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S. HRG. 111–1120 

ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: 

MEETING THE NEEDS OF SPECIAL POPULATIONS 

HEARING 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, 

LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

ON

EXAMINING ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT (ESEA) 

REAUTHORIZATION, FOCUSING ON MEETING THE NEEDS OF SPECIAL 

POPULATIONS 

APRIL 29, 2010 

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

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland 

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

JACK REED, Rhode Island 

BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

DANIEL SMITH, Staff Director 

FRANK MACCHIAROLA, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS 

THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2010 

Page 

Harkin, Hon. Tom, Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 

Pensions, opening statement ............................................................................... 1 

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

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

Bennet, Hon. Michael F., a U.S. Senator from the State of Colorado ................. 4 

Mikulski, Hon. Barbara A., a U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland ............ 5 

Franken, Hon. Al, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota .......................... 5 

Hinojosa, Ed.D., Superintendent, Dallas Independent School District, Dallas, 

TX .......................................................................................................................... 6 

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

Medina, Carmen, Chief of Migrant Education, Bureau of Community and 

Student Services, Pennsylvania Department of Education, Harrisburg, PA .. 14 

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

Hundley, Lucinda, Assistant Superintendent of Student Support Services, 

Littleton Public Schools, Littleton, CO ............................................................... 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 21 

Ross, Denise, Supervisor, Homeless Education Office, Prince George’s County 

Public Schools, Maryland .................................................................................... 24 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 26 

VanDyke, Kayla, Student, Eagan, MN .................................................................. 29 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 32 

(III) 

(1) 

ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: MEETING THE 

NEEDS OF SPECIAL POPULATIONS 

THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

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

430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Harkin, chairman 

of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Harkin, Mikulski, Merkley, Franken, Bennet, 

Enzi, Isakson, and Murkowski. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARKIN

The CHAIRMAN. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, 

Labor, and Pensions will please come to order. 

I would like to thank everyone for being here today for our second ESEA hearing in less than 24 hours. Let no one doubt that a 

strong reauthorization of this legislation is a top priority for this 

committee. 

Today, we are going to explore another tremendously important 

facet of K through 12 education—what we, as a country, need to 

do to meet the needs of special student populations to ensure that 

all students have access to a high-quality education that prepares 

them for college or a career after graduation. 

Secretary Duncan has correctly called education ‘‘the civil rights 

issue of our time.’’ Our public education system was founded in the 

19th century, at a time when, for the most part, only affluent white 

males were given access to an education. Over the past century, we 

have taken tremendous steps to change that and to guarantee that 

all students, regardless of background, have access to an education 

that gives them the opportunity to live a successful and fulfilling 

life. 

However, just being allowed into the classroom isn’t enough. To 

be able to reap the real benefits of an education, students must be 

given the tools and support they need to be successful. For some 

students, this means providing them with extra tutoring, therapy, 

or other accommodations that allow them to access the academic 

material and demonstrate the knowledge they have mastered. 

Other students may be struggling to learn English at the same 

time they are trying to learn math and science and require additional support to gain the language proficiency they need to learn 

and perform in the classroom. 

2 

We must also recognize, as we have heard in previous hearings, 

that students don’t just check their home lives at the school door 

each morning. Students with unstable home lives require extra stability and support while they are at school to enable them to stay 

in class and to keep up with their peers. For a student, simple 

things like accommodations or support from a school counselor can 

mean the difference between the despair of falling behind and the 

fulfillment of meeting high expectations. 

This is especially true in the case of students with disabilities. 

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, 

which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, the Federal 

Government provides assistance to school districts to help them 

meet their constitutional obligation to provide a free and appropriate public education to children with disabilities. 

More recently, the No Child Left Behind Act has focused on ensuring that students with disabilities have equal access to expectations for high achievement. By holding schools accountable for the 

success of all students, including students with disabilities, No 

Child Left Behind established the premise that every child can and 

should learn. 

Over the past decade, No Child Left Behind has shown that students with disabilities can meet high standards when given the 

proper instruction. Before No Child Left Behind was enacted, less 

than one third of fourth grade students with disabilities scored at 

the basic level on the NAEP math exam, and only 6 percent were 

proficient. By 2007—just 7 years later—the percentage of students 

with disabilities scoring at the basic level had doubled to 60 percent, and the number of proficient students had more than tripled 

to 19 percent. That is a remarkable record, showing that kids with 

disabilities can learn and can grow. 

However, while this improvement is heartening, an achievement 

gap still exists between students with disabilities and their peers 

who do not have disabilities. The graduation rate for students with 

disabilities is still just 56 percent, nearly 15 points lower than students who do not have disabilities. 

As we reauthorize ESEA, we must focus on ways to close this 

gap. This means not only continuing to hold schools accountable for 

the success of students with disabilities, but investing in the resources for success—for example, training more special education 

teachers and providing our general education teachers additional 

training in how to teach students with disabilities in an integrated 

classroom. It means making investments to ensure that assessments are appropriate and that these assessments give us valid information on the performance of all students, including students 

with disabilities. 

At our hearing today, we will hear not just about students with 

disabilities, but also other groups of students who face different 

challenges. Migrant students, foster students, homeless students, 

English language learners—all have different needs and require 

their own set of supports to ensure that they can access the quality 

education that they are entitled. 

While we must be mindful of each student’s unique background 

and provide them with what they need to be successful, we must 

3 

never allow ourselves to accept lower expectations for a student because of who they are or where they come from. 

We must recognize that more and more students come from diverse backgrounds with diverse needs. However, instead of viewing 

this as an obstacle or a burden, we must look at it as an opportunity. I say that because in the modern world, it is no longer possible to remain isolated in small, homogeneous communities. 

Our society puts a premium on being able to communicate and 

interact with people from diverse backgrounds, from countries 

across the globe. We know students who grow up and learn in diverse classrooms enter the world with an understanding and appreciation for people unlike themselves. 

Diversity is one attribute, I think, that distinguishes America 

from many others. It makes us more creative, entrepreneurial, and 

successful. I believe it is a strength. We must ensure that our education system is preparing all students to meet the demands of the 

21st century. 

With that, I would turn to our Ranking Member, Senator Enzi. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ENZI

Senator ENZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate you holding this hearing. It is always good to review 

the special populations because it is amazing how many there are. 

As you said in your comments, it is also tremendous what the 

United States does, as opposed to a number of other countries 

which start kicking kids out of school regardless of special needs 

at a very early age. 

Meeting the needs of special populations in our schools today is 

an important issue for this committee to discuss, and I want to 

thank the witnesses for joining us today to share their knowledge 

and experience. We have been fortunate to witness progress over 

the last few decades in the education of these populations. 

The No Child Left Behind Act took us into a new level by including disaggregation and reporting of student achievement data for 

students with disabilities and English language learners. The sunshine effect this had for these students and the support they receive in the classroom has been amazing. Data from the States 

show that these students can achieve high goals and standards 

when provided with the necessary services and supports. 

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act recognizes that all 

the special populations represented here by our witnesses today 

have specific support needs that often require dedicated funding. 

Embodied within ESEA are programs for migrant students, students who have been neglected or delinquent, students re-entering 

school from correctional institutions, Native American students, 

Native Hawaiian students, Alaska Native students, and students 

who are English language learners. Under the umbrella of the 

ESEA reauthorization, we will also review and reauthorize the program for homeless children and youth. 

Finally, while ESEA contains many provisions specific to students with disabilities, the Individuals with Disabilities Education 

Act, or IDEA, is devoted specifically to that population of students. 

Not only are these programs complex, but the needs of the populations targeted by these programs are very complex. We must 

4 

make sure that in meeting the needs of these populations, we don’t 

hamstring the local providers with too many burdensome and restrictive requirements. Those closest to these students need the 

flexibility to best meet their unique needs. 

Today, I am interested in hearing how those populations have 

been served. I am also interested in learning how we can continue 

the successes we often see in the K through 12 education system 

as these students transition to other education, training, and workforce opportunities. 

I want to welcome all the witnesses and thank them for being 

here to share their knowledge and their expertise and probably 

even to take some written questions because not everyone is able 

to be here for a number of reasons. But those answers will help us, 

too. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Enzi. 

I will introduce some of our witnesses, and I know some of my 

colleagues want to introduce witnesses from their respective States. 

Our first witness is Dr. Michael Hinojosa, who is the superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District in Dallas, TX. 

His career in Texas public education spans more than 30 years. A 

report by the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings 

Institution stated that Dallas Independent School District has improved more than any other urban district in Texas and more than 

all but one urban district in the country in narrowing the achievement gap over the last 5 years. 

Dr. Hinojosa’s recognitions have included his selection as Superintendent of the Year by the University of Texas and as Texas Superintendent of the Year by the Texas Association of School 

Boards. He was named a distinguished alumnus by the College of 

Education at Texas Tech University, and is a past president of the 

Texas Association of School Administrators. 

Next, we have Carmen Medina, the chief of the Division of Student Services and Migrant Education at the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Prior to coming to that department in 2004, Ms. 

Medina served as the academic programs director for a consortium 

of school districts in Adams County, PA, where she oversaw several 

social and academic programs, including 21st century community 

learning centers for migrant students. She has also worked as an 

assistant researcher with Penn State University. 

I am told that Senator Bennet would like to introduce our next 

witness, Lucinda Hundley. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR BENNET

Senator BENNET. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is a great pleasure and honor for me to introduce to the committee Lucinda Hundley. She is the assistant superintendent of the 

Littleton Public Schools in Colorado and is responsible for student 

support services and serves as the director of special education. 

She has the difficult job of trying to meet the needs of all students. 

Under her leadership, Ms. Hundley has made tremendous 

progress in improving results for all students, including students 

with disabilities, and closing the achievement gap. 

5 

I want to welcome her here, and we look forward to your testimony. 

Thank you for coming. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator. 

Senator Mikulski, I recognize you for purposes of introduction. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR MIKULSKI

Senator MIKULSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

It is really an honor of mine to introduce Denise Ross to you. Ms. 

Ross runs the homeless education program in Prince George’s 

County, a county contiguous to the District of Columbia. One presumes that it is highly affluent, but, wow, does it have its challenges. 

Denise has been working in the Prince George’s schools for 25 

years. She started as a speech and language pathologist and then 

became a supervisor for the county’s homeless ed program 5 years 

ago. She is going to bring a lot to the table as she shares with you 

her experiences, her challenges, and her recommendations. 

Under her leadership, the county serves 2,500 homeless children. 

Often, it can be difficult for those students to learn to read, but 

these kids need a ride to school, new clothes when they have none, 

school supplies to do their work, and tutoring services, so they 

don’t fall behind. Through Mrs. Ross’s own creativity, resourcefulness, and grit, she has been able to provide these services to homeless students, including, most recently, to make sure these guys 

and gals have hearing aids and eyeglasses, something very special, 

I know, to your work, Senator Harkin. 

So when we think about improving the programs for special children, our homeless should at least have a home in the school system, and I think Mrs. Ross will give us a lot of practical suggestions, and we are happy to introduce her to the committee. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Mikulski. 

Now I will turn to Senator Franken for purposes of an introduction. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR FRANKEN

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am just delighted and honored to introduce Kayla VanDyke. 

Kayla is a high school senior in Eagan, MN. She is also in foster 

care and has lived in seven different foster care placements. She 

has lived through extended periods of homelessness. 

Through the force of her determination and incredible innate 

ability, Kayla has overcome tremendous adversity. Drawing on her 

life experiences, she will provide us with guidance on how to address the educational challenges that she and other foster and 

homeless youth have experienced. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator. 

Welcome, Kayla. 

I welcome all our witnesses today. We will now hear your opening statements, starting with Dr. Hinojosa and working our way 

down the panel. Your statements will be made a part of the record 

in their entirety. 

Dr. Hinojosa, please proceed. 

6 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HINOJOSA, Ed.D., SUPERINTENDENT, DALLAS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, 

DALLAS, TX 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, and members of the 

committee, thank you for giving us the opportunity to bring some 

input on this very important topic. 

I am Michael Hinojosa, superintendent of schools for the Dallas 

Independent School District. I have been a superintendent in Dallas for the last 5 years. I have been a superintendent or a CEO for 

approximately 16 years in the State of Texas. 

I, too, though, am an immigrant, and my father brought the 10 

of us—or 8 of us to the greatest country in the world so that we 

could get an education. It is refreshing that this is important to 

this committee. 

Let me talk a little bit about the context of which Dallas operates. Dallas is the 14th largest district in the country, 157,000 students, 5,000 of which are homeless, 55,000 English language learners. There aren’t many districts in the country that have 55,000 

students, much less 55,000 English language learners. 

Eighty-seven percent are economically disadvantaged, 67 percent 

Latino, 27 percent African-American, and 4 percent white. The context is important because we cannot ignore any student group, 

much less English language learners, which is the group that I am 

speaking about, if we are going to move our entire system forward. 

You mentioned the Brookings Institution, and we are very proud 

of that fact. It was unbeknownst to us that Ed.D study was going 

on. So we do appreciate that. Also, the Council of Great City 

Schools identified us—along with New York City, St. Paul, and San 

Francisco—for having significant progress on English language 

learners. 

But how we got there is important, and I want to say that it 

wasn’t just a focus on English language learners. We had a Dallas 

Achieves! transformation plan that was our strategic plan over the 

last 5 years, where we had a very specific curriculum that was 

written for every subject, for every student group at every grade 

level. The teachers help us write the curriculum, and it became a 

big part of what we implement on a daily basis. 

We have also simultaneously during those 5 years developed a 

dual language program. Two types of dual language—one-way, and 

that is for one group of students who are monolingual Spanish 

speakers who are required to acquire English proficiency. Two-way 

dual language is where we have multiple groups or groups of 

English speakers who want to learn Spanish, along with Spanish 

speakers that need to learn English. We have implemented that 

program over the last 5 years with significant success. 

One of the reasons that we have been able to have the success 

is nothing can happen unless you have great teachers, and we have 

had to go and hire teachers. We had—when I was hired 5 years 

ago, we had a significant number of—we had 1,000 classrooms in 

which we were not providing services to English language learners 

because we did not have the teachers to do it. 

We had to do everything possible to do it. We had to go to Grow 

Our Own Teachers. We had to go all over the State of Texas. We 

7 

had to go to Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Spain to try to hire the 

teachers that could provide these services that these students needed. It was a significant task, but now I am pleased to say that we 

have less than 25 classrooms where we don’t have qualified teachers to teach these students that have great need. 

It is always hard to determine what caused something to happen, 

but I think the fact that Dallas has had a 15-year history of a 

value-added system, a growth model that we have had in place for 

15 years, and the stakes have gotten a lot higher recently, but because we have had that, we know that we take students where 

they are, and we have to move them. That is a great equalizer, especially for English language learners, when they may be behind 

academically. 

I gave you some charts. The charts just signify that our English 

language learners compete with other student groups in many 

areas, and part of it is because of our expectations in the programs 

that we have had. 

As you move forward to reauthorization of Elementary and Secondary Education Act, what I would like to leave you with, and I 

only have a little bit of time left so I will get to that quickly. No. 

1, the growth model is very important because the premise of a 

growth model is you take the students where they are and then 

you add value. This is extremely important for English language 

learners because of their level of proficiency. 

You also need to remember that second language, academic language acquisition takes time. Students will fool you. They will talk 

to you in English that you understand, but that doesn’t mean they 

are academically literate. That doesn’t mean they can read or 

write. So it takes time to acquire those skills. It is very important 

that you have the appropriate measures in place for that to happen. 

Right now, we are held accountable for student groups including 

what is called limited English proficient. But schools should be 

given credit for taking students who are limited English proficient 

and became proficient. They are no longer LEP, which is, by definition, lack proficiency. But they are still English language learners, 

and many districts, including Denver and others, have made a lot 

of progress. We have data that shows here that those districts, the 

students that were in English language learner programs do better 

than students that denied services or parents that denied services. 

