their're fleeing assad. they could go and the thought of that creation of that zone and protection of it with military force would allow the cross-border delivery of aid under circumstances where the aid workers and others wouldn't be jeopardized. i was originally not a fan of that proposal. by probably february 2014, i came to his way of thinking, seeing the numbers dramatically increase, my first visit was at a time when there was 750,000 syrian refugees in the summer, 2013, now it's 2 million. other countries are seeing the same thing. now we're seeing it spread through neighboring nations and throughout europe. it's not easy. i'm assuming that they're -- i assume there's a whole lot of challenges in doing that. but to me, it just seems like if we don't go upstream and try to create some safe area, with an additional nearly 8 million displaced people within syria, that the crisis is going to continue. and even if we wave a magic wand and say the u.s. will take ten times the number of refugees we said we would take, it's a drop

in the bucket that compares to the challenge that is likely to come. am i wrong? is that a strategy that's the wrong way to go about it? i'm not sure you would get a majority of votes in this body for it. i think the vote we had about using military force against the use of chemical weapons against civilians barely got a majority in this committee and likely will not get a majority in the senate or in the house. still if the administration were to advocate strongly for it, there is some bipartisan support for the notion. as folks who do this work, am i looking at this wrong? >> senator cain, i have long wrestled with this question through this crisis. you know, the history of safe zones and no-fly zones for humanitarian purposes is fraught with cases where it didn't work well and it's filled with moral hazard. and at the same time i think that as the crisis progresses

and the level of killing continues -- that is prompting this level of crisis for us to continue to not take some action that is forthrightly about civilian protection creates enormous tragedy for the people of syria and it's not at all consistent with who we are as a country. and it seems to me that as we did in places like kosovo that it warrants a very, very hard look at, with our allies or maybe through concerted diplomacy with other actor who is now claim to be interested in putting solutions on the table that we look very closely at how to provide civilian protection. what is the best way of doing it and have that be the joint concerted goal of our actions and look at what the military means might be required for no-fly zone or security area.

>> other thoughts? >> i say two things, senator, about this. first of all, i think it would be very welcomed if the debate about no fly zones moved from slogans to details because the details really matter. >> uh-huh. >> secondly, i think ngos like ours can offer the benefit of experience of different ways in which governments around the world have tried to deliver no-fly zones because we've suffered from the details being got wrong. and i think that immediately you see that a safe area which is designed to protect some people in some part of the country immediately creates the moral hazard that nancy referred to because, for us, barrel bombing any part of the country of syria is an affront. not just in parts of it. but that only is to make the point that, obviously, the debate about safe areas engages other questions and merely

syrian protection, proposal for safe zones as recently in the armed services committee last week was for reasons beyond the humanitarian. and that's why i think our best contribution is to advise on the humanitarian impact of different models of military and other action to protect civilians. on that basis i think we've got something to say without taking away from you the ultimate judgment that you have to make about who to put at risk and in what ways. >> but clearly we're all in a position here where the existence of a u.n. resolution that calls for cross border delivery of aid without the consent of the syrian government and the stopping of border bombing, that that resolution now a year and a half old with zero enforcement of it -- i mean, the impotence of that and the message that sends and the unwillingness of the members of those nations that are unwilling to do anything to back up their

word is not incredibly destructive. wouldn't you agree with that? maybe this is the wrong panel to ask this. but is there a legal precedent for a group of nations taking action to enforce a u.n. security council resolution that the u.n. is unwilling to enforce? >> the closest precedent would be the kosovo experience. where obviously there wasn't a u.n. security council resolution and the u.s. administration at the time decided not to put a vote in the u.n. it didn't want a russian veto. but the action took place. i can't think of an immediate precedent at the time of the kind you describe. >> looking back on that action, what is the humanitarian sort of ngo's conclusion about that in retrospect? was that a good thing to do or not?

>> having been with an ngo at the time, i think there was widespread concern that kosovo was undergoing the beginnings of mass atrocities and that without the campaign, there would have been terrible, terrible loss of life in kosovo. and with some mixed feelings, there was gratitude that action was taken that saved so many lives. >> uh-huh. so action taken to save lives in an ethnic cleansing situation even without the predicate of a u.n. security resolution calling for precisely delivery of aid in this area. i know you can make mistakes and there's risks and mixed feelings about it. the general sense was gratitude that the actions were taken. what projections have your organizations done -- i'm about

done but what projections have your organizations done about the likely pace of continued migration out of syria the next year or two if sort of status quo continues? >> just to finish off on your previous question, the other relevant example would be the genocide earlier in the '90s than kosovo, of which people have very strong opinions. >> and on that, just -- was there a security council resolution but no international action was taken or it was taken horribly late so that the -- you know, the slaughter was just dramatic levels before anybody did anything? >> i want to go back to your first question, senator, projections and outflow. i don't think we have numbers in mind. certainly the people leaving now, certain level of education and who have the resource to pay the smugglers. that is going to dry off. >> yeah.

>> and the people staying in turkey, lebanon, jordan, et cetera, are those who are getting to the levels of absolute misery. these are those we have to retain. >> i'm sorry, i didn't answer your question. we didn't make any -- none of our projections included a scenario where the german government would say three weeks ago anyone from syria can claim asylum in germany. >> right. >> and so, the truth is, what projections have we done? they need to be revised in a very substantial way. now i think it's only fair to the committee to say both within -- from within syria and from within the neighboring countries there's been a significant uptick in the last month or two months of people leaving, including people who are staff members and others. undoubtedly there's not just a pencil movement inside syria, there's also a pencil movement from people from syria and the

neighbors are leaving. the second piece that's very significant is the number of people we anticipate crossing the agean during winter we anticipate to be quite high. i was told that the u.n. are projecting 20,000 people to cross the agean in december, which would be unheard of. obviously, the dangers of hypothermia and other health hazards are very large. if where you're going with your question is do we have to prepare for very, very significant numbers, leaving syria and leaving the neighbors in the next year, the answer would be yes. and, obviously, what's happening in europe shows the difficulty of playing catch up on this. europe has had its eye on the euro crisis and the ukraine crisis. it hasn't had its eye on the refugee crisis and playing catch-up is in a much weaker position. there's a warning there about what might happen in the next year. >> i've gone over my time. thanks, mr. chairman. >> if i could before turning to

senator reyes, to clear something up, senator cain mentioned the ethnic clensing taking place in kosovo. for what purpose is assad barrel bombing clinics and others? it's not a military strategy there. for what purpose would he be barrel bombing his own citizens? >> i've been interested in my two colleagues. there's two ways of seeing this. one is obviously, an assertion of strength, display of strength and certainly he is enjanlged in using air power, the only force syrian belligerent with air power to attack some of the rebel groups. and he is not taking any care as to where the mortars land. >> senator rich?

>> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, when you look at this, this is a pretty depressing situation because the solutions that are on the table, as i understand the u.s. policy, is that number one, the policy is to return people back to where they came from. that's the first objective. that doesn't work, number two, that they be kept safely in the areas where they're housed and only thirdly do you look at resettlement. if you look at those policies, you wonder if that really works under the present situation. i think the description of this is epic. certainly is an understatement probably. but these people that now have -- the number is about 20 million, as i understand it, worldwide. is that a fair number that you work with? you talk about 20 million people who have left their homeland and

essentially people who maybe wouldn't have left under normal circumstances but now have been forced out -- once they've been forced out and they see what the rest of the world is like, they aren't inclined to go back, as is the number one policy, supposedly, that we have, of seeing that they return to their homeland. so when you're talking about 20 million people, i mean, that number is staggering. what troubles me is after this has happened -- and people have watched this with the internet we have now and the communications we have now. what's going to continue to happen in the future to people who look at this migration that has taken place and have said, you know, i'm tired of living where i am. this isn't good here. i'm going to move on. even though they're not forced out that they are going to make that move and as you noted, the woman you talked to said look, there's only two places to go, the united states and europe.

