i applaud nick's paper for addressing environment. we have some work coming up at the center for policy research and strategy to look at how qu state context really influences institutions and regional context as well.te and i just want to say quickly, we know that institutions of thf same sector can reveal vastly different characteristics, depending an the strength of the k-12 system that surround those institutions. the make-up of their community. the students they are serving, the policies around transfer, around undocumented student access to higher education and i really want to applaud a point d made earlier.t i think it was to look at state data and for the federal government to in fact, partner t with states and to incent stated to use their data to allow for c accountability measures. a final point, i'm almost out of time, i want to let people known that we have a paper that came out earlier this year that looks at the college choice behavior of low-income students.nitia

and there's a paper forthcomingr for the white house initiative on educational excellence for ie hispanics which actually shows e the way that hispanic students o choose colleges. if we believe that the ranking -- excuse me, the ratings system is a de facto ranking, which i, in fact, think it will become, we know hispanic students don't use rankings. in fact, around 16% of latinos cited in harry's own data, that rankings were an importantpa z factor in their choice process. so congratulations again to the authors an their paper, particularly nunez and rodriguez and thank you for having me. >> mary beth? >> all right. let's see.a i guess i need a microphone. >> okay. so i'm responding to silvia hurtado and her colleague's paper. i'm going to be short and sweet here because i am short and sweet. i thought i'd get that in there.

so i really enjoyed silvia's yed paper. i wanted -- i think it's really. important that you read this paper for a number of reasons.wa one of the things i liked the nd most is in the very beginning, silvia talks about how they see wanted to use metrics that were fair to both students and lt se institutions. i and i really like the use of thl word fair because i think all too often when we see research and when we see a lot of national reports we don't see kind of the fair use of metrics. and another thing i thought was really interesting about the paper is that she does a really good job of reminding us how for rig so long researchers have been calling for measures that ye consider student inputs as well as institutional inputs. and it's been so long, right?g t and yet we still have all of ios

these efforts that don't ccount consider student input. we have all of these ways of to looking at institutions that don't take into account who the students are that attend the institution yet we've been asking for so long for this to not happen.m pol l and i'm just -- i guess i'm wondering when policymakers will start to listen to that and ha n maybe we can just stop it right now, right? that would be great.igt is and the other thing that i thought was really important is that the work that silvia and t her colleagues are doing, it helps us to look at msis and are really dig a little bit deeper and try to figure out why they are achieving greater efficiencl and success at many of these institutions. i was really glad you said ty of you'll start visiting them, right, because we do know that there is success taking place at a variety of different msis.ando but we don't really dig deeper and your point about the institutional research that you brought up earlier, which i

think at some larger hsis, it's not as big of a deal.rge but it really is a large problem at many under resources hsbcs l and smaller hsis as well. that and that it's very difficult to collect institutional data. the that's really important. two things i thought of when i read the paper, i hope that people won't take your very, very good research and startin using it as a litmus test. so i really worry about that, and i hope that you'll caution n people against that because i sl could see people taking it and , saying, well, it's not efficient, and what i would lov- to see happen to the institutions that aren't -- that don't come out as being efficient is that perhaps they i are given a mentor institution r that is of a similar type or size or maybe within the same sector that can work with them h to become more efficient. r and so i hope that will be one of the recommendations in all eg that you do because i can just

imagine someone coming along ann saying, well, silvia hurtado says -- and so that would be the one thing i would want you to think about. but thank you. great work. some >> i'm going to make some but comments across the papers, but in particular, my colleague nict hillman's paper, which i want to recommend that you take a look at in full. i think this is a really e of i important and different of the analysis. he was able to give you just a sort of taste of it now. one of the most important findings in dr. hurtado's paper is that finding grant aid and investing in terms of instructional spending pays off. in other words, the inputs uts actually matter. o and she shows this in the paper, and it's kind of remarkable thaa we've lost sight of this. and in this discussion about accountability for higher t education, the question should, therefore, be, what is this qus policy effort going to do to

