<html><body>Education after the 2004 Election December 6, 2004 Unedited transcript prepared from a tape recording <TABLE width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%">1:45 p.m.</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="75%" colSpan=2> Registration</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%"> </TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%">2:00</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Panelists:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">David Dunn, White House</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"></TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"></TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Nina Rees, U.S. Department of Education</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Sally Stroup, U.S. Department of Education</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Erik Robelen, Education Week</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Roberto Rodriguez, U.S. Senate HELP Committee</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%">Moderator:</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%">Frederick M. Hess, AEI</TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%"> </TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="50%"> </TD></TR> <TR> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="25%">4:00</TD> <TD vAlign=top align=left width="75%" colSpan=2> Adjournment</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> Proceedings: MR. HESS:  We're going to go ahead and get started.  I'd like to welcome you today.  My name is Rick Hess.  I'm Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.  I'm delighted you all have been able to join us today for what I think should be an especially interesting and timely panel. We have just had an election, as most of us are aware, and the administration, the Bush administration, which has been widely described as certainly having been the most energetic K to 12 administration at the national level in history, has won with stronger margins in the House and Senate.  And in the President's remarks, both during the campaign and after the election, he once suggested an interest in extending the No Child Left Behind reforms to the high school. There was conversation during the campaign about issues relating to funding, to student groups, to the whole slew of issues that we've been talking about in No Child Left Behind.  And particularly since the election, when Secretary Paige made clear his intention to step down, with the nomination of Margaret Spellings to be the new Secretary, there have also been additional questions about how the administration is going to strike the balance between Choice and accountability in the coming four years. There are certainly ongoing conversations about the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.  There's questions about Head Start, about workforce investment.  There's a whole slew actually of business, much of which Congress wasn't able to get resolved in the last couple of years, which is sitting on the agenda. So what I'm hoping that this panel can help us do today is start to talk about what the situation is likely to look at, in terms of educational legislation during certainly the coming Congress, and more broadly during the next four years, and how these various issues--the role of school Choice, the role of higher education--are going to get addressed. Moreover, beyond folks in the administration who are going to be able to share the point of view of the White House and the Department, we also have folks from a couple other vantage points who will hopefully be able to give us a sense of how whatever initiatives were posed are likely to be received and about what sentiment is likely to be on the Hill and within the broader community. Introducing from my right is David Dunn, Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, who joined the White House Domestic Policy Council in August of '02. Next to David is Nina Rees, Assistant Secretary for the Office of Innovation and Improvement at the Department of Education.  Ms. Rees coordinates the implementation of the public school Choice and supplemental service provisions of the President's No Child Left Behind Act and also has purview over a number of the issues relating to teacher quality and the teacher quality provisions of No Child Left Behind. Next to Nina is Eric Robelen, the lead Washington reporter for Education Week. [Laughter.] MR. HESS:  My mistake.  I stand corrected.  Sally Stroup, Assistant Secretary for Post-Secondary Education, who took office in March 2002.  Before joining the Department, Ms. Stroup served as the Director of Industry and Government Affairs for  the Apollo Group, University of Phoenix. Next to Sally is Eric Robelen, the lead Washington reporter for Education Week.  Those of you in the business are familiar with it.  For others, it's a national newspaper focused on K-12 education.  During his 6-year tenure with the paper, Mr. Robelen has written extensively on federal education policy and politics, including the No Child Left Behind Act, as well as on campaigns for Congress and the White House. And, finally, joining us is Roberto Rodriguez, a Senior Education Adviser to U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.  Mr. Rodriguez's duties include legislative, policy, budget and appropriations work on a variety of education issues. Each of the panelists is going to speak for 10 to 15 minutes, at which point we will throw it open for questions from the audience.  I'm going to ask that the questions, of course, actually be questions instead of short- or medium-length speeches followed by an inflection. [Laughter.] MR. HESS:  We'll deal with that in due course. Also, during the Q&A, we will have one or two microphones circulating.  My assistants, Emily Kluver and Morgan Goatley [ph], will be circulating.  I would ask that you please wait for the microphone so that other folks can hear you.  And when you're speaking, please do us the kindness of identifying yourself by name and affiliation. Anyway, with that, let me turn it over to David to kick us off. MR. DUNN:  Thanks, Rick.  I appreciate everybody coming out this afternoon.  This is actually my first day back from some people said deserved, I don't know, it was a very much well-needed vacation in England.  So, if I start to speak with a British accent, please forgive me. As the question posed, in terms of the invitation, I think, what are the administration's plans for education in the second term, implementation of No Child Left Behind, et cetera.  I think the President has been fairly clear on that point all through these past couple of years.  The administration plans to stick the its guns on No Child Left Behind. The President feels very strongly that No Child Left Behind is a good piece of legislation, a strong piece of legislation and legislation that's working.  We're seeing results in state after state as they release assessment scores in English and/or reading and in math we're seeing positive movement.  The President is very, very encouraged by the early results and feels strongly that continuing on with the reform provisions of No Child Left Behind that these results will, in fact, accelerate. In fact, as probably everybody who has followed and listened to the President over the last several years or last year or so realized, the President wants to push No Child Left Behind even further, deeper into high schools.  Probably everybody in this room knows the focus of No Child Left Behind has been on the earlier grades.  It certainly has an impact and an effect on high schools as well, but the primary focus has been in the earlier grades, requiring annual assessment in Grades 3 through 8, but once in high school, Reading First, one of the primary initiatives, and No Child Left Behind is all targeted at ensuring kids learn how to read on grade level, by Grade 3, et cetera. The President is encouraged by the result and wants to push the reforms of No Child Left Behind more deeply into high schools.  The President feels strongly that one of the reasons that--clearly, the number one reason we're seeing  the results we're seeing is the hard work of principals and teachers and students and parents in schools across the country. But one of the primary reasons, and the thing that No Child Left Behind has provided them, is the tool of better information--more information, annual assessment on all of their students in Grades 3 through 8--so that teacher faculties and principals can identify weaknesses within student bodies, within student subgroups, et cetera, and make the appropriate adjustments in terms of curriculum emphases, instructional techniques, et cetera. And the President feels like that same thrust will have a similar impact on the nation's high schools.  Probably everybody here follows the NAPE data.  We've seen a nice trend upward in Grades 4 and 8 in the NAPE, the random sample assessment given all students in all states.  But in 12th grade we've seen those scores trend downward over the last several years.  The President feels strongly that the educational reforms in No Child Left Behind, if taken more deeply into the high school level, will start to see the same kind of reversal and the same kind of improvement in high schools.  The President has announced that he will call on Congress to extend the No Child Left Behind assessment regime from Grades 3 through 11, which, in some states, will require two additional high school assessments, and I think four states currently have the full regime of testing, 3 through 11.  Some states may have to add one assessment. The President has also indicated he will call on Congress to provide $250 million a year through the National Assessment appropriation to provide the dollars to develop and implement these additional assessments. We have not fully worked through the details.  We envision phasing into these new assessments.  Right now sort of the thinking internally is require that first additional assessment by the 2009-2010 school year, but certainly still working through that will want to work with friends on the Hill to finalize those plans. The President also believes firmly that, again, the key aspect of the accountability standard-based reform movement is that faculty principals have better information on which to make curriculum decisions and instructional decisions and has announced that he will ask for $200 million as part of an early intervention fund, where states or school districts that are interested in building on the data that students bring with them, in terms of the results on their assessments from 3 through 8, when they enter into high school additional resources to help states and school districts who are interested to build performance plans, if you will, identify deficiencies for students and identify a performance plan that will ensure that those students have the skills they need when they graduate to be successful either in college or in the workforce.  And a key piece of this initiative will be to take advantage of some of the recent improvements in its imbedded assessment, on-line assessment, so that faculty will have more immediate information in terms of how students are progressing. The President wants to build on the Reading First Initiative, extremely successful.   Over 75,000 teachers to date have been trained on scientifically based reading instruction techniques.  We think we're seeing wonderful results at this point.  We think we're going to be further validated--we hope, certainly--when the NAPE is next assessed and administered in the spring of next year. The President wants to build on that scientifically based reading instruction and grapple with those kids who come to high school or junior high and are falling behind, provide additional funds for states, districts, others to develop and implement scientifically based strong evaluation adolescent literacy programs. Of course, the President wants to continue the work of the Mass Science Partnerships, which is providing additional resources for research and development on effective instructional techniques for teaching math and science. And the President, also, wants to push the notion of or at least provide resources for states or school districts.  