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Archived InformationUNITED STATES OF AMERICADEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
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EQUITY AND EXCELLENCE COMMISSION
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THURSDAYAUGUST 9, 2012
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The Commission met in Room 1W114 at the Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, DC, at 11:00 a.m., Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, Chair, presiding.
COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:
MARIANO-FLORENTINO CUELLAR, Chair*MIKE CASSERLYSANDRA DUNGEE GLENNERIC HANUSHEK*KAREN HAWLEY MILESKATI HAYCOCK*JOHN KINGRALPH MARTIRE*MATT MILLER*MICHAEL REBELLAHNIWAKE ROSEJESSE RUIZTHOMAS SAENZDAVID SCIARRAROBERT TERANISHIJOSE TORRESDENNIS VAN ROEKELRANDI WEINGARTEN*DORIS WILLIAMS*
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EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS PRESENT:RUSSLYNN ALI, ED Office for Civil Rights*MICHAEL DANNENBERG, Designate for Martha
Kanter
ALSO PRESENTGUY JOHNSONMIKE HONDA, Representative of California's
15th District*
*Participating via teleconference
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A G E N D A
WELCOME AND PROCESS UPDATE.................4
DELIBERATION ON KEY FINANCE QUESTIONS.................................11
REVIEW OF ACCOUNTABILITY WRITINGGROUP'S WORK..............................79
UPDATES FROM OTHER TOPIC TEAMS...........137
WRAP UP/NEXT STEPS.......................145
ADJOURN..................................147
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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S
(11:06 a.m.)
CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. Seems to me
like we've got critical mass, so in the
interest of using the time that we have
available, which is not a lot of time for
everything we want to do, I'm going to just
pick it up.
If you can't hear me holler. I
don't want to come across like this is 1984
and you're watching Big Brother. This is a
little strange. I'm sorry not to be in D.C.,
and I'm really grateful that we've got as
many people as we do.
So, I've got three with me here.
And as he said, Russlynn and Molly should
materialize hopefully shortly.
We really have two main things
that we want to get through today. The first
is to spend a little time talking about the
progress that's been made on the finance-
related stuff.
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You will see from what we were
able to share with you in the discussion that
there's been a lot of progress. We're
definitely in the mode right now trying our
best to look at the big picture. That's why
we're working on one-page documents, but
there are still some distinctions and
differences of view that are important. And
our main goal today is not so much to get
into the weeds, but to get some feedback from
folks who are in the room so that the folks
who are writing up the finance pages can have
a little bit more of a sense of how to maybe
branch those distinctions.
So, I want us to spend plenty of
time on that. I want us to get into the
substance, I want us to talk about the issues
that have been raised about basically -- you
know, I would characterize it this way. You
know, what is the perennial question of the
role of the Federal Government here, and the
other is the very critical question of where
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do we start? How do we deal with existing
distinctions as they currently exist.
I welcome Congressman Honda who
just came in. Thank you for joining us.
The other thing we want to do is
to get a sense of where the rest of the topic
teams are. Now, we've been trying to give
enough time for not only the folks who have
been trying to draft these one-pagers but
also the teams that agreed to review them,
they have enough time to do so. So, the team
that's been working on the accountability
document has had enough such time, so we're
going to spend a little time describing
what's in the accountability document and get
some feedback, as well. And then also just
getting a quick update from the rest of the
groups. Most of the groups have had a chance
to meet at this point, but not everybody has.
I think, basically, the only
other thing I want to emphasize is that we
have had plenty of time to talk about how we
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look at these things differently. There will
still be some time to do so if we need to do
that, but I think it's extremely important
for all of us who are engaged in this process
to think very carefully about where we agree.
And I don't want to suggest that we should
micro manage even how we make our
contributions here, but I do think that the
value we can add today, in particular, is
going to be not only by highlighting what you
think is missing from these documents and
these discussions, but where you think
actually you have some agreement so you do
not lose sight of that and keep that in the
document.
I want to mention also from a
logistical perspective that the staff have
been working very closely with each one of
these schemes, and part of what we gain from
having the staff so involved is that you can
actually provide your feedback to them in any
form that you want to. You can email them,
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you can call them up, you can decide, and
they're serving as a sort of a repository for
all these different reactions. They're
providing that for the folks who are drafting
these documents and trying to make sure that
we take into account all of that, as much as
possible.
Guy, are you available for a
second?
MR. JOHNSON: Yes, I sure am.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Great. So, can you
just very briefly highlight what it looks
like in terms of the schedule for the next
couple of weeks and months. We are trying our
best to work with staff to limit the extent
of changes in the schedule, but I just wanted
Guy to give you a quick overview of what
we're expecting to do after this particular
meeting.
MR. JOHNSON: So, the next meeting
we had on the books was August 30th, which is
supposed to be -- we had it originally
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scheduled as a conference call, and just to
discuss procedural matters, so it was not
going to be a publicly noticed meeting.
I think it makes sense to keep it
as a conference call, but we may want to
publicly notice it so we can make some
decisions on the drafts I'm sure will be
developed between now and then.
After the -- the one question
about the 30th is we currently had identified
two times, 10:00-12:00 a.m. East Coast time.
I'll have to double check on these, and 2:00-
4:00 p.m. We may want to keep one or both
depending on people's availabilities, and do
that by phone.
Then, September 11th we have
another in-person meeting here, and depending
on what we think today, we can try to do the
video conference again with the phone.
After September 11th, then we have
the last scheduled meeting, which is October
29th and 30th. This is the mega meeting, and
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the thought would be that we'd be at a point
then to spend two full days going through
whatever remaining questions are there, and
to make decisions on what text we would
actually want in the report or the final
document of the Commission at that point.
After the 30th, staff would go in
and would compile the final product. If we do
need additional time, then we could schedule
in perhaps one additional meeting for either
November or perhaps early December.
MEMBER REBELL: Can I just ask one
question to fill in what's going to be going
on between these meetings? After we finish
with these one-pagers say on finance today,
is the staff going to turn around something
like a complete draft before this next phone
conference on the 30th, or before we meet on
September 11th? Is that the idea, that we'll
have a full draft available to look at all
the language on?
CHAIR CUELLAR: That's a good
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question, Mike, so let me address that. I
think it's important to note that the staff
are available to support anything that the
teams need, but our mission for this really
is to actually get you guys to -- once we
have the one-pagers to add the paragraphs,
the lines, the language that you think would
work best. And we've set of the structure of
these review teams today to give you some
feedback before it comes to the full
Commission, fully compliant with the Federal
Budget Committee, so plan on how to budget
some time for that. And then, of course, how
much of that we can get through in the coming
weeks and at what meeting. It will depend a
little bit on how quickly we --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MEMBER REBELL: I'm sorry. Our
three or four person drafting Committee say
on finance, the next step would be that we
should flush out the one-pager and turn it
into a five or ten-page thing that gives
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explanations and develops these points?
CHAIR CUELLAR: I prefer five more
than ten.
MEMBER REBELL: Five, okay.
CHAIR CUELLAR: But, yes. And let
me just give you an additional caveat, which
is we set up the structure of these teams
again so that if you need to go beyond the
small number of people who have sort of
indicated those, and have the time to do a
little more drafting, and you want to pull
somebody else in from that team, you can do
so. And you may want to do so, I mean, in
part because hard as it may be to reach
enough agreement to come up with a one-page
document, it might be harder to find the time
to flesh out a page or two around a
particular topic.
But the key really is -- just two
quick things to emphasize. One, that you can
rely on that broader team plus the staff.
And, two, that what I said about the meeting
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today, which is emphasize where you think you
have some agreement, I really urge the teams
to do that. That's sort of what we need right
now.
Again, I don't want to suggest
that there isn't any room for us to highlight
in the course of this further drafting
process. When there is still disagreement,
the Commission has to weigh in on it. And we
can do that, we're going to do some of that
today, but it's just absolutely imperative
for the teams to do everything they can
before they bring this back to the Commission
and say look, here's everything we've come to
agreement on, here's where we still have some
disagreement.
Any other questions about the
process before we move on?
(No response.)
CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. So, we'll
keep you guys updated.
Now, I think the most important
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thing we can do is basically to turn it over
to the folks who have been working on
financing. Ralph, and Michael, and Rick, and
David have been spending a lot of time and
energy on this. I know they've been checking
in with some of the folks on the topic team,
Karen, Cindy, and others, and I think what
would be helpful at this point is you just
spent two or three minutes laying out where
you are. And I'll turn to Michael and to
Rick, in particular, just to highlight how
you would describe where things stand
currently.
I will note also that even the
timing today is constrained. I would urge
folks to try to think in terms of two to
three-minute descriptions here. And if we
need we can extend that, but I do want to
keep the discussion moving. So, why don't we
start with you, Michael, and then we'll go to
Rick.
MEMBER REBELL: Okay. Well, what
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we tried to do in what was supposed to be a
one-pager but turned out to be a two-pager is
to first set the context so we have a problem
statement. And the problem statement makes
clear that despite great efforts in the past
we haven't successfully in most ways
developed finance systems that are capable of
doing what No Child Left Behind said, what
Sander's base report said, et cetera, which
is actually providing opportunities that
allow all kids, including the kids with high
needs, to meet these standards. So, that's
basically the goal.
And you'll see language
throughout here, so let me just highlight
right from the beginning that we had quite
some interesting discussions between David,
Ralph, and myself, and Rick. It won't come as
a surprise to anybody. And what may be a
surprise is that we achieved a large degree
of consensus on this document.
And, quite frankly, Rick can
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correct me if he sees it differently, but I
think he'll agree; the way we did this is our
side was emphasizing the inputs because we
think this is the critical thing, meaningful
educational opportunity. We define it there,
and we really are saying throughout here that
the states need to develop finance systems
that figure out what resources you need and
provide those resources.
Rick, of course, was emphasizing
the outputs. You'll see in just about all
these paragraphs the way we balanced it. And
we're not against outputs, and we're not
against accountability but, you know, it's
the way you tie the two together. And that's
the language negotiating that we went
through. And I think what we've achieved in
this draft is a balance that we can live
with, and I hope the rest of the Commission
can between saying that we are going to
emphasize that there have to be sufficient
inputs to give kids a meaningful opportunity,
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but that that opportunity we do expect to
lead to certain very critical outcomes. And
the states have defined those, the Common
Core has defined those, so we have to be
serious about linking the inputs to the
outcomes.
You'll also see some language
throughout. I'm not going to bother going
through this paragraph by paragraph, that
emphasizes efficient and cost-effective
-- well, we didn't use that word "cost."
Efficient and effective systems for making
sure that when you say we need adequate
inputs, and we would tend to define
"adequate" broadly to really mean everything
that kids need.
At the same time, especially in
the environment, the world we all live in
now, I think we have to pay more attention to
the efficiency and cost-effectiveness
factors, so we tried to build that in.
The last thing I'll say is we
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managed to reach agreement on most of the
language here. We have two items in our
federal section about what the federal
government should do where we have
differences that we finally just said we
pushed as hard as we could. We haven't
reached a consensus within our drafting
group, so we'll leave it to the Commission.
And we've got the two versions both on the
second page under Federal Government, 2A,
which is whatever the federal government
should do to try to make sure that states do
come up with these kinds of finance systems
we're talking about, and some of us want a
strong requirement there; require, others
want encourage. We can get into what the
differences are.
Also, on the increases, a
substantial increase in federal funding there
are two versions, there are two Paragraph Bs
here in brackets, so that's a remaining
difference that we're going to submit to the
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Commission for consideration.
And I know I'm over three
minutes, so I better stop there.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Rick. And by the
way, if you want to go --
(Off microphone comment.)
CHAIR CUELLAR: Somebody is on the
phone that wants to say something?
MEMBER ALI: I'm so sorry.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Rick?
MEMBER ALI: Feel free at this
time to ask clarifying questions.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Let me suggest one
quick alternative, if I could. I'll put you
down in the queue. We'll have Rick talk, and
then we'll turn to you. And then you can ask
clarifying questions. Go ahead.
MEMBER HANUSHEK: Well, I think
Michael did a very good job stating where we
are, and somewhat how we got there.
There are two things that I
emphasize in addition to meaningful
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opportunities for all children, and that is
that if -- to me, this Commission only makes
sense if we focus on actual achievement of
students and achievement gaps. And that
that's what we really care about. So, the
language has that throughout.
The second thing that I think is
extraordinarily important in the finance
draft and in other things that we do is that
we recognize we don't have enough evidence to
draw upon to make informed decisions that, in
fact, lead to better achievement in closing
gaps, and that part of the process that we
should be behind is always insisting upon
developing evidence as we go along so we can
try for some sort of model of continuous
improvement. So, that's the main thing.