help ensure that more students o get access to those sorts of me resources? of if those inputs matter, what is accountability going to do to increase the likelihood the he students who need those things o in order to graduate are going to get them?ing will it bring new resources to the institutions that don't currently have them? will it create better matches between students who need to be educated in high resource instit settings and institutions that actually possess those resources?doubtf is there any indication that that in fact is going to occur?s i don't think so. it's extraordinarily doubtful. e in fact, what it looks like is going to happen is that the be institutions that don't have te those things, that don't have

much instructional spending foro their students or enroll large s numbers of disadvantaged refore, students will simply be poorly a rated n cut out. t so where is that going to leave us? does it mean that disadvantageds students are, therefore, going to know because an institution was badly rated that they shoule avoid it? whether or not they know it, what nick's paper shows is they are unlikely to be able to do anything about it. are you going to close the tty poorly rated institutions and is leave them with no option? n is that a better scenario? these seem like pretty fundamental and basic questionsn to ask, but they have no ed som answers. and they haven't been addressedm we know within k-12 schooling we closed some failing schools and called them failing and parents still wanted to send their kids there. why? because they are the schools in their neighborhoods. where are they're supposed to they're just because someone declares the school bad because it has ae lot of black and brown kids in it doesn't mean that it is in fact, a bad school. so the problem with this accountability movement is not

its interest in institutional responsibility. it takes a starting presumption with the idea that schools don't care about the outcomes of their students. i don't think i've ever been to a school, public, private or ts for-profit, frankly, that ic, actually doesn't care. there are some, but for the majority, they do. the problem is the system preempts any effort to establist equity and adequacy of resourceq among schools and does nothing to grapple with the facts of the system that expose the disadvantaged students to the most risk. it's the worst part of our th system right now. how risky it is for somebody with disadvantage to enter our system and how likely it is they'll end up with debt and not degree. so i think if we want to experiment with this accountability, we ought to start in a safe place. start with schools that have in high resources and are using er substantial federal funds. of

there are more than 500 private institutions today with an average endowment of more than $100,000 per student who are % f using federal tax dollars to ate cover their cost of attendance n which are over $43,000 a year. d students attending these expensive schools are using federal financial aid to cover 20% of their cost of attendance what's the national return on that investment? let's start our grand experiment in those settings. where those students are at no risk of noncompletion, but we ho have significant concerns aboutu the resources that we are spending. why not begin there, rather than in a place where we're experimenting with the poor and disadvantaged students and limiting their educational opportunities.ies? >> thank you. >> i'm just going to comment briefly on nicholas hillman's i paper about the case of education desert.

and has been mentioned, one of g the most important contributions of this particular paper is thei importance of geography in terms of students' college choice. as he states about 7 in 10 de students choose to stay close to home and hoe important a local t post secondary is. and 10% of the u.s. population lives in an education desert. as we've also heard, such institutions are more likely to receive lower scores or they would be on a lot of the metrics we've been talking about in an y accountability system. so utilizing these institutionsh for low scores by awarding themi less funding could strain their capacity to further serve their students and in some places could lead these institutions to close. this would disproportionately en hurt families for whom that may be the only or one of a few post-secondary options.t of one of the things that i would

encourage us to all consider and for hillman to develop is to rac emphasize that part of the limitation of post-secondary cot options in certain geographic options is influenced by the historical context of those grea areas and as lorelle raised, state context, local policy of context, and this includes historical segregation and discrimination in areas such as texas and other areas of the south.l where mexican americans and african-americans have been 1 concentrated and often have hadg few post-secondary institutiona options. so at the federal level, the more land act in 1862 sought to bring post-secondary options to less settled areas of the u.s. maybe education or the frontier at the time.the but many states continue to bar the enrollment of african-americans in their to colleges and universities.d

so the establishment of a second more land grant act was required to encourage those states to f build separate institutions for african-americans. and subsequently funding from higher education act of 1965 was also -- was also awarded to those institutions in order to continue their important work.g but one of the things that is also important is to consider legal context. so the legislative bills in history and also legal context. in the institution where i work at has been directly impacted by this. in the late 1980s there was a particule ruling that texas inadequately funded hat ha post-secondary institutions.dicn particularly not funding those s institutions that had served large proportions of mexican americans, including many of those along the south texas border. and deborah santiago has also written about this. in effect identifying that south texas was an education desert. and we see that that is still the case with one of the is.ats

