[Senate Hearing 111-1120]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-1120
ESEA REAUTHORIZATION:
MEETING THE NEEDS OF SPECIAL POPULATIONS
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HEARING
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,
LABOR, AND PENSIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
EXAMINING ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ACT (ESEA)
REAUTHORIZATION, FOCUSING ON MEETING THE NEEDS OF SPECIAL POPULATIONS
__________
APRIL 29, 2010
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions
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COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS
TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire
JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee
PATTY MURRAY, Washington RICHARD BURR, North Carolina
JACK REED, Rhode Island JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
BERNARD SANDERS (I), Vermont JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
KAY R. HAGAN, North Carolina TOM COBURN, M.D., Oklahoma
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado
Daniel Smith, Staff Director
Frank Macchiarola, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
STATEMENTS
THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2010
Page
Harkin, Hon. Tom, Chairman, Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions, opening statement......................... 1
Enzi, Hon. Michael B., a U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming,
opening statement.............................................. 3
Bennet, Hon. Michael F., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Colorado....................................................... 4
Mikulski, Hon. Barbara A., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Maryland....................................................... 5
Franken, Hon. Al, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota..... 5
Hinojosa, Ed.D., Superintendent, Dallas Independent School
District, Dallas, TX........................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Medina, Carmen, Chief of Migrant Education, Bureau of Community
and Student Services, Pennsylvania Department of Education,
Harrisburg, PA................................................. 14
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Hundley, Lucinda, Assistant Superintendent of Student Support
Services, Littleton Public Schools, Littleton, CO.............. 18
Prepared statement........................................... 21
Ross, Denise, Supervisor, Homeless Education Office, Prince
George's County Public Schools, Maryland....................... 24
Prepared statement........................................... 26
VanDyke, Kayla, Student, Eagan, MN............................... 29
Prepared statement........................................... 32
(iii)
ESEA REAUTHORIZATION: MEETING THE
NEEDS OF SPECIAL POPULATIONS
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THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2010
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room
SD-430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Harkin,
chairman of the committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Harkin, Mikulski, Merkley, Franken,
Bennet, Enzi, Isakson, and Murkowski.
Opening Statement of Senator Harkin
The Chairman. The Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions will please come to order.
I would like to thank everyone for being here today for our
second ESEA hearing in less than 24 hours. Let no one doubt
that a strong reauthorization of this legislation is a top
priority for this committee.
Today, we are going to explore another tremendously
important facet of K through 12 education--what we, as a
country, need to do to meet the needs of special student
populations to ensure that all students have access to a high-
quality education that prepares them for college or a career
after graduation.
Secretary Duncan has correctly called education ``the civil
rights issue of our time.'' Our public education system was
founded in the 19th century, at a time when, for the most part,
only affluent white males were given access to an education.
Over the past century, we have taken tremendous steps to change
that and to guarantee that all students, regardless of
background, have access to an education that gives them the
opportunity to live a successful and fulfilling life.
However, just being allowed into the classroom isn't
enough. To be able to reap the real benefits of an education,
students must be given the tools and support they need to be
successful. For some students, this means providing them with
extra tutoring, therapy, or other accommodations that allow
them to access the academic material and demonstrate the
knowledge they have mastered. Other students may be struggling
to learn English at the same time they are trying to learn math
and science and require additional support to gain the language
proficiency they need to learn and perform in the classroom.
We must also recognize, as we have heard in previous
hearings, that students don't just check their home lives at
the school door each morning. Students with unstable home lives
require extra stability and support while they are at school to
enable them to stay in class and to keep up with their peers.
For a student, simple things like accommodations or support
from a school counselor can mean the difference between the
despair of falling behind and the fulfillment of meeting high
expectations.
This is especially true in the case of students with
disabilities. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, IDEA, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year,
the Federal Government provides assistance to school districts
to help them meet their constitutional obligation to provide a
free and appropriate public education to children with
disabilities.
More recently, the No Child Left Behind Act has focused on
ensuring that students with disabilities have equal access to
expectations for high achievement. By holding schools
accountable for the success of all students, including students
with disabilities, No Child Left Behind established the premise
that every child can and should learn.
Over the past decade, No Child Left Behind has shown that
students with disabilities can meet high standards when given
the proper instruction. Before No Child Left Behind was
enacted, less than one third of fourth grade students with
disabilities scored at the basic level on the NAEP math exam,
and only 6 percent were proficient. By 2007--just 7 years
later--the percentage of students with disabilities scoring at
the basic level had doubled to 60 percent, and the number of
proficient students had more than tripled to 19 percent. That
is a remarkable record, showing that kids with disabilities can
learn and can grow.
However, while this improvement is heartening, an
achievement gap still exists between students with disabilities
and their peers who do not have disabilities. The graduation
rate for students with disabilities is still just 56 percent,
nearly 15 points lower than students who do not have
disabilities.
As we reauthorize ESEA, we must focus on ways to close this
gap. This means not only continuing to hold schools accountable
for the success of students with disabilities, but investing in
the resources for success--for example, training more special
education teachers and providing our general education teachers
additional training in how to teach students with disabilities
in an integrated classroom. It means making investments to
ensure that assessments are appropriate and that these
assessments give us valid information on the performance of all
students, including students with disabilities.
At our hearing today, we will hear not just about students
with disabilities, but also other groups of students who face
different challenges. Migrant students, foster students,
homeless students, English language learners--all have
different needs and require their own set of supports to ensure
that they can access the quality education that they are
entitled.
While we must be mindful of each student's unique
background and provide them with what they need to be
successful, we must never allow ourselves to accept lower
expectations for a student because of who they are or where
they come from.
We must recognize that more and more students come from
diverse backgrounds with diverse needs. However, instead of
viewing this as an obstacle or a burden, we must look at it as
an opportunity. I say that because in the modern world, it is
no longer possible to remain isolated in small, homogeneous
communities.
Our society puts a premium on being able to communicate and
interact with people from diverse backgrounds, from countries
across the globe. We know students who grow up and learn in
diverse classrooms enter the world with an understanding and
appreciation for people unlike themselves.
Diversity is one attribute, I think, that distinguishes
America from many others. It makes us more creative,
entrepreneurial, and successful. I believe it is a strength. We
must ensure that our education system is preparing all students
to meet the demands of the 21st century.
With that, I would turn to our Ranking Member, Senator
Enzi.
Opening Statement of Senator Enzi
Senator Enzi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate you holding this hearing. It is always good to
review the special populations because it is amazing how many
there are. As you said in your comments, it is also tremendous
what the United States does, as opposed to a number of other
countries which start kicking kids out of school regardless of
special needs at a very early age.
Meeting the needs of special populations in our schools
today is an important issue for this committee to discuss, and
I want to thank the witnesses for joining us today to share
their knowledge and experience. We have been fortunate to
witness progress over the last few decades in the education of
these populations.
The No Child Left Behind Act took us into a new level by
including disaggregation and reporting of student achievement
data for students with disabilities and English language
learners. The sunshine effect this had for these students and
the support they receive in the classroom has been amazing.
Data from the States show that these students can achieve high
goals and standards when provided with the necessary services
and supports.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act recognizes that
all the special populations represented here by our witnesses
today have specific support needs that often require dedicated
funding. Embodied within ESEA are programs for migrant
students, students who have been neglected or delinquent,
students re-entering school from correctional institutions,
Native American students, Native Hawaiian students, Alaska
Native students, and students who are English language
learners. Under the umbrella of the ESEA reauthorization, we
will also review and reauthorize the program for homeless
children and youth.
Finally, while ESEA contains many provisions specific to
students with disabilities, the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act, or IDEA, is devoted specifically to that
population of students.
Not only are these programs complex, but the needs of the
populations targeted by these programs are very complex. We
must make sure that in meeting the needs of these populations,
we don't hamstring the local providers with too many burdensome
and restrictive requirements. Those closest to these students
need the flexibility to best meet their unique needs.
Today, I am interested in hearing how those populations
have been served. I am also interested in learning how we can
continue the successes we often see in the K through 12
education system as these students transition to other
education, training, and workforce opportunities.
I want to welcome all the witnesses and thank them for
being here to share their knowledge and their expertise and
probably even to take some written questions because not
everyone is able to be here for a number of reasons. But those
answers will help us, too.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Enzi.
I will introduce some of our witnesses, and I know some of
my colleagues want to introduce witnesses from their respective
States.
Our first witness is Dr. Michael Hinojosa, who is the
superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District in
Dallas, TX. His career in Texas public education spans more
than 30 years. A report by the Brown Center on Education Policy
at the Brookings Institution stated that Dallas Independent
School District has improved more than any other urban district
in Texas and more than all but one urban district in the
country in narrowing the achievement gap over the last 5 years.
Dr. Hinojosa's recognitions have included his selection as
Superintendent of the Year by the University of Texas and as
Texas Superintendent of the Year by the Texas Association of
School Boards. He was named a distinguished alumnus by the
College of Education at Texas Tech University, and is a past
president of the Texas Association of School Administrators.
Next, we have Carmen Medina, the chief of the Division of
Student Services and Migrant Education at the Pennsylvania
Department of Education. Prior to coming to that department in
2004, Ms. Medina served as the academic programs director for a
consortium of school districts in Adams County, PA, where she
oversaw several social and academic programs, including 21st
century community learning centers for migrant students. She
has also worked as an assistant researcher with Penn State
University.
I am told that Senator Bennet would like to introduce our
next witness, Lucinda Hundley.
Statement of Senator Bennet
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is a great pleasure and honor for me to introduce to the
committee Lucinda Hundley. She is the assistant superintendent
of the Littleton Public Schools in Colorado and is responsible
for student support services and serves as the director of
special education. She has the difficult job of trying to meet
the needs of all students.
Under her leadership, Ms. Hundley has made tremendous
progress in improving results for all students, including
students with disabilities, and closing the achievement gap.
I want to welcome her here, and we look forward to your
testimony.
Thank you for coming.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator.
Senator Mikulski, I recognize you for purposes of
introduction.
Statement of Senator Mikulski
Senator Mikulski. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It is really an honor of mine to introduce Denise Ross to
you. Ms. Ross runs the homeless education program in Prince
George's County, a county contiguous to the District of
Columbia. One presumes that it is highly affluent, but, wow,
does it have its challenges.
Denise has been working in the Prince George's schools for
25 years. She started as a speech and language pathologist and
then became a supervisor for the county's homeless ed program 5
years ago. She is going to bring a lot to the table as she
shares with you her experiences, her challenges, and her
recommendations.
Under her leadership, the county serves 2,500 homeless
children. Often, it can be difficult for those students to
learn to read, but these kids need a ride to school, new
clothes when they have none, school supplies to do their work,
and tutoring services, so they don't fall behind. Through Mrs.
Ross's own creativity, resourcefulness, and grit, she has been
able to provide these services to homeless students, including,
most recently, to make sure these guys and gals have hearing
aids and eyeglasses, something very special, I know, to your
work, Senator Harkin.
So when we think about improving the programs for special
children, our homeless should at least have a home in the
school system, and I think Mrs. Ross will give us a lot of
practical suggestions, and we are happy to introduce her to the
committee.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Mikulski.
Now I will turn to Senator Franken for purposes of an
introduction.
Statement of Senator Franken
Senator Franken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am just delighted and honored to introduce Kayla VanDyke.
Kayla is a high school senior in Eagan, MN. She is also in
foster care and has lived in seven different foster care
placements. She has lived through extended periods of
homelessness.
Through the force of her determination and incredible
innate ability, Kayla has overcome tremendous adversity.
Drawing on her life experiences, she will provide us with
guidance on how to address the educational challenges that she
and other foster and homeless youth have experienced.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator.
Welcome, Kayla.
I welcome all our witnesses today. We will now hear your
opening statements, starting with Dr. Hinojosa and working our
way down the panel. Your statements will be made a part of the
record in their entirety.
Dr. Hinojosa, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HINOJOSA, Ed.D., SUPERINTENDENT, DALLAS
INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT, DALLAS, TX
Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, and members of the
committee, thank you for giving us the opportunity to bring
some input on this very important topic.
I am Michael Hinojosa, superintendent of schools for the
Dallas Independent School District. I have been a
superintendent in Dallas for the last 5 years. I have been a
superintendent or a CEO for approximately 16 years in the State
of Texas.
I, too, though, am an immigrant, and my father brought the
10 of us--or 8 of us to the greatest country in the world so
that we could get an education. It is refreshing that this is
important to this committee.
Let me talk a little bit about the context of which Dallas
operates. Dallas is the 14th largest district in the country,
157,000 students, 5,000 of which are homeless, 55,000 English
language learners. There aren't many districts in the country
that have 55,000 students, much less 55,000 English language
learners.
Eighty-seven percent are economically disadvantaged, 67
percent Latino, 27 percent African-American, and 4 percent
white. The context is important because we cannot ignore any
student group, much less English language learners, which is
the group that I am speaking about, if we are going to move our
entire system forward.
You mentioned the Brookings Institution, and we are very
proud of that fact. It was unbeknownst to us that Ed.D study
was going on. So we do appreciate that. Also, the Council of
Great City Schools identified us--along with New York City, St.
Paul, and San Francisco--for having significant progress on
English language learners.
But how we got there is important, and I want to say that
it wasn't just a focus on English language learners. We had a
Dallas Achieves! transformation plan that was our strategic
plan over the last 5 years, where we had a very specific
curriculum that was written for every subject, for every
student group at every grade level. The teachers help us write
the curriculum, and it became a big part of what we implement
on a daily basis.
We have also simultaneously during those 5 years developed
a dual language program. Two types of dual language--one-way,
and that is for one group of students who are monolingual
Spanish speakers who are required to acquire English
proficiency. Two-way dual language is where we have multiple
groups or groups of English speakers who want to learn Spanish,
along with Spanish speakers that need to learn English. We have
implemented that program over the last 5 years with significant
success.
One of the reasons that we have been able to have the
success is nothing can happen unless you have great teachers,
and we have had to go and hire teachers. We had--when I was
hired 5 years ago, we had a significant number of--we had 1,000
classrooms in which we were not providing services to English
language learners because we did not have the teachers to do
it.
We had to do everything possible to do it. We had to go to
Grow Our Own Teachers. We had to go all over the State of
Texas. We had to go to Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Spain to try to
hire the teachers that could provide these services that these
students needed. It was a significant task, but now I am
pleased to say that we have less than 25 classrooms where we
don't have qualified teachers to teach these students that have
great need.
It is always hard to determine what caused something to
happen, but I think the fact that Dallas has had a 15-year
history of a value-added system, a growth model that we have
had in place for 15 years, and the stakes have gotten a lot
higher recently, but because we have had that, we know that we
take students where they are, and we have to move them. That is
a great equalizer, especially for English language learners,
when they may be behind academically.
I gave you some charts. The charts just signify that our
English language learners compete with other student groups in
many areas, and part of it is because of our expectations in
the programs that we have had.
As you move forward to reauthorization of Elementary and
Secondary Education Act, what I would like to leave you with,
and I only have a little bit of time left so I will get to that
quickly. No. 1, the growth model is very important because the
premise of a growth model is you take the students where they
are and then you add value. This is extremely important for
English language learners because of their level of
proficiency.
