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81–758 PDF 2003

S. HRG. 107–675

SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF TITLE I:

STATE AND LOCAL PERSPECTIVES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,

LABOR, AND PENSIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON

EXAMINING STATE AND COMMUNITY PERSPECTIVES OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TITLE I OF H.R. 1, TO CLOSE THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP

WITH ACCOUNTABILITY, FLEXIBILITY, AND CHOICE, SO THAT NO

CHILD IS LEFT BEHIND

SEPTEMBER 10, 2002

Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

TOM HARKIN, Iowa

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland

JAMES M. JEFFORDS (I), Vermont

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico

PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota

PATTY MURRAY, Washington

JACK REED, Rhode Island

JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire

BILL FRIST, Tennessee

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

TIM HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama

MIKE DeWINE, Ohio

J. MICHAEL MYERS, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

TOWNSEND LANGE MCNITT, Minority Staff Director

(III)

CONTENTS

STATEMENTS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2002

Page

Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., Chairman, Committee on Health, Education,

Labor and Pensions, opening statement ............................................................ 1

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 2

Wheelan, Belle S., Secretary of Education, Commonwealth of Virginia ............. 4

Moloney, William J., Commissioner of Education, Colorado Department of

Education, Denver, CO, prepared statement ..................................................... 9

Casserly, Michael, Executive Director, Council of the Great City Schools,

Washington, DC, prepared statement ................................................................ 54

Gaddis, Wanda, Parent, Washington, DC, on behalf of the National PTA,

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 68

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Response to questions of Senator Kennedy from Belle S. Wheelan .................... 82

Virginia Local School Divisions, survey ................................................................. 82

(1)

SUCCESSFUL IMPLEMENTATION OF TITLE I:

STATE AND LOCAL PERSPECTIVES

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2002

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS,

Washington, DC

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room SD–

430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Edward M. Kennedy

(chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Senators Kennedy, Jeffords, and Bingaman.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KENNEDY

The CHAIRMAN. We have a vote at half past 10, sort of a new tradition around here, unfortunately. We used to always vote in the

afternoon, but now, sometimes and too often, we are voting in the

morning, which interrupts our hearings, but nonetheless we will

follow the Senate procedures and move ahead with our hearing this

morning. We will be joined shortly by a number of our colleagues.

Today we continue our series of oversight hearings on the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law in January. Our hearing today focuses on the implementation of the largest program in that law, Title I.

Title I is the foundation of our Federal education law for elementary and secondary education. It provides funding to help students

and teachers in schools that are falling behind. Title I embodies

our commitment as a Nation to provide all Americans with an

equal shot at the American dream.

But today that commitment is in jeopardy. The Administration’s

education budget puts a quality education out of reach for millions

of our school children and college students. It shortchanges Title I,

but it also does nothing to help schools achieve smaller class sizes

and train quality teachers, and it adds not one dollar to the Pell

grants just as young Americans are facing double-digit increases in

college tuition.

Good schools and good teachers are every bit as important to the

future strength of our country as a strong defense. So today, Congressman George Miller and I will send a letter to the President,

urging him to respond to the crisis in education that is gripping

our country. We believe his education budget is inadequate to today’s challenges. But even since it was submitted, State budget crises have forced over $10 billion in cuts in education.

Budgets are tight, but somehow, the Administration has found

billions of dollars in its budget for private school voucher schemes

2

when those scarce dollars should be invested in our public schools,

where 90 percent of our students attend school each day.

Today’s hearing focuses on the implementation of the reforms of

Title I enacted earlier this year.

We welcome our distinguished panelists today and look forward

to learning about their plans to successfully implement the new

Title I, the challenges they face, and how the Administration and

Congress can help them overcome those challenges.

Our panel includes Belle Wheelan, who is the Virginia Secretary

of Education. Prior to her appointment, Dr. Wheelan served as

president of the Northern Virginia Community College, the secondlargest community college in the Nation. She has 18 years of administrative experience at various community colleges throughout

the State of Virginia. She is a highly respected member of the education field, and I am very pleased to have her here and look forward to her testimony on implementing Title I in Virginia.

We would like to welcome Dr. William Moloney, the Colorado

Commissioner of Education and Secretary of the Colorado State

Board of Education. Dr. Moloney has previous experience as a

teacher, assistant principal, principal, headmaster, assistant superintendent, and superintendent in States across the Northeast. Dr.

Moloney has also served three terms on the National Assessment

Governing Board. We are pleased to welcome Dr. Moloney today

and look forward to his testimony.

We would like to welcome Michael Casserly, who is executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools. For over 20 years,

Mr. Casserly has been an active crusader for the urban public

schools of our Nation’s largest cities. As executive director of the

Council of the Great City Schools, Mr. Casserly heads the only national organization to exclusively represent such schools. Dr.

Casserly also has extensive research background, having created

the first ever report card on urban school quality and national

urban education goals. We are pleased to have him here today and

look forward to his testimony on the implementation of ESEA from

a district perspective.

We also want to welcome Wanda Gaddis, who is the parent of a

first grade daughter who attends public school here in Washington,

DC. Education reform will not be successful without the input and

help of parents across the country. I look forward to Ms. Gaddis’

testimony on how we can best implement the No Child Left Behind

Act from a parent’s perspective. We have many provisions in the

legislation to include parents, and we want to find out how those

provisions are being implemented.

So we look forward to the testimony, and I will ask Ms. Wheelan

if she would be good enough to start.

[The prepared statement of Senator Kennedy follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY

Today, we continue our series of oversight hearings on the implementation of the

No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law in January. Our hearing today focuses

on the implementation of the largest program in that law, Title I.

Title I is the foundation of our Federal education law for elementary and secondary education. It provides funding to help students and teachers in schools that are

falling behind. Title I embodies our commitment as a Nation to provide all Americans with an equal shot at the American dream.

3

But today that commitment is in jeopardy. The Administration’s education budget

puts a quality education out of reach for millions of our school children and college

students. It shortchanges Title I, but it also does nothing to help schools achieve

smaller class sizes and train quality teachers, and it adds not one dollar to Pell

Grants just as young Americans are facing double digit increases in college tuition.

Good schools and good teachers are every bit as important to the future strength

of our country as a strong defense. So today, Congressman George Miller and I send

a letter to the President, urging him to respond to the crisis in education that is

gripping our country. We believe his education budget is inadequate to today’s challenges. But even since it was submitted, State budget crises have forced over $10

billion in cuts for education.

Budgets are tight. But somehow, the Administration has found billions of dollars

in its budget for private school voucher schemes when those scarce dollars should

be invested in our public schools, where 90 percent of our students attend school

each day.

Today’s hearing focuses on the implementation of the reforms to Title I enacted

earlier this year.

Over the years, we have taken steps to improve the effectiveness of Title I, and

in 1965, the first year of the Title I program, Title I was essentially a block grant.

After 4 years of implementation, Title I block grant funds were not helping the

neediest students get a better education. A 1969 report found widespread abuse of

the Title I block grants, including:

• Communities had used Title I block grants for swimming pools in Memphis,

Tennessee, band uniforms in Oxford, Mississippi, and football uniforms in Macon

County, Alabama; and

• In Louisiana and California, funds were spent on schools that were ineligible

for Title I because they did not have high numbers of poor children.

We’ve come a long way since then. Title I is successfully helping the neediest children across the country get a good education. In Broward County, Florida, reading

scores for 4th graders went up by 25 points from 1999 to 2000. Last year, Sacramento, California improved its reading and math performance on the statewide

test in every grade. And, I’m certain we will hear of more successes today.

Building on those successes, we made a bipartisan commitment last year to ensure that not some, but all students were part of this success. We did this by increasing accountability through rigorous annual goals for improving achievement,

ensuring a qualified teacher in every classroom, and providing increased resources

for programs that work.

In August, the Administration released draft regulations for Title I, and they are

working to finalize those so that states, districts, teachers, and parents will have

a clearer sense of what is expected of them under the new law. I hope that the final

regulations will protect the rights of teachers as workers, will uphold the law with

reasonable public school choice provisions, and will ensure that supplemental service providers are held to a standard of quality and that they must serve all children.

But in the end, schools cannot fulfill the promise of this new law if they do not

have the resources to meet these goals. I hope that the Administration will work

with us to increase funding for education this year. With more requirements to

meet, more progress to achieve, and increased State and local budget shortfalls,

schools and teachers need more Federal resources to make this law a success.

The Administration has proposed the smallest education budget increase in 7

years. Less than 2 months after passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Administration proposed a budget that is $7 billion less than the amount promised in

that legislation and cuts funding for school reform.

Under Title I alone, 6 million children will be left behind. In other programs,

33,000 fewer students will be served in after-school programs. 25,000 limited

English proficient children will be cut from Federal bilingual education programs.

18,000 fewer teachers will be trained.

The growing State and local budget crisis borne of the down-turned economy has

led to dramatic cuts in neighborhood schools across the country.

• This Fall, over 100 rural school districts in South Dakota, Louisiana, Oregon,

Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming will cut from 5-day to 4-day school weeks.

• Schools in Barnstable, Massachusetts, are charging fees in the hundreds of dollars for busing, for all day kindergarten, and for music education.

• In Centennial, Minnesota, we are told that class sizes will increase to 29 and

30 students per teacher to cope with budget shortfalls.

Now, despite increased public education challenges, inadequate Federal support,

and greater public school needs, the Administration presses anew for private school

4

vouchers. This week, the House Republican leadership plans to bring to the floor

a tax package that diverts $4 billion in funds to private school vouchers.

We should reject the private school voucher plans and increase funding for public

schools that educate 90 percent of the children in this nation, so that we help ensure that no child is left behind.

Every dollar in subsidies to private school vouchers means a dollar less for public

schools. $4 billion in vouchers could instead be used to:

• Upgrade the skills of 1 million teachers;

• Provide 5.2 million more children with after-school learning opportunities; or

• Provide specialized instruction to over 2 million poor children currently left behind.

We welcome our distinguished panelists today, and we look forward to learning

about their plans to successfully implement the new Title I, the challenges they

face, and how the Administration and Congress can help them overcome those challenges.

STATEMENT OF BELLE S. WHEELAN, SECRETARY OF

EDUCATION, COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA

Ms. WHEELAN. Thank you, Senator Kennedy, and good morning.

It is an honor to join you to discuss the Commonwealth of Virginia’s implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Academic success for all our students is one of Governor Mark

Warner’s top priorities, and the Commonwealth supports the goals

of the No Child Left Behind Act. Virginia has had an accountability

system in place for a number of years and is experiencing success

in raising student achievement.

We are particularly pleased with the success we are seeing in

some of our most challenging schools. Over the months since its

passage, we have worked continually to address its major requirements and to plan for the achievement of its goals.

Four key issues are being addressed that I would like to discuss

this morning. First is the provision of public school choice and supplemental services; second, assistance to Title I schools identified

as needing improvement; third, development of ‘‘highly-qualified’’ teachers; and fourth, establishing and achieving adequate yearly

progress in academics for schools and school divisions.

Based on Virginia’s Standards of Learning test administered during the 2000–2001 school year, 7 percent of Virginia’s 1,800 public

schools currently are accredited with warning in one or more subjects. Virginia has 34 Title I schools in 9 of our 132 school divisions

identified as needing improvement under No Child Left Behind and

thus required to implement public school choice this school year.

Four of these schools are in three rural divisions. The rest are in

urban divisions. They are all implementing plans to provide public

school choice to parents.

In July, the Virginia Board of Education adopted final guidelines

for school divisions to follow in the provision of choice. These guidelines reflect the law’s requirements and also require school divisions to follow and document best efforts procedures, including exploring scheduling and staffing alternatives for potential receiving

schools and establishing cooperative agreements with neighboring

school divisions.

Letters, meetings, and radio and television announcements are

being used to notify parents of public school choice options, and we

will know by the end of the month how many parents have taken

advantage of the option.

5

There are challenges to providing public school choice, and capacity is among the most significant. In some of our urban divisions

with schools in improvement, potential receiving schools are limited, or there are no qualified receiving schools at all. In these

cases, surrounding school divisions have been contacted, but a lack

of sufficient capacity has kept agreements of acceptance from being

achieved. Moreover, in rural southwest Virginia, distances between

schools within a division can be significant, and the time needed

for transportation becomes a barrier to choice. Clearly, flexibility to

offer supplemental services and other instructional alternatives is

critical when public school choice cannot be provided.

We will be monitoring the implementation of public school choice

plans on a monthly basis and will ask for alternative strategies if

a school division demonstrates that offering choice is not feasible.

While we are making every effort to implement public school

choice, we believe it most important to direct our efforts to ensuring that every school in Virginia is a school of choice. To that end,

Governor Warner initiated the Partnership for Achieving Successful Schools, known as PASS, to assist low-performing schools.

PASS is a statewide partnership with business and community

leaders, State educators, and local school and government officials

to boost student achievement in Virginia’s lowest academically-performing schools. It will assist more than 100 academically warned

schools with a comprehensive plan to marshal community and business support. These schools will receive enhanced services from visiting academic review teams comprised of principals, teachers, and

retired educators. Major components of the initiative are onsite assessments and support, hands-on training in strategies to address

weaknesses, and peer partnerships between high-poverty and highperforming schools, staff and colleagues facing the same challenges.

