hitting the bottom, they are stabilizing somewhat? do you feel like the rate of decline is slowing? >> personally, i believe we are hitting bottom. from here on, for the next year or so, it will be the bottom. my hope is that within two quarters, we will begin to start seeing very, very small revenue growth. i do think it is the worst year, but the fitness is, it is the bottom. -- but the good news is, it is it is the bottom. the job cuts did not include teachers. some are state employees, and some are not. we would have to go back and get that. as far as i know, a lot of the cuts are freezes, or not replacing employees when they

leave, and then, some layoffs. i think it is more across the board. . i think that component is going to accelerate. it is hard to say. the governors have tried to protect elementary and secondary education, but clearly they are not able to do that anymore. there will be some additional teachers, as well. scott, do you wanted add anything? >> i just want to make 1 point -- the layoffs and furloughs of local employees are determined by local governments, which can be determined by the degree of state funds that they do or do not receive. >> thank you. >> are there other questions on the telephone? >> we have questions. >> i have two questions. thank you for taking my call. i am wondering if not $23

billion that -- it spending and that $23 billion -- if spending that $23 billion could help be another bridge. could you also talk about the impact of the funding on k 12 education? so much of that was four k-12. -- for k-12. >> senator harkin had been pushing. we did not support it as an organization. we supported mainly fmap. governors were concerned about -- they get concerned about the deficit. they were reluctant to support both. and there were some concerns about the maintenance of a

efforts are round the education funding. -- of the efforts around the education funding. we continue to support a fmap, but not the education funding. -- support fmap, not the education funding. >> the bottom line -- it is more global than the issue of teachers k-12. fiscal year 2011 will be a particularly difficult year with a very tough choices. i always say you have to go or the money is. they have disproportionately cut a lot of areas of -- you have to go where the money is. they a disproportionate cut a lot of areas of state funding. -- they have a disproportionately cut a lot of areas of state funding. you are looking at a zero-sum game. we have to make some really tough choices as we look at this

next fiscal year. >> other questions on the telephone? >> go ahead. >> can you comment on state debt levels and the extent to which states entered into more debt as they have dealt with these deficits? what is the prospect -- you mentioned cuts in medicaid reimbursement rates and layoffs increasing as other options for dealing with budget shortfalls. >> my own sense is that there has clearly been somewhat of a shift. the state has the option of paying for capital straight out or bonding it. there has been a shift to do more bonding. that is out somewhat. i do not think it is up dramatically. the other thing that we worry about is pensions, because, over

the last several years, they have not been putting a lot of money into the pension trust funds. those liabilities have been growing. if we do not get some revenue growth in the next several years, that would just get to be an increasing problem. again, that is what i call that payback period. if we get the growth in revenues, i think we will be ok. otherwise, it will continue to be a problem. i do not want to say that we are -- i do not think any states are going into default or will have any magnitudes of problems. >> i really want to underline that, because a few localities are having issues a possibility -- but possibly defaulting. it is important to emphasize that the states are not looking at that year the states are fine on their debt. they have been fairly responsible -- the states are

not looking at that. this dates are fine on their debt. the a been very responsible. -- the states are fine on their debt. and they have been very responsible. for the most part, that services and investors are going to be paid. that is an exceptionally high priority, usually by constitutional law. i want to underline that back get some attention, but on the debt side, i see absolutely -- that that gets some attention, but on the debt side, i see absolutely no default happening on the state's level. >> any other final questions on the telephone? >> if you have a question please press star then one on your touch tone phone. >> ok. >> no further questions. >> thank you very much. we appreciate it.

>> thank you, ladies and abdomen. this concludes today's conference call. thank you -- ladies and gentlemen. this concludes today's conference call. thank you again. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> log on to find news, does, hearings, and congressional debates on the $787 billion stimulus. >> everyone has an agenda. as long as you know what their agenda is, as long as the facts are right, you can write about that story. >> over the past year, for brody -- year, brody mullins has written a lot of stories about the financial crisis. he is our guest on " e q&a -- on

"q&a." >> james clapper would replace dennis blair who resigned last month. he would be the fourth director since congress created the office five years ago to oversee the nation's 16 intelligence agencies. this is 10 minutes. >> i have no prior -- no higher senate -- no higher priority than the safety and security of the american people. in an world -- in the world, we must protect ourselves from threats like terrorists, weapons of mass destruction, transnational threats such as fiber-criminals -- cyber- criminials. to keep america safe, we're integrating every element of our national power -- military and economic, diplomacy and development, homeland security,

law enforcement, and intelligence. this final element, timely and accurate intelligence, is uniquely important, because it is critical to each of the others. as president, but also depend on the best available intelligence for daily decisions that i make. i depend on the director of national intelligence. dennis blair continued the extraordinary service that defined his entire career. during his tenure, our intelligence community became more integrated and agile. i will always be grateful to him for his sense of purpose and service. today, i am proud to announce my choice for the next director of national intelligence, james clapper. with four decades of service to america, jim is one of our nation's most experienced and most respected intelligence professionals. as undersecretary of defense for

intelligence, he has successfully overseeing the military and civilian intelligence personnel and budgets that make up the bulk of our 16-agency intelligence the community -- intelligence community. his improved information- sharing, improved support to our troops in iraq, and played a key role in our effort to update and reorient our intelligence community to meet the threats of our time. as director of two critical organizations -- including the defense intelligence agency -- during a distinguished career in the air force, he developed an intimate understanding of our human and technical collection programs. he possesses quality -- a quality that i value -- a willingness to tell leaders what we need to know, even if it is not what we want to hear. he's a forceful champion of his fellow intelligence professionals -- he is a

forceful champion of his fellow intelligence professionals, never forgetting what it felt like to risk his own life during the vietnam war. he will be the leader of our intelligence community. our intelligence community has made great strides since the 9/11 attacks. guided by good intelligence, we have struck major blows against the al qaeda and its terrorist affiliate's and disrupted many plots in our country which could have taken many american lives. as we saw in the failed attack over detroit, we need to do we evolve, adapt, and improve. i ordered a series of reform to strengthen intelligence this year. i will be lloking to engine to make sure we have the most capable and efficient intelligence -- to jim to make sure we have the most capable and efficient intelligent -- and efficient intelligence community we could. our national security demands it.

our intelligence community needs to work as one integrated team to produce quality, timely, and accurate intelligence. this is a difficult task, but this will be the core mission. he is eminently qualified and he has my complete confidence and support. he also understands the importance of working with our partners in congress. as he has said, not only to appear when summoned, but to seek member's advice and consent. the senate has voted to confirm him for the senior positions on four separate occasions. it has done so over mall -- overwhelmingly, each time. given his unique experience, i urge the senate to do so again as swiftly as possible. i've spoken to the appropriate senate leaders and have indicated that i expect this nomination to be completed during this workshop period. this cannot fall victim to the usual washington politics. as we go forward, my administration will continue to work with congress to ensure that jim and all our insurance

professionals have the authority and support they need to succeed. finally, let me say to the men and women across our intelligence community, most americans may never see your work, but everyone of us is safer because of your service and we are profoundly grateful. you have chosen to serve america, and now it is america's duty to back you up so you can fulfill the mission that we ask you and keep this country say. that is my promise to you as president of united states and that is what jim clapper will do as director of national intelligence. to you and your family, thank you for taking on this critical assignment. i invite you to say a few words. thank you. thank you, mr. president. i am humbled, honored, and daunted by the magnitude of the position. it is a job that cannot be done without your support and that of the congress. i intend to earn that support

from both, as well as the public, if i am confirmed for this position. we have the largest, most capable intelligence and a price on the planet. it is a sacred -- enterprise on the planet. it is a sacred trust to make it work. nominees are like my oldest grandkids -- experience is better seen than heard. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> why are there still problems integrating intelligence, sir? >> here is a look at a base in louisiana where booms are being used to absorb crude oil in an effort -- at bays in louisiana where baboons are being used to

absorb crude oil in an effort to -- where booms are being used tubes or crude oil in an effort to keep it off of the marshlands -- are being used to keep crude oil off of the marshlands. we have a response from at royal thad allen -- admiral thad allen. >> good morning, folks. i would like to talk about the operations out in the gulf with containment. i will discuss operations locally. i would like to talk about this unique facility. last week, i was given the responsibility to do the daily press briefing. i have been asked a lot of questions about why that was happening. one of the reasons is because i move around a lot.

where i go, the press follows. it gives us a chance to highlight and frame the different operations around the gulf. it is important to understand that we are in theodore, alabama, at a facility owned by a local gentleman. we're supporting patriot industries, which is an oil spill response organization, employed by british petroleum to set up a staging area and a base camp for operations all around the gulf. i want to complement everybody that is involved in this operation. everybody that is involved in this operation. 90% of the people working here are local employees. the amount of business being generated with local contractors, local hotels and facilities, it is having an

extraordinary impact on the local community. this is a really good working model and we can emulate this in other places. from here, they do training. the deployed boom equipment, repair boom equipment, ,econtaminate coily boomm, waste, and debris. almost anything for this type of operation could be supported from the based here. i would like to take the opportunity to update you -- from the base here. i want to update you. we're in the process of starting to bring hydrocarbons up from the reservoir and producing at a vessel called the discovery enterprise, which is over the wellhead now. when we first put the content cap down, it was full of tender, nitrogen gas -- of inert

nitrogen gas, to keep the water from forming hydrates, which with the problem with the first cap. when natural gas combines with water at low temperatures, that is the problem you have. they have done a couple of things to improve that. they eased pressure so they could maintain control over the oil. they are also pumping methanol down there to make sure hey do not form. they are slowly learning -- lowering the pressure. in the first full cycle, as they brought the production level up, they were able to produce 6,000 barrels of oil from the well. the goal is to continue that production and hopefully take the pressure off of the well and reduce the oil that is coming out of the vents.

i can answer any questions you may have about that. in general, the southerly winds and southwest, have taken the northern edge of the perimeter and move to close to the mississippi, alabama, and florida. we're seeing tar balls and oil patties. it is all the way from western mississippi to pensacola. it is starting to move north and slightly east. we're concerned from the mississippi and louisiana line all the way over to florida. in regards to that, we have a lot of people out doing clean-up operations on the beach, skimming off shore. i want to talk about a couple of things that will be of interest to the local community. we have a vessel opportunity system where local boatmen and boat owners can come and register their votes to do work on the water, anything from --

boats to do work on the water, anything from inspecting booms, observing oil concentration, anything that will help our response. yesterday, we had a total of 443 vessels of opportunity working around alabama. i want to give you a sense of where they were at. daulphins out of island. 23 vessels from fairhope. we're trying to optimize the local knowledge, expertise, and talent. i would also like to talk about are qualified community and responder program -- our qualified community responder program. what we're trying to do is find unemployed individuals that

would like to seek training and get involved in this response. the goal is to train over 4000 people across these states, 1500 in alabama, 1500 in mississippi, 1500 in florida. we have trained 2700 individuals and they are ready to deploy. 898 in alabama, 1500 in mississippi, and 344 in florida. there are 1900 individuals scheduled for training. the types of tasks today are involved include carrying in handling the material and supplies, shovelling debris, removing the debris from beaches, operating power washers to clean rocks and beach areas, washing oil-covered items, and removing other trash and debris. safety is a primary concern. we make sure they go through basic training for whaa they are doing and for exposure to potential materials they will come in contact with. the majority of the training for this area it is done here.

it is far beyond a logistic site and a staging area for boom, but also a dispatching and processing point for personnel who received their training, certification, and credentials to be deployed elsewhere in the area. the operation here is one of the best i have encountered. i commend everybody here for the job they are doing and the way they are doing it. the community has come to get a to help us optimize this response for the folks in aaabama -- have come together to help us optimize this response for the folks in alabama. >> and what are your plans to speak with the governor today? he is not very happy. what happened, happened. what are your plans? >> i am here to look at this operation. i will do it and overflight to look of all of our areas. i will meet with the governor later today. we will talk about whatever issues he has appeared that is

at the direction of the president. >> that is -- whenever issues he has. that is at the direction of the president. -- whatever issues he house. that is at the direction of the president. -- he has. that is at the direction of the president. >> can you boom the beaches? >> you can. there is tension between where to boom and where to protect. the state identified areas to protect, where there is a lot of juvenile water life. the hardest place to pick up oil is in the marsh or the wetland. the easiest place is on the sandy beach.

it is much easier to recover and remove. the best and is to do it on the water. if we have to do it on land, it is easier to do it on the beach, that in the marshland. >> they say -- [inaudible] >> there have been some anecdotal reports of underwater oil booms. the administrator of noaa has put together a large area sampling plan to form a consortium with universities in the area to get data from different areas and test the hydrocarbons in the water at different depths. it is being done right now within a five and 10 mile radius of the oil platforms and a place for the recovery is going on. those vessels are returning to port. others are going out.

i do not want to put a timeline on it, but they will be putting together a profile based on all of that data so we can understand the picture for the entire gulf area and what kind of hydrocarbons are present and where they come up. they will have a general model. >> any more questions from the room? working? >> yes, with a couple of caveat. we put it down and there were four vents -- of caveats. we put it down and there were four vents. when the water gets in, it forms hydrates predict are increasing production up the well bore -- hydrates. bay are increasing production up the well bore -- they are

increasing production up the wellbore. they will slowly start turning off those vents when they are sure they do not have see water coming in. because we do not have a perfect -- sea water coming in. because we do not have a perfect cap, we're trying to minimize the amount of leakage. we want to go into full production, because we cannot accommodate all of the pressure. we have to get a full-rate production before we know what ii going on with any chronic leakage that we may see all around the rubber gasket. we have dispersant to try to disperse the oil at the source and not have to deal with it on the surface. we're continuing mechanical

skimming and in situ burning. we're trying to limit the use of dispersants. we have reached the 1 million gallons threshold on the dispersants. it is preferable to use the dispersant rather than have the oil, because the toxicity is much less, but there are toxic impact of the dispersant. we're trying to focus back on the subsea area. >> president obama has ordered the coast guard to get them anything they need. >> i am here to get a complete briefing on the people, the boom, and i will meet with the governor to get and give answers. >> we will now go to questions from the phone line.

