>> ma rye's new book is american harvest: god, country and farming in he heartland. available now in a beautiful hard cover from gray wolf press. it's from the middle of the country. you can buy it by clicking on the button down there. we have plenty in stock. they'll fastly be delivered. thank you, thank you everybody and we'll see you next year in real life for paper planes. >> booktv continues on c-span2. television for serious readers. >> hello. good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for coming to this event. on behalf of the book store i'm gilbert i'll be your host. we're dag virtual event here with tim deroche discussing "a

fine line how most american kids are kept out of the best public schools. "we're so excited the book store can bring authors and works to community during this uncertain time. we'll continue to host virtual event. our next event is tomorrow, monday, may 18th, at 6:00 p.m. with dr. -- a discussion of the book, boneheads and brainiacs. for regular updates on upcoming events subscribe describe to our our virtual presentation will end with a qea. if you see a question on the list you want for our speakers to answer click the like' button and we'll try to answer as many questions as time allows. if you want to purchase a copy of the book you can click on the green purchase button directly below the viewer screen.

the link will direct you to our website where you can continue your checkout process. we're open for curbside pickup so we can offer that. with that being said let me introduce our speakers this evening. hell he, everybody. >> hi, gilbert. >> jill stewart is the managing editor of this -- the former manager editor of the he l.a. weekry and former manager direct of the doings serve l.a. she an experience radio commentator. for seven years she was a metro reporter with "los angeles times" focus many topics he teaches journalism at chapman university and is a free lance editor, analyst and strategics,

gloria romero is an education reformer, in 2001 she was elected to the 24th senate strict of california representing east los angeles. she was chose into serve as senate democratic caucus chair and as senate majority leader. the first woman to ever held that leadership position. and she is also evidence as chair thereof see senate education committee. tim deroche is has worked wife client's k through 1 education, serving public school stricts, charter school networks. he is an alumnus of both the international consulting firm and the pbs producers academy. his first book, the ballad, a re-telling of huck finn on the los angeles river was featured on cbs sudden morning. so that's everybody for the

evening. i'm going to pass it off to jill stewart so she can give us a little bit. thank you for being here. take it away. >> okay, we'll good to a video soon, i believe, but first a little bit of background on the book. i'm going to read something from the back of the book from a former departmentty secretary of education under president obama, and he said that the must-read for education reform. leaders, policymakers parents, anybody anyone who believes his child's zip code should not prevent him or her from accessing the best education and school district offers and i'll give yaw hint about the book. the fantastic tim deroche suggests a number of ways for the public to start suing the government to get this rolling. so that's just a hint out about -- this not a -- this is a lovely book filled with beautiful maps but not a safe

book it's a wonderfully interesting, daring book. that's it. >> thank you, jill. i'm so gravity for the book store for hosting this event. we hoped to be in the store today. with many of you in the store celebrating the launch of this book and talking about the difficult issues, but really this is a great way to do this, given the pandemic and we're just so grateful for vromans and one of the few advantages of the pandemic our launch party right now is accessible to folks not in los angeles. so i have very fond recollections of the launch of our first book at the last book store in downtown l.a. so very happy to have you all here. this book is something that i've been working on for send yearns since i met gloria, and really gloria and i started with this

kernel of curiosity. i lived in silver lake here in l.a. and some elite public schools and areas, and i know that people pay -- we knew that people paid quite a bit to live in the zones for the schools and start with this basic curiosity, what is the legal basis? if a family of young family is a tax-paying member of the district, constituent of the district and they live within walking distance of one of these schools but they're on the wrong side of one of these lined, what this district's legal basis for excluding them from saying -- turning them away from that school. so, that one bit of curiosity led us down a rabbit hole, led me down a rabbit hole of research and i uncovered surprise after surprise after surprise how these things actually work in the real world. and i learned that i'd been working in education reform off and on for 20 years, put really

there were a lot of things going on that i was up aware of, and a certain opinion -- unaware of and at a certain point it became clear there was a great untold story and that i could tell a story that would be fun and fascinating to read about american democracy and public education, but might also generate some interest in change. so what i'm going to do right now is quickly -- our friend sang created a great video, which is a summary of the book and we'll play a few minutes of the video and you can get a feel for what we're talking out and then jill with smell good, tough questions for us. >> so let me do this. just a second. share screen. okay.