We want to push the notion of accountability more to the individual classroom level and provide he's indicated he will ask for $500 million for a Teacher Incentive Fund that will provide for interested states and districts resources to reward, through bonuses or a reward system developed by the school district or school, those teachers who have been proven most effective at improving student achievement and closing the achievement gap or, potentially, using these resources as an incentive to have those teachers who have, with a proven track record of a proven student achievement, locate in those schools, schools as identified as needing improvement through No Child Left Behind or lower-income schools. So, essentially, I think the President is very interested in continuing the reforms of No Child Left Behind, strengthening the reforms and pushing them more deeply into the high schools.  He's talked already about some of them requesting more rigorous academic course work in terms of for schools that accept Perkins funds for high school and, in fact, using the model of the State Scholars Program, which requires four years of high school-level English, three years of math, three and a half years science or three and a half years of social study and three years of math. I'm going to let Nina and Sally talk a little bit more about some of the President's Choice and higher education initiatives.  Let me just close, briefly.  The President also wants to extend some of the educational reforms of No Child Left Behind back into the early childhood education as well.  He has indicated that he will renew his proposal to strengthen Head Start, to strengthen the academic components of Head Start. Certainly, ample research indicates that the best predictor for student success in K-12 is if those students came to kindergarten prepared to be successful.  And the President believes that with the accountability mechanisms in No Child Left Behind and the fact that we're holding states, and schools, and districts accountable for student achievement in the K-12 grades, the states should have more ability to coordinate and align the Head Start program, which is the largest source of federal dollars for early childhood programs, align that with the K-12 standards and objectives so that there is a more seamless flow and academic progression for students from years 3 and 4 through high school. And with that, I'll-- MR. HESS:  Actually, David, let me ask you to comment on one issue, which is, with the nomination of Ms. Spellings to be Secretary of Education, some voices, and most notably Bill Bennett, have expressed concern that the administration is paying insufficient attention to Choice in its plans going forward.  If you could just talk about that for a moment from the White House perspective. MR. DUNN:  I'll let Nina talk more about some of the specific initiatives that we're going to have going forward, but let me just assure everyone in this room Margaret Spellings for a long, long time, and Margaret Spellings is a very serious and energetic--I think the President used the term "energetic"--education reformer, and I have complete faith and confidence that Margaret Spellings--of course, in the interest of full disclosure, she's my boss right now. [Laughter.] MR. DUNN:  But I have full confidence that she'll continue and carry those energetic reform areas into her new role as Secretary, not being presumptuous, but if, upon confirmation, if and when she's confirmed, she'll continue that emphasis.  And certainly she has been an adviser for President Bush since he first became involved in politics. She went to work for Candidate Bush before his first time or first win in 1993, I guess, and has advised President Bush throughout on his education reform agenda, which, as you all know, has included Choice efforts both in Texas and here in Washington, D.C.  So I think we have every reason to anticipate that reform energy will be continued. MR. HESS:  Thank you, David. Nina? MR. REES:  Thanks, Rick, for having me.  It's always nice to be out of the office and talk about what my office is doing.  My job to day is to talk a little bit about the Choice Initiatives that we have underway and, if there is time, I'm also happy to talk a little bit about the Teacher Quality Enhancement Initiatives in my office. For those of you who don't know the Office of Innovation and Improvement, we're about two years old, and we were created primarily to give  a permanent home to some of the more innovative grants and initiatives that the Department was advocating.  And our key focus over the past two years has been on some of the grants that carry the most amount of money in them, which happen to be the Parental Choice Grants. Just to give you a little bit of a background, and I hope you all know this by now, we feel very strongly that this administration has done more than any other administration to advance the cause of school choice. Let's talk about No Child Left Behind very quickly.  This is the first federal law that has put in place a provision that says if a child is attending a school that has failed to make adequate yearly progress for two years in a row, that child has to be given an option to go to another public school of their parents' choice.  So, for the first time, we're mandating public school choice for any child attending a school bus receiving federal funds and trying to make sure that this choice is a real choice. Second, this is also the first administration that's put in place a provision which, in essence, makes Title 1 funding portable.  If a Title 1 child has been attending a school that's failed to make AYP for three years or a school that's been on the needs improvement list for two years, that child is entitled to their entire share of Title 1 funds to carry it over to an after-school or supplemental service provider of their parents' choice. And this is also the first administration that has put in place in federal law expressly language that says if a child has attended a school or if a school has failed to make adequate yearly progress for four years in a row, then that school can be turned into a charter school or its management can be turned over to private management.  So I would say that these are pretty bold reforms that all promote the cause of choice and the cause of adding competition into the business of education. And let me also remind people that these provisions passed with broad bipartisan support, the kind of bipartisan support that we need if we want to overhaul Social Security and some of the other provisions that are on the table right now.  They passed with the support of Roberto's boss and others.  So it's important for us to remember that we have buy-in from people on the left and the right and that so far we've accomplished a lot. In addition to No Child Left Behind, we were also successful in enacting a voucher plan right here in the District of Columbia.  This plan did not garner the kind of bipartisan support that the President likes in the House, but we did get some support from leading heavyweight Democrats from D.C., including the mayor of the District, including the Chairman of the Education Committee on the City Council and including the President of the School Board of the District of Columbia.  And on the Senate side, where the bill was never really voted out of, we had the support of Senator Dianne Feinstein. So I would say that we've already done quite a bit, and I think our job in the next four years, at least, is going to be focused on solidifying these outcomes and making sure that we're making progress on the implementation end and that we are disseminating the results of our findings as broadly as possible.  I think that's probably the greatest thing that we can do for the cause of school choice, demonstrating that it works. So, in order to do that, again, I've kind of parceled out my talk into separate areas.  In the area of public school choice, and again this is no news to everyone--Rick has written a book about this--we don't have a lot of parents who are signing up their children for Choice.  Our 2002-2003 numbers show that we only had about 45,000 students participating in Public School Choice.  We really need to increase those numbers.  And we're trying to tackle this through several different means, one of which is to work directly with school districts by offering technical assistance. Our office recently put together a book looking at five school districts that have taken on the job of promoting Public School Choice very seriously.  We've already held seminars in different parts of the country, one of which was just recently in Phoenix, where we invited any district or state that was interested in replicating the success of these models, and it was a two-day-long conference, which I heard went very well.  So our goal is to take the lessons from the book and try to really offer the technical assistance that school districts need to do a better job of implementing public school choice. Another piece of the puzzle is working closely with community-based organizations, and we've already made grants available to different organizations that have entre into low-income communities to better educate the parents in these communities about the choices in No Child Left Behind.  We feel that if the choices are not made with proper information and if parents don't understand what these choices are, you're not going to be able to really advance the cause of education reform within the Parent Information Resource Center Program, which is another grant in my office.  We've tried very hard to focus these perks on also providing information to parents and better educating them. At the state level, I think we need to do a lot more work than we've done before.  We feel that states are in a very good position to help school districts in terms of building capacity for public school choice and also hopefully by offering incentives for neighboring school districts to open their doors to some of those students in some districts to come and take advantage of choice.  With that, we've already made a couple of grants to groups like the National Governor's Association and to the Center of Education Innovation in New York to really give states and districts the kind of hands-on experience that they need to promote Public School Choice. But let me just finish the Public School Choice piece with one comment, which is that the ultimate success of this piece is not necessarily in seeing a lot of movement from school to school, but in seeing that the District has taken the job of reforming the existing schools seriously enough so that every school is a school of choice and that parents are happy with the schools that they currently are sending their child to.  So I think increasing the numbers are important, but also looking at the initiatives that states and districts are taking to keep children in the schools that they are in, so long as parents want to keep their children in those schools is extremely important. In the area of supplemental services, our numbers are a little bit better.  According to our '02-'03 numbers, again, these are old numbers.  There are other groups that have done research that can give you more up-to-date numbers.  Hopefully, ours will come out soon as well.  We have about 112,000 who participated in SES in '02-'03.  Again, we've tried to offer technical assistance to districts by highlighting a model's best practices in about five different districts around the country.  We've worked with third-party validators and organizations around the country to make sure that parents have as much information as possible.   But, again, I want to talk about states again.  We think it's important for us to take this whole discussion to the next level and try to get states far more engaged in the supplemental service debate as ever before.  So far they're doing a great job of approving providers.  We have over 2,500 providers that have been approved.  That's a great number. But so far it's not clear to us if states are doing a good enough job of monitoring how well these providers are performing.  It's unclear how well they're working with school districts to make sure that they're taking these providers seriously, and they can sort of have a share in the market.  