All the schools needing improvement are high-poverty. An important component of the PASS academic assistance teams is that the

members come from schools with similar demographics that are

achieving academic success. For example, in one of the partner

middle schools in an urban area, the passing rate on the States’s

Standards of Learning Algebra I test rose from 20 percent to 100

percent in 3 years. In a rural partner elementary school, the passing rate in the grade 3 mathematics test rose from 23 percent to

100 percent. The issue is not that children cannot learn. We simply

need to apply the best strategies and resources to teach them.

PASS schools are being provided assistance that goes beyond just

dollars, but financial resources are critical. All PASS schools would

benefit from the intense, onsite technical assistance teams that we

currently are only able to provide to a few of our lowest-performing

schools. Additional Federal assistance would help the Commonwealth expand this initiative to additional schools.

We fully support the Act’s requirement of having a ‘‘highly-qualified’’ teacher in every classroom in a core academic rouse. In Virginia, a highly-qualified teacher is defined as one who is fully licensed by the State and teaching in his or her area of endorsement.

This month, the Board of Education will initiate the review of regulatory and policy actions necessary to meet the goal of all teachers

being highly-qualified by 2005–2006.

6

A threshold challenge in achieving this is the need to identify

with accuracy the number of highly-qualified teachers who are currently in the classrooms and the types of professional data being

offered them. We are working to put in place State and local data

collection and verification systems to accomplish this. However, it

is a difficult process that will require additional resources and as

much as a year to complete. However, we recognize that a realistic

plan for raising the numbers of highly-qualified teachers is dependent upon hard data.

Another challenge is the strategic use of resources available for

the retention, recruitment, preparation, and professional development of teachers. Over the past year, we have been taking a comprehensive look at strategies to ensure the recruitment and retention of highly-qualified teachers. Not all solutions are related to

money, but additional resources are key in order for us to provide

professional development for teachers and principals, both new and

existing.

Receipt of Federal Title II funds for highly-qualified teachers and

principals is also essential to these efforts. Equally important to

school divisions is the flexibility to use these moneys in a variety

of ways, from financial incentive for recruitment and placement to

training in instructional methods, to professional development in

leadership for principals.

We have seen some of our most challenged schools succeed and

achieve accreditation through principles that have built their own

teams of highly-qualified teachers through joint planning and collaboration. Funding to help develop more principals with these

skills will help ensure that we have highly-qualified teachers in

each classroom.

Federal financial support is especially critical in light of the current budget shortfalls we are facing at the State level, as well as

the pressure on local resources associated with ensuring the best

in education for our children.

This fall, we will be reviewing the results of Virginia’s Standards

of Learning tests from the 2001–2002 school year and determining

the starting point and the annual objectives for academic achievement in mathematics and English required under the adequate

yearly progress provisions of the law. In November and December,

we anticipate a public discussion of recommendations by the Board

of Education, with formal adoption of adequate yearly progress objectives by January. As a State with an established accountability

system for schools, we encourage flexibility in the implementation

of this aspect of the Act as we work through the details.

We fully support the law’s requirement to measure academic

achievement beyond school divisions and schools as a whole to

groups of students who are disadvantaged, who are minorities, who

have limited English proficiency, or who have disabilities. At the

same time, there are particular challenges to ensuring that these

students make academic objectives, and additional resources are

needed to ensure that success. For example, through research and

experience in some of our classrooms, we know that smaller class

sizes in the early grades benefit disadvantaged and limited

English-proficient students. However, reduction of class size requires more teachers and the construction of more classrooms.

7

Moreover, while we support the Individuals with Disabilities

Education Act’s mandate that schools provide tailored educational

programs to all children with disabilities, the lack of sufficient resources has made it difficult for schools to meet the needs of children with special physical, emotional, and developmental needs. As

a result, local school districts have scrambled for decades to find

ways to fund these specialized educational services. More often

than not, resources are pulled from other instructional programs,

and therefore, funding for all students is lessened in order to meet

IDEA requirements.

With State and local revenues declining, it is more critical than

ever that the Federal Government fully fund IDEA to meet the 40

percent commitment that was established when it was passed in

1975. This will better enable States and local school divisions to

meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind legislation.

I appreciate the opportunity to provide this information today.

This Act provides the opportunity to further our ongoing efforts to

raise the level of achievement for all students throughout the Commonwealth, and we look forward to a continued partnership with

the Federal Government.

The CHAIRMAN. That was very helpful. We’ll have questions in

just a few minutes.

Dr. Moloney?

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM J. MOLONEY, COMMISSIONER OF

EDUCATION, COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION,

DENVER, CO

Mr. MOLONEY. Mr. Chairman, good morning, and thank you for

the opportunity to testify regarding the implementation of the most

important piece of Federal education legislation to come forth in

over a generation.

I was in this city in 1965, present at the creation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I well recall the shining idealism and buoyant optimism that attended that hour.

For the last 27 years, in circumstances rural, suburban, urban,

and statewide, I have been an administrator responsible for the implementation of that Act. In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New

York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and now Colorado, I have sought to

realize the great promise we saw 37 years ago.

Compared to the several earlier reauthorizations of ESEA, what

the Congress, by overwhelming vote, delivered to the American

people in January is a thing dramatically and importantly different. Though obvious similarities of structure and purpose remain, H.R. 1 marks a striking change in the character and culture

of Federal education legislation. Its unambiguous insistence on results marked a historic shift from a climate of process and entitlement to one of stark accountability for the well-being of all children.

The very real concerns you are hearing about implementation are

eloquent testimony to the startling sea change which you have ordained. We must be sensitive to those concerns. As I must be sensitive to the voices that come from Colorado’s 178 school districts,

so must my 49 counterparts do the same in their States.

8

What is vitally important is that we are responsive to those concerns in a manner that is appropriate but not in a fashion that can

in any way undermine the firm purpose that you defined or the

depth of commitment that we all must maintain if we are to make

the most of the historic opportunity before us.

Let me speak of Colorado. I believe we are among those States

that seem to be coping fairly well with the task. This is not because

of any innate cleverness on our part, but rather, over the last decade, Colorado has been pursuing education reform goals very much

in tune with those goals defined in H.R. 1.

In the attachments to my testimony, and I am sure in the questions that you will want to ask, you will find explication of how

Colorado has been able to move forward regarding issues of choice,

supplemental services, and adequate yearly progress. In all of these

areas, as well as others, the door to these goals had been opened

several years ago through State legislation and our efforts to fulfill

it.

In working with our districts, we find that many of them have

been moving forward on these goals for several years, while others

have not. while we properly commend the front runners, we also

recognize an obligation to reach out the hand of encouragement

and support to those who have further to go.

In much the same way, the U.S. Department of Education is conducting 50 separate conversations with the States of our Union and

has shown commendable probity and sensitivity in doing so.

Most properly, they have maintained a strict insistence on those

unambiguous goals that you have set down in the legislation, but

at the same time, they have signaled their willingness to be flexible

and to work closely with all States in regards to the means of implementation.

Nowhere has this indispensable balance been better articulated

than in the message of Secretary Rod Paige. Speaking with the

moral clarity and conviction that a mission of ‘‘leaving no child behind’’ requires, he has clearly acknowledged the extraordinary dimensions of our task and signaled a deep commitment to working

closely with us.

We are proud that Colorado districts were among those recognized last week in a White House ceremony by President Bush and

Members of Congress. I assure you that the list of schools and districts doing well with this in Colorado will grow steadily, as will

be the case all across our great country.

Nonetheless, we would be irresponsible if we did not recognize

the great dangers that lie before us. We must know that this great

task is no sure thing. We must honestly admit that there are large

portions of our population, particularly those of poverty and color,

who are frankly very skeptical that our performance will match our

promises.

A story illustrates that frustration that we see. Twenty years

ago, while an assistant superintendent in Rochester, I was confronted by an angry mother at a parent forum discussing the

chronic shortcomings of our city schools. Apparently, my platitudes

about how the city was committed to systemic change and how real

change takes real time caused her to lose it altogether. I shall

never forget how she looked at me, and I am yet haunted by her

9

understandably heated words: ‘‘I can’t wait for you to fix your system. My child needs help now.’’ America cannot afford such an ebbing of confidence in our public

school system. This awareness, this apprehension, is what energizes us in Colorado. Two years ago, we established a Coalition to

Close the Achievement Gap. Its co-chairs are the highest-ranking

officials of the Democratic and Republican parties in our State. We

took as our inspiration the words and example of Ron Edmonds, an

African American educator who founded the effective school movement. This is what he said: ‘‘We can, whenever and wherever we

choose to, successfully teach all children whose schooling is of interest to us. We already know more than we need to do that.

Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about

the fact that we have not so far.’’

With such inspiration, our coalition constructed a very brief

statement of purpose which includes these words: ‘‘If our American

democracy is to ensure and prosper, it cannot be as a society that

tolerates two systems of education—one of high expectations for the

children of the fortunate and one of lesser standards for children

of poverty and color. Perhaps for some, there is no crisis in education, but for our most vulnerable children, it is more than a crisis. It is a state of national emergency. We commit to this challenge

not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is nothing

less than a moral imperative.’’

Finally, thank you for this law. You did not call it ‘‘some children

left behind’’ or ‘‘the usual children left behind’’ but instead, ‘‘no

child left behind.’’ If you stay the course, so shall we. We are Americans. We can

do this. We must do this.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Moloney follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM J. MOLONEY, COLORADO COMMISSIONER OF

EDUCATION, COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, good morning and thank you for the

opportunity to testify regarding the implementation of the most important piece of

Federal education legislation to come forth in over a generation.

I was in this city in 1965, present at the creation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). I well recall the shining idealism and buoyant optimism

that attended that hour.

For the last 27 years in circumstances rural, suburban, urban, and statewide, I

have been an administrator responsible for the implementation of that Act. In Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and now Colorado, I

have sought to realize that great promise we saw 37 years ago.

Compared to the several earlier reauthorizations of ESEA, what the Congress by

overwhelming vote delivered to the American people in January is a thing dramatically and importantly different.

Though obvious similarities of structure and purpose remain, H.R. 1 marks a

striking change in the character and culture of Federal education legislation. Its unambiguous insistence on results marked a historic shift from a climate of process

and entitlement to one of stark accountability for the well being of all children.

The very real concerns you are hearing about implementation are eloquent testimony to the startling sea change which you have ordained.

We must be sensitive to those concerns. As I must be sensitive to the voices that

come from Colorado’s 178 school districts, so must my 49 counterparts do the same

in their states.

What is vitally important is that we are responsive to those concerns in a manner

that is appropriate but not in a fashion that can in any way undermine the firm

10

purpose that you defined or the depth of commitment that we all must maintain

if we are to make the most of the historic opportunity before us.

Let me speak of Colorado.

I believe that we are among those states that seem to be coping fairly well with

the task which H.R. 1 sets before us.

This is not because of any innate cleverness on our part but rather over the last

decade Colorado has been pursuing education reform goals very much in tune with

those goals defined by H.R. 1.

Beginning with the Education Reform Act of 1993 signed into law by Governor

Roy Romer and culminating in the School Accountability Legislation signed into law

by Governor Bill Owens 8 years later, Colorado has been pushing on the envelope

that is the status quo. As always happens the status quo pushes back but in the

main our conversations have been reasonably civil and we have never lost sight of

the fact that the ties that bind us together are infinitely more numerous and important than the issues that occasionally draw us apart.

In the attachments to my testimony and I am sure in the questions that you will

want to ask, you will find explication of how Colorado has been able to move forward regarding issues of choice, supplemental services and adequate yearly

progress. In all of these areas as well as others, the door to these goals had been

opened several years ago through State legislation and our efforts to fulfill it.

In working with our 178 districts, we recognize that they are in 178 different

places. Many of them have been moving forward on these goals for several years

while others have not. While we properly commend the front runners, we also recognize an obligation to reach out the hand of encouragement and support to those who

have further to go.

In much the same way, the U.S. Department of Education is conducting 50 separate conversations with the states of our union and has shown commendable probity

and sensitivity in doing so.

Most properly, they have maintained a strict insistence on those unambiguous

goals that you have set down in the legislation but at the same time they have

clearly signaled their willingness to be flexible and to work closely with all states

as regards the means of implementation.

No where has this indispensable balance been better articulated than in the message Secretary Rod Paige has brought to school systems all across the county.

Speaking with the moral clarity and conviction that a mission of ‘‘leaving no child

behind’’ requires, he has clearly acknowledged the extraordinary dimensions of our

task and signaled a deep commitment to working closely with us as we seek to meet

these challenges.

We are very proud that Colorado districts were among those recognized last week

in a White House ceremony by President Bush and Members of Congress. I assure

you that the list of schools and districts doing well with this in Colorado will grow

steadily as will be the case all across our great country.

Nonetheless, we would be irresponsible if we did not recognize the great dangers

that lie before us. We must know that this great task is no sure thing. We must

honestly admit that there are large portions of our population, particularly those of

poverty and color, who are frankly very skeptical that our performance will match

our promises.

A story illustrates that frustration which has grown over the years:

Twenty years ago while assistant superintendent in Rochester, I was confronted by an angry mother at a parent forum discussing the chronic shortcomings of our city schools.

Apparently my platitudes about how the city was committed to systemic

change and how real change takes real time caused her to lose it altogether.

I shall never forget how she looked at me, and I am yet haunted by her understandably heated words: I can’t wait for you to fix your system. My child

needs help now!’’

