TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………….*

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WILLIAM F. GOODLING, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC……………………………………………………………………...*

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DAVID MCINTOSH, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC……………………………………………*

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARK SOUDER, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE, US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC……………………………………………………………………...*

STATEMENT OF MS. BRENDA WILSON, TEACHER, EAST ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, PENDLETON, INDIANA…………………………………………………….*

STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY BINNION, TEACHER, THEODORE POTTER, IPS NO. 74, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA…………………………………………………..*

STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM PRITCHETT, TEACHER, MUNCIE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, MUNCIE, INDIANA…………………………………………………*

STATEMENT OF MR. RON MATAS, PRINCIPAL, EASTERN JUNIOR-SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL, GREENTOWN, INDIANA…………………………………………..*

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

APPENDIX B -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MS. BRENDA WILSON, TEACHER, EAST ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, PENDLETON, INDIANA…………………………*

APPENDIX C -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY BINNION, TEACHER, THEODORE POTTER, IPS NO. 74, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA……………………*

APPENDIX D -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM PRITCHETT, TEACHER, MUNCIE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, MUNCIE, INDIANA…………...*

APPENDIX E -- WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. RON MATAS, PRINCIPAL, EASTERN JUNIOR-SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL, GREENTOWN, INDIANA…………*

APPENDIX F -- COPY OF TWO ARTICLES FROM THE JUNE 1, 2000 EDITION OF THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR…………………………………………………………...*

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

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., at Fulton Junior High School, 7320 West 10th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana, Hon. William F. Goodling [chairman of the committee] presiding.

Present: Representatives Goodling, Souder, and McIntosh.

Staff Present: Kent Talbert, Professional Staff Member.

Mr. Goodling. Committee on Education in the Workforce is happy to be in Indiana today with a hearing on Excellence in Teaching, and I would begin with an opening statement. It is a pleasure to be in the Hoosier state and to join my good friends and very important committee members, Congressman McIntosh and Congressman Souder, for our committee hearing on teacher quality. I want to thank Mr. John Taylor, principal for Fulton Junior High School; Dr. Steve Strain, assistant principal; the staff of the junior high, and Congressman McIntosh and Krista Kafer of his staff and all the others who have been so instrumental in making the hearing possible.

In just a few minutes, we will hear from three teachers and a principal on their views on the status of teacher quality in Indiana and the Nation and ways in which we might improve upon it. Over the past two years, it has been our committee's responsibility to review all of the Federal programs authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and to make changes in the law as appropriate. In that process, one of the most important issues we have considered is teacher quality.

As a former teacher, principal and superintendent, it is clear to me that the quality teacher is the most important factor next to parental involvement in a student's academic achievement. At the Federal level, one of my roles as the chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee is to help ensure that all our Federal education programs emphasize quality rather than quantity. Another role is to ensure that these programs are structured to provide sufficient flexibility to meet the different needs of States and school districts across the Nation.

I am pleased that our committee's actions over the last several years have moved away from a focus upon just quantity to a focus on quality. In a similar manner, our legislative initiatives have moved away from a Federal top-down, one-size-fits-all approach in education and toward an approach that emphasizes more local control and flexibility, and I am pleased that we have moved away from process to results.

Last year, our committee in Congress passed the Bipartisan Teacher Empowerment Act, which emphasizes better quality and greater flexibility as its core. The legislation combines the Eisenhower Professional Development Program, presents 100,000 new teachers, class size reduction initiative and other programs into a single coordinated effort. The Teacher Empowerment Act ensures the teachers will get the highest caliber of training, which is based on the most recent scientific research.

Our bill expands the use of technology by ensuring the teachers, including those in rural areas, will have access to high quality training. If localities are unable to provide quality training, teachers will be empowered with the choice of selecting their own preferred quality professional development programs. If we are to hold teachers accountable for ensuring high student achievement, we must give them the opportunity to gain the skills they know they need to meet these goals.

Flexibility is also a key component of the Teacher Empowerment Act. States and localities are given greater flexibility to focus on initiatives that will improve the quality of the teacher and student performance. Such initiatives may include programs to promote tenure reform, teacher testing, merit-based teacher performance system, alternative routes to teacher certification, differential and bonus pay for teachers in high-need subject areas, mentoring, and in-service teacher academies.

Furthermore, our bill holds them accountable to parents and taxpayers for demonstrating results measured by improved student performance.

While maintaining this flexibility, our bill focuses on local initiatives to reduce class size. Schools are required to use a portion of their funds for hiring teachers to reduce class size; however, unlike the present proposal, no set amount is mandated for this purpose, and it can be done on flexible terms. Schools will be able to determine the right balance between quality teachers and reducing class size.

Finally, I would note that the Teacher Empowerment Act strengthens accountability. We have included language to increase the accountability to parents and taxpayers. Schools are required to use part of their funds to provide information on the extent to which the schools are making annual progress and improving the academic achievement of students, closing the academic gaps between students and increasing the percentage of classes in core academic areas taught by fully qualified teachers.

Though these are the things we have been doing at the Federal level, I am well aware of the fact that many States and communities have already begun making changes at the local level to improve teacher quality. It is important that Washington not get in the way of such changes, and we will certainly do all we can to make sure Washington compliments what you are doing locally.

I would again like to thank the staff of Fulton Junior High School and Congressman McIntosh for hosting this hearing and giving us the opportunity to focus on such an important issue as teacher quality. I would also like to note that Congressman McIntosh was the author of our Teacher Liability Protection Act, which was included in H.R. 2, another education bill we passed last year. That provision protects teachers, principals and other professionals from liability for reasonable actions they may take to maintain order and discipline in the classroom.

In a few minutes, we will proceed with the introduction of the witnesses, but before doing that, first I would turn to my colleague from Indiana, Congressman McIntosh, for any comments he would like to make.

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

Mr. McIntosh. Thank you, Chairman Goodling, and thank you for traveling here to Indianapolis to be with us and bringing the committee here. It is an honor to have you here, along with our colleague, Mark Souder, from Fort Wayne. I appreciate, particularly, the topic of this hearing, the excellence in teaching, and its importance to educators, to parents, to children throughout Indiana. And I want to thank the witnesses in advance for spending time out of your day to come and talk with us.

Also, let me add my thanks to Dr. Strain and the students in the school and faculty here at Fulton Junior High. You know, many of the students who attend in this building won't be here next year. They will be going on to high school. But, as these students move on in their career, I hope they take the time to thank the teachers who made it possible.

There is an interesting article today in our Indianapolis Star that talks about that; that says, "Have you hugged a teacher today? Hugged, not slugged or bugged or mugged." And I think it is time that we take that time to show appreciation for teachers for what they do.

I know in my life they made a huge difference. Growing up in Kendallville, I had some excellent teachers in school there, one of them, Mrs. Dafney Richards, who was my sixth grade teacher. I was a little bit slow reader at that point. Of course, I don't admit that out in Washington, but I didn't really like reading. And Mrs. Richards brought classic comic books into the classroom and said, "David, try these." I thought this was great, you got to read--I mean, they weren't Spiderman, but they were Ivanhoe and Three Musketeers. And then one day, Mrs. Richards came up to me and said, "David, if you like the comic book version, why don't you read the whole book and get the whole story?" And I have been hooked on reading ever since. So I know in my life, teachers, like Mrs. Richards, have made a huge difference.

Studies have shown that good teaching more than any other factor contributes to academic success, and we are today to hear from educators about what can be done to support teachers in the classroom here in Indiana and around the Nation. Now, based on testimony from teachers and principals, from hearings like this one, the Committee on Education has, as the chairman mentioned, already taken some active steps to promote excellence in teaching. I am proud to say that all three Indiana members of the Education and the Workforce Committee, Mr. Roemer, who couldn't be here today, Mr. Souder and I, supported Chairman Goodling's Teacher Empowerment Act, providing $2 billion per year of Federal education money for teacher training, class size reduction and innovations, such as alternative routes to teacher certification, mentoring, teacher testing, tenure reform and bonus pay. These members also supported legislation which I introduced, and the chairman mentioned, about discipline in the classroom, which is vital to maintaining an environment in which teachers can teach and kids can learn.

The Teacher Protection and the School Discipline Amendment provides liability protection for teachers, principals, local school board members, superintendents and other educational professionals who engage in reasonable actions to maintain order in the classroom, and you have got to think that if children are taught there are restraints on their actions in the simple everyday acts of having discipline in the classroom, then they would never think of doing what happened down in Florida, because they would have internalized the lessons of self-restraint and proper behavior that results from discipline. This legislation passed overwhelmingly as an amendment to another bill on the floor and we will be moving it, as Chairman Goodling mentioned, as part of our education package this year.

These proposals have received the support of many in the education community, and there are additional measures which can be taken to bolster teaching excellence. That is why I am delighted we were able to have the committee here to hear from educators and the principal. It is a key topic. Frankly, it is the future in our country, it is the future in our State, and I appreciate you taking your time, Mr. Goodling, and the staff's time to set this up for us. Thank you very much.

Mr. Goodling. Congressman Souder?