We can talk -- and as Michael
pointed out, we'll have more extensive
discussions on the role of the federal
government. I think what the states should be
doing, that there's a reasonable compromise
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of the things that each of us think are most
important.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Great, thank you.
The person on the phone, and I thought I
recognized the voice but I'm not 100 percent
sure, so please identify yourself.
MEMBER ALI: I'm sorry. It's
Russlynn.
MR. MARSH: Hi, Russlynn.
MEMBER ALI: When you say the
-- between outcomes and the system itself, I
think that's tied a little bit to where there
appears to be some still disagreement, and
that is who enforces that link, or how do you
insure -- could you say a little bit more.
The question is probably to Michael when you
used the word "the link," --
MEMBER REBELL: I'm sorry. I'm
having trouble hearing you, Russlynn. Can we
make that louder?
CHAIR CUELLAR: Speak up just a
little bit, Russlynn.
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MEMBER ALI: Sure, so sorry. Is
that better?
MEMBER REBELL: A little better.
Okay.
MEMBER ALI: Okay. When you -- I
really do want to applaud the kind of places
of agreement that you all came. This is
really not about individuals, it's about the
viewpoints that you represent, and they're
shared by lots of folks in the field, and
that you come to this place where folks saw
it I think outside of your process, that
those two viewpoints could never come to a
middle road is really extraordinary.
But, Michael, when you say "the
link" between the systems and outcomes, could
you describe that a little bit more? I think
it's tied up in the preliminary disagreements
and that is how that link is enforced, but
could you describe what you've just said the
follow-up sentences would be for that.
MEMBER REBELL: You're asking how
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we would enforce this linkage. Is that the
thrust of the question?
MEMBER ALI: First what the link
is, and then how is it meaningful.
MEMBER REBELL: Okay. I think on a
basic level, the link is -- as I would
describe it, Rick may describe it
differently. But, for instance, in the
paragraph under the State Obligations, 1B
-- I'm sorry, 1A, if we're serious about
outcomes, closing achievement gaps, high
achievement for all students, et cetera, I
think you've got to be very specific and
concrete, especially in this budget-cutting
atmosphere, quite frankly, where when funds
are short all kinds of programs, electives,
AP courses, extra tutoring for kids who are
not achieving proficiency, all of this gets
cut helter skelter.
So, what I had in mind in this
paragraph 1A is, as a building block. We've
got to spend more time specifying what are
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the critical services that kids need in order
to overcome achievement gaps, and to have
high achievement for all kids. And I don't
think most states have done that, so this is
a major recommendation, I think, 1A, that
really calls for reconsidering state
regulations, and all kinds of things to say
what are the critical services, and they have
to be provided.
And your link there would be
you're operating on the assumption that
through evidence, through experience, through
whatever means we have to have these
particular types of teaching staff, programs,
up-to-date textbooks, technology, whatever it
is in all schools for kids to achieve these
outcomes.
And then when we get to costing
them, you would say all right, now we know
what we have to cost out. And if some things
are extraneous, then they don't get into the
core amount that has to be costed out. And in
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the costing out, we also put in this language
about efficiency and effectiveness to say
that we're really putting an understanding
here, you might say a pressure there that the
states realize they have to provide some of
these services. And I can give you examples
where things that all of us would consider
vital are being cut right and left. You're
going to have to provide it, and you want to
have a manageable budget. Well, you better
pay some attention to more effective ways to
provide these certain services.
I'll give you a quick example
that I have in mind. We have a problem in New
York State that in many schools, especially
small schools in New York City and rural
areas, kids are not getting access to physics
and chemistry. There aren't enough teachers,
there aren't enough students to cost justify
it, having 10 in a class or whatever. But it
means talking in terms of college readiness,
how can somebody be a serious science student
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who's never taken chemistry, or had the
opportunity to it. So, you've got to find a
way to do that cost-effectively. I don't know
whether it's distance learning, combining
classes, whatever it is, but that's the kind
of thing that I, at least, had in mind here.
So, that's the linkage. How you
enforce it? Well, we're making a strong
statement here, and I think that's one thing
the Commission can do, that this is the
outline of what you've got to accomplish. If
after all these years about talking about
high achievement, and we spent more money on
No Child Left Behind, and we didn't get that
kind of achievement. That's because you
haven't taken all these steps, and we think
these steps would be really important.
How we enforce it, that's the
question we come to with the federal
government. And I think that's what we're
going to have to get into, so that raises
that whole issue of the federal role, which I
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don't think I should go into at this point.
Does that answer your question, Russlynn?
MEMBER HANUSHEK: I have to say
one thing here that I didn't say at the
beginning, that one of the parts of our
discussion that doesn't appear on these pages
but will come up over and over again is the
difference between whether you have a
regulatory view of the world and specify
everything that needs to be done, or whether
you believe in incentives to try to lead
people to make efficient and better choices.
So, the word "incentive" never appears here
out of compromise, but it lies in the
background of all of this because I think it
would be absolutely insane to try to think
of regulating good performance. We've tried
that for a long period of time and it hasn't
worked.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Other comments?
MEMBER ALI: You should have
further deliberations to get others to think
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through that more. I do want to think of the
-- again, the agreement there and the way
that Mike and you have articulated for those
in the process that might not be in the
nuances of the research and the history of
finance reform and further conversations.
That is a whopping agreement, and it is not
used in circles to remind us of if we can do
this process initiative, whether or not it's
one or two big -- this, in my mind, is really
big.
CHAIR CUELLAR: I can't see your
badge perfectly but the gentlemen who's sort
of next to Tom Saenz over here. John King,
yes.
MEMBER KING: I think Mike raised
his hand before me.
CHAIR CUELLAR: All right. So,
Mike and then John.
MEMBER CASSERLY: I'll make this
quick because Russlynn just made the same
point. But I have to say I'm enormously
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impressed by what you came up with. I think
all of us in the real world understand that
adequacy and sufficiency, and outcomes of
achievement, and efficiency questions all go
hand in hand. And I thought we were
dangerously close to choosing which one, and
this was going to be an either/or
proposition. But meshed with an emphasis on
evidence this strikes me as a very, very
strong framework and we ought to applaud the
finance group, and let them take the next
steps and flesh it out. I think this is
terrific.
CHAIR CUELLAR: That's very
helpful. Thank you. John.
MEMBER KING: I just want to echo
the enthusiasm for that step forward. I want
to offer maybe what I hope is a friendly
amendment to Section C under the Federal
Government. And I think this is in the spirit
of the document, but the focus of C is on
cost methodology, and I want to suggest an
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ROI, Return On Investment, methodology, as
well, because I think we would acknowledge
here on things on which we spend money that
has produced very little return, and for that
reasons your districts that spend the same
but get different outcomes, that's one of the
reasons. So, if we're incentivizing people to
study these questions, I think the ROI thing
is something else we should incentivize.
MEMBER HAWLEY MILES: Can I build
on that then? Is that I would love to see
throughout this more weaving of -- and maybe
substituting the word "cost-effective." I
would almost quote it productive, but cost-
effective for efficient would accomplish
this, too, because in my world efficient
-- people use the word "efficient", to me I
spend the least on it. So, I've been part of
a State Commission in Massachusetts where
someone did some analysis and showed look,
you know, this district spends only, you
know, $10 a year on PD. Isn't that efficient?
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You know, Professional Development. Isn't
that efficient? You know, and no, it's not
cost-effective. It doesn't lead to the best
results based on those kinds of things. So, I
feel like cost-effective, productive is a
very important part of this to read
throughout, and maybe just substituting that
word for "efficient" could help a lot of
that. And so C seems really important to do
that. There are other places where we could
weave in the outcome with the spend.
And linked to that, the Common
Core Standards that 44 states are doing,
gives the federal office an opportunity to
compile and import data to one way of
creating incentives is to provide powerful
information that shows differences in
performance across states, and the
information about spending levels that might
begin to relate to that as people get closer
and closer to understanding that. So, if we
see terrible performance in Alabama and yet
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strangely enough their spending is absolutely
the lowest. We'll see, also, you know, New
York may be not as high as Massachusetts
spending, approximately the same levels, but
maybe we'll be able to begin to see
differences in where they put those dollars.
So, love to have that part of
also the federal role and shifting some of
the federal reporting to include and combine
better data on cross-state research and
results together with that.
And the last thing I'll say
really quickly about this is that the really
tricky thing about 1A, which I agree, which
is the identify the meaningful educational
opportunities for students. I haven't tried
this at the state level but we do it all the
time in districts when we help them create
weighted student funding systems. Right? And
we're doing it in the context of -- the other
problem with the word "efficient" is it
implies that you're going to do the same
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thing, you're just going to do it for less
money. And one thing we're trying to do here
is move to the 21st century, or to the
information age. We've got to figure out how
to do things in different ways that break
away from our old ways of organizing.
So, a tricky thing is to define
the inputs in such a way, define what the
core things are in such a way that they don't
reinforce the old ways that actually haven't
been getting us to the places we know we need
to get to. So, it's a real art. And I'm not
saying you figured out, but as we do that we
want to make sure we don't say things like
that means you have to have a class size of
X. Right? Because there could be ways you
could combine technology, more effective
teachers, all kinds of different sorts of
adults into that equation to accommodate
those kind of things. So, how do you define
that?
And one more thing about that is
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-- but acknowledging the trickiness doesn't
mean you don't have to take a stand at some
point and say here's the amount, because you
have to organize around a certain amount, if
you're a district, a school, or whatever. So,
you have to say here's what we sort of think
it's going to take, and here's what -- we
analyze that. We see 80 percent of the
district who are getting this level of
performance are kind of doing about this
level, so we kind of think this. And then
we're going to do some research to start
linking these levels to the outcomes, and
we'll refine that as we go. So, that's my
thing, is I think to put this emphasis on
continuous improvement is really important,
too.
CHAIR CUELLAR: That's really
helpful, Karen. I want to highlight two
things that you said that I thought were
very useful. One is to underscore the word
"efficient" which can mean a lot of things to
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different people. Surely, it ought not to
mean cheap. That's not the same thing.
But then the second, I think it's
very interesting to note that part of what
the finance team has done so far is to
recognize that you can simultaneously agree
that we have more than enough knowledge to
know that what we have right now doesn't
work, while at the same time recognizing that
we don't have all the information we'd like,
and at the level of detail we would like it
with respect to how to organize financing to
link to outcomes. And somehow I think it's
just very important to retain both
perspectives but that's what allows us to say
on the one hand we can make a very confident,
extraordinarily powerful statement that we
don't -- we cannot stay where we are as a
country and at the same time think hard about
building in a system we recognize is worthy
of passing on our knowledge. Other comments?
Congressman Honda.
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REP. HONDA: Thank you very much,
and let me extend my thanks to everybody for
their hard work. Let me just ask a question.
The Commission's title is Commission on
Excellence and -- or Commission on Equity and
Excellence in Education. And the discussion
I'm seeing right now, and it looked to me in
all of the information I have right here, it
seems like we're becoming more definitive in
understanding the problem, but we don't
address the problem in the context of equity
for the children, whether it's all children,
or each child.
So, absent that definition it
seems like we're going to drift towards the
same direction that we came from and looking
at 50 states and the federal government. And
then changes, it seems to me, in the document
is that we're looking at having equity and
excellence legislation to significantly
increase federal funding to support states
through finance systems which we already do
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now, perhaps not in the context of defining
equity so that we have a guidepost. And I
feel a little bit uncomfortable not saying
this, and so putting this statement out there
again in terms of keeping our eye on the
definition of what equity means in education
and trying to address this big problem that
we've had since 1789.
So, it's just a thought I wanted
to share, and hopefully refocus on that term
and the clients who are our children.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Any thoughts about
that? I would just note one thing, which is I
think that it's important to bear in mind
that the report will be more than the sum of
its parts in a way. And I think the balance
-- one of the balances we need to strike is
to be as detailed as we can in these
individual discussions, but to make sure that
the report as a whole is able to convey that
this really is a balance. And I think we all
need to review the report from that
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perspective so that when we get to the report
we see how the pieces fit together, we're
addressing equity with as much direction and
as much clarity as you are urging us to.
REP. HONDA: Thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
MEMBER HANUSHEK: Could I just ask
just one clarifying -- aren't these following
on to --
CHAIR CUELLAR: Yes, absolutely.
And we've got a team working on the planning
new direction.
REP. HONDA: Thank you.
CHAIR CUELLAR: I've got Tom Saenz
next.
MEMBER MARTIRE: Could I break in,
Ralph Martire here?
