are giving children a chance. children that otherwise could be locked in failing schools. i was inspired a few weeks ago by students in a charter school in philadelphia. right here in houston, there s a remarkable story, the knowledge is power program thanks to groundbreaking work of the late harriet ball. these charter schools are doing a lot more than closing the achievement gap. they are bringing hope and real opportunity to places where for years there has been none. charter schools are so successful that almost every politician can find something good to say about them. as we saw in massachusetts, true reform requires much more of the talk. as governor, i vetoed the bill blocking charter schools. but my legislature was 87% democrat and my veto could have been easily over written. so i joined with the black legislati legislative caucus and their votes help preserved my veto, which meant that new charter schools, including some in urban neighborhoods, would be opened. [ ap
republicans are creating a sense of deja vu all over again on the floor by staging a repeat of the health care reform. we on this side of the aisle care about the health care of the american people. that s why we re here. that s why i brought this bill forward, along with and on behalf of my colleagues. welcome to groundhog day in the house of representatives. as a physician, one of the tenets of medicine is first, do no harm. sadly, the president s law does real harm. we are joined now by one of the republicans who backed that vote today, congressman, thank you for being here. i have all the respect in the world for your party having the right to oppose this law, overturn this law or take whatever steps you want to on that front. but everyone today knew this was a show vote. why do you take part in such a thing? in the aftermath of the supreme court ruling where it s very clear this is a massive tax hike that s going to hit every part of the american economy, 21 ne
coined by the critics. that was a loaded statement. and the crowd erupted in displeasure. they booed. people booed here. they absolutely booed. reporter: the romney campaign said the reaction came as no surprise. consider the latest gallup survey shows the gop contender trailing president obama by an 87% to 5% margins. romney brought his own numbers. the african-american unemployment rate at 14%, it s well above the national rate. but when he made the case that he s the right candidate to fix that, he was booed again. if you want a president who will make things better in the african-american community, you are looking at him. you take a look. reporter: romney did hear cheers when he hinted at his opposition to gay marriage. i will defend traditional marriage. [ applause ] reporter: the outburst did not sit well with everyone in the audience. some naacp members defended their booing. he literally came into our house and attacked the issues that are important
office, our state s leaders had come together to pass bipartisan measures that were making a difference. in reading and math, our student were in the top. that reveals what good teachers will do if the system will let them. the problem was, this success wasn t shared. a significant achievement gap between students of different races remain. so we set out to do our best to close it. i urge faster interventions and promote science and excellence skills in schools and propose paying bonuses to our best teachers. i refuse to weaken testing standards and instead raise them. students now many massachusetts have to pass an exam in math and english and i added a science requirement as well. i put in place a merit scholarship for all those students who excelled the top 25% of students in each high school in massachusetts were awarded a john and abigail scholarship, four years of learning. and not only did our test scores improve, we also narrowed the achievement gap. they were not hap
good evening. i m tom foreman filling in for erin burnett. outfront tonight, fiddling in washington while bankruptcy burns across the nation. san bernardino, california, is the latest american town unable to pay its bills. the math is $46 million in debt. they ve made drastic cuts in employees and services. and the city has only $150,000 in the bank. that s it. residents are coming unhinged saying, why wasn t this calamity headed off at the pass? what about two years ago when they took $10 million from the employees? what were they doing then? now the city is forced basically to file bankruptcy because they have this tremendous amount of debt over their head. in the last 14 days, two other towns near los angeles have gone into bankruptcy. other places across the country have done the same or tried to in idaho, alabama, pennsylvania, rhode island, dozens of other local and state governments have made dramatic cuts just to try to stay solvent while they wait for the econo