>> [inaudible] your first question.. >> [inaudible] >> we will repeat the question. >> i am not sure -- i am using the handset. he asked about, once we understand the full-production rate and what is being discharged that is not been recovered, will we make that public? the answer is, of course we will. we have a flow rate backing up with the revised estimate a while back.

that estimate was between 12,000 and 25,000 barrels per day. what we're going to do is, once we establish the full-rate production, we will try to understand the oil that was released and we have to cut the pipe to contain cap in place. we will make that estimate available to the public and be completely transparent. >> next question? -- transparent. next question? operator? the answer was protection and flow rate from the ship. we will make that public- -- production and flow rate from

the ship. we will make that public. let's see if we can get a better line here. >> operator, next question. >> are all the vents still open? if so, why? >> they remain open. they will remain open until they can stabilize the pressure and the rate of production. they will make adjustments to the systems to make sure they do not increase the production rate until it is safe to do so. we will announce that when we know. >> next question. >> thank you for having this presser. there has been confusion about the estimate range for the amount of oil that is flowing. the rate of 12,000 to 19,000,

that is the lower, and there is no higher. can you clear that up? >> i would be happy to. they were conducted by two groups and tv zero different models. belo and is the same on both models -- and two different models. the low and it is the same on both models. -- the low end is the same on both models. we hope to move those into a morass of the walrus indentation of what is whatis -- a more acceptable idea of what is flowing. >> your next question.

from "the los angeles times." >> if the vents remain open --is it safe to say we have not really come that far since we heard about this 24 hours ago? i am wondering how successful can we say this has been so far. it seems like we have only seen a 6000 gallons -- seen 6000 gallons taken up and the vents are still open. has the flow decreased that anybody can detect. >detect?

>> 6000 gallons yesterday. the goal is to reach maximum production at a floating production vessel overhead. then, we can slowly close off the ball is. it will happen based on the po -- close off the valves. it will be based on the flow rates. next question. >> the associated press. >> when you are talking about the conditions, what sort of conditions do you need to see before you start to close those? is it just a matter of increasing the oil? >> that is a concern. we want to take as much pressure coming from the well bore as possible and put it into production. once you optimize that, there is a smaller chance that whatever

oil cannot be accommodated will go down and out of the rubber seals. that will be residual leakage that we have to manage over the long term. they are trying to get this right and they do not want to disturb any factors that might disrupt it. they will move forward. if that is confusing, there need to be conditions based on the flow-rate they achieved. they want the most pressure taken out of that production as they can. next question. xt question from "the sun herald." >> what is the worst-case scenario now? >> the question is, what is the worst-case scenario?

that would be to not contained the flow. the first relief well as about 7000-feet below the sea floor, but they need to achieve 16,000 to 18,000 feet to intercept the well. they need to reduce the pressure, to where they can put a cement plug in to kill the well. i would call this the bottom kill. the pressure has to be taken off. the well has to be plugged. the worst case would be that the discharge related to what we can not contain goes forward until we have those relief wells -- that we cannot contain goes forward until we have those relief wells drilled in august.

>> last question. >> i am from the "times picayune." based on the estimate, it could be from half the oil, or it could be a quarter. am i interpreting that right? are there caveats? it was more than 100 barrels -- 211000 barrels. >> i said it would change throughout the day and will continue to change your at that point, they had captured 1,000 barrels -- and will continue to change. at that point, they had captured 1,000 barrels.

they start at the low rate and go to the higher rate. the couple -- the ultimate capacity is 15,000 barrels per day, the upper limit of what they could achieve with their production capabilities. we want to push it to the limits and that is what they are trying to do. >> thank you. >> bp has been providing twice daily updates on the containment and they have committed to providing an update every morning on the actual rate of production from the contain method. you'll get that from them in the morning. >> thank you, folks. >> you may now disconnect. >> now, the former president of shell oil company on the gulf of mexico oil spill and his latest book "why we hate the oil

companies." it is 35 minutes. rformance of british petroleum to date? >> if you look at the blow out itself, that is unacceptable, just unacceptable in the operations of the gulf of mexico or anywhere in the world. we have to find out what actually happened. with respect to addressing the fl itself at t bottom of the sea, they are doing as well as anyone can d it is frustrating. it is slow. it does not work all e time. guest: the best minds ithe world are working on addressing the flow. the relief well that is being drilled at 13,000 feet on its way to 18,000 feet is making progress. it is ow with respect to the cleanup above the surface, i'd rate it and f.

we are using traditional booming and skimming and burning and it doesn' work. there is a lot of oil out there. why we are not something that oil out of the sea using barges ith big paunch, using supertankers with very large pumps goinck and forth across the ocean -- get the oil off the service and it does not come into the marshes and onto the beaches. we could pua whole lot of capita and equipment to work that ware not doing. that needs to change. >> when you were president with shell oil, -- host: when you were president of shell o, is that h you would do it? guest: you have to make decisns relative to what the situation requires. from the beginning, this was going to be a big flow of oil r a vy long time. the fact that we did not change thparadigm from the traditional method of cleaning up oil in retrospect is a

mistake andvery daye do not address suckinghe oil out of the sea, we compound the mistake. host: how you gauge the political reaction to what happened and the post-leak and how it is being cleaned up? guest: the political reaction has gone in different phases. the administration wantedo distance itself from the events initially. this is not a pleasant thing to be associated with. as it got worse and worse, the administration realized it had to get involved. congress was pushing it. members of the public were pushing it. various environmental groups are pushing it so it had to get hands-on and operate is not a nice thing to be involved in. that is the way it is. i think is a different kind of distancing of the paper -- of dp. bp is the bone in the doberman's mouth.

bp is in a bad patch. it is a good company but they are in bad patch. i am still curious why this blowout in t first place. after four years of successful gulf of mexico drilling, afr more than 2200 deep water wells successfully drilled with that issue, 35,000 wells in total in the gulf of mexico, why this? what happened there? something happened on that rig involving people. host: john hofweimeister is our guest. the president was in louisiana yesterday and talked about the role ofritish petroleum to date. listen to his statements. >> i don't have a problem with bp fulfilling its legal obligations.

i want the key to be clear that they have a moral and legal obligations. what i don't want to hear is spending money on shareholders' and not --nd spend money on tv advertising but not on the cleanup. we have assigned seral folks to look ov the shoulders of bp and rk with state and local officials nd make sure that claims are being processed quickly and bp is noa ey say they wanto make it right. we want them to make it right. host: i want to add that we have li for those in the gulf coast of you want to get your perspective.

guest: you have to look at th different pieces he is talking about for the dividend to shareholders is a commitment the company has made. bp is fully aware of their social responsibilitshare. -- responsibility here. the president is right to be the moral compass for the american pele. i don't think there is any doubt, but he is reminding that there will be no doubt. i think that as a pierre statement. with respect to the cash that bp has on hand, ey can pay dividends and pay the bills associated with this debacle it will be expensiv thisyear and over several years. bp is a companyhat has many good assets and the production of around the wor. i am not worried about their ability to pay, frankly.

with respect to the pr campaign, i am not a fan of multimillion-dollar campaign because you are just window dressing. from a corporate communications standpoint, i believe in face- to-face realeople with other real people. when i was president of shell, i took 250 schultze manags to 50 cities across th natio to talk about gas prices and exain the high gas prices and what was going on for the kind of vacation matters. you put a human fce on it and several people talking to real people, you can see the images on tv and they dilute themselves. with respect to taking care of clai, that is a serious issue. bp is setting up an infrastructure to do that as effectively as they can. the president mentioned a lawyering up.

if eric holder is visiting the lf of mexico to talk about criminal investigations, you can be sure that they are a lawyering up. i think that stifles the communications wn you are prosecuting a camper -- iminal case. people will not say anything. there is this matter of responsibility that bp has. i am not in any way letting them off the hook. i think the lawyering up is inevitable in our society. host: o guest wrote this book. bethesda, maryland, you are on our democrats line, good morning. caller: good morning to both. i am just really any and frustrat. this is really over the daggone

top. it is all over the internet and in the newspapers and magazines. the bush administration, yes, the bush administration, dick chey was handling everything and he was president and bush did not even get itrong. i am here to say tat i feel deeply -- i have people down ere and i feel deeply. this is more than a travesty. there were meetings going on back in 2004-2005 and maybe beyond and since then that the bush administration asked for a cut up about. it would cost $500,000. other countries have it. this stupid administration, is ignorant admintrion did t want to spend $500,000.

i will tell you something else and this is my personal opinion and i don't care who likes it or who don' -- i believe it w done on purpose to hurt obama. i think they want this to be obama's katrina. this is the most demonic administration. the republican party -- there should never be another republican party. guest: the caller is expressin her frustration as are millions of other americans right now this is a horrible, horrible situation. with rpect to the key point of what kind of redunncy can be but intosub-sea sts, the more redundancy we have, the better off we are. with respect tohe particular acoustics which she is referring to, there are different parts of e world that do usethat switch.

there is no evidence that it has en a foundation any particular blowout. blowouts' don't happen often. that is no excuse for having all the redundancy you can. that is an enormous debt. the oustics which is on the top of the ocean sending signals down 5,000 feet. you have to wonder how fective it is the question is whether it will work the problem with is blowout is it would appear that no matter what happened, no matter how much redundancy, it looks like a blowout protector was compromised by eitr engineering changes or an accident that occurred bere the blowouthen the rubber seal was found in the drilling. that should have prompted someoneo shut this project wn. you do not take chances wit

your blowout protector. if we find out that this ws compromised, all the redundant switch is in the world will not make a difference. host: you talk about wondering how this happened in the first place. could this go back to the relationship that oil companies have with the mineral management service? guest: there have been many labels pace of betwe the mineral management service and the oil industry. they have been cy and buying gifts and sending people to sporting events and so forth. i can only speak fromy personal experiee. i never saw that and never experienced that. throughout my company, this would have been the wrong thing to do becse throughout the company, there is a compliance mindset where the government has its job to do and its regulations and procedures. shell, a former company, had its job to do. the government is not your

friend. have been teaching that for every part the gornment has a job to do. they are your regulator. i had a cover -- conversation with governor palin when she first became governor of alaska and i talked to her about future oil development in askand to look in the eye a said," do you know who runs the oil industry in this state?" i said i think you do. said, "you are right, we will get along just fine." you need a permit granted. is not incumbent on the company to force the government to meet its terms. that is de wrong. i did not see the cozy retionship ift;/ú existed, it was wrong. not be that way. host: savannah, ga., on our indendent line. caller: is only a matter of time before this is off the shores of

savannah. we are watching and the oil is coming our way it has hit pensacola and it will get to savannah and go up the east coast. can to call the president and give him some great ids on what to do? why can't somebody that has great ideas show up and get the federal goverent to do the right ing. bp does not know what to do. bp, shell, chevron, exxon, but then come together and do what is right. work together for the good of the people. you only need to t together for this one time. you al have the money. we don't have the money so we are watching. there should be some skimming done se work. ere should be boats out there. why hen't other companies owed up with their boats? eventuall this will affect all

us, not just the gulf coast, not just the ct of savannah. it will gup and eventually it will have ever won financially. guest: the point is very clear. there is skimming taking place but it is wh small shrimp boats. they are not designed to do is pretend with that they are missing a lot of the oil. my view is that we have to have a major operation. it is sucking it out of the water. you put rges, lines of barges that protect the shoreline or the marshes. the need to suck that oiout and putt in the barge and parate the water andlean water and put it back the city. the needo cart the oil off to a refinery where it can be incinerated. thats called second salvage. using supertankers' is the same

thing. i had conversations with bp a few weeks ago and i have been in communication with the coast guard. the coast guard is looking at it seriously. i am hoping that will make them come to a decision quickly. i am keeping the pressure on from where i said. i am a retired president. i have only so much standing. i could use my own voice and influee and i think it's a measure of success but maker at whatever level of government. whether it is the president or congress or the pea someone has to say do it. host: does the u.s. have a legal obligation to honor permits for offshore drilling? guest: the government is the grande of the pmit and a taker of the permit. if the government deems that the perm should no longer be valid. does the government controlling the operation from the beginni to the de-commissioning of a

platform. fits within the procedures under the mineral management service or bureau of land management within the department of interior. host: theext call is from the republican line. caller: i think the operation is awfully sl cleaning up. everybody is saying what a disaster it is. if you think about all the disasters that came with thsands of people getting killed on our highways and airplanes crashing, it's just an accident that happened and we have to fure out how not to let it happen again and keep going forward. that is mcomment, thank you. guest: that is a good point and keep in mind that we are, whether we likit or not and we will continue to be wheer we like it orot, a hydrocarbon-

based economy. ydrocarbon's carry risks ether it is a coal mine or oil well or gas well. there are risks associated. as a society, we have for 100 years committed our economy and economic lifestyle choices to a high corbet haysbert we can move away from it for the president is trying to move aw from it. we should remi people that this is not a fast journey to a different energy system. it is a 50-year process at best. it extends longer an that, actually. we have coal plants in this country that have been operating for 75 years. bain de be nearing the end of eir lives. -- baby nearing the end of their lives -- they may be nearing the end of their lives.

most comers in the united states depends on the diesel engine and a turban and in person th clothes we wear, the food we eat, the materials that build our house, these are all carried by diesel trucks or by marine turbans or air turbines. they only run on oil. we cannot shut down 94% of the american economy because we have this aversion to oil. we have to learn how to do it safely. host: someone asked if the oil spill proves thadeep sea drilling should be banned? guest: is risky. we have to ask why are the oil companies in the deep water to begin with. how come we are asking those companies to take that risk for are the companies inviting emselves to take that risk? the oil companies are in the deep water because it is where they are allowed t go because they are not allowed to go in allow water except the gulf

of mexico on the western side. they are not allowed in the shallow water on the eastern side of the gulf of mexico. they are not all in shallow water off the west coast or the east coast or off the coast of alaska. that is prohibited. because there is this increble demand for oil, 20 million barrels per day which is 10,000 gallons per second, the needor oil unless you want to import all of it which changes the risk to another part of the world, if we want to importll of it, we could accept we're completely dependent upon her resources. all the jobs would go way and hundreds of thousands of high- payingobs go away and we are saying we don't have t courage to develop the safety to develop our own resources. i think that is a mistake. host: plea contrast safety practices in thegulf with around the world. guest: u would have to look at each individual company and theistandard.

you have toook the government requirements. in my experience, the major oil companies, the ones thathave global reputations, follow the same standards all over the world. they will target the tightest standards, the most extensive standards because they have a reputation to uphold. whether it is west africa or brazil or russia or the united states, one standard is applied by the major oil companies. host: what about dealing with the different governments, doesn't that change it? guest: you have to flow the laws of that country, but within the safety and health environmental consideraons, governments generally, if you want to go > the if you want to go greater than the national standard, they are not going to stop you. some of those local oil companies may adhere to a lesser

standard. host: deer park, washington. joshua. caller: i have two points. we have delusion. the federal government spends trillions of dollars to give us the illusion that they can handle anything instantly and now we have proven that the dilution between the internet and is that they cannot -- the delusion between katrina and this, that they cannot. on the second day of this crisis, i called gentlemen like you into my office to say, we have a crisis, what do we do? my third question is, why do you have a malfunction calling british petroleum and british petroleum? it is not british petroleum. they are not a bugaboo.

