so, my next book is going to be about power to the people. wendy kopp is the founder of teach for america. during this program she recounts the creation of the organization in 1990 and its goal to diminish educational inequality. she reports on the over 25,000 teachers who have taught in the low-income areas with teach for america and present her thoughts on the current state of education policy in the united states. she discusses her book with author and new york staff writer welcome what will add the new new york public library in new york city. this is about an hour and a half. >> thank you all for joining us for what i hope will be a fun of our. you know, wendy, this was -- i had intended this to be a love fest because you are a great hero of mine. but then paul said that i have to ask tough questions. so i want to make it clear that

whenever i see something that is supportive and warm, that's me, and whenever i see something that is critical, that's just me channeling paul. [laughter] just so we got that out of the way. so, i wanted to start by -- you know, you are in a very unusual position. you know, you're going to have this big conference in washington this coming weekend where there will be how many, 10,000 people? >> 10,000 people. >> you have this enormous falling and you are a kind of cult figure. [laughter] i was trying to figure out is there any recent historical figure that you think you are analogous to? feel free to sort of throw off the restraints of modesty. >> i mean, just to be though, the 10,000 people are coming together because they want to -- i mean, because they are drawn to the same division as each other, and they want to spend a day thinking about and

reflecting on the incredible progress we have made in the last 20 years against what is a true crisis in our country, this to issue of educational inequity of what we need to do, individually and collectively to solve the problem. so it's not really -- >> you will be treated as a kind of rock star. [laughter] >> you know what? the sad reality is, i mean, maybe we would all wish, but there will be my critics and my friends, and will be fun, but you know, it's not all a love fest. >> i was trying -- i think the closest to the analogy i could come is the marine corps. tough to get into, and then they send you to really nasty places. right? [laughter] and i was wondering, you know, how in the movies there's always that moment in that kind of movie where the one tough guy meets the other tough guy and they are staring each other down and about to get in a fight and the other says wait, were you in nam, we've, were you in the marine corps? yeah, i was in the 29th, you know, infantry something, something, and they go

semper-fi. [laughter] i wonder is there an analyst moment where to move to teach alum's come together and say where did you serve? south bronx. [applause] [laughter] and then the show each other their teach for america tattoo. [laughter] i'm joking, but there is a kind of -- you or creating a kind of movement. i mean, dhaka marine corps alumni represents a kind of movement, representing a certain attitude towards the world, you know -- >> this is exactly the idea. this is the big idea. and, you know, teach for america really isn't about -- we are about -- teachers are critical, but teach for america is about building a movement among our country's teacher leaders to say we've got to change the way our education system is fundamentally, and i think -- your article in the new yorker about the formation of the

movements just captured the whole fury of teach for america. this is about the foundational experience of teaching successfully ways i think we are creating a corps of people who are absolutely determined to expand the opportunities facing kids in the most absolutely economically disadvantaged communities, you know, who are pouring themselves into their work and trying to put themselves on a different trajectory and having varying levels of success and taking from that experience incredible lessons. they realized through the first to experience the challenges their kids face, the potential they have. they realize it is possible to solve the problem and that is not only important for their kids what it's also for transformational for them, and i think of course they are all going through this together, and i think leave with the common set of convictions and insights

and just a common level of commitment ultimately to gold and affect the fundamental changes we need to see to solve the problem. >> you have how many alumni now? >> we have 20,000 alums. some consider your own online to be as important as your active teachers if you are thinking about it in movement terms. >> how many alumni do you need before you think you have a kind of critical mass? >> i guess you never know what will lead us to the tipping point. [laughter] >> you just bought yourself a good round of questions for that. this is growing exponentially at this point. five years ago we had 8800 alums and 20,000 if we could continue the growth trajectory that we are on we will have more than 40,000 by the five years from