CHAIR CUELLAR: Ralph, you're on
the queue but I've got Tom since he had his
hand up first which is easier since he's in
the room, but I've got you right next.
MEMBER SAENZ: So, I have -- first
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of all, I, too, want to congratulate the
group for what's here. I think it reflects
the larger Commission's conversations
previously, but it also reflects a greater
degree of convergence then I think we were at
before, which is a tremendous accomplishment,
particularly on this issue.
I have a clarifying question, and
then I want to raise an issue that may not be
an issue, but it may be a bigger issue. But
the clarifying question is about 1D.
I'm not clear what it is
suggesting or saying is the ambition. And, in
particular, I'm focusing on stable,
predictable, and equitable sources of
revenue. I'm not certain what that means, or
what the ambition is there.
MEMBER REBELL: Well, I can say in
a nutshell that's dealing with budget cuts
and things like that that if we're going to
have real opportunity, kids life chances
can't depend on whether there was a recession
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when they were in the third grade and they
didn't learn how to read until the fifth
grade.
So, I think there are ways that
states can make their education funding more
stable, predictable. And I guess equitable
means thinking about things like property tax
and all, which are not stable and -- well,
maybe they are more stable than some other
things, but anyway we have to flesh out
exactly what that's referring to. But some
tax systems are not equitable.
MEMBER SAENZ: Okay, I appreciate
that, and I do think that it's worth talking
about sources of revenue, as well as
distribution of revenue. But I do want to
focus on the distribution of revenue question
because if that's what 1D is about, I'm not
certain I'm seeing any engagement with
distributions of revenue within a system. And
I realize that's the big nut, but I'm not
-- and I'm sure, and I hope the group will
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grapple with that further as we go forward,
but if that's not what's in 1D, then I'm not
sure that I see it here.
But the other issue that I wanted
to raise is I want to be sure that our equity
ambition is an equity ambition that goes to
all levels of achievement, because what I see
here, and I understand that it is an adequacy
frame, but it's also an adequacy frame that
gets us to a floor, and I get that it's a
floor that we want moved higher, but a floor
for all students, but doesn't necessarily
address equity above that floor.
So, even if we succeed and you
have an education system that adequately both
collects and then distributes revenues, that
you arrive at outcomes that gets every child
regardless of background to a certain floor.
And even if that floor moves up, I believe
that our ambition should be that we should
have an education system that we should have
an education system that insures equity above
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that floor so that a child no matter
background would have the resources available
to excel to the greatest extent of his or her
ability, not just be taken to a floor however
high that floor of state standards may be.
And I wasn't sure that I saw that here. And
that may -- again, just because it's a one
and a half pager, but I want to make sure
that we have a sense of what our equity
ambition is. That certainly would be my
equity ambition. And I would want to make
sure that it's reflected in the five, or
maybe closer to ten-page version of this
very, very positive start. So, is that clear?
CHAIR CUELLAR: It's nice and
simple, and it might take a couple of extra
minutes but I take your point. I think that
is very interesting. Ralph, I have you next.
MEMBER MARTIRE: Yes. So, two
things. One, that now respond to what Tom
just said, there are certain principles of a
sound fiscal system that include aspects of
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sustainability and tax fairness, et cetera,
and most states fail. So, part of what would
drive education reform both substantively and
financially across the nation at the state
level would be fiscal reform at the state
level to get a better mix of revenue systems.
And that's something within a one-pager
really our Subcommittee couldn't get into,
but maybe we can talk about that a little bit
more as we go on.
Now, to follow-up on Tom's second
plan, what Congressman Honda said, I think
moving from equitable availability, basic --
whatever you want to call it education truly
is a floor and the starting place, but I
think one of the roles for the federal
government going forward, and this gets into
the federal part of the funding, and I don't
-- I apologize, I'm in Maine at a cottage
with very limited access to technology, but I
don't have the paper in front of me, but I
think it's 2B where the federal government
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was going to assume a clear role in education
funding that would particularly put even more
resources in poor communities, low income
communities, et cetera. And those states that
are actually demonstrating improvement in
those areas, improvement in addressing those
children. So, the move to excellence,
hopefully, will be accomplished through the
federal government taking better care of
their funding -- adequate level, and then the
federal government will help push them up all
the way to an excellent level for every kid.
I think it's not only a
legitimate point, I go back to what
Congressman Honda said, it's one of the
charges of the Commission. And we need to
find a way to do that, but certain states
probably will never have the fiscal capacity
to get there. But as long as they're making a
good faith effort to move there, I think the
federal government then steps in and says
wait a minute, these are all American kids.
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We're going to provide additional resources
to take adequate then to excellence.
CHAIR CUELLAR: That does relate
also to the point that Michael was bringing
up earlier, and that Tom was asking for
clarification involving what it means to have
a predictable source of funding. Because, of
course, once states are in a position to
actually provide what they need to prove or
what we want them to provide can change
depending on their individual economic
circumstances. I have David next.
MEMBER SCIARRA: Well, just in
-- to try to clarify some of this, because
the language is -- just a point that this
language is very carefully developed. It's
general because of what this is and,
obviously, there's a lot packed in here. But
there were specific reasons for choosing this
particular language. It gets to some of the
concerns that have been raised here. And,
obviously, those have to be fleshed out in
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greater detail.
So, for example, the issue of the
sort of quality of educational programming
that we want to finance. We consciously
stayed away from terms like adequacy and
equity because those are loaded and have a
kind of history to them. And really tried to
tie this more into the issue of financing
systems that are directly connected to, and
where there's an effort made to rationally
connect them to the cost of delivering
rigorous, we use the word "rigorous" academic
standards or elsewhere content and
performance standards. So, that allows us,
for example, to deal with the issue of not
just Language Arts and Mathematics, but the
range of content areas, Science, Social
Studies, Visual and Performing Arts, Health
and Physical Education, so forth and so on,
so you're not narrowing the curriculum. Also
allows for common core to come in and make
sure that as common core comes in, and
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standards in Language Arts, and Math, and the
subjects are going up we're revising these
systems to make sure that we've got the
resources in place to deliver those.
So, this idea of financing
systems that -- 21st century financing
systems that are linked to where we're going
in terms of rigorous broad, rich curriculum
for all kids, and we emphasize in here all
kids. We had some struggles with that
language, but you can see it's very clear
we're not just talking about some kids, but
all kids. And, in particular, kids with
special needs, at-risk students, English
language learners and kids with disabilities.
So, I just want to emphasize that
point, that I think equity and sort of this
notion that we're looking for financing
systems that deliver the kinds of rigorous
academic programs we want to see tied to
performance standards, as well, i.e., outcome
measures are developed.
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I do want to make a point about
C-- so that's one piece. But the other
component of this is the notion that states
also have a responsibility not just to
provide that, cost that out and determine
what that dollar amount is, but also put in
place connected systems that insure that
districts and schools, however they may be
locally governed, effectively and efficiently
use those resources to enable kids to achieve
those rigorous top 10 standards. Right? So,
you kind of come back to that.
What does effective and efficient
mean? Well, you know, there's a lot there as
many of us in this room know who's worked on
this problem, but they're very different.
Effective means does the program have
evidence to show that it's actually -- you
know, is there sort of an evidence base in
terms of quality of the programming to
actually move the ball forward. That's more
of an education and research point of view.
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And to the point that's been made about
research, we're going to have to have robust
research about whether the programs that
we're funding actually contribute to raising
the bar.
Efficient is more of a
requirement that everybody has. I mean,
everybody just has to have that requirement
to constantly and continually engage in the
ongoing sort of work of making sure you're
looking at how you're spending your money,
and making sure that you're maximizing use of
that funding. And if you have to reallocate
resources and the like, you're doing that.
So, we tried to build in sort of
both concepts. Now, the details of those are
going to have to, obviously, play out but the
states have to really do the work of putting
in place systems that do both, cost out the
C- and deliver the funding in a stable,
predictable way to school districts and
schools so all kids get access and the
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opportunity to achieve those rigorous
contents and standards against the
performance goals that are set. And, two,
engage in the ongoing work of making sure
that those resources are effectively and
efficiently used.
So, I don't know if that's
helpful to kind of give you an understanding
of the sort of -- there's a lot packed into
these words that are not here because this is
a one-pager, but there was a lot of thought.
And these words are carefully picked in order
to kind of create that frame that we can then
build a lot more of this detail on.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, David.
Any other comments? I think I see Sandra.
MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: Yes, thank
you. And, David, that was very helpful
because I think that hits a couple of the, I
guess, language issues that I wanted to
raise.
One of them in the opening
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paragraph, and I think this goes back to the
Congressman's comments. The feeling from our
report that this issue that has been largely
left to 50 individual states to resolve needs
to be raised up again to a level of national
concern. And I think your comment about this
emerging issue around core -- the common core
standards could be emphasized more in your
opening paragraph to really bring out that
point, that this focus on national, really
national interest, national standards that
many of the states now are coalescing around
as seeing them, you know, kind of raising
themselves. I think to bring that point and
take it away from the individual, that each
state is going to have its own outcomes and
you're going to kind of figure out your own
way to get there. So, kind of raising the
national importance of this and interest
would be helpful, because that kind of
relates to why we're here as a national
Commission. So, I just want to offer that as
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a suggestion, and kind of raise that point
up. You made that point in your comments, and
I think you could come to it a little bit
more clearly in the opening paragraph.
Then the other language issue I
want to raise is this phrase meaningful
educational opportunity. And you said your
words are very purposeful, but when I read
that I didn't get the feel that we were -- I
don't know what that means, meaningful
educational opportunity. And is that in the
context, again, of thinking about 21st
century outcomes and the need to kind of
raise up the bar around rigor. I think there
might be another phrase, and I don't have it
for you today. I don't know what to offer,
but to kind of push to say that it really has
to be a different kind of outcome available
to all students, and then we have to remove
the barriers that exist for many of those
students to get to those outcomes. So, I
don't know how to capture that, but the
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phrase meaningful educational opportunity
didn't seem to do that.
MEMBER SCIARRA: If I just could
quickly, if you look at -- we --
CHAIR CUELLAR: Go ahead, David.
MEMBER SCIARRA: We -- and maybe
this isn't sufficient, and I would urge you
to take a look at it, but we state the
problem, and then we state the goal and try
to, at least in the context of what we're
going to do around finance. Now, keep in mind
there's other areas around curriculum, and
accountability, and teacher quality that this
is creating the sort of financing systems
that we want as a foundational element. And
there are other elements that we're going to
be as a Commission talking about.
But we define meaningful
educational opportunity back to the issue of
having the states make sure that students,
all students, and underline all, have the
resources necessary to do what? To achieve
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rigorous academic standards towards the goal
of obtaining the skills necessary to compete
in the economy and participate capably as
citizens in a democratic society. So, we
tried to -- at least in a general way. And I
recognize this is a general point, really
define what we mean by financing systems that
are set up and consciously designed by the
states, not just kind of in a haphazard
budget-driven, you know, how much money do we
have to spend, and which political group is
more powerful now and it's going to get
-- we'll get away from that, move away from
that to really making sure that these systems
are designed, developed, and implemented
consciously to connect to the resources, to
deliver in a stable predictive way the
resources that all kids need to be able to
achieve rigorous academic standards, i.e., or
rigorous content and performance standards
whether they're part of the national common
core when that comes in, or some kind of mix
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of state standards in some areas or common
core areas, because common core isn't going
to cover all the areas. So, we want to make
sure that it's broad in terms of rigor and
breadth of curriculum.
CHAIR CUELLAR: So, before -- I
see Michael but I also see someone further
down on the table that I can't quite make
out.
MEMBER RUIZ: Jesse Ruiz.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Right next to
Michael, is that it?
MEMBER RUIZ: Yes.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Go ahead.
MEMBER RUIZ: I want to echo
Sandra's comment and, frankly, kind of
follows along what Congressman Honda said
earlier, that -- and maybe it's just because
I took a continuing legal education class on
legal drafting again to freshen up the
skills. And we're almost using this as a
defined term and we're saying what it
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requires, but we're not saying in terms of
meaningful education what it is. And that's
the crux, because it's used throughout the
document. And maybe -- again, this is just a
one-pager. Who knows where it's going to fall
in the document that it gets discussed or
introduced, but it's a key concept, and just
saying we're going to fund this thing, you
know, it's almost as we're putting the cart
before the horse and not saying at least
generally what that looks like. So, that, to
me, was something that's kind of critical and
can go with, again, the adequately funding
versus efficiently funding, if you don't say
what it kind of is, or what it kind of should
look like.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Fair enough. Let
me -- just one quick comment in connection
with that. I just want to connect your
comment, Jesse, to what Sandra said, and what
Tom said, because it does seem to me that one
drafting challenge as this outline gets
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fleshed out would be to address the
implications of this formulation for the
notion of a floor, but also for the notion of
how the idea of a meaningful educational
opportunity maps on to students
opportunities to be at the very top end of
the achievement spectrum. So, Michael and
then the person at the very end of the table
who has their tent up. Go ahead, Michael.
