Mascot change, a little less elephant and a lot more coyote. Mr. Coyote, that is, known to his friends as wile e. Classic cartoon fans will remember him as one of the stars of the looney tune animated series. The smart guy whose obsessive focus on stopping the roadrunner leads him to all kinds of wacky shenanigans enabled by acme company gadgets. The bomb. The rocket. The flying bat suit. The giant slingshot. It seems to me the republicans would be able to relate because this week they reached into their own grab bag of schemes and unveiled the latest strategy in their ongoing attempt to stop the Affordable Health care act from running. Investigate it to death. From ru. Investigate it to death. Thursday the house held the first of multiple hearings to figure out who, what, and why behind the botched rollout of the exchange website. During the hearing, members of the house energy and Commerce Committee grilled a panel of representatives representing the contractors responsible for building the online marketplace. Angry lawmakers from both sides of the aisle expressed legitimate concerns over the contractors inability to foresee the technical glitches that have plagued the site since its launch. This is the 21st century. Its 2013. Thr thousands of web sites that handle concurrent volumes far larger than what healthcare. Gov was faced with. You keep speaking about unexpected volumes, miss campbell. And that really sticks in my craw. I have to tell you that. Because as i said, there are thousands of websites that carry far more traffic. So i think thats really kind of a lame excuse. Amazon and ebay dont crash the week before christmas and pro flowers doesnt crash on valentines day. All right. So theres that technical argument. But then there are those republican members of the committee who made it clear that troubleshooting a website was among this least of their concerns. Youre telling every american if you sign up for this or even attempt to you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. That is a direct contradiction to hipaa and you know it. What . Taking one of the executives to task on a line of code on healthcare. Gov that would violate hipaa, protecting medical information. Except he left out one detail that makes his privacy boogeyman a lot less scary. The website doesnt ask customers for their personal medical information, a point made most emphatically by new jersey Democrat Frank pallone. Hipaa only applies when theres Health Information being provided. Thats not in play here today. No Health Information is required in the application process. And why is that . Because preexisting conditions dont matter. So once again, here we have my republican colleagues trying to scare everybody will the gentleman yield . Ly not yield to this monkey court or whatever this is. This is not a monkey court. Im not yielding. Yes now despite representative pallones jerseystyle smakdown, dont be surprised if the privacy line becomes a recurring theme because scare tactics have been one of their strategies to undo obama care. Remember death panels . That was pulled out of the bag by sarah palin back in 2009 onin a post on her facebook page. Despite being repeatedly debunked republicans insisted on bringing the Death Penalty mitt back to life. Michele bachmann almost single hammondedly kept it on life support. But itll be very unpleasant if the death panels go into effect. You bet this can happen. That is what im worried about. This is literally an issue of life and death. Republicans seeking to stop the aca share the same inability to learn their lesson as our friend, wile e. Coyote, neither ever actually succeeds in their plots. But heres the thing about the coyote. No matter how many times he gets squashed under a boulder or catapults himself into a wall or just blows himself up, he just keeps on trying. Which seems to be one less lest son the republicans have learned, because they have been trying and failing again and again and again for a long time. Remember the summer of 2009 . Town halls to inform citizens in democratic districts about the aca were disrupted by Tea Party Mob protests that erupted sometimes in violence. Late theyre fall, they resorted to good oldfashioned heckling. That was when South Carolina republican joe wilson was moved to shout, you lie when president obama said in his joint address to congress that his health plan would not cover undocumented immigrants. When it finally came time to vote on the law, republicans threw every procedural obstacle in the book at the senate to approve law. Fill bulsers and 30 hours of debate and calls on the senate call for prayer. The democrat splitters missed the vote. They kept on trying with legal challenges all the way up to the Supreme Court, refusing to expand medicaid or establish staterun Health Insurance exchanges, voting more than 40 times to repeal, defund, or dismantle obama care. And in true wile e. Coyote form, showing how willing they are to go over a cliff and take the rest of the country along with them in the pursuit of their prey, even when it meant their party and their poll numbers were going splat. But, hey, rock bottom never stopped the coyote and we shouldnt expect anything less from these republicans. The attack by interrogation that started thursday, the energy and Commerce Committee, will be followed up with another hearing on october 30th. Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius before the ways and Means Committee and an additional hearing before oversight committees. If questioning obama care into oblivion isnt enough to make it go away, maybe they can borrow acme invisible paint from the coyote. Joining me usa today columnist raul reyes and julian, professor of history and Public Affairs at princeton and author of governing america, which must be a novel, fiction. A primary care doctor at Johns Hopkins medicine and a fellow at brookings institute. And igor, managing editor of thinkprogress. Org. Let me start. If we were more charitable than i was in my wile e. Coyote metaphor, is there something that these hearings can in fact accomplish . I think these hearings can allow for people to get some of the answers that they were looking for. Even the back and forth of the contractors give us us insight into why this website didnt work. But as the secretary and the administrator testify next week, theyll talk about how much theyre actually doing. Theyre enrolling people in medicaid, enrolling people in statebased and federal exchanges and people are getting their casualties processed. Lets back up. One thing thats been surprising to me in the midst of this conversation about all of the failings and failures and glitches in aca as a website thisin healthcare. Gov, in fact, julian, the Public Opinion about obama care has improved at the same time. Are you surprised that Public Opinion seems to be warming towards aca even as there are new stories that health cacare. Is the devil by these glitches . That was predicted. Meaning as some of the benefits started to roll out, even with the website problem, that people would feel better about a program that wasnt just this abstract monster but actually delivering benefits. That said, i do think in terms of policy, not politics, the Administration Needs to get this right. This is a core part of the program and you want Public Opinion going the right way. I was up at 5 00 prepping for the program, and i thought why not go on the site . I did. At 5 00 a. M. , not much traffic, turns out. Im on the site and i go through and i had a little moment where i got stuck on something so i did the live chat and, you know, handled that and came right im just wondering, how bad is it . Like at this point and i guess on the one hand theres the healthcare. Gov glitches and on the other hand theres sort of the aca. Is aca in trouble, the website in trouble . Certainly the website is a big part of the aca. In the very beginning it was really rough. A very small number of people were able to create an account. Now theyre saying 90 can create an account. I did. But only about 30 can go all the way through and sign up for coverage. The good news, and this is what were seeing in the state, is that once people get to the actual coverage and they look at the tax credits, assuming theyre the correct numbers theyre seeing on the website, they like what they see. The coverage comprehensive, in many cases affordable. So the product seems to be good. The trick is getting the uninsured to it to the product. And getting the healthy uninsured to the product. Let me ask you something. This was one of my favorites this morning on my college show with steven kornacki. He was talking to a republican guest and said last week yall were mad that people had to sign up for obama care and this week youre mad that people cant sign up for obama care. I thought to myself thats the wile e. Coyote of it. There is a mandate, then mad you cant follow the mandate. Are the republicans in terms of sort of throwing every acme thing at it, have they taken their own arguments, some of which may be legitimate about this program, and simply turned them into what just looks like sour grapes . Right. Going back to the opening of the show, the operative phrase here is looney tunes. What theyre doing, they have been trying to kill the aca, defund it, and did everything, and all of a sudden overnight now they are outraged that americans cannot Access Health care, that people need help and need assistance and cant get it. Theyre doing this incredible pivot. What they dont realize with all this faux outrage, and some of it is reasonable, but theyre actually improving the aca because if we didnt have such controversy it would be slower to get fixed. In a roundabout way theyre helping to hmm improve it. Some of the glitches has been disproportionate in terms of the overall Affordable Health care act. Theres so much attention that has been focused. People saying they should have done a soft rollout, more transparency. But obviously given the very toxic political environment in which the aca is being rolled, had they done a soft launch it would still be receiving every bit as much attention as this is. So theres really i dont think thats a way around it. Theyre dealing with, you know, reality. Were just Getting Started pap lot more on this. I was going to say this is one of those days tv feels like not enough time. When we come back, im going to call tech support here because i want to talk to somebody who can actually tell us how were going to fix, or not, the obama care website. Were a bunch of nerds, after all. announcer answer the call of the grill with new friskies grillers, full of meaty tenders and crunchy bites. [ unr ass [ female announcer ] e people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. And that their Homeowners Insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesnt. Stop