archived information: transcript: equity and …€¦ · web view2012/08/09 · if you can't...

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Archived InformationUNITED STATES OF AMERICADEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

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EQUITY AND EXCELLENCE COMMISSION

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THURSDAYAUGUST 9, 2012

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The Commission met in Room 1W114 at the Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW, Washington, DC, at 11:00 a.m., Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, Chair, presiding.

COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:

MARIANO-FLORENTINO CUELLAR, Chair*MIKE CASSERLYSANDRA DUNGEE GLENNERIC HANUSHEK*KAREN HAWLEY MILESKATI HAYCOCK*JOHN KINGRALPH MARTIRE*MATT MILLER*MICHAEL REBELLAHNIWAKE ROSEJESSE RUIZTHOMAS SAENZDAVID SCIARRAROBERT TERANISHIJOSE TORRESDENNIS VAN ROEKELRANDI WEINGARTEN*DORIS WILLIAMS*

NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS

1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com

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EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS PRESENT:RUSSLYNN ALI, ED Office for Civil Rights*MICHAEL DANNENBERG, Designate for Martha

Kanter

ALSO PRESENTGUY JOHNSONMIKE HONDA, Representative of California's

15th District*

*Participating via teleconference





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A G E N D A

WELCOME AND PROCESS UPDATE.................4

DELIBERATION ON KEY FINANCE QUESTIONS.................................11

REVIEW OF ACCOUNTABILITY WRITINGGROUP'S WORK..............................79

UPDATES FROM OTHER TOPIC TEAMS...........137

WRAP UP/NEXT STEPS.......................145

ADJOURN..................................147



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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

(11:06 a.m.)

CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. Seems to me

like we've got critical mass, so in the

interest of using the time that we have

available, which is not a lot of time for

everything we want to do, I'm going to just

pick it up.

If you can't hear me holler. I

don't want to come across like this is 1984

and you're watching Big Brother. This is a

little strange. I'm sorry not to be in D.C.,

and I'm really grateful that we've got as

many people as we do.

So, I've got three with me here.

And as he said, Russlynn and Molly should

materialize hopefully shortly.

We really have two main things

that we want to get through today. The first

is to spend a little time talking about the

progress that's been made on the finance-

related stuff.



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You will see from what we were

able to share with you in the discussion that

there's been a lot of progress. We're

definitely in the mode right now trying our

best to look at the big picture. That's why

we're working on one-page documents, but

there are still some distinctions and

differences of view that are important. And

our main goal today is not so much to get

into the weeds, but to get some feedback from

folks who are in the room so that the folks

who are writing up the finance pages can have

a little bit more of a sense of how to maybe

branch those distinctions.

So, I want us to spend plenty of

time on that. I want us to get into the

substance, I want us to talk about the issues

that have been raised about basically -- you

know, I would characterize it this way. You

know, what is the perennial question of the

role of the Federal Government here, and the

other is the very critical question of where



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do we start? How do we deal with existing

distinctions as they currently exist.

I welcome Congressman Honda who

just came in. Thank you for joining us.

The other thing we want to do is

to get a sense of where the rest of the topic

teams are. Now, we've been trying to give

enough time for not only the folks who have

been trying to draft these one-pagers but

also the teams that agreed to review them,

they have enough time to do so. So, the team

that's been working on the accountability

document has had enough such time, so we're

going to spend a little time describing

what's in the accountability document and get

some feedback, as well. And then also just

getting a quick update from the rest of the

groups. Most of the groups have had a chance

to meet at this point, but not everybody has.

I think, basically, the only

other thing I want to emphasize is that we

have had plenty of time to talk about how we



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look at these things differently. There will

still be some time to do so if we need to do

that, but I think it's extremely important

for all of us who are engaged in this process

to think very carefully about where we agree.

And I don't want to suggest that we should

micro manage even how we make our

contributions here, but I do think that the

value we can add today, in particular, is

going to be not only by highlighting what you

think is missing from these documents and

these discussions, but where you think

actually you have some agreement so you do

not lose sight of that and keep that in the

document.

I want to mention also from a

logistical perspective that the staff have

been working very closely with each one of

these schemes, and part of what we gain from

having the staff so involved is that you can

actually provide your feedback to them in any

form that you want to. You can email them,



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you can call them up, you can decide, and

they're serving as a sort of a repository for

all these different reactions. They're

providing that for the folks who are drafting

these documents and trying to make sure that

we take into account all of that, as much as

possible.

Guy, are you available for a

second?

MR. JOHNSON: Yes, I sure am.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Great. So, can you

just very briefly highlight what it looks

like in terms of the schedule for the next

couple of weeks and months. We are trying our

best to work with staff to limit the extent

of changes in the schedule, but I just wanted

Guy to give you a quick overview of what

we're expecting to do after this particular

meeting.

MR. JOHNSON: So, the next meeting

we had on the books was August 30th, which is

supposed to be -- we had it originally



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scheduled as a conference call, and just to

discuss procedural matters, so it was not

going to be a publicly noticed meeting.

I think it makes sense to keep it

as a conference call, but we may want to

publicly notice it so we can make some

decisions on the drafts I'm sure will be

developed between now and then.

After the -- the one question

about the 30th is we currently had identified

two times, 10:00-12:00 a.m. East Coast time.

I'll have to double check on these, and 2:00-

4:00 p.m. We may want to keep one or both

depending on people's availabilities, and do

that by phone.

Then, September 11th we have

another in-person meeting here, and depending

on what we think today, we can try to do the

video conference again with the phone.

After September 11th, then we have

the last scheduled meeting, which is October

29th and 30th. This is the mega meeting, and



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the thought would be that we'd be at a point

then to spend two full days going through

whatever remaining questions are there, and

to make decisions on what text we would

actually want in the report or the final

document of the Commission at that point.

After the 30th, staff would go in

and would compile the final product. If we do

need additional time, then we could schedule

in perhaps one additional meeting for either

November or perhaps early December.

MEMBER REBELL: Can I just ask one

question to fill in what's going to be going

on between these meetings? After we finish

with these one-pagers say on finance today,

is the staff going to turn around something

like a complete draft before this next phone

conference on the 30th, or before we meet on

September 11th? Is that the idea, that we'll

have a full draft available to look at all

the language on?

CHAIR CUELLAR: That's a good



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question, Mike, so let me address that. I

think it's important to note that the staff

are available to support anything that the

teams need, but our mission for this really

is to actually get you guys to -- once we

have the one-pagers to add the paragraphs,

the lines, the language that you think would

work best. And we've set of the structure of

these review teams today to give you some

feedback before it comes to the full

Commission, fully compliant with the Federal

Budget Committee, so plan on how to budget

some time for that. And then, of course, how

much of that we can get through in the coming

weeks and at what meeting. It will depend a

little bit on how quickly we --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

MEMBER REBELL: I'm sorry. Our

three or four person drafting Committee say

on finance, the next step would be that we

should flush out the one-pager and turn it

into a five or ten-page thing that gives



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explanations and develops these points?

CHAIR CUELLAR: I prefer five more

than ten.

MEMBER REBELL: Five, okay.

CHAIR CUELLAR: But, yes. And let

me just give you an additional caveat, which

is we set up the structure of these teams

again so that if you need to go beyond the

small number of people who have sort of

indicated those, and have the time to do a

little more drafting, and you want to pull

somebody else in from that team, you can do

so. And you may want to do so, I mean, in

part because hard as it may be to reach

enough agreement to come up with a one-page

document, it might be harder to find the time

to flesh out a page or two around a

particular topic.

But the key really is -- just two

quick things to emphasize. One, that you can

rely on that broader team plus the staff.

And, two, that what I said about the meeting



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today, which is emphasize where you think you

have some agreement, I really urge the teams

to do that. That's sort of what we need right

now.

Again, I don't want to suggest

that there isn't any room for us to highlight

in the course of this further drafting

process. When there is still disagreement,

the Commission has to weigh in on it. And we

can do that, we're going to do some of that

today, but it's just absolutely imperative

for the teams to do everything they can

before they bring this back to the Commission

and say look, here's everything we've come to

agreement on, here's where we still have some

disagreement.

Any other questions about the

process before we move on?

(No response.)

CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. So, we'll

keep you guys updated.

Now, I think the most important



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thing we can do is basically to turn it over

to the folks who have been working on

financing. Ralph, and Michael, and Rick, and

David have been spending a lot of time and

energy on this. I know they've been checking

in with some of the folks on the topic team,

Karen, Cindy, and others, and I think what

would be helpful at this point is you just

spent two or three minutes laying out where

you are. And I'll turn to Michael and to

Rick, in particular, just to highlight how

you would describe where things stand

currently.

I will note also that even the

timing today is constrained. I would urge

folks to try to think in terms of two to

three-minute descriptions here. And if we

need we can extend that, but I do want to

keep the discussion moving. So, why don't we

start with you, Michael, and then we'll go to

Rick.

MEMBER REBELL: Okay. Well, what



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we tried to do in what was supposed to be a

one-pager but turned out to be a two-pager is

to first set the context so we have a problem

statement. And the problem statement makes

clear that despite great efforts in the past

we haven't successfully in most ways

developed finance systems that are capable of

doing what No Child Left Behind said, what

Sander's base report said, et cetera, which

is actually providing opportunities that

allow all kids, including the kids with high

needs, to meet these standards. So, that's

basically the goal.

And you'll see language

throughout here, so let me just highlight

right from the beginning that we had quite

some interesting discussions between David,

Ralph, and myself, and Rick. It won't come as

a surprise to anybody. And what may be a

surprise is that we achieved a large degree

of consensus on this document.

And, quite frankly, Rick can



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correct me if he sees it differently, but I

think he'll agree; the way we did this is our

side was emphasizing the inputs because we

think this is the critical thing, meaningful

educational opportunity. We define it there,

and we really are saying throughout here that

the states need to develop finance systems

that figure out what resources you need and

provide those resources.

Rick, of course, was emphasizing

the outputs. You'll see in just about all

these paragraphs the way we balanced it. And

we're not against outputs, and we're not

against accountability but, you know, it's

the way you tie the two together. And that's

the language negotiating that we went

through. And I think what we've achieved in

this draft is a balance that we can live

with, and I hope the rest of the Commission

can between saying that we are going to

emphasize that there have to be sufficient

inputs to give kids a meaningful opportunity,



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but that that opportunity we do expect to

lead to certain very critical outcomes. And

the states have defined those, the Common

Core has defined those, so we have to be

serious about linking the inputs to the

outcomes.

You'll also see some language

throughout. I'm not going to bother going

through this paragraph by paragraph, that

emphasizes efficient and cost-effective

-- well, we didn't use that word "cost."

Efficient and effective systems for making

sure that when you say we need adequate

inputs, and we would tend to define

"adequate" broadly to really mean everything

that kids need.

At the same time, especially in

the environment, the world we all live in

now, I think we have to pay more attention to

the efficiency and cost-effectiveness

factors, so we tried to build that in.

The last thing I'll say is we



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managed to reach agreement on most of the

language here. We have two items in our

federal section about what the federal

government should do where we have

differences that we finally just said we

pushed as hard as we could. We haven't

reached a consensus within our drafting

group, so we'll leave it to the Commission.

And we've got the two versions both on the

second page under Federal Government, 2A,

which is whatever the federal government

should do to try to make sure that states do

come up with these kinds of finance systems

we're talking about, and some of us want a

strong requirement there; require, others

want encourage. We can get into what the

differences are.

Also, on the increases, a

substantial increase in federal funding there

are two versions, there are two Paragraph Bs

here in brackets, so that's a remaining

difference that we're going to submit to the



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Commission for consideration.

And I know I'm over three

minutes, so I better stop there.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Rick. And by the

way, if you want to go --

(Off microphone comment.)

CHAIR CUELLAR: Somebody is on the

phone that wants to say something?

MEMBER ALI: I'm so sorry.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Rick?

MEMBER ALI: Feel free at this

time to ask clarifying questions.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Let me suggest one

quick alternative, if I could. I'll put you

down in the queue. We'll have Rick talk, and

then we'll turn to you. And then you can ask

clarifying questions. Go ahead.

MEMBER HANUSHEK: Well, I think

Michael did a very good job stating where we

are, and somewhat how we got there.

There are two things that I

emphasize in addition to meaningful



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opportunities for all children, and that is

that if -- to me, this Commission only makes

sense if we focus on actual achievement of

students and achievement gaps. And that

that's what we really care about. So, the

language has that throughout.

The second thing that I think is

extraordinarily important in the finance

draft and in other things that we do is that

we recognize we don't have enough evidence to

draw upon to make informed decisions that, in

fact, lead to better achievement in closing

gaps, and that part of the process that we

should be behind is always insisting upon

developing evidence as we go along so we can

try for some sort of model of continuous

improvement. So, that's the main thing.

