Archived Information: Equity and Excellence Commission: Transcript of May 23 Commission

1 2 Archived Information 3 4 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 5 6 + + + + + 7 8 EQUITY AND EXCELLENCE COMMISSION 9 10 + + + + + 11 12 MEETING 13 OPEN SESSION 14 15 + + + + + 16 17 MONDAY 18 MAY 23, 2011 19 20 + + + + + 21 22 23 The Commission met in the 1st Floor 24 Auditorium of the Lyndon Baines Johnson 25 Department of Education Building, 400 Maryland 26 Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C., at 12:00 p.m., 27 Christopher Edley and Reed Hastings, Co- 28 Chairs, presiding. 29 30 31 PRESENT: 32 33 CHRISTOPHER EDLEY, Co-Chair 34 REED HASTINGS, Co-Chair 35 CYNTHIA BROWN, Member 36 MIKE CASSERLY, Member 37 MARIANO-FLORENTINO CUELLAR, Member (via phone) 38 LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND, Member 39 SANDRA DUNGEE GLENN, Member 40 KAREN HAWLEY MILES, Member 41 KATI HAYCOCK, Member 42 JOHN KING, Member

2 3 NEAL R. GROSS 4 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 5 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. 6 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1

1 RALPH MARTIRE, Member 2 MARC MORIAL, Member 3 MICHAEL REBELL, Member 4 AHNIWAKE ROSE, Member 5 JESSE RUIZ, Member 6 JIM RYAN, Member 7 THOMAS SAENZ, Member 8 DAVID SCIARRA, Member 9 ROBERT TERANISHI, Member 10 JACQUELYN THOMPSON, Member 11 JOSE TORRES, Member 12 DENNIS VAN ROEKEL, Member 13 RANDI WEINGARTEN, Member 14 DORIS WILLIAMS, Member (via phone) 15 16 17 ALSO PRESENT: 18 19 RUSSLYNN ALI, Assistant Secretary, Office for 20 Civil Rights, U.S. Department of 21 Education 22 CARMEL MARTIN, Assistant Secretary, Office of 23 Policy, U.S. Department of Education 24 SUZANNE IMMERMAN, Special Assistant, Director 25 of Philanthropic Engagement, U.S. 26 Department of Education 27 ROBERTO RODRIGUEZ, Special Assistant to the 28 President, Domestic Policy Council, 29 White House 30 CHARLIE ROSE, General Counsel, U.S. Department 31 of Education 32 MICHAEL DANNENBERG, Delegate for 33 Undersecretary Martha Kanter, U.S. 34 Department of Education 35 JASON SNYDER, Delegate for Deputy Secretary 36 Tony Miller, U.S. Department of 37 Education 38 RICARDO SOTO, Delegate for Assistant Secretary 39 Russlynn Ali, U.S. Department of 40 Education 41 EMMA VADEHRA, Delegate for Assistant Secretary 42 Carmel Martin, U.S. Department of 43 Education 44 STEPHEN CHEN, Staff Director

1 KIMBERLY WATKINS, Staff 2

1 A G E N D A 2 3 4 5 Open Session - Call To Order...... 4 6 7 Public Outreach...... 5 8 9 Funding and Staffing for Commission 10 Work...... 23 11 12 School Finance Issues...... 25 13 14 15 16

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

2 12:10 p.m.

3 Call to Order

4 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Okay, so if the --

5 so Reed, you want to start with the public

6 outreach and stuff? So Stephen, do you want

7 -- we'll also have Stephen, I guess, to say a

8 little bit about how things have gone thus far

9 what, if anything else, is on the horizon.

10 MR. CHEN: So just as a little bit

11 of housekeeping as we go through this, I'll

12 direct you to kind of what's in the packets in

13 front of you. The first thing on there is the

14 agenda. The second thing in the packet is the

15 summary of the minutes from the last minute,

16 which we'll approve at some point during this

17 meeting.

18 The second or the third item in

19 there is the Public Outreach report, which

20 I'll go over in a second. And then the last

21 thing is the collection of the Subcommittee

22 reports to date. So most of you, you should

1 have received the Subcommittee reports via

2 email in the last couple of days, but again

3 hard copies, just in case you don't have them.

4 Public Outreach

5 MR. CHEN: For the Public Outreach,

6 I just wanted to give you guys an update. We

7 have been doing the town hall meetings to

8 reach out to the public, and to engage in a

9 public discourse on the issues that are before

10 the Commission.

11 We've completed three town halls so

12 far. The first was in San Jose. The second

13 was in Philadelphia, and the third was in

14 Kansas City.

15 As you'll see in the report, and

16 I'm just going to give you highlights, since

17 you guys can actually read the report later,

18 we've reached out to about 200 people total

19 over the course of these town hall meetings.

20 The first in San Jose was certainly the

21 largest, with about 125, 130 people.

22 To kind of go through some of the

1 themes that came out during those sessions, in

2 San Jose, we heard a lot about a lot of ideas

3 about leveraging federal funding to promote

4 change, and there were certainly ideas that we

5 have embraced through Race to the Top and

6 we'll continue to do so.

7 There were some themes about

8 elevating the teaching profession, and also

9 just sort of greater school autonomy and

10 having a little bit more local control over

11 budgets specifically.

12 In Philadelphia, we heard from a

13 lot of students actually, who talked about

14 non-violence in schools and how the lack of

15 resources was affecting the schools, sort of

16 climate issues, and how much it affected their

17 ability to receive a series of wraparound

18 services like counseling and so forth.

19 The other big thing that came out

20 of Philadelphia was to looking at the specific

21 needs of particular populations, including

22 English language learners, poor students and

1 such.

2 In Kansas City, the kind of main

3 things that came out of there were wanting a

4 little bit more community engagement and

5 parent outreach, certainly themes that we are

6 committed to, and sort of the reason why we're

7 doing these town halls. But they asked us to

8 be mindful of that as we move forward.

9 They also talked about competitive

10 grants and sort of how we want to use those in

11 the future.

12 ASST. SEC. ALI: And if I could

13 also yield to Linda and David, who were at the

14 San Jose town hall, and David, you were at

15 Philadelphia, if you wanted to add about the

16 themes or what you heard, what stood out the

17 most for you.

18 MEMBER DARLING-HAMMOND: The

19 California context is one of the reports that

20 was presented there was called Freefall, which

21 describes the budget situation in California.

22 So that was the context for the

1 recommendations there that came forward from

2 folks, and I think there were several themes.

3 One was, hit upon the reality that

4 we talked about in our first meeting, of

5 interstate inequity, because California is one

6 of the lowest-spending states as kind of a

7 proportion of its wealth, and with cost of

8 living differentials.

9 So I think the plight of high needs

10 school districts was well-represented in the

11 comments that were made. But the interstate

12 inequities were also talked about at some

13 length, because there's quite a big spread in

14 funding differentials between rich and poor

15 districts, and there were actually two

16 teachers there, one who spoke from the vantage

17 point of what it's like to teach in South

18 Central LA, and another who spoke about what

19 it's like to teach in Palo Alto, what the

20 differences are, the resources available. So

21 it was very vivid testimony on those things.

22 The state litigation around school

1 funding was discussed in another piece of

2 testimony, with some recommendations. I'm

3 thinking now of John Affeldt's testimony from

4 Public Advocates, for what the federal role

5 could be, to both leverage more interstate and

6 intrastate attention to equity inadequacy.

7 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Could you

8 elaborate a little more on John's?

9 MEMBER DARLING-HAMMOND: Yes, and I

10 think probably we have that testimony so it

11 could be shared with people. But it had to do

12 with really a conceptualization and Russlynn,

13 you may want to chime in here, a more robust

14 conception of maintenance of effort was kind

15 of one of the things that was talked about and

16 was pretty interesting, because if you think

17 about various levers that the federal

18 government could use.

19 Another would have to do with

20 formula funding for ESEA, which tends to

21 benefit states that spend more and are

22 wealthier.

1 Another piece of it had to do with

2 leverage from the state planning process that

3 goes on in ESEA for driving state plans around

4 achievement investments, but how that could be

5 used to also call for resource standards or

6 indicators, and could be used to leverage more

7 state activity, and an expectation that

8 schools that are declared underperforming or

9 failing would actually have to meet some

10 resource standards, that there would have to

11 be some measure of reasonable resource

12 standards that would be met by the state.

13 David Sciarra was there, so I don't

14 know if you can remember things that I'm

15 forgetting, and Russlynn, you may want to add

16 as well.

17 MEMBER SCIARRA: I think that what

18 John was talking about was in general, trying

19 to set some metrics and some parameters for

20 states, in terms of both maintenance of effort

21 and incentivizing states to do a better job in

22 their finance systems, to ensure more adequate

1 and equitable funding across districts and

2 states, and his testimony and statements talk

3 a little bit more in detail about that.

4 In addition to what Stephen and

5 Linda said, the California situation struck me

6 as very dire, particularly because there's a

7 lot of description about how the funding

8 system has really sunk in recent years, and

9 this latest, these recent rounds of budget

10 cuts, we heard a lot of testimony about the

11 impact of the budget cuts, particularly on

12 high needs districts.

13 I thought the -- I would recommend

14 to people reading the bookend testimony of the

15 two teachers, one in LAUSD and the fellow from

16 Palo Alto. One thing I want to mention about

17 Palo Alto too was, that struck me, was how

18 much money they raised privately, off the

19 formula, to supplement what is already a

20 wealthy, a fairly wealthy, well-resourced

21 school system. They're raising a lot of money

22 basically off formula.

1 So that was what I came away with

2 with California. I can mention a bit about

3 Pennsylvania, unless you --

4 MEMBER DARLING-HAMMOND: I just

5 want to add a little bit onto that. There are

6 now schools in places like Palo Alto, which is

7 a wealthy district, where the expectation that

8 parents will donate $5,000 a child for the

9 course of the year is stated when you go

10 through the, you know, back to school, and

11 they're pretty much doing that.

12 Just around that time, Beverly

13 Hills set a target to raise a million dollars

14 in one week. I think they met that target,

15 whereas in places like LAUSD and Oakland and

16 other places, which this is a state that

17 spends way, way below the average, and these

18 are districts that spend below the state

19 average with high need kids.

20 So these are places where, you

21 know, art and music and PE and libraries and

22 librarians and nurses went a long time ago.

1 Those were cut and gone from these schools a

2 long time ago, and class sizes are 40 or 50,

3 in some cases, at the high school level,

4 etcetera, and where there aren't enough desks

5 for kids to sit in, not enough textbooks for

6 them to have a textbook that they could take

7 home.

8 So the east coast-west coast thing

9 also kind of, you know, the differentials

10 across the country, and then the differentials

11 within the state were very vividly portrayed,

12 with this added piece of the fact that

13 wealthier parents now can donate to their

14 public schools, to make them more reasonably

15 funded.

16 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: But, I mean,

17 that's not a problem, is it, because I can

18 take my Section 8 housing voucher and move to

19 Beverly Hills, right? Yes, okay.

20 MEMBER DARLING-HAMMOND: Sure you

21 will.

22 MEMBER SCIARRA: Pennsylvania.

1 Pennsylvania was actually a very -- I think

2 Congressman Fattah will be here and talk about

3 it. The situation in Pennsylvania now is

4 extremely serious, because what we heard,

5 Pennsylvania has had a real problem with

6 school funding for a long, long time, but has

7 managed over the last six or eight years, with

8 a lot of effort, to actually put a bit of a

9 school funding formula in, and then over a

10 couple of years start to put more money in,

11 targeted to high needs rural and urban

12 districts across the state.

