilities, and English 

language learners. It required States, districts, and schools to report test scores just aggregated by student subgroups, exposing 

achievement gaps like never before. We know the achievement gap 

is unacceptably large and teachers and school leaders throughout 

the country are working in mobilizing to address that problem. 

NCLB was right to create a system based on results for students, 

not just on inputs. 

But NCLB’s accountability system needs to be fixed now. There 

are way too many perverse incentives. It allows, even encourages, 

States to lower standards. It doesn’t measure growth, and it doesn’t 

reward excellence. It prescribes the same interventions for schools 

with very different needs. It encourages a narrowing of the curriculum and focuses on test preparation. It labels too many schools 

with the same failing label regardless of their challenges. It encouraged schools to focus their efforts on only that tiny percent of students close to the proficiency bar and neglect a vast majority above 

or below that line. 

We need adults focused on all children, not only on any small 

handful in a classroom or in a school. We can’t sustain momentum 

for reform if we don’t have a credible accountability system that 

addresses these issues. 

Our proposal will make significant improvements on accountability. The biggest and most important one is that it will use student academic growth as the most important measure of whether 

schools, districts, and States are making progress. I am much more 

interested in growth and gain than absolute test scores, as long as 

students are on a path toward meeting those standards. 

Under our plan, we will reward schools, districts, and States that 

are making the most progress. At the same time, we will be toughminded on our lowest performing schools and schools with large 

achievement gaps that aren’t closing, although the schools will be 

given flexibility to meet performance targets working under their 

State and local accountability system. If we get accountability 

right, we will provide the right incentives to increase student 

achievement, and I am confident America’s students, teachers, and 

principals will deliver. 

I would like to focus on the critically important work of teachers 

and leaders. The teaching and learning that happens in schools 

11

every day are what drives American education. We spend a lot of 

time talking about reform, about the proper Federal role, about the 

cost of education and the need for more funding and about competitive versus formula, and all of those are important debates to have. 

But we can never lose sight of the impact our decisions have on 

classrooms where teachers are doing the hard work every single 

day of helping our children learn. Every decision must be viewed 

through the framework of improving instruction for our Nation’s 

children. Our partnership with teachers and parents’ partnerships 

with teachers empowers them to do their job well. 

We believe that there is a lot in our proposal that teachers will 

like. We know that there is a lot under current law that teachers 

don’t like. Most teachers believe that we have a broken system of 

accountability. Many teachers believe their evaluation support systems are flawed. 

We need a system of accountability that is fair. I have never met 

a teacher yet who is afraid of accountability. All they ask is for a 

system that measures each child’s progress, not last year’s students 

against this year’s students. We need better evaluation systems 

that are honest and useful and elevates rather than diminish the 

teaching profession. 

All told, we are requesting a record $3.9 billion to strengthen the 

teaching profession, an increase of $350 million. We begin with the 

understanding that teaching is some of the toughest and absolutely 

the most important work in society, and we are deeply committed 

to making it a better profession for teachers. 

To start with, we are encouraging the development of high-quality teacher preparation programs. Today, many teachers tell us 

that they are underprepared for what they face in the classroom. 

They have to learn too much on the job. 

We are encouraging the development of meaningful career ladders and stronger efforts to retain the great teachers we have. We 

lose far too many of those great young teachers due to a lack of 

support. 

From newly hired teachers to tenured teachers to master teachers, mentors, department heads, and principals, we need to rebuild 

education as a profession with real opportunities for growth that 

sustain a teacher’s craft over a career, not just a couple of years. 

We want to encourage schools and districts to rethink how teachers can best do their jobs, how they collaborate, how they use their 

time outside the classroom, and how they shape professional development programs. When adults have time to collaborate and solve 

school problems together, they are going to be much more productive and they will get better results for our children. Teachers must 

be at the center of those efforts. 

We are also investing in principals to create better instructional 

leaders so that teachers will have the leadership they need to do 

better work. Historically, I think our Department has underinvested in principal leadership, and we are looking to dramatically 

change that. Good principals, as we know, recruit to retain great 

talent. Bad principals run off talent. 

As for teacher evaluation systems, our goal is a system that is 

fair, honest, and useful, and built around a definition of teacher efVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:53 Jan 04, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\111TH\FC\111-52\55303.TXT HBUD PsN: DICK
12

fectiveness, developed with teachers, that includes multiple measures, never just a single test score. 

Teachers need great principals for support, and we will also ask 

for fair evaluation systems for principals. We want to use these 

systems to support teachers in their instructional practice and to 

reward great teachers for all they do, including advancing student 

learning. We also want to reward them for working in the highneeds schools. If we are serious about closing the achievement gap, 

we must close the opportunity gap our children all too often face. 

As I mentioned, we will change the accountability system to 

make it fairer. For the first time, we will be holding not just 

schools and teachers accountable for student success, but districts 

and States as well. This must be a shared responsibility. Teachers 

can’t teach and principals can’t lead where they are not well-supported at the local and State level. 

We want to stop mislabeling thousands of schools as failures. Instead, we want to challenge them to close achievement gaps with 

targeted strategies designed by teachers and principals together. 

Similarly, everyone should get credit for helping students who are 

behind catch up, even if they do not yet meet standards. 

A sixth grade teacher whose students start the year three grade 

levels behind and their students advance by two grade levels 

should be applauded, not labeled as a failure. That teacher is not 

a failure. That teacher is not a good teacher, that teacher is a great 

teacher. She is accelerating student learning and we must learn 

from her example, not stigmatize her. The same is true for districts 

and States as well. 

We want to give many more schools and districts the flexibility 

to improve by focusing much more on the chronically lowest performing schools and those with the largest achievement gaps that 

aren’t closing, while giving teachers and principals of the other 

schools more flexibility and incentives to succeed. 

We are also calling for assessments that measure deep learning, 

not test-taking skills, assessments that can engage and encourage 

learning and provide teachers with meaningful, quick feedback. 

And we want students, parents, teachers, and communities working toward a meaningful bar and support them in getting there. 

The goal of the K-12 system has to be to prepare students for the 

next step on their journey: college and a career. The system needs 

to be focused on that goal. Dumbed down standards mean we are 

lying to children, giving them false hope, and undermining the high 

standards that teachers have for their students. That must end. 

We are calling for over $1 billion to fund a complete education, 

because a whole child is a successful adult. We want schools investing in the arts, history, science, languages, and all of the learning 

experiences that contribute to a well-rounded education. This is 

critically important. 

Finally, we are seeking $1.8 billion to support students by encouraging community engagement and support and exposure to 

other positive adults. Teachers cannot do it alone. They need parents, community leaders, social service agencies, and other supportive adults in the school helping to reinforce a culture of learning and respect. A parent is always a child’s first teacher and will 

always be their most important teacher. 

13

I also want to say that ESEA reauthorization provides us with 

the opportunity to promote early learning programs from birth 

through third grade. We need to ensure that children attend highquality early learning programs to sustain achievements. 

At the Federal level, we can encourage the alignment of standards and assessments across early learning programs in schools. 

We can coordinate professional development efforts. We can engage 

families in their children’s learning. It is time to learn from the 

success of high-quality programs. As the President has pointed out, 

that pipeline will never work properly unless the road to college begins at birth. 

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss our comprehensive reform of ESEA. This will be one of the most dramatic changes in 

the law’s history. It will fundamentally change the Federal role in 

education. We want to move from being a compliance monitor to 

being an engine of innovation. 

The urgency of these reforms has never been greater. Our children and our future are at risk. So let’s together do the difficult 

but necessary things our schools demand and our children deserve. 

We know that schools can transform the lives of children. We 

have literally thousands of examples of schools serving high-poverty populations that are accelerating student achievement. We 

need to reward them and hold them up as examples for others to 

follow. 

I thank you for all you have done and all you will do to make 

education America’s highest priority and greatest legacy. We need 

to work together to continue that legacy and deliver a world-class 

education for every child. 

Thank you so much. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. Thank you very much for your 

testimony. 

[The statement of Secretary Duncan follows:]

Prepared Statement of Hon. Arne Duncan, Secretary,

U.S. Department of Education 

Thank you, Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Kline, and Members of the Committee for inviting me to testify today on the Obama Administration’s Blueprint for 

reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Today, 

more than ever, a world-class education is necessary for success. The President and 

I believe strongly that this Blueprint provides a way for America to strengthen the 

schools that our children attend and prepare the children who will be the architects 

of our continued greatness to assume that role. 

This blueprint builds on the significant reforms already made in response to the 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 around four areas: (1) Improving 

teacher and principal effectiveness to ensure that every classroom has a great teacher and every school has a great leader; (2) Providing information to families to help 

them evaluate and improve their children’s schools, and to educators to help them 

improve their students’ learning; (3) Implementing college- and career-ready standards and developing improved assessments aligned with those standards; and (4) 

Improving student learning and achievement in America’s lowest-performing schools 

by providing intensive support and effective interventions. 

Incorporating and extending this framework, this blueprint for a re-envisioned 

federal role builds on these key priorities: 

(1) College- and Career-Ready Students 

Raising standards for all students. We will set a clear goal: Every student should 

graduate from high school ready for college and a career, regardless of their income, 

race, ethnic or language background, or disability status. Following the lead of the 

nation’s governors, we’re calling on all states to develop and adopt standards in 

14

English language arts and mathematics that build toward college- and career-readiness by the time students graduate from high school. States may choose to upgrade 

their existing standards or work together with other states to develop and adopt 

common, state-developed standards. 

Better assessments. We will support the development and use of a new generation 

of assessments that are aligned with college- and career-ready standards, to better 

determine whether students have acquired the skills they need for success. New assessment systems will better capture higher-order skills, provide more accurate 

measures of student growth, and better inform classroom instruction to respond to 

academic needs. 

A complete education. Students need a well-rounded education to contribute as 

citizens in our democracy and to thrive in a global economy—from literacy to mathematics, science, and technology to history, civics, foreign languages, the arts, financial literacy, and other subjects. We will support states, districts, school leaders, and 

teachers in implementing a more complete education through improved professional 

development and evidence-based instructional models and supports. 

(2) Great Teachers and Leaders in Every School 

Effective teachers and principals. We will elevate the teaching profession to focus 

on recognizing, encouraging, and rewarding excellence. We are calling on states and 

districts to develop and implement systems of teacher and principal evaluation and 

support, and to identify effective and highly effective teachers and principals on the 

basis of student growth and other factors. These systems will inform professional 

development and help teachers and principals improve student learning. In addition, a new program will support ambitious efforts to recruit, place, reward, retain, 

and promote effective teachers and principals and enhance the profession of teaching. 

Our best teachers and leaders where they are needed most. Our proposal will provide funds to states and districts to develop and support effective teachers and leaders, with a focus on improving the effectiveness of teachers and leaders in high-need 

schools. We will call on states and districts to track equitable access to effective 

teachers and principals, and where needed, take steps to improve access to effective 

educators for students in high-poverty, high-minority schools. 

Strengthening teacher and leader preparation and recruitment. We need more effective pathways and practices for preparing, placing, and supporting beginning 

teachers and principals in high-need schools. States will monitor the effectiveness 

of their traditional and alternative preparation programs, and we will invest in programs whose graduates are succeeding in the classroom, based on student growth 

and other factors. 

(3) Equity and Opportunity for All Students 

Rigorous and fair accountability for all levels. All students will be included in an 

accountability system that builds on college- and career-ready standards, rewards 

progress and success, and requires rigorous interventions in the lowest-performing 

schools. We will celebrate the Reward states, districts, and schools that do the most 

to improve outcomes for their students and to close achievement gaps, as well as 

those who are on the path to have all students graduating or on track to graduate 

ready for college and a career by 2020. All schools will be aiming to do their part 

to help us reach that ambitious goal, and for most schools, leaders at the state, district, and school level will enjoy broad flexibility to determine how to get there. 

But in the lowest-performing schools that have not made progress over time, we 

will ask for dramatic change. To ensure that responsibility for improving student 

outcomes no longer falls solely at the door of schools, we will also promote accountability for states and districts that are not providing their schools, principals, and 

teachers with the support they need to succeed. 

Meeting the needs of diverse learners. Schools must support all students, including by providing appropriate instruction and access to a challenging curriculum 

along with additional supports and attention where needed. From English Learners 

and students with disabilities to Native American students, homeless students, migrant students, rural students, and neglected or delinquent students, our proposal 

will continue to support and strengthen programs for these students and ensure 

that schools are helping them meet college- and career-ready standards. 

Greater equity. To give every student a fair chance to succeed, and give principals 

and teachers the resources to support student success, we will call on school districts and states to take steps to ensure equity, by such means as moving toward 

comparability in resources between high- and low-poverty schools. 

15

(4) Raise the Bar and Reward Excellence 

Fostering a Race to the Top. Race to the Top has provided incentives for excellence by encouraging state and local leaders to work together on ambitious reforms, 

make tough choices, and develop comprehensive plans that change policies and practices to improve outcomes for students. We will continue Race to the Top’s incentives for systemic reforms at the state level and expand the program to school districts that are willing to take on bold, comprehensive reforms. 

Supporting effective public school choice. We will support the expansion of highperforming public charter schools and other autonomous public schools, and support 

local communities as they expand public school choice options for students within 

and across school districts. 

Promoting a culture of college readiness and success. Access to a challenging high 

school curriculum has a greater impact on whether a student will earn a 4-year college degree than his or her high school test scores, class rank, or grades. We will 

increase access to college-level, dual credit, and other accelerated courses in highneed schools and support college-going strategies and models that will help students 

succeed. 

