Transcripts For CSPAN2 K-12 Education Innovation Summit - Part I 20180102

Devos will, but before she does just wanted to say a couple housekeeping things. If you havent found already we have water and coffee in the back and feel free to partake. That are restrooms at the end of the halls. If you do leave the building you can come back in but you have to go to security can such as wanted to warn you about that if the take some time. Those of you who be participating in the conversation, microphones in front of you. You do need to turn them on when youre about to talk. Theres a button that says talk. When you turn on the red light will come on which tells you the microphone is active. When youre not speaking please turn it off. We would appreciate that and you would probably prefer we dont hear any private conversations as well. Those are sticking day, we appreciate you being here, we ask you keep remarks to about ten minutes. I will be sitting next to the secretary at the head of the table and ill try not to be obnoxious but i may waive or give an indication if youre getting close to the ten minutes and ask that you do wrap up quickly when that happens. Were looking for to a great conversation talking about innovation in k12, now it is my honor to introduce the person whose id this was and where happy to do with her this morning, secretary betsy devos. [applause] thanks so much, jason, and good morning, everyone. Its great to see and when here this Morning Bright and early. I want to begin by thanking you for attending todays summit and for all of you who are participating, we are very grateful for your participation, your willingness to beer, and take your time and share your thoughts. Last week we had a robust and very thought provoking discussion about innovative educators, administrators and institutions are transforming Higher Education for the student. Student. Todays focus on k12 education, we are very excited about and looking forward to hearing from the knowledge and the expertise in the room with us. Before we begin i want to say a quick word about the focus on innovation. Earlier this year i embarked on a rethink school tour were revisited learning environments from wyoming to indiana, all of which are taking creative approaches to education for students of all ages. I continue to travel the country is one of the favorite parts of the job is to be able to go and visit to see great work that is being done in multiple places. Ive really been inspired by the innovative educators and administrators ive met thus far. But theyre still not enough innovation. We need more like them and we need more creativity. And we need more like you here with us. The reality is our number of challenges and opportunities facing american students. And washington d. C. Does not have all the answers. Government is not the best at finding new solutions to tough problems. Government isnt the best at being flexible or adaptable to constantly changing environment. And government certainly isnt the best at questioning the status quo. But government can be good at bringing people together to highlight their creative thinking and new approaches. So today we have brought education leaders and entrepreneurs from across the country to share how they are improving education for the students they serve. While you who represent a Diverse Group of schools and organizations from across the education landscape, the common denominator is that each of you began pacing the problem or a deficiency or an inefficiency. You questioned why it was that way and then you develop a solution to fix it or make it better. You approaches fall broadly under todays opinion, helping each child realize his or her unique potential. Shifting the paradigm and customizing learning. Its these types of thinking that we need more of and i would argue lots more of in American Education today. We need to question everything, look for ways in which we can improve, and embrace the imperative of change. Each of you have embraced that mindset, and your students are reaping the rewards. Because at the end of the day success shouldnt be measured by how many dollars are spent or how many kids are passed along to the next stage. Success should be determined by how your educating and preparing each student for todays and tomorrows challenges. So lets treated as an opportunity to share whats working in your respective world, and where in impediments at any level of government are preventing you from achieving your mission of serving students. Thank you again for being here today, and im really looking forward to the conversation. Thanks. [applause] thank you, madam secretary. Were going to get started. I have the honor of introducing our presenters. In each case ill introduce the people who will be speaking at the portion. The first person will go up and speak for their ten minutes and then well just have the next person cut and speak right after the second last person to be on the situation is done and it will start the discussion. First up we will hear from two speakers on the topic of a, tom rooney, superintendent of Unified School District and then will hear from stephen mauney, superintendent of mooresville graded School District. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about the lindsay journey and the work weve done for lindsay learners. This slide will give a bit of context as to who we are and some of the challenges that lindsay learners face. If you look at our demographics there, we are a Real Community in the Central Valley of california, 100 of our learners are on free and reduced lunch. We have high numbers of english learners, and when you look at that bottom statistics of 44 of our learners are from a home where one or both of the parents did not graduate from high school, and the average education level is fifth grade in the community, the only help that the lindsay children have is an Effective School system to serve them. And the importance of that. Keep these demographics in mind. As you see some of the successes we demonstrate on one of the later slides. A piece of data that is not up there is that 13 of nancys children meet the federal definition of homeless. I want to start out with a story of a real lindsay learners before we started our transition to a performancebased system. This story goes back to couple days after High School Graduation around 2008 half 2000 nitric high school we just had a New High School principal, and he was in his office and packing his bags 20082009. While he was there putting books on he was there putting books on the shelf, there was a knock at the door, and the secretary said, mr. Hammons, mr. Gonzales issued to see you with his son junior. The principal said bring him in. I just started but have him come in. Mr. Gonzales enters with his son. Hello, how are you . , nin, mr. Gonzales. Nice to meet you. Well, mr. Himes, i want to let you know that my son just graduated from Lindsay High School two days ago. Oh, great. How exciting. Whats the plan now . He says thats wanted to talk to you about. He says come on, sit down. Whats going on . He says, mr. Hammons, my son has a a High School Diploma from Lindsay High School in his hands. Could you give me that newspaper up there on the shelf . Mr. Hammons reaches back, gives the newspaper to mr. Gonzales. Mr. Gonzales puts it in front of the San Francisco head, son, read this newspaper for mr. Hammons, the new principal at Lindsay High School. Come on, read the article right here. After a moment of silence, junior which is said that and begins to cry and says, dad, you know i dont know how to read. That was a real lindsay learner, and there are hundreds or thousands of them that we failed over the years. And you know what . The traditional model, there are people all across our country who are getting a High School Diploma that makes them feel like they are ready for life, that they accomplish something, and many of them are in the same situation as junior. Some for the context of what did we do then and what did we build. We all know this person, steve jobs. Now, steve jobs was creating the ideal listening experience. He was not saying how do i sell more cds. He was saying, what is the ideal experience that listeners need, and he created itunes. Thats innovation. We know this person. He looks so different these days but this is the early days of jeff