13 They're now faced with essentially

14 a budget that would wipe out all of the gains

15 that they've made in four or five years,

16 incremental gains, in one fell swoop. Very

17 substantial budget cuts. They're looking at

18 doing away with full day kindergarten, going

19 back to half day or even eliminating

20 kindergarten.

21 There's a whole litany of pre-K

22 money that had been put in. So a whole, the

1 whole effort that had been made in

2 Pennsylvania, to get the legislature and the

3 executive to come up with a better financing

4 system, and to actually incrementally improve

5 the distribution of resources to higher needs

6 districts in the state, was really being

7 undone right now in Harrisburg, and it looks

8 like that's going to happen.

9 So that again to me brought up the

10 issue of the federal role, and what the

11 federal government needs to do, particularly

12 in light of states that are now -- that

13 weren't doing very well to begin with, but are

14 now also scaling back their commitment, while

15 at the same time, the federal government is

16 putting money into the states.

17 So Pennsylvania's situation, I

18 thought, was you know, a difficult one, and

19 one that was disheartening, to put it to

20 least, because I know personally all the

21 effort that went in over many years to try to

22 get it -- to get more resources targeted in

1 high needs districts, to programs that are

2 important, and now to see that being undone

3 is, as I said, disheartening.

4 ASST. SEC. ALI: I'll just add that

5 I thought certainly across the board we saw

6 this sobering reality of these very different

7 budget times. I think folks have dealt with

8 crises before, and they're used to that. This

9 recent history has taken it to a whole other

10 level for them, and they are calling for help

11 on what to do, given the reality, right.

12 So as I heard this, I often thought

13 about our own tension, because we have to do

14 something now, given the reality, with no new

15 money coming down the pike, while losing our

16 eye on the prize of ensuring that the country

17 works to not reduce the pot so much that it's

18 far too small to begin with.

19 So that kind of short-term and

20 long-term vision on how to respond. I was

21 also reminded of the no matter what, poor kids

22 and kids of color, even when they have

1 programs earmarked for them, like categoricals

2 in California, those funds get cut the most in

3 these times.

4 So how do we ensure that what we

5 call for is preserved no matter what, because

6 if something like a categorical, unintended,

7 supposed to stay preserved, but because it's

8 the only pot that's somewhat discretionary and

9 a statutory structure that constrains hands,

10 it's the pot that gets attacked. How do we

11 ensure that that doesn't happen, moving

12 forward?

13 The parent contribution piece was

14 also something that came up several times,

15 whether overtly or just as people were telling

16 their stories. That is also something that I

17 think we need to wrestle with as a Commission

18 that came up last time when we met.

19 I will tell you in, in our

20 investigations, in our comparability

21 investigations within the Office for Civil

22 Rights, this is coming up all the time, and

1 indeed is a tension. How can you tell people

2 that they cannot or should not to their

3 schools? Nobody would argue that you should.

4 That said, what is the role, both

5 in knowing where these dollars are, because

6 but for deep level investigations or the kinds

7 of anecdotal testimonies we're hearing, I'm

8 not sure we would know.

9 So a kind of spirit of transparency

10 that tells us as a country how far those local

11 contributions are contributing to the divide,

12 and not just -- it's also foundations,

13 etcetera. It's not just parent contributions.

14 Then the folks are very hungry to

15 do something now, and how we seize upon that

16 sense of urgency, but also given the

17 parameters of not just the budget constraints,

18 but also the timing of where we are, given the

19 concurrent resolution and this

20 administration's charge, and Carmel, our

21 Assistant Secretary for OPEPD and Budget will

22 know this more than anybody.

1 How do we respond with a sense of

2 urgency, but also meet the constraints that we

3 have now? For example, this idea of

4 competitive and influencing Race to the Top

5 came up a few times. Now that was also before

6 we had final decisions on the budget. Now

7 that those things have happened, how do we

8 respond but keep our eye on the very near

9 future moving forward, when we have new

10 opportunities?

11 The maintenance of effort piece.

12 Linda, I don't want us to loose track of that.

13 That came up quite a bit, and it seems like

14 potentially a good lever.

15 So all that to say that while we

16 certainly heard big blue sky on vision, we

17 also heard a very, very sobering reality. Our

18 charge, I think, is to ensure that we think

19 about all of the levers that we have within

20 our disposal, to try and move this agenda and

21 not just one.

22 I was a little bit concerned by the

1 focus, by both the public testimony and those

2 that came to present, on Title I and ESEA,

3 both because we also heard about what didn't

4 work. While we heard very strong proposals

5 from people like John Affeldt, and things like

6 the comparability, closing the comparability

7 loophole with Cindy Brown, you know more than

8 anyone and that's certainly part of the

9 Secretary's blueprint for reauthorization, we

10 also heard from folks like John Rockler, that

11 reminded us of the history, when we incented,

12 tried to incent in Title I with preconditions,

13 movement in this regard, that didn't yield the

14 kind of results that we wanted.

15 So it was a nice balance, I think,

16 a historical balance on preconditions, what

17 they can do and what they can't do, and it was

18 a reminder to me that focusing so much on

19 ESEA, not that it's not hugely important, but

20 that we also have a real responsibility to

21 think through other levers that haven't been

22 tried before.

1 MR. CHEN: So we, a couple of

2 things just to wrap up. The reports that you

3 have here are mostly a summary of the public

4 comment. As Linda mentioned, we had received

5 testimony from several speakers at each of

6 these sites, and we'll have all of that

7 testimony up on our website for you all to

8 access.

9 Looking ahead, we've got our last

10 town hall scheduled for June 8th in Dallas,

11 and then we are doing a series of community

12 conversations through the month of June.

13 We'll be in Boston, we'll be in the

14 Mississippi Delta.

15 We're planning on being up in

16 Milwaukee, and we've got another location or

17 two to be determined. So we'll keep you

18 posted through our website.

19 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Let me make one

20 more comment here. I think what I propose we

21 do is create a, sort of a Google document or a

22 list or something, so that every member of the

1 Commission can suggest people or groups to

2 whom we could write and solicit views, either

3 on general or on particular questions that you

4 have.

5 Because I think that in addition to

6 the town hall meetings, and in addition to

7 whatever just comes in over the transom from

8 interested folks, if there are other experts

9 or leaders, NGOs, that you believe we ought to

10 hear from, Stephen will organize a way so that

11 everybody can do that.

12 And when you suggest somebody to

13 whom we should write, if you want to be

14 particular about the subject area you'd like

15 to hear from them on, teaching or finance or

16 you get the idea, then that would be helpful,

17 I'm sure, to them when we send the letter,

18 okay. So Stephen will give folks more detail

19 about how to do that, when it's worked out.

20 Should we do funding? Want to say

21 a little something about funding or --

22 (Off mic comment.)

1 Funding and Staffing for Commission Work

2 MR. CHEN: So as we mentioned

3 before, we are starting fund-raising efforts

4 in order to bring in some more resources,

5 principally so we can bring in some more

6 staffing. We wanted to bring in folks to help

7 us do some of this research in pulling

8 together some of the information that Chris

9 was talking about, but also to have a

10 professional writer on board to help us

11 actually flesh out the ideas that we've been

12 getting to.

13 So we just wanted to let you know

14 that we are moving in that direction. Funds

15 are starting to come in. We have some time

16 actually set aside in our closed session to

17 talk in greater detail, but overall, we just

18 sort of wanted everyone to know that that's

19 kind of some of the steps that we're moving

20 towards.

21 ASST. SEC. ALI: Let me also add,

22 sorry. Let me also add that moving forward,

1 to continue the kind of input we're hearing

2 from the public, both through the community

3 conversations, but also we will have

4 individuals come to testify at the next

5 Commission meeting as well, and would love

6 your ideas for ways to get the other kinds of

7 input that we need to hear.

8 Certainly, we have invited the

9 public to send us materials to come and speak

10 during the open sessions at the Commission

11 meetings. But we also ought to continue to

12 think about ways to make sure that you all

13 have the information that you need.

14 Stephen will continue to send you

15 research, and we will continue to help

16 summarize some of that. But please, moving

17 forward, make sure that both as you're hearing

18 things out in the field and if you're hungry

19 for information, you let us know.

20 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Also, I think as

21 we talk about the content of the report and we

22 come to particular sections, if you have in

1 your mind an idea of somebody who could tell

2 us about an example that would be useful to

3 put in a box or to put in an appendix, or you

4 know about a charter school or you know about

5 a partnership somewhere, you know about a

6 professional development program of some sort,

7 or you know, that would be really helpful.

8 Because I think to punch up the

9 report, the more examples we can pull in that

10 will give it some life and also give people a

11 sense that there's real possibilities,

12 existence proofs, if you will, for some of the

13 things we're going to talk about, that would

14 be, as we say in my neighborhood, hecka cool.

15 So any other questions or comments

16 about the public outreach?

17 (No response.)

18 School Finance Issues

19 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Ready to move to a

20 general discussion about finance? Stephen,

21 did you want a couple of people, that they be

22 tapped to say something?

1 MR. CHEN: You can start it out.

2 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Okay, good. I

3 mean just to understand, what we wanted to do

4 is spend a chunk of time particularly drawing

5 upon some of the expertise among members of

6 the Commission, to talk in more detail about

7 the issues surrounding school finance,

8 federal, state and local, and to try to start

9 developing more of the themes that we want to

10 speak to.

11 Obviously, here is also a place

12 where the folks who are working on Section 3

13 will have a lot to contribute. But --

14 CO-CHAIR HASTINGS: One of the

15 topics that I wrestle with and would love to

16 get some insight from all of you on are the

17 macropolitics around sustainable funding

18 streams.

19 In particular, I'm influenced

20 because 15 years ago, I spent a bunch of time

21 with Jack Coons in the Berkeley Law

22 Department, who had fought the seminal equity

1 battle in California about 40 years ago now,

2 and his view of it was, by doing essentially

3 it was a mandatory property tax-sharing, money

4 all flows through the state system, that that

5 had been substantially responsible for the

6 California anti-tax revolt, Prop 13, Gann

7 limit, other things, and that equity focus

8 reduced the general voters' willingness to tax

9 themselves so substantially, that California

10 had fallen from one of the highest-funded

11 systems to middle of the pack to lowest.

12 It's still today the legacy of

13 that, despite the Palo Alto example, which is

14 true. But in California there's three or four

15 percent of the kids in these so-called basic

16 aid districts.

17 If you put them to the side, the

18 three or four percent of the kids, I believe

19 California is the most equitable state in the

20 nation, in terms of inter-district funding,

21 and Hawaii might be a special case because of

22 its single district stuff.

1 But putting that to the side,

2 California does not have the classic Savage in

3 quality property tax disparity, and yet it has

4 all the other problems that every state does,

5 in terms of huge achievement gaps.

6 So it worries me that equity in

7 funding, or even compensatory, like weighted

8 student formula, will in fact either backfire

9 with voters in other states that do that, or

10 in general fundamentally not solve the issue,

11 which may not be around funding, but may be

12 around delivery and, you know, a lot of other

13 factors.

14 I know many of you have thought

15 about this macrowrestle, so I'd love to get

16 your view on that.

17 MEMBER REBELL: Okay, thank you.

18 You're quite right, Reed, that California has

19 been an incredible disappointment

20 historically, from the viewpoint of those who

21 have been following fiscal equity litigations

22 in particular, because Serrano was the

1 granddaddy of the fiscal equity cases, that

2 since that time have taken place in 44 other

3 states.

4 It is quite sobering to have to

5 point to the first example, where we got this

6 rousing retort to the U.S. Supreme Court, that

7 if you're not going to deal with equity issues

8 and funding from the federal level, the states

9 will take it on.

