thinking about starting their own tea party? >> well, i think that is actually one of our biggest challenges, getting our youth involved because you are our future. i was very happy to see last night some great young college republicans here from a bunch of different universities. they are engaged and concerned about the direction of our country. i mean, i can tell you right now one of the biggest things helping our movement with the youth is that they are graduating from college and there are no jobs. so this movement is growing. i mean, you can see that the youth are becoming involved. at think we need to use technology because if you want to reach -- of was having a conversation with somebody last night about building multimillion-dollar websites. it's like, why go build a multimillion-dollar website. the need to beat booing mobile

apps. if you want to reach the it's your going to do it to their mobile phone. there are groups out there that are focused on young americans for freedom, college republicans. there is a tea party student organization. so i think just getting the message out there and focusing on the fiscal issues. it is the spending. just focus on that. don't go to the social issues because it is the same thing with all of us come that is what is going to divide us the parents of losing jobs. they can't pay for this sort of thing anymore just tell people where they can go and research the information. it's not our job to persuade them. they need to go educate themselves, and i think that's going to help grow this movement in terms of the youth.

>> to other specifics on that, students for liberty and the institute. they can put you in touch with a do it yourself start your own organization on campus with bylaws and all of the things that you think would cost you a lot of money or take a lot of time to do. if you want to start a group by yourself, that's a great place to start. >> in addition mike of got org offers local apps downloadable on the website. please take a look at those resources as well. >> thank you. guys, i have been hearing a lot of generalities and conservatives and progressives and left and right. i see it as an ideological question of you either believe in the federal reserve system or you don't. right now what i see very much like the four rows of microphones is three sides over there of the far, far left, the obama left and the new cambridge

right which defense federal reserve banking, and that's fine. but we need to get this people out in the open to say, look, we believe in central banking and have the opposition of, no, we don't believe in central banking because we a doing now is talking about the systems of central banking and not the cause of all these symptoms, high unemployment, inflation, lower standard of living, the pressures of fiat money. i think you all do a big disservice in the tea party not to specifically address the issue of central fractional reserve banking and its monopoly over legal tender loss. so as a movement at think we need to come around to galvanizing, you guys believe in central banking. that's fine. we don't and so yawl need to get -- i think that is how we need to the kind of organize our forces to reedbuck my question

is -- >> we get the question. look, two things. don't tell that the party but they ought to do. let me say, but ron paul has done in educating people on this subject by having a simple bill that says we ought to audit the fed. now, the people who oppose the idea of auditing the fed make the case that there may be a problem. if their response was, sure, on at the fed, what do we care, not a big deal. the fact they don't want it raises some questions. what ron paul's approach has been is to say, i think we had should audit the fed. we all need to be careful not to tell them, you have to pick up my issue as your number one issue. you are responsible for your issue. everyone else is responsible for their issue. there are thousands of two party leaders out there. again, ron paul has begun the education process that i think he would like to see happen.

[applause] >> thank you. i am from minnesota. [applause] i have a quick question. we talk about taking money off the table. i think one of the best ways to do that is to just say no to increasing the national debt limit. 218 members of the house, fiscally responsible members can do it. what did you say about that please? >> absolutely. >> we have one minute left. out give a short answer. yes. [laughter] >> it's an important pressure point for spending restraints. the only one i see out there right now. but. >> all right. i'm sorry, we have time for one more question. the gentleman in the front two has been waiting patiently. sir. >> the microphone. grab the microphone behind you.

the microphone. the microphone. >> just a comment. grover, you said, don't tell the tea party what to do. to me i think i agree with a lot of the things that the tea party does and associate myself with a lot of what they do. i think that they need to do like the lady standing up said. i have friends on the left that our friends. i don't agree with them, but i think we ought to stop using the words left, right, liberal, slamming individuals and talk about -- and talk about issues. if i believe in an issue, like the man from the federal reserve, i'm not up on the federal reserve for pushing his issues, but let's talk about issues. we need to bring in the people that voted for obama last time because even though they don't like him right now that will probably vote for him again unless we bring the men. >> i would invite you all to

welcome -- or exceeds me, to thank all of our panelists for a wonderful discussion. [applause] [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] to saxby. ♪ >> the banking industry continues to recover, but an increase in 2011 according to the federal deposit insurance corporation. that news conference with fdic chair sheila bair is next on c-span2. after that, from the u.s. conference of mayors we will hear from newark, new jersey mayor and education secretary

ernie duncan. later melinda gates on increasing health care access for children globally. tomorrow on washington journal charlotte mayor anthony thoughts and oklahoma city mayor nick cornet discuss what budget shortfalls their cities could face. then bristol palin of the affordable housing centers of america on what his organization is doing to help those facing foreclosure. mike thompson of the council of state government on state budgets and changing present policies. washington journal live each morning at 7:00 eastern on c-span. later in the day former republican governor mike hackett be will be at the national press club to talk about the state of politics in washington and his new book. governor had to be ran for president in 2008 and says he is contemplating another run in 2012 to be live coverage at noon eastern also on c-span.

>> this weekend on the book tv, michael sawyer, former chief of the cia osama bin lauden yet on the continuing war against the u.s. william mcgowan things the new york times that has tarnished. and afterwards susan jacobean exporters and never say die. but for the complete schedule at book tv and get our scheduled e-mail directly to you. signup for our book tv alert. >> the head of the federal deposit insurance corporation, sheila bair, says banking profits are up and the industry as a whole continues to recover. the fdic's year end report did caution that the number of troubled banks remains high. this is conference is about 20 minutes. >> did morning and welcome to our release of fourth quarter and full-year 2010 results for the banking industry.

before i get started of want to know for the record the some of the historical data we are presenting has changed because of recently announced amendments by one large institution. senior staff will provide details about these changes during the technical panel that follows his presentation. material does not impact overall conclusions they have reason the past. now, let's talk about the most recent results. the bank continued their recovery in the fourth quarter. as the indicators improved for a third consecutive quarter and the improvement was reflected in the earnings performance on a majority of institutions. piquancy the improvement in energy earnings. overall 2010 was a turnaround year with four straight quarters of profit earnings. all earnings in 2010 remain well below pre crisis levels. the past year marks a significant milestone on the road to recovery.

we are encouraged that only by the rising trend and total industry income, but also by the fact that a substantial majority of insured institutions are participating in this trend as the next chart shows. almost two out of every three institutions are reporting improved earnings from one year ago. the number of unprofitable institutions has declined from year ago levels in each of the last five quarters. community banks average return on assets for larger institutions. as a group they are recovering. community banks reporting higher earnings and one year ago. in keeping credit performance it has been the key to earnings growth. this chart shows the level of net charge of each quarter along with the change in current loan balances during the quarter. as troubled loans began to rise in 2007 net income began to decline. the peak series for not currently owns and late 2008 and

early 2009 was also the low point for quarterly and earnings. loan loss provisions of fallen from a year ago levels in each of the last five quarters and are now less than one-half of what they were at the peak. there is a limited the amount the smaller loan-loss provisions can contribute to the bottom line. going for revenue growth will be increasingly important. revenues remain fairly resilient, but as you can see in this chart, there is little upward momentum. revenues have not grown faster because loans have not been growing. two-thirds of the industry's net operating revenue comes from net interest income which in turn comes primarily from making loans. as you can see in the next chart loan balances have been falling for two and half years. however, the decline and balances is notably smaller than it was in 2009 ban. also balances on commercial and industrial loans have grown in

each of the last two quarters. growth of well underwritten loans and associated revenues will be a further sign that the industry is gaining strength and at its critical stage of the business cycle is responsible growth and bank lending providing a stronger foundation for economic recovery. another indicator of industry health is the number of problem institutions. this chart shows the trend in the number of banks and the number of banks on the ftse problem bank list. the number of banks has fallen in each of the last two quarters. the rate of increase in the number of problem banks has declined in each of the last four quarters. this trend is obviously favorable, but current levels of failures and problems institution still remain high by historical standards. at the end of 201-0884 institutions were of the problem must. a total of 170 institutions failed in 2010. the total assets of institutions

that failed last year, $92 billion, substantially smaller than 2009 total of $170 billion. as we previously stated we believe that the number of failures peaked in 2010, and we expect both the number and total assets to be lower than last year. as the industry's recovery continues the position of the deposit trend fund also continues to improve. the deposit insurance fund balance at the end of 2010 was-$7 billion compared to-8000000000 in september. if this balance remains negative, losses from tell these that have occurred and a $17 billion contingent loss reserves already set aside to cover the cost of failures over the next year. after declining for a seventh straight quarter the balance has improved for four quarters in a row boosted by assessment income and improving hours for future bank failures.

as a result we stress that this balance will turn positive in 2011. at the end of 2010 our total cash position was $46 billion. this is ample liquidity to meet our obligations. total estimated insured deposits jumped by almost $800 billion in the fourth quarter. this increase reflects additional temporary coverage of interest bearing transaction accounts authorized by the dodd-frank act. additional coverage will run through the end of 2012. milestones show us how far we have, and how far we have to go back. the end of the year offers a chance to look back and evaluate what has been accomplished so far. insured institutions made considerable progress in 2010. the return to industry profitability and the improving trend in asset quality is of very positive development. cleaning up balance sheets is only a first that.

now we are looking through the industry to take the next debt and begin to build the loan portfolio. the long-term health about the industry and our economy will depend on the responsible expansion of bank lending at its pivotal point in the economic recovery. thank you very much, and i'll be happy to answer your questions. >> chairman. >> yes. >> what do you think the loan balance fell in the fourth quarter? >> the rate of decrease is slowing. i believe it's only. 2%. that is positive. loans were up, mortgages were up. it is not growing at the pace of with like to see. i think banks need to be focused on this. you know, if they want to have long-term sustainable earnings you can only rely on provisions

for so long. a to see more lending. >> they keep saying that there is a demand out there. >> i think the most recent loan office survey suggest it's picking up. we are seeing an increase in loan balances. i think that is part of the problem, there are still on certain things about the economy. the economy is improving and hopefully as the economy improves we will see demand pick up. and also think that banks pay to get back to basics. the old-fashioned lending, we need more of that. >> hi. the increase. >> right. >> a good question. some of that is seasonal for the holiday season. i'm going to say it's positive. i'm going to say it's positive. credit lines were pulled back during the crisis, and i do think that had an impact on

consumers. also had an impact on small businesses. so i'm going to be that as a positive. receipt. >> hi. the senate banking, but the durbin amendment posed challenges for small banks. i'm wondering, do you believe that the fed should delay the role and study it more? >> i would not take a position on what congress should or shouldn't do. i think we need to acting through what the ramifications are of that amendment. we are particularly concerned. the amendment itself clearly mandates that community banks, bank with assets less than $10 billion the protected. weather the current -- i don't think the current proposal does that. chairman for 90. we are looking at whether the current authorities can, in

fact, require the networks to do pricing. that would be a possible way to fix this. as authorities to that, community banking issue which i think is clearly consistent. i think there are broader issues about its impact, but, you know, congress has acted. so we will try to work with the fed on their intent. but protecting the banks. >> just one other question on the return on equity. given -- return on equity based on this chart is around 14%. given the changes, regulatory changes that have been made and the requirements that banks support out, do you think will get back to 14%? >> well, that's a really good question. with the dad is the right level are not, i don't know.

i am hoping that as we emerge from this crisis investors will appreciate the trade-off. perhaps somewhat lower our of these with more sustainable. the long-term business plan and bank management. i think ultimately the market will decide. consistent with supervision. too big to fail, but i do hope that investors will recognize the trade-off. >> we have time for one more question. >> they see very much. >> excuse me. before we take your questions i would like to just very briefly describe the changes to the previously reported earnings

that chairman bair referred to in her statement. during the processing of the 2010 data we receive immediate, reports from one large institution stating its financial results for several prior ties back to first quarter 29. the statements concerned charges for impairment of good will. they affected quarterly net income for the institution as well as the industry in three different quarters. i would note that while there was a reduction in good will which had an affect on equity capitol, it had no affect on regulatory capitol which has never included get well. as we know in both our press release and the published quarterly banking profile in this issue the three quarters in which earnings were affected with the first and second quarters of 2009 and the third quarter of 2010. we originally reported a $7 billion net profit for the first quarter of 2009.