America can not afford such an ebbing of confidence in our public school system.

This awareness, this apprehension is what energizes us in Colorado. Two and a

half years ago we established a Coalition to Close the Achievement Gap. It’s cochairs are the highest ranking officials of the Democratic and Republican party in

our state—Attorney General Ken Salazar and Governor Bill Owens respectively.

We took as our inspiration the words and example of Ron Edmonds an African

American educator who founded the Effective School Movement. This is what he

said:

‘‘We can, whenever and wherever we choose to, successfully teach all children

whose schooling is of interest to us.

We already know more than we need to do that.

11

Whether or not we do it must finally depend on how we feel about the fact

that we haven’t so far.’’

With such inspiration, our Coalition constructed a very brief statement of purpose

(see Appendix V), which includes these words:

‘‘If our American democracy is to endure and prosper, it cannot be as a society

that tolerates two systems of education—one of high expectation for the children

of the fortunate and one of lesser standards for children of poverty and color.

...

Perhaps for some there is no crisis in education, but for our most vulnerable

children, it is more than a crisis: It is a State of national emergency.

We commit to this challenge, not just because it is the right thing to do, but

because it is nothing less than a moral imperative.’’

Finally, thank you for this law. You did not call it ‘‘some children left behind’’ or

‘‘the usual children left behind’’ but instead ‘‘no child left behind.’’

If you stay the course, so shall we. We are Americans. We can do this. We must

do this.

Thank you.

[Attachments I-V follow:]

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53

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Casserly.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL CASSERLY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

COUNCIL OF THE GREAT CITY SCHOOLS, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. CASSERLY. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very

much for the opportunity to testify before this committee, and

thank you for your leadership on this legislation and on education

issues.

As the chairman knows, the Council of the Great City Schools

supported No Child Left Behind when it passed, and we support

it today. We did so because the bill set the right goals, and it focused on the right kids.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a number of quick points

about the legislation and its implementation. First, our cities are

committed to making this bill work. That commitment has been

matched by efforts from day one. We began meeting with the cities

and the city schools on December 10, the very day that the Congress was finalizing the conference report on H.R. 1, in order to

begin the process of implementing the law. We followed that initial

session with scores of meetings, briefings, conference calls, onsite

technical assistance and exchanges, and the cities did all of this on

their own since January in order to make this law work. Most of

our cities began the process of implementing the law almost immediately after it was signed.

One of the side effects of the bill has been better coordination.

The legislation reaches into so many operations in our school systems that we have almost had to cooperate. The superintendent

and senior staff have also been personally engaged in this process

in ways that I have not seen in the five reauthorizations of ESEA

that I have participated in.

Second, people should not confuse frustration with the Act for a

shortage of resolve. We often lack capacity; we do not lack will. We

know that there is resistance to the Act in some quarters, but that

resistance does not exist in the cities. We see the national focus on

our children as an opportunity, not as an intrusion.

Third, we have received good support from the Department of

Education. The guidance that they provided us in the first 6

months after passage of the Act was sufficient to get us started. We

didn’t wait for somebody to tell us what to do. The law was very

clear about what the goals were and how it was that we were supposed to proceed.

Fourth, the Council has begun to collect information from the cities on key issues that we know are of interest to this committee

and to the public. We have preliminary information on 24 cities, a

summary of which is attached to my testimony.

The choice option in particular has not been easy. Early information indicates that parental requests are being honored in the cities, usually with two or more options to parents. Some cities have

open seats in nearly every school. Other cities are so overcrowded

or have so many schools in school improvement that our degrees

of freedom are limited. The result in these cities is that the number

of transfers is not as high as many had originally expected, but we

anticipate that this is likely to change in the years to come.

54

Supplemental services are a new feature of the legislation, unlike

the choice provisions. This process is moving slower than we would

like. About 14 of the 20 States on which we have preliminary information have yet to issue lists of approved providers to our cities,

and it has slowed the process somewhat of providing supplemental

services beginning at the start of the school year.

Fifth, most of our city schools are showing signs of improving

student achievement, the ultimate purpose of this legislation, and

about 40 percent of the cities are showing gains that outpace statewide averages. We expect that this pace will accelerate.

We have also finished a major new analysis on what the fastestimproving cities have done to get gains systemwide. This report,

‘‘Foundations for Success,’’ indicates that their gains are not episodic. There are common practices similar to those called for in No

Child Left Behind that undergird these cities’ improvements. The

results give us confidence that we are on the right track.

Ultimately, of course, the Act will not be scored against how

many requirements we meet or how many kids we bus from one

school to another. The Act will be judged on how many children’s

achievement we raise and achieving the overall goal and vision of

this legislation of leaving no child behind.

Finally, we need help implementing the Act. We need better

technical assistance from the States, and we need considerably

more funding from the Administration and Congress targeted on

need to ensure the bill’s success.

We pledge our best efforts to spend the money wisely and to implement the law faithfully.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Casserly follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL CASSERLY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COUNCIL OF

THE GREAT CITY SCHOOLS

Good morning, my name is Michael Casserly. I am the Executive Director of the

Council of the Great City Schools. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before

this Committee on the implementation of No Child Left Behind.

The Council is a coalition of nearly 60 of the nation’s largest urban public school

systems. Our Board of Directors is composed of the Superintendent of Schools and

one School Board member from each city, making the Council the only national organization comprised of both governing and administering personnel and the only

one whose sole mission and purpose is urban.

Our member urban school systems educate over 6.5 million students or about 14

percent of the nation’s K–12 public school enrollment. Some 63 percent of our students are eligible for a free lunch and about 21 percent are English Language

Learners. Approximately 80 percent of our students are African American, Hispanic

or Asian American.

The Council of the Great City Schools supported the passage of No Child Left Behind and continues to support the Act today. We backed the bill knowing that it

had numerous challenges for urban schools, multiple requirements, and sometimes

poorly calibrated provisions. The Council supported the legislation because it set the

right goals and it focused on the right kids—those too often left behind. We also

endorsed the legislation because Congress generously funded the Act in the first

year and targeted the resources on communities that needed help the most.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a number of brief points about the legislation

and its implementation.

First, our cities are committed to making this bill work. That commitment has

been matched with effort since the day the bill was passed. Over half of the nation’s

major city school systems convened in Washington on December 10, 2001 for 4 days

of meetings on what the bill meant and how we could begin the process of implementing it. We followed that initial session with literally scores of meetings, briefVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:15 Apr 01, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\81758.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: SLABOR3
55

ings, group conference calls, and onsite technical assistance sessions to turn the

bill’s promise into reality. We used these sessions to answer questions, interpret the

law, provide guidance, share materials, and clarify intent. The cities did this on

their own.

Most cities responded by starting their planning process immediately. New York

City, for example, assembled a cabinet-level task force on January 16 to initiate the

implementation process. Greenboro (NC) began implementation meetings on February 22 with its board, superintendent, senior management, and all school principals.

One of the unintended—and positive—side-effects of the legislation has been better coordination among staff. NCLB reached beyond Title I into curriculum, instruction, personnel, procurement, budget, student assignment, transportation, strategic

planning, assessment, research and evaluation, data systems, and management. In

nearly every Great City School system, the superintendent and his cabinet-level administrators have been engaged personally in implementing the Act at a level I

have not seen in the five other ESEA reauthorizations in which I have participated.

Second, Members of Congress and the press should not mistake frustration over

implementing the Act with a lack of resolve. This bill is extremely complicated. We

are having some problems with capacity and logistics, but not with will. We know

that there is resistance to and hesitation about the Act among some groups, but we

have not seen it from the cities. We see the national focus on educating our neediest

children as an opportunity, not an intrusion.

Third, we have received good support from the U.S. Department of Education

from the time the bill was signed and throughout the summer. The Council and its

cities felt that we had sufficient information to implement the Act and did not need

to wait to be told what to do. The Act is quite detailed in its requirements and does

not need extensive explication. The meetings and guidance provided by the Department in the first 6 months were sufficent to allow us to get started. We have also

appreciated the flexibility that the Department has used in the regulatory process,

not regulating in places where it was unnecessary.

We recognize that many States have hesitated to provide school districts with

much direction prior to the Department of Education’s final regulations and nonregulatory guidance. We have not had the luxury of waiting. The first year’s requirements and short timelines meant that we could not delay local planning and

decisionmaking.

Fourth, the Council has begun to collect information from its cities on key implementation features that we know are of interest to you and the public. We have preliminary information from 24 cities, the summary of which is attached to this testimony.

The most pressing implementation issues for this new school year (2002–2003) involve public school choice, transportation, and supplemental services. One locality

hardly looks like another at this point. There are some states, for instance, where

no schools or nearly no schools are identified for ‘‘school improvement’’ because of

how they defined and implemented the 1994 Act. No school districts in these

states—including their biggest cities—will be implementing the required public

school transfers or supplemental services. Other states have retroactively reduced

the number of low-performing schools by redefining the criteria for adequate yearly

progress under the preceding reauthorization. There will still be large numbers of

low-performing schools in these states, but not as many as were previously determined. Finally, most states appear to be successfully transitioning their identified

schools from the 1994 Act to the new one.

The public school transfer option has been in Federal law since the FY2000 appropriations bill, but reworking the student assignment plans in large urban school districts is not a simple undertaking. Nonetheless, early information from the 24 Great

City School districts on which we have information indicate that parental choice requests are being honored. Many cities have worked to offer parents with two or

more transfer options before the August 6 draft regulations proposed it. In a few

cities, there were open seats available in nearly all the schools. In other cities, the

combination of overcrowded schools and the number of schools in ‘‘school improvement’’ restricted the number of open seats to the hundreds. We know that the number of transfers are not as high as some had expected, but we anticipate that this

may change.

The most difficult aspect of this requirement, beyond its costs, is that the NCLB

timelines are inconsistent with the open enrollment calendars in most school districts. Better coordination and integration of the NCLB provisions and the open enrollment procedures will likely produce a smoother and more coherent process next

year.

56

Supplemental services are an entirely new requirement for the 2002–2003 school

year. There are a variety of steps that States have to take prior to making supplemental services available at the local level. This process is moving slower than we

would like. About 14 of 20 States on which we have preliminary information have

not yet issued a list of approved providers to their cities. Some of our cities have

begun to implement supplemental services on their own.

Fifth, the nation’s urban school systems are showing signs of improving student

achievement-the ultimate purpose of the Act. We released a report earlier this summer, Beating the Odds II, showing that nearly all of the cities were showing achievement gains in reading and math. About 40 percent of the cities are also showing

gains that outpace statewide improvements. We expect that the pace will pick up.

We have also finished a major new analysis of how the nation’s major urban

school districts have improved student performance systemwide. This report, Foundations for Success, indicates that their gains are not episodic. (See attached summary.) Instead, there are common practices in these city school systems-similar to

those called for in No Child Left Behind—that undergird their improvements. The

results give us a great deal of confidence that we are on the right track.

Ultimately, the Act should not be scored on how many requirements we complied

with or how many kids we bused from one school to another. This Act and our implementation of it should be judged on how many children, particularly poor and

minority children, are improving their academic achievement. We know that the nation’s performance is not likely to increase until the performance of its urban schools

improve.

Finally, we need help implementing the Act. We will need far better technical assistance from the states, labs and centers than we have received to date. We will

also need additional funding from the Administration and Congress, targeted on the

greatest needs, to ensure the bill’s success. The bill’s implementation has only

begun—the new accountability definitions and their consequences are not even in

place yet. The number of schools implementing one intervention strategy or another

will probably increase substantially in the next year or two.

We need Congress to continue increasing funding for Title I for disadvantaged

children, Title II for teacher quality, and Title III for English Language Learners.

We pledge our best efforts to spend the money wisely and implement the law faithfully.

Thank you.

57

58

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND—IMPLEMENTATION SNAPSHOTS

Anchorage—The State of Alaska DOE will release a list of failing schools as determined by the State’s AYP formula in January 2003. Anchorage currently has no

schools identified for school improvement, but stands ready to work with schools

that are identified by the State.

Atlanta—Parents wishing to exercise their transfer option were asked to list the

top three schools of their choice. The district negotiated personally with any parent

whose highest preferences were filled to capacity and unavailable. The district had

developed a plan to prioritize choice options to the lowest performing, low-income

students, but has accommodated all transfer requests to date and has not utilized

the priority system.

Austin—Austin ISD has offered a choice between 2 higher-performing schools to

students seeking transfer. In general, the choices offered were within geographic

proximity to the original schools to limit the length of bus ride for students. The

district has not needed to limit which students can receive transfers, and has accommodated all requests to date.

Birmingham—Parents were given the opportunity to identify a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd

choice for school transfers, which were in clusters of schools within transportation

zones. The State has not yet released a list of approved vendors for supplemental

services, and the district is waiting to notify the parents of eligible students that

these services are available.

Boston—The school district has always offered a public school choice plan based

on capacity, and will continue to do so. This choice will be offered to all students,

and is not dependent on a school being low-performing: The State has yet to issue

a list of supplemental service providers.

Broward County—No schools in Florida have been identified for school improvement. In assessing the quality of paraprofessionals, Broward County offers a stateapproved ‘‘Teacher Assisting’’ course at district technical centers. The course provides successful participants with a certificate after meeting high levels of study,

performance, and examination. The district is also using Title I funds for the

Broward Teacher Corps, which includes a segment that provides paraprofessionals

with 60 college credit hours over 2 years. The district will allow paraprofessional

candidates to use the ‘‘Teacher Assisting’’ course, the Broward Teacher Corps, or

specific assessment results to demonstrate they are qualified.

