at a think the question, on all sides of the base, all else equal what should we be expecting from schools now? and you can come down that question very places and you can come down on the question and say as i do, speaking for myself, we should expect a lot more and we should be doing all these other things because that's really what's going to get us there. i think the policy break-in, the political break and come to this question sort of all else equal, what else should we be doing? because of the way we make policy in this country, arne duncan can go after him all you want, but he's not the secretary of hhs. he's not the secretary of hud. he's the secretary of education. so his role in that, and those of us who work in education is to focus on this peace. i think assuming that just because you're focused on this piece your summit either not sympathetic to the of these are hostile to. it's just a misreading of the

debate. it leads to a lot of the dysfunction we have in the sort of education conversation, e.g. well, that that goes on. not sort of hitting these questions head-on and ascribing these various motives. >> i want to see, if, you talk about safe experiment with these children, more and more trying to make sure at a policy level there's that coordination. curious if any of those are especially promising and whether you think is invocation for an organization of federal policy. is not the secretary of education but could we do more? is the more we can do action at a federal level to make that more coordinated? >> sure, but i just want to address briefly one example that comes to mind, and the cincinnati community learning centers and what they've done is they have the data from the center. oftentimes when they say what these factors don't matter

because test scores are going up, that sort of as part of the problem. that we are just seeing a test score but we are not seeing the child behind us. and a lot of the places that integrate services, they are addressing the summer learning loss through summer programs, afterschool programs and health care. they are looking at kids not just in terms of whether the standardized test scores or compare looking at grades, attendance, whether they are plan for college, whether they're getting internships and apprenticeships. the whole package of what it means to get ready for college and grew. we say the scores are not as apt as we want them to be. so clearly sources don't matter. but there's all these different data that are showing up that says a to matter in the long run. and we are so focused on looking short term at the test course that we forget and we're preparing children, not just to pass a test next year but to be ready to actually -- k-12

systems ready with a much broader set of skills. that's the first point. secondly, in terms of the coordination, we see of course the challenge in work because we are still working the silent mode. but ready by 21 is an initiative for example, in maryland and many other states that's really pushing the conversation were agencies are coming together, not just to talk at the table but then utilize their own resources and start talking to each other through most easiest ways, they share data. we're still at the point where people have no idea what the other side is doing and bring to the table, what resources are available. i think we need to start the even of the federal level. i was talking to one official from the department of education who is working right now to coordinate across agency. they said while they see the child needs development issues are so important to their work, and they are serving the same

children, such as from a different perspective is oftentimes they feel pressure from the legislature and a policy that they need to show short-term in their particular silo. there's a lack of incentive for them to really look to it all of them are doing comprehensively and why near-term and long-term effects can have on the kids. but at least there's some process, those conversations are internally happening. they are not sort of publicly now but those conversations are there. but again, part of this change is something that in the chapter is how do we move the local process to do things differently. of the how to structure policy and what structures to insert communicating across agencies. >> you want to talk a little bit about network? and we get the mic of your? we will have more time for questions and comments after the

second. >> i guess what i would say this just in general that we do try to pay quite a bit of attention to the political dynamics, which is something that i think is more background, which is including sort of terry's analysis which i agree with, much of it. i agree a mix system is where we are, what makes is. but the premise that in a mixed system are going to get a highly redistributed system i think as a political question, and it's problematic to we addressed primarily by looking at two things. one is it's a data issue that helen has mentioned i want to emphasize one aspect of it, which is weird at all interested in the chapter in comprehensive view of what government does but also how we assess what works and doesn't work. right now many of our data

systems art and very deadly and education historically have in themselves silent -- sidled. costs and benefits are within public health or within social services. our belief, but this is a belief in a think it is an empirical question is that many of the benefits of actions in one sector, say education, many of the benefits can show up on the crime or on the social welfare blotter or social tolerance measurement. what we're optimistic about is potential for measurement systems that work across this we think of much higher than they used to be. we've got data systems, administrative data systems in education that have been dramatically improved, and moving towards integrating those across agencies in ways that can let us make smarter choices.

some of those are going to prove that some interventions don't pay off, but we think that's one positive sign. and the other positive side, then i'll stop, on the political dimension. it's true that arne duncan isn't in charge of barack obama but barack which is in charge of them being in a country. that's true general about general-purpose governments. president, congress, governors and legislators are general-purpose institutions that ultimately make decisions and trade-offs across the arena. education historically has been dealt with much more than state issue specific venue particularly at the local level for school districts are making key decisions. we think that's changed, not dramatically. it's not going to go away, but schools specific part of me as a decision-making are becoming less important. the obvious example is my oral control. but in general, state

legislatures and councils, governors, presidents are much more involved. so think the political dynamics are changing in the since the venues will change. encourage multi-issue coalitions and encourage politicians to build multi-coalition were education to be part of it. >> thank you. let's get one more question on the table, and then we will come back around. >> leo casey, the institute. if everybody cared about poverty we wouldn't have a national scandal of one in every four american children growing up in it. if everybody cared about poverty, we wouldn't have 30 years of worsening child poverty as income inequality created that problem. it needs to be put forcibly because i think quite frankly,

what people do is a rhetorical gesture towards poverty without ever actually talking about specific programs that need to address it. in finland, they have a read of child poverty which is one-fifth of what the united states does. and they have that rate because they have serious social welfare state, a serious social welfare network. and before we talk about moving more away from that and more towards giving a greater role to the market in our society, we need too seriously address what is clearly one, not the only, but one very important component of why finland outperforms the united states on educational measures. >> so, i will say when i came back from a trip to finland people want to have school in evanston, they should probably move to finland because it is quite a different social contact that they have created there.

so i don't actually, we speak in the education debate, i was not making it, to make clear, i think in general society, this is a huge problem and how think about this and talk about it. but within education i think there's great deal of attention to poverty. they are serve has been this morning. i think on all sides, dislike debate is a lot more common ground about poverty than you would know from the rhetoric. >> quick last word and then we will switch over. >> two quick points. first, i'm basically in agreement with leo's comments. what's interesting about them and come in addition to this very strong social safety net, by law every finnish school has kind of a council that brings together psychologist, community people. because the school is a part of a broader administrative unit that cuts across social agencies. every finnish school has a well-trained specialist whose job is to work closely with regular classroom teachers and intervene early to catch kids

who start to fall behind. by the end of elementary school, 70, 80% of finish my kids have had some help and support from this specialist teacher so there's no stigma attached to. this is a strategy for making sure, even starting with a much level playing field are still one-tenth the concentration of trying to provide support. final comment, to me what's the most dispensing -- dispiriting about the presidential debate is almost exclusive focus on who can do the most for the middle class. no one knows, there is this really large lower cost the -- lower-class if you will. >> let's go ahead. let's get the second to appear and hopefully you all still have comments and be able to respond to questions but i want to make sure we've got time. so stick with us. will have a very quick transition. richard elmore, heather harding, if you'd come up and join us.

>> [inaudible conversations] >> we've got her second panel of respondents with us now. so we will start. start us off. >> banks. very glad to be here. and particularly looking forward to the q&a.

this is drawn from the carnegie foundation for advancement of teaching about what i'm going to say today, kind of builds on what we did but isn't quite exactly they in the books, they are not responsible for anything i might say, for better or for worse. so, i was thinking about this last night, really, five minutes to discuss the problems and the solutions? so think of it, trailers for a movie style. so if i had to put one point i would say that sort of the crux of the problem is the failed professionalization of american teaching. so, professions essentially develop knowledge about how work would be done, trained people in that knowledge and then sort of, find people to give you guarantee people working in the field are equipped with that knowledge. and so in the u.s. we, we don't

have such a system around teaching. we have some of the elements and pieces developed for a variety of moments across the 20 century but we don't have anything that resembles professions. and in a consequence of that, i spent sometime during kind of policies do. i did some international with bob, and the consequences are just really wide you see from school to see or even classroom from classroom within school in terms of the level of skill and expertise of practicing teachers. most teachers do not learn how to teach in their teacher preparation programs. they learn how to teach on the job. they learn with the benefit of the own smarts, with the help of the college. so essentially we have a nonsystem of preparing expertise among teachers, and then the result of that is exactly what you expect when you have a nonsystem, which is some people are really start to figure it out and other people less so.

if i had to put a number on it, a case study that measures effective teachers looking at 3000 classrooms across the country says that about 20% of teachers teach what they call kind of ambitious instruction, which is 15. and that i would say is relatively consistent with what i've seen. that doesn't mean that other classrooms are not orderly and the students are doing work. it means if we're really trying to push kids toward critical thinking as would be required for common core, about a strategic into the. i think it's because of is because of the missing system. the other consequence is the status and respect point. andy said it was like being dmv clerks. that's not very flattering. perhaps that may be pushing it sort of one step too far but the fact is, organized within the kind of bureaucratic hierarchy where you've got fed, state, district, schools, they said at the bottom along implementation chain.

utah to teachers, they say this reform came along, but in a few years, people about was will change, we're just here, trying to wait it out. that's not what you want. you want a situation where people are in control of their work, where they think of themselves as knowledgeable, active people, and to shape the environment which they are in. that's a result of organizing and the bureaucracy your kind of when we organize as a poorest organizing as a full-fledged profession. from the practice point policymakers look out of this landscape. they see 40-50% kids dropping out of high school. they see results, and they say we are not just going to let those people continue to do what we are doing. that's sort of a responsible for more we sit. these are generation of kids whose lifespans are being compromised. so then they seek to regulate, control, external accountability, et cetera, et cetera. teachers are resistant. we get the sort of depressing

cycle of resistance between the policymakers and practitioners, which is full of mistrust and not full of improved practice. and then you might add one more piece on top of this story. is that -- those are your five minutes. teachers growing up in the system saw themselves as underpaid with weak levels of power starting in the '60s, organize themselves are logically into a union which addressed to some degree that teachers are badly paid now. you should've seen what look like before the unionized. but the consequence of that is a kind of calcify us this labor-management divide, teachers are organized as unions rather than associations which in turn only emboldens policymakers to say those people aren't looking out for the kids so we should act and that again leads to the cycle.

you might say we kind of a track less than most talented people in teaching, drawing on bob's international comparison, develop little relevant knowledge, then send them into school and set high levels, and then when they fail which is predictable, we seek to hold them accountable trying to do on the backend what we should have done on the front end. so, i think, i think what we want is kind of the inverse system. and in inverted pyramid system where the goal of the system as a whole is to support kind of talent to practitioners on the front-line, attack -- the track more, then you would get better outcome which would in turn engender more public support, more money et cetera. so specifically, we can talk about this in q&a, i'll talk about some these things. selection, retention, training,

evaluation. there's a lot of people working on human capital which is good but i'd like to see something like a teaching hospital model where, over time, teachers come in with very close supervision for a while and basically responsibility evolves over the course of three years to save move from professional to fully in charge of classrooms. and then at that point they have something very quickly national board exam, which demonstrates the ability to think in practice, which point they would move from provisional status, if we should continue have tenure in its current form. sankar did say when he proposed 25 years ago that asp would commit them if they have the right kind of exam only you could be a member of the asp. you have to pass an exam. just to last point. one run knowledge development. knowledge development pipeline is also broken. people like me and set in schools, develop knowledge multi-for each other, that was to pass on to policymakers and

doctor. that pipeline doesn't work, same reasons i previously illustrate. we need to create institutions that would develop practical knowledge and share it. and if we did all of this the result would be a kind of highly empowered and knowledgeable profession, which would in turn be able to kind of fight and counterbalance with the kind of policy and political apparatus being enforced more fully. >> great to be with all of you guys today. i'll talk a bit about a couple of ideas that we address with my colleague, is currently working with cc'd city schools. she is also for those of you who are smart about recruiting of looking for doctoral programs the coming year. so be advised. look, we suggest actually -- anybody who would be wise. what we talk about is really

pretty straightforward. we say that spend a lot of time today argument about how to fix schools and improve teacher quality. but we tend to take both schools and teachers as given quantities. doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that institutions built for one set of purposes at one time may or may not do equally well later on. we passed the first compulsory education law in 1647 but it took until 1970, for us to get 90% of students to show. it took us 350 years to get 90% kids to show up in school. we spent generation trying to build institutions that were just able to transport kids from their home to a building where we could put him in front of the teacher, and the central thrust effort to the expansion of this, a common cool area, 1830s and 1840s, and much of the ensuing

methods in the 1800s was about trying to make sure we got these un-american catholic immigrants from southern and eastern europe and ireland into schools where we could get teachers to make them read the right bible. if that's all you're asking a teacher, you don't actually need a particularly high bar in terms of skill or acumen or expertise. mostly what you want is cheap labor. so what we did in the 1800s was we -- in 1810, 90% of american teachers were men. this was something that itinerants did while they're getting a little bit of college education, whereas they're making their way out west. in order to get the kind of cheap labor that jal referred to, what we did is we redefined the appropriate fear of women's work. by the end of the 1800s, 70% of american teachers were women. they were low-paid, and so what

happens with much of the teachers moving in the first half of 20 center was about trying to get some basic retention and some were teachers pics we got thing like step find a skill so we're no longer grossly discriminates gender. we got tenure protection for teachers could no longer be fired simply because they got pregnant. all of which is a good deal since at one point in time. what olivia and i suggest is it's probably not a model that is well-suited of tapping the expertise of the available teachers in the 21st century, much less making sure that we are educating every child to their fullest potential. what we suggest is that if you go to relate any elementary school, charter, district, doesn't matter, and asked that principle to show you what the best fourth grade reading teacher isn't any given time, and the worst fourth grade teacher, bet you dollars to donuts, they are each teaching

reading 90 minutes a day. the each loading kids on the bus. to each taking a turn in the cafeteria. this is exactly if you go to the local hospital and you've got a lot going on the operating table, 90 minutes in the operation the thoracic surgeon starts beating off the gloves and you say what's up? she says i did my 90 minutes of surgery. don't worry, i'm going to go to funding for a while and trim hedges. will let one of the maintenance guys so up your mom. u.s.a. that is a crazy and ludicrous thing. the same thing would talk about colleagues who are good at coaching their peers. colleagues are particularly good at mentoring you. we ask every teacher to do these more unless the same proportion as they feel fit. this is a crazy and ineffective way to use down. so what we suggest is rather than try to figure out how do we get three and half million good teachers, the real question is how do we figure out how to use teachers in the roles they will be most effective?

