>> 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 would have realized that's not enough. changing those laws is not going to do it. we better go out and find the leadership necessary and costly overtime but leadership necessary to actually run transformation schools. >> but the lessons of new orleans is surely that one of the best strategies for turning this around is blowing it up. >> you could take that. >> why are you so reluctant to kind of -- >> i'm thinking, i'm thinking in making sure.

>> it distresses me sometimes that our revolutionaries have lost the revolutionary. right? [applause] >> i have not lost my revolutionary nose. >> i am not accusing you. >> dean what concerns me is when honestly, in order to create true sustained dramatic change, we need -- the reason i'm so careful is it isn't about one simple thing. it's about doing a lot of different things right. and i fear, i really believe a lot of the problem right now is that we like to play like the blame game and the silver bullet lurching. and honestly, when you say so the answers to blow up the system, i have to think and think, amateur. because i think the solution --

i guess i think it depends, but i think the real key in new orleans actually wasn't hurting. the real key was leslie jacobs, paul pasternak, and a whole generation of other people in new orleans, most of them, many of whom were for teach for america allows 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 taught success in this context which is there isn't a silver bullet to this. that's not going to fix the problem for our kids. >> you had had a nucleus in place. the opportunity was katrina. that allowed an awful lot of change to happen in a very short period of time. i have no argument with that.

you have an archive for that event? good. that's what we're talking the. we have these new quizzes overplays over to put them in place and lots of different cities, but it doesn't change the fact you can do an awful lot of good sometime by boeing it up. >> if we had real leadership right now in a lot of other places, determined to solve this problem comes if we viewed it as the crisis that is, and we have the right leadership in place, we would blow it up, to use your terminology, and lots of other context. >> i'm reminded, but i'm going to come back and ask you what you mean by another context, because -- >> absolutely. >> were in a number of different areas in our society where objectively when we look at the structures we have we realize if we were starting from scratch we would never, ever had anything even remotely resuming what we have now, right?

health care, everyone in the health care would agree if we were starting from scratch we would build a system that for their resemblance to what we have today, right? but yet somehow we sailed along year after year tweeting at the edges, even though, if we had a katrina that you systematically wiped out the culture of health care in this country and allowed us to start over again, we would be better off. >> you know what? i mean, i think -- let me say one other thing in reaction to this, which is really the thought that occurs. i think what you're saying is absolutely basically what needs to happen. we have a very systemic problem right now. most people i think misunderstand what's going on. like, why do we have little outcome, low educational outcomes in our lowest income communities. why do you think lex teachers are pathetic? s. pod which would think if you read the headlines right now. lots of people are not committed to kids. the real reason we have this

issue is we've got kids who face absolutely unimaginable challenges that kids in other communities don't face. they show up at school that don't have the extra capacity to meet their extra needs, and it becomes one big vicious cycle. so we can blame the kids, the parents, the teachers, the school principal to we can blame anyone in the picture but what we've seen over time is that we can also just change the picture. we could decided, right now our public schools, i grew up in dallas, texas, in a very privileged community and what do one of those public schools that's on the top 10 list of public schools in america. that was not a transformational school, right? we all showed up at the school on a trajectory to graduate from college. we came up four years later on the same trajectory, had perfectly hard-working nice teachers, some of the many great impact, but i did not change our trajectories. if you took that school and put it in the bronx it would crash

and burn that i think it might take a year, maybe it would take two years but its results would be no better than most of our schools and less a complete changed the way it operated. i think what we have discovered over the last 20 years is 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. >> i want to make one last point before we move on, and that is that in your book you talk about the amount of autonomy that is given to individual schools. that is to say, so long as they do the job they get maximum freedom. when they fall down they lose their freedom, right? that struck me as being incredibly convincing as kind of a philosophy. but 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 your on your own. when you don't we're going to step in with a system with a lot of turmoil, in a good way it's messy. things go up and down. it means that some schools will degrade, and others very visibly are going to be crashing and burning. do we need to prepare -- if you're going to institute a counterculture which i think is totally the way to go, do we also have to have a 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're doing in new orleans is exposing parents to what is possible. truly, there are more and more schools in new orleans that are

