Briefing with acting commissioner of customs and Border Protection mark morgan from the brady briefing room. It was originally set to start at 12 30 p. M. Eastern. Its been changed to one p. M. Eastern. We will have in life when it gets underway right here on cspan2. Here to talk about education and campaign 2020, the Economics Department chair at tulane university. Also fell at Brookings Institution focusing on education. Thank you for being here. The director Mccabe Center for education, educational freedom. Thank you as well for being here. Lets begin. The campaigns and how much attention they are giving education and you think its enough . Its more attention than probably have been timid education especially a primary conversation. Is itro enough . I think it would be coming up in all the debates. I think the questions is what are they talking about and why are they talking about it . Whats different this time around, usually education is a state and local issue. Why is it going up to . There are a few reasons. One is education has been in an important issue at this time around the state are getting squeezed physically so theyre having a hard time paying the bills and sase cuts in k12 education, cuts in Higher Education. The kinds of issues the broader problems the democrats a focus on now inequality by race and income which is growing inequality by gender, all of these are connected to education, education is a a thoseial solution to problems. All those things are combining, becoming more important not Just National but federal issue. Guest i see it a little different. Theres a lot of talk about Higher Education. I dont think theres any question about that. Free college, student debt. When you go on websites, theres a lot of of these watching the first two double rents a debates, i didnt feel like k12 got as much attention as i thought it would. Its the case states are some still recovering. Theyre spending on education since the recession. Certainly candidates talk about this on the campaign trail but actually i guess i thought he would get a little more attention so far, k12, higher ed getss more attention tremont lets talk about k12. Host lets talk about k12. What stands out from what youre hearing on these candids for the proposal in k12 . Guest anmainly what i hear is a lot of discussion about increasinggu funding. Some of that is increasing federal funding across the board. Several candidates said they would triple title i which is the main source of federal funding. For k12 education. Theres been some plans about what could increase teacher salaries which means more at least if you candidates have talked about the federal government will sort of give states money if the states commit to spending more. Definitely allow talk to spending more. Certainly discussions about equity and spending more but i think what were seeing is certainly for ten ten years now since recession weve seen sort of stagnant funding. Its gone down, come s back up d is almost back to what for record levels before the recession. Teacher some seven stagnant andt thats driving a lot of it at the states we seen a lot of actions by teacher saying enough is enough, we want to get more funding and paid g more. Host pros, cons of those proposals . Guest a lot of them are aspirational and what you say in the campaign. I think i want to spend more but i dont know if politically realistic you will triple title i funding. Some of the rhetoric is a little bit overthetop in saying we have never spent enough. Weve always underfund our schools, a lot of evidence we spend more than almost every other country in k12. K12. We have a lot of spin increases for decades prior to the recession but its true that teacher sellers have pretty much stagnated for a decade. I think they are onto something but theres a tendency to exaggerate i think. Host douglas harris, your view . Guest i disagree underfunding site. The best way for economist, how much are spin as a percentage of gdp. Thats thehe best marketer thats been stagnant for a long time. Countries are passing us by. The world average 73 countries spend more than wee do in terms of education spending as a percentage of gdp. That continues to grow. If you look at just the loss spending adjusted for inflation, not really record levels but the spinning is lower than it has been in nonrecessionary times. Hes a lookod at other times wee weve seen it so, its been during recession to win it in a recession and get spending is pretty low. A lot of that is coming off the great recession. Huge drop in spending and they havent recovered yet. Host i want to invite our viewers to join in on this conversation, what is education like where you live and what changes do you want to see and what are you coming from the candidates yourself that you like or dislike . Lets take teacher pay. In july speak at the national association, senator Bernie Sanders discussed his plan on improving teacher pay. It goes without saying that were going to have teachers who received the respect and the remuneration that they deserve for doing some of the most important work in america. [applause] and it means that when we talk about teachers in the year 2019, the proposal ive brought forth, apprehensive proposal on education says that every teacher in america should earn at least 60,000 a year. [cheers and applause] it also, another proposal that we brought forth which impacts 45 million americans, including many45 teachers, is that it is absurd to have so many of our peopleou struggling with oppressive levels of student debt. We have got to cancel student debt in america. [cheers and applause] host doug harris, lets take teacher pay. Each teacher, 60,000. Guest hes on the right issue, that teacher pay is low if its been declining. If you look at the gap between teacher pay another crack at its had a slow in at least 40 years. Its getting into the strikes and the concerns teachers have themselves. You could debate the specific approach he has taken. Guest i do think its important when we talk anything the federal come it does, the constitution doesnt give the federal Government Authority to do these things. There have been disagreementsme about this but one of the reasons we dont see the federal government take this over is a lot of people dont think they should do it. Given that, its certainly true, if you look at the numbers adjusted for inflation, the average salary has been at about 60,000 for several decades now. So theres no question theres been a lot of stagnation in teacher salary. Host