Transcripts For CSPAN2 NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia Addresses National Press Club 20170909

Afternoon. I and americas aviation reporter and im also on the board of governors here the National Press club. Sorry about that. Welcome to the National Press club. Our guest today is Lily Eskelsen garcia the president of the National Education association. I would like to welcome our public radio and cspan audiences and i want to remind you that you can follow the action on twitter using the npc lies. Thats an pc lie. For public radio and cspan audiences please be aware that in the audience today are members of the general public so any applause or reaction you hear is not necessarily from the working press. Now its time to at a deuce our guests. I would ask each of you to stand briefly as your name is announced. Please hold your applause until ive finished introducing the entire table. From your right, Kimberly Hall communications and partnerships manager at the poverty and Race Research action counsel. Thomas burr Washington Bureau chief of the Salt Lake Tribune and former president of the National Press club. The senior director of the naa center for social justice. Emily wilkins education and labor reporter for cq roll call, emily weller Maryland State Education Association president. Lisa matthews Vice President of hager sharp and cochair of the mpc Headliners Team to skipping over our speaker Caroline Hendrie executive director of the education writers association. Carero rom is a dreamer and a soft more at duke university. Catherine morris writer for diverse issues in Higher Education, Linda Feldman Washington Bureau chief for the Christian Science monitor and Peggy Sands Orchowski Congressional Correspondent for hispanic outlook in Higher Education and Senior Correspondent for the georgetown there. [applause] i would also like to acknowledge additional members of the Headliners Team responsible for organizing todays event. Fisher Martin Heather weaver april turner mark chef and joseph lujan. Lily Eskelsen Garcia is president of the Largest Labor union in the country, the National Education association. She is the first latino elected to lead the naa and she joins us as students across the country heading back to school. Its also a time when efforts are underway to further privatize Public Education broback protections. The naa represents 3 million teachers and School Employees who work in k12 schools colleges and universities for the union has been a critic of the trump administrations proposals for education. Last spring Lily Eskelsen garcia said the administrations proposed budget was a wrecking ball in her nations Public Schools. She went on to say the budget quote shows how dangerously illinformed they are about what works for student and Public Education. They are reckless and irresponsible budget which smashes the aspiration of students, crushes their dreams and make it difficult for them to go to college. We will be interested to hear how she expands on the criticisms and some ideas she has two improve Public Education in the united states. Ms. Lily Eskelsen Garcia is longer in education that began by working as a server in a school lunchroom. Then he or she found a job as an aid as a special ed teacher and from there a fulltime teaching job. Later she would be named utahs teacher of the year. She is a graduate of the university of utah graduating magna cum laude and elementary education. She later earned her masters degree in instructional technology. Please join me in welcoming the selfdescribed lunch lady turned president of the national is education association, Lily Eskelsen garcia. [applause] [speaking spanish] it is an honor to be here in the hollow wood halls of the National Press club and im also proud to set appear with some of my colleagues that came to support me, educators come incredible educators but i want to give a special shout out to a student who came to support me. He is an exceptional student at duke university. He is here born in honduras and he came to america with his families a child and hes a proud documented dameron activists and i would ask you to show him some love so he knows he has some friends. Im also trying very hard to concentrate on the message i want to bring to today but thats difficult because i have colleagues and their students and their communities in the path of the storm. We are just cleaning up after harvey and in comes irma. Some of them told me that the lights were still on that they were going to be watching. Just in case i just want to send them love and our thoughts and prayers. I was looking at a Facebook Page that was up that several of our neh staff posted pushers of their own boys and girls, their own sons and daughters going off on their first day of school and it was so beautiful. They had all of the shining faces smiling with backpacks. This time of year is like christmas for us. I am a teacher. Those new tennis shoes and back packs and support staff all over the country right now because their kids are coming. Like santa claus is here. Its just amazing. I have put up a bulletin board. I was arranging desks. I would be practicing our class theme song which was dont stick your finger. Is your nose knows its not the place to go. Here i am instead of in the classroom i met the National Press club. Its actually very fitting. This is maybe poetic justice because i