Mr. Souder. I, too, want to thank the chairman and Congressman McIntosh for their leadership not only in the hearing today, but in the subject. Chairman Goodling has been beating a constant drum beat in his entire career in the House on the importance of excellence in teaching, and Congressman McIntosh has talked consistently about this.

Bluntly, all of us involved in government in Indiana realize that in Indiana we are at a very critical point. If we are going to be able to compete internationally, if we are going to be able to survive as a state and as we get into international markets where corporations in Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Evansville, anywhere in Indiana, can locate their headquarters wherever they choose--they can put them by mountains or the beaches, they can put them in Sweden or they can put them in Asia--we have to get our education system up and running at even better levels than it is. This isn't a matter of picking on our education system; this is a matter of how do we improve our teachers. If you believe that teaching is the most important ingredient in education, how do we improve our teachers, how do we improve our schools. Because every major corporation--and my district is telling me in 5 years we are going to lose our best paying jobs in northern Indiana and, for that matter, the rest of the State because the demands of the parents, the demands of the top execs in industry, the demands of our children--ask them where they want to go when they get older and what we have to do in this State. And this subject of how we deal with the gifted and talented, how we deal with the inner city kids who don't have the same opportunities and resources, how we deal with those that get lost in the middle. It is across the board that we have to do this.

It is a great honor to be here today. It is a great honor to have worked with Congressman McIntosh as we try to address these questions in Indiana, because we no longer can be the Lake Woebegon, where all the kids are above average, all right? We have to be able to produce a lot better quality to be able to compete in the world, and I thank you for the time.

Mr. Goodling. And I would now call on Congressman McIntosh to introduce the panel.

Mr. McIntosh. Thank you. Thank you very much, Chairman Goodling. And I know each of the members of the panel, and have discussed with them various educational issues in my career in Congress. It is a pleasure to welcome them.

The first witness is Ms. Brenda Wilson, who teaches at the East Elementary School, actually, formerly taught at the East Elementary School. She is now taking care of three wonderful children. But she, at that point, coordinated the gifted and talented program and works with the staff development and assessment committee. Previously, she spent 2 years as the secretary of Indiana's Association for the Gifted. And she received her BA from Anderson University and her MA from Ball State.

I will share with you, Chairman Goodling, as a freshman in Congress, Ms. Wilson first introduced herself to me by coming up and saying, "What are you going to do to make sure we have gifted and talented programs in our schools? They're about to cut them out of the Pendleton School System." So, she has been an adviser and a good friend ever since.

Ms. Mary Binnion, who currently teaches third grade at Theodore Potter Number 74, in Indianapolis, which was the school that was the subject of that article, very nice article, today in the Indianapolis Star, has 28 years of experience in elementary and middle school instruction. In addition to working in the Indianapolis public schools, she spent 4 years at the Indiana Public Schools Performing Arts Magnet and 2 years teaching English at Suburban Middle School. Ms. Binnion earned her BS in secondary education, her MS in education and her elementary conversion license from Indiana University. She has studied special education and the important Gillingham Reading Approach, which she was kind enough to demonstrate to me when I visited her classroom at Potter Elementary, and is currently pursuing an administrator's license. Ms. Binnion also studied acting at the Royal National Theater in Great Britain and recently completed the Indiana Public Schools' Leadership in Development Training Program.

Our third witness is Mr. William Pritchett, and Mr. Pritchett has been employed as the director of band at Muncie Central High School in my hometown of Muncie for nearly 2 decades, drawing on his personal training in the fields of both music and education. Prior to joining the Muncie Department, he spent 3 years as the assistant director of bands at Chrysler High School in New Castle.

Before entering the teaching profession, Mr. Pritchett attended Ball State University, where he earned both his Bachelor's and his Master's Degree. And we have worked together on a resolution that I will be talking to you about later in promoting music in education, which I think is something we can really try to emphasize in our curriculum out in Washington.

Now, our fourth witness is Mr. Ron Matas. Last year, Mr. Matas became principal of Eastern Junior-Senior High School in Greentown, Indiana after spending a total of 7 years as assistant principal and then principal at Alexandria Middle School. His professional experiences prior to this time include 2 years as a high school English teacher, 8 years as an administrative assistant principal and a total of 9 years as department chairman. He is a member of numerous national and state professional organizations, and has completed various specialized education training. Mr. Matas received his undergraduate degree from Anderson University and completed his graduate work at Ball State.

Welcome to each of you and thank you for coming today.

Mr. Goodling. I would ask you to speak into the microphone for the benefit of those who are in the audience, but also for the benefit of our recorder so that she records you according to what you said. And I would ask you to summarize as much as you can in 5 minutes. We don't have the lighting system up here that you usually get in Washington. And then we will have plenty of time for questioning and answers, give and take. And we will begin with Ms. Wilson.

Ms. Wilson. I noticed when I poured a glass of water for the handicapped that my ice in the pitcher made all kinds of racket. So I figured you would be able to hear me. Am I coming through okay?

Members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, Chairman Goodling, Mr. Souder and Mr. McIntosh, thank you for this opportunity to testify before the panel on teacher quality in Indiana and recommendations for improvement. My name is Brenda Wilson, and I am from Pendleton, Indiana. I am here before you today as a former elementary educator, a former adjunct professor, and currently an education consultant, wife and mother of three of the best and brightest school-aged children in the State of Indiana. My goal in all of these roles has been to improve education for Hoosier kids by bettering teacher quality.

Like all other professions, the nature of teaching is changing profoundly due to the Information Revolution. Automated and advanced technologies are replacing many of our traditional unskilled and semiskilled workers. Jobs now require more advanced technical skills. Many of our high quality teachers have not been afforded the relevant skills they need to address the students' needs of our changing world.

According to Willard Daggett, Director of the International Center for Leadership in Education, in 1950, 60 percent of all jobs were unskilled and most paid a middle class wage. In 1994, 33 percent of the jobs were low-paying and unskilled. Today, that number is down to 15 percent, and nearly all of these jobs only pay minimum wage. This trend clearly demonstrates what we know already; economic success depends increasingly on a good education. If students never do technical reading and writing in school, never work in teams, do not develop the ability to judge quality work and effort and don't understand economics and the business world, they will likely find themselves at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Having said all of that, teachers, unlike the business world, often are not afforded the opportunities to engage in time away from their clients or their classrooms to receive and maintain the highest level of professional training necessary to compete in this global economy. These teachers may be accessing knowledge, skills and pedagogies from the mid to late 1900s, which has trapped them in a lock-step, grade-to-grade system of teaching, while not having been exposed to new models of teaching and learning for students today.

When we look at the 19th and 20th century learning during the Industrial Age, all learning was systematic, ordered, with rigid structure, as compared to this 21st century Information Age of individualized learning with an inordinate amount of student diversity, information, and technical skills. Teacher skills, knowledge and pedagogies must, by design, encourage change and adaptations. We must embrace the challenges of serving today's children, who have access to more information in a day than their grandparents did in a lifetime. Our knowledge, skills and dispositions must reflect these changes.

Relevant, useful training requires teachers to exercise flexibility, choices in programs and many hours of collaborative planning with colleagues who share the same clear goals to meet the diverse needs of students regardless of their racial, ethnic, socio-economic, emotional, mental or ability level. Teachers have begun to realize that that one-size-fits-all lesson will not and no longer meets the needs of all their students.

When legislating on teacher training, I hope the committee will focus on three key issues:

Number one, funding. It is always the dollars. Funding professional development at either the State level, through newly revised formula funding, whereby additional dollars are invested directly in teacher retraining by building in five additional days in the teacher contract, or funding at the local level through easy block grants directed for the sole purpose of teacher trainers, materials and teacher paid days when the students are not in class to allow the teachers sustained opportunities to study, experiment and receive helpful feedback on specific innovations in teaching; For example, teaching technical reading and writing to all ability levels utilizing flexible grouping, content choices and evaluative measures.

Professional development is difficult, at best, in the course of the traditional school calendar. By funding additional teacher contract days into the calendar, teachers would not have to leave their classrooms, but they could receive the necessary training, go out in the field and work with it, and then come back and participate in a series of evaluations midyear.

Secondly, professional community. As we examine the many issues facing teacher retraining and professional development, the strength of the professional community in which the teacher is an active player is also vital to and must be a driving force in the ultimate goal of highly effective teaching through retraining. Teachers must share the same clear goals as the entire professional community. Administrators must establish a collective purpose and core fundamental values that create a culture of what is better or worse for our students. When districts have clear shared goals, a coherence of collaboration and collective responsibility is inherent in the teacher's working environment. School districts must utilize their master teachers for training, peer coaching and sharing successful program implementations that they have used.

And, thirdly, programs. Teachers are given plenty of programs to teach, many of which are not as effective as they could be. There is no reliable data that exists to defend or refute any of these programs used today that influence student achievement. The Government must embrace the research for successful programs that work for all students, and commission universities to create a research base on uncovering all the various programs that have continually and, over time, longitudinally shown increased student achievement. They then could create a consumer report with data as to which programs are, indeed, effective and have influenced student achievement.