Clark County—All students requesting a transfer from schools identified for improvement will be accommodated in Clark County. The district sent a letter to parents of all eligible children and held meetings at school locations to explain the

choice provision. Current students were given a 3-month window to exercise the

transfer option, and all new students will also be given an opportunity to choose

a higher-performing school.

Cleveland—CMSD based the transfer system on geographic location and the number of seats available in higher-performing schools. Information on the transfer system is provided on the district website, and a brochure was also sent to parents.

The brochure also included information on the availability of supplemental services,

and the district will send a letter to parents regarding those options once a provider

list is released by the State. The district already provides supplemental services

through Sylvan Learning Centers, Read Right, and the HOSTS tutoring program,

among others.

Columbus—The district will offer transfers not only to students in schools identified for improvement, but also to students in schools identified by the district as

‘‘prevention schools’’. Prevention schools were originally included on the state’s

school improvement list, but were removed once the qualifying criteria were

changed. The district is planning on providing afterschool tutoring programs for elementary reading and mathematics, and is also considering proficiency academies

and summer school programs. The State has yet to issue a list of supplemental service providers.

Denver—In January 2002, the district provided the parents of 22,000 students in

Title I school improvement or corrective action locations with written notification of

the status of their child’s school, as well as information about the DPS Choice process. The notice emphasized the right of parents to transfer their students to another

school, in particular ones that were not identified for school improvement or corrective action. The district also promoted extensive coverage of Choice in local media,

and parked a school bus with eye-catching Choice graphics at various high-traffic

sites throughout the district. To date, over 3,000 students from low-performing

schools have transferred to schools that are not in school improvement. Seventy-five

out of 85 elementary schools were able to accept 100 percent of the students that

applied to them in the First Round of Choice; 18 out of 21 middle schools were able

59

to accept 100 percent o of applying students in the First Round. The district is also

looking at ways it can improve the Choice program for the 2003–04 school year, including an earlier start date, revising the letter to parents, and broadening the

Choice options of schools for students.

District of Columbia—Parents were notified of the transfer option over the summer, through letters and information on the district website. Receiving schools that

students could transfer to were chosen on the basis of geographic proximity and academic achievement. Parents were given a cluster of 2 to 5 choices depending on

their address, and most students received four choices. The district has also distributed information to parents regarding the availability of supplemental services, and

additional information will be sent to homes when a provider list is finalized.

Indianapolis—The district sent a letter to parents at the end of the 2001–02

school year and also held meetings explaining the transfer options that would be

available for the upcoming school year. Current parents were given a month over

the summer to exercise this option, and new students were given the chance to

transfer until the start of the school year. Students at each identified school were

given two options of higher-performing schools to choose from.

Long Beach—The district has 12 schools eligible for public school choice under No

Child Left Behind, and informed parents of the transfer options in a letter in July.

Parents had until September to exercise their choice option, and students were offered transfers within the district’s transportation zones.

Nashville—Current parents were informed of the new choice provisions in late

May and had until early August to exercise their child’s option, while parents of

new students had until just before the start of school. Brochures were sent out in

multiple languages, schools held parent meetings to discuss the transfer option, and

the district promoted the new, choices in local newspaper, television, and other

media. Parents of eligible students were given a choice of schools within their geographical cluster, and the district also considered ‘‘write-in’’ choices if a parent’s preference was not listed.

Norfolk—Despite having no schools identified for improvement, the district will

continue to provide individualized after-school tutoring among its extended day offerings. Computer-assisted lessons are one successful approach the district has employed in Norfolk’s after-school programs.

Philadelphia—In addition to the existing state-approved school choice program,

the district has begun a No Child Left Behind choice program, which targets the

highest-poverty schools in the district’s ten Academic Areas. Eighty-two higher performing schools were identified to receive transferring students, and parents were

informed of their options in a letter this summer. The district also sent a letter to

parents regarding the availability of supplemental services, which will be offered by

state-approved vendors in district schools. The supplemental services program will

begin as soon as the State issues a list of approved providers.

Saint Louis—The district sent letters to parents at the beginning of August explaining the transfer option, and outlined the choice of available high-performing

schools. The schools accepting transferring students are high performing, and are

not likely to be identified within the next few years. The district currently has 56

higher-performing schools that are at full capacity, and are unable to accept additional students for the 2002–03 school year.

Saint Paul—School choice under Title I is being addressed through the district’s

usual school choice system. All parents annually are given the opportunity to sign

up for the school(s) of their choice from a wide array of magnet and citywide schools

with a variety of curriculum choices. Of the 451 students from low-performing

schools who have exercised their transfer option to date, 448 students received their

first choice and 3 students received their second choice. The district will also operate

Area Learning Centers (ALC) as part of the statewide after-school initiative. ALC

targets at-risk K–6 graders in extended day sessions at the school site, and has an

academic focus on language arts and mathematics. The centers are run by Minnesota-licensed teachers assisted by paraprofessionals, and students are also given

the opportunity to complete homework, read books, and work in computer labs. All

students participating in these extended day programs are given a free snack, and

transportation is provided to eligible students living outside of the walking distance

to school.

San Diego—Parents may exercise their transfer option through early October, and

the district has added additional bus routes and schools to their existing enrollment

system specifically for students transferring from low-performing schools. The district is a state-approved supplemental service provider, and will offer programs in

reading and mathematics for elementary and middle school students, as well as

after-school preparation for the California High School Exit Exam for high school

students. These programs have an average class size of 10:1, and are taught by

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teachers with enhanced instructional materials and specific professional development opportunities. The State identified only three other supplemental service providers in the geographic area, one of which has already indicated that it wil l not

accept any additional students.

Seattle—The district has been a leader in school choice options for families and

these opportunities will continue with No Child Left Behind. Parents can request

any school in the district, and 90 percent of on-time applicants received their first

or second choice last year. Parents are advised where they can find more information about each school, including a summary of school activities and data on demographics, attendance, and test scores. All schools offer tours to interested parents

and many schedule open houses as well. Parents can visit one of five enrollment

centers around the city for more information, including a Bilingual Family Center

with a multilingual staff and specific information for students whose first language

is not English.

Title I.—Schools and School Improvement Status

Total schools Title I schoolwide Title I targeted Non-Title I schools No. of schools in sch. impr.-1 No. of schools in sch. impr.-2 No. of schools in corrective action 

Anchorage ................................................................................................................................................ 84 13 5 66 0 0 0Atlanta ..................................................................................................................................................... 104 87 2 15 2 15 7 Austin ...................................................................................................................................................... 107 60 0 47 2 2 0 Birmingham ............................................................................................................................................. 79 62 3 14 3 2 0 Boston* ................................................................................................................................................... 131 125 0 6 66 0 0 Broward County ....................................................................................................................................... 224 83 0 141 0 0 0 Clark County ............................................................................................................................................ 277 40 6 231 2 1 0 Cleveland ................................................................................................................................................. 123 97 13 13 9 12 5 Columbus ................................................................................................................................................ 140 114 0 26 18 24 20 Denver** ................................................................................................................................................. 137 32 33 72 41 0 3 District of Columbia ................................................................................................................................ 149 149 0 0 15 0 0 Fort Worth ................................................................................................................................................ 114 65 0 49 0 0 0 Guilford County ....................................................................................................................................... 101 32 11 58 0 0 0 Hillsborough County ................................................................................................................................ 186 103 0 83 4 0 0 Indianapolis ............................................................................................................................................. 80 18 37 25 5 5 0 Long Beach ............................................................................................................................................. 85 60 8 17 3 0 0Miami-Dade ............................................................................................................................................. 333 172 2 159 0 0 0Nashville .................................................................................................................................................. 117 54 0 63 4 0 0 Norfolk ..................................................................................................................................................... 55 18 0 37 0 0 0 Philadelphia ............................................................................................................................................ 265 225 40 0 0 0 178 Saint Louis .............................................................................................................................................. 95 90 3 2 17 0 0Saint Paul ............................................................................................................................................... 67 44 7 16 2 16 0 San Diego ................................................................................................................................................ 165 96 0 69 11 27 2 Seattle ..................................................................................................................................................... 110 37 0 73 6 0 0 

TOTAL .................................................................................................................................................. 3,328 1,876 170 1,282 210 113 215 

* Massachusetts DOE will release a revised list of schools identified for improvement in November 2002.** All of Denver’s Title I targeted programs will become schoolwide in 2002–2003.

62

FOUNDATIONS FOR SUCCESS—CASE STUDIES OF HOW URBAN SCHOOL SYSTEMS

IMPROVE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT—REPORT ABSTRACT

I. GOALS OF THE STUDY

The movement to reform education in the U.S. is fundamentally about improving

urban public schools. Every debate about standards, testing, governance, busing,

vouchers, charter schools, social promotions, class sizes, and accountability are discussions—at their core—about public education in the cities.

These discussions are worth having, for nowhere does the national resolve to

strengthen its educational system face a tougher test than in our inner cities. There,

every problem is more pronounced; every solution harder to implement. The burden

of not solving these problems or implementing successful improvement strategies

has fallen disproportionately on the African American and Latino children, children

with disabilities and those learning English who live in the poverty-stricken cores

of America’s major cities.

The Nation cannot afford to ignore these communities, for urban schools enroll a

large share of America’s children. While there are 16,850 public school districts in

the United States, one hundred of those districts serve approximately 23 percent of

the nation’s students. These districts, many of which are located in urban areas,

also serve 40 percent of the country’s minority students and 30 percent of the economically disadvantaged students.

This report and the longer-term project of which it is a part focus on the potential

role of the school district as an initiator and sustainer of academic improvement.

While there has been much research on what makes an effective school, there is relatively little, on what makes an effective district. In fact, many see large urban

school districts as a source of problems rather than solutions. But for school improvement to be widespread and sustained, and for our Nation to reduce racial differences in academic achievement, large urban districts must play a key role.

Over the past several years, the Council of the Great City Schools has embarked

on an effort to understand student achievement patterns in large urban school districts and to develop ideas for how more districts can raise achievement. Previous

Council research has shown that academic achievement is improving in urban

schools and has identified a set of urban school districts that are making the fastest

improvements, both overall and in narrowing differences among racial groups.

This report extends the existing research by examining the experiences of three

large urban school districts (and a portion of a fourth) that have raised academic

performance for their district as a whole, while also reducing racial differences in

achievement. It attempts to use the experiences of these school districts to address

the following questions:

1. What was the historical, administrative, and programmatic context within

which student achievement improved in these districts?

2. How can we characterize the nature of the changes in student achievement,

and what were the sources of these changes (specific schools, subgroups of student,

etc.)?

3. What district-level strategies were used to improve student achievement and

reduce racial disparities?

4. What was the connection between policies, practices, and strategies at the district level and actual changes in teaching and learning in the classroom?

The Council and the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) intend to use the answers to these questions to identify hypotheses for further study

of promising practices at the district level and to develop recommendations for technical assistance in support of reform efforts in large urban school districts. Further,

the Council and MDRC hope to encourage a line of discourse and research regarding

the role of large urban districts in school reform.

How Were the Case Study Districts Selected?

The Council’s Achievement Gap Task Force, together with its Research Advisory

Group (which is made up of nationally known researchers and practitioners), identified three case study districts. These districts: Houston Independent School District;

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools; Sacramento City Unified School District; and a portion of a fourth (the Chancellor’s District in New York City) were selected because

they met the following criteria:

• They demonstrated a trend of improved overall student achievement over at

least 3 years.

• They demonstrated a trend of narrowing differences between white and minority students.

63

• They showed consistent improvement over at least a 3-year period and they

were improving more rapidly than their respective states. • They were a set of geographically representative urban school districts.

What was the Methodology for the Study?

This research is based on (1) retrospective case studies of these districts and (2)

comparisons of their experiences with other districts that have not yet seen similar

improvements. The case study districts are used to develop hypotheses about the

reasons for improvements in achievement. The comparison districts provide a partial test of the hypotheses emerging from the analysis of the case study districts.

While the comparison districts cannot provide definitive support for the hypotheses

developed in the case study districts, they were used to discard possible hypotheses

and to better understand what is unusual about the case study districts.

II. THE EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES FACING URBAN SCHOOL DISTRICTS

The large urban school districts examined in this report face a common set of

challenges that exist above the level of individual schools. The primary challenges

include:

Unsatisfactory Academic Achievement

The reform efforts were driven by the concern that schools were failing their students—especially low-income and minority students—and that improving this pattern was the district’s most important priority. In both the case study districts and

the comparison districts, achievement for minority and disadvantaged students was

noticeably below that for white and more affluent students. And the differences by

race and economic status increased as students grew older.

Political Conflict

In each of the three case study districts, there had been a period when the school

board was divided into factions, and much of its activity revolved around disputes

over resources and influence. The school board’s ‘‘zero sum’’ arguments often dealt

with salaries, hiring and firing decisions, student assignment procedures, and school

construction and closings. Factional disputes between department heads, the board

versus the superintendent, superintendents versus principals, or principals versus

teachers were common and often became serious and personal. At times, infighting

was intense because the district was a major employer (especially for groups that

historically faced discrimination in the labor market) and because participation in

educational politics was a stepping-stone for higher political office. As a result, the

leadership in these districts was often not focused primarily on improving student

achievement.