counties that nick hillman lkeda talked about.artmen people in my own department actually teach students at that institution that nick hillman identified -- we actually bringy a program out to them so that they can have access to doctorah education and educational ataccs leadership and policy studies.rl and even though i live in a metropolitan area, even though we're located in a metropolitanv area, we have to reach out to e them. we're still held to the same standards. texas is one of the 25 or so te states with performance fundinge we're still held to the same standards of meeting outcomes as other universities like ty of university of texas at austin tt that serve probably half as many low-income students or fewer and we serve over twice as many nk n latino students. and i think an important point

about the education deserts is that there may be a ripple effect further away from those regions. institutions in my county, it'st not necessarily an education us. desert but we're trying to make up for what's going on in some of the counties around us. and if we also get penalized, then that has even greater ramifications. so i just think that's importan to consider in future policy. >> thank you very much. our final commentary this morning is going to be in a sense, this session is trying to bring researchers to talk to people about pending policy issues. inbrin fortunately, we have a policymaker here who is in the middle of this discussion and was generously willing to come and meet with us today and to e talk about her reactions to what she's heard and what's going on in the government. so deputy under secretary jamie studley is our honored guest at this session, and we are very ad

pleased to have her with us today.>> thank >> thank you, gary. good it's good to be doing somethinge with you and the center again.a. and i am not the only one here e working an this project. you'll be glad to know some of my colleagues are here as well because your questions are our questions. the president's challenge, if it has done nothing since last august 22nd, is along with a loy of other work by many of you along the way, is moving the conversation and the focus to ea better questions. and the best question of all, we can frame it in lots of different ways is, what institutions are successfully re contributing to college as completion with a meaningful

education for students with the, least income and the least historic opportunity? that's the way we're coming at . it, and i sense in just literally this year that we are asking smarter questions with that as the objective.workpl to do that, we have to ask what practices, conditions, investments, lead to those positive outcomes. what educational choices, what kinds of recruiting and selection process. what financial aid practices and student supports. fnk linkages with jobs and the workplace will actually help us accomplish those things.on and so one alternative to trying to squeeze months of thinking and reading into five minutes is to simply say, yes, fair question.eased every question that i've heard and read in the papers is a very appropriate one and you would be pleased to know that the conversations that we are havint are eerily similar to the ones e i've heard this morning and that

i've engaged with some of you and that some of my colleagues have been having with many of you over time.laces we are all trying to think about how to design methods that would capture important differences g and advance our policy goal. my own personal test when we have something to test would be whether the places that you think are doing a good job and impressive job in turning access into quality completion are ofts actually well rated in the process.trul that's going to be my home ate version of whether what we do ib working. and that the ones that you worry about across the sectors, the ones that's you say that place e truly is struggling. i would hesitate to let my wi nephew go there, are the ones w should also be identifying as worthy of concern.

it should be very practical andl logical. and one of the correctives is -- one of the realities is that wee will not leap to a proposal.elp we will have continued ign, conversations and what we thinkw is the best possible amalgamation of the issues will be published in draft for are further and serious for conversation. so we will want the expertise of all of you to help us. as we think about the design, let me pick a few items because i want you to know at a more granular level how we are epar thinking about some of these.r o we are thinking about, for example, student academic preparation. exi but given that not all students do the same kinds of things an c their way to a post-secondary i experience, we're also thinking about what exists and what omen, markers there might be. is there a way to evaluate highi school and yet we would say not everybody comes right from high

school.- the zip codes. for what home at what moment, but do they tell us something about the academic preparation in a way that's usable enough to be helpful we know -- i haven't spoken to c single person about this procesu who isn't well aware the ipeds graduation rate is a very a limited indicator. folks like you know that it is d going to be better. it will account better for part-time and transfer students within a couple of cycles. what can we do with that? how will that affect things over time and will that solve the problem or are there other ways to get at the actual population? first generation status is firsn another element that we're thinking about. one area that you -- that i didn't hear you talk about that's also much on our minds, if you want to go on beyond is a the whole area of looking at post graduate outcomes where wew have graduation.e we can look at things like repayment or cohort default butl rate.