we have federal agencies who cannot do anything about anything. we have a president who wants to sell used cars and have lawsuits while we are still being oil. we have a system that will not tell us who bp is -- british petroleum. thank you. guest: with respect to british petroleum -- we will start back ward. shell is this, exxon is that. it is more of a convenience of speech. british petroleum is the name of the company. with respect to the government's ability to operate, this is a very serious issue for this government. . government is designed basically to govern, rule, regulation.

when the bureaucracy gets built and they checked the requirementsf the bureaucracy, it is anything but efficienor effective. operational management and execution do not seem to be high requirements of the manner in which government operates. the customer service, the customer focus of government -- i lived through katrina. it wasn't on medicated government debacle. it was because of the inality or unwillingness of people to make decions i real time affecting real people's lives here and now. it was horrific. i lived through hurricane ike which came into galveston four years after katrina. it was the same debacle. there is an inability to make decision the american people have a right

to expect more. their tax money is being paid and holding elected officials accountable to do something about getting performae management built into government practices is an absolute necessity if we are going to have this large a gnment that we now have and continue to pay for it, the thought that there is not a performance nagement standard which results in better performance by government officials and the conduct of their work, i think the american people are otherwise being taken for a ride. host: is there a role for congressional gislation offering more regulation to make sure things le this do not happen in the first ple? guest: yes, government has the responsibility to govern in t interest of the whole society, not in the interest of an industry or in the interest of an environment group, not in the interest of a certain interest group of other types. they have to look at the entirety of society.

they have to find the most effective, best safety and regulatory regime for the oil industry to continue operating is an imperative. for 40 years, the gulf of mexico did not have an incident like this. the regulation seemed to be working. was this somebody whmade a collective series of bad decions? maybe the regulation would not have changed it anyway. hen you are doing operational things that need to be done, a person making bad calls like an umpire who ruins a pitcher's perfect game may bed call, those things happen. we ha to understand the human factors involved. we could get into aase of over-regulating where over-

regulation means no onets to do any drilling. they would go elsewhere around the world. we a not -- we were not be producing our own -- we would not be producing our own oil. the esident said we have to find the right methodology and we have to find the right formula to me this work because we have to keep drilling in ts country. host: fla., rpublican line, go ahead. caller: finally, please don't cut me off. i have a rift with the cspan people there. wout here kno this. i watch c-span all the time. we have a discussion with the republicans are on top. instead of calling a republican first, you always calling a democrat and an independent and another democrat and finally,

you get down to a republican column. you always start with democrats. "2w[and independence and thefunl republicans. give us a chance out here. i n't know why this is. that is my thing with you all. i have been holding on for the longest current. oil is a natural resource. please, mr. hoñ&fmeister, commet on the environmentalists' role in this spirit we have been stifled from making progress in this nation because of the so- called environmentalist was trying to protect what god has given us, natural resources. we should be drilling. we should address for oil and we should grow closer to the sre. there is lots and lots of oil for us to have.

we need oil. please speak to what the environmentalists has done to mess up this country guest: it is a controvsial point. in my judgment, some of the best environmentalists we have in this country actually work for oil companies. they advise and counsel oil companies on the risks that they are taking relative to the biosphere inwhich they operate. they are professionals. they are scientists. they a committed. where we get into difficult challenges -- host: they are committed to the company first? est: they could go anywhere -pbut ty believe they are being honored and respected. when environmentism moves from protecting the by a spear into ideology and we get a political eology driving bavior of certain environmenta groups, that kind of ideology is

phallenging many diffent aspects of the way america operat. is it truly science or is it just an attempt to be a barrier to what they don't like? the image of polar bears -- the question of should there be arctic drilling and the notion of t polar bears being threatened. the polar bear pulation ishe largest it has been in this country since polar bears began making a comebacin the 1950's. polar bears are vy dangerous beast and the eskimos, the inuit people of the arctic region are worried about that population because people died when polar bears attack them. i am not suggesting for a momt that we should not protect polar )qbearsnd their habitat. thehave a right to exist a well to shut down all arctic drilling and deny the american people in natural resource that

could come from the arctic because ofllegations that threaten the polar bear popution. i think that is an extreme ideological practice rather than what is in the interest of the american economy. host: this is off of twitr -- is bp incompetent? could a different oil company perform better? are there other oil companies interested in this l to fix it? guest: all the companies are involved in advising and providing human-resources to bp in their crisis center. the best minds of the industry are there. bp is not an incumbent, but agreed whether they have an individualr two or more that are not up to th task, that obably exists in all companies. ether this happened in this insnce happened -- ey

producer 3 billion ls -- barrels of oil peray as to exxon and shell and chevron and ical philips are behind them. -- and, "phillips are behind -- andconoco-philli a right behind them bac. caller: mr. hofmeister, that is the first time i mention i -- i heard anybody mention the $500,000 val that works around the world. why are they not vacuuming that stuff up?

they have these big suction pipe that vacuum the sand away an you can use the same thing for suctioning the oil. that is the first time i've heard that mentioned why aren't they doing this? why aren't they doing intellint things to suck up the oil rather than spreading disbursement which is creating another hazard. they should have shut that thing down immediately and this would not have happened. a lot of things have been done wrong in this country since president reagan began his massive deregulation. he had alzheimer's disease. nobody in t u.s. kneabout that.

he was tied to the oil industry. guest: the sock and salvage method is a better step forward. at is a paradigm change for this country tt has not been used. getting people out of their comfort zone in wa they look at this and think about this, you have tpush them. the president or a cabinet officer or commander or ceo of bp has to make it happen. host: from twier -- what percentage of the u.s. oil use it come from domestic drilling and is it worth the risk? guest: we use about 1/3 of our oil from domestic resources. when president nixon was president in 1973, he utted two words, "energy independence."

before that, we were importing 1/3 of our oil. eight presents later and 18 congresses later, allf poem have run for elected office on energy independence, we are now importing 2/3 of our oil. 80% of the cntinental shelf is off-limits for drilling. shallow water drilling is so chess risky tan deeater drilling that i think if we want energyecurity and to ptect our national security and produce our own domestic resources and create hundreds -- millions of more jobs, frankly, exploiting our own natural resources and developing our own econo, we can do that, but it means you would see oil rigs from the beach. you can still swim because oil rigs, all the texas beaches,

>> tomorrow, on "washington journal", a discussion on the gulf drilling. also, the prospect of several cities defaulting on their debt. the government's senior director of the audubon society. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. o'clock eastern here, on c-span. now, a look at a beach in grand isle, louisiana where you can see tar balls. you can see other damage from the oil spill. according to the associated press, bp is having some success tried to slow the flow of oil into the gulf of mexico. it is captioned about two thousand gallons of oil.

later tonight, we'll show you the clean-up and admiral thad allen. that is set o'clock p.m. eastern. -- 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> next, new findings on how black and white students fare by job searches when there are out of school, and then it discussion of the future of u.s. education. later, weekly addresses with president obama and the republican national committee chairman. >> new british prime minister and conservative party leader, david cameron, fields questions in his first prime minister's

questions, sunday night at 9:00 on c-span. >> according to an institute study, african american study which african-american high school graduates take 25% longer than winston's to find a job. this is about 90 minutes. >> good afternoon. i'm margaret simms, and i would like to welcome those in the conference room and others participating via the web. this forum is entitled, "pounding the pavement, hitting the books, the black-white to divide after a high-school." the discussion this afternoon will focus on racial differences and the transition to adulthood with the emphasis on differenccs in post secondary education and employment.

if you are paying attention to the unemployment statistics issued by the bureau of labor statistics, you would know that the unemployment rate for teenagers and young adults is higher and that is far more established workers -- i year than it is for more established workers, and the rate for african-americans is higher than it is for whites. 418-to-19-year-old, the average and implement rate was 44%, compared to 25% for whites. for young people between the ages of 20 to 24, the rates were 28% and 15%, respectively. while the rates were lower for the older groups, the 20-to-24- year-olds, the racial gap is larger. these racial differential are not just products of the recession they have been fairly consistent over time. the date that we will be presenting today concerns young people -- data we will be presenting today concerns young people entering the labor market between 1999 and 2005, a period when the rates were considerably lower for both

groups that they are today. but even then, the gaps were quite high. the unemployment rate for african-americans was overpriced those for white counterparts. -- over twice those for white counterparts. we will examine possible explanations for these differences and solutions for the gap. we have four panelists, and i will introduce them in the order in which they will speak. our first speaker will be marla mcdaniel, a research associate with the urban institute center on labor, human services, and population. her research focuses on family resources, social policy on race and the influence on the child's health and well-being. before she was a researcher, she was a case manager for foster used in chicago. our second speaker will be harry holzer, a professor of

public policy at georgetown university and an institute fellow at the urban institute. he is a former chief economist for the u.s. department of labor, and co-author of "reconnecting disadvantaged young men." our third speaker will be the director of youth policy at center for law and social policy. she has experienced any research and demonstration at the state -- experience in research and administration at the state and national and local level. our fourth speaker, who i am sure will be here shortly, is william spriggs, who became the assistant secretary for policy at the u.s. department of labor in october of 2009.

prior to that, he was the chair of the howard university department of economics. he has experience on the hill and other government agencies over the years. so i will turn to marla. >> today i will describe the findings from recent analyses that show significant racial differences and how long it takes african-americans compared to white youth to connect to school or work as they are transitioning into adulthood. i compare black and white high- school graduates and high- school dropouts. by way of introduction, i want to first say that i am not an economist, and my background is in human development. as such, the questions related to employment in a little bit differently than some -- i look at questions related to implement a little bit differently than some economists might.

the transition to adulthood is generally considered to be the time between age 18 and 24 .this is up to a lowly important phase, because it is characterized by many role changes -- this is a particularly important phase, because it is characterized by many world changes. -- role changes. some are maintaining our household and are expected to support and care for those and others. there is of value in understanding what the work and school patterns are during this phase of life. first, engagement in work and school can impact later employment, and future earnings, and job experience. if you cannot -- if you are not connecting early on, this can impact how well you connect later on. second, there can be negative consequences for not connecting early on, initially. you may have a harder time

getting and staying connected. these in turn, affec -- can affect the use themselves and others -- loved ones, family members, children. lastly, understanding patterns of employment and schooling and how they differ by race is useful for designing effective policies to address these disparities. in my six-to-8minutes, i would like to describe findings that my colleague and i conducted. -- findings from a study that my colleague and i connected with that jolo from the 818 does it take -- we looked at how long does it take a youth at the age of 18 to find employment. the six months is not particularly special. it is our way of characterizing

-- a way of characterizing stable employment. we could have used a year's time, but we selected six months time, in order to pick up a more youth, given that we are looking at about a six-year window between 18 and 24. so wanted to know how long it would take to atttin six consecutive months of full-time employment. we also wanted to look at how long it would take for you to connect to either school or work. it is not uncommon for youth to forgo full-time employment right around age 18 and instead participate in school or work part-time. we want to know how long it would take for any connection to school or work. at the data comes from a national sample of youths who were interviewed every year beginning in 1997 until 2005, when the youth were between the ages of 21 and 24. the survey asked many questions

about work and school and other topics. at age 18, as margaret was pointed out, these youth -- at age 18, it was 1999 to 2002, so it was not the current recession we are experiencing. you might speculate that the disparities i will be pointing out are probably worse now, as margaret also pointed out. why the focus on black-white differences? generally, the legacy of disparity between blacks and whites -- there has been this long legacy. tracking the shifts and the

growth and a narrowing of these disparities is ought way in which we have been able -- it is a barometer for understanding how far we have, or how far we have yet to come. how big is the divide? we first looked at full time employment. the median length of time it takes for -- it took four used in this sample to attain full time, steady employment for at least six months was about 1.5 years. and this was the median for black graduates, white graduates, and also white dropouts. it was about the same. by age 19.5, on average, use were engaged in study -- youth were engaged and study our full-time employment. the median time for black drop out was 2.5 years, nearly twice as long. they on average turned 20 before they were working steadily full-time. what does this mean? you have two youth who grew up

in this endeavor, and same family income, parents have the same ups -- grew up in the same neighborhood, that same family income, parents have the same situation, similar academic scores, we found that the black dropout takes nearly twice as long to obtain full time, steady employment. that we cannot explain with the measures that often account for disparity. we could not explain this a racial difference. i will talk a little bit more about this gap later. on a positive note, i don't not want to gloss over the fact we did not find significantly -- statistically significant differences among high-school graduates. our next outcome, we looked at the time it took african- american and white youth to connect to school or work. when we look at the measure of

connectedness, we based the definition -- be relaxed the definition on work. we no longer require them to work full time but we accepted part time, any number of hours, or were in school. our findings are ttat high school graduates, regardless of race, connect nearly immediately from the time they turn 18. for both black and white youth, it is around one month. since turning 18, it takes about one month on average to be connected to either school or work. the findings for high-school dropouts, regardless of race, or a little bit longer. for white to dropouts, it takes to, on average, be connected to- school or work. for black dropouts, it was 5.5 months.

