TABLE OF CONTENTS *

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WILLIAM GOODLING, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC *

STATEMENT OF MR. FRANCISCO GARCIA, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MIGRANT EDUCATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, DC *

STATEMENT OF MR. OSCAR GUZMAN, STUDENT, CALIFORNIA State UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO, CA *

STATEMENT OF MS. MARGARET REIMANN, STUDENT SUPPORT SPECIALIST, MIGRANT CHILD DEVELOPMENT PROJECT, WESTERN REGIONAL OFFICE, PENNSYLVANIA MIGRANT EDUCATION, BEDFORD, PA *

STATEMENT OF MR. JACK PERRY, INTERSTATE MIGRANT EDUCATION COUNCIL, WASHINGTON, DC *

STATEMENT OF MR. DALE NISWONGER, CONSULTANT, NEGLECTED/DELINQUENT PROGRAM, KENTUCKY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, FRANKFURT, KY *

APPENDIX A - WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WILLIAM GOODLING, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC *

APPENDIX B - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. FRANCISCO GARCIA, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MIGRANT EDUCATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, DC *

APPENDIX C - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. OSCAR GUZMAN, STUDENT, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO, CA *

APPENDIX D - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MS. MARGARET REIMANN, STUDENT SUPPORT SPECIALIST, MIGRANT CHILD DEVELOPMENT PROJECT, WESTERN REGIONAL OFFICE, PENNSYLVANIA MIGRANT EDUCATION, BEDFORD, PA *

APPENDIX E - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. JACK PERRY, INTERSTATE MIGRANT EDUCATION COUNCIL, WASHINGTON, DC *

APPENDIX F - WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. DALE NISWONGER, CONSULTANT, NEGLECTED/DELINQUENT PROGRAM, KENTUCKY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, FRANKFURT, KY *

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:15 a.m., in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William F. Goodling [Chairman of the Committee] Presiding.

Present: Representatives Goodling, Petri, Isakson, Owens, Payne, Romero-Barcelo, Fattah, Hinojosa, Kucinich, and Holt.

Staff Present: Linda Castleman, Office Manager; Krisanne Pearce, Professional Staff Member; Michael Reynard, Media Assistant; Lynn Selmser, Professional Staff Member; Rich Stombres, Professional Staff Member; Shane Wright, Legislative Assistant; Dan Lara, Press Secretary; Gail Weiss, Minority Staff Director; June Harris, Minority Education Coordinator; Marshall Grigsby, Minority Senior Legislative Associate/Education; Alex Nock, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; and Roxana Folescu, Minority Staff Assistant/Education.

Chairman Goodling. The Committee will come to order.

Today's hearing will focus on some of the neediest children in the country, migrant children and children in correctional institutions. As one who was reared on the farm, I came to understand early the importance of migrant workers to the agriculture community. Without the assistance of these hard-working individuals, crops would not be harvested and farmers and other related industries would suffer.

Later as an educator, I saw firsthand the impact of migration on the children of migrant farm workers, because these children generally left school before the end of the school year to travel with their parents and return to their home school after the next academic year was underway. They were often unable to complete their course work or remain on an equal footing with their peers. As a result, dropout rates for this population were extremely high. The advent of the Title I program for the children of migratory workers brought about major reforms in education programs serving this population.

For example, programs were developed to provide services to students during the summer months. These services enabled many students to be promoted to the next grade. While the Title I migrant program has brought about an increase in graduation rates for migrant students, these numbers are still unacceptably low.

Over the years I have worked in a bipartisan manner to make further improvements to programs serving migrant children. My friend, and former chairman of the Committee Bill Ford, and I spent many hours developing the reforms enacted during the 103rd Congress. Like me, Chairman Ford felt this population of students was in great need of assistance.

I look forward to hearing how our witnesses believe programs serving migrant children can be modified to make them more effective. I am interested to hear from Peggy Reimann, who works with a family literacy program for migrant families in my own home State of Pennsylvania.

I personally feel that family literacy may be one of the best ways of serving our Nation's migrant families and I will be interested in hearing how Ms. Reimann's program works with children and their parents in an effort to improve their literacy skills.

Another program that we will be hearing about today is the Title I program for neglected and delinquent youth. Again, we have a population in great need of assistance. Large portions of delinquent children drop out of school, many because of poor academic performance. We cannot afford to lose this population. If we do not help them, their choices are limited to low-paying jobs or continued involvement in criminal activities. We are most interested in learning how we can help raise academic achievement among delinquent youth and provide them with the skills they need to succeed in school.

As I stated at the beginning of my remarks, these are two of the neediest populations of students in our country and I am very interested in hearing how we can improve these important Title I programs, ensure a bright future for participating children and youth, and I look forward to today's testimony.

WRITTEN OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WILLIAM GOODLING, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC – SEE APPENDIX A

Mr. Fattah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to just thank the chairman for convening this hearing. I think that this is an area which the chairman is well aware oftentimes there is not enough focus on issues related to both the education of migrant children and also focusing, as many of my family have for a long time, on the question of delinquent children and how it is that they access the full range of educational services that they need so that perhaps they can proceed on a more straighter path to a productive life.

So I want to thank the chairman for convening this hearing. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses.

Chairman Goodling. Thank you. Mr. Petri.

Mr. Petri. No opening statement, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Isakson.

Mr. Isakson. No.

Chairman Goodling. The light system is a 5-minute system. And if you can summarize as much as possible, that will give the members an opportunity to ask questions. The green light is go. The yellow light is slow. And the red light is stop, as soon as you can after the light turns red. We don't get too excited, unless you go too long.

Let me introduce the witnesses today. We have Mr. Francisco Garcia, the Director of the Office of Migrant Education at the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. Mr. Garcia has over 30 years of experience with Federal program management and has also served as a consultant, contractor, and teacher. Mr. Oscar Guzman -- and I was wondering are you related to the pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles.

Mr. Guzman. No.

Chairman Goodling. You could get us some free passes or something. He is a student at California State University in Sacramento. Mr. Guzman received assistance through the Migrant Education Program during high school, as well as participated in migrant programs during elementary school.

Margaret Reimann is the Student Support Specialist with the Migrant Child Development Project, at the Western Regional Office of the Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program in Bedford, Pennsylvania. Ms. Reimann has extensive education experience, has spent the last 20 years developing and implementing family centered education programs.

Mr. John Perry is the Executive Director of the Interstate Migrant Education Council, IMEC, in Washington, D.C. IMEC is a bipartisan group, including educators, legislators and parents from 17 states, who work to ensure that the needs of migrant students are met. Bill Ford and I met with John on many, many occasions, and Mr. Kildee since Bill Ford has retired.

Mr. Dale Niswonger is the Education Administration Program Consultant for the Kentucky Department of Education in Frankfurt, Kentucky. In addition to his extensive work at the state level, he has served as a high school English teacher, and he is most notably known for this building and this room as being from Hindman, Kentucky, or his wife, I forget which.

Mr. Niswonger. My wife.

Chairman Goodling. And of course the gentleman in the middle on the portrait behind you is Mr. Hindman, Kentucky.

And so with that, we will begin with Mr. Francisco Garcia.

Mr. Garcia. Good morning. I wish to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the committee for the opportunity to testify today in your hearing on helping migrant and neglected or delinquent children to succeed in school. As a former migrant worker and now the Director of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Migrant Education, I believe that the best thing the Federal Government can do to help migrant children to succeed in school is to reauthorize, with improvements proposed in the administration's reauthorization bill, Title I, part C, of ESEA, the Migrant Education Program, MEP.

The administration's proposal proposes a number of improvements to continue the MEP's commitment to high standards, simplify the funding formula, streamline and improve program planning and implementation and improve interstate coordination activities. As you know, the MEP first authorized in 1966 is a formula grant program that enables States to offer supplemental and educational services to help the children of migrant agriculture workers and fishers meet the challenging State content and student performance standards.

In many ways, the movement of migrant children across local and State boundaries, a movement connected to the production of food distributed in interstate commerce, provides a classic rationale for Federal program support. Before Federal legislation support, the school districts were unlikely to: one, provide the normal range of services to children who attend their schools for brief periods of time; two, find and enroll migrant children outside of normal school enrollment procedures or; three, address the school interruption problems faced by migrant children or their needs for special summer programs.

