possible. the case he is making which is you need an equivalent law to drink driving i do think it is one that has got a great strength. we are examine a close in government, including we need to look at whether we and opportunity in the second legislative session to take forth the measures i know he'll be campaigning for very hard. >> mr. speaker, does the prime minister share my concern that yesterday's ruling by the european court of human rights cannot be deported? that if he does, will he agree to initiate all party discussions focused not on rhetoric about the human rights act but how in practice this court could operate more so the rights of respected of the safety of the public is always paramount to? >> i agree wholeheartedly with what the right honorable gentleman has said. i think this judgment is difficult to understand, frankly, because huge efforts have been going to by the british government, by this one and the one that he served in,

to have a deportation with assurance agreement with jordan to make sure people wouldn't be mistreated. in this case the european court of human rights has found that he wasn't going to be tortured but they were worried about the process of the court case in jordan. it is immensely frustrating that i do think a country like britain that has a long tradition of human rights should be able to deport people who meet -- who mean us harm. that principle is either important or not is kind of strong rhetoric about it. i'm going to strasburg next week to make the argument that as we are chairing the council of europe this is a good time to actually make reforms to the european court of human rights and make sure it ask a more proportionate way. >> thank you, mr. speaker. [shouting] on the toy of march, 2010, a two and half year old boy was kidnapped from his home and taken to thailand by his mother. six months later his father finally tracked him down in a remote village on his son couldn't speak, had his teeth

broken and bruises all over his body. he believes that they've not got him back then, he would have been killed each year i in the u.k. over 500 children are kidnapped in similar circumstances. will the prime is to meet with me and his father who has a charity called abducted angels and is in the gallery today to discuss with the government can do to help parents of adopted children? [shouting] >> my right honorable friend is actually right to raise this case but it is something and apologies, and any parent can't help but be come a chill to the bone about what happened to this poor boy. i think it's vital we put in place the best possible arrangements. as he knows, the child explication and on my protection system, that will be put into the national crime agency. i very much hope he will be up to legislate for the crime agency and make sure it is properly resourced because as he said it's vitally important when these appalling acts happily get on top of them right away. the early time, it is vital in

saving these children. >> dennis skinner and. >> when there's a prime minister dasher went as the prime mr. expected to cross examine by the letters of inquiry? doesn't he agree that the british people deserve an answer to why he appointed one of murdoch's top lieutenants, andy coulson, to the heart of the british government? [shouting] >> i will be delighted to appear at the leveson inquired whenever i am invited. and i'm sure other politician will have exactly the same view and i would answer all the questions when that happens but it's good to see the honorable gentleman on such good form. i often say to my children, no need to go to the national history museum to see a dinosaur. come to the house of commons. [laughter] >> order. in order.

order. statement for lord chancellor and secretary of state. >> here on c-span2 will be the british house of commons now as they move onto other legislative business. you have been watching prime minister's question time aired live wednesdays at 7 a.m. eastern while parliament is in session. you can see this week's question time again sunday night at 9 a.m. eastern and pacific on c-span. for more information go to c-span.org, click on c-span series for prime minister's questions, plus links to international news media and legislatures around the world. you can watch recent video including programs even with other international issues. >> in a few moments more from a u.s. conference of mayors forum on jobs and economy. including panels on how cities work with those considered hard to serve an at risk youth.

>> only those who show the resolve to defend the freedom of the west can be tested to safeguard it in a challenging turbulence and unpredictable times that lie ahead. [applause]

>> mr. president, the decade is a center which opened up before us must see the lasting liberty of common cause. the world needs britain, and britain needs us. >> nicknamed i laid by the soviet media in 1976, margaret thatcher is currently being portrayed on screen by meryl streep. watch the real iron lady online at the c-span video library. more than 100 appearances including prime minister's question time from the british house of commons. >> there are some countries in the common markets who would like to hand over some of their financial affairs to the european central bank, and that is not our view. we do not wish to hand over for the powers from this parliament to other bodies the next search, watch, clip and share. it's what you want when you want.

>> more now from our coverage of the u.s. conference of mayors form on jobs and economy. one of the hour-long panels focused on hard to serve communities. >> in the back. why don't we get started? i'll start the way i ended by acknowledging the casey foundation and lisa hamilton is here, vice president of external affairs, representing the casey foundation we are delighted that she's able to join us. the conference of mayors has had a long partnership with the casey foundation to support our work and our programs to positively impact low income working families.

ms. hamilton leads the organization's public affairs strategic communications, policy reform and advocacy work. before joining the foundation msha enjoyed a 14 year career where most recently she served as vice president of corporate public affairs. would like to thank the casey foundation for its continued support and leadership in this important issue. lisa, thank you for being you. let's give her -- [applause] >> thank you for your support. so we turn to our third mayors business leaders panel about hard-to-serve populations. let's, once again can we are going to have three presenters now, and then we'll open up for questions and without a discussion at that point. our first presenter on the panel is district of columbia mayor vincent gray, a fan of the

redskins, which is okay. [laughter] since his team did about as good as my team this year. mayor gray has taken important steps to fulfill his campaign promise to unite d.c. by focusing on job creation and economic development through collaborative approach, school reform and restoring fiscal responsibility to city government. mayor gray has been an advocate for district residents for more than 30 years through his work in the city government and nonprofit sector. he is actively sought ways to best leverage job training dollars to serve low income populations, and he has developed one city one higher, employer driven hiring initiative to help the district residents back to work. that's what we're all here to learn about, so we are very honored to have them here today, mayor gray, thank you for joining us. may agree. [applause]

