Copyright 1999 Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.
Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony
May 20, 1999
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 1366 words
HEADLINE:
TESTIMONY May 20, 1999 WILLIAM J. MOLONEY HOUSE EDUCATION AND
THE WORKFORCE IMPROVING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
BODY:
Statement Of WILLIAM J. MOLONEY COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION STATE OF COLORADO
BOARD MEMBER., EDUCATION LEADERS COUNCIL Submitted To COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND
THE WORKFORCE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MAY 20, 1999 Mr. Chairman and
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to share my views and
those of my colleagues in the Education Leaders Council (ELC) as you consider
The Academic Achievement for All (Straight A's) Act. I address you not only as
the Commissioner of the Colorado Department of Education, but also as a member
of the board of directors of the Education Leaders Council. The ELC is a
national organization of reform-minded state education chiefs from Arizona,
Colorado, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Our membership
also includes state education boards and individual state and local education
board members. ELC member states have led the fight for high academic standards
at the state level with rigorous assessments to measure student performance,
increased educational choice through strong autonomous charter schools (over 65
percent of the nation's charter schools are in the seven ELC states), reforming
the teaching profession and reducing regulations that stand in the way of
increasing academic achievement. I have attached to my testimony ELC's
resolution concerning the reauthorization of ESEA. My own
perspective on these matters goes well beyond my current office. Before my
appointment as Colorado Commissioner of Education I served as a local
Superintendent in Pennsylvania and Maryland, also a public school administrator
overseeing federal programs in urban, suburban and rural districts in
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York. In addition, Secretary Riley has
honored me by appointments to three terms as a member of the Governing Board of
the National Assessment of Educational Progress. What I would like to do this
morning is briefly speak of three things: (1) how the current law stands in the
way of reform in Colorado; (2) what Colorado would do differently under Straight
A's; (3) show what kinds of achievement goals Colorado would set over a
five-year period under a Straight A's scenario. Under governors of both parties
- Democrat Roy Romer and now Republican Bill Owens - and with strong bipartisan
support in the Legislature, Colorado has built one of the most powerful and
coherent reform programs in the nation. It is a three part harmony: First, we
set high standards for what kids ought to know and be able to do. Second, we
established highly demanding assessments to discover where we stood. Three years
of test results show we have a long way to go: Over half our children failed to
pass reading and writing. The capstone of our reform program was enacted last
year: Accountability. All districts must show specific numerical increases in
student achievement or lose their accreditation. Unfortunately during this six
year effort our federal programs in general, ESEA in
particular, have been missing in action. As every state effort leaned toward
accountability for student achievement, ESEA remained as always
a neutral phenomena based on inputs rather than results, more on accounting than
accountability, an entity always more interested in what you were rather than
what you were doing. In Colorado, we are proud of such success as we have
achieved. Nothing has been more heartening than the success of dozens of our
poorest schools who have been lifting their student achievement against all the
odds. The template for this success has been Bessemer Elementary in Pueblo, now
made famous by Paul Harvey, USA Today and others. In our state's first testing
cycle only 12% of the students in this 88% minority school passed reading. Only
2% passed writing. Though they could be offered no additional help under federal
law, the teachers - shocked and publicly mortified by their pupils low
performance - began to make a revolution, the particulars of which are well
worth looking at. Within a year, the reading pass rate had climbed from 12% to
64%, the writing pass rate from 2% to 48%. In our latest test results released
two weeks ago, Bessemer's surge has continued. Most encouraging is that within
the last year we are seeing all across our state the emergence of Bessemer
"look-alikes" - less spectacular numbers, but clearly schools with high
proportions of disadvantaged children making dramatic progress and beating
statewide averages. Unfortunately there are many more schools that are not
moving ahead. Many in fact are going backwards. Under current law we are
handicapped as regards doing what we need to do. Under Straight A's we would
have the means to reach out to reward and replicate success. We are more than
willing to accept the risk of accountability if you help. Already operating
under a doctrine of reasonable progress over reasonable time we are requiring
that every district improve its scores 25% over three years until they reach our
current bench-mark of 80% Proficient or Advanced. For every 3rd grader who fails
Reading Comprehension, we require that schools develop and pursue an Individual
Literacy Plan as long as it takes to get that child up to grade level. In both
cases a district's Accreditation will turn on demonstrating specific and
measurable success. This is tough stuff. Not easy. No guarantees of success. But
we are trying. Please give us help. Over a third of a century ago I came to this
city and I well remember the circumstances and most particularly the assumptions
that created the Elementary and Secondary Achievement Act of 1965. Some of the
language and many of the assumptions of that Act were lifted directly from the
landmark Civil Rights Act of the previous year, in particular the notion that
local people could not be trusted. Now as regards Civil Rights in that era there
certainly were some local people - Bull Connor comes to mind - who richly
deserved distrust but what a ghastly error it was to extend that mistrust to
every school district in the nation and impose a stifling and inflexible set of
regulations the only justification for which was that they would prevent local
people from doing what they wanted rather than what their betters in Washington
wanted. This attitude of hubris and arrogance was best described by David
Halberstarn in his classic The Best and The Brightest. Thus did the temper of
the time - an age of good intentions gone awry - enshrine in major legislation
such an act of mistrust. In a quarter of a century of being responsible for the
administration for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, I have
never found an adequate way to overcome this tragic design flaw. Only you can do
that. Today the cardinal forces driving American school reform are freedom and
accountability. In our context you simply cannot have one without the other. As
the whole nation knows, Colorado suffered the most horrible of tragedies on
April 20"'. I hope you will look at the attached statement from our state board
of education. Elected from congressional districts like you, they have produced
something you will find unusually compelling. What the whole nation does not
know however is the terrible blow inflicted on public education by that event.
It is one level of concern when your child comes home from school unable to
read. It is an altogether different level of concern when your child does not
come home at all. The rising chorus we hear is as follows: "Poor old public
education. Won't change. Can't change. Not getting any better. Maybe getting
worse. Certainly getting more dangerous". Now to all who care for public
education I say, if this isn't a clarion call to bravery and boldness on behalf
of change, I don't know what is. Give us a little chance. Give us a little hope.
Take a risk that our people from our mountain valleys and across our high plains
will care as much as you, will try as hard, and in the end have the courage to
accept the consequences of their own actions on behalf of their own children.
Much will turn on your answer. The stakes are enormous. Thank you for allowing
me to come here today. May God bless your honorable work.
LOAD-DATE: May 24, 1999 
