TABLE OF CONTENTS *

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MICHAEL CASTLE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. *

OPENING STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER DALE KILDEE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. *

STATEMENT OF DR. MARK ROSENBERG, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR INJURY PREVENTION AND CONTROL CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION; ATLANTA, GEORGIA *

STATEMENT OF DR. SCOTT POLAND, DIRECTOR OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES, CYPRESS-FAIRBANKS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT; HOUSTON, TEXAS *

STATEMENT OF CHIEF WESLEY MITCHELL, CHIEF OF POLICE, POLICE DEPARTMENT OF THE LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT; LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA *

STATEMENT OF DR. ALETA MEYER, PROFESSOR, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY; RICHMOND, VIRGINIA *

APPENDIX A -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MICHAEL CASTLE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES *

APPENDIX B -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER DALE KILDEE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES *

APPENDIX C -- WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF DR. MARK ROSENBERG, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR INJURY PREVENTION AND CONTROL CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, ATLANTA, GEORGIA *

APPENDIX D -- WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF DR. SCOTT POLAND, DIRECTOR OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES, CYPRESS-FAIRBANKS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, HOUSTON, TEXAS *

APPENDIX E -- WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF CHIEF WESLEY MITCHELL, CHIEF OF POLICE, POLICE DEPARTMENT OF LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA *

APPENDIX F -- WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF DR. ALETA MEYER, PROFESSOR, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA *

APPENDIX G -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE CAROLYN MCCARTHY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES *

APPENDIX H -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE DENNIS KUCINICH, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES *

APPENDIX I -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE HAROLD FORD, JR., SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES *

TABLE OF INDEXES………………………………………………………………*

 

 

 

 

SCHOOL VIOLENCE: PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN

Thursday, March 11, 1999

House of Representatives,

Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth,

and Families,

Committee on Education and Workforce,

Washington, D.C.

_______________________________________________

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:35 a.m., in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Mike N. Castle (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Petri, Kildee, Woolsey, McCarthy, and Kucinich.

Staff Present: Borden, Castleman, Lovejoy, Pearce, Reynard, Selmser, Wright, Harris, Johnson, Nock, and Folescu.

Mr. Castle. The subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth, and Families will finally come to order. For all of you who thought this would start at 10:00 a.m., I totally apologize to you.

Mr. Kildee is joining us as we speak who is, of course, the Ranking Member. I am Mike Castle. I am the Chairman of this Subcommittee. Let me, again, express my total apologies.

We, as you may know, have had this Education Flexibility Bill on the Floor. It came up for vote immediately upon going into session at 10:00 a.m. So, a lot of us had to be on the floor to manage that.

Then we were hit with three or four other votes on the Floor. We did not finish until about literally 3 minutes ago. So, we apologize.

What we will do is, I will read a brief opening statement. If Mr. Kildee wants to do an opening statement, we will do that. Then we will go through your statements. Then any of the members can ask you questions for up to 5 minutes.

We really appreciate you being here. This is a very qualified group of individuals testifying. We appreciate your taking the time and making the effort to join us.

School violence, obviously, is a matter of tremendous concern to a lot of people. So often when I talk to those back at home in Delaware where I am from, I hear concerns about the environment in our schools. They are concerned that the school environment is hurting academic performance.

Earlier this week, this Subcommittee heard testimony on the problems associated with the lack of discipline in our schools. Today, we focus on the closely related issue of violence in our schools.

Studies show that the rate of violence in schools is not growing. However, students often perceive that they are more susceptible to extreme and non-extreme violence events. Students who fear for their safety do not have the ability to turn their attention to learning.

According to a Department of Justice survey, between 1989 and 1995, the percentage of students ages 12 through 19 who reported a fear of being attacked at school rose from 6 percent to 9 percent.

Of 24 States responding in the 1998 National Education Goals Report, only one State significantly reduced, as compared to the previous year, the percentage of students reporting that they did not go to school, at least once during the past 30 days, because they did not feel safe.

The same Department of Justice survey found that in 1996, of students ages 12 through 18 years old, 1,272,100 violent crimes against students were committed at school. The 1998 Annual Report on School Safety found that of crimes reported to police in the 1996-1997 school year, the most common types of middle and high school crimes were physical attacks and fights without weapons.

In 1998, the Department of Education Survey found that about 40 percent of all public schools reported having to expel, suspend, or transfer a student to an alternative school a total of 331,000 times for the 1996-1997 school year.

Thankfully, extreme violence is very rare. Students have less than a one in a million chance of suffering a school-related violent death.

In the 1992-1993, and 1993-1994 school years combined, 63 students ages 5 through 19 were murdered at school, and 13 committed suicide at school (of roughly an average of 43 million students during these school years).

Regardless of the severity of the violence, the reality is that schools increasingly find that they must implement violence prevention activities.

The 1998 Department of Education Survey found that 78 percent of schools have a formal school violence prevention program, with only 43 percent of schools having both a one day violence prevention program and an ongoing violence program.

We must protect our students from violence in the schools and elsewhere. In the schools, children cannot focus on learning when their constant thoughts are for their safety. The continued rise in teenage violence suggests that the Federal programs are not producing the results our Country needs. Today, we will explore what violence is occurring in our schools and what can be done to protect our children.

Let me, with that, turn to Mr. Kildee.

[The statement of Mr. Castle follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MICHAEL CASTLE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES -- SEE APPENDIX A.

Mr. Kildee. Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit my entire statement in the record and just make a few brief remarks. We have kept this panel waiting too long already, not because of anything we did, but because of the events on the House floor.

I believe the environment and our society has been changing. I have not taught school in 34 years. Society has changed a great deal in that time. That environment has moved into our schools to a great extent.

While we are trying to solve the problems in our society, we have to do what we can in the meantime to make sure that our schools are a safe haven. If you could help us on that, we will try to address both problems.

