we need some support local organizations on the ground serving these communities and making the most difference in our communities. organizations such as the local and regional urban league. the bank for the buck we get from investing in these groups is enormous. they have business models to allow them to succeed. finally, there has been a great deal of talk since the election on whether there is new life on the immigration issue. i believe there is. we are working hard to capitalize on the momentum the election provided on this issue. we have not heard a lot about how enacting comprehensive immigration reform can help on the job and economic issues. immigration reform will create an effective system that levels the playing field for all workers. right now, our immigration system does not work for anyone except unscrupulous employers. we need to take the power out of the hands of those who are exploiting our current immigration situation and put it back into the hands of fair and honest employers. if all immigrants have equal status, employers cannot skirt immigration laws. immigration reform is the right thing to do as well as economically smart thing to do. children should not have to live in the fear of their parents' deportation every day of their lives. and the most vulnerable people in our society should not be subject to harassment. i am truly appreciative of the support we have received from the urban league and other african-american leaders on this issue. i know there have been tensions in the past. i believe like reverend dr. martin luther king jr., when we have tensions we have to embrace them so we can come together. let's get a solution on this issue. when we come together, we can figure this out. i had the privilege of marching earlier this year in the annual march from selma, montgomery. it was an incredible feeling. there i was with congressman john lewis, someone who has an historic role from the original march and so many others. it was ethel kennedy. it was reverend al sharpton. there were hispanic leaders there, including myself. everyone came together. when we came over the bridge, i got a glimpse into what the might have been like in the past. i also got a glimpse of what the future looks like. it was powerful to me to know we could come this far after enduring so many challenges. and the fact we were there to get the fighting against voter suppression loss and anti- immigrant and anti-hispanic loss gives me great confidence that we can tackle many important issues we face today. you have a commitment from the national council of la raza to help figure the solutions out so we can keep the country stronger. thank you very much. [applause] >> at this time, we are going to start the panel discussion. it is my pleasure to introduce jonathan capehart to moderate the discussion. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. thank you all for coming. like mr. morial, i am not used to doing the good morning and waiting for the response back. i am jonathan capehart, opinion writer at the washington post. mark, janet and chanel have set the stage for discussion. you have heard from mark. next to market is joel packer, a noted authority on federal education policy. to his left is michael fauntroy, a professor of privilege -- public policy at george mason university. we have just heard from janet murguia from the national council of la raza. with that, mr. packer, the microphone is yours. >> thank you for having me on the panel. i appreciated and i am unearned to be with my colleagues here. a couple of things about the reagan group. -- raven group. it is a public relations firm. the majority of our clients are progressive, non-profit organizations. our firm is committed to enhancing the ideals of the broad range of the progress of community. personally, i do education policy. i work for the national education association and have worked with them for 25 years. i have been doing policy for 35 years. i would like to talk about some of the challenges we are facing. we are facing a lot of challenges. we will talk most about the challenges we face from the congress and a whole set of issues. i will start first about funding. one of the clients i represent is the committee for education funding, which is a coalition of 100 national education organizations. federal investment in education. we are facing loss of challenges. since the recession started, there has been a decline of 250,000 school district jobs. there are fewer teachers, counselors, bus drivers, and other staff. that means larger classes, cut backs in after-school programs. states are spending less money on a per pupil basis than they did four years ago because of budget downturns. state budgets are starting to recover, but many school districts are heavily dependent on property taxes. property values have far from the covered. assessments lag behind what is going on with property values. we can expect some continuing declines in local school funding. at the federal level, we have had about $1.50 billion in cuts to education programs. at the higher level from the federal government, there have been restrictions on eligibility for the pell grant program and restrictions on the student loan program. college students have contributed $4.50 billion out of their pockets toward deficit reduction. we have had things squeezing us at different levels. we are facing the biggest threat from what is called a sequester, the fiscal cliff. one part of the fiscal cliff arc across the