>> a hearing on had status of wild fire management and funding for western states. now a part of an event on the future of america's black america hosted by the manhattan institute for policy research. it marks the anniversary of a

study on black america with the moynihan report. we will show you the report on reducing crime in the wake of violence in baltimore. the former maryland governor is on the panel and covers drug legalization and broken families. this is an hour and ten minutes. >> morning. we can get started. again, good morning, everyone. my name is jason riley. i am single fellow at the manhattan institute for policy research and i would like to welcome everyone to the symposium entitled prosspects for black america and moynihan report turns 50.

if you are looking for a white america symposium you are in the wrong room. that would be any of the other rooms in the building. i will be brief with my remarks because we have excellent panelist lined up and i want to give them as much time as possible. i will get a chance to speak later on this man. i started working at the manhattan institute for policy research in february of this year. but the idea for this conference on race first occurred to me many years ago when i was on staff at the wall street journal. i came across a book falled the fairmont papers which is a transcription of a conference that occurred in 1980 at the fairmont hotel in san francisco. the conference was organized and hosted by the economist thomas soul and titled black

alternatives. he gave the opening remarks and noted the economic and social advancement of blacks in this country is still a great unfinished task. methods and approaches being used to advance blacks demand reexamining. there was growing evidence of counter productive results from noble intentions. the goal of the conference was to explore alternative approaches. that is why we are here; to explore alternatives. not to create a new orthodox with excommunications of those who dare to think for themselves themselves. the people invited to speak here are seeking wisdom and people who challenge issues and think for themselves. some are democrats, some are republicans, some are liberals

some are conservatives, but all are open to reassessing what has been tried in terms of public policy aimed at helping the black underclass. and finally he noted that america has been through a historic struggle for basic civil rights for blacks. a struggle that was necessary but not sufficient. he said the very success of that struggle created new priorities and urgency and economic realities to confront. he said that back in 1980. i must have come across it in the late 1990's. now here we are in 2015 and i don't think those sentiments are any less relevant today. a few years after i discovered the fairmont papers i became

friends with soul who is 85 this year and yet another book coming out in a couple months. i just got the galley in the last couple weeks. i asked him about that conference. i asked him about it several times over the years. he said it went well with good press coverage and feedback. he had every intention of hosting a second one but the plan fell through and he never got around to it. i said that is the kind of confidence we need and if someone else is hosting i have never been invited. after joining the manhattan institute i figured i would give it a shot. here we're. i hope we can proceed in the spirit soul described evaluating to what has been tried and opening our minds to alternative approaches. we know the conventional explanation for the gaps we have

seen in education, incarceration. conventional wisdom is more government resources and wealth redistribution and so forth. they are open to new approaches and just as important they are willing to honestly evaluate what has been tried and what it and isn't working. this year we are marking the 50th anniversary of the moynihan report on the black family. it was controversial when issued while serving as the assistant secretary of labor under

president johnson. it remains controversy today. he highlighted troubling culture trends on inner city blacks and the focus on the increasing number of fatherless homes. the family structure, the evidence not final but persuasive, that the negative -- negro family is declining. he was labed a victim blaming racist and his findings were ignored by public policymakers including architects who go on to expand old programs and form new ones. marriage was penalized. single parenting was subsidized. when the report was released 25% of black children and 5% of

black children lived in households held by a black mother. the racial gap widened and today the black woman is single at twice the rate of a white woman. drug abuse, dropping out of school and other social problems grew when fathers were absent. one of the most comprehensive study done said the most critical factor of affecting the male youth encountering the justice system was the presence of a father in the home. the moynihan report was an attempt to have an honest conversation about family break down in black families. one that many still refuse to

join. faulting ghetto culture and ghetto outcomes is taboo. an article about the baltimore right rioting carried the headline black culture is not the problem. what is the problem? white racism is the problem. quote the problem starts in a political culture that bound black bodies to questions of property. yes, i am re -- referring to slavery. i am hoping the questions today are less reductive and more honest. black crime rates in 1960 were lower than they are today. if the legacy of slavery explains the level of black crime today that legacy must have skipped a couple generations and reasserted

itself. moynihan said he wanted to solve the problem that people said was no big deal. his uncertainty was warranted. before we get start would the panel i want to thank a few people. larry moon who heads the han matt tan institute. and everyone who handled contacting the panelist to securing the venue. i want to thank all of them for their hard work. let's invite the first panelist up. while they are doing so i can read some of their bio's. >> the hornable robert erlich former governor of the state of maryland. the first republican governor in

36 years when he was elected back in 2002. he served as a u.s. congressman and state legislature. he made record investments in public schools as governor which sporpt he authorered maryland's first charter law that allows 70,000 students to attend 30 new schools and doubled funding for college scholarships helping college enrollment reach an all-time high on his watch. kevin mcdonald is the fellow at the manhattan institute and an editor at city journal writing about homeland secure, immigration, policing homelessness, and education policy. her books include are cops racist? a city journal analogy that

investigates the working of the police department and the controversy of racial profiling. she is a non-practicing lawyer and clerked for the honorable judge in the seven circuit. john mcporter is a contributing editor at city journal who comments on race ethnicity and cultural issues. he burned my last book also. he is the author of all about the beat; why hip hop can't save black america. the author of loosing the race as well as a follow-up book called winning the race beyond the crisis in black america. john is also a linguist and teaches in the english and

comparative literature department at columbia university. the panel is moderated by judge william koontz serving for the trict court in the eastern district of new york. he was a private practice litigator prior to this and since 1987 he has serve as the commissioner of the sucivilian complaint board. the title of the first panel is reducing crime rates in the black community. i will let judge take it from here. thank you.

>> before we begin i would like you to join me in a moment of silence in respect for the new york city police officer brian moore who died yesterday. he was 25 years old and he was patrolling in my parent's old neighborhood of queens village, new york. thank you. we have a curious tradition in public forums such as this one in which people who have established themselves as experts, people who are well-known to you. people who are well-spoken. and people who need no introduction receive an introduction from someone who is

abscure and you are wondering what the hell is he doing up there? that would be me. i was raised in harlem. my father and mother who have passed on raised me and my younger brother. lived in queens village as a teenager. and i wanted to tell you how important this panel is both personally and professionally. today we are going to consider the facts and i have a preliminary discussion with our panelist but as the murder of police officer moore demonstrated yesterday there is no such thing as a routine police civilian encounter.

not for the police officer or the citizen. i served on the complaint review board reviewing allegations of police misconduct in new york city and in each complaint was unique. each and everyone one of those encounters had the potential to to -- for -- deadly force or the most exhilarateing and uplifting accounts between citizens and our law enforcement. each had the potential for heroism or disaster. i would hope as you leave today you would exercise from your v vocab you routine police encounter. there is no such thing.

mind mindful of that i will turn this over to our truly distinguishable panel and we will begin with the former governor of maryland. >> so a week ago sunday i was driving my 11-year-old and my 15-year-old back from roast in maryland. we were driving here down the expressway. and i figured you know what we will cut north avenue go back to annapolis and cut over to hilton street. and i did. and we pulled up to a light. there was a little african-american girl waving to us and the parents recognized me and my kids i thought and we drove our way home to annapolis,

maryland nice and happy and less than 18 hours later that interstate i drove past was the center of the universe with regard to riots, and police and more bad press for a city i grew up in. when you talk about personal someone who group in maryland and whose dad worked close to that intersection. a college comp and champion as governor and a cvs i knew well. friend in the neighborhood. it is very personal. so as a result over the past few days all of the tv folks have been calling and getting me on their shows asking where i was and what do i think. and i have to say that my

initial thoughts were probably the same ones everyone in this room had. the first thought were the first day when those kids some from douglas high school and other high schools gathered together and started doing their things your first thought is where are the fathers? more fathers less rioters. knowing the academic achievement or lack there of the area schools and past battles i fought particularly as governor against unions and others who protect monopolies my second thought was more degrees less rioters. as someone who had authored a national review online in

october 50 years since the moynihan report, i recommend it to all of you my thought was more sentencing statutes that make sense less rioters. more drug laws that make sense, less rioters. and so after these initial thoughts during the interview process and the days unfolded i began to think about the fact of this case and what was truly at issue here. because these were consequences of failed policies for decades. how did a severed spine result from this particular transport? who was negligence?

who was not? who should be held responsible? and the real issue is police practices. much less race. but is race race race because race equals ratings. what happened with this prisoner in that van that night. we don't know. we don't know but we will find out. we will certainly find out. my concluding comment is this. as someone who has been legislature, congress and governor i certainly would indulge the idea of healing. who is against healing? we have to heal. but if it is healing on familiar terms? if is the same mo or paradime as

you heard from the president's mouth and others. we need more money. $22 trillion. if that is the premise i am not going to play. those folks in those neighborhoods shouldn't by. policymakers shouldn't play. we should not indulge it. because if it is just that no body should be surprised if we see a repeat in three months six months nine in months three years, ten years. i would not be surprised to see the same conditions for the rest of my life. maybe hopefully, you pray that something good will come of this. nothing good comes from this yet. but maybe this conference, this

conversation these values can actually become part of the agenda. not just in annapolis but in washington, d.c. if that is the case something good will come of this. opening statement from john and then terry and then a discussion amongst the panelist and then questions from the audience as well. >> if i add value to that it is as a responder. i am better at hearing a text and saying something. i think mcdonald should go second. >> i will take that as a friendly amendment. although as judge can tell you i would not let him get away with this in my courtroom. you didn't do your homework, council, i see. heather? >> i would translate that to i want to last word.

we will let that pass. i will have the post-script. for the last nine months our nation has been convulsed by a movement known as black lives matter. that was triggered by the fatal police shooting of michael brown in ferguson missouri last summer that triggered riots, die-ins, a movement to eliminate additional grand jury proceedings when a police officers uses deadly force and a presidential task force on policing. the premise of the black lives matter movement boils down to the fact police the biggest threat facing young black men today. i want to propose a counter hypothesis to that which is there is no government agency more dedicated to the proposition that black lives

matter than the police. now, every unjustified police shooting or death my other means is a task where the police have to work to refine tactics to make sure they don't misperceive threats. the police have an obligation to treat everybody they encounter with courtesy and respect and that obligation and too often violated. the police develop rough attitudes on the street in part because of the behavior that they receive in trying to make arrest or investigate crimes. but that civilian behavior is no excuse for treating people rudely.

nevertheless in new york city alone today 10,000 minority males are alive who would have been dead had homicideerates remained at the early 1990's level. and what saved those lives was a revolution in policing that began in 1994 and continued and spread throughout the country. the essential aspects of that revolution is an obsession with crime data analyzing crime data on a daily if not hourly bases to try to figure out where crime patterns were emerging and accountable for police prestinct standers. it used to be no bodey could control crime or hold them countable. and now the nypd is ruthless about imposing rules.

if they don't save black lives their careers are at jeopardy. what happened in new york was to liberate the law-abiding residents of inner city neighborhoods to be able to go out into the public to shop to go to the store, pick up their mail and post office elderly women could come into the lobbies of their building without being fearful of their drug dealers. there is one other thing that drives new york policing and that is community demand for assistance. we are seeing a movement to depolice decriminalize in new york there is an effort to cut back on broken window policing which is the idea of enforcing

low level quality of life offenses. the said to unfairly burden minority communities. if this push to decriminalize becomes effective it is going to involve ignoring the very people whom the advocates report to represent. policing low level offenses is a moral imperative. i have never gone to a police community meeting in harlem or the south bronx or central brooklyn when i have heard vari' varients of the follow request. you arrest drug dealers and they are back on the corner the next day. why can't you get them off the streets? there is kids hanging out in my lobby smoking weed why can't you arrest them for loitering.

i smell weed in the hallway. some body is breaking the law here. i met an elderly cancer amputee who was terrified to go into the lobby to get her mail because of the youth hanging out. she had please send more police. i will conclude while we need constantly to work on police-community relations what is being lost i think in this discussion is that to date short of i would agree with the judge, rebuilding the black family, the second best solution to giving the same rights of public safety and freedom to inner city neighborhoods that the wealthy enjoy is sound and

affective pro-active policing. thank you. >> thank you. john as the last responder would you like to respond? >> i would. >> okay. >> this is how i see the issue that this panel is devoted to. it is definitely true that it would be ideal if we could do watt we are calling rebuilding the black family. obviously that is true. there are various things going on that i don't think need to be spelled out again on that ideally wouldn't be going on. but the problem is what is the like likelihood the changes will happen. there is no way to create a movement in black america that would rebuild the kind of family we are talking about. i am not saying it should not happen but it clearly can't be

done. we have to talk about what we mean. could it be a concern number of black leaders and columnist made a call for the rebuilding of theic black family and it would be reaffective. if one out of two of those black leaders and columnist made the call they would be raked over the coals by the usual suspects. so the atlantic and slate and all of the other people would talk about what horrible human beings these people were for not under understanding the role of the past. would they need to go to therapy? no. but op-eds of people battling it out. the result is a draw and no body would learn anything and nothing

would change. that is what would happen if one out of two people devoted to building a family. if al sharpton took that michael dyson would write a piece about how horrible is it is it would be a draw. >> >> and mccornal west would no longer write either. >> and things would move on. let's say all black leaders, or even 95% of them decided the black family needed to be rebuilt and they said it. well let's face it there is too much diversity of opinion in the black community for that to be a possibility. would it be nice? yes. could it happen? no. there is too much diversity now. even under jim crowe there was more diversity and black opinion and i don't just mean debois am and lincoln.

