thank jen who's left the event and jessica. .. ken burns on his career and upcoming series on america's national parks, a tribute to the late writer john updike, two time winner of the pulitzer prize and reunion of the apollo 8 astronauts. there are more books and authors on c-span2 with three days of

book tv featuring books on the american revolution including historian john for early taking calls on our first astronauts live from george washington's mount vernon estate. and p.j. o'rourke, his passion for cars and america's need to drive like crazy. and nobel peace recipient maa a maathai on the challenges facing africa. next, paul tough profiles geoffrey canada, president and ceo of harlem's children zone, an organization that believes on multiple resources to tackle education and social issues. mister canada contends children and property must not only have their educational lives changed but their neighborhoods as well. the event, part of the 2008 brooklyn book festival is just over 50 minutes. >> yesterday i was in jackson,

mississippi, where i was privileged to meet james meredith. if some of you are trying to recall exactly who james meredith is, he was one of the lone rangers of the 60s civil-rights movement. in his second year at jackson state university filed a lawsuit to gain admission to the university of mississippi in oxford. 9 year later, a federal court order, showing he wasn't just a paper hero, after bobby kennedy ordered his admission, ordered a court order enforced by u.s. marshals, 16 the u.s. marshals were injured, including 28 who reinjured by gunshot in the riots that took place in oxford.

nonetheless, james meredith attended, graduated, became the first african-american to graduate from ole miss. 1965 was the passage of the act, as it is arraigned in mississippi. in 1966, james meredith decided he was going to initiate the walk against fear. he couldn't get the backing of any major civil rights organizations, so he started out by himself with two friends who he controlled into accompanying him, walking from memphis, tenn. to jackson, mississippi.

2-1/2 days in to what he was shot in the leg. at that point, martin luther king and other leaders of the movement sought a right property to step in, pick up the walk. james meredith rejoined the walk 20 days later, walking into jackson, mississippi, with 15,000 people, thus marking the end of the white citizens' councils. that could suffice for my introduction, talking about the power of one person committed to making change, but the reason i was in mississippi was a year ago, the president's national debate council decided oxford, mississippi, would be the location of the first presidential debate, and the subject of the debate would be domestic affairs. in another hat, i am the

co-chair of the campaign to end aids, a national network of aids activists and we decided in order to make aids, a national strategy to end aids, a topic of debate, we would establish its weekday -- at three they convention. eight caravans started making their way to oxford including one replicating the steps of james meredith. i was in jackson for the kickoff of walking 172 miles from jackson, mississippi, oxford, mississippi, in a walk against aids. james meredith spokane at this occasion and what he had to say was interesting. he talked about the importance

of addressing race, the importance of addressing aids, particularly in mississippi. the critical challenge facing our nation today, is the role and responsibility of the wealthy for the 4. he said the biggest and most important issue that should be debated between the presidential candidates today is the responsibility our nation has for children growing up in poverty. you might wonder, housing works with adults, formerly homeless people living with aids and hiv, why we would sponsor something that focuses on children in poverty. the reality is what we deal with is the result of childhood poverty. what we see every day is the consequence of people growing up

as children, for with all the ravages that come with that. just one simple statistic, we did a study a few years ago, 70% of the women we surf, experienced sexual violence before they turned 18. it that statistics surprises you, 50% of the adult men we serve, experience sexual violence before the age of 18. i see the work of geoffrey canada, somebody i have long watched and admired, as being part of the same continue. what we do at housing works is we work with people whose society has already thrown on life's trashy, offered them the tools and the opportunity to take another try at life again. what geoffrey canada is in the business of doing is giving children a break, a chance

before they end up on life's trash heap. 3 weeks ago the subject of the debate in oxford, mississippi, got changed from domestic affairs to international affairs and national security. tuesday, i am flying back down, marching with them for a three day encampment in oxford, mississippi. if you ask me, the real security threat to our nation is not so much al qaeda or whether or not iran gets a nuclear weapon, or russia and georgia, situations like that. the real security threat to our nation is right here. it is the aids epidemic that we have allowed to become a disease of racism and poverty. it is the fact that 40% of children in america today are