bezos. He was thinking what is the ideal reading experience . We used to buy our books here, and that was not just books but now we shop for everything because its the ideal reading experience and the ideal shopping experience. I bet you know these folks. I see a few starbucks cups on the tables at there. It wasnt about making Better Coffee or more coffee. It was about creating the ideal coffee experience. So what have we done in lindsay . In lindsay we took some of the same things and we said, so what is the ideal learning experience . Not that it is needed for adults. Not so they can be convenient, but what is the ideal learning experience that can meet every child at the level, interest or their success, challenge them and make sure that they can become, at academic and personal excellent in life. So this is a simple visual because people asked us as weve been on this journey for seven to eight years, people have asked what are you doing at lindsay . This visual captures it all. Its founded on a bleacher focus strategic design and that at the very bottom is the voice of the community saying this is what we believe for our learners. So key part of our system is engaging our community to take ownership for the learners in the community. And when the community invest in it then we become servants of the community as leaders. At the very center is the ideal learning experience, and all around those are various components of our system that we build. From advancing and developing leadership to instruction to technology. You can see all of those pieces. I could spend days unpacking each of those pieces of the puzzle. It all rests on a culture of empowerment, a culture of investment, a culture of growth mindset and a culture that is learner centered, radically learned centered and uncompromisingly lurid center. In lindsay, a huge major element of this is its all about the learner and everything we do is about lindsay learners. Im going to unpack a couple of these pieces one, to talk about when you look at this we come back to this ultimate this is what were building in lindsay. Its not just meeting them at the level, challenge it in and making sure their successful. Because of lindsay its not about grade levels and what grade you are in or how old you are. Its where you are in the morning. When you meet a learner at the level they experienced success and gave away that theyve never been experiencing it before. An example would be a learner who might be seven years old. Doesnt just go straight into the second great. What if hes ready for the fifth grade content . So we allow the grouping and regrouping of learners to ensure that there met at the developmental earnings level, but most important is the last line on this slight. We have a system literally where our children of poverty who are learning english literally desire to come back to school each and every day. Use some statistics that demonstrate that any moment. I keep peace we focused on was Leadership Development. So i cant stress enough the focus that we would need to have in our educational transformation, in our communities and in our country by focusing on the leadership. Because without the leadership it is limited as to how far it will go. This visual shows the Many Organizations operate. Unfortunately, how many Public Schools in america operate. There is no clear direction. Theres a lot of people working really hard, deeply committed to children, but going in Different Directions. One of the key pieces we did was we initially started with our community and created a strategic design which gave us the direction, a very clear direction about what we need to go to create a learnercentered system. But then we also found there was a lot of people though that were in our system that were still going in Different Directions and thats the inside arrows you see in this visual. As you develop an focus on leadership, and leadership at every level of the organization from the learners to the Teaching Staff, which we referred to as learning facilitators, to the secretary of staff, to the formal leaders as principals, assistant principals and district staff. Because in lindsay this is what we have. We have deep levels of alignment towards a vision, towards our learners and a commitment to our learners. And we have every person in the organization working towards that. Our bus drivers did not drive buses. They transport children so that they can go to a learning environment to learn. The folks in our cafeteria did not provide food for our learners. They provide nutritious meals so our learners can learn, and they will tell you that. Thats the commitment is all about the learning. So i have to stress significantly the Leadership Development and how important it is in order to transform learning in our country. I key piece of that puzzle is also transformational technology. I would clearly say that technology is not the answer. Its not about putting a device in front of every learner. Thats not what customized learning is all about. It really is more about using technology in a transformational way to accelerate the learning and allows learners to work at different paces and to be met at the developmental need. One of the things we provided in lindsay and we work towards his acumen to wide wifi project. We not only provide access, every single Lindsay Lohan has access to the computer and internet at school and at home. When we provided a computer for every single lindsay learner and what we realized is only 40 of them had connectivity to the internet. So in communities, take liberal communities of poverty, having limited access to the internet is a great issue with regard to access to quality learning. So in lindsay we work with our local community, and we now have access for 95 of our learners and parents, have access to the internet and have their own computer they can use to access learning. What weve done, and i will show in a moment, that we pushed nearly all of our content online. We have a learning Management System that essentially allows learners and parents to go after the learning and to understand where learners are in the progression of learning. Technology is seen as an effective accelerator at learning. So this is a sample, a shot of our and Power Platform. The Power Platform is all learner Management System where the house our curriculum, our resources, our assessments. All other results of our learners are housed on this alerts can see where they are. Because in lindsay the learners would basically say this is white and in my learning, this is one going next, this is how im going through my head. They own their learning. We have built structures and provide instruction to ensure that they come to point of owning their learning and the platform, this is not the only place for learning happens. We still have Adult Learning facilitators working directly dividing direct instruction, providing small group instruction, individualized instruction. But when you have the content, much of the content accessible the technology it allows 24 7 learning to happen for many of our learners. We all believe this. People learn in different ways in different time frames. The traditional educational structure of learners being grouped by age and grade level, a a school year that is 180 days long, a lot of those structures, they dont honor this basic principle that people learn in different ways at different time frames. What weve done in lindsay is we have replaced many traditional structures with learner centered systems. Not all structures but many of them. Giving a few examples. A through f grading does not exist in lindsay. Averaging grades, grade levels. We still of learners and grade levels but the way we understand the grade levels is very different. The use of technology, the use of space, learning happening anywhere, not just in classrooms. Credentialing requirements. These are all traditional structures that are convenient for adults, not for adults funding on seatac. Governance models, Effective School boards can be very powerful for advancing learning but inEffective School boards can also be a great hindrance to advancing learning in Public Education in america. The focus on limited to academic proficiency only. In lindsay you have to demonstrate academic proficiency but you also have to demonstrate proficiency in what we refer to as our Lifelong Learning standards. These are things like can you persevere . Are you culturally aware . Are you an economic produce and a global responsible citizen . You have two dementia proficiency in those areas at all levels from a five year old to an 18 year old. So its not just the academics. Its what kind of human beings are graduates becoming. We are replacing these structures with learner centered models. What is it producing . Just take a look at some of these results. Remembering our demographic. We went from a a graduation rae in the low 70s the 92 . 