[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REVIEWING THE PRESIDENT'S FISCAL
YEAR 2015 BUDGET PROPOSAL FOR
THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND THE WORKFORCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, APRIL 29, 2014
__________
Serial No. 113-57
__________
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota, Chairman
Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin George Miller, California,
Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, Senior Democratic Member
California Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott,
Joe Wilson, South Carolina Virginia
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Ruben Hinojosa, Texas
Tom Price, Georgia Carolyn McCarthy, New York
Kenny Marchant, Texas John F. Tierney, Massachusetts
Duncan Hunter, California Rush Holt, New Jersey
David P. Roe, Tennessee Susan A. Davis, California
Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Tim Walberg, Michigan Timothy H. Bishop, New York
Matt Salmon, Arizona David Loebsack, Iowa
Brett Guthrie, Kentucky Joe Courtney, Connecticut
Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio
Todd Rokita, Indiana Jared Polis, Colorado
Larry Bucshon, Indiana Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Northern Mariana Islands
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Frederica S. Wilson, Florida
Joseph J. Heck, Nevada Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon
Susan W. Brooks, Indiana Mark Pocan, Wisconsin
Richard Hudson, North Carolina Mark Takano, California
Luke Messer, Indiana
Bradley Byrne, Alabama
Juliane Sullivan, Staff Director
Jody Calemine, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on April 29, 2014................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Kline, Hon. John, Chairman, Committee on Education and the
Workforce.................................................. 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Miller, Hon. George, Senior Democratic Member, Committee on
Education and the Workforce................................ 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Statement of Witnesses:
Duncan, Hon. Arne, Secretary of Education, Washington, DC.... 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 12
Additional Submissions:
Scott, Hon. DesJarlais, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Tennessee:........................................
Letter, dated April 8, 2014 from Kimberly Jones,
President, Committee for Education Funding............. 69
Questions submitted for the record by:.......................
Barletta, Hon. Lou, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Pennsylvania.................................. 78
Brooks, Hon. Susan W., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Indiana................................... 79
Bucshon, Hon. Larry, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Indiana................................... 78
Foxx, Hon. Virginia, a Representative in Congress from
the State of North Carolina............................ 75
Guthrie, Hon. Brett, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Kentucky.................................. 77
Heck, Hon. Joseph J., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Nevada.................................... 78
Hinojosa, Hon. Ruben, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Texas..................................... 80
Holt, Hon. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey.................................... 80
Chairman Kline........................................... 73
Loebsack, Hon. David, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Iowa...................................... 81
Messer, Hon. Luke, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana....................................... 79
Roe, Hon. David P., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Tennessee..................................... 76
Rokita, Hon. Todd, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana....................................... 77
Salmon, Hon. Matt, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona....................................... 77
Thompson, Hon. Glenn, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Pennsylvania.............................. 76
Secretary Duncan's, response to questions submitted for the
record..................................................... 83
REVIEWING THE PRESIDENT'S FISCAL YEAR
2015 BUDGET PROPOSAL FOR THE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
----------
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
House of Representatives,
Committee on Education and the Workforce,
Washington, D.C.
----------
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in Room
2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Kline [chairman
of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Kline, Petri, Foxx, Roe, Thompson,
Walberg, Salmon, Guthrie, DesJarlais, Rokita, Bucshon, Gowdy,
Heck, Messer, Byrne, Miller, Scott, Hinojosa, Tierney, Holt,
Davis, Grijalva, Bishop, Loebsack, Courtney, Fudge, Polis,
Sablan, Wilson, Bonamici, Pocan, and Takano.
Staff present: Janelle Belland, Coalitions and Members
Services Coordinator; Lindsay Fryer, Professional Staff Member;
Amy Raaf Jones, Director of Education and Human Resources
Policy; Nancy Locke, Chief Clerk; Brian Melnyk, Professional
Staff Member; Daniel Murner, Press Assistant; Krisann Pearce,
General Counsel; Jenny Prescott, Legislative Assistant; Mandy
Schaumburg, Education Deputy Director and Senior Counsel; Emily
Slack, Professional Staff Member; Alex Sollberger,
Communications Director; Alissa Strawcutter, Deputy Clerk; Brad
Thomas, Senior Education Policy Advisor; Tylease Alli, Minority
Clerk/Intern and Fellow Coordinator; Jeremy Ayers, Minority
Education Policy Advisor; Kelly Broughan, Minority Education
Policy Associate; Jody Calemine, Minority Staff Director;
Jacque Chevalier, Minority Education Policy Advisor; Eamonn
Collins, Minority Fellow, Education; Jamie Fasteau, Minority
Director of Education Policy; Scott Groginsky, Minority
Education Policy Advisor; Julia Krahe, Minority Communications
Director; Brian Levin, Minority Press Secretary; Megan
O'Reilly, Minority General Counsel; Rich Williams, Minority
Education Policy Advisor; and Michael Zola, Minority Deputy
Staff Director.
Chairman Kline. A quorum being present, committee will come
to order. Well, good morning. Welcome to our guests. Thank you
to Secretary Duncan for joining us. Mr. Secretary, we know your
time is valuable and we appreciate the opportunity to speak
with you today.
Each year, the Secretary comes before this committee to
discuss the administration's policies and priorities for the
Department of Education. And each year, he is faced with the
undesirable task of defending a budget full of new, unproven
programs, burdensome federal mandates and competitive grants
that pressure schools to adopt the President's preferred
policies.
For fiscal year 2015, the budget request for the department
clocks in at an incredible $82.3 billion. This includes nearly
$70 billion in discretionary spending and $13 billion in
mandatory funding for pet projects such as the President's
Preschool for All proposal and new teacher preparation
initiatives, both of which, I might add, are redundant of
dozens of existing federal programs.
Families, school leaders, and taxpayers deserve a better
way forward. Rather than continue to throw good money after bad
and pound new program on top of old, we need an administration
to work with Congress to advance lasting solutions for the
challenges facing schools nationwide.
But instead of supporting our efforts to strengthen K-12
education, the administration has implemented a convoluted
temporary waiver scheme which now has waivers to waivers that
makes the Secretary of Education the sole arbiter of elementary
and secondary education policy.
Instead of helping us address problems in postsecondary
education through the reauthorization of the Higher Education
Act, the Obama administration continues to push for
shortsighted mandates and federal price controls that will
limit innovation and levy new regulatory burdens on colleges
and universities.
Instead of working with us to ensure the federal government
fulfills its basic commitment to students with disabilities by
prioritizing funding for the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, the Obama administration has opted to ramp up
spending on untested and often duplicative programs. Worse, the
President's budget threatens to further reduce IDEA funding for
most districts by shifting the funds into yet another
competitive program.
Each of these initiatives is undermining progress in the
nation's schools and preventing the students from accessing the
quality education opportunities they need for success. The
House Education and the Workforce Committee has advanced a
number of proposals that will reshape our education system,
provide teachers, school administrators, and postsecondary
education leaders with the flexible framework necessary to more
effectively serve students.
For example, last summer, the House approved the Student
Success Act, legislation to restore state and local control in
K-12 education, empower parents, and reduce federal burdens in
the classroom. The Student Success Act is the first bill to
reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that has
been considered on the floor in either the House or Senate in
more than a decade.
Mr. Secretary, you have repeatedly noted the importance of
reauthorizing this law. Clearly, many differences remain.
Though prospects may seem unlikely, I believe we all share a
sincere desire to find enough common ground to craft a solution
that puts student first. But we need support from the
administration, not just more waivers.
In addition to our progress in reforming K-12 education,
the committee has spent more than a year preparing to
reauthorize the Higher Education Act. We have held more than a
dozen hearings to examine a myriad of issues facing
postsecondary institutions and students and moved legislation
to enhance transparency and eliminate federal regulations that
will disproportionately harm low-income students and threaten
the strength of our higher education system.
As we continue working toward a rewrite of the Higher
Education Act, I urge the Secretary to abandon the intrusive
policies and punitive regulatory proposal outlined in the
President's budget and instead work with us to craft
legislation that will help meet our shared goals of improving
transparency, affordability, and access to postsecondary
education.
Before I yield to my distinguished colleague, Mr. Miller,
for his opening remarks, I want to make one final request to
Secretary Duncan. Mr. Secretary, after each hearing, the
committee members on both sides of the aisle submit to your
department questions for the record. As our time here in the
hearing is limited, these supplemental questions help us
continue our oversight of the department's programs and
policies.
However, I am troubled by the significant delay in response
to these questions. Just a few days ago, Mr. Secretary, the
committee finally received answers to the questions submitted
to you at this hearing last year. I sincerely hope this will
not be the case with the questions received following today's
hearing.
I will now yield to the senior Democrat, Mr. Miller, for
his opening remarks.
[The statement of Chairman Kline follows:]
Chairman, Committee on Education and the Workforce
Hearing on ``Reviewing the President's Fiscal Year 2015 Budget
Proposal for the Department of Education''
April 29, 2014
Good morning. Welcome to our guests, and thank you to Secretary
Duncan for joining us. We know your time is valuable, and we appreciate
the opportunity to speak with you today.
Each year, the secretary comes before this committee to discuss the
administration's policies and priorities for the Department of
Education. And each year, he is faced with the undesirable task of
defending a bloated budget full of new, unproven programs, burdensome
federal mandates, and competitive grants that pressure schools to adopt
the president's preferred policies.
For fiscal year 2015, the budget request for the department clocks
in at an incredible $82.3 billion. This includes nearly $70 billion in
discretionary spending and 13 billion in mandatory funding for pet
projects, such as the president's Preschool for All proposal and new
teacher preparation initiatives - both of which, I might add, are
redundant to dozens of existing federal programs.
We have discussed time and again the fact that more programs and
higher spending have had little measurable impact on students' academic
achievement. Though the administration has pumped billions of dollars
into the nation's education system since 2009, student achievement
remains largely unchanged.
Families, school leaders, and taxpayers deserve a better way
forward. Rather than continue to throw good money after bad and pile
new program on top of old, we need an administration that will work
with Congress to advance lasting solutions to the challenges facing
schools nationwide.
But instead of supporting our efforts to strengthen K-12 education,
the Obama administration has implemented a convoluted, temporary waiver
scheme that makes the secretary of education the sole arbiter of
elementary and secondary education policy.
Instead of helping us address problems in postsecondary education
through the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the Obama
administration continues to push for shortsighted mandates and federal
price controls that will limit innovation and levy new regulatory
burdens on colleges and universities.
And instead of working with us to ensure the federal government
fulfills its basic commitment to students with disabilities by
prioritizing funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, the Obama administration has opted to ramp up spending on untested
and often duplicative programs. Worse, the president's budget threatens
to further reduce IDEA funding for most districts by shifting the funds
into yet another competitive grant program.
Each of these initiatives is undermining progress in the nation's
schools and preventing students from accessing the quality education
opportunities they need for success. The House Education and the
Workforce Committee has advanced a number of proposals that will
reshape our education system and provide teachers, school
administrators, and postsecondary education leaders with the flexible
framework necessary to more effectively serve students.
For example, last summer the House approved the Student Success
Act, legislation to restore state and local control in K-12 education,
empower parents, and reduce federal burdens in the classroom. The
Student Success Act is the first bill to reauthorize the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act that has been considered in either the House or
Senate in more than a decade.
Mr. Secretary, you have repeatedly noted the importance of
reauthorizing this law. Clearly, many differences remain. Though
prospects may seem unlikely, I believe we all share a sincere desire to
find enough common ground to craft a solution that puts students first.
But we need support from the administration, not more waivers that
serve as roadblocks to real reform.
In addition to our progress in reforming K-12 education, the
committee has spent more than a year preparing to reauthorize the
Higher Education Act. We've held more than a dozen hearings to examine
myriad issues facing postsecondary institutions and students, and moved
legislation to enhance transparency and eliminate federal regulations
that will disproportionately harm low-income students and threaten the
strength of our higher education system.
As we continue working toward a rewrite of the Higher Education
Act, I urge the secretary to abandon the intrusive polices and punitive
regulatory proposals outlined in the president's budget and instead
work with us to craft legislation that will help meet our shared goals
of improving transparency, affordability, and access to postsecondary
education.
Before I yield to my distinguished colleague, Mr. George Miller,
for his opening remarks, I want to make one final request to Secretary
Duncan. After each hearing, the committee members on both sides of the
aisle submit to your department questions for the record. As our time
here in the hearing is limited, these supplemental questions help us
continue our oversight of the department's programs and policies.
However, I am troubled by the significant delay in response to
these questions. Just a few days ago, the committee finally received
answers to the questions submitted to the secretary after this hearing
almost one year ago. I sincerely hope this will not be the case with
the questions you receive following today's hearing.
I will now yield to the Senior Democrat, Mr. Miller, for his
opening remarks.
______
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for joining us here today to
discuss President Obama's agenda for improving the lives and
the education of our nation's students.
This hearing comes at a time when our parties are putting
forth two very different visions of our nation's education
system.
On the one hand, my Republican colleagues have passed a
draconian budget that guts resources for students and schools,
putting sequestration back in place and slashing education even
further.
On the other, President Obama has proposed greater
investment in our nation's schools because he recognizes that
education leads to better jobs and a more competitive
workforce.
Republicans want to be the party of ``NO:'' NO federal
involvement; NO accountability; NO equity protections for
disadvantaged students.
President Obama has put forward a budget that supports
college and career readiness for all students and encourages
greater equity.
These are more than just opposing theories or competitive
ideologies; how these budget priorities end up playing out will
have real consequences for our students, teachers, schools and
for our economy.
It is a shame that we find ourselves at such odds when we
are talking about the very future of our nation.
The recent past had shed some light on the possibilities
for our future. Over the last 5 years, schools have undertaken
a massive transformation on a scale that I have never seen
before in my lifetime.
Schools are raising expectations for students so that they
graduate prepared for life's next steps, be they toward college
or toward a career.
Schools are ditching bubble tests in favor of new
assessments that measure critical thinking and other skills
necessary to have success in the 21st century.
Schools are experimenting with new ways to measure and
encourage achievement, including efforts to improve struggling
schools.
Communities are setting children up for life-long success
by providing high-quality preschool programs for more kids than
ever before.
We need to support our nation's educators as they undertake
these dramatic shifts in education in this country.
We in the federal government should be helping students and
schools make these leaps, not cutting them off at the knees.
Instead of doubling down on austerity, we should pass a
bipartisan law to fix No Child Left Behind, not jam partisan
bills through the House that the President will never sign.
We should continue to bolster early childhood education so
that our youngest citizens stop falling through the cracks.
We should strengthen the workforce by improving college
access, increasing transparency to help students make smart
choices, and increasing college competition, not gutting the
Pell Grant, the backbone of student aid.
It is time for Congress to get back into the business of
partnering with states and districts in support of schools.
It's a time to start saying ``Yes'' rather than always saying
``No.''
I am pleased to say that we have taken some small steps to
do this. The recent passage of the bipartisan charter school
bill and the education research bill are encouraging signs, as
was the funding for preschool development grants that was
included in the bipartisan omnibus bill.
But they are just a down payment on the challenges that lie
ahead of us in revising the primary laws that impact the
nation's education system.
Given the heavy-handed Ryan budget and the overall
Congressional inaction on pressing education matters, I want to
recognize and commend the actions your department has taken on
the equity issues.
I would like to commend you for your vigilance on ensuring
the districts allocate resources more fairly and improve
student access to effective teachers.
I would like to praise the actions of the Office of Civil
Rights to document and reduce inequitable discipline practices.
I applaud the administration's attention to sexual abuse in
schools at all levels.
And I am heartened by your work in behalf of students with
disabilities to ensure states continue to hold that population
to high standards.
And I appreciate your ongoing efforts to ensure that
colleges adequately prepare students for gainful employment.
And I appreciate the ongoing efforts to make high-quality
early childhood education a reality for all children, not just
a privilege for the few.
I also urge you to maintain a laser-like focus on equity in
the ESEA waiver renewal process. You have the authority in that
process to bring the focus back to equity for disadvantaged
students. And you must hold the line when states and districts
seek to dilute or camouflage efforts to equitably serve all
students.
Thank you for being here today, Mr. Secretary.
Thank you for all the work that you do day in and day out
on behalf of our students and our schools and our communities.
And I look forward to your testimony. I yield back my time.
[The statement of Mr. Miller follows:]
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you Secretary Duncan for joining us here today to discuss
President Obama's agenda for improving the lives of our nation's
students.
This hearing comes at a time when our parties are putting forth two
very different visions for our nation's education system.
On the one hand, my Republican colleagues have passed a draconian
budget that guts resources for students and schools, putting
sequestration back in place and slashing education funding even
further.
On the other, President Obama has proposed greater investment in
our nation's schools because he recognizes that education leads to
better jobs and a more competitive workforce.
Republicans want to be the party of ``NO:'' NO federal involvement;
NO accountability; NO equity protections for disadvantaged students.
President Obama has put forward a budget that supports college and
career readiness for all students and encourages greater equity.
These are more than just opposing theories, or competing
ideologies: how these budget priorities end up playing out will have
real consequences for our students, teachers, and schools.
It is a shame that we find ourselves at such odds, when we're
talking about the very future of our nation.
The recent past has shed some light on the possibilities for our
future. Over the last five years, schools have undertaken massive
transformations, at a scale that I have never seen before in my
lifetime.