actually -- parents are thrilled, like they see the potential, like they see this is going to change my kids trajectory. and if you're in a school not like that in your neighbor is in a school like that, you know, i think ultimately this is how to kind of, you know, i think create the context that will be conducive. >> i want to move on to your silver bullets and scapegoats. it is one of the most interesting parts of the book is when you run down the list of usual suspects and kind of go, and shrug a little bit. you tell this wonderful story about, wonderfully depressing story about the school of the

future in philadelphia. can you -- >> yeah. so, there is a very big corporation, maybe 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. they spent $62 million design this school. in philadelphia. it's a beautiful building. i remember meeting with an executive at this company and asking him actually, do you think the people are deciding the school have spent time in the then still small number but growing number of very high performing schools in low income communities so they know for what accounts for success? and i remember thinking i can tell that they haven't, so chances are not good. i went to visit a school a year ago. >> briefly describe, it is a big gleaming -- >> it is a big beautiful facility.

this school has managed to underperform the average philadelphia public school. some of their proficiency rates depend on the subject are in the single digits. okay, this was a school that parents ought to get their kids in. okay, i went and visited the only classroom that they will open to the public. there is one. it is led by teacher has been there since the beginning, and i stood in the back of the room and i make sure i had my facts right because, in the process of writing this book, but i watched every single kid in that class in gauge and one of the following the activities. they all have laptops. that's one of the key features of the school. they were either trying to fix the computer, taking the battery out, sticking a backend. iming difference or surfing the internet, while the teacher talk as loud as he could in the front of the room to try to get them to listen to his lecture. and honestly it would've been, it might of been funny if he didn't stop to realize that

literally this school is shutting off these kids prospects. like they'll have no prospects. and if you know anything about philadelphia, and the kitties were these kids are living, this is like life-threatening. and honestly it's right down the street and i could had have said this seven years ago but today there are 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 as kids in more privileged communities. they don't have any technology. maybe they've gotten some whiteboards but it's deathly not the core of the school. the core of that school is a school leader who is absolutely determined to put the kids on a different trajectory. obsessed with everything a great teacher is obsessed with. be an incredible team.

they obsess over attracting and building great teachers. they get the kids, the parents come to teachers all online on the same mission, and they manage well. and then they do whatever it takes which is a big thing. like they know their kids face extra challenges. they lengthen the school day, they bring in extra support, social services, et cetera, et cetera. they're completely redefine school and they're getting very different outcomes. >> are you suggesting that having constant unimpeded access to the internet is not going to solve every social problem? [laughter] that's so -- loud. that's an eye-opener given everything that's happened in the world right now from egypt to tunisia, simply a function of social media i would have thought that this was -- >> eight the kids dash 8% of the kids in school are proficient with reading the access to the internet doesn't help that much. >> charters. >> unit, i think one thing

that's -- [laughter] one thing on the side of charters, and then i will go after them with a silver bullet. this growing number of schools i keep talking about, and many, many more of them are charters than traditional schools. there are traditional public schools in the regular system that are getting these kinds of results that they are few and far between. i think that's for a reason. i think the charter laws provide talented committed educators with a viable opportunity say okay, assume responsibility over my input to a higher count how it's been my budget. so it's an incredible enabler. but, unfortunately, if you look on average at the charter school results and the public school results, they are no better. in fact, icing charter schools because teach for america places and some of them, where you really wonder if we should be putting some of these people in jail. they are so much worse than even

the dysfunction that we see in the regular system. and i think it's another example of we thought, it is the best of intentions. people want to solve a problem tomorrow, change the laws, hopefully everything will be better. very soon. but, unfortunately, it's not that easy. like 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 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 the experience in newark city with charters different from the rest of the country? and if so, why? >> well, i think because there are such -- are probably many reasons why. yes, it's deathly different from -- i think i'm not the charters expert but we have lots of very high performing charters here

