 All right first question Doesn't the fact that more students are taking the ACT mean you are automatically going to have lower scores on it and the MME So that's probably Does it automatically mean not automatically? But that's generally the way it works when you increase the pool of students who are taking a standardized test like the ACT or the SAT Generally scores will go down because you're bringing people into the pool who would not necessarily be going to college Who are going to be the lower achievers? So the warning there and I think Brian alluded to this It's not so much worried about the time trends here in Michigan, but it's comparing Michigan to other states There are a small number of states Illinois is one I can think of that are requiring the ACT of all students in high school But if you're now going to try to compare ACT scores in Michigan to other ACT states that don't have universal test taking Difficult exercise, so I do it with caution Yeah, I just say the researchers could probably defend their research better But the point is as you move to that stage you're using student level data in the you're not seeing it up here But we are there controlling for these kinds of factors, right? So you're going to make sure that you're comparing, you know conditional on things like who's taking the test You know when you go make those comparisons. I know you're both much better at that kind of work than I am So you'll do that That's the reason why we started with the ninth grader in 2005 And those are the first point on all the figures the ninth graders in 2005 So then let's see when were they 11th graders in the test six seven That was the first year that everyone required to take the exam So there was some small changes in the fraction taking ACT across the cohort, but the big jump was before We had to understand that the half of all of our data had just happened So we're not focusing at all on how to just select this voluntary test taker, but go on with the required Okay, this is more hypothesizing But do we know how many years on average are needed for districts and stats to make changes in KL K through 8, I think it says preparations to support new high school requirements. How long should this take? This is a great question. I think the answer is we don't know And one of the reasons why we don't know very well is other cases that are similar in terms of policy reform weren't particularly well studied necessarily and so This is a huge gap. I mean, I think the theory of action would suggest of course that that these are not instantaneous changes, right? This is something that it takes a long time For various reasons to implement the questions. How long is long and so I you know I think that's one of the things we hope to learn certainly. I hope to learn from following this project further Okay How can we think about the alignment of federal goals and policies with the state's goals and policies? For example setting and measuring standards Michigan Merit curriculum versus the common core. How do they interact? How do they relate? And what would the impacts be? Again, this is a this is a key question I didn't bring up the waiver or we call the ESEA flex flexibility around the elementary and secondary education Act But this is a place where that intersection is taking place right now, right? So where the Secretary Duncan and our administration Went out and said look no child left behind Is not is not working right? It's not making sense as we approach 2014 that a hundred percent of kids are going to be proficient and States are clamoring for relief From some of these constraints as more and more schools are not making Meeting their AMO's or their annual measurable objectives States are saying, you know, you got to let us do something else other than what this policy is requiring us to do And so unfortunately as you probably know everybody here knows this Title one the ESEA was supposed to be reauthorized. It was due for reauthorization in 2007 actually I was in the previous administration in the department then and when it didn't happen And so we are extremely overdue for Congress sort of addressing this law and and the secretary secretary Duncan And the president said that's that you know, we wish that Congress would have taken this up But this is not it's not good enough just to hope that they get there someday And so there is a provision in the law which allows the secretary to grant flexibility around those requirements Which is why we we launched into these waivers. I know Michigan just got there as I think in June There's a sort of a unfortunately not not one of the first rounds of waivers But the point there was to allow the state's Flexibility to go to the department and say here's how we'd rather do this, right? So if you're talking about the intersection of state and federal policy, you know The federal government the administration at least our side was saying we think this is overly prescriptive And it's not making sense for states. We do have some some goals You need to target, you know, you need to focus on improving education for the lowest performing students But they don't necessarily all have to be concentrated in the lowest performing schools And you also need to make sure that kids are college and career ready And we could have that debate for a very long time and on my in my seat where I sit and I hear them say that Over and over again. I'm like, well, we don't know how to measure that very well You know, I worry about that a lot But I 100% support the fact that that's that makes sense as a goal And I think the key here is the states found different ways to do that a lot of them did adopt the ACT a lot of the folks Who in their waiver package said we will show college and career readiness using something like the ACT which has benchmarks For college and career readiness or whether or not you think though those are adequately predictive or valid for what they say They are is another question. There's some interesting research in that area But I think the point is at least in this way of the federal government Wants to listen to the states and figure out how they'd rather meet these objectives I think that you know, you talked about this being a confound for this work, which is absolutely true And if we're lucky, it's going to get worse Unfortunately for you guys because we will reauthorize hopefully in the next couple years and then we'll see a new title one And hopefully the administration whoever's in an office at that time will listen to the states And make sure that it makes sense All right, we've got a dozen more questions in time for one three of the questions sent around a topic for this afternoon Ken Franks will be talking to us about the Michigan Merit curriculum and teacher compositional change I think several questions really around. What are we doing to make sure our teachers are well-prepared? Do we have a teacher supportage in key areas? So we'll get to that this afternoon One question in particular talks about the MSU collaborate How will MSU collaborate with the new education achievement authority as they work with the focus and priority schools? You started to address that with your comments. Yeah, we're you know as Jack said the state just received its waiver and like June The MDE put together the Michigan Excel program working with us and other partners over the summer and we Literally in the space space of a month had to staff up and hire about 75 people to staff our work in the focus and priority schools and We are right now in discussions with the EAA about whether we're going to be working with them It's sort of a little bit of a strange situation because on the one hand Some of their schools show up on the list of focus and priority schools on the other hand They're a brand new operator or a runner whatever verb you want to use of these schools now And you want to use of these schools So we're in conversation right now with them about whether in fact we'll be working with them under Michigan Excel or not And I think we'll have an answer to that pretty soon I'd like to thank Commissioner Buckley and Dean Heller for their time with us today and for bringing their expertise and views of the national and Michigan environment