Inexperienced Teaching Staff

Each of the case study districts acknowledged that they needed to deal with the

fact that much of their teaching staff was relatively inexperienced and suffered from

high teacher turnover, especially once teachers gained some initial experience. In

part this was due to the challenge of recruiting and retaining teachers when school

districts in the surrounding areas could offer teachers higher salaries, better facilities, a less challenged student body, and were seen as less stressful working environments. These difficulties were compounded by the limited training that the districts offered new teachers before they entered the classroom.

Low Expectations and a Lack of Demanding Curriculum

In each of the districts, staff felt overwhelmed at times by the great challenges

that many of their lower-income and minority students faced. This led some staff

to reduce expectations for achievement in the lower grades and justify the students’

lack of progress. In the higher grades, where instruction and expectations can differ

starkly across groups of students, low-income and minority students were underrepresented in college preparatory and advanced placement classes. In some schools

that served primarily low-income and minority students, the more demanding classes were offered infrequently or not at all.

Lack of Instructional Coherence

The study found that all districts suffered from having different educational initiatives and curricula in individual schools. Likewise, the districts discovered a lack

of alignment between instruction and the State standards. Each of the districts had

recently experimented with site-based management, which had produced a variety

of different educational strategies within each district. This often proved confusing

to school-level staff and difficult for the district to support. Additionally, the professional development strategy was fragmented; professional development was not foVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:15 Apr 01, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\81758.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: SLABOR3
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cused on a consistent educational strategy (either of instruction or curricula) and

often consisted of one-shot workshops on a series of topics.

High Student Mobility

Previous research suggests that moves between schools can undermine student

learning. This problem may be exacerbated by variations in instructional approach.

District leaders believed that the high rate at which students moved from one school

to another within the districts disturbed the continuity of instruction students received in subjects such as reading and math. Some staff also noticed higher rates

of mobility in the low-income student population and considered that another strike

against their ability to achieve.

Unsatisfactory Business Operations

One of the most frustrating aspects of daily life for teachers and principals in ailing urban schools is the difficulty they face in getting the basic necessities to operate a school. All too often, school facilities were poorly maintained or dangerous, students were taught by substitutes for part or even all of the school year, and teachers

lacked an adequate supply of books and materials. At times district business operations were managed by staff who had been promoted because of tenure in the district, rather than their particular qualifications. Administrative systems were outdated and cumbersome, and new expertise was needed to bring them up to speed.

In some of the districts there was the perception—and too often the reality—that

direct political influence by school board members and other elected officials affected

decisions such as hiring, promotions and assignments, and contracts for supplies or

services. Finally, school level staff viewed the central office as unresponsive, bureaucratic, and micromanaging, rather than working to find real solutions.

Three Key Contextual Factors That Affect Change

1. The Uncertainty of Funding

None of the case study districts were in desperate financial circumstances, but

each of the districts faced budget pressures, in some years had to cut back spending,

and had lost bond elections to raise funds for capital improvements.

2. State Focus on Accountability

Evolving State accountability systems with strong academic achievement goals

helped focus local attention on student achievement. Thus, each of the three case

study districts operated within a broader policy context that emphasized student

academic achievement, concrete goals for improvement, and incentives and consequences for performance.

3. Local Politics and Power Relations

The process of decisionmaking in the case study districts was complex and had

to accommodate many different interests. However, there were important differences

from older, central city districts where interest group politics are more volatile and

where the vast majority, of residents and the student body are from a single racial

group.

III. KEY FINDINGS

The Need to Establish Preconditions for Reform

The individual histories of these fasterimproving urban school districts suggest

that political and organizational stability over a prolonged period and consensus on

educational reform strategies are necessary prerequisites to meaningful change.

Such a foundation includes:

• A new role for the school board whereby a new board majority (or other governing unit) focuses on policy level decisions that support improved student achievement rather than on the day-to-day operations of the district. • A shared vision between the chief executive of the school district and the school

board regarding the goals and strategies for reform.

• A capacity to diagnose instructional problems that the school system could

solve.

• An ability to flesh out the leadership’s vision for reform and sell it to city and

district stakeholders.

• A focus on revamping district operations to serve and support the schools.

• A matching of new resources to support the vision for reform.

What Were the Districts’ Strategies for Success?

The case study districts’ approaches to reform shared the following elements in

common:

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• They focused on student achievement and specific achievement goals, on a set

schedule with defined consequences; aligned curricula with State standards; and

helped translate these standards into instructional practice. • They created concrete accountability systems that went beyond what the states

had established in order to hold district leadership and building-level staff personally responsible for producing results. • They focused on the lowest-performing schools. Some districts provided additional resources and attempted to improve the stock of teachers and administrators

at their lowest-performing schools. • They adopted or developed districtwide curricula and instructional approaches

rather than allowing each school to devise their own strategies. • They supported these districtwide strategies at the central office through professional development and support for consistent implementation throughout the district. • They drove reforms into the classroom by defining a role for the central office

that entailed guiding, supporting, and improving instruction at the building level. • They committed themselves to data-driven decisionmaking and instruction.

They gave early and ongoing assessment data to teachers and principals as well as

trained and supported them as the data were used to diagnose teacher and student

weaknesses and make improvements. • They started their reforms at the elementary grade levels instead of trying to

fix everything at once. • They provided intensive instruction in reading and math to middle and high

school students, even if it came at the expense of other subjects.

How Did the Comparison Districts Fare in Their Efforts?

While the comparison districts claimed to be doing similar things, there were several important differences that prevented them from achieving similar gains:

• They lacked a clear consensus among key stakeholders about district priorities

or an overall strategy for reform. • They lacked specific, clear standards, achievement goals, timelines and consequences. • The district’s central office took little or no responsibility for improving instruction or creating a cohesive instructional strategy throughout the district. • The policies and practices of the central office were not strongly connected to

intended changes in teaching and learning in the classrooms. • The districts gave schools multiple and conflicting curricula and instructional

expectations, which they were left to decipher on their own.

What Were the Trends in Academic Achievement?

• The academic achievement data collected as part of this study suggest that the

districts in this study had indeed made progress in academic achievement and that

this progress had begun to reduce racial disparities in student performance on

standardized tests. Progress in each of the case study districts, moreover, generally

outpaced statewide gains. • This was particularly the case for the low end of the achievement distribution.

The patterns of change and the magnitude of changes do not suggest that they were

driven by small numbers of schools or students or were the sole result of State ‘‘effects.’’ • Progress was greatest at the elementary school level, and there was evidence

of some improvement in achievement trends at the middle school level. However,

these school districts are not yet generally making progress on overall achievement

and racial differences in high schools.

IV. IMPLICATIONS FOR NEXT STEPS

In many ways, these findings represent good practices for any type of organization: set priorities and specific goals; identify appropriate roles for parts of the organization; select or develop the techniques needed to move toward the goals given the

local context, staff, and student body; collect and use information to track progress,

identify needed refinements and areas of special needs; and stay on course long

enough for the effort to pay off. There are few surprises here, just hard work.

But taking these common-sensical steps in the complex world of urban school districts with many diverse stakeholders, frequent leadership changes, competing priorities, limited resources, and difficult-to-manage bureaucracies is not a straightforward process. A key contribution of this study, therefore, is to suggest some priorities for urban school districts and to provide concrete examples of how several

urban school districts successfully, focused on student achievement and what they

saw as necessary steps toward improvement.

66

This study is exploratory in nature and is not designed to yield definitive conclusions regarding the factors that drove achievement in these particular districts.

However, the evidence gathered in these districts does support a few tentative conclusions that further technical assistance and research efforts should endeavor to

test. These hypotheses are interrelated but can be loosely categorized into several

topic areas: the foundations for reform; instructional coherence; and data-driven decisionmaking. In particular, the evidence in this report suggests the following

hypotheses regarding the role of the district in urban school reform.

Building the Foundations for Reform

• The nature of the local political and public discourse about schools is important

and can be changed. But first, school board, community leaders, and superintendents must agree that improved student achievement is their top priority.

• A sustained focus on enacting effective reforms is possible when a common vision is developed that is supported by a stable majority of the board, and when the

school community and general public are engaged in providing feedback and support.

Developing Instructional Coherence

• The central school district office can play a key role in setting district-wide

goals, standards for learning, and instructional objectives; creating a consistency of

instruction in every school; and supporting the improvement of instruction and the

effective delivery of curricula throughout the district.

• Urban school districts face specific challenges. Providing a systematic, uniform,

and clearly defined approach to elementary instruction may improve student learning and have an even larger positive effect on the disadvantaged and minority children served by these districts.

• Giving teachers extensive professional development to ensure the delivery of a

specific curriculum may be more effective at improving instruction and raising student achievement than distributing professional development resources widely

across schools or educational initiatives.

• Requiring, encouraging, or providing incentives for highly skilled administrators

and teachers to transfer to low-performing schools may improve the stock of staff

at those schools and help disadvantaged and minority children succeed.

Data Driven Decision Making

• Teachers may be able to use achievement data as a tool to help them improve

instructional practice, diagnose students’ specific instructional needs, and increase

student learning/achievement. However, teachers and principals need such data

given to them at regular intervals from the start of the academic year, along with

training in the use of these data to diagnose areas of weakness.

• Students may be assigned to classroom situations that are more beneficial to

them if administrators carefully use assessment data in placement decisions to identify students with the potential to do more demanding work. This practice may also

increase the odds that disadvantaged and minority students will be able to qualify

for high-level classes.

The experiences of these districts, and the perspectives of the leaders in these districts, suggest one final hypothesis: doing all of these things together can have a

much larger impact on the performance of a district than doing any one of them

alone. Indeed, unless a district tries to reform their system as a whole, trying any

one of these approaches may be a wasted effort.

In the end, the findings in this study underscore the importance of the district

as a unit of analysis for research and as a level of intervention for reform. It is important next to refine the hypotheses regarding promising practices at the district

level and establish a strong empirical basis for understanding the relationship between these educational improvement strategies and changes in teaching, learning,

and student achievement in large urban school systems. The findings also underscore the importance in testing these strategies in diverse settings as possible, so

as to establish their applicability to the systems where reform is most needed.

The CHAIRMAN. Wanda Gaddis, welcome.

STATEMENT OF WANDA GADDIS, PARENT, WASHINGTON, DC,

ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL PTA

Ms. GADDIS. Good morning, Chairman Kennedy and members of

the committee.

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My name is Wanda Gaddis. I am a parent, and my daughter

Ashley is a first-grader at Bruce-Monroe Elementary School in the

District of Columbia.

I am here today representing National PTA. Parents are key

players in the education debate, so I thank you for the opportunity

to express my views.

First, I would like to commend you, Mr. Chairman, as well as

Senator Reed and other members of this committee, for your dedication to school improvement and parent involvement. You led the

way to strengthening the parent involvement provisions in the law,

and we thank you for your commitment.

PTA members across the country celebrated because they felt

Congress sent a signal that parent involvement is an important reform tool.

I also want to thank you for your efforts to secure a sustained

and long-term commitment to increased Federal funding for education. Your work is critical to ensure that all children have access

to excellent public schools, and we pledge to continue working with

you on these issues.

My statement can be summarized with three simple facts—effectively involving parents and families in the education of their children has greater potential impact than almost any other education

reform. Excellent schools share common elements which include

qualified teachers, a challenging curriculum, small class sizes, upto-date materials and equipment, appropriate education support

programs, strong leadership, and meaningful parent involvement.

The components of effective schools cost money, and low-achieving

schools do not have adequate resources to implement the strategies

they need.

If you ask parents what they want in education, they will respond that they want every school to be an excellent school. Parents want all children to have a high-quality education. They want

to see funding disparities among schools and programs eliminated.

Parents want qualified teachers, small classes, and safe and modern schools for their children. They also want their children to have

up-to-date textbooks and technology, and before- and after-school

learning opportunities in their schools.

Title I parents want parent involvement provisions implemented

to help students achieve. So far, most of the attention has been on

parental choice, but choice is not parental involvement. Parents

want to keep their children in their own neighborhoods so they can

be part of their school communities. Parents want to be partners

with their schools in their children’s education. Most of all, they

want a place at the decisionmaking table.

Let me tell you about how the Telling Stories Project brought me

to the education table with my daughter Ashley. The Telling Stories Project is based on the belief that all parents, regardless of

their background, can promote literacy at home, in the school, and

in the community.

The project connects parents, educators, and communities.

Through the Telling Stories Project, parents like myself work collaboratively with other parents from different backgrounds to create a school environment that values all cultures and family tradiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:15 Apr 01, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\81758.TXT SLABOR3 PsN: SLABOR3
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tions, play more active roles in their children’s classrooms and in

the decisionmaking process of the school.

Like many other models of successful parents involvement, Telling Stories began with relationship-building. National PTA believes

that all schools can have this type of effective parent involvement

if States and schools make it a priority. National PTA believes that

Congress and the Department of Education can help create strong

partnerships and recommend that parent involvement policies be

evaluated as part of a school’s overall measures of success; more

technical assistance be provided to show schools how to set up effective parent involvement practices; professional development programs to train teachers in how to build relationships with parents.

Increasing financial resources must be a priority at the Federal

level, too. In fact, we believe that the single biggest problems that

States and schools face in implementing Title I is a lack of funding.

