Because, you know what . I can look around this table and some of you have come in with innovative ideas that i had not thought about. I dont know if it will work, but there is enough evidence and logic to indicate we should try it. Trying to create a space for that is what we are working to do. Governor mccrory, governor walker. Governor mccrory madam, thank you. I have enjoyed your visit and your cookies and your lemonade at the executive mansion, i hope you enjoyed it. A really good time. First of all, i want to congratulate you on your comments on your focus on Mental Health and i include that in addiction because i think that is one of the most serious issues we are facing, as i have found out in my 2. Ive years in my 2. 5 years. The addiction is ending up in our prisons, emergency rooms, and our state prisons and that is not the solution. We have got to come up with a longterm partnership with the federal government, local government, and everyone involved to deal with this very serious crisis. We had a seminar talking about the drug problems with somatic synthetic drugs and so on. I commend you and we want to work in partnership to come up with a viable solution. Two things, i would love to get more information on the consistency on Medicaid Services across all states. Were having a debate within my legislature on what level of service you get on medicaid covering certain aspects of medicine. We are certainly liberal in that aspect in north carolina, some legislators want to increase that, some say we are covering too much. I am curious as to if you have some benchmarks across states. Second you have been nice enough to have governor herbert and i and the president , in the oval office and we had a very frank discussion and a good discussion on many things. One was about waivers, and one im not sure the line has moved it all, we are attempting to look to see if there are waivers we can get for ablebodied people to require work or training in order to have medicaid expansion. We did this in Public Housing when i was mayor of charlotte, which was very effective. We want to know if there is any more flexibility or is that the line drawn in that area . Again, i want to congratulate you on your reaching out to us. So, on the first question, in terms of the benchmarks in terms of service levels, that might be something we will get back to you and your team directly on. With regard to the question of work and how we think about that particular issue with regard to health, in terms of one of the things that i think is an important thing that i think actually both sides agree on quite a bit that was an important change is preexisting conditions should not keep you from an ability to get health insurance. Again, maybe how one gets to that, maybe but i think that is an agreement. The idea that health care is not a conditional thing. Different from a number of things. Different than welfare operated out of the department of health and Human Services. Health care is actually different. But having said that, i think that we think that there are incredibly strong ways, because we are with you on that. You know, that is a place where i think we would like to see i mean, it would be great to have people working and earning a wage. We were just as soon have people in the market, and beyond. The work idea and work in concept, i think we have a number of places where we have worked with a number of you all to get took place that has innovation the derives this in a way that will get more people through your Work Training program then you have ever seen. I look forward to being able to have that conversation, because i think, we think we can get to, you know, a portion of what you want, which is i think you want more juncker ration. I think i think you want more consideration, and i think there is way to do that. Thank you. It is always a pleasure to listen to you and have a dialogue with you. I think you have one of the toughest jobs in america. You have certainly had a tough job this past year. Thank you for visiting with our governors. A couple things i want to commend you on. One was when you are talking about paying for outcome versus volume of time someone sees a doctor. We are all about improving the health of our citizens to make sure what we are doing is working versus what we hope white might work. What we hope might work. I wanted to talk to about trying to fasttrack some of the waivers. One of our requests from many of our governors, if not all of our governors, was that if we had a way for you it already approved in the past, if you would consider being able to continue that approved men of that waiver because you had already done it several times before. So like, and the state of oklahoma, we have a Great Program called in sure oklahoma where we have a threeway match with the person paying a very small portion of their insurance and the employee and the employer paying a portion. So there is a lot of biand. You have approved that for the third time, which im grateful for. At some point, i think we talked to about, if we have something that is already working innovative, can we make it permanent versus every year having to reapply for that . I continue to ask you for your consideration of that issue. On the opioid and Prescription Drug abuse program, we have had a session that governor mcauliffe and others led us through. One thing we did in oklahoma was passed a prescription monitoring bill to help prevent doctor shopping in the state. It took me three years to get that through. Some doctors did not want to have to spend the time away from patients to check this and check that could we not do that for medicaid recipients under federal guidelines certainly under state guidelines, if someone is on medicaid and they are receiving pain pills, to require a doctor to check it every time . Or could that medicaid recipient continue an addictive opioid . That is something to consider on a backtrack. The last thing i want to mention, we talk about rising costs of medicaid and expenses to our state, which is always been a huge challenge for all of us. We are in one of those states, where we have seen our unemployment up really low. Our bonds went down, we had a huge drop. 90 million. Our cost went up 130 million and we grew our population. We have more people coming into the system, less money for the federal government because the economy has changed. Now, we are going through another economic downturn yet we are still short on the money. Something to consider. Thank you. I wont touch on all of them. Figuring out how we, you know, work, and encourage, you know movement to encourage people to be in the private system where possible is something we want to consider which is part of how the reductions in funding are considered, getting people to move and encourage economic breath. On the opioids, i would mention the Prescription Drug monitoring plans you mention, almost every state has one. In the conversations i have had around the country with a number of you all, it is just a very important and enforcement tool. The ease of being able to use the tool, how quickly as updated, and the other things, some of your state stood on some of them dont, is the relationship with other states because people bordershop. That is another issue we need to work on, and i think bringing folks together because i think one of the things, when you talk about how easy it is or not to use and terms of the system. If youre asking a doctor, and you ask, how many clicks when you are seeing a patient, you dont want to spend that time checking. That is one of the things were working on. Your idea about how we can encourage and influence people with regards to our payment system, that is something we will look into. We need to get to the space where physicians are trained. With most of the physicians where they are trained, and i want to ask in this room, how much training did you actually receive in pain . In terms of treating pain . That is one of the issues. We are working very hard. We had one of the representatives from the cdc on your panel. We issue guidelines, but we want to make sure people are trained. Starting with the physician, and doing the tragic tracking your talking about. We had one young woman who had gotten her wisdom teeth taken out, to too much of the Prescription Drug after her wisdom teeth, became addicted, after only a few months, it became cheaper easier, and better to use heroin. And just, the trajectory. And the good news is, she has been clean for four years. But just, if we can stop that journey, because there are many other stops along the way and terms of what happens. Or the nation, we are seeing it everywhere, governor. It is not geographic, it is not socioeconomic. You know the number of people that you all probably know whose children have some of these issues you know, i am sure everybody in this room does. It is one we really want to work on. Governor walker, and then governor nixon. Governor walker more of a comment on a question, first of all, thank you madam secretary for being here for the second time. I appreciate your presentation in washington in february and that began a process with me. As you know, one week ago i became began the process to become a state to expand medicaid. We are pretty world, too. [laughter] our methods of getting to the needs do not always involve a road. We only have three roads. We have 110 airports. We have our challenges. I want to thank you for your passion in this area, and your staff. I know you are the person that gets it done, but they are the ones that answer the calls as well. I appreciate that. We are a little bit removed from mainstream america, so to speak. We do not reach out to a neighboring state. We have russia and canada, so not a lot of options there. But we do feel when we have a need, washington has been helpful to us very much. And so, it is a process i have begun. We have 45 days before i can actually sign it, but we appreciate you being with us this far and we look forward to you being with us through the next 45 days and beyond. Thank you, governor. Governor nixon hello. Appreciate, i will stipulate all the thinkings. You have really reached out and worked very hard and we really appreciate it. You put that mentality through the entirety of all your department, and on behalf of all of that, we feel it on a lot of levels and appreciated deeply. This feels a lot different than a congressional hearing. That will be on tuesday. I have talked to a a lot of folks from your state to prepare them. Ok. We have not yet succeeded in the important task of care to missouri. We are working on that. Sometimes you use the bridle, sometimes you use the web. On the website, as you look at costcontainment looking forward, you have some triggers that are difficult for states and hospitals and Everything Else that are built into the Affordable Health care act. Whether it is