Transcripts For CSPAN Politics Public Policy Today 20130823

Two is scranton, until a nip. Atwill have live coverage 4 40 eastern. Gopcruz will speak to a fundraiser in New Hampshire. Our road to the white house coverage gets underway at 7 00 eastern. Later, the southern christian Leadership Conference holding their convention, focusing on race, are pretty, and Voting Rights. We will have that at 4 00 p. M. , and eventsspan2 marking the 50th anniversary of the march on washington continue saturday. 9 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan, and also on cspan radio. Majorws this hour that nip outs has been convicted in hassan has been convicted in the murder of 13 people and wounded more than 30 others at the Texas Military base. Also in news, a report that congress will hold a Gold Medal Ceremony for the victims of the birmingham bombing in that ceremony when they come back tuesday, september 10. Our coverage ahead of the 50th anniversary of the march on our she did this weekend includes Coverage Today from the National Urban league. We will have a complete program later, but here is a look at what they talked about earlier today. Inin june, the Supreme Court their calculated decision to keep us from voting, to keep ups from the voting booth, was determined, as determined by the highest court of our land. The Supreme Court we have come to understand that we cannot count on to protect our rights or to respect the constitution that guarantees all our rights. Constitution the that is supposed to be for not some people, but for all of the people. Now we have rightwing pushingans who are restrictive voter id legislation in states around the country that will make it more difficult for us to make our voices heard. 6, 80 twost restricted voting bills have been introduced in 31 states. North carolina has just gone crazy. It has passed legislation to require certain kinds of i the i. D. The latest bill was signed into law earlier this month by the North Carolina governor. This law attempts to prohibit terrence of College Students and claiming them as dependents when they file their taxes if the student registrants to vote anywhere other than the parent home. Under the new law, the same students are required to provide only a government issued photo. Caused the court has congress to deal with the question of voter rights enforcement. In 2006, congress reauthorize ae Voting Rights act on bipartisan basis, making the determination that section 4 and relevant, buty essential to protecting all americas right to vote. Now congress has a moral obligation to undo the wrongheaded decision of the Supreme Court and to ensure the Justice Department has the tools to clearly identify voter abstraction and and forced voter rights. To notuse this time only identify the issues that threaten our freedom and equality, but let us only and courageously draw a line in the sand that will speak up and let us show up. Let us not be intimidated by those who would accuse us of just laying the race card. Nor let us be intimidated by those who say that is all we talk about, is race. We must not apologize for demanding fairness and justice. And we must respond to them by saying loudly and clearly i am not playing the race card, i am playing the equality card. I am playing the fairness card. I am playing the justice card. After all of the speechifying, marching, congratulating, beating soundbites, we must organize, march, support organizations, dominate these talk shows, and file lawsuits. Somebodyop thinking else is going to do this for us. Lets begin with a wellknown american novelist, one of our best writers, james baldwin. Mr. Baldwin, what brought you to the march on washington . I was born a negro in this country. Or concretely, there was no reason for me not to be involved with what is one of the most significant, most it noted demonstration to free americans that has ever happened in this country. Until recently, most americans, i express my support of civil rights largely by talking about it at cocktail parties, i am afraid. Summer, americans this i could not only paying that service to a cause that was so urgently right and in a time that is so urgently now. Sunday, American History tv marks the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. Firsthand accounts of the day. It starts at 1 00 p. M. Eastern, part of American History tv every weekend on cspan3. First ladiesn she was interested how the place work. She found it was rather dilapidated, rather dirty, ominous, and she try to resend up. She found old pieces of china and then asked servants if they could tell us if they remembered it how old this piece was. She started trying to catalog and create a sense of what the were,she had a plant to put a case in the state dining room, but she is credited with being the initiator of the concept of a permanent china collection at the white house. The encore presentation continues tonight at 9 00 eastern on cspan. Gallup and Phi Delta Kappa international released a poll on Public Education views yesterday. Among the findings, parents are more concerned about their childrens safety with other students as opposed to outsiders. Most support making Higher Education more affordable. The poll also looked at the impact of common core state standards, which aims to align the actingicula. Deputy secretary was present. This is just over 90 minutes. Good afternoon and welcome to which way do we go, a discussion of the results of the 44th annual pdk poll on views on i am shanecation. Lopez, your host for the afternoon. Before we talk about the results of this years poll, these indulgent me. I would like to tell you a little bit about the work we have done. I would like to tell you a little bit about the work we have been doing at gallup. In the last year alone, we have polled americans to discover who is happiest at work. That might seem like a fluffy concept, and this might surprise you even more, given that it is a fluffy concept. Teachers are one of the happiest groups in america. I figured you would like that. Teachers are second only to physicians in happiness at work and happiness in life. The struggle is, they are not so happy at work. They feel they are losing their sense of autonomy and are not getting their needs met in the workplace. But overall, their life has much happiness. We also heard from a big group of americans. We found out that the folks struggling with engagement the most are College Educated folks. The people who have a College Degree and go into the workforce are not as engaged as some of the folks who are less educated here in america. We have been puzzling about that one, trying to figure why we work so hard to keep people in school if they are graduating into workplaces that are not so engaging. We also heard that over half a million americans in k12, plus a bunch of College Students, about half of students are hopeful. About two thirds are engaged. Almost two thirds of them are pretty happy in life, which is good news. There is an engagement slide that starts in middle school. But you are pretty engaged in elementary school. That engagement slide makes school a hard place to be for a while. That kind of balance is off later in high school. What is happening with those students during that time is something of great interest to us, so we have been trying to dig deeper into those numbers and make sense out of what might be causing this engagement slide, or at least might be related to this engagement slide. One thing we are trying to make sense of is american teachers and how engaged they are. One third of american teachers are engaged at work. You heard me say two thirds of American Students are engaged at school. In terms of involvement in an enthusiasm for school, teachers are less engaged than students. When we look at our children, one big driver is being at a hopeful school. Hopeful schools looks different than being at a less hopeful school. Kids at these schools believe the future will be better than the present and they are able to make it so because they are surrounded by teachers doing a great job. We will talk about this for about the next hour and 15 minutes. Many of us, including myself, will forget that there are people behind these numbers. We will forget that there are people behind these numbers. For this poll alone, we talked to 1,001 americans, asking them about what they thought about Public Education. They are representing us. They are speaking for us. So, that is important to remember. I believe it is also important to remember that when i talk about engaged teachers, we have millions of people out there who have dedicated their lives to teaching. They are not as engaged as we would like them to be, but they are happier than most. And we did find very hopeful teachers this year. I would like to introduce you to one of them so you can put a name with the numbers. The name of that person is mary hawkins jones. Today, she was given an award. She is the most hopeful teacher in america. Mary . [applause] so now you have a name to go with some of the data you hear gallup talking about all the time. We looked for americas most hopeful teacher, and we found her. You will hear from her later on the panel. We also want to remind you that there are other folks behind the numbers and a whole bunch of kids affected by decisions we make as policymakers and educators. If we can get to know mary a little better and also some of her children, i think it will give us that reminder that we need to picture names and faces ehind these numbers. Each and every year when i am given that classroom, i know that these students are destined for greatness and i know that they were given to me for a purpose. I am hopeful that i will help them to find that purpose and help them move forward in their goals in life. Teachers see talented kids and say, that is great. You want to be an engineer. You play the piano nicely. She takes it that next step. She nurtures it. Mary inspires kids. She gives them hope for what they can do, not only when they graduate elementary school, but when they graduate high school, when they graduate college, when they go out into the world. I hired her 23 years ago, her first year teaching, she said something i will never forget. She said, the children will remember this year with me. She taught me the value of sheork and dedication. Was very shy. My parents are both immigrants from el salvador. I started with little to no english. She created an environment that was welcoming to all students. As a teacher, i have an issue that they build that confidence within them. Look deep inside to find what you want to be, and i will help you develop that. She works at a school that was we saw high poverty when i was in elementary school. That did not discourage her. She had the same expectations for us to succeed as any other teacher would. You see children rise to the occasion. They are standing taller. They fulfill their dreams. They see, i can do this. She has impacted the type of person and the type of teacher at i have become. She takes it another step that is my job, to helps to define their hope and then tell them, lets get a strategy, lets make a plan so you can accomplish this. Comets revolve around that. All the students have that gold that they create at the beginning of the year. I set a goal to bring up my grades, and try my best to succeed in school. She helps us to help us get it, because better in that subject. A step further. She put scaffolding in place. No longer is it just a wish. It is a place where they will make their goals. Ofthey develop their pathway thinking, and then the next step, middle school, x step, high school, next step, college, next step, ph. D. Canine really great so you accomplish that. She gave the message that in order for us to succeed, we have to work hard. It was going to take a little bit of work and a lot of dedication, but we could get through it. It gives them confidence to move forward. It gives you a growth mindset. It allows you to sail to the highest height that you can. Everyone needs hope and everyone has hope. Thank you, ms. Jones, for such a wonderful year. You are the best i ever had. I will never forget you. You have made me into the person i am today. Congratulations, ms. Jones, on winning the most hopeful teachers award. Congratulations. [applause] so today, i do, i want you to analyze the results. I want you to critique the results. I want you to discuss them. I want you to share them. But i never want you to forget that there are names behind these numbers. There are people behind these results. To highlights of the results, my codirector of the poll. [applause] we had an opportunity this morning to participate and share with mary in this award. I should begin to tell you that we believe one of the most important findings of this years poll and the last two years is that over 70 of americans have trust and confidence in the men and women who teach in Public Schools for the very reason that mary and others like her do the work that takes place in the classroom. Shane, thank you. My plan is to do a highlevel summary of some of the findings. There is a lot of information in this poll. I am not going to go over all of it, but some of the findings, and then we have an esteemed panel that we will bring up to the front, and then we will open it up to questions and answers. So, to begin, just real briefly, research procedures. This is a Standard National poll of americans ages 18 and over. It is all americans, not just parents or teachers, all americans. The sample was conducted in may. The sample is weighted to represent the current demographic of americans in the United States. Lets begin and talk about the common core state standards. We led off with a few of these questions. Of course, i think all of you in this room know that 45 states plus the District Of Columbia are voluntarily implementing the common core state standards. It is arguably one of the most important initiatives in education in our time. The first part of the initiative was launched in june of 2009 as a bipartisan partnership between the National Governors association and the council of states. Recently, there has been controversy over whether the standards challenged local control. We decided to ask americans about the standards. First, we asked americans if they had even heard of common core standards. We were surprised to find that only 38 indicated that they had ever heard of them. Among parents, it was slightly higher, 45 . Then we asked some followup questions. We asked to see how much knowledge americans had about the standards. Whether they were required by the federal government. Many americans thought they were, which is not the case. Whether they were based upon an amalgam of state standards, which they are not, and whether there are standards a academic areas, which there are not. We ended up asking this question, whether americans thought the common core would have an impact in helping students learn global skills. You can see from this that there is relatively lukewarm support for the standards. Only 41 of americans thought they would make inferences. In general, regarding the common core state standards we discovered, number one, a lack of awareness, number two, a lack of understanding, and number three, only lukewarm support. Lets talk about testing and teacher evaluation. There has been a significant increase in student testing in our nations schools, mostly as a result of federal legislation, no child left behind. We asked americans if they believed this increased student testing has helped, hurt, or made no difference in the performance of their local Public Schools. Only 22 indicated that it helped. 36 indicated that it had actually hurt the performance at their school and 41 said it made no difference. When we last ask this question in 2007, we see a shift. In 2007, 28 said it helped and 28 said it hurt. We have seen a shift in just five years with a larger percentage of americans believing that the increase in student testing has hurt. Related to the question, we asked last year for the very first time, a question let me read this one. This has to do with teacher evaluations. Some states require that teacher evaluations include how well their students perform on standardized tests. Do you favor or oppose this requirement . Last year, we asked that question for the first time. That is the lower bar, 2012. A majority of americans, slight majority, 52 , felt that they supported the use of student standardized test scores in evaluating teachers. But in just one year, and that is the upper bar, you can see that that opinion has changed relatively dramatically. Now, 58 indicated that they do not favor the use of standardized test scores for evaluating teachers. Following the tragedy in newtown, connecticut, we wanted to know how safe people felt students were while at school, and how they felt we could improve student safety. We asked this question of parents only. You can see that parents do not worry about the physical safety of their children while attending school. In the middle, you can see that if parents are concerned about the safety of their children, it is a concern with other students as opposed to intruders. And then finally, on the right, the chart shows the response to this question. Let me read this question to you. To promote School Safety, some School Districts are considering adding more security guards, while others are considering increasing Mental Health services. Which do you think would be most effective . You can see from the chart on the right that by almost a two one margin, americans believe that increasing Mental Health services would improve School Safety over adding more security. These charts focus strictly on security and safety. We asked americans, and we used a scale of 1 to 5, strongly agree, strongly disagree, whether number one, school should employ Armed Security guards, number two, whether teachers and administrators should be allowed to be armed, and number three, whether schools should have screening procedures similar to those used in other government facilities. Blue shows agreement. Agreement. Orange shows disagreement. You can see that on the top chart, americans are evenly divided on employing more Armed Security guards. On the middle bar, you can see that americans strongly oppose allowing teachers and administrators to be armed, and on the lower bar, you can see that there is relatively stronger support for implementing security procedures in school similar to what we have in other government buildings. Switching topics, different styles of schooling. Americans are becoming more receptive to different styles of schooling as well as different types of teaching and learning. The chart on the left shows that american support public Charter Schools and that remains relatively high at 70 . When we first asked his question 13 years ago, support for Charter Schools was slightly over 40 . In just 13 years, that support has increased quite a bit. For the first time this year i am a little surprised we have never asked this before, but for the first time this year, we asked americans if they support allowing parents to homeschool their children. Looking at the chart, you can see that 60 of americans do indicate their support. Furthermore, an overwhelming majority of americans favor having Public Schools provide services to homeschooled children, including services for disabled students, opportunities for students to attend Public School parttime, and opportunities for students to participate in Public School athletics and extracurricular programs. Turning to the chart on the right, we asked americans their response to allowing students to choose a private school to attend at public expense. 21st century skills. This is one of the passions that that has in exploring this. We ask should school teach. Kills like creativity these are referred to as 21st century skills. It was not surprising that american support teaching of these skills. What was surprising was the level of support they have, particularly Critical Thinking and communication. What is interesting for us, these are the very kinds of skills associated with the common core standard. If americans knew more about the common core of, based on their embracing these kind of skills, we think that would be very helpful. The last slide we have there for you, before we work with our panelists, we asked americans about the president s three priorities, to make college more affordable, invest in Early Childhood education and redesign high schools. Far and away, they support number one, making college more affordable. And again, there is much more information in this report. The entire report is included in this magazine. One of the things we do, and we have been doing this for 45 years, is, in the report, we provide you with the question that we asked americans verbatim. That gives you a chance then to take a look at that question, how it is phrased, and do you accept the responses you see based on the phrasing of the question. We believe that is very important. The other thing we have managed to do, because we do this every year, or have done this every year for 45 years, weve routinely go back into our archives and pull out questions we have asked in the past. That gives us a chance to ask those questions again and to see trends in Public Opinion about education. Certainly, i mentioned public Charter Schools. The other one on testing, even the one on using standardized test scores and teacher evaluation. With that, i am going to ask our panelists to come to the front. And while they are coming, i am going to take introductions. We have maria ferguson, who is the executive director in the center on education policy at George Washington university. We did not assign seats. I apologize. What was i thinking . I taught junior high school. I know better than that. Sorry. We should have little tikes, right . Little nametags. Sandra boyd, chief operating officer at the cheese. Merrow, education correspondent at pbs chief operating officer at achieve. John merrow, education correspondent at pbs. And most important, our most hopeful teacher of the year, mary hawkins jones. I am going to take the prerogative since i have the microphone of asking the first question of all the panelists. As we learned from this poll, most americans have never heard of the common core state standards, and even those that have heard of them, many of them have misperceptions about the standards. We see that there is really only lukewarm support for the standards. My question is, is this a problem, or will it work its way out as the standards are implemented in the newest estimates are used . I think jim shelton should take that. I think that is only a problem if we dont address the issue. First, as people start teaching them and we start to assess them, communities are going to find out that their kids are not prepared. When they find out they are not prepared, people are going to react. My kids are not scoring very well. All of a sudden, my Childs School does not look so great. In the context of not knowing anything about the standards, the second issue is there is a healthy diet of misinformation proactively being spread about the standards on both sides. This has been a full contact, everybody in the game opportunity to spread misinformation. You can expect that there will yoube a push back. And you and i and you and you a you are you and you and youwithout people understanding and iwhat the standards are, what the benefits are, what bill schmidt has done looking at states with the highestyoustates with the highest correlations with the common core standards, their students have the highest probability of doing well, that kind of data is not out there. Our voice is muted on it. There is not a clear set of folks able to take the message out in a strong way. Even though parents feel very different about it, i do worry about misinformation in the general population. Let me pick up on that. I think you are exactly right. Let me try to get some context. I think there are reasons why the results look the way they do. It is not as if common core was branded. In the 19 states that have adopted the common core, common core does not appear in the standards. They call them something else. They have adopted the standards along the way and are implementing them on their own areeline. Youthat is another challenge. States are all over the place in and youf implementation. Are you are you are youas of the last school year, when you would have asked these questions, there were only seven states that were fully implemented in k12. Anot everybody is using the youmoniker common core. On top of that, you hear a disconnect. Common core is this thing that