in capital and ideology, french economist weighs in on how to correct to wealth and equality. and in in our prime, university of michigan communication and media professor susan douglas, argues against the negative portrayals of older women. also being published this week, investigative journalist reports on the pharmaceutical industry with pharma, greed, lies, and the poisoning of america. in the smart phone society, editor nickel ash offer explores how new technologies have empowered community organizing. "new york times" beirut bureau chief ben hubbard examines the rise of saudi arabia crown prince jim prince in m bs. and in pursuit of disobedient women, "new york times" reporter reflects on her time as the papers west africa bro trey. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week

and watch for many of the authors in the near future on book tv. on cspan2. >> good evening everyone and thanks for being here tonight at balboa high school in san francisco. i am susan solomon, i am a kindergarten and pre-k teacher currently serving as president of the united educators of san francisco. [applause] >> thank you so how many educators we have in the room today? okay, a lot of them. and community supporters? those two. we also have san francisco board of education member with this allison collins, glad you could make it i see others walk in, zero gabrielle lopez another school board member. so happy to have everyone here. of course we are here to hear diane ravitch, i have a couple of housekeeping items.

can trade a retired social studies teacher in san francisco, taught here at one time, is passing out cards on which you can write questions. so our format is going to be diane and i are going to talk for a little while, and then we will open the floor to questions from the audience. and the questions will come from the cards, that way we will know if five different people are asking the same question, we have the card to mono to ask that question. so i would like to give a little introduction. i know a lot of people here have been following diane for a long time, i would love to given introduction. diane is a champion for public schools across the country. drawing on over 40 years of research and experience, ravitch is one of the nations leading advocates for public

education. her years of experience, working in the government, shaped her approach to education and gave her a unique and powerful perspective, which she brings into all aspects of her work. a prolific writer and a renowned research professor of education at new york university, diane has published more than 500 articles and reviews for scholarly and popular publications. her blog is one of the primary destinations for american educators and has received more than tens of millions of views since 2012. that would be more, 34 million is a lot of millions. [laughter] diane produces solutions, she doesn't just admire the problems. in her books she provides a clear plan for how to preserve and improve our public schools. her "new york times" bestseller, rain of error, the hopes of the privatization

movement and the danger to america's public schools, begins where her previous book, the death and life of the great american school system, left off. diane continues to show the crisis in america education is not the result of a crisis of avid academic achievement. but it did result of the destruction of public schools. in a chapter by chapter breakdown, she teaches what is working in u.s. education and how policymakers are failing to address the root causes of educational failure. finally, she shows readers how it can in fact be fixed. diane shares the hard message that we, as educators, and our students families, and our communities need to support public schools or else basically society ultimately will fail all children. she is a public school graduate herself, and developed a powerful argument against the privatization of

public schools, so we, as united educators of san francisco, are excited and honored to have her in san francisco tonight to discuss our collective next steps to protect and promote quality public education for all. so let's start with the first question. so, diane, whited to you write this book and why now? >> guest: i thought i had finished my job and i was working on my memoirs, which i was about a third of the way through, and then it became february of 2018. and on february 22, every teacher in west virginia walked out of their school. every school in west virginia was closed down because the teachers went on strike. it's illegal to go on strike in west virginia. there were 50 districts, there are 50 districts, and every superintendent closed the school so the teachers were

actually not on strike, because the schools were closed. they had made arrangements for the children, and community organizations, churches, different kinds of agencies to make sure the children were cared for, and they marched on the state capital. their action, their strike was incredibly energizing, not just to me but to teachers all across america. and so, as i watch the red for ed movement moved to oklahoma to colorado to arizona, i ended up just last january marching with utla in the rain. i felt this tremendous energy. and it was very exciting and i realized i had another book i had to write. [laughter] and that book was the red for ed movement has changed the national narrative. the national narrative, the one we've heard since really since a nation at risk in

1983, was our schools are failing. there is a rising tide of mediocrity, and we have to do something about the failure of our schools and bad teachers. and so we've heard this refrain again and again, and has led to really destructive government policy. our secretary of education said we have failing government schools. in fact, we have failing government policy. and the failing government policies have hurt our schools, hurt our children, hurt our communities and hurt families. this is been going on for a long time. so what happened in the spring of 2018 and continued to the fall and into the next year? i think it is not over. it is the teacher showed that they have power and teachers demanded respect. and teachers work, it turns out to be immensely popular. people really like teachers. i felt this. [applause]

when i joined the strike, the picket line last january, in los angeles, there were a number of -- everyone was carrying signs and i can't member what mine said. probably something down with the billionaires are trying to buy or schools. everybody had signs in sunset honk if you love teachers, honk if you support the strike. everybody was talking. there were these big 18 wheelers going by with big horns and little sedans going by with little horns. every way, shape, and form of transportation, people were honking to say i am with you. and you could feel the energy, it was very exciting. i think teachers everywhere understood that. and what happened was, all of the negative publicity of the previous 20 years started shifting and we began to see the mainstream media change its tune. i was thinking back to the covers of blood say "time" magazine, back in 2008 when i

had a photograph of michele rhee in washington d.c. with a big bowl looking very mean and sanction michele is how to fix american schools. the implication wishes going to sweep out all the bad teachers. she is gone. [applause] >> she retired to sacramento. then they had another cover on time magazine where they said a silicon valley has figured out how to fix america's schools part everybody seems to have this idea they know how to fix american schools. this investor had the idea if you take away teachers due process rights, if you could take away. >> no don't take away teachers rights. [laughter] if you could take away teachers tenure, seniority, right to fair hearing, then no one would get low scores and everybody would have high grades and so forth. so that was her case.