and i think it's because first of all there's a charter cap we can only open so many. and probably even more so, you know, joel klein and others made an extraordinary effort to recruit people in to run charters so that we have done a lot to recruit lots of good folks in. >> aren't those things come is a possible those things, good expense for charters and that kind of selectivity and high standards for them is a part of the function of the charter cap? doesn't make the user more wisely speak with you could argue that. i mean, i think -- >> would you argue that? >> no. well, i think that it is, i think it is the fact that it is very hard to find and develop the leadership necessary to run high-performance school of any

sort, including a charter school. but i think that we can find a lot more. >> once the cap now, do you know offhand what the cap is? >> isn't -- who knows? they raise the cap last year. >> you don't have -- do you have the figure -- you have a kind of optimal -- would have a figure -- >> i would bring the principles of charters into the system. so, i think but i would do that and i would also do something else. and joe klein has really worked very hard to do exactly this. and this is exactly the event in new orleans. but the bottom line is what ever you see one of these transformational schools on talking about always always always, they are run by someone

who feels such deep passionate commitment and full ownership over ensuring that the kids get on a different path. and if they don't have the freedom, they take the freedom to do whatever it takes to get to the end result. and i think we really need to ground our policies in an understanding of the dynamic. i think the implication is that our central system should spend an immense amount of energy attracting and developing real leadership which is a process. we can't snap her fingers that have great leaders like we need to recruit them in a classroom, in sure they're highly successful, keep some of them in the classrooms, move some of them into the leadership roles and whatnot. at the same time would they need to empower our leaders to get results it and so i think that kind of restructuring is probably the answer overall.

>> unions. >> i think that unions need to change just like i think districts need to change, and lots of other things need to change. but i think the idea that we fixed the unions or just wipe them off the face of the earth speak you were the one earlier who said she wouldn't have been in your university's. >> right. it's just that we don't live in a perfect universe, and i think it's not totally -- i think the assumption that if we let the -- let's assume we remove them all tomorrow. anyone who works in and around schools, just imagine, what do you think would be different the next day? like, well you have so much further to go. in states where there is very little union, and click a bargain on issue, we have 1% teacher dismissal rate. with 1% teacher dismissal rates whether they are strong unions and unions or not.

and why is that? that's because there's no culture of discipline in our school district. literally, when you think about how a high-performing organization operates or have these very high performing schools operate, and compare that to help most of our public schools and school districts, and even probably private schools for that matter operate, there's no -- we don't do what we know it takes to run high performing organizations. and so i think we need to -- we need unions to change but we need our districts and our school to change as well. >> does all of this -- does dealing with -- which are saying is in all these cases, funding, charters, unionization, these are all variables that can make a difference, provided you have in place first and organization and culture that makes learning

possible. its cart and horse here. >> exactly. i mean, i think anything short of that gets us in criminal progress. in a world where in criminal progress is not affordable. i think we have a really crowded ourselves in the magnitude of the issue here and it's so easy not recognize what's going on in our country, but we live in a country where the 59 kids who grow up below the poverty line half of them will not graduate from high school. you don't graduate from high school today, you know, your options are, i mean, we have communities that are putting more kids into the prison system and into college. the kids who do graduate from high school, who we applaud walking across the stage have on average in eighth grade skill level. a few percentage points on standardized tests doesn't meaningful change the kids lives in that context.

and that's what any of these interventions at the best will get you. and what we learned in the last 20 years is, we have something different but we could have meaningful change for kids. we could actually put whole buildings of kids on a different trajectory. to that, we know how to replicate that, it's honesty figure out okay, so we need to treat this like the crisis that it is, given that now we know we can solve it and go after it. and anytime any of us have a true crisis in our lives, you know, and truly do it as that, we do in all of its complexity and go at it with an equally complex solution. like it is no one thing. and there's no way around the hard work of building high performing organizations speaker let's talk about the practical impact of importing what teach

for america does is important large numbers of motivated college graduates into teaching professions. let's talk about what that means on a practical level. first of all, do teach for america teachers, how do they compare on average to the kind of median teacher? what do we know? >> the kind of growing body of research out there which show that they are more effective than other beginning teachers, and in some subjects and grade levels they are more effective than the experienced teachers. but not by the impact levels that i just described that we need. you know, like if you look at the studies, researchers think statistically of positive results, and we think this is an changed its life. some of our people are changing kids lives, but on average. and honestly, this experience is