If we can make our schools a safe haven while we are working the other societal problems, perhaps we will have accomplished something. I will submit my full testimony for the record.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kildee follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER DALE KILDEE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES – SEE APPENDIX B

Mr. Castle. Thank you very much, Mr. Kildee. We appreciate the brevity as well. I am sure they appreciate it too. We will now turn to our panel.

The rules are that you have 5 minutes to summarize whatever it is that you may have submitted in writing which, of course, our staff looks at. We will be a little flexible with respect to that.

We have had you wait a long time. So, I do not want to be too tight on that. I will just do a quick, brief introduction of all of you and then we will start.

I am going to hold Dr. Meyer because Bobbie Scott wanted to introduce you and he is not here yet. He may come. So, we will wait until we get to you. If he is not here, then I will introduce you formally.

First will be Dr. Mark Rosenberg who is the Director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. Rosenberg is Board Certified in Psychiatry and Internal Medicine, with training in public policy. His research and programmatic interests concentrate on injury control violence prevention.

One of his books, Patients: The Experience of Illness, uses photographs to illustrate the human side of illness. We welcome you here, Dr. Rosenberg.

Dr. Scott Poland is with us. He is the Director of Psychological Services of Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in Houston, Texas. Dr. Poland is a nationally recognized expert on school crisis.

He works directly with students, schools, and communities in extreme violence events, including the school shootings in Paducah, Kentucky, and Jonesboro, Arkansas. Dr. Poland testified at the Subcommittee's hearing on School Violence in the 105th Congress. We look forward to a progress report from him.

Chief Wesley Mitchell is here. He is the Chief of Police for the Police Department of the Los Angeles Unified School District; Los Angeles, California. Chief Mitchell has served the L.A. school district since 1989.

His experiences also include working with the Office of the Chancellor of the New York City schools, and at the State level in California; both on school violence prevention.

He has spoken nationwide on topics, including gangs, community-oriented policing, and employment of law enforcement in an educational environment.

Of course, Dr. Meyer, we will introduce you at the proper time.

With that, let us turn to Dr. Rosenberg We very much appreciate you being here.

Dr. Rosenberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and good morning. I am from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and CDC.

I think the bottom line that I would like to get across is that schools can do a tremendous amount to prevent the violence that takes such a devastating toll from our society. I think there are two ingredients that we need to have.

We need to take the science that we have been developing and insert it into these programs. We need to work together, if we do that, I think the schools will have a never before seen potential to make real change.

What I would like to do is give you a simple frame work for understanding what I mean by science. It is not the rocket science level of difficulty to understand. I think this frame work may help us pull together a number of things that we are learning and help to insert it into our programs.

This is an approach that we use in public health. There are really just four steps to this scientific approach. We ask four questions. The first question is what is the problem?

We collect data to describe who, what, where, when, and how did it happen? Not just from one school or four schools, but in some instances from 4,000 schools or 40,000 schools. This is the first step on this chart. It is what we call surveillance; gathering data and using it to make change.

The second step is why? Why these kids? What are the causes of the problem? The third step is what works? What makes a difference? The fourth step is how do you do it? How do you implement it? How do you bring the right people together?

Let me touch briefly on some of our findings in each of these. In the area of the first step, surveillance, some of the things that we found have been from our work with the Department of Education and Justice.

We did a study of school-related violent deaths from 1992 to 1994 and found that in that brief period there were 105 school-related deaths. Most of these affected students. Most affected males, but also they affected teachers.

They affected community people on school property. We are continuing this study in the future for 1994 to 1998. That is important information to have, to know how to target our programs.

We also analyzed data from the multiple death shootings that occurred at Jonesboro, Paducah, Pearl, and Springfield. That analysis had some striking findings. We found that the average age of the perpetrators was 13-1/2 years old. The average age of the victims in those four incedents was 14-1/2 years old. Every perpetrator was a boy. Every victim was a girl. This pattern is very reminiscent of some of the things we find in dating violence and family and intimate partner violence.

It really makes us look very closely at the relationship between the violence in the schools and the dating and family violence that occurs in our society. Finally, we are finding that no school is an island.

The patterns of violence in our schools where we lost 105 young people reflect the patterns of violence in our communities, where during that same time we lost 8,000 young people. We have to look at the schools in the context of the communities. We just must do that.

Let me look at the next step. Why this happens? What puts people at risk? What have we found? Here we found that youth violence has become more lethal. The number of deaths has increased out of proportion to the number of fights, out of proportion to the amount of violent incidents.

The fatality rate has increased. This has increased because young people have firearms; they have guns. They are using these to make violence increasingly more likely.

We found that children who witness violence at home or are exposed to violence at home are much more likely to participate in violence in the schools.

Step number three: What works? We found that there are programs that work; effective strategies that we can apply; curricular that involve problem solving, social and communications skills, and anger management, make a big difference.

We found that even in the best of interventions, if you will apply them in a chaotic school environment, or apply them to the wrong age class, it does not make a difference. If you apply them in a structured environment, in an appropriate way to the right age group, you can bring about very positive changes.

You will hear this morning from a program in Richmond where there was a very positive impact made. In Tucson, Arizona, teachers reported an overall decline in individual problem behaviors, in fighting, and destruction of property.

In Chicago and Aurora, Illinois, there are similar results that show you can have an effect. In Portland, Oregon, in Seattle, Washington, again and again we are learning that there are things that work.

Finally, the last step is how do you do it, and how do you get it out? The second chart really shows that as we develop this information, it does no good for us to keep it secret.

It does no good for us to keep it in scientific or professional journals, nor does it do any good for us to keep it within our own disciplines. We need to get it out. We are working with the Department of Education and we are working with the Department of Justice. We are also working within our own Department with SAMSA, with HERSA, and with other centers at CDC to pool our information and make it available. We have publications here that get it out.

These are available. We have left copies with you. We think that this taking the information, putting it out, and incorporating it then to what we do, taking science and letting science determine the shape of our programs, and bring unrecognized potential to us in what we do next.