the amended total is now six and a half billion dollar net loss. we originally reported over three and a half billion dollars net loss. the current amanda total for that quarter is now six and have -- i'm sorry, 12 and a half billion dollar net loss. for year 2009 industry earnings were reported as 12 and a half billion. the current revised total for that year is a net loss of just over to the half-million. the last quarter we reported quarterly net income of 147 for the industry. the revised total for the third quarter 2010 is now $247 billion profit. prior quarter results reflect the amendments received from other institutions as well the total amounts of these changes are almost entirely attributable to one institution. we will be happy to answer any questions you might have concerning the impact of these

changes on past industry results, but in keeping with our normal policy at these briefings we will discuss any specific individual institutions for the record. with that, we'll be happy to take any of your followup questions. >> just a little more background >> yes. i think one element in the decline in overall loan balance is probably a shift in where the declines to comment from. as the chairman noted recent increases in both cnr and balances and mortgage loan balances in the fourth quarter, the second quarter in a row we have seen growth in both those portfolios. most of the decline is taking

place in real estate construction and development loans. this is kind of a carryover from problems in commercial real-estate markets that have developed previously and are still and that cleanup going on. while some categories that are perhaps leading declines earlier during the crisis, now showing growth. what we are seeing is the sum of the areas in long portfolios were problems develop later in the cycle, those of the ones that are now resulting in the net decline. it is a change in makes, but as the chairman noted, the overall net effect of the growing category versus a declining category is that we are seeing some progressively smaller decreases in the overall loan portfolios in the industry. very close to a point where we expect to see some growth. >> briefly, we have seen abroad leveraging of the u.s. economy. commercial loan portfolios that

appear to be abating and starting to turn around. real estate is another matter. real estate lending in general is 57% of banks' loan portfolios. has taken a big kid obviously in this cycle to be a real estate cycles are still well down from their highs. it is of lacking part of the loan portfolio in any event, but especially in the cycle given difficulties in the real-estate sector. >> are we seeing more quarters of negative our balance? downturns killing into recovery. is this going on longer than it has in the past? >> during the -- for example, in commercial loan portfolios the last recession, a 2001 recession was the corporate sector recession. thirteen consecutive quarters of decline. in terms of cnr broadly it is

not dissimilar to what we saw, even though we have had a broad the leveraging. consumer credit has done more in the cycle than it did in the previous cycle. the 2000 session did not affect much of all. again, real estate in the cycle it, the worst real-estate cycle since the 1930's. still dealing with cleaning up the portfolios. the construction and development portfolio has struck almost by half, 49 percent since the beginning of the recession. $69 billion of that is charge-offs, more than ten. you get an idea of the scale of the cutbacks in construction development with the credit problems that have been seen. >> credit and real estate is separate. >> separate.

does the size of the deposit agreement, people are saving money, they are just leaving it in deposits at banks and not turning much interest? >> i think probably some of that is at work. also at least for fourth quarter some of the growth that we saw in non-interest bearing balances particularly tend to be corporate payroll accounts which is the seasonal effect. typically at the end of the year. some of the growth in the fourth quarter that we see is seasonal growth. if you make a mental adjustment for that i think there still is, you know, relatively strong growth and deposits. we have seen banks that have been able to shift an increasing share of their funding into deposits away from non deposit liabilities and other funding sources. >> banks seemed to have ample

funding. households and businesses. of. of risk aversion. relatively attractive. given that loan portfolios of not been growing banks have really not needed the funding. as the funding that will be important as banks start to grow their loan portfolio as loan demand picks back up and funding seems to be in good shape for expansion of the balance sheet, the economy continues to recover. back. >> thanks everyone.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ..

the u.s. conference of mayors is meeting in washington this week. coming up we will hear remarks from newark new jersey mayor cory booker. topics include the local economy, education programs and jobs. this session is an hour and 25 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> all right, ladies and gentlemen, we want to begin now. we are a little bit behind and

our host is on his way. i was trying to wait for him but i think we should probably get started. just a little but housekeeping this is being filmed right now by c-span and my mom watches it. [laughter] so if you would please when you talk about the chair of the meeting, throw something in that my mom might appreciate. in all seriousness, what it means is as we filmed this, the only way you are going to be heard to the c-span audience is a few talking to the microphone. we are used to yelling, no major smith is, i could hear him all the way from newark when he does, but i would ask you to lean forward and speaking to the microphone when you're speaking as well. i want to give a few general opening remarks and go around and have all of the mayor's introduce yourself, but city nor from and how much you like the new jersey giants. [laughter] that we will go right into the panel discussion as well.qq but i want to thank echfordqqy

buddy here for joining us today for the work and opportunity summit. my name is cory booker, and i am the mayor of newark, new jersey, and the chair of the mayor's work force this means people who are employed, working poor and many of those economic development, education reform, children's health insurance, offender reentry issues and expansion of affordable housing in many other issues as critical steps towards the creation of the mayor's anti-poverty agenda. i want to give special thanks that we know as we do our business it is public-private partnership that drives so much

positive change in the city's. and working with foundations, and in particular i want to thank the casey foundation for sponsoring the meeting today. their partnership and continued support of this task force is making a lot of good things happen in our city and in powering a lot of people. in the 21st century taskforce -- in the 21st century the task force members and i believe america can no longer afford poverty. poverty presents to the nation really is the underutilization of the greatest natural resource this nation has which is not our oil, coal but simply the country's greatest natural resources have always been its people. this is especially so in today's global knowledge based economy. for america to compete in the 21st century economy, we need

every one of our members pulling the nation forward, contributing to its gdp, helping to keep america's the most competitive democracy in the globe. but frankly, we know this is not happening. we have from our prisons to our unemployment ranks of a great waste of human potential and capability that could be used to propel the nation forward. this is not a country we have a zero sum game dividing an already existing pot. the more people to work, the more businesses that are created, the more we expand educational opportunities and innovation, the creator of america expands benefitting people not only with our own borders but benefiting the globe as a whole. this means america must maximize the productive potential of all segments of its population we could afford to lose no man or woman behind. this means we need to connect people with opportunities as they exist, and we need to begin

to create new opportunities so our people can maximize their potential. today we will be discussing those opportunities and learning from one another. in fact, in so many ways the mayors and america are the governmental innovation machines of this nation. every single day mayors are finding new ways of moving the city's forward especially over the last three years under the most difficult conditions. and so we will be examining that today and how we can expand what we know is a knowledge based and spread it from one community to another but also as we stand here the nation's capital how we can begin to better influence federal policy and the policy makers by giving them information about what is working and what could work better and some new ideas that could be brought to the table. i want to begin today's meeting simply with introductions of the mayor's. i often have noted that the definition of politics in the dictionary comes from latin

group polly meaning many, and tics. [laughter] i remember feinstein from california pulled me aside. she is a senator who used to be a mayor and 71 you to know the hardest job in government today by far is not the united states senator or congressperson, it's not state representatives but it is my years who must every single day and night as many of them know around the table must answer the urgent demand of the community in a reactive way but also proactively make a better way for the american city. i am pleased today to be surrounded by white believe for the nation's most humble hero who every day are performing modest miracles. i would like to go round the table perhaps skipping the panel for a moment, and mayor nutter will forgive me for skipping

over him. he's still a little bitter about the performance of the phillies the past year. i would like to start maybe perhaps with neyer maker if you would go and leave us down the way. please state your name and the great city from which you held. >> james baker from the city of wilmington, delaware. >> bill from the city of durham north carolina. >> good morning, the city of chicopee massachusetts. mr. and mrs. booker if you are watching corridos you proud. >> bill finch, connecticut. sorry, mayor booker i'm not a giants fans but a bridge port fish and tiger fan. >> the last time we played our minor league team against yours i think we've won. >> i think you did -- i'm not

exactly sure but our team is still in the league and i don't know what happened. [laughter] >> moving along very quickly. >> good morning. the city of davenport and also city at in the streator devonport and as they say as our schools go, so do the cities and the nation, and we have a great schools in iowa but there is certainly room for improvement and that's what we are here for to figure out new ways, new innovations and the ways to make the schools greater to compete in the world of the global economy. >> i serve as the mayor of texas and also the exit of structure for the education foundation and today i am accompanied by our school district superintendent from san marcus. >> my name is harvey johnson from checks in mississippi.

>> and christopher, the mayor of west sacramento california and the vice-chairman for the job's educational work force committee for the u.s. conference of mayors. >> was the better russ good ballplayer, sacramento or west sacramento? >> by a small margin sacramento who is on the phone from saving the kings from going to the city of anaheim. [laughter] >> if there's truth to the rumor they might be coming to the city of newark somebody get him off that phone call right now. >> virginia just across the river here and served as the chair of the washington council of government work force development committee. >> city of sumter carolina. >> taylor, michigan, and proud to be here after spending ten years in the public school representing to tayler as its mayor. >> tony mack of new jersey, and

unbeknownst to cory, still the capitol. [laughter] >> stephanie meijer from syracuse new york. >> on trey from the city of miami. >> the mayor of san juan puerto rico. >> to mrs. booker your son has the distinct pleasure of being my neighbor. [laughter] >> good morning. ayaan ashley, the mayor of fresno california. >> i'm going to hold off because much to the chagrin i want to introduce the panel members to my left and right. we will be dealing with a lot of issues today and i just want to again reemphasize from our high levels of unemployment in the nation to problems with poverty. we truly have a lot of work to do. mayors around this table and

across the nation are making very good things happen with dwindling resources, and i know that should be really on our mind today as congress considers everything from summer job programs to frankly work force investment acts and the reauthorization right now from the urban enterprise communities which we all know have been programs which we've used to help leverage jobs. in addition to this it's not just a conversation about how to bring more money to our cities. that is not the only paradigm for which we are going to make progress. there's a lot of innovation we will hear from some of our panelists addressing innovative ways to start new businesses, to source new research in the city to launch innovation funds, new ideas about how to grow businesses and how to attract businesses that might be leaving overseas. in addition as you will hear from our panelists today we will be talking about an enduring american problem. i once had a conversation with a great american general colin

powell who said to me after a larger conversation about nuclear proliferation terrorism and of an ongoing war in iraq i asked with the greatest threats to democracy was in the next 50 years and the great general didn't miss a beat. he said the greatest threat to our democracy the next 50 years is our inability to educate our population at adequate or high levels. and this is the truth of america that i know some of the people to my left and right will mengin. but just real quick for the viewers at home, something many of the mayors around the table know all too well. right now in our country only 68% of american eighth graders -- 60% of eighth graders can't read at grade level. one-third of students in the nation drop out of high school, and another third aren't considered college ready when they graduate. many who do try to go on to college and of an remedial class. among the other developed nations america ranks 24th in math, 17th in science and tenth in literacy.

this reality is undermining and cannibalizing america's future. it is connected to the issues we struggle with from poverty to high joblessness and specifically even to the high levels of incarceration. we talk about the cost of poverty, the cost of ignorance is immense within the nation. and we know from studies like the one recently done years ago from mckinsey just looking at high school graduation rates the have an impact on our low graduation rates in the country have an impact on american gdp in the trillions of dollars. we learned in the city of newark our recidivism rate is 60%. this reality of only do we incarcerate over 20% of the population in prisons but when we release these men and women and they go back to the present it is costing us an immense amount of dollars and police and

courts and ultimately incarceration of the lost money that we are seeing so today we are going to have a lot of frank discussions about these issues and i am very proud of the mayors that we have today on the panel that's going to discuss this issue first. i would like to ask for a buddy to hold your questions until all three speakers are able to arrive and get some questions from the batres very soon. our first speaker this morning is that what ails the mayor michael nutter who is the second vice president of the u.s. conference of mayors. since taking office in january, 2008, he has made education public safety and jobs his top priorities and he has delivered and brought about significant change. he's committed the city of philadelphia school district to increasing the school graduation rate by 50% in five to seven years and bubbling the college

read in five to ten years. last year the city's office of education released a two year study that showed the first increase the number of russian students from high school and create more educated city in which all citizens have the opportunity to reach the potential and the findings basically say since january of 08 the school district graduation rates of trend upwards including a 3% increase in four year and six year graduation rate. the reports show to help students of track or who drop out the added 490 seats in the new small school innovative programs. the report lays out the report for the coming year. the key priorities focusing on the number of philadelphians who have the opportunity to attend and compete in, which carried to this end, neyer nutter open the bay filly goes to college office in city hall, a sort of 311 of college. the office on the first floor of

the city hall right when you walk in provides information and referrals to young people and adults who need help navigating the college preparation process. we are delighted to have the maitre nutter to join us today and i want to say on a very personal remark i have gotten to know mayor nutter. he's been to meet demand for and is one of our great national leaders. mayor nutter. >> maker cory booker, thank you very, very much and responding to the comments made earlier i want to say mr. and mrs. booker, may hear booker read what he read exactly the way i wrote it. [laughter] i greatly appreciate you working with him, he is a great mayor in our country. thank you also it is a pleasure to be on this panel and so all of my fellow mayors have come here this morning and a director of human capital investment and

alexander from the legislative affairs and community of reach office we are delighted and honored to be here to talk about the most important issue facing the united states of america as mayor booker laid out with regard to comments made by general town. philadelphia and the public schools i will tell you up front the mayor of philadelphia does not run the public schools, but from my perspective at least they are my children, they are in our city and i have a responsibility and an obligation to them and to their parents, so we take education very seriously in philadelphia, and i know all of you do as well. as much as our cities have faced financial challenge, certainly our schools to as well. and there are a couple areas i would like to highlight. first and foremost, we all know that federal funding through arra for schools is going away and that presents a challenge in and of itself.