And it's also unclear if they're offering incentives to school districts and schools to open up their doors so that providers can serve students in the actual school or offer incentives to make sure that districts are offering rolling enrollments so that it's easier for both parents and providers to operate in this new marketplace that we've created. So, again, working closely with states, offering them technical assistance, getting them more engaged in implementing supplemental services is very important.  And, again, the ultimate test of how successful SES is, is, of course, measured by how well the district is raising student achievement and hopefully how many schools are falling off of the Needs Improvement List, but at the same time, from a supplemental service provider perspective, I think it's also important for the relationships that are being built to be long-lasting relationships so that once the pressure of No Child Left Behind goes away, those providers continue to remain in the business of serving these students.   Another area that my office has been working a great deal on is the area of charter schools.  Of course, there are recent reports that cast doubt about whether this is an initiative that we should be touting as an alternative, especially for schools that have failed to make AYP for a number of years.  Some of the things our office has already done is building kind of an infrastructure so that our funding is targeted at building quality charter schools, through grants, through the National Association of Charter School Authorizers and the new Schools Venture Fund.  We firmly believe that if you kind of manage risk at the front end and avoid making too many risky decisions, you'll be able to really build an infrastructure, so that the really good models of charter schools are growing around the country. We've added priorities in our charter school grant competition so that the money is better targeted in school districts that need help the most.  So these are districts, ideally, that are having challenges in meeting the goals of No Child Left Behind. And we've also done quite a bit to offer funding for charter school facilities.  In fact, if you just add up how much money we've raised or the Congress has passed for charter school facilities, the total is right now at $90 million, which wasn't around before we took office. Last, but not least, in the area of evaluation because that's the topic that keeps coming up, the Institute for Educational Sciences is launching a randomized field test of charter schools.  They're going to start next fall.  It's going to be the first such study that will really determine whether there's something about charter schools that can lead to increases in student achievement and will control for all of the different factors that make a real charter school unique. So we are taking the job of evaluating charter schools seriously.  Unfortunately, this kind of study is not going to give us results overnight.  We're going to have to be patient, but we feel that we've put in enough money and resources to at least answer some of the questions that the critics have been asking about charter schools. MR. HESS:  Nina, could you say a word about the cost and kind of the projected completion date of the IES Charter Study. MR. REES:  Yes and no.  I think it's about $2 million a year.  They were supposed to have started last year.  We had some challenges in finding the right types of charter schools.  We wanted students to have been attending charter schools for a number of years because the key criticism we have been voicing, in terms of the different studies done on charter schools, is that, yeah, you can look at charter schools now and see that a lot of students are not doing well academically, but you don't know where these students were before.  So you want to make sure students have been in a charter school or that the charter school has been around long enough to have had some kind of an effect. So, anyway, to answer your question, it is going to start this fall.  It's a five-year study, but I don't know, it might take longer, and Mathematica is the entity that has been conducting the study if you want to ask them. MR. HESS:  And you do have a little time, so take your time. MS. REES:  On D.C. Choice, I think we're off to a great start.  This is a law that we didn't get funding for until about March, and since then, the organization that we funded to administer the program has done fantastic work.  They have over 1,000 students who are currently attending a private school of their parents' choice.  They're increasing the participation of a lot of independent schools, which is very important, in our opinion.  I think everyone who has been involved in the Choice movement can attest it's important to have as many choices as possible not just Catholic and Christian schools, and the organization we're working with has done a lot  of work in trying to make sure we have as many independent schools in the mix as possible. We're getting ready to conduct another lottery.  It's going to be in the next, oh, I don't know, 3, 4, 5 months.  WSF has also done a lot of parental outreach.  In fact, there are a lot of lessons to be learned about how you should approach low-income families and how often you should try to educate them about their choices in this process that I hope other people who are just trying to promote public school choice can learn from.   More importantly, again, in the D.C. Choice context, this program also has a robust evaluation attached to it, one that IES is conducting, and it's a five-year study.  It's going to have, right now we have a small control group in middle schools.   Hopefully, next year we'll be able to expand the control group and again answer the key question that people have had which is whether the act of practicing choice is, in and of itself, enough to raise student achievement. Since I mentioned IES, I should also mention to you that they recently gave a grant to Vanderbilt University to do more studies on School Choice.  I don't have all of the details in front of me, but it's going to be very exciting work.  They're going to have a lot of opportunities for people to get together to talk about what needs to be done in the area of Choice.  I think they're going to do an annual conference, in fact.  So, looking at what this grant, through IES, is doing is also going to be an interesting way to sort of dissect how Choice works. One other point about School Choice, if you talk to most of the activists in the Choice Movement, they'll tell you that most of the activity on Choice is really not at the federal level, it is at the state and local level.  I happen to agree with that, and I think that the best thing we can do at the federal level is to make it easy--well, is to offer a bully pulpit, certainly, and tout some of the reforms that are happening at the local level. And to that end, there are about three states that we should probably take a look at in the upcoming year, and I would say it's Utah, Missouri, and South Carolina.  These states are currently debating whether they should have a tax credit program for educational expenses similar to what Arizona, Pennsylvania and Florida have passed. Again, we don't think this is a federal issue, but it's something that's happening at the local level, and if these things are successful, they certainly give choice a big momentum and a big boost. And in terms of new initiatives, I am not at liberty to talk too much about new stuff because our '06 budget is not prepared yet, but as all of you know the Choice Incentive Fund has been in the President's budget since he took office.  That was also the piece that we used in crafting the D.C. School Choice Incentive Act.  And certainly if there is interest from Congress to do something with that piece, we would be very happy to sit down and talk to the interested members. Thank you. MR. HESS:  Thank you so much, Nina. Sally? MS. STROUP:  Thanks, Rick, and good afternoon, everyone. For everyone who doesn't know, and for all of the K-12 people who never cross over to the post-secondary world, the Office of Post-Secondary Education oversees all of the student aid policy for the federal government.  For us, that's in the neighborhood of $70 billion, but we also run about 40-some-odd grant programs that's about another $2 billion that range anywhere from starting at about sixth and seventh grade for gear-up kind of programs and treat our programs in high school all the way through graduate and post-grad kind of programs. And as everybody here says, as they start all of these talks, the focus has all been on No Child Left Behind, which I personally enjoyed, because it really left those of us in the post-secondary world to do our own thing. [Laughter.] MS. STROUP:  But it's, also, for someone like me who's at the Department, it has certainly given me and my colleague Terry Shaw, who some of you know, who is the Chief Operating Officer of the Student Aid Office, a chance to sort of sit down and try to get the student aid systems working the way we think they should work.  And while we're doing that, we're also redesigning them to bring efficiencies to the process for the government, for students, for families, for institutions who have a  high rate who participate in the programs and at the same time not cause any major snafus with aid processing. And I can tell you, when I took this job, I can actually remember Margaret as well as Secretary Paige looking at me and saying please don't let the systems blow up.  And we have really spent our time making sure the systems work, and knock on wood so far so good.  We are redesigning again.  We continue to try to update those systems to make them better for people who use them.  It can be a very complicated process for people.   Institutions, in particular, struggle with them sometimes as they try to get through the paperwork, and the filing and all of the other things that go on.  But we do devote a lot of our time to making sure that the processes themselves work. Saying all of that, higher ed, my first initial reaction to the whole subject of the authorization is can we please just get it done.  I think we would all like to see it get done this year.  We would have liked to see it get done last  year.  This year is fine.  We'll keep plugging along, but we do need to get it done, keep operating on one-year extensions doesn't help anybody.  It makes us a little uncomfortable because you worry from year to year about what's going to happen when you hit that deadline, and again we live in a processing eventually.  If the law doesn't get enacted, we shut down processing systems so nobody gets any student aid, something nobody wants to have happen, but you don't want to run up to that last day and be making those decisions and worrying about whether or not you should keep the system up or you should turn the switch off.  So, to us, it is just important we get it done. We have a handful of things that are certainly priorities, and I suggest the people who have not seen our '05 budget go back and look at it.  It laid a foundation for student loan reform issues that we think are important to the program that surely benefit students and taxpayers alike.  We are a mandatory program for the most part in the post-secondary world so every dollar we spend we have to offset with a dollar from somewhere else. We end up making very difficult decisions, as we go through that budget process, but we are familiar with it.  We've been doing it a long time.  We know that's the deal, and we know we can't send money if we can't pay for it.  So the proposals you see from us are always paid for when you see it in the budget proposals that come out from the President. The '05 really focused on trying to improve benefits to students through better repayment terms, higher loan limits, and a handful of other initiatives that would keep some stability in the programs for the students and not see big swings in interest rates or big changes in the process.   I hope this time when the '06 budget comes out, you'll see them even improved upon, and you will see even better proposals for students as we go through the process, keeping in mind that we are also conscious of the deficit, and we'll be looking to contribute towards deficit reduction as part of our job as well when we go through that process. The real bottom-line goal, though, for us, when you look at all of our proposals, is going to be we're trying to focus our efforts in helping the neediest students.  