So you have to be in it for the long haul. There is not a silver 

bullet. 

A couple of other things, as my time is expiring, and I will be 

glad to answer your questions. One of the things that we have to 

be careful of, we have a graduation rate that you mentioned, Senator, that is measured by everyone. We need to make sure there 

is not a disincentive because that graduation rate by the Federal 

Government is calculated for how many kids graduated in 4 years. 

It takes a long time to acquire language. Most of the students 

that we get, we get at secondary level. Many of them are 

unschooled, have had no schooling. So it is very difficult for them 

to acquire any language. They are not literate in anything. 

So we should be given an incentive or credit for keeping students 

in school after the 4 years, and there should be an incentive proVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Mar 12, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\DOCS\56322.TXT DENISE
8 

1 Attached slides indicate that LEP students are out-performing State LEP students and in 

some instances other student groups and certain grade levels in certain subjects due to the 

strength of the dual language program. 

gram so that doesn’t count against the school, which may be in a 

high refugee population or a very urban setting where you have 

students—we should be given credit for making sure the kids don’t 

walk the streets and stay in school and graduate. 

I have covered most of my areas, but I would also say that as 

you go through the reauthorization, I know there is some talk 

about having formula funding for title I and then some competitive 

funding for others. I would just remind us that, by definition, if it 

is competitive, there are winners and losers, and there are a lot of 

districts that depend on other Federal funds and title funds to help 

support English language learners and every student group that 

you are going to hear from today. 

So I will conclude with my comments at this point and entertain 

any questions as appropriate by the chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hinojosa follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HINOJOSA, ED.D. 

Good Morning Senator Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, and members of the committee, I am Michael Hinojosa, Superintendent of Schools for the Dallas Independent School District, Dallas, TX. I have been superintendent in Dallas for 5 

years and a superintendent in Texas for 15 years. 

I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the critical area of Teaching and Learning 

for English Language Learners. 

The Dallas ISD educates about 157,000 students of which 5,000 are homeless, 

55,000 are English Language Learners (ELL), 87 percent are economically disadvantaged, 67 percent are Latino, 27 percent are African-American, and 4 percent are 

white. 

We are very proud in Dallas of improvements we have made in Teaching and 

Learning for our students. I would like to highlight a few of the improvements we 

have made to enhance the education of our English Language Learners. I also will 

mention some of the accolades we have received as a result of our work such as 

being cited by the Brookings Institution in 2008 which indicated that the Dallas ISD 

was the most-improved urban school district in Texas and next to New Orleans, the 

second most-improved urban district in America in closing the achievement gaps 

among student groups. 

We are also proud to be one of four districts in a study by the Council of the Great 

City Schools for improving learning for ELL students along with St. Paul, New York 

City, and San Francisco. 

The district has seen significant systemwide reform through an effort titled Dallas 

Achieves!, which included a specific curriculum in all subjects—what every student 

should know and be able to do in every subject. Dallas also implemented a districtwide dual language program for all elementary schools—both one-way and two-way 

dual language. The goal for all students in the program is to be academically literate in two languages. 

We have also ensured that we have qualified teachers in every classroom by reducing vacancies from 1,000 to less than 25 classrooms (over a 5-year period) with 

bilingual teachers qualified to serve student needs . . . traveled to Mexico, Puerto 

Rico, Spain, and South America; developed a grow our own program; and traveled 

the entire State to have enough qualified teachers for student needs 

To ensure quality teachers, we have more than 15 years of history with a valueadded (growth) model of measuring the effectiveness of teachers in student achievement gains.1

9 

STATE VS. DALLAS ISD AVERAGE SCALE SCORES

STATE AND DALLAS ISD READING TAKS AVERAGE SCALE SCORE BY STUDENT GROUP, 

GRADES 3–5 


56322-1.eps 56322-2.eps
10 

STATE AND DALLAS ISD READING TAKS AVERAGE SCALE SCORE BY STUDENT GROUP, 

GRADES 6–8 

STATE AND DALLAS ISD READING TAKS AVERAGE SCALE SCORE BY STUDENT GROUP, 

GRADES 9–11 


56322-3.eps 56322-4.eps
11 

STATE AND DALLAS ISD READING TAKS AVERAGE SCALE SCORE BY STUDENT GROUP, 

GRADES 3–5 

STATE AND DALLAS ISD READING TAKS AVERAGE SCALE SCORE BY STUDENT GROUP, 

GRADES 6–8 


56322-5.eps 56322-6.eps
12 

STATE AND DALLAS ISD READING TAKS AVERAGE SCALE SCORE BY STUDENT GROUP, 

GRADES 9–11 

2009 TAKS PERCENT PASSING BY LEP STATUS, DISTRICT TOTAL, 

AND GRADE GROUPING

PERCENT OF GRADES 3–5, 6–8 AND 9–11 STUDENTS PASSING ENGLISH TAKS 

READING BY LEP STATUS AND GRADE GROUP, SPRING 2009 


56322-7.eps 56322-8.eps
13 

PERCENT OF GRADES 3–5, 6–8 AND 9–11 STUDENTS PASSING ENGLISH TAKS 

MATHEMATICS BY LEP STATUS AND GRADE GROUP, SPRING 2009 

In reauthorization of ESEA, I would like the committee to consider the following 

key issues: 

• A growth model will level the playing field for all students . . . the premise of 

growth models is to take the students where they are and measure the growth of 

individuals. The bill should consider the fact that more than 50 percent of new arrivals enter secondary schools, many unschooled or under-schooled. There are special hardships for communities that have refugee centers. 

Please also be reminded that academic language acquisition takes multiple years 

to accomplish. Students who are literate in one language can acquire literacy more 

readily in a second language. Schools should be given credit for students who have 

gained proficiency and literacy under their instructional program. Thus Limited 

English Proficient students should be part of a larger student group that includes 

English Language Learners. 

We would like to see the bill retain current provisions regarding the allowable use 

of State assessments in the student’s native language and would like to insert the 

requirement of consistency with the language of instruction. 

Regarding assessments, the English Language Proficiency Assessment should be 

used, but not for accountability. Also required should be annual assessments in all 

domains to monitor progress after initial enrollment and at critical transition points. 

Codify current regulatory provision that recent immigrant students with limited 

English proficiency not be required to participate in ELA and math State assessment in their first year in the United States. 

District’s should be given incentives to keep students in school who have not graduated in 4 years. Many immigrant students are over-age and under-credited and 

will count against the cohort graduation calculations. It should not be a disincentive 

for districts and schools to continue to educate students who will be counted as 

drop-outs. Credit should be given for drop-ins. 

Many districts rely on various formula title funds to support efforts for English 

Language Learners. If some of these funds become competitive, then there will be 

districts that by definition will be losing these funds to support these student 

groups. 

Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Hinojosa. That was a very, very 

good statement. 

Now we turn to Ms. Medina. 

Ms. Medina. 


56322-9.eps
14 

STATEMENT OF CARMEN MEDINA, CHIEF OF MIGRANT EDUCATION, BUREAU OF COMMUNITY AND STUDENT SERVICES, 

PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, HARRISBURG, PA 

Ms. MEDINA. Good morning, Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, 

and distinguished members of the committee. 

I am Carmen Medina. I am chief of the Division of Student Services and Migrant Education at the Pennsylvania Department of 

Education. 

I want to thank you for your invitation and for the opportunity 

to speak to you today about the importance of the Migrant Education Program and what is the difference it makes in Pennsylvania and across the Nation. 

The Federal Migrant Education Program supports the goal of ensuring that every child in America receives a world-class education 

that prepares them for responsible citizenship, further learning, 

and productive employment. I welcome this opportunity. 

Migrant workers are defined as those individuals who travel 

from place to place to find seasonal or temporary work in such industries as agriculture, dairy farming, fishing, and food processing. 

The average migrant family moves three to five times annually. 

Such mobility is particularly difficult to the children of migrant 

families and detrimental to their educational achievement. 

Mobility as a risk factor for academic achievement is combined 

with the fact that many migrant children are not native in the 

English language and need instruction in English as a second language. Evidence shows that migrant children are usually 3 to 5 

years behind nonmigrant students in grade level and are at an increased risk of dropping out of school. 

The Migrant Education Program was established in 1966 as part 

of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to address the 

unique needs of these children and operates in all 50 States. These 

funds are available to provide educational and support services to 

migrant children. In Pennsylvania, we use the funds to provide extended learning time, in-home support services, language instruction, out-of-school youth programs, dropout re-engagement, highquality preschool instruction, post-secondary enrollment support, 

and engage the parents in the education of their children. 

A child is considered migrant when they are between the ages of 

3 to 21 years old, and they haven’t graduated from the high school 

or have a high school equivalency certificate. Being a migrant 

worker or a parent, spouse, or guardian who is a migrant worker, 

we will consider them if they have children under the age of 21 to 

qualify for this program. They have to have a move, a qualified 

move in the preceding 36 months, and they are coming to seek that 

line of employment that I mentioned before, and they must move 

from one school district to another. 

So you must imagine how it is when a child is moving three to 

five times a year. They don’t speak the language. They don’t know 

the community. And that is when the migrant program comes to 

work. 

In Pennsylvania, we serve 139 school districts in 46 counties. In 

this past year, 2008–2009, we served a total of 5,409 eligible children and youth. This included youth of Hispanic, Asian, 

15 

African-American, and Caucasian descent across grade and age levels. 

Migrant is not about ethnicity or race. Being migrant is a way 

of living, and also it is very important to notice that being a migrant is not the same as being immigrant. 

In Pennsylvania, 82 percent of these children are not fluent in 

English, and we serve over 19 percent that are preschool. The Migrant Education Program is an essential part of the Pennsylvania 

Department of Education strategies to ensure that all students receive the necessary support to be successful in school and beyond 

by taking a holistic approach to student assistance. 

We provide summer activities. That is one of the things that 

when it comes to reauthorization we are strongly supporting, and 

we ask to be considered to continue summer support. Because 

when you have families arrive into an area because, summer, that 

is where the crops are, the migrant program tends to be the first 

point of educational services and assistance for that family, to connect the family not only to the schools, but connect the families as 

well to their new community. 

They will receive English as a second language instruction during summer programs, and also other instruction and other connections to make sure when the school year starts, the child and the 

family are prepared for school. ESL and other instruction is essential to prevent the ‘‘backslide’’ during which English language 

learners and children from low-income households, where they can 

lose up to 3 months. 

I don’t have too much time left, but I want to leave you with a 

quote of one of our former migrant students. This student is currently attending Penn State University. He graduated last year 

from Philadelphia School District, and he came from Cambodia. 

When I talked to him, he asked me to share this quote with you. 

‘‘When I first arrived in Philadelphia, I was completely 

clueless. I didn’t even know how to find my way home from 

school. Everything was different from where I came from. For 

a while, I just stayed in my house, and my computer became 

my best friend. I was scared and hiding, and I didn’t even 

think I would ever get a good job after high school. I was sad 

and frustrated. 

‘‘But along came the Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program, and my life changed. I was amazed at how many people 

had the same background as I did. Once in the program, I got 

to see many beautiful places and made my college and career 

visits. 

‘‘So many nice people have helped me with so many of my 

problems. Without the Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program, I would not have the courage to stand and talk about 

my challenging life.’’ 

And like I said, this young man is a sophomore currently at Penn 

State University, and this is one of the many examples that we 

have of success stories at the Migrant Education Program. One of 

them is actually sitting here in the hearing room and is the national director of the Office of Migrant Education. 

She was a former migrant student in Texas, and then she turned 

to go into education. She was a teacher. She was a school principal. 

16 

Now she has her doctorate in education, and we are very proud of 

her, Dr. Lisa Ramirez, and—over there. 

[Applause.] 

She is a product of the Migrant Education Program, and she is 

one of the many stories we have across the Nation. 

So we ask you to keep funding the Migrant Education Program. 

We also ask that you will receive the Interstate Migrant Education 

Council’s report, and there are certain recommendations in there. 

And we ask you to be able to review those recommendations, and 

among them is to extend eligibility and the funding of children 

from birth to 21. We feel it is very important to reach the family 

very, very young. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Medina follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CARMEN MEDINA

Good morning Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, and distinguished members of the 

committee. I am Carmen Medina, Chief of the Division of Student Services and Migrant Education at the Pennsylvania Department of Education. I want to thank you 

for the invitation to speak to you today about the Migrant Education Program and 

the importance of this program to migrant children and their families in Pennsylvania and across the Nation. 

The Federal Migrant Education Program supports the goal of ensuring that every 

child in America receives a world-class education that prepares them for responsible 

citizenship, further learning, and productive employment. I welcome this opportunity to share with you the experience of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and 

my thoughts on why the support for the Migrant Education Program should be continued through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as outlined in the 

President’s Blueprint for ESEA Reauthorization. 

Let me start by calling your attention to an analysis of the ESEA Blueprint recently released by the Interstate Migrant Education Council or IMEC, which is attached to my written testimony. This analysis, in which I took part, highlights aspects of the proposed ESEA reauthorization which are of particular benefit to migrant children and their families. The analysis also makes recommendations to 

strengthen several sections of the blueprint that pertain directly to migrant children, such as expanding eligibility for program services to children from birth to age 

21 and better defining certain key terms related to migrant children. 

The expansion of eligibility to include children from birth to age 3 is particularly 

important. We know that early intervention services can have a profound positive 

impact on children at a high risk of academic failure. Including these children in 

the Migrant Education Program will enable States to offer these services to the 

youngest migrant children. Pennsylvania has been using State resources to fund 

these important services to very young children and we are seeing the benefit of 

serving these children during these vital developmental years. 

Migrant workers are defined as those individuals who travel from place to place 

to find temporary work in such industries as agriculture, dairy farming, fishing and 

food processing. The average migrant family moves three to five times annually. 

Such mobility is particularly difficult on the children of migrant families and detrimental to their educational achievement. Mobility as a risk factor for academic 

achievement is combined with the fact that many migrant children are not native 

English speakers and need instruction in English as a second language. Evidence 

shows that migrant children are usually 3 to 5 years behind non-migrant students 

in grade level and are at an increased risk of dropping out of school. The Migrant 

Education Program was established in 1966 as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to address the unique needs of these children and operates 

in all 50 States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. 

The Migrant Education Program makes Federal funds available to States to provide educational and support services to migrant children, youth and their families. 

The services offered through the Migrant Education Program are intended to help 

reduce the impact on the educational achievement of migrant children caused by 

their mobility, language and other barriers. In Pennsylvania, we provide the following types of services to migrant children and their families: 

• Extended learning time, both during the school day and outside of school hours; 

17 

• In-home support services; • Language instruction and cultural support; • Out-of-school youth programs and dropout re-engagement; • High quality pre-school instruction; • Student leadership programs; • Post-secondary enrollment support; and • Activities to engage parents in the education of their children. 

Migrant students are identified and recruited to the Migrant Education Program 

based on several eligibility criteria. Currently, to be eligible for the program in 

Pennsylvania, the child or youth must: 

• Be between the ages of 3 and 21 years old and not graduated from high school 

or hold a high school equivalency certificate; • Be a migrant worker or have a parent, spouse, or guardian who is a migrant 

worker; • Have moved within the preceding 36 months in order to obtain or seek employment or accompany a parent, spouse, or guardian in obtaining or seeking temporary 

or seasonal employment in qualifying work; and • Have moved from one school district to another. 