is a political football. Is i am 100 sure if you had asked me 10 years ago well, it would have been different in virginia because virginia has a catchy name, sol. Youre not likely to forget that. It does not mean what you think it means. But parents did not usually know what the standards were called. Every state has raised expectations significantly inas isthe past couple of years. There are good reasons for that. Only a quarter of kids who take the act are ready for college or the workforce. That is a good bar for parents to understand. The bar has been raised. Results may look different for a while, but the goal is the right goal. We are not doing anybody any favors i giving false information about how prepared we are. By giving false information about how prepared we are. As a classroom teacher, i work in the state of maryland. I have lived in tennessee, arkansas. I have friends in North Carolina and all over who are educators. We talk about the standards. We talked about the common core. There are a lot of different names, but overall, it is the expectation. I think the message we need to get out there and make it the forefront of education is that our expectations are changing. We need to let parents know that expectations are changing. Each state may have a different name for what they are trying to accomplish in the curriculum, but it is the same goal, to increase the expectations in order for our students to thrive in the future. Once we get that message out and we are allowing parents to see that because, you know, if i would have looked at common core, i might not have said oh, those are the new standards. Because you have to be involved in the educational arena to understand that. I feel that once we get it out into the media, once we have our meetings with our parents and continue the conversation with our parents, we can have a meaningful conversation. Also, our students have to understand that expectations have changed. They are our message carriers. We want them to go home and talk to their parents. We want them to say, things are being done differently than they were in the past and show them that there is a new expectation. I do think our standards are pretty low educational he. There is no question that raising the standards is a good idea. That said, i think the common core faces an uphill struggle. The name is a problem. In america, they could not call them National Standards or federal standards, because americans dont know the difference. They probably should have called them american standards, but they couldnt, so they called them common core. The man with the bully pulpit, secretary duncan, cannot use his bully pulpit because that reinforces the belief that it is washington doing it all over. Every time he opens his mouth they lose support, which is a shame, because he is a very likable man. The real challenge with the common core and why i think it is not going to go away you guys have a real battle but i think the Testing Process is a builtin contradiction. The federal government insist that the data be able to be used to judge teachers and principals, but the common core standards, the skills and capabilities are things that have to be judged by teachers. A machine cannot test whether students work well together or if a student cant speak persuasively. We have to trust teachers to do that, and the tests as designed do not trust teachers. And if teachers know that those scores could perhaps be used to fire them, they will go right back to the drill and skill and all of that stuff. I say it is a real heavy risk. I will add something that touches on what everybody has said. We are trying to figure out the difference between the heat and the light right now, what is an issue versus really what is not an issue. The people who wrote the standards, the people pushing them through, the districts implementing them, teachers, parents, all the way down the line, the strategies for success is unique for all of them. People dont understand testing. There needs to be a very strong effort to help people understand what these are and what they are not. Because every step of the way it is confusing for a different reason. That is why the poll results are fascinating, because the poll results indicate that the public trust teachers. But the policy makers and they insist on do not trust teachers. Unless we work that contradiction now i would say, first of all, i want to say, i think what mary said is right on, which is, somehow we have to get people to understand that all standards are is a legal representation of our expectations of our children, and if we do not figure out how to align our expectations to what life is really going to expect of them, we are going to see them pay the price. When we get that message out there, it resonates with parents. I want to contrast the broad audience poll with a poll done specifically of parents and how parents think this will make a difference for their kids, how they think it is actually important, how they think it is important for them to know how their students are doing, whether their kids are meeting standards, and all of these things are important. I think the reality is that what all of us are trying to do is figure out how you create a system where you trust but verify, that provides the information back to the teachers in the classroom and the students about what they know and dont know and what they need to do to get better. What the school is doing well and not doing well. What the system is doing. What the state is doing. We can influence how to provide support, how to provide resources, and where we are working. We cannot act like this is simple work. It is not. Our tests are never going to assess everything we need the question is how do you come up with a system that is balanced enough, assessments that are good enough that when you put them in context they meet the needs that we laid out . The first generation will not do it. It will be a start, something really important. It will create a context that will be much better, i think, when pittsburgh started deciding to share the detailed information and feedback on how these kids did. No information attached to it yet, but they were hungry for the information. They engaged with each other. When i spoke to teachers and they get together and talk about the data, they are excited about having that information in front of them. They were very excited to have the information. We have to figure out how to use that to create a very different type of context. Its easy to understand why people think it is distressed, but when people look at the ability to provide that kind of information, they think it is just a gotcha. . There are some people who seem to enjoy the notion of punishing people. Thats not what its about. Im going to pick up on something you said that i think is really important to distinguish the creation of new assessments and the standards from the purposes from which they might use and the Development Work is incredibly hard and incredibly complicated. Im not surprised at all by the results from gallup on the tests and i dont think you would find anyone out there where the annual tests are being given by states. There are few people who say that they are great instruments. If you are a parent, you are lucky to get results by the end of the summer. They dont seem to be connected to your work. If you are a teacher, the kids are gone. They dont help you or give instruction. Unfortunately, there with multiplechoice instruments which are, obviously, easier to spend time a lot of test practice and that sort of thing. The challenge of creating new assessments to really match the promise of the standard is a lot more Critical Thinking that allows them to show their work, have a lot more writing, much more complicated and its really hard work. That work is being done at least by the Assessment Consortium with teachers, with higher red faculty. Its a collaborative effort. Everybody wants to get to the point for these tests are meaningful to teachers and meaningful for kids and will tell kids and parents whether they are on track or doing a good job. If you look at some of the assessment items, those assessment and sample items and if you look at the released items, the other consortium, they are not the kind of items that are going to be easy to drill and kill over. You cannot learn how to critically think two weeks before a test. Really, for such a critical moment in time, to really move the field, i think the question is whether everyone will hang in during the transition and be serious about the implementation or whether we are going to get the struck did by, frankly, some of the things that maria talked about. Lets open it up for your questions. You have had a chance to see. I started my career as a junior high teacher and you see already that i have clearly lost my skills because i did not have a seating chart. [laughter] i have further evidence of that because ok, we do have roving microphones. Ok, good. I did not check with joseph on that. We want to open it up for your questions. Here is what i ask one, wait for the microphone. Cspan is recording and streaming. We will be able to hear your question clearly. Secondly, introduce yourself and tell us your agency or who you represent. And then feel free to either direct or question to the panel or to one or more of the panelists. Finally, one last thing, if you have a statement or a question, keep it as concise as possible to we can get in as many as possible. Here we go. Tom. And we have one right here. Blue tie, third row. First of all, thank you for this session. Its a very interesting. Im with the National School boards association. Words are important. It strikes me around common core, i hear a lot of confusion really about standards and curriculum. A lot of people use these terms interchangeably and we know thats not right. I am really struck by the results. The public asked about the elements in the common core and it suggests that words are a problem there so why would be interested in your reaction and if i could just sort of take that same thought and change subjects just a little bit, i wonder what the results are on Charter Schools, to what extent the public really understands what Charter Schools are and with that level of comfort about how they operate in how they are funded and so forth. A quick comment on the Charter School one. I found a really interesting. There was one finding that they believe the quality of education in a Charter School is higher than the quality of education and regular Public Schools and i really thought about that last night. Did it feet off the question before that talked about the question that Charter Schools are not constrained by the same regulations and maybe there was some sort of correlation between quality education where one a school is free to do what it wants but it really surprised me. Im actually curious to know what others read into that. I have not really made any conclusions of my own. For me, Charter Schools come a it was an answer to a question parents wants had. Something different. If is a clear indication when parents want Something Different. If you ask them why they placed them in a charter or a private school, they say they wanted Something Different, better, more. The expectations are higher and the children will get something more that they are not getting in a Public School. Looking at the assessment and saying we need to make changes, we do. We do need to make changes. One thing we do need to do is make sure that parents are getting information through the year instead of just at the end. Having one test at the end of the year to tell your child was proficient . How about knowing at the beginning of the year, this is my benchmark, this is how we continue through the year. The parents are better informed by giving them information continuously than at the end of the year. I will not see my fifth graders again. I wish they would come back and visit, but i wont have the opportunity to discuss with my parents how they performed and what we could next. If we had an assessment that was continual and i had the information that i could sit down with the parents and let them know with what we could improve, that is was some of the schools are providing, continuous information, keeping them informed about what their children are doing and how they are performing. My sense is that result represents the year earning parents. They know things could be better i spent a lot of time in Charter Schools when i was in new orleans for six and a half years after katrina and it is almost entirely Charter Schools down there. Charter schools are probably the good ones, where they have a high bar to get a charter. Some places just hand out the charter like halloween candy. And arizona, you get a charter when you cross the border. When you set a high bar, those schools are nowhere near as good as they could be because everyone is ruled by test scores. They have this same there is all this imagination and talent, but they are ruled by doing scores at the end of the year. The parents know that things could be much better. I want to switch to the rest of the question because i do think that the words are really important. The disconnect between the importance of Critical Thinking and communication to parents, how much that is a part of what the new standards actually emphasize yet the relatively low opinion of the new standard says there is a fundamental disconnect. Unfortunately, that is not uncommon. Unless youre close to the work of education, close to frankly any issue, most people are misinformed about a lot of things. If you ask people what percentage of kids actually have to take remedial classes, i bet it would be wrong by two or threefold, more optimistic than we ought to be. We should not be shocked that people dont have a lot of information that we do need to recognize that we have not closed that gap. I want to followup on that there is a difference between ignorance and misinformation and there are those who are concentrating standards with what you actually teach. I keep tabs on all of the different groups to be able what people are thinking on things. It was supposed to be a joke among but basically the story was the nfl takes the obama approach to standards, but really what it was, it said every team is going to use the same playbook which basically was clearly an analog with curriculum, notwithstanding. Sitting back i said, really, every field is 100 yards, every touchdown is six points, etc. It lets us be clear about what winning and losing is and in that context you can have as much diversity and innovation that you want because everyone is clear about where they are headed. Thank you for such a strong and compelling argument for having standards that are high and, in some cases, common, but that common misunderstanding is something that i think is going to be a problem if we dont fix it. One thing we found in our polling and we ask the same first question, knowledge about the common core and we get about the same results but then very quickly with just a reef description of the common core, people who did not know anything , the core five, they said it sounds good, 77 and the pole last year says like that should be the goals for our schools, so i think there is an openness and certainly people want to hear, especially if you are a parent, what to expect for their children. What will my child learn this year . Are we on track . How are we going to get them there . That is really what the standards discussion is about. The most important thing is that at least in our polling teachers, despite all the stuff about testing and how the results are being used, are overwhelmingly supportive of the common core. They have had the chance to dig into it and really like it. The more theyll know about the common core, the more they like it. That to me is really encouraging. Parents are going to get most of their information from teachers and thats a good thing. That is who they should get the information from and i think over time, the parent gap will close. It remains to be seen. Another question, yes . Back here. From George Washington university. Can you hear me . Yes. I wanted to see what you think people think about the common core little differently. We have had 30 years of standards and highstakes testing. We are still being told we are going to hell in a handbasket. Are people just weary about all of this . The parents now are the ones who went through that in school. They went through the various standards and highstakes testing themselves as children, so was that one problem . When the poll was talking about 21stcentury standards for employment, we continue to see jobs going overseas to cheaper labor markets. Parents and citizens are snappy about this. Maybe we should perhaps think about common core in terms of not Human Capital but democratic citizenry. Who wants to jump in . Tough one. I think it really does get to the question on the idea of messaging and how anytime youre asking people to do something that is hard, new, you, or knew have to take into account all of the issues that you just raised their own history, their own experience. We all have an opinion about it. Testing probably has a branding issue akin to a root canal. Most people, the idea of being tested makes them nervous him especially when they think about their children and they are concerned about fairness. You have to think about the history and where we have come, but i dont think it can stop you from moving ahead with what you have to do in the hope is that it makes you a lot smarter about how you do it. Yes, there has been 30 years of conversation about standards, form, and testing. Lets look at that, think what has come to pass and lets use it to our advantage and as sandy said, they do support the common core. They just released a survey as well where the majority of state education leaders the train has now left the station how well we do in getting there. For the train to get apparently where it is supposed to go, if every american adult could spend just one day and a high school and see how mind numbing it is, that might win the day for the common core. We had a piece on the news hour last week and a middle school in new york in an english class and you saw what was going on. It was fascinating. You saw that there were kids in the middle arguing their points from the text but on the side, they were passing postits to the team. That used to be called cheating but that is part of the deal, working collaboratively. People said to me afterward, thats kind of fun. The teacher was going around and judging how they were working collaboratively, but as i said, if you could get people to see and go experience in american high school, it will tell you that the 30 years of School Reform made things worse probably. Here is what i think of the difference of time. Im a little more optimistic. In the past, we said standards were important but you have to have test at the end, good luck. Good luck, state, district, school, teacher. This time, the attention is being paid at every level to implementation and thinking about professional development. We are not there yet, by the way. What good lessons look like, teachers working together as part of a Collaborative Team to do lessons that reflect on the common core and the way the market has changed with open educational resources, i just think the implementation piece of it is that thing that is the most promising. If we get it right, having just the goal of having the test at the end that is a disaster for everyone in the middle and we actually paid more attention to the implementation have you read the standard . Yes, i have. Were you able to stay awake . What we did at our school, the leadership team, we took it apart. As part of the leadership team, my principal wanted us to be able to have a conversation with our parents when it aimed to the standards. When i first looked at it, i went to the internet and i was going to download it and i said, no way. This is not going to happen. Then whenever we started getting information, now its time to read this and we take this section. We took it in parts in order to analyze it and digest it. We been doing this for several years now. You have to do it in parts. This year is the first implementation year for fifth grade. I have watched my colleagues. Ive spoken with my colleagues. I have gone up and sat through the grating and reporting. Even though it was not for me last year, i went to the class. I sat there and listened in order to get the information and then i started having conversations with the parents last year talking about the fact that this was what we were going to do in the fourth grade teacher started having conversations but this year in fifth grade, they have already had conversations. They already know the grading is going to change. You are not trying to do it as one shot. It cannot be a oneshot deal. This is a process. If we get the process correct here at the very beginning and if we take our time to make sure that we are pulling all of the parties and, one thing we dont want to forget about are the students. The students have to understand that we are going to ask different questions. These are how the questions will be formed later. People often ask, you are teaching to the test . And i say i am teaching to life. No longer are we going to ask the question, if youre going to ride on the bus and you have this bus, how many people would fit on the bus . Now but if you have a bus, a van, a car, which would be most cost efficient . I asked that once before and i was playing to plan a Family Reunion and we were all going to drive in and i knew that it would be more costefficient and i proposed the question to my class. These little fifthgraders saying things like you should take the metro. And then someone says you should not take metro because then you have to this course in the classroom started them just thinking about what it would be and i told them, costefficient, looking at cost, the overall cost, which is going to be the best . If we get them to start thinking like that and having them programmed within the learning itself, its part of learning. Like the classroom that you visited, it was exciting. It makes them want to come to school. We will not have the attendance issue. Imnt want to go because not learning anything. They dont feel my connection when they go to school. If you make it real and you are showing the parents that its real, an application for life, not just for the end of the year when we take that test. Mostat makes me the hopeful advocate in america. [laughter] up here, coming back behind you. Im with the National Education association and im really enjoying this conversation. My question to the panel is how do we actually promote and support the importance of a wellbalanced education . Being a science teacher, im well aware of resources being diverted but even though i have a bias toward science, the same thing holds true for performing arts and social studies, so how do we address that . Thank you. Good question. I was thinking about that very issue, not just science, but band, sports, art, all of these other subject when we were watching the video, no one is talking about standards and assessments in this video. They talk about all of this other stuff and this experience that the students are having and what goes into that to making it and its a combination of exactly what you were talking about. Childk the legacy of no left kind with the teach to the test mentality and devoting limited resources to getting this test is to what they need be is going to take a while to deconstruct. I hope that schools and districts will be able to figure out ways to do a range of things. There are new Science Standards coming up the pike that they will have to deal with as well. Our survey data of state leaders constantly shows that resources of how states and districts use their resources is the most vexing of all problems. I dont think there is any easy answer to that question. Ok, john has the answer. Theres an easy answer but it is not simple. The way we measure a school we have to measure what we value. Right now, we value what we measure. We do it on the cheap. Wellgrounded kid, the way we measure a school should have a set of questions. How many times per week does the student have physical education . The implicit answer is more is better. How many times a week do they have art . Music . We dont ask those questions when we measure and rate schools. What is the teacher turnover rate . How often do teachers get to watch other teachers teach . If we start asking those questions, implicit is that those things matter and it is a process of education. Unless we measure what we value, as i say, i think it is simple thing that would not be easy to do and it just seems to me we ought to be rating schools. We spend all of this energy trying to rate whether he or she is a good teacher, we should be rating the unit am of the school and you can set some criteria for what matters to you. Ok, do both of those things. We need to measure what we value and then have an argument. What do we value . What do we care about . I agree with that. By definition, when you go to the federal level, the idea was that you could not make it too big. You have to pick a few things but if they start asking about all of these other things we have a problem. I think that is probably true. The question is what kind of accountability and where should it sit that looks at all of these other things . Im going to have a different take on what our problem is. No child left behind had a lot of problems. I think one of the bigger problems we had was a flawed hypothesis. The flawed hypothesis was, and is still, that the best way to do better on your reading, writing, and math scores is to just do more of the same old reading and math they were doing before. I have been in some fine schools that did the double down strategy but i have not been to a great school yet that did not have a wellrounded curriculum, that did not Pay Attention to how they were engaging students that did not have some outstanding program. Maybe they did not have a ton of them, but outstanding extracurricular around art, music, band. They have very focused attention on what they are doing to support teachers and how they retain them over time. Those schools that are great and manifested in even the best test scores, they have those attributes. Couldbegin this work, we very easily once again have people with a very different set of indicators that still operate off of the same basic hypothesis and make the same it mistakes again. I think what youre saying is really true. I think the reason for the focus on math and english to begin with, they are foundational subject and they are the two that you could get tested on as you enter a community or four your college. Those subject to the gateway to whether you get to go to creditbearing courses or remedial. Justay to reinforce not english and math but the broader curriculum so you begin to see, for example, in the nextgeneration Science Standards the connection to math and science. They are really excited about how they can reinforce what is in other classrooms. They will use the mathematics do really big assigns context atience the same time. We will see math and english scores improve not just because there is more math and english but it is a broaderbased curriculum reinforcing each other. In order to do well in school, the first thing you have to do is show up. For many kids, there are lots of reasons you show up in the school. You show up for that art class where you get to excel. You have a coach, team members that you know if you want to play, you have to perform in this way. They should no longer be called extracurricular. They should be cocurricular. Words matter. Recognizing that they are not the main thing, we have to Pay Attention to what role they play in allowing us to create the kind of context for students to really excel in the main thing. That is what im saying. May i . You posed a problem to your class about a Family Reunion. Thatwas a real problem. If you look at the calmer and in the core,lum the shepherd has eaten more sheep, blob blob blah, blah, blah. When you all look it, you had to go to school because that is where they kept the knowledge. Thats not true anymore. 