board -- across the board -- are across-the-board spending cuts. they will be cutting housing and food safety and the entire range of domestic programs. for education, that will be head start, which is in the department of health and human services. there will be a $4.80 billion cut, the largest education cut in the history of the country. that will move us that courts whether the goal is -- move us backwards. our biggest challenge in the short-term is to work together with groups like the urban league and the national council of la raza to come up with a balanced approach to deficit reduction and ask people who can pay a little bit more to do so without balancing the budget on the backs of children and students and working people and low income people. a couple of quick things i want to say. we are also facing increasing enrollments. enrollments are expected to go up in the next decade at the elementary and secondary level. we have 22% of children in the united states living in poverty, the highest level in decades. it creates more challenges for schools. in terms of the policy front, congress is gridlock. the main educational law was supposed to be read authorized in 2007, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012. next year is not optimistic. the current law is outdated and is over 10 years old and needs a lot of changes. the program that the urban league put together in your packet is a great plan. the program talks about focusing on the whole child. there has been this rift within the education community between the education reform groups and the traditional education groups. it is a question of, and schools over, all of the barriers and obstacles from property and housing and other things or can we focus more broadly on the whole child? the answer is, we need to do both. we need to approve teacher quality and we need to focus on issues like housing and poverty and employment for students' families. at the higher level, lots of challenges due to state budget cuts. tuition has gone up faster than family income in the last several years. there will be a big shortfall in the pell grant program in the next fiscal year. that could further in up restricting eligibility. student loan interest rates are scheduled to double again in july. we have another big fight about that. the higher education act is up for reauthorization. in addition to maintaining the nation's commitment to pell grants and student loans, we need to do more for support programs for students. there are students who need counseling, tutoring, mentoring. programs like trio and gear up, that helps give students academic support, mentoring, and counseling they need to succeed, is another critical piece of the puzzle. we will talk more about these during the discussion. >> thank you. michael fauntroy? >> good morning. i will be speaking today from the perspective of an educated. i am a board member for the catholic scholarship endowment fund. we have given about $1.5 million in scholarships to washington, d.c. we have raised more than $2 million. my experiences on the board and my experiences at the universities, george mason university, where i teach graduate and undergraduate students in public policy, have led me to a number of conclusions that run counter to what is the traditional view of what the american dream is all about. as long as we can remember, a college education has been the ticket to a more comfortable life. while that reality still exists, it is competing with some alternatives that will hamper urban america and america generally. the cost of the ticket to actually get in and complete college represent a barrier that i believe will ultimately injured our economy. not only that, but a rapid change in technological revolutions has created a spatial mismatch between the kinds of jobs that are going to be available going forward and the kinds of people who are able to take those jobs. that problem is most acutely seen in urban communities, which have been coming to your point, dealing with more basic concerns more so than trying to prepare and get ready and respond to changes in going forward. that is for those who are actually going to college and graduated. we have not even talked about those who are not. our young people are following what is going on. they are seen with their older friends are dealing with an understandably wonder about their prospects. we have to play -- pay close attention to that. i am a high art educator and i teach in a public university system. in the state where i teach, virginia, you see a number of state legislative budget cuts for colleges and universities throughout the commonwealth. a virginia is one of 8 states that have cut at least 30% in their funding over the past decade or so. to public institutions. public institutions on the backbone of american higher education. public institutions are being cut and that is more evidence that we have a significant problem going forward. when we talk about cuts in public education, we should think about the flagship institutions. there are a number of other institutions below the flag ship level that are impacted. i am a graduate of historically black colleges and universities. i understand that these hbcus have been a prime socializes for middle-class african-americans. if we see fewer people going into the doors and fewer people coming out with degrees, that is something we need to be concerned about. the particular worry that i have is one of gender imbalance at hbcu's. at hbcurity