Each year, Pennsylvania provides migrant education services in 139 Pennsylvania 

school districts and 46 counties across the State of Pennsylvania. In the 2008–2009 

program year, Pennsylvania’s Migrant Education Program served a total of 5,409 

eligible children and youth. This included migrant children and youth of Hispanic, 

Asian, African-American and Caucasian descent across grade and age levels. Eighty 

two percent of these children were not fluent in English. Nineteen percent were preschool children, 55 percent were in kindergarten to grade 12, and 26 percent were 

out-of-school youth. 

Pennsylvania operates the program by dividing the State into nine project areas 

for the purpose of program implementation and management. Each project area is 

overseen by a Project Manager who directs program implementation and day-to-day 

operations. Each Project Manager reports regularly to the Chief of the Division of 

Student Services and Migrant Education in the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The Pennsylvania Department of Education also provides technical assistance and professional development services to all project areas. Project area staff 

handle program implementation, including student support services, data collection 

and analysis, and recruitment of eligible children and youth. 

Identification and outreach to eligible children is an important part of the program. Migrant families are likely to be unaware of services and resources that may 

be available, in part because of the very mobility and language barriers that make 

the services provided by the program so important to them and their children. The 

Migrant Education Program in Pennsylvania works hard to ensure that migrant 

students and their families are aware and take advantage of this important resource. Recruiters in Pennsylvania locate children through referrals from growers, 

industry owners and employees, other migrant families and local school districts. 

Once a migrant family is identified, recruiters interview family members to determine if the children are eligible for migrant education services. Recruiters also help 

migrant families find other services for which they may be eligible. 

The Migrant Education Program has been an essential part of the Pennsylvania 

Department of Education’s strategy to ensure that all students receive the necessary 

support to be successful in school and beyond by taking a holistic approach to student assistance. The program allows us to begin offering individualized services to 

migrant children when they are very young and continue these services through 

high school graduation. The program engages parents and fosters collaboration between families and school districts and community organizations to offer a widerange of high quality programming both during school hours and non-school hours. 

Our Migrant Education Program summer activities are particularly important to 

migrant families. Many migrant families arrive in a new area at the beginning of 

the summer; our summer programs offer them their first point of contact to educational services and assistance in their new community. Migrant children are able 

to receive English as a Second Language (ESL) education during the summer. ESL 

and other instructions are essential to preventing the ‘‘summer backslide’’ during 

which English language learners and children from low-income households can lose 

up to 3 months growth in reading. 

The Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program is also a key source of valuable 

data that informs State and local policies. The program has an evaluation system 

in place that measures each student’s needs and progress throughout the student’s 

participation in the program. The system collects quantitative and qualitative summer and school-year program data that is vital to identifying the needs of each child 

18 

and creating an individualized service delivery plan. In addition, migrant education 

staff has access to student assessments at the district level and can work with migrant students’ teachers and parents to ensure the educational, social and emotional 

needs of each child are met. 

The success of the Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program is evident on many 

levels. Pre- and post-service delivery evaluations of the program show that with 

each year of participation, migrant students improve their academic performance in 

all categories on the Pennsylvania State academic assessment in both reading and 

math. We also have a strong track record of keeping migrant students in school. In 

Pennsylvania, 88 percent of the migrant students in their senior year in high school 

who are participants in the program graduated and over 90 percent of those students continued with post-secondary education. 

We are proud to say that Pennsylvania is a leader in delivering services through 

the Migrant Education Program to its migrant children and families. For many 

years, Pennsylvania has provided consulting and guidance on the delivery of migrant education services to other States and the Office of Migrant Education at the 

U.S. Department of Education often refers other States to Pennsylvania for assistance in developing and enhancing their Migrant Education Programs. 

The program’s success in Pennsylvania is also evident on a personal level. I would 

like to close by sharing with you a quote from a migrant student from Cambodia 

who participated in the program for 3 years. This student graduated from high 

school last year and is now continuing his education at Penn State University. 

‘‘When I first arrived in Philadelphia, I was completely clueless. I didn’t even 

know how to find my way home from school . . . Everything was different from 

where I came from . . . For awhile, I just stayed in my house and my computer 

became my best friend. I was scared and hiding and I didn’t even think I would 

ever get a good job after high school. I was sad and frustrated. 

‘‘But along came the PA Migrant Education Program and my life changed 

. . . I was amazed at how many people had the same background as I did. Once 

in the program I got to see many beautiful places and made many college and 

career visits. So many nice people have helped me with so many of my problems. Without the PA Migrant Education Program, I would not have the courage to stand and talk about my challenging life.’’ 

Through the Migrant Education Program, States are able to reach many students 

and help them to overcome the significant barriers that stand between them and 

educational and economic success. Please help us continue to do this great work by 

continuing the support of the Migrant Education Program in the reauthorization of 

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and considering the specific suggestions set forth in the IMEC report. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I am happy to answer any 

questions you may have. 

[Editor’s Note: A report entitled Migrant Education—Recommendations by 

The Interstate Migrant Education Council (IMEC) may be found at: http:// 

www.migedimec.org/publicatons/2011ReauthRecommendations.pdf. Due to 

the high cost of printing, materials that have been previously published are 

not reprinted in the hearing record.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Medina. 

Now we turn to Ms. Hundley. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF LUCINDA HUNDLEY, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES, LITTLETON 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS, LITTLETON, CO 

Ms. HUNDLEY. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, and 

other members of the committee. 

You know who I am, Lucinda Hundley, from Littleton Public 

Schools. Just as a quick context, our school district has about 

16,000 kids. We are a suburban district in the Denver metro area. 

We have about 1,550 students with disabilities, preschool through 

21, and our graduation rate is about 90 percent. Our graduation 

rate for students with disabilities is close to 80 percent—79.2, to 

be specific—and our dropout rate is about 1 percent. 

The CHAIRMAN. Wow. 

19 

Ms. HUNDLEY. As I said, I am directly responsible for kids with 

disabilities and the services and supports that we provide to them, 

but I want to say to you in the context of all of my remarks, please 

know that I believe parents are essential as partners to us and 

with us in the work that we do and the successes that we achieve. 

We cannot do it alone either at the local, State, or Federal level 

without parents as our partners. 

Three years ago, our board of education set a new element in our 

district’s strategic plan that was very focused, and there were two 

new things that they added. One was related to what we call the 

‘‘90 percent goal.’’ Essentially, that by the end of the 2011–2012 

school year, 90 percent of all of our students, including kids with 

disabilities, would be on grade level in the areas of reading, writing, math, and science. The second part of that goal was to cut the 

achievement gap in half by the end of actually this school year, the 

2009–2010 school year. 

At this point, let me give you a quick progress report. In terms 

of all students, which includes students with disabilities, we are 

finding that right now or as of, I guess, spring of 2009, 79.6 percent 

of all of our students in grades kindergarten through 10th grade 

are on grade level, using our District’s achievement index. Also included in that is another piece of a statistic that shows that we are 

getting some things right, but we still have some work to do. 

In the spring of 2009, 79.6 percent of our students with disabilities at the elementary level made their adequate yearly progress 

targets, and 82.8 percent of our students with disabilities in spring 

of 2009 made their adequate yearly progress targets in math. 

We are making progress. Those are students that are in the elementary level. We still have work to do for students in our middle 

and high schools. 

To be effective, we believe the accountability systems need to include all students and that we need to hold high standards for all 

students. We believe that tracking goals and objectives and measurement of goals and objectives in IEPs is important, but that 

doesn’t get to tracking achievement and being able to see what students can do and demonstrate on impartial instruments how they 

can do. So what we would say to you is that the system is not held 

accountable if the only progress we are measuring is on IEP goals 

and objectives. 

Because of current law, students with disabilities now have a 

seat at the table, and I would say to you, that is probably the best 

thing for students with disabilities under ESEA. They have a seat 

at the table for instructional planning, for allocation of resources, 

for decisions around programming, for decisions around assessments. 

For determining strategies that we are going to use, both in the 

classroom as well as for monitoring progress, there is now a much 

broader ownership, both at a district level, board of education level, 

and school site level for all students’ learning, including kids with 

disabilities. 

Because of ESEA, we believe we have made significant investment in the quality of our instruction in all subject areas. Through 

a team-based philosophy in Littleton, we have brought school-wide 

reform systems to our schools in the form of PBS, positive behavior 

20 

supports; response to intervention, RTI; and while having roots in 

special education, these programs are best implemented together 

with general education and embedded across an entire school system to impact the school system, not just one particular group of 

students. 

We would say that what we are seeing is that those systems are 

beginning to work pretty well with our most at-risk kids, our lowincome, minority students, English language learners, students 

with disabilities, and any other at-risk student who may not have 

a particular label, but they still may be at risk. 

Colorado does not use an alternative assessment on modified 

achievement standards, and my written testimony includes some 

information for you about that. But what I would like to stress is 

that in making the decision to not move forward with developing 

a modified assessment, it has positively impacted our work because 

we are all being held to the same high standard. 

In Littleton, students with disabilities are included in the general education classroom to the greatest extent possible according 

to their individual needs. By doing so, I believe we are really getting it right. We are creating an acceptance within the school that 

is creating not only a society of inclusion in the school and by extension in society in general, but we are creating an element in our 

schools that are expecting all students to learn and where all children have a place in both the academic and the social structure in 

the school. 

Let me give you a quick example of a young man who in high 

school could be nominated as prom king. This young man had 

Down syndrome, and he is now 24. He is holding down an hourly 

job at the Pepsi Center, knows Carmelo Anthony. He receives an 

hourly rate, and it is a fair wage that a nondisabled person would 

also earn. 

We also do a lot of transition planning with our students in 

terms of planning ahead for a future, and that is through our transition planning, starting at age 15, as well as accessing supports 

like our College in Colorado program. Students identify available 

resources. They participate in activities related to their goals, such 

as career planning, job coaching, or potentially dual enrollment 

programs. 

Ultimately, what I am getting at—both by the systems that we 

are putting in our schools, our transition planning, putting college 

as a potential in a child’s future—is we are setting the bar high 

enough that students with disabilities can actually begin to envision that they might have a future beyond high school, that they 

might graduate, that they might have something that holds some 

promise for them beyond high school—higher education, potentially 

a career, some type of work experience. 

We also do something unique in Littleton. A year after our students graduate or age out at 21, we call those students and their 

parents to say how did we do? What are you doing? What could we 

have done better? What suggestions do you have for us? 

As of the spring of 2009, for those students that were graduates 

or who aged out in 2008, 52 percent of those students are now in 

higher ed, and 44 percent of those students are in the workforce. 

21 

I would like to leave you with a couple of key recommendations, 

and I will be brief. No. 1, please maintain full accountability for 

students with disabilities, but please also consider, like my fellow 

panel members here have also said, please consider part of the annual assessment that is a measurement of student growth over 

time compared to themselves. Cohort groups are an important way 

of measuring student progress, not arbitrary targets that are currently in the adequate yearly progress measurement. 

No. 2, please provide flexibility in the use of ESEA funds to be 

able to train and build capacity for both general and special education staff working with children with disabilities. It is important 

to build those technical skills. It is important to all of us in the 

field to be able to build capacity with the limited resources that we 

have. 

No. 3, please support quality teacher training programs and models that provide incentives and supports for people to go into this 

very severely short-staffed field of special education. We know that 

nationally, there is a shortage of special education teachers, and we 

need support in creating incentives for people to go into those 

fields. 

No. 4, please provide incentives for State assessments to be designed and implemented so that all students can accurately demonstrate over time their academic knowledge and skills. 

And last, please expand opportunities to improve early literacy 

instruction and critical interventions through ESEA. 

Thank you again for inviting me to participate in this panel, and 

I will await your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hundley follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LUCINDA HUNDLEY

Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, and other members of the committee, thank you 

for inviting me to speak today. I am the Assistant Superintendent of Student Support Services for Littleton Public Schools in Littleton, CO. Our district includes 24 

schools Pre-K–12 and the district motto ‘‘big enough to serve you, small enough to 

know you’’ is embodied in the comprehensive programming offered in a caring and 

involved small-town atmosphere. We have over 16,000 students enrolled this year 

including 1,550 that are served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education 

Act. Our high school graduation rate is 90 percent, 79.2 percent for students with 

disabilities, and our dropout rate is 1 percent. 

In my role as Assistant Superintendent, I am directly responsible for all services 

provided from pre-school to age 21 to students receiving special education services 

under IDEA. I work with a dynamic team of district leaders responsible for students 

with a broad range of needs, including title I schools. Together, we strive to set the 

highest of expectations for all of our students. 

Today, I’d like to highlight key components of my district’s commitment and success with students receiving special education services as well as share several recommendations for you to consider as you reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary 

Education Act. 

LITTLETON’S COMMITMENT TO ALL STUDENTS

Three years ago, our Board of Education added a new element to the district’s 

strategic plan to support and reinforce that student achievement should be at the 

heart of everything we do in our schools. The goals of that plan are: 

• ensure that 90 percent of students—including students with disabilities—will be 

on or above grade level in the areas of reading and writing, mathematics, and 

science by the end of the 2011–2012 school year; and, 

• cut the student achievement gap by half by the end of the 2009–2010 school 

year. 

22 

We have made tremendous progress in accomplishing these goals, in fact, as of 

spring, 2009, 79.6 percent of Littleton Public School students are on or above grade 

level, in the areas of language arts and math, according to the District’s student 

achievement index. This reflects all students, grades K–10. While we have made 

gains in pursuing these goals, it will come as no surprise, that we continue to reassess not just what we are doing to improve student achievement, but how we are 

doing it, how we are improving general and special education, as well as how we 

are monitoring progress over time. 

For students with disabilities, the gains are significant. In fact, our 2009 data 

show a district-wide 98 percent participation rate in our statewide assessments and 

steady gains in achievement. Examples of this include 76.9 percent of elementary 

students with disabilities meeting the adequate yearly progress target for reading 

and 82.8 percent of elementary students with disabilities meeting the adequate 

yearly progress target for math. There is no question that the requirement in current ESEA law—to fully include students with disabilities at the subgroup level in 

the accountability system—is a significant reason for these gains. 

To be effective, State accountability systems must include all students, and be 

held accountable for the achievement of all students. Using progress monitoring 

data related to IEP goals is not a valid assessment of the success of the system to 

promote high levels of achievement for students with disabilities on State standards. 

The IEP is an individualized guarantee for special education and related services 

based on assessed student needs. IEP goals are related to a student’s specific individual needs, including for example, services and supports—but these alone are not 

always a sufficient gauge of a student’s educational achievement. Special education 

must also provide specially designed instruction and services for students with disabilities that facilitate high expectations and high achievement. The system is not 

held accountable if progress on meeting IEP goals is used as the sole accountability 

measure. 

Under No Child Left Behind, students with disabilities now have a seat at the 

table, for instructional planning, staff development, and determining strategies for 

ongoing assessments to monitor progress. There is now a much broader ownership 

for the learning of all students, including those with disabilities. 

Before the last reauthorization, the needs of students with disabilities were not 

fully considered in many of the decisions made regarding allocation of resources for 

teacher training, for programming including literacy and other interventions and for 

participation in assessments with their peers. Because of ESEA, Littleton Public 

Schools has made a significant investment in improving the quality of our instruction, in all subject areas. By bringing best practices to our schools through a teambased philosophy, we have been able to create and sustain school-wide reform systems through research-based programs such as Positive Behavior Support (PBS) and 

Response to Intervention (RtI). Both of these systemic strategies, while having roots 

in special education, are best implemented when the entire school building is engaged and both general and special education are working together to ensure that 

our most at-risk students, including low-income students, minority students, 

English Language Learners and students with disabilities, are provided the supports and interventions they need regardless of eligibility for one particular program 

or another. 

