>> yeah. >> that must have been a reporting challenge for you. >> yeah. >> how did you dole what -- deal with that? >> i took a lot of aspirin because i think the teachers can relate, it's really, really loud at the school. um, you know, it's loud at any high school, but when you hear 28 languages at once in the halls, it's just -- [laughter] it's amazing. so, um, the kids were a huge help to me because several of the students who i wrote about, um, were already very, very proficient in english and, of course, their native language, and some spoke several native languages. and they were translators to me. so anytime i ran into a translation problem, i didn't have to hire a formal translator, i just asked the kids. >> as -- how many students are there at that time? >> somewhere around 400. the school, um, had been in existence for, um, one -- for four years.

now they're, i think, the fifth year. so the class, the student body kept growing. but now i think it was the biggest class ever that was just accepted this year, and it's something around 400 students now, i think, right? >> how, among all those students, did you choose the ones that you would talk to and interview and then write about in your book? >> um, i had a question that i asked all of the teachers at the beginning of the year which was, when you go home at night, who are the students you can't stop thinking about? and, um, really the teachers led me to find these students. and one girl from china had written a college essay about coming to america. her very first week she was supposed to move in with her father who she hadn't seen in years, and when she got there on her first day, her new stepmother, basically, didn't want her there and kicked her out. and she was, when i met her,

living on her own in a room that she represented in china town. so for one english teacher, that was the student she couldn't stop thinking about when she went home at night, and every other student i basically found that way, except for a burmese girl who i found because i wanted to observe a new student, and i really just ran into her on the first day of school and sounded very interesting that she was the only person in the whole school who spoke her language. no one else did. so i thought she would be an interesting person to follow. >> and back live at the miami book fair. it's a street fair this weekend on the campus of miami-dade college, and here's the book, you just saw brooke hauser talking about her book in brooklyn, "the new kids" is the name of the book. and now joining us here in miami on our outdoor set is the author, brooke hauser. brooke hauser, what is the international high school? >> the international high school is a high school in brooklyn

that, um, teaches english to new immigrants and refugees from are around the world. so at this school kids come from more than 45 different countries, and they speak more than 28 different languages. basically like the world under one roof. >> how did you find this story about the new kids? because this is a narrative. >> yes. um, well, i had a friend who was working at the international rescue committee which resettles refugees around the country, and i was looking for volunteer opportunities because in addition to my more investigative journalism, i do a lot of celebrity profiles, beyonce, mariah carey, and i wanted to do something really different. and i thought i'd volunteer my time. i heard about a program where you could work with refugee youth at one of these international high schools. the more i learned about the school, the more i decided, you know, this is something i really want to write about these kids, not just volunteer. so i found a high school that was in my neighborhood in prospect heights and, you know, went over there and spent some

time. >> host: and when did you get the idea to write their story? >> guest: well, it started with an article that i wrote for "the new york times" called this strange thing called prom. and i wrote about the kids putting on their first-ever prom. they're brand new to the country, they had no idea what prom was. and, you know, that made the planning of it very difficult. and they basically studied for prom the way you or i might have studied for a chemistry exam. they would watch a movie like "mean girls" and say, okay, i get it, prom king, prom queen, you know, this is how you do prom. so i followed them for the few months that they were organizing it, and in the end it was unlike any prom i'd been to or heard of, and the most popular girl was a goat herder from tibet. these kids were so charming, i fell in love with them. i knew from that point on i'd only scratched the surface, and it would make a great book to go back to the high school. >> brooke hauser, were they trying to be americans through the prom? >> some were and some with

respect. when you have kids coming from more than 45 different countries, you get a whole range of, you know, what it means to be american and what it means to assimilate and if people even want to assimilate. some of the students, you know, immediately started changing their dress and would wear, you know, designer jeans and converse sneakers. other kids, you know, from bangladesh, say, would continue to wear their head scarves, so it really depended on the culture how much they wanted to adjust. >> host: what was the kids' reaction to your following them around and writing their stories? >> guest: most of the kids were very open. um, you know, i found the five kids who i followed by asking their teachers when you go home at night, who are the students that you can't stop thinking about. and i found all sorts of different kids that way, but for