but looking at whether people work, whether they work at above the bare minimum, whether they f are better off in terms of earning capacity after school is an important set of questions and one that students and families know matter to them. but it, like all the others is l complicated and freighted by existing discrimination in the marketplace. we think about whether to use s earnings information early in on someone's career or a little bit later after there's more stability. but a counter narrative is the e further out people are, the mor their earnings may be affected by race and gender bias. by local and geographic income realities. o i don't have to tell all of you this is hard work but i want you to understand that we are ed meo working as hard as you are to o, understand what those are. gary asked me to think about e

some questions for you, and one of them that i would have besides how to accommodate all of this and find something that does have meaning and eal achieves -- incorporates the kind of weights that you are thinking of strongly enough, seriously november that we get answers to what schools are exu indeed contributing to real outcomes for low-income and previously excluded people. how do we do that to serve the dual purposes of this system to the extent that there are both e consumer student family counselor desires to understand, immediate choices that people have to make based on their own options and what might happen for a student at a particular rl school and that there are policy and potentially federal investment decisions to be madey would you do the same things? would you do different things for them and if so, what would those differences be because hah

it's been pointed out very en thoughtfully that when you're trying to do two things, you may need variations for those two purposes.ong and yet there are challenges in using different data. we would love the field's help on that. we -- it's very likely that we would have some experience with ratings and some ability to try them out and improve them before proposals came forward to congress which would have to ao approve any effects on the way federal student aid or other federal resources are allocated d sed on a ratings system. so our hope is that we would get -- we would find we had achieved those goals, possibly even revised it to satisfy the questions that you had asked, se and be able to use ratings for several different purposes.

one is, this is the rare play where somebody invests $150 billion and doesn't have any i accountability for how it is spent in terms of the results us that are achieved. we have very soft, subjective, informal measures. but to sustain national confidence in the student aid s system and to be able to continue to justify that we are getting what we want as a nation from it, which is education fo student and education results ve for all, we need to have a political structure of support that is strong enough to keep ul putting precious and highly competed for federal funds into. student aid. one very clear purpose is also to help push the state reinvestment in student aid.

federal money cannot chase the declines we're experiencing so long. and that reorientation of the traditional bargain about the feds, the states, the institutions and families and philanthropy together paying fo. education is something that we need to improve. fortunately, it's been stabilizing in many states, and maybe we are moving in that positive direction. but the -- something that is overlooked, if we think about the danger side of an allocation that follows institutions that are effective in educating first generation underrepresented students, those who have -- who do, indeed, pose an educationalt

challenge for institutions and whose graduation is the reason for our investing so much in us student aid. si we look at the negative side of who might lose. i would encourage us all to think about the positive side of having the information that would allow us to reinforce theo resources and grow the resourceg to those institutions who have the kind of track record that e many of you were talking about so that we put the resources into their hands to be able to do the things that they're doing or do it for more students or o with less struggle and be the models and the beacons we're in looking for for that kind of k a success. this is very complicated work.oe many of you here in the audiencs and on the panel have been generous with us in helping us t think about these issues.h i hope we can count on you to d it as we get closer to versionsi that we would like to share with

you and then share with the entire public so that we can ig? achieve the kinds of goals that you're talking about and do it c according to the test that -- ta it's sarah, right?nd that she was talking about because in fact, those are my questions as well, and those are the benchmarks for us in a system that succeeds in understanding better who is ie succeeding at these important goals.d where and where students are truly being built disadvantaged and where institutions should not bs able to participate in our aid o system.d >> thank you very much. look >> i look forward to questions.e >> we have time for two or three short questions.me if you come down to the microphones, or if you don't, i will ask them, but this is your. chance.kau >> hi. i'm lara kaufman. my question is really short for

dr. hillman. the slide you showed comparing private and for-profit and the cohort -- it says zero with a little asterisk. can you explain that? say >> i forgot about that part. >> my sense is that school they only had 68 students total. my guess is they probably don't need to report that data out tot the feds. out if you have an student that has less than 30 borrowers you havet a different criteria for calculating default rate. that's my hunch with that one a which actually speaks volumes ly about how why measure things we think are pretty straightforwart but in fact are not. be >> it could be zero means zero to 100.. >> it could be.h, and >> hi. thank you for your research, and thank you for this panel. my name is jazelle hunt. my question is more about the proposed standards for accountability. for it seems a lot of thought has gone into the factors. has there been any thought aboue

