education reform. i would like to think you picked the right university to host this very important event. american university has for decades for the school of education, teaching and health provided teachers for these great cities, provided professional development education for the teachers of washington d.c.. in all eight of our wars. these cities represent the education of two of 2.5 million students some of them facing the greatest personal challenges one can imagine but that also represents some of our best and brightest. i wish that this morning a fruitful and engaging and stimulating panel, and welcome all of our distinguished guests to this very special event.

[applause] >> thank you very much. thank you very much. i am andrea mitchell from nbc. it is great to be here at american university right across the street -- welcome to all of you. education now, cities at the forefront of reform, bringing together the leaders of our nation the biggest cities and as president kerwin's that we're talking about 2.5 million school children, a mix of the best and brightest and most of the problems that we face. we have los angeles mayor antonio villaraigosa, new york city mayor michael bloomberg and chicago mayor rahm emanuel. and education secretary arne duncan. in a few minutes we will be joined by the superintendent

from all of these school districts to talk about how they are dealing with the bureaucratic and hierarchical problems some of them have inherited as well. education is at the forefront of all of the problems we face in the nation. every social and political problem comes together at the crossroads of our school system. it is the core of the crisis of unemployment and wagging behind in global competitiveness. today's conversation will address how each of our mayors are addressing these challenges and what their successes are and what they're continuing challenges are. this is a work in progress so we are going to address all of that. we are looking forward to a thoughtful conversation to engage you in questions and answers as well as the superintendent very shortly. first you, mayor villaraigosa.

you, unlike mayor bloomberg and mayor emanuel inherited a system where you do not have political control. how do you work around that challenge? >> let me just say i couldn't be prouder to be here with mayor bloomberg and mayor emanuel. both are doing what we need to do to improve our schools. broken status quo and bureaucracy, i like to say this is the economic issue of our time, civil-rights issue of our time, democracy issue of our time. when you look at the issue of education particularly in urban schools, i don't have mayoral control over our unified school district. i did go to the legislature early on to support mayor bloomberg to asked to a partnership for the school district. by was given that partnership

and lost on trial and appeal but we had a plan b which was to elect a progressive school board that would support the accountability and the innovation that we need to compete and improve our schools. in the last six years although i don't run our schools, schools have increased -- doubled the number of schools, the mark for the academic performance index and reduce the number of schools that were performing poorly from 43% to 10%. we doubled the number of charters in our school district. we have 130 schools which are schools that are failing that are in a program to improve and operate 22 schools, 18,000 kids,

that frankly we pattern in chicago. while i don't have a full mayoral control that is what we should have an important way is that every mayor needs to be involved in our school because it is the economic issue of our time. >> is there anything of the federal government and department of education can do to backstop mayor villaraigosa given the political structure? >> i want to thank these mayors for their amazing courage. this is the toughest issue they have worked on. we have people who get the urgency that nothing is more important. they're putting their political capital on the line. whatever we can do we want to be good partners. we want to listen. fantastic superintendent. we want to hear what the challenges are and however we can help turn around schools. the next round of race to the

top will be a digital competition and my job is to listen and whatever i can do. these are our customers. >> there bloomberg. you have done a lot of controversial things. you have taken on all these issues. one is closing larger schools, creating 5 funded smaller schools. one of the advantages and disadvantages? you have got a lot of push back but also a lot of success in creating these smaller environments? >> what is different today than 25 or 50 years ago? did they we are starting to see the real world impact of we all talked about. we always said education is the key to participating in the great american dream. now for the first time you see it in the marketplace. unemployment rate among college graduates is 4%. a lot higher among the or college graduates but overall 4%. the enumclaw rate for kids who drop out of place was so high you cannot measure. we can't even find them.