* Schools are raising expectations for students so that they
graduate prepared for life's next steps, be they toward college or
toward a career.
* Schools are ditching bubble tests in favor of new assessments
that measure critical thinking and other skills necessary to success in
the 21st century.
* Schools are experimenting with new ways to measure and encourage
achievement, including efforts to improve struggling schools.
* Communities are setting children up for life-long success by
providing high-quality preschool programs for more kids than ever
before.
We need to support our nation's educators as they undertake these
paradigmatic shifts.
We in the federal government should be helping students and schools
make these leaps, not cutting them off at the knees. Instead of
doubling down on austerity:
* We should pass a bipartisan law to fix No Child Left Behind, not
jam partisan bills through the House that the president will never
sign.
* We should continue to bolster early childhood education so that
our youngest citizens stop falling through the cracks.
* We should strengthen the workforce by improving college access,
increasing transparency to help students make smart choices, and
increasing college completion, not gutting the Pell Grant, the backbone
of student aid.
It's time for Congress to get back into the business of partnering
with states and districts to support our schools.
It's a time to start saying ``Yes'' rather than always saying
``No.'' I'm pleased to say that we have taken some small steps to do
this.
The recent passage of a bipartisan charter school bill and an
education research bill are encouraging signs, as was the funding for
preschool development grants that was included in the bipartisan
omnibus bill.
But they are just a down payment on the challenges that lie ahead
of us in revising the primary laws that impact our nation's education
system.
Given the heavy-handed Ryan budget and overall congressional
inaction on pressing education matters, I want to recognize and commend
the actions your department has taken on equity issues.
* I'd like to commend your vigilance on ensuring districts allocate
resources more fairly and improve students' access to effective
teachers.
* I'd like to praise the actions of the Office of Civil Rights to
document and reduce inequitable discipline practices.
* I applaud the administration's attention to sexual abuse in
schools at all levels.
* I am heartened by your work on behalf of students with
disabilities to ensure states continue to hold that population to high
standards.
* I appreciate your ongoing efforts to ensure that colleges
adequately prepare students for gainful employment.
* And I appreciate the ongoing efforts to make high-quality early
childhood education a reality for all children, not just the privilege
of a few.
I also urge you to maintain a laser-like focus on equity in the
ESEA waiver renewal process. You have the authority in that process to
bring the focus back to equity for disadvantaged students. You must
hold the line when states or districts seek to dilute efforts to
equitably serve all students.
Thank you for being here today, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for all
the work you do, day in and day out.
I look forward to your testimony.
______
Chairman Kline. Gentleman yields back. Pursuant to
committee rule 7(c), all committee members will be permitted to
submit written statements to be included in the permanent
hearing record. And without objection, the hearing record will
remain open for 14 days to allow statements, questions for the
record and other extraneous material referenced during the
hearing to be submitted in the official hearing record.
Mr. Secretary, welcome back. You are recognized.
STATEMENT OF HON. ARNE DUNCAN, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Secretary Duncan. Just quickly, Mr. Chairman, in response
to your last question. We were too slow in getting back the
answers to those questions. I apologize for that.
I give you my word it won't happen again.
To Chairman Kline, to Ranking Member Miller and to all the
members, the story of American education today is a good news/
bad news story. First, let me begin by thanking you for your
work on the 2014 budget which increased our investment in
education over the previous year.
This investment is essential for the good news side of the
story, which is that our students are making substantial
progress in graduating from high school and going on to enroll
in college, be that at a 2-year university or 4-year college,
trade, technical, vocational training. Our nation's on-time
high school graduation rate reached a record high in 2012: 80
percent.
And if you guys look at the newspapers today, there are
number of headlines that were extraordinarily positive about
the hard work that is going on. And I want to thank our
students, our teachers, families, community members,
administrators for all the hard work in seeing those high
school graduation rates hit a record high.
In addition to that, college enrollment is up as well, with
Latino and African-American students leading the way in a
country where the school system is going to become, as soon as
this fall, majority-minority. That is a hugely important step
in the right direction.
The bad news, the flip side of that, is that we still have
unacceptable opportunity gaps in America. It will be very
difficult to close those gaps when federal discretionary
funding for education, excluding Pell Grants, remains below the
2010 level.
Our international competitors are not making the mistake of
disinvesting in education. And their students are making more
progress than America's students, endangering our country's
competitiveness and prosperity.
As everyone here knows, in a knowledge-based global
economy, the need to close these opportunity gaps and
strengthen our competitiveness is one of the most urgent
challenges facing our nation. To continue to fall behind would
hurt our country economically for generations to come.
So I appeal to you today to continue America's longstanding
bipartisan commitment to investing in education. Dating back to
our nation's founding, the federal government has provided
incentives to state and local governments to invest in
education and expand educational opportunity.
Before the states ratified the Constitution, the
continental Congress required townships to reserve money for
the construction of schools and granted federal lands to states
to create and support public schools. During the Civil War,
President Lincoln signed the Morrill Act, incentivizing the
creation of our nation's land-grant colleges, which today
educate more than 4 million students.
Just 2 weeks after D-Day, President Roosevelt signed the
G.I. bill, providing access to education to returning service
members and veterans. And after the Soviet Union launched
Sputnik, President Eisenhower and Congress together passed the
National Defense Education Act to bolster mathematics and
science education.
Despite these key investments and the educational progress
we have made as a nation, large opportunity gaps remain at a
time when education is more important than ever to accelerate
economic progress, increasing upper mobility and reducing
social inequality. President Obama's budget would increase
investment in education to boost that progress and close those
insidious opportunity gaps.
Sadly, those opportunity gaps start with our youngest
learners and early learning. If we could look at the first
slide, please. America is 25th in the world--25th in the
enrollment of 4-year-olds in preschool. Four in 10 public
school systems in the United States don't even offer preschool,
setting the stage for a huge gap in school readiness that not
only President Obama but most of our nation's governors find
unacceptable.
In the real world, outside of Washington and away from the
dysfunction of Congress, this has become an absolutely
bipartisan issue. In fact, last year, 30 governors, and more
Republican governors than Democratic, 17 Republican governors
and 13 Democratic governors increased funding for preschool in
their state budgets.
In tough economic times, these leaders chose to use scarce
taxpayer dollars to expand access to high-quality early
learning opportunities. Budgets, not words, not empty rhetoric,
reflect our true values.
And these 30 governors walked the walk. Just one quick
example, Governor Schneider in Michigan committed to putting 65
million more dollars into the state program to ensure children
in need of preschool have access to it.
He said that he was going to make Michigan, and I quote--
``a no-wait state for early childhood education.'' And we need
to help every state be able to make that same claim. And that
is why the President's request for $500 million for Preschool
Development Grants and $75 billion in mandatory funding for the
Preschool for All program are so essential to our nation's
future.
They would support state-led efforts to provide access to
high-quality preschool through a mixed delivery system, both
public and private, for all 4-year-olds from low and moderate-
income families. And a diverse, highly unusual coalition has
come together and is working together to support these efforts.
States attorneys, sheriffs and police associations support
high-quality early learning because it reduces crime when kids
grow up. They are tired of locking people up. Military leaders,
admirals and generals across the nation support it as well
because three-fourths of young adults today are not able to
serve in the military because they have dropped out of high
school, can't pass the entrance exam, are physically unfit for
service, or have a criminal record.
High-quality early learning, as we know, reduces all of
these problems. Our military has always been our strongest
defense. America's education system must be our strongest
offense.
Hundreds of hard-headed business leaders, CEOs, chairmen of
the board, are big advocates because they know high-quality
early learning produces a better workforce and has a high ROI,
or return on investment. In fact, Nobel Prize-winning
economist, James Heckman, found a return of $7 to every $1 of
public investment in high-quality preschool programs.
How many other uses of scarce taxpayer dollars returned
that kind of investment to America's people? Unfortunately,
opportunity gaps in early learning continue all the way through
high school as new data from our civil rights data collection
program shows. And let's go to the next slide.
Students of color, students of disabilities and English
language learners don't get the same opportunity as their white
and Asian-American peers to take the basic math and science
courses necessary that figure so importantly in preparing for
college and career. Often, this lack of access means students
can't take the required classes they need to apply to 4-year
colleges or it means they go to college but must then burn
through Pell Grants and financial aid taking noncredit-bearing
remedial classes.
Nationwide, black and Hispanic students are close to 40
percent of high school students but just over a quarter of
students taking AP classes and 20 percent of those enrolled in
calculus classes. This dumbing down of expectations is
devastating to students, to their families, to communities, and
ultimately, to our nation.
And if we can go to this final slide, it highlights
opportunity gaps and access to high-speed broadband in our
schools. Most schools today have nowhere near the bandwidth
speed they need to support current applications and
instruction.
Two-thirds of our teachers wish they had more technology in
their classrooms. As folks here know, technology both empowers
teachers in very important ways and engages students in their
own learning and helps teachers to individualize instruction.
Simply put, once again, other nations take these
responsibilities, these opportunities much more seriously than
we do. In South Korea, a very high-performing nation
educationally, 100 percent of their schools have access to
high-speed internet.
Here in the United States, it is only about 20 percent--20
percent versus 100 percent. So our students, our teachers and
our schools often lack the bandwidth to take advantage of new
technologies and tools that could accelerate efforts to close
achievement gaps and assure that all students graduate from
high school both college and career ready.
How is that fair to our children or how is it fair to our
hard-working teachers? Making progress on closing these
opportunity gaps is the ribbon, the theme, that runs throughout
President Obama's 2015 education budget request.
It is the overarching goal of the preschool development
grants and the Preschool for All proposal. It is behind our
request for both a $300 million Race to the Top Equity and
Opportunity Fund to help states and districts develop road maps
to ensure all students can reach their potential; and also, our
$200 million ConnectEDucators initiative to provide teachers
with the expertise they need to use technology to teach
students to high standards and to help them individualize and
customize instruction.
By contrast, the House Republican budget would widen, would
increase opportunity gaps. OMB estimates that the Ryan budget
would cut funding for education by 15 percent in 2016, or by
about $10 billion. If that 15 percent cut were applied this
year, Title I for our nation's poorest children would be cut by
$2.2 billion. IDEA grants, special needs students, special
education, those grants to states would be cut by $1.7 billion.
And Mr. Chairman, with the Recovery Act, which you voted
against, that increased IDEA funding by $12 billion. The Ryan
budget, which would cut funding, you voted for.
And so again, it is one thing to talk about it. But I
wanted to just make sure that folks are paying attention not to
our words, not to our rhetoric, but to the reality of our votes
and to budgets. Those cuts to our students, most disadvantaged
children, poor children, children with special needs, that is
exactly the wrong direction to go for our children and for our
nation's future.
We can and we must do better together. The American dream
has always been about opportunity. Today, our nation is failing
to live up to that core American ideal for all of its citizens;
we must do more now to level the playing field and make a great
public education available to every child.
That is who I think we are. As former Florida governor Jeb
Bush says, the sad truth is that equality of opportunity
doesn't exist in many of our schools. That failure is the great
moral and economic issue of our time.
And it is hurting all of America. So let's get back to
working together, to close opportunity gaps that we all agree
are deeply at odds with the American promise of equal
opportunity. And I appreciate the bipartisan work of the
committee to pass a charter school bill.
Bipartisan education bills coming from Congress have
frankly been few and far between in recent years, to no one's
benefit. I hope that you can start taking that work to scale
again and creating bipartisan support for a fiscal year 2015
budget that will take important steps to provide our nation's
students and teachers with the support they need.
And Mr. Chairman, just quickly, before I close, I would
like to say a quick word about my good friend, Congressman
Miller. I think this might be the last committee which I will
be testifying that you are at.
And I can't say I love testifying in these situations, but
I have loved working with you over the past 6 years. I talked
to a retired member of Congress over the weekend, and he said
that of the entire Congress, he thinks you are the smartest
member in terms of education issues.
[Applause.]
And I think that is a very accurate sentiment. But I have
to say what I have been more impressed with than your
intelligence is your courage. And you have been willing to
challenge the status quo.
You have been willing to take unpopular positions. You have
been willing to take on party orthodoxy in the base in a really
profound way. And if we had more legislators, more members of
Congress who had that level of courage, I think our nation
would be a better place.
So thank you so much for your service and leadership. Thank
you.
[The statement of Secretary Duncan follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Kline. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. We will talk
about budgets for just a minute. You mentioned the so-called
Ryan budget and the President's budget. There are some very
significant differences there, of course.
The President's budget, as you know, never balances,
continues to add to our nation's debt and to the burdens of our
children forever, whereas the Ryan budget balances within 10
years. And just to note, the Ryan budget in itself doesn't cut
a dime from special ed.
It allows prioritization. And I would hope that we would
start to prioritize, Republicans and Democrats, administration
and Congress, the spending for special ed.
You remember very well, Mr. Secretary--I am sure if you
don't, I do, very well, your first appearance here when I was
sitting back over there and asked you about special education
funding. And you pointed out the spike that you just did again
which was in the stimulus bill.
We had a discussion at that time about how a 1-year spike
is really not very useful to IDEA and the special education
because it doesn't allow schools to program, to hire more
teachers and to get an ongoing program. One-year spike is only
a 1-year spike.
Secretary Duncan. Just to be clear, it wasn't a 1-year
spike. That is over a couple of years. That was an additional
$12 billion--
Chairman Kline. It was a spike, Mr. Secretary. Reclaiming
my time. It was a spike. And whether you call it a 1-year spike
or a 2-year spike, it was a spike.
Mr. Tierney. Will the gentleman yield--
Chairman Kline. I will not. Just hang on just a minute. So
what we have been asking for, what I have been asking for, is a
commitment to increase funding for special education. It is a
shortcoming that Republicans and Democrats have had in
administration and in Congress.
And we need to work together to increase that funding. When
I travel to schools, not only in my district in Minnesota and
around the country, the thing they want most from the federal
government is for it to start to step up and meet its
commitment towards that 40 percent of increased funding, which
was supposed to be provided. We have never gotten over 18
percent.
So I guess my question, then, Mr. Secretary, you have got
over a dozen new programs in this President's budget. But you
don't have any increase of funding that is available for
special education.
Secretary Duncan. So again, I just want to be very clear
and correct the record. Our budget has a $100 million increase
for special education. As I said early, the Recovery Act
increased funding by $12 billion, by far the largest increase
in special ed funding ever in our nation's history.
And you voted against that.
Chairman Kline. I absolutely voted against that, because it
set us on this path where we are running up huge deficits and
debts that keep piling on, and because that spike in spending
doesn't address the needs for our special ed kids, for our
children across the spectrum. Whether you are special needs or
not special needs, we need steady funding for special ed.
And that is what we ought to be working towards. And what I
am asking--the $100 million so-called increase, you put a set-
aside so actual funds available to fund the program go down.
Secretary Duncan. No, that is not accurate. That is not
true. But again, just to be clear, we are both repeating
ourselves, the $12 billion increase that you voted against, a
Ryan budget that would lead to a couple of billion-dollar
decrease--
Chairman Kline. Okay, we are repeating ourselves. So let's
stop. The Ryan budget will not decrease special ed funding. It
allows prioritization where that we can increase that spending
if we so choose.
All right, so apparently, you are not going to increase
that spending year-over-year.
Secretary Duncan. No, to be clear, our budget asks for a
$100 million increase in special ed funding.
Chairman Kline. Thank you. So you are not going to increase
year-over-year usable special ed funding. Let's move to waivers
real quickly. In the last 2 weeks, you rescinded Washington's
waiver because of provisions in the state's teacher evaluation
law that are inconsistent with the waiver requirements, and
granted a waiver to Illinois despite the fact the provisions in
the state's teacher evaluation law are inconsistent with the
waiver requirements.
In Washington, you have, in effect, overruled the will of
Washington citizens as enacted by their elected representatives
to uphold a requirement that cannot be found anywhere in
federal law. On the other hand, in Illinois and other states,
you have shown a willingness to bend your waiver requirements
to fit state needs.
How do you find consistency? How do states expect to find
consistency under those circumstances?
Secretary Duncan. No, it is very simple. So Washington made
a series of commitments in writing a year or 2 ago. And in any
good-faith agreement, both parties need to live up to their
commitments.
And Washington, despite the governor's best efforts,
despite the state lieutenants' best efforts, Washington
couldn't live up to their commitments. And so, when, in an
agreement, folks can't do that, the agreement has to end.
So the door is always open. We welcome them to come back at
anytime they want. But both parties have to work in good faith.
Chairman Kline. Mr. Miller?
Mr. Miller. I yield to Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Miller. I was trying
to get your attention, Mr. Chairman, because I think history is
a good thing for us to remember once in a while. You weren't
here.
And I don't think the Secretary was here either, but there
was a time when the Republicans had 10 points that they were
running on. They have got 10 points to save America, whatever
the slogan was, one of which was to increase the spending for
IDEA.
When we got into Congress that year after that election and
the Speaker of the House now was the chairman of this
committee, long time from Wisconsin, I offered an amendment to
the bill that would fully fund IDEA. Not a single member of
your party voted for it.
Not one. And everybody on this side did. So there is a
degree of seriousness about who wants to do something, who
wants to talk about it. If you have--if people in the Ryan
budget thought it was so good to prioritize it, they would have
specified it, not just left it out there so they can say, we
are going to cut a zillion dollars, just not going to tell you
where.