24 7, there is flowing down. The job at school is very different. It is to help kids sort through this 24 7 information and figure out what is true so school should be teaching kids how to ask questions but most of them are answer factories. The common core may begin to address that but it may not be radical enough. We send kids to school. Be went to school to socialized. Today, there is an app for that. [laughter] school has a very different function. You have to help kids understand technology. 80 of parents and what they were worried about was bullying by other kids and thats a staggering thing. That happens when kids are not kept busy, not cap energized. He said quite correctly, with the corners and so on, they are energized but in a lot of classes they are not and that is when idle hands to the the devilsdo w work. That is where the common core may make that up so we do not have all of these answer factories where they are teaching kids to sift through this stuff and figure out what is true. I make sure to keep my students not busy but engaged, engaged in learning. That is what encourages them to come to school everyday. When i do science projects and we do science every single day i tell them tomorrow we are going to make mystery meat. . Nd they are like, whats that you code your have to to school to find out. When i did this particular lesson, we were doing liquids, solids, gases and that is where the mystery meat came into play. A parent said, we have a dental appointment and its been on the books for two months. Can you do mystery meat tomorrow . This child was engaged. Weve been talking about solids, liquids, and gases for a while, but this engaged the child and i could not go to the dentist because i had to see what this was all about and then to talk about cocurriculum, students go to school for different reasons. Some students even come to school to have lunch but making those identifications and encouraging them, showing them how to connect to other things, football, it definitely ties in with math. One thing i do with my students who play soccer, we talk about the density of the grass and the role it plays in how the ball moves across the floor. When we did this, they decided they were going to play on the opposite end of the field to get density was different. Its not all crowded together. They got it. But when i do a density less than class, the eyes were all glazed over. Ok, that didnt work. We have to try something else, but soccer gave me a new idea as a teacher. Question over here . I was in the department with no child left behind and it really was a dipstick with the two subjects and did it not plan on being what it became. If we had teachers like you in every, the common core would become exactly what we wanted to be, but how are we going to help teachers develop the content knowledge and the pedagogy to really implement this, particularly when the fear of teacher evaluation is hanging over their head . What can the department do . To try to help with this instead of suggesting that they might lose their money if they do not implement teacher evaluations. [laughter] the secretary have already said on record the worst money we spend is on professional development and it is not well applied to give teachers the skills that they need and usually when he is in front of audiences of teachers and asks them how much they think we spend, they cannot believe when they say to win a half billion dollars that we in our resources. The reality is where this is going to happen, where we will be able to make the difference, that is going to happen at the system and school level. Schools and systems getting ready to take apart the standards, really understand what they are, understand what resources they are providing to teachers to make sure that they are well aligned and not just with the label on the front to align the common core. Its going to be being the opportunity for teachers to see those who already have many of these pedagogical skills and understand well enough to be able to teach in these ways and it will take all of the Different Technology and resources to that when it is not there handy you can access it when you need it. These threeday workshops at the beginning of the year will not cut it. Were trying to transform the way that people do their work for the first time probably in generations, the way that teachers need to teach is not the way the teachers who taught them talk. Its going to be completely different from what they experience so they have very few models two years of what use of few models to what it is supposed to look like. I think that we, as the federal government, we can play a role in being much more thoughtful about what we ask of the resources that we deploy. It would be much easier free could get a reauthorization and it would be much more thoughtful about how the resources go out around this stuff and we will be having great conversations with states where there are thoughtful in their proposals around waivers and flexibility. As they have started to do the work and they are looking to move those waivers, we will be asking questions about how they think about building the support systems and that will be important for them to be able to articulate how they are doing it but the reality is that work is going to have to happen out there, not with us. We are going to be facilitators, cheerleaders, and invest directly through the states and the ecosystem that supports them but it will have to happen in the field. Great question, susan. I was part of a discussion earlier this week when were are talking about research around the common core, what will be studied and how it will evaluate whether it is successful or not and someone made a really good point that it is almost going to take evaluating teacher practice first before you look at actual Student Outcome because until we have evidence that teacher practice is changing and that teachers are getting the training and the support that they need to actually embark on that change, there should be virtually no expectation that Student Outcomes are going to improve because they are the linchpin. Not just teachers but frankly district leaders as well. These are the people who were crucially important to this whole process. Unless it is some sort of investment, we cannot just look to our friends in the department who are doing im sure whatever they can but there will have to be others that come into play here because if you talk to any other state leader, the job of doing that is overwhelming. New york city provided training for several hundred teachers, but they have 75,000 schools. Its a big, big job. Where are we . Right here. Elizabeth with the forum for youth investment. Thank you for your comment so far. I would like to pick up on a few things that have been said with regards to schools needing to do business differently. This is bit far afield from the pole itself so indulge me. They question is regarding system of recruitment. What is going to take to bring people in who are capable to teach the way we need them to. Perhaps other educators in non peer educational settings and what weighs those people might the assets two approaching the change. Is about what is required in preservice to an aid teachers and what needs to be done. Also about whether there are ways to engage nonformal educators in supporting outcomes we are looking for. I will answer it. For the preservice, i need more time. Teachers love our summers, but no teacher has the summer off. You are going to provide me time to thoroughly digest information, i am going to take advantage of that time. During the school year, there are lots of things going on. Right now in my head, i am thinking about how i will arrange my students. I have to set up my classroom. The other part of me is thinking part of me is thinking, wow, this conversation here is enlightening and i want my whole school, my whole county, everyone to take a part of this. Adding that time, we need that Staff Development time to sit down with our Leadership Teams working with the common core, getting a greater understanding of it. It takes time. We have to put the work up front. Someone here on the panel said we needed to book more work upfront and developing our teachers and to get others inside, we have to let them know that now they are a part of education. People get their education, they leave, they become engineers and all of this. What can you give back you tell if you are a journalist, come and teaching writing session. What can you give back to it . A dentist, tell us how your profession ties into what you are doing now. Encouraging the outside community to become teachers, to come into the classroom and take an act of role in what we are doing in the classroom today. And the issue of teacher prep, i do not some of my best friends work in schools of education, but i would not look to them for salvation or even leadership. Most of the men and women who will be teaching five years from now are in the classrooms and what we need to do is treat teachers better. 15 years ago, 20 years ago, the median years of experience for a classroom teacher was 15 and now it is two. We have more twoyear teachers than any other kind because we are driving them out. As you look to that and figure out ways to provide the professional development that you talked about, that real help , that is where i think the schools of education may follow along or may not. My own view is we ought to treat schools like the british soccer leagues where you are relegated to a lower tier if youre not doing well and put out of business, but thats another subject entirely. I have to agree with the point that john made that this will be made or broken by teachers we have already but what we know is that our teacher preparation is not working for us already. There is a great opportunity right now to say if we need to rethink the way we prepare teachers, we need to know that they need very different skill sets than what we had before. The tools available to them and a way that they need to teach is that different, then at this particular moment, this is when every teacher preparation institution whether it is traditional or alternative ought to be retooling, re strategizing what they are doing. My senses not that it is happening. My sense is that it is the equivalent of putting a new label on the front of the textbook is whats going on. We really need to think hard about what we are doing of these preparatory institutions in order to get them ready. Everything we needed to know today in the video and we listen to the kids that mary ed about. The relevant question, mary established this in a very particular way, identifying for each student what they want to do but the big question is why . Why am i doing this . When this gets hard, why am i going to do this hard stuff . Sometimes it is because they love marianne they trust that she is asking them to do something that is important and the other part is they know she knows whats important to them. If she says is going to help, they believe her. Sometimes, its just really interesting. People who are working our world is inherently challenging and interesting and yet we somehow managed to make it boring as all get out when we take it to school. The thing that you remember, john talked about high school. The two things that students say, not surprising, the first word is boring and the second one is not that it is too hard but it is too easy. Toit is too easy, they want do something meaningful. We used to talk about relevance and relationships, we had it awkward. Backwards. Relationships, relevance, rigor. They all still matter, but when you hear High School Students in particular, they are talking actively about, i will do her work, but i will not do his . Thats about relationship. But then they also want to know, why does this matter . Let me do a quick leadin and we have one more question. It is a professional association of 28,000 educators across the country. We publish a great magazine and a lot of people know every year we have a Wonderful Partnership with gallup to better understand american opinions about the Public Schools but nobody knows that five delta the futureors educators association, the only program in the country that operates in high schools to get the next generation of great teachers. Our last question is going to be from the new director of the future educators association. Hi, everyone. See me after the show. [laughter] quick last question. Im a nationally Board Certified teacher full of hope, not as hopeful as mary, but full of hope for the common core. The time has passed and its clearly what needs to happen. The fact that it could fall apart, john yoo said its an uphill battle at this point, that is just not except the bull. Not acceptable. I know we are in this augusta room with a light company, but that feels like a hugely emergency. In the data points in this poll indicates opportunity for people in this room to really, really recommit to being active in promoting why this matters. Communication, Critical Thinking skills, these are things that we know are needed in life, are popular and americans want and its really at the core of the common core, justifying and articulating a point of view using evidence, that is at the bottom of most of the standards. Im curious if you see this as urgent as i do and who needs to do whats really make sure this thing gets a chance to take root and bad actors and misinformation dont win the day on this . When i get out of government, i will have more to say about the bad act others. Actors. [laughter] he just left the department does a teacher ambassador fellow. I will respond first. It is absolutely urgent. Asbe totally honest, im not concerned about the common core as i am about people backing away from the more rigorous standards period. Not following through on the assessment, but if they follow through on the assessment, not following through on what scores they set so they continue to lie about whether the kids are ready or not. Is what i am most worried about. I think there is a tremendous opportunity for us to use the various channels that we have but to be honest, we wind up in rooms where we are talking to each other, like this. What needs to happen is that the reason you see the disconnect between parents, their views, what they think, and the general population is because they have a distinct and vested interest right now and theyre closer to it. We have to find a way, and i dont know what it is, to reach people who dont. There are smart people in this room. I see you out here. I need you to figure it out. John said arne duncan, who i think is the most sincere and honest person that i know literally cannot talk on this issue and not have a negative impact. Someone else has to do it. Do i think it is as important as you do . I dont think i can get there. I think it is important that standards are raised. Its complicated. One, this is a marvelous moment in time, judging from the pdk poll, this war on teachers has taken a turn for the better. There is a highest level of trust for teachers, i think, ever in the highest grades for schools ever but people have flipped on using tests to punish teachers. That is a moment that policy makers and educators can take advantage of. By the same token, there is a very disturbing data point in the poll, 39 of those said they do not think students should be allowed to move at their own pace. It was 30 10 years ago in 1980. The more people say kids should not be allowed to move at their own pace, i find it incredibly disturbing because it if there is one thing we know, kids are different. If you have more than one child, you know that. Technology today allows kids to move fast or slow without being judged. You have a whole room for the classroom. You dont want them to move at the same pace. The Technology Allows that. The common core calcifies age segregation, the only form of segregation still legal. Then we are in big trouble. Educators need, in my view, to watch the language. They should never use the word rigor. Look up her rigor mortis. Rigor means harsh, unyielding, etc. Challenge. Kids respond to a challenge. We need to mobilize this technology that allows us to move and that is what the common core, to excel, that is in selling it, you can happen. What i just think its worth reminding ourselves of how the common core came to be and why. The fact that after years of state sometimes working together, sometimes on their own because of the business communities and higher red communities were telling them, they decided that they are clearly not doing young well enough and not enough kids graduate from high school and those who do the numbers are much higher than this and they need to have remediation before they can even do any kind of creditbearing work, that thought stops those people cold. Only a quarter of kids who took the act are ready for college or the workforce. That is the problem that they hope to solve. Onwas a big thing to take and it was not everything that had to be taken on. It was the goal setting. It was done looking at standards from around the world and the best examples from here in the country and was research based. The fact that 48 states got together and trudged through that to get k12 standards in english and math was something really extraordinary. We are now at a point where 45 states are still on the pathway. This not a surprise to me, really, that there would be a push back to that. We are talking about, fundamentally, changing the status quo, expect and more, hoping for more, giving kids more opportunities. It strikes me as interesting that to fight against the common core, to me, is to fight for the status quo. If you think youre doing well enough, we can go back to what we were doing before, but we are poised to do Something Big here if we stick with it. Im with you. I hope we will all collectively figure out how to get this thing done and not lose another generation of kids. Can i add something quickly . I start looking at it from the other side, one urgent thing i have always felt needs to happen and i think the common core has at least got us started on this, most americans dont really understand the Public Education system and they are remarkably naive about whether we do or dont have standards. Our Public Education is funded and some School District have more than others and the controversy of the common core and the test, if nothing else, it has made people pay a little bit more attention and learn more about our nations Public Education system. The difference between regular Public Schools and Charter Schools, what it really means. Why kids in Montgomery County are funded in one way and kids in alabama where my husband is from our funded under other. I think that i dont want to say laziness because it sounds like im being harsh, but i do think that people need to learn a little bit more about the system itself and then the details of the common core to be able to put it all together. Thank you. I fear this next comment is going to get me in big trouble. Weve been doing this for several years. We have had several panels appear, but i think you will agree, this is the best panel we have ever, ever had, so thank you very much. [applause] please dont tell the other panelists that. [laughter] before a turn it over to shane, i would like to thank some folks in here, Gallup University and all of your support in making this partnership continue to blossom. We love it. Val, one of the senior scientists that works out of the omaha office. Our codirector here, shane lopez, and all that he does. Greg patterson, the managing editor of her magazine, does a great job and ashley kincaid, director of communications, pulls this together and makes it happen. We thank all of you. Thank you to cspan for covering us today. We greatly appreciate it. Shane, i turn it back to you. 1950she 1940s and george and Ophelia Gallup would sit around the table and talk about education. Boy, he would have been excited today. Teacher in a one room schoolhouse. This is one of the best conversations about Public Education that i have attended in a very long time. As the go forward, and please join us at the reception out in the atrium, i want you to remember that there are names behind the numbers and people behind the results. Thank you so much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] president obama is on the road from new york to pennsylvania, the second of two stock today to talk about education policy. Be joined byill Vice President biden, a native of scranton. We will have live coverage on c span. More live coverage. Texas senator ted cruz will be at a gop fundraiser in New Hampshire tonight. That is scheduled to start at 7 00 eastern. The seven christian Leadership Conference held its 57 convention ahead of the 50th anniversary of the march on washington which is august 28. Clc one coverage of the s our companion network in about 20 minutes on cspan2. The National Urban league is Holding Events surrounding the march this weekend. Today we heard from