we also for the first time see competition for jobs from around the world so we have to measure ourselves not on a subjective standard but versus the objective standard of can it be done elsewhere and what happens is all of a sudden everybody says let's have accountability. accountability is what we need to give parents the knowledge they need to know where to send their kids and change our school systems so we have different alternatives. one of the ways we have different alternatives is take big schools and break some up into small schools. let the principal be more focused. lets us have a team in each of the schools to attract the kids and make it more interesting. even though we really teach the same thing in most of the schools and it lets us better measure the performance of everybody. students, schools and teachers and give that information to the parents because when the accountability for the

management system that the department of education, the mayor, we really need accountability data for the parents who have to make those decisions and you can see the yelling and screaming when you give the data to the parent and the arrogance of the bureaucracies that say parents should have data to know what to do with their kids. it is astounding but we are fighting through that. everybody who talk about accountability and evaluation systems across this country, is not hard to understand. is not the evaluation system that is important but getting the data to those who need it to make decisions. >> i don't know how antonio villaraigosa can be held accountable and yet not have control. it is a jeopardy -- catch-22. he is accountable for improving the schools that have no ability to influence. that is neither one of us have

that. the accountability coming to this. i would not trade places with a person who is accountable with no ability to influence. it is from the sidelines and most importantly as mike just said the economic stewardship. the most improved economy in the area but the biggest engine to the economic system with no ability to influence it. number 2, what mike said, this year, for years in our system principles were getting a report card on their school's performance. we have made the very report card that principles have available model we to parents but on line to parents. ever since we have done that we have had increasing role by principals in improving programs. the impact of creating the information and making available we have had principles in rolls and other things to improve

their own skills because now we have looked at the curtain and the culture of accountability in the system and your starting to see impact behavior that are out side parents and teachers the most important group we can work with other principals who are accountable for what happened in the building and giving the parents the information to hold the principal and teachers accountable is essential as a first step to getting the change ripples through the system. >> let me follow up with all of you. >> secretary donovan said -- the reason for my being here to help from organize, you said something in your introduction. the three school districts that are represented here are bigger than most states. if you take our collective students they are bigger than other students, some 44 states. but we can't compete for raced to the top. district will now be allowed to

compete for race to the top in states like mine where they haven't wanted to have competitive bid was really heartening because there is the will in the city of los angeles in chicago and new york to tied reform to more money and do the kinds of things and get the kind of flexibility to innovate and set the highest standard. >> it is to be before you go to the next question. [talking over each other] >> a major announcement that we will on our own, our changes with that idea towards the set of results. the whole concept of race to the top. getting our chance. they la treaty cities -- three cities, here is the reform and accountability and results we want. and not be tied to what goes on at the state level will be a significant change and a change long do and welcomed by all of

us. [applause] >> may have a second thought. >> back to something mayor bloomberg said. i want to weigh in on it. you pointed out the the unemployment rate is 4% compared to what we have. we know how profoundly the unemployment rate is for younger high school graduates. particularly minorities, particularly mail. whether or not this is snobbish to talk about higher education. >> that really -- [talking over each other] >> 20 years ago we closed vocational schools and everybody said what the me and my kid

won't go to harvard legal yell princeton? he is not but harvard, yale and princeton is not for everybody and that is not the way to make the most money. a great tongue-in-cheek peace nine months ago i urge you all to read comparing going to harvard university with joining the corrections department of the state of california. the state of california corrections department is much more selective than harvard and you almost never catch up because instead of spending 50 grand each year you make money and the benefits and vacation and everything else. the issue is we need people at all different levels. vocational schools and college graduates and that is a very desirable thing but you have pricing power and being a plumbers' something society needs. something that is a profession people will pay for and you can be in charge of your own destiny and start your own company.

let's not forget those. we started opening a lot more what i would call vocational schools. only in education -- >> in the speech, that many of us have been citing, talking about community colleges and apprenticeship. it works with the business community. i was out there and saw it when you were taking off. >> we have to be very real. the vast majority in these will district our port. that is the majority -- these communities we continue the high

school dropout rate, these communities are destined to remain for. the only way is to get those dropout rates down to zero. none of them are where they want to be. we have to graduate with one form of higher education. there are no good jobs for high school dropout. four year universities and two year community colleges, that has to be the aspiration for every young person and we have to challenge the status quo. it is okay for a high school diploma. there is nothing out there for those people. >> when i talk to ceos about their hiring challenges the chairman of siemens america was working on a gas turbine plant in north carolina and he said he was going to the military bases for which north carolina is famous because they are so well trained. our veterans had so much computer education and technical education they're not getting in many public schools but they

need in one year or two year or four year schools. what you finding when you talk to employers about what the gap is between kids graduating from public high school and the people they need to employ? >> three quarters of all jobs require a post high school education whether it is four years post graduate or minimum of four years they community provides. in our city we found we instituted a college career program. abbott, presbyterian hospital beepers the walgreen's all coming in on the health care i.t. doing the trading. that will train you for the health-care field which we will have 84,000 jobs over the next decade in chicago alone. we are a transportation logistics center. with the goes on roads or runway we do it.