When the U.S. Department of Education provided flexibility to States in creating 

an alternate assessment on modified achievement standards for students with disabilities—often referred to as the 2 percent Rule—Colorado’s State legislature 

charged an expert study committee with the task of examining whether the State 

should move forward to develop a 2 percent test. In December 2005, the study committee released the report Assessing ‘‘Students in the Gap’’ in Colorado. That report 

included key recommendations such as: 

• Expand the eligibility and difficulty of Colorado’s alternate assessment on alternate standards for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities; 

• Increase the use of standardized accommodations; 

• Promote intensive, targeted, research-based instruction; 

• Investigate accountability measures that could account for longitudinal growth; 

and 

• Investigate the effect of giving Colorado’s general assessment to students in 

smaller sections over a longer period of days. 

(Source: Report from the HB–05–1246 Study Committee, 2005) 

Colorado’s decision to not move forward in developing the modified assessment 

has positively impacted my district’s commitment to providing the intensive, targeted, research-based instruction that students need and we strive to make the best 

decisions regarding assessments for students with disabilities. 

23 

Current law, although not perfect, has helped us work together to support a philosophy and approach that sets the highest of expectations for all students and 

doesn’t place arbitrary limits on what any student can or should be expected to 

achieve. This helps us carry out on-going and focused professional development and 

staff training throughout the district. Our training is not a ‘‘top down’’ model, but 

instead relies on school-based teams to pilot evidence-based programs, see the student gains and then share and expand the growth of best practices and programs 

throughout the district. 

In Littleton, students with disabilities are included in the general classroom to 

the greatest extent possible according to their individual needs. Because of a sustained effort to more fully include students with disabilities with their peers, in my 

estimation we are getting it right, including in Littleton, CO. We are benefiting 

greatly because we are fostering and supporting acceptance that creates a school society in which all pre-school, elementary, middle and high school students are expected to learn and know grade level content to the greatest extent possible, and, 

where all children have a place in both the academic and social structure of school 

and where, for example, a young man with Down Syndrome can be nominated prom 

king while in high school and hold down an hourly job at age 24, in a typical work 

place setting. 

Another example of how students with disabilities are benefiting is with both the 

focus on transition to post-secondary opportunities and our State’s College in Colorado program. It helps students engage in discussions about their future, identify 

resources available to them, participate in activities related to their goals, such as 

career planning, job-related skill development, on the job coaching, dual enrollment 

programs at the local community colleges or classes that support their career interests. Ultimately, it sets the bar high enough that students have a vision of themselves achieving goals after high school, which can include going to college. The College in Colorado program has expanded to include identifying higher education resources for students with disabilities. Imagine being a student with disabilities who, 

in the past, would have assumed that college wasn’t in their future. Now, many students with disabilities in Colorado have set very realistic goals for themselves, goals 

that include college. 

In Littleton, for students that graduate or exit at age 21 after receiving special 

education services, we contact each of them, and their parents, 1 year after graduation to ask them what they are currently doing in their life, how prepared they 

were, how they are doing, and what suggestions that might have for us to improve 

our supports to students with disabilities. After 5 years of collecting this post-school 

outcome data, we are confident to report that the majority of the students that have 

graduated or exited at age 21 are doing quite well. For the 2009 graduates reporting, 52 percent are involved in higher education, and 44 percent are employed in 

the workforce. This continues to be an area of priority for us, linking K–12 student 

achievement outcomes with post-secondary success. 

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

Inherent to our success as a district is also the ongoing challenge to make an imperfect law work so that we can fully support and serve all of the students for which 

we are responsible. As such, I’d like to offer several recommendations for you to consider as you reauthorize the ESEA. 

1. Maintain full accountability for students with disabilities. Please consider however, as part of the annual assessment, the addition of a growth model that measures student growth at a cohort level. Current accountability with artificial targets 

for student performance does not allow for recognition of significant growth over 

time. Comparisons should be made from year to year against the same cohort or 

group of students, to fully understand the actual gains being made by that group 

(e.g. compare the same group of third graders to themselves when in the 4th grade). 

Accountability in this model is much more authentic as a measurement of real 

progress and therefore more accepted when it is relevant at the student level and 

reflective of the work being done. If our goal is to teach students and expect them 

to learn grade level content, we need to measure and compare those same students’ 

growth each year. On a broad level, while States set their own targets, States (and 

their school districts) should get credit for progress made toward their own proficiency. A district level example of this is that in 2009, Littleton achieved 129 out 

of 135 AYP targets for our subgroups, but got no credit for progress that these students made, only the note that the district did not achieve AYP. 

2. Provide flexibility in use of funds through ESEA to train and build capacity 

for more teachers. There is a critical shortage of special education personnel in Colorado and throughout the Nation. By allowing Federal funds to flow for training of 

24 

both general and special education staff, districts like mine could ensure that general educators are better prepared to teach students with diverse learning needs 

and that special educators better understand how to teach to grade level standards 

while providing specially designed instruction as required by IDEA. This would also 

allow districts to better utilize limited resources to assure that the staff with the 

most appropriate skills and training are those working with students with a range 

of learning needs. We want to focus our training on improving student academic 

achievement and how to teach students to successfully master the challenging curricula to the greatest extent of their abilities. 

3. Support teacher training programs that provide ongoing incentives and support 

to draw qualified staff into the field where there are critical shortages. We all recognize that there is a serious shortage nationally of special education teachers. Colorado’s Teacher in Residence training program is an example where higher education, in partnership with school districts, provides ongoing training, oversight and 

support in coordination with the mentoring support that the school district can provide. This type of teacher preparation program as an example, paired with flexibility 

for use of funds to build capacity and increased skills with current teaching staff 

as described previously, will enhance the efforts we are currently making in the 

field to provide trained, quality staff proficient in evidence-based instruction and 

progress monitoring. 

4. Provide incentives for State assessments to be designed and implemented so 

that all students can accurately demonstrate, over time, their academic knowledge 

and skills. Our assessments must utilize the principles of Universal Design for 

Learning to ensure that all students—including those with disabilities—can meaningfully demonstrate their knowledge and skills, thereby providing a more accurate 

understanding of student academic performance for evaluation by educators, families and policymakers. This ‘‘next generation’’ of assessments must consider the 

needs of diverse learners from creation, rather than attempting to retrofit assessments during their implementation. An assessment can only be considered an accurate picture of a student’s knowledge and skills if it is designed to allow a student 

to most effectively demonstrate what they know. 

5. Expand opportunities to improve early literacy instruction and critical interventions throughout ESEA. Including a strong literacy component as part of ESEA and 

supporting professional development for teachers (e.g., the LEARN Act as recently 

introduced in the Senate and House) will help ensure training and funding for statewide literacy planning and instruction. School improvement and reform provisions 

must require the adoption and valid use of proven school-wide educational strategies, and embedding them in the general education structure. By including a ‘‘multitier system of supports (MTSS)—which allows for systems such as Response to 

Intervention, Positive Behavior Support and other research-based instruction and 

intervention systems—we can prevent academic failure, increase academic achievement and reduce the number of students mistakenly identified as needing special 

education. 

Thank you again for this opportunity to speak to you today. I will be happy to 

take your questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Hundley, thank you very much for being 

here and for your statement. 

Now we will turn to Ms. Ross, Denise Ross. 

STATEMENT OF DENISE ROSS, SUPERVISOR, HOMELESS EDUCATION OFFICE, PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY PUBLIC 

SCHOOLS, MARYLAND 

Ms. ROSS. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, 

and members of the committee, for providing me with the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of homeless children across the 

country. 

Our school system, like most jurisdictions, has experienced 

growth in our homeless student enrollment over the past few years. 

Currently, there are over 2,500 homeless children and youth enrolled in our school system. This is approximately a 14 percent increase over the past 3 years. 

Homeless children and youth have unique needs. They encounter 

educational barriers when these needs are not understood, or when 

25 

Federal law—the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act—is not 

implemented fully. 

Homeless children and youth are embarrassed about where they 

live. They move from place to place, worried about where they will 

live next and what school they will attend. They are hungry and 

wondering whether or not they will have food to eat. They often 

lack sleep because they are in a crowded place, sometimes with 

people that they don’t know. They lack the basics, such as clothing 

and school supplies, personal hygiene items, things that we sometimes take for granted. 

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is an anchor for 

homeless students in many ways. It allows youngsters to have immediate school access as well as school stability during their time 

of transition. I actually see the power of these policies on a daily 

basis. 

Most importantly, over 70 percent of our homeless children in 

Prince George’s County Public Schools attend the same school that 

they were attending prior to losing their housing, also known as 

the school of origin. Thanks to our school district’s commitment to 

school stability, this has occurred. 

Despite progress over the past years, many barriers remain. 

Some of the primary challenges include identifying homeless students, providing transportation, and meeting the needs of the special populations. There are many more challenges, but with respect 

to time, we are going to focus in on just those three. 

First, the educational needs of homeless students cannot be met 

if these students are not identified. Yet homeless students are often 

invisible. Even with the more than 2,500 homeless students that 

our county has identified, we know that there are more out there, 

unseen and, therefore, not served. 

Reauthorization should increase the authorized funding level so 

that more school districts have the resources to hire the staff to 

find and then assist homeless students. Currently, my school district is among 9 percent of school districts nationwide that receive 

funding. 

Another challenge and one of our bigger challenges is transportation. The primary purpose of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is to limit disruption in the child’s education. Transportation is essential to achieve this purpose. Yet the cost of providing transportation is very high. 

Our school district steps up to the plate in providing transportation, but we do that at a very high cost. The cost of transportation has caused school districts to fail to identify homeless students or to force school moves that are not in that child’s best interest. 

We also are challenged by other school districts that are not providing prompt or timely transportation, and this creates a barrier 

to the immediate or continued enrollment and attendance of homeless students. In addition, some school districts misinterpret the 

school of origin transportation requirements. Therefore, they discontinue transportation to the school of origin if the family obtains 

permanent housing during the school year. 

This practice pulls the rug out from underneath homeless children and youth just as they are finally achieving some stability in 

26 

their lives. Once again, it uproots their education. Therefore, I ask 

that reauthorization support the transportation provisions of the 

McKinney-Vento Act by addressing all of these issues. 

The last challenge that I would like to address is meeting the 

needs of special populations. Young children experiencing homelessness are often shut out of early childhood programs as a result 

of their mobility, never reaching the top of the waiting list. 

The McKinney-Vento Act should be amended to increase homeless children’s access to and stability in early childhood programs. 

In addition, unaccompanied youth face the trauma of homelessness 

without the support of a parent or guardian. They are often disengaged from school and behind in credits. I ask that reauthorization address their unique needs and ensure that they have a 

chance to make up what they missed due to homelessness. 

Finally, children and youth in foster care also experience educational disruption. Reauthorization should create a separate education program for children and youth in foster care that provides 

immediate access and school stability. This program should maximize the collaborative role and the resources of child welfare agencies. 

In closing, too many homeless children and youth are not identified, enrolled, or attending school. Too many continue to change 

schools over and over again, each time losing instruction, losing 

friends, and eventually losing their connection to school entirely by 

dropping out. Homeless students and students in foster care need 

additional supports if they are to be able to participate successfully 

in any educational program. 

I ask the committee to address these issues in the upcoming reauthorization. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to share my experience and 

views. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ross follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DENISE ROSS

SUMMARY

Homeless children and youth have unique needs; they encounter educational barriers when those needs are not met. These needs include lack of basic supplies such 

as clothing and hygiene products; fatigue, hunger, emotional stress, trauma; high 

residential mobility; lack of records. 

Despite much progress over the past years, many barriers to the education of homeless children and youth remain. Some of the primary challenges include the following: (1) difficulty identifying homeless students; (2) lack of dedicated staff time 

and resources; (3) determining the best educational placement; (4) the logistical and 

financial challenges of transportation; (5) lack of clarity in the title I part A setaside 

for homeless students; and (6) meeting the needs of special populations, such as preschool children, unaccompanied homeless youth, and children and youth in foster 

care. 

Recommendations for Reauthorization of ESEA: 

• Improve identification of homeless students by ensuring that school districts 

have the resources to hire the staff to find and assist homeless students. Reauthorization also should require that homeless liaisons participate in professional development to increase awareness, which also will improve identification. 

• Require that all homeless liaisons have sufficient training, resources, and time 

to perform their mandated responsibilities. 

• Require that best interest determinations for homeless students be individualized and child-centered, and that they take into account a number of important criteria, such as the age of child, safety of student, and time remaining in the school 

year. School districts should presume that staying in the school of origin is in the 

27 

child’s best interest, unless an individualized determination supports a school move, 

or unless the parent, guardian, or youth wish to change schools. • Support the transportation provisions of the McKinney-Vento Act by addressing 

these funding issues and clarifying that transportation to the school of origin must 

be provided until the end of the school year if a child or youth obtains housing, if 

it continues to be in his or her best interest to continue to attend there. • Provide greater clarity in determining the amount of the title I, part A setaside 

for homeless students, as well as more flexible uses of these funds. • The McKinney-Vento Act should be amended to increase homeless children’s access to and stability in the early childhood programs. • Reauthorization should address the unique needs of unaccompanied homeless 

youth and ensure that they have a chance to make up the credits they missed due 

to homelessness. • Reauthorization should create a separate, dedicated education program for children and youth in foster care that allows them to stay in the school of origin when 

it is in their best interest, or immediately enroll in a new school. This program 

should maximize the collaborative role and the resources of child welfare agencies, 

so that both agencies have clear, distinct, and appropriate responsibilities. 

Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, and members of the committee, for providing me with an opportunity to speak to you on behalf of homeless 

children and youth across the country. 

I currently serve as the Supervisor for the Homeless Education Program for the 

Prince George’s County Public School System in Maryland. Our school system, like 

most jurisdictions, has experienced growth in our homeless student enrollment over 

the past few years. Currently, there are over 2,500 homeless children and youth enrolled in our schools. This is approximately a 14 percent increase over the past 3 

years. 

Homeless children and youth have unique needs. They encounter educational barriers when these needs are not understood, or when Federal law—the McKinneyVento Act—is not implemented fully. Homeless children and youth are embarrassed 

about where they live. They don’t understand why they are homeless, or why their 

circumstances do not improve. They move from place to place, worried about where 

they will live next and what school they will have to attend. Often times, they are 

hungry and wondering whether they will have food to eat. They often lack sleep because they are in a crowded place with other people they don’t know. They lack basics such as clothing and school supplies. 

Unaccompanied homeless youth confront these difficulties without a parent, 

guardian, or any caring adult, most often because they are fleeing abuse or neglect 

at home. Homeless children and youth are often sad and scared, but they can feel 

safe and secure at school. School is also where they can obtain the education to help 

them escape poverty and homelessness as adults. 

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is an anchor for homeless students 

in many ways. It allows these vulnerable youngsters to have immediate school access and school stability during their time of transition. In my work as school district homeless liaison, I see the power of these policies on a daily basis. I conduct 

trainings on the McKinney-Vento Act each year to make sure our school personnel 

know their responsibilities. Our program provides homeless students with vouchers 

or gift cards for clothing, uniforms, shoes, school supplies, personal hygiene items, 

eye exams and glasses, if prescribed. We also provide after-school academic support 

services with McKinney-Vento grant funds in a local elementary school and at a 

homeless shelter for women and children. We know that if you equip the students 

with these necessities, it will enhance their desire to attend school, and improve 

their academic performance. We provide many other services, working closely with 

community agencies to make referrals and coordinate activities. 

Most importantly, the majority of our homeless students attend the same school 

that they were attending when they lost their housing, thanks to our school district’s commitment to fulfilling our legal obligation to provide the transportation required for a stable school experience. 

Despite progress over the past years, many barriers to the education of homeless 

children and youth remain. Some of the primary challenges include the following: 

(1) difficulty identifying homeless students; (2) lack of dedicated staff time and resources; (3) determining the best educational placement; (4) the logistical and financial challenges of transportation; (5) lack of clarity in the title I part A setaside for 

homeless students; and (6) meeting the needs of special populations, such as preschool children, unaccompanied homeless youth, and children and youth in foster 

care. 