(5) Promote Innovation and Continuous Improvement 

Fostering innovation and accelerating success. The Investing in Innovation Fund 

will support local and nonprofit leaders as they develop and scale up programs that 

have demonstrated success, and discover the next generation of innovative solutions. 

Supporting, recognizing, and rewarding local innovations. Our proposal will encourage and support local innovation by creating fewer, larger, more flexible funding 

streams around areas integral to student success, giving states and districts flexibility to focus on local needs. New competitive funding streams will provide greater 

flexibility, reward results, and ensure that federal funds are used wisely. At the 

same time, districts will have fewer restrictions on blending funds from different 

categories with less red tape. 

Supporting student success. Tackling persistent achievement gaps requires public 

agencies, community organizations, and families to share responsibility for improving outcomes for students. We will prioritize programs that include a comprehensive 

redesign of the school day, week, or year, that promote schools as the center of their 

communities, or that partner with community organizations. Our proposal will invest in new models that keep students safe, supported, and healthy both in and out 

of school, and that support strategies to better engage families and community 

members in their children’s education. 

I look forward to working with the Members of this Committee on a bipartisan 

basis to complete this critical work, and I would be happy to answer any questions 

that you have. Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Under a previous agreement, the Chair and 

the Ranking Member will be recognized for 10 minutes apiece. 

Mr. Secretary, the blueprint that you have released and you are 

discussing with us today has received a lot of mixed attention from 

media and stakeholders. I would like to take a moment to refocus 

that conversation, as Congressman Kline said, on the needs of the 

students, and especially in my case of poor children and those suffering in schools with wide achievement gaps. 

I have been at this for some 30 years. We can’t afford to lose yet 

another generation of students, and we can’t wait to eradicate poverty before we take the action we need on behalf of our Nation’s 

children. 

Ten years ago, with No Child Left Behind, we began the process 

of shining the light on the achievement of all children, no matter 

what schools they were in, no matter what their social-economic 

status was, and it was about the idea that they are all entitled to 

a world-class educational opportunity. I would like to make sure 

that we don’t lose that focus. 

I agree with your criticisms. I think you raised important issues 

about No Child Left Behind. But I just wonder if we might elaborate a little bit on the proposals, how your proposals really create 

16

a system that addresses the needs of students, particularly those 

who are most disadvantaged and find themselves locked into 

schools that, as my State just published, more or less year after 

year are failing to provide the opportunity for those kids to take 

the advantage of. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I put the schools into three broad categories. There is a set of 

schools in every State and every district—take the top 10 percent 

of schools that are absolutely world-class, where students are 

learning and growing and achievement gaps are shrinking, and we 

should be holding those schools up as examples. We should be giving them more flexibility, learning from them, and, frankly, getting 

out of their way. 

There is a set of schools that may not be world-class yet, but they 

are improving every single year, and we need to continue to support their development and their growth. 

But what I will argue is, as a country, we need to take the bottom 5 percent of schools, not the 95 percent but the bottom 5 percent, and even take one of those 5 percent each year for the next 

5 years and let’s do something dramatically different. 

The status quo is not working. We have not seen the kind of 

progress we need. We have far too many examples of success in 

high-poverty, high-minority communities, for anybody to say that 

poverty is destiny. It is not. We have schools routinely beating the 

odds. And we are simply not working for children. Where there are 

50, 60, 70 percent dropout rates, where students are falling further 

and further behind, despite our best intentions, despite our best 

work, we are perpetuating poverty and we are perpetuating social 

failure. 

So what we are saying is we need to come in, let’s move with a 

real sense of urgency, and let’s get those children a better chance 

at an education, and let’s do it now. 

Chairman MILLER. I assume I am correct in understanding that 

for those students in large mixed districts, like I represent, those 

students who may be in a relatively good school but they are not 

doing terribly well themselves, we are not going to lose them in 

this new arrangement. They do not need to be in one of the worst 

performing schools before they get attention or they continue to be 

tracked in terms of whether they are growing toward the goal of 

being college- or career-ready. 

Secretary DUNCAN. That is exactly right. And we are actually 

trying to do something that I don’t think happened enough in the 

previous law. That if you take a relatively high performing school 

but where there are huge achievement gaps—and, again, the big 

thing for me is progress and growth where those achievement gaps 

aren’t shrinking, where they are stubbornly large and not moving—

we want to make sure that those students who are being underserved have an opportunity to do better. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

I think one of the more interesting political events in the last 

year has been the impact of Race to the Top on the educational political system, if you will. Because of the Race to the Top, I think 

some of us reside in States where we never thought that conversation would take place. We never thought there would be agreement 

17

between the executive and the legislature. We never thought there 

would be agreement between the teacher organizations and the 

boards of education and/or within the legislature itself. 

Yet I see, as I mentioned in my opening statement, those actions 

have been taken. They are not exactly as I would do it. I think 

there is more to be done in my own State. But it is a dramatic 

change of attitude. I hope it is a change of attitude. It is a dramatic 

change in the terms of guidance, that the system will operate now 

under the use of data and other elements of the Race to the Top. 

The question is: In the model that you are laying out in your 

blueprint, can we transfer that kind of atmospherics, if you will, to 

bring about that kind of cooperation, those kinds of conversations, 

among the various parts of the education system? Because I think 

when we look at models of success, we know that it is more than 

just another 2-year plan that is laid on that school or that system. 

It is really the preparatory work that has gone in to get buy-in, to 

get people to participate, to take responsibility across those systems. 

I think a lot of that has begun at one level of the educational system with the States. I think now we need to see whether or not 

we can use the blueprint and the law that we will be offering here 

to encourage that and extend that. 

Secretary DUNCAN. We have been amazed to see the amount of 

progress and momentum due Race to the Top. What is so interesting, Chairman Miller, is what I hear repeatedly, is although 

there is a lot of money there, it is really not about the level. What 

has happened, there has been a level of conversation, there has 

been a level of corroboration, there have been folks moving outside 

their comfort zones, and movement and the relationships that 

should have been happening for a long time, this has forced those 

things to happen. So that been hugely, hugely encouraging. 

I have folks say, yes, they would absolutely love to get the 

money, but whether or not they do, they are moving forward for reform and they are behaving in very, very different ways. 

So whether it is Race to the Top, whether it is in the Invest and 

Innovation Fund, whether it is in other areas where we have discretionary resources, we are going to continue to reward those 

States and districts and nonprofits and universities and schools 

that are doing two things; that are raising the bar for all students 

and closing the achievement gap. And where we see that movement, we want to put unprecedented resources. Where folks are 

more recalcitrant, we will invest in other places. But the amount, 

the willingness and the openness to reform has been unbelievably 

encouraging. 

Chairman MILLER. Well, I look forward to working with you on 

that, because I think that is key to the success here. 

Let me raise another issue, and that is the focusing of attention 

on what you called the 5 percent of the schools that are persistently and chronically failing. I think they are failing, not just the 

students are failing, the teachers are failing, the whole community, 

if you will. But, again, I want to make sure that we don’t substitute a model for critically thinking about how you develop success in that particular school or those schools within the system 

and in those communities. 

18

In the blueprint, you lay out four different models: the transformation model, the turnaround model, the restart model, and the 

school closure model. My concern would be I think in California we 

have tried almost all of those, and I would like to have some data 

presented on where we have seen the successes with those various 

models, because we have had some, but not all of them have happened. 

I would also like to make sure, sort of following on to my previous question, that when we consider these models, they have got 

to be more than just lines on the paper, if you will. 

I visited some of your very successful schools in Chicago, and I 

think what you saw there was the development of an attitude and 

expectations and partnerships from parents, the community, the 

teachers, the school boards, and the individual boards about the 

success that they wanted, and they took a lot of time bringing people around to that point. Some people left, some principals left, 

some teachers left, and back and forth. But then they developed a 

community that they thought could sustain that. And in some of 

those schools, that has been sustained now for almost 10 years. 

My concern is, having witnessed a number of dramatic actions 

where we get 1 or 2 years and then we are back again trying something else more dramatic, that we provide the means, the tools, the 

resources for these districts that are making these choices, for 

schools that have to make these choices, to really plan out and develop that change in expectations and attitudes and competencies 

that will make that a success, so we don’t sort of have a continued 

rollover of these efforts and we can bring some stability and ongoing sustainable success. 

So in this discussion, following what you have put forth in the 

blueprint, I am very interested in looking at what are the outcomes 

of these models. Where is it we are going to look for success? 

Where is it school districts would go to see how this has been done? 

Some of these have been legend until their efforts to try to turn 

around even systems. But here you are sort of focusing on individual schools within systems. That buy-in really has to be extraordinary, and I think we have to encourage that buy-in. 

I will sign off with this. One of the remarkable things when I visited Roscoe Academy was the community participation on an hourly and daily and weekend basis about the importance of that school 

and the success of those kids. 

So feel free to respond. But I just worry that we are not just putting outlines and a description of what you would do, and that we 

don’t substitute that for critically thinking about how those models 

would be successful and what is evidence of their success in the 

past. 

Secretary DUNCAN. It is a great point, and this only works if everybody steps up. No one gets a pass. Students, teachers, parents, 

principals, the community, everybody has to work together. Where 

you see that sustained success, you had that community buy-in. 

So everybody has to work together. These are hard conversations. 

They are tough. I think we have to have them. We have to stop 

sort of sweeping these tough issues under the rug. But where folks 

come together and plan for the long haul and sustain that effort, 

we will and we have seen remarkable results. 

19

Also, while Race to the Top has gotten all of the sort of press and 

publicity. That is $4 billion. We are putting $3.5 billion in school 

improvement grants out for just that bottom 5 percent. So we are 

trying to put a huge amount of money out there, more time for 

teachers to collaborate, longer school days, more time in the summer. We know some of the building blocks, so we are trying to put 

huge amounts of resources out there for States, districts, parents, 

teachers, students working together to say we have to do something, and we want to meet them more than halfway. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Congressman Kline. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, thank you, Mr. 

Secretary, for being here. It has been a pleasure working with you 

as we move forward towards reauthorizing this essential legislation. 

Before I get into the blueprint, I want to mention the Race to the 

Top again, that the Chairman has been talking about some, and 

express a couple of concerns I have about the transparency. You 

and I have had this discussion before, but I want to see if I can’t 

draw it out here a little bit. 

We have got a peer review process that is going on, and we don’t 

know still who the peer reviewers are, and they are involved in allocating pretty big piles of money. So it is pretty hard for us, the 

American people, to have confidence in this system if we don’t 

know who the peer reviewers are. So I am a little troubled about 

why we can’t know who those are. 

Then, secondly, I am a little bit concerned about the timing here. 

We had States put in their requests for this money. Some States 

put it in with sort of high expectations, like Minnesota, and didn’t 

make the final cut. We don’t know why. I understand that at some 

time coming up, there are going to be some comments and information coming forward. 

My question is, why don’t we have it now? I know you know, Mr. 

Secretary, I have a letter here from Governor Schwarzenegger and 

I think eight Governors saying, you have got to tell us what we 

didn’t do right, because we are busy, these States, trying to compete again for the next tranche of this money. 

So there is literally over $4 billion here at stake and you and the 

administration are asking for another $1.35 billion just for Race to 

the Top. It seems to me we really have some unanswered questions. 

So my question to you is, why can’t we know who those people 

are and why can’t the States know what they did well and what 

they didn’t do well so they can address those things? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Great questions. What has been paramount 

in our minds from day one was the integrity of this process, and 

due to the size of these grants, unprecedented, we were worried 

about outside influence on potential peer reviewers. There is huge 

temptation for bad things to happen, and we wanted to do everything at all costs to prevent that from happening. 

So as soon as the competition is done, all that will be put out. 

All the interviews we are doing now with the 16 finalists are being 

videotaped and all of that is going to be absolutely transparent. 

20

What we said at the start of the competition was, the day it was 

finished we would put out every State’s comment, they will come 

back, so everyone will get that. We said, again, before the competition started, they would get that at the end of the competition. If 

we put it out now, States still in the competition could game their 

answers in the interviews due to those responses. 

So when the competition is done, everybody will get all the remarks, all the reviews, and there will be an equal amount of time 

between that and when the second application is due, as there was 

at the start of the competition. 

So we try to be very, very fair but maintain integrity. 

Mr. KLINE. Okay, if I could interrupt, I am sorry. So you are 

going to start again with a whole new set of peer review teams 

after this first tranche? Are we not to know who these people are 

until next September? 

Secretary DUNCAN. No, the day this is done you will know who 

they are. 

Mr. KLINE. I am sorry, define ‘‘day done.’’

Secretary DUNCAN. When this competition is completed, we will 

put out the tapes of the interviews, we will put out who the peer 

reviewers are, and we will put out all comments for all States publicly. 

Mr. KLINE. I am sorry, I guess I am not communicating well 

here. Competition done——

Secretary DUNCAN. The first time. 

Mr. KLINE. Okay. So now I am back to the question. We are 

going to have this competition done in April, the first part of it, 

and at that point you are going to tell us who the peer reviewers 

are? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. KLINE. Okay. Are they going to be the same peer reviewers 

for the next part, or are you going to start again? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Some may come back, some may not. To be 

clear, they signed up for the first round. That was all they signed 

up for. 

