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NCLB REAUTHORIZATION: MODERNIZING MIDDLE 

AND HIGH SCHOOLS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY 

HEARING 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, 

LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

ON

EXAMINING NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND REAUTHORIZATION, FOCUSING ON 

MODERNIZING MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOLS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST 

CENTURY 

APRIL 24, 2007 

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

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/senate 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa 

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland 

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming, 

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado 

TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma 

J. MICHAEL MYERS, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

KATHERINE BRUNETT MCGUIRE, Minority Staff Director 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS 

TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2007 

Page 

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

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

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

Enzi, Hon. Michael B., a U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming, opening 

statement .............................................................................................................. 3 

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

Balfanz, Robert, Associate Director, Talent Development Middle School 

Project, Baltimore, MD ........................................................................................ 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 9 

Wise, Bob, President, Alliance for Excellent Education, Washington, DC. ........ 14 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 16 

Habit, Tony, President, New Schools Project, Raleigh, NC ................................. 22 

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

Varner, Edna, Senior Program Consultant, Hamilton County Public Education Foundation and Public Schools, Chattanooga, TN ................................. 30 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33 

Podesta, John, President and CEO, Center for American Progress, Washington, DC. ............................................................................................................ 40 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 42 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.: 

National Middle School Association ................................................................ 60 

(III) 

(1) 

NCLB REAUTHORIZATION: MODERNIZING 

MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOLS FOR THE 

21ST CENTURY 

TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2007 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 

SD–628, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Kennedy, Bingaman, Murray, Brown, Enzi, 

Burr, Isakson, and Murkowski. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KENNEDY

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. First of all I want to thank all of 

our panelists for getting their testimony in. You know, we have a 

rule around here, sort of like a school day, you know, you have to 

get your homework in. All of you got them in at the end of last 

week, and I had a chance over this weekend to get through them 

all. They are just superb, just superb, all of them. They really capture, I think, the challenge in education with a lot of very good constructive and helpful recommendations. I want to thank all of you. 

I’ll come back to particulars—and enormously informative. I find 

very, very informative information and facts that were just incredibly useful and helpful. 

I’ll just be very brief and put my statement in the record. The 

challenge that we’re facing in K through 12, is the obvious focus 

that No Child Left Behind spent on the early years. However, we 

don’t get into the middle schools and what’s happening in the middle schools and the high schools. We spend our life in the early 

years and miss what is the basic and underlying, I think, goal that 

all of us are interested in. That is having children that are taking 

advantage of opportunities and developing skills and looking to a 

future with greater hope. If we don’t really work at it, in terms of 

how they are getting into college, and how the colleges are relating 

to the job market, in terms of the future and a fast-growing world, 

then we’re missing the continuum. 

I thank so many of our members. When I talk about the future, 

I’m very aware—Senator Bingaman, present here, and working 

with Lamar Alexander and others on the Competitiveness bill 

that’s on the floor right now. I’m enormously grateful, as well, to 

Senators Bingaman, Burr, and Murray for their leadership in this 

area, and for their legislation in this area. I thank—as always—my 

2 

friend, Senator Enzi, who at each and every step along the way, 

has been an invaluable partner as we’re trying to deal with these 

issues. 

We have very good help and assistance from the Alliance for Excellent Education Foundation, Jobs for the Future, and The Center 

for American Progress. They’ve all been right on target and incredibly useful and helpful. 

I have a more extensive statement, which is enormously eloquent. 

[Laughter.] 

I know all of you want to remain and have me read that, but I 

think we know why we’re here. We’ve got some very good people 

that can help guide this committee on these issues and we’re looking forward to their testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Kennedy follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR KENNEDY

I welcome our witnesses to this hearing on modernizing middle 

and high schools as we prepare to reauthorize the No Child Left 

Behind Act. The act sets lofty goals for all schools to meet, and requires States to establish strong standards, a rigorous curriculum, 

and reliable assessments. It’s helped schools make significant 

progress in closing achievement gaps and helping students learn. 

One of our principal priorities in the reauthorization is to ensure 

that the act is working for all students at every grade level in elementary school, middle school, and high school. 

Recent surveys demonstrate that we still have much to do in secondary schools. Only 30 percent of 8th grade students scored proficient or better in 2005 on math assessment and reading assessment. In 12th grade, less than a quarter of students scored proficient or better on the math assessment, and only 35 percent were 

proficient or better on the reading assessment. It’s clear that secondary school students need as much attention and help in these 

essential courses as students in lower grades do. 

We also need to do more to assist students in the transition from 

middle school to high school and help them graduate. About 1,000 

high schools across the country only graduate half their students. 

Among African-American and Latinos, only 55 percent graduate on 

time. It’s clear that high schools need more assistance in supporting and retaining students. 

Federal investment at the middle and high school level is not 

sufficient. The main source of Federal funds is through the title I 

program. Yet, only 8 percent of students who benefit from these 

funds are in high school. Ninety percent of high schools with very 

low graduation rates have very low-income students. But only a 

quarter of these schools receive title I funds. We need to dedicate 

more resources and support for secondary schools to improve academic achievement and ensure that every student has a fair opportunity to graduate. 

States and cities across the country are already taking steps to 

address these challenges, such as offering extra help during the 

school day and extending learning time and other school-based 

interventions. 

3 

To improve Boston’s high schools, the district worked with private partners to create smaller learning communities, improve instruction, and strengthen professional development. Boston high 

school programs now focus on business, technology, health professions, arts, public service, engineering, sciences, international studies, and social justice. Through many of these programs, students 

can enroll in courses for college credit or get hands-on experience 

in a field that interests them. 

We know that proven strategies and interventions will help students make progress, stay in school, and succeed. Research conducted by one of our panelists, Dr. Robert Balfanz shows that we 

can identify students who are at-risk for not completing high school 

as early as 6th grade. Early intervention, quality teachers, small 

classes, and data driven instruction will strengthen schools and 

keep students engaged. 

We also know that better alignment of standards and curricula 

between middle school and high school can ease the transition for 

many students. High school students also have to be prepared to 

meet the expectations of college and the workplace. We need to promote models that allow students to pursue college level work as 

soon as possible, such as dual enrollment, early college high 

schools, International Baccalaureate, and Advanced Placement programs, each of which can make a difference in students’ skill level 

and future opportunities. 

To do all this, we can’t remain bound to the schoolhouse model 

of past decades. We need to bring our middle and high schools into 

the 21st century. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about the successful programs they’re implementing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Enzi. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ENZI

Senator ENZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your holding this hearing today on modernizing our high schools. I would 

agree that your statements are eloquent. 

[Laughter.] 

We lose something, though, when we don’t have the delivery. 

[Laughter.] 

You have a unique delivery that really gets the points across. 

I also want to thank you for the outstanding and very cooperative way in which you’ve selected witnesses for all the No Child 

Left Behind hearings that we’ve had. I too, have had a chance to 

look through the testimony and appreciate it being available already and know that this is another group of people with ideas— 

ideas that I think can be transferred across the Nation and make 

our high schools a better place, a more educational place. 

I’m sure Senator Alexander is sorry that he isn’t here this morning, but he is involved in the Competitiveness debate over on the 

floor, which deals with a lot of the same topics that we’ll be covering today. 

Because we do need to find ways to encourage high school students to stay in school and prepare for and enter high-skilled 

fields, such as math, science, engineering, technology, health, and 

foreign languages. We also have to strengthen the programs that 

4 

encourage and enable citizens of all ages to enroll in postsecondary 

education institutions and obtain or improve knowledge and skills. 

The decisions we make about education and workforce development 

will have a dramatic effect on the economy and our society for a 

long time to come. 

I do find the present situation to be rather discouraging. Every 

day in the United States, 7,000 students drop out of school. If the 

high school students who have dropped out of the class of 2006 had 

graduated instead, the Nation’s economy would have benefited 

from an additional $309 billion in income they would have earned 

over their lifetimes. That’s an incredible statistic. Because we 

couldn’t reach those 7,000 students, it will cost us, and them, more 

than $309 billion in income. We both lose. 

We simply can not afford to lose those resources. We have to deal 

with the situation head-on. We can’t allow students to waste their 

senior year and graduate unprepared to enter postsecondary education and the workforce without the necessary skills and knowledge. 

The future outlook is not good. Unless high schools are able to 

graduate their students at higher rates than the 68 to 70 percent 

they currently do, more than 12 million students will drop out during the course of the next decade. The result long-term will be a 

loss to the Nation of $3 trillion. As you can imagine, even more in 

terms of the quality of life for those high school drop-outs. 

In addition, it’s important to remember the fact that a high 

school diploma does not guarantee that a student has learned the 

basics. Nearly half of all college students are required to take remedial courses after graduating from high school before they can 

take college-level coursework. Each year more than one million 

first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students begun their undergraduate careers at 4-year colleges and universities with every 

hope and expectation of earning a Bachelor’s Degree. Of those students, fewer than 4 in 10 will actually meet that goal within 4 

years, barely 6 in 10 will make it in 6 years. Among minority students, remediation rates are even higher and completion rates are 

even lower. 

To remain competitive in a global economy we can not afford to 

lose people because they do not have the education and training 

they need to be successful. We need a plan. We need to ensure opportunities are available to all Americans, because our future depends on widely available and extensive knowledge and training 

and a commitment to excellence. Strong partnerships and alignment among K–12 schools, institutions of higher education, business, and government will help us meet the needs. 

In the HELP Committee we’re using this opportunity to shape 

policy and strengthen the education and training pipeline through 

the reauthorization of Head Start, No Child Left Behind, The Higher Education Act, and the Workforce Investment Act. We can make 

sure that every individual has access to a lifetime of education and 

training opportunities that provide the knowledge and skills they 

need to be successful and that our employers need to remain competitive. 

I look forward to the chance to hear the testimony and ask some 

questions. 

5 

[The prepared statement of Senator Enzi follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR ENZI

Thank you, Senator Kennedy, for holding this hearing today on 

modernizing our high schools. We need to make sure our high 

schools are designed to prepare our students for the 21st century. 

We need to find ways to encourage high school students to stay 

in school and prepare for and enter high-skill fields such as math, 

science, engineering, health, technology and critical foreign languages. We must also strengthen the programs that encourage and 

enable citizens of all ages to enroll in postsecondary education institutions and obtain or improve knowledge and skills. The decisions we make about education and workforce development will 

have a dramatic impact on the economy and our society for a long 

time to come. 

The present situation is discouraging. Every day in the United 

States, 7,000 students drop out of school. If the high school students who had dropped out of the class of 2006 had graduated instead, the Nation’s economy would have benefited from an additional $309 billion in income they would have earned over their 

lifetimes. It’s an incredible statistic. Because we couldn’t reach 

those 7,000 students, it will cost us and them $309 billion in income we will both lose. We simply cannot afford to lose those resources. We must deal with the situation head on—we cannot allow 

students to ‘‘waste’’ their senior year, and graduate unprepared to 

enter postsecondary education and a workforce focused on skills 

and knowledge. 

The future outlook is not good. Unless high schools are able to 

graduate their students at higher rates than the 68 to 70 percent 

they currently do, more than 12 million students will drop out during the course of the next decade. The result long term will be a 

loss to the Nation of $3 trillion, and as you can imagine, even more 

in terms of the quality of life for those dropouts. 

In addition, it’s important to remember the fact that a high 

school diploma does not guarantee that a student has learned the 

basics. Nearly half of all college students are required to take remedial courses, after graduating from high school, before they can 

take college level coursework. 

Each year, more than one million first-time, full-time, degreeseeking students begin their undergraduate careers at 4-year colleges and universities with every hope and expectation of earning 

a bachelor’s degree. Of those students, fewer than 4 in 10 will actually meet that goal within 4 years; barely 6 in 10 will make it out 

in 6 years. Among minority students, remediation rates are even 

higher and completion rates are even lower. 

To remain competitive in a global economy, we cannot afford to 

lose people because they do not have the education and training 

they need to be successful. We need a plan. We need to ensure opportunities are available to all Americans, because our future depends on widely available and extensive knowledge and training 

and a commitment to excellence. Strong partnerships and alignment among K–12 schools, institutions of higher education, business and government will help us meet the needs. 

6 

In the HELP Committee, we are using this opportunity to shape 

policy and strengthen the education and training pipeline. Through 

the reauthorization of Head Start, No Child Left Behind, the Higher Education Act and the Workforce Investment Act we can make 

sure that every individual has access to a lifetime of education and 

training opportunities that provide the knowledge and skills they 

need to be successful and that our employers need to remain competitive. 

I look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses and to 

working with members of the HELP Committee in developing a 

sound policy to address these critical issues. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

We are joined by Senator Murkowski, and we’re delighted to see 

you. Senator Bingaman has been a particular leader on the issue 

of dropouts. I was interested in those statistics that show that 15 

percent of the schools have 50 percent of the dropouts. It suggests 

to me that this is, possibly, a manageable problem. When I look at 

a number of the urban areas, I see the enhanced poverty and enhanced dropout. It’s a big challenge, but there’s some very encouraging signs. 

We’ll start with introducing the individuals just as they speak, 

rather than everyone. Welcome Dr. Balfanz, who’s the Associate Director, Talent Development Middle School Project. Dr. Balfanz is a 

research scientist at the Center for Social Organization Schools at 

Johns Hopkins, and Co-Director of the Talent Development Middle 

and High School Project. Talent Development works with 100 highpoverty secondary schools to strengthen curriculum, improve professional development, and provide extra help to students in developing strategies for success. 

He’ll discuss some of the findings from the research, as well as 

his work at Talent Development and talk to us about identifying 

students at risk of dropping out and how strong schoolwide programs, high-quality teachers, and early intervention strategies can 

help keep the middle school and high school students on track to 

complete their work. 

Please. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT BALFANZ, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, 

TALENT DEVELOPMENT MIDDLE SCHOOL PROJECT, BALTIMORE, MD 

Mr. BALFANZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me here today to speak about the 

Nation’s graduation rate crisis and to talk about what we can do 

about it. 

We are at a moment of time when a well conceived action at the 

Federal level can have a catalytic affect in ending the Nation’s 

dropout crisis and, in so doing, fundamentally change the Nation 

for better. Pick any issue that’s important besides, in addition to 

high-quality public schooling, economic competitiveness, reducing 

crime, reducing social welfare costs, improving urban and rural development, and I would even gamble to say, deficit reduction, and 

I can make the case that creating a system of secondary schools 

where everyone graduates prepared for career, college, and civic 

life is your issue. 

7 

More importantly, I’m here to say today that we can really do 

something about it. The time is now. We know the high schools 

kids dropout from, we know why they dropout, and we know what 

will make it fundamentally better, so we can really do something 

about this here and now. Central to this will be creating a Federal, 

State, and local partnership that provides these schools with the 

accountability frameworks, resources, technical assistance, and capacity building so we can do this soon. 

Let me explain. I come at this issue from three angles. First as 

a researcher, who has looked at the causes of dropouts, its location, 

and its cures. Second, as a developer of a comprehensive whole 

school reform model, the Talent Development Program, which over 

the past decade, has allowed me to work with 30 districts—urban 

and rural—and over 100 high-poverty middle and high schools. 

And finally, as an operator of a innovation high school in Baltimore 

City that’s a partnership between Johns Hopkins and the Baltimore City Public School System. It’s a public school, it’s in one of 

the highest poverty neighborhoods in America and West Baltimore. 

It takes all comers and it gives you really—nothing shows you how 

to do it than having to do it yourself. 

Putting all those three perspectives together, what do we know? 

We know that about 15 percent of the Nation’s high schools, about 

2,000, produce half its dropouts. These are high schools where, year 

after year, only 6 out of every 10 students who enter, graduate. 

And often, it’s only 3 out of 10 or 4 out of 10 or 5 out of 10. This 

happens year in and year out, despite often a decade of State and 

then National accountability efforts. These high schools are, unfortunately, the Nation’s dropout factories. 

Second of all, we know these schools are primarily attended by 

low-income and/or minority students. This is a National tragedy, 

but 2,000 high schools, as Senator Kennedy suggested, is a solvable 

number. 

Second of all, we know these schools are located wherever we 

find concentrated poverty so, about half are in the Nation’s Northern, Midwestern, and Western cities. The other half are across the 

South and Southwest in every State. These schools are man-made, 

they are not inevitable. They happen because what we’ve done, 

largely unintentionally, is concentrate, overwhelmingly concentrate 

needy students in a small subset of under-resourced schools. 

What do I mean by this, overwhelmingly concentrated? In a high 

school with a high dropout rate, where only 50 percent, 40 percent, 

30 percent of the students graduate, you will typically look in the 

ninth grade and find 400 students. Of those 400 students, 8 in 10, 

8 out of 10 are repeating the grade, are overage for grade, are in 

Special Ed, are two or more years behind grade level, or enter high 

school having missed a month or more of school during middle 

school, meaning they’re already starting to dis-attach from schooling. 

Normally schools might have 5, 10, 15 percent of high needs kids 

and they can mobilize around them. When it’s 80 percent and it’s 

over hundreds in number, you’re just overwhelmed. And second of 

all, instead of over-resourcing these grades in schools, they often 

get the lowest level of resources. That’s the least desirable teaching 

8 

assignment, so they get the youngest teachers and have the highest 

teacher turnover rates and the highest level of vacancies. 

What do I mean by under-resourced? They don’t have enough 

skilled adults in the building that are committed to getting the job 

done. They don’t have enough time and stability and leadership. 

The Principal changes every year, the Superintendent every 2 

years. They don’t have access to high-quality technical assistance. 

We also know that 8 out of 10, maybe 9 out of 10 of these students of schools, it’s highly predictable who’s going to drop out. 

These kids actually wave their hands up and start signaling, 

‘‘Help!’’ as early as the sixth grade when they fail math, when they 

fail English, when they get in behavioral trouble. Or, as a sixth 

grader, a 12-year-old, miss a month or more of schooling. 

The system is not set up to recognize this. The system is set up 

to say, ‘‘It’s early adolescence, it’s a new school, we hope you grow 

out of it.’’ But what we know, is they don’t grow out of it. In fact, 

it just gets worse. In sixth grade, you might just have one of these 

things. By ninth grade, you’re not coming, you’re failing everything, 

and you’re in behavioral trouble. We really need to have a systematic approach of both the high schools and the middle grade schools 

that feed them. 

Finally, we know that students in these schools desperately want 

to succeed. If you ever want to affirm your faith in the human spirit, come visit our innovation high school in Baltimore and talk to 

the students. What these students overcome just to get to school 

is amazing. 

So it’s not the case, we have to get rid of this image in our heads 

of the dropout of this disaffected youth who’s alienated, who doesn’t 

care, or maybe has got pregnant, or has to work. That’s a small 

percentage of the dropouts. We’re always going to have those kids, 

but that’s 10 percent. It’s not the case when you go to 50, 40, 60 

percent dropping out that that’s the majority. The majority of kids 

that are failing in school and kids that are being failed by the 

schools not giving them the supports they need. 

The big picture is, we know today what’s going to happen tomorrow. I can point to you to the schools by district, by State, that 

produce most of the dropouts in those States. Within those schools 

we can point to the kids in need of, who need help and support to 

graduate. That really tells us we’re in a position to have action. 

Furthermore and finally, before my time runs out, and we can 

answer this in the questions, we know a lot about what to do. Over 

the past decade we’ve learned that comprehensive reform when 

well implemented makes a difference. By this, I mean organization 

changes that let teachers work with just a small subset of students 

over time so they’re not overwhelmed, 4 teachers, 75 kids, in my 

view, is the equivalent of the platoon in the Army. It’s the fundamental unit of organization. Four adults can help 75 kids, but oftentimes a single teacher is responsible for 150 kids. And so, it 

doesn’t work. 

We have to have strong instructional programs, high standards, 

high challenges, that relentlessly provide the extra help you need 

to succeed, which is just multiple and multiple layers. Because 

you’re taking kids that are at the sixth-grade level in math and 

9 

saying, ‘‘You’re going to pass algebra.’’ They have the ability to do 

that, but they need intensive support for that to happen. 

Finally, teachers need supports because we’re asking them to do 

much more than teach a good lesson. We’re asking them to actually 

make phone calls to kids. In our school, if you’re not there in the 

first 30 minutes you get a phone call so I know where you are, we 

help you out. What’s the story? But teachers have to have time to 

do that. 

What’s the Federal role? At a global level I thinks it’s to be the 

grease and glue, to create the system that—the Federal, State, 

local system that provides the resources, the accountability systems, the capacity building, the technical assistance. It’s also specifically to help provide additional targeted resources—this is the 

other part of the story—we can really target these resources to 

where they’re most needed and will do the most good. In exchange 

for accountability, that the schools will implement the evidencebased reforms we know work. 

In very specific terms, it’s supporting and fully funding the Graduation Promise Act, introduced yesterday. It’s getting graduation 

rates right in the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, making 

them count as much as test scores, measured accurately and measured for everybody. 

Finally, it’s investing in research and innovation. We know right 

now how to make these schools tremendously better, but to get to 

the promised land of every kid, no matter where you start, graduating prepared for college, career, and civic life, we will have to 

learn more. We will have to figure out for extra times, is it better 

to extend the school day, the school year, the school week, for how 

many, for which kids and what to do with that time. We’ll also 

have to think of more innovative ways to help the most neediest 

kids who need recovery, who are overage and under-credited. How 

do we take a 17-year-old with three credits and create a program 

where they succeed? 

I believe it’s in our power to do this and I ask you to work together with us so we can do this within the next decade. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Balfanz follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT BALFANZ

We are at a moment when well-conceived action by the Federal Government can 

play a catalytic role in ending the Nation’s dropout crisis and in so doing change 

the Nation fundamentally for the better. Pick the issue you care most deeply 

about—the Nation’s competitiveness, equal opportunity, lowering the crime rate, reducing social welfare costs, urban or rural development, social justice, economic 

growth, or unleashing the full potential of all the Nation’s citizens and the case can 

be made that creating a system of public secondary schools which graduate all students prepared for success in college, career, and civic life is your issue. This is 

within our grasp, we know how to do this and we know what needs to be done to 

make it happen. Central to this is a focused Federal effort to create a Federal-Statelocal partnership which provides the accountability framework, capacity building, 

technical assistance, research, evaluation, and resources necessary to transform the 

Nation’s low-performing secondary schools. 