Migrant children are extremely disadvantaged economically and educationally. Over 80 percent are Hispanic. The combined effects of poverty, mobility and limited English proficiency characteristic of the migrant student population requires educational services, in addition to those traditionally provided through State and local education budgets.

The migrant program has significant costs not usually covered by local educational programs. Many migrant parents and youth are reluctant to come to school. This is largely because of long and exhausting working hours, a reluctance to deal with often unsympathetic local authorities, a need to have children help out economically and in many cases limited English proficiency. For these reasons, the migrant staff must proactively seek out migrant families, either at the residences, or often in migrant labor camp or processing plants in rural areas, in order to determine a child's program eligibility and to convince the child and parents of the benefits of participation in the school and the MEP.

The MEP supports supplementary instruction in core academic subjects often provided outside of the regular school day and in the summer and as necessary support service such as transportation, food, clothing and health services. It does so using the multitude of innovative services and service delivery approaches, such as summer programs, that extend learning time for migrant children, such as evening classes, summer programs, and programs to travel with children and their family, programs for older migrant children who lack sufficient credit to graduate, and those who drop out of school, the use of technology to enhance learning for migrant children, collaboration with agri business to enhance educational services to migrant children and their families, attention to standards and assessments for migrant children, and coordinating with other programs and serving as advocates for the inclusion of migrant in other educational and support programs.

With regard to reauthorization, we believe that the current MEP is working well and requires only some fine tuning of the legislative language. Reflecting discussions with major interest groups, State and local MEP staff, and migrant parents and children, the main components of the administration's MEP proposal are to continue the MEP's commitment to high standards by requiring the State's application to describe how the State will encourage migratory children to participate in State assessments required under part A of Title I, simplifying the funding formula by replacing the provisions relating to the count of migratory children, which are currently based on estimates and full time equivalents, FTE, of these children.

These provisions are ambiguous and require either a burdensome collection of data or the continued use of increasingly dated FTE adjustment factors based on 1994 data.

We propose to base a State's count on the number of eligibility children, aged 3 through 21, residing in the State in the previous year, plus a number of those children who receive services under the program in summer or inter-session programs provided by the State.

We want to establish minimums and maximums for annual State allocations. No State would be allocated more than 120 percent or less than 80 percent of its allocation for the previous year except that each date would be allocated at least $200,000. We want to streamline and improve planning programs and implementation by repealing the requirement for a comprehensive service delivery plan that is separate from the State's application for funds and instead requiring the State's application to address certain issues that are now required to be in its comprehensive needs assessment plan but not in the application and by strengthening program requirements relating to the involvement of parents and parent advisory councils.

We want to improve interstate coordination activities by removing obsolete provisions relating to the report to Congress on the transfer of student records. Other language authorizing the Secretary to assist States in implementing timely records transferred would be retained.

Amend the authority for incentive grants to States that form consortia to improve the delivery of services to migratory children whose education is interrupted.

In closing, I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have about the Migrant Education Program or the administration's proposal to reauthorize it.

[The statement of Mr. Garcia follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. FRANCISCO GARCIA, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MIGRANT EDUCATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, DC – SEE APPENDIX B

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Guzman.

Mr. Guzman. Good morning. My name is Oscar Guzman. I would like to thank the Chairman and the Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to present this testimony in support of Federal education programs for migrant children.

I am pleased to speak to you on behalf of the National Association of Migrant Education, representing educators and parents serving migrant children and their families throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. Without these programs, it would not be possible for me to be here in Washington, D.C. Today.

I was born in Mexico in 1979 and my family came to live permanently in California shortly after. I have one younger brother. I just finished my freshman year at California State University, Sacramento with the help of the college assistance migrant program.

My father stopped going to school at the age of 13, when he completed primary school in Mexico. My mother started when she was 17, would come to California each May to work in the fields with her father and sister. She would stay until the season ended in November and would return to Mexico to take care of her 12 brothers and sisters. During her stays in California from Mexico, my mother would enroll in high school through the Migrant Education Program.

My mother completed secondary school in Mexico, which made her a high school junior in this country. Unfortunately, she was unable to graduate because my grandmother died 2 months before the end of her senior year, and she had to return to Mexico to take care of her brothers and sisters. My mother always tells us that education is the number one thing in this country today. She does not want us to have a life of a field worker.

The first education I can remember is being in the migrant Head Start program. My mother was working for a small farmer growing lettuce, tomatoes, melons when a migrant Head Start recruiter contacted her at work and told her about the program. She was delighted to hear about this program, because she would not have to take me to the fields all day.

When I was not in school, I went to the fields with my mother. By the time I was 9, I was working helping my mother with carrying boxes or weeding the fields. I was paid in popsicles. I liked school and I was doing well. Then my uncle passed away, all of my family left to Mexico. I spent part of third grade and the beginning of fourth grade at school in Mexico.

By the time I came back from Mexico my English was kind of sketchy, but my math was great, more advanced than my fourth grade class. My teachers helped me with my English as much as they could. Soon my parents moved because of work and I changed schools. At my new school, I was identified for the Migrant Education Program. The teacher who was in charge of my class helped my mother with all of the paperwork and records transfers.

He also arranged for a health checkup for me, which I continued to get every year through the eighth grade. The Migrant Education Program had a special reading program for migrant students, which helped me with my English. Education was very important to both of my parents, they wanted a better life for me and my brother. Both my brother and I have had dedicated teachers that keep in touch with us and encouraged us to you can succeed in life. However, work has been an important and necessary, too. And I have struggled to balance work and school.

Throughout my junior high school and high school, I worked after school, weekends and summers cutting lettuce, carrying boxes, driving trucks, tractors and irrigating fields. Once I was 13, I was responsible for my clothes and luxuries, such as entertainment and gifts for families and friends and helping with some of the family expenses. I also took care of my younger brother's clothes and luxuries. My parents always encouraged me to pay more attention to school and so did my MEP teacher, Mr. Buse. I tried, but sometimes it was hard.

In high school, I really did not give much thought of going to college. I cared more about getting a full-time job. I didn't think that I would make it in college. I left high school without taking the SATs or applying to the university. I got a job at a printing press where I worked midnight shifts 12 hours a day, 4 days per week. The things I saw and felt made me realize that money isn't everything in life, that you have to be happy at your job.

I knew then that I needed to go to college. I applied to a junior college, I was accepted. But then my friends and family started telling me about life at the university. I met current students in the CAMP program and they encouraged me to apply, so I did.

I am the first person in my family to go to college. My parents are very proud of my decision to go to college and expect me to go far. My dad always tells me that I am going to work in an air conditioned office with a secretary, and my aunts and uncles are also very proud of me and they use me as an example for the rest of my cousins. I hope to be in a position where I can make a difference in education and agriculture in order to improve the lives of families like my own.

I would not be here today if it were not for the Migrant Education Program in fifth grade that put me on a path of academic achievement, and the other migrant programs that helped me succeed. Because of these programs, my life was made easier and my parents' dreams of a better life for me and my brother will come true.

As you reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, I urge you to continue and even strengthen the Migrant Education Program for future generations. NAME along with the National Association of State Directors of Migrant Education have developed a comprehensive set of recommendations for reauthorization which have been included with my written testimony.

Thank you for the invitation to testify. I would be pleased to respond to any questions you might have about my oral testimony. NAME would be pleased to respond in writing to any questions about the reauthorization recommendations.

Thank you.

[The statement of Mr. Guzman follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. OSCAR GUZMAN, STUDENT, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO, CA – SEE APPENDIX C

Ms. Reimann. I am here today as a representative of Pennsylvania Migrant Education, but I would also like to speak to you on a more personal note. As Mr. Goodling said, I have spent the last 20 years looking at the whole field of family centered education programs. The real focus of my interest has been the development of curriculum and teaching techniques that can be used in home with children, and often by the parents themselves with their own children.

About 10 years ago, I came to migrant education, and I have to tell you that I really found the perfect place for someone who has my kinds of interests. Where else in this day and age would you find a community of people where family ties are perhaps the most important ties that exist?

This is a community, for example, where you have true intact, strong nuclear families, with working fathers and often working mothers, not to mention aunts and uncles and cousins and you name it. This has been brought home to me many times. I live in an area where in the fall apple pickers come to pick apples, particularly young men, between the ages of about 17 and 21 or 22.