>> most of them have been up here. well, good afternoon. i want to thank mayor rawlings for such a very nice introduction, and we, of course, are natural enemies, but -- [laughter] he's dallas, i'm washington. the dallas cowboys and the washington redskins, you know the drill. i told mayor rawlings earlier that we did we didn't want people to be anxious and upset, tense about the season so we took all the fun out of it right in the very beginning of the season. [laughter] there's always a method to our madness here in the district of columbia. so, in any event, we hope you enjoy the weather here also. we decided that we want you to come back so we got 50, 60-degree weather the next couple of days, and as well it

really facilitates you been able to go outside. we want you to do that. we want you to be able to spend every dollar that you have in your pocket. we take the cards, checks, ious, and anything that will stimulate our economy here in the district of columbia, all in interest keeping people working and back to work if they don't have a job. so thank you all very much. in any event, i'm going to breeze through this. it's entitled aligning the workforce and economic vote in the district of columbia, which is a key initiative force here in the city. when i came into office last year we established for priorities. one of which probably everybody here today and across the nation, that is fiscal stability. we actually at one point had a fund balance that was the envy of the nation back in 2007. we fund balance of $1.6 billion,

which was phenomenal at the time. and it got spent down in huge chunks to the point where we were projecting by the end of this past fiscal year, september 30, to be at the point of having only about $650 million left in our fund balance, none of which that we have any control over because half of it was committed to our bond escrow fund, and the other half was committed to the contingency reserve fund. impose upon us by the congress to for those of you don't know, the district of columbia has to send its budget and all its local laws to the congress to be approved. now, isn't that fun? [laughter] yes. and we actually i think have a better track record in some areas than those who would be our overseers, but, you know, maybe the day will come when we are freed from the bondage. in any event, we also recognize that in addition to fiscal

stability one of the things that would bring that about is focusing on what was a huge unemployment rate in the city, a stalled economic development effort, and being able to get people back into jobs. and so, just by way of background, he is you a little bit of a flavor of the district of columbia, we are 66.3 square miles which means we're not very large. we have a growing population. in the decade between 2000-2010, the district of columbia grew from 570,000 people to more than 601,000 over 10 years a total of 31,000, but in the 15 months since we have actually grown by almost 70,000 people. we have grown by more than 50% and 15 months of the growth that took place over 10 years. so we are on an escalating path, and clearly that present opportunities as well as

challenges again in terms of employment. during the day we have about a million people who are in the city. we have in the metro area which includes of course areas of maryland and virginia, approximately 5.3 million people. i think we are the only place in the nation where whatever suburb you go to hear you're in someone else's state. that doesn't exist anywhere else. in addition to that, we have a huge range of income. the meeting income here is $55,000, but we have some people who make lots of money, and with other people who are down in the 15, $20,000 range in an area like the district of columbia. it's almost impossible to deal with. and then one of the biggest areas for us is of course tourism, and we have about 16 million people have come to the district of columbia each year, just phenomenal. so keep coming and bring a few people with you when you come.

in terms of the problem for us, the unemployment rate again has been huge. until about september, we had an unemployment rate in the city of 11.2% which is one of the highest in the history of the district of columbia. and we have been working assiduously on this, and some of our folks are here, director of the department of employment services, lisa murray, david sipper, our workforce investment counsel and director alice, is here. we have tried to re-organize ourselves. ..

we are the unemployment rate is respectively almost 14%, almost 17% and award a where we have large pockets of concentrated poverty where we actually only -- 76% of people who live there are renters where we have largest areas of public housing development, the unemployment rate is 24.9% which is down 30% about six months ago. among low income d.c. youth, for those -- a picture that where you are too, 40% of our young

people ages 16 to 24 unemployed and we have 68,000 residents who started post secondary education of one kind or another and never earned a degree. there is a lot of numbers up there but let me try to summarize. our job growth appears to be accelerating. we are trying to do everything we can to control that and i will talk a little bit about that if we can do anything for job creation. the nation lost in 2011 the nation lost almost a million jobs. we gained about 9500 jobs which is good for any jurisdiction of america at this stage and we are expecting over the next 45 years to be able to see through attrition and new job creation about 138,000 jobs filled. many of these jobs don't require anything more than two year

degree or less. the problem for us like i am sure many places in america is despite increasing job growth, our unemployment rate is very high because we have so many of our presidents who don't qualify for the job becoming available. we are focused on two strategies. one in the short term set of strategies. some are the same strategies projected over a period of time. one city one hire program is at the heart of this effort. in addition we are the last jurisdiction in america to have community college. we have one now that is part of a four year college university in the district of columbia and we are moving rapidly to be able to separate the two because they have different missions and the enrollment in community college even though it is a place only for couple years has already seated that in the four year college which is where we can

more rapidly prepare people for jobs. in addition to that the longer-term strategies include something we focus on for several years in the city which is education reform and expanded early childhood education. there are jobs available in early childhood education but the larger purpose for us is to try to create a contrary of young people better prepared when they go to school and get a better education as a result and 15 to 20 years will be young people who will achieve higher levels. it is no different -- the only city in america that has universal prekindergarten. every 3 and 4-year-old in d.c. can go to a d.c. public school, charter schools. we have 53 charter schools, 99 campuses and 33,000 students

enrolled or community-based organization. i got through the county when i was chairman of the council and i was working on a rollout for what we will do in a few weeks of a universal infant and toddler program which will focus on young people bear to 2 years of age to complement what we are doing with pre kaye. a lot of people if i can figure out how to get seated into a program i would do that. it makes good human and educational sense and good financial sense as well when you think of the cost on people who don't have those opportunities early in life. one city one higher at you have a brochure on that. program we established being run out of the department of an employment services under lisa valerie's direction. a simple concept. the idea that we work hard to identify jobs, vacancies as they

exist and we work hard to find -- make through guarantees a commitment to employers to work with them. the one city one higher team is a group of people who work in our employment services department. they establish one on one relationships with the employers. they work with them to build a customized staffing plan with them, service plan that includes recruiting, screening of candidates and the third step, employers then get people who have been prescreened that are available to be hired by them. we offer a host of incentives. in three months we have this program underway. we have signed on 363 companies working with us in the district of columbia.

