"KEY ISSUES IN THE AUTHORIZATION OF TITLE I OF THE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT"

Committee on Education and the Workforce

Hearing on "Key Issues in the Authorization of Title I of the Elementary

and Secondary Education Act"

Thursday, June 10, 1999

2181 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, D.C.

STATEMENT OF MS. CHERI YECKE, DEPUTY SECRETARY, VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA *

STATEMENT OF MR. ROAN GARCIA-QUINTANA, TITLE I DIRECTOR, STATE OF GEORGIA, ATLANTA, GEORGIA *

STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT F. CHASE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. *

STATEMENT OF MS. RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, NEW YORK, NEW YORK *

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN R. CLARK, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION, OFFICE OF EDUCATION, DIOCESE OF ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA *

APPENDIX A -- THE OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BILL GOODLING, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA *

APPENDIX B -- THE WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MS. CHERI YECKE, DEPUTY SECRETARY, VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA *

APPENDIX C -- THE WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. ROAN GARCIA-QUINTANA, TITLE I DIRECTOR, STATE OF GEORGIA, ATLANTA, GEORGIA *

APPENDIX D -- THE WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT F. CHASE, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D.C. *

APPENDIX E -- THE WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MS. RANDI WEINGARTEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, NEW YORK, NEW YORK *

APPENDIX F -- THE WRITTEN STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN R. CLARK, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF EDUCATION, OFFICE OF EDUCATION, DIOCESE OF ALLENTOWN, BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA *

APPENDIX G -- THE OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DENNIS J. KUCINICH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO *

Hearing on "Key Issues in the Authorization of Title I of the Elementary

and Secondary Education Act"

Thursday, June 10, 1999

2181 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, D.C.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William F. Goodling [chairman of the committee] presiding.

Present: Representatives Goodling, Petri, Hoekstra, McKeon, Souder, Norwood, Schaffer, DeMint, Isakson, Clay, Kildee, Martinez, Roemer, Woolsey, Romero-Barcelo, Fattah, Hinojosa, McCarthy, Tierney, Kind, Ford, Kucinich, and Wu.

Staff Present: Kevin Talley, Staff Director; Linda Castleman, Office Manager; Sally Lovejoy, Senior Education Policy Advisor; Victor Klatt, Education Policy Coordinator; Cindy Herrle, Professional Staff Member; Kent Talbert, Professional Staff Member; Dan Lara, Press Secretary; Michael Reynard, Media Assistant; Gail Weiss, Minority Staff Director; Mark Zuckerman, Minority Senior Counsel; June Harris, Minority Education Coordinator; Roxana Folescu, Minority Staff Assistant, Education; Alex Nock, Minority Legislative Associate, Education; and Marshall Grigsby, Minority Legislative Associate, Education.

Chairman Goodling. It is a privilege to welcome all of you here this morning as we have our second hearing on Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. About two months ago, we had a first hearing focused on the national assessment of Title I and a recent study which reviewed the Title I program top to bottom.

My hope is always that whatever we do, it will improve the quality of education for all students in the United States. Unfortunately, our $120 billion record isn't nearly as good as most of us would hope it would have been.

Chairman Hawkins used to say they aren't working as well as we wanted them to work, and hopefully by the time we finish reauthorization, we can do some things to make them work better.

We like to look at recent NAEP's and say that, well, it looks like some of the things that we did in 1994 are working. We really don't know that, and basically all those NAEP results said that now we are up to where we were in 1992. Well, my hope had been we would be way beyond where we were in 1992.

So hopefully by the time we finish this, we will give you the tools that you need to make sure that every child has a quality education. I will admit as a superintendent, misspending, at that time, Chapter 1 money simply because we never knew what to do with it, no one gave us any guidance.

Secondly, we always received our allocation in October/November, and the planning was supposed to have been done long before that. Finally we got around to saying maybe if we use it with three and four year olds and their parents, we will accomplish something, and I think we did.

But as soon as I left, the school board did away with them because their children couldn't participate.

So we welcome you here, we are looking for every bit of assistance we can get, because quality is the name of the game, and we hope that you will have some things that you can tell us that will help us provide that kind of help to you.

Mr. Clay.

Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to join you this morning at this hearing on Title I. It is one of the most important and vital education programs aimed at narrowing the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their nondisadvantaged peers. In a recent national assessment of Title I, early results of the changes made to ESEA during the last reauthorization are clear: Title I is fostering increased educational achievement for all children, and in states that have led the charge in implementing high academic standards and aligned assessments.

Of six states reporting data, five showed improvement in math achievement and four in reading. Of the 13 urban school districts reporting, nine showed substantial increases in either math or reading achievement. Most importantly, the national assessment told us that when fully implemented, systemic reform seems to be closing the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their nondisadvantaged peers.

Mr. Chairman, there are several improvements which must be made to Title I. We need to respond to President Clinton to further increase the accountability of our federal education programs and ensure that we place results over process.

We should ensure that every child is taught in small, manageable classes by a certified teacher who knows the subject he or she is teaching. In addition, we can no longer tolerate low-performing schools that place the education of our children at risk. States and school districts will need additional resources to help the students in low-performing schools reach high standards.

Mr. Chairman, the reauthorization provides us the unique opportunity to strengthen the quality of our educational system that we should not pass up.

I yield back the balance of my time, and thank you for yielding, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Petri would like one minute?

Mr. Petri. Mr. Chairman, I just want to commend you for the thorough and workmanlike way in which you are approaching this very important reauthorization of the K-12 federal education programs. We are at a watershed here in America in addressing and improving education for our young people, and we are seeing great ferment going on some good, some questionable. But that is what experimentation is all about at the state and local levels, and we have to be sure we don't impede efforts to improve education out in the communities by the parents and teachers of this country.

And I appreciate your efforts in trying to move toward less of a process focus and more of an outcome focus in this legislation.

Chairman Goodling. Thank you. Mrs. McCarthy.

Mrs. McCarthy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize. I probably am going to have to leave early, and I will not be able to hear all of the testimony, but I promise that I will read everything. I am known for that. But I do want to welcome Bob Chase, the President of the National Education Association and Randi Weingarten of New York.

I have been working with her over the last couple of years, and I have the privilege of being in Brooklyn all day on Monday. So even though it is not in my district, I do care about New York City, and I welcome all of you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. I will introduce four and then ask Mr. Isakson to introduce the fifth member of the panel.

Mr. Isakson. Okay.

Chairman Goodling. Ms. Cheri Yecke, Deputy Secretary of Education, Virginia Department of Education in Richmond, Virginia. She is the Deputy Secretary of Education for the Virginia Department of Education and is a past member of the Virginia School Board of Education. She is the author of the Virginia Education Report Card, a report on the status of public education in Virginia and what works. She was named the 1988 teacher of the year in Stafford County, Virginia.

Mr. Robert F. Chase, president, National Education Association of Washington, D.C., which is an organization representing the teaching profession. He is a member of the NEA's blue ribbon task force on educational excellence where he helped develop the association's position on how public schools can meet the needs-assistance of the 21st century.

Ms. Randi Weingarten is the president of the United Federation of Teachers and vice president of the American Federation of Teachers from New York, New York. Ms. Weingarten is also a member of the board of directors of the New York State United Teachers and the New York City labor council.

Mr. John R. Clark, assistant superintendent of education Diocese of Allentown; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Mr. Clark is also the chairman of the United States Catholic Conference Federal Assistance Advisory Commission and the government programs coordinator for the diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania and a member of the Pennsylvania Title I committee of practitioners and the Pennsylvania Title I implementation planning committee.

I would now like to ask Mr. Isakson to introduce the fifth witness.

Mr. Isakson. Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to introduce Mr. Roan Garcia-Quintana, born in Havanna, Cuba but raised in Savannah, Georgia and educated in the university system of Georgia at Armstrong State College. He has a degree in the subject that I could not master at the University of Georgia, which is mathematical statistics and probability. I still have a hard time with that.

He was deputy director of the National Institute of Education in Washington, D.C. and a senior research analyst for the Gallup organization. His many experiences have been published many times with certified teaching mathematics in Georgia and has taught mathematics at the college level in South Carolina.

He has written and published numerous articles in the area of educational research, assessment, and statistics. He is currently the state director for all of the Title I and English speakers of other language programs. It is my pleasure to introduce him to the committee.

Chairman Goodling. If you will please come forward and have a seat at the table. I don't know if your names are on the back of those; if not you will have to look on the front.

We will proceed from my left to right, and we will start with Ms. Yecke. I hope you can summarize your testimony as close to five minutes as possible. Then we can have more time to ask questions.

Ms. Yecke we will start with you.

Ms. Yecke. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to address the reauthorization of Title I.

I am aware that under the 1994 ESEA reauthorization, states were required to establish content standards, formulate assessments aligned to those standards and set student performance levels on the assessment all by the year 2001.

I am pleased to report in Virginia we were already well on the way to standards-based reform before the reauthorization in 1994. What we would like to see, however, is an increase in the flexibility given to us in the use of Title I funds and other educational funding so as to continue with the implementation of our reform initiatives.

I would like to briefly summarize our reform initiatives, and then I will address how flexibility in Title I and other educational funding can help us to enhance through implementation.

Our standards, the Virginia standards of learning, were adopted in June of 1995. They have been hailed nationwide as a model of rigorous and challenging standards, and for two consecutive years, the American Federation of Teachers reported that Virginia and Virginia alone received exemplary rating for its standards in all four disciplines.

Our assessments are criterion based, based on our standards of learning (SOL) and were field-tested in 1997. The first full-fledged implementation or administration of the test took place in 1998, and this year schools will be able to measure their performance based on that baseline data from last year.

Accountability is addressed through our standards of accreditation which were revised in 1997. We established both student and school accountability. And to ensure that parents and members of the public and educators know how well their students are performing, a school performance report card was developed and disseminated for every individual school and will be disseminated annually.

Now Virginia is not alone in supporting higher standards accountability and flexibility as key elements of educational reforms. We are one of seven states belonging to the educational leader's council, a national organization of state education leaders from Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. We are all committed to pursuing strategies that enhance student academic achievement and to investing more energy and resources into those efforts that are producing results.

However, we can do much more if allowed the flexibility to use our Title I funds and other funding in ways that would address our unique needs within the context of our reforms with the goal of improving academic achievement for all students, but especially for those students who are disadvantaged. Right now, we have 12 staff members who deal with Title I and other ESEA requirements, it would be much more efficient for us to combine these federal programs with our state efforts and avoid wasteful duplication of efforts.

For example, with such flexibility we could hire more teachers to reduce class sizes; expand our intensive staff development, especially in early reading; expand remediation services to students who need help; and expand our early intervention strategies. Our goal is to have successful earlier intervention strategies to prevent the need for future remediation.

We would also like to use funding to expand our best-practices centers. We presently have three in rural Virginia, with five more that will be opening in September. This is our way of decentralizing control from Richmond and lending a helping hand to schools that may need help, and we chose to do this regionally because of the great diversity throughout our state.

This decentralization has been appreciated by both educators and the public. We would also like to use these funds, and I think this is critical to evaluate successful schools and disseminate our findings. We have several examples of schools with large numbers of disadvantaged students that have performed extremely well on our standards of learning test.

