union there. they're trying to work things out in terms of teacher evaluation. where are you from? >> i'm from new jersey. little silver, right on the shore. >> so, you know, your convention going to be teachers because yes. >> why? >> i have some important teachers in my life. i want to be an influence in other students lives. >> you know you are smart. you can make a lot more money doing something else. >> but for me it's not about the money. >> i'm going to talk about how i think schools need to change because the world has changed. >> i'm and agriculture education. >> do have family or parents? >> i grew up on a farm. >> do have family in education? >> no.

>> what do your folks is a? >> i have a plan laid out. >> what year are you in high school? >> i am a senior. >> i'm a junior. >> you are going to go to college in the fall. where are you going? >> the college of new jersey. stunt rikers? >> no, it's called the college of new jersey. >> i'm going to the ohio state university. >> so you don't have to decide for a while. that's pretty cool. baystate teacher training is chaining. they say that now, i just talking to a guy, a teacher training in maryland. they won't let you become an education major until after your sophomore year. and then you start in school.

you don't just stay at the university or college. you spend a lot of time in school. that's really important. and other countries, say south korea, a teacher might spend the first year paid, but watching and doing practice teaching. to see if they really have what it takes. that's great. i think it's terrific you are here. i would offer you a glass of wine but -- >> i would say no. >> i wouldn't offer it anyway. that's terrific. nice to meet you all. >> great to meet you. >> i'm going to point you out when i say something. governor, how are you? >> great.

>> she said she read the book. and i said i can't do some of the early meetings -- hey, how are you? >> great to see you. >> i'm a huge fan, admirer of linda and renée. so i guess it's something i've got to do. what is at? >> deborah thomas. >> what your readers want. >> congratulations. >> i think you'll like the book. >> how i ever not like reading one of your books?

>> this one is pretty good. this one is a pretty good book. do you know why? this time i listen to other people. i said reid's, and they would say i don't understand. that's the thing. whether your writing makes her start reading, so yeah. >> in my writing days, i used to write, and i still remember -- can't do it. >> i've got some stories in your. >> thank you for all you're doing. really appreciate it.

>> really? >> yeah, we're 38 and 2003. if you're ever in minneapolis. it's not good. >> at least they're talking about it. >> congratulations on your book. >> thank you. >> meeting with you from time to time, and applauding every time. >> great. we are still in trouble though. >> no kidding.

>> it's like every once in a while, two steps forward and take two steps back, or sometimes three steps back. [inaudible] >> they had that meeting, the 16 countries, and the only reason we were there was we were the host. we didn't qualify otherwise. they wouldn't even let me in. i heard from jim kelly and others. attitude was, what do you guys duke? -- what do you guys do?

[inaudible] >> look at the principles that underlie. it really doesn't matter whether you're talking about and toward or europe or other parts of the world. it's just that strategy thing. >> you're right. that's scary. [applause] >> so my role is to introduce the video from someone that i know we all know, and he will say some things that i think to tell the story about john

tremendous contributions from his passions, the impact that these had over the years. but before that, let me just say, a member of john sport, it's a privilege to regularly visit with him and the staff to see the kind of caring, incredible journalistic standards and quality that they define every single task they set out to do. i also want to tell you that i thought i knew everything john this book, and i realized his book like many of his field pieces really are thought-provoking. even though i know most of you in this room are expert in education, i think you'll find some of his background information, but also some of his questions and the way he presents the context. he really very informative and very thought-provoking.

so i encourage you to buy a lot of the books and send it to your friends or give them to your colleagues at work. jesse we are, but the sale of this book helps fund the empire for continuing john's important work. so with that, i'm sure that if the jim lehrer could've been here tonight, john's longtime colleague and partner in public television, he would have done so, but he did the next best thing which is create this video. so enjoy. >> good evening, i'm jim lehrer. in the news this evening john merrow, our education correspondent, has written a book. "the influence of teachers." i believe john is a leading education journalist in america.