second, the commonwealth of pennsylvania is now facing a 5 billion-dollar deficit in the upcoming fiscal year. the governor will deliver a budget message very shortly, and we are very concerned about state funding for public schools as well. our school system has no funding ability of its own, no separate taxing authority and gets its funding primarily from the state, second from the city and then a small amount of funding from the federal government. we are also very concerned about any domestic budget changes for the district which would result in the increase reduced services potentially in the core programs for the young people. meter bricker lead off from the report we released some of the gains we are seeing in our schools and we want to maintain them and go forward. the schools achieve what your ip and the achievement has increased across all grades for

eight years in a row in philadelphia. this continued progress has moved us from one in five students achieving greater level eight years ago from one to two students achieving greater level right now. we appreciate the efforts and the commitment by president obama and certainly president don king with regard to educational investments and looking to make more investments in education. i would suggest and i've said before that education should be considered a part of a national defense of the united states of america. that's how we will compete in the global economy of going forward. at this critical point we must all work together to improve educational opportunities not only for our young people but also for those young at heart. our residents and adults if we are truly to achieve economic recovery in the united states. mayor booker mengin our commitment to doubling the college degree a tenantry and you think about philadelphia and the region i assume mayor baker

next to me to read in the philadelphia region pennsylvania, new jersey and delaware we have 101 colleges and universities in the tristate area. we are one of the most education secondary environments anywhere in the united states of america. we want to ensure not only our young people are crutch away from high school, but also understand that there is opportunity ahead of them. we have tried quite honestly to remove the language of k-12 from the lexicon in philadelphia and talk in the context of the k through 16 environment. the only way you're going to be allowed to compete in the 21st century is with at least 16 years of education if not more. on the local level directly i met with presidents of our various colleges and universities every six months to discuss how we can collaborate with regards to our young people not only high school students going to college but also of course we want to then hold on to the thousands of young people who come from across the state,

across the country and around the world to get the education in philadelphia and the philadelphia region. we discuss a variety of things and i am now on a campaign to get 1,000 full tuition scholarships for graduate students from philadelphia schools regardless of what school system these come from. colleges are also providing us with more data, not only on how many students come to school, but how they are fearing once they, are there. getting students in school was one thing. making sure they graduate is the goal. it's not about matriculation, it's about graduation in our view. partnering with our high schools to support each school's students success center, the place where students can connect to both for information and support as they plan to enter college. we also have a focus on adults and the mayor's office of education is uniquely situated not for space purposes but on purpose. my office in philadelphia is in room 215 in the city hall. the education office is in 115

city hall not only on the ground floor would literally right below my office. we've put it there on purpose. we have 73,000 adults in the workforce today who started college and didn't finish. those come backers we are encouraging our employers we have a traditional tuition reimbursement program for our public employees in the city. we are encouraging employers to change their program from the traditional the person that puts up the money gets whatever the threshold is and then often gets 70 to 80% of their money back. that is a very tough task for those who are facing economic challenge. we've eliminated that program and we now pay and contract directly with the colleges and universities. we want to invest in our public employees because we want them to be more educated employees and serve the citizens better. we are encouraging employers all across the city of philadelphia to try to do the same.

those 73,000 folks who started a college to intervene and now back in the work force, we can dramatically increase our college degree at payment rate just with those 73,000 going back to work. a graduate philadelphia is a new program that provides guidance and support to the adults that want to complete degrees and since it's starting in 2008, this organization has advised over 1400 adults of how to return to college, the majority re-entering college and staying and rolled. we've still washed every becoming years returning partnership which provides city employees with a 25% discount for the employee, the spouse and their children to go to college here in philadelphia, nine colleges have signed up with us in this post secondary opportunity in our college and career advancement program helping our employees develop the right skills, better prepare them for civil service

employment opportunities or to enroll in a variety of college courses across the spectrum of those colleges. since the program started their program and there are another 60 enrolled in the next course that upcoming. for those interested in a broad array of services as the mayor booker mentioned we created fill the goes to college and that is filthy goes to college.com, a web site that offers one-stop shopping whether you are 18, 38 or 81 you can get information about the went to college in philadelphia through foley goes to college. since this opening in february of last year, 5200 people have either come to the office, made phone calls, participated in the workshops and presentations, the website has been accessed nearly 40,000 times so it is pretty clear the citizens are serious about getting educational information and upgrading their skills. just last month we announced the

city wide financial aid completion campaign to educate students and families about the availability of federal, state and local funding to go to college. again, an emphasis on getting the forms filled out we train 100 of our public employees to help families in 2009 they received over $30 million in additional three financially it just by filling out the form and getting it in. this year the goal was to increase the amount of college aid available to philadelphia by 15%. it would be an additional $38 million in free financial aid for young people to go to college. we are pretty proud of these efforts and we still have a lot of work to do. in the city with a 25% poverty rate and excessively high levels of citizens who have challenges from illiteracy standpoint, we believe investing in education, uplifting the educational opportunities and skills for people in the city is one of the

verdict ways to reduce the poverty level and make philadelphia and the philadelphia region that much more competitive. all across the united states and around the world. thank you for the opportunity to talk about some of the things going on in our great city. thanks. >> mayor nutter, thank you very much. [applause] >> i hope people have held some questions. i want to get through all the panelists. i am very pleased and we are very privileged to have the mayor who just joined us. he is the host for this conference and is the mayor of the most significant city when it comes to supporting a lot of the work the other mayors are doing, but the mayor craig was recently elected in since his inauguration he has already taken steps to fulfill his campaign promises of uniting this great city and focusing its energies on the creation of jobs, new economic development

and working on a collaborative approach to school reform and restore fiscal stability and responsibility for the city government mayor gray is a native to washington. he has been an advocate for residents for more than 30 years since i think he was 6-years-old through his work. [laughter] 5-years-old, excuse me. [laughter] you do have much more here than me. this is a preemptive strike on an inevitable conclusion. >> for his market city government and the sector she has been living a life of service through this city. december 1994 mayor gray was named the first exhibit director of the house on a huge fan here in washington where he helped make the organization one of the most effective of its kind in d.c. and led a successful campaigns to purchase and renovate the crisis center for homeless youth and build a new

community service center in the cities so these community. talk about work against poverty. in 2004 he was elected to be the councilman. during his time as the city council man he chaired a special committee on the prevention of youth violence. he also spearheaded the expansion enhancement act with the establishment of a voluntary high-quality preschool program which will provide 2,000 new classrooms lots two, three and 4-year-olds of the next six years. he has been seeking ways to leverage job-training dollars to serve low-income populations, and he has been developing a proposal to strengthen the work force development. it's an honor to introduce to the c-span audience as well as my fellow mayors, the mayor of the city of my birth, i don't know if you that, i lived here for the greatest eight weeks of my life. [laughter] everything was exciting and new before my parents moved me to new jersey, but it's a privilege

and honor, actually the first time to shake your hand and to tell you thank you for your us. nice introduction, mayor booker. i'm sure you have some very fond memories of those eight weeks. >> i do. >> i can't imagine why you left. i'm delighted to be here with all of you and the efforts we are involved in the district of columbia. as you well know we have some unique challenges in the district of columbia. our budget was probably similar to other cities. we just went through a period or we close the gap for fiscal year and 11 of $188 million, which relative to the budget we have a $5.2 billion global budgets so that's a very substantial sum of money for us.

and we did it in a variety of ways in substantial part of the two cuts and for the first time in many years we have our work force involving furloughs. the first of which was this past monday on president's day and there will be three others on the emancipation day which is a holiday here in the city, memorial day and independence day, which has unique significance for us since we are challenged deeply in terms of having independence of everybody else in america enjoys. we did it on holidays frankly with intention now the and the west to try to on the one hand affect way the savings which will be about $20 million, also engage in minimal disruption of government operations, and i am really quite pleased with the support we got from the work force especially the organized labor. they worked very closely with us

recognizing that we are in a very difficult fiscal situation where we continue to be challenged. we are facing a problem the next fiscal year of $500 million, which is a huge challenge for us. given what we have already done we have to present a budget on april 1st. i don't know that i like the symbolism of that april 1st, but it is what this in terms of fiscal year 12 that begins october 1st. we are working now to try to determine exactly what measures we will take. it could be and will continue to be a substantial amount of cuts but we could be looking at trying to generate additional resources as well in order to close that gap. so i see that also to see that as you are in the nation's capital, on a invite you and urge you to spend every dime and as you have -- [laughter]

you know,, often and go out as often as you possibly can. you think we don't take credit cards, we take credit cards, we take checks and we will even take ious at this point. you can even use a tax revenue. i want to thank neyer nutter for the nice segue talking about education and i could not agree with him more in terms of the emphasis on education. some of you may know that we've been involved in a very aggressive and substantially contribute to a more competitive work force. right now, our unemployment level in the district of columbia is about 9.6, 9.7% which in and of itself is substantial. but when you start to look at the disparities across the city, we truly are like charles dickens tale of two cities. on the western end of the city, unemployment is probably around

three or 4%. but when you go further east seven and 8i live in ward seven on the eastern end of the city. the unemployment levels are remarkably high. the ward i live in the unemployment level was 19% at this stage and we have the poverty levels the company that of course extremely high levels of participation and some of our entitlement programs like medicaid and food stamps and others. and then when you go to the board 80 it is unbelievably high. the unemployment level today is over 40%. and that is just along the the people who are continuing to look for an plame at. it probably rises another ten or 12% if we factor in those who have essentially given up and are among the chronically unemployed. i ran on a platform of a zero, birth through 24 education effort. we've done some things even when

i was elected to this positions were mentioned were the second i was the chair of the council for four years prior to that. one of the things i am most proud of is what mayor booker mentioned in his introduction and that is the emphasis on prekindergarten services. i happen to believe that that kind of early intervention will have a profound impact on the future of readiness of our young people and of course young adults to be able to participate in the workforce. we've indicated in the legislation that we did in 2008 that we were going to us by year to universal reality in our prekindergarten programs. we said we would do it by 2014, and frankly, that effort has been so popular in the city that we actually got full we ought to skillet university of the at the end of september of 2010. i don't know at this stage but i

don't believe that there is another city in america at this stage that has reached the point we can say we have a seat for every three and 4-year-old. they have a seat for every free-year-old and 4-year-old and one of their organized education programs. education reform actually began in 1997 and the district of columbia with the advent of a charter schools, and i don't know the extent to which you have a charter schools in your cities, but frankly for us i think it's created a kind of competitive environment and education that ultimately will reach out to the benefit of our children and our families. just to give you a context, we have about 74 tells the children in public education and the district of columbia. but 40% of your children now or in charter schools. we have about 28,000 children in charter schools. there are 52 charter schools on 93 campuses in the district of columbia, and it is a growing

area of education every day. frankly one of the things that it has done is helped to make our traditional public education programs for more competitive. we have seen a decline in enrollment for decades in the district of columbia and public education programs. fact, back in the mid 60's, we had 145,000 children traditional public education and the district of columbia. by the end of last school year, we were down to 44,000. for the first time in the inlet data will be released in about a week. for the first time in decades we will actually show growth in our traditional public schools enrollment. it will go up probably two to 3,000 kids when the data are finally audited and released, which we think is a good sign in terms of what the emphasis on education and the outcomes for our children. in terms of a birth through 24

continuum, one of the things i was involved and also and it's hard to believe, but we have no community college in the district of columbia. every jurisdiction in america has a community college. we've now created one in about 18 months it has been phenomenally pocketed. we of 2600 students enrolled in our community college on four campuses in the city. not only are they working to avoid the two-year degrees, but it's a continuing education and work force to will but aspects that have tremendous significance and relevance for our cities as well. frankly, it is helped us to more crisply define the mission of our state university if you will, and that is the university of the district of columbia which has had to try to be all things to all people. is now focused on becoming a first class for your flagship institution, and the functions that they were performing including remedial the education now have all gone over to the community college.

so, we believe first and foremost an emphasis on education and the wavering emphasis on education is ultimately going to get us out of some of the problems that we had. for us, i don't know about your city that for us it isn't just an substance of jobs. as a matter of fact in some respects it is the opposite. in the last year we had 26,000 -- 25,000 new jobs created in this district of columbia. but the problem is the skill sets required for those jobs are a mismatch with the skills for the people but don't have jobs and the challenge that we have is being able to close that gap. i see the new deputy for planning is here, victor hopkins, who and delighted has joined us in our administration and he will have a principal responsibility in terms of economic development and work force initiatives here in the city. one of them will be how we

expand the economy in the city. essentially we have been defined as a government town and that is true, and that is never going to change. we were the seed of the federal grumet and they are probably more of 200 jobs in the federal government. but one of the problems we have in this city is that 70% of the jobs are filled in the city by people who do not live in the district of columbia. and because we don't have the authority to tax income of its source, that is a revenue that is generated in the city every day and walks out everyday. so, i mean i'm realistic, we are not going to get the authority in the near term to be attacks and come as a source, so how do you address that? you work hard to try to increase the percentage of people who live in this city who are actually occupying the jobs in the district of columbia. for example, our first responders, we have only 19% of our police officers who actually live in the district of columbia, the ligon maryland, delaware, west virginia or

wherever. and an even smaller percentage of our fire fighters between 12 to 15% of our fire fighters which in the district of columbia. so it's one of the work force development initiatives we are stepping up an emphasis on academies, and a part of that will be done naturally in our high schools as a part of a career and technical the education program so that we captured the attention of these kids while they are still in high school and hopefully help them develop careers as first responders. in addition to that, we are leveraging, trying to leverage our relationship with the federal government. some of you may know the biggest construction project in the near term in this nation will be the location of homeland security to the scene of the hospital campus. there will be over the next six years 22,000 construction jobs will be associated with that and there will be 14,000 permanent jobs that will either located or relocated to the campus.

the opportunity that transcends and exceeds that to me is what we have in terms of addressing the problems that i mentioned before where the unemployment is chronically high and it is the highest in the district of columbia. what we are working to do is to try to interpret the development of the homeland security with of the community so that there are amenities, businesses. one of the worst things that could happen is that we wind up with an enclave where all of these people go to the campus each day, work, going out and have no relationship with the community. point of fact, we have so few amenities that we hope to use this as a catalyst to be able to do that and then to generate quality jobs as a result of it. i like to say i live in the ward seven and we just doubled the number of sit-down restaurants that we have from one to two.