growing up in poverty. a 10% increase since the year 2000. the critical question we ought to be asking ourselves, the real security threat is what happens when the wealthiest nation in the history of the world allows 40% of its children to grow up in poverty and all that comes with that. that is why i am so excited to introduce paul tough and geoffrey canada. [applause] >> thank you very much, thank you for the great introduction. the way we are going to do things is i am going to talk a little bit, then read a little bit from my book, "whatever it takes: geoffrey canada's quest to change harlem and america," and ask geoffrey canada a few questions, turning over to him, then turned things over to you

for the conclusion of our time here. if there are questions you want to ask geoffrey canada or me, you can do it. i wrote this book for two reasons. one that i only realized afterwards was it gave me an opportunity to hang out with geoffrey canada for five years. that was a pretty great thing to be able to do. as you will see, he is an inspirational leader and a brilliant thinker and he is also that rare thing, a ceo with a sense of humor. but even more than that, what struck me as a journalist is as a subject, he is really honest and candid and there were lots of moment i was thinking -- sitting in his office interviewing him and he would be telling me about smoking pot when he was 12, carrying a gun around when he was 18, how much he hated white people when he was in college, talking about things that happening right then, middle school wasn't working out the way he wanted to, he was thinking of firing

the principle, and i was thinking are you sure you really want to be telling me all these things? but he was sure, and unlike most people you write about, he didn't have any anxiety about the fact that i was recording these things, writing down, and he wasn't going to have a chance to look at the book until was done. that is because he really has great confidence in himself and confidence in what he is doing, he felt, much to his credit, that if he just told the whole story of his life and of the hardened children's zone, that would give people a better idea of what was happening and what needed to happen and he sanitized that firs and. the second reason was i wanted to finance their to or really big question, which was, why are poor people for and why has poverty persisted from one generation to the next, why do for kids tend to fail more often

than they succeed? what can be done to change that? it is amazing how many people think they know the answer, especially on the internet. i am struck by the various nuances to these questions and what i am writing and a lot of e-mail says you are missing the fact that it is called a parent or it is all the schools work is all the races the economy or some other one sentence explanation for what i think it a complicated problem. the answer that i think i have found and i write about in the book is a lot of what poverty is so persistent has to do with the changes in the economy that took place after world war ii. what happened especially for african-americans is to you knew became less important than what you knew. before the civil-rights

movement, especially for african-americans, didn't matter how smart you were or how well-educated you were, it is still hard to get a great job. someone with the leadership skills and intelligence of malcolm x, the best job he could get was selling sandwiches and shining shoes on the train and someone with those same skills would have the opportunity to be a professor of constitutional law and run for president. a lot more opportunity with opening up for african-americans on the top end of the skills scale. for blacks on the bottom of the socio-economic scale, the changes happening in the economy were disastrous. before, you could get a decent job in a factory even if you couldn't read, didn't have a lot of skills, but those jobs, as industrial jobs dried up, those jobs disappeared and now if you can't read it is hard even to get a job at mcdonald's. despite the economic incentives for education, things didn't really improve in inner cities. a lot of neighborhood got worse,

party got more concentrated and entrenched in neighborhoods like harlem. this new idea that skills are what matter has led to a new approach in trying to counter poverty, especially the cycle of generational poverty. we have known for a long time that poor adults tend to have poor children who don't get a good education and brought to the poor adults again. in the past, the conventional wisdom, the best way to solve this cycle to concentrate on the adults, give them better jobs, more money, better housing, and they will be able to improve the odds for their kids. after many years of trying this, it is not working out very well, people started to think we need a new approach, there's a lot of evidence that it is really hard to change the trajectory of an unskilled 20-year-old. is very easy to change the trajectory of an unskilled