Mr. KLINE. It does help me to understand that. I do think, however, it would be very helpful, because the States are getting ready 

to compete again, to know what they didn’t do well, and the longer 

that drags out, the harder it is for them. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Again, let me be clear. We have been very 

consistent from the start that we will put all of that out as soon 

as the first round is done, and the time between that and when the 

second round application is done will be the same amount of time, 

not less time, the same amount of time as we had in the first goaround 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you. Let me move now to the blueprint. I 

know, Mr. Secretary, you have talked about this an awful lot over 

time, and that is being tight on goals but loose on means. 

It looks to me though—and I understand this is a blueprint, not 

a bill, not legislative language—we will go to work on that here 

shortly. But when you talk about focusing on the bottom 5 percent 

as a way to limit the involvement of the Federal Government in 

most schools, I think I understand that, but as I read the blueprint, it looks to me like this Federal—we will just call it ‘‘heavyVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:53 Jan 04, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\111TH\FC\111-52\55303.TXT HBUD PsN: DICK
21

handedness’’—intervention, could apply to entire districts and even 

States. 

On page 10 it reads, ‘‘Both challenge districts and States will 

face additional restrictions on the use of ESEA funds and may be 

required to work with an outside organization to improve student 

academic achievement.’’ Both challenge districts and States. 

A State is in the bottom 5 percent? I guess I am trying to understand how that will work. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Sure. Schools don’t operate as islands. Every 

school is impacted by their district and by their State, some in extraordinarily positive ways, some in neutral ways, some are hurt 

by their States and districts. What we want to do, Congressman, 

in all this stuff is reward excellence and challenge where things 

aren’t working. 

So we think that not only are there thousands of high performing 

schools in this country, we think there are hundreds of high performing districts that are routinely showing remarkable student 

achievement, often with children who come from very, very tough 

situations. 

We want to shine a spotlight on those districts, we want to give 

them more flexibility, more resources, learn from them. The same 

is true for States. This has got to be a shared responsibility. 

On the flip side of it, if you have 15,000 school districts, take the 

bottom 5 percent of school districts where things simply aren’t 

working for the vast majority of students in that school district, I 

think we need to look at what is going on there and see what we 

can do better. 

Mr. KLINE. I am just trying to understand. But it looks to me 

like you are directing this at an entire State, and it seems to me 

that that State might be looking for the most flexibility to make 

corrections, not the least. 

I want to move on to something else, and I just want to mention 

it for a second. I have talked to you about this many times. I mentioned it again when you came in. I am actually not going to ask 

the question, because I think 90 percent of my colleagues here are 

dying to talk to you about this same issue and I want to give them 

the opportunity to do that. 

But when we have got these core standards that are being developed by States, there are an awful lot of questions about how that 

is going to work and what the Federal enforcement tool is going to 

be. I know, for example, that my State of Minnesota, said, Wait a 

minute, I have a problem with these standards now, because they 

are not as high in math as what we have and what we would like 

to have. So if we step outside of that and go to our own, it may 

affect how you, how the Department, awards funds. 

So I am asking you not to address that right now, but I just want 

to express the concern and assure you that as we have talked before, that certainly in my conference at least there are a lot of concerns about that, who is going to adjudicate and what is the role 

of your Department going to be. 

I yield back. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Kildee. 

Mr. KILDEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

22

Mr. Secretary, I remain very concerned about the administration’s charter school proposal, primarily because of the fiscal effects 

it could have on traditional public schools. I am concerned that disadvantaged districts, like Flint, Michigan, where I live, will be 

stretched too thin if more students move to charter school programs and take their entire per-pupil State allocation with them. 

What type of supports would you propose to help those districts 

if we transition to a system that supports significant charter school 

expansion? 

The charter schools really are able to market their schools in a 

way that the public school systems cannot, and very often my experience has been that the more sophisticated parents are the ones 

who opt for the charter schools. 

How would you help those schools where the students are left behind in the traditional public school system? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, sir, I have have said repeatedly I am not 

a fan of charter schools, I am a fan of good charter schools. We 

have some charter schools in this country that are extraordinarily 

high-performing options in very, very poor communities. We have 

some charter schools that are just mediocre, and we have some 

charter schools that, frankly, need to close. And when I spoke to 

the National Association of Charter Schools, I said exactly those 

things. 

What we want to do is we just need more good schools in this 

country. So we need more good traditional schools, we need more 

good magnet schools, we need more good Montessori schools, and 

good charter schools are a piece of that solution. 

I think, sir, every school has a chance to market itself and to tell 

its story. Parents are very smart, very sophisticated. They are not 

going to be swayed by some fancy marketing material. Every parent is looking for a great option for their child. So where families 

have good options, that is fantastic. Where parents don’t have good 

options, we want to create some new options for them of every form 

and fashion. 

So a district like Flint, whether it is strengthening existing 

schools, whether it is creating new schools within the district, or 

through charters, we are wide open to that. Charter schools are 

public schools. They are our tax dollars. They are accountable to 

us. We think they shouldn’t receive any advantages. We think 

there shouldn’t be any disparities in the funding they receive either, though. We just want to play it straight. 

Mr. KILDEE. We certainly want both good charter schools, if we 

are to have them, and good traditional public schools. But the fact 

of the matter is that parents who are more sophisticated, maybe 

have a better level of education than others, are the ones that in 

fact do tend to choose the charter schools. 

What do we do, even though the charter school is a good school, 

what do we do when the other school down the street is receiving 

less dollars because those dollars are going to the charter school? 

The entire State fund goes to the charter school. 

Secretary DUNCAN. So as part of our proposed budget, as you 

know, the President is asking for historic increases in funding, and 

the overwhelming majority of these resources are going to to go traditional schools, to those children, to those teachers. 

23

So I can go through line by line. For teachers and leaders, $3.6 

billion, a 10 percent increase. For well-rounded education, $1 billion, 10 percent increase. Student support, $1.8 billion, 16 percent 

increase. Right down the line. So the overwhelming majority of our 

resources, and hopefully new resources, if our budget is approved, 

will go to traditional schools. 

There has been lots of conversation, Mr. Kildee, around whether 

charters are getting higher performing kids and more engaged families. Obviously, you want to make sure it is a level playing field. 

I will point you to a study that was done in the New York Public 

School System, the charter schools, that looked at their long waiting lists there for charter schools. It looked at students who got 

into the charters and it looked at kids who applied but didn’t. So 

there was no selection bias. Everyone was applying. 

What they actually found in that study was that the children 

who actually did get in did better than the children who went into 

the traditional public schools. So they tried to sort of account for 

that, making sure it is apples against apples. 

So again, I will just go back. We need more good schools. We 

need to support every school to be successful. And good charter 

schools, not bad ones, not mediocre ones, but good charter schools, 

particularly in historically underserved communities, have been a 

significant piece of the answer. 

Mr. KILDEE. You talk about teacher evaluation. How do we assure that any teacher evaluation system is, first of all, developed 

in collaboration with the teachers and really accurately measure 

teacher performance? 

For example, I taught Latin for the most part, 90 percent Latin, 

and my Latin students all got A’s or B’s. Occasionally I would grab 

an American history class, and no matter how hard I tried, and I 

knew history as well as I did Latin, those students were getting C’s 

for the most part. So the teacher doesn’t have much choice over 

what type of student they receive. In my Latin class, they were top 

students. 

How do we make sure that all these things are measured? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Well, it is a great point. I will tell you when 

the Chairman talks about we need bold action, we need to get dramatically better, one of the things most fundamentally broken 

largely in our country are teacher evaluation systems. 

I went to the NEA convention in San Diego and spoke before 

5,500 delegates and talked about teacher evaluation being broken, 

and everybody applauded. I went to the AFT convention, 2,500 

members, and everybody applauded when I talked about broken 

teacher evaluation systems. 

This is one area of the country where we need to get dramatically better. There is no perfect system out there. These need to develop. I know what doesn’t work is what we are doing today. Good 

teachers don’t get recognized today. Teachers in the middle don’t 

get the support they need. And teachers at the bottom who ask for 

support and mentoring and induction, who shouldn’t be teaching, 

they don’t get moved out either. So if the systems today don’t work 

for any adults, I promise you they are not working for the children 

either. 

24

So what we have to do, and it has to be collaborative to your 

point, it can only be done with unions and teachers and management working together, but we need to get to a whole different 

level of sophistication and thoughtfulness to really reward excellence and support those teachers that are trying to get better. 

Systems now don’t work for any of the adults. Everybody is 

above average. I wish we lived in Lake Woebegon; we don’t; everybody is superior, and we need to be much more thoughtful in it. 

So I can’t promise you we will have a perfect system tomorrow. In 

fact, I will tell you we won’t. 

But we need to be working hard in this area. It needs to be done 

at the local level, not by us here in Washington. And we need to 

be encouraging folks to do that, and we are going to put a lot of 

money on the table to incentivize those districts that are willing to 

take this on and be much more thoughtful. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Hoekstra. 

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, good to see you and glad that you are here today. 

Has the Department done any estimate on what the cost was to 

States and local school districts to implement No Child Left Behind 

over the last 8 years? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I don’t know of that. I don’t know of it. 

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I would think that that would be valuable information too, because I will tell you what I am concerned about. I 

read your Blueprint For Reform. It is relatively interesting. Then 

you go through here, and on page 7 it says ‘‘a new approach.’’ You 

get to page 13 and it says ‘‘a new approach.’’ A couple more times 

through the document it talks about a new approach. 

It is like wow, here we go again. We had No Child Left Behind 

in 2001 as ‘‘the’’ new approach to education in America. Now for 

8 years we have whipsawed local school districts and States to implement No Child Left Behind. Whether you like No Child Left Behind or not, after 8 years we maybe have filtered down and actually got all the procedures in place and the mechanisms in place 

for No Child Left Behind. 

Now we get a new administration and it is a new approach. I can 

tell you what my local schools are already telling me. It is kind of 

like we just got done with one system—and most of them didn’t 

like it—one bad system that has put in a tremendous amount of 

cost and bureaucracy into the process, and now we have got, quoteunquote, you geniuses in Washington coming up with the next new 

approach for us. We have got a responsibility to educate kids every 

day, and now we are going to have to figure out the new approach. 

They are saying, I wonder what this new approach is going to 

cost us. 

I actually find it almost incomprehensible that we have been 

moving forward for 8 years on No Child Left Behind, and you can’t 

tell me what it has cost. 

Can you tell me what this new approach is going to cost in terms 

of mandates to States and local schools, and will this administration fully fund the mandate that it is going to put on States and 

schools? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Sir, let me be very, very clear. This blueprint, 

the ideas didn’t come from geniuses in Washington. These ideas 

25

came from teachers and parents and principals and students 

around this country. The previous law was too punitive. It was too 

prescriptive. It lowered the bar for children, and it narrowed the 

curriculum. 

What we want to do is we want to raise the bar, have meaningful 

standards. We want to reward excellence, we want to increase local 

flexibility, and we want students to have a well-rounded curriculum. This is the right thing to do for children. It is the right 

thing to do for adults. There are too many perverse incentives. 

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I was going to say, when you went through No 

Child Left Behind, we went through and I highlighted every time 

it said the State or local school district ‘‘shall,’’ ‘‘must,’’ or ‘‘will.’’

Do you expect that this new authorization will be full of the 

‘‘school district shall,’’ ‘‘the State will,’’ ‘‘the State must,’’ or will 

there be a tremendous amount of flexibility? Because these ideas, 

you are right, I am glad that they came from grassroots. So did No 

Child Left Behind. 

But what No Child Left Behind did is it went through the ideas 

that came up from the grassroots level, and they said we are going 

to accept some and we are going to leave some by the wayside, and 

then we will tell local school districts that they ‘‘shall’’ or that they 

‘‘must.’’

I can tell you, and you know this, that the needs of Detroit are 

very, very different than the needs of Lansing, which are very different than the needs of Baldwin, Michigan. 

Will there be a tremendous amount of flexibility, or will this be 

full of the mandates? And if there are mandates, will this administration fully fund them? 

Secretary DUNCAN. One of my four core principles I talked about 

was more local flexibility. We are absolutely committed to that. 

What I think is in all communities, Flint, Detroit, you name it, all 

children should have high expectations. The opposite of that happened under No Child Left Behind. Great teachers, great principals, great schools, great school districts need to be rewarded. 

There was none of that under No Child Left Behind. Fifty ways to 

fail, no ways to succeed. We want to fix that. 

Every child deserves a well-rounded curriculum. Everywhere I 

went, I heard about a narrowing of the curriculum, rural, urban 

suburban. 

So, yes, we want to maintain local flexibility. But there are a 

couple core principles that every child in this country needs and deserves, and we are trying to stay true to that. 

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Maintain local flexibility. I would tell you most 

school districts, and you know this if you have been talking to 

them, don’t believe that there is a lot of local flexibility left. And 

I think that for us to restore it, you are going to have to make a 

massive change in the approach. 

I hope that is what we see when we actually get the legislative 

language. We look forward to working with you to restore local 

flexibility instead of Federal mandates. 

Secretary DUNCAN. I appreciate that. I want to assure you, I am 

not a Washington bureaucrat. I worked on the other side of the law 

for 71⁄2 years, and I know what works and what doesn’t. 

26

Mr. HOEKSTRA. It is amazing what Washington does to people, 

especially when they get in an agency. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. I want to thank you for coming up with a really comprehensive way we can really improve our 

educational system. As we are all aware, we are losing the battle 

worldwide. That means we are losing our edge competitively. So I 

commend you for trying to make this educational ship of state 

work. 