42 of our graduates go straight to a fouryear university. Even the 100 of them are free and reduced lunch. And 57 of those, the group that things are performed space system, got a degree in four years. You can see the number for others were getting degrees. Discipline is greatly decreased because learners lawyers are in the own learning. If you look at this, this speaks to the culture. Among similar schools of poverty, we were a little higher. After implementing our performancebased system, our learner centere centered system comedic until 2016 the latest data, Lindsay High School ranks at the 99th percentile in the state of california. Essentially making it the safest, drugfree, bully free, alcohol free learner connected high school in the state of california. That is something we can be proud of given demographic in the work we are doing for our community. Some things people would want to learn more about, what is it that youre doing. We have published a book called beyond reform. Many of the people who are in the Education Field are one of the most wellknown and well read providers and training and Development Providers in the country. Hundreds of publications. Many people read his work and are guided by his work. This is what he says. A person who knows thousands of schools and hundreds of School Districts said lindsay School District has transformed it to one that can and should become the model for the next several decades. Im in a close with the story. A story of another lindsay learner at the and, now that were in the middle of our journey. As we work and continue our work together. The story is about a senior who is completing their High School Exit interview. Every senior must complete an interview with the Community Panel and learners and administestreeters and staff to demonstrate what theyve gone through in their life, challenges they faced and where theyre going in their future. I was in this panel and the learner came forward and he started his presentation by stating when i was one and half years old somebody wrapped me up tightly in a blanket and they threw me over a fence. Fortunately my father caught me and then he iran. That is how i came into america. When i was in the fifth grade my father walked in and he said son i bought you a letter. You are done going to school because tomorrow you are going to the field with me and you will work in the fields alongside me and bring in money for our family. With everything he had, this young man looked at his father and he said dad im never picking up that letter and im not going into the fields with you. Im gonna stay in school can be a counselor. His father laughed and said someday youre gonna learn what a real man does and until then i will keep the ladder in the garage for you. In the next thing this young man did, he held up a piece of paper and he said this is my acceptance letter to fresno state and im in a be a counselor. I asked him what about your father. This talks about the kind of person he became. He said my father knew nothing better. He was a good and honorable man and i respect and love him deeply. He knew nothing more to give me and now he is supporting me in my journey as i go to college. I have hundreds of stories on the frontend of our journey and hundreds of stories on the backend of where we are now and i say the backend but were not on the backend, were still in the middle of this. Were still so much to do. That is the lindsay journey and the work weve been doing to transform the lives of children and we would hope that many of the lessons we have learned, the work weve done in our transformation will be beneficial to other School Districts who are interested in dismantling the k12 educational model thats been in place and replacing it with the learner centered model. Thank you. [applause] a morning. My name is steven. Im the superintendent of the School District later skated in North Carolina and we are a School District of about 6200 students. As far as School Districts go in North Carolina, we are an average side School District may be on the larger side, but as far as nationally we are about average but we are a public School District, prek12 and we have eight schools, one high school, one middle school, to intermediate schools and four elementary schools. Our free and reduced lunch population is about 38 . Our expenditure in North Carolina is 7500. Student. In North Carolinas 115 School Districts, that places the School District about 100 out of 115. What weve been able to do and kind of what put more so on the map is what we call our digital conversion. The digital conversion, we are 1 1 with k12, with ipads and kindergarten and first grade on Laptop Computers in second grade through 12th grade. We started our journey about a decade ago and 2007. One of the biggest reasons behind our digital conversion was we wanted to close the Digital Divide that existed between our students, those with means and those who did not have economic means to have access to technology. What youll hear throughout the course of my presentation is very similar, there was a disconnect between our students and what they were learning in education and in our schools. Its almost like our kids had to powerdown when they stepped onto the school ground. What we wanted to do was to prepare our students for their futures and not our past. That quote came from our former superintendent doctor mark edwards and he really believed that technology was a way to build engagement in our kids, to tap into in intrinsic motivator that would engage them on what was going on in our classroom. So what started off as a Technology Initiative really transformed into something much more. Through technology, we are going to make instruction more relevant, provide realworld experience for our kids and in order to justify a large investment of resources into a Technology Initiative, there had to be academic achievement tied to it. Many systems that we see that do 1 1 will put the vices in the hands of their kids and their teachers and they see no real change in the instruction thats going on, no real change in the academic achievement, and then we believe it was a moral imperative to do so. Like i said, we had to prepare our kids for jobs that we dont know exist yet, to prepare them to achieve their biggest potentials. And so our digital conversion is really a fusion of pedagogy, digital resources and culture. You saw a lot of the same things in the slide from lindsay. It became much more than a Technology Initiative. Today we will tell you that it has really, its much more than just a device in the hands of every child and in the hands of every teacher. It is an effective integration of good sound technology and digital resources with solid pedagogy and teaching and learning practices. And so, what we see in our district was a transformation from a teacher centered environment to a student centered environment. Weve seen a transformation from death and teachers standing up from the classroom giving information out with a lot of direct instruction to more group activities, more student accountability for their own learning and Student Engagement in whats going on in the classroom. What you see here is our empowerment strategy. And like i said, this is, the computers were the catalyst for an instructional transformation that took place throughout our district. You will see everything on this wheel from a culture of collaboration and caring to datadriven instruction to align and instructional practices, all of those things are very important to us and its a focused effort on increasing the quality of instruction in our classroom. So what does this mean for our students . Its great to say we are 1 1 district. Its great say we have been doing this for about ten years, were kind of on the cutting edge