kind of part of what i think teach for america is an enormous a good thing. you're better off as a kid in a school to give the teach for america core member than not. and our people are obviously been going off and staying in teaching for an average of eight years, but also moving into other positions and taking that expense with him and affecting broader changes and whatnot. but this experience is why i say that if teaching is the latest silver bullet, because i think we somehow think that we can arrange it to the way 3.7 teachers not. i think our own experience, millions and millions of dollars, literally, we've got a continuing learning live in our organization that is kind of mind-boggling. kansas city to understand what are the most effective of our people, what can we see in the

selection stage, what are they doing every? how does that influence our training? every year we are where we are, and i guess all that has led me to think, you know what, we need to take this on at a school level. this is an organization problem. if you want a big organization or company you know future problems by sending brain waves directly to all of the people in your organization. you think or my mantra, that may work within. when you go up here and you see their incredible, incredible results and ask what they use, like the teachers, but he has gone out and attracted and develop and you talk to the teachers, why have the state, because the culture of the school, became a want to be part of, i think it is supported, et cetera. so i think ultimately we just need to come at the teaching question differently. >> does this represent an evolution you think? you would not have said what you just said 20 years ago.

am i right? >> twenty years ago i'm was saying why are we being recruited as aggressively to commit to years as a were to work on wall street? that was really -- but i think once i got into this, i don't know when i started -- i felt this way for some that i have not. >> it is my one mild -- it's not a criticism. is not criticism about your book but there are these two strands that are in some sense company b and in some sense contradictory that run through the book, and i suspect legitimately run for your thinking. one is this notion that we have to find new sources of talent and bring them into the system. and the other is that well, that's not really what it's about. what is about is building a system that allows people to flourish.

they overlap in the diagram, like this. but there are kind of, you know, there's the same kind of you also run into, not entirely fair observations when one reads your book that you are saying that virtually all students can thrive given the appropriate culture and environment. but then is it the same true of teachers, can virtually all teachers thrive given the uproar with culture and environment? if we can help virtue in kidwai to help virtually any -- or is it apples and oranges? >> this is such a very complex set of thoughts. but i do, so, first of all, we can't understand teach for america as a teaching organization. and i think this is the biggest thing we fight in the world.

we are a leadership development organization. there's no other way to look at it. we are going out and say we need our future leaders to challenge -- channel their energies and we're going to get them to commit two years to teaching high poverty communities. we're going to make sure they have the leadership. we're going to invest massive amounts of training and support in pursuit of ensuring that their highly successful with their kids. and we know that that experience is important for kids and important for them in every single decision they make their after. and approves out to be and we need them to go out go start great schools. in fact, they have. we would have the school model that we have everyone is out there trying to replicate if it were not for a few teach for america. we would have the revolution we have in new orleans and d.c. and whatnot without a bunch of these people. and i think we need, we need someone to go take on the challenge of the parties to make

the whole thing easier. so i think we need that. at the same time what many, many of our people come out of this thinking is the way, we need to change the way these systems attract and develop talents. and there's no doubt. i mean, i've concluded the same thing. so what are the achievements that we need? that is one big central issue. and i think what we've seen is we can do that. you go to new orleans, and i think, one of the most interesting things about my time there was talking with some of our teachers that would place their overtime who said, you know, i came there for two years and i wish is going to teach for two years and leave. she said i just bought a house and it's seven years later. why did you buy a house? because i'm a hot commodity in the lawrence. i can pick whatever school i want to be a part of. they even pay me a lot because they can control what they pay their teachers in new orleans. and by the way, you're of the

part of the question, this whole conversation they went on in new orleans. the good people came out of the system. that could take us down a whole other path that speaks to your point. i think most people who come into education are coming into it because they want to do good things for kids. but they come into a system, i think about the people we hire, the best of the best who take 4500 or 70,000 applicants this year. if we brought them into a completely non-diverse undisciplined culture and just let them go, no management, honestly, lots of good things would not happen. some good things would happen, lots of not great things would happen. over time people have to operate strong rigorous cultures. and so i do think that there are tons of people out there who would operate in a very different way, if the culture in the overall structure were different. >> but to go back to my point,