it was hard to say what the black voice was because of the diversity. certainly now there will never be that. it would be nice if there would be but there can't be. so by being a linguist it seems an abstraction and that is something else i do. i used to say my race and linguistic work was separate but that is less true the older i get. linguistic is a problem solving discipline. it is half humanities and half science. it is taught in the same way as engineering and biology where one must work things out. i am based on how can we solve the problem and that is not always through the way that might seem the most intuitive.

when i say something like baltimore, when i say something like ferguson and you see these things repeating themselves it seems what you are looking for is one solution one card you could pull that would make the whole house fall down. and i don't think that it is a call for change in the black family. that doesn't seem to work. but could something else work. and i think it would. for example, you are mentioning the people in the project who want to get these people off of the streets who are pedaling drugs, that very real that is very true and i wish more of america would understand black communities themselves want more policing, but in terms of the endless cycle we go through i am thinking here is this person keeping the wolf from the door by selling drugs. why is he doing that? well drugs are sold for a

markup. if you had a terrible edgeication edgeication -- education and not much of a life and you drop out of school after 11th grade what are you going to do? you could get a job in a factory in 1935. you will not do that now but people drop out of school at10-11 grade. when those people get killed selling drugs they will say you were killed working odd trades. the drugs are there because drugs are illegal and can be sold for a markup. you look at this entire situation and i find myself thinking not at some sort of team of drug use but as someone who thinks wouldn't it be nice if cops and kids like freddie gray didn't encounter each other so often. suppose there was no such thing

as being picked up by a cop because of your possession of or your sale of this and that. if you could not keep the wolf from the door by selling these things then what would happen? i have all reason to predict is fewer people would drop out and even a person-dealing with being underserved would have no choice but to get a job. if i were living in an inner city community and i was underserved by my school and my father wasn't around i can imagine i would want to do a job that would involve not wanting to leave my neighborhood, not learning a new way to talk spending time with friends, with the possibility of getting rich. if that possibility didn't exist, however i would get low level work and hopefully build. it would go back to the way poor black communities were before in other word if anything.

black people and crime. my thought is that the lynching of black people and crime is the drug issue. jack riley is the head of the dea in chicago and he said 90% of black violent crimes are about drug and gang wars and turf. so there is often a conversation about black people and violence as if the violence is -- i don't know where this violence is supposed to come from. but the fact there is drugs is one thing. but a lot of violent crime is not because people like to fight but because people are in gangs. what is a gang for. it is not west side story. it is not so people can hang out and snap fingers and do dances. the gang is for selling drugs. if drugs were not illegal there wouldn't be a gang to be in. and next thing you know there would be less violence, people wouldn't have guns, black people

don't have an innate love of guns they are there to patrol the turf. so it semmes like we are talking about getting rid of the war on drugs not because that issue is important to me but because i think that would keep the cops and these men away from each other. it would give an incentive for these men to seek legal work and not be in danger of being killed or in prison. it seems to be asking too much of these men. to think these men would not get jobs if there were nothing to do but get those jobs is like being someone in 1996 saying with welfare reform black women are going to be shivering on subway seats. that didn't happen then and didn't happen to black men them. we need to try it i think. >> the repeal of prohibition resulted in the end of organized crime in the mafia in new york

city city. governor what is your view of legalizing narcotics to keep the wolf from the door? >> where i was born the cops came around and shook down the runners. i grow up in an apartment complex in the '50s and '60s outside of baltimore. in the '70s i woke up and realized you have to play to win with the pick three and everybody said the street number would go away. it didn't. and i wonder whether that analogy would hold true for drugs as well. your case is compelling i would say. it is very well spoken and i love listening to it. as someone who thought about this a lot, you wonder one whether it is true whether that would actually occur, and two whether you are trading criminal

justice problem for a public health problem when you are to some extent. >> very much. >> heather? >> if we are going to legalize drugs i think let's not do it on a race ground. there may be reasons to do so. i am largely agnestostic about it. i would disagree to treat it as an overwhelming magnet for illegal behavior i recommend a book called "on the run" this was a university of pennsylvania aspiring academic in socialo and befriended a group of young

crack dealers and got involved in their lives and wrote a book about their existence. i disagree with the point of view she ends up blaming the criminal justice system for their own decisions to break the law but what she points out to her credit is a group of clean people who simply chose not to sell drugs or commit robberies. so there are probably the majority of people in the inner city who are not involved in the drug trade. they are making choices to abide by the law, they stay clear of the dirty people, and robert woodson has long said we should be studying the success cases and not always obsessing about the failures.

that is a very valid point. i would argue, i spoke about the data-driven revolution that just transformed policing and brought about the longest and steepest crime drop in the history new york and internationally. prosecution is now trying to use the same techniques of data driven analysis to design how to prosecute cases. i looked at the massive conspiracy gang cases that the manhattan da brought in east harlem. and through rioting social media and using their prosecutorial resources to target the worst criminals they got massive gangs off the street. none of the gangs shooting each

other had anything to do with drug dealings. it is nutot the case especially today, when you have crews that the only grounds for violence on the street is a spin off of drugs. in fact the drug trade has gotten more peaceful of late because thanks to new york policing which has driven it in doors, but the violence continues and john by no means discounted the importance of rebuilding the family but i would opt for that. conservatives have their root causes and liberals have their root causes. the liberals are getting rid of poverty and income inequality and the conservative view is the breakdown on the family. i would not give up on that.

we have not tried the crusade to give value to the fathers. >> i want to ask the governor to respond to that. and also to talk about it in terms of issues of federalism and local control. policing have been something that local communities engage in. we have situations where attorney generals of the united states are asked to parachute into local law enforcement issues despite the differences in terms of police war with race and demographics between ferguson and baltimore and new york. the question i got is is policing local? is it national? we talked about the war on drugs, we talked about com-stat that is new york city driven. where are we in terms of policing? is it local?

national? international? >> it is all three. but with regard to public interaction with the state police force it is 95% local as we know which is why you do what you do. i would feel a lot better about the national debate if it was about that issue which is really the crux of the issue in baltimore. what happened in this case? what processes and procedures were followed or not followed? you depress me with your initial comments because i am sitting here and i don't agree with you but you made a compelling case and i am sitting here depressed. but i do believe that there has

never been a concerted effort and i understand this is the last of the progressives doing their thing and everyone is degraded and demonized but we have to learn not to care. i have been called everything. i am a republican in maryland. hostility does not intimidate me. and at some point, the common sense notion that fathers in those homes telling a 15-year-old and a mother who is the national symbol. but i wonder how many fathers in those homes if they are there could have had a you guys out there are doing your historic homework or you are going to practice. but we have not had that.

it is just one steep decline since the '60s. i am willing to try it but it has to be everybody all in. no body cares what the left said about you because you will be intimidated and scared to be called a racist. >> i am from brooklyn. i am not scared. i got four isis guys monsters, gam gambino soldiers it is just another day at the beach. >> you missed my point. it is not a matter of being scared. people say mean things in the

comment section. but in the black community what results is a debate of people talk about it and i don't mean it would be unpleasant but the result of the debate would be this person saying deep things and that person saying deep things. it would come to a draw and there couldn't be agreement among the people. there wouldn't be any change in black communities because no unified message could come out. >> the president said exactly what we are saying with debt. >> and gets roasted every time saying he is talking down to the black community. >> we need a president that says i have five decades of evidence and common sense you are wrong and i will continue to say it repeatedly. i understand your point and those folks are not going away. i think it is worth a try and not exclusively of any other strategy but it is worth a try because half not just

politicians but pastors, community leaders, if more people sing from the same page we have a shot not to cure it but turn it around. >> is it is a guy thing or what? >> i think both sides are responsible and decide not to have a child within the context of a marriage. we often blame the father for their lack of personal responsibility which is valid but i think mothers need to understand the most important advantage they can give their child is their father. if they are not prepared to marry the father of their child the fact of the matter is you should not be having a child. and that is a hard thing to say because we have a sense of entitlement everyone has a right to a child today. and in the abstract that may be

true but it is a recipe for hardship and we don't want to en encroach on later panels because the affects of single-parenting will be analyzed much more i am sure. i would agree with the governor we have not tried it and one of the reasons we have not tried is the dominance of feminism and the claim that strong women can do it all and men are disuhappear disappearing in the culture. if we can get agreement that children need their mothers and their fathers i think it is premature to say that would have no affect at least on the margins on the way people think about child rearing and fathers would not be viewed as an

optional add on or thrill which is the way they are viewed now. >> the motion of father as appear accessory. y that is a little scary. i am going to pretend i am back in my courtroom and say there is a question somewhere in that speech. it is not going to be pretty. it is up to you. mayor, i will start with you. keep your voice up. >> cheryl washington, with the national center for state court. i am struck by the nexus of what is described as the left position regarding poverty and income inequality and what the speakers characterized the right's concern about the family of the breakdown. those two are so interrelated.

so many of the women i know who had husbands and children with had beens often marriages break down because of the fact that they are making more money, what have you the men sometimes can't find jobs and other families there is so many men low level drug crimes. >> your question is? >> my question is do you see where those two are so related and there is a lot of discussion about the street and you see a lot of communities where drug use goes on in the college dorm suite versus the streets. can you talk about the nexus of not getting a job -- >> we have the question. go ahead. >> first of all very few people are going to prison for drug use that the a fallacy.

and prison remains a life time achievement award for persistance in criminal offending. this thug and i will use that word without apology who shot the police officer in new york city had a wrap sheet. he is on the street. if you cannot keep that guy in the pressure is still to keep that guy out. i don't accept the excuse that young men have to sell drugs in order to have a livelihood because every day there are people in poor communities who are going to jobs and doing the right thing. people and i know the argument to say how can you expect marriage when we have this mass

incarceration problem. they were making babies before they were in prison. prison is not what is responsible for them not being fathers. it is their own decisions. >> one of the most per missive myths about black america is the idea the reason for black men taking to the streets is there is no jobs available to them. heather is absolutely right about that. read on the run by alice gothem, read gang leader for a day, read the lines cherished by liberals on the left. it is clear the problem in inner

city communities is not there is no way for a black man to work. and this is hard to say especially with a voice like mine. it is not there are not jobs available that are not wonderful jobs. it is not that there are not jobs available. it is that we live in a time where it is possible not to take one of those jobs. and the question is how are you going to make money. i come back it the point statistics from 2001-2013 over half of black men who are in federal prisons are there for drug possession of sale and another 16% in federal are there for stealing or doing something violent to get drugs. the drug issue is important. and i think it is clear that once drug sales took over black communities the level of

violence in black communities shot up and are part of the reason we are here. if you read about a black community in the '60s and '70s there much less violence. people complained about the crime and then you found out it was switch blades and things. so it is not there are no jobs and also drug penalties are the main problem i contend and without them we would see a major change that would not require people to change their mind. >> governor and then the next question. >> sometimes these notions get their own lies and the evidence isn't there to back it up. with regard to the last point, not only is there evidence but i was part of that because if

state legislatures in the 1980s on committees which i was and i remember to this day the debates about increasing predicate offenses to get more kids into adult court that used to be juvenile offenses because we getting tough on crime with a war on drugs. as we know am of those kids were savable and some we lost because we put them in adult prison. it is just a fact. and so we learn, hopefully but we still feel some consequences and reprecusion from that mindset. and i remember debates we had to this day. i am sure the ones we had in maryland assembly happened across the country. >> your question.

ia. yes. >> lee bose with america works. the women don't want these men involved in their children's lives. for years we were counseling the men not paying child support and they said they want to be involved but the mother is keeping them back. they feel they are not good men that they fathered the children with and they don't want their children exposed to these men. i think it is naive to think it is just on the man's part. it really isn't. >> i didn't hear a question so i will hear one from you. >> i am rich frost, retired director of the museum. i would like to make a couple quick point because i know uhlyou will want to keep it moving. >> i will keep it moving.