always am 20 years in the classroom i started everyday with Current Events and every morning kids could get extra credit if they reported on an article that they read in this thing called a newspaper. Remember papers . Remember news . Good times, yes. They had to summarize it. They had to explain. They had to give an opinion. They had to know what the article was about and then the other kids got to ask them questions about it. In my class you got it jellybean if you had a good answer and you got to jellybean city had a good question. All my kids had cavities. I want that on my evaluation that my kids knew how they could get free jellybeans. Sooner or later they figured out that someone would ask, so are we supposed to do something about it . About whatever the issue was. Theres a blood shortage in Salt Lake City so maybe we could put on a blood drive. Yes. So is senator thinks we should all wear uniforms. Should we write to him and tell him he doesnt know what we want yes and good handwriting and be nice. Cars are parked illegally in the handicap parking spaces. Should we those illegally parked cars . Sometimes the answer is no but usually the answer is yes, yes we should do something about it. I think at this point of my presentation its only fair to tell you because i think you only hinted at it. You would want to be a kid in my class. Im holding back. Im totally pushing myself because i know right down to my underwear how important my work is, my teaching work is and i have the honor of representing 3 million National Education association educative teachers adjunct faculty at the strivers custodians, the lunch ladies, the counselors the librarians. If you work in an American Public School College university if youre a studentteacher if youre a retired educator you can come belonged to the nea. Preschool to graduate school. We are so full of the importance of our work that we wake up every day saying what am i supposed to do about making sure that my kids have everything they need to make their lives everything they should be. Our work is the future of everything and our work is so important important he cant hold it inside of the classroom. There were and inside and outside to thousands of people across this country this week took to the streets to protest this administrations cruel, senseless unnecessary ending of daca. Many of them were our nea members, supporting our students and are the same educators ended up going right back into their classroom. They were getting those hugs and homework. We have to be both in this world. We have to be at this and we have to be educators and in the speech today i have to do both. I have to talk about policies and politics but somehow i have to leave you with not just whats in our heads but whats in our hearts, the importance of the work that we do. We are facing a wreck was calm irresponsible administration that creates chaos and confusion which is bad. But it does something worse. It creates fear in children and that is unforgivable. For the first time in our countrys history, and i have talked to these teachers. We have had to comfort crying children because they are afraid of their president. They were Current Events about muslin bans and educators had to assure frightened children little girls who were hijabs and little boy is named mohammed that the president couldnt hurt them. They were Current Events about water walls and keeping out bad hombres and educators had to assure frightened children with names like juanita that the president couldnt hurt them. They were Current Events about humiliating transgender students who just wanted to go to the bathroom by removing protections against their discrimination from the office of civil rights. Educators had to ensure these transgender boys and girls who so often struggle to be accepted even in their own families that the president could not hurt them and this week there was a current event that the president was away protections from our dreamers. He cruelly said dont worry, be happy. Congress can fix fix it fix it. Donald trumps playing games with the lies of 800 thousand young people. And he himself risks nothing. These undocumented and people are brought here as children. They graduated from high school. They have no criminal or did. They are young people who did not make the decision to come. They followed their parents. They applied and were granted protect its status because of their special circumstances. Daca loud them to get a drivers license, to go to work him, to go to college and to serve their country in the military. Daca is an unqualified sense on every level. Its humane. Its just end up pumping billions of dollars into our economy to have educated hardworking enthusiastic young people paying taxes, buying homes working and studying starting their own businesses. They are students and we want to comfort them. So hard to tell them that the president cant hurt them. They know the truth but we have taught them well and so they know and we know the right question to ask. What are we going to do about it if this were business as usual we would naturally turn to the department of education. Business as usual no matter what party the administration would have had me think about how i could reach out to betsy devos , a woman who had zero experience in the Public School with the exception of using her billions of dollars in michigan to take Public School