>> introducing to you tonight, jordan flaherty. mr. flaherty is a journalist and community organizer based in new orleans. if he looks familiar to you, he has appeared on much of the national international media and cooper 360 and reverend jesse jackson. mr. flaherty was the first journalist to write for the national publication as you may remember from about four years

ago. bringing back the international attention. he was also -- his post-katrina writing shared a journalism award from the american media and the aspect pass. he is produced for democracy now and other news organizations, which makes them particularly qualified to discuss tonight digital activism, resistance, resolution friend -- [inaudible] she's the author of a new book available over here after your dinner called "floodlines: community and resistance from katrina to the jena six." please join me in welcoming to the world affairs council, mr. flaherty. [applause]

>> thank you, everyone. it's really an honor to be here and be aghast i want to especially thank flora and the rest of the board at the council for really making this happen. can people hear me okay? there's a double microphone going on here. there's a double microphone going on here. i think it's so important that an organization like this exist to have these dialogs in the city. we have such an incredibly lively story but sometimes we don't get to think about issues outside the city and country. it so important to have the new site this when these issues can be discussed. café new orleans needs to learn more about dorland's. outside members in the greater new orleans area contribute to creating this culture that i

think people from around the country have a lot to learn from. to everyone who has been mayor and citing through hurricane katrina on the drilling disaster and this culture alike, still good to be part of you all. i came into journalism in a different way than a lot of people. i didn't go to journalism school. easterbrook is a union organizer and a move to new orleans a few years before hurricane katrina. getting a little feedback here. a few years before hurricane katrina. and then i was living in the neighborhood, staying in a apartment in midcity actually -- do i need to back up? is that better? thank you.

sorry. and i evacuated a few days after the storm. and when i evacuated, what i saw affected me to this day, which was the way many people are treated especially african-americans through norland and very true here, campaign i tend causeway. when i got through the city and saw how the city was being treated in the media and people of new orleans for to pick it and the media, so much is really missing from now. and so, i wrote a short article about the city i come to know in the previous few years and what a pain in those previous days as i evacuated. and that e-mail that i sent out end up getting forwarded around and referrer data recorded in all smugness translated into several languages with published publications around the world,

was on websites. and i started receiving feedback from people i respected here in new orleans that this is something i could do that would be useful to the city to try and tell the stories of people fighting for rebuilding, so over these past several years, and try to find a way to learn how to do journalism in a way useful to the people of new orleans and to communities in a way that is accountable to the truth and also accountable to this community i am from. this idea of accountability is some rain and members of journalism, but often misting in journalism today. this idea of being accountable to the truth and your community. that is something journalism needs to learn from and get in touch with. when i talk about media, people talk about the mainstream media as opposed to alternative media.

i think that those boundaries are less and less important today. you know, i think that right now sort of all media is mainstream media. you can be a 14-year-old with a blog and send me can be seen by millions of people. there's incredible level of distress of what is seen as the mainstream media today. for better or worse, these boundaries are breaking down. it is actually more useful to look at this label as some people use a corporate media versus non-corporate media because it's important to keep in mind what the media is accountable to. some media is accountable to the states that find it. you can someone say that about al jazeera and somewhat about the english-language russian channel, or the new english-language channel from china. other media is more accountable to the advertisers, ultimately at the bottom line. again, it is not to build a

value judgment against it. i think what we think about media, think about who the media is accountable to, without funding comes from and what that means. there's also a listener supported media, whether that's npr to a certain extent and other independent radio station. and so, these different brand names are something that's often not talked about. people talk about how many read it, is the mainstream? is a nonmainstream? there's other barriers in now. people talk about the new influence of bloggers, facebook, twitter, social media as an important force in world affairs today. people especially talk about the recent events in the middle east, arab spring, revolution and each had. i was fortunate enough actually last year shortly after the revolution in egypt to speak to a lot of people on the ground,

including bloggers have been active in organizing and getting the world. i asked them for their thoughts on the medium of grassroots had been in that struggle and a soda for a couple minutes am not that i want to read out because i thought it was really interesting in this context. i talked to a woman named brabant à la moxie, an activist and blogger they are. you know, i asked her what she thought of the importance of social media, facebook, twitter she said when people don't talk about is the importance of soccer hooligans. all the people that get violent at soccer matches. they said you could light a fire

in three sections which is staring them prices. they said they said police informants in the crowd and i was very helpful in people organizing police informants in the crowd and i was very helpful in people organizing interior square. this created a lot of pressure on the government. i think it's important to think about forces on the ground and every person i talked to any chipset, you know, one thing that was most important was tunisia and that often gets forgot about your disinformation at me shake it these moments in time, whether it's tunisia, each at, occupy movement assert this really important function of breaking the spell. we are living at the end of history, this idea that change

cannot happen, that we are stuck with whatever system we have, whatever leader we have. and the moments where the stylus broke and in a mass movement can change things. it creates this period of history that martin luther king is responsible for the civil rights movement. it ignores the masses of people. the fact there is no one person in a jet, no one person that we know of certain key figures in both those cases, but this idea there's a mass of people coming together. it opens up to a different of history. there is another activist and blogger named hasan abdul lally

and he made the point that there were 12 million protesters that were not online. they were coming up and didn't have internet. millions of people didn't have access. he said also people would post news about a protest in the newspapers and al jazeera tv would say these people posted on facebook. so i'll be sued for online, but we seen a are getting this report in an facebook gets the credit, but in roiling this traditional media that actually really got that word out through that our people. in general al jazeera was a force that is really important in getting the word out. somewhere in breaking a certain silence in the medium and the middle east.

going back to the u.s. and our crisis in media, we are at this really key time to talk about thinking in media here with the course announcements going down to three days a week. and you know of course i think probably none of us want to live in a city that doesn't have a daily paper and you know, what that means. we also ought to look at it in this longer chain of the fans of the fact that there used to be two newspapers and this can surely had four or five or six newspapers. and that collapses happen. also the collapse of a more independent medium, especially in new orleans and around this country are really strong african american media. you know, i think those that are fighting right now that the

chair for a long time in louisiana weekly slowly started losing all their staff and influence and ability and the new orleans tribune similarly lost that. i think we need to ask why because that has been so important. there is an article a few months ago and columbia journalism review talking about and the lack of diversity around the u.s. they give a history of talking about before 1968 and would be very hard to find any people of color reporters, steny are in the u.s. and in this article they spoke to many of the longtime reporters at these papers. many said that they could remember the riots that caused them to be hired, sort of these

rights in the late 60s and early 70s in various cities in almost every city and the newspaper would say, we don't understand what this right came from, but we better hire someone from this community to report on it and in many ways they were cut plan by these changes. that really says why we need this diversity in media. it is not just because it's the right thing to do, that the media cannot report correctly if it does not have voices from that committee. and columbia journalism review of an article that many newspapers in the country continued to have this issue of a lack of diversity on their staff. they interviewed one person who had just been in an editorial meeting at the "houston chronicle." there was one person of color in that editorial meeting. so this is a problem continuing

to plague these papers. in a city like new orleans is still african-american, we need to really fight or a media that represents the whole city again not just because of the right thing to do, but because it makes for better media. and i don't want to give the impression that identity is the only thing. you know, there's many, many clear examples of people not from a community able to do great reporting from that community, but it absolutely helps to have that representation from different communities and it does make the journalism stronger and the reporting stronger. ..

>> we have been trying to do something about public housing. we gave the opportunity for this change. you know, in both cases we are told it is an invisible hand of the market that is going to make these systems better. it was said that the first 100% premarket public education system in the country. and i think that this example gives a really good challenge to

the market, that it will solve these problems are fundamental needs like health care and education and housing. here is this paper but all reports, it is the most profitable newspaper by the new health jane. it has to, you know, it is something like penetration, thank you. penetration of the news daily. it has the lowest internet access of any cities in the country. and yet, if you ask, almost anybody in the city of new orleans, if they think that we should lose our daily paper, nobody thinks so, yet we don't have a say, ultimately and what happens in the daily paper. immediately people were saying, let us buy the paper but they don't want to sell the paper for it is the most profitable paper they won to use this paper for this experiment in this

experiment is about the bottom line and not about the community newspaper. when we are talking especially about love the fundamental needs, like information, like education, like health care and housing, it cannot just be about -- we need some sort of lever to make that happen. this process has to make it happen. i want to give one other example from a situation that i think is relevant to this diversity of media. and that is the case of the jena

six. it started after a year of when hurricane katrina occurred, in the small town of jena, about 80% white, a very small parish. they have the highest percentage for a particular candidate than any parish in the state. the first day of high school they are having an assembly. a school administrator asked a student, does anyone have any further questions? one student said yes, i have a question. can anyone sit wherever they want in the schoolyard? >> and he was referring to the schoolyard of the jena high school, not by rule but by sedition had been divided by race. white students sitting in one area and black students sitting

in another person white students generally sat under this tree. in the school in minister said yes, anyone can sit where they want. the next day, there were nooses hanging from under the tree. the black students took this as a message from some white students, that they were not welcome to sit wherever they want or under that tree. then they acted in the old way of civil disobedience. they went as a group and gathered under that tree and there was commotion in the school, and the district attorney of the parish, the law officers were called in. the schoolyard was mostly divided by race. he said you need to stop making trouble, i can make your lives disappear with the stroke of my pen. what followed was several months of racial tension in the school and in the town overall. and this feeling that black students were punished for things that white students were not punished for.

there is an incident where some students were threatened with a shotgun and were charged with theft, while the owner of the gun faced no charges. a few days after that shocking incident, there was a fight in jena high school. a white student was badly beaten, and in fact, required medical attention. he was out at a ceremony later that night. he was brought to the hospital and he had serious injuries. six black students were charged with being part of that fight. there were six of the leaders in the protest. and they were charged with attempted murder for that school fight. they face life in prison. again, there is a feeling that this was a fight between these students, this would not be

charged. now, the parents of the students didn't know anything about media or organizing, but they knew they wanted that they wanted to stand up. and so they started having these protests in the town. at first it was just them and their friends and neighbors, beginning in late 2006 and early 2007, and they were coming out every week. they have never before held a press conference that they started holding press conferences and sending out notices to the media. sending letters to state legislators, senator mary landrieu, whoever they can think of. at first it was just one local newspaper that was covering it. the alexandria paper. and then people from surrounding community communities, community television stations from lafayette, started coming up and

covering the valleys and word started getting out and i actually heard from some people from new orleans who had heard about it. the juvenile justice project of louisiana had been involved because of the prison there. one of the lawyers sent out an e-mail to various people from legal and social justice communities in new orleans. more and more people. i went to the first one in may of 2007. they had been going for around six months with almost no attention outside of that town. but every week or every couple of weeks, continuing to come out and protest. i wrote the first article about that, it was for a national audience called the independents in new york and in san francisco and a couple of other publications and also on the web. soon after, there was a bbc

report, a "chicago tribune" report, associated press, reuters, it was bubbling beneath the surface. all were e-mailing the articles, people started posting it on my space, others have social networking sites. people had never been to jena and they were making youtube videos about it. it was really due to the grassroots. some of the most regular media coverage was from black radio stations around the south that were having the members call in and talk about the story. it was percolating like this for a while. in late june, i did a story on it for democracy now. that was a radio and tv show that circulated around the u.s. that again is not seen as mainstream media. but the ship that happened after

that report was remarkable. the families, for more than six months had illegal defense fund set up, a bank account, but there was virtually no money in it. within five days after that democracy now reports, there was about $40,000 in that account from viewers and listeners around the country. this nonmainstream media had really broke in and broken the story in a new way. the black independent owned newspaper did a story soon afterwards. two syndicated black radio shows, the steve harvey show and another show that was not generally known for their content politically, started talking about this regularly. all of this combined ramp the story up to a new level. again, the mainstream, they were

taking more of a look. it started becoming a big story. in late july, the family members call for another rally and 300 people came out that was the huge number at that time that anyone had heard of. a friend of mine who works for the newspaper said that we were out there and we started marching and jena was so small, we were marching and said no justice no peace, and then we marched the whole town and were gone. [laughter] it felt like a very large group. and the message was being sent to us. color of change did a petition. it was delivered on that day in july. then we looked at another protest on september 20, 2007.