we have placed 1500 people who were unemployed prior to becoming part of this effort to employment and another 314 who are in the cue. always the next several weeks we could be approaching 2,000 people who will be employed in the district of columbia. what kind of companies? 711 has worked closely with us. some construction firms, cvs, bad, bath and beyond, several securities firms, our own metro system. one of the things we found out about our metro system is serving the city principally, 14% of the people who work for metro live in the district of columbia. we worked with the metro system. they have 360 vacancies a year in the bus system. we work into an agreement with them and help recruit and train bus drivers so we can increase

market share of people employed with metro who live in the district of columbia. 70% of the people we worked with whom we refer to employers have been hired which is a good success rate. we also are working to -- we have worked to reestablish our workforce investment counsel which is essentially dormant. it was nonfunctional completely. we worked hard on the labour communities in order to provide leadership. we now have 35 -- 35 people, mike harold was a senior executive of pnc bank, an enormous amount of energy and expertise, working with alice in order to make this the centerpiece to get people back

working again. you will see a graphic of this. put together a number of agencies in the city who should be working in a link way with our work force efforts. what you see is a photograph. they came to the district of columbia a few weeks ago, and talk them into working with us and what we did is gave them a responsibility for recruiting and screening and doing some pretty training of people. they hired 65 people to opened that store from a district residents and 45 of them were unemployed at the time that they were hired. we are also focusing a lot on expanding our economy. we are principally an economy focused on tourism and

government. several decades ago government in the district of columbia represents 60% of the employment. believe it or not it is down 12% at this stage. and sequestration, that bodes well for those of us who live in this area. one of the things we are doing is creating a work force intermediary which is on the previous page. work force and the media, city council to create -- will actually establish a permanent way of connecting people who need jobs with employers and it will be a separate entity all together that will have its own staff that will be toward native as part of the work force development effort. one of the areas we're focusing on in particular is technology. we have really worked assiduously. i again want to single out david zipper who has worked so hard in that area. these are firms, living social, which is becoming the largest

employer in the district of columbia. they hire three people, average of three people day in the district of columbia. they were about to move out of the city and we worked with them so they would stay. we are now working in permanent quarters so they will be part of the city's efforts. the one in the lower right-hand corner, this was an amazing story. they were in sterling, virginia, about to sign a lease in early december to located in arlington, virginia and we were able to work with them to get them to come to the district of columbia. we gave them a one hundred thousand dollars in incentive. they located the district of columbia. they are an accelerator. there an incubator of technology firms. they now have about 10. they already signed on. they are located in the city. they found their headquarters. this is as good as it gets. you see where the word is?

there is the district of columbia flat. that is as good as it gets. if we could get the rest of the folks to do the same kind of thing we will really go. the last woman to his new brand analytics. on its way to california, they are a firm that has very interesting apps that there aren't gauge in. they're going to stay and they are expanding. it is a fledgling technology arena and bring more jobs here. we don't have a numerical goal. we are working with work force investment on what we talked about, seven agencies that are listed there. we moved the investment counseling to the deputy mayor's office. the rest of those are community

college, a state agency in the city, juvenile justice has the grant from the department of labour to take older youth to the criminal-justice system and move the charter school we operate within our juvenile justice facility, prepare people for jobs. the next is disability agency in the district of columbia that works with a range of disabilities. department of human service where we are focused on getting people back to work and the department of employment services. that having been said, we think the ones anyone hire program is beginning to shows a real results. when you get 2,000 people in 3-1/2 month, that has real potential and is a very simple concept that could be used anywhere in the country.

you know where the unemployment areas are concentrated in the city especially around areas of high poverty and high unemployment and low economic development. you get a chance to talk about economic development in this presentation, we have launched 14 projects in the last 12 months ranging from small -- something like city centric. if you are in the downtown area and go past the project that is like a crater at this stage. six story hole in the ground. that i ultimately will be about a billion dollars of development. you want to pronoun's it -- a huge investor in that project. that will result in several thousand construction, thirty-seven hundred construction jobs, fifty 200 permanent jobs when it is finished in three years. that will be a big part of a strategy as well. in a bad economy, we are making

the best of it and we are beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel as well. we are focusing on a short-term strategy as well as a long-term one. a longer term one is focusing on two areas. reorganizing our workforce development system and using economic development especially through technology and working with our education system to prepare our young people for jobs. i will stop after this. i should have -- that is a brand new high school we just opened in the district of columbia in ward 7 which is an area of hot property concentration. it is the stem school. science, technology, engineering and math. we put up $120 billion building that will. it opened in august of 2011 and it will be a focal point of the efforts we make to train kids for jobs especially in technology. thank you very much. look forward to any questions

when we get to that point. [applause] >> all right. next speaker is madison mayor paul soglin who was reelected to his office on april 5th, 2011, after a 14 year absence. he begins his third tenure as the city's chief executive. mayor paul soglin has worked diligently over his term as mayor to achieved considerable success in managing the city's resources, encouraging responsible growth, economic development and investing in neighborhoods. his successor as mayor is based on a combination of strong leadership and deep respect for his management team of employees. he told me a minute ago he believes in the tom sawyer school of management. make everybody else do the work and take the credit. which i think it's brilliant.