pretending. Only Flood Insurance covers floods. Visit floodsmart. Gov pretend to learn your risk. [ hans ] toaster strudel [ angelic music plays ] dont overthink it. [ hans ] warm, flakey, gooey. Toaster strudel getting the right nutrition isnt always easy. First, i want a way to help minimize my blood sugar spikes. Then, a way to support heart health. And lets not forget immune support. But now i have new glucerna advance with three benefits in one. Including carbsteady ultra to help minimize blood sugar spikes. Its the best from glucerna. [ male announcer ] new glucerna advance. From the brand doctors recommend most. Advancing nutrition for diabetes. Healthcare. Gov, the website, is far from perfect. It is Getting Better every day. We have had new talent in Technology Come in. We have new management talent in. We want it to be a smoothly operating marketplace for every american who really needs Affordable Health care. That was the Embattled Department of health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius friday announcing that the government has hired a brandnew geek squad to come to rescue of these faulty federal Health Insurance exchanges. Joining me from atlanta is a person who knows a lot about a team of geeks because he used to be one of them. Clay johnson is the ceo of the department of Better Technology and author of the information diet. Also a former president ial innovation fellow, the same group that the administration is now bringing in to help troubleshoot healthcare. Gov. So nice to have you today, clay. Thanks for having me. So just in the simplest terms that even nerds can understand, even though we are not geeks, what is wrong with this site . Well, its an interesting question. A lot has gone wrong with the site. The first thing thats wrong with it is clearly the people who made it arent very good at programming. You know, any programmer, if youve ever opened a web browser, sometimes if you just sort of explore the menus theres this menu item called view source, and you can click on that and actually see some of the cold thats running inside of healthcare. Gov or any website that you go to. Any developer thats looked inside of the source of at least the front end of healthcare. Gov has really i dont know a better word than face palm. But whats really gone wrong here is that weve lost our management brains for technology. Yeah. So in 1996, maybe it was 95, the republican revolution came and gulted congress brains. It was called a Technology Assessment office. It was this team of people who advised congress on how to implement technology and how to implement technology policy. And thats why, you know, for me as a technologist, when i was watching the hear tgs other day and watching the contractors who are really not qualified to do this work and the members of congress who are really not qualified to ask questions on technology, all i could think of was, like, this is like my 1yearold arguing with my cat. Right. I dont even want to know which is the 1yearold and which is the cat, but let me ask because this point that you just made, i think you said there is some good that may come from all of this, it is in part sort of the American People starting to ask questions about how common this kind of contracting is where you are saying to me, look, there are folks doing this work who simply are not qualified to do it. I can just look at how the code is running and immediately sort of notice, wait a minute, this is from 94 or some other ridiculous time period. How common is that as a part of the problem of how government projects in general happen . These failures are the rule, not the exception. The Standings Group wait a minute kaim out earlier this week and did an analysis of all federal i. T. Projects of greater than 10 million and found that 94 of them screwed up in some way, shape, or form, and about half of them failed outright. Generally, you know, federal i. T. Are the exception, not the rule. These things always happen, whether it was healthcare. Gov this year, last year it was the system for award management or sam. Gov. That cost 181 million and failed. It happens at the state and local level too. New york city had city time, about a half a billion dollar project that ended up with some indictments. The state of california has a docketing system thats 2 billion and clay, there was this one moment where it seemed like that wasnt going to be happening and that is during the obama 08 and the obama 2012 elections, those campaigns seemed so nimble when it came to technology, not only the use of kind of social media and new technologies but being very good at how they could get everyone to click that red button and give their 10. Is part of whats going on here people being astonished that our kind of digital presidency has not been able to zplifr. Thats the big problem is the same people, that same kind of technology cant really get into government because theres this procurement policy about 1,800 pages of regulation that keeps Small Businesses from coming in and working on stuff like healthcare. Gov. So the contracts are going to be the people with the best lawyers, not the best programmers. Look, i was howard deans lead programmer in 2004 for his president ial campaign and im still waiting for that technology to get into government. Im still waiting for the companies that, you know, built around that campaign to be able to work on government stuff. And they just cant the barrier to entry is too high and it needs to change. Clay, stay with us because i want to talk about this and as much as its an argument, its not an argument for why you shouldnt have obama care. I want to talk about fixing healthcare. Gov and the real problems with aca are, not what you think, when we come back. I have low testosterone. There, i said it. See, i knew testosterone could affect sex drive, but not energy or even my mood. Thats when i talked with my doctor. He gave me some blood tests. Showed it was low t. Thats it. It was a number. [ male announcer ] today, men with low t have androgel 1. 62 testosterone gel. 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In a clinical study, over 80 of treated men had their t levels restored to normal. Talk to your doctor about all your symptoms. Get the blood tests. Change your number. Turn it up. Androgel 1. 62 . Get the blood tests. Change your number. Turn it up. Dont disguise bad. Changodors in your trash. It up. Neutralize them and freshen. With glad odorshield with febreze. [ female announcer ] outlast stay fabulous from covergirl can. Outlast is a primer, concealer and foundation all in one for all day flawless skin. Outlast stay fabulous. [ sofia ] from easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl. A confident retirement. Those dreams, theres just no way were going to let them die. Like they helped millions of others. By listening. Planning. Working one on one. Thats what Ameriprise Financial does. Thats what they can do with you. Thats how ameriprise puts more within reach. Okay. Were back talking about the difference between the problems in aca and the problems in the healthcare. Gov website. Igor, i want to play for you some sound from Frank Pallone from jersey talking about another time when there were glitches like this. When Medicare Part d started there were all kinds of problems with the website. It went on for months. These are some of the headlines that appeared in the newspapers about the problems. But did the democrats get up and say, oh, Medicare Part ds terrible, lets repeal it or defund it . No. We said lets work hard to make it better, and thats what we did, and the glitches disappeared and the program became a good program. Whats your response to that . This is an important point. A lot of democrat ls opposed Medicare Part d, thought it was too much involvement from private insurers, they wanted a different kind of system. But once the law passed, once the law became implemented, you had Democratic Congress people from all over educating their constituents on the plans available, on the policies available, doing town halls to help people sign up for Prescription Drug coverage. When in the first couple weeks you had all these problem, particularly lower income seniosenio seniors werent able to get their prescriptions, the pharmacists werent getting the correct information, the government had to delay the online tool they used three separate times because they couldnt figure out the technology. And Bush Administration if i recalls would come to congress to explain what the problems were just like youll see this coming week, and republicans said, well, we understand, this is a very big program. Right. Change is hard and slow. This is going to have glitches. But in the end youll figure it out. Dont prejudge, america. Give this some time to work. One congressman said ive delivered a lot of babies in my life, hes a doctor, but this was the smoothest delivery ive ever been part of. Now of course hes calling for sebelius to resign or repeal of the law. Not exactly ai analogous. We dont know if the problems hold up. Maybe there are deeper problems in the Affordable Care act that we dont know about. So maybe expected that republicans at these hearings seem to hide the glee with which they point out all these the fact theres a broken website. Clay, let me come to you on this because in this effort now to push to fix this, were starting to learn about the contractors, one of whom and this is one of the most troubling things i read this week one of whom is owned by United Health care, which also owns one of the nations largest insurers. It feels like were going to get sing pailier but not really, sort of one nation united under United Health care. This is probably the biggest failure of this congress and last weeks hearings was no one asked about stuff like that or like the fact that cgi federal lobbied for the passage of the Affordable Care act. Not one member of congress asked, hey, cgi federal, what were you doing lobbying on the passage of the Affordable Care act before you even had the contract . Mmhmm. Nobody asked that. So i wonder in part, thinking about the questions that arent being asked, the general contractor who ease been named to fix the website also came out and said healthcare. Gov is fixable and said specifically by the end of november, healthcare. Gov will work smoothly for the vast majority of users. Is that good politics or bad politics to set a deadline on it . Well, i think it was not only did he say that but the administrations appointed official also said by the end of november this is what were going to have. Smart politics for the administration to say we have a deadline were working towards and were going to make this goal. Its a miscal clue queue lags to say the vast majority, what does it mean and that everything