and the same logic, i won't go into it here, i will spare you, the same logic i think applies women think about school design, when we think about the opportunities, tutoring, pass into a professional of the committee want to teach but minot wanting quit their job and become teachers. there are organizations like to.com that are solving these problems on a partial basis. so we can start to tackle these results. this kind of rethinking sound radical but i would suggest, for instance, that it's not. that i can only think of one technological innovation in the last half-century that has profound and systematically change the we teachers go about the work. it is generally called the book. if you recall when the press was invented it was reviled by religious educators, tell me if this sounds family, who worried if students left to their own devices would not learn the

right thing, that flipping of the classroom away from making sure that instructors were telling kids the right things, osaka difficult around religious fatwa's. today, five centuries later, it allows teachers to offload some of the lectures they once had to deliver, so the information dumping they were once responsible for so that students can go ahead and get that and spent classroom time doing something different. whether teachers use those tools wisely is the question. this is part of what so funny about the conversation, the con academy is simply an opportunity, potentially -- [inaudible] two final thoughts on this. one, there's any number of barriers. those of us who think and talk this way are frequently getting chosen by fans in classrooms and schools and the unions of being anti-teacher. because in order to start to rethink the teacher job coming

means we need to abandon the notion of stat line pays to. when you took and what a full-time teacher means. we need to abandon notions of tenure as it has been commonly understood, and these things, and we need to narrow bargain because of make it difficult to these things. this is often regarded as making a hostile situation but i think that's a profit on the other hand many of, there are many folks who think of themselves as would be reformers i think our recruiting some of the same difficulties they think they are solving. so if you look at many of today's teacher evaluation systems, they are premised on the notion a teachers going to own 28 or 38 years for 180 days so we can generate value added reading and math. as you start to do rocketship over a hybrid model or choose to make smart use of professionals in teaching, those assumptions, that that teacher will own 180 kids so you get an unbiased assessment, would become

increasingly difficult. rather than defend those policies, which can happen is we're going to than practice. andy rotherham who is on the first colleague and his -- on the first panel and his colleague, to make sure we do get stuck. what this means to me, final thought, is whether it comes to institution of higher education, whether it comes from state policymakers, whether it comes from funders, we need to get much more creative about what we regard as ways to solve these problems and make sure we're not in a straitjacket of just better schools and fixing teacher equality. >> plenty of food for thought. hopefully that will provoke some questions and comments. >> [inaudible] >> from left to more radical. quick biographical note. i jumped out of the policy game effectively about 10 years ago,

and over time ditched the core policy course in the masters program, and focused for the past 11 or 12 years, focus all my attention on what i thought was developing, endorsing, underwriting and building an infrastructure for the professional innovation, teaching. so to develop diagnostic practices, practices of school improvement that could be codified, taught, and it's still a huge part of my practice. so much occupational disability is over the past say ages i've been something like between 1800-2000 classrooms. and something like 450-500 schools in six states, and three countries.

this experience has had a hugely radicalizing effect on me because i do not believe that the institutional structure of public schooling anymore. i view the work that i continue to do in schools and i take it seriously, dying for an institution. so that for me is subtext of what i'm about to say. one of the most powerful, one of the three or four most powerful books i've read in my life has been george laycock metaphors we live by. i just want to give you to metaphors that structure the peace that we wrote for the volume and that lead to my analysis. the first is this idea of what i think is actually quite sophisticated idea that has

dominated policy discourse, at least i think bob gave the biography of idea, mike smith and jennifer o'day in kentucky, that i would call this metaphor nested hierarchy, which is there are levels of governance, and each level has a comparative advantage and some function to perform. and the organizing principle within the nest hierarchy is coherent. compared to something as deeply affected by practice with schools. the project i run currently that's the most clinical of the practices i do is called the internal coherence project which is helping schools develop a culture that is focused on high power instruction. there are two big forces which, 10 years from now, everybody in this room will be saying we knew

this was happening, and we will be taking it for granted. no one is really talking about this now. one is the world is moving from organizational form, this kind of hierarchical model, twin model of networks basically. so the central organizing principle for society and for learning, forget about schooling for the time being, for learning is going to be network relationships. it's not going to be hierarchy. so right now with race to the top have one foot on the break, one foot on the accelerator, going full speed, driving coherent down into the organization at a time when the entire world is shifting to another organizational model. if you haven't seen the talk, you should get on line and look at it, because this is a person

who has actually described what the world will look like and has an existence proof. the footnote i'd like to put in here is one of the things we say in our chapter is the future is now. everything i'm about to say has an existence proof, at a scale which should be persuasive to the american educators. so the idea that the central organizing principle, networking, is community. and he starts from the premise that in most learning settings with high proportion of disadvantaged kids, there aren't enough teachers to do the work that's necessary so we have to invent a model that overrides the teaching function. i'm also working on a program in mexico and rural schools in mexico that when i'll be up to

about 6000 schools but it operates on -- [inaudible]. so here's some implications for the argument we make, and i said i am more radical on this set of issues than my co-author. there will be a progressive and steady disassociation between learning and schooling. inevitably, learning is alive and well in society. the means for access to learning will be more flexible and more responsive to individual demand. however it's organized. how it's organized is going to be up for grabs. it will not accommodate well, in fact the longer we stay with the hierarchy model, the worse the disassociation between learning and schooling will be. that is, now, this is not an

argument that is a good future. actually that are huge issues of access and equity associate with what's going to happen. this is not an normative argument. this is a predictive argument. i've only seen one quoted quote system that's managed to try to get out ahead of this issue in a positive way, and that is victoria australia, and i would be happy to talk about what the model looks like. for the most part the ways in which public school organizations are trying to accommodate, in the digital age, are totally dysfunctional. and these institutions will die as a consequence of that. finally, just an argument about nero science. i'm utterly islam actually taking a neurobiology course at

berkeley online. -- i'm actually on leave. i look back and i think this is an institution that once the findings of neurobiology start to leak out into the broader society, can't possibly survive. the mobile classroom in the mobile public schools in this country is designed point for point to be exactly the opposite of what we are learning about humans, how human beings develop cognitively. that is going to be the next big challenge. so there to be designed problems for the future. one is how to handle issues of access when learning starts to migrate away from schooling. the second is what is the mechanism by which neuroscience becomes part of the way we take a moment and what consequences does that have by the way we design learning environments. and i refuse to call them

schools. >> all right. pretty straightforward, heather. [laughter] just wrap it up for us. >> what chapters did i read? no. i mean, i mean, i'm nation going to live up to the bill but i'm going to try to add something, something to the conversation. as i read these chapters in other chapters -- [inaudible] about poverty, so, i have a bunch of people who will be very excited in my organization to work in these future schools or learning organizations, et cetera come and i think that is sort of what we need to think about, hearkening back to andy's comment about the cutoff is 30, that what we've learned over our 20 years is that there are bunch

of young people who are compelled by a nation, and assume they'll be professionals to a lot of different things to build on the strengths and to be continuous learners. so there are people out there who would look at a bundled work, that want to lead and feel comfortable with fluidity as well as sort of this new technology of learning, because that's what i see young people doing. but conventional wisdom, and the system we live under right now, says to us that more time and more money to quote spike lee, is no better. we've got to step away from that and be thinking about how we measure what's important to us. so assessments that are both qualitative and quantitative. they will be really important as we see more variation in the

input, right? so i think those kind of things are really important. i'm going to try until just a little anecdote about our experience at teach for america core of art may be just my experience at teach for america, and whether that's a supporter or detractor, i hear many people telling us that of course the tsa has roles in the school and in the sector. if you are a supporter or you think the tsa's will solve all the problems and lead us into the promised land but if you're a detractor you feel like of course the tsa's can be i think what andy said, custodial worker for a while until they get -- [inaudible] and if they've managed to stick around, stick it out, then we can reward them. and i think one of things that was so appealing to me is that as opposed to speaking about

rank and purely existence or endurance, we think about what people's talents that we can easily identify and plug them in, and when they did, when the master something, we let them try the next best thing for them. that would support them. this focus on learning community, network i think is really important. so in our or session what that looks like sometimes i think we been criticized by this, so we have first and second program teaches. that's a we do. to ask them for a two-year commitment. i hate to say this in public all the time, but we are relatively agnostic about whether they teach beyond the two years, although i think we would like for more than two. but we ask them for two years. and at 22, which is the most for them, we think that's okay. when they finish their two years, we know something about

them because we continue to support their development as classroom teachers. and we pluck those most successful instructors often out of the classroom to support her colleagues in the first and second year. and what we do, when we're plucking them out and they work for us as an organization, we -- are becoming better instructed, better managers of students, and about leadership and understanding of the school organizations. and then sometimes we put them back in schools, sometimes they work for us and helping develop more training curricula or speaking on panels like this. i mean, so we are constantly trying to learn how to do the work better, the enterprise. and i think that, that most successful schools, when i was working in boston, i remember that people would point out those principles were most successful because they broke

all the rules, they never asked permission, they restructured what happened in their school. they with a good principle. and they often rehashed, or read purpose to their and building without telling anybody not according to the system. and then i think, you know, city and elmore take us into the future of learning. and i think this again just harkens back to do we have assessments that gave us confidence, that if there's more variation, we can capture it and create safety nets, both inside the schooling organizations, so i want to try not to say school of the time, but inside the schooling or position so we can ensure kids are moving forward in the ways we want to. i know i'm bumping up on time some going to jump up a little bit to talk about this poverty issue. and i would say that i'm very

nervous that people are going to start calling me so-called or want to be reformer. you know, people want to reform the system and they take different tasks. i think we're all trying move in that direction. what we are arguing about it seems to me is whether or not we can be, meet the challenge of think far more imaginative about what it is we're trying to get done. so the barrier between not just k-12 and 16, but zero -- and the earlier conversation there was a lot of questions about ken arne duncan, he's secretary of education and not secretary of hhs. what we're finding is would like to see so many more of those barriers, those divisions between words is not dead. that i think is the opportunity for innovation and choice, but if we're going to do this we need to ensure that we have

class diversity and our student population, and that we need to be trying out some of these great ideas so that poor kids are so but middle-class xc that work as something they also want to do. i'll stop. >> do you have any questions for the panelists? if you do, i'm happy for you to take us off. >> sure. so when the question i have, and i think this is probably by rick, and also the other chapter which is, if, i'm sorry, dick's chapter, if we see more variation learning and things are unbundled, how do we address the concern of concentrated poverty where a structure or a building or a location for delivering services is central to getting to those populations? i think that that question is one that worries me.

>> i think that's a completely fair question. so this comes up a lot would talk about online learning, for instance. that to my mind some of the most effective schools working with, you know, high poverty kids are ineffective, not necessarily because their pedagogy played terrific but because they've got adults were intensely committed to the work. .. >> so the education conversation because i think we tend to talk about schools which are good at driving up reading and math

levels for high poverty, high needs kids, i'm not sure that what we need for many of our other children who also, i think, are entitled to have -- so for me the answer there is we need to make sure we figure out what is going to work for different children, and if what they need is that traditional school place where they have a sense of order, where they have strong and caring adults, where he was a long day and a long year to keep them safe and keep them engageed, we've got to make sure that's part of the design. two quick thoughts on that. one, so part of the way to think about this unbundling, not just think about three and a half million teachers doing the teacher's job, but to think about how do we get each kid as much terrific teaching as possible. that means using adults in the community in different ways even if they don't want to quit their job and become teachers, woodrow wilson foundation has reported we know well over 40% of college-educated adults would like to do some teaching. it offers one model of how do

you do this. second, i would argue kind of the way dick was saying, it's not solely about his desire as much about a prediction. we are in a labor market that has inexorably moved. fifty years ago the average college graduate was going to have a handful of jobs by the time they retired. today the college graduate is going to have half a dozen jobs by the age of 30. it's not whether we like it or not or not. if we have a teaching model predicated on 22-year-old doing the same job until they're 40, we are battling an uphill climb. we had a lot of talent rushing in the door. today the comparable figure is closer to 15%. so it's not just that we're suggesting this would be a way to go, partly that the old o model may have made sense in a different labor market, but we need to figure out how do we

have the labor market we have today work for kids. >> a quick thought. i think the unbundling conversation and the enveloping poverty conversation fit together nicely. if you look at the charter schools that have extended days and they can call the teachers at night, it's really difficult to be on call 16 hours a day and so forth. but if you create a model which is sort of like match has this in boston where you have after school tutors which are kids who come from college, and can they get paid less, and they work in the building and work with the kids after school, and they're sort of learning to be teachers, but they're not full-time teachers yet, you're taking advantage of the different roles. i was struck in the chapter talking about creating an educational system with lots of different roles, and rick's chapter said the model is a hospital with lots of different roles, so i do think there's a nice way things can fit together. i think one of the troubles with professionalizing teaching as

i've talked about this is people say, well, teachers are just asked to do lots of things. so, like, if you get divorced, you go to your divorce lawyer, and they help sort out your property, and then you go to your therapist, and they sort out your love life. but if you're the child of divorce, your teacher's going to help you with everything and anything. [laughter] so if we can imagine a world where tease sort of extra -- not extra, but where there was joint and bounded accountability among different actors even having different roles, it might make the job of teaching more possible. then if teachers could succeed more, they would gain more status and success. >> richard? >> so i'm having spent a lot of time in class rooms really deeply suspicious of this idea that this highly developed bureaucracy is looking out for the interests of poor kids. i think there's almost no evidence for that. and i just think that we need to own the fact that coherence and

hierarchy have a shadow, and that shadow is paternalism and mediocrity. we need to own that, basically. we tolerate variations and the quality of teaching practices in buildings and the name of job security and institutional stability that i think the first panel established. we do not tolerate, other countries don't tolerate, basically. i'm reminded watching the chicago teachers' strike of the african proverb, you know, when the elephants fight, only the grass suffers. what was going on in the chicago had absolutely nothing to do with the welfare children. not a single thing to do with it.