[laughter] around here you have three or five on the same. this is what we're trying to use the federal government presence for and that is a cabinet for this kind of development and job creation east of the river. we are creating the new mood devotees of transportation. i don't remember how many of you have been to portland, probably many of you have the have a fabulous streetcar system and we are now committed to developing a streetcar system in the city. it's going to take us to fully mature the system that we envisioned it's going to take 20 years, but we are starting now. we lead the first tracks and will be 47 lyle system will cost over a period of 20 years about $1.5 billion but we also know from the experience in particular has a major input on the economic development. if you've been there you can before the parole district which at one point was extremely

challenging as understand and it is a thriving economic area with all kind of amenities and the streetcar is credited in substantial part with having served as a catalyst to make that happen. a couple things i will mention and then i will stop. which is already a substantial part of our economy, but we are also focusing in on jobs and victor has been charged with responsibility for how we do that. we just had a briefing this morning while i was late we have a council may your breakfast this morning where we review issues of mutual concern and interest and we have a sustainable energy utility and that will allow us to begin to develop an increasing number of marine shops in the city focused on energy efficiency and bring additional companies as well as jobs to the district of

columbia. there's a vermont firm that will actually get the contract, but the contractors are all district based firms, and the idea is to work the transition over the next two years as we build capacity here in the city transition over the district based firms which would create additional jobs. we expect to be a will to create between 1,000 to 2,000 new green jobs over the next couple of years, and i think that is at a minimum. the final thing i will mention is that we believe we have an opportunity that is quite unique to the city. we all know that the financial services the change in the last few years given the recessionary economy that we've been involved in. and we are looking to see -- looking at an opportunity to create the district of columbia increasingly as a financial center. what does that mean in specific terms?

you may know that the insurance industry is required to maintain extremely high levels of reserves, hundreds of millions of dollars, and many of those reserves are not i often ask people what state to the reserves maintain and they will say connecticut, the logical answers. the reality is not in any state. they are an offshore location and other offshore locations because of the tax of vintages that accrue to those companies. we are looking to create the same advantage in the district of columbia so that we then can become competitive to be able to attract those reserves to the district of columbia which will bring the combination to the district of columbia, second, it obviously will occupy the office space in the city and third it will create jobs that currently do not exist. so, we are very talented and exceptionally challenged by virtue of being 600,000 people that are substantially disenfranchised. for those of you who don't know

we peace triste $.6 billion in federal taxes each year yet we have no vote in the congress, no senators, and we are significantly at a disadvantage by comparison to the rest of the nation. on the other hand as we work on that we also have the responsibility to build different futures for our children and build a more robust work force in the city so those are the efforts we are focused on and will be focused on over the next few years. thank you again and i look forward to be able to work with all of you around the table as i -- as we tackle some of the same challenges from one city to the next. >> the name of the new restaurant, we might want to go spend some money there. >> the name of it is raise the stakes. [laughter] >> do they have tofu burgers for us vegetarians'?

>> where is the next meeting? >> that's a good idea. >> not necessarily new mayors but they come into the room and i want to give them a chance to identify themselves and the city there from. i think it's mayor cooper. we are being viewed by c-span. you have to speak to the microphone and somebody watching it 2:00 in the morning tell them to wake up. they are missing something very good right now. >> good morning, good evening and good night. [laughter] know, i am mayor jane cooper and thank you for moderating the session. it's good to be here and looking forward to working with everyone. >> i think that mayor lawrence has not introduced herself. >> good morning more good evening. my name is brenda lawrence, the mayor of the city itself phill michigan, and i am very glad to be up the table with my fellow

mayors to discuss some very you this group understands and or very engaged in the topics of thank you so much. >> mayor nutter come help me out here. mayor, would you please -- >> yes, my name is brian stratton, the mayor of new york birthplace of general electric company where we had president obama visit last month and you came to the union college about a month and a half ago to speak and i had the chance to hear your fantastic presentation. so i am delighted to be here. good evening and good day to all of the people watching on c-span. >> thank you very much. >> good morning. i am the mayor of north carolina home to the former player for the washington center who played with lou gehrig and we laid him

to rest the other day but his claim to fame was playing for the washington senators. >> you were too young to know. [laughter] >> i wish we had them as players in washington at any point. we would have won more games. you introduced yourself all ready, forgive me. >> let me make sure that we recognize mayor elizabeth who has joined us as well. madam president, good to see you. >> i would love to pass you a microphone and give our presidents -- people who know the government know the james brown of american politics are the hardest working man years due to -- mayor and to be the leader of a body of mayors to

serve with such distinction the last year plus i don't know about the people coming after you, but your tenure has been extraordinary and you've been helping boston and very difficult times. he would honor us if you gave us a few minutes of your words. >> thank you to saying yes to this assignment. i can't tell you how much i appreciate your answering the call because this is a very difficult kennedy that you are sharing and i can't thank you enough for saying yes. thank you. and to the mayors of america thank you for being here because we are here to be very difficult work. as you all know, this particular committee looks at work force and also look set those people in our community who are in need and i was really happy to hear mayor gray talk about that there are jobs available, but the

disconnect in the skill set so we need to work hard with a workforce development folks, with the education system to make sure we had opportunities for people to learn new skills. during our winter meeting you all learned when we had our panel with ceos and mayors the jobs that were here and when the pair of line shifted with the economy those jobs are not going to come back so there are opportunities for innovation and opportunities for people to learn new skills sets, and we need to work together on all of those. as the economy changes and we see an uptick on all of this, improvement on the economy, one of the things we all know is

that the job is still lag behind, and with the disconnect between job skill proficiency and equipping people, we don't have those methods in place. so mayor booker, i look to you and this group to push that agenda because it is needed. every day all of us need our people and they are all looking for jobs. so we need to find solutions for that and the way for us to do that is not just to work with the work force development and to work with our education system, but to work with our business is because the thing is it is the businesses who create jobs. they are the ones who have to tell us what are the skill sets they need and for us to work with our workforce development and also the education system to make sure that we have the right programs in place to equip

people for those jobs. the jobs are going to be there. it's the new jobs for the grain economy, the new jobs we need to equip people so thank you all for being here. we have a heavy lift not just for this but cdbg and mayor booker, i look to you for your leadership. mayor booker come into for what you do and your support. you've been carrying the torch this last year and a half and i really appreciate that. thank you so much. to all of you, you know, collectively when we come together we make a big difference because we hit critical mass and a fall of the mayors of america stand up, we have critical mass to read thank you. >> that is a tremendous involvement. and the specifics are true. what you say, 80% of the population live directly in the cities or their immediate suburbs and this group right here really does represent what

i believe is in many ways america's heart and lifeblood and the engine most importantly for america's economy, so we appreciate your words. i am happy to pass over now to who's become a dear friend, the mayor of hartford. he was sworn into office in 2010 and since then has put a strong emphasis on creating jobs, pursuing academic excellence in the city schools and promoting economic development with a focus on the number one job creators in america which are small businesses. one of the ways of investing in job opportunities and economic dilemma for heart furthest through swift building projects, a swift building project. the product will restore the swift building located in the northeast neighborhood and bring about critical investment of jobs and opportunities for neighborhood residents. it will also be a way to generate green technology opportunities and quality

housing. i was very glad that the new year is here and i want to say in my painful attempt to learn spanish [speaking in spanish] >> you did very well. use because much spanish as [inaudible] >> for those of you that don't speak spanish, on the as a single mayor asked him to fix me up with somebody. [laughter] >> can we edit that out? i forgot my mom is watching. [laughter] [inaudible] [laughter] >> thank you, mayor booker, and madame president and mayor nutter and the rest of you. it's a privilege and honor to be

here. i've only been mayor for seven months if i don't look like it, you know why. i guess i was given a more narrow topic rather than to describe the whole city plan going to take a couple of minutes to try to give you a broader perspective of our city. the city of hartford is the capitol city of connecticut and of discrepancies and disparities the city's capital is thought to reflect the identity card for a state, but the social data from hartford is very different from the state of connecticut. our state is going through a very difficult budget time. recently the governor, new the elected governor had to confront a $3.5 billion trade deficit which he needed to deal with so the new budget has a series of cuts request from the labor unions and also new taxes in

order to offset the deficit. our city is a unique city. the state of connecticut is one of the most affluent states in the nation if the city of hartford is one of the most economically depressed cities in the nation. we have a city in which more than half of our property is tax-exempt, therefore putting an extra burden on our citizens businessmen and residents as we are often having to make up the margin by increasing local taxes through residential and commercial properties of the real-estate tax is the only taxing entity we have. we have very few sources under the new proposed budget would allow us to have a tax in several others so they will be minimal in terms of what would yield by way of revenue. so, we have a city that as compared to the state has a low per capita income of about

$13,000. median family income of about 23,000, so that gives you a notion of what the median and per-capita income is. with respect to the neighborhood in which this project would be located, it is even more dire economically. it's more depressed economically one of the things i've been trying to work for my administration is to try to increase job development in the city by such things as in fighting the school of medicine and dental school as well as the research school of connecticut to relocate to the city of hartford. that will help us complement opportunities in the medical technology fields and the research fields and hopefully grow our local economy by over $3 billion, something that should have been done when the university was first put out in a small town that neighbors nearby but doesn't do much for a population that has very big

health disparities. .. >> moving on to the factory development project. one the models that i have found works a lot better, given the problems that we are having in terms of federal funding, state funding, and even funding at the local level is to have a collaborative approach to problem solving and also towards building jobs. most the jobs being created in our city are small businesses.

recently we'll be opening up a grocery store in downtown, which brings 75 jobs to that area. one of our problems has been that our downtown area is not really a residential area. it accommodated a lot of the insurance buildings and interest, but never really grew a significant downtown population. we're working on that by way of redeveloping the properties and bringing amenity that is are important in terms of having a vibrant city. we are trying to leverage the art and culture. we had from the city of hartford, where mark twain wrote some of the greatest works. and harriet beecher stowe wrote the book that started the big war. we had two plays that opened up in broadway from hard ford. -- hartford. that's quite an accomplishment and the potential as of the

community as an arts community. getting to the swift hartford initiative. the swift factory building is a building that was a gold leafing building in the city of hartford going back to the 1800s. at one point, it was a place of industrial activity. as were many buildings in hartford. colt firearms factory and many other great manufacturing plants. those jobs, as, you know, are pretty much evaporated over the years. we have been forced to look for my and creative ways to make sure of the older buildings. most of which are coming back to life. but many of which are still vacant. this is a representation of the building. it's an old building. it's approximately 65,000 square feet of space.

we are teaming up with the common ground organization which is represented here today by ms. rosa ann haggarty. common ground has been a successful program in new york that has led to creation of over 4,000 units, mostly to accommodate homeless population and populations that are dire need of housing. they have become partners with us along with many other partners in trying to take these buildings and basically turning it into an entrepreneurial business suppliers or development and also a job creation program for neighborhood residents. this particular neighborhood that i'm speaking about is located in the northeast section of the city of hartford. this is also more heavily impacted from a financial point of view and also from an education point of view. 95 percent of the families that

lived in the northeast quadrant of the city are living below poverty. 17.4% of the families are unemployed. less than 6% of this population has a college degree. and over 42% lack a high school diploma. so you could see our economically depressed this neighborhood is, and how much it would benefit from this program. what we are trying to do with this particular facility is use it as a training ground and also as an economic development and also a residential potential. it's going to support local partnerships between us, the city, the private sector, universities, residents, government, and also not for profit corporations to create a safer, healthier, and more prosperous neighborhood. what we're going to do is we're going to repurpose this property which has the iconic symptoms. we're going to be leveraging, or have leveraged already $600,000

through the state in order to do environmental cleanup. we're also going to be having at that location a group of workers. it's going to be a training group to train our local residents from the community to do not only the remediation work, but also green retrofitting and green reconversion of the property. a local university, my alma mater, the university of hartford is already working in terms of collaborating and plan design and plan work for this building. what we're trying to do is create jobs. and also use it to create a health initiative. and also to promote civil engagement. what we are hoping to do is link the folks, as i've indicated it's a 19th century gold leaf manufacturing plant which became vacant in 2004.

