undersea but the cleanup operation as well. >> we are ready for questions from the phone. operator? . . >> with this ongoing operation today and the jagged part of th+ pipe, will you give us an update

on what has taken place? >> we will . we will absolutely do that. it is confusing because the first containment system, which was unsuccessful, was followed by the development of five others. they differ in their capacity as to what kind of seals they have on them, how they apply things like dispersants. the current one they are looking at is the one -- if you took one step back from getting the best cap we could get, that is what they are looking at. it has a rubber seal that allows it to go over and regular pipe. it also accommodates the fact that the pipe is not workable right now. the rubber seal allows it to fit even though it will not be exactly a perpendicular to fit. they have other options.

given the cut they have right now, this is the best containment cap to be used and not like the one used earlier. >> thank you. >> next on the line, susan. >> excuse me. it seems the diamond scheerer caught did not work. -- b. diamond shear cut did not work. will this make this worse? >> no matter what kind of cut we would have made, there was a potential that we could increase the number of hydrocarbons going that was an estimate based on how much oil was being held back that could be released. that is one issue. the second issue, once in the containment cap is on, if it is

not a perfect seal, some oil can escape. in a perfect world, you want a perfect seal. we do have these rubber seals. with an irregular fit, there is a chance the pressure of oil in the pipe can be more than the pipe can tolerate. you treat that with sub-sea dispersants. any amount of oil that might get through, we will have to treat the best that we can. >> ok. >> next question? >> [unintelligible] >> your line is open. >> sorry, i think that might be me. i am from ast. you just mentioned sub-sea dispersants, and i have been reading on the epa website there

is no idea what kind of impact this will have on the environment. the other thing is, the dispersants, i believe -- i believe bp is denying there are plumes' under water. >> let me clarify. when we talk. sub-sea dispersants -- when we talk about sub-sea dispersants, we talk about the same dispersants that are used on the surface of the water. we do not know what the effect of the dispersant will be at that depth. it is the same this person. secondly, the dispersants caused the oil to break into smaller pieces that allow them to biodegrade more quickly. what we do not understand -- if the oil rises, what is the state of the oil as it approaches the

surface? that is what noa's research is going to be able to tell us. >> next question. >> admiral, i would like to know if you have any comments on the situation with the chemist, as far as her thoughts on the severity of the dispersants? >> i am not familiar with the special in question, but i would be glad to have my press assisting give back to you with the answer. we will get back to you. -- i would be glad to have my press assistant to get back to you with the answer. >> next question. >> [unintelligible] my question is, you know, you said that you trust tony

hayward, and i know you have rephrased talking about your responsibility to oversee this. why should -- is it in the interest to tell the government about things that could impact its financial bottom line? what steps have you taken to prevent bp from misinforming new, the incident commander -- misinfooming you, the incident commander? >> this word trust comes up a lot. let's have an honest conversation about this. when i have a discussion with anybody, including tony hayward,

my expectation is they will do what i asked. it will comply with my request and they are responsive. i do not know how if you characterize that. trust, a partnership. what ever it is, there is a need to cooperatively move forward. the request we have made to british petroleum for live video feeds, technical briefings, hydrocarbon management plans associated with top kill, every time i have asked for those, they have been given to me. ordering the boom and how fast that it's there -- they tend to be more issues of how we coordinate and work together out there creating a continuity of effort. i do not know how to stated any more quickly other than ideal frankly and openly with mr. hayward. when i asked for action, it is taken. last question.

>> hello. this is jessica with bloomberg news. i had a few questions, but i guess there is the sensitive issue of the oil that could push out from the rubber seals as you described earlier. i wonder how much oil you see it leaking alice? -- you see leaking out? you say that cutting into the riser pipe could cause a 20% increase in flow. what kind of percentage do you see not being trapped in this cap? >> what is happening is the containment cap will capture oil being brought up to pressure in the reservoir down below. >> right. >> we know the pressure in the reservoir is somewhere around 9000 psi.

the steps taken before this operation last week indicated the pressure around the blowout preventer was around 3500 psi. that has been counterbalanced by the pressure of the water at 5,000 feet. where there is pressure for oil to come into the pipe and rise up to be produced on the vessel on the top -- the question is, wwll the pressure of the oil going up into a much smaller pie, and -- smaller pipe, and they are smaller than the drill for themselves, will the pressure -- the drill bore themselves, will the pressure forced the oil up? the answer is we do not know. we have some video that tells us, it's oil, if any, is coming out around it. we could be lucky. there could be some.

we will have to wait and see. we will run the video. we will be talking frankly about it when we know. thank you. >> thank you, everybody. >> thank you, folks. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> and that briefing from just a few hours ago. earlier today, engineers continue to work to cap that leak. you are looking at live pictures of some of the robot subs working about a mile beneath the surface. the plan would be to buy the oil to a ship on the service. workers would continue to dig a deep well to get the oil under control. even if the well is capped today, it could take as long as

december to seal the leak. have all live feed on our website, c-span.org. president obama meets with arizona gov. jim brewer today to talk about the new immigration law. that is supposed to get underway 20 minutes from now. the governor is expected to comment. we will get that live to you when it happens. at the same time, white house spokesperson robert gibbs will be briefing reporters. at 1:30 eastern. secretary of state hillary clinton is meeting with her counterpart from india today. the two leaders will discuss u.s.-india relations. live coverage begins on our companion network, c-span to --

c-span2. carolina is one of the state's looking to elect a new governor in 2010. earlier this week, we have a debate among republicans vying for the seat. live coverage of the democratic debate gets underway at 7:00 here on c-span. >> c-span -- our public affairs content is available on television, radio, and online. and you can connect with us on twitter, facebook, and youtube. signup for our females are at c- span.org. >> the discussion now on the future of education in the united states. " continues. host: let me introduce you to the president of the national education association, dennis van roekel. he began his teaching career as a high school math teacher at paradise valley high schl in

phoenix, arizona. welcome to the program. guest: thank you. host: let me start with your retion to the governors and state school chiefs' blueprint for what might be a national syllabus on english and math standard guest: we think is important to have a common chord standards. the important distinction is that it is that from the national level, but 48 states that have agreed -- that is not from the national level, but 48 states that have aeed on that standards. host: who are the two states that opted out? guest: off the top of my head i cannot tell you that r. host: maybe i can find it for you. why does it matter to have a courstandards? guest: i think it is important

that, number one, one at a work together on this and talking to some of the ste cheap school officers, they are trying to make them consistent -- chief school officers, they are trying to make them consistent and more concise. all students have an oortunity to learn what they need to know to be successful inhe 21st century and it ia global economy. it is very important that there be standards for all students, no matter where you live. host: the core standards connect with the obama admistration's race to the top initiative. can you comment on that? guest: they call for higher standards, a career- and college-ready standards. another at this is of the administration is to have students college -and career- ready by 2010. host: another story in "the

washington post," a local story for national, because the editorial-page sgests potential national implications. "district teachers approve contract. district of columbia teachers ratified a new contract on wednesday that expands kasler michellehee's initiatives -- ancellor michelle rhee's initiative to remove part teacr -- poor teachers and places washington on a growi list of cities and states that established results and not seniority as the standards by which teachers are paid to read thcontract was the product of two and half years of contenous negotiations with one of the tax initiatives historically resisted by unionized -- with unorthodox

initiatives historicall resisted by unionized teachers. it gives salaries comparable to those in surrounng suburban district. it breaks new groun in the extrrdinary pace of change and a national education policy that someays has overtaken the document itsel" what are your thoughts on this? guest: it is very important that we do this at theocal level. some of the conversation is that we should mandate at the federal level how we pay and evaluate emplees. i thin that is micromanagement from the federal level. but it is important that at the local level ty talk abo what is a good compsation system, how we recruit and retain the kinds of teachers that we need, and we need a lot in the years ahead. no one wants a bad teacher in the classroom.

everyone wants a caring, mpetent teacher. we are interested in building good evaluation systems. if there are inadequacies in what i know or the skills i have, make sure i know what they are and give me a chae to improve. if i cannot or will n, i should not be there. host: let me give you the phone numbers as we discuss education. effective education in the united states, and the role of teachers that press. new jersey is one of those states were a protracted diussion has -- a protracted discussion has taken place. let's wait -- listen to some

comments. >> we know we have 10,000 students failing in public schools around america. they are trapped by an educational bureaucracy. they are trapped by a selfish, self interested, greek school union that cares more about putting money in their own pockets -- greedy school union that cares more about putting money in their own pockets than helping needy children are around the country. [applause] guest: education in america is not what it ought to be. there are too many children who do not see what they -- receive the education they deserve. it makes no sense to blame the teachers at all. members of my organization are on the front line every day. they are in the classrooms every

single day, meeting all of these challenges. kids to come to school with the most incredible obstacles in their white. they give out of their pockets of $500 a year buying supplies, school supplies for the classrooms. and then to blame and blamed teachers -- blame teachers is wrong. every child in america deserves a good education. >> the governor of new jersey is not alone in criticizing teachers, unions particularly, for putting concerns over tenure why do you think that's image persists? guest: i think there's a lot of finger-pointing and blame. my union is made up of 2.3 million people who work in public schools.

there is no difference between the teacher and the union member. i was a high school math teacher for 23 years. i did not go into teaching to become a union member. i needed to have a way to have my voice heard. i realized if i cared enough, i could deliver everything my students needed, but you soon realize that is not possible. so many decision makers are outside my classroom. i need a way to advocate for the students in my classroom in order to provide what i should provide as a teacher. i am very proud we came together as professionals in an organization said we want to advocate for the students we teach. teachers as we open up the phone lines. school of ministers, parents who are part of the process.

-- school administrators, parents who are part of the process. you can send us a message by twitter, e-mail, or call us on the phones. we will begin with midge on the republican line from cleveland. caller: thank you for taking my call. i do not remember the person who was on as a guest to said the base salary of a teacher with a master's degree in education was $34,000 a year, to start. i know that is an average. that does not sound like a whole lot. my daughter has a master's in english. she is basically working as a secretary for that pay now, although she would like to teach. that is one problem. another problem is discipline. that guy in the movie "lean on me," and what he had to do, turning around a school of @

risk kids, and his methods were criticized. but he was able to turn the school grounds. i have a friend who taught in the cleveland public schools, and towards the end of her career in the '90s, she was worried about getting home safely as an honors-level teacher in english. she loved teaching and all the years she taught, but towards the end, she was in fear of her life. you've got to think that teachers are totally on the firing line. i totally agree with you. at the same time, i can best is in college and at the university level, -- my youngest is in college now, and at the university level, they are saying that students are not prepared they cannot write. -- students are not prepared. they cannot write. what ii this about basic language skills where they cannot be prepared? you have given us a lot of

different topics there. what is the national average? guest: it is about $48,000, but that is an average and it varies a lot from state to state and district to district. >> is that for nine months of work? guest: i would say 10 months. i think it is definitely a full- time, year-round job. host: her concern for teachers safety and discipline in the classroom? guest: i think that points to help schools cannot solve all of the problems. it is a community effort. in syracuse, n.y., the say yes to education foundation is working with the entire community. they are working with the mayor's office, all the different parts of government to say, how do we remove obstacles for children who want to succeed? cannot lay it all on the shoulders of the people who work

at the school. the partnership and collaboration is key. host: many school districts are making the decision because of state budget shortfalls with teachers and teacher layoffs. and there are discussions on capitol hill about a possible bailout package. guest: in the house, they are debating $23 billion for education. it is really about kids. it is about changing circumstances. without this bill, there are up to 300,000 layoffs, and that means crowded classrooms, elimination of summer school, a shortened school week in some districts. the consequences are very dire. this is a critical crisis for states. the majority of funding comes from state government. from state to state, state lawmakers are really impacting

education. i believe it is helpful for the federal government to assist. host: what is the relationship with classroom performance? guest: i can tell you to the classroom teacher it makes a difference. in some states, you're talking about a class size of 45. i do not know where you would put 45. i have often said i can teach that many at a time, but my methods have to change. there is no way i can give the individual attention and answering questions and the individual support i believe i should be giving the students when there are 40 and 45 in the classroom. it makes a huge difference. i think one of the most powerful studies in tennessee, it was called the star study. one variable. they drew the students and teachers by a lottery. they lowered the class size. the only thing different. if all of these kids for 25 years. high school graduation rate,

higher than their peers. college enrollment, higher. college graduation. all of those results, and one change was made. and that was class size. when we talk about large class sizes for two years, i worry about the long-term impact. >host: the next call is from davenport, iowa. peter on the independent line. >caller: first elected say i am loyal to c-span. awesome channel. teachers are great public servants. nothing matches up to it at all. financing for schools should be equal all the way around. it should not be tax base. it should not be local base. every school should receive the same amount of funding. it should not matter that one district has a higher tax bracket and whatever else.

