can i get a yeah? so am i. i'm also proud of our nation's children. i wrote down a proposal that says the objectives to invite students to assist with organizing a wishing well which would showcase our nation's children and honor america's first children sasha and malia obama. i note president and mrs. obama are very protective of their children as well they should be. but mr. duncan, i would like for you to review this? could i get this to you? >> that's fine. let's do three more questions. let's go one, two, three. >> thank you. good morning, my name is andre smith. i'm affiliated with the zone 126 out of long island city, new york. and i don't really have a question because everybody pretty much already asked the questions i want. i just want to commend you, young brother because from where i come from, i've seen the distractions. i have a little brother who was distracted like that. i know what it can do to you.

just for you to be able to focus and put your mind in the right place, just know there's nothing you can't do if you want to do it, young brother. you can do anything you want. you are on the right path. you have the right people with you. i just commend you, young brother. >> thank you. thank. >> yes, sir. >> hey, my name's aaron hackett. i'm coming from hampton whoeds, virginia. americorp members. what's up, y'all? i have a question coming from the side of kind of like the partners you mentioned. you said there were a lot of non-profit organizations helping out. first of all, what are those non-profit organizations? what are the best kind? what has been like the best kind of activities, after school programs that are most effective and also, for us trying to engage the high schools, what would you advise for us on how

to get really involved? because it seemed like you guys were reaching out as school was to them, this is us reaching out on the other side. >> so i'm thinking that one's to me? >> yeah. >> yeah? so i would offer one of our non-profit partners self-enhancement inc .is here at the conference and will be presenting this afternoon on scaling up. sei has been a long-standing partner in our community who starts working with young people and their families in second grade. it's all about keeping kids in school, it's all about the relationships they build with those students and they have a 9-four year cohort graduation rate after the young people that they have supported. so they are, is, yeah. they'll be part of a presentation here at this. i would say of a session that would be worthwhile to go to. the partnering they're doing with us right now is a whole school model at one of our high

schools, jefferson high school that is partnering with our community college on a middle college model and sei as the non-profit partner is really insuring that we're going to be able to guarantee ses for every one of the students who are part of that program. i'd suggest that's a great place to start and use your time here at that conference. >> what was that again? what was the organization? >> it's self enhancement it i think.". later this afternoon, a great example of one of our partners. >> final two questions here and here. >> good morning, i am a practicing school counselor from chicago public schools. we know that school counselors are underutilized resource nationally. my question is, how are school counselors engaged in the transformation process at your two respective schools? >> at our school, our school

counselor does a myriad of things. first of all, creative scheduling to make sure that our students are enrolled in the courses that they need to graduate. and just not priv frivolous courses to fill up their daily schedule. and secondly, our counseling staff also takes the time to work with individual students to meet those socioemotional needs that they often come to us with. and also career planning as well as college planning. we have counseling staff available to work with students to fill out the fafsa, which is the federal student aid forms, those kinds of things, college applications, job applications. we work on interviewing techniques and strategies for those students who desire to go out into the world of work. all of those wrap around services that students need. that's what our counseling staff is busy and tasked with doing each day. >> ours very similar. i would say the flexibility in

terms of making sure students are getting the classes that they need and changing that if they're not on track with the things that they need is a huge and often overlooked strategy that you don't want somebody putting hard work down a path that's not what they need to be working on and also linking students with community resources that they need as well as paying individual personal attention. we've got an exceptional counseling staff at the school that i'm talking about here today. >> thank you. there's a national movement for school counselors to own the turf of college and career readiness. if your counselors have not already signed on, please have them do so. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> yes, sir. >> hello, i'm executive director of stockton urban academies in stockton, california. my question is specific for daquan. you mentioned during your speaking time the culture that was associated with your school. also in response to a question,

you said you were able to be your own leader. in stockton through some of the other states, there's a pervasive gang problem. what we often find is some of the best students that we work with are still overwhelmed by this gang issue, whether it be generational or neighborhoodwise. i was wondering for you, did you find that your success was more specifically linked to the fact that you may not have had those family ties or didn't feel that overwhelming burden to join a gang or be represented by that community? or was that something you also struggled with. >> it wasn't necessarily a struggle because i know pressure is a lot, but if i don't want to do something, i don't do it. mainly. [ applause ] because where i came from, gangs was a big part of the streets. so me being me, i just stuck to the books, listened to what my parents had to tell me, to the teachers, a couple of my friends who had done it before me such