We can talk -- and as Michael

pointed out, we'll have more extensive

discussions on the role of the federal

government. I think what the states should be

doing, that there's a reasonable compromise



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of the things that each of us think are most

important.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Great, thank you.

The person on the phone, and I thought I

recognized the voice but I'm not 100 percent

sure, so please identify yourself.

MEMBER ALI: I'm sorry. It's

Russlynn.

MR. MARSH: Hi, Russlynn.

MEMBER ALI: When you say the

-- between outcomes and the system itself, I

think that's tied a little bit to where there

appears to be some still disagreement, and

that is who enforces that link, or how do you

insure -- could you say a little bit more.

The question is probably to Michael when you

used the word "the link," --

MEMBER REBELL: I'm sorry. I'm

having trouble hearing you, Russlynn. Can we

make that louder?

CHAIR CUELLAR: Speak up just a

little bit, Russlynn.



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MEMBER ALI: Sure, so sorry. Is

that better?

MEMBER REBELL: A little better.

Okay.

MEMBER ALI: Okay. When you -- I

really do want to applaud the kind of places

of agreement that you all came. This is

really not about individuals, it's about the

viewpoints that you represent, and they're

shared by lots of folks in the field, and

that you come to this place where folks saw

it I think outside of your process, that

those two viewpoints could never come to a

middle road is really extraordinary.

But, Michael, when you say "the

link" between the systems and outcomes, could

you describe that a little bit more? I think

it's tied up in the preliminary disagreements

and that is how that link is enforced, but

could you describe what you've just said the

follow-up sentences would be for that.

MEMBER REBELL: You're asking how



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we would enforce this linkage. Is that the

thrust of the question?

MEMBER ALI: First what the link

is, and then how is it meaningful.

MEMBER REBELL: Okay. I think on a

basic level, the link is -- as I would

describe it, Rick may describe it

differently. But, for instance, in the

paragraph under the State Obligations, 1B

-- I'm sorry, 1A, if we're serious about

outcomes, closing achievement gaps, high

achievement for all students, et cetera, I

think you've got to be very specific and

concrete, especially in this budget-cutting

atmosphere, quite frankly, where when funds

are short all kinds of programs, electives,

AP courses, extra tutoring for kids who are

not achieving proficiency, all of this gets

cut helter skelter.

So, what I had in mind in this

paragraph 1A is, as a building block. We've

got to spend more time specifying what are



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the critical services that kids need in order

to overcome achievement gaps, and to have

high achievement for all kids. And I don't

think most states have done that, so this is

a major recommendation, I think, 1A, that

really calls for reconsidering state

regulations, and all kinds of things to say

what are the critical services, and they have

to be provided.

And your link there would be

you're operating on the assumption that

through evidence, through experience, through

whatever means we have to have these

particular types of teaching staff, programs,

up-to-date textbooks, technology, whatever it

is in all schools for kids to achieve these

outcomes.

And then when we get to costing

them, you would say all right, now we know

what we have to cost out. And if some things

are extraneous, then they don't get into the

core amount that has to be costed out. And in



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the costing out, we also put in this language

about efficiency and effectiveness to say

that we're really putting an understanding

here, you might say a pressure there that the

states realize they have to provide some of

these services. And I can give you examples

where things that all of us would consider

vital are being cut right and left. You're

going to have to provide it, and you want to

have a manageable budget. Well, you better

pay some attention to more effective ways to

provide these certain services.

I'll give you a quick example

that I have in mind. We have a problem in New

York State that in many schools, especially

small schools in New York City and rural

areas, kids are not getting access to physics

and chemistry. There aren't enough teachers,

there aren't enough students to cost justify

it, having 10 in a class or whatever. But it

means talking in terms of college readiness,

how can somebody be a serious science student



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who's never taken chemistry, or had the

opportunity to it. So, you've got to find a

way to do that cost-effectively. I don't know

whether it's distance learning, combining

classes, whatever it is, but that's the kind

of thing that I, at least, had in mind here.

So, that's the linkage. How you

enforce it? Well, we're making a strong

statement here, and I think that's one thing

the Commission can do, that this is the

outline of what you've got to accomplish. If

after all these years about talking about

high achievement, and we spent more money on

No Child Left Behind, and we didn't get that

kind of achievement. That's because you

haven't taken all these steps, and we think

these steps would be really important.

How we enforce it, that's the

question we come to with the federal

government. And I think that's what we're

going to have to get into, so that raises

that whole issue of the federal role, which I



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don't think I should go into at this point.

Does that answer your question, Russlynn?

MEMBER HANUSHEK: I have to say

one thing here that I didn't say at the

beginning, that one of the parts of our

discussion that doesn't appear on these pages

but will come up over and over again is the

difference between whether you have a

regulatory view of the world and specify

everything that needs to be done, or whether

you believe in incentives to try to lead

people to make efficient and better choices.

So, the word "incentive" never appears here

out of compromise, but it lies in the

background of all of this because I think it

would be absolutely insane to try to think

of regulating good performance. We've tried

that for a long period of time and it hasn't

worked.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Other comments?

MEMBER ALI: You should have

further deliberations to get others to think



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through that more. I do want to think of the

-- again, the agreement there and the way

that Mike and you have articulated for those

in the process that might not be in the

nuances of the research and the history of

finance reform and further conversations.

That is a whopping agreement, and it is not

used in circles to remind us of if we can do

this process initiative, whether or not it's

one or two big -- this, in my mind, is really

big.

CHAIR CUELLAR: I can't see your

badge perfectly but the gentlemen who's sort

of next to Tom Saenz over here. John King,

yes.

MEMBER KING: I think Mike raised

his hand before me.

CHAIR CUELLAR: All right. So,

Mike and then John.

MEMBER CASSERLY: I'll make this

quick because Russlynn just made the same

point. But I have to say I'm enormously



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impressed by what you came up with. I think

all of us in the real world understand that

adequacy and sufficiency, and outcomes of

achievement, and efficiency questions all go

hand in hand. And I thought we were

dangerously close to choosing which one, and

this was going to be an either/or

proposition. But meshed with an emphasis on

evidence this strikes me as a very, very

strong framework and we ought to applaud the

finance group, and let them take the next

steps and flesh it out. I think this is

terrific.

CHAIR CUELLAR: That's very

helpful. Thank you. John.

MEMBER KING: I just want to echo

the enthusiasm for that step forward. I want

to offer maybe what I hope is a friendly

amendment to Section C under the Federal

Government. And I think this is in the spirit

of the document, but the focus of C is on

cost methodology, and I want to suggest an



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ROI, Return On Investment, methodology, as

well, because I think we would acknowledge

here on things on which we spend money that

has produced very little return, and for that

reasons your districts that spend the same

but get different outcomes, that's one of the

reasons. So, if we're incentivizing people to

study these questions, I think the ROI thing

is something else we should incentivize.

MEMBER HAWLEY MILES: Can I build

on that then? Is that I would love to see

throughout this more weaving of -- and maybe

substituting the word "cost-effective." I

would almost quote it productive, but cost-

effective for efficient would accomplish

this, too, because in my world efficient

-- people use the word "efficient", to me I

spend the least on it. So, I've been part of

a State Commission in Massachusetts where

someone did some analysis and showed look,

you know, this district spends only, you

know, $10 a year on PD. Isn't that efficient?



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You know, Professional Development. Isn't

that efficient? You know, and no, it's not

cost-effective. It doesn't lead to the best

results based on those kinds of things. So, I

feel like cost-effective, productive is a

very important part of this to read

throughout, and maybe just substituting that

word for "efficient" could help a lot of

that. And so C seems really important to do

that. There are other places where we could

weave in the outcome with the spend.

And linked to that, the Common

Core Standards that 44 states are doing,

gives the federal office an opportunity to

compile and import data to one way of

creating incentives is to provide powerful

information that shows differences in

performance across states, and the

information about spending levels that might

begin to relate to that as people get closer

and closer to understanding that. So, if we

see terrible performance in Alabama and yet



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strangely enough their spending is absolutely

the lowest. We'll see, also, you know, New

York may be not as high as Massachusetts

spending, approximately the same levels, but

maybe we'll be able to begin to see

differences in where they put those dollars.

So, love to have that part of

also the federal role and shifting some of

the federal reporting to include and combine

better data on cross-state research and

results together with that.

And the last thing I'll say

really quickly about this is that the really

tricky thing about 1A, which I agree, which

is the identify the meaningful educational

opportunities for students. I haven't tried

this at the state level but we do it all the

time in districts when we help them create

weighted student funding systems. Right? And

we're doing it in the context of -- the other

problem with the word "efficient" is it

implies that you're going to do the same



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thing, you're just going to do it for less

money. And one thing we're trying to do here

is move to the 21st century, or to the

information age. We've got to figure out how

to do things in different ways that break

away from our old ways of organizing.

So, a tricky thing is to define

the inputs in such a way, define what the

core things are in such a way that they don't

reinforce the old ways that actually haven't

been getting us to the places we know we need

to get to. So, it's a real art. And I'm not

saying you figured out, but as we do that we

want to make sure we don't say things like

that means you have to have a class size of

X. Right? Because there could be ways you

could combine technology, more effective

teachers, all kinds of different sorts of

adults into that equation to accommodate

those kind of things. So, how do you define

that?

And one more thing about that is



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-- but acknowledging the trickiness doesn't

mean you don't have to take a stand at some

point and say here's the amount, because you

have to organize around a certain amount, if

you're a district, a school, or whatever. So,

you have to say here's what we sort of think

it's going to take, and here's what -- we

analyze that. We see 80 percent of the

district who are getting this level of

performance are kind of doing about this

level, so we kind of think this. And then

we're going to do some research to start

linking these levels to the outcomes, and

we'll refine that as we go. So, that's my

thing, is I think to put this emphasis on

continuous improvement is really important,

too.

CHAIR CUELLAR: That's really

helpful, Karen. I want to highlight two

things that you said that I thought were

very useful. One is to underscore the word

"efficient" which can mean a lot of things to



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different people. Surely, it ought not to

mean cheap. That's not the same thing.

But then the second, I think it's

very interesting to note that part of what

the finance team has done so far is to

recognize that you can simultaneously agree

that we have more than enough knowledge to

know that what we have right now doesn't

work, while at the same time recognizing that

we don't have all the information we'd like,

and at the level of detail we would like it

with respect to how to organize financing to

link to outcomes. And somehow I think it's

just very important to retain both

perspectives but that's what allows us to say

on the one hand we can make a very confident,

extraordinarily powerful statement that we

don't -- we cannot stay where we are as a

country and at the same time think hard about

building in a system we recognize is worthy

of passing on our knowledge. Other comments?

Congressman Honda.



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REP. HONDA: Thank you very much,

and let me extend my thanks to everybody for

their hard work. Let me just ask a question.

The Commission's title is Commission on

Excellence and -- or Commission on Equity and

Excellence in Education. And the discussion

I'm seeing right now, and it looked to me in

all of the information I have right here, it

seems like we're becoming more definitive in

understanding the problem, but we don't

address the problem in the context of equity

for the children, whether it's all children,

or each child.

So, absent that definition it

seems like we're going to drift towards the

same direction that we came from and looking

at 50 states and the federal government. And

then changes, it seems to me, in the document

is that we're looking at having equity and

excellence legislation to significantly

increase federal funding to support states

through finance systems which we already do



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now, perhaps not in the context of defining

equity so that we have a guidepost. And I

feel a little bit uncomfortable not saying

this, and so putting this statement out there

again in terms of keeping our eye on the

definition of what equity means in education

and trying to address this big problem that

we've had since 1789.

So, it's just a thought I wanted

to share, and hopefully refocus on that term

and the clients who are our children.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Any thoughts about

that? I would just note one thing, which is I

think that it's important to bear in mind

that the report will be more than the sum of

its parts in a way. And I think the balance

-- one of the balances we need to strike is

to be as detailed as we can in these

individual discussions, but to make sure that

the report as a whole is able to convey that

this really is a balance. And I think we all

need to review the report from that



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perspective so that when we get to the report

we see how the pieces fit together, we're

addressing equity with as much direction and

as much clarity as you are urging us to.

REP. HONDA: Thank you very much.

I appreciate that.

MEMBER HANUSHEK: Could I just ask

just one clarifying -- aren't these following

on to --

CHAIR CUELLAR: Yes, absolutely.

And we've got a team working on the planning

new direction.

REP. HONDA: Thank you.

CHAIR CUELLAR: I've got Tom Saenz

next.