of coed's ofhave a male enrollment 35%. think of what that means socially for those students. i just want to make those two final points, one tactical and 1 policy. the tactical point i would like to make is we have to do a better job of successfully mastering the language of policy. we have heard on of these discussions about the hyper- scientific way the obama campaign was able to target people annualize language to motivate them to the polls. we also know there have been marketing changes in the way some policy issues have been approached. i want to make a call to always talk about these issues as investments and not just more spending. as marc morial noted earlier, people say "urban," but they mean something else. we cannot have these concerns that are legitimate and worthy pushed aside because some people want to play games with words. let's call it investment -- infrastructure, education and so forth. janet talked about the fiscal cliff. we are in the midst of a wide range of discussions about what the economy is going to look like going forward and what kind of changes need to be made. i want to call for an elimination to the ceiling for tax deductions on student loans. as you know, there is a limit on what one person can earn and still deduct the interest on their student loan payments. let's reward people who have taken the time to invest in themselves and say, once you have a vested up to a certain number, you can no longer give that deduction. going to glad to school and medical school is more expensive and we need to encourage people to take on graduate school and not use money as a barrier to keep them out. i will close if there. thank you. >> i may have to talk to you about that. that is an interesting idea you had at the end. >> i look forward to hearing about it today on msnbc. >> let's not push it. >> we go to these things all the time where education is important and children all -- children are our future, yet every time there is a budget crunch, education always gets the ax. can you explain why this is so important? these are investments. there is no argument about that. if these are such critical investments, why is education always getting cut at the federal, state, and local levels? >> part of the reason is politics. the mathematicians sees the world in numbers and ankles. lawyers see the world in justice and contracts. i am a political science at decatur and i see the world in politics. those -- educator and i see the world in politics. the people who benefit most from public education are not necessarily the people in the room passing the votes on where the money goes. for me, that is where the money -- that is where it starts. you can build up from there to a number of issues that may be a part of it all. when you look at congress in particular and look at the people making those decisions, i do not think they have education as a priority. i think they have other priorities. >> there are different reasons for the state and federal level. at the state level, education is a large part of every state's the second largest part of every state's budget. the states have had large contractions when it comes to walling off k-12 education. a lot of legislatures look at higher education and say we can cut funding and they can make up the difference. it is shortsighted because it is squeezing out access. at the federal level, our problem is everybody you talk to in congress with the exception of the tea party types will say, i am a big supporter of education. the problem is education is part of the pot of money that is called non-defense discretionary. it has become the easiest part to cut because they can say hills with cutting that money, but they do not have to identify what is being -- they can say, we will cut that money, but they do not have to live in the phi what is being cut. -- identify what is being cut. the small of the pot gets, the less likely it is to get an increase. i agree. we are talking about children and money targeted to hide poverty areas. those are the voices that do not have as much political power as other voices on what happens in congress. >> our hope is that with these demographic change we are seeing out there that the broader population will understand that this really is about investment. it is not about spending any more. when you have a 20% gap in educational attainment between white and 9-white kids, which is bad enough -- non-white kids, which is bad enough -- imagine in 10 years when the non-white kids are going to be 40%. i think there is more and more a link in the thinking between what is happening today and what happens tomorrow. in the past, i am not sure we saw a crisis around the low educational attainment levels that were happening with the current student population and with that potentially means for us in the future. you have to expect that as people are looking at the future work force and what skills we are going to need to be competitive and to support the various entitlement programs that are out there, you need a workforce that is able to be engaged and globally competitive. if we are not able to close that gap, this affects not just the hispanic and african-american communities, it affects the country. we have to do a better job of communicating with the impact of those investments today will mean tomorrow. >> as you have all mentioned, there is the fiscal cliff that is coming. we have sequestration. on top of that, somewhere in a big white building with a dome on it, they have