as graduated and gone on to college. so i just followed my own route. >> and the teacher, i'm sorry i forget your name. do you find that you have students that are highly motivated that have the potential to succeed but they're overwhelmed by the gang issue to the extent where it interferes with their academics? >> the streets are a major distraction for all young people nationwide. the district of columbia is not exempt from that. our students see our school as a safe haven. we have students who attend luke moore from every area of washington, d.c. many times those neighborhoods are very dangerous. many times those neighborhoods are overridden with gangs and negativism. but the students come to our school and see it as a safe haven. they come into the doors of luke moore and lay down the neighborhood beefs, if you will. and everyone is a family. they're all there will to serve one common purpose which is to learn, to graduate and to become a successful citizen. >> thank you.

[ applause ] >> thanks for all your thoughtful questions. please give a huge round of applause to carole, rose and daquan. these are champions of this movement. thank you so much. >> thank au, secretary, duncan for that hopeful news on school improvement grants. daquan burley, i think we heard a proposal from the audience to run him for president. also sos carole smith and rose smith. our next speaker is a national treasure and part of his job is to worry about the state of our national treasure. called jean the machine

for his indefatigable work ethic, he has been an extraordinary public servant across the nation. first under president clinton, then as counselor to secretary of the treasury timothy geithner and now as assistant to the president and director of the national economic council for president obama. what's more, he's a good midwester everywhere minnesota, a great tennis player and a yale lawyer. given then year's grad nation theme, "education and the economy," he is a perfect speaker for the occasion. to close out this plenary sessionings with keynotera, please warmly welcome from the white house, gene sperling. >> well, thank you very much, john got most of that right.

it is true i went to college in minnesota, but i'm actually from ann arbor, michigan. that's my home. i am a huge michigan fan, and i am still in my third day of mourning over the tragic loss to the university of ohio. nonetheless, i will pull myself up for their remarks today. i really do want to thank john bridgelin for his enormous commitment and what he's done through civic enterprises. part of the president's white house council for community solutions. he is a personal example that there are people in this town who are committed to getting it done supposed to worrying about what party's in power and who's going to get the credit. i thank him for that. and i want to thank obviously general powell and alma powell

for founding and for her chairing america's promised alliance. it is so important that this president stays. i remember its creation. i'm inspired that today it is still a force in public policy. and an -- and obviously you just got to see our commitment in action and seeing arne duncan and all that he's done. so i thank them, i thank all of you. you're going to hear from a lot of people. i'm going to try to make five points quick and let you move on. number one, the focus on how education and the challenge of preventing dropouts but beyond preventing dropouts, having higher aspirations, higher achievement, higher graduation rates, higher accomplishment is absolutely critical to our economy and our economic growth. now, there is a degree and with

that is just common sense. i'm just talking about the, you know, the basketball playoffs. if you look at any team, any team is stronger, everybody is stronger when everyone on that team is at their highest performance and contributing. of course, if you have an economy where women are not contributing as much, are not allowed to contribute as much, are not allowed to rise, when you have an economy where some people are too many people are dropping out of high school, never getting the chance to get the skills to compete, that isn't just about the interest of those individuals. though that is crucial. it is about whether you have an economy that is at full strength. now, you've seen the studies. i won't go into all of them. you know them. you know that somebody graduating from high school is going to make twice as much over

their lifetime as somebody who drops out. you know that the unemployment rate for someone without a high school degree is about 13% today but someone with college education 4%. you know what that means to those individuals and their lives. and we know what it means just to the cost of our society that people who have significant education, make more, contribute more, pay higher taxes, cost other taxpayers less funds. those are all things of which the academic evidence is overwhelming and undeniable. but what's incredibly important to remember and maybe the most important message is that it benefits all of us. let me just give you one example. the president held a conference on insourcing the other day, and in the insourcing conference, a woman talked about what she