an innovator in government management and administration he has lectured on his experience of total quality management. the city's strategic planning and management system and other city initiatives. we are delighted to have him join us today. mayor soglin, thank you for being here. [applause] >> thank you. thank you all for sharing an interest in what is such an important topic for route this country. let me tell you what i am not going to talk about. i am not going to address what needs to be done in terms of engaging private-sector. that point has been covered by others and will be covered in more detail later. what i am going to talk about is my response to the question what is your vision for madison? in the last election a woman came up to me.

her son was graduating high school and she said she had one simple request -- that her son go on to have a successful post-college occasion and be able to get a job in madison, the city where he was raised. and to be able to afford to live in the community. not all that glorious. very simple mother's request. very reasonable one. and unfortunately one in this day and age that is not necessarily a table. several years ago when i was in the private sector a friend and i were deeply concerned about the problems we saw in regards to employment and training and the fact that we didn't seem to be getting much traction even though the city and county and

state medical image over decades. job development and job training. we picked an area of madison on the south side. we call it the park street tee on park street, if you go too far goes into lake mendota. as you go out park street you pass a couple hospitals leaving the university and you head into an area before you get into the belt line and at the beltway, which all the demographics people ask about. where is the area with the census tracts with the highest unemployment? or the areas that have the highest population of blacks, latinos. where do we have the most number of households that are below the poverty line? the area is well served. their commitments from the private sector, from the

hospital's, more non-profit than you could shake a stick at, probably in the tradition of madison where every president of the community believes they are a member of the city council. and mayor. we have also got enough non-profits to go around. the question is how are these folks doing? the government, the private sector, the non-profit. terms of their commitment to a common goal. am not going to bore you with some of the details peculiar to madison. the report is on your table. i want to take you through it and highlight some of the areas and keep in mind -- i will share with you that i am a big

believer in public investment in two areas. one is infrastructure and the other is human capacity. i believe that history has shown us both internationally and in the course of this country's development since the civil war that investment in those two areas have big-time. and a lot of us know when we realize the sage wisdom from a great baseball of 20 years ago build it and they will come. we think about that mostly in terms of the infrastructure part. whether it is sporting facilities, convention centers, roads, airports, whatever leads to high speed connectivity. it is also important to think about it in terms of human capacity and if there's anything

to characterize our commitment in the city management, this next term, it is this. every single individual is a resource. is a nut that -- every individual regardless of their age, their background, there resident status is a tremendous asset and our mission is to creates the best trained workforce. because one thing we know about employers. they are looking for that trained work force. you heard that earlier today. i am not to be so cavalier as to suggests it is irrelevant what areas training and excavation come but i want to be able to

say to any employer whatever your needs, we have it. and while i won't turn buyback on some company that is interested in leading one of your communities and moving to madison, i am really not interested in making a career of that. because one of the things we have learned over the decades is that your best shot is developing the company locally and growing it locally. that is where the real opportunity is. and it is they're within our own communities. why waste it? why waste that opportunity for that small entrepreneur? give them a start. give them an opportunity to develop in the garage and the basement. it is not just rock bands that

start out in basement and garages. the best high-tech companies in this country started out in those lofty environments. what is it we learned in our study? if you get a copy of the report the first thing i'd do is suggest you look at page 9. we saw some limitations in the current system. some very disturbing ones that for example, employers and training service providers did not have strong linkage. that was of deep concern to as. in addition, we found that those who did these services particularly employment training, were not talking to one another. we saw that the relationship between funders, those in the government area or those who were giving grants in the

training providers, we were being polite. i said in the report it was not optimal. we found an undercapitalization in human and material terms which resulted in deficit to the service system and this was alluded to earlier. laurie from dallas mentioned this. there are several areas that must receive our attention. we can't do the employment and training in a vacuum. those are quality child care. the same terminology that you use. not just child care. it is quality child care. transportation. i will come back to that in a moment. one that surprised me but is eerie critical is financial literacy. we found two many instances were people are successfully placed

in positions where suddenly buying the pickup truck of their dreams, used pickup truck and paying 17% interest and not understanding that distance between 17% and 7% on a car loan or going in with that $300 they saved, to buy a television set. and walking out with a contract for $2,000 of electronics and several months later not understanding why they were working. they i was better off when i didn't have a job. financial literacy is key in this day and age. appropriate housing. yes. there are people that we help get employment that we are working with that we put through training programs to do not have adequate housing and just as we know children do not do very

well in our schools, they are homeless, the same is true for working quarters. then there comes healthcare. access to health care for the entire family is critical if we are going to make these investments in employment and training. back to transportation for a moment. they are in a great place. always have been. others didn't know it. but one of the things we are seeing right now is that the corporations that moved out into the suburbs, into the rural areas looking for cheap land and a labour force where there is not a lot of competition or presence of labor unions are discovering as they're ready to expand that the economy starts to recover, they cannot get trained workers. the will spatial problems of

housing and transportation is coming home to roost and what is happening now, folks are looking to carefully at the cost of transportation as they calculate what they are going to do in terms of employment. in cities where we have housing, retail as well as jobs this is the time to strike. if you turn to page 10 there is some reality that we have to address. particularly if we are going to talk seriously about hiring of veterans. whether we're talking vietnam era veterans or veterans in their 20s. there are problems of untreated mental health and substance-abuse issues. this falls under a lot larger

category of health care. and treated medical conditions. the challenges of being a single parent. let me tell you santa and i raised three daughters. we are still raising them. i just don't see in this day and age between after-school programs, parent/teacher conferences, making sure there is a working computer and the printer is hooked up, our do not understand how racing will parent does it especially if they do not have a car. transportation, homelessness, extended family support. i will come back to that point in a moment. criminal history. i want to spend a moment on this

