united states. so it's not -- it is military information, and it's terrible what we're losing, but every time you as an industry are doing business with another nation in asia, they're, your computers and your lawyer's computers are being taken over, and your documents are being stolen so when you're negotiating with them, you're not going to get as good a deal because they know more about your playbook than you do. you heard about the google attack last year, that was one of 80 companies, current products, future products, engineering work on new products, so other people who want to compete with us don't have to do all that r&d. so it's not just the -- >> host: industrial espionage. >> guest: and it's having a massive economic impact as well as a military. but it wasn't that long ago, back in the '80s, we had, we were worried about the japanese, and we were worried that they were getting technology and

leaping ahead of us. china as well through the theft of our intellectual property. it is a national security concern. >> guest: indeed. >> guest: but under policy and legal decisions how one responds to espionage versus a use of force or armed attack is different. there are different rules at play as to what one does using law enforcement efforts, possibly, versus internationally recognized authority to use force. >> guest: sometimes people say, well, the u.s. stole intellectual property from britain in the 19th century, and isn't that part of what helped make us grow, and so shouldn't we not criticize the chinese for doing this? my answer is always that we should tell the chinese, steal as many books as you like, right? and that's not, as alan said, what's going on. it's the ability to download massive quantities of information, entire plan sets.

it's also really hard, if you've ever read a book on how to build your own f-16, you make a lot of mistakes. electronic version, much simpler. >> host: we're coming up on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. could a 9/11-size attack occur via cyber warfare? >> guest: if your question is could people die, could 3,000 people die based on a nuclear accident that was facilitated through, not caused entirely by but facilitated through cyber, yes. >> host: catherine lotrionte. >> guest: maybe i'm a little more optimistic or hold out the hope that we're not there yet. the anniversary is very close. i think still the biggest threat, especially on an anniversary like this, is similar to 9/11, conventional terrorist attack.

>> guest: so there is a classified example of a cyber attack that resulted in multiple deaths, and what we know from that we can start to assess the e effectiveness of this as a weapon. and it's not that powerful. you can hurt a few people, that's bad, of course, but i don't think you could get a 9/11. you could have more fun doing something else. you could, you know, mess up the financial system. you could turn off the electrical power. but casualties in the thousands would be difficult to achieve using cyber attack. >> host: and we are out of time, unfortunately. very quickly, jim lewis is a director of the technology and public policy program at csis. he got his ph.d. a at the university of chicago. also joining us today was catherine lotrionte who is director of the cybersecurity project at georgetown university, ph.d. from georgetown university, law degree from new york university. and is alan paller, founder and

research director of the sands institute. degrees from cornell and mit. mr. paller, very quickly, what is the sands institute and how did you get involved in this type of work? >> guest: sands is the main training organization which trains 20,000 people a year in the very advanced techniques that will be used to defend and exploit computers. i got involved because i started one of the first software companies and sold it to another company that was in the security area and learned it that way. >> host: do you train a lot of government folks? >> guest: yeah, more commercial and defense industrial-based a small number of the government folks in law enforcement, particularly in the intelligence community. >> host: catherine, how'd you get involved in working at the general counsel office at the cia and in cybersecurity? >> guest: so my background in cyber started actually at cia when i was given the information warfare account back in 1997 as a lawyer. and fuller sunrise and moonlight

maze were just around the corner and put the interest in it and found a spot at georgetown in it eventually outside the government where i could bring in what i think is necessary, a multidisciplinary approach to the topic where you have technical sciences, the hard sciences with policy and legal to try to deal with some of the problems. >> host: jim lewis? >> guest: when i was in school, they announced to me suddenly that i would have to learn to write computer programs, so i thought about dropping out and eventually got through it. and a few years later dick clark was walking down the hall one way, and he said to me, you know how to program computers, don't you? i should have said, no. and instead he said, well, i want you to come up to nsa and talk to them, so that's how i got involved. >> host: also joining us today was siobhan gorman who coffers national security type issues for "the wall street journal". thank you all for being on "the communicators." >> guest: thank you.

>> next on c-span2, remarks from the dalai lama on nonviolence in the 21st century. later, a discussion on the state of public education with sacramento mayor kevin johnson and former washington, d.c. school chancellor michelle rhee. and then a student conference on the legacy of ronald reagan and the workings of the federal government. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ >> earlier this year the dalai lama made his first visit to arkansas. he spoke to an audience at the university of arkansas on nonviolence in the 21st century. this is an hour and a half. >> we typically associate with widespread social change and political renovation. but i would suggest to you that these individuals from their cloistered positions have affected more positive change in our lives than many who have devoted their careers to public

service in the traditional manner. why is this so? my first inkling, my first inkling of an answer came while reading sister helen as she described a day in june 1980 that would change her life. she was listening to sister maria as she lectured to her community, and she was urging, and she was urging direct action with the poor. within the year sister helen had moved from a lakefront suburb into the st. thomas housing project in new orleans where she began her work on death row. it was about this experience that she would later write, better i decide to try to help ten real, hurting people or nine or one than to be overwhelmed and withdraw and do nothing. or write an academic paper on

the problem of evil. i would suggest that we know and respect sister helen now because she has avoided that academic paper and embraced instead the ten real, hurting people, a number that has grown steadily and shows no signs of slowing. and because we know how deeply dr. king weighed the words that he spoke in public, we are mightily impressed to learn that he turned to professor harding to craft the speech that outlined king's opposition to the war in seat, one -- in vietnam, one of the landmark statements on nonviolence in american history. but how many of us know the following words of professor harding which describe a conversation he had with a young man, articulate and intelligent, who was bent on surviving the tough neighborhood in boston where he'd grown up? this young man told professor

harding that what he needed were living human signposts to help him find his way. and professor harding's response is emblematic, i believe, of his life. i have never forgotten these words, professor harding writes, and these concessions seem to ask us not only to be signposts, but to introduce our students to other living signs who may be able to help them find the way. they need to see and know the lives of women and men who provide intimations of our human grandeur. to all of his students who number now in the thousands, professor harding has served as such a signpost, and i would suggest that our stage today is brimming with such signposts.

i first saw his holiness in 1979 when i was a young graduate student at the university of virginia. and since then i have read his books, attended his teachings and generally tried to understand the great compassion and generosity that illuminate his work in our world. you can open many of his books randomly and find passages that clarify and illuminate. here is a passage from a recent collection. nonviolence is not limited to an absence of violence, for it is a matter of an active attitude motivated by the wish to do others good. it is equivalent to altruism. altruism, which defines all of our panelists, is a form of nonviolence. it is a formula both clear and

profound, and these are the two qualities -- clarity and profundity -- that i most associate with his holiness. so our panelists agree, happiness depends on developing the kind of warm heart that will recognize human suffering wherever we might find it and on developing the capacity to declare this suffering intolerable. and, of course, the spirit that finds this suffering intolerable rises from the spirit of nonviolence. our three panelists have all devoted their lives to this principle, and i am anxious -- as i know you are -- to hear their advice on how we might incorporate something of this in our own lives. it is a great honor to present to you once again professor vincent harding, sister helen prejean and his holiness, the 14th dalai lama. [applause]

now, um, a word about how we intend to operate here today in this conversation. um, i have spoken to sister helen and vincent harding, and what we will do is we will allow our panelists to talk each for two or three minutes about their own personal path to the stance of nonviolence and the particular role that nonviolence plays in be what they do in the world. we will then follow that up with questions and comments and then, and then at the end we will have a one minute or so summary from each of the panelists, and i am certain that we will all be, by

that time, greatly enlightened. we would like to start of course, with his holiness. if you could talk for a couple of minutes about your own personal path to nonviolence, and then sister helen and vincent harding. [speaking in native tongue] >> yeah. good morning, everybody. >> good morning. >> indeed, i'm very happy. this first time, i think, come to state, this city. so this morning i found, of course, i usually get up early morning, is i can get time at dawn, some birds singing. i like big city, very beautiful.

very beautiful. so i'm very happy. come here, thank you. [laughter] and then opportunity to share my own experience. so now on nonviolence. firstly, we human being is social animal. so individual sort of survival depend on the rest of the community. so there must be some sort of force in our emotion to bring together. so that's compassion. human compassion. then secondly, the way our life

start. we come from our mother. and not like some other species, like some turtle. their mother lay down their egg, they lay egg, then left. no need mothers care. die after. so they themselves have to survive by themselves. we not like that. like some other mammals, at a young age their survival entirely depend on others to care. and our case and many birds and many mammals their survival

depend entirely for the affection or caring by the mother. so our life start that way. therefore, i consider basic human nature is more gentleness. of course, aggression also part of our life because of our intellect and because of greed. and some other different emotion. bring us extra ability so that use -- [inaudible] however, this our sort of recording medical scientists often anger, fear very bad for our health. compassionate mind, warm heartednd very good for our --

heartedness very good for our health. so, so that also confirm our basic nature is more gentleness. so constructive emotions goes very well with our body. -- [inaudible] emotion does not go well with our body. now nonviolence and violence, although i think there are many different level of action, physical action, verbal action, mental action, violence, nonviolence, but generally, and anyway, i think violence and nonviolence is action. every human action, those effective action, must come through motivation. so any action motivated by compassion, sense of affection, other, is nonviolence.

any action whether verbal alaska or physical action out of hatred, out of anger, out of jealousy, out of whatever is negative feeling. that, essentially, violence. so my belief in order to promote nonviolence, nonviolence we have to deal with at emotional level. we should sort of, we should make the compassionate be mind is very good for the society, very good for the family, very good for individual. emotions such as jealousy, suspicion, fear, hatred, anger, these are very bad for the society, for the family and also

more on individuals. so that's my way to promote nonviolencement -- nonviolence, stress on motivation. so, now, best thing. >> thank you, thank you. [applause] [laughter] >> my path awakening to nonviolence or what i call, what gandhi calls soul force resistance to what is wrong, trying to help create what is new and not to be passive and overwhelmed.

um, catholic nun, grew up great mom and tadty, i wasn't -- daddy, i wasn't just a little egg placed in the nest and then they left. great mom and daddy, catholic mom and daddy in baton rouge, louisiana. and to give our life over to god was prized in our family, and i became a nun, great support. mom and daddy, my sister mary ann sitting in here today. and i became a nun, and the spirituality out of which i was trying to follow the ways of jesus was the spirituality that really separated the world. everybody's trying to get to heaven, so people have to suffer here, well, one day they can have a great crown in heaven. and i was separated. we became nuns and cloistered ourselves, i was separated from the world. and living out in the suburbs of new orleans -- speak speak talk about. [speaking in native tongue]

>> and living out in this suburbs, my father had been a successful lawyer. so in the new orleans ten major housing projects in the inner city of struggling african-american people, and i had only known african-american people growing up as our servants. i didn't even know the last names of the woman who worked in the house, the man who worked in the yard. so the awakening, and the awakening, the spiritual awakening happened through coming to understand who jesus was and actually through the god revealed in the hebrew testament of the burning bush. that one of the first revelations in the hebrew scriptures of the heart of god is in the burning bush to moses, i have heard the cry of my people. and i realize that here i was in another world, here was the inner city, and i woke up. and the awakening was such a

grace. i'm grateful to this moment that i woke. up. and then what you talk about, your holynd, the motivation to act. because when my consciousness changed and i realized i don't want even know those people, i moved, i acted and lived in the presence of african-american people in the st. thomas housing project who became my teachers. and once you get in this river as dr. harding loves to write about, once you get in the currents, then one day coming out of the adult learning center where i was helping people to get their ge ds realized the miserable state of education for poor african-american people in public schools. people were coming into the adult learning center, juniors in high school, and couldn't read a third grade -- what is going to happen to these kids, and why had i been so privileged? why was i so blessed? and so i began to act.

so in the coming out one day somebody said, hey, sister helen, you want to write a letter to someone on death row in louisiana? i didn't even know much about the death penalty. and i never dreamed they were going to kill the person because we, there'd been kind of a hiatus on executions for over 20 years. of so i wrote a letter. -- so i wrote a letter. and he wrote back. his name was patrick, and he changed my life forever because two and a half years later, i am in the killing chamber when the state of louisiana electrocuted him to death. and he, in compassion for me, had said, sister, you can't be there at the end because it could scar you. and i said, strength. i said, no, patrick. i don't know what it'll do to me, but you are not going to die -- [speaking in native tongue]