now and what is happening in some of the communities where we have a critical mass of teach for america communities where we've been pleasing people in each case is for 20 years, washington, d.c., oakland california, houston texas and any number of other places in new market jersey were very different things are happening today. for many reasons, but if you to all of the teach for america alums out of the to picture you take away a lot of the energy and the leadership in the pictures. >> does the teach for america movement have an ideological personality. >> we probably have a diverse community and people come into it reviewing the issue we are taking on a different way on different sides of the political spectrum. i think people come out with it sharing, largely sharing a few

views. one, people come out of it knowing we can solve the problem, it's not that the kids don't have the potential on the parents don't care. if you get gallup polls and i would be interested in seeking another one now for the ideologies that are starting to shift a bit but as of three to four years ago most people in our country thought that the reason that we have low educational outcomes was because kids weren't motivated in the low-income communities and parents don't care. our members know for a fact that's not true. they see their kids working harder than any kids work and their parents to care when they are brought into the process, so, they come out of it thinking when the kids are met with pipe expectations given extra support they do well and they also come out of it realizing that there is no silver bullet in this, meaning -- >> i'm going to get to that, but i still want you to answer the question, i only ask because

whenever i see teach for america spoken of in a derogatory manner, it is invariably by someone on the right, which confuses me because i would have thought it was -- i would have thought that it's the other way around. do you have a sense of this? am i wrong in thinking this? >> i doubt it. you are seeing folks are largely from the left, and we have a diverse group of people. >> what percentage voted republican in the last election? [laughter] >> i don't know. i can't answer. it's probably -- it is maybe not that high a percentage. [laughter] but i'm not sure. >> quite apart from the comic value of that observation, isn't that weird to you? why would it have an ideological dimension. why wouldn't you expect as many kids to be signing up for this who were diehard right wing has everything is consistent,

surely, with all? >> well, i mean, what is the profile ll their of the graduating college seniors in terms of their ideological perspectives like what percentage of them vote republican? i don't know, and then would be interesting to look. we get republican folks, too. i wonder what college students, what's their -- i'm not sure if we are out of line with that or not. >> okay. >> i'm sort of may be living in a bubble, but, i don't know. i think we are drawing people -- would be interesting to look at that i guess. >> let's go back this is your 20th anniversary. so when you reflect on the differences between -- let's reflect on the differences between 1990 and now. we were chatting earlier and you mentioned how the movie quote cody non-me tecum -- "lean on

me" -- what is it about "lean on me" that would be on makable today? >> we put that movie -- over the school, the school "lean on me" up in lights as a success story, and the principle, you know, was kind of a super hero of some level. i mean, the was the point of the movie, and he really changed the culture of the school. but the school was still number 317 out of 326 in terms of educational outcomes in the state of new jersey. the kids are on a path to -- amine we are not giving the kids in that school real life options, and we couldn't make that movie today. like we certainly couldn't hold that school up as a success give kids who face of challenges that we are facing the kids to go to the school in paterson, new

jersey, a school that actually sets them up to graduate from college. you know, not just a few kids to beat the odds the whole building full of kids to actually get on the same trajectory as kids and much more privileged communities. today we know that's possible. we have hundreds of schools that do that, and i think it shows -- >> was it about simply someone who imposed order on a school? it was about discipline. >> yeah. >> but it was also holding up at school as a success story, and i just think we would never do that today. i mean in hollywood we would never hear the end of it. we would say that's not a success, this is a success. so i just think it is an image that tells me how far we've come. >> the bar was lucky enough in 1990 that he could describe as a success where schools kids were not getting killed is essentially it. so in that sense, we've made progress, right? [laughter] >> its huge and dramatic. i mean, not to underestimate how

significant that is. i mean, i don't think -- we didn't know that it was possible to provide kids with a truly transformational education. kids growing up in poverty, the assumption was, and all the research, you know, backed up the fact that socioeconomic background determined educational outcomes, and we knew of a few kids who were beating the odds, and if you charismatic teachers come another hit movie my senior year, "stand and deliver" who could do extraordinary things we view them as out fliers. [laughter] >> you just bought yourself -- >> oh my gosh. [laughter] >> go on, sorry. [laughter] >> but today we know -- we don't just have a few -- first of all, i think it is fascinating to think about, you know, not only "lean on me" but "stand and deliver," and i've got a lot