>> a person's zip code shouldn't determine their educational destiny. i'm tim deroche, the offer of "a fine line pow most american kids are kept out of the best public schools" he book is about policies that assign children to schools based on where they live, and specifically i'm shining a light on attendance zones the lines drawn by a district that determine who bees to which school and who gets preferential enrollment at the best public schools. >> to me this book goes to really the essence, the heart of what i saw as a policymaker, as a legislator, in sacramento. i helped us to connect the dots. very exciting hearing for the that education committee. >> i'm retired, california state senator, gloria romero. was actually the very first woman to if achieve the leadership position, being elect told be the majority leader, and

also i was on the education committee for most of the 14 years that i served. >> gloria romero is a hero of mine. so honored when she agreed to write the after word to the book. she fought for kids when she was in the senate. she was always willing to speak truth to power. >> is it right to have these artificial lines drawn by some unidentified bureaucrat that this the front door through which you can enter or this is a door that says closed and you must in elsewhere. >> most people heard of district brians, legislatively determine bounded but what mays an outside rolled of'm the lines drawn by the strict staff showing which kids are directed to which school and the lines only have mean north best schools. keeps the population of that school separate from the broad are community of the district.

>> these lines have existed for decades in our state in our nation, and it's about time that there's a spotlight on these little fine lines that people never see and really become determinant of who gets a high quality education and who is prevented. >> redlining was a practice during the 1930s, during the new deal era. the government drew maps showing who or wasn't eligible for federal housing it's sis stance and so they would shade certain areas of the city green or blue and those people could get housing assistance and then shied areas red or yellow and those areas were not eligible for housing assistance the government used the map to discriminate against people and we found in many cases the outline of the attendant zone kind of mirrors the shape of the desirable area from the

redlining map, from 80 years ago. this is really something that happens across the country. >> i believe that when readers pick up this become, they will have this ah-ha moment. there's so much that needs to be done to change the system but the first one is awareness. >> you can talk to parents of all different income levels who have had their lives affected by the policies. poor minority parents excluded from these elite public schools in cities. middle income parents who had to sell the home where they raised their kids, wealthy parents in malibu who paid a friend for their utility bill. it's really extraordinary, the length that people will go to mav gate these policy -- navigate the policies. >> have the courage to raid this book and understand that this is an opportunity, it's long past time to erase the lines, to recognize them and dismantle

them, the save way we have taken on political gerrymandering and banking redlining. take on education redlining for every family that wants to have access the american dream. >> all right. thank you, everybody. just picked up a good representation of what we're trying to do with the become. become over to you, jill. >> i have a hard question for you right off the bat. page 51, tim calls a school district in chicago and states he is a parent to -- trying to get into the school. tell us about that call. once you realize that parents were lying to get into the good schools, making up addresses and later in the book -- we'll get to this -- being arrested, being followed and arrest i for lying but their addresses so their kids could get into the better school just don the street. tell us about the phone call to

chicago. >> yeah. so, the book is based on these pairs of -- the book he centered on these pairs of schools. one elite school and one failing school right next to each other, and they share an attendant zone boundary and the pad concern is the same where you see your debt any is determined whether you're on one side of the line or the other, and people are paying significant premiums to live in the zone in the privileged zone, for the elite public school, so what that does is drives up real estate prices and the divisions, the social divisions grow over time because middle class people and lower income people can't afford those houses, can't necessarily afford those houses, and so we identified these schools, the pairs of schools, and one -- the best example is in chicago. there is a school called lincoln elementary, which is a very elite public school, one of the shining stars of the chicago public schools and then a mile

away is a school called minero elementary and last year, over 80% of lincoln students were proficient in reading and then the school a mile away, the zero percent of the eighth graders were proficient in reading last year. so, a i was like i got to confirm what is going on here. so i just called the school and said -- i called lincoln elementary and said i'm moving to chicago and want to get my kid into your school. what die have to do and they confirmed you have to buy a house or rent an apartment in this zone. right? and if you're on the wrong side of the street you don't have a chance of getting. in we're full up. and i did this with any number of schools across the country. in seattle the woman said, the person who answered phone said you better buy a house in the right area, and i said doesn't really seem fair, there must be a way if i'm on the other side