when we first started this back in 2007. If its not impacting our students in a positive way we are basically wasting our time and resources. As i mentioned before, North Carolina has 115 public School Districts. Prior to our digital conversion in 2017, it was a good schools district in North Carolina. We were probably in the 40s in student achievement, and as you can see, over the course of the past decade, we have risen in our rankings throughout our state as measured by our state mandated end of grade. We rank in the top five in half over the past five years. That is one indicator we look at. The second indicator that we look at is our fouryear Graduation Rate. Prior to our digital conversion we had about a 77 Graduation Rate from high school in mooresville. Actually her before that it was in the low 70s. And, as you can see, last year Graduation Rate was 93 and has been 90 or above over the past five years. An interesting point about this is that her africanamerican Graduation Rate prior to 2007 was in the 50 now our Graduation Rate for African American students was 89 last year. Thats a significant increase, obviously, but its also a good indicator of the level of engagement thats going on in our classrooms and the success that our students are having. Another indicator is the total scholarships received were accepted and its not just scholarships that are offered to kids, but these are scholarships that our students actually accept and so you see from 2006, less than a Million Dollars of accepted scholarships to our graduating class last year. We broke our record in our district to over 4. 3 million in scholarships excepted. What that tells me is not only our kids more engaged, more effective and learning more in the classroom but theyre also competitive on the National Scene with other children throughout the united states. And so, my wife and i, we have five children in the School District. First time we have a graduating senior this year so im going through a lot of new things with that child all the way down to a kindergartner that just started in the School District. I can say, and my 25 years in Public Education and i will send fortunate that all 25 years have been in the School District. I started off as a teacher and a coach, i taught history and its interesting that in my early days of my career i would have conversations with my colleagues just about everything we could talk about anything except what were doing in the classroom. It was not unusual for us to talk in the hallway about the latest ballgame or whatever and go in our rooms and close the door and i would teach what i taught my colleague who was teaching history would teach the way he or she taught and it was very little collaboration. What has happened throughout the course of our digital conversion is the level of collaboration between teachers has increased exponentially. We now share best practices where more than weve ever done so in the past. I think as a result our lessons are more aligned. They are higherquality and we are sharing that load. We are drawing on the best that all of our teachers have to offer and thats a great benefit to our kids. I was saying to my five kids, i am very excited about and feel proud about the level of education they are receiving because i know there is a culture of caring in our district that we are looking at every child as an individual and what the technology has allowed us to do is personalize instruction on the level like weve never been able to do so before. Our kids are getting realtime information, our teachers know specifically where their strengths and weaknesses are and they can target those areas things to a lot of the digital resources that we are able to use. I said that we were low in funding, about 105th in student achievement. I think thats a good indicator for all of us that its not about how much money you have to spend but where you focus your resources and you get the biggest bang for your buck. I really believe that through working cooperatively that we can change americas Education System and i think youll see a lot of examples of success here today and anxious to hear about Everything Else everyone has to say. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you so much. You started us out in a great way. Before we get into the discussion section, i would like to go around the table and have everyone introduce themselves and your affiliation. That would be terrific. Thank you. Will start on the second. My name is Douglas Wright with the Carroll County School System in georgia with the 12 for life program, is a partnership with a company that started 11 years ago. We work with students who are high need and we been able to increase the Graduation Rate from 65 to 87 over that period of time. It shows what a business can do when they work with education and how that can impact the success of students. I am the ceo of Charter Schools in philadelphia. Highperformance kate 12 students with over a thousand students on the waitlist. I am with lease innovations in chicago. We work with Charter Schools personalizing pilots focusing on teaching and learning and research. Good morning. I dont need the mark front today. I am representing the California State University system and im here to share one possible information about the stem schools which serve as the teacher preparation programs and serve kate 12 students as wel well. I am michael bolin, the executive director of the Regional High School in richmond virginia. We accelerate learning through blended learning through a new approach through instruction. The proud and grateful recipient of the magnet schools recipient grant. Thank you. My name is carol becker. Im an Educational Consultant with homeschooling association and also a homeschooling parent. Im here to give a little introduction into the homeschooling movement. Im andrew hart, i represent the academy in indianapolis. Good morning. Im tom really come the superintendent of schools for lindsay Unified School District in california. And diane, i am the founder and ceo of the Public Schools in california. Im elizabeth crystal ray network. It morning. Can wagner, commissioner for elementary and secondary education in rhode island. Steven many. Travis works, the executive director of the Regional Charter School in the state of maine. The morning everyone. Nicole was a cofounder and ceo of thrive Public Schools in san diego california. Im excited to be here. Good morning everyone. My name is michelle ashton. I am the founder and ceo of Digital Pioneers Academy which is a new Charter School here in washington d. C. Middle school will be the First Middle School for focus on computer science. Im heather, i work with the National Office of communities in schools and we are nonprofit that works with 25 states and d. C. And we place coordinators and schools to help connect families and students with the support that they need, in particular to address issues of trauma and socio emotional and economic development. Im chris hanks, im the founding principle of the grand rapid school. We are a Public School in grand rapids michigan, partnership between the Public Schools, Kendall College of art and design and graham valley state university. The morning everyone. My name is morgan, i work with an organization in new york city called art connections. We placed artists in the new york city Public Schools to help students and teachers learn to work and think like artists. Also to help support and change the Public Schools. Im very happy to be here. Thank you. Good morning. I am the president of arch bishop Carol High School here in washington d. C. Welcome to my School District. We are a significant participant in the federally funded d. C. Opportunity scholarship Voucher Program that has seen some results that, by the gao research seems to suggest that the program has a Significant Impact on College Matriculation for its participants. We are, i should add, the proud home of miss ashtons husband is an alumnus of our school. Thank you all. Were clearly have a wide range of experience and expertise here with us this morning. Im eager to hear from all of you. I would like to start our discussion time by asking tom and steve if you could just elaborate a little bit more briefly so everyone has a chance to enter in, on what you think the limiters are too wider spread