More Resources ED Officials' Testimony on President's 2008 Budget Request President's Budget Request for 2008

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for this opportunity to testify on behalf of the President's 2008 budget for education. Let me begin by saying that I think we are experiencing an unprecedented era of change and ferment in American education. There is a broad consensus on the importance of education for America's future in our increasingly competitive global economy, a new entrepreneurial spirit in our education system that is most evident in the growing numbers of charter schools, and a strong commitment to ensuring that all students not only graduate from high school, but graduate with real skills that they can put to use either at college or in the workforce.

Much of this change is driven by two factors: the strong accountability of No Child Left Behind, under which the Nation has made a commitment to a high-quality education for all children, regardless of their background; and the demand for a highly educated, talented workforce to ensure our economic competitiveness. The President's 2008 budget request for education is driven largely by these same two factors.

President Bush is requesting $56 billion in discretionary appropriations for the Department of Education in fiscal year 2008. As you know, we prepared our request before Congress completed action on 2007 appropriations for the Department of Education, and at that time our 2008 discretionary total was the same as the 2007 Continuing Resolution level—CR—level. Our budget reflects both the discipline required to meet the President's goal of eliminating the Federal deficit by 2012 and his determination to target Federal education dollars on activities that show the greatest promise of helping all students reach the proficiency goals of No Child Left Behind.

To fulfill this commitment to funding what works, our 2008 request would terminate support for a significant number of programs that have achieved their original purpose, duplicate other programs, are narrowly focused, or are unable to demonstrate effectiveness. We also are proposing to reduce funding for several other programs in favor of increases for higher priority activities. This combination of terminations and reductions would make available approximately $3.3 billion for the Administration's priorities.

NCLB Reauthorization

Our top priority for 2008 is reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act—NCLB— or, more accurately, reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as reauthorized 5 years ago by NCLB. In January, the Administration released Building on Results: A Blueprint for Strengthening the No Child Left Behind Act, which describes our principles and priorities for reauthorizing NCLB. We now are drafting detailed proposals for consideration by Congress that would put those principles and priorities into place.

Our goal for reauthorization is to retain the strong accountability of the original No Child Left Behind Act, with its emphasis on annual assessment for all students, disaggregating assessment results by student subgroups, and 100 percent proficiency in reading and mathematics by 2014. In addition, our reauthorization proposal would build on this foundation by:

• Strengthening efforts to close achievement gaps, both by giving educators additional tools and resources to turn around low-performing schools and by providing new options to the parents of students in such schools;
• Giving States greater flexibility to measure student progress, improve assessment, and target improvement resources;
• Improving high school performance by expanding assessment, promoting rigorous and advanced coursework, and providing more resources to support reforms;
• Helping teachers to close achievement gaps by supporting intensive aid for struggling students, research-based instruction to improve learning in mathematics, and new incentives and rewards for teachers who work in low-achieving, high-poverty schools.

I have been pleased to see a lot of common ground in the early discussions, reports, and recommendations on the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, including the need to focus more attention on the high school level, the importance of improving math and science instruction, and greater flexibility and incentives to assign our best teachers to our most challenging schools. President Bush is personally committed to a successful reauthorization of NCLB, and I have seen strong evidence of that same commitment from key members of both Houses of the Congress. Our 2008 budget request was developed in concert with our reauthorization proposal to help move the debate forward in key areas.

Raising the Bar in Our High Schools

The first key area is improving the performance of America's high schools. This has been a consistent theme of our last three budget requests, and the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind provides a new opportunity to finally make some real progress on the issue of high school reform. The recent release of the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results for 12th graders in reading only confirmed what we have long known: our high schools are not making the grade in the national effort to ensure that all students are proficient in core academic subjects. The average reading score for high school seniors in 2005 was lower than the score in 1992, and the percentage of 12th-graders scoring "Proficient" or better on the NAEP reading assessment has now decreased from 40 percent in 1992 to 35 percent in 2005. I know the NAEP definition of "Proficient" differs from the State definitions used for No Child Left Behind accountability purposes, but the NAEP data are suggestive of the nationwide gap that must be closed to reach NCLB proficiency goals.

We think one way to close this gap is a relatively obvious one: give high schools their share of Title I funding. Currently, our high schools enroll about 20 percent of poor students, but receive only 10 percent of Title I allocations. To help correct this resource imbalance, our NCLB reauthorization proposal would change local allocation rules to require each school district to ensure that Title I allocations to its high schools roughly match the share of the district's poor students enrolled by those schools.

And since we don't want this new policy to come at the expense of elementary and middle schools currently receiving Title I funds, our $13.9 billion request for Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies is intended to minimize any shifting of resources from elementary to secondary schools under the new allocation rules.

In addition to increased Title I funding for high schools, our reauthorization proposal would expand assessment at the high school level to encourage greater rigor in high school course-taking and to help make sure all high school graduates are prepared for postsecondary education or competitive employment in the global economy. The 2008 request would provide $412 million in State Assessment Grant funding that, in addition to supporting continued implementation of annual assessments in reading, math, and science in earlier grades, would help pay for new assessments in reading and math at two additional high school years, including an 11th-grade assessment of college readiness in each subject.