nearly half a year. what does that mean? as before, you have two youths who are virtually identical on all the measures that we used. the black dropouts are nearly 80% -- take nearly 83% longer to get connected to school or work. these are not measures that are often used to measure racial disparities. i will address it a little but briefly now, but the panelists will be addressing what could be contributing to this racial gap. i would like to leave you with three take away points. 0.1 -- if you remember nothing

else from what i am saying, you can remember that black dropouts fare worse. they took longer to obtain steady full-time employment, they took longer to connect to either school or work after age 18. what can explain this? disparities could be caused by employer decisions. it is not individual characteristics -- if it is not what the youth are bringing to the table up to age 18, perhaps we need to look at the employer side, what could be affecting the disparities that we see. second, there could be differences and the types of social and community networks that are surrounding the youth around this time. perhaps black dropouts in particular have fewer networks to drop from to get connected to a school, -- to draw from to get them connected to school or work. point two, a black high-school graduates should note

significant events in the amount of time it took for them to obtain -- showed no significant difference in the amount of time it took for them to obtain full time, steady employment. white rats did not have the long gap in the time it took to -- white dropouts did not have the long gap in the time it took to obtain full time, a steady employment. last point, bear in mind that this is happening during a broader transition into adulthood, and how this can affect the stability of the transition into adulthood. less initial connections can affect future earnings and job prospects and even housing and family stability. thank you. >> thank you, margaret. marla has generated interest in an informative results. what i thought i would do is briefly summarize how i feel about the results and how to

interest them, and talk about all that means for policy. very simply, when i look at marla's results, what i see is that there is a race effect. blacks are disadvantaged relative to whites both in schooling and the labor market. there is a big i spoke right to a defect for whites as well as blacks. -- there is a big of high-school graduate effect for whites as well as blacks. being a black drop out in america it is very problematic. your options and both -- your options in both worlds is very limited. just the fact we explain it does not mean it goes away. some of them cannot explain statistic in a herd data, but perhaps because the other -- perhaps we can do other research and look at what is going on. a couple of things i want to

point out that are consistent with marla's findings that she did not mention -- if you are a black male high-school dropout, there is the very high likelihood he will end up in prison. it is a stunning, a shocking statistic that we continue to live with in america. the other thing is that blacks continue to drop out at much higher rates than whites. that does not show up in mola's data, because she stratifies the sample, but that is a big factor, too. different did it tell you very different things. the number is, i believe, show you that dropout rates among whites is about 20%, which is way too high, but among blacks, it is closer to 1/3, which is shocking and quite upsetting. both of those numbers need to

be brought weight down. how do we explain what is going on? some of them are buried in marla's results. some of this is obviously about the achievement gap. i will not talk about the achievement gap today, because it gets a lot of press it is a very important issue, but it gets a lot of press elsewhere. what accounts for some other differences, especially in the labor market? like marlowe, i think about this natural tendency for labor, the demand side and the supply side. the demand side is the employers, the behavior and the perception of the employers, whether they are accurate or not, the sectors of the economy into which they are hiring, and the skills and attributes they are looking for. the skills and other job seeking and implement behavior as they bring. there is no question that there is still discrimination in the labor market. in a lot of it stays, we sent out matched pairs of black- white testers and all of them show that there is still discrimination out there. i think some of is what

economists call statistical discrimination, not necessarily based on racial attitudes but not having good information about the attributes of individual job applicants when people don't have that kind of information, they are likely to fall back on stereotypes and the worst fears come as many employers do. that has implications for policy. but i also think there are large gaps in a whole range of skills, job readiness, that employers perceive between brought out that high school graduates and maybe between blacks and whites -- between dropouts and high-school graduates and maybe between blacks and whites. at young ages, blacks start to fall behind with previous work experience, and that sends a negative signal to employers as well but job readiness and whether they make good investments. marla talked about gaps in

employment at networks. a lot of high-school dropouts, especially black high-school dropouts, have many fewer contacts and much less information about the labor market and receive less opportunity for success. when they don't perceive opportunity, they are more likely to disconnect from school at early ages. this has behavioral consequences. very early on, people develop problems with the law and are ultimately incarcerated, engage in -- become unwed parents, and the whole child support system kicks in. the behavior of young people what they lose hope of success, as well as how they are treated by our political and social systems. all of these jobs are low-wage jobs. marla doesn't focus on the wages. even the most advantaged group in this data, white high-school graduates are going to face a

future of very low-wage jobs. motivation, for a lot of these young people, even the white high-school graduates, to seek employment and keep it is very limited. that might be accounted for. what does this say about policy? i will paint some broad goals for policy. i am sure linda and bill will have a lot to say about how we achieve those. it is important to prevent continued high rates of high school dropouts and effectively reconnect those who do ddop out. we want to bring down those numbers. it is about more than getting people ged's. it is about having real high

school diplomas. once we keep people in high school, i think we need to have much more effective pathways. we know how to do some of that. we have some good evidence on the ability of high-quality careers in technical education. i emphasize high-quality. i am talking about career academies. tech preparation. apprenticeship programs that involve strong programs so that people maintain the option of getting good post-secondary. i have talked about extra efforts once they get the post- secondary. we have to improve the retention and completion rate. the dropout rate is enormous. we are starting develop evidence on how to do that.

in the labor market, there are things we can do as well. we are developing evidence on effected sectorial training programs, effective career path away programs. it involves combinations of training and labour market experience. it involves the employer as well. it is important to pay some attention to the quality of the sectors and the wages offered, all of which will motivate people to get and keep those jobs at a higher level. finally, dealing with the race issues, we can strengthen the eo. enforcement activity -- if we can provide more information on the quality of people, better measures of what they know and

what they have done, that might be a better way from preventing -- of preventing discrimination. all of the correlations -- becoming on what parents -- unwed parents, we need to reduce some of those barriers. there will also be people that have low-wage jobs. we need to enhance those jobs. we have successful models like the earned income tax credit. i think we need to extend that to child thus -- childless adults and improve their incentive to remain connected, and perform in those chaps.

i will stop here and talk more about other issues. >> thank you harry. linda. >> i will pick up on several of the themes that harry has introduced. i started my career more than 25 years ago. i started in baltimore. i went on to direct the mayor's office of the employer development. we had a heavy emphasis in dropout prevention and youth recovery. longevity -- i mean, i was involved in the implementation of everything from the huge entitlement program, all the comprehensive saturation models that the department of labor had. i was there for the use entitlement programs in 1978. -- for the youth entitlement

program in 1978. these were at department of labor funded efforts to actually begin to address the problem. i then participated as a coach with the launch of the youth opportunity program, helping other communities with the systemic comprehensive reform. now, i do the national policy work. that is not to pat myself on the back. we have known for two decades the kinds of things that would work in terms of putting young men of color and disconnected use back on track. there has been researched. there is a lot of innovation

about what it takes so that this does not have to continue to happen. what we are lacking is political and public will to make the continued investments so that we do not have to come back to the same question decade after decade. why are black men failing? what we know is that when we prevent these -- present these issues, the discussion goes tt it being a problem, then we need -- then we start to talk about reforming the system and early childhood. that is important, but what we do not do is make the investments. we have half of 1 million young people dropping out every year. there is nothing in place to put them back on track. in a few minutes, i will give you the seven key lessons from my experience in the field and

working with communities about what we know we can do so that we do not have to keep coming back to this. the things that we have found to work and are documented. if we know there are committees were more than 50% of youngsters fallen out of school, you can not fix this program preprogram with a simple model. it calls for comprehensive community strategy is where the communities come together and look at how the systems use their money differently to invest in drop out recovery, re-engagement, and creating the pathway that harry talked about. there are examples are around the country about how this has been done so that we can put a few young that men of color on post-secondary pathways.

how do we create some of these systemic pat ways to get young people back on track, and how do we get communities to be accountable? that is a very important aspect. it is not a foreign concept. it is embedded in every one of those grant programs. the evaluation of those programs indicated that the strategy was the strength. secondly, changing the dynamic and the landscape -- you have to have programs that are of a sufficient scale that we begin changing the culture, raising horizons, and compete with street activity, gang affiliation, etc. that is number two. no. 3 is if you build it right,

use will come. in the program where moneys were made available, 92,000 people were brought in. 65% of the eligible out-of- school population actually participated. we have never had that level of penetration. the program was wound down in about three years. the young people lined up. they wanted to participate. communities can do this. there is not one single model. all young men who drop out were not failing. all young men are not criminals. a lot of people dropped out because they were scared to stay yen. we found that through surveys. we need to have a whole set of activities that are built in and concludes community base points of entry.

-- that includes community- based points of entry. we need the infrastructure. whinnied multiple education models. -- we need multiple education models. there are ways to accelerate learning. programs that award the high school and the college, building a bridge programs, the ged plus programs, and credit recovery, finding out what they missed, and get those credits for them. it has to be a part of a comprehensive effort. you cannot keep kids sustained without an betting the ability to earn money and learn. paring stewardship of the professional youth development staff -- you want all of these things together.

research has shown you can have a dramatic impact on getting these young people back on track to education and employment. we need to make post-secondary employment and to important part of the equation. there are ways to do that. last week, and i think harry mentioned that -- meaningful employer engagement. this is the hardest part of the equation. we did some surveys. when they got kids ready, it was still very difficult to get access. we have found that we have to find ways to buy access into the better jobs. we need to have customized training, internships, these are the ingredients that work. we know that if you can put

these kinds of things together, you can have a dramatic impact on this phenomenon that we are talking about young people cannot leave school and drop out of school. i can talk a lot more in questions and answers about some of the specifics. we have several documents that are accessible at our website. >> thank you. >> thank you, very much, margaret. by thank you for the research. i think it is raising an important topic, and you raise it in an portent way. you control for a whole lot of things. we are talking about even with than an education segment,

seeing these disparities. it is important not to fall back on quick and easy answers. part of the issue is what accounts for the disparity that we know we can address. i think that is an important context. it is important to remember that this is a longstanding disparity. if you look over time, the black unemployment rate in general has been at 2.2 times that of the white. this is when the economy is doing well or poorly. this is one of black dropout rate was 50% in the early 1960's, to today, where it is nowhere near that number. this is a deep problem with the disparity, not related to changes in the economy, or the economic environment, not related to when we were more industrial or less industrial, not related to event issues like the much lower educational achievement of blacks compared to whites. this has changed over time, but

this disparity has not. by drawing attention to the fact that this is deeper and more and bedded, i think that is important. -- and benedict, i think this is important. we should be reminded that over last year, as we look at the data that we have in our office of policy, from 2008 to 2009, young black women also have the same disparity relative to young white women. when you look at 20 t0 20--- to 24-year-old, there was a

disparity. this problem is not solved easily buy some of the stereotypes that we wish to fall back on as easy solutions. black women have a much lower dropout rate than black men. we see this kind of problem. what is the department currently doing? we have a host of programs that were there before, but that we are trying to make better. we are all aware of job corps. it is a program that we are working on. we continue to iiprove the use bill. -- the youth bill. secretary hilda solis has been

quite clear that what she wants is good jobs for everyone. within the current administration, there are some things that we are doing that are different. one of those is to concentrate the way that we approach folks who face multiple barriers, so our pathways out of poverty grants were designed to pick up on many elements of the program you heard mentionnd by linda. the program helps populations find their way to economic self-sufficiency.

the secretary was very careful in targeting communities that have had very high levels of unemployment, try and to directly get money at the areas that we need help. doing our green jobs, we targeted at our training partnership grants, and -- partnership plans -- job training specifically designed so that we could diversify the pool of people who would be qualified to do the retrofit and green jobs that we think is a part of the recovery act. most of that money went to benefit communities of color because we targeted high- poverty neighborhoods. disproportionately, because of targeting low-income

neighborhoods, a great deal of that money targets african- american and hispanic communities. on another track, and this was mentioned by linda, and harry, the little-known observation by folks during the health reform legislation that passed was also the creation of a new strategy around community colleges. the president had earlier made a call to increase our graduation rates in the united states, insuring that we have more people with secondary credentials. when the health reform act passed, that legislation was transformed from going to the

department of education and being focused on community colleges in that way, to go into the department of labor, to dislocated workers, and trade adjustment assistance. those amendments will put a new program in place to help us to increase our investment, as a federal government, in strengthening the ties between what people do at community colleges, and getting people connected to jobs -- building up the infrastructure of community colleges to also reach the populations that we are talking about today, and finding a way to link workers, as harry mentioned, who needed that post- secondary credential. now, in this format, it will not necessarily mean that everyone will go on to a two- year degree, but, at least it does assure that they can get the post-secondary credential that they can use to look for on a job. all of that is great, but it still will leave in place the disparities that your research highlights. you are talking about things that are not related to simply improving human capital factors. our own work at the department

does highlight this issue of job networks, because despite the horrific unemployment rates for black teenagers, there is still low labor force participation numbers, which are very small. the department tries very hard through its summer youth program to make sure that students are getting some exposure, but that is not necessarily the exposure to the job networks that people use to get jobs. so, i think it is important to think not just on the employer side about connecting people, but to look at the structure in which people get connected in the first place. for many jobs, for high-school dropouts, those connections are word-of-mouth, worker-to-worker. the disadvantages faced by black high-school graduates seemed to be not as insurmountable as those faced by dropouts. perhaps, because the quality of the joo means there is a little more equal playing field for access to information about the

jobs, relative to those who are high-school dropouts. we really have to look at the structure itself -- how job networks and how the hiring process actually takes place. those are some important elements that i think we have -pto think about that are not te ready-made the answers to the policy disparities that we can use to help explain some of the gap. so, i think your work is very important from both aspects, that which helps us guide the policy that we are pursuing, the courses we are able to explain, but challenges us to think about the courses that we are not able to explain. >> thank you. there is a lot on the table. it is probably falling off of the front. i almost do not know where to start, but i will call back to -- i will go back to a couple of points.

one came up inadvertently during this discussion. i will come back to eight. that i believe harry put -- i will come back to a point that i believe harry put up. marla, i want to address the first question to you. one came in from one of the people who signed up on the web -- how do experiences after high school differ by gender? i raise that because several of the speakers inadvertently lapsed into black male conversations, when you did not really talk about gender. related to that the question is, if you did not find statistically significant differences in some aspects, does that mean in those places there are not disparities? >> for the first question, we were looking at -- we did not separate it out by gender. part of that has to do with sample, and following the number

of youths we were following through to the age that we were following them. that is an area that we want to get into next, being able to seed out those differences. i am so glad that you presented those numbers. there are disparities among females as well, and even though there are higher employment rates, and higher rates of high school graduates. the second question, remind me, you are asking about the high- school graduates, whether they are -- >> if there is not a significant difference, then it should we be worried? >> i would say that even though our findings did not find statistically significant differences in the amount of time it took to attain full time employment, it did not tell us

about, the quality of the job. we don't know about the opportunities for advancement. we do not know whether black and white high-school graduates are getting the same types of jobs that will lead to the same types of future earnings. also, in terms of connectedness, i did not get into it. on average, it takes about one month for both black and white youths to get connected to both school and work. but, what that really turned out to be was about three weeks for white high-school graduates to connect to either school or work, compared to four weeks for black high-school graduates to that difference was statistically significant.

what that means is that even though we have two youths and we are controlling for all of these factors that are similar among them, there is still an unexplained difference, all else being held equal, that even among a black high school graduate he or she is not connecting to school or work in the amount of time that it takes the average white high- school graduate. i would say there are still disparities. >> one of the things -- and this is a broad question, the panelists can answer it anyway they like -- one of the issues that came up was the question of credentialing -- how you provide credentials to young people so that employers are not forced to fall back on statistical discrimination. there are several things that seem to be on the table, some of which are related to credentialing that enhances the high school diploma. some are related to community colleges. . .

the idea behind the community college initiative is going to lean in that same way. some of the high-tech sector has already figured this out. they have credentials which are easy for us to follow. i do not think, and i think you're correct for raising this point, but we do not win to give employers a fallback position to stereotype.

it might be more helpful to use the term "stereotype" as opposed to statistical discrimination. i do not think we want this as a fallback position. where this can help to create a clear label marked, i think it is helpful. >> go ahead. >> this is an extremely, extremely arena -- important arena that we have a lot of work to do in. it is clear we need to find out how to increase the level of post secondary credentials for our young population of color. i do think we need to be very careful that we do not fall into the mistaken notion of finding

out how to give credentials to this group will get access without looking at the interplay between the credential, labour market value, and the question of access. i think we also have to look at bringing use it to the same place. if we create a set of credentials that becomes the credentials for youngsters who do not go through the secondary process. we actually create a very different pathway. i think there is a whole lot when people create the differences between post secondary and credential, we need to figure out a lot of that so we are not creating a set of credentials that are at a lower level and not where they need to go in the labour market. >> when people come out of high school, employers need to see when they know and what they have done.