You also need to remember that second language, academic
language acquisition takes time. Students will fool you. They
will talk to you in English that you understand, but that
doesn't mean they are academically literate. That doesn't mean
they can read or write. So it takes time to acquire those
skills. It is very important that you have the appropriate
measures in place for that to happen.
Right now, we are held accountable for student groups
including what is called limited English proficient. But
schools should be given credit for taking students who are
limited English proficient and became proficient. They are no
longer LEP, which is, by definition, lack proficiency. But they
are still English language learners, and many districts,
including Denver and others, have made a lot of progress. We
have data that shows here that those districts, the students
that were in English language learner programs do better than
students that denied services or parents that denied services.
So you have to be in it for the long haul. There is not a
silver bullet.
A couple of other things, as my time is expiring, and I
will be glad to answer your questions. One of the things that
we have to be careful of, we have a graduation rate that you
mentioned, Senator, that is measured by everyone. We need to
make sure there is not a disincentive because that graduation
rate by the Federal Government is calculated for how many kids
graduated in 4 years.
It takes a long time to acquire language. Most of the
students that we get, we get at secondary level. Many of them
are unschooled, have had no schooling. So it is very difficult
for them to acquire any language. They are not literate in
anything.
So we should be given an incentive or credit for keeping
students in school after the 4 years, and there should be an
incentive program so that doesn't count against the school,
which may be in a high refugee population or a very urban
setting where you have students--we should be given credit for
making sure the kids don't walk the streets and stay in school
and graduate.
I have covered most of my areas, but I would also say that
as you go through the reauthorization, I know there is some
talk about having formula funding for title I and then some
competitive funding for others. I would just remind us that, by
definition, if it is competitive, there are winners and losers,
and there are a lot of districts that depend on other Federal
funds and title funds to help support English language learners
and every student group that you are going to hear from today.
So I will conclude with my comments at this point and
entertain any questions as appropriate by the chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hinojosa follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael Hinojosa, Ed.D.
Good Morning Senator Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, and members of
the committee, I am Michael Hinojosa, Superintendent of Schools for the
Dallas Independent School District, Dallas, TX. I have been
superintendent in Dallas for 5 years and a superintendent in Texas for
15 years.
I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the critical area of
Teaching and Learning for English Language Learners.
The Dallas ISD educates about 157,000 students of which 5,000 are
homeless, 55,000 are English Language Learners (ELL), 87 percent are
economically disadvantaged, 67 percent are Latino, 27 percent are
African-American, and 4 percent are white.
We are very proud in Dallas of improvements we have made in
Teaching and Learning for our students. I would like to highlight a few
of the improvements we have made to enhance the education of our
English Language Learners. I also will mention some of the accolades we
have received as a result of our work such as being cited by the
Brookings Institution in 2008 which indicated that the Dallas ISD was
the most-improved urban school district in Texas and next to New
Orleans, the second most-improved urban district in America in closing
the achievement gaps among student groups.
We are also proud to be one of four districts in a study by the
Council of the Great City Schools for improving learning for ELL
students along with St. Paul, New York City, and San Francisco.
The district has seen significant systemwide reform through an
effort titled Dallas Achieves!, which included a specific curriculum in
all subjects--what every student should know and be able to do in every
subject. Dallas also implemented a district-wide dual language program
for all elementary schools--both one-way and two-way dual language. The
goal for all students in the program is to be academically literate in
two languages.
We have also ensured that we have qualified teachers in every
classroom by reducing vacancies from 1,000 to less than 25 classrooms
(over a 5-year period) with bilingual teachers qualified to serve
student needs . . . traveled to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, and South
America; developed a grow our own program; and traveled the entire
State to have enough qualified teachers for student needs
To ensure quality teachers, we have more than 15 years of history
with a value-added (growth) model of measuring the effectiveness of
teachers in student achievement gains.\1\
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\1\ Attached slides indicate that LEP students are out-performing
State LEP students and in some instances other student groups and
certain grade levels in certain subjects due to the strength of the
dual language program.
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State vs. Dallas ISD Average Scale Scores
State and Dallas ISD Reading TAKS Average Scale Score by Student Group,
Grades 3-5
State and Dallas ISD Reading TAKS Average Scale Score by Student Group,
Grades 6-8
State and Dallas ISD Reading TAKS Average Scale Score by Student Group,
Grades 9-11
State and Dallas ISD Reading TAKS Average Scale Score by Student Group,
Grades 3-5
State and Dallas ISD Reading TAKS Average Scale Score by Student Group,
Grades 6-8
State and Dallas ISD Reading TAKS Average Scale Score by Student Group,
Grades 9-11
2009 TAKS Percent Passing by LEP Status, District Total,
and Grade Grouping
Percent of Grades 3-5, 6-8 and 9-11 Students Passing English TAKS
Reading by LEP Status and Grade Group, Spring 2009
Percent of Grades 3-5, 6-8 and 9-11 Students Passing English TAKS
Mathematics by LEP Status and Grade Group, Spring 2009
In reauthorization of ESEA, I would like the committee to consider
the following key issues:
A growth model will level the playing field for all
students . . . the premise of growth models is to take the students
where they are and measure the growth of individuals. The bill should
consider the fact that more than 50 percent of new arrivals enter
secondary schools, many unschooled or under-schooled. There are special
hardships for communities that have refugee centers.
Please also be reminded that academic language acquisition takes
multiple years to accomplish. Students who are literate in one language
can acquire literacy more readily in a second language. Schools should
be given credit for students who have gained proficiency and literacy
under their instructional program. Thus Limited English Proficient
students should be part of a larger student group that includes English
Language Learners.
We would like to see the bill retain current provisions regarding
the allowable use of State assessments in the student's native language
and would like to insert the requirement of consistency with the
language of instruction.
Regarding assessments, the English Language Proficiency Assessment
should be used, but not for accountability. Also required should be
annual assessments in all domains to monitor progress after initial
enrollment and at critical transition points. Codify current regulatory
provision that recent immigrant students with limited English
proficiency not be required to participate in ELA and math State
assessment in their first year in the United States.
District's should be given incentives to keep students in school
who have not graduated in 4 years. Many immigrant students are over-age
and under-credited and will count against the cohort graduation
calculations. It should not be a disincentive for districts and schools
to continue to educate students who will be counted as drop-outs.
Credit should be given for drop-ins.
Many districts rely on various formula title funds to support
efforts for English Language Learners. If some of these funds become
competitive, then there will be districts that by definition will be
losing these funds to support these student groups.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony.
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Hinojosa. That was a very,
very good statement.
Now we turn to Ms. Medina.
Ms. Medina.
STATEMENT OF CARMEN MEDINA, CHIEF OF MIGRANT EDUCATION, BUREAU
OF COMMUNITY AND STUDENT SERVICES, PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF
EDUCATION, HARRISBURG, PA
Ms. Medina. Good morning, Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi,
and distinguished members of the committee.
I am Carmen Medina. I am chief of the Division of Student
Services and Migrant Education at the Pennsylvania Department
of Education.
I want to thank you for your invitation and for the
opportunity to speak to you today about the importance of the
Migrant Education Program and what is the difference it makes
in Pennsylvania and across the Nation.
The Federal Migrant Education Program supports the goal of
ensuring that every child in America receives a world-class
education that prepares them for responsible citizenship,
further learning, and productive employment. I welcome this
opportunity.
Migrant workers are defined as those individuals who travel
from place to place to find seasonal or temporary work in such
industries as agriculture, dairy farming, fishing, and food
processing. The average migrant family moves three to five
times annually. Such mobility is particularly difficult to the
children of migrant families and detrimental to their
educational achievement.
Mobility as a risk factor for academic achievement is
combined with the fact that many migrant children are not
native in the English language and need instruction in English
as a second language. Evidence shows that migrant children are
usually 3 to 5 years behind nonmigrant students in grade level
and are at an increased risk of dropping out of school.
The Migrant Education Program was established in 1966 as
part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to address
the unique needs of these children and operates in all 50
States. These funds are available to provide educational and
support services to migrant children. In Pennsylvania, we use
the funds to provide extended learning time, in-home support
services, language instruction, out-of-school youth programs,
dropout re-engagement, high-quality preschool instruction,
post-secondary enrollment support, and engage the parents in
the education of their children.
A child is considered migrant when they are between the
ages of 3 to 21 years old, and they haven't graduated from the
high school or have a high school equivalency certificate.
Being a migrant worker or a parent, spouse, or guardian who is
a migrant worker, we will consider them if they have children
under the age of 21 to qualify for this program. They have to
have a move, a qualified move in the preceding 36 months, and
they are coming to seek that line of employment that I
mentioned before, and they must move from one school district
to another.
So you must imagine how it is when a child is moving three
to five times a year. They don't speak the language. They don't
know the community. And that is when the migrant program comes
to work.
In Pennsylvania, we serve 139 school districts in 46
counties. In this past year, 2008-2009, we served a total of
5,409 eligible children and youth. This included youth of
Hispanic, Asian,
African-American, and Caucasian descent across grade and age
levels.
Migrant is not about ethnicity or race. Being migrant is a
way of living, and also it is very important to notice that
being a migrant is not the same as being immigrant.
In Pennsylvania, 82 percent of these children are not
fluent in English, and we serve over 19 percent that are
preschool. The Migrant Education Program is an essential part
of the Pennsylvania Department of Education strategies to
ensure that all students receive the necessary support to be
successful in school and beyond by taking a holistic approach
to student assistance.
We provide summer activities. That is one of the things
that when it comes to reauthorization we are strongly
supporting, and we ask to be considered to continue summer
support. Because when you have families arrive into an area
because, summer, that is where the crops are, the migrant
program tends to be the first point of educational services and
assistance for that family, to connect the family not only to
the schools, but connect the families as well to their new
community.
They will receive English as a second language instruction
during summer programs, and also other instruction and other
connections to make sure when the school year starts, the child
and the family are prepared for school. ESL and other
instruction is essential to prevent the ``backslide'' during
which English language learners and children from low-income
households, where they can lose up to 3 months.
I don't have too much time left, but I want to leave you
with a quote of one of our former migrant students. This
student is currently attending Penn State University. He
graduated last year from Philadelphia School District, and he
came from Cambodia.
When I talked to him, he asked me to share this quote with
you.
``When I first arrived in Philadelphia, I was
completely clueless. I didn't even know how to find my
way home from school. Everything was different from
where I came from. For a while, I just stayed in my
house, and my computer became my best friend. I was
scared and hiding, and I didn't even think I would ever
get a good job after high school. I was sad and
frustrated.
``But along came the Pennsylvania Migrant Education
Program, and my life changed. I was amazed at how many
people had the same background as I did. Once in the
program, I got to see many beautiful places and made my
college and career visits.
``So many nice people have helped me with so many of
my problems. Without the Pennsylvania Migrant Education
Program, I would not have the courage to stand and talk
about my challenging life.''
And like I said, this young man is a sophomore currently at
Penn State University, and this is one of the many examples
that we have of success stories at the Migrant Education
Program. One of them is actually sitting here in the hearing
room and is the national director of the Office of Migrant
Education.
She was a former migrant student in Texas, and then she
turned to go into education. She was a teacher. She was a
school principal. Now she has her doctorate in education, and
we are very proud of her, Dr. Lisa Ramirez, and--over there.
[Applause.]
She is a product of the Migrant Education Program, and she
is one of the many stories we have across the Nation.
So we ask you to keep funding the Migrant Education
Program. We also ask that you will receive the Interstate
Migrant Education Council's report, and there are certain
recommendations in there. And we ask you to be able to review
those recommendations, and among them is to extend eligibility
and the funding of children from birth to 21. We feel it is
very important to reach the family very, very young.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Medina follows:]
Prepared Statement of Carmen Medina
Good morning Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, and distinguished
members of the committee. I am Carmen Medina, Chief of the Division of
Student Services and Migrant Education at the Pennsylvania Department
of Education. I want to thank you for the invitation to speak to you
today about the Migrant Education Program and the importance of this
program to migrant children and their families in Pennsylvania and
across the Nation.
The Federal Migrant Education Program supports the goal of ensuring
that every child in America receives a world-class education that
prepares them for responsible citizenship, further learning, and
productive employment. I welcome this opportunity to share with you the
experience of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and my thoughts on why
the support for the Migrant Education Program should be continued
through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as outlined in the
President's Blueprint for ESEA Reauthorization.
Let me start by calling your attention to an analysis of the ESEA
Blueprint recently released by the Interstate Migrant Education Council
or IMEC, which is attached to my written testimony. This analysis, in
which I took part, highlights aspects of the proposed ESEA
reauthorization which are of particular benefit to migrant children and
their families. The analysis also makes recommendations to strengthen
several sections of the blueprint that pertain directly to migrant
children, such as expanding eligibility for program services to
children from birth to age 21 and better defining certain key terms
related to migrant children.
The expansion of eligibility to include children from birth to age
3 is particularly important. We know that early intervention services
can have a profound positive impact on children at a high risk of
academic failure. Including these children in the Migrant Education
Program will enable States to offer these services to the youngest
migrant children. Pennsylvania has been using State resources to fund
these important services to very young children and we are seeing the
benefit of serving these children during these vital developmental
years.
Migrant workers are defined as those individuals who travel from
place to place to find temporary work in such industries as
agriculture, dairy farming, fishing and food processing. The average
migrant family moves three to five times annually. Such mobility is
particularly difficult on the children of migrant families and
detrimental to their educational achievement. Mobility as a risk factor
for academic achievement is combined with the fact that many migrant
children are not native English speakers and need instruction in
English as a second language. Evidence shows that migrant children are
usually 3 to 5 years behind non-migrant students in grade level and are
at an increased risk of dropping out of school. The Migrant Education
Program was established in 1966 as part of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act to address the unique needs of these children and
operates in all 50 States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
The Migrant Education Program makes Federal funds available to
States to provide educational and support services to migrant children,
youth and their families. The services offered through the Migrant
Education Program are intended to help reduce the impact on the
educational achievement of migrant children caused by their mobility,
language and other barriers. In Pennsylvania, we provide the following
types of services to migrant children and their families:
Extended learning time, both during the school day and
outside of school hours;
In-home support services;
Language instruction and cultural support;
Out-of-school youth programs and dropout re-engagement;
High quality pre-school instruction;
Student leadership programs;
Post-secondary enrollment support; and
Activities to engage parents in the education of their
children.
Migrant students are identified and recruited to the Migrant
Education Program based on several eligibility criteria. Currently, to
be eligible for the program in Pennsylvania, the child or youth must:
Be between the ages of 3 and 21 years old and not
graduated from high school or hold a high school equivalency
certificate;
Be a migrant worker or have a parent, spouse, or guardian
who is a migrant worker;
Have moved within the preceding 36 months in order to
obtain or seek employment or accompany a parent, spouse, or guardian in
obtaining or seeking temporary or seasonal employment in qualifying
work; and
Have moved from one school district to another.
Each year, Pennsylvania provides migrant education services in 139
Pennsylvania school districts and 46 counties across the State of
Pennsylvania. In the 2008-2009 program year, Pennsylvania's Migrant
Education Program served a total of 5,409 eligible children and youth.