will be working because we know from the Medicare Part d experience they had a lot of problems and they didnt have that much enrollment until right before the deadline. Theres how people operate. I dont do my taxes until april. April 13th. We know that. One thing thats common between the website issue and the contractors, its a problem with the Health Care Law from the start, meaning it was a somewhat gerry built system, it wasnt single pay. A lot of liberals criticized the administration. It relies on various regulatory mechanism, on private Health Insurance companies participating, and so there were builtin problems and there were all kinds of opportunities for republicans to exploit. They have a greater burden to get this thing to run because there are so many parts. We started with massive resistance against it, on the other hand there is hypocrisy associated with the problems of Medicare Part d but trying to break something, break something, and when its broken saying oh, its broke concerned its not working prop properly. You can go back to when we created Social Security. There were a ton of problems when it was created. Think about it, to create a system where people didnt even have Social Security numbers to identify people with the same names. Right. My favorite is how many glitches there were. You know, founding the country. Exactly. That whole congress situation, the whole working out of a bicameral legislature. Its hard. Its normal. Its part of when youre working in a democracy i can give you an efficient system. Just give me a dictatorial system. I can make it efficient for you. Clay johnson in atlanta, thank you. I hope youll come back and spend more time helping us geek squad all of this. Appreciate it. Thanks very much. Thanks. Up next, for all the focus on the website and its problems, the website and it problems are not what is really the main issue with obama care. Believe it or not, the most important thing for obama care is that we need more republicans to do what Ohios John Kasich did. Seriously, this one time only im going to say republicans, act like john kasich. Mine was earned orbiting the moon in 1971. Afghanistan in 2009. On the u. S. S. Saratoga in 1982. [ male announcer ] once its earned, usaa Auto Insurance is often handed down from generation to generation because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaas commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. Begin your legacy. Get an Auto Insurance quote. Usaa. We know what it means to serve. [ ding ] losing your chex mix too easily . Time to deploy the boringpotato chip decoy bag. Then no one will want to steal the deliciousness. [ male announcer ] with a variety of tastes and textures, only chex mix is a bag of interesting. Healthcare. Gov may be the only website associated with obama care thats getting any attention these days, but the exchanges arent the only place americans can enroll in Health Care Coverage under the new law. More than half the people expected to become newly insured under the Affordable Care act will be new enrollees in medicaid, and that website is working just fine. On monday, ohio became the 25th state to sign on the acas Medicaid Expansion after Governor John Kasich sought a federal waiver to defy his fellow republicans in the state legislature and expand the program. The expansion extend eligibility to 275,000 ohioans, it will stave state an estimated 404 million over two years. Being one of the handful of republican governors to opt for the expansion could also prove to be a political payoff for kasich, whose reelection is in 2014. Medicaid expansion is the one we should have our eyes on because it is pure partisanship standing in the way of this. This is important. This is how a lot of people will actually receive their benefits. Youve had this tension emerge between republican governors who say, a, this is going to be popular, and fwshgs health care industry, and the states always want medicaid money, combatting against republican legislationive bodiebodies, whi many are not allowing this to happen. Its a big tension. Ezra kline in the Washington Post said this is part of the website dynamic. They need the website to work to create the right incentives in these states to get the pressure toward the republican governors and give them support. But sooner or later, i do believe that it will that more states will opt because theres a financial incentive for them to do so. The states that opt in, theyre able to cover more people for less. I think as time goes by, it might be until president obama is no longer in office and this intense racialized opposition to him on behalf of republican lawmakers is not there. It may not be until after that. But just the republicans and the conservatives are so focused on the bottom line. This is something that helps states bottom lines if theyre willing to do it. If you look at the argument kasich made, its two parts. One said we really got to take care of the people who cant take care of themselves. The moral, ethical claim. The other one was to say this is going to be good for ohio, bringing in all these federal dollars to take care of these people means we dont have to pay for uncompensated care. Our hospitals arent as burdened as they are. And he tied it all together with reagan. He said, you know, republicans always echo reagans economic, conservative economic vision, but we forget that reagan himself expanded medicaid multiple times. Reagan put in a lot of the price controls into medicare that are now part of the Affordable Care act. The Affordable Care act expands and borrows from. So theres really a conservative argument to be made for medicaid and its great to see that you have not only kasich but people like jan brewer in arizona accepting this. This is such an important point. A conservative argument to be made but a partisan obstructionism thats standing in the way of it. In addition to the sort of ideological or Good Governance argument, theres also basically an ep deem oidemiological argum be made, what happens if 8 Million People fall through this hole because republican governors refuse to take the youre absolutely right, millions of people who wont get access to flu shots during flu season, kids making sure theyve got access to some of the care that they need, women, men. You talk about the health implication, then you talk about the states that this is in. 20 of this millions of population are in states like texas and florida. Louisiana. Big states in which if youve got huge numbers of people without care, where are they going to go . Theyre going to go to our emergency rooms, to free clinics, but we dont have as many as we used to. Mod cade is something familiar to people, so expanding that is different than other pars of the aca. Saying lets to more of what you know. And what works. Medicare was built within the Social Security system in 1965. That was the whole argument. Lets provide health care but through something people are familiar with. Expanding medicaid because they know how to enroll people already. Yes. Theyre taking the s. N. A. P. Program and all the information, most of the adults that qualify for medicaid under expansion already qualify for programs like s. N. A. P. So the s. N. A. P. Programs are, like, weve got all this information, were just going to pop it in, talk about avoiding website glitches. They just transfer that information and there you have it. People can get care. Its so infuriating that we had this weeks with the this weeks worth of faux outrage on the website thats not working. This is the scandal, that in 2013 there are so Many Americans who do not have and will continue to not have access to health care to save their lives and improve their lives. There is something broken here. Yeah, theres healthcare. Gov but whats fundamentally broken is the medication question. Thanks to dr. Patel for being here. After the break, the 19th amendment and the man whose efforts could make it all for thought. My letter of the week is next. Customer erin swenson ordered shoes from us online but they didnt fit. Customers not happy, im not happy. Sales go down, im not happy. Merch comes back, im not happy. Use ups. They make returns easy. Unhappy customer becomes happy customer. Then, repeat customer. Easy returns, im happy. Repeat customers, im happy. Sales go up, im happy. I ordered another pair. Im happy. both im happy. Im happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. Happy happy. I love logistics. [ male announcer ] you know that family . The one whose eye for design is apparent in every detail. Whose refined taste is best characterized by the company they keep. Well. Say hello to the newest member of the family. The cadillac srx, awarded best interior design of any luxury brand. Take advantage of this exceptional offer on the 2013 cadillac srx, with premium Care Maintenance included. Help the gulf when we made recover and learn the gulf, bp from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. I can tell you safety is at the heart of everything we do. Weve added cuttingedge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a stateoftheart monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twentyfourseven. And were sharing what weve learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. Our commitment has never been stronger. You feel. Squeezed. Congested. Beat down. Crushed. As if the weight of the world is resting on your face. But sudafed gives you maximum strength sinus pressure and pain relief. So you feel free. Liberated. Released. Decongested. Open for business. [ inhales, exhales ] [ male announcer ] powerful sinus relief from the 1 pharmacist recommended brand. Sudafed. Open up. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by any state on account of sex. That is the language of the 19th amendment. And since its ratification in 1920 it has promised women unfettered access to the polls. But who cares about Constitutional Rights when youre trying to rig i mean run elections in texas . Thats my question for the recipient of this weeks letter. Dear Texas Governor rick perry, its me, melissa. We are getting to be regular pen pals. I hate to be a pest, but it seems my earlier letters didnt sink in. You remember the one in june about extending the texas legislationive session 30 days norld to push your antiabortion agenda . Or maybe the one about watching out for the wendy davis express, a Gubernatorial Campaign fueled by the women of the Lone Star State . But maybe you did get that one, because your recent actions show that you dont want those women at the polls. It seems you started hatching a plan back in june when the Supreme Court ruled section 4 of the Voting Rights act unconstitutional. This meant your state no longer has to get changed to voting laws be cleared by the federal government. Just a few hours after the ruling, texas state attorney general greg abbott declared that the texas voter i. D. Law would take effect immediately. And its law that you have supported, lauding its necessity to combat voter impersonation and say texas has a responsibility to ensure elections are fair, beyond reproach and accurately reflect the will of the voters. Really, governor . Because less than five five voting impersonation complaints were filed with the Texas Attorney Generals Office for 2008 and 2010 elections in which more than 14 Million People voted. This week marked the first election under the new texas voter i. D. Law and we are already seeing which big part of a texas elect rat will be afikted again women. The environment that a voters i. D. Be substantially similar to their name on the Voter Registration rolls could create big problems for texas women voters. Govern governor, do you know how hard it is so r to get your name changed on legal documents when you get married . Oh, wait. Probably not, since youre a man who doesnt have to worry about such things. But a recent study showed a third of all women have citizenship documents that do not match their current legal name. That includes Texas District Court judge sandra watts who used the what hes been using to vote for the last 52 years was deemed insufficient. Before a voter can get the i. D. They have to have for their document to confirm their identity and the cheapest document is a birth certificate at 22. That is not pocket change. And 81 of your 254 counties dont even have a dmv office so residents have to drive 250 miles to get to the closest location. So, governor, the question has to be asked are you protecting the will of the voters or your partys political interests . Now, you know since attorney general greg abbott, the same one who couldnt wait to enact that voter i. D. Law, is the one running against wendy davis. But the rest of us are not going to sit by idly and let your attorney general become the governor of the great state of suppression. Thats why the nations attorney general is coming for that law. He filed suit under section two of the Voting Rights act, arguing that your voter i. D. Law is discriminatory. So heres your homework, governor perry. Im not going to even sign letters. Its time to hone your study of the constitution. My suggestion, start with the 19th amendment, and oh, yeah, the 15th aint bad either. Call if you need a tutor. We in nerdland are happy to help. Sin ceasely, melissa. [ coughs, sneezes ] i have a big meeting when we land, but i am so stuffed up, i cant rest. [ male announcer ] nyquil cold and flu liquid gels dont unstuff your nose. They dont . Alka seltzer plus night fights your worst cold symptoms, plus has a decongestant. [ inhales deeply ] oh. What a relief it is. 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In fact, if theres a good reason not to pass this commonsense reform, i havent heard it. Okay. So we all know that we need Immigration Reform and we all know it will take a bipartisan effort and that kind of cooperation has been nearly impossible. What many may not know is how hard it is to pass the gauntlet of our current immigration process. Even under what might seem like ideal circumstances, the process is frustrating and expensive. To learn more about the process, not just the policy, nerdland visited with one couple who is navigating the system right now. My name is emma and im from a small southern town in finland. My name is jacob. Im from austin, texas. We met in kenya in 2007. We got married at Manhattan City Hall in february march february. February. 2011. And then right after getting married, like within two weeks from that we filed our green card or my green card application. Emma must have spent three hours a night every single night for probably 200 or 300 days in a row studying the process. Shes probably put a thousand hours into learning about this. The first part of our process was called its called adjustment of status. The filing fee is 420, and for the other part of it its 1,070, which includes socalled biometrics. Those filing fees for that first part were about 1,500. Now were doing a process called removal of conditions, and that filing fee i think was 590. So i think if you put everything together youre talking somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000. So i have a green card. Which was issued in july 2011. Before the twoyear green card expires you have to do whats called removal of conditions. And it basically means that we are now proving, again, that we are really married, were a real couple, were really in love. I didnt marry him for the green card. And i think in immigration youre considered guilty until you prove yourself innocent. The onus is on you to move from youre the real thing and that your marriage is thing. But ice a lot of stress, a lot of money, its financial strain, its time, its worrying about if you forgot something, ice waiting for months and months. Where emma comes from, she comes from scandinavia. I can imagine it being four times as expensive just a person comes from a middle eastern country or someplace in latin america that we may not have a Good Relationship with politically. And we just got lucky because of where shes from. And all of that is just about getting the extended green card so that emma can eventually apply for u. S. Citizenship. Joining me now is nbc latino raul reyes, princeton universitys julian zelizer, igor volsky of thinkprogress. Org. You talked with this lovely couple, but as you heard at the end, basically if its this hard for white folks whats it like for people coming south of the border or from nations we think of as enemy ls of the american state . Right, and not only that, this might seem surprising to viewers but this couple is very fortunate. For one thing they do seem very, you know, educated that shes able to navigate the system, but it is a lot of hours involved, a lot of money involved. Shes also fortunate because shes coming from finland, which is a country that has not oversubscribed in terms of the amount of visa applications coming. Theyre already well along the path. Theyre very fortunate. But to give you an idea of where our system is, and im talking legal immigration, right now the u. S. Government is processing legal immigrants, their applications from mexico, going back to 1995. The philippines, 1998. So all the talk you hear about play by the rules and get in line, if you do, youre still kicking it in mexico since at least 1995. Thats why our system is broken. And not only that, it is not depending where you are in the country for example, if this couple, say they moved to minnesota or somewhere in the west, their application process could be much faster just because of the vagaries of our patchwork system. Its not uniform at all. So people in, say, new york, miami, los angeles, the wait times are longer. Theres tremendous backlog, all sorts of hoops. Yet if you happen to be in Salt Lake City or seattle, its much easier. The system is incoherent and inconsistent just geographically if nothing else. I want to then just ask to follow up on that, so is our immigration process too hard in the wrong ways, igor . In other words, i think we all recognize that youve got to have some barriers to entry, but is it too hard in the wrong way . Way too hard in the wrong way. Just the paperwork and the lawyers and the waiting and the uncertainty. I remember the stress it took and the worry it took for my parents was just remarkable. Really aged them tremendously also over that period. And the fact that its so hard for a family to come to the United States looking for opportunity, looking for economic mobility, and you really have to go through just an excruciating process. As you say, 11 years is a good story, a positive is success in the system. Absolutely. Stick with us because were going to move from the stories this is as good as it gets. Were going to move to some of the stories where it gets much tougher. Why some republicans may want Immigration Reform but still not vote for it. Plus a provocative look at who and what is truly responsible for what is broken in americas schools. More nerdland at the top of the hour. Dad dad katy perry is coming to town. Can we get tickets, pleeeeease . . . Tickets . Hmm, sure. How many . Well, theres hannah, maddie, jen, sara m. , sara b. , sa whoa, whoa. Hold on. under his breath here it comes. We cant forget about your older sister thank you, thank you, thank you seriously . What . I get 2x the thankyou points on each ticket. Can i come . Yep. The Citi Thankyou preferred card. Now earn 2x the points on entertainment and dining out, with no annual fee. To apply, go to citi. Com thankyoucards welcome back. Im melissa harrisperry. President obama must oppose comprehensive Immigration Reform. The last thing he wants is is for our congress to create commonsense legislation that will boost the economy and benefit the country. How do i know hes against it . Thursday he articulated one of his top goals is ensuring that comprehensive Immigration Reform gets done this year. Its not smart to invite some of the brightest minds from around the world to study here and then not let them start businesses here. We send them back to their home countries to start businesses and create jobs and ip vent products someplace else. Im not running for office again. I just believe this is the right thing to do. I just believe this is the right thing to do. See, its sneaky because it sounds like he supports Immigration Reform, but as you and i both know the best way to ensure republicans in congress will refuse to act, to ensure they will take no action, to be certain they will stone wall even if its to their own detriment is of course for president obama to say its his priori priority. Theres one other way to ensure the gop will stand in staumpbl opposition to a policy, present empirical evidence of how it benefits the country. They hate that. In july the Congressional Budget Office said the proposal would cut undocumented immigration flow by as much as 50 , that it would spend 30 billion on new border agents, fencing and surveillance and lead to a savings of 135 billion over the next decade. Fulfilling every expectation on friday, the day after president obama called for passing the senate bill, republicans begin their campaign of resistance. Republicans reported that they have no plans to vote on any Immigration Reform legislation before the end of the year, which for them is just 19 days that they have left in session. Even republican senator marco rubio said, get this, the Obama Administration had undermined negotiations by not defunding the signature Health Care Law. Yep. Comprehensive Immigration Reform is dependent on defunding obama care. One republican even compared Immigration Reform to the Affordable Care act in order