Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20151027 :

CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings October 27, 2015

What matters is what he says, not where he says it. So i hope that, you know, the Prime Minister will take account that this has been a partisan issue command it should not. I hope he reaches out in a way that is unmistakable to democrats and republicans alike, but emphasizing the nonpartisan nature of the relationship, and, and i think that i would expect this meeting actually will go well. The primethe Prime Minister has an interest, and also the president has an interest. Do i think that in the aftermath there will be the closest of friends . Do ii think that the chemistry will be perfect . No. I think they have different worldviews, but they recognize the points of convergence, the common needs right now, and both have an interest in elevating that at this point. You know, comes back to thinking about those things that bind us and particularly on the issue that divided us. One of the things that we used to always say, we knew our objectives were the same the tacticsthe tactics might not always be the same, but the objectives were the same a threshold has been crossed. An agreement will be implemented. How will it be permitted . Tomorrow a defense hearing that the defense secretary. We have it live at cspan3. Later in the day the state department and Homeland Security officials give it an update on the syrian refugee crisis. That is also live on cspan3 starting at 2 00 oclock eastern. I am on the capitol hill show. I cover what senate for legislation is going on and other key events. As a network we have cover things gavel to gavel. We have covered all of the hearings by the select committee on benghazi in the house of representatives. So this is one of the next in the series. I got there and crews were already set up. And so they can show what was going on even before anybody was ever going there. And this happened during a key moment when she came into the building and they assigned desks that they could report from. A lot of people said it was their first hearing. They called it a historic moment. It is interesting to see and hear from them. I tweeted out a picture of them that shows secretary clinton talking to other members of the house. Again mainly democrats who seemed very pleased and trey gowdy who appears to be sweating at the time was happy to be leaving the room now that the hearing has concluded. The most interesting thing was the conversations that didnt get captured on camera. And there are other members of Congress Talking to each other. We have the gavel to gavel coverage, the house and senate. And when it comes time for the key hearings on capitol hill, we are there and we devote resources on television, radio, and online. Making sure that the viewers can understand without any commentary and this is one of those key events that i think a lot of people will remember for years to come. Coming up next we talk about the Defense Strategy and spending overseas. And arnie duncan was part of a discussion at the National Press club at the effectiveness on standardized testing. Part of the event included new data conducted by the council of the great city of schools. This is one hour. I am the executive director and i want to thank you very much for being here this monday morning. We are going to go ahead and get started because i am sorry to say i can say that we will begin wrapping up this conference at about 10 30 p. M. We have been asked to meet with the president on this report at 11 00 oclock. So we will have to end early here so we can get over there in time. We will end this and look around at 10 30 p. M. I apologize for that. I would also like to thank our panelists in our moderator for being here today and we will introduce everybody shortly. It looks like the last two are coming in now. I want to thank the research council. They include ray hart, Amanda Corcoran and liz and others. Will you stand so everyone can see you . Thank you. [applause] thank you so much. We are here this morning to talk about a new report from the Council Called student testing and inventory and literary analysis. The next steps that all of us on the panel are proposing and this was initiated by the board of board of directors which was comprised by the superintendent and one School Board Member from each city. In the discussion where they met in albuquerque about this time in 2013, the board realized that frankly we did not know as an urban School Coalition just how much testing we were actually doing. Nor did we have a sense of policies and practices in place from district to district. The board charged us with what was administered in the urban Public Schools in the 2014 and 2015 school year, as well as reviewing how the tests were being used and reporting of the results of our inventory no matter what that inventory said. We were not interested here in who is right or wrong in the public debate. And we have some actual evidence about the extent of testing in our schools and proposing next batch. Finally you should know that no one paid us to do this study. It was all done inhouse with our own staff and it was released as soon as we had finished her. And theres more than we can possibly describe this morning, but we generally concluded three overarching things from the research. First, everyone has had a hand in what the current testing system looks like. And the situation was not created by just one entity. Its inconsistent and redundant. And three, there are a lot of tests. And its hard to know how many tests are too many. And it would be difficult for anyone to conclude from the results that we are releasing over the weekend and into today, that what we have here is not too many tests or that the tests are not being too frequently given. In general we found that the average student in the schools will be required to take about 112 between prek and high school graduation, this amounts to about eight standardized tests per year. We can tests of indifferent subjects as two separate tests and we count multiple administrations of the test during the school year as separate tests as well. In all there were over 400 test titles that were administered across the 66 bigcity School Districts, not counting special education diagnostic tests or a career and Technical Education tests. Students across the School Systems on which we have data sapper testing over 6700 times in the 2014 in 2015 will year, the focus of our review. Finally the time devoted to taking this constituted about 2. 