this does represent an evoluti evolution. >> it's hard to track all the revolutions. which part? we've always viewed ourselves as a leadership program. >> but the part, 20 years, let's imagine we're having this conversation 20 years ago. >> i never would have known what i was doing. i mean, speak you never would've spent about as much time talking up culture, i'm guessing. >> i'm sure i would not. we place our first hundred 89 teachers 20 years ago, and they went in with the same level of commitment and idealism as the core members replacing today. and i think they would say, it would be fair to say they hit the wall. they went and started teaching and they saw the kids bring all the social challenges into their classrooms, and it became a downward spiral. like it is downright impossible.

would happen was if you were people rose above it all, like persevered and figured out how to change things, how to actually teach successfully. how to great the islands of excellence. and they did by teaching differently. we didn't know how to tell our people to teach. now we can say okay, here's what it takes. it takes being very clear about what beijing are working toward. like where are we going to be by the end of the year? what are you going to accomplish with your kids this year that will make a meaningful difference in their lives. once you figure that out then you spend half your time getting the kids, the kid families, their influencers, to believe that. that's important in their lives. and if they work harder than they have ever worked before they will get there. so you get your kicks working with you and everything is so much easier. you have to be goal oriented, maximize every second, you realize i don't have enough time to i've got to get my kids here early, get them here to stay late that many other things

happened. the level of resourcefulness required to meet all your kids extra needs, but, you know, what? they accomplish the goals. so you sort of redefined the role of the teacher. that was the first learning experience i think, and then i think again, i'm just learning from our people basically, some of those people went often said this is not sustainable. and other things i agree with based on unique the superheroes can teach that way, and even, they could probably sustain it. it's just that there are only so many of those people who are that passionate if someone to spend time with them, but then they went off and started the schools that actually make it much more sustainable and actually much easier to teach successfully. >> forgive me about accessing, but you've got on this road that starts with a noble ambition which is kind of an elite is ambition. let's bring the best and abide

-- the best and brightest into this corner of the world. and now it's like a marxist in the best sense of -- [laughter] i'm not criticizing you at all, although i must say you're not a total marxist because when we were back there and ask you to test at the micro bide using the word t. i thought you're going to say. pixie punk and but you said principal. >> and i was talking to him. know. honestly this has been an unbelievable journey, and just and eliminating one. i'm learning from our people and others were working alongside communities and that's exactly why want to to write this book. it's been such a mystifying experience but, you know, conceptually of course kids in low income communities have full potential and could have an excellent education but now we know, it's within our reach to do this.

there's nothing magic about it. there's nothing out of reach but there's also nothing easy about it. it's going to take, honestly it takes the same kind of thing, discipline and leadership that it takes to attain really ambitious outcomes in any undertaking. that's why i say in the end of the question is do we believe this is a crisis. if we do then we need to approach it the same way that we would approach any great crisis that we know we can solve. that's what i fear that we are not doing. >> switch gears for a moment. 40 how me thousand applicants a year? >> 47000. >> for how many positions? >> well, it depends on what happens to our federal funding, but if all goes well, 5300. >> so you are as selective as princeton at this point. >> although i don't view this as

the latest. >> i was establishing -- okay. but my point was how many -- 10 years ago for example, what with those two numbers have been? >> we had 4000 applicants, and guessing, about and probably brought in five or 600 people. >> and part of that dramatic increase in your popularity has to do with this movement sort of catching fire. but part of it also has to do with the economy. am i right? you guys are beneficiaries of -- >> on to say, what people don't know because either they view it as an outpouring of idealism, or from this generation or they view it as the economy, is that, we are out there building a movement. every year we take some our most

successful teachers. we probably have about 70 recruitment directors who each have partners in crime who are recent college grads, and we give them three or four campuses, and we say go find not just anyone but the people you believe have leadership ability necessary to be transformational teachers and have real positions of influence long-term. and they sit down 11. we probably met with 40,000 of these college teachers this year, people are going to law school and medical and other things, or who were at this point we're making lots more people who are interested in training because of the friends before and whatnot. but we are completely changing their minds in the '80s because our recruitment directors sit down and they share their personal experience. they say, think about a guy who just happened to spend a day with used the recruitment director, who is now running our boston office who basically says look, i was place in phoenix.