And the tradition has developed that Sunday evenings I make my telephone available to them to be able to come down and call home. So I often have maybe 10, 15, 20 of these boys, and to me they are boys, sitting around my living room spending their evening trying to reach their mothers in Mexico. And I have to tell you that as a mother myself of a young person who is far from home, it does my heart good to see these boys. They have got money in their pockets, and what are they doing, they are spending the whole evening trying to track down their mothers to tell them they are okay or even to find out whether the money they sent home has actually arrived.

This is a little reversal from the usual tradition in this country, which is that we are sending money to our children, rather than having money sent to them. So this really is a very different kind of community from what we are used to in this country. There is another characteristic that has been for me inspiring really almost, which is the true belief on the part of these people, that if they work hard enough they will get ahead, and that if they work hard enough and they pay attention to their children, it doesn't matter how difficult their lives are, the point is for their children to stand on the shoulders of their parents.

This is a kind of an old-fashioned idea in this country, perhaps one of the ones that this country was founded on, but it is alive and well in the migrant community.

So the question for me has been how to harness these strengths and use them in a family centered education program. And I would like to spend the rest of my time telling you a little bit about this program.

The first part of our program we call the book exchange. We distribute probably to families as soon as we meet them between 3- and 4,000 used children's books in a year and magazines. Every tutor, every person in our program carries big boxes of books, and if you went into the homes of our children, you might find almost no furniture, you may or may not find a television, but what you would see is books scattered all over the house, boxes of books, books on the kitchen table, even books on the floor.

When children leave our area or when they are too far away for us to visit them often, we mail books to our children. We mail books every month to over 65 families at a proximal cost of a dollar a package. These books are, of course, welcomed. We have been doing this for years and it is probably the most successful part of our program.

We then move on to a training program for parents, which perhaps 65 percent of our parents participate in them. We teach them one teaching technique and we have a curriculum which can be used by any parent, even those who don't speak English and those who are themselves illiterate, so that we show our parents how to work with their own children.

The final part of our program is what you might call the low technology approach to long-distance learning, the telephone. We have an educational hotline where parents can call us, children can call at any time of the day or night. Even just in the last two month, I received phone calls asking for help with algebra homework, asking for help with a child who was expelled from school. Both of those calls are from people who were in our program previously and who are no longer in our program.

I got a call from North Carolina asking me to contact a teacher discussing homework and a call from Kansas from a parent who had been first dubious about our program because he could not read to tell me that his child is now first in his class and reading.

Let me just speak for a moment then on the whole question of impact of a network of the services like this on children's academic achievement. I am collecting grades and test scores for our children. And if I get the chance to come back here in 5 years, I will be able to give you some very good hard data.

In the meantime, I will take the example, we have about 35 children who are themselves in one small town, all of them from central American families and all of them from Spanish speaking homes, and they have been in the school district for 3 years. At the end of 3 years, we can say that no child has been left back, that only two children are in the special education system, and that in the last crop of kindergartens who have been in our program for several years, more than half are either in the middle of their class or above it. So I think that is a good sign.

Finally, I want to tell you that a program like this is extremely cost effective. We spend perhaps $500 a year per child to provide these kinds of services and I think what I want to say to you, the impression I really want to leave you with is the strength of home based program. There is a kind of a deep learning that takes place for children when they learn in home, taught by their parents, or at least tutored, that I think means that any in-home -- when you think about the education of the next century, what it should be like, that the question of working in-home with children and training parents ought to be a very important part of any blueprint for the future education in this country.

Thank you.

[The statement of Ms. Reimann follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MS. MARGARET REIMANN, STUDENT SUPPORT SPECIALIST, MIGRANT CHILD DEVELOPMENT PROJECT, WESTERN REGIONAL OFFICE, PENNSYLVANIA MIGRANT EDUCATION, BEDFORD, PA – SEE APPENDIX D

Chairman Goodling. Jack.

Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to say good morning to Rubin Hinojosa who served on IMEC many years ago. We have had some interesting times together, and Major Owens, a former colleague of mine from the New York State Senate. I might say that over my career of some 40 years now, professionally I have had three types of jobs. I served in public office for many years. But being associated with the Migrant Education Program, with all due respect, has been the most meaningful part of my professional career, because of the experiences that I have seen that are very similar to what have been expressed here.

Mr. Chairman, you described the Interstate Migrant Education Council. I would just note that we have the good fortune that Bill Goodling is the national honorary chair of IMEC, as Mr. Ford was when he was Chair of this Committee.

During the last 3 years, IMEC has examined the implementation of IASA and how it has affected the education of migrant students. In January of 1997, we had a national forum; Mr. Goodling spoke at that forum. At that time, you encouraged us to provide your recommendations on what works and what needs to be improved in IASA. The written testimony I have enclosed are the positions IMEC has taken.

So this has really been a grass roots effort of many, many people over 3 years to consider all of the aspects of IASA. The recommendations are in the form of a series of fact sheets which summarize the background of each issue and our recommendations. I have also submitted today to the chairman specific statutory language to amend the current law.

A very strong recommendation we make that is not a change in the Federal statute is that migrant education should remain a Federal categorical program administered by State agencies. Migrant students are truly the Nation's students, as Francisco has described, and many times local school districts really don't feel that they are their responsibility.

Under the aegis of the Federal Government, State and local Migrant Education Program personnel have developed means of interstate cooperation to serve migrants. Without the Federal Government, these cooperative efforts would be diminished, it would be very difficult to States to deal with each other.

The program provides flexibility. Through State administration there is flexibility to meet the changing needs of migrant students and communities in the State. States are able on an annual basis to determine the number of students and the location of students most in need of services so that financial and technical resources may be provided.

This topic incidentally is discussed in greater detail in the first fact sheet. In a more general sense, as IMEC has examined IASA we have come to the conclusion that it is good legislation, if not very good legislation.

The provisions pertaining to flexibility, coordination, high academic standards should benefit migrant students in the long run. Prior to IASA, migrant students were excluded from many programs in schools. The new law requires inclusion; however, much work needs to be done before inclusion of migrant students becomes a universal reality.

We do not propose major changes in the law. We do not want migrant education to be isolated from other programs or have any situation that perpetuates discrimination against migrant students, which has happened in the past, or creates any barriers to full access to services within the school.

Concurrently, we want to ensure that when educators, especially those who are not migrant educators are designing and implementing general programs, the needs of migrant students are met. That is really the crux of what we are saying. We would like to have it identified in all levels of planning from the State consolidated planning, local planning, and schoolwide planning, that the needs of migrant students are specifically met; therefore the changes that we propose are really to adjust the balance between flexibility and the unique needs of migrant students.

We have listed 10 changes and they have been backed up with detail. I will just quickly review them for you. On the consolidated planning basis, we would like to make sure that all of the program directors who are involved in consolidated planning in the State level are actually involved in the plan.

On schoolwide projects we would like to see the needs of a migrant student identified in the application and the strategies to fulfill those needs identified in the application of schoolwide projects.

Transfer of records. In general, the Federal Government has left this to the States over the last few years, and it hasn't worked too well and what we are advocating is that the Congress establish in law to require the Secretary of Education to establish minimal data elements for the timely transfer of student records whenever Federal funds are used for this purpose.

Data collection. Congress has left to the States to do pretty much as they wish on data collection. But we tried to find out how well migrant students are achieving, and it is very difficult, there is no solid data. And essentially if you want data, you have to tell people to do it. And so we are recommending that when States develop standards and assessment systems, they be required to include evaluation of programs and services for migrants, also that State and local assessments must have test data disaggregated for migrant students.

To improve student achievement, we believe that there has to be a more active family involvement. Under part C of the law, we support the administration's proposal in this regard, and we believe it fulfills our recommendations that are listed here.

Family literacy, Peggy has talked about this. I hope that Mr. Goodling and the staff can design this law to highlight to a greater extent the needs for family literacy through part C and as it relates to the Reading Excellence Act and even START.

We are proposing, because family literacy and even START type of programs take so much coordination efforts with other areas of State government and the Federal Government, that money be designated for each State Department over a short period of time, 2 or 3 years, to develop coordination efforts.

On technology, we would propose that every State be able to obtain grants on technology, rather than having them done as they are now done on a competitive basis.

Technical assistance. I may just dwell on this, even though I see the red light on. Before IASA, there were specific programs for Federal technical assistance to migrant programs that met the demographic needs of the migrant population, large States in the South, receiving States, those were eliminated during IASA, developed regional comprehensive centers that worked somewhat well in some areas, but not perfectly.