>> i know you will. i don't know you can police your way out with incarceration. i am issues are legalization. maybe a red light district where it is controlled. >> amsterdam. >> that is is it. and thirdly i would take issue with the governor that yes, legalizing numbers may have not eliminated but it reduced that. you will no there are no more bumpy johnsons running around because of the employment opportunities that have been reduced by the legalization and the lottery. the question i would ask is is there something in between what i am hearing between the more incarceration or legalization. >> we will start with the governor. ...

i no the persuasive response of john. the only reason why this is a threat is because it is illegal. it carries with it the aura of violence precisely because it has been driven underground. remove that the threat will

go way. i want to add some statistics. being about half. the federal prisons are only 12 percent of the national prison population. population. the vast majority of prisoners are in state prisons. they are the increase incarceration for the last two decades or so has been overwhelmingly phone violent property crime. drug offenders are about 20 percent of the state prison population and the other fact is as the governor experienced the push to increase drug penalties came predominantly from the congressional black caucus at least with regard to crack because of the public health problems.

rangel. the worst servitudes in slavery. so this becomes simply and empirical or medical problem of more or less drug use by criminalizing were decriminalizing but we should be clear that more addiction is not a good thing for our society. then it becomes then it becomes really an empirical question of how you get less people using drugs. >> we are close on this and so close that i want a response state prison figures as far as i no i 35 percent in either for drug offenses having done something where they said they did it because they want to buy drugs.

the question becomes why do we have reason to believe that the property crimes were committed? in a number of those cases it is highly likely that the person did not have a job. then the wind to this person not have a job? the answer from one segment is well, there are no jobs available. what creates a culture where it is a norm to not go get a good job after 12 grade? that norm is largely driven by the fact that in those communities there is this optional black-market which leads me to think if you took that away you have a affect probably disproportionate to the exact figures we are talking about. >> i don't agree that someone is going to go look -- work from mcdonald's.

the willingness to work in a job that requires promptness, showing up every day not bitching at your job when he exercises authority getting back to the family because these are not used to -- they do not understand self-control and authority. >> hang on. >> you may be seated, sir, if you wish. >> a statement than a question. no one is in federal prison for possession of drugs, simple possession. i have never seen a case like that. possession with intent to sell, yes. if someone is a car load of drugs they don't have that

for personal use. let's assume that we legalize. what happens to the users? do you think that they will get jobs? if not who will provide the subsidy for them to live out their lives in a bright blue haze? >> this is important. there is evidence that if we had that kind of legalization i'm talking about they would be an uptick in addiction. i have talked about this repeatedly. repeatedly. it is hard to imagine that that would not happen. you know what, the race situation in this country is at such an intractable standstill we are just going around and around in circles. the same symposium. i honestly think that uptick in addiction can be

classifiable as collateral damage if it had the effect on talking about. there are three things america needs to do. i also i also think that if that were really the case and it were visible there would be more research done been getting people off of drugs. we don't have any magic bullet at this time. not enough research goes into it. addiction would go up. if we up. if we get stop this debate that we're having, this sense in the committee that there is no hope, the hope, the general idea that institutional racism keeps a group from performing solving all of this might require that uptick in addiction. i openly said we should tolerate it. >> one more question here. >> the center for neighbor enterprise. >> you may remain seated as

well. >> thank you. >> i do what i do what judges tell me. >> i like that. the phrase is purple haze. go ahead. my generation. what can you do. >> will we have heard thus far we have not talked about the role of institutions within those communities. we saw on the streets of baltimore's cooking food for the police officers. men with 300 intervening. there are elements within the communities that have the respect and control of young people. and there are examples i can give were gang violence has been dramatically reduced by empowering those healing agents that are within communities, communities but we do not seem to discuss those intermediary institutions.

we just talk about it as if people are wholly influenced by incentives or sanctions. the cultural value elements. >> it's a good. i will name two, pastors and coaches. and maybe not in that order. that is a youth observation. race has nothing to do with that. you saw the pastors come together. these communities are more powerful than your politicians. >> i think your probably right. >> one more comment. >> in los angeles our

nebraska a cop if he knew about the rodney king beatings and if he had been trained about it. he had no idea what i was talking about. and then i heard an interview with an older resident of baltimore who said he missed the time when the bee top beat top was walking the neighborhood and knew the families, nuclear mom was. your sense of police engagement with the communities and acceptance and knowing the people in those communities? >> we have the expert here. >> actually, this is a question i here all the time we used to know are be top. i have an answer to where that be top what because the initial replacement for walking the beat as the radio car and the idea that

we were going to measure police efficiency by how quickly they got off to 911 calls. that has been largely discredited. how many arrests are made or how quickly they got to the call. so i'm not -- i'm not sure that there are people in new york at least two officers walking the streets. they, of course, were criticized for engaging in too many proactive stops. obviously the more obviously the more that you can know the committee the better. i actually still don't know if that is truly not the case anymore. if it is not the case why it

is not happening. obviously that is an important fact. i was in louisiana recently the women who drove me to the new orleans airport actually said she loves the cops. amazingly particularly loves white cops. the reason is because they came their school and she was growing up and said, we are your friends. police come to us when you need help. if it's that easy let's do it. probably it's not. the more interaction, big supporter. how policing works in the see it from the other side.

the time that we need to fully explore this with this extraordinary panel and you have been incredibly patient and kind and knowledgeable. [applause] >> new attorney general loretta lynch travel to baltimore today where she met with local leaders in law enforcement as well as the family of freddy gray. ordered a federal investigation into his death. local prosecutors have already announced charges against six officers connected of freddy grazer rest. here's a look at the visit with several members of the baltimore police force.

>> she would like to address the squad. >> good afternoon, everyone, thank you, commissioner, for allowing me into your house and allowing me the chance to address your squad. thanks to all of you. i. i'm looking at probably the hardest working police officers in america. how many days without a day off? how many hour shifts? absolutely. like all of us in law enforcement you know what your getting into. we think that we do. you picked a noble profession. picked our profession but you have picked one of the best professionals out there you have picked the one that lets you go out every day and sam going to help somebody. despite how people may want to choose to characterize you hold onto that has you

go out on patrol everyday. we have struggles and we are here to help you work through the struggles in the ways that will hopefully be the best and most productive ways this department. to all of you on the frontline my just want to say thank you. really, you are representing all of law enforcement. allowing peaceful protest, helping people rebuild helping people cleanup. you have become the face of law enforcement. you may say for good or for ill. how we live with that in go through with that determines what kind of officers we are. i want to thank you for letting me say a few words. i no your time is precious. it is spent protecting people. thank you for all that you

do in the name of law enforcement. [applause] >> give a round of applause. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> on the next washington journal a debate on ways to reduce poverty in urban areas with ross eisenberg of the economic policy institute and the cato institute's michael tanner. later colonel john because he commander of the army asymmetric warfare group's

>> just in time for mother's day 1st lady's lives at the personal lives of every first lady in american history, many of whom raised families in the white house. lively stories a fascinating women and eliminating, eliminating, entertaining, and inspiring read based on original interviews from c-span first lady series published by public affairs. first ladies is available as a hardcover or e-book and makes a great mother's day gift. from your favorite bookstore online bookseller.

it will be moderated by hugh price a neighbor of mine in westchester county, new york and a nonresident senior fellow at the brookings institution where his focus is education equal opportunity, civil rights and urban affairs. from 1994 until 2003 mr. price was serving as president and chief executive of the national urban league the oldest largest community based movement empowering blacks to enter the economic social mainstream the young

journalists for the "wall street journal". the reader was able to turn it into a nice peace. served as vice president of the rockefeller foundation and he is also the author of a number of books on education. craig frisby is an associate professor at the college of education at the university of missouri. his personalization the curriculum -based assessment he is the author of the textbook meeting, the educational needs of minority students evidence -based guidelines for school psychologists and other school personnel. also joining us i think -- okay. he will go through here.

an executive counsel for the american federation for children and the alliance for school choice. one of the nation's leading education performers who i have had the privilege to know and uses a source of the years he is a former member of the council city council and he too is the author of a number of books related to educational issues. i we will turn things over to mr. price. thank you all. >> if you don't buy a house they put. it is a pleasure to be here at the national press club and be back in washington. it is interesting. i live in new york was leg

left right liberal and conservative pop into the conversation. three decades ago were just over three decades ago the nation at risk. the state of public education in this country. that report triggered an avalanche of reform reforms were imposed from the top down to the bottom up and in between. imposed consecutively, concurrently and occasionally at cross purposes. familiar with the buzzwords and core, high-stakes tests, state takeover.

on an army goes. i tend to look at these policies and where we need to go from your through the prism of what's in the best interest of children who are perpetually left behind. if you look at it from that angle we have made some heartening progress in this country and public education to my achievement gaps between white and black students have closed according to the national assessment basically the nation's report card. high school graduation rates are steadily climbing. we have seen impressive results particularly in new york city the small public schools which have achieved significant academic gains not so much nationwide but certainly in new york city. we have seen through the assessments of charter schools, urban charter schools tend to outperform comparable schools.

the reality is that far too many young people and especially black and people from a left behind. the academic gains for 17 -year-old has stagnated over a lengthy times and with the exception of 13 -year-olds expanding youngsters who continue to gain in math the achievement gaps in reading and math have played black youngsters. as recently as 2013 50 percent scored below basic in reading. the center for educational policy projects that could take 105 years to close the black-white gap in 4th grade reading to a way of example. the achievement gap between poor and rich kids has widened significantly. minority students still

dropping out in droves. issued an arrest and projection of the current pace of progress it would take nearly 50 years for black males to secure the same high school graduation rate is the white male peers the the progress in urban education is so sluggish that earlier this year the foundation suspended its award to the urban district which makes the greatest progress because they are not seeing a sufficient amount of progress. a subject that is seldom discussed in education policy and practice circles as the importance of social and emotional development barely on the radar screen. this is not the fuzzy feel-good concept. we know from brain research that social and emotional development is essential to learning much even commence exceeding.

we also know that employers value social and emotional competence in anonymously. students who struggle in school often lack the social and emotional schools to succeed academically. we know that parents should attend to the development of their children the mediating organizations should as well but the question is what if they don't or what if there are not enough services to help the children who have needs? when they don't have the social emotional development they need they don't pay attention in class don't focus on learning, act out, skip class and skip school. the academic indifference and behavioral difficulties associated with social and emotional deficits.

research from school programs and real-world experience indicate that interventions focused on fortifying youngsters social and emotional skills help improve their academic performance. a recent a recent study by teachers shows that investing in social emotional development yields measurable benefits that far exceed the cost and that for every dollar invested this return of $11 economically. economically. yet educators are under relentless pressure to improve test scores. teachers and principals and other trains more inclined to address youngsters nonactive the. this is led me to believe that we need a new paradigm. that means of assessment.

especially now those who serve minority and low income. and that is why i'm of the very strong view that social emotional development is the next frontier in school reform. thank you for giving me a few minutes to say my peace of money turnover to was to go 1st. >> good morning, everyone. capture the spirit of this education panel. frederick douglas. easy to build strong children and it is to fix broken adults. in that spirit i would like to say that as i understand

it, the purpose of this panel we're here to celebrate some of the positive developments in black education that have occurred since the moynihan report. at the same time we need to honestly discuss some of the challenges and pitfalls to that timeframe. there are many areas that need improvement. the way i like to to think about those areas that need improvement is i like to start the state level and go down to the city level and then come down to the individual's global. come come down to the level of the student. at the state level the a lot of challenges. a lot has occurred in terms of the growth of charter schools, the 1st charter school state law was passed in 1991 in minnesota, and since that time i understand we have around 6000 charter

schools in operation today. there is a lot to celebrate. the same time there is an even this from state to state. some states have joined the school of the don't allow for sufficient autonomy. other schools have very strong laws. we have unevenness state to state in terms of funding for giving minority parents choice as to where they want their children to be educated. i understand there is a recent cause to celebrate in the state of arizona where the governor provided funding that's certainly something to celebrate.

many authorizer don't like charter schools. that is selective and handing out charters. they will shut down that schools. we have an even this would state to state with respect to alternative certification standards for teachers. there was a time when if you were a very bright graduate of a a particular discipline they did not want to go to an education school you could pursue an alternative certification group that would allow you to teach and some of the nation's more trouble nations more trouble schools. now there has been some issues with alternative certification systems not being up to the same quality of course we have the problem of hostile teachers unions pretend to resist

charter schools. at the city level we have issues as well. how many here how many here are from the city of new york? okay. a sizable number. the mayor that you would have would make a strong difference in terms of being open to charter school development. from what i here from people who live in new york the thing is, deblasio bad with respect to that issue. many times the success of well performing charter schools often a function of whether or not you have well functioning charter management organizations, whether you have leadership development programs and of course the charter schools are at the forefront of

having good leadership development programs. many times we have trouble finding local funders and civic leaders. now let's go to the school level. at the school level they begin the closer to home in terms of some of the frustrations that we have with making progress. even though even though we have well functioning charter schools, there's don issue of teacher burnout because we require a lot of charter school teachers teachers and often put in ten, 11, 12 hour days and there are issues there was still be motivated to continue for years and. we have had issues with incompetence and charter schools. sometimes we have had issues with financial corruption with people who are misusing charter school funds.