it had to do with the institutional interests of elected officials, unions and advocacy groups in the community. each of whom were able to wrap themselves in the interests of children. not a single thing is going to change in chicago classrooms as a consequence, fundamentally, as a consequence of that argument. now, what i'd like to stipulate is, i mean, i can rail about that. i see evidence of in classrooms all the time. the biggest consequence of i like to say there are two ways to get coherence. one is to bring the skill and knowledge level of teachers up to the standard, the other is to bring the standard down to, right? we have succeeded beyond our wildest expectations at bringing the standard down to the base level of quality in the teaching force. so now we're stuck with a culture that's hard wired with

mediocre instruction. what i'd like to say is regardless of how you feel about that, it's not going to last. people won't stand for it. and there will be a variety of ways in which people will escape this. last time i checked there are over 100,000 kids in florida enrolled in high school taking online courses. why would they want to do that? get the hell out. high school is the second or third most dysfunctional institution in american society, right? we're doing kids a favor. when we talk about the high school dropout rate, frankly, spending time in high school classrooms it's a miracle to me that the kids stay at all. [laughter] right? so what we have is a dysfunctional institution which is now going to have to operate in a world in which it's totally out of alignment with the emerging demands of the labor

market. it's completely, we will discover, out of alignment with the science about how people learn, and it's a clotted and locked-in set of institutional interests that find it impossible to move. so i get a little suspicious when people think about that the many different ways we can make this elephant dance, basically. >> so some, some provocative thoughts there. it strikes me that just the challenge of almost getting -- [laughter] that we do so little to model, actually, the kind of work that we want students doing all the way up into the system. and i just in a sense, in some ways, don't know how we can get out of the way of some of the work that each of you is describing. but i want to draw in the folks who are with us and ask if there's questions, comments? again, please, identify

yourselves. >> thank you. it's good to kind of see some of the harvard people back, i guess. [laughter] for over 40 years now, um, i've been an inner city teacher in cleveland, ohio, for six years. started a charter school in oakland, california, and have been with a private school for, um, 35 years and just retired. and there is a similarity in all of those, and you've talked about this, but to get down to what really happens we need supportive teachers who know what the hell they're doing. and they need to be great teachers. they need to understand not only kids, but they need to understand parents.

and principals need to understand teachers, and they need to understand and help parents. when i taught in the cleveland inner city schools, we did all our parent/teacher conferences at the parents' homes. and can that was in a tough area in cleveland. we had after school programs for parents to learn sewing, cooking, finances and is so forth. and teachers, i don't know how to -- as being a principal, we need to get the best teachers if possible. and if they're not good, to get rid of them. and is that's hard to do. it's easier to do in nonpublic schools than public schools. but i don't know what else to say. we need to keep getting those great teachers and getting principals who understand those teachers and could make the

school a great school where it's truly a community, where we respect each other, we respect kids, and we do the darnedest that we can do that. thank you. >> thank you for your comment. anyone want to -- >> i just want to say we're moving into an environment in which whether you choose to have a teacher in an organization called school mediate your relationship to learning would be a choice. and how do you choose to mediate that will become a choice if society at large. we're watching now this program in small rural schools in mexico that's not mediated by any kind of a professional teacher. it's a tutorial model. none of the adults are trained teachers. the kids are blowing the doors

off the national test. we're watching this develop. it's a community-based, social movement, basically. this this is a group of people who have deliberately chosen not to have the learning of their kids mediated by what we think of as teacher in a classroom in a school. that will increasingly become available to a lot of people in society. one of the experiments we're going to be running in the next 25 years is how that's going to shake up. >> so, rick, i want to draw you in and can just ask, it strikes me when you look at the lessons from the highest performing schools and talk about those principals who know their teachers, their students, their families, their community and then do some of the things that heather talked about, about really changing -- well, i guess you mentioned changing roles, really being adaptive. but some of the policies we're setting in place you mentioned kind of in the exact opposite direction and i worry will

accelerate. or at least sort of perpetuate their inability to adapt to the high performing organizations. so i'm just curious if you have ideas how does policy get out of the way or spark those conditions that might learn from high performing organizations that make them more likely at scale? >> yeah. i mean, i think one of the places we get stuck is we have a profound, we're profoundly, we have a profound lack of humility as to what policy can do and can't do. what policy can do is it can make people do things. what it can't do is make them do those things well. and so when we think about where policy is useful, for instance, for me one of the great successes of no child left behind -- i also, as folks may know, have enormous concerns -- one of the things it did very effectively was require we assess children in grades 3-8 regularly and disaggregate those results. policy is very clear whether you

are doing it or not. as soon as you actually get to all of the stuff of that, what are the standards, how do we define whether kids are proficient, what are the assessments, that's where policy gets incredibly slippery. much less, what do you do about the schools that aren't succeeding? so just by way of prologue, ross, and your question, there are schools that don't need to do a darn thing of what i'm talking about and i think are serving their kids fairly well, and the families are satisfied. i have no desire in forcing people to do otherwise. but frequently, those schools are effective because they have managed on a one-off basis to recreate much of what jal's talking about because they have the kind of support of businesses in the community, because these are districts that have a huge track record of being attractive to talented educators. and so they have managed of themselves to create the conditions where you can do the stuff that dick's talking about, high quality instruction well. the trouble is, and this goes back 40 years to ron edmunds and

the effective schools research, that when we see things that characterize effective schools, turns out to be a hell of a lot harder than we'd like it to be to make those things travel to other settings x. the reason it's hard to make them travel is we can't export those families, we -- as much as we'd like, we can't replicate the harlem children's zone. as much as we'd like, we can't get those kinds of teachers in other settings. so it's not so much that what libby and i are suggesting is a new model that ought to be mandated by policy, but that what we do only works in some places for some kids that have the ingredients in place, and we're talking about how do we start to make those ingredients more widely available by making better use of the resource and talent you've got. what policy can do on this front is one policy can make it easier to use those ingredients. if you are an engineer, um, i've got a friend who graduated mit 20 years ago, started to raise her family. she's still an engineer, but now

she consults and works freelance. if you are an educator in most systems and you make that choice, we don't know what to do with you any longer. so we have created role definitions that are hostile to talent, that are, make it difficult for us to retain and use people in communities. policy can help there. policy can help us think differently about pension portability, can help us think differently about access to health care, help us think differently about job descriptions, about contracts, about rules, about who's eligible for title i funds, these kinds of things. what policy can also do, and this is where i refer to andy and sarah's paper just a moment ago, what policy can do is make sure that as we are creating default norms for how we're going to evaluate teachers or how we're going to hold schools accountable, that we take great care to build in sliding doors so that people who are coming up with smarter solutions, people who want to get outside the traditional institution are not hemmed in. and i think we have done a horrific job on that, on that piece of it in the last ten

years. >> great with. thank you. let's take one, last question or comment. >> hi. my name is -- [inaudible] i'm a director and a former university professor. my question is for professor elmore. i found your comments enormously evocative, and i agree with almost everything you said. i am a little confused about the notion of the separation between schooling and learning. that i understand the disintegrative impulse behind your thinking very clearly, and i, and i entirely sympathize with that, with that emotion and that impulse. the part that would presumably follow that, the integrated impulse behind your thinking, is not so clear to me. for example, the things, the example that you gave about the

students fleeing teachers to spend endless hours on online courses is, to me, not a solution. to a national problem. that -- so i'm, this is just an open-ended question to you. how would you then reintegrate, um, the approach to learning, not schooling, but learning. >> right. >> so that, for example, things like culture are transmitted, for example, so that students are guided towards aspects of the past. >> right, sure. >> for example, things that the nation values, that culture values and that students would know nothing about were there not adults around them to guide them in those directions? >> okay. i, i would urge everybody in

this room if you haven't done it already, just log on to the tet talks and watch two videos. one, sugata mitra about self-organizing systems and learning. and you'll see four or five different models of how networked learning systems respond to this precise issue which is what's the duty of care, what is the, what's the culture that you're trying to transmit, how does it track with what we know about learning. and how does it track with our aspirations for child development. the other is charles ledbetter did a little talk about which includes that model, but it looks at a number of others, and the thesis is very controversial which is the models of learning in the 21st century are not currently ones that are present in industrialized countries.

they are present in developing countries. the future is not in industrialized countries, especially in the u.s. where we have this clotted and mobilized, highly-paralyzed institutional structure that, basically, won't let anything that rick proposes happen. let's just stipulate that, right? [laughter] the minute you start to, the minute that you start to change one moving part, it's like my back right now, right? [laughter] the whole system closes down, right? and we start, the elephants start fighting, and the grass suffers, right? so we have this highly institutionalized environment. what ledbetter's argument which is, i think, quite persuasive is that -- and what i'm going to say in the book i'm writing is that the way you deal with that system is you start on the margins and push toward the middle. because the institutions won't respond until they have to. it has to hurt.

people have to lose their jobs. as a consequence, as a consequence of changes in the environment. you cannot break a monopoly by being nice. >> all right. [laughter] no, and actually, so i am going to bring our conversation to a close, but it really, actually, draws on -- the question and professor elmore's answer which, you know, i actually think we've had a robust conversation today, and i think that the future's on school reform product has made a big contribution both in talking about what policy should do and talking about what policy can do, but actually also in trying to elevate this conversation above sort of the kind of retail politics and the sort of day-to-day of how do we get a little bit better and pushes us to ask questions, actually, about are we even asking the right question. are we elevating these issues to the level that they really, um,

where they need to be addressed? i will say, i talked about finland is a challenging example, and i struggle on how to draw from international examples, but one thing that's been quite strike anything the places i visited is the conversation that they're having about education is a different one than we're having in the united states. and it is less filled with vitriol, it is more about principals and about values -- principles and about values and about how we get there. so one thing i hope we can draw and, again, i give the futures on score form a lot of credit. it draws, actually, from a very diverse ideological group of folks. these are not people who came together around group think, and they didn't come to consensus or set out a particular agenda, but i think they have put something on the table that ought to provoke all of us to think about where does this go, and what can we do to envision a much better, a much higher quality, a much fairer education for our children and then put some

shoulder into it. i want to thank you all for being here and thank the panelists and the project. thank you. [applause] >> coming up live here today on c-span2, the former director of mossad, israel's intelligence agency, will give his perspectives on the israeli/palestinian conflict, iran's nuclear program and uprisings in syria and egypt. he served in the mossad for almost 40 years under three israeli prime ministers and will be speaking at the wilson center at noon eastern here in washington. and then at 3:30, also live here on c-span2, former united nations secretary general kofi annan will be speaking at the brookings institution. he'll talk about his experiences and efforts to protect human rights. in 2001 he received the nobel peace prize. and on c-span at 1:00 eastern today, secretary of state hillary clinton will be at

georgetown university, and she's expected to talk about the role energy plays in u.s. diplomacy and foreign policy. again, that's c-span at 1 p.m. eastern today. >> so it starts as an economic argument. men are just having a harder time adapting to the economy, and women are adapting more easily. i can't tell you why. of there's been different periods in history where men have adapted easier, but just to say to this -- stay to this period in history. the economy is fast changing, women seem to be getting those skills and credentials at a much faster rate than men are. and they seem to be more nimble. and then that kind of filters down into our society. so in the book i talk about how that changes marriage and our notions of fatherhood and what men can and can't do in families and, you know, how young people have sex and make decisions. and so you really start to see it having an influence in our culture. >> tucker carlson joins author hannah rosen to discuss "the end of men," standard night at 10 eastern and sunday night at 9 on

"after words." this weekend on c-span2's booktv. >> now, i have to be honest with you, i love these debates, you know? these things are great. [cheers and applause] and i think it's interesting that the president still doesn't have an agenda for a second term. don't you think that it's time for him to finally put together a vision of what he'd do in the next four years if he were elected? i mean, he's got to come up with that over this weekend because there's only one debate left on monday -- [cheers and applause] >> so let's recap what we learned last night. his tax plan doesn't add up. his jobs plan doesn't create jobs. his deficit reduction plan adds to the deaf -- deficit. so, iowa, you know, everybody here's heard of the new deal? you've heard of the fair deal? you've heard of the square deal? mitt romney's trying to sell you a sketchy deal. [laughter]

[cheers and applause] we are not buying it! >> watch and engage monday as president obama and mitt romney meet in their final debate moderated by cbs' bob schieffer from lynn university in boca raton, florida. our debate preview starts at 7 p.m. eastern followed by the debate at 9 and your reaction at 10:30. all live on c-span, c-span radio and online at c-span.org. >> and now, the first florida senate debate between incumbent u.s. senator bill nelson and republican challenger congressman connie mack. this is the only confirmed debate for the florida senate race. it's courtesy of wptv in west palm beach, florida. it's about 50 minutes. >> moderator: good evening and welcome to the campus of nova southeastern university. i'm michael williams. we're honored to have you joining us from across the state of florida and our live audience here in attendance this night. the format for this hourlong

debate is simple. each candidate will be asked a question in alternate fashion, each will have one minute and 15 seconds to respond by their agreement. they then will be allowed at the moderator, my, depression up to 30 seconds for rebuttal, then we'll move on to other questions. we'll break et up into economic policy, then later questions fashioned to each gentleman's record and finally, foreign policy and national security. we hope it will be informative, we thank you for being with us. i'd like now to introduce our veteran panelists joining us tonight. reporters all from south florida and around the sunshine state. they are anthony mann, longtime political reporter for south florida's sun sentinel. campos and toluse olurunnipa from "the miami herald". we thank you for being with us. we will begin with one minute opening statements.

