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Document 6 of 7.

FEBRUARY 9, 1999, TUESDAY

SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING

LENGTH: 16740 words

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR AND PENSIONS COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: EDUCATION INITIATIVE PROPOSALS
CHAIRED BY: SENATOR JAMES JEFFORDS (R-VT)

WITNESSES: RICHARD RILEY, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION
430 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON, DC
9:30 AM.

BODY:

SEN. JAMES JEFFORDS (R-VT): Good morning. This hearing on the Health Committee on state of education will come to order. Mr. Secretary, I welcome you here. I appreciate all the cooperation you've given this committee in the past, and look forward to (seeing it?) in the future. I'm going to make my statement a part of the record at this point. We'll save verbiage for later, as I know other commitments to Senator Kennedy.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D-MA): I have a very important statement that I know you want to hear. But I'll restrain so that we can hear the secretary. I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, briefly, that I think all of us are very grateful for your leadership in the areas of education in the last Congress, where we passed the Higher Education Bill, which had particular focus on the teacher training programs, the vocational education bill, the charter school programs, the reading and excellence program, which were really so important. And I think that it's really demonstrated even though there were areas of differences that were often focused on, in terms of where the Senate was going, we did make some important progress, and we want to continue that commitment in the IDEA, which is very, very important. It's very complex and difficult and challenging, and we were able to make progress in those areas.
So, we've got a full agenda with the elementary, secondary, the OERI reauthorization and some very important questions, policy issues that'll be up, the President's programs, particularly on the K through 12, and we have some important provisions in the committees about dealing with the issues on voucher and block granting. I, for one, want to make sure that if we're going to be putting scarce resources out there, we want to make sure that they're going to be going to the areas of most important need for children. We want to try and reduce the inflexibility to make sure that those programs are going to be effective and efficient. But we want to make sure that we're going to give life to those programs and their focus and attention to needy children.
So, I want to thank you very much for coming here and speaking on the whole priorities of where the administration is going. I thank the Chair for its leadership, and we are committed to working closely on this matter, which is of the utmost importance to all the families. I'd ask consent, if I could, that the full statement be made a part of the record.
SEN. JEFFORDS: That will done, and be done for all members. The Republicans are meeting at 10:00, so I'd turn to Senator Gregg, if you have anything you'd like te at this time.
SEN. KENNEDY : We can take over from there, if you want to leave us.
SEN. JEFFORDS: I am sticking around. I hate to disappoint you.
SEN. JUDD GREGG (R-NH): Well, thank you for holding this hearing. It's nice to have the secretary and his people here. I have some serious concerns, I think we all have serious concerns about education and progress we're making in education. We spend $13 billion at the federal level on K through 12 education, and yet 40 percent of our 4th graders can't read at a basic level. Our high school students score the lowest of any students in the world on core tests involving language, and are very low in the areas of science and math. And we know that in 30 percent of our freshmen in college have to have remedial courses.
So, the system isn't working. A specific program that isn't working is Title I. We've spent almost $112 billion in Title I since its inception in 1965, and yet the most recent report -- and $8 billion of our elementary and secondary funding goes to Title I -- and yet, a recent report, the Prospects Report, found that the gap was widening with low-income children that, in fact, the achievement was going down. And that the progress, that there was no positive progress that could be accounted for as a result of all these dollars that we've spent.
So, obviously, we're not getting much for the money that we're spending. We are getting program, we are getting consultants, we are getting educational administrators, we are getting federal regulations, but we're not getting education for our kids. And so I think we've got to look at the system. We've got to look at it aggressively.
Here in Washington, we are constantly pointing to different communities that have done wonderful things in the area or creating new educational initiatives. I know the secretary's been very aggressive in that, going around the nation pointing out the schools that are doing it well, school systems that are doing it well.
I just recently listened to a C-Span presentation by I think his name is Norquist (sp), the mayor of Milwaukee, and he made an exceptional presentation on the Milwaukee experience. And they're trying something different and it seems to be working. The problem, however, is that when we're rewarding these local schools and these local school districts are doing an exceptional job and yet we maintain federal programs, which aren't doing it, like Title I. After report, after report proves it that they aren't doing it. So, we got to take a hard look at all these programs. And it's great that we're going to be able to do that this year. I congratulate you, Mr. Chairman, for doing that.
Let's not go into a preconceived notion other than that our goal is to get the best education possible for our kids.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Mr. Secretary, a response.
SEC. RICHARD RILEY: Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Of course we'll have a chance to discuss some of the issues about the effectiveness of programs and all later, but let me make my statement if I might. I'm submitting my complete statement for the record.
Mike Smith is with me, my acting deputy and undersecretary, and Judith Johnson, who's a deputy assistant secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, who's done enormous work on this reauthorization.
I want to apologize for getting my statement up to you late. It's really a fact when you try to get down to putting policy on paper it calls for a lot of discussion and time to crystallize those thoughts, and we've been working through this for six or eight months, heavy. And I apologize getting it to you late, but we'll have a lot of time this year, I know, to continue these discussions. The administration is working on a detailed reauthorization proposal that we plan to submit for your consideration next month. The Department will also soon submit to Congress, several reports evaluating the implementation and the impact of Title I of the ESEA programs and Goals 2000.
Five years ago, in reauthorizing ESEA and creating programs like Goals 2000, all of that together, we made a sharp break from the past and we set out really to transform federal policy in education. We started to end the sorry business of dumbing-down American education, of giving our poorest students a watered-down curriculum. We placed a strong emphasis on high expectations for all children, while we worked with the states to help them set challenging new standards and assessment linked to state standards.
We worked hard to cut regulations, increase flexibility, build partnerships at the state and local level. We eliminated, for example, a full two-thirds of the regulations, previously covered by ESEA and gave states the option of submitting a single consolidated state application, slashing paperwork requirements by some 85 percent. In addition, the department has vigorously implemented the waiver provision included in the '94 reauthorization.
Now I believe that we've made a difference. Forty-eight states have now set new challenging standards. Two states have pushed the standards at the local level. New and growing partnerships have been developed at the state and the local level. And in school district after school district that I visit, I detect a new determination to set high expectations for all of our young people, regardless of their circumstances.
As a result, there are signs of progress taking hold, as I note in my extended testimony. Tomorrow, the National Center for Education Statistics will release its national report card on reading and I understand that we'll see some more improvement. Improving literacy is a very high priority for this administration and over the past few years a strong, bipartisan consensus has emerged around that goal.
I thank the Senate for your strong support for our efforts to make sure that every child is reading well by the end of the third grade. Now we are at a new stage in our effort to raise achievement.