>> you're not going to die without a loving faith which was his dignity. i said, i'll be the faith of christ for you. they killed him in front of my eyes. i left the execution chamber. it was in the middle of the night in louisiana. i vomited. i had never seen a human being killed. and that motivation, that fire, i realized at that moment it was in the dark, and i thought to myself people are never going to see this. when the state kills, it's a secret ritual, it's behind prison walls. the people don't see or hear the last words, they don't see it,

so they're caught in, oh, he did that terrible crime, he deserves to die. and my mission was born at that moment. i must tell the story to awaken people, to bring them close to this. then that brings us to the other side was who did this, why was this man killed? what crime had he done? he and his brother had done an unspeakably terrible crime. they killed two innocent teenage kids this cold blood, shot them in the back of the head. every parent's worst nightmare of their kids going to a football game and never being seen alive again. [speaking in native tongue] >> and when i knew the crime, my impulse was to reach out to the families, and i held back because i thought, they're not going to want to see me. and i was wrong about that. it was a big mistake i made. and when i did meet them, the

father of the boy, david, who had been killed said to me, sister, you can't believe the pressure on us to be for the death penalty. and i've had nobody to talk to. where have you been? it was a -- [speaking in native tongue] [laughter] >> like there are other people here too. [laughter] anyway, so lloyd leblanc says to me, where have you been? and so he invited me to come and pray with him. and through his man, he's the hero of "dead man walking." i'm the storyteller, and i made some mistakes. this father shared his inner journey of, at first, trying to

go to the place -- because everybody was saying that to him of wanting to see patrick dead, wanting to see his brother dead as well -- and he said, but i didn't like the way it made me feel when i went to that place of hatred and bitternd. bitterness. and then i said to myself, they killed our son, but i'm not gonna let them kill me. i'm going to do what jesus said, and he set his face to go on the road of forgiveness. around this country telling that story, it's very important in this journey when we deal with our outrage that we feel when innocent people have been ripped from life, it's important to stand in the outrage, feel the outrage. but then look past to try to see what as a society are we gonna do? how are we gonna act now?

and i'll end with this because i know we just have a short period to get started, but i've been in the killing chamber in texas that's killed over 450 human beings in the kill killing chamber in texas. and there are three witnessing chambers. and one is for the 12 people from the state that watch the killing. one is reserved for the victims' families that sends a representative that's up to the left, looks down on the gurney, and the third witnessing place is where families and where mothers have stood with their hands against the glass to watch as the state kills their child. and the question is, where does it take us? where does the imitation of violence take us as a society? so that's my little opening. >> thank you, sister helen. [applause] ..

time wanted to start off and by giving great thanks to what it took to bring us to this place. [applause]

when i heard the story of how long he had been working on making this a possibility, i was deeply grateful and i knew i needed to testify to that. forgive me for being an elderly disobedient one, but that is how are needed to start. to go to my assignment, i want to say that might have to the way of nonviolence was the path suggested by his holiness. it was a path developed first by the love of a single mother,

recently divorced mother who insisted on letting me know that i was loved, that she expected great things of me, and who made great sacrifices for me. i see that as being essential to the starting of my own path. my path was also lined with teachers in public school who literally love day. who cared about me, who demanded great things of me and pushed me when i was not ready to know that i could go forward. my half way to nonviolence was

opened up by a little congregation of church people in new york. church people who took me into their arms and taught me what they knew and encouraged me to explore the way of faith, the way of the teachings of jesus, ways of love. my path was deeply affected by the fact that in my early 20s i was drafted into the army of the united states of america and it was the first time that i was

away from mother, from church, from home community for any significant period of time. and in that experience of solitude, i began to explore more fully the teachings of especially the new testament. reading, and all the times basic training gives you to be doing nothing. i took the nothing time and tried to make something out of it by reading the things that people had told me about but that i never studied myself and in the process of that reading a i came in touch with this magnificent person, jesus of nazareth. and i began to be very deeply attracted to him and to his life

and to what that life meant. and it was in the course of that basic training time when i was studying and learning about jesus of nazareth that are was also at the same moment really enjoying basic training because i was an outdoor kind of person. i loved to be around exercise, practice, and i surprised myself by really enjoying learning how to fire a rifle and learning how to fire with great accuracy. and it was one morning in new jersey, down on my belly firing of the rifle at the target, hitting it rather well, enjoying

myself, that almost turtle voice saying to me oh vincent, you are enjoying this. do you think that is why the army is paying all this money? so that you can enjoy this? the voice said no, vincent, you are being taught how to kill a man without him even being able to see you. what does jesus have to do with that? it was in that same period that i was being taught how to use a bayonet. that long, sharp knife at the end of a rifle that was used in those days and i was trained how to cut out another human being's balls without him even knowing what was happening to him.

again in strange ways, in that moment, i heard the song i had been singing in my church school for many years. jesus loves the little children. and again a voice came to me saying so that as it. jesus loves the little children. all the children of the world. but when they grow up, and when your government tells you that they are your enemies, jesus loves the little children but when they grow up you are going to cut their guts out because your government says that that is what you need to do. from that moment on, i began wrestling with myself and wrestling with the meaning of

this jesus and wrestling with the idea that i as his former was giving myself over to that kind of madness. so from that point i became a conscientious objector and it was in that process -- [applause] -- it was in that process after i got of -- out of the army that i met a church group that actually seemed to take jesus seriously on this matter of letting the enemy. i became a part for a good while of the mennonite churches in this country and it was in the course of that, that my late wife and died--and i went south

to work with martin luther king jr. and wonderful young people of the coordinating committee. martin luther king and the young people invited me to say essentially you have begun to think about this matter of nonviolence already. come and help us teach it, practice it, work with it here in the south. that was the beginning of my half way. i met many magnificent human beings who without any great study, any great teaching kent from the depths of their hearts to know that they could never create a new american society if they allowed hatred and anger to

overcome them even though they were understandably filled in a sense with the right to be angry but they decided following the teachings of martin luther king and gondi --gandhi that they wanted a new society where a anger would not rule our way. that group of people took me and and i became part of that movement for a new society and i am still on that path now coming close to my 80th year. [applause] >> thank you very much, you mentioned something in your last comment, that i would like to follow-up on and have our

panelists respond to. his holiness will recognize this quotation. tibetans typically say my enemy, my teacher which is the tibetan way of saying it is important that we learn how to love our enemies. what i would like to hear all three of uconn and john, how does an engagement with the opposing perspectives actually cause us to strengthen our practice of nonviolence. your holiness, if you could talk about that. >> would you repeat that question? >> absolutely. tibetans have a say in. by enemy is my teacher, meeting as long as we are around people that we love and adore we learn their lessons. it is only when we are around the enemies that we actually get

to watch hatred and a work and at that point we can attack it and understand how to manage it. my question is in each of your experiences, how does and engagement with, quote, the enemy actually strengthen your practice of non-violence? >> firstly i want to access to you both -- the attitude and the termination for a second people and also -- this sort of

conviction coming from christianity. this comes from all major world's and traditions to bring such a wonderful people. one of my commitments is religious harmony. [applause] to know the value of that teaching. then you can respect -- that way change a lot. not just to follow it but --

clearly to appreciate it. now the enemy is your best teacher. one indian scholar expressed that. and then further, simply to follow these. firstly, the enemy is based on the other's attitudes.

this person's attitude towards me is nice and helpful. an old friend. this person -- harming me. creates danger on my life. so they are called enemy. not on the basis of that person himself or herself because we have no idea. this is my enemy, this is my friend. now there are two levels of compassion. one, mainly oriented toward

action. that kind of compassion is mainly a factor to this person is for me, helpful for me. that close feeling. this is harmful to me. that kind of compassion, biological factor and mainly oriented toward the attitude of the action to help compassion because it cannot accept ford's your enemy elevated to compassion, not oriented to action but rather people

themselves. no difference in this group or this group as a friend on the basic level of human beings. they both want happiness. both have the right to achieve that. both are suffering. from that understanding, there is concerned to a person regardless of their attitude. on that kind of compassion is secondary compassion. there is the emphasis -- so in that context you need effort for the compassion and attitude

towards your enemy. so that is the opposition, hatred and danger is patience, tolerance and forgiveness. now in order to practice forgiveness, tolerance, you need someone -- [laughter] >> you never feel -- there's no possibility to practice what you missed from jesus christ. no chance, no possibility to practice tolerance with that. with my mother, no. [laughter]

all of these people who create trouble for you, might practice. i need practice of tolerance and forgiveness. in order to practice that, you need opportunity. that opportunity is given by your enemy. that viewpoint is very important to practice. only with the help of the enemy. from that viewpoint, it is the best teacher. [applause] >> go ahead, your holiness. >> i want to make clear.

some people including tibetans sometimes feel if you really forgive your enemy, regarding the attitude, that almost means you -- you board the enemy. this is not the case. we have to make a distinction. the enemy -- as far as that is concerned, they deserve our love, our compassion, our sense of concern. as far as the action is concerned, it is necessary to

take countermeasures to stop their wrongdoing. since you have a sense of concern of well-being of that person who consider enemy, therefore if you have genuine sense of concern for that person, then we have to make an effort to stop because ultimately they are doing harm to themselves. therefore out of their well-being, try to stop their wrongdoing. action is concerned if necessary. we will do force but we must keep our compassion.

[applause] >> this is not just a word. even the chinese communist hard-liners with their policy, these individuals. the we deliberately tried to promote our sense of well-being and compassion but as far as the action is concerned, sometimes you criticize and sort of adversity is in a certain way, any possibility to force traction. they considered me a

troublemaker. since they consider me a troublemaker, in order to justify their accusation, i had to create some trouble. [laughter] [applause] 7 now this practice, immense benefit, the practice of compassion, some people feel something holy and good but not necessarily to yourself. that is totally wrong. >> thank you, your holiness.

sister helen? keeping on this theme of my enemy, my teacher, i was struck by reading the death of innocence and dead man walking, you have a kind of reverse example i would like to hear you talk about. when you started dealing with the victims's families you became the enemy because you had been an advocate for the murderer. i would like to hear you talk about how you handle that particular position in which you found yourself as being the enemy of the bereaved family. >> this is a very interesting little apparent in the river to be talking about the enemy as teacher because when i first visited a man on death row who had done that unspeakable murder i did not know anything and instinctual when i was walking in the prison for the first

time, the guards were very matter-of-fact, kind of harsh. >> waiting there, be get your man. there was an instinct because they are the ones with prisoners on death row. i suddenly realized the guards whose job it is to work in this prison and eventually to carry out the execution are not the enemy. the same thing with the victims''s family. it is the opposition that was coming from the victims and because that didn't reach out to them as i should have in the very beginning, harsh letters to the editor were written about me. victims' families were getting on tv. helen prejean doesn't care about victims. i would go inside myself. i used the image of my fingers moving on a piece of cloth to

see if there were any tears. my conscience or guilt, where were they right? i knew that they were right that i had reached out to them right away. and so then what happened inside me was i need to be there for them. if they reject me and are aimed rieti because they are put on a tremendous see-saw in society is the victims' families that have been promised. the loss you have your loved one, what we are going to do for you in order to honor your dad loved one is we are gcf1 o you in order to honor your dad loved one is we are going to kill the one who killed your child and you get to watch and that is how we will either you. they are very much placed on this see-saw. they are in these cultural currents that say if you love

your child you want to see the g to do that to you. anyone who's as i am not for the death penalty so they are coming at it defensively about them because they are opposed to me and it was built because i made the challenge and what his holiness just said, when you put yourself out close to them, when i walked in his shoes and heard his story and went to these groups, murder victim's family groups were all talking about their pain i realized something. they were talking about how everyone leaves them alone because they don't know what to do with their pain. they are being shunned in a way.

one man said to me he lost his daughter who was killed. he said if you want to see a real empty out just let me walk into it. because everyone knows my daughter was killed and people don't know what to say to ps kpe in great pain. so it was just one act after i got to know the victims's family to start a group to help murder victims's families for ps kple o accompany them in their pain. it is one act. i didn't change everything but i knew my relationship with the family that allowed me to come into their lives needed to be intact and i needed to continue to be faithful to friendship with them and then to start a group. a lot of times when i talk to

young people face a where will we pick up this whole world? almost like the minute you put your hand on a rope and begin to pull the levers hurting, the life energy and compassion flows throhis that is one response to that. [applause] >> vincent harding 11, i have always been struck by longevity of all types and clearly you are a living example of that. when i was able to hear you speak yesterday about traveling to the south in 1958 with the religious group composed of blacks and whites and when i

think about your initial the engagement with martin luther king in 58 you met him in montgomery, alabama. and fast forward ahead nine years to when he gets in touch with you and says he wancur to come out athe war. ..