American Competitiveness Initiative

Another key to increasing the rigor of instruction at the high school level is the President's American Competitiveness Initiative, or ACI, which is focused on improving math and science instruction both by ensuring that students in the early grades master the basics they need to succeed in critical high school subjects and by strengthening coursework in our high schools. The budget request provides a total of $365 million in new funding for the ACI, including $250 million for the elementary and middle school components of Math Now, which would encourage the use of research-based instruction to improve math achievement. We also are asking for a $90 million increase for the Advanced Placement program to train more teachers and expand the number of high schools offering AP and IB courses in math, science, and critical foreign languages. And we are seeking $25 million to create an Adjunct Teacher Corps, which would encourage experienced individuals from scientific and technical professions to teach high school courses, especially in high-poverty schools.

Increasing the number of Americans who speak foreign languages also is essential to ensuring competitiveness in the global economy, and to national security in the global war on terrorism. For this reason, the 2008 request would provide $35 million as the Department's contribution to the President's multi-agency National Security Language Initiative. The core of the Department's effort in this area is $24 million for a new Advancing America Through Foreign Language Partnerships program, which would support fully articulated language programs from kindergarten through graduate school aimed at significantly increasing the number of Americans fluent in languages critical to national security.

In addition to the ACI, we are seeking $100 million for the Striving Readers program, which helps raise high school achievement by promoting research-based methods for improving the skills of teenage students who are reading below grade level.

Expanding Support For School Improvement

A major focus of our NCLB reauthorization proposal is strengthening the school improvement process. An estimated 20 percent of Title I schools currently are identified for improvement, with a growing number of those now entering the corrective action and restructuring stages of improvement, under which school districts are required to make fundamental reforms in instruction, staffing, and school governance to turn around chronic low-performance.

No Child Left Behind encourages a comprehensive, broad-based approach to school improvement, including technical assistance from States and school districts, the adoption of research-based improvement strategies, more effective teaching, and the provision of choice options for students and their parents.

A critical factor in turning around low-performing schools is strong support from States, which by law are required to establish statewide systems of technical assistance and support for local improvement. The 2008 request would help build State capacity to support school improvement by providing $500 million in Title I School Improvement Grants, which would be reauthorized to permit States to retain up to 50 percent of their allocations under this program for State-level improvement activities, such as technical support in areas like analyzing test results, revising budgets, professional development, and making available school support teams. States would be required to subgrant the remaining funds to school districts to support local LEA and school improvement activities.

I was pleased to see that Congress responded to the President's 2007 request in this area by providing $125 million for School Improvement Grants in the final 2007 CR. We are moving ahead quickly in planning for the effective use of these new funds, and we will be prepared to scale up State and local improvement activities in 2008.

Our reauthorization proposal for School Improvement Grants also would permit the Secretary to retain up to 1 percent of appropriated funds to support efforts to identify and disseminate proven, research-based school improvement strategies. This proposal reflects the Administration's strong conviction that we must not only invest in education, but also be careful to invest in what works.

Another key to successful school improvement efforts is a new emphasis on incentives for talented and effective teachers to work in challenging school environments. Several recent reports have confirmed the tendency of districts to assign their most experienced and highly qualified teachers to their lowest-poverty, highest-achieving schools, while lower-performing, higher-poverty schools tend to be served by inexperienced and unqualified teachers. Our reauthorization proposal would attack this problem from two angles. First, in the case of schools identified for restructuring that are undergoing fundamental reforms in governance and staffing, our proposal would give superintendents and other school leaders greater freedom to reassign teachers to best meet the needs of schools working to improve student achievement.

Second, our budget request would provide $199 million to significantly expand the Teacher Incentive Fund and encourage more school districts and States to develop and implement innovative performance-based compensation systems. These systems would reward teachers and principals for raising student achievement and for taking positions in high-need schools, making an essential and valuable contribution to meeting the school improvement goals of NCLB.

We recognize, however, that school improvement takes time, and we firmly believe—especially in the case of chronically low-performing schools that have missed proficiency targets for many years—that students and parents should not have to wait for their schools to improve. Students attending such schools should have the opportunity to transfer to a better school, whether it is a private school or a public school in another district. To help create such opportunities, our 2008 request includes two new choice proposals that would expand options for students and parents at low-performing schools.

The first is $250 million for Promise Scholarships, which in combination with other Federal education funds would provide scholarships of about $4,000 that would allow students at schools undergoing restructuring to transfer to a better public or private school. Parents also could use Promise Scholarships to obtain intensive supplemental educational services—SES— for their children in lieu of transferring to another school.

Second, our $50 million proposal for Opportunity Scholarships is intended to stimulate State and local choice initiatives, including those modeled after the DC Opportunity Scholarships program. This proposal would either pay the costs of attending a private school selected by eligible students and their parents or provide $3,000 to pay for intensive SES.

Conclusion

These highlights of our 2008 request demonstrate our commitment to targeting limited Federal resources where they can leverage the most change and bring about meaningful improvement in our education system. I look forward to what I expect will be a vigorous debate this year as we work together on both the 2008 appropriation for the Department of Education and the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind.

I will be happy to respond to any questions you may have.

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