turkey, and we should get those five leaders to go or their representatives and we can decide together on what to do about syria, and whatever we decide, i sign and the syrian opposition will have to agree to it, and i said that's a wonderful idea and you have made that proposal to president obama, and he said no i haven't. i said do you mind if i make that proposal on your behalf to president obama, and he said please do. so i sent that to president obama, and you may remember john kerry remember went to see putin to discuss that issue, and i don't know what has happened since then. >> what do you think of john kerry as secretary of state? >> i think he is one of the best secretary of states we have ever had, i think he is outstanding. >> what about president obama's success or failures on the world

stage, how would you assess that? >> on the world stage i think they have been minimal. i think he has done good things domestically like the health program and so forth, but on the world stage just to be objective as it as i can i can't think of many nations in the world where we have a better relationship now than we did when he took over. if you look at russia and england and china and egypt, and i am not saying it's his fault but we have not improved our relationship with individual countries and i would say the influence and prestige and the respect in the world is lower now than it was six or seven years ago. let me, again, let me repeat, i don't blame him for it because

it's circumstances that have evolved, and john kerry has been a courageous and innovative and dynamic secretary of state. as a matter of fact, when president obama was inaugurated the second term rosa and i went up to the inauguration and john kerry and his wife came to our hotel room that morning and spent two hours before the ceremony, and john kerry outlined what he was going to do as secretary of state, and at that time president obama had not visited israel. and he tried i think his best to bring about a peace agreement in the mideast and to do other things that i need not mention. >> to what extent, though, do you think it is partly obama's fault that he has not been able to establish a relationship with other countries? >> well i think that this may

not be a good thing to say to a group of americans, but i think that the historical trend is for the united states to relinquish its unquestionable domination of the world's politics and economy and cultural influence. >> is that a good thing -- >> i think it can be a good thing. there are so-called great countries, and china is rising and russia is going to come back and other countries also, brazil is increasing its influence, and india is increasing its influence compared to what it was ten years ago, and i can't say i would blame president obama for it, and how can the united states fit in and still accomplish the goals of promoting the elements of a superpower, and what are the

elements of a superpower. this is maybe preaching a little bit, but i think a superpower should not only be the top country as far as military power is concerned, which we are going to continue to be, but i think the american superpower goal should be to be the champion of peace, and to be -- and to be the champion of human rights and to be the champion of the environment and to be the most generous nation on earth those are the elements that i hope eventually united states will set as goals. and we are the most war-like country on earth, and we are laggered in addressing the problem of global warming for instance, and we are now violating about ten of the 30

paragraphs in the universal declaration of human rights. i think this is something that we should look upon as opportunities as duties for the future. >> the two of you came on this aspen trip that a lot of this took to the arctic, and i wanted to turn to mrs. carter about you know your views, how they changed on the environment, that trip to the artic, and maybe what it's like traveling with president carter? >> i travel with him all the time. we go -- we have programs in 80 countries? 80 countries, of course the most isolated countries in the world but the trip to the arctic was very special, i thought. we had on that ship -- what was it the "national geographic," and everybody on the trip had to be an expert in the environment

and had to say something about the environment, and we heard the best people, but jimmy has been working on environmental issues since he was the governor of georgia, saving rivers and things like that marshlands, and i think he has taught me well a long time ago that we needed to take care of the environment. >> president carter in the book which i do urge people to read, one of the things i didn't quite know although i did read "hour before daylight" which was a childhood book, about growing up in archery a small town and you were one of two only white families and white kids in that town. explain how your views on race were formed there and then i would love to take you to this past week where we have had

another great confrontation on race. >> well, you are right about this i was -- there were about 55 african-american families and our family, and i was the only child of that age and all of my playmates when i grew up were african-american, and we played baseball together and fishing and hunting and worked in the field together, and that was my life. it was during a time of racial segregation, which lasted 100 years from the 1860s to the 1960s, and i was very unaware of the racial distinctions because we treated each other equally whoever was the best wrestler or caught the biggest fish or hit the baseball the best was the

best for an hour or two, and i didn't realize that at a time african-american kids had inferior schools and they had to go to their own schools and churches, and black people were not permitted to vote or permitted to serve on a jury and so forth, but my opinion was distorted by the fact that the richest and most influential and respected person in archery was a black person, who was a bishop, and that was the same denomination as the church in charleston and he was a world traveler and in charge of churches in five northern states, and when he came home there would be headlines that he was visiting his home church in archery over the weekend, and he was rich, and he had a black

cadillac all the time and a driver who was a chauffeur and when he got ready to talk to my father, the custom was the black person did not come to the door of a white family, and he wanted to abide by the morals of the south but not that he was inferior in any way, and he would send the chauffeur to our house to make sure my father was home and he would go back and get bishop johnson and drive up in the driveway and blow the horn and my dad would go out and talk to him, and i looked upon him as the most successful and admirable person in my life, and as i grew up i saw the distinctions more clearly. my mother was a nurse and she was immune from criticism because of her treating black people as equals, and my mother

quit nursing in the hospital where she got $4 a day for a 12-hour duty and she was supposed to get $6 for a 20-hour duty, so my two sisters and i very seldom saw my mother during those times because she would come home at night at 10:00 and wash her uniforms and take a shower bath and write instructions for us for the dinner the next day, and she would go back on duty at 2:00 in the morning so she was on duty 20 hours a day. she refused to admit in any way that african-americans were not at least equal to white people, and so those kinds of experiences really shaped my life for the future. >> what happened in charleston last week involved three of the most controversial issues we have race, guns and mental health. i want to get mrs. carter to address the mental health

issues but what was your reaction on how people reacted with regard to race and the guns issue? >> on the race issue, i think there is no doubt that south carolina is now going to finally lower their confederate flag, which georgia did about ten or 12 years ago and the governor that lowered the confederate battle flag was defeated in the next election by a republican who was against lowering the flag, and guns, i don't think the nra will relinquish any of its present almost disgusting influence overstate legislators and over congress. so we will continue to have a plethora of guns quite

unnecessarily in the united states, and i don't think we are going to have to have a need for proof of past experience or whether you are qualified to get guns, and i think the nra will continue to prevail, which is a dashedly thing to have happen. i am an active hunter and like to hunt and fish and i have a number of guns but anybody that gets a gun ought to be fully qualified and get a background briefing and i don't believe that we ought to authorize the sell of machine guns and guns in churches and schools and that sort of thing. i think it's ridiculous that we do that for the nra to prevail. >> i get very upset when people with mental illness are blamed for everything that happens like that because only 4% of all violent crimes are committed by people with mental illnesses.

if you look at the statistics if you look at their lives, most of them you will find have not had access to services. people knew they needed services but they didn't -- the one in washington in the capitol, how many times had he tried to get help and couldn't get it? anyway, i hope the sigma is lifting a little bit now. i have a program at the carter center, a mental health program there, and we have mental health fellowships for journalists, and this was 18 years ago trying to decide what else we could do to overcome sigma, and somebody said why don't we bring journalists in and let them know about mental illnesses so they can write accurately and in depth, and i think that has made a little bit of difference.

i do also think i started a sigma, but now -- we with our journalists had a program in california an international program in trying to overcome stigma, and now eight countries including australia, two european countries and others want a program in journalism like that to copy my program, which makes me feel really good. but i do think the time has come, because young people now will go for help. people don't want to go for help because they don't want to be labeled mentally ill, and hopefully the stigma is beginning to lift a little bit. >> what can we do to have more

access to services for mental health especially for young people and lifting the stigma? >> the largest facility, prisons and jails, it's really difficult to get help for mental health services, and mental health has always gotten what is left over after everything was funded. the parody law is changing that a little bit and i am hoping it will change it a lot, and sometimes it takes a while for people to access services because of the stigma but the parody law is insurance for mental health illnesses the same as for any other illnesses. one of my greatest disappointments in my life was passing a mental health systems act that the next president put on the self and did not implement it.