then, of course, you have issues with curriculum and standards that are not carefully thought through and as a result charters are close down. what down. what i would like to talk to mostly is, i come from the university. i can talk i can talk all day about barriers of the state, city, and school level but there are also barriers that are just as entrenched in for middle in our universities and colleges. this is a site where we train future teachers school administrators social workers. this is where these individuals are socialized to have certain beliefs about how to educate children generally and minority children specifically. i, like many others here have entered my career with one simple question, how can

we best meet the educational needs of minority students in school. i discovered very early on that many times academia is not the place to find answers to those questions. i have found that i have had to leapfrog over what we talk about in academia, and i am attracted to this environment here because it is this environment in which i run across scholars and writers that are candid and tell the truth the john mcwhorter's, heather mcdonald's, jason riley's, these are people that have taken there lumps in various ways because they are honest i have appreciated that have learned so much from them. i have discovered that with rare exception, and there are exceptions, academia is

not necessarily the right place to search for honest answers. it may be later on. i want to also focus. many times we tend to characterize conflict between what is best and education for black children is a conflict between the right and left. left. often we we hear that a lot. i understand that argument and there is something to be said for characterizing that argument in that way. however, i tend to take a little bit of a deeper interpretation of where the conflict truly are. let me just throw this out here to let you know where i tend to be coming from on this issue issue, not so much a right left issue because i have met liberals they get it and i have met conservatives the don't. the issue the issue for me bores down to an issue of people who tend to live in the world of degree and

ideology versus people who tend to have their eyes open to reality. and i no that that sounds a little bit arrogant to some of you for but that is just the way that i understood this issue. either you you are lost in a world of theory and ideology we had your eyes open to reality. i will skip over what we learned from prior studies, basically where we are now in terms of what best works for african-american communities and kids with respect to education is that we know that there are differences demographically in communities in terms of how that may influence. and there are some studies that have found the schools played very little difference in that but there are other studies that say that even though you might have averages in terms of achievement outcomes that

differ by community demographic, you have schools that are basically resulted in higher achievement that defies expectation. basically basically these are the schools we want to study to find out what there doing right. let me end with this. i have found that when i have really i have really tried to be honest even look at reality and look at what actually helped by children of black education and i take that knowledge and understanding back to the university, i tend to get three reactions falling in the these categories. there is a segment of academics they get and they respond to what is being said and notice know what is true. even though they are exposed to a lot of other kinds of theory and social justice

this and white privilege and all this business, they know that what we're talking about is true and it is something that is right and they respond to it. but then i get another segment of folks that are terrified. they are silent, afraid. they are afraid to acknowledge these findings because they will say to me after coming to my office and closing the door they will say, you can say these things but i can't say these things. i am afraid to say these things. things. if i said these things i would be crucified. you can say the. they are silent. then of course, you have the segment that is hostile, but it is interesting: i looked at the hostile folks the things that we are talking about my notice a particular irony.

these are the these are the people that will shout out that they love minority kids and want to see what works in terms of education and so forth, but when they are shown what actually works they get mad because basically they expect reality to conform to their theory instead of letting their theories conform to reality and as a result their hostile some of the things we're talking about here. and and so let me stop at that. i have more to say. >> let me just welcome the chancellor. thank you for joining us. continue to collect your thoughts. >> thank you very much. i want to initially think jason riley for putting this panel together. listening to the previous panel i was struck by the

fact that almost everything we're going to talk about today can apply the previous panel. you going to do with some of the challenges in terms of crime and punishment in all these social challenges that we face, directly traceable education. i we will be brief. no one talked about where we have been, where we are and where we need to be. he framed it correctly. he was correct and challenging us to view these issues from the vantage.of the prison of the child. what a nation at risk was released over 30 years ago 38 recommendations were put out for the public. public. now 30 years later virtually none of them of the adopted. a a lot of them had to do with longer school days and years teaching core. some

common sense things, but over the past 30 years we have done some of these things to try to raise standards and at least articulate a concern our desire to deal with some of the various achievement gaps and done it through the lens of politics. i think that our biggest challenge in this country which distinguishes us from most other nations around the world, particularly industrialized nations that are far outpacing is educationally is everything we do in education is with the political winds. and the 2nd problem we have is nearly everything we talk about education is with the long-term plan. standards down the road. the three to five year plan. i challenge us to take the politics out of education and elevate discussion be on the politics of the day.

republican or democratic way to teach a kid how to read, write, count, or compete. we need to make sure that we develop this sense of urgency so that we recognize the lead. even as we have sat here kids are dropping out of school. nearly half the nearly half the kids of color, particularly in most of the major cities dropping out everyday. he has done a lot to push change. 7 million kids and dropped out. it's no wonder why our prison population grows 82% of our national prison population are high school dropouts. and we are increasing graduation rates but only one 3rd of our high school graduates are career and college ready. so while we are making advances i don't want us to accept the dumbed down

notion of incrementalism. don't see anything wrong with having and nine percent graduation rate upsetting the apple cart. what is wrong with embracing this idea of having these programs where the model and the charge is give us the kids no one wants to educate we we want to take care of those kids that are dropping out. some folks in philly had an amazing proposal they were trying to work through the school district for that very thing. because we are so stuck who refused to embrace innovation and creativity that deals with the most challenged population that we are dedicated to serve. think that we need to elevate the discussion try to figure out ways to remove politics make sure we work

with innovative and local school district leaders who i admire and i no she is committed to trying to do what she can do push the ball forward. but we also have to recognize that if we're going to push aside the politics today we have to be bold and look at things from the prison of these kids. there is nothing wrong with embracing school choice of it works. in that form of school choice could very depending on where you live. the president has done a really good job pushing forward. people say to me i i am for this but not for that. i am for this but not that you have for this for my kids but not for your kids. it just doesn't make sense. there is just indefensible inconsistency in the notion.

if you look at our scholarship program, 6000 kids are gone through that program. the program. 90 percent graduation rate in 90 percent of them are going to college. how is that a bad thing? hit some people sam for charters. charters only take up 6 percent of our school's population. all this rancor over 6%, and 6 percent, and it's a struggle to keep that going our scholarship program is even more toxic. the end of the day through the prism of kids we're losing kids. i agree that we need to embrace some of the social dynamics that exist. there there is one truism that holds no matter what anyone else tries to tell you different. the more people are educated the less of the bad stuff they deal with.

homelessness, crime, joblessness. if we increase our high school graduation rate by 10% we automatically reduce are moderated by 20%. i think that what 20 percent. i think that what we need to do is lift up the models that work. you mentioned deblasio in new york. i am not getting into the personal back and forth. if he were really looking at it from the prism of kids he would say you know, i don't like you but i figure we can learn from you. i'm going to sit down and bring some of my best people to see what you are doing. we need to replicate that educate the discussion so that we figure out the best way we can benefit from the collective knowledge of those who are serving kids as opposed to putting everyone in the proverbial box in front of us. you are us. you are over here so i can talk to you. there for charters.

americans who look at this from own non-toxic lens feel like they are put in a position where they have to pick sides. it should not be the republican or democratic lens of urban rural. i'm telling you it has nothing to do with the score preparation but a mindset in energy, culture. we used to have a learning culture in america. we don't have that now. everything is everything is wrapped around the proficiency of the kids. tapping into that will to be better. we need to elevate this discussion about education and not just education learning in america. a new a new learning culture

in america and a national obsession around learning. we're going to be the 1st to go to the moon. but it together as americans. our challenge is all fear -based. the war on terror. but if we do a. a. and instead of knocking down sees the come from a different vantage.we accept, emphasize, celebrate those models of work. a national's pretty core. that's what we need to do.

is not based on us versus them. it's based on all of us. as we need to be doing. >> as part of the problem. i would say i come from a different perspective. i come from the practitioner perspective. perspective. i have the honor of serving 48,000 young people here in the nation's capitol. the chancellor of dc public schools were government be one of those performing school district in the country to the fastest improving urban school district in the country. we have a very long way to go. i think that hope is that we're seeing studies of improvement measuring test

scores. seeing families choose dc public school for 40 years. we saw consecutive enrollment decreasing. for the last three years we seem consecutive enrollment increases and we are poised to see another increase between emily see something different happening. when i think about what the real problem is the problem is producing quality education. as the charters problem able to make great things happen. the question is how we move from unicorns to a a unified system where all children get a high quality education

what that means is a very different way to approach the problem. we focus on three things can keep the best teachers and school leaders, we also recognize all your offering her young people was not high quality. we also know that if the school is no place for kids and parents want to be how good our curriculum is the

and not going to come will be engaged. so i. action has been around great educators rigorous curriculum and engaging students and families. we have been lucky enough to have a city aligned with us behind that vision and build support. the district did not have to do everything. the city recognized early childhood education is a critical lever. if i'm busy building not doing my core teaching and learning. we need to make investments. and you know i don't see that happening across the board. more often more often than not i see is deciding which sets of kids were going to educate at high levels.

on the one hand we want everything to be autonomous. i respect your right as a teacher to teach whatever you want. i respect your right is a principal to run your school however you want but invariably that means is going to work for some people and not others, some children and families and not others. until we build a system where every child is met where going to see these gaps. every country that are performing us that i'll say do whatever you want to do to me is a national set of standards. in fact were going to as a country trainer teachers school leaders to implement standards. there are things we know in

terms of moving student achievement for kids and still we make them optional instead of mandatory. when i think about this idea of autonomy and everyone doing what they want to presupposes that there is a fixed high quality amount of human capital and this is not true now different human capital capacity. apply the same experiment to

detroit where they're been no infusions of talent and you have the same people with more autonomy, less regulation, less have an opportunity to push the things that you know are good and right for children and we see a completely different result. i think we know that we have to do a a certain set of things in order to be successful just like any good teacher one size does not fit all. so we so we are looking at our students looking at schools in figuring out how the doing, looking at teachers and figuring out how there doing. the -- we have conversations and we look at data from a look at individual kids names but another teachers and their buildings and what they need whether there are

structural needs for behavioral needs or health service needs then we won't be able to build a system that can appropriately address those needs. we continue to rely on the amazing teachers from amazing principles were able tonight it out of the park without too much attention to the facts that we have the ability to develop that same behavior in the only way we will get to systemic results is only invest in that talent and develop senior systems were young people don't fall through the cracks. we know the names and can diagnose the problems and get them the appropriate academic or intervention services that they need. that policy can do that. policy is very limited. policy is schizophrenic. we were focus on one thing. we allow the policies to

dictate everything. it's a combination between policy and practice that will get us to the right answers, but it really means committing to the beliefs that every single one of our kids his arms a high-quality education and building systems to do that. i'll and unable moscow is. people talk about autonomy. if you just give people autonomy they produce results. i find that ironic. does not rely on people if you ever been to a success academy school there is a clear curriculum. what you see in one you see in another. people are trained. what she what she figured out as these are the right

things to do for student achievement. these are not rocket science but she has figured out how to systematize that serve whether she has one school or ten schools or 100 schools she can provide that quality consistently. we don't allow districts. we don't allow some folks to make that same calculation and build that same kind of system. that that in fact is the only way we're going to get to where we will get to. the reason why dc ps is improving is not only because we have great people and rigorous academic curriculums the because we knocked down a number of policy barriers that have allowed us to pay our teachers differently differently, trainer teachers differently, manage all kinds of things differently. those are the questions that

we need to ask what are high performers doing and how do they do it consistently so that we can agree on and begin to implement quality education at scale for every single one not not some but all of our children. >> thank you. for me ask the members of the panel. >> i just want to comment. absolutely right. there is no question in my mind that if the chancellor or a handful of others former -- forward thinking had this same freedom that eva moskowitz had they would have the same results. i go back to what he started talking about, nation at risk virtually none adopted. ..

or end i think about is something we all have to come to grips with but as long as we allow those arcane and non-kid-friendly rules and regulations to be the

centerpiece of the road of operation are most school districts we will not be able to change this. >> at me say how quickly that plays out. we know of course that many of our young people need more time. we piloted schools. we worked with the schools to figure out what the best way to do it was for their community and we gave them the money and the time to do it. we saw seven of the eight double-digit on both math and reading in one year. so the second year i put money and for the 50 of the 112 schools and we have a provision in our union contract that says that we have to negotiate because previously we would have been able to do this. that says that if the teachers bowed for a program the school can go an extended day.

if the teachers bowed its a problem but many teachers saw the need for an extended day so we asked the union to take it to above. the union president instructed her building representatives do not hold the vote to not hold a vote because they don't support an extended day. even though i am paying dole pulled the boat. so there were a number of schools we ended up getting 26 schools to go an extended day and of course the year they saw gains as well. and i have a handful of folks who just don't support it. so i said to my union president yesterday now i have more than 60 schools that want to go extended day. she said i don't know what they are doing an extended day and i said who cares what they are doing? if the teachers on the principal are figuring out how to do this and we are seeing good success -- she said that it has to be negotiated. i said let me ask a question

who decides what it is a handful of teachers who do or don't want to walk -- work until 6:00 were the people who are literally held responsible by their jobs like me as to whether or not they move student achievement. she said well we are not -- voting and i said you don't have to don't have to have a photo we will it regardless of the vote and you can take me to arbitration all of that stuff. by the time that is done two years of kids will have had extended day and i'm good with that. [applause] but there are colleagues of mine who don't have the ability to do what i'm doing. there are some that don't have the backing of their mayor. there are colleagues of mine whose unions will strike in the streets for lesser things someone i have to fight and i'm putting in money. i'm not just saying you have to work a longer day, and putting

training in place. i'm allowing teachers and principals to design this. this is what the union says it wants, right? but on principle you are not going to support it how can i push the achievement as quickly as any to when i know what the right levers are to pull but i can't pull them because of these policy issues. >> i have an exchange that reminded me of the speech i i gave at the i gave at the national press club in the 1990s when i was giving a keynote speech and i called for the charters asian about public schools. it didn't mean to convert them all to charters that give the people who run the building their autonomy to hire and fire to extend the day, to allocate budget resources towards the goals set and to do that in a grand bargain in exchange to tie that to the compensation issue. my friends at the national education association said you wouldn't dare say that to us.