I would be happy to share the specifics with you during the question and answer period, but I believe that there are important lessons to be learned from the teachers and administrators of this school, as well as from the students and parents, who refuse to be held hostage by low expectations. And I believe we have an obligation to evaluate and disseminate this information because if these schools can do it, we know that others can as well.

I must stress again that our higher standards apply to all of our students, we will not water down our standards for any specific group or individual. Our governor, Jim Gilmore, has stated, quote, we will not allow there to be two Virginias as there sometimes has been in the past. We are united in this Commonwealth under the banner of excellence for all, and by working together we will see this vision become a reality.

Now, the key element that I believe is missing from Title I is that of accountability. There are no outcome measures, there are no performance expectations. But Virginia is willing to step forward and accept the responsibility for improving student economic achievement. Our standards of learning, our assessments, our accountability requirements which establish benchmarks both for students and for schools are the driving forces behind our educational improvement. And all we ask is the flexibility to use our funds as we see fit in the implementation of our broad-based reforms.

In 1996, as Members of Congress, you agreed that welfare reform would be returned to the states so that each state could tailor its own program to fit its own unique needs. Each state has thus become a living laboratory in which different and varied programs and options are being tried. Thus national success at welfare reform is growing out of individual state efforts. This same model can and should be applied to education reform.

Please trust us to do what we believe is best for our students, and we are willing to be held accountable for improving their achievement.

Thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity to speak.

Chairman Goodling. Thank you.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Garcia-Quintana.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. And thank you for providing me this opportunity to testify concerning the Elementary and Secondary Education Act's Title I, helping disadvantaged children meet high standards.

Congressman Isakson did an excellent job of introducing me, so I will skip my background. Title I was created in 1965 in order to close the academic achievement gap between disadvantaged students and other children. Unfortunately, according to the massive Congressionally-mandated Prospects study completed in 1997, Title I has been a colossal failure insofar as no discernible difference could be found between children who receive Title I services and children of equivalent backgrounds who did not participate in the program.

The cost to the taxpayers over 30 years has been well over $100 billion. The proximate cause of this disaster can be found in the name of the favored Title I of pedagogical method, pull out, under which disadvantaged students were removed from their classes for remedial assistance, usually by underqualified personnel, missing whatever was being taught to their classmates.

Their progress was monitored by tests that only they took, and their performance was compared only to other Title I children. Meanwhile, the program rewarded failure by only serving children who score below the 50th percentile in a standardized test. I have often heard of strategies being chosen to ensure that students did not score above the 49th percentile.

A South Carolina professor created a math workbook that he piloted in a nearby school district. The children did so well that the school lost its funding and promptly the workbook was dropped. My superintendent, Mrs. Schrenko, naively taught all of her students, children to read and consequently lost her job due to funding.

However pure the motives of the authors of this tragedy, 30 years of waiting for light to appear at the end of this tunnel reveals a mindset indifferent to success and failure. Although there is much blame to be shared out among all involved parties, Title I is a federal program under the leadership of the U.S. Department of Education, but instead of sensing some humility coming from that direction, I seem to detect self-serving, I should say self-exculpatory sounds of annoyance, as if it is about time for Washington whip the laggard states into line.

The 1994 reauthorization of Title I called for all students in each state to take the same test which was a major step in the right direction, with the same yardstick being used for all children, both Title I and non-Title I, we should be better able to pull together and move forward. So far so good, except for one thing, the 1994 ESEA gave U.S. Department of Education the authority to judge whether state tests in mathematics and English met a set of detailed specifications included in the 1994 law.

Among other things, the law requires the state math and English tests be valid, reliable, aligned with state standards, consistent with nationally recognized professional and technical standards, include up-to-date performance measures such as higher order thinking skills. In Washington, we object to these criteria. Validity and reliability, unquestionably desirable attributes of any tests, but applying these concepts and practices is highly subjective and politicized.

We certainly want our tests aligned with our state standards, that is why we have standards. But who decides what alignment is appropriate? Consistency with professional standards simply means giving veto authority to the current politically chosen leadership of various testing or statistical association. While the phrase "up-to-date performance measures" is nothing but a euphemism for fads. Moreover, the world of testing is in turmoil over issues like norm-referenced versus criterion-referenced tests; traditional objective testing versus so-called authentic evaluation, which sneers at the idea of right answers; and I question the reliability as a statistician and national tests allowing comparison versus local tests designed to thwart comparison, while all of these conflicting voices can be heard issuing from the U.S. Department of Education and the interest groups that it traditionally heeds.

The 1994, ESEA was right to insist that Title I students take the same tests as all other students in each states, and that is where it should have stopped. Education is a state responsibility and federal involvement needs to be limited to the federal programs. States' superintendents of education and governors know that they can, should, and will be held accountable by voters inducing a sense of reality and responsibility unknown to federal bureaucrats.

For all subjects other than math and English, the ESEA correctly tells states only that they must use the same tests for all children, but in the two most critical subjects, the ESEA grants veto power or the power to dictate revisions to various Washington bureaucrats and special interests groups behind them, and this must cease.

In 1994, ESEA makes U.S. Department of Education approval of state Title I applications contingent on a process of peer review which the Department of Education controls. Moreover, the administration proposed reauthorization bill, the Educational Excellence for All Children Act proposes to extend this process to state-consoliated plans and the new High Standards in The Classroom Programs, successor to Goals 2000 and Eisenhower programs. This peer review is a sham used by the federal bureaucracy to forces its institutional views on states beyond the limits of the law.

As a final point, I would like to mention problems caused for Title I and the ESEA by the generally substandard research state of research in the educational community, a problem that affects far and wide. The suppression of President Johnson's follow through study's findings on direct instruction is a well-known cautionary tale. This half billion dollar research effort has perhaps one of the best designs ever. Yet because of the self-esteem approaches being promoted by the educational establishment at that time proved to be a failure, the establishment falsely pretended this study was flawed.

But decades pass and the problem remains. The recent well-intentioned CSRD program endorsed 17 instructional programs, all supposedly proven by research, but subsequent examination showed that only three were supportive by strong evidence of student achievement, eight were supported to weaker evidence, while six were not proven at all.

I was glad to see the demand for research-based methods in 1994 ESEA and in 1997 CSRD. We must stop experimenting with our children, they are not laboratory animals they are God's most precious gift to us and indeed tomorrow's citizens. We must insist on good teachers who utilize effective teaching methods, otherwise no matter how small the classroom is or how high you set the standards, very little or nothing will be achieved.

Thank you very much.

Chairman Goodling. Thank you.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Chase.

Mr. Chase. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. On behalf of the National Education Association's 2.4 million members, I do want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to testify today about this critical program, the program that helps millions of children achieve academic success.

NEA members represent the full diverse spectrum of public education. We are elementary and secondary school teachers, paraprofessionals, vocational educators, and postsecondary education faculty. We are deeply committed to strengthening public education to enable all children to achieve academic success.

NEA's members believe strongly in strengthening public education to meet the challenges of the new century. Our vision for quality public education focuses on improving student achievement, elevating teacher quality, and building school system capacity. NEA believes that an effective successful public education system must include a high-quality certified teacher, licensed teacher, teaching only in his or her field of licensure in every classroom; rigorous academic standards for all students; assessments tied to academic standards to help measure progress and replicate success; better preparation for new teachers including mentoring and peer assistance to stem the attrition rate now at 20 percent of new teachers per year; an end to social promotion which supports and services with supports and services to help children succeed; small class sizes, particularly in the early grades to improve student achievement; modern, safe school facilities for all students; comprehensive interventions for potentially troubled students and strong classroom disciplined provisions; research-based teacher-tested programs and practices; schools that are the heart of their communities, responsive to students, parents and other taxpayers; and access for students to the new technologies.

Teachers and other educators work tirelessly at the state and local levels to achieve these goals and to create more effective public schools and communities throughout America. The association recently released a publication that is a compilation of over 300 innovative programs implemented by affiliates across the country, in my written testimony, highlights some of these successful programs.

The work of NEA members and others in states and local districts cannot succeed, however, without the critical assistance from the federal government. We call upon Congress to work with us to help strengthen education programs in order to meet the needs of students, teachers and schools in the next century.

NEA believes that the 1994 reforms set Title I on the correct path towards standard-based curriculum and assessments. And we strongly urge that this year's ESEA reauthorization sustain this direction while strengthening Title I to build on its successes. NEA opposes any efforts to significantly alter the structure or direction of Title I as has been determined in 1994.

Teacher quality is a single greatest in-school factor in determining student success. Therefore, NEA strongly supports providing incentives, including through Title I, for school districts and school leaders to hire fully licensed teachers, assign them to classes in their area of licensure and provide comprehensive school-based professional development.

We also believe that the appropriately trained and supervised paraeducators who assist teachers in the classroom or in other capacities play a critical role in the success of Title I programs. NEA member paraeducators routinely express concerns as they are assigned duties, including unsupervised classroom duties for which they are not trained nor compensated. We also oppose assigning unqualified, unsupervised paraeducators to such classroom duties.

NEA urges federal support for comprehensive training and professional development for these paraeducators. We strongly support the standards-based direction of Title I. NEA believes that full implementation of the 1994 reforms will lead to further success in meeting our academic goals for all students.

Although the 1994 law clearly states that standards and assessments must be aligned, this is not happening in all too many cases. NEA members have expressed increasing frustration at the continuing disconnect between curriculum and assessments. This is also, as you can imagine, frustrating for parents and students as well. NEA urges a continued federal partnership in supporting state and local improvements of standards and assessments.

This partnership should place an increased focus on aligning and helping schools implement the standards and assessments discussed. Children's learning begins well before they enter school, early intervention and support is critical for many children who receive Title I services.

Congress should provide additional funding to enable local districts to use Title I funds to offer preschool services to all children beginning at the age of three and certainly recent research has clearly indicated to us the importance of that time in a child's life.

NEA urges Congress to pay particular attention to the special needs of rural schools, especially in their recruitment and retention of Title I teachers and paraeducators. Forty-one percent of public school educators teach in rural community schools, 49 percent of the nation's public schools, teaching 40 percent of the nation's students, are located in rural areas and small towns. Yet, despite this number, only 22 percent of total federal, state and local spending on public education goes to schools in rural and small town areas.

NEA urges Congress to place increased emphasis on the needs of these communities. And my written testimony outlines some specific areas for increased focus. NEA also strongly supports increased Title I funding and continued targeting of Title I funds to low-income school and communities. Current funding allows Title I to serve only approximately one-third of eligible students. NEA supports a significant increase in Title I funding for fiscal year 2000 so that no eligible child is left behind.

NEA supports inclusion of all limited English proficiency students in Title I program. Inclusion is particularly important in schoolwide programs and Title I assessment to ensure program accountability. NEA also supports strengthening parental involvement in the education process including providing parents with comprehensive information about teacher credential, student assessment and the specifics of Title I programs in which their children participate.

We strongly oppose proposals to have Title I funds quote, unquote follow the child, rather than target schools and communities with the greatest needs. Such portability proposals represent an attempt to diffuse and dilute the effectiveness of Title I by shifting the focus away from the needs of low-income students in poor schools and community. We also strongly oppose the super Ed-Flex or Straight A's proposal although, as you well know, we were supportive of Ed-Flex earlier this year.

