resolution so the government does not close down and there is a rise in the debt ceiling. both these will be passed with all democrats and many republicans so there is no problem here. this is the personal fear. this is john banner -- boehner, bec cantor, they might rooted out of their leadership positions if they allow these votes. doesn't there come supposedhere that is to rule? talk about the profiles in cowardice that we're seeing from the republican leadership. are talking about boehner but talk to me about what this says about the kind of leadership we do have or do not have in washington on all of these issues. do degreesthere are and degrees. we do not expect to have saints in the u.s. congress. we do not expect our politicians to completely ignore personal ambition. i actually would say that everything we have seen up to this point has been within the range of normal human behavior. we want another abraham lincoln. we want another fdr but it s not is not shocking that we do not have it. politicale of the parties that is having a nervous breakdown. it has reached a point where a sufficient number of republicans are completely off the edge. hey are not able to function as a partner in running the country and we do not know how to do with that. if this is the case, he is doing a good acting job. it seems to the casual observer that the republicans are not observed -- observant about the price. that has not been informative enough or instructive enough for them not to lay this card again. help me understand what they are not afraid of. >> i think the thing to say, we , it is a peculiar thing. just because of the accident of the way our districts are drawn. republicans do not need a to have af voters majority of the house. in fact, they got fewer votes than democrats. 1.5 fewer votes than democrats in 2012 and still have a fairly solid house majority. that means that even if the public disapproves of what they do, there is a good chance they hang on to that majority. as a party they are not that afraid. a lot of their members are in very safe republican district where their biggest fear is that the tea party challenger will boot them out in the primaries so from the personal point of -- they have no incentive to be reasonable here. it does hurt the party, i mean if they act out, if we go through this whole thing, that measurably reduces the chances of republicans taking the white house in 2012 -- 2016. they did not to the relief of many. -- as some people have been saying, this is a classic problem like pollution or something. each individual republican in congress has incentive to pollute his own party bus future because it is personally profitable for him to do so. >> you have hit the nail on the head where i am concerned that i ve read -- raised this issue time and again. the culprit here is gerrymandering and redistricting. to my mind at least, you know something i do not know, you know a whole lot that i do not know. that is what you are a nobel laureate. here is the tragedy. the term redistricting and theymandering shuts down sequestration. he cannot have a real conversation about redistricting and the state legislators control this. so much of this, this brinkmanship and hostage holding on any number of issues beyond the ones we're talking about has to do with gerrymandering and redistricting. how do we get traction on a conversation about that? ,> if democrats win the enough one way to say this is that national elections are not the only ones that matter. if they retake statehouses and legislatures they can move to redress some of this. i have to say, gerrymaering is a pretty big thing but a lot of it is also just the accident of geography. african-american voters tend to be highly concentrated in certain districts, boat very democratic which means there is a bunchf districts that have got typically 70%, 80% democratic votes and unfortunately, if you want some sort of real representation in the united states, that leaves a lot of or 60%ts which are 55% republican which means that the republicans have a majority, even aside from gerrymandering. the republicans have a majority even if they lose the popular vote as they did last year. this is -- i think the only way this changes is either that there is a real wave of revolt evulsion that causes them to lose despite the distortion in the system. we are counting on big business to pound some sense into their heads. s stories about how this has a non-disastrous ending is wall street. saying what the hell are you guys doing and if you want any money from us, you had better stop doing this. it is a terrible thing when we are counting on the rationality of plutocrats to save us from the craziness of politicians. tavis: amigo to the other end of the spectrum. this is this increasing war on the poor in our country. years ago as you noted a number column, we hadr a war on haverty. that war on poverty has turned into a war on the poor. let me close with an economics question for an economics professor. what is the financial impact am what is the fallout going to be of this governmen shuts down and stays shut down for any significant amount of time on the american people? >> it is not good. people -- people look at the 1990 five or 1996 shut down. it did not seem to do a lot of harm. one thing about that is we had a booming economy right then. we were in the middle of that great clinton era expansion. business expansion and keepinggy where -- were the economy strong. which is what happens when you shut most of the government down is exactly the worst thing and there is this bit about the debt ceiling which is real unknown territory. we have never defaulted on our debt and the united states -- the u.s. government debt is the bedrock on which the whole world financial system is based and if that suddenly becomes viewed as dubious pieces of paper, god knows. -- this is much scarier than anything we have seen. far scary than 2011 and scarier than 1995-1996. it is very interesting times, which is not a good thing. is must readuff copy for many of us from the "new york times." paul krugman, always good to have