So I hope we get real on this subject at some point. Thank
you.
Mr. Miller. I thank the gentleman. I would also point out
that at that time, there were 345 signatures on a letter to the
administration calling for full funding of special ed. And we
couldn't get a vote in the subcommittee.
There is always a reason. And when you talk about
prioritizing, we had amendment after amendment on the
Republican side to cut special ed, to provide money for another
program. So they were always playing the shortages in
education, one against the other.
But the question always was if they increase special ed,
you had to salvage another program to do that, rather than to
grow the pot. The record isn't great on special ed, other than
all of the rhetoric from elected officials about how much they
support it.
But when the vote comes, they are never there. That is the
record on special ed. So thank you for adding money at the
administration level. We will see where the Congress falls
through with that at the budget level.
And by the way, you should know there is about $380 billion
in tax cuts coming out of the ways and means committee which
aren't paid for--simply aren't paid for. Or they are going to
add in the base.
They have a gimmick. They are going to add in the base but
just not paid for. So if you need those tax cuts among the
wealthiest, large enterprises in the country, yet you don't
have to pay for them, but if you need money for special ed, you
have to pay for that.
So we will sort that out over time, I guess.
Mr. Secretary, I want to touch on an issue that you have
touched on in your opening statement that is very important to
me, and your response on the question of dealing with the--with
now, the renewal of the waivers. And that is the issue of
equity.
I had the honor of participating the 50th anniversary of
the Civil Rights Act at the LBJ Center in Austin, Texas, 2
weeks ago. And you know, President Johnson made a dramatic
commitment to equity with that--with the Civil Rights Act.
And he made the commitment to equity that the--and his
recognition that equity was not just the absence of oppression
but it was the existence of opportunity. And that is really
what--when we look at Title I, when we look at the historic
federal role, it is really about ensuring that there is an
opportunity there for all students in our public school
systems, no matter what their zip code, no matter what their
neighborhood, that they have that opportunity.
And as we go through the renewals of the waivers, my
concern is that we are starting to see people trying to mask
and combine groups to disguise once again so that parents and
community leaders and others don't know how individual students
are doing in that school and whether or not they, in fact, have
the opportunity to take full advantage of that education. And I
just wonder if you might play out a little bit how you can look
at that renewal process--
Secretary Duncan. Sure.
Mr. Miller.--with respect to equity.
Secretary Duncan. Well, first, obviously, everything we are
trying to do in terms of budget requests is trying to increase
equity, so raise the top equity opportunity, the access--the
focus on technology. Obviously, the early childhood play, I
think, is the best investment we, as a country, can make.
But actually, I think a great waiver, a great partnership
has actually been with Chairman Kline's home state of
Minnesota. Minnesota is a pretty interesting state that
historically had very high achievement but had some of the
largest achievement gaps in the nation.
So overall very strong, but huge disparities in outcomes.
Thanks to some real courage in leadership, from the governor
and state commissioner. They have put those issues front and
center.
They have given districts targets for cutting achievement
gaps in half. They are being absolutely transparent and putting
all of this data out and still a long way to go.
But they are making some very real and significant
progress. So it is those kinds of examples of people being
honest, being truthful, being out there, being transparent, we
want to support that and folks who are trying to mask things or
hide things, please hold us accountable for challenging that.
But there are some other great examples. But I think
Minnesota is right there at the top of the list of folks who
are taking these very real challenges seriously and in a very
honest and straightforward way.
Mr. Miller. Well, you mentioned the second one, and the
Congress gave you the funding for early childhood. And I think
how those grants play out with that in mind, because again, we
know what the denial of that opportunity in early childhood
learning opportunities will mean to a child as they enter the
rest of their educational experience. And I think again, we
have to look at the equity in those grants.
Secretary Duncan. Yes, and again, just seeing the type of
coalition, bipartisan governors, CEOs, military leaders, faith-
based community, states' attorneys, to see so many folks coming
behind this early childhood play, I just hope and wish and
plead that members of Congress can look at what is going on in
the real world and all of their home states and come together
to increase access. The average child coming from a
disadvantaged community starts kindergarten at 5 years old a
year to 14 months behind.
And frankly, we don't always do a great job of catching
them up. We have to stop playing catch-up. We have to get our
babies off to a better start.
Chairman Kline. Thank you.
Mr. Petri?
Mr. Petri. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. I have got a
little statement that I am going to read. And I appreciate your
reaction, if any, to it.
I am concerned about the state of our federal student loan
system. Currently, about 15 percent of borrowers who will
default within 3 years and many more over the life of their
loan. A portion of these defaults come from excessive
borrowing, partly driven by the high cost of education today.
And these are serious problems that need to be addressed by
this committee.
Many other defaults are more easily avoided, and in this
regard, we must consider how we structure the repayment process
for student loans. Sue Dynarski and the economists at the
University of Michigan pointed out in a recent paper, the vast
majority of students do not borrow large amounts of money. Yet
many of these students are still defaulting at high rates.
In fact, the average loan in default is about $14,000. She
argues that for these students, ``We do not have a debt crisis
but rather a repayment crisis. The current system turns
reasonable levels of debt into crippling payment burdens that
can prevent young workers from attaining fiscal independence
and stability,'' end quote. She advocates for a simple
streamlined system, where payment amounts are linked to a
borrower's income, automatically protecting them during periods
when their income is lower.
So you know we have options like this now in the federal
system, income contingent repayment, and income-based
repayment. President Obama has added to the mix with his pay-
as-you-earn proposal that reduces the amount borrowers have to
pay and provides forgiveness after 20 years.
But I am very concerned that the direction the
administration has chosen to go with this idea. Anyone who has
used our federal loan system knows that it is a bureaucratic
nightmare. So finding these income-driven options, let alone
using them, deters most borrowers.
At the same time, by providing generous forgiveness, pay-
as-you-earn option is likely contributing to significant over-
borrowing, particularly among graduate students.
As Jordan Weissmann wrote in The Atlantic last year,
quote--``We have a student debt system that leaves the most
vulnerable, least sophisticated borrowers to fend for
themselves and we are seeing the unfortunate results in our
default rates. Meanwhile, the high-debt levels among borrowers
and income-based repayments suggest that many of them are
probably former graduate students who are generally better
equipped to navigate the federal government's byzantine
repayment system,'' end quote.
I know you proposed changes in your budget to scale back
some of the forgiveness options.
However, I am not sure if these changes go far enough. In a
recent report, Beth Akers and Matt Chingos of Brookings
advocate for doing away with the forgiveness portion of these
programs to protect taxpayers and to reward prudent borrowing.
I have advocated through my ExCEL Act legislation for
streamlining the federal loan system by linking payments to
income for all borrowers in a way that is simple and intuitive.
At the same time, this bill eliminates the forgiveness
provisions of the current program while still offering strong
protections to borrowers with low post-graduate earnings.
The current program is sadly flipped on its head. The
bureaucracy prevents most students from taking advantage of
protections they need while the forgiveness rewards those with
the largest debts.
We need the opposite--a streamlined system that protects
all borrowers from default, while being fair, budgetarily
sustainable, and rewarding prudent borrowing. I am really just
hoping that you might comment on any of these observations.
Secretary Duncan. There is a lot there. So I can't say I
can comment on every issue. I would say quickly--
Mr. Petri. Very quickly--
Secretary Duncan. I think we all share your concern with
high levels of debt and high default rates. And we all need to
work together to reduce those.
So a couple of quick things, and love to have a further
conversation with you and your staff on your proposal, don't
know all the details there. We are trying to do a lot to
increase transparency, just getting young people and their
families basic information, what is a grant, what is a loan.
This process can be overwhelming to people and trying to
help them understand that. We also know there are some
fantastic for-profit universities. They are doing a great job.
We know others that are taking advantage of disadvantaged
folks. And for-profit colleges represent about 13 percent of
the total higher ed population but 46 percent of loan defaults.
So clearly, there is an imbalance there where people end up
in a worse position where they started. And we need to look at
that seriously. The President has challenged us to look and
think about a college rating system, where we are looking at
access, we are looking at affordability, we are looking at
completion rates, trying to, you know, get some sense of value
there.
And again, just getting more information out to people will
be very important. The IBR, income-based repayment, pay as you
earn, happy to talk about that more but giving incentives for
people to go into the public sector to take on critically
important work that we need them to do in classrooms, in legal
aid clinics, in medical clinics. We feel good about that.
We think that is a good thing. And then finally, just
clearly, a hugely important federal role, but this is about
shared responsibility. So states have to increase their
investment to higher education.
Many states cut during the tough economic time. And when
states cut their funding, universities jack up their tuition.
But, also, our universities have to do a better job of
containing costs and using technology in very different ways
and focusing not just on access but around completion as well.
So we have an important role to play. Again, this should be
a topic that we should work in a very bipartisan way on. But we
also have to challenge other players to come to the table and
work with us to do the right thing.
Chairman Kline. Mr. Holt?
Mr. Holt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary. A few comments before I get to
questions. First of all, I noticed it was said earlier that
your commitment, Mr. Secretary, to Preschool for All is a pet
project.
I don't think this is a frivolous pet project. And that
should not go unanswered. And as for waivers, I know you are
attacked often for waivers.
If the leadership of this committee and this House would
actually get to work and get the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act up to date and working, there would be less need
for waivers, I am sure. I want to commend you for the funding
for the state longitudinal data systems.
That is critically important for understanding students'
progress. And finally, I wanted to make a comment and invite
you to respond, if you want to. It is not actually a question.
I want to call attention to the TEACH Grants, as one of the
authors of the TEACH Grants and someone who is very interested
in the 34,000 students who are taking advantage of those grants
to go into math and science and other important subjects as
teachers, I think, this needs to be enhanced. That is barely--
well, it is not sufficient.
A couple of questions. Recent--or last year, in fact, the
deputy assistant secretary for international programs, the
office of international and foreign languages, stepped down,
has not been replaced, I think has not even been named--the
replacement has not been named. Given that one of your
objectives is increasing global competency, and you can define
that or I could, I suppose, how--what are you going to do to
address the continuing lack of support for language learning,
global competency in K through 12, problems in higher education
with anemic funding for Title VI and the Department of State's
Fulbright-Hays. A second question I would like to bring up and
then I will turn it over to you, has to do with your comments
about Nobel economist James Heckman's findings that the highest
return on investment is in the first 3 years of education.
I am a co-sponsor, as are many of us here, of
Representative Miller's Stronger Start for America's Children.
Disparities in child outcomes are evident at 9 months. They are
large by 24 months.
You know, I understand that early Head Start is
administered by the Department of Health and Human Services.
But can you provide a picture of how under the President's
proposal and George Miller's Stronger Start for America's
Children's Act and HHS and DOE, Department of Education, would
work with the states to expand early learning opportunities?
In particular, is the 15 percent infant-toddler set aside
sufficient? And if there is time, I have other questions, but
thank you.
Secretary Duncan. I think I have four or five. I will try
and go through them really quick. As everyone here knows, the
waiver plan was always plan b. Plan A was always bipartisan
reauthorization of the ESEA.
I just want to keep coming back to that bipartisan theme. I
am not interested in Democrat-only bills. I am not interested
in Republican bills. That is not how the world works.
I am very interested in your charter bill, because that
seems to have significant bipartisan support. There is a kernel
of something there that I think is really worthy of attention.
So we continue to ready, willing, able, today, tomorrow,
next week, to work in a bipartisan way to fix the law. That is
first. Second, TEACH Grants are very important. We want to make
sure they are going to individuals, but also to institutions
that are truly preparing future teachers for the rigor of that
very important, very complex job so you know some teacher prep
institutions, schools, do a pretty good job.
Many, frankly, don't. And far too many young teachers feel
they are unprepared to enter the classroom. That is not good
enough, and we want to challenge that status quo.
In terms of international competitiveness, foreign
languages, we want to do more there. Happy to talk with you
about it. Met with my counterpart from Japan yesterday, talked
about trying to significantly increase the number of exchange
students going both ways. And I am just a big fan, obviously--
multiple benefits that you understand so well.
And finally, just to be clear, we have worked in absolute
partnership with HHS from day 1. All of this work on the early
childhood space has to be a seamless continuum of opportunity
from birth through age 5, entering kindergarten, early home
visiting, strengthening families, early Head Start, Head Start,
going to pre-K.
HHS team has been fantastic partners, met with them
actually again yesterday. And so we are linked at the hip. They
are not being redundant, not being duplicative, but trying to
make sure that young people have opportunities to enter
kindergarten not a year to a year-and-a-half behind.
Mr. Holt. Well, since you didn't really answer the specific
questions I had on those programs, I hope you will provide that
in writing as soon as possible, please. But--
Secretary Duncan. Happy to do that.
Mr. Holt.--thank you very much.
Chairman Kline. The gentleman's time has expired.
Ms. Foxx?
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Duncan, for being here. I remain concerned
about current state authorization regulation and draft
regulations coming out of the negotiated rulemaking session.
It is one thing to say states must authorize institutions
that operate within their states. It is an entirely another
thing to dictate precisely how those states are to do it. And
then, if you don't agree with it, punish the students for
attending the institutions within the state.
Aren't you using the federal regulatory process to push
states into regulating institutions according to a federal idea
rather than what may work for students in the institutions
within the state?
Secretary Duncan. I am happy to continue that conversation
with you further. Again, we just want to make sure that young
people are being well-served.
Ms. Foxx. I would also reiterate what the Chairman said at
the beginning. We would like some answers to some of the
questions that we send you in a more timely fashion.
So I look forward to getting more information--
Secretary Duncan. I commit to you on that. And I apologize
for that.
Ms. Foxx. Last year, the President announced the
development of a new college rating system that would compare
colleges with similar missions, and will be based on access,
affordability, and outcomes. I appreciate you have taken steps
to gain some feedback from the community on this proposal.
I speak to a lot of students and families about their
college search and actually spent some time during the Easter
break visiting campuses with my grandson, who is a junior in
high school this year. And so I am seeing this from a very
personal level.
So in my experience, every family looks at different
options. Why do you assume the federal government can rank
colleges and thereby, presume to know what is best for millions
of students and their families as they research their
postsecondary options?
Secretary Duncan. No, I don't--we don't presume to know
anything. It is--I think you know that we have gone into this
with a great sense of humility and really trying to listen and
talk to folks, have had multiple forums with folks around the
nation.
But it is interesting, your state is not dissimilar to
very, you know, probably every other state. You have
institutions of higher education that have like a 95 percent
graduation rate.
You have others that have a 12 percent graduation rate so
95 percent to 12 percent. And we, at the federal level, thanks
to your support, we put out about $150 billion in grants and
loans to institutions of higher education each year.
And that $150 billion is all based upon inputs. None of it
is based upon outcomes. And again, I think this is an area that
should be a huge interest to our Republican friends of trying
to have some accountability there and our graduation rates
going up or down.
Are people taking their mission seriously, not just on the
access side but on the completion side? That is a massive
taxpayer investment each year. And we want to make sure that
taxpayer investment is being used wisely.
Ms. Foxx. We had, many, many hearings on the Higher
Education Act as well as all the legislation that we have put
forth in this committee. And one of the things that we hear
over and over and over again is that the department collects
mounds and mounds of data.
But from that, we get very little--
Secretary Duncan. Yes.
Ms. Foxx.--information. So rather than the department
setting up rating systems--there are lots of ratings systems
out there done by the private sector--why don't you just make
information public? Why don't you revise the way you collect
data and then, make that available to the public?
We like transparency. We don't think we are getting a lot
of transparency from the department. So why not just put out
useful information and let the public make the decision about
how to rate the institutions?
Secretary Duncan. So we have done a tremendous amount to
increase transparency. I would agree with you, we have to
continue to do that. I think as you are going through with your
grandson, this could be an overwhelming process, and for
families who are first-generation college goers or new to the
country, navigating all of this--what is a grant, what is a
loan, not what is the 1-year cost, what is the 4-year cost,
what are graduation rates, what are the chances to get a good
job at the back end?
There is a huge amount of information we should have out
there. So we are going to do everything we can to increase
transparency. And please partner with us and please challenge
us to do a better job there.
At the end of the day, though, we think of that $150
billion annual investment over time, we would like to see more
of that money going to places that are serious about graduation
rates, that are serious about reducing their own costs, that
are serious about making sure young people actually prepare to
go into the world of work and get a good job, and away from
those places that don't take college completion seriously, that
just see--you know, that see a free paycheck coming from the
government every single year. So we think taking that next step
is important as well, in addition to transparency.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you.
Chairman Kline. Mr. Grijalva?
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today. I
appreciate very much, Mr. Secretary, the reminding all of us
that the issues that we are dealing with in education is indeed
a civil rights issue. It is an equity issue.
It is an opportunity issue. It is an economic issue. And
with that backdrop, let me ask two questions with regard to
equal access and opportunity. How will the President's new
proposal on early childhood affect existing state and local
early childhood programs such as pre-K or child care programs,
and in particular, Head Start, which is under the Ryan budget,
taking a crippling, destructive $750 million hit.
How is this initiative overlay with those?
Secretary Duncan. So our goal is very simple on the early
childhood space. We simply want to remove children from waiting
lists at the state level.