We believe that this would undermine or essentially repeal a number of education programs including Title I and combine the dollars into a block grant. Block granting in Title I would serve merely to undermine the standards accountability and targeting of funds that have proven successful.

Finally, NEA believes that Title I reauthorization must take place within the context of a comprehensive ESEA reauthorization. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to retain and expand mechanisms for program integration and accountability in a fragmented reauthorization process.

Again, Mr. Chairman, please accept our thanks for giving us the opportunity to speak to this committee. We look forward to working with you to support and strengthen Title I.

Chairman Goodling. Thank you.

Chairman Goodling. Ms. Weingarten.

Ms. Weingarten. Thank you, Chairman Goodling. Thank you members of the subcommittee.

And this is actually my first opportunity to speak before this committee, and I am speaking on behalf of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) as well as on behalf of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). When Congress reauthorized Title I five years ago, you and your colleagues took a tremendous step forward by insisting that poor children, and we serve many poor children in New York City, be included fully in the nation's effort to raise academic standards for all children.

And you did that, as the other witnesses have already testified, by creating the premise that Title I should be standards-driven and that all children should be held to those standards. Now, we have made much progress, I know Congressman Clay talked about some of that as a final report of the national assessment of Title I and other evidence indicates. We haven't made as much progress as all of us would have wanted, but we have made some progress.

And with this authorization, reauthorization, we have a great opportunity to build on that process, and have, by doing the hard part. Because right now, at this stage where we are doing the hard part, which is to provide the support and the resources to help all students, not just some students, but all students reach the high standards in the core academic subjects.

First and foremost, Congress must increase Title I resources and target them on quality programs in districts and schools with high concentrations of poor students. No flexibility in any part of the federal law should be allowed to undo that targeting of resources.

Number two, there should be a greater alignment of core subjects, materials, best practices, and professional development to ensure a coordinated, not a fragmented, but a coordinated successful effort to help every student reach higher standards.

Many students will not get there, for instance, unless we have the curriculum and instructional materials and the professional development for these standards. And, in fact, we are seeing that those things have not been put in place. The standards are there, the assessments, for example, in New York are there, but the core curriculum materials and the professional development that it snaps into it are not there. And, in fact, because that is not happening in New York City, the UFT, the union I preside over, has said that we are going to undertake a $2 million, five-year project to actually do the core curriculum in all subject areas, starting with literacy, using union member dues to do it, because we want to make sure that our members have that material available and locked in to the higher standards.

Next, Congress must preserve funding for paraprofessionals under Title I. We have seen in New York City its use in a good way and its use in a bad way. And when appropriately used, paraprofessionals provide crucial support for teachers and students. And when paras are appropriately trained and supervised, they play vital roles in the classroom, such as for tutoring and small group work, not as substitutes for teachers.

And the one school I would implore you all to go see is a school that we have highlighted in my testimony, PS 161 in District 17, which is in Congressman Owens district, this is a school which has now reached some of the highest academic standards on the most recent test scores in New York City and New York State, and this is a school where they have appropriately used paras in a very, very good way. It works, when people are trained well.

Why else are paras are important? Paraprofessionals provide valuable linkages for us and for communities. They are also a natural source for us of new teachers. For example, since 1995, over 1,700 paraprofessionals have become teachers in New York City, and they are our most effective and important source of teachers of color.

Number four, Congress should expand and improve professional development for teachers and for paraprofessionals. Districts should focus on professional development based on content knowledge, best practices, and, and this is a key, they should allow sufficient times, support, and resources so that we can actually integrate training into actual practice. Teachers, of course, need to be involved in this as well.

Number five, Congress should strengthen the alignment of assessments with standards and accountability systems so that everybody not only understands what these are but agrees on what they are and, particularly, with respect to the corrective action schools and the schools that are low-performing.

We should do, as one of the witnesses said, instead of having several different ways of looking at things, we need to have agreed-upon standards, agreed-upon alignments agreed-upon assessment measures so that everybody knows where you go and how you go from here to there.

Number seven, or six, I think, Congress should expand research development demonstration and dissemination efforts on what works, on really what works, so that all of us can learn from each other on the practices and on the pedagogy that works.

And number seven, Congress needs to promote systems of teacher quality. This means abolishing once and for all in all of the districts that still have this, the practice or the malpractice of hiring uncertified teachers or of assigning teachers to fields within which they are not qualified to teach.

We need mentoring by trained veteran teachers that should be mandatory for new hires, licenses from state to state should be portable so that people can teach from state to state. There should be incentives such as loan forgiveness and subsidies for advanced education so we can attract and retain folks into teaching.

And lastly, Congress must strengthen the parent-teacher connection by using Title I to involve more parents and bolstering their roles as children's first teachers. We know that America's current prosperity presents us with a unique opportunity to enable every single student to reach higher standards. But it will not happen if we have the portable entitlement proposals that some have made or the super-flex proposals that some have made, it will only happen, particularly for poor kids, if we strengthen Title I and make it a program that ultimately helps all kids, all poor kids reach higher standards.

Thank you very much.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Clark.

Mr. Clark. Chairman Goodling, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to comment on the reauthorization of ESEA. I am testifying on behalf of the 40,000 Catholic school students, as well as their teachers and parents in Northeastern Pennsylvania who receive federal program services through over 100 of the 501 school districts in Pennsylvania, as well as 7 of the 29 intermediate units in the state.

As chairman of the Federal Assistance Advisory Commission for the United States Catholic Conference, I am also testifying on behalf of the Catholic bishop of the over 2.6 million students 8,200 schools, 152,000 teachers, and millions of parents that make up our Catholic school community.

In 1965 when ESEA was first enacted, private and religious school students and staff were given the right to share equitably in the education programs it put into place. We continue to support the retention of these participation requirements and ask that we be allowed to participate in the various sections of ESEA from which we have been excluded for no apparent reason. A fair, equitable, and consistent approach, the participation of eligible private and religious school students and staff in all programs would minimize confusion on the part of many of the public school districts.

I base this conclusion on the principle found in the document Principles of Education Reform in the United States which was published in 1995 by the United States Catholic Conference where we state that, when services that are aimed at improving the educational environment, especially for those most at risk, are available to students and teachers in public schools, these services should also be available to students and teachers in private and religious schools.

These individuals should not be penalized for choosing to enroll or work in these schools if they also serve the common good of our nation. The 1998 United States Department of Education publication Title I Services for Private School Students Under The Reauthorization of ESEA confirms serious disagreement among public, private, and religious school representatives, as to how well the Title I consultation requirements are actually met.

There should be a mandatory signoff for private and religious schools with specific references to the consultation sections of the law, similar to that which is done in Pennsylvania and which has been enclosed for your information.

The consultation provisions proposed by the administration in section 120 presented an improvement but the same adjustments need to be made to the administration's proposed section 11803 and there needs to be specific reference to consultation in all sections of the law in which it applies.

There is an entire section on accountability in the administration's reauthorization proposal, this section should also include accountability sections relating to programs delivered in private and religious schools. The consultation process should include discussion on how the services will be assessed and how the assessment results will be used to improve services. We have seen situations where nonpublic Title I programs have been shown to be clearly ineffective and yet we were powerless to make changes.

These situations should be able to lead to a bypass or the consideration of a third-party provider, and the consultation section should include language requiring the consideration of third-party providers, especially where the quality of the program is at an issue. The Administration's proposed section 120 should read how, where, and by whom the services will be provided to allow discussion regarding the provider of services.

The change in funding made in the last reauthorization makes clear reference to the poverty measures that are utilized in this program. The most common measure is the free and reduced price lunch, yet not many eligible and private, religious school children actually receive free and reduced lunch and this leads to confusion on the part of private, public and religious school officials with respect to identifying poverty children.

A simple survey should be utilized that would identify those poverty children residing in an eligible attendance area and this survey form would specifically identify criteria that must be met. A sample survey utilized in many of the Pennsylvania dioceses is enclosed for your review.

And where data collected may not be complete, private and religious school administrators should be allowed to extrapolate from the available data. The proposed elimination of capital expenses will be detrimental to many LEAs responsible for delivering services to eligible religious school children.

There are still a significant number of locations remaining that lack appropriate space within the religious school building to house the Title I program. Prior to the Aguilar decision public, private and religious schools were functioning with pullout programs and children were taken into groups that were set up in hallways or small rooms, a little more than closets. Due to increased awareness of fire codes and life safety regulations, these locations are no longer permissible nor are they appropriate educational environments.

Since the LEA must continue to make use of capital expenses for the rental or lease of vans, trailers, or other means at many locations, maintenance of this part of Title I is critical for the time being. A detailed study was called for Senator Specter in 1999, and the final report of the national assessment of Title I recommendation is made here to keep the capital expenses not only should they be maintained but their use should broadened to include technology such as, but not limited to, computer networks with integrated learning system or video conferencing for distance learning to restore a level of equitability.

There also appears to be a need for some type of state-level monitor to oversee the quality of programs provided to eligible private and religious school children and to verify the accurate calculation of funds available. The ESEA legislation would be enhanced if it included a requirement for identical start-up time for public, private the religious school students and staff. And there are also needs to be increased flexibility with the delivery of services to private and religious school children in Title I programs similar to that which is happening in public schools as a result of the schoolwide programs.

The Agostini decision gave the LEA the ability to bring Title I programs and staff back into our buildings whenever feasible, and this same flexibility needs to be applied to other programs. The administration's proposal in section 1129 contained detailed elaborate recommendations for qualification of paraprofessionals and responsibilities that may be responded assumed by them.

And we believe that the existing law addresses instructional aids in an adequate fashion in that LEAs are responsible for insuring the appropriate qualifications of their aides within specific guidelines, and they are also responsible for their direct supervisor. This existing law should be properly implemented.

We are opposed to the administration proposal to eliminate the Title VI program. This program and the ability to utilize funds under specific targeted areas has enabled private and religious schools as well as public schools districts to address very specific local needs and it fills the gaps for many programs. We also object to the merging of Goals 2000 and Title II and Title VI into a large professional development program with 50 percent of the funds being made available through competitive grants.

These programs continue to address very significant and specific local needs and the proposed change does not respond to the variety of needs currently expressed by local school administrators in public, private and religious schools.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify.

Chairman Goodling. Thank you. We will begin our questioning period. Each of us has five minutes in the first round, not only to ask our questions, but for you to give your answers as well. And I will start with Mr. Petri.

Mr. Petri. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you all and your staff for taking the time in order to prepare this testimony. We are moving towards drafting legislation, and we appreciate your detailed comments and recommendations. I am particularly interested in Mr. Chase and Ms. Weingarten helping me. The Majority on the committee is looking seriously at the Straight A's proposal. And you have indicated skepticism about it or concern about it.

I wanted to give you a chance to expand on that, because my understanding of the proposal would be to keep the existing program with improvements that we can work out. Try to do that, but then to give the states the option of switching to this flexibility proposal with the condition that there be improvements in outcomes; that is, that students actually do better. If they don't do better, then they lose their ability to have their flexibility.

But what is wrong with that? Is there something conceptually wrong with that? I understand that change is always difficulty for us. And my daughter resists change, it's just a normal part of trying to improve federal programs. But would you help us with understand your hesitation?