we had parody of insurance and services, and we had somebody with mental help in the office of a medical professional, and the country is moving that way. but parody, it -- once people begin accessing services, i think it's going to be a flood doing that. i had parody and integration of services and incentives for people to go into the mental health profession, all of that in my bill 30 years ago. >> this was during his presidency period? >> yes. >> you worked in georgia, too. >> yes, i worked in georgia, and i was in the governor's commission and in the white house, and now the best program

at the carter center. >> thank you for all that thank you for what you do. one other programmer involved with is what i call domestic caregiving, and i would rather you describe it. describe how it works. >> when we came home from the white house our local state university had a small endowment for a mental health program, and by the time i thought i could do something because i was writing a book and doing a lot of things and by the time i thought i could do something else i already had a good mental health program at the carter center, and we decided to work with those caring for people with mental illnesses because i had seen so many people when somebody in the family would develop a mental illness, they had no idea where to go or what to do, and there are lots of services out there in the community, so before the first conference we had a program on

burnout, and we brought in people in small communities, and everybody knows what is going on, and we had people caring for elderly family members or handicapped children who wanted to come, and we invited them in, and let the university students go and sit with the ones for the ones -- the one they are caring for. it was the most emotional reading i have ever been to. people crying -- see this was '87, people were crying saying that's the first time i ever been with anybody who knew how i felt and we were talking with each other and we knew we hit the problem and we began that problem, and it's an institute for caregiving, and it has grown and grown and grown. we started working with the national guard in georgia with the veterans coming home and then -- it was a good while

before michelle and jill had that program for veterans and so i wrote michelle a letter and said you left something out because these veterans are coming home with mental and physical problems and somebody has to take care of them. by then i had seen so many young wives particularly who had no idea what to do when somebody came home with no limb or -- it was really sad. so we hooked into that program, too. johnson & johnson has helped me. we have an evidence-based program that we have done for alzheimer's caregivers, and we have the aoa districts in georgia and 12 other states and now the caregiving program for veterans, go into the home and working with the families, and people who work for veterans

have a hard time getting a veteran to admit that he or she needs help, but we can go -- we don't talk to the veteran, we talk to the family and it's a lot easier to get in. so a couple programs that i am proud of. >> thank you for that. [ applause ] >> i am going to ask president carter about two more countries and then we will open it up if we may, to questions but first, china, you went there for the first time i read, in 1949 like when it was before it had become a communist nation. you dealt with them almost every year, it seems, since then, right? what should we be doing with china? are we handling it right? we are turning them into a competitor more than a cooperated alliance.

>> i did go there on a submarine and this was a time when the nationalists chinese were forbided by the communist to stay in a few sea ports, and a few weeks after i left china the republic was formed on my birthday so i am 25 years older than the people of the republicic of china. president nixon had been to china in '72, and he had the shanghai communicate and he said there was one china but did not say which one, and we went on with president ford to recognize china.

so i have been going to china every sense i got out of the white house, almost every year. i have seen tremendous change taking place in china. they still have serious human rights problems, but they made a great deal of progress compared to what it used to be when the communist first took over. first of all no bibles permitted, or no religion permitted in china and i told them i wanted them to let the bibles come back and religion come back, and china is now the fastest growing christian country in the world. they have made some progress. i think are ping, who i have met five times now, met him three times before he was leader and he has become the most powerful

chinese leader and he is highly committed to the nationalistic point of view, which means he sees a long-term trend taking place and china is becoming the leader in politics and the economy, so i think what the united states needs to do is to make a very firm commitment to find some areas in which china and the united states can cooperate with each other. the last two -- three times i met with peng, i urged him to form a partnership with united states and global warming, and no matter what they decided if china and united states can agree on anything that would help prevent climate deterioration, the rest of the world would have to go along, and they could search for some ways without any diplomatic problems or financial problems or military problems they could agree on that one thing, which i

think would transform the world and i think it would be a basis for further improvement. i would say that particular issue and any others that we can find on which we have an agreement to emphasizes those instead of the differences that exists between us. >> finally, in the book, you reminded me that you were in favor of normalizing relations with cuba if possible when you were president. why did you not do so and what do you think of what is happening now? >> when i became president i saw the cuban policy was unsustainable and erroneous, so i lifted all travel restraints on american citizens, and while i was president any american could visit cuba if they wanted to, and i worked with fidel castro on moving towards full diplomatic relations and we made good progress the first 2 1/2

years. for instance, he released 3,000 political prisoners he was holding and about 1,000 of them were permitted to come to the united states, and we established a intersection in the embassy in savannah and it used to be a embassy in havanna and they have almost the same number in washington and we got right up to the point of normalizing relations, but castro went back on his word to me and he sent a large number of troops into ethiopia to fight alongside the communist dictator and russians and tried to convince some latin american countries to adopt his policy so i wish i could have normalized diplomatic relations with china and i would have if i could have, but i think what

president obama has announced doing is a good move and i hope he will go through with it, because the constitution of the united states gives the president of the united states unilateral right to recognize any government that he wants to and congress has nothing to say about it. this is one thing that the president can do by himself and one of the only things that i can think of and if he wanted to he could say i recognize the peoples peoples republic -- i recognize cuba. >> this is the first of our mccluskey speaker series. thank you for doing that. firsthand, i see in the middle there and then way back there. what do you make of edward

snowden? >> first of all, i think edward snowden violated the law and he violated the customs of keeping our secrets secret, but at the same time i think his overall impact on the united states has not been a disaster, and i think what he has revealed to the american people needed to be revealed and i believe that what we are now seeing in the congress of backing off from their unlimited intrusion into the internal affairs of every human being in america is coming to a conclusion because congress is now seeing what snowden said, so i think what he has done has been beneficial to his country in the long run, and i don't think he has betrayed anybody that works in security overseas as far as i know, but he did violate the law and if he comes back home he would be tried and that's why he is not coming back. so in balance, i think that what he has done has been helpful to our country instead of damaging

to our country. >> yes, sir, right there. you can shout and the microphone will catch it. >> i wanted you to address to the audience the projects you have going on to eliminate parasites in africa and i think that's one of the best things going on right now. >> the center started out promoting peace, and i was going to have a little camp david for the center and folks that had a civil war or a war between two countries come to me and i would negotiate peace agreements and we do a lot of that, north korea, and i won't list all the countries we go to, and the second thing we were going to do is promote democracy and freedom by orchestrating and helping plan and monitoring honest elections in the world. we just finished our 100th election in guyana last month.

the third thing we took up to my somewhat surprise was dealing with issues concerning health care that nobody else wants to do so we addressed diseases that the world health organization calls neglected tropical diseases, and we have five of them that even doctors in the united states wouldn't know about. so these are the diseases we addressed. we have also at the carter center, the only international task force on disease eradication in the world. we bring in top leaders from the health field in general and we analyze constantly every human illness to see which ones might possibly be eliminated from a particular country or region or eradicated from the entire world, so we are the ones that

decide and recommend to the world health organization which should be there. and the latest one is from the bible, and if you remember, the staff with the thing wrapped around it, that's a guinea worm. we tried to eradicate it from the world and we found it in 20 countries in india and africa and 26,600 villages. about 3.6 million cases and we taught the people what to do to do away with it, and so far this year i got a report yesterday,

we have five cases of guinea worm left in the world. so if we are lucky if we are lucky, we will soon have guinea worm completely eradicated. >> congratulations. i saw bill, and then -- is there any women, by the way? okay, get to you next. >> what i might say, this year the carter center will teach 71 million people for these diseases that no longer exist in the developed world but do in undeveloped. >> most of it is by the companies that give us medicine. >> they give you free medicine to do it yeah. >> it's great to have you all here in aspen. it's terrific that aspen was able to bring you.