host: are you suggesting nationwide or statewide? caller: it should be on the state level. i think the state should have more responsibility for education. there should be a basis for it, but it is the state's responsibility. it is a federal responsibility. unfortunately, our federal government is already taxed out. it will be micromanaged to an unbelievable amount if we do it that way. as far as math and science goes, we will not get much farther unless we have thee evolution/creation debate that we have. that has stalled a lot. we're not going to get much farther from that. that is a major block we are going to have. the last thing i have to say -- i would almost have to say our education system right now is a

failure. we should have to go to private school. we should have the option of going to a private school. our taxes pay for this and for that. we should get our money back and be able to go to -- i want to a private school and my kids went to a public school. i pulled them out and send them to a private school. you have smaller classes, much more attention to the kids. so that is pretty much where i am at. >> thank you. equal financing across states? guest: that is a challenge. in multiple states, there have been lawsuits where they do not have equitable funding. the supreme court has said they have to come up with more equitable funding. i agree with peter. by the way, i started my teaching career just down the road for you -- just down the road from you in iowa. it is a great place to -- an incredible attention and value placed on education.

it is going to take policy makers to tackle this. about 10% of the funding for schools comes from the federal level. the rest comes from the state and local. figuring out an equitable system is a real challenge. host: the second question was on the evolution question. i wonder if you can talk about the debate in texas? guest: that is quite a debate. the reason so many people pay attention, it is because of the number of textbooks texas baez. they believe they will have great influence on what goes in textbooks. one of the reasons we talked earlier about core standards, and we start out with mathematics and english and reading. it would be great if we could do that in all areas. we have to ask ourselves, in this century, what to our

students need to know and do? very different from 50 years ago. and come up with standards in history, english, math, science -- that is critical. host: i think if i am reading this article correctly, states are pushing back the texas governor rick perry, and federal officials are trying to undermine state authority to determine how their students are educated. virginia dropped out of the race to the top last week, citing similar concerns. guest: the state still have to decide whether they want to follow the standards. in education, there is a connection that is critical. you have to define the standards. then you have to match the curriculum that teaches what you want them to know, based on the standards. the third leg of the stool is you have to have the assessments

that measure the right things. if someone decides what the curriculum as, another group decides what the assessments are. those have to be aligned. it does not make sense to have standards you are not teaching in your curriculum. the alignment is in importance step for all policymakers. -- is an important step for all policymakers. host: what about the voucher concept? guest: we do not support vouchers. we do support great public schools. over 90% of students go there. sums to -- some schools are not providing what students need. the drop out in our country does not fluctuate but the dow jones average. it stays constant. it is somewhere around 25%. if you are hispanic or black, it is higher. i do not know why we tolerate

that. we cannot afford to lose the resources of young people. we have to say the purpose of public education is to ensure every child has a fair shot at the american dream. education is what we need. if we look to our future, education is so critical. growing up in a small town, my parents, my teachers, they said were everyone to go, education is the means of getting there. and it happened. i decided in seventh grade i was going to be a high school math teacher. for 27 years, i lived my dream. every public school has to provide that. if you want to go private, that is fine. but every student ought to have a public school that gives them a shot at the american dream. host: next caller on the democrats' line. caller: hank you for c-span and

for taking my call. i just want to identify myself as a teacher. i am a college professor of economics. i taught a new middle school in my previous career. i have k-12 experience, too. i want to ask the cast about how he thinks -- ask the guest about how he thinks what influences the level of teaching is not just teacher quality but the interaction of the family, the nutrition of the student, being an economist, the resource allocation from our society. i can tell you on that one, i was educated before california's prop 13, and when that hit, there was a sea change in the quality of education in my state. i can tell you that. people started to decide they

wanted more money in their personal accounts than they did in their social or public like education. finally, unlike his reaction on this debate about tenure which i think is -- i like his reaction on this debate about tenure, which i think is just stupid. tenure only gives teachers due process when discipline is being taken on them. i would like to hear the guest's thought on this point. host: it feels like a test. we are getting multi part questions this morning. what about allocation of resources, that sort of thing? guest: i totally agree with the caller. i know that he knows the impact of those on the education opportunities for students. that is why it is a collaborative effort. it takes all of us, and the community. i think it is very important we

reach out to parents. we have to change the definition of parental environment -- involvement. a lot is just the conversations that parents have with their teenagers, especially, and with young people. that involvement pays huge dividends. host: the tenure debate? guest: it was put in place for a reason -- to protect good teachers from arbitrary dismissal. i believe it is a necessary component. if there are bad teachers, there are ways to remove them, and there should be. there ought to be a good evaluation system. you ought to be able to identify any skill or knowledge problem and i have as a teacher and must be -- it ought to be directly tied to a professional development system. here is you're not -- knowledge

deficit. let's fix that. if i can not improve it, i should not be here. we are strong advocates for effective evaluation. host: that should be at the state level? guest: most districts are required and they are developed at the local level. it is a very important purpose. so when we design and evaluation system, if the purpose is to improve instruction, do not design a system more someone observes me for 20 minutes a year. that is not a good evaluation system. it ought to be something that helps me in the practice of my profession. i believe the professional skills are so important, and they are so critical to learn the, -- those, and if you have a system that is designed to improve your practice, that is

the key. host: we have a tweet. guest: i and most school districts, they have some professional project in most school districts, they have some professional development and that is tied to a technology. with the rapid changes, as a math teacher myself, i remember when we started -- of course i taught a long time. i remember when calculators came in. i remember the craft and calculators. and now they have the lightboards. oh, my. what you can do to enhance the student's ability to learn material -- that professional a bit -- professional development has to be ongoing. host: next, matthew on the republican line.

you're on. caller: i was just calling to see if we could talk on the issue of morals, morals in the classroom. that would be like -- to me, that is a big part of the issue as far as students in general. if like maybe that could be brought back into the classroom, not so far as belief itself, but rrther touching nine, like, how people believe or issues behind belief and so on. anyway. that is pretty much it. host: thank you. guest: there are many school districts that have adopted with the call character education

programs. the talk about honesty, hard work, the work ethic that is so critical to students. if you have a student who does not understand the need to follow through on their responsibilities, getting ready for tests and doing homework -- teaching of values is important. obviously religious instruction is not part of that. host: joe asks us -- why does the nea have a better evaluation system than the principle of the school would have? guest: many evaluation systems for the neh are done in collaboration -- nea are done in collaboration. i mentioned earlier -- we believe the purpose of to be for the improvement of instruction. first three years. i should always be working to enhance the practice of my profession.

i believe the most successful programs are those that have been developed in collaboration. at the local level, to have employees, management, and the school board develop an evaluation system that is meaningful to the people who are being evaluated, that will mean success for students.. host: in new york city, mayor bloomberg announced raises for teachers to save jobs. reaction? guest: in your stand the dilemma. how they balanced the state budget? -- i understand the dilemma. it is a decision at the local level. and is one between management and the school board, saying how -pis it we're going to meet requirements? that is how across the country, in some districts, they are

shortening the school week from five days to four to save money. they are laying off thousands of employees. tough times and decisions. we have a jobs bill in congress right now. it is so important to avoid this decision -- avoid those decisions. host: mike in georgia. you're on the air. caller: the problem is they get most of their free of literature from tax-exempt organizations like carnegie, ford, etc. the problem is our united states dod and the russian science board got together in an attempt to make us citizens, and since they cannot have override on privacy, they have determined

to go through these tax-exempt organizations to give out awards on books to propagate what everyone to propagate.3 the square peg any going to get a chance. i would love to hear what you got to say about that. host: thank you. guest: the special education association is made up of indivvduals who pay dues to the organization. that is how we get 99% of our budget. we do not get from outside foundations. what you're talking about is the development of the curriculum. that is done by different organizations and companies, private coopanies that develop curriculum and textbooks. the decision as to what is adopted is usually a local decision. sometimes states have an approved list of textbooks

districts may choose from. the decision is made at the local district about which textbook they should use for their students. is a process that has the checks and balances of the democratic process to make sure we have the right materials for students. host: what is your assessment -- or organizations assessment of the benefits of eight years of new child left behind? -- no child left behind? guest: that was based on the premise which was the desegregation of the data. if we know certain groups and a performing -- average scores are not good enough. the punishment and labeling with that -- two of the most dangerous things that happen, and i believe there were unintended consequences -- one is narrowing of the curriculum. we saw curriculum stresses narrowing. less emphasis on science,

history, geography, the arts. all of that is necessary. we want to educate the whole child. the second part that was extremely negative, and i believe it was unintended, the focus of making adequate yearly process -- progress and only measuring math and reading made those tasks so important they change ppactice. a principal at the beginning of the year said to his faculty, we will not worry about the students who have scored proficient. we will not worry about the students who are way below. we will focus on the goldman band, the group of students that are just below -- golden band, the group of students that are just below proficiency. every student needs to be given the opportunity to learn. that emphasis on testing narrowed the curriculum.

host: the national curricula focus on math and english. guest: there are standards, not curriculum, and in math and english. right now states have very different standards. as educators, we can say being proficient in my state is totally different than being proficient in a different state. i think that is why the 48 states said it was so important. let's get together. let's define what the standards are. once they are there, they are voluntary for the states to adopt, but those that do, they will be able to say from state to state to state, if a student is proficient, we know they know what they need to know. host: next, a teaneck, from washington, d.c. caller: i do not think there should be a state-by-state standard. that is why there is an unequal

distribution of education. i think the standard should be equal or there should be a penalty under the law. that is also why there is such a progressive dropout rate. i do not think it makes very much sense for all students in this country to take this test that is to match, that is to see who is doing so well across the country in these particular subjects because they do not get the same education. that is common sense. they are not getting the same -- the proper education that is equal across the country, why do they have to take at the end the test that is going to show for sure they are getting in an equal education? -- and on equal education? it is stupid. -- an unequal education? it is stupid. there are students that will never get that equal education.

the test should match the education. there should be national standards, period. guest: we agree with you. i think the reason the states came together to develop the common core standards just makes sense. there are persistent and clear standards across the state's. host: next call from chicago on the republican line. good morning, john. john, are you there? let's move on to abby on the democrats' line. caller: hello. i have two questions or concerns. i think there should be nationwide equal funding from state to state and there should not be state to state standards because it leads to students in the south being mostly behind.

i also feel there should be greater requirements for elementary school teachers. more focused on primary education and study skills so people are not being labeled as to go into high school and being left behind in that way. host: thank you. guest: on the funding, let me talk about the funding. you pointed out it should be equitable from state to state. the current system says the majority of the funding comes from state or local. it is difficult for the federal government to do that. what a belief is a good role for the federal government is to ensure the equity issues. that is that the federal government play a role. and i believe they have in special education, in education for kids of migrant workers, and for students who have not been, federal government has assisted

and become a partner with the states. the other question -- >host: i wrote it down, but i my have lost it. we will come back. we have another question from twitter about teaching it to the test. guest: as we look at the skills, the knowledge that is necessary for the 21st century, they always mention critical thinking skills, problem solving, having the use of technology. and also a collaboration. all we have to look at is due our assessments do that -- what we have to look at is, and to our assessments do that? d o -- do our assessments do that?

if you are a teacher of physical education, those tests do not measure what you're doing. if volume in an art class, i should show progress from the beginning of -- if i am in an art class, i should show progress from the beginning of the year to the end. the -- the result that a consortium would develop that would show progress. and that is really important. the test is too general, that is the problem. host: the emphasis on teaching study skills? guest: i think that is a very important one. i spend a lot of time with my students trying to get them to analyze why they were succeeding or not. they all had to establish a goal in my class. not just what he wanted as a great, but what you wanted to be

comfortable with yourself. maybe mom says if you do not ifa c-averaae, you are not driving -- maybe mom says if you do not have a c-average, you are not driving your car. and i asked what keeps you from getting a c or a b or whatever. many students do not know how to study. it needs to be taught and practiced and ensure success. >host: our last caller. john, you are on. caller: thank you, i was a teacher in chicago public schools briefly. i have some experience. my problem is the union mentality of teachers. put in your time. wages keep increasing.

there is no accountability. you see the results we get in the chicago public school system. guest: from my perspective, i like the union culture. my organization, the national education association, we started three years ago, and now it is in full swing, priorities for schools. we call them priority schools. some people call them high need for low performing. we worked in collaboration with management and the school board, saying what do we need to do to do differently? i believe that is the responsibility of the union. we are turning schools around and changing what is happening to kids. that is the responsibility of the union. we comes to accountability, i believe it needs to be a shared accountability. we have to believe that teachers

have what they -- we have to ensure that teachers have what they need. we have to make sure policymakers' provide the necessary programs. it is a collaborative effort. the idea only one group can do at is wrong. it is wrong to blame one group when it does not happen. we all have to come together. and we can do it. host: i found the facts. it was alaska and texas who opted out. virginia dropped out of the race to the top. just wanted to get that on the record. would you tell us what your organization likes about the race to the top and what are your concerns? guest: there are some things that we do support. attention is put towards turning around students who are not getting what they need. we like the attention. we're concerned that there are too many competitive grants

versus formula-based. we do not want winners and losers. we have concerns that, although it calls for a second generation of assessments, it will take us two or three years to develop that and it is a real challenge for the apartment and congress -- for the department and congress. what do you do in the interim? in the time it takes you to develop assessments, what do you do? and the testing issue is a big one. the blueprint calls for the state test to continue because we do not have a new one. i think we need a new one. there's a great concept that every state ought to deal with turning the schools around, but some of the models we do not believe are the right ones.

