The ceo of College Track and a High School Student joined me on the set. In most neighborhoods, especially here in the bay area, we have so many affluent neighborhoods. People know their kids are going to college. But the reality is im the first in my family to go to college. That isnt always the expectation that you have growing up in a minority family, that youre going to go to college. Thats not usually what your parents think and a lot of times its not the expectation that you have for yourself. Yeah. I think what we foundi is theres an idea students and families want to go to college but dont necessarily know how to get there. So College Track provides the students and their families with the tools to succeed and a belief that they can. We do it in a way thats pretty unique. Were not just an average afterschool program, were a National College completion program. We take the students for eight to ten years. From the summer before ninth grade and stick with them all the way through college graduation. So youre with them even after they graduate high school and youve got them into college. One of your goals is to see them graduate . The goal toys see them graduate. We exist to make sure that students from low income backgrounds will actually graduate from college. Its an opportunity that everyone should have. Now lets talk about the controversial parent trigger law. Parents in california are the first in the nation tos 82 the new law. Moms and dads forcing change at a poor performing school. Many more parents are poised to follow suit if advocates get their way. We dont think of it actually as a new law, we think of it as a new paradigm, like an entirely new way of thinking about Public Education and education reform. It isnt about these false choices that have dominated the debate about education for the good part of the last decade and frankly have gotten us into this problem in the first place, Charter Schools versus district schools or education reformers versus teachers unions or even democrats versus republicans. Its about giving parents power over the education of their own children. But you have to agree that this is probably one of the most controversial issues to erupt in politics when it comes to education . Well, its controversial because the entire idea of making Public Education serve the interests of children rather than powerful adults, that unfortunately is controversial as well. I mean people talk about kids all the time. Politicians do photo ops with kids all the time. If you really want to get down to a granular level and, you know, talk about every single decision that our policy makers make, making that through the lens of whether they make that decision if it literally affected their own child, a kids first agenda is one of the most radical political agendas in america and its the only way thats part of your mission statement. Yeah, it is. To make it about kids first. Some people have interpreted that as being a little bit of a stab at the unions, though, as well. Well, look, our critique against the defenders of the status quo is from the left and not from the right. On the subject of politics, the dream act continues to be a very hot topic. A high profile journalist who grew up in Mountain View is speaking out about it. He actually went to Public Schools there and found out as a teenager that hes an undocumented ill graundocument ed imgranting. Here hes giving us his first reaction to that news. When you grow up in the bay area when somebody says illegal, i remember thinking im not mexican, im filipino, so how could this have happened . So, yeah, that was the initial thought just disbeliefs and thinking that she was lying to me. When you when it was confirmed to you by your grandfather, did it change the way you felt about yourself and how you saw yourself . I mean it was incredibly, you know, disorienting like thinking here i am, ive been pledging allegiance to that flag that didnt belong to me. And i remember just the thought in my head that day and that night was this idea that im not supposed to be here. And i was 16. So imagine being 16 and just hearing this voice in your head saying im not supposed to be here. In many ways thats been kind of the voice that ive heard ever since i was in high school, i was in college, i was at the washington post, im covering the special campaign, you know. A very powerful interview. Now, jose went on to win a Pulitzer Prize while hiding his status and living in limbo. His former principal and former superintendent from Mountain View sat down with us as well. They kept joses secret for years. But not just joses secret, many kids secrets. I supported and mentored lots of kids over the years. I knew that many of the young people that i had mentored over the years were undocumented. You know, as she said, its our job to make sure these kids are successful when theyre in our schools. And so for me, it really wasnt a question. I mean i had gotten to know jose well, and wanted him to be successful. But his status as a citizen, it didnt change things for me. Its a very controversial issue now, though, and both of you speaking so publicly about it are putting yourselves in the line of fire of a lot of criticism. The same people that criticize him that say he broke the law. The same people will be saying you should have done something about it. And that brings us to the question of what is the role of a school when it finds out that it has an undocumented or does the school have no role . Could you outline that for me . Well, theres its right now we have a standard in the state that the school does not have an obligation to report a youngster if theyre undocumented. I think thats the standard we should have. President obamas recent executive order gives undocumented youth a reprieve from deportation and also gives them the ability to get work papers. Jose doesnt qualify. Hes aged out of that program and so his legal status, thats still in limbo. A lot of students are skipping the classroom, though, and turning to computers. Why . Because theyre making Online Learning a booming industry. Its one of the hottest ones these days and one of the most talked about startups here in Silicon Valley is a website for higher ed. Now, you can register for free classes. I did say the magic word, free, from some really impressive schools. Were talking stanford, johns hopkins, princeton, duke, just to name a few. And so its different in the sense that youre just on the computer taking a course by yourself. One of the things youre doing is youve got this Online Community so you call it peer to peer peertopeer learning or peer teaching. So whapt happens this is a very active experience. This is not the same as sitting alone in your living room. Theres constant