28 

1. Difficulty Identifying Homeless Students. The educational needs of homeless 

students cannot be met if these students are not identified. Yet homeless students 

are often invisible. A homeless parent, when asked by a reporter what she wanted 

to say to the public, responded, ‘‘You can’t judge a book by its cover.’’ In other words, 

you can’t always tell just by looking at someone whether or not that person is homeless. Even with the more than 2,500 homeless students we have identified in our 

county, we know that there are more out there, unseen and not served. Reauthorization should address the need for increased outreach and identification of homeless 

children and youth by increasing the authorized funding level, so that more school 

districts have the resources to hire the staff to find and assist homeless students. 

Reauthorization also should require that homeless liaisons and school staff participate in professional development. This professional development will result in a 

heightened awareness and thereby improve identification efforts. 

2. Dedicated Staff Time and Resources. School district homeless liaisons are essential for effective implementation of the McKinney-Vento Act. McKinney-Vento liaisons and school staff are often the only source of advocacy and support for homeless 

students. However, homeless liaisons face a number of challenges. They are often 

unable to devote sufficient time to carry out their duties, due to the many hats they 

wear. In fact, in the majority of school districts, the liaison is merely a title. This 

problem is related in part to the low funding level of the McKinney-Vento program; 

only 9 percent of school districts receive McKinney-Vento Act funds. Fortunately, 

thanks to the support of the Prince George’s County Public School District, our 

homeless program has four full-time positions. We need each and every person on 

our staff to ensure that our students are served. Reauthorization should require 

that homeless liaisons have sufficient capacity to perform their mandated responsibilities. 

3. Determining the Best Educational Placement. School districts are required to 

keep homeless children and youth in their original school, to the extent feasible, unless staying in this school is against the wishes of the parent or guardian. In my 

experience, school stability is usually in a child’s best interest; in fact, over 70 percent of our homeless students stay in the same school. Unfortunately, I have witnessed different school districts interpret this policy in different ways. Sometimes, 

they base what is feasible on cost and convenience, rather than on what is truly 

in the best interest of the child. Reauthorization should require that ‘‘best interest’’ 

determinations be individualized and child-centered, and that they take into account 

a number of important criteria, such as the age of child, safety of student, and time 

remaining in the school year. School districts should presume that staying in the 

school of origin is in the child’s best interest, unless an individualized determination 

supports a school move, or unless the parent, guardian, or youth wish to change 

schools. This policy will allow flexibility to meet individual needs, but strengthen 

and promote school stability. 

4. The Logistical and Financial Challenge of Transportation. The primary purpose 

of the McKinney-Vento Act is to limit disruption in children’s education when they 

suffer the loss of housing. Transportation is essential to achieve this purpose. Yet 

the cost of providing transportation is very high. The Prince George’s County Public 

School District steps up to the plate in providing transportation, but we do so at 

a very high cost. The cost of transportation has caused other school districts to fail 

to identify homeless students, or to force school moves that are not in children’s best 

interest. Reauthorization should support the transportation provisions of the McKinney-Vento Act by addressing these funding issues. In addition, while the Prince 

George’s County Public School District tries to follow the letter and the spirit of the 

law, we are challenged by other school districts that are not providing prompt or 

timely transportation services. This creates a barrier to immediate or continued enrollment and attendance. In addition, some school districts misinterpret the school 

of origin transportation requirements. They discontinue transportation to the school 

of origin if the student obtains a regular, fixed, and adequate nighttime residence 

during the school year. This practice pulls the rug out from underneath homeless 

children and youth just as they are finally achieving some stability in their lives; 

once again, it uproots their education. Reauthorization of the McKinney-Vento Act 

should clarify that transportation to the school of origin must be provided until the 

end of the school year if a child or youth obtains housing, if it continues to be in 

his or her best interest to continue to attend there. 

5. Lack of Clarity in Title I Part A Setasides. We are fortunate to be among the 

9 percent of all school districts nationwide that receive a McKinney-Vento sub grant. 

This year, our homeless education program is supported by a $60,000 McKinneyVento grant, a $113,000 ARRA homeless education grant, and $85,000 from the title 

I, part A homeless education setaside. The contribution of title I part A is essential 

for our program to continue services. Yet our district, like many others, would benVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Mar 12, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\56322.TXT DENISE
29 

efit from greater clarity in determining the amount of the setaside, as well as more 

flexible uses of these funds. Reauthorization should address both of these issues; especially since the title I part A setaside is the primary funding source available to 

school districts to support their homeless children and youth. 

6. Meeting the Needs of Special Populations. Some children and youth have special 

circumstances, and require specific policies. Young children experiencing homelessness are often shut out of early childhood programs as a result of their mobility, 

never reaching the top of the waiting list. The McKinney-Vento Act should be 

amended to increase homeless children’s access to and stability in the early childhood programs. In addition, youth who are homeless and on their own face the trauma of homelessness without the support of a parent or guardian. They are often disengaged from school and behind in credits. Reauthorization should address their 

unique needs and ensure that they have a chance to make up what they missed due 

to homelessness. Finally, children and youth in foster care also experience high 

rates of mobility and educational hurdles. Reauthorization should create a separate, 

dedicated education program for children and youth in foster care that allows them 

to stay in the school of origin when it is in their best interest, or immediately enroll 

in a new school. This program should maximize the collaborative role and the resources of child welfare agencies, so that both agencies have clear, distinct, and appropriate responsibilities. 

In closing, I would like to share a story about a single homeless mother with two 

children. One child was in elementary school, and the other was in middle school. 

The mother lost her government job, and, as a result, lost her housing. She and her 

two children stayed with family or friends for a period of time in stressful, unstable 

arrangements. The family moved at least three times, but thanks to the McKinneyVento Act, the children remained at the same school that they had attended prior 

to becoming homeless. Each time the mother’s living arrangements changed, homeless liaisons assisted her with completing required documents to allow for continuity 

with transportation. Her children were able to receive free meals (breakfast and 

lunch) at school. The elementary student was on the honor roll. However, the middle school student’s grades gradually fell below average. His grades were not a reflection of his ability. They were a direct result of his inability to concentrate on 

studying. He was consumed with figuring out where they would be living when he 

got out of school. Being a teenager, he was also angry and embarrassed by their 

living arrangements. The mother and her children eventually obtained a spot at a 

local shelter in a neighboring jurisdiction. She requested that the students finish out 

the school year in Prince George’s County Public Schools. We determined that this 

school placement was in her children’s best educational interest, so transportation 

was arranged, and the students finished out the school year in Prince George’s 

County. Today, the mother has obtained housing. She also completed a Culinary 

Arts program. Both children are attending school in the neighboring jurisdiction and 

doing well. This mother called our Homeless Program a ‘‘blessing’’ to her in her time 

of hardship. 

This story may have ended quite differently if the Prince George’s County School 

District did not have the willingness, ability, and resources to implement the law. 

Too often, stories like this, and many other stories of even greater hardship, do end 

differently. Too many homeless children and youth are not identified, enrolled, or 

attending school. Too many homeless children and children in foster care continue 

to change schools over and over again, each time losing instruction, losing friends, 

and eventually losing their connection to school entirely by dropping out. Education 

is one of our strongest weapons in the fight against adult homelessness. But homeless students, and students in foster care, need additional supports if they are to 

be able to participate successfully in any educational program. The McKinney-Vento 

Act has a strong history, but too many barriers remain. I ask the committee to 

strengthen and expand the McKinney-Vento Act program for homeless children and 

youth, and to create similar opportunities for children and youth in foster care 

through a separate program that is dedicated to their unique needs. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to share my experience and views. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Ross, thank you very much for a profound 

statement, and I think that leads elegantly into Ms. VanDyke. 

Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF KAYLA VANDYKE, STUDENT, EAGAN, MN 

Ms. VANDYKE. Chairman Harkin and Senator Enzi and members 

of the HELP Committee and other staff, thank you so much for inviting me to talk today and share my story, as well as talk about 

30 

some of the issues I know affect many other homeless and foster 

children. 

I am not an expert on policy, but I do know how I have been affected by it, and I hope my experiences can help you make the 

choices that will improve the system. 

My name is Kayla VanDyke. I am 18 years old, and I have been 

in 7 different foster care placements, as well as being in 10 different schools since I was 4 years old. 

I have been homeless. I have experienced living in a shelter, and 

I have been separated from my siblings along the way. But I am 

pleased to tell you that despite the statistics that suggest that 

roughly half of foster children and homeless youth do not finish 

high school, I will be graduating in 4 weeks with a 3.7 GPA. 

[Applause.] 

Thank you. 

I am on track to attend Hamline University in the fall and, right 

after that, complete an internship with FosterClub, which is the 

national network for youth in foster care. 

I entered into foster care for the first time when I was 4 years 

old. After 31⁄2 years of being in placements with my siblings, I was 

returned to my mother. Soon after that, we experienced homelessness. I completely stopped attending school. So I have no fourth 

grade education. 

We stayed with a family friend for a few months before we were 

accepted into a homeless shelter in Minneapolis. It was September 

by then, and I can remember thinking that I should be going to 

school soon. 

When I showed up at Lake Harriet Elementary School on the 

first day of fifth grade, there was no record of my education in St. 

Paul. But the issue wasn’t pressed, and I was allowed to enter into 

classes immediately. 

I was used to being the most motivated and smartest person in 

the class. However, because of my educational hiatus, I could barely keep up. I was also ashamed of where I was living, and I tried 

hard to hide the fact that I was living in a shelter from the other 

students. I became very lonely and withdrawn. 

I later started receiving help from a counselor who donated her 

time at the shelter where I lived. She helped me overcome a lot of 

the emotional pain I had been experiencing as a result of my homelessness. In turn, I began to feel more comfortable at school and 

became engaged in activities. 

Not only did she guide me, but she also helped me gain access 

to resources like scholarships for summer. I ended up going to the 

YMCA camp and for just once feeling very normal. 

Looking back, I realize what a huge difference these things made 

in my life. Every homeless and foster youth should have the kind 

of support I had. While the McKinney-Vento Act provides homeless 

youth with advocates, these people often don’t have the time or 

training to fulfill their responsibilities. I, myself, never came across 

one of these people. 

It shouldn’t be left up to chance whether or not someone is available to advocate for a student in need. Changes should be made to 

ensure that these people are accessible to foster and homeless 

youth so that all students have the tools they need to succeed. 

31 

At the age of 13, I was placed in foster care for the second time. 

After 6 months in a respite home, which is a temporary placement, 

I changed homes and schools. I really wanted to stay at my old 

school, where I was doing well and had finally found a best friend, 

but it wasn’t an option I felt I had. 

Once again, I became isolated and began falling behind in my 

classes. All the schools I attended taught portions of the courses at 

different times. So when I moved schools, I might completely miss 

one half of the year’s lessons and re-learn what I had already 

learned at the other school. School change is inevitable for a foster 

or homeless youth, they should be able to receive the help they 

need to bridge the gap that might occur because they changed 

schools. 

After many similar transitions, I finally found myself in a good 

home. I had a support group that gave me choice and access to 

things I was interested in. By my sophomore year, my grades finally started reflecting what I was capable of intellectually. 

However, it couldn’t erase the fact that I had skipped major steps 

in my linear education, which is reflected in my math and science 

performance. Like many other homeless and foster children who 

score significantly lower than their peers on standardized tests, I 

failed the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment of math and only 

scored a 21 on my ACT. 

While that may not seem so bad, it is for someone who knows 

they are capable of more. The effect of this has also snowballed into 

me having difficulties getting into college. Not to worry—fortunately, my social studies and English skills have made up for some 

of my educational gaps, and I have been accepted into college. 

I know that if it were not for the support, I could have ended up 

like my sister or many other foster youth. While my sister is currently surviving, she never got the chance to pursue higher education or receive support in achieving her goals. In fact, because of 

the school and placement moves she experienced, she barely finished high school. 

I know there are a lot of stories like my sister’s. That is why my 

ultimate goal would be that more young people have good supportive experiences like I did in my sophomore year. 

On behalf of the half million children in foster care and the 

30,000 who will age out of the system this year, I would like to 

make the following suggestions. 

Foster and homeless children should have the right to transportation to their original schools. I know personally that if I had had 

the option to stay at my old school, I wouldn’t have had so many 

gaps in my education. 

I also believe that schools should be required to enroll foster and 

homeless youth immediately and transfer credits and records 

quickly. I know that if my records had been transferred while I was 

in elementary school, I would have had the opportunity to make up 

the schooling I had missed. However, I am very fortunate that they 

did allow me to enter in school immediately. 

Finally, as I have said before, counselors or liaisons should be 

provided for foster and homeless youth to help them succeed in 

education. Because being in foster care is a state of homelessness. 

It is very similar, and we need very similar support in that. 

32 

I thank you all again for this opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. VanDyke follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KAYLA VANDYKE

SUMMARY

My name is Kayla VanDyke. I’m 18 years old and have lived in seven different 

foster care placements and attended 10 different schools since I was four. I’ve experienced homelessness, have lived in a shelter, and have been separated from siblings 

along the way. At one point, I missed my entire 4th grade year due to my family’s 

homelessness. But I’m pleased to tell you, despite the statistics that say that roughly half of foster care youth and homeless youth don’t finish high school on time, I 

will be receiving my high school diploma in 4 weeks. I’m on track to attend Hamline 

University in the fall, right after I complete an internship with FosterClub, the national network for young people in foster care. 

I’ve been lucky enough to have an underlying awareness of the importance of education, which has always been my main motivator. I noticed from a young age that 

there was one main difference between my family and the people I considered successful and happy: they had an education, my family didn’t. 

There were things that worked in my life and education and there were things 

that made it very hard for me to adapt. During the instability of my childhood, my 

educational experience was highly impacted, leading me to make the following recommendations: 

• Like homeless youth, foster youth should be able to stay in their old 

school after they move to a new school district when it’s in their best interest. Transportation must be provided in order for this to be possible. As a foster 

youth who was never quite sure about where I would be moved next, I didn’t want 

to inconvenience my new family by asking for rides to my old school, even though 

it was minutes away. It never really occurred to me that it would even be an option. 

• Assistance should be provided to homeless and foster youth to cover 

gaps in their education that result from unavoidable school moves. When 

I changed schools, sometimes I completely missed one-half of the year’s lessons and 

had to re-learn what I had already covered at the other school. The fact that I have 

skipped major steps in my linear education continues to impact me to this day. 

When a young person must move, special efforts should be made to ensure that 

their records are transferred, that they don’t lose school credits, and that they receive the help they need to bridge any gaps that might occur due to the move. 

In addition, I have come to realize that some key things were available to me that 

some of my brothers and sisters in foster care must also have to ensure their educational success: 

• Dedicated liaisons or advocates should be provided for all foster and 

homeless youth. These critical adults must have the training, time and capacity 

to serve vulnerable children who are caught up in the kind of circumstances I was 

in. 

At various points in my childhood, supportive adults in the education and child 

welfare systems dedicated time and energy to help me succeed. 

• Young people must be allowed immediate enrollment and records must 

be transferred promptly. Federal law should ensure that all homeless and foster 

youth are allowed to attend school without delay. It should ensure that their records 

are transferred promptly so that they can receive credit for their previous work, and 

so that gaps in their education are not missed. 

Ultimately, the stability I now have in my home life has helped me succeed. I’ve 

lived in my current placement for 3 years. My current foster parents support me 

and have helped me to advocate for my educational needs. 

On behalf of the half million children in foster care and over 1 million homeless 

children in America, I urge you to invest in their educational stability. We all know 

that when we invest in the quality of a young person, we ensure that, as adults, 

they have the opportunity and ability to achieve their potential and goals, enjoy a 

higher standard of living, and help make our country stronger. 