he should become he's been at it for a long time. john is the only reporter to have interviewed every u.s. secretary of education. often for this program. statistics, at the money and labor from a b+ in psychology, and a in bible one, i don't because a very strong record. i won my case but i think we would say no. >> the most difficult thing is what comes up comes in the office and says why did you do

this to me? and then begins to cry. >> john can be confrontational as he was with his union leader in philadelphia. >> you're asking can you evaluate on the performance of the student. >> was secretly receiving money from the makers of ritalin. >> you don't see that as a conflict of interest taking money from the drug companies? >> we see it as a responsibility of the drug company to give us that money. >> he knows how to hang back, let the story reveal itself. >> the next word will be strenuous. strenuous is spelled

s-t-r-e-n-o-u-s. >> that's not how strenuous is spelled. but his students might not never know it. >> after all these year john is still added because there are stores to be told and because he is having fun. >> in a part of town that is seen better days. i've seen better days, too. i've spent my whole life investigate schools, looking for the best, exposing the worst. this is my story. >> mr. merrow i presume? >> the influence of teachers is a good book, and an important one. i'm happy to show our support. [applause] >> if this were the "newshour" it would now be in conversation

but even more special for all this is wonderful. we shall be grateful for that quality journalism. it's my pleasure to introduce, i understand they are close college. john tells stories and keep us informed of education but is a person who understands the content of what it takes to educate people. i don't think people understand the substance of the issue of that which their reporting so we really don't get the full picture. josh kaufman is in the same vein. he is a lawyer who has worked on the computer and cyber side of the world, works on arts and entertainment. has substantive knowledge in each of these arenas. he worked for 10 years, involved with the arts and entertainment world are so he brings real

substance, real context to his work as an attorney. so josh, we welcome you on behalf of of the institute to our party. [applause] >> it's a real pleasure. jon and i go back about 30 years. i told john, it doesn't matter, the first deals with npr,. [inaudible] i've been on the board of earning matters since its inception. and although i'm not in the education field, my contributions have generally been more on the entertainment side of the business, i have been so impressed with john earning matters over the years. i've heard from a lot of people in the media, and the balance in

the quality of what learning matters presents has presented for 30 years now, to me one of the most amazing things. you see a piece of learning matters and it is balance, it is unlikely they were everything has an agenda. learning matters, both sides get an opportunity to state their peace in their own words, their own manner. but john doesn't shy away from controversy. everybody is there, everybody gets a say. we're talking about an obsession that is one peabody awards, several emmy awards. the work is top top notch. there's nothing better on tv, no one better than this than john. know windows is industry better than john.

whatever the issue is, the best source in california, the school sleuth. the school sleuth is wonderful. all the obvious things are brought up. how many cars are in the parking lot? i mean, it's that in depth kind of look, no blinders, out of the box. and learning matters has been there for years, and all the revenue by the way goes to learning matters. this is not a book to lend to your friends. this is a book to buy. encourage your friends to go to amazon.com and buy. we want to buy, not lend. all the prophets, all the

royalties will go to lending matters. so, that being said, it is an incredible pleasure that i introduced my good friend and colleague, john merrow. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you very much, josh. on behalf of the learning matters, our small and energetic production company, i express all our gratitude for you folks for being here, but i want to say just a quick word about three folks who just heard from. marty you know as community schools, president for the institution of leadership, and he is a big deal. but when he goes home he is not that big a deal. is wife is a powerhouse. their daughter, molly, is an up-and-coming an already

excellent -- to be friends with more is like winning the trifecta, frankly. marty, you're a lucky man, as well as a special friend. josh kaufman has been as he set a personal friend and our attorney for 30 years, a founding member of the board. he has gotten me out of trouble more than once, but i think more important than that he is kept me from getting into trouble, which is actually more important. what was the most recent one was david guggenheim when he still our footage for that, that disgraceful documentary, "waiting for superman." anyway, josh i hope will be friends for another 30 years. you look like you will make it, i don't know if i will or not. sandy welsh is a leader of learning matters, and she has steered us through incredibly

tough times. she took over as board chair and our founding chair, judge way amok in aldie, sorry, lost a battle with cancer, and then, of course, she inherited that job just as the worst recession we are not to that part yet, but sandy, you have been just terrific. i just wanted a couple words about the book, which i hope you will enjoy. first, strenuous. that came from a documentary about a teacher shortage, and we're not trying to embarrass that young man. if you watch the whole documentary you will discover he is a junior high school phys ed teacher, and he has been told by his superintendent who is also the high school principal in a small town in georgia that he has to go teach high school english, high school math. you may have noticed who the

students are. story. georgia at the time had a loophole that allowed a teacher, to teach up to 49% of stuff he had she -- he or she had never study. it was only what went to 50% your or out of field. it's a disgrace. and we probably should frost that because he was put in a position where he could not succeed. teachers generally have an attitude, put me in, coach. for whatever reasons. and he would have lost his job had he -- but it's a statement about how we treat teachers and how we treat the needs of our kids. i wrote this book, "the influence of teachers," as this war that was heating up, this ongoing war, fighting over

tenure, seniority, merit pay and so on. in the book i talk about two camps. there's one camp which says it's a matter of defining the problem. this one camp says the problem is people. we just need better people. we can send better people, everything would be solved. now, that side has firepower. it has a lot of. it has opera. it has education nation. it was heavily weighted towards charter schools. it has a lot of intra- capitalist hedge fund guys supporting it so on and so on. the other side, diane ravitch with a megaphone. and the teacher unions and a few other people but it's an unfair fight.