Let me explain. I come at this issue from three perspectives. First from what I 

have learned as a researcher who has studied the causes, consequences, and location 

of the dropout problem at the national level, as well as the reforms, policies, and 

resources needed to end it. Second from validating this learning through practice 

as a whole school reform model developer who has worked with over 30 diverse 

urban and rural school districts and over 100 high-poverty middle and high schools 

10 

across the Nation to implement the Talent Development Middle and High School’s 

comprehensive organizational, instructional and teacher/administrator development/ 

support reforms. Finally, my perspective is informed by first hand experience operating a nonselective, public Innovation High School in West Baltimore which serves 

a high-poverty student population. The Baltimore Talent Development High School 

is run via a partnership between Johns Hopkins University and the Baltimore City 

Public School System and has given me the insight which comes from having to help 

design an instructional program, implement a multi-tiered system of student supports, select and train a teaching staff, get facilities in working order, and do what 

it takes to prepare students no matter what their entering skill level and motivation 

for adult success in college, career, and life. From the sum of these experiences here 

is what I have learned. 

WHAT WE KNOW

For the past decade I and my colleagues at the Center for Social Organization of 

Schools at Johns Hopkins and the Philadelphia Education Fund, have studied the 

dropout/graduation rate crisis at the school level. We have learned that about 15 

percent of the Nation’s high schools produce close to half its dropouts. These 2,000 

high schools are the Nation’s dropout factories. They have weak promoting power— 

the number of seniors is routinely 60 percent or fewer than the number of freshmen 

4 years earlier—and year after year, often for a decade or longer, about as many 

students drop out as graduate. In the worst cases, 400 freshmen often produce 150 

or fewer graduates. 

About half these schools are in northern, midwestern and western cities; the other 

half are primarily found throughout the south and southwest. Whether the national 

graduation rate has gotten better, worse, or remained static over the last decade is 

unclear to us. What we do know is that the number of high schools with weak promoting power has nearly doubled in the last decade. 

We also have learned that poverty is the fundamental driver of low graduation 

rates. There is a near perfect linear relationship between a high school’s level of 

concentrated poverty and its tendency to lose large numbers of students between 

ninth and twelfth grades. In the States we have looked at in more depth, minorities 

are promoted to 12th grade at the same or greater rates as white youth when they 

attend middle class or affluent high schools in which few students live in poverty. 

Relatively few minorities attend these high schools, however. Between a third and 

two-fifths of the Nation’s African-American and Latino students attend high schools 

with high poverty and low graduation rates. This is social dynamite because in modern America a good education is the only reliable path out of poverty. The fact that 

most of these high-poverty, high-minority high schools, do not receive title 1 funding, the Federal program designed to help offset the impact of poverty, is deeply 

problematic. 

We also have been able to follow multiple cohorts of students through two major 

northeastern school districts. Our data show that the majority of dropouts in these 

cities leave high school with few credits because they failed the majority of their 

classes. This is not to ignore important sub-groups of dropouts who demonstrate 

some high school skills, persevere to 11th or 12th grade and leave school just shy 

of graduation in response to a life event, boredom, or frustration. 

We have found, however, that graduation rates in the 50–60 percent range typical 

in many cities are driven by students who enter high school poorly prepared for success and rarely or barely make it out of the ninth grade. They disengage from 

school, attend infrequently, fail too many courses to be promoted to the 10th grade, 

try again with no better results, and ultimately drop out of school. Our data show 

30–40 percent of students in these cities repeat the ninth grade but that only 10– 

15 percent of repeaters go on to graduate. 

Our direct experience working to improve more than 70 high-poverty, nonselective 

high schools through our Talent Development High Schools program further tells us 

that the Nation’s dropout factories are not primarily the result of students, teachers 

and administrators who do not care or try. Many care and try a lot, but they are 

often over-matched by the immense educational challenges they face. There are too 

many under-resourced and increasingly economically and racially segregated high 

schools that lack the tools and techniques needed to meet the challenges they face. 

In these high schools it is not uncommon for less than 20 percent of freshmen to 

be on-age, first-time ninth graders, with math and reading skills at the seventhgrade level or higher; in short, the type of students high schools have traditionally 

been designed to educate. Up to 80 percent of the ninth-graders can be over-age for 

grade, repeating the grade, require special education services, or have math and 

reading skills below a seventh-grade level. Yet increasingly, we are asking these 

11 

students to pass Algebra courses and even exams before they can be promoted to 

10th grade. 

These students have the ability to do this, but they need much more intensive 

and effective instruction and adult support than our high-poverty, comprehensive 

high schools, with current levels of resources, typically provided. Schools which beat 

these odds and have high percentages of students who succeed in challenging 

courses provide multiple layers of support. Strong instructional programs are 

matched with a schedule that allowed for double-dosing in these subjects, and extra 

help from caring teachers within a personalized interdisciplinary team structure. 

But this is still not enough for all students to succeed, some require summer school 

and a few need further focused instruction in the fall to earn promotion to the next 

grade. Pulling off this level of intensive support requires not only committed adults 

who refuse to give up on their students, but additional time, resources, training, and 

materials as well. 

Finally, our most recent study reveals that many students begin to fall off the 

graduation track at the start of adolescence. We have been able to identify over half 

of four major school district’s future dropouts as early as the sixth grade by looking 

at just four variables commonly measured in schools—attendance, behavior, and 

course failure in math and English. Across these districts high-poverty middle grade 

students with any one of the following risk factors—attending school less than 85– 

90 percent of the time, being identified as having behavioral problems, or failing 

math or English typically had less than a 20 percent chance of graduating within 

5 years of entering ninth grade. 

Hence, one reason that the ninth grade finishes off so many students is that many 

of them have already been struggling and disengaging for 3 years or more before 

entering high school. Along with the recent on-track measures for ninth-graders developed by the Chicago Consortium for School Research, this tells us that there are 

powerful and accessible indicators that schools can use to identify the overwhelming 

majority of students who will drop out in time to prevent it, as well as indicating 

the areas in which these students need supports. 

Thus, States and districts can use currently available indicators to identify both 

the high schools that produce the majority of dropouts and the students most likely 

to drop out. This means resources and supports can be targeted to the schools and 

students where they will do the most good and are needed the most. 

WHAT WE CAN AND MUST DO

Our research also points to concrete steps we can take right now to address the 

graduation crisis head on. At least three types of intervention are required. 

First, the Nation’s Dropout Factories need to be fixed or replaced. This cause 

should unite everyone, the urban North, and the rural South, Civil Rights advocates 

and policymakers concerned about competitiveness. Transforming these schools and 

systems is the best shot we have at ending the stubborn grip of concentrated and 

inter-generational poverty that engulfs too many of our citizens and their communities. 

We have the knowledge to do this, but it will not be easy, fast, or cheap. A central 

feature of dropout factories is that they serve an overwhelming concentration of 

needy students. Thus, it is essential that Federal Government, States, districts and 

foundations bring to bear human and financial resources that are equal to the challenge. We have recently shown that high schools vary considerably in resources. 

Some struggling high schools can implement proven reforms by re-allocating existing resources, many need modest additional support, and a quarter or more need 

a substantial increase in resources. Moreover, because reforming or replacing these 

schools is the educational equivalent of open heart surgery, States and districts 

need to develop sufficient technical capacity to do the job and/or support third-party 

intermediaries who can. 

Second, investments in more research, development, and invention are needed, 

particularly in curriculum, instruction, and assessment High school coursework 

needs to develop student’s intellect and reflect tighter and more substantial connections to higher education and the workplace. It should incorporate significant experiential activities that engage our emerging adults in meaningful activities that 

build their skills and connections to supportive social networks. It must be adaptable enough to address diverse needs, including the increasing number of adolescents who are English language learners. Assessments need to support and encourage meaningful intellectual development and not limit learning to what is easily 

testable. 

Finally, we must acknowledge the impact of poverty and activate ‘‘outside the box’’ 

approaches for our most vulnerable students. That means investments in improving 

12 

and integrating social service and community supports in schools that serve highpoverty neighborhoods and regions. It means providing intensive supports to help 

students from poverty negotiate the treacherous transitions between educational 

levels. It means embracing a K–16 framework, but also acknowledging that adolescence (especially combined with poverty) brings its own risk factors and that a secondary approach spanning middle and high schools is needed to keep all students 

on track toward graduation. 

We need to transform the high schools that produce most of the dropouts and the 

middle grades schools that feed them. With a targeted, inventive, aligned, and integrated approach, we can do this. 

THE COST OF INACTION/THE REWARD OF WELL-CONCEIVED ACTION

We must do this. The social, economic, and individual costs of inaction are high. 

There is essentially no viable work, work that a successful life can be built around 

for young adults without a high school diploma. When large numbers of young 

adults and adolescents from a neighborhood are out of school and out of work the 

social structure becomes frayed and the under-class becomes self-perpetuating. In 

our research in Philadelphia we have shown that students who are in foster care, 

who are abused and neglected, who have a child, or are incarcerated almost never 

graduate from high school. This creates thousands of dislocated youth within a single city which often leads to tragic results. This year one of the students at our Innovation High School, a student who had dropped out in the sixth grade, whose parents were both in jail, who was a recovering alcoholic and who was on his way to 

a bright future, having remarked to a visiting reporter that the best thing about 

our school was positive peer pressure, was tragically shot to death in random street 

crime perpetuated by other young adults who more than likely had themselves already dropped out of school. 

Conversely, the social, economic, and individual returns to ending the dropout crisis and transforming the Nation’s low-performing schools are almost staggeringly 

high. Recent research by economists at Columbia and Princeton has shown that cutting the dropout rate in half through proven programs and effective efforts would, 

even after calculating the costs of those efforts, produce $40 billion a year in economic returns via increased tax revenue and decreased social welfare costs. Once 

we can say to any student entering high school—rather they are from Akron, Baltimore, Worchester, Chicago, New York, Albuquerque, Los Angeles or North Carolina, 

Georgia, Arizona, or Florida—that if you come to school every day and work hard 

you will graduate prepared for success in college, career and civic life, we will have 

changed American society profoundly for the better and made true to its promise 

of equal opportunity for all. The students regardless of their circumstances will respond. If you do not believe me, come to Baltimore and I will introduce you to another one of our students—a self described bad boy gone good, he raises himself, 

while an aunt raises his child, and he has become a consistent honor roll student 

who pats himself on the back every time he makes it because there is no one else 

at home to do it. On his way to a successful career in advertising, he tells anyone 

who asks that the streets outside are mean but his school is heaven. 

We can do this, make high school a transformative place for all the Nation’s students and in particular those who live in poverty. We know which schools need to 

be fixed or replaced, we know which students within them need multiple layers of 

continuous academic and social support, we have learned enough about how high 

schools can be successfully turned around or started anew to make them fundamentally more successful, and we know what else we have to learn. Its time to get to 

work. 

THE FEDERAL ROLE

What is the Federal role? The Federal Government in partnership with States 

and local school districts needs to lead the effort to transform the Nation’s lowperforming secondary schools. As my friend at the Philadelphia Education Fund 

likes to say it needs to be the grease and glue that gets the job done. It needs to 

insure that the accountability framework, capacity building, technical assistance, research, evaluation, and resources necessary to transform the Nation’s low-performing secondary schools are put in place and sustained for the decade it will take. 

It needs to insure that these efforts are strong enough and directed enough to overcome the obstacles that will stand in the way—lack of will, uneven know how at 

school, district, and State level, limited or misallocated resources, leadership churn, 

and policy misalignment. 

One large step in this direction is the Graduation Promise Act recently introduced 

by Senator Bingaman. This bill provides a means to target what we know works, 

13 

to the high schools that need it the most, and to insure that in exchange for receiving the resources and support (human and financial) necessary to introduce stateof-the-art reforms, schools and school districts are held accountable for implementing them well and sustaining them over time. 

Congress also needs to help the Nation get the measurement of graduation rates, 

right. In the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind, graduation rates must be 

measured accurately, disaggregated for all groups, and count as much as test scores 

in accountability systems. In addition when it is re-authorized NCLB at the secondary level needs to be structure so that low-performing middle and high schools 

have the incentive to engage in the comprehensive, whole school reforms they need 

and are held accountable for implementing and sustaining effective reforms. This 

will require a set of intermediate on-track indicators, since it can take 3 to 5 years 

for effective whole school reform to show its full impact. Currently too many of the 

implicit and explicit incentives in NCLB push schools to focus on a few students 

rather than reforming the entire school. 

In addition, there needs to be support for continued invention and discovery. All 

of my learning and experiences tell me that central to reducing poverty in America 

will be the creation of grades 6 to 14 combined middle, high, and community college 

full service (supplying integrated services) open at 8 a.m. close at 8 p.m. schools in 

the Nation’s most impoverished neighborhoods. So students can enter in at the cusp 

of adolescence when they are most at risk of becoming disengaged from schooling 

and falling off the path to graduation and leave fully ready for successful, meaningful, and economically important employment. The Graduation Promise Act sows the 

seeds for this in title II by setting aside funds for the development of more effective 

models of secondary school for struggling students who are over age and under credited but a parallel effort in curriculum and instruction will also be needed so we 

can create secondary schools which fully engage, educate, and develop the Nation’s 

adolescents. 

Last, and I could no longer call myself a researcher if I did not include this, we 

need increased investment in knowledge building. The Federal Government needs 

to support a program of research designed to establish which educational inputs, implemented in what manner, in which types of schools have the greatest impact. The 

Graduation Promise Act begins this but over time even more support will be needed. 

For example, we need to know, is it better to increase the school day, the school 

week, or the school year and if so, how best to use this time, or in fact is increased 

time not worth the cost and hence lost opportunities to bring to scale more effective 

reforms. This can only be answered through large-scale randomized studies that will 

cost tens of millions of dollars to run. Currently there is funding only for small scale 

randomized studies that cost millions of dollars to run. So we need to increase our 

Nations’ funding for educational research and development by an order of magnitude. But as any scientist will tell you, change something by an order of magnitude and you change the world. We are at such a moment, and with a well-conceived federally led plan of action for transforming the Nation’s low-performing 

secondary schools, that we can do that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for excellent testimony. You know, 

what I think is fascinating is, that it is North, South, East, and 

West. Around here you can try and get a coalition together to do 

something. That’s not the most important thing we’re going to hear 

today, but something that’s perked up my attention. 

Governor Wise, good to see you. Governor Wise became President 

of the Alliance for Excellent Education in 2005, was the Governor 

of West Virginia from 2001 to 2005, where he implemented the 

PROMISE Scholarship Program, established character education 

curriculum, and helped increase the number of National Board-certified teachers in the State by offering financial bonuses. He’ll discuss the need for stronger accountability systems at middle and 

high schools, including the importance of tracking and reporting 

graduation rates in reliable manner. 

Governor Wise recommends more effective use of data, building 

the capacity to make school improvements possible, improving 

methods of measuring student progress, and anything else he 

wants to comment on. 

Thank you. 

14 

STATEMENT OF BOB WISE, PRESIDENT, ALLIANCE FOR 

EXCELLENT EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, DC. 

Mr. WISE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members 

of the committee for your interest. 

You all outlined so graphically, the problem with dropouts, the 

glaring statistics, when many of you will be attending commencement ceremonies and we watch those students next month, high 

school seniors walk happily across the stage. We also have to remember the over one million who are not walking across the stage 

that started ninth grade. For those one million, it will be just another day of either being unemployed or working a minimum wage 

job. 

In all the numbers, Senator Enzi, that you will, that you said so 

eloquently bear out. There are two groups affected when somebody 

drops out. First it’s the student themselves and all that befalls 

them, lost opportunities. The second group are the rest of us. 

Let me move quickly to No Child Left Behind and how it can 

help high schools. First of all, we have to remember that there is 

a crisis. We know what to do about it. Bob Balfanz and his colleagues have illustrated and demonstrated well, both the research—through the research of the problem and the solutions. We 

know what to do about it, we have to have the will. 

Why are we in this shape we’re in? Well, first of all let me address what we call the missing middle. The missing middle is the 

Federal funding for our educational system. If this is an air graph, 

from here to here is $18 billion, which is what the Federal Government—Federal Government only—spends for pre–K to grade six, 

basically, Title I, Head Start, and Reading First. Let me move over 

here to higher education, postsecondary, this is about $16 billion, 

essentially Pell Grants and campus-based financial aid with—this 

does not include guaranteed student loans—that would go to the 

ceiling, so that’s 18 and 16. 

So what do we spend for middle and high schools? About two 

point five for middle schools, and about two point five for high 

schools, for a total of $5 billion. We can show you direct return on 

investment. We’re making gains here in scores and reading scores 

and math scores in the fourth grade. Our higher education system 

still is one of the envies of the world. Here is where we’re seeing 

the problem in the dropout rate that’s not declining, and indeed a 

third of our kids that are finishing high school, but not with the 

skills they need for success in the workplace. 

Second problem is, NCLB does not have true accountability at 

the high school level. The law looks at test scores, but not if students actually graduate. And so, the irony is, we run our kids a 

mile race, assessing them rigorously as we should, at every tenth 

of a mile, they cross the finish line and we don’t really count it. 

And so, we don’t, at the finish line we’re not keeping track, we’re 

not disaggregating data, we’re not holding States to it. 

Beyond accountability, the school improvement requirements 

under NCLB, such as School Choice and Supplemental Educational 

Services don’t really apply. One reason is that 75 percent of school 

districts have only one high school, so choice is really not an issue 

in that situation. 

15 

But finally, the main reason, is what is the main carrot and stick 

of NCLB? It’s title I dollars, and yet only 8 percent of students receiving title I services are in our high schools. What that means 

then, is that whether or not a school makes AYP doesn’t really 

matter because if title I dollars don’t go there—and most of the 

schools don’t get title I dollars, high schools—then the services, 

supports, and sanctions won’t apply. 

Now, we know that there’re very successful models that can be 

implemented to deal with this. Talent Development, which Bob 

Balfanz and his colleagues head up, Jobs for American Graduates, 

The Institute for Student Achievement, First Things First, I can 

rattle off a number of them. There are a number of individual high 

schools and school districts, as well, that have been successful. 

What can we do? Well, first to turn around low-performing high 

schools, NCLB must include a new system of meaningful high 

school about accountability tied to school improvement, that also 

requires constant disaggregated graduation rates that count as 

much as test scores in determining AYP. 

Second, in the improved measure of AYP, should determine 

whether or not schools qualify for a new high school improvement 

fund using proven strategies to turn around low-performing 

schools, the dropout factories that Bob referred to. This new system 

is outlined in the Graduation Promise Act, introduced yesterday by 

Senators Bingaman, Burr, and Kennedy. We thank all of you very 

much for your commitment to this. The GPA authorizes a $2.4-billion high school improvement and 

dropout reduction fund to turn around America’s slowest performing high schools. Remember that air graph, we’ll still only be 

up at that point to $7.5 billion for our six secondary school grades. 

In this approach, States would set up Statewide systems to use 

multiple measures to appropriately access high school quality. 

States would then use this information to place high schools in 

need of improvement into one of three types of differentiated school 

improvement categories based on—not on how long the school has 

been failing—but how badly the school is performing. These high 

school strategies would come from the local level and not be designed by the Federal Government. 

Additionally, I want to thank Senator Burr for introducing The 

Graduate for Better Future Act, which also supports the goals of 

the GPA. 

We also need to look quickly at some other reforms that are significant. Seventy percent of our eighth graders are not reading at 

grade level. Now, they’re entering high school with the toughest 

courses. That is why Striving Readers Authorization—which would 

target money to the lowest performing high schools to develop 

these literacy skills that are so important. Senator Sessions and 

Murray have introduced this in the Striving Readers Act of Senate 

bill 958, and we also thank the co-sponsorship, the members of this 

committee, Senators Dodd, Burr, Bingaman, Isakson, Harkin, Murkowski, and Senator Brown. 

Rather than having States differ greatly in defining proficiency, 

NCLB should also establish a process for developing voluntary 

shared education standards, to ensure that all students are held to 

the same high expectations aligned with the requirements of postVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:54 Feb 02, 2009 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\35072.TXT DENISE
16 

secondary education in the workforce. The need for these shared 

standards has also been recognized by various members of this 

committee in legislation, various pieces of legislation introduced by 

Senators Kennedy, Clinton, and Dodd. 

From the classroom, as well, high quality data is necessary to 

make important education decisions to turn around low-performing 

high schools. Still, too rare are quality longitudinal data systems, 

using individual student identifiers critical to proving student 

achievement. From the classroom to this committee room, we need 

good data to improve educational outcomes. The Federal Government assisting States to develop those, must be the main vehicle. 

We would urge a major investment in grants to States to build 

quality data systems in accordance with the recommendations of 

the Data Quality Commission—or Campaign. 

Again, I want to thank the chairman and the committee for the 

leadership on this critical issue. If, as several of you have talked 

about, it’s not just a matter of the dropouts, it’s also a matter of 

our economy. The $2.5 billion that we asked for in the GPA, Graduation Promise Act, I can demonstrate chapter and verse economically, a return on investment to the individual, yes to our society 

overall. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wise follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BOB WISE

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the invitation to speak with you today. I appreciate 

your commitment to education, as well as that of the other distinguished members 

of the committee. 

In the coming month, millions of high school seniors will walk across the stage 

at graduation ceremonies to receive their high school diplomas. Auditoriums and 

gymnasiums around the country will be packed to the brim with proud parents and 

relatives. For many students, Graduation Day will be the culmination of 13 years 

of study; for others, it will be the doorway to postsecondary education. But for nearly 1.2 million students who started high school with these graduating students, it 

will likely be just another day that they are unemployed or working at a minimum 

wage job because they have already dropped out of school. 

CRISIS AND ECONOMIC IMPACT

Forty years ago, the United States was No. 1 in the world in high school graduation rates; it now ranks seventeenth. The Nation’s 15-year-olds, when measured 

against their counterparts in other industrialized nations, rank fifteenth in reading, 

twenty-third in math, and thirtieth in problem-solving skills. 

This does not bode well for the future economic well-being of the Nation, nor for 

the continued prosperity of its people. An increasingly global, technologically based 

economy is demanding ever higher levels of knowledge and skills from its workers. 

