TABLE OF CONTENTS *

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

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

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DAVID PRICE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC *

OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BOB ETHERIDGE, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC *

STATEMENT OF MR. DOUGLAS ROBINSON, PROGRAMS DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR THE PREVENTION OF SCHOOL VIOLENCE, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA *

STATEMENT OF MS. LOREN RENNER, STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE, GOVERNOR'S TASK FORCE ON SCHOOL VIOLENCE, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA *

STATEMENT OF DR. HENRY JOHNSON, ASSOCIATE SUPERINTENDENT, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA *

STATEMENT OF MR. H. MARTIN LANCASTER, PRESIDENT, NORTH CAROLINA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA *

STATEMENT OF MS. LINDA PRESSLEY, TEACHER, WAKE FOREST-ROLESVILLE MIDDLE SCHOOL, WAKE FOREST, NORTH CAROLINA *

STATEMENT OF MR. MIKE WARD, NORTH CAROLINA STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA *

STATEMENT OF DR. JIM CAUSBY, SUPERINTENDENT, JOHNSTON COUNTY SCHOOLS, SMITHFIELD, NORTH CAROLINA *

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:41 a.m., in the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina, Hon. Michael Castle [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.

Present: Representatives Castle and Kildee.

Also Present: Representatives Etheridge and Price.

Chairman Castle. Ladies and gentlemen, if we can ask people to settle in, our panelists seem to be here and even our members of Congress are here which, as Mr. Lancaster knows, is always a miracle to get us all together.

My name is Mike Castle and I am the Chairman of the Early Childhood, Youth, and Families Subcommittee of the Education and Workforce Committee in Washington, D.C., which if nothing else, is the longest name of any subcommittee in Washington, I think.

I would like to welcome all of you, including those in the audience, to this, which is the next in our series of field hearings on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. And I am very pleased to be here in what I assume is Mr. Price's district, although I do not know if Mr. Etheridge competes for this district.

Mr. Price. You are right on the line.

Chairman Castle. I was pretty sure. And to be joining Mr. Kildee, who is a wonderful gentleman immediately to my right, who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee and has been on this Committee longer than I have and has seen education in its changes and improvements over many, many years.

As some of you may know, the Education and the Workforce Committee has worked to develop education initiatives which focus limited federal dollars in a way that provides a better classroom experience for students and teachers alike. These initiatives include the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the creation of the Reading Excellence Act, and the reform of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

But they are just the beginning of our efforts to focus national attention on the importance of education for all Americans. This year we continued to build on our accomplishments with the enactment of the Ed Flex Act, which has already been done, a plan to provide states and localities with the flexibility they need to raise student achievement, and the passage of the Teacher Empowerment Act. This bill will provide schools with more than two billion dollars to support the high quality teacher training programs as well as class size reduction efforts.

In the coming weeks and months and perhaps even into next year unfortunately, but I hope this year, we will turn our attention to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the primary means by which the federal government provides assistance to our nation's elementary and secondary schools. I mean that very comprehensively, almost all federal education programs that you look at that pertain to K through 12 schools is contained in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

As Chairman of this Subcommittee, it is my job to ensure that this reauthorization provides our schools with the resources they need to help our children obtain the best possible education. This includes federal support for programs to place computers and teachers trained to use them in the classroom as well as efforts to make sure that our children and teachers learn and work in a safe school environment.

My Subcommittee has already held a number of hearings on ESEA, both in Washington and in the field, because I believe that the testimony we receive will help us identify weaknesses in the current law and frame our reform process. I am especially pleased that we will hear from individuals that have first-hand experience in the day-to-day operation of these programs. I believe you are best suited to tell us what works and what does not in your schools.

For these reasons, I would like to thank our witnesses for taking the time to appear before the Subcommittee, both panels of our witnesses, I might add. I look forward to your testimony. I would also obviously like to recognize ranking member Dale Kildee and Representative Bob Etheridge for their attendance and thank Representative David Price and his staff for organizing this hearing.

I will explain the process sort of as we go along, although it is not very complex. I will next yield to Representative Kildee for any opening statement he may wish to make and then to Representative Price for his opening statement and then to Representative Etheridge for anything he might wish to say. And then the two of them will take care of witness introductions of this panel of witnesses. And then we will conduct the hearing and I will go over a few ground rules when we get to that.

For the time being, let us go to Representative Kildee for his opening statement.

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

Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very pleased to be here with Governor Castle this morning, who is the Chairman of this Committee. For many years, I was Chairman of the Committee, but I could not ask for a better successor than Mike Castle. He is really a truly great friend of education and I want to thank also Representative Price and Etheridge for their arranging this hearing. David, your persistence and particularly your insistence on this really finally prevailed.

I have always believed that education is a local function, you have local boards of education which play an extremely important role; it is a state responsibility, most state constitutions have that in it; but it is a very, very important federal concern. It is a federal concern for two reasons: we live in a very mobile society, a person educated in Michigan can find work here in North Carolina and vice versa. And it is a federal concern also because we are competing in a global economy and the thing that will give us the cutting edge in that competition and global economy is an educated and trained workforce.

So I want to thank the Governor for bringing the Committee down here this morning.

North Carolina is truly fortunate to have two real leaders in the area of education among its representatives. Representative Etheridge is well known as a former superintendent of public instruction here, who has used his knowledge in the Congress. And David Price's keen interest in education and involvement personally in education has certainly helped the Congress of the United States. And I also want to call attention to my former colleague, Martin Lancaster. Martin, it is good to see you again and please give my regards to your wife, Alice. My wife Gail and Alice were very good friends.

You know, education, elementary education, in this country has problems and it has great pluses too. Higher education is one of our exploits, people come from all over the world for a higher education, including your institutions here in North Carolina. It is one of our exports. But very often in international competition, our elementary and secondary schools are not doing as well as we want them to do. And the Elementary and Secondary Subcommittee is very concerned about that. While it is a local function, a state responsibility and a federal concern, we want to make sure that federal concern is exercised in a way that will help the locals and the state people really improve elementary and secondary education.

It has been said that in the first few grades, maybe kindergarten through third grade, give or take a bit, that a student learns to read and after that, the students reads to learn. And that might be encapsulating things too much, but I think within those expressions, there is something. It is very, very important that in those early years, that the teachers there really know how that mind, even the physical brain, develops, so we can help that student learn to read. Because if they do not learn to read in those early years, they are going to have a very difficult time reading to learn, probably for the rest of their lives. So in the hands of the elementary and secondary schools in this country lies an awesome responsibility and particularly in those first few years really is the future of our country.

I am very happy to be here today to hear experts tell us how we can carry out our federal role in education.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Dale. As always, we appreciate your intuition on understanding of these issues.

And now we will turn to our distinguished host for the day, Congressman Price.

Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to thank you and Mr. Kildee for your help in scheduling this hearing and for your personal commitment of time and interest in coming to North Carolina and hearing what our educators, students, teachers, administrators, parents, and people with experience with the education system and with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act have to say about our experience under the Act and our ideas for improvement and for new areas of policy direction. We appreciate you being here, we are glad to be your host and we are confident this is going to be a productive day, and we appreciate your cooperation and that of your staff in setting up what is going to be a good day of discussions, I am confident.

We are engaged here in a opportunity that comes around only once every five years; that is, the renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the main federal legislation in the area of public education. In the last Congress, as Chairman Castle indicated, we reauthorized the Higher Education Act in a largely bipartisan fashion and in a way that I believe will open up educational opportunity to thousands of our citizens and now we are looking at that other landmark statute, the ESEA. And I hope we can at the end of this Congress proclaim a similar success and improve this act for another five year run.

North Carolina has taken advantage of many of the ESEA programs, as we will learn today. We have benefited from the Title I targeted assistance for low-income students and districts and also the funding for the education of children with disabilities. Our participation in the Title I program amounts to $155 million for the school year just beginning. And the IDEA allocations for disabled students is $114 million. So we benefit greatly from that assistance, we have participated enthusiastically in the magnet schools program, in various teacher training programs and we are hoping for that kind of support to continue and are looking for ways to improve the support system.

We realize that education, as Mr. Kildee has stressed, education is mainly funded and administered at the state and local level. Only seven cents of each dollar that we spend on education is in fact a federal expenditure. But that seven cents has been critical over the years in supporting programs designed to help the most disadvantaged students, in focusing on areas of national need. I remember as a high school student when Sputnik went up and the country went into a collective panic about falling behind in science and math and engineering education. And that was the start of the National Defense Education Act and of a targeted approach to federal support for state and local educational efforts that focuses on areas of national need, and has been of great importance to our country in strengthening our overall education system.

There are important programs that we are concerned to see continued. There are areas where we think additional attention is needed, additional support. For example, in teacher recruitment and training. We have made that a major focus of this hearing here today, because we think the efforts that have been undertaken need to be continued and improved. And we have a number of witnesses that will testify to what is going on in this state and the way they think teacher recruitment, training, retention might be strengthened.

For example, we have the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program, which is going to be represented here today by Director Gladys Graves; an intense program for young people in their college years to encourage teaching careers, prepare them for teaching. This and other examples will be discussed today with some thought to how they might be more widely applied.

We are proud of our Governor Jim Hunt's work with the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, which has worked to develop high standards for teacher certification and we are proud that North Carolina leads the nation in the number of National Board certified teachers.

And then finally, we will be looking today at some new areas that we think might be incorporated in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and related measures. I commend my colleague Bob Etheridge for his introduction of the School Construction Act. The President has a school construction proposal. Both of these proposals would utilize the Tax Code, not to tell local authorities when and how and if to build schools, but to stretch the dollars once they make those decisions, targeting low income districts and targeting high growth districts. That area of school construction, certainly one that is relevant here, is something I hope we can get into today.

And also the area of class size. We have an initiative under way to hire 100,000 new teachers for our classrooms. North Carolina has gotten $25 million already under this program. The idea is to get class size down in the early grades where we know small class size is most important to the quality of teaching and learning that takes place.

So we have a very full agenda here, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate your coming and hearing our leaders from the area. We look forward to a productive discussion and to working with you cooperatively in the remaining months of this Congressional session to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in an effective fashion.

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Congressman Price. And our final opening statement will be issued by Congressman Etheridge.

Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me take this opportunity also to thank you and ranking member Kildee for holding this field hearing here in North Carolina. I said earlier, you know, not everyone gets this opportunity and we are very appreciative that you would bring it to North Carolina. I also want to thank my colleague and friend, Congressman Price, for all the work he has done to encourage you to come and to our two staffs for the work they have done in helping coordinate and get things done.

And I especially want to take this opportunity to thank all the panelists who are going to participate today and testify on an issue that is so important and about this bill that will have a significant impact, not only to North Carolina but to education all across America. And the people we are going to hear from today are really on the front line of this crucial mission of providing quality educational opportunities for all of our children.

You know, the people who are with us today know what works and what will not work. I have said to folks in Congress, what little contribution I make up there many times is telling them what I think will not work. And I think today, hopefully you can do that for us. Some people say that the federal government has no place in helping local schools. And I say our local schools need all the help they can get.

I have been in probably as many public schools as any person in this state, certainly over the last eight to ten years. I have never had a teacher, nor have I had a student, ask me who paid for anything in that school. They always want to know what they do not have and what more they need to meet the missions that they are challenged to meet. And I think if we keep that in mind, those of us in policy positions, we could get a lot more done.

As most of you know, and as has been indicated, I have had the opportunity to do some special things in education, which I am grateful for. But I am tremendously proud of the progress that we have made in improving public schools here in North Carolina. And it did not happen by accident, but rather it happened through the hard work of teachers, students, parents, education officials, as well as our business and community leaders. And that is going to be true all across this country.

And I especially want to thank again our panelists who are here this morning, because they are the experts; and Geraldine McNeill, who is here from the NCAE, for the key role that teachers play. Too many times we fail to thank the teachers, the people who are really the people on the front line in this battle against ignorance all across America. They not only work from 8:00 to 5:00_8:00 to 3:00 as some people want to say, but they do lesson plans at night, they grade papers, they take our children to all the special events and work in the evenings. So I hope that we will remember that.

One of the earliest efforts that we undertook when I was involved with education here was to focus the federal money, as Dr. Johnson and others, on early childhood development. And study after study has indicated that early years are so critical to our children's educational success. We took federal resources and applied them to initiatives like Head Start, expanding them. Took those dollars and focused them, and I believe the recent reports that we are seeing here in North Carolina are showing some results with that. Certainly the Smart Start the Governor started will show even greater results in years to come, but our SAT scores and our NTE scores have gone up remarkably, showing that that investment is paying off. And we have shown some of the largest gains here, incidentally, of any state in the nation -- and I am sure he is going to talk about that -- in SAT and in NTE scores. But we have got a long way to go and we are still making progress.

Finally, let me just say a word about the largest gimmick that has emerged from those who really do not believe in public education. I want to get that out this morning and on the record. This whole voucher business. When we take away funding from struggling schools and use the money for private school tuition, it is not only a dumb idea, it is also the biggest threat, in my opinion, that we face in our continued success to improving public schools for the 90+ percent of our children who show up there every single day. And I would like for each of our witnesses today, if they have a chance, to sort of comment on the notion of taking federal funds away from public schools and how somehow folks think it is going to improve education. I happen to believe it will do the contrary.

With that, Mr. Chairman, let me turn it back to you and again thank you for having this hearing here today.

Chairman Castle. Well, thank you, Bob; and thank all of you very much and we appreciate being here. When afforded the opportunity to come to North Carolina, I thought it was a good idea. I was hoping to do it in the winter and see a Duke-Carolina basketball game, but we could not work that out. So we are here at the beginning of the school year. But we appreciate the opportunity.

This indeed is a state which in my judgment has done a lot for education. The area that we are in obviously, with the Research Triangle and need for education is remarkably notable for what it has accomplished. Governor Hunt has been at the forefront for a matter of decades now of education in this country, all of which we think is extraordinarily important. That is one reason we wanted to come here and we had two members of Congress who are vitally interested in education, and that makes a huge difference as well.

The time has now come for our panel. You see one panel here, but we actually have two panels, and I am always concerned that the second panel will be considered to be secondary, which it is not, it is equally as important as the first panel. So we try to stay within some time restrictions in order to make sure that we get to the second panel and afford them the full time to testify as well.

We have a clock here. It turns out the House of Representatives only has one set of traveling lights, gentlemen, so we were not able to get it. So we have an egg timer, I think. D’Arcy is a master at operating this. It has five minutes on it, he will set it for five minutes. It will ding and scare me half to death probably, but you should at that point be thinking in terms of concluding your testimony. Now I am sure that all of you are capable of talking for much more than five minutes. We are used to this. Mr. Lancaster has a good idea -- Martin has had to do one minute speeches on the floor and he has some sense of it -- but it is hard to stay within five minutes. But all of you will testify for five minutes, obviously we will give you a little time to finish up after that. But your written statements will be submitted for the record. That is important, by the way, because obviously not all members of the Committee are here.

And what we are trying to do is glean information which will help. You heard our opening statements with respect to the ESEA, with things we are doing in Washington, but we want the rest of the staffs in Washington to see it, as well as the members to see what you have submitted. So all that will be distributed to them. So that is as important probably as actually the hearing itself. So all your statements will be submitted and accepted for the record. Anything else you wish to submit in the way of background information will also be accepted as part of this record. So do not hesitate to offer whatever you think would be helpful to us with respect to education.

When all of you have testified, we will then have an opportunity to ask you questions. And the way we will try to conduct this, assuming time allows us and I think it will, will be each of us will take up to five minutes, again with this clock. Members of Congress particularly are notorious for going beyond five minutes, so we really clock us carefully. And then if we have any follow up questions, within a limited period of time, we will try to let each panelist ask a follow up question or two, unless somebody objects, in which case I will probably yield to their objection. But hopefully we can work that out in that way.