10 California told the U.S. Supreme

11 Court that we're going to interpret our equal

12 protection clause to be strong, pro-children

13 and all, and this is the result many years

14 later.

15 But if I may, what I would like to

16 stick in there, I think what we've learned in

17 some of the other states, and I know, John

18 Affeldt, you mentioned in many other of the

19 attorneys in California now, are trying to

20 push this through the California courts,

21 California never had an inadequacy case.

22 That's what we've had as the predominant

1 movement around the country since 1989.

2 We've had it in New York and many

3 other states, and what adequacy does obviously

4 is say yes, we need fairness, but we also need

5 to pay attention to the base, to what is the

6 core concept of a sound basic education, a

7 thorough and efficient education, whatever the

8 concept is.

9 So far, the California Supreme

10 Court has refused to do that. They have

11 language in the second Serrano decision, that

12 specifically says we have not said anything

13 about adequacy, and our decree is equity. We

14 don't care how low the funding goes. They

15 accepted this. They said as long as it's

16 equitable, even if it's inadequate it's okay.

17 Well that's just not acceptable,

18 and I think this is the reason why I and a

19 number of others have been pushing this

20 Commission, that the adequacy battle is not

21 over, and I don't know that we can --

22 Yes, I'm all for more efficient

1 ways of using money, especially today, cost-

2 effectiveness, and I'd like to speak with that

3 and I've been doing some work with Karen in

4 Syracuse, that I think we can have some good

5 examples of that.

6 But we can't lose sight of the fact

7 that whether your funding is substantially

8 local in orientation or state-wide in

9 orientation, we have to combine the equity

10 principle with some base concept of what all

11 kids need for a quality education.

12 So it's not that equity leads to

13 lack of funding, and therefore, we really have

14 to ring our hands. It's that equity calls for

15 adequacy as a compliment and the two have to

16 go together.

17 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Can I suggest that

18 if we don't catch your hand or if you want to

19 speak, just put your tent card up like that?

20 Okay.

21 MEMBER DARLING-HAMMOND: I think

22 the point is well-taken that, you know, an

1 equity focus alone is a challenge. There's

2 also the question about how money comes to

3 districts. So in California now, the part

4 that's equalized is this foundation piece, and

5 everybody gets around, somewhere around $6,000

6 a pupil in the foundation piece.

7 If you take off the top five

8 percent of districts, though, the ones that

9 you were talking about, the range is from

10 6,000 to $17,000. There's still a big range,

11 and that has come about with parcel taxes from

12 different communities that can afford them on

13 top of that base; categorical aid that the

14 legislature has added.

15 Quite often, interestingly taken

16 advantage of by the wealthier districts,

17 because if you are getting money to support

18 half a counselor, you have to have enough

19 money in your, you know, from the categorical,

20 you have to have enough money in your budget

21 to support the other half or you can't use

22 that categorical.

1 But it ends up causing districts

2 also to spend money unwisely, because you

3 can't then put that money into the things you

4 might most need to put it into, like

5 reasonable teacher's salaries so you could

6 recruit and retain teachers or working

7 conditions. It goes into all these little 500

8 pots of money.

9 So I think it's just important for

10 us to keep on the table, both the question

11 about adequacy and equity, and also the ways

12 in which revenues flow to districts, and

13 whether those allow thoughtful spending, or

14 whether they force people to get engaged in

15 what ends up often being wasteful spending or

16 inefficient spending or ineffective spending

17 around the goal of raising student achievement

18 and ensuring that the district can operate

19 well.

20 MEMBER MORIAL: First of all, thank

21 you. I'm sorry I missed the first meeting. I

22 just wanted to, in respond to Reed, really

1 suggest that this Commission, because it's

2 been convened, has a chance at this point in

3 time to speak very forcefully to this issue.

4 I think that the experiences of

5 California many generations ago should be

6 instructive. But we should not be unmindful

7 of where we sit, coming out of a great

8 recession, with a greater awareness today

9 about the threat that the achievement gap

10 places on future American economic

11 competitiveness.

12 The changing demographics of the

13 country, the global landscape, where other

14 nations have emphasized skills training and

15 education and are rising, this is a time of

16 very important opportunity for us. I think to

17 speak to both adequacy and to equity, and not

18 get to be mindful of politics, but not bogged

19 down in it.

20 Because politicians have to be

21 pushed, and they've got to be educated and

22 they've got to be informed. I think we need

1 to be mindful of the political landscape, but

2 not get caught in an election cycle mentality,

3 and not be so bogged down in the here and now

4 that we can't state with some moral force

5 what, on this issue, is sort of a blueprint

6 for the nation in the 21st century.

7 This is a very different time.

8 There's also, I think, a greater broad

9 interest in education reform in the nation

10 today than there was 15 or 20. There's always

11 been those, you know, people who have been

12 passionate about it, but there's a greater

13 broad interest, I think, in what this might

14 look like.

15 So I think the adequacy and the

16 equity questions ought to be responded to.

17 Secondly, I think financing, the financing

18 systems are critical to equity and adequacy.

19 But I also think that there are public

20 policies, like early childhood education, that

21 help achieve equitable outcomes, and that

22 money is important.

1 You know, I'm in discussions where

2 people say "money isn't important," and then

3 you're in discussions where people say "money

4 is everything." Well, money is important, but

5 money isn't everything. I really feel we have

6 an opportunity to speak to this, and be

7 instructed by the past, but recognize that

8 we're in a different time.

9 The best role of a commission, a

10 governmental commission, an advisory

11 commission, is to speak to the long-term,

12 because the day-to-day political process of

13 colleagues who serve in the government and in

14 the political branch, restricts sometimes

15 their ability to look far ahead. It's just a

16 reality check.

17 We're not encumbered by that.

18 We're not -- we have to be mindful of it and

19 thoughtful of it. But I do think we have a

20 very, very important opportunity here, which I

21 hope we write not only a good report, but we

22 think about practical short-term

1 recommendations, long-term recommendations, an

2 also how once this report is confected, we can

3 really use it as a document that's going to

4 influence public policy and public thinking.

5 So I think it's a moment in time

6 that we shouldn't and can't miss.

7 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Marc, could you

8 say -- two things. I assume when you say that

9 money is important but it's not the only thing

10 that's important, that you'd like the report

11 to be framed that way, to reflect that? Okay.

12 But as a former elected official, we've got a

13 couple of electeds or former electeds on the

14 Commission.

15 Could you speak to the backlash

16 issue that Reed spoke about, and the

17 possibility that an emphasis on equity

18 undermines the possibility for broad political

20 MEMBER MORIAL: I always -- it

21 certainly -- it does, but it doesn't, because

22 America's changed. The politics of the Nation

1 have changed, the problems of the nation have

2 changed, and there's a much greater

3 understanding.

4 The last call I took today was a

5 call from someone who is trying to fill

6 technology jobs. She's a recruiter. She

7 called me. I'm looking for poeple. Find me

8 some people. I'm having one dickens of a

9 time. Can you find me some people? Can you

10 connect me with some people who can do this?

11 So here's a person in business, and

12 I said well you know, she said this is a

13 problem out here. Maybe we don't have the

14 pipeline. Maybe we haven't trained the

15 people. Maybe enough people aren't there to

16 fill the jobs, and those that do are in such

17 high demand they can demand any price.

18 I really think that the backlash,

19 the political backlash is important. But we

20 have to take the bull by the horns and frame

21 this around economic competitiveness. If you

22 don't fix this problem with the changing

1 demographics, black and brown children are

2 going to half of high school -- black, brown,

3 Asian and Native American children are going

4 to be half of the high school graduates by

5 2018.

6 Two-thirds of the new families

7 formed between now and 2025 are going to be

8 from communities of color. If those, if that

9 community is left behind, it's going to be a

10 total drag on the economy. We have to speak

11 to the now. I think that is really the issue.

12 But you know, I think in

13 California, it's striking that some of you

14 have just said "Look. We used to be best.

15 Now after the backlash, we not be the best or

16 we're not the best." You know, what is -- the

17 effect of that is that California, that

18 property tax backlash is one of the creators

19 of California's current economic or fiscal

20 problems and fiscal deadlocks.

21 So part of it is saying yes, okay.

22 Let's talk about it. You want to talk about

1 Proposition, what was it, 13?

2 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Thirteen.

3 MEMBER MORIAL: Proposition 13.

4 Let's talk about what it wrought. Let's talk

5 about the fruit of the tree. I mean I really

6 think that too often, I'm not -- I think on

7 the equity question and backlash, there is a

8 chorus in this country than when you raise the

9 term "equity" and when you raise the term

10 "equality," they are going to yell no matter

11 what.

12 I think they have to be confronted

13 with what the higher ground is, American

14 economic competitiveness. You know, I'm

15 struck by that, how that argument resonates.

16 When it's tied to, it's not just my child,

17 your child, whether my child makes it, your

18 child makes it, but whether we as a nation are

19 going to be able to compete.

20 So we have to confront it, but I

21 think your concerns are real, in that if this

22 is all about we need to just make the

1 education system more equitable, because being

2 more equitable is an important value, yes,

3 we're going to get a lot of --

4 But if we say is equity is part of

5 the foundation for American economic

6 competitiveness, and for us to build the type

7 of 21st century workforce we need to sustain

8 GDP growth, then I think we can frame this in

9 a very different way. I really think that's

10 the key, is how we frame this conversation

11 with elected --

12 Elected officials are, you know, I

13 can speak as a former -- they're scared of the

14 next election. They're scared of being

15 criticized. They have to raise a whole lot of

16 money. But one of the things you have at the

17 state level with terms limits is you're not

18 just talking to today's elected officials;

19 you're talking about the tomorrows.

20 Because some of these folks who are

21 here today are going to be gone in four, six,

22 eight to ten years. So it's a frame -- we

1 have to be mindful of it, but I think it's how

2 we frame it and I think how we lay out the

3 evidence. I also think that for those that

4 argue against equity, I think that there ought

5 to be a heavy dose of global comparisons.

6 You know, look. If you look at the

7 numbers and you look at spending on education

8 as a percentage of GDP, you know, where should

9 we benchmark ourselves, you know, if we want

10 to be first? I don't know where we're

11 benchmarked now. I know we're not first, I

12 know we're not last.

13 But by drawing a picture of where

14 the United States is today, vis-á-vis other

15 nations, is I think a very important part of

16 helping people to understand. You know, is it

17 wrapping ourselves a little bit in the flag?

18 Yes, a little bit of what, quote you know,

19 patriotism is about education? We've got to

20 do that, and I think we've got to be mindful

21 of how we frame it.

22 But I don't think we should back

1 off of speaking very squarely about what the

2 nation needs to do, what it should do. The

3 other thing I'd make one other comment about,

4 sort of the problems at the state level and

5 the local level, one of my concerns is not

6 just what happens in the instant, where money

7 is tight and cutbacks are real, but that you

8 have an alteration of priorities and formulas,

9 such that when things get better, right,

10 funding stays low.

11 One of the things that local

12 elected officials have said "Look. You know,

13 we're mindful of today and now, but you should

14 prioritize education." But then number two,

15 you shouldn't take steps today that are going

16 to balkanize funding when the economy comes

17 back, when your tax revenues rise again.

18 We have the opportunity to think in

19 that fashion, and create some instruction in

20 that fashion, because a lot of states and

21 cities will put together a baseline one-year

22 budget and five-year projections.