advised when she was telling people where to locate their companies. and she said one of the number one indicators was, what was the high school completion rate in the area that you would locate that particular service business. the college completion rate was a key indicator in where they recommend somebody locate. so the if the high school completion rate is better, it's not just those individuals who benefit. that community, that economy as a whole benefits. there will be more job location here. there will be more jobs for everyone. so we need to make very clear that when we're funding and we're inspiring people of higher aspirations, higher achievement, higher academic progress, it is not just about those individuals. it is about our economy as a whole. my second point, though, is really one that i think all of you feel deeply which is that

even if that was not the case, my guess is everybody who's here today would still be here today. because we are fundamentally a people who believe fundamentally that the accident of your birth should not be overly determinative of your life. [ applause ] we would not tolerate a law that says if you are born in a poor area to a single parent, only seven out of 100 of you could go to college. we would not tolerate a law like that. we would think that law was cruel. but how much better are we if we sit by and do nothing when that reality -- when that is the reality we live in? we have an obligation, every generation does, to move

ourselves closer to that aspiration that the accident of your birth does not determine the outcome of your life. and when we know that too many children, particularly too many children of color in poor urban areas, poor rural areas are just by the accident of their birth denied -- have the decks overwhelmingly stacked against them, that is not something where we can just sit by and say, we'll deal with that some other day. that is something where we have to have a commitment and the commitment has to be from the earliest ages through elementary school to what will arne duncan calls the bermuda triangle of education, the middle school years to high school to the workforce. and the commitment has to be deep and it has to be strong and it has to be through that whole process that gives somebody the opportunity others of us are too

likely born with top contribute and create economic security for our families. now, the third point i want to make is that i think one of the most critical things for us as a country in making progress is that we establish and this is what i believe you're trying to do here, that this commitment is something where there is an overwhelming consensus in our society to achieving. because having been here for 20 years, i will be very honest in saying the following thing -- i think there is a deep double standard when it comes to evaluating programs and policies for the poorest children. we do not find out that a particular intervention to cure cancer has failed and therefore, decide well, i guess that's an argument for not investing in

research to cure cancer. we do not decide that if a certain military weapon is not as effective as others that we give up on the basic security of our country or the basic goal of preventing terrorism. we find another way that is more effective. yet, i have seen that when it comes to programs for helping our poorest youth, if it is not 100% effective, people use that as an argument to give up on the endeavor, to defund the endeavor instead of going back at it and trying again. how many times have i heard somebody say, well, here's an early intervention strategy. here's an early childhood strategy. oh, but you know what? some of the benefits fade out. so when i hear that, i think okay, great, what can we do to make sure those benefits don't

fade out? what can we do in the elementary schools and the middle school years and the high school years to ensure those benefits accelerator instead of fade out? yet other people will say, that's a reason we shouldn't do the thing that's working even for several years. that are makes no sense to me. and i'm afraid that it has a negative impact on public policy because when people feel that the admission of any error or any failure to get the performance desired is going to be used as a reason to defund the endeavor, people pull back. they're more afraid of experimentation of evaluation, of accountability. but the if we all are committed to the idea that it is just not right, it's not economically smart, it's not consistent with our values to let an overwhelming, to let large numbers of our children have the

deck stacked against them by the accident of their birth, then we will all be in this together, and we will evaluate and we will analyze and we will innovate. and if something's not working well enough, we'll go back and double down on our commitment for something that works, not use that as an excuse to pull back. franklin roosevelt said -- [ applause ] >> franklin roosevelt says it is common sense to take a method and try it. if it fails, admit it frankly and try another, but above all, try something. that must be our motto when we engage in the effort to have more children of our young supreme higher aspirations and higher achievement in our economy. fourth point i will make is we are in a tough budget time. this is a time of priorities. where are our priorities as a country going to be? i'm so proud to work for president obama. i'm so proud because every time

we get to the toughest situations, the toughest budget fights, and the top priorities have to come into play, what the president puts first or at least at the top of his priority list is making sure we are staying with that commitment to invest and inknow straight in ways to help children horn do not come from the best circumstances have the same opportunities or greater opportunities to succeed. that is why -- that is why even in this tough budget, over a billion dollars more for head start and every budget we fight and fight and will continue to fight to not let that get cut back so that tens of thousands of children 3, 4 years old lose at least the chance they have to enter school ready to learn. that is why when we have -- when