this is a challenge of staggering proportions. what we have now, which most people don't realize -- but i think what's coming in the future when people see that this migration takes place -- and you can do it. you can become a citizen of another country by simply packing up and moving. how do you see this playing out? this is a problem that looks to me like it's just going to overwhelm the planet. anybody want to take a run at that? >> just to make you more depressed i think the relevant number is 60 million, the number of people forcibly displaced right now. 20 as refugees, the rest displaced within their own countries. >> but probably subject to the

same thought process i just went through. >> absolutely. >> we've left our home. why stop here when we can move on to -- >> i think we've talked a lot about some of the urgent, shorter term solutions that one might employ in dealing with the roots of the syria conflict, which is this raw, bleeding conflict that is driving a lot of people through the region. i would put a couple of other considerations on the table. one is that in iraq where there is movement right now to clear -- we have the urgent opportunity to help people return where they're able to and where they would like to. and usip has been working with communities on the ground in places like takrete. they are cleared of die ash but in order for people to go home, you need to work on a concerted dialogue process that gets rid of the mistrust and rebuilds the social cohesion so they can go home and live side by side with

neighbors who might be dimpt from themselves. and as we look at investing in our military action in iraq, we need to ensure that we are investing in all of those solutions that do enable people to go home so they don't join that migration that you've talked about. even longer term, i would note that among the syrians who are going to europe these days, among the 20 or 60 million, almost everybody is from a country that one would term as fragile. weak, ineffective or -- and/or illegitimate in the eyes of its citizens. these are the countries that have the billion people living in poverty. they are the ones that have that mixture of oppression, of violent conflict and poverty that are driving people to seek better lives. longer term, we collectively need to refocus how we think

about development programs, moving development, humanitarian assistance to work hand in hand with security and diplomacy. we just had new, sustainable development goals passed in new york this week where there was the historic inclusion of something called goal 16 which basically calls for inclusive democratic societies with accountable justice for all. which sounds very polyanna-ish but every nation has signed off on this, giving us a platform for insisting that we not continue to have these kind of bleeding sores around the world that create these kind of humanitarian crisis. and keep so many people in misery and poverty. >> can i briefly address -- i think a very important point that senator rich has made, which is to understand the distinction between someone who is fleeing for economic reasons and someone fleeing for reasons of political persecution, which

is what defines a refugee. it's a world on the move. there are 200 million people moving around the world for economic reasons. and i think one of the lessons of this crisis is it's very important, indeed, to maintain the integrity of the status of a refugee, a well-founded fear of persecution and the erosion of that status has damaging implications for the politics of this issue and policy of this issue. the truth is, it's harder to reach america as a refugee than any other way short of swimming across the atlantic. the checks, the vetting, et cetera, are far, far tougher to arrive in the united states as a refugee than under any other visa or other regime. in a way you can understand that. because there are rights associated with refugee status that are earned. if you have a well-founded fear of persecution that you have rights and the state has obligations to you. i think it's important that we don't allow that status to be

undermined. when it becomes part of a simple migration debate -- in honest truth that's what's happened in europe. a lot of problems in europe are for the confusion of the migration debate with the refugee debate it's very, very hard to hold the public never mind to run the policy. >> interesting. thank you, mr. chair. >> before i turn to senator markey, to put things in context, our staff looked up the numbers relative to the yugoslav war of a decade. there were 140 0rks -- 140,000 people that were killed and 4 million people that were displaced. if you look at the scale, this one causes that to pale. and yet no real action relative to the barrel bombing. senator markey? >> thank you, mr. chairman. secretary milliband, i have been and remain a skeptic of policy recommendations that increase the risk of americanization, westernization, of the armed

conflicts in iraq and syria. i would much rather see us work to influence parties toward internal compromise as necessary to end violence and work together to establish governments that fully represent and fairly treat all people. most recently, we have heard that u.s. policy may be moving toward creation of so-called safe zones. long advocated by turkey. last week, general petraeus called for us to have enclaves protected by coalition air power where a moderate sunni force could be supported and where additional forces could be trained, internally, displaced persons could find refuge and syrian opposition could organize. but on september 16th here in the foreign relations committee we heard testimony from michael

who told us that such zones cannot be considered safe. i have been advised that there are three requirements for true, effective humanitarian safe zones. one, parties to the armed conflict must agree to the creation of the zone and to respect it. two. the zone must be secured by an impartial force by capability in size. and it is critical that this force not be a party to the conflict or supporter of any party to the conflict. three, the zone must be demilitarized meaning it must not be a base for any military activity or operations by parties to the conflict and this must be rigorously enforced by the impartial security force. in august, the u.n. special envoy for syria, stefan mistora

completed a round of consultations that the u.n. has endorsed. secretary, could you provide your perspective on how the p-5 can focus diplomatic support for his efforts, more specifically, how might such a process create true, humanitarian safe zones in syria that meet the criteria i just mentioned? >> thank you, senator. i would say two things. first of all, your skepticism about military engagement is widely shared and you have not been a skeptic. the greater the skepttism, the greater the responsibility to act on the humanetarian and the political. secondly, i said earlier that i thought that in the debate about safe zones, no fly zones, it was important to move from slogans to details, which is what you've done, and also learn the lessons of history.

because all of us actually, my colleagues here, with far more personal experience than me, can speak to the different ways in which different tactics for the establishment of safe zones have worked or have not worked. where i can comment and the well-known example of the kurds in 1991, who were protected, in a way one of my frustrations is that we have to go beyond just using those two examples as clubs with which to beat the argument. we need to get right underneath the details. the truth, to my mind, is that the situation in syria and iraq at the moment is unlike anything else we've seen before and we need to learn from history but not be imprisoned by it. you asked about the diplomatic engagement. i said in my opening statement that it is extraordinary to look at not just the numbers of the people affected by the numbers,

but the absence of engagement from powers on the political front. the mission does not have the active, ongoing engaged backing on a day-to-day basis. and that contrasts with the situation of the balkans where there was accepted content of groups and formations by the p-5 to try to put diplomatic muscle behind it. many times those attempts failed to solve the crisis. nonetheless, there was the trying. secondly it's very dangerous to conflate military approaches with civilian protection. and any approach that conflates those goals, i think, is a perilous way forward.

to my mind, it may be the humanetarian situation provides the way in for a contact group rather than the conclusion. itis in that light i suggested this notion of envoy appointed by the p5 heads of states and the regional power to start with what should be unbreakable rules. that seems to be a plausible method. >> if i could underscore two points, i would emphasize that now that this crisis has reached the shores of europe, it does cat liz catalyze a crisis. it is the leading edge of the crisis and secondly, it's very dangerous to con flat military approaches with civilian

protection. any approach that does that is a periless way forward. >> you agree more with the three-point program i laid out? do you agree it's a better approach? >> yes, but i fully subscribe to david's advice that we have a detailed conversation on the particulars. >> in principle, the sanctuary can't be a military base. >> you all agree with that? so i think that's a contrast with general petraeus and think it's important to put that out here on the table. i think that's central to this issue. mr. chairman, i wanted to ask an additional question about yemen. >> sure. >> that can wait. is that all right? >> just out of curiosity, since we understand your point of view -- and i think david milliband does, too. are you saying on the other hand that you would support u.s.

intervention to stop the barrel bombing if it was not about military activity taking place within that safe zone but protection of civilians? >> are you asking -- >> no, i'm asking you that just out of curiosity. because that would be a breakthrough. >> i think the breakthrough, honestly, has to be obama and yeltsin -- i mean obama and putin sitting down and reaching an agreement on this i think that's the only way it's going to happen. any other intervention, i don't think, will be effective in the long run. we need a political resolution of this and everything on the table. and we need the major powers to get this back out of the cold war framework. that's my view. >> thank you. >> and i apologize. >> mr. chairman, for the record, before i get or my organization get signed up to propose -- >> no, no. can i say you did not answer.