helping poorly ranked schools actually turn themselves around and improve? i know that as sarah was saying, we've seen what happens at the h through 12 level. hap is that something we're trying to duplicate an a higher education level? a >> for me?e? >> go ahead. >> we have lots of programs currently in place that try to strengthen institutions to be able to carry out these purposes. and the entire notion of including improvements so that e institutions wherever they are, if they are on a positive ments trajectory toward greater ions w effectiveness on whatever he measures we end up choosing would be recognized and be protected as everybody said. it's a little hard to talk about something that doesn't exist but that's at least -- everything i

say is, either people have suggested or it is possible we might because the goal is to oto have lots of opportunities for o people to go to schools that will serve them well. th our objective is not to objec eliminate. it's to improve the overall system availability.otsystem so the more we can identify good practices, expedite their -- people's awareness of them, identify innovations in any par- of education that have value for educating the populations that's we're talking about, the happiea we will all be.populati so there's no reason that -- kig we're not looking to eliminate unless there are places that arl truly not using federal funds to get educational value for people. eli so improvement would be very mit important. >> that was the last question, the last word. i want to take a couple of the t minutes.

we are famous for doing things i on time in our project.n and we know you've given us youe morning, and we appreciate thaty tremendously. what you see today is a very i thoughtful multidimensional effort to understand and think t about what could be done about e the accountability proposals that the president and others s have made in higher education. e i'm shadowed by worries about hd accountability plans that exist in a number of our states and t elementary and secondary that have produced counterproductive impacts. these different analyses have shown you many ways of looking at these issues. ways of looking at geography, looking at pre-college preparations to f looking at a variety of institutional resource factors. any qualities in many respects.o we have a very complicated riety system of higher education in which the states are primary actors in public sector. o we have, in essence, different higher education ry systems.

in a country where the federal government has been the primaryh actor in the student aid area, y and very important. and a vast amount of money goes into this. and a vast amount of the hopes of generations of americans thae their children will have a chance to be in a middle class s that depends an having post secondary credentials.and a the stakes are extremely high o here. and the reason we did this his conference is we want to make sure that there are not unintended harm done. the first rule of policy making, especially when it's so close to the destiny of american young people is do no harm. do no additional harm. try to think about ways that yo.

can do things positively and contribute. i don't think anybody who presented today doesn't think that it would be better to have, better, more accountable institutions. it's not a simple issue. to and particularly, it's not a simple issue as some of our a panelists pointed out when the e data you want to have doesn't exist. when you enact a sound bite on y the basis of a theoretical data that doesn't yet exist, you create problems that aren't t foreseeable in many dimensions. what we will be doing as we go forward in this area is to be o taking these papers, now that the authors have a chance to wo, speak to each other, read each , other's work, hear your htful comments, hear your questions, hear the very thoughtful response of our deputy them, undersecretary to think deeply about them, to revise them, we will be publishing these as the go through peer review and are revised. they will be on the website of

the civil rights project, and i assume our collaborating institutions. and they will certainly appear in the professional literature.. this was not designed to be an t attack on the obama administration, its proposals. it's a thoughtful way to try to contribute to an ongoing discussion and we greatly contri appreciate the welcoming of these contributions and to the discussion. i'd like to thank the authors ts and commentators and all of you who asked interesting questions today and to tell you this is just a step.ues this is a very high stakes set of issues that will determine the destiny of individual mmunit students, of communities.iel it will affect racial equality v in the united states and mobility. it's a very high stakes issue.

i urge all of us to continue toi look at this with great interest and careful and critical judgment and to contribute to ay policy making process that turns out to be a lot smarter than the policy making done in elementary and secondary education when sound bites really were enacted into law and we've been stuck with them for 14 years. i'd like to thank everybody fora their participation and to close this session now. thank you very much. cspan's 2014 continues tonight with a debate between jeanne shaheen and scott brown. here's a look. >> in some ways, i approve. like most questions that we deal with as policymakers, there aren't simple answers.