to deal with the growing debt. at some point, folks will have to tighten their belts. let's pretend this is our own fiscal cliff negotiating session. which three programs that can possibly be cut absolutely must be walled off from being cut if these investments are to be maintained and not hurt the country in the future. dr. fauntroy. >> i will put it in this context. the entire budget of the u.s. department of education is less than 2% of the entire budget. will have no impact on the federal budget. you can eliminate the entire u.s. department of education budget and it will not have any impact. it is shortsighted and it will harm us in the long term. the higher levels of education people have, the more they are earning on average and the more they are paid in taxes and the less likely they are to be unemployed and getting food stamps and other social services. it helps not just people as people, but it helps the economy, the government, and competitiveness. we have already had in the last 8 years that congress has them -- eliminate funding for some programs. they eliminated the low hanging fruit. the programs left our funding for kids with disabilities, funding for high poverty schools, funding for paying for college. those are important things. as opposed to cutting any of them, we should be looking at people who can pay a little bit more and ask them to do so. we should not balance the budget on the backs of children. >> i was trying to figure out a way to avoid the question. i got the answer. i just want to cosign everything he said. i really do want to underscore this notion in context. there has been a false equivalency created in our budget discussions that makes the case that everything should be up for cutting. there is more fat on some programs than there are on others. your point with regard to education funding is absolutely on point. also with regard to public education, k-12, we are talking about state funding. we are not even talking of federal involvement. >> i know there are different layers to this budget discussion. let's assume everything is on the table and certain programs are protected. i would just say that when you look at the poverty rate and you talk about communities of color, you are talking about, if we can deal with the poverty rate, we can get a handle on how we can lift folks up. the safety net for those in poverty is medicaid. the most vulnerable in our society rely on it, including our children. we need to make sure there is a fire wall around medicaid. i would argue that is on the cut side. on the tax side, i would say it would be foolish as we are looking at tax reform to eliminate the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit, the low income tax credit. those provide incentives and opportunities for folks who are working to be able to continue to work. it is just enough of a difference to keep them in the working-class. i think we have to look at programs like education and training programs. when the rubber meets the road, there are court said jeannette programs that protect the most vulnerable and the poor, -- core programs to protect the most vulnerable and the point. there are programs that provide a common sense rationale for keeping people working and out of poverty. i would argue that those are essential core elements of any deal that goes forward. >> my newsman hat just popped off. when you say there should be a fire wall against medicaid, does that mean that in the negotiations over the grand bargain last year between the president and the speaker, the president apparently put entitlement programs on the table. by saying that medicaid should be firewalled, would you not support any kind of adjustment, trim, cut to medicaid as part of a bigger deal? >> i was fortunate enough to be in a meeting with the president on friday. we talked about the fiscal cliff issue and we talked about this issue. right now, it is important for us to work off of a set of principles. nobody wants to lock themselves in. you have to have some flexibility. it is a deal. it is not a mandate to dictate and outcome. i would say that as long as the principal of a deal is to protect the most vulnerable and to protect the poor -- principles of the deal are to protect the most vulnerable and the most poor, there is no reason why they could not come to a deal on not raising taxes on the 98% of folks for whom we know the tax cuts will expire. why not protect those people right now? i think these deals are about timing and the flexibility you have on the margins. it does not make sense for any of us to weigh in with absolutes. you ask me what program would be an essential program and i would say to you medicaid. i will tell you the president would agree. i will not say he will not touch it, but he understands fundamentally how important that program is to the most vulnerable in this country. >> a real quick point. there is a portion of medicaid funding that goes directly to schools for providing certain services for low-income children with disabilities. in addition to helping low- income kids, some medicaid money goes directly to schools to provide services for students with disabilities. >> when we have this discussion about education funding and potential cuts and deficits and things, particularly the conversation we are having right now, it is my assumption that we are talking about democrats and progressive on the side of good and republicans and conservatives on the side of not so good. who are the champions within