we have no school that doesn't do it. art harvey will be the transportation center in cairo the logistics, and canadian national and burlington doing the curriculum training so we produced a work force that will have that specific field. to give you an example we met in the transportation area, each year the conventions and culinary we do i.t. and professional services and advanced manufacturing. every year we do -- until all six are done. they are ecstatic given contractors who require computer knowledge and technical skills. not just driving away it was before. logistics' and working the warehouse and information from the working computer and we are giving those kids who are coming out of high school a career,

chance that employment. right now you get a degree and put on your resume, just does not have the economic value four institution is. i have to get those kids who are making a sacrifice a shot at a career. i will give you a compliment sold on a second. good one for you. last year i was reading the wall street journal about a high school, ninth grade to fourteen. these kids get tutoring and mentoring and a shot at a job all way. i want to give him a shout out. come to chicago and we will set up those schools. microsoft, verizon, have all stepped up with ibm, 9 to 14 in

special areas in stem education. they will not just have high school but a pipeline because their first in line for a job interview at those are all the changes from community college to high school to give kids a shot at a career and a shot at a job. >> i stand with the president and what he said. most educator's in america, the fact is -- and college ready. plummer is a good job. i can tell you the number of kids that say they want to go to an apprenticeship program as an electrician or carpenter and if they haven't taken algebra or geometry they can't get in. defect is our kids, 75% of

parents think college is important and they say yes. we want kids to be career ready and college ready and graduate from high school because our unemployment rate is 12.7%. i met with a group of economists who say one reason it continued to go that high as we had so many people with high percentage of the work force who are not even high school graduates. they will be unemployed for longer period of time. >> kids feel that effect and it becomes a continuing cycle. >> we put a lot of money into our schools. one thing michelle wie said on msn b.c. where we had this continuing focus on education nation and we are in our third year that you participated. she said we doubled what we spend in the last decade on

public school education and testing shows it has not improved. >> we spend double, 18 odd thousand. >> what do we have to show for it? >> you got to step back. it is not just in america. repetitive job the getting automated out of existence and jobs where you don't have to be by your supplier or your customer move to the lowest priced part of the world and so we have to find ways to not only get people to stay in school and get degrees but make those degrees and skills they learn more relevant, not what the jobs used to be but what the jobs are going to be down a road. that is an enormous challenge and the conventional way government works is we throw money at all problems. what legislators do is vote money. they don't run anything. what they want to go to their

constituents and say i got a computer for the kid in the class. not clear that the computer is a good idea. a lot of evidence says that is not really making a difference. but uses a lot of money but in the end education is about a teacher looking at a kid face to face. if you care about education you have to care about the quality of the teacher. class size matters. 1 said it doesn't matter as much as the quality of teacher. doesn't matter as much as the quality of teacher. would be nice to have small class size but in the end spend your money on teachers and get those who can't do the job out of the system of matter what the economic impact of that is. we were about what it would cost to remove a teacher from the classroom who is not doing a good job but not stopping paying them. that is not the problem. is having the teacher in front of a kid as that kids spend

another day of his life without learning. >> let me ask about the loan forgiveness program. we have history in america of not valuing teachers. if grade schools begin with great features, how do we make teaching a more valued profession the way it is in finland or places that are outdistancing us on international testing. you have a program -- [talking over each other] >> try to negotiate with teachers union to pay a $20,000 bonus to a teacher that gets ranked at the top of their profession two years in a row to say thank you and keep them from being hired away or going into another profession. most teachers went into teaching when they didn't have alternatives. today women have more alternatives and it is more a woman's profession. if you look at the classroom you still see women for the first

time having alternatives and we have to retain them. forgiveness of loans is to let them take a profession where we don't have to pay back their loans. let them go into a profession where the compensation is with recognition and respect and pleasure of knowing you are making a difference but you have to pay back the loan so we're trying to help with that but in this end we don't have a problem recruiting teachers. the real reason they want to teach is we have a school system that is really changing and making a difference. are we any place where we want to be? no. but we have to make sure we keep the best teachers and remove the worst ones from the classroom and that is the battle going forward. in the end, it is at the federal to the way government works. it is never done in any part of