Now in this proposed law of the administration, there is supposed to be some type of comprehensive centers for special populations. We would strongly encourage, because the migrant population is so unique, that there be one center for the migrant population.

On the coordination issue, it is a very complex issue.Our fact sheet develops this in great detail. I would conclude by saying as far as the formula is concerned, at much debate of all of the States of the Interstate Migrant Education Council, we essentially support the administration's proposal on the formula.

Thank you.

[The statement of Mr. Perry follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. JACK PERRY, INTERSTATE MIGRANT EDUCATION COUNCIL, WASHINGTON, DC – SEE APPENDIX E

Chairman Goodling. Thank you. Mr. Niswonger.

Mr. Niswonger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the invitation to get to come before this Committee today to share with you and the members of the committee some of the good things that are happening with the Title I, part D programs in Kentucky. We will be shifting directions. We talked about part C for the last half hour or so with our distinguished panel. We will be shifting now, talking about part D, which deals with neglected and delinquent youth.

My name is Dale Niswonger. I work for the Kentucky Department of Education in Frankfurt, and for the last couple of years I have worked with the part D program.

Kentucky has experienced considerable success with its Title I, part D programs. The Kentucky General Assembly in 1990 enacted the Kentucky Education Reform Act, which brought about sweeping reforms. And one of the basic premises or cornerstones of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 was that all students could learn at all levels. And we in Federally funded programs have embraced that philosophy, and we are no exception to it, and we believe that our migrant children and our delinquent and neglected youth can also learn at high levels.

The Kentucky General Assembly also enacted some legislation to form a statewide collaborative for State agency children to ensure that neglected and delinquent youth were held to the same State standards as well as all students. Neglected and delinquent students who receive services under Title I, part D are included in the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, also known as CATS.

Because I am limited to just 5 minutes today, I will not address subpart 2, unless the committee has some questions. I would like to focus my attention on subpart 1 of part D. There are two portions to our subpart 1 program, as most States have. Number one, we have the first section that deals with those under the age of 18 in either public school settings who attend day treatment programs or those who are assigned to a residential facility like a juvenile detention facility, and then the other segment, of course, are those under the age of 21 who are in adult correctional facilities.

And when you add both of those programs together, we have a total of subpart 1 students in Kentucky last year of 1,640 students. The Kentucky Department of Education has done several things to try to enhance the effectiveness of the subpart 1 program in our State.

Let me mention those five things to you very briefly. Number one, we have high expectations for those students. The Department of Education in Kentucky has not excluded those students, we don't write them out in the IEPs. If they haven an IEP, we expect them to take the accountability test in Kentucky like all other students. And Kentucky also requires the State agency students be held to the same challenging State content standards.

Not only do we have high expectations, but number two, we have what we think is somewhat of an effective transition program. Obviously subpart 1 is not funded to the extent that we can do all we want to do to address the needs of these delinquent youth. But after a student completes a subpart 1 program, whether it is a day treatment, whether it is a residential facility, transition, I think, is the single most important component to the future success of that student.

And to address the important issue of transition, Kentucky has developed what we call an educational passport, a residential facility. When a student is going to be transitioned back to the school of origin, they fill out the single page document, and it is sent ahead of that student, that way that school has a heads up if that student is coming back, they have a designated person, many times the school counselor, but not always, who serves as what we call a bridge coordinator, who bridges the gap between that institutionalized setting and the school of origin.

That bridge coordinator then when the student comes back, so many times when these kids are dismissed from a program sometimes 1, 2, 3, 4, weeks pass before they get enrolled in school, and again that usually sets them up for failure. So the bridge coordinator, when they get the notification that that student is coming back, they either contact the student, and meet him at home or make provisions for that student to be enrolled within 2 or 3 days so there is not that large gap between the time they are dismissed from the program and until they are transitioned back to the public school.

We have had a lot of success with that program. We have had some pilot programs, but we need to continue to do that, but of course that is going to take funding.

The third thing that we have done in Kentucky to enhance our Title I, part D, subpart 1 program is increase collaboration. As I mentioned to you earlier, we passed some legislation to form the Kentucky Educational Collaborative for State Agency Children, also called KECSAC, and all the stakeholders are involved in the success of subpart 1 students. The treatment staff, sometimes it has been a shotgun wedding but we make them meet with the educational staff to help make an individual plan of instruction for those students.

We also, the State agency is closely involved with the program development and evaluation, and then parents are also notified of student progress, they are encouraged to participate. And obviously when parents are involved, the success of those students are much higher. And then of course the school of origin is also an important stakeholder in that process.

The fourth thing that we have done in Kentucky is professional development. Kentucky tries to be proactive in its efforts to retool the educational staff that works with subpart 1 students. The SEA in collaboration with our State collaborative, develops an annual professional development schedule to address those areas. Workshops are provided for teachers. We find obviously we need the best teachers for these kids that have had delinquent pasts, and we don't like to see them sitting in rows and handed worksheets, we want to see engaged instruction. We want to see experiential learning taking place.

And the last thing of course that we are doing in Kentucky is that we are working on LEA acceptance of troubled students. Many times, when these kids leave a treatment facility, when they go back to the school of origin, the teacher doesn't want them back. The principal doesn't want them back, and so many times, we have found they have set these kids up for failure. And so we are trying to work to educate the LEAs in making sure that we have an environment that is going to be receptive to those students when they come back to the school.

One recommendation we would like to suggest for this committee to consider. Presently, as you know, an annual count is made of our subpart 1 programs, and they pick a date in time and all programs have to use that date to do their count. I know why you do that, because you want an unduplicated count, that makes sense. Unfortunately, the 38 programs we operate in Kentucky, sometimes 3, 4, 5 of those programs, the date that we choose happens to be a very low date for enrollment.

We would like to suggest maybe picking three dates that all of the programs would use and then take that count and average it and that way all the programs can be funded on a more fairer basis.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We are open to any questions you might have.

[The statement of Mr. Niswonger follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. DALE NISWONGER, CONSULTANT, NEGLECTED/DELINQUENT PROGRAM, KENTUCKY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, FRANKFURT, KY – SEE APPENDIX F

Chairman Goodling. Thank you. Thank all of you. Mr. Isakson has to make a quick exit for a while, so I will call on him at this point to take the first part of my questioning.

Mr. Isakson. Thank you for yielding. I just wanted to make a comment based on the experience with regard to Mr. Garcia's testimony on the formula. I concur that the use of FTE with regard to migratory students is at best flawed and extremely difficult in paperwork. And I don't disagree in doubling waiting it if there are summer programs with those students, because that is a good program.

I would suggest, though, if you are going to recommend a specific formula, the way your testimony reads it reads summer programs provided by the State. My experience with regard to migratory children is they are generally regionally specific, not Statewide specific, tied either to agriculture, poultry processing, the carpet industry or something else where the jobs end up bringing the families.

And maybe your testimony means this, but just to be quite clear, count those students for programs provided by the State or provided by local Board of Education. We have two situations in Georgia, of which I am familiar, where programs are fully funded at the local level dealing with migratory students because of the tremendous burden those students placed on the system and they became proactive to create programs themselves.

I would want to be sure that a local systems program, although it may not be a State sanction or even a State-funded program, be able to be counted as well because those inter-session programs are tremendous in helping aid those students when they immediately come to a community. That’s my only comment, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. I would ask Mr. Garcia a couple of questions quickly. First of all, as these children move, it has always been a problem as to when graduation comes, and whose standards are used. What are you doing to make sure that a student who would have met the graduation requirement let us say in their home school, if there is such a thing, but are graduating in another district, what are you doing to try to make sure that this doesn't become a major problem for those students?

Mr. Garcia. Mr. Chairman, there is a couple of things that are currently happening. One is we have been very supportive of the political assistance -- the past program, which is to help students who are traveling to acquire credits from where they are coming from by having the curriculum they can go back to and will be accepted by the State that they have come from.

Secondly, we have some States and we are encouraging very strongly to do a comparison to the State standards that are out there. For example, in Florida we have the Sunshine State Standards where we have a computer program where the kids travel up to North Carolina, and they matched those North Carolina, South Carolina standards to those in Florida to assure that they are meeting those standards and at the same time receiving those credits that would be necessary for graduation.