reimbursements, medicare, a going out payments, disproportionate share. Just tell much pressure are you under budget early to use those tools while being very politic in your comments in front of us in the cameras . Because i think that some of the folks dont think that is going to happen. And whether it is one year or two years from now, that is going to happen and it can cause the delay of those instead of having it be smoothly and it can cause a cataclysmic effect in terms of states that do not move forward in a timely fashion because if that becomes a clip instead of a slide it has a very cataclysmic effect in wirral areas and other underserved areas. So, you know, my ability to predict in this area because it involves two things i do not have a lot of say in. One is, one year, five months, and 10, 15 days, is all i will be here. Most of the decisions you are talking about is during a time i will no longer be here. As you know, congress is also engaged in these issues. So, you know, my ability to predict is limited. Where i dont know, i think you all know i tell you. I dont know. I think we should be focused on this as a nation. It is an executive branchs decision, whether you will move forward or not. It is a congressional decision whether to turn off. Tags know, to turn it off. To date, it has been turned off. When the congress has previously taken action to extend the question of whether they will do that again is something that i am, you know, not going to the question really is, and you dont have to answer here obviously, the question is whether the administration is going to ask them to continue to extend or not. With regard to where we are going to be in the budget, i will be reviewing our mandatory proposals in the next couple months. But the broader issue of how we think about the issues of costcontainment, why the provisions were put in is because it was thought it would be more costeffective to pay for uncompensated care and indigent care through a systemic approach and the states and set up the way we were doing it. There were a number of tools that exist. You mentioned a number of them. There are a number of states in the room that have low income pulls. I had a conversation with one of your colleagues in florida about these issues. And so, that, i think, why it was put in place is about how we can most costeffectively help low income people have access. Those were the decisions about it. How that plays out in the currently valued environment is something we have to evaluate as we go through it. Governor brochure gov. Brashear the experience in kentucky could be and lightning. Competition. Before we expanded medicaid, we had to companies in the state that would sell health insurance. We now have five. And, that, obviously, is encouraging to us because we have been working for 20 or 30 years trying to get other companies to come in and we had no success. And now, we have that kind of competition. The second thing regards riural health care. A lot of our folks live in rural areas. We have always had problems with rural health care, rural facilities how they can stay open as the demographics change. And, we have gone, and our hospitals as a whole have gone from about 25 uncompensated care to about 5 uncompensated care. And our small hospitals have particularly in a fitted from this because, for the first time, in their memories, and in mine, they are in the black. Their bottom line is actually in the black as they are getting aid for the care that they are delivering. Now, there are still a lot of problems with rirural health care but at least from a revenue standpoint, having expanded medicaid has been able to own to our has been a boon to our providers and our economy before we did it we got rice what her house cooper to come in and project what was going to happen and whether we could afford it. They projected that in over eight years we would create about 17,000 new jobs and have about 15 billion infused into our economy. Well we implemented based on that and after the first year, i said lets go take another look because now we have actual numbers. At least one year of hard numbers. And so i got Deloitte Consulting to go back in and take a look at our first year. They came back and said, we are sorry to tell you that Price Waterhouse cooper was wrong. You have created 12,000 jobs in the first year. In the health care area. And it looks like you are going to infuse about 40 billion into your economy over the next eight years and set up the 15 billion. And so, for my friends who are concerned that number one the federal government a backup at some point and not do their part or that these numbers, at some point may change and we cannot afford it, you know, my message would be this. You cant stop. You know, the court cases anytime we want to, we can stop. So if either one of those things happen, you can say, we cant do it anymore because we cannot afford it. And in between now and if that ever happens, a whole lot of people, 400,000 people in kentucky, are now having health care coverage. Most of them for the first time in their lives. And so, if you can get past and i know a lot of legislatures have a lot of trouble just because of the name of the act if you can get past that kind of politics this is a winwin for both your people and your economy because you are going to create a lot of jobs and put a lot of money into your economy in addition to improving the lives of these people. Screenings for Cervical Cancer breast cancer, diabetes, you name it. They have gone just like this. Because for the first time these people can get these screenings. What that is one to do, it is going to cut down on the because on the road, because when they were not getting these screenings, the first time we would see them was when they went be in the emergency room or in the hospital. Now, we are able to work with these people to teach them how to work with themselves and take responsibility for themselves. That is part of the deal, that your citizens know how to do this. And they really want to know how to do it. That is what we are finding. If there are ways that you can massage things around and it to this point, it is going to be a big benefit to the folks in your state. Thank you. Steve, do you want to come up to virginia for a couple days . I could use that. [laughter] on behalf of the entire organization, i want to express our gratitude for your engagement with all of us over these last couple years. We really, really appreciated. [applause] thank you. I look forward to working with you this year on our range of issues looking around this table, i did not have to call and he of all of you about ebola, some other issues, but i hope we will have a good year moving the ball on the many places where we overlap and fund. We want to hear from you. We want to know when we are getting it right and when we are getting it wrong. I believe we have much, much bigger places of Common Ground than we do a disagreement. There will be some of that, and i know that but i think we can work on a lot of areas where we can move the ball forward. So, thanks for having me again. The National Labor association also heard from labor secretary thomas perez. His session was led by New Hampshire governor. Vice chair of the ngas workforce committee. Good afternoon, everyone. We are going to start our session,. So, the meeting of the National Governors Association Work force committee is called to order. Thank you all for joining us. I am the governor of New Hampshire and vice chair of the workforce committee. Governor sandoval is unable to attend because he is overseas bringing more jobs to his state. It has truly been an honor to lead the committee with him this year. So first, a bit of housekeeping. The proceedings here are open to the press and all meetings of attendees, as a consideration would you also take a moment to enjoy your cell phones are silenced. The briefing books for this meeting was sent to governors and advanced and can also be found in the blue binder in front of you. They included the agenda, background information, updates on state and federal actions under this committees jurisdiction, and materials from our speakers. To my right is Steven Parker legislative director of the education and workforce committee. So please see him or nga staff if you need any assistance or have any questions. Today, we are pleased to be joined by thomas perez, our nations secretary of labor. We are also very excited to hear from harold, from the Jack Kent Cooke foundation, and crystal, from the high school for math and science at the City University of new york. As governors, we are constantly trying to create more jobs in our state. By helping grow existing businesses and attracting new companies from overseas. And sometimes, even trying to attract jobs and businesses from other states. Each governor wants to be the best Jobs Creation officer in the country. However, before the press releases announced the latest deal to bring hundreds, or even thousands, of new stats to our state, we have to answer one really important question. Can we fill those jobs . Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly difficult roster answer, yes, to that question. For us to answer, yes, to that question. A survey found that more than half of the ceos for major corporations view the shortage of skilled talent available for open positions as a major hurdle to their u. S. Operations. Yet this skills gap isnt just affecting our largest companies. Last month, as part of the National Federation of independent business that he 80 of Small Businesses said that they had few or no qualified applicants for their open positions. As i travel around New Hampshire, what i hear more than anything else from our businesses, both big and small is the need for an Even Stronger workforce pipeline. We are living in an innovation economy and it can only be fueled i hardwiring innovation in our k12, our post secondary, and workforce training systems. If our students are not prepared for the jobs, we cannot keep those jobs in our states, and more importantly, we have failed at giving the next generation opportunities for a successful life. That is why we are doing everything in the Granite State we can to help our students develop the skills and innovative thinking needed for good jobs in the 21st century economy. Earlier this year, i proclaimed 2015 as a year of stem in New Hampshire. And just last week, i signed an executive order establishing the governors stands, bringing together experts from the education and business communities to help implement the Previous Task forces recommendations and to develop their wins. In New Hampshire, modernizing how we educate our students in these high demand fields is critical. We are developing innovative partnerships between Higher Education and the Business Community, such as the one in rochester and Great Bay Community