about the fact why didn't i go out and think, let me find out exactly how he did what he did so we can train ever teach for america members to teach the same way. took many years to figure out to spend a lot of time with our out fliers, like hour truly exceptional teachers who were putting kids on a different trajectory to try to understand where were they doing differently. it turned out the same things that savante was doing differently, but the point is now we know what teachers who teach in otherwise not very successful schools and low-income communities to to produce incredible results with their kids so we know so much more the classroom level, but you know, at the school level, too i think one thing you realize it takes a total superhero to do that classroom i classroom, but it's possible to create whole schools that foster good teaching and enable, you know, teachers to sustain that kind of work and to think that we now have hundreds of those schools, and it is dramatic progress. and the question is different. you know, it used to be can we

come can education overcome poverty? and today we know that it can. the question is how do we do it at scale? how do we create whole system's full of transformational schools? .. >> yeah, it's interesting. because this is exactly the same

transformation that took place in our thinking about crime. 25 years ago, if you asked people what would it take to bring down the crime rate? newnew york, you'll have to sole poverty, drug abuse, discrimination, we solved none, but the crime rate came down by 75%. which is both and also kind of disturbing in a weird -- disturbing in a little sense that it said that you can actually break off the pieces of the pathological puzzle and solve them without ever getting at core problem. is that paradox? >> i guess i believe that education is different. >> yeah. >> i mean how many people -- i feel like i meet in my work every day people who -- and honestly, i meet them because some of them are joining teach for america. people who were not on a path to

graduating from high school, let alone college, who end up going to college and graduating from college and being able to choose what do they want to do? do they want to teach? do they want to go work for a big company? do they want to go into law? that's how you break the cycle of poverty. >> yeah. let's dwell on this point for a moment. i think it's an important one. for the longest time a central tenant in liberal ideology was that the reason we need to solve fundamental questions of social and economic injustice is that without doing that, problems like educational inequity and crime will be beyond our reach. the experience of the cause thatoff been a part of, and the experience of crime fighting over the last 15 years has been that's totally false.

so quick and social inequality in this country have soared in the last 15 years, and simultaneously, we've made extraordinarily end roads against crime wednesday -- crime and extraordinary roads against education. what does that mean for the liberal ideology? was it wrong? should we throw it out? is there no reason? >> i don't think we should change our ideology. i would hate to conclude there's no reason to solve the fundamental challenges of poverty. one the quickest -- as we will discover as we get into this discussion, it is possible. this is an enormous amount of hard work. and we can make it easier by taking the pressure off of schools. absolutely, let's take on the fundamentals, let's improve the economies in rural and urban areas and health services and all of that. it's just that we don't need to

wait, and maybe we will discover that, you know, breaking the cycle of poverty for kids, some of whom will come back and improve their own communities, you know, is one of the answers. >> yeah. let's pretend that you were education czar. [laughter] >> and i gave you more powering than we normally give czars. very often we give people the title czar, but they are not czars. not real classic czars; right? it's just a word we use to pin on someone in washington who has a large office. you know, steve ratner was the auto czar. he wasn't a czar. you are a real czar. right. and you got to start over. can you describe your perfect educational? that wendy kopp czar can build? >> i think we would first of all be very clear about the

standards that we're trying to reach. like we would, you know, start with a very clear understanding of here's what we think at any given level kids should be able to master. and we'd have to develop great assessments so that we understand whether or not kids have mastered it. and then we would put an enormous amount into attracting, developing, tremendous teachers, tremendous school leaders, educators in general, and then we would free them up to obtain those results. >> would you have a union? >> i think if you had really well managed school systems and schools, you might not need them. right, isn't that what they have found in organizations and sectors where management does it's job? >> i don't know. are you asking me?