It's sort of where we start, it's where we end, and, yeah, there's benefits for everybody in the process, up through, there's a lot of middle income benefits through the tax code, but the Higher Education Act itself is really targeted at the neediest kids, and that's where we have to keep our focus as we look at shifting money around to try to serve students. New initiatives, again, this is not new in terms of last year's budget, didn't get done, things you're going to see us keep talking about and something David touched on is this whole issue of the high school reform going forward really ties into post-secondary.  We are not an island unto ourselves.  We are part of the continuum of what goes on, and we are very interested in what's going on at the No Child Left Behind level, and particularly at the high school level.  And that's why last time we proposed initiatives aimed at better academic preparation. We are totally in support of those ideas  at the high school level.  We think the big winners in that are colleges.  If kids are coming in, and they're better prepared, we're not going to be dealing with remediation issues.  We're going to get kids in and out in four years, not six, seven, eight or nine, and we're going to get them into the workforce--goals that everybody should be looking at, as we think about improving how the process works and how we get kids through the system. So we will spend a lot of our time, as part of the reauthorization, looking at academic preparation issues, using what money we have and what programs we have to support kids who take those kinds of programs.  We proposed it last time as increasing Pell Grants for the lowest-income kids who take those kind of courses in high school and actually giving them, as a reward, a thousand dollar bonus. Part of the goal is to provide incentives for students and for their parents to be looking at this saying, gees, I should be making my kid take these courses when they're in high school because they'll do better in college and, by the way, the government will kick in an extra thousand dollars if you happen to be a very needy student.  So we will look for more ways to incorporate those ideas into the things we do. We will also be looking, though, at transition issues between high school and college.  The President already has initiatives out there in the proposals to provide funds to community colleges, to help through transition programs, dual enrollment programs to put some support into those kind of initiatives that in the past, at least at the federal level, we haven't really played in.  We have sort of stayed out of those kinds of programs except for AP, which I think is in Nina's shop.   But in the post-sec level, we haven't really gotten too involved, and we're going to sort of step up our involvement in the whole high school initiative ideas and see what kinds of things we can bring to the table that would actually help our students as they're coming out of high school when they head into college. A couple of other things that are always on the higher ed agenda is simplification.  Lots of you now probably have kids in college, and you're filling out the FAFSA and saying why do I have to answer 99 questions.  It's a struggle for us to figure out how to simplify the process we go through all of the time.   Members of Congress, and no offense to any particular member, like to propose that we should take questions off the FAFSA, but they don't change the formula.  Well, if you don't change the questions in law, we can't really change the form.  The whole thing has to be revamped as a process. Congress ordered the Advisory Committee on Student Aid to actually do a study of this and look at ways that we could actually simplify this for people.  If the research is right that low-income students, in particular, don't apply for financial aid because they are so intimated by the forms, we need to do something about it.  We should not be willing to sit back and let that happen.  That's not doing our job. So we will, again, be devoting a lot of time, and we work with the Advisory Committee, obviously, to look at the forms and look at the questions that are required under the current need analysis statute and say what can we get rid of?  Are there other benchmarks we can use to determine financial aid, where we won't require you to submit every tax return you filed for the last five years.  There has to be a better way to do it.  We're going to devote our time to looking at that and seeing what we can find.   The third thing always on my list is better information.  Schools do a great job of marketing.  We like to just present the facts.  I'm not sure that U.S. News & World is the best place for people to get their information on the quality of a college education, but that's what lots of people use.  We would rather show parents just what are the true statistics?  What does it really cost to go somewhere.  It would be nice to be able to show that by income quartile, on a net price base, not what we currently show, which is simply what's the sticker price because nobody pays the sticker price and everybody knows it. We need to show people what the net price really is, and if we can do it by income quartile, we think we will be encouraging kids from those low-income families to say, gees, I can go to Harvard because look at what it would cost me.  But right now, they think it costs $40,000.  And, again, it's the kind of things that by better information we can really make consumers smart when they make these kinds of choices. We also think they should be looking at what are the graduation rates at the schools, what are the retention rates.  You don't really want your kid to enroll somewhere where everybody drops out after the first year.  Something is going on in that place.  Parents should have that information.  Right now, that's very hard to find, and certainly schools are not going to publicize it.  But, to some extent, the government has the obligation to make this information available to the extent we can. So we will be looking at ways to use the data we already have.  NCS does lots of studies on what we call IPEDS.  There's all kinds of information out there.  We need to use it a little better than we currently do and make it a little more user friendly, but a lot of that information needs to get out into the public's hands so they know what the real facts are when they are trying to make that first decision on where should my kid enroll in college or, if you're an older student going back, where is the best place to go if you want to get a nursing degree. And I did a speech not too long ago, and somebody stood up and said, "I'm a parent, and my kid wants to go to nursing school.  How do I find out what the best nursing school in the country is?"  And somebody on the panel said, "Well, look at U.S. News & World Report." And I said, "No, no.  Wait."  I said, "That's not the key."  But I didn't have another alternative for them, to be perfectly honest.  Like what was I going to tell them because there's nothing.  You can't look at the Department of Education website and say here is a good nursing school.  I mean, you don't know.  You don't have enough information.  Those are the kinds of things that I believe, and I think people downtown and across town think we really need to spend some time focusing on.  We do lots of things, and lots of people think we're just about providing money, and that's obviously our mission and an important thing for us to do, but we really need to be a better source of information for students and parents when they're making those decisions. The last one I'm going to just mention is, two years ago, when I first took this job, we had a discussion about accountability.  It didn't go very well.  It was not a popular topic with the world of higher education.  It's gotten better, I'm happy to say, and I think we've made a lot of progress in conversations quietly, you know, not maybe in the public eye, but quietly behind the scenes. We had lots of talks about where are we really going, what kinds of things should we be doing?  We will truly be focused on this issue I believe when Margaret gets to the Department of Education because she is very interested in this issue.  She comes from Texas, which already does accountability at the post-secondary level. We are involving the states in the discussions.  They are way ahead of the federal government on the issues.  We have lots we can learn from them.  But we have accountability measures already in place.  We can decide who gets money based on your graduation rate already.  It's already in the Higher Education Act.  The Department has just never used it except once or twice because we don't have really good data.  For us, it's been a data problem.  Better data will lead you to be able to use those kinds of provisions that already exist if somebody has the will to do it. We will look at those, again, and say. in a lot of ways to us it's a consumer protection issue as well.  Again, good data in the hands of parents and students making big decisions on spending $20- or $30,000 a year, it's worth it for the federal government to get involved and make sure we have that kind of information available for people.  And then if we can turn around and use it to reward people who do good things or maybe not reward people who do bad things, that's maybe what we should be doing then just to make sure that we stay on track. But we will devote, by the next couple of months anyway, to going through all of the state public accountability systems that already are in  place.  They already have them.  We are just going through them and saying what did the state think was important to their citizens that we can then look at and say maybe this is important at a federal level as well, and we should use it and build it into any kind of system we would look at for the future, anyway, in the U.S. Those would be what I think of sort of as the highlights as we go forward, as we think about reauthorization, knowing, on any given day, we spend our time answering questions about how do I fill out line 39 on the FAFSA or my financial aid officer won't change my status from dependent to independent.  That's what we do on a daily basis.  So we do all of the other stuff on the side when we have time and just sort of have to sit and think about the kinds of things we should be doing to make the system work better for students and families in the U.S. Thank you. MR. HESS:  Thank you, Sally. Erik? MR. ROBELEN:  Thanks.  It's funny, being up on a panel like this, I would almost like to spend my time asking questions of the other panelists, but I guess that's not what I'm here for today.  So I will offer some of my own remarks. I'm going to start off by agreeing with David that I think if there was any question before, we can all now rest assured, like it or hate it, No Child Left Behind is here to stay.  I think that's absolutely clear.  There's been nothing changed in Washington to signal otherwise.   I would also remind you that it was not always that clear.  A year ago I went to New Hampshire to visit a certain politician.  Does  anywhere in here remember Howard Dean? [Laughter.] MR. ROBELEN:  At the time, his star was rising, and he was talking about dismantling the Department--I'm sorry, not the Department-- [Laughter.] MR. ROBELEN:  That was Bob Dole. [Laughter.] MR. ROBELEN:  He was talking about dismantling the No Child Left Behind Act.  And, in fact, the other major candidates didn't go that far, but they were all getting pretty critical of the law.  In fact, it was probably either December or January in the debates where they all, No Child Left Behind had sort of turned into a punching bag for the Democratic candidates.  John Kerry called it one size fits all.  John Edwards said that he regretted his vote for No Child Left Behind, et cetera. [Tape change: T-1A to T-1B.] --primary campaign politics, and in the general election campaign John Kerry kind of softened his rhetoric and wasn't so critical of the law, was focusing much more on the funding.  But I think we were all--certainly I was wondering.  I didn't quite know where he was headed with it.  It got a little confusing there. So anyway, but that's neither here nor there, obviously.  The election's over.  And as I say, I do think No Child Left Behind is here to stay.  It's maybe an obvious point to make, but a really important one, I think. That said, that doesn't mean that No Child Left Behind is going to stay exactly as it is.  