dollars away from Public School students to funnel it to private schools. She actually did ask to meet and i asked her to take a standardized test and made it very easy. Three questions. Will you hold privately managed voucher chartered schools to the same standards of fiscal transparency, conflict of interest as Public Schools . Will you privatize programs like special education or title i . Will you protect all of our students from discrimination, are students of color and their englishlanguage learners and art emigrants, our girls, are lgbt students . I have never received a written answer but her actions scream. On her from the department of ed was rescinded. This week she is supporting rolling back title ix protections for victims of Sexual Assault on college campuses. She halts loan protection forgiveness for students who have been defrauded by the growing scam forprofit Higher Education. The trump devos budget proposes 10 billion in cuts for programs like special education title i, college work study. There was one thing that they added. There was one thing they pumped billions of dollars into a brandnew shiny faulty milliondollar federal program for vouchers, for private schools instead of investing in improving the Public Schools where 90 of our students go. She continues with the career that she has made diverting scarce resources to fund private schools so no plea to not turn to the department of education and the 3 million members but do something about it. We will fight this agenda to take resources away from our students, to frighten our students will not ever be acceptable to us and thats probably obvious. What might not be obvious is for me this is not partisan. I am from utah. I do not trust them. I can say that and the next second say i am full of hope. I am full of the energy. That confuses some of my friends. I talk with people who tell me but there is no hope that congress will get its act together in six months and that artificial timely that donald trump set for congress to pass a law to protect our dreamers. They said when is the last Time Congress got together and did a good thing for kids. Actually, it was december 10th 2015 i watched it. I watched democrats and republicans who cannot agree on the time of day sit down and undo the toxic mandates of no child left untested. I watched president obama take a pen and sign away an old law that judged human children on a standardized test score and replace it with the every student succeed ask, essa. The law that gives us the opportunity to deeply measure whether students have access and opportunity and how that impacts their achievement in state and local difference even as we speak are completing their essa plans, plans that must by law be developed with educators who know their students so that we can do something that makes sense and we can use the information to guide our instructions so we can advocate for Real Solutions having good information is a big part of our secret plan. We have a secret plan. You want to know . Our secret plan is we plan to make every Public School as good as our best Public Schools. Here is what what i rarely read and good Current Events. Some of the best schools, bar none, on the planet are found American Public schools. Think of the best Public School in your state and usually there is a really nice neighborhoods. That is where parents sold a kidney because they wanted to a sort of afford a house next to that school because that is an amazing Public School. That is where the kids are succeeding and getting scholarships to Ivy League Colleges and thats where parents are excited and involved in that is where kids love their theater class in technology, sports. Those schools are not Successful Schools because of test prep. It is not successful for cutthroat competition for fear that some private charter will close them down. They are good because they have highly trained career professionals and support staff have Collaborative Authority to be here in the have technology that works. They have books in their library and they have afterschool programs in acquire and field trip in the debate team. Our plan is to use our best Public Schools as a living model and there should be no reason why every Public School doesnt look like our best Public School. What works for our most advantaged students will work for every student. Equal access, equal opportunity, equal respect for that child. The National Education association and our affiliates like in the maryland are up into the business of essa and getting it right. It is the letter of the law and we are taking advantage of it and the educators are using their voice to develop those state plans and there are dashboards in multiple services and support indicators not just standardized test. We are calling for an opportunity audit of each School Across the nation and we are organizing at the local level to hold leaders accountable for all of those promises that they make to students and parents and educators. It is the letter of the law and it is exciting. It is not enough. Our plan actually has to incorporate that and the spirit of the law. The stearate of the law that says every Student Succeeds at my school because i have a respected voice as the teacher. Every Student Succeeds at my school because i had a great idea and because i can bring people together because nobody is going to stop my school from doing