And now, because obviously they are at home and you are part of their home, I want to turn to our distinguished hosts for the introduction of our panelists. And I will turn to first, Congressman Price.

Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we will very briefly introduce the panelists and then they will speak in turn. But Bob Etheridge and I will divide the labor here roughly according to who lives in which district.

I am pleased to introduce Loren Renner. Loren is a junior at Leesville High School here in Raleigh, and she is a member of the Governor's Task Force on School Violence. So Loren is going to speak to us about her participation on that task force, about her experience in her own school, describe some of the incidents of school violence and efforts to prevent school violence at her school and around the state.

Martin Lancaster is a good friend of all of us here, currently serves as President of the North Carolina Community College System, a system that is one of the largest in the country, serves a critical role in training literacy and adult education programs. Martin is a former North Carolina legislator and a distinguished four-term member of the House of Representatives. He also served as special advisor to the President on chemical weapons and as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. We are all fortunate that Martin has agreed to come back home and head up our community college system. And today, he will share with us his ideas particularly on the recruiting and training of qualified teachers.

Mr. Etheridge. The opportunity I have is to introduce to you Douglas Robinson. Douglas is Program Manager for the Center for the Prevention of School Violence. For our guests who are here today, this was really a center that was developed that came out of a study of the 1992 Joint Study commissioned by the Governor, the Secretary of Crime Control, the Attorney General and the State Superintendent were chairs of that study. Ultimately it led to this center that is housed at NC State University I believe still, and actually works with the public schools across the state. He is a graduate of Appalachian State University with a master's degree in administration. He has served in a number of capacities in the public schools and in the private sector, many of which I will not cover, only to say that he recently was honored by the National Crime Prevention Council as a national leader in crime, and community leader of the year and we honor you for that and thank you for the work you do. He will talk about a number of issues today which I will not cover.

The second person that I have the privilege of introducing to you is Dr. Henry L. Johnson, who is the Associate State Superintendent for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Prior to coming to the department, he was Assistant Superintendent in the Johnston County School Systems. He is a product of the North Carolina public schools and of the universities of this state, I will not go through the list. He and I have been friends for a number of years. He is an outstanding educator. I had the distinct privilege of inviting him to come and join the state department -- one of the smart things that I did. I did not do many smart things, but that was one that I did. He has over 27 years plus experience as a professional educator and is respected not only across this state but across the nation in his educational expertise and his ability not only to articulate what needs to be done, but more importantly what those of us who are not in education ought to be doing.

The third panelist is Linda Pressley, she is an eighth grade teacher at Wake Forest-Rolesville Middle School, and she truly is where the rubber meets the road. She has been in public education for almost 30 years. She has spent roughly 15 at the current school where she is currently teaching, has been an eighth grade teacher for 30 years, for the whole period of time. I have often said that anyone that teaches in the middle grades is a very special person, for a variety of reasons. Those of you in education know this, because those hormones every day sort of bounce off the wall and one day they are children, the next day they are adolescents and maybe within a few minutes of the same day, they are adults. It is a difficult task but it takes a special person and we are glad that Linda would come and join us, because she can bring to this dialogue today a very special knowledge, first-hand, of what it takes in the middle grades.

Thank you and welcome.

Chairman Castle. Thank you and thank you, David.

I think, unless somebody has some other way of looking at this, that we will just go in the order of Mr. Robinson down through Ms. Renner, down to Ms. Pressley at the end, just to keep things in some order that I can follow.

And with that, Mr. Robinson, we turn to you for your testimony and we are glad to have you.

Mr. Robinson. Thank you, sir, and it is an honor to be here. I often wished, Mr. Etheridge, that my mother-in-law could be here today to hear that introduction, because I think it is most complimentary and it is a pleasure to be here.

Our focus, of course, is to be sure that our schools are places where teachers can teach and students can learn. Mr. Etheridge, you referred to that earlier joint task force on school violence back in 1993. And looking at all the miles and all the travels and all the presentations that we have done through the years, it seems almost like ancient history. And I want to thank you for all your efforts, because that was really the catalyst for the beginnings of the Center for the Prevention of School Violence, and extremely, extremely important.

Mr. Price, thank you, of course, for all your efforts in working with our education initiatives, our community oriented policing programs that we have here in place, as well as our youth out of the educational mainstream initiatives that are currently ongoing and we are beginning to see the fruits of that research and that particular program.

Because of your efforts, North Carolina is on the forefront of the issue of preventing school violence at the grassroots level itself. Our safe school initiatives are extremely, extremely important and often well sought out. If requests for information and technical assistance are any indication of what we are doing in North Carolina, this past fiscal year, we responded to nearly 40,000 information requests from across the country. That of course came from a number of avenues. Our web site that has been honored in the last few years by the Hamilton Fish Institute for the good work there, as well as our 800 number.

I was looking this morning at this past year fiscal report on number of presentations and I am trying to remember where the days were that as a staff -- and there is not a large permanent staff -- that we did nearly 800 presentations across the country.

If that is any indication of what we are doing in North Carolina -- and I think that speaks extremely well of all the programs that we have at the grassroots level. As you mentioned earlier, sir, where the rubber meets the road.

I like to tell folks that as Programs Manager I have the easiest job in the world because all I have to do is talk about all the hard work everyone else does. And that is really where the difference is being made.

As we look at some of those initiatives, our school resources officer program is seen across the country as a model for that particular program. But our SRO program -- you know, we are extraordinarily fortunate, nearly 83 percent of our high schools across the state have a school resource officer placed within that school that serves in a number of capacities; as law-related education teacher, as law-related education counselor to young people as well as serving in a law enforcement capacity.

Our law-related education initiatives are extremely, extremely important, not just to teach young people about what their rights are, but to be sure that they understand what their responsibilities are, and that deals with us being able to partner with a number of national organizations, Center for Civic Education, Constitutional Rights Foundation and Street Law, Inc. out of Washington, which of course is part of the National Crime Prevention Council.

There is no other program that is any more important -- and I do not want to take anything away from Loren here, but Students Against Violence Everywhere, that is one program that in and of itself, when we talk about initiatives and programs that are making a difference, we talk about SAVE, Students Against Violence Everywhere. In the last 90 days, we have probably had our startup manuals reprinted at least four times, just to be able to answer the information responses. And to me, that is where the difference is being made. Those are some of the past initiatives.

As we look forward on the record and the recommendations that came out of the Governor's recent task force on youth violence and school safety, you know, we look at those efforts dealing with establishing a statewide tip line that we think will be very beneficial in being able to get additional information out to those communities and schools that are requesting that information.

Our student focus program, student-initiated programs, one of the recommendations of the Governor's task force was to promote Students Against Violence Everywhere. And it did address school size and that sort of thing, but extremely, extremely important. What I believe will make the difference I believe down the road and it is so important that our schools are safe places where teachers can teach and students can learn. Everything else I think is based upon that solid foundation and making sure that we have the community support to be able to do that and follow up on that initiative.

And thank you very much, it is indeed an honor to be here to present for you today.

[The statement of Mr. Robinson follows]

STATEMENT OF MR. DOUGLAS ROBINSON, PROGRAMS DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR THE PREVENTION OF SCHOOL VIOLENCE, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA – SEE APPENDIX C (ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IS ON FILE WITH THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE)

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Mr. Robinson, we appreciate your testimony and look forward to discussing this more with you. And now we will turn to Ms. Renner.

Ms. Renner. Thank you for having me here today. It is truly an honor to be able to speak in front of you and share the views of my fellow students.

First and foremost, I was a member of the Governor's Task Force on Youth Violence and School Safety, and that was very beneficial for me because I was able to tell them and help establish six working recommendations for things that can be improved within our schools, which include increased parental involvement in the children's education, increased student involvement within school, development of an accountability standard to measure program progress, support efforts to provide a safe learning environment and earlier identification of risk factors and prevention intervention strategies to deal with them, and increase community responsibility because it quite boils down to school violence. School overcrowding which is a lot of what I am seeing in my school today -- my school contains about 2100 students this year and we have 20 trailers and my school is six years old. It is bad for any school to have trailers, especially in that amount, but for one that is so new and is supposed to be stressed for students and adequate learning environment, that is not very adequate and teachers are forced to teach 30 students or more. It is not fair to the students because the students are not being able to get the one-on-one support that they need from their teachers, and the teachers are feeling very frustrated from what teachers that I have heard, that they are not able to help the students that really need help because in 55 minutes you cannot reach 30 students that potentially have problems and it results in frustrated students and frustrated teachers who cannot learn and thus the end of course tests and SAT scores have improved but possibly if we create schools within schools, which is one of the things we talked about at task force, that possibly have two sets of administrators and that way it is less expensive and it is more one-on-one, hands-on with the students where the students actually know -- the administration knows the students by name rather than just seeing their face in the hall every day and not knowing them. That would be more beneficial to the students and it would be more beneficial to the teachers and learning environment. And the scores will most likely improve, which I see definitely happening in the future.

Some specific programs addressing violence include the SRO program which Mr. Robinson did talk about today. That is a very important program and I have noticed that within my school, our SRO is quite possibly the one person that can touch students that will not be able to touch such as minority students that would not possibly open up towards administrators. They go up and speak to my SRO every day as a friend and he serves as counselor, he serves as a mediator and he serves as a deterrent to violence during the school, so it is very important that we get funding for these SROs and possibly have more per school and get them into lower grades as well so they can work up seeing an officer every day in school.

And also the DARE program, which I did not include here, but it just came to mind, is very important too. I had that for two years in elementary school and it very much affected me in high school, the way I look at situations, and my friends too, the way we look toward possible obstacles that come in our path.

Some other programs include SAVE, Students Against Violence Everywhere, which promotes non-violence by having mentor programs for younger aged teenagers and youth, and it really -- I am trying to start up one with my friend, we are writing up a constitution right now for our school chapter, but I have other friends in other schools and their chapters have been very successful, to the point of having over 100 participants, which is the most of any club in that school. So obviously students are very, very interested in promoting school non-violence and safety.

Also I am involved in teen court, which I am not sure if you are aware of.

Okay, I will stop here.

Chairman Castle. You can finish up, go ahead.

Ms. Renner. Okay, teen court is another program that is listed here. One of the most important things is schools are too large. Try to focus on getting the school size down to where the teachers are able to communicate freely with their students and have adequate learning environment; thus, grades will go up and so will self-esteem levels and the whole system of the school will be improved.

Thank you.

[The statement of Ms. Renner follows:]

STATEMENT OF MS. LOREN RENNER, STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE, GOVERNOR'S TASK FORCE ON SCHOOL VIOLENCE, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA – SEE APPENDIX D

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Ms. Renner, we really appreciate you being here. Now Dr. Johnson.

Mr. Johnson. Good morning and thank you, Congressman Castle, for the invitation to speak before the Subcommittee on the impact that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 has had on the students and schools in North Carolina. In addition, at the request of Congressman Price and Etheridge, my remarks will also address briefly at-risk youth programs that we have in our state. But before I go on further, Bob, thanks for that most generous introduction. I wish that my wife and mother could have been here to hear it. My wife would have found it interesting and my mother would have believed it.

[Laughter.]

Mr. Johnson. Time constraints will not permit me to discuss in detail the impact that all 14 programs under ESEA have had on the public schools in North Carolina, but I will provide an overview for Title I, Part A, Improving Basic Programs operated by Local Education Agencies; Part B, Even Start Family Literacy; and Part C, Education for Migratory Children. I will also touch on two Title VI programs, Innovative Education Program Strategies and Class Size Reduction.

North Carolina's allocation for Title I last school term totaled approximately $149 million. One hundred seventeen local school agencies received Title I funding in 1997-1998 school year. Specifically, 1021 schools received federal Title I funding for last year. These funds are targeted to school districts to support supplementary services that improve the educational performance of children who are failing or most at risk of failing, to meet the challenges that our state has provided in our high poverty schools. These supplementary services may include hiring additional teachers, establishing labs, providing staff development, training parents and extending learning opportunities for low-achieving students. Data from our state's ABCs of Public Education Program, that is our state accountability program, which requires annual testing of students to measure academic growth, to provide an indicator of the academic gains that students have made with Title I funds. The percentage of students at or above grade level in both reading and mathematics on our end-of-grade tests, as determined by our accountability program for the years 1993 through 1998 shows that Title I students made the highest gains of any of the subgroups.

Congressional Districts 2 and 4 each had a North Carolina Title I Distinguished School for the 1998-1999 school year. As many of you are aware, Title I Distinguished Schools recognition is a national program sponsored by the U.S. Office of Education and State Title I Directors and is a school that has exceeded the state's expectations of adequate progress for three consecutive years. And we have three in those districts.

North Carolinians are always extremely proud of the 14 school systems that have implemented Even Start projects. These projects are targeted toward families most in need and extends eligibility to teen parents, who are among the most needy. Approximate 271 families are being served in these 14 school districts, but the need far exceeds available funds. Currently, our state allocation is only $3 million for Even Start Family Literacy.

Another program that has tremendous impact on North Carolina is the Education of Migratory Children. Our state's allocation is approximately $6 million. 13,800 children were served during the 1997-1998 school year. North Carolina, like many states, has seen its migratory population increase significantly during the last five years.

And I thought this would go a lot faster, I will have other comments later.

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Dr. Johnson. I do not want to discourage anybody from taking time to conclude within some degree of reasonableness, but we will get back to you.

Mr. Johnson. I have got another page and a half, so I will pick it up during the Q and A.

[The statement of Dr. Johnson follows:]

STATEMENT OF DR. HENRY JOHNSON, ASSOCIATE SUPERINTENDENT, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA – SEE APPENDIX E

Chairman Castle. We will call next on Congressman Lancaster -- I guess President Lancaster is a higher title than Congressman Lancaster, but we appreciate, Martin, you being here and all you have done in many, many ways in this country and what you are doing now.

Mr. Lancaster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I join with Congressman Price and Etheridge in welcoming you and Congressman Kildee, to North Carolina and thank the four of you for allowing me to testify. I would appreciate your inclusion of my full text in the record, as I will try to shorten it to come within the five minutes.

Chairman Castle. Without objection.

Mr. Lancaster. The teacher shortage, especially in rural and inner-city schools, is well documented. Low pay, inadequate facilities, isolated living situations and poor working conditions all combine to make the recruitment and retention of teachers in these schools a significant challenge. Because of the life style and professional impediments, loan forgiveness and other schemes to attract beginning teachers into these settings have been less than fully successful. Teachers fulfill their commitment for loan forgiveness and then head for the bright lights of the city or the rich suburb. However, every rural community and every inner-city community have wonderful, nurturing people who call the place home and would not live anywhere else. Our challenge is to target among that population persons who would make good teachers and who will stay there forever, and prepare them for these positions.

I am very biased on the subject, but I am of the opinion that community colleges have an important role to play in educating this cadre of home-grown teachers.

In North Carolina teacher aides are an important part of the success of kindergarten and primary education. Most of these aides have received their training at a community college and many of them have the potential for a degree and a certification as a teacher.

Government resources should be used and local school leadership should encourage the enrollment of these teacher aides in associate degree programs in education. Mothers, fathers and others with local family and business responsibilities should have the option of obtaining an associate and a baccalaureate degree on a community college campus in their community so that they do not have to abandon those family and business opportunities to go some distance away to enroll in a four-year school of education. Most of them have not and few of them will choose that route. However, if we can make courses available to them at convenient times and places so that they might pursue first an associate degree through the community college and ultimately a baccalaureate degree through degree completion programs offered by four-year institutions on community college campuses, they can fulfill their obligations in the classroom and at home and ultimately obtain a degree.

Four year schools of education should offer degree completion programs on community college campuses, using distance technologies of various kinds to deliver courses as well as the offering of face-to-face classes with instructors who will travel from the four-year institutions and the appointment of academically qualified community college instructors as adjunct faculty of the four-year institution. Even rural communities with small enrollments located in counties with little population can offer degree completion programs in collaboration with other community colleges and four-year institutions by combining classes and using distance technologies that do not require the same critical mass as the traditional classroom.