the gop on the hill or out in your spheres who are your allies, or who are the ones you can call on to say, help? are there any? >> everybody is being careful because this deal is being negotiated at the higher level. he did not have rank-and-file members cutting this deal. they are relying on their leadership. there is a lot of pressure on speaker boehner to balance a polarized caucus that he has within his ranks and tried to figure out how we can cut the best deal calls -- try to figure out how he can cut the best deal possible. the president was to protect the interests of the working families and the poor. they both have a lot of pressure on them. i do not know there are others other than the leaders at the top who are critically important. all of the folks over there are trying to find the right balance in cutting the best deal possible. i think john boehner is the one who has the weight of the world on his shoulders in terms of trying to navigate a deal that, at the end of the date -- the day will not be a bad deal. not everybody will be happy with the deal. that is what dealmaking is about. we have to hope that it is the best deal possible for us. >> i would just add in terms of republicans, funding for education is caught up again in the bigger issue of the non- discretionary spending. i could be talking of how much money title one and pell grant program should get. our number one goal is to get rid of sequestration. there are republicans who are a bit champions of funding for special education for children with disabilities. it has been part of the more bipartisan progress. there is a program called impact aid, she does not help -- which does not help lower income people that much. many believe that lower education is a waste of money and we should get rid of it. we are fighting that group of members. >> we are actually hopeful for a deal. the president in his jobs bill called for funding for 100,000 new teachers. he called for money to renovate and modernize school buildings. there are actually some opportunities to get targeted increased investments. >> what do you say to the tea party folks who say, eliminate the department of education? why must there be a federal department of education? >> the reason there is federal funding for education is that case 12, most federal funding is targeted to -- k-12 has most funding targeted to students in poverty, students with disabilities, english language learners. those are areas where states have not done a great job. the reason the federal government got involved is because those students for not being well served in our public school system in a lot of cases. the federal focus on the equity agenda and the social justice agenda for education is the right focus. higher education is different. 75% of all student financial aid dollars -- if they were eliminated, the college education rate would plummet. do you want to get rid of pell grants, not really. it has become ideological race and they do not know what they need. >> i want to add this broader frame. education is an economic development issue. it is a jobs issue. it is an economic competitiveness issue. to me, that trump's ideology -- trumps ideology. whether we are going to have an educated workforce to compete should trump ideology, which is trapped in the last century. you could argue, perhaps, that parts of the 20th-century saw that getting some education -- there were many pathways to plants. we have to create a harder line -- link between business and economic growth and education. if the federal government and the president and the congress have responsibility for the economy of the nation, they have to play a role in setting educational policy for the nation, too. we have to lift the compensation to a different kind of level in the 21st century. when you talk about it in those terms, you get a lot of support from business leadership. when you talk about it in those terms, you get a lot of support from people who may say, my kid is in a good school and they are doing ok. why should i be concerned about the rest? we have to elevate the conversation. the final point i would make is, i think we have to push back against hard ideology, not principled solutions, not people giving up what they believe in, but hard-core ideology. the thought of the federal government not being in education has not been supported by a single republican candidates for president in the 21st century. both bush, mccain, and romney -- none of them took the position. that says that if those in the tea party and the far right have not been infiltrated the mainstream thinking in the republican party. >> that goes back to what dr. fauntroy talked about in his opening remarks and talking about education as an investment. >> i want to pick up on the point regarding speaker boehner. he may be the most important person in all of these conversations. the house needs to get to 218. we talk about these broad bipartisan approaches. the reality is, they need to get to 218. we went through it with the affordable care act. it is numbers. it is math. we know that going back almost 20 years when newt gingrich became speaker, the house has generally run like this. no bill that cannot get a majority of the majority will cede the floor of the house. -- see the floor of the house. if they decide she has a critical mass in his caucus to put a bill in place that will settle this stuff and get us to move onto other issues, we will get a bill pretty quickly. he does not mean 100 republicans