>> i just want to say that none of these points of details really matter. let's take the point of a demilitarized zone. in an area of a country flooded with arms of all kinds is a nice aspiration, but doesn't speak to the detail of the situation on the ground. and i would suggest that the imperative is to look at what a detailed proposal actually is and then measure it against the situation on the ground and the objectives for it. in the end the application of the principles is what's going to matter. frankly the devil is in the detail. my goodness, we've seen that in the last few years. >> thank you. just quickly, miss lindbergh, looking back to last winter and spring, it seems we were on autopilot to support a decision to intervene in yemen without a full examination of alternatives. what are your thoughts on this? what do we need to do to assess

what we might have done differently last winter and spring? particularly diplomatically? in the run up to outside military intervention in yemen. >> well, i would answer it this way. we're seeing where the military intervention is preventing humanitarian assistance from reaching populations that were very, very vulnerable to begin with. and we are already seeing the beginning of pockets of famine in yemen. and if there isn't an ability to provide assistance on a more regular basis, including the ability of ships to dock because yemen is deeply dependent upon imports of fuel and critical food supplies it's also running critically short of water as we know. there will be massive widespread famine. it will, i think there's an important conversation to be had with both saudi and iran as to

whether their military objectives are worth that kind of broad spread -- >> what can we do to help de-escalate the violence to get the humanetarian aid? what would you recommend we do? what is the policy? >> i would increase the pressure to, at a minimum, create a regular cycle of humanitarian pause sos there can be a regularized ability to get assistance in, including ship that is get in and off load and on load. there's a need for the bigger diplomatic resolution of the conflict. in the absence of that, there needs to be a way to keep from tipping into familiar in. >> the secretary was the leading voice in great britain on climate change. i know how he interacts with food and water that exasperates

things. i want to thank you for your work. >> any additional comments? i want to thank you and thank all three of you for your testimony and the service you provide to so many around the world. certainly, the world would be a different place if you and the organizations weren't doing the things you are doing. we thank you very much for your testimony. we appreciate the honest assessment you have given us on topics outside of what you actually came here to talk about, it's much appreciated. if you would, there will be additional questions and comments from others. i would say to the committee, if we can have them in by close of business on thursday and respond fairly quickly, we would appreciate that. thank you for your service. thank you for helps us understand the magnitude and some of the details relative to the problem and with that, this meeting is adjourned.

>> thank you.

♪ ♪ with her experience married to a five-star general, mrs. eisenhower knew how to manage staff. her favorite color of pink, reflected in her wardrobe. she was voted one of the nation's best dressed for clothing and hats. mamie eisenhower, sunday at c-span's original series, first

ladies, influence and image. influencing the public and private lives of those who were first ladies. from martha washington to michelle obama. sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. on c-span 3. now, a discussion about making federal government data available to public interest. they talked about the issue at a washington, d.c. conference hosted by the data transparency coalition thch coalition. this is a half hour. [ applause ] >> good morning, everyone. from blue shelter investors. for those of you who have not been outside in the last few hours, when you get outside, you'll find we're at the epicenter of entrepreneurship. just about on every corner, and at the top and bottom of the

metrocenter escalator, there is a vendor with a pope francis t-shirt. that's entrepreneurship. i think what we're finding is that the pope's picture is open data. so it ties together here. so we have a stimulating panel for you today on entrepreneurship in the world of open data. hudson designed this to be what he called a lightning session. he told me what that means is, it needs to go fast. and so it will. we have a really distinguished panel. three are in the open data market every day as for-profit companies, and one is -- laura is from the premier research organization in this area. so we're going to really get some good insights on this. the format will be, each of us will introduce ourselves quickly, and then laurel will give a presentation with some slides, a big data map, and then

we'll have some q&a that i have prepared. we'll all be around after that session if we want any followup sessions. i'll start the intros. blue venture investors, a d.c. area angel group investing primarily in early stage technology companies. many of our companies have federal and enterprise technology, software, cyber security, media data. we also have a number that are in b 2 b format. and many have a federal government interface, in particular streaming software founded by adam roth here, who is one of our speakers. we have invested $24 million in 27 companies in five years. we've had four exits, knock wood, so far things are going well. we're always looking for new ideas. you can find more about us at our website, bluventure

investors.com. "blu" is spelled without the e. with that intro, let me go through the panel here. each will introduce themselves. we'll start with laura and the questions. adam, do you want to go through? >> sure. adam roth with streamlink software. we're based in cleveland, ohio. we have a solution that helps both recipients and distributors of grant money, track, manage and move data, to better organize, to better understand, to better create accountability around financial and performance outcomes for grants, and can do that in a way that drives standardization through what we like to think of as the entire grant supply chain, from the federal government, to the state, to the local government, to the nonprofit. >> my name is bob goldman. i work at graphic.

we're a data visualization and aggregation company. our goal is to help deliver knowledge to both consumers and businesses, whenever and wherever they need it most. we have a team of researchers that's focused on aggregating every piece of data that we can get our hands on, both publicly-available government databases as well as proprietary databases. we have two main applications of our technology and our platform. one is that we build consumer facing vertical websites that each target a different industry. we have a website that focuses on consumer education, healthcare, real estate, to name a few. and then the other side of our business, which is the b 2 b side of the business, is we take all of that underlying data and we repackage it into interactive embedable data visualizations that website developers and journalists can use to enhance their content online.

if a writer at "the "huffington post"" is doing a piece on obama's approval ratings over time, we can show those statistics. >> hello, everyone, my name is laura manley and i work at the center of open data enterprise. we're a nonprofit based here in washington, d.c. our mission is to work with governments, businesses, and non-profits to develop strategies focused on users. >> good morning, my name is alex wirth, a co-founder of corum. we help legislative professionals gain new insights into the u.s. congress. what we've done is built the most comprehensive database of legislative information that's ever been created, including all the bills, votes, amendments, tweets, press releases, letters to members congress, and built a quantitate i have

analytics layer on top of that, like who members work with most frequently, what issues they're active on, and statistics about the amount of bills they're able to move out of committee and get it enacted. we've built a series of productivity and collaboration tools to help legislators with the tasks they do not on a daily bases. to give you a quick sense, some of our clients include fortune 500 companies like general motors and toyota, nonprofit advocacy groups like the campaign for children, as well as the united nations foundation, and then members of congress, their staff, and government relations firms here in dc. >> thank you, team. laura, do you want to start with your presentation on your impact map? >> so you can see the screen. okay. wonderful.

so i'm going to tell you a little bit about what we've seen based on one of our major initiatives called the open data impact map. over the past few years there's been a lot of discussion about the economic value of open data. in 2013 mckinsey and company released a study claiming that open data could generate between 3 to 5 trillion dollars annually around the world. the eu has stated open data could be a new gold mine. so how do companies actually unlock this value? for many businesses we think of open data in terms of it creative principle, that 10 to 20% of the data has about 80 to 90% of the high value for users. so how do we find that 10 to 20% of high value data for businesses? at our center, we call it demand driven open data. by understanding the unique needs of data users, entrepreneurs, established businesses, research centers, non-profits, we can change

priorities and policies to focus on the types of data that have higher return on investment. so last year, we wanted to have a better understanding of the larger picture of demand for open data. we developed the open data impact map, which is the first surgical, centralized database of organizations using open data from around the world. currently it has over 1100 examples from 85 countries, and 700 of those are actually businesses. this includes examples from surveys, dozens of studies, and research by our team. so i think we have a demo. great. so if you zoom into the dc area, we can search for different organizations using open data in the region. is it playing? okay, great. all right. we'll zoom all the way down into dc.

can we play it? okay. well, if you go on to www.opendataenterprise.org/map, you can walk through the visualization. you can zoom into different region of the country and learn more about countries using open data. you can go over to the left and filter by region of the country or region of the world, industry type, data used, or the way they're actually using it through various applications. you can also look at this information in tabular view and download all of it. and if your company isn't on here already, you can submit a survey by going to opendataenterprise.org/map/ survey. so what are we seeing from this impact map so far? can we go to the next slide, please? oh, here's a visualization, great.

so right now it's going to open up a company, and you can learn more about what the company does and what kind of data they're using, how they're applying it. if you wanted to add information about this company, you can click the edit button and then you would get a verification e-mail once we've vetted the information and done research on it. again, you can zoom back out, filter by region, by country, by organization type, industry category, data type that they're using, or the way they're applying the data. so if we filter by for-profit companies that are using demographics and social data to develop a new product or service, you can see how the map changes. and then you can look at the statistics tab to see how that also is reflected. and then if you go all the way over to the tab, you can look at the information in that form and sort it by the individual columns. and again, you can download all of this information as open data

or click here on the bottom and take the survey and tell us more about how your company is using open data and how it operates. okay. all right. so what are we seeing? what are some of the preliminary findings? first, that all sectors of the economy are represented. we're seeing companies in education, healthcare, construction, you name it. we're also seeing companies of all different sizes. so 50% of the companies in the open data impact map are smes with 2200 or less employees. and 20% of the companies have over a thousand employees. 40% of the companies were founded in the last five years. and some of the most widely used data is demographics, financial,

health, geospatial, weather. let's catch up with the slides. and one of the great things about a lot of the companies using open data is there seems to be a large social good or social mission component to what they're doing. okay. so generally speaking, we classify private sector open data use in two major ways. the first is new businesses, products, or services. so that's data management and service companies. and then the second is business optimization. so improving your current business or established business. so within the category of new businesses, products, or service, there's two major themes. the first are -- okay. here we go. so the first are data management companies where data or the data platform is the final product. so these companies aggregate, clean, and standardize various types of data.