We want to shift our focus from the statehouse to the schoolhouse and make high standards a part of every teacher's daily lesson plan.
John Stanford, the recently deceased Seattle school superintendent had a motto. The victory, he said, is in the classroom. And I believe John Stanford has it right and we need to make that happen and help states and local schools do it. This is the core idea that shapes our thinking about ESEA proposals.
We want to close a persistent gap in achievement, based on income, race and ethnic group. We want all our students, including our many LEP students and children with disabilities to be achieving up, and not dumbing-down.
I hope that our discussions about high standards and flexibility and accountability will be informed and engaging and reflect the reality of American education as it is today. We really do need to get away from the either/or thinking that has dominated the recent public debate about federal policy in education.
The American people see education as a national priority. I think they want a vibrant US Department of Education and they expect us to work with the state and the local schools to find practical, concrete solutions to the pressing problems that we all face together. So it's not either/or, but what we can all do working together.
The truth of the matter, for example is that over 95 percent of all the dollars appropriated by Congress for ESEA programs, go to local school districts and almost all of the rest goes to the states.
The ESEA proposals we will submit to you are part of broad three- part strategy. One, targeting investments for disadvantaged children, with particular attention to the early years of schooling. Two, improving teacher quality to drive high standards into every classroom. And three, real accountability.
All of these pieces fit together and if we want to raise achievement levels, we've got to try to do all we can to make them fit. Working with the Congress, we have made a good start on the first and second parts of this broad strategy. The Reading Excellence Act, our Class Size Reduction Initiative, Expanding After School Opportunities, Gear Up, and the New Teacher Quality Initiative in the Higher Education Act, just to name a few programs, give us a strong foundation to help local and state educators and leaders to raise standards.
There's been substantial discussion about the President's strong emphasis on accountability, so let me speak directly to that issue. We're not talking about more federal regulations. What we want is better results. We want to build on the successful work that's now being done at the state and the local level. The accountability measures that we're proposing, giving states the support they need to turn around low performing schools through a new $200 million set- aside in Title I, using report cards that give parents information about whether achievement is going up or down, ending social promotion, getting more certified teachers into the classroom, supporting effective discipline policies, all of these proposals are practical, they are commonsense and they can lead to improved achievement.
And many states and school districts are starting to adopt these promising practices and we aim to encourage and to help them. That's a very good national role, bringing to scale the promising practices at the state and local level that are making a real difference in raising achieving.
States like North Carolina and Kentucky and Maryland, to name a few, have put in place many of the accountability measures that we are proposing. And we need to pick up the pace and do all we can to raise achievement levels for students in all of our high poverty schools.
We're developing a range of options, some flexible and some more targeted, to make things happen. We intend to work closely with the state and local educators and leaders to get results because we really do believe in partnership. We will help. We will prod. We will nudge. You name it. We will do all we can to encourage and then to demand action if we have to. If these efforts don't work, we will take a good look at restricting and/or withholding the use of ESEA funds, contingent on performance and putting measures of accountability in place. We do not intend to be passive in the face of failure when hundreds of thousands of young people attend low performing schools.
I know that the members of this committee share my deep concern about teacher quality. Improving teacher quality really goes to the heart of the matter, if we want to turn around low performing schools. We aren't going to raise standards if we stay with the status quo. Too many teachers are teaching out of field. States are granting too many emergency certificates. And in some cases, teachers aides with no more than a high school diploma are acting as full time teachers.
We propose to curtail this practice and to help states build career ladders so that the quality teacher aides really do have the opportunity to become certified teachers. We will propose a new initiative called Quality Teachers and High Standards in every classroom. This will be to focus on improving teacher quality primarily. This proposal builds on the strongest parts of Goals 2000, Title II and Title VI programs and will succeed all three of these programs.
Goals 2000, has been a very effective program despite a great deal of criticism that the federal government was overstepping the line. In a recent GAO report, state officials -- state officials consider Goals 2000, quote, "A significant factor in promoting education reform efforts and a catalyst for change." That was what the states said.
Under our proposal, which is new, we will take the best aspects of Goals 2000, the Eisenhower Professional Development Effort and Title VI to create a strong new approach to, number one, continue the development of standards and assessment. We think that's very important. Number two, to help districts align instruction with these standards and assessment and three, to improve professional development for teachers with particular priority for math and science instruction. We will also make a strong push -
SEN. JEFFORDS: Mr. Chairman, could you repeat those three again. I just --
SEC. RILEY: Three, again. I'd be happy to. We're talking about, of course, rolling together Goals 2000, Eisenhower, and Title VI. The new approach, then, to one, continue the development of standards and assessment. Two, to help districts align instruction with these standards and assessment. In other words, to get standards down into the classroom and three, to improve professional development. That's a major part, Senator, of our proposal, for teachers with a particularly high priority for math and science instruction.
We also will make a strong push in Title I to increase teacher quality by phasing in a set-aside for professional development aligned to standards. Now a few brief moments -- and I'm just about finished -- additional comments on Title I. We are proposing that we keep the current Title I formula that was adopted by Congress in 1994. Turning to school-wide projects, we've proposed that the threshold continue to be poverty levels of 50 percent or higher. We believed that the school-wide approach when well implemented, is one of the most effective strategies for raising achievement.
Let me close by stating that the framework for all of our thinking is the clear recognition that the days of dumbing-down American education are over. We will surely debate the merits of the policy ideas that we're putting forward in months ahead and that's very healthy. That's a healthy debate and I hope, however, that we will find common ground around the moral and social obligation that we have to give all of our young people, including the 20 percent now living in poverty an education of excellence. A very strong American consensus has developed about what needs to be done to improve our schools. All the elements are starting to be put in place, expanding early childhood efforts, improving reading, setting high expectations for all of our young people, reaching for high standards in the classroom, extending after school opportunities and holding schools more accountable for results. We're moving in the right direction. We need to stay on that course and always remember as John Stamford said, that the victory is, indeed, in the classroom. The administration, Mr. Chairman, is prepared to work closely with this Congress in the months ahead in the reauthorization of ESEA. And I hope that in the process a new bipartisan spirit can evolve around issues of education for the last two years have been somewhat contentious here in Washington and I believe we can give a better account of ourselves to the American people working closely together, especially on these education matters.
I thank you very much and I'd be happy to respond to questions.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you for an excellent statement and I will get to you later. I want to defer first to Senator Gregg as they -- we have a meeting of Republicans at 10:00. I'm sticking around though.
Senator Gregg.
SEN. JUDD GREG (R-NH): Why thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your courtesy.

Secretary, you talked -- there's a lot of different ideas there and obviously, we'll look forward to seeing them flushed out in language, so that we can get a better sense of what they mean. I am interested in this teacher issue, which appears to be the core of one of your proposals and I guess my question to you, are you proposing that we have teacher testing for the purposes of determining their teachers ability to perform in the classroom such as has occurred in states like Massachusetts recently?
SEC. RILEY: We're proposing that new teachers, we're proposing that new teachers be tested for --
SEN. GREGG: You're not proposing that teachers currently in the classroom be tested?
SEC RILEY: No. We are, of course, our view on that is that strong effective professional development is what is called for. We do think new teachers should be tested on content and on teaching skills -- and then when teachers become professional teachers --
SEN. GREGG: Well new teachers represent --
SEC. RILEY: -- then they should have professional development.
SEN. GREGG: What percentage of the classrooms are covered by new teachers?
SEC. RILEY: Well that's --
SEN. GREGG: Probably less than 5 percent, isn't it?
SEC. RILEY: That's a constantly changing figure.
SEN. GREGG: Right, but I mean the vast majority of teachers are already in the classrooms, are they not?
SEC. RILEY: Well, yes, but in the future all of them will someday be new teachers.
SEN. GREGG: And then they'll be old teachers and they won't be tested, right? SEC. RILEY: But they would have been tested.
SEN. GREGG: They would not be tested once they were old teachers. So you're really not suggesting that we evaluate teachers once they're on the job in any formal way. You do support testing of children, however, right?
SEC. RILEY: Oh yes. Well, let me say this about teachers because I think that's a very important subject and one you're interested in. I am going to make my State of American Education speech in Long Beach next week, next Tuesday, and the primary subject is going to be teachers and quality teachers, professional development and what then we would propose to do about teachers. Those are of course local and state issues.
SEN. GREGG: But in that proposal I guess you've answered my question there's not going to be testing of teachers who are presently in the classroom. Are you --
SEC. RILEY: Oh, but there will be Senator. You said there'd be no evaluation. There will be evaluation; there's no question about that. There's continuing evaluation of teachers and should be. Again, these are not under our control, but we will be looking at what works best and sharing that with states and local policymakers.
SEN. GREGG: Are you proposing, then, in your evaluation process that if a teacher is determined not to be doing a decent job and that teacher is on tenure that that teacher be available to be fired?
SEC. RILEY: Well, as I've said and said many times before, if you have teachers who are burned out, who are not performing well and that is clearly shown, after they've been given professional development and attempted to help them in every way to become effective teachers, then some policy needs to be developed to help counsel them out of teaching. I mean I don't -
SEN. GREGG: Is that going to be part of your proposal for replacing tenured teachers --
SEC. RILEY: That is --
SEN. GREGG: -- who do not, what I'm asking about is are you going to have, as part of your proposal something to address tenured teachers who are not making -- who are not doing well in the classroom?
SEC. RILEY: Well, my proposal, which I'll go into in detail next week, and I'm working on finalizing that now, will be basically this; as I understand where I am now, that is when a new teacher comes to teach, that they will have an annual contract on an annual basis, just like they do now.

SEN. GREGG: So, no tenure at all?
SEC. RILEY: Kind of an intern, period. Then after two or three years of this period where they would be working with master teachers, then they would have a significant peer review on content and knowledge and skills of teaching and then get a professional license if they qualify under that serious peer review. Then they are professional teachers. Then they would be constantly developed in a professional way, and then constantly reevaluated, but would not have to go back in and take another test, just like lawyers don't have to go take the Bar Exam every five years, but they do have to have continuing legal education.
If we're going to treat teachers like professionals, then I think we need to have professional ways of handling the profession. And that's generally how I would propose to do it. Again, those are not our decisions, but that would be my idea.
SEN. GREGG: Okay, I do think your dancing around the issue of tenure and problems that we have with teachers who are not cutting it in the classroom, but I can understand why you'd be doing that.
On a second issue, the administration sent up a budget this year that had a $3 million increase in IDA. This is a program that absorbs a huge amount of local obligations. And it can be argued that the way the IDA Program works today, is that the administration is borrowing from its obligation to fund IDA in order to fund new programs, and thus putting the local communities in a position where they have to pay the federal obligation to fund IDA, which is the 40 percent, which takes away the local community's flexibility. And then they have to come to the federal government and ask for money for the different programs that the federal government is directing towards it using the IDA funding. Why does the administration continue to fail to aggressively fund or increase the funding for IDA? And please don't give me the story that the funding in IDAs gone up over the last three years by almost 90 percent, because the administration didn't support any one of those funding increases, those are all done by the Congress, independent of any budget proposal from the administration.
I would like to know why -- how you justify this failure to fund IDA?
SEC. RILEY: Well, so the -- of course the President has signed all of the appropriations bills over the last year.
SEN. GREGG: Did any of his budgets suggest any increase in IDA funding?
SEC. RILEY: Oh yes.
SEN. GREGG: Of any significance?
SEC. RILEY: Well, they suggested increases. Let me explain. The budget, this year, and that's covered in my detailed statement, comes to some $116 million of programs that are very much targeted. One for very young children, infants and toddlers, one for pre-school children, one from children five to age nine, three different programs that are targeted for special need in that area. We have then what we're -- when you look at the American classroom and you see a large percentage, some 75 percent of disabled children are in the regular classroom, are in the regular classroom 75 percent of the time, whatever. Anyway, large portion of their time is spent in the regular classroom.
So, we also feel like that it's very important, things like class size; if you reduce class size in those first three years, as we're all working to try to do, we think that's going to decrease the number of special ed. children, and it's certainly going to help disabled children, significantly, learn to read in those early years. Things like the reading proposal that we had last year, other things that deal with standard in the classroom, the quality teacher, the teacher that's through professional development and preparation is prepared to handle disabled children in the regular classroom along with special ed teachers. All of those things we think are very, very significant along with the very significant importance of IDEA itself.
SEN. GREGG: I wish we had more time to do that, but we don't and I thank the chairman for his courtesy in allowing me to.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you for an excellent question.
Senator Kennedy.
SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY (D-MA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and I think all of us are very mindful of the extraordinary challenges that exist in local communities in supporting the IDEA. And all of us would like to see an expansion in terms of the funding of those programs.
I think it's fair to say that we have seen the increase from 1996 to 1999 of a 46 percent increase in education just generally. That's gone up from some $33.5 billion from $23 to $33 billion. So, we've seen a significant increase, almost 50 percent in the last three years to benefit all children, not that as has been pointed out, that money in and of itself answers all the questions. But it's a pretty clear indication that having good teachers, small classrooms, good classroom, new technologies is going to help children that have some disabilities and things, so.
I think many of us are very much aware of the particular burden in terms of local communities that are trying to deal with the special needs the children place upon a community.