Let me just point to a few things.  First off, there's a lot of speculation from lobbyists and you hear rumblings from Congress about some tinkering with the law this year, or this coming year.  I don't know.  I can't quite read how realistic that is, but in any case, some people think that there could be some momentum for that.  But I think it's safe to say that if there are changes, they will be modest in scope and they're not going to change the direction of the law in any fundamental way.  I think that that's safe to say. I also think we're going to want to watch closely to see what, if anything, the administration does in terms of regulatory changes.  There were several rounds of regulatory changes earlier in the year and it's been kind of quiet for six months or so on that front.  But I wouldn't be surprised, once Margaret Spellings comes over to the department, there might be some new rounds of changes to respond to some of the concerns that are continually being raised. And mentioning Margaret Spellings, I would just say having her at the department, I think, really signals a message of stability when it comes to No Child Left Behind, because she had a lot to do with getting that enacted and so forth.  And so if you had had, say, you know, a governor from some state named as secretary of education, it might have raised some interesting questions about whether they might have tried to sort of move things in a certain direction.  But I think with Margaret, it's pretty safe to say that it's going to be pretty steady. I would just say there's a question about legislative changes in the next year, but what's not in question is that the law actually will come up for reauthorization in the not-to-distant future.  I think it's 2007 that the law comes up for reauthorization, which is within Bush's next term.  So that would certainly be a pretty natural time, if not before, to relook at some of the provisions. I also would a want to say on the front of having Margaret Spellings at the department, I do think that if you're trying to read the tea leaves around this, one of the signals that's been suggested to me that I think is true is that education is going to remain a priority for this president, that he's not sending over his top domestic policy advisor to, you know, sit around and do little things here and there.  I think that it does suggest that the president is going to be pretty serious about pursuing some more initiatives.  And certainly having Margaret Spellings there, who has a close relationship with the president and others at the White House, is going to create somewhat of a different dynamic. Another point I'm going to move to beyond No Child Left Behind--but all these points are connected in some way--is the federal budget.  I think, even as a reporter I can say this without expressing an agenda, I think the budget boom is over for the Department of Education.  I think that's absolutely clear.  You're not going to see the kinds of increases in coming years that you've seen several years ago.  It started to slow in the last two years.  The new budget, I'm sure most of you are somewhat familiar with it--it's the smallest increase in the Department of Education in a decade. This budget, I did a look on--I think it's called inflation.org or something.  I was trying to compare the increase to inflation, and I believe the increase is smaller than inflation.  So the final increase in the Department of Education was less than $1 billion; it's about 1.6 percent.  I think that's going to create a lot of political challenges for the president.  David outlined a number of initiatives, and I'm not quite sure how many of them Congress is going to pay for.  It remains to be seen. And I'll point to the budget that just was completed to give you some evidence of why one might question that.  The president talked about a number of education initiatives on the campaign.  A couple of the ones--I don't know if anyone heard him talk about the Adjunct Teacher Corps or enhanced Pell Grants.  Neither of those got any funds from Congress.  On the high school level, this was one of the president's real priorities. the Striving Readers Initiative was another big priority.  He wanted $100 million and he says he wants $200 million for the next year.  Congress gave it $25 million, which for my bank account would be a lot, but for a federal program, you know, that's pilot program. So Congress and--I don't know that it's so much that Congress disagrees with these initiatives, but in tight fiscal times they're not going to, you know, latch on to every new initiative that the president puts forward because Congress doesn't like getting rid of programs that already exist.  They tend to have constituencies.  I can't think of any program that was abolished in the new budget.  I stand to be corrected if there were any. Let me just talk a little bit more about some of the important numbers in this budget that are related to No Child Left Behind.  Title I, the biggest program, it's so critical to No Child Left Behind.  Congress actually under-funded the president's request on that by about $500 million.  That actually surprised me.  I really did not expect to see that kind of funding.  I thought maybe they'd match his request, but they actually went under it by $500 million.  Likewise, the special education.  Everyone on Capitol Hill loves to talk about how important it is to spend money on special education.  The budget increase there was, I think, about $500, again, less than the president requested. Some programs saw money decline.  Educational technology funds dropped by about $200 million, I believe.  The Title V block grants for states, a flexible spending pot, went down by about $100 million.  Even the teacher quality grants went down just a tiny bit--you know, by--I forget exactly.  Less than $100 million, which is a small amount.  But they didn't go up. I will say, too, that Congress did find some money for favored projects in their home districts--also known as pork.  There is more--and I did a little rough count--but there's more than $400 million of pork in the budget.  So the people at the National Baseball Hall of Fame are pretty happy with this budget.  It gives some money to--in all fairness, it is for an education-related program.  But, you know, in tight fiscal times, I'm wondering if some people would have found something else to dedicate that money to. MR. HESS:  Erik, is that $400 million in the education budget? MR. ROBELEN:  Yes.  That's in the education.  Over the entire budget, I forget what the estimates are, but there were more than--there were almost 1,200 earmarks.  And they ranged, everything from little money for after-school for this district and that district to the National Baseball Hall of Fame to--the Education Leaders Council, by the way, got some extra money this time around, too.  Which might surprise some people, given some of the recent controversies around some of their operations. I do want to turn now to--and I'm not address the higher ed piece, because it's just not something I know much about.  But I will talk about the high school piece the president talked about.  I made an allusion before to the budget situation, which I think has some pretty direct implications for that.  Based on the newest budget that we've seen for fiscal 2005, I have to wonder how much money Congress is really going to agree to provide for those programs that David laid out earlier.  It remains to be seen.  Again, Congress provided only one-fourth of what the president wanted for Striving Readers, even though Striving Readers is something the president talks a lot about.  So that one kind of surprised me. And then there were a couple of other things.  There's the $250 million for assessments.  I think that's over time--David? MR. DUNN:  [Inaudible] a year. MR. ROBELEN:  Oh, a year.  Okay.  There, too, I'm not quite sure where all the money's going to come from.  We don't know yet what the president's new budget request is.  But it's not going to be easy to create a lot of new, expensive programs, because he also wanted another $200 million for this Early Intervention fund for middle school students before they enter high school; $500 million for a Teacher Incentive fund.  I think it really remains to be seen whether all of these initiatives will see money, or at least see money at the level that the president would like. This brings us to the assessment piece, which is one of the most important pieces, I think, of the president's education agenda for the coming Congress.  It sounds like he's going to act shortly on this.  I'm quite interested to see what form that takes and how that's proposed. I do remind people, first off, that there is--you know, No Child Left Behind does apply to high schools right now.  It's just one year of testing.  So the accountability and so forth all applies to high schools.  But there's a big "but" here, and that is that the No Child Left Behind accountability only applies to those schools that get Title I funds, and most high schools don't get Title I funds.  I think about 15 percent of high schools get Title I funds.  If you don't, it doesn't matter how many years you don't make adequate yearly progress, you don't have to follow the prescriptions in the federal law.  The law does say that a state's supposed to set up its own framework of accountability for those schools, but the evidence we've seen at Education Week--we've been gathering some data--is that most states don't do anything for those schools. MR. HESS:  Could you explain why high schools have so few Title I children? MR. ROBELEN:  Sure.  It's because--the main reason is limited funds.  So districts prioritize their funds for the elementary grades and the middle grades, and whatever is left over, they send to the high schools, typically.  And so just generally speaking, the less money in Title I, probably the fewer high schools you're going to have who fall into that category. I think that's an important point to make.  Even if the president requires new assessments in high schools, that doesn't mean more high schools are going to start falling under the school choice and supplemental services provisions, especially if we're seeing the funding at the levels that we're now seeing, where it seems like the big growth period for Title I may be slowing up quite a bit. And also, it is interesting to point out too, though, that with more testing I think it's safe to say you are going to see more schools identified, just because there's probably--I don't want to get too technical here, but there's probably a lot of schools, if you only have one year of data, a lot of sub-groups are too small to count.  So, you know, the more testing you do, the more chances that a school doesn't make adequate yearly progress.  So you could have lots of high schools not making adequate yearly progress, but, again, at least the federal prescriptive sanctions don't necessarily apply to them.  A state can, if it wants, apply them, but I don't know of any state that's done that. And then, just moreover, on the testing piece.  I don't know--it remains to be seen whether Congress will go along with the additional testing.  I think a lot of people are kind of feeling, well, we've done a lot of testing, we're adjusting to this law, do we really want to add in some new rounds of testing?  I think it remains to be seen.  I think that certainly Democrats--I know George Miller recently had raised some skepticism about it.  Some Democrats, I think, rightly or wrongly feel burned by the administration on the budget and are going to be less apt to cooperate this time around.  That said, the president does have larger Republican majorities in Congress and so, if he really wants something and really is willing to invest the political capital behind it, he probably has a pretty good shot at getting it in some form or another.  He may have to cut some deals.  But there may even be some Republicans who are a little leery of the new testing. But as I say, the president has, so far on the campaign trail and even after the campaign, he's already brought up this high school piece.  So it sounds like he's pretty serious about it.  So it will be a lively debate there. I do want to reiterate something that David mentioned, though, that this testing, if I'm correct, wouldn't actually kick in until after the president is out of office.  