The State of Washington is another example where what they have done this with the State of Texas, where many migrant students there, have actually worked a reciprocal agreement with the State of Texas to assure if the student is in the State of Washington, and they are meeting the necessary requirements to meet the State standards within the State of Texas through the curriculum in the State of Washington and, working jointly, they have assured that students do this and are passing those requirements. They actually get to graduate in the State of Washington; however, they will be receiving the credit from the State of Texas, their home based State, to the extent where they even have the student wear the same ceremony gown for graduation from the State of Texas within, let us say, Wapato, Washington.

So we have been taking a very close look at that. We want to strengthen that area of secondary education, specifically in assuring that we get States talking with one another to assure that they become reciprocal in terms of as much as we can meeting those requirements that are needed for the children as they go back, or if they are still migrating to assure they are receiving those credits necessary to graduate within that time frame.

Chairman Goodling. And I noticed Mr. Perry's testimony, he is talking about a problem we have wrestled with for a long time. We got rid of a very expensive records transfer system that ran amuck or I am not sure what happened. What are we doing at the present time to try to make sure that as the children move from district to district are keeping track of them and they aren't falling through the cracks?

Mr. Garcia. As a result of that responsibility given to the States, the systems have been basically decentralized. The decentralization has involved States going into consortiums with one another or States going into individual programs for records transfers just within the States. What we are currently doing is we have established a records transfer committee group of 10 State directors of migrant education, where we have already met and have established a plan to move forward to work on establishing interconnectivity amongst the States, rather than just use these current systems that they have which cannot communicate to one another, but can provide the State the specific child count.

We are concerned about the health and academic records. We are going to say the integrity of what the States have put in terms of dollar and effort to develop their systems, but yet come with some basic elements that will create interconnectivity amongst the States to assure that the transfer of the records and the health records will be there for students.

Chairman Goodling. Thank you.

Ms. Reimann. Mr. Chairman, may I make a comment on that particular question.

Chairman Goodling. Yes.

Ms. Reimann. From the point of view of someone who works with parents and who has seen again. A characteristic of the migrant population is they do hold on to their documents. They have to, so if you look at people, they will hull out of their parents these crumbled little pieces of paper that are important telephone numbers and records for their children. In our area, we are tapping into that by sitting down with parents, giving them a simple little brown folder, going through this, their documents that they have and discussing each one with them so they understand them. This is your child's health records, let us talk about what is in here. This is your child's report card, and we spend a fair amount of time going over report cards with parents.

Let us put them all in this folder, and when you move on, you will have access to it. So we use it as part of the training process really for parents to encourage them to carry those records from place to place and understand them.

Chairman Goodling. I will get the rest of you as I go into my second round of questions. And I will turn to Mr. Fattah at this point.

Mr. Fattah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank you for your continuing interests in migrant education, which is I think is appropriately noted nationally. Mr. Garcia, you are representing the Administration's reauthorization. One of the things that has been suggested by the National Association for Migrant Education is to reconsider the issue in terms of for profit versus not for profit, in terms of helping attract kids, you know, who are moving across State lines.

What is the Administration's position on that one issue?

Mr. Garcia. You are talking about the for profit eligibility?

Mr. Fattah. Right.

Mr. Garcia. Yes. Basically what we want to do is create as many or come up with as many options as we possibly can. It does not limit whether you go for profit or not for profit.

Mr. Fattah. The Administration is for that eligibility?

Mr. Garcia. Let us say let us put it to offer another option to look at.

Mr. Fattah. All right.

Mr. Garcia. Just briefly, it is a very small amount that we are talking about. We are not saying we are going to go with for the profit, we are talking about coordination.

Mr. Fattah. I am not in disagreement, I am just trying to understand where we are in that.

I know it is different circumstances for different families and different young people. But on average, do we have some idea of the number of schools and school districts that a migrant child might be in in a given school year?

Mr. Garcia. Basically, the average answer should be about 1.5. Children, you have to understand, can be up to 5 schools in any given year. That makes a tremendous amount of difference. Overall in this program, we have identified 753,000 children who are eligible for migrant services. We do have some background information that shows every single school district in this nation that has a migrant child in it, and just practically down to the building, and we can send it for the record.

Mr. Fattah. If you look at the map, it is quite apparent that this is an issue that many school districts face, some do better jobs at it than others.

Let me ask Mr. Guzman. Let me thank you for your testimony, and let me also congratulate you as the first member of your family going on to college.

Mr. Guzman. Thank you.

Mr. Fattah. I am sure your brother intends to follow you, right?

Mr. Guzman. He has to.

Mr. Fattah. Okay. Now, why don't you tell me about your circumstances; You traveled with your family as they worked in different areas?

Mr. Guzman. Yes.

Mr. Fattah. What States did your family work in in terms of picking, is it lettuce?

Mr. Guzman. It was mostly California.

Mr. Fattah. Mostly California. So you moved from area to area?

Mr. Guzman. Yeah.

Mr. Fattah. As you moved from school to school, before you got involved in the Migrant Education Program, did you have a problem with transferring records?

Mr. Guzman. Actually, I really don't know. My mom usually did all of that.

Mr. Fattah. When you say you left school without taking the SATs, is that because you didn't intend to go to college?

Mr. Guzman. I didn't really put much thought into it. I just wanted a full-time job so I could have money in my pocket and help out my parents.

Mr. Fattah. When you were alerted through the program about the access to assistance, in terms of going on to college, you said first you signed up for junior college?

Mr. Guzman. Yes.

Mr. Fattah. And now you are at a 4-year institution?

Mr. Guzman. Yes, I am.

Mr. Fattah. Can you explain what happened in terms of your original thought there?

Mr. Guzman. When I signed for a junior college, I was just going to take a couple of classes, get a full-time job, a couple of classes to see what happens. And as soon as I started hearing, you know, well, you know, 4-year university, stay here 4 years, maybe 5, graduate, and you will get a better job, you will be a lot happier at your job; that is really what I wanted.

Mr. Fattah. Okay. So you are at California State now?

Mr. Guzman. Yes.

Mr. Fattah. All right. Are you participating in the Tutorial Assistance Program that is provided for migrant students there?

Mr. Guzman. Not right now. I just finished CAMP, the Migrant Assistance Program that really helped me out through college in my first year.

Mr. Fattah. Thank you. I see my time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Petri.

Mr. Petri. Thank you. I guess I had a couple of questions, one of Mr. Garcia. Could you help me understand the recommendation for minimum and maximum variation in State allocation? Is that the purpose of that, to produce some stability and predictability in the program?

Mr. Garcia. That is correct, yes.

Mr. Petri. Is there a difference, much of a difference in State level of effort or participation? I assume if there is a big increase in demand and of migrant workers in a particular State, the Federal Government would not then keep up if it was more than 20 percent. So would the State then be expected to fill the gap or would they just be shortchanged, or how would that work?

Mr. Garcia. Basically the idea behind it is we had a lot of small States who are small States, they do not receive a lot of dollars. They didn't have enough dollars -- they could go recruit, but there wasn't enough money left to be able to plan the program and implement it. So as a result of that and, of course, the small States we took into consideration of having a minimum amount of $200,000.

And I believe the other organizations were also requesting a minimum to assist in that area. Never recognizing or knowing what is going to happen relative to the crops, we had the flood in the Red River Valley, that changed around, and if you can't have some type of consistency, we introduced that 120, you can't go more than 20 percent and can't go less than 20 percent.

On the basis that we ran the simulations and we looked at the historical data that it wouldn't make a tremendous impact for the States who were having large increases based on dollars that we have had, meaning that, the small States could at least count on some dollars to run their programs.

The larger States, of course, if there was a tremendous influx and not very much of an influx in the small States, we still have the option to redirect some of those dollars where the need may be. So we left that option there, and it was available.

Mr. Petri. One other area, it wasn't really touched on in any of the testimony. We have had previous hearings on the issue of English as a second language or whatever. How do you deal with that in migrant education, is it primarily in Spanish or primarily in English, or does it vary from school district to school district, or automatically enrolled in English as a second language program if they exist or how does that work?

Mr. Garcia. Would you like the local perspective?

Mr. Petri. Mr. Guzman has been through it and they have been arguing about it in California, so I am sure you have some views.

Mr. Guzman. For me, this was mostly English. For I think one semester, I did take two bilingual, it was bilingual. But it was mostly in English.

Ms. Reimann. Can I comment on that question also?

Mr. Petri. Yes.

Ms. Reimann. Probably about 70 percent of my children are from Spanish-speaking homes and find themselves, because they are in the State of Pennsylvania, in purely English speaking schools, and often they are the first children who don't speak English to appear in these school districts. So you are talking immersion really as far as language is concerned.