An impediment to the full utilization of distance technologies in small rural and poor community colleges is the excessive cost of the information highway and internet connections. Many of these community colleges lack the resources which would make these delivery tools viable. State and federal resources are essential to subsidize the cost of providing this expensive delivery tool. Other federal policy decisions on the availability and cost of these delivery mechanisms would also be helpful.

Another stumbling block to this proposal is the reluctance on the part of schools of education at colleges and universities to recognize the competence of community college instructors to provide the first two years of an education degree and to serve as adjunct faculty to the college or university for degree completion. Some of the best teachers in the State of North Carolina are on community college campuses and they can hold their own in a classroom with their counterparts in four-year institutions. They are in community colleges because they like to teach and do not especially enjoy research and publishing.

As the cost of four-year colleges and universities continue to escalate, community colleges offer the only opportunity for many to obtain a four-year degree. Many 18-year-old college freshmen are seeing the community college as their alternative of choice and we need to get those freshmen and sophomores excited about an education degree on the community college campus. It is my belief that exposure to education as a career in the community college classroom and in a clinical setting in a public school will inspire many students to pursue an education career early in their educational journey in a career in education.

The North Carolina Model Teacher Consortium you will hear more about from Dr. Charles Coble in the second panel.

I think it is clear that despite the Herculean efforts on their part, four-year institutions will not be able to meet the demand for teacher preparation that is ever-growing. Cooperation and collaboration with community colleges will be essential to meeting this challenge. Our system is committed to being a full partner with four-year institutions in preparing those for the teaching profession and we stand ready to use the resources provided to us by the state and federal legislators for that purpose.

[The statement of Mr. Lancaster follows:]

STATEMENT OF MR. H. MARTIN LANCASTER, PRESIDENT, NORTH CAROLINA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA – SEE APPENDIX F

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Martin, we appreciate that.

And our final witness in this panel will be a very important person, a teacher and a teacher for a number of years, as we heard earlier. And there is nobody more important in our society, in my judgment. And Ms. Pressley, we are delighted to have you here.

Ms. Pressley. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to speak of my concerns about overcrowding in the public schools. When I first went to Wake Forest, the middle school was housed in the old Dubois High School and we were excited to get a new facility in 1989, and I think Mr. Price came and spoke one time at our school. The new school was built to house 900 students but in just over two years, we exceeded that population. In years past, we have had as many -- well, we have had over 1200 students, and this is sixth, seventh and eighth graders. Of course, the only alternative is trailers.

Until this year, we have had 12 trailers. One was moved to another campus in August and I have been in trailer 6 for about five or six years.

Although we have exceeded our ABC goals for three years, I feel that the quality and the content of education is affected by the overcrowding. We could accomplish a lot more if we had not been overcrowded. It is difficult to connect with all students and know strengths and weaknesses or work individually with students. And it is difficult to find space and time to meet with parents for conferences.

Being in a mobile unit can make students feel disconnected, especially when you have assemblies or special events, but I feel the lack of space for more team speakers or team interdisciplinary activities is more crucial. School buildings need to have a space for this, for large group activities.

Many teachers in my school love their mobile units. They can control the air conditioning and the heat and they can do noisy activities without disturbing the people next door and they do not have to get in the congested hallways for the children trying to get from class to class. And it is much better. The worse solution that we have had to face with overcrowding is what we call a floating teacher. And that is a teacher who does not have their own classroom, they go from room to room and you cannot get all your supplementary supplies for a meaningful lesson and it is hard to get organized and it is difficult to meet with students before and after class.

The number one problem we see though with trailers is security. And I know in our school, we are advised not to keep computers in our trailers. And so the mobile units have been issued laptops. I am in the eighth grade, so we do the computer literacy testing. And so before October 1, we have to review all the computer skills for our children to take the test. And sometimes it is impossible to get into the computer lab in the building with as many teachers trying to do that, and so you have to beg computers from teachers and get them in the trailer in the morning and then of course you have got to get them out in the afternoon; so this can really be a nightmare.

Other complaints about mobile units with the overcrowding is the weather and medical emergencies. If it is pretty, it is nice, the children like to be outside when they are changing classes. But if it is raining, you are going to have to spend class time getting them dried off because we do not have covered walkways, they are mobile although they have been there for six years. Snow is another problem. Just one personal incident, I had a flat that was put at the end of my ramp to my trailer because there was a drainage problem and it kept the students from stepping in knee deep water to get into the room. And during a snow storm, we were getting ready to get out in about an hour, a child fell and caught his foot in the flat and we could not get him out. So I have a trailer full of 30 kids and then I have him out there. And so that makes it real difficult when you are trying to take care of both those.

The only solution to overcrowding is to build more classrooms where they are needed. Every teacher needs the space, they need the supplies, they need the materials, the equipment to provide a good learning environment. And the students need to feel that they are a part of the school and that learning is important.

Thank you.

[The statement of Ms. Pressley follows:]

STATEMENT OF MS. LINDA PRESSLEY, TEACHER, WAKE FOREST-ROLESVILLE MIDDLE SCHOOL, WAKE FOREST, NORTH CAROLINA – SEE APPENDIX G

Chairman Castle. Well, thank you very much, Ms. Pressley. And we now go to that time when we are allowed to ask questions and we will reset the clock and we will each take five minutes and I am going to start at once.

I am going to address the question which I think I will ask briefly maybe to Mr. Robinson, Ms. Renner and Ms. Pressley to answer.

The Columbine incident struck me in some ways. One of the things was that the principal of that school said, and I think rightfully, that he was not even aware that these young men were in the school, you know, wearing dark clothing, et cetera. And that is a school which I think is in excess of 2000 students as well, Ms. Renner, as I recall. And that bothered me a little bit. I mean, you know, I think schools work best when the principals know who everybody is and there is a certain awareness. I toured a school near Dover, Delaware and it is a brand new school and it was built for 800 sixth, seventh and eighth graders, called now middle schools -- they do not call them junior high schools -- in Delaware and it was done in wings with two sets of wings for each of the grades so that you really never left that wing except to go to the cafeteria, to art, to gymnasium or things of that nature. This is so that the kids were not exposed necessarily to each other, sixth graders to eighth graders. You were a little bit as you entered, but that was about it. Modern technology, that kind of thing. This is a district, by the way, that was not that wealthy, but the district did vote a referendum to build actually two schools exactly at the same time in an area that is growing like North Carolina is.

To me that seemed quite ideal in terms of how schools should be put together, although it has not yet functioned, school is just opening there right now. But it just seemed to be the way to go in looking at that.

Do you agree with that and would it be helpful if the federal government, setting aside for the moment the issue of whether we should be paying for this or not, which is a significant issue that Congressman Etheridge and many others are very concerned about, but should the federal government be spending more time worrying about the physical aspects of some of these buildings. We worry so much about teacher, teacher recruitment and testing and whatever it may be. Are we not paying enough attention to how schools are actually structured? Not to suggest there is all the money in the world to do that. But is this a major overlooked factor in terms of law and order, in terms of teaching, in terms of just students taking care of each other, knowing or whatever it may be. Mr. Robinson?

Mr. Robinson. As we look at the issue of safe school planning, you know, we talk about the four S's.

The first one being the site assessment itself, determining whether or not the facility meets certain guidelines and standards. We are fortunate in North Carolina in our Department of Public Instruction to have a facility standards section up there.

The other areas are statistics to see what issues, what concerns, what is actually happening within the school and there are a number of ways to gather that information as well.

The last two areas are kind of joined together as far as conducting surveys to see if in fact students do feel safe within a school. Loren mentioned earlier the fact that they have a school resource officer there and that is an individual that a lot of young people can come to and talk to and feel relatively safe. We can have all the bells and whistles and, you know, all those strategies in place, but if young people do not feel safe, then in fact they may not view it and the educational process may not be taking place.

The last area of course is to just be able to get down and talk to students themselves.

The issue that I would like to drive home here, this is reviewing the architectural structure and the design of the building to make sure that the technology is in place, to make sure that the atmosphere is conducive to learning and the school that you mentioned that you visited in Delaware sounds like a lot of those strategies have been put into place in a preconstruction issue, which is ideally the place, you know, for it to be. And I think Dr. Johnson will agree with me on that.

I will yield to Ms. Pressley.

Chairman Castle. We will go to Loren and then we will go to Ms. Pressley.

Ms. Renner. Well, I know our middle school because it is Leesville Road High School, Middle School and Elementary School for fourth and fifth elementary. It was overcrowded, so we had to shift around of course. But the middle school is set up where there are certain teams, about four per grade, and in each team there is like a pod area and there are four teachers for the basic subjects in each team and the students never leave that team area other than to go to, you know, gymnastics or the cafeteria.

Chairman Castle. And you think that is a good system?

Ms. Renner. Exactly, that is a wonderful system because the teachers know the students, they know what is going on in the other classes, they have the same teachers all the time, they are with the same students throughout the day. Although they really should get more interaction with other students from across the board, but in the long run that would really help if they had -- that is really a great way to set it up like that, to have it where all the teachers are there and they have the same students and teachers in one area to where it is easier for them to communicate back and forth about things going on with the students.

Chairman Castle. Thank you. I have a whole series of other questions and I do want to turn to Ms. Pressley for her answer. I will try to ask my other questions in another round, but Ms. Pressley and also in addition to what we have already been answering here, why is it that we build schools in America that are always overcrowded the first year they open? I mean why can we not learn something about counting population and figuring out what we have to do? That bothers me as well; maybe that is more a comment than a question, but I would be interested in your comments on structures in schools and what you have learned in your years as a teacher.

Ms. Pressley. Well, I know that I agree with them about the_especially in the middle schools, being in the pods, that is great. The building I am in is a conventional building with the long hallways and so it gets very tedious even though we have sixth grade on one floor, seventh on the other and then of course us eighth graders are in the trailers. But I agree with that.

I know when our school was planned, on the drawing board it was much bigger. When they actually started building it, they started taking away space, and my understanding was for money, you know, for the lack of money. But I am not real sure about that.

In between classes, children do not feel safe. When they are in the classroom, they feel secure, but we have a lot of children when you are changing in between, especially sixth grade, if they have to go into an area where the eighth grade is, they feel a little bit intimidated.

Chairman Castle. So ideally, something like the pod concept, which Loren mentioned, if possible -- and I realize sometimes physically you are limited on that -- is probably a better direction to go.

Ms. Pressley. It most certainly is.

Chairman Castle. Thank you. Mr. Kildee.

Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Governor.

I taught school for ten years. The school I taught in had roughly 1000 students and I do not think any of you are old enough to remember, but I think Conant in his report said that is the ideal size so you can have a comprehensive program of physics and the sciences and language.

But I am concerned about the size of schools. I was equally concerned with Governor Castle when the principal, who I am sure is a very good principal and a very fine person, stated he was not aware even of the fact that the black trench coat people existed in the school. That does concern me. How much does the size of a school affect the potential for problems in the school? And let me ask you this specific question. In society, we have to learn to be tolerant of other people. And in a school, you have kind of a microcosm, a cross-section of society, maybe within that region, but still a cross-section. How can the school help students -- you are going to have these groups, going to have the cliches, going to have the -- when I taught school, we had various groups, we had a leather jacket gang when I was teaching school. I knew they existed. How do we teach people to be tolerant of other people who are different and still recognize you can be different and still not be hated and can be tolerant. How can we do that? Maybe Dr. Robinson and Loren, you can address that.

Mr. Robinson. Mr. Kildee, the most difficult job that I have and the one that I take the greatest pride in, I am the father of 15-year-old twins. And the night of April 20th, I had both my children sit on the couch and look at me and say "Dad, am I going to be safe at school tomorrow?" And I felt all the blood drain from my body when that statement was said, and I said, "Son, yes, because there are not those problems here in Wake County Schools", and Mr. Price, I am within your district -- that brought it all home, it brought it all home.

The issues of what we are talking about today, schools within a school, being able to manage size; when we talk about teaching tolerance and civility and what we used to refer to as just good manners -- you know, we look at the number one influence in a young person's life today and that is their peers. And when I ask young people and I say you know, if somebody uses the term ``peer pressure'' in your presence, does that give a negative or a positive, you know, image and quite often they say it is negative. Well, the issue is why, because all of our studies and all of our research tells us that roughly two to seven percent of our student population is that percentage of the student population in our state which is roughly 1.2 million, that we deal with on a regular basis as far as a disciplinary problem or other issues.

I think we have to get farther and farther upstream. We need to be applying a number of the initiatives such as teaching young people how to solve conflict at a younger and younger age. That is extremely important because those will be the skills that they will carry through with them throughout their life. Teaching those young people good listening skills and what are the components of good listening skills, and making sure that they understand what it is to be basically civil and basically be tolerant to other people in their community. And after all, that school is basically a community, when you stop and think about 2000 students in one building. I mean that is the size of most small towns in North Carolina or anywhere in America, for that matter.

But it is extremely, extremely important that we give that sense of community to our schools and to the young people that are there and make sure that we are all inclusive, we are all there for a reason, we are all there to get an education. And we are the product of that institution and what we will take forth into society afterwards.

Mr. Kildee. On that, you know, very often there are societal, familial, psychological reasons or causes or provocations for violence and very often the school becomes the arena for the violence, but maybe it is a societal problem, a familial problem, a psychological problem. But the school becomes the arena because that is a very important and large part of the student's day and therefore, the school has to recognize that while it might not be a school-caused problem, that somehow when you have that many people put together, if you can help them understand one another -- maybe not join the other group, but help them be more tolerant. I mean there was name-calling as they walk through the hallway, if there could be some type of human relations counselor or something to help.

Loren, do you have any comment on that?

Ms. Renner. Yes. On the task force, we had a speaker called Kevin Dwyer and he is a leading psychologist throughout the nation, and he stated that the psychologist to student ratio should be one psychologist per 1000 students. And my school has 2000 students and we have a floating psychologist that comes once a week and I recently did an article on this for our newspaper and no one in the front office or in the guidance office even knew their phone number to give me. So that just shows you there is something going on here, the pieces of the puzzle are not fitting right. You need to hire more counselors, psychologists to deal with the psychological problems that people might have so that it does not escalate to violence where somebody in North Carolina ends up shooting up a school, you need to deal with that. And also, my school has just about a camera on every single corner of the hallways, outside buildings, we have bike cops, we have the SRO. We got this last year and it really deters from the violence. So I think that is another thing you might want to look at here, is getting cameras in the school, more SRO officers, bike cops, especially in the parking lot makes you feel safer that your car is up there and it will not get vandalized. Cameras definitely, so you know, violence will not happen. It makes kids think well, you know, I am going to get caught if I try to do something.

But psychologically, you need to probably hire more people to deal with the problems. And that goes back to where you need to have someone who at least knows the person by name. When my parents went to high school, their counselor knew them by name. My parents went to high school a very long time ago, but -- no offense, mother -- but it just goes to show now the counselor would not know you in the hall, they would not know you by name, you know, if you were famous. That just goes to show you how much things have changed. And maybe that is why back then there was no such thing as someone bringing a gun to school and shooting up a school, and maybe now there is.

So it has changed along the guidelines and maybe you need to go back and reconsider that, what things have changed and why it might have provoked some of the things that have been happening throughout society.

Chairman Castle. Let us let Dr. Johnson respond and then we will go on to Mr. Price.

Mr. Johnson. The issue of the comprehensive high school is a real issue, but it is less significant now than it was, primarily due to the fact of the emerging technologies, where students can access course work in non-traditional ways. The issue of students feeling connected to the school is awfully important and it is much more difficult to feel connected in a very large school, even one organized by houses. So we really need to work on the issue of more schools, smaller schools and more intimate relationships in the schools.