college that is helping to position our emerging Aerospace Sector as a leader in the industry. In New Hampshire is also breaking new ground on how student progress should be measured with innovative highquality, competencybased assessments that provide more certainty that students have mastered key content and skills for moving to the next grade level. New hampshires performance assessment for competency education is a first in the nation accountability strategy and it is allowing districts to reduce the level of standard eye testing in favor standardized testing in favor of more localbased initiatives. Bolstering Stem Education is just one pathway to creating career opportunities. In iowa, the governor is making his state a leader in registered apprenticeships. Since 2011, the governor has increased it to more than 8000 participating in more than 600 Apprenticeship Programs. The governor is using the strength of this new career what in arkansas the governor is bringing it to the forefront to creation of a Skills Development office to bring together education and the Business Community. He also created a Career Education and Workforce Development board composed from representatives from various industrial sectors. As part of tennessees drive to 55 initiative the governor has pioneered the l. E. A. P. To ensure that post secondary institutions in his state are producing the skills and credentials that tennessee employers actually need. The governor is utilizing grants and local alignment groups to tie the training and skills that his colleges are teaching directly to current Workforce Needs to help more tennesseeans qualify for good paying, high quality jobs. Just last month a bill was signed ensuring colorado students get a head start at Career Training while still in high school through an innovative, dual enrollment program. The governors new pathways in Technology Early College High Schools will allow students toer and an Associates Degree while completing their High School Diploma through programs focused on high demand stem fields. With governors connecting education to the workforce system and creating Innovative New pathways to careers the federal government took notice and has taken steps to support the work in the past year with reauthorizations of key legislation. The workforce opportunity act reauthorized last year by Congress Gives governors more flexibility to meet the Training Needs of their states work force by allowing them to connect federal education and workforce programs with their state systems. Congress built on this alainment this year as they worked to reauthorize the elementary and secondary education act. And create a role for governors to bring the Business Community and the workforce system to the table to ensure that college or Career Readiness is a reality. Today secretary will engage us in a conversation on how to leverage these federal resources to build a world class workforce in every state. Following the secretary harold levy and crystal bonds will illustrate how innovative state policies are creating opportunities for students every day in high schools and colleges across the country. They will offer action steps for governors to continue to create pathways to current and future high demand job opportunities. Following each of their presentations time is reserved for q a. The bulk of the time is reserved for governors to discuss policies. Before we proceed to the program well hear what governors have been doing to advance education and workforce so im now going to turn our program over to martin simon and Richard Layne from our best Practices Group and they can talk about what were all doing to build the Talent Pipeline. Thank you. Thank you very much. I am the director of education for the National Governors Association Center for best practice. And my colleagues and i are the team that provide Consulting Service to you all and your staff and help you answer many questions when you ask what does research say about best practice . What are the programs in the states doing the best on specific areas . What are the talents you need to grow to start to implement good practices and learn lessons from each other . My division supports the education reform as governor hassan said along the entire education pipeline from Early Education to k12 to post secondary and nah the work force. Let me give you a specific example of the work were doing in collaboration with our Workforce Division in terms of connecting the education pipe layne to the work force. Building on governor fallons Initiative Last year America Works and the past work of the sector and the fact as governor hassan said you are jobs governors and education governors, we created a twoyear consulting engagement to work with 14 states many represented around this table to help you improve and align to the Workforce Needs. Were working hand in hand with martin simon and his team but in terms of the Technical Assistance we are providing and grants up to 170,000 per state we are bringing together state leaders from your k12 system, post secondary, labor, congress, and the private sector to articulate the kneads of the private sector so you can start to align your twoyear, fouryear, work place Training Programs to the kneads of the economy and create better opportunities for students to make choices to give them better opportunities to enter the middle class and beyond. Were helping your states connect the data that often times sits in silos to better understand how you align the programs and opportunities that students need to understand where the jobs are and what the training requirements are. The other piece starting to play very strongly in the states this summer is were helping the states inventory the federal and state Resources Available to you to start to think how youre spending your training and work force dollars. It is amazing when we ask states where are you spending the dollars most of them dont know the pots of money that sit in isolation from the federal government or even in the state that could be realigned to the vision youre trying to create for your students in creating opportunities. Were creating Lessons Learned both positive and negative, the tools both from the states in this policy academy as well as many of the states that are not involved but working on this issue and putting together tool kits other states will be able to utilize to start to inventory resources, figure out how to present data in such a way that it is meaningful to students and families and employers and start to reallocate the resources to actually make a difference on the ground. In fact from these lessons well be working through with the current 14 states we expect a second cohort of states selected in early 2016 that will be able to accelerate the work youre trying to do in connecting education and the workforce. Thats a snap shot of what were doing in the town pipeline. Let me turn it over to my colleague martin simon to talk more about future opportunities. Good afternoon gfs. Im martin simon the Program Director for Workforce Development at the mga center for best pract sis. As part of the economic Human Services ive got to bring this closer. Okay. Im going to use up all my time here just getting the mike set. I appreciate the opportunity to spend a couple minutes talking about a new project that were just starting at the mga center that builds on the work richard described and certainly will complement the work under way in your states that governor hassan just described. We initiated a new proget driven by demand. And as part of this project we are going to be working with six states that will be looking at strategies for connecting young people 16 to 29 and connecting them with jobs, middle skill jobs in stem area. Well have a competitive Selection Process participating states will receive up to a hundred thousand dollars grant to cover the extra costs of participating. We will issue the select Selection Process this fall for this project. On a parallel track weve been working with the u. S. Department of labor on the American Apprenticeship Initiative that focuses on rethinking apprenticeship in this country and in the department investing hundred Million Dollars in grants to expand apprenticeship both in Traditional Industries and new industries. I know secretary perez is going to talk more about this initiative. Work based learning, training approaches bridge the world of learning and work. Their apprenticeship their internships, onthejob training, and their work experience. These are earn and learn approaches that prepare young people with relevant skills employers need but also so that they can achieve economic success for themselves. All 14 of the states that are participating in the talent pipe layne policy academy that richard talked about are incorporating Work Based Learning approaches into their strategies for developing pathways to jobs and careers in the Growth Industries in their states. The workforce innovation and opportunity act that went into effect july 1 had its First Anniversary just on the 22nd a couple days ago. It requires governors, workforce Investment Boards to implement Career Pathways that include Work Based Learning with a particular emphasis on apprenticeship. We think this work is tamely and an important part of building the Talent Pipeline in your state. We look forward to working with you and your staff. Thank you. I turn it over to david quam the Deputy Director for policy at mga. Thank you martin, governors, secretary perez. So good to be with you today. During the winter meeting you gave us all a charge. You said we have 150 days to accomplish three things. One was to help with the regulations around the gnaw workforce investment act to make sure that states could implement it. Work with the secretary and the department of labor to make sure that law works. Number two, was to restore governors set aside under the law which is part of the underlying law to meet the appropriation. Number three was to put gfs back in the e. S. E. A. And make sure that law got off the flar so the 43 states operating under waivers didnt have to do that any more. I am happy to say you have a great report card. At this point we have made strides on all three fronts. Let me start quickly with the regulations. We worked with Martins Group to really pull together state examples of how those regulations need to work and we provided all that information to the department of labor. Theyre due to come out with that regulation i believe early in 2016. Well continue to be an active partner with the department on behalf of governors to make sure that law works. On the 15 set aside im happy to report the Senate Appropriations committee has just said that they will restore a full 15 under the appropriations. The house is still a little bit behind but we are convinced we can get them to join the senate and restore the 15 