And it's an enormously draining factor on it. And I, myself, would like to see an expansion of those programs. But I think it's difficult, quite frankly not to recognize what has been the important focus that the administration's given in terms of the education generally. I'm not going to take the time now to go through many of these other elements.
And I'm always interested in listening to my friend in New Hampshire talk about these particularities, about how we're going to deal, you know with these issues on tenure and training and then be opposed to the education programs because they talked about too much pressure coming from Washington, too much pressure coming from Washington. And they're wondering what you're going to do about some teacher in some particular community. What I think what we're trying to bring some focus and attention on the goals 2000, as a matter of fact. I believe that New Hampshire is a state that didn't take the funds for a period of time because they resented any kind of intrusion in terms of the federal government in trying to help and assist where the money was going actually into local communities to help and assist the communities. But I suppose we can take that for another time.
We want to make sure the teachers are well trained. We want to make sure that the new ones are tested. I also think that when we're seeing that other teachers are going to have, as in my own state, are going to be taking courses for continuing upgrading their education. I'm interested in how those students turn out. I'm interested whether they are improving academically. I'm interested in whether they are involving parents in the classroom. And how they're dealing with these children as well as what they're going to get on a particular grade. So, the kinds of assessments that you talk about and the upgrading of the skills of these teachers are matters, which I think all of us should be interested in. And if we want to fly spec this in terms of trying to get some kind of advantage in terms of the politics of it, so be it. But I think what we're trying to do is to make sure and it was the essence of the President's program in the higher education's teacher training. --
So there's been a lot of quietness about that over a longer period of time and we welcome what you're doing in terms of the teacher training. I'd like to see, I've seen a more significant increase in this in terms of the budget. We had over $300 million and only about half of that has actually been in the President's budget in terms of the training, again, not that it solves all the problems. But this is really the question that I have because the time is sort of moving on and if we are moving towards this issue to try and get the higher standards in these schools, and the President has spoken about the issue about social promotion in various schools and he talked about it in the State of the Union, he talked about it up in Boston when you were there, Mr. Secretary. The other side of that coin is that we want to make sure that the children are not going to just repeat a class that is not providing them with the educational sort of benefits to be able to be successful, but there have to be the supplementary kind of help and support and assistance to those kids and that is a key element. I don't think you can have one without the other myself and I think that is basically in listening to the President that's where, I think, he is.
So can you address that about how you think we're going to phase this in or how is the Administration going to phase in about trying to be responsible and get accountability for the acceptance of the federal funds and how we're going to get accountability but what parents should be able to expect over a period of time as this is going to phase in. How do you see that working? How do you, can you, expand on that for us?
SEC. RILEY: Well, Senator, that's a very, it's a very important question that all of us need to think about. First of all, the idea of eliminating social promotion really comes from the states and it's not something that we thought of up here and the same with low- performing schools and all these ideas, as I said in my statement, really emanated from the states. Now, when you look at social promotion and this idea, the old idea, of letting kids float through school that time is what counts and not what they are learning, at some point in time in transition came out of a tragic part of segregation and so forth we might have needed some of that in place. Now, we do not and it's a disadvantage for young people to float them through school without having high standards from kindergarten forward. Now our policy on doing away with social promotion, that is not being tuned in to what a child learns as they move up the ladder, would have several strategies.
One is early intervention. I think parents need to know that. We are not talking about waiting until somebody's on down the line, but getting in there early to determine if they are able to read well and so forth at very young years. Make sure the learning opportunities are in the classroom. That's what we're talking about quality teachers and professional development and so forth, learning how to, especially small classrooms in those early years with good teachers. And then to come in with things to help them as you point out, not a policy of failing students, that's not what it is. It's not a policy of retention of students. It's a policy of not socially promoting students; to promote them because of what they've learned, then to provide things like summer school, like after school, like small classes, like special things to help children reach certain goals, certain levels, and then certainly to have an action plan to deal with any particular child who really is below grade level and needs special help. If you don't do that, the policy, the whole policy, fails so it's not social, we're against social promotion and we're against a policy of retention. We're for a policy of teaching all students to pass. It's a policy of passing and not failing, but you can't do that without extra resources to help children who have special needs at particular levels of their education.
SEN. KENNEDY: Time is up, Mr. Chairman, but I just want to say I hope that we can find ways of supporting the teachers, helping the teachers to be better teachers rather than blaming them.
And I thank the Chair.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator Hagel.
SEN. HAGEL: Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Welcome, Mr. Secretary. As you may know, Mr. Secretary, I'm a new member of this committee, so I'm going to begin with the basics. I'm not sure that's all bad with education. Would you explain to me what the basic philosophy is about education of this administration?
SEC. RILEY: Well, and that would take some lengthy --
SEN. HAGEL: Try it in 60 seconds. I know that you can do that.
SEC. RILEY: I think our general philosophy and in my long statement, you could probably pick that up in a pretty good degree is basically one of the as we call the standards movement and that is to say that we ought to define, the states ought to define. We talked about national voluntary standards to help states. States should define what a child should know and be able to do in each grade, in each core subject and that takes a lot of discussion and it's a lot of input and it's healthy discussion.
Once that's determined, by the state, then to have all the parts of the education process move towards accomplishing that goal for every single child. And that then calls for assessment linked to those standards right in line with it, so you'll know how children are doing in the first, second, third grade, right on. And it also involves then having all of the other parts, the textbooks, the curriculum and everything else to those high state standards, our challenging state standards is probably a better word. So that's in the large run.
When we came here, as I mentioned earlier, Title I children had a substandard watered down curriculum. They were not expected to reach high standards. We have changed that and we have all children to reach the high standards and then the process hopefully to help them reach it. A good part of that of course is teachers and in the '94 reauthorization of the Elementary Secondary Act, we kind of put that working in a bipartisan way, put that in process. And every state now is in that process, everyone of them. They didn't have to be, but they are and we have tried to help them. And now we are talking about trying to get those standards down into the classroom with the teacher and all the principal and every -- and everybody else can help every child reach high standards. I think that in a nutshell -- just --
SEN. HAGEL: Thank you.
I want to stay with your point on teachers for a moment and maybe pick up on a comment that Senator Gregg made. In listening to your testimony this morning and reading here in more detail about the teacher quality issue and the programs that you're going to put forward, do you think that's the role of the federal government? Do you think the state governments are uncommitted or unqualified to do that themselves?
SEC. RILEY: Well what I was talking with Senator Gregg about, I do not think is the federal government's role to control that, but I do think we do have role to see what's working in other states and to share that information with states and with local schools. No, I do not think we have the role to tell states how they should handle hiring teachers, firing teachers, promoting teachers, or whatever. But I do think we should share with them things that we pick up from other states and from research that works best as recommendations and options really to be helpful.
SEN. HAGEL: You don't think they'd do that on their own?
SEC. RILEY: I think they --
SEN. HAGEL: You don't think there's any interaction between states?
SEC. RILEY: I think generally, Senator, they welcome help, especially from research and helping them to leverage ideas around. Generally, they welcome that. They don't have to take that advice.