there are four models. we support the model that includes a collaboration between management and the school board. the ones that call for the closing of the school in moving to a different one for giving you a pass on all the staff, we do not believe that thii the right thing. i grew up in a small town of 1700. you could not have sent me to a different high school because there's only one. of the lowest performing schools, 30% of those are rural. we want to work with the ministration to come up with models that will transform the schools -- but the administration, with models will transform the schools. host: we appreciate you being here to tell us your organization's views on education. >> all live picture outside the white house for this afternoon.

the arizona gov. jan brewer is meeting with president obama. it will discuss the immigration law. there were scheduled to start at 1:30 eastern. after a meeting, we expect governor brewer to make remarks to the press. we are standing by to hear what she has to say. all said today's white house briefing is set to happen in just a couple of minutes. we plan to have that for you also on this network. right now, your phone calls from today's "washington journal." host: our first caller of the morning critiqued us and the media and in general for over emphasizing the call. let's listen in. caller: you guys have had oil coming into the gulf of mexico, oil coming out of your years. it has been endless coverage. i notice a critical issue.

you know, if you guys -- you guys did not cover when the flotilla took off. host: there are clips from the other side as well. caller: i watched msnbc for five hours last night and i counted the number of times they showed that is really clip. you are upset with this water issue. we need to be more well informed. host: we thought the appropriating to do this morning is what issue currently tops your list of concerns? before we take your calls, let's look at international paper's and across the country. beginning with the baltimore sun, the to list the gulf states are bracing for oil. the gulf dominates many of the

front pages. the miami herald -- "we need to protect the state." that is their top headline this morning. below the headline, tar balls 10 miles off shore. and in the times picayune, the governor hails the governor -- the federal ruling on barriers. in pittsburgh, the oil spill again on the top. above that, the president's speeches today with the headline "obama defense policies." the do have the flotilla attack story on their front page as well. in atlanta, another setback for

bp in this newspaper this morning. in denver, "nuclear option on the table." we have had a number of callers to have suggested putting a nuclear device in the well o the nuclear option is not on the table. as ideas on sealing the well pour in, federal officials reject any notion of a nuke blast. these are the actual dimensions of the pipe that is spewing 8,000 gallons of oil per day into the gulf. this shows for much of the oil is leaking herr. there's a 25-inch diameter riser pipe. we will show you some more from pages after a few telephone calls. let's begin with pensacola, fla.

good morning, thomas. host: -- caller: i am surprised that c-span is becoming so thin skinned. host: not thin skinned at all. caller: i strongly disagree with that caller. this is one of the worst catastrophes to happen to the united states of america in our history. . . nightmare. i actually appreciate-span covering this with a number of guts. i think this is the issue. having said tt, you ask what is the concern. until this thing happened, the concern clearly is jobs and the economy. anybody with any sense can look ound and see the sovereign debt of arou the world, here ate, deficits, 18% real unemployment. anybody who has had any longevity on earthnows this is not sustainable and obama ds

not seem up to the job. host: let us here next from john, a democrat from portland, maine. what ts your list of concerns? caller: i g the same concerns about the oil spill in the gulf. what it is stunning to mes to see the gulf stes, which have been extremely republican, oft to the far rht, some of the most anti-environmentalolitics in this nation, now suddenly throwi their arms up in the air and being so out rage about what the oil companies have done. -- outrage about what the oil companies have done. en legislation comes forward, the people are attacked as tree huggers and now you see everyone from the back wld red neck to the politicians suddenly become environmentalists. we will say, maybe th is the only good thing that will come out of this.

it is a catastrophe, a shame, and you ought to be applauded for keeping ts right in people's faces. it is the only way it will change. host: another caller by the name of john. this one calling from pennsylvania, independent lin what is top of your list? caller: it is israel. the ramifications of what israel is doing and getting the united states involved or complicity in is whole deal has more global repercussions than the oil spill. i would say they are one and one-a. there has been very little verage of the flotilla, accurate coverage for sure. all we are hearing from the mainstream media is israel's viewpoint. a bunch of lies, bically.

so, from a global standpoint and the united states getting invo in a third world war, it is israel. and we jussitack, the ress approves anything israel does,nd we are making a big, big mistake. ho: israel ithe lead story "the new york times" this morning. here is the adline -- that is their lead story tod. right below it, they are the source of the nuclear option story. also, theff-lead is on abortion policy in the states. abortion foes did not -- more regulations on physicians.

this is on the use of broadba. at&t's announcement that it will begin charng tiered service for heaviest users. below that, a piece -- study cited for health cost cuts overstated its upside, critics say. this is from a once obscure research group at dartmouth tt was cited by the proponents of health reform, now law, they say that wle the research company and the dartmouth outlook has been widely interpreted as showing the country's best and worstare, dtmouth researchers themselves admit th it mainly shows the varyi cost of care in the states. washinon, d.c., republican line. what is your top issue this summer? caller: i am interested in the

immigration law inrizona. im a native of tucson and lived there all my life before moving to the wonderful state of washington, and i expernced firsthand the immigraon problems in arizona. i have a number of friends close friends, who areispanic. most of the ones that i know have come in the country legally, as well as other nationalities that i know that have come into theountry legally. i remember as a young girl, my parents lived in the outskirts of tucson, out of thci limits, and we had a little ranch. we would have numerous illeg alie coming across the border. and my dear, sweetama would always give them sawiches and water because it is a rough area to come across the border in

that way. i'm very distressed at the way the nation has condemned arizona. you must understand that a lot of the problem with illegal migration in arizo is condoning of the small businesses in hiring illegals. i recently have worked for a major tax preparation company here in the tri-cities, and som of my clients were hispanic, and i love them all dearly, however, i will tell you thatwo i particular gave me false social security cds. and when i asked them about tm they said, well, they are from mexico, and i said, where did yo get your social security card, and they said, i think it was myousins, he lives in california. we use it to get work.

there is something might be wrong with our nation that condemns arizona for merely -ptrying to enforcfederal law -- host: i have to sto the at that pot. immigration and arizona's law. or first guest this morningt 7:45 a.m. eastern time, former chief of staff of customs and board of protection agency, the second political position in that agency, and he will be here to talk about bder security andeployment of national guard troops to the bor to help enforce the immigration laws. next is a ll from columbia, maryland. regina, democrats line. caller: by topic that i wted to discuss was c-span. it apprs that your guests for so-called experts are 98% white and male.

host: you would like to see more diversity? at is your top of the lis this morning? all right, we will pass your concern along to the people booking guests. next up is brett calling from reno, nevada, on the independent line. caller: i was just looking at the pictures that they showed with the pe being cut and it seemsike it is a pretty clean cut, opened in the end, an it seems like they should be able insulate a bladder and shut the oil of host: the oil well is yr top concern? that is the question, what is e issue that is top on your list of concerns? caller: that would be one of the met this point, yes. host: next is california duggar , a republican line. ller: my greatest concern is

how our greatest nation has slipped from being a world power. if you look atouth korea,he respon -- 0. if you look at bp, the oil spill, to thisay we have n capped the dam oil -- damn oil. israel, nets and now hope the standing there bese himself with -- netanhu is now standing there beside himself saying, where is the leader, where is the president? ho: topping a list of concerns, that is what we are talking about. "the financi times" has the bp oil spill. an interview with tony hayward, saying thelacked t right tools. the headline "bp not prepared for spled." also on the front page, you and

votes for probe into attack on fo to love -- the u.n. votes for a probe into the attack on the flotilla. and of the volcker rules, banks can face strict propriary trading band. at volck rules, banks can fa sict proprietary trading ban. next is orange county, california. caller: i wanted to talk about illegal immigration. i am retired from the carpenter union. onehing i did, i went into the service at 17 and got out. becaus there were jobs ailable to us, i was able to find a job until i got into the carpenters. 17 years as an instructo wrade.-

the high school vocational and theneven years with t apprenticeships. the big thing that i have, wh the carpenters union, i know for a fact because i had to sign these students in, they were coming through without legitimate papers, none at all. and iook it toy supervisor and i also talked to mynion d they told me if i wanted to teach, that i'd better just pay attention to my job and not worry about the legality of the students. onehing i wt to complain out, if i had not been able to get into the union when i was young, i would not have had the union -- livinthat i had, b the unions have turned their backs on the american worker. the industries where they do hotels and stuff likehis.

so, california right now is going bankrupt. l.a. county, who made themselves an op city and san fransco, have come down hard agains arizona. the big tng is, we don't have enough politicians wh any backbone to protect the american worker. i think when we get people in there for the politicians, we need to get people from cis, center for immigration studi, to free up all of the lies th are -- that are being put out. host:he next call is from queens, new york. mary on the independent line. caller: first of all, it is

>> arizzna gov. damper has been meeting with president obama about her state. she is speaking out. we have been reading about -- >> we have been reading about border security in arizona. with that, i will take questions. >> [inaudible] >> we know we are not going to agree on certain issues until other issues are worked out. we will have more direct dialogue in a couple of weeks. people are going to come out to arizona to brief us on what their projections will be. 1200 national guard and the $500 million he has indicated he is going to send down there. we will see how that is going to get distributed. we will see how the majority of

those resources will be coming to arizona. we have also determined the fact that we need to be more closely coordinated in our effort and information so that we will be better able to correspond with one another. >> did you discuss positions actually on the border? >> that was not determined. i was not privy to any discussion on that explanation at this time. he assured me that in a couple of weeks -- because i did ask specifically -- about staff will be out to arizona to gee with my staff. i have a responsibility to the people of arizona to take back a specific information. but i will tell you i was encouraged that there will be much better dialogue between the federal government and the state of arizona. i hope that is not wishful thinking i hope that is positive thinking. >> [inaudible]

>> he indicated that he was leaving that up to the department of justice and did not want to discuss that in any kind of detail today. that was pressure over a little bit. >> do you think he understands what is in your log? >> he is a well learned man and a lawyer -- what is in your law? >> he is a well learned man and a lawyer. i'm sure he understands. >> [inaudible] >> very cordial. >> did you ask him anything about taking the first family out for ice cream? >> no, not in that kind of detail. i explained to him what my conditions were when i followed that bill through the legislature and afterward to make sure that there was no racial profiling. i made it very clear that -- >> what did he say his concerns were about that? >> he said he was going to leave that up to the, part of justice.

>> -- the department of justice. >> 30 days from today, what do you hope to see in arizona with regard to the federal government? >> i would like to see construction arstarted on the fence on on border. -- on the border. i was very successfuu in getting the promise that someone would be out to arizona in the next couple of weeks to speak with my staff about the kind of information they have available to present to us. the we are looking forward to that. today, i am furtter ahead than i was yesterday. we hope to have facts that we can share with the people of arizona and america. we talked about a pathway, maybe, to better immigration reform that he feels very strongly about. i indicated at that point that we have been promised that

information previously and it was not successful. amnesty was bestowed on people, but we never secured the borders. i believe the people of america want our borders the secured and then we can take up other issues. >> [unintelligible] the to commit together with republicans on immigration reform? >> nn. >> would you support immigration reform? >> [unintelligible] >> i do, i do. i feel very confident about what has been done in the past. i think it was the right thing to do. we are protecting the people of arizona and, beyond that, the people of america. we need to secure our border. >> [unintelligible] guard troops and will they need to be pulled into arizona? >> we did, we talked about that. we assumed that in two weeks we will know exactly how many will

be deployed to arizona. the numbers are not fixed from majority of available resources will be coming to arizona. >> [unintelligible] >> i want the border security first. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> arizona gov. chandler this afternoon making remarks after -- arizona gov. jan 9 were this afternoon making remarks after meeting with the president. today's white house briefing expected shortly with spokesman

robert gibbs. we plan to have that lives for the cure on c-span. until then, a discussion on the order of protection from today's "washington journal" -- on border protection from today's "washington journal." on years -- host: on your screen is thad bingel, he served as chief of r board of proteion from 27 through 2009. talking about affect of the border, our souther with news thelar president today will be meeting onizona gov. jan brewer the immiation law. that first. of arizona's'snk response? guest: i think inany ways, i less prone to rust to because theaw even begin -- begun to begun in force. judge it need to how arizona law

it because handles thing. self is one how they train and actually implement it is another. i ththat is wher the have r attention -- attention, and they will because nation is onhe them, they will go overboard to sure their officers are trained so they are not in recklely pulling ofr american citizens hispan background. i do not thinkhat is what we will see. but i will wait to judge the law s it implemented. i do understand the sentiment behindhe law. cbt, arizona at has borne the brunt probably for years of illegal immigration in this country. there is frusttionhat has with directly on border, the security there, people whobers of countryady in the illegally. some aoss the border, some came legally and overstayed and

through other states. but arizona decided clearly that enough and it is trite to try something new. that theystatement think the federal particularly border enforcement, has done enough. host: assess the state of the southern border today? caller: actiowith the southern sure than ite been -- guest: actually, the southern secure than it of more been because resources. under 10,000 decade ago tnow more than 20,000. we doubled the number of agents. we significantly increased the amount of tecology. is not yorder cure. violence has actually escalated over the last de. not probably as bad in rms of side -- but u.s. ceainly a contributing factor of the arizona law a the

which is one of the illegally peopl border are way down bettecatching who attempt, there is now of violence a narcoartel is e border and of th botha being squeezed on the borderor the first time. so, they have reacted with of olence when before it was o sneak across. now they are bng confronted seeing the spillover violence, particularly on the of there is concern not affecting the side as well. i showedhe break you the front pe of "the houston chrocle. onntsear cartel attack dam. will show you a little bit says -- tt

countryle run the is behinhis, what of attack? what is the motivation andoes in faxing critica -- does it in fact seem credible? guest: cartels have been rectant to takan attack on past were in the not willing to take that risk because it was bad for attacks, having a major to au.s. would lead tightening of the border. very senior well-established cartel leaders with well defined of had aes who sort agreement. beuse of the confrontation mexican government and here, some ofone cartel leaders have jled. lled or other organizatio and now fighting for territory with each other. it has gotten tougher to move the drug loads across the

border. this, theike now may be different among the cartel's. seen when a much smaller scale diversionary tactics by border. ls on the in order to move a load across, rocks and border l agents, send a ne of cross.l migrants this would be a distraction on a scale. intent was to create a major disruption of along the mover so they can that is one possible explanatio host: weill get to calls in a minutes -- your calls, mails and twes. e toheresident's announcement that he will troops. tional guard made a milarh his administration. when the two presidents deploy to the border, political or practical decision oboth?