>> it had the power of the government behind it at times. and just as the victim's family is out there alone, you, too, had been out there alone. how did you stop yourself from hardening into the easy solution of hatred and animosity toward your enemies? >> sidney, that's not a question that one leaps into quickly, or easily. i think it goes back to the

initial statement that i was making, and that is that i was never in any of these situations of danger, of fear, of hatred. i was never sensing that i was alone. for one thing, i was coming as someone deeply fortified by the love that i had received all my life. i was also coming especially in the southern situations that i was a part of. i was surrounded i other people who were loving and concerned

and convinced that we had to do something to bring about a new society. in the sense, we did not have time to allow hatred to take its place in our presence because we were busy dreaming this. this is what our imagination and what our energy had to be given to, that at some time 50 years after our struggle, we would one day be in the place that had never dreamed that it would house the dalai lama, that it would have black students and faculty, not enough of either,

but still some of both. [laughter] [applause] >> what i'm saying, sidney, is that our minds and hearts were too full of the dream, of the possibility of what this country could be, what the south could be, what we together could be. hatred would only push us off that forward path. and so, we couldn't afford, i couldn't afford. that was not what i was there for. i knew that there was something else that i was there for. and i knew, as i said, that i was not alone. and i knew that the ancestors were with me, that the spirit was with me, that all sorts of

magnificent powers that i cannot even name were with me. because i was trying to be involved in the work for our building of our humanity. and i am deeply convinced now, even more than i was then, that when we are involved and commit ourselves to the building of humanity, then all kinds of forces that we never dreamed could be available to us, become available to us, and we are able to do much more than we ever dreamed we would be able to do, including not giving in to hatred. [applause]

>> i think as we do this, seeing how our american society works, nobody ever makes a statement, even when they kill someone in the killing chamber. we're killing an enemy tonight. they are euphemisms, different words they use. we are doing justice. and when we look at the struggle with the enemy in our society, who are the immigrants coming from mexico, he's the enemy. nobody says the enemy. they say things like that are coming to get our jobs, are these people are the criminal element. we have to build more prisons. fear is what is underneath so much in our society. [applause] >> with this added element

that's so much of our news about each other we get from tv, that their studies done that the more people look at tv, the more hours they actually look at tv, the more afraid we are. so could we talk about fear as the basis of -- [applause] >> absolutely. i would love to hear his holiness is comment on how fear of the unknown sometimes causes us to embrace violence. >> fear, to times. one fear with reasons. then i was in some area in india where the malaria mosquito there.

then, of course, out of fear there were questions. [laughter] it is good necessary. then another kind of fear, i think mental projection. and that also, mental sort of state or emotion sort of system is such, more centered attitude here, more. no, more insight here. more stressed. >> they need you to project your voice. >> louder. >> the fear, two kinds. one, fear.

to protect yourself, to avoid. when mad dog come ready to bite, if you still have compassion. this is rather foolish. [laughter] so, then another sort of kind of fear, mainly mental projection. there are many sort of, when you talk of fear as part of mind, part of emotion. so the system, the world the motion, many other demotions interconnected -- emotions

interconnected. so fear, of course every fear, dog coming, this stuff challenging. selfish is part of our nature. with that we survive. without that, remain like a robot. we cannot survive. so, therefore, i mean right, but we are selfish, but should be. selfish, why selfish is much better than foolishness. so here, now the self-centered attitude brings more fear, more

suspicion. so these unnecessary suspicion of fear, is it based on distru distrust. been other side -- then other side. sense of real brotherhood or sisterhood. i see brothers, sisters. and everyone want happiness. i'm one of them. and as a mentioned earlier, we are social animal. the more community happy, i get happiness. this impossible. there's no way to gain maximum

benefit to oneself, forget about it. no, we are social animal. genuine, spirit, sense of brothers, sisters. although maybe extension, you never know, but still human being. if you smile, they also respond. if you show, they also return. so, that way here is distrust. so that way, fear. sometimes people call individual society, culture or individual state. it is key factor. very important.

but too much threat. narrow thinking, self-centered or individualistic. then i can sometimes too much competition. to that way, too much competition. and to that way, more stress, anxiety. .com as you mentioned, i think the television usually is ushering those things which more negative, murder, sex, or other bad things. of course these become news. good thing, happiness or certain action to certain other people out of genuine compassion or happiness. these are news.

we take for granted. so then i think also is from fighting. entertaining. so a little way, i think some impact in our mind, tough, rough. and then decent news only bad side, individually, people get feeling, basic nature of human being is negative. some people describe craziness. yes, because ability. but that doesn't not necessarily discretion of basic human nature, i don't think.

>> thank you, your holiness. trying to keep watch on the time. [applause] >> we have less than 10 minutes left, so by way of making a closing statement, i would very much like to hear the panel respond to the following question. recently, with the killing of bin laden, of course there's been a great debate in this country about the efficacy of violence. i don't need to hear you talk about bin laden. but, of course, you can if you would like. from the perspective of a practitioner of nonviolence, i think it's a very helpful to have it explained to us

logically why violence does not work as a long-term solution to a problem. everyone understands the impetus to use violence to stop something in the short run, but if i could hear each of you talk, you know, briefly and logically about how violence is not an efficient means of solving a problem, i think that would bring clarity to a lot of us are trying to adopt the nonviolent way. >> vincent, why don't you start off? >> when i hear the example that you started out with, sidney, the bin laden murder, what came

to my mind when i first heard about that was another situation of terrorism that i was very close to. i was deeply involved in the movement that took place in birmingham, alabama, in 1963, which helped to open up to the world what was wrong in our society and what needed to be made right, especially along the lines of white supremacy and the oppression of people of color. you may remember that weeks

after the march on washington of august 1963, in september 1963 the 16th street baptist church had a bomb placed at its base, near its basement. and a bomb went off. it was a terrorist act. and it resulted in the deaths of four young sunday school girls, and the injury to a good many other people in the church. what i remember is a conversation that i had with two of the most magnificent teachers

of nonviolence that i knew in that movement. diane nash was one of them, and at the time she was married to another great practitioner, james bevel was his name. diane told me sometime after that terrorists explosion, that she and jim were in another state visiting another freedom worker when they got the news over television that that bombing had taken place, and that those children had been killed. and as two of the deepest believers in the way of

nonviolence, they nevertheless immediately said, we've got to get back to birmingham, and we've got to find out who did that terrible work and we've got to make sure that they'd never are able to do anything like that again. and they had great understandable, some would say justifiable, anger. and the move in them was for revenge and retribution. but as they sat with their friends, thinking about that action, they began to rethink that initial response.

and they said to each other, we cannot copy that terrible path of violence here that is not who we are. that is not what we believe in. we will be unfaithful to ourselves, to all the people who are part of our movement. we must think in another way about how to respond. we must respond, but we must find another way. and why they decided was that they would return to alabama, but they would be vote all of their time -- d. vote all of their time and attention and skills to the work that was at that moment just beginning in

selma, alabama, where voting registration campaign was going on. and they said we decided that if we could really bring black people into the electorate, to change those who are running that state, we can change the atmosphere, change the setting so that the possibility of such terrorism will be reduced. and so they decided then to go to selma to work on voter registration. and as you know, eventually that marvelous selma movement ended up with that march from selma to montgomery. they had spent too difficult

dangerous years working on the response to the deaths of the children. and what came out of it was the opening of another level of democracy in this country. and in a deep sense, the death of the children lead not to the death of more people, but to the opening of new life, new possibility for this country. [applause] >> thank you very much, professor. sister helen, which you like to respond to? >> well, just seeing the time, the answer to fear of the enemy

is for us to meet each other. and i believe the more we can connect with, do bridges, have different kinds of people meeting, conversing each other, having breakfast together, crossing the boundaries, these invisible boundaries that have been set up in our culture, the university students going here, who are here today. you're in a little, you know, you're in the environment of being in the university. you've got the razorbacks. you are there with your team. but who are the others that lie the contest or different from us, and the more we can meet each other, we get to hear those conversations, we will positively promote, building community. [applause]

>> thank you, sister helen. your holiness, if you have any final thoughts on the ways in which violence simply perpetuates violence. >> basically, the very nature of violence is unpredictable. once you involve violence, then it often becomes out of control. then violence itself, more violence and other sort of violence, then that way, you see, more damage or more badness. so, a i believe, i think --

according to some historian, the turn-of-the-century, a number of people who were killed through violence over 200 million. but problem not solved. i think that kind of action, and also some other sort of exploitation, also i think lay down this sea of hatred, sometimes arabs and here, and these things. so anyway, now this century, i am always telling people, or request people, this century should be century of dialogue. that's the only way, as you mentioned. meet and talk. with these problems started, some location, as a response to

sort of questions, i tell, i accept, impossible. meet him. if he not use immediately his guns, they need him. that talk. listen. what is his sort of reasons. i am quite sure there could be some openness. anyway, my personal experience, i had few occasions in northern ireland. one time, sort of organizer who invited me, organized by victims of both sides together. and in one room. when i enter that room, each

person's face i think full of sadness and anger. then we start from conversation, and also i expressed some of my belief. then after i think one hour, two hours, then we kneel together. the atmosphere completely changed. then next my visit, again i met some of them, completely changed. very friendly to each other. so i think point is very, very right. since my childhood when

nuremberg came, do not see later already defeated -- the nazi leader already defeated. death sentence. at that time i think 45, i was pretty young. i feel very sad. also i think, if there is some danger may be death sentence. [laughter] maybe sort of prevent further problem, but defeated people. very sad. so then saddam hussein also deficits. at that time i think i was in japan or australia, or somewhere. i also expressed upset. old person, completely

demoralized. the object of fear, compassion, not hate, not anger. so anyway, so, since many years -- they carry a movement, upon the death sentence. so i am one of the signatures. i always supposed death sentence. ..

>> no opportunity to see the circle of their wrongdoing. and then also i think like death sentence this, actually, carry, eliminate the first not the action. [applause] so as i mentioned before, answer and action. so i think, i think real effective sort of measure to seize the action is deal with the actor, person, then listen and then talk. then through that way i think the real sort of control of that

destructive action. many years ago -- [inaudible] i express if handled not properly, then after few years then bin laden. after 100 years more bin laden might come. so the change must take here, not just the sort of physical elimination. so one person eliminate, but ten person feels very bad. so that seat more hated, so source of -- [inaudible] so that's my view. but, of course, i think regarding the bin laden sort of case, i think of 100 people, maybe different sort of opinions, so i don't know. difficult to say. [laughter]

some people might enjoy broad justice, some people say, oh, it's quite normal. some people say, oh, this is wrong. i think i am one of them. [laughter] [applause] >> thank you. [applause] >> well, that was absolutely wonderful. it exceeded even my highest expectations, and in my humble opinion, i believe we have just, we have just borne witness to what i am certain is a historic conversation. so let me thank once again professor vincent harding, sister helen prejean, and his holiness, the 14th dalai lama. [applause]

>> as august nears an end, c-span2 continues booktv in prime time. tonight former secretary of state henry kissinger talks with monica crowley about his book on china. then adam hocks child looks at world war i and the debate in england between pacifists and war supporters in his book, "to end all wars." and finally, microsoft co-founder, paul allen, discusses his book, "idea man." booktv in prime time all this month on c-span2. >> watch more video of the candidates. see what political reporters are saying and track the latest campaign contributions with c-span's web site for campaign 2012. easy to use, it helps you navigate the political landscape with twitter feeds and facebook

updates from the campaigns, candidate bios and the latest polling data, plus links to c-span media partners in the early primary and caucus states. all at c-span.org/campaign 2012. >> now a discussion on the state of public education with sacramento mayor kevin johnson and former washington, d.c. school chancellor michelle rhee. this event's moderated by the dean of the clinton school of public service at the university of arkansas in little rock. it's an hour, 20 minutes. >> michelle rhee and mayor kevin johnson will take part in a discussion moderated by dean rutherford. and following their discussion, there will be some time for questions from the audience. so before we get started, i'd like to remind everyone to, please, turn off your cell phones and other electronic devices. in his 2011 state of the union address, president obama mentioned the words educate and

education 14 times. while his focus on education was promising, it underscores the need for real, lasting reform in our educational system. the president asked us to do what's necessary to give all children a chance to succeed, but in doing so he's admitting the fact that we've got too many kids in this country who are born into circumstances from which success is not a legitimate option. our guests tonight are out to change that. michelle rhee is a former classroom teacher and the founder of the new teacher project which works to certify and support teachers in high poverty schools. she is well known for her tenure as the chancellor of washington, d.c. public schools, and her new role as the founder and ceo of students first whose stated mission is to defend the interests of children in public education and pursue transformative reform.

sacramento mayor kevin johnson is a former nba star with a longstanding commitment to education. in 1989 he founded st. hope, a community development corporation to revitalize sacramento's inner city communities in part through education. as mayor, mr. johnson has made education a top priority. putting students first can make an incredible difference. take, for instance, patrick. i met patrick in my first month as a teacher near new orleans. when i came upon him violently beating another student. patrick was from new orleans but had moved up river post-katrina. tall, muscular, covered in tattoos, he looked fairly menacing, and he had a reputation to go along with it. he was a soon-to-be 18-year-old sophomore, in danger of falling further behind. he ended up in my class the next semester, and i learned he was a

good basketball player. unfortunately, his poor grades and the fight had left him ineligible. however, our basketball coach and i promised patrick that if he worked hard and stayed out of trouble, not only would he be with on the team, he would graduate from high school. two years later patrick was a varsity starter. in class he worked harder than his peers, and he graduated last mayment -- last may. his senior project, a children's book about the importance of teamwork and dedication. last month patrick sent me a message telling me he is now attending community college in baton rouge, the first person in his family to do so. there are many patricks out; there; good, smart kids needing a chance. a few teachers or coaches who make it a priority to ignore their pasts and focus on their futures. teachers or coaches who find what motivates their students and use those passions to

connect students to their education. it is my hope that people like ms. rhee and mayor johnson and organizations like students first can inspire us to put all students first. it is my hope that together we can encourage our great teachers and offer support to those who are struggling. all in an effort to allow every patrick out there a chance to reach his or her potential. nothing less than the future of our nation is riding on it. so would you, please, join me in welcoming two of our nation's most innovative educational leaders who are working to insure a brighter future for all of our youth, michelle rhee and mayor kevin johnson. [applause]