Yes, I think all of them are interested in how they think it should best be done, but I think they also are very interested in what other states are doing, what other school districts are doing, what's working, what isn't working, and what research shows works best.
SEN. HAGEL: And you think that's a responsibility of the federal government?
SEC. RILEY: I think that's an important role of the federal government in support of state and local schools, yes.
SEN. HAGEL: Do you think those monies apply to those programs might be better spent if you gave them to the individual states and let them decide where they should spend that money?
SEC. RILEY: Well, and I'm not talking about running programs.
SEN. HAGEL: I understand.
SEC. RILEY: I'm talking about sharing information and doing research and that kind of thing, and so far, is teachers concern. But, we do have, then, federal dollars that we are recommending to be put primarily in the area of professional development, which we think is very important. And that's something we think we can help with. We have Title I teachers and we've got all the other.
SEN. HAGEL: How much money are you budgeting for that?
SEC. RILEY: Well, for professional development, it would come from several different categories. One, for example, the class size program calls for the permission to have what -- (conferring off mike) -- 15 percent of that can be used for professional development, which makes good sense. You want good quality teachers in these smaller classes, so they can us up to 15 percent of that money for professional development. And then this proposal, of course, would take the Eisenhower money, and goals and Title VI, and lump it together and role it then into this new purpose of trying to get standards into the classroom. A lot of that, of course, is quality teachers. If you're going to have high standards in the classroom, you really do have to have qualified teachers.
SEN. HAGEL: But, that's my question, you don't think states are qualified to do that themselves, or committed to do that, that that must come from the federal government in order to get standards up for quality teachers?
SEC. RILEY: Well, let me say this. I heard a business person recently that was talking about how much businesses you put into professional development, in his statement it was something between 8 (percent) and 10 percent. Good companies spend that kind of money on keeping their people professionally informed. Education, generally, which is a service industry, in this country, has been -- his number was more like .3 of 1 percent.
So, I think all of us -- I think you could talk to any governor, you could talk to any chief school officer, or whatever, and they would tell you that we definitely need more money in the professional development. And I do think that's something that we can help with from the federal government. They set it up. They decide what teachers would have it and so forth. If would just be federal dollars to help them keep their teachers.
SEN. HAGEL: So the federal government is there to help at the request of the state government in this area of standards?
SEC. RILEY: That's right. That's right and then the states would define the use of those funds as they saw best to reach high standards in the classroom. Yes, sir.
SEN. HAGEL: Thank you.
Mr. Chairman.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator Bingaman.
SEN. JEFF BINGAMAN (D-NM): Mr. Chairman, I think Senator Murray was here before me. I don't know is that the order you're going on?
SEN. JEFFORDS: No, I got the order given me, but it's my recollection -
SEN. BINGAMAN: I believe she was here when I walked in.
SEN. JEFFORDS: I think your recollection is correct.
Senator Murray.
SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I got to be bigger or something. He never sees me. (Laughter.)
SEN. JEFFORDS: Moving up, though.
SEN. MURRAY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Secretary it is always an honor to have you here with us and to work with you on the issues that I think are so important to our country. I think all of us have had a real awakening and new understanding of the Constitution as we have struggled through the last six weeks of our lives here in the Senate. And I think as much as we've tried to tug and change what was written underneath that, we are coming to the end of this realizing that our forefathers did a pretty good job in the beginning in writing the Constitution and we'll end up the way they really felt we should have gone to begin with.
And I think part of what I've really realized over the last six weeks is that our forefathers also really set out to make sure we have a strong public education system so that every child would be able to read and understand so that we could sustain that Constitution and this democracy and it's really recommitted me to making sure that that's an underlying principle that we have from our country and from our nation's capital all the way down to local school boards. So I appreciate more than ever the job you and your Department does and the role we have in making sure this democracy is sustained.
There are a number of areas I would love to ask you about. Let me first quickly just thank you for mentioning John Stanford who is the Seattle school superintendent who passed away just a short time ago from leukemia and he's been such a strong leader for all of us and a great loss to our community and I really appreciate the recognition you gave him in your opening remarks. He began a process in the Seattle schools to move to a student-weighted formula. I know they have a request in to your office to ask for a waver and I want to ask on behalf of them if we can give them a good answer soon on that? They're trying to get their money out there and let principals know what to do and I would love to give them a good answer very quickly on this. Can you --
SEC. RILEY: What?
SEN. MURRAY: It's a waiver from Title I.
SEC. RILEY: Let me ask Judith Johnson if she would respond to that please.
SEN. MURRAY: Okay.
SEC. RILEY: Judy.
MS. JUDY JOHNSON: Yes, we have received the waiver request. There have been conversations with the school superintendent. We have asked for some additional information, only to ensure that the waiver request includes criteria helping us to understand how student achievement will be improved, how the system will be monitored. And we are fully comfortable and confident that this will be resolved very shortly.
SEN. MURRAY: Good. Okay, I know they're getting some answers back to you and if we can hear from them, as quickly as possible that would be great.

I attended the Principals Association meeting this morning and spoke with them. And the number one -- probably no surprise to you, is the IDEA, and they just spent many minutes telling me the problems and challenges they were facing if they tried to implement IDEA. I'm sure it's no surprise to you. When are the regulations going to be out? It seems to me, a lot of what we are dealing with is rumor information that may or may not be correct, and they need these regulations.
And let me just tell you quickly, one of the examples they give me, is when two students got in a fight on a playground, and they are interpreting what they think are going to be the regulations to 10 day per occurrence, or 10 days per year, misinformation there. They believe that if a child has had 10 suspension already, if two kids are on a playground and have a fight and one students has already fulfilled their 10 days, that they can no longer suspend them. He's back at school the next day with a smirk on his face, and the other child is 10 days suspended. And there's a real concern about that.
There's a concern about the manifestation determination. School districts are interpreting that because of the "no cessation language" that they can't kick a student out of school even if his behavior has nothing to do with his disability. And finally they we're talking about Section 504; if a school district suspects that a student may have benefited from services, even if they do well in a regular classroom, they're putting together plans and dealing with lawsuits, a series of lawsuits more likely, all prospectively. That's a big can of worms, I know, but if you can tell us when the regulations are going to be out and how we respond to this concerns, that I know all of us are hearing back in our states, I'd really appreciate it.
SEC. RILEY: Well, and I wish I could go item by item, but I prefer to wait until the regulations do come out. And I regret that they have not come out yet. We went into a extensive effort to go all around the country and receive comments. We received over 6,000 comments, and I mean, every one of them were dealt with individually. And it really has taken an enormous amount of effort to try to respond properly to all of these observations. And we now have basically made our policy decisions. We've drafted documents and they are now at OMB for review and they very soon will be going to the Federal Register for publication. So it would be just a matter of very soon time, approximately a month or less.
SEN. MURRAY: Okay.
SEC. RILEY: And I would say this about some of the observations about discipline and those will be discussed there and I know that will call for a lot of discussion and it should. Those are very important issues. What we do for disabled children in this country is extremely important.