2-year-old. the conversation has changed. the first big idea is that schools matter, and the skills that matter are teachable, even though generally in poor neighborhoods they're not being taught. valley run schools don't teach them, pour the educated parents have a hard time teaching them but they can be taught. there are interventions, more and more, that work. if you are able to teach these critical skills to poor children they are going to succeed. that leads to a moral shift. the question is no longer is there anything we can do to counter poverty. we actually know what to do. the question becomes do we want to do it? is it our obligation to do it if we have to change things for poor kids, can we find a good reason not to do it? once you get through that moral dilemma, it becomes a practical question. if we are going to intervene, which interventions work, when the start and who do you target? that is a complex question and it is what geoffrey canada is

exploring in harlem and what i try to explore in my book. the short answer is interventions that work best with children are early, intensive, and continuous. poor kids are arriving kindergarten, well behind their middle-class peers. the earlier you start, the better. it is better not just to start early, there are lots of great programs that take a kids in prekindergarten when they're 4-year-old, give them lots of intervention and stock, send them back into regular public school. what we have found is those kids turn out to be pretty much the same as any other kid from a poor neighborhood. these programs only work if they keep going. the one person who is really putting this data into action is geoffrey canada. the harlem children zone which he has run for the last 10 years is a comprehensive system of integrated programs from cradle to college. the call that the conveyor belt. it starts with baby college, a program for expecting parents

and parents of children under 3. the next step is the 3-year-old's journey, advanced parenting class for parents of 3-year-olds. then comes prekindergarten, not just any prekindergarten but an all day language focused prekindergarten that gives 4-year-olds intensive training especially in language, that leads you into the charter schools that starts in kindergarten and goes through twelfth grade, has an extended year and an extended day. the idea is through all of these services, geoffrey canada is able to give poor kids in harlem the same sort of cocoon of support that middle-class kids have around them without even thinking about it. the big news in the book is that this works. the real testing ground is in third grade, the first group of kids that have gone through baby college, pre k and the new charter schools in third grade,

starting fourth grade now. in third grade they took for the first time the state test to see how well they're doing compared to everyone else in the state. they're doing really well. in english, one school is just a little behind the state average, the other is that of the state average. in math, in one school, 97% of the class was on grain level and the other, 100% was on grade level. compared to what scores in new york city, especially for a long time in harlem, these are pretty astounding. even more important than the score themselves is what the schools feel like. i spent a lot of time with the first class in second grade and third grade, and when you go to -- i spent time in these middle schools especially in portland, that are really successful, using intensive methods to turn things around for kids who have fallen behind.

what those feel like is there is an emergency, there's a crisis, there's a rescue mission going on, trying to save these kids before they fall into the abyss. these are the same kids who have teenage parents and uneducated parents who live in public housing and don't have any advantages beyond the fact that they are in gauge in harlem children zone. but their schools don't feel like they are in crisis. they feel like regular kids learning what any other third grade kid would learn and doing the same on state tests as every other kid. all of this starts with baby college. baby college is a concept that makes some people uncomfortable. it is telling for parent how to do things differently. but the premise behind the baby colleges parent's goal is so critical because those years are so important that you have got

to engage with them. parents are eager for more information. they want to know how to give their kids a better shot and they are willing to change. i went through a cycle of baby college, nine weeks, there with a big range of parents, there was one couple, a middle-class couple, this was beryl's second time going through baby college, he loved it so much he had to do it again. after his first round people looking around the community, he had created this parent's group, and they're going to each other's birthday parties and sleep overs and he had really found exactly the sense of community that he wanted. there was another mother at the other end of things, she had four kids and they were all taken away by child welfare, she couldn't read, she wasn't well educated, she was pregnant. the idea behind trying to help

her, if she could be pushed a little bit, if she could have enough parenting skills to hold onto her fifth child and not have her end up in foster care, that would put that child a little further ahead when geoffrey canada was able to take over when the child was four or 5-year-old. victor and cheryl were hard to place, they were young, 19, and 17. victor was a high-school dropout, he had an arrest record, they have a lot of strikes against them, it seemed, but they felt they had a lot of potential. i am going to read a little bit about them. the 20 first cycle of baby college took place from september through november meaning the outreach teams had to recruit parents. it took two months of door knocking and flyer passing to collect the number they needed. cheryl was walking past harlem hospital at lenox avenue on 136 street on her way to pick up her

prescription. when she ran into anthony santiago and francesca, 2 outreach workers. lenox avenue was full of people, it was early september, a warm, sunny day. anthony and francesca were stopping couples with strollers, women who look like they've been be pregnant, and want to take one of their flyers. cheryl was 17, she was three months pregnant, just starting to show. of the earlier a friend had told her about baby college and sherrill had been thinking about it ever since. she was feeling scared and unprepared, not ready to take care of the new life that was growing inside her and she figured she needed some help. she hadn't from the time to make the call to baby college but here were anthony and francesca right in front of her like destiny handing out fliers. i was actually looking for you guys, sherrill said. francesca started filling out paperwork, name, address, age, due date. they have a partner you can bring with you, french as that asked. cheryl thought about it, maybe, she said.