congressman mac goes first for one minute. sir? mack: thank you, and good evening. i'm a proud mainstream conservative that grew up and was born right here in florida with florida values. and there is a clear choice between senator nelson and me. you see, bill nelson cast the deciding vote to cut $700 billion out of your medicare to pay for obamacare. i voted against obamacare. bill fellson, he voted to gut -- nelson, he voted to gut our military. i voted to strengthen our military. bill nelson voted for higher taxes 150 times, 150 times. i voted to cut taxes. you see, i've got a simple litmus test. if you voted for higher taxes 150 times, it's time for you to go. see, the liberals in washington turn to government to solve the very problems they created in the first place. what made our nation great is

not our government, but you, the american people. i look forward to tonight's debate. >> moderator: congressman mack, thank you. now senate bill nelson, one minute, please. nelson: well, thank you for this debate, and i'm looking forward to pointing out what the truth is, because everything that the congressman has just said is not true. and that's parking lot of the problem -- that's part of the problem in our politics today. it's so polarized, it's so excessively partisan, it's so idealogically rigid with this idea it's my way or no way. and the way you run the government of the united states is you respect the other fella's point of view, you reach across the partisan divide, and you bring people together and build bipartisan consensus. now, i will show you in the course of this debate how i have

been able to do that, and i will show you that what the congressman said is not true. let the debate begin. >> moderator: thank you to both of the candidates. and throughout this debate, by the way, you will be hearing a reference to a statewide poll. it is the leadership florida nielsen sunshine state survey, and it came up with a lot of interesting results as we polled you across florida. let's take a look atom of them. for example, when asked what is the most important issue facing florida today, the top three answers. 44% said the economy, 6% education, 5% said crime and drugs. again, you'll hear about the survey throughout the next hour. let's have the questioning begin. the first question by agreement goes to congressman mack, and it will come from anthony mann. >> poll decisions -- politicians love to talk tough on spending, but can you name a single program or spending item that benefits the residents of

florida that you think needs to be cut to help balance the budget in these tough times? mack: you know, it's a great question, and this goes to the heart of what this debate should be about. it's about spending. and in washington, d.c. we've been on a spending spree. we have seen year after year after year, in fact, in the last four years we've added a trillion dollars to new debt every year. now, some of us, myself included, believe that we need to cut spending, that we need to rein in our debt and our deficits. now, senator nelson serves on the budget committee, and for almost four years has failed to pass a budget. now, why is that significant? that's significant because if you want to control spending, you have to have a budget. the reason you have a budget at home, the reason you have a budget in your business so you can control spending. the senator sits on the budget committee and has failed to pass

a budget in almost four years. now, the question is what would i cut. there are a lot of things and, in fact, you can go to my web site, conniemack.com, and we have a list of things we would cut. let me tell you this, we don't need to continue to fund amtrak. i think pbs is something else we can look at cutting. when you continue to borrow -- >> moderator: congressman mack? to the minute 15 rule, and we thank you for doing so. senator nelson, minute, 15. nelson: well, you see right off the bat i have to explain that what he said about the budget is not true. not only did we pass a budget, we passed it in law last year. this wasn't a budget resolution that doesn't have the force of law, this was an actual act signed into law by the president, and as a matter of fact, it set the course of categories of spending for two years, not for one year.

when you look at spending cuts, you know, there's something known as tax expenditures. it's called tax loopholes. that's basically loopholes that go out to special interest. if we're going to reform the tax code, we can go in and start taking out a lot of 'em. give you an example. how about $40 billion to come out of the oil industry? how about another -- here's a good one, $11.5 billion to come from not letting bp deduct their particular clean-up expenses. those are -- >> moderator: senator nelson, your minute, 15 -- 30-second rebuttal. mack: thank you very much. senator nelson, what you just said is not true, and the people of the state of florida deserve the truth. what frightens me is you serve on the budget committee, and

apparently you don't understand that we have failed to pass a budget. now, you talk about loopholes which is interesting. senator, you put some cows on your farm to avoid paying taxes. what problems me about that is that you tell everybody else not to do it, but it's okay for you. $43,000 that could have gone -- >> moderator: congressman mack, thank you very much. senator nelson, 30 seconds. nelson: check the record. it's the budget control act. now, i'd like to have an opportunity, and i can't do it in 20 seconds. there have been cows on that property for 60 years, since 1952. [laughter] when i was a little boy raising my 4-h club project, and can they still are, and i'll expand on that later. >> moderator: we'll take our next question fromly set campos, and as we talked about, that first question with a minute, 15

response will be directed first to senator nelson. >> good evening, gentlemen. this question is for you, senator nelson. my question is about job creation. in the statewide survey that michael referred to earlier in the broadcast, um, the statewide poll participants gave the lowest marks to our state when it came to job creation. more than 51% of the people who were surveyed said that florida is doing, quote, a poor job. why do you feel that you are more equipped, are better with suited than your opponent to tackle this issue and create more jobs in florida? >> moderator: senator nelson, a minute, 15. nelson: we have a long way to go. think where we came from this time in 2008. we were going into a financial death spiral. the stock market collapsed, massive job layoffs, and that occurred for a year and a half.

and then for the last 31 straight months we've had private sector job growth. what we're seeing today is the increase of the housing market, we're seeing housing in i starts -- new starts, in fact, are up some 33% now in florida. it's slow, it's not fast enough, but it's happening. and the economy is going to be reflective of a good shot in the arm of confidence if the congress can come together and pass a budget plan which i want to lay out for you in large part is with income tax code reform. i started part of it in my answer, and i'll get to it later. >> moderator: senator, thank you. congressman mack, 1:15. mack: senator nelson, we agree,

we're waiting for you to pass a budget in the united states senate. it's been almost four years since you passed a budget in the united states senate. now, what's interesting to me is, you know, there are a lot of floridians who are suffering right now, who are hurting. they're looking for work. almost 830 ,000 people out of work. many have even quit looking for work, senator nelson, and you just painted this picture that doesn't exist. i'm not sure which florida you're talking about. there are people who are losing their homes. they're still losing their homes, senator. this economy is not one that is working. now look, there's a small business in my district. it wanted to expand. it's a boat-building business. it took 31 different permits and fees for them to be able to expand before they could hire the first full-time employee. this is a government that's out of control. if you want to get entrepreneurs and risk takers back in the game, you have to lower taxes. not raise taxes like you have, senator, over 150 times.

you need to reduce regulation, and you need to be up front with people. and tell them that, look, these are difficult times, but we're going to put our faith and trust this you, the american people, not more and more government. >> moderator: let's move along to the next question. senator, 30 seconds for each, strict 30. go ahead, senator. nelson: well, it's just not true. here's the 150 tax votes that he's talking about. that's just simply not true. outside fact check organizations have said it's not true. you haven't talked about all of the tax cuts that i voted for, but when we start talking about this, let's talk about all of your missed votes this year, and when you show up, it's even worse because you -- >> moderator: senator? nelson: you try to take out medicare and social security. >> moderator: congressman mack, 30 seconds, please.

mack: senator, your propensity to vote for higher taxes 150 times is shocking, absolutely shocking. like i said, if you voted for higher taxes 150 times, it's time for you to go. the question was about job creation. if you're going to continue to raise taxes on the very people that we are relying on to create jobs, they don't have the money to invest if you keep taking it into washington. if you continue with the regulations, they can't grow. let's put our faith and trust back in the people of this state and this country. >> moderator: next question, and it will be first addressed to congressman mack. >> good evening, gentlemen. let's talk about medicare. there's a few study out this week from the kaiser foundation that says the romney/ryan premium support plan for medicare would raise the cost of health care for seniors by about $200 per month. but also under obamacare medicare is scheduled to go insolvent within 12 years.

how do we protect medicare for florida's three million seniors and save it for the next generation without massive slashes and cuts in benefits? >> moderator: congressman? mack: thank you for the question. it's important. it's one that i think a lot of people who are watching this debate have. they're wondering what's happening to medicare. um, you know, this is, by the way, this isn't an entitlement, this is something that people have paid into. this is something that they've earned. this is something that they, it's theirs. it's what they've been saving for and working on for a long time. now, senator nelson cast the deciding vote to cut $700 billion out of medicare. what did senator nelson say before the vote? he said it is unconscionable to whack away medicare advantage from our seniors. but that's exactly what he did. senator, i agree with you. that was unconscionable. there is almost a million be, over a million seniors in the state of florida on medicare

advantage because of your vote, because of your vote they're going to lose their medicare advantage. now, you talk a good game, you say things like, well, i successfully offered an amendment. well, you can successfully offer all the amendments you want. it didn't pass. yet you still voted for it. you called it unconscionable and a nonstarter. the president called you up and said, i need your vote. you chose the president over the people of the state of florida. >> moderator: senator nelson, a minute, 15 response. nelson: i'm not going to let you get away with this. $716 billion was, in fact, savings that extended the life of medicare for eight years. medicare was going to run out in the three years. now, let's talk about some of his medicare votes. he voted to cut medicare by taking away the guaranteed benefit and replacing it with a voucher that a senior citizen would have to negotiate with an

insurance company. >> moderator: the lights are -- we're going to recycle the light. nelson: i thought that was a pretty quick light. [laughter] >> moderator: technical gremlin. [laughter] thel nell how much time do i have left? >> moderator: you've got about a minute left. 45 seconds to a minute, senator. nelson: social security. he voted to partially privatize social security by putting into the vagaries of the stock market. he has a penny plan that would absolutely eviscerate medicare and social security. over $200 billion out of medicare, over a trillion dollars out of social security. and we're going to release tonight the impartial, nonpartisan congressional research service study that shows how he absolutely savages

medicare, social security and, oh, by the way to boot, $3 trillion out of defense. that's what his penny plan is. >> moderator: congressman? 30 seconds. mack: senator nelson, um, you know better than that. and the people of the state of florida know better tan that. you can call it savings, you can call it taking the money, you can call it anything you want, senator. you cut $700 billion which you said would be unconscionable. that's what you said. and i agree with you. the problem is when the president said to you i need your vote, you chose to stand with the president like you do 98% of the time instead of standing with the people of the state of florida. you whacked away their medicare advantage, and you should explain that. you should explain that to them. >> moderator: senator, 30 seconds. your counter, 30 seconds, sir. nelson: well, that's just it. it's not a cut. as a matter of fact, all of the fact checkers say it's not a cut. what it is, it's savings.

where'd it come from? it didn't come from the medicare beneficiaries, it came from the providers -- in some cases involuntarily from the insurance companies who offer medicare advantage. my statement about unconscionable was when i protected florida by exempting out medicare advantage for florida this we got -- until we got the correct formula that would reward our seniors. and what it is is one of the most wildly successful programs right now. with enrollments up and premiums down. >> moderator: senator? quick rebuttal question from the moderator for both of you. every household has to prioritize. medicare and medicaid, social security and desense take out six of every ten federal dollars. you've made a pledge, no new taxes. in order of priority, just as a florida household has to do, one, two and three, which would you cut first and most in one, two and three order from the three biggest drivers of federal

debt which none of you has directly, specifically touched on. thirty seconds for you and then for you, senator nelson. specifically. mack: that's just not the choice we're going to have to make. >> moderator: six out of every ten federal dollars was spent on medicare, defense and social security. mack: i understand. here's what we're going to do. we're going to make sure that job creators get back into the game. if you want more revenue into the federal government, you do it by putting people back to work. the best economic engine we have is the american people. the american people, if given the chance, they want to compete. they want to strive for the american dream, and you do that by getting them back to work. not by raising taxes. >> moderator: senator? 30 seconds. nelson: you can cut, but medicare's got to be saved. and so that's what we did. people say, well, what are you going to do about medicare? well, we already did something about medicare. and we extended its life for another eight years until 2024. if you want to cut, i'll give

you an example, defense, you can take some of our troops out of europe. that was an old cold war strategy. we don't need all those troops in europe now. that'll save us billions. >> moderator: we'll come back to deficit and budget questions. now anthony mann, and his question will first be directed to senator nelson. >> senator, what specifically should be done about b the fiscal cliff coming on december 31st that would bring huge tax increases and deep spending cuts that economists both on the left and right say are potentially catastrophic? nelson: well, it's not going to happen. sequestration was never intended to happen. think back to what happened. first of all, we had an artificial debt ceiling that this country if it weren't raised a year ago, we could not have paid our bills. and so a budget agreement was put together. first of all, there was a cut of a trillion dollars off the top, and then there was put in place

a super committee of six from the house and six from the senate in order to reach bipartisan agreement. but the mechanism was like a guillotine over their heads, sequestration. that would have been so onerous that they would come to agreement. all you needed was one. it deadlocked 6-6. and that then activated the sequestration. now, what will happen is after the election we'll go back -- i can tell you over half of the senate, bipartisan, is ready to put together that comprehensive plan, part of which i explained in an earlier question, where you can do cuts, but you can get revenue from the tax loopholes, lower everybody's tax rates and then have room to lower the deficit. >> moderator: thank you, sir. one minute, 15, congressman mack. mack: thank you very much.