adoption of your approaches around child centered learning and both approaches that you have been taking in your district, and for others to enter in with that conversation as well. I believe some of the delimiters are the lack of flexibility that Public Schools have, especially in North Carolina from calendar flexibility to financial flexibility, we are fortunate that we have a Supplemental School tax that our Community Pays that gives us additional resources, but funding is a big issue in North Carolina and i believe they, the flexibility in giving School Districts more autonomy and allowing them to, especially districts who have proven that they can do good things and great things with the kids and not stifle the innovation, i think it is very needed in Public Education. A couple key limiters that exist, one is that any learner centered system, you have to empower the learners. You have to trust the learners and know that they can and will actively go after their learning and on their learning and on their future. So, part of the challenge is the adults are not willing or ready to allow the learners to actually take that level of ownership. One way at the adults in the system are sometimes getting in the way of learners advancing and becoming all they can become. I would say another key limiter is going back to the leadership component and recognizing that this type of transformation, when you are essentially creating a new model for learning, when you essentially are dismantling traditional structures, it creates, it takes a tremendous amount of courage on the part of local Board Members and the local leadership to actually move into the space and frankly, there arent a lot of people who have that level of courage to say im willing to dismantle or do away with the old system and replace it with a learner centered system. I would say those are two key limiters. Sometimes people will say things like oh, you must have a waiver from the state or that can be done in my community or the Teachers Union will never commit to that. I would say in looking at those in our experience, people come through our doors and those are some of the questions i asked. , or the statements they make. I would say those are actually excuses and your learners are suffering because of it. Its a matter of engaging with all those folks, the unions and we do not have any waivers, we follow the same funding mechanisms and we are able to do whats best for our learners. Others, would you like to join matt in that particular part of the conversation or pose another question. This is meant to be free flowing and open. We have a lot of expertise and experience here. To respond to the flexible issue and also the leadership issue, i agree, i think schools could do much more than they are currently doing within the existing set of rules and relations, but i agree also, we could do more. As a state leader i think a lot about conditions, incentives to try to create incentives for people to try to innovate in this way, remove the barriers and create the conditions. I also worry a lot about guardrails in a federal context that is our civil rights conversation. One of the things that im particularly pushing on, and my tone changes depending on the audience, if im talking to an innovation audience, i caution. If im talking to people who protect the legacy systems i evangelize. I think thats what we need to do as we create narratives. One of the things i worry about, and i just had a conversation with some of my colleagues who are using the summit model is curriculum. That in education it is so easy to just latch onto the latest thing and convince ourselves that we are doing things better because we are doing things differently, i believe engaging kids is a necessary but not sufficient condition to prepare students and one of the things that we can do to help protect this work is to think about equitable access to high quality curriculum access. Especially with the oer work. It doesnt have to cost a lot of money. Theres a lot of people who have invested in treating resources and a lot of people have invested time in getting those resources. But, its not perfect. Most of this highquality resources were not created with personalized learning in mind or platforms. Were also not created with culturally relevant and competent lived experiences in mind. So, im just curious, from the two district leaders, how do you balance that innovation, we expect teachers to be delivers of instruction but also scavengers for resources and how do you balance that innovation with equitable access to resources to help as much as possible to ensure that kids that are coming through this are not just graduating. I dont think graduation is a sufficient metric but are truly prepared. A couple of comments to that, with they have been very good points on what you state. A core element of what we do in lindsay and one of the pieces of that puzzle is the guaranteed and viable curriculum. We clearly do have identified that this is the learning that must be mastered by every learner and its a progression of learning from when you enter our system into when you graduate, and there are, curriculum actually was where we entered the work. We initially began with really starting out with ensuring that the learning was transparent because when you make the content transparent than it is critical. Along the lines, not just academic content mastery but also the other aspects of what were doing is we have to come they have to not only demonstrate mastery in the core subjects, math, science, social studies and so forth but they also have to demonstrate the mastery in those Lifelong Learning standards. And so, the non academic content in lindsay, we would say from a philosophical standpoint, the nonacademic content is as important as the academic content because if you are academically competent and you have a high level of academic proficiency but youre not a good citizen or youre not a Good Neighbor or youre not hardworking, or you can pick yourself up when you fail, then those are types of characteristics that we also work to ensure that our learners master. I dont think i stress this earlier, but our system is really a competent competencybased system as well. You dont move forward because the school year ended. You move forward where the semester ended. You move forward when you demonstrate mastery. So you may have a learner who is at the content level nine who finishes all of the content level nine math which is integrated math. They may finish that in january, or in november, and they move right onto integrated too. They dont wait till the semester to and of the school year to end. So, the content mastery is critical but also recognizing competency in academic and nonacademic and measuring the nonacademic competencies is very difficult and is a little less objective and its work we have to do to continue moving forward and there isnt a whole lot of models to follow with regard to that, but its something we will continue to advance. So with the hope of engaging some of our other participants, thinking about how you have uniquely approach to meeting the needs of the students that you are serving, can you add to this discussion around how to advance forward the students that you are serving currently and perhaps advancing that offering beyond where you are today. What are some of the limitations to doing so, and what has been some of your approaches to doing things uniquely. I am learning from all the best practices. I would say the thing that im most impressed with and i think is really, really important is around keeping the standards high for all students and thats what i heard them both your presentation. We can never lower the bar. The second challenges, i heard this over and over again, around aligning the resources but aligning the incentives. I am a Charter School leader and i feel like there is often a false debate and it is about the students and families at the center and to me its around how do we make sure policy resources and funding are aligned for students because at the end of the day, i think thats why we are all here. The last thing i would say, ive heard this in both of your conversations, im curious around how others at the table are thinking about this. When we say we are putting students at the center of learning, what i hear is a tremendous sense of