i started teaching fourth grade. my kids came into my room at the second grade level. i fell in love with my kids. we made a couple of years of progress in the first you. i say they came in at the first grade level. i asked the principal if i could teach him again. they made two more years of progress and i realized first of all, can you think of anything that would give you a bigger responsibility and bigger impact right out of college? secondly, this is something our generation can take on unfixed, like the part of the group of people who will fix that problem. so i actually think, i mean the economy was a great enabler as we ran around and told everyone, like a silver lining in this economic environment is that it's given the true leaders real licenses, and given the most precious resource and education is talent, we got to jump into that.

we've got a certain left out of that. but there was a foundation that was already there speak of the same thing we're talking about with katrina. you build a structure and then you are poised -- >> you have to be ready to take advantage of the crisis and make it into an opportunity to. >> it's funny because the last time this happened in this country was during the depression. the well document affect of the depression was that the contraction of private economy cause an awful lot of incredibly talented people to go into the public school system. and the generation that emerged from the schools in the depression which was one of the most successful generations, well educated generations we have with the unintended beneficiaries of this economic calamity. i hate to harp in on this comic it's a fascinating thing though which is we spend so much time bemoaning our misfortune, whether it is a hurricane or economic hard times, that we

forget there are incredible fertile periods that if you can build -- >> yeah, i think it's a good point. and we have lots of crises that we should take advantage of to solve the true crisis. >> a terrible thing to waste, as ron emanuel said. i don't know. i don't know how -- where is paul? this paul want to ask some nasty questions? there he is. [inaudible] >> no, no, no. why don't you come and -- [inaudible] >> see if you can tell it is written by me. but i'm curious, how many teach for america alumni's, people currently in the program are here? pretty amazing.

first question. was there a time when american education was not in crisis? you can just say yes and no if you want? [laughter] >> know. i think we've had this issue -- i have limited historical knowledge myself, but i'm sure we've had these issues forever. i think we've been handed handed out about this particular issue that we are working to address. i think 20 years ago a lot of people were in denial about the very existence of what we call today educational inequity. >> security officers and police in the hallways, less and less recess time come school miners that require a lot of greek to decide who would rule up on rule, longer school that's, why would a child would you think

want to go to school? >> you know, and the kids -- i think about the schools that i've been talked with these transformational schools, kids are dying to be in school because, first of all, the principals and teachers in these schools love their kids. and they build such a committee among the and the kids know they're going to work incredibly hard, but there is a huge payoff for that. so i don't know that there's a place they would probably rather be. >> lots and lots of questions from alums from the organization. this one begins with being and a longtime completely onboard with the belief that all students can learn. however, earlier the school year "the new york times" covered a study that pointed to statistics showing that when stripped of

all society and economic factors, african-american boys underperforming when compared to their female african-american peers, as well as other non-black students. what are you and tfa, thoughtfulness and what you think can what you think are the ways to shift education focus to address these statistics? >> meaning even outside of the context of low income communities, and i understand -- you know, i feel like it will take me out of, you know, i think about my own kids ago, you know, public school appeared that is very diverse, but not as economically disadvantaged. are all kids from all socioeconomic backgrounds come all racial background you can honest i think the puzzle to make that work for all kids is very different from the puzzle of making the schools that i've

been talking about were. and so i'm hesitant to -- i think what we need to understand is where the schools out there that are working for african-american kids, you know, across all socioeconomic backgrounds, let's find out because there are schools. i'm sure that our kids working for those kids. let's find out even if there is one, what are they doing differently. and i think therein lies lies be keys to unlocking the answer to that question. >> malcolm, by the way you can jump in whenever you want it any of these questions if you have comments to add. for instance, is there expanding teach for america for training and supporting administration? >> know, because we're going to stay focused on our core mission of channeling a lot of talent and energy in this direction, but we do, you know, we have a whole priority iran accelerate