part of this is conveying more accurately what work experiences people have had. it is important for them to have a work experience and most have not in the formal economy. i think the reason that career academies and high-quality education have such a powerful effect is because they were get the work experience and the occupational training. they believe in that. the labour market needs to take the credentials seriously. the thing about post secondary credentials, there is a wide range of certificates recent research indicates that the labor market take some of them seriously but not all of them. not only do we need to get them certificates but we need to get people better information about what the labour market rewards are when they are pursuing these credentials and stronger incentives to provide the ones that matter. right now, we needed colleges

that had the same reimbursement from the state whether they are teaching health technology or basket weaving or music. that is not an incentive that the labor market is throwing out. finally, people are experimenting on these stackable credentials, more bite sized measures of the their academic work or occupational training that might be easier for people to get absence of broader degree. we do not know how much that will reward. we need a lot more research on how the labor market treats this very wide range of credentials. there is some evidence it is not just that community colleges. if you look at some schools like the regional training programs, they are not always academic degrees but they are rewarding

them quite well. i also want to say one thing in response to his comments we have had this disagreement before. this notion that nothing has changed and that these disparities exist no matter what, i am sorry. i do not read the data that way. the employment out of the population, the numbers have trended downwards. but they have gotten worse among men while the had narrowed among women. they are correlated with the structure of the economy. i think we need to sweep those issues under the rug. that -- having talk about that more, those things matter. the matter more overtime and we need to account for those. >> that would make it worse. relative educational attainment has changed dramatically over time.

actually the trends leave a gap. clearly there are way more black male college graduates than in the past. it becomes more difficult to explainnnot less difficult to explain. we need to be clear. one of the important things he brings up is that if you worry about relative position and people worry about that right now today because the unemployment rate will be 9%. you are changing the black unemployment rate way above what would be an acceptable rate. so, people worry about whether we have solved that relative position and they worry about whether we have so much that portion which we do not seem to be able to answer to the typical policies.

we have at our disposal training, our way of trying to act structure labor markets about certification so that we can try and create meaningful labor markets. it remains a huge task to close those unexplained portions. that is the part we need to be concerned about. >> can i just say that when we start looking at the demographics, and i am not taking a position, the demographics are such that we know the populations that are growing the fastest. we know that those that are going to be the majority of the labor market are those that are of color. to the extent that we know that the disparities exist and persist, in general, what does

that set about the quality of our community and we have the demographics, it is suggests that there is some conversion see, or comparative of figuring out how to close it in this decade. >> i know there are a lot of questions out there in the audience. i would just like to ask one question of linda before i opened it up. you can start thinking about your questions. someone will come around with a microphone when i call on you. you have talked about a lot of programs that serve the need of thinking of people been engage in more than one program over time. how the foster more cooperation and coordination among programs? i know when i was looking at some programs in the district, there did not seem to be away, perhaps, because their demonstration programs, that i use could be passed on to the next logical group or whatever. >> i think that at the program level, it is hard to build it

up. when i talk about doing things systemically, it is more about how you first think about what you need to have in a community? what does it need? what does it look like? what does that set of services need to be? within that context, you have to assemble various programs. in some ways, if you try and take everybody's program and say "how do we make this come together?" it is very difficult. if you, like a lot of communities have done, begin to say how do we use our education dollars, the state funding that is coming back, some of our other resources to then talk about what we need to have in this community and look different at all of the funding that is coming in, and build your programs based on successful programs within the context of what you need in terms of the fabric within that community to move these young people along. then, at the same time, you

negotiate a referral arrangement, the relationssip with the private sector. there has to be an intermediary function there. it does not just happen like that. it is complex. there is a different way of envisioning uued programming in a community in a way that the whole community participates. we have done a publication where we talk about that convening function. once people, i think, start thinking that way, then it is not about my program, but it is about how to assemble resources to deal with the problems. >> thank you. audience -- questions from the audience? here. >> hello. i direct the program on race

ethnicity and the economy at the economic policy institute. in the discussion, it was mentioned that you control for many things. i was wondering, dr. mcdaniel, if you could tell us what things you controlled for, and what things therefore, do not explained the difference -- do not explain the difference you found. >> i will probably miss some. some of the key variables -- we looked at whether they lived in a distressed neighborhood. we looked at the proportion of the federal policy -- poverty level that their parents, -- that they grew up in as young kids. as i mentioned, we did not look separately at gender, but we looked to see what the effects were. some of these measures were significant. they would increase or decrease the time it would take for

youth to attain employment. even with those measures, we still had the significant race difference. we had a measure of academic ability. we used the military -- that was administered to all that participated. we did not have their grades, but everyone who took this reading and math score. we were able to control for that. we looked at whether the youth had a child as a teenager, between 16 and 18. that increased the time. even above and beyond that, race was significant. >> ok. i forget which speaker mentioned this.

i'm from the howard university school of social work. someone mentioned the lessening of the value of the ged. i was wondering what the options for a high-school dropout -- is it not as important as it might have been? secondly, could you give me the percentage of jobs for graduates, the successful participants in the program? >> that sounds like bill. the other one could be for anyone. >> i do not want to give you a number. i do not have that in front of me. i will get back to you with a precise number. i will answer the first part. i do not want to imply that the ged is worthless. there has been an academic

debate. it is clear that it is not valued the way high school diploma is. it does have some value. the main value it has is that it enables people to get post- secondary access. a young -- a lot of young people get a ged, go off to a community college, to remedial, or developmental classis, where they are stuck forever. they drop out without ever transferring into the real credit bearing courses and curriculum. i think it has some value in that sense. if you think the value is limited, there are two options. you could strengthen the ged, have a system that is more meaningful. it would make it harder to get. there are a lot of options for people to get real high school diplomas through alternative

high schools. these are almost charter schools. you do not want people who have dropped out of high school going back to the same school which they have already failed, and now they're older and less in sync with other students. there have to be alternative methods. the city of new york has developed multiple pathways to graduation. it is a very innovative program. we would like to see more evaluation work on that. that is another option. strengthen the ged, or provide other pathways. this would be meaningful in terms of getting people access. >> i feel very strongly that we have to, and i do not know if strengthening its is the right way to look at it, it is sort of normal at 60%. individuals that get a ged perform at the same level as high school graduates. i think the perception is the

kind of other thing you should wrap around the preparation, to make sure that a person can succeed when they move forward. i do think that ged models that strengthen the ability is something we need to do. i think harry is right. it is not just charter schools, or alternatives, but alternative ways that others allow a young person to get that credential that meets the state equivalency, so that they are on par with everyone else and can succeed. we have to expand more of those models. the other thing is how do we get the educational resources to support those kinds of models for young people as long as they are under the age of 21?

once they drop out, there is no resources. that is another way of looking at things. >> over here. daniel, and then the other general -- the other gentleman. >> i am daniel king from the urban institute. one of the things that marla and i controlled for was the employment while a teenager. that is something that harry touched on. all of these differencessare after holding teenage employment. my question is what people think of new-hire tax credits and has this come up in the discussion, and specifically if he know what these kinds of hirings yield? >> we have not had a chance to evaluate al hunt -- how well it has worked yet.

a specific attempt was made to address this specific population. >> two very different models -- one, that you referred to as a new jobs tax credit, which is really an anti-recession device, for any firm, regardless of the employee is, you give them a tax credit. i wish we had done more of that. that tax credit was too mild to make any kind of difference. there are some nice proposals of their on that front -- out there on that front. the other model, a targeted credit -- that is not cyclical. it is targeted at disadvantaged population. there has been a debate about the positive benefits. some people think they stigmatize the targeted populations. on the margin, they probably do a little bit, but on their own, they do not make a big

difference unless they are combined with a lot of services. as a package, they might be more cost-effective.3 tax credits. it basically does not change the basic hiring decision of employers. that is unless you are dealing with an employer that can them. the one-on-one tax credits did not seem to alter behavior. >> over here. >> matthew, with reading it is fundamental.

in my work, we work much more on motivating young people on the literacy and of things. with what when dell was discussing, how do we act -- with what linda was discussing, how do we actually -- if money is not the motivation, what community-based motivators are there to get people to want to get their degree? get them back in the system? you will -- what are the motivators and are out there that gets the youth back into the system, and excited about learning or moving on to learning. >> what seemed to make the biggest difference was at in the community-based used- friendly senator -- centers. most of the activities were related to getting the young

people comfortable to an environment, more of the horizon-extending activities, and have been well-trained professionals work with a youth on a long-term perspectives and individualized things. they introduced heart and media. -- a lot of art and media. all of a sudden, young people were involved and positive things that became a reason for belonging. i think there are a lot of young people with aspirations for better, but they do not

know where to go to do or how to get to it? how do we create that place for them to go? a few do not have a good staff, and places for them to go, it is hard for them to get connected. >> you assume that money does not motivate people. i think it does. it motivates all of us. there is clear evidence that paid work experience, having a paid work experience component, it motivates yen people to stay engaged. even that short-term reward matters, especially for low- income people with family obligations. besides being a motivator, people need to see a connection

between what they are doing in the classroom and the labor market. that is absent for some many people. falling back on some of these programs with strong track records, i think it motivates because they can see the connection. we have let so many of those connections, those pathways dropped away. on the fourth -- unfortunately, if young people do not see it early on, the disconnect. if they get the motivation later, they are so far behind that they get stuck in these pemedial classes. they can have motivation, but if it is not introduced early on, they cannot develop the capacity. i think it is important that it appears earlier on in life.

>> this is one here. yes. >> i am annie brown with the howard university school of social work. i'm looking at this from a social work perspective. you've talked about vocational education in high school, and the fact that we needed something better. i am on the board of a charter school. i have seen some of the excitement of youngsters that have the opportunity to paaticipate in vocational education. i have seen girls get excited about participating in something that is perceived as valuable. to me, then divide starts early

on. why not have vocational education in high school? there is a formal waiver system and an informal labor system. i grew up where people build houses. they had gotten carpentry in high school and they were able to do it. >> i agree with you. i just want it to the high- quality. have a strong economic dimension as well as a strong and effective connection to real jobs. to me, it is stunning. on any given day in this country, which have over 2 million people under lock and key, and we cannot find welders. a lot of these young people that are riding in prison, they couldn't have those occupational credentials ---they

could have had those occupational credentials. we have had concerns over tracking. the biggest attacks on vocational education are concerns about why are we tracking low-income kids when the white and middle-class kids can go off to college? we want high-quality, career education that enables them to go a post-secondary route if they choose to do so. the other concern about vocational education is that you train people for a job that exists today. what if it disappears? you want a strong enough base of credentials that if that sector dries up, they could actually go somewhere else. i agree with you.

i want it to be high quality both in the academic and occupational dimensions. >> ok. let's see. there were several questions. some hands that i saw earlier were not up. right here? no, right here. we will try moving across. >> victor stone. my question had to do with alternative methods to get a high-school degree. i want to know if any studies show what the effect is on getting a job afterwards. they seem like the opposite of what harry was saying. i have known some teachers that go along with teenage rebellion, but they channel them to get a degree. they are not strong on the discipline that the employer is

looking for. i have been pleasantly surprised by some of the kids that have later gotten into the workforce. i noticed there body jewelry is gone, their hair is mainstream. >> we have to move on. >> the main question is, is the alternative education working, and we would give -- would we give it a credential by removing some of these things like at 2-removal -- tattoo- removal. >> i am not seen a lot of evidence. there has spent some evidence, not hard evidence, that they can upper -- improve measures

would alternative forces. i have not seen how the labor market would react. it would be nice to get evidence. >> a first offall, there -- first of all, there are a lot of places that are alternative, and not all of them are good. i am not talking about an alternative high school credential. i am talking about alternative methods at achieving the same level of competency, but a different route to getting there. usually, they are in conjunction with the school system. it is just a different way of getting there. that is the important aspect of what we have to explore. >> i may have to take several questions in a row. >> i am from howard university.

a question and comment. did you control for participation in job training? >> no. we controlled for whether they were employed. >> there has been a lot of discussion about whether these things do or do not make a difference. that would clearly be one important next step. the other is, this was wonderful showing the differential. it would seem that part of what you want to do is reverse everything and say "can i identified the differenccs in these very heterogeneous populations, and look at outcomes for these different groups?

if you look at young women who have children. the whole spectrum of what are the different groups. which ones have better outcomes? which onee are in great risk? >> you might want to mention some of the important variables. >> i was going to take a look at one example of one of the cuts. one question is we know that in the pool of people that i was talking about, some go on to college, and some do not. that is one cut. we do see significant racial disparities there. it is the same story if you are

african-american and new dropped out of money -- and you dropped out, among youth that did not go to college, they are fearing worse. in terms of margaret's. about other factors -- point about other factors, we had a measure of mental health. hi mental-health took a shorter time to attain employment. looking on parents -- if your parents have a high school degree, that shortens the time that it takes for you to attain full time employment. there are aspects of parents' own educational attainment. i would like to try to take all of them in a row and see if people could address them all at once.

we must see if people can address them all at once. >> good afternoon. >> short question. >> i am with the national youth employment coalition. my question relates to policy and recommendations to the entire panel. we know what works. we know what the issues are. what with the panel recommended in terms of policy? what are the steps that need to be taken to reduce disparity. what are the legislative vehicles and opportunities that you can use in the short term to make this happen? >> there is a question on the back row. >> if you mention you controlled for holding a drop in high school. did you also control for unpaid internships? is there a role for unpaid

internships and given the negative attention they have received? >> front-row. the next one will be over there. >> hello. it seems to me like the approach is reactionary. you mentioned parents for the first time. you mentioned about contacts and the networks. is there a future that works with ppevention? we are not doing anything for prevention. >> preventing dropouts? >> drawbaugh of and access to employment. -- dropouts and access to employment. >> i do not know if you are familiar with the early indicator, warnings, research about early indicators for a preventative measure for dropouts.

for the hardest to serve youth, how do we -- what are the things that need to be in place in order to fix the reinstatement process or youth returning to school districts from residential delinquency? how do we improve the process of real engagement? the department of human services might be a critical part. >> thank you. we have all of them and they seem to be directed, except for the one about unpaid internships, but the others are what are the bold policy steps, and you could say to help the hardest to serve, and what kind of preventive measures might we undertake to forestall the differences?