Chairman Harkin and Senator Enzi, and members of the HELP Committee, 

thank you for inviting me to share my story and talk about some of the issues that 

I know affect many other homeless and foster children. I’m not an expert on policy 

but I have been affected by child welfare policies and I hope my experiences can 

help you make choices that will improve the system. I thank the members of the 

33 

committee for their commitment to creating a better life and a brighter future for 

the half a million children who are living in foster care today, and for the 1 million 

children who are currently homeless. 

My name is Kayla VanDyke. I’m 18 years old and have lived in seven different 

foster care placements and gone to 10 different schools since I was four. I’ve experienced homelessness, have lived in a shelter, and have been separated from siblings 

along the way. But I’m pleased to tell you, despite the statistics that suggest that 

roughly half of foster care and homeless youth do not finish high school, I will be 

receiving my high school diploma in 4 weeks. I’m on track to attend Hamline University in the fall, right after I complete an internship with FosterClub, the national 

network for young people in foster care. 

There were things that worked in my life and education and there were things 

that made it very hard for me to adapt. I think I’ve been lucky enough to have an 

underlying awareness of the importance of education, which has always been my 

main motivator. I noticed from a young age that there was one main difference between my family and the people I considered successful and happy: they had an 

education, my family didn’t. 

I went into foster care for the first time when I was four. I’m not sure how many 

times I moved at this time, but I stayed in placements with my sibling for nearly 

3 years until I was given back to my mother, which is when I experienced my first 

school change. 

Then, at the beginning of fourth grade, my family became homeless. I completely 

stopped attending school, so I have no fourth grade education. I remember feeling 

very disoriented as to where I was and why I couldn’t go to school. We stayed with 

a family friend for a few months until we were accepted into a homeless shelter for 

families in Minneapolis. It was September by then, and I can remember thinking, 

‘‘I should be going to school soon.’’ 

I recognize that during that time period, new Federal policies under McKinneyVento had just passed. Perhaps, had they come just a bit earlier and had they been 

fully carried out, things would have been different for me. Maybe a McKinney liaison would have helped to locate me and ensure that I was enrolled in school. But 

I’m not sure if anyone would have tracked me down even if McKinney had been enacted years earlier. That’s because many school districts fail to identify and enroll 

all the homeless youth in their communities because McKinney-Vento is underfunded. Clearly, McKinney-Vento should be strengthened when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is reauthorized so that other homeless kids don’t slip through the 

cracks like I did that year. 

After we left the shelter and when I showed up on the first day of school for fifth 

grade at Lake Harriet Elementary School, there was no record of my education in 

St. Paul, but no one pressed the issue and I was allowed to enter classes. 

During this time, my academics had really suffered due to all of the school I had 

missed, the emotional stress I was under, and the general chaos I had experienced. 

I was used to being the most motivated and smartest person in the class. However, 

because of my educational hiatus, I could barely keep up. I was also ashamed of 

my home life and tried hard to hide the fact that I was living in a shelter from the 

other students. I became really depressed and withdrawn. 

Later in fifth grade, I started receiving help from a counselor who donated her 

time to the shelter where I lived. She helped me overcome a lot of the emotional 

pain I had been experiencing as a result of my homelessness and educational struggles. In turn, I began feeling more comfortable at school and became engaged in activities. Not only did she guide me, but she also helped me gain access to resources 

like scholarships for summer camp—I ended up going to the YMCA camp and for 

once just feeling normal. Every homeless and foster youth should have a liaison or 

advocate like I did—someone to assist a child like me who was struggling to keep 

up. While McKinney-Vento provides homeless youth with liaisons, these liaisons 

often don’t have the time, training and capacity to fulfill their responsibilities because the program is terribly underfunded. When NCLB is reauthorized, this problem should be addressed, 

I also think foster youth should have access to scholarships for extra curricular 

activities as well as the option of having either a counselor or therapist to work as 

their advocate. Looking back, I realize now the huge difference these things made 

for me. Without access to these opportunities or my counselor, I am not sure that 

I would have had the motivation to overcome the difficulties I was having at home 

and in school. I wish that every young person who is experiencing trauma—whether 

it be homelessness or a challenging time in foster care—could have this experience 

with a person who is understanding and dedicated to providing the support a kid 

like me needs. 

34 

At the end of that summer, my family moved from the shelter to a low-income 

housing complex in Burnsville—another school move for me. 

But then, a little less than 2 years later, my siblings and I re-entered the foster 

care system. We were placed in a respite home for 6 months, but then were moved 

again to a foster home which required yet another school move. I really wanted to 

stay at my old school where I was doing well academically and had finally found 

a best friend. But as a foster youth who was never quite sure about where I would 

be moved next, I didn’t want to inconvenience my new family by asking for rides 

to my old school, even though it was minutes away, and even though I would have 

been able to attend the school because Minnesota, unlike other States, has an open 

enrollment policy. It never really occurred to me that attending my old school would 

even be an option. 

Just like the McKinney-Vento Act gives homeless youth the option of remaining 

in their old schools, NCLB should also provide foster youth with this option. Transportation must be provided for this option to be real. I think that remaining in one’s 

old school should be offered up as an option, for kids like me who don’t think to 

ask, or feel like they shouldn’t rock the boat for fear of losing their place to live. 

In 9th grade, my sister and I were moved out of our foster home due to abuse 

that was taking place. I moved to another school, but since it was a move up to 

high school, many of the other kids were new, too. It was at this time that I started 

to recognize the impact that my many school moves had on my education. All the 

schools I attended taught portions of the courses at different times, so when I moved 

schools I might completely miss one-half of the year’s lessons and re-learn what I 

had already learned at the other school. When NCLB is reauthorized, the new law 

should minimize the number of times foster and homeless youth have to change 

schools. When they must move, the reauthorized NCLB should ensure that their 

records are transferred, that they don’t lose school credits, and that they receive the 

help they need to bridge any gaps that might occur because they changed schools. 

In 10th grade, I changed homes one more time, this time for good. This also 

meant another change in schools. I’ve lived in my current placement for 3 years. 

The stability this provided me allowed me to connect with people at my school and 

in my community. These people include my foster mother, social worker, therapist 

and two counselors from my previous schools, who all worked as a team to help me 

accomplish my goals and connect me to resources. Not only did they help me catch 

up academically, but they were also crucial in helping me stabilize my emotions. It 

was amazing—to have a team of people who cared about my success and could help 

me accomplish my goals. Every homeless and foster child should have a team like 

I did. When NCLB is reauthorized, the law should help ensure that child welfare 

and school district staff work better together to address the educational needs of 

every foster youth. 

My sophomore year was successful because I had a support group that gave me 

choice, support and access to things I was interested in. At this time, I was able 

to experience something that I think is pretty unheard of in foster care. I was able 

to become an exchange student. When I came back from my exchange experience, 

I chose to go to a different high school that was smaller and more catered to my 

educational interests. Yes, it was a school move, but it was different—because I got 

to choose. I finally had a stable loving home and a school I felt comfortable in. The 

result was that my grades finally started reflecting what I was capable of intellectually. 

However, it couldn’t erase the fact that I had skipped major steps in my linear 

education. Math and Science have always been my weakest subjects and despite my 

efforts to learn what I have missed, the fact that I have gaps in my education has 

hindered my ability to both learn and take crucial tests. Like many other homeless 

and foster children who score significantly lower than their peers on standardized 

tests, I failed the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment of math and only scored 

a 21 on my ACT. While that may not seem so bad, it is for someone who knows 

they’re capable of more. The effect of this has also snowballed into my having difficulties getting into college. Since coming to my current school, I’ve been mostly an 

A and B student, but I know the inconsistencies in my education have hindered my 

ability to excel in areas like math and science. 

Not to worry—my social studies and English skills have made up for my shortcomings and I’ve been accepted into college. It may not be the first college of my 

choice, but I know that I will succeed. 

I also know that if it were not for the support I received and my awareness of 

how important education was for me to get out of the poverty cycle, I could have 

ended up like my sister or like many other foster youth. While my sister is currently 

surviving, she never had the chance to pursue higher education or receive support 

in achieving her goals. In fact, because of the school and placement moves she expeVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Mar 12, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\DOCS\56322.TXT DENISE
35 

rienced, she barely finished high school. I know there are a lot of stories like my 

sister’s. That’s why my ultimate goal would be that more young people have good 

supportive experiences like I did in my sophomore year. 

To summarize, for the half-million children in foster care and over 1 million children who are homeless, the following NCLB reforms are critical. 

• School stability must be ensured. Foster youth should be able to stay in the 

same school when it’s in their best interest. Transportation must be provided in 

order for this to be possible. • Young people should be allowed immediate enrollment in school and their educational records must be transferred promptly. • Dedicated liaisons and coordinators should be provided for all foster and homeless youth. These critical adults must have the training, time and capacity to serve 

vulnerable children who are caught up in the type of circumstances I experienced. 

We all know that when we invest in the quality of a young person, we ensure 

that, as adults, they have the opportunity and ability to achieve their potential, 

enjoy a higher standard of living, and help make our country stronger. 

Thank you all again for this opportunity. 

The CHAIRMAN. Kayla, thank you very much for being the capstone on all of the testimony we heard before. You are a remarkable young woman, remarkable. We wish you the best in your future endeavors. 

Ms. VANDYKE. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Hamline University? 

Ms. VANDYKE. Hamline. 

The CHAIRMAN. Hamline University. Where is that? 

Ms. VANDYKE. It is in St. Paul. 

The CHAIRMAN. St. Paul. 

Ms. VANDYKE. Minnesota. 

The CHAIRMAN. Minnesota. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. VANDYKE. He knows. 

The CHAIRMAN. That is very remarkable. 

Kayla, just one thing, I heard it both from you and Ms. Ross, and 

that is the provision of attending the school of origin. 

Ms. VANDYKE. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. You put a lot of emphasis on that. So did you, 

Ms. Ross. Just tell me again in your own words, you have said in 

your statement your original school was only just minutes away, 

but you just felt like you couldn’t impose upon your foster family 

to drive you there. 

Ms. VANDYKE. I didn’t know it was an option in Minnesota to 

even go to your original school. There are two major points there. 

One is the emotional well-being of the student. You make a friend 

group. It is very important for children to feel comfortable and stable, to know the teachers, feel comfortable in the environment. 

When you move someone, especially in the middle of the year, 

they are starting off. They don’t have friends. They are already experiencing a lot of emotional trauma from the move, trying to adjust to their home life as well as their school, and that can make 

learning very difficult. 

It is also, like I said, that educational gap. Schools do not teach 

the same thing at the same time. And when you change schools, 

you may be relearning what you already learned. You may have 

completely skipped a section of your education, and there is no way 

to really make that up without completely repeating a year. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just say you are a well-spoken young 

woman. 

36 

[Laughter.] 

As one of my daughters would say, you are kind of awesome. 

Boy. 

[Laughter.] 

One of the positive things that the No Child Left Behind Act did, 

and I have said this before, was it really has shown a bright light 

on the achievement gaps that persist especially for students with 

disabilities. Now, as we look at this, the one thing I keep hearing 

from all of you—and I have said to Senator Enzi, we heard from 

other witnesses—is this idea of getting a growth model, basing 

things on a growth model rather than trying to get close to some 

unattainable goal. 

I wanted to ask again Ms. Hundley about that in terms of students with disabilities. Right now, nationwide, about 64 percent, 65 

percent of people with disabilities are either underemployed or unemployed. But yet you have had a great success in getting people 

employed and into higher education. 

It almost seems like you had a growth model that you were using 

in how you dealt with students with disabilities. Can you expand 

on that just a little bit more? 

Ms. HUNDLEY. I will have to be candid. What I told my staff 

when we saw the AYP targets was don’t worry about the targets. 

Do what needs to be done. The motto we have in Littleton is, ‘‘Do 

whatever it takes.’’ And if it means job coaching, hand over hand, 

on the job, if it means finding the employers then we continue to 

say to them, ‘‘Please persist. Don’t give up on our child.’’ 

We do a lot of individualized job placement, a lot of individualized coaching. The parents are clearly a partner. We do a lot of 

planning with families for what their priorities are. So that child 

getting into that job or getting into higher ed is not solely our 

doing. It is also a result of what the family has stated with the 

child what that level of support is. 

But, yes, ours is very much based on where the child is now, 

where they need to go, then planning backwards for how to get 

them there. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am very intrigued by your followup. You say 

you do that for 5 years after? 

Ms. HUNDLEY. For the past 5 years, we call 1 year out. 

The CHAIRMAN. One year out. 

Ms. HUNDLEY. The reason we have only done 1 year out, and 

many people have said to me, ‘‘Why don’t you do it 5 years, 10 

years?’’ It is hard to find the student, and it is hard to find the parent. Phone numbers change, e-mail addresses change. 

The CHAIRMAN. What do you find from that 1-year followup? Do 

you get good information about maybe changing how you did this 

or how you did that or— 

Ms. HUNDLEY. The kids have said to us, a teacher made all the 

difference in the world for me. Most of them say, ‘‘I wish I was a 

better reader. I wish I was a better writer, and I wish I could do 

math.’’ But that is OK because my cell phone has a calculator. That 

is pretty consistent. 

[Laughter.] 

Here is one other point. Many young adults with disabilities do 

not want to be viewed as a young adult with a disability. So when 

37 

we call them, they are reluctant to talk to us because they have 

already moved into thinking they are a young adult with ability. 

The CHAIRMAN. That is what we have been trying to do since 

ADA does not look at a person’s disability, but look at what they 

are able to do and focus on that. So I thank you for that. 

Senator Enzi. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I will begin with Ms. Hundley. Groups are divided on whether 

or not a student’s individual education plan, IEP, should also be 

used as an accountability tool. Does the Littleton County School 

District use IEPs in this fashion, and why or why not, and what 

do you think about it? 

Ms. HUNDLEY. Are you also getting to the external assessment 

as an accountability tool? Or do you just want me to respond to the 

IEP question? 

Senator ENZI. Primarily the IEP question for right now. We will 

do the other one in writing. 

Ms. HUNDLEY. IEPs are essentially a contract for that individual 

student, and the goals and objectives that are developed are specific to that child’s goals related to their disability. I believe it is 

in some part an accountability tool in terms of our contract with 

that child and that parent. But in terms of an accountability tool 

for that child’s achievement and setting the bar high, I think that 

we don’t necessarily have an automatic assumption of how high 

that student can perform without a little bit of external pressure. 

The IEP is more gauged around, what is possible for you to 

achieve in a year, and it is always disability specific, as well as utilizing a child’s strength. But I don’t think it gives us the adequate 

pressure or the adequate objectivity that we need in looking at setting the bar as high as we can for student achievement. 

I am not discounting it. I think it is part of our accountability 

system, but not the only. 

Senator ENZI. Thank you. 

Ms. Ross, through the McKinney-Vento program, the Federal 

Government has placed a lot of requirements on the school districts 

in terms of services they are required to provide for the homeless 

students, and you and Kayla have talked about these students 

being uprooted if they get permanent housing and for other reasons. 

Have these reporting requirements resulted in better service for 

homeless students or more paperwork and red tape for you and 

your office? Are there some things we ought to streamline or eliminate? 

Ms. ROSS. Well, I think that more so than eliminating, I think 

there are areas that can be strengthened. And the big piece, as 

Senator Harkin asked about earlier, the school of origin directly 

correlates with transportation, and transportation is like the primary backbone, I guess I would say, for McKinney-Vento. Transportation is needed to the school of origin. 

For those of you that don’t know, school of origin would be the 

school they attended prior to becoming homeless. Because the 

transportation costs are astronomical to the tune of in our school 

system last year, we spent over $5 million on just transportation 

for homeless students. Because of that astronomical cost, some 

38 

school systems are under identifying, and there is pressure on staff 

to under identify homeless students. 