can the federal government how would it work for paying teachers more . Explain. Guest its not always that easy to tell and sometimes the plans from candidate are not all that well fleshed out. I think probably the approach that would be most popular is this idea the federal government would offer certain amount of money, i dont know what it would be, say its 1 billion per state. It would use the adjusted pace demographics of the state, how manybe students, but basically per state. And then the offer is will give you that money if you increase your spending. Of course the problem becomes one, politically that totally difficult to massively increase spending. And then there is a pretty big debt, and national debt, and it doesnt usually deter the federal government from doing things but we do need to keep in mind, where does the federal government get the money for this . Guest again the state and local governments are strapped so they cant do it now. They just dont have the revenue. They cant borrow the way the federal government can. Think about how important education is as a National Issue if the federal government doesnt step in,ss then will ben trouble. That will be bad for us in the longterm. Host Elizabeth Warren also educatorsionalat b association. She talked about how the wealth tax that she a is proposed would help pay for education initiatives. Heres what we can do with two cents. We can provide universal childcare for every baby in this country age zero to five. [applause] universal prek for every threeyearold and fouryearold inyearold in this country. Y. Ye [applause] raise the wages of every preschool teacher and every Child Care Worker to the professional levels they deserve. [applause] invest in our infrastructure so we have good, clean schools, stateoftheart for all of our kids. [applause] universal, tuition free, technical schools, community college, and for your college for everybody wants to get an education. [cheers and applause] and theres more here in that same two cents we can make all of these investments, plus we can cancel Student Loan Debt for 95 of the people who have Student Loan Debt. [applause] host mr. Mccluskey. Guest this sounds like promising pretty much everything you can think of. And theres tends to be problem with campaigns what they say well pay for everything with one big tax. We all but ceased even if you can pass that big tax, people find ways not to pay it. That means you may end up with companies and people with wealth taking that well somewhere else. Im always hesitant to say yes, we can pay for that. I also do think its important to understand actually the increases we sat in spending are an inflation adjustment for people basis and a pretty constant until about the great recession. Its only in c the great recessn after many decades of increases we saw at the k12 level. Its different of Higher Education level but weve seen big increases in what is spent in higher ed. The problem doesnt appear to be a lack of money. Certainly not across the system. I think theres too much of a tendency to say ill just been and we will fix the problem. Guest at the federal level we dont want the federal government. You dont want the government telling discussed what to do exactly. This is part of what the Current Administration is pushing so we dont want to be too directive from washington but resources something they can help with. This isnt the thing that our government is best at. He they can come up with revenue and they can support initiatives that are in the national interest. A lot of these proposals even though doing all of them would be difficultin and probably not the best direction, not the right track in terms of these things and every popular ideas. The other key point is the republican support most of these ideas if you look at the net favorability in pauls and a lot of universal prek and free college, a lot of support for those ideas so theres a good chance we are in the midst of a pretty big shifts of the federl role in education. Host lets find out from her abuse if they agree with the proposals being put out there. Tallahassee, florida, democrat. Caller ut morning and think its a very much for cspan. This isll a very timely and i think really the topic, the intersection of education and politics. Benjamin franklin had a quote of, tell me and i forget. Teach me and i may remember. Involve me and i learn. This is not a conversation about some radical change but rather the conversation about whether or not we as a nation are going to have someg common sense and repair the damage of a lack of investment that weve had for our countrys value, which is to give our people a civic, social understanding and education. We are right now here in florida at the epicenter of this discussion. We had a republican rule. Jeb jeb bush came in and started this conversation that we are going to take our public tax taxes. , property to the gentlemen please answer the question about, property taxes primarily fund the bulk of our local School Boards who are constitutionally elected school board, but hereol in florida wht they have done is taken the autonomy of local elected School Board Budget from our local property taxes that go to our local elected clerks and tax collectors, this is nothing to do with the state. I mean, with the federal government, my understanding, is that they are now utilizing here in florida, and this started with the jeb bush, koch brothers, the kid is a to come this betsy devos, this murphy family, the waltons, started this conversation that is a political conversationst actualy because education is not about politics. Education is about a social civic common value society. We now live in interconnected Global Society. In that Global Society we have now china and india providing their children with the common value respect. The equity and parody issue here in our country regarding funding is one that has plagued us since the beginning. Because we are not homogeneous nationssi like china. Rather, we are diverse nation drama i have to live there so we can get a response. Neil mccluskey, you go first. Guest the first thing i would say its the fifth government in charge of education and providing education, its inherently political. We cant remove it because politics is how we operate government. Thats how we decide whos in charge. I think its a problem if at the state level states tell local governments this is how you will or will not use money. Itit happens all the time. Most state constitutions they say look, the state