i will start at this end and move this way. address whatever it is in that group. >> i talked about these seven key elements that need to be in place in communities in order to get this problem to solve it. from a policy standpoint, we need to actually have a federal policy and funding to increase the level of investment directed at distressed communities with a specific idea of building the capacity of communities to structure the kinds of pathways of these system coming together to address this problem. we need to do this at a level of scale that would the something and make a difference. we need to make this part of a process whether we are talking justice, health and human

services, work force, education, what ever. we need to look at education recovery and look at the group of young people dropping out. i think that also goes to the prevention question. high schools have to be in focus clearly. i think they are starttng that, but we need to have a clear focus on high schools and high school reform in our reauthorization of esca. >> quickly, the fair labor standards act is quite clear. they must be paid. people should remember that if you are working for a for-profit it is very difficult for them to

structure an unpaid internship that would be legal. we want to remind everyone that you get paid. it is a great opportunity we have put together trying to look at community-based things to provide people with pathways. harry has raised the issue and it is very important to remember that for these young adults, the problem of being index offender is a huge barrier to this -- the problem of being in an ex-offender is a barrier. these things that are explainable, we must remind ourselves that even if we did all of those things. we are left with a gap, an

unfortunate one. we need to look at how information is shared with workers. we need to look at the things we feel comfortable talking about because we have gotten on track of looking at the individual and thinking there is something wrong with the individual. we need to the get teams of the more systemically -- i think we need to look at things more systemically. after you have done all these programs and made the playing field level, summer programs to make them have job experience, you will still be having a disadvantage of black youth. what do you do about that is the challenge we want to commit ourselves to. >> i have gotten great questions about what we are able to control. the datasets that we used was

the 1997 cohort. there are a battery of questions. there is a great segment, i am looking at the two who designed the survey. there are questions that ask about the employment that the youth have. in future research, that is merited to explore. among the youth, what are they identify and, what are the patterns, and what explains the types of limits they have? that is an area where theree could be a lot more exploring of those variables. >> first of all, the talk about the recession and the very high unemployment rate. we should not give up on job creation.

thh next three to five years are going to be pretty of blame for youth in general. i think we could do more with a tax credit mechanism or public service employment to create jobs for young people as long as they have skill building components attached. part of those are with the summer youth employment programs. i would put that back on the agenda. in a more broad sense, whether we're talking about used in or out of school, there are initiatives. if you go back to the graduation initiative, the original version which entailed much more generous grants to states as well as colleges to build effective systems, i think those were good mechanisms. we could do more.

frankly, i am fearful that some much of this is talk about ratcheting up standards for high school graduation, the notion that every child ought to be taking algebra ii before they get a diploma. i think that is the wrong way to go. i think what we want is that kids face a high range of high quality options including academic and career education options. use these different mechanisms, perkins, esca, and others. we have more resources out of school. we can build good systems as well as good programs. there is a range. >> i would like to think marla for her work and presenting it today and putting in a plug that

it was also funded by the low- income working families project which i direct. to refer to people who want to see some of the brits in product, transition to adulthood has a series on our website. it features this work and some other work that was supported byhhf by -- by hhf. i would like to think the panelists for their good ideas. i would like to thank -- >> i would like to think the class to. >> www.urban.org, www.class.org, and for the dept. of labor -- >> www.dol.gov. >> i think the audience for their patience and great questions that i am sorry we

could not spend more time getting questions on the table and have more extensive answers. thank you very much. [applause] >> tomorrow on "washington journal," more on president obama's response to the oil spill. also in the but the prospect of several cities defaulting on their debt a law professor, a juliamoringiello. also daulton on migratory birds in the gulf of mexico. that is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. this weekend: "booktv," the

university of chicago law professor has written or contributed to more than 20 books on a liberal education, at? , sexism, and justice. that is alive sunday at noon eastern on c-span2. >> everyone has an agenda. as long as you know what it is, that is a story you can write about. >> over the last year, "the will"st. journal investigative reporter has written about trips funded by taxpayers. he is our guest on the c-span's "q & a." >> arizona state university hosted this 90 minute event.

>> good morning, everyone. i am the president of arizona state university and i would like to welcome you to this panel on getting back in the race in the american education future. i do not know that the question is one of the fixing because i generally think that it is not about failures but that it is about seizing opportunities that we now live in a rapidly expanding economy in. we are growing to 400 million people, powerful forces, change, social change, economic change, competitiveness, diversification in our culture.

these mean if you're going to move forward. educational performance has to be constantly enhanced and we need to find new ways to do things. i will not be labor the numbers, but a our performance has peaked. now it is time to look the achievements we have made in the past. we need to gain additional wages for these to be enhanced. we need to enhance the learning process, use technology, and i will not go through all of that. we will not spend time on introductions. we will spend time on answering questions and delivering new ideas. i will ask a question to each of the panelists initially. they will use that as their introduction. i am going to start with heather harding who works for teach for

america. they have been working to find new models and new ways to move a forward in the teacher production, success, student success, out comes, community success, and so on. teacher training. what do we need to do? >> we need to open it up for innovation and need to stay on the path of teacher accountability for effectiveness and student learning. we need to be careful about that because measuring student learning is a complex path. we need to open up world will pathways into the profession. we need to have high standards for the profession. we need to work on collaborating a cross from a pre service to in service. the job of preparing and supporting teacher development is not and once they graduate our programs or leave our training. we need to be able to reach into

the process. we know that teaching is a learning on the job. we need to figure out ways to push the dollar learning into the space of working with children. >> if you basically say it is abbut the people, finding the right people to be teachers, educating them in the right way, and powering them as they move on. mostly we hear about money. >> it is odd. for decades we have had a profession that has been disconnected from student learning in the accountability system. that is not to say we need to be focusing on a single measure as the only way of considering student learning. teachers in their individual practices value when children learn. we need to figure out how to bring those two together. we want to attract the best and

brightest. we need to attract as many people who are deeply committed and need to support them throughout the process. whether it is an alternate route, a program like teach for america, a traditional school of education, that does not matter. we need to look at the practices candidates coming to us.%- we need to ensure they do a good job once they are a teacher of record. >> you are the dean at a 5000 student teacher and toxicology at a university that emerged as a teacher's college from tradition. you are producing many, many new teachers per year. it has been subject to serious criticism, justifiably, for our inability to adjust and adapt to the changing landscape.

how do we improve. >> we take ourselves seriously and hold ourselves a conable. we follow them to see the good ones are retained and teaching. we do not want to retain the ones who are not good. we want to make sure we retain the ones who are good. we want to make sure they have an impact in the community and k-12. we know that already. is it gpa? is there a correlation between getting a 2.5 and a 2.7 and you achieving as a third grade teacher? probably not. is in this position? is it persistence?

we know persistence is an important quality yet we do not screen for that. teach for america screens for that. can they assess what they are doing so they can make classrooms better? do they think that every kid in that room can learn? right now there is a while the big difference where your child goes to school and where other goes to school. the one constant is the teacher in that classroom with them. we want performance, not pay for performance. either you perform or you do not teach. the same holds for us. either we perform or colleges of education will be relics. >> what is an example of an innovation? >> not one-size-fits-all. we understand that who comes into our programs makes a difference in terms of what program they will have.

our graduate program, for example, of people who are career changers, if you have never been in a classroom, you need a different program if you have been in the classroom. your clinical experience past have different supervision because you are a teacher of record. you are accountable for the children the next day. we need to make sure what we teach you the night before is directly applicable to the achievement of children. children should be happy in school, not just little robots. they should be happily achieving. we now have divided our graduate program in terms of who is coming in, what the selection process is, what the intervention is so we get the same outcome. >> you are the president and ceo of a a problem -- a public broadcasting system.

you probably educate morse -- more children through the broadcasting system than any single institution. you have tens of millions of programs. your networks have an educational purpose. new technologies, where are we going? i am interested in focusing on what innovations we can put in place. not what did we do in the 1960's with x, y, or easy. what can meet and -- what can media do now? >> we think on this in many levels. we put investment in the youngest children. all research shows that if you reach a child at the earliest ages that the chances of that child achieving in school increase tremendously. the efforts to reach children where they are wrong, in the home through the television programming that we've created

as curriculum based, the work we do increasingly online, we are one of the largest on-line for streaming videos and games on line for children. we also create content for the classroom. children are surrounded by media. too often they are taught the same way i was taught but the desks lined up in a row and a teacher in front of a blackboard. this is not the wake children today think or live. there is a complete disconnect between life and what they experience in the classroom. part of the effort is really thinking about education and the fact that we need to think about what technology offers and how that can be incorporated. the largest user of pulte -- public television content are teachers. a 20% of the people that come to pbs.org identify themselves as teachers.

we want to put tools in their hands so they feel comfortable with the technology. it is shocking how many teachers go through teacher's college training and have no idea how to use technology in the classroom. they are intimidated because children no more than they do. the research, opportunity, and access to material that could really bring the entire education experience to life is right within the grasp of any teacher. being able to help teachers crossed that threshold is tremendously important. the last area where i think technology offers a great potential is in online courses in teacher certification. we run a program which we referred to as "pajama compatible." they can get credits which that is easy and effective. it reaches across the country.

many of these began as educational institutions and they have institutions. we have resources to technology and it is a combination of all of that. it makes them an active participant in improving the education work in this country. cracks at sunset the teachers of the future neee to be fundamentally differentiated from those of the past in the sense that they could even be seen and not on the teachers but navigators of complex learning environments that they helped students engage with. i saw a john browne a lecture on campus a few weeks ago. the presenting data about this game that millions of children play for which they have been studying the learning outcomes. what they have a down from the students and children is that it is the fastest rated learning

investment -- advancements. is a self guided yields -- it is self guided guilds. it blew them all away. this notion that a game based learning and interactive learning, are you moving in that direction? >> yes, we are. right now we are focusing on the games and have traded -- have created online. we are measuring the impact on children, but we also are observing children interactions. they are spending at least 20 minutes per session. if you know online data, that is an extremely long amount of time. .

>> it is a rich opportunity to put learning experiences in the hands of children in multiple places. i think that is what we all need to be thinking about as we think about education for the future. >> at the end of the table is the secretary of education for the state of california. it is sometimes referred to as the republic of california, larger than canada in terms of its population and the fifth or sixth largest economy on the planet.

powerful sources of change in booms and busts and stresses and strains. in this era of what i would call unpredictable public investment in education, and you are also a region of the university of california, how can innovation help schools and universities to even out those resources that are up and down? i don't see that necessarily changing? >> you have heard a number of the palace talking about innovatton. -- a number of the panelists talking about innovation. it is what think we can count on will also -- always rescue our economy because of the innovative abilities of people. we could spend days discussing the complexity of public

education, with all these important reports and technical reports. the bottom line is, everyone in education knows that if you focus on having an effective teacher in every classroom and an effective principal at every school, and finance system that follows that and maximizes the dollar in the classroom, that is the most significant aspect of achieving student results. we have heard how we are not connecting performance to outcomes, meeting student achievement. that is what the goal of public education really is. we are seeing a movement afoot, largely led by race to the top, that says it is time to start evaluating teachers and principals with multiple measures of student growth. that is a part of the evaluation. from that, everything flows. not only do we need innovation, but we need to make sure that we

have of finance system that is the maximum amount of dollars in the classroom and follows outcomes. some of those issues include -- should we start looking on the table where in some districts in california, the scale is huge. we need to start looking at in states with collective bargaining, some teachers to teach for seven years have lifetime health benefits for themselves and their family. that means they could then leave the classroom, district, and profession, and the district will still be spending its precious dollars paying for the health benefits. are we better off offering much higher salaries to teachers, so that those dollars stay in the classroom? in addition to innovation, which

we hear is online and interactive learning, that is the future. what paul said is so true. there is such a disconnect between what is going on in public schools and what happens when those kids leave the public schools. in california, last year the governor signed a digital text of the initiative. we are working on pilot programs, because digital programs could be interactive learning through games. any of us who have kids and the family, there are private companies making a fortune doing this, because the kids love it and they learn. that is the future. in the short term, we have to keep our eyes on the prize, and that is effective teachers, principals, and a finance system that supports that. once you have those evaluations that measure effective teachers, you are then able to focus on

low performance schools and high party schools. for all the teacher development and teacher prep we offer our teachers, after two years, if you are still ineffective, you cannot stay in the classroom. those are the simple elements we have to keep focused on in the short term in particular. >> what is the most exciting innovation you have seen since you have been secretary in california? >> i think the most exciting innovation is that the future is definitely going to be interactive learning and computers and internet based. when we see what innovation comes up, and a lot of it comes up of california in terms of silicon valley and our technology. when we see eye patch and innovation that goes on in our country and everyone -- ipads and innovation being used everywhere currently, but in

most public schools. companies like apple are excited publishers and finding out how to use standard curriculum and books, and turned that into an interactive opportunity to learn, i think that is the most exciting thing. we are looking at the future when we look at that. >> i was at dinner and one person was talking about this topic. he said the state and public universities will have to go to all computers. i said fantastic, then all the rich kids get to be taught by humans at colleges and all the kids with less money get to be taught by machines. i said, i think there could be some social outcomes from that they could be less than significantly positive. one of the things one has to try to do is find ways where it is not a replacement for, it is

enhancement of. it is how you learn more fast -- faster and more broadly. it seems to be a mechanism where people say let's do these technology platform so that we can lower our costs. at the university level, we find that it does not necessarily lower costs. i am is going to throw out to anybody right now, what about this use of technology? the president of the university of maryland, baltimore county technology. >> first of all, is important to think about how teachers are prepared to deal with children who are not happy. large numbers of america's children are notthappy. they come from programs and schools and from families that are going through hell. we are working to help teachers, using technology and easing innovation, to connect to children who are not prepared to learn.