MEMBER MARTIRE: Could I break in,

Ralph Martire here?

CHAIR CUELLAR: Ralph, you're on

the queue but I've got Tom since he had his

hand up first which is easier since he's in

the room, but I've got you right next.

MEMBER SAENZ: So, I have -- first



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of all, I, too, want to congratulate the

group for what's here. I think it reflects

the larger Commission's conversations

previously, but it also reflects a greater

degree of convergence then I think we were at

before, which is a tremendous accomplishment,

particularly on this issue.

I have a clarifying question, and

then I want to raise an issue that may not be

an issue, but it may be a bigger issue. But

the clarifying question is about 1D.

I'm not clear what it is

suggesting or saying is the ambition. And, in

particular, I'm focusing on stable,

predictable, and equitable sources of

revenue. I'm not certain what that means, or

what the ambition is there.

MEMBER REBELL: Well, I can say in

a nutshell that's dealing with budget cuts

and things like that that if we're going to

have real opportunity, kids life chances

can't depend on whether there was a recession



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when they were in the third grade and they

didn't learn how to read until the fifth

grade.

So, I think there are ways that

states can make their education funding more

stable, predictable. And I guess equitable

means thinking about things like property tax

and all, which are not stable and -- well,

maybe they are more stable than some other

things, but anyway we have to flesh out

exactly what that's referring to. But some

tax systems are not equitable.

MEMBER SAENZ: Okay, I appreciate

that, and I do think that it's worth talking

about sources of revenue, as well as

distribution of revenue. But I do want to

focus on the distribution of revenue question

because if that's what 1D is about, I'm not

certain I'm seeing any engagement with

distributions of revenue within a system. And

I realize that's the big nut, but I'm not

-- and I'm sure, and I hope the group will



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grapple with that further as we go forward,

but if that's not what's in 1D, then I'm not

sure that I see it here.

But the other issue that I wanted

to raise is I want to be sure that our equity

ambition is an equity ambition that goes to

all levels of achievement, because what I see

here, and I understand that it is an adequacy

frame, but it's also an adequacy frame that

gets us to a floor, and I get that it's a

floor that we want moved higher, but a floor

for all students, but doesn't necessarily

address equity above that floor.

So, even if we succeed and you

have an education system that adequately both

collects and then distributes revenues, that

you arrive at outcomes that gets every child

regardless of background to a certain floor.

And even if that floor moves up, I believe

that our ambition should be that we should

have an education system that we should have

an education system that insures equity above



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that floor so that a child no matter

background would have the resources available

to excel to the greatest extent of his or her

ability, not just be taken to a floor however

high that floor of state standards may be.

And I wasn't sure that I saw that here. And

that may -- again, just because it's a one

and a half pager, but I want to make sure

that we have a sense of what our equity

ambition is. That certainly would be my

equity ambition. And I would want to make

sure that it's reflected in the five, or

maybe closer to ten-page version of this

very, very positive start. So, is that clear?

CHAIR CUELLAR: It's nice and

simple, and it might take a couple of extra

minutes but I take your point. I think that

is very interesting. Ralph, I have you next.

MEMBER MARTIRE: Yes. So, two

things. One, that now respond to what Tom

just said, there are certain principles of a

sound fiscal system that include aspects of



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sustainability and tax fairness, et cetera,

and most states fail. So, part of what would

drive education reform both substantively and

financially across the nation at the state

level would be fiscal reform at the state

level to get a better mix of revenue systems.

And that's something within a one-pager

really our Subcommittee couldn't get into,

but maybe we can talk about that a little bit

more as we go on.

Now, to follow-up on Tom's second

plan, what Congressman Honda said, I think

moving from equitable availability, basic --

whatever you want to call it education truly

is a floor and the starting place, but I

think one of the roles for the federal

government going forward, and this gets into

the federal part of the funding, and I don't

-- I apologize, I'm in Maine at a cottage

with very limited access to technology, but I

don't have the paper in front of me, but I

think it's 2B where the federal government



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was going to assume a clear role in education

funding that would particularly put even more

resources in poor communities, low income

communities, et cetera. And those states that

are actually demonstrating improvement in

those areas, improvement in addressing those

children. So, the move to excellence,

hopefully, will be accomplished through the

federal government taking better care of

their funding -- adequate level, and then the

federal government will help push them up all

the way to an excellent level for every kid.

I think it's not only a

legitimate point, I go back to what

Congressman Honda said, it's one of the

charges of the Commission. And we need to

find a way to do that, but certain states

probably will never have the fiscal capacity

to get there. But as long as they're making a

good faith effort to move there, I think the

federal government then steps in and says

wait a minute, these are all American kids.



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We're going to provide additional resources

to take adequate then to excellence.

CHAIR CUELLAR: That does relate

also to the point that Michael was bringing

up earlier, and that Tom was asking for

clarification involving what it means to have

a predictable source of funding. Because, of

course, once states are in a position to

actually provide what they need to prove or

what we want them to provide can change

depending on their individual economic

circumstances. I have David next.

MEMBER SCIARRA: Well, just in

-- to try to clarify some of this, because

the language is -- just a point that this

language is very carefully developed. It's

general because of what this is and,

obviously, there's a lot packed in here. But

there were specific reasons for choosing this

particular language. It gets to some of the

concerns that have been raised here. And,

obviously, those have to be fleshed out in



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greater detail.

So, for example, the issue of the

sort of quality of educational programming

that we want to finance. We consciously

stayed away from terms like adequacy and

equity because those are loaded and have a

kind of history to them. And really tried to

tie this more into the issue of financing

systems that are directly connected to, and

where there's an effort made to rationally

connect them to the cost of delivering

rigorous, we use the word "rigorous" academic

standards or elsewhere content and

performance standards. So, that allows us,

for example, to deal with the issue of not

just Language Arts and Mathematics, but the

range of content areas, Science, Social

Studies, Visual and Performing Arts, Health

and Physical Education, so forth and so on,

so you're not narrowing the curriculum. Also

allows for common core to come in and make

sure that as common core comes in, and



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standards in Language Arts, and Math, and the

subjects are going up we're revising these

systems to make sure that we've got the

resources in place to deliver those.

So, this idea of financing

systems that -- 21st century financing

systems that are linked to where we're going

in terms of rigorous broad, rich curriculum

for all kids, and we emphasize in here all

kids. We had some struggles with that

language, but you can see it's very clear

we're not just talking about some kids, but

all kids. And, in particular, kids with

special needs, at-risk students, English

language learners and kids with disabilities.

So, I just want to emphasize that

point, that I think equity and sort of this

notion that we're looking for financing

systems that deliver the kinds of rigorous

academic programs we want to see tied to

performance standards, as well, i.e., outcome

measures are developed.



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I do want to make a point about

C-- so that's one piece. But the other

component of this is the notion that states

also have a responsibility not just to

provide that, cost that out and determine

what that dollar amount is, but also put in

place connected systems that insure that

districts and schools, however they may be

locally governed, effectively and efficiently

use those resources to enable kids to achieve

those rigorous top 10 standards. Right? So,

you kind of come back to that.

What does effective and efficient

mean? Well, you know, there's a lot there as

many of us in this room know who's worked on

this problem, but they're very different.

Effective means does the program have

evidence to show that it's actually -- you

know, is there sort of an evidence base in

terms of quality of the programming to

actually move the ball forward. That's more

of an education and research point of view.



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And to the point that's been made about

research, we're going to have to have robust

research about whether the programs that

we're funding actually contribute to raising

the bar.

Efficient is more of a

requirement that everybody has. I mean,

everybody just has to have that requirement

to constantly and continually engage in the

ongoing sort of work of making sure you're

looking at how you're spending your money,

and making sure that you're maximizing use of

that funding. And if you have to reallocate

resources and the like, you're doing that.

So, we tried to build in sort of

both concepts. Now, the details of those are

going to have to, obviously, play out but the

states have to really do the work of putting

in place systems that do both, cost out the

C- and deliver the funding in a stable,

predictable way to school districts and

schools so all kids get access and the



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opportunity to achieve those rigorous

contents and standards against the

performance goals that are set. And, two,

engage in the ongoing work of making sure

that those resources are effectively and

efficiently used.

So, I don't know if that's

helpful to kind of give you an understanding

of the sort of -- there's a lot packed into

these words that are not here because this is

a one-pager, but there was a lot of thought.

And these words are carefully picked in order

to kind of create that frame that we can then

build a lot more of this detail on.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, David.

Any other comments? I think I see Sandra.

MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: Yes, thank

you. And, David, that was very helpful

because I think that hits a couple of the, I

guess, language issues that I wanted to

raise.

One of them in the opening



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paragraph, and I think this goes back to the

Congressman's comments. The feeling from our

report that this issue that has been largely

left to 50 individual states to resolve needs

to be raised up again to a level of national

concern. And I think your comment about this

emerging issue around core -- the common core

standards could be emphasized more in your

opening paragraph to really bring out that

point, that this focus on national, really

national interest, national standards that

many of the states now are coalescing around

as seeing them, you know, kind of raising

themselves. I think to bring that point and

take it away from the individual, that each

state is going to have its own outcomes and

you're going to kind of figure out your own

way to get there. So, kind of raising the

national importance of this and interest

would be helpful, because that kind of

relates to why we're here as a national

Commission. So, I just want to offer that as



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a suggestion, and kind of raise that point

up. You made that point in your comments, and

I think you could come to it a little bit

more clearly in the opening paragraph.

Then the other language issue I

want to raise is this phrase meaningful

educational opportunity. And you said your

words are very purposeful, but when I read

that I didn't get the feel that we were -- I

don't know what that means, meaningful

educational opportunity. And is that in the

context, again, of thinking about 21st

century outcomes and the need to kind of

raise up the bar around rigor. I think there

might be another phrase, and I don't have it

for you today. I don't know what to offer,

but to kind of push to say that it really has

to be a different kind of outcome available

to all students, and then we have to remove

the barriers that exist for many of those

students to get to those outcomes. So, I

don't know how to capture that, but the



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phrase meaningful educational opportunity

didn't seem to do that.

MEMBER SCIARRA: If I just could

quickly, if you look at -- we --

CHAIR CUELLAR: Go ahead, David.

MEMBER SCIARRA: We -- and maybe

this isn't sufficient, and I would urge you

to take a look at it, but we state the

problem, and then we state the goal and try

to, at least in the context of what we're

going to do around finance. Now, keep in mind

there's other areas around curriculum, and

accountability, and teacher quality that this

is creating the sort of financing systems

that we want as a foundational element. And

there are other elements that we're going to

be as a Commission talking about.

But we define meaningful

educational opportunity back to the issue of

having the states make sure that students,

all students, and underline all, have the

resources necessary to do what? To achieve



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rigorous academic standards towards the goal

of obtaining the skills necessary to compete

in the economy and participate capably as

citizens in a democratic society. So, we

tried to -- at least in a general way. And I

recognize this is a general point, really

define what we mean by financing systems that

are set up and consciously designed by the

states, not just kind of in a haphazard

budget-driven, you know, how much money do we

have to spend, and which political group is

more powerful now and it's going to get

-- we'll get away from that, move away from

that to really making sure that these systems

are designed, developed, and implemented

consciously to connect to the resources, to

deliver in a stable predictive way the

resources that all kids need to be able to

achieve rigorous academic standards, i.e., or

rigorous content and performance standards

whether they're part of the national common

core when that comes in, or some kind of mix



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of state standards in some areas or common

core areas, because common core isn't going

to cover all the areas. So, we want to make

sure that it's broad in terms of rigor and

breadth of curriculum.

CHAIR CUELLAR: So, before -- I

see Michael but I also see someone further

down on the table that I can't quite make

out.

MEMBER RUIZ: Jesse Ruiz.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Right next to

Michael, is that it?

MEMBER RUIZ: Yes.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Go ahead.

MEMBER RUIZ: I want to echo

Sandra's comment and, frankly, kind of

follows along what Congressman Honda said

earlier, that -- and maybe it's just because

I took a continuing legal education class on

legal drafting again to freshen up the

skills. And we're almost using this as a

defined term and we're saying what it



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requires, but we're not saying in terms of

meaningful education what it is. And that's

the crux, because it's used throughout the

document. And maybe -- again, this is just a

one-pager. Who knows where it's going to fall

in the document that it gets discussed or

introduced, but it's a key concept, and just

saying we're going to fund this thing, you

know, it's almost as we're putting the cart

before the horse and not saying at least

generally what that looks like. So, that, to

me, was something that's kind of critical and

can go with, again, the adequately funding

versus efficiently funding, if you don't say

what it kind of is, or what it kind of should

look like.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Fair enough. Let

me -- just one quick comment in connection

with that. I just want to connect your

comment, Jesse, to what Sandra said, and what

Tom said, because it does seem to me that one

drafting challenge as this outline gets



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fleshed out would be to address the

implications of this formulation for the

notion of a floor, but also for the notion of

how the idea of a meaningful educational

opportunity maps on to students

opportunities to be at the very top end of

the achievement spectrum. So, Michael and

then the person at the very end of the table

who has their tent up. Go ahead, Michael.