one. there are too many people with a criminal history who are not given an opportunity particularly by some of the most important national employers. i can understand and we as a city as an employer, look carefully at criminal history. but if that crime is not job-related, and if that individual has the skill, the talent, the opportunity needs to be given. that is where you will find some of your best nuggets. undocumented workers. one way or another this country has to come to grips with this issue. there are too many tragic stories about hard-working people particularly those in their early teens and early 20s who are trying to become part of

the economy and contribute to their community and are not given the chance. if you turn to page 16, i want to mention one of the tensions among allies. this was very surprising in our report. also be candid nature of the nonprofits who addressed the subject that is the competition between them. fenders are demanding more and more accountability. they are looking to statistical reports, demonstration of progress. it is not good enough anymore to simply say here's our application for another grant cycle. there has to be proven results. i am not for a moment suggesting

that we turn our backs and do not insist on accountability. but we have to deal with some of the ramifications and consequences of the competition as we are finding that agencies in the competition for funding are turning inward and are not partnering with other agencies were they should be on the same page. they do not want to share the success. if i share my success with you, you in turn will be able to use that and utilize it as we compete for the same funding dollars. i have a solution to that. this is something relatively new that we found and something we need to address. it is out there.

if you turn to page 18 on the report, you will see a reference to case managers and job coaches. this was addressed earlier but i want to make one important point here and think about the experience of the college-bound student. the college-bound student probably have a cadre of piers in high school that were college-bound. that college-bound student had parents who were committed to that education. that kid got to school and went into a housing situation where everybody was in college. there were probably more academic and advising dean than you could shake a stick at and so everybody is aligned and providing a support network for that kid. and yet almost 1-third of our

enrollees for college fund out. then we take a kid who comes out of an environment that is not that supportive. and we put that kid into a job training program. we put that kid into a two year college program and when the kid flunks out we suggest he or she is ungrateful and not appreciative of what the community has done. that kid needs a support system. that kid needs a support system whether that kid is 19 years old or 39 years old. less than i want to share with you is some of the findings that you will find on pages 23 and on words. i want to get to this final thought about the connection in terms of transportation that i mentioned earlier.

this is where we are focusing right now. we are looking at where we can go in terms of working with employers. looking at the population we are trying to serve and get everyone connected. this seems to be a difficult and challenging job but at the same time at least in urban areas with public transit we have an opportunity to capitalize on that infrastructure and address that particularly important elements that the family needs. thank you very much. [applause] >> our last speaker on this panel is bill kamela, senior policy lead from microsoft corp..

and immigration related issues. and a variety of public policy jobs with staff and senate education labor committee. he spent several years in the clinton administration at the department of labor, and legislative efforts with work force investment act. we are delighted to have him with us. thank you for coming. [applause] >> thank you for that. before i start the presentation, i am a long time ward president and very proud to be working with your d.c. deal and the department of economic development, support one city one hire with digital literacy curriculum you hope to announce in the future.

are real pleasure. they're very open and friendly to business to be sure and we appreciate that opportunity. a shout out to my chair from the national association workforce board. or would get to come to the next board meeting. pleasure to work with you every day. i am here to talk about two initiatives. did not bring enough hand out. i will send you copies of these things. i want to round our efforts and shape the future. there are some handouts there. the best piece is the green sheet. save the future looks a little bit like this. a little software company in washington, thank you, seattle. more importantly, we have 150,000 partners in the united states. almost all of those are 50 employees are less. if that ecosystem isn't working

for us then microsoft is not going to survive. nor will all the companies that work in the eye piece sector. we have more stem grabs or computer science. a whole range of folks. please check our web site. we would love more applicants but more importantly when we look at what we can do to be helpful as we see -- federal resources shrinking and state and local resources shrinking what are the appropriate roles for the private sector in working with the public sector moving forward? where can we help? where can we bring things to scale? where can we bring our private sector expertise? we are open for business. we want to try to be helpful because this isn't about microsoft but it is about the future of this country. about where we are going as a

leader in innovation and if we don't grow and maintain these jobs, we will have a difficult quality of life to maintain over the next 20 or 30 years. we have been in this work force game for long time. it got me out of government leaving someone i loved in senator patty murray to come to this company because we make investment and work force development and education and we love partnering with you on an everyday basis. let me tell you why we got into working with that. we have a million young men and women over the next three years from conflict abroad. many of those are young men and women. many have not had sustained attachment to the workforce. many did not have the attainment levels we would like to have yet they are all workers we want to have. what we need to do is help them transition from their military

careers. sounds easy. if you are a sharpshooter what do i translate that into? or lots of other occupations that are part of the deal, not such an easy thing. lots of folks need to sit down with counselors. lots of different supports as do their spouses. working around the country in these communities. san diego, panama city, the bronx, charlotte and bellevue to provide those transitional skills for these young men and women so they can be part of our civilian labor force moving forward. we know that is critical. recently we announced an expansion with president obama where we get about 10,000 free vouchers for online trading in a variety of tech fields so you can become a certified whatever you want to be. because we know there are jobs to be had in communities around the country as we know they

don't start at minimum wage. those jobs i mentioned the average starting point is 1 hundred thousand dollars. if we are looking to see where the dogs are, help young men and women, we think the the the highest paying jobs and the ones that are most available across a broad spectrum of communities around the country. the other thing we develop is something called intellect decoder. i talk about the sharpshooter earlier. how does the sharpshooter figure out what jobs he or she may be qualified for the civilian sector? we developed a military decoder. that sharpshooter put their military classification into a field on the computer and we will tell someone jobs their qualified for at microsoft and we want to bring that to the federal government and think we can bring state and local government and want to share with other companies but there really is a series of ways to