gues in little of both. think when we did operation jumpstart in 2006 and 2007, it in many ways, the practical not haveon that we did border control resources we at the southwest border time and to get to the equping training and agents, we needed a stopgap, a bridge. the national g deployment guardsmen was it. in many ways,he national guard is aeasy political gesture, too. easily depyed and you show immediate action. it isn't nessarily going to make a big impact on the borde even with the 6000 troops deployed uer operation justart. the first thing people have to realize is when you deploy in of national guardsmen, an average for every field, there are them in the suppl

chain. it in the case of national guard deployment and jumpstart, we saw deployment of mbe 4000 he border at any you hadndhen units, and to anfrom the staffing thee equipping the units, people performing headquarters functions to manage the logistics. say 1200, you are not seeing 10 onbout the border. when you then factor in shift work, e fact that you are at eight or 10 hour shifts for these guardsmen, be seeinghird that at any one time at the border. perrmingily in -- mission support roles. in operation jumpstart it was not will help -- because you had nation guar's people being monitor communications, the cameras, perform fctions, performed

transportation logistics and functions, you free of that wouldol agents have to do that. that is what thiseployment y help with. putting them in mission pport freng up the agents law. orce the think 1200 is probably a good probably too few. host: let us get to telephone ca >> now live to today's white house briefing with spokesman robert gibbs. >> just one quick scheduling update for you all, tomorrow, before departing for the gulf, the president will stop in maryland to discuss unemployment numbers that will be released

tomorrow. they will discuss it commercial dealer ship and truck parts supplier. the president will make brief remarks. mr. fowler? >> [inaudible] did the president signed off on the white house approach to jobs? and what is his reaction to this? >> i have not talked to him about it today. >> you do not know? i do not. >> there are two confirmed cases of the white house actively encouraging democratic candidates to got out of primary challenges. how can you pretend that this is not politics as usual? >> i think the leaders of the parties on the one hand are interested in supporting --that

the interested parties did not run against each other, in these cases. >> [unintelligible] has the white house been transparent about these offers? and if not, why is it taking so long for all of this to come out? >> i think you have received credit of information over the past week and i do believe we have been -- received a good deal of information over the past week and i do believe we have been transparent. the president is interested in making sure that leaders of the same party do not run against each other in contested primaries. >> that makes it sound like he did know. >> does the leader of the party

have an interest in ensuring that primaries that tend to be costly are not had so that you are ready for a general election? of course. >> can you talk about what the president hopes to accomplish on his trip and talk about what he is going to be doing down there? >> i think -- and we will have some scheduling details for you all shortly. i think the president will likely see the governor's again. i think the president will speak with individuals and business lladers likely to have been affected by the economic consequences of this bill directly. and continue to get from admiral allen and firsthand update on the progress, both in dealing

with the well, and in dealing with the spread of pollution that has leaked from the well. i think the president believed that last week's trip was tremendously productive. we had about a two-hour meeting with parish presidents from louisiana affected by this bill, senators and congressman from louisiana, governors from many of the gulf states, along with the coast guard. and i think the president believed it was a productive atmosphere in ensuring that everybody's causes and concerns were heard, and ultimately met. >> can you talk about the criticism that the president is not making that emotional connection with people over the spill? >> yeah, i said this last

night. if jumping up and down and screaming were to fix a hole in the ocean, we would have done that five or six weeks ago. we would have done that the first night. i think we are born to be judged, and the president will be judged -- going to be judged, and the president will be judged on our response to the recovery efforts. it is the worst environmental response it -- it is the biggest environmental response in our nation's history. i will leave the emotional psychiatry to others. >> you mentioned the may jobs report, and i was wondering where things stand to get the jobs bill through. some democrats worry about the timing of the gulf. are you concerned that his

political capital is a good weekend? >> why is that? >> because he is dealing with a lot of criticism over this and that is taking a lot of white house time. is it a distraction? >> know, again, i said this -- no, again, i said this earlier this week. no white house at any time has the luxury of picking the events that it deals with, both domestic and international. that is part of the job. the american people, i believe, will elect someone that can walk and chew gum at the same time. sometimes it is walk and juggle a unicycle at the same time. i get that. but if you look at the progress that we have made, let's go back over the past six weeks. we have seen sanctions that we voted on last week and approved by the u.n. security council.

we passed a bill into -- in the senate and will likely be signed into law in july. we nominated a supreme court justice far before the august recess. we have made progress toward the new start treaty that will be ratified by the end of the year. and we're looking forward to the jobs report on the economic recovery. we have had a very full agenda, not just in the past 44, 45 days, but the past 16 months. there are a whole lot of people working on a whole lot of things in the white house. i think we are able to do more than several things at once. >> there is news that the u.s. government knew about the flotilla before the israeli navy confronted it.

what do you think is the purpose of the flotilla? was it a humanitarian mission? was it to provoke israel into attacking? >> i can try to find out on that. again, there is a blockade, as you know, to ensure that weapons are not brought in for hamas. at the same time, you heard the president recently, and certainly the secretary of state discussed that they believe it was a reasonable humanitarian aid. >> [inaudible] what was his reaction? >> i am told that -- upon being

told this, obviously, he expressed deep condolences, and we certainly express our deep condolences to his family. obviously, this is extremely horrible news for them. our ambassador has been in touch with his father. and i would reiterate that we have with the u.n. security council condemned the acts that have led to these deaths. >> we have talked about this before and i understand it was written the way it was, but by condemning the exportacts, thatd condemn the people on the flotilla to a degree. does the fact that one of the

victims was an american born in troy, new york changed at all the u.s. view of what happened, or the u.s. position on what happened? >> again, i would reiterate, we condemn the acts and i believe -- >> [unintelligible] >> well, i go down the other side of the street. i know that we have called for statement calls for a fullcil%- investigation. so that we have all the facts about what happened. that is tremendously important. i said just a couple of days ago that could include international participation in that investigation.

>> doesn't change, to a degree, that one of those killed -- doesn't it change, to agree, that one of those killed was an american, and by necessity, change the view of the u.s. government has to this -- >> again, -- >> i do not mean to sound callous, but if 10 greeks are killed, or 10 turks are killed, the u.s. government might can then the act and think is a horrible thing, but it is different when an american is killed. >> jake white expressed this well when he was expressing the condolences of the united states government and the president's condolences. >> could you discuss the moratorium and the impact that it could have in the next 12 months on existing jobs, or the platform of jobs moving away? what is the white house reaction?

>> this is something that the president's discussed with his team prior to the release of that that halted the 33 existing drilling actions. take lightly, but i think isnot important that we understand exactly why this accident happened, and insure that -- ensure that if there was something that was preventable, then we in surensure that every one of these drilling permits takes everything into account. understand that what happened in this incident to those people, after the drilling reached the

reservoir of oil, in the process of tapping -- capping ttat well. each of these actions is in some part in reaching that well. let's ensure that we are capping those walls with probable out pretenders -- preventers and so forth. i think that is important. the president thinks that is important, and i think the citizens of the gulf think that is important i will say this, gov. jindal sent that letter. he has been very critical, rightly so, of bp for those -- of bp. four of those drilling permits were solely operated by bp.

the president certainly believed that was something that needed to be looked into before those permits were continued. >> the white house and acknowledges that there will be a loss of jobs. >> understand this, there aren't -- there is a loss of jobs because of what has happened. everybody else is interviewing fishermen who cannot fish. your interviewing hotel owners -- you are interviewing hotel owners whose reservations have been cancelled. again, let's ensure that as the president outlined and what he wants the commission to look at is that there is a review the ituri framework that makes drilling as failsafe -- a regulatory framework that makes drilling as fail-safe as bp says that it is. >> as the president met with any

of the local fishermen? >> he met with fishermen on may 1. >> there have been some people criticizing saying that he has not spent enough time talking to the "real people" on the ground. >> i think there was a pretty large representation of people in that room. the mayor of one city said he thought that he normally has 10,000 people on his beach memorial day weekend and said he was not likely to have any this year. he talked about putting his own credit card out there. he talked about fishermen who cannot meet their expenses. the president got similar stories from others in the gulf region. the president is well aware of the pain and suffering that this accident is causing that is why he has asked that we do everything we can.

that is why from very early on in this process, the small business administration set up the process for many of the small business owners to obtain very low interest loans while economic damages are recovered. i will say this, too. the federal government will at some point today send what i will call a bill for $69 million for expenses up to this point to bp to be reimbursed to the taxpayers as part of the process. it will be for a whole host of things the bp will be paying the tax payers for.

$69 million. >> and how much time do they have to pay that? >> i do not know what the time limit is on that. >> and since the administration has been calling a lot of the shots on what takes place in this crisis in the gulf, is the white house pressure in bp to make the kind of public apology that we have been seeing from the ceo in the print? you know, where he has been saying i am sorry. >> if the white house has had conversations, whether with admiral polland or with co's -- admiral allen or with ceo's, i people that there is not any

pollution or that :;u his life back. there were a lot of people who were killed the first night of this incident. it will take years to fix the horror of this. we will hold m.v.p. responsible throughout this process. -- we will hold bp responsible throughout this process. >> the president has talked about the possibility of criminal action. and attorney general holder has spoken of it. has that made bp difficult in this relationship? >> what are you talking about? >> you are talking about bringing criminal charges and working with them as a partner, does that make it difficult? >> we have an obligation to make sure that the laws of this country have been and are

upheld. >> does that not lead to a more difficult time working together? does the president believe, as some of his critics say, that he is playing catch up now and did not go very often in the beginning? this will be his third trip. >> which critics are you talking about? >> you could name dozens of them. let's go with colin palipowell. >> he has had a comprehensive response. >> there are those that have said he should have been down there two weeks earlier. >> i do not know what their critiques are when he was down there on may 2. >> if he had gone two weeks before, wouldn't it have been better?

if it was tremendously productive that friday, wouldn't it have been more productive the week before? >> you areeright, he did not go each of the last weeks. but he did go the week before and the week before. he will be there as often as the situation dictates. obviously, we are dealing with the worst environmental disaster in our nation's history. we have mobilized the largest federal response in our nation's history. we will continue to make sure that all is being done to deal with the environmental and economic consequences of what the pollution has caused. i do not have any updates on he schedule. as soon as i do, i will let you know. >> how much of the president's

schedule is being changed or altered due o the spill? how much of the presidents' day is scheduled -- >> he gets an update in the oval office each day between the daily economic briefing and. -- briefings. and like a whole host of issues, he gets regular updates -- the president regular updates on a whole host of issues. >> when you see a john stored mocking the president's -- john stuart mocking the president -- >> i have not watched television in an least two weeks. i love john stuart. he is a funny guy, but i have not watched it.

