Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20151027

Of the law and africanamericans that gets relatively little attention but deserves more. In they often talk about latinos it reflects what it means for africanamericans there is a very vigorous debate is positive for harmful to say there is a positive impact and they tend to be more positive in terms of the Economic Impact overall. There are other general studies that have done some wage impact to get the same time to look to the industries where employers have intentionally chosen to replace traditionally vulnerable groups as a longstanding Latino Community and that is purposely with a guest workers are more exploitable and former paul. Formidable. But think of it as civil rights and equity. The of the ways in which the undocumented population has affected the latino communities with racial profiling and discrimination we have to ask ourselves what is the impact on communities of color . Antiminority attitudes another way to look at it that has spurred the growth including the Immigration Reform act. It pushes some employers to move away from undocumented workers to rely on guest workers or prison labor for other types of workers may be lawfully working. With that series of defense to impact that experience and of course, we know there is a Significant Growth of the population but the interplay when you have people come in his family based immigrants coming in under the employment based theme. It is difficult to cavan is in the isolated way so they still continue to of a significant deficit for temporary migration there were attempts to remedy that. It strikes me that in addition to books the equity verses quality of also has to do with supply and demand many people point to where that explanation to be partially true but it strikes me how much demand was there in Eastern Europe that was behind the iron curtain that did not permit emigration or is it a question of what happened at this point for what the catalyst may have talked about disrespect. One of the things we have yet to mention with that overall population and where we may be as predicted by demographers. So it will no longer be a majority white population but the offices of that. There might not be a single race to dominate the u. S. Population instead to reemerge as one of those in the United States we can trace back to because of the immigration of immigrants of color from mexico and china india and the philippines was the top spending countries over the last several years to think of it as the prospective if congress has never opposed any kind of immigration would we be in a different place today and what would that look like . One argument is the act could be thought of as erasing intentional or the effect of the racial barriers to emigration law. From affirmative action and a series of ways to address the ongoing impacts of discrimination. From one perspective we can think of it as a positive perspective because it promotes the view of discrimination. Others may say it is a negative perspective but it is one thing to think about going everyone to have equal access in the United States but it is another to have Immigration Law as a means to diversify that stream. The one to put that in there as a way to consider the role in our current population. First the point about taking his back to the program but we are reemphasize st. Only because directly preceding 65 you had that set for most cyclical migration retrieved the United States there are a significant concerns with a lot of ways that choice and agency may have been coerced but it was a way to promote cyclical and seasonal forms of migration. I wonder, and this is an open question, to what extent does significant federal Immigration Reform or rethinking ideas of illegality, even as those demographic changes happen, our concept of illegality necessarily changes. By the late 18 hundreds illegality essentially, as charles pointed out, mint, meant asian, this nefarious group of people from asia and were coming to take jobs, plan opium in the United States and generally the boschdebauched the morals of the United States through asian prostitution, for example like the 1875. The page act is directed toward this part of chinese prostitution coming into the United States and the blushing them also places like San Francisco and the surrounding areas. But i wonder even has now, we dont necessarily, although you think about the Campaign Rhetoric of jeb bush, when i was thinking about 1st tourism i was not talking about latinos. I was talking about asians. Somehow that made it better in his mind. Obviously as aa general matter we have replaced that group for which we have this animus with regard to immigration and the way in which we now think about the latino population in some sense and immigration question even though it does not actually track the tracked the demographics on the population. Significant numbers of citizens with long histories , but we label them as illegal, illegal operating as a very thin veneer for race and racial restriction. An open question as to even as a fee changes, to what extent does our concept of illegality change without significant changes at the federal level . That last. Is a verya very that last point is a very interesting question. When we think about the demographic diversification of the us, and i think of that as a positive, but the particular pathways in which asian immigrants have come to the United States post 1965 have created some complication in terms of how the groups are racialized and positioned in terms of the class positioning within the United States. I think this is something, my father was a beneficiary of the 1965 Immigration Law. As a consequence, many asianamericans are then positioned as affluent, successful, high achieving, etc. And, etc. And while that is certainly true for some portion of the population, i think it has been created a lack of a complex understanding of the real diversity, economic and otherwise, within the Asian American community. I think the same might be said about latinos. And also, i think african immigration is such a fascinating phenomenon. There was some reference to this, and it did not come about so much for some of the subsequent enactment, and the same might be said and i am no expert but have done some thinking about the interrelation relationship what that means, right, how we define africanamerican in an era of growing african immigration to the United States and the interrelationship between historically present African Community and african immigrants in terms of access to different kinds of opportunities. A fascinating question that we can think about. And the comments and others emphasize the political complexity both the federal and state level in the different types of coalitions and interest at play and Immigration Reform. Now it sometimes feels helpless to see all these different strands trying to be aligned, but the kind of work emphasizes that the historical record shows us that it has always been this complicated. There is lot of interest at play in terms of crafting immigration policy, certainly with respect to workplace issues, and there has been a particular uncertainty about how to deal with immigration from the western hemisphere. I was talking about and what others are talking about, the. It was not a done deal. It was just the result of intense negotiations in the months and years preceding. Thatthat is where the negotiations landed. But still, if you read the law, in addition to putting in a they called for the creation of a select commission on west western hemisphere immigration which are still think we need today, but just a deep uncertainty, i think and parkfield biracial concerns, economicconcerns, economic concerns, what to make of this longstanding historic relationship between the us and the rest of the hemisphere, and i think that has always been politicized and still is extremely politicized but remains our greatest challenge. Lessons mainly retrospective is appropriately looking back and commemorating the 50th anniversary of a major reform law, are there lessons that we should take . Might apply them today, if we could maybe identify one thing that we think is most meaningful from the history that is applicable to the current contemporary debates. Well, i would like to focus on family, count as family for purposes of Immigration Law. There are differentthere are different ways of thinking about how we might restructure the family based immigration programs that we have. In fact, the bill that passed the senate, the one that almost many had hoped to become law and different ways of thinking of family base. They would have cut off the ability the bill would have cut off the ability of us citizens to petition for their parents, to petition some of their older children who are married if they reach 31 years old they will no longer be eligible for immigration into the United States. On the other hand, the bill would have also allowed for lots of permanent residence to bring in their spouses and children. So in terms of lessons and have a 1965 act building upon the 1952 act redefined the meaning of families, itfamilies, it is important for us to think about whether you we might want to expand our understanding of the family, other countries that allow for parents to emigrate, other close family members to integrate. One way would be to think of a broadening the meeting of family or we might consider narrowing the meaning of family. Just limited to spouses and children to liangyoung children defined by the statute as 21 years and below. So because the way our Family Based Program is structured, that leads to on the one hand, increased family unification but on the other hand extremely long delays and separation, theres something wrong with the system. It is important to rethink how we define family. I think, one way of thinking about that