make the transition -- if you ever talked to these men and women they will impact you. the challenges they have overcome are different kinds of wars and younger kids. they really have been through a heck of a lot to put it bluntly. and again if you ever had the honor of having a conversation you really do realize not only do we owe these people the debt of gratitude but we know they will be superworkers moving forward. they know how to dress. understand chain of command and a lot of things employers are looking for. that is why we are thrilled to undergo a huge recruiting effort in the hundreds trying to bring in additional folks from washington state where we have a lot of military bases and employments. we hope other companies will follow suit for a lot of the same reasons that you know. these folks are incredible workers. the second program on want to briefly talk about is shake the

future. quite frankly we really believe in this country there is an opportunity to buy. on the one side of it, people have access to the internet, broadband, quality education and jobs and quality training opportunities. those communities are doing well or have an opportunity to do well. on the other side of that divide is a different story. we know that if you don't have access to the internet your community's economic development prospects dipped precipitously. you will have higher unemployment, lower tax bases, education funded by your tax base which is not the quality we would like it to be and of course you have higher rates of unemployment and jobs that are not going to be family wage jobs with career ladders. the only way -- we have done a fair amount of research --

tackle this opportunity divide is figure out how to work with cities and communities and states around the country to allow for young students to have access to the internet. have we loaded devices, access 24/7 in their community to broadband so that they can keep up with the joness in the suburbs and other places where the access is more readily available. we are committed over the next three years to reaching a million kids. we would love to do more. it is all about city leadership, bringing stakeholders' together, internet service providers, schools and why grease and hospitals, create wireless matches the kids don't need $40 a month. they can pick of the internet and wi-fi for free if they have a device. they can become gamers for developers or small entrepreneurs and we will encourage that and give them the tools for that but unless we let

these kids get in the game and bring their parents into the game that economic and opportunity divide will only grow larger as we see more and more jobs in this country require fundamental underpinning of digital literacy skills. we know the percentages in the 50s and 60s. if you look five years or ten years from now you look at the future, 75% of these jobs at the end of the decade will require college. without that education, without that skill training these people are relegated to second-class citizenry. that is not something we should stand for. we do need it to be a community effort. we need everyone to pull together as stakeholders and we all have a stake in this. this is the future of the community together. we here to work with you. we know the total cost of digital inclusion in this country is over $1 trillion a year.

$1 trillion. that is in lower taxes, higher prison costs, health care costs, other social related costs. $1 trillion. not an insignificant amount of money. here are the cities we will start working in first. anybody else, come one, come all. we are ready to take on. partner with us and we will bring private sector partners to the table. we know you have government energy to bring to the table. atlanta, baltimore, birmingham, charlotte, chicago, detroit, los angeles, milwaukee, new orleans, oakland, philly, portland, raleigh, san diego lee purcell san francisco beagles and as a, seattle lead crystal san jose and washington d.c.. that is my message. we need to help our fats. i look forward to bring with you and we will partner with you and bring solutions to your cities

and community. let's think about how to bring access and lay up the playing field so this digital divide is not something we talk about five years ago say we have got to overcome it. thanks for the opportunity. [applause] >> great perspectives on dealing with hard to serve work force and preparing them. questions? thoughts? the number you gave, that was because we are not wired. >> it is $1 trillion. >> if we did -- we would save $1 trillion. >> we would need to make sure kids have access to the internet and folks have access to broadband at home in their communities 24/7. >> other questions or thoughts? thank you very much for this

panel. questions? >> i could make it later. you are not a provider of internet. how do we get providers on board? they are looking at giving away a product for free. >> one of the things we are fortunate, we work with a lot of providers. some will play, some won't. we play with the ones who want to play with us. we talked to a number of smaller providers. there are number of other players, we do not lay pipes. and of working relationships, we will work to make sure we pull the partners together with your leadership. >> thank you. i didn't see dallas on the list

so put it here. i want to be on every list. thank you very much. can i ask our fourth panel -- let's give them a hand. >> thank you. >> the u.s. conference of mayors forum on jobs and the economy also look at programs for at risk youth. the discussion included the mayor's of baltimore, hartford and louisville. this is an hour. >> our fourth panel is serving at risk youth and on that panel will be baltimore mayor stephanie rollins blake, hartford mayor pedro segarra and investment board chairman

charles smith to speak to us. so we are running ten minutes behind but we will try to keep this crisp because i want to get as many thought out here as possible. our first speaker is my name's sake, mayor rawlings-blake was sworn in as baltimore's mayor in 2010. she was first elected for baltimore city council in 1995 at the old age of 25. the youngest person who was ever elected to city council. if we could just -- thank you. thank you. appreciate it. give our folks up here respect. in 2007 she created city council education committee dedicated exclusively to addressing the challenges facing baltimore city public school system and scoring innovative solutions to address

those needs. she dedicated serving at risk youth and continuing her nationally recognized summer youth program to provide young people with valuable work skills that the secretary of labour spoke about today it lunch. we look forward to her remarks. thank you for being here. mayor rawlings-blake. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone. here is the clicker. thanks. i appreciate the invitation to speak to you this afternoon. thank you, for putting this panel together. i am especially pleased to have an opportunity to share strategies from baltimore city that have been helping us capture the valuable talent and human-resources we believe all young people can bring to our

economy. as president obama stated in his call to action announcement a couple weeks ago we cannot turn our backs on young people who are caught off from school and work because they are not contributing to our economy. rather we should see them as an opportunity because of their untapped workforce potential. in baltimore we have been doing exactly that for more than ten years by engaging thousands of young people in our youth opportunity or baltimore program. since we launched the program in 2000 there was significant department of labor grant we learned a lot about the at risk youth population particularly what they face about their futures. we know that for most of these young people they do not believe that they can get a good job, earned a good salary or contribute in positive ways to

their community. that is a significant hurdle to overcome. if you are dealing with a population who doesn't even see a path to the future we know we have a lot of work to do. work that should not be overlooked. the mission of our youth opportunity program is to change their minds and by doing so change the trajectory of their lives. in the time i have this afternoon i will highlight essential the elements of baltimore and if there's anybody here from baltimore always have -- attempted to always say yo baltimore because that is how we would say it at home. to talk about the funding, sustainability and share what we have learned about the strategy connecting our most tolerable young people with our work force. like most urban areas baltimore faces a challenging school dropout rates, youth unemployment rates particularly in the high poverty neighborhoods.