it's a great question and, senator, once again this shows that you say one thing to the people of the sate of florida -- of the state of florida, but you do something else in washington d.c. you said that sequestration, we can't do sequestration. it's going to hurt our military. in fact, because of your vote on sequestration, you cut $500 billion out of defense. you've gutted our military. and at the same time, you continue to send foreign aid to countries that do not support the united states of america. now, i find it interesting that you keep talking about medicare and sequestration. you voted to take $700 billion out of medicare. it's a fact. to pay for obamacare. you voted to gut our military through she questions take. i didn't vote for sequestration. it was a dumb idea. we should have never have done that. you know, and what -- i think what's important here is that you can either have someone who tells you one thing, to floridians, but then votes with barack obama 98% of the time if

washington, or you can have someone who's going to stand up and fight for you. make sure that we put floridians first, that we, we protect and save medicare, not gut it. >> moderator: senator? #u -- 1:15. nelson: congressman, you're repeating the same lines over and over. what you voted against a year ago was you were going to let this country go into default where it could not pay it bills and, obviously, the country couldn't do that and, therefore, we had to try to get a bipartisan budget agreement. you were in the significant minority in voting against that budget agreement. but speaking of votes, why don't you explain how you don't show up to work in -- work? why don't you explain how this year you have one of the worst voting records? i have missed one vote this year, you have missed 178.

and when you do show up to vote, it's even worse. now, one of the votes you missed was the paul ryan plan. that was the second paul ryan plan. you were asked would you support it since you missed it, you said, yes. and then a later interview you said it was stupid, and you would vote no, and then your folks corrected you, and you changed your position again, yes. so why don't you explain to our folks why you miss all these votes. >> moderator: 30, briefly, and then we're going to go to -- mack: let me make sure i do this clear for you. yeah, i'm going to keep talking about this because these are your votes, and you can't run from them. now, you said i'm in the minority. i might be in the minority with your kind in washington, but i stand in the majority with the people of the state and this country. as far as my voting record, senator, you should be straight with people. i've got a 94% voting record.

you've got a 92% voting record. in fact, last year i cast 430 votes, you cast less than 200. senator nelson, you've got a lot of explaining to do. a lot of accusations, not a lot to back it up. >> moderator: thirty seconds. nelson: you see, how can you argue with someone who just completely pulls it out? he would have you think i voted half the time because he voted for 400 votes, and i voted for 200. that's all the senate did. >> moderator: we're going to have to take a break for our stations across florida. back in a moment with more of the debate. ♪ >> moderator: and welcome back to our florida u.s. senate debate on the campus of nova southeastern university. we'll get right underway with the next round of questioning with ms. campos, first question directed to congressman connie mack. >> congressman mack, it seems that when politicians address the issue of women's issues, the campaign ads focus on abortion

rights, on birth control, and yet advocates in florida tell us domestic violence is the single most important issue that effects women. in fact, the centers for disease control say that one in every four women in this country will face some form of domestic violence or dating violence in their lifetime. the violence against women act has been allowed to lapse, to expire, and advocates in florida are asking that be reauthorized. what is your position on that? >> moderator: 1:15, sir. mack: thank you very much. and, you know, i'm honored and proud to have tonight with me three women that are very special to me. my wife, mary, who's here; my mother who's here and can star of -- and the star of our new commercials, and my daughter who's also here. and the idea that someone would harm any one of them or anyone is disgusting. and we need to do all we can to protect them. we also need to do all we can to

make sure that they have an opportunity. you know, i think about my daughter, and, um, what is it going to be like when she gets older, after she graduates college -- you're going to college -- [laughter] after you graduate college, i want to make sure she has a good job. and you know what? women are worried about in this country is about jobs and security and being secure at home and making sure that their children are taken care of. and that they put, they put food on the table. and like i said -- i did, i answered the question. i did answer the question. >> moderator: will you reauthorize -- >> would you reauthorize the violence against women act? mack: yes. >> moderator: senator nelson, 1:15 for you. nelson: well, i'm glad that he finally got around to trying to answer it, but -- and by the way, i've already voted for it. we couldn't get the votes to break the filibuster in the senate. but i think we ought to ask

further why did the congressman vote against the lily ledbetter bill that prescribed equal pay for equal work for -- >> senator nelson, when it comes to the violence against women act, specifically focusing on domestic violence and funding for this program -- nelson: i voted for it. >> you voted for it with changes, earmarks specifically for sexual assault. the advocates in florida are asking for the reauthorization with no changes. they say that each state would be better suited to determine funding based on each state's needs. nelson: well, i will certainly look at a change there, but we've got to get it out of the senate, and we couldn't get the 60 votes. violence, isn't rape a violence? congressman mack voted to redefine rape as forcible rape. so i think it's pretty clear where he is standing on women's issues.

>> moderator: let's move ahead to the next question. we'll let you -- if we don't, we'll never get to foreign policy. mack: well, what he just said is not true -- >> moderator: briefly. thank you, congressman. mack: senator, you need to do a better job of explaining your own record because you're really messing up my record. apparently, you're looking at somebody else. and it is a shame. senator, the people of the state of florida are tired of you saying one thing to them and then going back to washington, d.c. and voting with barack obama 98% of the time. they're tired of that. they want you to look them in the eye and tell them what you're going to do for them instead of what you're going to do for barack obama. >> moderator: senator, 30 seconds. nelson: is that the only line that you have memoried? [laughter] memorized? [laughter] mack: are you going to own up to it, senator? nelson: let me tell you that violence against women for you not to have produced it in the

house where we were trying to produce it in the senate is just -- here we are in 2012, and it is true. you voted for -- >> moderator: you had your turn, congressman. nelson: as forcible rape. seems to me that rape is rape. >> moderator: we will move on to the next question now, this one will be directed first to senator nelson. >> florida now leads the nation in foreclosures, and there are more delinquent mortgages here in florida than in any other state. senator nelson, you've supported the president's housing initiatives, but most of those initiatives have fallen short of expectations. what will you do and why should people vote for you if they're about to lose their homes when you have been in office during the worst housing crisis in recent history? mel nell and, indeed, florida was the one that really got hit the hardest along with a few other states because of our economy being so dependent upon housing and construction and real estate.

and a number of programs have been tried. and some of them have been successful. let me tell you one that's being successful right now. it's going to allow eight million people nationally to refinance their mortgages from 6, 6.5 down into the 4 percentile, but they never could get the banks to do it because their mortgages -- very typical of florida -- were underwater. the mortgage value was higher than the actual fair market value of the house since it had dropped so much. these mortgages that are held by fannie and freddie are now being refinanced so the homeowner, a typical homeowner on a $200,000 mortgage will be able to save a total of $5,000 a year in interest. that is a successful program, and it's going on right now.

>> moderator: congressman, 1:15. mack: thank you. you know, i think it's important that we kind of understand what's happening here in the housing market. um, you know, let me talk to you about a friend of mine who lost his job and has been looking for a new job and couldn't pay the bills. so he tried to use one of those new plans that barack obama and senator nelson passed. he tried some of those things, and you know what he was told in he said, well, before we can help you, you have to default on your loan. he doesn't want to default on the loan. it's against what he believes in. after a while when he ran out of savings, he had to default on his loan. they changed the program. guess what happened? they said if you default on your loan, we can't help you. now, this is a perfect example of always believing that government is the answer. the problem, senator, is when you passed dodd-frank, you made it to a point where our small community banks are afraid to

lend money because you're going to shut 'em down. you know, we talk about small businesses, the housing market. it's really quite simple. small banks want to lend money, but if you put dodd-frank on top of them, they're afraid you're going to put them out of business. that is not a way that you're going to get this economy going or going to help people stay in their homes. >> moderator: we'll move on to anthonyman -- anthony mann. >> congressman, you've made clear you oppose obamacare and want to repeal it. i'm wondering if you'd maintain the parts that are popular with the public; no exclusions for pre-existing conditions, allowing young adults to stay on their parents' insurance, and how you would pay for them. >> moderator: 1:15, sir. mack: thank you very much. i think most people recognize that obamacare must be repealed. this is a law, by the way, that was -- this bipartisanship that senator nelson talks about, not one republican sioux city suppo.

and the american people don't support it. we need to repeal obamacare. here's why. not only do we not want a government-run health care system that has a unelected board making decisions about people's health care decisions, we also don't want to whack away medicare advantage from our seniors -- which obamacare does. but there are things that we can do moving forward. one of the things we can do is something called association health plans. let's say a small restaurant, a mom and pop restaurant with 14 employees, they can be part of the florida restaurant association, use that association to pool their buying power together to be able to afford insurance. a pre-existing condition, i think, is something that we can cover as well. but what we'll do first is we will repeal obamacare. if you want to get job creators back into the game, you cannot put stipulations and those fees and those taxes on top of small businesses who are trying to grow. in fact, there are restaurant

groups out there who are having to change their entire business -- >> moderator: congressman, thank you very much. mack: to deal with obamacare. >> moderator: senator, 1:15. nelson: now, there you go again, same message. devoid of specifics. as a matter of fact, do you trust the independent fact checkers, politifact, factcheck.org, part of the annenberg school at the university of pennsylvania, they said everything that he said is not correct. and then when you look at the need to have something done with medicare, it's going to run out in three years if you repealed obamacare. it's going to in october of 2015, october of 2013, going to run out of money.

that was one of the major reasons of passing a reform of medicare and the health care system. what about the three and a half million people in florida that do not have health insurance? we want to get 'em into the health insurance system. and that's why the health insurance exchanges are being set up in 2014. >> moderator: senator, thank you very much. we'll take a break, we'll be back in just a moment. ♪ >> moderator: back now to our u.s. senate debate. i want a quick rebuttal question to wrap up taxes and spending first, 30 seconds each, then we're moving to foreign policy. the average american according to the u.s. debt clock, each american, every citizen, owes $51,000 to pay off the debt tomorrow. $51,000. we collected $2.5 trillion in revenue last year. senator, why isn't that enough? why do we need taxes to go up

from that? nelson: well, we don't. >> moderator: well, you want to close bush era tax breaks. talk about that. nelson: what you need is an overhaul of the entire tax code. there are $14 trillion of tax loopholes. there's more going out in loopholes for somebody's special interest than there is coming in to the treasury each year in individual income tax. >> moderator: how much in loopholes? nelson: $14 trillion over ten years in tax loopholes. it's grown from the last time i voted for tax reform under president reagan -- >> moderator: congressman mack, a brief 30, then we're moving to foreign policy. mack: thank you. well, here we go again. senator nelson is telling everybody else we need to get rid of tax loopholes, but he's taking advantage of one himself. i'm all for it. if you want to do it, just don't tell the rest of it, senator, that it's not good enough for us. if it's good enough for you, it should be good enough for everybody else. i'm the only one in this race that has a plan to balance the

budge, the only one who is handgun to put that plan into the -- willing to put that plan into the debate. you have failed to pass a budget. >> moderator: foreign policy now, we're going to talk foreign policy. you can do so in your close. foreign policy/national security including immigration policy. lisette campos, first question to senator nelson for 1:15, then connie mack. lisette? >> my question is about immigration. there are an estimated 11 million undocumented people living in florida. do you support am amnesty, creating a pathway to citizenship, while these individuals can remain on u.s. soil, or do you believe that that sets a dangerous precedent and is unfair to immigrants who have come to this country legal will i? >> moderator: 1:15, sir. nelson: i'm going to answer that in detail, but i'm first going to say not only has it been a cow pasture for 60 years -- [laughter] why don't we ask him why he takes two homestead exemptions

which is directly contrary to florida's constitution that says that a husband and wife can only take one homestead exemption? >> moderator: to the critical immigration question. nelson: now, what we need -- and i voted for comprehensive immigration reform -- what you need is you've got 11 million people here. you've got to get them in a situation that if they're eligible to go to the back of the line, they have to pay a fine, they have to have a clean record, they have to learn english, and then they can apply. now, another one is what about children? children that came here through no fault of their own? the dream act. i have voted and sponsored the dream act. my opponent has voted against it. the dream act, a child that would upon graduation, they can

go into the military, or they can go into college instead of being deported. they've grown up in the america -- >> moderator: senator? nelson: they only know that they're americans. >> moderator: 1:15. mack: thank you, and this is an important question, and let me start off by saying, no, i do not support am amnesty. we have to support our laws. this reminds me of a gentleman that i met when i was a young man. kiko's from cuba. he came to the united states, became a citizen, worked hard, saved his money, built a business, gave me my first job. you know, this is someone who has chased the american dream and has caught it. so when we talk about immigration, we need to remember that we're talking about people who are coming to the united states for a better way of life. and that is something that we should all be honored that people want to come so they can have a shot at the american

dream. now, at the same time we need to make sure we secure our borders, both north and south. we need to make sure that we give our employers the tools they need with e-verify to make sure people who are looking for work are legally allowed to get work. what we can't do, though, is to continue to have a system that encourages people to break the law instead of do the right thing. >> moderator: congressman, thank you. we'll now move to our next question, toluse from the miami herald, and that will first be directed to congressman mack. >> after recent uprisings in the middle east, including an attack on our consulate in libya, many americans are worried about an attack on our soil or another war. who do you think is the singlemost dangerous person in the world when it comes to americans' national security, and what would you do to stop him or her? mack: it's a great question and, you know, we have seen just recently what happens when you have a weak foreign policy.