to get a deal. the question for me is, what does he have to do to give up -- what does he have to give up to get to 6170 to make it look like a bipartisan deal? -- 60 or 70 to make him look like a bipartisan deal? >> speaker boehner does not need 100 republicans to get a deal. as we start with the debt ceiling fight, he might be able to get the deal done with democratic votes. he also might lose his efficient because of it. you are mr. politics. do you think he is willing to put his speakership up for being torpedoed to make a grand bargain? >> his speakership is in trouble anyway. if he is going to lose it, he might as well lose its for something that is good for the country. we just got through the bite -- got through the redistricting process. for the remainder of this decade at least, it would not be a surprise if the republicans maintained control going forward. i think he has some space to move that he has not yet publicly acknowledged he has. he does not have to acknowledge it publicly. he just has to do the right thing. >> i have fast so many questions that we are running out of time for questions and answers -- i have asked so many questions that we are running out of time for questions and answers. the c-span audience can ask questions on twitter by easing the hashtag uban ideas. last question is and where is the microphone? come on. you cannot be that shy. we have a question over here. i pray that your questions are short and that they are questions. >> i am a member of the urban league. one of my question is, the best questions is, before 1954, there were 82,000 black educators educating 2 million 2 million black students. since brown versus board of education -- educators educating 2 million black students. we are moving economically and educationally. what aggressive plans do you have to self actualize that as a do it organization? >> where is my brochure? [laughter] >> do not read from the entire thing. >> it is right here. i will certainly mentioned that the idea of teachers and educators, the idea of education and work force leading to jobs is central to our thinking. our thinking is integrated. it is about the entire child. the reality check we have today is of the fiscal challenges that the nation faces means that the reality is there is not going to be a lot more resources. that is the hardest thing for me to grass. we have to be -- me to grasp. we have to be principled in say across-the-board cuts are not good cuts. there has to be invested in children and building the infrastructure of the nation. helping be locked out in the left out fine job training opportunities. they are the higher priority than other priorities. i do not know whether you all got into the defense budget. >> we did not even get there. here is what no one wants to talk about. the defense budget is at about $800 billion a year. commitment totes' a military budget is greater than the military budgets of the next 10 highest military spending nations combined. those 10 nations together spent about $450 billion th. here is the trick. our money is heavily invested in sophisticated military hardware. very sophisticated pieces of equipment which, truthfully, impact our domestic economy. the truth of the latter is the discussion of our budget, having put many budgets together, is not a discussion just about money. it is a discussion about priorities and balance. when you talk about where the deal is to be made, the sequester includes deep cuts in the military. many on the right and many in communities where there are large military contractors that employ a lot of people will bargain to avoid those military cuts. what we have to say as a nation is, it is important that we prioritize education, infrastructure right along side of trying to have security from having a strong military. we have to realize that we have to talk about the military budget in a way where we say, it is possible to have a safe and secure nation and not necessarily have to spend more than the tent next largest military spending nations -- next 10 largest military nations combined. we cannot get to where we need to go unless military and tax expenditures are on the table. everyone says you need to put entitlements on the table. i do not hear many leaders say, when you talk about all on the table, entitlements, domestic spending, military spending, tax expenditures -- those are the components of the nation's budget. i say that to say that to get to where you and i. and we think our priorities are, we have to talk about the -- you and i think our priorities are, we have to talk about the budget cuts. >> you mentioned that your number one issue is jobs. the president sent to the american jobs at to congress about a year-and-a-half ago, which calls for it for shelter investments and teacher and firefighter hiring. >> education plan, jobs plan. i would like to see the present reintroduce the american jobs at. it could be updated. i also believe we need to think about what a comprehensive the infrastructure program looks like pretty niece to go beyond transportation infrastructure. in the suit include parks, playgrounds, community facilities, education facilities. we need to build the nation. when they built row over 1000 years ago, many of those buildings are -- built rome over 1000 years ago, many of those buildings are still standing today. eisenhower began the building of the interstate highway system. i do not think we have one person in the nation who would say, the in a state highway system