empathy and as i was listening to our students, i am also wondering how we listen to our families. I feel like many of the last years weve had these great answers in terms of reform and weve done them to communities, not with communities spread when i heard you all say that the students at the center of learning, we are listening and learning and being responsive, i would just not want us to limit that to just the students. How are we bringing along our teachers and being empathetic to them and our parents. To me, that is the part that has to come along with everything thats been said but i am incredibly grateful for everything you all said. I would like to kind of piggyback off what you just said so as a Charter School, i feel like there is this great debate because of the Funding Sources and so rather than necessarily serving kids in the best way you can or having a model that maybe his district charter friendly, it becomes competition which is usually a good thing, however, i think in some cases the limits become the grading scale or the way that your school is evaluated based on a traditional model him and so a Charter School is meant to be different or to have some focus around some specialty. Our model is stem. We had added robotics and art. Weve had a lot of success. Weve gone from about 900 kids applying to almost 10000 last year. Weve had all these different visitors from districts and charters and i feel like, to your point, teachers are willing to share and collaborate, but the bureaucracy behind it and the evaluation skills dont line up to that and so, to what lindsay is doing, we have experimented with that idea, but you have to be willing to take the risk which is valid, but then you have to be able to explain to the public that that is what youre doing. I feel like that is where its difficult to take that step, especially the engine especially if you specialize in an area thats not traditional because at the end of the day is it connecting kids to graduation or something they can do with their lifestyle whether its a job in the workforce or if they go to college, but you have to be willing to understand that not every child is going to be a whiz at math and reading but they may be really good conceptually with art or make engineering design. I think there needs to be some discussion around how you, i dont think its a waiver, but how those metrics work in each state because right now every state is different. There is nothing coming down that saying this is how your school can be accepted in our community. I think more people want those school models. I would like to hear some feedback about that. I would like to first thank our superintendent presenters because those were very inspiring stories. There are also part of the district undergoing a transformation over the past six years and our superintendent has really turned around our School District in many similar ways, Graduation Rates increasing by over 20 over the past for five years, weve turned around about 20 years of declining enrollment and over the past couple of years stabilize that and even grown enrollment. Obviously there are a lot of pieces to that. I would just like to highlight , i think piggybacking on superintendent rooneys, about courage, in addition to courage among School Leaders and Teaching Staff and personnel, the transformation has been made possible by a lot of courage in the community and in the context of trust and shared commitment to Public Education and our students. Our superintendent talks about grand rapids students as her kids, her learners and i think thats been infectious in our community. She built that trust. The district built the trust are hard work, High Expectations and relentless commitment, but our school is considered the center of innovation in grand rapids. That means its a partnership between the district and other entities either private industry, Health Services in one case, in other case other Public Institutions and higher ed institutions. I think all that is possible when the Community Comes together and believes in the mission and recognizes that our success is critical not just to schools, but to entire communities and country. I would like to add a slightly different context to this. I come from new york city where there are 70000 educators and 1. 1 Million Students and so, size is a context, but to get to the challenge, i think that Capacity Building is a challeng challenge. Its a challenge at individual school levels, may be in individual schools anywhere, at district levels there are over 35 districts in new york city, but about 15 years ago at my organization or its connection, we were reading articles and an academic article asked what is a Knowledge Base for the teaching profession and how can we build it, and i think it is schools and individuals, schools are the building blocks, but engaging teachers and an inquiry process as these two districts have done is essential because thats where you move from compliance to ownership and so engaging your teachers, and both of you talked about collaboration and i think those are cornerstones for your success, certainly cornerstones for success for us in the arts as well. Im riveted by what you said about this notion of guardrails and how you sort of put those up because i do think innovating in education is a little tricky then innovating in other sectors. In the Business World there is Venture Capital built into any innovation is the idea that you might actually fail. This might not actually work. When a business fails, people lose their jobs, but particularly they have hedged their bets with other investments. Every parent secretly knows they are experimenting on their own children. Anybody who has kids feels like maybe ill try this. I think thats why when parents seek out schools they often seek out certainty. Its partly because they are in some high wire act. I think weve teased out two different pieces already, one is sort of a communication piece which is not at all connected to government regulation, and i would love to hear some of the innovators talk about how do you get teachers who are exhausted, with good reason, and then you say hey, lets try this. Thats just difficult. How do you get teachers or how have you, in the process of innovating, gotten teachers and your community to take risks with you . So would love to hear from the group about that. I also think, this is where i am less familiar with government pieces, i do think what the government can bring to the table is longterm funding is also a form of courage. Any innovation that is worth doing in education is going to take more than one or two years to figure out. Our school implemented the International Baccalaureate program and it took us until year three until we even felt like we had a sense of where we were going. It wasnt until year seven that we felt like we were really there. Most Government Programs dont run in seven year cycles. Im wondering what the department to d can do to look at how programs are funded. Part of the reason why the Scholarship Program has not created more capacity in private schools is that its on a fiveyear government funding cycle. Kids dont go to school for just five years. Thank you for that. I am going to use it as a segway. I hope thats okay. We can certainly continue this conversation. The next question is shifting the paradigm so i do think its relevant to thinking Bigger Picture where innovation goes. Our presenters that have spoken, i think everyone that has spoken. Now we have carol becker with the homeschool cooperative and andrew hart. Thank you. A morning everyone. Can you imagine a college and career preparatory education which only served to low income students in a private Catholic School . And, which in fact, only exclude students whose families make too much money . For most young urban americans in high school, that image is not reality. That is not the status quo. 21 years ago in the pilsen neighborhood in chicago, the jesuits wanted to do something to serve the economically disadvantaged community. They werent sure what they would do so they walked the streets, canvassed the communities, speaking with parenting young people and ask them what they needed most. What they learned was that families wanted most for their kids, a good school. The school that would disrupt this cycle of poverty and allow their