gee hata part, victor, boyfriend. they had been together on and off for four years, she was 13, he was 15. she loved victor, they had fun together and he always made her laugh but lately thing to been very rocky since the day they found out she was pregnant. victor's best friend had been whispering in his year saying he was too young to commit to just one woman and victor would sneak around and see other girls on the fly. they're fighting every day now, it's seen, and before the pregnancy they never used to fight at all. cheryl the know if they would still be together when the baby was born. twice, they had been to what she called the mean, danger zone place, an abortion clinic, but each time they couldn't go through with it. now she kept waiting for the morning when she would wake up and feel good about her baby. instead, each morning she woke up feeling depressed and worried and at night so she from times cried herself to sleep. when she asked victor if he would come to baby college with her he said no. he had been kicked out of more schools and he could count, usually for fighting. finally he had given up and dropped out altogether.

there were plenty of things he would rather do than get up early on a saturday and sit in a public-school classroom while someone like about being a better parent. cheryl said she wanted them both to know the same thing that she said she thought it might bring them closer together. victor said he would think about it. when the first baby college event came along, a baby shower all the expectant mothers in the program, victor refused to go. cheryl felt sad and trapped and depressed that night but decided to go anyway. when she walked through the doors, the public school but a shower was being held, eyes were wet with tears. things went ok for them, victor did show up in the second week, and he actually started to get into it. they went through the brain development classes, it was explained to them how important it was to read and talk through things with your child that they went to the discipline classes where baby college encourages

children to use non physical means of discipline. these are the controversial classes because most parents who come into the class were themselves disciplined with corporal punishment when they were kids and they think that is the best way to do things, so there's a real debate that happened in those classes. in victor's class he was leading the charge for corporal punishment. invented a system he called be asked early, he sort of got the idea that the worst putt corporal punishment were not a fantastic idea, but he was thinking i am not going to hit the kid, i am going to pinch the kid, which is what he heard when he showed up, from his instructor, that is actually not going to work, that is not any better. it took him a while to a just to this idea but he finally did. there was something about having his ideas taken seriously that really appealed to him.

he felt involved in a way that he hadn't before, taken seriously. after things went well for a while things took a turn for them in the seventh week of the nine week cycle. on their way to baby college trouble found victor and cheryl again. they slept at cheryl's house the night before and in the morning they took the bus over the george washington bridge and got on the subway to come down to 197. on the platform victor turned on his portable radio and they listened to it quietly, still sleepy. a police officer approached them and told victor to turn it down. why? victor asked. looking back he regretted saying anything. he wasn't rude about it but maybe his voice was too they fine. the officer arrested him and charged him with disturbing the peace and arresting--resisting arrest and taken to central booking and center streets. he had to stay all night sitting on a smelly cellar on our bench between 2 men exchange trek with each other right past victor for hours. the same thought kept going for his mind all night, i was on my

way to baby college. when he had been in trouble before he they usually deserved it. but this time he was trying to become a good father and that didn't seem to make a difference. in the morning, he was sent to the courtroom to be arraigned. he had a bad feeling. he had two active warrant and a sketchy arrest record. he figured the judge would throw the book at him. when his name was called and got up to approach the bench he was too depress to act tough, he looked contrite because he felt contrite and that spurred something within the judge. she told him he was on thin ice but she dismissed his case. he had only been playing a radio and she cleared his record. connecting victor new, the court officers were taking off his handcuffs. the next weekend victor told me the story and still seemed a little stunned at his good fortune. the judge said they out of trouble and others like all right, i will. it is true, i will. as soon as the officer says turn your radio down by turning off. he says come here, i'm going to go. i will live life correctly. sector had been given a second