And as I travel state to state to state, despite the, you
know, 30 governors who are investing, which we feel very good
about, you see 6,000, 8,000, 13,000, 15,000 kids routinely on
waiting lists. So our goal would be to keep kids going to
existing programs.
But for those hard-working children and families who are
trying to do something better for the kids before they start
kindergarten, giving them that chance in a very concrete way,
that is what this money would go for. And I want to be clear,
you can't do this on the cheap.
You are paying for teachers. You are paying for classrooms.
You are paying for materials that don't exist today. So anyone
who says they are for early childhood education but not willing
to invest more money, they are not walking the walk.
They are not living their values.
Mr. Grijalva. And elementary and secondary education, the
2013 GAO report outlined the failure of far too many charter
schools to report critical data, particularly with regard to
students with disabilities, English language learners, and poor
kids in general. In the current budget climate, Title I is at
pre-sequestration levels, is below pre-sequestration levels in
this budget.
What assurances can you tell us about that the $248 million
proposed for charter schools will go to institutions that
provide equal access to--
Secretary Duncan. Yes.
Mr. Grijalva.--distinct population, English learners,
students with disabilities, poor kids, compared to what
traditional public schools are being required to do at this
point?
Secretary Duncan. Happy to follow up on the details of your
question. But simply put, we only want our money to go to
replicating high-performing charter schools. There is often a
debate charter versus traditional.
I just think it is the wrong debate. It is a false debate.
We just need more high-performance schools, traditional
charter, whatever they might be.
High-performing schools are a part of the solution, low-
performing schools are a part of the problem. So we want to be
expand, to be very clear, those charters that are getting great
results but are working with, to your point, their proportional
share of poor children, English language learners, special
needs kids, homeless kids. so many charters are set up. That is
their mission, was to serve kids that have not had all the
advantages and haven't had great opportunities traditionally,
and again, hold us accountable to make sure we are doing that
correctly.
Mr. Grijalva. Appreciate that. And just, we talked about
the Ryan budget is about prioritization. So if it goes to IDEA,
that is a priority, that this Congress would--by definition,
the Ryan budget means that severe cuts will be in other areas
on top of the cuts that are already part of the Ryan budget. If
indeed, prioritization for IDEA, and meeting our mandated 40
percent is part of the issue, that will require extra
resources.
And we shouldn't be afraid to talk about extra resources as
opposed to robbing Peter to pay Paul in this particular
instance.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kline. Gentleman yields back.
Dr. Roe?
Mr. Roe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I know that our
Chairman is one of the most supportive people of the
disabilities--ever since I have known him, the 5-1/2 years I
have been here, he has been incredibly supportive.
Mr. Secretary, I think probably the biggest challenge we
have in education in the country is to narrow the achievement
gap. And I had spent a lot of time since you were here last, I
have read a number of books and research.
And one of them I have read and everybody in this room
should read, ``I Got Schooled'' and I know you have met with
the author of this book. And we find out that the achievement
gap, our schools, really, in a lot of places, are doing a
fantastic job.
In many places, they are doing a very poor job. And so we
don't have to reinvent the wheel. We know what to do and what
works and what doesn't work. And we know we need effective
teachers.
We know we need leadership in the classroom. We know we
need data to find out if what we are doing is actually working.
We need probably smaller schools.
That is a bigger one, because that is a very expensive
thing and then more time in the schools. So we start--I want to
start with just your--early education.
If you look at a child that is--lives in a poverty area,
they hear 30 million less words by the time they get to
kindergarten than a child in a higher income does--30 million
less words. The problem with it is if we go through pre-k and
don't continue these other metrics I have talked about, you
lose all of that.
Vanderbilt just published a study, not a year ago, that
showed that very thing, that those gains are lost by the end of
the first grade, I think it is. One of the things I would ask
you to do is to certainly look at HHS, the Head Start program,
which works in some places and doesn't work in other places.
Find out what works there.
And if you are thinking about increasing this and certainly
governors around the state are, combine those programs instead
of here committing to another gigantic program. Let's look at
what we have got, the money--because our resources, as the
Chairman pointed out, are limited.
Definitely, we would want to do that. And just so that
everyone in this room understands and how well some schools are
doing, if you take schools that have 10 percent or less
poverty, and that is 75 percent or more free and reduced lunch.
We have the highest PISA scores in the world. So it is
pockets that we have to go to and focus on. And are we doing
that? Or are we just taking a gigantic shotgun and shooting at
the whole country?
Secretary Duncan. No, I think you have really studied this
issue. And I appreciate your sincere commitment to thinking it
through. So I agree with many of the points you made.
Just to challenge you on two. We absolutely have to look at
Head Start and look at everything. But to be clear, we can't
get to where we need to go simply with existing dollars.
And we want to go from about 1.1 million children with
access to prekindergarten to 2.2 million. So simple
reallocation doesn't help you to do that. Second, just to
challenge a little bit the assumption that all of these gains
disappear, what Dr. Heckman talks about--again, it would be
great to have him come and testify and you can ask him lots of
questions.
He came to this with a great deal of skepticism, frankly.
What he saw is not over a year, but over three, four, now going
on five decades' massive return on investment--
Mr. Roe. No, I agree with that, Mr. Secretary. One of the
things that also is lost, it is not in your budget here, is in
the summertime--I don't know whether any summer programs or not
but low-income children lose almost 3 months, 2.8 months of
gains in reading during the summer.
Your children, my children, they don't. We are going to
have them at the library. We are going to have them doing all
kinds of things. So that is fairly simple thing that would
negate those losses.
And if you lose 2.8 months in 3 or 4 years, you are a year
behind no matter how good you do.
Secretary Duncan. No, so again, couldn't agree more. Not a
lot in our budget Title I resources for poor kids can
absolutely be used in that way. More schools are thinking about
year round.
Maybe of the successful charter schools are just working
longer hours. So we love that kind of innovation. And one place
we don't need another study is around summer reading loss.
Mr. Roe. Yes.
Secretary Duncan. You hit the nail on the head. And we just
need to stop--we need to end that cycle.
Mr. Roe. I agree. Well, let me go quickly to this, because
my time is limited. One thing that affects my district
specifically is the Impact Aid payment for federal poverty
programs. You eliminate that. And what that does--
Secretary Duncan. Sorry, I can't hear you. Say again.
Mr. Roe. I am sorry, it is the Impact Aid payments for
federal property programs, in other words, in lieu of taxes.
Secretary Duncan. Yes.
Mr. Roe. I have a county that has 55 percent or 60 percent
of that county is owned by the federal government. I grew up in
a county where Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was and took the best
farmland and best agriculture land we had.
Those schools are hit severely with this. One of my
schools, it is $188,000. That is not a lot of money for here.
But it is a small, rural county.
Secretary Duncan. Yes.
Mr. Roe. We have to--you cannot do that. This puts them at
a great disadvantage in rural America. There are 250-something
school systems that this affects.
Secretary Duncan. So don't know the details of that
specific situation, but happy to follow up with you and find
out--
Mr. Roe. Okay, and one other thing I want to ask you that--
can you tell us what the graduation rate is for Pell Grants?
And I want to finish by saying our state--I want to brag on
Tennessee--our governor just produced a program, was passed by
the legislature, to provide free community college and
technical college for everyone in our state.
Secretary Duncan. Yes.
Chairman Kline. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Courtney?
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, the last time we spoke was one of the few
brief shining moments of the 113th Congress where one of the 88
bills that has been enacted was about to be signed by the
President last August. I was with Mr. Kline for the legislation
that protected the Stafford loan program from going to 6.8
percent.
And as you know, it is at 3.8 percent for this academic
year.
Secretary Duncan. That was a shining moment of bipartisan
work.
Mr. Courtney. It was. And the President at the time--and
there was a lot of head-nodding going on, was saying that our
work is not finished. And that is why, when I look at the Ryan
budget, in terms of its impact on higher ed programs, I mean,
it just takes your breath away--$260 billion in cuts to Pell,
$145 billion, $41 billion on Stafford, which I will talk about
in a second, wipes out the income-based repayment program, and
incredibly gets rid of the American opportunity tax credit,
which allows middle-class families to get a tax credit to pay
for college.
About 11 million families lost $1,100 under the Ryan
budget. I always thought Republicans were for cutting taxes.
But you know, nothing seems to surprise me, I guess, in terms
of the way their priorities play out.
But on the Stafford program, which, again, everybody was
kind of patting themselves on the back for the fact that we
protected the rate increase from going into effect--effective
last July 1, what their measure does is it eliminates the in-
school interest protection, which is there for subsidized
Stafford loan students.
That is about seven million students who, again, don't have
interest accumulate while they are actually in college. The
estimate from the CBO is that it adds about 3,000 to the
interest level of students at time of graduation, who use
Stafford.
So the $1 trillion price tag of student loan debt, which
is, you know, stifling our economy, hindering people's
advancement, they just added another 41 billion. And this is a
program which, by the way, doesn't cost the taxpayers money.
Stafford is an interest-bearing program that the federal
government actually nets out with a positive cash flow
according to CBO. So they basically raised revenue through this
measure of in-school interests by eliminating that protection
for students.
And again, I think the record has to be crystal clear here.
They are taking us backwards in terms of the issue of higher
education affordability. Now, your budget came out with a
number of proposals, which again, addressed the other side of
this, which I hear about all the time at home, which is, you
know, when are we going to do something about rising tuition
costs?
Well, again, eliminating this help for students doesn't do
a thing as far as that is concerned. But again, your proposal
is to try and change incentives to colleges so that
affordability is going to be one of the criteria that they have
to demonstrate.
And I was wondering if you could talk about that a little
bit this morning.
Secretary Duncan. I just think again there is a lot of room
for honest debate and disagreement, discussion. I just--right
now, we are 12th in the world in college graduation rates. One
generation ago, we were first.
It is not that we have dropped. We have stagnated. We have
flat-lined, and 11 countries have passed us by. In a flat
economy, flat world, where jobs going toward where the most
educated workers are, I think we can all agree that being 12th
in the world is not a badge of honor.
It is not something we can be proud of. It is not
acceptable. And we have to figure out how we go from 12th in
the world to first as fast as we can. And anything that reduces
access to college, that makes it harder to go, more expensive,
takes us in the wrong direction.
So we have to get better faster. We have high school
graduation rates going up, which is huge. We have to make sure
those high school graduates are truly college and career ready.
And there is some very significant work going on around the
country there. But that has to translate to higher college
completion rates.
So let's find ways to work together to get there, but
reducing access, reducing affordability, making it more
expensive rather than less. I just think we are hurting our
country.
We are cutting off our noses to spite our face. And jobs
are going to go to countries that take this responsibility and
this opportunity more seriously than us.
And if we want to keep high-wage, high-skilled jobs here,
if we want to build the middle class, the only way to do that
is to increase access to some form of higher education.
Mr. Courtney. Great. And I think the rating system, which
again, is to help families and students make smart choices and
not end up into that default bucket that Mr. Petri had talked
about, I think, is a definitely a good path.
And for the record, Mr. Chairman, I just want you to know
that the president of the University of Connecticut, the Hungry
Huskies, has embraced the administration's plan and is willing
to go along with the rating system that the Department of
Education--
Chairman Kline. I thank the gentleman for not talking about
basketball.
Mr. Courtney. I yield back.
Chairman Kline. Mr. Walberg?
Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you for being here, Mr. Secretary. I would concur
with what my colleague from Tennessee indicated about the ideas
brought about in ``I Got Schooled.'' All of those ideas, as I
read, from an individual, certainly doesn't come from my
perspective on a lot of issues, but on education, made sense.
And all of that went more to the power of the local
district, the power of the local administrator, especially the
building principal, being able to do a mentoring process,
developing great teachers, and promoting great teachers, and
even suggesting to teachers who have certainly plenty of well
meaning, aspirations, yet aren't going to make it in the world
that we have right now to bring kids through the education
process. And that certainly says to me the top-down central
planning that goes on from Washington, from Congress, from the
Department of Education, yourself, and the responsibilities you
have, may not be the best direction.
And if we want to give, as you indicated already, about my
governor, making some significant statements and attempts and
strides at growing education in our state, dealing with early
education, having a no-wait plan in place, a K-20 process, all
sorts of good ideas that are being developed at the local and
state levels, where they actually know what is happening in the
schools, or at least have the ability to do that. We ought to
be encouraging it.
Mr. Secretary, the Chairman already asked you about what
appears to be the inconsistent application of waiver. You
indicated the waiver isn't your first plan. It is getting ESEA
passed. But nonetheless, that is where we are at right now.
I understand that Michigan is one of those states whose
waiver has been flagged as potentially problematic largely for
the same issue Washington faced. Michigan has enacted a teacher
evaluation law that gives school districts more flexibility and
incorporating student achievement into the evaluation than you
would prefer, as I understand that.
So are you planning to rescind Michigan's waiver?
Secretary Duncan. I don't know the details of that
situation. That hasn't come to me. I have great working
relationship with both of your governor and with your state
superintendent. So happy to continue to talk, but not one I
have been focused on recently.
And let me just--your first statement, I think you presumed
that we somehow disagree. I want to be clear there may be more
common ground than you realize.
Part of the reason I have been so angry about No Child Left
Behind is it was very, very loose on goals; so 50 different
goalposts, 50 different standards, but very tight, very
prescriptive from Washington in terms of how to meet those
goals. Now, I remember when I was running the Chicago public
schools, I had to beg our Department of Education to allow me
to try and tutor about 20,000 of my kids after school who
Washington was telling me I couldn't do it.
It was absolutely crazy. We won that argument. So what we
are trying to do, hopefully in a bipartisan way, in terms of
reauthorization at some point, I think the right tradeoff is to
be tight on goals, have a high bar, make sure all of our
students--Michigan, Mississippi, Massachusetts, it doesn't
matter--are actually graduating, and graduating college and
career-ready, not having to take remedial classes, will be much
looser, but less prescriptive and let locals--
Mr. Walberg. On how you make it--how you make it happen,
correct?
Secretary Duncan. What is that?
Mr. Walberg. On how you make it happen.
Secretary Duncan. On how you make it happen. So tight on
goals, loose on means, that is where I think No Child Left
Behind got fundamentally wrong, and in any kind of
reauthorization, those are the values that we think would be
absolutely essential.
Mr. Walberg. And I certainly think that is the direction
that our Chairman and this committee would like to go, in
making sure that we provide the opportunity for those local
school districts and our states to meet high goals, yes, but to
have a great deal of latitude. Yesterday, I was, met with a
class in the largest land space area of a school system in the
state of Michigan.
It is a rural school system, a lot of land space, smaller
in size of students. A week before, I met with the largest
school system in Michigan. And that wasn't Detroit.
That was Saline school system, doing a great job, but a
large population that have to deal with there. And so we have a
great amount of variety. And for a top-down management system
to work in this nation, move us back to a setting where we are
number one in college graduations as opposed to number 12 and
the like, is something we ought to be moving toward.
Let me ask one final question here. You have listened to
higher ed institutions give you some feedback on the rating
system that is being proposed. What have you heard?
Secretary Duncan. Heard lots of things. And I will be very
clear. This is very difficult intellectually. This is complex.
I am very aware that some of the disincentives, the preferred
incentives, there were in No Child Left Behind.
Last thing we want to do is replicate those in the higher
ed space. So you want to make sure that universities that are
working with a more challenging population aren't compared to
Harvard or Yale or Stanford or whatever. That makes a lot of
sense.
You want to make sure you are maximizing choice and
transparency. You want to make sure that young people who want
to go into teaching, orgoing to the Peace Corps, or work in a
nonprofit. Somehow, if you are looking at earnings at the back
end not creating incentives that take individuals or hurt
universities for encouraging folks to do public service, you
know, to do good.
So those are the types of feedback that we have heard. And
there is trepidation on any kind of change. There is also some
significant support out there. But we are taking this very,
very seriously, and again going into it with a real sense of
humility. Last thing--
Chairman Kline. Gentleman's time has expired.
I am sorry, Mr. Secretary.
Ms. Fudge?
Ms. Fudge. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here. Certainly, I
do want to say before I ask my question, with all due respect
to our Chairman, the Ryan budget is not fiscally or morally
sound. It fails the test of even a budget.
If you can't determine where your revenue is really coming
from in any reasonable, real way, or where your cuts are coming
from, it is not a budget.
Mr. Secretary, I just want to talk to you a bit about Pell
Grants. We know that right now, Pell Grants are aiding more
than nine million low-income Americans in this country.
And in the President's budget, there is a provision that
would provide Pell Grant eligibility to students who are co-
enrolled in adult and post-secondary education as part of a
career path. I am working with some of my colleagues across the
aisle on a bipartisan bill which would expand eligibility for
the Pell Grant program to early college and dually enrolled
high school students.
What are your thoughts on that?
Secretary Duncan. First of all, I just want to appreciate
your leadership in so many issues that you and I have worked
together on. And you--I think you are passionate on these
education issues in extraordinarily thoughtful ways; want to
thank you for your leadership.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you.
Secretary Duncan. So we haven't talked enough about this
today. But all this dual enrollment, whether it is taking A.P.
classes, whether it is actually taking college classes on
universities, 2-year, 4-year, those are huge, huge programs. I
am a big, big fan.
And to be very clear, this is not just for the high fliers.
I actually think these are good dropout prevention programs.