president carter when you first ran in '76, early in the campaign there was a man that died a few years thompson and he was one of the first journalist that had the chance to say this man had a chance to win the presidency. can you tell us about the klee algae that you had with thompson? >> for those of you that don't know -- >> when i was governor of georgia, senator ted kennedy came down to make the main speech at the georgia law school, and i was going to make a speech to the alumni in a separate and very small meeting at lunchtime, and when kennedy made his speech, it was almost exactly what i was going to say so i went in the back room and made notes in a hurry about the problems with our judicial

system in the world and in this country and i made the speech and hunter thompson was listening to my speech and he was also filling up his tea glass with wild turkey whisky, and when i got done with my speech he was profoundly affected by it -- >> the wild turkey or your speech? >> my speech, but maybe both. he got a copy of my speech from the georgia university president, and he lived near aspen, and when anybody visited him he would make them listen to my speech as a ticket to come to his house for entertainment. so when we used to come out here to aspen to ski, hunter thompson came and spent time with my son and daughter, and he was a very close friend of mine. when i was campaigning, by the way, he insisted to my press

secretary that he have an interview with me and jody turned him down. so hunter thompson brought a bunch of stuff out of his room curtains and that sort of thing and built a fire in front of jody's hotel room door. he and i were good friends. >> did he come visit you in plains? mrs. carter, tell us what it was like to host dr. thompson? >> it was interesting. but he did always complain about a little -- oh, there are little white things in my bedroom. >> what were they? moths? oh i get it, hallucinations.

i get it. >> thank you for the opportunity to ask a question. my first question is for mrs. carter, and first of all thank you for your service to improve the lives of people around the world. i am very heartfelt when i think of all the humanitarian efforts that you have gone to over the last four decades, and i am also touched and intrigued by the research and outreach provided through the rosalynn carter institute. is there anything else you would like to share about the ins institute or anything? >> when we decided to have a program, a mental health program in a post conflict conuntry, so we decided on liberia, because

we had access to women and what was available to them and access to justice and we had people all over liberia anyway. we found out they had one psychiatrist in the country, that was all, no other mental health professionals. we organized a program and helped them and helped the country organize a mental health program and trained 144 -- we went with 150 and we saved 144 before the ebola crisis. when the ebola crisis came along along, we started working -- we stopped the classes and started working with the families of those who died and the survivors, and we did that all over the country all of the access of justice and access to

information people, and on may 9th ebola was declared ebola free by the organization and that was one of the things my program did, and it seemed a miracle to me with no mental health workers and they had 144 with the ebola crisis hit, and it was a miracle we were there to do that. >> there's a woman way back there. yeah. you got to shout. i am trying to get our staffers in physical fit by calling on people in the back for a change. >> lady rosalynn and mr. president, actually, we would like to ask a favor from you and we just got married with my new husband -- my only husband. >> my goodness, you are actually wearing a white -- heavens.

>> and you set an example for us how to be together for such long years, and that's why we asked if it was possible to sign as a witness for the marriage license? >> i will leave it up -- somebody works with the president and mrs. carter, and maybe if you chat with her afterwards you could see what could be handled. the woman sitting next to her, you can't complain. this will be -- yeah, we will try to make it quick and get one more afterwards yes. >> given what you said about america promoting human rights, how did that affect or how should it affect america's alliance with saudi arabia? >> that's a very difficult question to answer. i am particularly interested, which we have not mentioned at

this time about the rights of women, and i have written a book describing the abuses in the world the most horrible human rights abuses on earth and it's almost impossible for a woman in saudi arabia even if she graduates from college to get a job and hold a job and women are not permitted to go on the sidewalks or in a store shopping unless she is accompanied by her husband or another man to protect her, and she has to wear a veil and she cannot vote or drive an automobile. i wish the united states was not supporting saudi arabia and their bombing of yemen, by the way, and in my experience as president it's important for us to have saudi arabia supporting our policies within the arab world, because no doubt the king of saudi arabia being the

protector of two holy places where muslims worship is a very important ally to have, and the united states has to swallow its commitment to human rights to have good relations with saudi arabia because saudi arabia could help us in many ways when oil is scarce and also dealing with other arab countries, and it's not a good answer but you can't be pure in saying human rights has to come above everything, but there are with some abusers we have to negotiate and deal. we meet with human rights abusers and people that are outcast in the international world because they are the ones and only ones that can end the human rights abuses or bring peace to an unnecessary war, so we meet with them to negotiate peace and promote human rights.

>> there is no simple answer to that. there is a young woman there that everybody keeps pointing to, and you get the last question. you had lots of fans that kept saying take her. >> i have a question for president carter, and i know you have not spoken on this yet, and i know you left your church and can you describe what led you to do that? >> okay. well, for 70 years i was very active in the southern baptist convention. i was on international board of directors and things of that kind, but in the year 2000, the southern baptist convention decided at their convention in florida to depart from what i consider the holy scriptures and they ordained for instance women had to be subservient to their husbands and inferior in the eyes of god and they also

decided that a woman could not be a deacon in the church or a pastor or preach in the church or a chaplin in the military forces, and in addition to that, they even went so far as to say that a woman who taught in the baptist seminaries could not teach a class if there was a boy among the students, because of the obvious discrimination against women rosa and i decided to with draw our allegiance to the southern baptist convention and we still belong to a southern baptist church and i hope you will come and visit sometime, not in the same sunday but i teach sunday school, and i teach bible

lessons every sunday, and rosa is a deacon, and the chair of the board is a deacon now and we had men pastors as well as women pastors and our baptist church demonstrates that women without question should be equal in the eyes of god. [ applause ] >> that is that a beautiful sentiment that ties in everything that you have been doing for 90 years. i have one quick little question which is you fish a frying pan all the time, and you found a fishing spot that you even told president putin about? >> the year before last last year in june, we went fishing in the river in russia, and we already fished on the other side

of russia which was the eastern part, and when we fished in russia, we were closer to new york than moscow, and anyway we had a wonderful visit there. when i got through fishing salmon with my wife in the paw tphoeu river in russia i wrote president putin a letter that he would enjoy to fish and to protect the stream and not let it go to spoil, and we fished primarily to canada, and most of you who know if you go to norway or canada to fish for salmon, if you catch two a week, that's really good. during the five days we fished in russia, my wife and i caught 38 salmon. if you want to get the best fishing of your life, go to russia and fish in the paw

tphoeu river, and i hope president putin will protect the river, which is what i asked him to do. >> we catch and release and we press in on the hooks so it won't hurt the fish. >> that's a fitting note on which to end because i always feel fly fish something a tpetfed -- med afore for life. mrs. carter, president carter. [ applause ]

>> help to save new orleans.

we're covering a couple events on health care today. in one hour and 15 minutes, a look at what happens now after the court decided that millions

of americans are entitled to tax subsidies to help them afford health insurance, and will there be more legal challenges. it begins just after 1:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span 3. president obama will speak about health care live from an elementary school in nashville, expected to get underway at 2:30 eastern here on c-span. up next the results of a survey of going to school in america conducted by the friedman foundation for education choice which supports expanded access. it's hosted by the american enterprise institute and it's an hour and 15 minutes.