in the illustration on the cover of time was for apples, one of which was rotten and the cover said something about rotten apples in the classroom. and this is all very discouraging to think kids get low scores because they have teachers who have due process rights which is insane. there are teachers with tenure and high-scoring districts more so than low-scoring districts. the news rick haddock cover where they shared a blackboard or whiteboard covered with the phrase we must fire bad teachers we must fire bad teachers over and over again. so this is been a long period of blaming teachers for whatever the problems of the schools are. and in all of this change, with the red for ed movement, we began seeing, and i will take time magazine is an example, they had in one issue, three different covers. it was three different teachers. one teacher said my salary is

so low i have to sell my blood plasma to make ends meet. i am a teacher in america. another said i live in a one-bedroom apartment and share a bed with my child, i can't afford anything more, i am a teacher in america. i forgive the third cover was but as a same kind of thing. teachers are not paid enough. there were many stories of teachers working two or three jobs, sometimes more. and shaking the tin stand for american schools. and we began seeing studies saying at least half the states that cut their budgets in 2008 because of the recession, had never restored the budget even to the level of 2008 had not raised it at all in a decade. so the whole story change, they stop saying it's bad teachers and said its underinvestment. and to me that was huge. at the same time, we began seeing over these past two years a pushback against charter schools, and i think in some ways betsy devos is

something to do with that because she has presented her case so strongly, she forgets that about 90% of kids are in public schools. and even in red districts, people like their teachers and they like the public schools. they did not like the idea of putting down the schools their children go to. so i think we have seen a change and i wanted to celebrate the reasons for this. not just this teacher strike, but the examples of people, ordinary citizens who stood up and said no you will not close my school. and so i have lots of stories in their about parents with no funding, standing up to billionaire funded organizations for either pushing charter schools or vouchers. >> could sound like you're moving into telling us what you hope to accomplish. you've laid the groundwork, which seem to change the last couple of years parts of what

he hoping to accomplish by writing this book? >> guest: i had two goals, one was i wanted to bring hope and encouragement to teachers who are in the trenches. i have always been impressed by the incredible dedication, the hard work, the education, that caring about children that i have seen in a teachers i have met. and i have met teachers all across the country my travels. i am always impressed by how smart they are and had working there. i wanted to say to them, the tide is turning and you are turning it. you have the power to turn it even more. i when stand up and fight, you win. that is an important message to put across. the other message i wanted to put across which is slightly more subtle, as i want to say to the people who are funding all of the attacks on public education, that they have lost. they have not stopped.

[applause] still when i called the book "slaying goliath" goliath i did not mean to say goliath was dead, i meant to say that goliath is brain-dead. [laughter] i have a whole chapter devoted to the billionaires and corporations and that very right wing organizations that want to privatize education. they are not giving up. they are still there. but they don't have anything they are putting forward that works. and that improves education. in particular that improves the lives of children and families. >> host: that is for sure. let's move into that. so first of all, the full title of the book is "slaying goliath" goliath, the passionate resistance of privatization and the fight to save america's public schools. so the first cast of characters you describe are the disruptors, tell us who

they are, and what do they want? >> guest: i don't for to the reform movement for this reason. to made the reform is an honorable word at least last ten years have been writing about the subject and it bothers me that people want to destroy public education they call themselves reformers. because if that's an honorable word, and i think to myself they must've had a meeting with a high-powered branding organization and i would love to find the book where they have all of the words that they agreed to use, that made them sound progressive. when they are not progressive at all. to me, when i think of reform, i am a historian of education. i think of people who wanted more funding for public schools, who wanted more public support, who wanted to make sure last sizes were small enough and reasonable enough for teachers to do a good job. who wanted better prepared teachers, they wanted better

and more. they wanted integrated schools, they fought against the penny pincher's who wanted to undermine the schools. those were the real reformers. and throughout the course of my book i wrote about the reform movement and they were always meant to make public schools better. so this current crop of so-called reformers, are now led by betsy devos they don't want to make schools better they want to replace him with privately managed schools which are charters. i know in california i know public charters are called public charters i don't believe they are public they are privately managed schools. but they are also the so-called reformers, want vouchers. that is something that destroys the line between church and state which i think is wrong. and so is a graduate of public education from houston texas, i strongly believe what public education does is it brings communities together, it's an opportunity for parents to have their first experience

with any kind of political action and community action, and they learned about politics and they learn about working with other parents. children learn, they learn the children who are different from themselves. they are not with just people with exactly same race, religion or economic background. so i call these people disruptors, because in fact that's what they do. they disrupt communities, they disrupt school districts, and they seek -- they say i want to disrupt the schools. i want to reinvent the schools. i'm always amused when i see a story of in some business magazine about a hedge fund manager who wants to reinvent the schools. a billionaire once to reinvent the schools.