Thank you very much. I would be happy to answer questions.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Rosenberg follows:]

WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF DR. MARK ROSENBERG, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR INJURY PREVENTION AND CONTROL CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION, ATLANTA, GEORGIA – SEE APPENDIX C

Mr. Castle. Thank you very much, Dr. Rosenberg. We appreciate that. Dr. Poland.

Dr. Poland. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. I am very pleased to be here. I hope to say some things that will be helpful to you and your important work.

I am a practicing school psychologist. I am here representing my school district and the National Association of School Psychologists, which is very committed to prevention of violence in our schools.

We have a National Emergency Assistance Team. Last year, I was the team leader in the tragic situations in Paducah, Kentucky, and Jonesboro, Arkansas. I want to be honest in telling you that I got a great deal of attention last year.

I do not ever want to lose sight of one thing. In those two incidents alone, seven fine girls and a wonderful teacher died. I am absolutely committed to prevention. I believe we need to do some things differently in our schools and in our society.

I will highlight two or three key points this morning. I believe we need to do something about kids, guns, and schools. There are nearly 5,000 gun deaths for children every year in America. I think that is unacceptable.

I have information indicating that as many as 270,000 guns go to school every single day. One of those guns went to one of my own high schools last May. A student was carrying a gun for protection.

The literature says kids are fascinated with guns. Guns represent excitement, power, safety, and unfortunately they are more comfortable with aggression than ever before. Now, our young man said he was carrying that gun for protection. He had it in his backpack.

Just as school was out, he grabbed the backpack to leave. That gun went off. Unfortunately, it shot the girl next to him in the leg. She was seriously injured, but she did recover.

The very next day, I lead the intervention in that classroom. It was going well. About four students in a row said something like this. That was so serious; she could have been killed. That could have been me, but you know what? I do not think I would tell an adult if I saw a gun on campus tomorrow.

We must end the conspiracy of silence. It allows guns, other weapons, and drugs to be in our schools.

To do that, we will have to take curriculum time. We need to begin early, teach children, and reinforce it all the way through. What I believe is we have done a very poor job in our society of separating what I would call incessant tattling about things that do not matter from things that do matter, like having a gun on campus, and someone who is homicidal or suicidal.

I have the headline of News Week Magazine here. The headline is, ``Kids and Guns: Report From America's Schools; Deadly Killing Grounds.'' The date of that magazine is March 9, 1992.

As an educator, I do not believe we have done much about this problem. We must move forward. We must have violence prevention programs. We must teach gun safety. We must address this issue.

We need to keep guns out of the hands of children in America. When adults let those guns fall into children's hands, they must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Now, my latest visual aid that I brought with me today has a school house in it. When these tragedies occur in places like Paducah and Jonesboro, I well-know that everyone's world at the school house is turned upside down.

People cannot problem solve. They cannot think; there are waves of emotions. Unresolved issues surface. Now, what I know is that eventually, things do get turned upside down at the school house.

But the snowflakes that are swirling around that school house, they will settle, but they will never go back into the same place again. Those schools will go on forever changed. Now, my globe plays a little song. That song is ``The Golden Days of School.''

Reading, writing, and arithmetic. What I believe is we have to find time to do more in our schools. There are people that wonder in those communities, did it matter that they taught those perpetrators to read, write, and do mathematics?

Did we miss something far more important? How can we devote important curriculum time to teaching children problem solving, anger management, gun safety, violence prevention, and learning to get along with everyone, regardless of their race or ethnicity.

The National Police Chiefs in this Country have a plan that I very much support. It has a simple message; ``invest in children.'' That is what we must do in our society. Right now, 6 percent of American adults are in prison as we sit here today.

It is my hope that through more prevention programs in our schools, we will not have to lock up the next generation of American children in such high numbers. The Police Chiefs plan, quality pre-school, child care for every child in America, and after school programs.

I ask you a simple question. Does anyone have a good reason why we send millions of children home every day in America at 2:30 p.m.? Is there something safe, supervised, and productive for them to do that I do not know about? We must change that.

They go home to empty homes for hours and hours. They play violent video games. They are simply unsupervised. The National School Chiefs Program also involves intervention programs for troubled children and assistance for their parents.

We must do all of those things. We must put children first. My closing comment today is a quote from dad who said, "The future is the past in preparation."

I ask you, does anyone have a reason why we will have less violence and less problems with schools and children in 1999 than we had in 1998? What has changed? What are we doing differently? Have we broadened the mission of education to include anger management, problem solving, and gun safety?

I know we have not had a single event that has galvanized the Nation the way the shootings in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Springfield, Oregon did. We have had homicides and suicides all across the Country in our schools.

I believe one violent death in a school in America is unacceptable. Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Poland follows:]

WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF DR. SCOTT POLAND, DIRECTOR OF PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES, CYPRESS-FAIRBANKS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, HOUSTON, TEXAS – SEE APPENDIX D.

Mr. Castle. Thank you very much, Dr. Poland. We will get back to you shortly. Chief Mitchell.

Chief Mitchell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was pleased to hear you earlier say that you understood that there is no such thing as school-exclusive violence, that the violence we are facing comes into our schools from our community.

In the Los Angeles schools, the rate of violence affecting our students has fallen drastically over the past few years. I am pleased to report that Lost Angeles students are safer while on school campuses, than they are virtually anywhere else they may go.

More Los Angeles children are killed or injured annually through random violence and domestic violence in the home than through school associated violence. I share those facts only so that you begin to view this problem realistically.

Rather than focus on the number of incidents, I think it more prudent to focus on the impact of a single act of school associated violence on the emotional security of students, staff, and community.

Imagine, if you will, how school associated violence has affects the student's focus on learning and the teacher's focus on teaching. Consider, if you will, how fear of violence has contributed to the flight of those with economic means to private schools. I stress that it is the fear of violence that does the most harm in our educational system.

This fear is fueled by media misrepresentation of facts surrounding individual incidents, political grandstanding to elicit constituent support, and the continuous castigation of our public schools.

Diminishing the fear of violence is every Police Chief's greatest challenge. Fear is why our children, and sometimes even teachers, arm themselves. Fear is what causes some students to react violently to simple stresses.

