Transcripts For CSPAN Brown V. Board Of Education Opportunity And Integration 20170531

So we will go ahead and start our next panel so that we can keep on time. Be as efficient as we can. Welcome to the second panel of the day. This panel is entitled where are we now . Our panelists today will be a resident scholar of the American Enterprise institute. He has been the education commissioner of florida, and president of black lines for Educational Options. Dr. Greg forster is the director sorry, cant get it right. Network at the center for informational churches at Trinity International university. He was formally at the Friedman Foundation for educational choice. He is the author of six books and the coauthor of three additional books. He received his phd with distinction from yale university. The founder and ceo of Digital Pioneers Academy which i learned was just recently was it yesterday . A week ago was given approval to open up a charter and 2018 in washington dc. [applause] prior to that, she served as ceo of the Network Charter school fund. And the executive charter for yorkc schools at the new department of education. She started as a special ed teacher as well. So the goal of this panel is simple. The stories youve heard in the last panel and the discussion yk department of education. Weve heard, we want to discuss and review the data as it relates to education, educational opportunity, and integration. Since the brown v. Board of education decision, where are we . What does the data tell us . Our panel will start off like this. There will be 10 minutes of comments each. We will then have directed questions and hopefully the audience will fire some good questions like johnny did last time. , we will goher ado ahead and start. Gerrard thank you for extending the opportunity to talk about a is vitallyt i think important. Advancing opportunity. Lets put this in context. 60 years ago brown v. Board of education was decided by the supreme court. Fastforward. Robert mentioned i was the secretary of education in virginia and commissioner in florida. 50 years ago it would have been impossible for me as a black man to serve as a state leader in either one of those two states. It was the work of brown, the work of the naacp, and the work of others who made this possible. 50 years ago, a number of our students were performing well in what they called segregated schools. They either came up very literate or went to college. But there were a lot of resource challenges. Fastforward to today. We have more africanAmerican Students and otherwise graduating from high school. We have more africanamericans going to college, whether they are not. S we have made tremendous advancement. One of the things i believe chokes an honest conversation about progress is the overreliance on the term segregation. Heres why i say that. We say today that we have segregated schools. I see what we have today are racially identifiable schools. Im under no pretense that government policy at the federal level or local level with the redrawing of lines and deciding zip codes where people are going to live, i get it. But to say that in 2017 that my oldest daughter who went to Public Schools, that she went to a zipper good school, we are saying that 63 years worth of progress never happened. That is simply untrue. We have racially identifiable schools that have a number of challenges. Poverty is not a proxy for poverty is not a proxy for destiny. We know people in it are cities you are doing well. People who are having troubles. Another thing about brown is the advancement of cell phones. Thats a different conversation. What we have today are racially identified schools that have hosted challenges and successes. We also have a new set of schools that fall into what we call the Public School option model. But last year we had to Members Commission a study. It was released may 17, 2016. 3 4dentified we had nearly of schools that africanamericans and 10 are either primarily africanamerican or students of color and are predominantly under resourced. But one part of the report we ,idnt spend a lot of time on the majority minority schools that one blueribbons or gold medals because of their academic achievement. There are high schools that are predominantly low income that are being that are doing well academically. What we need to do is look at the schools that exist. What are they doing differently . Is it the curriculum . Is it expectation . To say that we have schools that are segregated and not doing well simply isnt true. That isnt to let the government off for being responsible in investing the resources. When we talk about resources, it is not just revenues. It is also questions about expenses. Where is the money going . Be 20,000, 22,000. I had a chance to work with d. C. Public schools in the late 1990s for dr. Arlene ackerman. We spent a lot of money. We do not crack a 50 High School Graduation weight. It wasnt because of money. We had money in place. But there were other challenges. There is a lot of special education. If there is something we know are about today about brown the number of special education students and special needs students we have. We had different names for them back in 1954. They werent always kind names. But we have to find ways to work. Brown, we dont have segregated schools. We definitely have racially identifiable schools. We have majority minority schools that are showing success, and when he to figure out what they are doing have that across the board. Third, we have School Systems run by africanamericans, hispanics, and asians, and a number of teachers. We are now in positions of power that we were in 1954, but today we actually manage multimillion dollar School Budgets and have state superintendents and things in positions of power. These are things we should do to be able to advance the narrative. Im excited to be in washington, d. C. Having this conversation because 53 years ago, we would not have been in this room if it were not for brown v. Board of education. Im glad to be a part of the education the conversation. Asked to speak about what the Research Shows on School Choice and ethnic segregation. Im sure you have all heard the joke about the economist who fell down the well. He falls down the well and people run over and say, are you all right . He says, i dont need a rope. Assume i have a letter. A ladder. It describes how a lot of economic studies are done. A lot of the studies that are published purporting to look at schools with ethnic segregation dont look at data. They dont look at measurements of what had happened in the real world. The cake the authors assumptions about what they think should