MEMBER REBELL: Okay. I just
wanted to speak a little further to this,
because I agree with everything David said
about what went into this. And I agree with
Jesse's point.
I just want to give a little
background. This term "meaningful educational
opportunity" does have a legal history to it,
and rather than citing a bunch of cases we
tried to define it. We can do a better job,
but just to tell you in a nutshell, the first
use of it that I'm aware of was a Supreme
Court decision dealing with English language
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learners. And, essentially, the context was
to say it's not a meaningful opportunity to
let these kids come into school and give them
textbooks, and give them teachers who can't
speak their language, and it's not
meaningful. You're giving them -- maybe
you're spending as much on them as others,
but it's not in a way that they're in a
position to take advantage of it.
So, it really is very much, I
think, geared to what you're saying, that
it's got to meet kids where they are so that
they have a real chance to get to where they
should be.
MEMBER RUIZ: Mike, it's almost
the last part where you're talking about
competing in the economy versus capability as
a citizen. That's where you certainly get the
crux of --
MEMBER REBELL: Right. And that
comes from other legal decisions. So, I just
want to tell you when David said a lot if
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packed in here, we do have a lot of these
legal background. But I guess what I'm
hearing is we can build on that and maybe
have some citations, but then as a Commission
we can go to a next step and maybe advance
that definition a little further. So, we
will take that as our charge here.
CHAIR CUELLAR: With one caveat,
Michael. I would say we can address how much
of that definition fits the agreement we've
created if that allows us to go a little
further than we do. But that is, I think,
what the next challenge would be for the
finance group, basically fleshing that out
and seeing how far we can go. The gentleman
at the end of the table, and then Rick.
MR. DANNENBERG: Thanks, I'm
Michael Dannenberg. For those of you who
don't know, I've worked on school finance
from the federal level for on and off 20
years. So, I just have a clarifying question,
and a couple of suggestions on technical
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matters might be helpful.
The first is the clarifying
question. It seems that the equity issue is
C-- could be solved with Recommendation 2B,
the second B, which promotes the federal
government's providing funding to enhance the
equity of school finance systems, not just
the sufficiency, or adequacy, or providing
meaningful opportunity, whatever that may be.
My question is, I think you are
only referring to the equity of state school
systems within, as opposed to equity among
state school systems and, therefore, among
schools across not just district boundaries
but state boundaries. And you might want to
consider expanding from just supporting
-- having the federal government promote
equity within states, but also among states,
since that's a traditional federal role.
The suggestion I have is on
Russlynn's very good enforcement question.
There's a history of two efforts with respect
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to enforcement on school finance which might
be of interest. The first is that there's
something on the books now called The
Education Finance Incentive Grant Program,
which was created first in 1994 and modified
in 2001, and now has about $3 billion running
through it that no one knows about. But what
it does is in states that do not have
particularly equitable school systems as
defined by a coefficient of variation
measure, it heightens federal targeting on
high poverty areas.
So, one enforcement mechanism
might be heightened federal targeting of
federal resources in states that -- or even
districts, but states that have inequitable
systems. So, you are sort of -- you're not
hurting the kids. The kids you are hurting
are those who are in the New Trier school
districts of the world as opposed to the East
St. Louis school districts of the world.
The second enforcement idea
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that's been considered in the past is from
the Fair Chance Act that was introduced in
1989 or '90 by then Representative, Chairman
of the Education Committee, Gus Hawkins. It
was reported by the Committee, I'm pretty
sure, never considered by the House of
Representatives, but what it would have done
was docked federal funding to state education
agencies that is currently set aside for
administrative matters. John King, sorry, but
Mike Casserly probably would like it.
And those funds, instead, were
directed by the Feds directly to local school
districts, so it's a much smaller ding or
enforcement means but one that sort of hits
the states where it hurts, since such a large
portion of state education agencies are
funded by the federal government.
And then my last suggestion is,
and I think this document is very good.
There's no reference to the role of
philanthropy, and it seems that philanthropy
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could play a role here on a very low-cost
item which you've recommended, which is
support for developing cost methodologies of
identifying what is a sufficient opportunity
to learn connected to state standards or
college and career ready standards.
This was considered in the early
'90s. I think this was philanthropic support
for the State of Vermont which began to cost
this out. They had a political change and
then it stopped, but it might be something
that this Commission could recommend, and
it's easier since the Feds don't have to
-- since a bipartisan federal government
doesn't have to support school finance equity
or adequacy research.
So, those are my suggestions. But
overall I think this is a great job.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you. Those
are very good ideas. I have Rick and then --
MEMBER HANUSHEK: I just want to
make a quick comment, but I -- much of this
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discussion is really right on the lack of
real bite to what the words mean here. But I
had envisioned this myself as coming
somewhere else in the document, that there's
a little bit in accountability, there's a
little bit in finance and so forth, but what
we hope to accomplish I think should be in
the beginning discussions of the documents,
and I would put it in terms of skills that
prepare people for working in society. But
these are things that I think purvey the
entire document and all the little subparts,
so we have to address those elsewhere.
CHAIR CUELLAR: That's an
important point to keep in mind. John.
MEMBER KING: Just to build on
that last point, I guess I would suggest
defining it as college and career readiness,
and defining career ready as a job that
provides a family sustaining wage. I worry
that work is too broad a category, and
understate the aspiration we have for our
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school systems. But I think if you start with
college and career readiness, what's the
investment that's required to get there for
all high school graduates. And if they don't
get there, and the money has been spent then
I think that raises a variety of questions
about educational effectiveness that are
taken up by the other committees.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Great. We need to
ramp up the discussion -- Let me ask if
anybody has any last thoughts of where the
finance team -- somebody is on the phone,
apparently.
MR. JOHNSON: And, Tino, we do
have Dennis Van Roekel at the end of the
table. I don't know if you can see him.
CHAIR CUELLAR: So, I apologize
that I haven't seen Dennis. Dennis, would you
like to weigh in at this point?
MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: Sure, two
comments. One, I think this is really what
the -- I'm pleased that -- I think it
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captures the equity much better than some of
the earlier conversations we had. It seemed
that we were tilted more towards just towards
excellence and I guess we made real progress
in terms of the equity issues that are
defined in this part of the report.
The second comment I have may be
a little off topic, but it was triggered when
David was speaking about the robust research
that's needed. I think as we go through this
development of the whole report there are
going to be a lot of areas that are
identified where that's needed. And my
suggestion is maybe that one of the things
that we might add maybe as an appendix to the
report is to put in one place what we as a
Commission believe is what is lacking in
robust research. And that I believe is
another place where especially the federal
government and/or philanthropy can play a
role, because it's ridiculous for every state
to start digging in and doing research when
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they all need the same thing. So, maybe as we
go through this and those are identified, we
can kind of pull them out, and put them in a
place and say if we're really going to move
on here, here's what needs to be accomplished
so that the next X number of years that will
really be able to understand what's needed to
change what's happening for kids, and have
that section of robust research needed now,
or whatever you want to call it. Thank you.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Dennis, thank you.
We should not understate how valuable it can
be for us to share with the world what we
have discovered about what we need to know
more about. Certainly, I found that there
were times when I thought it would be pretty
straightforward to find a study that
addressed some point that the Commission was
discussing. That hasn't been the case.
We have about five minutes and
we've covered almost everything in here. I do
-- there is somebody on the phone I wanted to
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get in, and I also want to just note if
anybody has any last thoughts, particularly
on Part 2 of the document addressing the
federal government, please go ahead and share
them. Person on the phone.
MEMBER MARTIRE: So this is
Martire chiming in from the phone to sort of
follow-up on the federal role and what Sandra
said, and a couple of the others have said.
I think it's hugely important
that we have a role defined for the federal
government here because our system that we've
had has been one that's relied primarily on
the states. And so what is that new federal
role, and how is it different than before?
And how, in fact, will it help move the ball
forward?
And from the enforcement side, I
think one of the things that has been chatted
about that I think is crucial is that the
federal government has the capacity to bypass
the states and go directly to schools located
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in poor communities, schools where there a
significant achievement gaps, and devote
resources to helping those schools out,
targeting resources directly to the children
who need it most, particularly when the
states have turned their back on them.
I think that's huge, that's
something we talked about a lot on the
Finance Committee. What you see in the draft
is the modified document. And I want to
greatly appreciate my fellow workers on this
Committee, Michael Rebell and David Sciarra
for being able to carve down I think what we
started out with as a four or five-pager to a
one and a half, two-pager. But now that it
needs to be blown up, I think that this is
one of the crucial issues, a new positive
federal role that's strong but helps us
achieve the goals we've all come together
around, and that is educating children who
currently are not getting a quality
education. But I'm emphasizing that as
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something that will have to be fleshed out in
the longer iteration.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Ralph.
Michael, I see that your tent is up. Then
we'll do --
MEMBER REBELL: Oh, I'm sorry. I
meant to put it down. No.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. So, let's go
ahead to Karen, and then David, and then
we'll wrap up.
MEMBER HAWLEY MILES: Okay. So,
I'm just responding to your federal role
question, but not at the level of what Ralph
has said. But we have a huge -- you know, if
you think about the streams of funding and
the sources of influence, the Special Ed
funding is a huge area that is not -- it's
culled out as one of the groups. It's not
culled out as we think about what the federal
role needs to be. And there's just so much
opportunity, and so many ways in which the
existing rules actually get in the way of
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productive use of resources for struggling
learners and those with special needs. And
there are also so many ways in which the
federal government could organize to focus
more again on outcomes even for Special
Education students.
So, I don't know where that goes
in here, but in this federal piece, and it
could be in the explosion, we're not real
explicit about the key places where we have
the biggest leverage, Title I, and maybe
Title II, but what does it mean about how we
change there and what the federal government
needs to do to enable excellence and new ways
of using resources. So, I would just urge we
get something in there about that.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Karen.
David.
MEMBER SCIARRA: Two quick
clarifying points. One is on that, Special
Education. We kind of stayed away from the
federal issue around 40 percent, and the
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federal -- you know, all the issues around
the federal government not really stepping up
to the plate to fund what they already are
obligated to fund in Special Ed.
I would say on Special Ed,
though, packed into the state revamping of
their systems to enable kids to reach
standards, we do specifically mention
students with disabilities. And, obviously,
one of the issues would be in terms of the
state financing systems, how are they going
to deliver Special Education funding through
the various methodologies that are out there.
So, there is packed in here at least a
requirement that part of what the states will
do with their finance reform is to look at
Special Education components in the context
of both costing out and effective and
efficient.
Just for a point of
clarification, we do make it clear as this
may come up in other areas that the issue of
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funding to enable kids to achieve standards
and for the states to deliver those to
districts and schools includes all schools
however governed locally. So, I just want to
make that clear, that there's a lot of
discussion about well, we need to have
equitable funding for charter schools. That's
packed in here. You'll see that, that
obviously any public school whether it's
governed by a district, locally as a district
school, a charter school, or whatever it is,
as long as it's public has to be included in
the financing -- the state financing system
and the resources to enable kids to achieve
those standards have to be delivered.
Now, we did not get into the
details of how states deal with charter
schools, which is a very complex question,
and the financing of charter schools, but
that principle is embedded in here. So, I
just wanted to make that point.
And the last point I want to make
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is something we did not consider, and
probably shouldn't consider, but I want to at
least put it on the table, is the growing
amounts of public dollars that are flowing to
private and religious schools, and what will
ultimately do to the -- could do, and may do
in some states very quickly do to the ability
of these states to meet these goals.
Now, I don't know whether the
Commission wants to say anything about that.
I have my own strong views about that, as
many of you know, but I do want to put that
on the table. We made it clear in this
document that this is about public education
systems, public schools. And, again, public
schools however they're governed, we don't
say anything about the issue of the use of
public funds to support education in either
religious or private schools.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, David.
Sandra, you're going to have the last word on
finance.
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MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: Thank you.
CHAIR CUELLAR: And then I'm going
to turn it over to Tom and Rick to introduce
the Accountability Outline. Go ahead.
MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: Very
quickly. This is really a response to Rick's
comment about in a sense the drafting of this
and the themes, and where they would appear.
And I just wanted to really encourage us,
because we don't know when this report comes
out whether it's going to be taken in whole
or in part. People may pull different
chapters out, and different parts of it out
to stand alone. It's important for certain
themes that we think are the really critical
themes to be repeated throughout the report.