>> [unintelligible] >> the president is the president 24 hours a day. i o not think he would suggest we stop doing intelligence briefings on things like afghanistan and pakistan because of what is going on in the gulf. just like what is going on in afghanistan and pakistan did not limit our response to the gulf. on any given day, the president is working on -- even on the quiet days, and there have not been many. even on a quiet day, the president is working on a whole host of issues. the notion that this has somehow been curtailed, we seem to be well on track to get a new supreme court justice before august. we signed the financial reform bill before the july recess.

we urged and fraud for sanctions against iran. not a lot of people -- and fought for sanctions against iran. not a lot of people thought that would happen. i appreciate that you have one story per day, but we do not just necessarily deal with one subject per day. >> [inaudible] and now she is back in the obama administration. >> nobody who is in this administration currently [unintelligible] >> do think that he is no longer

a hopeful face for bp? -- helpful face for bp? >> i do not make decisions on who they should have talked to the american people. i do believe that the company needs to continue answering questions that american people want the answers to. that is important. >> there seems to beat everyone of these attempts at stopping billy, -- there seems to be with every one of these attempts at stopping the leak, there seems to be another plan already in the works. >> there always was based on the type of cap that will go on the riser. it was predicated on, for lack of a better term, the smoothness of the cup cucut.

there are several of them. i'm told they're moving ships over the wealth. the cap will be moved in slowly to ensure that the high grade problem that we encountered with previous attempts will be minimized. and there will continue to be contingencies on what happened. i do think it is important to understand there is one permanent solution, that is, a relief well. i think one of the things that we have certainly already taken from this is that you have redundancy in the system. that is why we asked them to start drilling the second well. there is a host of different scenarios.

>> part of the defense on the joseph s. nycessnite matter is t these were three paid positions by the deputy chief of staff. the credit was not a job offer. it was not a job promise -- >> it was not a job offer. it was not a job promise. mr. romanov applied for a position. >> if i apply for a job and an employer comes back and says [unintelligible] does my application change the fact that i might have been offered another job?

>> you can express an interest in several different departments like usaid. >> have you heard anything from the flow rate people on what they are seen from the cut riser? and do you feel like the images, at least, are substantiating what you thought? >> that is a good question and i will have somebody go -- i do not know of any new estimates from the flow rate technical group. again, we thought it was

rate table. >> if the u.s. is in charge of this oil spill, why is the bp going to be giving operational update to? >> -- updates? >> it is beingqi,

about what they are seeing and what is going on. >> could you be a little more specific about the president's trip tomorrow? and what his goals are and what he hopes to accomplish. >> as i said, i think evaluating on the ground every effort of response, but also on the surface of the water and the environmental damage that has

been done. and also, the economic damage that has been done and is being done to small business owners, and everyone down there. i think he will get a chance to talk with some of those folks and and understand how each state in the gulf is implementing its own state response plan, and whatever concerns they have been wanting to augment the plans developed by them. >> fact-finding? >> i think the president will want to hear any of date -- update from them, but you also want to hear from non-elected individuals who are also

suffering firsthand, as well as those that those officials represent. >> is the u.s. government -- in the caution to exercise restraint, is the white house heating those words? >> >heeding those words? -- is is the white house heeding those words? >> none of us want a repeat of what happened. >> [inaudible] >> that was not a reading, but i think you have heard her say that there is a readout from her office that will go out,

discussing the administration's efforts along the border with the national recorguard and othr devices to strengthen border security. obviously, a long discussion about comprehensive immigration reform, which i think you heard the president discusse. which is the only way that we are going to solve this crisis. it will not be solved by one month alone. >> she said that sse might be speaking -- seeking instructions on plans in about a month or so. is that likely? >> i saw that and i will have to find our. >> on china, the visit by

secretary gates, do you see that as a direct result as the taiwan -- a ddrect result of the tie 1 arms sales? >> i do not have information on that. we have two countries that disagreed on our arms sales. countries like china and the united states are going to have times in which, whether it is the no. 3 in sections of last year or the irani in sanctions of -- north korean sanctions of last year or the iranian sanctions of this year, there will be disagreements. . .

a credible plan for responding to what potentially could happen, to ensure you can stop something that you start. which, 45 days later, bp is not showing good results on. i will say this. there are thousands of wells in the gulf. we have, as we have slowed deep water permits, we continue oratory drilling in shallow water. that continues -- exploratory drilling in shall let water -- shallow water.

that continues. around 60% of our oil is imported from overseas. we have to break our dependence on foreign oil. the president outlined a plan that included more drilling, because -- well, because we have to take steps to break our dependence on foreign oil. that is why we have invested in a host of clean energy projects through the recovery act. at the same time, we are driving cars. >> if they were to come back and say, look, drilling is just too dangerous. it will never be safe. >> the president -- i think the president has been very candid in both asking the commission to look at that -- not just the companies, but he has obviously not spare the government the rod

on this as well, in terms of ensuring there is a regulatory framework that works for the american people. again, there are thousands of wells out there that are producing oil we are going to use right now. so, the commission has a lot of breadth in dealing with that regulatory framework. >> in terms of the mission, do you have any insight on when he will be meeting -- >> in the next couple of days. >> they have to find -- >> the executive director and the staff will begin to handle whole host of questions. there are 33 current permits that have been frozen. >> robert, you said that you

were very positive the u.s. would be able to get through and iran sanctions resolution to the u.n.. do you think the israelis flotilla will have no impact at all? >> i think the president and the team remain confident that's we start -- that we start with the p5 plus one, in support of that resolution, and believe when that resolution is voted on in the next week that we will have a number that will pass our resolution. >> back to taking the president's emotional temperature. i want to get back to getjay -- i want to get back to watchjay asked -- i want to give back to watch jay ask you about. was he angry? >> i think he was talking about

the pdb. >> are there clear primary opponents? >> i am sorry? >> your defense is the white house will work on that s a scenario? -- on that as a scenario? >> again, i value the circumstances we have talked about in each of these cases. >> circumstances or not, is it likely to be repeated? >> again, i will point you to the pattern. >> [unintelligible] the solution for the illegal immigration program would be border security according to the governor of arizona. >> i think the president believes that this all happens to gather.

we look at this as one solution to this crisis. my guess is if there were, someone would have tried it long ago. that is not the case. i think the president outlined his beliefs on this. his record in the senate demonstrates this. the work he has done here to encourage a bipartisan solution to a very emotional issue is something he continues to work on. yes? >> thank you. there are economic sanctions against north korea. well we continue to provide as much -- >> let me check. i do not have a change on that. i will check. >> the president said this was

not a response to the arizona immigration. in fact, this was from last year. what happened to make him think the border was not secure enough right now? >> i do not think this is a problem that -- this is a problem that -- you can go back several administrations. at different times, there have been more national guard on the border. during the clinton administration, i think there were four other times they moved members of the national guard to the border. several times during the bush administration. obviously, what president calderon has done to fight crime and gangs is something that has caused increased violence. >> robert, is there a federal

report on the flotilla incident for timing purposes? in who is doing that? >> it is the israeli government's. >> the israelis? >> that is my understanding. >> [unintelligible] what about an independent investigation? >> that could include international investigation. i would point youtube -- >> do you know anything about a report like that, the timing? are we talking all week or -- >> i said earlier -- [laughter] if anything changes, we will let you know. >> how did the meeting with gov. brewer, about? -- come about? >> i think she requested the

meeting. i do not know when. i saw an e-mail several days ago. >> why did the president decide >> look, you are not going to deal with the immigration issue without dealing with what is happening along the border. certainly, at arizona is a big part of that. obviously, arizona has taken, because of a lack of federal response, has pointed to state efforts that the president believes could be harmful. the justice department is evaluating that law. look, i do not think you are going to deal with comprehensive immigration reform and the circumstances around the border without dealing with arizona. yes? >> two-porter.

seeing governor brewer, out -- is anything actually going to happen? do you expect a follow up with her? she is not going down there? is this going to happen, or are they going to talk a lot? >> what -- and [laughter] what our meetings like in other places? there are few points that she has. she is expressing her opinion on all law and how we deal with -- a lot and how we deal with immigration. she has a view that you have to

do with border security first. the president thinks we have to have comprehensive immigration reform. i saw the governor said that -- say that one of the results of the meeting is she thinks there will be better communication between the administration and her state, and i think that is always a positive develop met. but look. the president has talked about this in the republican caucus and here at the white house. john mccain was very instrumental in getting immigration reform to the point it was in 2005, 2006, 2007. i doubt we will get comprehensive reform if we do not have john mccain doing what he believes in in those years. she is the governor of that state. hopefully, she willllet the senators of arizona and throughout the country know that the way to best deal with

immigration reform is to do it comprehensively at the federal level. >> another question -- >> desk? >> i do want to go to a meeting there, by the way. >> regarding the planning with eric summers, is there any question about the oil spill making it to the gulf beach? >> i am not involved in their august plans. i do not have an answer. >> thank you, robert. you said it was in the president's interest to see that supporters are not in political conflict. does that mean he is fully committed to campaigning for a democratic nominee for the senate -- >> he supports his campaign for senate, i guess. >> he will campaign for him? >> i do not have a schedule, but

we are supportive. >> the other thing i wanted to ask -- the overview by correspondence -- correspondents from kdr, a spinoff from halliburton, they wanted to retain a competitive contract. >> it appeared as if the contract was simply, as you said, retained after a competitive bidding process, which i think is consistent with everyone to view point. i do not know if the dot has anything to offer on that. >> you do not see it as contradicting the president's statement? >> i do not. >> a factual question. 59 million. can you break that down -- is there a way to extrapolate the rate at which the government is spending money that they will

be billing bp for? >> i left one sheet on my desk. give me one second. >> what is the sum total spent so far, up to this point? >> give me one second. >> please come to the front. [laughter] >> yes. that is a big step. >> robert, we have heard the president say over and over that washington is business as usual, the culture. your defense of the romanov situation, if i understand, it is it is business as usual. does that under -- is that it is business as usual. does that undercut what he president said? >> our administration lives by

the transparency of allowing you to understand who comes into this white house, moving meet. not taking political contributions from lobbyists, and our differences in the way washington works. we are proud of that. >> we are talking about the optics of the situation. >> what i just outlined -- none of those are lost. those are executive orders and decisions the resident made. >> this is more than just procedure. this is an article of faith for the president. does this disturb him at all? >> i have not talked to him about it. >> does he have an opinion about what happened -- >> on friday, i was with him in the gulf. we did not talk about it. >> you ticked off a bunch of the

things you guys have been doing. you did not mention guantanamo. did you put that on the shelf? where does that stand? >> i gave a report recently -- the evaluations that were done were made public of the inmates at the guantanamo prison. i have not heard updates on decisions about criminal trials. i have not heard back. >> robert, does the new about the death of an american change the white house perspective? is there any talk about the value waiting going after this -- reevaluating going after this and making another statement?

>> our statement and the actions of the security council -- obviously, the president had a good conversation two days ago with the prime minister, and i think it is important, as i said before, to do a credible investigation to understand exactly what the facts are. >> robert, the president outlined his reasons for canceling his firm of visit. i am wondering -- is the president still committed to the dialogue? [laughter] >> we will get back to you on that. i am sorry. >> is the president still committed to the dialogue with the military government, and what about the special on boy?

>> i will check on that. >> you, again, you listed a number of things you had to do. is there anything specifically you want to accomplish before the visit of the russian president who is expected later this month? >> i do not think anything legislatively prior to that. the new start treaty and the material up to the senate, just as has been done in russia, we expect we will continue to make progress. we will see that the start treaty is ratified by the end of the year. >> i understand the white house wanted to avoid a conflict. [inaudible]

you said to the people in the suit states who actually wanted a choice -- in the state to actually wanted a choice? for example, michael bennett, who was not elected. >> i am sorry. what is the question? >> what kind of message does that send to voters who did not get their choice for a candidate sent to the senate? >> we had a primary. that has been done. the president is supportive of, as we said months ago, supportive of incumbent senator michael bennett, somebody who has done groundbreaking work, first as a superintendent, and is involved -- involved with a whole host of things the president is supportive of,

particularly as it relates to ethics. >> the bush ethics lawyer actually defends the practice. you are not giving people a choice in the primary. >> tim, i thiik each individual state decides, i believe, however vacancy is going to be filled. i am not going to get into the 50-state decision. thank you, guys. >> baseball? >> well -- [laughter] i will say this. which one? you and died. >> all right. all right. >> i am speaking with the authority of the federal -- [laughter] for what ever that is worth. i will say a couple of things.