i said i will tell them as long as you keep the door open gassed up and ready to take me if i have to make a hasty exit. these impediments that are just so severe. the other point i would make in them i want to turn it over to the audience, standards by mayor de blasio. he was wrestling with the question of create small public schools which are highly successful don't get a whole lot of attention paid to charter schools that exist but not a lot of attention is paid to previous administrations to the main schools, the bulk of the schools and he and the chancellor trying to figure out what to do there. i think the barriers to find the resources so they can turn most of their attention to that and that's a bit of tension over the charter. anyway are there any other comments? >> i would like to make a comment. i agree that all the comments

100%. i just have a little bit of a different interpretation of what has been said. again i agree and i just have a different interpretation. interpretation i come from is basically years ago in the 50s, 60s and 70s we would always have large scale educational research studies that come out with recommendations for how to get kids to learn. this was in the years way before charter schools. and a lot of times when these studies come out you always have political firestorms that surround what the study finds. and i always come back to the issue again and i will just repeat some things that i said before, we have to understand what is reality and not ideology ideology.

and basically all that we have discovered that has worked were findings that came out of studies decades ago and basically we find what good public schools do and what to charter schools do is dovetail be 100% with what we find from laboratory research. let's take the issue of time. again i agree with what has been said. i just have a different way to frame it. the way that i like to frame it is that we have to understand all children are not the same. one of pet peeves that i have is that we talk about children and black children in particular as this amorphous mass and no group is an amorphous mass. you have individual differences within all groups. you have super bright kids. you have above-average kids. you have average kids.

you have low learners and then you have special ed kids. basically this variability is an all groups of individuals. there's a basic rule of learning that basically says that the time that it takes for the very bright kids to learn something kids at this level need more time to learn it. i can give a reading passage to someone with a very high iq and he will understand it in a half hour. someone who is a little bit lower, take some more time to read it a number of times to figure out what the passage is saying. they need more time. basically basic laboratory research says if you want to get kids in this range to master the skills that it takes these kids to learn these kids need more time. it's a basic fact of life.

it's a fact of nature and so basically what we see as those charter schools in most public schools that are successful for getting their kids to reach proficiency and to raise their test scores, these are the charter schools that implement the following rules. i'm not recommending this for all schools but kipp schools and success academy schools have these recommendations in place starting at 8:30 and then 3:30 3:30 many of the schools start at 7:30 and then 5:00. many of these schools in many of the schools the kids have to come to school to saturday's a month. many of these schools they often have to come three weeks during the summer. you do the calculations and is something like 60 to 70% extra time that these kids are spending learning to get these

results. so let me one more word and i will shut up. testing, big legal issue in the schools is why we have to have a lot of this testing? why do we have to prepare for tests and a good charter schools in the public schools basically whenever they test their kids that the teachers have a culture that school where they come together they look at the test results, they see where the kids are falling down they need to talk about how they can cheat -- teach and implement in their cricket lamb ways to teach so that kids will be successful on tests. but in teachers unions and many other teacher groups that is the political football. many teachers unions hate testing. they would frame it as we are

cutting into our our instructional time by teaching to the test and this is something that our schools tell us something we do want to do. one of the things -- though i hate to be overly pessimistic but like mrs. -- mrs. chabot said many things in education or political and what frustrates many of us is that the research says this is what needs to be done to get kids to learn and if we can do it kids will learn. almost everything in education has to be a political foot tall when it comes to time, discipline another political football and testing is another political football. >> let's open it up to any questions. is there a microphone? right behind you. >> tad howard. i want to ask you about sports because in my career i've noticed two characteristics people are really -- they're

basic, they show up everyday on time on time and they are team players that help out and contribute and stuff like that. one of the encouragement of teamwork is sports and sports has a whole lot of sociological benefits and we could go on forever about that but i would like to know or get feedback as to where you are all in sports and education? >> i actually think part of the world-class education means developing their talents, not just their test scores. so we have actually paid millions of dollars of investment in sports and bands and requiring music and art and foreign language and library. it do believe we have to develop the whole child. the classroom is not the only place where kids learn how to be good people and good citizens and i think sports has a very

important place for some of our young people and it's the only reason i come to school. i don't care what your motivation is as long as we get the results they want to make sure they were schools that have things that engage our young people. i think that this is a panel we have been speaking fairly generally but this is a panel about what we need to do for african-americans in our dissensions and i think when you see schools that eliminate program of arts and music and of the sports nature there's a level of disengagement that happens with empowering young people particularly and i think that is a problem. when we got to dcps we saw schools that were only doing english and math because that was what was being tested and we had to save no every school

doesn't offer of course courses and every type of school will have electives in every middle school will offer algebra and there will be a band and you will go on field trips and you will go on college trips and you will rebuild your technical education because we have a disconnect in terms of what we think the goal is. we as educators think the goal is higher test scores and beating other countries. my parents don't care about what is happening in finland. our parents care about whether or not the kid is going to get a job after they finish so when i told my staff is where not -- recreation is important but it's how quickly or slowly people have moved for our dysfunctional as him. we are really holding ourselves accountable to the education we provide being a game-changer. let's hold ourselves accountable accountable. if two years they are not in college or at a job than whatever we have done the whole way around extended time

whatever doesn't matter. that's whether stakeholders -- that is why baltimore is burning because those young boy still sealed way to a job or the ability to take care of their families. they don't do that for themselves and i didn't see it for their parents and didn't see it for their the grandparents. there's no investment in the city because there's no investment in them. what we are trying to do is show kids that if you do what we do over these 12 years and we do it well we can change your life outcome. >> we will come to the back of the room next. >> on international testing testing you mentioned the u.s. keeps slipping lower and lower in the rankings on math and reading that when you break it down by rates you look at whites in america we beat everyone except

them. when you look at asians in america compared to asians in asia we beat them like japan and shanghai. likewise hispanics in america and hysterics -- hispanics in -- so i wonder if we problem isn't in school choice and maybe we have schools and good programs and it's not -- i'm reminded of the title of the book. i wonder if all these revolutions we have every year i'm sorry every five years with no child left behind, common core all this if we are not just spinning our wheels at the institutional level? >> i would disagree with that notion. i have been to schools all over the country and we have many schools that don't serve kids period. i think the international comparisons are indicators that

they shouldn't be held sacrosanct. i think that we know that we can do a better job of providing high-quality education for all children. i think that has to be the given premise. we also know that when it comes to black and brown babies in america we are falling short. we also know when it comes to children white, black brown or yellow who are born in poverty it's these fastest-growing achievement gap is among rich kids in poor kids in america. so yes we are high-performing schools. middle to a book middle high-performing schools are doing as well as anyone that we have got a lot of challenges with the schools. i think the problem is as i alluded to we haven't found a way to stem the cle make sure we

meet the challenges that face us us. the other thing is internal. i think that if we talk about education reform and we talk about doing better we have got to hug people while we change them so we have got to figure out the best way to win hearts and minds. people don't know what they don't know and so we have got to lift up the models that work. doing work in louisiana with some of those women we work with in charter schools sderot them had come to me when i dropped out and they said we didn't know education would be fun for kids so when you look at the possibility of elevate the whole notion of what education or learning can be. i think that's where we need to be. i also don't think we need to be satisfied with incremental gains. i think there is nothing wrong

with us saying 90 to 100% of our kids graduate invocation and we talk about 50% in some cities 60%, 70%. i don't think that's good. >> there's a question way in the back. >> good afternoon. >> this has to be the next or last question. >> okay. my question is for the chancellor. i want to say outstanding job. washington d.c. schools have turned around. i'm a grandmother of children who go to washington d.c. schools. i'm a pastor and i also ran a drug ministry. i have seen the energy, the passion and the challenge change in the last three or four years. i'm so proud of what you all are doing. my question is this. educationally i think we are on. what do we do emotionally because the emotional issues are

greater than the educational issues. you can be an intelligent dummy and that is what we are not pushing. people with brains but no emotion and no heart can handle themselves. how do we do in terminal and external and then how do we take that to the kids whose parents are disconnected. can we get some programs into the schools to help them grow with their children? >> thank you for the complement. we are working really hard. i think you know it is important for us to not just make sure that our young people are academically prepared but to make sure they can take that into out into the world and do something with it. one of the things that we are thinking a lot differently about is how we created an educational system where children have this demonstrated knowledge in a real-world kind of way so that

they are being prepared for the world that they are going to go into. what do we mean by that? nobody in the regular work life sits in a room where people just talk at you for 30 minutes and another person talk to you for 30 minutes and another person talks to you for 30 minutes. that's not what happens. in your regular life you have a problem to solve. you have to work with groups of people to solve that problem. you have got to figure out how to get resources some of which you might have in might have an sum up what you might not happen at some point there are some public demonstrable display of the resolution of that problem. that is not how schools are set up. so why do b. we give credit or how long you teach, not whether or not you have demonstrated mastery of the content and the way you actually are able to solve problems? we hear a lot of people talking about competence based education ultimately what that is.

children know a whole lot of stuff but they aren't able to take that and translated that something is different. for us what that means is in addition to a common core alliance curriculum we are requiring that at every level in every subject area there is what we call the cornerstone project which is a project that every third-grade teacher across the city which will also help us get to expectation because there are different levels of expectations for different kinds of students it's a rigorous project that everyone has to do and demonstrate their success. it's usually not an individual pursuit because so little that we do as individual so changing the way teaching and learning happens. i'm a parental front we found two things. one, while it for shade the confidence in our ability to do everything schools can't do everything.

so we have to figure out that it's an opportunity to find partners who are experts in developing adult learners are helping families get the services that they need ann locating in the school. so we have begun to build partnerships with those city agencies and non-profits who can address the needs of our students at the same time we are trying to address the academics. the other thing we found to be really frank about parents as every parent wants to help their kids. whether they are well off or not or whether they are well-educated or not or whether they are tall, short, skinny or and it's our job to help educate their kids. we have embarked upon a nature sing program where we actually have teachers give parents things to do with their kids at home so parents don't have to guess. when parents are part of helping their kids achieve parents have a different level of self efficacy. in fact they come to school more

and take advantage of the programs we have put in the schools in b.c. families change. we have adult education that we offer in many of our schools than in the daytime and evening so p. -- parents can come with their kids. school districts that are struggling it's a lot to ask that we get our core get our course to frighten all the ancillary stuff right so we need partners to help us do that. >> thank you. i'm afraid the clock has run out on the panel. please help me in thanking the members of our panel. [applause] >> we are going to take a short rake 20 minutes and then we will be back with our third and final panel. thank you. [inaudible conversations]

>> who are they? >> they are an incredible family, nine members of the family have worked at the white house and i interviewed james jeffries who is the only current part-time butler who i'd didn't get into view. he may be there right now. he works every week at the white house and nine members of the family worked to his uncles were major tease and had a head butler. he told me my uncle ran the white house. he brought to him and when he was 17 years old in 1959 during the eisenhower demonstrations. he is still working there and he used to work in the kitchen. he was such a skinny little guy.