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that almost 90 percent of the fastest growing U.S. jobs require at least some postsecondary education. 

In a world in which a meaningful high school diploma has become the minimum 

qualification necessary to obtain a good job and support a family well-being, far too 

many American students are being allowed to fall off the path to prosperity. This 

problem has escalated to crisis proportions in thousands of the Nation’s high schools 

and is hampering the opportunities of millions of students. 

Every school day, 7,000 students drop out—that’s 7,000 students who could have 

become teachers or researchers, small business owners, or Senators. Of the students 

who enter ninth grade each fall, a third will not graduate from high school within 

4 years. Another third will graduate, but without the skills and knowledge needed 

to succeed in college or the 21st century workplace. And only a third will graduate 

4 years later with these necessary skills. 

The numbers are even worse for minority communities in our country. Only about 

55 percent of black students and 52 percent of Hispanic students graduate on time 

from high school with a regular diploma, compared to 78 percent of white students. 

Only 16 percent of Latino students and 23 percent of African-American students 

17 

graduate prepared for college, compared to 40 percent of white students. And the 

news could get worse. Based on projections from the U.S. Census Bureau, the white 

population is expected to grow by only 1 percent by 2020, while the Hispanic population will increase by 77 percent and the African-American population by 32 percent. If the Nation cannot do a better job of serving minority students and ensuring 

that they graduate from high school, the Nation’s overall graduation rate will fall 

even further as a growing number of minority students are left behind. 

The cost of a poor education is not just to the individual. Analysis by my organization, the Alliance for Excellent Education, with assistance from the Met Life Foundation, reveals that if the 1.2 million high school dropouts from the Class of 2006 

had earned their diplomas instead of dropping out, the U.S. economy would have 

seen an additional $309 billion in wages over these students’ lifetimes. And that’s 

only for 1 year—we can expect the country to lose another $309 billion in potential 

earnings later this year as dropouts from the Class of 2007 fail to graduate with 

their classmates. If this annual pattern is allowed to continue, more than 12 million 

students will drop out of school during the next decade at a cost to the Nation of 

$3 trillion. 

Recent research conducted by a group of the Nation’s leading researchers in education and economics has shed some light on exactly how much a high school dropout costs the Nation in lost taxes, increased health care costs, higher spending on 

crime, and greater expenditure on support programs such as welfare. According to 

a recent report, published by Teachers College at Columbia University, male high 

school graduates earn up to $322,000 more over the course of their lifetimes than 

dropouts, while college graduates earn up to $1.3 million more. 

On the flip side, the Alliance projects that if the U.S. education system could raise 

minority high school graduation rates to the current level of whites, and if those 

new graduates go on to postsecondary education at similar rates, additional personal income would increase by more than $310.4 billion by 2020, yielding additional tax revenues and a considerably improved economic picture. 

While some high school dropouts might eventually find good jobs and earn decent 

livings, most will spend their lives in a State of uncertainty—periodically unemployed or on government assistance. Many will cycle in and out of prison. In fact, 

about 75 percent of America’s State prison inmates, almost 59 percent of Federal 

inmates, and 69 percent of jail inmates did not complete high school. If we could 

increase the male graduation rate by only 5 percent, we could save $7.7 billion a 

year through reducing crime-related costs and increasing earnings. 

High school graduates have better health and lower rates of mortality than high 

school dropouts. Individuals with higher educational attainment also are less likely 

to use public health services such as Medicaid. An Alliance analysis found that if 

every student in the class of 2005–2006 graduated from high school, the Nation 

could save $17.1 billion in lifetime health costs. 

FEDERAL ROLE AND NCLB REAUTHORIZATION

The good news is that, although there is a significant crisis, we know much about 

how to respond. The reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) offers 

an opportunity for you as the education leaders in the Senate to put the ‘‘Secondary’’ 

into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and take some critical steps toward improving our Nation’s middle and high schools. The realities of global competitiveness, the rapidly-diminishing prospects of those students whose high schools 

fail to prepare them for college and work, and the resulting widening opportunity 

gap all make middle and high school reform an imperative issue from an economic, 

national security and civil rights perspective. 

The time is right for the Federal Government to take bold leadership in advancing 

secondary school reform—leadership that is appropriate to the crisis and in line 

with the Federal Government’s tradition of intervening to assure the security of the 

Nation, reduce poverty, increase equity, and advance research to inform effective 

practice. The increasing urgency to address the trouble plaguing secondary schools 

has been bolstered by an avalanche of reports recognizing the link between improving secondary education and increasing and maintaining competitiveness. Such reports include ETS’s The Perfect Storm and National Council on Economic Education’s Tough Choices-Tough Times. 

For education reform to truly take hold and be successful, it must happen at all 

levels of education, from the schoolhouse to Capitol Hill. As a Nation, we will never 

reach the goals of No Child Left Behind or make every child a graduate without 

significantly increasing funding to improve America’s high schools—making levels 

of investment equal to the levels of reform. But I am not interested in making the 

18 

current dysfunctional system just more expensive. Reforms must be targeted and research based and investment should match that reform. 

Currently, there is little Federal investment in our Nation’s high schools and we 

are getting what we pay for. As of now, the Federal funding in education targets 

the bookends of the education system—concentrating on grades pre-K–6 and higher 

education. The ‘‘missing middle’’ is our Nation’s secondary schools, which receive little to no funding from the Federal level. Funding for grades pre-K–6 totals nearly 

$18 billion. Funding for postsecondary education totals nearly $16 billion and that 

is without taking into account student loans or other tax incentives. However, funding for grades 7–12 is only about $5 billion. 

WHY NCLB DOESN’T WORK FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Unfortunately, the focus of NCLB reflects the current Federal funding priorities 

in education—NCLB was just not set up for secondary schools. I am not here to 

criticize NCLB. I am here to tell you why it does not work for high schools and how 

you can fix them in reauthorization. However, I believe it is critical for us to remember all of the core reasons NCLB was written and became law when we discuss the 

crisis in our Nation’s high schools. The law was written to provide all children, including poor and minority children, with access to a high-quality, standards-based 

education; the same reason Federal action must occur at the high school level. 

NCLB, despite its shortcomings, has put a spotlight on the achievement gap—a 

startling gap that is illustrated in the shocking graduation rates I described earlier. 

NCLB was designed to address grades K–8—generally it did not even really contemplate the law’s interaction with secondary schools. For example, the original 

Bush administration proposal was 28 pages and only mentioned high schools twice. 

In addition, NAEP, known as the Nation’s report card, is only required in 4th and 

8th grades so there is no on-going national measure of student achievement. And 

despite low literacy rates in the upper grades, Reading First, the Federal investment in reading skills, is only a K–3 program. As a result, NCLB policy is often 

neglectful of or even at odds with the needs of America’s 14 million high school students, particularly the 6 million students who are at risk of dropping out of school 

each year. 

NCLB at its core is about accountability for improving student achievement. However, there is not true accountability at the high school level—the law looks at test 

scores but not if students actually graduate. It’s as if we are clocking runners in 

a race every mile but then do not pay attention to whether they cross the finish 

line. Because Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is focused solely on test scores, there 

is a perverse incentive to push out the kids who do not score well. Further, these 

tests generally measure proficiency in the 10th grade, not preparedness for graduation and beyond. 

Despite calculation of graduation rates being part of the law, there is no accountability tied to those rates. States calculate high school graduation rates in different 

and, in many cases highly inaccurate and misleading, ways. Subgroup graduation 

rates do not count for NCLB and therefore the graduation gaps and the low graduation rates of poor and minority are not reflected in AYP determinations. Even if the 

graduation rates were accurate and accounted for students in subgroups, NCLB 

does not require schools and States to make meaningful progress in increasing graduation rates. While States, districts and schools are held accountable for getting all 

students proficient in math and reading by 2014, there is no such ultimate graduation goal for graduation rates. The consequence is that most States do not have 

meaningful goals for improving graduation rates each year and schools can make 

AYP while showing little to no progress on graduation rates. 

In 2005, the National Governors Association (NGA) took an important first step 

in recognizing this problem and moving toward a solution. The NGA Graduation 

Rate Compact was originally signed by all 50 of the Nation’s Governors pledging to 

adopt accurate and consistent measurements for reporting high school graduation 

rates. However, two States have since backed out of the commitment; only a few 

States have yet implemented the Compact rate; and because the Compact did not 

address accountability, definitions, rates, and growth goals for accountability are 

still not consistent State to State. NCLB should operationalize the Compact by requiring that graduation rates are disaggregated and increase over time as part of 

accountability. 

Beyond accountability, the school improvement requirements or sanctions under 

NCLB (which only apply to title I schools thus missing the vast majority of high 

schools) namely school choice and supplemental education services (SES), simply do 

not work at the high school level. School choice often is not applicable at the high 

school level. Seventy-five percent of school districts have only one high school. In 

19 

cases where districts do contain more than one high school, they are often concentrated urban districts with many low-performing high schools. And in the cases 

where such districts do contain high performing high schools, those schools only 

have a handful of transfer slots available, thus ensuring no real improvement for 

a failing high school. In the case of SES, because title I funding is extremely limited, 

very few students in high schools actually receive the services. Further, given extracurricular, social and work demands, high school students are not likely to opt-in 

to extra tutoring. Finally, regardless of whether or not SES and school choice even 

could work for high school students, neither provide the research-based improvement strategies that will increase turn around low-performing high schools. 

At the root of why NCLB does not work for high schools is the fact that of title 

I funds almost never even reach high schools. Title I is both the ‘‘carrot’’ and the 

‘‘stick’’ that gives NCLB impetus. NCLB requires all schools to report on their assessment performance every year, however sanctions only apply to and are funded 

for the schools receiving title I funds. Yet only 8 percent of title I participants are 

high school students. Other major funding streams are also not reaching high 

schools. Seventy percent of entering freshman cannot read at grade level. However, 

the major Federal investment in reading, Reading First, stops in third grade. 

Given the problems facing our Nation’s secondary schools, secondary schools need 

systemic reforms that NCLB simply does not provide or require. Much is now 

known about how to renew and revitalize the country’s middle and high schools so 

as to ensure that more students succeed. Local school districts and the States have 

an undisputed and critical role to play in redesigning the Nation’s secondary schools 

to meet the needs of the 21st century, and many of them are working hard to implement effective reforms. Schools such as JEB Stuart High School in Falls Church, 

Virginia or Granger High School in Yakima, Washington and programs, such as the 

Institute for Student Achievement (ISA) or Talent Development, in communities 

scattered across the Nation are proving that with high expectations and the necessary support, today’s students—even those who are most highly at risk of dropping out—are up to the challenge. These schools are successfully keeping students 

in attendance, improving their achievement levels, and graduating them prepared 

for success. 

NCLB REAUTHORIZATION AND HIGH SCHOOLS

For all of the reasons I described earlier, the Alliance believes NCLB reauthorization must look at multiple means to improve the Nation’s high schools from accountability and improvement to literacy to critical data systems. First, I will discuss accountability and school improvement, the cornerstone of Federal school reform policy. 

ACCOUNTABILITY AND IMPROVEMENT

To turn around low-performing high schools, NCLB must include a new system 

of meaningful high school accountability system that is tied closely with school improvement. While the current structure of NCLB does not work for high schools, it 

can be built upon to leverage the student achievement gains and improved preparedness and graduation rates needed for students and the Nation to succeed. 

As discussed earlier, AYP currently does not include the appropriate indicators of 

a high school’s performance. An appropriate measure of AYP at the high school level 

must include high-quality assessments that are performance-based and aligned to 

college and work ready standards not administered before 11th grade and consistent, disaggregated graduation rates. Both assessment performance and graduation rates should be required to increase over time. In this new system of accountability and improvement, such a measure of AYP would act as a ‘‘thermometer’’ to 

see if schools are meeting appropriate goals. In other words, it would tell us something is wrong but further diagnosis and treatment are needed. 

This improved measure of AYP would determine whether or not schools enter a 

new school differentiated improvement system. This new system is outlined in the 

Graduation Promise Act (GPA), which I am pleased to say, was introduced yesterday by Senators Bingaman and Kennedy. GPA authorizes a $2.4-billion High School 

Improvement and Dropout Reduction Fund to turn around America’s lowest performing high schools and give students attending those schools a chance to graduate 

ready for college and work. The High School Improvement Fund would support more 

comprehensive State accountability and improvement systems at the high school 

level. 

As stated in the GPA, under this new system of improvement, States would set 

up new statewide systems that utilize multiple measures or indicators to appropriately assess high school quality. Formula grants would be distributed to the 

20 

States, based on poverty and graduation rates, to establish and/or expand statewide 

differentiated high school improvement systems guided by research and best practice. These systems would be approved by the Secretary as part of a rigorous peerreview process. States would then develop a set of school performance indicators to 

be used, in addition to the new measures used to determine adequate yearly 

progress (AYP), to analyze high school performance, determine the amount and type 

of support each school needs, and guide the school improvement process. States 

would also define a minimum amount of expected growth on each school performance indicator to demonstrate continuous and substantial progress. 

States would then determine how data from the school performance indicators 

and AYP data will be used to place high schools in need of improvement into one 

of three school improvement categories. Unlike current law, how schools fit into the 

following categories is not determined by how long the school has been failing, but 

by how badly the school is performing. The first category is schools needing targeted 

assistance, which are schools that have just missed making AYP and are performing 

well on most indicators, but a targeted intervention, such as improved instruction 

for ELL students or a schoolwide literacy plan, is likely to improve student outcomes. The second category is schools needing whole school reform, which are 

schools that have missed making AYP by a significant margin or for multiple subgroups and are struggling on most other indicators. Such schools could benefit from 

a schoolwide strategy to address the multiple layers of school improvement demonstrated from research and best practice. The third category is schools needing replacement which are schools that are failing large numbers of students by most or 

all measures and likely have been for some time. Improving student outcomes in 

those schools would call for replacement with more personalized, rigorous and welldesigned school models. 

Under this new system, development and implementation of the improvement 

strategies would come from the local level. For each high school that did not make 

AYP and was placed into one of the three categories I just discussed, district-led 

school improvement teams would use the school performance data, a school capacity 

audit and needs assessment, and data about incoming ninth graders, to develop appropriate school improvement plans. The high school improvement plans would lay 

out the evidence-based academic and nonacademic interventions and resources necessary to improve student achievement, reduce dropout rates, meet annual benchmarks, and make adequate yearly progress. Districts would then apply to the State 

on behalf of their high schools, for funds necessary to implement the high school 

improvement plans and complementary district-wide strategies. States would award 

subgrants to districts with approved applications, with funds going first to those districts serving high schools needing whole school reform or replacement. 

Districts and high school improvement teams would implement the high school 

improvement plans, directing funds first to implement the plans for schools in need 

of whole school reform or replacement. In subsequent years, high schools that meet 

the annual benchmarks on school performance indicators, even if they do not make 

AYP, could continue to implement the school improvement plan. High schools not 

meeting the annual benchmarks for 2 years would be redesignated into a different 

school improvement category and required to develop a new school improvement 

plan with State involvement. 

Research, evaluation and technical assistance are critical for this system to work. 

States would be able to reserve 10 percent of funds to implement the requirements 

of the statute and also to build the capacity to support the school improvement efforts. The Secretary would also reserve funds to provide technical assistance and regional training programs; to develop and implement or replicate effective researchbased comprehensive high school reform models; and to evaluate the program and 

determine the most effective interventions. 

Consider a new, more appropriate measure of AYP and the High School Improvement Fund provide the foundation for true, systemic high school reform. However, 

alone, a new accountability and improvement system will not be successful in preparing students to graduate with the skills to succeed in postsecondary education 

and the workforce. NCLB must include other measures that will inform teaching, 

support students and provide the interventions that will ultimately improve student 

achievement. 

GRADUATE FOR A BETTER FUTURE ACT

I want to thank Senator Burr for introducing the Graduate for a Better Future 

Act, which specifically targets the dropout factories. The legislation, authorized at 

$500 million, provides States, districts, and schools with the resources and tools necessary to target interventions to high school students at risk of dropping out, imVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:54 Feb 02, 2009 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\35072.TXT DENISE
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prove graduation rates, and provide the rigorous curriculum necessary to high 

school students to succeed in postsecondary education and the workforce. 

STRIVING READERS

As I mentioned earlier, 70 percent of 8th graders cannot read at grade level. Unfortunately, the Federal investment in reading, the Reading First program, disappears after third grade, which is exactly the point at which expectations for student literacy increase. This lack of basic reading skills contributes greatly to students failing to master the knowledge they need to succeed after graduation, or simply dropping out entirely. In the last year, Congress has repeatedly discussed improving our Nation’s competitiveness. Clearly education plays a critical role in how 

economically competitive we are as a Nation. I understand the Senate may soon consider legislation on this very topic. While the conversation has focused tightly on 

math and science, I ask you to consider the role literacy plays in the success students have in math and science. A 2006 report by ACT found that high school students with higher level literacy skills performed better in math, science, and social 

studies courses in college, had higher college GPA’s, and returned to college for a 

second year at higher rates. 

In response to the need, Senators Sessions and Murray have introduced the Striving Readers Act, S. 958, which would improve literacy skills by helping every State, 

district, and school develop comprehensive literacy plans that would ensure every 

student reads and writes at grade level. Authorized at $200 million for fiscal year 

2008 and increasing to $1 billion over 5 years, the bill would support training teachers to use assessments and literacy strategies to help struggling readers, train leaders to support teachers, and provide reading materials for schools that lack them. 

NCLB must include Striving Readers so that low literacy is no longer a reason students fail to succeed in high school. I want to thank Senators Murray and Sessions 

for introducing this legislation and the numerous other members of this committee 

who have cosponsored this bill—Senators Dodd, Burr, Bingaman, Isakson, Harkin, 

Murkowski, and Brown. 

VOLUNTARY NATIONAL STANDARDS

To be competitive, students need to leave high school with a college- and workready diploma. Our students and the Nation are spending billions of dollars at the 

college level and in the workplace on remediation because our students are not leaving high school with the necessary skills. The Alliance estimates that the amount 

that could be saved in remedial education costs at U.S. community colleges if high 

schools eliminate the need for remediation would be $3.7 billion a year. This figure 

includes $1.4 billion to provide remedial education to students who have recently 

completed high school. This figure also includes the almost $2.3 billion that the 

economy loses because remedial reading students are more likely to drop out of college without a degree, thereby reducing their earning potential. 

NCLB should establish a process for developing shared education standards to ensure that all students are held to the same high expectations aligned with the requirements of postsecondary education and the workforce. The Federal Government 

should also offer States high-quality performance assessments to regularly measure 

student progress toward those standards and fulfill the testing requirements of 

NCLB. This action would remove a significant financial burden from States and increase the quality of assessments. In addition, the Federal Government should provide States with incentives and supports for adopting such standards and aligning 

them with their key systems, such as their curricula, graduation requirements, and 

professional development. The need for such shared standards has been recognized 

by various members of this committee in legislation introduced by Senators Kennedy, Clinton, and Dodd. 

DATA SYSTEMS

To turn around low-performing high schools, educators and policymakers need accurate information about how students are doing in school. High quality longitudinal data systems using individual student identifiers are critical to improving student achievement. However, most States and school districts have not yet fully implemented such systems. The Federal Government must help States build the infrastructure needed for data to be collected, reported to the public and used by educators to improve education. NCLB should include a major investment in grants to 

States to build such systems in accordance with the recommendations of the Data 

Quality Campaign, as well as grants to build the capacity to use data to improve 

teaching and learning through professional development, effective data collection 

and other key functions. NCLB should include $100 million in competitive grants 

22 

to build those systems, and $100 million in formula grants to every State to align 

those systems with district systems and build educator capacity at State and local 

levels to use the data to improve teaching and learning. 

THANK YOU

Again, I want to thank the chairman and the committee for their leadership on 

this critical issue. I urge you to seize the opportunity of NCLB reauthorization to 

take our Nation’s high schools into the 21st century. The quality of high school education is increasingly central to national concerns, including securing the Nation’s 

global economic position, reducing threats to national security, and assuring equal 

opportunity for a population that is growing increasingly diverse. By appropriately 

extending its education focus to include the needs of students in middle and high 

schools, the Federal Government can move the Nation from ‘‘no child left behind’’ 

to ‘‘every child a graduate.’’ 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

We’ll hear now from Tony Habit, who’s the President of the New 

Schools Project in North Carolina. The New Schools Project is a 

public-private partnership focusing on improving North Carolina’s 

high schools. The Project works to create small autonomous high 

schools across the State. Their work includes redesigning high 

schools, while creating technology-enabled high schools, early college high schools, and high schools focused on international studies, and on health and life sciences. 

He’ll discuss the importance of the small school model, data-driven instruction, quality teachers, improving student achievement 

and graduation. He’ll share the challenges North Carolina’s faced 

in making high school a priority, as well as some of the successes 

that they’re beginning to see. 

Let me just say, I’ve listened carefully about the importance of 

data. We have the IES—now it’s called the Institute of Education 

Science. We spend $335 million in research on education. I’m going 

to ask the panel to consider recommendations on the type of research and data conducted by IES. Our committee will need to 

have a hearing on ‘‘IES Reauthorization in the Future.’’ I want 

your opinions about where we are on some of that material, and 

whether we ought to spend more, or do better. Perhaps some of you 

who are familiar with it can give us a little bit of information on 

the issues. 

We want to thank you so much, Mr. Habit. Again, thank you for 

your testimony, which was enormously helpful about what’s happening in North Carolina. Please. 

STATEMENT OF TONY HABIT, PRESIDENT, NEW SCHOOLS 

PROJECT, RALEIGH, NC 

Mr. HABIT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Enzi 

and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today and to consider the changes that are much 

needed and overdue in our Nation’s secondary schools. It’s an honor 

to be able to talk about the work that’s taking place in my home 

State, North Carolina. 

In our State, we’re very fortunate to have leaders who appreciate 

the urgency for change and the magnitude of change that must 

take place in the very near term. As has been referenced earlier 

this morning, Senator Burr—working with Senator Kennedy and 

Bingaman—have introduced the Graduation Promise Act, aimed at 

raising high school graduation rates. We’re also very pleased that 

23 

our Governor, Governor Mike Easley, has really championed secondary innovation and transformation during his two terms in our 

State. He has repeatedly connected that process to the need to ensure future economic vitality for North Carolina. 

