More Resources National Assessment of Title I: Interim Report

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings testified today before the House Education and Workforce Committee. Following is her prepared testimony:

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Miller and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me today. I appreciate this opportunity to join my friend and colleague Secretary Chao in discussing the President's Competitiveness agenda with you. I'm especially honored to be here for the first full Committee hearing led by Chairman McKeon. Under your leadership, this committee has already done important work to ensure America remains the world's leader in innovation.

Last week, the full House of Representatives approved The College Access and Opportunity Act, which strengthens math, science and critical foreign language instruction for hundreds of thousands of students. In today's knowledge economy, these reforms are absolutely critical. You can't pick up a newspaper or magazine these days without reading about global competitiveness, especially in math and science.

While we're sleeping every night, accountants in India do our taxes. Radiologists in Australia read our CAT scans. And technicians in China build our computers. As other nations race to catch up, there is mounting evidence that American students are falling behind. I know all of you have heard the numbers, but they bear repeating. Currently, our 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 developed nations in math literacy and problem solving. Almost half of our 17-year-olds don't have the necessary math skills to work as a production associate at a modern auto plant.

We saw this coming in the early 1980s, when the National Commission on Excellence in Education released the Nation at Risk report. It warned our educational system was being eroded by a "tide of mediocrity" and called for 3 years of math and science in every American high school. Today, more than 20 years later, we're not even close to meeting that goal. And we've run out of time to wait.

We know that 90 percent of the fastest-growing jobs require postsecondary education, and yet fewer than half of our students graduate from high school ready for college level math and science. Every year about a million students drop out of high school. Nearly 5 out of 10 African American and Hispanic 9th graders don't graduate from high school on time. And the Title I report we submitted to you yesterday shows that graduation rate calculations vary widely across our country. When the state and federal numbers don't match up, we must take a closer look at whether our high schools are graduating students on time... and ready for college and the workforce.

Wherever I go, I hear from governors, business people, educators, and parents that our students aren't prepared. I've heard the same from many of you. Last week I testified before the House Science Committee, and while that appearance was a departure from my normal routine, it underscored the fact that innovation and competitiveness and education go hand-in-hand.

If we are going to move in a new, positive direction—we must make our high schools more rigorous. And we must encourage more students to take more advanced math and science classes.

Employers today need workers with "pocket protector" skills—creative problem-solvers with strong math and science backgrounds.

As Congressman Ehlers has said, "If you aren't [a nerd yourself], you'll probably end up working for one." Congressman, you were truly "country before country was cool" on math and science education, and I appreciate your work to champion reform.

With No Child Left Behind, we've laid a solid foundation of student achievement. Scores are at all-time highs for African-American and Hispanic students, especially in the early grades. Over the last 5 years, more reading progress has been made among 9-year-olds than in the previous 28 combined.

We're on the right track. I see it at Harlan Elementary in Wilmington, just one of the schools that's put Congressman Castle's home state of Delaware on track to have every child reading on grade level by 2014 as required by NCLB.

And I'm sure that Mr. Chairman, Congressman Miller, and all of you from California are proud of districts like Garden Grove, where 75 percent of the students do not speak English... and nearly 60 percent are poor... and all but 2 of their 67 schools met or exceeded the goals of No Child Left Behind.

This law is raising achievement nationwide by shining a bright light on schools and districts and on a lot of great success stories. It's also shining a light on schools and districts that aren't doing right by the children and parents they serve.

For example, the Title I report released yesterday shows that 1.4 million students were eligible for the free tutoring the law provides, but only 17 percent of them got these services.

More than half of school districts didn't even tell parents that their children were eligible for these options until after the school year had already started... making it virtually impossible for students to transfer schools without disrupting their education. That's unacceptable, and we at the Department of Education will take necessary steps to ensure states comply with these provisions of the law.

Without No Child Left Behind, we wouldn't know which schools are falling short of standards. We wouldn't necessarily know which children needed extra help. And we wouldn't be able to hold grownups accountable when they don't deliver that help.

In other words, this law is forcing all of us to live up to our responsibilities—and it's increasing options for families. Now we must work together to increase academic rigor across the board.

The President's American Competitiveness Initiative would devote $380 million to strengthen K-12 math and science education. Overall, the Department of Education will increase funding for our programs in these critical areas by 51 percent.

The President has called for the formation of a National Math Panel—a group of experts to help us identify the best research on proven strategies to teach math, just as we did in reading. And his budget also includes $250 million for a new "Math Now" initiative that will give elementary and middle school students the academic foundation necessary to succeed in rigorous math classes in high school, such as Advanced Placement courses.

Our challenge today is that nearly forty percent of high schools offer no AP classes. And that must change ... especially when we know that just taking one or two AP courses increases a student's chance of graduating from college on time. The President has called for $122 million to prepare 70,000 teachers to lead AP and International Baccalaureate classes in math, science, and critical foreign languages. And to ease the shortage of teachers with strong subject-matter knowledge, the President's budget includes $25 million to help recruit 30,000 math and science professionals to become adjunct teachers in these critical subject areas.

With the College Access and Opportunity Act, you've started the process of taking our education system to the next level. I would like to offer a special thanks to Representative McMorris and everyone who worked with her on the amendment to move the competitiveness agenda forward.

This is urgent work, and we only have time to do what works. As policymakers, we must focus on results. We've looked at data to see what policies are most effective for students and use taxpayers' money most effectively. We must operate more efficiently by eliminating or consolidating programs that aren't getting results for our students.

According to the GAO, 13 different government agencies spend about $2.8 billion on 207 different programs for math and science education—almost half of them receive $1 million or less.

These programs are in their own silos with little or no coordination between them or linkage to No Child Left Behind's goals of raising student achievement for all students. It's a thousand flowers blooming and maybe even a few weeds throughout the government.

Particularly during these tight budget times, we must ask ourselves whether we're spending each and every dollar well and wisely on our most pressing needs.

Are we focusing our efforts on teachers who already possess a strong science knowledge base?

For example, one program I heard about at the Science Committee hearing spends federal dollars on sending teachers to Antarctica. Is that the best way to get the most out of our money? Or should we reach out to the teachers who need more training and make sure they are teaching in the schools who need them the most? Are curriculum products developed by many agencies with federal dollars aligned to state standards and assessments as required by NCLB?

Do we want these programs to produce an educated workforce? More Nobel Prize winners? Both? And, at the end of the day, are we raising student achievement? Are we helping schools and states meet the goals of NCLB?

Congress recently created the American Competitiveness Council, which I chair, to ensure we align our efforts around shared, strategic goals. At the beginning of March, the President and I led the first meeting to begin the process of evaluating how well these math and science programs are working and improve coordination between them. And I have to tell you, we've got work to do.

So I'm asking all of you to join Chairman McKeon in reaching out to the different Congressional committees that govern these programs. We must build consensus around common goals—like providing high-quality programs that are accessible to every child, not just the lucky ones. And we must align our efforts with the principles of No Child Left Behind—by continuing to hold schools accountable for getting all students to grade level in reading and math by 2014... and by giving local policymakers and educators the resources, authority, and research-base to do what's best for students.

As leaders and policymakers—as parents—it's our job to look down the road and make sure our kids are prepared for the future. As the President said in the State of the Union, "If we ensure that America's children succeed in life, they will ensure that America succeeds in the world."

Thank you, and I'd be happy to answer your questions.

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