happen and present that as if it were data. One of the things i do for a choice is best for ed joyce for ed choicechoices research l choice, and one of the things we track and regularly published updates on is the research on School Choice and ethnic segregation. There have been 10 and empirical studies to date that look at how School Choice programs intersect ethnic segregation and that actually measure what are happening in the programs, and that actually measure ethnic segregation. Of those 10 studies, nine have a positive finding, that School Choice has some sort of beneficial effect. The 10th study find that it makes no visible difference. Seven of these 10 studies, they take a snapshot of the ethnic composition of the Public Schools where students are eligible for School Choice, and the ethnic opposition of the private schools that are participating in the program. What they ask is, which is more segregated, the Public Schools that students are able to leave or the private schools that the students are transferring into . What all seven of those find is that the private schools are actually less segregated. While that is a snapshot, it does tell us that the School Choice programs are moving students from more segregated schools into less segregated schools. The other three studies are able to track individual students as they move from school to school. Instead of looking at the School Systems, we are actually following individual student. That is a better matter that is a better method. There was one study in milwaukee and two in a School Choice program in louisiana. The study in milwaukee was the one that found no visible difference. There are a couple of different theories about why that is. One is that the study didnt even get going until 15 years after the program started, so it is possible the program had some effect on at the examination, but reached an equilibrium and there is no further effect to be found. Another plausible explanation is that milwaukee is just really, really segregated, more than even the of average American City of that size, and so the students may simply be moving from overwhelmingly black Public Schools to overwhelmingly black private schools that are created to serve that population. Without better data, we really cant know. But at least we can know that it is not doing any harm. The transfers of students are not increasing segregation. The two studies in louisiana have found that the program improves ethnic segregation. One of those studies found that there was a small increase in segregation in the private schools participating as a result of the transfers, but a much larger decrease in segregation in the Public Schools that the students are transferring out of. On net, it was a fairly dramatic reduction of ethnic segregation as a result of that rim. The of that program. The other study found no change in Public Schools, and the same positive effect in Public Schools. These results are counterintuitive to many people. Are coulter has sort of are culture has conditioned us to think that private schools are much more ethnically segregated Public Schools, but the data on private schools simply doesnt bear that out. Are often described as something that will increase segregation, so it is counterintuitive when people say that it decreases segregation. It is important to understand the numbers we find. I think the main reason is because in the public system, students are assigned what schools they are going to go to based on where they live, and american neighborhoods are residentially very segregated. That is a combination of ethnic discrimination in the Housing Market and people selfselecting because they want to live there other people who are like them or look like them. There is a feedback were those feed off each other. One time my wife and i moved to a new city and caught our Real Estate Agent righthanded filtering the housing results so they were only showing us houses and the neighborhoods with an ethnic composition they assumed we would want. And boy was he terrified when he realized he was caught, because that is very illegal. I dont think that his motivation was discrimination. I dont think hes concerned about the ethnic purity of minority neighborhoods in that city. I do think he is motivated to make the quickest sale he can, and he wants to show us as few houses we are not going to be interested in is possible, and just made some made assumptions about what we want. We were very frustrated with couldnt find a house he wanted, but when we took that filter off, we found a Beautiful House at the price we wanted, and we bought it and lived there for several years. ,t was an enriching experience sometimes a challenging experience, but we were much better off. Sometimes my friends on the thet will say, they poo poo idea that there is still dissemination the Housing Market. I know my personal experience is not a valid empirical study. We can debate how widespread this is, but we cant debate whether it happens because we do have eyewitness accounts. I think as long as people are sent to schools based on where they live, it will be extremely difficult to overcome ethnic segregation in schools. Was notSchool Choice designed for the purpose of reducing segregation. It was designed for various other purposes. But because it disconnects where you live from where you go to school, it does seem to have the effect of reducing ethnic segregation in schools. That is one reason i support it. I supported for a lot of reasons, but one reason i support School Choice is because i think it should be a goal of our system to reduce ethnic isolation or racially identifiable schools. I think the United States particularly, without being nationalistic, we are positioned to be on the cutting edge of the emergence of a new kind of Human Community where communities are not ethnically exclusive. That is historically new. Thatt something you find it is not something you find as you look back through history. About a new cuttingedge society where communities are not likely bounded, and you cant get into this committee because of your ethnic background. I think it is a great thing for schools was to be doing. Thank you very much. Well i got to respond to that. Let the start first by saying thank you for inviting me to this wonderful conversation. This, i thinking about reflected on my own personal trajectory and how i even got here. I have an identical twin sister. We grew up in new jersey. Neither of our parents went to college, and we both failed kindergarten. Yes. We both failed kindergarten. Apparently we colored outside the lines are to follow directions. I share that story because we were