Fear is what makes it hard to hire quality teachers in selected school communities. Aside from a police presence, let me offer you a few things we know effectively diminishes fear among school children. Small schools, small classes, aesthetically well-maintained facilities, well-trained staff, well-organized school leadership, and effective crisis management.

School policing is a relatively young industry. There are little or few specialized training courses for those engaged in school policing. A school district that establishes its own Police Department does so to directly influence the number of officers providing service exclusively to its issues, to control when and where officers will be deployed, decide whether officers will or will not carry firearms, and influence how students are treated by officers. Policing in schools is complex.

Fortunately, we are now on the verge of having one of our national partners in the Community Policing Consortium recognize the need to develop community specialized training. The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives is committed to developing specialized training for community policing in schools. The cost to provide police service in schools is high.

In Los Angeles, the school police budget is $27 million annually. This is money that otherwise would be going to instructional programs. The men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department enjoy positive working relationships with their colleagues from local law enforcement.

We have trained together routinely and participate in joint operations. We are in such harmony as to our mission, we do not have to develop Memorandums of Understanding between any of the 13 Departments with whom we share jurisdiction.

It is naturally understood that they assume responsibility for the most serious and complicated investigations, such as murder and rape, while we investigate and share the work on most routine crimes against persons, and handle all property and economic crimes against a district. We share radio frequencies. We exchange copies of reports in each school-related crime. The school district has specific policy that defines officers relationships within the school. That relationship calls for the final decision with regard to crime reporting and the rest to be vested with the police officer. This assures us the most accurate crime reporting system possible. In a school environment, our officers enjoy a high degree of respect and support from all factions.

Routinely, officers reach well beyond the traditional police role to help students solve their problems and avoid victimization; one of the greatest values for its school rated Police Department. Three years ago, our Department launched an aggressive community involved safe schools planning process that continues to be fine-tuned. That process employs the basic problem-solving model used in community policing. The plan is established by the stakeholders at the individual school sites. The planning group includes employees, students, parents, community, business, local, city, and county agency representatives.

As we speak, we are developing a new model that will bring the plans and planners from the local sites together to develop a school community safety plan. We will utilize the local high school. Its primary feat is to identify the boundaries of the community. We are excited about this new initiative because we believe through such a plan, we can more effectively prescribe longitudinal prevention and intervention strategies and appropriate follow-up.

The concept of multiple discipline collaboration is not new. It is a process model that we believe will render the new and more effective solutions. The process model is known in the policing community as SARA. Essentially scan, analyze, respond, and assess.

In closing, I am optimistic about the future of social conditions in public schools. I encourage you, however, with any future funding programs in the area of safe and drug free schools to assure those programs follow the Department of Education's Principles of Effectiveness.

There is no room for programs that are not held accountable. Thank you for this time.

[The prepared statement of Chief Mitchell follows:]

WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF CHIEF WESLEY MITCHELL, CHIEF OF POLICE, POLICE DEPARTMENT OF LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEE APPENDIX E.

Mr. Castle. Thank you Chief Mitchell. We appreciate that. Our final witness will be Dr. Aleta Meyer who is with Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

Dr. Meyer has been with Virginia Commonwealth University since 1992. Her background includes prevention research, human development, family studies, implementation, and health promotion programs.

Her current research work focuses on effective community-based health promotion efforts for youth; particularly violence prevention and cancer prevention.

We are pleased to have Dr. Meyer here.

Dr. Meyer. Thank you very much for this opportunity.

The program I am going to describe represents the product of 6 years of collaboration between the Richmond Public Schools, the Community Services Board, faculty from Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The focus of this collaboration has been to utilize rigorous evaluation strategies to determine effective school- based methods for preventing violence in youth. Responding in peaceful and positive ways, RIPP, was developed to meet the needs of public school students in Richmond, Virginia.

Violence represents a particularly serious problem within our community. Richmond's per capita murder rate routinely ranks among the top 4 or 5 among all cities in the United States.

Because Richmond is a more violent community than most, we expected a primary prevention program that works well here will certainly be effective in other communities.

This exact question is currently being evaluated in Southern Florida whereby the Heartland Consortium has received a grant from the United States Department of Education to replicate and evaluate the effectiveness of RIPP in ten rural counties.

The Responding In Peaceful and Positive Ways Initiative combines classroom instruction with real lie opportunities for conflict resolution and achievement. The initiative is based in one person, a trained prevention specialist, who models pro-social attitudes and behaviors.

The program consists of a 25 session, 6th grade curriculum, a school-wide peer mediation program, and 7th and 8th grade boosters.

The purpose of the developmentally appropriate RIPP curriculum is for a valued adult role model to teach students knowledge, attitudes, and skills that promote school-wide norms for non-violence and positive risk taking.

When we talk about positive risk taking, we are talking about risks towards becoming a citizen, a worker, and a family member; those valued adult roles that we have.

In addition to the formal RIPP Program, the prevention specialist must be committed to doing whatever needs to be done in his or her school to prevent violence, to create a caring community, and support pro-social norms and expectations.

This includes being available during lunch duty, being there during the loading and unloading of buses, being on the crisis team, and also being the very first person that kids come to talk to when there is a gun in the school. A combination of three basic strategies are used throughout the curriculum: Behavioral repetition and mental rehearsal of the social cognitive problem solving model, experiential learning techniques, and didactic learning modalities.

The problem-solving model provides the backbone for the entire curriculum. Each session builds upon the previous ones utilizing the entire model in accumulative fashion.

The early sessions focus on team building and knowledge transmission, while the later sessions focus on skill building and critical analysis.

While role-plays allow the students an opportunity to practice the skills for non-violence, the use of small groups is probably the most important arena for developing skills for getting along with others.

One of the crucial components of the program is the person who facilitates the program, the violence prevention facilitator. The violence prevention facilitator is selected by the school administrator personally from a pool of qualified applicants. This person receives 2 weeks of specialized training.

The evaluation of RIPP in Richmond has focused on the impact of the 25 session, 6th grade curriculum within the comprehensive initiative.