[laughter] >> i thought maybe you'd bring a crime analogy in or something. >> so you wouldn't have unions in a perfect world? >> you wouldn't need them. you'll have school principals and school district superintendents and everyone else who would know their most valuable assets are their teachers and they are people. and they'd be making them happy and the teachers -- they'd be listened to and et cetera. >> we sort of had an example of this, you talk about this in your book, in new orleans. new orleans was kind of -- after katrina they sort of blow up the school system and start over. >> uh-huh. >> can you talk about what happened there and what we learned from that example? i thought that was one the most fascinating parts of the book. >> so teach for america started placing teachers in new orleans 20 years ago. and, you know, i've personally spent a lot of time walking the

new orleans public schools. you could call it a crime scene at some level hurricane katrina. it was just tragic what was happening to our kids. after the hurricane, you know, you may remember in of the kids were displaced to houston. they were living in the astrodome with their parents and some of the folks ended up recruiting the kids and basically running a school for them in houston. they did the diagnostics and discovered the 8th grader were basically on the 2nd grade level. that was pretty much what we knew to be the case in new orleans. you know, so -- and, of course, posthurricane katrina, talk about a place where we can see the incredible burdens of poverty. but the storm, you know, basically created a window of opportunity for some people who had been working for a long time to try to improve the schools without gaining much traction, to actually just blow up the

system. you know, i think after the school board announced they weren't going to open schools for a year, they decided no more. and they basically created a new system. >> when you say they, who do you mean in this instance? >> well, when i'm saying they, i'm thinking about a real advocate from change from the business community, leslie jacobs, paul pasterack, who ended up being the superintendent at the state level. there was state legislative change. they created a system of charters. this is a slight over simplify indication. but they created the world where they slowly shut down the schools that were still under the management of the central ed department. and anyone would apply to run a chapterrer school. they created a very rigorous accountability system to that very few of the applications to

run charter schools, if they didn't work they would be shut down. the people in the puzzle knew it wasn't as easy as that. they knew that charter laws don't create transformation schools that put kids who are starting way behind and facing lots of different channels on a different trajectory. in order to do that, we would need extraordinary leadership. they went about finding it. they went outside of new orleans, and they looked inside of new orleans. you know, they hugely scaled up teach for america, they brought in the new teacher project to help recruit people from the local community. >> how many of teach for america people did they bring in post katrina? do you remember? >> we scaled up to 600 people. we were placing about 120, probably total at any given time. >> is there as many as you have in any city? >> new orleans is one of our biggest sites. our core member reach one out of

every three students in new orleans right now. but they are -- >> sorry. when they started looking. >> no. >> when you say started looking for leadership, looked for principals? >> they did everything. they went about all of the various people pipelines. so they scaled up teach for america, they brought in a group that sets up local teachers recruitment initiative. so they went out and tried to recruit people, you know, who didn't have teaching backgrounds like the new york teaching fellows in new new orleans. new orleans teach new orleans, then they brought in new leaders to recruit nontraditional folks to become school principals. they went out and recruited the operators of the high performing charter schools. come to new orleans. we are going to create the modern, urban school district. they set up the organization for the purpose of recruiting people to run charter schools and making it easier to find buildings, et cetera, et cetera.

as i write in "a chance to make history" i spent two days in new orleans last spring. and i was just -- i was shocked by what i saw. i mean i had heard what i was going to see. been talking to everyone. i assumed it was going to be great. it was shocking given the comparison from the previous years. >> what do we know, what kind of statistical measures do we have? how big is the jump? >> the jumps are completely dramatic. they are making in some cases depending on the grade levels between six and ten times the kind of improvement over one or two years that the other schools in the state of louisiana are making. you know, i think about -- what was so shocking when i was there, i didn't go visit just one school that was making great things happen. i spent two days going from school to school to school and meeting the entrepreneurial