Ms. Fudge. Yes.
Secretary Duncan. And students that might be on the margin,
start to take those classes and think maybe I can belong in a
college. Maybe I can be successful.
I went to an amazing early college that is actually located
on a college campus in El Paso, Texas, all low-income students,
virtually all immigrants, a ninth-grade biology class. These
ninth graders were getting college credit for that class.
Think about what that does in terms of not just
academically, but psychologically how empowering that is. So
how we create more opportunities, I am very interested in Pell
Grant being an interesting, you know, possibility there.
We would love to play and talk about some experimental
sites. But if we had more students--let me just be clear--high
school diploma, for me, is a starting point, not an ending
point.
If every high school student was graduating either with
college credits in their back pocket or industry certification,
then I would feel much better about where they are going to be
able to--what they are going to be able to do long-term. So
would love to partner with you to think this through.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, because what happens
now is that those high schools that we are so excited about
that have these programs are bearing the cost of this program,
or these kids are. And it really is, I think, unfair if we are
going to promote them, to not assist them so--
Secretary Duncan. Yes.
Ms. Fudge.--we will continue to talk about it.
Secretary Duncan. In some places--I don't know who is here
from Iowa, but Iowa has about like 25 percent of their high
school students taking college-level classes. They have worked
out at the state level some pretty interesting partnerships
where the K to 12 is not bearing all the costs.
Ms. Fudge. Right. Thank you. Secondly, I have heard you
mentioned all of our students a number of times today in your
testimony. And I am greatly concerned with the rising number of
competitive grant programs coming out of the Department of
Education.
How do you plan on ensuring equal funding and opportunity
for all students and not just the limited number of students in
school districts that have the infrastructure in place to write
good grants?
Secretary Duncan. So again, just to be clear, there is not
a rising number--the percent of our budget, roughly 88, 89
percent of our budget is formula-based and 10, 11, 12 percent
of our budget is competitive funding. So that has been pretty
consistent.
So there hasn't been a big swing there. And--
Ms. Fudge. But it is a swing since you came in, where there
are more competitive grants now than there were prior to this
administration.
Secretary Duncan. Yes, and we feel proud about that. But
that is a long--
Ms. Fudge. Now, that is the point I am making.
Secretary Duncan. Just year-to-year budget has been about
the same percent. Two quick answers, and again further
conversations, one is we have tried to make sure that as we do
these type of competitions that we have a very diverse slate.
And there are lots of concerns that rural communities somehow
couldn't compete.
And we have--I think we have improved, frankly, and rural
communities are absolutely getting their fair share. And so we
are looking not for the fancy PowerPoint for people that have a
real sincere commitment.
And we could go sort of grant program by grant program, and
show you who the recipients have been. And we think it has been
pretty representative. And we always go where the greatest need
is.
So we are not going to high fliers. We are going to the
most disadvantaged communities, promise neighborhoods, you
know, other things like that. The other thing that is so
important is that when we have done these types of things, we
have seen very significant changes in behavior.
So it is not just those receiving the money that benefit.
But we are seeing other districts start to move in more
profound ways. So, promise neighborhood is a prime example.
There are dozens and dozens of great applicants I wish we
could fund, but we just don't have the dollars available. But
many of those communities have come together, have a blueprint
now, have a vision, and are working together with or without
our money.
Now, I wish we could fund them. But there have been lots of
residual benefits from putting these kinds of programs in
place.
Ms. Fudge. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Kline. Thank the gentlelady.
Mr. Guthrie?
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. I just want to point out, the
budget review and today, I know was just said that the Ryan
budget is not moral and fiscal, but I would just overall
comment on the budget we are reviewing today. It does raise
taxes.
It does close loopholes. And still adds trillions of
dollars for the debt to our--the very kids we are talking about
today will be paying this back for generations. So I just want
to--you know, as we are going to just be honest about it.
The waivers and I actually--you read through the bill, you
do have broad discretion on waivers. And the application of
that--and I was hoping when I first got on this committee, we
would reauthorize and change No Child Left Behind, because that
was a well-intentioned bill that has a lot of issues that need
to be fixed.
You know, one or two ways, comment or let's let the
Congressional leadership do it. Well, we have passed a bill to
the Senate. And I wouldn't expect the Senate to pass our bill.
They can. But that is the process for them to send the bill
back and let's conference on it. We are doing it on the
Workforce Investment Act, which a vote went out of here.
I think it got--I think it was a partisan vote. And we are
hopefully close to having a final bill through the Senate. So
it is not impossible to do. Just has to have the will to do it.
So it comes--so our leadership has taken a stance on fixing No
Child Left Behind.
Secretary Duncan. It is not impossible. I just think it is
not the most strategic or the most successful way of doing it.
Mr. Guthrie. To do a bill--let the Senate amend our bill in
conference?
Secretary Duncan. No, no, to do it in a partisan way.
Mr. Guthrie. No, it is not. But I am saying that the bill
is in the Senate, that has happened. And it has happened with
the Workforce Investment Act. The other way you do it is the
President grab the attention of the country, which George Bush
did.
And now, we are all pointing out the flaws of the bill, but
was able to do a bipartisan--it was a very bipartisan bill that
passed. And the thing with the waivers, I think, and is my
issue with it, because I think there is some broad discretion
there, I sure agree with everyone.
But I think there is broad discretion. You can argue is
that--it just takes the pressure off the Senate to fix
anything. And if there is an issue that is before us, and we
need to fix it, we know, and you can waive, and the Senate can
say, well, we don't like this bill.
But we are getting what we want by waivers, then why would
they ever come to the table to negotiate? And that is the
problem I have with the waiver system.
Secretary Duncan. So again, I just fundamentally disagree
with that. You should absolutely be feeling the pressure every
single day, because I am feeling the pressure every single day.
Mr. Guthrie. Well, this--
Secretary Duncan. Waivers are a poor, second choice to
fixing it. And for us to do nothing would have been
educationally and morally irresponsible. You look at what
states have done in the waiver process, moving away from a
focus on a single test score, looking at high school graduation
rates, looking at reducing dropout rates, looking at college-
going rates, looking at college-going, not needing remedial
classes.
Many states have brought in hundreds of thousands of kids
who were invisible under No Child Left Behind. This gets a
little technical, because--and sizes were so high, they were
not part of any accountability system.
And states are stepping up and saying, we want to better
serve poor children and homeless children--
Mr. Guthrie. Well, I am not disagreeing with what they are
doing. I am saying that the pressure on the Senate to act seems
to not be there for whatever reason it seems to not be there.
Secretary Duncan. I fundamentally and absolutely disagree
with that. You should feel huge pressure--
Mr. Guthrie. Well, we did. And when there is a bill sitting
in the Senate so they can act on--
Secretary Duncan. This bill is continually 6 years overdue
for reauthorization.
Mr. Guthrie. But there is a bill in the Senate.
Secretary Duncan. So let's--okay, let's not all point
fingers.
Mr. Guthrie. Oh no, I am just saying, that is--
Secretary Duncan. Hold me accountable, I am happy to help
in any way that would be constructive to moving forward in a
bipartisan way.
Mr. Guthrie. And I am willing to do so as well. The one
question I do have on the blueprint for career and technical
education--
Secretary Duncan. Yes?
Mr. Guthrie. I have had some of my--Carl Perkins is from
Kentucky. So it is a really used program there. The concern
going from a state formula to a state competitive grant, and
you are trying to focus on consortia between secondary and
post-secondary, which I absolutely agree with, because you
know, getting out of secondary with just these skills and not
going to post-secondary is not the best way to--so you are
trying to incentivize that, which is absolutely right. But the
concern that my--some of my more rural and smaller--if it is in
my town of Bowling Green, Kentucky, it is easy for our schools
and Western Kentucky to have a consortia.
Secretary Duncan. Yes.
Mr. Guthrie. We have a swath of land. Geographically, they
are just not covered by some of our higher ed institutions. And
there is some concern so I will just answer the concern of
rural smaller schools that may not be able to form a consortia,
or not be closer or--how will they be able to prosper under
this situation?
Secretary Duncan. Yes, so happy to work it through, and all
we are trying to do is getting cut through silos that have--
Mr. Guthrie. I agree with that.
Secretary Duncan.--high schools talking to community
colleges, to have both talking to the private sector and just
making sure we are preparing students for real jobs that exist,
not the jobs of 30 years ago. So anything we can do better in
that blueprint, you will get 2 years out of date now.
So we are happy to update. So give us your best thoughts--
Mr. Guthrie. Yes, there is--that if it goes in a
competitive nature, it is going to go to more cities and bigger
cities, and programs. And they are concerned about that.
Secretary Duncan. So just to be very clear on that one,
what we have done in other things, we have done in absolute
priority or separate slate. And again, we can go through sort
of, you know, our i3 stuff, other things we have done where we
have had very significant rural population.
So that part then being left to decide, I am less worried
about that. But the consortia idea is one I would like to
continue to think through.
Mr. Guthrie. And I agree with that. That is just a way to
get there. We need to work--I look forward to working with you
on that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Kline. Thank the gentleman.
Mr. Polis.
Mr. Polis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for joining us today to discuss
the Department of Education's priorities. I want to thank you
under your leadership, we truly are witnessing the
transformational power of an innovative and disruptive federal
role in our schools.
Your signature program Race to the Top for which I
introduced the standalone bill earlier this year, has spurred
and continues to spur a wave of policy changes that help states
raise the bar for students and teachers, promotes innovation
and accountability for school districts, for school leaders,
and for educators. Thanks to Race to the Top, states and school
districts, including my own home state of Colorado have built
systems to evaluate and support teachers and principals, invest
in our youngest learners by expanding high-quality preschool,
and turning around our nation's persistently failing schools.
Your administration has shown strength and courage despite
this body's inability to act to reauthorize a long overdue and
antiquated No Child Left Behind law. Many of your budget
requests will bring us closer, but only a full reauthorization
of NCLB will truly move the needle.
I was also encouraged to hear your complimentary words
about this committee's work on the charter school
reauthorization. We hope that we will have the opportunity to
pass that bill on the floor of the house. It truly is a
bipartisan approach that improves the quality of the limited
federal resources that are available to go to charter school
start-ups.
And I hope that you convey your support for these efforts
to the Senate. We believe this bill is a realistic way to focus
on what we agree on rather than what we disagree on. And I look
forward to working with you and the administration to move
forward on the full overhaul of NCLB or whatever, if we can
find to agree on.
A few months ago, I led a bipartisan letter with 25 of my
colleagues in support of the administration's ConnectED
initiative, which you mentioned in your remarks, which aims to
connect 99 percent of schools with broadband in 5 years. How
will the administration's ConnectEDucators initiative give
teachers the tools and resources to take advantage of the
bandwidth?
Secretary Duncan. Okay, just quickly, it is fascinating--
fascinating to me that education always moves so slow. So
technology has changed how all of you guys do business.
It has changed how you guys interact socially. It has led
to democratic revolutions around the globe. And technology has
changed education like 2 percent. It is on the margins.
And when I look at what other countries are doing for their
children, I worry for our kids. When I see South Korea being at
100 percent access and our schools at 20 percent high-speed
broadband; our kids are at a competitive disadvantage.
I don't understand that. So what we are looking to do is to
dramatically increase access to high-speed broadband, which I
think can drive both equity and whether it is inner city
communities or rural or remote communities, or native American
reservations, having access to AP classes and foreign language,
we think is really important. And it can drive excellence.
Students can move much faster, move ahead. So we just think
there is a huge play here. We need to increase schools'
capacity there. But then we have to train teachers as well so
the budget request there, $200 million, is to give teachers the
skills they need to customize learning, to individualize it.
Teachers can support each other not in their buildings but
across the country and across the globe in new ways. And so we
think this can have a transformative impact over time.
We want to make sure teachers have the skills to be fully
equipped to take advantage.
Mr. Polis. I also want to follow up on one of my colleague,
Ms. Fudge's questions. She talked about the grant base
programs. In addition to allowing the administration to have
the highest and best possible impact on student learning with
limited resources by directing them through grants, including
many of your signature initiatives, Race to the Top, Investing
in Education, SEED, expansive replication for charter schools,
how do these grants help raise the bar across the country for
policy changes and develop a base of best practices that
everybody could benefit from?
Secretary Duncan. So it has been interesting that in--for
all the, you know, noise or whatever, every single time we do a
grant competition, we have way more great, great applicants
than we have dollars available. So clearly, there is an unmet
need there.
And at the end of the day, while the money is significant,
it is really not about the money. It is really about unleashing
innovation. And we have played at the state level.
We have played at the district level. We have played at the
community level with promised neighborhoods. So you are trying
to impact all of them. As I said before, you have seen a level
of courage.
You have seen a level of creativity. You have seen a level
of collaboration and innovation that simply didn't exist before
those opportunities were created.
So I just want to, you know, thank you, again, for your
courage, your leadership. You have lived this work in a way
that many of your colleagues frankly haven't.
I think you understand both our strengths. But I think you
share our sense of urgency of how far as a nation how far we
have to go. We have to get better faster.
We have to do it in a time of scarce resources. And more of
the same, more of just the incremental change, isn't going to
get us where we need to go.
Mr. Polis. Thank you for your time. And in my home state of
Colorado, while we didn't win the first or second run of Race
to the Top, we are winners because of the policy changes,
including educator evaluation and high standards that, in part,
were in response to Race to the Top.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Kline. Gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Gowdy?
Mr. Gowdy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I want to congratulate you on your MVP
award, NBA celebrity all-star game. I thought your assisted
turnover ratio could have been a little bit better but--
Secretary Duncan. I will work on that one.
Mr. Gowdy.--you were in the arena and the rest of us were
not. And when I listen to criticism of our colleague, Paul
Ryan, I can't help but think, Mr. Secretary, his budget, his
budget passed.
The President's budget, which by the way, none of my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, had the courage to
introduce, it had to be done by a Republican, got zero votes
last year and two votes this year. So when we want to talk
about moral courage and we want to bang on Paul Ryan while he
is not here, keep in mind, your boss's budget got a whopping
two votes in the last two times it was offered.
So let me ask you this. Do you think government can engage
in intentional racial discrimination to further a compelling
governmental interest?
Secretary Duncan. I am not quite sure I understand the
question.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, this letter that you wrote with respect to
school discipline talks about important state goals. I want to
ratchet it up from an important state goal to a compelling
state goal. Can government intentionally discriminate, de jure
discrimination to further a compelling governmental interest?
Secretary Duncan. Again, I don't know the details your
question. What guidance are you referring to?
Mr. Gowdy. The letter with respect to discipline from
education and DOJ.
Secretary Duncan. So happy to talk about that. So I won't
answer your question directly. I don't know the details. But I
was--you learn something new everyday in this job and it is
part of the reason I love it.
But I was stunned when the civil rights data collection
process data came out, that as a nation, we were suspending
pre-school students and expelling them from school. I had no
idea.
It was mind-boggling to me that we would be kicking 3 and
4-year-olds out of school and not serving them. And when we--
Mr. Gowdy. Well, let me stop you right there because in a
former life, I was a prosecutor and it sounds great to say not
serving them. You also have kids in preschool and first grade
who are following the rules, which leads to the question of are
you serving them by putting them in an environment that is not
conducive with learning because of disruption.
Secretary Duncan. Yes, so--
Mr. Gowdy. And the question then becomes is Washington
better able to make that decision or the local school boards?
But your letter with--I say your letter--you didn't write it
but you and the attorney general had a press conference on it.
And what I am trying to get at is I don't know how you
would have voted on the affirmative action case last week in
Michigan. But there was a dissent that was lauded by some of my
friends on the other side of the aisle where government can
engage in intentional--not de facto--intentional racial
discrimination to further a compelling governmental interest.
My question is because you used the phrase ``important
governmental interest,'' which school safety and discipline
would be, but yet you are not looking at intentional
discrimination. You are focused on de facto discrimination if
they just have a disparate impact--
Secretary Duncan. So you are a prosecutor, I am not.
Mr. Gowdy. I am a former prosecutor.
Secretary Duncan. Former prosecutor. Just to go back to the
data around the preschool stuff, which I am familiar with, what
we found was that black students represented 18 percent of
preschool enrollment but 48 percent of the students suspended
more than once. So 18 percent of enrollment, almost half the
kids suspended more than once.
Mr. Gowdy. All right, well, Mr. Secretary, I am telling
you--
Secretary Duncan.--and let me finish. Let me finish.
Mr. Gowdy. All right, you--
Secretary Duncan. And in many places, you saw children
doing similar behaviors, similar--
Mr. Gowdy. That is what I want to get at because that is--
first statistic means nothing to me because 95 percent of the
people I prosecuted for child pornography were white. So that
is a disparate racial impact.
But I never stopped to think, well, gosh, I wonder if we
ought to reconsider our prosecution on child pornography. But
you use several examples in this letter. One of which was a
Hispanic student fighting with a non-Hispanic student.
One got a 2-day suspension, one got a 3-day. Who was the
primary aggressor? Who started the fight? And would that
matter? Would you give less time to the person who started the
fight?
Secretary Duncan. Of course, it would matter. But at the
end of the day, so you--I take that first statement which you
sort of blew--blow through--I take it very seriously, the fact
that 18 percent of children are receiving virtually half of the
out-of-school suspensions. And these children are 3 and 4 years
old.