to justify going at it piecemeal. Fed House Judiciary Committee Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte in a thursday night statement, our immigration system is in desperate need of reform. We dont need another obama carelike bill full of surprises and dysfunction after it becomes law. Dont forget the sequel to this years debt ceiling battle is coming up before february 7th, various governing responsibilities led republican congressman tom cole to say on friday, were not sure we can chew gum, let alone walk and chew gum so, lets just chew gum for a while. And this is why i assume the president must not want Immigration Reform. He couldnt possibly think americans elected officials could walk and chew gum at the same time. As greg santiago pointed out in the Washington Post, the president dared House Republicans to prove they could do more with government than just shut it down. Now, obviously just because something is smart and fair and good for the economy and fiscally responsible and supported by business and labor and the evangelical community and Many Democrats and many republicans, that does not mean that it will actually get done. This is washington, after all. You know, rather than create problem, lets prove to the American People that washington can actually solve some problems. Clear to me that president obama must hate the comprehensive senate plan, because by pointing out that it is serious, needed, beneficial hes pretty much ensured it will never pass. Joining me now to discuss this, our attorney raul reyes and nbc latino contribute or the, princeton professor julian zelizer, author of governing america, silky shaw, Communications Director for the tension watch network and igor volsky, who is the managing editor of thinkprogress. Com. Silky, i want to come to you. What is it that is broken about our system that this Current Senate bill could, in fact, address . There are definitely a lot of things that the senate bill could address. We work on detention, and one of the things that happened in 1996 under clinton is we saw a removal of judicial discretion for a lot of immigrant, not just undocumented but permanent legal residents in the country. The senate bill would allow for some of those people mandatorily detained no discretion, mandatory minimum laws, would allow them to be an alternate to detention. Thats really exciting. Beyond, that i mean, the senate bill isnt going to make a huge difference on that because on the flip side on detention, the Appropriations Committee has actually put in a quota system for the number of people who are detained. So for us the quota needs to be eliminated if were going to see those reforms. A part way but not fully the way there. I was joking here about the president must hate it otherwise he wouldnt come out for it, but it feel, julian, this should be like infrastructure, it should be a win. Republicans know they need to do Immigration Reform. Theres a lot of push even from the right to do it. Why is it so unlikely it will happen many sn. Lets remember, this same tension played out under george w. Bush when he was for Immigration Reform and House Republicans then didnt want to do this as well. You have members from similar districts talking want the Budget Shutdown they still dont to cie the electoral incentives to support this. At the same time, they are now also trying to position themselves as leaders of the party and they want to hold firm not only for their own reelection but to show speaker boehner, to show the Senate Republicans theyre calling the shots. So the key is to change the dynamics in those districts. I think thats where this game can be won so that a very important piece of legislation could pass. Otherwise it wont happen. New york times reported this morning at the moment all the dynamics in the district are pointing towards ways to block it. Right . If you look at this New York Times article this morning immigration poses threat of another republican rift, several republicans executives and donors who are part of a lobbying blitz coming to capitol hill next week said they are considering withholding or had already decided to withhold future Financial Support to republican lawmakers they believe are obstructing progress on immigration. This is an attempt to start to move the obstruction. One of the things were actually going to see in the coming week, theres going to be another lobbying push in favor of Immigration Reform, but its going to be by conservatives, by agricultural lobby, business interests and the Faith Community. But, you know, i have to say, since you showed marco rubio, how tremendously disappointing his leadership has been on the issue or his leadership. Marco rubio was elect and what he was charged with and the reason he became so ascendant in the party so quickly was twofold. He was going to make his party he was charged with making his party more inclusive and open particularly to latinos. On the other side he was also going to help sell Immigration Reform to the tea party and many in the gop. He has failed on both of those counts. He has not tried and failed. Hes really just gave up. Not been a team player. Hes walked away from it. The most unfortunate thing and why its so disappoint, we see the immaturity of his leadership because every time the going got tough he either walked aa way or said im not for it anymore, im not going to do it. That is very disappointing. A lot of people have rubio rage these days. Yep. Sure. All kinds of different reasons. But i think the politics also changed after the shutdown in really a remarkable way. Before the shutdown you at least had a republican saying this is a problem, we have to address it, lets figure out go through the committee processes in the house, lets try to do something. After the shutdown, after they were so politically embarrassed people like rubio are now saying were not going to do it because obama wouldnt cave on obama care. Thats remarkable. Something good for the country because we were embarrassed politically. This goes back to the 3yearold and the cat, right, mike . Yes. Which we had the discussion in the first hour, right, this idea that this has anything to do with obama care. I mean, it does take us back to the moment which i try to remind people, folks talk about it as an oldfashioned racism, white man yelling at a black president but it was around the issue of whether or not health care was going to be extended to undocumented persons living in the u. S. So even in that moment it was kind of an immigration anxiety. Even there we saw some of that anger, although almost at no point through that whole process in crafting the Health Care Bill was there any serious consideration that the undocumented immigrants were going to get health care. Yet they fixated on that. But to your point, now we see people like marco rubio, also congressman Raul Labrador saying we cant do Immigration Reform now because of the shutdown that we caused and the big mess we created so were taking our ball and going home. So childish and grossly irresponsible to all the undocumented people and the families, the communities who are waiting for this reform that could be life changing. That is moment when social movement pressure matters in american politics. Yes. During the Civil Rights Movement, you also had a lock in the leadership. No one was doing anything. And the way that the politics changed was the movement created pressure in washington and in the districts, especially on republicans to part from the southerners who are blocking progress. And it wasnt just civil rights activists. Maybe akin to Immigration Rights activists. It was actually the Faith Community in places like illinois who were going and they were talking to republicans and saying you have to vote a different way on this. And it changed the vote. It was the same kind of issue. We saw this is how the dreerms became the one Pressure Point that was so clear and where there was as there was at certain points in the Civil Rights Movement like this sense of National Interest in this group of young people that we did at least get the deferred action. Stick with us. Much more. And i want to come specifically to silky. You mentioned some things we have to talk about. I dont think folks know about the quota, the responsibility to actually requiring us to detain thousands of immigrants every day. When we come back. dad just feather it out. Thats right. son ok. Feather it out. dad all right. Thats ok. dad put it in second, put it in second. dad slow it down. Put the clutch in, break it, break it. dad just like i showed you. Dad, you didnt show me, you showed him. Dad, hes gonna wreck the car dad hes not gonna wreck the car. dad no fighting in the road, please. dad put your blinker on. son you didnt even give me a chance dad ok. mom vo we got the new subaru because nothing could break our old one. dad ok. son what the heck . Let go of my seat mom vo i hope the same goes for my husband. dad you guys are doing a great job. Seriously. announcer love a car that lasts. Love. Its what makes a subaru, a subaru. We know in the cyber world, threats are always evolving. At first, we were protecting networks. Then, we were protecting the transfer of data. And today its evolved to infrastructure. Finance. And military missions. Were constantly innovating to advance the front line in the cyber battle, wherever it takes us. Thats the value of performance. Northrop grumman. Back in june of 2012, one of the demonstrators chose to wear handcuffs in nashville, tennessee. It was a symbolic nod to reason that according to the New York Times that last week she was awarred a 490,000 and possibility a resident visa generally offered to crime victims. Why . Because after a 2008 arrest in nashville, among other indignities she was shackled to a bed while in labor with the little guy that you see there. Thats her son. And as our guest silky shah details on mhshow. Com, that case is just a symbol of a massive problem of the detention of immigrants run on a quota requiring at least 34,000 immigrants be detained daily. From the moment you lad a conversation with my associate producer about this requirement he was Walking Around going, did you guys know that there is a requirement that 34,000 people, this kind of bed mandate what is the sort of where did that come from, that mandate . It actually came from we were talking about this earlier, came out in 2007 because people didnt feel like bush was doing enough. So its in the Appropriations Committee. They put it in the mandate. And, you know, one thing to note about immigration detention, 50 of beds, 34,000 beds are operated by private Prison Companies that lobby live to get these contracts and also lobby the Appropriations Committee. So theyve included this mandate without any understanding of really who needs to be in detention. I