We’ve also been very fortunate as an organization, to benefit 

from the remarkable philanthropic support of the Bill and Melinda 

Gates Foundation and their vast network of schools around the 

country who are learning, quite frankly, from a lot of research 

that’s taking place in the field. Our State, like most States, and 

many States have really been punished handsomely by the unprecedented restructuring in our economy. And yet, when we look at 

what’s happening with our students, there’s very strong evidence 

that we are graduating students who are unprepared for the workforce that’s before them and, of course, the students who are not 

graduating are being punished handsomely for that. 

In a poll we commissioned recently, half of North Carolina graduates, graduates who went on to enroll in college, reported that 

they felt there were major gaps in their preparation to do highlevel college academic work. As I’ve referenced, far too many of our 

students never see graduation day and only 68 percent of our students who enter the ninth grade in 2002 will walk across the stage 

in 2006. For our minority students and our poor students, the results are far, far worse. 

My organization, the North Carolina New Schools Project was established to accelerate the pace of innovation in our State, to ensure that all students have access to high-quality schools that will 

prepare them fully for college, for work, and for life. We have an 

aggressive three-pronged strategy for this work. The first, is to establish more than 100 focused and academically rigorous new high 

schools across the State. Second, help to create a sense of urgency 

and momentum around this change process for every member of 

our society in North Carolina. And third, advance funding and policies that will ensure that the change that’s underway in our State 

will be sustainable and that it will ultimately benefit every single 

one of our communities. 

Since 2003, we have designed over 58 innovative new high 

schools across our State. That number will move toward 90 by September of this year. We engage with school districts and with 

schools in a 6-year process, a process that really recognizes the 

complexity of change, especially if that change is to be meaningful 

and sustained over a longer period of time. 

I’d like today, to offer four observations from our work in the 

field and working with these schools. The first, is that changing 

teaching in our schools really means changing belief systems. 

Stated simply, low expectations prevent effective teaching. In a 

typical high school, some students are tracked into demanding 

courses, which prepare them for a future beyond high school, while 

others are tracked into classes that offer little challenge, and even 

less future. In our partner schools we work to instill the notion 

that preparation to tackle new demanding content is the responsibility of the teacher more than that of the student. Teachers and 

administrators typically do not believe that all students can 

achieve at high levels, especially poor and minority children. 

24 

To overcome this, we’ve taken hundreds of educators from North 

Carolina across the country, to sit in the classrooms of schools that 

are getting remarkable results with their students. While it seems 

counterintuitive, with greater challenge, students put forth greater 

effort and perform at higher and higher levels. Our students know 

this to be true. 

In a survey we conducted of recent graduates, 77 percent said 

that high school graduation requirements were not very demanding 

or were too easy, one of those two categories. Eighty percent of our 

graduates said they would have worked harder, had the demands 

been placed in front of them while they were in high school. As 

adults, the message is very, very clear. We have to expect more 

from all children, while we’re addressing this need to transform our 

secondary schools. 

Second, being ready for college and being ready for work are now 

exactly the same. The overarching goal for North Carolina’s innovative high schools is to ensure that every student graduates collegeready. We’re even more explicit in asking that all students meet 

our State university graduation admission requirements. And second, that every student, as a goal, should earn college credit before 

they walk across that stage to receive their high school diploma. 

According to research by ACT, and others, the math, reading, 

and writing skills that graduates need to be ready for the new 

economy are really the same between that historically expected of 

a 4-year university and those of students who are going directly 

into the workforce. This means that students must all take more 

demanding courses. We know that they can meet these higher expectations. 

For example, in our early college high schools in North Carolina, 

these are schools that are based on the campus of a college or university where students in grades 9–12, or 9–13, are expected to 

earn both their high school diploma and 2 years of credit toward 

a 4-year degree. We’re seeing a consistent pattern of poor children 

who are under-prepared for high-level academic work, being able to 

master those courses to lead to those college degrees. 

Third, changing schools to graduate all students to be collegeready means fundamentally rethinking how resources are applied 

in our schools. This means primarily the roles of adults. Most 

schools and districts lack the expertise or organizational structure 

with which to manage change and innovation or with which to effectively and meaningfully engage their communities. Current 

funding and professional development programs reinforce a piecemeal approach to change that typically fails to support a coherent, 

sustained, and focused model for schools. 

Our organization, the New Schools Project, supports clear supports, provides clear supports for new schools that deviate from 

this norm. That includes a commitment to professional development for teachers, principals, district administrators, and schoolchange coaches, which are all aligned along the same framework 

and the same targets. We believe that it is this alignment that is 

essential to success in changing the schools. 

Finally, on the notion of leadership—the creation of new kinds of 

schools requires new kinds of leaders. This requires a proactive effort to identify, recruit, place, and support principals who have the 

25 

1 National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (2004). Measuring Up 2004. Available at http://measuringup.highereducation.org/default.cfm. 2Southern Regional Education Board (2003). Progress in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate in SREB States. Available at http://www.sreb.org/main/HigherEd/ 

readiness/ap-ib.pdf. 3Public Schools of North Carolina (2005). The North Carolina 2005 SAT Report. http:// 

www.ncpublicschools.org / docs / accountability / reporting / sat / 2005/satlreportl2005lpart1 

.pdf. 

knowledge about school design, not just about pedagogy, and they 

understand their role to facilitate learning among teachers in that 

new school. 

While transforming schools in North Carolina is relatively recent, in the last few years, there are some promising results and 

I’d like to conclude with those results. More students are staying 

in school, more ninth graders are being promoted to the tenth 

grade, more students are coming to school, and most importantly 

for us, the early warning signal that teachers are saying that they 

see their new school as a place, a good place to teach and learn. 

In fact, teachers in new schools are twice as likely to say their new 

school is a good place to teach and learn, compared to the traditional high school in our State. 

These recommendations and considerations are really a tall order 

for us, to think differently about resources and about leadership. 

We bear dual responsibilities in this regard. We know what it 

means to take students and help them to be fully prepared for the 

new economy. We also know the cost to them and to society when 

they are not adequately prepared. The task in front of us is clear. 

All of us are very grateful for the work of this committee and the 

United States Congress in bringing forth solutions so that some of 

these important recommendations can be implemented. 

Thank you for the opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Habit follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TONY HABIT, ED.D. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Enzi and members of the committee, thank you 

for the invitation to testify today. I am pleased to be with you to consider the urgency for change in our Nation’s middle and high schools. My name is Tony Habit, 

and I am president of the North Carolina New Schools Project. 

We in North Carolina are fortunate to have leaders who appreciate both the urgency for change and the magnitude of the change that must occur. As you know, 

your colleague Senator Burr, along with Senator Bingaman, has introduced the 

‘‘Graduate for a Better Future Act’’ aimed at raising high school graduation rates. 

Our governor, Mike Easley, has championed innovation in our State’s secondary 

schools, repeatedly drawing the connection between that work and our State’s continued economic vitality. As Governor Easley has said, North Carolina must create 

the most skilled, most educated workforce in the world, not simply in the United 

States. 

North Carolina also has benefited from the unparalleled philanthropic leadership 

of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to transform the Nation’s high schools to 

meet the demands of this century. 

By many traditional measures, North Carolina is fortunate to have high schools 

that in relative terms have succeeded over the last century in moving from institutions that served very few to ones that strive to serve all students. At 59 percent, 

North Carolina is ranked first in the country in the percentage of high school students taking advanced math courses.1 Ninety-three percent of our State’s public 

high schools offer at least one Advanced Placement course.2 Seventy-four percent of 

our State’s 12th grade students took the SAT in 2005, and North Carolina had the 

second largest 10-year gain in SAT scores among States with over 50 percent of the 

population taking the SAT.3

At the same time, North Carolina has felt acute pain from an unprecedented restructuring of the economy of our State and, for that matter, of our country and 

26 

across the globe. In the first 5 years of this decade, for example, North Carolina lost 

nearly one-quarter of its manufacturing jobs—184,200 jobs in all. Over the next 10 

years, the ‘‘Big Four’’ of our State’s manufacturing base—tobacco, textiles, apparel 

and furniture—which account for one in three jobs are projected to lose another 18 

percent of those jobs. 

North Carolina lost 1,000 farms in 2005 alone, leading the Nation in that category 

according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Our State has lost more 

than 10 percent of its farms since 2002. 

The State, however, has rebounded strongly. Investments in education led North 

Carolina to stronger employment growth in the last 12 months than any other State 

east of the Mississippi. 

As low-skill, high-wage jobs have vanished, some communities are left bereft of 

opportunity. Idled middle-aged workers often are trapped in a string of low-skilled, 

low-wage jobs or are required to return to college for retooling without the preparation in high school required to succeed. 

There is strong evidence as well that our most recent high school graduates are 

under-prepared for the demands they are facing in the ‘‘real world.’’ In a poll commissioned by our organization earlier this month, half of recent North Carolina high 

school graduates in college reported gaps in their preparation for college academic 

work and half of recent graduates in the workforce report gaps in their preparation 

to get a good job. A quarter of the recent graduates in college reported having taken 

a remedial course. 

In addition, far too many high school students never reach graduation. North 

Carolina recently released cohort graduation rates for the first time. They showed 

that only 68.1 percent of the students who entered 9th grade in 2002 graduated 

with the Class of 2006. For African-American students, the graduation rates was 

only 60 percent. For Hispanics, it was only 51.8 percent—a particularly troubling 

statistic given our State experienced nearly a five-fold increase in Hispanic enrollment from 1993 to 2003, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. 

My organization, the North Carolina New Schools Project, is an independent, notfor-profit corporation that serves as the nexus of the leadership of Governor Easley 

and our State Board of Education; the strong interest in change among the Gates 

Foundation and other philanthropies, public and private colleges and universities 

and the private sector; and the pressing economic need that North Carolina faces. 

While impressive in relative terms, the incremental gains of our high schools are 

insufficient both in terms of scope and in terms of pace to address a changing economy. North Carolina must graduate more students with more skills and knowledge 

than ever before. The New Schools Project was established to accelerate the pace 

of innovation in our State and to ensure that all students have access to high-quality schools that will prepare them fully for college, work and life. 

As a private-public partnership with our State’s various education sectors, elected 

officials and the private sector, the New Schools Project can be nimble without sacrificing meaningful impact. We can work across institutional and political boundaries 

so that innovation is not frustrated by real or perceived barriers. 

In pursuing change and innovation, and with the leadership of Governor Easley 

and the State Board of Education, we have an aggressive three-pronged strategy: 

• Establish more than 100 focused, academically rigorous and effective innovative 

new high schools across the State; 

• Foster greater urgency for higher standards and schools that will make achievement of these standards feasible; and 

• Advance policies and funding to ensure that all North Carolina communities 

benefit from the promise of new schools. 

LESSONS LEARNED ON THE ROAD TO MEANINGFUL CHANGE

Since 2003, New Schools Project has partnered with local school districts and, in 

some cases, with national partners such as the Asia Society, the New Technology 

Foundation, and the KnowledgeWorks Foundation to open 58 innovative, highly effective high schools across North Carolina. We engage with a school and its school 

district for 6 years—a planning year followed by 5 years of implementation. This 

timeframe recognizes both the scope of the change we are pursuing and its complexity. This day-to-day, on-the-ground experience in working to foster innovation— 

along with what we have gleaned from the experience of others in the field—has 

offered us important insights into what it takes to, in the vocabulary of this hearing, 

modernize high schools and middle schools. Let me offer you four specific observations to consider: 

27 

Changing Beliefs 

Simply put, low expectations are a cancer that can weaken a school enough to 

make significant changes in teaching impossible. It is clear how this occurs in a typical high school—some students are tracked into demanding courses which prepare 

them for a future beyond high school, while others are tracked into classes that offer 

little challenge and even less future. The usual justification is that ‘‘those’’ students 

were not ‘‘ready’’ for Algebra II or honors English. Some parents reinforce these beliefs by advocating that certain students be discouraged from enrolling in advanced 

courses. If I do not believe that all students can do the work, I do not feel obligated to 

assume responsibility for changing the way my school is organized or the way resources are allocated to ensure that all students succeed. In the schools we partner 

with, we work to instill the notion that preparation to tackle new demanding content is the responsibility of the teachers, not the students. 

In our partnership with schools, we insist that they be fully representative of the 

student population of their district; we do not allow access to innovation to be limited to the best and brightest. This is one of our stakes in the ground to enforce 

what we believe as an organization about who can do the work. Notably, 12 of our 

16 partner schools subject to No Child Left Behind’s growth provision last year 

made Adequate Yearly Progress. 

Teachers and administrators typically do not believe all students—particularly 

poor and minority students—can master the knowledge and skills that lead to true 

opportunity until they see it first hand. As part of our work, we have taken hundreds of educators from across North Carolina on study visits to schools in other 

parts of the country whose results are irrefutable. Educators study some of the 

country’s most successful high schools to learn how changed instruction and high 

levels of student support combine to improve student outcomes. This includes direct 

classroom observation that leads to deeper reflection about changing instruction. 

More than 20 schools such as University Park Campus High School in Worcester, 

Massachusetts, and Urban Academy at the Julia Richman Education Complex in 

New York City are used for these site visits. We are working with our partners 

across the State to establish these kinds of ‘‘schools of promise’’ within our State 

to make these transformative site visits even more accessible. 

By way of example, we are working with a school on the western edge of our State 

and meeting some resistance. Two teachers who were themselves graduates of the 

school went on a site visit to University Park and saw the possibility as well as the 

gaps in their own work. They have become our strongest advocates and have 

brought their colleagues along in moving forward. 

While it seems counter-intuitive, there is strong evidence supporting the premise 

that with greater challenge, students put forth greater effort and perform at higher 

levels. This is particularly the case when schools and students focus on the most 

important content and skills and when the material relates to students’ own aspirations. The term ‘‘comprehensive high school’’ speaks to the difficulty of achieving 

this kind of focus in the traditional setting. We work to create high schools of no 

more than 400 students that provide focus either through an academic theme, an 

instructional approach, or their location on a college campus in the case of our 

Learn and Earn early college high schools. Additionally, a school’s focus represents 

one strategy to enable teachers in the core courses to work together to make connections between courses and the world of work. The intent of a focus is not preparation for a specific career, but rather preparation for a lifetime of learning and workplace changes. 

As adults, we should not shy away from expecting more from all students. In our 

survey of recent graduates, 77 percent said that high school graduation requirements were easy to meet. Eighty percent said that they would have worked harder 

had the expectations been higher. And 68 percent said that they would have worked 

harder in high school had they known then what they know now about real world 

demands. As adults, we must bear the burden of our knowledge of what preparation 

for college, work and life requires and must act on that knowledge. 

Setting College as the Goal 

Often, the limitations of beliefs about students’ capabilities emerge around the notion of making every graduate ‘‘college-ready.’’ Inevitably, someone raises the challenge that not every graduate will go to college. 

The overarching goal of North Carolina’s innovative high schools is to ensure that 

every student graduates college-ready. We are even more explicit in asking, first, 

that students meet the admission requirements of the University of North Carolina 

system and, second, that every student earn college credit before leaving high 

school. 

28 

4See ACT, Ready for College and Ready for Work: Same or Different?, 2006 and Achieve, 

Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts, 2004. 5 Examples of jobs cited in the report that do not require a bachelor’s degree but do provide 

a ‘‘self-sufficient’’ wage include electricians, construction workers, upholsterers and plumbers. 

From ACT, Ready for College and Ready for Work: Same or Different?, 2006. 6 ACT, 2006, page 2. 

This college-ready imperative is intentionally provocative. It becomes a point on 

which a faculty must agree and collaborate. Another value to the small scale of our 

innovative high schools is that they allow teachers to be flexible in meeting the academic needs of students, to alter what is offered and for how long in ways that a 

2,000-student high school cannot. 

At the same time, this imperative is based on a growing body of research that 

shows that the skills high school graduates need in order to be ready for college and 

ready for the 21st century workplace are the same.4

The most recent such study, conducted by ACT, analyzed data and items from its 

college and work readiness tests, found that 90 percent of jobs that do not require 

a bachelor’s degree but that do provide a ‘‘self-sufficient’’ wage require the same 

level of mathematical and analytical reading and writing skills as those needed by 

students who are planning to enroll in a 4-year university.5 The report goes on to 

state that this finding suggests that: 

‘‘all high school students should be educated according to a common academic 

expectation that prepares them for both postsecondary education and the workforce. This means that all students should be ready and have the opportunity 

to take a rigorous core preparatory program in high school, one that is designed 

to promote readiness for both college and workforce training programs.’’ 6

However, another ACT study released this month showed that high school teachers’ view of college-ready content misses the mark in terms of focus. 

Voters in North Carolina, perhaps intuitively, understand this convergence. In a 

poll we commissioned, 70 percent agreed that the skills to succeed at work and in 

college were the same. Eighty-four percent said it was important for nearly all high 

school graduates to move on to a 2- or 4-year college, with 69 percent calling it very 

important. 

We have good reason to believe that students can meet this higher expectation. 

Last year nearly three-quarters of students in North Carolina’s early college high 

schools, from which students graduate with both a high school diploma and 2 years 

of college credit, took at least one college course. Their passing rates in those 

courses ranged from 76 percent to 100 percent. Nine high schools recorded passing 

rates of 90 percent or better. 

And the Governor’s budget proposes to dramatically change this landscape by creating Learn & Earn Online opportunities for all students across the State, with a 

goal of enrolling 40,000 high school students in college courses by next school year. 

This coupled with his new EARN Scholarship opportunities, will provide students 

the opportunity to complete a 4-year degree debt-free. 

Managing for Significant Change 

Meaningful change in high schools is essential and elusive; it is worth remembering that A Nation At Risk was a report about changing secondary education. 

Schools and school districts are rewarded for maintaining the status quo and for 

adding new programs. For example, rather than consider the absence of personalization and effective student supports within a school, districts will add a dropout prevention program or a specialist for that problem. At its heart, however, changing 

schools to graduate all students to be college-ready means redirecting all of the resources of a school to provide greater student support and to address highly focused 

targets for achievement. This is especially true in using the resources represented 

by the role and responsibilities of adults in the school. 

While the private sector has experienced decades of organizational restructuring 

in which workers are displaced in one function and then rehired in another to adapt 

to changing market conditions, the education sector possesses no such history. 

Changing the roles of adults in schools typically results in conflict and undermines 

the overarching school change process—if not derailing it altogether. Most schools 

and districts lack the expertise or organizational structure with which to manage 

change and innovation. 

Further, since communities and educators must embrace the need for change, the 

absence of resources and expertise for most schools and districts to effectively engage their communities means that well-intentioned efforts can be undermined by 

relatively few, well-organized citizens or disgruntled educators. 

29 

Current funding and professional development programs reinforce a piecemeal approach to change and typically fail to support a coherent, sustained and focused 

model for schools. It stands to reason that if tools and plans for school change are 

not supported by high-quality and aligned training that the likelihood of success will 

be greatly diminished. 

The New Schools Project and its partners provide specific supports for new and 

redesigned high schools that deviate from this norm. They include: 

• Teaching for Results: This annual series of intensive professional development sessions for teachers supports the use of protocols and other tools to sustain 

the focus on instruction, academic rigor and professional learning communities. The 

sessions stress differentiating instruction, teaching literacy across the curriculum, 

facilitating meaningful learning, and providing effective student support. • Leadership Institute for High School Redesign: In cooperation with the 

University of North Carolina Center for School Leadership Development and the 

Principals’ Executive Program, the Leadership Institute for High School Redesign 

offers a peer support and professional development network for principals in new 

and redesigned high schools. The network promotes effective instructional leadership. • Coaching: Each new school also benefits from coaching services in which experienced educational leaders and master teachers assist with facilitating the overall 

change process and with the development of instructional strategies such as differentiation of teaching to meet individual needs of students; lessons and units 

which engage students in learning; and the improvement of literacy and mathematics skills. 

Investing financial resources and expertise in building the capacity of schools and 

districts to manage change is essential. Schools and districts must be expected to 

define a single, comprehensive model for change regardless of what that model 

might be and sustain the work over time. 

Further, within the broader model for change, strategies for professional development of teachers and school administrators and district office personnel must be 

tightly aligned and integrated so that they are connected at all levels to point in 

the same direction. In our work this year to help schools define rigor, the sessions 

involved both principals and teachers; in essence, they debated within their school 

the definition after visiting other schools in North Carolina thought to offer rigorous 

instruction. Expectations of teachers and principals must be aligned with those of 

district administrators for high school innovation to be sustained. 

Rethinking Leadership 

Finally, a new generation of student-focused schools calls for a new model for 

school leadership. The principal in a traditional high school is a building manager 

first and an educator second. Schools which place teaching and learning above all 

else are led by principals who understand both school design and who facilitate 

among teachers an unrelenting focus on high quality teaching and learning. 

One element of our partnerships aimed at ensuring the sustainability of innovation is our expectation that our partner schools are completely autonomous, with its 

own principal and school budget, an essential step to create more entrepreneurial 

faculties with both the responsibility and accountability for the success of all students. This increases the demand for capable leaders. 

New, proactive initiatives to identify, recruit, place and support principals to lead 

schools are required. Leadership preparation programs should emphasize both 

school designs that support achievement and the role of principals as facilitators of 

adult learning in schools intended to strengthen teaching. 

Since most district administrative staff begin as principals, creating a new generation of school leaders who believe and act as though all students can succeed will 

inevitably change districts over time. 

EARLY, BUT PROMISING RESULTS

In the 2005–2006 school year, 24 redesigned high schools and Learn and Earn 

early college high schools were open serving 3,000 high school students. This was 

the first year of operation for nearly all 24 schools. While transforming a school in 

meaningful ways that actually change teaching and learning is hard work, there are 

some initial results emerging that indicate that high school innovation is taking 

hold in North Carolina. 

• More students staying in school.—Nine of the 24 innovative high schools 

last year had no dropouts. In the crucial 9th grade year, where research has shown 

that most high school students either dropout or choose to dropout, 14 of the 24 innovative high schools had no 9th grade dropouts. Overall, the 24 innovative high 

30 

schools had a combined dropout rate of 3 percent (compared to the statewide high 

school dropout rate of 5 percent). 