So a couple of things, if more funding can be put in place, if there 

could be separate funding and separate agencies being responsible 

for homeless and foster children because I do agree that the needs 

mirror each other. 

The other piece that you touched on is I don’t think the law is 

written strong enough and specific enough so that school systems 

realize that just because a family obtains permanent housing or 

regular fixed adequate night-time residence mid-way through the 

school year that you pull the transportation services, and therefore, 

the kids can no longer go to the school of origin unless they can 

provide their transportation. 

I like to refer to that part of McKinney-Vento, the school of origin 

as the calm in the midst of the storm. So there are things that 

need to be strengthened. 

Senator ENZI. I appreciate that. I am not real familiar with that 

because I am from a very rural area. And so, if they get accommodations in the community at all, it is still the same school. If 

they go to another town, the transportation wouldn’t be the cost. 

It would be the time. Children might have to ride on a bus for an 

hour and a half each way. 

So I appreciate the additional information and emphasis there, 

and I need the introduction to the urban atmosphere as well. So 

thank you. 

Ms. ROSS. Yes. Thank you. 

Senator ENZI. Ms. Medina. 

Ms. MEDINA. Yes, sir. 

Senator ENZI. There are a lot of concerns about the requirements 

for documenting whether or not children qualify for migrant education programs. How has your program worked with families to 

document eligibility? 

Ms. MEDINA. In Pennsylvania, we have recruiters. These recruiters are very well known in the community. They are in communication all the time with school districts, with the growers, with the 

different agricultural businesses in the area. Even by word of 

mouth, the program has been identified. 

We have, as an issue from our Federal office, a national certificate of eligibility, where there is specific questions that address the 

eligibility of the children, as I mentioned earlier in my testimony. 

These recruiters will ask these questions to the families to ensure 

that the child qualifies properly. 

I am talking on behalf of Pennsylvania—after the certificate is 

completed, we have a verification process where we have committees that will review all the information obtained, and we will secure verification of that information. In other words, if the family 

said that they came to the area to work, for example, at Tyson 

Foods processing plant, but they came and they are no longer hiring, we already had made good relationships with those companies 

that we can talk to the companies and they will verify the information. 

As soon as the information is verified—and we are very strict, we 

have a 7 working days limit to have all the information collected 

and verified—services will start immediately. 

39 

Senator ENZI. Thank you, and I have questions for both Kayla 

and Dr. Hinojosa, too. I appreciate your testimony and I will submit those questions in writing. I appreciate your response. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Enzi. 

Next I have Senator Franken. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. VanDyke, Chairman Harkin’s daughter would call you awesome. I am sure a lot of people would. I think that your current 

foster parents are probably pretty awesome, too. Is that right? 

Ms. VANDYKE. Yes, they are. 

Senator FRANKEN. Senator Enzi brought up a few things about 

and led to the school of origin. Some of the parents that you had 

probably—foster parents weren’t so awesome. Is that correct? 

Ms. VANDYKE. No, not all of my foster care placements were successful, and there is a number of reasons for that. Do you want me 

to go over them? 

[Laughter.] 

Senator FRANKEN. I know you would like to. But the reason I 

bring this up is, is that the importance of transportation. Because 

when you talked about you really not knowing, as a foster child, 

that it was your option to go to a school of origin. But I remember 

reading that you wouldn’t, didn’t want to ask your new parents to 

provide the transportation, even though, Senator Enzi said, it was 

only a few minutes away. 

Ms. VANDYKE. Exactly. It goes back to that emotional stability. 

You are in a new home. You don’t know these people. They have 

already made accommodations for you. You feel like a burden. So, 

when you go out of your way to ask for yet another accommodation, 

it just feels like you are more of a burden to the family. 

Especially when you are used to moving a lot, you want to make 

a good impression. You don’t want to rock the boat so that you are 

seen as a burden. You are seen as someone that isn’t manageable, 

and so—— 

Senator FRANKEN. Obviously, they sort of—these foster parents 

didn’t make you feel like you could say, ‘‘Hey, I might want to get 

a ride every day to my old school?’’ 

Ms. VANDYKE. Yes, absolutely. 

Senator FRANKEN. This is why Senator Murray and I have introduced a bill and part of it is to address this problem, the Fostering 

Success in Education Act, and it would require school districts to 

collaborate with child welfare agencies to enable foster youth to remain in their old schools. Part of this would be providing some 

kind of arrangements or funding for transportation. 

If that requirement existed at the time, would that have changed 

things for you, made them better? 

Ms. VANDYKE. It actually depends. I mean, if I had known about 

it, it would have changed it perhaps. Like I was talking about liaisons and counselors, those people who can actually just communicate with a foster/homeless youth to tell them what is available, 

I think that is important. 

Because you can have as many resources on the table as you 

want, if foster/homeless youth can’t get access to them, if they don’t 

40 

know about them, they are just going to sit there. You need to 

make these options accessible to people. 

Senator FRANKEN. Well, that is part of this bill, too, to make 

those people—to make liaisons and counselors accessible and also 

give them time and training to be accessible to you so that they can 

help the foster child. What difference would that have made if you 

had that earlier? 

Ms. VANDYKE. If I had that when I entered into fifth grade at 

Lake Harriet, first of all, the fact that I was allowed to enter in 

so quickly was due to a collaboration between the shelter I had 

been living at and my school. So that was, again, the real importance of collaboration. 

However, if they had contacted my school in St. Paul, they would 

have realized that I didn’t have that fourth grade education. I 

would have gotten the opportunity to repeat the fourth grade to 

make up for what I had lost in my education. At that point, if there 

had been a liaison there, I probably would have gone into the foster 

care system immediately because of my home situation. 

I probably would have been adopted right now. My education 

would probably be that of a normal high schooler. 

Senator FRANKEN. So, essentially, you have missed a grade of 

school. 

Ms. VANDYKE. Yes. 

Senator FRANKEN. You missed fourth grade. So you have a 3.7 

despite missing fourth grade. 

Ms. VANDYKE. Yes, I have really had to—— 

Senator FRANKEN. So you skipped a grade, even though that 

wasn’t quite your intention at the time. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. VANDYKE. I have really had to work the last year and a half 

in my stable placement to really get my grades up, and that is a 

product of being in a stable placement and having those choices 

and options. 

Senator FRANKEN. So, and if you had had that extra year, if you 

had had that year—— 

Ms. VANDYKE. I think I would have been a 4.0 student. I know 

I would have been accepted into the university or any other school 

I applied to. I consider myself a good student. I love learning, and 

if I had had the kind of opportunities that just normal students 

have had, having that linear education, that uninterrupted education, I am sure I would be in an even better place than I am now. 

Senator FRANKEN. Well, my prediction for you is a bright future. 

Thank you. 

Ms. VANDYKE. Thank you. 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I will now turn to Senator Mikulski. 

Senator MIKULSKI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to pick up on what Senator Franken said. My own 

background before I came into politics was that of a social worker, 

and I started out as a foster care social worker and later became 

a protective service worker. 

So my heart goes out to you and what you have done, and I 

would just like to congratulate you, Senator Franken, on what you 

41 

and Murray are doing. I would like to be a co-sponsor of that, 

please. 

Senator FRANKEN. Please. Thank you. 

Senator MIKULSKI. I just want to bring to the Chairman’s attention, the foster care system is broken in this country, and I think 

we have to really put that out on the table. We have watch lists 

to track terrorists, but we don’t have a tracking system to see 

where our own children are when they are uprooted. 

Here, we have talked about the homeless child, the foster child, 

the migrant child, the child coming from another country in hope 

of the American dream. All of the children we have talked about 

in some way are uprooted children, and if they can’t be connected 

to a home—they at least need to be connected to a school system, 

which becomes their home by proxy. 

As we work on this, one strategy is to look at the broken system, 

but also many of the children get lost because they are the uprooted children. I don’t mean to give a speech about that, but I feel 

very strongly about it, and I would like to compliment all of you 

who work in this incredibly challenging field. 

Ms. Ross, your recommendations are outstanding, but I want to 

go to Ms. Hundley for a minute because she talks about workforce. 

We have talked about requirements, the growth model, which I 

think is excellent. We always talk about resources, but another 

thing we must consider is what are the workforce needs, and how 

do you think we can best address them? 

Whether it is direct support for teachers, or school support. It is 

obvious we need to talk about social workers, nurses, as well as the 

devoted counselors that help the kids have someone to talk to. You 

have talked about it in your testimony, but what concrete things 

would you recommend to both bring people into the field, and help 

them stay in the field? 

Ms. HUNDLEY. Are you talking about special education staff? 

Senator MIKULSKI. Yes. I am talking about services along the 

lines we are talking about, yes. 

Ms. HUNDLEY. I am a strong believer in some kind of a mentoring type of program. There needs to clearly be incentives, and 

I could broaden this beyond special education, I am sure, to some 

other folks that my colleagues here might also be concerned about 

shortages. 

In Colorado, we have a Teacher in Residence program that I 

think has merit to potentially expand. 

Senator MIKULSKI. That is the program, but is it funded in the 

law? 

Ms. HUNDLEY. No. 

Senator MIKULSKI. I am not going to be the school superintendent. We need to be able to say what are the specific things 

that need to be done that isn’t included in the law? 

Ms. HUNDLEY. I would put that under the category of incentives 

to develop programs to draw people into higher ed or who are already placed. In the Teacher in Residence program, they are placed 

already in a contracted, full contract for a teacher teaching students with disabilities, and they are a full-time student as well. 

It is organized so that they get the training and support at the 

theoretical level in the classroom and mentoring on the job, hand 

42 

over hand coaching on the job site. There are incentives for them. 

I do not know if it is federally funded or if it is State funded. It 

is a State school that we are partners with. 

But I guess I would categorize, to get to your question, how could 

there be incentives in the law for higher education to develop an 

alternate model— 

Senator MIKULSKI. No, I don’t want it in higher ed, right out 

there in the field. 

Ms. HUNDLEY. Oh, you are talking about a job—yes. OK. I am 

sorry. 

Senator MIKULSKI. OK. Well, my time is starting to run out here. 

So one is to attract people while they are in school. 

Ms. HUNDLEY. Yes. 

Senator MIKULSKI. But then once they go into the field, if they 

are going to be measured the way we are with our Race to the Tops 

and ‘‘whoo-ha-ooh-ahh’’—— 

[Laughter.] 

I wish our banks were as regulated as our teachers. The fact that 

then the teachers are evaluated based on an ideal of student 

achievement, rather than the growth model that is suggested here. 

Why wouldn’t you pick a cushy suburban school with a lot of resources and parental involvement when you are going to be evaluated in such a stern way? 

So the question is that, No. 1, how we should evaluate our teachers and how should we evaluate our children. The second is how 

do we get people to come into a field that is tough? You know, my 

work as a child abuse worker so many years ago left a searing and 

indelible mark on me because of what I saw when working with 

these children, and their mothers. So this is not an easy field to 

be in, and each and every one of you are in it. 

Ms. Medina. 

Ms. MEDINA. Yes, I shake my head because my husband is a children and youth emergency worker as well. So I understand what 

the children are going through. Specifically, with migrant families, 

the children fall through the cracks because in the system a lot of 

times they can see where the child is while their living crop is 

going to be over in October— 

Senator MIKULSKI. Isn’t it hard to find people—I am not minimizing. 

Ms. MEDINA. Yes. 

Senator MIKULSKI. But I am back to how do we help the children? Doesn’t it take a very highly unusual and specialized person 

to work with these students who have such unique challenges? 

Ms. MEDINA. Yes. Yes, and in Pennsylvania, we have a position 

under the migrant program on the field called student support specialist that dedicate their time, and they get trained. We spend 

hours and manpower, training them to provide those skills because, 

unfortunately, when they come to the field to work, they really 

don’t know the reality of the job, and it is working with children 

with so many obstacles. And we provide hours. 

One of the things that we are doing in Pennsylvania now as 

teacher preparation is we are including 150 hours of field work 

where the upcoming teachers are going to be going to different setVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:02 Mar 12, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\DOCS\56322.TXT DENISE
43 

tings, and they are trying to match them on settings where they 

don’t reside. In other words, if they are coming from rural—— 

Senator MIKULSKI. Right. 

Ms. MEDINA [continuing]. Then work in an urban or suburban 

school and volunteer. This is volunteer work. 

Senator MIKULSKI. Well, that is excellent, Ms. Medina. 

I know my time is up, and I really would look for and will followup with questions. But really, my questions are how do we both 

recruit and retain the workforce and also what support services are 

needed, which aren’t currently included in Federal law? 

My time is up. Mr. Chairman, I just want to make one observation for another population that I think needs special attention, 

and that is our gifted and talented children who are often isolated, 

often lonely. There is a myth that, somehow or another, only rich 

kids are smart. And also really smart kids don’t need extra help. 

I think the work that has been done at Hopkins and the work 

we see in our communities proves that is not so. I know this committee shares the belief that intelligence and ability is randomly 

distributed through the population, and there is a gifted and talented kid in every barrio, as they are in an affluent community. So 

I would hope we would also look at the gifted and talented children. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Mikulski. 

We have one here with us today in Kayla VanDyke. 

Senator Murkowski. 

Senator MURKOWSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I apologize I was not able to be here for the testimony of each 

of you. I have had an opportunity to look through your written 

comments. 

But I was meeting with a small group of Alaskans that is involved with a science and engineering program designed specifically for Alaska Natives. It is one that I can get very, very excited 

about because we are going into small villages where oftentimes 

the educational opportunities may be limited because it’s difficult 

to recruit teachers out in those areas, certainly to retain them. We 

are not able to offer a full complement of the sciences in physics 

and higher calculus. 

What this program is demonstrating is that when the expectations are set high, when you know that as a junior in high school, 

you can take apart and rebuild a computer and make things work 

and figure it out on your own, all of a sudden, the world opens up 

to you. 

It is just a reminder to me about the expectations that we have 

for our students, whether it is those with limited English proficiency, whether it is those with disabilities, whether it is those 

that have a home life as has been described here that is exceptionally challenging. But again, it comes back to the expectations that 

we have of our young people. 

Mr. Hinojosa, I want to ask you about the flexibility that we 

have to assess students in their native languages. I am a big proponent of language in the schools, immersion languages in the 

schools. My kids were beneficiaries of that in the public schools in 

Anchorage. 

44 

I have been working to encourage, particularly in our rural communities, that our students have access to their native cultural languages, and be instructed in that. We are seeing that a real demonstration of school is now much more relevant to our kids. 

But we are in a situation where you are not able then to assess 

in the native language necessarily because either you don’t have 

enough speakers of the language or it doesn’t lend itself to the formal assessments, and that is what we are finding with Yupik instruction, for instance. What is your recommendation for assessing 

student academic proficiency when the assessment is not in the 

child’s first language? How do we deal with this? 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Senator, that is certainly a huge challenge, and 

we are very fortunate in Dallas that 96 percent of the students that 

we have, Spanish is the language. But we get refugees from Afghanistan, the Congo, Somalia, and we have that similar difficulty 

as you describe in Alaska because it is a very critical point. 

Because if you cannot determine the student’s proficiency in their 

native language, then it is very difficult to prescribe what needs to 

happen next. And so, that is a critical point. We seek volunteers. 

We have a lot of community agencies that do help us out whenever 

we don’t have staff to help us determine that. 

But that is a critical point that local resources have to come in 

and help because we really believe that if you can get proficient in 

your native language, it is much easier then to transfer and become literate and proficient in a second language. Many of the students that we get, we get students in high school that have never 

held a pencil. They have never worn shoes, and they come from the 

Congo, and we have a huge challenge to get them prepared to be 

successful academically. 