what it can do without anyones permission. Did i mention how good i was . I really am a great teacher and the teacher of the year. I really, really am full of myself but i need you to know it wasnt because of my kids test scores. I really remember what my kids test scores were. It was because i made my kids worked their little butts off and love it. My colleague and i bought our reading basil was a boring so without anyones permission we just put it up on the shelf and out of our own pocket and our troll book bonus points we bought classroom sets of old yeller, charlotte, bridge to terabithia and roll of thunder, hear my cry and kids got mad at me every single day when i said reading is over and time to closure books. No, i want to keep reading because i made them love reading and if you love reading you read a lot and if you become a better reader. Rocket science, right . So, yes. We have to worry about funding and policies and we have got to organize to make sure that we have what we need to make every Public School look like our best Public School. In the meantime, nothing stops us today. Nothing stops us with whatever they gave us. We will create something amazing and something unique that works for our children. The Texas State Teachers Association asked me to come to san antonio so that i could walk through and talk to the students and the parents in the educators at their Early College schools that are popping up all over and there helping to organize. They are directly linked to Community Colleges so that kids in high school and graduate school having already earned an associate degree. They found a way of Debt Free College for kids whose parents never dreamed theyd be able to afford to send them to college. I went to last process, new mexico and educators in our local affiliate there wanted to find out what kids wanted in their schools in the interview them and had focus groups and they surveyed them and they wanted to know what kids were thinking. Kids were thinking, they found out, i am hungry. I didnt have dinner last night and i didnt have breakfast this morning. They were amazed at how many children lived on the edge of being hungry. So, they decided that they would change their name and now they are the lend Community Middle school and they partnered with the food bank and Healthcare Providers and afterschool programs in the arts and sports and leadership close and the chamber of commerce cut the ribbon at the Ribbon Cutting ceremony of the new school and everybody is all in. Attendance is up and homework completion is up in parents are showing up. In minnesota, our affiliate took me to some of their Community Schools and in some of the ones that were hard to get teachers to want to teach because they were so lacking in resources that they were able to find training for every single one of those educators in the elite International Baccalaureate program. Now they have educators lined up saying i want to be part of that. In new jersey, in the most challenging committees, teachers are being trained in ap physics instruction through a Program Sponsored by the new jersey education association. In tennessee they are using social Emotional Learning as a way to support students who come to school with trauma from the violence that they have personally experienced in their own little life. Everywhere, in this great country, educators and their unions and parents and advocates and communities leaders are embracing that Public School and a powerful human creative, loving, transformative ways. Big ways that make the headlines. And in lots of small ways that you will never hear about. One year my kids read a newspaper article about a school in our district called the heart dixon school for multiply, severely disabled students and a hand went up because jason wanted pre jellybeans and he said, what if we are penthouse with the heart dixon kids. We were penpals with everyone so what if penpals with the heart dixon kids and i thought i went down to heart dixon school and talk to their teacher and she explained to me that most of my kids cant write their own name. Some of my kids cant hold a pencil but some of them can draw a picture and we have High School Kids that volunteer and maybe they could write some of the letters and we made it happen. We wrote to them and they wrote back that i am adam and i like snow. Write me back. I am karen. I am beautiful. Everybody loves me and my kids fell in love with their penthouse. And they said thi miss lily, cae have a party because we want to fight our penpals to a party. If there is anything that utah is famous for it is that we like to party. Work people. [laughter] i was a little worried because nothing in these letters that we were receiving really would have prepared my students for the reality of the lives of these beautiful little boys and girls. Most of them wore diapers. Some of them couldnt speak. Most of them or harnesses to hold them up straight in their work wheelchairs. But we are utah and we dont get out much but we will have a party. We decorated the multipurpose room and we had blue had we had white sugar cookies and we had red koolaid and we had the key pokey on the stereo because that is what we have at every utah party and then the bus pulled up and we stood on the sidewalk waiting for our penpals and the bus ramp lowered their rituals one by one. They had big pink taps and i had told the