i hope the baseball awards are a perfect game. they are not going to do it? >> no. >> we are going to work on an executive order. i will say this. i have a 6-year-old who is playing baseball. i missed his game. i have seen pictures of your kids, too, sir. something we can all be proud of. i missed his game last night. i think everybody who watched what happened and understood -- 20 perfect games in the history of baseball. to watch an umpire take responsibility and to watch a pitcher do what he did, the kind of sportsmanship -- i think that it to in the heart whether you are a 6-year-old learning to

play or if you have watched baseball for the sheer enjoyment of the game -- i think it is tremendously heartening to see somebody understanding made a mistake and see somebody accept the apology from somebody who made that mistake. i think that is a good lesson in baseball, probably a good lesson in washington. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> hello, everybody. we completed our meeting this afternoon.3 discussion of what has taken place in arizona in dealing with the security of our border and

illegal immigration into america. with that, i will take a couple of questions, but we have to leave. i am sorry? >> [inaudible] >> we agreed to work together to find some solution. we know we are not going to agree on certain issues until other issues are worked out. so we are going to begin some really more direct dialogue in a couple of weeks. we will be briefed on projections in regards to the 1200 national guard and the $500 million he has indicated he will send down there. we will see how it will be distributed. he assured us the majority of those resources would be coming to arizona. we also determined the fact that we needed to be more closely coordinated in our efforts and information, so that we would be better able to correspond with

one another. >> board positions that are not actually on the board? >> i was not privy to any explanation of that. he assured me that within a couple of weeks, because i did ask specifically, that that would be up to arizona, to meet with my staff to give this point of reference. i have a responsibility to the people of arizona to get specific information. i am encouraged there will be much better dialogue between the federal government and the state of arizona. now, i hope that is not wishful thinking. i hope that is positive thinking. >> [inaudible] >> he indicated he was leaving that up to the department of justice and did not want to discuss that in any detail today, so that was rushed over a little bit. >> do you think he understands

the problem? >> he is a well learned man. i am sure he understands the law. >> do you think he has read a lot? >> [inaudible] >> a very cordial. >> was there any comment about the family trust no, not that kind of detail -- the family -- >> no, not the kind of detail. we want to make sure there was no racial profiling. i need it very cllar -- >> [inaudible] >> he was basically going to leave that up to the department of justice. >> what do you hope to see in arizona in one month? >> i would like to see construction started on a border

fence, and i would -- i tried to get that information for you today. i was not successful. i was successful in getting the promise that someone would be out to arizona in the next couple of weeks to speak with my staff, to give us the information they have available to present us. we are looking forward to that. today, i am further had been yesterday. at least i have a promise of two weeks, information, fax that we can share with -- facts that we can share with the people of arizona. he feels very strongly about immigration reform. i indicated that we have been promised that information previously and it was not successful, and amnesty was bestowed on people but we never secure the border. i believe the people of arizona in america want our reporter secured. then we can take up other

issues. >> did you commit to getting republican support for immigration reform? >> no. >> would you support immigration reform? >> [inaudible] >> i do. i feel very confident about what we have done in the past. it was the right thing to do. beyond that, i believe we are protecting the people of america. we need to secure our borders. >> governor, did you discuss national guards? will they be deployed to arizona? >> we talked about that. we do not know exactly how many will be deployed to arizona. the numbers are not fixed, from what i understood today.

>> [unintelligible] >> i want the border secured forced -- first. >> we have three new c-span books for you. "abraham lincoln," "the supreme court," and "who is buried in grant's tomb?" it with a new perspective for you. to order, go to c- span.org/books. also a great gift idea for father's day. >> i said, oh, my god, this president is going to be in peach. but woodward said we could never use the word impeachment around the newsroom unless someone thought -- lest someone thought we had an agenda.

but that thought stays with me. >> search for watergate in the c-span video library. see what key players have said about the break-in and cover-up. explore washington, your way. the c-span video library. free, on-line. >> the senate health, education, and labor committee held a hearing on failing schools. panelists included experts from public and private schools. i know senator tom harkin chaired the hearing. this is about two hours and 40 minutes. >> the senate committee on health, education, and labor will come to order. i would like to thank all of you for being here today as we discussed elemennary, secondary

education. we have gained valuable insight into the need for education reform in order for our country to remain competitive. this afternoon, we will hear from experts on turning around underperforming schools. without question, turning around chronically-underperforming schools is one of the great moral, economic, and civil rights imperatives of our day. the department of education estimates there are approximately 5000 of these chronically underperforming schools across the country. that is 5% of our total public schools. they are attended largely by minority and lower-income students. one of our witnesses from johns hopkins identified 2000 high schools with graduation rates of less than 60%.

69% of all african-american and 63% of hispanic dropouts come from these 2000 schools. turning around chronically low performing schools is a daunting challenge. for states, school districts, administrators, teachers. the schools are often the most under resources. they often lack the capacity to implement reform strategies. they are also often filled with students that face major challenges to success. poverty, and limited english proficiency. the schools need more resources, it typically have fewer. despite these challenges, the number of schools, in some cases entire districts, have had remarkable success in improving school achievement. we need to learn from these powerful exammles. in 2006, the harvard school of excellence in chicago, ranked

among the 10 worst elementary schools in the state of illinois. after they implemented our reform strategy, it is focused on curriculum changes, improving accountability, school transformation, and a number of the students meeting state testing standards increased in just two years. this is just one example of how school turnaround has been done. we need to scale these of all over the country -- need to scale these up all over the country. eyewitnesses today will share their experiences in implementing school improvement strategies that have resulted in sustainable student achievement. their testimony will be valuable as we work together on a bipartisan basis to craft an eca

authorization designed to get lowest performing schools back on track. i would like to thank my colleague for his opening statement and introduce our witnesses. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you for your diligent work on fixing note child left behind. ---no child left behind. that is the old version of the name. i am sure we will have a new one before long. no, i have not. but we are working on it. we have an adverse witness list, and i look forward to learning from each of you this afternoon. the knowledge to bring to the table will help as we move forward to develop legislation that builds upon what we have learned from no child left behind and fixes but has not been working. thereeare two issues i will focus on as we reauthorize the esca.

first the impact these models could have on rural schools and school districts. the second is the research base used to determine whether these models are effective at turning around low performing schools. rural and frontier schools and school districts are unique and often need uniquu solutions to their problems. to illustrate the size of wyoming, i tell people it is one of the big states, but we only have 14 cities where the population exceeds the elevation. this means we have a lot of families spread out over a large area. wyoming is a lucky to have many superintendents and principals like dr. mitchell, who are dedicated to serving students in small rural areas. why so spread out? the towns are a long way apart, and we to a policy in wyoming that a grade school student -- we do have a policy in wyoming

that a grade school student should not have to travel a certain distance each way. we have districts that are as big as 15 students in some areas. they are being asked to use one of the four models to turn around schools. i support accountability and believe it is important to identify the poorest performing schools and require specific actions in the schools. some flexibility needs to be given to rural and frontier schools that cannot meet the strict requirements. they need to identify and adopt turnaround strategies that will have dramatic impact an increase student achievement, but i do not believe all of these strategies can be mandated from washington. many schools in washington do not have access to turn around partners, such as the new vision for public schools, and do not

have charter operators such as green dot. it is often difficult to recruit teachers and principals for rural areas to will stay for an extended time. i do not want to give rural schools a free pass. strategies mandated from washington will not solve the problems facing the schools. i believe is incumbent on us to work wwth officials from the schools to find options that would work when balanced with an approach the amount of flexibility from the federal level. i also believe congress should understand the researrh behind each of the turnaround models. it is my hand standing that the knowledge base for -- it is my understanding that the knowledge base is pretty shallow. the scientific evidence for the four interventions proposed by the school improvement grants is, at best, sketchy. this concerns me.

if we are going to mandate interventions for the federal level, we need to be clear about why and what evidence we have for our actions. otherwise, we will not be learning from a child left behind and will be repeating our mistakes. -- from a new child left behind and will be repeating our mistakes. -- from no child but behind and will be repeating our mistakes. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, senator enzi. we will leave the record open for statements by other senators. let's get going. first we have joel klein, the chancellor of the largest school district in the entire diet states. he became the new york city schools chancellor in 2002 after serving a variety of high-level positions in government and business.

that includes working in the department of justice where i first met him. he oversees 1600 schools with 1.1 million students, 136,000 employees and i $21 billion operating budget. he will share the lessons he has learned at the district level. next we have beverly donahue. she has extensive experience in new york city government where she has worked as the chief financial officer for the public school system and as deputy director of the office of band -- management and budget. she has been a school turnaround partner for 34,000 students in new york city. next, we will hear from the co-

director of the talent middle grades and high school program. this is operated in partnership with baltimore cityd public schoolsbaltimorer. balfanz -- dr. balfanz will share his expertise on implementing reforms and addressing the problems of dropouts in middle and high school students. next, we will hear from the superintendent of the chamberlain school district 7-1 in south dakota. mr. mitchell is one of nine superintendents elected by the american association of school of ministrations to meet with secretary duncan -- school

administrations to meet with secretary duncan. he will speak about the challenges faced by rural schools. not to be outdone by my friend from wyoming, i went to a grade school where in one room we had the first, -- let's see. kindergarten, first, second. the big room had 6, 7, and eight. in my eighth grade class, there were six of us. that is pretty darn rural. green dot has opened 18 successful charter schools, including aid as part of a turnaround of a high school in watts. prior to joining green got, he was working with -- green dot,

he was working with another organization. he will talk about district models for charter schools. i think all of you. reject by -- i thank all of you for being here today from long distances away and for being willing to get involved in the most important bill we are doing, the reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education act. let me start with my longtime friends and the ccancellor of the new york city schools, mr. joel klein. wellcome. >> thank you, mr. share. it is a pleasure to be here. i want to thank you for the opportunity to discuss this

bill and the new york city's approach to school turnaround, something we've been engaged in -- >> will you reset that? if you go over, do not worry about it. all of your statements will be part of the record in their entirety. you can summon up in five, six, seven minutes. if you go over nine minutes, i will get nervous. >> you go right ahead. you are familiar with my history. in new york state, we have no school where people are hired -- were the people are higher than the altitude. we are vice versa. in the past years, we've been engaged in our rigorous turnaround strategy. i commend the president for setting this talent. no child left behind brought accountability to public education and cast a spotlight, on the shameful achievement gap

between our african-american and latino students and are white and asian students on the other. that has really gone unaddressed for generations. the law of rightfully demand that all children -- demanded that all children have access to high-quality education. i believe the senate as well as other elected officials broadest together to get this -- brought us together to get this done and deserve great credit. there is broad consensus that this must be improved. its focus on absolute achievement rather than student progress labeled many schools as failing even when students are making significant gains. it takes years under nclb before changes are mandated in struggling schools. sometimes six or seven years can go by where you're missing annual yearly progress, years

when futures are on the line, and then nclb requires very little to be done about it. this allows districts to implement so-called restructuring initiatives that amount to a tanker ran -- tinkering around the edges when students are falling through the cracks. i commend the secretary duncan. i believe this is a step in the right direction. we propose changes in schools to help students gain ground, rather than hold schools to uniform expectations. we have used a system like that for the past several years in new york city. we recognize the schools doing excellent work while serving challenging populations -- i worked closely with senator bennett to implement a similar system. he was an extraordinary national

leader in denver. this will allow us to identify when we compare apples to apples those tools that -- those schools that are persistently low performing and allow us to make the difficult decision to replace them with better options. as part of our overall strategy, replacing faillng schools has helped us get real results and in new york city. in 2009, our graduation rate reached an historic high. after a decade of stagnation, the graduation rate has increased under mayor bloomberg, and in the past four years, it has gone up by 12.5 points. you are really talking about thousands and thousands of kids. during the same time, our dropout rate has gone from over 22% down to just under 12%.

these gains have been achieved across all demographic groups. african american and latino students are making the greatest fall -- progress. we share the belief that the status quo is not good enough. it also demonstrates the commitment of our students and their families and no hard work brings great rewards in education. some of the progress reflected initiatives to turn around failing schools. i want to be candid. those are always more controversial. and we see a school is not meeting standards, we intervene. we of used a variety of strategies, a strategy is well known to my colleagues, including putting in a highly trained principle, organizing -- putting in a new highly trained principal,

organizing differently. sometimes conditions deteriorated. we must then i ask -- and this is a question i want to ask the committee -- when should we stop sending children to a place that is unlikely to prepare them? it is immoral to consign them to failure to -- to consign them to failure by sending them to schools we would not send our own children to. we must take more dramatic steps, even though they will prove controversial. in new york, we have a strong track record. there is evidence to support our work of replacing low performing schools with better options. you will hear shortly from beverly about other groups as well.

our approach differs from other parts of the country. we do not have locked buildings. instead, we gradually place school organizations without adding new students until the final student graduates. that strategy is fundamentally -- has fundamentally improved opportunities for our kids. there are 400 new schools outperforming our other schools citywide. our new schools have an average graduation rate of 75%, even though they serve some of the highest need students. let me give you a concrete example. in september 2003, we began to phase out a high school in brooklyn which had historic underperformance and an abysmal graduation rate.

today there are four new schools driving in the same building. -- thriving in the same building. sometimes when a school has experienced sustained failure, the only way to transform it is a real transformation change. we believe the esca must include consequences for consistently low performing schools. there are groups that advocate for the status quo, despite abundant evidence that the3 the job done for too many students. mr. chairman, thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. >> boston but very much, mr. klein. -- >> thank you very much, mr. klein. you have been summarizing in

your statement about taking the schools and turning them into smaller schools. i want to come back to that. please proceed. >> thank you for this opportunity to appear before you. at new visions for public schools, we have focused on school reform work in new york city for the last 20 years. for the last 10 years, we have been closely engaged in turnaround work. i will go into a little bit of detail. our experience has led us to think in terms of a continuance of school transformation possibilities.