an example would be a data management analytics or platform company. the next is information-based companies where information is the final product. these companies take open data, analyze, and visualize the data to transform it into information for consumers. an example would be a company like graphic, who creates rich visualizations for their customers. the second and larger category of private sector use of open data is business optimization. so market intelligence. that's where open data can help companies match supply and demand more accurately or find and assess potential new markets by examining demographics or business registry data. the next is customer experience. open data can help identify microsegments of the population for targeted marketing. for example, a retail store could use census data to customize store layouts and inventory for different neighborhoods. next is business analytics. open data can help change processes where data shows performance or inventory can be tightened.

it's estimated open data could save a half billion dollars a year in reduced waste from spoilage. lastly, open data can supplement current proprietary data or replace data that was previously paid for. over the coming months and years we're continuing to expand the open data impact map and our research so we can better understand the unique needs of businesses to find that high value data. with that i will turn it back over to hal. >> thanks, laura. can you repeat, if people want to learn more or enter data, what's the link? >> it's www.opendataenterprise.org /map. >> thanks. let's get on with the questions. we're going to start with bob. we're going to ask the same question for all three. how do you look at business

opportunities in government data, in particular, open data, as an opportunity to generate new or enhance an existing business position? >> so one of the coolest things that i think about open government data, and specifically freely available open government data is that it really fosters an increase in the rate of innovation in the industries in which that data is available. as we've heard many times today, the number of companies that are using public data, proprietary data, to make consumers' lives better, it's growing really quickly. and if those companies can enter markets without having to incur a big up front data cost, it makes it a lot more feasible. if we look at industries where there is an abundance of government data, health care,

education, weather, geo spatial, we see a huge number of companies that are doing really interesting things in those markets. and what that ultimately translates into is that it increases competition, and it improves products and pricing for consumers. there are other industries where that data is not available. so if you take a look at the real estate industry, there's no good national level data that's made publicly available. when i say "national level data," i mean a national level data set that has information on each address, what structures on that address. is it a commercial or is it a residential property? how big is the lot? what's the square footage of the building, when was it last sold? that's all collected at the county level. and no one in the government has aggregated it at the national level. so what we've seen is there have been a handful of companies that have done that, and they license that data. but the cost of that data is prohibitively expensive for most startup companies to enter that market and start doing new and interesting things, which is why

we only see a few very large players in the real estate market. the same can be said about the company research space. so there's no national level data set that has information on set that has information on all the 30 million companies in the u.s. that are not public. the s.e.c. has great data on public companies but not private companies. so that's another industry which is an example. at graphic we draw on hundreds if not thousands of government data sets to see anew product development. these data sets allow us to quickly enter a new market and see if we're able to be successful there. if so we can invest more in

that. but if we're not, it's not a huge cost to us. the more we can make government data available in industries that matter to consumers, the more innovation we'll see in the private sector and the better that will ultimately be for consumers. >> and alex? >> certainly. i think that was an excellent point about innovation and one we've seen firsthand. 90% of the data we use at quorum is all public data. the issue that we often find is it's released in a really difficult to use form. the great example of this comes from where we got the original inspiration for quorum. i was doing advocacy work on capitol hill and wanted to know who a member of congress worked with most frequently. you'd think this would be an easy question to answer with a computer. but the library of congress doesn't have an api to access all the data about legislation and what members are doing in their activity. they publish it and put it out on thomas.gov and congress.gov. in order to answer the question we wanted to, we had to go through and scrape all the library of congress to get the data before we can run the

algorithms to see who the member worked with most frequently. all the work you are doing on a daily basis is of utmost importance because it facilit e facilitates that. it's all there and then can start to think of, what can we do on top of this versus how do we get it in the first place? we spent a tremendous amount of time on how do we get it in the first place and not as much time as we'd like about what cool things can we do on top of that data. anything that all of you can do to help make it easier for us to get that data in a more easy to access form where it's standardized is what promotes innovation in the first place. >> adam? >> so i started streaming software after spending a career working in nonprofit organizations and i had a challenge. i got lots of money from the federal government, form of headstart, in the form of department of labor grants, and that was a great thing because the only people that -- the only group that pays for those

services was the federal government, but it also created immense pain. entrepreneurs in general solve the problem. they have a pain. they try to solve a pain. and what i think open data allows for is it allows for two things. it allows for the creation of the possible, meaning we can do things better, faster. we should be able to do things more efficiently. we should be able to manage things better because we have more access to data. we have more information. it's like we can never get away from our cell phones today because you're always accessible. if you have more accessible data, more accessible information, things are more possible. the other thing it does is it identifies and creates and shows more problems. it allows you to identify more areas where there could be value created by understanding the data better. and i think in our business, we looked at the first. we looked at the possible and

we said with the open data there's more ways. things are more possible to do. there's better ways to do with business processes that are being done today if we build a platform to your example. we build a platform that allows us to better manage and move data then we've enhanced the possible. and open data was the driver of that enhancement. and with that comes how we look at our company today which is almost like a data transportation company. we're like the amtrak of grant data. we try to move that data through that chain, understanding that everybody has to get on the same train. so that data being standardized, being valuable, being able to be integrated from a variety of different inputs creates more value. but that possible of moving that data, driving that data, having the pressure on folks to get better access to that data is only possible if open data as a

fundamental process and as a culture exists. and that's what's driving our business and has opened up many new channels for what we're trying to accomplish. >> thank you, great panel. you have heard that from our panel that the push for open data and transparent data is having an impact. that companies and organizations in very creative ways are getting it, providing access to it, and providing their customers access to it so it can be used by many across our great country. for those just -- for those who haven't been to the sponsor's room, i recommend that you go there and look at all their tables and what they're doing in the area of transparency and open data. a lot of eye-opening, very creative things are being found. thank you.

[ applause ] >> we've got time for questions. one or two. >> i'm with common cause maryland. and i wanted to ask a question about the common problems you have obtaining data from government. you mentioned standardized formats and difficult -- what other issues do you have? government being willing to give up data sometimes, or what are the typical obstacles that you have in dealing with government and open data? >> so two big things that we run into. one is just making sure there's good documentation. a lot of times we'll see folks release data but then won't release any additional information around it. it makes it really difficult to figure out what's going on and what particular section does it relate to. the s.e.c has this problem. a number of websites have this problem. the census bureau had this

problem. and the other issue is a mind-set of thinking on behalf of government agencies, continual lateral thinking across a number of years. one of the problems we face is people often change the input mechanisms or standards they're using and we can't compare data over time. it becomes easy to access at one time, but we can't tell you what the difference is between this year and 2012. we've had to do by hand a number of times is hand match categories either with congressional issue a tag with specific statistics to do those longer term comparisons that provide the value that show you how has this changed over time to gain more insights. those are two really big things that would off the bat be incredibly helpful to folks like us trying to provide interesting insights from that data. >> from my perspective, too, and i come at it again a little bit more from the platform side and less about getting the actual data but more about how do you manage it, i think there's a cultural shift that has to

happen internally as well. and that's a challenge. traditional technology models for departments, for the federal government are very organizational departmental specific. we talk about trying to understand and bring information together and consolidate. treasury is doing a great deal of work on this as well trying to figure out how do you move the data between systems but how do you move the data not just between those systems but systems outside of the federal government. that becomes a cultural shift that has to happen. it's going to take a lot of buy-in to make that work but that will allow for, i think, a much greater movement of information and data across the government which will make it more valuable for everyone. >> actually one more thing to add there on the retrieval side of things. there's two big things that prevent us from fully automating a lot of the data work we do. one is that even if the data is available online, oftentimes you need to submit some sort of form or some sort of limit on how

many rows of data can be downloaded at once which is a big pain and actually requires a human to go do it. the second is if it's not online, we need to -- sometimes digitizing it isn't as good as putting it online. some will digitize it and put it on a disc. then you actually have to have a human to put that disc in a cd drive, which most computers don't have anymore, to make use of it. there needs to be a lot of people that are manually doing this work to make it usable. >> one more question? everybody is hungry and wants lunch? >> in that case, that's the first time that's ever happened. let's have mike starr come up and close us out. thank you. [ applause ] tonight on c-span 3

education secretary arne duncan. the house science committee looks at the possibility of life on other planets. then a senate ageing committee hearing on pension advance scams. and later an interview with nato supreme allied commander phillip breedlove. today arne duncan announced a proposal to divert $15 million from spending on prisons to fund more teachers and support staff in the country's most troubled school districts. he also answered reporters' questions on other issues. from the national press club, this is an hour. [ applause ] >> in addition to our guests here in the lounge, i want to welcome our c-span and public radio audiences, as well as those watching on the live stream on our website press.org.