good afternoon, everybody. great to have you here at the american enterprise institute. for the release of the 2015 schooling in america survey, and this is becoming a little bit of a tradition, i think between us and the friedman foundation which is headquartered in indianapolis and they released the same poll here last year and we are excited to hear what 2015 has in store. for those of you who are following along at home watching us on the live stream here, the hash tag for those of you that would like to participate for today's event following along on twitter #schoolinginamerica.

how it's going to work they will present the initial findings, our distinguished panel of respondents it up to the crowd so these here in physical attendance and those following along at home. feel free when that happens, raise raise your hand, we'll talk about that. without further ado, paul diperna with the survey's findings. >> good afternoon. my name is paul diperna. i'm the research director at the friedman foundation for education choice. we're a nonpartisan group that conducts issues. we use our research base to inform and educate legislators policymakers advocates, particularly at the state levels around the country.

so before we get too far i just want to give a special thanks to rick hess mike the whole aei education policy studies team for hosting today's event. it's a great opportunity to share some of these results and findings and what we've been learning. today we're releasing the latest installment of the schooling in america survey. we've been doing this for a few years now, reporting on various topics in k-12. before we get into the slideses because polls and surveys can just throw at you a sea of data lots of charts and it can be overwhelming. i thought we should step back and try to get a better understanding of what some of the social, maybe political developments have been around the country over the past school year and that could possibly signal some of the underlying context for the survey results and some of the findings we have. i don't know if any of you are

fans or watch cbs this morning with charlie rose or gayle king. a big fan. they have this really great segment called "your world in 90 seconds." so i think in that spirit, let's call k-12 america in about 90 seconds. why don't we get going. we all know common core is a hot-button issue. it has been for a long time at the state and local levels. and increasingly it's becoming a nationalized political issue. i think we'll see this as we get into 2016 the primaries and moving into the general election. just yesterday we've seen a couple of states -- ohio, louisiana, they are taking steps to further distance themselves from the common core state standards initiative. here's a picture of some protesters, i believe this is

somewhere in the northeast. this is an opt-out protest against standardized testing. we've seen over the past year and the seeds were planted back when no child left behind was being first implemented. then it really started to accelerate the past couple years with common core getting more attention that we have these pockets of resistance and protest across the country against standardized testing. we'll see if that becomes a broader, wider social movement or if we'll see these isolated flare-ups around the country. here back in my home state of indiana, on our state board of education is governor mike pence and superintendent of instruction, glenda ritz sitting side by side. and this picture really encapsulates in some ways that to the tension at the highest level of state politics and

state office between education reform and the education establishment. this has been getting a lot of attention. the confrontations in the state board and between the governor and superintendent over the last couple of years. we'll see it's likely the two of them will face off in the gubernatorial election in 2016. state education is a high-profile issue, particularly at the state level and will continue to be not just in indiana but in many other states around the country. here's a picture of nevada governor brian sandoval. he just signed into legislation probably the most ambitious school choice program in the country where more than noont% of the state's k-12 students are now eligible to receive a state-funded multiuse education savings account. this is a new type of program first enacted in arizona about

five years ago and now has been enacted in florida last year and then nevada and a couple other states this year. this will be interesting to see in implementation and how things develop in nevada there. and that was a positive development for those of us who are school choice proponents. yesterday there was a very negative development for school choice advocates. that was the colorado state supreme court that ruled on the douglass county state voucher program. they said it violated the state's constitution particularly the blaine amendment that's in the state constitution. so we'll see in the coming days and weeks if this case actually gets appealed all the way up to the u.s. supreme court. what's happening here in d.c.? it's kind of, you know when it comes to no child left behind

and reauthorization. we have a picture of secretary arne duncan testifying in front of centers lamar alexander tom harkin and several others. there's been a lot of bills being introduced around no child left behind reauthorization but it's unlikely, in my views, it's probably unlikely to be reauthorized in the coming year or so. so we'll see how things progress here in washington. so that's in context around the country. some of the social and political developments that have been happening. here's some background for our survey that we'll talk about. this is a survey profile. basically some of the particular specifications of the survey and how it was conducted and administered. i'd like to give a special shoutout to braun research who has been our data collection

partners. for almost seven years. they do a great job with conducting these live telephone interviews providing the data quality control and the data. the interviews that took place for this national survey occurred the end of april and beginning of may. but -- more than all these specks, i think key ones to look at, and it's a little misaligned there, but let's consider the population sample of the survey. it's a national population of adult americans age 18 and older that took the survey in the 50 states and the district of columbia. more than 1,000 interviews were conducted. and the margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. when i talk about and we discuss subgroups like republicans democrats, high income, low income middle income each of

those groups has their own sample size and it's much smaller than the 1,000 for the total. that smaller sample size raises the margin of error. that makes those numbers a little less reliable than the numbers reporting for the total national sample. second quick note is we are not reporting today and releasing the results for african-americans, latinos and other subgroups based on race and ethnicity. we'll be releasing those results later on this summer toward the end of august. so thinking about our survey and the types of measures that you're lookinga and considering, so there's levels. there are levels of responses. positive/negatives to whatever survey question or item we have. that's pretty basic and what we see most often reported in the news media. we also have and can be more

informative in some ways. we look at the margins as well. those are the differences between the aggregate positive responses and aggregate negative. some of them call them gaps, the spread. that can signal the likelihood of that group to go toward -- go lean in towards the positive direction on a question or negative direction. and then there are net intensities and this met rick simply takes the difference but of those strongest held views on both ends. so the strong positive and strong negative. what's the difference between the two? it gives us a sense of the net intensity around a particular item, when talking about some of these school choice questions, common core, et cetera. with any type of research it's always good to get out there to talk about some of the limitations that come with the research and caveats.

first and foremost this is exploratory, descriptive type of reporting. not meaning to imply any causation or suggest any causal connections, but what we're doing is reporting on the total sample and subgroups, the differences and so forth. there are relatively few data points to establish long trend lines. two, three four years in some cases worth of data on our items. these are still relatively few for trend lines. as i mentioned before, the subgroups have a smaller sample size in our survey. those numbers will show more volatileity year to year. as with any type of research design, research program particularly when it comes to surveys and polling, there are challenges of potential for confirmation bias. what we try to do, we work with braun research to build in as many checks and safeguards to

guard against that potential confirmation bias. when we think about wording of questions, ordering of questions on the questionnaire, the randomization or rotation of scales or response scales within the questionnaire. so there are things that can be done to be built into the questionnaire to try to safeguard against confirmation bias. some of the general findings i'd like to go over he's for a couple of minutes. americans continue to be negative about the direction of k-12 education in the country. we've seen this the last couple of years. they are even more negative about the federal government's performance when it comes to handling matterses in k-12. wide gaps between the expressed schooling preferences and phone interviews exist when you compare them to school enrollments out there in the real world. there's a big disconnect.

on the questions surrounding school choice reforms, we see large margins of support across though board for vouchers, esas, tax credit scholarships. there's been some change where we've seen a dip for charter schools. 64% to 60%. vouchers remain relatively unchanged. we saw an increase in support of esa from 62% to 64%. and -- it's important to remember, even though there have been some of these changes, generally speaking, american support any of these school choice reforms 2 to 1, positive to negative. that's an important thing to remember. there are mixed messages that continue to persist around common core. so we do see a positive margin

of support for common core. however, the intensity is negative. and that stands in contrast to some of the school choice items we ask about where we see the positive margins as well as the positive intensities. and so then we asked about testing. pluralities, subgroups of school parents say too much time spent on standardized testing. and that is up significantly since last year. here's the outline of the topics we'll cover for the rest of the presentation today. from the more general to the more specific. we'll talk about the direction of k-12, rating the federal government's performance on k-12 education and schooling issues. school type preferences for the total sample for school parents. why would they choose one particular school type versus another. and then we'll go through some charts about this school choice reforms and then wrap up talking about common core, standardized

testing, as well as the state intervention in low-performing schools. here we see some of the trend lines for the general public's views on k-12 education. the red line has been stable. this year 60% of the general public said k-12 is heading off on the right track. 32% said the right direction, and we've seen an up tick on the positive response from 26% to 32% over the last three years. it's still 2-1 a negative view of k-12 in the country. when you look at the public's rating of the federal government 8 out of 10 americansamerican s give the federal government a fair or poor rating when it comes to handling matters in k-12 education. it's interesting to note the strongly held negative view, the poor rating is almost twice as large as the bined aggregate.

