promoter hoping and praying that next year he will get back the keys to the thrown. lucia newman, al jazerra, rio de janae owe. and for more on all of the top stories we are covering, go to aljazerra.com. aljazerra.com. you're in the stream. don't send your kid to the ivy league. why elite colleges according to a guest, don't measure up. a budding movement that spreads to more states? and later, the department of education has found an interesting demographic trend that could change the way schools operate.

>> my co-host and digital produceer wajahat ali is here. >> as you know, i was rejected from all the ivy leagues in undergrad and grad school. i'm not bitter. now they pay me on speaking to their schools, how the internet is clear. doug, a former yaleie, is is a great advantage however for a joint like yale in that it steals a confidence. perhaps an arrogance that serves one later. my son is going to uva, fantastic public school and where i went to dprad school and

now hegrad school andit's no coincidence he wants to go there. >> universities are often considered the holy grail of higher ed. staffs back that up. according to u.s. news and world report, harvard 'and upenn, princeton, harvard and brown have high pay scales, but not all of them are sold on their merits, including one who were part of the system. one columbia alum wrote an article on the pitfalls of chasing an elite degree, it says, produces a robotic directionless career. don't send your kids to ivy league. it was shared 10010,000 times on

facebook. and prompted some to write competing pieces. bill excellent sheep. the way to a meaningful life. on set is andrew jim broney, a journalism fellow. and lawrence aja, an '06 hard of grad. and nina terero. currently a correspondent for entertainment weekly. glad to have you all here. so bill, you're basically the ivy league equivalent of the guy who blirts out, there there is no santa claus. afraid to fail lacking real leadership skills. why did you do it? >> needs to be said and it's absolutely true that if you want

to be injected at high velocity into the american elite more and more, you need to go to an ivy league school maybe stanford, a couple of other schools, that's the problem not with these schools but with our elite. is they exactly reflect the kind of education you get not just at the schools but i would say even more importantly, the kind of person you have to become in order to get into one of these schools. a hoop-jumping checklist kind of childhood kid, who never has a chance to think about why they're doing it. now i know that there are exceptions. one response in ip says, i'm an exception, my friend is an exception, yes, there are exceptions and the problem is there are only exceptions and the fact is there are full of other schools that are -- there are other schools that are full of really great kids, about getting a good education not

about getting to the top but thinking through big problems of life and figuring out what you really want to do, what is worth having. >> lawrence you're a harvard grad. is there flawed logic of kids wanting to go to ivy league or is the process flawed? >> a little bit of both. from the admission standpoint, are we seeing kids who came from cambridge but camden, new jersey, a set of people i think that also tells a different story. so it's always managing to how they select but also on the front end, i do think there's value and i do think that you know, there's some merit to understanding why you're actually going into the institution and what you're looking to achieve. i argue that you know, i knew there are anomalies. but i don't necessarily think that going to an ivy league

school is the pitfall. there are many non-ivy leagues that are preprofessional. you don't have a business, you don't have a preprofessional track. i think in liberal arts institution actually does force you how to think and think about larger problems and you're not necessarily shepherded and led in different directions as nonivy league schools. i think it takes a little bit of soul searching who you want to represent as a university as your school and as a student what you're looking to achieve and do you have enough courage to follow what you're called to do. >> we see this nuanced debate with our very own ray suarez, my own kid got an education at one of those places, he humbly bragged. and andrew

prang, bill's piece seems to focus on the structure and the strength of the ivy league schools sucks the forward out of these children. do these terrified insecure children who become these insecure terrified men who follow a narrow guideline of success. what do you feel? >> i would have to disagree with bill that it's not as soul-sucking as the portrait you paint in your article and your book, in my experience yale opened up many doors forme coming from a lower middle class background and that was reflected in some of my friends' experiences awell. are it is true -- as well. so not the sort of liberal arts strictly speaking careers that

people might otherwise choose. but given that, there are other people doing things like government, journalism nonprofit work and what i found is that people really do have passions at yale. i for one was a french major something i discovered there. others were really passionate about history, sort of looking at the past to see what it could tell us about the present and the future. so i don't think it's such a checklist sort of admissions process game almost that people are going through when applying and getting into these schools. >> my guess is that bill would consider you an exception and bill we're going to get to that in a second. nina i want to bring you into the conversation. we're talking about defining success. what about defining diversity? there was a high lying directed survey, that does diversity need to move beyond race and bring in socioeconomic factors, family background income as they weigh

which students should have admission and which shouldn't? >> i completely agree that last statement. i think ivy league universities should really place an emphasis on diversity, in the true sense of the word. my husband and i speak about this all the time. i'm puerto rican. we are diverse in very different ways, minority students yes they are out there but there's a cautionary tale when you try think about the whole issue of diversity, students who are not academically qualified, there is a chance they might not do well, they might flunk. i know of several at cornell who could not make it past the first semester, despite help. think about diversity and the value of the education and a wonderful snuks.