Mr. Chase. It is not a case, Mr. Petri, of change. Certainly over the last few years, the NEA has been involved in a substantial amount of change, and it has become kind of a bible for us. But I think we have to take into consideration a couple of things. First of all, just this year, as a matter of fact, NEA was strongly supportive of the Ed-Flex proposal that was passed by Congress, which I think gives an indication that the change and the willingness to change is more than just rhetoric; it is in fact real.

This legislation, Ed-Flex, has not even really gone into effect. We have no way of determining the efficacy of the legislation that was passed, how well it will in fact be carried out, whether it will work and so on. And even before we have an opportunity to make that kind of determination, then we are looking for a Straight A's proposal or a super Ed-Flex proposal, which would broaden that considerably. I think it broadens it far too greatly.

I also think it does have the potential of seriously weakening a number of education programs and I agree that the as was pointed out in the language saying this would repeal a number of education programs is too strong, but what it could do in effect is bring about a repeal of programs because these programs could be not used as intended, if, in fact, the super Ed-Flex proposal went into place.

Now, when we look at the whole Title I program and look at the underfunding of it right now and the possibility of this underfunding continuing and not being able to meet the needs that it is essentially intended to meet, but being now even weakened further, because of the potential use of monies for other things in the super Ed-flex proposal, I think that it could cause us a serious amount of problems.

It could undermine the standards accountability in targeting of funds that have, in fact, proven to be successful, not to the degree as Randi said that we would like it to be, but hopefully over the next few years to a degree that will be enhanced.

Ms. Weingarten. We, too, supported the Ed-Flex bill earlier this year. And without repeating what Bob said, let me just give you a couple of examples of why we are concerned about the super Ed-Flex bill.

We have a situation right now in New York State where because of what you did last year with the lowering of class size by providing additional teachers, New York is starting to think about block granting and renigging on a particular commitment to supplement that with teachers or reduced class size from the New York State legislature.

And what essentially has happened here is this: they looked at what the federal government had done, and they said, well, if the federal government is going to provide the funding, then we don't have to provide the funding and we can do it in terms of a block grant. And ultimately what is going to happen, the effect in terms of New York City is that that very essential strategy that we know from the Tennessee STAR program works, particularly with urban kids and underfunded school districts. We will probably lose between 50 and 60 million dollars because of the block grant effect and because it is not going to be targeted in that way.

And so one part of the concern and the dilemma is this, we actually are very, very open to flexibility. We have tremendous amounts of flexibility in our contract right now. A school can virtually waive 75 percent of the contract right now if it so chooses to do so. So flexibility is not the issue. The issue really is making sure that the resources that have to get targeted to schools actually get to schools. That is why we are very concerned about the super Ed-Flex bill, because we don't see that kind of targeting happening in a way that we know is required.

We don't have much time. We want to make sure that the achievement levels continue to rise for all students. And ultimately, to wait and to have and to hope that the accountability measures will be the hammer that does that for school districts or for states, we don't have the time to wait right now. We need to make sure that we have the programs that work in schools right now so we can work with kids right now.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Clay.

Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chase, some have suggested converting Title I into a portable entitlement grant that might be used in obtaining supplementary services at any public school chosen by a family but possibly to help pay the cost of attending private schools or tutorial services as well. Such proposals are incompatible with many aspects of Title I as it currently operates, such as the increased emphasis on targeting aid on high poverty schools.

What is your opinion of these proposals?

Mr. Chase. We have a great deal of concern about the concept of portable benefits here for a couple of reasons. First of all, the portability proposal, and this as is the case with the super Ed-Flex that is being discussed here, it is tough for us to react specifically to them, because we have not seen any language or any legislation that has been drafted on these, so we are talking about concepts here, which I think we have to keep in mind.

The portability proposal really does dismiss the benefits of schoolwide program and research-based school reform models which we are talking about monies being used specifically for individual students and to be able to follow the students. If in fact, it was based upon the child's whether or not he or she had low-income status would enable them to have him or her to have this money and were able to take it from school to school, if it was around say $600 and a child was able to move from school A and B and take the $600 with him in school B and there were three other students in that school using those kinds of dollars, we are talking about less than $2,000 being able in that school to provide the kind of assistance and help that is needed to assist a child or a group of children in reaching their needs. That money would not do that.

The present way of using money on a schoolwide basis to create the kinds of programmatic activities that are needed schoolwide, we believe are a much more reasoned way to approach this. If, in fact, funding were provided to all eligible children under Title I rather than the one-third that is currently being provided for, you might be able to look at this a little bit differently, but that is the case right now and with it being just one third of the eligible children covered and with the possibility of children moving from school to school during the course of the year and as a result not being able to create whole schoolwide programs that are systemic this portability could prevent an enormous amount of difficulties, in addition to the problems that could be created as far as the accountability of that money and taking care of making sure that it is being followed and the whole administrative of that administration of that kind of portable funding mechanism.

Mr. Clay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. Ms. Yecke, since Straight As doesn't repeal any education programs and doesn't repeal Title I, it is not a block grant. The states get their funds under the categorical formula. They have the option, then, of combining the funds, and no one is required to use the program and school districts are held harmless on their Title I funds. There is strict accountability for academic results.

What am I missing here? It sounds awfully good. I must be missing something.

Ms. Yecke. Oftentimes people characterize Straight A's as a block grant and a block grant only. And I think that is a false characterization. It only tells half the story. When we look at Straight A's, we are talking about flexibility in return for accountability, and Virginia is willing to step up to the plate on that. I can't give a formal endorsement for Straight A's until I actually see the legislation. But we are fully in support of the concept. You might want to call it trust but verify.

Chairman Goodling. Mrs. McCarthy left.

Mr. Martinez.

Mr. Martinez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Taking off on the last question that you asked and the reason I ask this question is not to try to embarrass you in any way, but to satisfy my curiosity. It is strange for me to hear an official from Virginia support standards and accountability, since your state was one of four, in addition to my home state of California that chose not to participate in the Goals 2000 program, in spite of the flexibility provided to states largely due to and accountability requirements.

Now, are you saying that we were right all along and there should be accountability?

Ms. Yecke. Let me address that. We do participate in Goals 2000. It was one of the last things that occurred under Governor Allen's administration, we chose not to participate when there were numerous federal strings attached to Goals 2000 funding. Our Goals 2000 application was that the funding would be used strictly for technology. And we have accepted funds on those terms and U.S. DOE agreed to that. And so that is a non-issue. That is an issue from the past.

Mr. Martinez. I was not aware that that had occurred.

Ms. Yecke. Yes. In fact, we put together, our reform efforts our standards, our assessments, our accountability package without any federal assistance in terms of Goals 2000 funding. I know other states have used their funding for that. We were ahead of the curve, and so we just continued down the path that we had chosen. And we are very pleased that we did.

Mr. Martinez. Mr. Chase, in your testimony you stated that you believe that block granting Title I funds would undermine the standards and accountability that have made the program so successful. So, while we have heard from some that is Title I is a big failure, you believe there has been some success.

Would you elaborate on that?

Mr. Chase. I do believe there has been some success and it is true, as Randi said and others have said, that the success has not been to the degree that we would like to have seen that success occur. However, I think the success is occurring, in large measure, because of the changes that were brought about in the 1994 reauthorization and the tying of these two standards and assessment. I think that is a very important and significant step and something that we are very, very supportive of.

I think part of the reason why that may have occurred, and again, this was mentioned by another person testifying here, is the fact that although there may be alignment between the standards that have been set and the assessment tools that are used for that, there is yet to be the kind of alignment that is necessary as it relates to curriculum.

So that what we are testing what is being taught, I think more time will allow us to make sure that this kind of alignment occurs so that curriculum, what is being taught, the assessment tool, and the standards will be appropriately aligned so that all students will be able to achieve as we know all students can. That is the missing link right now.

The missing link is that kind of alignment and the quality professional development for all involved in teaching to those standards. I think that is coming. I think it is certainly, as Randi said, in New York City. The union itself is going to do the work to make sure that that kind of alignment occurs. And we will see more of an improvement, not just the improvement that has been insufficient but there.

Mr. Martinez. I would like to ask another question. If we target the child rather than the school, and allow every child to his or her Title I dollars to the school, of his orher choice, wouldn't that diffuse the funds to the point where they may not have a positive impact?

But on the other side of the coin, if you target the child, I would imagine that we would then say this money is for that disadvantaged poverty child, whereas right now what we are doing is we have a school that has a small percentage of poverty children and the flexibility that was given they can use that money schoolwide meaning that a lot of children that are not poverty students or disadvantaged students are going to enjoy these benefits. I have no problem with that because if the tides rise for everyone, all boats are lifted.

However, to me it is disingenuousness to allocate money on the basis of poverty but spend it on children who are not disadvantaged.

Mr. Chase. I think, Mr. Martinez, the issue here is how that money can best be expended, and is better to create programs on a schoolwide basis, and using that money to a much greater advantage by being able to do it that way, rather than allow the money to move from building to building or district to district with that child.

Certainly you can create programs if you combine those dollars that will benefit the vast majority of the students who are below the poverty level in that school, versus trying to create a program for one child with $500 or $600. It is just not possible to do that in any kind of a systematic way.

So the hope here or the intent here is to combine those dollars in that system using that in ways that will be helpful. As I said earlier, if, in fact, we were talking about Title I being fully funded and monies being available for all of those children, it would be a different story, I think.

Mr. Martinez. I agree with you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Isakson.

Mr. Isakson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to again welcome my good friend from Georgia. He has done a tremendous job in our State Department, and we have not had time to practice this, so I hope I am not getting ready to either embarrass you or me, but I apologize in advance if I have.

On the second page of your testimony, there is a statement which, I quote, says, "consistency with professional standards simply means giving the veto authority of the current politically-hosen leadership of various testing or statistical associations."

And then on the last page, there is a quote that says, "I must be talking mechanics and fundamentals of hitting or I'll never improve. The same is true for our children, they must be taught fundamentals, yes, basics, if you will, so they can move to a higher level thorough process." I use those two comments.

In my experience, which you and I shared directly or indirectly, at the Georgia Department of Education as chairman, I sat through endless arguments over standards and accountability and came to learn they were just what Justice Blackman used to refer to as "eyes of the beholder" words; it was whose standards and whose accountability.

Your testimony talks a great deal about what leads me to believe that you are very much for a great deal of flexibility in the use of federal funds to meet the needs of Title I children; is that correct?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Indeed, indeed. One of the things I have found out is that the lack of flexibility, the stigma that comes with it has been developed, it has become a program that segregates children, I call it the Berlin Wall of Title I, we have torn it down in Georgia. We are turning it right side up in Georgia. And we need to continue to move on.

Standards by themselves, class size by themselves, are nothing but political rhetoric. And I alluded to that in here in that I said, if I can hit a baseball 60 miles an hour, just throwing it at me at 90 miles an hour just ain't going to make me a good hitter, I need to learn the fundamentals of batting.

We need to go back to the fundamentals. These standards-based tests are well intended. We need them. We need to know whether children know certain things, but there is also standardized tests, there is nothing wrong with the norm reference tests as that the Department of Education has gotten on a tirade to go against that.