so, the other side is saying no, it's not a matter of better people. it's a matter of making teaching a better job. we need to make teaching a better job here can now, there's fact, a problem, that we lose 40% of teachers in the first five years. 40% of no other profession you can dream of has that rate of turn. and it matters because this is a country with 311 million people. one out of every 100 americans is a public school teacher. if you add up all the accounts and lawyers, doctors, higher ed teachers, put all them together, we have more teachers and all those people put together. it really does matter. there's a huge amount of churn going on in the profession. in 1987 the mode mode is the

most common, in 1987 the most for users grants was 15 years. there were more teachers that were teaching 15 years than any other, 14 years, 12 years, et cetera, et cetera. guess what the mode is now? >> one. >> it is one. we have more first year teachers than at any other. and icy jaws dropped. that is also a huge opportunity. there are astounding things going on in education, but if you think the job is to make teaching a better job, the problem there is that there's a trade union definition of better job. it is how late can you get there in the morning? how soon can you leave? after 3:00. how may days in advance does the principle have to ask you for

permission to come watch you teach? it's a very near trade union definition that you need to negotiate and school boards agreed to. so you can't just lay blasting is because some school boards signed these silly contracts. so the better job, better people battle is raging. but the point of this book is this is the last war. this war is irrelevant. absolutely irrelevant to our children. how many of you in this room are over the age of 27? [laughter] well, yeah. so am i. okay, if you're over the age of 27, you went to school because that's where they kept the knowledge. think about it. the knowledge was in the textbooks. it was in the encyclopedias. it was in the teachers had. that is simply not true today. now information is everywhere.

our schools remain these answer factories, these regurgitations education stuff. where antigravity helping our kids learn how to formulate questions. how do you turn information into knowledge? somebody said what's the difference between information and knowledge? information is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. knowledge is knowing that you don't put it into a fruit salad. [laughter] think about it. so we should be helping our kids to formulate questions. how do you know that? how do you simply -- who want them to choose week. so of course we're teaching value. there's three reasons if you're over 27, three reason she went to school. one was that's because that's where they kept the knowledge. the second was for socialization. let's learn to get along together. you're a different color, learn to get along.

there's an app for that today, right? [laughter] i say it lightly but, in fact, there is. our kids are like, it's like penpals on steroids. they are socializing. or forking your to socialize with a whole bunch of people she thinks her 14. they might be a 40 year old congressmen. [laughter] you know? so we have to teach our kids about the power of this technology, the power about sexting and all this stuff. they have to be armed. they have to be literate. now the third reason we went to school still obtains and that's custodial care. we still need school, a place to send our kids, our kids or grandchildren. if the education that is provided is married this regurgitation education, then

it's not quite meaningless but close. then schools in fact become dangerous places. because children are smart. they have high energy, and if it's not used purposefully and positively, it will be, i guarantee you it will be -- you've heard of cyberbullying, that's which is child abuse by children. you want to call it what it is. and so, you know, the stakes are really high at this point. the challenge is to transform -- schools are not going to go away. charter sch them are. they are 5%. of our kids. homeschooling, our children are going to go to public school so we need, we need schools that become, places where children learn to ask questions, learned there's no question to be afraid of, learn to ask why.

how do you know that? how do you know that you know that? inquiry means project-based learning. it means turning around so we don't put teachers in a position of that poor young man. and ways to engage kids, to get rid of these answer factories in the regurgitation education. i hope, i think there are some answers in there. i think it's absolutely vital that we be a force to counter this attack that is going on, as if the problem is just -- i firmly believe that if you make teaching a better job so that the men and women, levine we have a whole lot better people right there all along. we just need to take away some of the shackles. we need to redefine what we're doing in a transformative way. and i hope you'll read the book. thank you very much for being here. let's party.

thank you. [applause] >> john merrow as the president of learning matters, the nonprofit production company that focuses on education. for more information visit learningmatters.tv. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book titled in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also share anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> you been watching booktv, 48 hours of book