interaction with the material, the computer asks you questions and you answer those questions and at the same time because theres an entire community of learners taking the course with you on roughly the same schedule, if youre confused about something, theres tens of thousands of people all over the world who are learn k the same material and can help you struggle through the hard bits and work with you. So we have study groups an everything. Andrew, you dont get credit, at least at this point youre not getting course credit for this. What kicked nd of a student are looking for . Is it for someone like myself who says ive got extra time, id like to learn something new in my life . Id be honored if you sign up for one of the classes. You should. We have students from all over the world and from all age ranges. We have many students interested in developing careers and getting certificates if they meet high grading bar. Many students are getting certificates and proudly listing them in their resumes and using them to get jobs or using them to apply to college. I think we have everything from the 16yearold High School Student to the 89yearold grandmother and people are getting certificates from us. Still planning on taking a class from those folks. Now, the people tell us that their website is growing faster than facebook, so the boom is on. Now, we talked to a lot of teachers on this show and sometimes we get some unexpected insights into the profession of teaching. Heres a surprising observation about what its like every day in the classroom. And what do you think when you look back at your experience and you see when you mentor a new teacher coming into the program, what do you tell them theyre going to walk away with . A community. Theyre not going to be alone. They will always have support. Its odd because teachers see 162 people a day. Their students. It can be a very lonely profession. Really . Absolutely. Because there might not be anyone to turn to. They might be the only Science Teacher or only a couple and maybe the others dont have that passion or want to do the hands on. And the institute is a very, very large network. Sounds like a phenomenal program. I know you guys are moving soon. Big anticipated move, april of 2013 when you move. Tell me how its going to be the same, the one we know and love and whats going to be different about it when we go see it down at pier 15. Its going to feel very much the same. Youre going to walk into the building and feel at home. Youre going to feel like your family has just moved to a larger house. And i cant wait to visit that house. Okay. We get a lot of great emails about our next guest. Hes known as the math guy. He travels all around the world debunking myths about math. Perhaps youve heard of the golden ratio . Turns out its taken on a life of its own. It equals 1. 618 and its an interesting number. Geometrically its interesting. It actually arises all over the Natural World and yet for some weird reason starting in the 16th, 17th centuries and the 19th centuries people get carried away with inventing things. You can read books now, read things on the web that says the golden rare yo is the aspect ratio of the rectangle that human beings find most pleasing. Complete nonsense. You can perform experiments, ive performed them at stanford and elsewhere. Human beings dont have a favorite rectangle. It doesnt you cant find this number in a wave. George clooneys teeth are supposed to exhibit this thing . George clooneys teeth . Its just bizarre. Paula zahns ears. You can find pictures on the internet of paula zahns ear with golden ratio supposed to be superimposed. Its complete nonsense. Complete nonsense. Did you get all that . Its so much fun talking to him. Were just getting started. When we come back, one of the most polarizing figures in education visits our set. Hear what she has to say next. You in heaven. Wrapped in luxury. You in action. You in motion. You in luck. Play in style. Talking stick resort, scottsdale. Book now to enjoy Cactus League spring training rates. Welcome back to class action. Weve been recapping our best interviews of the year. If you follow news about Public Schools, you know the name michelle rhea. Shes a woman warrior but her detractors call her a bull in a china shop and a union buster which doesnt seem to bother her one bit. Youre not really fazed at all about what people think about you. You seem to have your convictions and whatever people say, it just blows off your back. You know, i think that its necessary to understand that when you want to change the status quo, when youre going to bring about a significant transformation to anything, youre going to get a lot of pushback. At the end of the day the way that i look at it is our Public Education system is broken. It is not working for the vast majority of children in this country. We are spending more money per child in this nation than almost any other developed country in the entire world and yet the results are lagging behind. And so we have to understand that there is a lot of work to be done, there are a lot of changes that need to happen. And, you know, if people wanting to push back against that, im okay with that as long as what were doing is fighting for kids. But its interesting because a lot of people have convictions and they have a position and will put that position forward. But in your case, the reaction to you, especially by some school officials, has been not just on your positions but it almost seems to be about you. The reaction to you is so visceral, why do you think that is . Its interesting, i wish i knew the answer to that. You know, a lot of it is very personalized, you know. People are on the blog saying just the craziest things. She doesnt raise her children, shes abandoned them. All this sort of stuff. And i think at the endi of the day it is because of the positions that ive taken. But what i say to people is if you disagree with the policy positions that we advocate for, then lets discuss those. Lets keep the focus on children a and on schools and whether we agree or disagree with these particular policies. When you start getting personal, when the attacks get personalized, i think its a distraction to the conversation. The state superintendent of public instruction is the highest elected official of education in california. In fact hes the top teacher. He oversees the instruction of nearly seven Million Students statewide. I want to start with the good news, which is with the state standardized test because some people will say its baffling how well the children in california have done for nine straight years. Weve seen improvement despite the fact weve seen shrinking budgets. Its been awesome accomplishment. It really is something to celebrate. What