let'sinstitution. you can avoid the culture of buying in. i think a lot of the value that minority students bring to ivy league institutions, we have the advantage of the summer institute's essay writing contest and we don't have parents who were staying us to piano and ballet and enrichment classes, we studied hard by virtue of our achievements. this culture of buying in you can't deny that it's white washed. i hope students will reflect a little bit of that, changing the culture little by little. >> bill, i see you nodsing your head. >> i am nodding my head with what was the last thing said. i can't comment on andrew's soul but i want to say that when he said my soul wasn't sucked out it opened a lot of doors for me. they're not the same thing. having opportunities open to you is a wonderful thing and it's a

great thing that these schools can do for lower-income kids. in terms of diversity, irhave to say to the last thing that was said, hardly because of the admission process and what it takes to get a kid through these schools are becoming less and less socioeconomically diverse. i would guarantee that maybe andrew and the whole panel are exceptions, possibly. we know 80% of kids come from affluent families and we know that 3 or 4% come from poor families. kids more and more come from overseas. most of those kids are rich. andrew's piece mentioned only 45% of kids now in yale come from private schools but in the country as a whole it's 8%. >> i'd argue -- >> lawrence, we're coming to the end of this segment but i think

what we're talking about here, particularly in the context of what bill is saying, academic success. how do you define it? >> i think to the degree people are given equal opportunity to explore what they're called to do, similar to what was noted, i did the consulting and investment banking. most people, who don't come fromming diverse backgrounds, i think the -- i think what needs to happen quite frankly is people given equal opportunity to search and have courage to what they're called to do, one of the great things about my experience and my classmates is that they pushed me on the entrepreneurship path. my classmates i think so much of what andrew said were from backgrounds that didn't necessarily reflect you know this elite. and even those elite were pushing people in terms of pushing the boundaries in terms of what they're doing. success if you define it by people who have high hat

salaries are depressed. my argument would be we empower people with courage and resources to take on nontraditional careers, i think that will doubtful address the success head on. >> legality me take the middle ground. dina says, what culture they want to experience, education is what we make it of it. >> my thanks oour guests. coming up your kids spend about half of their waking hours with their teachers. educators play a critical role of shaping and teaching our children. some say with that great power needs to come with accountability. lawsuits to challenge teacher

>> welcome back.

we all probably remember the teachers that inspired us or on the flip side were down right terrible. student achievement was the quality of teacher. with that premise in mind, a group of parents in new york filed a lawsuit last month to get rid rid of teacher tenure laws. is that the best solution? from atlanta is the american federation of teachers, randy winegarten. and from d.c., neil mcclusky thanks all of you for being here. randy, a judge just ruled in favor of parents in a california case. a similar situation brewing in the courts of new york. parents saying teacher tenure laws violate kids rights to a

good education. because it's so hard to get a tenured teacher fired. why does it take five to 800 days to keep a tenured teacher fired? >> in new york and new jersey and connecticut all those laws have been changes. because k-12 teacher tenure is supposed to be, if there is just cause to dismiss someone, then they should be dismissed but they have a right to have a hearing beforehand. and so what we saw was, how do we make sure that teacher tenure is what it's supposed to be, a way in which people can actually exercise professional judgment can stand up for kids, but at the same and night about patronage and cronyism, but at the same time if a person can't teach they shouldn't be there. in california those laws have been changed in new york connecticut and new jersey and that's why we're a little surprised that somebody would

try bring a copy cat. because the real issue in new york is how do we make sure kids get art and music and how do we make sure that kids get the support they need to have a great education? >> so randy are you saying the suit in new york is baseless that these teacher tenure laws are not what they purport to be? >> i'm saying that the suit in new york is going to be thrown out because the basis for it is total ly totally factually wrong. every parent deserves to have for that kids a great education. the difference in new york and california is that all these laws, we all stepped up and said, how do we change these laws to make sure that tenure is not an excuse for managers not to manage or a cloak

of incompetence or a job for life? when you see copy cat suits that are based on factual misrepresentations -- >> neil, do teacher tenure laws still provide a basis for teachers who underperform? >> there are certainly teacher tenure laws. i want to point out that probably most teachers are doing a very good job. we focused on tenure a little problem. it is not primary problem. it is a problem in that if you want to remove a teacher who is demonstrably bad, it is a very inefficient, competitive process. even -- rks -- expensive process. to provide some very long due process is very inefficient and