we're trying to make it multiface development with the local needs of the community. by that, i mean trying to provide job and residential opportunities. we're hoping this will be a green manufacturing center with coal location based for artists. that means have residents that can also use this as their shops, as their work spaces to create art, and we're also hoping that it's a hartford neighborhood urban agriculture network, including a rooftop hydroponic farm. we have many restaurants coming to life in hartford, especially in the downtown area. we are hopeful that we can use this place as a farming land not only to provide food for consumption by the community, but food stuffs for the restaurants. fresh organic edibles. there's also two historic homes in the area that are going to be be partnering up with us so that

-- two historic homes that are going to be transformed into six units of housing. and hopefully the people that live in the housing will also have part in co-op that will be created at the facility. these, co-ops which will generate income for the residents. we have multipartners. it's a collaborative effort. and that's the city of hartford. the state of connecticut, common ground, which has been very successful and has already done some very successful projects in our city. one of them is an award winning program at the hollander building at 410 salem street. this was also a coalition effort, and it has created many units of housing. most of which are affordable and market rate properties. the other groups that are involved are the university of hartford, our capitol work force partners, the jobs funnel is involved. mr. phillips was also very involved in our employment and

job training efforts in the city of hartford, and also a member and chairs the employment committee. also the hartford preservation alliance. one the good things about having these projects is that we're taking buildings and structure that is are historical in nature, and we are able to preserve them. a lot of these buildings have good architecture features. and it's also worth preserving the history and the tradition of manufacturing in our capitol city. the hartford system which is going to be working collaborative to create agriculture programs within the city. as a job creation method will also be involved as will be the foundation which has been very involved in reforesting and beautifying our city parks and also the hartford foundation for public giving which has given money to the program. i think that given the scenario that we have in our city in which we have many unemployed, and in which we have the

incredible buildings that can house not only residential needs of our community, but also create enterprises, more enterprises that can put people to work by creating new jobs, not only in the green technology field, but also in the areas of local economic development, healthy foods, and also create a center of learning for the community. it's an important project. and i look forward that as we do have an inventory of other properties in the city that are similar to the older buildings used for manufacturing purposes that are now vacant. it's going to be take a collaborative effort from the private, public, and also neighborhood institutions to put them to some good functional use that will accommodate and provide jobs for our community. [translator speaking]

>> more code. >> that's right. >> we are transitioning right now. what i want to do is number one there's food in the back room. which is lunch. and i'm inviting people to get up at their leisure to please make themselves available to do that. and also we're going to be having soon secretary duncan come in to join the conversation and make a brief presentation. but in the meantime, i'd like to get a conversation going here with our -- with the mayor who's have spoken and invite you all to ask questions too if you would like. mayor palmer from former mayor trenton, if he'll stop causing such a disruption back there. [laughter] >> what i'd like to do is first of all, two things going on in the nation that we should be concerned with. i should put it before. all involved the pressure we face with fiscal challenges. right now as we see, there's some danger in a lot of the federal streams that we have.

immense conversation in the country about budget cutting from the federal level down to the local level. i'd like to just get to the point of that by saying things line the work force investment act which fund the bread and butter for many of us for getting training dollars that's so critical in what we are doing. we need to raise our voices as a large aggregation of mayor's present and those not to make sure the antipoverty and growing investment, and things like job training and work force investment act programs are really, really critical. i don't want to just focus on that. each and every one of you all mentioned the pressures that you are facing around budgets, and the channels of cutting. and i really would like to hear from you fies some innovative thoughts that you all might have about how you are doing more with less to combat poverty, and increase educational opportunity.

in newark, we have done programs that haven't cost us anything. we brought all of our law firms together and created the first pro bono legal services focused on the exoffenders coming home to deal with the administrative law problems from expunging records to clearing up things that stopped them from getting their driver's license. we put a one stop center for free tax center right in city hall that increased our getting money back of the earned income tax credit money back in our city dramatically. cringing millions of dollars more into our city for low-income families. so i want to turn first to mayor nutter, i was listening closely to a lot of things you are doing. extraordinary, you too, city hall which is a center to create one stop for helping people to go to college. i'm curious, number one about your innovations to find funding. i live in your closer media market. i know you are going through budget cutting.

how are you finding ways to source the programs, and how are you finding ways to do more with less as you are reducing the size of your city hall? >> well, mayor booker, thank you. s chief is with here here today. so the folks don't get the wrong impression, it's laurie, sharon, and four others in the staff. this is not a huge place. some of us are receiving with us through grant funds. and other supports. >> government grants or? >> foundation. >> foundation grants. >> yeah. you know a little bit about foundation activity. >> i do. >> so we've really reached out. again when we talk about the these partnerships whether on the government side, whether on the nonprofit and the for-profit we are aggressive without going

after grant opportunities. i think the larger crowd in philadelphia does get it. one, we can't do everything. the notion that government can solve all problems, i think the last few years has finally, hopefully for many put that to rest. secondly, i know most of the folks around the table social security not a shy crowd. i think that being that much more aggressive with the corporate community. people want us to make our cities safe, pick up the trash, fill the potholes, run the rec center. all of that. fine, i have that. we don't -- we can't do it by ourselves. not give us money because i have a great handshake and smile. here's the program. this is what we are trying to accomplish. we need sustainability over time and show what you are doing. we are reducing the size of our work force. everyone has had to take a different approach. a lot of folks in other places have had to literally lay off thousands of people from their cities.

work force. i want the right size work force, but i don't want to contribute to the problem. someone does have to pick up the trash. we get snow. someone has to move that around from time to time. as much as i love technology, we have not yet figured out a way to technological run a recreation center and it's programs. you need people and bodies to do some of this work. we've had a lot of folks retire. well, we've replaced them. we have reduced the size of our work force by 1600 people, 6%. but not throws thousands of folks out the door. we still have 10.4% unemployment rate in the city. over all on the volunteer, katie wolfgang is a teacher in the city, we received a grant from the rockefeller foundation. her entire staff is vista folks that have come through that program. when we hear these ideas, whether it's hr1 or others about cut this, cut that, cut

americorp, it's just a young people doing whatever it is they are doing. no, four of them are in my mayor's office of civic engagement and volunteerism, making sure that folks are getting the opportunity to focus on literacy, tutoring children, et cetera, et cetera. these are serious programs that i could never fund and in many instances would not be able to justify given some of the other changes that we've had to make. so getting foundation support, private sector support, and moving a few bodies around is a little bit of the way of the future. it's the new normal. >> you are pointing to two things. one public-private partnerships which we focused on creating ons and opportunities. we have a focus group in the right think tank on the reentry programs which is not partisan issues. also the emphasis on volunteers. i want to get a couple more ideas. i see mayors from georgia and

wisconsin. i'd like for them to introduce themselves. wisconsin has been keeping such a low profile as a state recently. i figure nobody is knows what's going on. mayor, you might want to speak into the microphone on c-span. just say your name. >> tom, i'm the mayor of the city of milwaukee. right now or democratic senators have fled the state. i thought i should flee too. [laughter] >> do you want to leave a statement? >> i'll be back tonight. >> thank you very much. from the great state of georgia where my parents there. >> i'm robert from georgia, i'm delighted to be here with you. >> thank you for coming. i want to pass it on to my other two mayors about specific ideas they might have under tough fiscal times to address the issues without necessarily getting -- relying on the important government grants. do you want to go first? >> yes. we've done -- i took office on

june 25th, our budget year was over june 30th. and i had a week's time to try to reconstruct a multimillion deficit. which i was successful. i don't know how. i did magic and we wednesdayed up with $3 million surplus. this year has been an incredible challenge. one the things we've done, we've tacked on medical prescription program. hopefully that will save us about another $2 million. we are trying to also see if we can tack on to the state's insurance air -- insurance carrier, by pooling we will save millions there. 80% of our budget is salaries. and benefits. and we're at the point that we've pretty much minimized the work force to the bare bone. so it's very difficult to continue to delay us and provide minimal level of service. so we've tried to reorganize as best as we could.

we're trying to partner up as best as we could with the insurance companies, the hospitals, other institutions in terms of some degree of social services. we are very fearful what can happen with cdbg. because we can also tax in the city of hartford according to how we are permitted by the state. as i said, we have limited options of doing that. the other pressure that we have is our pension fund, pursuant to charter needs to be funded 100%. so it's a big -- it's a big situation to have to have to fund at that level. what we are trying to do, what i've been is basically a cheerleader for the city, trying to champion the city, try to get the arts community going, and helping it along. try to create a different mood in the city to compliment tourism, and also the move to try to get some of the institutions that can help with quality of life gravitate towards the city. >> mayor gray, would you have

the final word? we're going to need to move on to secretary duncan. what are some of the ideas that you have that are helping to make things happen in d.c. despite the budget? >> let me mention one broad area and one much more specific. we don't have what i would characterize as a work force development system here in the district of columbia. we are working to build a work force development system that has our employment services department, our schools in terms of career and technical education, and new community college work more in a collaborative spirit. for us, what's happening is jobs are going in a very substantial -- to a very substantial degree to people who live outside the city. now to some extent, that's understandable. because, you know, if the work is available and it has to be done, people are going to look for employers. employees, excuse me, whenever they can get them. one, we are building the work

force development system. we are strengthening also something that we call the first source law in the district of columbia. and that is requirements on people who contract with the district of columbia for vital services to hire people who live in the district of columbia. and we are trying to do that, this is a new approach that we are taking. we're trying to do that in more than just a punitive fashion by saying if you don't do x, you will be fined in the following ways. we're looking now at an incentive system that will say if you do these things, here's what you can earn additionally in order to be able to meet the requirements of the law. it's kind of basic behavior psychology. that is a rewards system typically worked more effectively than an punishment system. secondly, we -- go back to what mayor nutter said about the recreation center. we have the same problem. as a matter of fact, we have a number of recreation center which have been built in recent years.

we are challenged in perm -- in terms of being able to staff those facilities. we have a robust community in the district of columbia that provides a host of services. many don't have stable places to be able to hang their hat. we are looking now at creating partnerships, especially as a quid pro quo. we don't have the staffing obvious adequate staffing, you need a place to hang your hat. why don't you come in and work with us in terms of actually operating programs within the recreation center. the management will continue to be done by the city, but the services will be provided by non-profits who come and locate in the centers to continue these services, but do it without raising cost and in some instances, actually reducing cost. >> those are great ideas. just again to summarize, we have got to find more ways to do more public-private partnerships, involving volunteer, selling our

cities, i love the idea of bringing non-profits in. is that the word we can point? incredible ideas for mayors. i know there's a lot with the mayor's here. i have gotten ideas from some to help fuel things in the city of newark like partners. we created the fund to create the pest control business. it's now employees exoffenders. there's a lot of great ideas. i hope we can continue to share them. my brother from irvington, my sister city, he went and got some food. >> leadership. >> that's leadership. thank you very much. [laughter] >> i want to invite people to do that. a little bit of housekeeping, mayor wittlefield is here. >> yeah, mayor booker, good to see you again. we were pleased to have you in

the city a few weeks ago. the unfortunate affect is all of our problems would be solved if we had a mayor like cory booker. [laughter] >> but i'm sitting here. i joined the party somewhat late. but i've been here long enough to be inspired by the mayor of hartford, we as a city planner has watched hartford for decades as hartford has wrestled with it's industrial heritage, city of chattanooga is an old industrial city in the south. which is something of an anomaly. we have been using a lot of brownfield money to train people and employee young people in environmental management. we have been finding them jobs. we have been successful at finding jobs for people who were previously unemployed once they had the training and skills necessary to work with the environmental problems that the cities are left with. >> thank you, mayor. chattanooga is the city that

inspired me. read about vision 2,000 and what you did in transforming the community together. if any issue that we want to pull besides the important movement of nourishment. the first lady says let's move. i'm hoping that we can move to get some food while we are inviting up to the head here point of order. i'm sorry. go ahead. >> mayor booker, thank you. i know we are trying to get folks moving. i wanted to raise one issue in the context of our secretary duncan coming in. as an organization, i know that we have focused a tremendous amount of attention, properly so, on the issue of cdbg. i just want to raise as an additional point with the secretary of education coming in, hr1, that we are now facing. it's also looking to cut title i and individuals with disability education act. wea, work force investment act,