one teacher that was a chinese girl who was supposed to come live with her father after seven years of not seeing him. when she got to new york, she found that he was remarried and had two little boys with his new wife, and the stepmother kicked her out of the apartment, would not let her live with them. so when i met this girl, she was living on her own in new york city. >> host: and what was her name? >> guest: her name was jessica. >> host: right. >> guest: you know, it really ranged, the kinds of students who i found. but that was how, that was how i found a coup l of the students, and i also found them by reading their college essays. >> host: 202 is the area code that talk to brooke hauser about the students she followed in new york city, 624-1111 if you live in the east and central time zones, 624-1115 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. you can also send a tweet, twitter.com/booktv. brooke hauser, which language --

was english used as the teaching language in this school? >> guest: yes. the goal is for the students to learn english, but the executive director of the international network for public schools which oversees many of these high schools in new york and a couple in california, she likes to say that learning english is kind of like riding a bicycle. you don't learn by watching someone else riding it, you learn by getting on. so these students are really thrown into learning english. they're brand new to the country, you know, they're put into classes where the lessons are being taught in english, but they have training wheels, and those training wheels are their native languages. so students work in groups. there might be a kid from senegal in the same group as a kid from haiti. perhaps they share a common language of, you know, french because creole has its roots in french. and, you know, the students are able to tutor and help each other so the ones who are more proficient in english are able to coach the ones who need more help.

they're learning english all of a sudden, all at once, but they have these different support structures in place to make sure that they don't fail at it. >> host: were there any concerns, did you have any concerns seeing these kids, weren't they kind of isolated from the larger american kid population? >> guest: definitely isolated in the school in that there were no american students at this school. to be eligible to get into the high school, you have to havelied in the united states -- lived in the united states for fewer than four years, you have to be from another country, and you have to have failed an english language assessment exam in order to get in. so, um, you know, people have different opinions about whether this model works. i, i felt it was very successful and, you know, as different and diverse as the students were, they were all in the same boat in that they were all brand new to the country. and that rule got a lot of teasing and taunting that comes along with being brand new to a place, especially as a teenager. if you have a different accept or a different way of -- accent

or a different way of dressing. >> host: what were their parents' reactions to your writing the story? >> guest: the parents, you know, you'd asked me about the students and how they felt, and i basically really -- i found the students by asking their teachers that question, but then i narrowed it down by looking for kids who really wanted to talk to me. it wasn't enough that i found their stories interesting, i wanted them to find my project interesting, to know that they would be with me for the long haul. and so the students who came to me and who were interested in sharing their stories were pretty much as committed to the book and telling their story as i was. and for the most part, so were their parents, if they came here with parents. one thing that really surprised me was how many students had made the journey to the united states alone. and even one boy who i write about in the book from sierra leone, the way he came here is a little more complicated, but when i met him, he was basically on his own and had been since

the age of 14 or 15. so the parents weren't always in the picture. but he did later have a legal guardian -- >> host: was that mohamed? >> guest: yes, it is. yeah. so, you know, all of the kids i had them sign release forms or had their parents sign release forms or their legal guardians. someone was, you know, protecting them, and so was i. it was very important to me -- >> host: how did mohamed get into the country? >> guest: how did he get into the country? he came here with a church group, and, um, you know, the understanding was that he was supposed to live in connecticut for a certain amount of weeks, and he did, and he adjusted well, and, um, you know, i don't want to give away his whole story -- >> host: sure. >> guest: basically, he had come from one of the poorest places in the entire world, sierra leone, specifically a rural village. he grew up in a mud hut with no

running water or electricity. more than 20 children, his father had had a few wives. and when he came to connecticut, i think he really felt that he, you know, he was happy there for a while and, um, like i say, you know, his story takes some twists and turns, but, um, he never did go back to sierra leone. when i met him, he was living in new york city working for some african glue makers which was not his choice exactly. so he had a very twisted, complicated journey here and, um, since, you know, he has attended the school, he's really succeeded, excelled, and he's now on a four-year scholarship. one of the hardest working kids i've met. >> host: do most of the kids stay in the u.s. afterwards? are most here legally? >> guest: most are here legally, yes. most of the kids are here as, you know, legal immigrants or, um, refugees.