So, every kid in the school has access to this person and to the peer mediation program, and to everything that person creates.

The only difference that I am going to be talking about is the difference between having had this curriculum or not. Findings at the end of the 6th grade indicate that kids who did not have the program are 4.4 times as likely to have been caught with a weapon at school.

They are 4.9 times as likely to have received an in- school suspension. Kids who did not have the program are also 2.5 times as likely to have received a fight-related injury that required medical treatment in the past 30 days.

The comparison group, the group that did not get the program, are much less likely to use the school resource, or the peer mediation program. At this time of the year in the 7th grade, right around February, we followed up.

Differences were maintained for in-school suspension and peer mediation. In addition, kids who did not get the program are 1.8 times as likely to report having threatened a teacher with violence.

The boys who are not in the program were 3.4 times as likely to report skipping school because of concerns about personal safety. One of the limitations of our current evaluation is that we know only the differential impact of having had this class within the larger initiative.

Fortunately, the evaluation of RIPP in Florida will allow us to compare students who attend a school with the entire RIPP Program to a school that has no program at all for violence prevention. In this study, five of the schools will receive the program and five will not.

In addition to being able to compare this, we will be able to determine how well the program works in a community that is much different from where the program was designed. Richmond is an urban area where 96 percent of the public school students are African-American.

In contrast, Southern Florida is a rural area that is quite heterogeneous, with approximately equal numbers of Hispanics, African-Americans, and European Americans. There are also a high number of students who are migrant; come from migrant families.

In summary RIPP represents a community's commitment to utilize rigorous evaluation as a tool for developing an effective violence prevention program.

As a primary prevention effort, this program is designed for the entire 6th grade for the purpose of promoting school norms that support positive resolution of conflict in ways of achieving.

Evaluation of this program in a high risk urban environment indicates that the program is effective in preventing and reducing youth violence. The effectiveness of this program in other communities is currently being determined.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Meyer follows:]

WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF DR. ALETA MEYER, PROFESSOR, VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA – SEE APPENDIX F.

Mr. Castle. Thank you Dr. Meyer.

We will go to the questions by the various members who are able to be here. I will start. Maybe I would like to limit this answer to two of you because all of you, I know, could answer. After we do that, I have another question.

I am very interested in the after school programs. I guess you could say that is pre-school too, and summer too perhaps, but particularly the after school programs.

As you know, the Congress and the President have started to put up some real money in this area. The President has asked for a huge increase; perhaps more than he is going to get, but we are starting to really look at this.

In Delaware, I have seen the schools open themselves up to Boy's Clubs now, or transport kids over to the Y, or whatever heck it may be. There is a lot of that going on. Frankly, I did not see that in the past.

I mean, 10 years ago the school would close that door and that was it. They did not want anything to do with after school programs. Now, with obviously the situations at home changing, et cetera, we are seeing a lot more of that.

I think there is a valuable educational component in it because I think all of those programs should have some aspect of education in them as well. Also, obviously it prevents kids, if they are in a program, from doing things at that time.

Does this add to prevention of the school violence that we are talking about, say, when the schools are in session? Is this a developmental thing that is good for kids?

If I could get a couple of you as volunteers to come forth. Maybe we will take Dr. Rosenberg and Chief Mitchell.

Dr. Rosenberg. I think it is a very good question that we need to ask. There are all sorts of after school programs; some are designed to prevent violence. Others are designed with very different objectives and goals.

Some are designed to babysit. Some are designed to keep kids at school to study extended lessons. So, I think the real question is what do we want the after school program to do?

If we want it to prevent violence, then it has to be designed appropriately. You have to take some of the lessons that we have learned about what works. But I would not just automatically assume an after school program, necessarily reaches this goal of preventing violence in the school or in those kids who attended.

Mr. Castle. Chief Mitchell.

Chief Mitchell. Mr. Castle, again, I point out to you. There is no such thing as school exclusive violence. So, what the after school program does do is begin to expand the work on the developmental process of the young person.

What we know about that after school window of time is that the overwhelming number of first exposures to substance abuse occurs during that after school window of time. The overwhelming number of teen pregnancies occur during this after-school window of time.

The leading period of youth victimization is during that after school window of time. So, what we do by creating an after school program is one, we take a lot of children out of harm's way.

We give those children an extra hour of the day to avoid being influenced by negative social factors and avoid being victimized. We have a program in Los Angeles called L.A.'s Best.

L.A.'s Best, unfortunately, can only handle 200 young people at any given site. It is a very comprehensive after school program that has been heavily researched. What we find is that the young people in L.A.'s Best not only do better academically, but they do better socially.

Those programs are, unfortunately, again, not able to take in an entire school community, so we do not know that we will totally eliminate violence, but we do know that the young people in the L.A.'s Best Program do far better as a collective than their peers do in the same school.

As a police executive, I can say to you that one of my greatest concerns is that period of time between 2:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., and in the morning with regard the school commute, that period between 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m.

Mr. Castle. Let me ask Dr. Poland and Dr. Meyer this question because you are both involved with schools. This is anecdotal. I have no evidence at all.

I hear from people that schools, principals, administrators, boards of education, and perhaps other people who are officials in a state, for example, have a greater unwillingness to enforce the laws that may exist.

In other words, they, themselves, tend to brush a few things under the rug. I am not suggesting they brush a very severe crime under the rug, but enough that it is a problem. Some are concerned about lawsuits.

Some are concerned about parents. I have heard more and more that the schools are just unwilling to bring in outside officials and deal with these problems in a straight-up way.

Dr. Poland, I think you mentioned the incident with the children not willing to report their guns. I suspect that there may be principals who are not really wild about saying that there may be guns in their school.

In other words, is this more than just the children? Is this a situation in which, as an academic society, we are starting to say they brought a knife to school, but that is not a big deal or something like that?

Dr. Poland. I think school administrators are under a great deal of pressure today. All of our states are holding them accountable for scores in the basic subjects only. Even the most well-meaning building principal who would like to work more on violence prevention and on school safety does not feel they have the time, nor do they have the mandate to do that.