1 You know, if you build these

2 reductions into a long term projection, when

3 money arises, you're going to have some

4 politician that's going to say "Cut taxes, cut

5 taxes." Money rises. They're going to say

6 what's the latest, hottest sort of politically

7 sexiest program I want to put money at, and

8 they're going to put money towards that.

9 So I think we should keep our mind

10 on some long-term components of that too.

11 MEMBER CASSERLY: Yes, just a brief

12 comment. I'd like to associate myself with

13 Marc's comments. But I do think we ought to

14 have some place in the final report, somewhere

15 where we speak directly to the concerns of

16 people who created the backlash, because the

17 backlash, whether it's on finance, whether

18 it's on desegregation, whether it's on all

19 kinds of things that have occurred over the

20 last 40 to 60 years in education, those

21 backlash forces are real.

22 We ought to find a language that is

1 able to speak to whatever their concerns are,

2 however real or imagined.

3 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Keep going; I'm

4 taking dictation.

5 MEMBER CASSERLY: That was about

6 all I had. I think all of this can probably

7 imagine or list the concerns that people who

8 push back on issues of equity and adequacy

9 articulate, as justification for pushing back

10 against arguments for equity and adequacy.

11 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: If I had one

12 question, it's how you would take them on.

13 MEMBER CASSERLY: Well, I'm not

14 part of the backlash, so I'm not sure that

15 money doesn't matter, or money matters for me

16 but not for you. I don't know.

17 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: So taxes are too

18 high.

19 MEMBER CASSERLY: Yes. I pay

20 enough taxes already, you know. I have a

21 right to send my kid wherever I want to send

22 them. I have the right to spend however much

1 money I want to spend in support of my kid,

2 etcetera, etcetera.

3 I think, with a little bit of time,

4 we can probably concoct 10 or 12 or so such

5 arguments. But I think our report ought to

6 directly address those concerns, so it doesn't

7 appear that we either ignored them or think

8 that they're unimportant, or that people won't

9 say them, no matter what the report suggests.

10 I don't know if anybody agrees with that or

11 not.

12 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Well, the reason I

13 was pressing you, I suppose, is there's a

14 little bit of selection bias in the

15 composition of this Commission. We're all

16 people who presumably think that there are

17 problems with the equity and excellence in the

18 American education system.

19 The folks who represent various

20 portions of the backlash or the resistance to

21 this theme, I think it's non-trivial figuring

22 out what the real set of motivations are. Not

1 the caricatures of the motivations, but or to

2 put it differently, what's the evidence or the

3 argument that really will be persuasive.

4 So the one concrete thing I've

5 heard thus far really is thinking about what

6 it would mean to have a patriotic education

7 policy. What do we need for competitiveness,

8 what do we need for full citizenship, and that

9 perhaps folks in the backlash have, disagree

10 with that, disagree as to what's required for

11 it to have a patriotic education policy, or to

12 be a full citizen. I'm not sure.

13 MEMBER CASSERLY: Yes. I'm not

14 sure either. I mean there's -- part of this,

15 I think, at least with a certain segment of

16 the population that basically -- and you saw

17 with the insistence on the President's birth

18 certificate controversy, where some people see

19 themselves as more American than others.

20 There are implications for that thinking in

21 resource distribution.

22 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: So diversity can

1 be in tension with equity, the politics of

2 equity.

3 MEMBER CASSERLY: With the politics

4 of it, right.

5 ASST. SEC. ALI: Well, but I also

6 -- I mean in California, we're talking about

7 backlash that originated in California, which

8 is probably a very different population than

9 the one that you've just referred to, right.

10 MEMBER CASSERLY: Yes. I'm

11 speaking in more global terms.

12 ASST. SEC. ALI: So but if the most

13 liberal, right, if the perception is the most

14 liberal and the backlash was taxpayers, right,

15 the backlash was the public. So I think what

16 worries me a little bit is I don't, I think

17 almost even using backlash as language

18 marginalizes it.

19 It is actually a belief system that

20 despite all of the righteous reasons for why

21 Serrano was able to -- Michael, your history

22 post-Supreme Court and California's leadership

1 as the country; still, it's people over time

2 because the pie felt small and lots of other

3 reasons that we've talked about, retreated

4 from --

5 MEMBER CASSERLY: I agree with that

6 thrust. I was just trying to --

7 (Simultaneous speaking.)

8 ASST. SEC. ALI: Yes, yes, yes.

9 MEMBER MORIAL: Yes. I was going

10 to add something.

11 ASST. SEC. ALI: So I just --

12 right. How we struggle through that and

13 confront it, when these are all very, very

14 real reasons for the effect of the rollback.

15 (Off mic comments.)

16 ASST. SEC. ALI: (off mic) I'm not

17 sure we're going to get it --, like how we're

18 going to solve people's altruistic natures

19 going through that. I also think there's a

20 deep distrust that spending more money will

21 make a difference, on any level, at any kind

22 of government piece.

1 So we have to confront that,

2 because there's huge evidence that people,

3 that school districts, within states and

4 across states, spend very different amounts of

5 money to get very different levels of success,

6 and that there are examples of very successful

7 schools serving kids, concentrations of kids

8 in high poverty with English language learners

9 who spend $8,000 a pupil, and examples of

10 horrible schools that spend $25,000 a pupil.

11 Part of this equity-excellence

12 effort has to be about promoting public

13 confidence that those dollars are being used

14 well, and investing to understand how to begin

15 to describe that.

16 So when people talk about equity

17 and adequacy in these settings, I think we

18 can't underestimate the lack of knowledge and

19 understanding around these issues, at the

20 state level and at the individual level.

21 So people don't know what we mean

22 by adequacy, they don't know what we mean by

1 equity. They don't know that spending $8,000

2 a pupil or 9,000 is what it's up to in

3 California, is at the lowest level. We see it

4 and then we count it out. But these are not

5 numbers that are part of the water, in terms

6 of what people talk about.

7 So there's a huge piece of

8 transparency, education and research that has

9 to go around how dollars need to be used ell,

10 and underlying that is that the structures

11 that undergird education and drive spending in

12 education are broken right now, just in the

13 same way that, you know, we had General Motors

14 broken.

15 So there's a deep, you know, and

16 escalating spending over time, all sorts of

17 things tied up in structures that aren't,

18 you're not able to access to so on.

19 So that, I believe, is a deep part

20 of why would I want to give more money to a

21 system that is not consistently generating

22 results, even if I did care deeply, which we

1 don't have to assume everyone does, you know,

2 about the kids that are in the highest levels

3 of poverty.

4 So I think we need to do a much

5 better job showcasing places that spend, you

6 know, spend well and get great results, and we

7 need to rebuild confidence that by investing

8 in kids in poverty, we do get results.

9 But we do so by doing the following

10 kinds of things, and using dollars in these

11 ways, and we need to promote metrics and we

12 need to do it in ways that really get there,

13 and not try to make people be good-hearted,

14 but just in some senses shame them too.

15 I mean, you know, we start putting

16 these things out, and you know, after a while,

17 it will become problematic, that there's this

18 kind of differential in results, stemming from

19 the use of resources. Which also gets to

20 thinking differently about how we create

21 accountability around the use of resources.

22 It's not so much about defining

1 inputs, because as Linda was saying, that can

2 lead to some very distorted sorts of changes.

3 But just investing all, and I'm going to talk

4 about special ed if it kills me today. But if

5 we continue to measure and force particular

6 inputs, we will end up with a system that

7 grows exponentially, and where there isn't

8 accountability for results.

9 So we've got to invest in really

10 understanding results in a sophisticated way,

11 which we're going to do with core standards,

12 but then beginning to link that down, all the

13 way down to the individual student level, so

14 we know what kind of investment in students

15 with which kinds of needs we need to make, to

16 get kids from where they begin to where we

17 want them to end up.

18 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: I have Reed,

19 Carmel, Sandra and Cindy, was yours up? No,

20 Randi. Okay. So Carmel and then Sandra.

21 ASST. SEC. MARTIN: I pretty much

22 wanted to say what Karen said. I mean I think

1 that there's some people who the backlash

2 comes from, them thinking some people are more

3 American than others, because of really evil

4 thinking. But you know, I have family members

5 who live in Texas and New Jersey, where these

6 school finance debates have been really

7 heated. They're like good, well-intentioned

8 people and they're part of the backlash, and

9 I've been sort of fighting with them for 20

10 years.

11 I think part of it is exactly what

12 Karen said, that it's -- that they think well,

13 if we just put this perception, particularly

14 in, you know, urban large, large urban, low-

15 income places, that success is not possible.

16 So yes, I would take half my tax dollars and

17 send it over there if I thought it would do

18 any good. But I don't believe it would do any

19 good.

20 So I do think that part of the job

21 of the Commission, and this gets back to

22 something Chris said, is showing that success

1 is possible, that resources do matter when

2 they're used well. Then if there's ways that

3 we had constructive recommendations for how we

4 could not only change the financing systems,

5 but also ensure the accountability, as Karen

6 was describing, I think that would be even

7 more powerful than saying change the financing

8 system, and being agnostic about results.

9 I do think that Marc has a point,

10 though, that there could be some policies

11 where we would say that if you don't tackle

12 this thing, then the chances of success are

13 very low, and I think early learning is

14 definitely one of those policies, that we

15 can't like design the perfect education system

16 in this report.

17 But we could say that here are

18 things where the evidence shows us that if we

19 don't tackle them, then you can keep throwing

20 money into the system, but you're not going to

21 get the outcomes that you want. So I guess

22 that's where I might disagree with Karen a

1 little bit.

2 Like I do think some inputs are

3 more important than others. I would define

4 college and career-ready standards as an

5 input, and if you don't have that in place,

6 then you can throw all the money you want into

7 constructing a schoolhouse and what the

8 activities in the schoolhouse, but they won't

9 -- their chances of success.

10 They might be successful anyway if

11 they have really great teachers in them, but

12 their chances of success won't be good. I

13 would argue that some policies around the

14 teaching profession, if we don't tackle sort

15 of teacher preparation in a more aggressive

16 way, can we really, no matter how much money

17 we throw into the system, can we really expect

18 good results.

19 So it seems like if we could get a

20 combination of maybe what a model school

21 finance systems looks like, some key

22 components that are inputs, that we see as

1 foundational, that must be in place before you

2 start getting real accountability for the

3 results. But then the real important part is

4 that it's not just the financing system, but

5 the accountability for the financing system,

6 as Karen described it.

7 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: I'm not sure how

8 we could design a perfect system, this

9 Commission. If only we had until February.

10 Sandra?

11 MEMBER DUNGEE GLENN: Yes. I

12 wanted to piggyback on some comments that Marc

13 made and that Karen made, and to Marc's point

14 about this issue of highlighting the economic

15 imperative of this, I think it's very

16 important.

17 This came out at our first session

18 as well, that making this more than just

19 obviously moral, a moral argument or

20 altruistic, but that it really, if we do not

21 get it right about investments in education,

22 equitable investments and making sure we don't

1 write off half of our young people, the next

2 generation if you would, it's going to

3 threaten the economic livelihood of this

4 country, and also threaten the quality of life

5 of all of us.

6 I don't think there's enough -- I

7 don't think we could emphasize that point too

8 much, because I think part of what many people

9 believe is that it's not about me. It's not

10 going to touch me, I don't have children in

11 school, you know. I'm a grandparent or

12 whatever.

13 But I think we really have to

14 showcase the fact the enormity of the problem

15 and the number of young people, the sheer

16 numbers of young people that this is

17 impacting, and how that is going to really

18 impact us nationally. I think that's a piece

19 of it.