This included migrant children and youth of Hispanic, Asian, African-
American and Caucasian descent across grade and age levels. Eighty two
percent of these children were not fluent in English. Nineteen percent
were pre-school children, 55 percent were in kindergarten to grade 12,
and 26 percent were out-of-school youth.
Pennsylvania operates the program by dividing the State into nine
project areas for the purpose of program implementation and management.
Each project area is overseen by a Project Manager who directs program
implementation and day-to-day operations. Each Project Manager reports
regularly to the Chief of the Division of Student Services and Migrant
Education in the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The Pennsylvania
Department of Education also provides technical assistance and
professional development services to all project areas. Project area
staff handle program implementation, including student support
services, data collection and analysis, and recruitment of eligible
children and youth.
Identification and outreach to eligible children is an important
part of the program. Migrant families are likely to be unaware of
services and resources that may be available, in part because of the
very mobility and language barriers that make the services provided by
the program so important to them and their children. The Migrant
Education Program in Pennsylvania works hard to ensure that migrant
students and their families are aware and take advantage of this
important resource. Recruiters in Pennsylvania locate children through
referrals from growers, industry owners and employees, other migrant
families and local school districts. Once a migrant family is
identified, recruiters interview family members to determine if the
children are eligible for migrant education services. Recruiters also
help migrant families find other services for which they may be
eligible.
The Migrant Education Program has been an essential part of the
Pennsylvania Department of Education's strategy to ensure that all
students receive the necessary support to be successful in school and
beyond by taking a holistic approach to student assistance. The program
allows us to begin offering individualized services to migrant children
when they are very young and continue these services through high
school graduation. The program engages parents and fosters
collaboration between families and school districts and community
organizations to offer a wide-range of high quality programming both
during school hours and non-school hours.
Our Migrant Education Program summer activities are particularly
important to migrant families. Many migrant families arrive in a new
area at the beginning of the summer; our summer programs offer them
their first point of contact to educational services and assistance in
their new community. Migrant children are able to receive English as a
Second Language (ESL) education during the summer. ESL and other
instructions are essential to preventing the ``summer backslide''
during which English language learners and children from low-income
households can lose up to 3 months growth in reading.
The Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program is also a key source of
valuable data that informs State and local policies. The program has an
evaluation system in place that measures each student's needs and
progress throughout the student's participation in the program. The
system collects quantitative and qualitative summer and school-year
program data that is vital to identifying the needs of each child and
creating an individualized service delivery plan. In addition, migrant
education staff has access to student assessments at the district level
and can work with migrant students' teachers and parents to ensure the
educational, social and emotional needs of each child are met.
The success of the Pennsylvania Migrant Education Program is
evident on many levels. Pre- and post-service delivery evaluations of
the program show that with each year of participation, migrant students
improve their academic performance in all categories on the
Pennsylvania State academic assessment in both reading and math. We
also have a strong track record of keeping migrant students in school.
In Pennsylvania, 88 percent of the migrant students in their senior
year in high school who are participants in the program graduated and
over 90 percent of those students continued with post-secondary
education.
We are proud to say that Pennsylvania is a leader in delivering
services through the Migrant Education Program to its migrant children
and families. For many years, Pennsylvania has provided consulting and
guidance on the delivery of migrant education services to other States
and the Office of Migrant Education at the U.S. Department of Education
often refers other States to Pennsylvania for assistance in developing
and enhancing their Migrant Education Programs.
The program's success in Pennsylvania is also evident on a personal
level. I would like to close by sharing with you a quote from a migrant
student from Cambodia who participated in the program for 3 years. This
student graduated from high school last year and is now continuing his
education at Penn State University.
``When I first arrived in Philadelphia, I was completely
clueless. I didn't even know how to find my way home from
school . . . Everything was different from where I came from .
. . For awhile, I just stayed in my house and my computer
became my best friend. I was scared and hiding and I didn't
even think I would ever get a good job after high school. I was
sad and frustrated.
``But along came the PA Migrant Education Program and my life
changed . . . I was amazed at how many people had the same
background as I did. Once in the program I got to see many
beautiful places and made many college and career visits. So
many nice people have helped me with so many of my problems.
Without the PA Migrant Education Program, I would not have the
courage to stand and talk about my challenging life.''
Through the Migrant Education Program, States are able to reach
many students and help them to overcome the significant barriers that
stand between them and educational and economic success. Please help us
continue to do this great work by continuing the support of the Migrant
Education Program in the reauthorization of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act and considering the specific suggestions set
forth in the IMEC report.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. I am happy to
answer any questions you may have.
[Editor's Note: A report entitled Migrant Education--Recommendations by
The Interstate Migrant Education Council (IMEC) may be found at: http:/
/www.migedimec.org/publicatons/2011ReauthRecommendations.pdf. Due to
the high cost of printing, materials that have been previously
published are not reprinted in the hearing record.]
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Ms. Medina.
Now we turn to Ms. Hundley. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF LUCINDA HUNDLEY, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF
STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES, LITTLETON PUBLIC SCHOOLS, LITTLETON,
CO
Ms. Hundley. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, and
other members of the committee.
You know who I am, Lucinda Hundley, from Littleton Public
Schools. Just as a quick context, our school district has about
16,000 kids. We are a suburban district in the Denver metro
area. We have about 1,550 students with disabilities, preschool
through 21, and our graduation rate is about 90 percent. Our
graduation rate for students with disabilities is close to 80
percent--79.2, to be specific--and our dropout rate is about 1
percent.
The Chairman. Wow.
Ms. Hundley. As I said, I am directly responsible for kids
with disabilities and the services and supports that we provide
to them, but I want to say to you in the context of all of my
remarks, please know that I believe parents are essential as
partners to us and with us in the work that we do and the
successes that we achieve. We cannot do it alone either at the
local, State, or Federal level without parents as our partners.
Three years ago, our board of education set a new element
in our district's strategic plan that was very focused, and
there were two new things that they added. One was related to
what we call the ``90 percent goal.'' Essentially, that by the
end of the 2011-2012 school year, 90 percent of all of our
students, including kids with disabilities, would be on grade
level in the areas of reading, writing, math, and science. The
second part of that goal was to cut the achievement gap in half
by the end of actually this school year, the 2009-2010 school
year.
At this point, let me give you a quick progress report. In
terms of all students, which includes students with
disabilities, we are finding that right now or as of, I guess,
spring of 2009, 79.6 percent of all of our students in grades
kindergarten through 10th grade are on grade level, using our
District's achievement index. Also included in that is another
piece of a statistic that shows that we are getting some things
right, but we still have some work to do.
In the spring of 2009, 79.6 percent of our students with
disabilities at the elementary level made their adequate yearly
progress targets, and 82.8 percent of our students with
disabilities in spring of 2009 made their adequate yearly
progress targets in math.
We are making progress. Those are students that are in the
elementary level. We still have work to do for students in our
middle and high schools.
To be effective, we believe the accountability systems need
to include all students and that we need to hold high standards
for all students. We believe that tracking goals and objectives
and measurement of goals and objectives in IEPs is important,
but that doesn't get to tracking achievement and being able to
see what students can do and demonstrate on impartial
instruments how they can do. So what we would say to you is
that the system is not held accountable if the only progress we
are measuring is on IEP goals and objectives.
Because of current law, students with disabilities now have
a seat at the table, and I would say to you, that is probably
the best thing for students with disabilities under ESEA. They
have a seat at the table for instructional planning, for
allocation of resources, for decisions around programming, for
decisions around assessments.
For determining strategies that we are going to use, both
in the classroom as well as for monitoring progress, there is
now a much broader ownership, both at a district level, board
of education level, and school site level for all students'
learning, including kids with disabilities.
Because of ESEA, we believe we have made significant
investment in the quality of our instruction in all subject
areas. Through a team-based philosophy in Littleton, we have
brought school-wide reform systems to our schools in the form
of PBS, positive behavior supports; response to intervention,
RTI; and while having roots in special education, these
programs are best implemented together with general education
and embedded across an entire school system to impact the
school system, not just one particular group of students.
We would say that what we are seeing is that those systems
are beginning to work pretty well with our most at-risk kids,
our low-income, minority students, English language learners,
students with disabilities, and any other at-risk student who
may not have a particular label, but they still may be at risk.
Colorado does not use an alternative assessment on modified
achievement standards, and my written testimony includes some
information for you about that. But what I would like to stress
is that in making the decision to not move forward with
developing a modified assessment, it has positively impacted
our work because we are all being held to the same high
standard.
In Littleton, students with disabilities are included in
the general education classroom to the greatest extent possible
according to their individual needs. By doing so, I believe we
are really getting it right. We are creating an acceptance
within the school that is creating not only a society of
inclusion in the school and by extension in society in general,
but we are creating an element in our schools that are
expecting all students to learn and where all children have a
place in both the academic and the social structure in the
school.
Let me give you a quick example of a young man who in high
school could be nominated as prom king. This young man had Down
syndrome, and he is now 24. He is holding down an hourly job at
the Pepsi Center, knows Carmelo Anthony. He receives an hourly
rate, and it is a fair wage that a nondisabled person would
also earn.
We also do a lot of transition planning with our students
in terms of planning ahead for a future, and that is through
our transition planning, starting at age 15, as well as
accessing supports like our College in Colorado program.
Students identify available resources. They participate in
activities related to their goals, such as career planning, job
coaching, or potentially dual enrollment programs.
Ultimately, what I am getting at--both by the systems that
we are putting in our schools, our transition planning, putting
college as a potential in a child's future--is we are setting
the bar high enough that students with disabilities can
actually begin to envision that they might have a future beyond
high school, that they might graduate, that they might have
something that holds some promise for them beyond high school--
higher education, potentially a career, some type of work
experience.
We also do something unique in Littleton. A year after our
students graduate or age out at 21, we call those students and
their parents to say how did we do? What are you doing? What
could we have done better? What suggestions do you have for us?
As of the spring of 2009, for those students that were
graduates or who aged out in 2008, 52 percent of those students
are now in higher ed, and 44 percent of those students are in
the workforce.
I would like to leave you with a couple of key
recommendations, and I will be brief. No. 1, please maintain
full accountability for students with disabilities, but please
also consider, like my fellow panel members here have also
said, please consider part of the annual assessment that is a
measurement of student growth over time compared to themselves.
Cohort groups are an important way of measuring student
progress, not arbitrary targets that are currently in the
adequate yearly progress measurement.
No. 2, please provide flexibility in the use of ESEA funds
to be able to train and build capacity for both general and
special education staff working with children with
disabilities. It is important to build those technical skills.
It is important to all of us in the field to be able to build
capacity with the limited resources that we have.
No. 3, please support quality teacher training programs and
models that provide incentives and supports for people to go
into this very severely short-staffed field of special
education. We know that nationally, there is a shortage of
special education teachers, and we need support in creating
incentives for people to go into those fields.
No. 4, please provide incentives for State assessments to
be designed and implemented so that all students can accurately
demonstrate over time their academic knowledge and skills.
And last, please expand opportunities to improve early
literacy instruction and critical interventions through ESEA.
Thank you again for inviting me to participate in this
panel, and I will await your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hundley follows:]
Prepared Statement of Lucinda Hundley
Chairman Harkin, Senator Enzi, and other members of the committee,
thank you for inviting me to speak today. I am the Assistant
Superintendent of Student Support Services for Littleton Public Schools
in Littleton, CO. Our district includes 24 schools Pre-K-12 and the
district motto ``big enough to serve you, small enough to know you'' is
embodied in the comprehensive programming offered in a caring and
involved small-town atmosphere. We have over 16,000 students enrolled
this year including 1,550 that are served under the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act. Our high school graduation rate is 90
percent, 79.2 percent for students with disabilities, and our dropout
rate is 1 percent.
In my role as Assistant Superintendent, I am directly responsible
for all services provided from pre-school to age 21 to students
receiving special education services under IDEA. I work with a dynamic
team of district leaders responsible for students with a broad range of
needs, including title I schools. Together, we strive to set the
highest of expectations for all of our students.
Today, I'd like to highlight key components of my district's
commitment and success with students receiving special education
services as well as share several recommendations for you to consider
as you reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
littleton's commitment to all students
Three years ago, our Board of Education added a new element to the
district's strategic plan to support and reinforce that student
achievement should be at the heart of everything we do in our schools.
The goals of that plan are:
ensure that 90 percent of students--including students
with disabilities--will be on or above grade level in the areas of
reading and writing, mathematics, and science by the end of the 2011-
2012 school year; and,
cut the student achievement gap by half by the end of the
2009-2010 school year.
We have made tremendous progress in accomplishing these goals, in
fact, as of spring, 2009, 79.6 percent of Littleton Public School
students are on or above grade level, in the areas of language arts and
math, according to the District's student achievement index. This
reflects all students, grades K-10. While we have made gains in
pursuing these goals, it will come as no surprise, that we continue to
reassess not just what we are doing to improve student achievement, but
how we are doing it, how we are improving general and special
education, as well as how we are monitoring progress over time.
For students with disabilities, the gains are significant. In fact,
our 2009 data show a district-wide 98 percent participation rate in our
statewide assessments and steady gains in achievement. Examples of this
include 76.9 percent of elementary students with disabilities meeting
the adequate yearly progress target for reading and 82.8 percent of
elementary students with disabilities meeting the adequate yearly
progress target for math. There is no question that the requirement in
current ESEA law--to fully include students with disabilities at the
subgroup level in the accountability system--is a significant reason
for these gains.
To be effective, State accountability systems must include all
students, and be held accountable for the achievement of all students.
Using progress monitoring data related to IEP goals is not a valid
assessment of the success of the system to promote high levels of
achievement for students with disabilities on State standards. The IEP
is an individualized guarantee for special education and related
services based on assessed student needs. IEP goals are related to a
student's specific individual needs, including for example, services
and supports--but these alone are not always a sufficient gauge of a
student's educational achievement. Special education must also provide
specially designed instruction and services for students with
disabilities that facilitate high expectations and high achievement.
The system is not held accountable if progress on meeting IEP goals is
used as the sole accountability measure.
Under No Child Left Behind, students with disabilities now have a
seat at the table, for instructional planning, staff development, and
determining strategies for ongoing assessments to monitor progress.
There is now a much broader ownership for the learning of all students,
including those with disabilities.
Before the last reauthorization, the needs of students with
disabilities were not fully considered in many of the decisions made
regarding allocation of resources for teacher training, for programming
including literacy and other interventions and for participation in
assessments with their peers. Because of ESEA, Littleton Public Schools
has made a significant investment in improving the quality of our
instruction, in all subject areas. By bringing best practices to our
schools through a team-based philosophy, we have been able to create
and sustain school-wide reform systems through research-based programs
such as Positive Behavior Support (PBS) and Response to Intervention
(RtI). Both of these systemic strategies, while having roots in special
education, are best implemented when the entire school building is
engaged and both general and special education are working together to
ensure that our most at-risk students, including low-income students,
minority students, English Language Learners and students with
disabilities, are provided the supports and interventions they need
regardless of eligibility for one particular program or another.