that said, 15% of the senior class the year i was there was undocumented, and in this country we had a 1982 supreme court case which ruled that students, regardless of their legal status, have the right the go to public school and get a free public education. so it's scary to see that challenged now, and i think that whatever your feelings about undocumented immigrants in this country, it's hard to argue with, um, you know, the advantage of educating all children. because a lot of the kids, um, are going to stay anyway. so the question is, do you want them to be contributing, valuable members of society or not? and if you do, education is very important. >> host: "the new kids" is the book. "big dreams and brave journeys at a high school for immigrant teens." tracy nicole here in miami, you're the first call for author brooke hauser. >> caller: hi. good afternoon. it's such a pleasure to have you

both here in miami. welcome to our city. as you can see, um, you know, we're a very multicultured city full of people from different places, and i wanted to ask brooke, first, i want to congratulate her on her project. i think it's going to be a fundamental piece of work that can be utilized all around in different educational institutions. my question was how you feel from the time you experienced high school to what you experienced writing the project, the book and the difference in how you forecast the future of education in the 21st century of america? >> guest: um, you know, this book isn't really about education per se, and i'm not an education expert, but i would love the see more of these high schools, um, set up. it's not the specific -- if not the specific model then, you

know, i think there's a real problem in addressing the needs of new immigrants who are also learning english. i grew up in miami, actually, and, um, miami as you pointed out is a city of, you know, very multicultural city. i went to school with a lot of kids from cuba and from haiti and everywhere. and, um, i lived in new york and l.a., and it was recently news that those cities, big cities are not meeting the needs of english language learners. and, um, you know, they're treated as a relatively low priority in the public school system, and i think that's largely because, you know, they don't -- not all the kids have voices yet, and if they don't have voices, the parents don't have voices because they may not speak english. i think it's important to give all kids a great education, and that's what i would like to see, better programs and schools for

the kids who need it most. >> host: with so many nationalities represented at the school in brooklyn, were there tensions between kids from different countries? >> guest: yeah, definitely. you know, one of the ones that always comes to mind, and it wasn't, you know, it wasn't too bad, but, um, tibetan students and chinese students. the whole reason that a lot of the kids and their families lefty bet in the first place was because they were not able to fully practice their culture, their custom, their language, their religion, um, you know, under chinese government control. so, um, here step into the cafeteria at the international high school, and there are still tensions among those groups, between those groups. and i remember one day a flier was passed out to advertise an upcoming meeting of the tibetan unclub, and the chinese boys said, nah, don't go to tibetan club, come to chinese club first

because tibet is inside of china. and that really fired up some of the tibetan kids, things like that do happen. >> host: pearl, you're on with author brooke hauser on booktv on c-span2. >> caller: hello. fabulous book. i would like to know if you have any tips for teachers and professors about how these teachers handled the perspective view of students, especially where students had very different perspectives. when i was the head of an english department at a college, i had teachers who were, became very concerned about students who wrote papers ranting and raving about the goth. government. and i would interview the students and find they're not talking about washington, they're talking about the eastern bloc country that they've just come from. so how did these teachers handle that? were students -- where students literally did not have what we

would call an american perspective on certain cultural or historical experience cial issues as yet. thank you. >> host: thank you, pearl. >> guest: well, that's a good question. and, again, the thing that immediately comes to mind, i was there 2008-2009, the year that barack obama was elected president. and that was fascinating for me because, um, the kids didn't quite grasp the significance of this moment in america's history, the moment that a black man becomes president, why that was such a huge deal in the united states. and that's because a lot of the kids were coming from haiti or, you know, western africa, places where they've always had or for a long time have had black leaders. so some of, you know, the students didn't, they didn't have the same perspective, same point of view as some american-born kids would have. and the way that the teachers seemed to handle it is they just shared their own experience. so the teachers told their students why it was so significant to them personally to see a black man elected