michael basin and steve harvey seem to be talking about this at all points. people and communities around the country were organizing. jesse mohammed, who i mentioned before, part of a national conference call from student government associations, especially in schools throughout the south and historic black colleges and universities and they were organizing on how to come out. many students who had never before been to a protest were actually not only planning to go, but were organizing entire buses from their community or their school to go. on that day, september 20, it is estimated about 40,000 people came and marched in that town. soon after the charges against the youth were dropped, and those 69 men are now in college today instead of in jail. that absolutely happened because of this national grassroots media that kept the story alive and these family members, they

fought against this wall of official silence for months to make the story come out and fight the story to come out. it does remind me of what happened later with egypt or it these people have been protesting in numbers of five or 10 or 20 people, and immediately arrested. nobody knew of the protest movement really in egypt at that point. the muslim brotherhood at most. suddenly, millions of people were out and it happened instantly at this moment was broken. because people did not believe that we are at the end of history or that change is not possible and were not waiting for one single figure but realizing that many people had come together. when i talk to families from jena, they are so glad that the children are free and in college, but more than that they want people around the country

learned this lesson and to learn this lesson of building this struggle that many people of different talents and skills can get involved in. making youtube videos, organizing buses, some are on conference calls, some are lawyers, some are lobbyists. but all of them, under this vision of this change, in this case, the case of egypt or whatever, creating a revolution in changing the government, that many different people can come into this movement and it continues to struggle, it even after weeks and months and years of no one paying attention of it seemingly impossible with the knowledge that it could one day be not impossible and change can come. moving forward, i think that we need to look at some of these heroes in the media that are not generally recognized.

one person that has been a hero of mine is either the wells. a lot of people in this room have heard of her. i don't wells. her voice is sort of missing in journalism. ida b. wells. she made it her mission to uncover the story of lynchings in the south and to spread the word around the country about the lynchings were the young black men in the south. she was also, and a lot of people don't notice, in 1875, she was on a segregated railcar, and refused to get up. rosa parks considered the more acts of disobedience. she was an activist and a journalist. this line of journalism, you can do both, i think journalism

needs to be accountable to the truth. but i think we actually need to be honest about who the journalists are as individuals and we should not hide if they have an activist past or if they have police, but we should be honest about the people and transparency in journalism. so i just want to close with a quote from ida b. wells which sums up the passion that she had as an activist and journalist. sorry i do not have it memorized. it is better to live anti-injustice than to die like a dog in the street. there is no educator to compare with the press. it is up to all of us as a community to shape that and to

fight for a media that represents us and can make change possible and can give alive this idea the end of history and the change is not impossible. [applause] >> and now we have some time. i don't know if you need me to moderate with you, but if you have any questions, we can ask jordan in the next few minutes. >> [inaudible question]

>> you know, it's an interesting question. i think it -- by the way, did everyone hear that? she was saying -- in london, i believe it is the evening paper, it is free and so to advertise, it's paid for and it reaches a wider audience because it's free. >> [inaudible question] >> it is all over. the question is can new orleans do something like that. >> that's the thing. it is profitable. >> [inaudible question] >> well, we are to have a lot of free papers here in new orleans, all of our weekly papers are free. actually, louisiana was --

[inaudible question] >> these papers. >> but these papers are not limited editions that have some amount of newsletter for you. i think that they have all tried some levels of giving out a certain amount of free papers. >> i think all these things are possible. money is not a problem. the problem is, i think, two different versions over the future of newspapers. i think that these owners have decided that the future of the newspapers is not in print. they have made that decision. and they have believed that they could make more profit with this new model. people talk about how sometimes

these venture capitalist firms or other owners will buy a factory or whatever and will sell it out piece by piece to make profit and then dump it at the end. there was an article the other day, i forget who wrote it, but they said that in some ways new house is selling goodwill but the commune has, by dropping it down to these limited things. they are sort of squeezing this money out in a shortsighted way, but maybe in the short term, they will make more money and then in the long long-term, they won't have to pay for it but whatever -- they will sell it off and do it. it is the short-term vision, partly because they have no stakes in new orleans. they are looking at this and saying, that's why i think again we need to look at how we can just be about the market. we need to find other ways to support the media. not just with newspapers. but we are in a crisis of media

in general in this country. and it's not just about media not making money but media not doing the hard work of investigating. media could all the powerful accountable. and we lack a vision in media and need to find a way to find a good and advertising will not necessarily fond of media these challenges. all of us need to think about how we can solve that question. there is no easy answer. >> the new nola.com will not, in its current model, ever touch this. >> as she said, nola.com will not touch what they're trying to deliver. and i agree, nola.com reminds me of a 14-year-old my space page.

>> [inaudible question] >> so her comment and i want to get other people involved, but the comment is rather but not a question. we believe more what we read in the newspaper than what we read online. it is a fair point. >> interested in your thoughts on how government tries to control the digital media there has been basically more activity by governments to control what gets out that country when there are problems. the question was what i think about governments trying to crack down on social online media. i'm assuming you mean, for

example, in egypt when the government actually tried to shut down internet. you know, i think -- china, for example, has been pretty successful at silencing online stuff. in egypt, it really backfired and made people more angry. you know, so i think it is not a surefire tactic for them to try. again, it can work for days or weeks, it can work for months or years. but the change can still come and that no matter what means, the government crackdown. the will to be free for people will overcome it. >> yes? >> although i like having a newspaper in general, if we feel like the news is one-sided, acrylic i would almost rather have no newspaper than just one

study on one side of the story. i mean, i thihat it might help change, you know, what people see. you think it could be good as a chance for the inclusion. >> the question is, she does like the media in general -- that it didn't represent legit. she wonders at the times falls, maybe something will rise up in its place. is that a fair summary? >> or the people will have to go through multiple places to get what they need. >> okay, so maybe people go to multiple places instead of that one place and that will broaden what they do. it is possible, but i am very skeptical. i think that we need the times to be better. i think losing the times is not the answer. you know, i think that even if

we are we should fight for this for the two daily papers, fight for there to be changes in the system. you know, going to an annual gathering called the allied media gala, a gathering of people with various kinds of progressive media around the country. and lester i was speaking to a couple of people who were in mainstream media. and they were talking about those bad show that they had both women who worked in the media and they were talking about a very male workplace and they were dealing with. you know, one of the people i was talking about, she would sneak out of the office to the back or cry because of this environment she's facing. we are talking about how regularly after work, she would have several drinks because of

what she was facing. i think that people that are within this media that are trying to do good work are facing a really oftentimes dysfunctional environment. what i would call is a dual power movement outside the government to call for change within the government. the same is true for media. we need to build up our alternatives and fight for a strong robust alternative for corporate media. at the same time, we need to support, especially those voices within the mainstream media, those who are trying to do good work. a lot of brilliant reporters that are at "times picayune" and any other paper that you can talk about. we need to support those people to let them stay in the network. in new orleans, people are getting their news from those

websites. we can't say that we are going to ignore it and claps. >> getting back to egypt, can you tell us more about the independent media association that you encountered while working with egyptians and, you know, activists? >> the question was about media sources i encountered an egyptian activists. i don't want to present myself as an expert on egypt. i've spent a certain amount of time after the revolution. but i don't read arabic, so that is cutting me out of a lot of it. there were a lot of independent bloggers and people who were doing organizing on facebook and i think, you know, some of the facebook organizing, they did it in a way that was really smart

about bringing people into the process. they would not just say that there is a demonstration on this day, but they would say that this is a demonstration and we should all wear one color. what should we all wear. bringing people into the discussion and giving him some ownership over -- people felt this is my movement, too. i help decide what color were awkward to wear or whatever. people using media in a way that was interactive that really brought people in. and i think that that was helpful. >> i think that digital access is actually a very risky proposition for two reasons. one is i would like to know where we get the funding and the money to really fuel that machine. and second, the ability to communicate, just like with any government, and we are born to shut that down any chance that we can. whether it's wiki leaks or

things on the internet are things that you do. if we are going to have a free [inaudible] system, we have to find the money and we have to regulate those who make the laws. you can't. you need to find a way to make the internet impossible to shut down. how do you make it impossible to not censor the internet. we can't do that, if we can't do that, then this is actually not were not happen at all. >> okay, summing all that up, you are saying that this idea of what you call digital action is specifically digital online media, it is not a solution. that it is a risky path to take for any number of reasons, being, you know, how do we know it is reliable, how is the system of accountability and how are we going to fund it, how will we be sure that the government does not shut us

down. is that an accurate assumption? >> i think that all of that is very true. again, i think that as a wider community, we need to find an interest because i do think that the media is, it should be this basic kind of, you know, part of government. it could -- it should be something that we have. and i think whether we are talking about the so-called mainstream media or the digital online media, we need to talk about how it will be funded. so much of what is the online media is not journalism. it is not investigating. it is comments on other people's investigation. that commentary can be interesting. but you need somebody who is doing the actual investigation and that is actually looking into that. that cannot be done for free. commentary is really easy to do for free. journalism is really not. and so we need to find a way to

fund that. whether that is happening online or in print, it is not always something that advertisers are going to want to fund. we, as a people, need to find a solution. and the path forward. it is not an easy answer, but it will not come strictly from the market if that answers your question. >> [inaudible question] i think maybe it is a generational thing and i understand that it is embarrassing -- [inaudible] >> maybe we are also a little bit ahead of the curve. i think most people in their 20s don't really read the newspaper. i never read the newspaper, maybe i am at a point where my phone customer service. isn't it possible that religious moving away from it and that is really okay? i think that all my sources are

very legitimate. when i go online, do the same thing and i would be more likely to believe it on 20 sources been on one. is it possible that we are moving away from that? >> that's a very good question. for the folks who didn't hear, she was asking is this a generational thing. herself and people she knows and their 20s are not really concerned about reading the daily paper and maybe none of us should be concerned about it. maybe we don't need that because other sources can fill that need. you know, i think it is a fair point. it is interesting at the rally with "times picayune", there were several hundred people there and really only a handful were under 50 years old. only a handful were not white. i think that that does beg some real legitimate questions.