20% gave a rating of good or excellent. you see the line at the bottom, 2% said that the federal government was doing an excellent job. now we'll mover on to questions about school type preference expressed by those who took our survey. if it were your decision and you could select any type of school what type of school would you select in order to attain the best education for your child? so all things being equal, what's your type? 41% chose a private school. 36 said regular public school. 12% said charter school and 9% said home school. you compare that to the one on the bottom. those reflect actual enrollments

of students in these school types. 84% of students in the country are going to a regular public school or traditional public school. 4% are going to public charter schools. 9% to private school and 3% it's estimated that are being home schooled. there's just a huge difference between these privately -- personally expressed references in our phone interviews and these actual enrollment patterns. and here's the trends we see on this question over the last four years. you can see that private school preferences have been the plurality for the last three years, hovering low 40s to mid-40s. and about more than one-third in the mid to high 30s has been the public school preference. roughly the last few years roughly 1 out of 10 preferring public charter schools and 1 out of 10 preferring home schooling.

so just thinking about the subgroup of school parents in our sample. this represents roughly a quarter of the respondents who took our survey this year. we asked a question why would you choose that particular school in the previous question. what's the reason? this is an open end question. so our friends at braun will record these verbatim responses. usually it's a single word or phrase or sentence, and then we have categories that we code these responses into. and this is what we come up with. so you can see the largest proportion said better education or quality, which is kind of -- it's not too surprising. then we also see 14% saying they would choose a school because of -- they want their child to get individual attention one on one attention. 12% say better teachers.

10% said academics and curriculum and another 10% said class size or student-teacher ratio ratio. if you took the first, third and fourth categories, about 39% are saying something that -- about school quality, student learning teaching, academics is a reason why they'd choose the school and combine the second and fifth categories that reflects something larger about where 24% are saying they would choose a school for some measure of like personalized learning customized learning individualized learning. now we'll move on to the questions about school choice. and so we asked questions about charters, esas, vouchers and tax credit scholarships. so we'll continue the levels of support and opposition. we see that the support is a majority across the board.

and 62% are supporting esas. 61% of the total sample supports vouchers. 60% support tax credit scholarships and 53% are still supporting charter schools. the levels of opposition. about one-third opposed to vouchers, 29% opposed to tax-credit scholarships. 28% esas, 27% opposed to charter schools. >> in the survey because there may be some folks that aren't familiar with some of the terms like esa, tax-credit vouchers et cetera. for the survey respondents, you would explain what it was? >> that's right. >> those who didn't know. >> right. we do define and give context for each of these school choice policies. we do have a paired set of questions for charters and vouchers because these policies have been around a little longer. we ask a paired set of

questions. one asking, based on what you know or have heard from others what do you think of charter schools or school vouchers. so getting a raw sense. those numbers which are not reflected on this chart here but still pluralities that support charter schools and vouchers without us giving information and with the definition, these numbers rise up. we took the same approach with the common core questions later in the survey. if we look at the margins, and it looks like the alignment has gotten off here. the margins are high across the board where the esas have the largest margin between the positive and negative responses. 34rus 4 percentage. 34rus 1 for tax-credit scholarships plus 28 for vouchers and plus 26 for charter schools. the strongest held views, plus

16 for esas. low is plus 10 points for charter schools. here's some trend lines for the question on vouchers. and we see that there's been an uptick in the support over the last four years from vouchers from 46% to 56%. also an up tick in the opposition to vouchers from 28% to 33%. but one interesting -- and we've voted noted this on an earlier chart. a strongly positive view on vouchers matching the combined negative view on vouchers. 34% favor vouchers. 33% strongly oppose vouchers. here's a trend line that looks different for education savings accounts. it looks like the line wiggling a little bit.

this program is very new to a lot of people and a lot of the folks are probably being exposed to this consupportcept for the first time and we're providing them definition. 56% of the public supported esas. this year 62%. last year 34% opposed esas. this year 28%. i'd expect as we continue in future years, i expect this to wiggle. it's going to take some time for education savings accounts to diffuse in terms of understanding. to go through demographic findings. the two subgroups that are the relatively speaking the most likely to oppose school choice and least likely to support school choice are seniors age 55 and older or democrats and leaning democrats. that's pretty clear across the

board. on the flip side, the subgroups most lookly to support school choice would be your school parents, low-income earners young adults and republicans and leaning republicans. so on our voucher question we saw that sub urbanites were more supportive than urbannites when it came to school vouchers. for somebody to do this for a little while. it's a curious finding where the conventional wisdom in school politics is urbanits are more supportive. we'll see if that olds up next year. republicans and independents are aligning and they do align on charter schools vouchers, tax credit scholarships. six showing significantly higher numbers. independents and democrats are also supporting esas about the

same level and no significant differences on that type of school policy. when it comes to state rnt intervention in low-performing schools, another interesting finding. democrats were more likely to cite school choice as a useful action to families in that situation where state intervenes in a low performing school. more likely than republicans to point to school choice. so we'll finish up talking about common core standardized testing and state intervention in schools. we've been asking about common core for the last two years now. and essentially in a total sample, the national sample, the results are unchanged. roughly 50% support common core with some definition, with some context. 40% are opposed to common core. school parents it's a little bit murkier. we see 47% saying they support

common core. and just under 47% saying that they oppose common core. it's about break even on the positive and opposed amongst school parents. then we asked some questions about standardized testing. for both the national sample and the subgroup of school parents weave seen an up tick in those who say the time spent on standardized testing is too high. if you look at those red bars, red chunks on those bars we see that last year the general public said 36% of the general public said time spent on standardized testing was too high. now it's 42%. that's gone up six points. among school parents it's gone up a little bit from 44% last year to 47% this year saying it's too high. and that's more than twice the other end of the spect rum

saying time spent is too low on standardized testing. and then finally this question about state rnt haven'tintervention and low performing schools. give a rating on a scale 1 to 5 on how useful a certain action would be when a state intervene into a low-performing school. we're seeing this across states where there are state takeovers that have all sorts of mechanisms and ways of implement implementation and parent trigger-type policies emerge especially on the west coast. so when we ask this question, 41%, the largest proportion said supplying a voucheror scholarship or esa would be a useful action to affected families and students. and then compare that to those -- just a quarter saying

converting district schools to charters would be useful. 25% said replacing school staff dismissing school staff and leadership would be useful. and 101then 1 out of 5 said closing the school would be useful. just to review some specific findings. an increase in support of esas. there's been a drop in support for charter schools from 61% to 53%. the opposition has not grown. what we've seen, some of our panelists might have some insights into this and some comments. there's more those who were saying they supported charter schools last year moving into the don't know category and unsure category. that alone, it's odd to report on don't know responses but that was an interesting finding. i'm not sure what to make of it.