we can afford relatively few new programs, one of them is a half billion dollar early learning race to the top so that as we're funding what works, we're also looking to what what can work better, what we can learn so that we can do better and invest more in children. that's why amongst all the difficult budget challenges the president has stayed with the historic commitment to pell grants and has fought to the not only have the largest increase but to protect that increase budget after budget in the toughest times among the toughest choices. those are priorities that should transcend political party and political division. that should be about our national commitment to being a people where every child has a chance to move up. not just in theory. but in fact and reality. and my last point i would just make is that we really, really

as a country have to continue to focus and inknow straight and rededicate ourselves to particularly ensuring that young people, we reach young people early enough to ensure that they have the aspirations, not just to not drop out but to seek to achieve as much as they can. if college, college education, a high skilled education. one of the things you realize as you get older is that you're born with many gifts. but i think one gift many of us who are fortunate enough to, as fortunate as myself realize later is that just by our upbringing, by the accident of our birth, we have a gift. and that gift is a very high expectation that we will go to college. and i have watched friends and relatives. i've seen how children have gone

off, looked in the wrong path going off, but that high expectation that they're almost born with is like a magnet that pulls them back on the right track and so many of them, so many of the children of upper middle class families, whatever their problems come back because of that expectation, because of the opportunity. but so many other children are born without that gift. but that is a gift that we can all play a role in. that gift that you can aspire and achieve, but we have got to reach children early enough and we have to keep looking. we've got to keep protecting and investing in programs like trio and gera and youth challenge and career academies, things that reach people to me as early as possible, at middle school and try to embed in them that aspiration that, expectation that so many of us are you just blessed with.

that is not an expectation that will necessarily be there for a child born into a family where no one has ever gone to college. but we have that power. we have the power through the programs we do, through the excellent teachers who inspire, through the after school programs that will inspire children not just in a particular moment or a particular course or particular scorecard, but about what they can be. colleges can play a role in reaching down early into the neighborhoods where they -- where they exist. and helping those children come to their campus, see what is possible. have a mentor, can have somebody who believes in them, change not just their test score for a grade but their expectations for what they can and should achieve. all of us, some of us are lucky enough to be born with that gift. all of us, all of us have an obligation to make sure every

child has that gift. and we play a role, we have a responsibility, and i think that's what brings everybody here together. i admire what everyone here does, what you give your life to. there's just nothing more important economically, but there's also nothing more important in terms of our values and who we are and what we believe in. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our morning plenary sessions. for room locations please consult your agenda. lunch begins in this room promptly at noon. see you then. thank you.

>> we have more live events to tell about coming up today. join us at 3:00 this afternoon for a hearing looking at the impact and treatment of traumatic brain injuries. federal, state and private efforts to treat such injuries will be examined live this afternoon at 3:00 eastern here on c-span3. the road to the white house winds through illinois tomorrow. saturday, there will be a primary election in louisiana. coming up next month, washington, d.c., maryland, wisconsin, connecticut, delaware, new york, pennsylvania, and rhode island hold contests. while the month of may, it's

indiana, north carolina, and west virginia holding primaries. and don't forget to make c-span.org your clearing house for all things related to the campaigns. watch the latest video of republican presidential candidates and president obama from the campaign trail. search in the candidates on the issues section. for a video of the candidates' views on major campaign issues like the economy the deficit, national security and immigration. again, that's all at c-span.org/campaign 2012. >> in march 1979, c-span began televising the u.s. house of representatives to households nationwide. and today, our content of politics and public affairs nonfiction books, and american history is available on tv, radio and online. >> we have even had advice that we do not do as i did today and come in with a plain old white shirt and a summer tie, heaven

forbid. now i don't know whether my colleagues feel that this would be a better decorum for the senate and i see the distinguished senator stafford over here nodding no, but perhaps the people of ohio would be glad to make a judgment on what they want to see me attired here in the united states senate. so mr. president, these are just a few of our concerns here in the senate. and i'm sure that none of us will do a thing differently in the senate of the united states now that we are on television. thank you. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies as a public service. >> secretary of state hillary clinton hosted the second global chiefs can of mission conference at the state department. the forum brings together hundreds of u.s. diplomats from around the world to discuss the work of an ambassador and the priorities and challenges abroad. secretary clinton welcomed the