government and in education, these kids having of future. >> we will be introducing the superintendent momentarily. want to give you a chance to wrap up. >> i agree with what mike said but i would add we need a principal who is ready to be accountable and a teacher motivated to teach and and involved parent. we raise a fund for principal merit pay so as your school improves, the principal participate in merit pay. we have principles, teachers, the ceo on a merit pay system top to bottom. we have been playing with this. from now on we get a principal,

top of the class reaching epidemic standards, we will pay $20,000 signing bonus to be a principal in taking over a school. we need 50 new principles of high-quality so we will do a bonus for the best people coming out of our school system who are ready to be principles and take over the system and be accountable. the merit pay system for principles and i support what is going on. >> and to really make a difference. what people need to understand, any time there's a budget crisis there's always the demand, you have too many managers and overpaying managers. when times get tough and you have to do more with less you need better managers. you need better paid managers. i know it doesn't sound good, i don't want to lose my job.

everybody does worry about their own jobs and where you stand depends on where you set. nevertheless you need better management and the management and education is called principles and the great principle like a great store manager -- [talking over each other] >> i paid turnaround schools and a signing bonus and i agree on that point but in california we have gone from the top five when i was growing up to 47, that is not the direction we want to go either. i believe money matters. i don't buy the idea that it doesn't. you have to tie money to results and that is what we're trying to do. we want to invest in things that work and innovation and schools

that are improving and teacher development and teacher training and payne teachers more when they are succeeding. that to me is the third way and the way we advocate in california. >> we will engage the superintendent and rearrange our chairs and bring up the superintendents. let me introduce -- [applause] >> while we all get set closest to me is los angeles superintendent john deasy and dennis walcott and next to rahm

emanuel is jean-claude brizard from chicago. you are facing a lot of challenges. trying to get the teachers union to abolish the four year time limit on disciplinary files on everything you experience. we know there have been charges filed and the whole community involved. bring us the latest. >> the thing about los angeles, los angeles is -- what happens in los angeles is enormously for this country. the transformation reformers on three big bets of human capital, who we hire and who we fired a we promote to compensate. public school choice, every single parent is how you run the system in a strong performance measure and those were brought

to bear on how we deal with the situation. and to separate chronically low performer. and cause a problem in retaining the highest performance. we think about the way you respond to situations. the four side of the box have traditionally been in negotiation. try to negotiate ways to make things work. that has to include regulation. you work with school boards and state boards and includes legislation. you change laws that don't work and quite frankly if those to not work then you deal with litigation and we use all four to make sure the rights of adults are equally protected. >> let's talk about what is

happening in the city, dennis walcott. one of the big issues has been publicizing the performance record. there has been a lot of push back. bill gates took issue in the new york times editorial saying microsoft has a vigorous personnel system but using employee evaluations to embarrass. tell us, the performance ratings. >> it is all about accountability, and the new york city community, and to get the information out and empower our principles to explain what is going on and have a clearer understanding what is happening and how teachers are doing and the goes back to what the mayor's talked about around

accountability at all levels, whether it is that the teacher level or the student level. with a high school directories. two years ago, high school graduation break. parents trying to find a high school to choose from know how well a school has done or not done and part of that is accountability and it is another level of accountability as far as making sure parents have information and understand what the information actually means. weather is a school grade or data report or a high school graduation rate. we want to make sure the entire school community has information available to -- >> gates gives information to microsoft including managers of the people being evaluated. in our case it is the principal and parents who need the information. we are not doing anything

differently than what does. [talking over each other] >> someone out of the business world understand how these things work. you have been facing a lot of challenges in your short tenure as you take over this complex school system. you went to the puppet of major church just last weekend and explain how passionately you feel about the reforms going to chicago. you are facing opposition from the teachers' union. from rainbow push coalition. >> we spent quite a bit of time talking about what we accomplish in chicago. going back to the data and talk about what has been happening we

have increasing achievement gap between black and white students and 57%, we have got the average graduate, 21 is college readiness so a call to action. we have work to do. it is nothing when you have these things happening. so very simply, in number of times, work to do and been to get there. and argue about the what but how we actually get there but we have work to do. it is pretty well received by other people. >> can i add another thing? our first battle as it relates to changing our schools, chicago public schools, our kids have one of the shortest school years