It is not unusual in traveling around the country and talking to educators to have them say, oh yeah, we have a crisis team. I am on it. We have never met. I have no idea what I am supposed to do.

So, I think it is important that we give schools a clear message. I also believe, sir, that with regard to threats of violence, that we cannot tolerate them. A school teacher will say, I have a 4th grade kid in my classroom. Everyday he goes bang, bang, as he points out and pretends to shoot various students in the class. We cannot tolerate that. You may or may not know that in Springfield, Oregon, Kip, the gunman, had the guns at school the day before.

They called the police. He went home with mom and dad the same day. He shot 24 people at Thurston High School the next day. I wish we could make our schools much more like airports.

We walk through an airport. It is like I do not even think a violent thought. Somehow they know. There are going to be swift and very severe consequences.

How do we create that climate in our schools where no one tolerates a threat of violence? Sometimes a school official will say, oh, I do not think he is really going to do it.

I believe we have to take each and every threat seriously. Unfortunately, most children in America have access to guns. How do we figure out which one might follow through with something that many students talk about?

We must take it seriously. We must have consequences. We must involve parents. I am not talking about kicking them all out. We need more intervention. We need to take immediate action, sir.

Mr. Castle. Thank you, Dr. Poland; Dr. Meyer.

Dr. Meyer. My experience is with the Richmond Public Schools where there is acknowledgement of the problem. Therefore, a real desire to know exactly what the extent of the problem is.

So, in terms of recording if someone brings a weapon to school, or all of those things, we really try to keep as accurate of a picture as possible to know then what change is happening.

So, I think that their attitude in the Richmond Public Schools of wanting to know what is happening and then finding out how to use resources is a good model for how to get over that.

If you know it is happening, then you can do something. I have wondered about those surrounding communities outside of Richmond where they say they do not have a problem. They have had a lot more, hearsay, of people calling the school and threatening to shoot.

There is a less of an acknowledgement of a problem. I think that by not acknowledging it, you perpetuate it. So, I Think Richmond is a good example of acknowledging it.

Mr. Castle. Dr. Rosenberg, if you can be brief please. We need to move on.

Dr. Rosenberg. I think the notion that people in school are afraid to report violence is very much like what we find in communities at large.

People have a sense that violence just happens. It is out there. It is evil. There is nothing we can do about it and prevention might try.

I think we need to give people the sense that this is a problem we can address. We need to get out these lessons that programs like Chief Mitchell’s or Dr. Meyer's have had an impact.

It is not just the schools that want to sweep it under the rug. It is everybody who is afraid of it. This is so important to give them a different sense. It is a preventable problem. We are making progress.

Mr. Castle. Well, thank you.

Those are interesting answers. I will turn to Mr. Kildee now.

Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

For several years, we had what was called the National Diffusion Network where schools could share some of their best educational ideas.

Is there a network or networks in existence where ideas on violence prevention can be shared between school districts and various schools? Does anything work with your Centers for Disease Control? Is there any network out there where ideas can be shared?

Dr. Rosenberg. There are now multiple networks. We are working very hard to disseminate the information that we collect.

There is now collaboration between the Departments of Health and Human Services, Justice, and Education working together to defuse information that we have found and compiled.

There are also non-Federal Governmental efforts to do this at state and local levels. CDC also works with school departments in every state in the Country to disseminate information.

We are developing guidelines about programs and practices that work that will be disseminated very widely to all school system throughout the Country. So, yes, there are these systems put in place. They are very important.

Mr. Kildee. Dr. Poland.

Dr. Poland. Yes. As Mark has said, there are some excellent programs out there. Unfortunately, I do not think many educators feel it is really their responsibility.

I will quote a building principal who said, ``I tried to set aside 30 minutes every day to teach anger management, violence prevention, and learning to get along with everyone regardless of race and ethnicity. My teachers refused because it would take away from what they see as the sole mission of teaching the basic subjects.''

So, we have some philosophical issues. Many people are trying very hard to get information out there. The U.S. Department of Education gave three violence prevention programs an A. Most educators do not know anything about those programs.

Dr. Meyer. Ours is one.

Mr. Kildee. Very often the progenitor of violence is hostility. Are there programs in schools where efforts are made to deal with the hostility of specific students or the hostile environment in a school? The seeds of hostility very often lead to violence.

Dr. Meyer. We have a specific workshop that talks about two things that happen, "Expecting the Worst" or "Taking the Bait."

So, expecting the worst is when you bump into me in the hall and I want to deck you for that because you have just taken away something from me.

Taking the bait is when you would pick on me and I would let you get to me so much that I would harm you. So, we do specific role plays where one person stands behind you on this side of your head, and one person stands behind you on this side your head.

We call it self-talk. How can you talk to yourself in a way that when someone does something to you, you can take the bait? So, you have that voice talking. Then you have the other voice saying, well, my mom does not work at East Coast. You know, that is not the truth.

So, we do specific things. Like that would be a skill thing to see that there are different ways you can talk to yourself when someone does those things to you. Kids who are hostile are more likely to take the bait or to expect the worst.

So, we try to directly address that on a skill level, playing it out in class, and having fun with it. Kids do talk about it weeks later as something that helped them.

Chief Mitchelll. Mr. Kildee, I think there are any number of those types of programs that exist in the school systems. They come in a variety of different formats. I think one of the issues with them, however, is that there is no continuity or consistency of delivery of those behaviors from the early age; elementary school age, through high school.

Hence, the reason for our new planning format, so that we can say that in this community, the Peace Builders Model, for example, will be the model for problem solving for young people K through 12.

So, young people know from kindergarten through high school how they should be appropriately resolving issues.

Mr. Kildee. Dr. Rosenberg, you mentioned that very often the violent offender is male, about 13-1/2 years of age. Are there any other things that profile a student who is more apt to be involved with violence?

Are there any other specific ways, not that we want to run profiles on each student, that identify violent offenders other than age and gender?