chance, or maybe this was his third or fourth, he had lost count, but he is determined not to blow it. a week later the parents of cycle 21 established in the gymnasium on 1 twenty-fifth street for their graduation. dirksen senate office building cheryl mccasgill first day. halfway through the ceremony victor was called on stage with the other fathers. he is feeling something special. victor turned to francesca, his outreach worker, and asked if he could go last. when his turn came he strode to the lectern looking shark in a button-down shirt and sharp jeans, there were 300 people in the gym sitting on folding chairs facing the stage, 103 graduating parent plus family and friends, the entire baby college staff at the top managers of the harlem children's zone. geoffrey canada sat in the front row with george on one side and his wife and his son jeffrey jr.. victor looked at the crowd and

swallow. hello, he said into a microphone, how the everybody doing? his voice, high and nervous, filled the gym. my name is victor and i had a great time at baby college, it was one of my best time ever. there was a little applause. the graduate were in the center section sitting by class, everyone decked out in white and looking clean cut. i will like to call up cheryl. could everyone give her a round of applause? today's merger -- birthday. share look surprised and embarrassed, she walked down the aisle to wear victor stood. in the surprise of this, he said i am so nervous, because i would like to propose. the jimmy erupted in shouts and hoots. cheryl started laughing and crying at the same time. someone told him to get down on one knee so he did. he held the microphone in one hand and with the other he took cheryl's hand. cheryl, i love you, your my world, the only one in this world. i just want to know, will you marry me?

pandemonium, applause, more shouting, grandmothers crying, jeffrey -- geoffrey canada got to his feet and clapped. sherrill said yes. they embraced in front of everyone. victor was not ready to give up the like. i am extremely excited, he said, looking at the crowd. a lot is about to happen. we have just begun, so thank you. george turned to geoffrey canada. well, he said, that was a first. now i want you to hear from the person you will hear from if you read this book,. i want to ask you a few questions and get you talking about what you are doing in harlem. that me ask you about, victor ranchero had theiand cheryl had

year-and-a-half old. one parent dropped out of college, still having trouble with the law, they're both living, have a hard time finding an apartment together, they are both living with their parents. a kid like that, in those circumstances, what does it take? what does it take to get him from where he is to college and graduate from college? >> thank you. you can get an idea of why i allowed paul to spend five years, i didn't know what was in the balkan july read it. about halfway through the book i didn't think it was quite such a good idea to allow reporter. but in the end, it was important. before i answer the question about victor, let me say why i

let paul have access. i didn't know what was in the book, i didn't know what people would say, they could have said any number of things, and it could have been something i was proud of but it could have been something of my have said that is not really a great characterization of our organization. but this is the challenge -- at my age, i am 56. i grew up in the south bronx when children like myself, poor children born to a single mother, literally didn't have a chance. we were doing everything we could to try to change that dynamic. in the end, if we didn't do it, that was fine. let paul tell people that but let him tell people it is important that we not stop trying to figure out how we solve this equation. if we couldn't do it, leave it to someone younger, smaller, more talented but we have got to do it.

i was prepared for whatever the end of the story turned out to be. i thought it was important to someone it was going to write about the challenges of this work, because children like victor jr. face a series of obstacles. you heard some of the challenges, families trying to stay together, housing is an issue, food is an issue, the father not getting arrested for something he does or doesn't do is an issue. these things impact the child. that piece was going on, i was raising my wife -- my wife and i were raising our fourth child. i will tell you the difference between having a stable home, enough income, true loving parents who love one another, we wanted that child, this was something, when we decided to have this last child, our

children are grown, we have three grown children and a ten-year-old. i won't get into the whole story that there is a story. when we decided to have that child we tried for two years to have a child without success. when yvonne came in, that pregnancy kits said positive, we were jumping and yelling in the living room. with this child came into the world, parents who loved him before he was even 6 weeks old. the difference between that child who was loved verses the child and is coming in with all of these challenges they are facing, is really daunting. victor jr. is still going to make it, he is going to graduate high school, he is going to go on to college, but he is not going to have the same set of, i