question is the best immigration policy for the next 50 years or if we were doing this in 2065 what they say . I think one of the things that if we are going to do that we must ask what exactly is the goal, what are we trying to accomplish with any form of Immigration Reform. You might ask the question from the liberal perspective is our goal is to maximize the economic output of the United States and function at an efficient level. Perhaps that is one goal he might pursue a consist and portions of the constituency are doing that, there is also a portion committed to the goal, the purpose of Immigration Law should be to not have illegal immigration. That is a more difficult and complex question to address because one way of addressing that would be to say, okay, if the law does not create illegality you wont have illegal or unauthorized immigration. Its possible, not clear which of two paths you can say. Simply match our immigration in the United States. As likely to get down to a manageable number of unauthorized migrants. But if what you take from the last 50 years is that we should have greater enforcement in the way of reducing that 11 million number, your immigration policy will look significantly different than it yesterday and will require an enforcement apparatus that is exponentially bigger than the apparatus we have today. One of the lessons perhaps we might take is that, you know, regularized or cyclical mass legalizations are likely not going to be the way of reducing the unlawful population to zero the ratcheting up with an enforcement mechanism is also not going to reduce that number 20 which leaves the last choice of really thinking heart of how demand matches availability. One of the root concerns of the 1965 act. And so these are some questions we might want to think about including, the including, the goal, what are we trying to accomplish Going Forward . I willi will be brief and mentioned this earlier and im looking at these questions from a labor or economic angle. The historical record in my view is very clear. Historically theyre simply have not been enough pathways julio immigration into the us people interested in coming for economic purposes. Whether that is coming for unskilled work, semiskilled work by skilled work, or small level often ownership. There just simply are not enough visas available you are talking about temporary or permanent. And i think that is a fundamental flaw in the system and one that has created aa range of pathologies related to immigration enforcement, economic problems locally and otherwise, and i think that is something that needs attention. Attention. Excuse me. The 2013 bill in the senate went a significant ways toward remedying that that would allow larger numbers of Foreign Workers to come to the United States to temporarily. Those workers were not have to be beholden to a specific employer. There was some degree of visa portability which is another feature that is to be introduced into the employment based immigration system. I think thati think that is the tension that needs to be worked out. It is complicated because there are different imperatives when we talk about foreignborn workers, attracting talent, boosting the economy, but also about protecting us workers and often these are at odds with one another, to be candid. Not always, but there are ways to reconcile these different interests, but interests, that is the larger project that must be undertaken. Thank you. Unless you all have anything add, now is the time for audience q a. We have a microphone. Please pray for it to get to you and then identify yourself before asking your question. Yes. Thanks. I know i am kind of jumping out of my seat here. I am a Congressional Correspondent for the hispanic outlook and have been covering immigration for the last ten years. I wrote a book called, a lot of the change the face of the american command i am pleased with this panel because you talk a lot about stuff i have struggled with. I am glad that you were corrected and that even though there was not national law for 86 there was, of course,was, of course, states and localities. If you are jewish, forget going to boston. There was a way cities and states regulated immigration and im glad that you were corrected that mexicans were not included. And i am glad you are talking about family unification. I think when you have spoken about are the drivers of immigration and how they change and how they change the demand. For instance, technology, with skype do you really need family unification . The kentucky mrn line every day if you want. Does especially things like the nationality. This is the thing. He did not talk about the 7 percent rule. The thing was that in 1965, the 1964 law prohibited National Origins as one of the civil rights. You cannot discriminate. Every nationality had to be treated equally, and discrimination also means preference, not just discriminate against the preference for. Now were not going to have preference for northern europeans. I mean, how do you do that . Every nationality is treated equally. They put a 7 percent law, no nation could have more than 7 7 percent of all the green cards given out. That still exists today. Mexico does not get any more than 7 . If iceland does not get more than 7 percent that number goes into the amount. Nowadays in terms of globalization, this is something i have been struggling with, does it really matter anymore that they give a preference or not . Globalization, we are seeing how high tech workers, a lot of them are from single countries, china, india. Are we really going to say we will do the 7 percent rule on that . If we legalize the dreamers, the vast majority are mexican. Come and it legally and then get amnesty. That is kind of preferring mexicans. Is that civil rights . The executive order to make they are going to go against the simple white . Is that even important anymore, that part . And the last thing i have been struggling with command you guys, this is the question you can answer, immigration is not a civil right, but i think that the 1965 act and all the fervor immigration, and i used to see can be pounding the table and say immigration is the next civil rights in our nation, and it is. So i love you to just that. I mean, therei mean, there is a lot in that. Honestly, your question boils down to immigration, go. Now. A few thoughts. So, the questions of how we should think about things like dreamers, the questions it also suggests in your question suggests once you have something we edisons report a particular population for legal transgressions of entering unlawfully having been unlawfully present and to what extent that fits into civil rights narrative. Except to say your perspective on that depends upon how you view the law and illegality. If you think about illegality as something preordained, there is this concept of illegality and oncewas you cross the threshold there is no way of rectifying it except to violations of what we might fundamentally think of as rule of law, priorities and any quality norms, i am not sure there is a lot that i am going to say. But if you think, i think, the creation of those populations, for example, there were population as a result of a functional, this is so functionally on the ground when you have significantly harsher congressional penalties against the historical backdrop that was laid out for us is suggests that initial transgression, what we might think of is that transgression really is the ending. Of the discussion. The discussion is how we should think about that population and direct enforcement efforts. And how does it make sense to enforce law against that population, and that is a very different orientation toward the rights of those sorts of groups. I think one important lesson climb back to the question charles asked was that the 1965 immigration act occurred against this backdrop of significant civil rights advancement in the United States including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights act of 1965, ten years on the heels of brown versus board of what is one lesson we can draw from it . The push for comprehensive Immigration Reform should take that frame of a civil rights legislation. This is, i think, a civil rights project of our time and will continue to be as long as we do this avoid dressing problem of illicit miss and. Egality illegality. Charles it does shape how one looks at this and this really is the key frame that one has to grapple with, but is it fair to call immigrants a civil rights issue, i would argue absolutely in light of the types of mechanisms that have been deployed by the state against foreignborn persons. There have been arguments against foreignborn persons. Same the legal frameworks are equivalent, but if you look at practices like racial profiling or mass incarceration, the same experiences that africanamericans and others have experienced are now being replicated in some respects on foreignborn persons, especially latinos. That is more than just a rhetorical connection. There is a deeper connection and some ways that i think is worth exploring. Thats part of what i think is fueling this. It is the next Civil Rights Movement. Millennials. With i think we are changing the whole idea. They are so mixed now. There is a huge diversity of latinos. And i love the millennials. They are everything. Peruvians, chinese, mormons, are my best friends. How do you racially profile . This is the question that affirmative action people are talking about now, too. I am sure that dynamic of the 1960s i think we are more of the 1920s now than the 1960s with huge income inequality and a fear of war and foreign invasion. This a tremendous difference and working conditions. That is what drove a law that people wanted more Border Control and not less. I think we had more for that than the public. That is what trump this touching on. Theres not a big Civil Rights