president. and they took it one step farther, and they said, you know, i'm going to vote tomorrow, and here's how you vote. you go to, you know, your local school or church, and this is what you do, and this is how you do it. this is why it's important to vote. and so i think that's the way the teachers handled different points of views and perspective is that they shared their own. >> host: some of the kids go on to college? >> guest: many of the kids, most of the kids go on to college. and that was one of the things that was most impressive to me about the school was, you know, the kids are mixed together in classes no matter their nationality, religion, education, background. you get kids who are coming from, a minority coming from, perhaps, a boarding school in china. then you get a kid from maybe sierra leone or guinea who's never held a pencil before the ninth grade. and no matter where the kids have come from, they really make strides at the high school. and i mentioned the nomadic yak herder before -- >> host: the prom queen. >> guest: the most popular girl

at prom. [laughter] and that same girl, she was, she arrived here -- i don't love the term illiterate, but she arrived here not knowing how to read or write. and, um, she is now at an excellent liberal arts college, and that just shows, you know, how hard she worked in four years. and so, you know, many of the kids go on to college. >> host: did the teachers there volunteer the work at this school? is are they assigned? who tease the principal? -- who's the principal? >> guest: well, the original principal is actually an immigrant herself from ecuador and, you know, her story's very interesting to me because as a child she came here, herself undocumented. since then she's become -- you know, she's here legally, of course, but her story was very interesting to me. she was so passionate about the school. she has such a moving story herself, and the students really looked up to her. so as far as how teachers are recruited, you know, in this all

different ways. they have all different backgrounds. many of them are young, many of them speak different languages. but there is much of a hodgepodge in some ways as the kids are. >> host: are you still in contact with some of the kids? >> guest: yes. um, i was invited to give the 2011 commencement speech at graduation which was a very moving moment for me. and so i saw one of the boys from sierra leone graduate and several other kids who i know. and then, of course, there's facebook, so -- [laughter] i have way too many, you know, teenagers who are my facebook friends. >> host: brooke hauser is who we're talking about with. this is her first book, "the new kids." brookehauser.com is her web site. she also writes or has written for "the new york times", the miami herald, the l.a. times and was an editor for premier magazine for a long time. now what kind of writing are you doing? are you working on another book? >> guest: well, i need to find another subject that i love as much as this one, and i intend

to. >> host: do you have some in mind? >> guest: you know, i have a few ideas, but nothing, nothing that is sticking quite yet. so i'm really on the lookout. if you have ideas for me, let me know. [laughter] >> host: you say you grew up here in miami? >> guest: i'm from miami. >> host: right. where'd you go to school? >> guest: miami killian senior high school. >> host: and college? >> guest: kenyan college in ohio. >> host: and english major? >> guest: american studies, yeah. a little bit of everything. >> host: how did you get into the writing business? >> guest: um, well, it started with "the miami herald". i went to an enormous public high school, and that had one of the advantages was that they had some internship programs that you could do outside of the school, and so i started at the miami herald and, you know, covered the city and really found a love for journalism and kept at it. >> host: robert in brooklyn, home of the international high school. robert, go ahead with your question. >> caller: yes. i have a quick question about the school system. what, um, who's paying for the

school system for these, for the non-english-speaking children that are immigrants? and be, um, is that going to come out of my tax money to pay for this free education that american citizens can't get? >> guest: well, american citizens can get a free education. you know, every american is supposed to get a free public education as i was mentioning with this filer v. doe case. and the international high school, you know, the one i was at is funded by the department of education, but they also get a lot of, um, outside grants and support from other organizations. so, you know, as i said before, it behooves our country to educate all children. you don't want a bunch of uneducated, um, children. i mean, that's not the preference. the preference is for us to have contributing, valuable members

of society regardless of legal status. >> host: next call for brooke hauser comes from mike in hawaii. go ahead, mike. >> caller: thank you. brooke, i just wanted to ask with your school, this new school, what is the percentage of kids that come from china or from the different countries, and also if school is taking advantage of new technology in, like, presenting material, like on youtube or other material that has been, um, put out, and there seems to be a resistance from a lot of public schools to use that because they feel it might replace the teacher. and i just wanted to ask if this school could take advantage of this, you know, technology that wasn't available, let's say, 10 or 15 years ago.