of the line. she said if we didn't have a line no one would want to go to that other school. if we didn't draw a line no one would want to go to that cool and that was very telling. so this is an american problem. we have schools in new york, philadelphia, atlanta, dallas, los angeles, san francisco, the bay area, seattle, this is not unique to one area of the country. this is across the country. >> gloria, i'd love to ask you a question. in the book tim shows that some of the schools lie about having enough seats. don't want to let people know they have any sort of way to get in if you don't live and they lie about the number of vacancies and on page 59, as tim get sneeze fact that lausd says it only had two -- i believe two open seats out of 275,000 seats. gloria, is that a real number? >> before i good into that, let

me just say -- and thanks to people who join it, thank you, jill, thank you tim especially, because today's historic. today is the anniversary of brown v board of education. but it's been 66 years. think about it. with all deliberate speed and the pretext that was used for little linda brun, not getting into a good school, was skin color. today is a tim points out and what i saw when i was serving in legislature, it's about the lines that we dent even know exist. that is the issue. that they're out there and oh how do we start explaining school a, school b, gallon schools and bad schools. what i saw and tim saw over and over, chronically kids get trapped into schools. to going back to the question that you raised, jill, i don't know exactly what those numbers are. i. don't now if i believe a whole

lot of thing that come out of l.a. unified but the inis they do the counting, do the limiting and do these right around in terms of the numbers they give us to us based on arbitrary lines that the state allows or even mandates across the country for lines to be drawn and yet some unelected bureaucrat deep in the bowels of a -- for l.a. uniflite or any districted in the country they drew -- with political gerrymandering, we can see the lines and develop commissions to fight and dismantle those lines. but today's 66 years post brown v. board there are lines that exist and we aren't even aware of them. >> tim you did such great research in this book. you contacted l.a. unified but not just them. many districts around the country and they were pretty open about keeping kids out, and

lausd said theirs no way they would tell how many open seats there are because people would be trying to get into -- >> l.a. unified didn't tell me. that was consultant who helps families get access to schools if they're not zoned to a great school these consultants help them. there's one here in l.a. who made that comment, that a lot of these schools are not full, and they're not fully advertising the open seats. one of the key things we did is as a certain point we started looking at the analogy between this policies and the redlining practices, as we said the video, of the 1930s in which certain neighborhoods were discriminated against and it's all -- this is not a racial issue. there are people of all races

living in those neighborhoods, and who are being kept out of these schools and if you look at -- it was a big, big moment when i said, okay, let by try to look at this old, old map and try to superimpose the redline -- the current attendant zone for ivanhoe elementary in silver lake. superimpose that on the red lining map from the 30s and just surprising, those patterns still exist in many places. brooklyn, dallas, seattle, indianapolis, a couple schools in l.a., and you just see these patterns where these zone lines really seem to exclude areas that are -- that's have higher percentages of minorities and immigrants but there are many cause indication families in those areas, too are becomessed out of the schools and -- boxed

out of the school's and is -- and gloria is a great champion of these people who have been tried for lying about their address. lying about your address is something that goes on up and down the economic spectrum in america, right? everybody does it. i've had certain people tell me why you writing about the book. of course everybody lies but their address to get access. the problem is the only people being prosecuted are lower income people. we know tons of people who -- i'm sure everyone on this call knows people who have lied but their address and it's just -- it's very problematic, sets up a dynamic where' many districts surveil children. we found an article from fraud magazine. e. posting how to do surveillance on a children. have a long lens, have a female pi taking pictures because people freak out if they see a

man take pictures of children. and they're not -- these policies it up a dynamic and they have to do that and the people being surveilled are not just the people who are lying. the people who are being surveilled is everybody, all the kids in the school. >> i want to talk to you but page 65 where you were talking to meredith richard, professor at southern methodist university and she studied attendant zones in massachusetts because all states have these readlining and she found the zones lead to greet egg drag of racial separation that would have emerged if students had simply been assigned to the public school closest to home. they're not knowing the public school closest to their home. >> that's the case in many cases. not always the case but it is the case often times, and some folks say the school in that neighborhood in that area will be a little better no matter what. what i point out is in chicago, if you look at north avenue as