Our role then has been to encourage the school; so the schools often provide a certain amount of language instruction, not always enough, so that in school the children are speaking in English. And in their own programs we use both languages. But the question of English as a second language instruction, we have found that while there are resources in these communities that address the needs of educated people and people who come into the area already with a certain amount of English that we have had to fill in the gap for people who appear in the area with no English and parents who come with no education.

The ESL programs that are presently in existence tend to assume a certain level of literacy. So that we have had to as migrant educators develop curriculum and teaching programs that are directed specifically towards the part of the migrant population which in our area is large that focused on teaching English as a spoken language, rather than as a written language.

And this is a very important role for migrant education really where we cannot depend on local communities to provide those services either in school or out.

Mr. Petri. Just briefly. I think my time is just about up. Mr. Niswonger, turning to section D, in my State, and I suspect maybe in Kentucky and some areas, we have been experimenting with something we call school-to-work for kids that maybe are quite able, but just don't see the relevance of academic life at that particular stage in their life and with some considerable success there are guidelines you have to have a mentor where you work and all of that.

Is that provided for in your framework? Do you do any of that? Should we be thinking about looking at what has happened in States in giving people an option with the community that is covered by section D to do some of this? You mentioned kids don't get back to school, they are not real eager to see them sometimes. It may be that this would be a beneficial option in some instances.

Mr. Niswonger. Yes, sir. It is a vital part of our subpart 1 programs. I didn't mention it because of the limit of time, but we don't use Title I money for that, because it is so limited the way it is now. We access voc. ed. money for that and, of course, this is State money, and so besides them having a strand for academics we also have a vocational strand; particularly, that is true in the adult institutions, of course, most of the institutions in Kentucky, the adult correctional facilities, as an incentive for them to get their GED, not only do they get 60 days good time, but they also have to have the GED before they are eligible to enroll in vocational training, and there is always a waiting list for those programs.

So it is school to work as well. That is part of the collaborative as well. We try to get all the stakeholders at the table and provide a very well-rounded approach for their educational needs.

Mr. Petri. Thank you.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Payne.

Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. I am very pleased to know that the question of migrant education really has certainly picked up a great deal. I recall many years ago with Senator Harrison Williams from New Jersey that brought the attention of the plight of migrant workers and the children who, as a matter of fact, in New Jersey had some of the most deplorable conditions at that time.

I am curious and perhaps Mr. Garcia, I don't see New Jersey, I know that we have the two large States with Texas and California, and then there is a list of 5 other States. But the question of migrant education in New Jersey has decreased or it doesn't fall in the top 8 or 10 States any longer?

Mr. Garcia. Yes, in some States there has been a decrease. Quite frankly in some States the effort for more identification and recruitment must increase because we know that there is families there, we know that we are missing a lot of them. That is the uniqueness about this program, is being able to go out and identify where the students are. New Jersey is a State that has decreased some, but I am sure it is a State that has a lot of possibility to increase based on more emphasis on identification and recruitment.

Mr. Payne. I see that in 1990 recommended appropriations is the first increase, it seems like it remains standard for the first 4 years. It seems with the increase in the question of migration and immigration that it seems that there should have been an increase. Of course, you know you don't make the increases. I know that comes from the Congress, but has it been more difficult, to your knowledge, to have a standard budget for 4 years?

I see there is a 16 percent increase proposed for the 1999 budget, which would be the one that we are in, but what has been the impact overall on the program, especially in light of the fact that we have seen increased employment. We know that evidently the increased employment, there is increased migrant workers, there is also increased illegal migrants, we are sure, and for the program to remain static as relates to funding, what kind of impact did that have on your program?

Mr. Garcia. The impact it had was not being able to meet and provide services to all migrant kids. When we were static for those 5 years, it was very difficult to really go out and identify and have the increase of students and then not being able to provide the services. As any program, and this program especially, we are never fully funded, the additional dollars, of course, just means that we can provide more services to more kids, and we have shown throughout the years that the increase is there. And as you mentioned, there are more and more migrant family and more and more kids out there who need service.

Mr. Payne. Thank you. In Tennessee, or Kentucky rather, I see that you have an interesting program. Are there parents involved in your program and do you have any funding geared towards science and technology training, or do you still have to deal with the basic problem of language in some of the bread and butter issues?

Mr. Niswonger. You are talking about the part D programs?

Mr. Payne. Yes.

Mr. Niswonger. Yes, sir, we do have parent involvement. In fact, every facility has a parent advisory counsel. They have an advisory council and parents are part of that council. That is even true in the adult correctional facilities. So we have a lot of involvement and try to get feedback from the community what kind of impact we are having. We have business people involved. We have mentoring going on. So we have tried to make it very holistic, as far as the approach to advisory councils.

Mr. Payne. Thank you. And finally, Mr. Perry, could you tell me a little bit more about the migrant education coordination activities?

Mr. Perry. There are four major programs serving migrant families. The education program is the largest, and in a relatively small department, the United States Department of Education. But there is Migrant Head Start in Health and Human Services, which is this huge department and Migrant Head Start is very far down the road in it. And there is the GTPA program, and the Labor Department. And all of these programs are Federal programs, and the programs, other than migrant education, are contracted out really. They are run out of Washington to vendors of services, and not administered through States.

The Migrant Education Program is the money goes to a State_to the State education agency and then is distributed. The difficulty of coordination at the State level is that if the Migrant Education Program chooses to deal with other migrant service programs, they can't deal through the State level, they have to deal with the Federal Government really, or if one doesn't want to coordinate, there is no authority. You can't go to the governor and try to crack heads, for example.

So I would call for a real serious concern of all of these agencies at the Federal level to look at the barriers to coordination, at the Federal level, at the State level, at the local level, to identify the barriers, number one, and to propose strategies to overcome them.

Now, at the present time, there is an ad hoc committee at the Federal level among all of these agencies and several other smaller agencies that serve migrants. And they have other people on it. For example, our organization has been invited to serve. But it is an ad hoc group of secondary people in the departments who do good work, but they can only do it on a voluntary basis.

So I would choose to have this looked at at a much higher level. In fact, if it were my preference, I would seek an executive order from the White House to look at these issues on a coordinated basis.

Mr. Payne. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Perry. But in any event our proposal is that if this could be fostered in the ESEA legislation in some way to have the Secretary of Education to take the lead on this, that would be our immediate proposal.

Mr. Payne. Thank you.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Owens.

Mr. Owens. It is very good to see my colleague from New York State Senate, Jack Perry. And I am certain that the council was in very good hands because I know he is a very thorough and dedicated administrator and any activity you are addressing, I am sure would be well served.

Mr. Payne moved in the direction of the question that I wanted to go. And you just said you wanted an executive order from the President, you just said you would like to see the Secretary of Education have more involvement and have more power.

I was going to begin with a question related to something you said in your testimony about just gathering data. Can you elaborate a little bit on the statement you made about you can't even get decent data at the State level, they don't have anything for you to compare, because most States are not gathering data and what they are doing?

Mr. Perry. Congressman, our organization last year decided it would be very important for reauthorization to get as much data on the achievement of migrant students as possible. And we surveyed all States, 29 States responded to our survey, on questions that were developed by professional educators that we thought were important. No two States collect data in the same way. Many States still are not disaggregating data at the State level or even at the local level.

If you tried, for example, and this proposed bill of the administration, they talk about indicators of having dropout rates and attendance rates, you will never be able to compare dropout rates and attendance rates from one State to another, there is no unified system. I know at this political era, Congress is very reluctant to mandate any type of system, but--

Mr. Owens. Something as practical as this, couldn't they voluntarily agree upon on a uniform collection of the States?

Mr. Perry. Our proposal is that at least the State level identifies migrants and they disaggregate for migrants and they do it as soon as possible. And from there, possibly other people can gather that information.

Mr. Owens. Are these States that have outstanding programs that could be used as models for other States?

Mr. Perry. Probably Texas, Rubin, Florida; North Carolina. Those are the three that come to mind off the top of my head from that we got very good information.

Mr. Owens. Those are three outstanding, would you say that there are others?

Mr. Perry. New York is also pretty good, I must say.

Mr. Owens. Would you say that those are the outstanding ones, but the rest are pretty good or are the rest pretty bad?