them this morning. They held a preview of what to expect and some of the history of the march. We will show in its entirety later tonight. Here is some of the conversation from earlier today. I have been asked about what the president should say in comparison. From the president , we need legislation and appropriation. What do we need now . We need a constitutional right to vote, not the states right to vote. That is how you lose it. [applause] we need the war on poverty. Black joblessness is high. New york, it is above 2 . It should be stopped and employ stop and employ not stop and frisk. Should be student loan forgiveness. To be the contents of our government. There must be Development Banks to bail out those who lost their homes. Housing loans are lost to bank thievery and an immigration policy that includes haiti and africa as well. Hate,is too much violence, and war. We have the power. This is a continuation march. An hour gender must correspond gender must correspond to the size of our march. Cspan, we bring Public Affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at weiss have the White House Events and offering complete coverage of the u. S. House, all as a Public Service of private industry. We are cspan, created by the cabletv industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. You can watch us in h. D. Oklahoma republican senator tom coburn held a town meeting. He said president obama was perilously close to committing impeachable offenses in his view. He heard from constituents about the federal health care law, privacy concerns, Government Accountability, and gun rights. Senator coburn made a brief opening remarks. He talked about the problems of Government Debt and the absence of selfalliance and personal responsibility. His town hall meeting lasted about one hour and 10 minutes. We will show as much as we can before president obama and Vice President biden start their remarks in scranton, which are expected to start in about an hour. Good . Good afternoon. We are on time. Welcome. It is good to visit with you. I will be a little slow this evening. This is the fifth one i have done today. Bear with me. Than youou down more think. I will not spend a lot of time talking, but i do want to hear from you. There are a lot of concerns in our country, not any of them on unsolvable, but theyre big and problematic. If i were to assess where we are today, and its a Constitutional Republic we have for the very reasons our forefathers talked about. The abandonment of constitutional principles, especially the enumerated powers. It has treated situations where we find ourselves leaving a legacy to our children i certainly cannot be proud of and i know most of you will not be proud of. Our unfunded liabilities right now are 126 trillion when you add them all up. That includes the 17 children rio plus the rest of the unfunded. That includes the 17 trillion that we owed plus the rest of the unfunded liabilities. Essentially, the game is up. Problem is we do not have any Visionary Leadership in our country in either party that will stand up and talk about what the real principles and problems are. We have undermined Self Reliance in the name of being charitable. We have abdicated personal responsibility in the name of being fair. We are following in the footsteps of whatever historian has noticed about every Constitutional Republic they do not last. The reason they do not laos is because we concentrate power in the Central Government and give away freedom and create fiscal policies that undermine the economy that supports the growth and vibrancy of our country. Think theyre all solvable the questions i asked publicly and privately is all of these big problems, why are we not addressing them in the congress . About them oklahomans fact that we need to work together. I have an observation on that. Were going to have an 800 billion deficit this year. Congress approved that. I would say were working together to well. [laughter] we have agencies rife with fraud that congress has agreed not to do anything about. I think were working too well together. Our biggest problem, in my estimation, is not our country and not our people. It is the elitism that comes from career politics that dominates our congress and our country. [applause] a was asked today and asked the was asked today and asked a lot about what we can do about it. Throw them out does not work unless you replace them with people that are different. 70 of the senate essentially has never had a job out of career politics. They are wonderful people. I get along great with the durbin. Dick i like him as an individual. Our philosophies are entirely different. He means well, as well as many of the of the people that promote what i would consider policies that will undermine our future liberties. They lack a frame of reference from experience in the world like our farmers sitting over here that nose, like our insurance agents, our policemen that are here to have done something with their lives outside of elective politics. Throws not do any good to them all out. I have been convinced, in the last week or so i have read a book called the liberty of amendments. I used to have a great fear of a constitutional convention. I have a great fear now of not having one. To of the states would have approve anything approved through that. I do not think there is a lot of danger from our republic in us taking back control from washington and honoring the 10th amendment, enhancing federalism, and recreating a sense of personal responsibility and accountability at the individual, city, and state level. I had a fire chief get upset with me today because i do not see any role in the federal government for us to be buying fire engines for states and cities. The danger with that is you become addicted to the largess of the federal government who says theyre giving you something but are actually stealing it from your children and grandchildren. I do not think we have problems we cannot solve. We lack leaders thinking long term and understand what makes our country great or has made our country great is the very fact we enhance personal responsibility, hard work. We do not condition dependency more so than what is needed, rather than to create an environment where you do not have to help yourself. I am thankful each of you are here today. We have had a big turnout at town hall meetings. Talking to the choir. He would not be here. He would not be here unless you were concerned and had an interest in it. Were going to do questions. I will try to answer to the best of my ability. We have one rule. We do not let go of the microphone. I learned a long time ago if i let go of the microphone, it may be 20 minutes before i get it back. I will go as long as you want to be here. Almost as long as you want to be here, until my blood sugar get so low that i will go eat some ribs. That is not a commercial. That is just my favorite place to eat in town. Who wants to ask the first question . We have a microphone right here. I appreciate your being here. If not for you, we would not have any senator at a town hall meeting. You touched on the topic of wanted to hear about, personal responsibility. There is no accountability in the government, ok . You, with all of these Great Research papers on fraud and waste. Nothing happens. The constitution does not seem to matter anymore. Obama, i cannot work with him so i will do it this way. Nobody seems to object. The only people punished where the i am going to make you get to a question. Lets not talk three years to the next president. What are we going to do in the next 12 months to correct the course . Are you going to go on his show and talk about his book . Right now, i am out of favor show because ie do not think it is a smart strategy to shut down the government to defend obamacare. Our economy is so precarious right now. Shutting down the government will not stop obamacare. It will continue to roll out. Limited. A couple of points i would make. Republicans control the house of representatives. That is 1 6 of the total government. We do not control the presidency, we do not control the senate. According to recent court decisions, we have very low influence on the elitists on the court. It is hard for us to do things. The second point i would make is when they do those things, as a u. S. Senator, i do not have standing in a court of law i have letters out right now chastising a Justice Department asking why they have not cooperated with the Government Accountability office. By law, they have to cooperate. Except this administration is refusing to do so on multiple events across multiple agencies. I think a lot of ways, they are loyalists in terms of their behavior to congress. The leadership in the congress, especially the senate, is designed for shortterm political gain, not designed to solve the problems of our country. The reason i can say that is the numbers i just gave you in terms of our unfunded liabilities, you would think we would be addressing those issues. 100 billion a year in fraud in medicare. I cannotree bills that get considered. About healthing care and insurance and medicare. Great. Nt is my desire is my ability to continue to push because up is limited there are not the votes there to help me. We have great people. I love mike lee. We differ on the shut down strategy. He is a great patriot. Him. Ve 20 or 30 guys like but that is not enough. Is there,change to you are not going to change. I do not have a great answer for you. I will keep fighting and oversighting, keep putting out reports. I have offered more amendments on the floor than anyone else combined. I held more bills and appointments than almost anybody else there. U. S. Rst rule book is the constitution. It is not the republican party. It is the u. S. Constitution. We will keep fighting. Notremember, the press is balanced in this country. , a hard leftas bias in the press. You put it out there and makes common sense, but they will not cover. Next one. Thank you for being here today. , it was the first time i have been to one of these. This is the first time i have been to hear you. I am proud of what you do for our state and how you represent us. I just wish there were 100 like you. I have been around a few years. I am reminded of when Strom Thurmond said 100 here and there and soon were talking about real money. I wish we were still talking about 1 million here and there. Now were talking about billions. Were getting desensitized about money, where it goes and what not. We have a debt limit coming up next month im reminded that we pay our bills. This is not money to spend. Is to pay what we already spent. That is the whole point. When are you going to quit spending so we do not have to keep raising the debt limit to pay our bills . That is the problem as i see it. That is just a basic. So your question is . Why do we keep letting them spend our money . I thought congress was the one that allocated money. How did they get this billions of dollars to give away . We have got Serious Problems in this country that this money could go to. The answer, first of all the federal budget under the Johnson Administration was unified. Social security access monies in our deficit five years ago. There is mandatory spending that congress then appropriates. It is the vast majority of spending. That is why shutting down the government over obamacare will not top obamacare. 85 of it is mandatory spending. There is some good news on that front. We have last two years, spent about 160 billion last on discretionary less on discretionary programs than we did the two years before. That is the first time that happened to since the korean war. We did it once in 1996 when we did a package when i went into congress, which ultimately resulted in us balancing the budget. The extrapolation of that 64 billion came out to be 130 billion a year. It was a big deal. This is a bad way of doing it, a sequester, but it is a whole lot better than not doing it at all. It is like when your wife asks you to pick the weeds. You take the lawnmower and mow everything. That is what we are doing. Website, we put out a whole lot of sequester letters to the administration. What we were hearing from the president , how bad sequester is going to be, how all this, what was going to be 17 days of furloughs is now down to four on only 50 of agencies. Necessity is the mother of invention. There is still, after the sequester, 250 billion appear fraud, of pure waste, and deprecation in the federal government every year. And we have nothing done nothing about that. The question is, wheres is the leadership to do that . What im telling you, it is not there. I do not see it. It is not in my party and not in the other party. Certainly not the president he thinks we need to spend more money, not less. A big portion of that social security, medicare, medicaid, veterans benefits, all mandatory spending, unless we reform those programs they are going to continue to grow, and massively. Get it prepared today. I will show it tomorrow. But i will show the 30year projections of spending. And the 30year projections of revenue false revenue. It is totally unsustainable. We are at 17 trillion of debt. In 10 years, we will be at 30 trillion. , whether great sidebar we will get there. Whether the International Community will continue to loan us money. Whether the Federal Reserve will continue to print money at Interest Rates. If we were at historical Interest Rates today for what we borrowed in the last 2030 years, we would have another 1 trillion of deficit in interest costs. Historic is 5. 89 , and we are paying 1. 35 now. Instead of 233 billion in interest cost a year, we would have 1 trillion in interest costs. That is a 1 trillion you are not going to pay. Your kids are going to pay. How they are going to pay it is through a markedly decreased standard of living. Ae inability to purchase home, inability to send kids to college. That is what is going to happen. And we need to change it. That is why i said that i am afraid not to have a constitutional convention. I do not think we have time to waste. Athink mark 11 has done n has done alevi terrific job. He is pretty harsh sometimes, but we have real problems and they need real solutions. Nobody else is offering anything that comes close to it. All right. Home, senator coburn. Thank you. Are you aware the bureau of Land Management office in salsa is reposing to consolidate it with Oklahoma City at a cost to andayers of 2. 5 million, it will take 20 years to reach you those moving cost us . No, i am not. I would love to have the details on it. If you will either give that to connie or one of my staff, the details. Do you recognize we spend 5 billion a year maintaining buildings the federal government owns that are empty . Rather than moving into buildings and buying them, now the agencies lease them. Why is that . Because of the stupid accounting rule that says if you buy a building you have to expense it in the year you bought it. Anyone here who has ever bought a building knows that you do not write off the whole building the first year you buy it. The government will not let you write off the building in the first year you buy it. Federal no way that the government cannot save tremendous amounts of money not owning their own buildings and getting rid of the excess property. I have been trying to do that for five years. Ot a bill that taxed attached Real Property reform to the postal reform bill. I have an agreement with tom carper. We are not taking it out. We will reform Real Property, the way it is handled by the federal government, and save a ton of money. 5 billion or 6 billion a year. Locke saide john that the purpose of government is to protect private property. When i look at what is going on now, the irs is collecting our financial data, ready soon you will be collecting all our healthcare data. They are collecting our email, all our web access. They will be using our kids to collect family data that is very personal. Salarye do not get a until the government takes their percentage. Freddie and fannie hold liens on all our homes and 401 k or ira. A 10 penalty or wait forever. So my question is 65 is not forever. [laughter] do not put me in that group yet. Ok, almost forever. Anyway, what kind of republican orty, and you as a senator group of senators, can do to restore our privacy and stop the progressive tax code to steal the rest of our property . [applause] have a philosophical point first. We had an election in 2012. The republicans did not do so well, did they . My observation is everyone in the world knows what we are against, but nobody knows what we are for. When all they hear about is what we are against, they quit listening. Is first thing we need to be talking about a positive vision of how we restore our country, and what it means to you. What does it actually mean if we restore . What does it mean to your kids . What does it mean as far as personal liberty and private property . You forgot to mention that all these enrollers for obama care will look at every bit of your tax staff and every bit of your medical stuff. These are people who have not had the background screen, have not been looked at. You are just going to trust the average person on the street with some of the most personal information you have. If, in fact, you want to enroll. If you do not enroll, we will find you. With a tax that our Supreme Court justice manipulated the words on. I think the first thing we have success. Talk about that means Something Different to each of us. Whether it means im a great poet or i have built a business or i am a physician or a great carpenter or policeman. We need to reenhance what it means to be successful. Meanstrast with what it to be dependent. I have been working on this for six months. My staff, you have a great staff in washington. Hey are not careerists most of them are young, but they are very smart. The average age is probably 35 or 40. We have been researching all the government benefits, and right family andare a you take advantage of every Government Program available you can receive almost 50,000 without taxes per year on the backs of us. On the backs of us. Now, my faith says to help those that need help. That is not helping. Ultimately, that is hurting. It is hurting everybody. Recommend, and i may have done this at a town hall meeting before here. ,here is a book, i believe every concerned citizen ought to read. It is called the tragedy of american compassion. The history of how americans use to help people who need help. It was highly effective. In terms of turning peoples lives around. If, in fact, they wanted help to continue. Kind of like you would discipline your child, how you would change behavior. So i think we have a long ways to go in terms of doing that. All these programs are multiply wellintentioned, but administered in such a way and run in such a way that they totally undermine selfreliance. We need to change that. It is a big deal when it comes to the money that our kids are going to have to pay in regards to those programs. Who is next . Thank you. I want to thank you, and want you to know i am proud of you. I am proud of everyone divine everyone of our oklahoma representatives. When you talk, i understand what you are saying. And i really appreciate that. One is going to be real bloody. He said the other one is a state convention, which you just mentioned. Is there any conversation going on among the states, and as an individual, what do we need to do to get that started . She made the point that it will take a while to get it done. First of all, that would not go through me. That would come through your state legislature. So what you need to do, you need to first of all, i would recommend you read that book and have a good understanding of the case so you can defend your position. Number two, you have to lobby your state legislators. They are the ones who have to make that decision. I do not agree with everything in his book, but i certainly agree with his attempt at a eitheron where we find n the liberal party has the courage to stand up and do the things they are supposed to do. English in the ,onstitution that fire control the local community has nothing to do with the federal government. Yet now we have become an entitled class because we have been given grants and 911, everyone thinks you should have more money for your fire department. That is your responsibility, same as police. Spent 2. 6 we have trillion since the Education Department was founded, and there is not one parameter and measure of education success that is better. There are multiple that are worse. Thomas jeffersons quote on education was this the father of our modern university system. If the federal government is to be involved in education, you have to have an amendment to the constitution to be involved. The constitution states that the federal government has no business and education. I think we have made a mockery of it. We spent all this money, but have all these requirements and do not allow the local teachers who really love our children to it the administrators and the parents to make the decisions that are best for their kids. Consequently, we are not succeeding. Peopleless than 12 of taking the a ct this year so far arect this year so far qualified to go to college. That is a disaster for our country. All right. You do not get to hold onto it very long. You know me. Ihave a couple of comments have made. When we were talking about Congress First of all, thank you for being here. Of course, i wish you would come to tulsa. When our leadership will not allow congress to do some of the things and to hear some of the bills being heard, it is not so much the good men and women we have serving in congress as it is people like Speaker Boehner that will keep things from being heard. , you know, when we talk about obamacare. The Supreme Court did not give us the ruling that we wanted. In 2012, the elections did not give is that either. You you ran last time, stated that you were the most opposed to obamacare of anyone that could be. Not onlyted you to represent us, but to fight for us. Because of that, we need men and women that have courage. We are not looking for excuses. Heritage foundation, freedom works, all have found sound arguments on why obamacare should be defunded. So my question to you is, have used that than with any of these organizations have you sat theseith any of organizations to discuss this so your opinion would be changed . If not, would you do so . [applause] i have dinner every week with jim demint. Ave met with markley and mike lee and marco rubio. Because the claim that because you will not sign a letter that you are not for obama care is utterly ridiculous. I do not disagree that we need to get rid of obamacare. I disagree with the tactic. You do not set a strategy at the to accomplish something, ignoring a couple realistic facts. One, the only way you get rid of obamacare is with 67 votes in the u. S. Senate. To and two thirds of the house of representatives. Unless obama will destroy love her and say, i made a mistake, we got to quit this. I do not think that is going to happen. Glad you raised the issue because it means you are involved in the future of our country. I believe that is admirable. Mike lee, marco rubio, ted cruz have the purest of intentions, but i believe they are dead wrong on tactics. If you will recall, we had a Government Shutdown in 1996. We lost 15 seats in an off year election when we should have won 15. You are missing my point. Missing my point. That is not my excuse for doing it. What my reason for not embracing their strategy is, i am 100 convinced it will not work. Let me explain why. Lets say we carry out the full strategy and the government gets shut down. Tot do you think will happen the weekneed, soft typed and signed members of the republican conference, of which i am not one . Not get reelected, we got to open this backup that is exactly what will happen. We will have gone through all this exercise, not a combatant our goal, when in fact if we strategically look at it, a better place to do it is on the debt ceiling. You do not impact the economy negatively in the short run. You do not alienate all the federal employees who are ofrupted, a good portion whom are your neighbors who work hard every day. You do not send a signal that you are way out here and do not have any idea about what real is the consequences realistic consequences are of what you are doing. Finally, you recognize the career politicians who care more about being reelected than solving the countrys problems. [inaudible] you cannot. [inaudible] it cannot. I understand that is what they have put out. I spent an hour and a half on the phone with senator