the dividing line between the two elementary schools and have a thriving school, a are school versus a failing school, if you look the health clinics in neighborhood, there's a health clinic on the north side of -- in that neighborhood, north of north avenue and a health clinic south of north avenue. look at the patient rate little of the two health clinics they're the same because people are allowed to freely pass over north avenue to go to whatever health clinic they want. i if one was failing people would go to the other one they would both have an incentive to serve and to -- there isn't the degree of separation of the community for the health clinic and you get better since and better levels of performance. whereas the schools are tent separate and as glory glory ya point -- gloria has pointed out some of these schools have been failing for decades. >> i want to pitch to glory ya, on page 73-0 -- 75, i believe,

he gets into the issue of the anonymous tipsters in parents in michigan, parents are urged to tip off the school to tell on other parents and it's creating this sick system internally not nobody wants to talk about. you have been championing some of those family and kids of what's that about and what is that like -- basically we're spying on each other so our kid don't get knocked out and other kids don't get allowed in. >> absolutely. i know of several parents, chicago, outside of -- outside of chicago in illinois, the callaghan family that basically private investigator, others tipping, there's somebody here who doesn't belong within these lines, the case of hamlet garcia in montgomery county, pennsylvania, absolutely incredulous and also involved in some family strife and so a way to get back at another family member is, oh, by the way, they

are illegally'sing in a line that -- residing in a along that didn't excess. didn't then -- happen to be the case. we have become essential a society which in the efforts you create -- i am going to say, these function as apartheid systems, basically putting up arbitrary fences and boundaries to keep people out to prevent them from coming in, and then having the social enforcement. some of the parent that had been literally arrested, made to do the perp line, put into jail, kept there, mrs. garcia was charge evidence with a potential of staying in prison for up to seven years based on some of these false tips. it is real. it's happening. it needs to change. >> it's out of control. should be front page of "the los angeles times."

tim, can you go into a little bit what happened with kelly williams in akron, ohio, where the district fired a private investigator. >> just a low income mom who i think she was homeless, and i think gloria -- you know kelly, right? >> correct. >> and what -- i think she was homeless and the district hired somebody to follow her and to determined that her quote-unquote home wasn't in the district, wherever she was sleeping with her kids wasn't within the district lines and then they put her in jail. it's problematic. we should make a point, there are these two different types of lines. there are district lines which are the legislatively tehran lines and all of these people share school, and that is one type of line.

the other type of line are these attendant zones which are kind of administrative service areas. they are lines drawn by the district as gloria said we don't know how those lines get drawn, a lot of mystery. they he e tend to get cal identified over time because once you're in a zone you fight very, very hard. you're in a zone for an elite school you'll fight very hard if they try to change the lines. so, one of the things we found, i found these three examples. so lincoln and minere is a great example. what happened in chicago is young families started flooding into the lincoln attendant zone and lincoln no longer had enough space. and so you'd think if chicago public school were a true public system where they were rejusting the lines based on changes in population, you'd expect what would happen, that it change the line to reflect where the kids live and some kids would be

resewned. what happened instead is that they -- those politically powerful parents were very upset and went all the way up to the state, the head of the state senate, and got $20 million in a situation which both the state and the city are in a financial crisis. they got $20 million to bailed renovation to that elite school just so to their kids wouldn't be resewned to other schools, schools surrounding lincoln elementary with hundreds of open seats. and so those schools are not in the same system and it is just very, very problematic, i think, for the allocation to work that way. >> i think both you and gloria brought up an interesting topic which is that the community colleges stopped doing their

redlining in 1987, and it was controversial and any kid can good to any community college they want to drive to essentially and how is that working snout. >> talk to us about that, gloria. you brought that to my attention. >> the only place -- if we stop and think, the only place where we use addresses is really in education, and it's really k through 12, because in childcare, early childhood programs, parents right-hand stopped the front door saying where are you from? community college, higher ed, public university, you can worship at the temple or church our your choice niksch dep test or doctor, shopping -- maybe not today but normally we do not use addresses. you know where you're from is flood basically that is the first question when you cross into gang territory and then it's used in k through 12 and it's crazy. let me suggest to you if you start talking to the audience,

sometimes people say wait a minute we pay our property tacks there and we ought to be careful. i assert this should be a nonpartisan issue. there have been some in some areas of the country, that have look at what we call open enrollment. getting rid of the lines. in fact it was former supreme court justice antonin scalia in one decision -- he was writing about this -- talking but, wait a minute, why don't we try something like this. think when we look at this, this is not a left of center liberal idea. when you have justice scalia raising this question as, well, i think there's room, is a tim points out -- this affects all families across class, working class, middle class, i think there's especially a negative impact when high poverty children of color get