you know, i think it goes back again, what will take its place? i don't think that nola.com can take the place of "times picayune." i don't think it prioritizes importance. the multiple part series on incarceration around the state, and i think people that saw the paper, they saw that a type reference, but you could barely find on the website. it is possible that we are moving into an era beyond print. you know, i am amazed that we still have really great radio, you know? people are still doing radio. whatever it is, we need to find a way that we are going to support good media and sport powerful media. i do believe that we should have a daily paper. but i hear what you're saying,

and i definitely think it is not the only answer. if we do have a daily paper, we need one that will do a better job for all these things. and we do need to build up these alternatives, absolutely. >> wait for the microphone to get to you. >> i just want to comment on what you said. when i got out of college many years ago,. >> i have to move up here you. >> i lived in boston for two years. never read the boston globe once. i could care less about it. there was no internet. there was no npr i didn't care about the news. and i'm a college graduate, okay? i moved to new york, occasionally i will read the sunday times. but i never subscribed. there was still no npr i didn't

care about the news then. i really didn't. there were two good papers. after two years in new york, niners in seattle -- i started subscribing to the paper. i came to new orleans not have and i have been subscribing ever since i came here. what changed? i got older. okay? young people, college kids, they don't care about the paper. [inaudible conversations] >> i think that we should not get into a back-and-forth discussion. maybe you guys should move to another table. >> the journal said how many of you read the "times picayune"

and none of them said that they did. it surprised me because you're not reading the newspaper when you're studying in college. unless you want to know what is going on. but the thing that changed is that now i am a news junkie. i listen to npr,, you know, i watch news on tv and i read the paper. >> thank you for that. i'm just wondering if anything is different in college and journalism schools -- is there a different emphasis, i wonder if you can make a living and journalism in the way that maybe when i thought about going into it about 30 years ago you thought about and whether that, for reasons that have been branded back-and-forth, kids

still want to journalism school, and if they do, is it any different? you know, i would think it would have to be changes in how it's taught and what is taught and i was thinking it would be hard for someone like you do make a living. >> the question was are there changes happening in the journalism school with this changing environment. and he would think it would be hard for me to make a living, which is pretty true. >> you know, i don't know the ins and outs of what is happening in journalism school. you know, when i talk to young journalists, they are very scared about whether they are going to get a job and when i talk to journalists that are recent graduates, yeah, i think they're all thinking in the back of their mind what profession would have to segue into. especially those working in print. those in tv maybe feel a little

more secure, but those really doing the hard work of journalism. it is in crisis. and i have done a lot of my work and over the last decade or so, al jazeera has been expanding and we have a lot of critiques about this as well. it is not really advertising independent. we need to think about what media will look like in the new era. and every time the media has its problems and conflicts are, or where the funding comes from -- you know, we also question how well can we do their job and how much can they do their job. it is somewhat of a crisis. i believe that you had a hand up right here. before you do, let them i can

get you. >> "the new york times" has the perfect model for incorporating this into your website. i personally don't agree that young people don't value a newspaper. actually, they do. it is the message of delivery, it is going to radically change as we go forward with a new the new generation and we have to accept that to some degree. what is pen on paper has become an outmoded method of delivering the news. it is a new reality and one that we are going to have to accept to a certain degree. >> thank you. >> i think that where is the money going to come from to pay journalists to do some reporting and not just individual -- [inaudible] [talking over each other]

>> i did better reporting now than i ever did with print and print media. i believe any newspaper in the country any day, and i do believe that there will be a demand and a message to deliver it. >> i don't want to risk it too much back-and-forth, but it does show us that after the q&a, i think we will all be able to have a robust discussion. because this is something that we all have very passionate opinions on in a lot of different arguments on. i will just say one other thing to that. the issue of what will fund journalism and how we perceive it, speaking for myself, i am someone who likes to consume all kinds of media. i used to buy a lot of cds, i don't really any more. used by magazines and under really do that. i think i pay less for teenage

movies, and i think that we have all kind of become accustomed to this idea that the media is free. and i think that the corporations that deliver the media will always find a way to make profits off of the media. they will always find -- they will always have a part of the recording industry in crisis or the movie industry in crisis -- but they will always find a way to make profits. the people doing independent worker, and especially independent journalism, all kinds of independent media and arts, arts that makes the powerful uncomfortable, that is what will not necessarily be funded. i do encourage us to think about and encourage myself because i'm guilty of it, changing how we think about media. some media is worth paying for and we need to find a way to pay for it, especially that media that challenges the powerful. that media that is not immediately practical.

>> i see another hand of. >> [inaudible question] >> all right, do we have anyone else? >> more an observation than a question. something that is happening today, right now -- what we read and newspaper, we cannot ignore that aspect. >> i want to know what's going to happen. not two or three days ago. we have to keep that perspective in mind also. >> thank you, thank you. i think maybe this will be the last comment or question. >> [inaudible question] >> the defense movement, what is the ability to mobilize the

people. >> [inaudible] >> facebook and twitter and so on. that is why we need to look who the sources and the media. [inaudible] >> thank you. again, i just want to celebrate this organization that brings together these gatherings in these kinds of discussions. they are so important and really i am honored and pleased to be part of it tonight. thank you all for inviting me and thank

>> they built a facility. about 40 people. and it's got room for everybody. spent $4 million on an elementary school, i pitch you they would raise questions. >> sunday night at 8 p.m. on

c-span's q&a. >> now a discussion about the pentagon's role in responding to domestic disasters. panelists including the defense department assistant secretary for homeland defense, paul stockton discussed how the department can help civilian authorities in natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires. from heritage foundation this is an hour and a half.ng. >> good morning, welcome to the heritage foundation and to our lewis letterman on touring. wele we, of course, will impose a choice on all of these occasions honor heritage.org website.re p we are pleased to welcome those who are also joining us via mospan this morning. we would ask everyone and has to make sure that your cell phones have been turned off as we prepared to begin for everyone's benefit. will post the program r heritage website within 24 hours.

our internet viewers are always welcome to send questions throughout our proceedings. the mailing us at speaker@heritage.org. our speaker today is steven bucci. he focuses on special operations and cybersecurity as well as defense support to civil authorities. he served america for three decades as a top pentagon official, has led special forces in the ponds to east africa and the persian gulf, and assumed duties as a military assistant to donald rumsfeld. upon retirement he continued at the pentagon. prior to joining us, he was a lead consultant to ibm on

cybersecurity policy. please join me in welcoming steve bucci. steve? [applause] >> i want to thank everyone for being here today on a rainy day in washington, and to discuss the cherry topic of when the next catastrophe strikes. unfortunately, we always face that. there is always fun to be a next the event that will occur, and the only thing we can do is see how well we are prepared. this is by the way the first of the event we will have this week for our homeland security 2012 week. this is an excellent vehicle to keep off that serious up panels. the speakers are going to speak

for about 10 minutes apiece and the order -- we will start with admiral johnson and then go to paul stockton and wrap up with jim carafano. i will introduce each of them first and turned them loose. if they start to go too much over 10 minutes, i will jump up and they will realize there is something afoot. otherwise i will stay in my seat and enjoy their comments. normally when you do these it gets tough to introduce people, but with this group it is pretty easy for me. beginning with vice admiral harvey johnson jr.. admiral johnson is one of my heroes. he spent 35 years in the united states coast guard, and coasties are some of my favorites. they are amazing to work with

because they are oriented on getting the job done. admiral johnson is an example of that. in addition to his 35 years in the coast guard, he spent three very busy years as a deputy administrator and chief operating officer of fema. i like to say he is one of the people who put the m, the management, back into feet when it came to disasters because he did that. i know that because i was usually on the other side of him in the middle of hurricanes and wildfires, figuring out how dod. in addition, admiral johnson has been the commander of the coast guard pacific area. he was the assistant commandant for operations capability and for operational plans and policy. he is a go-to guy. he did that for many years.

he is working as the vice president for abe systems -- for bae systems. he is very excited to come back to have a discussion about something that he poured so much of his life into, which is supporting his country at risk. next we will have the man responsible right now for these things, the hon. paul stockton, who is the assistant secretary of defense for home led the 30fense and america's affairs. he owns -- security affairs. he owns security defense, and he is responsible for all homeland defense activities for dod, which includes support of civil authorities cannot domestic

crisis management, and he deals with all the countries in the western hemisphere from a policy standpoint. he actually established his bonafides by working at the naval postgraduate school for a long time. i was the benefit of the program that he established out there. i got to teach out there several times. it set the standard for homeland security education in our country, and has catered to chiefs of police, chiefs of fire departments, people on the ground dealing with those issues. it is a wonderful program, and they still talk very fondly about you out there. assistant secretary stockton is a coat-editor of homeland security, a graduate text in the subject, and is on the board of

homeland security affairs. he is the guy in the seat today for the department of defense dealing with the issues. lastly, we will wrap up with my boss and my classmates from the united states military academy, jim carafano. he is presently the acting director of the katherine and shelby davis institute for international studies. he is a career army officer who ended his career -- wrapped up his career as the speechwriter for the chief of staff of the armory -- army and was the executive editor for "joined forces quarterly." he is one of the most energetic thinkers i have worked with. i get emails from every day --

from him every day of the week. he is an ideal guide to wrap up the formal presentations because of his breath of thought. with that, i will ask admiral johnson to begin and we will go 10 minutes apiece with each of them, and then we would do questions, and i will remind you, if i do not hear a question mark at the end of the second sentence, i will ask you to stop because we have a bunch of folks we would like to answer. we will start right now. admiral? >> thank you, steve. . as we pull the levers of power and policies in washington if it results in the outcomes that affects citizens. many of them never would expect they would be the recipient of federal support.

on september 1, to designate, a hurricane is headed right to new orleans. it was almost a replicants of katrina. a category four storm. if you recall, the biggest element of disaster is there is no evacuation. but with the mayor, the streets of new orleans were a ghost town before the hurricane arrived. there were several million people evacuated on their own, but there is always a group that needs assistance. there were 35,000 people who needed assistance to get out of new orleans at the time. 5000 of those were evacuated by air, and they went to cities like knoxville, louisville, and how could we bring in enough airplanes into the airport and

get these people out? it was only done by transcom, who did an amazing job to fight excess aircraft. the number of aircraft waiting for some assignment today is almost zero. at the other end of the state, where it is more difficult to evacuate by ambulance, there were 66 patients who were critical care patients. doctors were making life or death decisions. might they died by the process of a decoration? i was on the phone with a general, plugged into a commander on the deck in louisiana, past the point in which the wind was heard in the back, waiting for the last ambulance derived, and they were met by critical care transport

teams. 10 of those teams evacuated 66, a small number, but every one of them survived. very well they could have died if they had stayed in the hospital and lost power and care. 12 days later, a hurricane season, and we were at hurricane ike, a category four was headed for houston. talk about a complex catastrophe. had it that a hurricane stayed on its depicted track, and gone up the houston ship channel, that could have had a devastating effects on the economy for a long time. that hurricane john to -- jogged to the right.