in the country. so you have a comparison. in new york a child spends 8,000 more minutes a year in the classroom than a chicago child. and l a child every year, about 3,000 more minutes in the classroom than a chicago child. we are all competing, chicago or new york or l.a.. it is cumulative. 8,000 more in chicago. it is a great city. it is not more valuable than kid in chicago. so our first battle was getting a lengthy day or lengthy year equal to their aspirations. that is the most important thing we could do. >> one of these things in this conversation that comes a lot is

accountability, whether it is an individual tests for or school performance that all three are publishing. the reason for that is worth talking about for a second. i fundamentally believe information is the underground currency. it has been for a long time and when every parent regardless of economic means understands what is happening and has the ability to make choices based on that you equalized the playing field that is around rights of both students and parents. the process of being public about growth over time is a rights issue. >> the school report cards that it now employs was started in my partnership and we took it to scale. now i am arguing we should put a

letter grade by that report card just like kids get a letter grade to see how they're doing. our schools need to get a letter grade as well. >> on the morning show, we should worry as much about early childhood education if not more that between ages 3 and 5 we are losing kids so by the time they enter public school they keep falling behind and that in some quarters avoids the high school graduation rate. i don't know how to quantify that. >> we talk about this career agenda two things to increase access particularly disadvantaged communities and all of us are facing huge achievement gap.

we have children entering kindergarten reading fluently and haven't been read to so these are all -- early childhood is the best investment we can make. have to keep driving reform and it is linked to college and career. >> is prekindergarten the middle-class and upper-middle-class? >> all these cities have hundreds of thousands of children. not enough but we have to get black and brown children into high-quality programs with the socialization skills are intact once they enter kindergarten. >> we implement that in freak a program so taking get through high school is extremely important and picking up on the superintendent from los angeles, what we are doing is tremendous. we have been able to create 500

new schools of which 139 our charter schools and the ability for parents to choose high quality options is one of the great equalizer is because they know how well a school is doing or not doing. and put that information out on a constant -- >> we closed the gap and absolutely we're going in the right direction but by giving parents choice parents can influence whether or not schools get better. one of the problems is for some parents private schools have become the back up schools and the private schools are very clever. they give you an option of accepting and putting down a nonrefundable deposit or you don't get the place. haven't found out whether your kid will get the right public schools so what does a parent

do? a get calls. a nice send them the depository's my child likely to get into the public school of choice. we even had people outside new york city for the first time wind about where they live so they can send their kids into new york city to go to public schools. used to go in the other direction. >> let me bring up questions by the audience. the more it concentrates power, they get away -- what are you doing with parents bringing them to the table? >> what we have done in new york city in 2003, we invested $80 million and every school has a parent coordinator and that is something to be sure parents had a direct vehicle to talk to and we made a major investment in that. we put a lot of information into the hands of parents and new

technology available as well. we have online service so our goal is to make sure parents get information at this level. >> the opposite happened. in rochester, new york, you have that single light of accountability to get the answer and in chicago we have parent engagement of a separate cabinet level. is about impairing parents not to the k-12 level but publishing scorecards of pre k programs around the city with parents making the choice would is good or not. [talking over each other] >> you look at what we are doing we are all driving information to parents. if we didn't have that accountability there would be no impetus to give parents the

information to bring their own voice -- >> they want you to hire professional educators to run the classrooms. the parents have to decide whether the results are good or not and demand better results. no one suggests that the parents should come and sit in front of the class and teach the kids. that is why we educate teachers. that is their skill sets and why they should have that job. >> we have a parent center. i started by saying we need to put parents and teachers in front of a movement to hold schools more accountable and improve them. we have a parent center and every one of our schools the person whose job is. we start the parent union in los angeles and apparent trigger which allows parents in failing

schools to vote to have a choice whether we want to operate under those conditions. everyone of us has been committed to the idea that we need to put parents and students and teachers in the equation. >> i don't believe power has been centralized. the responsibility has been centralized. it rests on a quality of the teacher and that relationship with parent or guardian and strong centralized responsibility, it happened in every one of these cities in ways that has given parents more information and given teachers and principals more information to be more effective. >> question from the audience. superintendents who work in the inner-city district were you doing to ensure the safety of your school in terms of school violence and bullying and the tragedy we saw in ohio this