20 The other part, to Karen's part,

21 the cynicism that is out there around the

22 spending of dollars and it not making a

1 difference. I think that goes to the point

2 about California. We can put billions of

3 dollars in education, which we do now, and

4 what people hear everyday is how it doesn't

5 work, how it's broken, what is not going to

6 make a difference.

7 That is highlighted daily in most

8 of the media that we are confronted with. So

9 I think the importance of this report, keeping

10 that link so tight between targeted

11 investments, where investments have been made

12 that have shown improved outcomes, and how

13 investments with accountability, investments

14 in proven practices, is really what we're

15 talking about, not just throwing money.

16 Money does matter. How money is

17 spent matters more, if you would, or at least

18 as much. And again, I think at every point

19 where we're making this argument about equity,

20 and obviously linking it to excellence, we

21 have to talk about how and where and in what

22 kinds of things we have seen, or we see the

1 evidence around the changing outcomes.

2 Because I do think people respond

3 when you can show something's changed.

4 Something is different; it is better. But we

5 don't, we really have not, I don't think, been

6 able to keep that as a consistent message

7 systematically. Just highlighting a school

8 here or there is insufficient. I think we

9 have to show where we can bring it to scale,

10 where it has come to scale, and is having some

11 impact.

12 So I would think those are some key

13 components that I would hope we'd be able to

14 get at in the report.

15 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Okay, Randi.

16 MEMBER WEINGARTEN: So there's been

17 a lot of conversation around the table on how

18 to actually try to frame this issue, and I

19 think what's interesting is that Marc and

20 Karen hit on something, and Sandra just

21 reinforced it.

22 But they hit on something that

1 those of that spend a lot of time in this

2 space didn't really, and I know Karen spends

3 her time in this space. But it's really

4 different than the way in which we were

5 thinking about it, which is when you close

6 your eyes and then say what is it that we want

7 kids to know and be able to do?

8 What is it that we want education

9 to be able to help kids achieve? Preparation

10 for college or preparation for life,

11 preparation for hopefully, you know, college

12 or career.

13 If we start that way, and then

14 start then with the building blocks, as

15 opposed to this is what a perfect equity

16 situation will look like, or this is what a

17 perfect state finance situation would look

18 like, and we try it -- but start with the

19 outcome of what we hope public education

20 produces for all kids in America, and then

21 have a value statement, and then kind of

22 examples of how to get there, that may be a

1 better way of going than where we were

2 initially.

3 Because all of this, you know, when

4 you start initially, and you know, I was in

5 the same place as Michael was talking. I'm

6 like okay, it can't just be equity. It has to

7 be about adequacy too, what does that mean in

8 different places? Does that mean something

9 different in New York and California?

10 Yes, of course it does, and does it

11 mean something different in other places as

12 well? Of course it does. When you then start

13 with what are the building blocks to get

14 there, you know, and does you know, does

15 property taxes work in some places but it

16 doesn't work in other places?

17 It becomes in some ways almost an

18 impossible situation for us to do in a quick

19 period of time, in terms of this is what the

20 perfect formulation looks like.

21 But if there is something about

22 this is what we want to see, and when money is

1 spent, for example, taking something that

2 Karen said, when it is spent -- or maybe it

3 was Sandra -- when it is spent well, this much

4 money spent well can produce this. But it's

5 not the money alone. It's also the

6 infrastructure. It's also the system that

7 gets set up.

8 I was struck by something that

9 Carmel said at the same time. Carmel, you've

10 changed, which is that if -- it's like on

11 teacher preparation. When teachers walk in,

12 like in Finland or Singapore and Ontario more

13 prepared, there's going to be -- it is

14 different than when they walk in less

15 prepared.

16 A district has to do much more, the

17 less prepared teachers are. The same is true

18 in terms of engagement, and in terms of what

19 -- and in terms of jobs for the future. If a

20 district has an infrastructure that enables

21 all sorts of different career path, then it's

22 going to have to spend less money on upgrading

1 that infrastructure than if a district has

2 done it bad.

3 So the variables, in terms of what

4 it cost even for something specific like

5 teacher effectiveness, it's going to be

6 different, depending upon a whole slew of

7 circumstances. So as all of you were talking,

8 Marc in particular started saying okay, this

9 is what it needs to look like.

10 We're not going to get to a

11 position of public confidence, even -- we

12 could come up with a prefect template. But if

13 really silly people or people who are not

14 well-meaning applied it, it would look

15 different and bad in one place versus another

16 place.

17 So a value system and then what

18 those things look like, may be a better way to

19 go, as opposed to the analytical way that many

20 of us who are in this space thought about.

21 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Okay. So that's

22 not good enough. So say a little bit more

1 about -- okay. So say more about the value

2 system that you would imagine.

3 MEMBER WEINGARTEN: So look. For

4 me, the value system -- I'm so glad you asked

5 that question. The value system that I

6 imagine is I start thinking about what systems

7 need to move all children. That's what I

8 start thinking about, and I've come up with,

9 and this is just in my feeble mind, I've come

10 up with four different building blocks.

11 One is quality, which is really

12 obvious, but it's the pipeline, as well as the

13 systems, the education systems themselves, and

14 this is what I mean. If the pipeline, we've

15 learned this -- well, let me do the four.

16 Quality, equity, shared

17 accountability, a reciprocal accountability

18 system, and collaboration in terms of the

19 engagement of how people have to operate

20 within and amongst themselves in an education

21 space.

22 On quality, everybody talks about

1 the human resource issues. What we've learned

2 from the countries that out-compete us, and

3 some of the systems that do well in America,

4 and we see this from the McKinsey reports and

5 we see this from other reports as well, is

6 that when the pipeline is really good, when

7 there's really -- when somebody walks into

8 teaching like they walk into medicine, then

9 it's a whole different school system and a

10 whole different experience for kids, than when

11 somebody doesn't, both collectively and

12 individually.

13 But motion in terms of -- so it's

14 the pipeline, but then it's also a teacher

15 evaluation system has to be robust, multiple

16 measures. But it has to first and foremost be

17 about continuous improvement, and when it is,

18 then the sorting mechanisms become very easy

19 to deal with.

20 When the creation of that system is

21 through this kind of test-based

22 accountability, as opposed to thinking through

1 if it's kind of test-based, as opposed to

2 thinking about knowledge and skills, we're

3 going to get back in terms of the muck and the

4 mire.

5 So I'm thinking about teacher

6 quality, as both the pipeline as well as a

7 robust evaluation system that's about

8 continuous improvement.

9 In terms of equity, the way I think

10 about equity is you have to fixate on the

11 instructional plan, and how you ensure that

12 the kids who have the least get the most, and

13 whether it is through federal intervention,

14 whether it is through what people -- whether

15 it is the adequacy-equity framework that

16 Michael so brilliantly did in New York,

17 whether it is other kinds of things, there has

18 to be an equity component, that says that all

19 kids should not be treated equally. There has

20 to be an equity for kids who have been left

21 behind.

22 So for me, it's wrap-around

1 services, it's just in time assistance, it's

2 how you focus like a laser on turning around

3 low-performing schools. But it's also about

4 how you ensure that communities have stable

5 school situations.

6 This is where I think Karen was

7 going, in terms of whole notion of

8 accountability has to be thought through

9 differently, and every time we have a top-down

10 accountability system, it does not work. Our

11 space is people-specific, relationship-driven,

12 very dynamic.

13 So if we don't figure out a

14 reciprocal accountability system that is in

15 some way self-enforcing, we will never get

16 accountability right.

17 It has to be some kind of shared

18 responsibility, and there's a bunch of

19 different places that do it now in different

20 ways. So I'm not saying that every single

21 school teacher should have the, you know,

22 should be rating every single principal. But

1 I'm saying that for even on a simple issue, if

2 teachers say these are the tools and the

3 conditions I need to do my job and they don't

4 get it, who's responsible for that?

5 If we don't create some bilateral

6 responsibility, then we're constantly in a

7 hierarchical top-down model that's not going

8 to work for all kids. The last is in all, you

9 know, in the last two years that I've been

10 looking at school systems across the country

11 and across the world, I'm not saying that

12 there isn't a role for competition. I'm not

13 walking into that.

14 What I'm saying is that when things

15 work, what you see is a real shared mission

16 and shared process for getting to that

17 mission. That's what I mean by collaboration,

18 because there's thousands of different

19 decisions that people make every single day.

20 If there -- in those districts, the districts

21 that basically have the trust to enable them

22 to work together to move an agenda.

1 So those four, when you're fixated

2 on quality, when you're fixated on equity, and

3 again, I say equity, you know, instruction and

4 engagement comes into either quality or

5 equity; when you're fixated on trying to

6 change an accountability system so it is

7 mutually reinforcing and it's not simply about

8 teachers and principals, but it's also a

9 broader community accountability system if you

10 can get there, and you use collaboration, you

11 see schools, school districts and countries.

12 I don't know if that works for you or not.

13 MEMBER BROWN: Have you seen a

14 place -- the shared accountability is really

15 interesting. Have you seen that anywhere?

16 MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Actually, I've

17 seen it in practice in the ABC School District

18 in Southern California, and I've started

19 seeing aspects of it in practice other places.

20 Like you're starting to hear -- and I see it a

21 lot in practice in business.

22 But like when people say that there

1 should be surveys that get done, you know,

2 where teachers' input is taken. But there has

3 to -- it has to be done in a very

4 deliberative, thoughtful way.

5 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: In your, as you

6 laid out these four building blocks, the

7 thumbnail statement of the vision, the goal of

8 all of this, you said, was -- you said what

9 systems are needed in order to move all

10 children.

11 So I guess I would turn that inside

12 out and say the value that you're suggesting,

13 the goal that you're suggesting is we want an

14 education system that works for each child.

15 Then these are the building blocks

16 that would be necessary to create such an

17 education system.

18 MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Right.

19 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Right, and then

20 there's another plain, I think, of issues

21 underlying your four, which I guess would be

22 finance and governance issues, I suppose?

1 MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Right, I mean

2 because governance, finance. I mean one could

3 argue --

4 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: There have to be

5 three, governance, finance, data.

6 MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Data. Well,

7 one could argue that, and I don't mean to --

8 I'm going to stop now. One could argue that,

9 you know, finance is the framing principle.

10 One could argue that governance, other people

11 argue that governance is the framing

12 principle.

13 I try to think about it in terms of

14 what happens in the connection between the

15 child and teacher, and then how you create a

16 system around that, as opposed to how you

17 create -- this is the dollars you have, and

18 this is how you mete it out.

19 But if you're thinking about a

20 school system's, what our obligation is is we

21 have to help all kids have the knowledge that

22 they need, the skills that they need, to be

1 prepared for life. So if we don't figure out

2 how we help teachers have that, we're not

3 going to help kids have that.

4 But that's not enough. So that's

5 part of the reason why I start with those four

6 broad principles. You're right; finance,

7 governance, all of that is the wherewithal to

8 get it done.

9 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: So to prepare our

10 children for life, competition, citizenship,

11 we need an education system that works for

12 each child. The building blocks of that are

13 A, B, C, D and the foundation, the

14 preconditions, the context for that would be a

15 sound finance system, the right kind of

16 governance, the right kind of data,

17 information, research, whatever. Okay.

18 Linda. I'm sorry. Oh Reed, and then Linda.

19 CO-CHAIR HASTINGS: I think I

20 certainly agree with you, that it's about how

21 do we get Americans to invest more in

22 education. So my original question on equity

1 versus adequacy, which it has been helpful to

2 hear the different responses on, is partially

3 triggered, because I feel like we're stuck in

4 an old debate.