Movement like in the 1960s. That is how i feel. I am ross and i have a question about the status of people who came without authorization. Were deported though for all kinds of reasons and it seems that being here without authorization would have been one of those reasons. I just want to make a comment about family and one of the new civil rights is how we treat lgbt people. Required the exclusion of homosexuals. Im not sure, but that is what happened. Going forward, one would hope that would not be the case and that a new way of looking at family and immigration purposes would take into account lgbt families. Rose let me comment on that last point about the exclusion of gays and lesbians from Immigration Law. A classified people who are lgbt as having some kind of a medical condition that led to their bar from Immigration Law. It was in the 1990s that congress listed that exclusion. It was still fairly recent and our memory. As a result of the Supreme Court a, nowthat invalidated dom lgbtq families are able to bring in their family members here to the United States. As that partg up of the population is able to have that benefit in Immigration Law. Nows unclear to me right for purposes of family what might be in terms of civil rights how we might be able to redefine family from a civil rights perspective other than to think about the Family Structures that we currently , who arelace today speaking with respect to the 11 million undocumented immigrants. I think it is worth to examine how families on the ground, who do they count as people who are and should they benefit from comprehensive Immigration Reform and the reformatting of familybased immigration . I really want to take on rosss question. I think that is a great question and important point out. Even in the late 1800s, the first provision of the chinese exclusion act or changes as the default proposition, the presence of asian people in the United States easily deportable, provisions upheld by the Supreme Court. When you get to the early 1900s, it was not uncommon , for example, in the late 1920s los angeles to seek roundups of mexicans put on trains back into mexico. That is certainly true and it certainly did exist. It was haphazard. What you look at the early 2000 workplace enforcement five by the bush administration, it was highprofile and caused a lot of publicity when ice agents went into a meat packing plant. Terms of an actual offense effect of a broader population, it creates chills certain behavior, but it did not entice enforcement. Very similarly, i would argue that the 1930s roundups and s deportations were want haphazard and nonsystematize. The scale that we were talking about as the unauthorized population and the population that could be targeted and removed was simply not the scale that we have today. We do not think about it in that way. It was still fairly relatively open Movement Across the border. Example, when the program was operating and post1942, texas was actually initially excluded as a state because of discriminatory actions that were happening in the state of texans texas against mexican workers and did not allow ma texas to participae in the program. They simply asked Border Agents to allow free migration of people outside the program into texas so they could use them as laborers in that system continued for a significant amount of time. Ortainly, they were illegal unauthorized in the way that we would think about today, but its not necessarily subject to the mass deportations or the idea of enforcement that we would understand today. I think its an excellent point. I do think that 1965 changes the scope, volume, and quality of the nature of the legality. You legality. Up until 1990, they were clearly three crimes that could get you deported and made one deportable from the United States. Murder, rape, and i forget what the other one was. Codeis one United States starts to exponentially expand the number of crimes that can get you deported. By 1996, which is the law that we have today, if you look at the part of the code that defines aggravated felonies, it now goes on for several pages. Embezzlement, fraud, it just ,ontinues drug offenses although get counted. The fundamentally change the group in which that enforcement to be directed. Let me just add one other thing and i think it goes to roses initial point about where you stand on these issues depends on where you sit and the history and your perspective is really shaped by history. Caroline charles from a latino perspective, one might answer that it was not a largescale problem in part because we did not enforce the law against europeans. So the vast majority of european igrants who came legally the old phrase is that you came with a tag on it. That is to say that someone pay for your passage, usually an employer from italy to say ellis island. That was technically illegal according to the u. S. Law at that time, we do not permit indentured servitude. Thatet, some would argue even the majority of people who came to ellis island came technically illegally. , i believe, it was a 1952 act, there was an automatic statute of limitations. Unauthorized,me again mainly europeans, automatically was able to legalize without any action as long as they evaded protection from the law, which as you noted was not a significant. Extent there the 6 enforcement and repatriation campaigns3 that were highly racialized. There was operation what back in the 1950s where millions of mexicans and other Latin Americans were deported largely without due process and that included millions of u. S. Citizens as well. When you ask, who are the unauthorized and how did enforcement take place in those one cando not think fairly answer that with a simple answer. It depends on who you were, and how onee from might have come to the attention of the authorities. Sorry for that speech, but i thought i would add that. Next question. Bob and i met practicing Immigration Lawyer for the last 40 years or so. In some of the things that you people have been , iing this to remember that think historically, both and alsoimmigration mexican immigration, people came and went freely. Therefore, the concept of being here illegally was not as salient because he came here and you work for a while and maybe you work for a year or two years or six months and you went back to family with the money you had an is with the 1965 act that started that, and especially now that with the 1960s law imposed for turning consequences on people who are here for your without authorization that if they leave they cannot come back for 10 years, that freezes everybody in place, making the pool of on our price people greater and meaning that you got to bring your family with you because you may never see them again because you cannot get by comp. To be in the me realm of unintended consequences and i wonder how lawmakers and policymakers can avoid this type of unintended consequence. Jayesh i think you are raising an important point around the narrative that we create around immigration and the presence of immigrants and they are often associated and theres an assumption that people coming to United States want to remain here permanently. That is something not the case. Before i began teaching, i worked a number of years with day laborers and the common narrative was that im not really trying to live here permanently. I just want to be here for a couple of years, make a little bit of money, and then go back and build a really nice home for my family. Extent,that to a larger Immigration Laws have really and that you are here forever has really failed to capture that middle ground. A comment made around globalization and what we are seeing more and more is dual national identities. That is another feature that we need to contemplate. People may want to have a binational existence where they have homes or names in more than one country. It is certainly playing out with many people and dual citizenship is becoming increasingly common so i absolutely do agree that in terms of our policy that it is structured in this very black or white type away and we need to think creatively about how we can create these pathways for temporary or semipermanent theng go or expanding opportunities for temporary engagement in the u. S. Other questions . I am sean oneill with the immigrant tax inquiry group. One of the things is we need to bring dignity and respect to these people. They are all people and i think fairness is in there too, but are we being fair to the american taxpayer with placing a 10 billion demand on essential Services Like health care system,n, the penal fire, and police. The taxpayer is being treated unfairly and they should be in the equation. Jayesh there have been a similar amount of studies that suggest that in some and in total, immigrants more than pay for themselves over the long term. Charles now with specific services andecific since most of the tax revenue goes to the localities there and the burden of services there, and especially when taking demographics into account like younger immigrants and younger core immigrants, they will tend to consume more and services than they pay in taxes. The same is true of any younger and poorer population regardless of whether they are immigrants are not. Point thatny your there are larger ramifications from immigration. Is everyone affected, which everyone ought to have a seat at the table and discussing how to resolve it, but i would resist arenotion that immigrants economically or with respect to specific government services. Pratheepa if i could add to what charles was saying, there might some of facts at the state and local level and that goes to a significant part of the Empirical Research that i conducted with my coauthor for our book, which was to ask the question, when you look at the restriction laws that were emerging at the state and local years,ver the last 1015 thinking about sb 1070 and places