school leaders who were on a mission to put their kids on a trajectory to graduate from college. who had -- were obsessing over the teams they were building, who, you know, you walk into the schools. i just kept thinking i would send my kid to this school. i was a shocking thought from, you know, a mere three or four years ago. one of these schools is run by a guy named todd pervis. when he recruited his 5th grader, about 8% of the kids were proficient in reading and 8% were proficient in math. 8%. now they were 3/4 of a year above grade level. he has his kids on a trajectory, you know, by the time they are finished 8th grade, he wants them to be able to get into, you know, any good high school anywhere in new orleans or otherwise. >> so katrina is the best thing that ever happened -- i don't

mean -- that's not a joke. >> you know what's fascinating, i have this conversation all the time. people say you know what, this could never happen anywhere from new orleans. because of the hurricane. you know what, we had a crisis in new orleans that was bad, and in detroit and philadelphia and any number of places right now that should merit the kind of action that was taken when that school board decided not to open the schools. and we're not acting. but we could. >> yeah. but it really -- i mean you could make the case -- let's just say that given the single most important measure of a city's health, long-term health, is it's ability to properly educate it's children. all right? if new orleans was utterly failing before and now has some signs of succeeding beyond other schools in the state of louisiana, the city is better off for having hurricane katrina. >> it's sort of to your point

before though. you know, i'm not going to say that -- it's not -- there's so many people who are in the worst condition because of the hurricane. you know what, here's the other interesting thing about this. it's not quite, you know, -- it's convenient to look at it as -- >> wait. >> here's the thing. >> no, no, no, you can't get away with saying that. >> yes, i can. >> no. >> it might have happened without the hurricane. it might have. that was the interesting thing. >> you just said it's not happening in detroit and all of these other places. >> it could. you know what's different? here's i swear that is the difference and this is the whole point; right? actually in new orleans there was a group of leaders who were absolutely bounce and -- bound and determined to fix the problem for kids. they existed and were working before the hurricane. in fact, i remember when the hurricane happened my first thought was oh no. all of the progress that these people had made which we thought

was going to be revolutionary went down the drain. of course, everyone was dealing with a huge natural disaster. but they revived and made dramatic change happen anyway. i don't know what would have happened before the hurricane. what i think is interesting in most communities, you know, in most communities, we would have had a hurricane and we wouldn't have taken advantage of it to -- of the circumstances of the day to actually revolutionized the schools. we probably would not have thought, you know what, let's actually create a system of charters, and most certainly, because this is the problem and why we haven't moved the needle against this issue in an aggregate sense, we wouldn't have realized you know what, that's not enough. changing those laws is not going to do it. we better go out and find the leadership necessary and cultivate over time the leadership necessary to actually run transformational schools. >> but the lesson of new orleans is surely that the -- one the best strategies for turning this around is blowing it up.

>> i -- you could take that. >> that's why -- why are you so reluctant to kind of -- why don't you think about a revolution. >> i'm thinking about. >> why won't you be a revolutionary here. it distresses me sometimes that our revolutionaries have lost their revolutionaryiness; right? i mean why -- [applause] >> you know what i have not lost my revolutionariness. >> i'm in malcolm mode, not paul hold and grab mode. >> you know what concerns me, in order to create true, sustained, dramatic change, we need -- the reason that i'm so careful is that it isn't about one simple thing; right? it's about doing a lot of different things right. and i fear -- i really believe that a lot of the problem right now is that we like to play like

the blame game and the silver bullet and honestly when you say so the answer is to blow up the system; right? i have to think. am i sure? because i think the solution -- i think -- i guess i think it depends. but i think the real key in new orleans actually wasn't the hurricane. the real key was leslie jacobs, paul pasterack, and a whole generation of other people in new orleans, most of whom, many of whom were teach for america alums. who were deeply determined to address what they viewed as the single most unconscionable crisis in our country. and who understood what you understand especially after you've thought successfully in this context. there isn't a silver bullet to this. you change a governance law, that's not going to fix the problem for our kids. >> so you had a nucleus in