Title I only fully serves about one-third of all children who are eligible. We cannot expect 100 percent results when we only invest

35 percent.

Schools already face enormous challenges in educating children.

The new law creates additional demands on States and schools,

and many States are cutting their education budgets.

The reality is that States and local communities cannot do it

alone. They need help from the Federal Government. National PTA

believes that Congress should provide appropriations to meet the

goals of ESEA, particularly in economically disadvantaged areas,

and to prepare the future work force to meet the Nation’s economic

and defense needs.

Public education advocates are often criticized when they ask for

more money. However, not one Federal education program has ever

been funded to the level that would provide services to all who are

eligible. Is money the only solution to problems in education? No.

But we cannot assure that all teachers are highly-qualified, or implement parent involvement strategies as required in Title I, not

to mention reduce class size, build and repair school facilities, provide needed support services, or purchase equipment and materials

for free.

Thank you for the opportunity to present our views today. I will

be happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Gaddis follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WANDA GADDIS, PARENT, WASHINGTON, DC, ON BEHALF

OF THE NATIONAL PTA

Good morning Chairman. Kennedy, and members of the Committee. My name is

Wanda Gaddis. I am a parent, and my daughter, Ashley, is a first-grader at BruceMonroe Elementary School in the District of Columbia. I am here today representing National PTA, the country’s largest child advocacy organization, which has 6.2

million members. Parents are key stakeholders in the education debate, so I thank

you for the opportunity to express National PTA’s perspective on implementing Title

I, with our particular comments on what parents believe will help their children

achieve high standards.

First, I would like to commend you, Mr. Chairman, as well as Senator Reed and

other members of this committee, for your commitment to school improvement and

to parent involvement. You led the way to strengthening the parent involvement

provisions in the current law, and we thank you for the commitment you demonstrated on this issue throughout reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary

Education Act (ESEA). PTA members across the country celebrated the improved

69

parent involvement provisions because they felt Congress sent a signal to states and

school districts that parent involvement is an important reform tool.

I also want to thank you for your efforts to secure a sustained and long-term commitment to increased Federal funding for education. Your efforts are critical to our

success in assuring that all children have access to excellent public schools, and we

pledge to continue working with you and your staff on these issues.

Before going further, Mr. Chairman, I would also like to say that my references

to the term parent should be interpreted broadly to include all the adults who play

an important role in a child’s family life, since grandparents, aunts, uncles, stepparents, and guardians often have primary responsibility for a child’s care and education.

From the perspective of parents, whose job it is to help children learn outside the

classroom, and from the viewpoint of families who have limited resources, I am here

today to support Title I and to discuss successful implementation strategies.

Title I is the centerpiece of Federal involvement in elementary and secondary education, and ever since it was created in 1965, the program has been targeting Federal dollars to the schools and communities most in need of assistance to help lowachieving students succeed academically.

Title I has evolved over the years, with changes made in parent involvement

strategies, the variety of services provided, the scope of coverage within schools, and

other aspects related to emerging instructional beliefs and educational practices, but

at its core, the program continues to provide basic academic skills to students who

need additional help in achieving the state’s high academic standards. In recent reauthorizations, including in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA), the changes in

Title I focused on coordinating programs, expanding schoolwide projects, improving

student assessments, and increasing accountability. Fundamental to the success of

Title I, the program remains extremely flexible so that states and school districts

can decide how their funds are spent to meet local needs. The total Federal appropriation for Title I is now over $12 billion, and its programs touch nearly every school district in the country. More than 11 million children receive Title I services. Funds are used to develop special curricula that focus

on the reading or math skills low-achieving students must master, to hire and train

teachers who specialize in teaching children with special educational needs, or to

extend the school day for additional instruction.

Since Title I was enacted, numerous evaluations of the program have demonstrated its effectiveness. First of all, research shows that Federal dollars are far

more targeted to disadvantaged children than State funds. On average, for every

$1.00 of State funds school districts receive for each low-income student, they receive $4.73 in additional Federal funding per poor student.

In addition, Title I funds have helped close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged children and given states and school districts

money to implement reforms they would not otherwise have been able to afford. According to National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores, the achievement gap between white and minority children is decreasing. Between the early

1970’s and 1992, the difference in scores for white and black 9-year-olds narrowed

by 23 percent in reading and math. Without Title I, these gaps would likely have

been greater. More recent NAEP scores show improvements in reading for students

in grades 4, 8, and 12, and Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) math scores are at

a 27-year high level.

Studies have also been conducted on the programmatic aspects of Title I, and education researchers have identified certain common elements in effective Title I

schools. For example, effective schools share clear goals for high academic achievement. They use curricula and materials that are linked to strict academic standards,

the compensatory instruction is well-coordinated with the regular course of studies,

they have added opportunities for learning in school-based before and after-school

activities, they place emphasis on quality professional development for teachers, and

they have meaningful parent involvement. National PTA supports the idea that effective schools share these and other common criteria. Attached to this statement

is our list of the components of an effective school.

If you ask what parents want to,reform education, they will respond that they

want every school to be an effective school. Parents believe it is vital to America’s

future well-being that all children have equitable access to a high-quality educational opportunity. Parents want the tremendous funding disparities among

schools and programs, which lead to tremendous disparities in achievement, eliminated.

For purposes of this statement, l will divide our recommendations into two major

categories: effectively implementing the parent involvement provisions in ESEA and

increasing the Federal investment in education.

70

Over 30 years of research have demonstrated the impact parent involvement can

have on student achievement, proving beyond dispute the positive connection between parent involvement and student success. Effectively engaging parents and

families in the education of their children has greater potential impact than almost

any other education reform. The evidence is convincing, but the challenge comes in

transforming knowledge into practice, and practice into results.

While National PTA strongly supported the efforts during ESEA reauthorization

to increase student achievement and strengthen accountability, we do not like, the

overemphasis in the law on testing as the primary measure of school or student success. As mentioned, National PTA sees a number of other ways to evaluate success,

and we believe the strengthened parent involvement provisions in NCLBA offer critical accountability tools that are being overlooked in implementation of the law. National PTA has recommended to the Department of Education that they issue regulation or guidance on parent involvement to ensure that states and school districts

are aware of the new provisions and understand what they need to do to make them

work.

Instead, most of the attention has been on parental choice, particularly the required choice provisions in Title I. Choice, however, is NOT parental involvement.

In fact, recent articles about the choice options in NCLBA indicate that parents are

choosing to keep their children in their own schools. They do not want to send their

children to other schools. They want to improve their neighborhood schools so they

can be a part of their school communities.

Parents want their children to have qualified teachers. They want their children

to be in classes that are not overcrowded. They want school buildings that are safe

from hazards and modernized for today’s technology. They want their children to

have up-to-date textbooks, and instructional materials to supplement their instruction. They want school-based before- and after-school learning opportunities for their

children.

In brief, parents want what the definition of parent involvement the NCLBA

promises. They want information about their children’s education. They want training in ways they can be helpful to all students. Parents want to be partners in their

children’s education. Most of all, they want a place at the decisionmaking table.

Let me tell you about how the Tellin’ Stories Project brought me to the table with

my daughter, Ashley. This project is based on the belief that all parentsregardless

of their nationality, cultural background, native language and level of formal education-have the knowledge and experience to create their own literature and to

serve as sources of literacy at home, in the school and in the community.

Through participation in a series of workshops, parents write and share their stories with their children and other parents. These stories become a part of the life

of the school and the community as they‘ document the struggles and joys of the

past and create a vision of the future.

The project provides a much needed bridge that connects parents, educators and

communities. Through the Tellin’ Stories Project, parents:

• Work collaboratively with other parents from different linguistic,; cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds;

• Create a school environment that values all cultures and family traditions;

• Play more active and meaningful roles in their children’s classrooms and in the

decisionmaking process of the school; and

• Help develop the project as a model, which may be used in other communities.

Our parents get involved with our project so they can be more involved in the

schools their children attend. Like many other models of successful parent involvement, Tellin’ Stories begins with relationship building. When strong relationships

can connect parents to the school, solutions to other problems can be developed.

When regular communications can cover issues such as teacher quality, safety, absenteeism, parents can help coordinate their advocacy efforts.

National PTA believes all schools can have this type of effective parent involvement if it is made a priority at the State and local levels. National PTA believes

Congress and the Department of Education can help create strong partnerships, and

recommends that:

• A school’s parent involvement policies should be evaluated along with its

progress in raising student achievement, its offering of professional development opportunities, and the other requirements of the law. If parent involvement is part on

a school’s overall assessment, it will be likely more effective, and the increased parent involvement will have a beneficial impact on student achievement and other

school improvements.

• There needs to be increased technical assistance from the Federal to State level

and from the State to districts and local schools on how to institute effective parent

71

involvement research and practices. This could be accomplished in part through the

use of existing, and new, parent resource centers, which could serve as clearinghouses of information helpful to states and schools. • An increased emphasis on information sharing and dissemination is needed,

through the Federal Government to the states and through the states to local districts. As mentioned earlier, there are thousands of successful schools across the

country and thousands more that could benefit by replicating model programs of

what is working. • Title I professional development activities must include training on how to foster relationships with parents and encourage parent involvement.

The parent involvement provisions in Title I and other parts of ESEA provide a

sensible outline for schools to develop stronger relationships between parents and

educators. When parent involvement is a comprehensive, well-planned partnership,

student achievement will increase. However, too often, the parent involvement provisions in Title I are not adequately implemented. That is why National PTA believes the Department of Education and Congress need to make this issue a priority

at the State and local levels. ESEA helps educators and parents build partnerships,

but these provisions are only as effective as the commitment and resources to implement them. National PTA continues to maintain that if ESEA is to help improve

student achievement, and parent involvement is a leading indicator of success, then

creating strong partnerships between the home and the school must be a priority

for the Department of Education and the states.

Increasing resources must be a priority at the Federal level too. In fact, the biggest problem states and schools face in adequately implementing Title I is lack, of

funding. The Congressional Research Service estimates that the program only fully

serves about one third of all children who are eligible’. We cannot expect 100 percent results when we only invest 35 percent.

Schools are under tremendous pressure to prepare students for jobs of the future,

but they face enormous challenges in carrying out this mission. Schools are contending with record high student enrollments, an increased percentage of students with

special needs, including limited-English proficiency (LEP) a projected teacher shortage, rapidly changing education technology demands; and a staggering need for

school construction and modernization. 1n addition, states and schools must comply

with new demands in the law and the recent economic downturn that has created

deficits in State budgets that are in many cases being paid for with cuts to education:

Consider, these facts:

• This year, as a result of the ‘‘Baby Boom Echo’’ population growth, elementary

and secondary schools will enroll 53.2 million students, nearly half a million more

than last year. New enrollments will continue to grow for the next 7 years, with

more than 54 million students expected in 2008!

• The Department of Education has reported that a large number of teachers are

nearing retirement, which together with the unprecedented enrollments, is fueling

a teacher shortage that will require hiring an estimated 2.2 million teachers over

the next 10 years.

• The U.S. General Accounting Office estimates the cost of simply repairing

schools to bring them up to minimal health and safety codes would cost $112 billion.

In addition, an estimated $73 billion is needed to accommodate the rising enrollments, and billions more are needed to bring schools up to date with 21st century

technology needs.

The reality is, while states and local communities have always had primary responsibility for creating excellent schools and are contributing all they can to their

schools, they simply cannot do it alone. They need help from the Federal Government, which has as one of its primary roles to ensure access and equal opportunity

to high quality education for all children. National PTA believes the Federal Government should provide budgetary appropriations that are adequate to meet these

goals, particularly in economically disadvantaged areas, and to prepare the future

workforce to meet the nation’s economic and defense needs.

Public education advocates are often criticized when they ask for more money.

The reality is, however, that not one Federal education program has ever been funded to the level that would provide services to all who are eligible. Further, in a poll

conducted for the Committee for Education Funding, the nation’s largest education

coalition, 84 percent of voters said it is important that Federal funding for education, from Kindergarten through college, receive a substantial increase this year

even if it means a larger Federal budget deficit.

The overall needs for elementary and secondary education are staggering, but

even a quick glance at Title I shows the dramatic funding needs:

72

• The program only fully serves about one-third of those who are eligible. To provide services to all would cost a total of $24 billion.

• Up to 20 percent of the funds from Title I may be taken from basic services

to pay for supplemental services and transportation costs associated with public

school choice.

• The new assessments, accountability, and teacher quality requirements will cost

money to implement, and there are insufficient funds to cover the costs.

Is money the only solution to problems in education? No, but we cannot assure

that all teachers are highly qualified or implement parent involvement strategies as

required in Title I, not to mention reduce class size, build and repair school facilities, provide needed support services, or purchase equipment and materials for free.

National PTA believes that public education provides a common experience for

building and maintaining a basic commitment to the values of a democratic—system

of government. A strong public education system is vital to our nation’s well-being,

and the Federal Government must be an active participant in strengthening this

system. The Congress and the White House must continue to work together to

strengthen America’s system of public education so that effective schools provide

education excellence for all children to achieve high standards, become responsible

citizens, and attain economic self-sufficiency.

Thank you for this opportunity to present our views today. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for your testimony and for

all the testimony.

What we were hoping to hear today is the reaction from those

who are out in the field about the implementation of the No Child

Left Behind Act, and I think we have received some very useful

and important information on that particular challenge, and I am

grateful.