kids, dont hug because it might frighten some of these kids but hold your hand out and just wait. As one little boy came down and said adam and jason said, that one is mine. He runs over and throws his arms over adam and adam hugs him back and everyone came over and said that one is mine and they started to meet their penthouse and they hugged and they shook hands and they waved and giggled and we rolled everybody into the party and we danced the home key pokey 472 times and we were bad. I wanted to take a Group Picture so i get everybody together and ready to snap and one little guy goes walking away and i say no, come back over here. I got everybody together and ready to snap a little girl turns around and hugged the person behind and says okay, everyone look at me and im ready to snap and jason, he says wait a minute and runs over to the cookie table and grabbed the napkin and comes back and says hey, buddy, do you want to look at for the picture wipes the jewel office penpals chin. For the life of me i could not seem to remember jasons ranking on the standardized achievement test that year but i will never forget that that tough, little boy wiped the jewel office penpals chin. I will tell you this there are very few things in this world that frightened me but i have been frightened in this last year. Ive been frightened by attacks on the crown jewel of our democracy attacks on the free press. Attacks on election and i have been frightened of people who dont know jason. Who dont know my kids and dont understand the importance of what i do in dont understand what it is to teach and what it is to learn. People who dont know what they are talking about will destroy the brightest jewel in the background and they will destroy that Public School. Our plan is to do something about that her plan is to fight for a Public School that is worthy of our children and in the same breath our plan is to dedicate ourselves as professionals so that we are worthy of them. There is no reason to think that joy is on the agenda of this administration but we are educators and finding joy is our vocation. Our plan is to inspire, to include, to teach our students what it means to be a critical questioning citizen of this beautiful diverse, interdependent world. To be creative problem solvers and passionate human beings. We know what our reward will be because it is a perk of our profession that we so often become better people because of the lessons we have learned from our students. The teachers to teach them. They teach us to serve the whole, happy child. The reward is that we get a whole and happy adult. That changes everything. That is the most important work and that is the future of everything. We dont intend to let anything stand in our way. [speaking in native tongue] [applause] very nice, lily. Anyone has questions make sure to pass them up. I will start with the first question. Do you have any hopes for a legislative solution that daca, in congress, over the next six months to strike. I dont want to be flippant and say yes but i do have hope. As i explained, i believe, that essa was a model for bringing people together. Senator alexander and senator murray, who probably have never agreed on anything said we can do this. We know that there are republicans out there that want to help students like axel and want to help our dreamers. That will be job one for us. The clock is ticking. I am from grand rapids, michigan, betsy devos is also from western michigan and shes been into the influential education in michigan. What are your impressions on what has gone on in michigan . If you google michigan, charter and the word chaos you will get thousands of hits which means that they have put those three words in the same article that many times. A lot of people who support Charter Schools were not supportive of betsy devos because she is the cautionary tale of what happens when you have on regulated, privatized charters with no accountability. There is no cap so that just think about it this way. A Public School that has a Elementary School that serves 500 students cannot walk down the street and just Start Building another school because they feel like it. You have to make a case that that school is necessary and that its an investment but what you have in michigan and why its a scale so often is because of can pop dozens of schools in this community and they can all fail because there is no rhyme or reason to why you would have that many schools. Some schools have ten or 50 or 100 kids and no one has a Critical Mass to have a decent program. The Public School closes down in the privatized charters also are each others competition and no one has enough students to make a go. And without regulation, you also have gamma schools. You have people that have good intentions sometimes but they dont know what theyre doing so the schools fail. Michigan is what our country would head for if betsy devos has her way. What should educators say to dreamers in their schools . What theyre saying to them right now is we are here with you. We are fighting for you. You can go up to an nea website, nea web justice. Org. I believe that is what it is. Yes, you can see our plan and what we are doing right now for our dreamers. Anyone can go up. It is an open website. You can click in your zip code and up will pop your senators and your member of the house. You can write from the website. Let them