set aside. As a quick reminder, in 2011 it had been reduced to 5 . Weve slowly been increasing that amount and have returned over 130 million to governors in that set aside since that time. This will be the final step to fully restore the 15 . Finally, under esea both the house and the senate have now moved major authorization bills. In the senate, working with the chief state school officers, m. J. Was able to get an amendment with the senator of West Virginia and nevada to have governors an essential part of esea and help sign off on those state plans. Brings together richards work on a pipeline because only governors can bring together all the different aspects of education from early ed to k12 to Community Colleges to highered and the workforce system to make sure they all align and Work Together. A friend of mine likes to say Public Education is a team sport. Governors, you are always the leader of that team. And so with that amendment and this bill it will put you back in that chair to help align all of those programs. So we have work to do. There will be a conference to bring the bills together in the next couple months. This committee will be very busy. We look forward to a final law to make it to the president s desk. Thank you, david, very much. A lot of work and activity in a short amount of time. I think were making good progress. Now were going to turn to our program and it is my distinct honor to introduce our first speaker thomas e. Perez the nations 26th secretary of labor. He has committed to making good on the promise of opportunity for all giving every working family a chance to get ahead and putting the middle class life within reach of everyone willing to work for it. To accomplish this, secretary perezs priorities for the department include ensuring a fair days pay for a fair days work connecting readytowork americans with ready to be filled jobs through skills programs like registered apprenticeships and onthejob training, promoting gender equality in the work place, ensuring that people with disabilities and veterans have access to equal employment opportunity, and insisting on a safe and level Playing Field for all american workers. Most recently, secretary perez was assistant attorney general for civil rights in the United States department of justice from 2002 until 2006 he was a member of the Montgomery County council. He was later appointed secretary of marylands department of labor, licensing, and regulation. Secretary perez received a bachelors degree from Brown University in 1983. In 1987 he received both the masters of Public Policy and a law degree from harvard university. He lives in maryland with his wife anne marie and their three children. Mr. Secretary, on behalf of the nations governors welcome and thank you for being with us today. Thank you so much governor. Its an honor to be here with so many people and i want to start out by saying thank you to you and thanks to all of you, workforce has been a joint venture between all of us, between the federal, state, and local governments, between the public sector, private sector, the Community Colleges across this country, and as someone who worked as a state labor secretary and before that as someone who was a local elected official, i bring to this venture as the u. S. Labor secretary an acute appreciation for the Important Role of states and Important Role of local governments and that is certainly i think has helped me. I want to say thank you. There is so much innovation around this table and this country. We just celebrated the 25th anniversary this week of the americans with disabilities act and we continue to celebrate it. I want to say thank you to governor markel and governor dudel. The Unfinished Business of the a. D. A. Is jobs. And many people with disabilities who can work and want to work and we need to do more to focus on the last seven letters of that word and less on the first three letters. So thank you for your leadership governors. And governor fallin, thank you for your unflagging commitment to workforce. This has been remarkable and were seeing results. When i go around the country i hear the same story. Its a great story. I talk to Large Businesses Small Businesses businesses in between. I hear the same thing which is im optimistic about the future. I want to grow my business, and one of my Biggest Challenges is making sure that we have the Skilled Workforce to compete. My life is groundhog day. I hear that everywhere i go. I see that as a remarkable opportunity because we do have a wind at our back. Weve seen now 64 consecutive months of private sector job growth to the tune of 12. 12. 8 million jobs. We collect data on the number of job openings. We have more job openings in america right now 5. 4 million, than weve ever had since we were collecting this data set. We had in the depth of the recession seven job seekers roughly for every job opening. We now have about 1. 6. Im not very good at math but id rather compete against one person than six for a job. You have openings across various sectors. You know the situation in your state. Opportunities abound. What id like to do is talk for a little while about what were trying to do to help be that catalytic force in partnership with all of you in partnership with your Education Partners locally and partnership with business and also give you some reflections on my experience in state government. Because i learned a few things. We did some things right and we did some things we thought were right and as i go through some of what were trying to do now i certainly want to give you the benefit of that insight. Because when i speak to folks who have been in this space for a long time, people like martin simon and others, what i hear consistently is we have an historic opportunity right now. Ive never seen more excitement in this field than we see now. Opportunities indeed abound. I call tt eisenhower moment. Dwight eisenhower brought us the interstate highway system and the challenge for us is to construct what i call skilled super highway and we need to make sure there are on ramps and off ramps for everyone. And thats exactly what were trying to do. The destination for workers is the middle class. The destination for employers is future, further, and sustainable prosperity. And the challenge for us as we construct this skills ecosystem and skill super highway is to take the remarkable best practices that we see emerging across the country, figure out the principles of general application, understanding that what works in one side of the country may not have immediate application elsewhere, but recognizing that there are principled and general Applications App figuring out how we scale and sustain those. And one of the on ramps that weve discussed in the skills super highway is the on ramp of apprenticeship. Ive traveled across this world. Its not hard to figure out why the youth Unemployment Rate in germany is roughly half of what it is here. The apprenticeship model in germany and so many other countries enjoys a stature that we allowed to atrophy in this country. And thats unfortunate. What we have been trying to do and we in the sense is not simply the federal government, the president , but so many of you around this room, because apprenticeship is a tried and true method of Workforce Development, Skill Development and business development. When i was at boeing in seattle weiss ently they said that recently they said roughly a third of their workforce is within seven years of retirement so apprenticeship is very much on their mind. And the grain of the work force is a very real phenomenon. And the interesting thing about apprenticeship is that when a lot of people think about apprenticeship they immediately think about the skill trade. Apprenticeship has remarkable application yesterday, today, and tomorrow in the skill trade. We have to reup our effort. I feel like our plumber often charges more than a lawyer. Its a good middle class job. And so we should be training people in the fields. But apprenticeship also has application in i. T. When i was with the mayor of philadelphia recently to announce the 100 Million Investment they have an investment in philadelphia where theyre taking kids from the Philadelphia Public School system and putting them into i. T. Apprenticeship partnerships. As the parent of three teenagers one thing i know is that young people are good with gadgets. When i have a problem with my iphone i go to my 13yearold. Because hes pretty fluent in that. And so theyre taking that fluency and interest and translating it into a middle class career. And of those 5. 4 million openings i would note roughly 10 are in the i. T. Sector. So as you think about apprenticeship in your state, i would certainly encourage you not only to think about the traditional skill and trade, but to think about other opportunities. In our 100 million grant solicitation was explicitly attempting to branch out. Not only to the traditional Skilled Trades but other areas. U. P. S. Operates for instance a remarkable Apprenticeship Program in the logistics context. We funded before Health Care Apprenticeships that enabled people to get pathways to the middle class in healthcare. The i. T. As i mentioned. Many states have made available apprenticeship through various state fund investments. Most recently governor malloy. Governor branstad of iowa. We could go around the table and talk about that. C. V. S. For instance has been a very prolific user of the tax credit that South Carolina put in place. What theyre doing is taking folks who are on this and giving them a Career Pathway as a farm pharmacy tech. I talked to one person who has decided she wants to become a pharmacist. Thats what it is all about is creating Career Pathways. I would encourage you based on my own experience, very consistent with what you ha erd from your professional staff, to take a look around your agencies and do what i tried to do in maryland which is follow the money. Because if you have a 22yearold veteran returning from military service and hes living with his mother in subsidized housing and he is on perhaps food stamps and he wants a Career Pathway, i just implicated half a dozen agencies within your government that have work force dollars from the federal government. We created a work force sub cabinet when i was in maryland. The president has created a work force cabinet that i have the privilege of chairing. Our goal is to implode stove pipes so were working together. So for instance when we did a grant recently to help people who are on s. N. A. P. Get access to Career Pathways 10 states were awarded that grant and were working together so we dont define success for a s. N. A. P. Recipient as getting any job but defining success now as a Career Pathway. Jobs that give you the selfsufficiency that we all want. And so that sort of stove pipe implosion between the Labor Department and