This research would include methodologies that are effective, programs that help all students learn, and it would continually stay current with the best and the brightest teaching strategies that have been tried, tested and true throughout the world. These materials would then undergo frequent, rigorous evaluations of these programs. Based on the Consumer Report publication, principals, superintendents and teachers could select the programs that have influenced increased student achievement for all students.

Quality teaching isn't about firing every teacher out in the field and hiring all new. We could do that, and we wouldn't be any better off. Quality teaching is not about placing blame on the teacher. Quality teaching is about providing all teachers with adequate training, establishing a goal-oriented, district-wide culture, and offering successful, research-based programs for all teachers to use.

And, finally, with the use of additional funding for five additional days for just teacher contract, for providing a framework for school/professional community values and goals, and as well as commissioning universities to embark on a research study to evaluate those programs around the country that do, in fact, relegate increased student achievement and then create a consumer report available to principals, then the high quality teachers could have access to the best and brightest programs in teaching strategies proven successful.

As Helen Keller so eloquently said, "When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life or in the life of someone else." Thank you for allowing me to testify in front of you today, and I will be happy to entertain any questions at this time.

[The statement of Ms. Wilson follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MS. BRENDA WILSON, TEACHER, EAST ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, PENDLETON, INDIANA – SEE APPENDIX B

Mr. Goodling. Thank you. Mrs. Binnion?

Ms. Binnion. Mr. Chairman and committee members, I am Mary Binnion, a 28-year veteran of public school teaching in Indiana. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to you today regarding education, specifically the impact of teacher quality in education.

Most teachers work extraordinarily hard and truly seek to teach the children well. I believe this. I see it all around me on a daily basis. Why then are so many of our children failing? This is a complex question, and the answers and opinions are legion.

The quality of any profession is predicated on several issues. Some of those issues are, firstly, the value the profession has in a given society; secondly, the quality of the prior training; thirdly, the quality and availability of continued education in that field; and, fourthly, the inevitable funding issue.

The teaching profession is a comparatively low paying job, especially if we believe that we are really touching our future by shaping the minds of today's youth. Society does not hold great value for occupations and the people in them that are not paid well. A beginning college student does not have to research long to discover that careers in business and computers have much higher entry level salaries; and, therefore, other professions are drawing away potentially excellent teaching candidates. Lacking good pay and high esteem, teaching is not attracting the brightest and the best.

There are, of course, exceptions and good people enter the universities to learn to be good teachers. Now, herein lies another glaring problem. I have personally heard a great many teachers say, "I have tried everything I know, but it is not working, the students just don't get it." Why? One reason is that there has been a deficit of effective teacher preparation. Another reason is that today's students are very different than the students of even a decade ago.

Today's students, particularly urban students, look and act differently, and they have needs that differ from the students of yesteryear. Fetal alcohol, ADD, ADHD, crack babies, babies having babies, high mobility, drugs, guns and gangs are common in our urban schools. Today's teachers, particularly the veteran teachers long out of college, are not prepared and have not been trained to address these social ills. In truth, the newly graduated teachers are not either. Obviously, there is an urgent need to enable teachers to become more effective in these areas.

Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, teachers leave the universities under-prepared to teach, particularly reading and math. G. Reid Lyon of the Child Development Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has said, "Most teachers receive little formal instruction in reading development and disorders during either undergraduate or graduate studies, with the average teacher completing only two reading courses. Surveys of teachers taking these courses indicate consistently that very few of them have ever observed professors demonstrating instructional reading methods with children. Teachers also report that their course work is largely unrelated to actual teaching practices, and that the theories they learned are rarely linked to the actual instruction of children, and that the supervision of student teaching and practical experiences is frequently lacking in consistency and depth.".

I found that to be true in my college training. Nothing in my college education prepared me to teach in the 1970s and certainly not in the 21st century. Isn't that shocking? University education students should be learning how people learn, specifically how people learn to read. Teachers should be armed with the knowledge to diagnose a reading problem quickly and prescribe a remedy. Classroom involvement should begin early and should be more pervasive.

Perhaps something resembling an apprenticeship with long-term, hands-on involvement and responsibility would improve teaching quality in Indiana. This concept would receive unanimous approval of teaching professionals and college education majors.

University curriculum should be based on the best research available for all subjects, especially math and reading, which is the cornerstone of all other content areas. Teacher competencies and certifications need revamping. The state certification test is a giant step towards improving teacher capabilities, as is the national certification, which at this time is voluntary.

Professional development is of the utmost importance. Just like other professions, teachers must maintain cutting edge knowledge of the latest research and of effective, proven innovations. Insights can be gained from graduate level courses; however, much can be learned from conferences, workshops and from experts in the field. It is imperative that teachers be released for professional development and/or be offered opportunities during the summer and to be paid their full salary.

I would like to congratulate Indianapolis Public Schools for being forerunners in this kind of endeavor. Partnering with the National Urban Alliance from Columbia University, the Indianapolis Public Schools' leadership made the decision to correct the learning gap. Teachers have been released for training on an ongoing basis for 2 years. Those who attend Saturday workshops were paid a small stipend rather than full pay, but it is a beginning. We are about to enter into our third collaborative year. Teachers are enthusiastic, children are excited about learning and test scores are significantly on the rise.

I have seen tremendous strides in reading using an innovative teaching method that has been around since the 1930s. The Orton-Gillingham Method for teaching reading was created for people with dyslexia. It has been redesigned for use with small groups of 10 or less. It is remarkably effective with at-risk students. It is a multi-sensory, structured, cumulative phonics-based approach. It prepares teachers to teach children to mastery, to diagnose specific problem areas and to prescribe effective interventions. We need more Orton-Gillingham-trained teachers and/or teachers trained in similarly proven methods.

Teacher training is dependent upon several things. It is absolutely dependent on forward thinking leadership. Without it, possible improvements wither and are never allowed to come to fruition. I am blessed with a principal, Linda Burchfield, who not only encourages professional development, but also makes it her business to secure it for her staff. In turn, the superintendent supports her in this pursuit. Good leadership listens and encourages professional pursuit of excellence.

Yet another aspect of teacher training is financing. Renovating teaching methods needs funding. At-risk students will exist whether public schools do or do not. The attending social, emotional and academic problems will follow them and, consequently, will follow us. These children need early assessment and intervention for their benefit and for ours. These tasks simply are not possible without additional skilled staff. Additional staff requires additional funds. Equipping the staff with relevant skills is expensive, but at what price?

I would be remiss not to mention the inequality of funding in our State. Money is taken from systems losing enrollment. These systems are usually large, urban school systems. At first glance, it makes sense to equate students and dollars. In reality, it is the urban school systems that need more resources. The students and their families bring complex issues to the learning place. The social, emotional and economic issues alone are immense; however, more to our point, urban, at-risk students come to our schools on their very first day already 2 years behind. Without intervention, this gap widens. As I have stated before, there is an urgent, imperative need for qualified teachers specifically trained to alleviate this situation. There should be more equitable ways to distribute tax dollars so that school systems struggling with more than test scores can get help.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my colleagues and I are grateful for your interest and concern regarding teacher quality, and I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you this day, and I would be pleased to respond to any questions you may have.

[The statement of Ms. Binnion follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY BINNION, TEACHER, THEODORE POTTER, IPS NO. 74, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA – SEE APPENDIX C

Mr. Goodling. Thank you. Mr. Pritchett?

Mr. Pritchett. Good afternoon. Teacher quality in Indiana is a subject that is very dear to me. My grandmother taught elementary school in Indiana for 30 years; my mother taught elementary school in Indiana for 31 years. I have now taught for 21, and never did I think that I would enter this profession.

As a child, I distinctly remember my mother being very active in the local teachers' association. It seemed that the school corporation for which she worked and I attended had released a fine, young English teacher at the high school because she was pregnant. My mother was completely outraged, and, to that end she fought for and won additional teachers' rights in the early '60s.

As an undergraduate music major in the early '70s, my life's ambition was to play professionally. I did so for a couple years, and, fortunately, in undergraduate school I had a teacher that pointed out to me that I really should get a degree in education. So I did, even though it would never be used. And I traveled for a couple years, left the Midwest for the bright lights of the East Coast and found that a phone number sounded like a pretty good thing to have. And, after all, I did have a wonderful student teaching experience in the New Castle school system. During that experience, I came to realize that being a teacher could indeed be fun, rewarding and extremely challenging. I had the pleasure of working with caring staff, students and parents. The student teaching experience really had a profound impact on me. And, now, after almost 40 years since my mother championed the rights of an expectant young teacher, we are here to look at the issue of teacher quality in Indiana.

Let me, first of all, point out that I am not a member of the local teachers' association, the NEA, the ISTA and so forth. I so vividly remember a picture of Jimmy Carter on the cover of the NEA Journal during his campaign to the White House. I looked at my pay stub to review the amount of money I was being forced to send to the NEA. This event, along with many more over the years subsequent to Mr. Carter being the President, convinced me that this organization is far more interested in political activism than students and much more concerned with the unionization of education than the life a teacher can bring to the classroom. So, until the Indiana legislature recently made it possible to choose to be a member of the local teachers' organization, the local organization to which I was supposed to belong had to sue me to get their money. That was fine with me, because in that small way I was able to be demonstrative about my strong feelings towards these organizations.