lee. He is going to keep going the direction he is going. My career is eight times longer in a legislative body than his. My judgment with people, having been a physician for 25 years, is pretty good. The fact is they have a failed strategy. I do not disagree with them getting rid of obamacare, but if you tell me im not a principal person because i will not sign a letter that they should do that, i disagree with you. I offered 300 amendments in committee on obamacare. I led the fight. I made Bernie Sanders read his bill until he withdrew his amendment. My amendment, a commonsense way to fix it, never got on the floor because they knew it would get more than 50 votes and make obamacare look foolish. The difference is that i do not agree with the tactic. I am 100 assured it will fail. So why would i do what i know a lot of because outside Interest Groups disagree with me and think i should go another way . You elected me to represent in the u. S. Senate the best interests of our country. That is what i am doing by refusing to sign a letter. I have never voted for a continuing resolution. They probably have my vote anyway. But i cannot be intellectually dishonest with you and tell me i agree with the strategy. That wetting up hope can do something that i am convinced we cannot. We will not accomplish. So it is great you are here and great you are fighting for that. I just think it is misguided. You are not going to change my mind. I have had debates late into the night with marco rubio and mike lee on this. They are on one side. I am on the other. We are just not going to agree. I am not going to support it. If it is there, i will be there a cottage anyway. Are a stupid way to run the federal government. [applause] this is the first time i have been to one of these things. It is great to be here. Thank you for coming. I do not want to take away from obamacare, because im interested in it. I have heard about it all day. Mym interested granddaughter is going to a private christian school. I thought she was safe there, but they will get it there, and even homeschoolers. I know texas opted out. How can we opt out of it and not . Ave it in our schools let me give you background on common core. It is not emanate from anything the senate has done. Comment core is a program developed by the governors association. If you do not want obama to be a part of it, all you have to do is change it. It is not anything that goes through me. It is a state optin, optout deal. That is a staterun issue that you all need to deal with. I do not think the goals behind, core aremmon necessarily bad. The implication is probably dangerous. But the point is that improving the educational standards of our children, the best way to do that is the parents and teachers and administrators back in charge and leave the federal government out of it. [laughter] [applause] senator, thank you very much for being for the opportunity to represent oklahoma. Really, all the years you have invested. We appreciate that. Maybeeally concerned that in a generation we are going to lose our Second Amendment right as americans, as oklahomans, to defend ourselves, our homes. No pun intended, under the gun. What can we do . Senator feinstein and senator there is no common sense. The east coast, west coast, liberal politics, anyone who owns a gun is a criminal. What can we do . Let me give you a little reassurance first. Amendments,0 probably be one that is safest is the Second Amendment. I actually believe that. That is why i voted for debate on the gun bill. I want to have that debate all the time. Because you cannot stand up to the logic and consistency or the Supreme Court rulings that have instituted your right to defend yourself. Am not worried assault weapons got the lowest number it has ever gotten. I feel really good. We have great lobbying organizations that are out to protect gun owners and the National Rifle association. There is a lack of knowledge of a lot of people and a fear of guns. They associate violence with guns as being beguns fault rather than the individual. There is no question, there are tragedies. But they discount the number of tragedies that are averted because of the same thing. I would just want to reassure you, i think that is pretty secure. Comeieve with rights responsibilities. I think gun owners ought to set the example for being exemplary citizens by being totally responsible with guns, who they sell them to, how they sell them, how they handle them, how they keep them locked up, how they keep children from getting to them. How they keep teach Young Children about them. I think with every one of our rights comes real responsibilities. I think if we were to example ends,o the coasts on both they might soon have an understanding of it. Gun violence in this country over the last 20 years is 46 less than it has ever been. A decline of 46 over the last 20 years in this country in gun violence. The number of guns is about fivefold. So there are a lot of arguments to be made. The tragedies associated with violence are terrible. My wife and i had this debate. She is totally antigun, and i understand her situation. But the one reason our founders wanted to protect our rights under the Second Amendment did not have anything to do with hunting. It has to do with defending our freedom. So maybe you could call us paranoid that we are worried about it. But if you look at the fiscal situation in the country and of the the lawlessness agencies of this administration in terms of ignoring what the law is, i think we have real reason to protect that right. What i see now in congress is a growing group that wants to protect that right rather than a lessening group. I would tell you to worry more about your intellectual rights, property rights, your privacy than i would the Second Amendment. Thank you for coming. We are back on obamacare. You said you disagreed with the strategy that senator cruz and mike lee are offering to defund obamacare. What other alternatives are out there to keep this horrible bill from being implement it on october 1 . [applause] the debt limit. The debt limit. Attach it to the debt limit. Is, you have you attach a repeal of mandatory spending to the debt limit. Otherwise the debt limit does not go up. Let me make my point, then we will get around to you. The one thing that average americans agree with us, the government wastes money. The one thing the average american agrees with us is that trimming down the size of the federal government is a good thing. An 80 issue in this country. Doesicting the debt limit both that and repeals the obamacare, or at least a laser for a couple years. Delays it for a couple years. Because it is an absolute disaster. Why dont we build where our strength is . , lets cut down the size and scope of the federal government, and lets do that through the debt limit rather than have a fight. Remember, we lost the 2012 election because nobody knew what we were for, but we also lost the independent voters because we didly not seem reasonable to them in our approach to government. People did not know what we were for. We talked about what we were against. What we ought to do is put out a message of, here is what where we can actually do something that will make a difference for our kids. Not only will we have an impact on obama care, we will also have an impact on spending. I want to crank this thing down. [inaudible] i would debate that with you. They did not this last time because they strategically were licking their wounds from the election. How did we get the 158 billion cut . We did it by combining the budget control act with the sequester, with the debt limit. So, look, i do not just work strategy on my own. I see john boehner once every two weeks or once every 10 days. I ask in the critical question what are you thinking, what are you planning, how are you trying to do it . Remember, he does not have a solid, together republican congress. They are that the majority. You have to govern. If you do not govern you are going to get thrown out. So he does not have an easy job of doing things i would like for him to do. He does not have the votes over there to do it. There is not enough conservatives in the house yet. Until we get there it is kind of like the conversation i had with jim demint, the brainchild behind all this. I would like for them for there to be 60 conservatives in the senate. How many of you all think that is a realistic expectation that well have in my lifetime . It is not going to happen. It aint going to happen. Is, thet recommendation, [inaudible] i understand that. Where are we . , what imnd obamacare hearing from mike lee commercials on tv, Heritage Foundation, is that they will obamacare. Hing but how does that shut down the government . First of all, the only discretionary portion of less than 15 of the total cost. I do not care whether we shut down the government or do not shut down the government, obamacare, 85 will get implemented. If we shut down the government, is the president has to do declare all the spending associated with obamacare as essential. Everything with obamacare will happen, whether we shut it down or not. It will still get implemented. I asked them to do the studies. The fact is, the irony is we shut down the government obamacare keeps going even if the government shuts down. [inaudible] isyou think the president going to sign that bill . Then it is on him. Lets go back. How big a megaphone do you think the president has in the liberal press . About seven times bigger than our voice. If every republican was preaching the same song and all the conservativeslanted news outlets preached it, we would still get outnumbered seven to one. Heres the thing. You are here today. How many of your neighbors are as concerned about this issue as you are . Half of them do not even listen to anything. So what do you think, in terms of the influence, in terms of the electorate, that will have . Will it be positive for us in terms of trying to grow our majority and change things . After . It be a twotall effort . If i had a coach who said you are going to do it, and rather than create a strategy that will allow you to score, i would rather try to score them look good trying. Than look good trying. That is the difference. Mandatory spending happens no matter what. Discretionary spending has to be appropriated. In a shutdown, all the president has to say is that they are essential employees, and they get funded regardless of what congress says. They have artie said that. That is the irony of this whole strategy. Whereas in a debt limit, the government is still running, we decide which bills we are going to pay. The first one is interest and redeem the bonds. What do of a sudden they have to do . They have to start squeezing things down. Necessity becomes the mother of invention again. All of a sudden we start shrinking the federal government today again. We have not even begun what we can do in terms of shrinking the excesses of the federal government. Is average federal employee 130,000 a year. That is to a half times what a family in muskogee makes. That is the average federal employee. There is a lot of we can do. How about a hiring freeze . How about stopping . How about using videoconferencing instead of spending about 580 million a year in one department for conferences . How about doing the things you and i would do when we have to pinch pennies . We create priorities. We say what is first, what a second, what is third. What is most important. That is starting to happen only because of sequester. We went from 17 days, everyone will be furloughed, to now only four. Where did you get the money . They made some decisions, didnt they . Certain monies did not spent that were discretionary that could have been spent. Sequesterudden, the has turned out to be not a bad deal overall for our kids. Federalal for some agencies, not a good way to do it, but a lot better than not doing anything. My approach would be not to use the cr, but to use the debt limit. On grounds the American People agree with us on. They agree with us about obamacare. They do not agree with us about a Government Shutdown. Regardless of who caused it. They think is in competency. Incompetency. And i agree with them. It is childish to shut the government down when there are certain legitimate aspect of the federal government that ought to be operating everyday. Should i state my name . You better. We have the fbi here that will follow you. [laughter] im from broken arrow. My partner and i got here a little late. I did not quite understand you. Obamacarer defunding or against it . Give me a yes or no. Im for defunding of obamacare. That is i want to hear, and what most of the people in this room want to hear that. We can count on you to vote that way . Because we are going to be looking and watching you, senator. ,hat is what we want you to do because we pay your salary. People here comment about i want to see your hands, to . Efund obamacare let me ask a different way how many of you want me to defund obamacare if it will force a Government Shutdown . You have three out of this whole group that will want me to do that strategy. You missed that point. s anyway. Ote for cr nobody thought harder and nobody has led the fight against obamacare we have got to do six components already out of obamacare. [inaudible] know it is not. It is 30 days after it. You and i are going to have to disagree. I think the tactic is a failed tactic. [inaudible] you are missing my point. Let me set one record straight. You elected me to follow the judgment constitution and make my best judgment in the longterm interest of the country. That is what you elected me to do. You are not going to like every one of my votes, but i have a 99. 2 conservative rating in terms of detecting. No other senator in the u. S. Senate has that higher than average. I have pretty well gone the line of abiding by the constitution. You are asking me to commit to make a policy vote that is something i think will not work. I am totally against obamacare. I think this is a foolish way of getting there. And. Question. I am sick of the big federal government. In oklahoma we have a pipeline that should already be done under way. Last week the Justice Department did any leavened our stop on a merger of an airline here. What makes me feel like, these big bureaucracies, unelected people, the epa, the irs, the Justice Department, you can go on and on. It is like they want us to be detroit. We did not vote for him. He got no votes from this state. Thank you, obama. We are paying for it. To get oklahomans working, to get these things implement it without them sitting up there and saying, this is what you are going to do. Instead of the people that own this country telling them what to do. [applause] know, i would tell you, do not blame it all on obama. They were uncontrolled bureaucracies under george bush. I experienced them. He did, too. It goes back to the thing we started with. This government is on out of control. It has been predicted by historians our republic would fail. The question is, how do we cheat history . How do we go back . The thingseembraced that made America Great . As i said earlier, we have to get in charge. I have been working for nine years to try to make a big difference. I have made a small difference, not a big difference. I worked every day we are going to leave this town hall. You can find it online at c span. Org. Scranton,ive now to pennsylvania and Lackawanna College. Vice president biden, and soon remarks from president obama. They do well. Look, it is great to be at Lackawanna College. Wife,y of you know, my jill, a pennsylvania girl from the southeast corner of pennsylvania, is a fulltime Community College professor. She knows what most of you know. She has a great expression joe, Community College is the best kept secret in america. The president and i want you to know that we are going to do everything to keep it from being a secret. Let me introduce you i know you know my town, mr. President. I know you know my native town, scranton. I would like to introduce mr. President , you can hear me back there, the community that formed everything i believe. My absolute conviction that if you give ordinary folks a fighting chance, they can and do do extraordinary things. [applause] born outte conviction, of my raise about 20 blocks from here my absolute conviction that the middleclass is what made this country great, what built this country, and what binds it together. Knowledge that people who grew up in neighborhoods like this one, the one i grew up in in scranton, have dreams just as big, just as expensive, just as a comparable as any place in the world. [applause] as i said, mr. President , i grew up not many blocks from where we are today. I can tell you, there was not a mom or dad in my neighborhood, notary would, marywood, a single one who believes did not believe the child could be they wanted to be. Not a doubt in their minds. No doubt, if they were willing to work hard, they could do whatever we wanted to do. Guess what . They were absolutely right. Mr. President , some might think this is a bit of nostalgia on my part, talking about my native town like im. By the way, there is only three women that i know who are close to perfect. One was the blessed mother, the other was my mother, and the other was bobbys mom. [applause] a lot of you asked why i left scranton when i was a kid. I went to st. Pauls. Simple i lived threeanda them. Locks from i knew only one of us would make it big, and it was not going to be me. We knew they would dominate. It is not just me believing this about my native town. There is a large new study that has been done by a group of four economists at harvard and the university of california berkeley. Here is what their study concluded. I am quoting from the study. Scranton still stands out as one of americas cities where have among the best odds of climbing to the middle class. Mr. President , the American Dream is alive here in scranton. It is alive here in scranton. And i think, i think i know the reason why it is alive. The values that made the american middle class possible still matter here. Community, hard work, personal responsibility, faith, family. But most of all, the value that is held most dear by this community. Held most dear by my mom and dad as they were raising me here. Still held dear by everyone. Opportunity. That is the reason. Simple opportunity. That is the value that sets america apart from the rest of the world. Opportunity. About making sure that folks have the opportunity to reach gotgiven potential. Is one of those places where that dream is still working. That is why this is a Perfect Place to talk about education. , a bunch of economists work for us. They like to tell us that the 49,000 or the middle class is not a number. I tell them it is about understanding in your bones. Ae middleclass is about value system. About being able to own your home and not just rent it. About being able to live in a safe neighborhood where your kids can walk the streets. About the dignity of a job that allows you to support your family, being able to take care of you parents when they get older, and hope your kids will never have to take care of you. About being able to send your kids to a good school where he or she does well and qualifies to go to college, they have a fighting chance to get there. About making sure, when they get there, they can afford it. Mr. President , i have never met a mother or father, nor have you, as he campaigned across this great nation, in a poor neighborhood, a middleclass neighborhood, or wealthy that the child would have access education. As all you folks know, there is something that is getting harder and harder to do. That is why the president and i are here today. Can have the doors of college we cannot have the to thef college shut middleclass and those aspiring to get there. We cannot let opportunity die. You you have to shape your dreams in this country now. That todays generation and tomorrows will not be able to aim as high as we did. That is a bunch of malarkey. Nor does theeve, president believe, that for a minute. We never will. That has never been the story of this nation. The president and i are determined to make sure it is never the story. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce to you my , your president , barack obama. [applause] hello, lackawanna. [applause] hello, falcons. , it is good to be back in scranton. I love you back. First of all, everybody, take a seat. I want everybody to be comfortable. Here are some reasons i am happy to be back in scranton. Reason number one is, the first time i came scranton i was dayted to a st. Patricks [applause]party. Hosting. S were i got to say, michelle got a little jealous. I was getting kisses. I came home with lipstick on my collar. [laughter] michelle said, what is going on there . I said, i was just campaigning. Hat makes me like scranton a second reason that i love anton is because and [applause] decision that i ever made. I love this guy, and he has got heart. And he cares about people. He is willing to fight for what he believes in. He has got strength in him. Byre is not a day that goes that joe does not talk about where he comes from. That he does not talk about all of you. She understands why he got into Public Service. Him thehe carries with values that you taught him. The friendships that he made. So, i just want all of you to that we are lucky to have joe not only as a running mate, but as a friend. We love you and his family him and his family. Thank you, joe, percent yes five years ago. [applause] third reason i love scranton is because there are a lot of caseys around here. Joe already talked about bob caseys mom, who was gorgeous and wonderful, and we love her dearly. But i got to admit, bob casey is not that bad, either. Great United States senator, and im proud to call him a friend. Back in 2008 when we were campaigning in pennsylvania and having a tough time, getting bad press, bob casey was right there with me on a train. You can judge your friends not by when you are doing well, but by when you are having a tough time. That is the kind of person bob casey is. So i am grateful for him. We have the mayor here. Give him a big round of applause. [applause] the state attorney general is here. [applause] the president s of lackawanna is here. [applause] for theo say thank you wonderful introduction to joe. Good job. [applause] want to thank all the students who are here. [applause] we got the Falcons Football team here. [applause] when is your first game . 31st . You guys going to be ready . Ok. Just wanted to make sure. I know classes do not start again until next week, so i appreciate you being inside when the day is so nice outside. These last few days of Summer Vacation our precious are precious. But we are here to talk about something important. , notis, are we doing right just by this generation, but by future generations . I am on a road trip. It started at the university of buffalo. [applause] there you go. Then i went to syracuse. [applause] talked to some High School Students there. Then Binghamton University for a town hall. [applause] have all you guys been following me around everywhere . [laughter] we are ending this bus tour here in scranton. [applause] and i wanted to visit Lackawanna College because of the great work you are doing here, giving people a firstclass education that does not cost a fortune. Making sure students stay on track. I am told many students here are the first in their families to attend college. Your families are proud of you, but i am proud of you. Because getting a Higher Education is one of the best things you can do for yourself and for your country. [applause] but we have got to make sure we are doing right by you. That is what i want to talk about today. Over the past month, i have been visiting towns like scranton and talking about what we need to do as a country to secure a Better Bargain for the middle class and everybody was fighting to get into the middle class. We have got to have a National Strategy that grows the economy in a broadbased way so that everybody who works hard and has a chance to succeed. That is our goal. That is what we are fighting for. [applause] now, for the past 4. 