Dr. Rosenberg. We are learning how to identify those kids at greatest risk. There are general risk factors for involvement in violence. Obviously, if you just look at young boys, it is a very large group.

You want to be able to narrow it down and somehow target and pick those at highest risk. I think exposure to violence in the family puts people at much higher risk. A child who is abused or beaten, a child who witnesses violence, the father beats the mother, is at much higher risk for perpetrating violence at school and in the community.

Access to fire arms, you have heard about that, increases the chance that a young person will commit violence that is lethal and that is fatal. There are certain mental health, emotional and behavioral factors that put people at higher risk for committing violence.

Impulsiveness is a very big problem in kids. We are learning how to address those. So, I think targeting in on some of these high risk indicators is a very good way to focus what we do.

There are also ways for schools to get a good handle on how many kids do they have that fall into this pattern. If you only look at the fatalities, if you only look at those types of violence where you need to call an expert in, you miss the under current of every day violence.

Schools very much need to be aware of how many kids are bringing guns to their school; how many kids are involved in fights outside that never get reported; how many kids stay home because they are afraid of getting into a fight.

If you could monitor some of those factors, you can get a better sense of how many kids are at higher risk in your own school, and then take on the programs that you need to address those high risk kids.

Mr. Kildee Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Castle. Thank you Mr. Kildee.

We will turn now to Ms. McCarthy.

Ms. McCarthy. First, I want to thank everybody for coming. We would have more colleagues here, but unfortunately with an hour and a half delay on our scheduling, we are usually really tight for time. So, I apologize that we do not have more members here.

I will make sure that everybody gets the testimony of all of you so that we can have an open discussion on this. I also want to welcome Dr. Poland. I had the pleasure of hearing him testify last year before our Committee.

I found him so interesting that I asked him to come back again today. I know he came a long way, from Texas, so, I appreciate you coming here. I know you and I are almost on the same page; especially when it comes to gun violence and our children. I agree that the gun violence is a complex issue, but it is an issue that we must address.

We are losing too many of our children to gun violence. Reducing and eliminating these tragedies must be a top priority for our Country. As a nurse, I believe greatly in preventive medicine.

It is just something that we know works. Unfortunately, I do not think we are doing enough of that on all levels; especially when we are talking about violence in our schools. Dr. Poland, you outlined a number of ideas on how to do this in your testimony. As you are aware, last year I did introduce the Children's Gun Violence Prevention Act. I am going to be reintroducing it in the next week or two.

Hopefully, you were able to read the copy that I had given you a few days ago. I hope that you might be able to give us some insight on what you think about my bill. Is it covering enough as far as trying to deal with the situation that we are seeing in our schools? I would love to have your input on that.

Dr. Poland. Thank you very much, Ms. McCarthy.

I very much do support the bill that works on gun safety. The problem is that many children do not understand the finality of death. Many, many things in our media and our society contribute to that.

Take a very popular program called Southpark. All of the kids watch it. Little Kenney dies every second or third episode. He is magically back. I can assure you that, that is not the way it works.

We have to help them understand the permanence of death. We have to unfortunately give them information about the effects of gun violence.

I applaud one such program in Miami, Florida, where the victims of gun violence come right into the classroom and talk about, I do not learn so well, ever since I got shot in the head.

I miss my brother. I killed him last year, accidentally, with my father's pistol. We have to have programs that teach the dangers of guns. They have to be able to read certain situations, recognize the danger, and take steps to be able to defuse situations.

Dr. Meyer talked about many of the curriculum programs actually provide role playing situations. What happens, unfortunately in many situations, is kids want to see the violence; they fuel it.

They tell people you have no choice. You must fight. You must get him first. Better get your gun. We have to teach children that every American shares the responsibility to prevent violence.

We need to begin in the schools. I really like the cooperative nature of your bill that involves the police, the community, the teachers, and the students. It has to be something that is ongoing.

Yes, we can say we have a violence prevention program. We devote 2 hours, 3 hours a year to it. We need a program that is ongoing; a program that is visited weekly and monthly. Do kids still know the important things to do to prevent gun violence?

One of the things about my job, and it saddens me to tell you, but in my job in a massive school system, I measure the pace of the school year by the deaths of our students.

We need to do something about the senseless tragedies that happen with children and doing something about kids and guns is the place to start.

Ms. McCarthy. Thank you Dr. Poland.

I agree with the panel. I live on Long Island; it is a suburban area. Everybody thinks it is absolutely wonderful, and it is. Yet, we are seeing a high influx of gangs; a very, very high influx of gangs.

We have seen incidents outside our schools where our young children are being recruited. These are violent gangs. Yet, when I talk to the superintendents or the principals, their response is, "not in my school; not on my property."

I do not blame them. I mean, it is my local school. I do not want to know that, my God, we have this problem here. But it is happening all over Long Island, from the Queens border, all the way out to Montauk, which is a very big resort area.

So, I think that the more that we can do to educate even our superintendents, our principals, on how important it is okay to talk about violence because that is the only way we can begin to work on a solution. We cannot hide it anymore. It is taking too much of a toll on all of our young people. That has to be stopped.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. McCarthy follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE CAROLYN MCCARTHY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES – SEE APPENDIX G.

Mr. Castle. Thank you Ms. McCarthy.

We will go now to Ms. Woolsey.

Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I apologize that I was not here. I was late because of a schedule conflict.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for another panel of experts that we can all learn from. I will be reading your testimony. I thank you very much.

I am a prevention advocate. It sounds like all of you are also. I consider after school programs a good step in prevention.

So, working with Mr. Castle and other members on this committee, we raised the eligibility age for after school snacks from 12, to 13, to 18 so that we can help after school providers afford to have after school programs. That was a big step.

We also passed legislation for school breakfast programs so that kids can come to school and have a breakfast, no matter what their income. Tests have shown and programs have proven that if you have a full stomach you can learn better and citizenship is better.

This is for elementary school children. The President’s budget includes six of these pilot programs. So, if we can get that passed, and if you have any interest in it, it would be good if you would let the appropriators know that this is important, and the budgeteers. The other thing that I would like to talk about is curriculum in school.