you can follow the action on twitter as well. use the hash tag npc live. that's npc live. well, arne duncan grew up in chicago. his mother started an urban tutoring program for kids from low-income families on chicago's south side. young arne was there tutoring, playing basketball, and learning the value of a good education in stark terms. later, he would head the chicago school system. he became friends with the future president named barack obama. duncan and agriculture secretary tom vilsack are the only two remaining members of president obama's original cabinet. since being confirmed for his post on january 20th, 2009, duncan has changed education

policy in important and sometimes controversial ways. states are increasing the rigor of their academic standards. they are turning around their lowest performing schools, and they're opening new charter schools. these reforms were triggered by funding available through the race to the top and waivers given under the no child left behind act. after a legislative overhaul in 2010, the department of education is now the lender and guarantor for billions of dollars in student loans. duncan has used regulatory power to hold for profit colleges accountable for preparing students for jobs rather than loan defaults. he just unveiled a college scorecard to give students access to more federal data about colleges to help inform their search. he's been a lightning rod for

some of the more controversial issues in education. these include the common core state standards, annual testing, and what role the federal government should play in education. both major teachers unions in one way or another have suggested that he might need to resign. as congress considers reauthorizing no child left behind, some lawmakers are working to limit the levers of power that duncan has used to enact changes when congress was gridlocked. as i said, he has a fascinating speech topic today, and so now it's our turn to get an education. ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm national press club welcome to education secretary arne duncan. [ applause ] >> thank you so much.

it's great to be back. and i want to start by telling you about something that i'm not proud of. early in my time as ceo of the chicago public schools, we set out to make our schools safer places for our children and adults. we knew that too many of our students were going to jail, so i went to the police chief there and asked if we could find out what time of day or night our kids were getting arrested. i figured if we knew when the arrests were occurring and it was after school, we could target an intervention to keep kids more engaged in those after school hours. and if this was happening late at night, we would have to challenge parents to step up and actually parent. what i didn't expect was the actual answer was that the majority of the arrests were occurring during the school day in our school buildings overwhelmingly for nonviolent misdemeanors. most calls to put kids in jail,

we were the ones making them. we were responsible. we met the enemy and it was us. i know no one, none of our teachers, principals, or administrators, had set out to criminalize the behavior of our students or start them down a path towards incarceration, but those were the facts. the fact that america today locks up black people at a far higher rate than south africa did during the height of apartheid. the fact that young men of color are six times more likely to be incarcerated than their white peers. the fact that one out of three black men, one of every three in america, is predicted to go to prison at some point in their lives while just one in five of them receives a college degree. facing the facts on

incarceration leaves us with no choice. we, as a country, must do more to change the odds. you can try to reduce those statistics to just numbers on a page, but there are people behind those numbers in ferguson, in baltimore, in new york, and hundreds of other places. if you spent some time in those places with real people who have real families, you'll be left with no doubt we have to do more. and that's why i want to lay out an idea today that will strike some as improbable or impractical, but which i think is essential. it's about setting a very different direction as society, a different priority, one that says we believe in great teaching early in our children's lives rather than courts and jails and prisons later. let me tell you why this is so important to me. in close to seven years as the education secretary, i've had the chance to spend a lot of time bearing witness to great teaching and learning and

meeting amazing young people who are finding ways to share their unique talents with their communities and their world. i think a lot about those young people who we, as adults, have not done the right thing by and honestly their story is hard to me. there's brandon, who at the age of 11, wrote graffiti on the bathroom wall. brandon was sentenced to what they called community service alongside adult offenders. he told me i was definitely the only 11-year-old picking up trash on the side of the highway. simply mind boggling. that experience also left brandon with a criminal record and years later when he set out to become a police officer, the department turned him away because of that one youthful mistake. i talked to him just a few days after he got that news and he said it killed my sense of hope.

there's a young boy from broward county schools who racked up 30 behavioral referrals and received his first battery charge as a 7-year-old after having an anxiety attack after the death of his grandfather. and there were the young men i met recently in illinois prison, which i visited a few weeks ago, with father flager. these young men were locked up for a variety of crimes committed during their childhood years. many of them told us from an early age they had to take care of their families, left meaningful job options, and felt completely alone in a world where nobody seemed to care about them or believe in them. what did all these young people have in common? they all made bad choices, both charge and small. for many, when they needed support, it simply wasn't there. for some, the system found ways

to push them out rather than help them out. as father flager later wrote, all of them are examples of unrealized potential. every day as a society we allow far too many young people to head down a road that ends in wasted potential. sometimes we're complicit in that journey to nowhere. we need to do more to change that. let's fix our priorities in a way that says something different about what we expect from our kids. the bet we're making now is abundantly clear. please take a moment and ask yourself what does that say about what we believe. leaders at the state and local levels have the power to change that, to place a bet on getting it right with kids from the start and on the power of great teaching to transform the life chances of our children. i'm not pretending for a second that schools can begin to do

this alone. they cannot replace broader efforts to deal with poverty and hunger and homelessness and other social ills that effect our young people, but the facts about the impact of great teaching are simply too powerful to ignore. i haven't yet met a parent who needed to be convinced that it was important for his or her child to have a great teacher. parents understand and know what research tells us. so much so that kids who have great teachers end up with months more learning each year than kids who don't. and the benefits of a great teacher put out in life, not just in school. a single year with an excellent teacher rather than an ineffective one has been shown to have benefits in lifetime

earnings for that class. a major impact on the likelihood of attending college or having a child while you're a teenager. the link between education or a lack there of and incarceration is powerful. and african-american male between the ages of 20 and 24 without a high school diploma or ged has a higher chance of being imprisoned than of being employed. today our nation's schools suspend roughly a 1/3 of our nation's children per year. we cannot lay our incarceration crisis at the door of our schools, but we have to do our part to end the school to prison pipeline. that's going to force us to have some difficult conversations about race, and i'll get into

that in a moment, but i want to talk about bold steps our states and cities can take to get great teachers in front of our nee neediest kids. the rewards of this work are extraordinary, but it is also an incredibly hard job, so here's an idea for how to put a new emphasis on schools rather than on jails. if our states and localities took just half the people convicted of nonviolent crimes and found paths for them other than incarceration, that would create savings of upward of $15 billion a year. if they reinvested that money into paying teachers, they could provide a 50% salary increase for every single one of those teachers doing that hard, but important work. if you focus on the 20% of schools with the highest poverty

rates in each state, that would give you 17,640 schools, and the money would go far enough to increase salaries by at least 50%. there would be plenty of money left over to give principals in those schools the raises they deserve as well. with a move like this, we're not just making a bet on education over incarceration, but signaling the beginning of a long range effort to pay our nation's teachers what they are worth. that sort of investment wouldn't just make teachers in struggling communities feel more valued. it would have ripple effects on our economy and our civic life. obviously, this isn't the only way you can redirect funds to attract and keep talent in our schools. another plan, you can take a quarter of that $15 billion in savings and use it to support teacher leadership, creating five positions in every one of

these high poverty schools for these establiaccomplished teach. there are lots of other ways to go about this. local leaders and educators will know what's best for their kids and their community. but the bottom line is we must do more to ensure more strong teachers go to our toughest schools and stay for the long haul. right now, in far too many places glaring and unconscionable funding gaps create all the wrong incentives. to take one example, the ferguson school district in missouri spends $9,000 per student a year. in clayton, funding is double at about $18,000 per student. how is that a plan to give every single child a fair start? what does that say to the teachers in ferguson about how they're valued? what's the cumulative impact of