you on the program and thanks for your insights. >> thanks for having me on. tavis: film director and now author m. night shyamalan. stay with us. is best knownalan for scaring movie audiences with supernatural storylines and films like "the sixth sense" and "the village." he spent five years researching this. he has now put what he has learned in a new tome called "i not onlyled," which identifies what is causing schools to fail but offers a roadmap for positive change. thank you for being on this program. we were talking about how if there is but one thing in our society where going to get right, this is the thing you want to get right. and yet there is so many ideas that people have offered in the past. into the fray comes of ill maker. how do you think that will be received before we get into the text itself? >> i hope with great cynicism. there.ould start right what? and rightfully so. my hope was in the book that i was not giving my opinion at all. what i did was go around and research and me with all the experts around the country and spent my time and resources from our foundation to put on the table all the information. all i wanted to do was put all the information in one place that the experts had proven to see if it made a picture and it did. it was the answer i wanted five years ago. what has been supported in research about what closes the achievement gap, is there enough there in the research and the proven data from all the people around the world that have done this and our country especially. it was a beautiful mosaic of everyone's expertise and hard work. >> we all know you as a filmmaker, of course. tavis: this project becomes your burden, a matter of the heart by your scouting for a film. tell the story of how you came to this. >> i would not describe myself as a do-gooder. that is more my wife. guy who hasessed been writing and making movies since i was a little kid. sometimes it becomes personal and it did. we were on location scouting for a movie called "the happening." we were checking out her location, at this beautiful high school and we had walked in and the kids were rushing over. movie, "can i a die in your movie?" was wonderful. we got in the van and drove four minutes. hardly a distance and we got to a school where there was metal detectors and there was a guard that did not want to be there. you could tell and we were treated like terminals as we walked in. the kids were walking through the hallways with their heads down. one kid looked at me and like a lot of people know me. the kid looked at me and he was there were some recognition and he shook his head and kept going. he kept on walking. in the other school anything was possible. the classrooms in the second school was locked behind bars and the janitor had to go get keys to open each and every door. the top floor had been shut down because there was so much drug use. the theater had been burned down and it was hopeless. i got upset being there and i got upset for the kids and i remember seeinthat same kid who stopped and looked at me as we were driving home. i saw him in his neighborhood and he was looking in the trunk of his car and looking around. it was not a good vibe. i was feeling personally responsible for those kids. like that. are they doing things differently and is that about income, what is the difference there? and when i started asking experts, what do you think, what works and what does not, they would give a different lesson. do not want opinion. what is real? what is real? it comes from my background. my family is all doctors. evidence-eld is an based field. you cannot say, i think this is the right way to work on heart surgery. it has all been proven. i wondered why we were not approaching it that way. how do they prove anything or is contradictory? thingsthere are five that you argue have to be done to get this education reform on the road. one of the five is that we have got to stop road blocking teachers. tell me more. back? i go one step certainly you can. you are the director. i am the host. what happened was i was and theat all the data research and it was contradictory findings and that is where everyone gets stuck. thisld see research about one said classroom size has a big effect. this one says it does not have a big effect. this is going to end up with me getting nowhere and i will end up feeling lost in the subject. the breakthrough happened when wasriend who is a physician telling me what he teaches his residence at the university of pennsylvania. he teaches them something basic. the body is a system. if you teacher patients this simple truth like mom and dad, if they do these five simple things, have a balanced diet, workout three times a week, do not smoke, have a relatively low stress work and mental and vermin, your choice -- chances of getting all diseases drops so dramatically that the body wants to be healthy. it went click and i went this is what i need to be looking for in research. a group of things when done together. done together. >> that is why you dropped down on a treadmill when you're still smoking. he told the residence if you do not do one of those things your chances will go back to the norm. i started looking at the research that way. can you categorize these things together and this group of practices startedo me research, proven things done together. i checked it against schools in the country's closing the achievement gap and they were doing all of those things. tavis: there are a lot of folk in the country who blame the teachers unions, it is the teachers'fault we are in this mess. >> let me tell you what the research supports. system thatreate a works for almost all the teachers to succeed. that is a scalable system. that it is just the michael jordan teachers. that is not scalable. that is the premise. from the research, it does not say that the number one thing that you need to do is get rid of the very bottom teachers. you do need to get rid of them. that is one of the five things that you need to do which i call the roadblock teachers. that is not -- everyone is focused in on that. that is one of the things