the u. S. D. A. Is an example and were doing that in other areas. I predict one of your agencies that will have the most money when you convene or if you decide to convene will be whatever agency administers your program because theres a lot of work force dollars in that context. In other words a lot of opportunity there. And so when you do that stove pipe implosion that we are trying to do in the federal government, and that i think will have great application elsewhere, you can make Real Progress and the apprenticeship context is one area. I very much encourage you to follow the lead of your colleagues who have done great work. The president set forth a goal of doubling the number of registered apprentices in this country over the next five years and were making tremendous progress thanks to people like governor branstad and governor malloy and governor fallin and so many others in this room. And ill tell you, were going to foreign countries. We just signed an m. O. U. With the government of switzerland. Switzerland is the seventh largest country in terms of Foreign Direct Investment in the u. S. And what theyre doing with us is they have the apprenticeship foot print as part of their d. N. A. And they have a u. S. Foot print. What were doing with them is they are becoming our ambassadors. As we establish what were calling a Leaders Program of industries. Because when Companies Come to us and say, im thinking about this but im not sure, i think the best answer for that question is for me not to talk but for me to have them talk to another business because when you have that businesstobusiness mentoring going on it is a great way to grow apprenticeship. I encourage you to continue to partner with us. We have our Leader Program which is going gang busters. We have a partnership with Community Colleges called the registered apprenticeship Community College consortium. Because one of the Biggest Barriers you will find to apprenticeship are parents. When you say the word apprenticeship to them they say, no, no. My kids going to college. What were here to say is, prenticeship is the other college. Except without the debt. And when you get enrolled in an Apprenticeship Program you get affordable and stackable credential and through this registered apprenticeship Community College consortium those credits are atick lated to the Community College and you are 2 3 of the way to your Associates Degree and sometimes more. There is a lot happening in this space. Ample opportunity. I certainly encourage you to get involved. One other on ramp we are constructing in the skills super highway is the on ramp of reentry. I want to applaud your effort. Weve had many conversations with you throughout because im a big believer in second chances. I know you all are as well. And one of the largest, the largest private employer in the state of maryland is john hopkins, a world class facility. The most prolific employer of people returning from prison in maryland is john hopkins. If i hadron paetz the president of hopkins hospital here with me here is what he would tell you. This is not an act of charity. This is an act of enlightened selfinterest. We have a remarkably talented pipeline and we have taken that pipeline. It is not simply entry level positions but xray techs other allied health professionals. We have the lowest attrition among our people who have come out of prison. And so there is a lot to be done there. One thing we did when i was in maryland was we took correctional education and brought it into the work force system. So one question you might want to consider when you go back is ask who is running correctional education in your state. Ask them what their Outcome Measures are. Ask them how they are connected to the work force system. Talk to people who run your local jails because we just gave out 15 million in grants to city and county jails because when i was in Montgomery County, maryland we built a one stop center in the couming and the return on investment has been remarkable because the best way to reduce recidivism is to get peam the skills they need and then the job they need. And there are many businesses who are out there who are willing and in need of talent. So we had an opportunity here. As we build the skills super highway i certainly encourage you to think about the opportunity are out there who are willing and in need of talent. So we had an opportunity here. As we build the skills super highway i certainly encourage you to think about the opportunity. The College System has worked so remarkably well. One of the biggest differences between 10 years ago and now and why this is working well is the level of business engagement. If you go to front range Community College in colorado, you will see they have an advanced manufacturing partnership, a partnership between the federal, state and local government, the Business Community and others. You see the curriculum is being devised within industry. There are businesses whose workers are professors. One of the reasons they love teaching is they cherry pick the best students. That is how you build your Talent Pipeline. Thank you for your leadership on behalf of Community Colleges. It stands for using comedic munity colleges to catalyze change. What i learned from these grants is that oftentimes, businesses were not talking enough to educators. In los angeles, we gave a grant to six Community Colleges. They had seldom been coordinating with each other. If you took a nursing 101 course the curriculum was not the same as college b and was not aligned with the needs of the employers. These grants help to catalyze that partnership. They learned they had other career opportunities. These Community College grants are remarkably catalytic, they have been successful. We dont have a round five right now and weve been working with our colleagues in congress because there is overwhelming bipartisan support. I want to thank you for the feedback we have gotten from nga and other stakeholders. Im a big believer that the most important thing you can do is listen and build a big table and bring a healthy dose of humility to the venture. We think we have some knowledge, but we know that all of you have remarkable knowledge. It has been really helpful. One of my biggest frustrations to be frank, is that we have had four rounds of tax grants, they have been wildly successful, we know what works, we know what needs be scaled and we need to make sure that we continue the investments. There is a 27 return for every one dollar invested. We need to continue our conversations about round five because we want to continue and sustain the momentum that exists across this country. We need the investments. I want to stop because i really want to engage in dialogue. I did want to mention that, as part of the trade Promotion Authority that was passed recently, there was a reauthorization of the trade adjustment act. Its a really important resource for you because there are literally tens of thousands of people across this country who have lost their jobs either through globalization or through trade related activity. This is an important feature of the workforce system. One aspect of the trade adjustment act you may not be aware of is it is retroactive to january 1, 2014. There are various versions of the trade adjustment act that have been in place. The version in place since 2014 was the strippeddown version. The version that was passed in the end of june is a much more robust version, a really important tool in your toolkit. You are partners with us in the implementation of that. Weve been working closely to identify folks who lost their jobs and ive spoken to folks who lost their jobs in a steel plant. As you go back, taa is an important resource in your arsenal and i would encourage you to make sure that your colleagues are certainly well aware of the fact that we have an important new tool back in our arsenal and we look forward to working with you together. Let me stop there. I think we can talk about so many on ramps and off ramps on this skill superhighway, but i come to you with an unrelenting sense of optimism and gratitude. The wind is at our back. This is a remarkable moment and we have to turn this moment into a movement to get movement that will help workers and businesses. A movement to make sure everybody has the skills to compete for todays jobs. Thank you very much, mr. Secretary. [applause] im going to open it up to questions. I will kick off a question to you and i can see the governor has one, too. Secretary perez, we want to thank you for the presentation. We greatly appreciate your efforts to make state job training the focus of the departments ready to work initiative. One critical federal tool for all of us as governors that will allow us to innovate is that 50 15 workforce set aside. We know you were not a congressional appropriator but we know you have been around to a lot of our states working with a lot of states. I wonder if you can give us a bit of a sense of what that 15 set aside would do for flexibility for governors. Im a big fan of the 15 because i know what we did with it. In maryland, we catalyzed innovation. We were able to scale that innovation. Weve been able to gradually ramp up the challenge, we want to make sure we are mindful of it would be potentially zerosum if we ramp up the 15 fund at the expense of formula dollars that go to the local workforce system. We want to make sure that we are able to try to do both because what i hear from folks in the local workforce system, we have a lot of innovation underway, it has been very successful and we want to continue to be catalytic and scale in that area as well. Thats one challenge we have and thats why weve been trying to get the gradual ramp up and make sure we dont pit state governments against local governments. That is a false choice and we should ignore that. Im a big fan of it and i can give you a chapter and verse of uses youve made of it. Great presentation. You really cover the waterfront, which i appreciate. You tied a lot of things together that need to be tied together. I want to make a couple of comments. I appreciate your focus on reentry. 