• More 9th graders are being promoted.—To graduate, a student must complete required courses and be promoted from grade to grade. Research has shown 

that promotion out of 9th grade is an especially strong indicator of a student’s likelihood to graduate. Last year, 15 of the 24 innovative high schools promoted more 

than 90 percent of their 9th graders, with seven schools promoting 100 percent. 

Overall, the 24 innovative high schools had a combined 9th grade promotion rate 

of 88 percent (compared to the State 9th grade promotion rate of 85 percent). 

• More students come to school.—Student attendance in the first group of 11 

redesigned high schools topped that of their comparison schools by nearly 1 percentage point. The initial 13 Learn and Earn Early College High Schools had attendance 

rates that surpassed their districts’ rates by nearly 2 percentage points. Even fractional increases in high school attendance are considered significant. 

• More teachers believe in their schools.—The percentage of teachers in innovative high schools who ‘‘strongly agree’’ that their school is ‘‘a good place to work 

and learn’’ is nearly double the percentage in traditional high schools (48 percent 

compared to 26 percent). In fact, teachers in redesigned and early college high 

schools are significantly more satisfied in every area measured by the State’s Teacher Working Conditions Survey. 

• It’s early, but some schools do better than expected.—In the first year of 

implementing their planned transformation, a third of the innovative high schools 

met or exceeded the expected academic growth projected for them in the State’s 

ABCs accountability system. Nine of twenty-four schools outperformed the other 

comprehensive high schools in their districts. 

I know first hand that the observations I have made today place a tall order before our schools and our educators. They will not be able to meet this test alone. 

It will take sustained and strong support evidenced by political will and committed 

leadership. We bear dual burdens in this regard. We know what it means for students to be fully prepared for the demands of the 21st century—and the cost to 

them and to society when they are not. We also know, based on our work in North 

Carolina and on the work of our peers in other States, what it takes to create 

schools that can graduate all students ready for those challenges. We all must put 

our shoulder to the task of carrying that load on behalf of this Nation’s children 

as Americans always have. They deserve nothing less. 

Again, I thank you for this opportunity to speak with you. I welcome any questions you may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Edna Varner, who’s the Senior Program Consultant, of Hamilton 

County Public Education Foundation. Ms. Varner’s works on middle and high school reform in Hamilton County Public Schools in 

Chattanooga, TN. Previously, she has been both a middle school 

and a high school principal. She’ll discuss how Hamilton County 

has worked to improve high schools, middle schools by strengthening teacher workforce, improved data systems, and creating rigorous standards and curriculum. Edna will also discuss more Federal and State support could assist districts in these efforts. I’m 

sure we’d extend a warm welcome to you from our colleague and 

friend, Senator Alexander. Edna, thank you. 

STATEMENT OF EDNA VARNER, SENIOR PROGRAM CONSULTANT, HAMILTON COUNTY PUBLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION 

AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS, CHATTANOOGA, TN 

Ms. VARNER. Thank you, Chairman Kennedy, Senator Enzi, and 

members of the committee for this opportunity to speak to you 

again. I was a part of the roundtable, and that was a wonderful 

experience. Time is short, it’s hard for the teacher and principal to 

talk for 5 minutes, but I will attempt it, as my colleagues did. 

They have done an excellent job of giving a lay of the land and 

I don’t want to repeat what they’ve said. I want to spend the time 

31 

I have talking with you about some work we’ve done in Hamilton 

County and why we’re making the recommendations we have. 

At about the time No Child Left Behind legislation was being 

written into law, we were already thinking about how to modernize 

our high schools. We were fortunate, in that, we had just gained 

some support from the Carnegie Corporation, Annenberg, Bill and 

Melinda Gates, and two local foundations, Benwood and 

Lyndhurst. They gave us the opportunity for some possibility 

thinking. Not only did they give us that opportunity, they also said, 

‘‘We will give you financial support and we will also give you technical assistance.’’ 

Our little group came together and our little group was made up 

of teachers, principals, community leaders, a public education foundation, and Hamilton County Schools Partnership. We may have 

been naı ̈ve, but we just started thinking about some ‘‘what ifs.’’ 

What if, for example, we started in Hamilton County to monitor 

what matters? And then we started thinking about what matters 

to us. It matters to us that all of the students of Hamilton County 

graduate, prepared for college and prepared to accept any of the opportunities of the 21st Century. 

It was important to us that all of our students get a rigorous, relevant education. It was important to us that the students in the 

lowest-performing schools would no longer be in low-performing 

schools. That all of our teachers would have the skills to teach all 

of our students. 

We decided, again maybe being naı ̈ve, to act on those. One of the 

things we decided to do was to look at who was graduating and 

how students were graduating. We realized in 2001 that we had 

several diplomas for students. We had special ed diploma, then we 

had a diploma for students who merely showed up for 4 years. We 

had a diploma for students who graduated meeting State requirements, but they weren’t eligible for college. Then we had a diploma 

for students who would be eligible for college. 

We decided that that was not acceptable. And so, this was hard 

to do, and we talked about it at the roundtable, we decided—what 

if we had one diploma? And that one diploma guaranteed all of our 

students all of the opportunities? It was difficult to do, but our 

school board, our community—we had lots of conversations—and 

our school board passed that. After we achieved that, we thought 

now we’ve got to deliver on that. Because in talking to people the 

greatest concern was this. We would fail more students, we would 

have more students dropping out. We had to realize, we’re already 

failing students, we already have large numbers of students dropping out. 

What do we do to make sure that we can deliver on the promise 

of all students graduating with the kind of diploma that would give 

them all of the choices available to any student? 

We established academies to replace our vocational courses. Our 

vocational courses, in the past, did a good job of training students 

for some jobs that would be available. We realized that in the 21st 

century, we don’t even know what jobs will be possibilities for our 

students when they graduate. 

We decided that maybe what we ought to do is teach kids, not 

how to fix a car or to build a building, but how to be entrepreVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:54 Feb 02, 2009 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00035 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\35072.TXT DENISE
32 

neurial in their thinking, how to solve problems. What kinds of 

questions do you ask when you’re really curious? What does it 

mean to really be persistent? We decided that, while it’s important 

to monitor whether students can define and spell those words, it 

is more important to determine the extent to which we’re helping 

students be those words. It’s a tall order, but it’s really doable and 

we’re showing that in Hamilton County. 

We also looked at our dropout rate and you’ve described it. We 

were shocked. We had not, we knew the numbers, but when we decided to sit down and spend whole evenings looking at them, because it was just unacceptable. We decided to do something simple. 

What if we call the students who had recently dropped out and ask 

them if they would come back to school, if we could find ways to 

help them graduate with a regular diploma? What if when students 

went to their guidance counselors and said they were thinking of 

dropping out, we talked to them about that and offer them that? 

What if we invested in a high school that could help students who 

were three or four credits short? 

I have a brother who dropped out of high school in his senior 

year and he’s spent a lifetime as a college dropout. This has a personal meaning for me. What if we talked to students and offered 

a way for them to take those two or three credits and not be at 

a school with—they don’t have to do cheerleading or whatever. 

We actually established an adult high school. We were hoping to 

lure 100 dropouts back. We’re having to open other schools to meet 

the needs, to meet the demand. These are students who would 

have been dropouts for the rest of their lives. 

What if we tackled the issues of equity? I’m talking about issues 

of equity for promises that were made as early as 1954. What if 

in our district, we decided to do something about that? One of the 

best ways to achieve equity is to make sure that all students have 

access to a highly qualified teacher. This is not just highly qualified 

in the paperwork. Right now we have schools that can say, ‘‘Check 

that off. We’ve got highly qualified teachers,’’ but many of them are 

teachers who just graduated a month ago. They will be wonderful, 

but they’re still working on that. 

Let me share this with you. Suppose I wanted my seniors to 

spend their senior year, instead of cruising through it, to learn 

about how our Government works, to learn, for example, how the 

Senate works. I couldn’t hire you to. I’d have to, I can hire you 

now, a year ago I could have hired you, but I would have to send 

a letter home that says, ‘‘Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi 

are—— 

The CHAIRMAN. We got some Republicans you can hire, over 

here. 

Ms. VARNER [continuing]. Are not highly qualified.’’ 

[Laughter.] 

That is not to say we don’t believe teachers should have the credentials. There are teachers in our schools who have their teaching 

credentials. There are subjects that schools can’t offer because 

they’re not highly qualified in those areas, even though they have 

all the talent and experience. We’re advocating for broadening the 

definition of highly-qualified teacher. 

33 

In our districts we’ve set up networks. Some schools have great 

principals. Some schools have great teachers, and they produce 

great thinking. Some schools are not as fortunate. They have principals and teachers who are getting there. 

We have a series of networks, and our principals come together 

and they learn together, and so that every school benefits from the 

collective wisdom and knowledge in Hamilton County. We have 

change coaches. These are folks who are in the schools to help provide instructional, professional development. Those folks come together and learn together, so every child in our district benefits 

from the collective wisdom there. We have literacy coaches, and literacy is a big issue. The Striving Readers Act is a great step in the 

right direction. 

When you hear the numbers about students who are not reading 

well, and you visit a school you think, ‘‘That can’t be true, they 

sound as if they read well.’’ Well, Cris Tovani, in her novel, in her 

book, ‘‘They Read It, But They Don’t Get It’’ detailed a problem. 

We have kids in school who are fake readers. They seem to be 

reading well. They can call words, but the reason we aren’t doing 

well in science and all those advance level courses is they’re fake 

reading. They really don’t comprehend. When do we find out? 

When they take the ACT, and we see those scores. Well, by the 

time we see those scores, we’re doing what Doug Reeves calls, we’re 

just doing, reading an autopsy report. They’re already juniors and 

seniors and we’ve wasted middle school years, and we’ve wasted 

high school years, that we could have been addressing that. 

I’ll stop now by just saying this. I’m proud of my district. We’ve 

done a lot to act on our ‘‘what ifs,’’ but not to suggest you can do 

it without the resources you need. You do need the resources. What 

if we had great data systems? What if we had support beyond the 

length of these grants? What if we had all the support that we 

could get from No Child Left Behind to act on the expertise that 

our schools have? I agree with my colleagues. What if we had that? 

Our recommendation is to help us make that ‘‘what if’’ a reality. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Varner follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF EDNA E. VARNER

Chairman Kennedy, Ranking Member Enzi, and members of the HELP Committee, thank you for the invitation to give testimony about middle and high school 

work and make recommendations on behalf of my colleagues for NCLB reauthorization. 

My name is Edna Varner. I am presently a senior program consultant for the 

Hamilton County Public Education Foundation and Public Schools’ partnership, 

working primarily on middle and high school reform. I am also a leadership associate for Cornerstone, a national literacy initiative. In my previous life I was a 

teacher, a middle school principal, and a high school principal, serving students in 

schools with poverty as high as 98 percent. I am a product of Chattanooga public 

schools; in fact, my K–12 education was in segregated public schools in Chattanooga. In my experience working with schools in Hamilton County and across the 

country, I have had an opportunity to see some of our worst public schools and some 

of our best. 

In 2001, the Public Education Foundation in partnership with Hamilton County 

Schools began two major multi-million dollar initiatives aimed at transforming our 

9 lowest performing elementary schools and reinventing all 16 of Hamilton County’s 

high schools. These 5-year initiatives joined existing long-term programs in leadership development, highly effective teaching, and community engagement. In 2005, 

PEF launched a multiyear, multimillion-dollar project to boost achievement in Hamilton County’s 21 middle schools, bridging the gap between successful elementary 

34 

and high school work. In partnership with the school district, we have built support 

for students from kindergarten to college. 

Hamilton County Schools and PEF welcomed the promise of NCLB. We developed 

rigorous standards, engaged faculties in the training necessary to deliver appropriate instruction, and jumped at the opportunity for resources and technical support from the Carnegie Corporation, the Annenberg Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and local Foundations, Benwood and Lyndhurst. Even before the NCLB Commissions affirmed it, we understood that our students must be able to compete globally, that our standards must take us there, and that our assessments and data 

must give us confidence that we are reaching our goals. 

At the time NCLB came into existence Hamilton County Schools received a generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation and matching funds raised by our local 

Public Education Foundation to provide resources for possibility. We are proud to 

say our schools have been good stewards of the resources, using them to experiment 

with what ifs—what if we encouraged principals to build knowledge and capacity 

and to work in collaboration instead of competition and isolation? What if we provided schools with expert teachers to work as on-site professional developers and instructional coaches? What if we asked students how they learn best and engaged 

them as colleagues to help us achieve rigor and relevance through new career academies? What if we beefed up support for 9th grade and focused on 9th grade promotion rates? What if we made it possible for high school drop outs to drop back 

in to school and finish with a regular diploma? What if we invited outside evaluators to come into our schools and tell us what they see as strengths and weaknesses of our implementation practices? What if we strengthened the roles of parents on school leadership teams so that they can help inform curricular decisions? 

What if we held ourselves accountable for closing the achievement gap and for providing opportunities for all students to learn at higher levels? What if we used data 

routinely to guide our work? What if we held all our students to high standards and 

offered only one diploma that would make all our graduates eligible for postsecondary education? And what if we learned ways to sustain possibility at the end of 

the grants, knowing we can not go back once we have developed the habits of moving forward. And what if we are determined to do this and comply with NCLB. 

SCHOOLS FOR A NEW SOCIETY IN HAMILTON COUNTY

Reinventing 16 High Schools With 16 Unique Blueprints for Success 

Every high school in Hamilton County is reinventing itself to create a more engaging, more challenging, and more personalized learning experience for all students. 

In 2001, PEF and Hamilton County Schools jointly received an $8 million Schools 

for a New Society grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the largest 

private grant in the history of our schools. PEF committed to raise a matching $6 

million, making a total of $14 million dedicated to high school reform. 

Because Hamilton County high schools are unusually diverse—urban, rural and 

suburban, as well as magnet and conventional zoned schools—each school has developed its own blueprint for reform while addressing four basic goals: to establish a 

more challenging, relevant and engaging curriculum; to improve teaching by providing more professional development for teachers, leaders and staff; to create a 

more personalized and engaging experience for students; and to allow more flexibility to meet student needs more effectively. 

A key element is a new single-path diploma for all students. Beginning with students entering ninth grade in 2005, the single path diploma will raise graduation 

requirements for all students and put them on a track that will prepare them to 

graduate with a diploma that qualifies them to enroll in a 4-year college or obtain 

a higher skill job. 

Eleven high schools have now established career academies. The goal is to create 

interest-driven, challenging learning experiences and to increase student achievement by fostering small learning communities. Academies at different schools include business & technology, engineering, environmental sciences, global studies, 

transportation, health sciences, and construction. Some schools have several academies. All academies combine college preparatory courses with a career theme to 

make academic learning more engaging and challenging. Ninth grade can be a 

make-or-break year, often ending in dropout or setting a long-term pattern of low 

expectations and low achievement. That’s why all schools are addressing the ninth 

grade year through summer transition programs and some are creating ninth grade 

academies that give students more individual attention in this critical year. 

Other important strategies include eliminating low-level courses, increasing the 

number of low-income and minority students who take rigorous academic courses, 

35 

providing advisory classes for all students and expanding the use of literacy coaches 

to increase reading skills of all students. 

Building a working partnership between PEF and the school system on the scale 

required by this initiative has been vital. The school system has supported the efforts of individual schools by taking many steps to create a decentralized environment in which new ideas can be nurtured and practiced. 

So that every student has access to the best Hamilton County has to offer, we 

have created networks of principals, change coaches (established at schools to provide on site expertise), college access counselors, and literacy leaders. Networks 

meet monthly to learn together and share best practices to take back to individual 

schools. 

In 2005, we launched a planning year of work to build on the success of the high 

school initiative and bridge the gap with Middle Schools for a New Society. 

This has been the work of Hamilton County Schools and the Public Education 

Foundation since 2001. In some areas we are succeeding. Some of our data are included in this testimony to show our progress. We have momentum and evidence 

to support it, but we have not reached the high goals we have set for ourselves— 

all of our students achieving at high levels and graduating with the knowledge and 

skills to pursue any opportunity available to students of the 21st century. This is 

why we are here today to ask for your help. 

NCLB IMPLEMENTATION: PROMISES, PROMISES

While much of the discourse on the subject of NCLB is around closing the achievement gap for subgroups, a gap that needs equal attention is the gap between overall 

intention and reality. One reality is that NCLB is attempting to deliver on an 

unkept promise made years ago in the form of a 1954 landmark decision declaring 

separate but equal schools inherently unequal. The separate but equal schools for 

that century were visibly black and white. For the 21st century the distinctions are 

less obvious because students of poverty come in all colors. More than 50 years since 

that decision, it should be impossible to walk into an empty school on the weekend 

and tell who it serves by looking at the children’s environment and their work. The 

broken promises are even clearer if one visits a school when children are present. 

With No Child Left Behind, we received another promise: that public schools 

would now be held accountable for at least the promise of having students bloom 

where they are. But blooming in spite of overwhelming challenges is reminiscent of 

an era we hoped to leave behind. Children in the lowest performing schools do not 

get the same education as their peers in schools with resources, access to large numbers of highly skilled adults, and diversity. The climate and performance of a school 

is very different when the school is constantly faced with heavy sanctions if the 

scores are not up, when the school can not attract the best teachers (teachers who 

are creative and innovative and find no time for their talents in ‘‘schools in improvement’’) or the best principals (the heads are the first heads to roll). These schools 

are inherently unequal, and that is not what we promised. 

Children in the lowest performing schools can transfer to other schools where 

their poor test scores are unwelcome (a few poor test scores can mean the difference 

between AYP success or failure) and so unwelcome test scores translate into unwelcome children. When they are welcomed, their teachers may feel unprepared for the 

challenges they bring, so these children are pulled out for special ‘‘remedial classes’’ 

where they remain—not just left behind, but left out. 

Schools want the promises of accountability, but they want to feel equal to the 

challenges accountability brings. That requires resources—as predictable as interventions and sanctions. Educators are frustrated, of course, by poor test scores, but 

they are equally frustrated by scores from low-level tests that say their students are 

making great progress when teachers know they are not. (Compare published State 

test scores to NAEP scores). 

Educators want to prepare students for life and work as well as for tests. We understand the challenges of modernizing for the 21st century, especially preparing 

our students for jobs and opportunities that we may not imagine at this moment. 

We can be globally competitive with populations that far outnumber us, just one 

more reason to leave no child behind. That is a promise we can keep, but not until 

we confront the realities of NCLB implementation and work harder to make them 

reflect the intent. 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

We concur with many of the recommendations by the NCLB Commission. The following three are high priority for middle and high schools. 

36 

Recommendation 1: Support Highly Qualified and Effective Teachers and Principals 

We must invest in teacher capacity, and that costs money. 

We especially recommend greater investment in building teacher capacity at the 

secondary level. The overwhelming percent of title I funds go to elementary education, yet data show increasing need for support at the secondary level. We are not 

suggesting that elementary schools do not need these funds and we know that trying to use existing funds more creatively only shortchanges our children. We need 

additional funding to support more capacity building for secondary teachers and 

principals who need high quality professional development that prepares them to 

prepare their students for a world that is rapidly changing. 

We also recommend using NCLB to break the log jam on differentiated pay or incentive payments for shortage area teachers (math and science) to teach in hardto-staff schools, for example, high poverty middle schools. We need increases in 

funding for principal and teacher leadership development. 

Recommendation 2: Support Fair Accountability and Improved Data Systems to 

Track Student Performance 

We encourage support of the following recommendation by the NCLB Commission: 

• Improve the accuracy and fairness of AYP calculations by allowing States to include achievement growth in such calculations. These calculations would enable 

schools to receive credit for students who are on track to becoming proficient within 

3 years, based on the growth trajectory of their assessment scores, when calculating 

AYP for the student’s school. Including growth as a factor in AYP will yield richer 

and more useful data on student performance—both for the classroom and for school 

accountability purposes. 

• To determine growth, it is crucial that States have in place sophisticated, highquality data systems that can track student performance over time and assessment 

systems that can monitor student growth from year to year. Therefore, we recommend that States be required to develop high-quality longitudinal data systems 

that permit the tracking of student achievement over time. 

Recommendation 3: Increase Funding for Literacy and Numeracy 

Whether students remain in low performing but improving schools or they transfer to higher performing schools, their ultimate success depends on their level of literacy and numeracy. Research is telling us that even high performing students are 

able to mask weak skills until they begin testing for college. The Federal Government spends $1 billion (or $72 per child) for literacy in grades K–3, but it only 

spends $30 million (or 13 cents per child) in grades 6–12. We get what we pay for— 

4th grade NAEP scores have risen significantly in the past 5 years. Unfortunately, 

8th and 12th grade NAEP scores have remained flat or even declined. 

Without the literacy skills needed to succeed in all subjects, students will be left 

behind. The Federal Government must invest in literacy in NCLB. We appreciate 

the Federal Striving Readers program for older students. We also urge you to support the Striving Readers bill introduced in the Senate that would expand and 

strengthen Federal efforts in adolescent literacy. The Striving Readers Act is a step 

in the right direction for improving the achievement of all students: 

• The bill would provide targeted intervention to students far behind; 

• The bill would train teachers in all core subjects to use literacy strategies; and 

• The bill would include grades 4 to 12 so that all grades (K–12) are served. 

The Striving Readers Act can also help all States improve literacy. The current 

Striving Readers program serves only 8 cities across the country; 150 districts applied, and Memphis schools in Tennessee received one of the grants. The proposed 

Striving Readers Act would ensure every State is served. 

In conclusion, all of our children deserve our best, and our teachers and principals 

deserve the training and resources to offer nothing less. Accountability helps us confirm that we are doing our best work. We welcome that. We appreciate the opportunity to share our experiences and make our recommendations to the committee. 

America has always been a land of promise. If we continue to work to improve the 

model, NCLB can be a promise kept. Again, thank you for this opportunity. 

37 

HAMILTON COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL DATA


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35072-2.eps 35072-3.eps
39 

The CHAIRMAN. Good for you. Thank you so much. 