So it's just really an interesting point to contemplate. Lastly, just a couple of little things.  There's a new chairman coming into the Senate Education Committee.  It's expected to be Mike Enzi of Wyoming.  Judd Gregg is leaving to take over the Budget Committee.  That's going to create somewhat of a new dynamic.  Mr. Enzi is going to have probably a little bit more of a rural perspective.  What that means for something like vouchers is a good question.  I don't know that Mike Enzi is opposed to vouchers, but in a state like Wyoming, it's not an issue that feels very relevant.  And I know that Judd Gregg cared deeply about school choice and vouchers.  So that could create somewhat of a different dynamic. I also will say that Congress did enact along largely party-line votes, the D.C. voucher program.  Whether that will be expanded to other states, as Nina pointed out, for several years now the administration has proposed a choice incentive fund that would provide voucher and voucher-like experiments around the country.  Congress has never funded that particular initiative.  With slightly larger Republican majorities, that could have a chance.  But at the same time, I talked to Congressman Mike Castle recently, a moderate Republican who's on the House Education Committee, and he kind of suggested some reservations about going beyond D.C.  Some members of Congress feel that D.C. is a bit of a unique situation, with its relationship to the federal government.  So whether you'd see something go beyond that remains to be seen. That's about it. MR. HESS:  Thanks so much.  Roberto. MR. RODRIGUEZ:  Good afternoon.  Thank you, Rick and AEI, for the opportunity to join the panel and for the discussion this afternoon.  I'm going to represent--I'm one of a few advisors to Senator Kennedy on our education policy and education agenda.  I'll represent the Democratic perspective on some of these issues, naturally, but try to speak a little bit broadly to what we're facing in terms of the upcoming year and our busy roster in terms of reauthorizations and also some of our priorities on things like No Child Left Behind and, now, IDEA implementation, as well as try to comment a bit on some of the high school talk that we're hearing. As it's been touched on, as Erik mentioned, there's a new landscape now here in Washington, in large part in terms of the makeup in the Senate of the Senate HELP Committee and the leadership at the department.  And I think with the new landscape come new opportunities to focus and kind of work together on some priorities. There's also a very busy roster that's being carried over from the last Congress, from WIA to child care reauthorization, Head Start reauthorization, and higher education reauthorization which really needs to get started on a bipartisan basis very soon, given that that's such a long process. Last year, in terms of Head Start, there was quite a bit of partisan debate on Head Start, especially in the House.  In the Senate, we really were able to kind of come together and look at some proposals to really strengthen Head Start within the HELP Committee and pass a bill out of our committee.  You know, this is a priority--we've heard that this is a priority for the administration and for the president, and, you know, we'd welcome the opportunity to try to work together on some pieces to strengthen Head Start.  I think there are a number of areas there of common interest.  You know, strengthening the school readiness component of Head Start, aligning Head Start more closely to kindergarten and to the K-12 system in the states is, I think, critically important.  There's a lot of broad agreement that the purpose of the program should be to help children prepare to enter school ready to learn, and that mean enhancing their literacy and the numerous components of the program, and really bringing states in in a much more meaningful way to contribute to coordinating Head Start with local schools and with state standards and with state early learning standards, especially in places--we now have 39 states with state-funded pre-K.  So that creates new implications in terms of how Head Start works. I think there are some--well, there may not be broad agreement on the approach for that, and, you know, I think, from a Democratic perspective, we really would like to see how we could accomplish that while not dissolving the structure of Head Start and maintaining a federal-to-local structure.  But there are areas where I think some consensus could be built there.  Also in terms of strengthening the work force in Head Start, which all the research shows is really critical to the quality of programs and the quality of the environment in which kids are developing and learning.  And we've seen some good progress made there over the--since 1998, even, on that reauthorization of Head Start, and I think we'll want to continue to try to bring that forward. And more access for students, of course, is a key priority in the bipartisan proposal that was worked on last year, with Senator Gregg's leadership and with Senator Kennedy, really looked at growing Head Start and growing Early Head Start in particular, which has a real key influence on children 0-3. We'll also be focused a lot on implementing No Child Left Behind, as we have been.  And I think it's very fair to say that, at least in the Senate, we've been focused on moving the conversation beyond this conversation of whether No Child Left Behind is here to stay or not, to how do we make No Child Left Behind work.  And I think that if you get out into districts and talk to schools and teachers and superintendents and parents, many of them are focused on that same goal--less on is No Child Left Behind here, is No Child Left Behind leaving, but how can we make this law work in our local communities and what can you do at the federal level to help us along in that goal.  As Nina mentioned, there was a bipartisan blueprint that went into No Child Left Behind, not only on the choice and supplemental pieces, but also on many of the other pieces.  We'd like to continue that work. I think it's also important to acknowledge that there's a lot of frustration out in the field around NCLB.  And while folks, and especially opponents of No Child Left Behind, maybe relegated to the fact that it's not going anywhere, that frustration really needs to ease.  I think we really need some federal leadership to be able to provide the tools that states and schools need to make the law work.  It's clear that, right now, many of those states and schools don't have those tools.  There have been inconsistences, in large part, with the implementation of NCLB over the past year. GAO has unearthed several implementation problems.  Twenty-four states that still don't have clear terms in terms of how do they come into compliance, in terms of their state plans, with No Child Left Behind's requirements; rule changes that came two years after No Child Left Behind passed and which were, you know, well-informed rule changes, but nevertheless changed the standards by which we judged to be making adequate yearly progress; and also initial burdens which slowed some of the compliance on No Child Left Behind in terms of delays in setting forth an amendment process and releasing consistent rules and guidance.  And I think there's been some improvement, in all fairness, on some of those issues, but I think it's also fair to say that that's contributed a lot to the frustration that folks are feeling in the field. We've seen some strong principles from the administration in terms of moving No Child Left Behind forward on accountability, on choice, on flexibility, and on scientifically based research.  I think we'd like to see some consistent and comparable attention paid to--I'll mention four areas that I think are really critical and where we should have some strong bipartisan support. In terms of teachers, you know, NCLB really codified a very bold goal to get a highly qualified teacher in every classroom.  And the end of the 2006 school year is approaching.  And there are--the answer to the teacher quality dilemma out there shouldn't be relaxing the requirements of No Child Left Behind; it really should be adequate enforcement funding and assistance to states to help make their teacher quality plans work. We have about over 60 percent of teachers that have been in the profession over five years and yet a number of states that still haven't come into compliance with the requirement to put their alternate house or veteran teaching standards in place.  That's hamstringing a number of teachers out there that really are trying to be recognized for their qualifications in terms of NCLB.  And we just generally need a lot of monitoring and enforcement as states begin to come into compliance with that.  The teacher assistance effort that's been underway in the department has helped, and I think more attention and more work can be done there. Also, in terms of turning around struggling schools.  That's really the key--providing targeted assistance to low-performing schools, schools in need of improvement, schools that fail AYP is really where we're going to realize the promise of No Child Left Behind.  And while its choice provisions and other provisions are in place, and some parents and some kids are taking advantage of those provisions, I think we've seen in large part that many parents are electing to keep their children in their local neighborhood schools and are really banking on those schools improving. States are setting aside 4 percent of their Title I allocations to provide assistance to those schools, but nowhere has--and states are ramping up efforts for school support teams, better professional development for teachers and for leadership in those schools.  But I think the fact that states are overburdened in this area is a real truth that needs to be looked at.  And the fact that there needs to be some capacity-building in terms of the effort to turn around low-performing schools is really key.  Each of those schools that we have out there needs extra intervention and help. We've seen a number of schools that have been identified as needing improvement actually go up, while the number of schools that have failed AYP has decreased.  The number of schools that are in the latter phases of the 1116 accountability time line in No Child Left Behind have increased, and those schools in particular need help.  And whatever we can do at the federal level to assist those schools and provide some additional support in building the capacity of states to meet those needs is important. The third issue, that Erik touched on a bit, is the issue of funding--you know, not doing this without mentioning that.  No Child Left Behind still continues to be under-funded.  We are in a very tight and tough budget climate, but when we're over $9 billion under the broadly agreed-to bipartisan consensus authorizations in the bill, it significantly hamstrings states' ability and schools' ability to comply with the law.  And that's been very tough.  That translates into fewer children receiving services, whether they be supplemental services or after-school programs, and it translates into fewer resources in the classroom and in schools, whether those be reading coaches, math coaches, new curricula, what have you. And really, the promise of No Child Left Behind is written in the funding of No Child Left Behind.  It's a matter of priorities and it's a matter of commitment, and we'd really like to see that commitment to funding No Child Left Behind realized. Also in terms of--the last area that I think is critical to the implementation landscape is assessment and accountability.  Obviously, the states' respective AYP plans and accountability plans hinge on the quality of their assessments.  I mean, there was a real focus coming from the Senate, in the Democratic Caucus, as this law was drafted, to look a lot at how we can focus on high-quality assessments and really enhancing the quality of the assessments that currently existed, that existed prior to NCLB and that now exist in all states. There has been a lot of new research and new work done on longitudinal assessments, looking at stepping up assessment plans in the states to be able to measure children's growth over time and feeding that data back down into schools and the classrooms to better enhance instruction for kids.  