I don’t have a silver bullet answer for you, but we know that it 

is a smaller issue for us, since only 4 percent of our students fall 

into those kind of categories. But I can just imagine—but it is an 

issue to be focused on because it is critical that we understand that 

is a big part of what has to get accomplished. 

Senator MURKOWSKI. Well, and I think we recognize whether it 

is Alaska Natives or we see with our American Indians, when we 

can incorporate the native culture into the education, I think we 

are seeing a resurgence in interest in what is going on in the classroom. Again, the relevance. But if we can do more with incorporating the language, I think that that helps us. But we struggle 

with then how you deal with the assessment. 

I want to ask you just one more quick question here, and this 

also relates to how we deal with it with the testing. You have recommended that we codify the current regulation that the LEP students not be required to be tested in their first year here in the 

United States. And I don’t have any problem with that, certainly. 

We have an interesting situation going on in Alaska. You might 

not think about it, but we have a pretty significant Hmong population in Anchorage. So what has happened is they have come to 

California. That has been where they have come into the United 

States. They have been provided instruction in Hmong there in 

California. Then they come to Alaska. 

They have no English proficiency, but they are not eligible for 

this exception because they have been in the country now in excess 

45 

of a year. And so, we struggle. What do we do at this point in time? 

Got any answers? 

Mr. HINOJOSA. That is a difficult challenge because we do want 

to be held accountable. One of the best things about the previous 

law is that now we are held accountable for all student groups, and 

yet there needs to be some reasonableness in the law—— 

Senator MURKOWSKI. Got to have some flexibility there somewhere. 

Mr. HINOJOSA [continuing]. And some flexibility for situations 

like that that occur. Certainly, I don’t know how to draft a bill, but 

that would be something that would be important to consider in a 

kind of situation that you describe because now they are in their 

second year, and now the stakes get very high. 

Senator MURKOWSKI. Right. Well, if any of you have any suggestions that you would like to provide to us as we work on this, we 

would certainly be appreciative. 

Thank you all. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Murkowski. 

Senator Bennet. 

Senator BENNET. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I apologize that I was away. That is the worst manners possible—to come back and ask questions, but I wanted to get one to 

Ms. Hundley and one to our superintendent. 

You mentioned in your opening testimony the importance, as we 

think about the reauthorization of this law, of maintaining or creating the flexibility that you need to build capacity. I just want you 

to take a few minutes to underscore what you mean by that so the 

committee can hear it because I agree that it is enormously important. 

Ms. HUNDLEY. Are you referencing my request for flexibility in 

use of funds? 

Senator BENNET. Yes. 

Ms. HUNDLEY. I am happy to expand on that. 

Senator BENNET. Thank you. I thought you would be. 

Ms. HUNDLEY. When Federal funds are currently only able to be 

used directly for supports for students with disabilities, meaning 

direct service, and they are driven by licensure laws that you can 

only use them for staff that are licensed in special education, our 

hands are tied. Special ed folks may not be the right folks to do 

the literacy instruction for an adolescent who is struggling in reading and who also has a disability. 

We also need to be able to build capacity in general ed folks to 

understand how to differentiate how to make accommodations, how 

to modify curricular focus. We need to have special ed folks be 

trained in general education supports by general educators, and all 

of that costs money. So a lot of that is around training and building 

capacity, but it is also about paying the right people to do the right 

kind of instruction as we are pushing for these high achievement 

goals. 

Senator BENNET. I think it is just such a tremendous illustration 

of what happens sometimes when we pass laws here in Washington 

and don’t pay enough attention to what is actually going on on the 

ground. The chairman and I have talked about this before in terms 

46 

of transportation of special ed students in the Denver Public 

Schools. 

We were spending, partly because of the law, partly because of 

habit, roughly $9,000 a child to transport them a year in the Denver Public Schools, which is money that could have been used to 

support the work that you are talking about, to provide services to 

kids. Transportation is an important service, but we need to figure 

out how to write these rules rationally, I think, so that you have 

the flexibility you need, and I appreciate it. 

Mr. Superintendent, it is great to see you, and this is a question 

that is unfair. If you want to answer some of it in writing, I would 

love to take your answer. But as you step back, having had the successful tenure you have had, and 5 years in one of these jobs is an 

extraordinary achievement. But to have gotten there and to have 

survived is great, and it is great to see you. 

When you look at this entire reauthorization and you think about 

the pain points that you have in doing what you want to be doing 

on a daily basis in Dallas, share with the committee a little bit 

what you would do if you were sitting up here to rewrite the legislation so that it helps support the work that you are trying to do. 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Well, I am sure I can cover all of that in a minute 

and 54 seconds. 

[Laughter.] 

I am from South. I speak slowly. So I don’t know if I can get it 

all in. Certainly, thank you for the opportunity to give some input. 

There are a lot of points that can be addressed. Specifically, right 

now, districts are required to have outside—reserve 20 percent of 

our funds in title funds for outside providers to provide interventions. Sometimes, people, the students get recruited with flashy 

laptops or cell phones to come sign up with one of these providers, 

and they may or may not have an impact on their academic performance. 

For us to have to reserve 20 percent of our funds to do that, that 

just ties our hands to where we could provide the exact example 

that you made about provide direct service for these students that 

we have just described that have tremendous needs on the ground 

right now. 

I think flexibility, going forward, is going to be critical. There is 

not a panacea. There is not a silver bullet for any of these. One 

of the reasons we have had success is because of what you describe—we have had the ability to implement some of these programs. Before I got to Dallas, there had been 7 superintendents in 

10 years. A lot of them had great ideas, but by the next one, it was 

gone. So, it is just the pressures that you have in trying to implement the system. 

I think one of the previous Senators also brought up a very important question. If I am a great candidate for instruction, I am a 

great teacher, and I am going to go to a school district that is going 

to get all these sanctions and get punishment because of what the 

expectations are for me in a very hard-to-serve community, or I 

could go to a community that doesn’t have those pending sanctions 

coming down, then the higher-quality individuals won’t be going 

where the greatest need is. 

47 

We need to look at what are the unintended consequences of 

some of those activities as we roll out great ideas. But on the 

ground, I think what I would implore of you is to continue to have 

forums like this, where you talk to people on the ground. Being a 

former superintendent, you know that we got things and sometimes if we didn’t have input, we could have pointed out some unintended consequences that were coming down. 

I really appreciate having this opportunity to come and at least 

have this input on that one specific item. But going forward, I 

would encourage you to talk to the field and let us know, and we 

can help maybe avert some of the things that are really good ideas, 

but when you get to implementation become an obstacle and a burden to implement. 

Thank you, Senator. 

Senator BENNET. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate it. I think that it is important for us to figure out 

a way to establish a feedback loop here in real time. We have gone 

between the passage of the bill to the reauthorization. We could 

have gained so much wisdom and knowledge from people saying, 

‘‘Did you really mean this?’’ I think we could have changed things 

that would have made a material difference for our kids and for 

our teachers and for all of you. 

Something we tried to do in the district when we were doing the 

reform was constantly take feedback from the teachers, and we 

changed things as a result of that. 

I know that, Ms. Hundley, you and Senator Mikulski had a discussion about incentivizing special ed teachers. I just would like to 

give you the chance if there is anything else you want to say on 

that. 

We live in a country where we have had a chronic shortage of 

special ed teachers for decades, and we are in general paying people that are in affluent elementary schools—which is a hard job. 

There is no doubt about it. All these jobs are hard—essentially the 

same as we are paying people to be a special ed teacher in a highpoverty high school. Do you have any more reaction to that or what 

we could do to help with that dilemma? 

Ms. HUNDLEY. Money in one’s pocket obviously is a draw, but I 

think we have to recognize what hard work it is. I know your question was specific to teachers of children with disabilities, but I 

think that is true for many at-risk kids. It is hard work. 

I think we have to recognize that folks need ongoing coaching 

and that turning them out from school, from higher education 

when they haven’t had a lot of what I call ‘‘boots on the ground’’ 

opportunity, they need ongoing mentoring, ongoing coaching. We 

need to have ways to connect as a school district in partnership 

with higher ed. Higher ed needs to have incentives or reasons to 

partner with school districts to make the training real. 

That is why I mentioned the Teacher in Residence program at 

Metro State. They don’t have a lock on all the answers, but it is 

a model that we find is working, and it gives people a more sheltered opportunity to be trained over time. 

Senator BENNET. One last question for our superintendent, which 

is could you give the committee a perspective on the way Washington accounts for money in these different titles and the way that 

48 

might either support your efforts to budget and support kids in 

your school district or contort your effort to be able to support the 

children in your school district? 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Yes. It becomes a significant issue in trying to implement and trying to marshal your resources, and the lack of flexibility in trying to address certain issues. Such categorical funding 

that requires such time and effort, documentation from every—if 

you have an individual that is funded out of two different Federal 

programs or out of a State program and a Federal program, they 

have to have a very sophisticated time and effort to document everything that they do when the services of the homeless students 

may be a same service that you have a limited English proficient 

student and all these other services. 

That makes it very complex on the ground, and then the fact 

that you have to make sure that everything is addressed in a very 

specific way, whether it is a district improvement plan or a campus 

improvement plan. The principals spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to comply with the rules, as much time as they do to 

provide services to the students who need these items. 

So there is a lot of complexity. I know we have to be accountable 

for our Federal funds. I know that is an issue. But there has got 

to be a better way that we can make it easier for the people on the 

ground to actually deliver those services. It is a balancing act, but 

we do appreciate the fact that there are more resources coming 

from the Federal Government. We do appreciate that, the different 

things that are coming. 

So it is a lifeblood, especially for urban districts where we have 

all these students with these significant needs. 

Senator BENNET. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Bennet. 

I have a couple of followup questions, and maybe Senator 

Franken does, too. 

Dr. Hinojosa, one of the things that caught my attention in your 

testimony was that districts should be given incentives to keep students in school that have not graduated in 4 years. You said it 

should not be a disincentive for districts and schools to continue to 

educate students who will be counted as dropouts. Credit should be 

given for drop-ins. 

Would you expand on that just a little bit for me? 

Mr. HINOJOSA. Yes, sir. In fact, we have done an analysis of our 

students. We have discovered that we have close to 1,000 under 

credited and over-age students. And when you peel back the onion, 

these students are never going to be counted in the graduation rate 

because they are not going to graduate with their cohort. 

These are students that may be 17-years-old and are freshmen 

with recent immigrants and maybe other student groups. The 

schools that have been identified in Dallas that are eligible for 

school improvement grant, almost every one of them, the only reason they are there is because they haven’t had a 60 percent graduation rate in 4 years. 

What we would like to do is we keep these students in school, 

help them accelerate their instruction. We are starting a campus 

for over-age students next year, and we get them caught up. Maybe 

49 

we could have an incentive on the back end. It may have been 58 

percent that graduated in 4 years, but we got kids to graduate in 

6 years, and maybe we would get an incentive and that offsets 

some of the liability of the 60 percent graduation rate. 

We know that is important for us to have, and we would like to 

see for those schools especially that have many students that are 

over age that are unschooled, that we have some ability to recapture back up to that 60 percent graduation rate at some element. 

The CHAIRMAN. I agree, and I incorporated the idea into a bill 

I have called The Every Student Counts Act. I think that this is 

something that we need to get incorporated into the reauthorization of ESEA, as well. 

Ms. Medina. 

Ms. MEDINA. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. A few years ago, I was contacted at a different 

hat I wear on the Appropriations Committee by Defense Department employees who said that one of the problems they have with 

military personnel is when they move from base to base, their kids 

move from one school to the other, and they get dropped in the 

school, and the school doesn’t really know about the student’s background. 

They know they were in the fifth grade. They may have a report 

card or something like that, but they really don’t know a lot about 

that child. So, we started a program called a Project SOAR. I have 

watched it over the last few years, and I have heard a lot of positive feedback. 

The program established a system that allows school districts to 

better coordinate in order to meet the needs of students who have 

to change schools when their parents are transferred to other 

bases. So, the teachers in the school, administrators know right 

away where that child should be and what they need help and support in. 

Would something like that be helpful for migrant workers, or do 

we know where they are going? Do their families know where they 

are going on their next job? 

Ms. MEDINA. Yes. Two years ago, the Office of Migrant Education 

instituted a system called MSIX. MSIX is a data collection system 

where right now 30 States already have like data, and they are 

doing in cohorts to get the States with their data input. 

Your data system is from your basic demographics to also credit 

information where the student gets their own identifiable number, 

migrant number. So if a student is moving from Pennsylvania to 

the State of Maine, that information is in the system, and the State 

of Maine can retrieve the information out of that system. 

The goal is that all the information is there for the student. So 

we no longer say, the child is missing credits or the information to 

get them in school and get them at speed as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. Is that electronically transmitted? 

Ms. MEDINA. Yes, it is an electronic transmitted system. It is 

called MSIX. 

The CHAIRMAN. What is the system called? 

Ms. MEDINA. MSIX. M-S-I-X. 

The CHAIRMAN. Hmm, MSIX. I will have to take a look at that. 

Is it widely used? 

50 

Ms. MEDINA. It is right now. Thirty of the States are using it, 

and like I said—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Who pays for this? 

Ms. MEDINA. It is through funds, through the Office of Migrant 

Education. 

The CHAIRMAN. Do we need to get more States to use it. 

Ms. MEDINA. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. We need to fund it better. 

Ms. MEDINA. Also, every State because they have their own local 

offices—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Ms. MEDINA [continuing]. As soon as the family notifies that the 

family is moving to another State, they notify that State office of 

the family coming. 

The CHAIRMAN. Got it. 

Thank you all very much. 

Is there any last thing that you wanted to impart to put on the 

record at all before we finish? 

Ms. Ross. 

Ms. ROSS. Actually, Chairman Harkin, I do. I wanted to share, 

while Senator Franken was here, it is unfortunate what happened 

with Kayla. One thing that I did recommend in my reauthorization 

is increased funding because, as I said, only 9 percent of the jurisdictions across the country are receiving McKinney-Vento funding. 

That is unfortunate because maybe her particular jurisdiction 

did not have the funding, and therefore, there was not even an 

awareness of what the rights were there. There obviously was no 

professional development going on in the school. There were no 

postings in schools or libraries, and so people weren’t aware of 

what her rights were. 

One thing I want to encourage is increased funding so more jurisdictions do have the money to support and provide foster children as well as homeless children with school stability. 

The other thing was Senator Bennet had asked a question, and 

I didn’t know protocol so I didn’t want to interrupt. He asked about 

flexibility of funding. As I have shared, transportation is an astronomical cost for school systems in providing transportation to the 

school of origin. 

We do have something called title I part A setasides, which are 

funds reserved to assist with homeless education. Currently, those 

funds do not allow for transportation to the school of origin, and 

I am going to recommend that there be some flexibility in that title 

I part A setaside of how it can be used and maybe do a needs assessment in the process of that. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. I understand and my staff 

says they understand that. They got it, OK? 

[Laughter.] 

Thank you all very much. Very, very, very great panel. I thank 

you. 

We will leave the record open for 10 days. There may be some 

written questions that people want to submit to you. 

Sort of following on what Senator Bennet said, and I have said 

this to other panels who have come before the committee. I hope 

51 

that we can continue to keep in touch with you from our end, but 

I hope you also feel free to keep in touch with us. As this bill starts 

to move forward and you see it developing, if you think we are 

going in the right path, fine. If you think we are doing something 

that needs to be changed, we would like to know that, too. 

I have a very distinct e-mail address just for this purpose. It is 

Eseacomments@help.senate.gov. It is just a dedicated e-mail address just for comments on ESEA, and we welcome your comments 

as we proceed ahead with reauthorization. 

Thank you all very much. As I said, we will leave the record open 

for 10 days until May 13th. 

Thank you all very much. The committee will stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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