MEMBER REBELL: Okay. I just

wanted to speak a little further to this,

because I agree with everything David said

about what went into this. And I agree with

Jesse's point.

I just want to give a little

background. This term "meaningful educational

opportunity" does have a legal history to it,

and rather than citing a bunch of cases we

tried to define it. We can do a better job,

but just to tell you in a nutshell, the first

use of it that I'm aware of was a Supreme

Court decision dealing with English language



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learners. And, essentially, the context was

to say it's not a meaningful opportunity to

let these kids come into school and give them

textbooks, and give them teachers who can't

speak their language, and it's not

meaningful. You're giving them -- maybe

you're spending as much on them as others,

but it's not in a way that they're in a

position to take advantage of it.

So, it really is very much, I

think, geared to what you're saying, that

it's got to meet kids where they are so that

they have a real chance to get to where they

should be.

MEMBER RUIZ: Mike, it's almost

the last part where you're talking about

competing in the economy versus capability as

a citizen. That's where you certainly get the

crux of --

MEMBER REBELL: Right. And that

comes from other legal decisions. So, I just

want to tell you when David said a lot if



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packed in here, we do have a lot of these

legal background. But I guess what I'm

hearing is we can build on that and maybe

have some citations, but then as a Commission

we can go to a next step and maybe advance

that definition a little further. So, we

will take that as our charge here.

CHAIR CUELLAR: With one caveat,

Michael. I would say we can address how much

of that definition fits the agreement we've

created if that allows us to go a little

further than we do. But that is, I think,

what the next challenge would be for the

finance group, basically fleshing that out

and seeing how far we can go. The gentleman

at the end of the table, and then Rick.

MR. DANNENBERG: Thanks, I'm

Michael Dannenberg. For those of you who

don't know, I've worked on school finance

from the federal level for on and off 20

years. So, I just have a clarifying question,

and a couple of suggestions on technical



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matters might be helpful.

The first is the clarifying

question. It seems that the equity issue is

C-- could be solved with Recommendation 2B,

the second B, which promotes the federal

government's providing funding to enhance the

equity of school finance systems, not just

the sufficiency, or adequacy, or providing

meaningful opportunity, whatever that may be.

My question is, I think you are

only referring to the equity of state school

systems within, as opposed to equity among

state school systems and, therefore, among

schools across not just district boundaries

but state boundaries. And you might want to

consider expanding from just supporting

-- having the federal government promote

equity within states, but also among states,

since that's a traditional federal role.

The suggestion I have is on

Russlynn's very good enforcement question.

There's a history of two efforts with respect



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to enforcement on school finance which might

be of interest. The first is that there's

something on the books now called The

Education Finance Incentive Grant Program,

which was created first in 1994 and modified

in 2001, and now has about $3 billion running

through it that no one knows about. But what

it does is in states that do not have

particularly equitable school systems as

defined by a coefficient of variation

measure, it heightens federal targeting on

high poverty areas.

So, one enforcement mechanism

might be heightened federal targeting of

federal resources in states that -- or even

districts, but states that have inequitable

systems. So, you are sort of -- you're not

hurting the kids. The kids you are hurting

are those who are in the New Trier school

districts of the world as opposed to the East

St. Louis school districts of the world.

The second enforcement idea



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that's been considered in the past is from

the Fair Chance Act that was introduced in

1989 or '90 by then Representative, Chairman

of the Education Committee, Gus Hawkins. It

was reported by the Committee, I'm pretty

sure, never considered by the House of

Representatives, but what it would have done

was docked federal funding to state education

agencies that is currently set aside for

administrative matters. John King, sorry, but

Mike Casserly probably would like it.

And those funds, instead, were

directed by the Feds directly to local school

districts, so it's a much smaller ding or

enforcement means but one that sort of hits

the states where it hurts, since such a large

portion of state education agencies are

funded by the federal government.

And then my last suggestion is,

and I think this document is very good.

There's no reference to the role of

philanthropy, and it seems that philanthropy



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could play a role here on a very low-cost

item which you've recommended, which is

support for developing cost methodologies of

identifying what is a sufficient opportunity

to learn connected to state standards or

college and career ready standards.

This was considered in the early

'90s. I think this was philanthropic support

for the State of Vermont which began to cost

this out. They had a political change and

then it stopped, but it might be something

that this Commission could recommend, and

it's easier since the Feds don't have to

-- since a bipartisan federal government

doesn't have to support school finance equity

or adequacy research.

So, those are my suggestions. But

overall I think this is a great job.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you. Those

are very good ideas. I have Rick and then --

MEMBER HANUSHEK: I just want to

make a quick comment, but I -- much of this



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discussion is really right on the lack of

real bite to what the words mean here. But I

had envisioned this myself as coming

somewhere else in the document, that there's

a little bit in accountability, there's a

little bit in finance and so forth, but what

we hope to accomplish I think should be in

the beginning discussions of the documents,

and I would put it in terms of skills that

prepare people for working in society. But

these are things that I think purvey the

entire document and all the little subparts,

so we have to address those elsewhere.

CHAIR CUELLAR: That's an

important point to keep in mind. John.

MEMBER KING: Just to build on

that last point, I guess I would suggest

defining it as college and career readiness,

and defining career ready as a job that

provides a family sustaining wage. I worry

that work is too broad a category, and

understate the aspiration we have for our



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school systems. But I think if you start with

college and career readiness, what's the

investment that's required to get there for

all high school graduates. And if they don't

get there, and the money has been spent then

I think that raises a variety of questions

about educational effectiveness that are

taken up by the other committees.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Great. We need to

ramp up the discussion -- Let me ask if

anybody has any last thoughts of where the

finance team -- somebody is on the phone,

apparently.

MR. JOHNSON: And, Tino, we do

have Dennis Van Roekel at the end of the

table. I don't know if you can see him.

CHAIR CUELLAR: So, I apologize

that I haven't seen Dennis. Dennis, would you

like to weigh in at this point?

MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: Sure, two

comments. One, I think this is really what

the -- I'm pleased that -- I think it



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captures the equity much better than some of

the earlier conversations we had. It seemed

that we were tilted more towards just towards

excellence and I guess we made real progress

in terms of the equity issues that are

defined in this part of the report.

The second comment I have may be

a little off topic, but it was triggered when

David was speaking about the robust research

that's needed. I think as we go through this

development of the whole report there are

going to be a lot of areas that are

identified where that's needed. And my

suggestion is maybe that one of the things

that we might add maybe as an appendix to the

report is to put in one place what we as a

Commission believe is what is lacking in

robust research. And that I believe is

another place where especially the federal

government and/or philanthropy can play a

role, because it's ridiculous for every state

to start digging in and doing research when



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they all need the same thing. So, maybe as we

go through this and those are identified, we

can kind of pull them out, and put them in a

place and say if we're really going to move

on here, here's what needs to be accomplished

so that the next X number of years that will

really be able to understand what's needed to

change what's happening for kids, and have

that section of robust research needed now,

or whatever you want to call it. Thank you.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Dennis, thank you.

We should not understate how valuable it can

be for us to share with the world what we

have discovered about what we need to know

more about. Certainly, I found that there

were times when I thought it would be pretty

straightforward to find a study that

addressed some point that the Commission was

discussing. That hasn't been the case.

We have about five minutes and

we've covered almost everything in here. I do

-- there is somebody on the phone I wanted to



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get in, and I also want to just note if

anybody has any last thoughts, particularly

on Part 2 of the document addressing the

federal government, please go ahead and share

them. Person on the phone.

MEMBER MARTIRE: So this is

Martire chiming in from the phone to sort of

follow-up on the federal role and what Sandra

said, and a couple of the others have said.

I think it's hugely important

that we have a role defined for the federal

government here because our system that we've

had has been one that's relied primarily on

the states. And so what is that new federal

role, and how is it different than before?

And how, in fact, will it help move the ball

forward?

And from the enforcement side, I

think one of the things that has been chatted

about that I think is crucial is that the

federal government has the capacity to bypass

the states and go directly to schools located



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in poor communities, schools where there a

significant achievement gaps, and devote

resources to helping those schools out,

targeting resources directly to the children

who need it most, particularly when the

states have turned their back on them.

I think that's huge, that's

something we talked about a lot on the

Finance Committee. What you see in the draft

is the modified document. And I want to

greatly appreciate my fellow workers on this

Committee, Michael Rebell and David Sciarra

for being able to carve down I think what we

started out with as a four or five-pager to a

one and a half, two-pager. But now that it

needs to be blown up, I think that this is

one of the crucial issues, a new positive

federal role that's strong but helps us

achieve the goals we've all come together

around, and that is educating children who

currently are not getting a quality

education. But I'm emphasizing that as



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something that will have to be fleshed out in

the longer iteration.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Ralph.

Michael, I see that your tent is up. Then

we'll do --

MEMBER REBELL: Oh, I'm sorry. I

meant to put it down. No.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. So, let's go

ahead to Karen, and then David, and then

we'll wrap up.

MEMBER HAWLEY MILES: Okay. So,

I'm just responding to your federal role

question, but not at the level of what Ralph

has said. But we have a huge -- you know, if

you think about the streams of funding and

the sources of influence, the Special Ed

funding is a huge area that is not -- it's

culled out as one of the groups. It's not

culled out as we think about what the federal

role needs to be. And there's just so much

opportunity, and so many ways in which the

existing rules actually get in the way of



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productive use of resources for struggling

learners and those with special needs. And

there are also so many ways in which the

federal government could organize to focus

more again on outcomes even for Special

Education students.

So, I don't know where that goes

in here, but in this federal piece, and it

could be in the explosion, we're not real

explicit about the key places where we have

the biggest leverage, Title I, and maybe

Title II, but what does it mean about how we

change there and what the federal government

needs to do to enable excellence and new ways

of using resources. So, I would just urge we

get something in there about that.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Karen.

David.

MEMBER SCIARRA: Two quick

clarifying points. One is on that, Special

Education. We kind of stayed away from the

federal issue around 40 percent, and the



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federal -- you know, all the issues around

the federal government not really stepping up

to the plate to fund what they already are

obligated to fund in Special Ed.

I would say on Special Ed,

though, packed into the state revamping of

their systems to enable kids to reach

standards, we do specifically mention

students with disabilities. And, obviously,

one of the issues would be in terms of the

state financing systems, how are they going

to deliver Special Education funding through

the various methodologies that are out there.

So, there is packed in here at least a

requirement that part of what the states will

do with their finance reform is to look at

Special Education components in the context

of both costing out and effective and

efficient.

Just for a point of

clarification, we do make it clear as this

may come up in other areas that the issue of



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funding to enable kids to achieve standards

and for the states to deliver those to

districts and schools includes all schools

however governed locally. So, I just want to

make that clear, that there's a lot of

discussion about well, we need to have

equitable funding for charter schools. That's

packed in here. You'll see that, that

obviously any public school whether it's

governed by a district, locally as a district

school, a charter school, or whatever it is,

as long as it's public has to be included in

the financing -- the state financing system

and the resources to enable kids to achieve

those standards have to be delivered.

Now, we did not get into the

details of how states deal with charter

schools, which is a very complex question,

and the financing of charter schools, but

that principle is embedded in here. So, I

just wanted to make that point.

And the last point I want to make



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is something we did not consider, and

probably shouldn't consider, but I want to at

least put it on the table, is the growing

amounts of public dollars that are flowing to

private and religious schools, and what will

ultimately do to the -- could do, and may do

in some states very quickly do to the ability

of these states to meet these goals.

Now, I don't know whether the

Commission wants to say anything about that.

I have my own strong views about that, as

many of you know, but I do want to put that

on the table. We made it clear in this

document that this is about public education

systems, public schools. And, again, public

schools however they're governed, we don't

say anything about the issue of the use of

public funds to support education in either

religious or private schools.


Sandra, you're going to have the last word on

finance.



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MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: Thank you.

CHAIR CUELLAR: And then I'm going

to turn it over to Tom and Rick to introduce

the Accountability Outline. Go ahead.

MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: Very

quickly. This is really a response to Rick's

comment about in a sense the drafting of this

and the themes, and where they would appear.