We need a check, an objective independent check, so that we won't have the surprises that some states like Kentucky had in 1994, when they were telling their public how well they were doing with their tests, NAEP came up and said, oops, you have gone backwards. And speaking of NAEP, you know, the administration is trying to use the big games, the NAEP games, I must point out to the Members of this panel that we are not at the level that we were on NAEP in 1992. We took a tremendous step backwards in 1994, we just made a small gain.

I also question the great leap, the statistical validity of trying to pick out a subpopulation of NAEP, which is intended to be regional in scope, and unless they oversample for Title I students, I don't think statistically you can make these statements that the U.S. Department is trying to claim victory over these four-year reforms.

Mr. Isakson. The same question here, do you remember when you changed the class makeup and special instructional assistance programs in Georgia?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Yes, sir.

Mr. Isakson. Is it not correct that we reversed the pullout concept and went to a mix of underperforming and performing students?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Yes.

Mr. Isakson. Isn't it true that the initial results of that have been improvement at a greater rate than in previous?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Yes, indeed.

Mr. Isakson. This is my last question. I have a passion for this, I love my children, I never enjoyed anything more than dealing with the State Department of Education. I have the greatest respect for the AFT and the NEA. And I appreciate the support they have given them. And I know there are a lot of arguments about the flexibility issue.

But I think we have one example in Georgia that hopefully can get us over some of the fear, because you remember when we put in reading first in the initial eight schools, is it not correct that we did that with Goals 2000 money?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Yes, the Goals 2000 issue was sort of an oxymoron, the federal bureaucrats were telling you that you can do anything you want with the money, but you have got to sign all of these flexibilities. We said, no, we are not going to sign the waiver, we are not going to sign the assurances. If you can tell us we can do what we want with the money, we are going to do what we want with the money, and that is indeed what we did. Sort of like what Virginia has done, and we have put the money to very good use, as we deem appropriate to the citizens of Georgia.

Mr. Isakson. Mr. Chairman, I want to abuse my time just one second to follow up on this; may I? I would like for everybody to know that we took a $300,000 Goals 2000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education in 1997 and funded in the eight lowest performing, all Title I schools in the State of Georgia. There have been numerous newspaper articles written about this, a program where we gave teachers the option, beyond just teaching whole language to early learning students, to use products based on any other program they thought met the needs of those students.

In each and every school in the first year comparison, first grade against first grade, they moved from the lowest 25th percentile to 50th percentile; is that correct?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. That is correct.

Mr. Isakson. Number one; number two, the $300,000 that we used in federal money a year later in the Georgia legislature, the governor gave us $9 million, and we established the program in 46 of the 1,000 elementary schools in Georgia. And if I am not mistaken, in last year's ITBS test, Georgia in every grade and in every subject, math and reading, moved above the 50th percentile except fifth grade reading which was at 49; am I not correct?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Yes, that is correct, you are.

Mr. Isakson. So my point is the fear that flexibility will take money from a child may in some states be a fear, but the use of federal funds to give flexibility to address the particular needs of students in a state in this country can be the seed for tremendous improvement and it can be the seed for tremendous resources other than the federal dollars. So and I am not lecturing here or anything, but that is just a personal experience that I have. It doesn't mean I am arguing all on one side or the other.

But we shouldn't be afraid of giving educators flexibility and then demanding for an improvement, because I think the two go hand and hand. They want their kids to improve.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Kind.

Mr. Kind. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, would like to thank the witnesses for coming and offering their testimony today.

Let us pick up on something that Mr. Garcia-Quintana commented on. I will address this to Mr. Chase and Mrs. Weingarten first. I would like to talk about that is some of the controversy that is surrounding the NAEP scores and the assessment of that. What is your take on that reading?

Mr. Chase. I am not quite sure how to respond to your question there. From our perspective, what we saw this year and the release of the scores was an improvement, and the improvement was a measurable improvement.

Mr. Kind. We just heard some testimony earlier that it is smoke and mirrors; that there is no improvements.

Mr. Chase. I disagree with the fact that it is smoke and mirrors. I think what we are seeing is some of the programs that have been in place now over the last few years beginning to work and to take hold. And I think that is a very positive step. The fact is that these very same tests were used as negatives when the scores were down and were being used as barometers of bad things happening in schools.

Now that they are improving and now that the results show measurable improvement, I think that we should approach it from the same perspective that being they are, in fact, showing that things are beginning to happen. I think what is happening is we know now what works.

Over the last, five, six, seven years, we have been putting into place reform activity that in fact does improve the quality of education for our youngsters. The program that was just discussed by Mr. Isakson as he talks, for example, about reading, where we got away from the reading wars over what is best, phonics and whole language, and looked at it from a much broader perspective and said let us see if all of these things are important, phonics is important, whole language is important, let us integrate these kinds of programs, and what we are seeing once we get past those kinds of wars and look at real pedagogical improvement is an improvement in student learning.

And that is what we are seeing. If I were a betting person, and I am not, but if were, I would say the next round of NAEP scores we will see continued improvement, because the reforms that are out there are beginning to do exactly what we want to see happen.

Mr. Kind. Ms. Weingarten, what is your take on this?

Ms. Weingarten. I have a similar reading of it with Bob's. You have three or four variables that go into, not only discussion, but kind of summarization of scores, and I am by far not a testing expert or a statistician in any way, form, or manner, so I look at it from a very lay perspective.

But it is a matter of trying to create both performance and content standards, which as the Congressman, said that gets you away then from you do a whole language approach or phonics approach or you say this is a content of what kids should know, a child should know how to read with a fair amount of comprehension by the end of a certain grade; that is content-based, that is not, you know, through a pedagogical strategy.

And then performance is the, you know, how do they perform, do they actually measure up to that content standard, and that is where this whole notion of all the testing comes in, do they measure up to it.

And then the third component which is the one that gets differentiated in to some extent and misused a lot is what should that ranking be or what should that performance measure be and what constitutes basic or proficient or things like that, and ultimately, do a disservice to our students and also to our states and to our school districts when people don't have a similar sense of what that means, and that is what gets misused all the time.

Having said all of that, it does feel to me, both in terms of New York State, from a New York State perspective, as well as from a national perspective, that we are getting closer and closer to the same dialogue on this point, that ultimately people now see proficient means you can read, and that is where the standards should be set and that is what we should be measuring.

So I disagree with Mr. Garcia-Quintana and I agree with Bob in that we are starting to see, based upon that and the new NAEP standards, an edging up of where our kids nationwide are performing. And we are starting to have a bit of very painful medicine particularly in our cities of where our kids are performing in the cities.

And it is one of the reasons why many of us liked what happened with schoolwide projects last time within Title I because it did provide a tremendous amount of flexibility to do the programs that worked in schools and rather it gave schools a tremendous amount of flexibility to do what worked for kids.

And that is, in my estimation, humble as it may be, where the flexibility should reside, giving the teachers in schools both access to the right information, to the best practices, to the programs that work and then being able to use money in a very underfunded situation as most of our cities have and to use it in the most efficacious manner. And that is what schoolwide projects do.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Hoekstra.

Mr. Hoekstra. Thank you. Mr. Garcia-Quintana, has Georgia worked on equalizing state funding on a per pupil basis?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. We are working on it. I am not familiar with that aspect of the money. I can tell you though that I do not believe that money is an issue here. I think and I am beginning to hear educators words, and I am glad to hear this, that money is not the answer, there is plenty of money. We have people that are having a hard time spending money in Title IV.

So, you know, when I hear around this table that more money, that we need to equalize money, I think, you know, if you look at the statistics, sir, it is like an X, the amount of money that we have pumped into education goes up, achievement has gone down.

So I do not think money is an issue. We all beg the main issue is just poor teacher quality, we do not want, nobody wants to talk about the lack of teachers, Title I has been a dumping ground for poor teachers, I hear this over and over again.

We cannot allow poor teachers. We don't allow poor doctors. So why should we destroy our children's lives with an unqualified teacher? We have troops of teacher programs that are very good, and have been very effective, why can we not have school-to-work, why can we not have work-to-school, where retired people that bring a lot of good experiences, especially in science and math, can come in and teach our children.

Certification is not the answer. Certification is part of the problem. I am certified, but that was an after the fact. I have my bachelor degree in mathematics, which means I took a full course of mathematics. I did not major in Math Education. I could have majored in Math Education, but I have only taken two electives beyond calculus instead of the 30 or 40 hours beyond calculus. So you can see where we are going with the colleges of education that are not producing people who can teach.

Mr. Hoekstra. I want to get back to the original question. You have done a great job of taking a direction that you would like to go, thank you.

Ms. Yecke, how about Virginia? Have you equalized or leveled your funding?

Ms. Yecke. Do you mean trying to make it equal for students throughout the state?

Mr. Hoekstra. Right.

Ms. Yecke. What we have is called the composite index, the state pays the state's share according to a school's division ability to pay and that is computed on the basis of the numerous factors, including the poverty level in the area, the average income, these sorts of things are put together in a formula.

And, of course, at the local level once a school division meets the minimum standards, they can go above that with their funding, if they wish. But the state funds, what is called the SOQ, the standards of quality, we pay our share based upon each school division's ability to pay and that is our approach.

Mr. Hoekstra. But the state has helped every school district and every child get a certain level of funding?

Ms. Yecke. That is correct.

Mr. Hoekstra. A certain level of funding that they think is minimal, so your state has, like Michigan, tried to eliminate a lot of the discrepancies between a poverty area and a wealthier area?

Ms. Yecke. Yes, absolutely.

Mr. Hoekstra. Mr. Chase, you indicated that if we got to full funding of Title I, you would be willing to, at least I think you said you would, be willing to consider voucherizing it or going to portability.

Mr. Chase. Consider what?

Mr. Hoekstra. I could have the record read back, but I heard that you said that you would be willing to voucherize…

Mr. Chase. I don't think I said the "V" word.

Mr. Hoekstra. What is that?

Mr. Chase. I didn't say the "V" word.

Mr. Hoekstra. You said you might be open to portability?

Mr. Chase. That is another issue, that is not necessarily the "V" word.

Mr. Hoekstra. But you would be open to portability if Title I were fully funded?

Mr. Chase. I said if, in fact, we were looking at full funding for Title I, and right now we only fund about one third of it, then seeing whether or not those funds can be distributed differently through some kind of a portability type of program, we would look at it. But that is not in any way jumping, making the jump that you may have made.

Mr. Hoekstra. To the "V" word, I am sorry. I mean how much more money does a poor student need to learn than somebody from an average income?

Mr. Chase. I don't think that is a question that can be answered specifically at all, because I don't know if there is a definitive answer to that. If you are asking me, are there programs that may be more costly to assist those who come from low-income families that will help them improve or score better or do better in their education, I believe the answer to that is yes.

Does it cost more to appropriately educate those who come from a less advantaged situation? I think the answer to that is yes. And I think that is the basis under which we have been operating in Title I funding. And it is not because the child is necessarily lacking in the native intelligence by any stretch of the imagination, but part of it has to do with opportunities that people have prior to entering school.

Mr. Hoekstra. So for you it is an issue of money? If we got more money, we would be able to answer a lot of these questions?

Mr. Chase. I don't think it is an issue of money alone. I never said that. But is money an important factor? You bet it is an important factor.

Mr. Hoekstra. Thank you.

