Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on 21st Century

Competitiveness, Committee on Education and the

Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives

United States General Accounting Office

GAO

For Release on Delivery

Expected at 2:00 p.m.

Wednesday, October 9, 2002

TEACHER TRAINING

PROGRAMS

Activities Underway to

Improve Teacher Training,

but Information Collected

To Assess Accountability

Has Limitations

Statement of Cornelia M. Ashby, Director

Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues

GAO-03-197T
What GAO Found

Education has approved or awarded 123 grants to states and partnerships

totaling over $460 million dollars. Grantees have used funds for activities

they believe will improve teaching in their locality or state, but it is too

early to determine the grants’ effects on the quality of teaching in the

classroom. While the law allows many activities to be funded under broad

program goals outlined in the legislation, most grantees have focused their

efforts on reforming requirements for teachers, providing professional

development to current teachers, and recruiting new teachers. However,

within these general areas, grantees’ efforts vary.

Early exposure to teaching is a recruitment strategy used by several grantees.

The information collected as part of the accountability provisions to

report on the quality of teacher training programs and the qualifications of

current teachers has limitations. The accountability provisions require that

all institutions that train teachers who receive federal student financial aid

provide information to their states on their teacher training programs and

program graduates. In order to facilitate the collection of this information,

the HEA required Education to develop definitions for terms and uniform

reporting methods. Education officials told us that they made significant

efforts to define these terms so that the terms incorporated the uniqueness

of teacher training programs, state reporting procedures, and data

availability. In doing so, Education defined some terms broadly.

Education officials told us that this gave states and institutions discretion

to interpret some terms as they wished—resulting in the collection and

reporting of information that was not uniform; making it difficult to assess

accountability.

Our nation’s teachers are inextricably linked to student achievement. This

bond highlights the importance of teacher preparation programs. The

grants and accountability provisions established by the HEA seek to

improve teacher training, but information collected to assess

accountability has limitations.

Why GAO Did This Study

In 1998, the Congress amended

the Higher Education Act (HEA)

to enhance the quality of

teaching in the classroom by

improving training programs for

prospective teachers and the

qualifications of current teachers.

This testimony focuses on two

components of the legislation:

one that provides grants and

another, called the

“accountability provisions,” that

requires collecting and reporting

information on the quality of all

teacher training programs and

qualifications of current teachers.

The Subcommittee asked that we

provide information on (1)

activities grantees supported and

what results are associated with

these activities and (2) whether

the information collected under

the accountability provisions

provides the basis to assess the

quality of teacher training

programs and the qualifications

of current teachers.

October 2002

TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMS

Activities Underway to Improve Teacher

Training, but Information Collected to

Assess Accountability Has Limitations

Highlights of GAO-03-197T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness,

Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives

The full testimony statement is available at www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-197T. For additional information about this testimony, contact Cornelia

M. Ashby, (202-512-8403).

United States General Accounting Office

G A O

Accountability Integrity Reliability

Highlights
Page 1 GAO-03-197T

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the preparation of teacher

candidates and related provisions in Title II of the Higher Education Act

(HEA). The Department of Education’s National Center for Education

Statistics recently reported that most teacher training programs leave new

teachers feeling unprepared for the classroom. Because recent research

reports that teachers are the most important factor in increasing student

achievement, the quality of teacher training is critical. In 1998, the

Congress amended the HEA to enhance the quality of teaching in the

classroom by improving training programs for prospective teachers and

the qualifications of current teachers. Among other purposes, Title II of

the legislation provides teacher quality enhancement grants to states or

partnerships and, under the “accountability provisions,” the legislation

requires collecting and reporting information on the quality of teacher

training programs and the qualifications of current teachers.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, the Ranking Minority Member of the full

Committee along with the Chairman, Senate Committee on Health,

Education, Labor and Pensions, asked us to review some of the Title II

provisions. We plan on issuing a report in December. Today I will briefly

discuss our results relating to whether the grants and reporting

requirements found in Title II of HEA are contributing to improving the

quality of teaching in the classroom. Specifically, I will discuss (1) Title II

grantee activities and what results are associated with these activities and

(2) whether the information collected under the accountability provisions

provide the basis to assess the quality of teacher training programs and the

qualifications of current teachers. To learn about grant activities, we

surveyed 91 grantees, the total at the time of our survey, and conducted 33

site visits1

 in 11 states—California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois,

Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee,

Texas, and Wisconsin. Grantees in these states were selected because they

represented almost half of the total grant funding at the time, were

providing a range of grant activities, and were geographically dispersed.