Mr. Kildee. My time is up but I want to -- Dr. Johnson, two states have done the best job in what I call the disaggregation of data, which we put in the 1994 reauthorization, where you break the data down into assessment for disability, gender, minority, poverty. And North Carolina and Texas have done the best. I would like to submit some questions to you in writing as to how you achieved that disaggregation of data. But I think Texas and North Carolina have the best records on that.

Mr. Johnson. Thank you.

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Mr. Kildee. Mr. Price.

Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to follow up just briefly with Ms. Renner and then turn to Martin Lancaster on his interesting ideas about teacher recruitment.

Ms. Renner, just to follow up a bit, you very effectively stressed I think the importance of these school resource officers, the importance of class size and school size.

Ms. Renner. Definitely.

Mr. Price. You have also taken some initiative, as I understand from your testimony, in starting a student group at Leesville.

Ms. Renner. Yes.

Mr. Price. I wonder if you could just briefly indicate what kinds of things that student group is going to do and what you think is important for them to do. Are they going to be involved, for example, in peer counseling, in working with student groups, students advising and relating to students, or what do you envision that the student-centered groups ought to be up to?

Ms. Renner. Well, there is a wide variety of arenas that we are looking at right now in drawing up the constitution and one of the main things is we do have middle school and elementary school and we would like to go down there and mentor children, tutor them. And make a difference possibly, you know, in their grades in math, science and also mentor them as far as the Big Brother or Big Sister program, and also try to -- that makes them have more self-esteem and more confidence and tries to promote less violence and make them have someone to talk to, so they'll have a better type of counselor that is more their age. And that is our main goal with doing this, to promote less violence, so when these students that are at the middle school do rise to the high school, there is going to be less incidence of violence and higher self-esteem, which goes back to higher grades, higher test scores and just improves the whole learning system.

Mr. Price. Dr. Johnson or Mr. Robinson perhaps could tell us how widespread these kind of student organizations, particularly the peer counseling approach is in North Carolina schools now.

Mr. Johnson. Actually pretty widespread. I do not actually have a number in mind, but I know that most schools have some effort in that direction.

Mr. Price. And the state system encourages that in explicit ways?

Mr. Johnson. Absolutely. We have_actually the State Board just last week approved a series of criteria for identifying and recognizing safe schools. And some of the things that have already been mentioned are among the list of criteria. Doing annual surveys to in fact find out how teachers, students, parents and others feel about safety issues in the school is awfully important. Looking at issues of physical structures to help encourage a safe environment, as well as looking at the emotional and support systems that occur in schools. School safety encompasses a large number of things, as you all know, and we have to be mindful of all those things in fact so that we deal with it at the front end rather than the back end.

Mr. Price. Let me turn quickly to Mr. Lancaster, and I am sure we will return to this school safety topic on which we all obviously have a great interest.

Martin, I think your ideas are very striking about where we might look for prospective teachers and that maybe we need to be looking in some new places. For example, to the teachers aides who you train in the community college system, who have deep and enduring local roots, who are not going to be too attracted maybe, as you say, by the bright lights of the big city, and who may stay in those local communities and be an excellent resource for us.

A good part of your testimony focuses on how we might bring these teacher aides into the full time teaching force, work force, and that obviously is going to require much closer cooperation between two year and four year schools.

You talk about distance learning as increasing the potential for that. I think too of the articulation agreements that we encourage through the advanced technology program at the National Science Foundation between two year and four year schools. I wonder if you could just elaborate a bit on what kind of relationship this would require between the two year and four year schools and ways that maybe the ESEA could help, the elementary and secondary program.

Mr. Lancaster. I think critical to the success of this program is cooperation between two and four year schools, which is beginning but not yet to the point it should be.

The Model Teacher Consortium is an excellent model in the northeastern 18 counties of the state, but unfortunately it does not have the degree of degree completion programs that I think will be critical, because a teacher's aide who has three children and a husband to look after is not going to be able, even though they get the first two years of their degree through a community college, to pick up and go to a four year school to complete their degree. And therefore, degree completion is critical to the success of this as a real engine for creation of new teachers that are going to stay in the community.

But I also think that a recognition on the part of four year institutions of the competence of community college instructors is critical because that is where our greatest challenge is right now. Deans of education simply, because of the responsibility they have to account for the quality of the teacher that their program ultimately produces, are very reluctant to allow the kind of clinical exposure, the kind of first and second year exposure to education courses that is routine on the four year campus. We have got to get over that. We have simply got to recognize the excellence that exists on our community college campuses. Thirty four percent of the elementary school teachers in North Carolina spend their first two years on a community college campus with little exposure to education. If 34 percent of them come from community colleges, if they had a clinical experience, if they had the same level of introductory education courses available on community college campuses that are available on the four year campus, my guess is it would be greater than that because a lot of kids would be exposed to and excited by opportunities in education during those first two years that would go on and complete a degree. But because of the reluctance to involve community colleges in the early years in clinical experience and in introductory education courses, I think we are missing a golden opportunity with the traditional 18 and 19 year old student, as well as with the teacher aide type who could benefit from convenience and the availability of a degree completion program in their community.

Mr. Price. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Castle. Thank you. Mr. Etheridge.

Mr. Etheridge. Thank you.

As we get into the Elementary and Secondary School Act, the challenge is -- we spend a lot of time, as all of you know, on school safety, because that is an important issue. Let me come back to that very quickly and then move to the other stuff, Mr. Robinson, because this is an issue on everybody's mind as school opens. And certainly as the school year goes on, depending on the degree, it will increase.

I have just spent, as have all members of Congress, a lot of time out in the schools. Prior to the adjournment, I was appointed to a special task force of a bipartisan working group on this issue in Congress and hopefully we will make a report a little later.

Let me ask you though, you have talked about it a little bit, you touched on it earlier and I know this is not your training, but I would like for you to comment very briefly again on it, because the construction of schools is an important issue. We have schools going back in this state and across the country to the 1920s and earlier and yet the problems we face in crowding in the hallways. It has always been my contention we build the cafeterias and the bathrooms to fit the number of students to come in and we add trailers and forget they need to go to the bathroom and eat lunch and go to the media center or the library. And the schools are twice the size, and that is where our problems start.

But normally the problems tend to come off campus rather than on campus because of the construction of the building. If you will touch on that very quickly please.

Mr. Robinson. For years we focused on the issue that, you know, our schools are reflective of what is going on in the greater community and vice versa. And so often, and I think Dr. Johnson will probably agree with me with this, you know, we have had conversations with folks, you know, out in the different school districts across North Carolina, who will tell us, you know, I have this issue going on in my community but thank goodness I do not have it going on here. You know, those are the things that we need to focus on because again, that school is just a microcosm of what is happening in the larger community itself.

As we look at those issues, be it controlled substance or alcohol abuse or gangs or that sort of thing, we need to be very much aware of what is happening in the greater community because those same elements will be in our school systems as we will find them in our communities. The issue of school construction and layout -- and I understand what you are talking about because I graduated from one of those schools and it was rather interesting to understand, you know, what you are talking about, those old one classroom, one subject schools that we had and then departmentalization and then open style classrooms and that sort of thing, the progression. Architectural layout is a very important matter in here and you think of the issue of safe school planning and doing site assessments, so many of those concerns and challenges that we have to face are so easily integrated and combined into larger strategies. The size of a hallway and the displacement of lockers and doors and how they open into a corridor itself. You know, you put 500 students in a corridor that was designed at peak classroom change time to handle 300 students, and you are immediately going to have conflict. And that is where it is going to take place. You know, we see it in school cafeterias, we see it in the bus loading areas and just so forth and so on. And I think it is extremely important, you know, before the first footing or the first brick or the first mortar is ever thrown down, we need to be sure that we are addressing these issues.

Mr. Etheridge. Thank you. I think too many times we want to deal with the symptoms and fail to look at the problem. And I think this is one of the problems we are not looking at the way we should.

Ms. Pressley, if you would, since you are there every day on the front line, and you touched on it earlier about the isolation and some who like it. If you would in just a minute or so, tell us what a day is like or maybe a couple of days, of the environment that you operate in as a teacher. You started to touch on it when you talked about snow, but snow is not every day. Tell us what an average day is like for a middle school teacher in the eighth grade and the challenges you face, not only on space but keeping children's attention from the problems they bring with them every day and not having enough resource people you can go to, as we said psychologists and social workers, whomever they may be, to help you so you can teach.

Ms. Pressley. It is very, very difficult to keep their attention focused on the curriculum that you are doing, because of all the problems that do come in. Our schools today are not community schools and so we have groups of children that come from all over, and the only place they know each other is at that school. And so that is where they find the time do the socializing. Their parents do not know each other and they do not even know where each other lives most of the time. So that gets to be a very difficult situation. And trying to communicate with parents too with this situation is hard sometimes.

Being in the trailer or mobile unit, I am out of -- and I am glad -- the congestion that is in the hall, because you have hall duty before school, after school, in between classes and when you have 900 children going through a hall and trying to get to a locker, that is where your fights will break out if you are going to have one. They are scared they are going to be late or somebody took something. And that is one of the reasons I said most of the teachers like being out in the trailer because it gets them out of that situation and you just see your children, you know, during that time.

But you are isolated with what is going on in the building. You come in, you go to your trailer, you know, you teach and try to deal with your kids the best you can. If you get a break during the day, then you are running off papers, talking to parents or counseling students and then you go back. So you do not have that communication with other adults during the day too. So it is pretty much a one-woman world there.

Mr. Etheridge. Thank you.

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Bob. And let me thank the panel because we want to get the second panel on while it is still prime time. I think rather than have a full round of questions, the individual members here may wish to ask a very brief follow up question and I know Mr. Kildee wants to say something, so let us try to do that and move on to the second panel. Mr. Kildee.

Mr. Kildee. On school construction, I come from the City of Flint, where I lived all my life, City of Flint, Michigan, and they just analyzed the school reconstruction cost for the City of Flint, which is about 160,000 people. It was $250 million and when you look at that, it is an awesome figure, how you could raise that. And then we have in many instances in my district, the trailers -- I call them trailers yet. And they are always put in back, and I always tell the principal, put them up in front so the public can see them, right. And they say they do not look good in front, but actually maybe the public should be aware of that fact, and put them right out in front of the building and let people see them and maybe we will get some support for school construction.

That was my comment.

Chairman Castle. I like that. Mr. Price, anything further of this panel?

Mr. Price. I would like to get Dr. Johnson to say something for all of us here about the second part of his testimony, which has to do with the approach toward at-risk young people. I know that that will be included in the record in more detail, but I know that is something you are particularly responsible for, it ties in with a lot of the issues that have been discussed here today and I just wonder if you would have some comments here. And then as we said, we will look forward to reading your full testimony in the record.

Mr. Johnson. Yes, very briefly. Unless we solve the problem of youngsters who are at risk, some people call them the gap kids, kids who are not special ed, but still who are not succeeding in school, public education is going to be seriously threatened. I think the federal government can, does and should play a role in helping states to address this issue. This disaggregation of data that was mentioned earlier is awfully important. We should not be afraid of what the data says to us. Put those numbers out and then just like we did after Sputnik, we just decide that we are going to do something about it. Well, I will leave it at that.

I do want to make a couple of other very, very brief comments. Thank you for the $24.7 million from Congress for class size reduction, but tied in very closely to those dollars is the problem of finding highly qualified teachers and the classroom space to put those teachers; that is real important. And Bob asked that we comment on the voucher idea.

Let me hasten to say it is a bad idea, ill-conceived with potentially disastrous results, not only for public schools, but for the very democracy that we enjoy. Thomas Jefferson said the purpose of public schooling is to train the citizenry to participate in the democracy. And if we put public money into vouchers, we are going to seriously jeopardize that effort.

Thanks.

[Applause.]

Chairman Castle. Bob, anything further?

Mr. Etheridge. Amen. That is part of my speech and I appreciate that.

But let me ask you to comment a little more, Henry, if you would, because I think as we talk about -- and I thank David for bringing it up -- this thing on children who really -- and you know, we have done a lot over the years but we have a lot yet to do, I think this is an area where I think there is great need for the federal government to give some help for children who really are at risk. And the reason I raise this again to touch on is the fact that as we bring children to school from parents who were not as successful in the public schools when they came through in a lot of cases, it takes more and it is more expensive to reach out to them and to their parents and engage them so that those children can go through and be successful this time, not only in just getting an education, but getting through high school and getting into the community college or universities they need.

I know we have had a number of programs here in this state and you may want to touch on a couple, but they are not cheap. But they are cheaper than the alternative of losing those young people, because if you educate one, you have educated the whole family and I hope you will just quickly touch on that one more time, I think it is so critical.

Mr. Johnson. Well, the Even Start Family Literacy effort from Congress is a wonderful program, but woefully under-funded. The more we are learning about what gets kids ready to be successful in school, the more we realize that in fact it is a family affair. So whatever we can do to help the family help students prepare for school, the better off we will be.

The other issue that is so closely related to that is this issue about helping kids learn to read. The first learning to read and then reading to learn is absolutely essential. North Carolina has taken the position that if public schools do not do anything else well, this state will make sure that kids learn to read well. And whatever the federal government can do, and you have done some things already, but whatever you can do to continue that thrust would not only help individual kids in North Carolina but it would help the nation as a whole.

Mr. Etheridge. Thank you.

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Mr. Etheridge. And let me thank the entire panel. Mr. Kildee turned to me a couple of minutes ago and said this has been an excellent panel, and I concur in that. You have been excellent and we do appreciate you being here today and putting up with our questions as well as the evidence you have given of what needs to be done in our schools. All your statements will be made part of the record, by the way, so anything you did not get a chance to say will become part of the record, and we appreciate that. And if you have any follow up thoughts or conclusions, we would love to hear from you and some of us may want to contact you. That happens every now and again. But again, we thank you and I guess this class is dismissed and we go on to the next panel. Mr. Etheridge?

Mr. Etheridge. Mr. Chairman, before we break for the next one, if you will allow me a moment of personal privilege. My son joined us today, who is a teacher in the Wake County School System. He is in a year-round program and they are now tracked out. Brian.

[Applause.]

Mr. Etheridge. Thank you.

Chairman Castle. Well, thank you, Bob, and we appreciate you having a son who is a teacher.

We will take a very short break -- do not go any place -- while we change names and get the second panelists, and they know who they are, up to the table.

[Recess.]

Chairman Castle. Let me just take a moment because a couple of questions have been raised -- I am told that these alarms have nothing to do with the members of Congress being here, although I always get a little anxious about that.

Secondly, two or three of you and Congressman Etheridge have mentioned to me the fact that you are here and that you have some written testimony or something which you would like to submit either now or later. And let me just explain a couple of things. One is this is actually a field hearing of the Subcommittee and therefore, we are structured to hear only those individuals who are actually on the panels. But on the other hand, we are interested in learning all we can about everything we should be doing at the federal government level with respect to education. So we certainly would not want to discourage any such evidence from being submitted, either now or later. And if you speak to Darcy here or to Alex, on our staff, or anybody on Congressman Price's staff or Congressman Etheridge's staff, and give them whatever written information you have, we will get that out to members of the Subcommittee staff. And you can do that now or you can do that at some later point, send it in by mail or whatever it may be. So we do not want to discourage getting it, but I hope you understand the limitations we have. These are time limitations, we are dealing with airplanes and everything else.

We have a special treat now because we have the North Carolina State Superintendent of Education, and I will turn to Congressman Etheridge or Congressman Price for introduction. He is going to say a few words and then we will go to the second panel.

Mr. Price. Well, we are indeed glad to have Mike Ward here, our State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Bob Etheridge's successor in that role, and a worthy successor indeed. And Bob and I will jointly introduce Mike here.

We are pleased that he was able in the midst of a very busy schedule to stop by and offer a word of welcome. Mike has been our North Carolina State Superintendent since he was elected in 1996, previously served as the Executive Director of the North Carolina Standards Board for Public School Administration.

He has been on the front lines of education, has served as a principal, assistant principal, teacher and coach. And he serves as an adjunct professor now still at North Carolina State University, professor of educational leadership, and is vice chairman of the North Carolina Educational Standards and Accountability Commission.