When the U.S. Department of Education provided flexibility to
States in creating an alternate assessment on modified achievement
standards for students with disabilities--often referred to as the 2
percent Rule--Colorado's State legislature charged an expert study
committee with the task of examining whether the State should move
forward to develop a 2 percent test. In December 2005, the study
committee released the report Assessing ``Students in the Gap'' in
Colorado. That report included key recommendations such as:
Expand the eligibility and difficulty of Colorado's
alternate assessment on alternate standards for students with the most
significant cognitive disabilities;
Increase the use of standardized accommodations;
Promote intensive, targeted, research-based instruction;
Investigate accountability measures that could account for
longitudinal growth; and
Investigate the effect of giving Colorado's general
assessment to students in smaller sections over a longer period of
days.
(Source: Report from the HB-05-1246 Study Committee, 2005)
Colorado's decision to not move forward in developing the modified
assessment has positively impacted my district's commitment to
providing the intensive, targeted, research-based instruction that
students need and we strive to make the best decisions regarding
assessments for students with disabilities.
Current law, although not perfect, has helped us work together to
support a philosophy and approach that sets the highest of expectations
for all students and doesn't place arbitrary limits on what any student
can or should be expected to achieve. This helps us carry out on-going
and focused professional development and staff training throughout the
district. Our training is not a ``top down'' model, but instead relies
on school-based teams to pilot evidence-based programs, see the student
gains and then share and expand the growth of best practices and
programs throughout the district.
In Littleton, students with disabilities are included in the
general classroom to the greatest extent possible according to their
individual needs. Because of a sustained effort to more fully include
students with disabilities with their peers, in my estimation we are
getting it right, including in Littleton, CO. We are benefiting greatly
because we are fostering and supporting acceptance that creates a
school society in which all pre-school, elementary, middle and high
school students are expected to learn and know grade level content to
the greatest extent possible, and, where all children have a place in
both the academic and social structure of school and where, for
example, a young man with Down Syndrome can be nominated prom king
while in high school and hold down an hourly job at age 24, in a
typical work place setting.
Another example of how students with disabilities are benefiting is
with both the focus on transition to post-secondary opportunities and
our State's College in Colorado program. It helps students engage in
discussions about their future, identify resources available to them,
participate in activities related to their goals, such as career
planning, job-related skill development, on the job coaching, dual
enrollment programs at the local community colleges or classes that
support their career interests. Ultimately, it sets the bar high enough
that students have a vision of themselves achieving goals after high
school, which can include going to college. The College in Colorado
program has expanded to include identifying higher education resources
for students with disabilities. Imagine being a student with
disabilities who, in the past, would have assumed that college wasn't
in their future. Now, many students with disabilities in Colorado have
set very realistic goals for themselves, goals that include college.
In Littleton, for students that graduate or exit at age 21 after
receiving special education services, we contact each of them, and
their parents, 1 year after graduation to ask them what they are
currently doing in their life, how prepared they were, how they are
doing, and what suggestions that might have for us to improve our
supports to students with disabilities. After 5 years of collecting
this post-school outcome data, we are confident to report that the
majority of the students that have graduated or exited at age 21 are
doing quite well. For the 2009 graduates reporting, 52 percent are
involved in higher education, and 44 percent are employed in the
workforce. This continues to be an area of priority for us, linking K-
12 student achievement outcomes with post-secondary success.
key recommendations
Inherent to our success as a district is also the ongoing challenge
to make an imperfect law work so that we can fully support and serve
all of the students for which we are responsible. As such, I'd like to
offer several recommendations for you to consider as you reauthorize
the ESEA.
1. Maintain full accountability for students with disabilities.
Please consider however, as part of the annual assessment, the addition
of a growth model that measures student growth at a cohort level.
Current accountability with artificial targets for student performance
does not allow for recognition of significant growth over time.
Comparisons should be made from year to year against the same cohort or
group of students, to fully understand the actual gains being made by
that group (e.g. compare the same group of third graders to themselves
when in the 4th grade). Accountability in this model is much more
authentic as a measurement of real progress and therefore more accepted
when it is relevant at the student level and reflective of the work
being done. If our goal is to teach students and expect them to learn
grade level content, we need to measure and compare those same
students' growth each year. On a broad level, while States set their
own targets, States (and their school districts) should get credit for
progress made toward their own proficiency. A district level example of
this is that in 2009, Littleton achieved 129 out of 135 AYP targets for
our subgroups, but got no credit for progress that these students made,
only the note that the district did not achieve AYP.
2. Provide flexibility in use of funds through ESEA to train and
build capacity for more teachers. There is a critical shortage of
special education personnel in Colorado and throughout the Nation. By
allowing Federal funds to flow for training of both general and special
education staff, districts like mine could ensure that general
educators are better prepared to teach students with diverse learning
needs and that special educators better understand how to teach to
grade level standards while providing specially designed instruction as
required by IDEA. This would also allow districts to better utilize
limited resources to assure that the staff with the most appropriate
skills and training are those working with students with a range of
learning needs. We want to focus our training on improving student
academic achievement and how to teach students to successfully master
the challenging curricula to the greatest extent of their abilities.
3. Support teacher training programs that provide ongoing
incentives and support to draw qualified staff into the field where
there are critical shortages. We all recognize that there is a serious
shortage nationally of special education teachers. Colorado's Teacher
in Residence training program is an example where higher education, in
partnership with school districts, provides ongoing training, oversight
and support in coordination with the mentoring support that the school
district can provide. This type of teacher preparation program as an
example, paired with flexibility for use of funds to build capacity and
increased skills with current teaching staff as described previously,
will enhance the efforts we are currently making in the field to
provide trained, quality staff proficient in evidence-based instruction
and progress monitoring.
4. Provide incentives for State assessments to be designed and
implemented so that all students can accurately demonstrate, over time,
their academic knowledge and skills. Our assessments must utilize the
principles of Universal Design for Learning to ensure that all
students--including those with disabilities--can meaningfully
demonstrate their knowledge and skills, thereby providing a more
accurate understanding of student academic performance for evaluation
by educators, families and policymakers. This ``next generation'' of
assessments must consider the needs of diverse learners from creation,
rather than attempting to retrofit assessments during their
implementation. An assessment can only be considered an accurate
picture of a student's knowledge and skills if it is designed to allow
a student to most effectively demonstrate what they know.
5. Expand opportunities to improve early literacy instruction and
critical interventions throughout ESEA. Including a strong literacy
component as part of ESEA and supporting professional development for
teachers (e.g., the LEARN Act as recently introduced in the Senate and
House) will help ensure training and funding for statewide literacy
planning and instruction. School improvement and reform provisions must
require the adoption and valid use of proven school-wide educational
strategies, and embedding them in the general education structure. By
including a ``multi-tier system of supports (MTSS)--which allows for
systems such as Response to Intervention, Positive Behavior Support and
other research-based instruction and intervention systems--we can
prevent academic failure, increase academic achievement and reduce the
number of students mistakenly identified as needing special education.
Thank you again for this opportunity to speak to you today. I will
be happy to take your questions.
The Chairman. Ms. Hundley, thank you very much for being
here and for your statement.
Now we will turn to Ms. Ross, Denise Ross.
STATEMENT OF DENISE ROSS, SUPERVISOR, HOMELESS EDUCATION
OFFICE, PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, MARYLAND
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi,
and members of the committee, for providing me with the
opportunity to speak to you on behalf of homeless children
across the country.
Our school system, like most jurisdictions, has experienced
growth in our homeless student enrollment over the past few
years. Currently, there are over 2,500 homeless children and
youth enrolled in our school system. This is approximately a 14
percent increase over the past 3 years.
Homeless children and youth have unique needs. They
encounter educational barriers when these needs are not
understood, or when Federal law--the McKinney-Vento Homeless
Assistance Act--is not implemented fully.
Homeless children and youth are embarrassed about where
they live. They move from place to place, worried about where
they will live next and what school they will attend. They are
hungry and wondering whether or not they will have food to eat.
They often lack sleep because they are in a crowded place,
sometimes with people that they don't know. They lack the
basics, such as clothing and school supplies, personal hygiene
items, things that we sometimes take for granted.
The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is an anchor for
homeless students in many ways. It allows youngsters to have
immediate school access as well as school stability during
their time of transition. I actually see the power of these
policies on a daily basis.
Most importantly, over 70 percent of our homeless children
in Prince George's County Public Schools attend the same school
that they were attending prior to losing their housing, also
known as the school of origin. Thanks to our school district's
commitment to school stability, this has occurred.
Despite progress over the past years, many barriers remain.
Some of the primary challenges include identifying homeless
students, providing transportation, and meeting the needs of
the special populations. There are many more challenges, but
with respect to time, we are going to focus in on just those
three.
First, the educational needs of homeless students cannot be
met if these students are not identified. Yet homeless students
are often invisible. Even with the more than 2,500 homeless
students that our county has identified, we know that there are
more out there, unseen and, therefore, not served.
Reauthorization should increase the authorized funding
level so that more school districts have the resources to hire
the staff to find and then assist homeless students. Currently,
my school district is among 9 percent of school districts
nationwide that receive funding.
Another challenge and one of our bigger challenges is
transportation. The primary purpose of the McKinney-Vento
Homeless Assistance Act is to limit disruption in the child's
education. Transportation is essential to achieve this purpose.
Yet the cost of providing transportation is very high.
Our school district steps up to the plate in providing
transportation, but we do that at a very high cost. The cost of
transportation has caused school districts to fail to identify
homeless students or to force school moves that are not in that
child's best interest.
We also are challenged by other school districts that are
not providing prompt or timely transportation, and this creates
a barrier to the immediate or continued enrollment and
attendance of homeless students. In addition, some school
districts misinterpret the school of origin transportation
requirements. Therefore, they discontinue transportation to the
school of origin if the family obtains permanent housing during
the school year.
This practice pulls the rug out from underneath homeless
children and youth just as they are finally achieving some
stability in their lives. Once again, it uproots their
education. Therefore, I ask that reauthorization support the
transportation provisions of the McKinney-Vento Act by
addressing all of these issues.
The last challenge that I would like to address is meeting
the needs of special populations. Young children experiencing
homelessness are often shut out of early childhood programs as
a result of their mobility, never reaching the top of the
waiting list.
The McKinney-Vento Act should be amended to increase
homeless children's access to and stability in early childhood
programs. In addition, unaccompanied youth face the trauma of
homelessness without the support of a parent or guardian. They
are often disengaged from school and behind in credits. I ask
that reauthorization address their unique needs and ensure that
they have a chance to make up what they missed due to
homelessness.
Finally, children and youth in foster care also experience
educational disruption. Reauthorization should create a
separate education program for children and youth in foster
care that provides immediate access and school stability. This
program should maximize the collaborative role and the
resources of child welfare agencies.
In closing, too many homeless children and youth are not
identified, enrolled, or attending school. Too many continue to
change schools over and over again, each time losing
instruction, losing friends, and eventually losing their
connection to school entirely by dropping out. Homeless
students and students in foster care need additional supports
if they are to be able to participate successfully in any
educational program.
I ask the committee to address these issues in the upcoming
reauthorization.
Thank you again for the opportunity to share my experience
and views.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ross follows:]
Prepared Statement of Denise Ross
summary
Homeless children and youth have unique needs; they encounter
educational barriers when those needs are not met. These needs include
lack of basic supplies such as clothing and hygiene products; fatigue,
hunger, emotional stress, trauma; high residential mobility; lack of
records.
Despite much progress over the past years, many barriers to the
education of homeless children and youth remain. Some of the primary
challenges include the following: (1) difficulty identifying homeless
students; (2) lack of dedicated staff time and resources; (3)
determining the best educational placement; (4) the logistical and
financial challenges of transportation; (5) lack of clarity in the
title I part A setaside for homeless students; and (6) meeting the
needs of special populations, such as preschool children, unaccompanied
homeless youth, and children and youth in foster care.
Recommendations for Reauthorization of ESEA:
Improve identification of homeless students by ensuring
that school districts have the resources to hire the staff to find and
assist homeless students. Reauthorization also should require that
homeless liaisons participate in professional development to increase
awareness, which also will improve identification.
Require that all homeless liaisons have sufficient
training, resources, and time to perform their mandated
responsibilities.
Require that best interest determinations for homeless
students be individualized and child-centered, and that they take into
account a number of important criteria, such as the age of child,
safety of student, and time remaining in the school year. School
districts should presume that staying in the school of origin is in the
child's best interest, unless an individualized determination supports
a school move, or unless the parent, guardian, or youth wish to change
schools.
Support the transportation provisions of the McKinney-
Vento Act by addressing these funding issues and clarifying that
transportation to the school of origin must be provided until the end
of the school year if a child or youth obtains housing, if it continues
to be in his or her best interest to continue to attend there.
Provide greater clarity in determining the amount of the
title I, part A setaside for homeless students, as well as more
flexible uses of these funds.
The McKinney-Vento Act should be amended to increase
homeless children's access to and stability in the early childhood
programs.
Reauthorization should address the unique needs of
unaccompanied homeless youth and ensure that they have a chance to make
up the credits they missed due to homelessness.
Reauthorization should create a separate, dedicated
education program for children and youth in foster care that allows
them to stay in the school of origin when it is in their best interest,
or immediately enroll in a new school. This program should maximize the
collaborative role and the resources of child welfare agencies, so that
both agencies have clear, distinct, and appropriate responsibilities.
______
Thank you, Chairman Harkin, Ranking Member Enzi, and members of the
committee, for providing me with an opportunity to speak to you on
behalf of homeless children and youth across the country.
I currently serve as the Supervisor for the Homeless Education
Program for the Prince George's County Public School System in
Maryland. Our school system, like most jurisdictions, has experienced
growth in our homeless student enrollment over the past few years.
Currently, there are over 2,500 homeless children and youth enrolled in
our schools. This is approximately a 14 percent increase over the past
3 years.
Homeless children and youth have unique needs. They encounter
educational barriers when these needs are not understood, or when
Federal law--the McKinney-Vento Act--is not implemented fully. Homeless
children and youth are embarrassed about where they live. They don't
understand why they are homeless, or why their circumstances do not
improve. They move from place to place, worried about where they will
live next and what school they will have to attend. Often times, they
are hungry and wondering whether they will have food to eat. They often
lack sleep because they are in a crowded place with other people they
don't know. They lack basics such as clothing and school supplies.
Unaccompanied homeless youth confront these difficulties without a
parent, guardian, or any caring adult, most often because they are
fleeing abuse or neglect at home. Homeless children and youth are often
sad and scared, but they can feel safe and secure at school. School is
also where they can obtain the education to help them escape poverty
and homelessness as adults.
The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is an anchor for
homeless students in many ways. It allows these vulnerable youngsters
to have immediate school access and school stability during their time
of transition. In my work as school district homeless liaison, I see
the power of these policies on a daily basis. I conduct trainings on
the McKinney-Vento Act each year to make sure our school personnel know
their responsibilities. Our program provides homeless students with
vouchers or gift cards for clothing, uniforms, shoes, school supplies,
personal hygiene items, eye exams and glasses, if prescribed. We also
provide after-school academic support services with McKinney-Vento
grant funds in a local elementary school and at a homeless shelter for
women and children. We know that if you equip the students with these
necessities, it will enhance their desire to attend school, and improve
their academic performance. We provide many other services, working
closely with community agencies to make referrals and coordinate
activities.