chronically trappedded in underperforming schools but this has the potential to unite families in communities to say that every kid deserves access and five degrees of separation your zip code and then your address win the same school district, because it's not even -- that's a whole other issue when you look at between districts. this is when you're in the same district and you're paying these taxes overall to the same school district, where they further track you and say go to the left, not to the right, and as tim pointed out, sometimes the schools are maybe within one mile apart but vastly different outcomes. want to think about the potential that can unite families right, left, it's about ensuring that with brown v. board of education that all kids are entitled to have access at least to the opportunity to a quality school. >> we're going to go to the audience in eight minutes. tim, can you talk but what you

get into later in the book but the resolutions including the eeoc and lawsuits and where you're going -- >> i want to come back to one thing glory ya said but the community colleges. the reason -- the california state legislature in the 80s passed a law saying it is not in the best interests of the people of the state of california that their enrollment be restricted to one community college. he want to open it up so you can attend the communitycome of your choice, and the reason they did that and the reason i think now is a hopeful moment, the reason they did that is because the community college system, which had been this pillar of educational opportunity, had been seeing declines in enrollment and they said one we can pull people back into the system is by opening it up and giving people a choice so that if you're -- the right program for you is over here, versus over here, you have a chance to do that. and what we're seeing today in the k-12 system and many, many

big cities across the country, including los angeles, is dramatic declines in enrollment and i think people are moving out of the city in some cases or not having children even, because they don't -- they're not sure they can get a quality education for their kids without paying ridiculous amounts of money for private school, and so one way for the public k-12 out indication system to be more appealing to the parents and appeal more and pull people back in, would be to have true own enrollment and one of -- open enrollment and the first big surprise i had when i went -- saturdayed researching the book was what was the basis for for a school turning people away who lift within walking distance? in california, it's the open enrollment law. so they passed a law in the 1990s that said, any kid within the district has a right to go to any school in that

district. right? the problem is they added an exception which said, but you can't displace a kid who is zoned to go to that school to begin with and that sounds extraordinarily reasonable on the surface as a way to run a system but that exception created the geographic enrollment preference for people with wealth who could buy into the zone. you create over time these conditions for the schools to grow even more separate over time also the real estate goes up and the population of those schools goes -- goes in different directions. so the divisions are created by that law. so, as jill says, one big component of what i looked a, the laws that g attendant zone and there were two big surprises. one big surprise was that there

is this long forgotten law called the civil rights law from the 70s called the equal education opportunities act and i write about this law just this week education next, the magazine -- published an excerpt from the book, in which i talk about this law. this law puts constraints on what -- how districts, assign kids to schools and what they and can can't do and the language is very, very clear and the attendant zones of these elite public schools in the inare cities are in violation of this federal civil rights law. the law says that minority kids cannot be assigned to a public school that is not the nearest to their residence, if it enhances segregation. the idea being districts can't play with their zones to direct minority kids away from the

schools where the higher degree -- high if concentration of caucasian students. these zones are weird misshapen things and there are pockets in violation of the federal civil rights law and there's a lot of excitement about the idea of challenge something of these and using the lawsuits to change the lines and also to detain to this issue. secondly as you stated, as gloria stated, i'm digging around in the civil rights rulings from the supreme court and i found this amazing quotation from justice scalia where he says, we could have done this differently, right? we could have opened up all of the schools. he imagines a system in which parents are free to disregard their neighborhood school assignment assignment and can send their kid to any school within the

district. and it's a very powerful passage because he is pointing out that the supreme court's approach to segregation in the schools, the only thing that the supreme court has outlawed is overt segregation, so districts have removed any mention of overt segregation, racial segregation, in their public statements, in their policy documents and everything else, but the fact is that a district can run schools and many districts do, that are very, very segregated on racial lines and along income lines. they can do that all they want ask the supreme court has declared itself hands up, we can't do anything about that school. scalia was pointing out if what we were talking about was access, if we said we want to guarantee equal racial access to schools, rather than trying to

eradicate overt segregation, then the courts would have an active ongoing role to play in making sure that the public schooled are open to the public, and it was surprising dish don't think very many people know about that opinion and school ya was a great writer and he would on occasion take counterintuitive views, and i just -- it's an astounding opinion so i recommend arch take look at that. >> one fifth is, i my interest is piqued by the litigation strategy covered in the back. for community members and advocates what effective steps and measures should we plan to take together? >> i've had a -- glory ya and i talked -- gloria and i talked to a couple of lawyers and if