mean, essentially, you need to find people to deport in order to fill this mandate. Its as simple as that. So in a moment like when were in now where we have declining immigration, particularly declining up documented immigration, that means you have to reach deeper and deeper down to folks who are, in fact, not criminals by any definition of what we would think of as meaningful crime, right . In other words, theyre status offenses. Offense is simply being here without paper. Anybody whos in detention is there for civil violation so, theyre there, they dont have a sentence. Not like the criminal justice system. You dont get a lawyer, a sentence, a right to a phone call and youre there for an undetermined amount of time. Theyre there for a civil violation. If off crime, maybe youve committed it and you committed it in the past but youve already gone through the criminal justice system, and dont we say everyone deserves a second chance. Right . Nope. Yeah, no. The other thing i want to point out is of our immigration detention system, actual lay lot of people who are inside are not just undocumented but theyre legal permanent residents who have past convictions so prethe 96 laws that changed this, have a marijuana conviction, serve their time in the 80s and end up in detention. The story really again captured us in part because the notion of detention i think theres something about that language that sounds almost benign, like youre detained. You know, when you read the reporting on it they say oh, they have televisions. But you read a story like this and you realize just how Vulnerable People are. And, you know, the unfortunate reality the, there are many stories like hers. We just dont often hear them because of the way the system operates. When we talk about this arbitrary bed mandate, you have to just think of it this way by means of an analogy. Imagine if we had a prison system where we said no matter what the crime rate, no matter what was going on in the country, no matter what season or what year, what decade, we are going to have x number of people in prison. We almost do because of the private incentive ls. We pretty much do. Thats what were doing in immigration detention and the way the government operates this system. We spoke on it during the break. Because immigration is a civil violation, you dont have any of these rights, right to counsel, dont get your miranda rights, nothing like that, yet from the time you are detained till the time you are deported you are treated as a criminal. Youre shackled, youre behind bar, you can be put in solitaire confinement. Its a stain on our justice system. And there are many people also in the system who are asylum seeker, victims of domestic abuse, refugees from central america, all kinds of people get swept up in the system. Igor, it feels to me like consistently there are sort of two themes that show up in this conversation. One is a National Security theme, the need to protect our borders, and the other one is an economic competition theme and the idea that these people are taking jobs from good americans. And ip guess i just wonder, like, when i hear these stories or we look at having to detain 34,000 people, how far are we from i mean, because those are legitimate issues. Economic security, border real issues but they dont seem addressed by how we do immigration in this country. Certainly not with this detention system. I want to say its great, we finally found a mandate that republicans can support. They can get behind it. Theyre for it all the way. Wow. Tremendous. And, you know, you look at the economic argument. You try to make, you know, how are you going to convince republicans to get aboard, try to make the conservative argument, make the argument that it grows the gdp, livs wages across the board, economic benefits throughout the economy, or even on this detention point, you say what about alternatives to this kind of detention, costs about 10 a day, for some 150, dont you guys like this . No, they dont because theres other interests, the private prison so, there are interests in play. So, you know, there is i think an economic argument, and thats an argument that were going to hear hopefully this coming week from the business community, but that has to be paired with this human argument that the religious groups are going to be pushing for that grassroots campaign. So grassroots social smooumt part of any other bright lights you see. Quite the business. It is debehind us. They always have been, but they are organizing against a party they support, the republican party, and there is just we passed Immigration Reform in 1965, and thats the influx that weve seen, and weve never really had a comprehensionive solution, how to deal with everything from security to a path to citizenship. So theres a time an issues time has come argument. I think there are many republicans, frankly, who privately and some publicly agree with this. And soy think if you have those three Pressure Points come together, theres a chance, a chance for this to work. Immigration is one of those things that actually draws people operate on interest will draw a line somewhat differently. One of the other ones of course is education on which there is a very bizarre bipartisan agreement which were going to Start Talking about next. Let me say thank you to raul reyes, to julian zelizer, to sill can shah and to igor volsky for being here. Im also going to send everybody over to our website. It is functioning. Read the guest post from silky shah, which is online now. Up next, were going to talk to the education leader whose new book could change everything you think about Public Schools because she changed everything she thinks about Public School, when we come back. [ male announcer ] you know that family . The one whose eye for design is apparent in every detail. Whose refined taste is best characterized by the company they keep. Well. Say hello to the newest member of the family. The cadillac srx, awarded best interior design of any luxury brand. Take advantage of this exceptional offer on the 2013 cadillac srx, with premium Care Maintenance included. Donneutralize them odorand freshen. Ash. With glad odorshield with febreze. Medicare open enrollment. Of year again. Time to compare plans and costs. You dont have to make changes. But it never hurts to see if you can find better coverage, save money, or both. And check out the preventive benefits you get after the Health Care Law. Open enrollment ends december 7th. So nows the time. Visit medicare. Gov or call 1800medicare [ male announcer ] campbells homestyle soup with farm grown veggies. Just like yours. Huh. [ male announcer ] and roasted white meat chicken. Just like yours. [ male announcer ] youll think its homemade. I love this show. [ male announcer ] try campbells homestyle soup. It guides you to a number that will change it guides you to a number your life your sleep number setting. It even knows you by name. Now its easier than ever to experience deep, restful sleep with the sleep number beds dualair technology. At the touch of a button, the sleep number bed adjusts to each persons ideal comfort and support. And youll only find it at a sleep number store. Where right now our newest innovations are available with 36month financing. Sleep number. Comfort individualized. Afghanistan in 2009. On the u. S. S. Saratoga in 1982. [ male announcer ] once its earned, usaa Auto Insurance is often handed down from generation to generation because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaas commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. Begin your legacy. Get an Auto Insurance quote. Usaa. We know what it means to serve. Weve got to make sure that were funding education so that teachers have the support that they need so, that they can support their own families so, that theyre not having to dig into their pockets for school supplies, and weve got to show them the respect and provide pathways of excellence for teerps so that theyre treated like the professionals that they are. It is a hard job. And weve got to make sure were investing in them. That was president obama yesterday stepping into the intense debate over education reform as he spoke at pathways and Technology Early College High School in brooklyn, new york. This debate has been raging since president george w. Bush first introduced the no child left behind initiative. One of its biggest champions at the time was education scholar diane ravech who served as the assistant secretary of education under president george h. W. Bush. Then she changed her mind, became a chief critic of no child left behind, particularly its emphasis on testing, arguing it did little to improve Public Education. In her new book, reign of error, she takes on school privatization. She writes, Public Education is a basic responsibility. We must not be persuaded by a false crisis naryive to private it. It is time for parents, educator, and other concerned citizens to join together to strengthen our Public Schools and preserve them for future generations. The future of our democracy depends on it. And diane ravech joins me now. I am so pleased to have you here. I spent a lot of time with the book over the course of the past week. Talk to me about why public, truly Public Education matters. Public education is one of the Public Services that our society provides. We have police, fire, protection, public parks, Public Schools. Its one of the basic things a democracy does. The high performing nations of the world dont have vouchers, they have professional teachers in a Public School system where the emphasis has been on equity, on making sure that every school is a good school. Its hard to do that. Its costly. But its far cheaper to do that than it is to pay for kids going to prison and having all the ills that our society has. So Public Schools are crucial to a democracy. One of the things you spend about the first third of the book or so doing is really taking apart empirically the claims about the great crisis, what others have called the manufactured crisis of Public Education, this notion that it is failing. In fact, you demonstrate that when we look at High School Education rates, there has been an enormous up tick in High School Education in this country. You suggest also that we should be very careful about looking at those International Comparisons and you say, hey, actually saying that we dont test as well as some other countries is not about what we know or what were capable of. Why do so many people believe that were in a crisis if were not . First of all, what i demonstrate using u. S. Department of Education Data is that test scores in this country have never been higher than they are today for black children, white children, hispanic children, and asian children. High School Graduation rates are at their highest