5 This Commission, if you look at the

6 records, was originally the Equity Commission,

7 and our thoughtful leadership got "and

8 excellence" kind of inserted in there. I

9 think when we -- so if we could rename it, or

10 if I could rename it, it would be adequacy,

11 excellence and efficiency.

12 Because I'm interested in changing

13 the political dynamic, so that we invest more,

14 okay. I agree with you that equity is

15 fundamental, but I'm mostly interested in the

16 pragmatics, of how to build a political

17 consensus to increase the investment to serve

18 the children.

19 I think the adequacy lessons are

20 well-served, or children, particularly in

21 communities of color are well-served if we

22 focus on adequacy. To me, it's a much more

1 winning, embracing political framework, when

2 one talks about adequacy.

3 Randi, mostly I agree with 90

4 percent of what you said, in terms of, you

5 know, the goal of supporting teachers, because

6 that's how we change the system. The part

7 that slips in on equity, you said, those that

8 have the least get the most. This is a flavor

9 of weighted student formula.

10 You know, part of me loves the idea

11 of weighted student formula, because it's a

12 clever budgetary, you know, analytic thing,

13 and you may not have meant it in that way.

14 But I think in general, again when

15 we do the "have the least gets the most," and

16 I'm not sure if you meant that, but there's

17 part of us that wants that, okay, because part

18 of our human psyche, particularly in this

19 room, is about fairness, and that feels more

20 fair.

21 But part of it is about generating,

22 you know, more overall investment, which is

1 what makes me want to start, as you said, you

2 know, with what we want for all children, you

3 know, which are very positive things and how

4 we fund it, and not to worry about, you know,

5 the Palo Alto family that puts, you know, 5K

6 to their local school, because you know,

7 they're also putting 5K into their music

8 lessons and they're also, you know, spending a

9 lot of time at dinner, you know, talking about

10 the New York Times, okay.

11 And we're not going to try to

12 change any of that, and in fact we should flip

13 it around to celebrate it, that the more that

14 parents invest in their kids, and we want to

15 make sure there's adequacy. Then if we keep

16 coming back to that, we may be more successful

17 at generating a broad consensus to continue

18 the investment that I think most of us would

19 like to see.

20 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Did you want to

21 clarify?

22 MEMBER WEINGARTEN: I'm sorry.

1 Well first Reed, thank you for that focus,

2 because I actually didn't -- I'm actually

3 opposed to weighted student formulas. I've

4 seen them, and I've seen them not work. But

5 take Marc's point before, when we know about

6 early childhood.

7 So what I mean by that is that

8 systems, we need to level the playing field

9 for kids, which means systems that have, say,

10 X amount of child poverty, we need to make

11 sure that there is early childhood education.

12 We need to make sure that there's wraparound

13 services.

14 It's much more of a systems

15 approach, to try to level the playing field,

16 so that kids have the opportunity.

17 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Well that's the

18 adequacy.

19 MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Correct.

20 CO-CHAIR HASTINGS: Let me suggest

21 that level can have multiple interpretations,

22 and one notion of leveling is pulling down,

1 but it's not the one you like.

2 MEMBER WEINGARTEN: Correct, right.

3 CO-CHAIR HASTINGS: So really what

4 we're trying to do is raising --

5 MEMBER WEINGARTEN: We're talking

6 about opportunity, correct.

7 CO-CHAIR HASTINGS: It's increasing

8 opportunity for Americans, you know. I would

9 say that words like leveling and equity, you

10 know, are heard back to the backlash, you

11 know, different ways.

12 MEMBER MORIAL: Yes. I wanted to

13 make a point. One thing, you know, in these

14 sorts of -- this sort of work, you cannot win

15 everybody over. Consensus, to me, means

16 trying to get better than half, better than

17 the majority. The point is is that the forces

18 that would criticize this are very loud, very

19 vocal, very aggressive.

20 Look at our good friend, Mr. Trump.

21 But don't go look at his polling numbers now.

22 He got a lot of attention, but there's a small

1 segment of the population that bought into his

2 point of view. So I think it's important we

3 ought to try to achieve consensus, but my

4 political perspective is you just cannot win.

5 There's going to be, if this

6 Commission said red is red and blue is blue

7 and green is green and up is up and down is

8 down, there will be people who will say "no,

9 it isn't. That is not the case. That isn't

10 so." So I want, I think we should keep in

11 mind that no matter what we speak to or how we

12 speak to it, there's going to be some course,

13 indeed, of opposition.

14 So I think that how we frame it and

15 how we tie it to things that are external

16 education, which is why global competition,

17 and first class American education system.

18 What does it take to build a first class

19 American education system?

20 That those things are the kinds of

21 broad concepts that we can achieve some

22 consensus over, so that it isn't that we're

1 trying to achieve consensus on every detailed

2 aspect of the plan, but kind of in the vision

3 of why adequacy and equity are important.

4 The other thing, I think Mike made

5 a very important set of points. We have to

6 pressure-test this report ourselves, pressure

7 test the arguments against the likely

8 opposition, or the likely arguments against,

9 so that we're not in our own heads or in our

10 own space or in our own room, or we think that

11 this is a document where we're going to be

12 preaching to the choir.

13 So, you know, the political side of

14 it is incredibly difficult, but I think the

15 spirit of government commissions and advisory

16 commissions are to take difficult issues and

17 kick them to people like us, who may be able

18 to take a broader point of view and not be so

19 bogged down in the day to day politics.

20 I mean I don't think that the

21 Department has to absolutely defend every

22 component in this report. I think we have to

1 defend every aspect of this report, and the

2 Department can, you know, say we like some of

3 it, we don't like some of it, we agree with

4 some of it, we don't agree with some of it.

5 I mean I think that's the spirit,

6 you know Chris, with which all these

7 commissions have sort of operated, and I think

8 we should welcome that. But I don't dismiss

9 the political concerns, but I think we have to

10 pressure test is.

11 But we're not going to write

12 anything or release anything where everyone's

13 going to stand up and say here here, the

14 gang's all here. We're so happy with what you

15 all have done.

16 There will be, because feigned

17 outrage, right, is a political strategy in

18 21st century America, and that's, you know, if

19 you understand quote "the strategy," if you've

20 ever been in the box of how people think

21 politically, creating feigned outrage about

22 reports like this, to try to stimulate, you

1 know, opposition.

2 But there are all sorts of ways in

3 a funding formula. There are hold harmless

4 provisions that we're not going to take. But

5 what the root of this is, and this is the

6 final point I'll make, the root of this is a

7 value system in this country that says that

8 whenever you try to do something for somebody

9 else, you're taking away from somebody.

10 That's why I think speaking to some

11 broader outcomes and objectives might be the

12 only way we can get out of that little box.

13 Oh, if you're going to spend more on urban

14 school districts, that absolutely means you're

15 going to spend.

16 But I'm here to tell you that this

17 problem is not in urban school districts alone

18 anymore. This is a problem in the suburbs,

19 the inner ring suburbs. This is a problem of

20 the small town, Providence and Springfield and

21 cities that have less than 200,000, and

22 listening to the people talk in old New

1 England communities, and the challenges that

2 they face from an economic standpoint, where

3 the unemployment rates are higher than they

4 are in big cities like Dallas and Houston.

5 So I would, you know, respect

6 fully, I think, the comments that are being

7 made. But I think we have to frame what we

8 do, and not be naive politically about how we

9 state this.

10 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Linda and then

11 Michael and Jesse.

12 MEMBER DARLING-HAMMOND: I think

13 we're building a little bit of a consensus

14 here, and kind of back to the point that Reed

15 was making, about adding the notion of

16 efficiency, which echoes what Carmel said

17 earlier about resources do matter when they're

18 used well. I think all of that is a really

19 important piece.

20 If you add the infrastructure part

21 that Randi was putting in place, it begins to

22 give us a picture. I wanted to note that

1 there are a number of examples that we can

2 look to, around where resources have met or

3 where they were used well. Sandra, you made

4 this point as well.

5 The National Education Goals Panel,

6 for a number of years, documented what was

7 going on in states that were raising

8 achievement, and we can go back to when

9 Kentucky did it, KERA reforms back in the late

10 80's and early 90's, a very thoughtful

11 approach with preschool and certain education

12 reforms, accountability standards, as well as

13 funding, drove achievement up.

14 Now in all of these cases I'm going

15 to name, there's been a backsliding, which

16 gets us back to why you need a federal role,

17 because states make progress and then they

18 backslide.

19 But Massachusetts, the same thing.

20 You know, their reforms were driven initially

21 by a school finance lawsuit, which put in

22 place a new funding system, along with the

1 standards and the other reforms that they put

2 in place, that have driven them forward. You

3 can say the same thing about reforms in

4 Connecticut, North Carolina, where they went

5 from being at the bottom of the country to

6 well above the national average.

7 Infrastructure, building a stable,

8 better prepared teaching force, preschool,

9 summer school, a set of reforms around

10 standards and investments in curriculum.

11 So you could really tell a story

12 about how money spent strategically and

13 purposefully and equitably or more equitably,

14 has driven achievement gains and closing of

15 the achievement gap over the last 20 years.

16 The other part of the story that's

17 the sad part is that in each of those cases,

18 you can talk about the tax backlash that Reed

19 started us off with, or some other backsliding

20 that has occurred. So that's a piece of the

21 story that we also have to deal with.

22 But the things that go on in these

1 states that have been strategic, and have

2 thought efficiently about how to spend the

3 money, are also the things that you see in

4 other countries. So we can link that to the

5 argument about what's going on

6 internationally. Singapore, Finland.

7 I mean what China's about to put in

8 place, as they try to bring the rest of the

9 country up to where Hong Kong and Shanghai

10 are, is breathtaking, and maybe is worthy of a

11 little conversation in this.

12 If economic competitiveness is a

13 driver for the rationale, what China is doing

14 right now to dramatically upgrade the teaching

15 force, dramatically upgrade the rural schools

16 and so on is just chilling, really, in its

17 scope and speed.

18 But they have, you know, equitable

19 funding in most of the higher-preforming

20 countries, equitable and comparable salaries,

21 a strong pre-service preparation and in-

22 service, all the infrastructure stuff that

1 Randi talked about. So that's probably a good

2 part of the argument to bring in.

3 The other piece, when we think

4 about this infrastructure side, and the

5 wastefulness, the ways in which we waste

6 money, which I think we should talk about,

7 that money can be badly spent, and we need to

8 be clear about that.

9 Not building a stable, high quality

10 teaching force in high need districts is one

11 of the most wasteful things we do, because of

12 the costs of churn, of attrition, the cost of

13 professional development that goes down the

14 drain when people come in and leave right

15 away, the cost of failed reforms, the cost of

16 unnecessary special education and grade

17 retention.

18 Everything else you try to do

19 doesn't work when you've got that kind of --

20 so that piece of it, preschool, wraparound

21 services and summer school, I think, should be

22 on the agenda.

1 Yes. I just want to say, one of

2 the -- one powerful recent report shows that

3 about a third of the difference in rich and

4 poor kids' achievement is present at

5 kindergarten. It's the achievement gap that

6 exists before you get there, which preschool

7 ameliorates to some extent.

8 And almost two-thirds is summer

9 learning loss, because during the school year,

10 the rate of growth is about equal between rich

11 and poor schools. So what teachers do between

12 September and June is almost equivalent in

13 terms of gains. But if you're already behind,

14 and then you fall further behind every summer.

15 So I think as we think about

16 infrastructure, really tying it to some of

17 what we know, our investments that are

18 critically needed would be helpful.