children to develop their godgiven talents. So, the jesuits decided to open a College Preparatory catholic neighborhood, but how would they pay for it . They didnt have a plan for that. What if every student worked one day a week in an entrylevel professional job and the students earned wages to support their education. Thus the school was born. It broke the cycle of poverty, provided opportunities in neighborhoods where limited options exist for College Preparatory education. Heres how we operate our schools and sustain the movement. The Network Serves exclusively low income students and provides the college and career preparatory education to every one of those students. We aim to disrupt the status quo by ensuring that low income students have the same sort of options for quality education, quality College Access as high income students. We operate 32 schools with 11000 students and we continue to grow. Our typical Family Income for a family of four is 37000. Our typical ninth grader starts freshman year about two years behind academically because, to no fault of their own, they usually havent been able to access a quality k8 education. Our students are 98 color and 40 of them are noncatholic. We aim to disrupt the status quo by providing a quality faithbased College Preparatory education without charging expensive tuition. The Financial Model is based on the corporate Workstudy Program by which students earn about 60 of the cost of their education. Every family pays something, and, we fund raise the balance. Its a financially sustainable model for this education. Collectively our students across the nation and are 32 schools last year earned 62 million toward the cost of their education. Our 3200 Corporate Partners come from the fortune 500 list or small, locally owned businesses. We aim to disrupt the status quo by ensuring that our students are not just college prepared but career prepared. Developing these Critical Skills that youve already heard some of our others reference, persistence, productivity, written and oral medication skills. We aim to avoid what anthony, from Georgetown Center on education in the workforce refers to as the silos we have an education where we have k12 in one silo, postsecondary in another silo, and workforce preparation and a third period instead creating one seamless pathway where students can develop both college and career preparatory skills in the same process. Our students attend classes for longer days each week and they work one day each week. Students earn about 7500 each student, every year, toward the cost of their education. They have an opportunity to create relevancy learning as classroom learning and workplace learning connections occur so the classroom learning for adolescents becomes more relevant. Those thinking strategies and noncognitive skills of productivity, complex reasoning are blended in both the classroom and the workplace, todd and assessed in both venues. Every school organizes an Employment Agency within the school with a team of adults dedicated to developing training and supporting our students and collaborating with our Corporate Partners. This team supports the students and insurers the students perform well at the workplace. Five students job share fulltime equivalent job. If you visit the campus and interview one of our students, you will hear our students say they love their jobs. They love the opportunity to develop their competence and their confidence in a real professional setting. Our students work across every major professional industry from law to health care to real estate. They perform clerical traditional jobs and also knowledge jobs like translation services. Website design, in the workplace. We develop our students to be successful in the workplace by starting before freshman year, the summer before students set foot on the campus they actually participate in a threeweek training where we develop in mean strands, business practices, Lifelong Learning and technical skills. This training and support seems to be working since 95 of our students are rated as meeting or exceeding the standards by their workplace supervisors on the twice yearly performance evaluation. We aim to disrupt the status quo by ensuring lowincome students can obtain a Fouryear College degree. Students enroll in college at rates that are higher than both their low income or their high income peers. Across america, 46 of low income students enroll in postsecondary education. 78 of high income students, 90 of the students are enrolling. They complete a fouryear Degree Program at rates higher than their low income peers. 12 of students across the nation are low income, completing a college degree, 31 are currently completing a fouryear degree, a total of 40 completing either four or two year. We aim to meet and exceed the current rate which is 58 across our nation of students who are from high income brackets earning fouryear degrees. It is a tall order. From that first school that started 21 years ago we have continued to grow. 32 schools today, 35 next year on our way to 50. Our goal is to provide this education to students who otherwise wouldnt have the opportunity in the neighborhood, to close the achievement gap and provide the opportunity for college completion. This innovative model for career and College Preparation seems to be working. We aim to achieve our 2020 vision, to ensure that every student is College Ready and workplace prepared. We aim to lead the education industry in low income neighborhoods and we continue to lead this network of high schools that serve low income students. We aim to sustain our momentum so that young people can access an education that will develop in them the competence , confidence, and aspiration to earn a college degree, thus transforming their lives and their communities. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. [applause] hello. My name is carol and im an education associate with Homeschool Association and i also homeschool my kids. Ill give you a Little Information about the homeschooling movement and also one homeschoolers journey because its all over the map as far as how everyone does it. Theres always good to have a measure to go by. This is a growing National Educational and International Concern and i would like to give you some of the numbers they give you an idea, the fellow who prepared the slides for me as a staff attorney and also the global outreach. We host an international Homeschool Convention last year. It was in brazil last year end this year it will be in russia. These are some of the faces of homeschoolers. Youll recognize some of the more famous one like tim tebow in sports and one of the ms. Americas. The couple that in the middle, that happened to be my daughter diane my soninlaw dominique and that will be part of our story because the homeschooling stories are interesting, but i just want you too realize that homeschooling crosses all religions, crosses all races and crosses all sorts of socioeconomic boundaries. That is one of the interesting things about homeschooling. It really just takes the fire and imagination of a family to decide to step in and do something rather amazing. Homeschooling is certainly growing in numbers from 850,000, the number of students. 3 4 of the entire schoolage population is homeschooled. 