there are two things i think about in preparing. the teacher needs to have a good grasp of the concepts. elementary teachers need to know math. they need to understand the challenges that the children face and have ways of connecting toothose children. using technology can be very helpful in terms of interacting. we are using technology to build group support for each other. i think is innovative in our country to think about people helping each other. in classes, we tend to think about cutthroats. if i help you, it will change the curve, and you will get an a and i will get a b. in my estimation, proactive learning, group steady, supporting the idea of a explaining concepts, and

technology helps the tissue can be more interactive in the process. i think the combination of technology, coupled with thinking differently about how people learn, understanding that are in different ways, and then taking into account the context of the family, can be extremely important in terms of high- performance. >> other comments on technology? >> on behalf of secretary duncan and president obama -- i am glad you are reminded me of that. in this country, the president has staked out a very clear goal for 2020 for us to return as that number one nation in terms of decrees that american citizens would holfrom mid-198's

prosperity was connected to those americans who held those degrees. in 1983 through 1985, a couple of things happen that we did not notice very quickly. countries like canada, japan, korea began to slip by us. austria, finland, in the percentage of people who had those college degrees. the president believes that is a serious issue that will significantly limit our long- term economic growth if it is not addressed. we have heard lot of responses from people across the country. his focus is to try to look very carefully at that base of the pipeline, which is our community college system, the career- technical system. that is a place for those i call the maybe population. will i go on to higher education or not? in those 3 year completion rates

for community college, we have about an 80% fall down rate for first time, full-time students. basically, after thrre years you are only seeing about 21% of american students actually graduating from those classes. one of the major places that happens is in those developmental and remedial courses. the students will get into the courses, and it looks a lot like the high school class as they did not particularly like or do well in. about 65% of them do not even complete the full remedial classes. that is a disaster for us, because we are not getting people into that pipeline and one of the things we are looking at is how to use technology. clyburn community college in tennessee, the math adviser or chair had walked into the

president's office and said he had failed. he said for 20 years, only about one-third of my math students in those remedial classes come pleated those courses, which is not a very good percentage. let me try something, let me create some computer labs on campus that are easily accessible. we'll have to believe in them at all times, and we will have students come in -- will have to people come in and have students come in and work through those math courses basically on line, but with the person in the room. in two years, they turned it around to 8 2/3 success rate and lower their costs in terms of having to hire at johns for developmental courses. -- having to hire adjuncts for development courses. ? had you taken innovation like that and how does it get

facilitated or spread? >> secretary duncan's theory of action comes out of this idea of at this point, how do we compel competitive grants to make the field move toward achievement of particular educational goals for students? our theory of action is to put forward competitive grants to try to move people along in certain directions. our goal in post secondary education is to use the american graduation initiative. this fall will go back to a summit for community college and hopefully revitalize that conversation. that is the goal of the president to do that. we need to see models like the

one we are using, like the one we saw in cleveland community college, and move forward by exemplifying those particular pieces that are effective. some resources connected to that we think will help as well. >> i have always wondered why the department of education allows universities and other institutions to have such high failure rates when many of the students are subsidized by federal dollars, with no incentives to the purveyors of the educational content to be more successful if they would like to continue to receive those dollars from the students. the vice president for strategies -- you guys are crazy about change. you are funding grants all over the country. how you get innovations and move

them forward? >> our focus is that we believe all of this conversation, to be very explicit about it, is that a much larger proportion of americans need to not just go to college, but complete college successfully. we stayed this in terms of a goal. our goal is very consistent with that of the president, which is that 60% of americans should have a high quality, post secondary credential by 20.5. -- by 2025. we know that other countries a doing a much better job, are already well above 50% attainment rates. the u.s. is stuck. we seem to think that a 40% attainment right is about right, and that is simply not good enough in a knowledge economy and in the world we live in

today. we need to change that. we need to get a larger proportion of people to go to college, to be successful in college, to get the degree and provincial. it is interesting how this conversation has gone. because it is a learning that those degrees represent that actually matters. we know that this is the case. there will be a session in this room a week from tuesday where the research center for education and economy has done an analysis of the changing nature of jobs in the united states. it is showing that 60% of jobs in the united states will require post secondary education by 2018. this is a fact. it is in fact the learning that these degrees represent which is actually what is being demanded. it is the learning that is really important.

the innovation that you talk about, it is about technology, but it is technology to the service of learning. it is much easier to talk about learning outcomes into k-12 system than in higher education. we need to know what degrees represent. we need to be transparent about the learning and about the expectations of students in terms of learning, so that they will know what they are expected to do at each stage of the process through the education system. there is a famous line in higher education, which is that in american higher education, time is the constant and learning is the variable. we need to make learning the constant and time the variable. >> you mean in the sense that we

still live on an agrarian educational system with summers off? >> not just that, but the fact that degrees -- >> i was recently involved in a public debate with an ivy league presidents. i was arguing that we need innovation to enhance outcomes. we need to do away with the notion of time as a constant and moved to measurement of what the student has actually attained. he and i did not agree, because he thought that will completely destroy the entire process of learning. this notion of this push back that folks letter from to innovate and move in new directions feel from what is considered to be the norm. i would like to hear from anybody about this notion of

change in education and why it is so hard. >> it means we will do things differently, and we may not know how to do them differently. people are accustomed to doing things the way they have done them. people considered it high- quality when students do not do well in university. that means it must be really rigorous place. to get people to change their attitudes -- a standard that says we believe is our responsibiiity to make sure students succeed. it is a very different attitude. if students do not succeed, it means that we have failed, too. we have 54 million americans over the age of 25 who began college and never graduated. think about that. we need to talk with specificity

about different groups who can profit from getting an education. what i say to returning adults who are not sure they can make it in college, if you have raised kids, you can do anything, right? we have to help adults understand that. they have life experiences. then you have young people to come in because their parents tell them to go to college, and they are not ready for it. there are specific activities and strategies that can be used for every group. for adults, it may be child care, finances, and being flexible enough with schedules so they can get it done. i would argue that change will be intimidating but that we as a country have to say to ourselves, we have the responsibility to make sure we do change so that these people can succeed. >> there is a prevailing ideology that i think we share as an american public, that this failure of our republic american

-- publish education school exist with families, when in fact it is a system failure. everybody goes to school, so there is a large notion that we all know what school is, so the resistance to change is not just within our profession, but it is widespread. we have to infuse many talent pipelines into the sector with diversity of thought and experience. then we need to go out there and they guess what? we could fix this if we increase public -- if we innovate around system change. >> lorenzo represents public land grant universities, representing hundreds of

thousands of faculty and millions of students, just to put it into perspective. it is a massive group. i am going to ask a very hard questton. president obama has outlined this objective, every kid through high-school, and half of those kids on to some kind of post secondary level of education. how many new colleges or universities are being built today? the answer is very few, if any. we ran some calculations on what it would actually take to educate at the level we are talking about. we do not have the physical infrastructure work organizational infrastructure or the means. what are colleges and universities thinking about in terms of trying to deal with the sheer numbers? it is not just technology, that cannot be the only answer.

>> if we look at what is happening in higher education today, we know that we could actually achieve this goal if we did nothing else but graduate the people who are already in the pipeline. the greatest challenge for higher education today, how do we fix our plumbing problem, if you will. more and more minorities and low income students -- how do we get the students to move through the pipeline? it is an issue of creating great expectations and a culture of great expectations. as we look at minority and low- income students, and closing those gaps that exist, not only in terms of race and income, but in terms of gender. the challenge for higher

education, i believe, in terms of achieving the obama goal is to optimize the effective interventions. there are several exemplars that exist. there are several realm the country. what we focused on in creating new programs -- what we know that already exist and works that is research based? >> the debate seems to be mostly about money. we are not investing enough in teacher salaries. we are not doing this or that. apparently in california we are giving seven years of service for lifetime benefits, which seem surprising to me. why is the debate about money? have you shift the debate to another topic? -- how do you shift the debate

to another topic? >> i would say is about money, but about how you spend the money. it is not just money that achieves stood results. is how the money is spent. in connection with that, i want to address to topics. one, when we hear about the percentage. we just had a study in california that in 2025, 60% will need a college degree. the other topic of want to bring up when you talk about change, career teehnical education. that means 40% argued% might not require college degrees, and we have to change the way we think about career technical education as well. career technical education means we should be focusing from early childhood and preschool right on

through high school. what is the dream of that child? we need to be delivering kids that graduate high school if you are ready to go college or able to get the jobs they want to get that may not need a college degree. that is what we are doing in california. the community colleges also play a very large role in that. i think it is important for us as well to make sure we understand a career technical education, how we look at it, and now we focus on that. it is very critical to our future. how do we get more completion degrees? we also have to look geat community colleges. working closely in our state, a new person just to go over our community college system.

in california, the other thing that helps us with the university of california is didn't diversity. that also ties in to finance -- is a student diversity. you get more bang for your buck when you are focusing on getting the kids from community college -- we are looking at different ways to work on that together, and making sure those kids, more than transferring into our 04- year colleges and completing it there. one innovative idea is, we have an urban teacher fellowships program in california that is working in three school districts. collaboration is a big part of this. we have one of the leading after school funding systems in the country. we have our after-school program grants, working with community college kids that might want to become teachers.

is another teacher pipeline idea. they go into the after-school programs. from the afterschool grants, they can get maybe $10 an hour. then there is federal money coming in for anti-violence and anti-gang of work that can give these students up to $25 an hour. they get teaching experience after school with kids in the classroom. some of that time is recognized for credit, and they go on to get a teaching degree. that is some of how we combined collaboration, community college, career tech, and transfer rates. >> to gain money for the more points -- you gain points for the more money you spend per student. you gain pointed you exclude more students, if you leave them -- leave them out.

and coming back to this notion of money. we live in a culture regain points for spending more, yet we have to find ways to spend less and be more efficient. people measure success based on investments, as opposed to outcomes. what do you think? >> i think in maryland to be have been very fortunate. we have a system that is focused on effectiveness and efficiency, and has made a big difference. once we are using money well -- quite frankly, we have done better than most places during this difficult time because people believe we are investing well the money that we have. i am encouraged by the race to the top of initiative for being brought in its vision. most people to not realize -- we

want as many people to get a liberal education as possible. everybody is not ready to sit in the classroom and steady history, so they need other options. the two-year programs will do the kind of things that the secretary was talking about. the money can be used wisely to help all kinds of students depending on their preparation and their interest. we are talking about use of money and higher education. finding ways to give incentives to institutions to use technology and the human factor to increase the number of students who are doing well. i am going to call something innovation -- innovative that is very old fashioned, hard work. we need to teach students, you do not make it unless you work hard. i want them to understand, anything that is worth having takes a lot of hard work.

one example involves course management systems on our campus. the idea is to give students a chance to see that to the extent they really do the work and focus on the homework, they will see progress. did we show them through the technology that the students who are doing more work, spend more hours, are actually doing better. they can measure their success against others based on how hard they are working. our work is very innovative. we never say that. give me a hand for that. isn't that true? [applause] >> we have dramatically enhanced the diversification of our student body. last year we graduated 2000 hispanics with bachelor's degrees. that is a tenfold increase in a relatively short period f time.

i want to come back to lorenzo, talking about this notion of hard work. retention is our most significant issue. they are qualified to do university level worker. -- university level work. they have a good high school preparation and took the right course is. -- the right course's. one of the things you were focused on it is access and pipeline issues and so forth. it is not about -- is about hard work, but we have lots of hard- working kids that still do not make it. >> show me a campus that is effective, and i will show you a place that knows their students, cares about them, and expects

the most from them. it is the connecting that keeps the students on the campus. >> lorenzo, what puts the holes in the pipeline? >> i would have to echo what freeman said. it is important for it leadership, the faculty to work hard in supporting those students once they come to the university. one of the things we know from those programs that are successful in retaining and graduating minority and low- -pincome students is, they are very intentional. from the leadership, from the faculty, deans, etc., it is important to create an effective system of support for the students. there are many things we know that work, from entering -- mentoring. >> you have a lot of faculty

work with day in and day out. you are working to innovate with them. how do you get jack lee to think and behave in different waves crashed are it is how do you -- how do you get faculty to think and behave in different waves? >> we are a first-generation college. my family had no idea that i should or would go to college. our kids see a goal at the end of it. they see a job or profession. we make sure that everyone are students in a large university, that someone knows that they are round or not around. one of the things i think, you talking about what will change the system. for many people, the system is fine the way it is. kids drop out and do not learn.

there is someone who is benefiting from the system the way it is working. for those who feel we have a responsibility to take leadership in this, we need to mobilize, to change the culture and its habits. it is our responsibility, not someone else's. >> how do we do that? >> one thing in teaching, because that is the piece of the pie that i am, is to create an excellence in teaching where people think you deserve more money. what are collins is doing, the war excellent, the more disciplined. the more you understand you cannot be an elementary school teacher unless you do know math. we will attract excellent students. the opposite is what is happening. we have let them slide.

if you teach in a low performing, high minority school, you really can just slide by. but we have to be the people that say this is a career of choice. you are not good enough, you cannot be in it. this will attract increasingly excellent people, that the public will be thrilled to pay a lot of money, because they do not want to lose them to another profession. if we raise standards, and i think we were raised demand to get into our school as well. >> dwayne, you wander around the country and make investments. you and your board focus on trying to stimulate change. what do you see health care that make your choice is so difficult? >> the attitude change is a big

piece of this. higher education plays kind of a mythic role in american society. we have a belief in what it so many people here have talked about changing some very core assumptions about higher education. those assumptions do have to change. there was a famous line from sir john daniels that american higher education is unique in the world in defining quality of expressivity of access. what is equality? what do we think quality higher education is? we usually come up with a question that has to do with extremely high test scores among the students. has to do with beautiful facilities, small classes, all of these things which we think

of as the evidence of quality picture i am sure everyone here has had little counseling sessions with kids and families saying how do i get my kids into college? i cannot tell you how many times people have said to me, this university must be better because it costs more, and how much going to pay for it? >> that simply all has to change. that is a core assumption that has to change. you asked about innovations a while back. this is not a very glamorous innovation, but it is the one that came to mind about real innovation. a number of states this year have passed changes to their higher education funding formulas to find universities more on completion, and

graduates, rather than just enrollment. that is the real innovation. wednesday that i know of, indiana, was faced with the need to make some midyear budget cuts. they use that formula to allocate the cuts. that does not sound like a very glamorous innovation. to me, that is a glamorous innovation. that is a real shift of thinking about how you approach the incentives under which higher education operates. how you make change -- the challenge for us is not so much that we don't know what needs to happen. it is that we don't have to change it on a large scale, and make change at the speed with which we need to make the change. >> a 15,000 school districts,

thousands of higher education institutions, that is why innovation is complicated. >> we have to look at policy and funding systems, not just finding levels. some of those core elements of the system that structure the way in which it operates. if you change some of those, change can happen. >> i am going to ask each of you, what is the hardest thing you are presently working on, trying to bring about some sort of innovation repair or fixed. what is the hardest thing -- you go home and telllyour partner or spouse or kids are dog, this is just beating the heck out of me. what is it? >> clearly, the challenge of actually getting to the of

president's 2020 ggoal. if you get all of the 49 states -- if they all hit marilyn's level, we would still be up to 5 million degrees behind where the president needs to be in 2020 to get there. that means we have to bring adults back into a pipeline of which the culture is not particularly welcoming to adults. what keeps me up at night is, what is going to bring people like my mother who has worked at places like target her entire life because she was told in the 1950's that she was not qualified to be a college applicant. as a resultt what is going to get people like my mother to reenter that pipeline, feel comfortable, have the encouragement and support, and do the hard work to get her there?