you're interested in filing a lawsuit, reach out to us. you can find our e-mails very easily on -- you can find my e-mail on my website and it's not hard to find. tim@timderoche.com. one of the things we have been contemplating -- i was talking to a citizen stewart, a very prominent african-american voice for ed reform. i talk to him about the book and we're talking about potentially launching protests of some of these elite schools, saying, hey, we have tone up these schools to people -- have to open up these schools to people who live within walking distance of the schools. we're going to keep writing about the issues and the lawsuit angle is one i think that both gloria and i are excited about and it's a matter of finding the right venue and the right opportunity to do something like that. >> one last question, gloria.

and then i guess we'll go to the audience. that was, how do you see distance learning affecting the failing school interpretation? >> okay. distance learning, it veries by district again. you can take look at one school district and another, they're completely different because we have determined that any type of educational program is of course local based. having said that, i think that there are great possibilities there as well. and let me good back to the question. i don't think any of us are saying or conclude it's okay to si these are the get schools and the failing schools and we want the kids in the -- identified because the state of california identifies. i used to see the list. so i would see the list of these are failing -- didn't call them failing schools -- bureaucratic language but they're failing schools. so we're conclude overall is it's not that we want to be

happy by saying let's flee the bad school and get -- ultimately we should look at ensuring that every school has a -- is prioritized to have a high quality education. you got to take on teacher contracts, teacher training, resources, there's a number of issues. but in the meantime, clearly, we see that this occurs. so, it's the issue of making sure that there's the access there. i think that distance learning, online education, i would submit to you that post pandemic, there's probably going to be a lot of families saying, i'm not going back to l.a. unified or back to santa ana. i'm happy with home schooling and distance learning and other alternatives. some families, more affluent parents in new york that are actually kind of developing a consortium to say we are going create our own little

miniquote-unquote enable schools with our own teachers of parents at the end of the day i believe in school choice. i'm a democrat that says i'm pro choice and that includes education. so there's not one glove that fits all. it what chose to family think is best for that child. but i think it's important that whatever that entity is, that it's a quality and that it's not bound by a certain line that says if you don't have this income or don't live in this neighborhood or you don't live in these new lines, that you just don't have access. if i can say that we always put out the word, your education the key to the person dream and i believe that. we have been saying it for 66 years, but what tim's book points out is that what we know, what is so cynical, is that too many kids in america have been given keys to that front door that just won't turn and that is

i think what part of the ah-ha moment is in tim's book, is that these kids -- these keys don't turn the lock. you have to look at the lines and alternatives. >> one thing we health not touched on yet -- we have not touched on yet, you put a couple of maps in the book of your own neighborhood which i thought was very brave. why did you do that? >> well, partly just knowledge. my -- these are issues i was interested before i moved to this neighborhood but the -- this neighborhood has dramatic -- these issues are directly relevant to where we live. right? where my family lives. and so in mt. washington there's a -- an elite public school, one of the most coveted schools in

l.a. unified, and the shape of the -- there's an attendant zone the shape of the zone is very weird and i would absolutely love to have the -- how did that line get drawn over time? i would love to know that. and it -- look at the redlining map of our neighborhood from the 1930s, which is almost 100 years ago now -- it is -- the shape of the quote-unquote desirable area is very, very similar to the shape of our attendant zone today, and then we looked very closely at the eeoa, a video, a great video of the eeoa analysis of which families might be able to file a lawsuit in federal court saying, hey, we have right under federal law to an equal opportunity

applied to this school and we're being excluded. so we did that analysis for this school -- partially because the mt. washington attendant zone is so weird, it raises those e owe -- it poses to the eeoa questions really effectively. and i don't mind. i think most of my neighbors are aware of these issues. i will say, part of this back is meant -- i have an instinct to see the pest in people and to assume good intentions, right? and so i never want to claim that somebody who disagrees with me -- this is a hard pill to swallow for some folks and i want to acknowledge. that. it's not easy and this accumulation where you if drives where you go to school a very big one and certainly i have young kids, proximity, find rag good school that is close to our house is extremely important to me. so what i'm not saying is your