think, challenges, that my son will have. he will have a different set of challenges. it is our job, i think, as a community organization, as a society, not hold whatever the challenges his parents face against that child so this child doesn't have an opportunity. what will it take? it will take us, through any issues that child faces, not just until we get that young person in our 4-year-old program, we stay with that child through the ups and downs and twists and turns. if any of you had perfect relationships and there hasn't been turmoil, please stand up, you will be the first person i know that has happened to. we go through this things but in upper-middle-class communities we manage to minimize the impact on children. anyone who has been through a divorce, you know the child is suffering but you don't expect a

child to drop out of school, you don't expect the child to get arrested, you don't expect the child to go on drugs. we help and support our children when the adult going through challenges, that is what we are trying to do. >> there were certain moments in our interviews, that is all it would take. i would come at you and ask the same questions, ideas that were a little more complex or hard for me to get and one of those was about values. the idea, what middle-class values, what you see as the values you grew up with and how you are trying to use baby college and other elements of the harlem children's zone to create what feels to me like a new set of values for the

parents in your neighborhood. >> one of the interesting parts of my life as i was growing up in the south bronx, i really got to see children whose parents shared a set of values that parents had and children whose parents did not. it was quite shocking to me the impact on reading and school work, and everybody i knew, there was no one i knew who wanted their child to fail. i never met someone who said i hope this child doesn't make it and i will try to stop the child from making it. lots of parents did not know how to help their child succeed. they had come upon a set of strategies mostly a round behavior. i want you to keep quiet, i want you to act right, i want you to look nice. that is really what they enforced as a set of values on

their children. and my mother was always -- we were very poor growing up. things like hair cuts were hard for us to get. i am 11, haven't had my hair cut in 26 weeks and i am complaining to my mother and she would say is not what is on your head, it is in your head. i was going to say but it would be nice to have my head looking better than it does. but these constant value issues that they would reinforce over and over again, my grandmother would always say, because she was very poor, i did not want to be for, my grandmother was one of those kind of people, you talk about values. stories where the truck's back door opens and money fall out on the highway and people take the money up and a bunch of idiots take the money to the police, that was my grandmother. she would not take anything.

i was constantly challenging her and what she would say to me was money is not what is important in life. what is important is that you get an education. they can never take that from you. i didn't believe that when i was 7. i believe it was money, i wanted money but you fear that year after year after year and it begins to sink in. it is this set of values that you begin to say i may not have it now but i am heading somewhere and i have a strategy to get there. that was one of the real challenges that a lot of the family we were growing up with face. they did not know how to give their children a sense, a strategy of success, delaying gratification, working hard, focusing on books. my mother used to break out the tv and tell us it was broken because she knew that that way we wouldn't watch it, we had to read. that was part of the strategy

she had. this is what is so fascinating, she couldn't have just turned it off. we would have yell and fought, there would have been warfare. this tells you how old i am. she would go to the tv and take a toolbox. you know this is way back in the day, she would take a toolbox and the tv didn't work. she said try it, you can't get it to work. what we going to do? we would do things. she had a set of strategies to help the children, growing up in a community that did not share that set of strategies, what might be considered middle class strategies. and i am convinced that for of lot of our children today, this set of strategies where you value education, you value reading, you value time spent helping young people understand, we have to make sure that set of

values are transferred to young people because in the 50s when i grew up, i would say there was a neutral societal values system meaning if you went outside and listened to the radio and tv, leave it to beaver and father knows best, there were no people of color on tv. basically there was not a set of values being pumped that you which will destroy you. today we have a different set of values. every morning when they get up they are hearing a message around selling drugs, using drugs, having sex, nonstop, then you have parents struggling with this child to give them a set of values, work hard, be honest, play by the books, the two don't balance and we have to support our parents in helping them understand and transmit this other set of values.