3 at the highest tested grade level. You should note that at this time it only included the time devoted to these mandatory tests took every student in a designated grade would take. It did not include optional samples or program tests or tests designed for a special population. And did not include time for test prep and it did not include time spent on tests that were purchased or developed at the school level. It did not count these tests because not everybody takes those tests. So adding them to the time of testing that everyone is given seemed to add apples and oranges and mandatory tests that are given to every child in a particular grade, optional test and special populations test. And that includes smarter balance and other college and career ready exams given by the states. Exams that were typically given that the secondary grade level, such as tests in American History or chemistry. Three, exams that were given periodically over the course of the school year to assess student progress. Some of these were required by the state and some by the district. Some are commercial and some were homegrown. And Student Learning objectives that are typically given in otherwise untested grades and subjects often form the basis for evaluating staff. Other mandated assessments, only when they are wired for all students in a particular grade. All have stayed summative exams that will take between six and nine hours apiece. 71 of the districts in minister and the tests in one of my subjects that will consume between two and five hours per grade. Nearly 60 in minister formative exams on average three times per year that will take between seven and 11 hours in the districts that give them. About 30 also in minister Student Learning objectives and dozens of subjects that take between five and 11 hours in each grade. In nearly all of the districts, they are going to give other mandatory test that consume an average of between three and nine hours. Many in the same subject to the same students in the same grade. The second big category involve tests that were administered only to samples of students, although they were sometimes required. But the National Assessment of educational progress is part of this. This also included optional tests like the sat. However, when these tests were required and they are required in some districts, we put them in the mandatory category. It also included those that were in a particular program like advanced placement or international baccalaureate. These can take another five hours or so, but some program tests are particularly considerably longer. The final big category included special populations assessments. Here we included englishlanguage proficiency for English Learners and various diagnostic tests for students with disabilities. In addition to the overarching conclusions that i mentioned earlier, we also found that the test were usually not aligned with each other or with any particular standard, although clearly some others are. Testing time did not correlate with students reading or math achievement. Third, there was considerable redundancy in the testing and i am sure that we will talk about that on the panel. Orth, some tests are not used for the purges on which they are designed. And test results include instruction. And particularly for the purposes for which they are given. [inaudible] it should give the nation caused. We have listed steps that many cities are taking to reduce testing. You will hear more about what miami and North Carolina are doing this morning and we got word last night at the boston Public Schools is going to be reducing its tests by half as a result of this study. In addition, we are pleased to announce that the council of the great city of schools will form formulate the commissions of academics and teachers and parents and 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 this more strategic and thoughtful and coherent. With that, i would be happy to answer your questions during the Panel Discussion, but i would like to also introduce our secretary of education, arnie duncan, for brief remarks. [applause] they really dont know what is out there. If they do at the federal level, it becomes more of a federal requirement. It certainly took two years. And i think that that speaks to some of the complexity of this issue. This is one that all of us in education have struggled with or thought about for a long time. I often tell the story about taking over the chicago Public Schools in 2001. We were taking the illinois and iowa state tests. We lived in illinois but not iowa. But we stopped taking the iowa tests cut out the effect can see and our team believes in and thinks about this all the time. It is the goal of high standards and we think that its hugely important that many states adopted no child left behind and especially disadvantaged children who are told they cannot be successful. We actually believe in high quality 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 whether that is a school or district level, we need to know who is making progress and who is not. What we do not believe in which is clearly unnecessary are lowquality and redundant assessments that do not help anyone. And we have to say what have we done to contribute to the challenge and what can we do both individually and collectively to get us to a better spot. And that includes the state and district level and we have the levels out