kid should be assigned to another school on the opposite side of town. but i'm saying is that your kid should not be assigned to any school. why should the district -- why should the purecrat determine where your -- bureaucrat determine where your kid goes to school. the bureaucrat never met your kid, has no idea where you live, the bureaucrat who drew theelins probably has never stepped foot in the school they true the lines for, never met your kid. how in the world would that person know what is the right thing for your kid and the stated -- the stats published by the federal government show that over 50% of people ins me just send their kid to whatever school they've been assigned to. and the other 45% is made up of people who by a a house in order to beginning a cities a school they want to good to made up of people who choose terms of public school choice, people who choose private schools or home

school. but 55% of the people are just going where the bureaucrats tells them to go, and i would -- i don't think -- i think people up and down the economic spectrum should really think carefully whether they want to just trust the government on this big question of who you are trusting your kids with. and so i did want to follow up. if you find yourself buying a house in one of these areas and getting access to a school and then find yourself saying, i'm pro open enrollment. i believe in open enrollment but i like this exception that give mist kid the privileged access to this school, and then you find yourself also arguing that, well, i don't really like charter schools. don't want the -- i want the kid outside of the zone, i want them to go to their own school and he don't want them to have other choices. if you combine the sets of

opinions and those opinions are commonly held together -- i have very hard time -- i want to see the best' people dish have a very hard time seeing how that is a morally righteous position. and what i'm trying to do with this book is just -- i think a lot of 0 people have not been paying attention and don't think these things true. i'm trying to say, hey, let's all steer this thing straight on. what is really going on here? let's look at it straight on and i think once you do that, i think it's hard to support these kinds of policies. >> we have a good question for you on that topic. if kids -- to any school you would still district, wouldn't you, against those who can't provide transportation and many school districts don't provide anything so still an economic and racial divide. >> that is true. if you look at scalia's opinion, he says, the district should

pay. if a kid wants to go to a different school in the district, that's a pet are school, the district should pay for that transportation for that child, and i would certainly dish think you could have some partial subs subsidy iowaation of transportation. talked to tony miller the deputy secretary of education under president obama and he said you can say the district will provide transportation for any school within a five-mile radius, and then if you want to get your tide to a school outside that zone you have every right to attend the school outside the raid -- radius butout have to get your kid there and they have as much of a'ing to go to that school as anyone else in the district. >> one of the things you -- phrase you used at the very end of the book, you call this the unfinished project that began 66

years ago. that goes back to -- >> yeah, the norse of brown v. board of ed. people assume that the schools are open to the public and -- because of these policies, they really aren't. the vast majority of people are boxed out of these schools. the policies are only helping a very narrow sift of those people and argue -- it's dissing up property prices and i think the government has done a series of policies over the past ten years to prop up property prices and i -- that's not what we want. we want outer kids to afford housing. we don't want exorbitant housing prices and this is one way -- a separate issue but one way the government props up prices. >> tim issue guess one other question is kind of a thread

through this is if you can open all the schools like this and if parents can move their kids all over the place, what will happen to the quality of schools? will they even up like will the bad schools get better? >> i think they will. gloria, do you want to talk about that? >> to some extent the creation of magnet schools, the create of charter schools, to some extent it was intended to do a healthy competition with the idea being that all boats rise. think that is the case overall, that you find overall when you find good, quality charter schools or magnets the idea is to make sure there is a betterment. also i said earlier it's not like we said we just want to flee and leave the bad schools there. it's an opportunity to say, let's turn it around. let make sure that we get what is the standards are, you have to address a lot of issues related to staff and teaching and leadership. a lot of things there, and the

williams lawsuit in terms of even do you have rats in the kitchen and what their bathrooms look like all of that is part of it i think. so, i think overall the goal is to make sure you have this, but this is a leaning way in which with open enrollment -- to basically sale you leave the school behind and for those schools that don't make the change i was of the premise you shut it down. if a school building -- this is kids and education. as we have seen now with the pandemic, we can go virtual, other ways. and we can lie our way out. >> close it down and then re-open it. >> exactly. >> i would come back to that example of the two health clinics. in chicago. right? you have the two, the vast difference in the schools, separated by this artificial line created by the government, but the health clinics are both high performing on each side of the line because everybody is