[applause] [laughter] >> welcome, everybody. thank you for being here, and michelle and mayor, thank you. this has been one of our most requested programs, so thank you for being here and for being part of it. let's, let's start, um, a little bit about both what you're doing in education, but would you give us your thoughts about what is the state of public education in america today? >> who's going first? she's the boss. the real answer is it sucks. [laughter] i mean, we're nowhere near where we need to be. i mean, there should be an outrage, there should be a

national crisis. we should all be waving the flag and doing everything that we can. just think about this, the children that are in school today will be the first generation that are less educateed than their parents. that, to me, is alarming that in the richest, most powerful country in the world -- and we're losing our competitive advantage. secondly, when you think about this, if you go out ten, twenty years, there's going to be 120 million jobs that are going to require high-skill, high-paying jobs, and at the rate we're going, we're only going to have 50 million kids to fill those jobs which means 70 million are going to be filled by children from china and india. that is not a good state for any of us. and then thirdly, we're spending twice at much money than we were 30 years ago, and the results aren't any better. so i do think as a country we

need to make this a top priority, and it's not just in washington, it's all of us doing our part whether you have kids or not. we've got to do our part. there's far too many kids that are languishing in schools that aren't doing well, but there's also kids that live in nice neighborhoods, and their schools aren't serving them to the degree they need to as well. >> so i concur with him. you know, we are in a position right now in this country where if you were to tell me the zip code that a child lives in and the race of that child, we could with pretty good accuracy tell you what their academic achievement. levels are. academic achievement levels are. that's one of the most un-american things i could possibly imagine. it's betraying the ideals by which we live as americans, and i think that this country was founded on the idea that based on how much money a kid has and which family they're born into,

they're only going to rise to a certain level. i think that is, you know, if nothing else, serves as a cry to the american public to engage right now in public education, to fix, to transform this system. it's that fact. but i also want to say that i think that we are at a very unique moment in time right now in this country. over the last few months, we have, um, i think education reform has begun to seep into the mainstream with things like the movie "waiting for superman," nbc did something called education nation where they focused a week on education issues. and because of those sorts of things, they're bringing education reform into the mainstream, and they're bringing these issues to everyday people. and i think that there is a moment in time that we have right now that we've never seen

before in this country that we have the opportunity to actually fix the problem. and so i'm feeling somewhat heartened as well right now that, that now is it. >> all right. both of you, obviously, had experience in urban school districts. you as a superintendent, you as a mayor. what role should cities play, big cities, in urban school districts in the terms of governance, control, leadership. what role should cities play? >> well, i think that, you know, there's only so much that can be done at the federal level, and there's only so much that can even be done at the state level. i think that the real work in education happens at the local level. and, you know, in terms of governance, to be quite frank, i don't think that the current governance structure of the vast majority of our school districts right now which is a school board structure, i do not think that structure works.

because you've got, you know, nine, ten, eleven school board members all representing their local neighborhood, oftentimes they're elected with lots of union dollars in a very low-turnout election. and then you've got this body of people who are are not experts in the field who are determining policy. and mostly if you have ever seen a school board meeting, not that you would want to necessarily go to one, but if you ever went to one, what you would see is that there's very little to know mention of children, schools or student achievement. everything is about adult issues. and that is a huge problem when you have this dispersed accountability where, basically, there is no one person in charge. then you have low academic achievement levels, you have decisions being made for absolutely no good reason

whatsoever and no one, at the end of the day, to hold accountable for that. so i am a huge proponent of mayoral control in schools. i don't think mayoral control in and of itself is great, i think you need a great mayor who's willing to prioritize this issue. but where we've seen the most significant movement in this nation in cities like boston and new york and chicago they've had mayoral control -- >> and d.c. >> and d.c. i didn't get to finish the job, but we started. >> i'll just add a couple things, and i think it's important to know that, you know, any mayor, you have mayor mark here who's in little rock and mayor patrick case who's in north little rock. mayors have to care about their public school system. they do not have a choice. no way we can have a great city without great schools, and any mayor who thinks that's not in

their job description is being foolish. i chaired the u.s. conference of mayors task force on education, and i also charge the secretary of education's task force for mayors. and what i am trying to do is get mayors to understand there's a spectrum of involvement. it's on the far extreme majors controlling schools, and the very basic level is mayors taking their city services and aligning them with the school districts. so no matter what a mayor's appetite is, a mayor has to be involved in their public schools. so i'm proud that just a couple days ago the u.s. conference of mayors came out really strong on a policy, and michelle will talk about it a little later, but it's the third time that we've done it. the first one was we supported president obama's agenda with race to the top. and then we supported -- which mayors typically don't do. and then we supported common core standards because we think standards and really high expectations are important especially if we want to compete internationally. but the last one we did was, again, this week, it was called

last-in, first-out, lifo. and it is a very, very significant policy that is not good for children. and, essentially, it's seniority-based layoffs. you lay off teachers based on seniority. that is not in the best interests of kids. you're talking about teachers who have been there forever that may not be performing well, the quality of their work is not even considered, and often times you have some young, new teachers that are knocking it out of the park, and because they're the last in, they're the first out. that is not putting a child's interests ahead of adults. and i think that's one of the common themes that you're going to hear us talking about in anybody who really cares about reform is going to stay students first or kids first no matter what we decide to do. and i think mayors have a responsibility to play an active role. at the end of the day, the federal level you can lay out things that are very important, at state level you can talk about legislative policies, but the real work is always going to be done at the local level. >> i'm going to follow up on

that because having served on a school board and been to several meetings -- [laughter] we attempted at one point to set up regular meetings with the city board, and can it was a struggle. the city board and the school board were not communicating very well. but many students in urban areas, you talked about the role of cities in terms of accountability, they walked through unsafe neighborhoods, drainage ditches that are full, sidewalks that aren't there, crime on the streets, poor lighting, and yet you talk about cities having control over the schools. but in the neighborhoods that surround the schools in many urban areas, it is, it's dismal. so how do you equate the two? >> so i -- >> go ahead, honey. you can go. [laughter] i'm going to tell you a little story.

um, i in my last year on the job in d.c. one morning i decided to visit one of our high schools. it was one of the lowest performing high schools in d.c. and i showed up first thing in the morning. when i showed up at schools, i never stopped by the office and told anybody that i was there because when i did, then everybody would be on their best behavior, you know, they'd be radioing, she's in the building. [laughter] you know? the everybody would be -- so i would just go and walk around without being announced because i really wanted to know what was happening in these particular schools. and in this, on this one morning i walked in, first class room i went into had, you know, five kids, the second classroom nine kids, third classroom seven kids. i'm trying to figure out where are all the children? it was the strangest thing. finally i walked into one classroom and asked the teacher, i said, where are all the children? and she said, oh, well, today is friday. i said, really? [laughter] because i didn't think that was a very good reason for kids not

being in school. and i said, is that it? that's the only reason? she said, no. i thought, whew, that's good. i thought she was going to tell me the kids were on a field trip. she said, it's raining too. [laughter] and i thought, since when is the weather and the day of the week a determinant of our expectations of whether children are coming to school or not? anyways, i'm continuing my tour around. i finally walk into one classroom full of children, like 35 kids in the classroom. there weren't actually enough seats for all the kids, some kids were sitting on the radiator. so i'm watching this class, this very dynamic teacher. he's teaching this lesson, very engaging. i went up to one of the students and said, so what do you think about your teacher? and he said, oh, this is my best teacher, absolutely. i said, really? why? he said, well, two reasons. first of all, he teaches us something new every day, and second of all he will explain something to you if you don't understand it. i thought, that's kind of a low

bar for -- [laughter] for who your favorite teacher is, but okay. so i watched the rest of the lesson, very good lesson. at the end of my tour, i'm walking out of the building. it's about 10:00 in the morning, and the young man who i had talked to and two of his friends are walking out of the building in front of me. so i tap him on the shoulder and say, excuse me, young man, where do you think you're going? oh, well, that was our first period class with a great teacher, so we came to that, but our second period teacher sucks, so we're going to roll. [laughter] not what the american public thinks of when they think of a truant, right? you think the kids are saying -- staying in bed until noon and then getting up and, you know, hitting the streets and doing all kinds of stuff they're not supposed to be doing. you don't expect that the children are making the conscious decision to wake up early in the morning to show up for the first period class because they know they're going to get something great from that teacher and then leaving after that. that's the kind of calculus that we make as adults every day,

right? where are you going to spend your time? where are you going to get something out of it? so it gives you an indication that things are not always what they steam. kids -- seem. kids are going to make conscious decisions. i was at harlem a few weeks ago meeting with a group of students, and i'm a big believer in talking with kids about real issues. so i said to them, you know what? lots of people believe that because kids are poor and because they are black or latino that they can't learn. because of all of the, you know, environmental factors and the violence in your community and all this sort of thing. what do you think about that? kids were like, absolutely disagree. and they started telling me the reasons why. this one little girl said i would want you to tell the american people that it is not about where we come from every day, it's where we're going to. that counts. so this is what the kids want us to know about the quality of

education that we're providing, that they'll persevere through all the challenges on the way to school as long as we are making what happens within the school building worth while for them. >> a couple things, i think, are important, you know, in terms of your original question. we have something in sacramento called a city/schools partnership. and it's basically the city of sacramento sitting down with the four superintendents because we have four different school districts in the city of sacramento, and we are asking them how can we better align our services to meet your needs. and there's three areas. one is, um, school safety. kind of the route to school and from school, to your point. the second area that we can align our city services, um, is around facilities, joint use; libraries, community centers, pools, parks, a host of things. and the third is after school or out-of-school programs. now, as a city we do a lot of these things, but we're just

doing them all willy-nilly as opposed to doing what works. so i think there's a responsibility for all of us as mayors to actually align our services to make sure they are making sense. and when michelle talked about earlier, you know, mayors controlling schools, it really makes sense because a mayor can take all of the resources that are at their disposal and work with the school system, and then that way it would not be as disjointed or incoherent like it currently is. a lot of things we do in this country don't make sense, and you don't need to come to the clinton school to probably realize that. we live it on a regular basis. part of what you see is, yes, our frustration on one hand, but we also have a sense of we're kind of these transformational leaders. our mentality is to go in and change things and not just accept them because that's the way they've been. we base every decision on results, results for kids. if it's working, then let's replicate it, and let's invest even more in what works. if it's not working, then we

don't have time to make excuses, and there's no city that's going to reach its potential without taking care of its most valuable resource, and that's its children. and can, unfortunately, around this country it is not happening near enough. [applause] .. >> shouldn't the unions change? how are we going to get detainees to this, or how will we get the unions to that? and i say, i think we're focused

on the wrong thing when we're asking those kinds of questions. the job of the teachers union is to protect the priorities, the privileges and the pay of their members. they are doing a really good job of that. so we can't begrudge them just because that's their job and they're doing it, and what we want to feel, no. they are doing what they're supposed to be doing. the problem is not the teachers unions. the problem is that we have created an environment in this country where we have allowed this particular interest group to have a tremendous amount of influence over policy and legislative and what we do. and on the other side, there is no national organized interest group with the same half of the teachers union his advocate on behalf of the children. and children although. >> are you going to do something about that? >> that's why i started my organization, students a first come is to do exactly that, provide a balance in the landscape because i'm telling

you, the teachers union has about 4 million members across the country. you cannot tell me that there are not at least twice as many, 10 times as many americans in this country who would be willing to join an organization, and it is group that is looking up for the best interest of children. i believe americans are ready for this. i think people are tired of the poor performance of american kids. and the fact that we are not serving our children well in schools. and i think they are ready to make a difference. my organization has been up for about 10 weeks now, and it's been an amazing. we have over 170,000 members at this point. we've had millions of dollars come in through the door, people saying we want to help. and so i believe over the next few years we will be able to build this into the most influential interest group in the country.

and one that is again advocating on behalf of of the interests of kids. i think once we do that, in what the teachers union decide to do or not you will be irrelevant because the american people will be saying it's important to put children first. [applause] >> so i've been traveling all day, i've not heard the news out of providence. and i don't exactly what's going on there. i was a couple of things. if what they did was fire all the teachers, then i think it's probably not the best move i've ever heard. mostly because there are hundreds, thousands of incredibly hard-working, very effective teachers who work way too hard for way too little money every single day. and you cannot, anything that we do, we cannot make sort of these sweeping judgments about an anti-or profession, or entire group of professionals.