all these people have never taught, have never been in the public schools as far as i know, i know a little bit about how to reinvent schools. they have no reasonable basis to put these plans forward. other than for disruption purposes. in the business world, disruption is considered a very good thing. i remember some years back i was about to be interviewed on a tv program, actually was a charlie rose show in the person right before me was the ceo of a big tech company. i heard him say to charlie rose, we reinvent ourselves every two years. and i thought that's fine, but you don't do that to children and families. when a child goes to school, they want to know the person who is their teacher yesterday is still there today. and the person who is her teacher last year is still in the classroom they were in last year. and they can go in and say hello. there is certain value to stability. [applause] we have a lot of family problems and yet no one says we should take the children away and just rotate families. but that would be reinventing families i suppose prayed we just don't do that.

children need to know there are stable adults in their life who care for them and there for them to after day. >> host: a few years ago, here in san francisco, our unions -- what we did is our campaign for our contract was for stable, safe and supported schools to your point. that's exactly what we want to provide. >> guest: when you ask the other half of your question, who are the disruptors? first of all, in the book i wrote in 2010 called the death and life of the american school system, i described the billionaire boys club. at that time, there were three foundations that were the heart of the billionaire boys club. the walter foundation which owns walmart. bill in melinda gates foundation and the eli rhodes foundation which has made a lot of trouble in los angeles and throughout the country for that matter. those were the big three. what i discovered in writing this book was i began

researching and found there are dozens more members of the billionaires of boys club. billionaire boys and girls club. and the waltons are still number one, they are worth $150 billion. the three of them collectively. there is also charles and david coke, and david cook recently died so there's charles coke. and there are many other billionaires besides them. some of them are democrat, most are republicans. they have behind them a particular -- is not even a think tank it's called alec and i think everyone should know it that is. being informed is a crucial part of being part of the resistance. the alec is the american legislative exchange council. it was formed in 1973, basically to push a very far right wing agenda and as they would say put government in a

bathtub and drown it. they are against gun control, they are against environmental controls, they are against public schools, they are against unions, they are against any standards for teachers, they are against the certification. you can list all the things they are against it what they are for his deregulation and complete freedom for profit-making. and the only government program that i know of that they support, is government aid for religious schools. >> host: that is an interesting exception to be made. >> guest: yes and their many corporations that support alec. i mentioned many of those corporations and some of the biggest ones in america because they stand to benefit by having lower taxes. the whole point of alec in this very bar right wing agenda is lower taxes. therefore fewer public services. and of course who does this harm the most? it harms those who have the least because they rely on government services.

>> host: that is an indirect plug for schools and communities first here in california if you have not signed the petition to get on the bout, there are several people here who have those petitions. if you are a california voter, there are the petitions. it is exactly the kind of fight we are in right now to make sure the corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes. enough about disruptors for now, what about talking about us. what is your favorite story of the resistance? just so happens the t-shirt is about organizing and resisting. so it is very, we are very happy that words in your book. we are the resistance. so tells more. >> guest: there so many wonderful stories, it's hard to choose one. i do love a group called the bats, are there any bats here? the bats are called the bad teachers association.

they are teachers, 50000 teachers and probably more by now who have organized across the country to push back against being blamed for society's problems. being unfairly blamed, and they fight for children, and they fight for the atomic of teachers. and for more funding for schools. they are our favorite group of mine. one of the stories i love best, to show you how the resistance can work, comes from chicago. rob emmanuel was the mayor of chicago at the time and had complete control of the schools. he decided, in his lack of wisdom, to close the 50 public schools in a single day. which caused tremendous havoc and harm to the children of chicago. i should say that a lot of what he did was to benefit charter schools, and charter schools were part of a gentrification process. the city of chicago between the years 2,002,016, lost

200,000 african-american citizens. projects were torn down and neighborhoods were gentrified and charter schools were built where it would appeal to white middle-class families what was previously black neighborhoods. he announced an intention having close 50 schools, to close the last open enrollment high school in brownsville, which was the heart of the black community. this called the walter h high school and g2 brown who is a hero in my book, is a civil rights leader he led a group who led allies and they pestered wherever he went and he said don't close diet save diet they protested and all the conventional ways and he simply ignored them. and then one day they had an idea, and they set up lawn

chairs on the campus of the high school which has now been emptied out and was ready for doing with whatever they are doing. probably turn it into charter schools. and they set up their launchers, and they said we are on a hunger strike. and for the first week no one noticed them. there were only 12 people in plastic launchers. and they stayed a second week. and they stayed a third week, and the shock intern chicago press began writing about them. and the national press came around and on the 34th day, rob emmanuel capitulated and said we will not close this high school. instead i'm going to invest $15 million and open it as the school for the arts. it was a complete victory in which g2 brown and 11 friends managed to defeat a very powerful mayor. and they won their battle. that was an example where people with no money, not even a lot of people managed to

resist and win. another of my favorite stories, is a parent who is a friend of mine. she is a parent activist in new york city. she was very upset by invasion of student privacy. she is also a huge advocate for reducing class-size. she has been banging her head against the waltzing trying to class sizes reduced to making no progress. she saw on the issue of student privacy and very powerful issue that would mobilize parents. she was in colorado and rachel stickler became very upset because bill gates carnegie corporation put up $100 million to create a data-gathering organization called in bloom, and the idea was they would gather every point of data about every student in a district. and it would be managed with software owned by murdoch corporation. and that would be put into a cloud managed by amazon, and