we have seen around the world those, the enemies of the united states challenge the united states. we have seen that this administration has backed away from our closest allies around the world. we have seen this administration make it less safe in america because they're unwilling to stand strong for america around the world. look, if i have the opportunity to be in the united states senate, i will stand up for america, america's values and americans here and anywhere around the world. what we need to do, what we need to do is make sure people like ahmadinejad in iran are not able to get a nuclear weapon. the administration has failed. they are four years closer to a nuclear weapon. you know, there are examples all around the world where this administration has turned it back on our allies and bowed to

our enemies. if we want to be more secure at home, you do that by standing strong for america, for american values and for americans all around the world. >> moderator: congressman, thank you. a minute, 15, senator. and again to the question as you prioritize the single biggest person who presents the single biggest threat to u.s. national security. nelson: notice, tuluse, e he walked all around your question. the greatest threat to the u.s. is a or terrorist threat -- is a terrorist threat. we have just unbelievable young men and women both in uniform and not in uniform that you don't see in the cia collecting the information in order to keep us safe and to stop the terrorists before he acts in the first place. now, obviously, iran with a nuclear weapon would be a tremendously destabilizing situation, a threat to the united states or a threat to

israel. the president has clearly said that he will not allow them to develop a nuclear weapon. and this is where i believe that you see the sharing, it's almost seamless of the intelligence between israel and the united states because we certainly have the common security concern here. there are other threats around the world, but what we need to do is to make sure we don't allow the radical extremists. look at what's happening in pakistan. >> moderator: final time for that. we're going to have to move on if we're going to have time for your closings. a final question from anthony mann that will first be directed to congressman mack. >> should any changes be made in the embargo against cuba, and why not lift it completely and deal with cuba the same way -- >> moderator: same question, the first question back and forth, that goes to you first,

then to the congressman. a minute, 15, final answers. >> do you want the question again? nelson: yes, please. >> should any changes be made in the embargo against cuba, and why not lift it entirely and deal with cuba the same way we deal with china? thel nell no, we should not lift the embargo. we clearly should allow family members to travel and take remittances, and that has been expanded, but not lift the embargo. now, i want to go back since we're coming to the closing and tell you we have a great pride in this state on our space program. my opponent is the only member of the florida delegation that voted against the nasa bill. we have a pride of telling the truth and being personally responsible in this state. my opponent has filed a bill for

a wall street hedge fund speculator to collect $2 million on bonds from a country that he bought for pennies on the dollar. and in addition, he has filed a resolution to void a court judgment for $18 billion for the chevron corporation which, by the way, is one of his largest contributors. >> moderator: senator, why shouldn't we deal with cuba the same way we deal with china? >> moderator: one sentence, because the congressman needs his close. nelson: because cuba is closer, and we have a lot more contacts, and the embargo has had some positive effect. >> moderator: congressman? 1:15, sir. mack: thank you very much. senator, you know, you keep talking about my record. i think you might have looked somebody else up when you've been doing your research -- nelson: there you go again. mack: it's not me, senator. and apparently i have to keep doing it again because you just

don't understand. and that's the problem. now, we were talking about the embargo. look, fidel castro and his brother raul are brutal people. brutal people. murdering their own people. you know, i talked about my friend kiko. from cuba. just spend a little bit of time talking to kiko about what he observed in cuba. the embargo -- lifting the embargo, the only thing it would do would pad the pockets of the castro brothers. if, if castro wants to open up cuba, it's all in tear hands. their hands. free and fair elections. release the political prisoners. freedom of speech. >> moderator: same question -- mack: wait, wait, wait. we should not lift the embargo to help fund someone who wants to hurt his own people. now, senator nelson has voted to

weaken restrictions which then helps the -- >> moderator: congressman, i'm afraid we're going to have to call time on that. we'll stay here as long as you after, both of you, i'm sure i speak for all my reporting colleagues across the nation, so as long as you'd like to stay. for now on air, one-minute closings strictly. senator nelson first. nelson: my opponent has a pattern of not telling the truth. and you've seen it in display, and we will substantiate all of how he has not told the truth. he rails against the stimulus bill. he didn't tell you that he wrote a letter to the department of transportation in order to get $29 million of stimulus in his congressional district. i want to thank you for the privilege of public service. i want to ask for your vote. when i flew in space, i looked

through the window of that spacecraft back at earth, and it was stunning that i didn't see any political divisions, and i didn't see any ethnic and religious divisions. we're all in this together, and that's a metaphor of what we should do in our politics. bring people together in a bipartisan way. we're not rs or ds, we're americans, and that's what we've got to do. >> moderator: senator, thank you. congressman, one minute. mack: thank you. and i want to thank all of those who made this debate possible. and, frankly, i wish we could have more debates in this very close election. you've seen tonight why we need a change in washington d.c. our government is failing us. bill nelson voted for obamacare. i voted against obamacare. bill nelson voted to gut our military. i voted to strengthen our military. bill nelson voted for higher

taxes 150 times. i voted to cut taxes. i believe in free markets, free enterprise and free people. i believe we need to renew the american spirit and the american dream. if we all work together, we can get this done. mitt romney needs somebody he can count on, and we need another republican senator from the state of florida. i'm asking you to stand with me. i'm asking you to stand with mitt romney. .. úp p

>> i watched two different types of programs on c-span. every election year, presidential election year find myself watching your convention, when you show your old convention speeches and your old debates. i think that is great service you guys offer. i still have the memory being eight years old and watching an old richard nixon speech from the 52 convention or harry truman from the 48 convention. for a political junkie like me that is great. the fact you do it for the debates that is wonderful. the fact you focus on wide range of policy issues there is something for everybody. whether you're interested in national security, housing policy, something with the economy, i like you cover talks where all that is covered

>> with a focus on presidential debates this month, c-span is asking middle and high school students to send a message to the president as part of this year's c-span student documentary competition. in a short video, students will answer the question, what is the most important issue the president should consider in 2013 for a chance to win the grand prize of $5,000. there is $50,000 in total prizes available. c-span's studentcam video competition is open to students grade 6 through 12. for complete details and rules. go to studentcam.org. this past tuesday night hawaii congresswoman maidssy herono and former republican governor linda lingle scared off for the seat of retiring senator, daniel akaka. debate is courtesy of kitv

in honolulu, hawaii. >> moderator: here are the rules for tonight's debate. when a candidate is asked a question by one of our panelists she will have one minute to answer. the opposing candidate will have 45 seconds for a rebuttal. and a little later in the broadcast the candidates will have the opportunity to ask questions of each other. the now before we get to questions from the panel each candidate has 90 seconds to answer this question. why are you running for u.s. senate? and we begin with representative mazie herono. representative? herono: mahala to kitv and for hosting this debate tonight and to those of you who are tuning in, thank you. you're probably asking yourself, does this u.s. senate race matter to me and my family? that's an important question. and i hope you listen for the differences for the differences between us. if you're a middle class person, for example, note that my republican opponent's economic priorities are very similar to mitt romney's.

that is because they both support making sure that our rich people, millionaires, get more tax breaks while middle class taxes will go up. or, if you're on medicare, note that my republican opponent's plan is a exactly the same as mitt romney's because they will change medicare into a voucher system. excuse me. and that will end up costing our seniors a lot more money. or you may be asking yourself, why don't we create jobs and get our economy going? note that my republican opponent has joined with the national republican party to oppose president obama's jobs plan to create two million jobs. or you may be asking yourself a larger question. what is the best senate for hawaii? will it be a senate that is tied to a narrow republican agenda, opposing president obama? or will it be a senate committed to middle class values, the right priorities?

mahalo. >> moderator: thank you very much have, representative herono. governor lingle, your turn. why are you running for the united states senate. >>. lingle: running for the united states because the same reason i represent the molakai when i was 27 years old. con the council making life better for seniors, meant fixing drinking fountain and installing ceiling fans at the senior center. as mayor it meant capping property taxes so families like the lindseys and others could stay on their home on front street even when property values skyrocketing. as governor it meant creating a nationally recognized robot program. so twin sisters would major in engineering. as senator making life better means protecting social security and medicare for future generation. we have to continue to

invest in health care, education, national security and infrastructure while working to regain our financial strength as a nation. two years ago i was invited to be a founding member of the governor's council at the bipartisan policy center in washington where i worked with former republican and democrat governors on issues important to the states and the nation. unlike my opponent, i have a proven track record of working in a bipartisan fashion be to make life better for the people of hawaii. i ask for your continued trust and your vote so i can continue my bipartisan work as hawaii's next united states senator. mahalo. >> moderator: thank you very much, governor. now to our and nell. we'll start with andrew, who has a question for representative herono. representative herono been classified by some organization as one of most liberal members of congress. critics say you're a machine for the democrats or a rubberstamp. could you identify a specific bill or issue where

you broke from the mart jeff your party? herono: it is really important we work in a bipartisan way to get things done for hawaii. i've done that. i'm really proud of the work i did with my good friend of don young of alaska where we saved native hawaiian alaska native education grant programs. that meant about $3 million for those programs for native hawaiians. i also worked with a republican controlled congress to bring $6 million more to our airports by putting in an amendment to a huge bill that dealt with aviation. that is $6 million every year to the state of hawaii. that's jobs. that's, infrastructure. i'm also proud of working in a bipartisan way with my visit usa bill that would probably create some 6,000 jobs and infuse our economy with about $600 million. so unlike my republican opponent, i don't just talk

about being bipartisan, i do it. >> moderator: thank you very much, miss herono. governor lingle, you have 45 seconds for rebuttal. lingle: congresswoman herono has been in the majority party all the years she was elected here in hawaii. so she never had experience at working across party lines. being a republican governor with a heavily democrat legislature meant in order to achieve the great initiatives that we worked on together, to get the hawaii clean energy initiative adopted, robotics education, housing for native hawaiians i had to work with people of both parties in respectful manner. my opponent spent the entire campaign attacking national republicans. these would be the very people we would have to work with to get something done for hawaii. she votes with her party 97% of the time. that is not someone who is bipartisan. she never has been and never will be. >> moderator: thank you very much, governor lingle. catherine cruise with a question for governor lingle. >> you said you were moderate republican hawaii

democrats should support. can you name a specific plank of mitt romney's platform you do not agree with? lingle: governor romney and are on completely different sides on the area of immigration. legal immigration to this country has been part of my platform since the day i announced. it is because our state of immigrants as is our nation. unlike most people watching tonight, my grandparents weren't born in this country and i feel that immigration is, not just important to us as a nation but important to our economy because our birth rate has dropped, we need more people coming into the country. i also support young people who come here to study being able to stay in america. also governor romney and i disagree on how he relates to china. china's a critically important nation to our state. it's a place i have spent a lot of time and i think attacking china publicly is not the right thing for our economy, for american companies who are doing business there. certainly not for the state

of hawaii. >> moderator: thank you very much, governor. representative herono, 45 seconds for your rebuttal. herono: the people of hawaii should be very clear that my republican opponent is completely on the same page with mitt romney with regard to open posing president obama's jobs bill which would create some two million jobs. really necessary in this economic crisis. she is totally on the sail pawn with mitt romney on the issue of changing medicare into a voucher system that would end up costing our seniors more money and she is also totally on the same page with mitt romney on the question of more tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. that is not somebody who is bipartisan. that is somebody who is very partisan and in fact, she will be one of four votes that the republicans nationally need to control the u.s. senate. >> moderator: thank you very much. now to chad blair, who has a question for representative herono. >> representative herono.

good evening. herono: good evening. >> you say you would fight and will fight to keep social security and medicare intact for future generations you suggested fixes like raising payroll cap and ending fraud and abuse in medicare. but neither of these will sufficiently fund these entitlement programs long into the future. are you avoiding making tough decisions such as raising the eligibility age for our social security? herono: here's what i will do to keep social security strong because both social security and medicare are not just programs to support but commitments to our kapuna. social security can be kept strong for 75 years. so i disagree with the premise of your question. because by listing the cap on payments into the system trust fund we can keep that fund going for 75 years. and i do not agree on raising the retirement age for social security. as my republican opponent supports because that would end up with our recipients

getting less in social security. for medicare, obamacare, actually extend the life of medicare for eight years. and yes, i have three proposals for medicare. we need to get after fraud and waste. we need to allow for bulk purchasing of drugs and we need to focus on prevention. and my opponent would just totally get rid of obamacare. >> moderator: thank you very much, representative. governor lingle, 45 seconds for a rebuttal. lingle: congresswoman herono continues to say that my plan for medicare choice is voucher program even though she knows that is not true in fact the medicare choice plan i preposed was first recommended by president clinton's bipartisan commission on the future of medicare. most recently the bipartisan policy center under clinton's former budget

director alice rivlin supported choice in medicare. it is one of the bipartisan ideas that will help create competition which will help to keep costs under control for medicare. we also need medical malpractice reform to both bring down the cost of insurance for physicians to keep them in business and stop defensive medicine that is driving up the cost of health care. >> moderator: thank you very much, governor. now a question from andrew for governor lingle. >> hello, governor. governor lingle,. >> dan inouye strongly criticized campaign statements that you could work effectively with him for if elected are you exaggerating your relationship with the hawaii's senior senator and how to you plan to rectify that relationship so hawaii could have confidence in their senate team. lingle: i had a positive relationship with senator inknow way during my eight years as governor. in 2005 we worked very

effectively to save the 3500 jobs in the at pearl harbor shipyard. because of how the brac law works senator inknow way was not allowed to lobby to take pearl harbor off the list. he introduced me at the brac hearing. i represented the state of hawaii. people often forget we won the vote on 5-4 of the bra commission. had one vote gone the other way we would have lost those jobs. we worked very closely together. we worked on the akaka bill. i was able to get republican senators as cosponsors that he and senator akaka were not able to get previously. i know senator inouye and i know he will always do what is right for hawaii. i look forward to working with him if i'm able to win this united states senate race. >> moderator: thank you governor. representative hirono, your rebuttal. herono: the people of hawaii will be very clear, she will be one vote closer toe the republicans to totally take control of the united states

senate and that would be the loss of senator inouye's chairmanship of the appropriations committee. make no mistake about it, that is the republicans i have a long standing relationship with the senator. it makes no sense to send two people to the united states senate who will cancel each other's vote. as for brac, i think senator inouye has a very different version of what happened there to save those jobs. >> moderator: thank you very much, representative hirono. we'll go back to our panel. catherine cruz with a question for representative hirono. >> representative spending in hawaii will be dramatically reduced whether sequestration or different approach congress may choose. assuming no deal is struck during the lame-duck session and if you are elected what areas would you cut?

please be specific. hirono: the budget control act which brought us sequestration was a very difficult compromise, bipartisan compromise supported by senator mccain, by, paul ryan, and others and it was a very tough compromise but we did it because otherwise the economy would have gone over the cliff. the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. so, yes we're going to need to address sequestration. we need to do it in a balanced way. we're not going to balance our budget or take care of our deficit by cutting, cutting, cutting which is what the republicans want to do. i am really shocked to learn that my republican opponent has said that she would not have voted for that budget control act. she would have joined the extremists in the house like michele bachmann who are perfectly willing to send the country over the economic cliff. i think that is one of the most irresponsible things that i have ever heard from

linda lingle. so rather than, going in that direction, i voted for that bill. to save our country literally. >> moderator: governor, 45 second rebuttal. lingle: congresswoman hirono made a mistake when she voted to go along with a massive cut to military spending here in hawaii that was required under sequestration. she should have realized that a cut here in our state meant so much more, it was so much more devastating than in another state because of the percentage of our economy that is reliant on the military. this $50 billion cut to defense spending in the country will hit hawaii harder than almost anywhere else in america. there are sometimes when you just shouldn't compromise. bipartisan or not. this was the wrong decision to make. she should have stood up for the people and the state of hawaii. >> moderator: thank you very much, governor. we're going now to chad blair who has a question for the governor. >> good evening, governor. lingle: good evening, chad.