treat you have to do it together. our primary thing is making sure that 97% of the teachers working kansas it -- can succeed in closing the gaps. i am not against the unions. there is no research that one of the cool things about the research said you cannot fire a teacher for two three years. everyone hurts their class in the first three years. everyone. even the michael jordan teachers do not do much in the first year. it is after three years that you can evaluate the teacher so that was a fascinating thing. classroom raised size. most of us with half a brain understand. a small classroom size does make a difference. >> actually, no. that is the reverse. that was my feeling was just yours). it has to, right? that is intuitive. such a strong is thing for pop politicians to do the voters really believe it. this is what the research supports. the research says that classroom it hashen you reduce almost no impact. if you'd reduce it dramatically in the early years it has some impact but not actually enough to close the gap and it costs so much money and put so much burden that the researchers said that is not one of the things i would do to close the gap. if you wanted to close the gap. if you want to put it on the health model, it is like having a t. to havingbeen proving ten a longer life. it is not what will close the achievement gap. there is this triage you need to do and there is these major things to do that haves -- that has impacts. making classrooms smaller is a small effect. it is not hard -- part of the five tenets. if the teacher cannot impact?nd, what is the everyone gets emotional because it is about kids, i guess. read this books ould know this. if there was a choice between a teacher with 30 kids in their class that is a great teacher or mediocre teacher with 19 kids and their class, it is a no-brainer. your kid is the 31st two than that class. proven that your kid will achieve much more gain by betterith the teacher than being in the classroom -- smaller classroom. your appetite has been sufficiently whetted to get this. " by "new yorkd .ime m. night shyamalan good to have you here. thanks for watching and as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with newia stefan about her cd. that is next time. we will see you then. ♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs. >> funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by the mattson mchale foundation, in support of public television. also by mfi foundation, i improving the quality of life within our community and from the texas board of legal specialization, board certified attorneys in your community, experienced, respected and tested. also, by hilco partners, texas government affairs consultancy and its global health care consulting business unit, hilco health. and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation. and viewers like you. thank you. >> i am evan smith, she's an emmy nominated character actress and oscar nominated song writer with nearly four decades of stage and screen credits, including vanities, 48 hours, nash bridges, smallville and the kennedys of massachusetts, she's annette o'toole, this is overheard. [music]. >> annette o'toole, welcome. >> thank you so much. >> very nice to have you here. >> thank you, i love that you said character actress. >> is that okay. >> i think it's the first time somebody described me as that. that makes me very happy. >> i wonder for some people that is a pejorative, like utility infielder. [laughter]. >> yes, someone called me, i don't read reviews normally. in an article written about me, they called me an all-purpose actress, i was so honored to have that title. >> why? >> i think as an actress, i would like to think that i can -- you know, we all think we can do anything. directors and producers don't usually think that. they like to pigeon hole you normally. so character, all purpose, it just makes me happy to think that i could -- do more things than just one thing. >> well, if you look back across your career, you've done television, you've done film, you've done a lot of work on and off of broadway. i -- i guess stage. never really broadway, but also stuff around the country on stage. >> a lot of regional theater. >> a lot of that. university been a performer. you've done music, you've danced. >> yes. >> you have really kind of done everything that makes you valuable i would think to a director or to a writer. >> not as valuable as i would like to be. [laughter]. but i've been really, really lucky. i love what i do. i love it so much it's kind of sick. >> at this point after the years that you have done it, do you have a preference, would you say, television over film or stage over screen? >> the last six or so years, i've been concentrating on theater. i left -- i started out musical comedy geek. glee kids, that was me. except more of a dancer, i grew up in houston, my mother had a dancing school. >> she taught you. >> she and my aunt had the school together. they started it when they were 15 years old in world war ii out of their living room. it became this thing. they were wonderful teachers and dancers. it was normal for me. i would come home from school. somebody would pick me up, i would go right to the dancing school. i would dance all afternoon, it was great because i loved it. i wasn't being forced to do that. i do my homework in between classe it was just normal for me to have this kind of discipline and be surrounded by -- by art and music and theater -- >> was the thought back then, i know that you began acting at a very early age. i have found appearances on my three sons, partridge family, a lot of television programs when you don't even seem to have been 10 years old by that point. >> no,s i was, thank you very much, i was older than that. my very, very first professional appearance, we moved to los angeles when i was 13, was on the danny kay show. he used to have little girls come and dance in the beginning with him or sing or whatever. gwen verdon was the guest star. this he did a whole number incorporating a little girl, i

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