And I just wanted to really encourage us,

because we don't know when this report comes

out whether it's going to be taken in whole

or in part. People may pull different

chapters out, and different parts of it out

to stand alone. It's important for certain

themes that we think are the really critical

themes to be repeated throughout the report.

So, this is really going back to

the comment around finance. We're assuming

some things may have been mentioned

elsewhere. I think there's certain themes

that would bear repeating in all of our

chapters to kind of keep again the



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overarching themes we captured as equity and

excellence, but defining what we mean by 21st

century outcomes I think bears repeating.

We've defined what we mean around

removing barriers and access, I believe bears

repeating throughout the document so that no

matter how it's taken some of those key

points are readily evident. So that's what I

wanted to add.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you. This

has been very --

MEMBER ALI: One last question,

Russlynn.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay.

MEMBER ALI: This document talks

about state and federal. Did the Committee

besides local or is that sort of baked in as

we discussed in our conversation today?

CHAIR CUELLAR: Rick, Michael?

MEMBER REBELL: Yes, it's embedded

but I think we should bring it out a little

more, Russlynn. We can try that on the next



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draft.

MEMBER ALI: It's totally -- I

think we had decided earlier that we would

try and streamline the section, so this will

likely be a little bit precedent setting as

we do state and federal, which I don't have

an opinion one way or the other, but I think

we should all be clear. And if you all agree

that's sufficient, especially given Tom's and

John's issue about how that then gets spent.

MEMBER KING: I would just add it

doesn't have to be here, it can be in

governance or accountability, or elsewhere.

But we have districts that are spending

vastly different amounts between schools

blocks away and we ought to address that in

some way somewhere.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Fair enough. So, I

don't want to belabor this. I think we've

said it in different ways, but I just want

convey that I am personally grateful to all

the people who have been working so hard on



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this, because I think we are really moving

the ball forward here. There's a lot more

work to be done, but I'm very confident we're

going to get it done. So, thank you,

particularly Michael, David, Rick, Ralph. We

will be in touch, and let me turn it over to

Tom and to Rick to introduce the

accountability --

MR. JOHNSON: And actually, Tino,

before we make the --

CHAIR CUELLAR: Yes.

MR. JOHNSON: -- to Rick and Tom,

just to get -- if we can take a minute to do

two things. I just want to remind people we

do have sandwiches for the Commissioners, and

coffee and water in the back if anybody wants

to take a chance to get it. And then, also,

if we could just do a quick check to update

who we have on the phones and see who we have

there. Is that all right?

MEMBER ALI: Could you guys

-- could somebody talk closer to the



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-- because it's really hard to hear.

CHAIR CUELLAR: So, who do we have

on the phone?

MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: It's Sandy.

I've been on the phone for about 45 minutes.

MEMBER MILLER: Matt Miller.

MEMBER HANCOCK: Kati Hancock.

MEMBER MARTIRE: Martire.

MR. JOHNSON: Okay.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Great, thank you.

Okay, so I've been advised that maybe it will

make sense to do a very quick five minute

break for folks who want to grab sandwiches

to do so. But let's just make it five minutes

because I think that we're making some

headway and I'd like to just have us ramp up.

Five minutes, okay.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled

matter went off the record at 12:20 p.m. and

resumed at 12:28 p.m.)

CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay, great. All

right. Tom, why don't you pick it up. Tell us



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briefly what you were attempting to do in the

accountability section.

MEMBER SAENZ: I just took a bite

of my cookie. Tino, I'm sorry, give me a

second.

So, let me begin by saying that,

obviously, the Accountability group did not

make as much progress as the Finance group.

We are only at the outline stage. And,

obviously, the outline in front of you I

think probably does not demonstrate the

extent of disagreement that there may be.

And, in particular, I think with respect to

this set of issues where the Commission ends

up on the spectrum between regulation, or all

regulation, and incentive, or all incentive

it' also going to be a matter of some

potential disagreement. But you will see that

this outline includes both incentives and

regulation, as it were.

The headlines are there for you

to read, and that's mostly to highlight what



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we see as the major take-aways from what will

ultimately be a longer draft. First of all,

that existing accountability mechanisms have

proven inadequate with respect to equity

concerns, in particular; that, obviously, a

strong accountability system is essential to

making progress on these issues; that the

accountability system should have applied

throughout the education system; that the

system should move beyond test scores, simple

test scores to broader measures of outcomes,

and that while the system emphasizes outcomes

it should also look at inputs and have some

measures of accountability about inputs.

Obviously, some of that is clearly going to

be dealt with in other sections, including

the one that we just spent some time talking

about.

And then the outline, again, just

sets out what we would expect as a group to

flesh out in greater detail. In the

introduction, some of what is said above,



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that there is a need for differentiated

accountability for inputs and outcomes.

Basically, this is the notion that we ought

to be concerned about both, but if a system

manages to have equitable outcomes without

equity in inputs then perhaps that's of far,

far less concern.

That there needs to be attention

in discussing accountability to the roles of

parents, of local districts, of states, and

of the federal government; that there needs

to be a mix of incentives, and required

interventions or regulations; that we need to

use multiple measures in determining equity

and accountability for it; that there needs

to be an attention to all levels of

achievement in terms of equity, which is the

point that I made in the previous discussion,

not simply a floor; that we need to

adequately resource these accountability

measures so that they are vigorous; that

there, of course, has to be -- we have to



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attend to all of the subgroups, and this

means in my mind also subgroups within

traditionally established subgroups, so that

if there is an issue that cuts across both

race and gender, or race, gender, and income,

it would be useful, therefore, to

disaggregate them, the accountability system

ought to incorporate that.

Roman II is basically a

discussion of the existing successes and

shortcomings, primarily shortcomings of the

existing accountability mechanisms, federal

under ESEA NCLB, state oversight, obviously

very differentiated state to state, local,

the local traditional mechanisms of

accountability and school board elections,

superintendent's selection, et cetera. And

then, of course, litigation which has had

some successes but is obviously resource-

intensive and time consuming in terms of

addressing these issues.

Roman III is about data



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transparency, obviously necessary but not

sufficient for any accountability system,

that there ought to be data at district

school and subgrade level, subgroup level;

that the data has to cover both inputs. We

need to have some transparency around the

critical inputs to education listed here, as

well as about outcomes but not simply on test

scores, obviously, multiple measures listed

here. And that for it to be workable as part

of an accountability system the data has to

not only be transparent, it needs to both

available and useable. And there are some

examples of some of those concerns listed.

Roman IV is a federal system of

incentives with clearly articulated goals,

including interim progress benchmarks for

states and/or districts with respect to both

inputs and outcomes but, again, with the

notion that there would be differentiated

systems with respect to inputs and outcomes.

Roman V is about monitoring.



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This is where we begin to talk about both

requirements and incentives for state equity

plans. Obviously, some of this is going to

overlap with what's been discussed on some of

these inputs. We envision here with respect

to input equity and adequate plan within a

broad range of acceptable approaches

including benchmarks, actual investment in

the plan, pursuit of the plan state level,

adjustments of the plan based on experience

with escalating options of intervention if

there is no success in moving toward input

equity.

With respect to outcomes again a

state plan probably much more detailed

aligned to college and career ready standards

including time frames and performance targets

with an index of comparison between the

states and districts, et cetera.

Monitoring on parental

involvement since parental involvement is

traditionally and hypothetically the major



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form of accountability for these issues,

demonstration of parental engagement through

a measurable index that would compare

districts and states. Obviously, Department

of Education approval for the various plans.

Roman VI is about interventions

with respect to inputs, a state intervening

or demonstrated failures of equity in a

district and, similarly, federal intervention

for state-level failure. Again, here's a

notion of safe harbor for significant

outcomes progress therefore triggering a

lesser concern about input equity. Outcomes,

state intervention for demonstrated failure

at the district level, federal intervention

at district or state level tailored to

specific subgroup outcomes; this meaning that

we can't have one set of intervention

mechanisms for all failures, they have to be

tailored to where the particular failure is

with respect to subgroups, and potential

intervention where parental involvement for



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various reasons it at a particularly low

level based on the index that was described

previously.

Roman VII is about teacher and

principal accountability, having a credible

evaluation structure linked in some way to

performance with a plan for addressing repeat

bad performers, and the necessity of some

accountability for situations where there's

high teacher administrative turnover in

certain schools with the issues that have

come out recently, of course.

Roman VIII is about not wanting

to leave out of this mix charter schools

because, of course, much of the previous in

our existing systems are predicated on a

federal, state, local traditional district

structure, but a need nationally to address

charter school accountability issues,

including adequate monitoring and

intervention by authorizers with respect to

outcomes, and ought to be holding them to the



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same outcome measurements as other public

schools, and some attention to finance equity

issues.

Again, obviously, it's an outline

so it certainly does leave out some of the

disagreements that may arise, and that we

expect will arise, and that we'll be

attempting to deal with the group as we move

forward in fleshing this out to a minimum 10-

page document, Tino.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Tom.

MEMBER SAENZ: And with that, I'll

turn it over to Rick, if he wants to add

anything.

CHAIR CUELLAR: An extra couple of

pages, that's useful. Rick, anything you want

to add?

MEMBER HANUSHEK: Yes. I wanted to

bring up that Tom and I have one major

disagreement, and that is I thought we made a

lot of progress, and he didn't think we made

much progress.



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(Laughter.)

CHAIR CUELLAR: That's the kind of

disagreements that I like.

MEMBER SAENZ: I'm happy to be

wrong.

MEMBER HANUSHEK: I had a couple

of little notes to this. I mean, I think one

of the underlying themes is just a lot more

transparency on inputs and outputs through

the system and making them readily available.

And that's clear.

And one of the issues that we

have is what's the relationship between

accountability for inputs and accountability

for outcomes. I want to suggest my notion

just to put it on the table, and it's been

-- we can talk about it later, and that is

that the primary emphasis is on whether

districts are doing a good job in terms of

achievement in closing gaps and overall

achievement. And if they're doing a good job,

or making substantial progress, this is the



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safe harbor part. If they're making

substantial progress, you don't pay much

attention to what they have on the input

side. But when, in fact, they're not making

progress and not doing a good job, then you

swing into action to say that you want the

districts to justify why they have

inequitable distributions of inputs by some

measures that we have defined, and so forth.

Part of the emphasis on that

direction is also the idea that it is not

okay for a district to say well, we just

don't have enough inputs so, therefore, we

won't pay attention to outcomes. It doesn't

go in that direction. Accountability goes in

the other direction.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Great. Thank you,

Rick. I've got Congressman Honda and if you

want to get on the queue just signal me and I

will keep you on the queue.

REP. HONDA: Thank you, and I

agree that there is progress.



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A question I have, and not having

been part of the process, so I guess I'll ask

a stupid question. This here, under Roman VII

under accountability, is there a section or

should there be some discussion around

accountability for superintendents and school

board members, the school board as a whole.

And I guess the other comment would be the

accountability and transparency issue, should

there be a link with that and the definition

of equity and excellence, whether there

should be a link in that in terms of trying

to define something so that they have

something to measure, I guess. I would like

to hear some sort of response to that.

MEMBER HANUSHEK: Can I ask then,

is it okay to just get rid of school boards?

Can we recommend that?

(Laughter.)

CHAIR CUELLAR: Rick was just

kidding.

MEMBER SAENZ: I'll just add, I



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think that should be discussed here. In some

way it's embedded in some of what is before

in terms of failures of existing mechanisms

of accountability. But it should be here, and

I'd certainly be in favor of adding measures

of superintendent and school board

accountability; although, as the comments

indicate, that it stepping into an issue

where there are obviously some severe

political constraints on what is possible.

But it certainly should be discussed.

CHAIR CUELLAR: The other point

that I would make is part of what's tricky

here, and I think one thing I like about this

outline is that it recognizes that we -- in

an ideal world we would want measures of how

each actor is shaping the educational process

is performing independent of each other.

That's enormously difficult to do, so -- and

it's not a reason not to think it through,

but it means disentangling, for example,

school board from superintendent



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accountability, or principal accountability.

This is tough, so I want to just bring this

and connect it to Dennis Van Roekel's comment

earlier about the research agenda, because

some very fancy and careful methodologies

will be needed to get more traction under

these questions.

MEMBER HANUSHEK: I do want to

underscore one thing you said, Congressman,

and that is that I don't think we should ever

just say we're for teacher accountability

without saying teacher and leaders,

principals and leaders accountability, too,

because it just doesn't make any sense to put

everything on the teachers and then let the

principals and the superintendents skate

free.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Michael and then

Karen.