We are reauthorizing elementary, secondary education this year. I am going to suggest that we add a curriculum on anger and tolerance.

This is what I am going to ask you about: Both tolerance and acceptance of each other's differences. Is there enough in the schools that kids are learning how to like each other, even though they are different? Is there enough parental involvement?

Those are the two places that we can be addressing in the ESEA reauthorization that might help for what we are talking about today. So, let us start down here with Dr. Meyer because we have taken a long time getting to her every time.

Dr. Meyer. One thing I wanted to let you know was that talking about differences and tolerance is a huge part of setting the stage for learning skills.

Our research in Richmond has shown if you take that part out, if you just teach skills, if you just teach resolve, avoid, ignore, diffuse, kids do not really pay attention.

If you spend time at the beginning of the year team building, establishing relationships, and talking abut differences, all kinds of differences--our schools are 96 percent African-American--they are still different from each other. I think that can really set the stage for kids to care about these other pieces. That is very important to violence prevention.

Chief Mitchell. Let me just echo, Ms. Woolsey.

A leading problem in Los Angeles today is the diversity of our campuses and the young people's inability to appreciate that diversity.

Literally, every conflict that we have now eventually takes on some semblance of issue regarding racial differences. We have a serious concern, as we mainstream special education youngsters, regarding their acceptance in these schools. So, clearly the emphasis on that in the curriculum would be very valuable.

Ms. Woolsey. In my District, I represent the two counties north of the Golden Gate Bridge, we have just had a sexual orientation episode twice at one of our high schools. Diversity, that is what we need to accept.

Dr. Poland. A major goal of the National Association of School Psychologists has been the tolerance project to help all 21,000 school psychologists work towards the understanding of diversity throughout our schools.

I think that is very, very important. We also need to increase the sense of belonging. There are programs we operate. One is the ROPE Program, which I direct. It is a Reality Oriented Physical Experiences, and it is an adventure-based program. It is not unusual to bring students out to the program.

They have been with their classmates all year. They cannot call everyone by name. We meet to work on a sense of belonging, community, appreciating, and getting along with everyone.

One quote I want to say about school safety that I think is very important. It is an inside job. It involves a committed staff, student body, community, and parents. My superintendent made it his highest priority this year.

He formed a task force with community members, parents, teachers and, probably most importantly, students. We met over a 2 month period. We made recommendations to our school board about what can we do in the area of school safety, in the area of prevention, and in the area of getting along with everyone, and appreciating their differences?

Thank you.

Ms. McCarthy. Would the Congresswoman yield?

Ms. Woolsey. Yes. I do not know if I have anymore time.

Ms. McCarthy. Exactly what you are talking about is actually in my bill with funding. So, make sure that you see that part of the bill.

Ms. Woolsey. All right. Thank you.

Ms. McCarthy. Thank you.

Ms. Woolsey. Dr. Rosenberg, did you want to comment? We are not going to cut you off.

Dr. Rosenberg. I would say you have heard today some of the curricular that work in the area of tolerance and anger management. My only suggestion would be is to try to differentiate those that work from those that do not.

It would be a mistake to tell every school you need to insert a curriculum that deals with tolerance and anger management, unless you address this notion of effectiveness or accountability.

A 2 hour lecture can make a lot of money for the people who do the lecture and spend 2 hours a year in each school. Two hours a week with a mentoring teacher that they can identify with as part of an ongoing program might make a big difference.

Our challenge now really is to differentiate those programs that work from those that do now.

Ms. Woolsey. That is a very good point. My goal is that it would be part of the curriculum.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Castle. Thank you Ms. Woolsey.

You have been an outstanding panel of witnesses. As Ms. McCarthy did, I would like to apologize to you for that delay at the beginning. I disliked that intensely. I like to run things more efficiently than that. We did get tangled up today. It does affect the members who could attend. It is very discouraging when it happens.

Let me see to a couple of things. We are going to keep the record open for 3 days, unless there is some objection. If individuals have statements or whatever, they can submit them.

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE DENNIS KUCINICH, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES – SEE APPENDIX H.

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF REPRESENTATIVE HAROLD FORD, JR., SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES – SEE APPENDIX I.

Mr. Castle. Various members may want to submit questions to you. I guess you are under no compelling rule to answer them. If you would, that would be helpful because of your expertise.

You have touched on several bills that we are interested in. We may want to get back to you either individually or in some way not necessarily having you travel here to get your thoughts with respect to those things that we are working on.

I would hope that we would get this information out to all of the members of this subcommittee because I think you had a lot to contribute to what clearly is a problem. You have good ideas.

You did not allay my fears that the problem still exist out there. So, we still have a long ways to go. So, I thank you. Mr. Kildee, did you want to say something?

Mr. Kildee. Just a brief statement.

Mr. Chairman, Governor Castle, I want to commend you for working with the Full Committee, and the Subcommittee, to assemble such a panel today. We did not hear a scintilla of partisan ideology. We just heard expertise.

I really commend you, but that is characteristic of you. That has not always been the case in other committees that I have served on, but today this was really an outstanding group of witnesses. I deeply appreciate you being here. I deeply appreciate you arranging this hearing.

Mr. Castle. Thank you Mr. Kildee. I appreciate that. Dr. Rosenberg.

Dr. Rosenberg. I also wanted to thank you.

This is a bit presumptuous because we have not spoken together, but I think your interest in this arena, your support for what we all are doing makes a very big difference to us.

So, again, I want to thank you for us and for giving us this chance. I think speaking for all of us, we would be delighted to answer questions. We would be delighted to help. Your interest means a whole lot to all of us.

Mr. Castle. I think it is fair to say that every member of this Subcommittee is quite interested in this subject and in many instances would sympathize with your positions. That may not be true of the whole Congress, however.

There is still a lot to be done out there. We appreciate your comments. We really do appreciate all of you being here. Thank you very much.

With that, we stand adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:33 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]