know that you want our dreamers protected. You want them to pass a law and what we are telling our dreamers is that we are working for them and not just hoping for the best and we have a plan and we are working with so many other organizations, integrated in a way that is astounding. So many people have come forward to say we will make this happen for you. There are no guarantees in this world. No one is going to make a false promise to these children. What we are saying is that it will take all of us, you have her hearts and we are going to be fighting for you. Our daca students and young adult that used to be our students know that they have a role to play in this as well. No one is sitting this out and hoping for the best. The hurricane is coming and we are going to batten down the hatches and we are going to protect those students and we are going to do whatever it takes to weather out the storm. The Education Department is in the process of reviewing estate plans under essa and have already approved a number of them. How do you think the department is handling this process . The few have been approved. We know that there is a deadline looming and so far, it has been moving along smoothly. And so, we have great hope that plans will be approved that will be a small part of making every student succeed succeed and so, now the work will begin implementing those plans. As i said, the plans really are about what are we going to measure and what will be due for those that are at the wrong end of those measurements but we dont want this to be about the bottom 5 of schools and what we are doing there but we want every Public School to look like our best Public School. We will have measurements now, depending on which state you live on, there will be different measurements but looking at our most Successful Schools we can then go in and take an inventory on what are our programs and what are you doing for your students and why are you successful and then that will become our rallying cry. We will say that is the model school and i wouldnt take one thing away from the students. Our job is to say every school now and lets use this as a standard. If they cant, if they dont, then they are letting the students down. We will have a very powerful tool in equity and equality if we do our daca dashboard the way it should be done. You. Dreamers will stop showing up at schools for fear of being pursued by immigration . Yes. Im always afraid that someone who is afraid will hide. It would be foolish of me to tell those students that they have nothing to fear. They had everything to hear. This is the time that we have to be fearless. Them staying home will not solve their problem. Hiding will not solve their problem. I understand the parents that would say i am worried and i understand a College Student who might say someone knows where i live now and someone knows where my family lives now and of course they will be right. We have to stand with them and we have to be arm in arm so that they know they are not alone. It has to be there decision in their familys decision but whatever they decide they will have to come through us first to get to the students. What types of conversations have you had with lawmakers in regard to the fiscal year 2018 budget. Particularly in the house, are there any areas you feel that are underfunded now that you are confident we will have more funding and final legislation . We are actually quite pleased that the trump divorce budget seems to be dead on arrival. Neither the house nor the senate has picked up on vouchers that we have many to prioritize in funding private schools. It would be hard to say please to any education budget that still continues to underfund special ed and weve never lived up to half of our commitment to special education on the federal level but we see movement. We see movement and the senate bill being more generous than the house bill but movements has to continue and so we are meeting with our legislators and with congressmen and senators even now because we have got to make the case for why education is the best investment on every level that we could be making. We were devastated during the fiscal crisis and a lot of programs were lost a lot of services tos duties were lost. We need those back. Times have changed and we need the students to have their programs and features, their library, their school nurses, all of the people who were let go and now is the time to do it. Your glad that the truck devos budget is doa do you support the threemonth cer if you support a longer one . That is a good question. I have to about that with. [inaudible conversations] have been facing a budget where youre talking about 10 billion in cuts to essential programs that have to be stopped but the work that weve got to do right now to make sure that people the education as that number one Priority Investments in this country. I think that would send a resounding message to the trump Devos Administration as to what republicans and democrats wanted to see what are the three communication goals of the nea today . Other than to the press club . I hope i made it clear that we have to be multifaceted. This isnt just about policy. This isnt just about passing a law or a budget. That is in service to our students. It is not in and of itself our goal to pass a law or even funding until you finish the sentence and say because it is important