>> one more question, something i have written about in the new york times magazine, this network charter schools, especially middle school, you run one of these middle schools, there are some great examples, achievement first and and, in schools. in harlem and the bronx, they are able to start in fifth grade and achieve great things with kids who have not had a lot of educational advantages. can you explain what the difference is between their approach and your approach? >> there are a group of charter school operators who figure out a way to get young people who are 3 years behind, four years behind academically and catch those kids up over time.

they do heroic work. if you if visit any of those schools you walk out and said those are heroes and you would be 100% correct. what i am trying to do in our schools is eliminate the need to be a hero. if we know the communities, the zip codes, the census tracts where kids, for the last 50 years, have been three or four years behind by the time they enter a great, wide to get them four years behind, why don't we get an early, get those kids on grade level and never let those kids get behind? that to me is the way we ought to be approaching this issue so that there will always be a need for these heroic programs. but it shouldn't be a neat that outstrips our ability to provide the solution. achievement first, and commons

schools, this serving 1-100, some kids getting help but the vast majority of kids are not getting help because in those communities, 75, 85% of the kids are four years behind. we have got to eliminate that. there will always be a group of kids that are behind, so we will always leave these heroic efforts but it shouldn't be for so many kids that it guarantees most of our kids won't make it in these communities which is the way things are set up right now. get in early, get these kids on grade level, never let those kids fall behind. hold the adults accountable. once you start with baby college, we test our kids starting at four, we know where they are. it is my belief that in the end, we won't provide education for

these poor children unless everybody is held accountable. when we started out charter school, i told our board chair, the counselor, the chancellor tells people give me 5 years. if my schools are not better than the surrounding schools. if i told my staff i am the last one going, you are gone before me. in the end, we have to be accountable for the success of these children because it is hard work. once i give you group of kids, if those kids slip behind, will they have problems? yes. will there be issues? >> yes. all of those things. in the end, the bus will take the money to educate these children, we have to provide education for these children that have to hold ourselves accountable. so get in early. our third graders are on grade level. in eighth grade, they will be on

grade level. in tenth grade, they will be on grade level. will we still work as hard as these other charter schools? yes. but it won't be to just try to get our kids to the bottom. it will be to try to get our kids to the top. the big issue in this nation when people read your book and understand, look what a harlem children the loan is doing, they think that is the ceiling. that is the floor. that is the least, that is what we take for granted. except in poor communities. they get health care, this is the challenge our nation faces. what we are talking about is nothing extraordinary. it is nothing, that children should go into kindergarten or grade level, they should have their teeth fixed, they should

eat healthy, social service, if kids have the emotional problem that should get addressed, that is basic for every child in america. they need to accelerate the academic program, a longer school year and a longer school day and we should provide that. that is not exceptional. it may seem exceptional because a lot of people on not doing it. it should be a basic right of every child in this country and there's no excuse for us as an nation not to provide that level of support to all of our children. [applause] >> i want to thank paul tough for his extraordinary work in bringing us this extraordinary person, obviously a critical topic. we have ten minutes for questions from the audience. i am told there is a mike and i

will ask you to come down. we have two gentlemen in the front, very eager. please stand when you ask your question, speaking to the mike. >> two questions. do you think public forums are inspirational? >> you have a good voice. why don't you go ahead and repeat the question. we are using the mike for the benefit of the television viewers. go ahead and repeat the question. >> on the first question he asked, whether or not i think that the current schools system has the ability to provide a range of resources we talk

about, there has to be a fundamental change in public education in this nation and part of that change has to do with making sure that everyone is held accountable. i think it starts at the top. we have to make sure that the mayor is held accountable and the citizens of new york have to demand that children get an education but it also means having principles held accountable, teachers accountable. i don't think this is rocket science. i think this is basically making sure that we collect data, that we use data to drive out comes. this gets me in trouble but i am going to say this. teaching is a really tough business. to be a good teacher, you have to be a savvy professional. everybody who wants to teach shouldn't teach. everybody who thinks they're a great teacher is not a great teacher. it is hard work. we need a different kind of

system that rewards great teaching and allows lousy teachers to be exited from the system. i don't think lousy teachers, in my system if you are a lousy teacher you get fired. you always want to fire everybody, my theory is just move them out of poor communities. there are kids who don't need great teachers, upper-middle-class communities, send the poor teachers to upper-middle-class communities where they don't need so much. in poor communities we need great teachers and that is part of the challenge. the system is not ready to do that. we have some movement. there is no reason in this nation, we could not -- if you are a teacher and you can move children a year and half or two years, you are a superstar. you ought to be paid by the superstar. no reason that person should make a quarter of a million dollars. if you could do that, if i paid