mixing and fully invested, and it's a health clinics fully failed they would chelsea it down, and the doctors and nurses would fine a job at a different health clinic and there would be an opportunity there i think there's dish just think -- i just think it sets up the dynamic. the folks who bought a house in the lincoln zone or the mt. washington zone, they're not invested in making the system better overall or in making the failing schools better. they've found a way around and i think if you really put them in the same bet as everybody else and say, hey, you have to enter a lottery to get into the school, then there's going to be a lot more pressure from-the-politically powerful parents to make the other schools better if. so they want other options. everybody will be in the same bet together and that's more healthy for our democracy. >> there's a great question, just disappeared actually --

asking about how would it phase in? what if the good schools get overwhelmed? how do you see it unfolding? >> well, the good schools are already overwhelmed. it's already overwhelmed. already overwhelmed. already get a would too many an mix caps. some people don't apply because though know they can't get in what would happen over time is it would create dramatically more demand for educational pluralism so different options, different types of schools and better schools. so i think it creates more pressure but -- there's no question that they would create a -- in the near term, there would be at friction but i think people would respond to that and respond in a positive way. >> let's talk about taxes. if you ask the cools to provide transportation from -- is the public going to be willing to

pay taxes on that? >> gloria, do you have any thoughts. >> as if we're not paying right now? >> exactly. >> i mean, it's all follow the money. half of state's budget is on education and i submit look at the outcomes. i don't know that most people are even happy with this. so if it is about taxes let's have the conversation, how to go forward. with the governor's proposal, i actually think, too -- i mean, when there's a crisis there's opportunity. let's take a look at how we too things. maybe we have to rethink how we even pay for this. but it's always the question, but right now 50% almost of the state budget, we're not getting what we are paying for, and so let think but how we change that. i think -- look he at the last initiative voted down in los

angeles, didn't shock me. it shocked a lot of people who were certain that people always vote for taxes. taxpayers and families are stepping up and saying, no. time are tight. we're not just going to pay for stuff anymore. give me something of quality. give me something that transforms many neighborhoods so we all get some essentially skin in the game. i think there's opportunities for bigger coalitions rather than just the chosen few. sorry,, i interrupted you. >> no worries. i think if people really -- if it's full own enrollment the vast majority of people pick schooled that are close to their home or close to where i work. that's a better school. but the vast majority of people will prefer a school close to their home and where i live here in mt. washington, there are many, many schools that are

within three miles or five miles of my house, and so there are many options. it's just the best schools just aren't available to most people. >> i think this might be the last question. i'm not sure on our timing here. but somebody would like to know from either one of you, your ideal alternative system that would take place if there weren't attendance zones would there be a lottery or how? >> i would read -- just today, jay matthews in the "washington post" published a column but our book and talked pout lotteries. i'm a big fan of experimentation and so i would just say, if we could just say, hey you can't use zip code -- within a district you cannot use zip code. some school districts would experiment with a centralized lottery, some might experiment with school site lotteries like

chart he use. others might use first come first served. all of those systems are not bench. they have a lot of potential for abuse. but all of those systems are at least based on the program of equality of -- principal of equality of opportunity of the current system isn't even based ton the principle of equality opportunity. so it starts from a corrupt place and further corrupted be people trying to get what is best for their kid. we should start with a system that starts with equality opportunity and i'd like to see districts have some flexibility to design different systems and see what works if geography is outlawed. >> how do you deal with the teachers union? i'll ask glory ya. >> there's an opening. when i wrote one of the first open enrollment laws, looking at this, i reached tout you. it was then ahead by aj duffy.

the union tame out and said, no, no, education is going to good to hell in a hand basket but he actually stepped a side and said we can do this. we have declining enrollment. the unions hate charter school. ... a fine line that somebody in the path drew it's actually good so alex caputo or somebody from you tla is listening, we would love to talk with you. as i said before, this shouldn't be a left or right issue. there's a real winning issue that allows kids, families,

education to succeed. it's the american dream, why would we oppose it? >> that's a great note to and on. >> i just want to say thank you so much jill, gloria, tim, we appreciate you having this incredible discussion the community can be a part of and engage in with a lot of great questions as well. like i said earlier, the book that gloria is holding right there can be purchased through the romans bookstore website by clicking on the green button down underneath us where it says by a fine line. click on that bill ticket to our website and you can shop around if you'd like. these great books i think you be being a part of this, please follow them on podcast and