97 of the people in our prisons in delaware are coming out. One of the most inspiring events i go to each year is the High School Graduation within the prison. I just when a few weeks ago. It is astonishing to me these men who came in with varying degrees of education and amongst other things, had to learn algebra two while in prison. The persistence and determination it takes for them to get their High School Diploma while in prison is remarkable. In a budget year where weve had very few additional resources, one of the places we did put the money was additional vocational opportunities within our prisons. That being said, one of these places that has been an issue of difficult we live in this world where there has never been a better time for somebody with the right skills. There are so many people who are caught in this cycle of crime, drug dealing and the like who would be pretty happy to be able to hold down a job. Many of the jobs that were around 20 years ago, 30 years ago that did not require a lot of additional skills beyond the high school, a lot of them are gone. One of the things im eager to learn from my other governors and folks like you are best practices we are doing well growing the Technology Jobs and a number of other jobs which require a lot of skills. This is been a particular point of frustration. If you are talking about reentry, one thing we always talk about is preentry and trying to avoid the need for reentry investments in the first place. I could not let this meeting go by without mentioning programs like the one we talked about , jobs for americas graduates. 93 success rate of keeping the most at risk kids in school. Really significantly increasing their chances of having a job a year out. Governor sandoval has done an unbelievable job in nevada increasing the program there and we are very grateful to a number of folks who have helped us grow in a number of states. The last point i want to make on apprenticeships, you mentioned switzerland specifically. I was over there are couple months ago and have a phenomenal u. S. Ambassador to switzerland who took us to a couple of swiss companies. One of the things that was very interesting to me to learn that she mentioned the apprenticeships go so far beyond the typical manufacturing field. I spoke to the north american ceo of one of the big swiss banks. This is a topnotch banker. He started his career as an apprentice in switzerland. We are working very hard in delaware to try to follow that lead. We have invested significantly increasing 15 fold over the next year the number of Career Pathways for High School Juniors and seniors to get handson experience in College Credit under their belt and to graduate with real certificates of tangible credentials and skills and the like. There is so much going on in this field, as it should be when i visit delaware businesses, i ask one question what can we do to facilitate your success. The overwhelming majority, well over 95 , the answer has to do with having access to a Skilled Workforce. I appreciate the focus that you bring and any insights you might have about programs that are working effectively around the country, particularly at that at risk population folks who would love to have a job but end up doing things they should not be doing and get caught in this vicious cycle. Thank you for your observations and your leadership. A couple quick points. The ceo of Zurich Insurance Company Started out as an apprentice. With the help of zurich and a Community College in chicago, we will be putting in an Apprenticeship Program for the insurance industry. The main observation i would make is to think broadly about the application of this model. It applies in virtually every sector where you have a demand need in your community. You can get folks in at a very young age. In terms of the point about former offenders, i have done a lot of work in this space in maryland and nationally. You have a bully pulpit opportunity. We do a number of champions for change events to highlight employers. Monday, i will be at the white house doing an event for employers who have done remarkable work in the employment of people with disabilities. Northrop grumman is an example. What i have learned in this space as it relates to hiring former offenders is you have employers like hopkins who are going ganbusters and they are very, very proud to talk about it publicly. Ive met other employers who are doing it they prefer not to talk about it publicly. That is fine. I totally respect whatever choice they made. There are other employers thinking about doing it. They need a nudge. That is why your bully pulpit is a remarkable opportunity. When they see that johns hopkins, the anchor of Baltimore City is doing it and they see the Construction Company in the construction industry, ive met a lot of employers who have such shortages of Skilled Trades that this issue of whether you have a record is of no moment. One thing to keep in mind if an employer comes to you and says this guy has a record for theft, you have a tool in your toolbox. We used it with great success, a bond. The workforce toolbox you have you can say, ok, and that is your major concern, i will insure you against that concern. Once that employer employs one person, they will then hire more because that has been my experience. I would urge you to use your toolkit. A longerterm observation, when we when the president rolled out my brothers Keeper Initiative to address the chronic opportunity gaps confronting young men of color we had a meeting at the white house before the formal public event and we had a lot of ceos making commitments. A question was asked of the experts by a ceo who said i want to do something in this space, but i dont know what to do. What are the interventions that could be the biggest difference makers on the prevention side of this to produce a pipeline of talent that we have data to say works . Without missing a beat, the two folks in the room said you should replicate the sixyear High School Model that has been put in place in a number of cities. We funded this to the tune of 150 million in competitive grant programs. There is a ptech academy in brooklyn. Sarah good academy in chicago. Grade 914 ibm has been the lead corporate sponsor. They have built a stem model where the curriculum is totally open source. You have your partner with an employer. You have a mentor at ibm. You are not only learning in the classroom through a rigorous and validated curriculum, but getting those opportunities to see what its like. When i was at Frederick Douglass high school in west baltimore, the thing that sticks in my mind most was the kid who was a High School Senior who said im smart, im doing well in school but i dont have any ap courses here. You go to places like sarah good and ptech and you see young kids of color you have high minority, high poverty highperforming. They are building the pipeline to the future, giving kids opportunity. If you are thinking about how to build Educational Opportunity and to take and apply the principles that we know work the principle of partnership the principle of demand driven the principle of a stem foundation, these programs work. They are open source. You can pick up the phone and call ibm and i guarantee they will be on the next plane to visit your community and he will brainstorm with you about how to build a program. It may be a health care focus in your city or maybe a narrow aerospace focus somewhere else. States and local governments are really helping to catalyze this sort of innovation that helps prevent that cycle. Thank you. I want to thank you for your emphasis on apprenticeships. Last year, the state of iowa tripled our funding for apprenticeships and then we also got significant dollars from your department, the department. They are really being used you mentioned i. T. Being used. Because of our success, we have some big Construction Projects we have facebook and google and microsoft all Building Data centers in my state. In the excess of they are now in the third or fourth building, its over 1 billion investment. This skill shortage is what the Lieutenant Governor and i hear everywhere we go. We visit with employers and that is the big thing. Apprenticeships and convincing parents you mention this these are great careers, they pay well and you dont end up with a huge amount of college debt. The more we can partner on that and encourage apprenticeships, the better. Another area to find skilled workers, we passed a homebased iowa to make it more attractive for military veterans. There is a major reduction going on in the military. Those are a couple places we think are some real opportunities to help build the workforce of the future. People will have careers my Lieutenant Governor is also heading up the stem council and we are focusing on preparing the kids in our schools. I want you to know how much we appreciate the assistance we are getting from the department of labor and your support for that. Thank you. We are dramatically reengineering ourselves as we Work Together with you. The old model of apprenticeship, our primary role, we were Quality Control officer. Making sure that Apprenticeship Programs are rigorous programs. We also found we are a facilitator. We are attempting to capitalize publicprivate partnerships, working with the business committee, working with states working with local governments educators, nonprofit partners to make sure that we can indeed dramatically expand and we are working with ive looked at apprenticeship maps around the country. They are structured differently in different states. Sometimes they tend to be off on their own. One take away i would recommend you consider is figure out where partnership is in your state. There is a wide array of structure. Im not recommending one structure over another, but i am recommending you take a close look at it and make sure that its embedded somehow in the workforce system. It really is a critical workforce tool. Our experience was, when we were advocating for this, we were able to get a Rare Coalition of building and construction trades and unions and the nonunion contractors who critically need people in the manufacturing Business Community all on board. We were able to get broadbased bipartisan support. It is working extremely well. Our department is playing a key role in coordinating all that. Thank you. Thank you. We have time for one more governor fallin had one. We appreciate your chairmanship and you are being here today. I want to thank you for the flexibility that you are giving the states. There are a lot of great things happening. With innovation and workforce investment programs, we appreciate the 15 set aside. One of the things we have done in oklahoma, we launched a program called oklahoma works. We took our workforce Investment Board and developed it into a different regions of the state analyzed specific metric data within our department of commerce and work with our colleges and career tax to figure out what types of courses and careers to do because they are offering and degrees to make sure that we are not producing some certificates that dont go to jobs that are out there or vice versa. Weve been working hard within the individual committees to bring together the k12 and social Services Department of corrections, Rehabilitative Services disabilities and people that need jobs, veterans returning from war, somebody so many Different Things weve done. Offenders coming of our correctional facilities, we changed a portion of our law to allow them to get licenses in certain professions. We changed our licensing, which really helped. Veterans returning from