the island was almost inaccessible, and where there was little management of the evacuation, they were on it like white on rice. the government was dissipated, operating out of a hotel, and accessible, and how would they take the first steps to recover galveston island? fortunately, in our discussions, the uss nassau, an amphibious class ship, departed hampton roads under the prospect of the hurricane striking gavin -- galveston island. on september 18, the mayor arrived back in galveston and rode in on the nassau. if came in with two helicopters, when thousand sailors, and they provided medical care, something

thousand meals, and they were credited with reopening the airport and port which they had done. the recovery of galveston island would have been extended for an enormous number of days if they had not been able to get the airport or ports open. those are two examples within 12 days of each other of something that took a long time to coordinate. it was true learning lessons with katrina where we were able to engage policy formulations, and gauge leaders. -- engage leaders. both secretaries involved, secretary chertoff, fema, a number of players were involved. it is months and years in advance that planned the policies, to do the exercises, to develop the capabilities to respond to those disasters.

there were mission assignments, and it took weeks to conclude. we had assignments developed after katrina where we had gone through both the dhs and dod policy approval system so forces could be activated, much more quickly. when we out in the corridor, physics will not allow that nor will the activation of forces. it takes time to get a ship from hampton roads to galveston, time to activate air rescue teams, but in a short amount of time, we were able to put forces in place quickly. weather is a national disaster or some complex catastrophe that we will talk about in a couple of minutes, the nation relies on dod support of dhs.

fema is an agency with a huge check book, not with a lot of capability, and when disaster approaches, it is the expectation we can reach across the river to the pentagon and find those forces in place. there are no other agencies in the in thedhs and dod who do any sort of hide-consequence event planning with a capital p. no one takes a look at what these scenarios might be or to allocate resources that can respond. we seriously exercise those plans and learn lessons. no one has the level of readiness we see in dhs than dod. when the rubber hits the road, it comes back to very few agencies that are capable of responding. northeast did inhalation of dod

capability -- any reductions of dod capability --what kind of time delay? what kind of capacities? i am concerned to see sequestration that might hamper the operations that we have come to expect from the department of defense and dhs. thank you. >> thank you. thanks to the heritage foundation for hosting this discussion. thanks to my colleagues at the table, and thanks to the women and men serving on the front lines to preserve our security. i want to talk to you about the understanding we have now of the problems. what would constitute a complex catastrophe, building on your argument here. i got a big wake-up call thanks

to fema in the national level of the -- national level 11 exercise. it was built around a scenario of a 7.7 seismic event, an earthquake occurring along the new madrid fault, just as occurred in 1812 and just as could occur and any moment today. that scenario would have produced destruction on a scale that would differ from hurricane katrina in two important dimensions. on a quantitative swale, it would have many more casualties. over a much wider geographic area that occurred in that terrible catastrophe of katrina. any quantitative scale, much greater devastation. there is a second dimension that i believe is more important, and

that is a qualitative difference between hurricane katrina the national 11 exercise. in 11, other partners determined that a seismic event of that scale would produce a long-term loss of power, and loss of electric power for weeks to months over a multistate region. katrina, much less disruptive in that regard. in le11, imagine the loss of electric power over a multistate region from weeks to months. gas stations will not work because every gas pump runs on electricity. water is gone to be in short supply. in memphis, the offer is 300 feet below the service of the city. electricity brings that water so

citizens can drink it, and so firefighters have fresh water to put out the raging urban wildfires that would be created from conflagration due to burst gas pipes. we would have a situation that looked much more challenging even than the terrible tragedy of katrina. that he is the problems that we're looking at, and let me thank you, jim, for the analysis he provided, looking at the lessons learned from fukushima, for understanding the radiological and aren't in which we might have to operate and the difficulties that posed for providing support to civil authorities. dod will always be in support of civil authorities in these activities. the challenge is how can we better positioned to do so? there are two activities we have to strengthen that prepared us, under the leadership of

secretary of defense panetta. the first i would talk about is getting ready for the devastating effects of such an event before it occurs and building resilience against it. especially in this realm of failing critical infrastructure. in the scenario and other some areas we can imagine, including a cyber attack that took down the functioning of the electric power grid or a similar event, anything that will create a large-scale failure of infrastructure, our responsibility in the department of defense is to ensure that we can still execute the core missions of the department that the president assigns to us, even if critical infrastructure goes down that we do not own, because the electric grid is owned by the private sector. the challenge we have is assuring mission assurance in the department of defense. we have a new strategy to do so

that takes into account the need to build resilience not only within dod installations and facilities critical to executing our missions, but also understanding that dod depends on all the private sector's critical and researcher, that allows the investor base to function, to get to work, to serve the nation. we need to not only continue to strengthen its insurance, but look far beyond facilities and partner together with dhs, department of energy, all the lead federal agencies, and especially partner with industry to build resilience in the electric power grid and prepare against the cast keating failure of critical infrastructure that would

undermine the responsibility we have in the department to execute our core missions the matter what. second initiative we have under way is -- is not a question but if a complex catastrophe will start, the question is when. we need to continue to improve our business practices, our capacity to provide support to civil authorities when the call comes. it is a core responsibility of the department of defense, to provide support to civil authorities when we get requests that come in. that is the commitment we take seriously. the secretary recently approved a new initiative that is going to enable us to bring all dod capabilities to bear in support of civil authorities, from all components of the total force,

so that we can be faster and more effective in meeting the life-saving and life sustaining requirements that we are going to get from fema or whichever federal agency is giving us those requirements. in the past, we have not been able to utilize the title 10 research, even though they have terrific engineering and medical capabilities. we have not done enough to imagine how the skills of our regular infantry personnel might be able to apply in extremis when american lives are at stake. we have a range of initiatives that the commands will be leading out to figure out how to take advantage of the total force to save lives when a complex catastrophe strikes. we look to all of you for assistance in this effort. we reached out to fema, to all our partners, because we will

always be in support, but to be able to partner together under fema's leadership which industry, with faith-based organizations, which everybody who will partner together to save lives, let's figure out how to continue to improve that today so when the inevitable happens we will be better prepared. thank you. >> thank you, mr. secretary. mr. carafano? >> i think a legitimate question is what are we talk -- why are was talking about this, because i do not know anybody else in washington that is discussing this. we could not think of a clever way to tie into the olympics or something. ironically, if you are paying attention to the news, there has been lots of news this summer that would say that this is actually something we ought to be talking about. one example i often point to is this such croatian -- is this

situation where 600 million people in india lost power, which in india is not a big deal. large portions of that population are not dependent on power. 600 million people inconvenience. if we had an outage on that scale in united states, population, 300 million, it would be a complete catastrophe because unlike india, the population is totally dependent on the electrical power. the irony here is when you think about large capacities, modern societies with all these interlocking systems would be much more fragile and much more at risk in large scale catastrophes and societies that are more basic.

ironically, that is not what the evidence shows. the studies i have looked at, to the logic gate sophisticated, -- technologically sophisticated, are actually more resilience. why is that? it is because they are developed, because they have these enormous capacities, they do rebound much more quickly in many ways. that was validated by the reports we did looking at the responses to disaster in japan, which, if you scale that to something equivalent in the united states, it would really be something much bigger than a katrina or a hurricane and a tsunami simultaneously. japan was pretty resilient. when you have deprivation or a large-scale failure in a highly

developed society, it is your fault, cuss the capacity is there to recover, and what we saw in katrina and what we saw in many ways in the shortfall from the japanese response, it is the failure to use the capacity you have in an efficient manner that makes the difference. that is where this subject becomes so vitally important, because the military capacity that you can bring into a large scale contingency makes that difference in terms of efficiency and the speed of recovery. in many cases, like katrina, you would recover any we, but it would take longer and there would be more casualties. to get back in the game faster, the military is one of the few things you could throw at the society which allows you to ratchet back much more quickly, and we saw that in katrina.

-- in fukushima. in the respects, with maybe some technical capabilities in the weapons of mass destruction, radiological and chemical issues, there's nothing that you could have their in the civilian capacity that could not bring the same thing to the table. when you look at -- of the worst things he can do in a disaster that to help survivors is to send in people to help survivors, because those people are competitors for food and -- if you are here to help, you have to be able to help. whether you are a faith based organization or fema, three characteristics of a good helper. there are always the same.

what is accountability. you have to be able to know where everybody is. you have to be able to control and know they will do the right thing. as a big deal. the second one the sustainability. when you send somebody else to help, you do not want to be taking food away from the survivors to feed the responder. as we saw in katrina, we cannot put the survivors and the hotel rooms because these responders have the hotel rooms. who is paying, who will take care of that. these are things we really struggle with what we look at volunteer response. normally -- one of the great things about military responders, those are three questions you can forget about. they will have accountability. it will sustain themselves. it is a package of resources that in terms of technical skill

you can throw at a large scale problem. it is not for all problems. i think we all agree this is something the military will walk in and take over. in terms of helping a modern society to jump-start back to where it was, at this is one of the most important aspects to can bring to the table. i think it is a very important discussion always to have a we talk about prepared this and resiliency. this is a report done for us by paul's predecessors -- predecessors. we ask paul to go through, and i think he did a great susman

evaluating where we are today. he raises some concerns that i think are valid. he has recommendations that i think are important. why a think it is is important to have this discussion, where do we go in the future, that will be dependent on the defense budget and what it is. there is a significant lesson from vietnam. one lesson is, regardless of what you think about whether we should have gone to iraq, afghanistan, everybody regardless of what side of the debate there are on, they would have thought we would have done the counterinsurgency mission better at the beginning. in a large part that did that happen. after vietnam will let that declining budgets in the 1970's, having really struggled with flooding the counterinsurgency in vietnam and figuring out how to do that, we

said we will not do that again. we purge the experience, the capability, the training. i know that. we were commissioned in the military. part of the reason we did that was not just because of vietnam and not wanting to do counterinsurgencies again, it was because river going through a hollow force. -- we were going through a hollow force period. the reality was, the u.s. military will always serve its nation in many capacities. you always wind up being a swiss army knife. in said, i want to be the blade and the knife. you will do the other missions whether you want to or not. if you're not prepared for them, he will do them poorly, at least a first until you catch on. we experienced that in iraq and afghanistan have been lost a

generation of experience. you are facing a. going forward that can be difficult. this is not just talking about the sequester, these are the automatic cuts. it is much as $55 million a year, it is cut across all the programs and everything we get. if you look at the 10-year budget projection, it does look to reclined resources -- declined resources and r&d. it was very difficult and steve can talk to this and so can paul, with the many missions that we have for the defense department today, to get them to remember this is a core mission as well. even though it was stated in the strategy and all the defense reports, when it comes to the end of the day if there are not

enough resources to go run something will pickup. if history is any exemplar, this mission will get cut. we are not going to have the robustness that we need to do that. you would say, how big of a deal is that? in fairness, before we got into the current unpleasantness i used to ask people, what do you think about the third infantry division. if you think about the third infantry division, between 1930's and 1990's we use them about three times. we use them about one year and a half in world war ii. we use part of it for about one day and a half and the iraq war. we had this division sitting around for almost a century and we only use them about three