tried to deny social services on the basis that immigrants were consuming a significant amount, whether or not it is true that at any given locality or jurisdiction that immigrants actually dig consume a significant amount of social services and tax money, what are empirical investigation revealed was that jurisdictions that tend to pass these restrictionist laws were not suffering from those social ills that they were arguing about in their law. In theiry would write purpose statement further law that they suffered significant social Service Deficits and that immigrants were changing the way in which they work providing the services, as an empirical matter, at least in those jurisdictions that were passing these laws, systemically when you look across the united that is an unsupportable and factual statement. There may have in jurisdictions where those words through, but those were not the same jurisdictions that were passing restrictionist legislation. Jurisdictionat a like california and they house close to 3 million unlawfully present persons. Quarterone third or a of a third of the unlawful persons population, but passing the most integrated social services laws, including health care undocumented immigrants. I think there is a fundamental best there very well might be these economic effects, but the interesting thing for me is that it does not actually show up in the policy proposals at those jurisdictions. Quick followup. The program aced few times and it seems that that is the model that seem to of to have worked best and we can go back to Something Like that. A lot of the discussions about civil rights and 7 from this country and 7 from that country ive talked to people on the hill about Immigration Reform. If you are only left, you want everybody to have full citizenship and if you on the right, you want to enforce the laws and deport people. That is the middle, too, but we will need a broadbased coalition to affect change. Are going need the left and right in the middle to come together and we need something that is practical and not so burdensome. I would be interested in your thoughts on that. Jayesh i think your general point is very well taken that there has to be some kind of political compromise. We need to contemplate that there is a reality of that there are a lot of mixed status families in the United States. It is difficult with all the that immigrants contribute export takeaway x when many families are comprised of persons who are here lawfully and people who are not. But ofddies the waters, course there is a really clear on the significant exploitation under the program. I will not get into particulars, but it is certainly not a model. What you are suggesting is the idea of some kind of temporary both enablesthat employers to take advantage of foreignborn workers and to avail themselves of foreignborn workers not take advantage. And in a nonexploitative way. That is something that we need to be thinking carefully about because in the existing program and and replicated in the h2 program today, significant incentives for employer or recruiter fraud and misrepresentation and explication. Multiple studies have been done on this. Not that every employer is coming at it with ill intention, but structurally, it lends itself to that. Bill habit proposal had a proposal that was ok and had a decent compromise. We can criticize it and take it apart, but as we move forward, that was a result of a lot of compromise. The afl and organized labor, the business community, the chamber of commerce, the expected were all the table and they came up with that, so it can be done again. We have come to the end of the session. Thank you all for participating. Thank theke to panelists for their extraordinary contributions, not just that this panel, but through their books. Please look for them. Thank you all for coming. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the syrian refugee crisis is the focus of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee today. Witnesses include officials from the state and Homeland Security departments. That is live today at 2 00 p. M. Eastern today on cspan3. The white house has announced plans to limit the number of exams required by the no child left program. Arne duncancretary participated in a discussion monday on the effectiveness of posted byed testing the council of the great city schools. This is an hour. Michael i am Michael Castle lake and i want to thank you very much for being here this monday morning. We going to go ahead and get started because i am sorry to say that we will begin wrapping up this conference at around 10 30 a. M. We have been asked to meet with the president on this report at 11 00 so were going to have to end early here so we can get over there in time. We will end this and take questions at around 10 30 a. M. I apologize for that. I would also like to thank our panelists and moderator for being here today. Everybodytroduce shortly. It looks like our last two are coming in now. Before we begin, i want to acknowledge and to thank the Great Council Research Team that produced the report that we are discussing today and they include ray hart, who is the senior author on this report, moses palacios, amanda corporate, and liz spurgeon. Would you stand please so everybody can see you . [applause] thank you so much. Morning to talk about a new report from the council of the great city testingcalled student and americas great city schools and inventory and luminary analysis. Preliminary analysis. The next steps that all us on the panel are proposing as we move forward. This Council Study was initiated two years ago by our board of directors, which is comprised of the superintendent and one School Board Member from each city. Hadhe discussion that they in albuquerque about this time in 2013 my board realized that frankly we did not know as an urban School Coalition how much testing we were actually doing nor did we have a good sense of testing paul things policies and practices in place from district to district. With takingarged us an inventory of the test being administered in urban public 142015in the 2000 school year, as well as reviewing how these tests were being used and reporting out the results of our inventory the matter what that inventory said. Not interested here in st. Louis right, who was wrong in the public debate about testing, but we were interested in informing the public conversation with some actual evidence about the extent of testing in our schools and proposing some next steps. Finally you should know that no one paid us to do this study. It was all done inhouse with our own staff and was released as soon as we had finished it. There is more data in this report than we can possibly describe this morning. But we generally concluded three overarching things from our research. Hand inrybody has had a what our current testing system looks like. The situation was not created by just one entity. Lots of people have played a role. A lot of people have pointed fingers at one another and we have concluded that they were all correct. Two our system of assessing students, which is not a system at all, is disjointed, incoherent, and redundant. It generally lacks any strategy or theory of action behind how it is defined or how it operates. And number 3 there are a lot of tests. It is hard to know how many , but it wouldmany be difficult for many want conclude from the results that we are releasing over the weekend and today that what we have here is not too many tests or that the tests are not being too frequently given. That thel, we found average student in our schools will be required to take about 112 standardized test between prek and high school graduation. This amounts to about eight standardized tests per year. We count test in different subjects like reading and math as two separate test. We count multiple administrations of the test during the school year as separate test as well. Over 400 testwere titles that were administered across our 66 bigcity school specials, now counting education diagnostic tests or Core Education test. Students across the School Systems on which we had data set in testing over 6700 times the 20142015 school year, the focus of our review. Finally, the time devoted to taking mandatory test constituted about 2. 3 of the school year at the highest tested grade levels, which was great eight. Only timenote that devoted to mandatory tests that every student would take. It did not include optional, sample, or program tests or test designs for special populations and it did not include time for test prep come a time to prepare for Test Administration or scoring, and it did not include time spent on tests that were purchased at the school level. We did not count these tests because not everybody takes those tests, so adding them to the time of testing that seemed to usgiven to be adding apples and oranges. We only counted one type of test in our calculation of overall time. One should also keep in mind that many of these tests are a threemonth span during the second semester of any school year. That often feels like a very period of continuous testing. We divided this into three broad categories mandatory tests that are given to every child in a particular grade, optional test, and specialized test. There were state summit of exams , including parks, smarter balances, and other College Ready exams given by the states. And number two, and of course exams given at the secondary trade levels, such as test in American History or chemistry. 3 formative the exams that are given periodically over the course of the school year to assess student progress. Some of these were required by the state, some by the district. Some were commercial, somewhere homegrown. Test given and other untestednd otherwise grades and to evaluate staff. Tbsnumber 5 test like i only when those tests are required for all students in a particular grade. All of our districts administer congressionally mandated state substantive exams that will take eight or nine hours of peace. 