to what we are trying to achieve with our students. We have spent 13 long, horrible years under no child left tested in some states even before that were doubling down on highstakes testing. If it doesnt show up on a test or underscore it is not important. We lost the arts and sports and we lost Foreign Languages and we lost clubs and we lost everything that you couldnt measure on a standardized test. That includes things like science, social studies, civics and so now, we have a chance to actually rethink what it is that children need. We believe that folks can picture in your head the best Public School in the state. I did have a reporter, when i said that is our goal in whatever that looks like not taking away from us kids. Their parents were right. They fought for their kids to have everything they needed to get into an Ivy League School and this wonderful reporter said lily, that is nice and its a dream but we cant afford that but we did for that. I have walked into the schools and some of you. They are gorgeous and we afforded it for those kids. And they are usually wealthy kids. They are usually kids in the suburbs and they are usually kids whose parents could subsidize piano lessons and ballet class. What we have is a system that systematically and institutionally disadvantages kids in some zip codes and that is wrong and that is often racist. What we want to do is to say what you did for those who have the most you do for everyone and where is that program and where is that funding and where is that change that we need to see. It is possible because it exists and now we needed to exist everywhere. What you say to people who accuse teachers unions have only been interested in protecting the system as opposed to individual students . I can tell you the names of my individual students one by one, hundreds and hundreds over the years i have pictures of all of them. I would think that is a set up question but my nea team says its too bad you dont have pictures of that party. I have pictures of everything. These kids are a lot older now but these are my babies. I took these pictures. Whenever someone wants to denigrate teachers who actually organize themselves to have the collective power that we needed to have our voice heard and they say we dont care about the children i want to know if those folks can tell me the names of the children that they love that dont live in their house because i cant and i am the president of the nea and i have the honor of serving leaders like betty over here and she talks about her kids like it was yesterday. These are people who do what they do that we do what we do because we love our students and we honor our profession. So, i would challenge anyone personally neatly behind the school and talk to me about what i thought for all my life and what i fought for for my babies because they cant touch them. Has 22 days before the Childrens Health insurance Program Funding expires. Do you think can pass an extension . They have to. These are those kids that fall into i was around when the childrens, the chip program for started and i had kids district i taught at a homeless shelter for a while. That was the best teaching gig ever because i had a team around me and we had a Health Clinic and a dentist that came in and i had social workers that worked with the families. We had the kitchen down the hall and these were the school was in a shelter. I had all of the supports that i needed as an educator to reach those parents and their students. There are kids that have enough and they get by just fine with their parents Health Insurance from their work and kids who are in the depth of poverty have access hopefully to program and then there are these kids in the middle who arent wealthy enough or poor enough to get their own Health Insurance and so i talked to a lot of kids in the suburbs of Salt Lake City who couldnt go to the doctor when they had a sore throat when i told their mom that you should get looked at and they would cry, i cant because i cant afford it so that Childrens Health Insurance Program helping real kids in real time. Congress, yes, can do it and they have done good things before and it is time for them to do a good thing for students in so many ways. Thank you so much. We have about five minutes left so we have some housekeeping i would like to do. Coming up next week we have an event on how cities can better improve public visitation and we also have the f da commissioner, doug gottlieb, i would like to present you with the honorary National Press club mug because we iran out of apples this morning [. [applause] i do have one more question for you. Can you give me an example of some of the most fun youve had in your teaching career . Oh, 40. Well, that is a lot of fun that i had. I think the year we put on the blood drive. We put on a blood drive because you have never district i taught little kids, right . You have ever seen children more excited about seeing their teachers bleed. [laughter] they had to donate their big brothers and their parents and they made us all give blood and they chased the principal around the multipurpose room, dressed as vampires, and yes, we had a following vampire i want your blood blood drive. It was fabulous. Well, lily, i like to thank you for coming to the press club. I like to also thank the Headliners Team for putting together todays luncheon we are adjourned. [applause]