that person a quarter of a million dollars, guess what is going to be happen? people are going to be saying i will get those poor kids to learn, i want to be like that too, we would have an infusion of talent into our schools dedicated to making sure these children learn and they would learn. they would learn, the deal is, with teaching, you don't get paid a lot of money but you get a lot of time off. we need more than that. could happen? yes. will we have some structural change? yes. >> i will ask you to hold that second question because we probably only have for to one -- one more. see if we can get in one more after. >> my question deals with the parents. i understand you are a baby college but if we don't get them through baby college, it is

important, how are you capturing the parents in the community, holding them accountable, getting them educated and all the things they need? it is a very important part of that formula, it is what parents are doing. >> i couldn't agree with you more. parents have to be our partners in this work. we struggle when we have parents who disconnected our parents, have substance-abuse issues, mental health issues, you have to work with the kids. that doesn't get you off the hook for the children. paul mentioned the one hundred% of the kids passed their math exam. that includes every single child. it is hard work that could be done, but we need parents to be our partners in this work, we spend a lot of time with parents who are in the schools and our elementary schools, but here's something that i think we want

hassocks -- our parents don't know how important is to read great books. i am talking a great book. you know what a great book for me was? man child in the promised land, i read when i was 13-year-old. i said oh my god! from -- finally someone is telling my story. i have read that a whole book. my mother was trying -- go to sleep, i was still reading this book. a book like that can change your life. we started campaign to try to get parents to get their kids to read great books. if you give your kids allow the book to read, guess what they think? that reading thing is overrated. you have got to get great books. we started campaign to get every poor child in america great books in their libraries.

we have launched it as part of our whatever it takes campaign, read great books. people want to know what those great books are, you can go on our web site, and get them in the hands of these children, let these kids experience what it feels like to read a great book, let them -- a lot of times parents don't know where to find the great books and a lot of times parents can't afford a great book. agreed book is one you read over and over. many of us have books we read over and over, so the child actually needs to own this book. we are challenging folks to get out, get some books, get them in the hands of these parents so they can share them and we can start our kids growing up with this law of reading and begin to change these dynamics in our country. >> we are actually out of time. i want to let you know that it hasn't ended because the book,

"whatever it takes: geoffrey canada's quest to change harlem and america," is for sale at housing works booth, booth number 30. paul tough and geoffrey canada will be going after the session closes over to the. where they will be available to autograph books and also continue this conversation. i want to thank them, and geoffrey canada especially, for your passion on this essential issue, children in poverty. thank you. [applause] >> paul tough is an editor at the new york times magazine, formerly a producer for this american life and editor at harper's magazine. geoffrey canada is president and ceo of a harlem children's zone, recipient of several awards for

his work including the prize for education, jefferson award for public service and heinz award. for more information about the ha haharcharzharm children's zone h h hcz.org. >> what are you reading? >> the books i would have pull out of view, what are you reading now, probably two or three graphic novels. to you know the book fun home? it is a memoir, a graphic memoir by alison bechtel who is famous in several subcultures for an on-line comics recalled dikes to watch out for. she is a funny, feisty,

irreverent, insurgent kind of artist. she spent many years working on a memoir. it is her true story of growing up, coming out as a lesbian. her parents were english teachers. it is a very literary -- the lens through which she refractor work, very literary lenses. as she is coming out as an adolescent serializes her father is a repressed homosexual and as she makes the discovery kills himself. it is a powerful, poignant, funny, incredibly moving book. she is one of my favorite current writers, authors, artists. the other book you may have noticed is persepolis by marjane satra

satrapi, written in a very different style, coming of age in a time of repression and autocracy, a theological, theocratic nightmare in her country, fleeing to france. it has all the adolescent strokes, falling in love, discovering your body and all the rest of it. but told against the backdrop of this gigantic, historic moment. very moving book. shows you, both books together show you the great flexibility of this medium, and the great things you can do with comex, i don't pretend to be an expert but i taught, for a long time. i have written a comic, is a terrific medium and it is one that >>reporter: into all -- reaches

into all corners of the world. >> visit other program information at booktv.org. >> knowles examines the rulings of supreme court justice anthony kennedy, the tie-breaking vote in 5-n 4 decisions more than any other justice. this event in washington d.c. is 1:50. ..