We still can't choose to be a part of just the local organizations; we are forced to join all three or none at all. So, in 40 years the pendulum has really turned around. Short of sexual misconduct, possession of drugs at school, or some other really incredible act, an ineffective teacher can hide in the system. I don't think that is what my mother had in mind over 40 years ago.

There are basically three areas to address in order to improve teacher quality. First would be the elimination of tenure. How can we continue to justify keeping ineffective people, in fact, giving them an incremental raise in pay, when our focus is on outcome-based education? If an employee doesn't do the job, others that can and will should be found. I can't imagine a worse reason to give someone a life contract of employment than the one we use--the number of contracts signed. Achievement? Yes. Leadership? Yes. Character? Yes. Effectiveness in the classroom? Absolutely. Relationships with students, parents, and the community? Yes. Number of contracts signed? No.

Secondly, the existence of children must be a responsibility of someone. Is there not a way to provide our teachers with students that receive reasonable supervision, tutoring and encouragement at home? We have managed to allow far too many kids to raise themselves, which of course they can't do. Parents must be a major part of a teacher's success. If we are to improve teacher quality in Indiana, then kids must be in school on time ready to learn. So much of that is the responsibility of someone other than the teacher in that classroom.

Public schools in the United States were at one time the envy of the world. Now that is changed. Have our schools changed that much, or has society in the United States decayed to the point that we really need to address our values, the examples our leadership from the President on down would set and the basic lack of active parents in so many kids' homes? To what extent do we really examine the quality of the product that enters our public schools? And, now, in addition to all of that, we add the element of violence in schools. Isn't that a crazy combination of words—schools and violence? Today's teacher is really alarmed by the prospect of a youngster having a weapon in school. How can this possibly be the responsibility of the teacher? Parents need to be held responsible for the actions of their children, period.

Finally, teachers need to be allowed to teach and work in a system that gives them the professional courtesy of trust and faith, and yet holds them accountable for what they produce in the classroom. I have laughed many times at the outrage some of my faculty member colleagues express over the recent trend towards outcome-based education, the one that holds people responsible for what kids learn in their classrooms.

In my position, we have been judged publicly forever. If I have the marching band at a football game and the crowd can't recognize the school song or the National Anthem, I would hope people would question what I have been doing in my classroom. To that end, teachers need to be held accountable for what the students in their room are learning when that door is closed. This is a major concern of all teachers' associations. They want to offer excuses for student performance while protecting the teacher that is not getting the job done. It really is time for political entities to look at the NEA for what it is and realize the difference in the product being produced by the NEA and the UAW.

In an ideal world, students would arrive in a classroom that is clean, the kids would be clean, well fed and excited to learn, calm from a relaxed evening at home with parents and family, anxious to meet the new day's challenges, to be motivated, led to levels of performance never thought possible.

Teachers, too, in this ideal world would be excited to be there, thrilled at the prospect of teaching, leading these young people in their charge to an understanding of their subject never thought possible, being an example for kids in a professional way, being that solid member of the community that youngsters want to be when they grow up, yes, seeing that whole process take place. Parents would be at the doors as kids return home from school anxiously awaiting the child's report of another great day, telling a funny story, sharing how well that test went that they had studied together the night before.

Unfortunately, too often some of these ingredients are missing in part or, in some cases, totally missing. The task before us in improving teacher quality in Indiana, or anywhere for that matter, is to be realistic about what we can impact and then act. What would it take to eliminate tenure? How can parents be held responsible for the children they bring into this life? What is the fair, prudent way to hold a classroom teacher accountable for what goes on in their class? Time is not on our side, and I would hope a plan of action can soon be developed.

Thank you.

[The statement of Mr. Pritchett follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM PRITCHETT, TEACHER, MUNCIE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, MUNCIE, INDIANA – SEE APPENDIX D

Mr. Goodling. Thank you. Mr. Matas?

Mr. Matas. Chairman Goodling and fellow Congressmen, Mr. Souder and Mr. McIntosh, thank you very much for the opportunity you present to all of us in soliciting our opinion; certainly something that isn't necessary, but from our vantage point definitely appreciated.

I guess I could begin by saying the world will little note nor long remember what we do here. But just as Lincoln--.

Mr. Goodling. I hope it is just as effective as it became when that statement was made.

Mr. Matas. That is my thinking, too. Just as he was wrong, I can only hope that I, too, will be wrong.

Teachers in Indiana, and I think I could safely venture probably across the Nation, are generally better prepared than they have ever been. They are better prepared, and they are more properly motivated. Teachers in today's schools frequently are required to be very much more accommodating to individual learners, children with genuine disabilities, and to teach also the gifted along with the slow learners; however, whether or not student learning is occurring in the classroom is the single best measure that determines the quality of a teacher. Simply put, if students aren't learning, then teachers are not teaching. Underlying this idea is the inherent philosophy that all students can learn.

It is not enough to have knowledge in a discipline or even to be able to lecture about this knowledge. Because of student diversity, today's teacher must be skillful in providing a classroom that allows for differentiated learning abilities and styles. Today's teachers must have a proper sense of mission to be able to provide for student growth and individual development. Teachers must be able to establish and develop rapport with each student. Every child, upon leaving a school, should do so with having his self-worth and individualized perception enhanced by a personal interaction with at least one teacher.

Teachers today need listening skills and the ability to do this in a way that benefits the person speaking. Today's teachers should be high in creative ability, willing to experiment with new ideas and be flexible. Teachers need to care about the individual student in their classes. They need to be objective before responding and capable of empathizing with each student. What a task. All of this, however, is possible. To do this, teachers need to improve. To do this requires changes, in my opinion, in at least three areas.

First, the prospective teacher candidate should be more carefully screened. Teaching is the highest, the best, and the noblest profession. The quality of every profession is directly related to the quality of teachers that person had in his or her life. No other profession impacts society more than teachers do. The teaching profession needs the best minds, it needs the greatest intellects, and it needs the most gifted applicants. Then these people need to be screened, because even then, with all that talent and ability, they still will not have the other qualities it takes to be a great teacher. The old saying was "Those that can do, and those that can't teach." That is outdated and never was right, to start with. A better statement might be "I can; therefore, I teach after having been carefully screened."

Secondly, administrators need the ability to require professional growth of teachers. They need to be empowered to require performance improvement of all of their staff. Every profession has mediocre, average and skilled people. The teaching profession must have ways to improve or remove the mediocre and to develop and require improvement for the average and the skillful.

And, finally, teachers need to be involved in the development of their peers. The mentoring program in Indiana is exemplary, but needs to be extended, and students, parents, fellow teachers and administrators could work over an extended period of time to help develop teachers who haven't yet attained master teacher status.

To make all of this work, teachers must have incentives. The profession must become valued for what it is, again, the single and most important, noble and necessary profession on the planet. We must make teaching as desirable and rewarding as we can. Without taking away from the professional athlete and our entertainer, teachers need to become the ideal role model for students. Wouldn't it be great for students across the land to be wearing silkscreen T-shirts with their role model a teacher?

Our society must come to value teachers, and, in turn, teachers, then, need to reflect the best morally, socially, academically and professionally. Thank you for your time.

[The statement of Mr. Matas follows:]

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. RON MATAS, PRINCIPAL, EASTERN JUNIOR-SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL, GREENTOWN, INDIANA – SEE APPENDIX E

Mr. Goodling. Thank you very much. A couple quick observations, and then one or two questions. My colleague Mr. McIntosh mentioned a sixth grade teacher, and I probably have said thank God a million times for the teacher I had in the first four grades. I had the wonderful experience of having grades one, two, three and four on one side of the wall and grades five, six, seven and eight on the other side of the wall. And, of course, Ms. Yost was the custodian, and she fired the stove, she took out the ashes, she had every child you can possibly think of, no special teachers, and it was just amazing, but she was dedicated, she was well prepared, and just was an outstanding teacher. Unfortunately, in five, six, seven and eight, there was a war, and we had more substitutes than Carter had liver pills. And that was not the most enjoyable one-room experience, I must admit.

Ms. Wilson, you mentioned providing reliable research. That is one of our major roles on the Federal level. We have very limited roles as far as elementary/secondary education is concerned, realizing that no local school district or even a state, probably, can do the kind of research that needs to be done. That is one that we take seriously.

What we are trying to do is improve the quality of that research so that it is reliable research, so we don't get into this fad business and then, 5 years later, discover that, "Boy, that was the wrong direction to take," as they found out in California on a couple different issues. So we take that very seriously.

I was guilty; I was a teacher who sat through the most horrendous in-service programs one could ever imagine. I was a principal who probably designed some of those same worthless in-service programs, a superintendent who probably didn't do much better. Part of our problem was, you know, you were talking about 2 hours or a half-day or a day, and then you were trying to find reliable people, good people to bring in to do the job. We have tried to do some things I didn't even realize.