You know, I just wonder, as we talk about the worst performing 

public schools, those are the ones that I continually—and I think 

we have had some conversations, I am not opposed to charter 

schools and all. We know that they tend to get more motivated parents, and those parents should not be penalized because they are 

motivated. However, kids can’t pick their parents, and therefore 

they are the victims, in a lot of instances, of parents that are not 

motivated. They languish, they are behind. So we are concerned 

about the bottom, working from the bottom up. I think that is a 

great idea. 

But do you have any ideas of how we can incentivize teachers to 

be at those bottom schools? I know we can recreate schools, and 

that is what happened a lot with the charter schools. They will get 

kids that were in failing schools. They pick them out, and they 

therefore tend to perform. As I said, the chronically poor and those 

who have parents who are not as motivated, they tend to stay at 

that same school. I am concerned about that school where they 

stay. 

What are some of the things? Is there any way you can have 

teacher pay incentive, or have some way to have smaller class 

sizes? Could you have additional teachers’ aides to work with these 

youngsters that have a whole host of problems when they get 

home? They don’t have dinner, they stay up late, they come to 

school tired; the health components, a visiting nurse in the school. 

Are there any of these kind of creative things that will try to 

make these failing students, who are failing because of the environment, and it is going to be difficult to get these failing communities 

whole, because that is going to take a whole new infrastructure, et 

cetera, et cetera. 

How much can you envision, being at the worst school, to try to 

turn it around? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Again, I just keep going back. We are spending $4 billion in Race to the Top for the entire country. We want 

to spend $3.5 billion on just 5 percent of the schools. So we want 

to make a massive investment. And I want the ideas to come from 

the local community. 

But all of the things you talked about, more time for teachers to 

collaborate and work together, involving the community, reducing 

class size, more time for students, longer days, longer weeks, longer 

years, all of those things are going to be absolutely possible, and 

we are going to be looking for good ideas from the communities. 

Again, we have hundreds of these schools around the country. I 

will tell you one that sticks out in my mind is the Congressman 

to your left, Congressman Scott. I went to a school in his commuVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:53 Jan 04, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\111TH\FC\111-52\55303.TXT HBUD PsN: DICK
27

nity, not a charter school, a traditional public school, Achievable 

Dream. 

What is the percent poverty there, Congressman? One hundred 

percent poverty. The entire community is backing it, and what you 

have seen is remarkable. They basically closed the achievement 

gap. Is this work hard? Does it have to be comprehensive? Yes. But 

is it possible? Absolutely. And there are now hundreds and hundreds of schools like that around the country. 

So it is possible, it is doable, but we have to have the courage 

to do those tough things, and we want to put unprecedented resources behind those efforts. 

Mr. PAYNE. Since we have so many people that want to speak, 

I appreciate that. We have a school in Newark, the Harriet Tubman School, that is the same. But the thing about Harriet Tubman, it is in the heart of the inner city, but it has been a highperforming school for the last 30 or 40 years. I am trying to catch 

a school that has been at the bottom for 30 or 40 and see if we can 

make it like Harriet Tubman. It is a real true public school. 

Secretary DUNCAN. I testified this morning before the Senate 

Health Committee, and Senator Alexander said we spend a lot of 

time trying to catch failure. We need to start catching success. 

I think there is lots of success out there that we have not been 

catching, and we want to learn from those successes. So that is 

why I am so optimistic. Despite these challenge, despite the sense 

of urgency, we have never had more high-performing, high-poverty 

schools in tough communities, urban, rural, suburban. This is happening. What we have to do is take these pockets of excellence and 

take them to scale. 

But, again, the answers are not going to come from Washington 

bureaucrats. The answers are going to come from great educators 

at the local level. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. 

Mr. Castle. 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am sort of taking this question from what you stated and what 

I have talked to you about before, and you stated before, and that 

is the issue of standards and assessments. 

I understand that the Governors are putting together standards, 

and things will hopefully bubble up from that, and somehow we 

will allow that to become the standard setting, which I think is 

good. There is no question in my mind some States have played 

games with standards and with assessments in terms of making 

their standings look better than perhaps they are. 

My question is on the assessments, and that may also tie in to 

your teacher evaluation issue, too. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. 

What are the plans for assessments? Is that also going to come 

from the States, or is it going to be done as it is today, the States 

can select from various testing standards out there and that kind 

of thing? But what are the plans for that as far as this legislation 

is concerned? 

Secretary DUNCAN. If I could, Congressman, just to take one second on Mr. Kline’s question, to be very, very clear on the standards, yes, there is a consortium of 48 Governors, 48 State school 

chiefs working together. Again, both unions are supporting it. The 

28

business community is crying out for this. This was the third rail 

a couple years ago. You couldn’t talk about this issue. 

Everybody is coming together, saying this is the right thing for 

children. I can give you for the record, Chairman, quotes from the 

head of the union. I can give you quotes from Republican Governors, I can give you quotes from the head of the U.S. Chamber 

of Commerce. Everybody is saying this is an idea whose time has 

come. 

If States want to opt-out of that for whatever reason, that is fine 

with us, too. What we want is just to make sure they are high 

standards. So if they work as part of that consortium, great. If not, 

we just want the local University of Minnesota, University of Tennessee, whatever it is, to certify if you are hitting the standard that 

a student won’t have to take remedial classes. 

So you can work as part of that collaborative. So far there is 

huge momentum there. Or if a State chooses to go it alone, just 

have it certified by their local institution of higher education and 

we will be fine with that too. So, again, this is driven at the local 

level. If you guys know this is a Federal initiative or this is a national initiative, this dies. The leadership has got to come at the 

local level, and that is what is happening. Once you get higher 

standards, which is where we are going, huge progress, you need 

better assessments, to answer your question. 

We were very concerned that due to the tremendous financial 

stress that States and districts are under now, you know, very, 

very tough budget times, the toughest in decades, that folks would 

get to the better standards but would be left with the same lessthan-optimal assessments. So as part of the race to the tomorrow, we carved out $350 million, and we are going to put that out to States. So, again, now it 

won’t be our assessments, it won’t be national assessments, we are 

going to put that out to sets of States that want to work together 

to come back with much better assessments, much more comprehensive, not just end-of-course, end-of-year, but real-time formative data so teachers and parents and principals and students can 

know what their strengths and weaknesses are. 

So we think there is a huge opportunity here to get to that next 

generation, and we want to put our resources behind it. But the 

idea is the leadership is going to come at the local level. 

Mr. CASTLE. Okay. Talk to me about the teacher assessment situation and the evaluation of the teachers. We all know that there 

are potential union problems here; that is, most unions have gotten 

mandates that you cannot fire a teacher after a couple of years, 

and they are given permanent jobs, et cetera, which makes I think 

evaluation more difficult. Also there is a lot of resistance, frankly, 

to the ability to judge teachers that are doing a superior job and 

should be on a different pay scale. These have been opposed by a 

lot of different States and teacher unions. 

I sort of heard you talk about it, but how are we going to deal 

with that? I realize you are trying to rally everybody around to it, 

but it is going to be difficult to do, I think. 

Secretary DUNCAN. I think things are changing. I think the public and maybe everyone here doesn’t know how much things have 

changed. One example, Randi Weingarten, who I have tremendous 

29

respect for, the President of the AFT, gave a speech here a couple 

months ago, 2 months ago. She talked about how much better 

teacher evaluations have to get. She talked about rewarding excellence. She talked about not protecting bad teachers. There is an 

openness and willingness. 

Again, I went to both national conferences of unions and talked 

about teacher evaluation being broken. Everybody cheered. No one 

is happy with this. No one is saying the status quo is good enough. 

So the process is so important. As Chairman Miller’s point, this has 

to be done in partnership. It can’t be done top down. It has to be 

done with teachers, not to teachers. 

But no one is saying teacher evaluation works. There are a small 

number of districts, they are doing some wonderfully innovative 

things, management and union working together, everybody on the 

same page. But, again, those are just isolated situations. 

So some folks are breaking through, but there is a willingness. 

Again, there is a willingness now that maybe there wasn’t 3 or 5 

or 8 or 10 years ago. It doesn’t mean we are there yet. A lot of hard 

work is ahead of us. But am I optimistic we can get there? Absolutely. Things are changing in a fundamental way. 

Mr. CASTLE. I am still worried about the give-up of teacher tenure after a short period of time, and any kind of evaluation, on the 

basis they are going to evaluate me unfairly. I think it is going to 

be very difficult to get there. 

My time is up, so I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

You have mentioned the achievement gap several times, and it 

seems to me if you have a chronic situation where African Americans in a community are getting a 10th grade education and everybody else is getting a 12th grade education, that you have essentially violated the civil rights of the minority community in violation of Brown v. Board of Education, where you have denied the 

students of the minority race of an equal educational opportunity. 

Do you see the achievement gap as a civil rights violation? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I see education as the civil rights issue of our 

generation, and I see where you have chronic achievement gaps 

that aren’t changing. We absolutely have to challenge the status 

quo. We have to make sure—you know, some schools have 49 AP 

classes, and some schools have none. Some schools have access to 

dual enrollment college classes, and some have none. And we just 

have to make sure that all children have a chance to get a highquality education. 

Mr. SCOTT. One of the gaps is in the dropout rates. And in a previous discussion I think you acknowledged that a school that has 

a 50 percent dropout rate should not be given, as some are now, 

credit for AYP, because those that remained in school did okay 

while half of them dropped out. 

Secretary DUNCAN. I talked about perverse incentives under 

NCLB. You just nailed one of them. 

Mr. SCOTT. We thought we had dealt with that when we passed 

the bill way back when it started, because we worked together and 

required a provision in there that dealt with dropouts so you would 

not have the perverse incentive. 

30

Unfortunately, we gave everybody the opportunity to make up 

their own numbers, which they did. There is no standardized 

count, there is no standardized goal. You can make up what you 

want, and it essentially has no basis at all, where you can achieve 

AYP with a 50 percent dropout rate. 

Are you working to standardize the ability to accurately count 

and set a goal that people are supposed to achieve? 

Secretary DUNCAN. We have to, obviously, not just look at growth 

on evaluations but also look at outcomes and outcomes of graduation rates. I would say if you have the best third-grade test scores 

in the world but 50 percent of your students are dropping out, you 

are not changing students’ lives. So we have to look at those rates. 

I am interested not just in 4-year rates, but 5-year rates. Again, 

some of the perverse incentives where students fell behind, there 

wasn’t always a push to bring them back into the fold. And at the 

end of the day it doesn’t really matter whether you graduate in 4 

years or 5 years. Three is great, four is great, five is great too. We 

want to make sure students have an opportunity to graduate. 

Most importantly, again, it is not just about sticks. We want to 

find those schools that are really driving up graduation rates and 

reward them and learn from what they are doing. 

Mr. SCOTT. One of the problems we had With No Child Left Behind, too, in the beginning, was that we do the tests, but after you 

got the results, that was the end of the discussion. We didn’t do 

anything. The old farmer’s adage that we often repeat is that you 

don’t fatten the pig by weighing the pig. 

We would take the test, but then the school would be no better 

equipped to do anything about it than they were before they got 

the rules. What are we actually doing when we find—as we go to 

empower the schools to do a better job? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Sir, what we want to do more than ever before with these discretionary resources, we want to invest in what 

is working. So where districts can show us they are closing achievement gaps and raising the bar for all students, we want to put a 

lot more resources behind that and take it to scale. When you have 

one high-performing school in the community, why can’t that go to 

two to three to five and share those best practices. 

Where things aren’t working, we want to challenge the status 

quo very, very hard, but with increased local flexibility. We think 

there is going to be a real flourishing of innovation, many more 

good things happening, and we want to reward that success. 

Mr. SCOTT. Now, do we have a research capability to capture all 

this information and to get it in a form for best practices and translate that into replicable strategies? 

Secretary DUNCAN. We want to work very hard with IES, which 

is sort of a separate entity. But there are so many examples of excellence we have not learned from. We want to get much better at 

that. Race to the Top, we are going to do some great things, we 

hope. I am sure we are going to make some mistakes as well. We 

want to learn from that in real time. So having a real research arm 

working hard on this in real time is very important to us. 

Mr. SCOTT. One our challenges is figuring out what a highly 

qualified teacher is. I think you agree you can’t read it off a resume, and that is how we have done it traditionally. You read the 

31

resume, and some are highly qualified and some aren’t; some can 

teach and some can’t. 

What are we doing to ascertain whether or not a teacher is actually effective, not just one with the paper qualifications? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Well, we want to move from highly qualified, 

based upon paper credentials, to highly effective, based upon the 

difference you make in students’ lives. To your point, you could 

have four degrees from the fanciest of universities, but if your students are not learning, you are not a great teacher. And you could 

have none of those fancy degrees and be making extraordinary differences in students’ lives. So moving from paper credentials to effectiveness is exactly where we want to go. 

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to enter into 

the record another study. I think since the last time we talked 

about the problems that we are having in charter schools in segregation, another study has come out which leads to the same conclusion. We would like that entered into the record. 

Chairman MILLER. Without objection, it will be part of the 

record. 

[The policy brief, ‘‘Schools Without Diversity: Education Management Organizations, Charter Schools, and the Demographic Stratification of the American School System,’’ submitted by Mr. Scott, 

may be accessed at the following Internet address:] 

http://epicpolicy.org/files/EMO-Seg.pdf 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Souder. 

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have two basic questions. One I believe is fairly simple, but I 

am confused as to why we don’t do it. Under IDEA, we have individual education plans for each special-needs student. Why isn’t 

that plan a growth model? In other words, why isn’t that IEP either adjusted to meet the annual growth goal, or the growth goal 

adjusted to meet the IEP? We have not seemed to mesh these two 

programs. 