i just think that's wrong. i think that, you know, people need to sort of tone down the theatrics a little and actually get to more of what the sort of root of the issue is. i think if we had better eat by uh and systems in this country for teachers where we could differentiate, and we knew who the top performers were and we knew who the promising people were, and we knew the ineffective ones were, then we could make the decisions based on people's performance that was going to benefit kids. but to sort of do these sorts of sweeping things because they sort of cause a lot of drama, i just don't think, it's not good or healthy for a district. it's not good or healthy for the children. i think what we need to do is be much, much smarter about how we treat teachers as professionals, recognizing and rewarding the best is the most effective, but also for those who are not doing

their jobs and are not adding value for kids, quickly have to improve your performance or you have to go. [applause] >> i'll just add a couple points to what michelle said. you know, this is a misnomer on the work we do. there's no group of people that should be esteemed more than teachers. it is the most noble profession. we believe that you should be rewarded, recognized. we professionally developed. we've got to do everything we can to lift the bar. if you look at other countries, they are taking the brightest and the best and those folks are going into the education field. and they are reviewed. we do not do that in our country. so don't confuse us saying when we are saying taken on the union. we do not feel like the union speak wholeheartedly for the rank-and-file. she has a great story about her contract which will be lifted on its head. so that's the first thing i want

to say. the second thing is, but however if the teachers union are going to be an adamant to the child learning and that's problematic. my father was a sheet metal worker and he said the union's job is to protect and create an environment where good wages, benefits and retirement, although sorts of things. that's the unions job. but if the union advocates in the way of preventing children from learning, they may have a problem. that's my grandfather who is a card-carrying member for local 169, a sheetmetal worker. so here's my simple story. i grew up in oak park, a poor part of sacramento. do you have a poor part in little rock? what part do you call it? not going there. [laughter] okay. so the poor part of sacramento, unlike little rock, called oak park. and i went to college, uc berkeley, played in the nba for 12 years, came back to my hometown, started running

charter schools. and we are starting in elementary school, k. to a elementary school. the same time we're starting fiscal, high school, cyclamen high school the second oldest high school west of the mississippi. was about to be taken over by the state of california because it was underperforming. it had underperformed for like 10 years straight. essentially only 20% of seniors were graduating and going onto college which meant 80% or not. that was going on year after year. so i had this idea. i go to the superintendent at the time in a school board and said can we when cyclamen high school as a charter school? and they were like absolutely. you can do a better job than we are doing. and i was thinking of course i could. so i go in and i speak to a group of teachers and am looking at this part of the room. there were probably 100 teachers in the room. i told what we want to. i say we will high expectations for kids, well -- we want a private education for free. we want to raise the bar.

we want of a rigorous curriculum, longer school days. by the time i finish i got a standing ovation by the teachers. one teacher ran up to me, she was crying and said thank you for restoring the faith in teachers. came back a week later, followed up on my same spiel, and i got booed by the same group of 100 people. i'm thinking what in the heck happened in a weeks time? the teachers union started spreading propaganda. your jobs will be safe. you won't get paid what you're making before. and it really just turned a very promising opportunity into something very negative. let's fast forward. the next 10 months we were in a battle with the teachers union on whether or not that we would allow them to preserve the status quo, or try something different because children's lives are weighing in the balance. they spent $750,000 to prevent us from running this school as a

new charter school. a law firm in the community gave us $500,000, pro bono legal services. we end up prevailing. so here's we are today. that high school which was underperforming, 20% of seniors graduating going on to college, now same group of kids, 80% graduating, going onto four year college. 80%. [applause] >> so the point is don't tell me kids in certain neighborhoods can't learn. don't tell me your zip code is going to determine your future. don't tell me if kids don't have access to a high quality education. they cannot get equally as well or better than their counterparts who live in affluent areas. if a teachers union or anybody that will prevent cancer have an opportunity then we will fight like crazy to do our part. i think that's what our commitment is about and that's why we need you folks out here to also participate in some shape or form. >> let's talk about charter schools. some people think they are the

end all. others like diane ravage think they are way overrated and that they are not much better than public schools in some cases worse. you know, i've heard lots of people talk about if it's a charter school, it's automatically going to be great. not all schools will be charters. and number two, how do you monitor that charter schools? >> does anyone know what a charter school is first of all? >> ration and if you don't know what a charter school is? >> pretty much everyone knows. a charter school is a public school utilizes public taxpayer dollars but is freed up from all of the iraq aziz. rules and regulations that are at public schools. it's run by its own board. so i think the problem, and a lot of the debates of public education today is people want

to frame things on one side of the extreme or the other. charter schools are the answer to all the ills or charter schools are terrible. the fact of the matter is that just as we don't want to paint all children with the same broad brush strokes are all teachers with the same broad brush stroke, you can't change -- paint charter schools with the same broad brush stroke. there are some unbelievable schools in this country who are at scale doing what a traditional public school districts have never been able to do. which is ensuring that poor minority children are achieving at the highest levels. they are closing the achievement gap. that exists in this country between white and black kids in poor and rich kids. that's the bottom line. there are also however in this country some extraordinarily bad charter schools. and the problem that we face right now is that we have not been diligent about closing down poor performance charting schools because the whole notion, the whole premise behind

charter schools is higher degrees of authority on autonomy for hire decrease of accountability so if given the charter schools the authority and autonomy, we don't have the accountability side mean if you're not performing, we will close you down. that's part of the problems that exist now. i think that people like, want to say on average, this and that, that belies the point. the point is that there are some amazing charter schools in this country who have actually figured out how to do this and do it extraordinarily well. and we cannot mask the incredible results that they have seen, simply because there are poor performing ones. what we ought to be doing is john down the poor performing what's and giving the high-performing wants more resources so they can go to scale and serve more kids. >> i think my answer is presenting. charter schools are not the panacea. they just are not. however, competition is a good

thing. we don't want our school district to just went unchallenged. and when you create and find or its competitive and everybody starts to get better and try harder. and those who do well are going to attract more kids. those that are not going to be well will have less kids in terms of enrollment. that's what you see happening around the country. so in california it's called a u-shaped. so you have some really bad charter share, in most of the charters. and you have some really good charters. great charters. so there's a u-shaped curve in california, a lot of bad ones, this is the regular schools, pretty much the same, then the high-performing totally out spike the other schools. so the challenge for us is in california, in anywhere, we have 952 chars in california, is that bad once you have to close down. you cannot let them to continue to go one. if you do that in all we would be talking about is really the high-performing charter schools. in our kindred, i'll give you an

example, our elementary school is called ps seven, we have 95% african-american kids in this school. in a poor neighborhood. 95%. it has the third highest test scores in the whole city. 95% african-american kids. what are we doing? how do we even get the opportunity to run this school? we got the opportunity to run as a charter because the school districts and we don't know how to educate black boys that are poor. they said we just don't, we are being honest but we don't know how to do it. can you do it? and we felt that don't kids need good teachers? and high expectations? don't they need longer school days if they are further behind? don't unique use data to determine whether kids are learning and teachers are teaching? there are no rocket, it's not rocket science, or a silver bullet. she finishes most of my sentences. but what we did is we created a different environment in this community, and now this school is, michelle talked about

closing the achievement gap. this school has a reverse gap. the minority kids in this community are outperforming the white kids in the whole city. in a poor neighborhood. and here's just the one thing that will probably sealed it for you folks who are not aware. if you go to a kindergarten classroom, it was outside the classroom, class of 2027. it's the year their graduating from college. you cannot tell these kids even though their parents and grandparents and great grandparents have never been to college, you cannot tell these kids that are not going to college. they probably have visited the clinton school more times than i have. these kids take college field trips every two or three weeks. and that's what the future looks like. when you create that environment of high expectations and remove some of the, you create more freedom and autonomy that you don't have in school districts you get a different outcome. that's what we want. we want autonomy but we also want the accountability to be

held to a standard, be accountable for whatever goes on. that is not what you see happening in most school districts around the country. our school, our teachers work longer school days. happily. they volunteered. in a school district, they can't work a longer day. what's the word, grievance? they filed a grievance. on behalf of the -- you can't -- anyway, i'm done. [laughter] >> when you're out there in the public arena, as both of you are, and you take strong stands and controversial stands, you faced criticism. that's true of anybody. michelle, you come under some criticism about what people have alleged about your performance as a teacher. and i just want to ask you about that and give you the opportunity to respond to that. >> wait, wait, wait. before she does. you got to tell them about your

mom and choose your personality. i think would be helpful for the audience to hear, and then you can justify your test scores. >> so, my first year on the job in d.c., i made the decision in the first 100 years or so i was going to close 23 schools in the district. it was 15% of the total schools in the inventory. and just in case you don't know, if you quickly want to become the least popular person in the city, all you have to do is tell someone you are closing a school, much less 23 schools. so we announced this. the city went nuts. my mother was visiting, and she woke up one morning and she opened the "washington post." is a two-page spread pinpointed all the schools i was closing. she turned on the tv and there were pictures of people picketing outside my office. people screaming at me and that sort of thing. i got home that night after lots of community meetings, and i walked in the door and she said,

are you okay? and i said yeah, i'm fine. made myself a peanut butter sandwich. she said, you know, when you were little you never used to care about what people thought about you. and i always thought you're going to grow up to be antisocial. she said, but i see now this is serving you well. [laughter] and i said yeah, it's interesting because you know, in the middle of my tenure there was a columnist at the "washington post" who wrote a piece about me, and he said, i like michelle rhee. she's doing all the right things and we are seeing really good results. i just wish she would be nicer. [laughter] and so i read the piece and i call the got up and i said what's this all about? he's like, here's the thing, i feel like if you were a little nicer, then you could stay longer and i think stay logged is a good thing. so can't you just, you know, be a little nicer? and i said, you need to figure out what you believe the most in

porton characteristics of a schools chancellor are. if you think they're being nice and funny and accommodate our most important things, then you should be advocating for my ouster. because if you want warm and fuzzy, i am not your girl. but if you like the results and you think that we're heading in the right direction, then what you should be advocating for is not for me to become nicer but for us as adults to put the personalities inside and actually focus on what we are producing for kids. so let's, let's stop, you know, what we're doing right now, turning a blind eye to what is happening to kids every single day in classrooms in the name of harmony amongst adults. if we are causing a little controversy -- [applause] if we are causing a little controversy and making the adults uncomfortable but the kids are better off, and that's what we need to be focused on. discourse, yes. thank goodness.

so about 20 years ago i taught elementary school in baltimore, maryland. i taught for three years. my second and third year of teaching, i was fortunate enough to work with a group of students so i had some of them in the second grade and the third grade. at the end of the third year, as i was heading off to graduate school, my principal called me and said, i just want to let you know that the kids knocked the test out of the park. in fact, and the children that you happened to have had in both the second and third grade, where they started out was extraordinarily low test scores. now, 90% of them are scoring at the 90th percentile or above. i thought, that's great, you know. put it on my resume was very proud of it. little did another 20 years later i would become a public official, and people, combing the resin and they said here's

some statistics about how her kids did. and so they wanted to show, they wanted to know you have the proof? back then we didn't have any proof, of stuff. so they called my principal in to testify in front of the city council. did you tell her that was the case? my principal suggest. they said to have any proof this is the case? she said no. then they said do you have any proof? i said no. this is what we both remembered. about a few weeks ago, somebody found an old study that was done on a group of schools in baltimore. and they said they shows that michelle rhee is lying, because this sort of pulled up the data from my school. and looked at all of the children in the second and third grade, not just the kids in my school. and they said, well, that group of kids saw growth but they didn't see, 90% of them were not

in the 90th percentile or better. that proves she's a liar. but, in fact, it didn't because what was the case was they were looking at the entire crate of kids, not just the kids who were in my class. what baltimore told was there was no way to choose the exact kids in my class. what is actually visible in those discourse about is the fact that the group of children that went through the second and third grade the years i taught the second and third grade, out of all of the schools in the treatment group and individual group, the group of kids that we taught at our school started out with the lowest test scores when they began as second graders, and they ended up out of all the control and treatment groups as a highest scores in reading and math. the highest test scores. so even though we can't go back and pull the individual kids and show that, what is absolutely unequivocal is that the kids, some of the kids that were in my

classroom saw absolutely unbelievable games. but i think for public policy perspective is one of the reasons why it is so important to i think where we are now in being able to give teachers information, students information, and the reports back about exactly how much their kids are growing or not. so it's not left to speculation, it's not left to people's memory from 20 years ago. that you have the evidence right in front of you of whether or not you are moving this cute and achievement levels for the kids in your class. >> in california with 300,000 teachers. we don't use data in california to determine whether teachers are teaching effectively. so if you look at the top 10% of the 300,000, 30,000 teachers, if you look at the bottom 10%, 30,000 teachers, you can't tell who is who. in california. so what you typically would want is your top teachers to mentor your bottom teachers to hopefully develop them.

but we don't allow data to be used that way in california, and that's why california is one of the worst performing states. so our whole believe is you've got to look at data. and discourse are not an end-all. you don't evaluate every teacher only on test scores, but there has to be some mechanism to determine whether or not kids are learning and then you can have a host of other ways to if i were a teacher. >> all right. good discussion. now it's your turn. those who have questions, would you please raise your hands. and then i will, we will ask them get the microphone to you. all right, let's see. hillary, right here. >> hi. my name is hillary. thank you so much for being here. my question is about parents. you talked a lot about teachers and holding them accountable, and also giving them resources. but i know a few teachers in d.c., used to live there, and despite their efforts sometimes

we would have students would fail. and a lot of the challenges that they ran into were the parents. so i guess my question is, where do you see the role of parent changing within these new initiatives? >> well, i think it's very clear and i don't think that anybody would argue with you that we need more parental involvement. we need parents to be engaged, when paris are engaged that the student learning is going to increase. so anything that school districts can do that individual teachers can do to encourage more parents took him into the schools and be involved is absolutely of critical importance. i think my work is often that a lot of times and education reform debate, people say well, the reason why kids in the poor inner cities are not doing well is because their parents are not involved. and there's sort of a blame game

going on. if the parents were more involved in the kids would do better. and i think that's extraordinarily problematic because we have just in the last few months in this country seen some very, very stark examples of parents who have been trying to be very involved in their kids education. so if he saw the movie "waiting for superman," utah thousands and thousands of parents across the country desperate to get their children into, it reduces coal out of defending neighborhood schools. and they are doing everything that they can to make it happen. you have a group of parents in compton, california, who were the first parents who decided to use a new law that the mayor helped to put forth which is called the. trigger which means a 51% of parents sign a petition that they could force the restructuring of a school. in the last example is a mother

in akron, ohio, who decided, that you to falsify her residency documents so that her kids could go to a safer, higher performing school. your three examples of parents, you know, they're trying to get involved. and look at what happened with each of these groups appeared. in the first case we say sorry, i know you want your kids to be in a great school but there's no room for them here. right? the second group of parents were threatened with deportation and harassment and everything else because of the decision that they made to pull the trigger. benefit lady we throw in jail. so i don't think that we are communicating to parents, that we want them to be involved are i think what we are communicating to them is would like to continue to blame you and so we are better off if you just, we don't want your involvement. we can't dictate how parents are going to get involved. we can't ask for them to be involved and then be mad when they do get involved. because we don't like the way

they have their children do. i think that's what we're going to try to do through studentsfirst. we're going to radicalize the moms of america, and the education system better watch out because you want parents involved? i'm going to get parents involved. when we make demands on the systems you better be ready to deliver. [applause] >> let me follow up on that. trigger, which passed in california with 51%. do you think that is part of a national movement what do you think that parent figure lost bring to other states because absolutely. it's spring to have a dozen other states. what ever does is takes the power and gives it to the parents. that's where it should be. parents should be able to demand a very good education for the children and oftentimes that's not the case. california started it, and authorization called parent revolution. unfortunately, in california there's a group of people talking about repealing it already because they don't want parents to have the power.