the leadership of our alumni that are strategic in the broader movement and we think them with a subordinate to become principles is one huge important focus. among others. helping support them to run for elective office and start advocacy organizations and start others, but we partner with others to do though so that are in we partner with folks out there whether it's a charter school management organizations or disease or universities or other leadership and programs to set our people up with streamlined path to school leadership. >> you bring up joel klein quite a lot, quite often and you seem to admire him. what you think of joel klein success so far? >> i think it's too early to tell, but i think that her commitment, she is clearly very committed for all the right reasons.

and you know, i guess we'll see what happens. [laughter] >> i think we should reach the point where, when we are trying to figure out who should be the superintendent of our nation's largest school system or newark, new jersey, for that matter which is in the nhtsa superintendent search or a lan or any may be sent to be chicago, where some of the best jobs on the planet, they should be, right, like we should be considering slates of people of all the foundational experience is necessary to do that job. they should be people who taught in transformational raise who ran transformation schools as for lots of other transformational schools. can you imagine ge, much talk about of course for ceo selections, just having back and deciding that someone who hadn't even worked in corporate america

should be the ceo? we would never do it. and again, this is why i say sometimes i wonder coming at them if we think this is a true crisis. but we can't blame the mayor fully because the fact is we don't have that. we don't have the people pipeline, and that's what we need, the longer we stayed off the development of like true people development systems, the longer we just have to lurch from silver bullet to another and try random things and pray that they work which is pretty much where we are at the moment. >> often when schools strive towards excellence and the key competencies of reading, writing, math, et cetera, they do so at the expense of the arts and physical education. do you believe these subjects are necessary a part of an

educational system? and if so, how? >> i think, and he, i think what i want for my own kids and i think that's what, you know, all kids should have access to arts and physical and and all sorts of other enrichment opportunities. and i think again that, go visit if you haven't already schools that are actually not only getting good test results, but they are trying to set the kids up to be on a level playing field with kids in committees where parents are giving them that, and i think absolutely. i think we need, i think we need the whole picture. >> when you come back to the new york public lie buried in 20 years from now, what difference do you think we will find in the education system? >> you know, i think it's so hard to predict. i think about the fact that even

four years ago if we had come together and you had said one of the most impossible school systems in the country, i would have said new orleans and washington, d.c.. and so to think that those are the two of the fastest improving right now, i think things are moving really quickly. like a snowball is moving down the hill. and so i think he'll be easy to underestimate actually the progress we can make in 20 years. what i'm hoping is that in the way we have growing numbers, you know, hundreds of them clearly high performing schools today that we could never have imagined, even 12 years ago that we would have, i hope we have proof points at the whole system level, and i think once -- i think once we do that prove that this is possible, i do. i think we can talk about to the point all the time like we're going to get to the tipping point where people realize okay, we can completely do this in one

thing leads to another, and hopefully we're doing all the right things. i think it's within our reach. in 20 years we should see in an aggregate since the achievement gap closing in big ways. >> malcolm, we're getting to the tipping point. what is the relationship between teachers excellent performance and pay? >> i think we need to, you know, absolutely think completely differently about whole human capital picture, to use that terrible jargon term. we need to free our districts and our school principals ultimately up to think -- they need to be obsessing at all time around how do they attract and select great people. ultimately, i think we need to give them lots more flexibility over their compensation dollars so that they can retain and

value the people are making the biggest impact. >> if they are paid more they better teach us. >> well, i think ultimately, you know, i mean, i don't know. what we did the research show? we would have to look across sectors as well but we would be valuing our most effective teachers accordingly from a compensation perspective, and certainly even the research we've done ourselves, you know, we might consider $15,000 pay jobs for teachers who are ineffective in years, you know, four to eight would have serious retention. >> surely the issue is not so much obsolete level of compensation, but compared to compensation. especially so much of what you have been trying to do is to rehabilitate the profession, right, to get it taken more

seriously to attract different kinds of people. part of the way we rehabilitate professions is that we pay people comparably to other professions that we esteemed. and the issue of teaching, not whether they make x or y, it is the amount of money we pay of qualification is not commensurate with the amount of money we pay someone in another profession that is not nearly import and socially. >> and i also think, you know, people with lots of other options, you know, you have to face reality. you have to raise a family. we have to make it financially viable to stay in teaching and in education. >> different ways of expressing this question, but what is your greatest regret or what is the greatest mistake you think you have made? >> oh, gosh. there have been, you know --