71 of our districts administer end of course tests in one or more subjects that will consume between two and five hours per grade. Nearly 60 of the districts administer formative exams on average three times a year that will take between seven and 11 hours per year in the districts that given. About 30. 30 administer tests and dozens of subjects that take between five and 11 hours in each grade. Nearly all of our districts will give other mandatory tests that consume an average of three and nine hours. Many in the same subjects to the same students in the same grades. Big category involved tests that were administered only to samples of students, not everyone could although they were sometimes required, like the National Assessment of educational progress. The category also includes optional test like that ect and went test like these were required, and they are required in some districts, we put them in the mandatory category. The category also included tests that were associated with participation in a particular program like advanced placement or International Baccalaureate or a career and technical courses. On average, these assessments can taken of the five hours or so, but some program tests come a particular career and Technical Education course tests can take considerably longer. The final war population assessments like english lingwood fo lingwoods test for learners. In addition to the overarching conclusions earlier, we also found that the tests were usually not aligned with each other or with any particular standard, although clearly park and smarter balance are. Testing time did not correlate with student reading or math achievement. Third, there was considerable redundancy in the testing measure and we will talk about that on the panel. Are not some tests used for the purposes on which they are designed. 5 test results are not always forming orhen improving instruction. 6 the technical quality of some exams are suspect, particular for the purposes of which there given. In addition, districts often resume the results too late to use them for sexual purposes. Not like test,do but they do not want to how their children are doing parents do not always like test, but they do want to know how their children are doing and if they are on track to this should and the nation positive if they are on track to this should give the nation paused. You will hear more about one miami and North Carolina are doing this morning and we got word last night that the Boston Public Schools will be reducing its tests by half as a result of the study. Are pleased to announce that the council of the great city schools will form a ,ommission of academics practitioners, teachers, and parents. We will do this in conjunction with our partners at the council of School Officers and we will charge this commission with developing proposals and models for how we can make our testing system more strategic, thoughtful, and coherent. Happy to, i would be answer questions during the panel discussion, but i want to introduce you first of all to our secretary of education, arne duncan, for very brief remarks. Army. Arne [applause] secretary duncan thank you so much and i look forward to the panel conversation. I want to thank mike and his team. I do not know what a noble prize equivalent to testing might be, but his Team Deserves that. I want to mike about 10 years ago and said that we need to have data on this stuff. We really do not know what is out there. If we do it at the federal level, it becomes more of a federal requirement. , i saidould do that that the great. I said, are you on it . It took two years and that speaks to the real complexity of this issue. This is what all of us in education have struggled with or thought about for a long time and i often tell the story that when i took of the chicago Public Schools in 2001, we were taking the Illinois State test, which i thought made a lot of sense, and we were taking the iowa state test as well, which made less sense because we live in illinois and iowa. Stop taking the iowa state test and try to get to a place that made sense. What our team believes in and fixed about all the time is the goal of high standards. We think it is hugely important for most standards that many states adopted frankly in reaction to no child left behind , which are peeling has had a devastating impact on children and communities that were told on track to be successful and they were not even close. We absolutely believe in highQuality Assessments and i will come back to that. Mike spoke about that in his comments. We believe in meaningful accountability. We have to talk about achievement gaps and look at the students to serve well and whether it is the individual child or school or district makingnd we know who is progress and how and why and who is not. But we do not believe in, which mike articulated clearly, are unnecessary or lowquality or redundant assessments. That does not help anyone. His leadership and along with chris, these are organizations that fight for kids every single day and help lead the nation where we need to go and their Leadership Partnership has been hugely important. I thinksaid eloquently, we have to look in the mirror and say what have we done to contribute to the issue and the challenge . And what we do collectively to get us to a better spot . A lotta focus over the weekend has been on the amount of testing. I think that is of very important conversation to have and to think about and we are making some recommendations in terms of the amount of time. Both mike and chris have said with great thoughtfulness that that is something to be determined at the local level rather than by us. Was important to put a recommendation out there. That recognition came from what john king did when he was a state officer in new york. The thing that is important for all of us to think about is how we get to more coherent, more strategic assessments that drive instruction. And strong assessments are not in conflict with good instruction. They actually help promote it. As mike said, parents asked the want to know where their children are. When you pull the public, they want to know where they are, they just want to help their children get better. If the design make sense or if it is confusing or if it is monthtomonth after the fact, it is not helping to drive instruction could when you think about time, and time is one part of the conversation, the other out of the conversation is coherent strategy work at assessments lead to better instruction. We say that the goal of every great teacher and principal is not to teach but to have children learn. How we assess their strength and weaknesses, how we empower students themselves, along with parents and teachers to know what that childs strengths and weaknesses are and what they can do better in the school day and after school and weekends on the summer to help that child improve, thats where we need to get to as a nation. We want to be a better partner at the federal level. We are try to lay out a roadmap of our suggestions that we think will be helpful or helpful be helpful. Hope will be helpful. We want to listen to mike and chriss team and get to a more rational place. I think together it is a very important conversation to have. We are not going to solve it all today, but to open this up and i have to give mike in another assignment, but periodically, i think everyones a couple decades that on an ongoing basis we should be looking at this. We look at lots of things and see again not just who is reducing test. If you are reducing amount of times, thats a good sound bite but does not get you where you need to go. If you reduce the amount of time and hope drive instruction and lead to better teaching and learning, that is pretty powerful and i think that is the next iteration of this conversation. This is the start of something very important and not the end of something. I want to thank mike in his team and chris for being great partners as well. We look forward to getting the nation to a much better place moving forward. To begin our penalty discussion, i want to introduce our moderator, caroline henry. Caroline, it is all yours. Caroline im really honored to be here today. Whirlwind of real news on this topic. My members have been really busy burning the midnight oil. For those of you who do not know, dwa is the National Professional organization for members of the media that cover organization. All these folks have been keeping them very busy. Inhave a really great panel addition to Mike Casserly and secretary duncan and you just heard from you we have chris from the executive director of the council of chief state School Officers. We have deputy secretary king, who will be taking over for secretary duncan at the end of the year. Dr. June atkinson from North Carolina. She is a real leader among state chiefs. I think you are just named president of the council. Dr. Carvalho, who is named superintendent of the year and very active on the issue of assessment for we have folks who are very knowledgeable about this topic and im really delighted to jump in. My first question is for you, deputy secretary king, over the weekend as we all heard, the administration acknowledged that it bore some responsibility for over testing of students. That also announced that the president has directed the Education Department to review the administrations role in this and how to address how it may have contributed to the problem and to respond accordingly. The department came out with a inpage testing action plan which not only eat kind of accepted some responsibility, but you also kind of laid out steps that you plan to take to help states and districts cut back on testing. So some of my members have written about this but some of it is new and some