400 data points about every student, and what could possibly go wrong with that? they did not like it one bit and they reached out to parents in every district that had signed on to surrender their data to bill gates and the carnegie corporation, and one by one they dropped out. last data dropout was new york state it when they dropped out in bloom into which they'd put $100 million simply collapsed. and lanie hanson and rachel had no money. they were to parents who organized other parents reaching out to them with concerns about the privacy of their student data. there are dozens of stories like that. i will tire just one other that i love because of the name. a group of parents in texas were very upset because the legislature it decided, and their lack of wisdom, that five graduation tests were not enough to graduate high school. the student should have to pass a 15 test to graduate high school. and so a group of mothers were

very upset by this and they formed an organization called texans advocating for meaningful student assessment. no one could remember the name so they were called mom's against drunk testing. [laughter] and they were very effective. and in fact, the legislature dropped that plan altogether. and while vortexes story because this is very powerful. there is an organization in texas called pastors for texas children. they are baptist ministers who believed struggling the separation of church and state. this organization, led by a baptist ministries become a very dear friend of mine, has advocated session after session against vouchers. the most powerful people in texas, the most right wing powerful governor and lieutenant governor want vouchers passionately. but the pastors for texas children have been able to

create a coalition between urban democrats and rural republicans who understand that public school is the heart of their community. and that coalition, for three consecutive sessions, has blocked vouchers. now the other thing that the pastors for texas children have done is they have formed a chapter in oklahoma called pastors for oklahoma children they have reached out and created similar groups in other states. and their goal is above all, to stop vouchers because they believe in the separation of church and state. so again, nobody and their money, just people who have a passionate belief that public education is the foundation of our democracy. we have to protect it. >> host: all these inspiring stories are in the book. i want to read a couple short passages from your book, and then follow up with a question. let me just find, for those of you who brought your book, page 269, that sounded a

little bit like get out your handbooks. so here's what i wanted to read. oh it may not be, i have to get the real and now, although this one is all marked up in dogeared where i needed it to be. okay, so nothing that the disruptors have champions, has succeeded unless one counts as success closing hundreds, perhaps thousands of community public schools and low income neighborhoods. the disruptors have succeeded in demoralizing teachers, and reducing the number of people entering the teaching profession. they have enriched entrepreneurs to have open charter schools or develop shoddy new product and services to sell to schools. they have enhanced the bottom line of large testing corporations. they're filling with the common core cost states of billions of dollars to implement, but had no effect on national or international

test scores. an outraged many parents, child advocates, lovers of literature, and teachers. the disruptors tried to encourage the collection of personally, despite your talk about, personally identifiable student data and monetize it. but this was stymied, at least temporarily by well-informed parents would block the intrusion of "big brother" into their children's lives. and then the next section, the most important lesson to be learned from this account of the past few decades, is that reform doesn't need reform. that's a big r and the little are. it means to do borel is a chaos and turmoil put it does not protas better education. there is no reform movement, the disruptors never tried to reform public schools. they wanted to disrupt and privatize the public schools that americans have relied on for generations. they wanted to but public school funding in private hands, they wanted to short-circuit democracy. they wanted to cripple not improve the public schools. they wanted to replace the

public service with the free market. the disruptors don't care about growing racial segregation in schools, they don't care that charters are usually more segregated than public schools are. they remain willfully ignorant of research that demonstrates the value of integrated schools. so you had touched on that in your earlier comments, but here's my question. what they say, is that they are trying to improve education in our country. but i am wondering whether in fact their real goal, with the real goal is, is it possible it's not to improve public education for all, but it could be a very deliberate attempt to try to guarantee that there is always and under educated populace made of those people of color and people living in poverty? >> guest: you know i think, i am always reluctant to attribute bad motives to people unless they are trying to make a profit that diverts money from children -- from

reducing class-size and paying teachers an adequate salary. and i think people make a profit in education by selling pencils, by selling papers, that sort of thing is always going on. but we now for the first time, entrepreneurs looking at education as a profit-making opportunity. and that i think, is something that is frightening anew. because years ago, this is sort of well-known, when i worked in the george hwb should menstruation, i worked in the hoover institution and in all these right wing think tanks. i am still on their e-mail list. [laughter] they have a notice? >> so i get these notices about annual meetings were entrepreneurs and hedge fund managers are invited to discuss how to make a profit from public education. they are not selling pencils. what they are out to do is to create charters that are not

regulated at all. they are not accountable. in california now has more charters than any other state. i think about 10% of the kids in california are in charter schools. up until this recent change of the law which is not had taken effect, charters were unaccountable and unregulated. in california has had some of the biggest charter scandals in the entire country where mom and pop charters have skimmed off millions of dollars. usually the charter scandals are in real estate, but not always. the biggest charter scandal in history, was announced just last year with an indictment in san diego where an online charter corporation called a3 was indicted along with several districts that was facilitating their scam. they were gathering the nays of students for what was basically an online charter operation, where the children were not actually getting any

services. the scam amounted to $50 million diverted from the state's coffers. the main scammer had absconded to austria, and we don't know whether he is going to be repatriated back to the u.s. for trial. if you lose $50 million to somebody who has a big idea, this is not even an educator. how terrible do your laws have to be to allow somebody to steal that much money from children? which is what it amounts to. in my book, i recounts a number of stories like this, a shocking number come from california. they are charter operators who have made money from real estate. as just a switch from california back to texas for a minute, there is a company called ide a, which is now one of the biggest and most successful charter chains in the nation. they have assets of over $1 billion. now that's public money.