Most importantly, the majority of our homeless students attend the
same school that they were attending when they lost their housing,
thanks to our school district's commitment to fulfilling our legal
obligation to provide the transportation required for a stable school
experience.
Despite progress over the past years, many barriers to the
education of homeless children and youth remain. Some of the primary
challenges include the following: (1) difficulty identifying homeless
students; (2) lack of dedicated staff time and resources; (3)
determining the best educational placement; (4) the logistical and
financial challenges of transportation; (5) lack of clarity in the
title I part A setaside for homeless students; and (6) meeting the
needs of special populations, such as preschool children, unaccompanied
homeless youth, and children and youth in foster care.
1. Difficulty Identifying Homeless Students. The educational needs
of homeless students cannot be met if these students are not
identified. Yet homeless students are often invisible. A homeless
parent, when asked by a reporter what she wanted to say to the public,
responded, ``You can't judge a book by its cover.'' In other words, you
can't always tell just by looking at someone whether or not that person
is homeless. Even with the more than 2,500 homeless students we have
identified in our county, we know that there are more out there, unseen
and not served. Reauthorization should address the need for increased
outreach and identification of homeless children and youth by
increasing the authorized funding level, so that more school districts
have the resources to hire the staff to find and assist homeless
students. Reauthorization also should require that homeless liaisons
and school staff participate in professional development. This
professional development will result in a heightened awareness and
thereby improve identification efforts.
2. Dedicated Staff Time and Resources. School district homeless
liaisons are essential for effective implementation of the McKinney-
Vento Act. McKinney-Vento liaisons and school staff are often the only
source of advocacy and support for homeless students. However, homeless
liaisons face a number of challenges. They are often unable to devote
sufficient time to carry out their duties, due to the many hats they
wear. In fact, in the majority of school districts, the liaison is
merely a title. This problem is related in part to the low funding
level of the McKinney-Vento program; only 9 percent of school districts
receive McKinney-Vento Act funds. Fortunately, thanks to the support of
the Prince George's County Public School District, our homeless program
has four full-time positions. We need each and every person on our
staff to ensure that our students are served. Reauthorization should
require that homeless liaisons have sufficient capacity to perform
their mandated responsibilities.
3. Determining the Best Educational Placement. School districts are
required to keep homeless children and youth in their original school,
to the extent feasible, unless staying in this school is against the
wishes of the parent or guardian. In my experience, school stability is
usually in a child's best interest; in fact, over 70 percent of our
homeless students stay in the same school. Unfortunately, I have
witnessed different school districts interpret this policy in different
ways. Sometimes, they base what is feasible on cost and convenience,
rather than on what is truly in the best interest of the child.
Reauthorization should require that ``best interest'' determinations be
individualized and child-centered, and that they take into account a
number of important criteria, such as the age of child, safety of
student, and time remaining in the school year. School districts should
presume that staying in the school of origin is in the child's best
interest, unless an individualized determination supports a school
move, or unless the parent, guardian, or youth wish to change schools.
This policy will allow flexibility to meet individual needs, but
strengthen and promote school stability.
4. The Logistical and Financial Challenge of Transportation. The
primary purpose of the McKinney-Vento Act is to limit disruption in
children's education when they suffer the loss of housing.
Transportation is essential to achieve this purpose. Yet the cost of
providing transportation is very high. The Prince George's County
Public School District steps up to the plate in providing
transportation, but we do so at a very high cost. The cost of
transportation has caused other school districts to fail to identify
homeless students, or to force school moves that are not in children's
best interest. Reauthorization should support the transportation
provisions of the McKinney-Vento Act by addressing these funding
issues. In addition, while the Prince George's County Public School
District tries to follow the letter and the spirit of the law, we are
challenged by other school districts that are not providing prompt or
timely transportation services. This creates a barrier to immediate or
continued enrollment and attendance. In addition, some school districts
misinterpret the school of origin transportation requirements. They
discontinue transportation to the school of origin if the student
obtains a regular, fixed, and adequate nighttime residence during the
school year. This practice pulls the rug out from underneath homeless
children and youth just as they are finally achieving some stability in
their lives; once again, it uproots their education. Reauthorization of
the McKinney-Vento Act should clarify that transportation to the school
of origin must be provided until the end of the school year if a child
or youth obtains housing, if it continues to be in his or her best
interest to continue to attend there.
5. Lack of Clarity in Title I Part A Setasides. We are fortunate to
be among the 9 percent of all school districts nationwide that receive
a McKinney-Vento sub grant. This year, our homeless education program
is supported by a $60,000 McKinney-Vento grant, a $113,000 ARRA
homeless education grant, and $85,000 from the title I, part A homeless
education setaside. The contribution of title I part A is essential for
our program to continue services. Yet our district, like many others,
would benefit from greater clarity in determining the amount of the
setaside, as well as more flexible uses of these funds. Reauthorization
should address both of these issues; especially since the title I part
A setaside is the primary funding source available to school districts
to support their homeless children and youth.
6. Meeting the Needs of Special Populations. Some children and
youth have special circumstances, and require specific policies. Young
children experiencing homelessness are often shut out of early
childhood programs as a result of their mobility, never reaching the
top of the waiting list. The McKinney-Vento Act should be amended to
increase homeless children's access to and stability in the early
childhood programs. In addition, youth who are homeless and on their
own face the trauma of homelessness without the support of a parent or
guardian. They are often disengaged from school and behind in credits.
Reauthorization should address their unique needs and ensure that they
have a chance to make up what they missed due to homelessness. Finally,
children and youth in foster care also experience high rates of
mobility and educational hurdles. Reauthorization should create a
separate, dedicated education program for children and youth in foster
care that allows them to stay in the school of origin when it is in
their best interest, or immediately enroll in a new school. This
program should maximize the collaborative role and the resources of
child welfare agencies, so that both agencies have clear, distinct, and
appropriate responsibilities.
In closing, I would like to share a story about a single homeless
mother with two children. One child was in elementary school, and the
other was in middle school. The mother lost her government job, and, as
a result, lost her housing. She and her two children stayed with family
or friends for a period of time in stressful, unstable arrangements.
The family moved at least three times, but thanks to the McKinney-Vento
Act, the children remained at the same school that they had attended
prior to becoming homeless. Each time the mother's living arrangements
changed, homeless liaisons assisted her with completing required
documents to allow for continuity with transportation. Her children
were able to receive free meals (breakfast and lunch) at school. The
elementary student was on the honor roll. However, the middle school
student's grades gradually fell below average. His grades were not a
reflection of his ability. They were a direct result of his inability
to concentrate on studying. He was consumed with figuring out where
they would be living when he got out of school. Being a teenager, he
was also angry and embarrassed by their living arrangements. The mother
and her children eventually obtained a spot at a local shelter in a
neighboring jurisdiction. She requested that the students finish out
the school year in Prince George's County Public Schools. We determined
that this school placement was in her children's best educational
interest, so transportation was arranged, and the students finished out
the school year in Prince George's County. Today, the mother has
obtained housing. She also completed a Culinary Arts program. Both
children are attending school in the neighboring jurisdiction and doing
well. This mother called our Homeless Program a ``blessing'' to her in
her time of hardship.
This story may have ended quite differently if the Prince George's
County School District did not have the willingness, ability, and
resources to implement the law. Too often, stories like this, and many
other stories of even greater hardship, do end differently. Too many
homeless children and youth are not identified, enrolled, or attending
school. Too many homeless children and children in foster care continue
to change schools over and over again, each time losing instruction,
losing friends, and eventually losing their connection to school
entirely by dropping out. Education is one of our strongest weapons in
the fight against adult homelessness. But homeless students, and
students in foster care, need additional supports if they are to be
able to participate successfully in any educational program. The
McKinney-Vento Act has a strong history, but too many barriers remain.
I ask the committee to strengthen and expand the McKinney-Vento Act
program for homeless children and youth, and to create similar
opportunities for children and youth in foster care through a separate
program that is dedicated to their unique needs.
Thank you again for the opportunity to share my experience and
views.
The Chairman. Ms. Ross, thank you very much for a profound
statement, and I think that leads elegantly into Ms. VanDyke.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF KAYLA VANDYKE, STUDENT, EAGAN, MN
Ms. VanDyke. Chairman Harkin and Senator Enzi and members
of the HELP Committee and other staff, thank you so much for
inviting me to talk today and share my story, as well as talk
about some of the issues I know affect many other homeless and
foster children.
I am not an expert on policy, but I do know how I have been
affected by it, and I hope my experiences can help you make the
choices that will improve the system.
My name is Kayla VanDyke. I am 18 years old, and I have
been in 7 different foster care placements, as well as being in
10 different schools since I was 4 years old.
I have been homeless. I have experienced living in a
shelter, and I have been separated from my siblings along the
way. But I am pleased to tell you that despite the statistics
that suggest that roughly half of foster children and homeless
youth do not finish high school, I will be graduating in 4
weeks with a 3.7 GPA.
[Applause.]
Thank you.
I am on track to attend Hamline University in the fall and,
right after that, complete an internship with FosterClub, which
is the national network for youth in foster care.
I entered into foster care for the first time when I was 4
years old. After 3\1/2\ years of being in placements with my
siblings, I was returned to my mother. Soon after that, we
experienced homelessness. I completely stopped attending
school. So I have no fourth grade education.
We stayed with a family friend for a few months before we
were accepted into a homeless shelter in Minneapolis. It was
September by then, and I can remember thinking that I should be
going to school soon.
When I showed up at Lake Harriet Elementary School on the
first day of fifth grade, there was no record of my education
in St. Paul. But the issue wasn't pressed, and I was allowed to
enter into classes immediately.
I was used to being the most motivated and smartest person
in the class. However, because of my educational hiatus, I
could barely keep up. I was also ashamed of where I was living,
and I tried hard to hide the fact that I was living in a
shelter from the other students. I became very lonely and
withdrawn.
I later started receiving help from a counselor who donated
her time at the shelter where I lived. She helped me overcome a
lot of the emotional pain I had been experiencing as a result
of my homelessness. In turn, I began to feel more comfortable
at school and became engaged in activities.
Not only did she guide me, but she also helped me gain
access to resources like scholarships for summer. I ended up
going to the YMCA camp and for just once feeling very normal.
Looking back, I realize what a huge difference these things
made in my life. Every homeless and foster youth should have
the kind of support I had. While the McKinney-Vento Act
provides homeless youth with advocates, these people often
don't have the time or training to fulfill their
responsibilities. I, myself, never came across one of these
people.
It shouldn't be left up to chance whether or not someone is
available to advocate for a student in need. Changes should be
made to ensure that these people are accessible to foster and
homeless youth so that all students have the tools they need to
succeed.
At the age of 13, I was placed in foster care for the
second time. After 6 months in a respite home, which is a
temporary placement, I changed homes and schools. I really
wanted to stay at my old school, where I was doing well and had
finally found a best friend, but it wasn't an option I felt I
had.
Once again, I became isolated and began falling behind in
my classes. All the schools I attended taught portions of the
courses at different times. So when I moved schools, I might
completely miss one half of the year's lessons and re-learn
what I had already learned at the other school. School change
is inevitable for a foster or homeless youth, they should be
able to receive the help they need to bridge the gap that might
occur because they changed schools.
After many similar transitions, I finally found myself in a
good home. I had a support group that gave me choice and access
to things I was interested in. By my sophomore year, my grades
finally started reflecting what I was capable of
intellectually.
However, it couldn't erase the fact that I had skipped
major steps in my linear education, which is reflected in my
math and science performance. Like many other homeless and
foster children who score significantly lower than their peers
on standardized tests, I failed the Minnesota Comprehensive
Assessment of math and only scored a 21 on my ACT.
While that may not seem so bad, it is for someone who knows
they are capable of more. The effect of this has also
snowballed into me having difficulties getting into college.
Not to worry--fortunately, my social studies and English skills
have made up for some of my educational gaps, and I have been
accepted into college.
I know that if it were not for the support, I could have
ended up like my sister or many other foster youth. While my
sister is currently surviving, she never got the chance to
pursue higher education or receive support in achieving her
goals. In fact, because of the school and placement moves she
experienced, she barely finished high school.
I know there are a lot of stories like my sister's. That is
why my ultimate goal would be that more young people have good
supportive experiences like I did in my sophomore year.
On behalf of the half million children in foster care and
the 30,000 who will age out of the system this year, I would
like to make the following suggestions.
Foster and homeless children should have the right to
transportation to their original schools. I know personally
that if I had had the option to stay at my old school, I
wouldn't have had so many gaps in my education.
I also believe that schools should be required to enroll
foster and homeless youth immediately and transfer credits and
records quickly. I know that if my records had been transferred
while I was in elementary school, I would have had the
opportunity to make up the schooling I had missed. However, I
am very fortunate that they did allow me to enter in school
immediately.
Finally, as I have said before, counselors or liaisons
should be provided for foster and homeless youth to help them
succeed in education. Because being in foster care is a state
of homelessness. It is very similar, and we need very similar
support in that.
I thank you all again for this opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ms. VanDyke follows:]
Prepared Statement of Kayla VanDyke
summary
My name is Kayla VanDyke. I'm 18 years old and have lived in seven
different foster care placements and attended 10 different schools
since I was four. I've experienced homelessness, have lived in a
shelter, and have been separated from siblings along the way. At one
point, I missed my entire 4th grade year due to my family's
homelessness. But I'm pleased to tell you, despite the statistics that
say that roughly half of foster care youth and homeless youth don't
finish high school on time, I will be receiving my high school diploma
in 4 weeks. I'm on track to attend Hamline University in the fall,
right after I complete an internship with FosterClub, the national
network for young people in foster care.
I've been lucky enough to have an underlying awareness of the
importance of education, which has always been my main motivator. I
noticed from a young age that there was one main difference between my
family and the people I considered successful and happy: they had an
education, my family didn't.
There were things that worked in my life and education and there
were things that made it very hard for me to adapt. During the
instability of my childhood, my educational experience was highly
impacted, leading me to make the following recommendations:
Like homeless youth, foster youth should be able to stay
in their old school after they move to a new school district when it's
in their best interest. Transportation must be provided in order for
this to be possible. As a foster youth who was never quite sure about
where I would be moved next, I didn't want to inconvenience my new
family by asking for rides to my old school, even though it was minutes
away. It never really occurred to me that it would even be an option.
Assistance should be provided to homeless and foster youth
to cover gaps in their education that result from unavoidable school
moves. When I changed schools, sometimes I completely missed one-half
of the year's lessons and had to re-learn what I had already covered at
the other school. The fact that I have skipped major steps in my linear
education continues to impact me to this day. When a young person must
move, special efforts should be made to ensure that their records are
transferred, that they don't lose school credits, and that they receive
the help they need to bridge any gaps that might occur due to the move.
In addition, I have come to realize that some key things were
available to me that some of my brothers and sisters in foster care
must also have to ensure their educational success:
Dedicated liaisons or advocates should be provided for all
foster and homeless youth. These critical adults must have the
training, time and capacity to serve vulnerable children who are caught
up in the kind of circumstances I was in.
At various points in my childhood, supportive adults in the
education and child welfare systems dedicated time and energy to help
me succeed.