Final witness this morning, John Podesta, the President and 

CEO, Center for American Progress. John Podesta was Chief of 

Staff and Policy Advisor to President Clinton. He will discuss the 


35072-4.eps 35072-5.eps
40 

Center’s recommendations, how to increase graduation rates, including increased Federal support, promoting State and local initiatives, investing in research and strategies of work, building State 

and district capacity, developing and implementing proven models. 

He’s an old friend. We welcome him to the committee. Thank 

you, John. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN PODESTA, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS, WASHINGTON, DC. 

Mr. PODESTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Enzi and 

members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify 

before you this morning. 

My written testimony lays out the specific arguments about why 

I think the Bingaman, Burr, Kennedy bill that was recently introduced, the Graduation Promise Act, is a necessary and vital step 

toward improving our Nation’s graduation rates. This morning, I’d 

just like to make three brief points. 

First, the detrimental effects of our Nation’s graduation crisis, 

coupled with the overall poor State of our children’s educational 

proficiency, really just can not be overstated. Simply put, I think 

we’re headed, as a Nation, toward a significant erosion of our economic well being and our way of life, unless we find more effective 

ways to keep our kids in school, increase their ability to compete 

with others in a turbulent, globalized economy. 

In America today, two and three students leave high school unprepared for college or the modern workplace. While at the same 

time, the Department of Labor estimates that almost 90 percent of 

the fastest-growing jobs in the United States require at least some 

postsecondary education. In the shifting global economy where 

knowledge and skills are crucial to good-paying jobs, too many of 

our students are falling off the track to economic independence and 

advancement. We know that’s much worse for poor kids and children who are members of racial minorities. 

That hinders our Nation’s overall competitiveness, as students in 

other nations become better prepared for the jobs of the future. In 

turn, the lack of basic educational attainment, unduly consigns millions of young people to a life of low earnings and poverty, as the 

other panelists have talked about. 

The graduation crisis in our schools must, therefore, be seen as 

a genuine threat to our Nation’s prosperity. I just would note that 

that is the heart, I think the heart of the reason why the strange 

bedfellows of the Center for American Progress and the Chamber 

of Commerce, Tom Donahue and myself, came together recently to 

propose a joint platform for education reform, whose targets for reform include the 2,000 high school dropout factories that Bob’s 

talked about. 

I raise that because, for those of note, who know me and Tom, 

we don’t agree on that much. This is not a left-right issue, this is 

not a partisan issue. I really want to take a moment to commend 

this committee for approaching this issue in a bipartisan way and 

finding the right solutions for our Nation’s kids and our Nation’s 

economy. 

Second point I want to make, as some of the other panelists have 

made, is that there are innovative and proven solutions to address 

41 

the graduation crisis and increase the academic readiness of our 

students. We know they exist. We recently did a report with Jobs 

for the Future, which highlights approaches like expanded learning 

time, rapid response, intervention, and intensive focus on language 

and math skills in the ninth grade, which all help to better prepare 

students for advancement to the sophomore year, which is a strong 

predictor of future on-time graduation. 

We also know the importance of creating more challenging academic environments, developing more direct connections between 

academic standards and college or job readiness requirements, and 

making explicit the links between high school and postsecondary 

opportunities. States and cities from New York to Chicago to Portland, Oregon, as the chairman noted, all across the country, have 

all created successful policies and programs to increase graduation 

success, and many have, of those programs have been successful. 

Let me just note one, the Multiple Pathways to Graduation Program in New York City, which replaced 20 of the lowest-performing 

high schools with 189 new small schools. Many of those schools are 

now graduating two to three times as many students who have fallen off the normal path than other high schools that they replaced. 

Third, the Graduation Promise Act that, as I mentioned, I think 

is a critical tool to help lower the dropout rates, improve academic 

readiness, and support proven models to keep kids in school and 

on the path to educational success. There’s a clear role for the Federal Government in addressing our Nation’s dropout crisis. I love 

the Gates Foundation. You see some of their grantees here, but it’s 

not enough to just rely on the Gates Foundation to fund innovative 

means of improving school graduation and performance. Worthwhile State and local efforts deserve Federal support, as well, and 

that’s why I think this committee is considering what they need to 

get done. 

The Graduation Promise Act provides a critical set of Federal 

tools to assist States as they fight high school attrition. It seeks to 

directly interrupt the dropout crisis in the worst performing 

schools. In addition to the Federal, State, local partnerships for improving low-performing high schools, title II of that act will offer 

new grants to schools, higher education institutions, non profit organizations, and other partnerships to develop specific ways to help 

current dropouts, perspective dropouts, and older students, and 

those facing English language barriers, better navigate high school 

toward the goal of on-time graduation and solid preparedness for 

college or a career. Title III of the Graduation Promise Act also authorizes additional competitive grants to States to devise successful 

policies to align the twin goals of higher graduation rates and 

maintaining high academic standards. 

In 1989, Congress set a goal that America’s schools should have 

a 90 percent graduation rate. We still haven’t bumped up over 70 

percent. Seven in ten students only, graduate from high school. If 

you look at racial and ethnic minorities, only about half are graduating on time. That’s unacceptable, it’s detrimental to our Nation’s long-term economic competitiveness. I think the efforts that 

this committee is undertaking will prove practical, cost-effective, 

and reasonable steps toward improving life expectations of our 

42 

1 Balfanz, Robert and Nettie Letgers, ‘‘Locating the Dropout Crisis: Which High Schools 

Produce the Nation’s Dropouts? Where are They Located? Who Attends Them?’’ Report 70, 

Johns Hopkins University, September 2004. 2Steinberg, Adria, Cassius Johnson, and Hilary Pennington, ‘‘Addressing America’s Dropout 

Challenge: State Efforts to Boost Graduation Rates Require Federal Support,’’ Center for American Progress and Jobs for the Future, November 17, 2006. [http://www.americanprogress.org/ 

issues/2006/11/graduation.html] 

young people and reversing that, that potential for economic tragedy for our country. 

I strongly encourage the committee to move both the Graduation 

Promise Act and the other initiatives that have been discussed this 

morning. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Podesta follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN D. PODESTA

Thank you, Chairman Kennedy, Senator Enzi, and members of the committee. I 

am John Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for American 

Progress. I am also a Visiting Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law 

Center. 

I appreciate the opportunity to be with you today to discuss the serious and growing graduation crisis in American schools. As the committee considers the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, it is imperative for our Nation’s economic 

success—and for the life chances of our children—that you examine ways to not only 

improve school standards and accountability but also increase the ability of States 

and localities to keep kids in school and move them successfully through to graduation. 

I would like to talk with you today about the Graduation Promise Act (GPA), introduced yesterday by Senators Bingaman, Burr, and Kennedy, and developed with 

the support of the Center for American Progress, Jobs for the Future, the Alliance 

for Excellent Education, and the National Council of La Raza. I believe the GPA 

is a necessary and vital step toward improving our Nation’s graduation rates. It will 

provide critical Federal resources to aid States in their efforts to develop, implement, and expand proven methods for keeping a diverse range of students in school 

and on the path to economic success. 

It is well established that our students have fallen behind past generations of 

Americans and young people in other nations in terms of on-time high school completion rates. For decades now, the United States on-time graduation rate has failed 

to top 70 percent. This is below national graduation rates recorded in the middle 

of the twentieth century and well below current graduation rates in other countries. 

The United States ranked first in the world in terms of secondary school graduation 

rates 40 years ago. Today it ranks 17th. 

For racial and ethnic minorities, the statistics are even grimmer. Graduation 

rates for African-Americans and Hispanic students today range between 50 percent 

and 55 percent. Every year we lose more and more of these students in schools that 

are essentially ‘‘dropout factories,’’ a term used by Johns Hopkins University researchers Robert Balfanz and Nettie Letgers to describe the 2,000 worst performing 

schools in terms of graduation rates.1

In a rapidly shifting global economy, where knowledge and skills are crucial to 

good paying jobs, too many of our students are falling off the track to economic independence and advancement. In turn, the lack of basic educational attainment unduly consigns millions of our young people to a life of low earnings and poverty. 

High school dropouts are twice as likely to be unemployed as those with diplomas; 

working dropouts are far more likely to have low-wage jobs and fewer health and 

retirement benefits than others. 

It is clear that a high school diploma is the bare minimum requirement for decent 

work and economic security in today’s world. It is thus incumbent upon all of us 

to do more to ensure that our students stay in school and on the path to greater 

intellectual achievement and improved job skills. In a nation with the resources and 

talent of ours, graduation should never be a ‘‘fifty-fifty’’ proposition for anyone. 

In November 2006, the Center for American Progress and Jobs for the Future 

originally proposed the Graduation Promise Act as a way for the Federal Government to support States in their efforts to boost graduation rates.2 In a report entitled, ‘‘Addressing America’s Dropout Challenge,’’ Adria Steinberg, Cassius Johnson, 

and Hilary Pennington describe a range of successful State programs for improving 

43 

3Steinberg et al., p. 17. 

school completion rates and propose several policies that serve as the basis for the 

exact bill we are discussing today. 

The CAP/JFF report highlights how extended learning time, rapid response and 

intervention when students fail or fall behind, alongside intensive focus on language 

and math skills in the 9th grade, all help to better prepare students for advancement to sophomore year—a strong predictor of future on-time graduation. Other research featured in the report highlights the importance of creating more challenging 

academic environments for potential ‘‘off-track’’ students, developing more direct 

connections between academic standards and college or job readiness requirements, 

and making more explicit links between high school and postsecondary college or 

job opportunities through greater college exposure and internships. 

Modeled on these and other efforts, the authors of the report feature a number 

of current State-level policies and programs to increase graduation success. For example: 

• Indiana enacted the Dropout Prevention Act in 2006 to require schools to identify 9th graders who are falling behind and then advise them on ways to catch up 

and get additional tutorial help. 

• New York City has created a program to increase ‘‘multiple pathways to graduation,’’ by offering students of various ages and academic achievement different options for getting back on track, including transfer schools that provide small, targeted aid for at-risk students. These schools are now graduating two to three times 

as many students who have fallen off the normal path than other high schools. 

• Other school districts in cities from Chicago and Boston to Milwaukee and 

Chattanooga have put in place a range of methods for predicting which students are 

most likely to dropout and devised effective strategies for keeping these kids in 

school and improving their college and job preparedness. Graduation rates are showing signs of improvement in all of these cities. 

As these State and local efforts have shown, identifying potential dropouts and 

then executing strategies for keeping students in school should not be an episodic 

process. It requires sustained monitoring, creativity, and specialized intervention in 

order to succeed. Researchers and practitioners know that we can dramatically improve graduation rates, but they need more support in order for the strategies to 

take hold and work over time. 

The Graduation Promise Act, therefore, proposes a set of Federal efforts to assist 

States in fighting high school attrition in three primary areas: more directly interrupting the dropout crisis in the worst performing schools; developing new strategies for improving graduation rates while maintaining academic standards; and investing more in proven methods for increasing graduation rates and supporting 

State policies in this area. 

Since Bob Wise has addressed the general problem of low-performing high schools 

that is the core challenge addressed in the first part of GPA, let me focus on the 

second and third aspects of the bill. 

Title II of the Graduation Promise Act authorizes the Secretary of Education to 

award $60 million in competitive, peer-reviewed grants for the development, execution, and replication of promising and innovative methods to help schools prevent 

dropouts. In devising this provision, the goal was to provide seed money for empirically-driven, methodologically rigorous pilot programs that will help schools increase 

graduation rates without sacrificing their academic standards. 

As the authors of the CAP/JFF report describe, there is a useful precedent for this 

type of experimentation in the National Science Foundation’s Statewide Systemic 

Initiatives Program of 1991: 

Having determined that it was critical to enable dramatic changes in the way 

mathematics, science, and technology were taught, Congress seeded efforts in 

25 States to align policy, develop new standards and assessments, and set up 

research and demonstration schools that would serve as models for statewide 

reform. The results: demonstrable improvements in hands-on school work and 

small-group work in motivating student inquiries; better instructional materials; and more standards-based policies for curriculum improvements, student 

assessments and teacher preparations.3

Like these past efforts, Title II of the Graduation Promise Act will offer new 

grants to schools, higher education institutions, nonprofit organizations, or other 

partnerships to develop specific ways to help current dropouts, prospective dropouts, 

older students, and those facing English-language barriers better navigate high 

44 

4Steinberg et al., p. 22. 

school toward a goal of on-time graduation and solid preparedness for college or a 

career. 

In determining the ultimate viability and success of these programs, and the potential worthiness for future replication, Congress and the Secretary of Education 

will want to explore a number of important criteria for success. For example: 

• Does the intervention program lead to improvement in achievement, graduation 

rates, and other key school outcomes above and beyond what would have occurred 

without the intervention? 

• Why and how were these effects achieved? 

• What aspect of the reform drove the effects? 

• What was the role of enabling conditions (including new policies)? 

• Was the cost worth it in terms of outcomes? 4

To help answer these and other questions, any recipient of GPA grants will be 

required to collect and analyze relevant data on the success of various programs and 

disseminate this information to school districts and State and local education agencies. The Secretary of Education will also have the authority to commission outside, 

independent evaluations of these programs to measure and assess the impacts of 

these programs. 

In addition to providing grants for innovative new programs, Title III of the Graduation Promise Act authorizes another $40 million in competitive grants to States 

for devising successful policies for aligning the twin goals of achieving higher graduation rates and maintaining high academic standards and college/career readiness. 

In order to avoid more ‘‘dropout factories’’ in America, title III requires that each 

participating State first conduct a so-called gap-and-impact analysis of the policies, 

regulations, and laws affecting the following areas: school funding; data capacity; accountability systems; interventions in high priority secondary schools; new school 

development; and dissemination and implementation of effective local school improvement activities throughout the State. 

Following this analysis, States will then use their grants to develop policies to 

align their school systems with the methods that work best to keep students in 

school and better prepare them for the future. 

As Indiana, New York, Louisiana, and other States have shown, there are proven 

methods for moving ‘‘off-track’’ students into alternative learning environments such 

as small schools and other recovery models for struggling students. States are also 

implementing stronger policies to align higher graduation rates with better college 

preparation and career-readiness targets. 

But these efforts require more sustained funding in order to be given a full chance 

to work for consecutive generations of students. Title III of the GPA will allow more 

States to address the policy gaps between innovative models for graduation success 

and the current structure of their school systems. 

Congress set a goal in 1989 that America’s schools should have a 90 percent graduation rate. Eighteen years later, roughly 7 in 10 students—and only half of racial 

and ethnic minority students—graduate on-time from high school. This is unacceptable and detrimental to our Nation’s long-term economic competitiveness. 

Equally important, there is no reason for our Nation’s schools to continually return such paltry graduation numbers. Educators and policymakers know more than 

ever about how best to close the ‘‘graduation gap’’ and better situate our students 

in the global economy. The Graduation Promise Act would provide critical support 

to these efforts and would signal a strong Federal commitment to prevent millions 

more American students from dropping out of school and limiting their opportunities in life. 

The Graduation Promise Act represents practical, cost-effective, and reasonable 

steps toward improving the life expectations of our young people. I strongly encourage the committee to move this bill forward. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the members of the committee, for inviting me 

today. I’d be happy to take any questions you may have. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank the panel. This has been an extraordinary, helpful panel. They’ve outlined the challenges in a 

very informed way and have all made a series of very constructive 

recommendations about what our roles are in improving middle 

and high school education. It’s been a very, very positive, very helpful, tough-minded, but useful. 

45 

I want to thank Senator Murray for joining us here. She’s been 

particularly concerned about these issues as a former teacher herself, and a school board member. She brings to our committee a 

very special insight and has been extremely active and involved in 

policy matters, particularly in the areas of dropouts and education 

issues. We thank her. 

We’re joined by Senator Burr, who has been mentioned with Jeff 

Bingaman, I was delighted to join with them on this targeted program to deal with middle schools. Thank Senator Isakson, who’s 

enormously interested in this issue, these issues of education. 

Senator Bingaman, I know has to go to the floor on the consideration of the America Competes Act, so I’ll ask him if he’ll be our 

first questioner. 

Senator BINGAMAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I don’t have questions. I did want to just say a word, though, and 

thank you for your leadership, and Senator Burr for his leadership 

and, of course, Senator Enzi, and all the others on this committee 

that have worked hard to try to focus on this problem. 

I do think around here is, my observation over the time I’ve been 

here is that, you can only take action, significant legislative action, 

when you’ve got a critical mass of awareness and concern about a 

problem. I think we are to a point where there is a critical mass 

of awareness and concern about this dropout problem, that we can 

do something significant in No Child Left Behind’s reauthorization 

this year to deal with it. 

I think this Graduation Promise Act, which you co-sponsored 

with Senator Burr and myself, is a good proposal in that it would 

try to target funds on the exact schools Bob Balfanz talked about 

and many of the other witnesses talked about. 

I do think the other key point is obviously, that we now know 

enough to know how to do something significant. I think for a long 

time it was just anecdotal and there, everyone had their story 

about some school or some principal or some teacher that was making a very major difference in keeping students engaged, and in 

school, and making progress. Now I think we know enough that, 

we know enough about where the problem’s concentrated, as you 

pointed out—50 percent of the dropouts concentrated in 15 percent 

of the high schools. Bob mentioned that statistic as well. That gives 

us the opportunity to really concentrate on solving the problem and 

we do know how to solve the problem. I hope we will take this 

great opportunity and do so this year in the rewrite of No Child 

Left Behind. 

But again, thank you for letting me be here and thanks for the 

great hearing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good. 

We welcome Senator Brown, who was here at the beginning of 

the hearing. I thank his long-standing interest in education, health 

matters, and we’re so grateful that he’s been here through the 

course of matter. 

Senator Enzi, would you like to follow, since Jeff has spoken for 

our side. Would you like to be recognized? And then we’ll resume 

the order, but going back and forth. 

Senator ENZI. If you want to ask some questions first, that would 

be fine. 

46 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I’d just take one, maybe if I could, please. 

We’ve had very constructive suggestions and ideas. 

If the other members have a particular scheduling time, we try 

to cooperate and deal with those. 

I’m interested in, and some of you have referenced this, about, 

what is our responsibility in this whole process? You know, we can 

listen to the different witnesses and you can hear about these responsibilities—the Federal level, State, and local communities, I 

mean, it’s going to take a combination—we hear what’s going on 

in North Carolina. You’ve mentioned it’s had a very proud tradition 

with a series of Governors going way back to Terry Sanford. Going 

back to even before, there has been long-committment to education 

issues and having been down, myself, to the university to listen to 

things that were happening 2 or 3 years ago, it was enormously impressive. 

We’ve seen in some of these communities and in Chattanooga 

what’s been happening there. Governor Wise talks about it at the 

State level. Mr. Podesta talks about the hope that’s out there. We 

listened to Bob Balfanz who told us, very eloquently, about what 

keeps happening, particularly in the Baltimore school systems. 

Just very quickly and then we’ll move on. I’ll recognize Senator 

Enzi. If you could apprise me, we’ve got the legislation that’s there, 

but there has to be more. We’ve talked about how the support we’re 

going to give is going to help the States to move, and we’ve got to 

try and work with the teachers to get them up to speed. Could you 

talk a little bit about what you think is a fair responsibility for us 

here at the Federal level to try and, maybe each one will take a 

quick crack at it. Then I’ll recognize Senator Enzi. 

Mr. BALFANZ. I’ll start. I think a prime role is to be the steward 

of the reform for these dropout factories, for lack of a better word. 

Right now, we can ask ourselves, why haven’t we brought reforms 

to scale? Why haven’t we brought the successful things where they 

need to be? We know some things stand in the way. 

Occasionally, not often, it’s a lack of will. That’s where I think 

No Child Left Behind is important, by saying, ‘‘We’re not going to 

let you wait 5, 10 years to reform these schools. Every year you’re 

losing kids, you could do better. Do better now.’’ 

Second of all, there’s uneven resources and know-how at school 

levels, district levels, State levels. There’s a role to help even that 

out, to making sure everyone has access to the high-quality technical assistance they need, that it’s not the luck of the draw, that 

you happen to have a good superintendent, or you happen to live 

in a progressive State that’s invested in education. That every kids 

knows that where they go to high school, there’s that support 

mechanism. 

Finally, it’s helping to even out the resources, because many districts have made, sort of, this Hobbesian choice between investing 

in early education or secondary education. What happens is, they 

put it in the front end, which makes a lot of sense, but then when 

the kid drops out, all those resources and investments walk out the 

door. Those are some of the key areas. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good. Mr. Wise. 

Mr. WISE. Senator, I would argue that the Federal role can continue to be what it is, which is targeted, but recognizing it’s reVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:54 Feb 02, 2009 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\35072.TXT DENISE
47 

sponding to a truly National compelling need. This is a silent Sputnik. When you see the statistics that are laid as they are, we’re losing, in terms of our international competitiveness, 80 percent of 

current jobs require postsecondary. 

What’s the Federal role? I would suggest where, since we know 

71 percent of our eighth graders are reading below grade level, the 

Striving Readers Authorization targeted—Senator Murray, thank 

you very, very much for your leadership in introducing that here. 

Data and research, Senator, best bang for the buck to help everyone make decisions, once again, from the teacher to the Senator in 

making sure the States have good systems. 

Finally, as Bob has illustrated, as everyone here has, we know 

where these schools are. States don’t have the resources to go in 

and do the job completely themselves. They need the assistance of 

the Federal Government, but having said that, States must also 

build the capability, the turn-around teams, for instance, the administrators, and so on. There’s a partnership there, but it can be 

targeted, it can be laser-like, but it meets a National need. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Habit. 

Mr. HABIT. Senator, my response would be a little bit different. 

I agree with what’s been said prior to me, that we need to be very 

clear-eyed about the resistance to changes. Everybody wants 

change, no one wants to change. And so, as we think about the 

structures and the intent of legislation to affect change within systems, within communities, I think it’s a matter of looking at ways 

to accommodate the need, to shift those beliefs, and to expose those 

beliefs, so that they’re really, quite frankly, is nowhere to hide. I 

hate to put it in those terms, but that’s the way it occurs to me 

at this particular moment. 