We also interviewed Education officials and experts on teaching and

teacher training. In addition, we reviewed relevant literature, regulations,

and department documents. We did our work between December 2001 and

 1

In addition to the site visits, we conducted a brief interview with the director of another

grant, the Renaissance Partnership for Improving Teacher Quality, which consists of 30

institutions of higher education located in 10 different states.
Page 2 GAO-03-197T

October 2002 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing

standards.

Grantees have used their funds for activities they believe will improve

teaching in their locality or state. While the law allows many activities to

be funded under broad program goals outlined in the legislation, most

grantees have focused their efforts on reforming requirements for

teachers, providing professional development to current teachers, and

recruiting new teachers. Within these general areas, grantees’ efforts vary.

However, it is too early to determine the grants’ effects on the quality of

teaching in the classroom.

The information collected as part of the accountability provisions to

report on the quality of teacher training programs and the qualifications of

current teachers has limitations. The accountability provisions require that

all institutions that train teachers who receive federal student financial

aid—not just those receiving teacher quality enhancement grants—provide

information to their states on their teacher training programs and program

graduates. In order to facilitate the collection of this information, the

legislation required Education to develop key definitions for terms and

uniform reporting methods, including the definitions for the consistent

reporting of “pass rates.” Education officials told us that they made

significant efforts to define these terms so that the terms incorporated the

uniqueness of teacher training programs, state reporting procedures, and

data availability. In doing so, Education defined some terms broadly.

Education officials told us that this gave states and institutions discretion

to interpret some terms as they wished—resulting in the collection and

reporting of information that was not uniform; making it difficult to assess

accountability.

Over $460 million has been approved or awarded for grants under the 1998

HEA amendments to enhance the quality of teacher training programs and

the qualifications of current teachers. Three types of grants were made

available—state, partnership, and recruitment grants. State grants are

available for states to implement activities to improve teacher quality in

the state.2

 The legislation requires that states receive a state grant only

 2

All 50 states, Washington DC and 8 territories—the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam,

American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana

Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the

Republic of Palau—are considered states under the HEA.

In summary

Background
Page 3 GAO-03-197T

once and that the grants must be competitively awarded. Partnership

grants must include at least three partners—teacher training programs,

colleges of arts and sciences, and eligible local school districts3

—to

receive partnership grants to improve teacher quality through

collaborative activities. Partnerships may also include other groups, such

as state educational agencies, businesses and nonprofit educational

organizations, as partners. Recruitment grants are available to states or

partnerships for activities, such as scholarships, to help recruit teachers.

In addition to the grants, the 1998 HEA amendments include an annual

reporting requirement on the quality of teacher training programs and the

qualifications of current teachers. This component of the legislation, called

the accountability provisions, requires an annual three-stage process to

collect and report information in a uniform and comprehensible manner.

The legislation requires that Education, in consultation with states and

teacher training institutions, develop definitions and uniform reporting

methods related to the performance of teacher training programs. In the

first stage, nearly every institution that prepares teachers—not just those

receiving teacher quality enhancement grants—is required to collect and

report specific information to its state, including the pass rate of the

institution’s “graduates” on state teacher certification examinations. Then,

in the second stage, states are required to report to Education the pass

rate information institutions reported in the first stage, supplemented with

additional statewide information, including a description of state

certification examinations and the extent to which teachers in the state

are teaching on waivers—teaching without being fully certified. The third

and final stage is comprised of a report to the Congress from the Secretary

of Education on the quality of teacher training programs and the

qualifications of current teachers. The first round of institutional reports

were submitted to states in April 2001; subsequently, state reports were

submitted to Education in October 2001. Using this information, the

Secretary of Education reported to the Congress in June 2002.4

 3

School district eligibility is limited to those with (1) a high percentage of students whose

families fall below the poverty line and (2) a high percentage of secondary school teachers

not teaching in the content area in which the teachers were trained to teach, or a high

teacher turnover rate.