So, this is really going back to
the comment around finance. We're assuming
some things may have been mentioned
elsewhere. I think there's certain themes
that would bear repeating in all of our
chapters to kind of keep again the
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overarching themes we captured as equity and
excellence, but defining what we mean by 21st
century outcomes I think bears repeating.
We've defined what we mean around
removing barriers and access, I believe bears
repeating throughout the document so that no
matter how it's taken some of those key
points are readily evident. So that's what I
wanted to add.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you. This
has been very --
MEMBER ALI: One last question,
Russlynn.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay.
MEMBER ALI: This document talks
about state and federal. Did the Committee
besides local or is that sort of baked in as
we discussed in our conversation today?
CHAIR CUELLAR: Rick, Michael?
MEMBER REBELL: Yes, it's embedded
but I think we should bring it out a little
more, Russlynn. We can try that on the next
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draft.
MEMBER ALI: It's totally -- I
think we had decided earlier that we would
try and streamline the section, so this will
likely be a little bit precedent setting as
we do state and federal, which I don't have
an opinion one way or the other, but I think
we should all be clear. And if you all agree
that's sufficient, especially given Tom's and
John's issue about how that then gets spent.
MEMBER KING: I would just add it
doesn't have to be here, it can be in
governance or accountability, or elsewhere.
But we have districts that are spending
vastly different amounts between schools
blocks away and we ought to address that in
some way somewhere.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Fair enough. So, I
don't want to belabor this. I think we've
said it in different ways, but I just want
convey that I am personally grateful to all
the people who have been working so hard on
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this, because I think we are really moving
the ball forward here. There's a lot more
work to be done, but I'm very confident we're
going to get it done. So, thank you,
particularly Michael, David, Rick, Ralph. We
will be in touch, and let me turn it over to
Tom and to Rick to introduce the
accountability --
MR. JOHNSON: And actually, Tino,
before we make the --
CHAIR CUELLAR: Yes.
MR. JOHNSON: -- to Rick and Tom,
just to get -- if we can take a minute to do
two things. I just want to remind people we
do have sandwiches for the Commissioners, and
coffee and water in the back if anybody wants
to take a chance to get it. And then, also,
if we could just do a quick check to update
who we have on the phones and see who we have
there. Is that all right?
MEMBER ALI: Could you guys
-- could somebody talk closer to the
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-- because it's really hard to hear.
CHAIR CUELLAR: So, who do we have
on the phone?
MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: It's Sandy.
I've been on the phone for about 45 minutes.
MEMBER MILLER: Matt Miller.
MEMBER HANCOCK: Kati Hancock.
MEMBER MARTIRE: Martire.
MR. JOHNSON: Okay.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Great, thank you.
Okay, so I've been advised that maybe it will
make sense to do a very quick five minute
break for folks who want to grab sandwiches
to do so. But let's just make it five minutes
because I think that we're making some
headway and I'd like to just have us ramp up.
Five minutes, okay.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled
matter went off the record at 12:20 p.m. and
resumed at 12:28 p.m.)
CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay, great. All
right. Tom, why don't you pick it up. Tell us
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briefly what you were attempting to do in the
accountability section.
MEMBER SAENZ: I just took a bite
of my cookie. Tino, I'm sorry, give me a
second.
So, let me begin by saying that,
obviously, the Accountability group did not
make as much progress as the Finance group.
We are only at the outline stage. And,
obviously, the outline in front of you I
think probably does not demonstrate the
extent of disagreement that there may be.
And, in particular, I think with respect to
this set of issues where the Commission ends
up on the spectrum between regulation, or all
regulation, and incentive, or all incentive
it' also going to be a matter of some
potential disagreement. But you will see that
this outline includes both incentives and
regulation, as it were.
The headlines are there for you
to read, and that's mostly to highlight what
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we see as the major take-aways from what will
ultimately be a longer draft. First of all,
that existing accountability mechanisms have
proven inadequate with respect to equity
concerns, in particular; that, obviously, a
strong accountability system is essential to
making progress on these issues; that the
accountability system should have applied
throughout the education system; that the
system should move beyond test scores, simple
test scores to broader measures of outcomes,
and that while the system emphasizes outcomes
it should also look at inputs and have some
measures of accountability about inputs.
Obviously, some of that is clearly going to
be dealt with in other sections, including
the one that we just spent some time talking
about.
And then the outline, again, just
sets out what we would expect as a group to
flesh out in greater detail. In the
introduction, some of what is said above,
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that there is a need for differentiated
accountability for inputs and outcomes.
Basically, this is the notion that we ought
to be concerned about both, but if a system
manages to have equitable outcomes without
equity in inputs then perhaps that's of far,
far less concern.
That there needs to be attention
in discussing accountability to the roles of
parents, of local districts, of states, and
of the federal government; that there needs
to be a mix of incentives, and required
interventions or regulations; that we need to
use multiple measures in determining equity
and accountability for it; that there needs
to be an attention to all levels of
achievement in terms of equity, which is the
point that I made in the previous discussion,
not simply a floor; that we need to
adequately resource these accountability
measures so that they are vigorous; that
there, of course, has to be -- we have to
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attend to all of the subgroups, and this
means in my mind also subgroups within
traditionally established subgroups, so that
if there is an issue that cuts across both
race and gender, or race, gender, and income,
it would be useful, therefore, to
disaggregate them, the accountability system
ought to incorporate that.
Roman II is basically a
discussion of the existing successes and
shortcomings, primarily shortcomings of the
existing accountability mechanisms, federal
under ESEA NCLB, state oversight, obviously
very differentiated state to state, local,
the local traditional mechanisms of
accountability and school board elections,
superintendent's selection, et cetera. And
then, of course, litigation which has had
some successes but is obviously resource-
intensive and time consuming in terms of
addressing these issues.
Roman III is about data
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transparency, obviously necessary but not
sufficient for any accountability system,
that there ought to be data at district
school and subgrade level, subgroup level;
that the data has to cover both inputs. We
need to have some transparency around the
critical inputs to education listed here, as
well as about outcomes but not simply on test
scores, obviously, multiple measures listed
here. And that for it to be workable as part
of an accountability system the data has to
not only be transparent, it needs to both
available and useable. And there are some
examples of some of those concerns listed.
Roman IV is a federal system of
incentives with clearly articulated goals,
including interim progress benchmarks for
states and/or districts with respect to both
inputs and outcomes but, again, with the
notion that there would be differentiated
systems with respect to inputs and outcomes.
Roman V is about monitoring.
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This is where we begin to talk about both
requirements and incentives for state equity
plans. Obviously, some of this is going to
overlap with what's been discussed on some of
these inputs. We envision here with respect
to input equity and adequate plan within a
broad range of acceptable approaches
including benchmarks, actual investment in
the plan, pursuit of the plan state level,
adjustments of the plan based on experience
with escalating options of intervention if
there is no success in moving toward input
equity.
With respect to outcomes again a
state plan probably much more detailed
aligned to college and career ready standards
including time frames and performance targets
with an index of comparison between the
states and districts, et cetera.
Monitoring on parental
involvement since parental involvement is
traditionally and hypothetically the major
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form of accountability for these issues,
demonstration of parental engagement through
a measurable index that would compare
districts and states. Obviously, Department
of Education approval for the various plans.
Roman VI is about interventions
with respect to inputs, a state intervening
or demonstrated failures of equity in a
district and, similarly, federal intervention
for state-level failure. Again, here's a
notion of safe harbor for significant
outcomes progress therefore triggering a
lesser concern about input equity. Outcomes,
state intervention for demonstrated failure
at the district level, federal intervention
at district or state level tailored to
specific subgroup outcomes; this meaning that
we can't have one set of intervention
mechanisms for all failures, they have to be
tailored to where the particular failure is
with respect to subgroups, and potential
intervention where parental involvement for
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various reasons it at a particularly low
level based on the index that was described
previously.
Roman VII is about teacher and
principal accountability, having a credible
evaluation structure linked in some way to
performance with a plan for addressing repeat
bad performers, and the necessity of some
accountability for situations where there's
high teacher administrative turnover in
certain schools with the issues that have
come out recently, of course.
Roman VIII is about not wanting
to leave out of this mix charter schools
because, of course, much of the previous in
our existing systems are predicated on a
federal, state, local traditional district
structure, but a need nationally to address
charter school accountability issues,
including adequate monitoring and
intervention by authorizers with respect to
outcomes, and ought to be holding them to the
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same outcome measurements as other public
schools, and some attention to finance equity
issues.
Again, obviously, it's an outline
so it certainly does leave out some of the
disagreements that may arise, and that we
expect will arise, and that we'll be
attempting to deal with the group as we move
forward in fleshing this out to a minimum 10-
page document, Tino.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Tom.
MEMBER SAENZ: And with that, I'll
turn it over to Rick, if he wants to add
anything.
CHAIR CUELLAR: An extra couple of
pages, that's useful. Rick, anything you want
to add?
MEMBER HANUSHEK: Yes. I wanted to
bring up that Tom and I have one major
disagreement, and that is I thought we made a
lot of progress, and he didn't think we made
much progress.
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(Laughter.)
CHAIR CUELLAR: That's the kind of
disagreements that I like.
MEMBER SAENZ: I'm happy to be
wrong.
MEMBER HANUSHEK: I had a couple
of little notes to this. I mean, I think one
of the underlying themes is just a lot more
transparency on inputs and outputs through
the system and making them readily available.
And that's clear.
And one of the issues that we
have is what's the relationship between
accountability for inputs and accountability
for outcomes. I want to suggest my notion
just to put it on the table, and it's been
-- we can talk about it later, and that is
that the primary emphasis is on whether
districts are doing a good job in terms of
achievement in closing gaps and overall
achievement. And if they're doing a good job,
or making substantial progress, this is the
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safe harbor part. If they're making
substantial progress, you don't pay much
attention to what they have on the input
side. But when, in fact, they're not making
progress and not doing a good job, then you
swing into action to say that you want the
districts to justify why they have
inequitable distributions of inputs by some
measures that we have defined, and so forth.
Part of the emphasis on that
direction is also the idea that it is not
okay for a district to say well, we just
don't have enough inputs so, therefore, we
won't pay attention to outcomes. It doesn't
go in that direction. Accountability goes in
the other direction.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Great. Thank you,
Rick. I've got Congressman Honda and if you
want to get on the queue just signal me and I
will keep you on the queue.
REP. HONDA: Thank you, and I
agree that there is progress.
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A question I have, and not having
been part of the process, so I guess I'll ask
a stupid question. This here, under Roman VII
under accountability, is there a section or
should there be some discussion around
accountability for superintendents and school
board members, the school board as a whole.
And I guess the other comment would be the
accountability and transparency issue, should
there be a link with that and the definition
of equity and excellence, whether there
should be a link in that in terms of trying
to define something so that they have
something to measure, I guess. I would like
to hear some sort of response to that.
MEMBER HANUSHEK: Can I ask then,
is it okay to just get rid of school boards?
Can we recommend that?
(Laughter.)
CHAIR CUELLAR: Rick was just
kidding.
MEMBER SAENZ: I'll just add, I
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think that should be discussed here. In some
way it's embedded in some of what is before
in terms of failures of existing mechanisms
of accountability. But it should be here, and
I'd certainly be in favor of adding measures
of superintendent and school board
accountability; although, as the comments
indicate, that it stepping into an issue
where there are obviously some severe
political constraints on what is possible.
But it certainly should be discussed.
CHAIR CUELLAR: The other point
that I would make is part of what's tricky
here, and I think one thing I like about this
outline is that it recognizes that we -- in
an ideal world we would want measures of how
each actor is shaping the educational process
is performing independent of each other.
That's enormously difficult to do, so -- and
it's not a reason not to think it through,
but it means disentangling, for example,
school board from superintendent
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accountability, or principal accountability.
This is tough, so I want to just bring this
and connect it to Dennis Van Roekel's comment
earlier about the research agenda, because
some very fancy and careful methodologies
will be needed to get more traction under
these questions.
MEMBER HANUSHEK: I do want to
underscore one thing you said, Congressman,
and that is that I don't think we should ever
just say we're for teacher accountability
without saying teacher and leaders,
principals and leaders accountability, too,
because it just doesn't make any sense to put
everything on the teachers and then let the
principals and the superintendents skate
free.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Michael and then
Karen.