week? funerals will be held this weekend. i interviewed one of the students and was breathtakingly painful to think of what that young man experienced in escaping the gunfire. we associate that in our minds with urban centers and this was anything but. bullying and school violence can happen anywhere. >> in new york city in the beginning of the administration we create what is called impact schools and we did a very detailed analysis as far as number of incidents and created a special set of rules where we infused those schools with police and school safety officers. it works as far as what they should be doing from hallway passes to areas that may not have proper coverage. we have been able to reduce the number of incidents and climb to

47%. we have been clear about these schools should not be run by that one individual who may want to create a problem or crime in the school. it should be for all the students so we're very clear about the roles and policies of the principles and school safety officers in reducing them and making safety effect. the other thing has been very clear in training with principles around suspensions and making sure they have appropriate policies in place and suspending a student with the principle suspension or superintendent suspension and make sure people understand that as well. we are very focused on the importance of safety not just for our students but the entire school community. >> a lot of synergy between what you see in new york and chicago. one is we have a system where we have the principles, what the police commanders with that data both in and out of school and make connections for people and what happened over the weekend

in the cafeteria. that kind of dialogue between transportation hubs is one we actually look at. >> we have kids going after school. one thing i often push is safety and security is not just in security but youth development. the positive behavior systems are critical. the villages critical. getting ahead of issues. child walking off through the door and you see something on the face and you know something is going on. who is there to translate the incident down a road? [applause] >> beyond obvious safety matters and one incident of violence.

the contract is worth pulling into the conversation. los angeles -- probably true in other cities. incidents of violence are very small compared to incidents of violence you have experienced. effective this is not about school safety but has to be about a community safety issue is why the relationship with community foundation and safe passages and the police department are critical. students unfortunately live in a violent community where they come to school which is a safer place and the notion of how to handle and make sure you are not engaged is as important as -- >> we're all talking different types of investments. there is no greater investment and after-school programs. >> experience our own that our

parents did for us. whether it is athletic or artistic. between the hours of 3:30 to 6:00 or 5:30 there is a program available for children. essentially high school but all children legally essential to their safety and personal development. it complement everything else that goes on during the day. >> i know we are short on time and getting close to closing comments. i want to ask about the budget crunch. you have some exciting programs but you go to those people like -- that mike bloomberg was talking about. to get the money legislated. the other piece is with all of our programs, raced to the top and the rest, have we put such a premium on testing that we have the unintended consequence of a rash of cheating scandals? >> let me take the second one

paris. there has been an overemphasis on testing and under no child left behind a big part of the waiver is working the state is to broaden those things still the creativity from the 11 states who granted waivers to moving beyond test scores and looking at increasing graduation rates which are more important or dropout rates to make for more students are going to college or not taken remedial classes or persevering and moving in a comprehensive way so we share those concerns. test scores to your piece of something but it is a small piece and we emphasize multiple measures. reauthorize no charge left behind and hopefully the leadership will shine through. on the budget side it is so important that budgets reflect our values. we invest in education or not. it has to be at every level and every child should k-12 and higher ed. we are trying to walk the walk in tough economic times.

unprecedented money in early childhood and pal grants but we can't do it by their souls. the state have to step up. districts have to step up. colleges keep down their costs. we educate our way to a better economy or we are going to struggle. >> if i could ask you to speak of j.c. starting with you, and the single biggest challenge you face, your greatest hope in terms of being able to surmount that? >> i'm going to paraphrase a line of -- a line a principal said to me. it is public, tangible and a high performing school. that is a solution to what ails us. the challenge goes back to making sure our parents are making choices and providing data to push the system to do

better as a parent with three children and one on the way very soon, that school -- >> family medical leave in chicago. >> that school is a solution. what i have in terms of knowledge about selecting schools and classrooms every parent should have done. it is fundamental to chicago. >> mayor emanuel? >> the way i look at it, this system was set up for the adults without any of the kids in mind. you would never ever start a system with a shorter school they were shorter school year. the kids were never in mind when you developed and that. it was negotiated. that is the sad part. making sure we have a culture, iowa that the end of the they principal who is truly accountable to what happens and