4

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, Meeting the Highly

Qualified Teachers Challenge: The Secretary’s Annual Report on Teacher Quality, June

2002.
Page 4 GAO-03-197T

How one determines the quality of teacher training programs and the

qualifications of current teachers has long been debated. The debate is

currently centered on the best way to train teachers: the traditional

approach, which typically includes extensive courses in subject matter

and pedagogy,5

 or alternative training methods that either 1) accelerate the

process of training teachers by reducing courses in pedagogy or 2) allow

uncertified teachers to teach while receiving their training at night or on

weekends. This debate is further complicated because the requirements

for teacher training programs and current teachers varies by state. Every

state sets its own requirements for teacher certification, such as which

certification examination(s)6

 a teacher candidate must take, what score is

considered passing on this examination, and how many hours teacher

candidates must spend student teaching—practice teaching during their

teacher preparation program—in order to become a fully certified teacher

in that state. In this way a teacher who is fully certified in one state may

not meet the qualifications for certification in another state. For example,

in Virginia and Mississippi, teacher candidates are required to take the

same test to be certified to teach high school mathematics. But teacher

candidates in Virginia must score 178 (50th percentile of all test takers) to

pass the examination, whereas in Mississippi candidates must score 169

(20th percentile).

While the 1998 HEA amendments provided grants and established

reporting requirements to improve the quality of teacher training programs

and the qualifications of current teachers, it was not until the recent No

Child Left Behind Act that the Congress defined a highly qualified teacher.7

For the purposes of that act, the legislation defines highly qualified

teachers as those who have demonstrated knowledge or competence in

their subject matter, hold bachelors degrees, and are fully certified to

teach in their state.8

 5

Pedagogy is defined as the study of teaching methods. Courses on pedagogy include

training on how to best instruct students, but may also include course work on classroom

management skills—such as how to maintain order in the classroom.

6

Most states require teachers to take multiple state certification examinations in order to

become certified to teach in certain subject areas.

7

No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Public Law 107-110 sec. 9101 (23).

8

Proposed departmental guidance on the definition of highly qualified teachers includes

participants in an alternative training method who function as regular classroom teachers

and are making satisfactory progress toward full state certification.
Page 5 GAO-03-197T

Grantees used funds for activities they believe will improve teaching in

their locality or state, but it is too early to determine the grants’ effects on

the quality of teaching in the classroom. While the law allows many

activities to be funded, our survey and site visits showed that most

grantees have focused their efforts on reforming requirements for

teachers, providing professional development to current teachers, and

recruiting new teachers. Some positive information about the results of

these activities has been reported by grantees. For example, recruitment

grantees have told us that they have been able to recruit more teachers

into their programs since the inception of the grant program.

The legislation outlines broad program goals for improving the quality of

teaching with grant funds, but provides grantees with the flexibility to

decide the most suitable approach for improving teaching. Grantees

focused on a combination of activities, and in our survey, we found that 85

percent of the respondents were using their grant funds to reform the

requirements for teachers, 85 percent were using their grant funds for

professional development and support for current teachers, and 72

percent were using their grant funds for recruitment efforts. However,

within these general areas, grantees’ efforts varied.

Most grantees reported using their funds to reform requirements for

teachers. Since every state sets its own requirements for teacher

certification, such as how many hours a teacher candidate must spend

student teaching to become a fully certified teacher in that state, some

state grantees reported using their funds to reform the certification

requirements for teachers in their state. Grantees also reported using their

funds to allow teacher training programs, and colleges of arts and sciences

to collaborate with local school districts to reform the requirements for

teacher training programs to ensure that teacher candidates are trained

appropriately. Some examples of these reforms include:

• Requirements for teacher certification. During our site visits we found

that many state grantees are reforming their state certification

requirements to ensure that new teachers have the necessary teaching

skills and knowledge in the subject areas in which they will teach. For

example, Illinois does not currently have a separate middle school

(grades 5 through 9) certification. Most middle school teachers in

Illinois are instead certified to teach elementary or high school.

However, recognizing that this does not adequately address the

preparation needs of middle school teachers, state officials intend to

use the grant to create a new certification for middle school teachers.