is in charge and we will decide what the local governments do. I think its important to understand communities are different, people are different and its important to have autonomy to a large extent of what to do. This is a lot of the reason that places like cato is mentioned, support School Choice or educational freedom as we think families know their kids best airfare different houses, Different Things they want and we want a system where there is liberty, what people want Something Different can get it for the kids. Although absolutely understand people are simple, we to balance that with cohesion in the community. There is a lot going on in that call, very important topics but he do think its impossible to remove politicsle of education f government is in charge. Guest what i heard the call of talk but was equity. One of the reason why the State Government gets involved with the main reason was to equalize fun across districts to get wealthy district and poor districts. If you dont get the money to the poor districts then you have a lack of access, civic and social values aspo the economic benefits that dont reach those core areas. Re thats why the state gets in, its a main role of the federal, in terms of supporting equity and education. Host lets listen to the. Education secretary nancy devos talked about the administrations approach to School Choice. The initiative we have now at the federal level, the administration i advancing is establishment of a federal tax credit, and annual fund that would be opted into by states. So not a mandate. It doesnt create a new federal department or program or new bureaucracy to administer it simply is a vehicle or a mechanism for individuals to redirect a portion of their federal tax bill annually to a Scholarship Granting Organization that would then scholarship out to students to make choices in their home state for an education environment that is going to suit their needs and fit their purposes. So its a simple concept, but it does face a lot of opposition because the status quo wants to protect what is at the expense of what could be. Host doug harris, the outcome of the . Guest there are two issues here. One is when the federal government steps in with a new initiative is the state has tried and it has been unsuccessful. The evidence is not very supported yet. A lot of states with the evidence or with the students use of these doctors are tax credits to go to private schools has been negative that students do worse than it would have done otherwise. The only state what looks like theres been some success is florida where we have the most positive evidence. Indiana, louisiana, ohio, the evidence has not been very positive. Given the track record of those policies is the concern going in what she was nominated for secretary that she was supporting policies that didnt have a lot of evidence to support them for improving quality. The fact theres not a l track record in supporting that is a problem. Guest there is a track record supporting it. Some of the new programs have had some problems, especially if you say that test scores in the short term of what would we care most about. Weve been saying that across education for a long time but research is showing actually the longterm outcomes we are looking for, college going, the early she makes whether you are employed, School Choice programs and private School Choice programs actually appear to have good, statistically significant good outcomes in that direction. A lot of the research showed even the shortterm test scores were a little better. None of the show there was an overwhelmingly big tepco effect. But to say that they dont seem to be working, i dont think is quite accurate. That said, this is sort of a unique proposal because what theyre saying is if your student who already has a Tax Credit Program did you do get a federal tax credit. Although the intention from what ive heard is that will push states that the want of such programs to do it. People say i want that federal tax credit. It probably does have any support in the house and cato and of the groups who think the federal government should be involved in these things have come out against it. That includes me. Host lawrence was in st. Paul, minnesota, independent comic good morning and thanks for the opportunity. Im going to comment, hang up, and look forward to your responses. Rather than talk about funding i want to talk about costs, talking from the perspective of someone who has the indecision has worked these issues for decades now. We have a problem with an increase in singleparent child homes, and the costs associated with taking care of kids in the schools is really taking away from parents who are doing the right thing. We have to get her arms around how we will get parents involved in. His responsibility to others to pay the price. Theres no question that the parent is a key driver of outcomes for kids. And i think their larger social issue and turned up the kids and better situations and family and better situations and better economic situations where they have more opportunity. Part of that is education, and makes it easier for families in the situation to provide opportunities for the children. One of the big Drivers Behind the federal push for increased funding. But they dont have those opportunities and that the early years are really important years and if you dont cut off and get resources then become too late. Theres a limit to what resources do, but i do think theres a lot of things that we blame schools for for a long time better largely under the control schools. This is one of the reasons its good, no child left behind for a long time which is a federal law that required labeling of schools, essentially failing to use the term but most people did. A lot of that was because they have supplied a lot of resources and so what are weakening for them. But then we get the schools are failing when often it was things outside of the control schools. And i think in education we need to safe schools can fix everything, theres a lot of things happen before school and outside of school that we need to deal with but it may not be in education policy. Emerson georgia on the line for republicans. Yes, maam. I have no grandkids but yes i had to pay school taxes and healthcare and free schooling and free tuition i dont know why the government is trained to control us and psych Elizabeth Warren, she got into school and i think she has to pay that money back and one more thing, my sister that works at the