A lot of their time is spent in the regular classroom, as I said, and that is very good if the teacher's prepared, if the classroom is not too large and if the proper resources for support of that child in the classroom are there. And millions and millions of people out there now who are living normal lives, wonderful lives, in this great country because of what these IDEA and the other efforts dealing with disabled children have caused.
When you look at these discipline issues, primarily, a disabled child can be disciplined just as any other child if it's especially something unrelated to their disability but the only primary difference is that disabled children have to have some educational services provided after certain periods of time. And frankly that ought to be true of all children. I mean the idea of expelling a child which you can do to punish him, you can expel a disabled child or a non-disabled child, but after so many days a disabled child has to have some kind of educational services. You don't punish children by denying them educational services. So that is one place that IDEA has always been somewhat different and I, frankly, support that. I support all children having educational services after a reasonable period of time and that should not be part of their punishment.
SEN. MURRAY: Thank you.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator Frist.
SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, welcome. Thank you for all that you do for this country and for our children and for education throughout. You've done a wonderful job elevating education to the priority it is, a bipartisan, non-partisan priority and really want to thank you for that. We have great opportunities, I think, over the next several months and next year or so to accomplish many of the goals that we all share and it's very exciting. I want to thank you for that.
In your written testimony, you address a topic that I want to at least introduce today and one that you and I've had discussions about and this committee has and that is (EdFlex?). I think that we have an opportunity in the next four weeks to pass a bill, an important bill in the United States Senate that is bipartisan, that accomplishes the goals that are set out, that does free our local communities from excessive regulations, that has flexibility, but demands accountability. I say this because we need your help. And I get the feeling that it's going to be pushed off months, and months, and months, down the line when this is a bill that you and I and others have worked on, that we put through committee, that we could have passed before the American people in four to six weeks.
In your written statement, you support is reinforced, let me just read because I know that you had to abbreviate it for yourcomments. But, on page four you write, "another approach to flexibility is the EdFlex demonstration program, which allows the department to give states, with strong accountability mechanisms, the authority to approve waivers of certain federal statutory and regulatory requirements that that stand in the way of effective reform at the local level." You continue, "Congress has authorized up to 12 states to participate in EdFlex. We are proposing to expand EdFlex to allow all eligible states to participate." And I agree. And I reach out to you and to the department to pass EdFlex as quickly at is reasonable and possible. And I think that can be in the next several weeks. And I think it would make a wonderful, wonderful statement to the American people that a bipartisan bill, the bill that I'm talking about, both myself and Ron Wyden are cosponsors of, can be passed and put before the American people.
EdFlex, for those people who don't fully know what EdFlex is, the rationale behind it is to give states and local schools that flexibility, but also demand accountability. It does free states and locals of those regulations that might excessively burden them, and at the same time demanding that accountability. The history of EdFlex, as the Secretary knows, is that six states were given a demonstration project in 1994. It was expanded to 12 states in 1996. And what we proposed and what you proposed is to expand that to the entire country so the problems with waivers, we've heard about, will maybe not be as big a challenge as they are today.
The legislative history is that it passed EdFlex 17 to 1 out of this committee last year. We ran out of time to have it considered at the end of last session. It's passed out of this committee last week. It is now on the floor of the United States Senate and it can become law. It can become law in several weeks if we have the will to do that. Numerous examples, like the Phelps (sp) Luck Elementary School in Howard County, Maryland, used it's waiver to provide one-on-one tutoring for reading students who have the greatest needs in grade one through five. They also used their waiver to lower the average student-teacher ratio in mathematics and reading from 25:1 to 12:1, which really shows what you can do if you give that flexibility with the accountability built into it.
Mr. Secretary you've written letters in the past in support just as in your statement here that have been entered in the record before supporting the concept of it. And I guess my question is because in your written testimony in the next sentence where I stopped you basically said in the next sentence I believe such an expansion should be considered in the context of reauthorization and go ahead which is really a fallback. In other words you don't want it to go ahead the next three to four weeks. The President of the United States wants it; he proposed it to us initially a year and a half ago. You have been for it, the committee has passed it, there's a bipartisan bill. The National Governor's Association have come forward and said it is one of our number one initiatives. This committee wants it, it's passed through the committee; it can be law in four weeks and I guess I ask why you say let's not go ahead. Why do we wait and throw it into the reauthorization, which we all know, is going to take months and months and months when there's such unanimous support for it?
SEC. RILEY: Well, and I don't differ with anything you've said. I think you gave a very fair statement and it is a fact that I, of course, have been working with this concept for years and with a lot of people here and it was bipartisan and the demonstration project was almost unanimously approved. But we are dealing, and as you point out, it touches flexibility and it touches accountability. And the whole reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Act is very much involving flexibility and accountability, so when we're talking about ESEA if you all went ahead and passed EdFlex and it was signed into law, you would still have to get right back into it again in the discussions of ESEA.
And it just seems like a very logical thing to me to say that the logical, and I support it, but the logical way if it's done properly, and I'll have to say your bill and Senator Wyden's bill, frankly is on the right tone of the bill. I think some people are talking about perhaps maybe making some changes but certainly you have tried to maintain the accountability feature and have maximum flexibility and so I think that's a very good place to start. But it's clear to me that the better way to do it is to do it all together. So that's what I would favor, but again, I support that part of the elementary and secondary Act and I think it will eventually be law. I would point this out, Senator, until it is passed, of course, the Department has the same power to waive that we are trying to give the states and you cannot let the states waive their own power, if you see what I mean. So when the Congress passes a bill -
SEN. FRIST: And that's the problem. Like you just heard Senator Murray asked you what's happened to my waiver, why is it taking so long. And I guess when I hear that and I recognize we have a bill which we all agreed to, but I'm afraid and I hate to say this is for political reasons that people are kind of pulling back from it and saying let's throw it in because we've all agreed to the essence.
And I guess my time is over with and again, I think we're all working towards the same goal. If we can just work over the next several weeks together, to make this something that is reasonable, and get it out from to the American people, since everybody wants it, knows it's good, and not just say, lets throw it into the large pools, which we know is going to take months, and months, and months.

But thank you.
SEC. RILEY: I thank you.
SEN. FRIST: It's been a real pleasure working with you and I just hope that we all can work together and not say lets just worry about it later. Let's all work together.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you, Senator Frist.
Senator Bingaman.
SEN. JEFF BINGAMAN (D-NM): Thank you very much.
Mr. Secretary, welcome and it's always good to see you and complement you on your good work. Let me ask about an issue that you and I have visited on several times, and that is the problem of students dropping out of school before they graduate. As you know, that's a continuing problem in many of our schools, particularly our larger high schools and our larger middle schools, and particularly among Hispanic students. We see it in my state where I think the undisputed statistics are that over 30 percent of the students -- the Hispanic students in our state do leave school before they graduate. So, as we are talking about ending social promotion and doing various other things, I don't want us to lose sight of the importance of trying to reform our schools so that more of them -- more students will stay in the schools and complete their schooling.
I guess -- I saw this proposal in the budget for a $100 million program in the Department of Labor to deal with the dropout problem. And my frank reaction was that this is something that ought to be in the Department of Education rather than the Department of Labor, but I'm averse to trying to do something in the Department of Labor.
I guess what occurs to me, though, is that certain of our high schools in particular that have a very high dropout problem, could certainly use additional resources to help enrich the opportunities and offerings for some of these at risk students, and keep them in those schools and help them to reform the schools to do that. I know Title I funds can be used in high schools, but in most cases, are not, as I understand it. In most cases they're at the elementary level. And I would be interested in knowing what your thoughts would be about us providing some incentive, or set aside, or something to encourage school districts to use some of those Title I funds in the schools that have the highest dropout problems. If that would make sense as a way to deal with this, cause, I persuaded that the solution to our dropout problem is not really to go find students after they've dropped out, it is to deal with the factors, which are causing them to drop out in the first place and try to keep them in school.
I think that's a higher payoff strategy and I'd be interested in whatever ideas you've got.
SEC. RILEY: Well, you raise a very good point and certainly one that we've talked about a lot and I know in terms of Hispanic students that's a special problem for this country. Last year as you know all of us together really were able to pass a package of measures dealing primarily out of the Hispanic Caucus that strongly supported, you were very much involved in that; expansion of the immigrant programs, bilingual programs, migrant-ed. programs, Title I in certain ways. So I think that some of that we need to begin to measure how it is impacting, especially Hispanic dropout problem. And I really think that a lot of the things we're doing like small classrooms, like a special effort to help bilingual teachers, help with technology, training for teachers. You know this idea of social promotion, if someone thinks that that is going to cause an enormous increase in dropouts of course I'd be against it. Social promotion done right will mean more kids finish high school. I really do think that.
The kids that drop out of high school and drop out of school are kids who have been moved along and haven't kept up. They get into the eighth and ninth grade and can't read well and then they get into high school and they can't do basic algebra and so I think that really our broad look at getting standards into the classroom for all children, to take a look at the system. The system is not teaching a child to read by the third grade. Don't put the heat on the child; put the heat on the system. And then the system must come in and give special help to help that child through then when they move on into high school where you're talking about you see so much of the dropout problem, a lot will be different. I think your suggestion has a lot of merit to it, and we'll certainly ponder about that and work with you.
We have a lot of work being done and of course the so-called O.B. Porter Measure, the comprehensive reform to look at all schools. We're doing a lot of that, looking at high schools to try to get reform measures in there, to get parents involved and get engaging work going on where young people are inclined to stay in schools and not drop out. But, why don't we work on your suggestion to take a look at it.
SEN. BINGAMAN: Let me try to get one more question in, if I could, Mr. Chairman. SEN. JEFFORDS: Go ahead.
SEN. BINGAMAN: On the issue of your report card, which I think is a very good proposal, one which I've supported for some time now. Two of the issues related to teacher qualifications that we talked about last year in the Reauthorization of Higher Education Act, and which I think are both important. And I wanted to, hopefully, see that your report card reflex both of these, if possible. One of them is the question of whether or not the teachers, in fact, have academic degrees. Unfortunately, to few of our teachers in our public schools have academic degrees today, in my opinion. And I think anything we can do to highlight the teachers that do have academic degrees, I think, would be to the positive. And I would hope that that's an issue that we could deal with in the report card, as well as the question of whether or not are mis-assigned. Obviously if you've got an academic degree in Botany and they put in to teaching English/Lit., it is not a particularly good assignment. I mean, it's not tied to your academic degree.
So, I think we need to have both things understood by parents and by people who are focused on the schools. And I hope that this report card, to the extent that it looks at teachers, and the qualifications of teachers to do the job they've been hired for, I hope it looks both at the extent to which they have academic degrees, and the extent to which they are assigned to teach in the areas where their degree is.
SEC. RILEY: Well, and that's a very good point. Of course, we have mentioned teaching on emergency certificates, which really they've had no known qualifications at all, and there's a frightening number of teachers who are hired simply because they don't have someone else to do it. Again, it's not the teacher's fault, but it's the systems fault. It involves recruiting, it involves something that you have been involved with a long with us, and I appreciate it, and that is teacher preparation. And if a teacher finishes college in general education, and then is put in an Algebra class in the eight grade, it's a real problem. I mean, that teacher is really struggling to try to get prepared to teach. And that's the kind of thing that you're talking about. It comes to teaching out of field, generally, and teaching on emergency certificates. And then if you look at the academic degrees, if someone's teaching Physics in high school, certainly they ought to have an academic degree in Physics.
So, I think that's a very good point. And I would -- certainly our report card would deal with teacher quality and we'll keep in mind those suggestions.
SEN. BINGAMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Mr. Secretary, now that I am free to move forward with some questions. When can we expect to receive your ESEA reauthorization proposal?