in new jersey, which was a majority white community. My parents had just moved out of philadelphia and wanted a better School Option for us. When we failed kindergarten, my mother took us out of Public Schools and put us into private school. Honestly, i think that has made all the difference for us. It is why i am a huge proponent of choice. I generally believe every parent should be able to choose what school or what environment even the construction of the school. How do you best meet the needs of each individual child . As i heard gerard talked a little bit, as was previously mentioned, i was ceo of the school fund. Im a new jersey girl born and raised, and was excited to be in new jersey. Now ive moved back to washington, d. C. , where my husband is a sixth generation washingtonian. All politics are local, whether it is the local cities, states. The narrative really just comes down to what is happening locally. About two years ago i went out to the Silicon Valley with all the tech entrepreneurs. They do think differently out there. Some thing said this is the reality. Is we are not preparing every single one of our students for their academic life, their economic life, and their life to be citizens in this global world, then we are not doing our job. When i think about the purpose brown v. Board of education and where he are now, my mission is to it sure every single child can really live a wellrounded life. Around majority minority, new jersey is almost im opening a school in d. C. Which is always 100 almost 100 ican, eligible for fair reduced lunch. Is more white parents want to come to southeast d. C. , great. But i dont think they are coming until the schools and the neighborhoods are safe and providing highquality, and available options. Until that happens, i think this is a false debate around is it majority minority, is it segregated. To be in two cities, newark and washington, d. C. , we have a thriving traditional Public School sector as well as a thriving charter sector, my perspective is that those are false debates. We should be choosing between charter or district. Every parent once a great school, and they dont care if it has a charter or a traditional Public School. I think thats what we heard from the last panel. The other data point of want to ,eflect on is in the last panel we talked about being in the postd wave of students brown v. Board of education. She described her experience as being invisible. I thought, that is exactly how post brown v. Board of education. The 1. 2 Million Students who are dropping out of school today feel. Invisible. The answer isnt more money or more schools. It is, how do we need the individual needs of every single student . The Digital Economy, the world is moving fast. Our students today are digital natives. We have got to prepare them to enter into the Digital Economy of the future. Excited to i have actually launch a school that is focused on Computer Science because i think that is a school that everyone of us should have and we should be prepared for the Digital Economy. Can i am roll . Can i enroll . Can you teach . That is this question. Were going to do a little bit of directed questions here. Im going to ask a question that follows up directly on yours. You said that you are from a district that is 100 majority minority. School choice system, if you are meeting the individual needs of every child, is it ok to have a school that is 100 racially isolated or 100 minority . Is that ok . To me, it is the wrong question. Is, how do we need the needs of individual students . Ofl be look at the portfolio schools, are they all the same model . Four doesnt give students real choices . There is this idea that there is no average student. There is no onesizefitsall. The more we treat individual children as an average, we are going to do one of two things. We are going to miss their talents, or we are going to bore them to death. When we look at schools, we need to look that there are innovative options. May be school is not a place that students go to. Maybe school is an online activity. I really do think it is the wrong question to be thinking about today. This is for everyone of you. Next question then is thinking about that. One of the role of government in this conversation . I thinksituation there are friends of yours that argued the system hasnt set up the Public Schooling system that it is doing what is supposed to do. Let the connect your first question and go to the second because they go handinhand. Is it ok depends on who you ask and what is your political agenda. What about banneker Public High School in washington, d. C. . A number of those students are doing academically well, going to college in the military, starting businesses and having jobs. What about drew school in los angeles, predominantly black and hispanic . It is a school of choice. But there are racially identifiable schools that are doing well. The question for me is in segregation today, tomorrow, forever. It education today, tomorrow, and forever. That is what matters to me. In terms of the role of government, when it can play is a small heart. If you have a group of Committee Members who say we really want to have an economically integrated system, let it happen. Cambridge, massachusetts has a controlled Choice Program. People decided, i am going to moved cambridge and because they the program to make it happen. Integration orst voluntary Integration Program in the country is the met phil program founded by black parents who got tired of boston Public Schools not doing anything for them. They created project exit us project exodus. So if people want to get involved, i think when necessary, the government should have a heavy hand where there is discrimination going on. But it can play scrimmage and as well as intermission as well as innovation. Integration as well as intervention as well as innovation. Heres an experience you can do on your own. Mapoogle images, bring up a of manhattan by ethnicity where the neighbors are color by ethnicity, and bring up a map of these district in manhattan. But those on your monitor next to each other and look at how the School District lines to little loose in order little they stay on sure track with the ethnic composition of neighborhoods. The legacy of history, partly it is an ongoing problem with people dont want their kids mixing with certain other kids. We have to confront that. Think other hand, i School Choice is it sell something government can do to address this problem. It is a false taxonomy to say, do we want a government solution or School Choice . School choice is Public Policy and it involves taking up with funds and devoting it