Secretary DUNCAN. We haven’t done great growth models for lots 

of students, including students with special needs. So I think you 

are on to something we need to look at very, very closely. 

Mr. SOUDER. Because we are paying a lot of money to develop 

this whole annual plan that doesn’t seem to be meshed with the 

measurement of the school, and I think that would be a measure 

breakthrough in a lot of schools. 

Secretary DUNCAN. It is a great point. Again, when you talk 

about growth and gain, we want to measure like students against 

like students. So students with similar disabilities are getting wildly different outcomes. We want to understand why that is and, 

again, what are the best practices. And when those students aren’t 

progressing, we want to figure out how we challenge that. 

Mr. SOUDER. Good, because that is part of my next question, because Indiana is doing that. I am a little worried and I ask for forgiveness from God because this question sounds a little like Chairman Miller’s question, and that is always dangerous——

Chairman MILLER. Be very careful. 

32

Mr. SOUDER. In the lower 5 percent schools, I have watched for 

many years, as a staffer and as a Member working with this, we 

have tried many of your four different things. We have tried magnet schools, we have tried changing the names of the schools, firing 

the principals, changing the teachers. And your list of four seems 

relatively prescriptive in the sense of two of them have replace the 

principal, one has firing half the school, close the school, and two 

others. 

Now, you are putting additional funds in and you said that you 

are going to try to measure like students with like students. But 

one of the challenges here is why would anyone ever choose to 

teach in one of these schools if they think there is a 50 percent 

chance they are going to be fired? Why would a principal go there? 

How are we assured that the same schools that haven’t been chronic are going to be measured fairly and get improvement? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Those are great, great questions. And to be 

clear, where you have a principal who has recently arrived there, 

they are not fired. They can actually stay. 

I will say, though, there are no high-performing schools without 

very great principals, and if that principal has been there 20 years 

and nothing has moved, I think honestly you do need to make a 

change there. 

What I will tell you, and this is a really important point, that 

around the country you have heroic teachers and principals who 

desperately want to go to the toughest communities and make a 

difference. In fact, that is why many people go into education. 

What they haven’t had is a real opportunity where they thought 

they could make a difference. 

So where you have a critical mass of folks coming together and 

you are creating the right set of opportunities, great leadership, 

more time to collaborate, more time for students, a real sense of 

master teachers helping out, there are phenomenal teachers that 

want to do this. 

Mr. SOUDER. I agree with that wholeheartedly, and we have several schools inside Fort Wayne where teachers actually moved to 

those schools. And your point about the 50 ways to fail and undersucceed, that was an excellent point; because in measuring student-to-student performance may help or similar type schools may 

help, but the bottom line is some of those where they have really 

put their effort in, they get marginal change, even working weekends and so on. And those highly motivated teachers didn’t move 

to those schools thinking 50 percent of them could be fired within 

a certain number of years if they do everything they can, and 

spend the extra hours. We obviously have English learners mixed 

in with this, all sorts of economic changes inside schools. 

Sometimes where we see these great performing schools, we see 

there has been a student mix that has changed. They are all of a 

sudden getting a neighborhood change. It isn’t just that it was suddenly some miraculous—they used some language program and 

they turned around. It does require the committed principals and 

teachers, I agree with that. 

Secretary DUNCAN. And to Chairman Miller’s point, it requires 

the whole community. I will tell you, as hard as this is, as difficult, 

I have been to school after school around this country in a relVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:53 Jan 04, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 G:\DOCS\111TH\FC\111-52\55303.TXT HBUD PsN: DICK
33

atively short period of time. I was in one school that had the second 

most violent incidents in its city. Two years later, there was basically no violence, nothing going on. 

There are schools where in the first year, maybe test scores don’t 

skyrocket, but there are schools in which student attendance increases 12 percent. Twelve percent may not sound like a lot. 

Twelve percent on a 180-day school year is about another month 

of school that students are choosing to come to school. 

So there are all kinds of indicators we can look at where adults 

are in there, working extraordinarily hard. This is the toughest 

work in America today, and I would argue it is the most important. 

And we need to, again community by community, find those folks, 

create an environment where they have a chance to be successful, 

reward success, give them the time, learn this won’t happen perfectly everywhere. 

But when you see students one year to the next going to school 

a month more, something good is going on. When you see violence 

disappear, something is happening. 

Mr. SOUDER. I visited a school in New Orleans, right after 

Katrina, where only two students failed No Child Left Behind, even 

though it was 100 percent poverty. 

I know it can be done. And part of the question is—and I would 

like to see the sustainability of those. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. We have to stay the course. 

Chairman MILLER. It is the intention of the Chair to return after 

these votes. I am going to try to recognize Ms. Woolsey and Mr. 

Ehlers, if they are willing to stay here, and then if they have their 

track shoes on—I am sorry, Ms. Biggert. I will go to Ms. Woolsey, 

Ms. Biggert, and then run to make the votes and be back after the 

votes. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

It is wonderful to see you. 

No Child Left Behind sounded very similar, different words, absolutely a different group presenting it to us, and No Child Left Behind turned out to be punitive instead of helpful. So I hate to 

sound like Mr. Hoekstra——

Chairman MILLER. Look, you are bringing us together in a way 

we never imagined. This is unprecedented in this community over 

the last decade. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. But I really worry that we have got a new team 

in town, we have got a new White House, a new Secretary; so now 

we have to do a new something, but it won’t be that different. So 

I will know it is different if we actually invest in the kids that need 

the help the most. 

So what I want to know is: Is there an amount in the budget 

that will be targeted to ensure that students are ready to learn 

when they enter the classroom? Because to bring those failing kids, 

the sick kids, the hungry kids, the worried child, is going to be 

costly. 

Are we going to make that investment, or are we going to expect 

the teacher to bridge that gap, hold that teacher accountable for 

something that is impossible? Because you cannot build a workable 

product if the parts are broken. 

34

So, Mr. Secretary, my question is: How much—or are we willing 

to spend more money on those kids than on my grandchildren, who 

are well-adjusted, well-fed, happy kids going to school. Ready to 

learn? 

Secretary DUNCAN. A great question. Let me be very, very clear. 

If a child is hungry, he or she cannot learn. If a child is scared, 

either in school or going to and from school, that child can’t learn. 

If a child can’t see the blackboard, that child can’t learn. There is 

a series of physical and emotional, psychological supports that we 

have to put in place. 

We have six large buckets of funding. One is student supports, 

$1.8 billion, a $245 million increase, a 16 percent increase. This is 

to extend after-school programs, extended day, extended year. This 

is to create neighborhoods that are safe and students that are safe. 

This is a huge investment, $200 million to replicate Jeffrey Canada’s work in the Harlem Children’s Zone, not just schools but entire communities around schools, to make sure students have a 

chance to be successful. 

So we want to put unprecedented resources behind the effort to 

give students a chance to think about algebra and to think about 

biology and to think about going to college. If you are not hitting 

those emotional and physical needs first, we are kidding ourselves. 

So, yes, to answer your question, we are going to put a huge 

amount of resources, not behind every child, but behind those children and communities with the greatest needs to give them a 

chance to be successful academically. 

Ms. WOOLSEY. Okay. Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. The gentlewoman yields back her time. 

Mrs. Biggert. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is nice to see you 

again here so soon, Mr. Secretary. 

On page 16, you somewhere have got a teacher and leader innovation fund, and I am not quite sure how that all fits in. Does this 

mean that the blueprint requires a statewide definition of effective 

teachers and principals that is based in quite a large part on student academic growth? I know we both agree that the student 

achievement measure must be improved. 

But is this an assessment competition designed to have a few 

States develop a new model assessment, and does that mean that 

other States, until this happens, that they will be still under the 

old test? 

Secretary DUNCAN. We think States can provide some parameters, but we think this is best done and can only be done at the 

local level. So local school leaders, unions, teachers, management 

boards, working together at the local level. And again, I think nothing is more important than great teachers and great principals. We 

have $3.86 billion in our proposed budget. That is a $350 million 

increase. So we want to work with those States and districts who 

want to do something better. 

One of the things I want to say, Mr. Chairman, is that we have 

spent a lot of money on evaluation systems, on professional development, billions of dollars a year, with very, very little to show for 

it. So we want to work with those places willing to challenge the 

35

status quo and get dramatically better. This is a place where we 

have a long, long way to go as a country. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Okay. But in the meantime, will the teacher effectiveness determinations be made using the existing standardized 

tests? 

Secretary DUNCAN. There are different ways to do it. We are 

moving towards this next generation of assessments. You can use 

existing assessments. Some of those aren’t very strong. So you 

don’t have to just look at the test results. You can look in every 

State; you have different categories of students, students below 

basic, basic, above or advanced. So you can look at the movement 

of students between those different categories. 

These systems are not perfect. We are in a period of transition. 

There are different ways to do it. But at the end of the day, we 

want to get to a better system as quickly as we can. In the interim, 

there are ways to measure progress and growth. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. Just another quick question. When does your Department plan to announce new data on the number of homeless 

students in the United States? I have really always been concerned 

about the homeless students. I have heard that it may now be over 

1 million. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. I don’t know the date. I will get you 

that. I will tell you one change that we are making. Historically, 

Title I dollars cannot be used for transportation for homeless students, and we are creating flexibility in our plan, our proposed 

plan, so that homeless children would have access to transportation. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. One thing that I am concerned with, and it has 

to do with HUD, because they are working to change the homeless 

definition, and it really does depend on what the Education Department says is the number of homeless. That would really be helpful, 

if you have that number. 

Secretary DUNCAN. I will check that data and give it back to you. 

Mrs. BIGGERT. I yield back. 

Chairman MILLER. I yield to Mr. Hinojosa. We have 3 minutes 

left. If you want to take your 3 minutes now, you are welcome to. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. I will gladly take it, and I will come back for a 

second round. 

Chairman MILLER. You will take your 3 minutes now and I think 

that will be it. But go ahead. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. I want to ask two questions, Mr. Secretary. How 

do you propose to support high-need schools, we often at times call 

dropout factories, in both urban and rural areas through the reauthorization of ESEA? And in that response, please include how the 

Blueprint for Reform improves middle schools so that we can stop 

the high dropouts which occur in grades 7, 8 and 9? 

Secretary DUNCAN. On the middle school piece, all of the reforms 

we are talking about—better teachers and leaders, well-rounded 

education, again, not just reading and math, but science and social 

studies and the arts, all those things, better student support—will 

impact and help middle schools to become stronger. Again, looking 

at growth and gain in how much students are improving, we think 

is going to be very, very important. 

36

For those schools that have chronically underperformed, we have 

the school improvement grants, which is a $3.5 billion investment 

in those schools. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Can you see that middle schools get a greater 

amount than they have been receiving the last decade? Because 

when I have feedback in middle schools, they always compare how 

little they get versus the elementary and versus the high school. 

So that needs some specificity. 

Secretary DUNCAN. One thing—this is not quite answering your 

question directly—but one of the things which always concerns me 

is high schools like to point their fingers to middle schools, and 

middle schools to elementary schools and right down the line. What 

we are really asking is for communities to come together behind 

their children, everyone rally behind. 

That is one of the things that has been so appealing to me about 

the Harlem Childrens’ Zone, is those aren’t somebody else’s children. Every child there is our child, and everybody is working together behind. So what we want to get out of is this finger pointing 

and blame game and get entire communities rallying behind children. And obviously middle schools are a hugely important piece of 

that pipeline, that equation. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. My second question to you is the ESEA blueprint 

calls for identifying and developing effective teachers and leaders. 

How will you encourage and support States and districts in recruiting bilingual teachers and principals to better meet the needs of 

English language learners and diverse student populations? 

Secretary DUNCAN. We want to put unprecedented resources behind better teacher recruitment, including bilingual teachers and 

principals. I have said repeatedly, I think our Department has significantly underinvested in principal leadership, and that is huge, 

and we are asking for a fivefold increase there. 

As we have an increasingly diverse student population, I want 

the adults in front of those students to reflect the diversity of our 

country, and I would worry about the growing imbalance between 

our students and the adults there. So making sure we have great 

representation, whether it is bilingual or teachers and principals 

who have an ELL background. Thelma Melndez, who is in charge 

of our K-12 education was an ELL student who faced low expectations and this was a real personal battle. 

I worry about the lack of men. I think most teachers around this 

country, 2 percent of teachers are African American males, 1.5 percent are Hispanic males, so 3.5 percent males from the Hispanic 

and African American community. Something is wrong with that 

picture and we have to do better. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. We will return. 

Chairman MILLER. We will recess. 

[Recess.] 

Chairman MILLER. The committee will reconvene. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Our apologies for the vote in the middle of your appearance here. 

My understanding is you are going to leave at about 5:20. So Mr. 

Tierney is recognized next, and then I think Mr. Petri. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

37

Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for this endurance contest; I appreciate it, being in the Senate this morning and here today. It is a 

little bit like basketball practice, right? 

Can you cite any evidence for a State like Massachusetts, which 

is the highest rate of proficiency, that the top-down imposition of 

improvement models that are supposed to be used on so-called 

underperforming schools actually have led to any success anywhere? 

Secretary DUNCAN. In Massachusetts? 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, in Massachusetts first, but then generally 

otherwise. 

Secretary DUNCAN. There are a number of high-performing turnaround schools around the country. 