SEC. RILEY: We're looking at March -- around the middle of March. Certainly, in March right? (Conferring off mike.)
MS. JOHNSON: Middle to the end of March.
SEC. RILEY: Mmm-hmm. So, hopefully around the middle of March, but no later than the end of March. So, around the 15th or 20th we would anticipate it.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Okay, I appreciate it. Knowing that, we're not going to be rushing --
SEC. RILEY: I think, Senator, you and everybody, we too, would like to see it moved quickly. And I think that's a very, very good point, so we want to help with that. So, we're going to get it on in here as quick as we can.
SEN. JEFFORDS: I appreciate that, but I don't want to move it to quickly either. This is the most important educational bill that we have, and I want to make sure that we do it right and have the maximum amount of time to work on it.
One of the great frustrating problems that myself, and I know Governor Hunt, and other who serve on the Goals 2000 panel, is to getting accurate information to determine the status of our education in the United States. We were shocked, to be honest with you, when the Goals 2000 panel, we were waiting and waiting for the results of whether we had had any improvement under the -- since 1983. And then we found out that when we got the report, that it was using 1994 data, was the most recent data we had to measure performance in the United States.
I know that the Office of Education and Research, I know, has hundreds of millions of dollars, and I wonder why, or how, we couldn't somehow find out what's really going on as far as our educational results in this country, when, right now, we're relying on data that's four years old to tell whether we improved last year.
SEC. RILEY: Well, and you and I share that frustration on that panel. And it's hard for me to understand why it does take so long. But apparently, from people who know a lot more about it than I do, if you do that job right, if you assess in the right way, and you maintain a base line that is accurate and appropriate, it takes longer than you and I would expect it to take. But, you get into this problem, if you're a policymaker, as you point out, and you come in with very good information that's three or four years old, you know, it's hard to -- the time's already gone by for you to make policy -- (laughs) -- that you use the information for.
So, it's a constant source of frustration. I wold say then, of course, the testing as you know is under NAGBE (?) now, and not under the Department of Education. And I think they do a very good job, then they test, which is what we rely on generally, is recognized and accepted as a very good high-quality challenging test. And I think it's accepted, even throughout the world, as a very valid test. And I don't know -- Mike, that's kind of your area of expertise, do you have anything to add to that? Why does it take so long.
MR. SMITH: Senator.
Well, I can address that too, but also, there are data points in 1996, as well as 1994 and 1992. In fact, chart one, in the longer testimony, includes the math scores for 1996. And tomorrow, the Secretary will be announcing 1998 results. And the point here on time, is simply that in order to get the data right, they need some time to figure it out, to see whether or not it's reliable and valid and so on,. They don't want to put out -- they don't want to put out data that isn't. They have, however, shortened the time greatly, because, tomorrow, we're going to see 1998 results, and that's six to seven months after those data were initially collected. That is reduced the amount of time by at least a year, over the last three or four years.
So, you're going to see it more quickly. Still not as fast as we'd like it. And for that purpose, in many cases, we're relying on state data, where there's a -- it's different kind of test, it's not quite as valid in our view, but they still provide good information on a yearly basis.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Well, it seems to me I just can't figure out why we can't, with all the modern technology we have now, and the ways to communicate and all, we can't find out whether something is happening in this country and not have to wait, four, five years for it. So, I just wanted to put you on notice that I intend to take a very close look at OERI, and what they are functions, and what they're doing, and find out some way we that we can better determine as to whether or not we're making any progress. We have Goals 2000, it's extremely frustrating when we go out and we announce that we didn't have any improvement, and then you look at the data, well, it didn't have any improvement four years ago, what about now? And that's the situation we're faced with.
MR. SMITH: I think you'll see improvement tomorrow, and I think you'll see improvement also, if you take a look at this chart between 1990 and 1992 and 1996 on mathematics. So, I think there'll be improving in both mathematics and reading to be able to talk about.
SEC. RILEY: And I would point out, Senator, that you'll notice that on the math '92/'96, that nine year olds in math, in terms of the gap between the disadvantage kids and those who are not disadvantaged and minority kids, the gap has reduced 20 percent.

That's a very significant reduction of the gap. Because, we hear people saying that nothing's happened, Title I and so forth, but, I think these up to date numbers are really going to reflect that some good things are beginning to happen. And in this reading report will be out to morrow and I think it will have some very interesting data in it too.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator Reed.
SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to follow up a line of questioning introduced by Senator Frist. The EdFlex bill is a principle proposal. And it is going to the floor. And personally I think it should go to the floor. And we should have a vigorous debate. I've got some suggestions to improve it. But, I was thinking that same spirit of bipartisanship, we might also entertain a measure that as received bipartisan support in the budget, and that's the class size initiative. And I wondered as we debate the EdFlex Bill, might we also include and incorporate a class size initiative that would represent a bipartisan extension of the budget agreement. And also, is timely, since many states are sitting out there wondering what they'll do with their next years budget, and if we give them a six year authorization for a class size that matches the budget bill, we could provide them a lot of relief, both emotional and physical. And I would hope that we could do that, Mr. Chairman or Senator Frist.
SEN. FRIST: Mr. Chairman, I would be glad to give a 30 second response.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Sure.
SEN. FRIST: Or just add to. Because, class size is important. It's something we need to address. The nice thing about the EdFlex Bill, and the reason I think it can go to the floor and be passed within four weeks, is that it is budget neutral. And I think that's very important. If we really want to get the bill out there which gives flexibility, accountability built in, which still, as I pointed out in the example that I gave, you can get a waiver and address issues like class size, that we ought to move ahead with that bill today. And the budget neutrality is one of the appealing things about putting it forward, still accomplishing the goals of accountability and flexibility. SEN. REED: I'll take that as a yes. So, I look forward to entertaining the class size initiative on the floor.
SEN. FRIST: Is it budget neutral? How much does that cost?
(Laughter.)
SEN. REED: It's already in the budget. It's already in the budget.
SEN. FRIST: And whose budget is that?
SEN. REED: It's in the budget authorization.
SEN. FRIST: I don't believe it's in -- budget committee, it's in the budget.
SEN. REED: Well, we can work on that too.
SEN. FRIST: If it's budget neutral, I think it would be a good debate.
SEN. REED: (Laughing) -- Let me turn now, more specifically, to EdFlex. And, Mr. Secretary, last year I supported the initiative to bring it to the floor. Again, I supported it with a view that changes could be made. One aspect of EdFlex, is the current evaluation going on of the 12 demonstration states, with respect to whether the program leads to increase student achievement. Do you have any results yet of that evaluation? I know, Senator Frist and Senator Wyden and I are very interested in this and enthused about this, but is there any data to suggest that this approach is producing results in the 12 states that already have EdFlex?
SEC. RILEY: I think it's really too early to have results. You know, education just doesn't move that quickly. I would say this, that we have worked very hard on our level in the Department of Education to move the waiver process forward and as you know, we brought that out and you were part of that effort. It's interesting that probably 30 percent of the waiver requests that come in don't need waivers. And I think that is reflective of a lot of the flexibility that we now have in Title 1 and we have in some of these other programs because people have the idea that they can't do something and they can. So there's a lot of flexibility built into the system now, the use of Title 1 funds and so forth. So it's right interesting to see that that is a misconception out there that you'd have to get a waiver for everything when they already have a good bit of flexibility.
Now, when you look at the 12 states, some of them have used it very little. Texas has used it a lot and one of the main uses of it has been where you have the 50 percent threshold to have a whole school for Title 1, instead of pull out type system. If Texas, that's what most of their waivers have been under the Texas EdFlex and like, if they had 45 percent or 40 percent and some of those would make sense. If it got down into 20 percent, it would not. It would be negligible, the benefit to the disadvantaged kid. But I can see certainly, you know, and of course, if those had come to us for waivers, we would probably have given them two, if they were reasonable. But as the Senator pointed out, you know, it might be quicker. It might be better and we really think that in the long term EdFlex will help, but it's certainly too early to say that we can see these children did better or worse because of the EdFlex at this time.
SEN. REED: I sense from your testimony, Mr. Secretary, that you would be comfortable with allowing the EdFlex legislation to be considered in the context of ESCA. Is that a fair?
SEC. RILEY: Oh, yeah, and I support that and I support EdFlex, have supported it all along, because EdFlex has in it, and the Senators bill and others have in it, various accountability features. It's not just a carte blanche thing and shouldn't be.
SEN. REED: Would this data be available while we're considering ESEA so we can look specifically at the relationship between EdFlex and performance, which would, I presume, aid our deliberations? Would it be available?
SEC. RILEY: I would be happy to look at that. We can certainly give you the complete analysis now of every waiver that was given by all the 12 states and all the waivers that have been given by us. We've given hundreds of waivers to the other states during this same period of time. But yes, we'd be happy to take a look at it, but it takes some time to see things happen, but most of these EdFlex things are timelines. You know people who have a timeline that they have to have done a certain thing by a certain time and that doesn't fit in with the local reform effort, maybe. And they might need six months, or three months or whatever and it just makes real good sense to have the state be able to say you know this is a three-month off of where the requirement is but it makes good sense and it helps these kids.
SEN. REED: I see my time's up. Can I just follow up with in writing or some other form concern about Title VI or elimination of library funding?
SEC. RILEY: Absolutely. Yeah.
SEN. REED: From your budget, that's not good.
SEC. RILEY: Okay.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Senator Wellstone.
SEC. RILEY: You're pro-library, I gather.