taking public funds and devoting it to education. Libertarians are against schools was because they dont like the government doing this, but i am all for it. As for the other question regarding is it ok, i think is it ok is probably not the right way to frame it. I think policy is about tradeoffs. It is not a question of do we want literacy and numeracy or citizenship education . Obviously we want both. The question is, how do we prioritize those . There are people for whom literacy and numeracy has taken such a high priority that rings are out of literacy whack. The interesting question is, should School Desegregation be a priority, or should we simply pursue good education and be indifferent to the demographic composition of the student body . I wouldnt want to say, lets sacrifice all other priorities to desegregation, and lets not care whether kids learn to read and write or anything else because everything must be sacrificed into the mal o the maw of desegregation. But i respect people who say we want good education and dont care about demographics. I think one of the things we should want for our School System is for our children to form a common bond with people who are not like them. And i think that doesnt have to be limited to government schools, either. I think private schools do that just as well. That is a whole Research Question we could talk about. Ofhink part of the function the School System should be to create a common bond among people who are not like one another. Challenging, but that is just a reason why it should be a goal of our Education System. Can you quickly follow up . Just very quickly. There have been a number of studies on tolerance of the rights of others. This is a metric in the education studies that has gone back decades, where the instrument they use is they ask a student to identify your most disliked group. People will name everything from republicans or democrats, prolifers or prochoicers, evangelical christians or atheists. You get all kinds of stuff. They do get asked a battery of questions. Should people in the group be allowed to vote . The allowed to have a demonstration on main street . Be allowed to have a poke in the Public Library sympathetic to their views . For several questions, and we find a private school questions score a little better than Public School students. I dont want to blow that out of proportion. , but a moderate difference private schools do seem to do a better job of teaching students to tolerate the rights of others. Narrative matters a lot to the conversation about desegregation. Take the term ethnicity. Has term is ubiquitous, and met many Different Things in many different times. Today we say and ethnicity, we often mean nonblack. Even people who consider themselves black are not africanamerican. They are from other countries. Often ethnicity meant that you spoke another language other than english. The white groups have always had ethnicity. The italians were ethnic at some time. The irish were ethnic one time. It is interesting since the Largest Ethnic Group would be not hispanics, the people of german descent. As we unpack what it means to be hispanic and what it means to be at ethnic group, even the term black is interesting. Some of them choose not to put their kids in title i schools or segregated schools, but also, they never say the white schools are segregated. In brown, it was the black schools. We dont say the white schools are. And what we say about Thomas Jefferson Public High School in fairfax, one of the best Public Schools in the nation, which is primarily asian . Is that a segregated school . The idea back then i think was about the levitated had dilapidated buildings and old books. Today we have beautiful buildings and all the books, but the kids cant read the books. I think its important to put it in the context of what it actually means. Sure, i think we must make that every student has access to quality, and that we are meeting the individual needs of students. Im going to say that over and over again because i genuinely believe our students have expertise and brilliance in different areas, and right now we treat brilliance as just a single test score. I couldnt agree with you more on that one. Last question before we go to the audience. This is a challenging environment politically right now. How do we break through the barrier of nonpartisanship around this issue, or should it be, how can we do this in a more effective way . How can we have this discussion in a bipartisan ways of that we begin to break down the ideologies of both sides and get everyone to the about what enlightened selfinterest might be . Im not interested in bipartisanship because that is tough to have. Im more interested in coalitions of convenience. Lets find an area where we can being convenient and work from there. This is why i am starting a school. I was tired of the electoral this past november to what is happening now. As i said, there are students in school who are chest out, and the out, intellectual debate is what is stopping them. That being said, i think as my mentor taught me very well, finding this common strip of unity. How do we find ways to Work Together to move this forward again, i think all politics being local. I think the National Debate can get exhausted and nauseating. If youre going down to the local, whether it is d. C. Or getting involved in that local conversation around finding this common strip of unity i think is the only way to do it. The way wea lot of that is by using which. Language comes with a lot of using new language. Language comes with a lot of baggage. I think the School Choice movement is over invested in terms like market and competition and enlightened selfinterest. I dont think we need to unsay anything we said. I dont think anything we said is wrong, per se. But we havent stopped and said, when we say that, what we mean is this. The language is heard very differently by people who have a different language world where those words have totally different connotations. I think in this and many other places, finding new words to describe things will help create those coalitions of convenience. I also think it is incumbent on us to distance ourselves from anything that is going to take the School Choice calls with moral scandals. In the real world, you do have to work with policymakers, and policymakers are who they are. America, we here in have a long tradition of not revealing our rulers to much. Being realistic about the rather the level of virtue in public office. That being said, it is incumbent on us to prioritize coalitions ,cross ideological boundaries across ethnic boundaries, across , and if weiations