betsy devos, over the last couple of years has given them over $200 million. they run a very successful operation because they make a promise, if you put your tried and i will schools they will be admitted to a four-year college. what they don't tell people is you can't graduate until you've been admitted to a four-year college. so yes, everybody gets admitted to four-year college. it happens there are colleges that accept everyone. and so they find podunk university that takes everyone and they say see, all of our students were admitted to four-year colleges. they just got into a little bit of trouble because they decided to lease a private jet for $2 million a year. and that did not seem -- it was not seemingly first school organization have a private jet. the amount of money being paid out to their executives was a little bit embarrassing. but this kind of thing is going on all over the

country. florida is rife with charter scandals and voucher scandals. florida pays out a billion dollars a year to religious schools that get vouchers. it is totally unregulated. they had teachers who are high school dropouts in the florida voucher schools. the kids that have the vouchers don't take the state test because they are not accountable. the state of florida gives out $2 billion a year to charter schools. so $3 billion a year is underfunded public schools. this despite the fact the constitution says there shall be no vouchers, despite the fact that there is a referendum and the public said we don't want vouchers. and the legislature just does it anyway because a lot of people and legislature seem to be connected in some immediate way to a charter corporation. there are some religious group getting money from this free-flowing public funding.

it's b1 it's so hard to hear about these hundreds and billions of dollars not going to our schools. there's so much we could do with that money. i find myself often, now quoting jonathan causal when he said how people say you can't throw money at the problem, of course you can. rich people do it all the time. you just have to know how and where to throw it, right? >> guest: and you have been the right space to get it. >> host: and you have to be to catch it i guess. with that, are there questions ready for diane? are there cards -- does anybody have cards? all right,. >> guest: while we are waiting for questions i just want to point out something, the funding in california, a couple of years ago may be less shy wrote article for capital in maine, and i

started doing research into the federal data about how much money california spends compared to other states. in california, which is one of the richest states in the country, is right about the national median. a little bit below the national median in spending. it's the spending per-pupil that's about the same as it is in south carolina. there has got to be something wrong with this picture. >> host: there is something wrong with this picture. so the first question is from jonathan, how do you explain betsy devos is current popularity as it rockstar sarah get for trump, campaigning for him in pennsylvania? >> guest: what betsy devos speaks to a particular kind of zealous evangelical, because she is one herself. we'd never had a secretary of education who absently despises public schools as she does. and so for people who want

public money to be used to pay for their private school tuition, she is a rock star. for people who want public money to pay for religious schools, she is a rock star. i think she is still interesting to be able care about public schools and she forgets that most 90% of the american kids have their kids in public schools. and seem to be quite happy with them. every time i see a poll, people like their teachers, they love their teachers. and if you ask how americans education is doing they will say terrible. i've seen this documentary and things are just awful. how to field the school your child goes to? oh my child's school is great. my child's teacher is wonderful. so there is that dichotomy and i think i'm very happy that trump is sending out betsy devos as his spokesperson, because i always picture her with a certain kind of alien or snarl. which says the rest of us are

not as good as she is and she -- it doesn't matter that somebody untied one of her yachts and set it loose. [laughter] because she has nine others. >> host: so gross, so gross. i wanted to mention jonathan was san jose state university, this question comes from an elementary school teacher, kathy sullivan, also a ubs member. the educational trends are trending towards elementary school students being expected to master more and more abstract concepts at younger and younger ages. educators know this is setting children up to fail, what can educators do to take back our authority as experts in education? >> guest: this is a very important question, and to a large extent it is the result of common core. you have to bear in mind that people who wrote the common core did not include any teachers who knew anything

about early childhood education. it did not include any teachers who knew anything about english language learners. it did not include anyone who is a special education teacher. so the common core was written primary by people who are in the testing industry. and so there is a law in my book about why the common core is not working. : : when i was reading the early drafts of it, i said why would you care if first-graders have correct punctuation. you would expect as children get older, but having exact right grammar and punctuation and first grade is pretty ridiculous. the first thing you want them to do is care about reading, care

about reading, engage in learning. that is more important than the form. the common core had a lot of stuff for early children which did not make any sense. when you see who was on the writing committee, you can see why. they did not know much about young children. i think common core, the pressure to bring testing down to first grade and even kindergarten is ridiculous. it is very important for teachers to keep in mind what is right and what is wrong. people telling you to do this don't know children. you have to keep inside your head and inside your heart. understanding what your professional duties and ethics are. be prepared to resist. >> thank you. music to our ears. music to our ears. [applause] next question is from sure von

from an elementary school. i will preface it with knowing that michael bloomberg is one of the star disruptors in your book. with that i will ask this question. which candidate will do you think will be most helpful to public school teachers, students and families. >> let me say that, politically, i am a member of what i considered the toothbrush party. i saw a tweet one day, a few weeks ago that said i would vote for toothbrush over donald trump. [laughter] >> dental hygiene is very important. [laughter] >> which is to say i will vote for anyone on the democratic line. as a new yorker, i found that bloomberg had some very good qualities. somewhat of a nanny mayor.