war, they have a lot of skill sets that they may not have college hours, but now we give them hours for that to applied toward a twoyear Community College degree are Career Technology certificate. I wanted to ask you about unemployment. The latest figures i heard, how do people in america could work but choose not to work. How many people are in a workforce we hear from our employers, we need more workers. The latest number may have been around 60 of the people who could work about 62 . Those who could work but dont. On the Unemployment Benefits, is there a way that we could work with our employers who need workers we have people who are unemployed, between jobs receiving Unemployment Benefits to encourage them to say if you will hire this unemployed person instead of giving that person the money to stay home, to give them a try to see if they could work out in that job, is there any way of doing that with Unemployment Benefits . Let me talk to you about another really important tool in your toolbox. It is called onthejob training. You have the ability right now to subsidize the wage of certain workers who are looking for work. I did a visit with the Vice President to New Hampshire it was interesting, we went to a Small Manufacturer with 50 employees. There were two people we met of note, an engineer who lost his job during the recession. He was what employers call a 70 er. He has 70 of what they needed but not 100 . With this tool, his wage was subsidized for six or seven months. At the end of that, its up to the employer to keep them on. The data is overwhelming. Employers love this. It has worked swimmingly. There was another person who was she was a receptionist who had lost her job. The used the ogt funds and she is going gang busters and she is moving up the career ladder at that company. Its a tool in your toolbox right now. I encourage you to take a careful look at that because we have seen in its use in a number of different sectors too great great advantage. Your other points are spot on. What i was observing, the workforce system has become more demand driven. We are not training people to be widget makers unless we know that someone is hiring widget makers. Employers have more skin in the game. We have to keep encouraging them to be even more involved with local workforce i still hear that people are coming out with degrees but not translating into competencies. We have to get employers and educators working even more i see dramatic improvement in the understanding of success, taking the job seeker where you find him or her. I was with Virginia Foxx and your folks from your department of commerce and a Community College outside of winstonsalem. They were producing tomorrows workforce in the science field. One of the Biggest Barriers to folks who wanted job skills, they had to take a lab. It is four hours a week. These are folks who have commitments. People have kids, people have parents to care for. People have other responsibilities. Forsyth Community College, the lab is open from 8 00 a. M. To 10 00 p. M. Six days a week. Just call ahead within an hour and you do your for our lab and it allows people to work around life and the constraints that exist. That is a wonderful example of the principal that if we are going to succeed in helping everybody punch their ticket to the middle class, we have to understand the station in life that people are in. Some people have transportation challenges, some people have family commitments, some have a criminal record. Some people have whatever the barriers, we have tools for that and we have the creativity rub around this country and around this table to address it. Thats what people in oklahoma are doing and thats what we have to do and scale across the country, and we can. I see success everywhere i go. It is very inspiring. Anything you will need from us and any feedback you have for us about how we can do better, i hope you will continue to give it to us. This skill superhighway is looking like a superhighway, but we still have fortification of these on ramps we need to do. Meeting the hours of when the workers need the education is one of the major areas where academia needs to adjust. We are now going to be budgeting our Community Colleges like our k12 to take summers off. You cannot take summers off anymore. When somebody is unemployed, they cannot wait for academia to take three or four months off. You have to work after hours not academic hours. That is the big change that academia has to adjust for commerce times and the peoples time. That will also be true at universities. And k12. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Secretary. Happy to share what we are doing and return to work, something governor fallin was just asking about. We cannot thank you enough for your time and expertise and everything you are going around the country to help us all americas workers. Thank you. [applause] now, it is my pleasure to be joined by crystal bonds and harold leavy. We are honored to have two individuals who have spent their careers ensuring that students received the knowledge and support necessary to have a successful life. Harold leavy is the executive director of the Jack Kent Cooke foundation. He is best known for having been the first noneducator chancellor of new york city schools, serving for three years starting in 2000, including during 9 11. Prior to working for the foundation, he headed the ed tech investment practice and with special counsel to a special situation distressed debt hedge fund. He served as executive Vice President of kaplan inc. Where he started Kaplan Universitys Online School of education. He received a bs from cornell university, an ma in politics from the university of oxford and a law degree from the cornell law school. Crystal bonds is principal for the high school of math, science and engineering at the city college of new york. One of nine specialized high schools in york city. She assumed leadership in 2011 after serving for eight years as an assistant principal at brooklyn technical high school. Its one of the top high schools in the nation and rate among the top high schools in new york city and new york state. In 2012, the New York Times recognized her school as the most diverse Public School in new york city. She earned her undergraduate degree in Business Marketing from the State University in york and holds masters degrees in education, School Administration and supervision. Harold and crystal, on behalf of the nations governors, welcome and thank you for being with us today. Good afternoon. It is truly an honor and pleasure to be with you. I am the principal of the high schools of math, science and engineering at city college of new york. Over 30,000 students take an exam to enter into one of the nine specialized high schools for 3000 seats offered. The u. S. News and world report has recognized this as a top school. We also have 100 of our seniors who graduate, 100 go to college, 70 of them are enrolled in stem majors and attending some of the most prestigious colleges in the country. All of our students earn College Credits, all are required to take advanced placement courses and we have the largest German Program in new york state. Im also the president of a new Nonprofit Coalition for leaders of advanced student success. A coalition of more than 100 principles from the top highly selective schools nationwide many of which are stem. To provide an advocate for higher achieving students and work with high schools and universities to engage corporations and policymakers to create systematic ways to develop pipelines for our youth from schools to the workforce. All of these align with secretary perez is concept and the job driven initiatives. We recognize that the demands of the 21st century workforce are changing. With stem jobs more prevalent than ever, each one of us are proactively implement the policies that help connect our students with reallife training, skills students with a parent in stem is more likely the Class Coalition schools will be exposing all students to a body of knowledge combined with skills to prepare them for future major concentrations in college where their skills are transferable to the workforce. I would like to share a few examples of things we do we begin with a concept called an opportunity cap iep to inform, expose and prepare. Some of them dont even know what they dont know. We believe in exposing them to all. One of our examples, we host a monthly lunch and learn. A particular corporation will present two and dialogue with our students for an entire week during their lunch and provide lunch because we know that teens love to eat. Each day, a different professional from the Company Presents to give insight to his or her job or career. Attending these workshops serves as a prerequisite for a summer internship with the company. Another idea we have an amended, we host a monthly advisory with Industry Partners, meeting with students to give insight on industry perspectives,. Discussions may include revenue, honing your speech, personal branding, goalsetting or how to interview. We also have a career and Technical Education program who partners with the project we have a Work Based Learning core who helps our students to get in ternships. We can create, adopt and infuse these skills and concepts in our classes. We realize the importance and value of engineering and computer science, which we expose every student to. We also partner with colleges and universities. The university of michigan and Carnegie Mellon love the preparedness of our engineering students. They know we have highly skilled teachers who are former engineers, architects and actuaries who can give realworld experiences in the classrooms. Through our German Program, i have traveled to germany to learn about the educational system and apprenticeships and have seen the concept of the earn while you learn program. We partner with the german consulate to send our students to germany. Many of the classical issues prior to being at the high schools, i was the assistant principal at brooklyn tech high school, another example of 5600 students and 300 employers. The largest high school in the country. Now that im at high schools of math, science and engineering with 500 students and 40 employees the job of a School Leader or principal has evolved. It is no longer just about getting students in and out and to graduate, but to create pathways. Not just about educating, but also about being the connector and making connections for them. Nga through America Works has made Great Strides in recognizing the importance of strengthening school to workforce pipelines and identifying better ways to connect employers, students and educators. Ensuring that america has more skilled workers is an extremely important starting at the high school level, it is key. We have learned and we have students who have the propensity to reach