of it is not so new. Im hoping that you can maybe walk us through a little bit what is new in this plan and what do you think is most significant . John thanks for the question. To thank mike for their report and chris for his leadership around these issues. I, this from the perspective of having been a teacher and a that the with a sense key question is how do you establish the right balance. There is no question that assessments that are highquality and welldesigned can meaningfully inform instruction and give good information to parents about how their kids are doing and how they can support them to teachers and how they can improve their instruction and to students about how they are progressing to the goal of college and Career Readiness. It is also clear that lowlevel, poor Quality Assessments can distract from good instruction and that redundant assessments that are not providing useful information can get in the way. Outgood news, which we call in the plan over the weekend, is that we have states all across the country that are moving toward Higher Quality assessments. Dozens of states have adopted that are assessments that better reflect the standards of college and Career Readiness and require more writing and problem solving and more Critical Thinking. It is clear from conversations with parents and educators and from this report that there are places where there is too much testingand too much that is lowquality and not helping transform instruction. We lay out some principles that we think should drive policy at the federal, state, and local level that assessment should be worth taking and highquality. They should provide meaningful indicators of student achievement and growth. The progress that students are making overtime and that no test should be given for the purpose of educator evaluation. We lay out the principle that assessment should be timelimited and that we thinks they should cut the amount of time at 2 and we hear that many states are taking action at this way. June will talk about the work happening in North Carolina and the work happening in new mexico and delaware on these issues could we lay out the principle that test should be one of multiple measures when used in thatating the progress students are making and schools are making and the work of educators. We lay out the principles that transparenthould be and actionable and timely. It is important for educators and that parents have good information on assessments with act,h to at pic. And we should get to actions that should support this work could one is Financial Support that we have made available through our Grant Programs and funds for states to do audits of the assessments that they give and to invest in improving the quality of assessments. The president has made a very significant over 4 trillion Budget Proposal for 2016 focused on state assessment work, including a set aside for states that put those resources toward audits of the assessments that they give so that they can call for the assessments that are unnecessary or duplicate if you they actually in new york raise that teaching is the court effort of how districts bring together teachers and administrators to evaluate the assessments were given. And number two is technical assistance. We will work with states and districts to support them as they evaluate the assessments that they give and try to identify the ones that they can get rid of, but also more importantly, ones that they can improve. Places where they can replace a low level, simplistic bubble test with a more comprehensive writing focused, Critical Thinking purpose, problemsolving focused assessment could we will work with states on the flexibility to elementary and syndication secondary education act. We will help states identify opportunities to reduce unnecessary testing. One good example is that many states have received waivers from giving the eighth grade the students taking high school test. Students taking High School Algebra test should not take the eighthgrade test. Number 4 we should identify policy areas where should we reduced the level of assessment. We are looking at teacher prep as a place we want to make sure. Teacher prep programs are focused on how well the candidates are assisting students in improving their learning. We do not want them to lift that only through the lens of assessment. Assessment should be one ones among many. We are also working with states on flex ability around teacher wheretion and places rather than using a low level bubble test that they can use a more performancebased assessment as part of evaluating Student Learning for teacher evaluation. But we hope to do is to continue to accelerate the progress of work that mikes members and chriss members have already begun in this area. You for letting that out. One thing that i think you did the into too much is excuse me, the point that made the most news. The idea of a 2 cap. I remember secretary duncan, when you were at our conference in chicago, your hometown, last you said very clearly that you have been public about the fact that theres too much testing. You had said at that time that you would urge states to cap the amount of state and district testing. In the past six months, what has changed in your view, if anything, to put forward this recommendation that congress capld ensure that states the amount of state assessments . This now do you think there is a federal role for this beyond eu urging states to do it and congress coming in and shalt capu testing . Secretary duncan i think these aboutmplicated issues and whats the appropriate state and federal role. The fact is the lack of clarity has led to redundancy and depleted of exams and things that are lowquality. For me, the Biggest Issue is not the lack ofe, it is coherence, the lack of strategy, and the lack of driving instruction in realtime. I keep coming back to that. We can have lots of debates about the appropriate federal or state or local role and thats a very inappropriate conversation a very feared appropriate conversation to have good we have a mutual responsibility to help get this to a better place. We are tried to be pretty self reflective here as john talk about. We tried to provide lots of flexibility and some folks did some amazing things. I always point out the example in tendency of i fantastic arts teacher who did not like what the state was doing in terms of their assessments of our teachers and basically created his own. He did amazing work that was first adopted locally and has been adopted statewide. That is an example of flexibility that never existed and joe child left behind in no child left behind. For stability has not been used in such a thoughtful look at what were try to do now is provide more guidance and what we think makes more sense. We can have an academic debate on what the state and local and federal, but at the other the day, isnt working for children and for teachers and for parents . By any measure, we would say today is suboptimal. We need to find a way collectively to get to a better place to caroline. Talk too he did not much about the federal role. You talked about the action plan where states imposed a cap. Are you saying 2 of classroom time and, if so, where did that come from . Maybe deputy secretary king might want to mention that. In new york, you have some kind of version of that. Maybe say where that came from a little bit . [laughter] in new york, the idea was to cap the amount of times spent statewide on standardized test into cap the amount of time spent as well on district standardized test and also to cap the amount of time that was spent on test prep that involved traditional standardized test prep simulation. The challenge is that it is difficult i think at the federal level to figure out what is the right answer across 50 states. What we have suggested is that states should take on this responsibility of setting i cap and communicating transparently with families about what assessments are given and how the time is used. Again, the goal here is balance. What we do not want is for states to move away from quality and say that we are going to do less writing and less problemsolving. Caroline there is a concern about people responding to caps and lopping off test willynilly. Mike, i had a question for you. I was impressed with how the report did not mince words about local School Systemsrole in this. You said that they share responsibility for what todays testing portfolio looks like. Which is too often incoherent, oraligned, redundant, inappropriate. I think those are pretty tough words for your own member district. How hard will it be to fix the situation at the district level . First of all, after this is all over, if anybody has any job openings, please let me know. [laughter] directorsour board of asked for the report. They also review the report after it was done. They saw the language that we used to describe what they were doing and they said, amen. You are exactly right. That is what we are doing. I think because they have embraced what the nature of the that we are going to have a much easier conversation with our own members about strategies they can use to reduce the amount of testing. Im not actually terribly worried about them because they really own the issue and in a lot of ways. Let me also ask chris to join me in this on the 2 think. 