Mr. Perry. I would not denigrate any State, because they are all working toward this goal of establishing assessment procedures or establishing standards and then assessment procedures. And according to the law, they do have some time to put them into effect. But I would say at the present time from the States that responded to us, Texas, Florida, North Carolina and New York were the best. And there may be some others that were equally good and I hate to say that--

Mr. Owens. Would any member of the panel like to address this statement made by the Department of Education's recent final report of the national assessment of Title I that the subpart D(2) program has proven to be difficult to administer and confusing to the States?

Mr. Niswonger. Well, since I am the part D person here today, I guess I will address it. I would have to say that we have not had nearly as much success with subpart 2 as we have had with subpart 1. And there are several reasons for that. If you give me a minute, I will just hit 2 or 3 of them real quickly. Number one in the statute under the use of funds, the money that is generated by the kids that are in locally operated detention facilities, correctional facilities, that money does not have to go to provide services for them. They can use the money. It is the only program where the money goes directly to the LEA.

And they can use the money for district-wide dropout prevention, which is a good cause, district-wide social service type programs, those kinds of issues. And so a lot of times the money doesn't directly impact those kids that helped generate the money. So number one we are at a disadvantage because it is hard to measure what kind of impact, if any, it is having, because of the nebulous nature of how the districts are allowed to spend the money.

Mr. Owens. Do you think all of your activities on your jurisdiction, members of the panel, would be better off if they were part of a block grant and the Federal Government's role were minimized?

Mr. Niswonger. That is an easy one to answer. No, I really don't. I am afraid what will happen with migrant, and I do work with some migrant issues in our division. I think what will happen with migrant and with the part D, the delinquent youth and neglected youth, since they do not have a voice, by and large, that that voice will be lost. We are their advocates. And I am afraid that if it is put in a block grant, it is going to be so diluted that we will never see the impact that it is having now for migrant and delinquent youth.

Mr. Owens. Any other member of the panel care to comment on that?

Mr. Garcia. I would like to agree with that statement. We are the advocates for migrant children out there, kids who are mobile, who leave school early and enroll late, kids who may not be there at the testing time that should be there, kids whose districts may now find ways to really include them in the assessments process. If you block grant things and block grant specifically to title C program, as well as delinquent, that voice would be lost.

Our belief is that States, especially going down to local districts as I mentioned earlier, many times they will not -- we are finding out some districts, for example, will not find those migrant children because they believe that it will bring their scores down, and if you block grant it, it will even make it worse, so leaving it as the categorical program allows us that opportunity to assure that migrant kids are included as part of the overall educational program all the way from planning and assessment.

Mr. Owens. Thank you.

Mr. Niswonger. If I might add to that, sir, one of the problems we have now with the delinquent and migrant students is that districts and teachers look for ways to get rid of them, and if it is a categorical program and money is tied to it, it is going to hold the districts feet to the fire so to speak. If it is block-granted, I am afraid that these kids will certainly lose and be disenfranchised even more.

Ms. Reimann. One more comment. The demographics of migrancy that I see, and I believe is throughout the country, is that these children are beginning to move from where there have been large concentrations of migrant children out into, for example, middle America, which means they suddenly appear in school districts where there is only a few of those children, and they will certainly have no voice if each district is then left to decide what to do with them.

Mr. Perry. May I comment also. I did testify on this at the beginning of my testimony. But I think it is important to understand that the Federal program helps all migrant children. If there weren't a Federal program, there probably would not be a Migrant Education Program, but there would probably still exist in the major State in some way -- Florida, Texas and California would still probably provide services to migrant children.

But the key to the National Migrant Education Program is that when the Texas and Florida children move north, the northern States who have relatively small programs, Texas sends kids to 42 States, they serve Texas kids. And if there wasn't a national program, these Texas kids would not be getting an education and they would go back to Texas and they would be disadvantaged.

So to a great extent, migrant education is a national program, but to a greater extent it is serving kids from the sending States, the large sending States.

Mr. Owens. Thank you.

Chairman Goodling. I think part of the problem has been a misinterpretation of what it was we said in the first place. If they took that Title I money they were supposed to do several things, one they were supposed to coordinate the activities while the child was incarcerated, secondly, they were to then use a portion of that money to facilitate the child coming back into the school system. And what I understand, it isn't that they didn't use the money properly somehow, but it was more for dropout than it was for dealing with incarcerated children than when they returned. And obviously, that is going to have to be clarified, if they are misinterpreting that language. Mr. Hinojosa.

Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to acknowledge that it is really good to see you, State Senator Perry. When you came down to south Texas, to Brownsville in fact, I remember that we had a great conference there on migrant education and that you really got to listen to a lot of migrant students whom we invited to come and tell us about the problems that they were facing. So it is good to see you again. Happy that you are the advocate for migrant children together with all of these distinguished panel.

But I want to echo the concerns that some of my colleagues have expressed on whether we have adequate academic records to be able to track the students and know what the dropout rate is amongst them, as compared to 10 years ago, as compared to 20 years ago and how many are continuing on to postsecondary education.

And that really concerns me, especially now that we shut down the Little Rock Center, where we compiled all of the information in a central location.

So could you tell me, is there a problem with the commissioners of education in agreeing to have the same formula to report the dropout rate?

Mr. Perry. Congressman, I think there are really two issues here, there is the record transfer issue, how does a local school district deal with a student who comes in and they don't have a record for them. So it is really on a day-to-day, year-to-year basis or a placement basis.

Let me just address that first, because this is an issue that Congressman Goodling raised also, and we have addressed it in the testimony. This is what I call a challenge to flexibility. The IASA law has a provision in it that the Federal Government will assist States to develop the process of record transfer. It is 5 years later after IASA has been put into effect, the Federal Government has assisted States. States have worked in an ad hoc basis, individually and on a consortium arrangement, and there still is no system for transferring records.

And that is why we advocate and incidentally the administration proposes exactly the same language which is in the bill 4 years ago. So we propose stronger language that you have to have the Federal Government establish minimum data set so that everybody collects the same amount of information or the same type of information by students. That is our proposal. It is a stronger proposal. It is a Federal requirement, I grant you that.

But the evidence is, even with the good will that is expressed by Mr. Garcia and the Department, I hope Francisco is in this position 5 years from now, but there will be a new administration, and we have no idea who the personalities would be. I would suggest a law should be written to deal with the problem and not worry about what the personal attitudes are.

So then you have the idea of a repository of national information, and the question there is, should you collect that for all migrant students and have a migrant repository or should you have the States collect it within their State and identify migrant students so that we could, on a national basis, get the information from individual States. Frankly, I don't have an answer to that aspect of it, but that is the next step beyond establishing the minimum data set.

My suggestion is that we, very clearly within the law, and we have some specific proposals clearly in the law, require in various parts of the law that there be a disaggregation of data for migrant students and a use of that data in modifying and revising programs. It is a lot more complex. It would take a lot of time, but that summarizes our position.

Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you. The last question I would ask is on the recent report by the Department of Education, Mr. Garcia, you say that there is 165,000 migrant students who are served by schoolwide programs.

Can you discuss how those students are being served by schoolwide programs and the extent to which the migrant personnel are involved in the planning of those programs?

Mr. Garcia. As you are aware, Congressman Hinojosa, there was a mandated study by Congress on meeting the needs of migrant students in schoolwide programs. We did find out that of the 11,714 migrant education sites, approximately 22 percent were involved in schoolwide, of which 17 percent, or approximately 102,000 children, that migrant students, participate in these schoolwide programs.

What we did find out through the study, and of course it is limited by the fact that we have 25 throughout, and then surveys, of course, which is more, is that there are some areas that a_schoolwide, the intention is to bring it all together in terms of providing services to all children.

What we have found is where there is a smaller migrant program, the evidence shows that there needs to be more involvement from the parental group, from the teachers planning for migrant students. Where there is a larger migrant population located, then there seems to be much more activity in terms of being involved in the planning and meeting the kids in migrant needs and schoolwide projects.

We also found that the students who were within the schoolwide, many teachers and principals, of course, didn't separate and say these were migrant students because they are saying they are all receiving the same services, they are all receiving the same, whether it is districts or State assessments. So overall it is kind of a mixed picture. It meets the intent of what the schoolwides are doing, on the one hand. On the other hand, it does say we need to strengthen more parental involvement in planning of schoolwides.

We believe that the language is there, we just need to oversee it and make sure this does happen. We need to be assured that those needs of migrant kids that have been identified are first met and then assure, of course, that they are part of the educational process within the schoolwide project.

Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has addressed migrant education in our reauthorization act and soon you will be seeing the recommendations that we are submitting from the caucus. And I think that we definitely address some of these problems and recommendations as made by Senator Perry. So I am pleased to hear what I heard this morning and be assured that you have lots of friends in this Education Committee, starting with our chairman, and certainly I can say that for myself.

Thank you.

Chairman Goodling. Thank you. Of course, it took us a long time to get smart enough to understand that if it isn't family literacy, you are probably not going to break the cycle. I don't know why it took us so long to understand that. It should have been as clear as the nose on anybody's face.

My lecture that I give to people all over the country is that the most difficult part you are going to have is to get the parent participation and, particularly, the fathers. So I would ask Ms. Reimann, how you are doing in getting parent participation and particularly how are you doing getting fathers involved?

Ms. Reimann. Let me address the issue of fathers first. The area I work in we are probably about 40 percent dairy farm families, Anglo dairy farm families and about 60 percent Hispanic Latino families. We have had surprising success. To me, one of the most encouraging parts of our program has been the level on which we have been able to get our Spanish-speaking fathers to participate in this program.

Perhaps it comes back to what I said initially about these families, which is that the fathers -- I have had fathers even say this to me, I know that I am going to have to work hard all of my life and never have a good job, but that is okay, because I am doing this so that my children can be in a different position. And often the fathers are, of course, the people in the family who speak English better than the mothers.

In particular, just recently, we have a whole mathematical component of our program which is based on games, and we find that fathers feel much more comfortable playing games with their children than they do perhaps looking at books and talking to their children. Part of my staff training is to teach my staff how to come into a home and draw the father into conversation, which is that kind of personal contact between staff and family which is the key, I feel, to parent participation, and that is something that people have to learn to do that we train them to do, and we even practice, we talk about, what do you do if the father is sitting in the corner kind of looking uncomfortable.

I would say that we have good parent participation and even perhaps 65 percent of our families, where we have parents actually after a certain period sitting down and working with their children teaching them.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Guzman, probably the greatest need we have in the country is to have ideal role models in the classroom representing the population they are teaching. That is a prelude to I hope you will go prepare to be a teacher and come back to the area where you will be most needed because those role models are scarce throughout the country. And so I am putting a plug in.

I was in the education business for 22 years. It is a great reward. It is very challenging, but it is very rewarding. It doesn't pay that well, but you get your -- what do they say, you get your crown in heaven I guess, something of that nature. Mr. Petri left, I was going to ask him if he had any other questions. Well, then it is down to just the two of us. Do you have any other questions, oh, Mr. Petri.

Mr. Petri. No.

Chairman Goodling. You were hiding behind Lynn. Mr. Hinojosa, do you have any other questions you would like to ask the panel?

Mr. Hinojosa. I will ask Mr. Guzman, if money was no problem, we had all the money necessary to put into the migrant programs, what would be the top two things you would invest the financial resources to help boys and girls graduate from high school; what two things would you think are the most important that would help them graduate from high school?

Mr. Guzman. Actually, I think they are pretty simple. For me, the first one would be reading programs. And the second one would be healthwise.

Mr. Hinojosa. I am sorry, the second would be?

Mr. Guzman. Healthwise, you know, doctors, anything like that.

Mr. Hinojosa. Health?

Mr. Guzman. Health, yes.

Mr. Hinojosa. Do you think that many do not stay after the sixth grade or ninth grade? Somewhere, it seems like in the middle school we lose so many students. Do you think that health is the reason that many don't stay to graduate from high school?

Mr. Guzman. Well, for my experience, one of my cousins stopped going to school for about a year, because one of his brothers got sick in Mexico. So they had to stay in Mexico and he couldn't come back, because he didn't have the insurance, they really couldn't get any health benefits over there, in the United States.

Mr. Hinojosa. Okay. Well, that is your answer. Thank you very much.

I have no other questions, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Niswonger, if the children incarcerated are located in detention facilities, how do you best believe we can encourage the facilities to work with local schools to ensure that education for such students is all of the education and they are actually receiving?

Mr. Niswonger. We have some facilities, locally operated detention facilities, that do a good job of working with the LEAs. The problems that we are finding mostly in Kentucky are the ones that are church sponsored, and that certainly is not to cast aspersions to any denominational work. I happen to be an ordained Baptist minister myself. When we try to do our annual count and we send the count forms out to the locally operated facilities, many times, either they don't send them back, and then I call them and they say we don't believe in that because we are church sponsored, and we believe in separation of church and State, that sort of thing.

And I try to educate them in the fact you don't understand, this is going to help provide money for the local district that can in turn maybe do some more things for your kids. So one of the problems is going to be a PR problem or education problem just trying to educate them as to how in fact this can help them.

Number two, perhaps addressing in the statute some way of tying those funds that are generated by subpart 2 facilities, tying that money more closely to the kids that generate it. Because right now, when districts find out well, geeh, we don't have to use that money to address the needs of those kids, many of them use it then as a windfall to do other things that are allowed in the law. So if that part of the statute could be tightened up where we can hold their feet to the fire perhaps and perhaps have them use that money to help impact those kids educationally or socially or some other way.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Guzman, this isn't a hearing on bilingual education, but we get into real donnybrooks when we discuss bilingual education. There are those who believe that transitional bilingual is the only way, there are those who believe immersion is the only way, and I believe that whatever works is the only way.

Can you give us a little history of your experience as far as transitioning from one language to another?

Mr. Guzman. For me, at first it wasn't that hard, you know, I did reading, I read a lot. My mom read to me. And so I got into English slowly, but, you know, steadily. When I went to Mexico, it got really hard for me when I came back, because I was in school for about a year over there, which everything I wrote usually started in English, ended up in Spanish.

I started talking in English, talked Spanish in the middle, and English at the end. And when I entered the MEP program, they actually had a reading program, the teacher would talk to us in Spanish, and we would read in English and sometimes she would talk to us in English and read in English.

And Spanish I just learned it from my parents, the reading, the grammar, to speak it.

Chairman Goodling. Did any of the adults in your life speak English?

Mr. Guzman. My mom. She almost finished high school. She has been the one that actually would say things like, you know, you don't spell this like this, you do this, you do this and this and this. It is like okay, Mom's the one here.

Chairman Goodling. So you had the advantage of someone that had some college?

Mr. Guzman. Yes, that has helped me out a little bit. My dad, he is actually learning English from me and my brother. So he is trying to get along now.

Chairman Goodling. What has been your experience, Ms. Reimann, in the whole transition business?

Ms. Reimann. The majority of my children, as I said before, find themselves in what are basically immersion programs. And I have found that that works quite well for children in the lower grades, kindergarten through perhaps second or third grade. With a minimum of help they move into the mainstream. It becomes much more problematic for children from about sixth grade on up and is really a recipe for failure, unless you have a particularly determined child or some kind of assistance for those children. So that has been my experience.

I have encountered a certain number of children coming in from other States and found that the ones who do best are not the ones who are in a completely bilingual or Spanish-speaking programs, but the ones who have had some kind of mixture of Spanish and English in their previous education.

Chairman Goodling. And are the older children in your area, do they have some kind of services?

Ms. Reimann. It is very difficult for us to get schools to provide those services. That is why I said no to the question about block grants. It is even more difficult for us to get teachers to understand that they cannot expect from those children the same kind of performance that they expect from totally English-speaking children.

There is something kind of surprisingly insular about that, particularly on the middle school and high school level. The services that they get come from us, and we have -- a very specific part of our program is a teaching program that is specifically directed towards showing children between the ages of about sixth grade and eighth or ninth grade reading techniques that will help them move into the position of being able to do their school work as quickly as possible.

Chairman Goodling. Any other questions?

Well, again we thank you very much for coming today and for your testimony. We have a big job ahead, and I always say that those most in need probably are rural poor and rural migrants, because there are very few facilities, very few opportunities out in those rural areas that inner city youngsters might be able to get.

So I also thank you for your work and again recommend, Mr. Guzman, that you be a role model for an awful lot of children in years to come.

Thank you again for coming before the Ccommittee. The Committee stands adjourned.

[The statement of Mr. Kucinich follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE DENNIS KUCINICH, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC – SEE APPENDIX G

[The statement of Mr. Clay follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER WILLIAM CLAY, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC – SEE APPENDIX H

[Whereupon, at 1:05 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]