years. nobody ever said, that is not a good investment. people realize to have the military force there because when the nation needs than they need to get it right the first time. we can have catastrophic defense forces. we may not use them a lot. i am telling you, when we have a catastrophe in this country, we will want to get it right the first time. the price of preparedness is maintaining and sustaining the forces when you are not thinking about the problem. i think that is a strategic challenge that this country and whoever the next administration is is going to face in the years ahead. the answer is, we need a robust defense that meets all its missions. if we cherry pick what missions we will need, we know how that

will end up. >> we will not to the question and answers. if you can prepare. i will exercise my prerogative and answered -- and as the first question. is no fair answering yes or no. the question is, is the nation today ready for the next big at -- catastrophe. i will throw a little extra piece and the. is dhs -- eyed not asking you to pick on dhs, are they ready to face the catastrophe with diminished help? >> i would have to say that after katrina, they are always asked, are you ready for

another fell in the blank. the answer is always yes. once you give the answer is yes you think, what did i just say? when you think about the total consequences it is enormous. i think at this point in terms of planning and preparedness and relationships between dhs and the department of defense that has just grown in the administration in terms of the capabilities of in the national guard, i think the forces there to make it response whether it is timely, that is a good question. the nature of the response was much broader than a few years ago. states have been heavily impacted by their budget and they're backing to the federal level. i am concerned about a hollow force and a hollow capability to say yes and mean it in terms of

a large complex catastrophe. my answer is, yes, we are ready today, but i think a lot of the credit for that goes outside of the pentagon. administrate -- fema, the governors of the nation who have led the charge in making sure we have unity an effort between federal and state military forces, that is so important. it is hard to exaggerate the degree that will enable a lifesaving environment like a tramp. i think we are ready today. the credit deserves to be applied to other folks outside of my organization. within the pentagon we are mindful of further progress. with leadership in the initiatives we will press forward very aggressively. >> i would say we are not as

ready as we should be 10 years after 9/11. i say that not because of things that the in the may have done, i would hope in terms of integrated planning and the local state level, we were a lot further down the road. we have much more ambitious plans in terms of being able to implement the plan across state and federal, that did not go as far as i had hoped it would go. you always show up with what you have. it is a crime and you cannot be as efficient with what you have. i think we lost a lot of the momentum. i think part of it is because the states became -- we did not think about this at the front and, there would be periods when the states would be flushed and the with our interest at this and there would be periods when they were not here the water to

cover more back on the federal table. we did not plan for a sustained -- a system that would be sustainable in periods when we were throwing money at the problem. we should be a lot further on that we have been carried here is a good example. integrating the reserves and to the response. the debate back and forth between the governors. it is hard to believe it took that long to resolve. shame on us for not being further down the road. my concern is not so much the answer today, but the answers a couple of years from now. what happens if we continue not to make the progress we need to make in terms of the integrated federal and state and local response and we are in an era of diminished are in the resources. that starts to look a lot like september 10, 2001 as opposed to

where we should be. >> let's start with a gentleman back there. please identify yourself and ask your question. >> thank you for putting the panel together. the cyber attacks can demonstrate about of consequences to align from what you experienced from a hurricane. with those hazards there is more of a defined beginning and end it. we can see it and conceal it. what kind of involvement did d &d have and how does dod address the cyber threat amongst a traditional hazard? >> the department of defense played an important role in support of the department of, and security, which is the federal lead for ensuring that businesses get the support they

need for protection a critical infrastructure against attacks. it is an important support role that we played. we will welcome an opportunity to extend the support in the future. while i have you, let me thank the entire emergency management community for everything that emergency managers are doing and this nation to help answer the question steve first to give us, to be better prepared. i am looking forward to the convention in seattle. i will be going out to the convention for the national guard association of the united states. when you talk about who deserves praise for strengthening our preparedness, the national guard is at the top of the list. >> thank you. this is directed to paul but also perhaps to admiral johnson.

catastrophes are not going to stop the national borders. we have potential partners and canada and mexico. where are we in the disaster catastrophe management planning relationships with the governor of mexico and canada? >> you made such an important point in this study that the reality that we have one grid between canada and the united states. we share the eastern connector. and the western powers system is integrated. would you think about building resilience, we need to do more than just within the united states. in north america, it does include canada as well as the united states and a small portion of mexico as well. we need to be prepared for collaborative efforts with

mexico and with canada. at the very recent permanent joint board of defense between the united states and canada, the president and ceo of the north american energy reliability corp., the umbrella industry organization for dealing with resilience challenges, he was the keynote speaker for taking this on as a featured effort as part of our collaborative work with can and that not only between the two defense establishments but with public safety canada and the department of common security and energy as participants. industry partnerships, voluntary cooperation with industry absolutely vital and this regard. >> i think that is an important point. you cannot really talk about the resiliency unless you are having

a u.s.-canadian discussion. there really is one grid. that is one. it is not worth having a conversation just talking about the u.s. brig. in many ways cyber is another. to pretend there is a border between the u.s. and canada. the systems are so linked, having a discussion does not make a lot of sense. we are talking about any public health issues, particularly epidemics, a discussion that this i include all three does not make a lot of sense either. those are things we ought to really think about in terms of our response and how we use resiliency much more broadly. the other issue we brought up which i think is an important issue, the capacity to accept foreign assistance, which is

something we do not think about because we are always helping others and taking assistance. we saw this in japan. there were cultural issues, logistical issues. again, in these modern complex societies and with the enormous capacity, you can bounce back much more quickly. the bounceback is based on the efficiency of your ability to pour resources to solve the problem quickly. foreign assistance in some cases and in a technical sense but in a large catastrophe that could be quantity, if you do not have a system in place before the catastrophe, it is very difficult. this is something that -- we were actually very rigid i always thought highly of the emergency response system in japan. there were some glaring shortfalls, particularly to

receive a response which i think offered some experience to the united states. i think it is fair to say we have not come as far as we should be able to come in terms of accepting foreign aid, particularly on large-scale issues. that is something that should be done more. have we ever done a major exercise where people come here? >> that was an important component where we were able to exercise that. let me pour some vaseline on the fire here. i think we discovered back then and terms of credential in and ensuring that people conduct urban search and rescue from abroad and the way we can understand, we identified opportunities for progress and we continue to work that now. i think we are better off than we were. this is an area we need to be better than we are. there is an opportunity across the western hemisphere to ensure

from my perspective the next time the united states, haiti, or some other nation needs substantial assistance from abroad, we built the system and advance to provide for the flow more expeditiously than we have been able to in advance and will be pushing for that at the upcoming conference of the defense ministers of america's in october. >> i echo the comments of secretary stockton and jim. rather than seem to go it alone in terms of focusing on natural disasters but canada and mexico, we have linked up with north, and found our issues are interlinked with their issues and there's were much more daily and continuous between border countries and canada and mexico. i appreciate the question about things coming in. we are awfully proud of our

deployable forces, our rescue teams and they have gone to haiti and around the world. the teams in japan are pretty sharp. there are other teams around the country -- davis spent time in russia that also have deployable teams. in terms of the fault and the description very accurate in terms of five states for the length of time there would be delivered to aided by the earthquake, part of the plans are to bring in other teams from countries. those issues are not new countries, but they are ones that fit along with the pace of the capabilities. >> thank you. >> my question is primarily directed to secretary stockton, but i am welcome to hear from many other panelists. are we prepared for an emp attack from an adversary or from solar storms?

what are we doing to the extent to can talk about to address the threat? >> we take those challenges very, very seriously. there are a little bit different. it is different to what you would anticipate from the large scale solar event. the administration has been preparing -- the occurrence of an event could have devastating effects. engineers sometimes disagree about the degree to which the effects would be long-lasting. we need to be prepared for these kinds of destructive effects on the electric power grid. it is another opportunity where from may dod perspective, responsibility is to ensure my department can execute the missions that the president assigns to us.

either through emp or a solar even, there could be destruction not only through dod electric systems but to the broader critical infrastructure on which we ultimately depend it. it is a big challenge. it is a challenge where federal agencies will need to continue to assist us. and our reach to industry, it again. absolutely vital in this regard. industry is a willing partner in this. a realize this is a challenge. working together a new collaborative mechanisms to build a shared approach to this event so we can assist industry in developing a design basis for the grid of the future. it not only takes into account the traditional start factors, which they are well efficient to handle, but do threat sectors including cyber threats and

including a better understanding of solar events in emp. >>emp is select electromagnetic pulse, the radiation that could be released from nuclear bursts. if you detonated a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere. instead of a going into the ground it would profligate out. it would be attracted to an antenna. everything from cell towers to satellites to the electrical grid. part of the theory is depending on the location of the weapon and the altitude and the size of it, the range of destruction it could do in terms of knocking out infrastructure and that kind of thing the, they lost things like major pieces of the grid where you would have to replace parts that could take months and years. you could have large portions of the population without

electrical power for long periods of time. in the natural analogy to that is, we continue to have solar flares. we could have large events we have not seen on the scale since carrington was the astronomer the spotted the ones until the mid-19th century. we have not had one of those since the world has been electrified. we are concerned about that. if you're interested in that, there is work in the national science foundation that put a word out on that. there was a congressional commission on the effects of electromagnetic pulse on u.s. infrastructure. you can find those online. >> people online are listening. they go back and see it later.

>> then i will use this. >> force secretary stockton, to work for being here. thank you for coming over and participating. with regard to the military's response to support any kind of several event, what are you most afraid of in the military's to respond and do it in an effective way or the public is satisfied with the response? i do not mean in such a of a loss of life, but what kind of event most skiers you? what kind of the event would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you have to look at what our ability as with the military force to respond to that? >> that is an easy one, but i would invite my colleagues to

dive in. it is precisely the scenario that i described from any hazard. the risk of cascading failure of critical infrastructure in ways that we might not even understand fully until the event occurs, that is what keeps me up that night. the opportunity to strengthen prepare against any event that would evolve -- involves a long- term loss of power. i know that we are working very hard with the defense imagistic agency and our other partners to ensure there is fuel for backup generators to sustain critical operations. if you look around the nation, many emergency operating centers, hospitals, 48 hours or even more of a fuel stored on site. a large scale outage of weeks to

months, our ability to maintain back of generating capacity is at issue. i think we need to know more about single points of failure where we imagine we have redundancy in systems that actually breaks down. there is a lot of port chester be done here. the gap between where we are today and where i would like to be keeps me up at night. >> i think the nation's psyche is ready for a national disaster. we have been a before. we had 211 different missions over the past decade and the happen every three or four years between 9112005 with katrina, 2000 late -- the 2008. something to come up on that kind of a cycle.

to think about spaces in the country there was a huge -- usable again. we made a lot of progress. the things people did not expect to occur, but the nation is unprepared and uneducated. it is something we have not had before. i think there would be woefully inadequate to respond to something like that. >> i agree that you have to focus on large scale catastrophic. things that could stop the heartbeat of america. the nation can handle anything the luster than that a pretty good form. these are a couple of thoughts. there is a time factor which is one hour, 72 hours and whatever. if you are critically injured they say you have one hour to get to somebody. for some reason i'm totally critically injured and they are vulnerable in the 72-hour

window, if they can live past 72 hours, must we're talking weeks and months it will not be a big deal. you have to think about saving lots of lawyers earning on -- early on, you have some type to windows. as wanting to think about. the second thing is legitimacy. we see this again and again in research literature. a lot of the time people do not need help. they can take care of themselves. they need to feel things are going to be ok. there is an issue of legitimacy. if people feel there is a structure there. somebody will come turn the gas station on again. there is a notion about the stress level much, much lower. the fear factor is lower. in many ways people just go and take care of things.