19 Last point on self-interest. I

20 think we have to talk about the $300 billion a

21 year that dropouts cost us, the $50 billion a

22 year that prisons cost us, the fact that it is

1 in everyone's self-interest for kids to be

2 well enough educated that they can join the

3 labor market, than 80 percent of inmates are

4 dropouts, that more than half are functionally

5 illiterate, that this is not only a sentencing

6 problem, but it's also an education problem.

7 If those kids -- if kids that we

8 wouldn't spend $8,000 a year on to get them

9 well-educated as children, we spend $46,000 a

10 year on them ten years later when they are

11 inmates, and that part of the budget is

12 absorbing the money for public higher

13 education and so on, that whole piece of it

14 matters to me, for my social security and my

15 health care, that everybody coming up has a

16 good job and pays a lot of taxes.

17 You know, that piece of the

18 argument, I think, would be important to kind

19 of get on the table. There's a difference

20 between the problem in a place like

21 Washington, D.C., where there's a lot of money

22 badly spent for a long time, and a place where

1 the deep under-resourcing of communities with

2 concentrated poverty, where you're spending

3 20,000 in D.C., but you're spending 8,000 in

4 Oakland or 6,000 Baldwin Park, where 75

5 percent, 80 percent, 90 percent of the kids

6 live in poverty. There's high levels of

7 homelessness, high levels of dysfunction, and

8 high levels of churn in the teaching force

9 because the salaries are $10,000 less than the

10 next.

11 That deep under-resourcing of those

12 places that are really school to prison

13 pipelines, is a different problem than the

14 general problem of equity. I think it's

15 important to call that out.

16 There's no high-achieving nation in

17 the world that says it's in our best interest

18 to deeply under-resource, you know, the

19 education of a group of kids who will not be

20 able to join the labor force, because they

21 haven't had people who know how to teach them

22 to read, they haven't had, you know, the

1 services that they need.

2 So that piece, I think, needs to be

3 called out in a particular way.

4 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: So how about if we

5 -- I want to do -- Dennis has been waiting

6 longer, and then let me come back to Jesse and

7 to Michael. How about if we had, if we did a

8 two by two matrix, involving sort of good

9 resourcing versus sound policies? Then in

10 each of the four cells, we have some examples

11 of places, to the extent that we were

12 courageous enough to name some names.

13 But I think that would very well

14 illustrate some of the points that we've been

15 making, about how you have to get the

16 combination right to make sustained progress.

17 Dennis.

18 MEMBER VAN ROEKEL: It's been

19 really a fascinating discussion. I think one

20 of the things as we talk, is we have to decide

21 in our own minds, as I read through the

22 materials, whether we have an education system

1 that generally falls short of what it should

2 accomplish, or whether we don't have a broad-

3 based educational crisis, but rather a failing

4 to educate at high levels for one significant

5 part of the student population, low income.

6 Because where you start from that

7 really changes the direction you go. Is it

8 the entire system that's failing, or is it a

9 part of the system or a group of students that

10 is not working, but it's working for others?

11 The second observation as I listen

12 to this discussion, I think we're talking

13 about the right questions and it's very

14 important the order in which we do them. We

15 start with the school finance and resources.

16 I think that's the third question,

17 not the first, because I think what you have

18 to start with is what do you want to

19 accomplish for the students? What do you want

20 to accomplish for the students?

21 Then when you listen from the

22 international summit, when they answer that

1 question, it's not just math and reading.

2 They have measurements and components about

3 the whole child. They define what they want

4 to accomplish for every student.

5 The second thing, then, you have to

6 talk about is how will we do that? That's

7 where you come into places with recognizing

8 the difference in those students, early

9 childhood may be one of the things that you

10 plan to do, in order to accomplish that with a

11 certain group of students.

12 I think that's where accountability

13 comes in, because when you say as you move to

14 -- well, let me skip that a second. So how do

15 you plan to do it? Then the third question is

16 the resource one. What are the resources you

17 need in order to accomplish that?

18 So for example, if you say that the

19 way you plan to do it is early childhood

20 development is a key component of making that

21 difference, and you don't have the resources

22 to do it, you're doomed to failure.

1 I think accountability is really

2 doing what you said you were going to do. You

3 say you're going to do all these things; you

4 don't provide any resources. I think that's

5 Randi's point about shared accountability,

6 whether it be teachers or a system.

7 If you don't give them what they

8 know they need, well then somebody ought to be

9 held accountable for that. The other thing, I

10 think, around that accountability is when you

11 think of pick a car, someone might say that

12 the quality of a Lexus and a Yugo are not the

13 same.

14 But the real question when you're

15 making it is did you build it according to

16 specs? The specs are what are different, not

17 the quality in building it. They may have

18 built the best Yugo in the whole wide world on

19 those specs, but it's really not a very good

20 car.

21 That's where it comes into the

22 education system very first defining what is

1 it that we want for the students of America.

2 Then you must build a system that will

3 actually do that. We've got to build the

4 specs. Quality is whether you met those. But

5 if you build lousy specs for kids who happen

6 to come from a poverty background, well then

7 you can't say it's a poor quality education;

8 we did it just the way you said you designed

9 it to be. I think that's very important.

10 So as we do our own work in this

11 Commission, I think it's really important as

12 we build our report that we think about the

13 order in which we want to present things. By

14 doing them in the wrong order, I think you

15 create a whole discussion that is very

16 negative and counterproductive.

17 Because if we start arguing about

18 resources first, and we don't know what it is

19 we want to accomplish, and the plan that needs

20 to be done to actually make that happen, you

21 will fail for certain.

22 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Okay. We're about

1 15 minutes from a break, is that right? No.

2 More or less, about 15. Okay, Jesse and then

3 Mike Rebell, and then David. Sure, okay, and

4 then break. Okay, so Jesse -- what did I say?

5 Jesse, Michael, David and Jose, and then the

6 break.

7 MEMBER RUIZ: Interesting

8 discussion, and I appreciate -- and this week,

9 I'm transitioning from a state board of

10 education, accepted Mayor Emmanuel's

11 appointment to join the Chicago Public School

12 Board on Friday.

13 So that will be my last board

14 meeting. The state in Springfield, Illinois

15 on Thursday, and then jump into the local

16 district. So I mean been focusing on the

17 local districts --

18 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: Congratulations,

19 sort of, yes.

20 MEMBER RUIZ: And thinking about

21 Chicago and some of the comments, and it's

22 like a Dickens novel. It's like the best of

1 districts, it's the worst in districts, and

2 there are schools like Walter Peyton High

3 School in Chicago that have their own

4 endowment fund, a là Palo Alto. But this is

5 within the same district. This could be three

6 miles away. You could have a school through,

7 you know, let alone endowment funds, that

8 don't have basic resources.

9 So that's something that Marc's

10 comments ring very true, because if I go to

11 the North Shore, North Shore just a bit ways

12 out of Chicago, and I tell those folks I want

13 to take some of their tax dollars and send

14 them to downstate Illinois, where it's $5,000

15 a student compared to their $25,000 a student,

16 you know, they'll scream bloody murder.

17 But they'll go to the charter

18 school fundraiser and drop thousands of

19 dollars at the site of an auction. It's a

20 matter of them trusting who they're giving

21 their dollars to.

22 So we definitely have to be

1 cognizant of that as we do this report on the

2 audience, the folks who will push back, the

3 folks who will just say you're putting more

4 money into a bad system, but also focus on the

5 severe disparities a few city blocks away in

6 some districts across America, and those who

7 have the ability to get a public education,

8 but really it's not, because it's elevated and

9 supported by a private endowment fund, by

10 parents who felt we could afford the best

11 private education they can, but they avail

12 themselves of public education, as they're

13 entitled to. But it's supplemented.

14 It's that supplement that is

15 really, you know, getting them that world

16 class education, and the folks on the South

17 Side of Chicago who can't supplement it, who

18 are getting the worst public education. So

19 that's obviously a focus.

20 But Marc's points are great, in

21 terms of the political resistance, in saying

22 that there are additional resources needed,

1 and they have to be targeted to a certain

2 population, those who can't create their own

3 endowment fund.

4 MEMBER REBELL: Okay. I wanted to

5 just give some empirical support to the points

6 that Reed and Marc were making, on the

7 importance of addressing the concerns of the,

8 what somebody originally termed, "the backlash

9 population." I think it's reality, in the

10 fact that this has come out at this point in

11 such a strong way I think is really important,

12 because it's a bigger reality today than it

13 was years ago when I first started dealing

14 with this.

15 But we started our public

16 engagement process in New York, which was a

17 parallel track to the whole litigation, and we

18 started our case in New York City, and we

19 realized from the outset that if we want some

20 big litigation and got an order from a court

21 for a lot more money for kids in New York

22 City, but did not relate to the rest of the

1 state, we would have a political blood bath

2 when we got to Albany, with whatever their

3 court order said.

4 So from the beginning, we were out

5 for building coalitions and keeping in mind

6 how we were going to sell this thing

7 politically. I remember the first year of our

8 public engagement, we had a series of

9 conversations, conferences with our core

10 constituencies in New York City, who were the

11 equity constituencies. They were people who

12 felt that they were getting the short end of

13 the stick, and were really looking for our

14 litigation to be an equity litigation.

15 But we really talked through these

16 political realities and theory of adequacy and

17 what it could deliver, and I was amazed. By

18 the end of the year, because this was a series

19 of meetings with all these groups and people

20 that started in October and went through May,

21 we had a real consensus, over 90 percent Marc,

22 that said we're not going to ask to have equal

1 funding. We're going to ask for adequacy.

2 We're going to ask to raise what we have,

3 without pulling down, playing Robin Hood with

4 anyone else.

5 I can tell you the power of this

6 thing. I'd just illustrate it. By the next

7 year, the first meeting we had in reaching out

8 to the wealthy suburbs, which was the area we

9 wanted to at least neutralize, if we couldn't

10 win them over. I was invited to a meeting of

11 the League of Women Voters in Scarsdale, which

12 is probably the wealthiest suburban district

13 in New York City, and it was in somebody's

14 luxurious megahouse, with I don't know how

15 many people in the living room.

16 But you know, when I walked in

17 there, I had this reputation, "this is the guy

18 who's bringing this lawsuit, that's going to

19 take money away from us and our kids." And

20 you know, the body language and the looks were

21 all of these knives coming at me.

22 So the first thing I said is I want

1 to tell you, we had a series of conversations

2 last year. We made some fundamental

3 decisions, and the essence of the decisions

4 are we're fighting for more for kids in New

5 York City, but we're going to guarantee you,

6 we're not going to look to take a nickel away

7 from what you have, or undermine the quality

8 of what your kids have.

9 But what we're asking you is if we

10 give you that commitment, don't you think you

11 have a moral obligation to do more for the

12 kids in the inner city, and to bring them

13 closer to where your kids are? I can tell you

14 -- without moving to New York.

15 Well, that's Jim Ryan's agenda. We

16 can talk about that. But anyway, yes. That's

17 exactly true. But I think that's what we're

18 talking about here. But I've just got to tell

19 you, the shift in the body language and all

20 the rest, it was like, you know, all the air

21 went out of the bubble. Everybody's relaxed,

22 and what they want to talk about is

1 accountability, and how do I know if we're

2 paying more taxes that's not going down the

3 drain and all of that.

4 Those kinds of conversations you

5 can have, and you can get places. Anyway, so

6 long story, it was ten years of working in

7 this direction. I can tell you when we

8 finally won our big court case and it went to

9 the legislature, they voted more money than

10 the court ordered, and a lot of it was these

11 political coalitions and the Assemblywoman

12 from Scarsdale supported us, and had built

13 this whole thing with our constituency.