there. That recommendation actually came when john was a state officer in new york. And its so important for all of us to think about. So how do we get more strategic assessments that drive instruction. These are not in conflict with a good instruction, but they help to promote it. They actually want to know where their children are, parents do. They want to help their children do better and if it doesnt make sense or if it is confusing, that is not helping to drive instruction. So if we think about time and time is one part of this conversation, the other part is the coherent strategy where good assessments are leading to better instruction. So we say that the goal of every great teacher is not to teach but to have children learn. And how we assess the learning and the strengths and weaknesses and how we empower students themselves along with parents and teachers, to know what the childs strength is and weaknesses is, the to help that child improve, that is what we need to get to as a nation. We want to be a better partner and try to lay out a roadmap with suggestions that we think would be helpful. We want to listen to chris and his team and figure out how we can get this to a more rational place. So i think together its a very important conversation to have. We are not going to solve it all today. But we need to open it up and so on an ongoing basis we should be looking at this. We look at lots of things and see again if youre reducing the amount of time but its still not benefiting instruction, that is a good soundbite. If youre reducing the amount of time leading to better teaching and learning, that is pretty powerful and i think that that is the next iteration of this conversation. So i think that this is very important and i think that chris has been a great part of it as well. Look forward to giving us a much better place. To begin the Panel Discussion i would like to introduce our moderator, caroline henry, who is the executive director of the education association. Thank you. Im really honored to be here today. It has been a whirlwind of news on this topic. My members have been busy burning the midnight oil. We are a member of the media that covers education and we have a really great panel and we have chris from the executive director of the council of School Officers and we have the deputy secretary that will be taking over and i think the folks are knowledgeable about this topic and i am delighted to jump in. So my first question is to you and over the weekend as we all heard, the administration of knowledge that it bore responsibility for over testing of students. It also announced that the president has directed the Education Department to review the administrations role and how to address how it may have contributed to the problem and to respond accordingly. The department came out with a 10 page action plan in which not only do you accept some responsibility but you kind of layout stats that you plan to take to help states and districts cut back on testing. So some of my members have written about this at some of it is new and some of it is not so new and im hoping that you could maybe walk us through what is new in this plan and what do you think is most significant. Thank you for the question. Let me add a couple of things for the leadership around the report and around these issues. Having been a teacher and a principal with the sense that the key question is how do you establish the right balance. Theres no question that needs to be an assessment that is highquality and well designed and give good information to parents about how their kids are doing and how they can improve instruction and to students about how they are progressing and that distracts us from good instruction, things that are getting in the way. The good news, which we call out in the plan over the weekend is that we have states all across the country that are moving toward this. Dozens of states that have adopted better assessments and there is too much testing that is not helping instruction. And that includes student achievement and growth. The progress is that no test should be given just for the purpose of educator evaluation. We lay out the principle assessment that it should be time limited, that we think that it should cast the amount of instruction on testing and many states are taking action in this way and we will talk about the work that is happening in North Carolina, we know the work that is happening in mexico and delaware on these issues. We are laying out the principle that this should be one of multiple measures that are used when evaluating the progress with work of educators. As well as the principal assessments that should be transparent and actionable and timeless and its important for educators to get education on which to act. And we also want to get to the heart of the question to help the financial support. We have already made available their ability of the assessments that they give. The president made a significant proposal for 2016 focusing on a setaside for those to put those tort in on it for they give so that they can call the assessments that are unnecessary or duplicative. And teaching is the core after in helping districts bring together those that evaluate the assessments that are given. Dollars and technical assistance, we will continue to work with them as they evaluate the assessments that they give and try to identify the ones that they cannot. More importantly once that they can improve upon with a more comprehensive and Critical Thinking focused assessment. And we will continue to work on this as well. And that includes others that identify opportunities. Many states have received waivers from giving an eighth grade test that also take High School Tests and those taking High School Algebra should not have to take it again. Fourth, we will continue to identify policy areas in which we can reduce the appropriate level of the role of assessment. We are looking at t

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