was a huge mistake. we should have never built it. it is a waste of money. maybe it may have promoted some carbonization that we may not like. overall, it strengthens the nation. we need another jobs initiative. if we get the fiscal discussions behind us, we can talk broadly about jobs. the other thing we have to be able to talk about is the issue of income inequality, the wealth gap. for african-americans and latinos, the recession hit us hard. we lost a lot of job -- a lot of ground in jobs and housing. the notion is 1/3 communities of color. as -- the nation is 1/3 communities of color. we have to talk about the interdependence. we have to educate people about the interdependence. when we talk about lifting up, investing in, creating jobs in communities of color, it will benefit the entire country. that is an important part of how we think, how we message, how we talk about these things, particularly here in the nation 's capital. >> in addition to what mark has laid out and what the president talked about, and infrastructure is key. one of the elements of the president's plan has been the partnership between community colleges and community-based organizations to target regionally what are the jobs that need to be filled in that region? what are the lack of skill sets or training? we need to come together to fill those jobs. we are seen as a result of the foreclosure crisis that there has been a lot of housing that has gone unattended to and that needs to be rehabbed. that is another opportunity as we put people back into those homes. there are a lot of opportunities and many of those are programs that the nclr has been working on. we can take back our neighborhoods. many of these have been affected by the lights of the foreclosure crisis. there are opportunities -- by the blight of the foreclosure crisis. >> my jobs bill would also include doubling down on green technology, particularly solar. as we know from super storm sandy, there were people out of power for weeks and weeks. that is a way to help people deal with an increase in the friday and ferocity of storms that will damage our -- the variety and ferocity of stores that will damage our communities on the eastern seaboard. we need to be prepared to deal with that. >> i just want to go back when quickset into what this gentleman raised. to increase the number of minorities in teaching, we have to lift of the teaching profession. we have to make teaching something people value and one to go into. there is criticism about unions and a lot of low morale among the teaching profession. we need to do more to encourage young people and people in inner cities to go into teaching. teach for america is not a long- term solution. it is free people from the outside into inner-city. we need to get people in the inner cities to go into teaching and serve their own communities. we need to do a lot more training around cult throw competency -- cultural compotencies around teachers. there was a criticism of the demographics of the teachers and the student body. >> the teach for america thing is so transient. the minority population of students are going at higher numbers. it was a 35% at to thousands -- it was a 35% in 2000. now is that 50 -- it is at 45%. half a are only educating for two years and they are out. they do not look like a black educators. they do not look like a latino educator. >> to their credit, teach for america is trying to get ideas on how they can do more to diversify their core. even within the current system, we need a new teacher core. what concerns me is the lack of cultural competency, the lack of linguistic competency whether asian-american or hispanic. there is a huge need to support our teachers and principals who are dealing with the english language lerner students. they are part of that slim body. we need to make sure they are being integrated into the -- they are part of that student body. we need to make sure they are integrated into the mainstream. if we are not putting extra investment into some writing -- investing into providing that support to teachers, that section of our kids is going to be left behind. that is happening when we need that cohort to be attaining higher levels of success in education. >> with that, we are out of time. my apologies. thank you marc morial, joel packer, janet murguia. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> a discussion on school choice and education policies. >> what if the soviet union analysis tomorrow that if we attack cuba is going to be a war? >> this thing is such a serious thing here on our ranks. we are going to be done easily. we know what is happening now. something may make him shoot them off. i want to keep my own people very alert. >> it is amazing that eisenhower tells him to have his people alert. everyone is completely on edge. of course they are alert. kennedy laughed. then he says, hang on tight. it is a nice moment that on this tense today they are able to joke a little with each other. they had a sense of call lonely it is to occupy that office. you are getting all kinds of advice. you are getting good advice and a lot of faulty advice. eisenhower knew all about faulty military advice. he was able to speak with his supreme authority about the dangers as well as the advantages of military advice. he was a useful ally to president kennedy. >> "listening in," the secret white house recordings. ."night on c-span's "q & a >> at first too, that the best efforts to combat cyber security threats. threats.