14 Yes, we held everyone harmless, and

15 we gave the wealthy districts a two percent

16 increase. But we gave New York City and the

17 other districts a 10 or 15 percent increase,

18 and that was in a time of more money, I grant

19 that.

20 But I can just tell you

21 politically, the adequacy approach really

22 works. I want to endorse what you added on to

1 it, Reed, because I think in the current

2 environment, the question of cost

3 effectiveness and efficiency rings true with

4 everybody.

5 So if we were going to rename the

6 Commission, I go along with you that it should

7 be, what did you say, "Adequacy, Excellence

8 and Efficiency." But we've also got to keep

9 equity. So adequacy, excellence, efficiency

10 and equity. Somehow, that's what our vision

11 statement should contain. Not in those

12 cumbersome terms, but I think we've got to

13 rework. I still like the concept of

14 Revitalizing the American Dream. But those

15 should be the components of the American dream

16 for the 21st century.

17 MEMBER SCIARRA: So I'd like to see

18 if we can at least throw some ideas out, to

19 move past sort of old notions of equity,

20 adequacy and the like, that came out of

21 Serrano and even more recent cases that some

22 of us have been involved with, and think

1 about, picking up on Linda's points, is sort

2 of thinking about how do we reframe the sort

3 of equity, if you want to call it equity for

4 the moment, challenge.

5 To me at this point looking

6 forward, it's about ensuring all students,

7 Chris your point about every child, but all

8 students, but in particular low income

9 students, English language learners, kids with

10 disabilities, students of color, if you want

11 to add that in, the opportunity to achieve

12 rigorous standards. It's about rigorous

13 content standards that will prepare them for

14 citizenship, for college, postsecondary, and

15 the knowledge economy.

16 So to me, that's the sort of

17 overarching issue that overarches all of it.

18 When you look at the issue of finance in

19 particular, and a lot of issues come under

20 that, but since we're here talking primarily

21 about finance.

22 So when you look at it that way,

1 what we have to have are funding systems that

2 ensure sufficient levels of resources, to

3 provide that rigorous curriculum in a broad

4 range of content areas, not just math and

5 language arts, but the broad range of content

6 areas that we need to expose our kids to.

7 They're delivered by well-trained

8 teachers, effective leadership and so forth

9 and so on. But it also requires, and this is

10 where the traditional equity or adequacy piece

11 comes in, additional funding for schools with

12 high concentrations, or for kids and schools

13 with higher concentrations of need.

14 So that need is represented by low

15 income concentrations, large numbers of ELL

16 kids, kids with disabilities and the like.

17 Because these kids, and I think this is what

18 Linda was getting at, need extra resources in

19 order to get them, give them the equal shot at

20 achieving those rigorous standards.

21 So this is where the extra

22 resources for teacher equity in high needs

1 districts that was being discussed, preschool,

2 full day kindergarten, more time on task,

3 extended learning, summer, those sorts of

4 things that we know, extra interventions that

5 have to be in place, in order to get those

6 kids to achieve those standards.

7 So what we need are standards-

8 driven funding systems. We don't have them in

9 the United States. We have 50 state finance

10 systems, and virtually all of them, there's a

11 few exceptions, but from California to

12 Arkansas -- well, Arkansas' a little bit

13 better, but some states have made some efforts

14 at this.

15 But we have very few examples of

16 states that have really worked hard at trying

17 to, at least in some thoughtful way, think

18 about how do we determine the level of

19 resources necessary to deliver rigorous

20 standards to all of our kids, that we are

21 responsible for, states are responsible for

22 this, and designing a system to try to figure

1 what those resources are, particularly those

2 expert resources, and then how do you deliver

3 them, you know, how do you have a stable,

4 consistent revenue source, so forth and so on.

5 There's not a lot of issues

6 underneath of that. You know, our state

7 finance systems are largely broken, from

8 California all the way to the east coast,

9 because they're not connected to the delivery

10 of rigorous standards for all kids. There's

11 no real conscious effort that's being made to

12 figure that out, and to devise systems that do

13 that.

14 So I think that, to me, is the sort

15 of challenge that we face. That's sort of to

16 me a broader way of talking about it, that I

17 think will capture the imagination of people,

18 looks forward to where we're going, because

19 we're talking about common core standards, and

20 hopefully will drive the debate in a

21 productive way, that doesn't pit one group of

22 kids or one group of communities within states

1 against another, but starts to think about the

2 state's responsibility, at this moment in

3 time, since we're not talking about a federal

4 educational system, but 50 state educational

5 systems, how these states ensure that all of

6 their kids have access to rigorous standards

7 and the resources necessary to achieve them.

8 And again, under this frame, it's

9 going to vary from state to state. I mean the

10 situation in Arizona, for example, is going to

11 be very different than California, Mississippi

12 or -- you know, we talk a lot about California

13 and New York, and we have to remember. We

14 have 50 state finance systems.

15 In a lot of places in the country,

16 these finance systems are deeply broken and

17 have been for a long time, under-resourced,

18 under-funded, and they all play out in

19 different ways, given the context of the state

20 and the redesign that's necessary is going to

21 play out differently in each state.

22 So I don't think we should be

1 micromanaging any of that. But framing out

2 the kind of direction we need to go. So I

3 would put on the table sort of four things

4 that I think we need to talk about, which is

5 how do we get states to design what I'll call

6 for the moment standards-driven funding

7 systems.

8 California needs it. You know, it

9 doesn't have it. It's got a hodgepodge and a

10 kind of a mess. A lot of other states are in

11 the same boat, one way or the other.

12 There's a number of points I think

13 we can talk about under that, about what we

14 need to do to recommend that states do that,

15 since they provide -- they control the bulk of

16 the money that goes into public education, 90

17 percent of the resources are controlled by the

18 state. That's the key point.

19 The second thing I think we have to

20 talk about is early education or the second

21 thing goes to the issue of efficiency and

22 effectiveness. I would actually put that

1 under the umbrella of standards. A good

2 standards-based finance formula builds into it

3 frameworks for the effective and efficient use

4 of funding, to deliver standards, to make sure

5 that when the states allocate the money or

6 control the money or direct the money, it gets

7 to districts, and gets down to the classroom

8 to support the effective and efficient

9 delivery of standards, so the kids can achieve

10 those standards.

11 The state's got to take

12 responsibility for that. Now, you know, we

13 may argue there can be some differences about

14 whether we need to do that. I think Dennis

15 was alluding to this, do they need to worry

16 about it in Palo Alto or in Cherry Hill or

17 Princeton. They need to worry about it more

18 in Chicago or in, you know, some of the poorer

19 downstate cities in Illinois.

20 So there's some issues that need to

21 be talked about that, and then what that looks

22 like a little bit around flexibility and

1 issues around that. The third thing has got

2 to be high quality early education.

3 I think we have to take a strong

4 stance, that every three and four year-old

5 child, particularly if we want to start by

6 talking about these at-risk kids and at-risk

7 kids in high poverty communities, I'm fine

8 with that.

9 But the nation has to move to

10 getting every three and four year-old in a

11 well-planned high quality preschool program,

12 linked to standards based again, reform K-12.

13 And we can have a -- I'd love to have a

14 discussion about the details of that.

15 We've done a tremendous amount of

16 work on that, building such a system, and we

17 have one in place, which -- and there are

18 other models around the country for that.

19 But that's got to be embedded in

20 this standards-driven finance system that I'm

21 talking about, because it's really got to

22 start at three. Then the last thing is we

1 need a new set of federal policies that sort

2 of support all this, and that goes from, you

3 know, fixing Title I to bigger issues about

4 how do you incentivize states, research around

5 better costing out methodologies. We've sort

6 of stopped that in the last four or five, ten

7 years. We aren't doing much of that anymore.

8 There's a whole host of things that

9 we can talk about under that. But all of it's

10 around this bigger challenge, I think, that

11 the U.S. faces, which is how do we get all

12 kids delivered, so that they have the equal

13 opportunity to achieve rich and rigorous

14 curriculum content standards, and not just in

15 language arts and mathematics, but a variety

16 of content areas throughout the nation, and

17 through the 50 state systems and the varying,

18 calibrated by student need and settings, the

19 various settings that we find that are unique

20 to our state.

21 So that may be one way of thinking

22 broader about a lot of the comments that have

1 been made here. But you can package that

2 under that. We have to give a big vision of

3 where we need to go, not just next year, it

4 seems to me. But this is about five years. I

5 can tell you, working on a school finance a

6 long time, it is a long, incremental struggle.

7 I mean in states that have made

8 progress, it doesn't happen in one fell swoop.

9 I was talking about the Pennsylvania

10 situation, which was disheartening, because

11 people spent eight years getting, building the

12 political support to do a little better for

13 high needs communities in Pennsylvania,

14 Scranton and Harrisburg and rural communities.

15 Now that's under challenge, because

16 this all happens in state capitols. We have

17 to recognize that, that this is going to be a

18 long-term incremental effort. It's not going

19 to happen in one fell swoop. We, I think,

20 have to give the bigger vision of where we

21 want the country to go in the area of resource

22 finance equity, the way I've described it.

1 But you know, we've got to lay that

2 out, and I think we can start to lay out some

3 basic things that we can begin to do, to move

4 the states and the nation in that direction.

5 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: I'm sorry, Jose.

6 We did Jesse already, and then we'll wrap up

7 the public session.

8 MEMBER TORRES: So I'll be very

9 brief, since I'm the only thing standing

10 between you and a break, right? I want to

11 build a little bit on what Dennis said, and

12 that is he talked about the order and how

13 complex, and we've been talking about the

14 complexity of this.

15 So I want to add a little bit more

16 complexity in this sense, that in many ways,

17 we're in the 7th inning. We're in the middle

18 of this journey, and whatever we come up with,

19 really I think needs to address the current

20 situation of students who are, who have been

21 in under-resourced systems along the way, as

22 well as how do we address them starting from

1 scratch.

2 So here's what I mean. In our

3 district, we're taking a very hard look at how

4 do we increase our graduation rates, and as we

5 were looking at teen parents frankly, and

6 recognizing that we had enough teen parents to

7 build an elementary school with their

8 children, we thought well, you know, we need

9 to do preschool, but we've got to do something

10 about these teen parents, who really changed

11 the trajectory of their lives.

12 So that resource requirement is

13 different than what I need to do for just

14 preschool kids. So I guess what I'm

15 advocating for is that whatever we do in this

16 report would do what people have said, address

17 some short-term objectives, but that are

18 immediate, that are different in terms of

19 scope and amount, if you will, or intensity,

20 versus what we'd like to see 20 years down the

21 road, in terms of highly effective, quality

22 early childhood systems.

1 And yet be mindful that, I'm going

2 to use the baseball analogy, that we'll get

3 curves thrown at us. So for example, I don't

4 think that, looking at this audience, that

5 many of us had Internet safety lessons as we

6 were growing up, or cyberbullying prevention

7 as we were growing up.

8 And yet as a superintendent, I'm

9 constantly being asked to add to the

10 curriculum, based on the societal needs and

11 very important issues that I have to address,

12 that we won't even foresee around this table.

13 So that would be my comment and my

14 recommendation.

15 CO-CHAIR EDLEY: We're going to

16 take a break, and come back in 15 minutes, 20

17 minutes. Let's say we'll come back at 2:30

18 and have a closed session, and you will be

19 presented with just an extraordinary, coherent

20 plan for how we spend the rest of the

21 afternoon, and life as well. All right.

22 Thanks, everybody.

1 (Whereupon, at 2:10 p.m., the

2 meeting was adjourned to closed session.) 3

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