MEMBER REBELL: Okay. I have one
comment and one question. The comment is I'd
like to see some reference here that the
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outcomes we're looking for go beyond the work
oriented -- I mean, those are really
important in achievement to be career ready,
college ready in the sense of making a good
living. But we also should be focusing on
what I call citizenship skills, the broader
outcomes of education which we put so little
language on that in the finance section. But
I think it's really important to remember
this, and when you get into some of these
issues of how you define what the inputs, as
well as the outcome of education should be,
it raises all kinds of cutbacks in
extracurricular, and clubs, and places where
kids, student government, places where
students do learn these kind of citizenship
skills which the courts have said are of
great significance, and we have to keep in
mind.
I also think in terms of
measurement when we talk about going beyond
test measurements, there are some ways that
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you can assess capability for citizenship.
And these skills interrelate with work
skills, by the way, in their current
environment, so I do think this
accountability thing should get into that.
It's a hard area to pin down in terms of
assessments, but we should be at least
emphasizing that work should continue. When
you talk about research this is an area that
I think we need a lot more research in. So
that's my statement.
My question is, I don't know if
I'm reading too much into this or not, but we
have a remaining issue in our finance section
about how much of the federal role is going
to be mandatory interventions dealing with
holding back funds or whatever, and it looks
to me like somehow you did work out
compromises here that if I'm reading it
correctly, there'll be some incentives but at
times if there's no performance, the federal
government is going to step in and it's got
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to have Department of Education approval. And
I presume that implies that if you don't get
the approval, you're not getting funding or
you're getting some sanction. So, am I
reading too much into that, or are you guys
--
MEMBER SAENZ: I want to let Rick
answer that, but I would just say I would not
read a whole lot into it. I think there was
agreement around this outline, but I will say
I got the chance to be the first drafter of
the outline, and I'm definitely a regulatory
kind of a guy.
MEMBER REBELL: I see. You're --
MEMBER HANUSHEK: As you know,
Michael, I'm not a big fan of advertising
that do this, something new, or else we'll
take away your funds over here. I think
that's bad government, and that came in in
the finance part, and it comes in here.
Now, to the extent that there
-- we're providing funds for some purpose and
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we take away if they don't do that purpose,
fine. But I am not a big fan of trying to use
withdrawal of funds as a way to get states to
do things that they're not doing in other
areas now. That action could get into big
trouble.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Let me make just a
process comment before we go on with the
queue. It seems to me that one of the
challenges that we're dealing with is the
border between accountability in finance in
terms of the group, and actually I think it's
a good thing that both groups work through
this issue because there may be some
interesting insights that we get from it,
seeing how the discussion about
accountability vis a vis the federal role and
how the discussion of finance and the federal
role converges or doesn't. I think that will
be somewhere near the next to final step of
our thinking through this process, so I think
it's actually very good that the
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accountability group is thinking through
this. I think it's right for Michael to say
well, wait a second, this sort of has a
connection to what we started to work
through. And I think these two conversations
should be taking place.
I have Karen next.
MEMBER HAWLEY MILES: Yes. So, I
just wanted to build on your point about the
standards and link that with what Sandra was
talking about. I thought the need to be very
clear about what our aspirations are here,
and add to it that we should be quite clear
that the standards are very different right
now across the states. So, if the state has
really low standards, Georgia, getting to 90
percent proficiency and the 98 percent in
these things is a very different proposition
than getting to 90 percent proficiency
against the Massachusetts state standards.
So, that's going to be a really important
part of this accountability piece. It's in
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the finance piece a little bit, too, but we
want to weave it all the way through, that
some common high standards that get to that
across all of the --
MEMBER SAENZ: As I was reflecting
on this after it had been written over this
last weekend, that's a piece that wasn't
there. And I, too, totally agree. It's need
to be -- you can't have an accountability
system without some conversions around what
it is that you're aiming to get to. So, I
agree.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Good. David.
MEMBER SCIARRA: So, I'm going to
make a -- try to make this in a semi-coherent
way. I'm not sure I can, so what comes up
from me reading this is more of -- a lot of
-- and I don't mean this in a disparaging
way, but a lot -- sort of more --
CHAIR CUELLAR: Move a little
closer to the mike if you could, David.
MEMBER SCIARRA: Oh, here. I
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didn't know where it was. Okay. A lot -- can
you hear me now? Am I okay?
CHAIR CUELLAR: A little better.
MEMBER SCIARRA: Okay. So, it's
more as Rick talked about, a transparency
around data on various performance measures,
outcome measures, so forth and so on, and now
we're adding inputs into that. And we've had
a lot of that, this seems more. But then I
come to the question about okay, for what
purpose? Why are we setting up this -- what's
the basic sort of underlying or animating
principle behind all of that?
You know, what we've had so far
largely is identifying in various ways, the
states have done this in different ways, and
now with the waivers they're doing it in a
whole lot of different ways. Schools that are
low performing or not performing to whatever
standard a state is setting, triggering
various state interventions, various
directives from the states on what to do to
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improve these are mostly high needs districts
and schools, under-resourced, and even
charter schools that are not performing very
well.
So, I get to this more
fundamental question as how do we -- for me
how do we -- so what is the purpose of this
in terms of what do we want this data, this
transparent system to be able to trigger? So,
for me it's about capacity. For me it's about
building the capacity of local districts and
schools, however they're governed to make
continuous improvements over time.
And I'm here talking largely
about the schools that are going to be in the
cross hairs of whatever accountability system
you set up, which are schools that are
serving some of the poorest neighborhoods in
the United States, schools with very high
concentrations of low income kids, kids of
color, English language learners, and the
like. So, I think we have to say a whole lot
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more about what we want this system to
actually do, short of these interventions,
because we've done a lot of intervening.
We've had state takeover in New Jersey for 20
years of school districts and, frankly, it's
been a dismal failure.
We're now going into a period
where we're going to see school closures and
things of that nature which aren't -- you
know, my view it's not going to get us where
we need to go because we're not sort of
coming to the sort of core issue that what we
need to do with these schools is strengthen
their ability to make continuous improvement,
to use resources more effectively, more
efficiently, to be able to do a better job
with professional development, evaluation of
teachers, all of the mix. So, I want -- I'd
like to see more about capacity building. And
I think that's got to be -- start with the
states.
State Education Departments have
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set up data systems now. We all know that.
They're doing that, they're moving ahead. And
they are identifying gaps, they are
identifying schools in various ways that
aren't meeting whatever standard they're
setting for performance, but they're still
extraordinarily weak. I can't under-emphasize
this in bringing high-quality expertise,
talent, skill, real capacity to engage these
schools and districts, and the parents in the
communities around them in the very difficult
slot, the very difficult work of how to get
continuous improvement in educational
settings that are extraordinarily
challenging.
So, the states have lacked that
capacity, the districts often lack that
capacity, and the schools obviously do
because they tend to be isolated, whatever it
is, they're charter schools that are really
isolated, so I think we've got to confront
this issue of accountability in the service
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of what.
And to me it's not just to get to
the point where we intervene in them or talk
about end game. Maybe we do have to say
something about the end game, but there's a
whole big piece that seems to me we've got to
say something about so that we shift the
conversation away from kind of the
accountability we have now, which is sort of,
as I said, setting up various -- states kind
of setting up various proficiency levels,
identifying gaps, identifying schools that
aren't meeting those gaps, however rigorous
the standards may be, and then the federal
government and state government essentially
saying now fix yourself without really doing
the hard deep work that it's going to take to
engage communities, districts, neighborhoods,
parents in the difficult work that many of us
are engaged in, which is how do you get
schools on a track of continuous improvement,
however you want to measure that. So, I just
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want to put that on the table. It seems to
me, I really think we've got to
reconceptualize what we -- accountability for
what is the point I'm trying to make.
MR. JOHNSON: Tino, I think --
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, David.
MR. JOHNSON: I think you have
Rick next.
MEMBER HANUSHEK: I completely
agree with David's argument here. The place
where we might not completely agree is I
think we're really behind right now in
knowing how to provide that help to these
failing schools. And that's one of the things
that there are lots of federal grants trying
to do right now, and lots of attempts to do
that. But it will be nice to assume you knew
how to do it, but I think that's something
that we're not going to be able to say much
about.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Before we go back
to more comments on this, I wanted to
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actually mull up on something that Tom had
said earlier. Tom had highlighted a nice rift
that's in the outline about parental
involvement, and I just wanted to note one
thing that's really interesting is the
shifting thinking around parental involvement
where a lot of the discourse in the past has
been about this notion of parental
involvement as a reflection of parental
responsibility, and there's an element of
that, certainly. But what I'm seeing a little
bit in the outline is that -- a thought
process that suggests that parent involvement
should be understood to be something that's
actually profoundly important to achieve, but
it's not really something about just, you
know, how willing are people in the community
to be involved. But to think of it as a
fundamental mechanism for accountability. And
I wanted you to just say a little bit more
about what the vision is there, where you see
that going.
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MEMBER SAENZ: Well, let me just
C-- first, I just wanted to respond. I agree
with you, and I think that that's part of
what's in the notion of having accountability
at all levels, that you do start with states.
The states have responsibilities they're not
meeting in terms of how they then assist the
districts in getting schools to improve. And
we need to have accountability for states
playing the role that they ought to be
playing. The vast majority of them are not.
And it's too easy to say well, your
responsibility is to intervene and take over,
if you don't know what you're doing. Really
the responsibility starts well before you get
to that point at state level in doing the
kinds of support that you're talking about.
So, I think it will be
incorporated, at least I would hope that it
would be incorporated. But it's not a 12-page
document by the way, it just --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
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MEMBER SAENZ: If we have a
comprehensive accountability system that has
all the different levels, that's what we need
to try to define.
And continuing in response to
what you said, yes, I think that the notion
here is that parents, at least in theory,
have an important role to play in any
accountability system. That's a lot of what
Dave's transparency is built around. But if
there isn't ready mechanisms for parental
involvement that you are aggressive about
insuring exist, then that's meaningless. So,
if you have parents who either lack the
ability to use the data in various ways, or
lack the ability to influence decision
makers, whether that's school board members
who don't see them as voters, for example, or
don't see them as influencers of electoral
outcomes, then that's a problem. So, that we
have to incorporate notions of parental
involvement into any accountability system
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and making sure that the data is then useable
by all parents, including parents of the kids
who are most affected by achievement gap
issues so that they can then more rigorously
use existing accountability mechanisms at the
local level. So that's what's here and what I
hope will be fleshed out more.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you. That's
hugely important, and I'm certainly hopeful
that we could keep that in there and make
that an important part of the contribution of
this report. I have Russlynn and then John
King.
MEMBER ALI: Thanks. This is
mostly a clarifying question for the point of
the ambiguity that Rick brought up, and that
is, if I understand it right, it's how the
accountability system would be triggered, and
that feels bigger than what appears to be
some of the areas of ambiguity, notice I'm
not saying disagreement. I'm choosing my
words carefully, in the finance section. And
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if I get it right what we're saying is it's
more than an earned autonomy, which is
previous conversations of the Commission.
Right?
Under the earned autonomy context
it was -- there was kind of a baseline of
stuff that required of everybody, and where
you were doing great you were -- whoever was
watching, state, fed, depending on what layer
of the system you were talking about, were
watched less and would require less as a
result.
Now if I understand it, we're
saying sort of if -- that the area of
disagreement is if you're good or getting
better on these things we've articulated that
matter, which is changed to say what we've
agreed on is that it's both inputs and
outputs. Right, and continuous improvement as
David just articulated. But if you're good or
getting better, none of the inputs we're
going to watch. Right?
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MEMBER HANUSHEK: No, I don't
think so, Russlynn. I mean, Donald can also
speak, but I think that we're going to think
of a system that routinely provides
transparency on these other dimensions. But
it's not something that triggers state or
federal action if, in fact, the district
demonstrates that it knows what it's doing.
So, that's the earned autonomy part, but we
would still have transparency on what school
districts are doing.
MEMBER ALI: -- the feds
wouldn't-
MEMBER HANUSHEK: Yes, precisely.
MEMBER ALI: Okay.
MEMBER HANUSHEK: Precisely,
that's the best way I think about it.
MEMBER SAENZ: Yes, I agree. I
mean, it's consistent with the notion of
differentiating levels of involvement or
action. And it wouldn't take you to zero, it
would take you down to just the base level of
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transparent data.
MEMBER ALI: Okay, so they're not
disagreeing then.
MEMBER HANUSHEK: I don't think
so. Tom and I don't have disagree.
MEMBER SAENZ: I don't hear
disagreement. I hear -- unless it was --
MEMBER ALI: Did I not articulate
that right? Did I -- I thought that's what
you said. Was it your intention?
MEMBER HANUSHEK: It means it
would completely flesh out all that --
MEMBER ALI: Okay.
