groups. good for the bureaucrats, unions and politicians. why do they want to change? they want more money, i get that. you hear that all the time. smaller classrooms, more money. we have to spend more on our children. the most troubling statistic from 1983 when our nation pronounced it was at risk in education. to 2010, in that timeframe we doubled our expenditure. i think it is clear we are more at risk today. money isn t going to buy us out of this paul. paul: 8 1/2 years is a long time to spend knocking your head against the wall. did you think that you succeeded in moving the schools in the right direction or do you think we need more radical change? answer is yes and yes. we did succeed and we need more radical change. when we started for a decade the graduation rate was flat, for the 8 1/2 years we took it up 20 points over that
timeframe. having said that it is clear too many graduate high school who are not prepared for college. too many kids don t graduate high school. in the 21st century kids who don t graduate high school. what is their plan b? paul: one of your strategies for reform was charter schools in clusters particularly in harlem. you had some success there. you get a community that looks at it and all schools get lifted up. but the critique of charters is they never anywhere have again up to scale. this kind of scale you need even though some individual schools are very successful, you need scale if you are going to reform the whole system. how respond? screw are right. i think harlem is as close to you are right. i think harlem is as close to scale and louisiana now. in new orleans you have a choice system. in harlem today 40% of the kids who start school go to charter schools. that s why you got the
using school kids as political pawns. they ve had to cancel several days of school. so much for the for the teachers caring more about education than their own pensions. paul: teachers unions are helping to bankrupt the states? my next guest says they are keeping fuss from fixing our broken schools. when we come back joel klein takes on a system he says works well for the adults, but not the kids. no pie today, ted? no, no, i just paid my car insurance bill ouch. [ man whistles ] sounds like somebody paid too much. excuse me? i use progressive s ne your price tool. they showed me a range of coverages, and i picked the one that worked for me i saved hundreds when switchi. hundreds? who are you? just a man that loves savings. and pie. t there with a better way. now, that s progressive.
a lot of political push-back. the powers that be in k-12 education had this working the way they liked it. more money each year. lower class sizes, more raises, lifetime job security, pensions for life. and why would you want to change that? paul: i talked to a prominent republican republican who may run for president. he said we can t wait long new to have this system change. we ve got to blow up this system. with a multiplicity of options, vouchers, home schooling, online education, new kinds of schools? i m a democrat, this is bipartisan we are looking at a time when our country is massively uneducating our children. and 21st century won t be forgiving, not just china, but throughout the world people
understand the demands on our workforce are different. the manufacturing base is largely gone. the agriculture base is gone in 1950, 60% of america s workforce were high school graduates. today about 6%. paul: what is the technological answer? create come t the kind of thing you and you are talking about. people have to earn their client base the kids that go to those schools, they will compete that school on the westside for all the noise you are hearing watch when the parents line-up, then the ones who don t get in they are going to want a second, third and fourth. once that happens that school on the westside will have to compete, innovate. technology could do a lot in school systems that adults now do. because it is a monopoly operated system the adults don t want to change the way they do business. the incentive to innovate is not there.