This new certification would require middle school teachers to

Grantees Used Funds

for a Range of

Activities, but It Is

Not Yet Known if

These Activities Will

Affect the Quality of

Teaching

Grantees Used Funds for a

Variety of Activities

Reforming Requirements for

Teachers
Page 6 GAO-03-197T

demonstrate specialized knowledge of how to best instruct

adolescents.

• Requirements for teacher training programs. Many teacher training

programs reported that they were reforming the requirements for

teacher candidates by revising the required coursework. For example,

the grant officials from the Massachusetts Coalition for Teacher

Quality and Student Achievement reported that they wanted to provide

teacher candidates with exposure to schools earlier than was typical in

training programs. To do so, they revised their curriculum so that some

of their required teacher preparation courses were set in public

schools, giving teacher candidates an opportunity to experience the

school environment prior to student teaching. Boston College officials

expressed that this strategy would increase the chances that these

teachers would be successful.

Many grantees reported having high teacher turnover and saw a need for

providing professional development and other support in order to retain

current teachers. The primary goal of professional development activities

is to provide training and support for current teachers with the intention

of improving their skills and retaining them in the classroom. Grantees

supported a variety of activities that provided professional development

and support, such as providing coursework towards an advanced degree

and assigning mentor teachers to new teachers.

During our site visits, we found that mentoring was the most common

professional development activity. Of the 33 grant sites we visited, 23

grants (70 percent) were conducting mentoring activities. Many of the

grantees we visited reported that mentoring programs are beneficial to the

mentor teacher as well as the new teacher. The mentor can coach the new

teacher on how best to instruct students and adjust to his or her job. In

return, a mentor teacher may benefit from additional training and

compensation. Some grantees used their funds to establish a mentor

training program to ensure that mentors had consistent guidance on ways

to help new teachers. For example, Rhode Island used its grant funds to

allow two experienced teachers to tour the state to provide training to

future mentor teachers and help schools set up mentoring programs.

Officials in Rhode Island believed this was an effective way to ensure that

new teachers receive quality support.

Many grantees reported having a teacher shortage in their area and used

the grant funds to develop various teacher-recruiting programs. Of the

grant sites we visited, most grantees were using their funds to fill teachers

Professional Development and

Support for Current Teachers

Recruiting New Teachers
Page 7 GAO-03-197T

shortages in urban schools or to recruit new teachers from non-traditional

sources—mid-career professionals, community college students, and

middle and high school students.

The following are examples of grantees using their funds to fill shortages

in urban areas or to recruit new teachers from non-traditional sources:

• Recruiting for urban school districts. Grantees that were experiencing

a teacher shortage in their urban schools often provided various

incentives for teacher candidates to commit to teaching in urban

environments. For example, “Project SITE SUPPORT”

9

 housed at the

Johns Hopkins University recruits teacher candidates with an

undergraduate degree to teach in a local school district with a critical

need for teachers while, at the same time, earning their masters in

education. The program offers tuition assistance and in some cases, the

district pays a full teacher salary. As part of the terms of the stipend,

teachers are required to continue teaching in the local school district

for 3 years after completing the program. Grant officials told us that

this program prepares teacher candidates for teaching in an urban

environment and makes it more likely that they will remain in the

profession.

• Recruiting mid-career professionals. Many grantees targeted midcareer professionals by offering an accelerated teacher training

program. For example, the Teacher Recruitment and Induction Project

at Southwest Texas State University offered scholarships to mid-career

professionals to offset the cost of classes required for teacher

certification. The scholarships paid for a 1-year, full-time program that

results in a teaching certificates and 18 hours of graduate level credits

for teacher candidates. Grantee officials told us that because the grant

covers the Austin, Texas area—an area with many technology

organizations—they have been able to recruit highly skilled individuals

who can offer a variety of real-life applications to many of the classes

they teach.