>> maybe another way of -- >> you know, the most significant one i would say in recent days would be, i think it's tough like a teach for america has grown a lot, and we have big priorities around, not only becoming bigger and more diverse on the one hand, which leads us to put a notice amount of energy into a recruitment processes and whatnot, and also requires us to scale up. we've gone from 1000, to 8000 teachers in the last 10 years. but we have equally ambitious goals around increasing the measurable impact of our teachers during their two years. because we think it's critical for the kids and because we think it's critical are the lessons they learn. and in pursuit of that, we've tried many different things. we have put in place measurement systems ourselves that were very

well intentioned. and all sorts of, tried lots of different strategies. i think ultimately if we got into the ins and outs of that, ultimately sort of see the limitations of kind of leading with measurable -- coming, measurable results are critical but it's about more than that. and i think the culture that you build in keeping everyone around it in with this is all about and the spirit of truly putting kids on a different trajectory. but creating the right balance between a focus on measurable results and keeping everyone grounded in that spirit at the same time is a puzzle. and i think we sort of you did too much -- we're trying to announce week year and i hope we're making it happen around the spirit of things. >> finally, what are you most proud of? >> probably sticking with it. i mean, i think this is very

challenging work alongside many other people i think to accomplish great things takes time. and i think persevering and just constant learning. you know, grounding ourselves constantly and what are we learning from our most successful core members and alumni and others and communities, and just keeping the constant evolution of the. that's probably what i think is teach for america's strength and what i am proud of, i guess. >> malcolm gladwell, wendy kopp, thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> for more information about wendy kopp and teach for america, visit teach for america.org. author poet and playwright ishmael reed is on in depth live sunday april 3 starting at an

eastern. >> let us return therefore to the child man, the young single dude not child but not adult either. i see him as the result of four huge shifts. first, his pre-adulthood. a decade or more of single life devoted to work and self exploration. women also spent years in pre-adulthood, the single years in their '20s and '30s. here's the difference. women have the advantage, visible as it sometimes makes them, of knowing about biological women.

the large majority of women and men say they want children. that's what the surveys consistently say. but for women whose fertility begins to decline by the time they are 30, that means that they will may not be able to play or work without serious distraction for very long. even though they're unsure whether they will have children know that the decision alone imposes boundaries on their pre-adulthood. men don't have these pressing limits. they can take their time, and they do. the second force shaping the child man is a highly segmented and uncensored media invited. in the past time and have never paid much attention, television and magazine. the meeting in turn had trouble figuring out how to reach that younger male demographic. by the mid '90s, they found each other and fell in love. we got maxim magazine, cable news networks, hollywood movies,

also discovered the formula for attracting young males, car crashes and cyborg. and embarrassing bodily fluids and expose such female body parts. one of the most successful cable channels is called spike. it came on the air in its current guise in 2003 with reruns of star trek, and the original show called babe hunt. i tried to find an image to show you, but i would have gotten kicked out of the harvard club. so the third reason for the child, now we have to that he mentioned so far, the third reason for the child-man is female dependence. that young man reaches the age where in any other period of history he would be defining himself as potential husband and father. with the understanding that he had a clear and important social role. today, provided husbands and

fathers are optional, with reproductive technology if women so choose they can simply buy sperm and forget about the man who delivered it. meanwhile, young men have seen fathers and uncles discarded by wise cast out of their homes and separated from their children. no wonder they look around the culture shrugged and do their own thing. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. we'd like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback, twitter.com/booktv.