2 thing. I appreciate what the administration is proposing and i think generally what the administration is proposing in its 10 point action plan is really an important step in the right direction. I think theres no doubt about that. At the same time, it is not clear to me that implementing a kind of onesizefitsall, acrosstheboard 2 cap on the amount of testing time is what the solution is to this problem. It will reduce the amount of time that one spends, but issues of quality and use an redundancy andall that get unaddressed there is a very strong possibility that people will cap testssts and eliminate that actually could be helpful in informing instruction. And you could easily have a , it ison where under 2 federally required test. And locally administered assessments are given to informed instruction could be squeezed out of this. Concerned about being about what afast percentage ought to be. , but i think the sentiment of reducing time is the right sentiment, but drawing a line and nothing clear what is over that line and what is under that create negative unintended consequences that we almost cannot foresee at this point. Know you wants, i to jump in on the idea of capping. Love foreak, i would you to kind of address one of the findings in the report about the lack of alignment on many of the tests being given in the urban districts to college and areer ready standards as leader of an organization that has been at the forefront of promoting the highest standards and the aligned assessments. I think that would be a finding that would be somewhat concerning to you. Chris definitely. Mike and deputy secretary for all the work on this. I think mike said it well. On the cap, it is clear that could have unintended consequences. We are in a place where i would rather talk about quality and the idea that we are getting a bunch of tests that are not aligned to the standards that are being taught in these districts is really the headline tests areat these just being given because they were given in the past. No one would have bought these tests if they had read their standards at that point. These tests were still being given because they have been given over the last 101215 years i think. I think that is a really important point for states. I think what the secretary stated about the state owning this and the federal government needs to own some of this and the District Needs to own some of this. Im hoping today will be the start of a conversation with our states and districts. The second thing is that mike and i worked together to release a report last year where we laid out some actions that the states and districts were going to take to reduce testing. Obviously, given that the survey mikesn completed with districts, we do not have data to show the impacts yet, but we have data to reduce testing. We are checking that and we have conversations at the local level. Our members care about this. I was just in School Last Week where the parents were telling me how important it was but they were getting assessments regularly. Hubbub about how much of assessment there is, i know that their parents out there that want to know how their kids are doing. Caroline i do want to get the conversation started. You mentioned in the districts. I would love dr. Atkinson to respond to this idea of the cab p and to talk about what you are doing on the testing front to reduce testing and to experiment with approaches to how you are giving your tests. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be part of the panel. When i was a student at mondale university and the entire time i was in school i had to take and we did an Extensive Survey to find out about testing. State andclude federal test and that takes students of the time. Local tests bumped it up to about 2. 3 . We talk about the issue of testing. That brought us to the point of students and teachers and parents saying what should be the purpose should be to help students and teachers do next in the classroom. Prroofar we are doing a of concept where we take the deandards for fifth gran and then we are administering shorter assessments to students during the year so that we can the immediate feedback to teachers and students about what to do next. This became important to me after having focus groups. Ene a great student on eighthgrade student said it would be helpful to give me a shorter test so i would know what to do to improve if i am not learning certain stuff. We are taking the lead of an eighthgrader who said lets spread over test, time, and use the feedback to help students improve. We want to get to the place where assessment is integrated so much into instruction. Students and parents and teachers cannot tell the difference between instruction and assessment. We believe were on the bridge to a 21st century artifact testing. It will take a lot of work. We do not know how long that bridge is. We believe we can get to that place and the proof of concept will have greater assurance we will have alignment, coherence, and purpose. Caroline you did not mention the cap idea. Respond . Nt to quickly i believe that the cap is the way to have a conversation and to bring attention to the issue. But in the end i believe that the purpose of the test should driveence how long we test. Caroline i know that youve been active in miamidade on the issue of overtesting and even to the point of going to the state legislature. Do you want to tell folks about that . Good morning and congratulations for leaving this effort approved by the board and the leadership of the secretary for attacking this issue. Number one the benefit of being last to speak is that all of the smart things have been said. I will bring you the perspective of a practicing principal. Situation as iis hear from teachers and colleagues. I think one of the most important conclusions is not clearly stated in the report. Towill not assess our way academic excellence. That is clear. We need to shift away from a quantitative analysis of how much time and how many exams we put before kids over to a conversation towards teaching and learning that these tests provide. Can they form teaching and learning in the classroom . This. Ird point is the problem we are facing is the result of an impact of federal to state requirements and local districts engaging in the benchmark assessments to not be surprised about the scores that will come out. You do have a complex issue. Assessment across the country reflected the proverbial tail wagging the dog. They were not generated for the purpose of teaching and learning, but to drive teacher evaluations. In florida, statutes were passed that requires that a student Achievement Level would be used of every teacher. Endofcourse assessment for every single course taught in the state. That is hundreds if not thousands of assessments. Youer than ask permission, forgivenessark on if caught. 24decided to decommission assessments that were under our control for the purpose of generating benchmark data. Eliminating those assessments 60 minutes ofo 2 teaching time. The governor issued an executive order that eliminated the need for the vast majority of end ofcourse assessments. We went from 23 assessments to zero. At the middle school level, down to four. Level,senior High School Just six. So we are supportive of this report. I think the next phase cannot be a cap is a form of percentage of time. It is a quantitative analysis of how many exams and a honest conversation about the relevance, duplication of effort, and the purpose behind these assessments. That is a qualitative conversation about what assessments should measure and inform. Caroline secretary duncan, one thing we didnt mention this morning is that the president went on facebook on saturday and put out a statement about overtesting and it is tempting to see this as the end of an era. Do you think that is act. , or is this a missed reading . Secretary duncan its important to look at the facts, and the facts are pretty clear. I think the president echoes what everybody here has said. He thinks in some places there is too much testing. He has believe that for a while. We have a database rather than anecdotes. The president believes it is important to hold ourselves accountable for Student Learning. Understanding the facts and not putting a spin on it is very important. 2 . An talk about the this is a lesson in courageous leadership. What mike and chris has done, we live in a town where most folks say why they are right and why everybody is wrong and they repeat that. You do not have many folks trying to be self reflective. We will work through the details. We will get there. The question is, what are you willing to do a little bit differently . Thats what doesnt happen too often. I am optimistic about where we are going. People with humility. Caroline this is an issue that has inflamed peoples passion, and certainly you have seen in new york. You were the target of the kind of fierce criticism over the rollout of new standards and tests. 