data tells us there are 20,000 young adults who drop out of school who are unemployed or underemployed and are unable to earn a living because of lack of educational credentials for career skills to comport themselves and their families. 20,000 young people. baltimore's operated by the office of employment, development. you can wave your hands. she is the director of employment development and might clicker operator. [applause] and you as the am award winner. thank you very much. she is in local work force investment board. is designed to address the needs of this population focusing on young adults between the ages of 16, and 22 years old who are most in need of academic and employment support. a picture of our yoke baltimore participant at the time of initial registration looks like this. 26-16 years of age, 86% of these

young people are unemployed. 76% are high school dropouts. 28 with a history of connection with the juvenile justice system. 28% see -- 25 presenting parents and 20% in foster care. 7% and stable housing or homeless. this is a big population we have been dealing with. this is a topic for and other day. homelessness is a big problem. and underreported problem. i am sure we are not alone. so many of our young people doing what they call going from friend's or relative's house and in doing so putting themselves in pretty vulnerable situations so that is something i hope if you are dealing with this issue and have some things you would like to share with me, please let me know because this is something we're tackling in baltimore. you can see about the reading

and math levels, these are kids with real challenges. department of labour grant was one of 36 opportunity awards across the country. it enables us to build a system that will respond to multiple issues that face young people. in the past 11 years we learned many lessons, many lessons of the work force for this population and identified six key components that have proven to be essential to the program. we created new friendly -- this was very important. disenfranchised young people do not feel comfortable in the standard environment. if we want to create an environment that is welcoming, to say -- we can't ignore that. we created these you friendly spaces. two large centers in

neighborhoods that are familiar to these at risk youth. one on the east side of town and one on the west side. they're comfortable, family style environment. you can see all the computer labs and classrooms and private counseling offices. very important you wants. we want young people to have safe places to socialize with their friends. the more we can do to create positive socialization the better they will do not just in the school environment but also the work environment. we have a fitness center and a recording studio on the west side center. we have been -- inc. consistent youth development philosophy. this is important. you have to have a framework that believes that these young people want and want to and can succeed. we talked about it at one of our previous session that many of us

are dealing with negotiations with public unions. i talk about it when i spoke. having that framework. if you have the framework but what have doing with this teachers' union. they have the same goals and objectives we have and that is a child focused goal. you can go lot of places but you have to believe the people you are dealing with want this for themselves. it changes the whole way you deal with the issue and the population. we know it is important to meet young people where they are and develop success plans based on their strength, issues, interests and their aptitude to. another is to make sure the program is staffed up with caring adults. i can't stress this enough. you need to make sure staff members -- and that they want to work with young people. all of us were teenagers.

i know how difficult i was to deal with as a teen and i was not an at risk young person. dealing with this population you have to have staff members that are trained and that want to deal with this population because if you have staff, people that just want the job and don't care about kids the kids will feel it and that will impact your success. also make sure that we understand all good jobs require two years of education and training. we focus on comprehensive academics, mandatory academic component for every participant, adult education, assisted pro -- graduates to connect. this is important as we transition these young people into careers so they can support themselves. and other competitors were face

learning and cooperation, essentials to building the work force. this is about training the next generation work force. so we have resources we are leveraging from every resource we have available. we're talking about important things. job shadowing, summer jobs and on the job and customized skilled training. this is very important because all of us know. our eyes are open when we have new experience. when you match these young people with jobs and they get to see the possibilities, it is hard for me to get through the end of the year wrapup when we do our summer programs, end of the year when we thank all the participants and students and employers it is hard for me to get through without tears coming to my eyes because you see young people, some of them didn't believe there was a way forward for them and now because of their experience, because of the

job shadowing where they got to shadow a caring adult or to see a new experience, they see a future for themselves. this is very important. i appreciate all of the resources that make it possible. another important thing, counseling and life skills to help young adults cope with obstacles that keep them or take them off track and wraparound support to help address and resolve issues and personal challenges and personal responsibility, problem-solving, a intermarriage fitness and financial literacy. one of the yo! baltimore events we heard from a young woman who was able to get her own apartment, get her own car, get to and from work and it was clear that she was so proud because she knew how far she had come and was also clear that it was because of his close

partnership and close relationship with staff that she was able to make those things happen for herself and are was sure and everyone else was sure that this was not her end. this was just the beginning of a career for her. i would also like to report one of the newest elected councilmen to baltimore city council is a yo! graduate. the possibilities are endless. i don't know if that is an upgrade or not. it shows us the caliber of the kids that are coming out of this program. how much does something like this cost? we received an initial grant that provided the money that set up the youth centers with state of the art technologies. that was a significant grant that i mentioned. allow us to develop a rigorous staff training institute and fully operate for six years. when the grant expired baltimore

city recognized the importance of the service and the service was providing out of school youth and we have been supporting the program with the average annual general fund allocation of $2.5 million since 2007. it is important to note the decision to continue to financially support yo! baltimore attracted other sources of income. this is important because a lot of people want to support our at risk young people but also to see the jurisdiction step up to the plate and have skin in the game. you see different sources of investment whether it is from foundation for companies that have been able to attract that funding because of continued investment. we are able with this additional funding to provide valuable services for at risk young people such as free adjudicated youth and those transitioning out of foster care. i talk about homeless youth,