Young people must be allowed immediate enrollment and
records must be transferred promptly. Federal law should ensure that
all homeless and foster youth are allowed to attend school without
delay. It should ensure that their records are transferred promptly so
that they can receive credit for their previous work, and so that gaps
in their education are not missed.
Ultimately, the stability I now have in my home life has helped me
succeed. I've lived in my current placement for 3 years. My current
foster parents support me and have helped me to advocate for my
educational needs.
On behalf of the half million children in foster care and over 1
million homeless children in America, I urge you to invest in their
educational stability. We all know that when we invest in the quality
of a young person, we ensure that, as adults, they have the opportunity
and ability to achieve their potential and goals, enjoy a higher
standard of living, and help make our country stronger.
______
Chairman Harkin and Senator Enzi, and members of the HELP
Committee, thank you for inviting me to share my story and talk about
some of the issues that I know affect many other homeless and foster
children. I'm not an expert on policy but I have been affected by child
welfare policies and I hope my experiences can help you make choices
that will improve the system. I thank the members of the committee for
their commitment to creating a better life and a brighter future for
the half a million children who are living in foster care today, and
for the 1 million children who are currently homeless.
My name is Kayla VanDyke. I'm 18 years old and have lived in seven
different foster care placements and gone to 10 different schools since
I was four. I've experienced homelessness, have lived in a shelter, and
have been separated from siblings along the way. But I'm pleased to
tell you, despite the statistics that suggest that roughly half of
foster care and homeless youth do not finish high school, I will be
receiving my high school diploma in 4 weeks. I'm on track to attend
Hamline University in the fall, right after I complete an internship
with FosterClub, the national network for young people in foster care.
There were things that worked in my life and education and there
were things that made it very hard for me to adapt. I think I've been
lucky enough to have an underlying awareness of the importance of
education, which has always been my main motivator. I noticed from a
young age that there was one main difference between my family and the
people I considered successful and happy: they had an education, my
family didn't.
I went into foster care for the first time when I was four. I'm not
sure how many times I moved at this time, but I stayed in placements
with my sibling for nearly 3 years until I was given back to my mother,
which is when I experienced my first school change.
Then, at the beginning of fourth grade, my family became homeless.
I completely stopped attending school, so I have no fourth grade
education. I remember feeling very disoriented as to where I was and
why I couldn't go to school. We stayed with a family friend for a few
months until we were accepted into a homeless shelter for families in
Minneapolis. It was September by then, and I can remember thinking, ``I
should be going to school soon.''
I recognize that during that time period, new Federal policies
under McKinney-Vento had just passed. Perhaps, had they come just a bit
earlier and had they been fully carried out, things would have been
different for me. Maybe a McKinney liaison would have helped to locate
me and ensure that I was enrolled in school. But I'm not sure if anyone
would have tracked me down even if McKinney had been enacted years
earlier. That's because many school districts fail to identify and
enroll all the homeless youth in their communities because McKinney-
Vento is underfunded. Clearly, McKinney-Vento should be strengthened
when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is reauthorized so that other homeless
kids don't slip through the cracks like I did that year.
After we left the shelter and when I showed up on the first day of
school for fifth grade at Lake Harriet Elementary School, there was no
record of my education in St. Paul, but no one pressed the issue and I
was allowed to enter classes.
During this time, my academics had really suffered due to all of
the school I had missed, the emotional stress I was under, and the
general chaos I had experienced. I was used to being the most motivated
and smartest person in the class. However, because of my educational
hiatus, I could barely keep up. I was also ashamed of my home life and
tried hard to hide the fact that I was living in a shelter from the
other students. I became really depressed and withdrawn.
Later in fifth grade, I started receiving help from a counselor who
donated her time to the shelter where I lived. She helped me overcome a
lot of the emotional pain I had been experiencing as a result of my
homelessness and educational struggles. In turn, I began feeling more
comfortable at school and became engaged in activities. Not only did
she guide me, but she also helped me gain access to resources like
scholarships for summer camp--I ended up going to the YMCA camp and for
once just feeling normal. Every homeless and foster youth should have a
liaison or advocate like I did--someone to assist a child like me who
was struggling to keep up. While McKinney-Vento provides homeless youth
with liaisons, these liaisons often don't have the time, training and
capacity to fulfill their responsibilities because the program is
terribly underfunded. When NCLB is reauthorized, this problem should be
addressed,
I also think foster youth should have access to scholarships for
extra curricular activities as well as the option of having either a
counselor or therapist to work as their advocate. Looking back, I
realize now the huge difference these things made for me. Without
access to these opportunities or my counselor, I am not sure that I
would have had the motivation to overcome the difficulties I was having
at home and in school. I wish that every young person who is
experiencing trauma--whether it be homelessness or a challenging time
in foster care--could have this experience with a person who is
understanding and dedicated to providing the support a kid like me
needs.
At the end of that summer, my family moved from the shelter to a
low-income housing complex in Burnsville--another school move for me.
But then, a little less than 2 years later, my siblings and I re-
entered the foster care system. We were placed in a respite home for 6
months, but then were moved again to a foster home which required yet
another school move. I really wanted to stay at my old school where I
was doing well academically and had finally found a best friend. But as
a foster youth who was never quite sure about where I would be moved
next, I didn't want to inconvenience my new family by asking for rides
to my old school, even though it was minutes away, and even though I
would have been able to attend the school because Minnesota, unlike
other States, has an open enrollment policy. It never really occurred
to me that attending my old school would even be an option.
Just like the McKinney-Vento Act gives homeless youth the option of
remaining in their old schools, NCLB should also provide foster youth
with this option. Transportation must be provided for this option to be
real. I think that remaining in one's old school should be offered up
as an option, for kids like me who don't think to ask, or feel like
they shouldn't rock the boat for fear of losing their place to live.
In 9th grade, my sister and I were moved out of our foster home due
to abuse that was taking place. I moved to another school, but since it
was a move up to high school, many of the other kids were new, too. It
was at this time that I started to recognize the impact that my many
school moves had on my education. All the schools I attended taught
portions of the courses at different times, so when I moved schools I
might completely miss one-half of the year's lessons and re-learn what
I had already learned at the other school. When NCLB is reauthorized,
the new law should minimize the number of times foster and homeless
youth have to change schools. When they must move, the reauthorized
NCLB should ensure that their records are transferred, that they don't
lose school credits, and that they receive the help they need to bridge
any gaps that might occur because they changed schools.
In 10th grade, I changed homes one more time, this time for good.
This also meant another change in schools. I've lived in my current
placement for 3 years. The stability this provided me allowed me to
connect with people at my school and in my community. These people
include my foster mother, social worker, therapist and two counselors
from my previous schools, who all worked as a team to help me
accomplish my goals and connect me to resources. Not only did they help
me catch up academically, but they were also crucial in helping me
stabilize my emotions. It was amazing--to have a team of people who
cared about my success and could help me accomplish my goals. Every
homeless and foster child should have a team like I did. When NCLB is
reauthorized, the law should help ensure that child welfare and school
district staff work better together to address the educational needs of
every foster youth.
My sophomore year was successful because I had a support group that
gave me choice, support and access to things I was interested in. At
this time, I was able to experience something that I think is pretty
unheard of in foster care. I was able to become an exchange student.
When I came back from my exchange experience, I chose to go to a
different high school that was smaller and more catered to my
educational interests. Yes, it was a school move, but it was
different--because I got to choose. I finally had a stable loving home
and a school I felt comfortable in. The result was that my grades
finally started reflecting what I was capable of intellectually.
However, it couldn't erase the fact that I had skipped major steps
in my linear education. Math and Science have always been my weakest
subjects and despite my efforts to learn what I have missed, the fact
that I have gaps in my education has hindered my ability to both learn
and take crucial tests. Like many other homeless and foster children
who score significantly lower than their peers on standardized tests, I
failed the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment of math and only scored a
21 on my ACT. While that may not seem so bad, it is for someone who
knows they're capable of more. The effect of this has also snowballed
into my having difficulties getting into college. Since coming to my
current school, I've been mostly an A and B student, but I know the
inconsistencies in my education have hindered my ability to excel in
areas like math and science.
Not to worry--my social studies and English skills have made up for
my short-comings and I've been accepted into college. It may not be the
first college of my choice, but I know that I will succeed.
I also know that if it were not for the support I received and my
awareness of how important education was for me to get out of the
poverty cycle, I could have ended up like my sister or like many other
foster youth. While my sister is currently surviving, she never had the
chance to pursue higher education or receive support in achieving her
goals. In fact, because of the school and placement moves she
experienced, she barely finished high school. I know there are a lot of
stories like my sister's. That's why my ultimate goal would be that
more young people have good supportive experiences like I did in my
sophomore year.
To summarize, for the half-million children in foster care and over
1 million children who are homeless, the following NCLB reforms are
critical.
School stability must be ensured. Foster youth should be
able to stay in the same school when it's in their best interest.
Transportation must be provided in order for this to be possible.
Young people should be allowed immediate enrollment in
school and their educational records must be transferred promptly.
Dedicated liaisons and coordinators should be provided for
all foster and homeless youth. These critical adults must have the
training, time and capacity to serve vulnerable children who are caught
up in the type of circumstances I experienced.
We all know that when we invest in the quality of a young person,
we ensure that, as adults, they have the opportunity and ability to
achieve their potential, enjoy a higher standard of living, and help
make our country stronger.
Thank you all again for this opportunity.
The Chairman. Kayla, thank you very much for being the
capstone on all of the testimony we heard before. You are a
remarkable young woman, remarkable. We wish you the best in
your future endeavors.
Ms. VanDyke. Thank you.
The Chairman. Hamline University?
Ms. VanDyke. Hamline.
The Chairman. Hamline University. Where is that?
Ms. VanDyke. It is in St. Paul.
The Chairman. St. Paul.
Ms. VanDyke. Minnesota.
The Chairman. Minnesota.
[Laughter.]
Ms. VanDyke. He knows.
The Chairman. That is very remarkable.
Kayla, just one thing, I heard it both from you and Ms.
Ross, and that is the provision of attending the school of
origin.
Ms. VanDyke. Yes.
The Chairman. You put a lot of emphasis on that. So did
you, Ms. Ross. Just tell me again in your own words, you have
said in your statement your original school was only just
minutes away, but you just felt like you couldn't impose upon
your foster family to drive you there.
Ms. VanDyke. I didn't know it was an option in Minnesota to
even go to your original school. There are two major points
there. One is the emotional well-being of the student. You make
a friend group. It is very important for children to feel
comfortable and stable, to know the teachers, feel comfortable
in the environment.
When you move someone, especially in the middle of the
year, they are starting off. They don't have friends. They are
already experiencing a lot of emotional trauma from the move,
trying to adjust to their home life as well as their school,
and that can make learning very difficult.
It is also, like I said, that educational gap. Schools do
not teach the same thing at the same time. And when you change
schools, you may be relearning what you already learned. You
may have completely skipped a section of your education, and
there is no way to really make that up without completely
repeating a year.
The Chairman. Let me just say you are a well-spoken young
woman.
[Laughter.]
As one of my daughters would say, you are kind of awesome.
Boy.
[Laughter.]
One of the positive things that the No Child Left Behind
Act did, and I have said this before, was it really has shown a
bright light on the achievement gaps that persist especially
for students with disabilities. Now, as we look at this, the
one thing I keep hearing from all of you--and I have said to
Senator Enzi, we heard from other witnesses--is this idea of
getting a growth model, basing things on a growth model rather
than trying to get close to some unattainable goal.
I wanted to ask again Ms. Hundley about that in terms of
students with disabilities. Right now, nationwide, about 64
percent, 65 percent of people with disabilities are either
underemployed or unemployed. But yet you have had a great
success in getting people employed and into higher education.
It almost seems like you had a growth model that you were
using in how you dealt with students with disabilities. Can you
expand on that just a little bit more?
Ms. Hundley. I will have to be candid. What I told my staff
when we saw the AYP targets was don't worry about the targets.
Do what needs to be done. The motto we have in Littleton is,
``Do whatever it takes.'' And if it means job coaching, hand
over hand, on the job, if it means finding the employers then
we continue to say to them, ``Please persist. Don't give up on
our child.''
We do a lot of individualized job placement, a lot of
individualized coaching. The parents are clearly a partner. We
do a lot of planning with families for what their priorities
are. So that child getting into that job or getting into higher
ed is not solely our doing. It is also a result of what the
family has stated with the child what that level of support is.
But, yes, ours is very much based on where the child is
now, where they need to go, then planning backwards for how to
get them there.
The Chairman. I am very intrigued by your followup. You say
you do that for 5 years after?
Ms. Hundley. For the past 5 years, we call 1 year out.
The Chairman. One year out.
Ms. Hundley. The reason we have only done 1 year out, and
many people have said to me, ``Why don't you do it 5 years, 10
years?'' It is hard to find the student, and it is hard to find
the parent. Phone numbers change, e-mail addresses change.
The Chairman. What do you find from that 1-year followup?
Do you get good information about maybe changing how you did
this or how you did that or--
Ms. Hundley. The kids have said to us, a teacher made all
the difference in the world for me. Most of them say, ``I wish
I was a better reader. I wish I was a better writer, and I wish
I could do math.'' But that is OK because my cell phone has a
calculator. That is pretty consistent.
[Laughter.]
Here is one other point. Many young adults with
disabilities do not want to be viewed as a young adult with a
disability. So when we call them, they are reluctant to talk to
us because they have already moved into thinking they are a
young adult with ability.
The Chairman. That is what we have been trying to do since
ADA does not look at a person's disability, but look at what
they are able to do and focus on that. So I thank you for that.
Senator Enzi.
Senator Enzi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will begin with Ms. Hundley. Groups are divided on
whether or not a student's individual education plan, IEP,
should also be used as an accountability tool. Does the
Littleton County School District use IEPs in this fashion, and
why or why not, and what do you think about it?
Ms. Hundley. Are you also getting to the external
assessment as an accountability tool? Or do you just want me to
respond to the IEP question?
Senator Enzi. Primarily the IEP question for right now. We
will do the other one in writing.
Ms. Hundley. IEPs are essentially a contract for that
individual student, and the goals and objectives that are
developed are specific to that child's goals related to their
disability. I believe it is in some part an accountability tool
in terms of our contract with that child and that parent. But
in terms of an accountability tool for that child's achievement
and setting the bar high, I think that we don't necessarily
have an automatic assumption of how high that student can
perform without a little bit of external pressure.
The IEP is more gauged around, what is possible for you to
achieve in a year, and it is always disability specific, as
well as utilizing a child's strength. But I don't think it
gives us the adequate pressure or the adequate objectivity that
we need in looking at setting the bar as high as we can for
student achievement.
I am not discounting it. I think it is part of our
accountability system, but not the only.
Senator Enzi. Thank you.
Ms. Ross, through the McKinney-Vento program, the Federal
Government has placed a lot of requirements on the school
districts in terms of services they are required to provide for
the homeless students, and you and Kayla have talked about
these students being uprooted if they get permanent housing and
for other reasons.
Have these reporting requirements resulted in better
service for homeless students or more paperwork and red tape
for you and your office? Are there some things we ought to
streamline or eliminate?