• Recruiting from community colleges. Some grantees have used their

funds to recruit teacher candidates at community colleges. For

example, National Louis University, one of the largest teacher training

institutions in Illinois, has partnered with six community colleges

 9

The acronym SITE SUPPORT stands for “School Immersion Teacher Education and

School University Partnership to Prepare Outstanding and Responsive Teachers.”
Page 8 GAO-03-197T

around the state of Illinois so that the community colleges can offer

training that was not previously available. The grant pays for a

University faculty member to teach on each of the community college

campuses. This program allows community colleges in smaller, rural

communities to provide teacher training without teacher candidates

incurring the cost of attending National Louis University—a large

private university. The grant program official told us that school

districts in these areas will have a greater chance of recruiting new

teachers trained at one of these community colleges because they were

most likely to be from that community.

• Recruiting middle and high school students. Other grantees target

middle and high school students. For example, the Los Angeles Unified

School District develops programs to attract high school students to

the field of teaching. The majority of its grant resources has been used

to fund a paid 6-week high school internship for students to work in the

classroom with a teacher.10 The high school intern spends most days

with a teacher in the classroom. The intern’s activities could include

helping the teacher correct papers and plan activities. Once a week,

interns have a class with a grant-funded teacher on curriculum and

lesson planning. The grant official told us that the internship introduces

younger people to teaching as a profession and, therefore, may

increase the chances that they will become teachers in the future.

 10The Los Angeles Unified School District operates on a year-round basis, with staggered

vacation schedules for students. Internships occur during scheduled student vacations,

allowing some students to participate as interns during their vacation in other schools that

are in session.
Page 9 GAO-03-197T

Figure 1: Recruitment Efforts to Attract Young People to the Field of Teaching.

Note: Early exposure to the classroom is a recruitment strategy used by several grantees to introduce

teaching as a profession.

Source: Archives from the U.S. Department of Education.

While grantees are using their funds on a number of activities, it is too

early to know whether these activities will affect the quality of teaching in

the classroom. Based on our survey, grantees reported that some of the

activities are having positive effects and that their grant allowed them to

support activities that would not have been possible without grant funds.

For example, some grantees have been able to report on the number of

teacher candidates served through their grant programs. Many grantees

also reported that the partnerships and alliances formed through the grant

program have had and will continue to have positive effects on their ability

to address the quality of teaching in the classroom.

While the reported positive activities are encouraging, it is too early to

know how or if they will translate into high quality teaching in the

classroom. Many grantees we visited have not collected the types of data,

such as student achievement scores, needed to show the impact of these

activities on student learning. Those that have attempted to collect these

data needed to judge results are not yet in a position to report their

findings because these types of data require time to collect, and the grant

program is relatively new. Because these activities address the quality of

teaching, it will take time to see the effects on student achievement.

It Is Too Early to

Determine Grants’ Effect

on the Quality of Teaching

in the Classroom
Page 10 GAO-03-197T

The information collected as part of the accountability provisions to

report on the quality of teacher training programs and the qualifications of

current teachers has limitations. The accountability provisions require that

all institutions that train teachers who receive federal student financial

aid—not just those receiving grants—provide information to their states

on their teacher training programs and program graduates.11 In order to

facilitate the collection of this information, the legislation required

Education to develop key definitions for terms and uniform reporting

methods, including the definitions for the consistent reporting of pass

rates. Education officials told us that they made significant efforts to

define these terms so that the terms incorporated the uniqueness of

teacher training programs, state reporting procedures, and data

availability. In doing so, Education defined some terms broadly.

Education officials told us that this gave states and institutions discretion

to interpret some terms as they wished—resulting in the collection and

reporting of information that was not uniform; making it difficult to assess

accountability.

The accountability provisions required states and institutions to report

information, such as the percentage of an institution’s graduates who pass

the state certification examination, also known as the pass rate. In order to

gather information on the pass rate, Education first needed to define

graduate. Education officials told us that in many teacher training

programs, candidates do not graduate with a degree in teacher training,

but rather receive a certificate. Therefore Education did not define

graduate but rather created the term “program completer” to encompass

all teacher training candidates. The table below explains our analysis of

the information the legislation required to be collected, the way that

Education defined selected terms to collect the information, and the

reporting implications of Education’s definitions.

 11Institutions are required to report to their states on the following: (1) pass rates, (2)

program information—number of students in the program, average number of hours of

supervised practice teaching required for those in the program, and the faculty-student

ratio in supervised practice teaching, and (3) a statement of whether the institution’s

program is accredited by the state.