point in history. The dropout rate is at its lowest point in history, and yet i am fiercely critical of the status quo because the status quo is built on this notion which has been built up over 30 years that were failing, our schools are faying and therefore we should just do anything that it takes to demolish Public Education because its a disaster. So i argue it is not a disaster. The status quo that we have which is test and test, privatize and privatize, throw money at consultants instead of schools, when we e talk about the rising cost of education so, much of the money is going to people who are telling teachers how to teach, telling principals how to lead, telling schools how to turn themselves around, huge amounts of money are being siphoned off that are not going into schools. And so there are practical things we should do because there is a crisis, a real crisis, poverty, and the people who call themselves reformers say dont look at poverty, and thats wrong. Let me ask you, theres a new antitesting petition signed by a large group of people including judy bloom and maiya angelou, people who i think of as deep educators at their core. The pe situation says in part we call on you to support authentic performance assessments, not simply computerized versions of multiple choice exams. We also urge you to reverse the narrowing curriculum. How are no child left behind founded under a republican demonstration, and race to the top, founded under a democratic administration, both colluded in this testing on the basis of which we judge all our schools . Unfortunately, you know, many of us had hoped that when president obama was elected we hoped no child left behind would be scrapped. Its terrible program. Everybody says its failed. But race to the top is based on the same premises as no child left behind, that is we must race to get higher test scores. The test scores can be you can coach kids the way you can coach parents, coach seals. You can train people to get higher test scores. What we find in all these International Tests is that there are certain Asian Countries that have a test taking culture, and when their kids come here, they say they come here for the freedom. They come here for the spirit. They come here for the opportunity to use their imagination, their creativity, and thats what the top part of america is. Its not the ability to check off the box and to say i got one out of four answer correctly. Its thinking out of the box. Yep. So were crushing that. Thats what those writers were talking about. Whats happening to their books is that theyre being assigned as excerpts. Yes. And many teachers are saying and i dont know if this is common core, which is this national standards, many of the teachers are saying i no longer assign full novels. Who writes a novel they havent read as one chanter . Yeah. You know, your point about no child left behind, weve seen the flexibility that was granted under president obama, nearly every state in the country when you look at the map has, in fact, asked for flexibility to push back. Everything you see in blue there. We know at this moment its not working. When we come back, i want to add some other voices to the table as well, because part i think the book is so useful. I also want to ask whether or not you think that folks are in this because they really just dont know any better but they legitimately believe theyre doing whats right or if you think there are more nefarious motives and again how we address what the crisis in Public Education is. Stay with us. [ paper rustles, outdoor sounds ] [ male announcer ] lauras heart attack didnt come with a warning. Today her doctor has her on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one. If youve had a heart attack, be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. If youve ad a heart attack, be sure to talk to your doctor announcer answer the call of the grill with new friskies grillers, full of meaty tenders and crunchy bites. Help the gulf when we made recover and learn the gulf, bp from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. I can tell you safety is at the heart of everything we do. Weve added cuttingedge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a stateoftheart monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twentyfourseven. And were sharing what weve learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. Our commitment has never been stronger. Thavg a scene from one of my least favorite movies the 2010 documentary waiting for superman, a film that touted Charter Schools as the alternative to failing Public Schools. As Diane Ravitch points out, the films anywhere tif and the larger public discussion was direct aid way from the controversy i remember issue of privatization and towards choice. Reformers dont like to mention the word privatization, although this is indeed the driving ideological force behind the movement. She goes on to say the new movement in for privatization has enabled School Choice to transcend its tarnished history as an escape route for southern whites who sought to avoid courtordered desegregation in the 1950s and 60s. Weve been talking about the state of Public Education with Diane Ravitch. Joining us is Pedro Cabrera at new york universitys stein hart school of culture, education, and Human Development and author of creating the opportunity to learn and unfinished business. And tremain lee, a National Reporter for msnbc. Com whos reporting on zis parties in mass School Closings across the country. Thanks for joining us. Peter, talk to me a little bit about this notion of Charter Schools as the salvation for what is wrong with our traditional Public School system. Well, the history is actually interesting because Charter Schools are presented as a way to produce innovation by freeing schools up from some of the regulations that Public Schools were saddled with. I think there is theres some evidence that for some schools thats allowed for really good practices and good outcomes. However, the mass unleashing of Charter Schools in many cities has resulted in greater disparities because the Charter Schools are not being held accountable and in many cases not serving the same children, serving more privileged children than the Public Schools, which means the Public Schools are disproportionately serving the most chee nee di children, and thats made the job of Public Education that much more difficult. Shoo living in new orleans, this is the reality we have seen post kath is this mass charterization of schools in the system. Looking at the data in charter versus nonCharter Schools, fourth grade reading in math, eighth grade really gooding in math and science, there simply is no clear indication that charters are performing better. In fact, in all of those noncharters outperforming Charter Schools just a bit, and it is this point sometimes they work out but often time theys dont bhap they do, in fact, do, however, what theyre very good at, diane, is very good at breaking unions. When you look at the per sant of unionized Charter Schools 87. 7 nonunionized, 12. 3 unionized. They may not be good on math scores but theyre good at breaking unions. Yes. Also many of the charters that post high test scores are leaving out the children with disabilities, leaving out the children mor english learners, and they have the ability to kick out the kids who are troublemakers and who have low test scores. Under their zerotolerance policies. Right. And, you know, so this to me is not innovation. What i fear is that were heading in a direction of recreating a dual School System because there are cities, for instance, like minneapolis where the charters are more segregated than the Minneapolis School district, where there are charters that are all white, all black, all hispanic, i mean, name the group and they have their own charter school. Its as if the brown decision never happened. And it feels to me also as though and so we dont even take integration into account as part of how you would define a quality school. So youre saying is this a good school, does it rate 1 to 10 or four apples or something. We dont even ask whether or not integration in the classroom is part of that. Its not that theres this madness from white chirp sitting next to black children, but poor children sitting next to middleclass children and the resources theyre afforded does wonders. When you look at a situation like philadelphia, for example, 30some percent of the schools are Charter Schools, bleeding those students from the traditional schools, taking that money with them. Meanwhile the governor and the state are starving the Public Schools. Now you have the situation where the schools are becoming poorer. In these poor neighborhoods with less resources, counselors, no librarians to staff libraries. Its a mess. Its playing out across the country. When i read the text reign of error, the notion of error is that its a mistake, that people with good goals who want to help children were initially moving it saying, oh, man, these test scores look bad, what can we do to help . And what we see on the back end are these results that they did not expect. But when i read it, it does read a little bit as though there is nefarious intent so, people are purposely taking apart the schools. Which one do you think it is . I think first of all that i would say its mixed motives. There are people who have good motives. There are people who are hope thog make money and are making a lot of money. There are states like michigan where Something Like more than 80 of the charters are for profit, where School Districts are being literally handed over to Forprofit Corporations, and its muskeegan heights, highland park. What do these districts have in common . Theyre all black districts. These districts had a deficit that will now become the profit of the Forprofit Corporation and Public Education has not been saved. In philadelphia, this is obviously a majority minority district, suburban parents wouldnt permit it. Ive been in city after city where the schools are being privatized, sometimes for profit, sometimes not for profit, but whats happening is that Public Education is collapsing and in the suburban districts, this would not be toll rated. Your point about the parents i keep thinking its not like we dont know what works. What works is the kind of education that wealthy kids get, but that we keep acting like we have to work around it. I want to ask more about poverty. And the president said something yesterday and i want you to fact check it, tremain. President obama went to high school yesterday, but friends, there is so much homework to do. Stay with us. [ female announcer ] we take away your stuffy nose. You keep the peace. We calm your congestion and pain. [ man ] thank you. Thank you. [ female announcer ] you rally the team. You guys were awesome. [ female announcer ] we give you relief from your cough. You give them a case of the giggles. Tylenol cold® helps relieve even your worst cold and flu symptoms, so you can carry on with your day. But for everything we do, we know you do so much more. Tylenol cold®. Seasonal. Doesnt begin to describe it. Butrunning a bike shopdo, whas its ups and downs. Ore. My cashflow can literally change with the weather. 