so the role -- these are for the kids here, kids, grad students here. the role of media plays a critical role. our editorial board in sacramento is just hammering away at everybody who is opposing parent trigger because why in order to not want parents to have the right i'd rich affluent families to pick you send your kids to private school. if you can't afford a private school then you move into a good neighborhood where you have a good public school. if you can't find a good neighborhood, you move outside the city and move into another community. if not you'll figure out use somebody else's address to make sure they go into a good school. poor neighborhoods, we don't get that. our kids are trapped in bad schools. parent trigger starts to level the playing field and is spreading around the country. >> further questions? right here. hold on just a minute. >> hi. thank you.

thank you for being here. i am a clinton school student, my second year. i'm also a current student at the college of public health care as well. and your goal is to change the social environment within the school. and we talk a lot about the determinants of, which includes all environments. notches in the school but surroundings. so i wanted to know whether does community development fit into your plan, or who do you see influencing that so that the communities build as the schools are reformed? >> who are you asking that question to? [laughter] >> so, you guys have heard of jeffrey canada of the harlem children's zone. that's exactly what you talked about.

president obama has something we are trying to create an environment where the schools are centers of community but everything around it plays a critical role from a be colleges all the way to work development. and in sacramento, michelle and i met many years ago. i have an organization called saint ho. its mission is to revitalize inner-city communities through economic development civic leadership, public education and the arts. so that is a holistic perspective. i grew up in a poor neighborhood. so i knew that schools were very important i don't believe you can improve public education without economic development being a part of the equation. and if you don't figure out a way to create jobs and train people for the workforce, if you don't figure out how to get your dollars that you're investing in and those poor communities to situate within the community it's going to be very difficult to our goal is to revitalize the community. public education and economic development go hand in hand and that.

>> sorry, you have to tell your starbucks store real quick. >> i will tell that at the end. >> i'm an election commissioner. would you address voter apathy? and also i would like to die in arkansas, school elections are held in the odd years. so this is not tied into who's running for governor or who's running for president. as an election commissioner, i think school elections are the most important election. the apathy, if i could have one second, in my county, we got 80% voter registration. but during a school election i see as few as 19 people vote. that's ridiculous. would you address voter apathy, please? >> as i eluded to this earlier, it's part of the reason why school board governance structures are so problematic, is that oftentimes there's very

low turnout elections. and so you're talking about a very, very small number of people making the determination about who is on the school board. which means that not a whole lot of money from teachers unions can actually influence those elections. and the reason why that is problematic in a lot of ways is that if you look at, you know, in the vast majority of states across the country, the policies that govern, you know, staffing of schools and who teaches which kids and wind, et cetera, are determined through the collective bargaining process. when you have a slate of school board members who are elected through union dollars in essential have the union on both sides of the bargaining table. right? if the union got me elected do not going to go hard-core after the union for a better contract. i am reliant on them to get

reelected next time. that's what is really problematic. and we have to find a way to get the public more engaged in public education. you've got to know when your school board elections are. you've got to know exactly what those people stand for, and who they're going to stand for when it comes to actually running the school district. >> questions? yes. right here in the front row. >> hi. i currently serve at the city or. my question is this. programs for teaching america often recruit from sort of a select group of students. how do we make sure that sort of all groups of students can serve their country? >> first of all, i love seedier. but how about that for an endorsement? >> citier was a huge component

of our success in washington, d.c.. when i first got to the city, i went to a citier opening ceremony. got to see all the excitement and i came back and talk to the citier folks and his that i've an idea. i want a citier core member on every single one of my schools. and they said, that's interesting. but we have a better idea. and basically what they said was that a new program that they wanted to start, the whole school hotel program which clustered groups of citier core members in individual facing schools to help turn around the culture and economy. they felt like it would 10 or 12 citier members all clustered together that could really help to change the culture of the school. so we started that in d.c. and it absolutely had an amazing impact on the schools that they were in. the citier corners with their early in the morning. they were there late at night.

they were to leakage during the day. they were running the after school programs. it was actually unbelievable. one of the things that i found to be the most heartening was that the young people who had exposure to the citier folks at spire to be them. and so ultimately we have people who were in our schools, becoming citier corpsman does. i think that is the ideal scenario, where young kids who are in school had exposure to programs like citier. they see the power that individual young folks can have on people like them. and then they want to contribute back to the community to the same type of program. spent we have a question. let's see. right here. >> i just wanted to thank you guys first for identifying the problems. identifying the solutions, and then enacting those solutions so

that we can visibly see how we can make a difference. i truly want to applaud you on that. my question is, to the mayor, we recently had a school board issue in the little rock school district where our school board superintendent was pushed out. there was a buyout. and i happened to be one of the leaders of the community involvement for the little rock school district for our students. and over and over again my issue was that we were missing the mark because the students are doing better and achieving better with the current superintendent. and i reached out to the mayor of little rock and i reached out to the governor of the state of arkansas. and never heard from either of them. and it was quite disappointed. so i want to know from you, how can we press the mayor in our city and state government officials to really be more involved in our education? because we say we want to improve our economic standards, but you can't do that without greater education. so tell me how we can do that.

>> thank you for the question. might answer would be pretty brief. one, is the mayors and to governor have to be involved. if you didn't hear from them, then i'm going to say we didn't try hard enough many we got to go down there, way for them to come out of city hall. if one or two people get enough attention and take your whole group of people our core. at some point all of us want to solve problems in our community. i can tell you, you're mayor is a very committed person in terms of public education. i wish i would have known this sooner because i wouldn't make sure that he followed up with you today. in fact, i will make sure he follows up with you. that's my commitment. the second thing i want to say that i think it's important, think about little rock and history of "little rock nine." you guys have the richest history in the country. i got a chance in sacramento a few months ago to hear one of the "little rock nine" speak in sacramento. an amazing lady, carlita i think. carlotta.

and amazingly. just listening to her story. and i share this with her and i will share it here. i've been in iraq probably about a dozen times in my lifetime. almost every time that i near the usually rent a car. i go back to my hotel. and at about 10, 11:00 at night i go drive out to the high school. and i just sit there. and i drive around that beautiful campus. and images and pictures, they start coming to life. you just think of the battle that went on at that particular school, so that someone like me could go to an integrated school. now my responsibility to make sure those goals will do their job. because in some cases we were better off when we didn't have integration. holy moly. so i'm not satisfied with it. and the last thing that i just want to say to you, is it's important to know, and i challenge everyone in here, you would think that results would be enough.

you said there were results occurring at that school. she entered washington, d.c., the worst urban school district in the country, turned it around in three years, had the biggest gains out of any urban school district in the country come on math and english. double digits. and did not get to continue her work. the interest groups, the special interest groups and the politics that go on oftentimes override -- [applause] -- the result and what should really matter. spent let's hear from an elected official. the honorable patrick hayes, the mayor of north little rock is here. mayonnaise? >> welcome, kevin, michelle. i don't know how lucky we were, but waiting on superman is something i really hadn't heard that much of before, the day before yesterday when the two of

y'all presented that video, or the film. and then in addition had a panel discussion that was just after that you moderate. and yet the other point as we go down the road just a second forget my question, you know, was adrian any composure mayor, michelle, did not survive the election and i think it was pretty badly. i think you quoted a little bit of what, or someone quoted what he said afterwards. whether he had anything to do. and and was absolute not. and i know that i've got three grandchildren that are in, two of which are in the public school suspect and i just want to applaud you all, but i want to tell you how your heart goes out when you waiting on superman. and you see where kids, parents are committed to their kids. and yet at the same time you've got three or 400 vacancies, and 20 or 30 spots, and the lottery was what was selected those

kids. we can't wait. you're correct. we can't wait. and so i just want to first of all my question is, one of the rest of us or win over going to a more general distribution be able to see waiting on superman? and the second thing, all of us are concerned about where we are as a country. and i know some of the facts that were cited up in washington the day before yesterday about how we're 18th and 19th, 20th and 21st entrance of what's going on globally. we can't wait. so i guess i would just ask both, when are we going to be able to see waiting on superman? number two, how are we doing, not very good with the rest of the globe, and welcome here. thank you very much for being a part of this. >> you got to give mayor hays a round of applause. he came back and down so thank you. is that your wife? awesome. [applause] >> i will do with the first part. mayor hays participated in a panel discussion that we had a couple days ago in

washington, d.c., and was supposed to be in d.c. and came back just to be here. the first part, raise your hand if you've seen the movie "waiting for superman." impressive, awesome. david guggenheim forget inconvenient truth was the director of this film. he has the unbelievable ability of taking issues, making them relevant, parties and gets them. that's what happened with al gore in inconvenient truth if you also took education and took a very complicated issue and brought it mainstream. it was in the theaters for about three months and now it's fully distributed on dvd. so anybody in here can get the dvd. it's out. one of the things that both of us are encouraging folks to do is have a viewing party at your home. invite eight, 10 people over to your house and watch this movie and discuss it. the power of this movie, it will outrage you. it will take you off and you will be ready to join her organization immediately.

because this is what it's about. it's all of us collectively fighting together for our children, or somebody else's children, even if we don't know who those folks are because it's a tragedy what's happening in our country. so that film is being distributed all across the country now. you can probably talk about the second part of his question. >> in terms of the second part, we absolutely are not competing when it comes to our education system versus another stick one of the statistics, if you haven't seen "waiting for superman," it's very interesting is that they tested kids in all of the developed nations in mathematics. and the u.s. was at the absolute bottom in terms of how their test scores were, what their math skills were. but then it asked the kids, how do you think he did on the test, how good you think you are in math? you ask kids, number one. this shows you that we have a significant problem.

one of the problems that we're facing as a nation with our culture is that we are so busy trying to make children feel good about themselves, that we are not actually spending the time building the skills so they are good. [applause] my own household i have two little girls. eight and 12. and they both play soccer. they suck at soccer. [laughter] they take after the mother, not their stepfather to be. on the athletic skills. but if you walk tasha if you were to walk into the rooms you would see medals and trophies and ribbons. you would think i am raising the next mia hamm. by the looks of it. right? so it's a difficult because i'm trying to tell kids, you are not so good. in order to be good you have to practice every single day. even if you do that i can't guarantee you that you'll ever the great. but it's very hard for them to reconcile that with all the medals and trophies. we have to regain our

competitive spirit in america. we have to -- [applause] -- teach children that you got to work hard and do the right thing in order to be the best. and we have to stop allowing the children of our country to be proud of media outrage. that's the only place. [applause] >> question. jesse rice. let's wait for the microphone. >> thank you, dean. i'm also a student at the clinton school. very glad you guys are here to join us. i want to go back to teachers and results. you've mentioned the need for good teachers with great results in our schools. and my question is, and in a school like little rock central, you mentioned it, where it's split between like kids and white kids with a minority of other ethnicities, sorry,

asians, the growing hispanic population, what is a good teacher look like in a school as diverse as that? and how do you measure that? you talked about results and the kids results, but i'm interested in hearing those other ways that mayor johnson mentioned earlier. how do you evaluate those teachers? >> so, first of all i think that it's important to note that a teacher who is a great teacher for a black kid doesn't look all that different from a teacher is a great future for a white kid or an asian get. [applause] or anything else. great teachers set very high expectations for children. they don't let children make excuses, right? they hold them to those expectations and then they give them what they need to be successful. and i think that the children know when you believe in them and when you don't believe in

them. that thing that used to make me so mad when i was in d.c., when kids would tell me, you know, stories of adults were in the schools who would say to them, you know, things like i get paid whether you're learning or not, so what does it matter? or you're never going to amount to anything. your stupid so why should i waste my time? literally kids would come to me and tell me they adults in the building were saying these things to them. it's not rocket science. if you have high expectations for the kids, if you know that each child is an individual and you have to treat every child as an individual, communication, right? understanding what engages kids. what's interesting to them. all those things are what makes a great teacher. and i'll say this. at the end of the day their children will tell you without any equivocation that what