yes and no. >> you have said you're the candidate for the citizens of new hampshire. scott brown often says you vote with president obama 99% of the time. because his ratings are at an all time low right now, how does your voting record sort soft vooif with the citizens of new hampshire? >> i work for new hampshire. and scott brown talks a lot about one survey and 99% of the time that i voted with the president, but the numbers i'm proudest of are the 359, 259 people who are now working at the prison because i was able to get the prison open after it sat empty for two years. it's the 1200 people who were being foreclosed on in their homes who worked, our office worked with to keep in their homes. it's the 129,000 veterans who

can now get care close to home because of the legislature that senator ayotte and i got into the veteran's reform bill. what we need is a senator who's going to work for new hampshire. who's going to make sure we address the concerns that we hear from our constituents, who's going to be willing to work with democrats, republicans and independents. anybody this washington who can help us get the job done for this state. >> you've got 45 seconds. >> she just described me. because i was the most bipartisan senator in the united states senate. every survey that's come out has senator shaheen as being one of the most partisan senators. she has voted with the president over 99% of the time. what does that mean to people in new hampshire? means she was the deciding vote for obamacare. she voted against every ability to keep our doctors and health facilities that everyone loveded. as a result, deductibles are going up. costs are going up.

care and coverages are going down. she's voted to keep this place a system with more grad lock. that's part of the problem. >> the new hampshire senate race is listed in some polls as toss up and could determine control of the u.s. senate. watch it tonight at 8:00 p.m. on cspan. then at 9:00, the first and only debate for oregon senate. recent polls list this race as likely democratic. and at 10:00, a large field of congressional candidates face off in louisiana. vance mcallister is running for a second term having won a special election last year. he'll debate rbs -- they'll debate for the state's fifth district seat. we'll have that all tonight on our companion network, cspan.

john kerry met with his south korean counterpart today in washington, d.c. they held a press conference afterward to discuss the nuclear threat from north korea, the global response to ebola and the transfer of the military to south korean command. this is about 20 minutes. thank you. well, good morning. i want to start by welcoming my friend and my colleague foreign minister back to washington. who is here along with south korean defense minister. we had a very productive what we call two plus two meeting. this morning.

it was the first dialogue that we have conducted during which secretary hagel and i restated the degree to which we are deeply committed to building on today's discussions and reenforcing the very close partnership this we have with the republic of korea. it is safe to say that everybody reiterated this today that the u.s. republic of korea alliance is stronger than ever. and thanks to the agreement that defense minister haan and secretary hagel signed yesterday, it's about to become even stronger. this new agreement is going to serve as a blueprint for how and when south korea will assume wartime operational control of the combined forces. and the goal of the agreement is to ensure that as south korea

continues to build up its own defense capabilities, our combined forces will be ready and able to provide the best possible defenses for the korean people. our shared security is at the heart of the u.s. roc alliance. but ultimately, want to make it clear that our alliance is about much more than that. it is the lynch pin of security, stability and prosperity in northeast asia and increasingly beyond there. today, for instance, we discussed a number of important issues for our partnership is not only valuable, but essential. obviously at the top of the list was the subject of north korea. secretary hagel and i reiterated that the united states remains committed to a peaceful denuclearization of the korean

peninsula through authentic and credible negotiations. we remain open to dialogue with north korea, but there is no value in talks just for the sake of talk. north korea must demonstrate that it is serious about denuclearization. and we need to be certain that it is prepared to live up to its international obligations and abide by international norms of behavior. in the meantime, we will remain vigilant against the clear threat north korea poses. we also spent time today discussing our shared efforts on a number of other issues. we all understand that infectious disease in africa, extremism in the middle east and territorial aggression in eastern europe pose threats that extend far beyond those regions. in both south korea, the united states believe our alliance will

not only deepen our, not only deepen as we continue to step up our efforts to address those threats, and we will do so because we share a sense of responsib responsibility about international leadership and the importance of these challenges to the norms of international behavior. we were very grateful grateful to hear from both the foreign minister eun and haan that south korea tends to continue cooperating closely with us in regard to these international efforts and in fact, wants to step up its efforts in a number of regards. for example, we are very pleased that south korea has announced that it will send additional health care experts to assist in the international response in west africa on top of the