prioritize that, what we are going to find is it is going to require us to say some uncomfortable things. But if we are really to do that, i, think School Choice is going to be the future of american anothern, and not just policy thad that is here today gone tomorrow because somebody got elected. Two are very much. We will open at to the audience. My name is pat tyson. You talk about the districts in manhattan, i look in birmingham, d. C. And see the same. Has anything been done to look at economic segregation . The what will the impact of gardendale district decision have on Public Schools . And in light of Donald Trumps yet thatssuming is a big assumption because they have said it is dead on arrival assuming it passes, what is the impact on Public Education and the goals of Public Education . I can answer the first question. I am not a budget analyst so i will plead that i dont have the economic expertise on the other two. Economic segregation is studied. Other types of segregation, but it is studied. It looks like both ethnic and not soegregation widely studied. It is hard to generalize. The larger the body of studies, the easier to generalize the findings will stop certainly, american schools are heavily segregated by economic factors. That is fairly obvious. Richard epstein, a scholar at the Economic Policy institute has a book and a number of articles focused on economic integration. Only 10 of the total budget comes from federal, most estate and local. About 45. 1 or 45. 2 . 3. 2 1 billion taken away from 21st century funding or after School Programs will have an economic impact. A huge economic impact. The third case, the case that you mentioned i will talk about later. To look to the state and local budgets, however i am deeply concerned about the budget although even starting a new Charter School is impacting very directly our families. You cannot have one or the other. You have got to continue to advocate. This is where eventually local organizations that have been doing this work for years, you have to rally together and leverage the differences sell our families can get those services. Want to know, you about that . [indiscernible] they basically set up a segregated School System. In and, i know enough about that so to not get into that. Suburban versus urban areas. Atlanta. T and certain counties there. The biggest part going in there, too. A big issue. Clearly, it warrants more knowledge from our side. My name is jennifer from respectability. The name of your organization is advancing opportunity. When i hear the term advancing opportunity i think of the tons to an end, the end which is the ability to get a job, keep a job, advance in a job and the ability for an individual to be part of a where every kind of person has a seat at the table in our democracy. I want to ask you about children whoolor with disabilities are really, really impacted by these decisions. To see what kind of data you are saying. The best private schools in washington will not accept children with significant disabilities in the Charter Schools around the country in many cases are really not responsive to the needs of children with more involved disabilities, many of whom may have the strongest talent and ability of any of the youth in america. So what are your ideas about advancing opportunities with children of color with disabilities. Oni have done studies students with disabilities and while it is true that School Choice takes away the legal system, does not take away but if you are used to School Choice than you are no longer part of the School System that allows you to school these sue the school for services. In fact, students with disabilities who you School Choice have consistently reported they are better conditions and they are not bullied or attacked at school as often. That is one of the most romantic differences. The concerns being raised about students with disabilities not being able to find slots in doools have not materialize, not seem to have materialized. I am not aware of any who cannot find a school. Given the large number of School Choice programs that serve large populations of students with special needs, it does not seem to have materialized in the actual programs. Thanks i can show you evidence of that and would be happy to discuss it offline. Another data point, of those 61 programs of School Choice, almost half of them are serving special needs kids. There has been a genetic growth in the number of private Scholarship Programs. I started my career as a special education teacher. Led by ark has been simple motto which is teaching is good teaching. Specific for students with disabilities. I recently joined a board for Charter Schools and our goal is to make sure we are advocating on to fronts. When it comes to special education, the majority of time is focused on compliance and not services. To the a stent we can make sure our schools are given the tools, resources, and training to shift away from compliance and shift to programming that allows for more personalization then i able to move the ball forward. Many schools are inundated with lawsuits. The idea that a School Leader has to spend more time dealing with compliance versus, how do we meet the individual needs of our students, i think that is the reality of white students with special needs are not being served today well. My name is gregory clay. My question simply as, what do you think of betsy devos . Laughter] i have known that seat the vase for 10 years. I knew her before she was a public figure. The commitment she made in the local and state arena to make a difference. I know her heart is committed to helping all kids. Aknow she knows idea it is federal law. I know she wants to make sure schools comply. Most of the conversation has been about School Choice. Vouchers and charter. Her aim issay is, not to destroy Public Education. I do not know her, but i do interests. Here are we have to find ways to work with whoever is in charge, whoever has the microphone. Because our students require it. People refusedt to serve in public office, that leaves the indecent people to serve. I do not want to attack somebody for taking a position. Thank you. Hello. I am a student i hampton university. My question is what impact is schools areo which segregated or desegregated. Do they have to do with college and roman and completion . Guy first. Most of my research is on k12 education so im hesitant to say much about a field where the education. Looking at college interest, the tracke entrance rate pretty closely to graduation from high school with certain course requirements. We heard this morning, if you want your child to go to college you need to start taking algebra in eighth grade. You need to do this, you need to do this. The u. S. Department of education keeps fairly good data. From a really good sample of High School Students looking at what courses theyve taken that allows us to ask how many students graduate with the courses they would need to go to college and we can compare that to how many new freshmen Enter College in a given year. They track pretty closely. Ive not broken that down by ethnicity. That is ordered to do. College entrance data by ethnicity are harder to break down. There are specialists in that field, i do not happen to be one of them. African American Students to go to high qualifying schools and apply for scholarships. One thing we need to do a better job of his return mark africanAmerican Students to become national scholars. A lot of that requires them to take a presat. That is part one. Part two, regardless of race, students are entering college and enrolling immediately in noncollege remedial courses. 