So he is a well-qualified, energetic, visionary leader. We are proud to have him here to help welcome the Committee and set the tone for this effort today.

Bob Etheridge I think would like to add his word of welcome.

Mr. Etheridge. Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, thank you. And let me welcome our State Superintendent -- I might say our elected State Superintendent. In North Carolina he stands for office just like the Governor or anyone else. And once you travel the state and you meet people face to face and talk with teachers, parents and others, he has responsibility daily for about 1.2 million children in this state. He is doing an excellent job, he brings an excellent background, has a great understanding and we are glad to have him here with us this morning. Mike.

[Applause.]

Mr. Ward. Thank you, members of the Committee, Mr. Chair, and other members, I am grateful for the opportunity to be with you this morning.

During the few moments that I have available to me, I wanted to accomplish three things. I think that may be a product of being married to a Methodist minister, they tend to preach sermons in three points. Since I am the preacher's wife at my church, I want to share three quick points in a sermon with you this morning.

The first is a word of welcome. We are delighted that you are in North Carolina, we welcome you to the Tar Heel State and hope that your stay with us is a productive stay.

The second thing that I want to share with you is a quick progress report. North Carolina in the past couple of years has moved into the middle of the pack nationally. That is something significant for us. As a state, we have heard for too long that we trail the nation academically and that our students are not keeping pace with students around the nation. But when you use measures that provide for an apples-to-apples comparison like the National Assessment of Education Progress in reading and math and science and soon in writing, you find North Carolina students right at that national average, either just above, just below or right at the national average. That is not good enough for our students, but the pace of progress that has brought us to that middle of the pack status has been pretty solid, and in fact has drawn some praise from around the country. We know that is a tribute to hard-working teachers, principals, community members, parents all around the state. And we are grateful for that kind of progress. We have got a lot of work yet to do in North Carolina if we are going to serve children and communities as well as we would like, and that brings me to the third point of my sermon, and that is to ask three things of you as members of Congress.

First of all, I want to reaffirm on behalf of the State Board and the State Department of Public Instruction and I think my colleagues in LEAs around the state, that the federal role in education does matter, it makes a difference. And we urge you to continue that role and to continue the federal government's leadership on behalf of quality schools all across the country. A push for accountability, a push for quality resources, all of that matters, your role in education matters.

The second thing that I want to ask of you is that you continue to affirm that the state role in education matters, where federal dollars are concerned. I know that there are occasional cries to bypass state agencies and state boards of education in the process of directing funds to LEAs. We believe that having the state play a role in the disbursement and guidance in the use of federal funds in education allows a state like North Carolina to have a cohesive, directed program of school improvement. And we urge you to continue to acknowledge that important role of the state in the use of federal funds and in guiding federal policy in education.

Finally, we urge you to continue the quest to provide appropriate flexibility to states in the use of those federal funds, to provide that discretion that is possible to the states and the LEAs to best make use of federal programs and federal funds in education that makes sense within a local context.

Having said all that, it is a pleasure to have our own two Congressmen back with us. Congressman Price and my colleague in the role of State Superintendent, Bob Etheridge, we wish you well and good luck for the productivity of this meeting. Best wishes.

[Applause.]

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Mike. Your interest in education goes beyond North Carolina, we know of you in Washington, D.C. and all that you have done is very much appreciated, I think, across the country. And we appreciate you being here today.

Let me now again turn to Congressman Price and Etheridge for the introduction of those members of the second panel.

Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We have a second panel here that I think is going to illuminate us on a number of topics and we appreciate their participation. I will do brief introductions again and divide the labor with my colleague.

Gladys Graves is the Director of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program. She is a veteran elementary school teacher, she also served as President of the North Carolina Association of Classroom Teachers and the North Carolina Association of Educators. She is active in the community, has earned numerous awards for her service. She joins us today primarily to explain how the North Carolina Teaching Fellows program works and to explore its successes in teacher recruitment and possible ways those lessons might be applied.

Dr. Sammie Campbell Parrish is Dean of the Department of Education at North Carolina Central University in Durham. She has a distinguished career in education in many states, Illinois, Virginia, Georgia, Ohio, and fortunately for us now, North Carolina. A few years ago, Dr. Parrish served as Assistant State Superintendent for Program Services here in the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. She has been recognized for her work in raising student achievement and implementing successful reading and thinking skills programs and expanding community model schools.

I also am pleased to say that Dr. Parrish and all of us have just received some very good news, entirely apropos of this hearing, because under Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, we have just learned that North Carolina Central University has just been awarded a five-year $705,000 teacher quality enhancement partnership grant. So that is wonderful news.

[Applause.]

Mr. Price. It is testimony to Dr. Parrish and her fine department and also to the important resource this Title II program represents for our state. She will be telling us today about a partnership between North Carolina Central and the Durham Public Schools to foster professional development for K through 12 teachers.

Caroline Massengill, Director of the Magnet Schools Program for the Wake County Public School System. Prior to becoming Director in 1997, Ms. Massengill served as a teacher, assistant principal and principal in Wake County Schools, all for a total of 25 years. She has been instrumental in bringing year-round education to North Carolina. We want particularly to talk about how year-round schools and the magnet school program are integrated here. She was principal of the first year-round magnet school in the U.S. right here in North Carolina, and she will be elaborating on the successes of the magnet program, the importance of ESEA support of the magnet program.

Finally for my share of this panel, Dr. Charles Coble. Dr. Coble is an alumnus of my alma mater, Mars Hill College in western North Carolina. Completed his bachelor's, master's and doctor's degree at UNC-Chapel Hill. Served as Dean of the School of Education at East Carolina University for 13 years before returning to UNC, where he now serves as Vice President for University-School Programs. He has received numerous distinctions for his work in research in the field of education and today he is mainly going to share with us the success and the aspirations of the university-school teacher education partnerships at work in North Carolina.

Mr. Etheridge. Thank you. Let me go back, I can speak about each one of them because I have worked with you over the years. There is one lady on this panel I have got to say a word about, Mr. Chairman, because I worked with her for a number of years -- I worked with several of them, but the first time I met Dr. Parrish was in 1989, she came into the office and we were interviewing for someone to head the curriculum area and all the program areas for the Department of Public Instruction. And when she walked out of the office, my administrative assistant was with me and I said if she will take the job, I am going to hire her.

That was the first smart move I made as Superintendent. The second one was when she left and I hired Henry Johnson.

But she stayed for a number of years and many of the successes that North Carolina enjoys today in student achievement and other things, she deserves a great deal of the credit for, because she laid down a lot of the programs that were followed, along with a lady, Dale, that you mentioned earlier, talking about data being used, a lady by the name of Dr. Suzanne Triplett, who now happens to work for the U.S. Department of Education. She left us and went back and heads up NTE, so we have got a person in Washington we can draw on that that used a lot of that data and Sammie, we are glad to have you with us here this morning.

The next individual that I am to introduce is Dr. Jim Causby. He truly is one of America's most outstanding and successful school superintendents. He currently serves as Superintendent of one of the fastest growing school systems in America, Johnston County. He also serves as a senior consultant and keynote speaker for the International Center for Leadership in Education. He has been a school superintendent in three different systems now for roughly 21 years, somewhat unprecedented. He has been awarded superintendent of the year twice, most folks never get it once. He also serves as chair of the North Carolina Low Wealth School Consortium, and I think you have been chair of that since about 1989 or shortly thereafter when it was started. One of the things that he has done that I admire as much as his ability to lead in academic achievement, is he has passed bond issues in every school system he has been in and has recently passed one by roughly 72 percent in a county, Dale, that did not have a lot of resources; a remarkable achievement at a time when a lot of school systems were not able to pass bond issues. He really believes in quality facilities and we are glad to have him with us this morning and hope he will talk with us some about the issue that is important not only in North Carolina but across the country on character education.

The second individual that I will present to you this morning, and not really introduce but present, because the folks here know her and the people on the panel are going to get to know her shortly, is Geraldine McNeill. Her title is she is a vocational teacher at 71st High School in Cumberland County, she was elected President of the North Carolina Association of Educators in 1999, which is a one year term. But as important as that is, she has been involved all of her educational career in helping children reaching out, helping those children who did not, many times, have a mentor or have a champion. She has spent 27 years working for children in the public school system and she has been a member of her association for all those years. She is a product of the public school system of North Carolina, educated here, she has served on boards and commissions too numerous for me to go through this morning, I will submit them for the record, so that I do not take up the time. She has served on the international level as a delegate to the World Conference of Organizations of Teaching Professionals, and as I said, she holds her degree from universities here in North Carolina, specifically North Carolina Central University in Durham. We are glad to have you with us this morning.

Chairman Castle. We welcome the entire panel and you are obviously highly qualified, and I think most of you were probably here for the first panel, so you sort of understand the game plan. We will start with Dr. Causby and work down this way. There is five minutes a person and then the members of Congress will be allowed also five minutes to ask questions. So Dr. Causby, we welcome you and we will start with you.

Dr. Causby. Thank you very much. Welcome to North Carolina. Bobby, thank you for that very nice introduction.

The first thing I want to do very quickly in my five minutes is to apologize to the Committee for not having a written statement for you today. I had it but my dog ate it.

[Laughter.]

Dr. Causby. That is not the truth, but we will get it to you.

I have been asked this morning to speak to you very quickly about character education. Those of us who have been involved for a number of years in this whole school reform effort of trying to improve education for our students across this nation, I think have come to realize that there are certain key ingredients that are necessary if you are really going to have well-educated students and good citizens. One of those that was discussed a great deal on the first panel is safe and orderly schools. That is an absolute must.

Second, you must have a curriculum that is rigorous, that is relevant, that sets very high standards for students to meet and an accountability system that holds the school system and the students and parents accountable for making sure that that occurs.

But if all you do is create well-educated people and you do not really ingrain in those people the value system that they will need to lead them through their adult life, then we have really missed the point because that is extremely important. Most of us on this stage are old enough to remember when teaching character traits in schools was nothing unusual, it was done constantly.

I remember I attended a school that was grades 1 through 12, my whole career, had the same school principal for that whole period of time. And every Friday, we had what was called a chapel program, we now call them assembly programs. And you would march in_first graders would march in first, the second graders next, all the way up to the mighty seniors who would come in last. And everyone would stand and honor the seniors, these were people who had made it to that point. And every Friday for those 12 years of my life, I heard that principal talk about several things: one of them was the value of education, the second was some of the real character traits that we have talked about today, and third was the fact that you do not need to fall in love too young and marry. And he always talked about what we all would want, that little white house on the hill with a white picket fence and the red roses, and he would say love is wonderful, but when starvation comes in the front door, love goes out the back. I will never forget that because that was so ingrained in us and it was just routine that that was done. And no one objected to that, no one complained, it was just part of our society and we accepted it.

Somewhere along the line, we forgot that that was important. We forgot that young students, especially kindergarten, first, second, third grade students really believe what we tell them is important, is important. For some reason because we are afraid of getting sued or some other kind of crazy notion, we put some of those things aside.

In North Carolina, most of our school systems are to the point now that we are back in that business, we are doing different kinds of character education programs. We began in Johnston County about five years ago and we went through a number of public forums. I trained a team of eight to ten people from each of our 28 schools and during about a three month period of time they were in front of about 30,000 people and got feedback. We first asked them what is it we should be preparing our kids to be when they graduate. Secondly, what does the curriculum need to look like. And third, what are the character traits you would have us teach your children. We believed that we could go through our community and reach a set of character traits that all of us, everyone in that community agreed was important, and we could all support. We were able to do that through that process and everyone, whether Democrat, whether Republican, whether liberal, whether conservative, regardless of religious background, everyone in our county agreed that the 12 character principles that we came up with, which we call ethical principles, were the things that should be there.

Now, we have gone a step further with that than most school systems have. We have ingrained that and made it a part of our total curriculum. It is not something separate. We have in North Carolina, a very wonderful standard course of study. That is our Johnston County curriculum and we have enhanced it, and we have added into that the 12 character traits.

For example, if a seventh grade language arts teacher goes to the curriculum to see what objectives are to be taught next, not only does it give those objectives and some things about how to do them, at that same place it tells what character traits could be taught with that lesson, it tells what kind of material, reading and resource materials, are available to do that with. So the teacher is able to ingrain it and integrate it right into the regular instruction so that it is not a special thing.

Now we do have special focuses from time to time also. Many of our schools will have the character trait of the month and there will be all kinds of activities associated around that that month.

And we believe that all of those things together have helped us in our effort to increase student achievement, and we have been very successful in dealing with that. But without good character values, without that set of beliefs that we need to have as human beings, no matter how well educated we are, we will not be the citizens that this country needs.

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Dr. Causby, we appreciate that.

Ms. Graves, you are next.

Ms. Graves. Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to share in this field hearing about the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program, a program that I am very excited about and was just trying to figure out how in the world can I say what I need to say in five minutes, but I am working on it.

What is a North Carolina Teaching Fellow? The North Carolina Teaching Fellow represents a new breed of teacher who aspires to be a problem-solver, a teacher who approaches the education of all children with a sense of great responsibility and a sense of great urgency. Great responsibility because the quality of life in North Carolina depends on their success and a great urgency because the time to act is now. This definition was true in 1986 when the North Carolina General Assembly, with the assistance of now Congressman Bobby Etheridge, helped to fund this particular scholarship program. It was true in 1986 and it is true today, not only for North Carolina but also for the nation.

It was proposed by the Board of Directors of the Public School Forum of North Carolina and still remains the most ambitious statewide recruitment program in the nation. It was created by the Public School Forum and funded by the North Carolina General Assembly through the collaborative efforts of business, educational and political leaders, in an effort to encourage outstanding high school seniors to enter the teaching profession.

The Teaching Fellow Commission, the governing body of the program, selected 14 campuses to implement the program, nine the first year were selected, four were selected the second year by request for proposal and two were selected several years later through a request for proposal. There are two private schools, twelve publics, two historically black and one historically native American.

The program goals are six in number. They are to provide an academically and culturally enriched program that extends well beyond the regular college program. And I am only going to read that one, the others are listed in the document, I will reference them in some other comments.

These broad goals are designed to encourage innovative and creative approaches to teacher preparation. Participating institutions have been given much latitude to develop unique program components.

What makes the Teaching Fellows Program different? It is a scholarship and it is a program and funds come with the scholarship and with the program from what is supported by the General Assembly, plus what is supported by the campus. It currently is a $26,000 four year scholarship for 400 students each year since 1986. And the $26,000 includes funds that are set aside to cover the cost of the summer programs that the students experience.

The programmatic thrust happens at two levels, the state and the campus. At the state level, the summary experiences are developed and coordinated by a five-member teaching fellow staff and are designed to enhance the campus programs and give insight into the challenges facing these fellows when they enter the classroom.

The story has been told that when a select group of educators got together to design the Teaching Fellows Program in terms of what would extend well beyond, or what would extend well beyond would look like, someone jokingly said the only way that we could get these future teachers to get a feel for the relationship of education and the economy is to put them on a bus and take them on a field trip. And that is what we did. One of the things I like about my job is that many times people allow you to do things, try new things, you just have to figure out how to find the money to pay for it. And that year, the business community came through, the school systems came through and helped us do that, and since 1987 we have been taking them 400 strong on nine buses across the state of North Carolina, which is a collaborative effort also with the assistance of school systems and the business community to provide these experiences.

At the campus level, unique programs are designed to accomplish the goals of a rigorous program. Campuses are encouraged to be non-traditional in their approach to program development and these activities also take place through collaboration with the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Commission.

What have we learned and experienced? One, there is increased collaboration with school district personnel. There is increased collaboration with public and private agencies. And we engage teaching fellows alumnae in all aspects of our program. There is increased awareness through involvement with community and business leaders to keep teaching in the forefront of everybody's thinking. There is a greater commitment of continuing conversations about teaching and education and we also disseminate policies and recent initiatives to individuals who continue to work with us. And there are concerted efforts continuing to be made to encourage minorities and males to enter the teaching profession.