>> it seems clear that the september 11th attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi libya with a planned terrorist strike, not the result of a spontaneous demonstration. how should the u.s. respond to this latest provocation? lingle: i think it's important in the area of national security to make certain that the country comes together in these kind of times. this was a preventable situation likely because there was a request made for additional security there in benghazi. i feel sad for our ambassador and for his family but america should have recognized and the state department should have recognized that this was a very volatile area. national security is an area that hawaii has to be extremely concerned about as well because we are in one of the most volatile parts of the world. i know a lot of attention tends to be focused on the middle east, on libya but in

fact, the asia-pacific region is the site of the largest military buildup on the planet. >> moderator: thank you very much, governor. hirono: what's happening now with regard to the investigation of what happened in libya is a commitment to make sure that we find out exactly what happened so that this kind of tragedy doesn't happen again. this is an area of the world, the middle east, where we can't a afford to shoot first and ask questions later. which is what happened with governor romney. so this is not an issue that should be politicized. it is being investigated. we are going to get to the bottom of it and we need to make sure it doesn't happen again. but this is an area of the world where intelligence, facts, before we speak, are important. >> moderator: thank you very much representative hirono. now it is time for the candidates to ask each other a question. each candidate has no more

than 30 seconds to ask the question. the candidates each will have one minute to answer the question, and 45 seconds for the rebuttal. governor lingle, you get to ask the first question. lingle: thank you. congresswoman hirono, during your years in the legislature you were an advocate for a law that harmed native hawaiians. you led the fight to force the mandatory leasehold conversion of trust lands and after that you stood by when the administration you were a part of stopped seeded land payments. in my first months as governor i restored those payments and spoke against mandatory leasehold conversion. how can the native hawaiian people trust you to represent them in the u.s. senate when the record shows you continually abandoned their interests? hirono: my record in supporting native hawaiians is long and strong and native hawaiian community recognizes that. the land reform act was passed long before i ever got to the legislature and that was a very important piece of legislation that

promoted fairness. having said that, i note that governor lingle went all the way to the u.s. supreme court to push the proposition that the state of hawaii should be able to sell seeded lands. this is in spite of the fact that native hawaiian communities opposed it. this is very recently. and as for the support for the akaka bill, she knows that she sported it but, at a very critical time in the year 2010, when the akaka bill was going to come to the floor of the u.s. senate for a vote she sent a letter to every single u.s. senator urging them not to support it. so the republicans did not. that vote never came to a vote. if it had it would have been passed. president obama would have signed it into law and one of the most critical issues for native hawaiians would be law right now. she didn't help. >> moderator: thank you very much representative hirono. governor lingle, your rebuttal. lingle: congresswoman hirono

mentioned land reform act but that is nothing to do with the law she advocated for in the state legislature to force the trust to sell their land. she mentioned seeded lands and the case. it was the same position that governor wahia took took because i was representing all the people of hawaii. i never sold an acre of seeded land during my time in office. in fact we transferred state lands to the department of hawaiian homelands that has allowed all the hundreds of homes to be built in kapala. the reason the akaka bill hasn't passed until now because there has been no republican in the united states senate delegation for hawaii. they had a majority in the house, senate and democrat president who was from hawaii and they still couldn't get it passed. they need a republican member of the senate to convince fellow senators to support this very important bill. >> moderator: thank you very much, governor. representative her rohn know, question now for governor lingle. hirono: my first question to you, linda, is this. apart from the fact that both you and mitt romney are republicans and therefore

are on the same team, i'm very interested in knowing why specifically you belief mitt romney would be a better president for hawaii than president obama? lingle: i'm like most people in hawaii that we're very proud when a person who is born and raised here at home became president of the united states. it's true that president obama inherited a very difficult economy and a very difficult situation and he's tried and i'm sure he has done his best to make things better but it just hasn't worked. we have more people today unemployed. we have more women living in poverty today, we have more people on food stamps. governor romney is a person who has, i believe, the proper experience at this time to get our economy back on track and i think that's the number one issue facing the country. >> moderator: thank you very

much, governor. representative, your rebuttal. hirono: i know that my republican opponent continues to tout that she is bipartisan but, how bipartisan was it for her to go out on the campaign trail, to support the mccain-palin ticket? she is currently a co-chair in the romney campaign. and like him, she supports eliminating obamacare, i have a bit of a cold. i do apologize to the viewers. raising the age for social security, making sure that the richest people in our country continue to get their take tax breaks. these are issues really important to the people of hawaii. so, you know, she didn't talk about really why she is on the same page with mitt romney on these issues that are of critical importance to the people of the state of hawaii. >> moderator: thank you very much, ladies. it is time for a short break and when we come back we'll

join laurie in our web center with questions for our viewers. stay tuned. we'll be right back. ♪ . >> moderator: welcome bark to the u.s. senate debate. time now for questions for those watch be at home online and on their smartphones. let's go to laurie in the kitv 4 web center. >> this has been a very lively discussion. we have a hard time picking questions because so many are coming at us. we'll start with a question from governor lingle. this comes from our faith book page from faith. she asks, what is the most dishonest remark that's been said about you? lingle: there are so many to choose from, if i just look at tonight, her continuing to talk about my idea of medicare choice being a voucher program. she does that to try to put fear into our senior citizens. she also recently put a tv

ad up that said my plan for medicare choice, which would preserve medicare for the long term, she said it would add a huge amount of money to out-of-pocket expenses for seniors. so she is trading on fear to try to get the kapuna scared. i think it is not only mean to me, i think it is cynical and i think it is very disrespectful for the voters when i keep repeating it is not a voucher program and everybody who has worked on this knows that it's not. she also makes mention from time to time that i'm a co-chair of governor romney's campaign when she knows that is not true either. >> moderator: representative hirono, 45 second rebuttal. hirono: my republican opponent has been on the attack since day one of the general election. there's been one after another attacked as regarding my record, my achievements. you name it. so you know, i really take,

there's such a difference in my approach in this campaign because my ads are comparison ads. and when governor lingle keeps talking about her premium support plan as not being a voucher plan, i think that is really being disingenuous and dishonest. so she has spent over a million dollars attacking me every single day, and these attacks are not true and they are very misleading. >> moderator: thank you very much. all right, paula, this next question is for representative hirono. this is from our live wire page. undecided asks, i feel it's important to be independent, name one specific major issue where you disagree with senator daniel inouye? hirono: our state is the most oil dependent state in the entire country and we need to wean ourselves from

dependence on fossil fuels. this is why unlike my republican opponent, who supports the republican agenda of drill, baby drill, and doubling down on continuing reliance on fossil fuels, i do not. now the senator supports drilling in some of the most pristine areas of alaska. it is called anwr and i do not support that. in fact what our state needs to do, is move toward energy self-sufficiency and away to reliance on imported fossil fuels. and i have, a sustainability plan that would do just that. >> moderator: thank you very much, representative. governor lingle, your rebuttal. lingle: over the two years that the community and my administration spent creating the hawaii clean energy initiative congresswoman hirono and her staff were the only ones in the delegation who really didn't participate in that process at all. she says she's against fossil fuel but in fact, for our nation to expand our economy, and to gain energy

independence from foreign nations, and to keep our military safer, it makes a lot of sense for us to develop our own energy sources. all of the elected officials in alaska support the drilling of anwr we should honor their wishes while it also helps hawaii and their natural gas find is also something that could benefit hawaii directly. it would come from a sister state, not from a foreign nation. >> moderator: thank you very much. >> and this next question is for representative hirono. also from a livewire viewer asking, if you have so much confidence, representative hirono, in social security solvency would you be willing to forgo your pension in congress and join the system of social security like the rest of us? hirono: this is yet another erroneous piece of information that keeps circulating, because members of congress pay into social security just like everybody else, and our

retirement is just like every other federal employee. so, you know, these erroneous pieces of information keep getting circulated. what i would like to do with social security, which is a very important safety net for our kapuno, is make sure it remains strong by lifting the income cap so people who are making $110,000 right now continue to pay into the social security trust fund. thereby, keeping that trust fund strong, for 75 years. and, unlike my republican opponent, i do not support lifting the retirement age for social security, because experts have said, that doing that will result in lower social security payments to our retirees. that is not the way to go. those are not our priorities. >> moderator: thank you. governor, your rebuttal. lingle: congresswoman hirono knows that i don't support raising the age of social security. i said at our last debate

that while people are living longer, those poorest in our nation are not living longer. so by raising the age we would be penalizing them in particular. i did say that we might want to find a split system for those people who work in physical labor their whole lives. perhaps they shouldn't have to work as long as someone who works in an office. also, social security is not equal to retirement security and i have proposed a great new, creative, bipartisan idea called an automatic ira. i hope i have a chance to talk more about it tonight. >> moderator: thank you very much. laura? >> paula, we have one more question for governor lingle from our live wire as well, from hmc, asking, if you are a elected, governor lingle, would you take action to repeal obamacare in its entirety, or, any part thereof? lingle: well, certainly there are parts of obamacare that i think should be repealed and i will talk about them in a moment but i would like to begin by commending the president for raising one very critical issue and that was the issue

of preexisting conditions. it is just not right in america that a person who has an illness already can't obtained health insurance. so i think shining a light on that was very, very important. but the biggest problem i have with obamacare is that it takes $716 billion away from medicare. this is money that would have gone to pay providers like physicians, like hospice organizationings, skilled nursing facilities, hospitals and it would have taken $300 billion from medicare advantage. medicare advantage is used by 4% of medicare beneficiaries in our state -- 4%. much higher than the 25% who use it nationally. for that one reason alone, i think at a minimum obamacare has to be amended. we can't shortchange our kapuno by taking so much money away from medicare. >> moderator: thank you very much. miss hirono you have 45 seconds for your rebuttal. hirono: should the republicans take control of

the united states senate one of the first things they would do is repeal obamacare. so all of these, things about obamacare, that my republican opponent likes, will be gone, not only that, if she had been a united states senator when the vote on obamacare came in the united states senate, it would never have passed because it was that close. so millions of seniors who are currently being helped by obamacare, hundreds of thousands of young people, who are being helped by obamacare, that would all be gone. so there's no amount of sugarcoating this. that if linda lingle gets elected to the u.s. senate and the republicans gain control of the senate, one of the first things they will do is to repeal obamacare with nothing much to replace it. >> moderator: thank you very much. thank you, laura. thank you to our viewers who are watching on tv, online and on your smartphones. we're going to go back to our candidates who have a couple more questions to ask of each other. again, 30 seconds to ask the

question one minute to answer and 45 seconds for rebuttal. governor lingle, your question for representative her rohn know. lingle: congresswoman hirono, you talk a lot about local values. i believe a strong local value is hard work, an honest's days work for honest days wages. you collect the more than a million dollars in salaries plus benefits during your six years in congress but haven't passed even one bill to help local families or businessed. you missed 144 votes this year alone. your entire record of missed votes is twice that of your typical congressional colleague. how can you look at our citizens in the eye and claim your poor attendance and lack of results reflect the local value of hard work? hirono: this is yet another misleading attack on the part of my republican opponent because she knows very well, that my voting record in the united states house is 95% and i have voted on almost 5,000 times. now when we talk about not

being around, why don't we focus on the fact that when my opponent was very busy campaigning for the mccain-palin ticket in 2008, she was gone for cumulatively almost a month. in fact there was one two-week period, this is remember, at a time when our state was facing a huge economic crisis in 2008. there was a two-week period where she was gone, very busy campaigning for the mccain-palin ticket, taking potshots at barack obama, to the point where an editorial said, governor, you should come home and do your job. and she ignored it. i'm proud of my accomplishments in congress and i know that i will have time to go into those a little later in debate. >> moderator: thank you very much. governor, your rebuttal. lingle: congresswoman hirono you try to dismiss your terrible work record telling peel of hawaii how many you have showed up.