disparity of opportunity over 13 years of a child's education? today, far too much great talent leaves our toughest schools or never arrives at all. let's step back and challenge everything and make that work the pinnacle of an educator's career. let's invest more in the adults who have dedicated their lives to helping young people reach their full potential, and let's place a emphasis on our young people as contributors to society. i'm not naive at all about doing this overnight. for those already in the system, we can't just walk away from them. we have to invest in education and career training and treatment and support programs that help young people who are locked up become contributing members of society. that's why we're so proud to be starting the second chance pel program to give those who are incarcerated a better chance at

going to college and transforming lives. we're talking about savings that come from alternative paths that involve only nonviolent offenders. this is about finding ways consistent with wise criminal justice to reapportion our resources to we prevent crime in the first place. i'm not suggesting this is an either or. but i am convinced that making an historic bet on getting education right from the start would pay massive dividends for our families, our communities, our society, and ultimate ly fo our nation's economy. according to a report from 2009, the achievement gap between the united states and other top performing nations is depriving our u.s. economy of more than $2 trillion in economic output every year. a 10% increase in high school

graduation rates would reduce murder and assault arrest rates by approximately 20%. and a 1% increase in male graduation rates would save up to $1.4 billion in the cost of incarceration. so you don't have to be a liberal manic to like the idea of investing up front in our kids. a hard nosed look at the bottom line will lead you to the same conclusion. i recognize that what i have laid out might be ambitious, but if we're serious about limiting the school to prison pipeline, a shift is funding is not the only thing we have to do. the need goes way beyond education. what we have to do to take on por poverty, to deal with violence, to expand jobs, improve health care and so much more, all of that, all of that, is a part of the solution. but in our schools, reducing the number of young people who end

up behind bars fundamentally is about changing the odds for our most underserved students. that means following through on the difficult but vital work of turning around low-performing schools and improving those graduation rates, which today i'm proud to say are at historic highs. it means ensuring that all students, including and especially those in low-income communities of color, have access to high standards aligned to expectations for the real world and challenging course work that prepares them for college. it means expanding the opportunity of quality preschool whose power to reduce incarceration is well established. it means giving teachers the preparation and support they need to success, especially in high needs schools. and it means ensuring that children go to school free from fear whether from gun violence or bullying or racial or sexual

harassment or assault. none of this work is new, but all of it is essential to changing those odds. unfortunately, some in this country would have us move in exactly the wrong direction by cutting the funds that states and districts desperately need to make opportunity real for our kids. that's exactly what republican budget proposals would do. they would cut funds for vulnerable students, support for teachers, job training, and preschool studeopportunities th all know help our young people become productive citizens. these work and these investments are the foundation upon which long-term academic success can be built. taking the essential steps to expand what we know works in education that should be a no-brainer, but there's more. there's more than just budgets and policies. perhaps the hardest step of all is taking an unsparing look at our own attitudes and our own

decisions and the ways they are both tied to both race and class. in the wake of ferguson and baltimore and elsewhere this has been essential discussion for many in america and rightfully so. those of us in education can simply not afford to stay on the sidelines. unless recognized up front, this is among the hardest conversations we can have in education. people enter this field out of love for students and the genuine desire to see them excel and thrive. suspensions track far too closely to race and class. our high rates of incarceration, our high numbers of high school dropouts, and our high rates of child poverty are not unrelated problems. as was true for me and my colleagues back home in chicago, sometimes the facts must force a tough look inwards.

this is not just about explicit obvious bias. indeed, sometimes when a genuinely transparent moment of bias occurs, the whole country stops and takes a look. more often, it is very subtler stuff buried in privileges and expectations that we're not even aware that we hold. phillip goff is working with hospitals and districlaw enforc. when we become more aware of the biases that we carry, and we all carry them, we can learn how not to act on them. it's painful to admit to one's own actions. it's painful to admit one's own actions might be causing harm, particularly for us as educators

who come to this work from such an altruistic place. when i found out what was happening to our schools in chicago, it was like a punch in the gut. all of us have work to do. all of us. not by asking teachers and principals to put up with more misbehavior or feel less safe themselves. quite the opposite. we know learning requires order and unacceptable behavior is unacceptable behavior. we need to do the hard work of comprehending our own biases. that's what they're trying to do in broward county. i'm thrilled to have my good friend, superintendent bob runcy here with us today. our default response had become law enforcement. but hitting rock bottom was their wake-up call and it led him to insist that broward county find ways to keep kids in

classrooms and out of courtrooms. they listen to community groups and grass roots organizations who have been challenging that status quo for a long time. now just three short years later and partnership with folks like dr. goff and educators and staff who are willing to do this hard, hard work, disciplinary incidents have been reduced by a quarter and school-related arrests in three years are down 63%. part of the reason has to do with new systems the school district has put in place, but the bigger change had to do with the way people saw themselves and the problem they were trying to solve. it's difficult work, challenging centuries of institutionalized racism and class inequality. but i firmly believe a hard look at ourselves is what is needed. as many of you know, this work is deeply personal for me.

as you heard earlier, i grew up in chicago and formed some of my deepest relationships playing pick-up basketball on the south side. there wasn't a lot of margin for error and not a lot of second chances. some of them, thanks to my mother and others, ended up on a path to strong education and that helped shape their lives in profound ways. corky became a doctor. another who never met his dad and his mom was largely absent tutored me at my mom's center for years starting when he was just a teenager and i was 8 or 9 years old. he is a chief technology officer at cisco. so many others from that neighborhood just as smart, just as full of talent and potential and promise, ended up on a very

different path locked up or dead. tragically what they lacked was what every child needs, educational opportunity, support, and guidance. we cannot stand by while another generation of young people from chicago to denver, from baltimore to ferguson, faces the same choices, and that's why we're in the fight we're in to make opportunity real for those born without advantages and who have lived and grown up with struggle and fear. we must be a nation of second chances. it's why we have to try new ideas. it's why we have to do everything we possibly can. all the ideasi i have talked about today are part of the same fight. it's bigger than that. it's a fight to increase social mobility. it's a fight for social justice. and the stakes could not be higher. this fight can literally mean

the difference between life and death. our children and our country deserve a different bargain, a different set of priorities. and when we bet on the extraordinary potential of all of our children, when we bet on great teachers, we cannot lose. thank you so much, and resources. the truth is we don't have those

dollars anymore. we have a dysfunctional congress that isn't investing much in education. those resources came from the stimulus act going back to very early on in the administration. the fair question is what can we do across the administration to incentivize states and communities. >> have you gotten any indication from any states or localities that they are interested in this kind of approach you lay out and will they lobby for some kind of funding shift and does your department have an outreach strategy to reach out to further these goals? >> we're just getting started today. but i will say part of the reason we're talking about this now is there's been a merging sense of bipartisan support for this. whether you're on the far left or far right, there's a tremendous acute awareness that mass incarceration hasn't worked. we're spending huge amount of money each year to warehouse folks and they come back and the

vast majority repeat and go back in. relatively, pennies on the dollar to educate the front end. trying to flip this is just so huge and important, so i do think there is a growing recognition for folks who might not agree on anything else that we have a broken system now. what we're trying to drive home is we'd love to give every teacher across the nation a raise, every principal a raise, but if we focus on those communities where the children have the greatest need, where we fail to educate the vast majority that get locked up, i think you'd change this for decades to come. >> this questioner says an independent study by public policy institute california says that similar prison reform efforts haven't realized savings. what's your response to critics

who say $15 billion won't be saved or to put it another way, how confident are you in those figures when you spend the money on the education in the districts it will translate to that savings? >> you have to break down the components of this. if you're choosing -- again, repeat for the third time -- nonviolent offenders, if you're not locking them at $40,000, $50,000, $60,000, that will create a minimum of $15 billion in savings. the question is are you willing to reinvest that in great teachers, in great principals, in struggling schools? that's a political choice that leaders have to make. we would argue that long term if you do that, rates of incarceration will go down dramatically. >> what would have to happen logistically on local and state levels to execute this reallocation? >> it takes leadership across

the board, but again just -- the fact that we lock up more young black men here in the united states today at a higher rate than under apartheid in south africa is stunning. the fact that young men have a greater chance of being locked up than getting a college degree. where there's a little, there's a way. if we look at the facts -- this is not about liberal do-gooders. regardless of what perspective you come at, there's no one who can defend the current system. if you can't defend the current system, do you want to tweak it around the edges or do you want to do something transformational and revolutionary? often you hear the saying a crisis creates an opportunity. we have a crisis in our country. we're destroying our families. we're destroying our communities. we need that potential. we need that brain power. we need that creativity. so if political leaders come

together and say we need to make a very different bet, a very different investment, they have an opportunity now that may not have existed in the past. >> the administration announced pell grants for people in jail. is there any news you can share on that program, for example how much money we're talking, how many inmates are being effected? >> it's too early. it's one of the things i'm just so proud of our team's work. we have the ability through experimental authority to create these opportunities where we have actually now -- i think it's maybe due next week. due october 1st. we have an rsvp out to universities who want to partner with correctional facilities to provide classes in prisons. we will see relative to the overall pell spend this will be far less than 1%. it's a huge opportunity.