5 years we have been fighting back from a brutal recession that cost americans their jobs, their homes, their savings in some cases. That recessionas showed what had been some longerterm trends that were eroding middleclass security. The folks of the top have been doing very well, but ordinary americans had not seen their wages go up, had not seen salaries going up. It was harder to save, harder to colleger your kids education. Health care was getting harder to obtain. A lot of manufacturing went overseas. So joe and i said, our focus is not just to fix the problems created by the crisis. We have got to change the we get back until to the day when, if you want to work hard, are willing to be responsible, you can make it. You can succeed. [applause] so we saved and auto industry. Took on a broken healthcare system. We invested in new technologies that achieve energy independence. We changed our tax code that was tilted too much in favor of folks who are doing very well at the expense of working families. We started to crack down on some of the practices we have seen in the Financial Sector that got us into this mess in the first place. Ourbecause of that work, businesses today have created 7. 3 million new jobs of the last 41 months. [applause] are generating more energy than ever before. We sell more goods made in america to other countries than ever before. [applause] manufacturing is starting to come back. Our deficits are falling at the fastest rates in 60 years. [applause] so, thanks to the grit and resilience and hard work of American People, we have been able to clear away the rubble of financial crisis. We are laying the foundation for an economy that works for everybody. As ill bet a lot of families in scranton will tell you, we are not yet where we need to be. We have a lot more work to do. Like i said, even before the crisis hit, we were living through a decade were almost all the productivity gains, all the benefits of technology were accruing at the very top. Family has seen go downcomes and wages a little bit. Most families were working harder just to get by. Costs were going up. Your wages and incomes werent going up. Trend,ersing that returning to the days when if you were willing to work hard, you could succeed, that should be washingtons highest priority. [applause] that is joes highest priority. That is but caseys highest priority. That is my highest priority. That is what we should be focused on every single day. [applause] problem, which a is we have some friends in who it is not all republicans, but there is a strong faction. [laughter] whatnstead of focusing on is helping middleclass families they are spending time arguing about whether or not we should be paying the bills for things we already spend money on. They are threatening to shut down the government and havea another financial crisis unless, theexample, we get rid of healthcare reform that we fought to pass that will provide millions of people Healthcare Security for the first time. That wont create jobs. That is not going to help our economy. That is not the strength of the middle class. [applause] i have not seen a policy coming out of them that would help ordinary folks. We cant afford the usual washington circus of distractions, political posturing, special interest, phony scandals. We cant afford that. We have too much work to do. On the to build cornerstone of what it means to be middle class in america, good jobs with good wages, good education, a home of your own, affordable healthcare, secure retirement even if you are not rich, more letters of opportunity for everybody. That is what we should be fighting for. [applause] and one of the most important things we can do to restore that sense of upward mobility, the ability to achieve the American Dream, the idea that you can make it if you try, one of the most important things we can do is make sure every child is getting a good education. [applause] students who are studying here understand that. That is why they have made sacrifices, their families have made sacrifices. You understand that in the face of global competition, when the germans and chinese and indians are all putting more money into education and research, that we cant just stand pat. We cant stand by and do nothing. You understand that a great education is more important than ever. You dont have to take my word for it. The data is clear. Some kind of Higher Education, whether it is a two year degree, a fouryear degree, a Technical College you are more likely to have a job. You are more likely to see your income going up. More than ever before, some form of Higher Education is the surest path into the middle class. [applause] here is the challenge. The soaring cost of Higher Education has become an increasing burden and barrier for too many young people. College has never been more necessary, but it has never been more expensive. It is true. Over the past listen to this statistic. This is important. Over the past three decades, the past 30 years, the average tuition at a public fouryear by more thanisen 250 . It didnt just double. It went up 250 . The typical Family Income has only gone up 16 . Do the math. I am not a math major but there are probably some good map people here. Math people here. If you have the cost of an up to this and incomes going up like that, you start getting that bigger and bigger gap and that means it is harder and harder for young people to afford college. Meanwhile, states have been cutting back on their Higher Education budgets. Lets face it, here in pennsylvania, there have been brutal cuts to not just Higher Education, but education generally. [applause] not enough colleges have been able to cut back on their costs, so what happens if costs are , and up, incomes are flat the state actually reduces its support for Higher Education . Studentsend up with is have to pick up the tab. Families have to pick up the tab. Taxpayers have to pick up the tab in form of more and more financial assistance. That is what has happened. The average student who borrows for college now graduates owing more than 26,000. A lot of folks will owe a lot more than that. I get letters from people who have 100,000 worth of debt. Gotg people who have 120,000 worth of debt and they may be working as teachers. They may be doing really important work. They may be working as researchers, but they cant pay off that kind of debt. [applause] what is happening is students and up facing a choice that they should never have to make. Either they say no to college, which means that they are going to pay the price for the rest of their life are not getting a degree, or they go to college but they are taking on so much debt that they are not sure they are ever going to be able to pay it back. Debt, come out with huge what does that mean . Cant get au mortgage on a house right away. Your paying off your debt. You may put off stunning a family because youre worried about paying off a debt. If you have a good idea for starting a business, youre going to put that off because you are still servicing your debt. That is bad for the entire economy. That is that for everybody. That is a choice we should not accept. That is not who we are. Keep in mind, this is a country that gave my grandfather, when he came back from world war ii, the chance to go to college for free on the g. I. Bill. [applause] my mother was able to go to a Public University and get the support she needed so that she could go to school even though she was raising two kids and had to work parttime to do it. [applause] michelle and i, we are only where we are today because scholarships and Student Loans give us a shot at a great education. By the way, we did have to borrow a lot of money. I didnt pay off all my Student Loans until right before i was elected to the u. S. Senate. I was in my 40s. I was supposed to be saving for malia and sasha and a list of paying off my loans. I know a little bit about this. The point is, in the past, we have done what was required to support the next generation succeeding. We understood that if they succeed, then we will all succeed. But we have kind of lost track of that. When joe and i came in, with the help of bob casey and others, we took some steps to help make Student Loans more affordable. We changed the system where Student Loans were going through banks and banks were making billions of dollars. We said, lets just give the Student Loans directly to students, save billions of dollars so we can help more students. That is what we did. [applause] we set up a consumer watch to help students and their families to help navigate Financial Options and make sure they dont get taken by city lenders. We gave more tools and resources to students and families to finance college. By the way, young people, if youre still trying to figure out how to finance it, go to studentaid. Gov and it will give you the information you need. We took action on cap the loan for buyers were going into Public Service so that they could responsively manage their debt. Overall, these things make college more affordable, more accessible or millions of students and families. Using tax credits and grants and Student Loans, all this helps. This a few weeks ago, working with bob casey and others, we worked to make sure that student loan rates didnt double. That saves the typical undergraduate more than [applause] so we have made some progress. It is not enough. The system is on a trajectory that is unsustainable. If you keep on seeing the cost of College Tuition go up and up and up, then no matter how much money we put in for loans or grants, it is not going to keep up. That means students are going to be even deeper in debt. Actuallyave to do is reduce the cost. That means, that means that just legislators cannot keep cutting support for Public College and universities. [applause] they have got to prioritize the next generation. [applause] it means colleges have to work harder to prevent tuition from going up year after year. Our economy cannot afford the trillion dollars in outstanding Student Loan Debt. Cant rice the middle class and everybody trying to get in out of a College Education. We have to change how we do business. Higher education is not a luxury. It is an economic necessity and every american should be able to afford it. [applause] so yesterday i announced new reforms to shake up the system. Some will require actions through congress. That is always challenging, but these are ideas that should have bipartisan support. Of course, so should obamacare. It is actually a really good idea. [applause] it used to be a republican idea. The governor of massachusetts set it up. It is going really well. But, some of the reforms we are proposing, we can make on our own. We are going to work with colleges to keep costs down. Were going to work with states to make Higher Education a bigger priority in the budget. By the way, students, we are going to ask a little more from you too when it comes to you receiving financial aid. You are going to have financial responsibilities as well. These reforms wont be popular with all institutions, because some of them are doing ok with the status quo. Even if their students are graduating, they are still getting the money. Not concerned with the institutions, i am concerned with students. I want students to get a good deal. [applause] the institutions are there to serve the students and educate the young people. So my plan comes down to three main goals. Number one, i am directing my administration to come up with a new, more useful Rating System for colleges. We are going to a lot of these Rating Systems are based on how selective the school is, how expensive the school is, how nice the dorm rooms are. Want is for us to measure the kind of value they are giving students and their families. Are they providing the opportunity that we should be providing . Are they helping students from all kinds of backgrounds succeed . Are they graduating students at a good rate . Are students graduating with manageable debt . Do they have strong Career Potential . Are students getting jobs after they graduate from these places . That is what we want to focus on. [applause] that is information that is useful. It will help students and parents figure out how much value a college truly offers. Down the road, using these ratings, were going to work with congress to change how we allocate federal aid for colleges. I said this last year and i meant it. Colleges that keep their tuition down while providing high quality education, we want to see their taxpayer support co op. We should not be subsidizing schools that are not getting good results for the young people who attend them. [applause] we have got to do more to reward schools that deliver for students. That is number one. Number two, we are going to encourage more colleges to innovate. Try new things. Provide great can education without breaking the bank. So, for example, a number of colleges across the country are using Online Education to save time and money for their students. Saying if youe can get credits faster, if you can show competency, if you know your subject matter, it shouldnt matter how many hours in a classroom you work there it the question is, do you know the subject . If you can accelerate it, you should be able to save money doing it. [applause] some schools are trying what you are doing here in scranton. That is creating partnerships between high schools and colleges so students in high school can start accruing credits. They can get a jump on their degree. That saves them money. [applause] the bottom line is, i want to see schools and states get in the game. Try new things. Figure out how to maintain high quality while reducing costs. We will provide incentives to states to do that. The third thing, even if we control cost, some of you will still have debt once you graduate. That is ok. I have debt, joe had debt. Us have parents who come in a matter how much they love us and work hard, can afford to pay for all of our college. The question is, can you manage responsibly . He, people dont want to take out debt, but they are making a good investment. It is something that will pay off in time. It has to be managed. I dont want debt to keep you from getting the job that you want or getting married or buying your first home. That is why we already tapped repayments capped repayments at 10 for a lot of students. We call it pay as you earn. [applause] so far, it is helping about 2. 5 Million Students. There are a lot of students, both current and former students who arent eligible. We want to work with congress to fix that and make more students eligible. Too many students dont know the program exists. We are going to launch a campaign to help our hours learn about their options. We should offer every student the chance to pay back their loans anyway that doesnt stop them from becoming a teacher or a nurse who was working in a needy community. You may have great skills. You may choose a profession that doesnt pay a lot of money. You should be able to do that. You are giving back to the community. Should help you do it. [applause] so, if we do these three things, increase value, encourage innovation, help people manage debt, we will help more students afford college. Help more students graduate college. It will help more students keep their debt low and repay it faster. We can do that. There you go. This is going to take a lot of work. Scranton know something about hard work. The American People know something about hard work. Just because something is hard, doesnt mean that we dont do it. [applause] we can get this done. We can get college more affordable. We can have the best trained workforce in the world if we keep on moving forward. Joe and i are going to keep moving for a Better Bargain for the middle class, a better and scranton, we are going to need your help to get it done. God bless you. God bless the United States of america. [applause] down, itll all be clear to the demons that fill you with fear might drag you down alone e not i am going to make this place [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] president obama leaving the auditorium at Lackawanna College. If you missed the remarks, we will have those in their www. Cspan. Org. More later. Ted cruz will be at a gop fundraiser in New Hampshire. That is scheduled to start at 7 00 p. M. Eastern time. This week, we covered several events leading up to the march on watching can. March on washington. One of those events happened today. We will show that in its entirely greater. Here is part of the meeting. To challenges are this. One, im going to ask for the , a false comparison. Comparing to residents not preachers. We need legislation and appropriation. What do we need now . We need a constitutional right to vote. [applause] a war on poverty. Stopw york, it should be and employee, not stop and frisk. [applause] there should be Student Loan Debt forgiveness. Student loan debt is greater than credit card debt. [applause] commission, the conscience of our government. [applause] laws andousing immigration policy that includes haiti and africa as well. [applause] , too muchoo much hate violence and too much war. This is theer continuation march. Our agenda must coincide with our problem. Thank you very much. [applause] lets begin with a very well known american novelist, one of our best writers, mr. Baldwin. What ought brought you into the market in washington . Negro in thisa it was, more concretely, one of the most significant, most important, most loaded demonstrations to free americans that ever happened in this country. Recently, like most americans, i expressed my support of civil rights largely by talking about it at cocktail parties, i am afraid. Summer,y americans this i could no longer pay only lip service to a cause that was so urgently right and in a time that is so urgently now. Sunday, American History tv marks the 50th anniversary of the march on washington with historic and contemporary roundtable discussions, archival film, a visit to the National Portrait gallery, a theater performance and firsthand accounts of the day. It starts at 1 00 p. M. Eastern, part of American History tv every weekend on cspan3. On cspans encore presentation of first ladies. She was worried interested in how the place worked. She came and found out that it was rather dilapidated, dirty. Sort of ominous. She tried to spruce it up. She went through the cabinets and found old pieces of china and asked servants if they could tell how old it was. She started the idea of trying to catalog and create a sense of what the chinas were. She had a plan for putting display cases in the state dining room but that never came to fruition. She was credited with being the initiator of a concept of a permanent china collection at the white house. The encore presentation of our original series, first ladies, continues tonight at 9 00 eastern on cspan. Now, education policy. Educators and analyst came together to talk about the crisis in education in the u. S. From kindergarten through university. Speakers include bill armstrong, now the president of colorado university. James geddes, a member of the diversity of colorado board of regents. This is from the western conservative summit in denver. It is about 45 minutes. Seen two different ways to do the panel. I will leave it to you. Mikemorning, benson and spoke from their high school. Just now, we saw on the young turn to make the Opening Statement at the podium. What do you prefer . Would you rather be from up here . I would. Ok. Hello, everybody. [applause] john, my compliments. I beg your pardon. My comments on this conference. Great speakers, great subject coast and a wonderful tocoast audience. This is just terrific. I am honored to be part of it. I am aware of the fact that there is a crisis in Higher Education. Textbooks cost too much. That is not a crisis, it is a problem. It is a fact that tuition is too high, that is a problem not a crisis in my opinion. It is a serious problem, no not a crisis yet. College graduate from with way too much student debt. Problem, not a crisis. Parking is inadequate on practically every campus in america. That is a detail, not even a big problem. Students gain 15 pounds the first few months they attend college, the freshman 15. That is a problem, not the crisis. The crisis in american Higher Education, in my opinion, is that there is 22 Million Students in American Colleges and universities and 21. 5 million attend colleges and universities which are so far to the left that they cant see the middle of the road with a telescope. [applause] is, the reality is that they are not just liberals but many of the schools i am talking about famous important wealthy colleges and universities, are actually subverting the values of america and of western civilization. I do not say that on these or maybe 98 re 99 of American Students attend, that every single student reflects those attitudes, nor every faculty member, nor every staff member. I am talking about what the germans would call the zeitgeist , the spirit, the overall tenor. Let me give you some quick examples. On Colorado Christian Universitys campus, we see that jesus is lord. On most campuses, they say jesus is a joke. Not everybody says that, but that is the general spirit. Yes it is ok to follow jesus, but dont tell anybody about it. Dont cite jesus as an authority for anything. Dont look to the western tradition of either judaism or christianity. It is just not the thing to do. On the campus of Colorado Christian University, we say the bible is an errant. Campuses, the bible is considered irrelevant. We say moral absolutes and yet moral relativity is the de facto religion of most college campuses. Sometimes,talism or with deference to those who spoke a minute ago, we might say Free Enterprise or entrepreneurship on most campuses. The preference is for something quite different, whether you call it socialism, redistribution of wealth, communism coming social justice or whatever. It is different from the traditions of american and western civilization. We think it is appropriate for men to live separately from women until they are married. On most campuses, mixing sex in dormitories is increasingly common. We say whatever is true, noble, isutiful if there anything that has merit, focus your thought on this. On most campuses, the focus is on things that undermine all of those values. If i have left you with the impression that Colorado Christian University is a little oldfashioned, then maybe we are a little reactionary, actually have communicated to you what i intended to communicate. In your mind,ed the question of whether or not many of our colleges and universities contribute to the cultural decadence that undermines the character and morale and future of america, well then i have told you the truth. Thank you for listening. [applause] thank you, president armstrong. Now, peter wood. I think your work at the National Association of scholars in the context of the bravery, the indomitable spirit, the unwillingness to accept that something cant be changed and turned around in the same spirit as saying the slave trade must and. How lonely it must feel sometimes. Tell us the view from the National Association of scholars about the crisis in american education. Well, coming to colorado i guess i dont need to make the e that Higher Education churchill knows that. It is a more come located mess than churchill what does it matter and what can we do about it . I will answer all those questions in their entirety in the next three minutes. Let me say more about who i am. As mentioned, i am an anthropologist. I am the kind of guy who studies savage tribes. Right now, i am studying a particularly savage tribe, the only no tribe of cannibals so fierce they want to devour their own civilization, i am of course talking about the american progressive academics. I had this organization, the National Association of scholars that in its own words, seeks to foster intellectual freedom and oftained a tradition scholarship and civil debate in americas colleges and civil universities. Those are frightening words to the left. I will give you an example. The outgoing head of the American Association of universities for fencers, cary nelson recently said that we engage in sclerotic wailing about western civilization and maniacal opposition to politics in the classroom. Aboutr historian writes seeking an ideologically to restructure and privatize higher and being relentlessly derogatory towards the hard working and underpaid professors. Ok, there are two different views here. One is that american Higher Education is the best in the world, that it is only getting better, that its achievements in bringing Critical Thinking two students are unsurpassed. The other, which i represent, is that american Higher Education is in rapid decline. It is coasting on its civilizational capital and not replenishing the capital. Does any of this matter . ,t really goes to the question are our best days still ahead of us . That is a doubtful proposition. Our best days depend on us being more than a civilization that has prosperity, material wealth, abundance. We can have all the cheap energy in the world and jobs for everybody, but still be