they kept giving him ice cream tweet. it's incredible he remembers what they eisenhower's are like it's a dying breed of person who remembers that and that's what i wanted to do was to pay tribute to these people. >> the senate passed the 2016th house senate report 51-48. it aims to reduce spending by $5.3 trillion over the next 10 years. prior to that senators jon cornyn patty murray jon mccain debbie stabenow and charles schumer came to the floor to discuss the budget agreement. this runs 50 minutes. >> mr. president i'm glad i had a chance to come to the floor and listen to the distinguished ranking member and the distinguished senior senator on the budget committee and the senior senator from california to talk about this budget but i feel like it's two ships passing

in the night. when i see this remarkable accomplishment under the leadership of chairman nancy on the budget committee and the entire budget committee this is a congressional budget that talents is within 10 years. it doesn't raise taxes. it re-prioritizes our nations defense. it protects our most vulnerable citizens. improves economic growth which is literally the rising tide that lifts all votes in the growing economy something our economy has not been doing very well lately and it stops the federal government out of control federal spending. so this is really a remarkable accomplishment. as a matter fact this is the first joint 10 year balance budget resolution since 2001. and i think what drives our friends across the aisle crazy

is the fact that they haven't passed a budget since 2009 and now with the new leadership here in united states senate the 114 congress, we have done the basic work of governing which is to propose and this afternoon we will pass a balanced budget. so i know there are differences across the aisle. clearly there are reasons why people choose to be a democratic senator and a republican senator but to me the differences are pretty stark. our friends across the aisle don't think the government should have to live within its means. but that we should continue to borrow money that we don't have by overspending and hand the bill to our kids and grandkids. i personally think that the moral hazard. that's really unconscionable. to keep spending money and send

the bill to our kids and grandkids and say you pay it. we had a good time. good luck. our friends across the aisle think the federal government is not enough because they want to continue to feed the beast with more of your hard-earned tax dollars so it can get bigger, so it can intrude further in your individual freedoms in your choices they should be up to you and your family. and that sounds to me like the ranking member of the budget committee, the senator from vermont claims the government ought to simply take more of the money you earned and to give it to somebody else who did not earn it. and then i can only conclude that our friends across the aisle think in 18 trillion-dollar debt is not a problem. and it is when interest rates

start creeping back up as they eventually will. more and more of our tax dollars are going to be spent sending interest payments to the chinese and other holders of our sovereign debt. to serve as that debt and it's going to crowd out not only national security spending it's going to crowd out the safety net spending that we all agree is necessary for people who can't protect themselves so there are real differences but this budget i'm proud to say which we will pass this afternoon thanks to the heroic work of our budget committee is i think a real accomplishment. i guess what would be the real embarrassment as if we didn't pass the budget but we will pass a budget. people listening at home may say well why are you so -- patting yourselves on the back for passing a budget? we have a budget in our

business. we have a budget at home so why is it such a big deal for the new congress to actually pass a budget? i guess it shouldn't be a big deal. it should be something we do routinely because it is really the most basic demonstration of the ability to govern. but i guess what makes a remarkable is the fact that hasn't happened in a long time and so for that i'm glad. we actually have seen under the new leadership in the 114 congress some real progress. we have actually seen democrats and republicans working together to accomplish some important things. that's something i think the american people appreciate and all members of the senate i think have come to enjoy. the mood has changed. the ability of senators to participate in the process and to come up with solutions has gotten so much better in just

the first 100 days of the 114 congress that i think we are slowly starting to develop some momentum. we passed a bill that lets medicare beneficiaries see the doctors that they need. that's a good thing. we have also passed an important piece of legislation that provides aid to victims of human trafficking and through the end of this week we will continue to work our way through another important piece of legislation the iran nuclear agreement which was unanimously voted out of committee a few weeks ago. this is really important not only to the region in the middle east but also to us and the world. this bill would guarantee that congress has an opportunity to review a potentially block any final deal with iran that president obama reaches during the so-called p5+1 negotiations. after we conclude that important

consideration about legislation we are then going to move on to consider something else that i think will help grow the economy and help end up bringing more revenue into the federal treasury and help us with some of our deficits and debt and that is to pass. promotion authority and then to take up the transpacific murder should. agreement. my state happens to export more than any other state in the nation. our economy shows it because it creates not just financial trade with mexico, creates about 6 million jobs and it's a good thing to have more markets to sell the things that are farmers grow or to sell the livestock that are ranchers raise for manufactured goods that americans make. it's a good day and. this bill would make sure the united states gets the best deal and pending trade agreements from asia to south america to europe and help make sure that texas products and more

generally american products and industries by new markets will in turn raise wages for hard-working families, something that we all support. but with all these other sites of progress i think writing and passing a budget is one of the most fundamental possibilities that we have and while that should be pretty obvious families across the country sit around the table each month and they do the same thing. but it's a fact that it's has been lost on many of our democratic colleagues and they control the chamber. i'm listening to the senator from california. i was reminded once again you know what a cut in washington d.c. is? that's not a cut in the amount of spending on the program, the current program at current levels. that is a reduction in the rate of increase. that's what they call a cut. so what this budget does is it against to cut the rate of increase of spending in a way that helps us control the

deficit and hopefully take the first important step toward dealing with our long-term debt. well when we vote on this budget today will be the first time both chambers have voted for an agreed-upon spending bill since 2009 and as he said earlier the first balanced in your budget since 2001. that's despite four consecutive years of trillion dollar deficits under president obama, trillion dollar deficits. those deficits as the chairman has appropriate way pointed out add up to debt. the deficit being the difference between what the government brings in an ordered expensive in a given year. four years of consecutive trillion dollar deficits has done great damage to our national debt and we have a downgrade in america's credit rating by standard & poor's. so it would be one thing if the

president and our friends across the aisle had a good record when it comes to their budgets and their proposals but they don't. and this is what the president has proposed. president obama -- president obama has missed statutory deadlines so often that the when he did fulfill that responsibility than when he did not read and then when the president's budget was voted on in 2011 it was good by democrats and republicans. he didn't receive a single vote. the same was true in 2012. do you think if the president had to post a responsible budget, do you think members of his own party would have at least voted for it? but in 2011 and 2012 democrats voted for the president's budget budget. last year in the house of representatives a hope that two

members voted against the president's budget when given the chance. he went down by a resounding 413-2. that's the president's budget proposal. we saw history repeat itself in march as well. one by one nearly every member of this body came to the floor and gave a thumbs down to president obama's budget proposal. as a matter fact we got one vote. it went down 98-1. so whether it's offering a completely responsible budget rejected by both parties for the failure to offer any budget at all our friends across the aisle are living in a glass house and when you live in a glass house you really shouldn't throw stones. but the most important point mr. president is the american people deserve better.

we had an important election in november and it changed the majority of united states senate. it would establish new management and in that last election cycle we made promises that we intend to keep and we were elected on our promise to be different and to govern responsibly. that promise includes passing the budget that protects taxpayers and sets the nation on the path toward sound fiscal footing. fortunately for the american people we are keeping our campaign pledges and this budget does reflect their confidence in the new leadership of the united states congress. this budget leaves our country with the surplus after 10 years. it puts us on a path to begin to pay down our national debt and it does not raise taxes.

by balancing the budget without tax hikes like we do in texas with our budget we can protect taxpayers and foster economic environment that allows jobs and opportunity to blossom. or protecting our taxpayers is not rome a priority. i believe our number one priority in the federal government is national security and i believe congress needs to make sure that that is unmistakably clear and we do so in this budget. the budget does also provide the military with the necessary flexibility to react to changing threats and to make additional investments is necessary in a way that does not add to overspending. not only does this send a message to our troops that they will have the support they need in order to do their job they volunteer to do but also to our military families who serve as

well in our all volunteer military system. but this prioritization of national security also sends a very important message to our nation's adversaries. we know that weakness is a provocation to the bullies and the tyrants around the world and when people like vladimir putin see the united states for treating and pulling back or not prioritizing our national security and not maintaining our goal in the world as a preeminent power it's a provocation. it's an encouragement. see that happening around the world as we see now a greater security threat environment than perhaps we have seen in many many years. but this budget sends a message to our adversaries around the world that america will not shrink and will not retreat from

our leadership role. so mr. president the budget under consideration passed just a few days ago in the house of representatives saves the american people by providing for national defense balancing the budget within 10 years and does not raise taxes. some -- something congress hasn't done for almost 15 years. this afternoon the united states senate will keep its part of the bargain. we will keep following through on our promise and we make clear to the american people that we are committed to getting our fiscal house in order with this important first step. mr. president i yield the floor. >> mr. president. >> the senator from washington. >> mr. president the budget is far more than a series of numbers on a piece of paper. a budget is a statement of value and priorities statement of the

kind of nation we are in and the kind of nation we want to be. for many of us these values and priorities are clear. we believe that a budget should help us move towards an economy that is built from the middle out not from the top down and the government that works for all of our families, not just the wealthiest few. but mr. president the republican budget that we are here debating today would move us in the opposite direction. instead of working with us to build on the bipartisan budget deal that we struck last congress, republicans have introduced a budget that would lock in sequestration. it would hollow out defense and non-defense investments and use gimmicks and games to paper over the problem. instead of putting jobs and wages and economic security for us by privatizing policies that

shouldn't be policy issues the republican budget would cut taxes for the rich and leave working families behind and instead of building on the work we have done to make health care more affordable and accessible the republican budget would take us back to the battle pays when insurance companies called all the shots and when fewer americans had access to the care they need. mr. president i want to take a few minutes today to talk about each of those issues and to urge my republican friends to take a different approach. put policies aside. come back to the table and work with us on a responsible budget that puts the middle class 1 and will actually work for families and communities that we all represent. mr. president the first issue i want to talk about is the medic sequestration and the failure of this budget to address an issue democrats and republicans agree needs to be solved. i am proud that coming out of the terrible government shut

down at the end of 2013 we were finally able to break through the gridlock and dysfunction to reach a bipartisan budget deal that prevented another government shutdown, restored investment in education, and research and defense jobs and lay down a foundation for continued bipartisan work. that deal was not the budget i would have written on my own. it wasn't one that the republicans would have written but it did and lurching from crisis to crisis. it helps workers and economy made it clear that they are is bipartisan support for rolling back sequestration in a balanced way. our bipartisan deal was a strong step in the right direction and i was hopeful that we could work together to build on it because we know there is bipartisan support to replace sequestration in a balanced and fair way. not only do we prove that the other bipartisan budget deal for

democrats and republicans across the country have continued to come out against the senseless cuts to defense and non-defense investments. mr. president republicans voted the opposite way. they were able to cut joint of dollars on programs that support families and fight poverty. nearly a trillion dollars cuts for medicare and medicaid in more than $5 trillion overall but they refuse to dedicate a single penny of that rollback, the automatic cuts to education research for defense investment. to put them in perspective, we were able to roll back sequestration for two years in a bipartisan budget act with $85 billion in savings that the republican budget won't face a problem in this coming year with more than 50 times the amount of savings. mr. president instead of using a tiny fraction of the enormous cuts this budget has to pay for

investments that both republicans and democrats agree must be made this budget uses a gimmick by increasing oh funding to appear to patch over the problem on the defense side without raising the caps on defense funding and doing nothing at all for non-defense investments like education and research and jobs or infrastructure. mr. president we know the automatic cuts are a terrible policy and we know the president has said he would veto spending bills at sequester levels. also now the republicans who have seen the impact of sequestration in their city the way i've seen it in my homes in washington and another republican to look at this budget in wonder why we couldn't use some of the trillions of dollars in cuts to reinvest in american innovation or in our defense investment. so i'm hopeful that instead of continuing to kick the can down the road or relying on gimmicks that don't actually solve the problem republicans will come

back to the table and work with us to build a bipartisan budget deal in a balanced and responsible way, love the appropriations committee to actually do their work and not wait for another crisis before they push the tea party aside and work with us to get this done. mr. president instead of rehashing old debates and marching toward a completely unavoidable crisis we should be working together putting together policies that boost the economy and help our working families. policies like allowing workers to earn sick pay. no worker should have to set a fisa days pay in their job altogether just to take care of themselves or their sick child. in this country 43 million americans do not have access to paid sick days. making sure some workers have a basic worker protections would give more families much-needed economic stability and by the way its pro-business.

they boost productivity and reduces turnover huge benefits for employers and those who want to help their workers stay healthy should have a level playing field so they do the right thing pretty strong bipartisan majority of senators affirmed their support for allowing workers to earn paid sick days during the budget amendment process. i was hopeful that we could build on that momentum and keep working together to increase the economic security for millions of workers and families so mr. president i was very disappointed that they conference report does not reflect that decision. instead of keeping our bipartisan amendment and providing paid sick days to help workers and families this conference report instead allows for tax credits for employers that would not guarantee access to paid leave. mr. mr. president that's a step in the wrong direction and it doesn't have to be the last that the congress takes.

i urge our colleagues to work with me to pass the healthy families act the legislation that would move this debate budget amendment and make paid sick days a reality for workers because allowing workers to earn paid six days is one way to make sure that our work as is our working for families, all of our families, not just the wealthiest few. mr. president i also want to talk about one more act that would be devastating in our country. affordable care act would tell the health care health care system that puts patients first and it allows every families to get the affordable high-quality health care that they need. but the work didn't and when this law passed. far from it. families across the country are expecting us to keep working to build on this progress and continue making health care more affordable and more accessible and higher-quality and that is what democrats are focused on.