SEN. PAUL DAVID WELLSTONE (D-MN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I'm going to break my five minutes into two parts. I want to say to Secretary Riley what I've said to him before. Of all the people that have called me on the phone about anything, I have the most difficult time saying no to you because I think you absolutely represent the very best of kindness and gentleness and commitment. You're the best of the best in public service in my opinion.
SEC. RILEY: Well, I thank you and I can say the same of you.
SEN. WELLSTONE: Well, thank you.
Now, I want to first of all say, Mr. Chairman, that I take heart in what I believe I've hard the Secretary say. I was one vote against the EdFlex bill. We had not heard about the results from the demonstration projects in the states. It seemed to me to be crazy to bring this on the floor of the Senate before we go through ESEA reauthorization and also I have, for the record, a letter that I sent to colleagues to this effect, along with letters from the leadership conference on civil rights, as well as the American Federation of Teachers as well as the National PTA expressing their concern and, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to have this included in the record.
SEN. JEFFORDS: May be put direct.
SEN. WELLSTONE: As the administration, have you convened your view on this to the majority leader that you would prefer this not be brought up to the floor of the Senate before we go through ESEA reauthorization?
SEC. RILEY: It's very clearly said in my statement, which will be part of this official record and that it's very clear in here that we prefer that and I've made that very clear and I've talked to leadership all around on education and have said that. I support EdFlex, but I think it ought to be in the context of ESEA requirements.

SEN. WELLSTONE: Well, my colleagues, the disadvantage of being last, as a lot of colleagues are not here today, but I believe that your testimony here today is extremely important and I hope that -- I hope the position that you've taken will be honored because I think if we don't, if it's too early to tell how it's going in the states, than it's too early to move forward on this. We ought to wait till we have some evidence and some data to look at and we certainly ought to wait till we go through ESEA since a lot of ESEA deals with Title 1 as well. And I will tell you there are many people who have been down in the trenches for years working with these children who are worried about the lack of accountability and so I just want to make it crystal clear that I will oppose moving this on the floor with every bit of ability that I have until we do it in the context of ESEA.
Mr. Secretary, I want to just express -- I want to go to one other point and this is a -- I guess, I'm going to be hard hitting, but I do it out of love for your work. I'm extremely -- this whole discussion about social promotion and what the President has said troubles me to no end. I've been in a school every two weeks for the last eight years since I've been in the Senate and I want to try and go through this as quickly as I can.
First of all, what I see here in many ways is a tin cup budget. I am -- when I see the dramatic increase in Pentagon expenditures and I see this budget, I am so disappointed. I mean, adult literacy and we talk about some 44 million adults and then, I look at the appropriation of money, it amounts to buying a pair of socks for each person. That all it amounts to. When I look at the whole question of reading excellence and we want to have every child reading well by grade three and again this is not ESEA. Whatever happened to the White House conference and this massive commitment we were going to make to early childhood development? We have all this evidence that suggests all these kids come to school way behind and then fall further behind and now we're going to flunk them. Where is the commitment to early childhood development? I look at this proposal on expanding after school opportunities and there's an increase in funding and I'm glad to see that, but you know what? I think of the roughly 15 million kids that could benefit, I think about 1.1 million benefit from this appropriation of money.

I frankly think that what we are doing is not only - Senator Kennedy talked about possibly blaming teachers. We're blaming the kids. My understanding from talking to people is I don't like the idea of social promotion, but I have a couple of questions here. If we're not going to make sure these - remember all the studies about development of the brain? If we're not going to invest the resources, and it's not in the President's budget, to make sure these kids come to kindergarten ready to learn or by third grade can read well, then what good does it do to flunk them again? If we don't have a budget that really does the job, I don't quite understand this. A, my understanding is that when you flunk these kids in fact there is a greater chance that they will drop out of school; B, there's more problems with physical violence in the schools as you have older kids in classes with younger kids and third of all, it just seems to me that this is a technical fix.
I mean where does this budget represent a commitment on our part of getting the resources to the state and local communities so that every child will have the same opportunity to pass these tests? And frankly, it doesn't. And therefore you're just flunking kids and as a sort of an amendment to this question, why don't we start with first graders? My God, I met with some kids in an alternative school, Senator Jeffords just a week ago in the Phillips (sp) neighborhood and they are terrified. They're seniors. You know, we now have in Minnesota the tests you have to pass. They can't pass it. They're not going to graduate. You know what? It's not their fault that they're at this point. So I'm very concerned about this and I want to make one other point, too, which is on this whole issue of social promotion.
Somebody needs to look at the difference between nationalized tests or standardized testing. I'm all for accountability, but I want to tell you, my daughter's a teacher, she's a great teacher, I'll brag about her. You talk to some of the teachers; we are going to have teachers all over the country in these states teaching to standardized tests and it's going to be educationally deadening. It is going to be worksheets. It's going to be wrote memorization. It is going to take all of what's good about education that gets kids to relate their own lives to what they're learning out. We are not heading in a good direction. This is not a budget that does the job. I can not believe what a pathetic budget this is, if it was to represent a real commitment on our part to education as a national security issue.
Your response.
SEC. RILEY: Well, --
SEN. WELLSTONE: You have five seconds. I'm just kidding, go ahead, take your time, Mr. Secretary.
SEC. RILEY: I say I appreciate your kind lead in about how much you respect my view.

(Laughter.)
SEN. WELLSTONE: Well, I do. I think this budget would be a much better budget, if you were in the driver's seat.
SEC. RILEY: Senator, I shared a great deal of your sentiment and you know that the President, in that you mentioned adult literacy, I think we happen to have some very bold proposals in adult literacy and some $90 million, as I recall, in the state program, some $70 million (dollars), in that range, dealing primarily with adults who are having trouble with English, which is a major problem in this country. So I think we have tried to deal with that issue in a rather significant way.
Now, the other parts of the budget, it is not a year when the President has proposed a large education increase and I think that's an accurate observation, but I would say this. Over the last three years, we have had over a $3 billion increase a year, which is around 10 percent or 11 percent a year for three years. That is very significant, as you well know, when you're into a balanced budget framework and you've got these heavy caps on spending.
Now, this year, then after three years of significant increases, the President felt and I think it's well thought out, is the time to let's take a look from an accountability standpoint at what's being accomplished by federal dollars, billions of them that are going out there into the schools. Certainly, nothings being accomplished, if they have a policy of letting kids move through the process and never make sure they learn material as they go through. That they're not progressing, that they are promoted simply because they served time in the classroom. That, as I said before you arrived, during one tragic part of our history in this country, might have been necessary because we had unfairness that was blatant for certain people.
SEN. WELLSTONE: We still do. We still do.
SEC. RILEY: We might, in some way of looking at it, but I'll tell you we are working on it and you're working on it and Senator Jeffords' is working on it and I am and the President is. And things are really moving in the right direction and I mentioned the gap reduction in terms of nine-year-olds in terms of math; a 20 percent reduction in the gap between poor and not poor students. So I think a lot of things are happening.
Social promotion, if it worked as you defined it, I would not be for it. It is not a process to go out and flunk large numbers of people. I spent all day Friday in Chicago. Chicago had a very difficult system there. They had to really try to make some sense out of it and bring it around and they have a policy there of social promotion, doing away with it, and I'll tell you when a child then at certain key benchmarks, like fourth, eighth and tenth grade, they do not measure up then they immediately go into an after-school program, to a summer school program, to a program with small numbers of students in a class, to teachers who are specially trained, who are very qualified.
It's not like casting them off, but it's casting them in. And if it works that way and that's the way it's supposed to work and that's what we intend to see our efforts in, you will like it very much because it is centered on helping the child and blaming the system instead of the other way around as you defined it. Now our old idea of social promotion do away with it then you just flunk all the kids who didn't make it. That is absolutely not what's recommended here. We are against social promotion and we are against a policy of retention. What we're for is a policy of more attention to kids who have special needs as they move through the system in a very accountable way.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you, Senator Wellstone.
Related to that, the big problem, obviously, when you find yourself in a school which has 50 percent or 40 percent social promotion is to how do you take those young people and bring them up to speed and the kind of professional training that's needed for that. If you have any comment -
SEC. RILEY: Senator, that's a very, very good concern and it's a concern I share. And I will say Chicago and of course other areas are working too, but that's just, where I just happened to have gone. They tell me that of this large number of young people who had to go to summer school and had to go into after-school, I mean these are academically-driven programs, engaging programs, that as I recall the number was after this first block of students went through this process then something like 3 percent were not able to be mainstreamed back into class.
Now it might take six months, it might take a year or whatever that they have this intensive work, but they eventually then would be mainstreamed back into the classroom and I do think if it works like that, that all of us would say that is good for those children. Now you always have 3 percent or 5 percent or whatever that will continue to need special help. But, if it works that way, and you get these children young enough, you know, if you wait until high school is one thing, but if you have children going into summer school and special help programs in the afternoon and so-fort, in the second and third grade to help them learn how to read, that makes a big difference. So, I think that the results can be very encouraging, but it's something that we need to ponder about and continue to ponder about.
SEN. JEFFORDS: I wonder, just taking the DC experience, for instance. They have a huge problem in this category, and so they decided to have summer school, and they had space for 25,000, they had 75,000 sign up. I assume that this would go on throughout the country.