for the consistently low was performing in schools in new york, the only approach that has been successful was school closure and phase out over time. this approach was pioneered in the late 1990's, and it has been continued under mayoral control since then. since 2002, we'll try to reform the two large feeling i schools -- large failing high-school, and that turnaround effort ended in failure. i think it is important to note the history of turnaround efforts nationally have had a lot of failures. they can be learned from. what happened in this instance was, without a strong group of

leaders and teachers within the school, they were unable to create a viable plan for turnaround and they were de- funded as a result. in 2005, we undertook a turnaround effort with large pools that were in a little bit better shape. there were graduation rates between 50% and 60%. there were a number of very committed teachers. we divided the schools into smaller learning communities. since that point in time, they have been immensely successful. the credit the turnaround in these two schools to not the division into a small learning communities, but to the implementation of an inquiry team model, which was for

building teacher capacity and new school leaders. in this model, teams of educators work together to identify struggling students to become the focus of on going action and research aimed at addressing specific skill gaps and moving the students into the schools' spear of success. we changed classroom practices to share the results. -- research aimed at addressing specific skill gaps and moving the students into the school's sphere of success. the two schooll mentioned here have got about 60 inquiry teams between them of teachers doing this work and moving the school for work. this model has been extended throughout other schools in new york and is being piloted in boston and oakland as well.

low performing schools need to focus their efforts on a few critical problems at any one time in order to make a habit. schools with higher capacity were started schools without a culture that has been friction against the status quo, to take advantage of broader based reform models -- the 99 small schools that new vision helped create, that replaced large failing schools as the chancellor's testimony outlined, inform our conclusions here. the design was carried out in a competitive nature by school teams, vying for limited numbers of the school approvals. and it became our rigorous part of the process, -- a rigorous

part of the process, and it helped build capacity across new york city for folks interested in ew school creation. each high school sign-on for a target of 80 percent graduation rate and 92% daily attendance. that target, we believe, helped focus on student data and gave an urgency to the work they were doing. each school received support from a variety of partners in the new century initiative, which included union, the department of education in new york, and the various funders who supported the initiative. parents and community groups were involved in the planning and each school and had one

community-based partner, at a minimum, to provvde their own unique experience and opportunities for young people. new century is a young initiative. the first school opened in 2002. evaluations are still forthcoming. with no long-term view of how successful the schools will be. -- we have no long-term view. they had 90% higher graduation rate than other schools on average in new york city. with the limited body of research on effective strategies for low performing schools, i would urge the committee to support an approach fostering continued local innovation and close evaluation of turnaround programs. assessing school capacity to implement change is critical to guide the choice of an effective strategy. finally, focusing exclusively on the school level neglects the important role that community

organizations and other external supports create in setting preconditions for success. in new york, the department of new york was immensely supportive. in addition, a great wealth of nonprofit organizations exist in your city, lent their expertise, their knowledge of communities throughout the city. so, i thank you for this opportunity to testify. >> i am sorry. thank you, ms. donahue. >> thank you for inviting me to testify today on the national challenge of turning around our low performing secondary schools. i will focus on middle and high schools. and in the 21st century, we have to provide students pathways from secondary schools to post

secondary success in college, the military, or through job training. there is no work to support a family if you do not graduate high school and have the ability to receive further training. we cannot have a society where people are cut off because they do not have the opportunity to attend school and be prepared for success. the reason we find ourselves in this situation is far too many of our middle and high school schools -- the ones that serve minority and low-income populations are designed to fail. the educated primarily low income and minority students, and they produce a high of the dropouts in america, essentially the underclass. there are one or two middle

schools where half the people who drop out become disengaged from schooling. is this something simply to be in store? when we lose the students in middle school, they get in trouble. they fail their courses. by the time they get to high school, they have half the foot out the door. this creates a level of challenge we do not fully comprehend. . . oqy+ñqí]vq]qvqcvqx+ñyw9wqwq

we have had many examples of middle and high school students that have succeeded. our baltimore high school is located in west baltimore.

our students in tehran with declining attendance and yet we managed to graduate over 80% and many of them have post secondary placement. -- our students attencome in wih declining attendance. there are students to keep track of other students and they look after them. every day, they check and see if if they are and school. it can be tough sometimes but sarcasm does not work.

the teachers can maybe to a handful of kids but they cannot do hundreds. finally you add on social workers because there is a high rate of kids where -- is so strong. if a student is staying home to get their insulin shot, until we see that, no ranking will get that kid to school. tte real answer to all of this is the teacher team. the answer is not structural change or getting high-quality teachers, it is the team of four teachers working with 75 kids who were then supported by good instructional material.

that should be the fundamental unit that we build everything up from. to bring this to scale, we need to think about that now, not just simply to but how. -- who but how. i have seen charter schools that have become a success story and some that have been shut down. it is possible for all of these different ways to succeed or not. what really matters is the strategy used to turn the school around. you need an accurate diagnosis of what the challenges.

too often, we say that we know the answer, it is a failed school. that does not guarantee a big improvement. the high of 100 kids or no kids. those are different stories. do you have many kids impacted by poverty or only a handful. once you have your design, then the question is, do you have to know how to put it in place. does it reached a 200 kids? do i have the capacity to implement it? do they have the time to do it, do they have the support? do we have the will? do we really believe that this

will work or are we just tried to get through a tough situation. are we protected from turbulence? once we put all of these things together, we have a design and the will and capacity to protect recipe for success. the community is looking at the forefront of improvement and many of the things that they need to talk about art in the legislation that has been proposed every student council graduation rate, the success in the middle, the keeping pace act, the principled effectiveness bill. much of the answers are there. we want to find a solution to

improve the nation for the better. >> i have a lot of questions i need to ask. now we will turn to dr. mitchell. please proceed. >> good afternoon. it is an honor to come before you and share some thoughts about school turnaround. there are some conditions i feel are necessary so that reforms can be successful this fall we had 850 students, we are 30 out of 161 in enrollment in south dakota. we are a large school. out of those smaller than us, many of them have less than 300 students in their entire

facility. many of them run one-room schoolhouses. in chamberlain, 46% of economically disadvantaged students are part of our student body. 36% are native american. they have a dual enrollment privileges. they can either come to our school or the tribal school. 17% qualify for special education, 59% are identified as title 1. before it no child left behind when i took over the reins of the school district, we had to read school sites, two of them were identified as those that did not meet federal standards under title 1. we went into no child left behind and we immediately went

on alert. in the spring of 2008, the students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged, the native american students, made -- and we had our first report card. the students with disabilities, the native american students, and economieconomically disadvad dismayed the ranks in math and reading. -- made the ranks in math and reading. we had to cultivate a teacher support. we had to use instructiinal practices and strategy and make an effort to have members of the staff work call barbara to flee.

this was done through capacity building. -- we had to use instructional practices and strategies to make an effort to have the staff work together on this. we want to make learning the purpose of the organization. you must establish a focus on learning, not just teaching. it is not good enough to teach in my district, you must promote high levels of learning. of the 31 not achieved a full focus on -- she will not achieve a full focus on learning when teachers are focused on isolation. if they are not allowed to share back and forth, this defects quality in a negative way. -- affects quality in a negative way. you must have a system to

monitor student learning and have it be governed by results. the most pressing issues that we see in rural schools -- isolation, the amount of capacity, the retention of teaching staff, a lack of quality preschools, the consequences designed for more urban schools. at the lack of graduation rate, the impact of drugs, gangs, poverty, on the reservation schools and we have some real issues. there is a terrible stigma about being a failed school in a small community. many of these school districts who are dedicated and workinger- hard to try to improve the learning situation. many of them have trouble holding on to the administrators for more than 80 years. in many, the superintendent or

principle is the coach, bus driver, janitor. -- manyyof them have trouble holding on to the administrators for more than two years. closing the schools in these areas does not make any sense. if we look at the conditions needed as we start to flesh out what the next reauthorization would look like, we hope that you make sure that we provide adequate resources, that we support operating conditions, that we support training to bring about the change that is needed. we promoted our school turnaround process in a mixture of local, state, federal revenue sources and we used those to build capacity said that we could build the resource base and structural strategies. we have a limited capacity. if you are going to shifted new

competitive dollars, it would be unfair for us to compete with other districts. as we look at accountability, we now it is not helping our schools in rural areas. the consequences are too severe. some models are not appropriate for a majority of the rural schools. i support a recommendation to add a fifth option. connider the distinction between positive accountability where low scores trigger an effort to help schools and punitive accountability where we focus on firing staff and closing schools. in a strategy of positive accountability, consistent steps can be taken to improve low

performing schools. thank you for your time today and i would be happy to answer any questions. >> thank you very much, dr. mitchell. now we turn to mr. petruzzi. >> i am here representing one of the most chronically underperforming schools in the nation. they had only a 25% graduation rate. we are on a past to move in that rate to 60%-80% by the firstendf the four years. all we operate in a district that is the second-largest in

the nation. this is larger than 25 states in the nation. this is larger than a lot of european nations in terms of the number of students. the size of our high schools can reach 3500 students. a single high-school is probably larger than most of the districts in the nation. the problems are tremendous. we started with a mission to reform education in los angeles. this was very ambitious. we want to make sure that all students have access to education that insured their success and the ability to go to college. we built independent charter schools. we've built up 10 at first in the most property-stricken areas in los angeles and we had great success. these are areas where students

were having a 60%-70% dropout rate. we had a five to eaight times effect on those students. -- 8 times effect on those students. we needed an effective turnaround. we felt that the imperative for us to actually intervene in the large failing schools. lowest performing school in los angeles, this was in a very difficult neighborhood. it is 100% minority, 35%

african-american, 55% latino. there is a lot of gang tension. this is the intersection of several gangs. basically, this was a very toxic school in every possible way that you can imagine. the gangs were controlling classrooms, there were race riots. you could not tell if it was last time when you walked the halls. the infrastructure of the school had failed. the teachers signed for green dot to take over. we had teachers who were idealistic and they wanted to change the schools. many of them felt that nothing could change and they were willing to leave.

we asked them to reapply to the school. we are two years into it. the basic tenet was to use what we had learned from the charter schools. we wanted to make small school's first. we guarantee that all of our teachers know every student's name. we don't believe that we can learn more than 500 names so we kept our schools around 500. we broke the school into 8 schools. we started with that ninth grade academy that captured the incoming ninth graders and we kept them separate from the 10- 12 graders. we also brought in a feeling of safety at the school. bringing adults and training on adults on having respectful

conversations with the students and really turning this into a haven from the violence that was around them in the community. the culture of the school has improved dramatically. the students are attending class. the school does not have to graffiti. attendance has gone up. we have stopped the dropout rate. we have retained over 40% more students from the year before. we had a huge cultural shift where the students are thinking about college in positive terms. this is compared to a four were only 5% went to college. we are humbled by the difficulty of this task. -- this is compared to before

where only 5% went to college. we put everyone on a college track. we don't believe that adults should make decisions for students about college, we believe the students should make that decision. everyone is in a college track. we think that this is good work and we appreciate the committee's work on turnaround. we need to create the condiiions for more turnaround's like this to happen which are not easy but they are absolutely essential. there is not a choice of not doing turnarounds'. even if we have a 50% failure rate, what is the other option? i would recommend it to the

committee that we create the conditions for the flexibility that we enjoyed as a charter conversion in terms of staffing. every staff member had to reapply to the school. the ability that we have to move funds around schools, we have created 8 different schools with 8 different principles and different budgets. these were important for creating a culture of accountability and ownership. this is important work that we would love to repeat and we would hope that the conditions are set for this committee said that this can be repeated across the nation. >> thank you very much. thank you for your testimony, both verbal and written. we will start with 5 minute questions.

from my reading of your testimony is last evening, it is becoming clear that there is no one thing, there's no single silver bullet. of there are many different things. one thing that keeps coming through in almost all of your testimony iies is that you need more manageable schools sizes. at our first meeting, we had an official from the european union testifying about his findings

and research and i asked him about smaller sizes. he said that there is no correlation between doing well and the size of classes. i did not ask him about sizes of the school, i asked about class size which went against everything that i have ever thought or belief or observed. the less kids you have to teach, the better off they will learn all the things that they need to. teachers who are leaving after two or three years, i have talked to many of them. the ones that have 12 or 13 kids, they love it. those that have 20-25 kids, they cannot stand it. how about class size? is this an important factor that we should consider? what is the size of the class

that the teacher is teaching? it is that an important factor? >> you have to hold all of the other factors equal. the most important factor is the effectiveness of the teacher. i've never met a parent who would not want to have her kids in a class of 10 with an average teacher than a class a 25 with an excellent teacher. we have lots of children who get to high school very unprepared. if you don't know who the children are, you don't have a faculty was committed to them collectively, you will not succeed. i have run schools in new york and those schools have thousands and thousands of kids. there is a different set of

challenges. what we need to do is understand there is no uniform solution to the problem. if you can lower class size wall preserving the effectiveness and quality of your teachers, that is a great solution. we have raised teacher salaries 43% and that is attractive. this has attracted people to want to come here. we could have kept the salary the same and hire more teachers but we would have paid the price for that. >> this raises the whole issue of cost. all of these changes that are being made, how have you factored in the cost of these changes? >> that is a great question for

us. two years ago, we took out $250 million from our bureaucracy. what we said to all of our schools is instead of having a mandatory theocracy, you can have a school support organization. the schools now pay new vision somewhere about $40,000 to $50,000 to partner with them. musician, city univ., other groups as well as internal groups that we have created. inside the school district or inside of the school system, we have the solutions. we need to stop thinking this. i invited green dot to new york

to to work with us. we have got to stop thinking about this as though it it is hermetically sealed and bring all of the hands and talent. how do we get them? i would rather partner with her instead of hiring internally. >> what is the difference? >> there are organizations that operate under different rules and they bring talent and passion to win enterprise that is oftentimes without talent or passion. i have community groups, the college board, all of them partnering with our schools.