kids aging out of foster care. a very vulnerable population we are working hard to make sure they don't fall through the cracks in baltimore. a new yo! baltimore feature is the court that serves young adults who have recently been under the care of the juvenile justice system and funded by $1.4 million grant from the federal department of labor. when you are looking at any of these things you have to ask does this work? as we approach the final year of the department of labor grant be conducted an evaluation to answer this question. we participated in yo! baltimore, similar youth who are not engaged in a program and looked at their work force readiness, earnings and academic attainment and use pregnancy as well as crime and you can see from the slide we have a lot of success. yo! baltimore participants earned 30% more than the comparison group that had 42% higher increase in the labour

market attachment. 90% of employers who hired yo! participants reported they would recommend another one which is one of the best references of recommendations you could get. yo! participants obtained their ged at a rate double that of youth who did not participate in yo! baltimore. female participants were 20 present less likely to become president than the other comparison group and the yo! participants less in gauge in criminal activity, all positive numbers. note the impressive results and you can see why we decided the city should continue to provide funding to yo! baltimore. the details of the study can be fined in changing live report along with many other individual successes. we have our success stories on line. please take a look. after the department of labor grant expired we continue to track positive outcomes of young

people and we are happy to report 7500 out of school young people have been connected to a positive pathways. 3200 successfully connected to work within 12 months of program participation. 1100 high school dropouts have turned their diplomas with many attaining post secondary education. we are very proud in baltimore of yo! baltimore. we are proud of what it is doing in our challenge community and as you can see much has been learned and much has been accomplished with this program. there is much more to do to ensure we tap the potential of our opportunity youth. we are not done. we always work to refine so we can address changing needs of this population. i am sure we will continue to be successful. we agree with president obama that a call to action to create more work and learning

experience for the most vulnerable is very important. the time is now. we cannot wait. we cannot afford to have a generation of at risk youth fall through the cracks. we need the competitive advantage to have everyone on board with making america, putting america on top. thank you very much and i look forward to the discussion. [applause] >> thank you. our next speaker is hartford mayor pedro segarra who was sworn in in june of 2010. the great city of hartford. he came into office, the mayor has put emphasis on creating jobs, pursuing excellence in the city's schools, promoting economic development with a focus on small business and reducing crime by providing positive alternatives for youth. the mayor's priorities are inclusiveness and inspiration so

more people are encouraged to participate in the community and their government. we are honored to have him here with another look at use and making it work for us. >> thank you. good afternoon. for those of the mindful of time i am going to dispense with my 20 minute slide presentation that i didn't prepare and substitute that for two minutes. how is that? thank you. the great thing about this conference is you get an opportunity to learn from other cities and share success stories and also try to find common ground in terms of challenges we have that constantly make it difficult for us to engage our populations with high levels of employment. i have seen a federal job bill that could really put some might

into our ability to put people back to work. many cities like hartford are left to their own limited resources to try to do away with what has been decades of cyclical poverty and unemployment in the city of hartford. our medium income is less than half of the state median income although connecticut in lawyers one of the highest per-capita incomes in the country. the city of hartford fares at $24 compared to the state's media which is 55. the city has had many challenges in terms of crime. we have only 124,000 people. an incredible number of street gains. 139 to 140 street gangs with approximately 6,234 people with known gang affiliation.

it is very pervasive situation that lends itself to having a large number of the populations with criminal background and criminal records which prevents employability. we have the most number of people with reentry issues. we have a large portion of people above $2,601 per year coming back into the city from connecticut correctional institutions. although we are the capital city we have become what many termed the dumping ground for many state populations. it is not uncommon to have daily stops at different locations with people in the connecticut prison system. we also have overrepresentation of the region's homeless as well as very poor performance. we have over the past 4 years

made incredible gains. i gave you some of the negatives. one of the things i have come to realize is no one thing will push the city forward. we live in a city in which more than half, 51% of property is tax-exempt. the real-estate tax is the sole means by which we raise revenue. we are transferring half of the burden of taxation to this population adjust described that has a low capital income. what i tried to do is rattle the cage from different sides to get activity going into the city. as a capital city i felt it should be the center for art, culture, historical tourism and we have some good boats in the city. four of the most -- the best public park, the second-largest rose garden, 600 acre park

designed by frederick law olmsted. and the first national park at the center where innovation and manufacturing took root in this country and spread across the entire land not to mention the fact we are the home of the first written constitution. for the rest of you who enjoy democracy around the nation and around the world, your welcome. the biggest leveraged, the biggest investment is in education. we had four years ago 23% graduation rate investment increase to 61%. we had 30% of the kids in preschool activities. right now we are up to 71% and following the lead of the mayor of washington, before my four years are up we should aim to have 100% of our children

participate in preschool education programs. that investment has paid off. we made incredible investment in terms of school systems and we have four of the top ten public schools in the nation, university high school science and engineering and medical academy, the capital prep school and we have our classical magnet, our middle school won for best middle school in the united states. there are signs that this investment is paying off. we just need to be consistent. one thing we have been doing is try to keep them safe. years ago we were suffering a high rash of homicides among our youth. in the past week for years we have not suffered one, side of children under the age of 18. last year we experienced escalation in homicide. the first six months we had 29

homicides in the city. we quickly put together a task force that brought the number of the last seven months to -- we reduced by two thirds. we also have made an incredible investment in our summer youth employment program. i increased the budget to $1.5 million from $900,000 a portion to that. even though we did not get federal funding, we were able to put half of the students who wanted it summer job to work. we can and should be doing a lot better. the effort needs to be a sustained effort and we need to work with the private sector. i did have a breakfast last week with a corporate sector and we had 75 of the biggest corporations in the city including two major hospitals, commit to hopefully doubling the number of yth