Mr. TIERNEY. That has used one of our four models that you cite? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And all of them have been shown to give some success? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I think there are examples of success and examples where there hasn’t been perfect success. But, yes, there has 

been success. Nothing is 100 percent. 

Mr. TIERNEY. All right. But if each of those four models have 

shown to be successful so that you have included them on here as 

something that will help failing schools, then let me ask you what 

your reasoning is for restricting the number of certain models that 

be used? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Actually what was said for high-performing 

districts, they could come in with a different model. So they were 

given flexibility there. 

Mr. TIERNEY. A fifth model you are saying? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Yes. With high-performing districts. 

Mr. TIERNEY. But of the four, you have restricted the use of at 

least the transformative model. If it has proven to be effective, why 

restrict it? Why not let States and districts actually have the flexibility of choosing that and not saying that they can only use it for 

half of the schools? 

Secretary DUNCAN. That is only for districts with many, many 

schools. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, nine. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Nine or above. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Nine is not so many in New York or Chicago. Nine 

is a lot in Boston and Salem. 

Secretary DUNCAN. What we are trying to guard against is under 

No Child Left Behind, everybody picked ‘‘other’’ and nothing 

changed. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Okay, but this isn’t ‘‘other.’’ This is one of the four 

you set out and you put it in there because you think it is successful. So I assume if the people that proved that, they are okay with 

you. They have proven one of your successful models that you are 

using. So why should somebody else be precluded from choosing 

that one over the other three? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Again, we think that is a good model. We 

think we need to be doing some other things where there are lots 

of schools. 

38

Mr. TIERNEY. Presumably there will be people doing the other 

things. If you are given the four choices, I assume not everybody 

is going to pick that one. But by having some arbitrary number, 

I am a little bit mystified as to what purpose that serves. 

Secretary DUNCAN. We think a lot of people will choose that 

model, and it is a very good model. But we want to see other moves 

as well. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, I don’t buy it. I am sorry. I disagree, and I 

think I will probably be working against it. I think the transformation model is a very good model. It seems to me it is where 

most people should be going. 

I think that the restart idea is a charter school flak, and I look 

at the evidence from charter schools. There are some good ones, 

like there are good public schools; there are some bad ones, like 

there are some bad public schools. In fact, they are bad or worse 

than our public schools; they are good as or no better than. So I 

don’t know why we are driving people in that direction. But that 

is a choice, if people want to take it. I suppose it is not a problem. 

Why you didn’t restrict that, I don’t know. If it did more than half, 

that would have been interesting. 

The turnaround model where you dump off half the teachers and 

the principal, I don’t think that is going to be an attractive offer 

for most people, because as Mr. Kildee said earlier, you can’t blame 

it on the teachers and the principal every time. And to just arbitrarily say you are going to just dump half of them doesn’t seem 

to make it. 

The closure model may or may not work. That may be an option 

in some instances. 

So I don’t get the rationale and I don’t see any evidence as a 

foundation for your decision to limit that transformation model 

where you haven’t limited the others. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Again, what we want to see is in these very 

low-performing schools, again, these are just the bottom 5 percent 

in any State, we want to see very aggressive action taken, and talent needs to be a piece of that. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Good. But why not restrict the other three, then? 

You can only use up to half of the transformational model; why 

can’t you only do half on the restart, half on the restart model, half 

on the turnaround model, half on the closure model? 

Secretary DUNCAN. Again, we could look to do that. I don’t think 

that is necessary. I think most people will be picking the transformation model. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Then you have limited it to half just because you 

think people are going to go for the really good one. You want to 

make them go for one of the less good ones or one of the less attractive ones to them. 

Secretary DUNCAN. What we want to see is a multitude of strategies to take on chronic underperformance. 

Mr. TIERNEY. What I need to ask you to do is provide for this 

committee—and Mr. Chairman, I ask that we do this—all the detail you have that the turnaround model has worked anywhere and 

where it hasn’t worked; all the detail where the restart model has 

worked and where it hasn’t worked; all the detail from the closure 

model, where it has worked and where it hasn’t worked; and all the 

39

detail on the transformative model, where it has worked and hasn’t 

worked. And then some data behind why you chose these four and 

how they stack up against one another, because I don’t think it is 

going to bear out. 

I don’t mind the flexibility of choosing between four, but precluding people from choosing the one that looks really, really attractive, just on the fact that you want to force some people to 

choose a less attractive one, doesn’t seem like a model for success. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Again, we are not saying schools have to all 

do this next year. This is over the next couple years we are asking 

folks to take this every year and take some schools and do something dramatically different. 

Mr. TIERNEY. We are all for doing something, but you are precluding one of the somethings. 

Chairman MILLER. We will work with the Secretary’s Office on 

that. 

Mr. Ehlers. 

Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Secretary. I appreciate your waiting around for the laggards here. 

Chairman MILLER. If the gentleman will suspend, the Secretary 

will be leaving at 5:20, so to the extent we can get the people in 

the room in the questioning, that will help out. Thank you. 

Mr. EHLERS. Okay, I can be fairly brief. 

I first want to tell you I appreciate the blueprint you have prepared. I printed it out last Saturday night and read it eagerly. And 

I think it is a very good analysis of what we have done and what 

we should do. I recognize the devil is always in the details, but I 

think it is a good place to start. So thank you for doing that. 

I wanted to comment about a couple of things. You raised the 

issue of standards here, and that is generally a contentious issue 

on our side of the aisle, but I think it is an issue we have to address. It is not that I want to control standards from Washington, 

but I think what the States have done in a cooperative way is very 

good. 

I think back in my elementary school days, most of the members 

of my class quit school after eighth grade. I grew up in a farming 

community. They thought they had learned everything they would 

ever need to know in farming, but in fact it would have been very 

good for them to continue on to high school and study chemistry 

and mathematics, because, as you know, today farms are far different than they were back in 1948 and farmers today have to be 

well-educated in the various aspects of science. 

I want the standards not just because of science or just for 

science, but I think we owe it to our students today, because we 

have such a mobile society today. As you well know, most people 

move every 4 years or so. And it is easily possible for a family to 

move over the Christmas holiday, let’s say, and the student may 

have studied a certain subject, particularly in math, which is sequential, or the sciences, which is sequential, and they may have 

studied it in the fall semester and they are transferred to another 

school that offers the same subject in the spring semester, and the 

student misses out on the course that would have been taught in 

his old school in the spring semester. 

40

This is a major problem when you are talking about moving 

every 4 years. A lot of kids just get left in the cold. And if we wonder why so many Americans don’t understand fractions or percentages or a lot of other things, that is one of the causes of it. 

So I am not concerned quite as much about the standards in 

terms of what is taught or the quality that is taught, but the sequential nature of courses. It is crucial for science and mathematics, and I hope that everyone on this committee will appreciate 

that that is a really serious problem. 

If we are serious about catching up and, in fact, exceeding what 

the Chinese and Indians are doing lately, as well as some 30 other 

nations, we have to look at that very seriously. Most of those nations that are doing better than us do have a standardized curriculum. That doesn’t mean they set standards nationally, but they 

have the curriculum nationalized, so you avoid the sequential problem and also can help make sure the students get the courses they 

are going to need. 

So I wanted to get that in the record, but also hear any comments you might have about that and ways that we can address 

it, while at the same time taking into account the concerns of my 

colleagues who are very worried about establishing a national 

standard. 

Secretary DUNCAN. I just think this is happening at the right 

time for the right reasons, and the leadership in the right place, 

which is the local level. And, again, this has been bipartisan; Republican Governors, Democratic Governors, union, business community, Chamber of Commerce, everyone working together. 

So I think making sure that those courses are linked sequentially, and, again, at the end of the day, they are high bar. Everyone is working hard together now. We are not done yet, but I am 

very, very encouraged. I think this is a fundamental breakthrough 

for our country. 

Mr. EHLERS. I agree. I am glad States have done this, working 

together in that way—that is the ideal way, and leave us out of it. 

Even though I introduced a bill to provide tentative national standards, I am delighted if the bill is not necessary. I suspect that just 

introducing the bill probably instigated action on the part of the 

States to avoid the Congress setting standards. So I think we are 

going in the right direction. 

With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MILLER. I would just say that I think on the common 

standards, I think Professor William Schmidt, who is actually from 

Michigan, I believe, who raised this whole issue, and I think the 

standards reflect this idea of sequencing. It is something we 

haven’t done. We jump around a lot, and certainly in the beginning 

study of mathematics. 

Mr. EHLERS. He has done a marvelous job, and I have discussed 

it with him many times. 

Chairman MILLER. Ms. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MILLER. We have about 8 minutes left, folks. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Good to see you, Mr. Secretary. 

Just a comment on the common standards. I think that there are 

a lot of things in place, certainly the States’ efforts, your efforts, 

41

the President’s efforts. I think I am still looking for a Sputnik-like 

moment. 

Is that something that you feel as well; that while there is all 

this attention, you don’t sense that urgency really in the country 

as a whole? And I am not sure whether that is good or bad. I mean, 

maybe it is okay that this really does have to be thoroughly grassroots in the sense of coming through locals. But I just wonder 

whether you have that sense, and where is that effort missing? Is 

it missing in the business community? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I think, frankly, as a country we have lacked 

a sense of urgency, so we feel huge urgency. I feel it every single 

day, and I think you are seeing more and more people around the 

country. But, yes, we have to get dramatically better and we have 

to do it as fast as we can. And we are losing competitive advantage 

by every way you measure. And if you are serious about educating 

your way to a better economy, we have got to get better now. 

Mrs. DAVIS. I wanted to focus for a second on the evaluations. 

I am very pleased you are doing that. I worked at the State level 

as well in teacher evaluations. 

How do we really work with what we might call the lowest performing schools now, to have some assurances that they are actually taking the time to develop those evaluations or using ones that 

are out there? There must be several different plans that schools 

have been using that are best practices. How do we disseminate 

that in such a way that it doesn’t become top-down? 

Secretary DUNCAN. There are plenty of good models out there. 

When I was in Chicago, we used the TAP model, the Teacher Advancement Project. It was jointly worked on at the national level 

with the AFT and with folks actually from the Milken Foundation. 

We thought it was very, very strong. 

To me, the evaluation piece shouldn’t be done at the school. It 

really has got to be at the district level, because we don’t want 

95,000 schools doing their own evaluations. But districts should be 

working together. There are good models out there and, again, we 

want to put money behind places willing to do more of that. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Is there an accountability piece in there so that 

schools that don’t develop them or they are not going, really, beyond what exists today—what do you? 

Secretary DUNCAN. We are going to try to push hard. Again, to 

me, it is not just up to individual schools. Districts have to provide 

leadership; management, unions, working together; teachers, stakeholders working together have to create that framework at the district level, and the schools need to implement. 

Chairman MILLER. The Secretary is going to leave here, he has 

to be somewhere else at 5:30. 

Mr. Guthrie. If you can limit yourself, we can just quickly jump 

through the members here. I apologize. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. I had a couple of questions, but we will talk again. 

Thank you so much. I have enjoyed your attitude and the way you 

are progressing on this. Hopefully we will have a good solution by 

the end of the year. I had a couple of others questions, but I will 

just keep it to this. 

We had some discussion earlier about charter schools and the 

good students are seen as students picking to leave charter schools 

42

and leaving, I guess, the parents who aren’t as motivated on their 

children or aren’t as sophisticated, as was talked about, and their 

children staying in the traditional public school. 

How do you think through that issue? There is an issue of people 

leaving charter schools, which I am for, because I think the option 

is leaving a kid in a school that their parent doesn’t want them to 

attend or giving them an option to move them into a charter school. 

But what happens to the public school? Does it dwindle away, and 

there are other options? Then you talk about autonomous schools, 

and how is that different from a charter school? I will just leave 

it at that. 

Secretary DUNCAN. We just need more good schools, and no 

one—if there happens to be a good charter school in the community, we need to be working on that neighborhood school as well. 

We just need more choices. 

What I just fundamentally think is that wealthy families in our 

country have had two, three, four great educational options for decades, for centuries. Poor families have often had one choice, and 

often that choice wasn’t a great one. 

So think about if every family in this country—and this obviously 

works more where there is a denser population—had two, three, or 

four great choices, empowered parents. Let me tell you, every parent, it doesn’t matter how rich, how poor, whatever education background they have, every parent wants the best thing for their child, 

and we need to give parents those opportunities. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. I agree with you. But the autonomous public 

school, you mentioned that in the bill. 

Secretary DUNCAN. Charters don’t have the monopoly on innovation, and there are wonderfully innovative traditional public 

schools, and we want to see more schools with flexibility and the 

chance to create a vision. Charters are a piece of that answer. Autonomous schools that are part of a district that has some freedom 

and flexibility are also part of that answer. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Ms. Hirono, 2 minutes. 

Ms. HIRONO. Thank you. 

The critical role of teachers, and can good teaching be taught? 

We have talked about this briefly before, The New York Times 

magazine article. What I want to know is are we getting to the 

science of good teaching? Is there something specific in the blueprint that gets us to the science of good teaching? 

Secretary DUNCAN. I don’t think we have the science of good 

teaching in the blueprint. What we want to do is invest in those 

places, those districts, those States, those schools of education that 

are doing a great job of accelerating student achievement and, by 

definition, are getting towards that science of good teaching. 

So I don’t think it is up to us to come up with that definition. 

I think it is our opportunity to invest in places that are taking this 

very, very seriously. 

Ms. HIRONO. Is there money in the blueprint for that? 

Secretary DUNCAN. There is very significant money in the blueprint for that, yes. 