Ms. Ross. Well, I think that more so than eliminating, I
think there are areas that can be strengthened. And the big
piece, as Senator Harkin asked about earlier, the school of
origin directly correlates with transportation, and
transportation is like the primary backbone, I guess I would
say, for McKinney-Vento. Transportation is needed to the school
of origin.
For those of you that don't know, school of origin would be
the school they attended prior to becoming homeless. Because
the transportation costs are astronomical to the tune of in our
school system last year, we spent over $5 million on just
transportation for homeless students. Because of that
astronomical cost, some school systems are under identifying,
and there is pressure on staff to under identify homeless
students.
So a couple of things, if more funding can be put in place,
if there could be separate funding and separate agencies being
responsible for homeless and foster children because I do agree
that the needs mirror each other.
The other piece that you touched on is I don't think the
law is written strong enough and specific enough so that school
systems realize that just because a family obtains permanent
housing or regular fixed adequate night-time residence mid-way
through the school year that you pull the transportation
services, and therefore, the kids can no longer go to the
school of origin unless they can provide their transportation.
I like to refer to that part of McKinney-Vento, the school
of origin as the calm in the midst of the storm. So there are
things that need to be strengthened.
Senator Enzi. I appreciate that. I am not real familiar
with that because I am from a very rural area. And so, if they
get accommodations in the community at all, it is still the
same school. If they go to another town, the transportation
wouldn't be the cost. It would be the time. Children might have
to ride on a bus for an hour and a half each way.
So I appreciate the additional information and emphasis
there, and I need the introduction to the urban atmosphere as
well. So thank you.
Ms. Ross. Yes. Thank you.
Senator Enzi. Ms. Medina.
Ms. Medina. Yes, sir.
Senator Enzi. There are a lot of concerns about the
requirements for documenting whether or not children qualify
for migrant education programs. How has your program worked
with families to document eligibility?
Ms. Medina. In Pennsylvania, we have recruiters. These
recruiters are very well known in the community. They are in
communication all the time with school districts, with the
growers, with the different agricultural businesses in the
area. Even by word of mouth, the program has been identified.
We have, as an issue from our Federal office, a national
certificate of eligibility, where there is specific questions
that address the eligibility of the children, as I mentioned
earlier in my testimony. These recruiters will ask these
questions to the families to ensure that the child qualifies
properly.
I am talking on behalf of Pennsylvania--after the
certificate is completed, we have a verification process where
we have committees that will review all the information
obtained, and we will secure verification of that information.
In other words, if the family said that they came to the area
to work, for example, at Tyson Foods processing plant, but they
came and they are no longer hiring, we already had made good
relationships with those companies that we can talk to the
companies and they will verify the information.
As soon as the information is verified--and we are very
strict, we have a 7 working days limit to have all the
information collected and verified--services will start
immediately.
Senator Enzi. Thank you, and I have questions for both
Kayla and Dr. Hinojosa, too. I appreciate your testimony and I
will submit those questions in writing. I appreciate your
response.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Enzi.
Next I have Senator Franken.
Senator Franken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. VanDyke, Chairman Harkin's daughter would call you
awesome. I am sure a lot of people would. I think that your
current foster parents are probably pretty awesome, too. Is
that right?
Ms. VanDyke. Yes, they are.
Senator Franken. Senator Enzi brought up a few things about
and led to the school of origin. Some of the parents that you
had probably--foster parents weren't so awesome. Is that
correct?
Ms. VanDyke. No, not all of my foster care placements were
successful, and there is a number of reasons for that. Do you
want me to go over them?
[Laughter.]
Senator Franken. I know you would like to. But the reason I
bring this up is, is that the importance of transportation.
Because when you talked about you really not knowing, as a
foster child, that it was your option to go to a school of
origin. But I remember reading that you wouldn't, didn't want
to ask your new parents to provide the transportation, even
though, Senator Enzi said, it was only a few minutes away.
Ms. VanDyke. Exactly. It goes back to that emotional
stability. You are in a new home. You don't know these people.
They have already made accommodations for you. You feel like a
burden. So, when you go out of your way to ask for yet another
accommodation, it just feels like you are more of a burden to
the family.
Especially when you are used to moving a lot, you want to
make a good impression. You don't want to rock the boat so that
you are seen as a burden. You are seen as someone that isn't
manageable, and so----
Senator Franken. Obviously, they sort of--these foster
parents didn't make you feel like you could say, ``Hey, I might
want to get a ride every day to my old school?''
Ms. VanDyke. Yes, absolutely.
Senator Franken. This is why Senator Murray and I have
introduced a bill and part of it is to address this problem,
the Fostering Success in Education Act, and it would require
school districts to collaborate with child welfare agencies to
enable foster youth to remain in their old schools. Part of
this would be providing some kind of arrangements or funding
for transportation.
If that requirement existed at the time, would that have
changed things for you, made them better?
Ms. VanDyke. It actually depends. I mean, if I had known
about it, it would have changed it perhaps. Like I was talking
about liaisons and counselors, those people who can actually
just communicate with a foster/homeless youth to tell them what
is available, I think that is important.
Because you can have as many resources on the table as you
want, if foster/homeless youth can't get access to them, if
they don't know about them, they are just going to sit there.
You need to make these options accessible to people.
Senator Franken. Well, that is part of this bill, too, to
make those people--to make liaisons and counselors accessible
and also give them time and training to be accessible to you so
that they can help the foster child. What difference would that
have made if you had that earlier?
Ms. VanDyke. If I had that when I entered into fifth grade
at Lake Harriet, first of all, the fact that I was allowed to
enter in so quickly was due to a collaboration between the
shelter I had been living at and my school. So that was, again,
the real importance of collaboration.
However, if they had contacted my school in St. Paul, they
would have realized that I didn't have that fourth grade
education. I would have gotten the opportunity to repeat the
fourth grade to make up for what I had lost in my education. At
that point, if there had been a liaison there, I probably would
have gone into the foster care system immediately because of my
home situation.
I probably would have been adopted right now. My education
would probably be that of a normal high schooler.
Senator Franken. So, essentially, you have missed a grade
of school.
Ms. VanDyke. Yes.
Senator Franken. You missed fourth grade. So you have a 3.7
despite missing fourth grade.
Ms. VanDyke. Yes, I have really had to----
Senator Franken. So you skipped a grade, even though that
wasn't quite your intention at the time.
[Laughter.]
Ms. VanDyke. I have really had to work the last year and a
half in my stable placement to really get my grades up, and
that is a product of being in a stable placement and having
those choices and options.
Senator Franken. So, and if you had had that extra year, if
you had had that year----
Ms. VanDyke. I think I would have been a 4.0 student. I
know I would have been accepted into the university or any
other school I applied to. I consider myself a good student. I
love learning, and if I had had the kind of opportunities that
just normal students have had, having that linear education,
that uninterrupted education, I am sure I would be in an even
better place than I am now.
Senator Franken. Well, my prediction for you is a bright
future. Thank you.
Ms. VanDyke. Thank you.
Senator Franken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I will now turn to Senator Mikulski.
Senator Mikulski. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to pick up on what Senator Franken said. My
own background before I came into politics was that of a social
worker, and I started out as a foster care social worker and
later became a protective service worker.
So my heart goes out to you and what you have done, and I
would just like to congratulate you, Senator Franken, on what
you and Murray are doing. I would like to be a co-sponsor of
that, please.
Senator Franken. Please. Thank you.
Senator Mikulski. I just want to bring to the Chairman's
attention, the foster care system is broken in this country,
and I think we have to really put that out on the table. We
have watch lists to track terrorists, but we don't have a
tracking system to see where our own children are when they are
uprooted.
Here, we have talked about the homeless child, the foster
child, the migrant child, the child coming from another country
in hope of the American dream. All of the children we have
talked about in some way are uprooted children, and if they
can't be connected to a home--they at least need to be
connected to a school system, which becomes their home by
proxy.
As we work on this, one strategy is to look at the broken
system, but also many of the children get lost because they are
the uprooted children. I don't mean to give a speech about
that, but I feel very strongly about it, and I would like to
compliment all of you who work in this incredibly challenging
field.
Ms. Ross, your recommendations are outstanding, but I want
to go to Ms. Hundley for a minute because she talks about
workforce. We have talked about requirements, the growth model,
which I think is excellent. We always talk about resources, but
another thing we must consider is what are the workforce needs,
and how do you think we can best address them?
Whether it is direct support for teachers, or school
support. It is obvious we need to talk about social workers,
nurses, as well as the devoted counselors that help the kids
have someone to talk to. You have talked about it in your
testimony, but what concrete things would you recommend to both
bring people into the field, and help them stay in the field?
Ms. Hundley. Are you talking about special education staff?
Senator Mikulski. Yes. I am talking about services along
the lines we are talking about, yes.
Ms. Hundley. I am a strong believer in some kind of a
mentoring type of program. There needs to clearly be
incentives, and I could broaden this beyond special education,
I am sure, to some other folks that my colleagues here might
also be concerned about shortages.
In Colorado, we have a Teacher in Residence program that I
think has merit to potentially expand.
Senator Mikulski. That is the program, but is it funded in
the law?
Ms. Hundley. No.
Senator Mikulski. I am not going to be the school
superintendent. We need to be able to say what are the specific
things that need to be done that isn't included in the law?
Ms. Hundley. I would put that under the category of
incentives to develop programs to draw people into higher ed or
who are already placed. In the Teacher in Residence program,
they are placed already in a contracted, full contract for a
teacher teaching students with disabilities, and they are a
full-time student as well.
It is organized so that they get the training and support
at the theoretical level in the classroom and mentoring on the
job, hand over hand coaching on the job site. There are
incentives for them. I do not know if it is federally funded or
if it is State funded. It is a State school that we are
partners with.
But I guess I would categorize, to get to your question,
how could there be incentives in the law for higher education
to develop an alternate model--
Senator Mikulski. No, I don't want it in higher ed, right
out there in the field.
Ms. Hundley. Oh, you are talking about a job--yes. OK. I am
sorry.
Senator Mikulski. OK. Well, my time is starting to run out
here. So one is to attract people while they are in school.
Ms. Hundley. Yes.
Senator Mikulski. But then once they go into the field, if
they are going to be measured the way we are with our Race to
the Tops and ``whoo-ha-ooh-ahh''----
[Laughter.]
I wish our banks were as regulated as our teachers. The
fact that then the teachers are evaluated based on an ideal of
student achievement, rather than the growth model that is
suggested here. Why wouldn't you pick a cushy suburban school
with a lot of resources and parental involvement when you are
going to be evaluated in such a stern way?
So the question is that, No. 1, how we should evaluate our
teachers and how should we evaluate our children. The second is
how do we get people to come into a field that is tough? You
know, my work as a child abuse worker so many years ago left a
searing and indelible mark on me because of what I saw when
working with these children, and their mothers. So this is not
an easy field to be in, and each and every one of you are in
it.
Ms. Medina.
Ms. Medina. Yes, I shake my head because my husband is a
children and youth emergency worker as well. So I understand
what the children are going through. Specifically, with migrant
families, the children fall through the cracks because in the
system a lot of times they can see where the child is while
their living crop is going to be over in October--
Senator Mikulski. Isn't it hard to find people--I am not
minimizing.
Ms. Medina. Yes.
Senator Mikulski. But I am back to how do we help the
children? Doesn't it take a very highly unusual and specialized
person to work with these students who have such unique
challenges?
Ms. Medina. Yes. Yes, and in Pennsylvania, we have a
position under the migrant program on the field called student
support specialist that dedicate their time, and they get
trained. We spend hours and manpower, training them to provide
those skills because, unfortunately, when they come to the
field to work, they really don't know the reality of the job,
and it is working with children with so many obstacles. And we
provide hours.
One of the things that we are doing in Pennsylvania now as
teacher preparation is we are including 150 hours of field work
where the upcoming teachers are going to be going to different
settings, and they are trying to match them on settings where
they don't reside. In other words, if they are coming from
rural----
Senator Mikulski. Right.
Ms. Medina [continuing]. Then work in an urban or suburban
school and volunteer. This is volunteer work.
Senator Mikulski. Well, that is excellent, Ms. Medina.
I know my time is up, and I really would look for and will
followup with questions. But really, my questions are how do we
both recruit and retain the workforce and also what support
services are needed, which aren't currently included in Federal
law?
My time is up. Mr. Chairman, I just want to make one
observation for another population that I think needs special
attention, and that is our gifted and talented children who are
often isolated, often lonely. There is a myth that, somehow or
another, only rich kids are smart. And also really smart kids
don't need extra help.
I think the work that has been done at Hopkins and the work
we see in our communities proves that is not so. I know this
committee shares the belief that intelligence and ability is
randomly distributed through the population, and there is a
gifted and talented kid in every barrio, as they are in an
affluent community. So I would hope we would also look at the
gifted and talented children.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Mikulski.
We have one here with us today in Kayla VanDyke.
Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I apologize I was not able to be here for the testimony of
each of you. I have had an opportunity to look through your
written comments.
But I was meeting with a small group of Alaskans that is
involved with a science and engineering program designed
specifically for Alaska Natives. It is one that I can get very,
very excited about because we are going into small villages
where oftentimes the educational opportunities may be limited
because it's difficult to recruit teachers out in those areas,
certainly to retain them. We are not able to offer a full
complement of the sciences in physics and higher calculus.
What this program is demonstrating is that when the
expectations are set high, when you know that as a junior in
high school, you can take apart and rebuild a computer and make
things work and figure it out on your own, all of a sudden, the
world opens up to you.
It is just a reminder to me about the expectations that we
have for our students, whether it is those with limited English
proficiency, whether it is those with disabilities, whether it
is those that have a home life as has been described here that
is exceptionally challenging. But again, it comes back to the
expectations that we have of our young people.
Mr. Hinojosa, I want to ask you about the flexibility that
we have to assess students in their native languages. I am a
big proponent of language in the schools, immersion languages
in the schools. My kids were beneficiaries of that in the
public schools in Anchorage.
I have been working to encourage, particularly in our rural
communities, that our students have access to their native
cultural languages, and be instructed in that. We are seeing
that a real demonstration of school is now much more relevant
to our kids.
But we are in a situation where you are not able then to
assess in the native language necessarily because either you
don't have enough speakers of the language or it doesn't lend
itself to the formal assessments, and that is what we are
finding with Yupik instruction, for instance. What is your
recommendation for assessing student academic proficiency when
the assessment is not in the child's first language? How do we
deal with this?
Mr. Hinojosa. Senator, that is certainly a huge challenge,
and we are very fortunate in Dallas that 96 percent of the
students that we have, Spanish is the language. But we get
refugees from Afghanistan, the Congo, Somalia, and we have that
similar difficulty as you describe in Alaska because it is a
very critical point.
Because if you cannot determine the student's proficiency
in their native language, then it is very difficult to
prescribe what needs to happen next. And so, that is a critical
point. We seek volunteers. We have a lot of community agencies
that do help us out whenever we don't have staff to help us
determine that.
But that is a critical point that local resources have to
come in and help because we really believe that if you can get
proficient in your native language, it is much easier then to
transfer and become literate and proficient in a second
language. Many of the students that we get, we get students in
high school that have never held a pencil. They have never worn
shoes, and they come from the Congo, and we have a huge
challenge to get them prepared to be successful academically.