20 years ago is hard to find curriculum to homeschool but now we are a major market. Curriculum is now being marketed to us. Now the big problem that parents have is how to navigate the maze of curriculum in order to find stuff that is suitable to do a home and suitable to do for your student with your educational background. There is an awful lot that is going on in numbers as far as, we are almost to the 2 million and these are unofficial numbers because not all homeschoolers have to report in their state. Homeschooling is statebystate dependent, the laws are not national their allstate dependent and each state has its own rules under which homeschooling operates. One of the things that homeschool Legal Defense does is helps parents navigate the laws in their state in order to legally homeschool. So obviously, i cant read that so i will have to be this way. We have a large amount that are here in the united states, but also worldwide, notice whats happening in africa down in south africa, notice was happening in russia and notice what happening in south america. Its not legal to homeschool in all countries. We recently had some court cases with german families where it is illegal to homeschool and some have common gotten asylum through our government to homeschool. Its one of those things where 30 years ago is not legal to homeschool in the united states. One by one, in each state, things change and so we would like to see that happen in more areas of the world. It is a huge market with a lot of students. What i want to talk about is why is homeschooling compelling . Why do parents leave the Public School model which is where most of our kids are educated . The people in this room are an amazing set of people, but when you deal with most Public Schools, we are not dealing with the people sitting in this room. You know exactly what you have been doing in order to change the model and one of the ways parents, who didnt have access to the marvelous schools that you have available in your area is to innovate on their own. Thats what homeschooling is. Homeschooling is a time for relationship to develop. Its a love of learning and i think that was the big strangest thing about my own homeschooling journey is to realize that kids would actually, as mr. Rooney has pointed out, they actually take ownership of learning and that learning would be something they would enjoy doing and would want to progress in that and would take pride of ownership in that. Thats what homeschoolers are noticing about their students. It is a lovely, compelling reason to take someone out of a school where it seems to be not suiting a student and to bring them home and restore a love of learning and to see how that can flourish. It also allows, especially for kids who have unique interests and also some unique disabilities in order to not only be accommodated but actually receive therapy and other things that will benefit them so that could be incorporated as part of their schooling. There has been more than has been learned about learning disabilities and learning styles in the past ten or 15 years than in my entire lifetime. Im so thrilled that information and those resources are available and homeschoolers can take advantage. Depending on the state you are in you can take advantage of some of the options available for special needs students in the Public Schools, but for most states parents are on their own. We have five special Needs Consultants to address the needs parents have to find out they really can be the method by which tailoring things for the kids to do wellin school. The opportunity to be flexible and really taylor, this is the epitome of an individualized Educational Program because you are deciding where your kid wants to go and where you see them going and having them take some ownership in the to see where homeschooling will allow you to direct their path. For me, i knew my kids were headed toward leadership and so we took great advantage during the homeschool year to find ways where they could grow in leadership, be directed by community leaders, and take on leadership because sometimes the community isnt ready to see High School Student take on leadership. That is one of those things that we need to have a few more doors opened. We also want to provide an environment where kids feel physically safe and socially safe and emotionally safe. Homeschooling is not a place to hide. I would say homeschoolers are on the road more often than Public School kids are with their buses. The reason being, we look for opportunities outside of our home in order to better. We are going to leave this discussion for just a moment to take you live to the floor of the u. S. Senate who is holding what is expected to be a brief pro forma session. One of the members, or in hatch announced he would be retiring. This is live coverage communication to the senate. The clerk washington, d. C. , january 2, 2018. To the senate under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i here by appoint the honorable chuck grassley, a senator from the state of iowa, who will perform the duties of the chair. Signed orrin g. Hatch, president pro tempore. Mr. Mcconnell i ask to be recognized for propounding a be unanimous consent consent agreement. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Mcconnell not wb standing the order of the provisions of rule 21, all nominations remain in status quo with the exception of the following, epn475, and that the following defense civilian nomination also return to the president , p. N. 1096. I ask that the previous order be mod i had fied to reflect that pn23 be returned to the president and p. N. 1316 should remain status quo. The presiding officer is there any objection . None heard. So ordered. Under the previous order, the Senate Stands in adjournment Senate Stands in adjournment and the senate back for legislative work tomorrow at noon eastern. The swearing in of two new members, Democrat Doug Jones of alabama and tina smith of minnesota whos taking the seat of senator al franken who resigned after Sexual Harassment allegations. Senator franken resignation was effective at one p. M. Eastern earlier today as submitted in his letter to minnesota governor. Governor. And also announcing a resignation today utah orrin hatch. Wednesday senators will debate president trumps nominee for undersecretary of defense policy. Policy. Live coverage when the Senate Returns here on cspan2. We now went back to the discussion on elementary and secondary education innovation. My daughter majored in french in high school. She majored in french at university of virginia which means i cannot read or Research Paper at the end because i dont do french. Then she went to, through prison fellowship she went to african country called senegal where she worked at Prison Fellowship International visiting the ladies prisons in that area. Through that she met her husband dominique and they went through three years relationship on skype and then finally through frank wilsons office we have a fiance visa. We brought dominique home to her house where i had the privilege of homeschooling my future soninlaw in english for three months before he married my daughter. I just wanted to give you an idea of, theres so much in te homeschooling community, theres so much ability and yet theres intimidation from for most homeschoolers that some subjects and yet because were driven by love to reach out and provide for a kids we do find a way and what we really like to do and stress is this is an option that doesnt suit everyone, but for those it does we would like the freedom to continue to do it. We represent homeschooling families in the Court Systems as well as talk with legislatures around the world, our country in order to keep the freedoms of homeschooling alive now and for posterity. We started when there was no homeschooling going on and now we see them in all 50 states and now working internationally. We are about 85,000 members strong and we consider it a privilege specific up homeschoolers not be discriminated against when they graduate and go into the workforce or to commit to college or trade Tech Vocational School at the police academy. Were looking to open because this is a legal option in all 50 states, we like all the states and all the corporations to honor them. We feel its a wonderful exposure to us and we are very, very thankful for the opportunity to speak to you. But when you think about homeschooling you realize all the Amazing Things you are doing on a School System, someone is doing in their home. And i get the privilege of talking to several hundred members every month on high school issues because thats usually where most people back out of homeschooling because now it really matters. We want to prepare them for either the workforce, military or college so there ready to go where you see them wanting to be. I just bring this up because my son, he got his bashers degree in systems engineering. Thats my background. Ive a bachelor and masters in engineering, and he is a masters in Information Technology but then i had my daughter in the arts. My songbird, my musician, my vocalist and then my french major. Theres something about homeschooling thats terribly intimidating and yet its a marvelous intention to walk through. I now have five, six grandchildren and theyre all going to learn french. Im only going after on this language. Thank you. [applause]