>> sure. well, um, as for the percentage of students, there are a lot of students from china, from the dominican republic, you know, so many different countries are represented. those are, those are big populations. same with haiti. and regarding the technology, um, i think that the teachers and stuff are always looking for different tools, you know, to teach the students. and, you know, at this school in particular there's a documentary club. so the kids are involved in film making and, you know, with kids who are learning english, i think it's very important to take advantage of all the different tools that are out there, um, you know, art class, for instance. when you don't speak the language, um, what a great thing to begin with, you know, drawing and painting and expressing yourself without words first and then gradually becoming comfortable enough to begin using those words. technology, i would say, i would

think at any school there's just the question of whether there are funds for that. >> host: we have a few minutes left with brooke hauser. again, brookehauser.com is her web site. membershipty in franklin, tennessee -- mindy in franklin, tennessee. good afternoon from miami. >> caller: good afternoon. brooke, thank you for doing this book. i am a retired english teacher, and i taught in california public schools, so i know about a multicultural classroom. i also recognize that when the -- [inaudible] is expected in the classroom, kids have an easier time to learn. my question for you is this, did you find in the schools in new york that students from the english-speaking caribbean who speak a kind of dialect were regarded as, um, positive students of the school? did you meet any of those students? >> guest: as, as what kind of

students at the school? >> host: mindy, we didn't quite catch that. >> caller: oh, the students from the english-speaking caribbean who speak a dialect of english. >> host: a dialect of english. >> guest: a dialect. >> caller: were there any at your school? an english creole. >> guest: oh, yeah. well, there were kids -- a creole of english? the one that comes to mind, of course this area of brooklyn is full of people from the caribbean, but when you say a creole of english, the one that comes to mind is creole, actually, from freetown in sierra leone. and, you know, that, that was interesting. the boy from see sierra leone se a west african language and also creole, and it might be just as hard to learn standard english when you grow up speaking creole

was the words are so similar -- because the words are so similar. and he taught me some phrases, like, i know how to say how are you feeling in creole. it means how's the body. if you say i'm doing well, you say, the body fine. a lot of kids spoke creole, and some of the kids from other countries picked up little bits of creole as they were also picking up standard accomplish. >> host: are the kids on the cover, or is this a model -- >> guest: those are stock photos of kids, but that said, i was very involved in designing and -- not designing the cover, i had a great designer, but in putting input into the cover and choosing the kids who i thought would, i really wanted them to represent the diversity of the school. >> host: was there are a hierarchy among students based on nationality at all? >> guest: no, there wasn't. um, you know, i was looking for things like that, and i was looking for the mean girls and the jocks and, you know, the class clowns and the nerds and

all the typical high school cliques, and in the end i found really, truly yak hearders and farmers from te bit, and i found a group of boys from china who all aspired to be hair designers which i don't know, i don't know what a hair designer is exactly, but if you asked them what they wanted to be, they said hair designer. and it was like five boys, and every day they came in with edward scissorhands-style haircuts. there was a group in the cafeteria called the arabic family, boys mostly are from yaleen. so there were all these -- yemen. so there were all these different groups, and rap groups from the dominican republic and haiti. but no hierarchy, the kids were equal. >> host: were there are issues among the different religious groups? >> guest: um -- >> host: you mentioned the arabic family. >> guest: the arabic family, yeah. there were, you know, sometimes you would hear discussions about palestine and israel. i don't really get into any of that in the book.

you would hear, um, you know, certainly the kids from china and can the kids from tibet who are buddhist. there weren't a lot of religious tensions at the school, no. but there were a lot of kids who were muslim and who were struggling to deal with how to, um, manage their and how to balance their muslim cultures and traditions with, you know, life in america where, you know, like, for instance, going to prom some of the girls couldn't get their fathers to let them go to prom. so there were more issues like that, not tensions between religions so much as, you know, tensions between the old worlds and new. >> host: time for one more call for brooke hauser. her book is "the new kids." larry in atlanta, you're the last word. >> caller: just wanted to know from brooke, good book i read, whether all of the people were bilingual, and do they have the same requirements, you know -- [inaudible] >> guest: are the teachers