matters most to them is having a great future in the classroom every day. they are willing to put all the other stuff a side entrance of what the school look like, whether there's computers, they have a great teacher they know when something cares about them and expects them. >> i will add just one real quick. so, she talked of the high expectations. there's something before high expectation. a teacher has to believe in the key. you have to believe that kids can learn and that's where your high expectation is. that's the most important thing. a teacher please indicate and build a meaningful relationship. that kid will do anything for the future. so that teacher raises the bar higher, if the teacher raises it even high, the cable find a way. that meaningful relationship is so critical. that's unfortunately what we don't have as often as we like. the other thing, is that these teachers that are really good, they are competitive. they want to look at data and determine whether or not kids are learning and they have a

goal and to go after the goal. and they say they failed, not the kid. they own that accountability. teachers that are really good are problem solvers. they figure out there's a problem, i'm going to solve it, come up with a solution. if the kid doesn't come to school and teachers goal is that kid to be at school 95% of the type of the teacher will call home and go visit. not because it's in their job description. because they will find a way that those 20 or 30 kids that are in their influence are going to learn. that is critical and you don't have the. we have kids at her elementary school and charter school, they have cell phones. so the kid can call that cell phone number if they're trying to do their homework at night. at 8:00 or 9:00. a lot of kids unfortunately don't have to. in household or parents who don't know how to do algebra depend on degree. so the kids can call the teacher and a teacher is a bit of after 9:00. part of their job does not stop when they leave the campus. it goes on. if kids still behind in a

saturday than that teacher will find a way to be with her family two or three hours and then go to school for a couple of hours can go home back to the family. that's what it takes. you have to do everything and i think that's a commitment. it's tiring, it's exhausting, but those teachers that are great, they figure out a way to make it happen and they don't make excuses. [applause] >> right here. writeup here, bill. up in the front. >> thank you for coming. i'm a student here. first year student at my question is about how are we going to reincorporate the arts with our school district, or within the school system? many times we have worked with citier to find out that teachers teach to test. and that there is little emphasis on other things that enhance the learning. so my question is how can we reincorporate art or critical activities to enhance the education system speak with you

will hear from both of us that reading and math are really important, those core subjects, science, we all know that. but we believe in the whole experience of kids. and arts and p/e, all those things are equally as important it the kids have have a whole education. let me give you two quick points. as mayor, i believe that unfortunately the first thing to be cut in schools are the arts programs. so what i have to do is figure out ways to supplement the normal school budget to make sure we're able to provide our young kids with meaningful experiences that are relevant because we all don't burn the same way. some people get mad but certainly. some people use their creative expression and concerned how math connects the dots by looking at art. so we have a program, it's a pilot program in sacramento called in the given channel. it's a partnership with the kennedy school. the kennedy school in d.c., kennedy performing, center for

performing arts. they're doing a pilot program in sacramento where we have arts curriculum in all of our k-8 schools in sacramento. anytown budget, in a down economy with less resources, because they know that i. as a mayor i understand the value. the school district and teachers love it. and what we have shown really quickly, if you arts in schools, attendance goes up for kids participating. kids do better academically. immediately. when they have a relevant education that they can relate to. and decent people become future patrons of art. so everybody wins. it's a win-win-win. as a mayor i've got to make sure i do my job. to make sure that arts are central in a young person's education, even if it's not in a school budget. and what the chancellor did in d.c. was amazing. they made a huge commitment on arts. >> so, it was interesting. in my second year on the job, we were facing a huge budget

deficit. and it was about actually $700 million across the city, and so everyone was sort of trying to speculate about what was going to get cut. and the mayor, my boss at the time, decided that he was not going to touch the schools budget. he was going to hold schools harmless. people went nuts. they said the schools make up a huge percentage of the city's budget. they have to shoulder their fair share of the burden. and the mayor said, no, they don't. we are in the economic crisis that we are in this country because of the irresponsibility of adults. we are not going to make up for this on the backs of children. so it was not a popular stance today because only 20% of the voting population had school aged kids but he believed it was the right thing to do. and a further reason why was because what we managed to do when we went to the school closure process was we had the exact same amount of money but

with fewer schools to spread it over, which meant that every school for the first time in history of washington, d.c., was able to abate an art teacher, a music teacher, a p/e teacher, a library and a nurse. so by saying to the schools and the children, it's not an option whether or not you have an art teacher. it's not going to be dependent on whether you're a wealthy school and you can hold an auction and raise money to hire one, right? every child in the city must have access to a broad based curriculum. art cannot be considered an extracurricular activity as part of a broad-based curriculum that every single child should have access to every single day. [applause] >> there was a student that asked about holistic education. there you are. so, she wanted me to tell a story real quickly. it's black history month. raise your hand if you're a where it's black history month. such a smart audience. so, in our community we were trying to get a coffee have to

comment. so we are going to school, charter schools, trying to get a coffee house to coming. and i caught magic johnson at the target i used to play in the nba in another lifetime. and i called magic up and i said, in los angeles you run a starbucks. every starbucks in a poor part of l.a. how did you do it? he said, i called up the ceo of starbucks, a guy named howard schultz, and howard schultz did not know magic. aunties on the other end of the and he's like this is magic? for real? howard is like i'm huge fan of yours. they went back and forth on all the pleasant stuff for a minute. and magic says hey, howard, i need you to bring starbucks into a lake, and the poor part of l.a. that change the whole conversation. howard was like, magic, a utility at michigan state, that green and the upshot that you made, and jude beating larry bird. and magic is like that's all

great but neg to bring a starbucks into l.a. and howard, you know, magic, i've got another call, can i call you back in a week or two? two weeks later he calls them back, and magic man, you have a great smile, you are just so charismatic. you be the path and celtic. i want a lot of money on you. and you've got big feet. and magic is like all that's fine, i need a starbucks in l.a. and howard says, can i tell you something off the record? and magic says, of course. and now i'm telling you. [laughter] off the record what he told me off the record. and howard schultz said magic, off the record i had my team do a feasibility study, and do a marketing analysis of the community that you are talking about. and the demographic and the profile of a starbucks coffee drinker doesn't fit the community that you want me to go into. and magic says, give me a little more.

and howard schultz said, you've got a lot of black people and black people don't drink coffee. [laughter] and magic without missing a beat said, you know what? i appreciate your honesty. let me know the next time you're in l.a. six months later, howard schultz is down in l.a. magic takes them into his theater. called the magic johnson sony the. and they stand in the lobby, and magic points to the concession stand he said look at all those black people. they the popcorn. they drink soda. they like raisin that's. howard says, i see where you're going with this. howard says to magic, okay, if you want to do a wager, let's find out whether or not black people drink coffee together. howard says, it cost $1 million to do a new store. i'll put up 500,000, magic, you've got to put a 500. and we will find out together whether or not black people drink coffee. magic thought about it and

swallowed and said okay. howard said one other thing, i will work on the business operations aspect of this partnership, because that's what we do really well. and then you work on the community and outreach because that's an area you are more familiar so we'll play door strength, just like a good team, magic. you guys know the coffee margin is not little. it's big. so typically a starbucks store takes four years to get its full return on its investment. four years. this store, six months. magic gets a call from howard schultz six months later and says i've got good news, and even better news. magic says what's the good news? the good news is we made our million dollars back in six months. magic this was even the veteran is? he said, black people drink coffee. [laughter] so what we're willing to do is we will open up 27 more starbucks around the country. what is the moral of the story

in black history month? people in every neighborhood want to send anyone else wants. they want safe streets, they want teachers who care. and they want jobs and yes, black people want coffee, too. [applause] >> you talked about the arts. i want to give you a name. i want you to look at, michelle. when you get back to sacramento. looked up the thea foundation. if you can incorporate that in some way and your program, it is a marvelous organization that does exactly what you were trying to do. and i just want to elevate the. ladies and gentlemen, let's thank michelle rhee and kevin johnson. [applause]

[applause] [inaudible conversations] >> here's what's ahead on c-span2 today. next, the close up foundation talk to students about our nation's checks and balances system.

♪ >> students from around the country participate next at a conference looking at the legacy of ronald reagan and the workings of the federal government. the close up foundation and the ronald reagan centennial commission organized the gathering. speakers include the former chief of staff to first lady laura bush, the former assistant attorney general and a former official from the white house national security council. the hour-long event took place at the national archives. >> good afternoon. i'm stewart mclaurin executive director of the ronald reagan

centennial celebration. and the centennial celebration is sponsored by the ronald reagan presidential foundation. this week in washington, d.c., we've convened in partnership with close up, a week-long conference entitleded ronald reagan close up. we have 102 students from all 50 states and the district of columbia that are with us in washington focusing on getting to know their government, learning about ronald reagan and focusing on the theme of civil discourse. during this session today, we will hear from three perspectives on how our branches of government work together on a daily basis. and while the interface of the branches of government in our country is not always harmonious for 235 years the united states has stood as a strong example of democracy in our world and a transition of power successfully and working together to achieve the benefits and the good of our country and for our place in the

world. our panelists today, and we have an extraordinary panel with us today, anita mcbride, michael allen, and rachel brand. anita brand has a long and distinguished career in american politics and government. she is currently a fellow with the american university center for congressional and presidential studies and serves on the j. william fulbright scholarship foundation. mrs. mcbride served as assistant to president george w. bush and chief of staff to first lady laura bush from 2005 to 2009. also, under president george w. bush mrs. mcbride worked in the state department as senior advisor in the bureau of international organizations and is white house leas i-asiaon and she served as special assistant for the white house management. her service stands three administrations beginning with the reagan administration in 1984 and from '87 to '92 she was

the director of white house personnel for presidents reagan and george h.w. bush. michael allen currently serves as the majority staff director for the house intelligence committee during the administration of president george w. bush, mr. allen was senior director for counterproliferation and senior director for legislative affairs at the national security council. he also held senior, legislative affairs roles during the bush administration with the white house homeland security council and the department of state. rachel brand serves as the national chamber litigation center's chief counsel for regulatory litigation. before assuming this role she was with the firm of wilmer hail and prior to wilmer hail ms. brand served in government for nearly eight years as assistant attorney general for legal policy at the u.s. department of justice. and associate counsel to the president at the white house. to begin our conversation today, i'd like to hear from our

panelists a little bit about their views from experience or perhaps from their study of history about how ronald reagan worked with his white house staff and worked with his administration in dealings with the congress over the eight years of his president. anita, i know that you knew him personally and worked in the white house and share something with us about your observations about how ronald reagan supported himself in civil discourse in dealing with our other branches of government. >> thank you, stewart and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here and being with the studies. i love talking about this topic. ronald reagan gave me my start in politics. it's because of him that when i was able to vote -- i registered to vote and i worked on the campaign of ronald reagan as a volunteer. there was something just so inspirational and so positive about the way he approached our country. and it inspired me to get involved and i hope you can feel that same way about candidates that you will see in your future that want to lead our country.

and with that optimism. i think that drew others and drew people from a variety of parties or the multiple sectors around our country. and felt that ronald reagan cared about the nation and dealing with the congress most specifically. you refer to the poll today that was in politico, that 85% of the american people think we are at a such low of civil discourse in our country and i think about president reagan whose arch enemy politically issues was the speaker of the house tip o'neill yet that never blended into how he spoke about him personally and vice versa. so there was a personal relationship between the two of them that was quiet, that was in private quarters, that was over a drink perhaps in the office -- behind the oval office or up in the residence where they could

talk about their -- they found a common ground and they shared an irish ancestry and maybe they developed a relationship over jokes or an understanding of each other's background and of the same time -- you know, period they were contemporaries. but they disagreed viscerally on policies. yet, they really -- they never let that bleed into how they spoke about each other personally. and president reagan was just an optimistic character and comported himself in that way. never spoke ill of other republicans and was very careful to not speak ill of those who maybe disagreed with his policies. he just stood firm on his policies and they were principles as he believed in greatly and people knew where he was coming from. and in dealing with the white house staff, that was -- we took direction from his leadership, and we comported ourselves the same way he did. and maybe not for everybody but for the majority of people and

for a young person like me, that's where i cut my teeth. i think that's how i have tried to conduct mice over the three administrations that i have worked over, maybe my colleagues who i worked with might say differently but i think that we did -- you know, i learned from him and i carried that to this day. >> michael, how do you feel about the civil discourse in our city and perhaps something anecdotal or your studies with president reagan and how he conducted himself working with the president in congress. >> thanks for having me here today. it's a pleasure. i want to thank the reagan foundation, the national archives and close up and it's great to be here with two of my old colleagues. i think the most notable thing with ronald reagan and civil discourse is how much he invested with the congress in his first term. it's not unlike the situation that president obama finds himself in today where the -- his party controls the senate

but his party does not control the house, and that's the situation president reagan found himself in, in 1981. and i think the most interesting thing about that explains the legislative prowess, the legislative power that reagan showed was that he invested time with the congress. in the first 100 days, i looked this up last night he did 169 meetings with members of congress causing some to joke that we've seen more in ronald reagan in the first 100 days than we saw of jimmy carter in the last four years. and so when he was able to invest that amount of time with them and build the rapport and lay the foundation in civil discourse i think that helped pave the way for his legislative achievements especially the tax cut bills that he put through early in his first term. so it's something that all legislative affairs offices can learn from and those of us who have had to work with the congress from the white house