>> the hardest challenge for me is how we optimize the effective intervention for our member institutions around this 2025 goal. i am leading an initiative now. had we close the gender gap that exists in higher education? that is the greatest challenge that i think we are facing. how can we help our member institutions do that, working together? >> as you worry about that challenge and you are meeting with college and university presidents and education leaders, when you come back, what is there that makes this heart? >> the hardest thing from an organizational standpoint is, there are so many things individual institutions are doing, so how do we take those common adjective that are successful and scale them up or

down based on an individual institutions resources, size, etc. >> you have innovations going on that do not translate easily among schools. why aren't you done? [laughter] >> there is a really good question. the challenges, in many cases, the answers come back to a resource issue. we know that resources are -- >> if the talks come in with money, -- if the choppers come in with money, are you done? >>. out how to build the strongest connection between teacher development and learning, the main challenge -- i think we know a lot about how teachers developed in the beginning.

and we have a lot of the script of and qualitative data that is not necessarily connected to quantitative measures. with the chain of accountability, practicing teachers understand that you need more information than that to make a good assessment. >> what does that make you sweat? >> because everybody wants a quick fix. this is complicated work, but we need to build a system that reflects the complexity of human learning. i think there are major challenges around the perception about professionals. for a long time, we have not thought that teaching was complex or complicated work. >> little house on the prairie

is not the model. >> we do not hate teachers or reward them, so there is a stigma. that is not our experience. we find that the most talented, the brightest and most educated folks are the people we want, as well as others. because that stigma is out there, we have not actually made a public mission -- message about the complexity of the work. ittis not easy. >> both are strrngth and our challenge, we have become a model for innovation in education, in science and engineering and broad areas like psychology. some departments have done really well with that. we are not trying to replicate across disciplines these ideas. the challenge is, in some areas, people are very interested in change. in other areas, they think

things are ok between disciplines. moving from what we have done in chemistryyto other areas, we are making progress, but it does take changing attitudes. we have public campuses coming to look at our model. we have been able to find a way to help students of all races, not just white or asian kids, but black or hispanic kids making it in science. the universities can say that. we are the largest producer of african-american students who were going to get a ph.d.'s. we are working with other campuses. what we are working to do is help other institutions think through how to get more students. it is a major challenge.

why am i staying up at night? it takes a change in attitudes. it takes a belief by people that all children can succeed, to believe that a young woman can get a ph.d. in biochemical engineering. we have not seen it, so we don't believe it yet. that is a major challenge. my canvas is working to be that model and to help others improve. >> which just eliminated are 11 traditional industrial engineering departments because they were boring and meaningless concept spirit we organize what we call grand challenge schools around themes like sustainability. it is changing the demographics of everything here. >> the thing that makes me

sweat is putting together the resources. we are in the midst of enormous change, because the media is changing so rapidly. for us, the real challenge is to stay in front of the changing media, but also to do it in a responsible way. you want to be experimenting and innovating, which is one of the hallmarks of public broadcasting throughout its history. you don't want to be so far ahead of everyone else that you are spending resources that you don't have. in terms of education, the thing that keeps me up at night -- we obviously spent a lot of effort focusing on kkds. about three-quarters of american children are in head start are some sort of preschool program. that means that 25% are not. how or reaching those kids with material and content that will help them enter school ready to

learn? for us, that s probably the most significant work we are doing. not every home has a computer or television set. we talked about innovation and technology. broadcast television sound so old. every computer is now a tv. every computer is incceasingly used for moving image. how do you really take that and use it? the other part of my frustration is that for more than 40 years, we have been creating educational content to use for classrooms, and not just reversing programs like nova, which is the most used science program in the classroom. also creating video models and so forth. we are building an

infrastructure call the digital learning library that any teacher or any kid can access pieces of content from their computer. i frustration is really figuring out this landscape and how to build partnerships so we can create its scale together. if yoo think about a kid sitting in a classroom studying the civil war, working off of a dusty textbook comba, we are lin a world where kids are surrounded by media, and we are not using it. the thing that keeps me up at night is really bigger now how weak who have the expertise in creating video and creating stories coming can put the tools in hands of teachers and how we can get teachers comfortable with using that content so it becomes an inherent part of the learning process in schools.

earlier on, you made the comment about computer and technology replacing teachers. obviously that is the wrong way to look at it creeks how do we get teachers excited and comfortable about using what should be an extraordinarily powerful tool to open kids' hearts and minds of? figuring out how to do that, how to work through a system that does not naturally think of us as a partner, and here we are sitting on an archive of more than 40 years of work and the potential to create additional work they could make a real difference in the classroom, and how to get that done. >> a place like asu has a lot of really smart people. my challenge is to take the research faculty who have the intellectual capacity, the ability to do research, and talk them into moving -- move them

over, incentivize, hire people who will focus their research on the direct improvement of k-20 education, so we know more about the connections between special development and instruction. we can then be partners, the intellectual partners and help inform ourselves as to how to improve what we are doing. >> 1 will put on the table is literally, how are we going to count stuff? right now the entire system is built up around counting up ccntact hours. that is what they are called.

they are also called butt-in- seat hours. learning is defined by the number of hours a student is in front of a professor. degrees and credit and funding are built around that. what are you going to replace that with? this has ramifications across the entire system. that is a toughhtechnical not, and a tough conceptual nut that we are going to have to crack. >> i know that in sacramento, you have no worries. [laughter] >> in public education, that is an easy one for the governor and the state. the biggest problem we have is changing current state law that makes seniority the only thing that can be considered in laos, assignments, and transfers of teachers. we cannot, by law, allow locally

elected school boards and their superintendents, negotiating with their local teachers union, to consider the effectiveness of teachers and principals and the needs of their schools. it disproportionately impacts are high party schools where most of our brown and black children are being educated, or not being educated, as the case may be. because of budget cuts, a giant spotlight has been put on what this policy yields. the aclu filed a lawsuit a few months ago. they named three middle schools for 75% of their teachers got pink slips. they compared it to a few other schools in that same school district where zero teachers got pink slips. the seniority only approach means some teachers who want to be in those high party schools and are having great results get laid off because it cannot be

even considered. that is our greatest challenge. >> i am starting to sweat, listening to you. >> the california teachers association -- i had conversations with the president's of our state sen. he said he would like to do the right thing on this, but he also wanted to keep his job. that is the reality f what we are facing. president obama lane this out has been so critical in terms of the valuation. mmght create the momentum we need to finally get this done. what i lose sleep over is when i visit the schools and i see that these kids are perpetually being left behind. some kids are doing well under the current system, but the kids who are not, year after year, they are going to be lost. why do we have a drop out rate

of 50%? we are losing them in middle school. for me and the governor and our state, is changing a seniority- only approach. >> we have talked about these issues, the things that have held us back a little bit. i am interested in your very quick analysis of what you think is the principal route cause for these issues and these challenges we are confronting, and how would you get and howroot? >> when you look at the leakage issue, one of the major pieces -- a lot of it matters in higher education about your ability to fund. from our point of view, when you have 60% of american community college students working 30

hours and some working 40 hours are mellon's -- or more and still trying to go to school full time, your going to get ssme drop out rates. think now about learning community so that you have a group of people around you. humans are social creatures. they do better when have those kinds of connections and feel the connection to the institution and other students. >> who wants to comment on the root cause? >> the issues are all the factors that influence student learning. research is clear that the most important factor is teacher effectiveness and the effectiveness of leadership. the greatest challenge, i think, is how we train teachers in this country. innovating the way that we train these teachers. if you think about a pilot, they have to have 250 hours of the

various maneuvers of flying before they can actually take a person on an aircraft. think about teaching. we assume that once the person walks across the stage and you give them the diploma that they are highly qualified. the way we train teachers in this country is essentially unethical. we expect that the teachers graduate and that they are highly qualified, without ssme significant pre service experience. >> that teaching is not a career choice, and we have to make the career of choice for smart, margaret -- our working people. and that the response is, it takes the university to train a teacher. it is art and science, engineering, law school, nursing schools, all working with us

along with partner districts to make sure that we bfully educate a teacher. >> we need to support teachers. we do not say that enough. teachers work hard. when they are not doing a good job, we have to give them a chance to improve. we have to find ways of supporting teachers. few of us understand the challenges they face in the classroom. we have to find ways to support families to understand what they need to do to prepare their children to come to school and take the edge of what the school has to offer. it is not blaming the family, it is an open them understand the role of families in the process. >> in addition to educating literally, educate about education. >> it is important for families to understand what graduation and retention rates mean. they need to understand how to ask questions when they are thinking about institutions. how do kids from certain

backgrounds do at that institution? educating families about what to ask at the institution. >> we really need to focus on principles, and we need to focus on superintendents and all the policymakers that impact the education system. . . >> the have been successful at

giving principles the training that helps them be successful. i think that would have a huge impact. i am in favor of all efforts to improve teacher effectiveness. it is immensely important. but we need to make sure the training and preparation of principles goes hand in glove with that. the combination of the two is what will make a pivotal difference in kids' lives. >> i would like to talk about the root cause of a problem in higher education -- the lack of any really useful information on the results of our education, in terms of students. we do not have usable graduation rates. we literally do not know how many students graduate from college. we know the raw numbers, but we do not know how many students to begin college finish college. we have almost no usable information. we know very that'll about success of students at community colleges. -- we know very little about success of students at community

colleges. we tend to define all students is being successful. but want to define the problem away. we need better information. we have very little information on learning in higher education. the solution to that is better data systems, better information systems, and getting information in the hands of people who can use it -- parents and students. >> we know that the average university in the united states -- the graduation rate is currently under 40% and climbing rapidly. one of the issues that we have is a significant lack of cultural understanding, i think, of the fact that universities have to perform in certain ways to produce certain types of outcomes. it is kind of messed up right now. >> usually, most educators when we talk about graduation rates talk about first time, full-time freshmen. there are other groups. we have to understand how

different groups perform and to get that information into the hands of the people. in maryland, we asked the president about our graduation rates. you have to explain why you are doing well and why you are not. it is important for public policy. >> anyone else before we go to the audience? >> whether k-12 or higher education, it is adult accountability, not the kids, whether it is superintendents, faculty, schoolteachers -- >> universities themselves? >> accountability based on outcomes. again, this is about supporting teachers. if the teacher is ineffective and does not want to be in the classroom, they should not. if they get all the support and development they need and are still effective they should not be in the classroom. but ultimately, i was lucky enough to know jaime escalante. i was very moved when his

students said they could blame the legislature, the governor, or the mayor, but ultimately the teacher knows that when we are in a classroom. it is us. we can make a difference with the kids. it is adult accountability tied to outcomes. let us never lose sight of the fact that no matter what a great teacher will succeed in the classroom. >> let us go to the audience for questions. there are microphones. i ask that what ever you say be a question and that you identify who you are. >> i am with the kauffman foundation. a great discussion. quick challenges -- i will stand up. i wonder whether there may have been a mistake in framing the attainment goal as number one in the world. many of you got free copies of my book "the great brain race,"

which suggests this is not a zero sum game. other people can fail and you can end up being number one. this is an absolute goal. there are audacious goals, as operational goals, but one of them implies that we are in this race where everyone can not improve. it seems to me it would not matter if we were no. 8 or no. 10 in the world everybody was getting better. that is what you need to build capital. the second challenged i would throw out is not to defend my former "u.s. news" -- but everyone who wants to build a university is out raising money. there are perverse incentives about productivity. if you're trying to become great you are not only trying to become more productive. you are simultaneously trying to get money. that is your weapon to get better. is that not true? >> we will go with glenn.

three minutes. >> and think the first part is a good question. it makes a big difference whether you are no. 8 or no. 1. you have an exceptionally competitive world, economically. in sheer numbers alone, the chinese are getting over 300,000 engineering, i.t., and mathematics be days -- mathematics bba's every year. we want to be second to none, but we are comfortable being first among many. >> as a math person, obviously we are not going to be number one in the numbers given china and india's population. we can talk -- we can talk about a percentage. research is critical to innovation. whether it is health care or energy, we need more research. because of the research on my

campus, we have 50 biotech and i.t. companies on campus. we have students working there. it builds the economy and the training. research is tied to education. it is critical. you are right. >> i have been a teacher here in d.c.. heather and bonnie, you talked about measures of teacher effectiveness of tides test scores. as a teacher, i have seen so many students go to where the tests are. why couldn't one of those measures be the number of college graduates five or six years after high school? one thing i noticed is that so many of my kids are greta written from a high-school but do not go to college. -- not immediately afterward. >> we are not a local education agency and do not have statistical data, but we believe we should measure teacher

performance based on student learning. we have gone out to the market and purchased a lot of investments and work with teachers to develop a system around that, gaining access to data from states and districts. we fed into the system to give feedback along the course of the two years in our program that work with alumni. that is one way oo doing it. we do not all that stuff so it is a challenge. -- we do not own that stuff so it is a challenge. that is one system. we get into a complex problem of trying to figure out all of the other soft measures of success in our society about college going, about social capital, about confidence, about hard work. we know those studies contribute to success. they are very messy measurements -- there are no assessments to measure that kind of thing. what can we feed into the

system and learn from our top performers and share with people? i think we are still looking. >> i was recently very inspired by the working group of superintendents in california that are leading superintendents that put together our working plan. they feel that definitely part of teacher evaluation needs to be tied to student growth, multiple measures of that and not just the statewide standardized exam. the rest is things like parrot students -- parents service, peer review, professional development hours teachers take. any teacher in the school will tell you who the good teachers are in that school. >> there is something called caps were you trained per se to observe each other in teacher assessment performance. individual teacher assessment is important, but we are also finding that the most effective is that some of that assessment is group and collaborative

assessment. it is not just how you do so i can cut your throat to get my students better than your students so i can get more performance pay and become a head of a foundation. [laughter] it is also part of how the school does so that your contribution has to make the school better. some other performance may be how your kids and up graduating from the high school. >> i agree very strongly with that. in our state, the ssperintendent's felt they did not want to do individual merit pay. the wanted collateral efforts at the school site. it is not kidding teacher against teacher at that school. it is collaborative work at the school site. >> i am a retired mathematics professor from the university of maryland in college park. i guess we are competitors.

from a college professor perspective, the situation is not exciting. freshmen arrive each year knowing less algebra than they did a decade ago. it is not an accident. there has been tremendous change in the elementary schools and high schools over the past 15 years. now you want me to ask a question. >> definitely. >> the question is would you be willing to support a public letter that calls for the following innovation -- that the state's have licensing exam in arithmetic for elementary school teachers and for middle school teachers? currently, i believe massachusetts is the only one that has a licensing test in

arithmetic for elementary schoolteachers. >> i would be in favor of that. >> i am in favor of elementary schoolteachers knowing arithmetic. i will say that. that is the bottom line. what we are trying to do is have support so that it is the given -- it is the assumption that if you're going to teach in elementary school you know that. in terms of the testing, i do not know if that is necessarily -- i was in massachusetts. i cannot say that i thought teachers in massachusetts necessarily -- >> i will say yes. i think teachers should be certified and everything they teach. >> that are now. that are certified. >> we need to enhance certification. >> elementary teachers need to know algebra at least. you have to know something higher than the arithmetic. but i understand what you were saying. >> [inaudible]

>> that would only work if we had professional development to help our teachers in the classroom get all of that. >> [inaudible] >> michael, first of all thank you for gathering this release date group. he must have a great staff. >> they are standing around. they are everywhere. >> i am an old arizona state university graduate from teacher education. i have linked question. my name is paul love donnelly -- paula donnelly rourke. i have been a teacher and am now sociologists on how people learn. this past week, the "the washington post reported a new study -- this past week, "the s