I am going to stop right there because I might be able to get the rest of this through some questions.

[The statement of Ms. Graves follows:]

STATEMENT OF MS. GLADYS GRAVES, DIRECTOR, NORTH CAROLINA TEACHING FELLOWS, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA – SEE APPENDIX H

(ADDITTIONAL MATERIAL ON FILE WITH THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE)

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Ms. Graves, and we will try to give you that opportunity somewhere down the line.

We will go next to Ms. Massengill.

Ms. Massengill. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about something that is very important to me and very near and dear to my heart. Congressman Etheridge, I have to tell you that I too have a child who is in her first year of teaching this year here in Wake County, in a magnet school. So it is interesting to almost go back through that again, that experience.

But I am here today to talk about magnet programs in Wake County and the support we have received and some things that we are doing for children because of that support.

The Wake County Public School System has been fortunate to receive financial support through the Magnet Schools Assistance Program to prepare students to meet the demands of the 21st century information age and the changing social dynamics of a diverse society. This grant, entitled -- our name -- CORNERSTONES, will bolster the power of the project schools to attract and maintain diverse student populations, increase the achievement level of all students, and offer more quality services to students from targeted feeder schools in year-round community-based learning centers. The 1998-2001 CORNERSTONES grant provided about $7.5 million to be used to establish two new magnet themes, significantly revise two existing programs, and initiate the new year-round Community-Based Accelerated Learning Center model, which we call CBALC.

The year-round CBALC model will provide significantly expanded learning experiences within the year-round concept and is intended to foster increased academic success for students. The model will deliver a unique instructional program and up to 30 additional school days beyond the regular school year through a partnership among school, parents, and community organizations.

And let me just say this, this is for those students who have specific learning needs, who need more time in school, and we are able to provide this through this program.

Two distinct program structures that build on established CORNERSTONES within the magnet system have been designed. Fuller Elementary School and Carnage Middle School will remain gifted and talented magnet schools, but will revise their themes to become focused on math, science and technology. The venture will provide a continuous linkage of rigorous, accelerated studies in math, science, and technology from kindergarten through 12th grade in Wake County.

Two new magnet programs are Conn Global Communications Magnet Elementary School and East Millbrook Pre-International Baccalaureate/Integrated Arts Magnet Middle School. At Conn, the learning environment will provide an educational experience that will emphasize heightened communication skills through reading, writing, math, science, technology, and the arts as a means of connecting and interfacing with the world.

The Pre-IB/Integrated Arts program at East Millbrook builds upon an existing elementary creative arts program, offering students a continuous linkage of the arts and rigorous studies of the humanities from kindergarten through eighth grade.

Of significant importance in the education of students is the growth occurring in Wake County in the last two decades. The population of the county has increased by 40 percent since 1980. The school district has added 30,500 students to its rolls in the past 14 years. At the current rate of adding 4500 students annually, enrollment in Wake County schools is predicted to exceed 103,000 by the year 2005. The phenomenal growth in the county has required the building of 23 additional new schools in the past seven years and a need for 13 new schools in the next three years.

Now this is the important part, because available resources in the district are stretched by significant growth, this grant has provided an opportunity for putting in place CORNERSTONES as a foundation for the ultimate success of all Wake County students. It gives us an opportunity to look at the students we have, look at improvements that need to be made in Wake County and focus our money there, because so much of our money has had to go to growth and to building.

The past achievements of Wake County's magnet schools are the source of these CORNERSTONES as the system implements promising programs that launch appealing and appropriate educational reforms. CORNERSTONES will build on the past, strengthen the present, and create the future for the schools of Wake County.

STATEMENT OF MS. CAROLINE MASSENGILL, DIRECTOR, WAKE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA – SEE APPENDIX I

[The statement of Ms. Massengill follows:]

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much.

And we will turn now to Dr. Parrish.

Dr. Parrish. Thank you very much, Congressman.

Before I begin my testimony, I just want to take a moment to update my esteemed colleague, Superintendent Causby, at the end of the table. The old dog excuse is old, the dog does not eat the homework any more, the printer runs out of ink.

[Laughter.]

Dr. Parrish. So, you know, new technology.

Anyway, to the Congressmen, thank you very much for allowing me to provide this testimony before the Subcommittee today. I can think of nothing about which I care more passionately about than providing a world class education to all of the students in the public schools. Well, there is one thing I feel just as passionate about and that is preparing the kind of teachers that they need so that we can have the kind of schools that we want.

So it is hard to imagine a more exciting and more important time or pivotal time in school improvement than today. And when I say school improvement, I can now say people now realize that school improvement means school of education improvement as well, and teacher preparation improvement, because it is really the whole campus' mandate.

I also think we finally learned that we do not need a rocket scientist to figure out how to have better schools. We have better schools by better investments in teaching. So that is what we are all about. Sure there are other things, there is accountability, there are many other things that are precursors, but I think the one enabler that is above all others is the availability of a talented, well-educated, trained teaching force. And I want to add, efficacious teaching force.

I was startled a few years back to see the results of a study where they surveyed brand new teachers and they asked them how many thought that they could do a good job of teaching a child that came from a poor home, a poor disadvantaged background, different ethnic group, particularly though of low economic means; and the majority of them said that they did not think that their teaching could make that much difference. So we have a job to make sure that those teachers that we graduate believe that their presence in the classroom is what will make a difference. That is why it is such an exciting time.

Secondly, I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that we did not wait around another decade to realize that we cannot do this ourselves, that universities, colleges of education and public schools have to be hand-in-glove. That is finally realized and I think we are on our way. We have all heard it, 2.2 million teachers -- whoops, I should say 2.2 million highly trained, efficacious teachers who possess deep content knowledge, are technologically proficient, have mastered culturally responsible pedagogy that they need for the sound teaching of every child. So in other words, they must be high tech, high touch, high teach and highly paid. I know the teachers appreciate that.

Allow me to use the remainder of my time to list briefly some of the innovative and powerful initiatives that are included in our now funded proposal that I think can allow us to get the quality and quantity of teachers that we need. And I think both of those -- it is hard to say one is more important than the other. We need them both. And by the way, Congressman Price, I believe that the $705,000 was a one-year appropriation and that we have -- is that right? And that that ends on August 31? So our initial request was about three or four million, I have not gotten the final word, but much of that is going to what we will talk about -- I am getting ahead of myself -- Edmonds scholars, to attract the brightest students in the state to the School of Education at North Carolina Central to prepare them uniquely for high needs schools. And so we are excited about that.

But anyway, let me just run through these real, real fast. I am going to skip the goals because you will be able to tell what the goals are by hearing what the initiatives are. But first and foremost I also want to acknowledge -- oh, he has just left -- one of our partners was in the audience, part of our partnership, but I guess they just had to leave. But I would like to at least mention a few.

The Center for the Elimination of Achievement Discrepancies forms the heart and soul of our proposal. It recognizes that not only is there discrepancy in student achievement at the university level by performance and practices, but also in the public school level.

We are looking at graduate preparation programs. Our partner is a little nervous about that because they need their teachers now, but we are considering requiring our high school teachers to have their degree in the subject discipline first, and then follow up. We are still negotiating that with our partners, they said we need your teachers now.

Accountability for university faculty.

Faculty should not be able to get teaching merit awards unless student performance reflects that.

The measure of faculty teaching is performance.

Technology integration. And by the way, last week we did also receive a technology grant at NCCU School of Education for preparing technology proficient teachers.

Student study groups. We have learned from looking at students and their performance in other countries that our students can put forth more effort and can meet socially and academically at the same time.

I was asked to mention ALOFT, so I will mention that. Our partnership with our school districts, and there are five school districts and two community colleges, and everything that President Lancaster said about community colleges is on page 23 of our proposal. I am sorry he is gone already, but we have said just that. It is attracting the talented to teaching. At Piedmont Community College and Durham Tech, we will be nurturing our students from the day they enter, we will be on their campus, we will have learning plus lab, we will have their community college teachers teaching the introductory course. We will guide them all the way through to North Carolina Central University or of course whatever, but we will give them scholarships too, to bring them to our school.

We also have what is called first generation pool of teachers so that we feel we can go after first generation teachers, because maybe they would stay with teaching longer.

We have the Edmonds scholars, the Community College Partnerships.

And I want to end with saying conditions matter. The name of our grant is Teaching Matters, Quality Counts. It also has an aspect to work with superintendents and principals about how we set the conditions, so once we attract teachers to teaching, they will remain in the profession.

The proposal that I was asked to mention was ALOFT, Advanced Learning Opportunities for Teachers. And it is a program with the Durham Public Schools, a part of our partnership, which will nurture those teachers through the first three years and all the work they do for performance-based licensure will contribute and flow into their master's advanced degree at North Carolina Central University.

I will stop at that.

[The statement of Dr. Parrish follows:]

STATEMENT OF DR. SAMMIE CAMPBELL PARRISH, DEAN, NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL UNIVERSITY, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA – SEE APPENDIX J

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Dr. Parrish, we appreciate that; Ms. McNeill.

Ms. McNeill. Good morning, and thank you, Congressman.

As President of the North Carolina Association of Educators, I represent more than 73,000 professional educators in North Carolina. And we appreciate your attention this morning to the question, and the challenge, of retaining good teachers.

The issue of primary importance to this state in the coming decade is going to be teacher retention. We are the fifth fastest growing education system in the nation. Between now and 2008, we expect to enroll 42,000 new students to our schools. But our colleges, both in North Carolina and in other states, are not producing enough graduates to handle the influx of students and the new teaching positions being created.

We all know the reasons for the problems. Our economy's growth and prosperity is straining our labor force in education. Public schools have to compete with commercial industry for the best and the brightest workers, and commercial industries offer levels of compensation and benefits that public schools cannot match. In addition, a teacher shortage nationwide means that 49 other states now compete with North Carolina, not only for teaching graduates but also for our veteran teachers.

Public education in North Carolina stands in a precarious position. Roughly 40 percent of our veteran teachers say they will leave the system before they reach full retirement. Twenty percent of our first-year teachers leave within the first year. Forty percent of our new teachers leave within the first three years. When they leave, they tell us it is not only because of low salary, but also because of poor student discipline, a serious lack of resources for the classroom, professional development and in higher grades the apathy of students towards their responsibility to learn. In urban districts nationally, fully half of all new teachers leave the profession by the end of their fifth year in the classroom.

We cannot fool ourselves about teacher salaries. Salary remains an issue, despite the strides North Carolina has made in moving toward the national average.

Until now, the federal government has not involved itself in the salary debate, but the federal government has never before faced such a dramatic shortage of teachers either. Now may be the time, because now it may be necessary, for the federal government to become more involved in raising teacher pay. We have been, and we continue to be, supportive of any program that fairly associates higher salaries with increased skill levels and knowledge.

In one important way, the federal government can assert itself immediately. Federal funding can and should be used to provide salary stipends for teachers who pursue National Board certification. In this area, North Carolina has performed admirably but most states have not. I believe federal investment in the National Board process is feasible, reasonable and necessary to improve the skills levels and knowledge of our teachers. It is a program that has proven its merit, and its licensees serve in significant ways to lead their schools and to raise the quality of their respective faculties.

In the same effort to improve our teachers, another immediate step toward improving teacher retention is to provide and fund more professional development opportunities for teachers that include funding opportunities for veteran teachers to earn master's degrees in their fields, encouraging them to remain in the classroom longer. It has long been held in teaching that the only way to improve your salary is to enter administration. We cannot afford to continue forcing good teachers out of the classroom, to improve their salaries.

One last suggestion is to recognize that some students need additional attention, perhaps through school tutoring and other programs outside the school day. It is reasonable and feasible that the federal government can and should fund extended employment opportunities for those teachers who would take advantage of it to work with students below grade level.

There are some solutions that I would ask you to return to Washington with, and some specific goals in mind. To stem the tide of young teachers leaving the system, we must focus on helping new teachers to develop necessary skills early and well.

First, we must offer new teachers a formal induction program statewide, to acclimate them to the opportunities available from local, state and federal sources.

Second, federal and state governments must commit themselves to supporting young teachers in their first year with a formal, full-time mentor program.

Thirdly, that mentoring program should continue as a support system through a teacher's second and third years.

Yes, intangible factors will play a part in solving teacher retention. Teachers need to be treated with dignity, honor and respect, as they deserve. Provide them alternatives for dealing with disruptive and destructive students. And relieve teachers of administrative trivia that distracts them from teaching.

Your attention today, and your swift and positive action in Washington this year, will help North Carolina correct its course in public education.

I will be pleased to answer any questions and I thank you for your attention.

[The statement of Ms. McNeill follows:]

STATEMENT OF MS. GERALDINE MCNEILL, PRESIDENT NORTH CAROLINA ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATORS, RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA – SEE APPENDIX K

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Ms. McNeill, we appreciate that. Dr. Coble, you are the clean up hitter.

Dr. Coble. Thank you very much.

Most all of us were growing into adulthood when the Coleman Report was released, which basically said that if you were white, you had money and your mamma had a good education, you were going to do just fine in our society; that basically schools did not count and teachers did not make a difference. But we now have a lot of evidence, well-documented evidence, that teachers, the preparation of teachers and the quality of the teachers, matters more than anything for student learning and student achievement in the public schools. Now that is very important for an economy that has shifted dramatically from sweat labor to that mental effort, if you will. So it is important information for our nation to pay attention to. Our teachers, as Martin Lancaster and you referred to earlier, Henry, our teachers are nation builders and that is what they are about.

I am going to talk about briefly one program that we have. I am going to not mention the North Carolina Model Teacher Education Consortium and the dramatic effort that it is making to work in community colleges in our state to bring forward teachers' aides through the community college system into university for graduation and our leader of that program and a nationally recognized program, Jean Murphy, is in the audience today.

What I am going to talk about instead is an initiative begun by the Deans Council on Teacher Education in 1996 in the 15 colleges, schools and departments of education at the University of North Carolina, which developed a plan that strongly emphasized the strategic involvement of school districts and communities in the preparation and development of teachers, administrators and other education professionals. Sammie's school is one of those schools.

The evolving approach to teacher education described in the University-School Teacher Education Partnership document that I have for you to read later was approved by the UNC Board of Governors in January 1997, examined by a national review team in July, and then provided initial funding of $1.8 million by the North Carolina General Assembly in August of 1997.

Operationally, the University-School Education Partnerships are being guided by five guiding principles. They are:

First of all, we need to increase time for pre-service teachers to experience earlier, longer and better supervised field experience placements in the public schools, connected to methods classes and clinical teachers at school sites. Much like teaching hospitals relation to medical preparation.

Jointly crafted professional development focus for teachers, administrators and other public school administrators.

They need increased communication between public schools and higher education for the purpose of sharing and disseminating the best practices. In today's News and Observer, we are launching, if you will take an opportunity to look at that, the Best Practices Center funded by the Keenan Foundation in North Carolina that highlights one of the best practices in our state and well beyond.

Fourth, these partnerships are generating and applying research to new knowledge about teaching and learning. It is not that we are -- we have unrelated theory, it is that we are not connecting the theory to practice. The partnerships are intended to do that.

And then joint involvement of university and school personnel in curriculum planning and program development.

So the partnership program is momentous in North Carolina in several aspects. It is aimed to improve the competencies of professional educators. It includes all the state-supported institutions that prepare teachers. It seeks to improve curriculum instruction in schools so that students learn more and better and it encompasses all five phases of teacher preparation: the recruitment, the selection, the preparation, the induction and career-long professional development.

And as it involves all the stakeholders, business and industry representatives, community colleges, citizens and others, no other state has attempted so broad and comprehensive a strategy for improving teacher preparation in our nation. The program meets and in many ways exceeds and surpasses the scope of what matters most, the report of the National Commission on Teaching for America's Future, which was chaired by our Governor.