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If you think educations expensive, wait till you see how much ignorance costs. That was president obama yesterday speaking at brooklyns pathways in Technology Early college school. Its a sixyear Public School where students graduate with an Associates Degree and are first loo line for jobs with their partner ibm. President obamas trip comes on the heels of what are calling an alarming new study. According to the organization for Economic Cooperation and development, the u. S. Ranks 16th out of 23 kun kri tris in basic literacy and 21st out of 23 in math. What do numbers like these really mean . And is an ibmsponsored education a solution or a problem . So i had multiple reactions to the president yesterday, like when he says you have to treat us like professionals. But he said something at one point, tremain, your research and your reporting really i had to give my president who i adore a side eye. I want to play a brief clip and ask you if you think this is true or false. Become in my hometown of chicago, mayor Rahm Emanuels opening up schools like this one. Mayor rahm emanuel is opening schools . Because what i have been reporting for the past year is mayor rahm emanuel is closing schools. They start the school year with 50 fewer e schools than last year. So on one hand, what the president said is correct, if you want to see the back end costs, look at the prison system. Look at the food pantry lines. Look whats happening. With ptech, its tootoo early to tell. But in these community where is theyre closing schools theres violence, food insecurity, the abstract violence of being hungry. Thats what they were missing here. We have to prepare them with wraparound services. These children are struggling and we expect them to learn and flourish when their basic needs arent being met at home, in schools. School with no counselors. These kids in these hardened communities are coming to school and sometimes the only place they have to turn is the school but they dont have a librarian to give them a book, a counselor to rub their shoulders and tell them its going to be okay and keep pushing forward. And anybody whos ever taught will tell you that when youre in a classroom with more students it is harder to simply observe, notice, put your hands on young people who may need just a little extra attention, not necessarily reading attention but are you okay, because i can see things are different. I want to read this quote from dianes book. Povrp ti matters. It affects Childrens Health and well being, their emotional lives and attention spans, their attention and their academic performance, their motivation and their ability to concentrate on anything other than day to day survival. How much is that what is wrong with your schools . That is americas achilles heel. Right now 50 of the children of Public Schools in the country qualify for free or reduced lunch. That means that our Public Schools are disproportionately serving our poorest children. Poverty is not a learning disability, so lets be clear about that. Under the right conditions poor children can be quite successful. However, when you ignore basic needs like health, nutrition whether or not they have eyeglasses or access to a counselor, you will see children drop out in droves, you will see children not thrive. That produces the kind of situation that the president is alluding to. My real concern and what i think disappoints me so much is as person who also admires the president is how little this administration has done to address this issue. To me its a disgrace and really a shame, that so little has been done in the name of reform to address the needs of our neediest children. And thats where we see failure rampant. I think about this, the case of where i live in new orleans. Louisiana is a case study of getting this wrong. Youve got governor jindal, who called himself a reformer by giving vousmers of public money to schools that include online schools for elementary children and schools that teach creationism as science. At the same time he rejects the Medicaid Expansion which provides for poor children things like health care. How do we shift the education narrative to addressing childhood poverty naryive . Well, the great hoax of whats called School Reform today is that it inures the root causes of academic struggling. The root cause is poverty. Root cause is a combination when off combination of poverty and racial segregation, that is a horrible mix. And wherever there is that combination youll find very low test scores. The reformers say we need merit pay. Thats a hoax. Or we need to have more privatization. We need to have kids go anywhere, take your voucher and go anywhere, go to an entrepreneur, someone who hangs out a shingle, go to a Church School that teaches kids on dvds. This is all nonsense. The child still cant read, still goes home and isnt sure whether there is a home or food on the table, so were ignoring the root problem. Right so, the same people voting for vouchers for school are also voting against s. N. A. P. Benefits so that you can actually eat. Diane ravitch, pedro, tremain, just scratching the surface on this. Up next, turning awareness into action. Why touching your breasts is not enough. Youve got to know more in october. Our foot soldier is next. Ive saved 75 in checked bag fees. [ delavane ] priority boarding is really important to us. You can just get on the plane and relax. [ julian ] having a card that doesnt charge you foreign transaction fees saves me a ton of money. [ delavane ] we can go to any country and spend money the way we would in the u. S. When i spend money on this card, i can see brazil in my future. [ anthony ] i use the explorer card to earn miles in order to go visit my family, which means a lot to me. Even when we cross our ts and dot our is, we still run into problems. Thats why Liberty Mutual insurance offers accident forgiveness if you qualify, and new car replacement standard with our auto policies. So call Liberty Mutual today. And if you switch, you could save up to 423. Liberty mutual insurance. Responsibility. Whats your policy . When ouwe got a subaru. S born, its where she said her first word. little girl no saw her first day of school. little girl bye bye made a best friend forever. The back seat of my subaru is where she grew up. What . announcer the twothousandfourteen subaru forester. girl what . announcer built to be there for your family. Love. Its what makes a subaru, a subaru. The white house gleemd bright pink on thursday in honor of national Breast Cancer awareness month. More than 25 years, october has been set aside to promote awareness and engage in National Dialogues about Breast Cancer prevention. But this weeks foot soldier has taken the fight against Breast Cancer from awareness to state legislative action. Despite regular doctors visits and mammograms, Addie Jeffrey was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in january of 2011. Three years after her tumor had first begun to develop. Addie learned that her dense breast tissue appeared white in her mammograms just like the tumor making it difficult for her doctors to detect the cancer. She told us before her diagnosis, she had no idea breast density, which is the high ratio of tissue to fat increases the risk for Breast Cancer. This is a condition that affects approximately 50 of women. In fact, mammograms, the recommended means of early Breast Cancer detection, miss one in five cases of Breast Cancer primarily because of high breast density. So during her five months of chemotherapy, addie joined forces with greensboro, North Carolinas commission on the status of women to draft legislation requiring doctors to tell women their level of breast density therefore equipping other women with knowledge that would have helped her detect her tumor many years earlier. She told us, i thought if there is something i could do to make a difference once i leave this word, i was going it was going to be that i was going to change to make it better for other women. Addies campaign for new legislation included visits to womens groups and speeches like this one delivered on the North Carolina house floor in february of 2013. According to american cancer society, this year, over 230,000 women will be diagnosed with Breast Cancer. And over 39,000 of us will die from the disease. I would like those in our audience to please stand and remain standing if you or a loved one has been affected with Breast Cancer. Finally, on july 23rd, governor mccrory signed North Carolinas health bill 467, the breast density notification and awareness bill. Now, the law now requires Health Care Providers to inform North Carolina women of the level of breast density identified in their mammograms. Addie jeffrey got a bill for Womens Health through the North Carolina legislature. A state house that has hid antireproductive rights measures in a bill for motorcycle safety. This bill was signed by governor mccrory who refused to meet with women protesting his refusal to stand up for Womens Health but brought them cookies instead, in a state where the odds didnt seem in favor of common sense, legislation for Womens Health, Addie Jeffrey did not give up and helped to give the women of North Carolina one of the few laws they can openly celebrate this year where they now wont just touch their breasts, they will know how dense their breast is. So for tirelessly working to empower women in her state with knowledge and to have knowledge that will protect them from Breast Cancer, addie jefferey is our foot soldier of the week. Thats our show for today. Thanks to you at home for watching. Ill see you tomorrow at 10 00 a. M. Eastern when Chris Matthews offer up tip and the gipper and host of hardball is going to be here to talk ted cruz, Ronald Reagan and the modern day gop. Now its time for a preview of weekends with alex witt. Can you hear me now . The latest twist in the nsa spying on some world leaders. How much damage might it do to u. S. Foreign policy . One country is sending people to the white house to talk it out. A crisis for some families by the end of the this week when money for the Food Stamp Program gets dramatically cut. The mother of a girl who committed suicide after being bullied has now filed a suit against any number of people. Well talk about her unusual approach. 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