weve seen is a steady increase. Only onethird of the students in california nine years ago were proficient in math or english language arts. Now its onehalf. Now, thats nothing to rest on. Were going all the way, we want to see 90 of the students pro efficient but its been steady progress. The test scores are significantly up. 35 scored pro efficient or above in 2003 compared to 57 in 2012. In math 35 scored proficient in 2003 compared to 51 who reached proficient or above this year. So heres the question that a lot of people are asking. Is it the kids are really Getting Better or are they Getting Better at taking the test . I think its a combination but i think overall they actually are Getting Better and our teachers are doing valiant work. Our teachers and principals are focused on each Students Learning needs and now with diagnostic tools teachers can use, computer readouts of where students are at, teachers can design individual learning programs to meet each students level of learning and build up more competency as we so. Top teacher, one tough job. One of the best parts of covering education is actually talking to the kids. Ive met child prodigies and kids on the verge of getting kicked off school but somehow turned it all around. As youll see in this next clip, some boys who created a camp for making apps. Look at this. So i have two apps. And i have this weird disease called celiac and its something that does not allow me to eat wheat or gluten, products like that. So one of them is a quiz about facts about celiac and another one is a guide that tells you about the foods you can eat, foods you cant eat. Has some cool facts and i put a little quiz into that too. Thats fantastic. Tell me about how the brothers got involved. Now youve decided youre going to do a summer camp because you were doing these pilot programs and then youve taken it a step further and now youre going to have summer camp. So tell me what the involvement will be of you two. What are you going to be doing at the summer camp . So when theyre up there doing their presentations of the apps, were like behind them watching, making sure theyre not making any typing errors and helping them. Do you know how to make an app already too . Yeah, i do. I have an mw 3 trivia. Its sort of like maxs but its trivia, not a guide. Wow. So i have to ask you, were you just blown away when they said were building apps and were going to do a school. Im getting ready to retire. I so dont have an app. I think i need to sign up for the app academy with them. After the break, the social pressure and social media to just put on a happy face. A startling study about tweens confirms what many of us have suspected over the last few years, that our kids spending a lot of time on social media. When social media first started, people used it to express negative emotions. Now, theres enormous social pressure not to admit youre negative. Same thing with photos. All the photos on facebook are smiling. So you think to yourself, im not smiling, but all my peers are smiling. And so what happens is also negative emotions are complicated. Positive emotions are simple. So they dont get practice its the negative emotions that are the hard ones to work with. So the problem is if they dont get the practice in negative emotion management, then theyre in deep trouble and they exhibit all these negative effects. So as a parent, its so hard sometimes to be like put away the ipod, put away the itouch, dont get on the computer, dont do this. What are we supposed to be looking for and doing and what kind of rules should we be enforcing, especially with the tweens who at this age are a little insufferable to begin with . Its hard. Im telling you. It is hard. There are more and more media all the time. I mean the number of applications every time i hear theres another 10,000 apps on the iphone store i want to shed a tear because i think more distractions, more opportunities, more invitations for problems. You got that right. Now, Jennifer Newsome may be the former first lady of San Francisco but shes a documentary filmmaker and takes her film about the misrepresentation of women in the media into bay area schools. Part of the movie also deals with having young girls, which are very powerful, because you see these girls already taking in this Media Information and being impacted by it. When you took it recently, you took it to presentation high because we were there and we saw you there and the girls were watching it. They didnt go to class. What was their reaction when they saw that movie and how much of an impression does it make on them . You know, im sure there were girls in the classroom or in that 780room audience who perhaps werent that excited, but i have never hugged more girls in my life. Who werent that excited maybe about the messaging because it made them look inside, but i have to say in general that school is so remarkable. Those girls are so remarkable. The applause, the excitement, the action, i think they were literally three or four girls afterwards told me what they were going to go do. Its a powerful documentary. Jennifer is also working on a documentary about boys. Well let you know when that comes out. Well be right back. You in heaven. Wrapped in luxury. You in action. You in motion. You in luck. Play in style. Talking stick resort, scottsdale. Book now to enjoy Cactus League spring training rates. Thanks for watching this special edition of our show. Whitney houston speaks out on one Year Anniversary of daughter whitney death. Welcome to access hollywood. Weekend edition im shaun robinson. Whitney died just hours before Clive Davis Grammy Party held at the very hotel in which she died but dont expect cissy to show up to this year party. I have an invitation to the party which is most obscene. I dont know why they would want me to come to the party in which she died. To the place. Unheard of. Reporter invitation because it was the hours leading up to Clive Davis Party last year that whitney drowned in the hotel bathroom. Understandably one year has done little to heal the wawndz of the loss for cissy. Coping with the loss and counter balance the inaccurate portrayal of whitney life she released a best selling memoir entitled remembering whitney. They didnt know whitney. She was a wonderful giving, wonderful person. And they didnt know they just moved over, get the real type of person she was. Reporter detailed accounts of houston battle with drugs. Rumor of gay relationship and difficulty in the marriage to exhusband bobby brown on twitter Bobby Christina slammed the book saying quote i find it to be disrespectful to my mother and me being her daughter wont tolerate. Shes grieving. He she doesnt know me or anything i can do for her i will be there. She