that's tough on taxpayers and can be tough on school districts. but teacher tenure is not the primary problem we have in education, in fact it could be a very good way to compensate teachers, if we had school choice, if i want my school to get good teachers and then make money get students, tenure might be a good way to compensate them with lots of job security. so it's not that tenure is bad. it's the system in which it has been placed is the problem. >> well, the community has child in, on facebook we have kathleen gives a nuance perspective. i've seen ineffective teachers who should have been fired long time ago stay on just because they are tenured and i see great teachers who can't get jobs because they are not tenured. speak going this california ruling it was pretty harsh. it also says, the teacher

tenure rights, minority students and low income students, do you agree and if so how does it harm the students? >> well i think taking one step back, i think teacher tenure is an important argument. it's a policy like many other education policies but i would argue in our organization has 35 years experience, arguing that if we really want to improve schools and improve student achievement we need to address poverty. >> exactly. >> the greatest teachers in the world, with super-star principles the best curriculum can't make a kid think about math when they're hungry. can't make a kid think about science if they're not sure where they're going to sleep at night or if they have a toothache. the kids we work with are about 80% minority. 92% free and reduced price lunch. addressing poverty is how you will improve schools and close the achievement gap. >> can

i just glump here? dan is totally -- just in here? dan is totally right. two-thirds of the achievement gap in children in america is because of poverty. teachers are one of the most important assets we get. we have to find ways to attract and retain teachers to the highest needs schools and that's what community schools are doing with us and different places throughout the nation. so this notion that you just throw out -- you silence teachers and that's what's going to make it better is just a false notion. having said that, that's why we've changed these laws to make sure that if somebody can't perform after an evaluation, they shouldn't be there. and frankly what's happened in new york is these cases take about 100 days which is what ken fineberg who helped us who is a master mediator and litigator, says this is the right way, the time it should take.

>> let's be clear or at least they have for instance the american federation of teachers. it's not much said that tenure is the only thing that what happens outside of the schools actually has a bigger impact than what goes on inside the schools. now , do our schools spend a lot of money? absolutely. is it used efficiently? absolutely not. is there evidence if we attach money to schools that that tends to work better? we do but we should be very careful in ascribing the outcomes we get from schools to any one policy like tenure or to the schools themselves. >> randy, you mentioned the need

to attract and retain teachers. tenure used to do that because it was back-ended with a heavy pension. which was attracted to people who would stay in a career for a lifetime. but now we're looking at millennials who stay in careers five, maybe ten years tops. that used to be an incentive but is no longer. to how do you attract teachers did? >> tenure and choice, pensions teachers get average about 25, $26,000 a year. what tenure does which is really due process is it says to a teacher that i want to stand up for a child who is a special needs child. my principal can't threaten to fire me if i am standing up for that child. if i want to actually try new things in my classroom i can actually try new things in my classroom without feeling like i'm going to be fired. that's what due process and that's what tenure means.

but it has to be a line -- >> it does mean that randy but there are existing laws in place already in america that protect every employee from being unduly removed from their job. unfortunately i'm out of time. i want to thank our guests. still ahead, there is a fascinating new twist this fall on the makeup of a public school >> the new al jazeera america primetime. get the real news you've been looking for. at 7:00, a thorough wrapup of the day's events. then at 8:00, john seigenthaler digs deeper into the stories of the day. and at 9:00, get a global perspective on the news. weeknights, on al jazeera america .

>> in spanish we say: my turn, january, your turn: my turn and your turn: >> welcome back. that was a new york city teacher speaking spanish to her young students and it's something that could become the norm. first time ever minorities larue lewis mccoy, a sociologist who focuses on

inequality, the author of inequality in the promised land. larue, welcome. is is that significantly going ochange the educational system? >> i think it changes a number who's there and who is the numerical majority. the important information that there are more students of color than white students but that also doesn't tell you that the reason is that largely our public schools remain segregated. students of color tends to be located in public schools, whereas white families opt out of public education, whereas we'll simply have more black and brown faces but less a responsive curriculum to the diverse need of our students. >> larue, we asked our community, minority-majority, are the teachers in school curriculum up to date? justin says far from it. i've yet see teachers cover the

needs of asians and latin americans. if not, what needs to be done to make sure it doesn't match up? >> with increasing things like the common core there's an emphasis of one type of curriculum that fits all which is absolutely the wrong direction. we need to do what we call place based learning. look at the demographics of the children in school, look at the rug russ, past tests they can be engage. >> all right larue lewis mccoy, thank you so much for joining us and thanks to all of our guests for being on "the stream" today. until next time waj and i will see you online.

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