Just to show you how nonpolitical it is, we apparently have two institutes in this country, and I didn't realize one of them was in my district, where they have extensive training in math and science, and particularly advanced math and advanced science. I discovered that when I visited Gettysburg High School and visited an advanced calculus/advanced physics combination. My greatest problem there was to make sure that I snowed the students when they kept wanting me to have hands-on experience. I had no idea what they were doing, so I kept telling them, you know, I am just there to observe. I can do better by observing. But the amazing thing was the only reason that program was so outstanding was that, first of all, there were two women teaching advanced math and advanced calculus and advanced physics. Sixty percent of the students that were in the class were women. But the only reason it was successful was that they spent two in-depth summer programs at one of the institutes that, as I said, I discovered was in my district, which I didn't even know that. And that is the kind of in-service we hope we can help promote, because we do ask the teachers to do an awful lot of things.

When modern math came out, of course, we did them a favor. To the math teacher, that was nothing. To the elementary teacher, "What in the world?" So we gave them an evening of preparation in modern math and said, "Go get 'em." So we are guilty.

We are trying our best from our level to improve the research part, and we will be taking up that legislation in the near future when we reauthorize our ERI, because they don't even give us the kind of research that we think we need in order to make the kind of decisions we have to make.

Secondly, Mrs. Binnion, you, too, talked about professional development. You also talked about early intervention. And, of course, these two know that I will have to say, being the father of Even Start, that is what it is all about. And that program I designed by accident. As a superintendent, I said to the early childhood expert in my district, "We know every parent that didn't graduate. We know every older brother and sister that did not graduate. Isn't there something we can do to break the cycle?" She said, "Yeah. We will go out and use this Title I money which we have been wasting"--and I have to admit we were wasting it, because we didn't know what to do with it--"and we will go out and start out in the homes of those parents with three- and four-year-olds, and we will help the parent improve their literacy skills, at the same time help them with their parenting skills, so that their children do have an even start." Because, Head Start was a total failure for the first 10 years, because it became a poverty-jobs program. And, boy, it was tough to get that turned around, because you couldn't mention those two words unless you mentioned that they were apple pie, ice cream and motherhood.

And, so, we hope that if we can increase those kind of early intervention programs and deal with the parents at the same time, because, again, you know, it is no different now than it ever was, that if a parent isn't the first and most important teacher, then the child probably is going to suffer badly.

And, third, I do have some good news, Mr. Pritchett. Of course, when I began teacher organizations, the whole idea of the teacher organization was professional development to improve teaching skills. Thanks to Mr. Shanker, and I am sorry that he died as early as he did, because he was beginning to turn that around with AFT, demanding more from teachers, demanding more from parents and demanding much more from students. That, of course, got catching with Mr. Chase when he came to NEA and decided that we better get on that bandwagon, too, or we are going to be out in left field.

But the responsibility as far as the parents is concerned, you know, is just--in my day, the one thing I didn't want my parents to ever know was that I had a problem in school, because I can handle that but couldn't handle what I was going to get at home. And, as a principal I saw, all of a sudden, parents were saying, "Make my child get a haircut. Make my child dress properly." And I was scratching my head, "Why am I making your children do that? Why don't you do that?" Then, of course, I stayed there long enough to find out, "Don't you make my child do anything, because I have an attorney." So I went through that whole cycle.

And, Mr. Matas, I would agree in some areas that teachers are better prepared for the 19th and 20th century. In many areas, I have to admit teachers are not better prepared for the 21st century. One of the things that we do have some control over, and which these two gentlemen made sure that we worked on that, is when we reauthorized the Higher Education Act we really went after those who are preparing teachers, telling them that we were totally dissatisfied in many instances with their preparation for the 21st century. The first grade teacher who testified, she said she never had a course in teaching reading. Her professor told her that if she could read, she could teach anybody to read. I will guarantee her 50 percent of that may be true where the parents have done all the reading readiness, but the other 50 percent will probably be the most difficult thing she will ever have to do in her life.

So we hope that we are turning that around, also, by putting pressure where we can put pressure, because, of course, they do depend a lot on--when you talk about higher education, we have much more involvement.

The one question I would ask: What role do you see us playing in trying to do the things that you mentioned today that are so important if we're going to prepare for the 21st century? Because, as my colleague said, you know, the day and age is gone when everybody wants to buy American and everybody wants to have all American repairs and everything else. Now, it's the competitive 21st century, and next week, or the next week, we'll have to vote one more time to bring in 200,000 a year of people from other countries to do our high-tech jobs. Now, that's a real tragedy. The last time I had to vote on that, I said, "I hope I never have to vote on that again," and sure enough, the only thing that's going to change this time, the number's higher.

So, all of you take a shot at, you know, what do you want us to do?

Mr. Matas. I will start.

Mr. Goodling. What do you think we can do?

Mr. Matas. You know, I will still stand by what I said that they are generally better prepared than they have ever been. They are not necessarily well prepared, and there is a distinction there.

Mr. Goodling. I will accept that.

Mr. Matas. Okay. And I think if you read between the lines, I began by saying that universities need to do a much more careful job of screening teacher applicants. We also need to increase the incentives to draw the best. We simply have to have the best. Less than the best means we'll always have less than the best in education.

We must find a way to draw the best talents into the universities and then screen them for the kinds of people who have the ability to enhance the self-worth of individuals. If we had that in our Nation's schools, violence would subside. If students can feel enhanced and appreciated--you know, it is the loner, it is that child that does this, that strikes out, because they are not noticed. They seem to fall in the cracks.

We need the kind of people that do not allow students like that to just simply go through a day without being valued, without being appreciated and spoken to. And it doesn't take a lot. You know, as an example, and to this day, I don't know the name of the student, I got an e-mail from a mother who thanked me because I said good morning to her child. That struck me, but it also said something to me: How many other people went by that child and didn't do that? And I guess that's what I'm saying.

So we need these qualities in people, and yet, we need the talented and the gifted. And, unfortunately, frequently, universities, and I say this having experienced a lot of university studies, a lot of people in universities also are the same. You know, they have the ability, they have the knowledge and they can lecture. They may not necessarily know how to teach.

Mr. Goodling. Or they may be doing research, right?

Mr. Matas. Right. And these are the teachers of our teachers, and that's unfortunate.

Ms. Wilson. I would like to respond just in addition to embracing the higher institutions of learning.

Mr. Goodling. Little louder for the old ears.

Ms. Wilson. I apologize. I want to address the institutions of higher learning as well. When I was teaching at Anderson University, I was also teaching elementary education. I was teaching 6 hours a day math and U.S. history, and then I would drive to the university and teach a math methods course for student teachers. I made my husband come with me every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, because I hauled all of my hands-on mathematics materials, my Base Ten blocks, my unifix cubes, my G.O. Board, my pattern blocks, I hauled everything that I used in my classrooms, in my student workshops, in my student stations, and I taught the students at the university what I was doing in the field daily. That's the difference.

I had been able to work on a grant, try it, experiment with it, have those sustained opportunities to work with children to see what was effective and what was not effective, and then go teach the, you know, the incoming teachers. It's a lot of work, and we don't have very many of those professors in our institutions of higher learning today. They have read the research, they have formed the theory, but they are not in the trenches, and they don't really know what works for kids.

Mr. McIntosh. Chairman Goodling, may I interject a following question?

Mr. Goodling. It is your district. He can do anything he wants to.

Mr. McIntosh. Thank you, but you are still the Chairman. You mentioned they don't teach the methods as you were describing, and Mrs. Binnion mentioned, apparently, we need to do better at teaching how people learn. What exactly do they spend their time teaching teachers in these programs?

Ms. Binnion. I wish I could remember.

Ms. Wilson. Me, too. That's what I was thinking.

Mr. Pritchett. If I could, I think one of the difficulties here, and this goes back to the comment about in-service that you've mentioned, Mr. Chairman. You can't fill this auditorium with the faculty of Fulton Junior High and have an effective in-service. It is not going to happen. Now, it can happen if it is content-specific. If you have math faculty somewhere with an effective math teacher, if you have the science department, you just can't do it and do what you are asking to be done in raising the bar of student performance.

I am fortunate to be in a college town. The director of university bands at Ball State, Joe Skagnoly (phonetic), is probably in my room twice a week, and I am in his office twice a week. We go back and forth all the time. And kids come over and they conduct, and we really interact with kids that are thinking about getting into this profession. And apparently, that is not going on everywhere, because obviously, as school music, they are going to be taking theory that has nothing to do with how effective they are going to be in front of a 120-piece high school band or whatever situation they will find themselves in. And we are fortunate to have an improved situation with mentoring, we have got a good apprentice program going with the university, and a lot of young music ed majors are coming into our classrooms, and that is how it should be. It has to be content-area specific. It just has to be.

Ms. Wilson. Well, and you can find pockets across the United States, you can go to the University of Connecticut and you can see all kinds of fabulous things happening. You can go to Georgia, you can go to Texas, you can go to places where the universities have all kinds of innovative teaching that is successful and there is research, longitudinal studies, and it is working. But that is not the mass and that is not the norm across the country.

Mr. Matas. I think what all of us would like to see is maybe a better working relationship between the public schools and the universities. That doesn't exist. Right now, it is hierarchal. The universities prepare these people, send them out, and we are to hire them, and then we are to do all these other things that the public expects, and you gentlemen, because of the expenditures, and I expect, because I genuinely love teaching and the educational process. But as a for instance, most recently, I had an opening in my building for next year. It was a coaching/phys ed position. I literally interviewed and looked at 47 candidates. There was only one that I seriously could recommend. I did, he accepted it. I had a fall-back that I would have taken with reservation, but I was not interested in the other 45. That's because of what I am looking for in a teacher.