MEMBER HANUSHEK: -- but we have
in the last 35 seconds --
MEMBER ALI: Yes. So, okay. That's
terrific. You all made great progress.
MEMBER HANUSHEK: One of the
concerns that does come up, you know, we talk
about providing lots of data, and reports and
plans, and so forth. If you think about
California that has 1,000 school districts
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and 75 of them have less than 50 kids total
in the district. You know, you have to have
some differentiation between what you require
of them to plan and provide data on, and so
forth. And in the background we're going to
have to think a little bit about our grand
plans and how they fit into states like
California or New Jersey with 580 districts,
and so forth.
CHAIR CUELLAR: So, I have John
next, and then I have Sandra, and then I have
David.
MR. JOHNSON: And actually, Tino,
let me hop in real quick. Just as a reminder
that we have people on the phone, too. I
think Randi is on the phone and wants to
contribute.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay, we'll put it
down. John, go ahead.
MEMBER KING: So, I just want to
build on David's point about state capacity.
I think it's exactly right that states often
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don't have sufficient capacity to be helpful
in developing schools and district's ability
to perform better. And part of the capacity
they are lacking I would argue is the
sufficient authority to change rules at the
local level that clearly exacerbate under-
performance.
So, some examples. When a
district has a board that engages in
systematic patronage hiring, if the state
lacks authority to act on that, then we may
not know that that is certain to cause under-
performance, but it's pretty likely. And
states ought to have the ability to act on
that.
We have districts that have
enrollment policies that systematically
exacerbate high concentrations of high needs
kids, and if the state doesn't have the
authority to intervene with respect to those
policies, even if you have a state takeover
where they don't get to control those kinds
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of things, it's not much of a takeover.
Right?
A third example is equitable or
inequitable distribution of not only teacher
talent, but principal talent, as well, and
whether or not the state has the ability to
C-- so, I guess the thing I would urge the
group to do is to really drill down on what
you mean by intervention, because I think a
weakness of NCLB nationally is that we say
that the intervention is happening, but
really what it means is that people are
required to submit a plan that is reviewed
and approved or not approved, but that's not
the same as actual action taking place.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Sandra.
MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: David, I
thought that was an excellent point that you
raised, very provocative. And what I wanted
to raise is I think just the word
"accountability", that term is loaded in many
people's minds with blame and punishment. So,
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even in our use of it, in our definition I
think we want to expand it beyond that. This
idea, and I think Karen refers to it a lot,
of continuous improvement. That one of the
things we would like states to be accountable
on is that they are implementing some
practices to develop a mechanism by which to
look to the districts for continuous
improvement, and their own system. So, do
they even have a way to do that is something
that we may want to include in our definition
of accountability.
The other thing is, you know, to
Russlynn's point about those areas that are
doing well, do we -- are we -- should we pay
attention to them, or is reward to be left
alone? And I think, again, in our definition
of accountability, wouldn't we want to watch
and learn? Those may be areas that for
different reasons we want to have on the
radar screen because there are practices that
they obviously have in place that could be
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helpful to some other places. And what's the
role of the states to share that information?
And what's the role of the federal
government? What's our role, what is the
-- what role could the U.S. Department of
Education play in helping to share that
information, or encourage the sharing of that
information. So, I'd just like to ask that we
think about that in our accountability
section.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Sandra.
David, and then I have Randi Weingarten. And
I should note if anybody else wants to get on
the queue who's on the phone, we definitely
want to hear from you. David.
MEMBER SCIARRA: So, a couple of
points. I do think, John raises the point,
sort of two issues that are related, which is
the states' education capacities to provide
real help. And the second thing is the
authority, the issue around sort of specific
district-level policies that are often
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created by the state itself anyway, so it
-- so, I think this issue of state education
agency capacity has to be put squarely on the
table, because that is the real problem. We
have to reconceptualize the role of state
education agencies in this era of, you know,
when we go back to meaningful educational
opportunity, a state's responsibility to
insure not just resources but outcomes,
enabling all kids to -- et cetera, et
cetera. That means that state education
agencies which still largely are compliance
agencies. Now they're doing data. Right?
You're issuing a lot of report cards and all
that kind of stuff.
They're still not really
formulated into agencies that are designed to
lead and support continuous improvement of
public schools, however they may be governed
at the local level. And there's a lot we know
what can -- there's a lot that we know
districts and schools need that the states
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can bring to the table, particularly in low-
capacity, high poverty places. So, help and
expertise in writing curriculum, help and
expertise in utilization of data. Some of you
all work in this area. Right? So, a lot of
sort of nitty gritty things that we know
states can do. If they bring it to the table
well, it can make a huge difference in
getting these schools on track. It's just
that they're not set up that way. Their
budgets aren't constructed that way, they're
not organized that way, they don't have the
staff that way, they're just not -- they've
got to be sort of re-engineered and brought
into the 21st century to fulfill the
functions that we're really asking them to
function -- to do if we're going to get onto
a kind of continuous improvement track.
That's one point.
The second point, I think if we
do that, if we emphasize the states' role it
will help -- and going back to the finance
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recommendations and many others where we said
they have to put into place effective systems
not just to insure adequate funding, but also
that funding is effectively and efficiently
used. That leads us into having a
conversation with states about some of the
things, John, that you mentioned. So, the
issues of patronage or nepotism, that's an
efficiency issue.
We actually put in very strong
state rules that get at patronism, get at
anti-nepotism. This was all in response to
court directives and state -- a push around
the effective and efficiency use of
resources. That's not effective, it's not
efficient.
So, this is going to be a -- this
is not something we're going to solve
overnight. And there's a lot of -- as we know
there's a lot of levels to this, but we've
got -- if we don't put this accountability in
a sort of capacity building context that the
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state has to lead, and talk a lot about what
we want states to do in terms of making sure,
not just that we have transparency and we
know which schools aren't doing well, or what
the subgroups are doing, but that the state
is prepared then to go in where appropriate
and provide real good solid technical
assistance, help, and support to educators,
to get parents involved, et cetera, et
cetera. If we don't do that -- we have to do
that. And then I think if we push that down
the road, I think some of these other issues
we can then start to work out.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you. Randi.
Do we still have Randi on the phone?
MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Can you hear
me now?
CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. Yes.
MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Can you hear
me?
CHAIR CUELLAR: Yes.
MEMBER WEINGARTEN: So, I think a
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lot of what I wanted to say, David has
covered and also Rick actually said. And I
got the impression that they -- it's really
smart to think about capacity building. We
just don't know how to do it.
And the same thing in terms of
what Michael said, we have to really focus on
things like citizenship and some of the other
purposes of schooling, including educating
the whole child, and trying to really get to
issues like critical thinking, and ingenuity,
and what others might call involved skills,
in terms of what I call real skills, in terms
of teamwork building and things like that.
That we don't actually -- we shy
away from it in an accountability system
because we don't know how to do it. And this
is what the effect of that is. The effect is
that things will fall to teachers, and they
essentially end up becoming the primary
responsibility agent for all the things that
we want schools to do, but we don't know how
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to measure it, or how to carry it, or how to
insure that other people are accountable.
And when I read through the
draft, I thought the first -- the headlines,
the points at the top were absolutely
fantastic. And then I thought that when I
looked at what the components were, I got to
the same question as David just got to, which
is how do you then switch this from
essentially a compliance punitive model,
which this still looks like when you look at
the laundry list of the accountability
requirements to something that is much more
dynamic, much more premised on shared
responsibility, much more premised on how do
we insure the continuous improvement and
growth?
So, I started thinking what are
the components of continuous improvement and
growth? And maybe we have a consensus about
that, maybe we don't. But one component that,
Rick said it yesterday at a meeting that both
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Rick and I were presenting at, if we're not
partners in this, if we're not collaborators,
if we don't actually work together, you know,
whoever represents teachers as well as the
school system, ground-level, then we're not
going to pull up an agenda. And, yet, there's
an absence -- if that is a key component to
continuous improvement -- finding a way to
have not just buy-ins, and not just -- but
collaboration and working together towards
this goal in terms of the adults that work
for this, then that has to be part of the
accountability system. That has to be
measured.
The same is true in terms of
other -- in terms of capacity building. Even
if we don't know how to measure it, there has
to be a qualitative piece here that shows or
says that that's important.
The same is true in terms of
teacher/principal accountability. A bunch of
these things are written in terms of, you
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know, not in a way that I would have written
it. I would have talked about it in terms of
how we build that capacity, how we insure
that we are doing the steps that we need to
do to have good to great teachers for every
single child. So, maybe, you know, we need to
get to the teacher/principal piece and then
that you back into that in terms of the
teacher/principal accountability system.
But my mega point is that we
can't just ignore it because we don't know
how to do it. What it will then default to,
teachers without any wherewithal for -- to
get jobs done other than their own particular
moxie, then having to do all of what is in an
accountability system unless we try to change
that now by putting in and measuring, or at
least trying to figure out how to create the
responsibility and dynamic for capacity
building, collaboration, continuous
improvement.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Randi.
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Dennis, I believe I saw your hand up a little
earlier.
MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: Yes, I did. A
couple of quick clarifications.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Go ahead.
MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: And then a
little longer comment. In Section 3, just on
the data transparency, in B where it talks
about all of the different things are
mentioned, discipline and education. For
clarification, would that information be
required to be given in disaggregated form
for all of those? For example, that of your
suspensions 90 percent happen to be African
American and only 20 percent of your student
population happens to be African American, or
they're way over-represented in Special Ed.
Would that be part of --
MEMBER SAENZ: Yes, and we would
want as much disaggregation as possible.
MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: All right.
MEMBER SAENZ: As the data
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permits, given the limitations.
MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: Then in
Section 8, it mentions charter school
accountability. A question for clarification,
do we want to just say charter, or are we
talking about all of the alternative public
schools? We have magnet, we have teacher-led,
we have innovation schools, we have all those
others. I assume we wouldn't choose just one.
Right?
MEMBER SAENZ: No, I mean, we're
basically trying to touch those that are sort
of outside of the traditional --
MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: I think that's
good.
And then the longer comment. As
we -- stepping back on this whole
accountability, there have been so many great
things that my mind has been racing, that
people have said. Just up front, I don't know
where I read this, but a feeling where they
said they don't have the word
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"accountability" in their language. It's
responsibility. And I think that really
changes the discussion, especially when you
talk about parental accountability versus
parental responsibility.
And then the question is did you
do what you were responsible to do? There's
just a -- if you substitute every time we say
the word accountability, put in
responsibility, I think there's a really
different context.
But separate and apart from that,
as I listen to the discussion, one of the
things that happens when you talk about
accountability, it immediately does down to
the pieces, so teacher/principal, school
board/parent. Now, what Demming would say is
you're looking in the wrong place. You've got
to look at the system, not the people. And as
he got older he kept raising the percentage.
I think it first started out about 90, and by
the time he passed away I think it was closer
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to 96 or 97 percent.
If there's a problem in results,
it's over 90 percent according to him that
it's a systems problem, not a people problem.
So, I think there's something that we can't
immediately go to the pieces which are the
people.
And David brought up something
that just fit this perfectly. When you talked
about the interventions, are we going to have
an accountability system for interventions?
When I say -- if the results aren't what you
want, you've got to have a list of
interventions. Are they any good? What's the
result of your intervention?
So, to me as part of an
accountability system you have to evaluate
your interventions. That's part of the
system. If what you do makes things worse,
that's not good intervention.
David also mentioned in terms of
capacity they may not be structured nor
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staffed. Now, to an old farm kid what I
pictured in my mind is you tell me I'm
supposed to plow this field, and you give me
this beautiful four bottom plow, and then you
give me a car to pull it, you can tune that
car up, you can make sure the tires are
properly inflated, you can do everything to
that car and I'll never plow that field
because I need a tractor. And I think when
you look at a system, and that's this input
versus output, you cannot expect people to
get a certain output when you create a system
that makes it impossible to do.
And see, it's not a people
problem. You can fire me and hire somebody
else to plow that field, but if you give them
a car to pull that plow, it will not happen.
And so this -- I think we have to really
think in terms of accountability of these
systems whether it's the structure, whether
it's the staffing that a state department
has, or whether it's how a school district is
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structured. But in some way, shape, or form
we've got to find a way to get people to look
beyond the individual people involved to say,
"Have you created a system that allows you to
achieve the results you want?"
I mean, I think that is
demonstrated by the whole reason we have an
Equity and Excellence Commission. We say what
we want. It's very clear. We want an
equitable system that delivers for every
single child, but we created a system that
for the last 20 years has graduated about 75
percent, unless you're African American,
Hispanic, then it's closer to 50 percent.