and head start programs all at the same time. we have a multiheaded fight ahead of us. i am hopeful that i know that he will. the secretary of education is very concerned about all of these issues as well. and these are some very, very challenging times for all of us. not just on the cdbg side. but i want to make sure that we have quite frankly enough energy and ambition to have a multiprong strategy to deal with these very serious issues that face us. as tom cochran, the great executive director liked to talk about is our ability to be agile and mobile on these particular issues. thank you, mr. chairman for that opportunity. [silence] >> more now from the u.s. conference of mayors from washington. coming up we'll hear from

education secretary arne duncan in the session. >> these are programs and names and acronyms thrown around in the flipped manner. these are programs using to empower lives, break cycles of poverty, create new opportunity, and add to the tax roles and income of our communities for -- all for better. thank you for bringing that issue up. and it is now with great pleasure that i have the chance to introduce someone who has been a friend of the chicago days, -- excuse me secretary of education arne duncan. as he makes his way up, i would like to give him a formal introduce. he was appointed by president obama and confirmed by the senate in january 20th, 2009. prior to his appointment, he served as the chief executive

officer of the chicago public schools, a position which he was appointed by mayor richard daly. ceo from june 2001 to december 2008, he became the longest serving big city educator. he is committed to leadership in schools. that's true. one the first meeting i had in offices, he say, mayor, when you are going to get control of your schools. we recognize that good schools are critical to strong cities. i would go as far as saying you cannot have a great city without a great education system. you cannot have a great democracy with without a good public schools. we have asked secretary duncan to join us, not only to share the direction of the department of education reform efforts, but also to ensure that our nation's schools are the best that they can be and how he's going to do that. but also we want to share his thoughts on ways in which mayors specifically can engage in education efforts to support

their district schools, principals, teachers, and most importantly of all, and the central focus to support the children within our cities. we look forward to his insight on the -- as was mentioned by mayor nutter on elementary and secondary act as well as the funding opportunities for local school districts under a race to the top, the innovation fund, and the promised neighborhoods. we have a lifelong public servant who passionately cared about our kids. perhaps one the most accessible secretaries of education that i know and really i consider one the heros in the united states of america who is driving some of the most significant change in public education that we have seen in the last century. ladies and gentlemen, i bring you our secretary of education for the great united states of america, arne duncan. [applause] [applause]

my java think is to be a good partner to guys to area to help you be successful and i would love to have a conversation about how we can do that better. there are a number of opportunities coming forward that we think will help you to drive change and striper form at the local level. race to the top we think is it's had a huge impact at the state level, 41 states adopting higher standards, 36 days removing barriers to innovative schools. every state that has laws on the

books prohibited the linking of student achievement and teacher evaluation which was a fascinating one for me. all those laws are now gone, so we have seen a real game change at the state level. as we move forward on this next round of race to the cup we are requesting that have met in dollars from congress and at the district level not the state level so it'll be huge opportunity for your district succumb to the table to put your best foot forward to demonstrate your creativity, your ability to innovate and we would love to drive the kind of systemic change of the district level that we have seen of the state level and in the paschal clothiers. school improvement grants, race to the top has gotten all the press which is fine. that was $4 billion for the country. school improvement grants spend $4 billion for the bottom 5% of school sort is a massively disproportionate investment, not the status quo. we are doing some things very differently though schools that have chronically underperform for years. that that has got going to buy formula. we would continue to invest very heavily there and to where you

have schools that need to add a saturday every week, need to add a couple of hours after school coming to students working all summer, need to pay a great principal 30 grant moore, 50 grand more or pay a great math or science teacher 20,000 more. whatever it takes we can use the resources to do that and i will go simply two of money there nations dropout factories. we have about 2000 high schools that produce half of our nations dropout. 75% of our young children of color african-american latino young boys and girls club and we are still chemically producing dropouts. we are perpetuating property and professional they are through the school system and we have to get out of the business as best as we can and work with those high schools this peter miller miller -- middle and elementary school. it is time to replicate and build on geoffrey canada's

children's zone not just the a the school but the wraparound services. baby college, making sure we are requesting $150 million to replicate that work and some of our nations most distressed communities and we look or were too doing that hopefully and many of our cities. we hosted a conference last week in denver. labor-management conference where we brought in from 150 district superintendents, school board president and board chairs to talk about how we come together and how collective bargaining has to have a focus on improving student achievement. for too many places use of old relationships dysfunction i'm perpetuating the status quo that doesn't work for the adults and definitely doesn't work for our students. it was interesting to have a waiting list of about 100 districts are there is an appetite out there for folks who want to do things differently and i think we have to get you to come together to challenge the status quo. everyone has to move outside their comfort zone.

school boards, unions, superintendents, i think all of us, the department of education hastert has been part of the problem. we have been a bit compliance driven bureaucracy and we have been trying to change the business we are in so this is time to point fingers or to lay blame but it is a time for more rapid change in education, faster change, better change, or changed in our country has ever seen and what we are doing today simply isn't good enough. we are somebody being out educated by countries around the globe and for the long-term health and vitality of our country's economy we have to do better, faster. we have defined lots of tools to do that. wisconsin situation is obvious that playing out now. happy to take any questions on that. the unions have to step up to the table and cringe every to pension and health care costs absolutely but i think in my own personal opinion stripping unions of their ability to bargain doesn't make sense to me

and i think again we had 150 districts with 100 on the waiting list at the table saying we want to be part of the solution we want to use that to drive student achievement. at we had about a dozen districts presented who were getting remarkable breakthroughs raising the bar for children in closing achievement gaps and doing some pretty remarkable things around the country and they are doing it with labor-management collaboration that is not the norm and were trying to make up the norm rather than the exception. as we move forward with congress now, we would love to reoccupy the no child left behind and we would love to have it done by the august resource are we going to the school year with a new law. for all the craziness in washington i continue to think education is one thing that folks can put politics and i i to you to decide. lots of reasons why it might not work but here today i'm pretty

confident that we can pass this law and fix a lot of what is broken. i think they have done a great job of shining the spotlight on achievement gaps. we used to love those -- to sweep those under the rug but we want to find ways to reward success. there was no report in the current law. lots of ways to fail but the only report for success was you weren't labeled a failure and they think we think there are great teachers and we think they're a great principals and great schools and districts and great state that are beating the odds and raising the bar for all children to close the achievement gap and they want to shine a spotlight on that and give them more resources. we want to learn from them. we want to provide more flexibility and focus on grows and gains rather than look at test scores. not try to micromanage and from here in washington. i tell the story when i ran the chicago public schools i had to almost sewer department of education for the rectitude of my children after school. it made no sense whatsoever.

i tend to thousands of children who wanted to catch up and work harder and i got in this pitched battle in the department who didn't want to let me tutor. we want to get out of your hair and hold you accountable to a bar. we want to make sure we continue to raise standards. 41 states have done that. a huge step in the right direction. college and career pretty standard set to be the goal for every single child and that to support the leadership of the local level and finally we want to invest in what we call the well-rounded educations of reading and math are fundamental. they are foundational of science, social studies history foreign languages dance, art music physical education, all those things are critical for students that we have gotten away from that. that is probably the biggest complaint as i travel the country that i've heard from teachers and students about the narrowing of the kreegel them and we think we can reverse that and i-budget puzzle. we are asking for a billion dollars to support what we are calling a well-rounded educations of the challenges you guys are facing are huge and obviously the fiscal constraints

and the fiscal issues i don't envy any of you are brutal but we have to look at these crises as an opportunity as a time to rethink our investments and the time to be very strategic in where we cut and where we don't cut and the last thing we want to do is lay off great teachers whether they are great young pitchers are great veteran teachers. we have to keep talent in the classrooms and the communities that have been historically underserved and we have to find ways to work through these tough times to become more productive and to give our children and much better dictation than generally they have been receiving. i will stop there and answer any questions you have questions you have that again i per share this short merriman leadership by zero mcbroom on education and some of the other issues. >> thank you secretary. i would like to open up for questions. when we start right here? >> good afternoon mr. secretary. one of the largest in california. and before you joined us we had a terrific conversation about the skills gap in a country and

as we struggle to address economic development and workforce development in our community, it is more often the case where finding their jobs that are going unfilled and people are looking for work who don't have the skills to meet the requirements of those jobs. it is certainly true in fresno where there are 40,000 people or an implied that don't have the basic high school education or equivalency. my question is how do we bridge the gap better between the department of education and the funding that comes for adult education and the workforce investment act? we find ourselves falling into the cracks. we talk with the workforce investment officials and the focus is on workforce which i understand and support but at the same time the barriers that folks are facing to employment are so significant they are not even ready for those kinds of programs and yet when talking with her district officials at the local levels who are facing significant budget cuts adult education with funding is also the thing that also the table for so i'm curious what your thoughts are from the national

level and how many might bridge that gap? >> i will give you one concrete example where he think we are trying to behave in different ways. we have a 2 billion-dollar program within the department of labor around preparing young people and adults and community colleges for real jobs. the 2 billion-dollar effort, funded a billion dollars of the next four years is basically a race to the top of the community college level. we will only invest where their concrete public-private partnerships that lead to real jobs so we are trying to put a huge amount of resources behind places that are willing to work differently. i'm a huge fan of community colleges. i think it is an unpolished gem and i think this is another step in our investment trying to increase their capacity and in whether you are 18 or 15 or 28 going back to retrain every tool where they are great public-private partnerships to think you are talking about that when i walked in. we see those, we see good things happening for individuals and for families and the communities. when there is it disconnect between the community college

and it is not leading to opportunity so we want to put resources behind policies that will create new innovative partnerships. >> secretary duncan thank you for joining us at this conference. i am mayor bill global from davenport iowa and i want to ask you what should the mayors be doing now it immediately to make sure the kind of reforms you are championing across the country and i actually have seen takes place in chicago. i've been to those charter schools. is phenomenal. but what are you going to request or what can the mayors do? what needs to be done immediately to make sure we get the kind of transforming education you are leading the charge on in this country? what do we need to do to make sure congress helps out in this regard? >> at the national level i think the biggest, our two biggest battles are won to get these projects funded so we would like

$900 million for race to the top go out to the districts. obviously any budget request is a heavy lift the stay so that is a big one and i think we have to fix this law. if we don't fix this love the overwhelming majority of schools, 98 or 99% of the schools will be labeled failures and a couple of years and it is sure we have too many failing schools but we also have great schools. is very misleading and moralizing whenever school gets labeled a failure. so those are two big work issues with congress this year. one of our budget requests and secondly reauthorizing law and again these are washington policies. the mayors and governors are leading this from across the country, demanding congress to work together and to get these things done i can tell you how valuable your collective voice can be in those debates. >> what i had onto that, the

mayors of the local level. mayors who have appointment power over school boards like mayor of trenton i know and mayors who have no direct authority as mayor nutter was talking about in many the things who was trying to do to make an impact on college-ready kits. >> there is no one perform. as you know there are lots of ways to do it. bear vehicle russ is trying to step step in and do creative things. mayor johnson doesn't have direct control but is trying to work hard to have an impact there. the more you are rallying the entire city behind these efforts, the business community that balance out the community and the nonprofit souls of service agencies i don't think school dishes particularly urban school districts can become world class by themselves. they need the outside support in the need outside pressure and i can't think of anyone better to rally the entire community behind these efforts then mayors. that is important. i continue to think early childhood education is probably

the best long-term investment became a kid again that is easy in tough budget times to cut back on three kbit issuer not going to see those results today or tomorrow but i think that is the rock cut to make and to continue to invest not in just glorified babysitting but high-quality early childhood education is important. i think it is desperately important we continue to attract talent into education so great teachers, great principles, tracking them, retaining them, putting in place the incentive structures to get the best talent to the underserved communities, to those pockets that every city has. i think our country has been nowhere near creative enough in doing that. that is the holzer of effort behind our school improvement grants is how do we prep work the hardest working and the most committed teachers and principals and get them to the communities who need the most help and support them there. been very public and transparent about how you are doing on graduation rates for your return on college replacement rates how you are doing on college

perseverance and how you were doing on job placement. i think having a conversation is one thing we try to do is elevate education at the national issue anti-gnome put it higher on people's radar and get into the local level. there's nothing better you can do. zeidman working with mayor daley for seven half years in chicago. every single speech to every community, business nonprofit a matter for the city is he would always talk about education every single time. thousands and thousands of speeches and i think you can't use the bully pulpit strong enough to do it. many schools many urban school districts have been mired in mediocrity quite frankly and using your bully pulpit in your moral authority to drive real change is politically challenging. is not something every mayor wants to do but i think again your collective courage, can overstate how important that is. and he sees that dropout rates of 40, 50 and 60%. i don't see how that is stable in this economy so having your courage to challenge the status quo when things are working.