MEMBER REBELL: Okay. I have one

comment and one question. The comment is I'd

like to see some reference here that the



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outcomes we're looking for go beyond the work

oriented -- I mean, those are really

important in achievement to be career ready,

college ready in the sense of making a good

living. But we also should be focusing on

what I call citizenship skills, the broader

outcomes of education which we put so little

language on that in the finance section. But

I think it's really important to remember

this, and when you get into some of these

issues of how you define what the inputs, as

well as the outcome of education should be,

it raises all kinds of cutbacks in

extracurricular, and clubs, and places where

kids, student government, places where

students do learn these kind of citizenship

skills which the courts have said are of

great significance, and we have to keep in

mind.

I also think in terms of

measurement when we talk about going beyond

test measurements, there are some ways that



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you can assess capability for citizenship.

And these skills interrelate with work

skills, by the way, in their current

environment, so I do think this

accountability thing should get into that.

It's a hard area to pin down in terms of

assessments, but we should be at least

emphasizing that work should continue. When

you talk about research this is an area that

I think we need a lot more research in. So

that's my statement.

My question is, I don't know if

I'm reading too much into this or not, but we

have a remaining issue in our finance section

about how much of the federal role is going

to be mandatory interventions dealing with

holding back funds or whatever, and it looks

to me like somehow you did work out

compromises here that if I'm reading it

correctly, there'll be some incentives but at

times if there's no performance, the federal

government is going to step in and it's got



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to have Department of Education approval. And

I presume that implies that if you don't get

the approval, you're not getting funding or

you're getting some sanction. So, am I

reading too much into that, or are you guys

--

MEMBER SAENZ: I want to let Rick

answer that, but I would just say I would not

read a whole lot into it. I think there was

agreement around this outline, but I will say

I got the chance to be the first drafter of

the outline, and I'm definitely a regulatory

kind of a guy.

MEMBER REBELL: I see. You're --

MEMBER HANUSHEK: As you know,

Michael, I'm not a big fan of advertising

that do this, something new, or else we'll

take away your funds over here. I think

that's bad government, and that came in in

the finance part, and it comes in here.

Now, to the extent that there

-- we're providing funds for some purpose and



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we take away if they don't do that purpose,

fine. But I am not a big fan of trying to use

withdrawal of funds as a way to get states to

do things that they're not doing in other

areas now. That action could get into big

trouble.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Let me make just a

process comment before we go on with the

queue. It seems to me that one of the

challenges that we're dealing with is the

border between accountability in finance in

terms of the group, and actually I think it's

a good thing that both groups work through

this issue because there may be some

interesting insights that we get from it,

seeing how the discussion about

accountability vis a vis the federal role and

how the discussion of finance and the federal

role converges or doesn't. I think that will

be somewhere near the next to final step of

our thinking through this process, so I think

it's actually very good that the



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accountability group is thinking through

this. I think it's right for Michael to say

well, wait a second, this sort of has a

connection to what we started to work

through. And I think these two conversations

should be taking place.

I have Karen next.

MEMBER HAWLEY MILES: Yes. So, I

just wanted to build on your point about the

standards and link that with what Sandra was

talking about. I thought the need to be very

clear about what our aspirations are here,

and add to it that we should be quite clear

that the standards are very different right

now across the states. So, if the state has

really low standards, Georgia, getting to 90

percent proficiency and the 98 percent in

these things is a very different proposition

than getting to 90 percent proficiency

against the Massachusetts state standards.

So, that's going to be a really important

part of this accountability piece. It's in



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the finance piece a little bit, too, but we

want to weave it all the way through, that

some common high standards that get to that

across all of the --

MEMBER SAENZ: As I was reflecting

on this after it had been written over this

last weekend, that's a piece that wasn't

there. And I, too, totally agree. It's need

to be -- you can't have an accountability

system without some conversions around what

it is that you're aiming to get to. So, I

agree.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Good. David.

MEMBER SCIARRA: So, I'm going to

make a -- try to make this in a semi-coherent

way. I'm not sure I can, so what comes up

from me reading this is more of -- a lot of

-- and I don't mean this in a disparaging

way, but a lot -- sort of more --

CHAIR CUELLAR: Move a little

closer to the mike if you could, David.

MEMBER SCIARRA: Oh, here. I



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didn't know where it was. Okay. A lot -- can

you hear me now? Am I okay?

CHAIR CUELLAR: A little better.

MEMBER SCIARRA: Okay. So, it's

more as Rick talked about, a transparency

around data on various performance measures,

outcome measures, so forth and so on, and now

we're adding inputs into that. And we've had

a lot of that, this seems more. But then I

come to the question about okay, for what

purpose? Why are we setting up this -- what's

the basic sort of underlying or animating

principle behind all of that?

You know, what we've had so far

largely is identifying in various ways, the

states have done this in different ways, and

now with the waivers they're doing it in a

whole lot of different ways. Schools that are

low performing or not performing to whatever

standard a state is setting, triggering

various state interventions, various

directives from the states on what to do to



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improve these are mostly high needs districts

and schools, under-resourced, and even

charter schools that are not performing very

well.

So, I get to this more

fundamental question as how do we -- for me

how do we -- so what is the purpose of this

in terms of what do we want this data, this

transparent system to be able to trigger? So,

for me it's about capacity. For me it's about

building the capacity of local districts and

schools, however they're governed to make

continuous improvements over time.

And I'm here talking largely

about the schools that are going to be in the

cross hairs of whatever accountability system

you set up, which are schools that are

serving some of the poorest neighborhoods in

the United States, schools with very high

concentrations of low income kids, kids of

color, English language learners, and the

like. So, I think we have to say a whole lot



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more about what we want this system to

actually do, short of these interventions,

because we've done a lot of intervening.

We've had state takeover in New Jersey for 20

years of school districts and, frankly, it's

been a dismal failure.

We're now going into a period

where we're going to see school closures and

things of that nature which aren't -- you

know, my view it's not going to get us where

we need to go because we're not sort of

coming to the sort of core issue that what we

need to do with these schools is strengthen

their ability to make continuous improvement,

to use resources more effectively, more

efficiently, to be able to do a better job

with professional development, evaluation of

teachers, all of the mix. So, I want -- I'd

like to see more about capacity building. And

I think that's got to be -- start with the

states.

State Education Departments have



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set up data systems now. We all know that.

They're doing that, they're moving ahead. And

they are identifying gaps, they are

identifying schools in various ways that

aren't meeting whatever standard they're

setting for performance, but they're still

extraordinarily weak. I can't under-emphasize

this in bringing high-quality expertise,

talent, skill, real capacity to engage these

schools and districts, and the parents in the

communities around them in the very difficult

slot, the very difficult work of how to get

continuous improvement in educational

settings that are extraordinarily

challenging.

So, the states have lacked that

capacity, the districts often lack that

capacity, and the schools obviously do

because they tend to be isolated, whatever it

is, they're charter schools that are really

isolated, so I think we've got to confront

this issue of accountability in the service



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of what.

And to me it's not just to get to

the point where we intervene in them or talk

about end game. Maybe we do have to say

something about the end game, but there's a

whole big piece that seems to me we've got to

say something about so that we shift the

conversation away from kind of the

accountability we have now, which is sort of,

as I said, setting up various -- states kind

of setting up various proficiency levels,

identifying gaps, identifying schools that

aren't meeting those gaps, however rigorous

the standards may be, and then the federal

government and state government essentially

saying now fix yourself without really doing

the hard deep work that it's going to take to

engage communities, districts, neighborhoods,

parents in the difficult work that many of us

are engaged in, which is how do you get

schools on a track of continuous improvement,

however you want to measure that. So, I just



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want to put that on the table. It seems to

me, I really think we've got to

reconceptualize what we -- accountability for

what is the point I'm trying to make.

MR. JOHNSON: Tino, I think --


MR. JOHNSON: I think you have

Rick next.

MEMBER HANUSHEK: I completely

agree with David's argument here. The place

where we might not completely agree is I

think we're really behind right now in

knowing how to provide that help to these

failing schools. And that's one of the things

that there are lots of federal grants trying

to do right now, and lots of attempts to do

that. But it will be nice to assume you knew

how to do it, but I think that's something

that we're not going to be able to say much

about.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Before we go back

to more comments on this, I wanted to



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actually mull up on something that Tom had

said earlier. Tom had highlighted a nice rift

that's in the outline about parental

involvement, and I just wanted to note one

thing that's really interesting is the

shifting thinking around parental involvement

where a lot of the discourse in the past has

been about this notion of parental

involvement as a reflection of parental

responsibility, and there's an element of

that, certainly. But what I'm seeing a little

bit in the outline is that -- a thought

process that suggests that parent involvement

should be understood to be something that's

actually profoundly important to achieve, but

it's not really something about just, you

know, how willing are people in the community

to be involved. But to think of it as a

fundamental mechanism for accountability. And

I wanted you to just say a little bit more

about what the vision is there, where you see

that going.



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MEMBER SAENZ: Well, let me just

C-- first, I just wanted to respond. I agree

with you, and I think that that's part of

what's in the notion of having accountability

at all levels, that you do start with states.

The states have responsibilities they're not

meeting in terms of how they then assist the

districts in getting schools to improve. And

we need to have accountability for states

playing the role that they ought to be

playing. The vast majority of them are not.

And it's too easy to say well, your

responsibility is to intervene and take over,

if you don't know what you're doing. Really

the responsibility starts well before you get

to that point at state level in doing the

kinds of support that you're talking about.

So, I think it will be

incorporated, at least I would hope that it

would be incorporated. But it's not a 12-page

document by the way, it just --

(Simultaneous speaking.)



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MEMBER SAENZ: If we have a

comprehensive accountability system that has

all the different levels, that's what we need

to try to define.

And continuing in response to

what you said, yes, I think that the notion

here is that parents, at least in theory,

have an important role to play in any

accountability system. That's a lot of what

Dave's transparency is built around. But if

there isn't ready mechanisms for parental

involvement that you are aggressive about

insuring exist, then that's meaningless. So,

if you have parents who either lack the

ability to use the data in various ways, or

lack the ability to influence decision

makers, whether that's school board members

who don't see them as voters, for example, or

don't see them as influencers of electoral

outcomes, then that's a problem. So, that we

have to incorporate notions of parental

involvement into any accountability system



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and making sure that the data is then useable

by all parents, including parents of the kids

who are most affected by achievement gap

issues so that they can then more rigorously

use existing accountability mechanisms at the

local level. So that's what's here and what I

hope will be fleshed out more.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you. That's

hugely important, and I'm certainly hopeful

that we could keep that in there and make

that an important part of the contribution of

this report. I have Russlynn and then John

King.

MEMBER ALI: Thanks. This is

mostly a clarifying question for the point of

the ambiguity that Rick brought up, and that

is, if I understand it right, it's how the

accountability system would be triggered, and

that feels bigger than what appears to be

some of the areas of ambiguity, notice I'm

not saying disagreement. I'm choosing my

words carefully, in the finance section. And



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if I get it right what we're saying is it's

more than an earned autonomy, which is

previous conversations of the Commission.

Right?

Under the earned autonomy context

it was -- there was kind of a baseline of

stuff that required of everybody, and where

you were doing great you were -- whoever was

watching, state, fed, depending on what layer

of the system you were talking about, were

watched less and would require less as a

result.

Now if I understand it, we're

saying sort of if -- that the area of

disagreement is if you're good or getting

better on these things we've articulated that

matter, which is changed to say what we've

agreed on is that it's both inputs and

outputs. Right, and continuous improvement as

David just articulated. But if you're good or

getting better, none of the inputs we're

going to watch. Right?



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MEMBER HANUSHEK: No, I don't

think so, Russlynn. I mean, Donald can also

speak, but I think that we're going to think

of a system that routinely provides

transparency on these other dimensions. But

it's not something that triggers state or

federal action if, in fact, the district

demonstrates that it knows what it's doing.

So, that's the earned autonomy part, but we

would still have transparency on what school

districts are doing.

MEMBER ALI: -- the feds

wouldn't-

MEMBER HANUSHEK: Yes, precisely.

MEMBER ALI: Okay.

MEMBER HANUSHEK: Precisely,

that's the best way I think about it.

MEMBER SAENZ: Yes, I agree. I

mean, it's consistent with the notion of

differentiating levels of involvement or

action. And it wouldn't take you to zero, it

would take you down to just the base level of



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transparent data.

MEMBER ALI: Okay, so they're not

disagreeing then.

MEMBER HANUSHEK: I don't think

so. Tom and I don't have disagree.

MEMBER SAENZ: I don't hear

disagreement. I hear -- unless it was --

MEMBER ALI: Did I not articulate

that right? Did I -- I thought that's what

you said. Was it your intention?

MEMBER HANUSHEK: It means it

would completely flesh out all that --

MEMBER ALI: Okay.