inmates from jail who are being taught by barred college want to debate against students from harvard. pretty interesting. pretty interesting. >> the higher education act was recently revised to reinstate federal student aid for high school dropouts enrolled in career pathways programs. given the number of dropouts who end up incarcerated, should this ability to benefit this program be expanded to reach more dropouts? >> whatever we can do to give people second chances and if they need them, third chances, if we don't do that, the cost to society of warehousing them, of incarcerating them far exceeds any second or third chance. pell grants are under $6,000 a year. locking folks up is around $60,000 a year, so it's 10%.

give them a second, and if they need a third chance, to graduate from high school, we should absolutely be challenging ourselves to be creative there. >> does the administration have any plans for something big and meaningful on college affordability plan before president obama leaves office? this questioner says the free community college plan isn't going anywhere and hasn't moved the needle much for families trying to afford college. is there anything the administration can or will do to address college affordability as part of the obama legacy? >> i'm trying to figure out how to print money. i haven't figured that one out, so it's not as easy as we wish. we're going to continue to work with congress on this free community college idea. that piece is hugely important. having access to free early childhood education is very important on the other side. the k-12 system has served us pretty well for the past century.

i think it is vastly inadequate for the next century. many other nations around the world have come to this conclusion faster than we have, and it worries me from a competitiveness standpoint that we're behind them. this wasn't the president's idea. it wasn't my idea. it wasn't a democratic idea. it came from a republican in tennessee, who has made it free for tennesseeians who saw the value in doing that. these are not -- this should not be a partisan fight on these things, but we're going to continue to try to challenge congress to invest here. we're going to continue to challenge states to hold universities accountability. we're going to get much more information out to young people and their families to make good choices. we hope they'll go places that

are not just serious about creating access, but about completion. there's a number of things we're going to do to help people make choices and to get more resources to places that are doing the right thing by their young people. >> this questioner suggests that the administration has pulled back a little bit on that effort to evaluate and rate colleges and universities wondering if the administration was bowing to from higher education institutions or what happened there. >> we can be accused of lots of things. it was an interesting process that was -- we learned as we were going through it. it's almost like an old school versus new-school approach and the idea of having a federal government do an annual report card and come out with a seal of approval, that used to maybe make some sense. it doesn't make much sense

anymore. data is changing so fast. there's so much information out there. we think the best thing we can do is maximize transparency. let folks do their own data in realtime analyses. get that information out. we think that's the way the world is moving, so this was a different way of doing business than us. but the idea of a one-time seal of approval doesn't quite make sense anymore. it would be interesting to see -- the number of folks coming to that site has been stunning. we're going to try to do a lot more going forward. this is just the starting point. maximizing transparency, maximizing data. we think that will drive behavior and provide a level of accountability that a static report card wouldn't. >> we must have some educators writining essay questions.

yesterday, a bipartisan group of governors and education groups told members of congress to do their jobs and reauthorize the elementary and secondary education act or esea and they released conference priorities for negotiating a final bill. those priorities are silent on the role of standardized tests and measuring whether students have mastered state standards. how do you think we should update the accountability regime introduced by no child lift behind? >> that is a very difficult question. we think where states and districts are overtesting, where's there redundancy, they should cut back. we would love to see a cap on annual testing. put some money behind places that want to do that the right way. we think there's an important role for assessing students' learning every single year. we need to know not just in

ninth grade and 11th grade are students are track to be ready for college or not. take one second on this. massachusetts is our highest performing state academically. they're number one. despite that fact, about 1/3 of their high school graduates who go on to two and four-year universities have to take remedial classes in college. that means they're not ready. having high standards and having honest assessments of students' ability to hit those standards, we think there's a common sense middle ground there. that's a very important piece, but that's one piece of a potential fix to the no child left behind law. that law has been broken for a long time. unfortunately, congress has also been broken. we are hoping a couple of years ago congress would fix the law. we're hoping now. having speaker boehner step down before that happened, we were maybe 50/50.

i think our odds of having it pass now have gotten worse but not better, but i would be very happy to be proven wrong there. the goal is to get a strong bill, a bipartisan bill, that would fix the law for children, fix the law for educators, and the president could be proud to support. i hope we can get there. i think that task, that journey, just got harder in the past week. >> with so many states opting out of testing, will the u.s. education department continue to insist that new york state continue to consider student test scores in evaluating teachers and if so, how much weight should be given to test scores? >> first to be clear, no states are opting out of testing. every state assesses student. no state has opted out. all we have tried to do -- and there's a level of complexity and detail here -- is to say student learning has to be a

part of evaluating teachers. anyone who says that somehow teacher evaluate and student learning should be divorced from each other i think really demeans the profession of teaching and the goal of great teachers is not just to teach, but to have their students learn. how are you measuring student learning and how is that just a piece of how you evaluate teachers? we say multiple measures. anyone who says we're only interested in test scores is not telling the truth. >> this questioner asks aren't teachers forming unions still the best way to raise teachers' salaries and do you think charter operators should remain neutral during union drives? >> i think unions are an important way of raising wages, whether it is in the education sector or in others. but i also want to be clear. hopefully it was very implicit in what i've said is that every

teaching job is not created equally. and we have a teacher that we have here. that's a very different job than teaching in northwest d.c. in chicago, a teacher teaching in en inglewood is a very diffet job. we would love to find ways -- again, no one goes into education to make a million dollars. teachers are the most altruistic people we know, but how we better compensate them, how we better support them, how we get them more respect, and how we get great talent to the kids who need the most help -- the most

extreme example i saw was on a native american reservation and no child deserves a better chance or a real chance at an education than our native american children where they could simply not find enough teachers to teach in that community. half of their teachers came from teach in america and half came from the philippines. they could not find u.s.-born teachers to work on that reservation. as part of a package to get more talent where we need it most, i think compensation and other things have to be on the table in very, very different ways. again, there are great schools that are led by union teachers. there are not great schools led by union teachers. there are great schools on the other side of that as well. whether a charter is a union school or not, i think is irrelevant. what are we doing to increase graduation rates, reduce dropout

rates? we need to support teachers. we need to support educators. we need to compensate them. all of this needs to be about reducing academic failure and increasing success. >> what should common core advocates be doing to make sure that state standards don't revert back to the old system inconsistent from state to state? >> again, the media loves the noise and the controversy, but over the past couple of years something unprecedented happen. the overwhelmingly majority of states decided we're going to stop dumbing down standards and stop lying. what those standards are called doesn't matter, but the goal is to keep those standards high. what the press hasn't covered is how many states have high standards relative to a couple of years ago. this has been talked about educators and by governors since the 90s.