With schools and universities working together, we are applying -- we are going beyond the hypothetical and abstract and relating it to practice. We have learned a lot and with my remaining time, I will see how much I can say about what we have learned.

First of all, communication among schools and university faculty is a difficult matter. Schools and university personnel work in very different cultures, they have different priorities, different reward systems and follow completely separate agendas. They are governed by different rules and respond to different authorities. Their habits, schedules and practices are deeply rooted. So structural or organizational financing and governance are changing, but breaking new ground is really difficult work.

The most striking effort under way at almost all the partnership sites is the expansion and improvement of clinical experience, some of which Sammie alluded to. Several partnerships have extended their student teaching to year-long internships so that the youngsters going into teacher education see the beginning, the middle and the end of the story, so it is not a mystery how these classes got organized and how they wound up the year. So they start the year off better prepared.

I will go into more findings later on. Thank you.

[The statement of Dr. Coble follows:]

STATEMENT OF DR. CHARLES COBLE, VICE PRESIDENT FOR UNIVERSITY-SCHOOL PROGRAMS, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ADMINISTRATION, CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA – SEE APPENDIX L

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Dr. Coble. And I would like to thank the entire panel. As the first panel, you have been an excellent panel and we appreciate that. And now we have the opportunity to ask you questions. Because there are six of you, it is a little intimidating in terms of being able to get done in five minutes, but I am going to start and I am going to ask you to go sort of quickly with some of the answers.

But I want to start, Dr. Causby, with you on sort of a separate question, if I could. And that is the whole business -- I am very interested in your written testimony, by the way, if your dog regurgitates the information or--

Dr. Causby. It was a computer disk that my dog ate.

[Laughter.]

Chairman Castle. And I do not want to go into all the character traits now, although I am really fascinated to hear more about that, particularly the integration of that into the whole curriculum. I thought that was very important.

Dr. Causby. I will send you a full copy of all that.

Chairman Castle. The question I have of you though is, is there something we should be doing on the federal level with respect to this? Does that tie into anything that we should be paying particular attention to now?

Dr. Causby. Well, I think just making it a forefront kind of issue, discussion there certainly makes it a priority. I think also, we have heard the need talked about of staff development dollars, those kind of things are very important in developing this kind of program, because there is a great deal of expense involved in the time and the training and the way that you do those things.

So I think some of those areas, which you already deal in somewhat, you could enhance and focus on, yes.

Chairman Castle. I am, by the way, a believer in using this Committee and the federal government as a bully pulpit for ideas, even when we cannot necessarily finance them. So, you know, if something works, I think we should know about it and be able to talk about it.

Now for the rest of you -- all of you do not have to answer it, but you may if you wish, but no more than 30 seconds per person, if you will.

You all talked about, to some degree at least, teacher preparation, teacher education, the need for teachers, all of which is a total given. And it is also a total given that this clearly is a problem in America today, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

And I do not think this is a simplistic solution or a complete solution, so do not get the impression I am suggesting that. But I am interested in alternative sources of teachers; that is, people who have been in other professions who we can either re-educate or prepare to teach, but looking at different ways, not just the pure retention of teachers we have or the pure college preparation of young people for teaching, but taking people who are adults and trying to make teachers out of them. Not to suggest that everybody who necessarily is well versed in a profession could teach, but I think that some could.

What, if anything, are you doing about that, what ideas do you have about that? Would any of you like to comment on that? And briefly, if you would.

Dr. Coble. Let me start out. One of the things we just had happen was Title II provided some funds for the development of new and innovative programs in this area, which I think falls just short of what we need, but I want to mention the good aspects of it. So we received one of those grants in our state and are putting together what we call NC Teach, which will be a program that recruits mid-career professionals from whatever setting they are in into teaching. We have an allowance in the State of North Carolina to provide lateral entry teachers; that is, a person can come into teaching from the work force or from the home or wherever. What we do not have in place is any program to prepare them for that entry, because the attrition rate on lateral entry teachers is atrocious, they do not stay very long and they have miserable experiences, in many cases. Some work out fine.

But what this program will do for the State of North Carolina, which comes on line next July, will be a planned program of high quality recruitment of those mid-career professionals into an intensive summer program and a year-long mentorship and seminars followed up into their second year.

Chairman Castle. Thank you.

Mr. Price. Mr. Chairman, could I suggest, the President of our State University System, just wrote an op ed piece which describes that NC TEACH initiative. I would like to ask that it be inserted in the record at this point.

Chairman Castle. Without objection. I would love to read it.

[The material referred to follows:]

THE ARTICLE (N.C.’S FAST TRACK TO FINDING TEACHERS) BY MS. MOLLY CORBETT BROAD, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA SYSTEM – SEE APPENDIX M

Dr. Parrish. I just wanted to agree, if I could, with the Congressman, that the schools of education have been pretty slow to come on board with this, but I think we are fully on board now and I know the vision of our partnership, there is a paragraph that addresses this and it talks about that we have to abandon our own notion of a superior front door and an inferior back door. And it is really a side door and that many of these people have a great deal that they could contribute, and as Charlie just said, we just need to organize it and make it systemic and so that is where we are headed.

Chairman Castle. Are you aboard or are schools of education in general aboard?

Dr. Parrish. Well, gee, I would hate to speak for all of them in the country, but I can say that the ones in North Carolina are, and I think many of the leading deans of schools of ed -- although we sat at a meeting trying to figure out how we were going to do it.

Let me just give you one example. Our partners, the Durham Public Schools, one of our partners, was actually over at a brief meeting at my house a couple of days ago and we talked about NC Teach. They were thrilled about it, but immediately when the practitioner eyes look at it, they can see something that we overlooked, and that is the whole value of partnerships -- one of the values of it. They looked at it and they said this looks great, but we do not hire those people, meaning, until sometimes two or three days before school opens, and so they wanted to get them there in the summer and prepare them. That is just one group, but I mean they were basically thrilled about it and I think schools of education know that if they do not do it, someone else will.

Chairman Castle. Thank you. In the interest of time, we have to turn to Mr. Kildee.

Ms. McNeill. I would like to say something about--

Chairman Castle. Okay, go ahead.

Ms. McNeill. First of all, you can recruit as many professionals into the profession as you wish, but unless we do something about the working conditions in those buildings, they will not stay, especially people who are coming from another profession into teaching. They are not used to going all day without having a bathroom break, they are not used to being in a building where they cannot access a telephone and they are not used to not being able to get emergency calls with news to them in their classrooms and having 20 minutes to eat lunch. They are not used to that and they will not stay. We do it because it is all we have ever known. We do not like it, but we still take it. But people coming from the outside into the buildings, something has to be done in this state, and every other state I would imagine that is not a bargaining state, about the conditions of work.

Chairman Castle. Good point, thank you. Mr. Kildee.

Mr. Kildee. Your point is very good. I can recall we had a gentleman from General Motors who wanted to come into the school system when he retired to teach math. And he was going through certification, but he could not believe how limited he was in that work environment compared to what he was at General Motors. He was a very competent person and would have been a great teacher, but decided that he was not going to subject himself to that limited work environment. So I think you raise a very good point.

Let me ask you this question to all of you, the State of California has at least 30 percent of its teachers who are not certified or are teaching outside their field. That is alarming, it is like having cardiovascular surgery and being told we do not have the cardiovascular person, but we do have a good orthopedic person to work on you. You would not tolerate that. And we do have English teachers -- and I am an English major who taught Latin, I was a Latin major too, but we have English teachers who are teaching trig and very often around this country. California, very big in California, it is really, you know, stay three pages ahead of the kids and catch me if you can. We would not tolerate that in other professions and I think that is something we really have to address.

First of all, I would ask, do you have that problem here in North Carolina and how are you addressing it. And then basically add this to it. Michigan State University is really changing its method of teaching students. Some of you may have heard about it, the northwest quadrant of Flint has a large concentration of educational challenges, so they send their students into the northwest quadrant of Flint and take the best ideas of what universities have learned about the development of the brain and reading, which we have learned more in the last two years, but they take their university ideas into the northwest quadrant of Flint. But they also take some of the ideas they learn, these are the interns, back to the university so the university becomes aware of what really is taking place out there in the real world of education.

Could you address two of those things, your certification outside the field and how universities do relate to, maybe Dr. Coble, you could start with that, with the local schools?

Dr. Coble. Well, out of field teaching is a critical problem in this state. And tragically that problem escalates with the rate of poverty and resources available to the school system. So that it is more problematic and it reaches its crescendo in a school system like Weldon City, North Carolina which is one of the most impoverished school districts in our state. And if it were not for the North Carolina Model Teacher Education Consortium, I am not sure where they would get licensed teachers, because they cannot attract them to that region. We have to literally grow them and try to retain them in that environment. But for reasons mentioned here already, retaining them is a real difficulty, because of the fast growing school systems that pay somewhat better, like Wake County and our aggressive superintendent down in Johnston County, who is doing the right thing. They recruit, of course, the best teachers they possibly can, which drains those teachers out of the other areas of the state. So they are left with being able to just simply get people who can occupy classes.

I did a study back in the 1980s, which actually won a national award, on the recognition of what it takes to teach mathematics. And the stark reality between a person who was licensed to teach mathematics and one who is not licensed to teach and prepared to teach mathematics, and the achievement of their students was dramatic. And so we know that it really does matter, but we also know that in our state we still have a large number of students being taught today, right now, this class period, the next class period, by people who are not licensed and so simply do not know the subject matter that they are teaching in front of the classrooms teaching.

And what we are doing about it is the best we can. One of them, as I said is the Model Teacher Education Program, others are trying to gear up this NC Teach program, changing our teacher education programs, recruiting like we have never recruited before in this state. If it were not for Pennsylvania and West Virginia, we would be in deep trouble in North Carolina. Thank God that they are over-producing teachers right now and they have not shut down their teacher education programs yet.

But because of all the reasons of fast growth in our state, working conditions, we still, and for the foreseeable future, we are going to face this problem.

Dr. Causby. May I comment on that? Out of field teaching is certainly a problem in North Carolina, everywhere in North Carolina, regardless of how wealthy you are or how poor you are. The poorer you are, the worse it is.

But I would submit to you that it is not a new problem, it is one that we have had for a long, long time; it is just worse today. In the past, people were not paying as much attention to what we were doing, as they are now. So it is much more evident to people.

Certainly as the shortage of teachers is becoming more of a problem, it is causing much more of that. We are to the point now that -- and we are recruiting very heavily for especially math, science, and those kinds of areas -- we pay signing bonuses of $2000 for teaching those areas, to get them to come in. That helps us but it only hurts the system that we recruit them from, you know, which is a problem.

We are to the point now that we have shortages of elementary trained teachers, which we used to have file folders full of elementary applicants, people would come in begging for jobs. We are out of applicants in those areas, we cannot even find those things.

And we know from all the research that tells us the most crucial thing to educating children well is a quality teacher in that classroom. And we are not doing the things that are necessary to get them there, to maintain them there and to reward them the way they need to be rewarded. I would submit to you that when I go to that cardiovascular surgeon, I am going to pay whatever he asks me to pay. Our public is not willing to do that with teachers.

Mr. Kildee. I would like to mention just briefly, the military. I have two sons, one is a captain in the Army and the other is a captain in the National Guard. My son in the National Guard is probably going to enter teaching, he is at Harvard right now and is probably going to enter teaching. And it is a group that we can tap, I think, who really can teach in their field.

This is a national problem, California really has a serious problem out there and it is larger than many nations in this world. It is a very serious problem, teachers teaching outside their field or not even being certified.

Thank you very much.

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Mr. Kildee.

We will go to Mr. Price.

Mr. Price. Mr. Chairman, I think Dr. Parrish had a response to that last question. If she could go ahead and then I will pick up.

Dr. Parrish. I wanted to address the second portion of your question, and let me just check to make sure I understood it. Were you asking about the presence of university faculty out in the public schools?

Mr. Kildee. Yes, how do they relate, how is the link between university and the local schools.

Dr. Parrish. As Charlie referred to earlier, until recently not very good. But that is part of the problem with theory and practice, that is why they have been so far apart, because these two entities never come together. But this is a part of what we have been asked to do now and we are working on changing the reward system in higher education so that instead of just rewarding the faculty members for the traditional kind of research, that we alter those reward systems so that they are given the value that they deserve for the time they spend in public schools. And the university partnerships that Charlie mentioned, the little seed money that we got up front from our own state, from the two presidents of UNC to release faculty to go out into the schools. We say release, that is a misnomer, they are not released, they are just released from the traditional teaching of university students, to be out there. And one of the things that is controversial in our proposal is that we proposed a rotating system for university faculty to rotate out into the public schools. In fact, you will see it is very carefully worded, but it is there. And we also are bringing in the public school teachers who are now co-teaching our university methods courses for us.

Dr. Coble. What we have in our case is first of all, what has evolved in our nation since World War II, and there are reasons for this, we reward university faculty more for teaching and researching about teaching than we reward them for producing effective teachers who can teach.

Mr. Price. Thank you.

I would like to turn to Ms. Graves and ask for a little elaboration on the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program which is, after all, a fairly large and ambitious program, but as I understand it, has some unique qualities in terms of intensity, in terms of the kind of interactions that go on between those running the program and the young people aspiring to teach. There is this summer component, there is the community component, you described the trips around the state.

I would like to start by asking you for any reflections you have, Gladys, on the retention problem and the rather dismal statistics that Ms. McNeill quoted. What has been the experience of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program, not just with recruitment but also with retention. But more generally, I wonder if you could reflect on the qualities that make your program work. It is widely recognized as a success in many aspects. As we think about how this might be replicated, whether it might be done on a broader scale, whether it might be done in other states, whether there might be some kind of federal encouragement of this kind of effort. You know, you do not want to take these unique features and lose them and make it just another scholarship program or make it an over-bureaucratized program.

So could you help us think about what it might take to spread this kind of opportunity more widely, but without losing those unique features that make it work?

Ms. Graves. I would be less than honest if I did not say that one of the important components of the scholarship program, and it was indeed important when the scholarship program was established, is the funding. Originally $5000 was set because it was -- the idea was that these type quality students could go to school, study, prepare, not have to worry about having to work, have a job or what-have-you, but they would focus their energies on studying their subject matter and also learning how to teach in the course of those four years. So the funding is obviously important. Every year when we issue our press releases about the Teaching Fellows applications being available, we get calls from lots of other folks about why can they not apply and partly it is because it is indeed focused on high schools.

At one point, we were also involved with a community college program, but the piece that was missing there, was the support system that we believe is what keeps the Teaching Fellows Program strong. From the day these students walk on the college campus, they have a support system in place, they have a campus director, they have office staff, they have faculty advisors, they have big brothers/big sisters, they have support systems. And we tell them that when they go into the public schools, they are going to have that too. Sometimes they find it and when they find it, they stay. Many times, they do not find it, and when they do not find it, they leave. We still have that experience, and part of this -- we learned about this as a result of a study that we did with Dr. Barnett Berry who was at the University of South Carolina at that time, who studied the first three graduating classes, and they told us lots of different kinds of things.

And I would just say that a great deal of the progress that has been made in meeting the challenges of developing the Teaching Fellows Program -- we have learned a lot about it, but I think the biggest challenge will be will school systems be prepared to work with bright young professionals who have high expectations about making schools a better place for children to learn. And sometimes we forget when we talk about the Teaching Fellows Program that we intentionally went after students who had high academic scholastic profiles. If you remember back in the mid-1980s when this program came into existence, many of the people coming into our teacher preparation programs were coming out of the bottom of our high school classes, college schools of education were wrestling with remediation and they were not prepared to do that. And so this program intentionally went after a better prepared student at the high school level.