bilingual? >> host: we got that part, larry, we got the bilingual part. what was the second half of your question? the a little hard to hear. >> caller: are the teachers, basically the same requirements that teach in a traditional city school in the new york city area? >> host: thanks, larry. >> guest: yes. the teachers have standard backgrounds, similar as you would find at schools in new york city and around the country. no, it's not a requirement to be bilingual, but many of the teachers are bilingual and trilingual and i'm not going to go there. [laughter] they speak, you know, some of them several different languages. and, of course, that helps tremendously. especially if you have a student who is one of the only students in school to speak his or her own language. >> host: this is the book. it's called "the new kids: big dreams and brave journeys at a high school for immigrants, teens." the author is brooke hauser, and it's brookehauser.com in case

you would like to go to her web site and see some reviews of the book. published by free press. thank you, brooke hauser, we appreciate it. >> guest: thank you so much. >> host: well, coming up in just a minute, we're going to show you an event, we have one more call-in coming up, and that's with jim lair. it's about his hosting a presidential debate, so you'll have a chance to chat with him. not only are we broadcasting live from miami on booktv on c-span2, but we are also broadcasting on booktv.org. separate events. these are author events up in chapman hall. right now nell irvin painter and randall kennedy are talking about their respect i have bodies of work. their most recent books, painter, the history of white people, and randall kennedy, the persistence of the color line. they're up in chapman hall. you can watch all of that online. and, in fact, we've got a tweet here in voting poet saying i simply can't find this broadcast on the web site.

what is it listed under? well, voting poet, if you go to booktv.org, right in the center of the home page it says featured video, and right under that featured video it will say miami. and there'll be a big watch button. click on that watch button, and your video will come right up, and you'll be able to watch it online there. um, so that's online. we're also broadcasting live here on c-span2 on booktv. we have a couple more hours of coverage from the 2011 miami book fair. well, coming up next bill clinton spoke in new york recently about two weeks ago at the new york historical society. he was in conversation with his daughter, chelsea clinton, about his most recent book, "back to work." want to show that to you now. [background sounds]

>> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. my name is sonny, and on behalf of all my colleagues at the doubleday publishing group, i'd like to welcome you to the new york historical society for what proms to be -- promises to be a memorable evening of conversation. tonight's conversation will reach across the generations. we use that term when the old are interviewed by the young. and we'll focus on something of interest to everyone in this room, our collective future. the american dream is a powerful concept. of late the talk has been of us being derailed. people are worried about their jobs, they're worried about the

economy, they're worried that we've lost our competitive edge. and they're concerned that america -- they're concerned that the american safety nets are fraying and not be there for them when they retire. my good friend, president clinton, has written a new book that addresses these concerns. in "back to work," the president writes, and i quote: i came of age believing that no matter what happened i would always be able to support myself. it became a crucial part of my identity. it drove me to spend a good portion of my adult life trying to give others the same chance. president clinton goes on to say it's heartbreaking to see so many people trapped in a web of idleness, debt and doubt. we have to change that.

we've got to get america back in the future business. president clinton, wisest of statesmen and dedicated public servant, will be joined on teenage is tonight by one -- stage tonight by one of our brightest young citizens, also a champion of public service, chelsea clinton. chelsea clinton is a graduate of stanford, has earned a master's from columbia and is currently pursuing a doctorate at oxford. her recent professional and academic work has focused on improving access to health care for citizens around the world, on equal rights and on education for children. ladies and gentlemen, please, join me in welcoming president clinton and chelsea clinton. [applause]

[applause] >> thank you. before we begin, i should acknowledge the fact that i am certainly not an unbiased interviewer. [laughter] i am unapologetically and profoundly biased towards my father. we don't always agree, but i certainly always learn from him whether in conversation or in the pleasure of reading many drafts of his book and then finally getting a hard copy myself. um, last week. so i think it would be a good place to start a bit where sonny left off. saying that you wrote this book

largely because you worried that for many of us the american dream had become opaque, and for others it had been lost. and so i think it would be helpful to hear why at this point in time you you were compd to write this book. it is brief, it is distilled, but it is action-oriented. >> well, i first was inclined to do it after the 2010 elections because i went out and did, i don't know, more than 130 events. and i wasn't particularly surprised ant the outcome -- about the outcome for the reasons i state in the book. people tend to hire democrats when things are messed up. if you think about it, in the last three years. so they hire us to fix things, and they didn't feel fixed on election day. they also, the american people are always somehow deeply ambivalent about the role of