unworthy and profoundly miserable at a certain level. To haves it profit us the world and lose our soul . Makingls should not be life easier for the shortterm, but making life at her were generations. Is toly way to do that take Higher Education seriously and that is something that the conservative movement has singularly failed to do in the last couple of generations. To truly thrive, the american Higher Education has to uphold virtue. Think of what Victor Davis Hanson was telling us. Prosperity and abundance without virtue is imperial rome at its worst. It is hollywood. It bears a resemblance to the contemporary average American College campus. Conservatives like to say that colleges indoctrinate. A few of them do. Mainly, what they do is shape students in more subtle ways. They make all subjects disappear. They make ideas seem in relevant irrelevant or out of date. They marginalize and ridicule think of what jenny was telling us about the marginalized. Those are the ideas that matter on american campuses. That some things are good and some things are bad. They report intellectual conformity and celebrate identity politics over everything else. I am out of time, so i have to hold off on my answer of what to do about it for a little bit later. Take a minute more and preview that for us, peter. Is a robusteed here sense of american conservatives that to save our civilization, we have to take hold of issues in Higher Education. We all know what those are. The Higher Education bubble, the rise of a new form of flattening america k12 education. The use of the Sustainability Movement as a way of indoctrinating students. There is a hatred of capitalism and free markets. The student loan fiasco creating more dependency among American Students. Of a new form of anti americanism. The briefest of list of maladies that we have ahead of us. What do we do about these . We make them part of our political agenda where they right now have just the most tenuous hold on the interest of politicians who think that the way to fix Higher Education is to shovel money at it. That is the worst way to reform it. [applause] thank you, peter wood. Jimr. Jim get us geddes, that is a medical doctor as you heard. He was in the shoes of Jenny Beth Martin before she thought of running for school board. He was looking at the situation and said, something has to change. Maybe i should be part of the change. We want you, this weekend, to look up at some of our presenters and say, that could has comeere he or she from, and what they are now contributing. I would like to do the same. Had an elected region of the university of colorado that happens to be a friend of mine. He was a go along, get along individual who somehow decided that it was ok that the faculty rather than the people or even the appointed president would run the university of colorado. Pick the story up there, jim get us jim geddes. Thank you for asking me to be here today at this spectacular summit area i was particularly gratified to hear the perspectives of the young people. I learned quite a lot. You that i am speaking on behalf of myself. Im am certainly not speaking on behalf of the university as a whole. Since becoming a regent of the university of colorado in 2008, i have focused on several important issues facing our fine university. The first is of course the financing and budgeting of a 3 billion per your organization. The second is my favorite, returning the colorado buffalo Football Program and Basketball Program to the National Prominence that it used to be and will be soon. If anybody out there questions may, he turned. It will happen soon, i promise. Finally, the most important issue is already being addressed so well by the prior stickers. That is addressing our deficiencies of intellectual, philosophical and political diversity involving our faculty. I know this group is more interested in that topic. Two of my fellow regents in particular have pertinent with me in our effort to address this critical issue. Tom who recruited me six years ago and sue who is in the room today. Give us a wave. Tomhas taken the baton from and become a roaring engine propelling us on. A year after my election, tom and i were successful in promoting proposing a guiding principle to promote intellectual diversity. As we are an elected bipartisan board, this was no mean a congressman. Unfortunately, over the next several years, we were unable to receive any meaningful change. Mind is no question in my that our faculty have become quite homogeneous, almost to the point of a group think and their liberal philosophical stance. I doubt i need to backup this contention in front of this particular audience as we all understand this is a significant problem affecting many if not all universities across the country. My concern, which under your share, is that rethink is about as far groupthink is about as far from the truth as we can get. Intellectual diversity, our students are robbed of the rich delicious soup of a stimulating educational environment. Frustrated by no discernible movement, we asked our chancellors to report to us on any progress in meeting the intellectual diversity guiding principle. We were told that all is well, not to where he. Progress is being made and the progress that quality of education remains superb. My response was that it is your to me that conservatives are not welcome. As you might imagine, this sentiment was not well received and was challenged. Regent sueweeks ago, eliminateosed to dissemination against individuals to elevate discrimination against individuals as we consider discrimination against individuals for their religious preference, race, or gender identity. Thank you. I will show you my bruises here. The second resolution was to take a survey of the university performed by an independent outside entity to assess our degree of intellectual diversity and the term and other discrimination is occurring against members of our university community. This resolution passed unanimously and will be expeditiously implemented. [applause] more bruises. We hope to know its results this winter. During the several hours of discussion and testimony that resulted from the introduction of these resolutions, professors mark and robert, both highly respected articulate conservatives, gave testimony describing their own experiences and observations. Both described uniformity of faculty with a strong leftward bias. Youre doing fine. Dont keep us in suspense. We love how the story is unfolding. All right. Subsequently, the American Association of University Professors has registered objection to our board actions including our plans to obtain the survey. You may read these comments published in the journal, inside Higher Education, published during the first week of july. Among other concerns, it was claimed that our campus survey was merely an ideological survey and may lead to a political litmus test in our hiring or in our assessment of our faculty. My response is that nothing of the sort is intended or allowed by current laws. That iter concern is appears to be quite eager to uphold define principles of benefitsfreedom as it and enhances the careers or agendas of its member professors. Obvious consequences are the current tenure system and the hands off mandate. However, the aaup and Major University faculties in general have been loath to take responsibility for protecting the integrity of our most cherished rentable of Academic Freedom. Throughout the free world, we expect Academic Freedom protections and privileges will apply to all participants in Higher Education. Unfortunately, hiring and firing practices have resulted in homogeneous faculties. What a tragedy for Higher Education. What a formula for subpar education. Thank you. [applause] i must have been hearing things. Thank you, that was fascinating and encouraging in the same way a small flickering flame would be on a dark and cold tonight. The fire has got to burn higher. But you have to light it. I must have been hearing things. You didnt say that the resolution passed unanimously with both democrats and republican regents all voting yes. The campus survey did. The other was supported by all for technical reasons was referred to the committee for further processing. To underscore for our delegates, this is extraordinary. To obtain a bipartisan unanimous , without any dissent, 90 vote on something as unprecedented as open public self scrutiny of a major liberal dominated state Flagship University faculty as far as intellectual and political diversity. The very fact that they aaip, which is aaup, which is just a union, the fact that they are so terrified of it, what a covenant. The fact that democrats and republicans could come together sue, jim, another round of applause for a major a congressman. Major accomplishment. [applause] let me welcome back to the let form. Iw you as our soccer will never forget. I will never forget when brittany corona, on finer fire with the political process she learned in the classroom, took on a former speaker of the colorado house democrats. Didnt just take them on, she took him apart about some fallacies in his assumption that somehow government could create wealth by redistributing. Well deserved that youre at the Heritage Foundation now. As you work education policy, shift us to the k12 level. Certainly. I would like to talk first about how i came to understand the purpose of education. One of the things that john andrews talked about was the atrocity that we have with the push for prek. Readinesse and career do four students, yearolds need to be college and career ready . That doesnt seem conducive. The purpose of education is not just vocational ready. Ccu. Rnt that at this panel is called Self Government or serfdom . I think i would be amiss if i didnt talk about what exactly that meant. The founders said we are going to be a selfgoverning society. What is conditional upon that is an educated citizenry. Not only educated, but one that is moral. This is not going to happen remain national level. The founders knew that. This is why they opened up that for the civil association. Totes, localities, families take hold of what education should be and ought to be and fostering that virtue within children. This is not the state of education today, especially with k12 education. We are no longer a Self Government. We are subject to serfdom. College is often too late. Not College Students all k12 students were as lucky a i was to be able to have kind of restorative education as i did at ccu. I will talk about the history of the administrative push. In 1965, this was the biggest plus push for centralization. Congress passed a secondary education act. It was under the notion of compensatory education spending. Meaning that it would be best if taxpayer dollars would be pumped into the Education System to educational outcomes. This wasnt the case. Create aid do was washington leviathan of k12 education. , the nothorization child left behind act saw the same thing with 600 pages of federal regulation pushing k12 education and a 25 billion price tag to boot. From 1970, we have spent a total of 2 trillion on education with very little to cs for is outcomes are concerned. Education is tripling since the 1970s. Achievement has virtually flat land. Half of the biggest cities in our nation, we see 50 of students do not graduate high school. One third of fourth graders cannot read. Betweenievement gap white and minority students process. We continue to be in the middle of the pack compared to our competitors. We are spending 10,000 per pupil with little to show for it. That is 237 years after our founding. We have come to a fork in the road. On one side, we have educational freedom in the form of School Choice. On the other side, we have the greatest push of the washington leviathan. Education standards. Milton friedman, his birthday is , waswednesday by the way the father of the School Choice movement. This was the idea that educational opportunity, giving parents the ability to move their students out of confined areas would allow competition and opportunity. We have seen this in the form of vouchers, tax credits and education savings accounts. The biggest threat that has now hit us, the National Standards, is now a washington leviathan pushing the idea that spending more money will equal more educational outcomes. We have not seen any of this since 1970. The 4. 3 billion of federal incentives in no child left behind waivers are not that threat of School Choice is also at stake. Act standards being conformed to the common core standards. Will be a price tag over the next 15 years over the next seven years. What does the common core contain . Math standards that are poorly sequenced. Dardssh standers stan that are in lieu of informational texts only. Joyce or centralized education by the common core National Standards. Centralized a education by the common core National Standards. We will start with education. [applause] britney corona, thank you. Chris, talk a little bit about what is wrong and how to make it better . I come with many i love my students. I come with many hats on. Work as aonor to professor of Higher Education at a place like ccu. Is happeningwhat in the classroom. The second hat i wear is from this weekend. I have been driving back and forth. There has been a Charter School Strategic Planning conference going on for the school that i had up as president of the board. The questions are exactly the same whether were are talking to parents of kindergartners or graduate students. The other half that i wear, i havent a local Public School member, i was one of the founding members of the Charter School Institute Board in colorado. All of those hats have come to a head as we begin to talk about what is the biggest problem. Parents will tell you that they look at all the problems and not heard about the problems and say, it is almost too much. It is a paradigm shift. We do that because of accommodation. Accommodating the zeitgeist. In education, we have done two things to accommodate. We have got incredibly busy and have left the Family Structure go away a little bit. The second thing, we have allowed Education Enterprises to take over all of the responsibility for what we should be doing as parents. The last cap i wear is that i am a dad of four boys. I understand there is an investment that we have to take. There is no magic bullet. I do not believe there is anyone policy or one move. I believe in School Choice. We should be willing to fight for those kinds of things. We want to be able to turn the empowerment of our Education System back to where it should be in the household with the family and the parents. That means in parents involved from the beginning. [applause] i want us to address some of these questions. One of the ways in which i atched this occur, i sat on Public School board. Export companies textBook Companies would come in. Oney was tight what it meant was the type Book Companies would come in and they would say, we want you guys to use our textbook. If you use it, we will give you all of this stuff. They would lay out all of the equipment and resources. I have wash administrators walk over like we were kids in a candy store. This is amazing. What struck me was we have never bothered to ask what is in the textbooks. We have never bothered to look at what are the ideas that are the foundation. Do we agree with them . Did anyone bother to review this. Interesting part is that every single one of those people and i think this is sort of a mantra of the federal government era, the mantra was you need to do this because it is new and improved. The reality i have come to find out is new and improved is rarely either of those. Need to think we improve. I think we need to return to tried and true. [applause] thank you. Were about to go to questions. We will move quickly through a number of them in the time that we have remaining. Tell us about a distinctive ccu a laminated card that has 12. O 13 strategic objectives if you are interested, check out the website. There is a strategic objective tab. When president armstrong came in 2006, one of the he made and challenges to the faculty and ,dministration, ever student was to focus on the strategic. Bjectives think of lots of colleges and universities. They would not be able to write down what they stand for on two sides of a pocket card. Writehaps if they could it down, they would be afraid and embarrassed. It is refreshing that Colorado Christian University is not afraid to speak about their initiatives. Thank you. We have adopted a series of objectives to steer the institution and for truth in packaging so anyone inside or outside the university knows who we are and what we stand for. The first of the objectives is to honor christ and share the love of christ on campus and around the world. Trust thetudents to bible and live holy lives and the evangelists. These two strategic objectives are exactly the opposite of what students will get from television, the general culture, the movies, and so on. We are in that sense counter cultural. Other object is had to do with academic achievement and teaching students to learn and think for themselves. I happen to be convinced we do not need another generation of young men and women who get most of their thinking and ideas about religion, sex, money, all it takes from Oprah Winfrey and jay leno. I think we need to do a lot better than that. [applause] and we have a series of objectives on culture. It is our intention explicitly to impact our culture in support of traditional family values, the sanctity of life, and an understanding of human nature. And the free markets original intent of the constitution and compassion for the poor and support of western civilization. Ofwas basically drummed out the Higher Education. It is coming back. We are excited about the opportunity to be clear about who we are. It is interesting that in an era when most private colleges and universities are declining in enrollment, our enrollment is rising quite rapidly. We believe it is because we are frank to say we are not for everyone, but we won every single student that god is and be to ccu to come with us. They are coming in greater numbers. Our Traditional Program is up about 8 this year in a year when most schools are done 2 . 2 . Own people know what they are getting. We are not misleading them. We are rallying people to return to the ideals that are the greatness of western civilization and our beloved country. Thank you. [applause] the panel if shoveling money at Higher Education is the worst way to fix our system, what are some of the best ways to fix our Higher Education system . I would paraphrase it for the panel. We will do a lightning round. Give us one sense or thought. What is something you would urge your college or university to do . What is something you should urge your college or alma mater to do to make it better . Lets start with peter. Set real admissions standards that show the students you care about the content and not just picking their pockets for tuition dollars. Standards. N i want the parents to engage. We drop our kids off at orientation and we do not ask critical questions about what it is. I will hear things about things that are read by my sons, that kind of thing. It is worth a phone call. And i like to be able to have the administrator talk to parents whether we agree or disagree, just to engage. Britney, maybe this question comes to you by way of contrast, having had such a good experience. What are you hearing that makes you think about your degree . Everything that he is saying about western civilization to my different type of education and what it ought to be. Not being purely information driven robots, but rather, to be as knowledgeable citizens. We need a switch to a fair balance accounting as far as Interest Rates are concerned. Part of the reason we will be shoveling a lot of money into higher ed is because we do not have an understanding of the risk for Student Loan Debt. Jim, how practical would be for people love what they have heard that you and your fellow regents are setting in motion with the survey, and perhaps ultimately voting in a strong statement of principle, how realistic would it be to go back to statefunded schools and say, how about following the lead of ccu . If we can get it done, i think it will happen. Where does the survey come in . We hope to get it by our winter retreat in january. And what is the outlook for passing a strong statement as unacceptable as racial . I think it is a matter of massaging the statements by fall and then it simply adopting. As you are talking to heads of other colleges, christian or otherwise, do you have a sense we could be part of a positive contagion to other institutions . Absolutely. I believe shoveling the money at the problem is not the answer. It is time to deemphasized the massive institutions and whatever funds that legislators wish to make available for Higher Education, give them to the students as vouchers, and then let the market sort out the outcome. [applause] and with respect to private institutions and Public Institutions like ours, everything in the world is going up in cost. It is likely to happen. Make it possible for students to be able to bear that bill without going into debt. We believe in working your way through college. We believe in programs to get students jobs in areas of their vocational interests, so that if they are an accounting major, they get a job and an accounting firm. If they are filed your health sciences, a job in a hospital. If they are biology or health sciences, a job in the hospital. It gives a better educational experience, give these students an inside track to get a job when they graduate, and gives them the money that makes it possible for them to graduate with little, or at least much less certain debt than they would otherwise have. [applause] for our last topic, lets get in a time machine and look at 15 or 20 years, and it may happen even faster than that. Last night, we heard from ron packard of the k12 Online Education innovator, and as the name of the plot implies, they operate from kindergarten through high school. I think this one is very well phrased. Is there a potential for lower costs and better quality College Education that also teaches American Values using more internet and less brick and mortar . What do you think, peter . As far as the Online Education, not just changing some of the economics, but favorably impacting the content as well as the political diversity and openness that jim is working on . I am conflicted on this one. I think that 10, 15 years from now, there may be as few as half of the colleges and universities that we have right now. A great wave of Creative Destruction is going to come through and we will find ourselves faced with the task of figuring out how to do College Education that preserves and transmits values and civilization in a medium that is not with the friendly to that, eliminating the personal relationship between the well educated teacher who cares individually about his students and replacing that with the mechanisms that Online Education provides seems to me both inevitable and somewhat scary. What is happening on line at ccu and its peer education institutions . There is a lot of interest. I do not know how that will play out. I certainly support, if you will not tell the other regions or anybody else, what senator armstrong has said about the state and the awarding of moneys in the form of a voucher and let them decide which university or college is best suited for them. The toughest job of the board of regents, in my opinion, is to control the bureaucracy of the university of colorado. It is very analogous to a large government bureaucracy. It is made up of lifetime employees of the university. Naturally, they want to embellish their own salaries and benefits, and they want to see the university advance. And in their minds, sometimes that is something aggrandizement of the university. It is a real challenge for us and there are tremendous pressures placed on us. But over the last few years, there has been some pressure to bear, and our hope is that we can hold down these tuition increases and there would be some strategies to that. I made the analogy earlier specifically in introducing to you peter wood of the National Association of scholars the wilberforce analogy. I want to conclude on that. You have both seen the movie, amazing grace. It was marvelously brought to the big screen. Christian statement, morrill reformer, liberator. Christian statesman, a moral reformer, and the greater. But things would not move his way until the logic and moral provision prevailed. And something moved in the curve British Parliament against all