0 believe it was 200,00 students for the optout movement. Is this an effort to bury the hatchet . It is an effort to make sure we have a smart approach to assessment in schools, and at the end of the day, the purpose of the assessment is to help us serve students as well as possible. All of us and the president are committed to the roles that assessment play in accountability. We need to have good information about the progress that students are making. We need to Pay Attention to our persistent achievement gaps and we need to act on that. There are smart ways we can have educators at the local levels looking at the assessments and saying, do we need all of these . Are there places where we can replace with one that has students making strong arguments, doing Historical Research and doing science experiments. I think the president talked about that face video. It has to be a part that helps drive instruction. I think you touched on something. I think nobody is advocating for the elimination of i think overtesting or no testing are two sides of the new moral proposition of an i mmoral proposition. You need some degree of assessment. It ought to be nonredundant. This report is not meant to empower an abdication of this moral responsibility we have to our kids and our parents and our teachers. Caroline at this point we would like to open up to questions from members of the media. So if there is a member of the media that has a question, could you raised your hand and the ruby people coming around with microphones. Please identify yourself, your name and organization. Do we have a mic runner over here . Thank you. I am from politico and i thought the most interesting part of the plan and probably the newest thing about it was the fact that you are sort of easing up on this inclusion of student test scores in relation to the regulations. If you could talk more about that and offer more details on how you are going to give states that flexibility. Does this change the comments, which were largely critical . We are adopting the role on the feedback that weve got. The key thing there at the assessment is that we want to make sure that the teacher programs have good information about how the graduates affect Student Learning. Flexibility for the states in the evaluation of teacher prep programs. This is something that will evolve over time. We want states to be creative as they do this and to have the evaluations evolve over time. Caroline any other questions . To follow up, i think that its important to understand what we are doing is part of a larger portion of higher ed, which is to move to the system that looks at outcomes and we can have on his debates about how to measure that. But to act like outcomes and teachers teaching and being effective and working in disadvantage communities, to think that should be divorced from funding or the ongoing operation of teacher rep programs, were going to continue to challenge that. Emma . Emma i am still unclear after listening to you both, secretary duncan, whether you put that forward or whether you really mean it. It is a recommendation and there is flexibility to the results of interest enough today. For the fifth time, to be very clear, the goal is not just a cap. Although want to limit and reduce testing. If you reduce testing to 1 and it is redundant, that is a loss, a failure not a win. 2. 3 , it is good assessment that is driving instruction. The parents understand. That is a good outcome. We have the clear recommendation. That is one piece of this important puzzle. Caroline other questions . Right here, bob. the report doesnt quantify the amount of tests, but it seems thats one area that really eats into instruction, and i wondered if any of the panelists have an estimate of how much time is taking up on test prep. If you could say about your cap in new york and the effect on classrooms. Goal was really the cap, bad test prep. Having students do lowlevel worksheets that simile endlessly and the goal was to try to cap the amount of time that districts would stand on that. It goes to Quality Assessment. If you have assessment that asked students to demonstrate how they solve problems in math, instruction will follow that you will have a strong relationship between Quality Assessment and quality instruction. If it rewards students for guessing, you will often have instruction that reflects those same low level skills. This cannot just be about the time. We did not include the amount of time to spend on the test prep. It largely exist at the individual school level in response to the test that is mandated. The schools are responding to the requirements to test and the accountability portion with in some cases inordinate test prep. We did not study it. We wanted to make sure that the time we resented did not include that. We urge somebody to do that study. Do whatus two years to we did on this. Me and my folks are tired. We will let somebody else do that one. Caroline any other questions from members of the media . I have a question for you. Titles. Re over 400 ofen there is a phenomenon vendors pushing the shiniest new test with maybe a greater level of granularity. With so many folks making so much money, is it realistic to think we will have a reduction in the amount of testing and test prep. So many vendors have materials that are aligned to the test. It is a great question. Everybody has had a hand in this and i meant everybody. And the test vendors have played a role in kind of driving up the amount of testing. It is our fault for buying them. Sometimes an extraordinary amount of political pressure is sometimes put on people to do this. Coalitionrtant for a like this to be working on these becauses because just you put out a report on the amount of testing does not mean the vendors will say, i got it. We should stop selling more tests. They are not going to do that. Actors,state and local to create an environment and a set of proposals that makes it harder for random, disconnected tests of low quality to be given. Some of this caroline i know chris and the secretary want to comment on this, as well. They are very big and many of the state levels, and we are already starting to see the states look at this, and we have example after example, so when john was in new york and did some work to reduce testing. New mexico do an audit. This is just in one year. Were on the right pathway to reduce testing. The time issue is secondary to the idea we need high Quality Assessments in front of every students. With the new assessments aligned to the new standards, we need to take a look at the old tests and make sure we do not keep giving them. If i could step back and look at the Bigger Picture that we are entering a new era in education and for decades you have 50 different states all doing their own thing. You had no way compare across states or districts. It was all apples to oranges, which was crazy. There is a common metric. You know who to figure out is doing a good job. Now some states are starting to evaluate themselves in a comment way. You will be able to see over time which states and districts are improving faster. If she is making some mistakes, we can look at other states and figure that out. We are still calling, but having a chance we are still crawling. We should look at who is accelerating the learning of poor children and black children and figure out what combination of practices. What combination of practices are helping them get better faster. We have never had that chance in education. Caroline are you disappointed if you are states in fewer states are not engaged in what initially seems as an effort to be able to make all of these kind comparisons . Te i have been pleasantly surprised that the states have raised standards and are thinking differently about assessments and no one predicted this six or seven years ago, so we are not there yet. This is an ongoing process. So many states are thinking differently. No one would have said that was possible. That all goes to local leaders. Caroline i do have to ask. We are headed into 2016 to campaign. Some folks have seen the moves over the weekend by the administration as a political move designed to make it smoother between the Democratic Party and the Teachers Union who had been leading critics of teacher evaluation. They are seeing this in a political context. I would love for you to respond to that. Is this going to be the beginning of the administration doing aboutface is on issues like Charter Schools . Are we going to see that down the road . This is about students and advancing the interests of students. We have an opportunity to me our system better and to make instruction that are. Resources. E will be districts will make unfortunate choices because they do not have the resources to invest teachers and analyzing richer assessments. We made a proposal and the president is proposing adding one billion dollars to title one. Resources would help a lot here. This is about how do we ensure a system that helps students achieve the highest level. I dont want the media to misread, but we have had one clear vestige from day number one and that is to do the right thing for kids. The president ranks this is the right thing for kids. Some have been politically unpopular. Just keep it in the category to not make it something it is not. Not to offend the administration in any way that everything becomes political at some point, but i can assure you one thing not only myself as superintendent but as a member of the board, we commission and demanded this analysis be conducted two years ago. We just recently concluded. This revealsf testing abuses and we limit our action to talking a lot about it and that we did something. Hopefully that will not be the case. And at the end of the day, the big idea is that we passed the goldilocks test when it comes to assessments and testing. Not too many coming, not too right, all for the benefit of our students. Caroline you got the last word. Lets give a round of applause and thank you very much. Today Ashton Carter testifying about the u. S. Military strategy in the middle east. Live coverage on cspan3. Cspan has your coverage for the road to the white house, where youll find your questions. This year we are taking our coverage into classrooms across the country with our student cam contest, giving students the opportunity to discuss what issues they want to hear the most from the candidates. Follow us on tv, the radio, and online at www. Cspan. Org. Live today, washington journal is next. The house returns or general speeches. At noon the house continues on a bill that would reauthorize the export import bank, and a measure about federal highway and transit programs. Coming up, congressman tom cole on the House Speaker elections, the budget, and the upcoming fiscal deadlines. John garamendi on wednesdays deadline. Bradford fitch of the congressional management congregation talks about the cost of congressional perks and new rules. Host washington journal for october 27. There are reports that the white house and Speaker John Boehner have negotiated a tentative deal that would keep the government open for two years instead of shutting down in december. The estimated cost is 80 billion. Some of the cuts could be cuts on medicare and Social Security disability. And a new debt limit could be pushed back to 2017. It would still have to be approved by congress