I would like to start with Dr. Wheelan if I could. We saw as recently as today in The Washington Post the headline, ‘‘Top Teachers Rare in Poor Schools,’’ and there is another story as well with

regard to reading issues and lack of funding. But I would like to

just focus on ‘‘Top Teachers Rare in Poor Schools.’’ It talks about

‘‘Twenty percent of teachers in high-poverty schools left teaching

and moved to other schools in 1999 compared to 12 percent in lowpoverty schools.’’

‘‘Many education experts say that teachers must be paid more

and supported by good administrators.’’

The story goes on:

‘‘Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at the University of California: ‘But when it comes to professionalizing the teaching force, Mr. Bush has simply

told the States that they must magically figure out a way to upgrade teacher quality, with no new resources.’ ’’

We also have the report that has come out from the Southeast

Center for Teaching, which shows that ‘‘Kids with uncertified

teachers have 20 percent less academic growth.’’ We have those

studies here.

I do not think it surprises the members of our committee, when

we passed the No Child Left Behind Act, about the importance,

among others, of having well-qualified teachers.

These studies underscore the importance of meeting the goal set

out to ensure a highly-qualified teacher in every classroom. You

have stated that you plan to do all that you can to meet the goal,

including the professional development and mentoring programs.

Can you elaborate on how you are doing this? Do you have the resources to do it? What additional help and assistance do you need?

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What can you tell us about your programs in your State, the

kind of success that they are having, and what needs to be done

to really make a difference?

Ms. WHEELAN. The Governor has put in place a task force to

study teacher quality that is comprised of members of the higher

education community as well as the business community and people from K–12 as well, so that there is a dialogue to match what

is needed in the classroom versus what the universities are teaching in the classroom. While that may seem kind of common

sensical, it has never happened before. We have had our higher

education institutions teaching what they thought teachers needed

to be able to do in classrooms, and in some cases had never visited

a classroom, other than during student teaching.

One thing that I think has happened is that teaching started out

as a women’s profession, and women did not need a lot of money

because they were not the sole source of their household, so we

have never caught up with the kind of dollars that we put into

other professionals. Given the infusion of the information technology arena and all the other jobs that are so much better-paid,

we are losing a lot of quality people to other fields.

Having said that, I think what we are recognizing is that different school divisions, because of the populations of their children,

do have different needs, and our higher education teacher training

programs are recognizing that and now trying to provide the kind

of—if you are going to a rural area, these might be your challenges;

if you are going to a high-income area, these may be your challenges; if you are going to a district that has a large English-asa-second-language population; recognizing also that working for

‘‘seasoned’’ teachers—I like that word better than ‘‘old’’—for seasoned teachers to be matched with new teachers is extremely important, and that is not something that has been done regularly.

So we are in the process of working with seasoned teachers to help

them remember what it was like to be new teachers and what they

need to do to help the new teachers. Probably the most frightening

thing for a new teacher is that first day of class, when we have had

all this education and training, but now it is me by myself. To have

a seasoned teacher even just stop by during the day and say, ‘‘How

are you doing?’’ and so on is very important. So we have formalized

programs that are doing that.

We also have a cadre of retired teachers that we are bringing

back to mentor some of the new teachers—but again, there are dollars involved when people are no longer on the payroll to provide

incentive to bring them back. So additional dollars are needed for

those kinds of mentoring programs as well as to recruit teachers

into some areas that they may not consider working in, for example. Our small and rural communities are having a devilish time

getting people to move to those communities because there is nothing else there, but counties like Fairfax County right outside Washington, DC are having just as much difficulty, because again, the

challenges of working with students who have many disabilities

and speak other languages is a challenge to them, and when you

have 25 children in a class, all with different needs, it is very

tough.

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The CHAIRMAN. In one of the interesting programs that I saw

when I visited North Carolina, they were actually recruiting people

in these rural areas and training them. So, rather than trying to

train teachers and sending them there, they were identifying people who were living there and training them.

Ms. WHEELAN. There are a lot of ‘‘grow your own’’ programs. I

was out in Wythe County, for example, the other day during a convocation, and of the 30 new teachers, 18 of them graduated from

the local high school. So there is a lot of that going on.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, good.

In terms of having well-qualified teachers in the classrooms in

Virginia, have you set some markers or some goals as to when Virginia is going to be able to do that?

Ms. WHEELAN. By 2005–2006, because that is what the law says.

[Laughter.]

The CHAIRMAN. That is what the law says, but I was just trying

to get a little feel for that.

Ms. WHEELAN. I think some divisions are farther along in being

able to do that, but across the Commonwealth, it is going to take

us that long.

The CHAIRMAN. Good, and we want to try to help you do it.

Let me ask you about the PASS program and how that is working. We have seen similar kinds of efforts made where States have

developed teams that have the technical information and skills as

well as the political skills to work within schools to help them improve.

Tell me about your PASS program.

Ms. WHEELAN. There is an excitement across the Commonwealth

in both the academic community and the local community. Businesses are stepping up to the plate and offering their employees to

be able to come in to do some mentoring and tutoring, or to do

some painting, or to do some planting of plants, whatever it is that

brightens up the learning environment and helps the children.

The faith-based community is stepping up to the plate in afterschool and before-school and weekend programs to provide tutoring

and mentoring for those students.

The academic teams that are going in are really exciting, because

for once, we have educational institutions talking to each other

from across the State. We have matched teachers and principals

from Fairfax and Arlington and Loudon Counties here in northern

Virginia with those in the city of Richmond, for example, because

they have similar populations. Sometimes, it is just a matter of

saying, ‘‘You know, they are asking you these questions on the test,

but you are not teaching this in your curriculum; you have not

lined up your curriculum.’’ To hear that from a colleague is very

different than the principal coming in and saying, ‘‘You are not

doing your job.’’ So it is going very, very well. Of course, we have

only been into it for 3 weeks in the school year, but just building

the excitement, and every time we have a gathering of folks, people

are signing on more and more to get involved.

The CHAIRMAN. Good.

Let me ask Dr. Moloney, but also Dr. Wheelan and others, about

the supplemental services. How have you begun to plan for the

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supplemental services, and how are we going to ensure that they

are high-quality? I would be interested in other reactions, too.

Dr. Moloney.

Mr. MOLONEY. I think the newness of the opportunities has obviously created some complexity. In the education industry, we are

not famous for our rapid flanking movements, and a lot of districts

are struggling with this.

We have a shortage of providers, because there has not been support for these kinds of services in law, certainly Federal law, in the

past. Some districts are doing quite well. They have been imaginative. We have done our best to facilitate at the State level.

I would not for a minute say that the Congress should have had

a longer time line, because frankly, I do not think you would have

the level of attention to this if the time line had not commenced

with this school year.

So better than we wrestle with these teething problems now. I

can assure you that as time goes by, the performance will be much

more to your liking. It is an exciting opportunity.

The CHAIRMAN. I will hear from others—Dr. Wheelan and then

Dr. Casserly.

Ms. WHEELAN. In the Commonwealth, the Board of Education

has developed a list of the services that are needed based on the

law, and we have put out a group of RFPs, and we have gotten responses from all across the country—we are very glad about that— and by the end of the month, we should have a list of those services.

It becomes extremely important in the city of Petersburg, which

has 10 schools, none of which is accredited, so there is no place for

those children to go within the city of Petersburg. The surrounding

school divisions of Chesterfield and Hanover are already filled to

capacity, so there are not many seats available for them. So those

supplemental services will become very important.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Casserly.

Mr. CASSERLY. This is kind of a mixed picture in terms of the implementation. Virginia and Colorado have been two of the States

that have provided approved supplemental service provider lists to

the local level, way ahead of many other States. We are discovering

that many of our cities, however, have not received those lists, so

many have gone about the process of trying to implement supplemental services on their own.

In some cases where the cities do have their lists—places like

San Diego, for instance; San Diego is about the process of implementing supplemental services after school, including the San

Diego school district proper, but we are finding that the three other

service providers in the district have already indicated to the school

system that they are at capacity and cannot take any more kids.

So we are struggling a little bit with this, and the process is not

moving quite as fast as we had initially hoped, but I agree with

Bill Moloney that over time, this will work out, and the good will

of the people at the State and the local level will get this thing implemented. But it is a little slower on the uptake than we had

originally expected.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Casserly, you talked about the progress that

is being made in the 24 cities you surveyed. What are the common

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needs of the cities, and what are your recommendations, and what

has been the budget impact in terms of the implementation of

these requirements?

Mr. CASSERLY. The initial challenges that we have really deal

with supplemental service provisions, as I indicated, and with the

choice provisions. We certainly, over the long term, are running

into difficulties where we are going to need technical assistance in

how to boost our overall student achievement, which is the overall

goal of this legislation, and that is going to take both expertise

from the State level and funding from the Federal level.

The choice provision has been particularly difficult to implement.

We are running into cases in some cities, as I indicated in my initial statement, where cities simply do not have the capacity because so many of the schools are overcrowded already, and we

haven’t been able to place as many kids as we would like.

We have discovered, however, from information collection that we

have been doing, that tens of thousands, in some cases 100,000 or

more parents in some of the cities, have been notified that there

are choice options, but the number of open seats is just not what

we would have initially wanted. But I expect that over time, we are

going to make this situation better.

One other thing that has been helpful for us is that in cities that

were able to mesh their open enrollment programs with the choice

provisions have had an easier time implementing choice. But most

of the cities were not able to get those two processes to jibe because

they had not been notified yet as to which schools in the spring

were going to be in school improvement.

I think that in the outyears, what you will see is school districts

meshing their open enrollment plans with this choice provision in

ways that are going to give parents even greater options.

The CHAIRMAN. Just a final two questions. What do you hear

from your cities in terms of the pressure that they have in terms

of resources and the cutbacks from the State? Is that having an impact in terms of the implementation of No Child Left Behind?

Mr. CASSERLY. We are under extraordinary pressure. I cannot

think of another institution, public or private that is under as

much pressure as we are to improve our overall performance. But

one of the things that has added to that pressure is the budgetary

cutbacks that we have experienced over the last year or so. I think

that on average, our cities have taken budget cuts of anywhere between 10 and 15 percent of their operating budgets. The Federal

Government was really very, very helpful in stepping up to the

plate this last appropriations cycle, but we are going to need those

kinds of increases repeated in the next couple of years in order to

get this law implemented successfully, because the cutbacks have

been enormous in these cities.

The CHAIRMAN. Finally, Wanda, I want to ask you about your involvement in the school and in your child’s education. Do you find

that with the parents that you are talking to now, there is a greater effort to involve the parents more? Do you find that that is taking place now in your school and local school district?

Ms. GADDIS. Yes. The parents are coming out now, and they are

getting involved in the school. A lot of the parents at my daughter’s

school, which is Bruce-Monroe, chose to stay there and make our

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school better. We had a few who left, but we feel as though we can

get our school changed if we stay there and work and bring out

more friends.

What we do through the Telling Stories Project is try to bring in

more parents every day. This morning, we had about 40 parents in

a meeting this morning when I left. So they are coming out and

being more involved.

The CHAIRMAN. That is certainly the hope, that we are going to

provide a quality education for all children so they do not have to

move, and that is certainly something that is going to be delayed

if we are not providing the resources to be able to make those programs work.

Ms. WHEELAN. Senator Kennedy, one of the challenges we have,

though, is that many of our parents are illiterate, or are themselves not high school graduates, and it makes it very difficult for

them to provide assistance to their own children with their homework. So we have also built a literacy component into the PASS

program so that parents can learn along with their children.

The CHAIRMAN. That is very worthwhile, and we have heard of

the great successes they have had in a number of communities. So

it is very, very valuable and very worthwhile and to be commended.

Senator Jeffords?

Senator JEFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Secretary Wheelan, you mentioned in your testimony that more

often than not, resources are pulled from other instructional programs to fund IDEA requirements. Do you have an estimate of the

dollar amount that has been diverted to IDEA from other K

through 12 programs within the last year or so?

Ms. WHEELAN. I do not know the specific dollar amount, but I

can certainly provide that to you once I get back to the office.

Senator JEFFORDS. I would appreciate that very much.

Ms. WHEELAN. Certainly.

[Information follows:]

[Information was not available at press time, however, information is maintained in the committee files.]

Senator JEFFORDS. What specific K through 12 initiative are

being shortchanged because of the shifting of dollars into IDEA?

Ms. WHEELAN. I would have to let you know, because it depends

on where they are taking the money from. I do not know that any

is being shortchanged. I think they are having to find other sources

of funding for them from local community grants. Many of our

foundations are having to kick in dollars to supplement some of

those programs, and we are trying not to let them fall through the

tracks just because we do not have the dollars.

Senator JEFFORDS. Can any of the other panelists help me out

with information in that regard?

Mr. MOLONEY. I might offer a thought that would be useful. The

structure of ESEA, which is 37 years old—it has been adapted

through various reauthorizations—something that has been quite

striking in our circumstances and I think in other States is that

we are in a new era of standards-based education, with a premium

on rigorous assessment and strong accountability. Of necessity, we

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have had to adapt our uses of money to move in a direction of results as the primary test.

So we make no apology for that. We do not think we are shortchanging old programs. Very frankly, some of the old programs— this happens in any institution—reflect priorities that are no

longer as active as they once were. So the reallocation of moneys

within our Federal programs, within our State moneys, is exactly

what every school district in our State is doing. It is an appropriate

response to the circumstance—put the resources where they are

needed and have the courage occasionally to say to some old programs and even people still attached to them that we cannot do

that anymore or that this has not worked as well as we had hoped.