>> mayor. >> mr. secretary was good to see you again. thank you for your work with governor patrick and her secretary on education reform in massachusetts. a couple of things. i was happy to hear mayor swearingen had the same issues i had and mayor greg about the private sector. about the private sector. and we have tried to initiate a program similar to what developers do when they say we will build to suit. waiver program called train to suit and we think that is the way to go to try to fill some of these jobs in the new economy. but we talked about all of the various stakeholders including the private sector but what i don't hear a lot, as a sort of look at this kind of beat down on public and i'm sure those in wisconsin are suffering buyers remorse now, mayor barrett and read fully so.

i am wondering how we get away from the notion that some parents have said it is in that daycare for kids. how do we involve the parents? one of the greatest stats i have ever heard is when parents read to kids that come into our public schools with a 10,000 word vocabulary and when they don't they have pay about 500 word for capillary. is there any way to actually connect the parents who want involved with their children, aside from providing them preschool and daycare kind of facilities, is there anything that you can see that might be helpful? >> that pieces of actually desperately important one. the parent parents who have fair are the ones are doing a good job in the parents -- see it as a challenge. this is one area where i think her department is part of the problem. we have under vested in print to engagement and we are looking to double our budget from 140 million to $280 million to invest in local programs where parental engagement is leading

to higher student achievement so we don't think we have the answers. we think a lot of what engagement is and frankly very effective but we think they're a great programs out there that are leading to students learning better and we want to put more resources behind it so they want to be an investor. i think a lot of this is just frankly just hard work. food helps a lot. potluck dinners, bring the families and. where you have great principals, great teachers, they are knocking on doors. bringing families in. you can start -- said that. this parents are talking about high-definition they had difficult times in school. they had failure experiences in that psychological barrier of coming to the school be hard to overcome. so are you willing, the teacher in that it's bo willing to knock on doors and willing to change cell phone numbers, willing to get out there? it is a lot of hard work but where that happens, i think parents will being gauged. one thing i tried to do a lot

with their community centers we have 150 schools of open 12, 13, 14 hours a day with a whole host of ged programs esl family literacy, family counseling and some of our toughest neighborhoods on on the south of us that we had 150 parents coming to school every day for their education. not for their children. i do believe in the "field of dreams" that if you go with a will come in if you reach out. it may be harder work than it should be but that is reality. every parent educator want the best for their child. they want the best for their family. if you can create those opportunities i have been pleasantly surprised that they are willing to meet us halfway. >> is there any sense of the contract with parents or tying public benefits to their engagement in the public schools? >> the idea of contract appearance, many successful charter schools to that. parental accountability that the president talks about all the time. we haven't talked about time.

other countries have done it, but i think those are really good places to play. [inaudible] >> mayor booker thank you. for someone to recognize they are kevin jonson was invited germans leadership for the conference on education issues and pull together any number of meetings. as you know mr. secretary with you in providing mayors with direct access to secretary duncan and folks over the education so i want to thank him for those efforts. mr. secretary i was of course very glad to hear you talk about race to the top with the district focus. as mayors with probably pretty much every secretary in of course including the president vice president we would like to talk about funding and even competitive opportunities that go directly to cities as opposed to states and unfortunately i

need to share with you a recent experience in philadelphia in the context of pennsylvania. the education job money that was supposed to come to the philadelphia school district to prevent layoffs was recently used by the state to supplement their annual contribution to the school district and so again, we have these unfortunate examples of where are were the best of intentions, federal agency sent money to states. it never finds its way to cities or comes to us after money being taken away if that is given back to us with the left hand when it was supposed to be in addition and is now used as -- we also had the state use its arra dollars which of course were also supposed to calm directly to the district. they use the plug budget gaps at the state level and those funds now going away.

we have the commonwealth virtually going back to 2007 levels. in the context the state passed a bill called act 46 in philadelphia. it requires the city two and a in a maintenance of effort context, but we can never lower the mt. of money that we send to the school district while the state can pretty much do whatever it wants so when the federal government and the highway transportation side wanted all of the states to change the speed limits, what they said was began to you what to do, but if you don't lower your speed limit to 55 we won't send you any federal highway transportation dollars. all of a sudden everyone was enthusiastic about changing their speed limits in many states across america. the state cannot balance its budget on the backs of children. further creating the inequities

that the level of education for your child is truly functional as to what county your parents admit that i would strongly encourage mr. secretary and the ability by the federal government to stop states from doing what they are doing with regard to funding. would be very very helpful at the local level. >> other questions? mayor baker and then we will go down. >> mr. secretary, servlet mayor nutter is speaking to, i have for school four school districts in my city. we have no -- over anything about education. when you guys deal with the states only, we might as well just you know not do anything about education or anything else because the states have different priorities. it is not up to the governors so much when the general assemblies have different priorities than the governor and the battle begins.

so if the cities aren't written into the legislative issues or initiatives, the care what it is, workforce -- our workforce money goes to the state. education money goes to the districts were to the state. the money for stimulus all predominantly went to the state and we are sitting there with the worst problems in the world, trying to beg for money. or even the ability to sit at the table. we can't compete with the power of the state. we don't have any way to overpower them as they give us the money. most the people that we are dealing with at the state level have no relationship to the city. so unless that changes we are just going to be bystanders. that is my worry. ijc all the time we hear about

all these issues that we are faced with. i have a 59% dropout rate. for dog on school to chicks and i can can't do a thing about it. >> the is a real challenges and again let me reiterate what is coming. $900 million hopefully race to the top of the district level. school improvement grants, $4 billion going out by formula. it has been played at the local level and i will get you information there. rewarding great talent. about $400 million, promise weber is 150 million so the recovery act understand the real challenge is there. going forward that we are trying to absolutely play the district level and encourage you to again step up and i think you have for districts -- mayor johnson how many districts you have in sacramento? >> five. >> mayor via the gross ahead 26?

>> 19 in indianapolis. >> these are real shoes but you have folks, given the structural challenges, i think showing creativity and leadership and i think those are conversations worth pursuing. >> mayor, go ahead. >> i do want to get into competition but connecticut with 3 million people has 160 districts. my question to you mr. secretary and thank you for your leadership. we really do appreciate it. you are a breath of fresh air. my question is, when you have this money, is there any incentives, getting back to what mayor nutter talked about, they'd put into this that allows us to go to our unions and say we need you to work saturdays and we need you to work summers. we need you to agree with performance pay which they don't agree with right now. are there any incentives that otherwise there has to be bargains and bargaining with any

local is rather difficult for a school board. reforms aren't really going anywhere when he gets back to the bargaining table. and the other one that i want to just print your attention, state like new jersey and connecticut, there really two kind to districts. there is a haves and have-nots. we are for more frequent teen sound, pedro and i anyway, the school district. we have new haven and bridgeport and harvard have all of the failing systems for the state pretty much. and i know that no school system and connecticut is doing as good as we want that they are to states and connecticut. is there anything you can do with the federal funding that would address the states where there are such great disparities and also the bargaining issue? >> so on on the state disparities, we actually opened yesterday and equity commission and we are looking at these.

russlyn ali is in an up ipers up or so -- absolute superstar. she runs the office of civil rights and we have literally announced the equity commission yesterday so we are back to that conversation. in terms of the parameters that we will put into the race to the top district competition we will be putting a sentence in there to change behavior and do things differently and let me be clear. unions have to change? absolutely. to unions have to come to the table and think differently? yes but i think we'll do. school superintendents haven't always shown a whole that a lot of courage and during this. is talking recently to the superintendent and kansas city. there've been 17 superintendents and kansas city in 24 years. that is not the union. that is the board. no one wants to talk about war dysfunction with a dozen during those 24 years, kansas city lost half its population of students. they'll flood the system. he came in and all of a sudden

had to close have the city schools. there is a big uproar, one of my people left yesterday. nobody paid any attention so this is one where unions have to move absolutely and school boards have to move absolutely and superintendents have to move. our department, we often move so we put in place incentives for all of us to behave in very different ways. i think that is the only way we are going to get where he really need to go. >> mayor sultan and the mayor fenton. >> the need for parent involvement is still obviously obviously -- and that is where i think mentoring goes to help tilt the gap. i think we as mayors can have a significant influence in the mentoring programs. we and our city of our city employees and our week to -- just to go mentor children. we are finding that is helping to fill the gap for parents who aren't there, so i think we

philosophically can make sure even though we don't have these financial impacts on the schools we can have a psychological impact on the schools. as well as encourage the students to stay in school because young children and students look to mayors, not necessarily school board members. i think philosophically -- but i would like to hear your opinion on the district's. >> i love that. mentors, tutors, coaches, saturday after school, lunchtime early morning whatever it is all hands on deck. we need more adults in these children's lives so you get them paid time off to go help out. that since a huge signal and i would love to flood our schools with positive adults you can really take those children on their wing and work with them. i commend you for that and love to see more that -- of that. that will give you one more thought. i think we need to look at boarding schools, public boarding schools. i will give you one example.

i have 400,000 children in chicago. let's assume this is probably being generous let's assume 99% went home to a good family, good household where mom was in on crack and that wasn't locked up. that is being generous. that means i have 4000 children, 1% minimum. i am -- i needed tenth of 400. i didn't get that i was working on that. i think what works for the wealthy often works for the poor. there were boarding schools for 400 years for children of the privileged and we need to look at warding schools in inner city committees. there's a seed school here that does an amazing job and we need to create this opportunity so community schools, schools open 12 and 14 hours a day, mentors, 20 for seven. we need to look at all of these things if we are serious about changing on people's lives. >> this is the question for you secretary.

[inaudible] [inaudible] this is kind of an out-of-the-box common question. one of the challenges in terms of how we develop this special population -- is there any educational issue -- [inaudible] >> we fund alternative schools. we have to invest there. i ran to alternative schools. we have children as young as 10 years old being locked up.

working with them. i think what mayor booker is done which has been huge in terms of getting the adults who are coming out of jail, getting them wind up with support services and building that link. you have to do the same thing for students getting them into schools and making sure sure they have a caseworker and a social worker helping them. i always say that is a symptom of the problem. something else is going on crazy at home that is creating that behavior so what are we doing to intervene in that child's whole life situation not just cool situation to help them be successful. this is intensive work. is handsome but it is putting adults in their will help figure out why the heck they got in the situation how we are going to get them back on the straight and narrow coming out. does not easy, but it is absolutely the right investment to make or else they will just be locked up as in all told, no question. >> mayor. >> mr. secretary, i will try to get all of my questions out. as i said, before you got here

he spent 10 years as a public schoolteacher before and being elected to this office. i think there is a better age of negotiate contracts as well but the idea that i think that the teachers would welcome change and concepts and ideas that would be there. i think the problem is that administrators are spending way too much time trying to keep their head above water with state standards as they come down. i'm from michigan. we only have one district in our community, but our community has seen a drop in the population of about 30,000 over the last three three -- so we know going through in the history, again a lot of our president have moved out in behalf because of the education system within our community and it is something that we have been working out. my predecessors but a lot of their time saying it is not our

fault, gopher and to the school district. we have tried to embrace a little bit more. a few weeks back we had her first-ever work session between school board and city council and brought this decision-makers at a table to try to figure out how we move forward. as you said, i think some of the ideas are there that we are trying to put together. it is how we market the city to get involved in how schools perform because we can't -- we are looking at what businesses want and what kind of educated workforce to that one coming out so they can bring business into our community. but the structure is somewhat you know, messed up and i think what helps, what would help us in our process would be a roadmap to some extent moving forward, because spending 10 years in a public school setting and coaching for 20 years high school athletics, you see a

variety -- the biggest thing that we miss is our buildings are built utilize. they sit basically empty from 3:00 to 10:00 with the power on advised on a nobody home, but custodians walking around and cleaning up classrooms. they stay vacant for three months out of the air because we stay on a traditional school system so i think if there are some ideas the conference is trying to get going and if i would say if there is the possibility of trying to lay out some of that roadmap as to what those are, that would be beneficial to us as we try to get together and break some of the barriers that mayor baker was saying, trying to get her hands our hands around her school district. what we are trying to do is protect our community and try to use our resources better. so if we can have some of those we have talked about it and i've talked about it with our state treasurer as they lay out their budget and some of that same concept. anything you can do to those

incentives that would help us with the road map, then we can all pull together and try to figure out what it is we want to do that would be beneficial. >> will continue trying to do that. on the afterschool piece is a whole there is a national community school movement, marty blanket is a good job believes that effort in their cities like cincinnati doing and credible things they're so there's lots to learn from. i would also start for you started. none of us have done a good enough job of listening to teachers. weathers management of or trade unions, and you are seeing in the data contracts recently right here in d.c.. 80% of teachers voted for it. baltimore 66% of teachers voted for. new haven 95% of teachers voted for. there is a real interest in reform amongst teachers and what we are trying to do a skin to make that norm rather than an exception. we have a bunch of contracts that are changing the game marked great beyond features 20, 2930 or so can make $100,000 we say debt to young people.