part of the reason we lost that katrina was not because of the 72-hour problem. it was this perception that nobody was in control and things are falling apart. when he saw the military intervention, in many ways the intervention was less about bringing logistics there than it was saying, somebody is in charge now. i feel better about things. you have the time line issue. the legitimacy issue is very important. we do not what the military to take over. the military is that the answer. you have the capacity to do everything. many of the large complex catastrophes, it would not be enough military assets. having said that, if you can effectively use your military assets under a legitimate political system in which state officials are doing the appropriate job, that also add a sense of calm and restore to

power that it is very important. but to go on, but they did a whole thing on rigidly ask people pose a perspective on what is a big disaster look like. do you know what they described? they describe what they saw in the movies. a bunch of military people showing up in gas masks and bayonets. scary looking. the reality is, that is not what the military does. that is not what people actually see a large scale disasters. it is not a scene out of the siege or something else. they are happy they are there. they bring normalcy to the environment. they bring their restore to its normal state. it is the legitimacy of the response in addition to the time things are important. when you scale those problems to the large complex catastrophes that would talk about, that is a big challenge.

that is a huge challenge. it is be difficult for dod to get a ride unless there are resources to do that. we talk about the use of the armed forces and we always talk about the od and we forget there is an armed force in the department of home and security. their assets and capabilities are equally and in many ways more vital and important. we have to worry about atrophy there as well. we're going to decrease the number of national security cutters that we purchase. have to say, the what does that have to do with:security? that may be one of the best command and control assets you can have in an environment. since most large-scale population centers are near water, that is helpful. he may not be able to base an operation on land and you may have to base it on water, these are very critical platforms.

the fact we're buying a lot less the we are supposed to, that deeply worries me. you have to have the capacity there and ready to go before the kind of things to talk about. otherwise it will look like a new tv show on revolution. they are remaking red dawn. that is an emp attack from the north koreans. >> would each of you be willing to share more about your experience partnership -- partnering with the faith based community? anyone have commentary about assistance? >> we have done a lot of work looking at faith based response. it is very important. if you actually look at the results from katrina and you look at the surveys of people

that got assistance, the highest-rated assistance they got was from faith based organizations. in part it is because there are people they know. they understand everything else. the other critical role -- this would be important in a large ecocatastrophe -- faith based leaders are very good at collaborative decision making and collaborative things. once you get to the immediate issue of, whether we will all die or not, there is a question of, what will the community look like " come back from this? bet is a very stressful and of a cold and hard thing to work through. the entire town is one of the office of the earth on a tornado. one of the real skills of recovery is, the community

decided that it is not just about dumping aid. where will we go from here? it is very rarely, let's put everything back the way it was. as collaborative leaders in the community that have a heightened degree of trust, they're very well placed to serve to help people bring stakeholders together to decide where we go from here. >> we focus as an operator. we focus so much of what the responses to any event. when the response is over, it is like falling off of a cliff. but it's a lot less attention, almost no matter where you are. what lasts longer. one of the values of faith based organizations, which we have had from fema, there are there for the duration.

the resources they bring to bear is right down to the individual americans to really need assistance and have been overwhelmed by many aspects of the disaster. whether it is the bat test kitchens, which are phenomenal, catholic charities, the range of the faith based organizations is phenomenally important. i think the value they bring everyday is a balance. >> i totally concur. i had to convene a meeting disasterema and dod's response folks with some faith based organizations. it is interesting because there were a couple of guys in the room who thought, well, these people will show up for a hurricane. if a nuclear bomb was of the

will not show up. we explain to them, yes, they will. these organizations, they are there to make sacrifice to help people. they will show up. it is incumbent on the different parts of the government to harness that. you do not want them showing up for the first time when the event occurs. the wastes assets and puts the people at risk. there has to be pre cresses korea's asian. we all have learned of the importance of that sector of the response community. >> and jared brown with congressional research service. this question is for paul. what impact if any at all does the revision of the national response from work, protection

from work all under presidential policy from marquette on defenses role in the homeland defense? >> it is helpful to us the administration but the integration of all of these lines of efforts including recovery. we knew they were important. we knew where dod could make contributions. reelected overarching policy from work that the white house needed to lead to provide defense support to civil authorities. we benefited from the opportunity to participate until the development of the policies. it is grinned when you are in support to be given the framework within which are going to be able to operate and be able to serve. that is what we have today. it is enormously helpful. >> as the government have

models so much with the teams and the national football league have and they are preparing to play on sundays, they have a computer system that can go back and analyze every play from their opponents in every situation. the help them prepare a game plan. does our government have a computer modeling bedticks datapoint from past disasters whether they be earthquakes, 9/11, hurricanes. they mashed them to a game plan. >> we have automated many of our processes. we have a global management

system absolutely terrific now at allocating resources, which we rely when the catastrophe strikes. we're facing is slightly different situation. although there is some predictable hazards up there like a new matter, we need to make sure we have enormous flexibility. when we are taken by surprise, we have the ability to have capabilities that can be brought to bear no matter what. that is kind of automated prescriptive approach will only get you so far. it is useful for the been the soda vikings as they march to their undefeated super bowl season, but here we need to be prepared for predictable events and also for strategic surprise. >> hope is not a plan, right? >> i think there are two things

that come to mind. the first is logistics. the fee my approach used to be metal mountain. how much stuff can send someone? it did not matter how much you thought you might need. how much can you send somewhere. we would be competing with other providers. how will over to the censors is to bring the same thing i think the logistic system and fema right now is just phenomenal and how they can coordinate, plant, prepossession the work they do with how to bring that to a disaster. even now when things to build on what we did with fema is rejected the private sector.

craig has done a phenomenal job of linking with the private sector. how to work together to hasten the response. in the second thing is the modeling we went through. when you think about the evacuating the city of new orleans, it did not happen in a week. that was months of planning. we had a buses and trains and airplanes. how many estimate they have no vehicle and would need assistance. i think we did a good job of modeling that out. i mentioned 33,000 people needed assistance, i think our an initial estimate was 45. the modelling of aircraft and where they can go to and how they can get back in time to pick up another load of people, how far a train can go. all that was done by doing modeling. i think the extent we can forecast goes kind of events we

do pretty well. what the flood map program in phoenix, with the models look like for the different elevation of search and how far it will go. something more than meets the eye. there is a lot of work that goes into planng for natural disasters. we look at the time for injun talked about. all of that has been planned out in advance. there is more modeling and simulation than you would expect to make is better prepared as a nation. >> >> the closest partnership with the department of home and security, we have been working together with fema and the fema regions to part -- anticipate the kind of challenges that are predictable.

first of all, in some parts of the nation, there are hazards where we are just waiting for them to happen. the hayward fault in the san francisco area, we have predictable events that we need to be planning together with the mat and the d h s and the coast guard. there is another opportunity for progress we are working very hard. we are looking at large population centers and regardless of what the source of the catastrophe as, we can begin to plan more effectively for a the kind of large scale life saving and life sustaining resources that will be required based on population size and the threats they're going to face. let's ensure we can get the

lifesaving capabilities there fast. let's go fast, big, and smart. we are working very closely with the secretary and the entire state, federal, and local teams to make that happen. the state national guard to are so closely connected with their communities and our tight with safety public -- public safety organizations. that is how we will make progress anticipating these disasters and why and so grateful to general jacoby for leading the charge. >> i was wondering what kind of challenges exist in sharing of for mission between the federal, state, local, and international level? how can industry continue to

assist in the sharing efforts? >> right off the bat i would say what i hear a question like that -- not that i am supposing rigid a lot of people expected as just bad. how can we make things better. from my experience and fema, still special affirmation was almost on the leading edge. i do not think we used it before. the access to geospacial information. wild fires, aircraft up and down the california coast with looking into the fire, sending the maps in real time to the fire chief's planning on how to employ their forces until the moment. not tomorrow but right now. fema has just expanded that with

the technology and the rapid availability of gaea spatial information. the governor has represented that here is almost color coded with the state coordinated office. i think the information is better than most people can expect. there is almost a desire by dod forces to bring it to bear in a disaster. i think we have made leaps and bounds both in declassifying and making available to whoever needs it. it goes on not just on federal channels but for the state very rapidly. >> when the present director -- when he was the director of the gao spatial intelligence agency he established teams that provide data that they make it maps out of the pictures.

they send a big high speed trailer to the disaster site. they show up and say, we are working for you now. what do you need? this start download a more stuff than anybody can consume. >> fema is not a large organization. it is initially stamped by nga and fema and have access to what is classified and what can make a difference. nothing that extends internationally as well. >> gentleman back there. mark, you will get the last question. >> you touched on the national guard and then the army reserve capabilities. is there any traction on the idea to merge the two components to maximize the title 32

capabilities in these events? >> my personal view is there is no need for such a merger. what we need to do is strengthen the procedures that we have to provide for the mobilization of the title 10 reserves for a no notice national hazard. thanks to the leadership of the governors, the 2012 national defense authorization act, finally it has given us the opportunity to access the terrific capabilities of the title 10 reserve for natural disasters. we are paddle to the metal and the department of defense to ensure when the real hurricane season begins, the college football season heats up, we will be able to access the title 10 reserves of in communities where the concerts effectively. as of the challenges we're working on very quickly now to meet as opposed to looking at

the bigger picture questions that i think might be something to look at in the future. today we can provide better capability through other approaches. >> a lot of people including those at this table helping for a long time to make this possible, one of the lessons learned as harvey can emphasize from katrina is that there was not adequate coordination between state military forces, state national guard's under the control of their governors, and the federal military forces that came at the request of the governor's through fema. we need to do a better job of making sure that the forces can operate in a seamless fashion but still recognize that under the constitution, the governors are the commanders in chief of

the state military forces. at the same time the president is the commander in chief of federal military forces. how come we provide for unity and ever despite the separateness of the change of command that we still need to maintain? the breakthrough thanks to the governors as to have an officer, a general officer, almost always a national guard officer, who will simultaneously served and both duty status is, federal and state. where two hats. where a state had reporting up the chain of command to governor and simultaneously a federal had up to the president of in his role as commander-in-chief and to provide for the unity of effort to in-state military forces that was noticeably absent in the even so katrina.

that was so beneficial last year in hurricane irene. >> the constitution authorizes the state to have militias, everybody recognizes the state component of the national guard as the militia of the state. the 27 -- what is the number? the lost count. under 30 states also have additional state defense forces that are volunteers that are organized under the state, equipped by the state and fellow whatever the constitution and laws of this they require. these are another asset which are also i think very important. they have done a survey of the capabilities. some of them are very extraordinary. texas is a good example.