It's not the teachers are doing a
bad job, or principals, or parents, or
superintendents. It's a system that is
designed to get those results. So, as we talk
about accountability, especially when our
goal is equity and excellence, we've got to
have a way to look at the components of that
system to say based on the system you
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designed is it even possible to get the
results you say you want?
It's the same way with funding.
If you -- no matter how well that system is
defined, or my tractor, if you don't put any
gas in it, you're not going to plow the
field. So, somehow as we look at this -- I
don't know how to do that. I don't know how
you get states or school districts to look
beyond people to assist them to say, "Have we
designed it in a way that we can hope to get
those results?" And if you don't do that,
however, it is impossible to change what's
happening to kids.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you very
much, Dennis. We're going to go to Sandra,
and I think I see Karen, and then we're going
to wrap up the discussion. Sandra.
MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: Tino, I'm
sorry, I forgot to put my card down.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. All right,
Karen.
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MEMBER HAWLEY MILES: So, I want
to just build on this --
CHAIR CUELLAR: I see Jesse, as
well.
MEMBER HAWLEY MILES: -- capacity
building thing that you started, David, and
then that Randi built on. We just submitted a
proposal for a federal center that is just
starting up for state capacity and
productivity. So, I spent the last three
months doing this arduous proposal process,
which is another topic. And thinking about
this issue of state capacity, and I really do
think that we don't know how to -- I mean, we
know the problems with state capacity, but
the work to rethink and how to build state
capacity is -- we just don't know what it's
going to require. We can specify out some
elements. We know we're going to have to be
part of that rethinking of capacity. It's
going to be a lot of reorganization, it's
going to be all those things.
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So, that gets me to the question
of something we could read through all of our
things. In our finance piece we suggest that
the federal -- part of the federal role was
to do grants to states to develop these
finance systems. We can also think about that
there may be some grants the states who
really want to engage deeply in the work of
rethinking, what it would mean to build
capacity.
But then I would substitute -- I
would -- because we don't want all sorts of
grants going out, and we don't necessarily
want all states to have to figure out this
from scratch. I mean, like there are some
basic things we collectively probably know
about what the funding systems have to
include, what good -- what methods should try
to include, what it will take.
Anyway, so I'm thinking there's
something we want to put in here about some
kind of aggregate role that happens, so
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everybody is not redoing this over and over
again. We can kind of at least learn from
each other. So, as we think about our
proposals, as we recommend them, we can get a
lot of leverage about creating incentives for
innovative ways of doing things, especially
if we can figure out a way to share those
lessons and build some common principles that
they're all starting from.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Jesse.
MR. JOHNSON: It's Jose.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay, sorry, Jose.
MEMBER TORRES: No problem.
CHAIR CUELLAR: If you could see
what I --
MEMBER TORRES: Yes, I know, we
kind of see it up there. Just a real quick
question or comment, and that is, I agree
that we need to have better clarity about
what the outcomes are that we're supposed to
be accountable for. But we all live in a
context, and the context is also in terms of
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time. So, the question is if these measures
are not achieved at what time, when do the
interventions take place? How long do the
interventions -- so, I mean, that is all
missing from here, and I understand it, but
it's an issue. I mean, No Child Left Behind
had a date that we're getting to that says we
didn't make it, and now it has to be revised,
but it created a target, and it created press
for that. So, it's just a question that I
have, that I'm not sure how we address that.
But if I'm accountable to get to a particular
place but there's no time, then I'm not
accountable.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Dennis.
MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: I just want
-- I forgot one little piece, 10 seconds. It
was brought up connecting the accountability
--
CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. I think I
see Michael Casserly, as well.
MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: Oh, connecting
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the accountability piece with the finance. In
the finance piece we ask them to define the
services needed, as close to possible the
cost it would take, and then we ask whether
the resources are provided. That ought to be
one of the accountability measures, too. Did
you provide the resources necessary to do
what you say you want it to do?
CHAIR CUELLAR: Michael, Mike
Casserly.
MEMBER CASSERLY: Yes. I'm not
sure where I'm going with this, but I was
struck by Dennis' comments which I thought
were really quite profound in differentiating
between a systems problem and a people
problem.
But if we're going to emphasize
in this section issues of capacity building
and collaboration, those are all essentially
strategies built around a presumption that we
have a people problem. So, if we end up
recommending a set of capacity building and
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collaboration issues inside of a structure
that's dysfunctional, then all we have done
is increased people's individual capacity but
not allowed them to work properly.
So, I think given that, I would
urge the accountability group to think
through what accountability looks like inside
of those two large topics, and where
accountability lies and what it would look
like if the issue was defined as a systems
issue, and not necessarily as a people issue.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Mike.
So, I think that we have gotten a lot of good
feedback on the table. This is useful for the
accountability group. I want to just add one
last observation, which is part of the work
that is being done in this section is going
to be the highlight -- this maybe goes a
little to Dennis' point about the system, the
highlight of different forms of
accountability and different tools to achieve
accountability connect with each other. And
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how the sum, ideally, is more than the parts.
And I think that's very important and it's,
therefore, unlikely that this group will find
very compelling examples of jurisdictions or
states where all these different forms of
accountability are present the way that the
report would like to see.
But that said, I think it's
really important to try to look for examples
where even if not every component of
accountability is present, you can tell your
story about how these different components
are important by highlighting what's
happening in particular jurisdictions.
I think, in particular, this is
one example of a place in the report that
will benefit a lot from that, so I encourage
you all to look for those examples. And I
know the staff can help.
So, at this time we are done with
most of our work for the meeting today. I
want to just give an opportunity for some of
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the remaining teams we know have made some
progress, Teaching, Learning and Leaders,
Introduction and Context, Poverty, Education,
and the Needs of Low-Income Students, and
Governance to just give very quick updates on
where you are currently. What we expect from
all of these teams is going to be essentially
a little bit of continued deliberation at the
level of the topic review team so all of the
folks who are going to take a look at this
before it goes to the Commission, but I want
to just give you all a chance to give us a
quick two or three minutes of where you are.
Let's start with Teaching, Learning and
Leaders. Randi, if you're still on, you can
speak to this.
MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Sure. So,
hopefully, a draft which is a work in
progress was distributed to the Commission.
Where we are is the four people on the
drafting committee have actually -- through
Joan's work, have actually met on the phone
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briefly, and there was actually far more
consensus, and that's what you see here, far
more consensus than I would have initially
imagined in terms of this draft. So, you see
the draft where you have the kind of top line
agreements like you saw with accountability
and other places, and then a bunch of what we
need to do to deal with that, and some policy
recommendations.
So, rather than my going through
it, I just wanted to make -- unless you don't
have it, I'll quickly run through it, but
rather than my going through it, people just
have it on paper and we will continue to do
our work before the next meeting.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. Well,
actually, we're going to circulate that
shortly, so my guess would be the best thing
to do would be to wait for folks to get that
so that we can react to that, and we can pick
up the discussion at the next meeting.
Introduction and Context, Kati
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and Matt, either or both.
MEMBER HANCOCK: Matt, you want to
take it?
CHAIR CUELLAR: Going once.
MEMBER MILLER: We -- Kati and I
did a draft of a --
CHAIR CUELLAR: Speak up just a
little bit, Matt, if you can.
MEMBER MILLER: Kati and I did a
draft of a little framing document and sent
it to folks in our little group, and I think
we've had one response so far.
MEMBER HANCOCK: We have -- as far
as responding -- people have not had it for
long, so we're hoping that we will get more,
and we'll try to incorporate some of that
feedback into our next version.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you. John or
Michael, do you want to say a little bit
about the Poverty group?
MEMBER KING: Sure. So, we've been
circulating a draft in the group that focuses
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on seven areas, early childhood, school-based
health clinics, court involved youth, out of
school youth, parent education, enrollment,
and extended learning time, expanded learning
time.
I would say that the key question
that we will need to discuss as a group is
around each of these areas we all agree we
should do more of them. The question is do
you get there through formula funding,
through competitive grants, or through the
establishment of a sort of legal entitlement
to one or more of those things.
On the issue of enrollment, we
focused on the idea of socioeconomic
integration, and whether you incentivize
efforts by districts and states that promote
socioeconomic integration or there, two,
whether you would say, for example, as a
condition of Title I you have to demonstrate
that your enrollment policies do not have the
effect of exacerbating socioeconomic
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segregation, or even further as a condition
of Title I funding you have to demonstrate
that your enrollment policies have a tendency
to promote socioeconomic integration. But
this question of incentives versus
consequences I think is very much a part of
back roots question.
I don't, Michael, do you want to
add anything to that?
MEMBER REBELL: Well, the only
thing I would add is I think John has really
injected something important into the draft
we've been working with in terms of being
very concrete about the mechanisms that the
Commission should recommend. So, let me
just, for those of you who don't have it,
mention under the Early Childhood thing he
has for the Commission's consideration,
should the Commission propose a pre-K funding
structure in which state funds are matched by
federal funds similar to Medicaid to insure
universal access to high-quality pre-K for
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students in low-income families. And then he
also said as an alternative, incentives a la
RTT.
But I just -- having come from
the finance thing where we were kind of
general in just saying the federal government
should do something, John has really moved
the ball along. And I think sooner rather
than later the Commission should confront his
options here, and think, you know, do we
really want to bite the bullet and say
-- have something like Medicaid funding to
make sure that low income C-- that pre-K and
early childhood really happens.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Look forward to
further discussion on that. And sticking with
our general theme, Governance, do you want to
say just a little bit on where that stands?
MEMBER RUIZ: Sure.
MEMBER SAENZ: I'll start. I mean,
we are at the stage of having an outline of
some ideas in this area. We still need to
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circulate it to the rest of the group and
gain more feedback. The kinds of issues that
we're so far including in the outline really
focus on some issues about coordination at
the local level between school districts and
other service providing government entities,
issues around federalism, of course, federal,
state, local relationships and education,
some additional issues about charter schools,
other schools that fall outside of the
traditional governance structure, some
discussion about some of these issues with
respect to local level governing structures,
school board, et cetera, and some real issues
around school boards and school board
failure. So, I think that's kind of the scope
of what's in the outline at present, but
we're at kind of the stage of needing to
share it more broadly within the group.
MEMBER RUIZ: Yes, I'll just add
the same -- you know, just building on what
Mike was talking about, the last work group,
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this question of do we want to propose -- the
distinction between identifying a problem and
proposing an actionable solution, and to what
extent do we want to propose mechanisms by
which action could be taken on these
governance problems.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Good. Well, that's
definitely something we will want to discuss
further, but I want to thank all of you for
all the work that you've done on this.
Honestly, if we could quantify the hourly
rates of people and what they're contributing
it would be in the billions, so I'm very,
very grateful.
Let me just say a quick word
about what's coming next and then I'll turn
over to Russlynn to see if she has any
closing remarks.
Just, you know, what I see us
doing in the next couple of days is going to
be to have the staff circulate an updated
detailed time line so that each topic team
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can work out in more detail what time line
works for you all, and you can get whatever
help you need from the staff to set up
conference calls. And Chris, and Russlynn and
I will be keeping track of this as best we
can, but I think that the real emphasis here
should be on basically finishing these
outlines, getting them to the topic review
teams so that we could schedule discussion of
it as the opportunity arises, and then
getting the writing process going where we've
already had discussion of these outlines as
we had today with accountability and with
finance.
So, with that let me just ask
Russlynn to see if she wants to make any
closing comments.
MEMBER ALI: I think that's right,
and I do just want to reiterate Tino's
applause, and I know I can speak for -- being
here, too, that I do think we have made great
headway on these areas that have been
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identified by staff as areas of disagreement.
Whatever we can do to help
support as you get into the writing, that
we've made that quite -- what I worry about a
little bit is that while we've made great
progress on the general, that some of the
definitions when you unpack that might reveal
that that progress, that there's a lot of
ambiguity in that, so the best way that we
can help flesh out what those issues are and
get the full Commission's buy-in on that
language in an expedited way I think is my
only ask as we take the topic reviews
further.
But thank you, because I think
we've done a lot up to now, and the kind of
big point, that what the headlines are are
starting to emerge really, really clean for
the first time.
CHAIR CUELLAR: Congressman.
REP. HONDA: Just a quick comment.
I just want to thank everybody for the
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amazing work that's been done up to now. And
as a not only policy maker, but as a parent
and someone who really wants to get out of
the Congress after we finish education, this
is my -- you guys are really moving that, and
it's going to be the biggest difference for
our kids. And I just really appreciate all
your effort and work.
CHAIR CUELLAR: We're going to get
this done, and it's going to be good. Thank
you. Thanks, everybody.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled
matter went off the record at 1:37 p.m.)
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