4ey are spending 1, 2, 3, semesters and rolling in courses that do not count toward education. We give you a High School College High School Diploma and said, guess what you are not ready for college. We need challenges. [indiscernible] while it will not guarantee, it will minimize the probability and we should have a conversation about that. There is one data point about the Scholarship Program that might bear out. Children in the program tend to graduate at higher rates than their peers and they tend to Enter Colleges at higher rates. So that is an Important Note from ddc Scholarship Program which includes children of color. Thank you so much for your question. With the United Negro College fund. I wanted to ask, to your point earlier about having convenient points. If we take out all the nuanced language and other things, i know if i go to an event they my going to ask me what are. To thee people coming table needing a hand wanting. If you do not want to have people coalescing around the things of convenience, one of the points people should have conversation around . That is a fundamental question of where we should give money. Thomas jeffersons famous separation. Ive a lot of friends who say, we like vouchers in milwaukee in early years because of the we went to private, nonsectarian schools. But once they added the religious schools, nowhere in the constitution. We know it comes in and 1802 letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in connecticut. You have to be clear. Her you for public money going to religious schools . Another question is, should it go to schools that have had a division . This gets interesting because after the brown decision between 19541956, states began to pass nullification laws. They said there is no way in hell youre going to let the colored people come to school. Congress members signed a manifesto saying the court cant tell us what to do. In the southern, private schools , even today have many roots in t indiscernible ] so if you [indiscernible] sometimes only add, people on the panels with policies are framing that question and we should take that to the families and children we went to serve. When i sat down with my students i said, design the middle school of the future. What is the most important to you . That is one of our core beliefs. Must field known and respected. They must feel they are getting a highquality education. They want to be respected. I think it is about getting proximate. With theto be partner families, we are going to ask them the question about what is the best solution. Question, do the you believe all parents should have options or only some. Right . This is a huge issue. The system is setup that parents with money can have all the options they want but parents without money cannot. On one hand, we need to say lets only give money to families so we can equalize. That is a different coalition then giving it to some. Thank you so much. Great question. My name is cynthia. I was wondering if you could speak to the role that industry plays when it comes to educating students in communities of color. I am interested in terms of how they can make a positive and sustainable change or how they have. And what are some of the things we need to be concerned about what we think about industry and education . Reg so you have local f a few have local chamber of commerce for the most part of the last 25 years have people who were involved. A program. Ave the number of executives who have done that for one day and decided, i did not realize principals had it so hard. When we see what i can do. In the private school sector, i am one the boarddecided of a pln georgia. A Petroleum Company partnered and an interstate urban suburban churches to try to get more africanamericans and others into stem subjects. We partnered. This is a great time for all of the money that we save in buying products and the text reads we see, the work trust me we should have them become more involved. Being what we call a big partner. One of the reasons we are launching the academy is the data said there is 1. 2 million highpaying, high demand jobs in Computer Science and we have a high talent supply across the country. We want to close that gap. What typically happens is we say use to gol prepare to until those jobs but that we do not talk to the industry. We dont talk to the heads of hr and we dont talk to colleges or university about the continuum. So starting at elementary or middle school, how we help our students navigate from k12 to college to career. That does not happen now. It is a missed opportunity. We have to help students navigate the world for each step. It goes to personalization and making me connection. Collegeonnection from from k12. What an interesting example is in indianapolis where we have a group of Business Leaders that of gotten together with the chamber of commerce and they are getting the ceos of schools and bridging the gap he tween what these folks say we need and what these folks are providing. They are aligning it. , there is anblem amazing model of schools. Low income families. They only serve lowincome families in every friday from year onward, they do not go to school, they go work at a business. The business supports the school. At the end of the year, almost all of them get jobs at the school they didnt at the place they interned. John from the University System of maryland. Ashton. Tion for ms. Did your Digital Academy prepare students for college as well as the world of work because in this technological age we not the need the double lee, cs, the College Educated people but there was something on this about a past weekend turbine Building Company where they send students to a technical college. Will you also be focused on the . Will that be part of your program . 