california is a good example. they provide not just a backstop to the state guard but they also provide capabilities -- nothing there are important pieces of the equation that often gets forgotten on the table. it is something that deserves a lot more attention. >> i cannot think heritage enough for putting this discussion on. it is absolutely essential and we do not talk about enough. there is a conflict. wanted your thoughts on that. the nature of a think tank and the kind of issues that you, jim, and steve are going over in terms of the things we have to be aware of, the priorities we have to set. the human component, the technology component. to a certain extent he represents both an when he did in the public sector and when he does not in the private sector and was secretary stockton has

to do on a day-to-day basis. how do we pay for it? how do we get our budget in line with tightening and the state level, the private sector, as well as the federal level to make sure the priority stay and focus. are we going towards that's what we can and reacting as harvey was talking about? or is there even any room for protection of in the nature of the budget situation that our country in each state and company is in? cox the answer is easy. congress should enact the president was a budget request. -- president's budget request. >> and mike farrell i and the private sector and i will not talk about the federal budget. -- my role is in the private sector and i will not talk about the federal budget.

when they mention that my blood that flows -- my blood goes faster. i am concerned about the coast guard. we talk about a response to a disaster, the coastguard is there instantly. they have ships that are the oldest ships in the world in terms of the size of navy. we have ships that were old in 1965 when i graduated. the budget of the coast guard is in peril and i think about that every day. i think that is magnified larger another we spent. that is a service -- as you take notes i hope you will include the coast guard in your thoughts as well. what's that is the armed services worry about the most.

i think this goes back to my comments about very wealthy nations being much more capable of dealing with large scale disasters. we still have the largest economy. we are a rich, powerful nation. our problems are the policies we put in place. not to put a plug in for heritage, but in competition with other think tanks we did a long-range budget plan. it does not raise taxes. its leaves every class of americans better off than now. balances the budget a denture 10 years. it cuts into the deficit. it is not an idle exercise. the plan was scored by cbo and is legitimate. these are choices that we make. we have done is force people like paul into the worst of possible worlds. have not taken the missions of

the table. they are going to make suboptimal decisions that will lead somebody short. you cannot just -- the math does not give you there. the kind of problems on the scale we're talking about regardless of how many hours did it all works or the wisdom of our -- if you do not resource the missions of acrylic, they will not get done. we will only be able to resource them adequately if they are larger than the ones regard discussing as far as what we will do to texas country. if a -- what we will do to tax this country. no matter how smart we are or how hard paul works, at the end of the day the nation will come up short. >> i will give you one minute each to make any concluding remarks you want to make. >> i yield the balance of my

time to the secretary. >> thank you to the heritage foundation for your sustained focus on these issues and for the opportunity to share perspectives looking forward. >> i appreciate the forum. i think this is a vitally important issue. i am glad you and others are here to give focus to it. >> ladies and gentlemen, i think you have seen a lot of candor, openness, and a lot of really important thought to that has gone into the remarks you have heard this morning. paul is the one still sitting in the seat with the tough job. we all left him and his people up. i have to tell you, i worked in that job. there's not a lot of politics. it is about helping america in the most basic way possible and helping our neighbors as well. i would like to ask you to join me in thanking the panel for

their remarks. [applause] tomorrow at 11:00 in the same room will have another panel with the former secretary of defense, paul mchale and the former deputy commander of northcom and the former director of the national guard purer -- bureau who will be discussing the price every state must pay, the effect of sequestration on the national guard which has been mentioned, the critical piece of our homeland security and homeland defense. we hope you can join us at 11:00 tomorrow. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> this weekend on booktv's "after words," in their book "who's counting," john fund of the heritage foundation say

there are serious problems with fraud in the election system. >> there's a whole series of things you have to do to make sure you've got an election with integrity and that everyone is confident that the person that got the most votes is declared the winner. >> saturday night at 10 eastern and sunday afternoon at 4:45, kirsten grind talks about the largest bank failure in u.s. history, the collapse of washington mutual, part of our booktv weekend on c-span2. >> a discussion, now, on education and how to improve american students' competitiveness in a global environment. panelists include governors jack markell of delaware and brian sandoval of nevada who talk about issues including class size, spending, curriculum and the role of the federal government. this forum, held in atlanta, was part of a conference hosted by the education commission of the states. it's just over an hour.

[applause] >> thanks, roger. my name's denise, and i am the superintendent of public instruction for the great state of montana. it's my pleasure to introduce the moderator and the panelists for this next session, how can america regain its competitive edge. john merrow is the education correspondent for pbs "newshour" and president of learning matters. dr. merrow began his career as an education reporter with the national public radio in 1974 with the weekly program, options in education. joining dr. merrow are two people familiar speaking in front of you, delaware governor jack markell and nevada governor brian sandoval. also joining the panel is dr. dr.edie hirsh, professor emeritus of education and humanities at the university of virginia. please join me in welcoming them all. [applause]

>> thank you very much, denise. um, i would just say a quick word about my three panelists. e.d. her jr., called don, is an american hero -- e.d. hirsh. i'm not going to say any more because he's getting an award later on. you'll hear lots of great stuff ant him. [laughter] but i would say, you know, journalists by definition don't have any friends, but we keep lists of people we would like to be friends with. [laughter] and he's on my list. [laughter] brian sandoval, republican governor of nevada, he's probably tired of hearing the term "rising star," because every article about him, and there are lots of articles, always say "rising star." he's almost always described the youngest or the first hispanic-american or sometimes both. he was nevada attorney general,

u.s. district judge -- a lifetime job which he gave up to run for governor. he won, was elected in 2010. he's also on the dark horse list for -- he's one of those names you hear mentioned when they're talking about mitt romney choosing a running mate. we're not going to talk about that. laugh after -- [laughter] and to my immediate left, jack markell is the democratic governor of delaware. he's a strong supporter of charter schools. your children are in charter schools. >> yeah. >> delaware was the first state to win race to the top, that competition. it came in first in that competition. he was state treasurer for ten years as a businessman. he was elected in 2008. curiously, he was sworn in in the middle of the because -- night because he wanted to get down to washington to see his buddy, joe biden, sworn in later on.

i guess you had a ceremony later on. so this is, this is the group. and the question out there is, are we -- how can we regain our competitive edge? now, when the folks at ecs first approached me, my notes say the question was, are we losing our competitive edge? so somewhere in the three months of setting up the panel came to the realization that, yeah, we seem to have lost our competitive edge. and, um, just to set up the conversation just a little bit of data, in science literacy we are 17th. i won't read the long list of names, but we are tied with poland, denmark, france, iceland, slovac republic, spain, norway and luxembourg. nape, the national assessment of progress scores, have been flat

for about 40 years. in 1965 the association for the evaluation of educational achievement studied 12 cups in math -- countries in math achievement and asked the kids to answer 70 questions. of the 12 countries, the u.s. came in 12th with a median score -- there were 70 questions -- a median score of 13.8. in '81-'82 in high school science we were last again. '89, a dozen countries, we came in last. in the '90s, 13-year-olds math, 15 countries, we were next to last. we beat jordan. science assessment in '72, we were 14th out of 14. in the mid '80s, 13th out of 13. we, we are -- we have lost our competitive edge. if you look at other countries. the question, sort of the big questions that we will chew on

here is what exactly do we mean by competitive edge? what gives us the competitive edge, is it diversity, productivity, creativity? are we moving in the right direction? who's the competition? what are the right roles of federal, state and local government? you know, can education solve the problem, or is it bigger than that? and i want to start with the question of competitive edge. what does that mean to you? you guys are governors. when you think about it. governor markell? >> well, what it means to me is starting with the basic facts, and several months ago the ceo of gallup, jim clifton, wrote a book called "the coming jobs war." and in it he says there's three billion people in the world looking for jobs, and there are 1.2 billion jobs available. three billion people looking, there are 1.2 billion jobs available. so we are, in fact, in a global war for jobs. which really means that we're in

a global war for talent. because the jobs are going to go where the talent is. and this is something, i think, that we still need to and one of our jobs, i think, as governors is to make sure that the people in our states understand this. the problem is that we don't see in this country all the job postings that are going up elsewhere. and when we don't see it, we don't think about it. and the fact is, businesses have more choices than they've ever had before about where they're going to put jobs. and i think as a result one of the most important things people like me and governor sandoval must do is put ourselves in the shoes of the people who are deciding where to, where to invest their next dollar of capital, where to hire their next employee and focus in on the things that are most important to them. >> so is the, is the challenge then to win the competition for those 1. whatever, or is it to

create new jobs? >> i think it's all connected. but we have to recognize that wizs have all -- businesses have all these choices, and our job is to make sure they choose here. we spend a lot of time trying to persuade companies they ought to come to nevada, to delaware, they ought to expand in our states. there's another question which nobody asked 20 years ago, which is, are we going to go to the united states, are we going to go to one of, you know, dozens of other countries where based on the statistics you just read, there's a tremendous work force available? so it's difficult. we can compete with each other, but it's difficult when the company makes a decision first they're not even going to choose -- and so it's my view, and it's one of the things, i think, will certainly play out during the election season, is what are those factors. and it's my view based on -- i visit businesses all of the time, and i ask one question, which is what can we do to facilitate your success? and the answer, by the way s not always lower my taxes.

the answer starts with i want to be in a place where we have the best possible work force. that's how we differentiate ourselves. taxes matter, for sure, but it's about schools, quality of life. people love to live in nevada, people love to live in delaware because these are great states. and that matters because talented people, the kinds of talent that we all want to recruit, they want to work in places where they want to live. >> governor sandoval, your reaction? >> no, and i would have to echo what governor markell has talked about. i've been on the job for 18 months, and one of the things i did is decided to go back to the basics. and when you hear what you've just described about employers wanting a, b and c, you read about it, but i thought it was important to go out and find out myself. so i visited other 200 businesses in our state, i go and i meet with the ceos, i meet with the managers, i talk to them about what they're looking for, what kind of graduates they need. in nevada we have remade economic development. we commissioned a study by

brookings, by stanford research institute to see where nevada should focus it energies and what type of companies and what can we can be best at. that's why this conference is so important. we're going to align our higher ed curriculums and our k-12 curriculums to meet the need of these companies -- >> and do they bring up education? >> oh, of course they do. i mean, you have a different variety because you have what i call the spread sheet companies that do look purely at the bottom line and where they can get the best deal. but at the same time it doesn't do them a lot of good to come to a state and not have the type of employees that they're going to need. so sometimes it's a chicken and egg thing. we want this company to come, but we don't have the graduates. so now we are doing just that, is building those curriculums and insuring that when that company comes to the great state of nevada, they will have the graduates, they will have the certification programs that

they're going to need. >> and i guess they will have schools for their employees' young children. >> yeah. >> and that too. of course. they want -- you know, we didn't talk about the quality of life. we're kind of at the business level, but as you keep coming down, they do want the best education for their kids and the best time of variety as well. >> before i bring in don hirsh, who is the competition? are you competing with each other, or do you see yourself competing with germany or -- >> well, i mean, i think the nature of competition has changed. it doesn't, there's not a whole lot of value added when a company moves over the state line. it might be better for your state, but for the region it's not. i think regions compete. and i think the thing people really have to wake up to is that this is, in fact, global. this is one reason in delaware for the next five years we're opening 20 immersion schools, schools within schools where students have their school day -- half their school day learning a different language. we do an unbelievable disservice to our kids when we expect that

no matter where they go, people are going to speak to them in our language. we sold this as an economic development -- >> because you can always buy in english, but if you want to sell -- >> yeah. [laughter] >> exactly right. exactly right. >> so, don, you've been looking at this for a long time, and you have a wonderful book which i hope everyone will read, "the making of america." do you see us right now moving in the right direction to regain this competitive edge? >> well, we're move anything a lot of different -- moving in a lot of different directions. and i, as you were talking in a very illuminating way, both governors, i thought to myself, well, yes. more talented work force is the, is the thing desired by all of these countries who can fill these jobs. and the current emphasis on 21st century skills which is a work

force that can adapt and do all the necessary kinds of jobs and which are constantly changing. the demands of the jobs are changing. the things you have to learn, you have to learn new skills all the time. and there are two views about 21st century skills. and that's, it seems to me, where i might have an opinion. one view is the 21st century skills such as how to work in teams, how to communicate, how to get along with others, how to look things up, those skills should be taught directly as how-to skills. how do you look things up, how do you work in teams. so you practice working in teams, you practice doing these things. that's one version of how to achieve 21st century skills -- >> which i take it you do not approve of? >> which my view is does not work.