they pay attention so there is no play of doing business that hasn't worked for adults or children. that is starting to change but we have to take that skill very quickly and that was part of the goal of the conference last week was to shine a spotlight on what innovative districts are doing together in but that is doing to retain that talent and districts. >> one more question. secretary duncan, when our generation grew up it was first grade through 12th grade and that was about it. how important to date you feel it is preschool for college for directions and innovation. i know you are a innovative and creative guy for pushing a sort of thing but tell us what can we actually do and do we have to compete in a global economy? >> do you at the mailman had. we see this as a career so does pre-k through 12 on to higher it. the goal of this every student has to be a form of higher education so for your

universities trade in vocational training but if you start in kindergarten that is pretty late again. with to get our 3-year-old -year-olds and -year-old center for girls up to the much better start if we are serious about closing the achievement gaps in high-quality pre-k, headstart, change a student's lives. it has to be from our babies through to a successful career and where to look at every step along the education continuum. often there've been silos where the child is here, k. k-12 here and higher it here and folks fall through the cracks anywhere among that. the more you folks integrate these whetted his counsels or whatever might be those folks talking to each other and trying to understand to be college-ready as a freshman what classes are you taking, 12th grade and eighth grade, fifth grade, third grade. what is that look like? that is where we have to go as a country beginner leadership is a binding for silos can be hugely hugely helpful. >> mayor lawrence. >> thank you for being here mr. duncan. i am a suburb of detroit, and we

know detroit has its challenges. now, one of the things, and we hear about cities that have 10, 20 districts within their cities. these invisible walls that exist in the school districts are often motivated by creating a niche that as long as my child is taken care of i won't worry about the rest of them. our schools are funded by property taxes, so we are expelling children every year that come into our city just because their parents wanted better and safer school environment. as much as i understand we have to support our tax base and you are expelling these children, my heart goes out because the parents trying parent is trying to find a way. they cannot afford to pay for a private school. somewhere along the line we are going to have to have that serious discussion about these invisible walls at the school districts have, because there

are resources in schools. i am fortunate. right next to detroit we have and 89% graduation rate. next to a district that has almost a 60% dropout rate and i'm fighting hard to maintain a school district. there are many of us throughout the country that understand that and you know, what can we do on a national level? i say if you want to give the money to the states and make the states run it. that we are going to have to on a national level address those invisible borders, the resources that i have in my community. i am forced by mail to protect my -- and that includes putting children in the district who pay for it with this property tax in this district. so it is a challenge and a relative and i don't hear anyone talking about that.

>> the silent desperation going on around her country is unbelievable and the extraordinary things we have parents doing. you know the story recently about parenting -- a parent being arrested for putting her child and another school. "the wall street journal" education writer was in newark resident who parents stuck slacker into bordering town with a high-performance school and was found out and dragged iraq that of a journalism class and was made to sign a confession without allowing her parents to be called. this is something i know the town surrounding the work had have people that will follow people to see where they go home to to ensure --. >> we put them at the bus stop. >> betterton to that many people so in "waiting for superman" and experience on a daily basis. >> said two different thoughts. one is the school district we have and that is efficient and that makes sense. i came from alumni and we had

900 school districts. in tough budget times, i had 600 schools and the last superintendent had one school. that a principal and an assistant principal. what do they do all day? so that is a row conversation particularly in budget times. are getting us to be on the table that we have to have. i would go to where cory went, that i think for far too long we tolerated academic failure. for how many decades in and detroit have we had just devastating educational outcomes? i don't have an exact number but they job -- mac is 60, 75%. is absolutely staggering. how do we allow that in this country to happen? quiet desperation, local desperation, whatever the word is. our parents are desperately fighting for something better and we are not giving it to them and shame on us.

we haven't had the courage and we have been tough enough. we have and am willing to make changes so whether it is closing failing schools or bring in new options in underserved communities with it is moving out staff that is not working and bringing in other staff who are committed to working in the community we have to be much, much more aggressive, courageous in this work or gov will tell you we have never had more high-performing high poverty school so i can take you to places that are 99% poverty, 99% those graduate every or so it is not like we don't know what works. we have haven't been willing to take the skill and what does work and that is the conversation we made to happen again that is where your guys leadership and courage and challenging the status quo, can tell you how important that is. >> mr. secretary i'm robert from macon georgia and i was fascinated with your comment about the possibility of public ordering schools. can you talk a little bit more about that and specifically what age ranges are you talking

about? if you have to intervened early enough, and what age are you talking about a public warning school? >> we are thinking it through and this is an easy one and do something they would have to partner on the local level but i would to say i look at the school here. the one public school that is starting to replicate in a few places. i think they start students have about fifth-grade at age 10 and work with them all the way through high school. i don't think even at have 6-year-olds and they boarding school. that just doesn't go right to me that a certain point it has to be voluntary. they have a long waiting list and families who want the best for their children and want to see them be successful. subagain if we are serious about getting better outcomes in serious about changing where we are at we have to make -- think differently and just like anything else is not the magic answer but i'm a big believer in choice and a big believer in competition having a range of different types of schools for different children having this is one piece of that were polio

i think it's is absolutely the answer. >> our president has a question in a common. >> thank you, and thank you mayor booker and thank you mr. secretary. on behalf of the conference mayors, you always come and talk to us and help us to navigate through the federal system, but also to talk to us about ideas. i have a comment to make and then i have a question. the work that we do as mayors as long-term work and it is heavy lifting. we all believe in public-private burger ships, and i can tell you in my sitting i have done the work of bringing higher education together and k-12 and businesses and our workforce investment centers. to look at the issue of educating our children and to

have them meet the needs that companies are needing so they can have the skill set. but we have to be innovative and use the resources that we have that belong to the public schools and so forth. but the private sector came in and said that they would beat the laboratory for certain things that they have equipment for and are equipped with teachers to do that inside their companies. the flexibility within school districts and within the college system to use some of those folks to teach within corporations and the laboratory was very helpful. but for me go to the k-12 area, one of the things that is a continuous frustration and i heard yours, that has to do with early education. the research has shown us that money and early education yields graduation rates and i think we need to put money into that and

it can't be the first place to cut. the other is special education, and i know mr. secretary you and i have had this conversation. our school districts pay the lion's share of a federal program and we need for the federal program to fund it completely so that it gets off the property tax. can you help me understand when the federal government will fund special education foley, so that this will release more funds within our school districts to address the issues of educating our children? >> i will take a the second one first. when i was in chicago my unfunded federal special-education liability was about 770 million so i'm acutely aware of a challenge. the honest answer is we are not going to fully fund it anytime

soon. that is billions of dollars and that is just not reality today. we are asking for a couple hundred million dollar increase in iba funding so it helps but it is not going to get us to where we should be for guys try to be on so i apologize for that but that is where we are at. i should've said on early childhood that is another area where we have not invested enough and we have not been a player and we are asking for $350 million for early learning challenge fund to do some innovative things that we are going to invest there. i will take one more. >> if i can let kevin jonson and the last question what when you go ahead real quick? >> thank you and i will keep my comments brief. i am the mayor of -- texas between austin and san antonio. i've been accompanied by her superintendent of schools dr. patty shafer. i'm a graduate of texas state and community college. committee has done her best to get everything in line to bmx

with in the community college district and we have struggled. business trinity has been involved in our schools issues involved and our communities and ball. the thing we are struggling with is trying to have additional options. what we are looking for, you can share some potential resources, represented from your staffing we might be able to speak with about if there are options beyond just offering community colleges and potentially looking at -- colleges druggie torso. that is what we are need of an part of our economic obama plan but we struggled to make it happen so we are just looking for options and resources you may be able to address. >> you can e-mail him and when we are done. my name is arnie ... at.edu.gov. i will happy to have my staff follow-up on an answer for that. we are but you transition and i hope our secretary will wait for a minute for secretary solis to join us. in a kevin johnson would like to get concluding remarks and i think it is for you and i to challenge the president.

>> to want to. >> secretary on behalf of all the mayors and the u.s. conference of mayors we want to thank you. we realize we have unprecedented access to u.s. secretary of education. you establish a task force. many mayors in the room would like to be a part of that task force. please e-mail me and talk to the secretary on a monthly or bimonthly basis. one of the byproducts of those meetings we articulated you homeported was to not get bogged down with the state level. we wanted her district to be able to compete in this is something we are seeing come to bear in a short sure period a time so we want to thank you for that. i think or take away is we can be helpful for you in terms of making sure sure that your innovative initiatives get funded and and secondly with your authorization so we stand ready to be as helpful as we can the other two things i would have to say, what we are trying to do as mayors as we want to get mayors to understand there's

a spectrum of involvement. can be as simple as aligning city services and it can be on the other end of the spectrum where there are mayors controlling the schools. the other thing we are tried to do is become a clearinghouse for best practices. if we communicate with your office we want to have the data portal where we have is practices so we can all see what other cities are doing around the country and we have been very selective on policy. we have supported the president's agenda. we have supported race to the top. we are looking at actively supporting a senior based playoff which we don't think is a good policy and terms of -- so we want to be helpful in terms of game-changing policies in the last question i think mayor booker was talking about, lebron james was -- he told me got a chance to meet with you as we can. did you showing your jump shot? >> i was taking notes. [laughter] >> secretary thank you on behalf of all of us. we know we are treading upon your generosity that i would like to introduce secretary solis who is here and maybe you are doing something in

operations together. it is my pleasure to introduce, coming in as i speak secretary solis of the department of labor. she was confirmed in 2009 on february that year prior to the confirmation as secretary of labor, secretary solis represented a 32nd grit national district in california which she held from 2001 to 2009 in congress or parties included access to affordable health care, affecting the environment and improving the lives of working families. iyer recognized leader in clean energy jobs authentic renowned renowned -- green jobs act which provided green-collar jobs, training for veterans at-risk youth, and individuals and families under 200% of the poverty line. we are delighted for the secretary to join us and talk about ways in which the department of labor is partnering actively with the department of education to prepare americans for the jobs

of today. and records to continue support for a national summer jobs program which i know she was herself involved in the summer jobs program. before the secretary begins her remarks again i would like to thank also those traveling with her the department of labor assistant secretary jane oates as well. now this time i try to stall because she -- irk you. she is supposed to walk and. i can talk more about secretary solis. secretary duncan what kind of programs are you working on? with secretary solis that she might be talking about this moment? >> i will let her go through them but let me say one final thing. the other thing i was about to do for you guys is provide the bully pulpit report where you are making tough calls, and again the courage that you guys have explained without the

control you might want which is very tricky, structural challenges. i appreciate that so much. there times you guys have taken a tough stand or taken a controversial issue but willing to put yourself on the line to do that. would love to find ways to support you in those efforts. don't hesitate to let me know through letters to the editor are talking on phones to reporters. would love to give you a political stretch -- coverage of the hard things that the mayor talked about so don't hesitate to call on me to do that. i can't solve these problems and you guys can. my job is simply to help you. >> secretary duncan, thank you very much. let's give him a round of applause. [applause] i have just been told that secretary solis -- and they can't appear the same place at the same time. are there any questions while we are waiting for secretary duncan

who is generally -- generously offering to answer them. speech is a little bit inside. our school superintendent technically wanted to know if flexibility will be allowed with the s.a.t. branch -- [inaudible] >> well we have tried to do and again this is controversial and hard, the school improvement rants is what was said to the country tell us who your bottom 5% of schools are. was interesting not the 19 to 20 but the 120 and lots of folks didn't know who their bottom 5% were. under no child left behind lots of schools got labeled as failures, but 89% their intervention was "other" and other mecca status quo. lycée grade teachers matter and great principles matter. we want to invest but not invest in the status quo so people coming up with great -- creative ideas we are happy to support

that but the schools are arguably the worst in the country. so what we are saying is more the same as in going to work so as long as this creativity is trying to get different outcomes to students that have that conversation but as a country we can continue to do "other" in neighborhoods for children who desperately need something much better. thank you very much. i gave a stirring introduction to the secretary of labor. some people wept i think as i read that. it was very moving and so it was a great introduction that i spent all night working on. but we really are grateful that you are here and are doing extraordinary work. you are someone who has lived your life mission in many ways coming through the summer job programs, and now on the cabinet of rock obama. we are grateful that you have

the batman to your rep or the robin to batman, the starsky to your hatch, jane oates. i did not call the furniture leaky there. you are truly partners in progress. you are doing so much to help transform our country to do extort many things. we are extraordinarily privileged to have you here. the fact that cavern secretaries are making their time available to sit with us and focus forums like this and that numerous opportunities we have to meet with you one-on-one which is profoundly grateful to thank you for joining us. we know you have treaded upon the generosity of secretary duncan who has been with us for sometime some time now but we know you have programs working together to break down walls between departments and wallowed working on extraordinarily -- we welcome earmarks and we are grateful that you were here. [applause] >> thank you so much.

thank you secretary arne duncan also. if i can sit here. i want to say how, what a privilege it is to be here with some of you again to be able to talk about where we have come now. i think the last time that i spoke to some of you, we were talking about the recovery, and where we were with our economy and while much has changed i think in the last year, i know that there still remains that question about how quickly will this recovery occur? i want to remind folks again that it is very important to look at, to look at where we come from and how we started. i took over the administration of the department of labor almost two years ago. next week will be my anniversary and it feels like a lifetime as already past. but with that, i would say to you that we have done with you and with others at the local lel