We see educators who deeply, deeply believe that all children can 

not achieve at high levels. When we take them through a very 

thoughtful process of looking at what happens in classrooms, when 

all children, especially poor children, can do high-level academic 

work? It’s quite often a very emotional event. The wall falls, and 

these individuals are very impacted by what they see and recognizing that in many ways they’ve cheated their children, thinking 

they were doing what they knew to be the best. Hard working, 

committed people who don’t have that first-hand experience. As a 

result, don’t own the process, the need to make change in their 

schools. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Varner. 

Ms. VARNER. I think the sanctions with No Child Left Behind 

have certainly made States figure out ways to comply, but complying is not living up to the intentions of No Child Left Behind. 

I would recommend supporting States to really monitor and hold 

their districts accountable for what matters. And we’ve laid out 

some of the things that really matter. To recognize districts for the 

growth they’re making, even if they’re not there yet, but mostly to 

help States, help support States so that they’re just not complying 

to avoid the sanctions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Podesta. 

Mr. PODESTA. Just a couple of words. I think that, I mentioned 

the work we’ve done with the Chamber, and I think if you look 

across the States, what you see is those States that have sustained 

48 

the effort, make the biggest improvements, from Massachusetts to 

North Carolina. I think one of the roles of the Federal Government, 

much as Bob said, is to try to shepherd and use the Federal resource in partnership with State and local resources to get them 

focused on the right set of goals, to try to create the right kind of 

systems, that will keep these States moving forward. And again, focusing on the real problem of these dropout factories, but giving 

them the incentives and the sustained capacity to align their policy, so that we can make real improvements over time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Enzi. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Great testimony, great ideas, even some great phrases that we’ll 

use and probably credit you with the first time. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. Habit, I’m particularly interested in your high expectations 

and how you achieve that. In Sheridan, Wyoming we have an institute for teachers, for Native Americans, Alaskans, and Hawaiians. 

It’s in conjunction with Stanford University and it is making some 

amazing differences for that subgroup. When I asked them what 

the key was, they said, ‘‘High expectations.’’ There’s a little more 

to it than that. Can you explain a little bit about how you develop 

these high expectations? 

Mr. HABIT. We spend a year in planning with a team before they 

launch a new school and the emphasis of that time is to explore. 

What does a classroom look like when children are required to take 

only the high level courses? We, in North Carolina, have had a history of tracking children and we have some courses that, quite 

frankly, place little demands on children. In these schools, asking 

teachers to design their schools where the default, the default 

course of study are these high-level courses. And then, provide 

teachers with the training for how to support the students to master that high-level work. 

The experience we have again and again is, as the teachers move 

toward opening their schools, they themselves are surprised to see 

how students stretch. As one teacher said to me last week, ‘‘I’m 

seeing students who are taking physics that I never would have 

thought would be suitable for that particular course.’’ 

Senator ENZI. Thank you. 

Ms. Varner, you’ve successfully built that sense of high expectations in your schools and you’ve been able to bridge the gap of everybody stressing change, but nobody actually wanting to change. 

You know, I really commend you on offering one diploma. At the 

roundtable we had, you mentioned the career academies and how 

that brought relevance to what the kids were learning. Could you 

tell us a little bit more about the career academies and ways they 

may have affected students in every grade? 

Ms. VARNER. Well, as I said, we were looking to do more than 

just offer vocational education. We weren’t sure how we should go 

about it, but one of the smartest things we did was we started sitting down with members of our business community. And so, at the 

table we had people from the business community, principals, 

teachers, we had students at the table too, and we were talking 

about the kinds of skills students need for the 21st Century. As I 

said, the first thing we realized is we’re preparing students for jobs 

49 

we don’t even know will exist. And so, what are the skills they 

need for any job? 

With those conversations, we decided that, when we develop curriculum, the curriculum for these courses, we need to co-construct 

them with our business partners. That’s exactly what we’ve done. 

They’ve been a part of constructing the curriculums, they have 

been co-teaching—not violating any laws—and they have been part 

of the assessment teams, as part of the assessment, we have students take the traditional tests and we’re happy to say that our 

students who are learning math, for example, through our construction academy are scoring as well or better than students who 

are not in that construction academy. 

We are also having them assess those skills we were talking 

about, persistence, curiosity, independence, collaboration. I mean, 

these are some of the skills—entrepreneurial thinking—these are 

the skills we’re hearing that students will need in the 21st century. 

Our students are graduating and competing for jobs in America 

and some of their competitors don’t even live here and will never 

have to live here. And so, there’s a sense of urgency around that. 

We’re continuing to read as much as we can, talk as much as we 

can to our business partners, and to make sure that the academies 

meet the needs of our smartest students, as well as the needs of 

our strugglers who are getting there. 

That’s another thing that was important to us. We have what we 

call ‘‘Circuit Breakers’’ and so we are constantly sitting down looking to see who’s enrolling in which academy. And if we see, for example, that this academy has a disproportionate number of minority students or special ed students, or gifted students, that’s a ‘‘Circuit Breaker’’ for us. We need to do something, and we need to 

something with what we’re offering. That each academy has something to attract students with all their talents, with all their interests, with all their passions. 

Senator ENZI. As I recall, you also said that you found that some 

students that go into, for example, the construction academy wanting to be a carpenter, decide instead that they can be the architect. 

Ms. VARNER. Right. Right, I forgot I said that last time. One of 

the things we say to students, is the most frustrating thing is to 

be working in a company and realize you’re smarter than the people you’re working for, but you don’t have the credentials to do 

that. And so, that’s part of our preparation, to make sure they can 

offer any opportunities. If they want to be on the ground floor just 

laying the bricks, I applaud them. Some days I wish I were doing 

that, and didn’t have to go home and do the kind of thinking that 

I’m demanded to do. Wherever they want to be in any organization, 

we’re preparing them for that. 

Senator ENZI. Then what you learned from the career academy 

you applied to the lower grades some way too, by preparing the 

younger students for middle and high school—how does that fit in? 

Ms. VARNER. What we’re doing with our middle schools, actually 

what we did with our, we took our ninth lowest performing elementary schools and our Foundations helped us to provide some support there, so that they would enter middle school with the basics. 

We, in the networks that we have—elementary, middle, and high 

schools meet on a regular basis to talk about what’s needed at the 

50 

next level or what kind of preparation the students aren’t coming 

with. 

For the academies, our high schools are meeting with our middle 

schools and talking about the kinds of skills we want to begin developing as early as middle school, and the kind of course work. 

There was a time where we had students in Chattanooga who 

could go all the way through high school with remedial math and 

graduate with Algebra I as their highest math. Now what we’re 

doing to make sure that the students can excel in what we’re offering in the academies is—we want Algebra I in middle school, so 

that students have opportunities, more students are on track for 

courses like calculus. 

Will they all get there? No, they won’t, the good thing is we don’t 

know who’s going to get there so we’re pushing everybody in that 

direction. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you for your passion and your entrepreneurial skills in school. 

Ms. VARNER. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Murray. 

Senator MURRAY. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for having 

this hearing. 

I had an opportunity in my office to hear much of your testimony 

and it was very compelling and really excellent, and I’m delighted 

that we are focusing on this middle and high school age level. Obviously with No Child Left Behind, a lot of focus went into what we 

were doing in elementary education. There’s no doubt that it is absolutely critical, but looking at the whole picture of what happens 

when they get to middle school and high school is also critical. The 

dropout rate is obviously what we all look at as the factor that says 

how we’re doing there. None of us likes where we are with the 

dropout rate. 

I started looking at this a number of years ago to find out why 

kids are dropping out of school and it is very complex. There’s no 

simple, single issue we can point to. But it seemed to me there 

were a number of factors that we needed to address and that’s why 

I introduced legislation called the Pass Act for High School reform 

and have been working to implement parts of that since then. 

One of the things I heard from many students as I went out to 

work on this in high schools was, ‘‘Well, no one ever told me in seventh grade that I needed 4 years of math to get into college. No 

one ever talked to me about the fact that I needed a foreign language.’’ Kids in middle school often don’t have a strong family support. They may be the first person to look at graduating. They may 

not have anybody in their own community that is talking to them 

about what they need. Part of what I put into this was academic 

counselors, to begin to focus our kids in middle school on making 

sure they have a plan. 

Washington State has a program called Navigation 101 that really helps parents and students set goals to map their progress and 

know what they need to do. I wanted to ask some of you today, how 

you think we might be doing better if we started reaching down 

into the middle schools to help our kids plan for what they needed 

to do, not just to graduate, but to get into our colleges? 

Maybe, Governor Wise, if we could start with you? 

51 

Mr. WISE. Sure. Middle schools are a vital part of it and your 

Pass Act, led the way, I think, to showing us a lot of it through 

the counseling, through the recognition of math and literacy coaches, through the calculation of graduation rates, as well. Bob 

Balfanz can speak, and I won’t speak for him, about the indicators 

that are already in middle school for whether or not you’re going 

to succeed in high school. 

What I would urge, though, is that, as you have in your Pass Act, 

as you have in Striving Readers, that you continue, as well, to recognize the importance of literacy. That we have, essentially at the 

Federal level and most States, stopped doing literacy, reading instruction by the fourth grade. That’s when children are learning to 

read in middle, beginning with middle school and high school, it 

switches to, they need to read to learn and they don’t have the 

skills, as Edna Varner so well described. That’s critical. 

Now, middle schools are a vital part of it, and once again, the 

chart, the air graph I drew, shows that the Federal contribution 

and effort in middle schools, it drops off sharply after about the 

fifth grade. 

Senator MURRAY. That’s correct. The other part of my legislation 

really looks at the fact that once a student gets into middle and 

high school there is no targeted teacher who’s there to help them 

with learning how to read or how to do math. We sort of get them 

out of sixth grade and say, ‘‘You’re on your own,’’ and there’s no 

teacher teaching reading skills. 

Mr. WISE. The common elements are here and, Senator Burr, you 

attended and spoke at a function with Senator Bingaman about 6 

months ago, where MDRC did an evaluation of programs such as 

Talent Development and others. It’s the common elements, and one 

of them is the personalization. A personal graduation plan starting 

at least in the seventh grade for every student, that recognizes 

their strengths and their challenges and maximizes them, to put 

them on a pathway to success. Also having a direct relationship 

with an adult in the building. What ninth grader raises his or her 

hand to say, ‘‘I can’t read very well, help me out.’’ That’s why we 

need to have a restructuring, as well as additional resources. 

Senator MURRAY. Other comments from you? 

Mr. PODESTA. I would just add that the sorting process, as you 

alluded to, a center is well established by middle school and middle 

school counselors are making important decisions for and with 

young people. Training and supporting counselors that think differently about academic rigor is critically important. 

Senator MURRAY. Yes, and that’s one of the things I’ve found, is 

that students themselves identified counselors as the person you go 

to if you have a personal problem, not as someone you would go 

to who would help you plan your academic career. That’s why, in 

my bill, I called them academic counselors to change the focus. 

Ms. VARNER. Remember also, that in many schools a guidance 

counselor has 500 students to see. One of the things we’re trying 

to do is have our guidance counselors work with teachers who have 

small advisory groups of about 15. Those teachers review the student’s instructional plan. As students move on to high school, they 

meet with other advisors. Because guidance counselors can’t do it 

all, but guidance counselors have been very helpful in helping other 

52 

teachers build the skills to keep up with that plan, to revise it each 

year with parents, and students, and the school, and the child’s 

records there. 

Senator MURRAY. I think it’s important to point out, that doesn’t 

preclude parents. Guidance counselors are there to give support. 

Ms. VARNER. Absolutely. 

Senator MURRAY. Correct? It does take resources to provide those 

counselors. 

Ms. VARNER. Absolutely. 

Mr. PODESTA. I’d just like to add one thing on the middle grades 

connection and that is, in many ways we keep forgetting about 

middle schools. This is when students independently decide to engage or disengage from schooling. You do well in elementary if you 

just like to go to school, and you like kids, and you’re good at follow 

the leader. You do what they tell you, you do fine. In the middle 

grades, they start asking you to think for yourself. I mean, the 

mathematics gets more difficult, you have to comprehend what 

you’re reading, and answer questions. If no one builds that bridge 

for you, you start feeling lost, and you start feeling, maybe this 

isn’t for me. You start disengaging. 

On the opposite hand, if somebody reaches out to you, if a teacher grabs you and pulls you along, you become engaged and excited 

about schooling. We sort of just ignore that, and we sort of leave 

it up to the kids, believe it or not. And especially, in high poverty 

environments, they disengage in huge numbers. Once they disengage, it’s very hard to get them back. 

Senator MURRAY. I would agree. Well, I think we have a lot of 

work that we can move toward. 

We’ve got a lot of good research out there and I hope, Mr. Chairman, we can really focus on this area and really work to make sure 

that all kids can succeed. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Isakson, is giving me the long and distant look. Senator Isakson, you’re recognized. 

Senator ISAKSON. I have a staffer back there at the door, who’s 

telling me I’ve got to leave. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Senator ISAKSON. I want to thank my neighbor from North Carolina because I wanted to make two points. The Hamilton County 

story is a great story. That’s a neighboring county to my State of 

Georgia, just on the other side of the line from Dalton and Lookout 

Mountain. When I chaired the State Board of Education, I was, 

from time to time, in some groups that shared information. If you 

look at those growth charts and the improvement they’ve made, I 

mean, they’ve made substantial improvements and it’s because of 

two things. One, is intervention, and the other’s innovation. So I 

just wanted to make a statement. 

One, I want to help you with the bill. The biggest mistake we 

make is by trying to think that at the high school level that there’s 

a cookie-cutter solution to what is a complicated problem. Mr. Podesta made the statement that 70 percent of the kids graduate, 30 

percent don’t. 

I’ll tell you another interesting number. I was with the head of 

the Army, recruiting for the last 3 years. General Van Antwerp, 

who’s now been nominated to head the Corps, he’s been in charge 

53 

of Army recruiting for the last 3 years. Seventy percent of the eligible 18- to 24-year-olds to volunteer for the military can’t get in. 

They can’t get in because of two reasons. One, is half of them 

haven’t graduated from high school or, this is that 30 percent, and 

the other is obesity. That tells you what a huge problem we have 

in this country, in terms of the effects of the dropout rate. Not just 

on the lives of those children as they hopefully go to some post secondary work, but for our own country’s ability to attract, in a voluntary service, the people we need for our military. 

I commend you on what you’ve done. I have one suggestion. One 

of the things we never do up here enough, is create within our legislation, a best practices center for the consolidation of the information so when the grants go out and somebody like Hamilton County 

innovates a system that works and there are other Hamilton Counties in the country but every county’s different. Our Department of 

Education, should be a best practices center where—through the 

web we can post and, principles and systems can go on that site 

and say, ‘‘Hey, my county’s like Hamilton County,’’ and this worked 

in Hamilton County and it can be a catalyst for reform. 

Now, I am making a speech and not asking a question. I apologize. This is a great bill. I want to help you with it, and I thank 

my colleague from North Carolina for letting me interrupt. 

Senator MURRAY. It sounds like we need to put physical education back into our high schools, too. 

Senator ISAKSON. Oh, absolutely, I’m all for that too, especially 

because of the obesity. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. Thanks very much. 

Senator Burr. 

Senator BURR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank the entire panel for their willingness to come 

and to share their knowledge, and I want to particularly thank 

John Podesta, who has a tremendous amount of valuable information and, John, we appreciate that. 

To my good friend, Governor Wise—Mr. Chairman, what you 

don’t know about Governor Wise is he has higher aspirations than 

being Governor of West Virginia. He wants to drive for NASCAR. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. WISE. We’ve been there, Senator. 

Senator BURR. It is a very scary thing that I envision, but that 

would be true for me, as well. 

Bob, it’s great to see you and an old colleague, Tony Habit, to 

have somebody here who can talk about some of the things that 

we’re actually getting right in North Carolina. The fact that we’re 

not arguing about process, we’re focused on outcome. I would tell 

you that that’s at the heart of everything from what Bob Balfanz 

said at that end and John Podesta said at this end. 

There’s a measurement tool. It’s what is the outcome of our educational system. I think the thing that shocks me the most about 

the high school graduation rate is, who in the hell is outraged? 

Why is the Nation not screaming about this? 

I, you know, Mr. Chairman, I want to make an observation. I 

want to thank you because this is a No Child Left Behind reauthorization hearing, and that we’ve spent much time talking about 

54 

graduation rates. I think we make a real mistake when we take up 

NCLB in a vacuum of K–8, because, really the buy-in when you 

talk about K–8, is on this side you have parents of people in K– 

8 and on this side you have a lot of teachers who are finding every 

reason not to like No Child Left Behind. There is your audience. 

When all of a sudden you go to graduation, your audience becomes every parent in education, every parent who will have children in education, every employer in the country who’s relying on 

that funnel for its next generation of the workforce. All of a sudden 

you have a nation outraged about the graduation rate. I truly think 

this is the start of something really good. Yes, we’ve got some good 

bills, some creative approaches. Is it the silver bullet? There isn’t 

one. 

I want to concentrate on a couple of specific areas and ask those 

who would like to comment, to comment on those. You know, I’ve 

had the opportunity to go in some Gates High School classrooms. 

I’ve seen the investment, I’ve seen the transition that happens in 

a year. I’ve gone to a high school that, to accomplish the part that 

wanted to go into Gates and the part that wanted to stay in traditional Gates, in Camden County. The Gates kids, for this year’s 

ninth grade and next year’s ninth and tenth grade are actually in 

trailers. Now, Governor, most Governors say kids can’t learn in 

trailers. Both of those classrooms are over 20 kids, and most Governors say they can’t learn if there are that many kids. They have 

already broken the mold in 1 year. They’ve got kids whose attendance went up, whose involvement went up, whose excitement went 

up about education. And it’s, in fact, that excitement that will keep 

them in when the going gets tough. What do they do? They’ve approached things in a different fashion than what they were used 

to. 

Gates is one example, but I think the unique thing here that I 

see is that we’ve got two private citizens, Bill and Melinda Gates, 

who are willing to invest their money in the reform of high school 

education in this country. 

My first question is this, and I want to pose this to John Podesta, 

and anybody else. If we came up with a Federal fund that is available to match the private sector dollars that funnel to reform of a 

high school, but those dollars don’t go just because somebody says 

they’re going to reform. They don’t go just because they wrote a 

good grant. They go because they have convinced private entities 

to invest in the reform. That’s Bill and Melinda Gates, that’s any 

specific instance where you can find where there’s a private investment. That we would turn around as a Federal Government, we 

would match the investment in that school. What do you think of 

that approach? 

Mr. PODESTA. Well, Senator, as I said in my oral presentation, 

I love the work that the Gates Foundation is doing, but there’s also 

an important Federal role. I think that you see across the country 

now, for exactly the reasons that you mentioned, employers being 

interested in schools, adopting schools, moving money into schools, 

etc. You’re onto something, in the sense, that it shows that people 

who can, in the marketplace, attract money because there’s innovation that, that’s an important, one important factor. 

55 

The heart of the reform effort really has to be aimed at understanding what’s working, trying to, you know—there’s not going to 

be one cookie-cutter solution that fits all, but we can find effective 

models, research them, try and replicate them. It goes along with 

what Senator Isakson said—find those models that work and try 

to replicate them across the country. Some of that will involve 

foundation support, some of it might involve business support, 

some of it should involve, I think, Federal support. Obviously, the 

bulk of the money still is going to come from State and local communities. I think those things—viewing this, you know, it’s maybe 

an overused word, but viewing this as a partnership is an important concept. That’s what we should push for. 

Senator BURR. Well, we do an awful job up here of disseminating 

success, irregardless. It’s not limited to education. 

Mr. PODESTA. If I could, one more word. Senator Kennedy, at the 

beginning, raised the Federal research money. If you think about 

it, there is a lot of money being spent, but if you think of the challenge the country faces, and we think about the research dollars 

that are spent on technology, on medical research, etc. 

Then that number seems rather small by comparison, given the 

challenge of reforming the educational system. If we’re going to 

spend research money, it can’t be just kind of one off, it’s got to 

be targeted on what real improvements we need that are going to 

begin to reform how we deal with the—literacy has been mentioned 

in this program, how much we are going, how we’re going to deal 

with low performance schools. 

When I was in the White House, the President’s Committee on 

Science and Technology actually focused on this question and found 

a lot of the education research that was being done wasn’t doubleblind, didn’t read the results, wasn’t disseminated. A lot of research 

dollars were going out, but there was no strategic focus to it and 

there was no strategic focus to improving schools across the board. 

And that, I think, is really what needs to happen with the dollars 

that are being spent. 

Senator BURR. Let me say, in the context that I asked that question, I’m not talking about substituting this for the money that’s 

currently going in. I’m talking about—can Federal dollars leverage 

private dollars? 

If the answer is yes—and I think it is—then the question is, who 

determines a genuine commitment to change and reform? We traditionally have not done that well. Private entities, corporations, 

foundations go through a rather extensive review of whether somebody’s serious about really changing something. 

It seems like if you’re talking about, over and above the traditional partnerships that we have with Federal dollars and State 

and local dollars, if you talk about opening a new door, then you 

open a door that allows those private sources to identify real genuine commitment, and use Federal dollars to leverage, whether it’s 

business, a foundation, or individual support of those efforts. 

Mr. PODESTA. Actually, Senator, in some ways it is a mutual 

leveraging going on. Because, I think, and let me just say as a disclaimer, my organization is also a Gates grantee, but I believe that 

the Gates Foundation is helping to leverage local, State, and Federal dollars. Because they have jumpstarted the high school by, in 

56 

the last 10 years, they’ve probably moved it 30 years because of the 

number of projects they’ve started that we can get best practices 

from, that we see what works, what doesn’t work. And so, now 

they’ve created interest at various levels of Government. 

By the same token, come back around where you are, and now 

maybe we can leverage each other to improve best practices. I can 

tell you, no State has money for the kind of research that’s necessary to do best practices. And so, to the extent that this committee can get the Department, work with the U.S. Department of 

Education to make it a true repository of good research and best 

practices that every school district from small, 5,000 people in Gilmore County, all the way to New York City, can access to find 

what works for them. That would be a great assistance. 

Senator BURR. It shocks me when you look at the national statistics, 70 percent graduation rate on time, 30 percent are not making 

it, 32 percent in North Carolina. Yet, in some of the underlying statistics, 88 percent of those are not academically lost. 