And I think as we begin to get the kind of people that we need in education, our schools will improve, I think the stress level with kids will go down and learning will occur. You know, the mark of a teacher is student learning. Regardless of what we do or how fancy we get, you know, or whatever activity we pursue or what methodology the universities teach our teachers to teach, it doesn't matter. If the child doesn't learn, the process did not occur, and it is a waste of expenditures, time, money, student, teacher, public, everything. The mark of a teacher is whether a child learns, bottom line.

Mr. Goodling. Mr. McIntosh?

Mr. McIntosh. Yes. Several questions occurred to me. One of them, Mr. Matas, you mentioned in your testimony that you thought teachers need to have incentives. And anybody who knows me knows I am a big believer in incentives. If you set the structure correctly, you can stretch people to do their very best. What do you think works best along those lines?

Mr. Matas. The incentive can come from a lot of ways. It can come from many, many areas. My incentive, personally, is the satisfaction I get--you know, I can drive by a school and smile, because I love seeing the kids outside. You know, I love the process. I love the process.

Mr. McIntosh. Is that the type of incentive you had in mind that you said teachers need?

Mr. Matas. Not necessarily. No. I think the incentive that teachers need is perhaps a little bit what Mr. Pritchett alluded to. You know, if we could find a way to reward the excellent teachers, we would motivate the mediocre, we could motivate the average; you know, for two people to do the same job and one to receive a greater stipend for doing the same job simply because he did a better job. But how you do that is going to be a complex issue. You just can't simply put it on student scores because the incoming product in every school is not the same. We don't work with steel; we work with people. And that is also why--.

Mr. McIntosh. Let me pick that up, because I have had some discussions with people about that, and I agree with you, you can't just do the raw scores.

What do you think about relative improvement? So if you've got this class that happens to have a lot of students who are behind where they should be and you catch them up, that you get a lot of extra credit or reward for doing that, the same way if you have students who are gifted and you take them on beyond what the average level is.

Mr. Matas. I think a formula can be worked out based on student ability, socio-economic factors, parents, you know, single parent versus no parent versus two parents versus normal, you know. If some kind of formula, it would be rather complex, but I think there's some merit to at least looking at it. Nothing like that has ever been tried.

Mr. Pritchett. Congressman McIntosh, I would add to that. You might not need that if you had an atmosphere of top-quality on your faculty, and you were able to start teachers out at a serious income. I am just guessing the four of us have lived through the poverty part of it. And, you know, when I signed my first contract for $12,500, that was tough.

Mr. McIntosh. Uh-huh.

Mr. Pritchett. And I really wanted to get off the road. I mean, it sure wasn't the money. And then I developed a love for it, an affinity for it and all that. But if we could offer, and Mrs. Matas wants the brightest, best people available, make the salaries competitive.

Mr. McIntosh. And you think the entry-level is the key problem?

Mr. Pritchett. Absolutely. Because, you know, it is kind of like the things that my wife didn't like about me 20 years ago are still the same. And if you hire a teacher, the things you don't like about this individual, in 20 years, you are probably not going to change those things. I mean, along with students, let's improve what is coming in the door.

Mr. Matas. And it may not all be money. You know, if we can find a way to enhance the profession itself where it is esteemed, where it is valued in our society, you know, you go abroad, and teaching is valued more than it is in America. You know, in America, the athlete is admired and valued, and the entertainer. I don't know that they contribute as much to society as teachers, and yet, you know, we do not value teachers in the way they are treated in the public or they are perceived or even children are not simply encouraged to go into teaching. Why?

Mr. McIntosh. I mean, somebody made the point that the remuneration reflects that social value as well, and so, maybe you can work on both ends.

Mr. Goodling. I was going to ask how do you get the teaching profession back up on that pedestal where it once was?

Mr. Matas. This is for you guys to work out.

Ms. Wilson. Everybody puts a dollar mark on it. I mean, if I knew that I could start out at $50,000 going into a Novell training expert and being a, you know, computer nerd servicing school districts, or I could go into teaching and start out at $28,000-$29,000, that is why we are losing the best and the brightest at the university level, because they are looking at dollars.

Mr. Souder. Let's be realistic here for a second. I live in Indiana. In my district, three school boards were just ousted because they put more money in education. You know, we need a better answer than to tell politicians that we need to put more money in, because I don't disagree--.

Ms. Wilson. Are your board members professionals?

Mr. Souder. They actually put in people less professional than they were on the board, and the reason is partly because people don't think they are getting the performance out of the schools.

Mr. McIntosh. Right.

Mr. Souder. And this is kind of a chicken/egg question. But just to say we are going to up the dollars, we are going to find we will get maybe ousted at the State legislature.

Mr. Matas. Sir, the very same thing happened in the district I am from; three out of five board members were ousted for a very similar kind of thing. And I think, you know, it is not realistic, but yet, the thing that is really, I guess, persevered education in America is the dedicated teacher that is willing to endure low pay because they love what they do and they love teaching. But they are in a minority in most schools.

Mr. McIntosh. Mr. Matas, let me say, I think, Mr. Souder, you may have hit on, one of the reasons that happened was the perception that for the additional dollars, they weren't getting the services. And so, it may be we have to link those pay increases with performance, or at least an expectation of performance.

Mr. Pritchett. Yeah. Because so much of that money, Mr. Souder, probably went to people that were at the top of the pay scale that were ineffective and had been that way for 25, 30 years.

Mr. Souder. In Indiana, we have to look at the building and salary question, because the way our tax system is structured--

Mr. Pritchett. Exactly.

Mr. Souder. --we keep building these big buildings, and the property taxes are going to rebel against that. And then we raise teacher salary questions, and we are like, "Man, We just built this palace.".

Mr. Pritchett. But the effectiveness is going to be the people, not the facility.

Mr. Goodling. Well, we didn't have this problem until the end of World War II, because--

Ms. Wilson. That is right.

Mr. Goodling. --we always had the brightest and best and most dedicated women, because they only had two choices, teaching or nursing, if they were going to do something professionally. We can't turn it back to that point, because women won't allow that.

Mr. McIntosh. Let me also mention another possibility for finding money, if you will. I have noticed the other day research that indicated that Indiana is one of the few States where we have a higher percentage of people employed in our K-through-12 system that are not in the classroom than we do people who are in the classroom. And to me, there's a distribution problem of where those funds are. Now, I would assume that Ms. Wilson, Ms. Binnion and Mr. Pritchett would all say yes to have more money going to the teachers.

Mr. Matas, you have been on both sides, although, if you disagree, feel free to, but you have been on both sides of that. Do we have too much in the administrative layer?

Mr. Matas. Absolutely not in any district I have ever worked in. You know, it is, and I say that having been a teacher, a school counselor--.

Mr. McIntosh. It is okay that over half the personnel should be, or maybe that is not the case in your district.

Mr. Matas. That is not the case in my district. But, you know, you need support personnel, you need the secretary who takes that parent call; otherwise, you are tying up an administrator who is already working with teachers on improvement or working with students and parents to resolve problems, and they can't be taking phone calls.

Mr. McIntosh. You are comfortable with your district. About what percentage of that are non-teachers?

Mr. Matas. I really couldn't give you a fixed percentage. It is certainly not anywhere near what you suggest.

Mr. McIntosh. And I am sure that district to district, it varies greatly, and State--.

Mr. Matas. And, you know, you are looking at, when you talk support personnel, you are talking maintenance, you are talking buildings and grounds, you are talking bus drivers, which inflate the number dramatically in rural schools because you might have 50 to 60, you might have 95 percent of your students or 100 percent of your students bused. You have got to feed them; you have got cafeteria people. You know, you have got to have the building clean. So, you know, which of those do you want to do away with? You just can't.

Now, the support people really do not make that much money compared to teachers, and they do us a service. But no, we can't do it without them. I don't think it is a frill right now.

Mr. Pritchett. Were you referring to administrative costs?

Mr. McIntosh. Yeah.

Mr. Pritchett. I didn't know, and I didn't know if you want to go that way or not, but I have heard it said in my district, and these are rough numbers, that 30 years ago, the student population was 19,000, and there were two out-of-building administrators, superintendent and assistant superintendent and clerical staff and that sort of thing. Now, the school population is 9,000, and there are 20. But at the same time, how much of that is generated by Federal Government mandating these programs and, you know, all the things that go on? I mean, they are all very busy people.

Mr. Goodling. In defense of the Federal Government, the State is even worse in most states.

Mr. Matas. And if I could just--.

Mr. Goodling. We are both guilty.

Mr. Matas. And if I could just speak to the simple, let's just say administrative costs as an administrator, I made more money as a teacher for a per diem on an open hourly basis than I do as an administrator.

Ms. Binnion. That is true in the public schools.

Mr. Matas. That is true of any school in the United States, I would think, roughly speaking. You know, if you look at the amount of hours put in, I met with my administrative staff. We average 78 hours per week. And that is time that, you know, we are simply on salary. We could probably easily justify additional administrative help, but we don't require it or request it.