Information Collected

to Assess the Quality

of Teacher Training

Programs and the

Qualifications of

Teachers has

Limitations
Page 11 GAO-03-197T

Definitions for Collection of Accountability Provision Information

Term Legislative Requirements Education’s Definition Reporting Implications

Graduate To identify the percentage of

all graduates at a teacher

training institution who

successfully passed the state

certification examination(s).

Education did not define the term

graduate, but rather used the term

“program completer” and defined it as

someone who has met the requirements

of a state approved teacher-training

program.

Some institutions only reported

candidates who completed all course

work and passed the state certification

examination. In calculating the pass rate,

these institutions did not include those

students who passed the course work

but failed the examination. As a result

institutions reported a 100% pass rate,

which is not informative to the Congress

or the public on the quality of the teacher

training programs at those institutions.

Waiver To identify the number of

teachers who are teaching

without state certification,

including those on temporary

or emergency permits, those

pursuing an alternative route

to certification or those

teaching as long-term

substitutes.

Any temporary or emergency permit,

license or other authorization that permits

an individual to teach in a public school

classroom without having received an

initial certificate or license (as defined by

the state) from that state or any other

state.

Some states defined an initial certificate

or license so broadly that it allowed them

to report few or no teachers as teaching

on waivers.

Alternative

route to

certification

or licensure

To identify a route to

certification that is not a

regular teacher training

program.

As defined by the state. Some states defined alternative route so

narrowly, which allowed them to report

that few teachers had taken an

alternative route to certification.

Source: GAO Analysis of legislation, Department regulations, and state Title II reports.

Thus, using definitions provided by Education, states and institutions

could report information that made their programs seem more successful

than they might have been. Institutions could inflate their pass rate by

reporting only on those teacher candidates who completed all coursework

and passed the state teacher certification examination without including

any information on teacher candidates who completed all coursework but

failed the examination—thus ensuring a 100-percent pass rate. During our

review, we found that a few states and many institutions are inflating their

pass rates to 100-percent. For instance, we found that in at least three

state reports to Education, every institution reported 100-percent pass

rates. Those institutions included in their calculations only those teacher

candidates they determined to be program completers—those who passed

the state certification examination and met the state’s other

requirements—excluding those who failed the examination. While

requiring teacher candidates to pass the state certification examination as

part of a teacher training program is not, in and of itself a problem,

reporting on only those candidates who pass the test does not provide the
Page 12 GAO-03-197T

basis to assess the quality of teacher training programs and the

qualifications of current teachers.

In other instances, Education allowed states to define some terms from

the legislation in a way that was applicable to their state because of the

variability in how states defined and collected information on some terms.

This allowed states to define some terms so that they could cast the

quality of their teacher training programs and the qualifications of their

current teachers in the most positive light. For example, the accountability

provisions required that states report on the number of teachers on

waivers. Because Education allowed each state to define initial certificate

or license for itself, each state reported different information in its waiver

count. Figure 2 presents information from three neighboring states—

Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.—with different definitions of

certification leading to variations in who was included in their waiver

count. The degree of this variation from state to state is unknown. Thus,

the data collected for the Congress does not present an accurate account

of teachers who are not fully certified.

Figure 2: Criteria for Waiver Calculations Varies among Three Neighboring States

Source: GAO Analysis of School Year 2000 State Title II Reports

In closing, Mr. Chairman, our nation’s teachers are inextricably linked to

student achievement. This bond highlights the importance of teacher

preparation programs. During our review, we saw many examples of how

grant funds are being used to either recruit and prepare new teachers, or
Page 13 GAO-03-197T

develop and retain current teachers. However, due to the lack of clearly

defined terms by the Department, the information Education collected and

reported to the Congress under the accountability provisions does not

portray the quality of teacher training programs and the qualifications of

current teachers. At the request of the full Committee and the Senate

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, we will continue

our study of these issues and issue a report in December.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I will be happy to respond to

any questions you or other members of the Committee may have.

For further information, please contact Cornelia M. Ashby at (202) 512-

8403. Individuals making key contributions to this testimony include

Kelsey Bright, Sonya Harmeyer, Tamara Harris, and Anjali Tekchandani.

Contacts and

Acknowledgments

(130207)