experts and supplies it has already sent and last month as part of the global isil, south korea contributed another $4 million in humanitarian assistance to iraq, bringing its total contributions to date to more than 5.2 million. the republic of korea has emerged as a key global player. dedicated as the united states is to universal values. like human rights, democracy and the rule of law. and as we discussed today, i pointed out it was only a few years ago that republic of south korea was a recipient of aid, but because of its own ingenuity and commitment to growth and development and stability and democracy, now, republic of korea is now itself a donor country, assuming increasing responsibilities willfully and effectively on a global basis

and we welcome that and we're grateful for it. i mentioned that our alliance has in fact never been stronger. giving the staggering range of challenges that we face today, neither has it been more important and with the help of our new ambassador in south korea, who i will have the privilege of swearing in later today, we look forward to continuing our work with our south korean allies and with our friends for many years to come. i'm delighted to turn the floor to you. >> thank you. secretary kerry. >> translator: first, i would like to thank secretary kerry and hagel for hosting the two plus two meeting in washington today. this year, the two plus two meetings have been held for the third time from 2010 to 2012 and

this is the first one since the -- administration. in 2010 we had folked on our response to north korean aggressions. today, we were able to focus on our alliance beyond the korean peninsula, on global issues as well. this demonstrates this the korea u.s. alliance has gone beyond serving as lynch pin for peace and stability on, in asia pacific region. it is now a global partnership. through two summit meetings since the administration, we have been able to establish the fact that our relationship is the best ever since 1953. it is the strongest alliance in the world as well. i believe that this is based on mutual trust as well as continuous development and adaptation. today, we were able to discuss

various issues, other global issues as well in today's meeting, we were able to express elation about the progress we've made within the last one and a half years. and we were able to reach a successful agreement on the defense cost sharing special session last year and yesterday, we were able to reach agreements on conditions based of content transfer as well. currently, u.s. nuclear agreement is likely to come to a successful agreement. if that happens, we will have had the most successful agreements on most of our major issues. on the other hand, there are other areas in which we need to seek cooperation. cybersecurity as well as space projects and i think our efforts are moving beyond the three forces and into the new horizon. recently, north korean nuclear

mi missile threats have reenforced the fact that -- will be the most effective in determining aggression from north korea and promoting peace and stability on the korean peninsula. and the unpredictability and fluidity of the situation in korea helped us agree that we need a comprehensive multidimensional response and i believe that denuclearization, human rights in north korea as well as conducive environment for -- is the holistic approach we also need to focus on and to that end sh we have to create more creative ideas on how to bring this about ch we need to ensure a safe light to north koreans and bring about real human rights compliance in the country. by doing that, we'll be able to create an environment conducive to -- and i believe

denuclearization will act as the engine in bringing this amount. maritime issues have threatened northeast asia security environment since the cold war has ended, this has been the most tense situation in the northeast asian region. based on the korea u.s. alliance, we'll be able to create an environment that will be able to create real solutions to these issues, in particular the rebalancing of the asia pacific region is going to contribute to peace and stability in northeast asia. finally, our alliance has moved beyond just the korean peninsula. we are happy to announce that our alliance is contributing to resulting global issues. we are happy to report we are collaborating on stopping the spread of the e bbola virus as well as other global issues. we will be sending more aid

toward that area and considering this more than the health issue, but a serious issue to security in the world. and on another front, we are fighting isil and foreign terrorists fighters and to that end, we agree to the u.n. resolution and look forward to a thorough implementation. and since the joint statement on the 60th anniversary of the alliance, through these meetings, we were able to add substance and detail to the vision and road map to the relationship and i hope that based on mutual trust, we'll be able to improve on the already good relationship between the two. minister haan and i look forward to be able to reciprocate the warm hospitality on their next visit to korea. thank you. >> nbc news.

>> is it true that north korea has closed its borders citing ebola fears and to secretary kerry, if true, how will this a recent release of american jeffrey powell affect the negotiations of the release of the other two detained americans. also, are you in a position to confirm reports --- >> i'm sorry -- i hate to do this to you, but can you repeat the first part of your question? i it got swallowed up, i couldn't hear it. from the beginning. >> if true that north korea has closed it's boarders citing ebola fears, how will this and the release of american jeffrey powell affect the release of the two detained americans.