I want to be very clear. That is deeply, deeply troubling
to me. And I am going to go to your other point.
Mr. Gowdy. Troubling from the standpoint that they are
engaging in conduct that would warrant being disciplined or
troubling from the standpoint that they are being kicked out of
school?
Secretary Duncan. Troubling that they are being, 3 and 4-
year-olds, are being kicked out of school. Where there is
disruptive behavior, you need to deal with it.
You need to deal with it aggressively.
Mr. Gowdy. Well, Mr. Secretary, how do you deal with it?
And who is best able to deal with it?
Secretary Duncan. Let me explain. So I worked in very
challenging communities all my life. I worked with kids coming
with huge challenges. And the easy thing to do would be to kick
them out of a program I ran and put them back on the streets.
And what we found was ways to work with them, to work with
their families, to get to the root of issues. If I had a child
who is acting up in my after-school program and they witnessed
horrific domestic violence last night at home, makes you think
differently about how you handle that child.
That is the kind of thoughtfulness that has been missing
and that we want to put that in place. I have been to high
schools that have had huge discipline problems.
And the adults have actually stepped back and created peer
juries and challenged students to own the behavior and to own
the expectations.
Mr. Gowdy. I get that.
Chairman Kline. The gentleman's time has expired.
Ms. Bonamici?
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today. I am
pleased to see that the President's budget invests in education
and begins to address some of the gaps and opportunities for
American students. And this is, as we have discussed, in stark
contrast to the Ryan budget with its cuts.
I am particularly concerned about Pell Grants and IDEA as I
have been visiting schools in the 25 school districts in my
Congressional district, I hear repeated concerns about the
Title I and IDEA funding. Before I ask a question, I just
wanted to make a couple of remarks in response to some of the
things we have discussed regarding the achievement gap.
I want to point out the importance of the 21st century
community learning funding and the importance of extended
learning opportunities. Some of these programs I visited have
shown a tremendous opportunity to help, especially kids at
risk.
And with regard to the student debt that was discussed
earlier, Portland Community College in Oregon is doing some
great work on financial literacy, getting financial plans in
effect with the student before the academic term. And they have
been able to cut the number of accounts assessed with late fees
by 70 percent and reduce the number of accounts sent to
collection by more than half just with that increase in
financial literacy.
So there is some great working being done out there.
So Mr. Secretary, my first question is about the
President's request for the 170 million for a new STEM
innovation initiative that would use competitive grants to
recruit educators and get more students ready for STEM careers.
And in the budget, it says scientists and engineers are
innovators.
And we must ensure that our nation's capacity to innovate
and compete is never limited by a shortage of talent in STEM
fields. And I couldn't agree with you more about innovation and
its importance.
I have had a lot of conversations with a lot of the tech
communities in my district and also with companies like Boeing,
Intel, Lockheed Martin, about the importance of developing a
workforce capable of thinking creatively and driving
innovation. So as the co-chair of the Congressional STEAM
caucus, it talks about the importance of integrating arts and
design into STEM curriculum to help students educate both
halves of their brain and ultimately produce innovation, can
you talk about whether the competitive awards under the STEM
innovation initiative will be available to schools and
educators that are pioneering the STEAM model, the Hillsborough
School District in Oregon, for example, which integrates arts
education into STEM.
Secretary Duncan. First of all, thank you so much for your
leadership. STEM, STEAM, I am for it all. We need to, again,
all these false battles, false dichotomies--we need to bring
this together.
And if you want to improve math results, try a little
music, you know--
Ms. Bonamici. Exactly.
Secretary Duncan.--yes, so you know all this stuff. So what
we want to do is we think there are far too many children who
have great aptitude and interest in the STEM fields and just
don't have access to great teachers and great courses. And we
lose that.
And we know so many of the jobs of the future, again, the
high-wage, high skilled jobs, hugely disproportionate number
are going to require some passion and expertise and love of the
STEM areas. So we are trying to do a couple of things.
We want to create a STEM master teacher core where great
STEM teachers can make some more money and mentor those younger
teachers so we don't lose them. We want to make sure we have
great STEM teachers, not just for AP, calculus and physics, but
in third, and fourth and fifth grade, when so many children
start to turn off because--
Ms. Bonamici. Right, Mr. Secretary, I appreciate the value
of the program. My question is will that funding be available
to STEAM schools as well.
Secretary Duncan. Again, I don't see a conflict between
STEAM and STEM. So--
Ms. Bonamici. Terrific.
Secretary Duncan. I would look at it.
Ms. Bonamici. Great.
Secretary Duncan. But at the top of my head--
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you.
Secretary Duncan. I have no reason to think they would not
be able to apply--
Ms. Bonamici. And--on a related note, I am concerned about
the consolidation of the arts and education program into the
well-rounded education program, especially since the budget
proposal requests only 25 million for the consolidated program,
which would supports arts, health education, foreign languages,
civics, government, history, geography, environmental
education, economics and financial literacy--all important.
Now, this request is actually less than last year's request and
represents the amount that arts in education had received
independently.
So I am very concerned, as we are looking for ways to make
sure we are educating the whole child about that change. So are
there other programs in the budget that could support students'
creativity?
Secretary Duncan. Just one quick. With the first, just to
be clear, what we are trying to do and all this stuff is hard,
is not have lots of one-out small programs and sort of be able
to better manage it. So that is the goal there.
But just one quick example, we have put a huge emphasis on
turning around chronically underperforming schools. And part of
the reason high school graduation rates are going up, because
dropout rates are going down. And we are trying to challenge
the status quo in pretty significant ways, one of the
strategies is still early but it looks very promising is we
have had a series of schools that have been turned around using
the arts-based curriculum.
So we are putting additional resources from a separate pot
from the school turnaround money behind that. And there are
eight schools around the nation. I have visited a couple of
them.
It is pretty amazing to see and so that is another place
where significant resources are going to enhance an arts
curriculum in disadvantaged communities that is showing some
pretty significant results.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. I see my time has expired.
I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kline. I thank the gentlelady.
Mr. Salmon?
Mr. Salmon. Thank you.
Secretary Duncan, as you know, the Department of Education
recently proposed a cut to financial aid to career-oriented
programs whose graduates have high debt-to-income ratios. The
court spoke on this and blocked the measure in 2012.
We recently convened a field hearing in Arizona where this
issue came up. I asked the question of two of our public
universities, President Michael Crow of ASU and the president
of the University of Arizona.
The president of NAU was not there but one of their
representatives was. I asked the question, if this rule were
proposed for for-profit universities, would you support the
same rule for not for profit universities, and public
universities, every one of them said yes.
They said all three said that if such a rule comes out,
that all should be held to the same standard. Secretary Duncan,
when you released the gainful employment regulation, you said
protecting students is at the core of the rule.
And if that is truly the case, have you examined how
nonprofit programs like expensive law degrees or culinary arts
degrees fare if the proposal is applied to everyone? If the
bill was introduced to apply such a regulation to all of higher
education, would you support it?
Why or why not?
Secretary Duncan. Well, just to be clear, we are trying to
get this part right now and happy to have that further
conversation as you come out to speak at Arizona State's
graduation a couple of weeks and looking forward to that.
President Crow is a remarkable, remarkable leader and--
Mr. Salmon. He is the best.
Secretary Duncan.--yes, he--pretty amazing what he has done
there. And honestly, many of the values, not just on the
gainful stuff but many of the values around the college rating
system are values that I have learned from him and others.
So let us try and get this part right first. But your basic
point about greater accountability, that is what the college
rating system is about. It is about trying to make sure again
that $150 billion in grants and loans of taxpayer money is
being used more wisely than it is today.
Mr. Salmon. So it should be applied across the board and
you would support legislation to apply it equally to all higher
education?
Secretary Duncan. Well, again, we are doing two different
things. I just want to be clear. We are working on the gainful
regs. And we are also trying to develop a college rating
system.
Mr. Salmon. Right. But what I am saying specifically is on
the idea of gainful employment. Wouldn't it stand--why should
the students that go to public universities, why are they any
less important? Shouldn't we put forth legislation--
Secretary Duncan. Yes, the question, again, we are not
there yet. And we are just trying to get these two complicated
pieces right first.
Mr. Salmon. No, I understand that. But wouldn't you agree
that--that all these students are equally important?
Secretary Duncan. Every student is important, yes, sir.
Mr. Salmon. Absolutely. Well, we may be introducing
legislation along the lines to make sure that public
universities would be under the same provisions you are
proposing on the gainful employment. I think that all students
ought to be equally protected.
Thank you.
Secretary Duncan. Happy to have that conversation.
Chairman Kline. Gentleman yields back.
Mr. Hinojosa?
Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Duncan, thank you for joining us this morning to
share President Obama's fiscal year 2015 budget for the U.S.
Department of Education. I applaud you for continuing to
support increased investments in education for all.
As you know, federal higher education like Europe and HEP/
CAMP and TRIO as well as Hispanic-serving institutions and
HBCUs and MSIs, which are vitally important to educating
students of color and preparing them for college. Since fiscal
year 2011, however, funding levels for these programs have
decreased due largely to sequestration.
I am concerned those cuts have never been fully restored.
Mr. Secretary, why are you recommending that Congress
invest in a host of new higher education programs instead of
increasing the funding levels for those that I enumerated?
Those programs are working for disadvantaged students.
Secretary Duncan. Yes, so obviously, we are big, big
supporters of TRIO and GEARUP and I want to personally thank
you for all your leadership in education. And you have worked
as hard on these issues as anybody.
And that means a lot to me personally. So--
Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you.
Secretary Duncan.--while we have to continue to increase
access, I have to say the President and I have become
extraordinarily concerned about the affordability of college.
And it is one thing to get students ready if they can't afford
to go where we have this mounting debt.
We worry about what that means to young people and
ultimately, to the country.
So we are strategically making a choice to try and invest
more not just on the access side in preparing students but in
making sure they can afford to get through college and not have
prohibitive costs, prevent them once they have gone through
strong programs from completing their dreams.
Mr. Hinojosa. I want to work with you on that. By 2018,
two-thirds of the nation's jobs will require at least some
postsecondary education, is what I have heard you say.
Fortunately, the nation is making progress.
For example, the graduation rate among Latino students has
increased more than 10 percentage points since the year 2006.
However, our progress is uneven.
And we must do more to improve high school graduation rates
and prepare those students for college and careers. Mr.
Secretary, I and several other colleagues here will soon be
introducing the Cap and Gown Act to help strengthen America's
high schools and support President Obama's high school redesign
efforts.
Can you tell us more about the President's vision for high
school redesign program?
Secretary Duncan. Sure. We simply want to make sure that
high schools are engaging students and are relevant. And I
worry that many students drop out of high school, not because
it is too hard but because it is too easy.
They are bored. And they don't know why they are coming to
school every single day. And as everyone here knows, the
economy has changed. If you drop out of high school today, you
are basically condemned to poverty and social failure.
And that wasn't true 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. So the
stakes have gotten much higher. So we talk about high school
redesign. I will tell you about one high school that I went to
a couple of months ago and the President is going to go give
the commencement there; it was Worcester Tech in Worcester,
Massachusetts.
A couple of years ago, it was a failing school, huge
issues, huge dropout rates. They now have done many, many
things to engage students in their own learning. So they have a
full-fledged veterinary clinic, where young people are taking
care of animals.
They have an auto body shop. They have a culinary program.
They have a fully functioning credit union, where students are
working there and getting paid to do that. And basically, the
school has become this amazing community asset.
And not surprisingly, dropout rates that were a huge issue
have almost disappeared. And graduation rates have soared. We
want to see more high schools thinking about how they link what
students are learning during the school day to the real world.
Those students at Worcester Tech and other similar
schools--they know why they are coming to school every day.
They are excited. They know the relevance. We want more schools
to learn from those examples.
Mr. Hinojosa. The Republican or the Ryan budget cuts Pell
Grants by 145 billion by eliminating all mandatory money and
reducing funding to the nondefense discretionary funding. The
experts believe that this would potentially cut millions of
such students from the programs, leaving them to borrow more in
loans, or they may just drop out of college.
How would this cut impact our ability to reach President
Obama's goal to lead the world in college attainment by 2020?
And how would these cuts impact students of color?
Secretary Duncan. Anything that reduces access to higher
education hurts young people, hurts families, hurts
communities, and hurts our country. Our goal together,
bipartisan, should be to lead the world in college graduation
rates again as soon as we can.
Mr. Hinojosa. Lastly, we have worked together to expand the
Pell Grant program and make student loans more affordable. But
college costs continue to increase as the states disinvest in
higher education.
How is the Department of Education creating incentives for
colleges to control costs?
Chairman Kline. Gentleman's time has expired. We will take
that for the record.
Mr. Rokita?
Mr. Rokita. I thank the Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for joining us again, several
questions to go through with you. In my role as a subcommittee
chairman here, I visited some tribal communities recently.
And a lot of the jurisdiction there belongs of course to
the Department of the Interior. But in terms of school
structures and some other things, I think there are some small
pieces that you, in fact, have.
One concern that I saw was that one tribe, in particular,
was afraid, quite literally to invest in new school buildings
and even T1 lines, you talk about technology and accessibility
for fear that the government would then come back and say, oh,
I see you got that done however you got it done, bonding or
whatever. And therefore, we don't need to do it.
And of course, promises have been made under the--a very
long time and promises need to be kept. Can you quickly comment
on that and would you join me in an effort to either write your
boss or write the Department of Interior to help solve this?
Secretary Duncan. Absolutely. And I am going to be very,
very clear that as we talk about inequities and disparities, no
one has been more poorly served than our native children. Any
measure of gaps--achievement gaps, opportunity gaps, the worst
of the worst in terms of outcomes are in the native
communities. So--
Mr. Rokita. I appreciate it. Could you help me solve this--
Secretary Duncan.--let me--so I will help on that one to be
clear, while the Department of Interior has much of this, I
want you to know I have put one of my top deputies there full-
time to try and help them figure out a better way to educate
children. So we are not--
Mr. Rokita. Thank you.
Secretary Duncan.--we are all working on this together.
Mr. Rokita. Thank you for that. That is not the same guy
that is supposed to be responding to our letters, is it?
Secretary Duncan. No comment.
Mr. Rokita. I used to run five agencies as well. I am
just--if I have time, I will get back to that.
Secretary Duncan. That was on me. That was on me. That is
my fault.
Mr. Rokita. No, no, and you know what, that is a strong
mark of character, quite frankly. I want to say that for the
record. I was in a meeting earlier this morning where an
apology could have been made and an apology wasn't given.
And I think goes to character, I think goes to leadership
and I appreciate you saying that. More specifically, I like
work with you to make sure that you say the responses will be
more timely.
I would like to know what that is, what you are going to do
to correct it, whatever situation you clearly have going on
inside your office so that we can have on both sides, a
reasonable expectation about what reasonable response means.
Secretary Duncan. Well, I will do very quickly just come
back to the Chairman and give him a time frame and he will not
be shy about holding me accountable to stick to the time.
Mr. Rokita. Okay, thank you. Moving onto Washington state,
noting that no one from that state is represented here on this
committee and, again, in my role as a subcommittee chairman, I
will--and the Chairman talked a little bit about this as well--
I am concerned about the waiver being revoked. I get it.
I understand accountability. You and I agree on that.
However, if evaluations of these teachers were performed, what
would the specific measurable outcome be? What should we expect
as federal policymakers from this?
Secretary Duncan. And again, we are trying to leave
tremendous discretion. Every other state so far has figured
this out.
So there is no one way to do this. And we are trying to
provide maximum flexibility. At the end of the day, what I
believe and what I think you believe is that the goal of
teaching is not to teach.
The goal of teaching is to have children learn. And a
piece--not the whole thing--but a piece of teacher evaluation
should be based upon student learning. That is the simple
request.
That is the commitment that Washington state gave. And
unfortunately, to date, they haven't fulfilled that. Again,
they can come back tomorrow and fulfill that.
But all we are saying is that we think teaching is hugely
important.
Mr. Rokita. Yes, of course.
Secretary Duncan. We think great teachers make a huge
difference in students' lives.
Mr. Rokita. And having been there like you have been there
and talking to parents and teachers and community leaders,
surely, they care. Surely, they understand the frustration and
issues.
And I agree that schools must exist for the students. They
don't exist for the adults. And I think what you are trying to
do serves that purpose.
Would you also, though, acknowledge that no person, no
staffer, no bureaucrat in your department knows the children of
Washington state better than the parents and teachers and
taxpayers of Washington state?
Secretary Duncan. Of course. This is a big country. A
hundred thousand schools, 15,000 school districts.
Mr. Rokita. So on gainful employment, you believe that the
public education system should be subject to that same rule?
Secretary Duncan. Well, again, I want to be clear. We are
working on gainful employment regs. We are also working on a
college rating system. And those are the two pieces of work
that we are engaged on now.
Mr. Rokita. But Purdue and IU should be subject to both
those, just like ITT and--
Secretary Duncan. I don't know all the details there so let
me come back to you on that one.
Mr. Rokita. Okay. By when?
Secretary Duncan. I will talk to the Chairman about it.
Mr. Rokita. Well, I am asking the question. The Chairman is
not. By when? Can you give me an answer, how you feel about
this?
Secretary Duncan. I will work relatively as quickly as I
can.