the results that come out of that building. i want a teacher who is motivated and excited about being there and a parent who doesn't think the system is too powerful for them but involved in their own school or their own child's education because all the information to date has kept some distance. the most important door the child walks in for their education as the front door of that house. if they don't know the importance of education every other piece i responsible for has the weakest link and will drive down and have to make sure parents know getting kids to school is not your responsibility. making sure they understand the value of that education is the essential to everything else we do. and pass in the classroom. those are the pieces if we get those three things with the level of accountability and focus our results things will

flow from there. >> how do we make sure students are the people who are in the front of the discussion? >> a lot of times when the discussion takes place is always about the adults and how we define education on how benefits are students. what is in the best interest of students? how we put a quality effective teacher in front of the classroom and empower our principals to be the true people in charge of their building and deciding on the budget to benefit our students and make sure those teachers have the training and the support to carry out their job for the benefit of our students and how we make sure we wage the battle we weighed on a constant basis for the benefit of our students which includes removing ineffective teachers who are not doing their jobs. removing any effective principals who are not doing their job and a final peace is how we engage our parents to make sure parent have the

information, know what the information means and find a variety of vehicles of parental involvement if you can't be at the school on a regular basis so they can carry out their role as parents and reinforce -- all about the students. >> mayor bloomberg? >> in god we trust. everybody else has to bring data. i know of no way is for a teacher to know whether they're getting through to the child and whether the child understand that is making progress without testing those children. this business of we are teaching for the test is exactly what we should do as long as the test reflects what we want them to learn. if the test is can you read, yes, you should find out whether they read by casting them. the tests that we do are in the children's interests and a teacher's interests and we want to walk away from responsibility because sometimes the tests

don't show we're doing a good job. i don't want to test. sometimes tests show we are not devoting enough money to the system or we are devoting too much. we go to american university and get tested. we get tested at the polls and the press every day. we should find out whether we are doing a good job is ridiculous. no one in this room is old enough to remember but there is a vietnam -- need deep in the big money, that is what you do. taking away the birthright of our children. when we test next year or two years or three years from now you're taking kids and sending them into the real world from

which lack of skills and they will never catch up. >> glad you didn't try to see that. >> you asked for the greatest hope and challenger. in los angeles, last couple years, at a much greater rate. doubling graduation rates have to be doubled again. the ability that we now watch dog is levels of performance in every grade is great, not where we want to be but where we used to be. that when students can graduate every single one of them legal about some, not most but all college work force ready then we are at the right point. the challenge is how to overcome what i think is a systematic disinvestment of circumstances like poverty in this city and this country. i do not believe we believe all students can graduate college who are most ready otherwise we

would act very differently. we would construct systems for them. not about the adults who work with them. that is a profound challenge. i also think what you see here is the era of superintendents and mayors showing up at a press conference to celebrate a token on a bus is gone. it is one team who are committed to invest rights for kids who are not afraid of accountability. that is a positive sign whether they're influenced or mayoral control is quite clear. this notion that this is two teams is not a way to go. >> one hope is in addition to districts like ours that are city-state's, able to compete for race to the top that we also get waivers so we can innovate and do the kinds of things states are allowed to do. on those two points there is hope but the real hope if you

will, i want our schools to be world-class schools. tom friedman says the world is flat and we are not competing he is not just talking about the urban schools but our kids. my son was at princeton -- he is saying they are not competing in math and the girl science and engineering. i wonder been schools to be placed in world-class education and want our kids to compete. i do believe one of the reasons i wanted these mayors here is i do believe mayors have to spearhead the influenced your put parents and teachers first and focus as much on the kids as we do on the adults and that is something you heard all across here. we all know people work hard and the teachers who get into the profession are people who care about changing the world but we want the best people in the profession and we want to be able to measure who are the most

effective and highly effective teachers, hold accountable. principals as well. invest but ti that investment to improvement. >> i want to thank everyone who is here today and secretary arne duncan for participating in this. if there is one clear message from all of the mayors and superintendents it is that the children should be at the center of all of this. children and their parents. that accountability matters. principals and teachers have to be held accountable and we have to work together. 2.5 million children are led by the people on this stage and their lives are in their hands. those that is the profound message we all take away. thank you all very much. [applause]