So, it's going to take some special effort -- summer schools, or whatever, and that costs money.
SEC. RILEY: That costs money and of course, we're trying to help with that, and this summer school, after school program, the $600 million would help with that kind of need all around the country. And that's one of the reasons the President has recommended to increase that in his education budget, Senator Wellstone's talking about. But that will certainly strongly increase in the after school/ summer school programs. But just think about that in Washington, DC, say 75,000 students, that sounds a little high. But say you've got 50,000 students that need to go to summer school and you can't afford to send but half of them. You've got those 50,000 students right now, and they are getting the summer school and they are getting, whatever. I mean, we're moving in the right direction. So, the fact that it's so large in some areas that it is expensive, and it's hard to do. But, certainly doing nothing isn't the answer.
SEN. JEFFORDS: I believe my figures are a little high there, we'll check them out. But anyway, we got the drift. One of the major efforts during the reauthorization to Higher Education Act last year was to eliminate many small programs relative to teacher training and replace them with a more comprehensive approach. I see that you are now recommending basically going sort of in the other direction by creating some more small categorical programs. I wonder if you would explain that?
SEC. RILEY: Excuse me, I was looking at some numbers here on Washington D.C., that's 20,000 and then, 25,000 showed up because which is very interesting. More showed up, then had to come and excuse me, if you would ask again about the category.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Sure, right, during the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, we decided to wipe out the existing programs for teacher training because they weren't being used or didn't seem to be have any utility and I thought that we were going to develop a more comprehensive approach for teacher training. But it appears that you include several new small teacher education programs going back to where we were. I wondered why you were doing that?
MR. SMITH: Well, we're not proposing new programs in pre-service training and the training of teachers prior to them entering into the profession, which was the Title 2 of the HEA. On the other, I think that's a good point. We were certainly developing an overall major program. I mean, that's the moving standards into the classrooms is going to be a major proposal, quite a lot of money in it focused on teacher training, on profession development in the schools with a focus on math and science. We're also proposing it in Title 1.
We're proposing to set aside in Title 1 and that's because the Title 1 teachers, in particular, need a lot of attention. They need even more attention than, perhaps, many of the other teachers because the Title 1 schools often are the last on the list to have the choice of teachers, often have teachers that aren't certified, often have teachers that are teaching out of their own professional area. So those schools need particular help and I think to go back to the Secretary's comment about the amount of investment that businesses make in professional development, that good businesses make. It's on the order of 10 times the percentage that public education makes and public education can't afford not to invest more in the quality of it's own human resources. Its ironic in many ways, that is for the profession that focuses on education not to focus on the education of its adults.
SEN. JEFFORDS: The Administration proposal of 100,000 new jobs has a price tag of 1.4 billion (dollars) in fiscal 2000, up from 1.2 (billion dollars). I have heard concerns that the offset to pay for this program comes in from investments in the Pell Grants Program. How are you paying for the Class Size Reduction Program? Is it at cross- purposes for the reduction in the Pell Grant Program or other investments that will improve --
SEC. RILEY: No, it's not. The Pell Grant Program, as you know is dependent on how many students call for Pell Grants and are eligible for them and that's a varying thing with the economy and so forth. So those numbers move around. I know when we came here the Pell Grant system was $3 billion in the hole and we had to work that out and you were involved in helping us work that out of that $3 billion that it was in deficit. And now it ends up with some periods that it's in surplus and some that we have to be very careful to manage those funds.
But that is not related to specific appropriation requests and the Class Size money, the 1.2 billion (dollars) was in the budget and then we are requesting what, 200 million (dollar) increase in this current budget and it will be from appropriated funds. And that's over, you know that's a seven-year program, Senator Jeffords, and I'd point this out that after the first year, the program when it was originally set up called for a match on the local level. The first year the match was not put in the budget, not required, so the first 1.2 billion (dollars) went out to, is going out to the states without any match required. This new budget coming through is going to call for a 35 percent match, so I think that's important as we go forward. But we're going to leave the $1.2 billion (dollars) as it is and the match would only apply to new funds. So that's going to mean we could have around 38,000 teachers that would be paid for in the year 2000 budget.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Please explain how you plan on spending the $1.2 billion (dollars) that was made available last fiscal year for class size reduction proposal.
SEC. RILEY: Well, it is funding that it has to go for class size. Now, you have some states that are saying that they are already have state policies involved to pull grades one, two and three down to the 15 to 18, where research tells us it works and that is very good research.
By the way, I heard a speech on that yesterday from a research person who was really talking about how significant the Star Tennessee Study is on the importance of class size on those early years. That teachers are very qualified in teaching reading and it sticks with children and they can pick it up on in the 8th grade and 9th grade that it worked.
So states that have a policy that get the class size down, then they have, under the provision of the last years budget, the leeway, the flexibility to move up to the 4th grade, 5th grade down to kindergarten or whatever. But whatever they use the money for has to be directed toward class size and it has to be targeted for those early years.
SEN. JEFFORDS: You have proposed level funding for the Eisenhower Program and under funding the training provisions in the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant Program. That's Title 2, higher ed. That being the case, where will the administration invest to ensure that it's a focus on quality programs for teachers, an important complement of the focus the administration has chosen to place on more teachers?
SEC. RILEY: Well, of course, our proposal, ESEA proposal, as I've described, changes all of that somewhat, as you know, to put Eisenhower and Goals and Title 6 together and have it do a whole lot more of what you're talking about. In other words, teacher professional development would be a main purpose of that teacher quality and standards in every classroom initiative.
Now, in this year, of course, we're looking to hopefully have in the ESEA in place the next year, which might be a little optimistic. But we are looking at the critical need for recruitment of young people into teaching and also of mid-career people like retiring military people or engineers or whatever that also are interested in moving into teaching. We're going to have a great shortage, as you know, of quality teachers. And the baby boomers are going to begin to retire and also the enrollment increases and the pressure for smaller classes, all of those things are going to cause us to need more teachers. So we are trying to shift some of the emphasis to retention, to recruitment, of teachers and we think that that's going to be more and more important over the next several years but it's very important right now for us to start that process so really under Title II that's what we are proposing.
SEN. JEFFORDS: As is usually the case in the area where we see new developments like technology, we end up with a whole bunch of programs that we established and do you intend to try and consolidate or take a look at all the various technology programs to see whether they're aimed in some coordinated fashion or what we should do about them?
SEC. RILEY: Well, unfortunately, the names are somewhat confusing. They're all challenge grants and funds, but the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund of course is the large, basic, what $450 million-range program. And I of course then the Challenge Grants, which are competitive from the national level and have a lot of leverage and do a lot of good, those are different managed programs. One of course has a formula to the states and then competitive from the states to the local districts. So the states handle the competition there.
The Challenge Grants is a competitive program that we handle from Washington, because it's a whole lot smaller and it's targeted. And then, Mike, is there any, that's the two basic programs.
MR. SMITH: Those are the two big ones.
SEC. RILEY: Yeah.
MR. SMITH: --Star Schools -
SEC. RILEY: Yeah, Star Schools, but in our ESEA we propose to leave those basically as they are. I know we're talking about merging Star and --
MR. SMITH: The Challenge Fund, not the big one, but the smaller one.
SEC. RILEY: The answer's yes. We're looking at some of the -- a couple of the smaller ones we do think could be consolidated into a program.
SEN. JEFFORDS: I like hearing yes.
SEC. RILEY: That was a long way of --
SEN. JEFFORDS: That's right.
SEC. RILEY: I was thinking and talking while I was --
SEN. JEFFORDS: But I think that's critical. There's some much that can be done in that area, so many wonderful ideas out there and small programs that we ought to try and really examine and see what we can do cause in the area of all of what we're talking about in trying to -- social promotion, all those things. We've got to find some help for these teachers to be able to move these kids up rapidly.
Well, I want to thank you. We have this little thing called impeachment that's going on now and I've been told that probably I'll be speaking this afternoon. So I'll have to think a little bit about it. But I want to thank you. I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to work with you and Mike and all of your staff and this is going to be a big year for education and I know you're committed to that. I'm committed to that. And so I look forward with enthusiasm. I think we've got to not move too rapidly because there's a great desire for us to move rapidly. But we've got to do it thoroughly and comprehensive, so that when we're finished, we will know that we're really have in place the programs that will bring about the change, which we've got have in order to reach the goals that we've set.
SEC. RILEY: Well, and I thank you for your leadership, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure working with you.
SEN. JEFFORDS: Thank you.
The record will remain open for a few days in order for members of the committee to submit questions in writing, which you're used to, so it'll come as no surprise.
All right, with that, the meeting is adjourned.

end

LOAD-DATE: February 11, 1999

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