Mr. Rokita. What does that mean?
Chairman Kline. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Takano?
Secretary Duncan. Thanks for saving me.
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, Secretary Duncan, I would like to thank you
and the administration for proposing a budget that makes real
investments in our education system from pre-k to post-
secondary education. I can't tell you how disheartening it is
to see the Ryan budget with all its cuts to education pass the
House.
And I would note that it didn't pass by a huge margin. The
clock was kept open. And it barely passed. I think it was like
219 votes, from what I recall. I am pleased to see that this
budget includes an investment in high school redesign through a
competitive grant program.
I was excited to hear the President mention it in his State
of the Union address. However, the contours and details are
kind of mystifying to me. Can you tell us what are some of the
key elements of a successful grant proposal, what they would
be?
And what are you really looking to do with high school
redesign?
Secretary Duncan. So we talked about it a little bit
earlier. But what we want to make sure is that we continue--we
are thrilled high school graduation rates hit an all-time high.
We announced yesterday, 80 percent graduation rates. But I
worry a lot about that 20 percent that don't graduate and what
their lives are going to be like once they get on the streets.
And we know there is not anything out there for them. So
what we want to do is to make sure that high schools continue
to be very relevant for young people, that they understand what
the jobs are in their communities, why they are going to
school, what that leads to.
We want to make sure they are rigorous, more access to
high-level classes and dual enrollment opportunities and
industry certification. And we want to make sure that high
schools are building relationships with young people who might
be struggling and might have a real challenge at home or at
school in the community.
And so high schools that are serious about making sure a
hundred percent of their students graduate and graduate college
and career-ready, we need more schools that look like that.
That is what these resources are for.
Mr. Takano. So do you--so early college and concurrent
enrollment programs are part of the redesign?
Secretary Duncan. Yes, absolutely. We talked earlier. I
don't know if you were here, but I am a huge fan of dual
enrollment and early college programs, just nothing but upside
there.
I would like to do a lot more of that so these resources
can be used there. We did recently with the Department of Labor
a $100 million dollars, high school redesign through youth
career connect.
That is a possible use of funds, and finding ways to expand
opportunity there. I think we should all be working hard on
that.
Mr. Takano. You know, as a teacher before I came to
Congress and as a community college trustee, I have been
involved with some of these concurrent enrollment programs. I
have visited Barton, the college high school in lower
Manhattan, have had actually students come to my classrooms in
Texas and California who told me about their experience with
some of these early college programs.
Do you see early college also being applied to career and
technical education?
Secretary Duncan. Oh, it absolutely is. It absolutely is.
Again, many places doing that well. But I think our collective
challenge is always how do we take to scale what works.
And again, you have lived this in a way that many folks
haven't. So we think we have done some pretty good work to
increase these opportunities, but I know there are many more
children out there who could benefit, than have the opportunity
today. So we would love to work with you to figure out how we
expand these best practices.
Mr. Takano. Do you believe that the concurrent enrollment
and the early college and the middle college strategies could
have an impact on lowering the cost of education of middle-
class families? Well, higher education, I am talking about.
Secretary Duncan. To be clear, we now have some high
schools where high school students are graduating with an
associate's degree. So by definition, they are reducing 50
percent of their higher ed costs.
So it absolutely reduces costs, which is very important.
What I said earlier is I am as excited about the fact not just
the cost savings, cost reductions to families. But I think this
is a really important dropout prevention strategy, I think
creates these opportunities for kids who haven't had it is a
really big deal.
Mr. Takano. As you know, a lot of these strategies require
a counterintuitive approach, which is actually we have got to
reduce class sizes at the secondary level in order to enable
the seminar-style teaching that some of the pedagogy requires.
I was interested in your conversation with Congresswoman Fudge
about somehow, Pell Grants got mixed into that conversation.
And you and I had a conversation about the justification of
the federal role in some of the early college models since we
are actually offering college-level instruction. So could you
elaborate on that some more?
Secretary Duncan. Well, I think she asked the question, if
I am recalling it correctly, of whether we should be looking at
Pell Grants as a potential use of funds to help expand access
to early college opportunities. And that is the kind of
creative thinking that I think we should all be engaged in.
So if we want to take to scale something that we know is
good, we should leave no stone unturned in thinking about doing
that and would love to have that conversation. Actually, we
have staff working pretty hard on these issues as we speak.
Mr. Takano. What is your--
Chairman Kline. Gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Takano. Oh--
Chairman Kline. Mr. Thompson?
Mr. Takano. Thank you.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Duncan, good to see you. I think the last time we
talked, we were breaking bread and talking about how to best
serve the needs of this nation's youngest learners. I always
appreciate those opportunities for conversations and love it
when we can see eye to eye.
Wanted to--you know, the department's budget request
focuses heavily on equipping the need to fill the jobs in the
21st century economy. And I think that is very appropriate.
However, you do not propose any additional resources for
the Perkins funding. Last month, over 91 members of the House
through the advocacy of the bipartisan Career and Technical
Education Caucus requested the Appropriations Committee return
career and technical education programming to pre-sequester
levels.
And we talk a lot about the unemployed, the underemployed
and the--and probably not enough but some about the dwindling
workforce participation, which is I think incredibly important
to the strategic success on the future of this country. Now,
the solutions to address some of those problems is CTE
programming through the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical
Education Act.
Now, there are not too many social ills, I believe, that
can't be addressed, or a good family sustaining wage job.
Career and technical education programming enables individuals
to have the skills necessary to be truly career and college
ready. Now, I have concerns with the department's proposal to
move $100 million from CTE state grants for a new, competitive
innovation fund.
And it is just--my two--my first two questions kind of go
together. You know, why does the department continue to
prioritize spending on untested and often duplicative education
initiatives when we have a tried and true solution in Perkins?
And why move money, funding away from a full commitment to
fund the program?
Secretary Duncan. Well, first, appreciate your sincere
interest and commitment on the early childhood space and
appreciate you taking the time to have that conversation and
also really appreciate your interest in the CTE funding. And
that is a hugely important way. Again, we talked about 4-year,
2-year technical, vocational training, just some form of
education beyond high school has to be the goal.
So I am a huge fan of this. We have the blueprint out for
reauthorization. Happy to get any feedback you have on that.
That is a year or 2 old now.
But what we are simply trying to do is make sure that those
programs are training students for the jobs of tomorrow and not
of 20 or 30 years ago. So quite candidly, again, I go to, you
know, hundreds and hundreds of schools.
I see some CTE programs that are cutting-edge and world-
class. I see others that are a little bit outdated. And so what
we are trying to do, not to invest in unproven programs, we
want to take to scale what is working and to make sure that
these scarce resources are being used wisely, being used well
to prepare students for the jobs and for the skills they need
going forward.
Quite candidly, that is not always the case with Perkins
funding. In many cases it is. In some places, it is not being
used as thoughtfully as we would like. And so we are just
trying to challenge that status quo.
Mr. Thompson. Well, I share Mr. Guthrie's concerns with
this--significant concerns. Moving money away from a program
what really is consistently proven and I think it puts at a
disadvantage, what is 32,000 school districts that are rural in
this country, that, you know, approximately 30 percent of all
schools fall in that category and many of them obviously don't
have their resources to be at--
Secretary Duncan. So--
Mr. Thompson.--as competitive.
Secretary Duncan. So let me just check it, then get, hold
us accountable, what we have done in other competitions again
is whether it is a competitive priority or separate slate. We
have made absolutely certain that rural schools and communities
are well-represented.
I think we have gotten better over time in doing that. We
can show you what we have done in other competitions. But I
think we can address that specific concern pretty well.
Mr. Thompson. Well, the shifting of $100 million dollars, I
think is just a significant concern, moving that away from
Perkins. It is not--just--
Secretary Duncan.--it is not moving away from Perkins, to
try to make sure that those dollars are really needed--
Mr. Thompson. We are moving away from--
Secretary Duncan.--to great programs.
Mr. Thompson.--away from formula money. So it has some
occurrences. Just real quickly, following from Dr. Roe, do we
know what the graduation rate is for all Pell Grant recipients?
Secretary Duncan. Sorry, I couldn't hear you.
Mr. Thompson. Do we know the graduation rate of individuals
who utilize the Pell Grant program?
Secretary Duncan. I don't know that and actually have
struggled to get that data.
Mr. Thompson. Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kline. Gentleman yields back.
Mr. Pocan?
Mr. Pocan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your commitment and the
President's commitment, not just in good words but in, actually
resources in the budget to hopefully have good deeds when it
comes to education. I am trying to hit three different areas if
I can.
I have about 75,000 higher education students in my
district, a very large number. One of the issues that has come
up is student debt, and not necessarily from the perspective
Representative Petri brought up but the fact that we are at
$1.2 trillion, second only to home mortgages. A decade ago, we
were less than a quarter of that.
Now, one of the things that doesn't get attention is the
ability to refinance student loans. You know, we can refinance
our homes, our cars. Definitely, that will reduce the cost of
their debt and free up income for purchases and cause ripple
effects throughout the economy.
Rutgers has put out a study showing 40 percent of the
graduates with college loans delayed in making major purchases
such as cars because of college debt, 25 percent put off
continuing their education or moved in with their parents. So I
have been working on a bill with Representative Bishop to
introduce the House companion to Senator Gillibrand's bill to
allow you to refinance at a lower rate.
I was just wondering if the department has looked into any
research regarding that and the ability to put more money into
the economy and what your thoughts are on that.
Secretary Duncan. Again, just really appreciate your
leadership. You know, my mantra is that should be an issue in a
bipartisan way we should be working on together when you have
that much debt out there. Young people trying to buy a home,
buy a car, start a family, start a business--it is a huge
impediment.
It is a huge challenge. And so thinking this through
together, thinking through in a bipartisan way, I know Senator
Durbin is also interested in this stuff. We have staff who are
experts in this, happy to sit down anytime, sort of walk
through what makes sense and what doesn't.
But the status quo needs to be challenged. And we need to
do that together.
Mr. Pocan. And you are open to a conversation about
refinancing of debt?
Secretary Duncan. More than open to any conversations that
increase access to college and increase affordability.
Mr. Pocan. Great. If I can shift to K to 12, I am from
Wisconsin and I served 14 years in our legislature. In 2013,
Governor Walker proposed increasing taxpayer funding to private
and religious voucher schools by 9 percent and increased many
times larger in percentage terms than he did to our public
school system.
And in the past, I know some people on the other side of
the aisle supported that here in the District of Columbia. We
recently had a study, the NEKC Foundation report that
determined that children of color face enormous barriers to
educational achievement in Wisconsin.
We ranked dead last in disparity between white children and
their non-white peers, and encouraging policies which only help
a very few children at the expense of others will only
exacerbate the achievement rates for at-risk students, many of
whom are minorities. I was just wondering, if the department
has looked at all into research about how vouchers could
further cause divides between the achievement gap with students
of color?
Secretary Duncan. Yes, well, your state is not too
dissimilar to where Minnesota was with sort of relatively high-
performing in aggregate, but the-- disaggregate the data,
devastating inequities there. And so I just appreciate your the
candid conversation, how do we improve access for all?
So I fundamentally think our role in government should be
to prepare, to create great schools for the vast majority of
students, the 90 percent who always have and always will attend
public schools. And if the private sector wants to do some
scholarships, do whatever, they absolutely have the right to do
that.
But we need to--what worries me on the vouchers, I think,
so often we, you know, think we are saving three kids and then
leave 500 to drown. And I can't sleep well at night knowing
that.
If you look at the data from Milwaukee just had a voucher
program for a while, that data is mixed at best. That might be
being generous. So anyway, so I think our collective focus
should be in making every single public school in this country
a great public school so that we serve the overwhelming
majority of children in this country better than we are today.
Mr. Pocan. And I just want to add, we just had listening
sessions just last week in my district. And this issue
specifically came up. I visited a number of schools in
Milwaukee.
They are not in my district but it was in the legislature.
South Division High School has a 50 percent high school
graduation rate and a big problem is when these kids come in
from taxpayer-funded voucher schools, they don't have records.
They don't have anything. We are really at a loss. And you
know, I think it is my third area. But I will just put it in
writing.
Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
Chairman Kline. Thank the gentleman.
Mr. Messer?
Mr. Messer. Thank you.
It is great to have you here, Mr. Secretary. We agree on
many topics, disagree on some. But I admire your work, admire
your courage. Just to--I didn't intend to talk about this, but
just given the last comments, I think we all want to just be
very clear.
We want to make sure that every kid in America has a great
opportunity. We can't let any kids drown. And while we are
working to improve the challenges we do have within our public
school system, we need to be mindful of who we are leaving
behind along the way.
I think you agree with me on that. And there are a set of
options to do that. Frankly, to me, I believe vouchers ought to
be one of them. But I think more than that, I think, let's
leave it--I think we are all trying to make sure everybody has
a chance to succeed.
I want to congratulate you on the graduation rate
improvement. As you may recall, I was an author of legislation
in Indiana that worked on that issue.
We are excited in Indiana to see our graduation rate go
from the 70 percent range up to almost 90 percent, so exceeding
a little bit the national performance now. I think we have
talked about this before. Just would call to your attention for
the record again, I think one of the most important reforms we
put forward was changing our dropout age from 16 to 18.
I am not sure that a federal mandate is the appropriate way
to handle that but at least encouraging states to look at that
as an option. But it is not a silver bullet, but particularly
for kids that are trying to meet minimum expectations when
those expectations include going to school until you are 18, we
found in Indiana, it has made a big difference.
Secretary Duncan. Now, I appreciate the leadership. And
obviously, the nation only moves if states move and to see
Indiana going absolutely in the right direction is a huge
credit to you and others. The other thing you guys have done
that I have been very interested in, that former Governor Mitch
Daniels did, was we talked a lot about early college
enrollment, if you know if young people graduate from high
school in 3 years, he basically took that fourth year, that
senior year of high school money and put that all to a college
scholarship.
I thought that was an unbelievably creative, innovative
idea.
Mr. Messer. Yes.
Secretary Duncan. And where we could incentivize more
students graduating early from high school and then go to
college with I don't know what--you know, $8,000, $10,000,
$12,000 in scholarship money, no additional cost to the
taxpayer. That was some great thinking.
So that kind of program we should be looking at in other
places.
Mr. Messer. Well, it is great for the state. It is great
for the individual family. And as you know, many kids struggle
in school because they are bored.
Secretary Duncan. Right.
Mr. Messer. Because they are not being challenged. They
don't see what is relevant. And so it is out there to--
Secretary Duncan. Do you have date how that is--I don't
know how that has gone.
Mr. Messer.--they are successful. We can share the date
with you.
Secretary Duncan. Okay, yes.
Mr. Messer. So we will work on getting that to you. The one
issue I wanted to raise with that bill was I think one of the
most important national reforms we have brought forward was the
way we calculate dropout rates. And as you know, you are well
familiar with this.
You know, we used to, as a country, only used to count you
as a dropout if you showed up in your senior year.
Secretary Duncan. Yes.
Mr. Messer. When we got more accurate data, frankly, we had
a national call to improve. I think at least in Indiana it has
maybe been the most important reform of all. I think it has
contributed to the national effort.
But I think there is some information--I mean, there is a
lesson in that for some of this dialogue we have had about Pell
Grants and Perkins grants. I think it would serve us well in
that policy area if we had the reporting of those graduation
rates. Would you agree with that?
Secretary Duncan. Yes, no, I absolutely and again, not
hiding things, not masking things, talking about the truth. And
sometimes, it is a brutal truth, quite frankly. It is so
important.
Children don't drop out in the 12th grade. Very few do.
They just drop out in eighth and ninth, in tenth grade. So I am
a big believer in not just in transparency and honestly, the
back end, but we have more and more schools and districts
looking at what I call freshmen on track rates. And all the
data shows a freshman on track--they are much more likely to
graduate.
If freshmen aren't on track, it is pretty tough to catch
up. So early indicators, not just backend stuff, but early
warning systems, and then not just warning systems but
interventions with those children, I think will help to drive
this to a 90 percent national goal which is where we need to
get to as quick as we can.
Mr. Messer. And I think we have talked about this. But a
quick plugin for my bill 1949, which is the Improving Post-
Secondary Education Data for Students Act--
Secretary Duncan. Yes.
Mr. Messer.--it is basically designed to task the
Department of Education to help lead an effort to determine
what are the things that should be reported and what shouldn't.
I have only got a little bit of time left so I do want to raise
an issue regarding the impact of the Affordable Care Act on
schools.
And we have talked about that before. Many school systems
across the country and I won't list them given my time, are
seeing this impact. The employer mandate has been delayed.
But has the department looked at what the impact of the
Affordable Care Act is on cash-strapped schools?
Secretary Duncan. Yes, I don't know all the details there.
If you could share those school systems with us, happy to reach
out to superintendents, have our staff do that directly and
figure out what we can do to be helpful.
Mr. Messer. And you have done that with me before. I will
send you the letter and we would ask for a timely response on
that topic. Thank you.
Secretary Duncan. We will work on the timely response.
Mr. Messer. I yield back. Thanks.
Chairman Kline. Gentleman yields back. We will all be
looking for the timely response.
Mr. Tierney?
Mr. Tierney. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for joining us today. I want to
just amplify comments made by Mr. Courtney with respect to what
the Ryan budget would do to some of the higher education funds
on that.