76 of the jobs require some college or post secondary education. To say whether you are college choice. Not is a false i do think in our school we will provide students with access to soerject and experiences they will be exposed while their opportunities but also have skills coming out. Starting in the middle school until high school. They will have real skills to help them earn resources. I am working with ninth graders who have Computer Science offerings that Washington Academy and they are developing websites on the side. For economicll opportunity we want to provide our students. My spin on this is, i think on tellingo much kids they have to go to college. That is my point. Say kids areke to on career in collegeready. Can not be for your, it can be credentials, certificates. It does beat to the issue of parental choice. My mother in father say have to go to school. The state says i do school until 12th grade. What happens to my choice. Nobody has spoken to that issue, really. Emancipate in certain states that certain ages. Said is true, but does the system provide for that at eight or base of rate . Reg snow. Not yet. That is a complicating factor. My second question is to dr. Foster, can you direct us to any sources that deal with the analysis of this spectrum of data. Variable analysis that controls the variables to which you have alluded and expect and provide us with a clear view, such as the ethnicity thing you did with manhattan. Are there other studies like that . Who think for those of us are out in the field, we need a clear picture. We do not need one slanted one way or another. We need to be able to see them and then array and draw from them those inferences that lead us to making the right policy decisions. So you are asking me to advertise my work . Laughter] the studies that intersect with segregation are collected, over viewed in a report week published called the winwin solution. If you google my name and winwin solution, you will find links to the actual studies. The analysis as you were suggesting. What i was talking about with manhattan district lines, that is not a study. You call it up and ken eyeball it. I am looking at whether it would be possible to do some sort of Statistical Analysis on the way boundary lines go around ethnic neighborhoods. That is tough, im not promising i can pull that off. That would be economic as well as health . I do not know how health will be involved. Ill see what i can come up with. Thank you. There is a guy from weshing , name patrick stewart. He works with a guy named tom wolfe. They worked with families from the Choice Program in washington, d. C. This is the moststudied program. Wolf grew up in washington dc. Went to washington dc Public Schools. The first graduate to earn his phd from harvard. He came back. You have to take a look at his book. I have another study i have to take care of now. Very much. Good afternoon. My name is dolores ray end im an entrepreneur and a Consulting Company i have is called yellow. Things are changing and washington in terms of where money is gone. So, the department of defense is scheduled to have 334 ships built. More planes etc. Built in the military. Subsequently, there are some a Job Opportunities for people in the trades. For example, if youre in the shipbuilding industry, they need a lot of people in welding, he electricians, etc. So what are we doing for children who want to be in the trades . What things are the School Systems doing to put them in that direction . What are you doing to help . The largest shipbuilding entity in the country, who needs all of these people, they dont need them yesterday they need them now and they will lead them tomorrow. We need your help. We need to find out what you are doing in the Education System to prepare them for other types of work other than going to a university, but in the trades. Thank you. Virginia, they had a program for students who want to go to learn the different types of jobs for companies. And the programs around. I had a chance to go to their graduation. A High School Diploma and a job offer, they walk away with. Making more than some of our teachers made coming out in the first year and they had sometimes undergrad and graduate school. Nothe answer would be, enough. Two quick stories. I was just with an administrator of a Public School district that will remain nameless. Shop]d something called again. That is something not good. There is a Charter School we work with in gary, indiana, that is actually graduating kids from high school with a diploma and certificate at the same time. So, there are some models out there. Get in on this . We now have several questions on how to we connect education better to the jobs that people are going out to after the get education. In the last generation, particularly an Education Reform Movement very focused on academic achievement oriented mostly toward college. Even when it is not specifically college it is very abstract. High standards, but the high standards that are not contextualized to anything. Part of what that springs from, coming back to the top and that brings us together today, is that in previous generations educational systems that connected better to locations where legitimize because they were used to discriminate against ethnic minorities. You have a vocational and an academic track and the academic track was for the lighter skinned people in the vocational track was for the darker skinned people. This was completely a confidence game. Attracted nothing toward reading, writing, literature, making better citizens. Everybody needs to get a wellrounded education that includes more than just how to do a job so one thing i am hopeful for is that as Educational Options increase there will be more opportunity anduild our vocational contextualize education, that it will not be beholden to some distant bureaucracy that will have some other agenda. It will be under parents, not bureaucracy. A good point. Thank you for a much. Jeannie allen. That. Lad you raised that was going to be my point in question. We have to be careful not to say or. And remember, we do not just one want that. If you say today he went career and technical education, those are people that are not qualify for their job to begin with. I think there is a cautionary tale there. All of our students come in a matter what color, should be encouraged to aspire to a Higher Education and as far as the careerready and collegeready piece, how do we really believe how much to we really believe that careerready is about Exceptional Education or