also are you in a position to confirm that isis has used chemical weapons on foreign troops and if so how will this change the strategy? >> translator: in recent months, north korea has shown very unique behaviors. on the one hand, it is using continuous aggression, but on the other hand, they're looking for dialogue. in the past few weeks, north korea has launched aggressions on the dmz as well as on the maritime fronts. and they have fired at some of the flyers that were sprinkled in balloons. just one month ago, during the asian games, high level officials however visited korea and they proposed a high level

talk. so what they speak and what they do seem to be inconsistent. but for the second high level meetings that we proposed, if north korea accepts and if we are able to have the talks then i believe we can find a path to improvement to relationship for peace on the korean palestinien as well as a desire for unification, we are very much trying to create that kind of an environment. >> i can't tell you how their decision will or won't affect anything with respect to the other americans who are being held. they have made some statements about their expectations of what the united states should do respect to that. we have made ill clear that no apology or other statement is in the offing. they need to release these

people because they're being held inappropriately. and our hope is that they will recognize the goodwill that could be built and the gesture that it would offer to the world of their willingness to try to open up a different diplomatic track. so our hope is for the humanitarian reason alone, that they will behave differently and see fit to release these people. we're grateful that jeff foul was released, back in ohio now, but we're still deeply concerned about the other americans who are being held. with respect to the chlorine, if you ask me am i in a position to confirm it, and the answer is no, i am not in a position to confirm it. but i can tell you that we take these allegations very, very

seriously, in particular the most recent allegations about the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon. chlorine by list is not on the chemical weapons list, therefore is not one of the things removed under the agreement we reached between the russian and the syrian regime. but when mixed in certain ways or used in certain ways, it can become a chemical that is on the list of pro hinted chemicals. the use of any chemical weapon is an abhorent act, and it underscores the work that we are currently engaged in, it will not affect our strategy, it

obviously can affect tactical decisions within that strategy, but our fundamental strategy remains absolutely clear and we are step by step bringing the coalition further and further down the road to being able to shore up the iraqi army itself, and to take measures against isil. we have said in the beginning, this will take time. and it will evolve, as it is, day by day as general allen and our teams are working to come together, important meetings have been held during the course of this past week, and i expect to see further progress over the course of the next weeks. >> so final question, will be shim of yom hap news. >> i will question you the first. >> translator: south korea

relations are improving and u.s. alliance is stronger. i believe the six-party talks is most important in continuing this trend, so i would like to ask for your opinion on that, and -- the u.s. prepared to reduce its military presence in asia if north korea rejoining, rejoins nuclear negotiation. can you be specific what it means? and one more last question, do you plan to talk or negotiate with north korea about that? nuclear negotiations and one more last question is, can you -- if they release two of the other american detainees.

>> can we what? >> can you visit? >> oh, can i visit? >> can you visit north korea and north korean leader kim jong-un if they release the two they have detained? >> do you know something about an invitation that i -- -- >> can i first? okay. >> translator: on the prospects of the six party talks, the north korea nuclear development as well as its efforts toward economic development, these have to be given up. as stated in our joint statement, we need to have a clear stance on their nuclear policy. north korea's denuclearization and a halt to the sophistication

of its nuclear weapons, all of these have to be real, it has to lead to real solutions. to that end between korea and u.s., and between korea, u.s. and china, we have had many talks. with the governments, we have had many talks and secretary kerry has also recently reiterated that in order to advance these -- a resolution to these issues, we need to generate more creative ideas, so we will have more consultations on that. >> so let me make it absolutely clear, that the mere entering into talks is not an invitation to take any actions regarding troops or anything else at this point. it would be way too premature to have any thought or, you know,

even discussion about such a thing. the only purpose of entering the talks is to come to an understanding regarding first the denuclearization and then follow the denuclearization, obviously, whatever relationship might be appropriate. but it is entirely premature to be talking about any troop reductions or anything else at this point in time. as it is also premature to have any thoughts about visits at this point in time. the first thing you have to do is come to a competent, real, authentic set of talks about denuclearization, and that is the prerequisite to any other possibilities thereafter. >> thank you all very much. appreciate it. >> thank you, sir.

next, author jonathan white discusses the role of the union army in lincoln's 1864 re-election. the republican challenged the democratic party's pro slavery candidate. ultimately president lincoln earned 80% of the soldiers' votes. the historical society hosted this hour-long event. >> it's really a pleasure to