there is no reason not to partner with them. take these guys from green dot. they are working with lock, this is a steep problem. they don't want to come work with me insight of the school system. they would feel that they were smothered by the rules. what they want to do is to go take the school and do what they are doing at lock high-school. if they want to do that, i know how to dance with people like that. >> thank you, mr. chaarman. that has been extremely helpful. i will concentrate a little bit on -- that i mentioned.

you mentioned the fifth option that might work as being research-based. can you give me more information on that? >> i think in the small situation, what we're looking out is trying to take a look at some of the other options. in south dakota, there is a very low performing reservation school and the superintendent and staff is working very hard. we have partnered with them and we have done some staff changes and some professional development and they are interested in taking a look at replicating what another school has done. there is a tremendous amount of research in this particular area but it gives us some caution if we should totally eliminate this from a federal

law because we have seen some success with this work. can we come together with other districts and can we share or replicate the different things? there is a study that has been done that is giving us information. we are starting to see some things. there is a leadership turnaround in our particular region. we have seen some work with the laboratory and the leadership that works. we're starting to flesh out some research that could be applied if we allow them to have some flexibility in these areas to offer them the positive instead a punitive types of accountability. >> keep us posted on that.

i want to thank all of the members of the panel for being willing to do this. i have some specific accounting type of questions. i would appreciate answers from you. dr. mitchell, i want to thank you for your comments about how the schools are isolated so many of these options are not available. there's the same stigma on the school and this creates a problem. i have some other questions but i will submit them to you in writing. as you stated in your testimony, turnaround efforts are difficult. are there elements that should be required by the school districts? should the school district

allowed flexibility -- be allowed flexibility to do what they want? >> i think there is a middle ground. if you look at the organizations that have a complexity better like the military war business, they invest more into solving problems. once they do that, they turn us into standards of practice or protocol which you are expected to use. we need to think about a system where we can learn about things that matter that are fundamentally necessary to turn the schools around. this becomes part of our standards of practice. we will not say exactly what they are but we will show evidence that you arr using an evidence based standards of practice. you have analyzed what is the

challenge. that level of acquirement is important. we don't know enough yet. we should do a specific reform in this situation. i appreciated the outline that you gave of the different sized problems that require a different solution. i'm sure this provides a lot of turbulence. mr. klein mentioned that you can operate under different rules and regulations. what kind of rules would those be? >> as a nonprofit, we are not

bound by the rules are around hiring and other issues that the school system would face working in the public-sector. we look for the people that work with those as we work with retirees. there are educators available on a part-time basis. i think that it is a commitment that people have that attracts them to continue to work with us. >> thank you. >> i might ask, does anyone have any specific questions for chancellor klein? >> i have one little question.

you have stopped social promotion in new york. this is probably an obvious answer to a simple question. if you stop social promotion, why do kids in higher grade still have these gaps? >> the answer is that it has not been in the fact long enough. over time, they will not have them. the second reason is that even as we stopped this promotion, increasingly we are raising standards because we are finding that our students need to be college ready, not just high school graduates. >> thank you, mr. chairman. your comments, as powerful interest groups advocate for the status quo and the blueprint

we're working on says that we would be giving you choices about how to turn around the schools. the question is, why should we be telling you how to do it? if you are on the spot, you have been doing it. why wouldn't we just empower you to do it by overriding the local, federal, union, and state rules? >> if we can get a majority for that, we should move towards that. fundamentally, if you hold cities and states and school districts accountable for results and make sure that the federal funding follows those results, you will get what you want. it is very hard to close down schools, it is hard to change

the way a school operates. the kind of thing that you see is very rare in america. i believe that the federal government can take a leadership role and that is why secretary duncan working in his role that if the federal government puts its finger on the scale and says these are the fundamental models and then hold you accountable, this helps you to get done with some of the political work locally. that is a positive thing. if the country was prepared to go further, i am all for it as long as it is part of rigorous performance. >> let me follow up on the question.

as a chancellor of a system wide program, who should make that decision within your system about which turnaround model that they work with? should this be a decision that you make, should the individual schools decide? how does that really work? we get down to the point where they have a better understanding, does the community understand the culture of the choice? >> i think that we are accountable to the entire community at the district level. basically, it is very hard. the closing down of schools is very tough and there is enormous pushed back, i can see senator bennett smiling because we have had this discussion before.

people has a deep attachment to a school. the people who work there are a emotionally effected. i am convinced. there were places that were broken. the people that were their work hard and sometimes they did not succeed. sometimes you need to do the tough medicine. i think that is why secretary duncan proposed what he did. what you are likely to see is pushed back. i have often said to people in private conversation is why would you send your child to that school? >> i think people are under the delusion that there is a nice

school around the corner. there is not just the attachment to the school that closes, there is the question of whether the options are. -- what the options are. >> we have closed down 90 schools and open up about 400 schools. but 20% of the charter schools, the rest are public schools. if you sat dowand you can open , you create divisions, then you can make new jobs. all the data shows that we are getting a better result. >> too often, that is what is

coming across. given this set of cursory information sharing with people about what it was like, ttis causes as much of a problem as if they were shutting down a school. does anyone else want to raise any? >> thank you very much. >> i come from a family of public school teachers. my father and three sisters taught for 40 years of peace.

the job of being a teacher had some a different roles. these were early childhood programs. there were some knee problems. there was a staggering amount of problems. this was way beyond their capacity to deal with them. in looking at these issues, if anyone would like to respond to this, how would do we deal with this? after-school programs? are there support staff for teachers? one part is not just the teacher. that is critically important. this is not just a question of how teachers teach, teachers have an obligation to learn how children learn. too often it is focused on the

teaching capacity and understanding how the children learn. sometimes this is affected by some any outside influences before the class day began said. to what extent do you look at these and external alamance? >> we look at the level of issues that the population has, about 25% of our kids in foster care. i think that 25% have -- it is amazing. i think 25% to not have eyeglasses and they cannot see the blackboard. 40% have cavities and they have never been a -- to a dentist. we brought free dental and vision care to the schools.

you cannot teach a kid who is in pain. we are trying to build with the district a health facility right next door that can serve the entire community. we are also discussing this on a wide variety of issues. when you were asking about the cost of doing the turnaround, these costs are real. we spent a lot of money and this is beyond the money that we got from california. we had to raise a lot of money for this issue. if we look at the problem, this was just beyond the effective teachers. those funds are available for this. we have had to build new

buildings for this. if we look at the capacity of the classrooms, we have the dropout rate and this does not work with 25 kids in class. we have to build. when you look at the factors that affect the cost of the turnaround, they are very specific to the area and conditions. frankly, there are issues about what the student needs to get in class and to be able to be in a learning environment where they are not worried. >> we see a lot of discrepancy of what comes in. you have those who have had a couple of years of preschool, you have those that have gone to

a head start and then you have those that have norma formal schooling. it is the first day of school, you take your kindergarten class down to the gym and you tell them that you want them to run back and forth. one rule, you can run as fast as you can but you don't have to get there at the same time. the teacherthe children are wont you mean by this. there are things that we are doing to approach that. we have to find time within the day and outside of the day and we have used a lot of resources that we thank you for. of we have a before school program, an after-school

program, a saturday school program, a summer school program. not everyone can learn at the same time. as soon as i gave that analogy to my teachers, we started to understand at a higher level what we needed to do. it is important that we put the reeources capable for turnaround and have the opportunity to some different kinds of things that allow for that extended learning time because not everyone learns in the same amount of time. >> we have to think about how we can create the second shift of teachers. there are ways to leverage existing investment. all so college work study students bent down also getting

high quality support for students. many of these rebuild themselves to focus on keeping kids on track. we are providing schools with the second shift of adults. if you have high school teachers traditionally scheduled, you have 125 kids you share with no one, there's no way that you can get additionallsupport. >> great concept. >> i would like to go back to the questions that i asked and get a little perspective on it. in 1991, there is the whole question on how to help schools.

the first president bush came up with the idea of the charter schools that are just getting started. there was a lot of excitement about it. there was the idea of design teams, the idea of startups and flexibility. that was not sustained. the question i have is, i support the secretaries notion that we should really focus on the 5% of the schools that are the worst. from our own experience, we know that even in the areas where those schools are, there are some enormously successful schools. we have failing schools in

memphis. we also have stories about what people are able to do in their communities. the question is, what can we do here to help you succeed there? i think that we succeed by not telling you what to do but in power in you to do it. -- empowering you to do it. as governor, i did not know any people that could turn around a school. i don't think that our staff could do much to help you turn around the school by saying here are four things we have fought us. it looks to me like the most important thing we could do is if we want to be really radical

is to override the the union rules, the local rules, the federal rules, and hand it to you with some bitterness accountability and say take it and report to us and we hope you succeed. that might defensible to think of but isn't that the real problem? don't you run into too many rules and regulations, too manyy interest groups in your way? what can we do to help you and others succeed in your own school districts rather than saying here are the ways to turn around the school district? >> i would say the fatal flaw in note child left behind was the loophole for failing schools. a failing school, either you

close it down, reconstitute it, turn it into a charter or other. 99% of schools chose other. they just continued to fail. there was no teeth. the one thing that we can do is to put teeth on accountability. you only get to feel for some many years and then it is over. >> what happens -- >> you need to to some other things. -- you need to do some of the things. whether this is with a charter -- i actually don't think they have the capacity to take on the schools anyway. you need to throw the kitchen sink at them. i don't think that we have the capacity to do 5000 turnarounds. i think the schools that are closed, we need to have

flexibility around budget allocation, money, people they hire. this needs to be a principle that would require closing the schools. >> or a constitution or a way of starting over that allows you full flexibility. i think that we need to put an end to failure at a certain point. >> flexibility means freedom from union rules, freedom from state rules, freedom from federal rules, and sometimes freedom from court orders. is that what you mean? >> it is about good union rules. >> federal, local, state? one in my list.bility is number-

there are many some of the categories that killed schools. >> would you think about that and send us your answer? >> i would be happy to. >> i know that the school districts in my home state of washington have some issues that they have to deal with. some major changes are needed and some tough decisions that have to be made. there is no right way to do this. can you talk about what some of

the options are in the school districts and what some of the challenges are? >> one of the things that i firmly believe in and i did some research in south dakota. for south dakota we found very specifically that those school districts that were able to have the resources and were able to prioritize and had done that in a focused way which look at the three things that i talked boughabout, those were very successful. in the central part of the nine states, we have talked about that. we are trying to share with other districts are story. many people come in and say, could you give me a copy of your school improvement plan. our plan works for us because of

the specifics of our unique situation. we went out and we basically look at specific strategies that we needed to be in that had a research base to them. we wanted to make sure that we were aligned and focused in the right directions. we started building capacity of the organization and making a list. in public schools, we don't do that. you have to look at things you're doing and the organizations stops doing thht. this is certainly a struggle in rural america because of the isolation to build capacity and the networks. if we can share stories and we can share research and we can work with one another, that is our only option. if you had a rural school of 21

stevens, there has to be some way that we can provide some kind of positive -- >> you can not fire everyone. >> exactly. yeah to be careful about making sure that there is an option that is positive. there is some research that is successful in helping to build the capacity. >> thank you. i wanted to ask about our low performing high-school. i think an important part is to give students the experience of

career fields. this is something real when they get out. can you comment on what role the career pathways have played in your success? >> the way we organize to the high school, we have a ninth grade academy and we have an introduction to high school. in the ninth grade, we have a class called freshman seminar. part of that is awareness and you do an inventory of what you like. what interests youu from that, we select one of two or three or four career academies. the kids will make a choice. i am choosing my upper grades

experience. those academies than market to the kids. com change the world. within those academies, they take career electives. the actual evidence shows that the kids to do that are those that graduate with a college preparatory curriculum. they are the ones that have the absolute best output. only about 5% have that combination. >> do you engage with the business community about the careers? >> yes. you look at local labor market. >> we