as i mentioned a couple minutes ago, when the state intervenes in a low-performing school the largest proportion saying a particular action would work would be supplying students with vouchers, scholarships, esas. 41% gave that response. public opinion on common core remains mixed. margins are positive. the intensity is in the other direction going negative. that's in stark contrast to the choice questions. large positive margins. also mild to moderate positive intensities. 4 out of 10 respondents said the amount of time spent on testing was too high and that's in the national sample. and that proportion is higher among school parents. 47% say that. almost 4 out of 5, 77%, give a fair or poor rating to the federal government when it comes to k-12 education matters. and that's something to think about and as reauthorizationed

start to be discussed over the next month. with that i'll just say, thank you very much. >> grat. now for our respondents. i think we'll just go right down the line. i've asked our panel to remind them brevity is the soul of wit. to max kind of five minutes of your quick responses what struck you first. first off, kara kerwin, the president of the center for education reform. >> one observation i have and you were talking about this before, but i look at the charter school question and the decrease in support. i would have one observation for the group to possibly throw out and consider. we have seen a lot of activity

in our statehouses across the country going after esas, trying to get voucher programs passed. and we've seen on the other side in chartering it's mostly either to roll back charters overregulate them or really little or no progress. still eight states without charter school laws. there was a long time ago charter schools were sort of the only thing taking off. now that we have our elected officials are boldly trying to expand options i wonder if the public has more knowledge because there's more talk about it than the charter. and one thing i would also suggest is that a lot of families don't even know they are in a charter school especially if they are in a state where only local districts can authorize a charter school. a lot of families don't know they are in a school choice or -- that it's something

different. only a couple of observations i might throw out there. >> thank you. next up we have gerard robinson. just recently announced gerard will be joining us at aei as a resident fellow. before that he's had a couple other nice gigs. he was the secretary of education for the commonwemt of virginia commissioner for the state of florida, president of the black alliance for educational options. if anybody would have a view on some of these findings it would be you. >> thank you, mike and paul. education matters to america because education matters to states. and it matters to states because right now 41 of our states have education as its number one line item. when a governor or state chief and state leaders are looking at a knowledge, education meritatters. number one, there's great dissatisfaction. that doesn't cheer me up as a school choice guy.

it makes me wonder where we're going as a nation. the majority of our children in public education. we've got to make it work. when democrats republicans, urban, suburban, leaning forward, lower income, high or income over 50% agree in each category that it's not going in the right direction, that should be a wake-up call we need to do the right thing. the second takeaway, 84% have their kids in public schools. look at vouchers charters, education savings accounts, even though in the public sector want options. i don't see it as an anti-public school option. i see it as an opportunity to diversify how we deliver education to our children. by doing that we'll be a stronger nation. i think those numbers point in the right direction. >> and our final panelist, and after their initial remarks we'll make this a bit more free

free-wheeling discussion. wee have matt chingos who is from the brookings institution and director of the brown center on education policy. >> i first want to justice say say surveys are really important and it's great that paul and his colleagues at the center for educational choice do them. there's also educational surveys. on one hand without them all we have to go on are anecdotes. if these surveys weren't done every year then we'd have to go with the in the not talk about we talked to some urban parents and they are real upset about standardized testing. it's real great we have them. i like this focus on school choice and it delves deeping into that than some of the other educational choice surveys. the choice focus is largely on charters and vouchers and newer

voucher-like policies like esas and tax-credit scholarship programs. makes sense in some respects because the survey results show parents want private schools more than they are getting them. 41% choose private school for their children if the sky was the limit. but only 9% choose that option. it sets up a political conundrum. majority support for all these choice programs. whenever anyone tries to do one they get passed once in a while. but it's politically very controversial. not to say we should give up on them. one area i'd like to see some of the survey work go is to probe more deeply on choice among public schools. 84% of children in this country are attending public schools. so i think the kinds of questions and things you can learn more about are, do parents have enough choices? do these 41% who are saying they

want a private school, and most of them could actually get a private school because they are thinking of the traditional public school option as a fixed as a given option for them or would they be interested in it was in a neighborhood they can't afford to live but they see as a good public school where they'd like to send their child. do these parents understand their choices or do they live in a place where the choice architecture is so hopelessly complicated that they don't know they have options but they don't understand the details of how to make it happen? do they find they have enough information to make informed choices? it's one of my hobby horses, the choice conversation often focuses largely on charters vouchers voucher-like policies. those are important, worth figuring out how to get them right. there's this whole other area that doesn't get enough attention and work like this

could really add value to it in the future. >> thank you. maybe the first question i'll kick to all of you, what was -- in going through the mindings here what was the finding that surprised you the most? paul we'll start with you. you conducted the survey. that will buy time for the rest of you. the finding that surprised you the most. >> that's a good question. i covered it in one of the slides where some of the differences based on where respondents lived. whether that's the difference between suburban anansuburbanites and urbanites. going against conventional wisdom of school choice. and then the question about state intervention and low forming schools and we saw democrats citing school choice as a useful remedy at a higher proportion than republicans.

some of those political differences, which persisted not just on the choice items but on many of the items. and that's maybe the last point i would make. i am -- ilet's come together type of guy, and i think it's important to build bridges across the aisle. we do see differences significant differences between republicans and democrats on a lot of these issues. that's just a reality we have to confront and face with both sides. >> kara, most surprising finding? >> so if we were thinking or from the parents' perspective or respondents who said they have school-age children what's interesting is that despite the fact so many of them felt there was too much testing and pressure on testing almost a

50/50 split on the need for common core and then their valuing quality more or better education. and -- but so, and it goes to the national debate that's going on now about testing, about common core and what parents actually value. but i wonder -- and some of those questions, paul, this is a question for you when you were characterizing them into better education or quality, what -- were there just some -- is it just feel safer? was safety one of the options? how do you define quality in your survey? >> that's a great question. and we don't really define quality in that item. so we just -- quality is one of those trigger words. it's going to be coded. usually it's better quality. higher quality. we just leave it to however the respondent takes that. and we do code for things like

safety, more structure, discipline. and that actually, that is -- it was a little surprising those were fewer responses than i would have expected. >> gerard most surprising finding. >> democrats and republicans agreeing on something. one, that we need options and, second that we don't like the way the country is going. so it's almost two here. i don't like it and i don't like which way we're going, yet i want to give options yet when you introduce bills you see democrats and republicans split. more democrats are starting to come on board but that's a big find. what scares me is how many people think we're going the wrong direction given the billions of dollars we invest. >> matt? >> i was surprised by that statistic in my remarks. the large number of people, parents in particular who are most interested in non-public

options. 41% said they'd said their kid to a private school if they could make any choice as compared to 9% that do. it reminds me of this "new yorker" cartoon. depicts two affluent mothers saying, i believe in the concept of public education. >> that was -- that table is very interesting as well. one of the other ones, a 3-1 home school split. three times as many want to home school their kids as opposed to actually doing. so that's a really interesting one. paul you did some sort of trend line. for the panel in general that observed these numbers over time, a lot of what paul presented were pretty stable numbers. we see roughly the same numbers over time. this i understand is going beyond what the survey says, so i'm asking you to conjecture. this is a safe place for

conjecture. but of those numbers you looked at did you see some that said these have the potential for moving or some of these are baked in? is it going to be 60/34 vouchers. 50/50 for charter schools or do you see these things moving around? >> kara maybe start with you. >> we've done -- paul knows this, too. we've done some similar surveying. when you explain what charter schools are to paurntrents or families, we find 72% support them. you've done polls about parent choice. instead of saying the word vouchers. i think word choice is important. an overwhelming majority of americans appreciate school choice, whether they are public private, charter red, green

yellow. they like making choices. that's what your survey is finding. as we see more and more of these programs take off, it is sort of like to know them is to love them. when someone sees something that works for them you'll see increased. if we had more access to those vouchers, or if charter erer school -- if there was more of a population in charter schools. i think you'd see growth in those numbers and types of support. when you know something about something, you are more inclined to support it. >> i see a continuing increase in charter schools enrollment in urban areas where you fund some of the most challenged populations looking for best options. i see esa growing than some of the other options. it benefits me quickly and puts resources in my hand to get

services within this traditional system and look for services outside. that's important. traditional vouchers where they are being tested or not, will continue to grow. and for me, in terms of congress parental choice as we know will continue to expand itself. charters and esas are new articulations of it. i think es asare really going to shore up. >> i said nice things about surveys. maybe i'll beat up on surveys a little bit. it's important to be candid about the limitations of any kind of survey as i'm sure paul is awear. the way you ask these questions really matters. we did some experiments. you want to give people information that can change their opinion. the way you ask the question, frame the question, order the questions can really matter.