he even banned smoking in public parks and beaches. just can't smoke. i never smoked and never liked it. he was good in public health. very good on the environment. not a good mayor in education. no child left behind, which ever way you want to put it, he did not like educators. he did not trust educators. he was extremely corporate. very data driven. testing, testing, testing. he closed many schools and opened lots of small schools. as soon as they failed, placed with more scales. he loves disruptions. he loves charter schools. having said all that, if he is a candidate, i will support him. i think from an educational

point of view, he has the worst positions. in terms of who has the best positions, right now it would be elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. [applause] and i want to add that the two of them are the only candidates that have pledged they would eliminate the federal charter schools program. this is a program people know very little about. it was started in the clinton administration in 1994. the idea was, let's have this experimentation. let's see what happens. if they have innovative ideas, let's further innovation. a small program for small number of charters. it has grown into a program that is now totally at the discretion of betsy devos. using it to fund large corporate

charter chains. she gave over $100 million, over $200 million in the last two years that i described. she gave how many millions to new york city's no excuses called success academy. a very harsh discipline particularly for black and brown children. i think that this is a program that should be eliminated. one of the things i have done is worked with anthony cody. we created an organization called a network for public education. i urge you all to join. membership is free. almost 400,000 members. i don't think there's a single row form or disruptor organization in the country that has even 1000 members. what they have is paid employees our organization last year due

to studies. the first study found that of the charter schools that had been opened by the federal charter school program between 2006 and 2014, pre-divorce, more than one third of them, 36% of them, either never opened or closed before opening. then we did a second report, asleep at the wheel. second report was called still asleep at the wheel. [laughter] it was a state-by-state breakdown. california has one of the worst records of charter schools that receive federal funding that either never opened or closed soon after opening. a lot of loose money around. it is not going to children. it ends up in someone's bank account. it never gets returned. a lot of federal money going to

these large chains which replace local community schools. the other point that i want to make which is sort of a sideways addition to this is the question of state takeovers. i know in california you had a state takeover of oakland. one after another after another after another. it is a very good book that i'm in the middle of reading. it is called "takeover". there have not been any successful state takeovers. they are not about improving schools. they are about race and power. white legislatures taking away power from black and brown school boards and then cutting off their access to the first step in gaining political power which is to get elected to the school board. you don't have a first step.

the only time you sign these takeovers, black and brown school board being replaced. an attempted takeover in houston texas. my hometown. if one school is persistently failing, the entire school district can be taken over by the state. it is a very highly rated urban districts. on the verge of being taken over by the state of texas. very right wing. >> terrifying. some of the goals and narratives supporting privatization can be found even within the textbooks of our schools. how do we break up the textbook and testing monopolies nationwide. >> i wrote a book about that some years ago called the language police. the best thing that could happen

is if teachers chose their own text books instead of having the state to use them. the decision-making is it leads to a lot of pressure making that says you cannot say this, you cannot use this image. what has happened in the textbook industry is there has been a tremendous consolidation. twenty or 30 viable publishers of school materials. today there are only two or three. when the common core was first created, the rationale for it, bill gates sponsored and paid for the entirety of common core. the rationale was if there was a national marketplace the vendors would be able to develop more creative materials to sell because there would basically be

a monopoly. how that leads to creativity is beyond me. standardization has exact opposite intent. it leads to more standardization and less creativity. >> this is a question from thomas. from richmond schools. how do educator unions, how do we advocate for the teacher america in our public schools. >> i agree. the people that i have met who join it, young people, are very smart. they are very idealistic. they want to devote themselves to children. very unimpressive that they think they can do that with five-week training. five weeks in summer school.

some of them become burned out very quickly. some of them fulfilled their equipment. guaranteed a place at goldman sachs or jpmorgan chase. you put that on their resume and is a great thing for getting into law school. all too often gone on one or two paths. a lot of them have become super and pendants advocating for vouchers, shop groups for the privatization movement. utla teacher america. seattle who is a teacher leader there with teach for america. introducing me the other night in seattle and apologized and

said i learned about corporate reform and i understand i made a mistake. there is a blogger named gary rubinstein who was fantastic. he has become a career teacher. he calls himself a critical friend of teacher america. he really watches it very closely. it prevents itself as a charity. i've seen them listed with the girl scouts and other charitable groups as a need of contribution. they are not in need of contributions. there is a negative's are very highly paid. it is a business. a very successful business. the greatest gripe that i have with teacher america is they have devalued the teaching profession. anyone can teach with five weeks of training. spending years becoming good at your job, having deep knowledge based on your studies, that all

this means nothing because if you come from an ivy league college and how five weeks in the summer you will be even better than the experienced teachers. that is total nonsense. it undermines the teaching profession. teaching america has embedded the most right wing forces in america. so much of their funding has come from the walton foundation. the walton foundation has given them 50-60-100 million. putting together about a fund of about $100 million from his foundation and several others. they have worked with the organization's most intent on privatizing schools and breaking unions. with the charter sector, most of them are nonunion. one of the messages that i hope to get across here and in the book, not just because i'm speaking to you in san francisco and speaking to utla on sunday,