There's a way to maintain the integrity of NCLB's current provisions on AYP and on getting on to proficiency while still providing for those more enhanced assessments.  And, you know, the more we can do to help states along in that process as they develop those new assessments, the more useful NCLB will be as a tool for real reform. In terms of higher education reauthorization, I won't say too much.  Sally knows it's not my strong point.  But, you know, again, it's a long process which needs to start soon, I think, in Congress, and I anticipate the reauthorization will begin soon after we come back.  From a Democratic perspective, we're going to be focused on quality, access, and, really, affordability in looking at how this grant/loan ratio, which used to be 60 percent grants, 40 percent loans, now has shifted to over 60 percent loans and fewer grants; and what that's doing in terms of affordability issues for working families that are trying to access higher education for their children when tuition is just spiking throughout the country.  And also focus on how we can improve access and strengthen programs, like the TRIO programs and GEAR UP, in terms of providing minority children more access to higher ed, and continuing our commitment to improving teacher education in higher education. In terms of the high school proposals as well, I think there are good ideas that are out there in terms of moving standards-based reforms forward in the context of high schools.  We'd be interested in hearing more from the administration and from President Bush about plans for more assessments and, really importantly, how those assessments would be used in a high school setting, whether those would be accountability assessments, exit assessments.  As David mentioned, there are currently in many states assessments in high school and NCLB requires high schools, if they receive Title I monies, to assess at least once in the high school grades for accountability purposes. I think it's also important to look at other reforms in that context which really could bring standards-based reforms forward in those grades, and look at things like smaller schools, enhancing the high school curriculum, and also providing better support to high school teachers, especially in the core subjects they're teaching. So with that, thank you. MR. HESS:  Thanks so much. Well, with that, let me open it up for questions.  Morgan and Emily will be coming around, just catch their eye.  Please do us the favor of identifying yourself by name and affiliation, and please ask questions. QUESTIONER:  Richard Holmburg [ph] with the Century Foundation. I have a question about higher education.  There's been an increase in interest in the issue of socioeconomic diversity in addition to racial diversity in higher education.  And the Century Foundation recently published a study finding that the top 146 colleges, 74 percent of students come from the richer socioeconomic quartile and just 3 percent from the poorest.  In other words, you're about 25 times as likely to run into a rich kid as a poor kid.  I'm wondering as part of the accountability thrust whether you all would support the notion of requiring colleges to disclose socioeconomic data the way they currently disclose racial data, so that each university would tell how many poor kids, how many rich kids, that sort of thing. MR.       :  I think the answer to the question of would we be interested in talking about that is absolutely.  I don't think--in terms of better information, more data, more widely available in terms of coherent data, we wouldn't put anything off the table going forward.  Oh, [inaudible], you're going to correct me before-- MR.       :  Well, two things we're going to put off the table.  But [inaudible] would be interested in talking about including in terms of disclosure of more accurate, more consistent, coherent information. MS. STOUP:  And we've looked at it--one of our problems is this limited data -- individual data, because we don't have it for everybody [inaudible].  The one thing we have looked at is at least maybe identifying all the Pell Grant recipients by institution.  Then you'll have to do your own comparisons of what that means, though, because we won't know the income of everybody else who's there.  If they haven't [inaudible], we don't know anything about them on our databases.  So we'd have to look at what that information really shows. But you're right.  We read the studies and saw the articles that have been coming out lately about it, and it's certainly something we need to look at and see if it falls into the mix of the kinds of consumer information we like to make available to the public.  In one of the places we talk about it, it has a whole net price discussion and what I was saying--we really like to show net price by income quartile at institutions because that's really sort of an indicator of who's going there at what income levels and gives people the kind of information, I think, that helps them make good choices. QUESTIONER:  Stephanie [inaudible].  A very quick question for Mr. Rodriguez. Mr. Dunn, I thought one of the more interesting things that you mentioned as a goal was bringing accountability into classroom via a teacher incentive fund.  My question is, is there going to be bipartisan support for such an initiative? MR. ROBELEN:  You know, I think we have--I think it's too early to judge that.  I mean, I think you'd have to look at what will entail.  I think there's a lot of interest in moving something forward that provides a lot more support for teachers, and I think incentives could be something that would be considered in that context.  But it depends on how things are packaged and how the discussion plays out. MR. ROBELEN:  I would raise one question, and I don't know the answer to this.  Maybe one of you can answer it for me, though.  Can't you already do this with the teacher-quality grants?  You know, it's a pretty flexible spending pot.  So you might question why you would want to create yet another program to do that specifically when states presumably could do the same kind of thing now. MR. RODRIGUEZ:  Erik, I think some would say yes, they probably can do that now.  But the fact is that they're not doing that.  It's something that the administration, the president believes is an important enough initiative that it's appropriate for the federal government to provide a natural incentive for more states and districts to amend their approach. QUESTIONER:  My name is [inaudible] Montoya and I'm a regent of the University of California.  First, I want to say that you've shown recently that the University of California campuses have the most Pell Grants. But my question has to do with higher education.  Recently, last week or so, a federal court decided that it was okay for law schools to keep military recruiters on campuses and allow the campuses, the universities to still receive federal funds.  And this bothers me.  Because as a Latina, I know that we must have the most Medal of Honor winners, our folks sign up for the military.  But I would like them to have equal access to participate in military justice as well with our judges. So my question is does the administration have any policies to help the students receive this kind of information?  Thank you. MS. STOUP:  My first response is--maybe someone else knows this; forgive me for not keeping up on t news--I don't know if the Justice Department has decided to appeal the case.  I don't know what they've decided yet.  The last articles I read, there was no decision on appealing.  So it may not be over yet as far as the courts are concerned, from the administration's point of view.  Again, that's a Justice Department call on whether or not they're going to appeal. But your question is do we have any kind of program--you mean, even like informational kind of programs for students who might be thinking about going into law through the military?  Off the top of my head, the answer is no.  I don't know of any particular program, at least at the Department of Education.  Now, whether or not there is at the Justice Department or the Defense Department, of course, I can't speak to all the different programs that they run as well.  And they actually might have programs that do that that I'm not even aware of.  We don't have what I call sort of a specialty programs--and then we have a graduate program and we have a couple of students in humanities in the Javits [inaudible]--but we don't have anything specific for, like, law school; for example, just for--particularly related to the military that I know of. MR. RODRIGUEZ:  Maybe not related to a program, but certainly the administration believes that the campuses ought to be open and available for military recruiters as well as other recruiters. QUESTIONER:  I'm Steve Berger, the product of higher education.  Sally, I just have a real procedural question for you.  Do you expect that you guys will be sending up a bill for the higher education reauthorization act? MS. STOUP:  You ask me that every time you see me. QUESTIONER:  I know.  Well, has it changed in the second term?  And are you guys too late? MS. STOUP:  That's a really good question.  Are we too late?  Basically, the answer is no, we're not too late, though you may think we are.  I don't think we are.  I don't think we've made the call yet.  I mean, last time around we said no, we weren't going to send one up.  We thought the whole to-do [inaudible].  We actually haven't decided, Steve.  We always talk about is it better if we send one up and just get it out there.  We haven't made the call.  I can't tell you one way or another exactly why. QUESTIONER:  Thank you.  Gary Rattner, Citizens for Effective Schools.  Higher Education Act.  Some years ago, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future did a study that I thought was very powerful on a small number of teacher colleges that were effective in teaching, preparing candidates who could go out and take the most difficult teaching assignments, particularly in urban schools.  And one of the things that they found, a principal thing, was that the clinical programs in every one of those instances was at least a 30-week clinical program, as distinguished from the 10- to 12-week program which is common now around the country.  And they were intensively supervised and the methods and theory courses were greatly diminished in order to make possible the time in the clinical program. I'm wondering whether the administration, the Democrats, would be open to considering that kind of a really fundamental change, which I think could do more, probably, for increasing the preparation of future teachers than any other single change. MR. DUNN:  It's not something that we within the administration have spoken specifically about. MS. STOUP:  Yeah, we haven't.  You know, in '98 reauthorization of higher ed, Congress created a Title II higher ed teacher program.  Not the K-12 program, but ours that we do.  And to some extent it was designed to address some of the things raised in the reports that had been done up until that time that said, you know, colleges of education are sort of islands unto themselves and have no idea what really needs to be done to produce effective teachers.  And so we've now created this partnership program that says you have to get a school of arts & sciences, school of education, and a local school district together in a partnership format to design some sort of program that is going to meet the local needs, and then you can get grant money from the department. That started, I think--I think we've seen some signs through that program to make some changes, that are addressing teacher-shortage issues as well as effective teacher-training issues, where they've just totally redesigned their whole curriculum.  And they got these people together in a room and decided, you know, this is what they really needed to do.  It probably doesn't go as far as what you're saying, exactly, but it may be moving in that kind of direction to move it forward.  And short of just revamping that program a little bit, we haven't really talked any further about changes specifically designed for schools of education. MR. RODRIGUEZ:  I think you'll see a broad interest in conduct around this issue of partnerships and the Title II partnerships.  There's a lot of support for that program.  