odds. And in that tradition, we need to turn around what is not only wrong, but dangerous to the survival of our nation and are very civilization. In the wilberforce spirit, we thank jim geddes, ccu graduate britney cohona, and bill armstrong. Thank you all so much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] on cspan, live coverage from the gop fundraiser in New Hampshire with texas senator ted cruz. It is hosted by Joseph Petrone and his wife. Again, live Coverage Today at 7 p. M. Eastern. Spansight on c presentation of first ladies she was very interested in how the place worked. It was sort of ominous. She tried to spruce it up. She found old pieces of china and asked servants if they could remember how old they were. Should try to catalog and create a sense of what the china were. She was credited with being the initiator of a concept of a permanent china collection at the white house. The encore presentation of our original series first ladies. Tonight at 9 p. M. Eastern. We covered several events leading up to the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. One of those events happen at the National Urban league. Entiretyhow it in its later. Here is some of the meeting. We have Maxine Waters talking about the Supreme Courts decision on the Voting Rights act. Court ine, the supreme slate and calculated decisions to keep us from the boating , the Supreme Court said that we have come to understand that we cannot count on protect our right or protect the constitution that is supposedly guaranteeing our rights, or to respect the constitution that is supposed to be for not some people, but all the people. Now we have rifling republicans that are pushing restrict the voter id legislation in states around the country that will make it difficult for us to make our voices heard. Did voting bills have been introduced in 31 states. North carolina has gone crazy. [laughter] it has passed legislation to require certain types of id and restrict early voting and to end sameday legislation. The latest bill is one that was signed into law earlier this month by that North Carolina governor. The attempt to prohibit power of the College Students from claiming themselves as dependents if they register to vote anywhere other than at the parents home. Under the same lock, the same students would be required to provide only a government issued photo. Has caused thert congress of the United States to deal with the question of voter rights enforcement. Authorizeongress may the Voting Rights act on a bipartisan basis. We are making the determination that section four and five were not only relevant, but essential to protect all americans rights to vote. Now congress has a moral obligation to undo the wrong decisions of the Supreme Court and to ensure the Justice Department has the tools to clearly identify voter obstruction. To not onlyhis time identify the issues that threaten our freedom and equality, let us only and courageously draw a line in the sand. Let us speak up and show up that we will not be intimidated by those who accuse us of playing the race card. We will not be intimidated by those who say that is all we talk about, race. We must not apologize for demanding fairness. [applause] them, must respond to saying loudly and clearly, im not playing the race card. Im playing that you quality card. Im playing the a quality card. Im playing the fairness card. We must again organized in march and support legislation. We must hold accountable we must hold town hall meetings. We must stop thinking someone will do this for us. We will begin with a very wellknown novelists, james baldwin. What brought you to the march on washington . I was born a negro in this country. Notlt there was no reason to be involved. This is a demonstration to free americans. That has not happened in this country. Recently, i largely gave my support at cocktail parties. But i no longer could Pay Lip Service to a cause that was so obviously right and at a time that was so urgently now. Tv marks theistory 50th anniversary of the march on washington with historic roundtable discussions. There are firsthand accounts of the day. It begins on sunday at 1 p. M. Eastern. Next is a discussion about lawmakers. This is from todays washington journal. Joining us now is marilyn bureaun and washington chief for reuters. Good morning. Guest good morning. Piece. Ur guest edited a u. S. As the headline lawmakers travel the world on the lobbyists tab. Takeners have once again advantage of their summer recess to race around the globe on tovately financed tours places like china, the middle east, and scotland. Groups cite this as evidence that congressional ethics reforms are unraveling. Guest the whole lobbyists ding of trips for members there was a scandal back in 2006. It became obvious he was using travel for lavish destinations. A number of people went to jail over that. The house and the senate both realized they had a serious problem. They went to work to try to make reforms. They created new rules. They made it tougher and made it pretty approval i needed to go through ethics reviews. That has a loophole been seized upon by a number of groups with special interests. If you were at a if you were a group, you could set up a nonprofit entity that had similar interests. That is what has been happening. That is what we have seen over the past few years. There is a trend and growing alarm to ethics. Nothing has really changed here. It is the same people. You are focusing on this big loophole. When all of that happened back then, the headline said they were trying to reform and that they are reforming. How did the big loophole come about . Done in thes committee. The Ethics Committee and the House Committee had a rigorous review of the rules. They brought in outside experts for consultation. They said it was too hard to draw the distinction between be ande nonprofit would what one wouldnt be. Rulesivided the number of about the nonprofit board. It was ok to have lobbyists on the nonprofit board at these things as long as they were not making the real called about which members got to go on a trip. It is a mess. Host let me put the phone numbers on the screen. We have Marilyn Thompson from reuters. Lawmakers traveling the world and financed by lobbyists. Here are the numbers. Let us bring this back to present day. ,n 2013, according to reuters trips soe been 1363 far this year. The cost to the host is 3. 2 million. There is a Nonpartisan Group in washington that does amazing work. They have created a database that is really fun if viewers are interested in going on and looking around. You can do all sorts of sorting about the costs per trip and the destination. These numbers give you your first real stuff to give window into how pervasive this stuff is. , we are on track to have a big year of travel this year. This is after we have had a talk on ethics. Host what does all of this mean . We will hear from callers shortly. You can imagine how they are feeling about this. Why is this a big deal . Ofst well, there are lot jokes you can made about this. They have been made in my office and probably every office in washington. [laughter] you have a congress that has essentially having great difficulty functioning this year and the thought that they are using their breaks to go on rest isaid trips for kind of comical. Host is there anything considered legitimate travel . Guest yes. You could make the case that travel is legitimate. I make that case. If you take a weeklong trip to route of the freebie israelirough the nonprofit, therell be some functions that will be newsworthy. But you are also going to have opportunities for a lot of fun and fancy meals and nice hotels. You can jump into the sea of galilee on which is what happened in 2011 with one of the members. They can be a combination of fun and work. Host a couple of other questions who in congress is taking the trips . Everybody . Guest it is a pretty broad slot of members. Has been veryroup proud of the fact that they take over a large percentage of members from both sides. This year, i forget the exact number. They took over a big delegation of democrats, like steny hoyer. They took a delegation of republican members with eric cantor leading. Would they have got a lot of coverage in the press over in jerusalem they have got a lot of coverage in the press over in jerusalem. Host what other groups are most active . Uest there are a number we wrote about a great trip paid for by china for members of the blackonal caucus caucus. There was a notable trip a few years ago a conservation nonprofit that took members on a trip to preserves in south africa. There are a lot of them. Host lets get the calls going. E have Marilyn Thompson arkansas. Independent. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have never understood how lobbyists came to be. I believe the elected representatives fill that role. , how is any kind of travel like we are talking about ever justified legally . That is a good question. They have certainly wrestled with that in these various committee reviews. Members, when criminal cases have been brought against them, there will be an element of this somewhere buried in the details of the cases. Dicey. I think all members know it is dicey. I think that they have tried to create a lot of safeguards that will make it look better. To the general public, it does not look better. Republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I was wondering if there are other corporations such as nonprofit organizations such as or any of these big multimillion dollar corporations that are also lobbying congress. Was a president grant that started the lobbying . About lobbying, theres a giant advocacy that has also tried to get their way. Guest you are absolutely correct. It is a giant industry. It is an industry at the heart of washington, d. C. Findften astounded when i recordsgo look at the and look at who is registering and what their interests might be and what particular issues they are pushing. It is really quite stunning. Major like aarp and other nonprofits that we are familiar with, they have their own courtships of congress. I have never researched them particularly, but it is certainly doable. Database that is awesome for anyone that wants to try to look up anyone. Host more details in the piece. Lawmakers have traveled to a variety of locations was the top destination so far, followed by israel. Other resort spots have been possible popular, along with tel aviv and jerusalem. They discuss business, it economics, natural resources. That is according to Scottish Affairs in washington. Anything you want to add to that . Guest that is an interesting example because rick found out about the scottish trip through wordofmouth in our news operation. When he first started making calls about it, nobody wanted to fess up. It took a while to pin down the details. It was getting some publicity in scotland that these members were about to come over and they had visits to universities and a festival, but nobody wanted to talk about it on capitol hill, at least at first. Host 10 members, the piece says, the congressional black visited beijing and hong kong. They said they wanted to improve relationships through an educational and cultural exchange. This is the piece by reuters. More of your calls in a moment, but from twitter, some perspective we are worried about 3 million of travel by congress and the president spent 100 million to vacation vacation is the word he uses in africa. Oklahoma. Caller hi. I think we can take all of this money they are using for travel and put it toward the education fund. Host interesting point there. Greg, from acadia, illinois. Batavia, illinois. Caller that email stole my thunder. I see the value in learning about other cultures. I am sure your newspaper has a lobbyist. I want to know about reuters, why do you publish fake pictures from the middle east . No you published phony pictures you iran i know published phony pictures from iran. Host what are these phony pictures you are talking about . Caller they doctored photos of iran missiles making them look more menacing than they were. They were phony. They published pictures of palestinian children. These were fake photos. Host lets get a response. Guest i cannot comment about the picture decisions made by reuters. We are a huge Global News Organization with people in virtually every country in the world and the Photo Department is an entity that i have absolutely nothing to do with. Host our guest is the Washington Bureau chief for reuters. She is Marilyn Thompson, talking about the u. S. Lawmakers travel at the expense of lobbyists. She was previously at the new york times, an editor at the l. A. Times, and joined reuters after 17 years at the washington post. Here is twitter from boring file clerk where does the money come for non profits to send nonprofits . Guest nonprofits raise money from all sorts of sources, including generous people, and i am assuming that is where they come up with the funds. It is an entity set up legally and they take money from contributors. Host one other tweet money and politics is a dangerous combination i understand lobbying is needed, but how is this not constituted as a bribe bribe . Guest it is a slippery slope. Host how does it work with answering questions about what the taxpayer might be getting from this . Guest the rules of the senate and the house have been used up in recent years. Beefed up in recent years. There is a prenotification process. If you get invited to go on a trip, you are supposed to notify the committees for approval at least 30 days in advance. When you get back from the trip, you are required to file expense reports. They become Public Information and that is the data that was drawn from to create this database. Host who have been the leading voices in congress currently or in recent years . Guest i have not heard a lot of major voices on this issue. I think that, certainly, the Ethics Committee officials have been, perhaps, the most vocal about how much they are trying to reform things. If you go back to 2011. There is not a lot of talk about this subject lets keep it a little under the wraps. Host ryan, massachusetts. Independent caller. Caller i want to know, are the members of congress being taxed by the irs for these gifts . Guest i do not know the specific answer to that because i am not a tax expert. Host why do you ask . Caller if they are getting money from special interests or lobbyists, why are they not paying a gift tax . Guest i do not know. I do not feel qualified to answer that. Andt would be to the irs the members. Host grace. Tuscaloosa, alabama. Caller i have two quick questions. One is about the political connections for some of these groups supporting the travel. For example, aarp is almost a Political Advocacy Group for president obama and his administration. I think another group was mentioned that is more or less the same. The other question i want to asked just to back up the message about the president s travel. Taxpayers are paying the president s travel. Guest we have written about the president s travel. This particular story was not about that. Carol lynn at the washington post, who is an amazing investigative reporter, and did the first story about the cost of the president s africa trip, and somehow got a hold of the behind the scenes memo about what would be required to take him over there and the secret Service Protection that would be required in these remote places. It was an amazing story, and it did get wide pickup from all u. S. Media. The white house scaled back a little on those plans after that story ran, but it still was a very, very expensive trip, as all of his strips are expensive because of security concerns. Host phil is on the line from colorado springs. Independent. Caller i am curious as to why you do not name names. It would have more effect. It is the same with racism. They say the guy is white. If he is irish, say he is irish. If the senators name is john doe, say it is john doe. The more specific than saying it is an organization. Why can you not use names . Host thank you for calling. Anything you want to add . Guest we do use some names in this story, but it is an issue with journalism and space. It is an editorial decision. It is a good peak. Point. Host we found this piece. Schakowsky tops question all travel list. She is among the top congressional travelers over the long haul. List. On the said many of the overseas trips are important, especially the lawmakers who deal with foreignpolicy issues. She sits on the house intelligence committee. Byron. Cleveland, tennessee. Thank you for waiting. Caller good morning. I would like to ask Marilyn Thompson about the Congressional Black Caucus trip into china. The reason i am asking this is because they are a Progressive Group, and i have been reading the communist party, usa, and they call themselves progressives also. I would like to know what is this a Progressive Group has going to china because that does not seem right. Thank you. Guest i would only say i do not know exactly, you know, what political reason there was for going, but china is certainly a huge u. S. Trade partner. There are all kinds of interest back and forth with companies and business. You certainly could find a legitimate reason to want to go to china to want to look into u. S. Interests there. China also, as all of us in washington know, they are really on a Charm Offensive to try to improve their image in washington, and i have a feeling that was part of what we were seeing with this trip. Host earlier we showed you the figures for current travel. 1163 trips so far this year, and the cost being 3. 2 million, from legistorm. The piece in reuters has more on the same theme. Since 2000, many private trips have been taken. Their costs were about equal. Sue is calling for Marilyn Thompson from hartford, connecticut. Independent. Caller i was wondering what Marilyn Thompsons opinion is about the formation of a Consumer Group to oversee lobbying and these trips specifically. A Consumer Group formed by voters rather than by congress is there any mechanism to do that, does she know, and how would that be done . Guest i would say there is certainly a way to do that. There are new groups springing up all the time that have watchdog functions here in washington. I cannot tell you how valuable that is to the process. You know, we rely on not just groups like this legistorm, but groups like the sunlight foundation. There are many, many of them already operating here in washington, and when they decide to take on a specific issue, like aggression of travel, or anything else congressional travel or anything else like Office Expenses on the hill, they do an amazing job in both getting records at the public can then review, and consolidating that information into something that you can use and do stories from. They are great for journalists. So, there is a way for that to spring up. Host the opinion of one other viewer is this on this topic with todays technology, there is little need to actually travel to these countries. If they want to travel, let them pay for it. Randy is calling from los alamos, california. Welcome to the program. What would you like to say . Caller what i would like to ask is with this incredible amount of money they are spending i run the center for human kindness we go out to raise money to help everyday people. When i see these amounts of money being paid out 100 million for one trip, it almost makes me ill. So, i think the money could be spent much better. You know, i understand security and stuff, but maybe they need to cut down on their trips and they need to focus more here in the United States rather than a broad. Abroad. Host thank you for calling. Reaction . Guest it is certainly a valid point. Host lets try charles from mississippi. Republican line. Hi, there. Caller my question to the lady would be that i noticed during this Family Vacation with the president s family was gone to marthas vineyard, they left bo the dog at home, and sent a marine helicopter to bring it back at a cost of over 300,000. I would like to know why that is not talked about more. Host more about the president there. Guest i do not know where the facts are coming from, but i find that intriguing, and if that is true, that is certainly something reuters would want to know about and write about. I have a long record in journalism looking into the exactly that kind of thing. I will take that note home with me. Host a couple of callers are mentioning the white house, and twitter, the same thing. We have been talking about rules congress wrote for itself for travel. You have a sense of how the white house works in this area. How he decides where they are going . Is anyone oversee those decisions because we are hearing it from callers . Guest i do not know the full answers. It would make for interesting inquiry by rick or any other journalist. It is just as carolyns story about africa goes, it is stunning. It is also stunning for the cost of journalists who have to travel with the president. That is a growing issue in the news community. We have to send reporters with him everywhere he goes. It is a draining proposition. Host what has changed in recent years in that area where, i guess, everybody can not go. Are they pulling resources more than they used to . How does it work in the Journalist Community . Guest you pool resources, and certain news organizations like reuters and the Associated Press have made a commitment that they would do it all, and the prices seem to go up exorbitantly over and over. Host we have 10 minutes left in the segment. Kevin is calling from brooklyn, new york. Democrat. Caller hello. I was going to ask, could somebody give me the difference between bribery and lobbying. Host i gather you think there is no difference, right . Caller the only difference i see is that bribing is done in the dark and lobbying is done in the light. Find it very offensive. I just want to hear your comments. Guest there are certain legal sanctions between bribery and lobbying. Bribery often involves the exchange of money with a specific agreement that something will be done that would not have been done otherwise. I mean, it it is a criminal offense. Lobbying, as i said earlier, is the essence of what goes on in washington. It is trying to get your members to do something for you or your group, and the range of companies and interests that are doing lobbying in this city grows by the day. Host when we talk about members going places on the lobbyists tab, what about members families . Guest they go with them many times. You will take your wife or maybe a child. Those are common. Legistorm also has that. Host do the members pay any portion of these trips . Guest i think that varies is. I have not researched that enough to tell you, but legistorm also has that on family travel. Host mark, st. Paul, minnesota. Democratic caller. Caller all the president s in the past have taken vacations, and i am pretty sure they are just as costly as obamas, but i am wondering why he stands out more when he takes vacation than the other president s. Host why do you think . Caller i think it is more of a republican ploy to try to make this president look bad for history books. He is the first black president that has taken office, and i think republicans host thank you. Lets go to florida. Ernesto. Caller i wanted to comment about the trip for the dog to marthas vineyard. It makes it seem like it was only done for the dog, but they had the Office Workers and they just happened to have the dog being that they were going to make that trip anyway. When you leave stuff out, it is not nice. Host any questions for our guest . Caller none. I just wanted to comment. Host another comment from Twitter Congress can use skype or go to meeting less trouble for congress, no travel for congress. Does Congress Review this process on a regular basis . How does the work to see how the current set of rules and laws is working . Guest i am assuming the Ethics Committees having imposed these guidelines, are keeping a handle on it. It will be interesting to see whether stories like ricks piece have impacts on getting one member to step forward and say hey, that loophole that is being taken advantage of by Everyone Needs to be addressed until we have not heard that yet. And we have not heard that yet. I wish there would be more risk coverage and more disclosure of the amount of huge sums of dollars being spent personally by the democrats, this regime in charge of our country today. Itis over the top will stop is out of this world. It is the european aristocracy of 200 years ago, come to our country. I do not even know what to say to that. We have to rigorously loo