place. that allowed new orleans to change? do you have any argument? good. we have the nucleus in place in lots of city, but it doesn't change the fact that you can do an awful lot of good by blowing it up. >> if we had real leadership right now in a lot of other places determined to solve this problem, if we viewed it as the crisis that it is, and we had the right leadership in place, we would blow it up to use your terminology in lots of other contexts. >> uh-huh. i mean i'm reminded -- by the way, i'm not going to come back and ask you what you mean in other contexts. because it's intriguing. >> absolutely. >> in other contexts. we're in a situation in a number

of different areas in our society, objectively, we look at the institutional structures that we have. we realize if we were starting from scratch, we would never ever have anything even remotely resembling. we would have a health care with that resemblance, some how we tweak it at the edges. if we had a katrina that systemically wiped up the culture of health care in this country and allowed us to start over again, we'd be better off. >> you know what -- i think -- let me say one other thing in reaction. which is the thought that occurs. i think what you are saying is absolutely what needs to happen. right? we have a very systemic problem right now. most people misunderstand what's going on.

why do we have low outcomes in our lowest income communities? why do you think? teachers are pathetic? that's probably what you'd think if you read all of the headlines right now. lots of people aren't very committed to kids. you know what, the real reason that we have this issue is we have kids who face absolutely unimaginable challenges that kids in other communities don't face. they show up at schools that don't have the extra capacity to meet their extra needs, and it becomes one big vicious cycle. you know, we can blame the kids, the parents, the teachers, the school principals, we could blame anyone in the picture. but what we've seen over time is we could also just change the picture. we could decide -- i mean so right now our public schools -- i grew up in dallas, texas in a very privileged community and went to one the public schools that's always on the top ten list of public schools in america. that was not a transformational school; right? we all showed up on a trajectory

to graduate from college. we came out four years later on the same trajectory. we had perfectly hard working nice teachers. some of them made a great impact. but it did not change our trajectories. if you took that school and put it in the bronx, it would crash and burn. it might take a year. maybe two. it's results would be no better than most of the schools unless it completely changed the way it operated. i think what we've discovered over the last 20 years, we can change the way we operate. we can embrace a completely different mandate for schools in low income communities. when we do, it actually works. in that sense, i think we completely do need to start over. >> yeah. one -- i want to make one last point about new orleans before we move on. that is in the book you talk about the amount of autonomy that's given. that is to say as long as they do their job, they get maximum

freedom. when they fall down, they lose their freedom. you know far more than me. that seems convincing as that kind of philosophy. my first thought was are we prepared for the kind of social and institutional anxiety that that kind of process creates? in other words, a system where you have that kind of -- as long as you perform you are on your own. when you don't, we are going to step in. in a system with a lot of turmoil; right? in a good way, it's messy. things go up and down. some schools are going to do great, and other are going to be crashing and burning. do we need to prepare? if you are going to institute that kind of culture, which i think is totally the way to go, do we also have to have a kind of conversation with parents and the public about what it means? the kind of -- >> i think that parents want a

great education for their kids. and i think what they are doing in new orleans is exposing parents to what is possible. and i mean truly there are more and more schools in new orleans that are actually -- the parents are thrilled. like they see the potential. they see this is going to change my kids' trajectory. and if you are in a school not like that, and your neighbor is in a school like that, i think ultimately, this is how to kind of, you know, i think create the context that will be conducive. >> uh-huh. uh-huh. i want to move on to your silver bullets and scapegoats. it's an -- it is the -- one the most interesting parts of the book is where you run down the list of the usual suspects and kind of go, you know, and shrug

a little bit. you are not crazy about the argument that this is about funding. you tell this wonderful -- not wonderful, depressing story about the school of the future in philadelphia. can you -- >> yeah. so there's a very big corporation, maybe the people remember this about six or seven years ago. there was a lot of talk about this big technology company that was going to design the school of the future. and they spent $62 million designing the school in philadelphia. it's a beautiful building. i remember meeting an executive at this company and asking him, actually, do you think the people who are designing the school have spent time in this -- it was a small number, but growing number of very high performing schools in low income communities so they know what accounts for success?