governor clinton worked on this. governor riley worked on this. what we have seen is political leaders from across the political spectrum, democrat and republican, are now in the process of raising standards. that's a huge deal. that by itself is not enough. how you support teachers and teaching those higher standards, how you talk about higher standards for children, this is going to be a rocky couple of years. test scores may go down. that's okay. it's important to tell the truth. it's important to have high standards. the second part of that question is how do we have transparency and look at one state versus the other. we're not competing for jobs in the state of indiana anymore by itself. we're competing with jobs with singapore and south korea and china. who is getting better faster? we're all in this together. who is doing a better job in inner city communities? who is doing a better job in

rural communities or on native american reservations? if we can't compare or talk to each other, it is hard to shine a spotlight on success. we have to find ways to get better faster. for every educational challenge we're facing, i promise you it is being solved somewhere today with educators. being able to measure and talk and communicate across the nation and across the globe, i think, will speed up, will accelerate the pace of change, which i think we desperately need to do. >> a couple of similar questions i'll combine. one asking how the department of education can be proactive to make sure what happened in ferguson and baltimore doesn't happen again. i know that's part of what your speech was about today. another questioner says the department has already issued civil rights guidelines for schools. is there anything else the administration can or will do to offset the racial bias that

fuels the school to prison pipeline? >> first, i'll tell you what we cannot do. i always try to be very honest. on the k-12 side, our nation is funded at the local level. usually half is from the state. 40% is the local level. our levers there as not as strong as some might like them to be, but the fact of the matter is since we're so property tax-based throughout the nation, the children of the wealthy get dramatically more spent on them than the children of the poor. until we become uncomfortable with that truth, until we really start to believe that black and brown children and poor children actually can contribute to society, we'll continue to have huge disparities. i'm not an expert. i spent some time in ferguson, but ferguson didn't happen overnight. that was decades of neglect and

abuse and mistreatment and underinvestment. decades in the making and it finally, finally boiled up to the top. as long as children in ferguson are getting less than half the money spent of them, we're going to leave a lot of talent on the sidelines and we're going to lock up people coming from communities like that that we don't have to do. until we become uncomfortable with this reality, until we challenge it, not talk about it, not admire it, but do something different we'll continue to have huge disparities in educational funding. it is impossible to justify children of poor communities getting half the money of children of wealthier communities. 85% of our children lived below the poverty line. 90% of our children came from the minority community.

we sued the state. when unsuccessful, but it's criminal. it's criminal that our kids and the children we serve have less than half the money. think about the 13-year impact of having much less resources than other spaces. that's going to happen much more at the local level. it has to happen at the federal level. what we can continue to do is try to put out guidance and spotlight leaders of courage. as we challenge everyone else, i want you to come back to this. we have to look in the mirror and challenge ourselves. that has to be a piece of this. where we are doing things that are contributing to these problems, we have to make ourselves vulnerable. we have to ask the very hard questions and try and do something different. that meeting with the police, i will never forget that meeting. it was like it was yesterday. i was stunned, stunned, that we were contributing to this problem in a major way, but that was reality. two years ago, we announced with

eric holder that across the nation we were suspending and expelling 3 and 4-year-old black and brown boys from pre-k. i had no idea. we have to continue to shine spotlights on leadership and courage. we have to continue to put out guidance. we have to challenge local folks to think is it good enough that the children of ferguson have less than half the money spent on folks like them. >> you have a reputation of being able to work with people of all ideologies, yet the past seven years the debate over education has become more divisive than ever. why do you think that is? >> i don't think i agree with that characterization. what folks like to cover is the noise.

the vast majority of states have raised standards. they don't cover that 43, 44 states are the top gets all of the press, 4 million. we invested $5 billion more in turning around the nation's under performing schools. people said that was hard, impossible, can't happened, black and brown kids can't learn. we've seen huge progress. that story has been massively unreported. the media is drawn to the noise and controversy. the media does not go to collaboration. and there's an extraordinary story just underneath the surface that lots of media folks here, i'm trying to throw a not so subtle hint here. there's extraordinary stories. i just went on a back to school bus tour, traveled throughout the midwest. was in cedar rapids, idaho.

they've thrown out traditional teacher contracts and step increases, putting all of their money in teacher leadership and investing in teachers. it's virtually unheard of. 15,000 school districts. we'll be lucky if we have 100 school districts doing that. no one tells that story. amazing collaboration. nobody knows. so i think again, there's an important debate to be had. that's a great debate to be head. not to go on too long on this, i think what we debate is important. so much of what we debate is small ball. with the presidential campaign coming up, a few basic questions they would love the media to ask. one, what are you doing to increase investment in early childhood education. two, what are you doing to

reduce dropout rates. three, what's your plan to increase high school graduation rates. and not just what your goals are, what political capital, a what resources and investment are you willing to make. and all of the other questions are noise. it's silly. everything else, all means to an end. if we can get folks focused on those and have an honest debate amongst all of the candidates, then we should vote on those things. because we focus on the silly stuff and the noise, it gives politicians a pass to deal with the real hard issues. and i don't blame them. i blame us as voters. that's on us. >> you mentioned questions you'd like to ask the candidates. in the three hours of the lst republican presidential debate, nothing was said about education. it doesn't seem to be a priority issue in the election. why do you think it's not being talked about on the campaign trail. >> again, i don't blame the politicians.

i blame us. it wasn't -- in the 2012 presidential debates, education barely came up. things get discussed on what folks vote on. until more folks go to the voting booth voting on education, these topics aren't going to be talked about. again, i'm repeating myself. democrat, republican, doesn't matter. lots of great education ideas along the political spectrum. but until we insist that mayors and governors and congress folks, folks in the senate and folks running for president, until we insist that they don't just kiss babies and actually try and improve education, then we'll continue to just sort of not make the kind of progress we need. and the consequences from our country are getting bigger and bigger. not to go on too long.

our nation now, our nation's public schools are majority minority. majority minority. a watershed moment in our nation's history. we're not going back the other way. this isn't the right thing to do for the black community or the hispanic community, this is the right thing to do for our country. if we continue to leave the talent on the sidelines, we will not be competitive in other nations who believe in every single child and giving them a chance. there's a sense of urgency, flat world competing for high school jobs. the only way we're going to keep the middle wage jobs is to keep the graduates. if we're all fighting to get there, let's have a healthy debate about what the best strategies are to do that. we're not at that point yet. we're debating silly stuff. it's a distraction. it's counter productive. >> before i ask the final

question, i have some hou housekeepi housekeeping. the national press club is the world's leading professional organization for journalists and we fight for a free press worldwide. to learn more about the club visit our website press.org and to donate, visit press.org/institute. i also want to remind you about some upcoming lunch programs. tomorrow, october 1st, the president will address the club. on friday, utah governor, chair of the national governor's association will address the luncheon. and on october 7th, baltimore mayor stephanie rawlings blake will address the national press club. i would now like to present our speaker with the cherished national press club mug.

i know you've been here before so you're developing a collection. >> thank you so much. >> they look great in a set of four in the china cabinet. final question. (w you were confirmed in 2009. you're one of two cabinet secretaries left. we can see the end out there. is it safe to say you're going to stick around until they turn the lights off on the administration? >> working hard every day and we have an amazing team. and the amount of unfinished business and the president has talked about the fourth quarter and we're proud of the progress we've made. but there's so much work we need to do, not just for the next 14 months but for the next 14 years as a nation. it's incumbent upon all of us to work hard and give our kids a chance. thank you for having me.

>> one more you were the longest serving heads of chicago schools and now one of the longest serving secretaries of education. when you do step away, what do you envision next for yourself? >> i have no idea. i've tried to be pretty tunnel visioned. my job is to focus on what we're doing every single day and when it's time to do something else, i worry about that at that point. if anybody has any ideas, let me know. >> let's give a round of applause to our speaker. [ applause ]

i would like to thank staff members of the national press club and the journal lichl institute for their work in preparing for today's event. for a copy of today's program or to learn more about the national press club, visit that website press.org. thank you very much. we have adjourned. on ur next washington journal we'll get your comments on the funding measure. ken buck will join us to talk about the republican agenda, speaker boehner's resignation and the upcoming gop leadership contest. then california congressman ted lieu will give his take on the continued resolution to fund the government through december and the debate over planned parenthood. washington journal lye every morning at 7:00 eastern on

c-span. the c-span cities tour working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. this weekend we're joined by comcast to learn more about the history and literary life of santa rosa, california, considered part of napa wine country, we'll look at the evolution of the wine industry in sonoma county. >> the agricultural history began with wine. the first vines planted here were at the mission in sonoma probably in the late 1820s or early 1830s, which is a very long time ago. they were mission grapes and nobody in their right mind would make wine out of them now. but, you know, with the wine country label that started in the '70s, by the '80s and 1990s

we were becoming to be better known. >> when my folks first purchased the ranch in the late '50s, they didn't know it at the time but they saw quite a change in the ag industry happening just in our little valley here. it hasn't always been quote unquote wine country. we have a wonderful storied agricultural history here and in sonoma county also. >> we visit the jack london state park, author of "the call of the wild" and "white fang." >> this is where jack london lived until his death in 1916. jack london probably would have been writing long hand when people came upon him in his office. he was very productive here. two thirds of his writing was published after he moved here. books like "white fang"s