Mr. Chase. And I think it is one that we should not minimize. Does it cost more money to educate some students? The answer to that is yes. And when, in fact, we look at the amount of dollars that have gone into education over the last 25 years and you factor in special education, for example, there has been an increase of only about 26 percent in educating children who are not special education children over that period of time.

The other dollars have gone into special education monies. When people say there has been an enormous increase in the amount of dollars that have been spent in educating America's young people, it is really an increase that is below inflation when you factor out special education students, that is just a fact.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Kildee.

Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is for Mr. Clark. First of all, give my regards to the Bishop Cullen.

Your testimony, Mr. Clark, mentions the need for increased consultation between nonpublic schools and the local school district to ensure that services to nonpublic school children are better suited for their needs. I notice that you support the administration's changes to this legislation.

Are there any specific areas of consultation that you believe need strengthening?

Mr. Clark. Yes, we have a fairly successful process in Pennsylvania where the signoff form, which I provided, that is consultation to show that the law has been complied with regarding the type of services that will be leveraged and location of services and so forth. And one of the areas that we are concerned with that has come up in recent times is the quality of services. And we are concerned about including who will deliver those services as part of the consultation process, as well as how services will be delivered and where service will be delivered. So we can get into with a consideration of third-party contractors which are currently used in Pennsylvania, in many areas, school districts contracting with other school districts, with intermediate units, with private contractors to deliver these services. And things go fairly well, because there seems to be more of an accountability issue there.

Mr. Kildee. So you think the Pennsylvania model would be a good model for the rest of the country?

Mr. Clark. I certainly do. In Pennsylvania, our division of federal programs has taken this law very seriously and the implementation of the law in a way in which they have structured their programs. I do believe that Title I can work and does work when it is implemented in the way that Congress intended it to.

Chairman Goodling. Pennsylvania can show you all sorts of wonderful things.

Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Clark.

Mr. Chase, your testimony mentions your strong support for the disaggregation of Title I data. In 1994 when we reauthorized ESEA, we called for disaggregation of data to be triggered in the year 2001.

Why do you believe that disaggregation of data is so important and how should disaggregated data be used to help at-risk students?

Mr. Chase. Well, first of all, any kind of data that can be used in a good scientific way to look at how money is being effectively used and what can be done with it or how programs are being effectively implemented provide, I believe, policymakers with an amazing amount of information so that as decisions are made, they can be based upon data rather than on and data that is not just anecdotal data, but data that is specific and important and can, in fact, be substantiated to assist in making the kinds of decisions that have to be made.

And so any kind of opportunity to do exactly what you are talking about, I think serves everyone well. I think we should continue to move in that direction. I think we should look at data, see what it says, look at it clearly, understand it. It enables the kind of good thinking to be brought to the forefront in making decisions, and I believe that those decisions then, the quality of the decisions then is enhanced and it brings about improved policy or improved legislative activity.

Mr. Kildee. Texas has used disaggregated data extremely well. Can you comment on the Texas model?

Mr. Chase. I can't comment on it, Mr. Kildee, because I am just not well grounded enough in it to say anything with any certainty.

Mr. Kildee. Thank you very much. And I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. I only used a minute the first time, and I don't have anybody up here so I'll ask a question. Ms. Yecke I want to ask, one of my concerns, when I read the results of your first round of tests, even though the state had said we are not going to get overly excited the first year or two until we get everybody prepared.

When they did that poorly, my concern was that now the pressure from the parents will come and they will say the tests were lousy, and, therefore, the state may back down on their standards.

Can you comment on that? Have you gotten that kind of pressure?

Ms. Yecke. Absolutely. First of all, just to clarify for the rest of the audience the incident you are referring to, when our tests were first given in the spring of 1998, the media reported, and many people in influential positions continue to report, that 98 percent of the schools in Virginia failed. This is absolutely false. The truth is that no school in Virginia failed these tests. Ninety-eight percent of the schools in Virginia failed to meet standards that had been set for the year 2004.

Now, what we have chosen to do in Virginia is implement our accountability in two stages. The first stage from 1998 to 2004 is based on an improvement model, every school must show improvement over and above their baseline data from last year, 1998. This means that they set incremental goals between now and year 2004. Starting in 2004, we switched to a fixed standard model, which means that every school is expected to have 70 percent of its students pass the tests.

From 2004 to 2007, there is a three-year window, where schools will receive a warning if they fail to meet that 70 percent. So the long and short of it is, our standards were passed in 1995 and the first school that could lose accreditation will be in the year 2007. And so the media reaction, the reaction of a number of people to this 98 percent number was overblown, it was irresponsible to report it in that way, and it really misled a number of people into thinking that it was a picture of doom and gloom, when actually it was a good thing, because it showed schools their strengths and their weaknesses so they know where they can target their resources and their staff development in order to make that 70 percent goal by the year 2004.

Chairman Goodling. Thank you.

Mr. Scott.

Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mrs. Weingarten, you made a comment about the importance of focusing the Title I funds on low-income students. What is wrong with diverting the money from low-income schools to more deserving, higher-income schools?

Ms. Weingarten. As I understand it, the purpose of Title I is to help level the playing field to a certain extent. Now, it is not funding, at least in my perfect world as any of us or at least I would want it to be, but it does help try to level some of the advantages that high-income school districts and high-income schools might have.

I go back to, as I guess Mr. Garcia-Quintana did, you know, our own experiences growing up and the districts in which we grew up. I grew up in a suburban district right outside of the New York City. The schools in the district I grew up in are thought to be some of the finest schools in the State of New York. They spend on average $4- or 5,000 dollars average per child more than the schools in New York City.

Ultimately, that buys a lot more per child. And in some ways, what Title I does is it helps to equalize that. Now, I believe very strongly in the schoolwide project model, but also in that threshold measure of 50 percent, because, ultimately, there is a balance then of being able to efficaciously use money.

We know, and I am not going to repeat what Bob said, that, you know, if you are talking about $600 per child or $700 per child that is not going to go as far if you can bundle it to a certain extent and use it more effectively and efficiently. And, in some ways, the schoolwide projects did that. So there is a balance here between if you look at a schoolwide project model, between trying to use money effectively, as well as trying to target it to kids who may be disadvantaged.

Mr. Scott. Thank you. Mrs. Yecke, in your opening comments, you invited a question about the schools that do extremely well. I would like to respond to that invitation.

Ms. Yecke. Thank you so much. We had three examples of what I think are wonderful examples of schools with high numbers of disadvantaged kids that had performed very well under our grueling tests. And as I pointed out to Mr. Goodling last year, only two percent of the schools in Virginia were able to reach these standards that we have set for the year 2004.

These three schools are among that handful. Barcroft Elementary School in Arlington has a 67 percent poverty rate and half of the kids at school speak a language other than English, yet they had an 82 percent pass rate on the English tests, and 71 percent of their students passed the science test. At GO Francis Elementary School in Richmond…

Mr. Scott. Before you do that, did you look at these schools to see what they were doing differently?

Ms. Yecke. We are studying them right now.

Mr. Scott. So we might be able to replicate those results?

Ms. Yecke. Absolutely, we think it is critical that we look at what they are doing and pass that on through our best practices center. Another example in innercity Richmond, JL Francis Elementary School, 70 percent are from low-income families, but 57 percent of the fifth graders passed the English test and 74 passed the science.

And the third example is Crestview Elementary in Henrico County where over half the students are low income, and there are 25 different languages spoken in this school. Fifth graders had a 72 percent pass rate in English, 71 percent pass rate in history and science, and a 68 percent pass rate in math. And we are extremely proud of these educators and the administrators and the instructional leadership in these schools for what they have accomplished.

Mr. Scott. Well, thank you and we look forward to those results to see what worked in those schools so we can replicate.

Ms. Yecke. I will make sure you get a special copy.

Mr. Scott. Thank you.

Mr. Chase, do you have a concern in Title I preschool that if you increase the standards for paraprofessionals that you might end up with a lot of turnover because they are closer to teacher standards and as soon as they get a job offer they are gone, and you won't be able to have the continuity?

Mr. Chase. There is a concern there, and I think we have to be very careful when we talk about what those standards are for paraprofessionals, because it depends upon what the work that the paraprofessional is doing. There are some places where there are currently some rules that are being enacted or legislation in states, and I believe Vermont is one or maybe it is Maine, where they are looking at some kind of licensure of paraprofessionals depending upon the kind of work that they choose to do.

I don't have any difficulty with that, but we need to understand that there are some concomitant things that go with that. For example, I know there have been suggestions of two years of college work and so on for someone to be a paraeducator in a classroom. One, I think, it depends upon what the paraeducator is going to be doing in that classroom, if he or she needs that kind of work.

And, secondly, if we are talking about someone being required to have two years of college in order to do that, there has to be, and I know this is a state and local issue that has to be addressed, but there has to be some discussion as to salary.

Right now paraeducators make less than $15,000 a year. They are being entrusted to do very significant and important work, and if, at the same time, we are going to say, okay, paraeducators now you are going to be required to have an associate's degree or whatever the case may be, then there needs to be some kinds of consideration being given to salary. And the main reason is that in order to attract people to do it, because we are not going to attract people for those kinds of positions that require that kind of formal education activity if, in fact, we are not going to be providing them with salary that will induce them to go into that kind of work.

And in addition to that, when we look at the number of people who are currently doing that work and doing it very, very well who do not have two years of college but who can get quality professional development, which we call for in the remarks that I made, real, good systemic quality professional development for our paraeducators to help them do the work.

As I said in my remarks, Mr. Scott, there are many times when paraeducators will come and talk with us and are extremely concerned about being required to do work that they feel they are unprepared to do, they don't want to do that kind of work, they don't feel good about doing things that they know they are not ready to do.

What our responsibility is, as an institution, is to make sure that these paraeducators are being provided with the kinds of quality professional development that they need in order to and want, and want, in order to do their job well.

Mr. Scott. Thank you.

Chairman Goodling. I hope we get to that point so when my wife comes home she doesn't say, again, why did they take me out of my classroom for that garbage. So I am looking forward to all of that quality teaching.

Mr. Tierney.

 

Mr. Chase. We are, too.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Tierney.

Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Garcia-Quintana, I just want to clarify one thing. During your discussion, you seem to be describing an example of schools that supposedly lost Title I money because they had improved performance of Title I pupils.

My understanding is, as of the 1994 amendments, that is not the way the schools are funded at all; it all depends on the number of impoverished children or children from low-income families. And that is how the funding is there, and it is not performance-based situation.

Did you misspeak, or did I mishear?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. No, I was giving a historical perspective of the problem basically.

Mr. Tierney. Pre-1994?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Yes, sir.

Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Let me continue to ask you a question. Do you have, in Georgia, are you familiar with any of the schools that have been working under the comprehensive school reform demonstration?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. We just funded 75 schools recently within the last two months, it is just beginning to work.

Mr. Tierney. What are your feelings about that program?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. I think it is one of the best things that could have happened. We were having a lot of problems when I inherited the program. I have only been a director for two years, I came from South Carolina to Georgia, back to Georgia, most states have failed to go to get on board with the 1994 changes.