unfortunately mr. president this republican budget would do the exact opposite. it would roll back all the progress that has been made to take us back to the bad old days when insurance companies call all the shots, wounding a woman was a pre-existing condition when far fewer families could afford to get the health care they need and in fact this republican approach could mean an average tax hike of $3200 a year on working families who have to pay more for their care. mr. president families are tired of republicans playing games with their health care. i would hope my republican colleagues would listen to the millions of people across the country who have more affordable quality health care and the vast majority of our constituents who want us to work together to solve problems not rehash old fights and finally dropped the political games and work with us to move our health care system

forward, not backwards in the communities we serve. mr. president republicans control congress and is their job to write and pass the budget but they also sent us here to work together not something to argue with each other. people across the country are expecting us to break through the gridlock like we were able to do last congress and deliver results to families in the communities we represent. so i urge my colleagues to oppose this budget that would be devastating for middle-class families investments in our future and the economy and the republicans to come back to the table to work on the economy to grow the economy towards the middle and it works for all families and not just the middle you. thank you mr. president. i yield the floor. >> the senator from arizona. >> i want to thank senator and

see and members of the budget committee and the 2016 budget conference agreement that we are currently considering in the senate including the budget conference agreement, our policy provisions that began to move this country in the right fiscal direction including balancing the budget within 10 years without the need to raise taxes on the hard-working american taxpayer. something that the administration's budget fails to do. in addition the budget agreement provides a pathway to appeal the failed policies of obamacare. and the resolution does provide some relief to him to sequestration is devastating cuts. the good news is there is some relief to provide an additional resource for defense to be overseas contingency operations known as oco is a good one but

it's temporary and it's a band-aid. again i want to thank senator enzi for the great job he has gone but the fact is this body and this congress is guilty guilty of not repealing sequestration which is devastating our military and destroying our ability to turn this nation and these most perilous in difficult times. henry kissinger testified before the -- as that quote as we look around the world think counter of people in conflict. the united states has not faced a more diverse and complex array of crises since the end of the second world war and what are we doing? where slashing defense, year after year after year to ward

off sequestration i was never intended to happen. that is a devastating indictment congress united states had our first priority was to protect this nation. the chief of staff of the air force stated where now the smallest air force we have ever been. operation desert storm in 1990 the air force had 188th fighter's water and said today we have 54. we are headed to 49 the next couple of years to 1990 there were five and 11,000 active-duty airmen alone and today we have 200,000 fewer. we currently have 12 fleets of airplanes that policy for antique license place in the state of virginia. general odierno cheapest at the emmys have been last few years the armies and strength has been reduced by 80,000. we have 13 thousand less active component brigade combat teams and eliminated three active aviation brigades did we have already/investments and modernization by 25%.

he went on to say the number one thing that keeps me up at night is responding to an unknown contingency i will send soldiers to that contingency not properly trained and ready. they simply are not used to doing that. the chief of naval operations quote due to sequestration of 2013 are contingency response force that is on call for the united states one third of what it should be and why where it needs to be. general joseph dunford now nominate to be chairman of the joint chiefs of staff testified quote we are investing in modernization at an historic low level. we must maintain at least 10% to 12% of our resources on modernization to pay today's bills and we are currently

investing 70%. i ask every single one of first service chiefs and their area commanders the same question. if we don't repeal sequestration will that put the lives of our men and women who are serving in the military in greater danger? the answer by every single one of these uniformed leaders uniformed leaders said yes we will put the lives of the men and women who are serving in the military in greater danger unless we repeal sequestration. and i say to my colleagues i say to my colleagues in the united states senate, this is not acceptable. this is not acceptable for us to ask the young women -- men and women who are serving the military in uniform to have their lives put in greater danger because we copped out. we fail to address the issue of

increasing and unsustainable deficit. we are making them pay the price price. 14% of the budget is allocated to defense. defense is taking 50% of the cuts. the ryan murray agreement is something that was welcomed. we need another ryan murray. we need the men and women who are serving and voting as members of congress to understand that we have no greater responsibility than the defense of this nation. i can assure my colleagues that working with my friend senator reid of rhode island the ranking member of the senate armed services committee, we will be working. we were reduce the waste and mismanagement. we will address acquisition. we will reform acquisition and the terrible cost overruns that plague our ability to do business in the defense business. we will becoming the size of

these huge staffs that have grown. we will be making significant reforms in the way the military does business but these reforms will not have the impact that is necessary in the short term and that is that we are putting the lives of american soldiers sailors, marines and airmen in greater danger. so i come to the floor to thank my colleague from wyoming senator and see for the great job he has done on this budget. but i will tell my colleagues that we must work together in a bipartisan fashion to fix the damage to sequestration is doing. i only have one other point that's very important. some of us have forgotten in the days after the vietnam war the military was in terrible disarray.

ronald reagan came to the presidency and the slogan peace and restraint. we have rebuilt the military. we put it back to being the greatest the condition of being the greatest military force and the world and we won the cold war. right now, right now if you look at the map of the world in 2011 and a look at a map of the world today, 2000,011 when we and acted sequestration you will find henry kissinger and george shultz and brent scowcroft in every person respected on national security in this country will tell you that we are in grave danger. whether it be from isis whether it be from iran, whether it be the aggressive behavior by the chinese, no matter what it is no matter where it is in the world we are in the midst of serious challenges to our national security and the last place we should continue to cut is on our

defense and our capability to defend this nation. mr. president i yield the floor. .. ng to be able to address it, not only supporting our men and women when they are actively in harm's way but supporting them when they come home as veterans, which i know he cares deeply about as well. which is why we need a bipartisan balanced solution that we had before. so i thank you for your leadership. and, mr. president the reality is that this budget, any budget for the united states is about our values and our priorities. that's what it's all about as a country. and i have to say as a senior member of the budget committee i am deeply concerned about the values portrayed in this budget. i greatly respect the chairman

and ranking member and thank them for their service. but when you look at this budget i greatly respect the ranking member and chairman and thank them for their service. this goes opposite to what the majority of members talk about everyday because this particular budget keeps the system rigged in favor of the wealthy and the well-connected against the interest of high working middle-class americans. picture this. in this budget if you are family with assets of $10 million or more unit the jackpot. you get at least $3 million bonus tax cut in this bill in terms of the policies laid out. how is it pay for? well, by everyone else. 16 million hard-working americans will see a tax

increase of at least $900 based on these policies. and we will see critical investment and services cut. nothing done to address job. not one loophole will be closed that is sending jobs overseas. we want to we want to create an economy and balance the budget, springer jobs home. nothing in this budget about that. wealth of over $10 million. it's your lucky day. $3 million in your pocket or more. it is christmas in this budget for very wealthy multimillionaires. if you are everyone else you are in trouble. no focus on creating jobs.

god help you if you have a mom or dad or grandma and grandpa with alzheimer's or in a nursing home because this budget cuts nursing home care for millions of americans a lot of folks who desperately need that care. one out of five medicare dollars goes to treat alzheimer's, an area that has been deeply involved. important work that needs to be done but if you have someone that is long-term care with alzheimer's disease you are out of luck in this budget. this morning i talked to a group of women in town with breast cancer research. this is the monster focus on breast cancer research. research. if you care about breast cancer research in this budget you are out of luck. if you want to make sure that we are investing in treatments, we are so close

command so many areas now where americans research and innovation and the best minds in the world are working on opportunities to solve alzheimer's and cancers and all kinds of other areas of concern but the budget is cut for nih the national institute of health. what kind of priorities does this reflect? and on top of that for 16.4 million people who do not have affordable insurance it is gone. what is interesting about the budget it is creative. all the revenue come all of the fees to pay for healthcare helps balance the budget. it is just the healthcare the goes away. so for the the breast-cancer patients that i talked to this morning who are now so

grateful if the need to go out and get knew insurance they won't be called someone with a pre-existing condition. that goes away in this budget. if you have budget. if you have a child were 22 23, just graduated, spoke at graduation ceremonies and they are on your insurance right now all they are trying to get themselves together and get that 1st job, that goes away. this budget attacks healthcare which is not a drill. we do not control when and how we get sick or if our children get sick or if our parents or grandparents need a nursing home for what may happen in terms of medical issues have families. but healthcare is directly attached. the affordable care act gone getting in inpatient care in nursing homes for alzheimer's patients and

others, research gone. so we are hearing from our republican friends that we are making government work but i tell you what, it is it is not working for middle-class families. it is working for you if you make over 10 million a year and have more than 10 million in assets, but it is not working for you if you pull together two or three jobs just trying to make it for your family. we believe as democrats this ought to be a middle-class budget because everybody deserves a fair shot to have a chance to have a better future. and so for us that means this budget should have a major focus on creating millions of jobs by rebuilding our woes rebuilding our bridges our infrastructure. by the way the funding the authorization runs out the end of may. there is nothing in here to address that no funding in here to address that.

we will see all kinds of jobs eliminated all across the country if that funding is eliminated. we believe in rebuilding roads and bridges in creating millions of jobs. we stand up for social security and medicare. this budget has this budget has $430 billion in cuts in medicare and does not say where they come from. and it and it is proposing of structure that would actually eliminate medicare as we know it turn it into some kind of a voucher system or some other kind of system that is not guaranteed care under medicare. we believe in protecting medicare and social security. we believe that everyone ought to have a fair chance to work hard and make it and go to college. this has nothing but increased cost command we believe they ought to go down so that when you leave college you don't end up

with a net debt to go our you could have bought a house, but then you can buy a house, as realtors and machine had told me because people have so much that they cannot qualify. we want to make sure everyone has a chance to go to college and that is a -- that it is affordable and that we are protecting social security and medicare and we are creating jobs, jobs, rebuilding roads and highways in the opportunity to invest in america and finally, we want to bring jobs home. it is insane that we still have a tax code that rewards those sometimes only on paper who leave this country. they leave the -- breathe the air, drink the air drink the water, drive on the roads but don't have to pay their fair share of taxes because on paper they move somewhere else, not fair to every small business to marie taxpayer, every business we have that is really an american business there's nothing in this

budget is done to address that. i conclude by saying that we should resoundingly object and vote no on the priorities and the values set out in this budget. they do not reflect what is good to create a middle-class and create opportunity in this country. if if you are one of the privileged few hallelujah and break out the champagne but if you are the majority of americans hold on to your seats, put on your seatbelts because if this is in fact put into place it will be a rough ride for america. our site is going to do everything humanly possible to make sure that does not happen. i yield the floor. >> the senator from new york >> i think i think my great colleague from michigan for her outstanding words and leadership. she is a senior member of

the budget community and knows just what is wrong with this budget and how to reach the american people in terms of revealing just that showing just that. i thank her. i want to thank my dear friend senator sanders for his great leadership on the budget committee as well. and look, in a certain sense this republican budget is a gift to us and to the american people because it shows the real priorities. their priorities are so far away from what average americans want that this budget will resound from one end of the country to the other between now and november of 2016. the budget that the house and senate republicans have put together helps the very wealthy and powerful our country who, frankly, don't need any help. this idea, cut taxes on the wealthy how many americans

actually believe that? we understand that a lot of our colleagues do. but that is not what most americans think that is for sure. the budget should reflect the economic reality right now. middle-class incomes of declining. it is harder to stay in the middle class harder to reach the middle class and a budget should help those folks in the middle class stay there trying to get to the middle class, create letters so that they can get their. again, this budget seems to focus all of its attention and all its goodies on the very wealthy. the economy is getting stronger but mainly at the very high end. we need to cut the taxes. they are hurting.

the same time we need to raise taxes on 60 million americans who are working and making 20 30, $40,000 he or raise their taxes. how many americans would say we should cut taxes on the 4,000 wealthiest people in average of $3 million costs of $260 billion over ten years and raise taxes on people making 20 30 40,000 a year by $900? is it 1 percent of americans think that way? maybe. but it seems our colleagues on the other side of the aisle follow that pied piper, that 1 percent in putting together the budget. it makes no sense. the republican budget is a document of willful ignorance constructed in an ideological house of mirrors where no one sees reality, no one who put together this

budget season a reality. they don't see middle-class people struggling making it harder to pay for college what the heck is going on here in this great america? we're trying to pass a budget that says we should make it harder to pay for college the veterans should lose food stamps veterans, people who service people i am sure the vast majority are looking for jobs and income. that is who veterans are. when they are down on their luck, maybe have injuries maybe it was rough adjustment family life back home again and you cut the food stamps what kind of budget is this? as i said it is a budget in an ideological house of mirrors. student loan payments?

30 -year-olds, 40 -year-olds, huge burdens of debt cannot even buy a home maybe put off having kids. worse, our republican friends are saying eliminate programs, programs that at least reduce some of that that burden. wow. what world are you folks living in? it sure isn't the world of reality. it is an ideological house of mirrors. a budget document of willful ignorance. you can go on and on and on that this budget. how many families have elderly parents and nursing homes with alzheimer's? we know that tragedy. this budget makes it harder for those people to stay in those nursing homes by cutting medicaid.

and then these young families are going to have the burden of taking their dear parents, loved ones back into their homes. we want that? well, we have got to cut somewhere. how about not giving the 4000 richest families $260 billion over $10 billion over ten years and puts all the money in the cancer research helping veterans feed themselves? puts them on the money into making it easier to pay for college couplets of the money into making sure we continue cancer research. republicans are going to have to figure out a way to convince the american people that they are doing something to help the middle class. so far they are striking out we no there's only one bit of good news. our colleagues when forced to actually put real numbers to these budget numbers in the appropriations process will be able to.

and i hope it will be up to our ranking member to my hope they take this budget and put it out there let's see how many of our colleagues vote to make it harder to pay for college make it harder for veterans to feed themselves how many colleagues both to raise the taxes on people making 30 $40,000. i doubt many. so a fun day for our republican colleagues. they get they get to beat their ideological breasts, show the hard like that they really mean it and then maybe we can go back to governing the country. >> and today in the senate debate on the budget conference report senators expected to debate this nonbinding measure setting some of the spending priorities as they work on

the budget. joining us with some of the details, a reporter with bloomberg dna covering all of the spending. >> the key sort of practical take away is basically it sets up a likely affordable care act repeal. also sets up what may be a fiscal year invite in september october about what to do with the sequester and defense spending. those are the practical things. from the larger from the larger macro standpoint republicans are proud that they had passed the 1st house-senate budget

agreement the resolution of the agreement between the two chambers of commerce that is not go to the president, has very few things that are enforceable or concrete and the 1st time this has been done since 2009 in the 1st time since 2,005 the republicans have died and aim to get the balance by a $32 billion surplus in 2024 basically using a combination of spending cuts and some assumptions about faster economic growth that would result. >> as you mentioned, they are pretty proud of this. why does it matter that they are hitting his deadline for the 1st time since 2,009? >> it is a political unity statement on their part. democrats last time they were able to do this they use the budget process to push forward healthcare reform but they did not do a budget in 2010 command

when the chamber split in control from 2011 to last year there was not even an attempt to reconcile any budget. so if you think of it as the family getting together at the kitchen table on a napkin how a napkin how they want to sort out their finances, this is that napkin you still need to do a lot to follow through with it but at least the napkin part of laying out how you want to fix your finances been done. >> so on the napkin and where to sequestration, how are they dealing with the across-the-board spending cut? >> they the word great to. however, within this budget they project a $96 billion overseas contingency operation larger than what

president obama has requested and their intent is to try and use that basically to ease funding the defense department this year. president obama has also wrote and said that he wants more money for defense than is called for under the 2011's but he also wants more money on nondefense spending. that question of whether both sides good post up on the defense side does is probably going to be a major issue when it comes time for the fiscal year. >> you mentioned how that works. >> one of the more concrete things is it sets out these things called reconciliation structure dealing with spending and revenue and

debt ceiling. they would have to come back by july 24 repeal the affordable care act. included in the budget resolution. the repeal bill would be immune to robust. it will land on president obama's desk. assuming he does.