Ms. HIRONO. Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Courtney. 

43

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, earlier this year you were touting the New Haven 

school contract as a model for collaboration and flexibility. And I 

agree with you in terms of significance and the change that was 

included in that document. What I would say is I would challenge 

you or your staff to come to my office and explain to me how the 

turnaround grants in the models that you are proposing square 

with this contract, because it explicitly focused on the issue of turnaround schools, which New Haven, you know, the leadership recognized that the change needs to happen there. But, frankly, I don’t 

see how what this blueprint calls for complies or dovetails with the 

hard work that people did on a collaborative basis. 

Number two, you don’t have to answer that right this second——

Secretary DUNCAN. I will be happy to have that conversation. We 

actually think there is lots common ground, but that is a good conversation to have, so we will follow up on that. 

Mr. COURTNEY. The second question: Your work on the Recovery 

Act funding, I think, avoided a blood bath in this country in terms 

of school districts, with the worst economy in our lifetime. But, unfortunately, I still don’t think we are out of the woods yet. Every 

school superintendent I talked to talks about the cliff in 2011. 

I understand the thinking behind the competitive grant model in 

terms of trying to reform the system, but we have an economy that 

is like a patient with a heart attack, and we are asking school districts to run a marathon right now with resources that are going 

to really get real scary at the end of this calendar year. 

I would just sort of share that with you, that aside from the merits of the substance of it, there is a practical challenge facing every 

superintendent in this country, and I am not sure this budget really acknowledges that. 

Secretary DUNCAN. We absolutely share that concern. And everywhere I go, we are very concerned about potential cuts. We were 

able to save hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs this past year. 

We worry going to this next year. Obviously, we need to do both. 

We need to maintain that and perform. These shouldn’t be in conflict. We need to do both at the same time. It is a real challenge. 

I share that concern. 

Chairman MILLER. The Chair is going to go to Mr. Petri, and Ms. 

Chu, and then that is it. Two minutes. 

Mr. PETRI. I will only take 30 seconds with respect to our witness, but just to say that one of the key tensions the No Child Left 

Behind was the way the assessment worked and how it was driving 

decisions in schools and in classrooms. And there is a lot that can 

be done. There is no magic bullet. But something like adaptive testing, which is a little more flexible and assesses student progress, 

changing it to ‘‘no child shall be ignored’’ and not make reasonable 

progress, rather than all get the same schedule, is something we 

need to have a good conversation about. That is it. 

Chairman MILLER. Thank you. Ms. Chu, 2 minutes. 

Ms. CHU. Yes. I was a teacher for 20 years, though I taught in 

the community college and not at the K-12 level. Nonetheless, I 

know that after so many years in the classroom that there are a 

range of teachers from great to those that need improvement. 

Clearly those that need improvement require greater intervention 

44

than which exists now, especially in the K-12 classroom, which is 

a 20-minute evaluation in the back of the classroom once a year. 

Now, in your blueprint, the key element seems to be having an 

effective teacher in the classroom. Yet when 74 teachers were fired 

at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island, you said that the 

members of the school board were showing courage and doing the 

right thing for the kids. Are you saying there was not even one 

teacher without any redeeming value? 

Secretary DUNCAN. That was absolutely not what I was saying. 

And there are some phenomenal teachers there and in every school 

that struggles. You never want to see teachers fired. What I was 

suggesting was that schools like that, that have struggled, where 

there is a 52 percent dropout rate, where 7 percent of kids are at 

grade level in their math proficiency. Reading was better than that, 

but math, 93 percent of students weren’t. We have to work hard 

together. What actually happened subsequent, which I am very 

pleased about, is the district and the union is working together on 

mediation and we have been actively encouraging that. So I think 

that situation is moving in the right direction. 

Ms. CHU. How would you expect teachers to collaborate in the 

process? Because I don’t see any area in there for teacher input in 

the blueprint. 

Secretary DUNCAN. There are huge areas. And getting that partnership between teachers and the administrators has to happen. 

And all these things we are talking about, better evaluations, better assessments, all of that has to happen with cooperation and 

participation of all parties. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. 

Chairman MILLER. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for your 

time. I am sorry that we were interrupted in the middle of your 

testimony by the votes. We requested a view on a bipartisan, bicameral basis to make this blueprint available for us. And it is now 

our obligation to see if we can reduce this to legislative language. 

We look forward to your continued involvement and the involvement of your staff, as has already been done from the Department 

with a bipartisan, bicameral working team. And we may even bring 

you back here for an update on all of this. But thank you so very, 

very much for presenting the blueprint, as was requested. Mr. 

Kline. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I echo the Chairman’s 

comments, so somebody write this down today. And thank you very 

much for your hard work and your attendance. 

Chairman MILLER. From Hoekstra to Kline, oh, my God. Oh, 

Souder, too. Jesus. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. The committee will stand adjourned. 

And, without objection, all members have 14 days to submit materials for this hearing or questions to the Department of Education. 

We will forward them. 

[Questions submitted for the record:]

45

U.S. CONGRESS, 

[VIA FACSIMILE], 

Washington, DC, March 26, 2010. 

Hon. ARNE DUNCAN, Secretary, 

U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Washington, DC. 

DEAR SECRETARY DUNCAN: Thank you for testifying at the Committee on Education and Labor’s hearing on, ‘‘The Obama Administration’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act Reauthorization Blueprint,’’ on March 17, 2010. 

Committee Members have additional questions for which they would like written 

responses from you for the hearing record. 

Representative Raul M. Grijalva (D-AZ) has asked that you respond in writing to 

the following questions: 

1. You mentioned in your testimony that you see the middle grades as an integral 

part of a cradle-to-career education plan, yet I have not yet heard anything that acknowledges the unique educational situation of middle grades. The middle grades 

are a fundamental transitional point for students, and the dropout crisis will not 

be addressed successfully without addressing the crux of when students fall irreparably behind—these are the middle grades and not high school. Can you please expand on your testimony by explaining the place of middle grades in dropout prevention and college and career readiness? 

2. I am pleased to see that both the Blueprint and the Department’s Fiscal 2011 

budget request propose new investments to improve teaching and learning in all 

content areas, including environmental education. 

Former Education Secretary Riley said in a recent statement: If we want to have 

a green-jobs economy, we need to give our young people the skills to get the goodpaying jobs that will become more and more available and attractive in the coming 

decade. Indeed, environmental literacy and education are at the very foundation of 

a sustainable green-jobs economy. We cannot have one without the other. We have 

an urgent need to raise student achievement and expand the academic pipeline for 

STEM-related subjects. Environmental literacy is one sure way to engage young 

people by giving them hands-on experience outside the classroom. Environmental 

literacy is good for the environment, good for education and a smart way to grow 

our economy. 

Do you agree with Secretary Riley’s statement? How can we ensure that the Department’s proposed new investments in environmental literacy will get to those 

students who are most in need of better environmental education, specifically the 

economically and educationally disadvantaged students in our urban centers? 

3. The Chairman and CEO of Norfolk Southern Corporation—a Fortune 300 Company—recently sent you a letter with copies to our Committee, urging you to work 

with the Congress to ensure that the environmental literacy plans and programs of 

the No Child Left Inside Act are incorporated into the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. 

He writes in his letter, ‘‘We believe that having an environmentally literate workforce is critical to our bottom line and the ongoing strength of our company. To be 

ready for the 21st Century workforce and for the transition to a green economy, we 

believe that every student must be prepared with basic environmental knowledge 

and skills and environmental education must begin in our nation’s elementary and 

secondary schools.’’ I applaud you for including environmental education as part of 

your initiative to help more students in high-need schools receive a ‘‘well-rounded 

education.’’ Do you agree with the idea that environmental education is also important for our students to be college and career-ready? How can we ensure that the 

Department’s proposed new investments in environmental education will be available to all students so that every student is prepared for the green economy? 

Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) has asked that you respond in writing 

to the following questions: 

The FY11 budget you submitted and the Blueprint creates a new ‘‘Successful, 

Safe, and Healthy Students’’ program. A number of separate programs are combined 

into this one program, including the Safe and Drug Free Schools program. As you 

know, I am a strong proponent of school safety and look forward to continuing to 

work together on these efforts. You and I both know well the effects that schools 

and community violence can have on our students’ ability to learn. 

1. Can you describe how you see the ‘‘Successful, Safe, and Healthy Students’’ program working to address physical violence in schools? 

2. The Department calls for school climate surveys, along with expulsion, suspension, and discipline data, to create a data-driven understanding of school safety. The 

blueprint does not reference incident-based law enforcement data as a part of the 

overall data collection and assessment. Does the Department agree with me about 

46

the need to incorporate incident-based law enforcement data for crimes which have 

occurred at schools and on school campuses into this overall data-driven approach 

to school safety? 

3. In the July, 2009, Committee joint hearing on strengthening federal school safety policy, we heard testimony stressing the importance of having a balanced and 

comprehensive approach to school safety which includes activities related to prevention, intervention, security, and emergency preparedness. The Department’s approach and philosophy appears to have a strong focus on climate and prevention activities, which is good. Will the Department also include activities which support the 

security and emergency preparedness measures? 

4. The Department’s blueprint calls for priority awards of competitive safe schools 

grants to districts partnering with nonprofit and community-based agencies. Can 

this priority also include not only nonprofits and community based organizations, 

but also give priority to schools partnering with first responders, public safety agencies, emergency management agencies, public mental health agencies, public health 

agencies, and other government organizations that can help with school safety planning? 

5. Does the administration believe corporal punishment in schools is an effective 

discipline technique? Does the Department have data on the effectiveness of corporal punishment? How is effectiveness of corporal punishment measured? Does the 

Department have data on whether States that permit corporal punishment have less 

disciplinary problems than other schools? 

6. The Blueprint raises the notion of holding parties besides educators accountable, but it appears that for the most part it is educators that are the overwhelming 

focus of the accountability system. How can we ensure that teacher assessments are 

based on multiple measures and that teachers are given the professional development they need to be effective? 

7. Who should we hold accountable when students fails to progress on science 

tests when their classroom is not equipped with a laboratory? Is that the responsibility of the teacher, the district, or the state? 

8. If there are issues of safety, deteriorating school buildings, a lack of teaching 

materials, poor curriculum, poor leadership shouldn’t the district and states be held 

accountable? 

9. If parents do not attend parent-teacher conferences, fail to intervene on discipline issues or help their children with their homework shouldn’t they be held accountable and provided with any resources needed to help them in this areas of 

shared responsibility? 

Representative Dina Titus (D-NV) has asked that you respond in writing to the 

following questions: 

I am pleased to see that you and the Administration are committed to making 

federal education dollars work smarter by making significant changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), and I look forward to working with 

you on this reauthorization. 

In particular, I applaud your focus on rewarding schools and districts for the 

progress they are making, and on helping struggling schools to improve, not just 

punishing them if they fall behind. 

The Administration’s reauthorization blueprint proposes to consolidate 38 existing 

programs into 11 new programs and places a much greater emphasis on competitive 

grants. While I appreciate the Administration’s desire to make the various funding 

streams work better together, as well as the innovation that can be spurred by competition, I have some concerns about how this change might impact schools in my 

district. 

In Nevada, education has been underfunded since statehood, and the current 

budget crisis has made that worse. A major shift to competitive grants, I fear, will 

result in even less funding and fewer resources, leaving our students at a disadvantage. 

1. What are the Administration’s plans to ensure that school districts in states 

that may not have resources to compete aggressively for funding are not denied important resources, especially for programs which you have proposed to fold into 

other funding streams? 

2. Additionally, for states such as Nevada where the legislature must plan the 

budget two years in advance, how does the Department intend to move towards 

competitive grants while still providing states and districts with the stability they 

need to plan ahead? 

Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) has asked that you respond in writing to the 

following questions: 

1. Secretary Duncan, please provide more detail about how funding would be 

made available through state and local education agencies in the proposed Effective 

47

Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education Program. Specifically, if core 

subjects of learning like music and the arts are grouped with other non-tested subjects, will each subject of learning be allotted a specific share of federal funds? 

2. Secretary Duncan, how can we be assured that the funds in the proposed Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education Program will be used to 

address the need for the complete education of all children? Will new Department 

of Education policies provide incentives and reward communities for including broad 

curriculum offerings—including music and arts education—in their goals for a complete and quality education for all children and to prepare them for college and the 

workforce? 

3. We’ve unfortunately seen a narrowing of the curriculum in recent years where 

states are spending less time on non-tested subjects like music and arts and more 

time on tested subjects. Can you provide assurances that the Effective Teaching and 

Learning for a Well-Rounded Education Program would not allow the continuation 

of the narrowing of the curriculum? 

4. I was pleased to hear you mention the importance of getting more girls and 

minorities interested in STEM education. How do you plan to use the proposed Effective Teaching and Learning: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics 

Program to increase interest and access at the Kindergarten through twelfth grade 

level? 

5. States and districts have struggled for years to develop appropriate assessment 

tools students with disabilities. What ideas does the Administration have to encourage the improvement of assessments and accommodations policies for students with 

disabilities? 

6. How can we ensure that every student will be ‘‘ready-to-learn’’ when he or she 

enters the classroom? 

7. Will the funding in the President’s Budget for Promise Neighborhoods be sufficient to ensure that all of our students receive the necessary support services to succeed in the classroom? 

Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) has asked that you respond in writing to the 

following questions: 

First, I would like to commend you for putting forward a bold vision and plan for 

education reform and innovation. The blueprint’s principles and framework offer a 

roadmap for overhaul to help us create a world-class education system that serves 

the needs of all children and raises the bar to the level needed for global leadership 

in college graduates, not merely competitiveness. In particular, I’m very pleased 

that the plan recognizes the critical role of public school choice as a tool for fostering, rewarding, expanding and replicating successful educational entrepreneurship that proves how we can get the job done and close the achievement gap against 

the odds. And it’s very encouraging that this increased emphasis on successful models is coupled with a strong commitment to ensuring high levels of accountability 

and oversight from all parties involved in the chartering process. 

The blueprint recommends expanding high-performing public charter schools, 

which is desperately needed, as demand has far outpaced supply, with more than 

700,000 children currently on charter school waiting lists nationwide. However, even 

this large unmet demand is artificially low when one considers that the majority 

of parents do not even know about their child’s eligibility for choice. In a survey of 

eight large urban districts, only one out of five parents of students eligible for public 

school choice indicate they had been notified by their school districts and of those 

who parents who were notified, the majority indicated that the information received 

was incomplete or unhelpful. 

1. Can you discuss the Department’s proposal for ensuring that parents are not 

only notified, but well-informed, about their public school choice rights and options? 

I’m afraid that unless we get this right this time around, we will continue to have 

only 1% participation rates among eligible students. 

Your proposal indicates a single competitive grant program ‘‘to start or expand 

high-performing public charter schools.’’

1. Can you describe in more detail how you envision a competitive grant program 

that combines both new charter schools, which cannot have a track record of success, and the expansion of top-performing schools that have a demonstrated record 

of success? 

2. Don’t you think that we need to continue investing in start-ups, but also have 

a dedicated program just for scaling up success? 

Every day, students who are, or are perceived to be, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or 

transgender (LGBT) are subjected to pervasive discrimination, including harassment, bullying, intimidation and violence. Surveys indicate as many as nine in 10 

LGBT students have been bullied. Such actions deprive students of equal educational opportunities and contribute to high rates of absenteeism, dropout, adverse 

48

health consequences, and academic underachievement among LGBT youth. But unlike other forms of discrimination, such as on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, 

disability or national origin, civil rights protections do not explicitly include sexual 

orientation or gender identity. 

As the Department and Congress work towards ensuring safe and nurturing 

learning environments so that each and every child can learn and thrive, I think 

that it’s critical for us to protect LGBT students from discrimination and harassment. That is why I have introduced HR 4530, the Student Non-Discrimination Act 

in January, to prohibit discrimination based on a student’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity in our public schools. The Act is modeled after 

Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination. 

1. Can you please share with us your views on this issue and whether you think 

that prohibiting this type of discrimination would help achieve our goal of equal 

educational opportunity? 

Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) has asked that you respond in writing to the 

following questions: 

1. In your testimony you make clear that ‘‘we are calling on all states to develop 

and adopt standards in English language arts and mathematics that build to college 

and career readiness * * *’’. I have a simple question, why not science Secretary 

Duncan? 

2. I want to commend your Administrations emphasis on data, but we need to 

move beyond year old data reported at the state level. I believe that LEA based data 

systems, that includes real time data from teacher created formative assessments 

can be a critical tool to allow teachers to identify the exact learning needs of their 

students, adjust classroom actions, and help identify the professional development 

needs of teachers. Would you support the creation of a new grant to help establish 

LEA data systems? 

3. In his speech before students, parents, and faculty at Hudson Valley Community College on September 21, 2009 the President presented a compelling case for 

how R&D is the life blood of innovation and America’s future capacity to compete 

effectively in a global economy. That’s why the federal government invests tens of 

billions of dollars each year in R&D in such sectors as defense ($80B), medicine 

($30B), and energy ($10.5B). But what about education? The cabinet level agency 

with the lowest federal R&D budget—about $300 million—is the US Department of 

Education) The ARRA, for example, invested $22 billion in federal R&D programs 

but zero for education. With your clear emphasis on innovation in education, 

shouldn’t R&D in education be a top priority too? 

4. Would the Administration be willing to support a reduction in the intensity and 

frequency of testing so that, particularly in the elementary grades, tests are used 

to evaluate and adjust instructional practice and not just force schools into the 

‘‘failed’’ designation? 

5. By narrowing the kindergarten gap through the provision of high quality preschool, we are able to produce dramatically better readers and writers of English 

by 3rd grade. Yet, these lessons—widely accepted by research—are not reflected in 

the priorities of the Administration. Would you be willing to consider a special incentive—perhaps a floor on spending on preschool and kindergarten—to divert attention to a high-quality early start for children from poor families? 

6. In President Obama’s State of the Union address he mentioned that a worldclass education is the best anti-poverty program. What role do you see school libraries playing in a world-class education, and what is the administration doing to promote school libraries? 

7. You always talk about funding programs that work—and Abbott pre-k has certainly proven itself—in that mindset, will you include high-quality pre-k in the Department’s proposal for ESEA reauthorization? Could providing a high-quality prek programs as an instructional intervention be available under Title I to LEAs and 

schools identified for improvement? Will providing high-quality pre-k and strengthening instruction across pk-3 continuum be included as an eligible ‘‘rigorous school 

intervention model’’ under Title I School Improvement Grants, which you are proposing to re-name ‘‘School Turnaround Grants’’? 

8. You and the President have made numerous speeches in recent months calling 

on the need for students to possess 21st century skills like problem-solving, critical 

thinking, teamwork, entrepreneurship, and creativity and whether they have the 

knowledge of content and skills to thrive and find work when they graduate. How 

do you and the Department propose we implement that talk? Where do you see the 

placement and utilization of those skills within a new Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act? 

9. Every day, students who are, or are perceived to be, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or 

transgender (LGBT) are subjected to pervasive discrimination, including harassVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:53 Jan 04, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\DOCS\111TH\FC\111-52\55303.TXT HBUD PsN: DICK
49

ment, bullying, intimidation and violence, which is harmful to both students and our 

education system. These hurtful actions deprive students of equal educational opportunities and contribute to high rates of absenteeism, dropout, adverse health consequences, and academic underachievement among LGBT youth. Left unchecked, 

discrimination can lead, and has led, to life-threatening violence and to suicide. How 

can schools respond to and prevent discrimination against LGBT students? What is 

the role of the federal government in ensuring that these students have access to 

educational opportunities that are equal to their peers? 

Chairman George Miller (D-CA) has asked that you respond in writing to the following questions: 

The idea of using the Individualized Education Program (IEP) to measure growth 

for students with disabilities in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s accountability system was raised during questions. IEPs are not valid and reliable 

measures of academic proficiency or growth towards academic achievement standards, nor do IEPs provide any comparability for system accountability. Can you 

please clarify your position on this issue? 

Additionally, during questions, you spoke of measuring ‘‘like students against like 

students.’’ Could you provide us with a better understanding of this statement? 

Please elaborate on your efforts to ensure that all students, including students with 

disabilities, are included in growth models in order to achieve the goal of career and 

college-readiness. 

Representative Marcia Fudge (D-OH) has asked that you respond in writing to 

the following questions: 

1. Secretary Duncan, both you and the President emphasize the need for students 

to possess 21st century skills, such as problem-solving, critical thinking, teamwork, 

entrepreneurship, and creativity. I agree that these skills, coupled with academic 

excellence, will best prepare students for the global workforce. Where do you see the 

development of those skills within a new Elementary and Secondary Education Act? 

Is there a role for public-private partnerships in developing these skills? 

2. Every student in this country deserves a solid academic foundation and the opportunity to study higher level subjects that both interest them and make them 

more competitive for college. Unfortunately, many schools, especially those in lowincome areas, lack the resources to provide their students with educational options 

such as foreign languages and AP courses. However, some school districts provide 

specialized courses to students through online courses. In your opinion, does access 

to specialized online courses provide students with educational opportunities they 

may not otherwise have, and if so, what can Congress do to encourage more schools 

to take advantage of online or virtual courses? 

3. I applaud the Administration’s and Chairman Miller’s promotion of Promise 

Neighborhoods. I am pleased that President Obama’s budget request expands the 

program by reforming schools and augmenting social services for children. Will the 

latter be done through grants given to existing or newly launched Promise Neighborhoods? If not, does the Administration support increasing Promise Neighborhood 

implementation grants? 

I also have a question regarding the not yet release guidance for Promise Neighborhood grants already appropriated. Will preference be given to neighborhoods in 

cities currently without an existing promise neighborhood or children’s zone? 

4. As you said in your remarks, President Obama’s budget request includes additional Race to the Top funding, including a new competition for school districts. How 

do you imagine this new program will be structured? Also, with this and the other 

competitive grants, will technical assistance be given to smaller school districts that 

lack the resources to hire a grant writer? 

Please send an electronic version of your written response to the questions in 

Microsoft Word format to the Committee by March 31, 2010, the date on which the 

hearing record will close. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact 

the Committee. 

Sincerely, 

GEORGE MILLER, Chairman. 

50

U.S. CONGRESS, 

[VIA FACSIMILE], 

Washington, DC, March 30, 2010. 

Hon. ARNE DUNCAN, Secretary, 

U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Washington, DC. 

DEAR SECRETARY DUNCAN: Thank you for testifying at the Committee on Education and Labor’s hearing on, ‘‘The Obama Administration’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act Reauthorization Blueprint,’’ on March 17, 2010. 

Committee Members have additional questions for which they would like written 

responses from you for the hearing record. 

Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) has asked that you respond in 

writing to the following questions: 

1. Implementing standards-based education was a key element of NCLB, the 

premise of which is continued in your blueprint. I believe we need benchmarks 

against which to measure students’ progress and their future success. Yet, I think 

we can all agree that having high standards does not alone guarantee high achievement. What do college and career ready standards mean under your proposal? How 

do they differ from the current state standards? How does your proposal ensure that 

students will achieve these standards? What has been left out of the discussion is 

curriculum. What role does curriculum play in ensuring that students achieve? 

2. Your proposal puts significant emphasis on evaluating the effectiveness of 

teachers. A recent survey conducted by the Gates Foundation reveals that teachers 

agree that students are leaving high school unprepared for college and careers. I 

find this unacceptable. We entrust our children to teachers to help prepare them 

for their futures. If teachers were in the private sector, they would be fired for failing to perform. Yet, many believe that nothing can be done. A group of superintendents in my district recently stated, ‘‘Our hands are tied in dealing with mediocre 

teachers—the unions have become so strong and so much a voice in the state and 

local governing [sic] there is no ability to fire or release mediocre teachers. Until 

the state or federal government steps in and helps districts deal with this issue, we 

will have a difficult time reaching the accountability models proposed.’’ What elements in your proposal will eliminate these barriers and create incentives to encourage teachers to be more effective in the classroom? 

3. One of the most overlooked accomplishments of NCLB is the progress made for 

disabled students. Yet, your proposal makes only passing reference to special needs 

students. How does your proposal protect and further these students’ successes? 

Representative Bill Cassidy (R-LA) has asked that you respond in writing to the 

following questions: 

1. My Congressional district includes a number of small elementary and secondary school districts that receive fewer resources under the Title I program, on 

a per student basis, than larger school districts located in more populated areas, because Title I funding allocation formulas tend to favor large school districts. Smaller 

schools have fewer students to spread their fixed Administrative costs for things, 

such as computer systems. Therefore, it seems logical to say that smaller school districts should receive more per student, not less. If it is true that small districts have 

a higher administrative cost per student, then why do they receive less money than 

large districts? Will you consider reworking the Title I formulas to address this 

issue? This will ensure that federal dollars are fairly allocated to students no matter 

what size community in which they live. 

2. No Child Left Behind allows parents to have options to transfer their children 

out of poor performing schools and into higher-performing schools in the area, or 

receive supplemental educational services (SES) in the community, such as tutoring, 

after-school programs, or remedial classes. As an advocate of parental choice, I want 

to ensure that parents still have the right to move their child out of a failing school 

or receive student support services. During the March 3 Full Committee hearing, 

you stated, ‘‘I am not at all in opposition to supplemental services. In fact, you will 

be hard pressed to find a bigger advocate for tutoring and more time than me.’’ But 

the Administration’s blueprint eliminates the requirement that school districts provide parents with public school choice and SES, choosing to focus its efforts on turning around low-performing schools. Why did the Administration eliminate these parental options? What options will parents have to remove their kids from low-performing schools or to receive extra academic help if a school turnaround model takes 

4 or 5 years to implement? 

3. You define ‘‘Challenge’’ schools as being the lowest-performing 5% of schools in 

a state, and require them to implement one of four turnaround models: a Transformation, a Turn-Around, a Restart, or a School Closure. In the first three types, 

teacher tenure will surely be a significant challenge. Will the Department of EduVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:53 Jan 04, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 G:\DOCS\111TH\FC\111-52\55303.TXT HBUD PsN: DICK
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cation recommend how states and school districts should navigate this challenge 

and how states may grant principals more control over removing ineffective teachers? 

4. The blueprint requires states to implement assessment systems to adequately 

measure student growth. Will the Department provide grants or funding for states 

to establish these data systems to collect and publicize growth in English, math, 

science, graduation rates, and college enrollment rates? 

Please send an electronic version of your written response to the questions in 

Microsoft Word format to the Committee by March 31, 2010, and these questions 

are only arriving today, I ask that you provide your responses as soon as possible. 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Committee. 

Sincerely, 

GEORGE MILLER, Chairman. 

[Secretary Duncan’s responses to the questions submitted follow:]

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[Whereupon, at 5:24 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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