I don't have a silver bullet answer for you, but we know
that it is a smaller issue for us, since only 4 percent of our
students fall into those kind of categories. But I can just
imagine--but it is an issue to be focused on because it is
critical that we understand that is a big part of what has to
get accomplished.
Senator Murkowski. Well, and I think we recognize whether
it is Alaska Natives or we see with our American Indians, when
we can incorporate the native culture into the education, I
think we are seeing a resurgence in interest in what is going
on in the classroom. Again, the relevance. But if we can do
more with incorporating the language, I think that that helps
us. But we struggle with then how you deal with the assessment.
I want to ask you just one more quick question here, and
this also relates to how we deal with it with the testing. You
have recommended that we codify the current regulation that the
LEP students not be required to be tested in their first year
here in the United States. And I don't have any problem with
that, certainly.
We have an interesting situation going on in Alaska. You
might not think about it, but we have a pretty significant
Hmong population in Anchorage. So what has happened is they
have come to California. That has been where they have come
into the United States. They have been provided instruction in
Hmong there in California. Then they come to Alaska.
They have no English proficiency, but they are not eligible
for this exception because they have been in the country now in
excess of a year. And so, we struggle. What do we do at this
point in time? Got any answers?
Mr. Hinojosa. That is a difficult challenge because we do
want to be held accountable. One of the best things about the
previous law is that now we are held accountable for all
student groups, and yet there needs to be some reasonableness
in the law----
Senator Murkowski. Got to have some flexibility there
somewhere.
Mr. Hinojosa [continuing]. And some flexibility for
situations like that that occur. Certainly, I don't know how to
draft a bill, but that would be something that would be
important to consider in a kind of situation that you describe
because now they are in their second year, and now the stakes
get very high.
Senator Murkowski. Right. Well, if any of you have any
suggestions that you would like to provide to us as we work on
this, we would certainly be appreciative.
Thank you all.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Murkowski.
Senator Bennet.
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I apologize that I was away. That is the worst manners
possible--to come back and ask questions, but I wanted to get
one to Ms. Hundley and one to our superintendent.
You mentioned in your opening testimony the importance, as
we think about the reauthorization of this law, of maintaining
or creating the flexibility that you need to build capacity. I
just want you to take a few minutes to underscore what you mean
by that so the committee can hear it because I agree that it is
enormously important.
Ms. Hundley. Are you referencing my request for flexibility
in use of funds?
Senator Bennet. Yes.
Ms. Hundley. I am happy to expand on that.
Senator Bennet. Thank you. I thought you would be.
Ms. Hundley. When Federal funds are currently only able to
be used directly for supports for students with disabilities,
meaning direct service, and they are driven by licensure laws
that you can only use them for staff that are licensed in
special education, our hands are tied. Special ed folks may not
be the right folks to do the literacy instruction for an
adolescent who is struggling in reading and who also has a
disability.
We also need to be able to build capacity in general ed
folks to understand how to differentiate how to make
accommodations, how to modify curricular focus. We need to have
special ed folks be trained in general education supports by
general educators, and all of that costs money. So a lot of
that is around training and building capacity, but it is also
about paying the right people to do the right kind of
instruction as we are pushing for these high achievement goals.
Senator Bennet. I think it is just such a tremendous
illustration of what happens sometimes when we pass laws here
in Washington and don't pay enough attention to what is
actually going on on the ground. The chairman and I have talked
about this before in terms of transportation of special ed
students in the Denver Public Schools.
We were spending, partly because of the law, partly because
of habit, roughly $9,000 a child to transport them a year in
the Denver Public Schools, which is money that could have been
used to support the work that you are talking about, to provide
services to kids. Transportation is an important service, but
we need to figure out how to write these rules rationally, I
think, so that you have the flexibility you need, and I
appreciate it.
Mr. Superintendent, it is great to see you, and this is a
question that is unfair. If you want to answer some of it in
writing, I would love to take your answer. But as you step
back, having had the successful tenure you have had, and 5
years in one of these jobs is an extraordinary achievement. But
to have gotten there and to have survived is great, and it is
great to see you.
When you look at this entire reauthorization and you think
about the pain points that you have in doing what you want to
be doing on a daily basis in Dallas, share with the committee a
little bit what you would do if you were sitting up here to
rewrite the legislation so that it helps support the work that
you are trying to do.
Mr. Hinojosa. Well, I am sure I can cover all of that in a
minute and 54 seconds.
[Laughter.]
I am from South. I speak slowly. So I don't know if I can
get it all in. Certainly, thank you for the opportunity to give
some input.
There are a lot of points that can be addressed.
Specifically, right now, districts are required to have
outside--reserve 20 percent of our funds in title funds for
outside providers to provide interventions. Sometimes, people,
the students get recruited with flashy laptops or cell phones
to come sign up with one of these providers, and they may or
may not have an impact on their academic performance.
For us to have to reserve 20 percent of our funds to do
that, that just ties our hands to where we could provide the
exact example that you made about provide direct service for
these students that we have just described that have tremendous
needs on the ground right now.
I think flexibility, going forward, is going to be
critical. There is not a panacea. There is not a silver bullet
for any of these. One of the reasons we have had success is
because of what you describe--we have had the ability to
implement some of these programs. Before I got to Dallas, there
had been 7 superintendents in 10 years. A lot of them had great
ideas, but by the next one, it was gone. So, it is just the
pressures that you have in trying to implement the system.
I think one of the previous Senators also brought up a very
important question. If I am a great candidate for instruction,
I am a great teacher, and I am going to go to a school district
that is going to get all these sanctions and get punishment
because of what the expectations are for me in a very hard-to-
serve community, or I could go to a community that doesn't have
those pending sanctions coming down, then the higher-quality
individuals won't be going where the greatest need is.
We need to look at what are the unintended consequences of
some of those activities as we roll out great ideas. But on the
ground, I think what I would implore of you is to continue to
have forums like this, where you talk to people on the ground.
Being a former superintendent, you know that we got things and
sometimes if we didn't have input, we could have pointed out
some unintended consequences that were coming down.
I really appreciate having this opportunity to come and at
least have this input on that one specific item. But going
forward, I would encourage you to talk to the field and let us
know, and we can help maybe avert some of the things that are
really good ideas, but when you get to implementation become an
obstacle and a burden to implement.
Thank you, Senator.
Senator Bennet. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate it. I think that it is important for us to
figure out a way to establish a feedback loop here in real
time. We have gone between the passage of the bill to the
reauthorization. We could have gained so much wisdom and
knowledge from people saying, ``Did you really mean this?'' I
think we could have changed things that would have made a
material difference for our kids and for our teachers and for
all of you.
Something we tried to do in the district when we were doing
the reform was constantly take feedback from the teachers, and
we changed things as a result of that.
I know that, Ms. Hundley, you and Senator Mikulski had a
discussion about incentivizing special ed teachers. I just
would like to give you the chance if there is anything else you
want to say on that.
We live in a country where we have had a chronic shortage
of special ed teachers for decades, and we are in general
paying people that are in affluent elementary schools--which is
a hard job. There is no doubt about it. All these jobs are
hard--essentially the same as we are paying people to be a
special ed teacher in a high-poverty high school. Do you have
any more reaction to that or what we could do to help with that
dilemma?
Ms. Hundley. Money in one's pocket obviously is a draw, but
I think we have to recognize what hard work it is. I know your
question was specific to teachers of children with
disabilities, but I think that is true for many at-risk kids.
It is hard work.
I think we have to recognize that folks need ongoing
coaching and that turning them out from school, from higher
education when they haven't had a lot of what I call ``boots on
the ground'' opportunity, they need ongoing mentoring, ongoing
coaching. We need to have ways to connect as a school district
in partnership with higher ed. Higher ed needs to have
incentives or reasons to partner with school districts to make
the training real.
That is why I mentioned the Teacher in Residence program at
Metro State. They don't have a lock on all the answers, but it
is a model that we find is working, and it gives people a more
sheltered opportunity to be trained over time.
Senator Bennet. One last question for our superintendent,
which is could you give the committee a perspective on the way
Washington accounts for money in these different titles and the
way that might either support your efforts to budget and
support kids in your school district or contort your effort to
be able to support the children in your school district?
Mr. Hinojosa. Yes. It becomes a significant issue in trying
to implement and trying to marshal your resources, and the lack
of flexibility in trying to address certain issues. Such
categorical funding that requires such time and effort,
documentation from every--if you have an individual that is
funded out of two different Federal programs or out of a State
program and a Federal program, they have to have a very
sophisticated time and effort to document everything that they
do when the services of the homeless students may be a same
service that you have a limited English proficient student and
all these other services.
That makes it very complex on the ground, and then the fact
that you have to make sure that everything is addressed in a
very specific way, whether it is a district improvement plan or
a campus improvement plan. The principals spend a lot of time
trying to figure out how to comply with the rules, as much time
as they do to provide services to the students who need these
items.
So there is a lot of complexity. I know we have to be
accountable for our Federal funds. I know that is an issue. But
there has got to be a better way that we can make it easier for
the people on the ground to actually deliver those services. It
is a balancing act, but we do appreciate the fact that there
are more resources coming from the Federal Government. We do
appreciate that, the different things that are coming.
So it is a lifeblood, especially for urban districts where
we have all these students with these significant needs.
Senator Bennet. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Bennet.
I have a couple of followup questions, and maybe Senator
Franken does, too.
Dr. Hinojosa, one of the things that caught my attention in
your testimony was that districts should be given incentives to
keep students in school that have not graduated in 4 years. You
said it should not be a disincentive for districts and schools
to continue to educate students who will be counted as
dropouts. Credit should be given for drop-ins.
Would you expand on that just a little bit for me?
Mr. Hinojosa. Yes, sir. In fact, we have done an analysis
of our students. We have discovered that we have close to 1,000
under credited and over-age students. And when you peel back
the onion, these students are never going to be counted in the
graduation rate because they are not going to graduate with
their cohort.
These are students that may be 17-years-old and are
freshmen with recent immigrants and maybe other student groups.
The schools that have been identified in Dallas that are
eligible for school improvement grant, almost every one of
them, the only reason they are there is because they haven't
had a 60 percent graduation rate in 4 years.
What we would like to do is we keep these students in
school, help them accelerate their instruction. We are starting
a campus for over-age students next year, and we get them
caught up. Maybe we could have an incentive on the back end. It
may have been 58 percent that graduated in 4 years, but we got
kids to graduate in 6 years, and maybe we would get an
incentive and that offsets some of the liability of the 60
percent graduation rate.
We know that is important for us to have, and we would like
to see for those schools especially that have many students
that are over age that are unschooled, that we have some
ability to recapture back up to that 60 percent graduation rate
at some element.
The Chairman. I agree, and I incorporated the idea into a
bill I have called The Every Student Counts Act. I think that
this is something that we need to get incorporated into the
reauthorization of ESEA, as well.
Ms. Medina.
Ms. Medina. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. A few years ago, I was contacted at a
different hat I wear on the Appropriations Committee by Defense
Department employees who said that one of the problems they
have with military personnel is when they move from base to
base, their kids move from one school to the other, and they
get dropped in the school, and the school doesn't really know
about the student's background.
They know they were in the fifth grade. They may have a
report card or something like that, but they really don't know
a lot about that child. So, we started a program called a
Project SOAR. I have watched it over the last few years, and I
have heard a lot of positive feedback.
The program established a system that allows school
districts to better coordinate in order to meet the needs of
students who have to change schools when their parents are
transferred to other bases. So, the teachers in the school,
administrators know right away where that child should be and
what they need help and support in.
Would something like that be helpful for migrant workers,
or do we know where they are going? Do their families know
where they are going on their next job?
Ms. Medina. Yes. Two years ago, the Office of Migrant
Education instituted a system called MSIX. MSIX is a data
collection system where right now 30 States already have like
data, and they are doing in cohorts to get the States with
their data input.
Your data system is from your basic demographics to also
credit information where the student gets their own
identifiable number, migrant number. So if a student is moving
from Pennsylvania to the State of Maine, that information is in
the system, and the State of Maine can retrieve the information
out of that system.
The goal is that all the information is there for the
student. So we no longer say, the child is missing credits or
the information to get them in school and get them at speed as
well.
The Chairman. Is that electronically transmitted?
Ms. Medina. Yes, it is an electronic transmitted system. It
is called MSIX.
The Chairman. What is the system called?
Ms. Medina. MSIX. M-S-I-X.
The Chairman. Hmm, MSIX. I will have to take a look at
that. Is it widely used?
Ms. Medina. It is right now. Thirty of the States are using
it, and like I said----
The Chairman. Who pays for this?
Ms. Medina. It is through funds, through the Office of
Migrant Education.
The Chairman. Do we need to get more States to use it.
Ms. Medina. Yes.
The Chairman. We need to fund it better.
Ms. Medina. Also, every State because they have their own
local offices----
The Chairman. Yes.
Ms. Medina [continuing]. As soon as the family notifies
that the family is moving to another State, they notify that
State office of the family coming.
The Chairman. Got it.
Thank you all very much.
Is there any last thing that you wanted to impart to put on
the record at all before we finish?
Ms. Ross.
Ms. Ross. Actually, Chairman Harkin, I do. I wanted to
share, while Senator Franken was here, it is unfortunate what
happened with Kayla. One thing that I did recommend in my
reauthorization is increased funding because, as I said, only 9
percent of the jurisdictions across the country are receiving
McKinney-Vento funding.
That is unfortunate because maybe her particular
jurisdiction did not have the funding, and therefore, there was
not even an awareness of what the rights were there. There
obviously was no professional development going on in the
school. There were no postings in schools or libraries, and so
people weren't aware of what her rights were.
One thing I want to encourage is increased funding so more
jurisdictions do have the money to support and provide foster
children as well as homeless children with school stability.
The other thing was Senator Bennet had asked a question,
and I didn't know protocol so I didn't want to interrupt. He
asked about flexibility of funding. As I have shared,
transportation is an astronomical cost for school systems in
providing transportation to the school of origin.
We do have something called title I part A setasides, which
are funds reserved to assist with homeless education.
Currently, those funds do not allow for transportation to the
school of origin, and I am going to recommend that there be
some flexibility in that title I part A setaside of how it can
be used and maybe do a needs assessment in the process of that.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. I understand and my
staff says they understand that. They got it, OK?
[Laughter.]
Thank you all very much. Very, very, very great panel. I
thank you.
We will leave the record open for 10 days. There may be
some written questions that people want to submit to you.
Sort of following on what Senator Bennet said, and I have
said this to other panels who have come before the committee. I
hope that we can continue to keep in touch with you from our
end, but I hope you also feel free to keep in touch with us. As
this bill starts to move forward and you see it developing, if
you think we are going in the right path, fine. If you think we
are doing something that needs to be changed, we would like to
know that, too.
I have a very distinct e-mail address just for this
purpose. It is [email protected]. It is just a
dedicated e-mail address just for comments on ESEA, and we
welcome your comments as we proceed ahead with reauthorization.
Thank you all very much. As I said, we will leave the
record open for 10 days until May 13th.
Thank you all very much. The committee will stand
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]