The mindset is still regulatory. The mindset not research-based, so the CSRD, the Obey-Porter bill just gave the infusion that we needed, because it had money attached to it, unfortunately, but that raised the interests, if you will. And consequently, we looked forward to tracking the progress, you know, the first year we have got to make sure of the pains of implementation and what goes on there. And then in the next consequent years, we will follow the achievement and gains made by that.

Mr. Tierney. Did you say unfortunately you had money attached?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. No, I said unfortunately it took the money.

Mr. Tierney. To get the people's interests.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. To get the people's interest, because it can be done with current funding. Indeed, I went ahead and funded more schools, and I have been working with some of the schools that did not win proposals to implement that using their current funding.

Mr. Tierney. And I am interested in that because we have a number of schools now that are competing for the grants in my district, and obviously they are not all going to get it.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Yes.

Mr. Tierney. What funds did you cobble together to allow them to pursue the comprehensive school reform that existed?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. The schoolwide is very simple. All of the Titles can be thrown in there and just working with them, trying to focus on methods, trying to use methods that are not so costly. I am a very strong believer because of the research of direct instruction, and that is not a costly program. And that is one that I have been advocating.

Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Mr. Chase, what are your observations and feelings about the comprehensive school reform demonstration program, the Obey- Porter.

Mr. Chase. Very positive.

Mr. Tierney. Ms. Weingarten?

Ms. Weingarten. We feel it has been terrific. I was just checking in terms of the rest of the nation and New York has been very, very helpful, because as Mr. Garcia-Quintana said it did provide some kind of seed money.

What has happened here, and I said this before, is that the 1994 reauthorization created a seed change, but it also created a seed change with states, because this was the first piece of legislation nationally that really created this presumption of standards-driven research-based work to assess what goes on in schools.

And you see this ripple effect throughout the nation and because of it that seed money also provided a helpful push.

Mr. Tierney. Let me ask the three of you again if I could, and my apologies to the other two for focusing here, what would you think that we could do on this reauthorization that would enhance the comprehensive school demonstration program or the concept?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Demand results. These two associations hired an independent contractor and found that really only 3 of the 17 programs attached to that had very strong evidence. We need that kind of guidance, if you will, or saying these are the programs that need to be implemented and staff development has to go along with it. We need to emphasize that in the authorization.

Along with the flexibility, which is important. I would also like to see the stigma of Title I students and Title I teachers go away and it is just students and teachers and good programs in schools. So that is the key part of it.

Mr. Tierney. Mr. Chase?

Mr. Chase. I agree. The concept of demanding results and holding people accountable, absolutely. The study that the gentleman referred to did, in fact, show that there were three programs that did have quantifiable results, but there were also close to 11 others that did look promising; although, we don't have enough data yet to determine whether or not they will be as strong and good as we hope they will be and hopefully continued assessment of those programs will make the kinds of determinations that are needed and, hopefully, some of those will fall into that category of the other three where we can show good quantifiable positive results and programs that should be looked at more.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Schaffer.

Mr. Schaffer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Having just walked in here, I will yield my time to Mr. Petri.

Mr. Petri. Thank you very much. I just have a couple more questions I would like to ask. One is that it is healthy, in a way, but we shouldn't get discouraged. American education has very many great successes.

Obviously, we wouldn't be the leading country in the world in many, many technical and other areas. We wouldn't have the most successful higher education system in the world with people coming from all over the world to go to graduate school in the United States and to college in the United States if the K-12 wasn't pretty good in most instances as well. So it is healthy to focus on our problems.

I just want to ask you, yesterday we had my governor from Wisconsin and the lieutenant governor of Florida here talking about some of the successes and problems they we are having with federal involvement in education. One thing that they said, I think it is slightly wrong, but I wonder if you would agree that it is a problem and that is it costs them four or five times as much to administer a federal dollar as it does a state dollar.

And it is not that cheap to administrate a state dollar in some of our states, and that means that is money that is not available for teachers, it is money that is not available for classrooms, supplies, and buildings and all of things that we want. So we have this idea of Ed-Flex or super Ed-Flex as one way of attacking that by getting people flexibility if they get the results.

The goal is not going to go spend on paper and spending a lot of money on overhead, the goal is helping kids and providing funds so you can have a first-class educational experience for good results.

So do you share that aspect or am I wrong, do we need to spend that much, is there no better way to run this railroad?

Ms. Yecke. I would like to address that just briefly. I do agree. From our standpoint there are many more efficient ways we could use federal dollars than filling out federal paperwork. Straight A's and Ed-Flex would be an option that we could use our staff members more efficiently.

We would like to do away with the duplication and overlap between programs and to integrate federal programs and programs that we may have at the state level, for the sake of efficiency, that will free up dollars that we can then target towards instruction and target into the classroom to help improve student achievement. So I understand that Frank Brogan spoke, and I agree with his sentiments.

Mr. Chase. I would just like to add to that, it is my understanding that under the present law, the state can only keep 1.5 percent or 1-1/2 cents for every dollar in Title I funds at that level for administrative costs. If, in fact, that is true, and I believe it is, that is certainly a very minimal amount of money for that kind of administration.

One of the things that I think we would have to look very carefully at, if you are looking at the super Ed-Flex proposal, is that those monies then would go to the estimate rather than right down to the district level and would, in fact, then increase the amount of dollars that would be spent at the state level to create the kind of oversight or bureaucracy that might be needed to oversee such a program.

I don't know the answer to that question, but I think it is a question that would have to be reviewed.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. I would like to add in Georgia, ten percent of the money comes from the federal government, yet it takes up 30 percent of our staff. I have used some of the administrative money to fund CSRD programs. I thought that was a good opportunity to fund demonstration projects. We have scaled back on the staff tremendously, but one of the cautions that I have of the administration's bills is that it would almost quadruple the amount of oversight staff that will be needed.

It is sort of coming back to, you know, they want to take over the whole accountability issue, and then we would have to monitor, so if you have monitors you have staff in the state department, and that is not necessarily conducive to instruction.

Mr. Petri. Mr. Isakson wants to make a comment. I'll yield to him.

Mr. Isakson. Thank you Mr. Petri. I wanted to make an observation, Mr. Chase is correct, oftentimes we limit the amount or the percentage of federal money that can be spent on administration. However, it is the percentage of federal money, let me give you an example.

If we got $10 in federal money, and we couldn't spend any more than ten percent on administration that is only $1, but if the requirements to administer it cost $3, then the state is spending those $2 either in hiring additional personnel, so we can only restrict the federal and we did it in the state, we can only restrict the percentage of that grouping of dollars that goes to the administration. But if the rules, regulations of paperwork are not consistent with the costs of actually doing that, then the money just comes out of some other portion in the states.

So the point is well taken about the administrative costs. They are real and they are burdensome and they either will require more work of a few people or more people to do more work, either one of which is more costly.

Chairman Goodling. Ms. Woolsey.

Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chase, you said that you were open to looking at portable Title I funding, providing one that Title I is fully funded, and I appreciate that. Tell me if you are not also looking and making a determination if portable funding would be at all equitable, if you are looking at private schools taking on the same mandates that public schools have, such as educating all children, no matter their challenge.

We are not just talking about low-income children here, we are talking about children with language difficulties and challenges and other challenges, so would that not make a difference to you as a private school? Wouldn't it matter if the money would only go to schools that play on the same playing field as a public education, and Title IX would be part of that, too.

Mr. Chase. Well, we are certainly broadening the question as well beyond the concept of Title I funding when you raise this issue, and it does raise the question of vouchers, the "V" word or however we want to use it. That is another whole discussion and debate that I think would merit a substantial amount of discussion and time, because then, in fact, we are talking about expanding public policy well beyond what we are talking about here.

We are also talking about something that you bring up that is very, very significant. If, in fact, we are talking about nonpublic schools being allowed to use those kinds of monies, the question of accountability is very, very important. The question of access is very, very important. Those are crucial issues.

To my way of thinking, if, in fact, a nonpublic school were unwillingly to accept students, a full range of students like you are talking about, absolutely, that should be a requirement. I mean, you don't play in different ballparks when you are looking at those kinds of issues. I hesitate to get involved in that discussion now, because I know that that could create a whole different debate here in this room well beyond Title I.

But if we are going to start bringing up the question of vouchers then, actually the answer can be, from my perspective, very, very simple. And that is that I am unalterably opposed.

Ms. Woolsey. Portable Title I virtually would be a voucher the way it is now.

Mr. Chase. The way it is proposed it is absolutely true.

Ms. Woolsey. And that would be fine on a level playing field possibly?

Mr. Chase. That is right. I was very clear when I said we look at the question of portability, that one would have to be fully funded and then we would have to look at how it would be done. And that is a very big if, and it is not a blanket saying, yes, it would be fine, by any stretch of the imagination.

Ms. Woolsey. I have very good friends that have that have attended public schools, and my children all went to public school. I went to public school. We are all fairly successful adults, my kids and myself. I have good friends whose child goes to a very well-known Quaker school here in Washington, D.C.; he gets the best education. He gets the education every child in this country deserves.

They actually have some scholarships for low-income kids, but they handpick who these children are. I mean they are children who are going to be successful.

Mr. Clark, in your diocese, would you be willing to take all children, what if the first 90 percent of the children that apply to your school have challenges, were low income? I mean, in order to get Title I funds, would you be willing to reach that far?

Mr. Clark. We do that at the current time in the diocese in which I work. We do take the full range of students. We have three special education schools, specifically for the severely disabled. We have a number of schools with programs to include those with mild disabilities in the regular classrooms with certified special education teachers, with resource rooms. And we have tried to address that.

We have been quite a bit frustrated and it does go beyond the scope of Title I, we have been quite a bit frustrated, because of the changes that occurred with the reauthorization of IDEA, that cut off some of the funds that we were receiving for these children in our schools. But beyond that, we also I believe, since I do the calculations and you have seen the poverty survey that I use, within our diocese, we are approximately 20 percent poverty children. So I don't know that would be typical or not. But we are open to that. And we do take the children.

Ms. Woolsey. Excuse me, you can select which children you take?

Mr. Clark. No, we do not hand select.

Ms. Woolsey. You can. You have the ability.

Mr. Clark. Yes.

Ms. Woolsey. I have used up my time, and the Chairman is going to pound that on my head if I talk any more.

Chairman Goodling. Mr. Roemer.

Mr. Roemer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. We are checking now. I think there is a series of votes, so it will probably be a 15-minute vote and a five-minute vote. And we will have to, as soon as Mr. Roemer finishes, we will have to run and vote and get back.

Mr. Roemer. For our second round? Are we going to have our second round after our questions?

Chairman Goodling. Yes. You have your five minutes now.

Mr. Roemer. Thank you very much.

Thank you again for your helpful and insightful testimony. I have three questions, one on paraprofessionals under the Title I program, one on the amount of resources that we need to fully fund Title I, and one on an expansion, a bill that I am working on with Mr. Davis of Florida to expand the troops-to-teachers idea.

First of all, in the paraprofessionals, Mr. Chase, Ms. Weingarten, do you both support the administration's idea to create two classes that appears in their paraprofessional area, one for the parents, as first teachers, and one which would require working toward a high school degree and then another class of the teachers, I believe, being required to be working or have acquired associate's degree?