you are asking people a bunch of detailed questions about things we all think a lot about but most people don't think a whole lot about. that's how you get some of these sensitivities. most people don't know a whole lot. for example i once heard folks did a survey of americans and asked them whether they prefer $1,000 tax deduction or $1,000 tax credit. obviously the tax credit is worth more because you get 1 dlous. the deduction reduces your taxable income. how do you go from republicans, democrats holding hands on the survey saying we support school choice to a more polarized thing. you're going from this sterile environment of someone talking on the phone or doing a computer

survey to a more politicized debate. i believe in this concept of choice when asked the question but when the party i'm narks liegeiance to isin allegiance to is telling me this is terrible. maybe we shouldn't read too much into any particular survey about what the future portends. but i do think just to restate one of gerard's points that rebranding different things can help. vouchers have a troubled history. if you can take what's basically a voucher program and rebrand it as a tax scholarship program you can get the same thing but in a politically palatable way. >> i think this is available on everybody's fact sheet. in the lower left-hand column when you broke out those schooling preferences.

i used to be a high school teacher. looking at those school types and the reasons people chose those school types. something that was really interesting to me. for those people that pick -- that their ideal school type is a regular public school they said they value diversity variety, association, peers. for those who valued a private schedule, the highest were better education individual attention, same true for charter schools and home schools. when i respond to that and i'd like to hear your thoughts on this it makes me question a lot of our, the horse race narrative or whatever wlnhen we talk about private schools verseus charter schools or public schools. what are the test scores of kids in charter schools or public schools? who is doing better? who is doing worse? when i look at this these

choices might be driven by things other than parents saying like i want the school that can maximize reading and math scores. that there are complex reasons parents choose these things. as we have some mixed positions up on the panel. how do you react to those findings. the motivations of families for the different school sector are different from one another. you want to tackle that one first? >> when you talk to parents as president of the black alliance of educational options, we support all the options including those within the traditional public school system. when we talked to parents as to why they decided to move from traditional school to charter school or take a voucher sometimes safety was a factor. smaller classrooms may have been something to drive them in that direction. sometimes it was a religious focus in the school which gave

an advantage to the private school over the public. there are gradations of whether education is first or second but there are a number of areas or reasons people choose schools other than academics. in looking at this, it doesn't surprise me the diversity and variety. i'd like to see that fleshed out. diversity is broader. it's income and otherwise. i'd like to see that. >> paul it seemed like you wanted to jump in. >> just to piggyback on what you were saying. this was somewhat of a surprising finding. we do state polling as well. a handful of state surveys every year. we've broken this out in other states. even state by state it's different. the type of responses you get and how they list out under different school types. so if researchers always like to look for reasons and for further research and exploration.

this item in our survey suggested and it's very hard to come up with any concrete conclusions. but it does maybe set the table for further survey work or other types of research looking into are there different cultures? surrounding regular public district traditional schools compared to private school culture, charter school culture. any real significant differences and reasons for choosing those types of schools. that does lend out for maybe some future research. >> and matt this is interesting. the point you brought up is well taken. investment and time to be taken into the choice architecture. infrastructure. information to support parents. but it also begs the question are we still a step or two away from there if we don't know what parents are necessarily looking

for? we don't know what information to tell them? do you have any thoughts on maybe how this could guide other researchers to understand better the parental decision-making process so that we can develop that architecture and better inform parents? >> the variation within each of these can be more interesting than the average. the average is an interesting starting point but thinking of where future work could go. i would guess that parents who say, you know, who either chose a private school or didn't but wanted to i think they could have a lot of different reasons. the family that has access to a pretty good public school. they were more affluent and could send their kids to the independent school the very expensive private school in their town. a lower income family couldn't be happy with the public school option and it's the catholic school down the street they want

to have access to. i think it should help us learn more about what considerations are for different families. >> great. i have one or two more questions. again, those of you following along at home or in the audience, #schoolinginamerica survey. a ton of people are already tweeting. feel free if you have questions or want to add your thoughts to the conversation feel free. my kind of last step before we open it up is, obviously, any time polling happens in washington d.c. people want to know the broader electoral implications of what we found. so one, obviously the common core, there's a big wide republican primary taking place right now. there are varying opinions on the common core within that group of people. how do you see these numbers reflecting or having an impact on potential candidates?

>> i think that -- so we do ask at the end of the survey, we did ask some questions that had electoral implications on whether they were more or less likely to support a candidate who supported vouchers or esas or common core. and, frankly, more than half said it didn't really make a difference. of the half of the total population that we sorry have a ed -- surveyed, there was more likely to vote for a pro-esa or pro voucher candidate. and then common core, more likely to -- less looikly to vote for a pro-common core candidate than they were for -- than more likely to vote for that candidate. i think, and we mentioned this before. there are relative differences.

there's majority support among republicans, democrats and independents on these choice items, but there are relative differences that are significant. maybe speak to some of that intens intensity. i was just reading today, this morning an article by charlie cook of the cook political report. he was talking about what republicans need to do in order to move forward. this is a response in the last week or so. and we see that young adults are -- maybe the most supportive of these different types of choice policies that we're asking about. low-income earners are significantly positive on all these items. so these are nontraditional. at least what's being projected out in the media. these are not your traditional republican constituencies but

we're seeing these groups in our survey time and time again on questions about charters or vouchers or esas. and on the democrat side the majority support of plurality support for these items. that kind of -- there seems to be a disconnect between your average democrat or leaning democrat and your elites and those in leadership positions in the party and their positions they are taking. that could have implications moving forward. >> fascinating. another angle when we talk 2016 and gerard this would be your point that 41% -- or 41 states, education is their largest budget item. one of the top line findings is that it seems like saying that education is the country's highest priority trails well behind a lot of other stuff that people seem to care about.

the economy and jobs is twice as large as that. i wonder if you might speak to the state versus national. some of this has greater salience at state level. >> if i were to talk to them equally, third party candidates or otherwise if more than 50% of the people are telling you that our public education system is going in the wrong direction, then you need a strong public school message. not just to be politically correct because it's the right thing to do since the majority of our kids are in the public sector. the republicans, of course, support school choice and a number of items. that's important. you can't support a school choice option and leave the public schools untapped. you need to make sure states have the right to republicanun schools the way they should. there shouldn't be a regulatory

hurdle that stifles programs. we strangle i think, unfortunately too innovation innovation. and lastly, if the parents, both democrats and republicans are telling you they want options, be open to options. this will be a challenge for democrats. with over $130 million being invested between 1990 and 2014 from nea and aft into democratic candidates. they have a very fine line to walk because that's a public school constituency. money coming from public unions. and yet some of your people are saying we want something elgs. that should be a national conversation but ultimately supported at the state level. i'd say state first, national conversation but let the states do what they need to do. >> i think we can open it up to the crowd. we'll have microphones around. they'll come out momentarily.