the how-to approach doesn't work, it hasn't worked. and if you look at the data about how to achieve these 21st century skills, you find that the correlate, if you look at the longitudinal studies such as the longitudinal study of youth, what is it that really predicts good economic performance, good work force skills? it's a test that these boys and girls took at age 14, and they traced them every second year on through their lives. and irrespective of race, ethnicity, the thing that best predicts the 21st century skills is their score on something called the afqt, the armed forces qualification test, which has a math component but mostly it has the verbal component, it has two verbal subsections and to get your score on the afqt,

you double the verbal component. so if i were asked, well, what is the biggest bottom line correlator of 21st century is skills in a skilled work force, it would be a big vocabulary. of course, that implies general knowledge, broad general knowledge. so you can have the flexibility to do a number of things, understand things, to look things up. so instead of this sort of narrow view of let's practice these 21st century skills, i'm thinking that a broad general education which really is the skill of skills, the big vocabulary, the broad general knowledge, that's what gives you flexibility. >> when i asked you, are we moving in the right direction, you're saying, huh-uh. >> no. [laughter] >> so are the folks who were packaging 21st century skills -- it occurs to me those 21st century skills might well be 17th century skills. i mean, to survive in this

country you probably had to work together to get across to nevada from the east. you had to work together and so on and so forth. are they, is this some snake oil that's being sold? >> you mean the 21st century skill movement? >> yeah. >> yes, i would say so. >> governors? [laughter] >> well, i think it's necessary, and it's also insufficient. i mean, it's important. i do think people have to work in teams, i think people have to work in teams across borders, preferably in different languages, but that's not a substitute for actually having the technical skills. there's, obviously, been a huge focus in many states including delaware on s.t.e.m. which i think is very valuable, and we can pretend it's not, but it is. that being said, i mean, this is not so complicated. i think, you know, continuing exposure to the arts and being able to do critical thinking, being able to ask good questions, i think it's a package. ..

i understand what is being said here. we just spent a lot of time on a panel talking a few minutes ago about helping kids in some of these different vocational areas with the jack program. i think there's a way to beat him to bring those together and have them complement one another so we can have this competitive edge. >> i would say everybody in this room has been involved in education, certainly longer than i have, but when i look back on what we're doing in our state

and what's going on in the united states, the focus on common core and i realize that everybody is a fan of common core, but i think in the world, having a world where states got together and said we want clear higher and fewer standards driven in fact by states, not by the federal government, i think that's a positive thing. it's one thing to say. it's another thing to actually use it. with the right curricula and the right teaching, the focus on data that i talked about in the earlier session, you know, the focus on some of these schools -- that's not a single silver bullet but i would say to the question of are we moving in the right or wrong direction, i think it depends. i think there's probably very functional district. there's some very relatively more functional states. i'm not sure that we've got it figured out nationally across the board yet. >> but you are a fan of common core?

>> i am. >> why? >> i think it's helpful. it's important for the kids in our state to have that commonality. but it's a lot harder than it looks. i think this is one of the things we, actually i shared with the former governor of georgia, we have gotten a lot of states to sign-on. but it's one thing to sign on and it's another thing to have literally thousands of teachers, and there's a lot of excellent, excellent teachers in this room right now, and it's something very different to help each of them, you know, figure out how to come here is the material that will really make sense. the other thing that is really hard is in checking the sense of urgency so that parents understand what this is all about. so the students understand what this is all about. i think that's more of the cultural peace that is maybe the most important of them all. >> your program is core

knowledge but you are not connected to the common core. are you a fan of this? >> yes, i'm a fan of the common core. just to pick up on what governor markell just said about curricula, i mean, common core is not a curricula, not yet. it has certain principles that a good curriculum needs to follow. but the stuff of the curriculum is key because that's what gradually builds up general knowledge. it gradually builds up a category. it gradually builds up the ability to learn new things. so curriculum is a critical element that when you take common core, you need to add that. so you would have a common curriculum? >> i would. >> just tell me three things that every kid in delaware and

nevada would need. >> well, what i would say about that is, first of all, the key area for common curriculum is at the district. because that's what the greatest mobility occurs. as long as you have a curriculum, with which any district builds on itself, one year is cumulative building on effects, then you begin -- so we don't have that yet. sometimes not even within the same school. so that a commonality as a way of getting cumulative knowledge is an important principle, but you don't have to say we're going to impose it on all. >> are there three books, i was an english teacher, that you would have all the kids absolutely not -- i don't believe the common core is both dependent. i don't believe it's depend on a single document.

>> you believe it is knowledge dependent. speak so there should be domains of knowledge that our speed are you okay with that? >> i agree. i'm a, i think of which is i think essentially where we are but i think, it's a lot harder than looks. a lot of that support is not necessarily there. and i do believe, i would not be a fan of saying nationally here are the three books. i think one of the most important things, i thought begin the presentation this morning about the social capital was critical, and i think the other thing, great teachers have their own thing that they want to bring to the classroom. and i think you want to make sure that they can have their freedom to bring their distinct interest or their distinct passions to the classroom. so i think the less that we impose upon them from either the federal government or the state government, the better off we were. we set very sorry -- high

standards of what we expect our kids to know. these are professional educators. you have some of the best educators in the country by do. they will know all whole lot more than any but several would. >> from what i know of dr. hirsch, he's not a fan, not willing to put in the hands of professional educators. i put it this way. i agree with the premise that you do not want to discourage teachers from doing what they are enthusiastically interested in doing. but if you say that this fourth grade child needs to learn the process of photosynthesis, okay. the teachers and defensiveness and interest can come into that, but not at the expense of leaving the kids ignorant of photosynthesis. and i think that's, that's what i say it's not both dependent. it's knowledge dependent. >> the rules of the federal,

state, local, i mean, we have in my lifetime as a reporter, seen a remarkable intrusion, if you will, of the federal government in public education. didn't start with no child left behind but has been -- georgia as governors, what's the proper balance? >> we are in the process of seeking a waiver from no child left behind, as we speak. i think different states have different requirements, different needs. nevada is not delaware. and vice versa. we have to have the ability as dr. hirsch said, talk about giving teachers freedom to teach their children, or their students in a way that they know they will be inspire the most but having that common base of knowledge. i think the more independence we have with regards to education the better.

>> but a waiver from no child left behind you only get if you agreed to do a new set of stuff, called race to the top. >> developed within our state. >> are you comfortable with this role, the federal government getting you a small amount of money and telling you certain stuff you have to do? >> well, we may not have a choice in that regard. but as i say we're trying to move to a model where we have more freedom. we have more ability to decide what's best for our kids. >> we've been engaged in efforts really transform the orientation of our department of education from one which is focus primary on compliance to one which is more supportive of the districts and of our schools. and i sat and. i mentioned this briefly before, the focus on data. so now our department education sits down on a regular basis with each of the districts. and when the district's coming to come in with the

superintendent, with a school board member, with a local union member, and made a couple of other people and really share, here's how we're doing, here's where we are doing well, here's where we are not doing well, and here's what we're going to do differently. and then, of course, the department, the department people have a chance to see this across all the districts and try to connect the dots. and so one of the conversations that we have all the time, i will repeat it now, is that to the extent that our teachers are our schools can identify here are things the state is imposing upon us that doesn't make any sense, we want to know about it. and, frankly, the president has said the same thing to us as governors. one of the governors was talking when we were together with the president in federal, one of the governors talked about flexibility at one of, for me -- the president's exact words were, he said arne duncan is the most flexible got in the world except when it comes to having high expectations of our children. and on that he's got a backbone

of steel. and i think that's not a bad place to be. >> i don't think you answered the question about comfort level with the feds giving you six or seven or 8% of your money, and really telling you an awful lot of what to do in making the report. when i talked to teachers about no child left behind, it was incredibly frustrating, and the frustration level went up to principles and so forth. but what is it about the top? >> first of all, my experience is that a lot of people felt like elements of no child left behind, they actually do much appreciate the fact that those put a focus on every signal child, which i think is important. from our perspective, i think we have learned to adapt. we don't feel that the federal regulations are so difficult that it really stops us from doing what we want to do. >> when you talk to district superintendents what a basic? >> if they say anything different, i say be specific,

and they really are. this is the challenge. this is the conversation we have about regulations across the country. it's easy to complain so be specific. if your specific we'll do something about it. if you're not specific we're not going to do anything about it because we don't know what you are talking about. >> you're okay with the feds giving you a% of the money may be and telling you what to do? >> as i said i don't know how much choice would have been a matter. you talk about this no child left behind. nevada is very diverse state. we have the fifth largest school district in the country in las vegas clark county so you have a child there, and you may have a child in high school in a place called austin, nevada that has a population of 400 people. and to have the same expectations for those two kids is not practical. and so for that purpose we want that flexibility that governor markell talked about where we can assure that we meet the needs of those kids. >> what is your sense, no child

left behind, race to the top, federal rule? >> think how well meaning that legislation was, democrats, republicans come into agreement, but this is something we opt to do. and before that, legislation was passed, children were neglected. children were put aside. the lower, the whole idea of people, educational opportunities has diminished, and that brought back to the floor. but then the accountability principals were set in there. but how the accountability principles were to be met was left up to the schools. and there's were come in my opinion, it is all on the law. but in my opinion, the chief problem with how no child left behind workout was people didn't know how to raise the scores.

if, actually if they had known how they would have. they weren't just dancing around before the law was passed the is the kind of assumption that everybody was being lazy, and suddenly no child left behind and there but had to whip into shape. but there was a lot of desperate activity, but it didn't work. and the reason it didn't work was the principles on which they were operating, and to be specific, as to your point about being specific, it was thought if you want to raise these reading levels and reading was at the center of no child left behind, then you need to teach children strategies, teach them how to take tests. and it didn't work because that's not the nature of reading. so i think it's, the failure of that whole effort was a failure