>> and just briefly, the next step in this process. >> a resolution between the knew chambers. started out a couple of the spending bills to flesh out the numbers. so that will go into the summer. we will see from their. the white house the assumption that only the defense side about 50% of annual appropriations each year, if only defense gets plus that the nondefense. >> we will keep following

you on twitter. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. appreciate it.

>> it is my intention. if in fact at that.in time we will do is take a quick break so that we can come back and hear the testimony from our witnesses this morning. obviously a very important issue to all of us around the country.

we are here to examine our wildfire management policies including the impact of wildfire on communities in our current fire operations. unfortunately today not a lot that was positive. over the last 50 years we have seen a rapid escalation in the size frequency, severity of wildfires. most often cited fires disease infestation and an explosion of non-native invasive species. big. big problems, daunting problems and problems that are not easily going away. we're already seeing the consequences unfold 1st and in my home state of alaska last may. the funny river fire just about this time mid may burned through the national wildlife refuge, spread

smoke as far away as fairbanks. the fire burned nearly 200,000 acres 200,000 acres of 300 square miles before it was finally extinguished, the second-largest ever recorded. threatened sterling and lower skill i'm like forcing residents to evacuate. we are we are all thankful that there were no apparent fatalities. the area changed dramatically in the last 20 years due in part to mass spruce bark beetle kill. simply more susceptible to fire. more than half of the total land has been lost. already this year the concern back home is that we will have an aggressive fire season. aggressive throughout the state, dry in fairbanks this weekend and i cannot recall

a time of the 1st of may were not on the berbers are out but there is no snow anywhere, no snowpack anywhere. the same factors we're seeing of north and the peninsula that are increasing the size, frequency, and severity also driving up wildfire suppression caused both in actual dollars and as a portion of the total budget of the four service. ..

>> >> it albee easy to achieve them but that would occur without consequences for our budgets. and senator cantwell.

>> thinks for calling dash hearing and also thank you to the witnesses. fire season is upon us and looking how we can abettor prepare for the fire season. we have extreme weather conditions suboptimal management seems the chair was to have more legal fires. my status all too familiar but the state of washington was the most hard hit. war then twice the number of acres burned last july, there is the curled in complex fire we spent much time talking to people in the community this bird

100,000 acres and a single day average of 5 acres per second over 24 hours straight. so with extreme weather combined with a fire 353 homes were lost. with the people lack the power of communication and over weeks because of downed telephone lines homeowners could not be warned about encroaching fires employees had to drive from town to town calling for evacuation by a megaphone so what i will call for is better coordination for the forest service during these natural disasters. with that memorandum of understanding to require

that it is set up by the way some hour communities can deal with these disasters. as the chair mentioned in the wild land urban interface and how to use that biomass to offset that cost. also i am eager to hear from the witnesses from prescribed fire burns how to vertex our communities and there has been introduced legislation on this and i am happy to be a co-sponsor on this. is the of wildfires and not behaving the way they haven't in the past decade. to figure out what the response would be

researchers just last week published a major scientific report to make it clear if we ever get ahead they need to respire a fundamentally way. with wild fire problems from self the reinforcing cycle of actions. we cannot keep using that same tired approach we need to focus on different results. common sense tells us it needs to be modified. and touche to a great job to sum up what they need to redo. with a total system to thracian but to show what increases to affect the ability to meet the core of mission.

so we need the solution is for rival work with the chair and my colleagues over the next few months to find those solutions. first we need to do what we can to reduce that probability that we double the amount of hazardous fuel treatments and second to fight large fires that are becoming very expensive. since 2000 the federal government has spent $24 billion muni to ensure federal agencies have the money necessary to protect our communities to treat large wildfires differently in our budget. to reach her to reassure accountability to make sure

we are incentivizing the cost saving in the budget. and then after the wild fire has started but the assistance needs to be tailored the federal government is responding to a new tie of a disaster. and then to have a more pro-active coronation to make sure that those resources are on the ground. but it is troubling for our state.

between the generators that is closer to the areas to respond more quickly. and then to institute new approaches. >> we will take a pause in the hearing but to to the chief with your leadership in the u.s. forest service then we have dr. stephen pyne who is a regents' professor at arizona state university dr. hood is with us at the college of forestry in montana and

mr. bob wisely with the watershed analysis county is a diego california i am interested you are retired and then the director at the salt river project. and then please let me your testimony at five minutes. good morning. >> so especially with the head there panel members to talk about natalie upcoming fire season but the thing is that we need to continue to do to do address the issue.

the predictions it is more than active fire season in the west and son the will continue to expand to the northwest then idaho into montana. with that being said i cannot stress enough the fire seasons we see today this is the normal fire season so we can say were more active than a decade ago but to understand today this is the fire season. we have the resources. we made sure we have an adequate number of large air tankers to respond, as helicopters we have 100 exclusive use and can bring up another 200 if needed.

firefighters, as the cruz over 900 engines and the airplanes from the air national guard for when we hit those times of the year. we are making a difference with the field treatments. with a combination of managing the natural fire using prescribed fire we are making a difference trading other 2.5 million acres and that of whites 16 budget calls for the same level. and i can point back to the fire from last year where they make a significant difference to allow firefighters to 58 -- two of

reduce the severity has less impact on the watershed and on communities our challenge remains to find more ways to continue to increase the scale of this work. the one to thank the committee for your support for our budget with that considerable increase if we can maintain that going forward with the farm bill to work closer to increase coordination and. the other things i need to stress is the urban interface. not only is fire season longer, hotter, drier for

another 60 or 80 days longer than 15 years ago we have over 50 million acres we have to deal with. madam chair this is the first thing we have to do with every fire to protect that committee before we can even suppress the large well fires. so those the warrior from the back country with 98% there are those that we see on the news so once again i appreciate the support to find a solution for fire suppression. we're predicting a 90 percent chance we will

not have enough money to look at transferring funds for garner your tired of listening to in the talk about this though they need to find a solution to stop the destructive practice touche transfer many. this concept of 1 percent should be considered natural disasters and last year the 10 largest fires equal over $320 million was what we have been talking about they queue again for the support you are providing not just to increase the work but to find a solution with fire suppression. >> if there is one thing we

would agree on but as we talk about all the other things with forest service it comes back with all of your budget sori the right to do in deference is to take a quick three minutes we will go very fast to go vote and come back and did it have there and back hurry. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] >> we will come back to

order that three minutes in said it time. [laughter] we apologize for that there are enough members here who want to hear the testimony from all the witnesses to hold over for a little bit longer. so we will turn to for comments in a queue for your indulgence. >> good morning figure for the opportunity after the great fires of 1910 calling it a strategy of resistance seeking to eliminate threats but it failed because of cuts as well as bad fires to call this a strategy of restoration it has run its own 50 year course of the

doctrine by prescription that our better understood that leads to a consideration of the next 50 years that strategy is in and the west that is labeled resilience to make the best of the hand we are adults. everyman's an old guard to return to the formal order for those who want to upgrade that tradition into the emergency service model. the coast guard for the interior. this makes sense of the primary land-use is herb been indicted is expensive in not shown a command with buyers. fish shows the strength it shows the weakness is. restoration has separated from the simple hope for

wildfire now embrace says earnings and the determination into words yet the vision and does prove costly with those tens of millions of acres resilience. with the last strategy that we are unlikely to get ahead of problems coming at us to shift where feasible to more in direct reliance to contain the of breaks those

that have critical sites from the onset many offer opportunities to burn out the fire officers concentrate their efforts were assets are most voluble. they will pick places that they can hold with minimum expenses and risky and damage. this strategy is compatible and in many respects cruz end directions to look like of dash up in those outcomes are mixed because the fire pastures' will burn more severely or hardly at all but the rest will burn with a range of tolerance but

that strategy to iraq their resilient strategy to paper indebted a given time when tromps another we need all three. we gave rocks and scissors to buffer and edged towards the good ones with the mixed strategy is the best beacon '04. thank you. >> welcome dr. >> they give for inviting me here today. i am a researcher at the university of montana. previously working in the forest service after --

referring my ph.d. in 2014. to have a huge impact on the conifer forest by just refocuses of research to increase ponderous of pine resistance but it is not as substitute for fire. ponderous applying is adapted to a and survive the type of fire that burns through the understory but causes low mortality to larger trees for crown and changing a and the composition however there is a recent acknowledgment with that piece is fired managers strategy to allow more fires to burn with the resilience to wildfire to achieve the

goal we must accept the critical role as a natural ecological process. with the pond rose a pine forest we can support with low severity fire their use by a trees to resist beetle attacks and they're more likely to survive. when frequent survive -- severity than the defense declines over time. it acts as a natural thinning agent to also promoted increase that has resistance to mountain pine beetle. to have a resistance to an outbreak of long steady in montana is shows the treatments were designed to see how effectively to increase resistance to

wildfire rand was implemented five years before the employee dash outbreak began with and without burning to remain higher than the controlled burn only treatment. mortality differed markedly between treatments in the control 50 percent was killed as he aubrey compared at 20% of the burn only and node mortality in this then burned treatment i levels of douglas fir due to over 100 years of fire exclusion coupled with bohai applied for jollity has come back to a ponderous a pine dominated system. the results is said and though northwest from strong scientific support that was once common.

better research is needed for the pine forests throughout the west with or without resistance to that outbreak with the long-term in a prescribed fire created the most resilience by a halving the beneficial effects of the understory. the fire cannot be replicated by sending a loan but it is a useful and often necessary restoration and management tool it is crucial for long-term maintenance of low elevation fires and by stimulating differences to have survival from bark beetle attacks. there is no one-size-fits-all pro-active restoration treatment should

aim to increase resilience the revolt that -- multitude of stressors to allow them to burn. from one example there supported by scientific ethics literature to create resilience. vicki for the opportunity to testify today. >> good morning senator and members of the committee. it is an honor to share my experience with you today. to start with of volunteer firefighter for the county of san diego. from the management team of 15 years and like to think of myself as a student of fire. i learned in southern california we will always have extreme fire weather we

will always have a drought. there will always be technicians and they are plentiful and random. the driver of the entire system is fuel young fuel does not burn very well or fast gold fuel burns extremely hot and well and fast. for example, the field origen in san diego county the average age was 71 years. but then ago to become major fires. the fire problem has done worse but what we have seen

in the western united states. those two main issues is fire and cost. to recognize the fire problem though treats close at 2% which is the 50 year rotation cycle that a as a to a great job we're not even getting close we need to double the fuel treatment and passed to the mechanical and frier it has overgrown to the point it has to be sent and then maintained a. the projects are picked from the multi disciplinary teams

sociologists and risks assessment that give us the big bang for the but we have to spend dollars wisely. san bernardino national forest is on the fourth your of its proposals for 20,000-acre document in debate is a good idea that we're not building the shopping center but mitigating damage to the forest. but there is the plan for state and local governments when they beat us certain criteria then fema index of 75 percent of the cost and

made to have the guy on the ground with a laptop to predict where the fire is going based on that. we need to know where the fire is. grey don't know where it is because we cannot but see them through the smoke. they need to be mapped on the first days of that technology will go along way to manage those air assets. to let those fire managers make those decisions based on sound science.

and a safety issue we wind up having a disaster we need to know where the fire is and where the firefighters are they need to have the application in their hand it to show where freddie is on the ground it is doable based on satellite but just knowing where they are just not help. with a bunch of other suggestions i appreciate the testimony -- opportunity. >> last, welcome to the community -- committee. . .

the situation is not unique. we are working closely with the national water resources association and others who