MEMBER HANUSHEK: -- but we have

in the last 35 seconds --

MEMBER ALI: Yes. So, okay. That's

terrific. You all made great progress.

MEMBER HANUSHEK: One of the

concerns that does come up, you know, we talk

about providing lots of data, and reports and

plans, and so forth. If you think about

California that has 1,000 school districts



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and 75 of them have less than 50 kids total

in the district. You know, you have to have

some differentiation between what you require

of them to plan and provide data on, and so

forth. And in the background we're going to

have to think a little bit about our grand

plans and how they fit into states like

California or New Jersey with 580 districts,

and so forth.

CHAIR CUELLAR: So, I have John

next, and then I have Sandra, and then I have

David.

MR. JOHNSON: And actually, Tino,

let me hop in real quick. Just as a reminder

that we have people on the phone, too. I

think Randi is on the phone and wants to

contribute.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay, we'll put it

down. John, go ahead.

MEMBER KING: So, I just want to

build on David's point about state capacity.

I think it's exactly right that states often



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don't have sufficient capacity to be helpful

in developing schools and district's ability

to perform better. And part of the capacity

they are lacking I would argue is the

sufficient authority to change rules at the

local level that clearly exacerbate under-

performance.

So, some examples. When a

district has a board that engages in

systematic patronage hiring, if the state

lacks authority to act on that, then we may

not know that that is certain to cause under-

performance, but it's pretty likely. And

states ought to have the ability to act on

that.

We have districts that have

enrollment policies that systematically

exacerbate high concentrations of high needs

kids, and if the state doesn't have the

authority to intervene with respect to those

policies, even if you have a state takeover

where they don't get to control those kinds



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of things, it's not much of a takeover.

Right?

A third example is equitable or

inequitable distribution of not only teacher

talent, but principal talent, as well, and

whether or not the state has the ability to

C-- so, I guess the thing I would urge the

group to do is to really drill down on what

you mean by intervention, because I think a

weakness of NCLB nationally is that we say

that the intervention is happening, but

really what it means is that people are

required to submit a plan that is reviewed

and approved or not approved, but that's not

the same as actual action taking place.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Sandra.

MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: David, I

thought that was an excellent point that you

raised, very provocative. And what I wanted

to raise is I think just the word

"accountability", that term is loaded in many

people's minds with blame and punishment. So,



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even in our use of it, in our definition I

think we want to expand it beyond that. This

idea, and I think Karen refers to it a lot,

of continuous improvement. That one of the

things we would like states to be accountable

on is that they are implementing some

practices to develop a mechanism by which to

look to the districts for continuous

improvement, and their own system. So, do

they even have a way to do that is something

that we may want to include in our definition

of accountability.

The other thing is, you know, to

Russlynn's point about those areas that are

doing well, do we -- are we -- should we pay

attention to them, or is reward to be left

alone? And I think, again, in our definition

of accountability, wouldn't we want to watch

and learn? Those may be areas that for

different reasons we want to have on the

radar screen because there are practices that

they obviously have in place that could be



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helpful to some other places. And what's the

role of the states to share that information?

And what's the role of the federal

government? What's our role, what is the

-- what role could the U.S. Department of

Education play in helping to share that

information, or encourage the sharing of that

information. So, I'd just like to ask that we

think about that in our accountability

section.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Sandra.

David, and then I have Randi Weingarten. And

I should note if anybody else wants to get on

the queue who's on the phone, we definitely

want to hear from you. David.

MEMBER SCIARRA: So, a couple of

points. I do think, John raises the point,

sort of two issues that are related, which is

the states' education capacities to provide

real help. And the second thing is the

authority, the issue around sort of specific

district-level policies that are often



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created by the state itself anyway, so it

-- so, I think this issue of state education

agency capacity has to be put squarely on the

table, because that is the real problem. We

have to reconceptualize the role of state

education agencies in this era of, you know,

when we go back to meaningful educational

opportunity, a state's responsibility to

insure not just resources but outcomes,

enabling all kids to -- et cetera, et

cetera. That means that state education

agencies which still largely are compliance

agencies. Now they're doing data. Right?

You're issuing a lot of report cards and all

that kind of stuff.

They're still not really

formulated into agencies that are designed to

lead and support continuous improvement of

public schools, however they may be governed

at the local level. And there's a lot we know

what can -- there's a lot that we know

districts and schools need that the states



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can bring to the table, particularly in low-

capacity, high poverty places. So, help and

expertise in writing curriculum, help and

expertise in utilization of data. Some of you

all work in this area. Right? So, a lot of

sort of nitty gritty things that we know

states can do. If they bring it to the table

well, it can make a huge difference in

getting these schools on track. It's just

that they're not set up that way. Their

budgets aren't constructed that way, they're

not organized that way, they don't have the

staff that way, they're just not -- they've

got to be sort of re-engineered and brought

into the 21st century to fulfill the

functions that we're really asking them to

function -- to do if we're going to get onto

a kind of continuous improvement track.

That's one point.

The second point, I think if we

do that, if we emphasize the states' role it

will help -- and going back to the finance



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recommendations and many others where we said

they have to put into place effective systems

not just to insure adequate funding, but also

that funding is effectively and efficiently

used. That leads us into having a

conversation with states about some of the

things, John, that you mentioned. So, the

issues of patronage or nepotism, that's an

efficiency issue.

We actually put in very strong

state rules that get at patronism, get at

anti-nepotism. This was all in response to

court directives and state -- a push around

the effective and efficiency use of

resources. That's not effective, it's not

efficient.

So, this is going to be a -- this

is not something we're going to solve

overnight. And there's a lot of -- as we know

there's a lot of levels to this, but we've

got -- if we don't put this accountability in

a sort of capacity building context that the



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state has to lead, and talk a lot about what

we want states to do in terms of making sure,

not just that we have transparency and we

know which schools aren't doing well, or what

the subgroups are doing, but that the state

is prepared then to go in where appropriate

and provide real good solid technical

assistance, help, and support to educators,

to get parents involved, et cetera, et

cetera. If we don't do that -- we have to do

that. And then I think if we push that down

the road, I think some of these other issues

we can then start to work out.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you. Randi.

Do we still have Randi on the phone?

MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Can you hear

me now?

CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. Yes.

MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Can you hear

me?

CHAIR CUELLAR: Yes.

MEMBER WEINGARTEN: So, I think a



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lot of what I wanted to say, David has

covered and also Rick actually said. And I

got the impression that they -- it's really

smart to think about capacity building. We

just don't know how to do it.

And the same thing in terms of

what Michael said, we have to really focus on

things like citizenship and some of the other

purposes of schooling, including educating

the whole child, and trying to really get to

issues like critical thinking, and ingenuity,

and what others might call involved skills,

in terms of what I call real skills, in terms

of teamwork building and things like that.

That we don't actually -- we shy

away from it in an accountability system

because we don't know how to do it. And this

is what the effect of that is. The effect is

that things will fall to teachers, and they

essentially end up becoming the primary

responsibility agent for all the things that

we want schools to do, but we don't know how



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to measure it, or how to carry it, or how to

insure that other people are accountable.

And when I read through the

draft, I thought the first -- the headlines,

the points at the top were absolutely

fantastic. And then I thought that when I

looked at what the components were, I got to

the same question as David just got to, which

is how do you then switch this from

essentially a compliance punitive model,

which this still looks like when you look at

the laundry list of the accountability

requirements to something that is much more

dynamic, much more premised on shared

responsibility, much more premised on how do

we insure the continuous improvement and

growth?

So, I started thinking what are

the components of continuous improvement and

growth? And maybe we have a consensus about

that, maybe we don't. But one component that,

Rick said it yesterday at a meeting that both



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Rick and I were presenting at, if we're not

partners in this, if we're not collaborators,

if we don't actually work together, you know,

whoever represents teachers as well as the

school system, ground-level, then we're not

going to pull up an agenda. And, yet, there's

an absence -- if that is a key component to

continuous improvement -- finding a way to

have not just buy-ins, and not just -- but

collaboration and working together towards

this goal in terms of the adults that work

for this, then that has to be part of the

accountability system. That has to be

measured.

The same is true in terms of

other -- in terms of capacity building. Even

if we don't know how to measure it, there has

to be a qualitative piece here that shows or

says that that's important.

The same is true in terms of

teacher/principal accountability. A bunch of

these things are written in terms of, you



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know, not in a way that I would have written

it. I would have talked about it in terms of

how we build that capacity, how we insure

that we are doing the steps that we need to

do to have good to great teachers for every

single child. So, maybe, you know, we need to

get to the teacher/principal piece and then

that you back into that in terms of the

teacher/principal accountability system.

But my mega point is that we

can't just ignore it because we don't know

how to do it. What it will then default to,

teachers without any wherewithal for -- to

get jobs done other than their own particular

moxie, then having to do all of what is in an

accountability system unless we try to change

that now by putting in and measuring, or at

least trying to figure out how to create the

responsibility and dynamic for capacity

building, collaboration, continuous

improvement.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Randi.



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Dennis, I believe I saw your hand up a little

earlier.

MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: Yes, I did. A

couple of quick clarifications.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Go ahead.

MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: And then a

little longer comment. In Section 3, just on

the data transparency, in B where it talks

about all of the different things are

mentioned, discipline and education. For

clarification, would that information be

required to be given in disaggregated form

for all of those? For example, that of your

suspensions 90 percent happen to be African

American and only 20 percent of your student

population happens to be African American, or

they're way over-represented in Special Ed.

Would that be part of --

MEMBER SAENZ: Yes, and we would

want as much disaggregation as possible.

MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: All right.

MEMBER SAENZ: As the data



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permits, given the limitations.

MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: Then in

Section 8, it mentions charter school

accountability. A question for clarification,

do we want to just say charter, or are we

talking about all of the alternative public

schools? We have magnet, we have teacher-led,

we have innovation schools, we have all those

others. I assume we wouldn't choose just one.

Right?

MEMBER SAENZ: No, I mean, we're

basically trying to touch those that are sort

of outside of the traditional --

MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: I think that's

good.

And then the longer comment. As

we -- stepping back on this whole

accountability, there have been so many great

things that my mind has been racing, that

people have said. Just up front, I don't know

where I read this, but a feeling where they

said they don't have the word



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"accountability" in their language. It's

responsibility. And I think that really

changes the discussion, especially when you

talk about parental accountability versus

parental responsibility.

And then the question is did you

do what you were responsible to do? There's

just a -- if you substitute every time we say

the word accountability, put in

responsibility, I think there's a really

different context.

But separate and apart from that,

as I listen to the discussion, one of the

things that happens when you talk about

accountability, it immediately does down to

the pieces, so teacher/principal, school

board/parent. Now, what Demming would say is

you're looking in the wrong place. You've got

to look at the system, not the people. And as

he got older he kept raising the percentage.

I think it first started out about 90, and by

the time he passed away I think it was closer



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to 96 or 97 percent.

If there's a problem in results,

it's over 90 percent according to him that

it's a systems problem, not a people problem.

So, I think there's something that we can't

immediately go to the pieces which are the

people.

And David brought up something

that just fit this perfectly. When you talked

about the interventions, are we going to have

an accountability system for interventions?

When I say -- if the results aren't what you

want, you've got to have a list of

interventions. Are they any good? What's the

result of your intervention?

So, to me as part of an

accountability system you have to evaluate

your interventions. That's part of the

system. If what you do makes things worse,

that's not good intervention.

David also mentioned in terms of

capacity they may not be structured nor



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staffed. Now, to an old farm kid what I

pictured in my mind is you tell me I'm

supposed to plow this field, and you give me

this beautiful four bottom plow, and then you

give me a car to pull it, you can tune that

car up, you can make sure the tires are

properly inflated, you can do everything to

that car and I'll never plow that field

because I need a tractor. And I think when

you look at a system, and that's this input

versus output, you cannot expect people to

get a certain output when you create a system

that makes it impossible to do.

And see, it's not a people

problem. You can fire me and hire somebody

else to plow that field, but if you give them

a car to pull that plow, it will not happen.

And so this -- I think we have to really

think in terms of accountability of these

systems whether it's the structure, whether

it's the staffing that a state department

has, or whether it's how a school district is



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structured. But in some way, shape, or form

we've got to find a way to get people to look

beyond the individual people involved to say,

"Have you created a system that allows you to

achieve the results you want?"

I mean, I think that is

demonstrated by the whole reason we have an

Equity and Excellence Commission. We say what

we want. It's very clear. We want an

equitable system that delivers for every

single child, but we created a system that

for the last 20 years has graduated about 75

percent, unless you're African American,

Hispanic, then it's closer to 50 percent.