You know, generally Senator Reed on our committee--of Rhode Island--has a bill that looks a bit more at teacher preparation in the context of higher ed.  I'd encourage you to take a closer look at that as well as kind of think a little bit more about things like the professional development school's model, which has a real strong clinical and kind of induction feed built into the preparation program at the colleges and universities. QUESTIONER:  Hi, I'm Patty Curtis, National Society of Mechanical Engineers and the K-12 STEM Teaching College.  STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.  I don't want to confuse it with other controversial subjects. Mr. Dunn, you mentioned a fund or a proposal for $250 million to embed or penetrate the high school testing.  Is there a proposal either on the Hill or a funding proposal for the science testing that is mandated by No Child Left Behind, that's coming up in 2006? MR. DUNN:  Actually, the president has not proposed anything specifically to go beyond the science assessment which is currently required in No Child Left Behind.  He [inaudible] $200 million early -- for embedded assessment.  That could be used for any--the way that the president and the administration envision it, but that could be used for any subject matter, whether it's math or science or English or social studies, U.S. history or whatever.  But the President, at this point, had not proposed going beyond the current science assessments in No Child Left Behind. MR. HESS:  Yes? QUESTIONER:  Hi.  My name is Joseph Dickerson.  I work for Communication Works, LLC. A couple of things that I wanted to address, one of them specifically is having to do with testing and accountability, and it also is addressing Philadelphia as kind of a test case model for what's going to be going on and coming down the pike with regards to NCLB. I think, first of all, one of the things that has been identified up in Philadelphia is how these different relationships, in putting into place private sector providers, has served as a way of negating the opportunities of parents and the community to really be involved in the decisions that are going on in the schools. What's happening is the schools are becoming primarily focused on working with the districts, and the state and the federal government, rather than focused on serving the community, and it's created a very confused model of who is serving who and who is doing what. So, one, is there a way that the administration and Congress seeks to address that confused provider model that's going to be taking place. And, also, the other issue is-- MR. HESS:  What was that second issue? QUESTIONER:  Well, I'll just leave it there because I'll forget the other question, but that's what I'm most concerned about.  Thanks. MS.          :  I think I understand your question.  Philadelphia is in a unique situation where Paul Vallas, the superintendent, has a lot of freedom and autonomy to do a lot of different things.  And one of the things he has done, which we're actually very interested in studying further is build partnerships with a lot of entities, including universities, private providers like Edison, Victory Schools and other entities to forge as many partnerships in order to make sure the needs of students are being met, and the early results, at least from the work of Edison, seems to indicate that student achievement is rising. So, again, there is nothing conclusive out of Philadelphia, but what we've seen so far seems to indicate that what he's put in place seems to be working in a district where a majority of the schools are in need of improvement or worse. MR. HESS:  We'll take just a few more questions. QUESTIONER:  Hi.  I'm Caroline Hendry.  I'm Erik's colleague at Education Week. I was interested, as you talk about extending No Child Left Behind to the high school level, and as Erik noted, most high schools are not Title 1 schools, is there a Choice component to that?  You talked mainly about the testing component to extending No Child Left Behind to high school, but what about choice.  You know that there's a lot of work going on around the country to create smaller, more personalized learning environments in schools, to create independent small schools.  I just wonder if the administration has been criticized by some proponents of small schools for not supporting the smaller learning communities program. So I just wonder if there is any concrete way that the administration would like to take it further in high schools to promote Choice. MR.          :  First of all, let me answer by saying that the President very much envisions the additional high school assessments that he's talking about applying for accountability purposes as well.  Certainly, there is a lot of value and a diagnostic aspect of these additional assessments, and that's the primary reason for doing it.  You can't fix problems you don't know exist. But the President very much envisions these additional assessments applying to high schools and triggering AYP decisions and the consequences that flow from there as well.  So exactly, as Erik pointed out-- [Tape change: T-1B to T-2A.] --differences in the law apply only to schools that receive Title I dollars.  And so we'll have to work with Congress and so forth as we develop this proposal and put this in place as to exactly how we might want to engage some of those consequences at the high school level to go beyond those schools that receive Title I dollars. MR. HESS:  Okay, let's make this really--let's take two more questions. QUESTIONER:  Hi.  Dave Smalley with CRS. There's been talk that the administration may propose tax reform in the coming four years, and I'd like to discuss a couple of aspects of that.  In past budgets there have been proposals to increase school choice through tax credit, tax deduction programs.  I was wondering if anything like this may be forthcoming in the next administration. Two, whether, if there is tax reform and the tax code is simplified, what that would mean for existing higher education--Hope, Lifetime Learning, higher education tax deduction. And three, if it is simplified in the manner that has been discussed with eliminating deduction for state and local income and property tax, what would be the perceived effect and reaction from state and local higher education agencies? MS. REES:  You know, the one thing to mention in talking about these types of tax initiatives at the state level to offer parents more choices through credits and deductions is education funding is primarily raised at the state and local level, so it's easier to promote these plans at the state level than at the federal level. QUESTIONER:  I'm asking at the federal level. MS. REES:  Well--and so for that reason alone, to make this something done at the federal level will greatly increase the amount of money that you have to be spending on education at the federal level.  And for that reason, there are a lot of members on the Hill, a lot of Republicans, actually, who oppose this type of effort to create another loophole to offer credits for educational expenses or for programs that offer scholarships to low-income students.  Again, it's not something that we've discussed at great length.  We talked about it a little bit a few years ago.  But I think at a time when you're trying to move the tax code toward simplification, adding yet another loophole for educational expenses may be taking us in a different direction. MR. HESS:  Has the administration conversation about tax reform gotten to the point that specific higher ed programs have--that you've had conversations about them, or is it too early in the game? MR. DUNN:  Not that I'm aware of, Rick.  That doesn't necessarily mean that it hasn't happened, but not that I'm aware of.  You've probably got the wrong panel to answer the tax reform questions. MR. HESS:  Fair enough.  Let's make this the last question.  Emily? QUESTIONER:  Emily Feistritzer, the National Center for Education Information. Several of you brought up the teacher quality issue and the meeting the standard of every teacher needing to be fully qualified.  What does the administration and the Congress see the role of alternative routes for recruiting and certifying teachers in that as you go forward? MR. DUNN:  Well, the administration, the president, Secretary Paige, others, I think, have been quite out front in terms of suggestions for aggressively seeking alternative certification --.  Erik mentioned the Adjunct Teacher proposal, where the president asked for $40 million in his '05 budget to help districts that want to work with industry or institutions of higher education or other public institutions to get folks with subject-matter expertise--whether it's on sabbatical or through distance learning or teaching a chemistry course in the afternoon or something, but to make it easier for professionals with content knowledge to come into the high schools and teach, especially in the shortage areas where we have--math and science and others. Secretary Paige--and I can't remember exactly the details on this, but has provided a grant to the--I always forget the name of this group, the American Board-- MS. REES:  For Certification of Teacher Excellence. MR. DUNN:  People know it better than I do.  But certainly Secretary Paige and others in the administration feel strongly that there ought to be more avenues to enter into the teaching ranks, especially given the shortages that we have in certain areas. MS. REES:  Just to touch on that.  We have increased funding for most of our alternative route programs, Transition to Teaching and Troops-to-Teachers, to the point where Troops-to-Teachers actually has more money in it than we have actual troops who can get into the field of teaching.  And the program that David's talking about is called ABCTE.  You're familiar with it.  There's a $35 million commitment to put in place this test so that those who are qualified and interested in getting to the classroom have an opportunity to get the subject matter mastery and also get tested in order to get into the classroom. The challenge there is you have to have states adopting the test.  Right now we have about six states that have signed up.  So we need to do more in making sure states realize this is one way to make sure all of their teachers are highly qualified, and encourage ABCTE and other alternative routes to not only entering the classroom, but also of getting certification and of becoming highly qualified. MR. HESS:  Roberto? MR. RODRIGUEZ:  Yeah, I think we would argue that the key here should also be really investing more in Title II generally, in NCLB as well as in the Title II partnerships in higher ed.  This NCLB definitely allows for alternate routes to certification.  I think there's some question in terms of quality from route to route, as there would be in any program, and I anticipate that there will likely be a debate on those types of issues related to the higher education reauthorization as well. MR. ROBELEN:  I was just going to offer a related comment to the issue of teacher quality.  One of the big criticisms of the administration is that it hasn't been very aggressive in enforcing the teacher quality provisions of the law.  Education Week, actually--to give a little plug--we've got some research coming out this week, some survey data of states, and one of the findings has to do with one of the requirements of the law, as I understand it, which is that states are supposed to report the percentages of their classrooms taught by teachers who are not highly qualified.  And I believe a year ago, 13 states were reporting that data; this year, 14.  So states are not moving on that.  And to this point, as far as I know, the department has not been very aggressive on that front, but I would invite any one of the other panelists to talk about that. MR. HESS:  Well, we're moving gradually, right? [Laughter.] MR. HESS:  It's half full or half empty.  With that, I think so much of the issues we're talking about are similarly half full or half empty. [Applause.] MR. HESS:  I'd just like to say, I'd like to thank all the panelists.  It's obviously a busy time for all of them and we appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today.  Appreciate you all finding your way out here in the Christmas season.  Everybody have a wonderful holiday, and we will look forward to speaking with you soon. [Whereupon, the meeting was concluded.]</body></html>