So I think this is an inevitable process.

Senator JEFFORDS. Mr. Casserly.

Mr. CASSERLY. I do not have any firm figures for you. I do know

that our school systems have, as I indicated before, been under

enormous financial strain because of the dollar cutbacks because of

the economy. We have also been under enormous financial strain

because of the tug-of-war over priorities and resources within the

school system, which is one of the reasons why we have always

been eager for Congress to pass mandatory funding legislation for

IDEA to help us take the pressure off the budgets and also meet

the other priorities that we have in the school systems.

Senator JEFFORDS. Ms. Gaddis, do you have any comments?

Ms. GADDIS. No.

Senator JEFFORDS. My concern is that we do not recognize—or,

the public does not seem to recognize, or at least the voters, that

when we fund IDEA, that is a mandatory program which is courtrequired and that if the money does not come from where it should,

that is, the Federal Government, then it has to come from somewhere. To me, that is the most critical problem we have, that we

could reconcile if we just followed the intent of the law, and that

is to fully fund IDEA. I do not think anybody is going to disagree

with me on that, but I always want to raise that issue because

there is so much misunderstanding, and the disabled children get

the blame for things which are the Federal Government’s responsibility.

Does anyone have any comment?

Ms. WHEELAN. Senator Jeffords, I think one thing that happens

is that we end up increasing class sizes in the general class, for

lack of a better classification, in order to be able to provide smaller

classes for children with disabilities. That is one of the shifts that

occurs, and while I am not critical of that, that then puts a burden

on the teacher with a larger class to still meet the educational

needs of all the children who are in that particular classroom. That

is the kind of impact that creating the services that are necessary

for students with disabilities when you have to take resources from

another pot to put into those.

That is why I said I would not call it being ‘‘shortchanged’’ so

much, but it does put a bigger burden on it. It means that local

school divisions are having to make sure that they have facilities

that are adequate, and in some school divisions, when there is only

a handful of children with those disabilities and who rightfully

should have the services that they need, it then creates some shift

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in the rest of the population. Those are the kinds of things that

happen as a result of those dollars not being there.

Senator JEFFORDS. Dr. Moloney.

Mr. MOLONEY. I could support what Ms. Wheelan has said. Despite the very considerable popularity of the notion of reducing

class size, we know that it is far and away the most expensive reform option open to us, and districts find that when they go in that

direction, inevitably, they must drain other program areas to do

that. Often, programmatic changes, rather than one or two less in

a class, is the better way to go. We have seen this in special education. We have a very enviable record, I think, of lifting achievement for youngsters with disabilities, and we can directly trace

that success to programmatic changes, not a staff or class size variable.

Mr. CASSERLY. One other way to illustrate this tug-of-war that

Mr. Moloney and Ms. Wheelan mentioned is that about 10 to 12

percent of all the kids in the cities—and I think probably nationally, too—are students with disabilities, but at least in the urban

areas, services for these children garner about 18 to 20 percent of

the budgets in these school systems, putting enormous pressure on

other services in the school systems, and in an era where things

are being cut back, it just puts an enormous strain on class sizes

and teacher hiring across the board.

Senator JEFFORDS. Some in the education community have expressed concern that due to the increased testing in the No Child

Left Behind Act and identification of a high number of students not

meeting adequate performance levels, we may see an increase in

the number of students being placed in special education.

Would each of you like to comment on that, please?

Mr. MOLONEY. There is a lot of ambiguity in this issue. You are

certainly right in what you are hearing, Senator Jeffords. We commonly hear folks say that, ‘‘Well, because there is so much testing

now, this, that, or the other thing will occur’’. The fact is that the

United States tests 21⁄2 times as much as the average of 16 industrial nations, so beyond a shadow of a doubt, there is too much

testing going on in this country.

Inevitably, you have to go to the question of which test. Now,

something that is playing out I think productively in Colorado is

that with the great prominence of accountability testing which we

began nearly 10 years ago and which you have ordained in H.R. 1,

districts are making different kinds of decisions about their testing

budgets. So what we are seeing is an actual decline in the amount

of testing occurring and an actual decline in the amount of money

being spent on testing in many, many districts. We regard this as

a positive thing.

Particularly in some of our larger districts, we had an extraordinary array of different testing systems. We have talked with folks

in Denver, Colorado Springs, and elsewhere, and testing systems

tend to outlive their usefulness but not go away. So it has compelled some rigorous decisionmaking, and I think that that is a

positive thing.

Mr. CASSERLY. I think this is a real danger that we have to be

mindful of, that the testing requirements would result in the kinds

of over-identification that you have indicated. On the other hand,

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there is an opportunity here to use tests more wisely and to use

them in a way to make sure that as students, particularly in their

reading skills, start to fall behind that we put interventions in

place in order to boost their reading scores rather than placing

them in a special education program.

So I think there is a way of making the assessment system work

in such a way to avoid exactly the fear that you are expressing. But

I think it is worth being vigilant about this, because not everybody

is going to use the assessments in this way.

Ms. WHEELAN. I have no data to support what you are suggesting, that the students are moving into special education classes instead because of the testing. We, like Colorado, have been in this

business of assessment for at least 7 years, and I think that what

we are doing instead is providing those additional services that students need before and after school to get them up-to-snuff.

The Act requires assessment once a year, but we do have quarterly and every–6-week assessment in many of our programs, especially the PASS programs, so that we can keep regular progress

rather than waiting until the end of the year, when it is too late

to do anything to help with the child.

So I am afraid we do not have that. We are currently testing in

grades, 3, 5, 8, and high school, and the Act requires 3 on up, so

we are going to have to get additional dollars to put in testing in

4th, 6th, and 7th grades. But I really do not know of any data in

Virginia to support that those students are moved into special education. We even had a requirement that the State had put in before

No Child Left Behind came along, that by the year 2003, this year,

students had to pass an English and math test in the Commonwealth in order to get a high school diploma; otherwise, they will

get a certificate of attendance. Schools have been working with parents for the last 3 years to make sure that we have alternatives

to those exams to getting them to graduate, because the students

in last year’s and this year’s classes did not have the benefit of 12

years of Standards of Learning, which is what we call our assessment system. Then, we recognize that they have not had all the instruction that perhaps they need to be successful. So we have put

in other programs, but we have not put them in special education

programs.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator, we are running short on time.

Senator JEFFORDS. Dr. Moloney wanted to comment.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, go ahead. I will go over and vote, and I will

tell them you are coming.

Senator JEFFORDS. Dr. Moloney.

Mr. MOLONEY. Just one additional note. You are absolutely correct, Senator Jeffords. This issue of over-identification has been

with us for a long time. I recall it very well as a superintendent

in Pennsylvania nearly 20 years ago.

What we found when we examined this was that the variable

that led most commonly to over-identification was financial incentive. I think Massachusetts is experiencing something like this

now. That certainly was against the intent of what the State legislature had wished.

But very frankly, where there were financial incentives to identify more youngsters, invariably, more youngsters were identified.

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The State of Pennsylvania changed its legislation, and you saw a

change there.

I think—and I feel strongly on this—that one of the best things

about our program in Colorado—and others have noticed that, and

credit has to be given to the 1994 reauthorization—is that we have

drawn youngsters with disabilities into the arena of accountability

and assessment in a way that they have not been there before.

This has been widely applauded by parents of children with disabilities to, as much as possible, make their experience the same as

that of other youngsters. The youngsters have responded to that.

They do not have a feeling that they are being allowed to slip off

the radar screen.

So there are complex dynamics in over-identification, and sometimes our intentions go in perverse directions.

Senator JEFFORDS. I thank all of you. We have a vote on now,

so I will thank you for this very helpful information in this crisis

that we have. I look forward to working with you in the future, and

I know that I speak for Senator Kennedy as well. So keep up the

good work, and keep the good information coming to us.

Thank you. The hearing is adjourned.

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ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR,

Commonwealth of Virginia, September 20, 2002.

Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, Member,

U.S. Senate,

317 Russell Senate Office Building,

Washington, DC.

DEAR SENATOR KENNEDY: This is in response to your questions asked of me last

week when I testified before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and

Pensions on the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). During my testimony I emphasized the need for Congress to fully fund the Federal share of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Lack of sufficient resources to

comply with IDEA mandates has not only made it difficult for school divisions to

meet the needs of children with special physical, emotional and developmental

needs, but also lessened the resources available for instructional programs for all

students. You asked for specific examples.

Virginia currently receives $170 million in Part B funds for IDEA. Full Federal

funding of IDEA, that is 40 percent of the excess cost of providing special education,

would be approximately $453 million. At the State level, we would utilize the additional State set-aside money to enhance professional development opportunities for

special education teachers including for example: additional stipends and tuition

payments to assist teachers in becoming endorsed in special education; expanding

our distance learning endorsement program; additional funds to our Training/Technical Assistance Centers; and in-service training for special education teachers.

This, of course, would enable us to better meet the goals of IDEA as well as NCLB.

Many local school divisions would also use some of the additional IDEA funds to

enhance the quality of the special education programs they currently provide. In addition, from numerous conversations throughout the state, I know that all local superintendents stretch to find ways to fund IDEA requirements and they contend

that some instructional needs for other students go unmet as a result. In general,

examples of unmet needs would include hiring more teachers to provide lower class

sizes; the need to provide greater compensation to attract high quality principals

and teachers; facility needs; and the ability to serve more ‘‘at risk’’ students in prekindergarten programs.

Attached are more specific examples from four school divisions of some priority

needs they would pursue if they did not have to fund the Federal portion of IDEA.

The four divisions provide a representative cross-section of rural and urban, large

and small. It is assumed, of course, that IDEA’s prohibition against ‘‘supplanting’’

would be clarified so as not to penalize local school divisions who have paid the Federal portion for decades.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide this information. I hope it is helpful.

Please do not hesitate to call if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

BELLE S. WHEELAN, PH.D.,

Secretary of Education.

VIRGINIA LOCAL SCHOOL DIVISIONS—SEPTEMBER 19, 2002 SURVEY-FULL FUNDING OF

IDEA

GILES COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

2,538 students; $179,900 annual increase in Federal funding if IDEA is fully funded.

Should Giles County Schools receive full funding or increased funding for IDEA

requirements, we would begin to reduce our annual debt service of $2,000,000 by

redirecting those funds to:

• Reduce class sizes from the current level to 15:1 in at least Grades K–3. This

could be accomplished by hiring teachers ($250,000). Also, reduce class sizes from

the current level to at least 20:1 in Grades 4–7 ($450,000).

• Improve educational opportunities for our high school students by employing

additional teachers to provide higher level math, science and technology courses,

along with developing on-line courses for students to receive instruction in a nontraditional manner to accommodate those students who are unable to attend a regular daytime class; ($350,000).

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• Increase our opportunities for career and technical training by employing career

specialists, teachers, on-the-job training worksite trainers and incentive funds for

students to participate in such programs ($250,000).

• Provide additional funds to our teachers for instructional supplies at a rate of

$50 per child ($125,000)

GREENSVILLE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

2,766 students; $76,100 annual increase in Federal funding if IDEA is fully funded.

With $76,000, Greensville would hire an additional teacher for kindergarten, lowering the pupil teacher ratio from 20:1 to 18:1 and also hire two aides to provide,remediation on a computer based instructional program to serve 180 students

a day.

HANOVER COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

16,6111 students; $838,700 annual increase in Federal funding if IDEA is fully funded.

With an additional $500,000 of available revenue annually, Hanover would drive

down its class sizes from an average of 20:1 at the primary grade levels at selected

lower performing schools to an average of 16:1.

With an additional $800,000 annually, Hanover would fund a new program for 4-

year old education, identifying students from families who desire the same services

currently delivered effectively in Head Start progranuning, but are services for

which Hanover residents may not qualify.

With an additional $800,000 annually, Hanover would incur debt service payments of nearly $15 million over 20 years, enabling the school district to eliminate

largely substandard, temporary classrooms and afford all students a safe, nurturing

environment for classroom instruction.

With an additional $800,000 annually, Hanover would enhance its existing special

education programming by adding staff to met many unmet needs, including:

• educational diagnosticians to conduct evaluations and assist with the placement

of children;

• reading specialists to support those children at risk of being referred;

• autism specialists;

• additional special education buses with wheel chair lifts;

• additional cars to support special education needs;

• extended contract time for teachers to support the IDEA requirements;

• additional speech therapists and psychologists to support the IDEA requirements; and

• upgrade FM systems to support the hearing impaired population at all instructional levels.

ROANOKE CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

13,800 students; $1,116,100 annual increase in Federal funding if IDEA is fully

funded.

Examples of how Roanoke City School division would utilize $1,116,100:

• Implementation of a seven period day for two high schools (costs $1.028 million)

in order to provide 3,150 high school students with additional academic course options (Roanoke City now has a six period day which limits students’ elective

choices).

• Expansion of our present preschool program to additional 3 year old at risk students would serve 375 children who require academic and social preparation to be

successful at the primary grade level at a cost of $996,000.

• Expansion of our after school tutoring and mentoring program for middle school

students would serve 450 children who are at risk for academic failure and dropping

out at a cost of $227,500.

[Whereupon, at 11:02, the committee was adjourned.]

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