i remember sitting there thinking i can tell that they haven't. chances are not good. i went to visit that school a year ago. >> briefly describe. it is this big gleaming -- >> it is a big beautiful facility. this school has managed to under perform the average philadelphia public school. some of their proficiency rates, depending on the subject, are the single digits. okay. this was a school that parents fought to get their kids in -- okay. i went and visited the only classroom that they will open to the public. there's one, it's led by a teachers who's been there since the beginning. and i stood in the back of the room and made sure i had my facts right, i was in process of writing this book. i watched every single kid engage in the activity. they all had laptops. they were either trying to fix the computer, taking the battery

out, their friends were surfing the internet while the teacher talked about loudly as he could at the front of the room to try to get them listen to his lecture. honestly, it might have been funny if you didn't stop to realize that literally this school is shutting off these kids prospects. they will have no prospects. and if you know anything about philadelphia and the communities where the kids are living in. this is like life threatening. and honestly, it's right down the street, and i couldn't have said this seven years ago. but today there's a growing number of schools in philadelphia that are serving the exact same student population three or four blocks away and putting them on a trajectory to graduate from college at much the same pace at kids in more privileged communities. you know what, they don't have any technology. they might. maybe some white boards. but it's definitely not the core

of that school. the core of the school is a school leader that is is absolutely determined to put, you know, the kids on a different trajectory, and obsessed with everything that a great teacher is obsessed with, right, building an incredible team. they obsess over the teachers. they build the culture where they get the kids, parents, teachers aligned on the same mission. they manage well. and then they do whatever it takes. which is a big thing; right? they know their kids face the challenges. they know they are coming in behind. they length in the school, social services, et cetera, et cetera, they are completely redefining school and getting different outcomes. >> are you suggesting that having constant access to the internet is not going to solve every social problem? that's -- wow. an eye opener given that everything that's happened in the world from egypt to tunisia is a function of social media.

>> 8% of the kids in the school are proficient in the reading. so access to the internet doesn't help that much. >> yeah, not necessarily. charters. >> you know, i think one thing that's -- [laughter] >> one thing on the side of charters, and then i'll go after them as a silver bullet. this growing number of schools that i keep talking about. many, many more of them are charters than traditional schools. there are traditional public schools in the regular system that are getting these kind of results. but they are few and far between. and i think that's for a reason. you know, i think the charter laws provide talented, committed educators with an incredible opportunity to say, okay, i'm going to assume responsibility for complete freedom in my input. who i hire, how i spend my budget. it's an incredible enabler. unfortunately, if you look at

average at the charter school and public school, they are no better. in fact, i've seen charter schools because teach for america places in some of them where you really wonder if we should be putting some of these people in jail. they are worse than even the dysfunction that we see in the regular system. and i think it's just another example of we thought, you know, what it is the best of intentions. it's people wanted to solve the problem tomorrow. change the laws, hopefully everything will be better very soon. but unfortunately, it's not that easy. we still need to then cultivate the leadership necessary to take advantage of the charter laws. and that is the most precious resource in all of this. because it's hard to find those school leaders who have the kind of foundational experience necessary to actually run a transformational school. >> is this -- is the experience with new york city with charters different from the rest of the

country? if so, why? >> well, i think because there are such -- there are probably many reasons why. yes, it's definitely different from -- i mean i'm not the charters expert. but, you know, we have lots of very high performing charters here. i think it's because first of all there's a charter cap. you can only open so many. not necessarily a good thing. they have rigorous standards for who opens them, sort of like new orleans. they shut them down when they don't worse. joel klein and others made an extraordinary effort to recruit people in to run chapterrers. -- charter. we've done a lot. >> is it possible that good experience with charters and that selecttivity and high standards with them is part of the functional existence of the charter cap? doesn't the reinstruction on on- restriction on the resource use

it more wisely? >> you could argue that. >> would you argue that? >> no. well, i think it's a very -- i think it's a fact that it is very hard to find and develop the leadership necessary to run a high performing school of any sort, and including a charter school. but i think that we could find a lot more than the cap. :