perspective. and even down the road here should study his sort of model. i guess the last thing i would sort of point out about why he was so popular in the congress was because he was popular in the country. i think he was able to drive a message across the country so that some of the democrats who at that time were called bull weevil democrats in the states that ronald reagan carried in the 1980 election were afraid to vote against him. they were afraid that their constituents would hold them responsible for that, and how he was able to tap into his sort of immense political prestige and charisma and translate it into legislative success which is what ultimately all presidents need in order -- not only to get re-elected but also to safeguard the american people and to win election. >> i think, anita, you had covered the relationship that

reagan had with congress, with his staff. the thing that's amazing to me -- and by the way, i think it's great that you guys are all here. when i -- i'm a little hesitant when i heard this was going to be historical retrospective i was young when reagan left office but my very first political memory is on the farm in iowa at my grandparents house where i heard reagan and my parents talking about the carter/reagan campaign. it's great you're here paying attention to politics at a young age. i think you'll be happy that you did. the thing i've always admired about reagan despite getting into politics after he had gone was his courage and his strength and his optimism. and it's really -- the thing to take away, i think, is that his ability being nice, good relationship does not mean you can't be strong and you can't push for the things that you care about. when you look at reagan -- i mean, he took on tax cuts. he took on the cold war. he took on the -- you know, the

air traffic controllers, whatever it was, he was strong. he was not ashamed of pushing what he believed in. but he was able to do it in a way that didn't have to resort to uncivility. so that's pretty remarkable, i think. >> and then we have questions from some of our students. there's a microphone on either side if you want to make your way to those microphones. if you have a question. but one question for rachel, i know that the judicial appointment and confirmation process was an important confluence of the three branches of government in our country and given your experience in the confirmation process of several judicial nominees during the bush administration, did you look at the historical impact of previous nominations, particularly, some in the reagan administration and draw lessons or conclusions from those about how to work effectively with those in congress and work with those appointees, as well. >> yes, just for the audience, i was in the justice department when chief justice roberts and chief justice alito were nominated and confirmed and part of my job was to help look at

candidates for the supreme court. and then once those folks were nominated helping them get confirmed. yeah, before we knew we had a supreme court vacancy we were getting ready just in case somebody retired to the supreme court and i went back and i talked to white house counsel from previous administrations and we did look -- reagan had four appointments to the court. he had three new appointments. kennedy, o'connor and scalia and he elevated justice rehnquist to become chief justice rehnquist. you look at all the mistakes that were made and you look at the things that congress was interested then and loved as issues still carried forward. when you look at the senate, they are in there so long and you look at the kind of questions they looked at and taking lessons away. >> do you think it's more or less contentious then it was at

that time? >> well, the first -- who's robert bork and it's about the bork hearings. nobody. okay. i've got one over here. so reagan first nominated robert bork to the supreme court. he was a very conservative scholar, law professor, very prominent but very controversial in some of his views. and the term borking has now become a verb. it stands for doing away with somebody in the confirmation process, voting them down and sort of destroying their nomination and that came away from very contentious hearings that robert bork had in the senate. that was very contentious and that was probably shortly after -- well, i'd say that was one of the first hearings that had a lot of tv coverage which i think really contributed to the contentiousness of it. i guess i can't say that hearings now are more contentiously because you can go back all the way to george washington to find contentious.

he tried to make him he appointed him and couldn't get him confirmed. and you had nixon and nixon had two supreme court nominees go down in flames. it's tv and 24 news cycle but it's not a new phenomenal >> we're joined by our friends at c-span today and we're grateful for that coverage and wider exposure of this program across the nation. what role does the media play or how does the president and the congress use the media against each other to advance their agenda or their perspective or their side of the argument? and how did ronald reagan do that effectively or ineffectively, if you believe so? >> well, the media played a huge role, you know, i guess in reagan's time it was primarily dominated by the nightly newscasts. now, days, of course, there's a lot written and said about how the internet and the diversification of news sources has changed politics but in

those days it was the newspapers and the major broadcast networks. i think one of the things that's interesting about the way the media dominates the conversation in washington particularly in the congress is that a lot of key off what's on the front pages on the front pages of the "new york times" and "washington post." if you're interested on politics and you want to get up to speed quickly you want to make a habit of reading these two newspapers. they drive the rest of the reporters, what they ask about all day. they drive what the members of congress are most interested in and what the congress is going to ask of the white house. and it's something that the white house has to manage constantly all day and indeed we've got huge staffs, not only back in the reagan days but in the bush days and, of course, the obama days of, you know, in some cases dozens of people whose job it is just to deal with the media and chase down different stories and try to get the president's message out. on reagan, you know, you've heard the old phrase, he's the

great communicator and he was able to dominate the media and identify with people and the common man better than any other politician which is part of the reason he was so, you know -- goes down in history as one of our great presidents. >> he understood the power of image and understood the power of communication, i think, for all the negative red rick about president reagan or governor reagan when he ran for president about having been a actor. some of those skills really did help him and knew the power of language. and knew when to go to the american people. and was able to work fairly effectively with the media when the president wanted to address the nation. and, you know, did it at very pivotal times, whether it was bringing the -- a message of comfort after different periods of grief in our country or when

there was a particular policy that he wanted to sell and because he really believed in one thing. that it was a people that he was working for, not anyone else. and really understood that. >> thank you. let's go to some of our students over here. >> uh-huh. >> my name is brian russell. my question is for mrs. mcbride. i was just curious, with your experience with first lady laura bush, i'm just wondering how much affect she has on public policy and how often she's involved with the day-to-day politics going on in the white house. >> uh-huh. thank you for asking that question. i really appreciate it because it is what i'm doing in my post-white house life now spending a good portion time at the american university developing a course of study around the role of an american first lady throughout our history. and their impact on politics and policy and diplomacy. and i think over -- throughout our history, first ladies have

really been a solid partner to the chief executive. but like everything else, as there's more media coverage and more attention, we begin to expect more in current times out of our first ladies that they really do take on an active role or are an advocate for issues of concern to the country. and they're best at it when they do take something that's authentic and genuine to them and that is in complete concert with what the goals of the particular administration are. and mrs. bush did that very well. she used education as her platform to travel the world on behalf of the president's efforts on global aid and literacy through the generosity of the american people, the president launched and she was an advocate for and continues in her post-first lady life and i'm headed to dallas in about an hour we'll be launching a

women's initiative at the bush institute so that mrs. bush can continue some of this work. so i think first ladies can be very effective. it's an unofficial position. it has no salary. i hope that never changes because think it gives the first lady a lot of flexibility to do what she wants to do and it's best if it's authentic and in concert with the president. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> let's take another one on this side. >> my name is thad thomas and i'm from shawnee, kansas, and my question is really to everyone who decides to take it. based on your guys's experience in washington what advice would you offer our generation to improve the public's negative perception of civil discourse in american politics? >> wherever you want to start. >> why are you looking at me. [laughter] >> one of the things i found very frustrating when i was in

government was how little it seems to me people understood how government works. and perhaps as a result of that, you would see media stories covering events like the supreme court or covering aspects of the supreme court confirmation process that kind of muddied the water of the role of the courts, for example, versus the congresses or the executive branch. i think it's great to educate yourself on the role of the government. i think that's great if more would do that. it would improve the discourse and the media coverage and the whole sort of level of politics would be better. and i would encourage you and moving your classmates and getting everybody involved in doing that. >> thank you. i was just sort of -- i was thinking about when rachel was talking about the confirmation that she worked on for the supreme court and the discourse of how they treat people and how

we are willing to go into public service and in these cases public services for life and to be treated with robert bork was treated whether you agree with his personal beliefs and the personal attacks and i remember the hearing of justice alito in my office and mrs. bush was up there in the residence and the point where marsha alito started to cry and i was furious and i called mrs. bush and i said are you watching this? it's ridiculous. and she said i'm going to call her and she did and you may remember that. and just to tell her, look, this is politics. try not let it get to you personally. you know who sam is. you know who you are. and this is coming from a woman from the person she loved the most in life her husband took

the slings and the arrows every single day but yet it was remarkable to me that she never once said a bad word about anyone in public or in private and would always say, i know who george is. we know who we are as a family. this is politics. i wish it wasn't this way, but i'm not going to bring myself to that level. and i think if we had more people who understood our government and how difficult it is to do these jobs at how important it is and realize just how much work it takes, you know, maybe we wouldn't treat the people willing to step up to the plate quite as bad as we do. >> you talked about the cont conten -- special relationship reagan had with tip o'neill and many of our debates take place in the media and out in the public, on public display. what do you think maybe, michael, now that you're

entrenched on the hill also as having been in the administration, how do you think that is today? do you think that there's -- what is the flow back and forth of communication? what's the respect back and forth? is there a lot of direct person-to-person contact from the white house and executive branch with members of congress and the congressional staffs? was it all through the media where we see their interpretation and their lens played on it? >> you saw president obama and speaker boehner went to play golf this weekend. so that was sort of important for the country to see that the two of them were meeting face-to-face. but, you know, one of the things that i don't think is sort of appreciated or known by a lot of folks is just how many people each president has working on the hill for them. presidencies can rise and fall based on whether they have success in congress or not. and each president has for lack of a better word, you know, sort of lobbyists or as we call them

legislative affairs folks and we had over a dozen in the bush white house and the obama administration has the same thing. and it's the job of these people to go up and actually be assigned to members of congress, hang around on the hill, if you were sort of at the west wing when congress was in session, it looked like you might not be doing your job because your job was to be up representing the president on the hill, getting to know the members of congress and being able to report back to the white house any developments that would have affected the president's agenda. and so you just can'tund underse the importance of staff and being able to get the people up to the hill -- some of the senior policymakers and the national security council or the domestic policy council as the case may be who actually talked to members of congress about their ideas and be seen listening and to listen to the members of congress and try to

work in some of their suggestions and that's important in building legislative coalitions and all presidents have to do it. >> it goes both ways, too. i was a policy person at the department of justice and, you know, it's a very close relationship between the administration and in congress the party of the president. so, you know, when we were in office, the republicans on the hill of us going up to the hill saying we want the patriot act authorized. how does it work? why what the president is saying about it is not true. it's not trampling all of these. and you're dispelling these myths in the public and the press and you're working on legislative language. how to draft bills and so forth. but people on the hill are also coming to the department of justice saying you know what? i really want to do a bill on meth. in iowa, meth is a big problem. we want to -- you know, whatever the problem is they come to doj you have experts in drug law and

how do we draft it. so it's very much a two-way street. >> we'll take another question from one of our students. >> i'm from washington state. and this is for anybody. what are your opinions in regards to the current political rift and fraction between the democrats and the republicans? >> >> the political -- what was the question. >> and the fraction. >> do you want to take that michael since you can see it a little bit directly? >> well, there are always risks between the parties. and there's a lot said how the american people want their members of congress to find solutions and that's true. but at the same time, you also want spirited debate. you want people to have this diversity of ideas so that this is the marketplace of ideas that we always talk about. and it's happening on the hill every day, where people are floating their suggestions and trying to work through to find

the best solutions they possibly can. but i think it's true that at times it seems like the rhetoric gets a little out of control and drives otherwise good people from getting in or staying in politics and so it becomes -- it becomes a big problem but you have to sort of distinguish between differences over substance, which we should embrace differences for tone and civility which is something that doesn't always work. it doesn't work well and doesn't look like good as we try to work through a solution. >> we'll take one from over here on this side. >> my name is justin from hawaii. my question is, in this discussion you've addressed some of the civil discourse on the home front but looking at it from an international point of view, because reagan was already an effective communicator during the cold war, why do you guys think he still continues to increase defense spending and up

the military and industrial complex even though we had those schools why did he -- do you mind if i take this question. i'm glad you asked this question because i was a young staffer in the white house in 1984. my first job was reading the mail that came to president reagan, and select ago sample that went with him every weekend to camp david that he would respond to personally. and i was there at the time where president reagan had proposed putting the missiles in europe. as a protection, as a defense -- and don't forget this was the time of the cold war. the president had intelligence that the soviet union was crumbling. and we have to really trust our leaders, the commander in chief, i think, when they are faced with the intelligence that nobody else sees but really made

a decision that showing the strength of the united states -- [inaudible] >> the soviet union against the united states when he knew they were not capable. so it was -- it was seen as a warmongering decision. the president did believe in the strength -- the military strength of the united states for being capable of waging peace, not war. so i think it was a controversial decision but in the core principles that president reagan was believing in and rebuilding the defenses of the united states of america and its military knowing that position that it played in the world as a leader and a protection for other countries as well.

>> thank you. >> you mentioned president reagan's strong beliefs and a true guiding principle in his life and they didn't see him waiver from that. >> right. >> how does that play out on the hill when you have a president who is strong and clear and direct in their convictions and even though it may differ on the other side of the party, how does it -- does it make the opposition stiffer or is there ways you can work with the other side as you were talking about, michael, president reagan was able to accomplish much of his agenda with the democratic congress much of the time. so how do you do that effectively? it's not always done so what was it about president reagan or any leader who is -- who has those very strong ideological beliefs but is able to accomplish an agenda like president reagan was able to accomplish. >> you know what i found what's interesting about president reagan, you know, he took office in a big election in 1980. he didn't