beyond our wildest dreams. Im excited that the department of labor and administration has launched the apprenticeship competition and the white house summit on america partnerships. Class hopes to work with the department of labor to support them in their efforts to better prepare students for the 21stcentury careers. We want to help our nation to take back its rightful place in leading the world and economic growth, Wealth Creation and technological innovation. We realize we may be preparing students for jobs that have not even been created yet. We will create a platform with policymakers, secondary and postsecondary School Leaders are practitioners and Industry Partners to discuss the specific skills needed in this fastchanging industry and infusing these skills into our curriculum. We should include educators at the table. Having School Leaders or principles at the table actually gives you another perspective through a different lens. To engage policymakers helps us do our jobs better. You will have access to many of the top Public Schools around the country and this will help to bridge the gap between conceptual and reality. What conceptually works and what reality makes work. I realized that there is hesitancy about hiring students and having internships for under the age of 18. Or, with the lack of internal champions who will own these projects and advocate for them internships could be difficult to execute. Whether there is a hybrid model of paid and unpaid internships whether we look for technological enhancements that will allow us to connect schools with internships or to just have conversations with Industry Leaders about this willingness to dedicate time and effort and staff to this important topic is worthwhile. We call on governors to serve as the bridge between educators and Business Leaders and encourage more Industry Partners to engage with schools to work towards this Labor Mobility movement. Together, i know we can figure this out. Thank you. [applause] thank you for your leadership in this process. Sessions like this give us an opportunity to think about the core issues behind education open up questions that are otherwise rarely addressed and i appreciate the opportunity you have given us. As you heard, im the executive director of the Foundation Supporting low income students that are high achieving. Rhodes scholars for poor kids. Its the largest scholarship available i say this without fear of hesitation of being contradicted because its up to 50,000 a year. We give it in the seventh grade for high school, in the 12th grade for undergrads and most relevant to this, to transfer students from Community Colleges seeking a fouryear degree. We have three students going to oxford next year. We have the relationship with the university. Two of those started off in Community College. It is quite fascinating. If you get a cook scholarship in the seventh grade and you carry on to grad school, and could mean up to 500,000. It puts in perspective the cost of education and the fact that we have lots and lots of extremely talented kids who wind up in Community Colleges. And perhaps are capable of going to fouryear institutions but dont go there for other reasons. Secretary perez spoke eloquently about the demand driven training, the skill superhighway. And Employer Needs and apprenticeships. Crystal has spoken very eloquently about her efforts to bridge the gap among employers and government leaders. I want to shift the conversation a little bit and talk about a different kind of gap. The excellence gap. What is the excellence gap . The disparity in the percentage of low income versus high income students who reach advanced levels of academic performance despite having identical capacity. What is that about . The data is pretty devastating. I did not understand this when i was a chancellor in new york. If you take the kids in the top 25 on reading scores in the 10th grade and of those kids take the kids who are in the bottom 25 financially, whether by wealth or income you have a very smart, very poor kids 22 of them do not take the ect or sat and 23 do not go to college. I found that stunning. I always thought if you were poor and smart, you can write your own ticket. That is not true. They dont see themselves going to college. It is quite an extraordinary thing in this country when we pride ourselves on the American Dream, that these kids do not have a chance. It is almost a fifth of the poor kids at the very top of capacity. It is not just that they are not going to school the ones that do go to school are undermatched, not going to the best schools they are capable of getting into. The numbers of how many go to the selective colleges is quite extraordinary. If you are a high income kid and you are in the top echelon, 46 go to the highly selective schools. If you are a poor kid, 17 . That is not america. The numbers continue. They are ugly. The amount of time it takes to get through college, longer if you are poor. The number of kids who actually graduate, fewer if you are poor. The number who go to graduate school, 20 fewer if you are poor. They are not becoming architects, not becoming lawyers, not becoming accountants. It is a serious, serious problem. If i had known this when i was the schools chancellor, if it had been generated, i would have done things very differently. These highperforming low income kids turn out to be extremely fragile. They drop out because they think they dont belong in college, it is too expensive because they see the number and dont understand there is a discount factor. I know some of this firsthand. The quality of counseling in the high schools i dont need to tell you guys this it is bad. The training is poor and the kids dont have a sense of outreach. The workforce ramifications of this are pretty awful. The National Economy weakens. The American Dream of social mobility in some cases denied. It reduces our economic creativity. One point i want to make that does not get talked about a lot. There is a National Security component to this as well. The Defense Industry cannot import workers from abroad the way we did at citigroup. Defense industry workers need National Security clearance. They will not get it if they are coming from abroad. You only need to look at the Cyber Attacks we read about in todays paper to quietly think how will we get enough people to take care of this for us . Cyber attacks on the federal governments personal files and the Sony Corporation did more harm than sputnik abrogated and eisenhower got the federal government into the National Defense student loan business. That was why. It is an eisenhower moment, but for a different reason. I want to think about these issues of apprenticeships slightly differently. I was a school chancellor. It was 1,100,000 children. I focused relentlessly on the bottom. I wanted to get as many kids as i could to pass those exit exams to get a High School Diploma because we all know what it means better life, better health, better family, more stability, less criminalization. Thats what a High School Diploma represents. It is not enough. By focusing exclusively on getting all children to proficiency, we lose sight of the special needs of the poor, smart ones. We need Certification Programs traditional online moves company c based, but that is not enough. We need to ensure creativity and nimbleness of mine. Todays Employer Needs must be met, but the employer himself doesnt even know what skills they will need tomorrow. I submit to you, we need identification, we need pathways and we need accountability. It is intellectual development not just labor. Labor preparedness. It is both. [applause] thank you very much, both of you. I regret to say that ive just been passed multiple notes saying we are running out of time in this session. I dont think there will be time for governor questions, but i would encourage my colleagues to talk with you both outside of this. I found this very illuminating and i thank you both for the work you are doing. Thank you. Thank you, governor. [applause] president obama is in africa this weekend as part of a four day trip. His first stop was in kenya. He later met with kenya president. The held a joint News Conference to discuss issues including the countrys stance on gay rights. President obama i have been consistent across africa. I believe in the principle of treating people equally under the law. They are deserving of the protection under the law. The state should not discriminate against people based on their Sexual Orientation it. I say that recognizing there may be have different religious or cultural beliefs. The issue is, how does the state operate relative to people. If you look at the history of countries around the world when you start treating people differently, not because of any harm they are doing anybody but because they are different that is the path whereby freedoms began to a road. At things happen. Freedoms began to aerode. Bad things happen. In a government in the habit of treating keep all differently those habits can stick. As an africanamerican in the unites eights, i am painfully aware of the history of what happens when people are treated differently under the law. There were all sorts of rationalizations provided for decades the u. S. Aggregation and jim crowe and slavery. They were wrong. So i am unequivocal. If somebody is a lawabiding citizen who is going about their business and working in a job obeying the traffic signs doing all the other things that good citizens are some host to do are supposed to do, not harming anybody, the idea they are going to be treated differently or abused because of who they love is wrong. Full stop. The state does not need to weigh in on religious doctrine. The state just have to say we are going to treat everybody will he under the law. Everybody else can have their own opinions. This stop in kenya was the first time any sitting u. S. President has traveled to the country. President obama will remain there until sunday before traveling to ethiopia. He is expected that in washington by early wednesday. Cspan gives you the cspan gives you the best access to congress could live coverage of the u. S. House, congressional hearings and News Conferences. Bringing you a vents that shape Public Policy. Every morning, washington journal is live. With elected officials policymakers, and journalist. Cspan, created by americas Cable Companies and brought to you as a Public Service by your local cable or satellite provider. Considered underrated by many first lady historians, Caroline Harrison was an accomplished artist who took up china painting and carry that interest to the white house. She was interested in womens issues, and helped raise funds for John Hopkins University on the condition that it admit women. She was the first president general of the daughters of the American Revolution until she died in the white house from tuberculos