It's not the teachers are doing a

bad job, or principals, or parents, or

superintendents. It's a system that is

designed to get those results. So, as we talk

about accountability, especially when our

goal is equity and excellence, we've got to

have a way to look at the components of that

system to say based on the system you



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designed is it even possible to get the

results you say you want?

It's the same way with funding.

If you -- no matter how well that system is

defined, or my tractor, if you don't put any

gas in it, you're not going to plow the

field. So, somehow as we look at this -- I

don't know how to do that. I don't know how

you get states or school districts to look

beyond people to assist them to say, "Have we

designed it in a way that we can hope to get

those results?" And if you don't do that,

however, it is impossible to change what's

happening to kids.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you very

much, Dennis. We're going to go to Sandra,

and I think I see Karen, and then we're going

to wrap up the discussion. Sandra.

MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: Tino, I'm

sorry, I forgot to put my card down.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. All right,

Karen.



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MEMBER HAWLEY MILES: So, I want

to just build on this --

CHAIR CUELLAR: I see Jesse, as

well.

MEMBER HAWLEY MILES: -- capacity

building thing that you started, David, and

then that Randi built on. We just submitted a

proposal for a federal center that is just

starting up for state capacity and

productivity. So, I spent the last three

months doing this arduous proposal process,

which is another topic. And thinking about

this issue of state capacity, and I really do

think that we don't know how to -- I mean, we

know the problems with state capacity, but

the work to rethink and how to build state

capacity is -- we just don't know what it's

going to require. We can specify out some

elements. We know we're going to have to be

part of that rethinking of capacity. It's

going to be a lot of reorganization, it's

going to be all those things.



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So, that gets me to the question

of something we could read through all of our

things. In our finance piece we suggest that

the federal -- part of the federal role was

to do grants to states to develop these

finance systems. We can also think about that

there may be some grants the states who

really want to engage deeply in the work of

rethinking, what it would mean to build

capacity.

But then I would substitute -- I

would -- because we don't want all sorts of

grants going out, and we don't necessarily

want all states to have to figure out this

from scratch. I mean, like there are some

basic things we collectively probably know

about what the funding systems have to

include, what good -- what methods should try

to include, what it will take.

Anyway, so I'm thinking there's

something we want to put in here about some

kind of aggregate role that happens, so



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everybody is not redoing this over and over

again. We can kind of at least learn from

each other. So, as we think about our

proposals, as we recommend them, we can get a

lot of leverage about creating incentives for

innovative ways of doing things, especially

if we can figure out a way to share those

lessons and build some common principles that

they're all starting from.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Jesse.

MR. JOHNSON: It's Jose.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay, sorry, Jose.

MEMBER TORRES: No problem.

CHAIR CUELLAR: If you could see

what I --

MEMBER TORRES: Yes, I know, we

kind of see it up there. Just a real quick

question or comment, and that is, I agree

that we need to have better clarity about

what the outcomes are that we're supposed to

be accountable for. But we all live in a

context, and the context is also in terms of



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time. So, the question is if these measures

are not achieved at what time, when do the

interventions take place? How long do the

interventions -- so, I mean, that is all

missing from here, and I understand it, but

it's an issue. I mean, No Child Left Behind

had a date that we're getting to that says we

didn't make it, and now it has to be revised,

but it created a target, and it created press

for that. So, it's just a question that I

have, that I'm not sure how we address that.

But if I'm accountable to get to a particular

place but there's no time, then I'm not

accountable.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Dennis.

MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: I just want

-- I forgot one little piece, 10 seconds. It

was brought up connecting the accountability

--

CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. I think I

see Michael Casserly, as well.

MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: Oh, connecting



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the accountability piece with the finance. In

the finance piece we ask them to define the

services needed, as close to possible the

cost it would take, and then we ask whether

the resources are provided. That ought to be

one of the accountability measures, too. Did

you provide the resources necessary to do

what you say you want it to do?

CHAIR CUELLAR: Michael, Mike

Casserly.

MEMBER CASSERLY: Yes. I'm not

sure where I'm going with this, but I was

struck by Dennis' comments which I thought

were really quite profound in differentiating

between a systems problem and a people

problem.

But if we're going to emphasize

in this section issues of capacity building

and collaboration, those are all essentially

strategies built around a presumption that we

have a people problem. So, if we end up

recommending a set of capacity building and



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collaboration issues inside of a structure

that's dysfunctional, then all we have done

is increased people's individual capacity but

not allowed them to work properly.

So, I think given that, I would

urge the accountability group to think

through what accountability looks like inside

of those two large topics, and where

accountability lies and what it would look

like if the issue was defined as a systems

issue, and not necessarily as a people issue.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you, Mike.

So, I think that we have gotten a lot of good

feedback on the table. This is useful for the

accountability group. I want to just add one

last observation, which is part of the work

that is being done in this section is going

to be the highlight -- this maybe goes a

little to Dennis' point about the system, the

highlight of different forms of

accountability and different tools to achieve

accountability connect with each other. And



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how the sum, ideally, is more than the parts.

And I think that's very important and it's,

therefore, unlikely that this group will find

very compelling examples of jurisdictions or

states where all these different forms of

accountability are present the way that the

report would like to see.

But that said, I think it's

really important to try to look for examples

where even if not every component of

accountability is present, you can tell your

story about how these different components

are important by highlighting what's

happening in particular jurisdictions.

I think, in particular, this is

one example of a place in the report that

will benefit a lot from that, so I encourage

you all to look for those examples. And I

know the staff can help.

So, at this time we are done with

most of our work for the meeting today. I

want to just give an opportunity for some of



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the remaining teams we know have made some

progress, Teaching, Learning and Leaders,

Introduction and Context, Poverty, Education,

and the Needs of Low-Income Students, and

Governance to just give very quick updates on

where you are currently. What we expect from

all of these teams is going to be essentially

a little bit of continued deliberation at the

level of the topic review team so all of the

folks who are going to take a look at this

before it goes to the Commission, but I want

to just give you all a chance to give us a

quick two or three minutes of where you are.

Let's start with Teaching, Learning and

Leaders. Randi, if you're still on, you can

speak to this.

MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Sure. So,

hopefully, a draft which is a work in

progress was distributed to the Commission.

Where we are is the four people on the

drafting committee have actually -- through

Joan's work, have actually met on the phone



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briefly, and there was actually far more

consensus, and that's what you see here, far

more consensus than I would have initially

imagined in terms of this draft. So, you see

the draft where you have the kind of top line

agreements like you saw with accountability

and other places, and then a bunch of what we

need to do to deal with that, and some policy

recommendations.

So, rather than my going through

it, I just wanted to make -- unless you don't

have it, I'll quickly run through it, but

rather than my going through it, people just

have it on paper and we will continue to do

our work before the next meeting.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Okay. Well,

actually, we're going to circulate that

shortly, so my guess would be the best thing

to do would be to wait for folks to get that

so that we can react to that, and we can pick

up the discussion at the next meeting.

Introduction and Context, Kati



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and Matt, either or both.

MEMBER HANCOCK: Matt, you want to

take it?

CHAIR CUELLAR: Going once.

MEMBER MILLER: We -- Kati and I

did a draft of a --

CHAIR CUELLAR: Speak up just a

little bit, Matt, if you can.

MEMBER MILLER: Kati and I did a

draft of a little framing document and sent

it to folks in our little group, and I think

we've had one response so far.

MEMBER HANCOCK: We have -- as far

as responding -- people have not had it for

long, so we're hoping that we will get more,

and we'll try to incorporate some of that

feedback into our next version.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Thank you. John or

Michael, do you want to say a little bit

about the Poverty group?

MEMBER KING: Sure. So, we've been

circulating a draft in the group that focuses



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on seven areas, early childhood, school-based

health clinics, court involved youth, out of

school youth, parent education, enrollment,

and extended learning time, expanded learning

time.

I would say that the key question

that we will need to discuss as a group is

around each of these areas we all agree we

should do more of them. The question is do

you get there through formula funding,

through competitive grants, or through the

establishment of a sort of legal entitlement

to one or more of those things.

On the issue of enrollment, we

focused on the idea of socioeconomic

integration, and whether you incentivize

efforts by districts and states that promote

socioeconomic integration or there, two,

whether you would say, for example, as a

condition of Title I you have to demonstrate

that your enrollment policies do not have the

effect of exacerbating socioeconomic



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segregation, or even further as a condition

of Title I funding you have to demonstrate

that your enrollment policies have a tendency

to promote socioeconomic integration. But

this question of incentives versus

consequences I think is very much a part of

back roots question.

I don't, Michael, do you want to

add anything to that?

MEMBER REBELL: Well, the only

thing I would add is I think John has really

injected something important into the draft

we've been working with in terms of being

very concrete about the mechanisms that the

Commission should recommend. So, let me

just, for those of you who don't have it,

mention under the Early Childhood thing he

has for the Commission's consideration,

should the Commission propose a pre-K funding

structure in which state funds are matched by

federal funds similar to Medicaid to insure

universal access to high-quality pre-K for



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students in low-income families. And then he

also said as an alternative, incentives a la

RTT.

But I just -- having come from

the finance thing where we were kind of

general in just saying the federal government

should do something, John has really moved

the ball along. And I think sooner rather

than later the Commission should confront his

options here, and think, you know, do we

really want to bite the bullet and say

-- have something like Medicaid funding to

make sure that low income C-- that pre-K and

early childhood really happens.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Look forward to

further discussion on that. And sticking with

our general theme, Governance, do you want to

say just a little bit on where that stands?

MEMBER RUIZ: Sure.

MEMBER SAENZ: I'll start. I mean,

we are at the stage of having an outline of

some ideas in this area. We still need to



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circulate it to the rest of the group and

gain more feedback. The kinds of issues that

we're so far including in the outline really

focus on some issues about coordination at

the local level between school districts and

other service providing government entities,

issues around federalism, of course, federal,

state, local relationships and education,

some additional issues about charter schools,

other schools that fall outside of the

traditional governance structure, some

discussion about some of these issues with

respect to local level governing structures,

school board, et cetera, and some real issues

around school boards and school board

failure. So, I think that's kind of the scope

of what's in the outline at present, but

we're at kind of the stage of needing to

share it more broadly within the group.

MEMBER RUIZ: Yes, I'll just add

the same -- you know, just building on what

Mike was talking about, the last work group,



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this question of do we want to propose -- the

distinction between identifying a problem and

proposing an actionable solution, and to what

extent do we want to propose mechanisms by

which action could be taken on these

governance problems.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Good. Well, that's

definitely something we will want to discuss

further, but I want to thank all of you for

all the work that you've done on this.

Honestly, if we could quantify the hourly

rates of people and what they're contributing

it would be in the billions, so I'm very,

very grateful.

Let me just say a quick word

about what's coming next and then I'll turn

over to Russlynn to see if she has any

closing remarks.

Just, you know, what I see us

doing in the next couple of days is going to

be to have the staff circulate an updated

detailed time line so that each topic team



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can work out in more detail what time line

works for you all, and you can get whatever

help you need from the staff to set up

conference calls. And Chris, and Russlynn and

I will be keeping track of this as best we

can, but I think that the real emphasis here

should be on basically finishing these

outlines, getting them to the topic review

teams so that we could schedule discussion of

it as the opportunity arises, and then

getting the writing process going where we've

already had discussion of these outlines as

we had today with accountability and with

finance.

So, with that let me just ask

Russlynn to see if she wants to make any

closing comments.

MEMBER ALI: I think that's right,

and I do just want to reiterate Tino's

applause, and I know I can speak for -- being

here, too, that I do think we have made great

headway on these areas that have been



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identified by staff as areas of disagreement.

Whatever we can do to help

support as you get into the writing, that

we've made that quite -- what I worry about a

little bit is that while we've made great

progress on the general, that some of the

definitions when you unpack that might reveal

that that progress, that there's a lot of

ambiguity in that, so the best way that we

can help flesh out what those issues are and

get the full Commission's buy-in on that

language in an expedited way I think is my

only ask as we take the topic reviews

further.

But thank you, because I think

we've done a lot up to now, and the kind of

big point, that what the headlines are are

starting to emerge really, really clean for

the first time.

CHAIR CUELLAR: Congressman.

REP. HONDA: Just a quick comment.

I just want to thank everybody for the



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amazing work that's been done up to now. And

as a not only policy maker, but as a parent

and someone who really wants to get out of

the Congress after we finish education, this

is my -- you guys are really moving that, and

it's going to be the biggest difference for

our kids. And I just really appreciate all

your effort and work.

CHAIR CUELLAR: We're going to get

this done, and it's going to be good. Thank

you. Thanks, everybody.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled

matter went off the record at 1:37 p.m.)



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