I think, two points, most appalling are that on Pell
Grants, it would eliminate some $90 billion of the mandatory
funding that we have already paid for going forward and then
when you talk about student loan repayment benefits, it would
eliminate $9 billion again, which we have already paid for. So
glad to see that the President's budget didn't take that tack
and moved in a different direction.
Also want to reiterate Mr. Pocan, Mr. Bishop's idea of
trying to find some way to refinance high-interest loans at a
lower interest and an extra point on that, students are out
with private loans.
Secretary Duncan. Yes, yes, yes.
Mr. Tierney. It would be interesting, we wouldn't need
legislation. But the administration might contemplate going to
some of our Wall Street financial institutions that people see
as having at least helped create some of the problems that we
had in the late 2000s on that and convincing them that maybe a
good idea is to form some sort of a pool into which people
could refinance and put another $16 billion back into our
economy.
So I am at--but let me ask you about maintenance of effort.
In the last Higher Education Opportunity Act, we have put in a
provision that states would no longer be able to retreat and
take federal money and use that instead. They have to maintain
their effort and their commitment to it.
What does your budget do with respect to continuing that?
And what are the teeth involved in making sure that they do?
Secretary Duncan. No, we are absolutely committed and
continue to be. And it is interesting, I have talked to a
number of college presidents in states that have seen
significant cuts and have seen states cut right to the MOU
point and not beyond.
And so it has been a--it is not enough but it has been a
critically important backstop to a number of college presidents
that are trying to do the right thing. So again, push us if you
have ideas on how to do it better.
Happy to hear them. But we have tried to be clear and
unequivocal. And as bad as things have been, frankly, would
have been a heck of a lot worse had we not had those MOUs in
place.
Mr. Tierney. Well, King Alexander who is now the president
at LSU was very instrumental in putting that--helping us get
the ideas for that and showed--I think his research showed that
it had been effective. I think what we need to help with some
ideas and what are we going to do, the enforcement provision
that we put in was weak. It got watered down in the conference
committee on that.
But we need to find a way to make schools know that we are
serious about it, and states know we are serious about it on
that.
Secretary Duncan. He is an extraordinary college president.
Again, we listen very closely when he speaks.
Mr. Tierney. Yes, good guy. Let me ask you to expand a
little bit on the upper ed program,--upper ed research
program--
Secretary Duncan. Yes, yes, yes.
Mr. Tierney.--for technology on that because I think it is
a good idea.
Secretary Duncan. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. It has worked in energy and it has worked in
the defense area and maybe you can share with us the direction
you are taking on that.
Secretary Duncan. Yes, and I really appreciate the
question. And it is just fascinating. I don't have all the
details right here. But basically, what they have done in the
defense side is they have done things in terms of training
young people who didn't come from a great background on some
very technical skills and in a short amount of time, a matter
of, you know, 3, 4 months, 16 weeks of training have those
young people outperforming folks who are much more
traditionally trained and had been on the job for a long time.
And if we are trying to challenge unemployment rates, if we
are trying to help the young people be successful, can we try
and take those kinds of innovations to scale using technology
and give people real time, real skills? Ask them what they did.
They said their goal was interesting, it was not to train to
the middle, which is what many programs do.
Their goal was to train to the best of the best. And that
became the new standard, the new norm. And so if we could give
more young people those kinds of opportunities and start to
scale that kind of technical training using technology, I think
it would be extraordinary.
So we want to start to learn some of the lessons on the
defense side and move them into the education arena.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Lastly, just a general point on
this. You have a long list of ideas, of things that we could do
to improve school performance. And I think they ought to be
providing strong leadership, ensuring teachers are effective,
and able to prove, and so on down the line.
I think that is one of the problems we have is scaling up
those ideas that we find that do work. When we get into the
charter school realm, I think one of the constant irritations
of everybody, those that are supporters of the charter schools,
those that are skeptical is we don't seem to be using it really
as a tool--
Mr. Tierney.--to find out things we could do better than
scaling it up. What measures do you contemplate would move that
ball forward?
Secretary Duncan. Well, again, just so--I talk about all
the time about the wrong fights in education, whether it is
Republican or Democrat. The other one is, you know, charters
versus traditional.
And it just shouldn't matter. To be clear, it is not just
the charters that have something to teach. Great traditional
schools have something tremendous that charters could learn
from.
So just cutting through that noise, cutting through that
conflict, trying to just think about when is right for kids,
which is sharing the best practices, there are some places, and
I can give you some information, but they are really starting
to break through and think about this as a system of schools,
not as warring parties and warring factions. And it has got to
go in both directions.
And we want to do everything we can to facilitate that and
move forward.
Mr. Tierney. I think that is a plan. Well, glad to hear you
say you want to facilitate that. But I don't see it happening
and that sort of allows us to keep squandering around in that
argument about one or the other.
Secretary Duncan. It is just when adults fight, kids lose.
It is as simple as that.
Mr. Tierney. All right, thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Kline. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mrs. Davis?
Mrs. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Great to see you.
And appreciate your patience through the hearing this morning
and really, your commitment, I think, to making sure that this
robust education system that we must have for this country is
for the 21st century.
It is for the new work environment that young people are
finding themselves in and that is our whole focus. And I think
that is why we are concerned that the Ryan budget, because it
doesn't seem to respect the need to invest in this country and
to grow the economy in that way, really cuts off the
opportunities, the very opportunities that businesses are
asking us, that they want education to do, to be able to bring
these young people into the system.
And so, you know, one of the concerns that has been
expressed is Perkins. I think you identified that you want to
be focusing on new areas, certainly in terms of the Center for
International Business Education and Research, that is one
area, what we call cyber--a different way of--
Secretary Duncan. Yes.
Mrs. Davis.--saying cyber, that the Ryan budget is cutting
that particular budget in Title VI by about 43 percent. So, I
mean, what businesses are telling us is exactly the kind of
investment that programs like this do.
This may not be the only one, but it does that. What within
the area that we are talking about right now, how do you see
that we are really going to strengthen and grow those kind of
programs? Because they are focusing on foreign language, their
focus on the ability of young people to work in an
international setting that is so critical today.
Secretary Duncan. So not just the--across the board. Again,
we have to think about this cradle to career. Do we want more
children to have access to high-quality early learning or less?
Do we want more children to have access to rigorous high
school coursework that prepares them for college or less? Do we
want more young people to have access to college and to be able
to afford? Or do you want to see college going rates decrease,
diminish?
And again, I think we have to, as a country, commit to
having the best educated workforce in the world. So we have to
stop cutting off our nose to spite our face and think about
this cradle to career, and to be clear and get them such a
champion here, no one is proposing just investing the status
quo, investing in business as usual.
We are always pushing innovation. We are always pushing
challenging the status quo, going to the next level. It has to
be about high quality. And so at every level, whether you are
talking specifically or whether it is Pell Grants or whether it
is access to pre-k, what are we trying to do here and how are
we going to get there and how are we going to strengthen
families and ultimately strengthen our country's economy?
Mrs. Davis. Well, I think that having--you know, really
looking at the total package and that is what I think you are
trying to do and what we would like to do and I think,
unfortunately, we haven't necessarily seen that because when we
have some cuts in major areas, which deal primarily with
investment, that is not going to happen.
I wanted to just quickly go back to the sort of social and
emotional learning, that the discussion earlier hit on. And
there has been certainly considerable research that kind of
opportunity for young people to interact in a safe environment,
which is the big priority that I know that you have, that the
President has, what are we doing in that area as well to
promote that idea?
Because it is not to say that kids just need what sometimes
are considered soft skills. I mean, these are the critical
skills. And they bring success for all of our children in
school. How can we talk about that in a way that really makes
sense to everybody and certainly to the country as a whole?
Secretary Duncan. So I really appreciate the question. We
are actually looking to put some new resources, $10 to 15
million behind an effort to really understand this in a
profound way. And I hate soft skills. I hate--We need new
names.
Help me get a new name; not cognitive, executive
functioning, those names sort of ring, but grit, resilience,
tenacity, perseverance--it is fascinating. We look at Dr.
Heckman's longitudinal work on the benefits of high-quality
early childhood learning, obviously, some of those benefits are
academic.
He would argue or has told me that half to more than half
of the benefit he thinks are to learning those skills that some
children are lucky enough to learn in, you know, in church or
around the dining room table. But too many of our kids don't
have those opportunities.
So how we start to think of these as important as reading
and math and social studies and science and if our children
have all the academic skills but no ability to persevere
through adversity, to work through tough situations, we are not
helping them.
So it is an area--
Mrs. Davis. Yes.
Secretary Duncan.--where I am personally fascinated, spent
a lot of time trying to work on this in a, you know, a previous
life. John Easton who runs our Institute of Education
Sciences--he has a thing about devoting the rest of this life
to this work, wants to put some money behind it.
So we want to better understand it and better understand
how to teach it in a systemic way throughout a child's--
Mrs. Davis. And do you see this does not take away from a
parent's responsibility and their desire to teach these skills
also to their children?
Secretary Duncan. This is all about strengthening families,
and again, where you have high-quality programs, you are doing
it for children in conjunction with their parents.
Mrs. Davis. Right. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Chairman Kline. Gentlelady's time has expired.
I am going to recognize Mr. Scott for 5 minutes for his
question. And then I will recognize him for a few further
minutes for closing comments.
Mr. Secretary, we are getting close.
Mr. Scott, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Scott. Thank you.
And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your perseverance. Could
you just say a brief word about what the Ryan budget would do
to early childhood education and the future of our next
generation?
Secretary Duncan. So again--relative--we showed it
earlier--relative to other nations, today, we are about 25th in
providing access to early learning opportunities. And that is
not a badge of honor.
And we want to do everything we can to increase that, the
average child coming from a poor, from a disadvantaged
community starts kindergarten a year to 14 months behind. And
we have a budget that has 15 percent cuts.
That will mean not more children obviously, but less
children having access. And when we send children to
kindergarten underprepared, that is not that child's fault.
But we often don't catch them up. And we think about long-
term dropout rates, incarceration rates, I wonder how many of
those young people we could have saved by giving them access to
high-quality early learning opportunities. I mean, clearly, it
has to be a continuum, a seamless continuum from birth through
age 5.
Mr. Scott. Thank you. And a lot has been said about school
discipline. And one suggestion is more school resource
officers. A lot of people have suggested that their major
contribution is actually promoting the school-to-prison
pipeline because they end up arresting the children rather than
protecting the children.
What is the evidence that you have seen, say, about school
resource officers?
Secretary Duncan. So we think whether it is school resource
officers or more counselors or more social workers or better-
trained school resource officers, that is the key. And we are
doing everything we can to fight the school-to-prison pipeline.
As you know, we have been explicit in putting out the data
around that. I think some school resource officers do a
fantastic job. And others are frankly part of the problem.
And so making sure that when we are trying to create a safe
environment and a safe climate and a safe culture, which we are
all trying to do, that we are not--the first instinct is not to
call 911 when there is a challenge.
Mr. Scott. Do you have studies that followed this?
Secretary Duncan. I will have to check on that and get back
to you.
Mr. Scott. Thank you. On student loans, how much money does
the government make on student loans a year?
Secretary Duncan. Well, I think there are all kinds of
projections in what folks think we may or may not make. And if
you look at the GAO study, the title of the study basically
says it is impossible to predict this.
Just to be clear, we have no interest in making money on
student loans.
Mr. Scott. Well, one estimate was about--to-around $10
billion a year. Does that sound about right?
Secretary Duncan. I don't know. There are lots of different
estimates out there. Again, Congress controls those rates.
Congress worked together to prevent rates from doubling. And if
Congress is interested in taking this up, we would be happy to
have that conversation.
Mr. Scott. Do you know how much it would cost to get the
interest rate down close to zero?
Secretary Duncan. I don't know.
Mr. Scott. Have you studied the effect of the summer Pell
Grant that was eliminated, the elimination of the summer Pell
Grant a couple of years ago?
Secretary Duncan. I don't know the details there.
Obviously, we worked really hard to see a $40 billion increase
in Pell Grants, without going back to taxpayers for a nickel.
And we have gone from about 6 million Pell recipients to almost
9 million.
It is about a 50 percent increase. That is one of the
things that I am most proud of. We weren't able to keep the
summer Pell, which was disappointing. But the big picture, the
fact that we are serving almost three million more young
people, as you know, many first-generation college goers feel
very, very good about that.
Mr. Scott. So no one has looked at the effect of the
elimination of the summer Pell Grant? Because a lot of people
were going to school right through--now, just kind of skip the
summer and it kind of lengthens out the time they are out of
work.
Secretary Duncan. Yes, no, I am sure folks are doing some
analysis there.
Mr. Scott. One problem we had in our area a couple of years
ago was on upward-bound competition where we had five--the area
of the state had five upward-bound programs, all performing
adequately. When the dust settled on the competition, none of
them got refunded.
And none of the children in the area had access to an
upward-bound program. In these competitions, do you do anything
to make sure that at least in each area, somebody gets funded
so that the children in that area are served?
Secretary Duncan. Yes, it--we try and make sure we have
geographic diversity. Obviously, given the limited amount of
funds, I wish we could ensure that across the nation, we were
funding in every community. But the reality is, frankly, far,
far from that.
Mr. Scott. Well, thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I--
Chairman Kline. Okay, the gentleman yields back his
questioning time. He is now recognized for his closing
comments.
Mr. Scott. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I thank the Secretary for his perseverance and for his
very enthusiastic support of our next generation. We need to
make sure we have the appropriate investments in education.
We are falling behind, as the Secretary has mentioned, in a
lot of measures where we were leading, we are way back in the
pack. Our competitive advantage in a global economy is a well-
educated workforce. And if we lose that, we are not going to be
able to compete on wages.
We are not going to be able to compete on anything else.
That is our main focus of competition. And we have a lot of
work to do to restore ourselves to number one in the world.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit for the record a
letter from the Committee for Education Funding, which points
out a lot of problems with the Ryan budget, particularly
pointing out that it is billions below even the post-sequester
caps established by the Bipartisan Budget Act and cuts a lot of
important programs.
[The information follows:]
[Additional Submissions by Mr. Scott follows:]
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Chairman Kline. Without objection.
Mr. Scott. Yield back.
Chairman Kline. Gentleman yields back. The Chair will yield
himself some time here for closing remarks. I want to thank the
Secretary for being with us.
Mr. Secretary, I think it is safe to say that we all--you
and I and everybody on the panel shares a goal to see that our
kids and not kids--I mean, in higher education now, the
nontraditional student is the tradition. That is, older
students.
We want them all to learn and to prosper and have the
chance to achieve their goals. We have some differences in how
we go about doing that. We are comparing budgets here today, a
lot of discussion about the Ryan budget and what it does and
doesn't do and the President's budget.
And frankly, Mr. Secretary, if you have a budget like you
are defending part of, that never, ever balances, adds to the
debt every year forever, well, you can fund some programs and
some new programs. But the real world that you have been
talking about says, probably we shouldn't do that forever.
And forever, we should have a budget that eventually
balances. And we need to set some priorities. On special ed, we
had some back and forth about who--is it Republicans, is it
Democrats. Who is funding special ed? And as I said in my
comments, I am disappointed in both parties--in the
administrations in both parties and the Congress in both
parties.
But I will say that when Republicans held the majority here
from 1995 to 2007, we took special ed funding, which is
supposed to be, as you know, 40 percent of the excess required,
we took it from the single digits it had been at for a couple
of decades, from 8 percent to 18 percent. It is now back down
to 16 percent.
And with your $100 million of competitive grants to special
ed, that is in the words of one of my colleagues a few years
ago, kind of budget dust, because to get it just to the 18
percent, which was the high point, that it would take about
$1.5 billion. And so, I reiterate my request, I am going to
work on it here.
I am going to talk to my colleagues. I am going to talk to
appropriators. I am going to talk to everybody I can about
increasing that funding, because no matter how popular a new
program might be, or even an old program, I haven't talked to a
superintendent, a principal, teachers, or parents who won't say
that the most important thing that the federal government can
do is to start to meet that commitment.
So we are going to continue to work on that. A lot of
discussion about pre-k, preschool education, you have got in
your budget a pretty big program. As you know, the federal
government already spends close to $13 billion a year on pre-k
programs.
And over $8 billion of that is on the Head Start. Seems to
me we need to look at that program with gusto to make sure that
it is doing what it is supposed to be doing. A lot of things--a
lot of things going. I appreciate your comments about the
charter school bill.
We feel pretty good about that. I wish we hadn't had to
pull it out of the ESEA reauthorization. But I just think there
are too many kids who are being denied an opportunity to
achieve success.
And parents, I think the charter school bill is important--
is very, very bipartisan, and I hope that we can count on you
to help us move that through. It will pass next week.
It will pass on the floor of the House--huge, huge number.
We would like the Senate to take it up and see if we can't
address the needs of those kids and those families.
So thank you very much for your patience. We went a little
bit longer than I know you would like and that some of us would
like. We appreciate you staying and hanging in here.
Even though you tempted me with holding another hearing so
you could have a hearing with Mr. Miller, that may not happen.
So again, thank you very much for being here today.
There being no further business before the committee, we
are adjourned.
[Questions submitted for the record and their responses
follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Secretary Duncan's response to questions submitted for the
record follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]