When I asked Bill Gates if our expectations were too low, his answer to the HELP Committee was, ‘‘My fear is we lose more gifted 

children than we’re losing academically challenged kids.’’ Bob, I 

think you stated it well. Those of us who do look at the jobs that 

are being created in West Virginia, in North Carolina, around this 

country, realize very quickly—without a high school diploma, you 

may fill out an application, but you will never get invited for an 

interview. The likelihood is you won’t get picked in the interview 

if, in fact, you haven’t got some additional higher education. 

I can’t think of a better investment in higher education than to 

begin to fix the high school graduation rate. Because it puts more 

kids in the queue, not only to be able to consider it, but to do it 

in a way that the value of it is big to them. 

Tony, let me turn to you for just 1 second. I thank the chairman 

for his indulgence on time. 

You stated extremely well that under the New Schools Project, 

that when you engage a new high school in this transition, that 

this is a secure program. It’s 1 year of planning and 5 years of implementation. I think we all understand that we probably don’t 

focus enough on the 1-year planning and we may shorten the implementation over too short a period of time. Let me ask you what 

happens at the end of that 6 years? 

Mr. HABIT. What happens at the end of the 6 years? In terms 

of, how is that school different than the conventional school? 

Senator BURR. In terms of all the things that you brought to the 

table to accomplish that. 

Mr. HABIT. OK. 

Senator BURR. Additional State money, additional local money, 

additional Federal money, incentives for teachers, whatever it is. 

As Johnny Isakson said, ‘‘Every school’s a little bit different, so 

every configuration’s going to be a little bit different.’’ Does that all 

go away? Is it no longer needed now, because you’ve made this 

transition? The question is, at what point do we consider a school 

a success and we move on to try to do more and more with others? 

Mr. HABIT. Certainly, that’s an excellent question, Senator. I 

think that, first of all there are many different approaches to redesigning schools and thinking of schools differently, and—to your 

57 

earlier comment about an innovation fund, the notion of being clear 

about what are those designs which get markedly different results 

is an important process in looking at that. 

What we would expect to see in a school that is funded with external resources and the external capacity of our organization and 

our school development team during that 6-year process, we plan 

for sustainability from the very beginning, so the resources that are 

brought to our team are committed primarily to teacher training 

and development and coaching services and the training and development of that principal. Every single action we take and every 

tool we develop is vested in the idea of sustainability beyond our 

relationship with that school. 

We would expect, for example, that the State of North Carolina, 

their funding would sustain some things we’ve initiated in that 

school through the design process. But at the tail end of that, let 

me just mention some of the, kind of, key elements that should be 

a part of every single school. 

Every school, first of all, should have a focus. It doesn’t matter, 

necessarily, what that focus is. It could be biotechnology, it could 

be entrepreneurship, as we heard from Edna, it could be many different areas, but that focus gives the teachers a way to connect the 

curriculum and to work together as peers. If they’re going to have 

that kind of connection, what happens is, they begin to establish 

norms in their school for what good teaching means. That focus 

continues beyond our relationship. 

They should have a relationship with a college or university so 

that they have a plan within that school for, ‘‘How am I going to 

be sure my kids get 12 hours, 15 hours of college credit before they 

walk across that stage to get their high school diploma? ’’ 

They should have, in that school, created deeper partnerships 

with their community and institutions in their community. I know 

you visited Camden recently, not far from Camden in Dare County, 

we’re creating a school of maritime studies. And to use that example in that school, they’re connecting with the research being conducted in Coastal North Carolina and the Maritime Museum and 

other sorts of institutions. Changing relationships with universities, with the private sector, with resources. 

The last two things that I would mention is that, teaching should 

look very different in these schools, in every school. When we 

talked today, we’re talking so much about dropouts and children 

who are at risk of failure. Your observation about Mr. Gates and 

what he shared earlier, kind of rings true for us. We know that our 

most advanced students need a different kind of teaching. They 

need teaching that is very active, that’s engaging, that is applying 

content to real world problems and needs, so that when they leave 

high school to go into college and go into the workforce, they have 

developed the judgment, the motivation, the kinds of soft skills 

Edna talked about in her comments a few moments ago. Teaching 

should look really different. 

Then, the last thing that I would mention is that, these schools 

would have a system of student support, a design to, into that campus. We will never, as a country, be able to afford enough counselors and social workers to provide for the emotional and affective 

needs of children. In these schools, teachers step into that role and 

58 

they know they’re there to teach and monitor teaching, but they’re 

also there to grow young people into fully formed adults, prepared 

for a future beyond that high school. 

Senator BURR. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I think all of our witnesses today had a common 

thread relative to college preparation. That was the ability for students to get college-ready courses in high school. I think one of the 

biggest challenges that we have is, how do you make sure that 

rural America has the teachers that it needs to teach AP courses. 

At a time where it’s pretty tough for rural America to attract 

teachers that meet the qualifications, much more so for the AP 

side. I don’t ask that as a question. Mr. Chairman has been awfully 

kind with the time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Thanks very much. Maybe we’ve covered this, but just to make it somewhat clearer to me, about the 

difference between the middle schools and the high schools. Most 

of the lessons which you’ve talked about here, probably, are generally applicable in terms of a seamless web. Would you make a 

distinction? Or do you see what we’re doing up in the high school 

level all starts in the middle school and carries on through? Maybe 

you could just comment. 

Mr. BALFANZ. I think there’s, actually, some very important commonalities, that at both levels you need to create, sort of, a strong 

bond between a subset of teachers and subset of students, so students know there’s a subset of teachers that really care about 

them. Teachers know that this is, these are my 75 students and 

we—with my colleagues, not on my own—have got to do what it 

takes to make them succeed. That creates a very tight relationship 

at both the teacher and student level. 

You need that at both levels because this is when students are 

disengaging. You need a force to draw them back. What draws 

them to school is their relationship with their teachers. They come 

to school for their teachers, not because they’re taking Spanish. 

You have to make sure you enable the organization of the school 

to give teachers time to do that. 

Second of all, you have to have these high standards, but you 

have to have the intensive extra help needed to make it real for 

everyone. It’s fine enough to say, ‘‘Everyone will learn algebra in 

eighth grade,’’ but many of us in this room struggled with algebra 

in eighth, ninth, or tenth grade. It’s just not saying, ‘‘We’ll offer it 

to you, it’s there.’’ It often means giving extra time, it often means 

having extra help labs, if often means, we found our high school, 

but I think this works for middle school, that for certain kids it’s 

almost social-emotional issues, it’s a fear of failure. To solve that 

you have to know their story. To know their story, maybe for that 

subset of kids, that’s just the 10 kids you need a small class size 

for, not everybody. 

Then finally, I think at common levels, is you have to realize we 

are asking teachers and administrators to do more than just teach 

a good lesson. You have to have support systems built up for them. 

Also, I think there’s this idea that we’ve found in both the middle 

and high school level, that there’s key indicators you have to pay 

attention to. When a student fails sixth grade, we found, in a high 

poverty environment, they do not recover, absent intervention. If a 

59 

student is starting to miss a month of school in sixth grade, they 

will not miss less school in the future unless you do something. I 

think those are some of the common—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Good. 

Mr. BALFANZ [continuing]. Elements we find. 

Mr. PODESTA. Senator, it is a seamless web, and if I could just, 

the analogy I’ve came to grips with as I got into this, is the importance of building a strong foundation, which is what we do pre–K 

to in the elementary grades. I’m not a carpenter and you can build 

a strong foundation for me, I can’t finish the house on my own. 

The recognition has to be, that as we build that critically strong 

foundation, early childhood development for instance, and then the 

early grades and reading initiatives and so on, we have to recognize that in each stage of a child’s life, they have different needs, 

different learning mechanisms, and that we’re going to have to 

keep building that house for them. Which is why, we can’t simply 

say, ‘‘We stop reading in fourth grade, we stop these programs in 

fourth grade, if they, by fifth grade they ought to have it and now 

they’re on their way.’’ 

Clearly, early childhood initiatives provide the foundation and we 

have demonstrated results, but what we’re also demonstrating is, 

if you simply take children that have had a good early childhood 

experience and then put them into dysfunctional middle and high 

schools, their success is not going to be anywhere near what it 

ought to be. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Habit, is there anything more that you’d like 

to add? 

Mr. HABIT. No, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good. Then that went well. Well, we want to 

thank you all for your very helpful comments and recommendations. I think what we’re going to do is, as we draft the legislation, 

we’re going to call on you to give us your reactions and responses 

to it and hopefully we’ll be worthy of the kind of challenges you’ve 

put out there. It’s been enormously helpful and valuable. We’re 

very grateful to all of you. 

Mr. BALFANZ. Thank you. 

Mr. WISE. Thank you. 

Mr. HABIT. Thank you, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. The committee stands in recess. 

[Additional material follows.] 

60 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL MIDDLE SCHOOL ASSOCIATION

National Middle School Association, which represents more than 180,000 educators through individual and institutional memberships, is committed to making 

middle grades the pride of the American education system. As an organization, 

NMSA has established longstanding partnerships with national, State, and local 

groups interested in improving the lives of young people. But our efforts must be 

matched with financial and policy support from all levels of government. We believe 

that only by working together can we achieve the ambitious agenda to provide all 

young adolescents with a quality education that develops their skills and talents to 

the fullest extent. 

Thoroughly preparing all American students to succeed in a demanding and evolving global economy makes the transformation of middle level education an imperative. Thriving in the 21st century requires more than a basic understanding of reading, writing, and mathematics. It requires the ability to apply sophisticated skills 

in a variety of settings, solve complex problems individually and collectively, and 

learn throughout a lifetime. While effective middle level schools provide this strong 

foundation for young adolescents, most schools serving 10- to 15-year-olds have not 

implemented the full range of structures and supports that more than 30 years of 

research and practice have shown to work with this age group. 

Unless we take action now to change these patterns, millions of young adolescents 

will be unable to compete in the world they will encounter in high school and beyond. For example, while middle level students steadily improved their mathematics 

performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the 

past decade, only 29 percent of U.S. eighth graders demonstrated competence with 

challenging subject matter in both reading and math, and one-fifth of those students 

scored below the basic level. In addition, while U.S. eighth graders improved their 

math and science scores on international assessments from 1995 to 2003, they still 

compared poorly to students from other nations. One-fourth of eighth graders lack 

fundamental reading skills, according to NAEP. Eighty percent of U.S. eighth graders say they plan to obtain a bachelor’s degree or higher, but many do not have access to rigorous classes that provide the stepping stones to higher education. Even 

when poorly prepared students gain admission to college, they typically need so 

much remediation that they fail to progress. 

The national movement to ‘‘leave no child behind’’ has largely bypassed students 

in the middle. Squeezed between the competing interests of elementary and secondary education, middle level students continue to fight for attention, respect, and 

financial equity. Under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), 57 percent of the students tested annually are in grades five through eight. Yet only about 15 percent 

of all title I funds, the program that drives NCLB, are allocated to both middle and 

high schools. Promising Federal programs, such as GEAR UP and TRIO, which help 

disadvantaged middle level students prepare for college, reach only 10 percent to 20 

percent of those who are eligible for assistance (see Addendum #1). 

Successfully preparing the next generation of Americans means significantly improving support for middle level schools. The middle grades represent the most critical period in education because so many decisions made during this stage determine whether children will reach their full potential. Sixth graders who do not attend school regularly, exhibit poor behavior, or fail math or English are very likely 

to drop out before graduation from high school—many as early as ninth grade. Only 

1 in 10 of these students graduate on time and one in five graduate in 5 years. By 

the eighth grade, many students have decided whether they will drop out or graduate from high school, whether they will take algebra and other ‘‘gatekeeper’’ 

courses that predict success in college, and whether they will engage in risky behaviors such as drug use and unprotected sex. 

Although we fully support legislation to turn around failing high schools, we urge 

you to consider turning around the failing middle schools that feed into the 2,000 

‘‘dropout factories’’ identified in the Graduation Promise Act. Given that we now 

know the warning indicators that can identify [as early as sixth grade] students 

that need more support and academic interventions, it is imperative that we provide 

the necessary support and interventions immediately. It makes no sense to wait 

until ninth grade to make sure that students stay in school. 

The reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act presents an excellent opportunity to establish national middle level policy and help raise student achievement 

in the middle grades. While we fully agree with the basic goal of NCLB, that every 

child in our Nation deserves an excellent education that enables him or her to be 

61 

successful in college and the workforce, we do not believe the legislation fully addresses the needs of students in grades five through eight. 

Federal policy affects all aspects of middle level education and can strengthen or 

hinder State and local efforts to improve schools. We urge Congress and the Administration to consider the following recommendations to strengthen the reauthorization of NCLB and create a national middle level education policy necessary to help 

young adolescents achieve their fullest potential. 

The following eight recommendations are supported by NMSA as part of a coalition of national organizations committed to improving middle level education. The 

first five recommendations would establish a national middle level education policy 

to help all students succeed. The next three recommendations are necessary to improve student achievement across grades K–12 and are critical in supporting student success at the middle level. 

A National Middle Level Education Policy Supported by the Following 

Organizations: ACT; Academy for Educational Development; Alliance for Excellent 

Education; The College Board; Education Development Center, Inc.; International 

Reading Association; Learning Disabilities Association of America; National Association of Secondary School Principals; National Council of Teachers of English; National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform; National Middle School Association. 

1. Authorize and expand Striving Readers as part of NCLB and fund it at $200 million in the first year and increasing to $1 billion over a period 

of 5 years. The Striving Readers Act (S. 958), new legislation to help ensure 

that older students who are struggling can read and write at grade level, 

will give students the literacy interventions they need to succeed in school 

and graduate from high school with a meaningful diploma. Every State 

would receive a grant to help teachers in the content areas improve reading and writing achievement across the curriculum in grades 4 through 12. 

• As educators and policymakers examine the data from their State and district 

reading assessments, they are concerned that eighth grade reading scores remain 

flat, and twelfth graders on average have shown no reading improvement in the last 

30 years. ACT reports that over 50 percent of high school graduates in 2005 did not 

have the reading skills they needed to succeed in college. Middle school students 

who are not on target in reading are significantly more likely not to be on target 

in English, Math, and Science. In fact, ACT’s latest research suggests that if students do not achieve a minimum level of academic preparation by middle school, 

high school may be too late to make up for these deficits. • Closing the achievement gap and ensuring that every student is proficient in 

reading requires an intense focus on literacy teaching and learning in the middle 

grades. • Struggling readers exist in every school. In our inner cities and rural poor 

areas, it is not uncommon to find 50 percent of our eighth graders reading at ‘‘below 

basic’’ levels. Scaling up effective literacy instruction and support for struggling students in the middle grades requires a significant investment beyond the funding 

currently available under title I. 

• Federal reading policy essentially stops after third grade. Students need more 

intensive reading curricula and support for the remainder of their primary and secondary education in order to achieve academically and in a postsecondary world. 

2. Include the ‘‘Math Now’’ proposal included in the Senate version of the 

America Competes bill (S. 761, Title II, Section 3201). This necessary and 

important initiative would help strengthen teacher preparation and professional development in math in the elementary and middle grades. 

• Although eighth grade math scores have improved, we are still far from preparing all students to take algebra by the end of eighth grade so they can go on 

to higher level math courses in high school. In fact, test data show the middle 

grades as the point when average student achievement begins to lag. For example, 

the national average mathematics score at grade four increased by 3 points from 

2003 to 2005. But the score at grade eight showed only a 1-point increase in that 

same time period. 

• The National Academy of Sciences has pointed out that ‘‘students who choose 

not to or are unable to finish Algebra I before the ninth grade—which is needed for 

them to proceed in high school to geometry, Algebra II, trigonometry, and pre-calculus—effectively shut themselves out of careers in the sciences.’’ 

• A full 86 percent of math and science teachers in the Nation’s highest minority 

schools are teaching out of field. 

3. Amend the definition of Highly Qualified Teacher. Highly qualified 

middle level teachers should demonstrate that they are subject-matter comVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:54 Feb 02, 2009 Jkt 035165 PO 00000 Frm 00065 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\35072.TXT DENISE
62 

petent by obtaining either a major or its equivalent in one or more subjects 

that they teach or by passing a State-approved competency measure or assessment, as well as demonstrate a solid understanding of pedagogy for 

young adolescents. 

• Ensuring that all young adolescents have highly qualified teachers and administrators is an essential first step in moving toward the ultimate goal of ‘‘highly effective’’ teachers in every classroom supported by ‘‘highly effective’’ school leaders. 

• If we expect all middle level students to succeed, we must eliminate the disparities in their education starting with the quality of the teachers and administrators 

hired to work with them. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 left out a specific 

definition of a highly qualified teacher at the middle level and did not speak to the 

qualifications of school leaders. 

• Although an increasing number of States offer some type of middle level certification or endorsement, fewer than half require specialized, middle level preparation 

before teachers can work in the middle grades. Only seven States insist that middle 

level administrators know and use research-based leadership and instructional practices to increase the academic performance and healthy development of young adolescents. 

• According to The College Board, 40 percent of middle school students in the 

physical sciences (including chemistry, biology and physics) are taught by unqualified teachers, with the proportion in biology approaching 30 percent. In math, these 

numbers exceed 20 percent. 

• New teachers should be required to obtain a middle level certification and have 

a major in their subject area as the first step to becoming a highly qualified and 

highly effective teacher. Funding should be provided so teachers already in the 

workforce can earn a middle level certification within 5 years through recertification 

course work and/or personalized professional development growth plans that include 

work in both content knowledge and pedagogy. 

• Furthermore, we recommend strengthening and expanding the incentives for 

highly qualified administrators and teachers to lead middle level reforms in our 

highest-need schools and school districts. 

4. Provide adequate funding and support for ongoing, State-administered 

technical assistance programs for all middle level schools identified as ‘‘in 

need of improvement.’’ Funding should be allocated for the development 

and implementation of school improvement plans. 

• According to the Center on Education Policy, about 10 percent of all schools (a 

majority of which are middle schools) have been labeled in need of improvement. 

In the last 2 school years, however, nearly two-thirds of the States reported receiving insufficient Federal funds to carry out the NCLB-imposed duty of assisting 

schools identified for improvement. 

• Technical assistance to help low-performing schools is not widely available, 

leaving many middle level schools without support. 

• Funding to implement school improvement plans is critical. For these plans to 

succeed, they need the financial resources to provide supports such as school improvement facilitators, adolescent literacy programs, professional development, extended learning time and personal graduation plans. 

5. Promote research and dissemination on effective policies and practices 

in middle grades education. While there is a growing body of research on 

middle grades education, the knowledge base is still relatively small and 

not well understood. To ensure that educators make wise decisions based 

on the latest scientific evidence, we recommend that Congress do the following: 

• Encourage IES and other educational research agencies to develop a strand of 

research designed to enhance the performance of middle grades schools and students, including those who are most at risk of educational failure. Research could 

target specific issues such as effective practices in math, science and literacy; schoolimprovement programs; and strategies for closing the achievement gap. 

• Encourage the Department of Education (through IES or NCES) to develop a 

national database at the middle level that will enable researchers to identify school 

and classroom factors that facilitate or impede student achievement. 

• Establish a National Center on Middle Grades Education, modeled after the National High School Center, that can synthesize and disseminate the available research on effective middle grades policies and practices. 

K–12 Recommendations Necessary to Support a National Middle Level 

Education Policy. 

63 

• States should be required to provide ongoing, job-embedded professional development for principals and teachers that support school-based 

collaborative problem-solving and decision-making activities to improve 

student achievement. Due to current national needs, specific professional 

development in math, science, literacy, formative and summative assessment practices, and English language learning must be ongoing, especially 

in our highest need schools. 

• The traditional ‘‘one-size-fits-all’’ method of advancing educators’ skills by offering professional development to all the teachers in a school or school district without regard to individual needs is both inappropriate and ineffective. 

Generic staff development does not improve instruction and learning. We 

must ensure that all middle grades teachers, both new and experienced, participate in quality professional development that includes deep understanding 

of their subject areas and sound instructional methods to teach young adolescent learners. 

• Data-informed instruction is essential for high achievement. Research indicates that formative assessment is one of the strongest interventions schools 

can make to raise test scores for all students with the greatest gains occurring among the lowest performing students. Delivering this staff development 

requires a wide range of professional development opportunities. 

• In today’s achievement-focused atmosphere, it is imperative that principals be 

effective instructional leaders and that they know how to collaborate with 

staff members to establish the school’s learning goals. 

• Because some States do not have data management systems in place to 

track each student’s progress, the Federal Government must provide incentives and guidance to ensure that all States develop effective procedures 

for collecting and analyzing such information. Further, improving the quality of assessments so that they are both valid for accountability purposes 

as well as a tool for improving instruction is critical for the success of 

America’s students. 

• The most valuable achievement measures provide information about each student’s development over time. Called the ‘‘growth model,’’ this method uses 

individual assessments to determine adequate yearly progress and should become the standard for determining progress in middle level schools. 

• These State longitudinal data systems are a prerequisite for implementation 

of ‘‘growth models’’ and are a more accurate measure of school quality because 

they follow students’ academic progress over time. 

• Once-a-year, norm-referenced tests that focus on groups of students for school 

accountability purposes do little to help teachers diagnose specific learning 

needs and design appropriate interventions for individual students. Although 

such assessments of learning are important, they must not be the only criteria by which we evaluate students’ achievement. Formative assessments 

must be put in place to help teachers differentiate and improve instruction. 

• Provide the necessary resources and support for students who need to 

accelerate their academic learning through practices that include extended 

instructional time during the regular school day, an extended school day, 

Saturday and summer classes, and after-school programs with highly qualified and knowledgeable educators. 

• Educational standards for our youth in America have increased substantially 

over the last two decades, yet we have not provided students with the additional time or support they need to achieve those higher standards. 

• Children in the United States have summers without school for up to 13 

weeks, while most industrialized countries average only 7 weeks off. Shorter 

periods of time off can prevent learning loss by students, particularly those 

who do not have access to summer enrichment activities provided by families. 

• Extra learning time provides an opportunity to reinforce the relevance of the 

subjects students are studying and to keep them engaged in school. 

• The addition of high-quality teaching time is of particular benefit to certain 

groups of students, such as low-income students and others who have little 

opportunity for learning outside of school. 

64 

[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

Æ 


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