have we given the wonderful Business Community the opportunity to place jobs . Where do we make those distinctions so we do not suddenly have this conversation 10 years from now where we are having another Charter School system and we basically stockpiled a bunch of jobs and said, those kid should go there. I suspect for virginia and other people theres no question they want their kids to go to college. Lets not let them off the hook. How do we square that potential for lower standards with a very important point made that theres job out there that we cant sell . So my son who has special needs wants to be a firefighter which is a great ultimately long well paying job over the time. But there was no way on gods green earth he was going to become a firefighter. Y goal was to take him to that school. Thats the way i looked a colleges, greater options so he can go through the firefighting degree and he can get a fouryear degree so if it doesnt end up working out, he can have something to fall back on. Some of them have moved the needle more than others. I think virginia and florida their Business Councils have done exceptional work. I use career because im open for another word. We want to change it, thats fine. 50 of the jobs that will exist 15 years from now dont exist today and the concept of what work means is different. Im open to change career. I just dont want to lead with college. My friend larry points out the word career in french means running in circles. How much that resonates with you i think i can tell from the reaction in the room. I think we have a false choice that were presented with and the current form of the Education Reform Movement, a false choice between Academic Excellence and pragmatic useful education and the people who want Academic Excellence are phobic of anything that sounds pragmatic because thats an excuse not to teach people and the pragmatic people are focused on academics because thats disconnected from the real world and you wont use it. Part of what drives this false divide is standardization. If were going to have centralized standards they have to be reduced to test scores or 21st century skills or reduced to some other list that we can write up. The closer we keep education to parents and to local community, the more we can define what is a good education in a way that combines Academic Excellence and pragmatic usefulness remembering that pragmatic usefulness is not the same as learning the particular skill of a particular job opening that a particular employer wants you to have. And as long as local is not parochial you can still be involved with the global but im fine with that. Only thing i would add is i referenced earlier, ed rosen talks about the air pain in 1950 where they were all one size. The punch line is this the idea of an adjustable car thief. And so all im saying is every student has to have the adjustable seat to get them where they want to go, college and or career. If you talk to any student today, they do not want to be told which career path to go through. This is the broader point is that my parents have said go to college. They were they were i was first generation college. They didnt care where i went. They just said go. I think our students today have more access to information through technology. They have more big ideas about what they want to achieve. And so our job is to give them the adjustable car seat to get there. Awesome. Were going to go with johnny taylor, the last question. Johnny the only reason im last is because this is a question my staff wouldnt step up to ask and i promise i would ask it if it wasnt asked earlier. So heres the question. E row mant size and sort of romanticize and rewrite history often. But the question is we talk about the good old days and how wonderful it was, segregated black america. People say things were so great then. Is there research to tell us thats true or not. Because we talk about it or not and people say it was so great. But is there any objective data out there that says we really were performing. When i say seg grated im speaking in Africanamerican Community for purposes to look back at 1954. I dont know. We do have some measurements but they were imperfect. The best measurement going back that far is High School Graduation. High School Graduation is about 2 at the turn of the century and it rises steadily over the course of the 21st search rip until it reaches 1970, 1978. Its been plateaued since then. From the 1950s to the 1970s we were continuing the progress for some time on High School Graduation. High School Graduation is really easy to measure. We researches love it because diplomas we know how many we gave out. The data is solid. After that it becomes much merkier. The standardized testing only goes from the 1970s. From the 1970s its fairly flat. There are fluctuations in fourth grade and eighth grade. Those are less important because if you have it up in fourth grade that by the time they go to eighth grade the rise has disappeared. M not sure whats been focused. I look at scores from reading and math are flat. I mean, theyre really flat over that period. The other measurement we have that can go back to the 1950s but its very controversial is the s. A. T. We are the s. A. T. Back to the 1950s. Theres a fairly significant increase in scores in the 1950s and plateaus in the 1960s. But its extremely controversial to use as a measurement of academic success and its generally not used because its too controversial. My father was born in 1913. And he saw real segregation in charleston, west virginia. I would never romanticize whats on the other side of the fence. Take a look at dunbar high school, founded in the late 19th century. The number of people that they produced who became cabinet level secretaries who became principals, dentists doctor who is went to the ivy league schools, it was arguably the first public black nool the country thats questionable but lets say thats true. Take a look at what they were doing in the 189 os and the early 1900s. Thomas soul wrote a piece called from the ivy league to the nba. And what happened with the school before brown and after brown. He had a view that was radically different about brown. There was a time when all black schools and a number of the people were not our kind of people. They were what you would call regular folk who did extraordinary thing in a Public School in this city. There was a book called [inaudible] i think they would take a look at that. Very interested in reading. Those are great questions. Thank you very much. Ok. Thank you for your wonderful engagement so far this afternoon. Weve had two wonderful panels and were excited about