if average worker tried that with supervisor they would probably be put on probation or have their pay cut. if a student missed that many days of school they would be held back a year how much class time they missed, not learning the material and not turning in their work nod mod thank you very much. representative hirono, your question for governor lingle. hirono: linda, you were quoted as referring george w. bush as our greatest president and you defended the bush administration's decision to go to war in iraq as well as his handling of hurricane katrina. do you still believe president bush is your greatest president? if not what changed your mind? lingle: i would ask that congresswoman hirono cite where that was said because it's not a statement i ever made. certainly after 9/11, when president bush faced an attack on our nation, i thought he did an outstanding job of stepping forward of uniting the nation. of developing a plan. when our secretary of state at the time, colin powell,

went to the united nations he believed that iraq had weapons of mass destruction and so did our allies in europe. it was on that basis that the united states congress voted for our country to go to war. this is not something a president can do on their own. there were also 30 other nations who were involved in that effort. i think at the time, based on the information that we knew, the president did a good job for the nation. but the quote she mentioned never happened. >> moderator: your rebuttal, representative? hirono: i am astounded because, you know what? she admitted it and i see chad blair here. you know, you should fact check this. now she continues to be a partisan supporter and a cheerleader for george w. bush, his decision to go to iraq and i'm proud of the fact that our delegation, our two senators, akaka, and inouye as well as

representative abercrombie, all voted against going to war in iraq. they had the same information but they had the foresight and vision not to send us to war in that very tragic mistake. so when she talks about being bipartisan, she has been a cheerleader for george w. bush. she has been a cheerleader for the mccain-palin ticket. she is now a cheerleader for governor romney. lingle: thank you very much. --. >> moderator: thank you very much. now we head back to our panelists. we have andrew with a question for governor lingle. >> governor lingle let's touch on something that made big news for the presidential debate. many years republicans tried to cut funding for public for broadcasting pbs. governor romney supported cuts for big bird a popular "sesame street" character. do you support the move? why or why not? lingle: when the nation is facing a $16 trillion debt i

think it is important to look at all the expenditures of the nation but it is clear that the majority of our american budget is made up of medicare, social security, medicaid, and military spending. we also have to service the debt for the coup tri. we also have a variety of programs such as food stamps, support of agriculture and homeland security. i guess when you're looking for ways to cut, you look at things that are not essential to the security of the nation, to the economic well-being of the nation. i doubt there are many listeners out there tonight who think "sesame street" is essential to the economic health of america or to our country's national security. so i think it's a reasonable thing for someone to point to but certainly not going to make much of a dent in our debt or in our annual deficit. >> moderator: thank you very much, governor. representative hirono, your rebuttal. hirono: the two things that really added to our debt and

deficit was two unfunded wars, iraq and afghanistan. as you saw, governor lingle is a cheerleader, continuing cheerleader for the iraq war. the second thing was the bush tax cuts for the richest people in our country. these two areas, added over $2 trillion to our deficit. so you know what? i would be interested to know where the governor stand on funding for planned parenthood? because that is another program on the hit list for the republicans nationally. you know, i support planned parenthood because they provide health care services to millions of women who otherwise would not have that access. the. >> moderator: thank you very much, representative. catherine cruz has a question for representative hirono. >> representative hirono more and more we see hawaii and guam shoulder financial burden of influx of micro

niche shuns because of influx. what is your plan to get the federal government to offset the strain of public services? hirono: i think it is incumbent upon our federal government because through our compacts we're seeing influx of compact mike grants. i have talked with the president. migrants. we put in bill that would provide additional revenues for us. this leads me to, you know talk about immigration reform, we need to have comprehensive immigration reform. i would like at the compact as part of that whole discussion. we need comprehensive immigration reform. i support the dream act that would inable young children who came here undocumented, because their parents brought them here and who now face the prospect of being shipped back to countries they don't even know. and this is why i support what the president did with his executive decision to

not to deport these young people. this is something i know mitt romney does not support. >> moderator: thank you very much, representative. governor, your rebuttal. lingle: congresswoman hirono is confused about immigration. the compact of free association is an agreement the american government made with palau, micronesia and islands because of atomic testing. they are able to travel visa free anywhere in america at any time. the problem they comedies proportionately to our state. it costs our state $110 million my last year as governor. the federal government only reimbursed us $11 million for all the health, education and other services we provide. congresswoman hirono never responded to my letter when i asked for additional help. whereas congressman abercrombie responded to me to try to get assistance for the state of hawaii to deal with large number of people come from the compact countries.

>> moderator: thank you very much. we'll go to chad blair who has a question for the governor. >> thank you, paula. governor, what role should the federal government play in education? are programs like no child left behind and race to the top working? why or why not? lingle: i think the federal government does have a real to play, in a very specific way. i think that the federal government should set a standard for america as to what each child should know when they graduate from high school. what they should know about american history. their math skills that they should have. i can see a national standard as other nations set a national standard. but remember, no one in the department of education teaches even one child from washington, d.c. that's done on the local level. i would like local control. i think there are some federal programs that do work. i was a volunteer reading tutor for 10 years at an elementary school in the chapter one reading program. this title one reading was

for students who came from low income families and needed extra help. so i would tutor them one-on-one and the money for that program came from the federal government. so i can see some of the programs work really well but i like control to be at the local level. >> quick follow-up, if i may, paula. do you support, do you think race to the top and no child left behind are working? why or why not? lingle: i think it remains to be seen if race to the top will work here in hawaii. it was my office that worked with the department of education to secure the $75 million that we got. mark anderson from my office was the liaison with the department of education and it was the stem, the robotics programs, that the feds really liked a lot. so i do think it has the potential to work but it remains to be seen. >> moderator: thank you very much. representative hirono, your rebuttal. hirono: as an immigrant to this country i certainly understand the importance of education, as a great equalizer because otherwise

i wouldn't be standing here today. so i have a commitment to make our public schools as strong as they can be, as good as they can be, to enable our kids to succeed in school and in life. now, who can -- you know, i have this commitment to our public schools and i know my republican opponent has said so, but who can forget during her watch we had furlough fridays. when we talk about strengthening our schools they need be no our schools. furlough fridays our kids were shortchanged 17 instructional days. that is not what a person who supports education would do. who can also forget the fact all these parents who were so concerned about furlough fridays wanting to meet with her and being escorted out of her office because she wouldn't meet with them. >> representative, furlough fridays is a state issue. i'm talking about federal education. the same question to you as the governor. your support or problem with no child left behind and race to the top? hirono: there is certainly a federal role for education

to add, republican ryan budget cuts education support by some 30%. that would leave even more of a burden on the states to close the achievement gap which is what the race to the stop was all about. so there is a federal collaborative role with education. this is not about the federal government top down telling the states what to do. >> moderator: all right. thank you very much. we're going to go now to andrew with a question for representative hirono. >> let's go back about a decade. in 2002 election you were running for governor after two consecutive terms as lieutenant governor. you lost to link today lingle and became the first republican governor in 40 years. why do you think you can defeat her in this statewide race? hirono: times have changed in 10 years. we now have my republican opponent with a record and she has a mixed record. who can forget furlough fridays on her watch, or the super ferry fiasco or the

fact that 2,000 jobs were lost when aloha airlines went under, direct jobs. while she sat on her hands. and by the time she left office, hawaii was 48th in the nation in terms of welcoming businesses. this even after when she first ran, she said, hawaii is open for business. so this is a mixed record. now i am very proud of the fact that i supported obamacare, that is helping millions of people all across our country, seniors and young people. and i also fought to make sure hawaii's prepaid health care law, my amendment, was included in obamacare in the house. and also proud of the fact that i brought in $6 million for our airports, working with a republican controlled house to do that. >> moderator: thank you very much, representative. governor, you have 45 second rebuttal. lingle: congresswoman hirono mentioned furlough fridays a couple of times. and as she knows no governor

can furlough any department of education employee. there is an article in honolulu magazine that cites that and said hirono's campaign conveniently leaves this fact out and it deungs bunkses everything she said about furlough fridays it is not true. when she was lieutenant governor, she walked picket line encouraging teachers when there was 14-day strike and our students lost those 14 days. the governor said it was about as appropriate as a quarterback cheering for the opposing team. that was her input into education in our state. the president of aloha airlines at the time it was struggling wrote me a personal letter to thank me for the support i gave him in getting the federal government to take over the pension system of aloha airlines and to save the pensions of the 3,000 employees. >> moderator: thank you very much. we have catherine cruz who has a question for governor lingle. >> governor lingle, the u.s. army recently studied the possibility of cleaning old

ordnance dumped in hawaii waters. do you support a large-scale cleanup and if so, at what cost? lingle: i do support a large-scale clean up of ordnance and through the use of robotics i think it is a lot less expensive than it used to be to locate this ordnance and pull it to the surface and to destroy it. our oceans are critically important to our fishermen, to our lifestyle, to our visitor industry. so while it may seem like a large expense, it's something that is worth it to us over the long term because it affects our quality of life, it affects our way of life and it affects our economy. so i think that technology can go a long way today, can make this something that is doable. i would support an islandwide cleanup of the ordnance. >> moderator: thank you very much. representative hirono, your rebuttal. hirono: we should make clear when we clean up the ordnance by doing that we

will not release harmful particles into our waters. so this is a very important kind of endeavour. i would look for federal fund to help the state do that as appropriate. in fact neil abercrombie and i sought funds for ordnance cleanup and we got those fund when we were in the house of representatives. so, at the same time, one of our partners in making sure that our waters are safe is noaa. i must say that the republicans in the house, as well as in the senate would cut noaa funding tremendously. these are the people who warn us when there's a hurricane or some other weather condition that is coming our way. >> moderator: thank you very much. we'll go to chad blair who has a question for representative hirono. chad? >> representative, hawaii's delegation has long pushed for fulfilling the u.s. governments promise of benefits for filipino veterans who fought during world war ii. how can you help, how would

you help in washington these aging soldiers and their families who are sew richly deserving of compensation? hirono: well we actually passed a bill that did provide some compensation finally, long overdue, for the filipino veterans and i was a cosponsor of that kind of legislation. in addition i'm the prime sons spore of a bill that would reunite filipino world war ii veterans with their children, many of whom are in their 60s, with their parents. so this is part of the comprehensive reform, immigration reform, that i talked about. i talk with filipino veterans often and they know the work that i'm doing in support of benefits for them. and in addition we talk about, they also care about things like the d.r.e.a.m. act which the republicans do not support. and filipino veterans,

filipinos who are immigrants, they are reaching out to fellow immigrants and saying we need to hold hand and work very hard to do comprehensive immigration reform and pass the d.r.e.a.m. act. >> moderator: thank you very much, representative. governor lingle, your 45 second rebuttal. lingle: the issue of the promises made to the filipino veterans after the second world war is not just a financial issue because most of the veterans are really getting older now. this is a moral issue for our nation. when we make a promise to people and we say, if you stand side by side with us, if you fight with us, if you're willing to die for us, this is what you will receive after the war, and we haven't kept that promise. this has gone on much too long. if i get to washington, d.c., i wan to be the person who's known on this issue. i want my fellow senators, when they see me coming to know what i'm coming to talk about. it will be the akaka bill, it will be this very important issue for our filipino veterans. it is simply gone on too

long. i think i can bring a renewed energy to this issue if i get elected. >> moderator: thank you very much, governor. andrew has a question for governor lingle. >> governor lingle, there is lot of talk in the presidential campaign whether it is appropriate to tax the rich. also brought up in your campaign for the u.s. senate, taxing rich at higher rate. at what earnings do you consider a person to be rich and what percentage of a person's income should go to the government. lingle: this is a terrific question. my opponent talk about the top 2%. they currently pay 60% of all income taxes in the country. i don't think that amount should be reduced. i think they should continue to pay at that level. but i do think it's important to also point out that our tax code is extremely unfair. it is just riddle didded with loopholes and special deals and, that the position i'm taking on taxes, is, the one that was put forward by the president's bipartisan commission known as

simpson-bowles. and what they recommend is to take out every special deal under the tax code and force the united states congress one by one to vote on ones they want to put back so the public can actually see who is getting a tax break and what amount. simpson-bowles also reduces the number of tax brackets and i think that is good idea as well. >> governor, can i press you on that point. the income level, what would you consider rich and what percentage of a person's income should go to the government, local, federal and state? lingle: for our state is especially difficult because we're a state of small businesses if you pick a number, whatever number you pick, and everybody would pick a different number to classify the riff, in our state it will often mean that is a small business because they report that income as personal income. so we're going to need to find a way, if we want to increase taxes on those who have personal wealth, versus those who are running a business but report their income as personal income, otherwise the business in our state get

disproportionally hurt under congresswoman her rohn knows plan. >> moderator: thank you very much, governor. representative hirono your rebuttal. hirono: i believe in tax fairness, is it fair that the richest people in our country pay lower tax rate than secretaries as pointed out by warren buffett? so 98% of the people in our country make under $250,000. they got, this 2%, got 80% of the benefits of the bush tax cuts. that is not fair. this is why, i am such a strong supporter of allowing those bush tax cuts for the richest 2% to go away, to sunset. very different position than my opponent. in fact, i supported the president's bill that would insure that 97% of small businesses, 98% of our taxpayers would not see their taxes increase, the republicans in the house voted that down.

>> moderator: thank you very much. ladies this concludes our questions for this evening. now each candidate will have one minute and 30 seconds for closing statements and we're going to begin with representative hirono. representative? hirono: i want to thank kitv and for so tight and all of you watching, thank you very much. i started this evening by saying, does the senate race matter to you and your families? that's an important question because when you set everything else aside, that is the most important question. so in the last hour, i hope that you've heard enough to make up your minds about who you would support. at home, and in your own private lives, you set priorities, so budget for your family, college for your kids, retirement for yourself, maybe a better job

tomorrow? when you think about your priorities, and your dreams, your vote matters. are you going to vote for a that is tied to the republicans agenda, or are you going to vote for a senator who shares your priorities right here at home? someone who will work closely with president obama, and senator inouye to get things done for hawaii? i will be that kind of senator. i would lead with my head and my because, my heart, my priorities, are always with you. and my voice, in the united states senate will always be your voice. i ask for your support. i ask for your vote. mahalo. >> moderator: thank you very much. relationship. . .