i may start with a twitter question. this twitter question was perfectly in matt's wheel house. this is perfect. you've done some of the best research on this. in talking about standardized testing, a question from twitter, there were questions about the amount of time. question about the amount of money. how much money could be saved by eliminating standardized tests and replacing them with smaller pragmatic competency tests. maybe speak to your broader look into the cost of standardized testing because it dovetails nicely. >> we can't save very much money at all. i did a study looking at how much states are spending on nclb required math and reading tests. it comes out to something like 30 bucks a kid. less than the cost of a textbook. let's say you got rid of testing. how much would you save?

across the country it looks like a big number $6.7 million but that number spread across the whole system comes out to, like i said, textbook per kid. decreasing teacher salaries by 1% reducing class size. so the emphasis that policymakers are putting on standardized tests and how those tests are used $30 per kid isn't a lot. we ought to be thinking about not are we spending too much but are we spending too little. >> fascinating. thank you. now we'll take a question from the audience. we'll go right up front. is this your first aei education event. if you'd be so kind as to identify yourself by your name and affiliation and to ask a

question. that would just be outstanding. thank you. >> hi. i'm jill vice chairman of loudoun county school board and co-owner of a private educational company. i wanted to talk about what matt was saying when it's working through the political system, some of these issues, it gets lost doing that political movement. what direction do you see or what any activist in your companies, organizations can focus on some of the localities. i'm a bit biased, i'm on a school board. i'm concerned when looking at the state level and trying to advocate for changes and laws, if you don't have the buy-in from the school board you'll not have a buy-in from the paurntrents. and that's where the power is, the buy-in from the parents. you are training parents, getting good people on the school board. >> there's a lot of -- you'd

probably have something to share with this as well. >> there are -- the lasting change only happens when it's from the ground up and true in our traditional systems. to go to school board meetings, we've made it intimidate inging. finding solutions to inform parents about what your school district would offer, welcome them to go to things. go to parent events, so you get to know them and what their needs are, but i think there's got to be both ways, you've got to be looking at how can we reach out to parents and inform them of their options and how can we be listening to them more. more local school districts, in

our traditional school system did that, we might have a different result. it's when we see parents who are able to make choices in our in schools of choice that are more active. we've seen a lot of communities oh, they don't know how to choose schools. they actually know how to choose schools really, really well so if we help them educate the community about their choices and what's going on, i think we'll have a better result. >> i agree. >> outstanding. appreciate it. other questions? yes, we have one right up front here if you could wait for the microphone, that would be awesome. >> sharon, voice of a moderate. i wanted to talk to you about educating parent as because i've been talking to the suburban moms and basically they hear a hue rumor and it gets carried away.

like the charter schools are supported by the people who support for profit prisons. you hear these people talking about the schools that are going to have the same structure as a prison and that's why america's going to go down stream. but then people that have dyslexic, learning disabilities have a big problem with common core. everybody talks about education and there's no one definition of what common core is because nobody seems to get it, but also what is the definition for charter versus school choice and when you talk about the states and the testing, so we're all in the same platform, so people can move from state to state and have the same educational standards, bymy daughter moved to illinois from. my question is, how do you have a national standard and still have this debate because people relocate and if they relocate from the south to the north my daughter was two years behind.

>> how do people who are interested in informing the public and public debate standard izeizing definitions of which is what a chart e school is or this is what the common core is. thoughts on that. >> i chime in and just say it's really hard to educate people about you know, kind of everything about education. sort of our pet issue, but i think about noneducation areas and how little i know about them and how hard it would be to educate me if i wasn't particularly interested. just try to rain the information down. i think when education does become politicized that can work against attitudes about the common core, so you think the hypothesis in louisiana

common core is a really hot topic. you think all the public attention it's getting, people would be more informed about it in louisiana than elsewhere but when you ask people to respond, they're more than likely to get them wrong than in any other places. more than anything, it seems that the political polarization had pushed people away from the knowing the simple facts about things. so kind of depressing response. >> increasingly polarized times. so, when i hear you mention for period of time prisonrofit prisons, charter schools challenge is is a definition that's indemic just to public education. think about the buy america campaign. buy an american car and someone will say half the parts are coming from another country. is it really an american car? i think what we need in america is not a common core conversation, but a conversation about a common core. a core that links us across space and time to what are the principals that make this country great.

what are the values that we think are important to one generation to the next and what role can education play sustaining the economic social well being of this nation. a common core con verversation gets us on the same page to say what do we think is important and then we can maneuver from there. for me, from a civil society standpoint, we need to have a heyer conversation, then work lower. >> great. >> lots of comments that were related to the finding that to school choice tends to skew old supporters tend to school young. skew young. i'm interested the responses of folks on the panel of why we think that is or -- >> the people who don't want change are the status quo and typically, they're older people who think the only thing was this kind of school they went to, but the fact is, that school is no longer the same way it was. or you've had in a lot of the

population, had teachers who have been at this for a long time and don't want change. the young people are the ones who have just come out. trying to either enter the teaching profession and have found it to be very hostile for them. or they've been in schools themselves and are experiencing it. and understand freedom. i think ma len yals understand more the freedom to choose. you've got the status quo that's going to fight for no change, then young people who want change. >> you also have an ageing pop lag poplation, those 65 and over. they tend to vote a lot. and they're going tovote a lot and they're going to make sure we're not spending enormous amounts of money on something that's not going to support them. whether it's support for medicaid or other educational issues. for me, i'm older i need to make sure i protect this versus

the younger generation. i have an older daughter. she lives off us still, so she can be more liberal about her ideas, but at the point she starts paying her own bills, she becomes more conservative. >> awesome. >> great. maybe another question from the audience. we have some more off twitter, which i am happy to go to. yes, right here. >> hi, i'm jordy, working at the nia. so, i have a comment, which doesn't follow your rules. >> just end it by going ah. >> i wanted to bring the attention to the sample size of 1,000 and then mentioned that the subset was a quarter of that, so, we're only talking about 250 people who are potentially involved in making choices that are actually about their students but to what mr. robinson said, that voters tend to be people that are not necessarily in that demographic, so they may not have all of the

correct information. that's the comment. the question sort of stems from that. what's the anticipated impact provided everyone could have as much choice as they want about the type of school they send their child to on public education and the second part of that is if there's a an expanded ability to choose within public education, what does that look like? >> within the next decade, they'll probably remain the same. i think you've got to make the math easy. 50 million. k 12 students in place right now. if you open up with esca vouchers, tax credits you see more students leave but what's more important to me in terms of

impacting education is what and how we deliver education. there's some parents who said i have enough money to pay for a private school at a very elite place in this city because i put my kid in public school because i believe in the mission and the it's close. there's a transportation factor, so, for me, i don't see public education as some would say being destroyed by school choice. that's not even an admission. it's to diversify how we deliver to an adverse group of americans. >> i think the impact is on how you structure the choice program. if we say we're going give a $10,000 voucher to the first hundred parents who show up on tuesday at 10:30 a.m. at the office to apply that's going to attract a very different group of parents and have a very different impact. than a different kind of choice program like the one we have here in d.c. where you go through a lottery, rank of schools, that you want

and i think the main drawback is that there's still a default school, which is the school in the area where you can afford to buy or rent real estate. and provide to all families the kinds of choices that only affluent families currently enjoy through the ability to choose where to live. now, just providing that choice on its own isn't enough. my brookings colleague russ, in collaboration with klein is is here today, have done work documenting how choice actually functions in more than 100 districts around the country. so, it's not just about choice is this great thing. it's going to raise all votes and it's all going to be great. but it matters to you provide accessible and accurate and relevant information to parents to help them make informed choices. do you have a system that's accessible to everyone and not ju