government. and they have been from the beginning. keep in mind, we were born in reaction to unaccountable government power. i just had my picture taken with the stamp act. [laughter] imposed by the british government under king george, and it's the first time i think the stamp act's ever left the parliamentary archives in london. it's here for an exhibit that will be at the new york historical society through april. so we always wanted -- we didn't want too much government, but we want enough. and what's enough and not too much is the source of constant debate. and so all this stuff happened, we lost. so what bothered me was that the election was almost completely fact-free. and i think that's not good for us. and then i started thinking

about the last 30 years in american politics, how the sort of anti-government paradigm had led us into one blind alley after another arguing only about whether we should always be against more taxes and always be against more regulations and government would always mess up a two-car parade instead of going to the end and working backwards. how do we build a country that is a country that promotes shared prosperity and new jobs and new opportunities and broad-based educational opportunities for people in the 21st century. and then working back from that, how do you get that? if you look around the world at the most successful countries, they have both a strong economy and a smart and effective government, and they work together. so that's what propelled me the write this. and i'd been saving all these articles that i had gotten out of the newspapers, blog sites,

magazines for, since 2007, since the recession started. about the economy and about other things. and all the books i'd read. and i finally decided i should just try to distill it and say here's a political and economic history of america for the last 30 years, and here's what i think we should do now to put our country back in the future business. that's how i did it and what i was thinking about when i did it. i thought it would be a good thing if every american who cared could have a slim volume with enough facts in it that would prove the case about how we got where we are, and then i could make the argument about what i thought we should do going forward. >> one of the things that you clearly articulate in the book is what in your estimation is just the right amount of government. and what the role of government should be. um, one thing you don't articulate in the book is what should the role of the private sector be and what do you think is just the right amount of engagement and action

particularly at moments like these by the private sector. and certainly for my edification, i'd like to hear you answer the former and the latter together so that there's sort of a clear and cohereto vision of -- cohereto of, you know, what should be rendered unto government and unto the private sector. >> well, i think in general the private sector should do the work of the country. that, basically, the private sector is better at competition, building businesses at work, hiring people, creating jobs. the government should set the rules, the boundaries, how do you get what kind of -- how do we have clean air, how do we have safe, clean water, how do we have safe food, how do we produce energy in a way that maximizes the positive impact and preserves the environment. and should do it in a way that

leaves the largest number of how questions to the private sector that's possible and still get the good results. when i was president, we had 43 million more americans breathing clean air. and we had to pass the chemical rights law which favors transparency, but we tried to set up a system where the private sector was incentivized to meet these objectives at the lowest possible cost in the shortest amount of time. so, but it changes over time. you can -- we privatize some of our management of nuclear stockpiles. nonbomb-making material. over time there will be more and more functions that government used to do that might be profitably done by the private sector just as the government should do things that help us to

get into new areas of economic opportunity or deal with new problems that are broadly shared that the market won't solve. but i'll just give you one example of something that was done in 1980 that is probably more relevant today than it has been in decades. in 1980 with a bipartisan majority, the congress passed a law that president carter signed which provided for federally-funded research to universities that result in commercially-valuable findings to be licensed to the private sector. on terms determined by the university. because it was recognized that the private sector would be able to make the most of the commercial development and that most colleges couldn't run their own businesses. shouldn't be starting businesses and doing it. that tech transfer system has

worked pretty well for 30 years, and one of the things that i argue in my book is that all the colleges in the country that are doing this -- and i have a young cousin who does this work at texas a&m university, and i love talking to him -- >> who does get a shout out in the book. >> what? >> who does get a shout out in the book. >> yeah, yeah. what the heck, i've got to take care of my family, right? [laughter] but the best tech transfer program is probably mit's because they never take any money. they only take stock in the new company. they will give a professor a year off to work in the company, but the professor must promise after a year to bring in a professional business person to run the company. and they've got a lot of other things. but anyway, it works really well. and there's some other