i think unions play a very important role in trying to revise and improve american education. it is the dream of every right-wing pennypinching governor to have no union at all because no one will be at the table to speak up for the schools. they don't want to have a union representative say we are not spending enough in california. we are not spending enough in oklahoma. we need to increase the budget or we will sacrifice our future. they don't want that voice. the union provides that voice. i have never been a member of a union, but i believe they play a very important part in democracy and they have to be strengthened and you should be proud of your membership. [applause] >> in san francisco what we did

to get teacher america out of our schools is we campaigned for, and/or stand elected school board members who also did not like teach for america. they are not here anymore. thank you to our school board members. >> i should add going back to michael bloomberg, teacher america has an extra wing. lte as it is known, trains tsa members that want to go into politics to prepare to run for political office and help raise money for them. three besties. one is michael bloomberg's daughter, emma bloomberg and another is a billionaire arthur brock. some other billionaire who was here. i did not mention when listing the disruptors that in addition to the billionaires, this whole disruption movement is heavily supported by wall street.

it is the campaign money that makes such a big difference. it goes out to people running for office all out of the country. typically deceptive name. democrats for legislative reform they will list the candidates around the country and then say send your contributions. it may be $1000, but if you can get 100 people to put in $1000, that can make a big difference. the dangers in democracy, they are districts where people used to be able to run for local school boards. when you have $200,000 coming into your opponent and you can only raise 30, you are overwhelmed. a woman in nashville who was a lawyer who decided to run for the nashville school board, her kids attended title i schools. she loved the schools.

she thought she could make a difference on the school board. then discovered the woman she was running was out raising her five-one. most of the money was coming from other states. this was happening all over the country. the wealthy disruptors are pouring money into elections in other states in order to elect people that will support privatization. amy won overwhelmingly and when she ran again she faced yet again the stanford children money, stand for children is another organization that used to be good but turned when they saw how much money there was by being on that side. amy won a second time. a very outstanding voice in public education. i guess my point is, yes, you can feed these sources. it requires dedication. the reason that i am very hopeful is the people fighting for public schools are doing it

because they believe passionately in public education the people on the other side, the disruptors, are doing it because they are paid. if the money ever stops, i don't think they'd have any organizations ever at all. this is why i want to try to encourage them by saying that they failed to stop finding all these failing enterprises. >> can you explain how charters are met -- >> the charters have become, in many places, highly segregated. not always, but they are more often than not. one of the big appeals is to say they are for black and brown children. in massachusetts, for instance, i tell a long story about how the waltons decided we don't need to win california because

we have governor brown who was a charter supporter. we don't need to win new york because we have governor cuomo who is depending on wall street money. the one blue state that has eluded us is massachusetts. the waltons started a referendum in the spring of 2016 with the idea that they would raise the cap on charter schools and have a dramatic expansion of charters twelve new charters a year forever anywhere in the state. when they did their polling in 2016, it appeared that this would pass easily because it was cast as a civil rights issue. if you care about black and brown children you will want to vote for charters. what they did not count on was that the massachusetts teachers association had a brand-new president and she thought that this was a terrible idea. she persuaded her organization to put up 1,010,000 members and

they put up enough money to raise $9 million. the waltons put in twice or three times that much. when november of 2016 came around, barbara of massachusetts had been able to mobilize not only teachers but local school boards, local school boards, parents and teachers mobilize. parents trust teachers. the referendum went down 62-38. [applause] the waltons commissioned a secret analysis which was immediately leaked about why they lost. the number one reason was people trust their teachers. the teachers were the most powerful communicators of the message. if you want to preserve your public schools, you vote against charters. what can we do.

try to get a referendum. the public does not want vouchers. public vote is overwhelmingly against vouchers. arizona just had a referendum a few years ago. a very red state at this point. the public voted overwhelmingly against vouchers. the other thing that they found, they blamed the union. barbara was a communist. they said she even tweeted real democrat support would support real public schools. that is a pretty dangerous recommendation. but she wanted. i will be endorsing in a couple of weeks. just kind of a discussion with barbara. >> wish i could be there. one of the demands for the current movements is to abolish our outlaw profit in education which you already mentioned.

could we start pushing for this? >> this is the interesting thing you will hear the democratic candidates may be even bloomberg as well saying i am against for-profit charters. only one state in the country that allows for-profit charters and that is arizona. you have legislators there that vote money for their own charters. but, in the other 49 states, there are charters that are nonprofit that are run by for-profit charter companies. in florida, you have no for-profit charters, but you have a whole lot of for-profit charter management companies. in the state of michigan, betsy devos, there are no for-profit charters. 80% are run by for-profit management companies. you have to listen carefully

when a democratic candidate says i'm for abolishing for-profit charters. how about for-profit management corporations. the emo's and the ceos in the other mo's which are draining off millions of dollars. which get involved in the most complex deals i cannot even begin to understand them myself. releasing it to themselves and selling their property. in the public ends up paying twice for the same property. >> we have time for a couple more questions. i want to leave a little time for closing remarks. can you say something about donald trump's repeated derogatory references to government schools? >> yes. i think i said earlier that the problem is not government schools. the problem is that government

is failing schools by opposing for the past 20 years, failing policies that clearly do not work and yet government refuses to change those policies. we have failed government policies, not failing schools. the appropriate response to this, it really is a very far right wing state. i used to hear the hoover institutions. should we also get rid of government highways while we are at it. how about those police. paid for by the public. there government police. should we each have a voucher for our own security guard. guess who's voucher will not cover any protection at all. you can think of all the public services that we count upon,