Ms. Weingarten. I am. We have a very major concern with the two-year college requirement. We actually do a tremendous amount of work with paraprofessionals in New York City. We probably have about 10- to 15,000, about 4,000 of who work in Title I programs, and what we have done in some way is to address what Bob had also said in terms of salary issues and other issues that we actually have contractually two different categories by trying to create some incentives for paras who want to, who choose to become teachers.

Mr. Roemer. Ms. Weingarten, what do you pay those people?

Ms. Weingarten. They are on the same salary scale, but they get a bump up if they get halfway to their college degree. But still the bottom line is, paraprofessionals are paid somewhere between 15- and $18,000 a year, which means that it is almost impossible for them to…

Mr. Roemer. And that is a requirement working towards to a high school degree.

Ms. Weingarten. No, in New York State, they must have a high school degree and six college credits.

Mr. Roemer. But that is not true in other parts of the country.

Ms. Weingarten. No, but that is true in New York State. And ultimately, what we have seen is that you have essentially two categories of paraprofessionals that work in our schools.

One category is people who want to stay as paraprofessionals, who want to be the kind of hands-on helper to a teacher in a classroom, working with kids. And they serve a helping role, as well as role for kids and role within the communities, and that is a very, very essential role that we would urge you not to disrupt. And a two-year requirement for every paraprofessional would disrupt that.

Now the second category of paras in our ranks, we have about one third of our paras are actually going through the career-ladder program is that there is a group of folks who really want to become teachers. And this kind of career-ladder program is one of the best sources of our new recruits as teachers, particularly, as I said in my testimony, teachers of color.

And so the balance that we have struck in New York, I think, is an important one. And I would urge it not be changed by the two-year requirement.

Mr. Roemer. I got two more questions to ask, so I would very much like to work with you on this area, but we currently spend about $2 billion of the $8 billion on the paraprofessionals. And I think the qualifications need to be looked at and evaluated, we need the best teachers working with these children.

Ms. Weingarten. Absolutely.

Mr. Roemer. We need to pay them. We need to pay them a decent wage as well. So as some people on the majority talk about money not being the answer, well, we are going to have a juvenile justice bill come to the floor next week, I don't think guns are the answer. But I do think education is the answer, and preventive programs are the answers. And that fully funding Title I certainly helps us with some of the prevention.

Mr. Chase, how much would it take for us to fully fund Title I?

Mr. Chase. The Congressional Research Service estimates it would be about $24 billion.

Mr. Roemer. So we currently spend $8, it would be an additional $16 billion to fully fund Title I?

Mr. Chase. Fully end at the one-third level.

Mr. Roemer. And if we up the qualifications for teachers and paraprofessionals that would probably mean that we need more resources for Title I targeted to the poorest children?

Mr. Chase. Right.

Mr. Roemer. For the record, how many children in America do not get any Title I funds? We are not talking about spending more on the current children, how many children? 4-1/2 million do not get Title I funds that are eligible?

Mr. Chase. It is approximately that.

Mr. Roemer. Okay, finally, my last question. Troops-to-teachers, that has been a very successful program with the Defense Department, Mr. Chase, Ms. Weingarten, very briefly, would you work with us and hopefully support an expansion program?

Ms. Weingarten. Yes.

Mr. Chase. Yes.

Mr. Roemer. Great, thank you.

Chairman Goodling. As we leave, I would only say, please, don't cover more children with mediocrity, if we can't have quality programs. We did that in Head Start for so long.

Mr. Roemer. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. We will recess now.

Mr. Roemer. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Goodling. Hopefully we can be back here. The first vote will be over almost over by the time we get there, then supposedly there is a five-minute vote, so we will set five till 12:00 as our goal to be back here.

Mr. Roemer. Mr. Chairman. Could I just comment on your reference to Head Start. I think that is exactly what we did with the reauthorization of Head Start. We improved the quality with the set-aside programs so that we can fund it, and get ability for it.

Chairman Goodling. That is no question, but it took me 20 years to get that.

Mr. Roemer. Let us do the same for Title I so we can get more funds for it.

Chairman Goodling. It took me 20 years.

[Recess.]

Chairman Goodling. The committee hearing will resume. I had planned to have the governor of Puerto Rico continue the questioning while we went to vote, but he said he had a lot of things he wanted me to hear, and so he wanted to make sure I was here. Mr. Romero-Barcelo.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chase, I would like to discuss with you and other members of the panel, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, in particular Title I.

A lot of this funding goes to the school districts and children for education depending on the needs of the school and the children in the school and the district and the level of support that the state itself gives to the district. And that is the formula that is supplied nationwide.

Are you aware of the fact that even though this formula is applied nationwide, there is a provision in the law that discriminates against the children, in one of the territories, specifically the U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico? And even though they have the lowest per capita income, they don't get the same formula funding as the rest of the children in the nation despite having many needs. Some of the people that the children in Puerto Rico being treated the same are people who complain about the fact that we don't know enough English in Puerto Rico; That we should be taught English; and there is less funding for teaching English than any other school in the nation.

Do you think this is a fair public policy?

Mr. Chase. First of all, I am unaware of that or was unaware of that until right now. And I do not know the rationale or reason behind it, on its face it does not make sense. But the reasons behind it, I would have to have a better grounding in the rationale for something like that before I make a statement.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. Well, I am glad I have had this opportunity to make you aware.

Mr. Chase. Thank you very much.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. I would also like to let you know that, after talking to a lot of people in the Department of Education and talking to a lot of people in the White House and here in Congress, we finally got the executive to include a special allotment to bring Puerto Rico into the same formula in their bill, which reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. They still don't want to change it right away, but at least in five years, we will be phased in.

I just wanted to raise this issue and ask if you can inform the people throughout the different states of this so they can contact their Congressman and Senators to make sure that this unnecessary discrimination is addressed.

I am sorry that Mrs. Weingarten has left; I wanted to make her aware of this.

I wanted to ask Mr. Garcia-Quintana_I see your name is also hyphenated like mine. I don't know if it is for the same reason.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Cuba.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. At home, Quintana is your mother's last name?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. No, sir, Garcia-Quintana is my father's name. Marcos is my mother's name.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. My children are Romero-O'Donnelly, and I married an Irish American.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana, I just wanted to also take the opportunity to congratulate you for what you may have done in your State of Georgia, where there is a small town that has had an extraordinarily successful bilingual program. They have had to import Mexican workers to this town where they make rugs and they found out that the teachers had trouble with the Mexican children in the school, because they didn't know any English. To address this problem they started a teacher exchange program with Mexico and they started a bilingual program which now is so successful that the other students and parents in the community want their children also to go into bilingual programs and to learn both languages.

I don't know if you have anything to do with that program or not.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. No, sir, that was privately funded by an attorney in that area. We are keeping an eye on that, but the danger with it is that, as Americans, we must emphasize, that we are Americans first, and we live in an American culture that is made up of many beautiful heritages that we all bring to the table. But we are not a multi-country, but we are a multi-heritage country, and we need to focus on that.

The problem is that some of the children that are being served are not Spanish speaking, and we went and visited and the class was being conducted in Spanish, and these poor Asian children had no clue what was going on, that is the dangers that you get when you just select one segment of our population and discriminate against the rest.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. If they are doing that, then they should correct it, because at home, in Puerto Rico, what we are doing is allowing the students and the parents to make the decision what program they want the children to go into.

What is happening at home is that the most of the students and particularly the students with the better grades are choosing to go into the English section, rather than the Spanish section.

But they must always study both languages. They leave it up to the people, never trying to impose anything, which has been some of the failures of the bilingual programs throughout the nation.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. I think it has been some of the failures of all education in the nation.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. Right, thank you very much. I used my time already.

Chairman Goodling. Puerto Rico has a special calculation, it is Puerto Rico's average per pupil expenditure is divided by the lowest average per pupil expenditure of the 50 states and the result is multiplied by 32 percent of the national average per pupil expenditure.

Now, what that does is because we put this special exception in there, it gives Puerto Rico 31 more percent, because we applied the minimum, however that still means that they get 24 percent less than the states.

Now, as I indicated to the governor on many occasions, and he can correct that by becoming a state, the governor always says he is all for that, and I don't know who calculated that or how they calculated that.

This was not under my jurisdiction.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. Of course not. That has been a hangup. And I just wanted to add something on to what you said, that it is true that Puerto Rico has the lowest per pupil expenditure, but we have a much higher per pupil expenditure if you compare it to the per capita income, because we have a less than 50 percent of the per capita income of Mississippi, which has the lowest per capita income.

And so we have much more than half of the per capita per pupil expenditure than Mississippi and many other states.

Chairman Goodling. My comments before we left is in response to Mr. Roemer. In that we had every indication year after year after year that we had real problems in Head Start, yet whoever sold the program did so well that if you ever mentioned the word Head Start and said anything in a derogatory fashion you were going to be tarred and feathered; and so even though all the studies would indicate we had a problem, and it was obviously why we were going to have a problem.

First of all, it was devised in such a manner that there was supposed to be confrontation between Head Start and public education. Well, that is exactly where they were going, as soon as they finished Head Start.

Secondly, there weren't very many, as I said earlier, early childhood people out there and so in some instances, it became a poverty employment program. Other instances it became a childcare program. And my hats off to this Secretary, because to my recollection, she is the first to ever shut down a Head Start. And I don't want us to only continue with chapter 1 in terms of everything that is rosy, because some places it is doing well, some places it is during poorly, and I want to make sure it does well every place.

I have a feeling that stomachs became more important than their statements or their questions. And I guess, lucky for you, we probably are going to call it a conclusion at this point. Did you have any other questions, Mr. Romero-Barcelo? You do have another question?

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. I would like to ask, Mr. Garcia-Quintana, they complained about the process by which the U.S. Department of Education reviews the state curriculum standards, and the question is, has the State of Georgia had any actual difficulties in getting their standards approved?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. The standards approved? We had a lot of problems getting our consolidated plan approved. We had a lot of discussions and on the way we were going to test the students. The federal bureaucrats wanted to impose their ways, so we came to an agreement that we will compromise; do it your way, but we are also going to do it our way because our way meant following up children and trying to measure the growth that takes place within one year, whereas their way is just taking snapshots every year in grades three, five and eight and just trying to move people from the bottom.

So we decided to do a criteria of both. As far as we are right now developing a new test which has already been piloted and it is going to the field, it is a criterion reference test. And that will be going on, so we will set standards after that, and then we will see what happens.

I am very concerned about the administration's bill and the accountability part of it, because it is pretty overhanded, and they want to pretty much dictate everything.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. They say that the Department of Education is not reviewing the state standard themselves, but only the process by which they are adopted.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. They come down and tell you what needs to be done and you have to do it

.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. And the standards themselves are in the process of adopting them?

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Yes, they are reviewing. Yes, sir.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. The standards themselves.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. The standards themselves they review the standards, they review the performance standards, is that what you are asking?

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. That is right.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Yes. And they forced us to do something that is psychometrically unsound, which was to take a norm reference test and make criterion reference decisions out of that and trichotomies it. And I felt very uncomfortable doing that because that is not the result of the norm reference test.

Mr. Romero-Barcelo. I just wanted to know your answers to those questions. Thank you.

Mr. Garcia-Quintana. Yes. Thank you

.

Chairman Goodling. The committee stands adjourned. And I thank you very much for your testimony here today and for giving us your time. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]