But what we are experiencing with some of them is that they too do not want to take it either, because when they go into a school, they like to be appreciated, they like -- we have teaching fellows who find themselves with the worst classes, their assignment -- and maybe superintendents and principals do not have any other option or any other opportunity, but we know that many times when teaching fellows begin -- what we have learned about this is that these issues were not just facing teaching fellows, they were unique to beginning teachers, so the Teaching Fellow Program has helped us look at what kinds of things we ought to be doing for beginning teachers.

You asked about consideration for a national model. As we have shared, this program is labor intensive and I would be less than honest if I did not tell you that your staff people have to have missionary zeal. I enjoy this program because of the opportunity that it gives us to look at teaching preparation in a different kind of way. It is labor intensive and it is attitude intensive. The Special Olympics motto about it is about attitude, really I believe personally that sometimes teaching and what we are going to do for teaching is a lot about attitude.

I would suggest to you that if you are going to look at this for a national model, that you would implement it on a phase-in basis, not try to do it all at one time. Develop a request for proposal. The programs should not be cookie cutter models. Campuses ought to be able to help define how they want to accomplish the goals that you are establishing. Provide for planning grants and appropriate staff to put the programs in place. Allow for an independent vehicle to administer the program with appropriate accountability.

The North Carolina Teaching Fellows Commission is an independent body that technically reports to the General Assembly, not to any other agencies. You should expect that there would be collaboration. You should allow time for the program to work. I jokingly say sometimes that the Teaching Fellows Program is the longest pilot program that has ever been in existence in the history of North Carolina. But the General Assembly is giving us time to make this work.

Do not tie the hands of the innovators, establish high standards and provide support vehicles and provide funds for evaluation and a longitudinal study.

Mr. Price. Thank you, that is very helpful.

Just quickly, do you have retention rate figures as to how--

Ms. Graves. I may not have them in the way you want them, but let me just tell you that we collect data annually and in 1998- 1999, of the 2691 graduates, 1641 of them were teaching in 95 of the 100 counties; 873 of them have completed their four year obligation; 123 are in graduate school; four are nationally board certified; and we have several others who are preparing; 10 plus have graduated in the principal fellow program; 15 are now administrators; 70 percent of them are teaching after the fourth year of service; 64 percent of them are still teaching after the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth year of service. And that is where we are right now at the end of the eighth year.

Mr. Price. So that is a good deal better that Ms. McNeill's statistics, although I think we understand the importance of the support system in the schools, as a factor in retention, not just the kind of support system they have had in being brought into the profession.

Ms. Graves. And that support system also extends to the communities also.

Mr. Price. Thank you very much.

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Mr. Price. Mr. Etheridge.

Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to come back to that one in a minute, but I want to go to Dr. Parrish for one first, because I want to underscore an issue that I think is important, not only for the new teachers that Ms. McNeill talked about, but also retention. It seems to me the big issue we face and have faced for a long time is the retention issue and it is not getting any better.

If you will touch very quickly on this whole issue of staff development. I think that is one of the big issues because at the federal level, we can help it. At the state level -- and the reason I want you to talk about it, I want to talk about a specific issue dealing with when we introduced algebra for all students in North Carolina. We had staff development money then because the state gave us money, the federal money, and we were able to implement a program over a number of years. And you are only able to implement it because you have continuous funding, you do not have grants that go up and down.

If you will briefly talk about that and also talk about this whole issue of ongoing, continuous staff development, not just for teachers, but how do we free up time so that they do not work all day and then we tell them after hours when their eyes are glazed over, they need to come in for an hour and it does not do any good, or very little good.

Dr. Parrish. I will be happy to talk about that, that is one of my favorite subjects, and actually you hit on one of the key barriers, and that is time.

I often say in education it is very difficult to get money, but it is even more difficult to get time, teacher time, curriculum time. And I think we have not really addressed that issue. I have had a number of proposals on the table in past positions that I have held, including the superintendents where I have said why do we not at least offer our teachers, say one-fourth of our teaching body, a 12 month contract each year, and so if you had -- you know, say it would take you four years to get through that cycle. Now I understand that not every single teacher wants a 12 month contract and somehow we have to allow for that. But unless we can get sustained time together with teachers when they are not tired, et cetera, that is not going to happen.

Also, teachers have told us for so many years that we do not know how to do it and that they can do it better, and they are probably right, and so we need to take better advantage of teachers themselves. There are a whole lot of principles of good professional development and we just need to get about -- we know what they are, but we just do not always apply them for various reasons.

But last, I think professional development has not been something popular with school boards and public entities, because they think well we paid for that last year, you mean we have to pay for it again this year. And I do not have the statistics at my finger tips, but I think that the proportion of funds that are spent on the development of people in education institutions is lower than it is in any other. So it is just something that you could help us with the bully pulpit by talking about the fact that professional development is ongoing, teachers are coming and going, they are not the same teachers, they are not the same students, not always the same methodology. So anyway, I do not want to take too much longer, so I will stop at that.

Mr. Etheridge. But while you are at that, if you would touch on how intensive you have to do to get the algebra piece, just one issue around a structured curriculum across the state.

Dr. Parrish. Oh, that is right. Well, we_I do not know whether I wanted the blame or credit for this initiative or not, but when I was assistant state superintendent, we did push very hard for the algebra requirement, algebra I requirement for every student. So people out there are used to it now, so I guess it is all right to own up to it. But as I recall, that was an initiative, and help me if I go off base, Mr. Etheridge, where we actually had intensive professional development in the summer.

Mr. Etheridge. That is right.

Dr. Parrish. And we paid teachers to come to that, and unfortunately it is a number of years ago, and that is the main detail that I remember about it, was we provided time and we provided money.

Another thing that I think Congress could help with as well as our state legislature is that when we decide on these new things and these directions, I know that improving education is urgent, but some things take time. You cannot keep launching new programs without giving teachers and principals and others the time they need to learn the information and to get comfortable with the information, comfortable enough to teach it.

Mr. Etheridge. Mr. Chairman, at the expense of getting kicked, I want to go to Dr. Causby for one final point he touched on, character education.

If you will, if you do not mind, just list the 12 character traits that you use.

Dr. Causby. They were on that disk that the dog ate.

Mr. Etheridge. Okay.

Dr. Causby. I will send that to you.

Mr. Etheridge. Okay.

Dr. Causby. But they are all ingrained in my belief system.

Mr. Etheridge. Thank you.

Chairman Castle. Thank you very much, Bob.

I think because of the constrictions of the schedule, that we will forego a second round of questions now, but I don't want to cut anyone off. If somebody has something burning that they cannot live without -- and I think Congressman Price does -- say it now, but we do need to--

Mr. Price. There is one witness that was not heard from in the question period. Let me just quickly give her a chance to elaborate, and I know we are pressed for time, but Ms. Massengill has done a terrific job with the magnet school program here and I know that the assistance received under ESEA for the magnet school program has been very, very important, although the local system is committed to it, this financial assistance has been important and Wake County has been very successful in getting that assistance.

I wonder, Ms. Massengill, if you could say just a word about the way the federal assistance has worked, what it has made possible here as opposed to what might have been possible otherwise. And also if you want to elaborate on some of the unconventional features of your latest proposal, that I know gave us all some concern, but we have made a special -- I know you have made a special effort and we did as well to interpret that to the Department of Education.

Ms. Massengill. Well, you know, this has been killing me to sit here and not speak about every question that has come up because as a former principal and former teacher and working with these programs, it has just been killing me not to put my two cents worth in.

Chairman Castle. That is my job as Cn ,hairman, to hold everybody back a little bit.

Ms. Massengill. First let me say this, having been a former year-round principal and starting year-round calendar schools in North Carolina, when we talk about time, that, of anything I have ever done in my education career, has been a vehicle for finding time for staff development, for finding extra time for students who need extra help.

Congressman Price, I have to talk about though the latest grant initiative, and this is volume one of our grant application, so this will give you an idea of what we spent a year as we applied for this Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant. But our most exciting piece of that grant is what we have done with year-round schools and this was the unconventional part.

Typically the Magnet Schools Assistance Program is to attract children to schools, usually schools that are under-populated, trying to work on the diversity issues in all our schools. But we did it in sort of a backward way. In Wake County, our year-round schools have been used to help us with our growth, because we can get about 33 percent more children in a building in a year-round school than we can in a traditional building. But because they were all choice in our school district, they turned out that the diversity -- they did not reflect Wake County's population. So we wanted to make them more equal socio-economically with the other schools in the district. So we have purposely looked for children who needed extra learning time, targeted those children, recruited them by talking one-on-one with the parents about students who were lower level in their performance on end-of-grade tests, talked to those parents, offered this year-round program to those children, and we are transporting them to these year-round schools.

So when they are in school for nine weeks, there is a teacher there who works with the classroom teacher, during their three week, what we call track out time, the intercession time, those children get two extra weeks of instruction. So we can give those children during the course of a school year, anywhere from 30 to 40 extra days of school through this grant.

These are children who have never been to the beach, we took them to the beach last year, we took them to the mountains and they rode llamas in the mountains of North Carolina, they went to the North Carolina Zoo. What we are trying to do is level the playing field, give these children opportunities to come back, when they get back to school and be able to write about these things.

But it is about a lot of things that have been talked about today, the connections between what happens in their experiences and what happens in their regular classroom. It gives them the chance to say what did I do on my summer vacation. It gives them a chance to say I really did this. We took children to -- I know I have got to quit talking -- we took children to a sawmill in Wake County so they would know how the desks and chairs in their classroom were made. And then these children came back and then could use that in their writing experiences and their reading experiences.

We would not have been able to do this without this grant because this gave us an opportunity to try something that we knew would make a difference with children. I wish you had been at our open house session last week -- and we are doing this by providing these opportunities in a community center where the children live. But if you had been able to hear these parents talk about the difference it has made for their children, you would been ready to fund this everywhere.

Okay, I will stop.

Chairman Castle. Thank you all. You are all so knowledgeable and you all just, as Ms. Massengill said, you could all answer every question probably for ten minutes each. We have that problem in Congress too, by the way. That is why in the House of Representatives, not that we are knowledgeable, we just like to talk. But there are 435 of us, so we live by sort of strict rules in terms of these time limits. But we really appreciate the testimony of all of you here today, your written statements, Dr. Causby's written statement to come, we are going to hold him to that. And I think it has been highly valuable, you learn a lot of insights in a hearing such as this, and I am very appreciative.

I would like to give each of the members here an opportunity to perhaps briefly either thank people or to close or do whatever they wish, and we are going to start of course with our distinguished ranking member, Mr. Kildee.

Mr. Kildee. Well, first of all, I want to thank Governor Castle for having a hearing down here. Having hearings outside of Washington does present a great deal of logistical problems, but Mike Castle is one of the people who proves that education is a bipartisan concern and it is just a pleasure working with him as the ranking Democrat on the Committee.

I first came to Raleigh 35 years ago when I was a freshman member of the state legislature and I was Chairman of the Federal Relations Committee. That was an interesting committee because that committee was formed during the War Between the States, and I came down here as a yankee down to Raleigh.

[Laughter.]

Mr. Kildee. I was very, very impressed, just the beginning of the Research Triangle. But I should have come here more often in the interim and I will in the future, because I really am very impressed by the expertise and the candor of your testimony today. It has been very, very helpful to me, you really have told us that it is and I very much appreciate that. I will go back knowing more about what we should be doing in Washington to help state and local educational agencies to do their job.

Thank you very, very much.

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Dale. Mr. Price.

Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to reiterate my gratitude to you and to Mr. Kildee and to the staff of the Subcommittee for bringing the Committee on the road today, and for working with us so cooperatively in preparing this. I do think it has been a good day, a very useful set of topics and issues and I hope and believe this will be of benefit to you and the Subcommittee as you do set about writing the Elementary and Secondary Reauthorization this fall.

I want to thank some people specifically here locally who have been helpful. First of all, our hosts at the North Carolina Museum of Art, this beautiful facility. They have cooperated with us in every way. DeLaurence Wheeler, the Director; Connie Pope; Tina Effird; others on the museum staff who have been most accommodating.

And then I want to thank members of my own staff, as I am sure Bob does, who have worked long and hard to put this together, working with the witnesses, working with the logistics. The people on my staff who have headed up this effort are Catherine Baker and Tina Morris-Anderson. But it has been a collective effort with Rose Auman and Thomas Bates and Gay Eddy and Tracy Lovett and Sandra Musenburg and Bobby Stott and probably others who I should mention, who have helped in one way or another with this today.

So thanks to all who have participated and you have given us some food for thought, I think some very useful material, both as we rewrite the bill for this year, but also as we try to think creatively about new directions we should be going and ways we ought to be reaching out with support for education in the years ahead. So I am very, very grateful to you.

Chairman Castle. Thank you, Mr. Price. Mr. Etheridge.

Mr. Etheridge. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me also join in and say thank you to you and Congressman Kildee for both of you being here today, for bringing the hearing here. Most folks may not realize that Congress is back in session today and they took time to come and be here this morning. We are going to leave shortly and head back up to vote this evening. And I know what a difficult task it was for you and for your staffs and getting it out of town made all the difference in the world, but it means a great deal for us to have you in North Carolina.

And I think from the panels you have heard, the first and the second panel, that we not only have people who are competent, capable and doing an outstanding job here for the children of this state and stand ready to do even more. They are just looking to those of us, not only in Congress but in the General Assembly and others who have the resources and the ability to shape proper policy, to help them do an even better job. And let me thank each of you for being a part of it, and join David in thanking his staff because they have really done the heavy lifting in this regard and the people here at the museum for making this space available.

Let me just thank a couple of members of our staff, Glenn Keba who is here with us today; Chris DeSandy, who could not be here; and Pat Devlin and others. We are grateful for them.

And in closing, Mr. Chairman, thank you again. The challenge that we face in a five-year reauthorization is not small, but the opportunities are immense. Only if we could get a bigger pie and the more of that pie we get, I think the better opportunity we have, as you well know, to do an excellent job.

And thank you for your leadership.

Chairman Castle. Well, thank you very much, Bobby. And let me thank everybody who you all have thanked as well, some of whom are new to me but they have all done a wonderful job as far as I am concerned. It has been very well organized and we appreciate the great hospitality that both of our distinguished gentlemen from North Carolina have provided to us today.

I was interested in coming to North Carolina and I think you really have done collectively an outstanding job in education. I follow it carefully, I was a governor, by the way, as you may have heard from what Dale said, for eight years when actually Jim Martin was Governor of North Carolina a few years ago. And as a result, I still am very interested in what the states are doing in education, and the localities, although I do believe there is a federal role in education and I do believe that we should be helping you in every way we possibly can. And that is one reason we are very interested in going out to those places where education is being well dealt with and our students are learning better, and I think you are doing that.

I thank Mr. Kildee, Dale, for his constant concern about education and I thank our staff for their work on this. They have to get all this ready as well and we are very thankful to them for their exceptional work.

I thank all the panelists, you had to prepare, you had to be here, it may be close to your first day of school in various colleges and schools in North Carolina as well as across the country and we know it is probably not the most apt time to be doing this, but we appreciate you being here.

I appreciate all the people in the audience who are here as well. Some of you have been here a long time and I am impressed by that.

As I indicated earlier, if there are any comments you wish to make, anybody, please do submit them and we will be glad to receive them, particularly in the next few minutes or in the future.

I hope this has been helpful. I am one who happens to believe that education is not a partisan issue, that it takes Republicans and Democrats, and it takes the White House as well as the Congress at the federal level to make education better in this country. And we are fools if we do not go about doing that, without worrying about taking credit for it in a political sense. And hopefully it will be hearings like this and the cooperation of members of Congress such as this that will make a difference in terms of getting that done, particularly in the very near future. I think the faster we deal with some of the concerns we have about education that we have heard here today, the better off we are going to be.

So unless there is anything further, at this point, we stand adjourned.

REPORT FROM THE GOVERNOR’S TASK FORCE YOUTH VIOLENCE AND SCHOOL SAFETY ON FILE WITH THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE

[Whereupon, at 12:53 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]