whether it is the national transportation safety board, the faa, the food and drug administration, and these are things that protect our food, rapidly trying to get rid of environmental protection. i was going to say national parks, but he announced he wants to have drilling and mining in the national parks. we have a government that is the dream of the farthest right extremist fringe of american politics. the most important thing that we can do is to encourage a blue tsunami in november. [applause] >> i'm actually going to broaden this. this is about san francisco. i think it can apply to other cities as well. what steps do educators and

parents need to take to start a movement to opt out of standardized test? >> one of the stories in my book is about the new york state opt out movement which was very successful. it started with common core testing. it started with a parent and long island new york who realized her son was coming home every day saying i hate school. i don't want to go to school anymore. he was being test prepped and test prepped and test prepped. all of the enjoyment of school that he had previously expressed was disappearing. she started a facebook group. within a matter of days she had 1000 members. within a matter of week 23,000 members. she linked up with parents and other parts of the state and they had many thousands of members. they started an organization and they are amazing. they are all volunteers. they have no money. they go to keyrings.

they meet with their legislators they tried to elect assemblyman and state senators that support their cause. they were able through their constant agitation to get 20% of the eligible students to opt out of state testing. it had a dramatic impact. 80% of the kids did not take the test. you cannot rank and rate districts when 50%, 40% opt out. it really screws up the states statistics. they tried threats and bribes and nothing stopped them. a constant battle. every year the eighth-graders leave in a new crop of third-graders, in. they had to constantly induct new parents. i go into great detail in the book about why standardized

testing is a very bad measure of children. children are so much more creative and original and have so much potential that cannot possibly be measured by standardized test. i have lost all faith in standardized test as a measure of what students can do and what they can be. there is something i want to read before we close. it goes to this point. i will give it back. [laughter] in the very beginning of the book i have for, they are not exactly axioms, whatever you call them, but this is from one of the people involved in the massachusetts fight. he is a professor at the university of massachusetts who is a specialist in dark money. a lot of the stuff that goes on in education is funded by dark money. you don't know where the money

is coming from. you find out later or you never find out. money never sleeps. follow the money. very important. the second is from albert einstein who said i believe in standardizing automobiles, i do not believe in standardizing human beings. a great peril that threatens american culture. the third one may surprise you, comes from doctor martin luther king who said this before he was assassinated. everybody can do great because everybody can serve. you don't have to have a college degree to serve. you don't have to know about aristotle to serve. you don't need to know einstein's theories to serve. a soul generated by love.

people will sometimes say to me, kind of anti-academic. it is saying, you know, you are a good person, but you are not educated. hi test scores do not define you as a human being. i have hi test scores, but i'm not better than people who have low test scores. every child deserves the best that we can give them. every child. [applause] by except being this theory that started with the texas miracle by accepting the theory that we could test every child every year and judge children and teachers and schools. we have become locked into a way of thinking that is very destructive in which tens to,

not tens, but forces to rank and rate children from best to worst. the standardized test is construction that is deeply flawed. many children that have brilliant capacity that is unrecognized by standardized tests. what we want to do as teachers and parents is love every child two pieces and give them the best that we have. [applause] >> we have time for one more question? okay. how do we fight against the superintendent who was trained by the eli foundation? this comes out of richmond. >> a terrible record. they have gone from district to

district. usually wreaking instruction. you will find some who say i'm not a typical brody. i really am a decent person. for the most part they have been trained in a management philosophy that says the best thing to do was to close it and replace it with the charter school. they have been trained in management philosophy that is destructive to children and believes in no child left behind and sorting and ranking in stigmatizing children. this is all a very negative philosophy. i would say as teachers, as a union, be vigilant, the firm. stand against bringing in any educator that comes from the institute even if it is called the yale management institute. >> i did not know about that one. >> he gave $100 million to yale to take possession of his

institute. >> sounds like they are throwing money at the problem. [laughter] may be, can you please share the results of the npa study of the federal charter school program which you already talked about. the missing funds. >> none of the missing funds were ever returned. over a billion dollars was thrown out the door. you talk about throwing money at school spirit the money was thrown out at charter operators. never gave back the money. >> more money. do you have any closing remarks? >> i think i've said everything i have to say except for this. that is that i hope that you will all join the network for public education. consider sending a delegation to

our meeting at the end of march in philadelphia. join the resistance. realize that we are in a battle for the future of public education. understand that public education is a vital foundational institution in our democracy and that when people attack public education they are in fact attacking democracy. believe in what you are doing. believe in yourself. believe in your professional ethics. stand by the children and stand by your community. thank you. [applause] >> we do have a very small token of our appreciation which is a commemorative pin celebrating united educators of san francisco's 100th anniversary. unions have been around for a long time. we will be around for a long time.

we will be fighting the good fight right alongside you. thank you so much. [applause] >> i will wear it with pride. >> now on both tvs afterwards. cal thomas explores the rise and fall of nations throughout history. offers his thoughts on whether the united states will remain a superpower. he is interviewed by author and cnn contributor amanda carpenter. afterwards is a weekly interview interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest work. all afterwards programs are also available as podcasts. >> the book is "america's expiration date." you say based on the findings of -- great empires only last about 250 years which means america's