Ms. Wilson. I was wondering if part of the research reflected higher institutions of learning? Because you have mentioned K through 12. Well, what about higher education? If you are placing more dollars at the university level, absolutely. I could leave here and go to Ball State and make $15,000 more.

But, also, there is inequity State by State. I am from Michigan, and I have, you know, family that teaches there. And with my credentials, and my years of experience, I literally could make $17,000 more a year to move to Michigan. So you have to look at that as well.

Mr. Goodling. I have been in the business long enough to know that I can walk into a school and spend two hours with the leadership of the school, I don't even have to go into a classroom, and I can tell you how well the school is doing or how poorly the school is doing.

Ms. Wilson. That is exactly right. That is exactly right.

Mr. Goodling. The leadership sets the tone.

Ms. Wilson. That is right.

Mr. Goodling. Either it is a good tone or--

Mr. Pritchett. Sure.

Mr. Goodling. One of the problems we have been trying to overcome is we have had too many people in leadership positions whose job was to keep parents away from schools, and obviously, that isn't going to work. Mr. Souder?

Mr. Souder. Mr. Pritchett, I wanted to talk around the subject of how accountability, measurement and that the music department, seems to me, to be a little different than others. Like you said, if you go to a ball game and they can't play the Star Spangled Banner, probably every parent is going to come in and demand your head.

Mr. Pritchett. In America.

Mr. Souder. Let me ask, is that premise correct? I remember from growing up that there was a lot of pressure in my home school in the music department. Do music teachers actually get moved around more, forced out in other ways, or do you actually have protection if you are a bad music teacher? I am just wondering from your personal experience. Not you, personally, but it just seems to be there is an accountability level.

Mr. Pritchett. Sure, there's an accountability level.

Mr. Souder. Because you have booster programs?

Mr. Pritchett. We have always had that. I think most music teachers create their own monsters. If it is an award-winning choir or whatever, then, you know, it is like anything else; you are expected to reproduce that year after year. In our case, you know, we try to address our community as a comprehensive high school. And as a comprehensive high school, our job is not to turn out music majors, but we have about 18 percent of the student body that participate in our programs. So we try and include a lot of kids. We mainstream special ed kids into different bands, and, you know, they are right there participating.

And there is a lot of reasons to participate in a musical organization. We do not do competitive marching band. We do home football games and community parades. But the places that do that, there is probably a little additional pressure on those guys; but, you know, they chose to do that. If it is coming from the top of the district from a superintendent saying we are going to have an award-winning this or an award-winning that, or it is your head, and I know that goes on, but it is rare, really.

Mr. Souder. What I am trying to get at, and the record can be left open for some written, but, while there are pressures with it, in fact, if some of our other areas of the school board were more like music, it would be interesting to see. Because if you look at the ingredients we are constantly looking for, booster programs, parents that have raised money for a particular area, they don't really do that for science or math or reading. The number of parents who go to the concerts--the Homestead High School in Fort Wayne where my kids go, these kids are out there practicing every night for four hours.

Mr. Pritchett. Great program.

Mr. Souder. If they do even 20 minutes of math--my son's in band, and I was in music. I am not downplaying the importance of music in Indiana, but I am saying that, and there's an accountability factor.

Mr. Pritchett. Sure.

Mr. Souder. What are some things that might be transferable?

Mr. Pritchett. Here is the biggest difference in accountability, other than the obvious thing about the National Anthem. Myself and the two guys that I work with and my staff see about 600 kids a day, and that is in grades 6 through 12. I spend a couple hours in middle school helping with the two eighth grade bands. And not one child that takes one of our classes has to take it, so we have got to do something some way, somehow that makes that kid want to do that, to have that mother buy that $1,000 trumpet, to do the private lessons, to haul them back and forth, and none of this is a requirement.

In addition to the accountability of an academic teacher prior to outcome-based education becoming the rage being able to close the door, and who knew what went on there? In addition to that, they know that legislation is going to fill their class load. There's not a single thing that they have to do for a kid to take their class. And those of us that are outside of that loop--and it is not just music; any elected class, those teachers had better compete and provide an experience for those kids and for those families that is worth their time, effort and money. So that is an obvious accountability.

Mr. Souder. That is an interesting thing. I have, in addition to one that just graduated from college and a sophomore, a sixth grader. And, in going through band, we walked in and they said, "you are going to need a private tutor. If he wants to play French horn, there is no way he is going to play French horn in sixth grade without a private tutor."

Mr. Pritchett. Right.

Mr. Souder. And we didn't go, oh, well, then we are not going to get a private tutor. No other teacher told us that. When he was thinking about quitting French horn, which is pretty natural for a sixth grader to think about doing, I played the French horn myself.

Mr. Pritchett. Did you quit?

Mr. Souder. No.

Mr. Pritchett. Okay.

Mr. Souder. And he hasn't yet, either, but we are working with him. But the teacher had to intervene.

Mr. Pritchett. Sure.

Mr. Souder. In other words, how can I make it more interesting?

Mr. Pritchett. Right.

Mr. Souder. What kind of instructor would do that? Something we ought to look at. And if you think of other things to add.

Mr. McIntosh. Mr. Souder, let me just follow up with one question. Don't want to spend too much time on it, but what would happen if you paid teachers instead of by the day, by the people?

Mr. Pritchett. I would be rich.

Mr. Matas. You know, there is another thought here that we probably ought to look at, and that is, the relative success of the student learning. You know, I don't know of too many band programs that have students that make D's and F's. They succeed at what they do, and it enhances their self-concept which, in turn, makes them like the program, which brings them back. And parents are willing to do anything for that. Why can't we have that in mathematics and English?

You know, if we had an English teacher where the children walked in and they all succeeded because they learned, and they felt good, and they left their having had a sense of accomplishment and a sense of their own self-worth enhanced, they would be back, and that would be their favorite class. We could motivate students through success because it breeds on itself.

Ms. Binnion. I absolutely agree with that, and I see that with children in the third grade coming in on a pre-primer level and leaving, not necessarily having caught up, but they have grown as much as a year and-a-half, 2 years, 2-1/2 years. That is phenomenal in one year, and they are excited about learning for the very first time. But they also, you know, they don't get to play at football games and things like that. There is not an audience for these children like there are for band.

And we do try to do things for them, but it is difficult, and it is especially, I don't want to beat this drum too hard, but it is very hard in urban situations, because we don't have parent involvement, either because they are not interested or a lot of them are working two and three jobs. It is hard for them to come and be there.

And I wouldn't want to be paid per pupil, because, in my reading class, I only have 17 children thanks to my principal. That is all I have to say about that.

Ms. Wilson. I really need to speak to this whole issue that is out there right now. What if you were introduced to a program that when students walked into the classroom, they were given a very simple assessment, and, within 2 or 3 days, the teacher knew exactly, with reliable data, the instructional level of every student in their class?

I am not going to go back to the ISTEP, but it is not about taking a test 3 or 4 weeks later into the year and then not getting the results back until January or February, and the data is no good and may not be reliable to begin with. I am talking about reliable data; that the students take an assessment piece on their level so that when they start reading it, they, in fact, can read it. It is not two grade levels above what they can read, or for a GT person it is not two grade levels above, and they actually can answer the questions on this test. And within 2 or 3 days, the teacher had in their hands the instructional level of every student in their classroom.

And from that, you talk about differentiating learning, you talk about differentiating instruction, you talk about meeting kids' needs, meeting all kids' needs right where they are, and you move them forward, and you want them to grow, and you want to see student achievement by the end of the year. If the teacher were to know day one, when every student came into their classroom what their instructional level was, they wouldn't be teaching the third grade curriculum. Because I can guarantee you that in a third grade class, there may be ten kids that are on the third grade level. You will have the top five to seven percent that are way above that, reading on a fifth or sixth grade level; you are going to have the kids right below that that might be on a second grade level; you are going to have some on a first grade level; you are going to have some that are non-readers.

So, what if when the students--you talk about motivation. If I were in third grade and the teacher gave me a third grade piece of paper to read, and it was a ditto I had to read and I couldn't read it, I am going to just not do it, or I am going to Christmas tree on it, I am going to color on it, I am going to wad it up, I am going to make pen marks through it.

Or, if I am a GT person, I am going to look at it and go, I did this in preschool. I don't have time for this, so I am not going do it. And then they get a zero, and then they become the underachievers, and you understand what I am saying. What if there was a program out there that could do that?

Mr. Souder. The obvious problem that, whether you are a school board where most of the education funding comes from, or the State legislature or the Federal level, where we are kind of the end of the tail of the dog, except for Title One, that all these problems are so massive. They all come down to money. It is which ones are we going to focus on? If we give more to the teacher's salary, if we, obviously, do an assessment of each child at each grade level, it would be very expensive. I am not arguing against it, but it would certainly--

Ms. Wilson. What if it were not cost-prohibitive?

Mr. Souder. If it were not cost-prohibitive, I don't know why a principal wouldn't, and a teacher wouldn't be doing it.

Ms. Wilson. Well, we are doing it in our district and 32 other districts across the State of Indiana, and it is effective.

Mr. Souder. And that is the type of thing that I would think would be--in other words, if I come out of a retail background, and in that field, of course you do that. You should have your salespeople, I couldn't conceive of, you are trying to do it for your marketing. You subdivide your constituent groups. You try to figure out what women 26 to 35 want. I was, for instance, in retailing. What they want from 35 to 45; how much they will pay; what colors are in in this period.

We do that in other areas, and, clearly, it is a logical thing to do. That may come back to some of the training questions. I would think that some of these things we are, in fact, trying to address. Recovery in Indiana is trying to get people within a certain range by concentrating the Title One funds. And from what I have seen in my district at least, there is an attempt to do some of this so they are not, by third grade, as far behind in reading; that we are moving into some other categories.

I have to admit, I am very skeptical on education research. This is a game that it is who you want to pick. I did enough marketing research and number stuff to understand this, and I see it in education all the time. It is ideologically driven that if you want to prove that open classrooms work, then you go out and get a contractor who will prove that open classrooms work. I have never seen a research project that documented the failure of a new program.

Ms. Wilson. This is not a publication.

Mr. Souder. I am not talking about your particular--

Ms. Wilson. Okay.

Mr. Souder. Earlier, all of you, at one point or another, raised the importance of educational research. I am telling you as somebody who spent about 15 years now as a staffer and a member looking at this kind of stuff, I don't trust what I am seeing; that I believe it has been ideologically driven. I believe that when the conservatives get in, that we want to hire a conservative who proves that phonics always works. Then somebody on the other side gets in, and they want to prove that look/save (phonetic) works. With somebody else, it is "let me pick the researcher, and I will determine the program." And we have to have a better method of doing this.

In Dade County, Florida, where they put school-based management in, one of the things Jerry Dreyfus (phonetic) made each school do was document in writing what didn't work. Because everybody wants to say what works and prove that the program works, because they are afraid it is tied to funding. And nobody will document what isn't working, so we can learn from it to figure out what not to do.

Ms. Wilson. It can be not-for-profit. It has to be not-for-profit status.

Mr. Souder. And that is one thing I wanted to ask, and I know we got off on a couple things. I have a couple of quick questions. Let me throw those out and then answer. One is, the question was, this was in Ms. Binnion's testimony. You said the classroom involvement should begin earlier. Were you talking about students in college, in their training?

Ms. Binnion. Yes, sir.

Mr. Souder. Beginning their freshman year? In other words, like, my daughter just completed her education degree. In her junior year, she went in an inner-city school in Fort Wayne, spent like parts of a day, and then in January, she spent at another magnate school in Fort Wayne, and then in a suburban school for three months. It all happened her junior and senior year. Are you suggesting that they should be--you also said an apprenticeship in the long term. Were you thinking of a 4-year? In other words, this should have started her freshman year?

Ms. Binnion. Well, I hadn't thought about it being freshman year. I think probably observations could start on day one, but I think they should be in the schools, and I think that they should be released to--I mean, obviously, the master teacher is responsible for test grades, so you have got that whole issue, too. But I do think they should be in there and responsible very early on. I don't mean just for 3 months.

And I have had, like for one semester, a student in there, but they don't really get a chance, they don't know what it is like to try to hold that classroom together or to make this child crying feel better about him or herself. Yes, I do think it should be longer and more extensive, and I think freshman would be a good time to start.

Mr. Souder. Okay. Let me ask another question. Let me ask one thing first to Ms. Wilson. You said that on 5 extra days, training days. Did you mean those to be at the beginning and the ending of the school year, or did you have any concept of--you said not during the school year when you would take the class?

Ms. Wilson. Right. My initial thought would be that it would be at, you know, prior to the beginning of the school year. Then they would take the practices that they had been taught into the school year. And then at mid year, they would be able to evaluate.

Mr. Souder. The last question I had, and this kind of frustrates me as I look at our Federal system in numerous ways, and it particularly frustrates me in education. And I know that Lilly Domlin (phonetic) has done a lot around the State, Deco (phonetic) Foundation in my district and in certain counties in advanced education. But a lot of what we are talking about, and you are in education, we are talking about new technology. Why isn't this on video technology? Why isn't this on CDs? It doesn't always have to be, like learning, seeing about how a teacher deals with a student crying, you don't necessarily have to be in the classroom. It doesn't necessarily even have to be something--all of you said it is difficult to stay up, you can't necessarily remember what (sic) you are in a classroom. Now it is just a matter of taking a CD and putting it in a home computer, watching somebody deal with it, getting the newest technology. Why is this so hard?

Ms. Binnion. You know, that is one thing that I remember about my college training. We had a five-hour psychology course, educational psychology. I think it was required of every teacher, or going-to-be teacher. And they were, what we laughingly called, the red films, because they were so old that they were red, and there wasn't even any color anymore. And that is exactly what we did. We watched situations in the art room, in the music room, in the classroom, in the lunchroom, and then you wrote little briefs about how you would have handled it, and then it was critiqued.

I think that is very different than being right there with a child. I think it is very different. And being right there with 20, 30 children, when you have everything going on in the classroom, and you have got to decide on your feet instantaneously "What's the most important thing right now? Is it teaching, reading? Is it teaching what a short vowel sounds like? Or is it these two kids who are hitting each other, or is it the kid that is trying to climb out the window, or...?" I mean, I don't mean to be facetious, but it is extremely complex.

Mr. Matas. May I respond to that? I don't think you can teach how to be empathetic. I don't think you can teach how to be empathetic toward a child. I think those are the qualities that the teacher education programs across the State universities need to seek in the individuals that we instruct to become teachers. Then we don't need to show them a little video clip as to how to deal with it. It will be part of their personality. It will be part of the qualities that they bring to the profession.

Mr. Souder. I wasn't even necessarily discussing about the college education in and of itself. It is a question of life-long learning that new techniques are coming out every month.

They are certainly younger than I. And, of course, they were dumbfounded when I said, "In education, what goes around comes around." At the end of eighth grade in this two-room school, of course we had to take the county test. We couldn't go on to the city school unless we passed that county test. Now they talk about standards, assessments, evaluations and so on. You know, you made that cycle.

Role models were mentioned, and I hope you do what I do. I write a lot of letters, and all the greatest role models that could do the greatest good in this country, of course, are professional athletes and professional entertainers. And I write to those that dissatisfy me and tell them about their responsibility as role models. I just wrote to Iverson, if you know, the great basketball player from Philadelphia. I told him he is wonderful to watch on the court. I hope he understands that millions of kids want to do everything that he does, and I would hope that--I didn't say "I would hope you would soon mature and do that."

And I had to laugh when you mentioned that when you did your study of 26- to 35-year-old women and so on. I never took polls, because it is a waste of money, and I don't believe them anyway. Some of my supporters decided a couple years ago we should take a poll. And the guy comes back with his poll. Now, if this wasn't a waste of money, I have never heard of a waste of big money. He said that "In my district, I am the Brad Pitt for all the 25- to 36-year-old women." Now, the only thing I can tell you is that if that is true, they sure didn't go to the polls.

And one last comment. I hope you are seeing a difference, particularly Mr. Matas. These gentlemen have helped me over the years to try to do something about our unfunded IDEA money. And if we can get anywhere near that 40 percent of excess cost, we, of course, in return, you can use that money for all of the other students rather than having to raise taxes constantly in order to pay 40 percent of excess costs that we don't pay. Now, I always caution everybody, however, if we don't stop over-identifying, we can never get to the 40 percent. If we can get beyond this business of somebody has some reading difficulties and all of a sudden, they are in special ed for life, that will help us, also. But they have been very helpful trying to get everyone to understand that we didn't mandate it. You don't have to do our idea, but I'd like to see you try not to do it and see what the courts would have to say about that.

So hopefully that will help you and is helping you, because we have increased about 178 percent in the last 3 or 4 years of federal contribution to Individual Disabilities Education Act. So I hope that is beginning to show up. And with the--

Ms. Wilson. In your language, at some point, you need to include gifted/talented in that language, because it is not included in there.

Mr. Goodling. Or, maybe better yet, differentiated instruction.

Mr. Matas. Differentiated instruction in the classroom, which covers all learner needs; you know, the high, the low and the in-betweens.

Mr. Goodling. Any other comments, gentlemen?

Mr. McIntosh. Just let me ask, Chairman Goodling, can I put this article in that I referred to? It is very complimentary, and Mrs. Binnion is here. So is the principal of that school, Ms. Birchfield.

Mr. Goodling. Without objection. You might also want to put in "Academic Payoff," which is an editorial. Without objection to myself, also, that may be included.

[The information follows:]

COPY OF TWO ARTICLES FROM THE JUNE 1, 2000 EDITION OF THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR – SEE APPENDIX F

Mr. Goodling. Well, we thank you all very much for coming. This is my second trip to Indiana in about six weeks. Soon I will be a Hoosier. I am applying for Bobby Knight's job. Sorry I missed that.

Mr. McIntosh. We will get you a restriction form.

Mr. Matas. Ex-patriots of Pennsylvania make great Hoosiers.

Mr. Goodling. The committee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:46 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]